Ghost Recon Online closed beta sign-ups available, new trailer talks classes
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Ubisoft's free-to-play multiplayer shooter, Ghost Recon Online will be heading into closed beta on March 5.
Blues newsmention that you can sign up for a slot now on the Ghost Recon Onlinesite. The new trailer above shows off the three classes. Cowardly long-range shooty man (recon), mid-range shooty man (assault) and mad-gadget man (specialist). You can see more of the interesting super-weapons each class can wield in the recent Ghost Recon Online gadgets trailer.
Final Fantasy XV-related PC job post appears on Square Enix site
File it in 'rumours encased in a shell of vague Google translations', but there might be cause to think a Final Fantasy XV-related game is coming to PC, based on a Square Enix job posting.
Said vague Google translation of this career opportunityshows the studio is looking for an online game planner to work on 'new online games related to FFXV'.
As for skills required - and why this is posted on PC Gamer - the post asks for knowledge of and interest in PC gaming.
It could be elements lost in translation, but the fact it's a posting for games 'related' to Final Fantasy XV means we could be seeing some form of spin-off on our beloved PCs. At the same time, it could also be pointing at a service run via PCs, but that supports the console-only main FFXV.
Yes, I'm speculating. It's the end of 2014 and apparently we're out of news for the year.
Final Fantasy XV coming to PC wouldn't be too out-of-the-ordinary, anyway, especially not with Square Enix making a big push in recent months to bring its FF back catalogue to the mighty personal computer.
For the time being, though, this is all to be taken with a pinch of vaguely Google translated salt.
The aforementioned vague Google translation came from both the Square Enix job site, linked above, and GamesTalk.
Dangerous Golf developer rules out expansions or sequels
Dangerous Golf , the game about wrecking things with your club and balls, is by most reports— including ours —not particularly good.
—not particularly good. So the desire for more, be it through an expansion or a sequel, may not be running all that hot anyway. But on the off-chance that you were looking forward to more courses or options in the future, the news isn't good: When Console Obsessionasked Three Fields Entertainment Creative Director Alex Ward if the game will “continue to evolve over time,” he answered bluntly, “No.”
The bottom line is that Dangerous Golf hasn't yet met sales expectations, and so the team simply can't afford to do anything else with it. “We pooled our life savings to start our studio and to start making games. We’re a 100 percent player-supported studio. Every copy sold directly supports our 11 person development team. The money goes to the people who actually make the game,” Ward said.
“We’re a small indie team. Tiny by comparison to almost all other teams operating on the platforms we develop for,” he continued. “We’ve always listened to feedback and our customers and we all take that really seriously. Whilst we’d love to be able to add more levels to the game—the reality is that we just can’t afford to do so.”
He also explained the absence of replays, even though they'd appear to be an obvious fit for a game about smashing things to smithereens in glorious, UE4-powered detail—“Replays sound fun to everyone who hasn’t had to spend time implementing them and testing them for a videogame”—and explained why the online multiplayer was kind of a bust.
“The constraint is that players are interacting with over 3500 dynamic objects in the Holes,” he said. “Modern shooters mainly only network player positions of 24 people on consoles. Networking incredibly intensive physics simulations is a challenge for a massive development team—and even more so for a tiny indie like us. It is the same reason why games like Just Cause 3don’t have networked simulations. Throwing physics around online is incredibly tough.”
As for the future, Ward said it's no secret that the studio would like to make a driving game next—by which he presumably means a racing sim, as befits Three Fields' roots in Burnout studio Criterion, and not an arcade driving range game.
Thanks, MCV.
Ghost Recon Online trailer shows upgrades and mad gadgets
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Ghost Recon Online is a free to play, team-based shooter with three classes and a collection of mad gadgets and unlockable gear upgrades.
Ghost Recon Online is a free to play, team-based shooter with three classes and a collection of mad gadgets and unlockable gear upgrades. Owen got to play it a while back and came away quite impressed. You can read his impressions in our Ghost Recon Online preview. The latest developer diary above goes showcases a few of the the high tech toys that each class will get access to. The shoulder mounted heat wave blaster looks like an decent weapon, and a great way to cook some chicken in the field.
Skyrim mod Skywind recreates Morrowind, will include revamped crafting and voice acting
Skywind , the pleasing portmanteau of Skyrim and Morrowind , continues to look really, really good.
, continues to look really, really good. Remaking Morrowind in Skyrim's engine is a mammoth task, and a new development video breaks down the many ways that a legion of volunteer modders, voice actors, and artists are bringing the Elder Scrolls classic into the modern age.
It's a lengthy video, but here are some highlights. A full crafting system is coming to Morrowind for the first time. Recipes for crafting will be found inside the game world in the form of books. Instead of unlocking a perk and instantly learning how to make a new suit of armor, you'll have to buy/borrow/steal a schematic from a working smith. And hey! Smiths in Skywind hold the red-hot metal the right way aroundnow. Long live modding.
Voice acting is also being revamped, with volunteer writers and voice actors creating new, more natural dialog. Composers are pumping out new music, and each region in Skywind will have its own calling-card melody.
Skywind is as impressive as it is ambitious, so if you've got some skill and some free time, head to The Elder Scrolls Renewal Projectto volunteer to help out.
Gears of War 4 on Windows 10 will support unlocked frame rates and 4K textures
Mike Rayner, the technical director at Gears of War studio The Coalition, says its goal for the Windows 10 release of Gears of War 4 is “to deliver a highly optimized, customizable experience.” He told Eurogamer that means support for unlocked frame rates, ultra-wide monitors, and texture resolutions up to 4K.
“Support for v-sync tearing has recently come to UWP [the maligned Universal Windows Platform] and we will be able to offer proper unlocked frame rate support that gamers expect on day one,” Rayner said. “With Unreal Engine 4 and our own custom modifications, we can take much better advantage of multiple CPU cores, alleviating the game from being CPU-bound and allowing more room for the GPU to shine with enhanced visual quality or higher frame rates. Single-player will not be locked to 30 fps on PC." Multiplayer will be locked to 60 fps, however, presumably as a requirement of its “Play Anywhere” Xbox One cross-platform support.
The PC release of Gears 4 will also include a benchmark mode, support fully-remappable mouse and keyboard inputs, and offer a much greater range of video settings than its console equivalent. “Today we sit at 28 different settings and we're thinking of ways to add more for people to really have full control," he said. There will also be support for super-sampling, in conjunction with the dynamic scaling system The Coalition created for the Xbox One.
“You can super-sample, let's say up to 4K, and then enable dynamic scaling and set the maximum amount of scaling you want to allow so you can maintain a very crisp image with scaling kicking in where needed and only to the amount you consider acceptable,” Rayner explained.
Gears of War 4 is set to come out on October 11. Lay your eyes on a couple of gameplay videos here.
Ghost Recon Online preview
I just melted a man from ten metres, Clancy-style.
I just melted a man from ten metres, Clancy-style. No flames, just a dull sizzle from my level 2 portable microwave transmitter. It looks like a backpack that extends over my shoulder, periscope-style. But surprisingly my Heat ability is almost realistic: “We use the YouTube rule within the dev team – if you can go to YouTube and find a working prototype, it can go in the game,” explains Theo Sanders, Ghost Recon Online's creative director. Invisibility, EMPs, force fields – this is the new generation of warfare. You're a future soldier getting drip-fed tomorrow's tech as you duke it out for control points in competitive third-person matches.
GRO is the evolution of free-to-play. Players can use real world cash to accelerate unlocks, but will always be restricted by their experience level, which can only be gained by playing online. Theo explains his influences: “I feel respected by the developer when I play League of Legends. I don't feel like there's a thousand tricks trying to con me out of my money.”
Unlock a hat or armoured vest in Recon and it's yours to keep, the same as LOL's legends. Over time, you'll customise your sight, stock, magazine, barrel and more. And buying things is fun. Especially if those things are F2000 rifle scopes and red berets. Eventually you'll end up kitting out your armour with subtle stat boosts – just like League of Legend's runes.
GRO has taken some hints from MMOs: dauntingly thorough levels of customisation might have been too much to take if it wasn't for the numbers popping off your enemies as they suck up bullets. It's a mechanic that aids customisation without breaking the visceral combat.
My victim's cremated. I switch to my rifle, slap into cover by pressing [space] and peek round a corner. It feels just right, like an evolution of Rainbow Six: Vegas's system – intuitive, satisfying and perfectly suited to GRO's third-person tactical skirmishes.
And 'tactical' is the key word. GRO will feature six maps, all asymmetrical. These rounds aren't dominated by head-tracking snipers, even though they get to go invisible. Cover is vital, but breaking your opponents' position equally so.
Another spawn. A Specialist stands ten metres to my right – he complements my Assault build perfectly and and has my flank covered. I like the way he used his Aegis system to bounce away bullets with a red forcefield earlier in the match. His passive ability is feeding me ammo as I buff his armour stat. We're accidentally best mates.
My Blitz ability strengthens our bond. I take a shield from my back and sprint into two opponents, sending them flying, then my Specialist cleans up with a few wellplaced shots. I feel like a badass. The Specialist feels like a badass. And we both get experience to spend after the match. It's a massive win-win.
Fallout's classic catalogue removed from GOG due to rights issue [Update: Steam affected too]
All in all, a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland wouldn't be a pleasant place, but it would bring a few benefits.
bring a few benefits. One of them: a blissful lack of licensing laws and rights issues. That's in stark contrast to the here-and-now, where - in the distinctly unirradiated 21st century - DRM-free digital retailer GOG has been forced to remove the popular Fallout series from its shelves due to an ownership change that sees the classic RPGs now fully owned by Bethesda.
This is the (wait for it) fallout of the two-year legal battlebetween Bethesda and Interplay over the latter's Fallout MMO. The $2 million settlement, reached in January 2012, granted Bethesda all rights to a Fallout MMO, and secured the transfer of all Fallout IP after December 2013.
The transfer means GOG can no longer sell Fallout, Fallout 2 or Fallout: Tactics. Despite this, those who previously bought the games through the service will continue to be able to access their already purchased copy through the site. That includes those who secured a free copy, during GOG's recent giveaway.
While it's possible that Bethesda will negotiate a new deal with GOG to resume the sale of the titles, it does seem strange that nothing was in place for a smooth and uninterrupted transition. All three games are still available on Steam, suggesting that Valve have reached their own agreement with the new owners. The Valve beast has now also removed copies from sale, although - as with GOG - previous owners retain library access. Hopefully both options will be reinstated soon.
Miami Vice: The Story of Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
Miami Vice: The Story of Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Dennis Wedin and Jonatan Söderström didn’t set out to make headlines. In fact, the duo otherwise known as Dennaton Games has been actively avoiding them – though without much success. “We want to do the exact opposite of that,” Söderström tells us, talking about the studio’s controversial reputation – recently by including one
Ghost Recon Online being free-to-play is a counter to piracy, says Ubisoft producer
Ghost Recon Online producer Sébastien Arnoult says that free-to-play games are a response to piracy - and an alternative to the restrictive DRM that's annoyed PC gamers in so many recent Ubisoft games.
"We are giving away most of the content for free because there's no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, 'Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you're asking for. We've listened to you - we're giving you this experience. It's easy to download, there's no DRM that will pollute your experience.'"
While Ghost Recon Online is exclusive to PC, Ubisoft's other Ghost Recon game, Future Soldier, uses a traditional payment model and will only be available on console.
"We're adapting the offer to the PC market. I don't like to compare PC and Xbox boxed products because they have a model on that platform that is clearly meant to be €60's worth of super-Hollywood content. On PC, we're adapting our model to the demand."
The perceived value of PC games is heavily affected by piracy, Arnoult says - both for players and publishers.
"When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind.
"We have to adapt, we have to embrace this instead of pushing it away. That's the main reflection behind Ghost Recon Online and the choice we've made to go in this direction."
It's a different stance to that of Stanislas Mettra, Creative Director on console-exclusive Ubisoft title I Am Alive. In an interview with IncGamers, he questioned the value of porting games to the PC at all.
"Perhaps it will only take twelve guys three months to port the game to PC, it's not a massive cost but it's still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it's not worth it."
Both agree that it's a question of commercial viability, but the difference in approach is alarming. While it's great to see the Ghost Recon team treating the PC as a distinct platform with its own needs, we'd like to see that attitude reflected by Ubisoft as a whole.
Ghost Recon Online closed beta is currently active in France and Germany, and is due in the UK in the next few months.
Bethesda-Interplay settlement official, Bethesda gains full Fallout MMO rights
The bombs have dropped, the dust has settled, and Fallout Online, sadly, is no more.
The bombs have dropped, the dust has settled, and Fallout Online, sadly, is no more. After an ugly legal scufflethat lasted nearly two years, Bethesda and Interplay have cased trading blows and started trading cash. More specifically, $2 million - for which Bethesda receives all Fallout MMO-related rights, according to VG247. Interplay, meanwhile, can continue to peddle its own post-apocalyptic wares in the form of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics - but only until December 2013.
For the time being, Bethesda's merely happy to be "able to develop future Fallout titles for our fans without third party involvement or the overhang of others' legal claims," but could a Bethesda-born attempt at some irradiated online action be headed our way? At this point, it's a toss up. But given Skyrim's all-consuming success with an allegedly draconian single-player-only approach, I'm not counting on it.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number review
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number review The difficult second album problem applies not only to music. In the realm of videogames, plenty of revered games and creators have been undermined by an inability to provide a sequel that is anywhere near the quality of the original. But from the challenging content to the arresting visuals, from the achingly cool music to the ferocious difficulty, everything that
Free-to-play Ghost Recon game announced: Ghost Recon Online
Ubisoft have just announced Ghost Recon Online, a free-to-play multiplayer game in their near-future combat series.
Ubisoft have just announced Ghost Recon Online, a free-to-play multiplayer game in their near-future combat series. It's a primarily third-person shooter with an unusual cover system, three player classes, and unlockable weapons and abilities. It's built for 16-player games, uses dedicated servers and is exclusive to PC. There's no server browser, but there is a party system to let you play with friends. We've had a play of it, see what we thought in our Ghost Recon Online preview. We've also got the first trailer, showing a lot of the class abilities in action. Screenshots below.
Early Fallout games are now available on Steam again after a six month absence
If you've been taken by the desire to purchase Fallout, Fallout 2 or Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood this year, then you know what disappointment is.
If you've been taken by the desire to purchase Fallout, Fallout 2 or Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood this year, then you know what disappointment is. The games disappeared from Steam and GOGin January following a protracted legal stoush between former series owner Interplay and current owner Bethesda. The battle eventually resulted in a $2 million settlement which saw the transferal of the Fallout MMO rights to Bethesda, as well as all other related IP.
This somehow resulted in the removal from sale of all the Fallout games listed above. Never fear though, because they're all back on Steamas of now. As Bethesda clarified in January, the games won't return to GOG in the foreseeable future as the company is not a publisher with that retailer, but they're on Steam now for $10 a pop or $20 for the whole lot.
Each game features Steam Cloud save compatability. Fallout 1 and 2 will work on Windows 8 but Tactics won't. Go forth and rediscover the wastelands, because it doesn't look like we'll be getting a Fallout 4any time soon.
Spicy Horse's next project is OZombie, currently asking for $950K on Kickstarter
He's been doing a lot of thinking on what a possible Alice sequel would entail, but apparently that didn't pan out, because American McGee is now seeking Kickstarter backers for a different project.
would entail, but apparently that didn't pan out, because American McGee is now seeking Kickstarter backers for a different project. His studio, Spicy Horse, has today put forward its concept for OZombie, a Wizard of Oz-inspired thing that's been predictably put through McGee's hideously mutilating Cuisinart of a development process. The accompanying video sure is... something.
Nice to see the team has a since of humor about its overly gloomy fairytale re-conceptualizations (though part of me wonders if this whole video was just a channel for McGee to get to dress up in a vaguely steampunk manner for a few hours). Like Alice: Madness Returns, OZombie will be a narrative-heavy single-player experience focused around "role-playing, tactical combat, and exploration," though finishing the campaign will unlock a multiplayer mode too.
As per usual, it's the art style that's making this look enticing (admittedly because there isn't any gameplay available yet). Pledging a minimum of $15 will get you the single-player campaign, with further tiers offering rewards like a digital art book and a chance for you to be reskinned as a zombie and slapped into the game. If you're a fan of McGee's, you've got 41 days to tell Kickstarterhow excited you are for Spicy Horse's next endeavor.
Skywind trailer shows Morrowind's Bitter Coast get a Skyrim makeover
Hey, even swamplands can be pretty.
Hey, even swamplands can be pretty. Kind of. Here's the latest trailer for Skywind, the Skyrim total conversion that aims to port Morrowind—in its entirety—into Bethesda's newer game. This time, we're being shown the Bitter Coast—home of swamps, smugglers and slaughterfish.
As the trailer's description explains, Skywind is still in closed alpha development. Many of the video's assets are placeholder, and likely to change between now and the final release.
For a less directed look at the project, the team previously released a 13-minute exploration-based video.
25 Groundbreaking Indie Games
25 Groundbreaking Indie Games In the space of little over a decade, the games industry has seen a deluge of acclaimed independent titles. With less risk place on the outcome of a games’ success, more freedom to create as the developers see fit, and with passion trumping money as the main motivating factor for development, we’ve seen a wave of indie games that have changed both the way we play games
Here's what American McGee has in mind for a possible third Alice game
The third installment of Alice is something our favorite demented childhood-ruiner has been thinking over for awhile , and it's clear he's been thinking deep .
. American McGee's just spilled a bunch of ideas in a Q&A on Alice: Otherlands' Facebook page, and despite not yet having a publishing deal, it seems he's already got some dark ideas brewing—such as an online integration. Oh my. How will this non-fairy-tale end?
This time, the story is that Alice—having overcome both psychological and physical demons in the first two games—now wants to use her new found strength to "fight for the greater good." She'll do that by entering the damaged minds of other people. Also, with Wonderland presumably having been righted, she'll also get to explore new dark areas—"Londerland," a stylish portmanteau representing a demented London, is sounding especially cool.
Due to a limited budget, this third entry in Alice's story may be scaled down to a sidescrolling platformer instead, and it may go online for the first time, too.
"By building a server-based game we can push content and feature updates on a regular basis post-launch, so that the initial size of the game doesn't limit the eventual scope and richness of the product," McGee explains. "Under this model we could be pushing new features and domains into the game for years to come."
There'll still be a single-player campaign—in fact, you'll have to play through the whole thing first in order to unlock multiplayer. While there'll be some social aspects to Otherlands, thanks to the possibility of multiplayer, McGee stresses it won't be a full-scale MMO experience. Still, there's talk of implementing some "premium currency"—McGee says this while likely be used to purchase cosmetic DLC like new outfits. Hopefully we won't see it reinforcing paygates in gameplay, too.
A Kickstarter campaign is tentatively planned for July, and McGee is hopeful about earning $1.5 million. In the event that amount's not raised, or that EA doesn't give up the licence, a secondary Wizard of Oz-based project is also in motion.
While this possible third chapter in Alice's story sounds like it might be scaled down quite a bit due to budgetary concerns, this concept art suggests that the Spicy Horse team can whip up something beautiful, if given the chance.
The Elder Strolls, Part 7: Homeless Romantic
It's a little weird to admit that, as a grown man, I have a genuine emotional attachment to a fake dog in a video game.
It's a little weird to admit that, as a grown man, I have a genuine emotional attachment to a fake dog in a video game. And yet I do. I love my new dog, Jasper. I love him . He has bright, cheerful eyes and a big panting smile. He happily follows me everywhere I stroll. When I stop, he sits or lies down. He pitches in during combat, and helps me hunt large game like deer and elk (animals too large for me to kill with one shot from my bow), bounding after and finishing off the wounded beasts that would have otherwise escaped.
My warm feelings for Jasper help me overlook his main flaw, which is his incessant, endless barking. They also explain the sudden bolt of terror and sadness I feel when, while crossing a river, Jasper gets trapped in the current and sucked over a waterfall.
We left Riften a few days ago after I decided to take my marriage search to a new, hopefully more pleasant location: Skyrim's central city of Whiterun. Before we left Riften, I checked with the blacksmith again and found he'd somehow filled his inventory with a bunch of steel ingots, so I whanged myself out a new suit of armor, and improved it to "exquisite" levels. It doesn't look particularity exquisite on Nordrick's ugly, awkward frame, but it's an improvement.
When I consulted my map to plan our trip, I noticed a wee little obstacle between Riften and Whiterun: the tallest, most intimidating mountain in Skyrim. My options were to travel around it to the south, where it looked like there may be a partial mountain pass, or skirt it to the north, which would take me most of the way back to Windhelm. I opted for the latter. It's familiar ground, and NPCs like Nordrick are known for retreading their steps. I knew what to expect from the terrain and where to find places to spend my nights. Most of all, I was worried that if I passed through mountainous terrain to the south, Jasper might have difficulty following me over cliffs and rocks, and I didn't want to lose him.
I'll spare you the intricate details of the first part of the trip, since there really weren't many. There were some wolf attacks, one angry sabre cat (which I've mistakenly been spelling "sabercat" this whole time), a couple bandits and some skeevers, but otherwise I just picked flowers, caught butterflies and fish, and walked along the river with Jasper as he barked non-stop from dawn until dusk.
Now, though, I've stupidly crossed the river a little too close to a waterfall, and poor Jasper can't quite make it across. He tries: he paddles with his big feet, his shiny eyes fixed on me, in a display I would find comical if I weren't so scared he was about to die. I run into the river -- I don't know why, really, since I can't help him or grab him -- and we both fight the current, but a moment later he disappears over the falls. Then, I'm sucked over as well, plummeting down to whatever lies below. Pounding water. Roaring noise. Jagged rocks. The abyss.
Actually, we're both fine. No worries. In fact, we both run back up to the waterfall and go over it a couple more times. It's fun!
As we continue along, I realize I'm running low on arrows, and decide that we might as well stop in Windhelm, my old strolling grounds, since it's not too far out of the way. Plus, I can poll the locals to see if any of them might be interested in marrying me, since I wasn't able to last time I was there. We even stop in for a night at my old bloody riverside shack along the way. The sabre cat hasn't returned, but the disgusting bones have. Again. I kick them back into the river for old time's sake.
The next morning I return to the familiar bleak, snowy streets of Windhelm, and after conducting my usual potion and crafting-related business, I drift around the city for a day, talking to the locals about the endless series of tasks they are unable to complete for themselves. And then, after giving a gold coin to a beggar named Angrenor: a bombshell. A bombshell of love . The beggar notices I'm wearing an Amulet of Mara.
For the uninitiated, the dialogue option "Interested in me?" really means "Interested in marrying me?" This is it. If I want to, I can totally marry this guy. His deed was simple: just give him a coin. I always donate to beggars because it gives me a nice Speech buff I can use on the vendors. Angrenor says he is indeed interested in me, and then tentatively asks if I'm interested in him . Am I interested in marrying a stinky, sleeveless beggar? Are you kidding ? I'm so interested I feel like my head is going to explode.
And yet, I don't want to say yes. I can't rush into this decision, not me, Nordrick , who once spent five minutes having an internal debate as to whether or not I should borrow a spare pickaxe. I also don't want to say no, because I can't remember if you can still marry someone after you've turned them down. So, I say nothing. I just tab out of the conversation and walk a few feet away. I need to think this over. I need to find out everything I can about this filthy homeless man I just met before I can decide if he is my true soulmate. I need to engage in a ritual as old as love itself. I need to stalk him.
Since Skyrim hasn't invented Facebook yet, I have to do my stalking the old fashioned way: on foot. So, for the rest of the day and well into the night I follow this guy around to see what he does. I need to make sure he's a good person who will treat Nordrick like the delicate flower he is. I also need to find out if he's really homeless, because where am I going to live if he is? Will we share a disgusting sleeping bag somewhere on the street? Will I get my own pile of filthy hay, or will we have to sleep in shifts? Granted, this isn't a BioWare game, so there won't be a cutscene of us vaguely humping in some public alleyway, but I'd still like there to be some modicum of privacy in our marriage. If we get married.
After hours of following Angrenor around, I've only learned that he spends all of his time walking between the inn and an alleyway near the Elf slums. He doesn't talk to anyone or do anything. He doesn't even appear to ever sleep or eat. It eventually occurs to me that a good way to find out more about him is by, you know, actually talking to him. So, I walk over to him while he's stopped in the street. Hi! Remember me? The guy who wordlessly walked away in the middle of a marriage proposal and has been following you around for fourteen hours at a distance of ten feet in the company of a constantly barking dog? Can we talk?
He doesn't really have much to say, except that he once fought six Imperials while trying to rescue his Stormcloak buddies during an ambush. He also says he's not too proud to admit he needs help, hence the begging. That's about all I get out of him. Having delved into his life a bit, it's time for another well-worn ritual of relationship decisions: the pros and cons list. I start with the pros, the positive aspects, for getting married to this sleeveless hobo:
1) He actually wants to marry me, unlike every other jerk in the world
2) He seems nice
That's a good start. I think for a few minutes, then write:
3) It would be funny
Well, wouldn't it? Sad sack Nordrick marrying a stinky homeless guy? That's comedy gold, as gold as the coin Angrenor fell in love with. But do I really want to spend my life with him just because it's funny? Finally, I write:
4) Probably no other Skyrim player has married him
Could be true. Everyone else playing Skyrim is running around covered with enchanted armor and awash in treasure and perfectly willing to perform dangerous quests for NPCs far more attractive and well-off than this sad, aimless frump of a man. I might be his first and only love in all possible versions of this world. Now, there's a reason to marry him: pity.
Okay, time for the cons, which is, as it turns out, a much shorter list:
1) He loves my gold, not me
2) He has no home I can live in
I admit it's weird to criticize him for only loving me because I gave him a gold piece when I myself only want to marry someone so I can live in their house for free, but there it is. The hypocrisy can't be denied. There's also this concern: if he loves me because I gave him a Septim, what happens if someone else gives him money? Will he leave me? Will he dish out that sweet hobo honey for anyone who thumbs a coin in his direction? Can I trust him to be true to my coin purse?
This is all too much to decide tonight while standing here staring at my potential future husband as he shuffles endlessly back and forth in the street. In the shadow of this monumental life choice, even the normally boisterous Jasper has grown quiet and contemplative. No, just kidding, his incessant, moronic barking continues unabated as it has over the past five days. I lead his noisy butt back to the inn and rent my room.
I'll sleep on it. Choosing whether to marry a homeless man isn't a decision you can make in a single night. It might also take a couple hours in the morning.
Battlefield 4 Naval Strike DLC is free for a week
Another day, another Battlefield 4 DLC freebie.
DLC freebie. Today it's Naval Strike, a collection of four aquatic-themed maps set in the South China Sea: Lost Islands, Nansha Strike, Wave Breaker, and Operation Mortar. The DLC also adds five new weapons to the game, new attachments, and the Carrier Assault Mode, “a re-imagining of the classic Battlefield 2142 Titan Mode.”
The freebie is part of EA's effort to stoke interest in Battlefield 1by giving away DLC from previous Battlefield games in the months leading up to its launch. It began in May with Battlefield 4: Dragon's Teeth, and then continued last month with Second Assault. There is one catch, though: The DLC is only free until July 26, although you'll keep it forever as long as you snag it before then.
The free release of Naval Strike also provided what will likely be the highlight of the day on Twitter, courtesy of EA Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore. EA UK, to its credit, is letting it ride.
Time to cover up my belly button...! https://t.co/bqDy71vXOV July 20, 2016
Spicy Horse's Next Game is Hell Invaders
Banishment to Hell's deepest, fieriest pits?
Banishment to Hell's deepest, fieriest pits? We wouldn't have expected any less of gaming's own Master of the Dark Arts, American McGee. But as a collectible card game/RTS hybrid? Okay, that's a little different. McGee's studio Spicy Horse announced its new game today, the tentatively and unsubtly titled Hell Invaders. If the first screenshots are anything to go by, there's enough fire and brimstone here to last a lifetime of damnation—and all contained conveniently in card form, too!
The developer behind Alice: Madness Returns and Akaneiro: Demon Hunters assures us that there'll be more to fear in the card battles than mere papercuts, as demons will actually rise from the cards to battle in their 3D forms. Nuts. Cards, of course, are upgradeable, with skills that can be swapped in and out according to your liking.
We'll be able to dabble in a single-player campaign, or send demons to deal with our foes in PVP arenas. Wait, what's that? You're the peaceful type? Trading, card management, and unspecified "other social features" provide a more pleasant way of engaging in eternal damnation.
Hell Invaders is scheduled for release on PC sometime this fall, and closer to the date, we'll hear more details—including, hopefully, a name change to something a little more elegant.
Watch Bethesda's entire E3 conference
Bethesda's first E3 press conference took place on Sunday, and we got a good look at Doom, including the modding and multiplayer modes, we saw a cinematic announcement trailer for Dishonored 2 , and tons of gameplay footage of Fallout 4 .
. You can now watch the entire presentation on YouTubeor in the player above.
Exploring Fallout 4's DLC with my own personal death robot
NOW PLAYING
Me and my travelling robot are a regular odd couple, he with hammers for fists and me with human-sized fists, he grappling with the quandaries of existence, me fairly comfortable in my sentience.
In Now Playingarticles PC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today Ben builds a friend from scratch.
Me and my travelling robot are a regular odd couple, he with hammers for fists and me with human-sized fists, he grappling with the quandaries of existence, me fairly comfortable in my sentience. Oh how we laugh when poison gas from his rear-mounted toxic canisters suffocates a group of super mutants, HA. HA. HA. That’s actually what I’ve named him, the tip of the silicone mastication module taking a trip of three steps down the platinum palate to tap, at three, on the bone fangs. After playing through Fallout 4’s Automaton, an expansion that lets you create companions from the building blocks of life—ie, oil, screws, plastic—I can’t imagine the Commonwealth without this bucket of bolts.
I can customise HA. HA. HA’s appearance at my workbench in Sanctuary. First, I arm him with weed-whackers, give him a grinning skull through which to communicate using beeps and boops, and paint him jet black, but I’m finding him hard to like. A bit inaccessible. I want a companion both charming and despicable—the boundless enthusiasm of a dog mixed with the deadliness of a tank—so I embark on Automaton’s questline.
It sends us hunting a mysterious figure called the Mechanist, whose merciless machine army is causing havoc. Where is he hiding? A brain in a jar of liquid promises to reveal all if we build her a body.
“It isn’t quite what I had envisioned,” Jezebel remarks of her new vacuum cleaner arms and squat refrigerator torso, “but I suppose it will have to suffice.” Rude. And she kills people, too.
“Assisting a human to the best of my abilities only affords a 25% survival rate,” she says. “Therefore it’s better to hasten the human’s death and put them out of their likely chance of misery than to deplete my limited time.” Once she tells me the Mechanist’s location, I use my new arsenal of toys to blow her up. This DLC gives me a hollowed-out eyebot to wear on my head, Tesla T-60 power armour that decorates my pauldrons with hissing electrodes, and the laser-pulse-emitting head of a salvaged assaultron ‘bot I hold by the spinal cabling.
Robot De Niro is the smiley emoji taken to its frightening natural conclusion.
All this I bring on my exploits with companion 2.0, Robot de Niro. He is the smiley emoji taken to its frightening natural conclusion: an expression of joy carved into rusted sheet metal, with a drill on one hand and a flamethrower on the other, and sleek people-shaped legs for that much-needed form factor. Bless him, he often brings me gifts, like lightbulbs and dishrags and broken toasters. Thankfully his carrying capabilities dwarf mine due to the extra packs and pockets I’ve strapped onto him, so I immediately give it all back, and he’s glad of the work. My dog-tank dream is a reality.
We finish Automatron in an hour or two, but with hordes of rogue robots still out there, the adventure is just beginning. I’ve found a friend in this cold, calculating, and endlessly configurable robot.
American McGee wants to know if you're interested in an Alice 3
Boy, this one's sure to be a toughie, right?
Boy, this one's sure to be a toughie, right? American McGee queried fans on his Facebook pageyesterday on the level of interest for seeing the development of a third Alice game two years after the release of Alice: Madness Returns.
Like some sort of Wonderland gatekeeper, McGee asked everyone these (thankfully riddle-free) two questions:
"If we could get the rights from EA, would you play Alice 3?" "If you'd play Alice 3, would you back it on Kickstarter?"With enough interest, McGee believes it's more likely EA will harken to his appeal for acquiring the series license when he meets with the publisher's executives during GDC later this month. A Kickstarter campaign for Alice 3 might generate far more interest for the third-quel through backer rewards and stretch goals, but McGee might need other funding sources as well—his previous project, the Asian-meets-fairy-tale ARPG Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, barely cleared its $200,000 goal after 30 days, and it's pretty likely an Alice 3 campaign will ask for far more money.
Personally, I'd like to see McGee continue with another creepily surreal action-adventure game regardless of it sporting the Alice moniker or not, as Doug TenNapel plans with his un-Neverhood claymation project. Do you want to see an Alice 3?
Bethesda may not do another E3 press event
Bethesda Softworks held its first-ever E3 press conference this year, and it went over really well.
Bethesda Softworks held its first-ever E3 press conference this year, and it went over really well. But that doesn't necessarily mean there will be another one; Vice President of Marketing and PR Pete Hines told The Telegraphthat 2015 "felt like the right time to do this kind of thing," but he can't say for certain it'll happen again.
"I don’t know if we’ll do one next year," he said. "I don’t know if we’ll do one again." I'd be willing to bet that they will, but you can see where he's coming from: Bethesda had Fallout 4, Dishonored 2, and Doomto announce, and a couple of other games as well. That's an impressive lineup, and certainly not the kind Bethesda can bank on rolling out every single year.
"We do smaller stuff, we don’t publish to scale, we try to publish to quality. Make sure everything we do is noteworthy," Hines explained. "Our approach to that hasn’t differed. Here and there we might change our approach to how it’s presented but we’ve still stuck to who we are."
Interestingly, especially in light of the powerfully positive fan response to Fallout 4, he also said that he hopes E3 will maintain itself as predominantly an industry-focused event. He'd like to see it be "somewhat inclusive," but doesn't want it to turn into "another PAX."
"We already have PAX, we already have Eurogamer, Paris Games Week and Gamescom and lots of shows that are for the public," he said. "I think taking a show that still has a very important role as a trade/industry event needs to maintain that. And not suddenly say, here’s another 20,000 fans to throw in. It’s already kind of a mess. There are already lines and it’s difficult to get around."
If you missed Bethesda's E3 press conference, and you've got a couple hours to spare, we've got it playing for you above.
Inside the Game: Epic Mickey
An In Depth Look at the Art and Animation
Disney Epic Mickey is months away from release, but the work
involved in its creation began years ago.
Disney Epic Mickey is months away from release, but the work
involved in its creation began years ago. Anyone who has perused the
November 2009 issue of Game Informer understands the project’s dramatic
scope and ambition. However, we can only fit so much information in the
magazine. In our first Inside the Game online feature, we follow the
art and animation development from concept to implementation to get a
better sense of how Mickey and his world came to life. Don’t miss your
first-ever chance to see early animation tests of Mickey and his
friends in action.
The World
Caption:
Even a small section or level takes many steps to emerge into gameplay.
In Epic Mickey, special 2D side-scrolling levels interconnect the
larger 3D areas. Every one of these 2D images is based on an old Disney
cartoon classic. This area was based on Clock Cleaners, a 1937 cartoon
starring Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. Using scenes from the original as
inspiration, the team creates a colored concept art piece to illustrate
the idea of the level. Designers work together with the artists to
shape the level, and indicate the motions of the many cogs, gears, and
platforms in the scene. With those directions in hand, the team can
implement a three-dimensional, functional version. Finally, Mickey can
jump into action and the level can begin being tested and modified.
The
process of level creation begins as a collaborative project; as the
development team throws around ideas for game design and story the
artists begin work on concept art in earnest.
“It starts on
paper with the general idea of the storyline that Warren [Spector] is
going for,” explains art director Lee Harker. “We read on paper the
general gist of what the level or the area is supposed to be, and we
just start firing off ideas all over the place. At that point Warren
will come by and we’ll review the work and talk about general direction
that we want to go for in each of these areas. Once we nail in on
something, it’s just a matter of refining it and refining it until we
have it just right.”
Caption:
Concept art serves a far more important role than being inspirational
imagery or fodder for magazine articles. Good concept art can help
guide or inform the development of an entire stage of the game.
From
early on, the game featured story elements that emerged from the
history of Mickey Mouse, which the art needed to reflect. “You’ve got
this wealth of subject matter out there that’s known all around the
world and respected by so many people. It’s just an honor to be able to
work with that, and it’s a big responsibility as well,” Harker admits.
“You’ve got to continue on top of all these great artists that have
come before you and build off of it.”
The Brave Little Tailor
Caption: Early tests
like this one help to try out the model of the main character, and
inspire actions and movements that may eventually emerge into gameplay.
This one is based on a scene from the Mickey classic The Brave Little
Tailor. If you cannot see the video, click here. [PageBreak]
Caption:
The style of the cartoon and inert objects in the world shouldn’t be
difficult to spot, thanks to clever visualization by Junction Point.
Toon objects can be created and erased by the player; inert objects are
permanent and real, and double as a way to put limits on the shape of
the world.
While the concepts embraced the long history of
a beloved character, Spector’s vision for the game took Mickey in a new
direction. Much of that tonal shift was established under the eye of
Rolf Mohr, the visual development director on the project in its early
days.
“I look at our game even now a while out from shipping –
I’m prejudiced obviously – but I think it looks fantastic,” Warren
Spector tells us. “I gave Rolf a nearly impossible task. I said, ‘We’re
creating a world where we have to have this painted, bright, cartoony,
puffy marshmallow look side-by-side with this gray, blasted, dark,
twisted, pointy, inert look.’” The resulting art style that Mohr and
the rest of the team created was a mix of aesthetics, using familiar
visual cues of colors and angles to help gamers immediately identify
the different objects and creatures on screen.
Caption:
Early in the game, Mickey finds himself under examination in the Mad
Doctor’s lab. The original version of this lab was nearing completion
when members of the art team became increasingly dissatisfied with
their first attempt. Much of the lab level was scrapped, and a new
version was developed over several weeks and put into place. “It just
became apparent that we could really do a whole lot better,” art
director Harker says. “So the team decided they wanted to take that on
themselves, and they pretty much lived here for three weeks to get it
right on their own.”
With the art style established, concept
artists begin their work in earnest. In the case of Epic Mickey, the
art team maintains a constant contact with the level design team. It’s
an essential cooperation, since the central gameplay mechanic revolves
around a paintbrush that can paint in and erase elements of the world
as a player moves through the game. “If you look at the cartoon stuff
in the world, all of that is supposed to be stuff players can affect,”
Harker explains. “So that ties directly into the game’s design. You
can’t have it be a complete free-for-all where we just put colorful
cartoon stuff everywhere, and that mucks up the design where you’re
able to access areas that the designers don’t want you to.”
Swinging into Action
Caption: Watch
carefully as Mickey swings onto the vine. You can see the way his body
stretches past its normal proportions to give the illusion of being
pulled in one way and then another. Because he is a cartoon, his
morphing shape isn’t jarring the way it might be with a more realistic
human character. Interestingly, this animation technique was pioneered
at least in part by Walt Disney and his studio when they created the
early Mickey Mouse cartoons in the 1920s and ‘30s. If you cannot see the video, click here. [PageBreak]
Caption:
These three simple images illustrate the central gameplay mechanic of
Epic Mickey. Paint is used to fill in blank, glittering spaces, and
thinner can erase objects. At times, players can erase sections of an
object, utilizing the new shape of the object as a platform to ascend
to a different location. In many ways, the game aims to let the player
design his or her own path through a level. From an art perspective,
objects like this bookshelf pose unique challenges. Not only must the
object be interesting to look at, but also it also must be an
integrated part of the level design.
Environment artists
take the concept art and integrate it into a 3D framework through an
imaging program called Maya. The environment team then changes size and
shape of objects in a way that helps guide the players through the
world. The level designers continue to contribute the necessary
elements so the levels emerge as engaging and fun playgrounds. By this
point, the designers and other parts of the development team can jump
into a rough version of an environment and begin playtesting. But to do
so, another major component has to be progressing at the same pace –
characters.
Caption:
Dozens of images from multiple artists help to establish the look,
color, lighting, and overall vision for a given level. If you’ve spent
any time at Disneyland, you’ll also notice how much the Gremlin Village
has in common with the “It’s a Small World” attraction.
[PageBreak]
Characters and Animation
By
necessity, the character artists need to stay one step ahead of those
working on the environments and levels. “They’ve got to have the
characters done in time to get them to the animators. So we want those
guys way out in front,” Harker says.
Caption:
Character artists on Epic Mickey begin with numerous exploratory
sketches that establish the overall style for a character. If they have
an existing reference, they work off of that as a starting point. In
the case of the Mad Doctor, the artists looked back to the 1933 cartoon
in which he first appeared. After sketches, the team creates colored
character images and passes them off to be rendered in 3D.
The
character artists’ most important focus is obviously Mickey, as players
constantly interact with him. Dozens of versions of Mickey Mouse are
created and scrapped, exploring any number of ways to interpret the
classic character. At times, these new versions are elongated and
modern, and at other times they stay as close as possible to older
interpretations of the character. As of now, the team has settled on a
colorful version of Mickey that reflects how he appeared in the 1930s –
mischievous and cartoony. However, Spector demands a character that
alters in response to player actions, so the character art team must
create three Mickeys – a dark scrapper, a middle-of-the road version,
and a heroic version. Each one poses differently and looks different,
and the distinction needs to be sharp enough for players to recognize
at a glance.
Caption:
“How you decide to play the game should make a difference. You get to
determine what kind of hero you are. Everybody solves the problem.
Everybody saves the day. Everybody gets to save the world and gets the
girl,” Warren Spector tells us, in regards to the shifting spectrum of
play styles that change the appearance of Mickey throughout the game.
“But how you do it, and how you end up looking is up to you. What
abilities you have is up to you. Who likes you is up to you. What
missions you hear about or not is up to you.” Each version of Mickey
has a distinct look crafted by the character artists at Mickey, from
the crouching and feral scrapper to the stalwart hero.
Even
after a nearly complete version of Mickey is ready to go, the character
artists have plenty of work to do right through the end of the project.
New characters are added all the time, but the goal is to give more
complicated and important characters the attention early, as they will
be the ones that have the most complex and involved animation sets to
complete.
[PageBreak]
Caption:
Junction Point has developed a brand new antagonist to fit into Disney
lore. The beetleworx are built by the Mad Doctor, and they act as a
maintenance crew to the game world. Unlike many potential enemies in
the game, they can’t be fully erased by Mickey’s magic paintbrush, so
the art team had an interesting challenge to overcome: shape a
potential enemy formed of both sharp, inert objects and marshmallowy
cartoon shapes. Their solution lay in pulling together elements from
across the familiar Disney theme park landscape and combining them on
top of a metallic framework. Careful viewers will see elements from
across Disney fiction combined together on this figure.
Animators
keep in close contact with the character artists long before they begin
bringing them to life. “We don’t want to overcomplicate things, but we
also want to make sure that when the animation finally gets to us, all
our needs can be met, and that we’re not creating something that’s
going to be a problem down the road,” explains lead animator Jorma
Auburn. The goal is to keep the character artists in the loop on what
requires time and energy to animate and compute. “If it is going to be
an ambient creature, and you want to have a lot of them on the screen,
then having a bug with 20 legs is not the way to go,” Auburn says.
Caption:
Warren Spector hopes to reinvigorate Mickey’s adventures by taking
familiar characters and casting them in unfamiliar situations. In the
wasteland world of Epic Mickey, many of Mickey’s best friends have been
recreated as animatronic look-alikes.
Character
artists/modelers then work with rigging to shape a 3D version. A
character rig is an essential component of the process, since it
dictates the actual in-game form of a character. “It’s the
infrastructure, all the joints and bones,” Auburn explains. “At some
game studios that I’ve worked at in the past, the animators also did
the rigging. Thank goodness we’re not doing that here. These rigs are
way too complex for us to do that. I’ve found that when you separate
the roles, you get better results on both ends.”
Caption: Many
types of blotlings show up throughout the game, but the spatters shown
here are the simplest and stupidest of the bunch. The artists have gone
to great lengths to create numerous versions so they remain fresh
whenever and wherever they show up in the game. Likewise, the animation
team has built a wealth of short but amusing motions and actions for
the little guys.
With
a character like Mickey rigged up, the animators then have a “really
cool puppet to play with,” as Auburn describes it. They can begin
testing the character’s boundaries – how far can he stretch, what poses
can he take, what emotions can he project given his facial structure,
etc. With Epic Mickey, the animators have the advantage of decades of
Disney animation to inspire and direct their choices. Mickey’s
tradition also allows them to explore ideas that would be impossible in
a more realistic setting. Many studios would have a hard time depicting
a gritty space marine who can walk away from an anvil that drops on his
head, but the animation team on Epic Mickey has the tools to pull it
off, even if it mean days or even weeks of animation work to get the
squashed and stretched version of the character to appear correctly
after the anvil falls.
Always Two Round Ears
Caption: Almost
every time you’ve ever seen Mickey Mouse in action, you’ve seen the
silhouette of both his ears. It’s actually a directive for the use of
the character straight from Disney. Even when moving through a 3D
environment, the animation team has to account for both his ears, and
make the familiar shape apparent whichever way Mickey runs and jumps. If you cannot see the video, click here.
Pulling Together
Modern
development studios can ill afford having departments working in
isolation, and Junction Point is no exception. Throughout our visit, we
witnessed the iterative process that interconnects different sections.
The animators keep in constant contact with those implementing,
playing, and testing the game. The artists respond to needs for new
environments and characters as they emerge, requiring a constant effort
throughout the development cycle.
If this iterative process
succeeds, Epic Mickey could put the mouse back on the map. Modern 3D
techniques finally allow for the team at Junction Point to present a
Mickey Mouse game with the cartoon sensibilities that have been present
in his films for decades. Colorful, humorous characters fill the cast,
and the environments pull inspiration from classic Disney iconography.
Simultaneously, the game introduces a dark and twisted element to
Mickey’s world that stands in sharp contrast to his normal environs.
It’s a visual framework primed to catapult him back into stardom.
If the process behind the art and animation for Epic Mickey has captured your interest, you'll want to explore our two videos on the subject, Sketching Mickey: The Time Lapse Video, and our video montage of The Art of Epic Mickey. For more on the real-life story of Mickey Mouse, you might enjoy Rise of an Icon: A Pictorial History of Mickey Mouse. Or, for a menu of all our Epic Mickey coverage, visit our landing pagefor the game, and check out the November 2009 issue of Game Informer magazine.
Want to see everything in greater detail? Make sure and click on the images in the gallery below for full size versions of all the images from this article.
(Design and Layout By Meagan VanBurkleo)
American McGee: EA wanted to "trick" gamers with Alice: Madness Returns trailers
In a Reddit AMA thread , Alice designer American McGee stated that the horror tone in early Alice: Madness Returns videos wasn't his choice, and that EA used its control over trailer production company Shy the Sun to manipulate the game's advertising against his will.
"What was frustrating was how EA marketing interfered, telling STS from the start that all creative direction and final say would come from them, not from us (the developer/creator of the story/tone)," McGee wrote. "That resulted in trailers that were much darker and gorier than the game, and that was a calculated disconnect created by EA. They wanted to 'trick' gamers into believing Madness Returns was a hardcore horror title, even though we refused to develop it in that tone."
McGee's criticism took a harsher turn, accusing EA of "tricking" horror fans into buying Madness Returns by presenting it as such. "It's all a part of the race to the bottom EA, Activision, and the other big publishers are engaged in," McGee declared. "Expect to see it gets worse before it gets better." Ouch.
Apart from Vorpal Blade-sharp denunciations of EA's practices, McGee is also working on the free-to-play RPG Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, a Kickstarter-aided projectwhich is currently in beta.
Skyrim mod The Forgotten City is a time-travel murder mystery
Skyrim mods are a varied and numerous bunch.
Skyrim mods are a varied and numerous bunch. Some add new weapons and spells; others fix and tweak systems; the vast majority give Lydia new hairstyles. Occasionally, there's another type: an unbelievably detailed and complex quest chain, complete with new locations, quests and dialogue. The Forgotten City is from this latter category, and it's shaping up to be a fully-fledged expansion to Bethesda's four-year-old RPG.
"The Forgotten City is a lore-friendly expansion to Skyrim with a dark, non-linear story in which you'll discover and explore an ancient underground city," explains its creator. It's designed as a murder mystery, in which players must search for clues, interrogate suspects and fight monsters. And also travel through time.
The mod will boast 1,200 lines of dialogue, 30 new characters and a moral choices that can lead to multiple different endings. It's an undeniably impressive undertaking.
For more on the mod, head over to its ModDB page. The Forgotten City is due out in October.
Junction Point: A Studio Profile
Excitement is high for Disney Epic Mickey.
Excitement is high for Disney Epic Mickey. No one’s more excited than the team working on the game. (Well, maybe us.) But who are these guys? Who is Junction Point? Warren Spector’s new game studio is full of great talent, and we sat down with a few of the key developers and find out just a little bit about who they are. The video is also bookended with Spector giving some philosophy about running a studio. Sometimes it’s nice to meet the minds behind a game.
All month long, we've been featuring extra content from Epic Mickey including an art montageand a time-lapse. You can find it all at the Epic Mickey hub.
If you cannot see the video or want to watch in HD, click here.
.Hack hits the UK
Above all else at the .Hack presentation by Atari and Bandai, it was clear that the latter are very proud of their RPG series with a difference. And from what we saw, they have good reason to be. .Hack (that's dot Hack, in case you were wondering) will be released in four instalments, the first being .Hack//Infection, which will be available for PS2 in March. While .Hack is, in many ways, a traditional
Reinstall: American McGee's Alice
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has spent the past 150 years casually batting aside just about every attempt to reshape its capricious, meandering story into a logical narrative.
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has spent the past 150 years casually batting aside just about every attempt to reshape its capricious, meandering story into a logical narrative. Tim Burton gave it a crack last year with Alice in Wonderland, tossing 19-year-old Alice back into the phantasmagorical fantasies of her childhood to ditch the hoop skirts, confront the Red Queen, and transition to spirited, headstrong womanhood while name-checking Carroll's cast along the way. The result was charmless and distasteful. So what a coup it might have been if EA had re-released American McGee's Alice at the same time, and showed how a young PC game developer had taken a suspiciously similar approach ten years earlier—and made it work.
McGee's Alice, now in her late teens, had been traumatized by the loss of her family in an accidental fire and spent a decade cozily detached from reality in Rutledge Asylum until the White Rabbit beckons again. But the Wonderland he leads her back to has become a far more grisly scene than the last time she visited. Armed at first only with her Vorpal Blade and native haughtiness, she makes her way through the game's nine distinct provinces, at once retracing steps from her previous adventures and at the same time, slowly and painfully coming to grips with the unacceptable reality that lay outside of Wonderland.
The Blight Rabbit
Like the innumerable adaptations we've seen over the years, American McGee's Alice whisks us through encounters with the Mock Turtle, the pepper-wielding Duchess, the Caterpillar, the Tweedle bros., the Mad Hatter, the Jabberwock and, of course, the wicked Red Queen herself—in all of her manifestations. As such, it doesn't sound much different than what Burton did last year—except that once McGee introduces us to his oppressive Wonderland, he supplies us with a few neat tricks (like using our skirt to float over gaps) and with a gentle pat on the butt, sets us free to explore and discover the world on our own.
And, what a world. Columns of rotating clockwork gears. Bombardier ladybugs. Creaky automatons. A chessboard realm in which Alice herself must become a chess piece—subject to chess rules—in order to pass. Acres of foliage in which smartly waistcoated grasshoppers lie in wait to toss Alice unceremoniously into a nearby river.
With its heavily stylized environments drenched in hypnotic, vibrant, swirling colors, American McGee's Alice has the distinction of being one of the few games to boast extremely high production values that, a decade later, still look nearly as luscious today as they did then. These include its beautifully detailed animations—step away from the keyboard and let Alice get bored while she's holding any of her weapons, for example, and see what she gets up to.
But as lovely as the graphics were—and still are—Chris Vrenna's soundtrack contributes at least as much to the game's rich, intensely evocative ambiance. It's initially breezy and whimsical as the original novel itself at times, but later, it's as if a maniac is loose in our memories knocking over everything in his path: music boxes, bells, ticking clocks, burbling teapots, crazy Aunt Edna's glockenspiel. There are often no clear demarcations between Vrenna's compositions and the groan of twisting wood or children shrieking madly in their cells in the background—they're woven into a smooth, menacing tapestry of sound.
Riding the Blunderbuss
Despite McGee's pedigree in seminal shooters such as Doom and Quake, the enjoyment of combat in Alice comes more from whimsy than tactics: once you've pegged a creature's or boss's patterns—which you'll do very quickly—it is from there more a matter of deciding whether to soften them up with the Croquet Mallet and then clean up with your Ice Wand, or follow a volley from the Blunderbuss with a hailstorm of Cards from a comfy distance. Victory tops up Alice's health, or meta-essence to power her weapons, or both, and along her way she'll pick up a few clever power-ups, including one that transforms her from a polite young lassie with a knack for blade handling into a hellish bug-like demon that deals mega damage with no manners.
But while combat isn't at the heart of what makes American McGee's Alice such an exemplary, timeless game, Alice's confrontation with the Red Queen delivers a strong emotional climax to the experience. Surely GLaDOS took a few cues from this homicidal harpy: confronted by a young woman whose adventures have emboldened her, the Queen first hisses warnings, then humiliations, then accusations, and finally outright threats. But her most telling epithet is this: “I rule Wonderland alone.” And here the game delivers the hefty payoff that, for example, Burton's movie couldn't. Because Alice's struggle has been literally our own struggle throughout the entire game, so naturally our response to the Red Queen, even when she warns that her destruction will be our own, is to whip out the Jabberwock staff and take the bitch out.
What's in a Name
Whether Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a whimsical daydream committed to paper, a feisty professor's rebellion against the rigidity of mathematics, or a chaste love letter to a young Alice Liddell, American McGee's Alice is not an adaptation of that beloved novel. It is its own game, and I doubt it was hubris that led American McGee to put his name right there in the title. Instead, it's an acknowledgment; McGee took somebody else's characters and scenarios that were so familiar to us, and like all talented creative people, he cannily transformed them into something new, fresh, and even contemporary. And then he turned his richly imagined world over to gamers so that we could do in it what we do best: play.
Cities: Skylines mod completely recreates GTAV's Los Santos
PC gamers can't actually play Grand Theft Auto V yet, but thanks to the efforts of Steam user grockefeller , we can pay a visit to the friendly city of Los Santos, which he has recreated—along with Palomino and Sandy Shores—in Cities: Skylines .
Man, that was fast.
Cities: Skylines was not a game I expected to be a hit, but it came off quite well in our review, and even more importantly, people are buying itand doing some amazing things with it. This modlets players take to the streets to appreciate the fruits of their urban planning labors from a first-person perspective, for instance, while this weirdo created an entire city in which only one, single home could be built, and then spent days spying on the family that moved in.
The Los Santos reconstruction is a project on a somewhat larger scale. The mod description says it's "the completely built region of South San Andreas including the cities of Los Santos, Palomino, and Sandy Shores." Note that in order to actually use it, you'll also need the separate 2x4 parking lots mod, and unlimited money to cover the city's debt, which is apparently significant. As grockefeller succinctly put it, "It was expensive."
Anatomy of a Screenshot: Epic Mickey
In the first of our new Anatomy of a Screenshot features, we take a closer look at actual in-game screens from Junction Point's Wii-exclusive game, Epic Mickey.
In the first of our new Anatomy of a Screenshot features, we take a closer look at actual in-game screens from Junction Point's Wii-exclusive game, Epic Mickey. Click any of the four images in the gallery below to view it at full size, and explore the visual details of each screen while learning about what is going on in each situation. Enjoy!
For all our Epic Mickey online coverage, click here.
Design and layout by Meagan VanBurkleo
Gods Eater Burst – hands-on preview
In the vein of Monster Hunter, Gods Eater Burst is a mission-based monster hunting action game that supports up to four player co-op. It's already been released in Japan under the title God Eater Burst (which was an enhanced update to God Eater, released earlier in 2010), and it's pretty much a known quantity – you probably know already if this kind of game is your cup of tea. If you're on the fence
Alice: Madness Returns trailer contains platforming, magical hyper violence
Another trailer for macabre platformer Alice: Madness Returns has been released.
Another trailer for macabre platformer Alice: Madness Returns has been released. This one shows off more in-game footage than we saw in the GDCand combattrailers. It also features a gorgeous floating playing card level and some kind of 2D illustration inspired platform sequence. Alice: Madness Returns is released on the June 14 for the US and the June 16 in the UK.
The Elder Strolls, Part 1: Fresh Off The Boat
It's morning, and I've just arrived in Skyrim.
It's morning, and I've just arrived in Skyrim. I wear no armor, just simple clothing and footwraps. I carry no two-handed broadsword, just a small iron dagger. No fearsome warpaint adorns my face and no jagged scars tell stories of hard-fought battles won. I have no priceless treasures or magical artifacts, just a handful of gold coins and a single piece of fruit.
I won't be looting ghoul-infested crypts or rampaging through bandit-occupied forts, I won't be helping citizens with their various problems and quests, and I certainly won't be awakening any dragons. My name is Nordrick. I'm not a hero, I'm an NPC, and I'm here not to play Skyrim, but to live in it.
I did something similar with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and wrote about it in a blog called Livin' in Oblivion. The NPC I created for Oblivion was a dopey-looking fellow called Nondrick, and I'll be following similar rules with his descendant, Nordrick, here in Skyrim:
Eat and sleep regularly, and walk everywhere, as NPCs do, unless there's a specific reason to sprint, such as while hunting, fighting, or fleeing. No fast travel! Do my best to avoid adventure, intrigue, and excitement, though if a quest seems reasonably boring or safe (such as a crafting tutorial), it might be okay. No stealing, and no "stealing" (I can't join a guild for the sole purpose of helping myself to all their stuff and selling it to a vendor). Find some way to make a living that doesn't involve adventuring. Find a place to call home, and maybe even land a spouse, if the fates allow (they probably won't). NPCs can't reload a previous saved game if things don't go their way. Neither can Nordrick. If he dies, he dies.In my Oblivion blog, I began the game standing on a boat in the small coastal city of Anvil. As Nordrick, I will be starting in a similar fashion, standing on a boat in the small coastal city of Dawnstar. Nordrick will begin the game with the same meager inventory as Nondrick did: a dagger, an apple, and 17 gold pieces. (If anyone is interested, I can post in the comments what console codes I used to start my game like this).
Okay. Enough mundane set-up! Let's get into Nordrick's mundane life! I slowly stroll off the boat I'm pretending to have just arrived on after a long trip I'm pretending to have taken, and walk up the dock into the town. Dawnstar is a chilly, drab-looking village, its few buildings clustered together as if for warmth. Lo and behold, the entrance to a mine is straight ahead of the dock. I sort of wanted to have a look at the town and maybe chat with the locals a bit before beginning hours of routine manual labor, but since the mine is right here, I might as well get to work.
Walking into Quicksilver Mine, I'm gripped by a sudden moment of panic. The place is dark and rumbly, and I have a vision of the mine entrance collapsing behind me, trapping me inside, and having to fight giant spiders or cave trolls or irresponsible mine safety administrators to escape. What if this isn't a mine but a clever attempt by the game to force me to immediately have an adventure? Oblivion was constantly trying to engage me with thrills, and I don't imagine Skyrim will be any different.
Luckily, the mine remains mundane and doesn't collapse, although I am immediately faced with my first tough moral quandary: I'm here to mine ore, but I don't have a pickaxe. I find one lying on a table, and it's not marked as an owned item, so if I take it, the game won't consider it stealing. Still, it feels like stealing, since it's not mine. I decide to compromise and borrow it: I'll do some mining, and then leave the pickaxe behind when I'm done, and try to buy my own later. That feels like a satisfying decision, and probably as close as I'll get to a dramatic personal choice in this blog (you've been warned).
I get busy, swinging the axe with my spindly arms, chipping away at the rock in a few different places in the cave. Pretty quickly, my pockets are loaded with quicksilver ore: 15 hunks of it, in fact, which I determine to be worth 25 gold apiece (I'm sure the local vendors will disagree). I'm also surprised to dig up a couple shiny garnets, which I value at 100 gold each. Man, I've only been working for an hour and I'm already rolling in loot! Poor Grampa Nondrick worked for ages picking flowers and mixing potions to attain the kind of wealth I've amassed in my first hour in Skyrim.
Finished, I drop the borrowed pickaxe roughly where I found it, but I'm surprised when another miner, a woman named Edith, walks over, picks up the axe, tells me she saw me drop it, and hands it back to me. How thoughtful of her! Shame that I can't propose to her on the spot (marriage is little complicated in Skyrim), because Edith is my kind of woman: hard-working, considerate, and female. I can't explain to her that the axe doesn't actually belong to me, so I walk close to the entrance of the mine, drop it again, and leave before she can scurry over and politely force it back into my inventory.
Outside, the mine's owner, Leigelf, offers to buy all the ore I chipped up, which strikes me as a little weird. It's his mine, isn't it his ore? It's like owning a grocery store, then buying all the food back from the customers as they leave. Leigelf also makes an angry, passing reference to "milk drinkers." I don't know what the heck that means, but I assume it's some sort of racism. Stay classy, Leigelf. At any rate, I want to try to use this ore to craft something more valuable, so I don't sell any of it. I wait patiently for a miner named Lond to finish using the smelter, smelt half of my ore into ingot form, then head over to the blacksmith's shop.
I chat a bit with Rustlief, the local smith, and try to sell him my garnets, but he's not interested. I start using his forge, hoping to make something with the quicksilver I mined, but, even as watch myself bang away at an anvil with tools and materials I don't have, I see that I can't craft anything with my quicksilver ingots. I don't even know what the hell quicksilver is, frankly.
I take a quick (actually, instantaneous) break, eat my apple for lunch, and then I stroll around town some more. I chat with the people I pass, and nearly all of them mention having terrible nightmares. Some go on about it at length. Ominous. There is a cloud hanging over this town, a dark cloud in the shape of a giant quest. I walk away in the middle of a conversation to eat some strange berries I find on a bush, which I admit is pretty rude. Someone is desperately asking for help with terrible supernatural nightmares, and I walk away and start stuffing random berries into my face. But look, sometimes you get quests just from listening to people for too long, and I want to avoid that. Also, free berries! Eating them reveals one of their alchemical properties to me, so I've taken my first small step in the world of alchemy. Grampa Nondrick, a decent alchemist in his own right, would be proud.
I descend into an iron mine and leave a few hours later, laden with iron ore and a bunch more gems (at this rate I'll be able to craft my own game of Bejeweled). I still can't make anything at the forge, though, because I need leather. I can't afford to buy any, so that means I need to hunt, and hunting means I need a bow and some arrows.
It's actually getting kind of late already (walking everywhere instead of running really eats up the day: try it sometime), so I head over to the local inn. I meet an attractive woman named Karita, who mentions she's a bard and that she trained at a Bard college. A hot, employed college graduate? I think I want to marry Karita instead of Edith. I mean, maybe if Edith had gone to college she wouldn't be covered with filth and breaking rocks in a hole. Then, Karita starts beating on a drum and singing, and wow, she's just terrible. I'm quickly leaning back toward wanting to marry Edith again.
I pay for a room for the night, and I'm genuinely charmed by the fact that the innkeeper, Thoring, actually walks me to it, rather than just vaguely telling me where it is (as innkeepers did in Oblivion). Pleasant, helpful, and runs his own business? Plus, he has a nice selection of cheeses on his counter. Maybe I should marry him instead.
After paying for the room (10 gold) and buying a piece of bread for dinner (6 gold), my savings account is down to a single gold piece. I'm a little conflicted: mining has provided me items of value, but no one I've come across will buy the precious stones, and I want to save the ingots and ore for crafting, if possible. I'll have to find a solution tomorrow, because the room is only rented for one night, and a Nord's gotta eat. At least I got through the day without having any adventures, and only fell in love three times.
There's a book on the night table, and I consider reading it before bed, but it's called "The Cabin in the Woods, Volume II", and I haven't read Volume I yet. No spoilers! I'm a little worried about these nightmares everyone is having: what if simply falling asleep starts some dangerous quest? Thoring, though, tells me I won't have bad dreams: they don't seem to affect travelers, only locals. As I stand beside my bed all night, sleeping, I take some small comfort in that.
Build of the week: Master of Dimension
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Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Master of Dimension is a gorgeous conceptual tower build from Mr. Waii (ภควัตไชยบุญมา), a modder out of Thailand. He got the idea from seeing a bisected car engine—the metallic tangle of parts exposed to the open air weren’t garish to Waii, but beautiful. The same idea applied to a PC only made sense, so he got to cutting and grinding and sanding until the Master of Dimension took shape. With one half of the chassis chopped off, the hardware comes off as more of a statement than a traditional open air case, as if to say traditional tower design hides too much that it doesn’t need to. It’s obvious Waii loves his hardware au naturel.
Most impressive is the build’s balance. Positioned over a narrow base, even if the Master of Dimension isn’t exactly symmetrical, it was built with an invisible symmetry in mind.
For more information on the build process and a ton more pictures, check out the official build log.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR At only 11-years-old, James took apart his parents’ computer and couldn’t figure out how to put it back together again. As an Associate Editor, he’s embarked on a dangerous quest to solve Video Games. Wish him luck.
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