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[...] we have a MAJOR announcement to make and we are making it exclusively to our long time C&C; fans. This announcement is not going out to the press and it won't appear on the EA website or anywhere else online. We are very proud to announce that the team that brought you Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, and Command & Conquer: Generals has officially started work on our next project set in the Red Alert universe!
As I mentioned, we're very proud to ship what we feel is one of the best RTS games ever released. Most of you have probably heard of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth which hits stores this week. We've introduced some really innovative features and gameplay mechanics, which you should definitely check out when you get a chance. You will also see a major enhancement to the Sage graphics engine we originally created for Command & Conquer Generals. Expect us to leverage and continue to evolve this powerful engine as we start work on our new Command & Conquer game.
Perks of being on nerdy C&C; mailing lists? I suppose so... Click on the comments for the full letter.
Knights of the Old Republic 2 In Stores Now03:26 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- consoles: xbox(10 comments)
LucasArts announced that Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords for Xbox is in stores now. The PC version will ship early next year. The original Knights of the Old Republic was created by BioWare; the sequel is from new developer Obsidian whose talent is comprised of ex-Black Isle folk. The franchise seems to be in good hands however as IGN gave the game a 9.3/10 score. Here's a little FYI on it:
Five years after the events from the award winning Knights of the Old Republic, the Sith Lords have hunted the Jedi to the edge of extinction and are on the verge of crushing the Old Republic. With the Jedi Order in ruin, the Republic's only hope is a Jedi Knight struggling to reconnect with the Force and faced with the galaxy's most dire decision: To follow the light or succumb to the dark side...
Battle for Middle Earth Ships01:18 pm
- Jeff Tom
- games: real-time strategy(7 comments)
As mentioned in the week ahead yesterday, EA's Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth, ships today to retailers. Here's a clip:
Choose your army! Gondor, Rohan, Mordor and Isengard are available and awaiting your command. Each with their own distinct heroes, strengths, and weaknesses, the battle for Middle-earth has commenced and players must lead their chosen army to victory. Prepare for war by creating offensive and defensive strategies set in the memorable battle locations taken straight from the big screen. The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth brings the stunning visuals and sounds of the films directly to the PC with extensive use of the movie's digital assets, film clips musical score, and voiceover from the real actors.
C&VG;: A lot has been made of Forza being Xbox's Gran Turismo-beater. How does the team react to that?
Kiki Wolfkill: Everyone on the team is a huge Gran Turismo fan. It's actually a game many of us carry in our hearts because it was one of the first racing games that a lot of us really respected and believed in, so that's definitely the franchise that we're targeting with Forza. Gran Turismo has been the high watermark for driving simulators for so long now that it's natural for us to aim to better it. They have a very strong franchise built up and an established team with lots of experience.
We don't necessarily have that, but we do have a team made up of people who worked on Gotham, Rallisport Challenge, Need For Speed and a lot of other racing game-specific projects. We also have a lot of experience in real driving and track racing, and I think that passion and respect for cars and motorsports really drives the team to make Forza as authentic an experience as it can be.
We're very well placed to go up against GT in terms of depth of simulation, and we've also got the online modes and the damage model which we're very proud of.
Sid Meier Q&A;01:15 pm
- Jeff Tom
- games: action / strategy(0 comments)
EuroGamer have scored an interview with Sid Meier, going over Pirates! Here's a bit to get you started:
Eurogamer: For those that haven't followed the development of Pirates! at all, can you give us a broad overview of the game and tell us how you've built on the previous Pirates! title?
Sid Meier: In Pirates! players take on the role of a swashbuckling pirate captain in the gorgeous 17th century Caribbean where they embark on a great adventure to become the most revered or feared pirate on the Spanish Main. Our goal has been to stay true to what people most love about the original Pirates! while upgrading, enhancing, and in some cases, re-inventing the game to make it a great experience for today's gamers. With the 3D engine we've created a gorgeous world full of interesting places to visit and characters to meet. We've added new story elements and quests, upgraded duelling, land battles and ship battles to give the player more options and control, and added new action sequences like dancing and sneaking in and out of towns. Our hope is to deliver an incredibly fun and compelling game that will give the fans more than what they've been waiting for, and show a whole new generation of gamers how much fun it is to live the life of a pirate!
PS2 Buyers Beware01:06 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- consoles: ps2(13 comments)
Due to the previously mentioned shortages of the new Playstation 2, retailers across the United Kingdom are beginning to sell what little stock they have as bundle packs, with slim to no savings on the extra contents:
GTA: San Andreas is an adult title. The cheapest package for under-18s is �237.94, for items worth �242.93, assuming a full-price PS2.
A Game spokesman told the BBC News website that the company's research showed that most of its customers preferred to buy bundles.
"We have very limited stock," he said.
"We are offering what people want to buy, and we're offering them a bit of a saving."
Laws banning the sale of 18-rated games to children need to be enforced more strongly and warnings on boxes should be clearer, according to the UK's trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt.
While all games in the UK carry the PEGI voluntary rating indicators, which have been criticised in some quarters for being unclear and unfamiliar to parents, in general only those rated 18 carry the legally enforceable BBFC 18 certificate.
However, many retailers openly ignore the 18 rating on videogames - even while enforcing it on sales of DVDs - and while praising the UK's "vibrant games industry", Hewitt has expressed concern that many children are playing adult games with "high levels of violence".
Load time to start up a game varies based on the game. Minna no Golf takes about 20 seconds to start up, with Dokodemo Issho and Ridge Racers being a bit lower at, respectively, 18 and 15 seconds (remember, these numbers are just rough counts based on our varying perception of what exactly a second is). As there were no Memory Stick in the system, the games initially took us to a screen asking us if we wanted to create a save file.
The start-up times are a bit on the slow side, but we'll wait until we have the system in our hands later this week before making further comment. We'd like to try starting up a game with a save file already on the Memory Stick to see if that speeds up the process some. Having to wait 20 seconds to start up Minna no Golf (along with the load time that follows as you try to get into a game --check back later for more on that) may be asking a bit too much when you've got just a few minutes to play your game.
GameSpot spoke with Tim Shafer, the much-lauded game designer and founder of Double Fine Productions, on the subject of humor. Shafer is well known for having created or collaborated on many games that are regarded as the funniest in the biz--Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Sam & Max among them. Shafer says that by anticipating a gamer's moves, motivation, and emotional state, a developer can do his or her best to make the game react in a way that is satisfying to the player. "To me, since so many of the players' possible moves are ridiculous, it only makes sense that the game's reactions are ridiculous," he says. "If the player chooses to ask the same question of a character over and over, eventually, that guy's gotta say, 'What, are you deaf?' "
What's really funny is that they included Serious Sam but not Duke Nukem.
In Other News...12:15 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- in-house: in other news...(25 comments)
I hope you guys all had nice weekends. Just a couple more weeks until the big holiday break! IGN usually has a 2 week or so company holiday (not that it affects us) starting from a few days before Christmas to the first week of the New Year; it should be a nice time to kick back and enjoy some serious gaming. Speaking of serious gaming, I need to put my nose to the grindstone and finish up World of WarCraft... Not that you can ever "finish" the game seeing that it's an open ended massively multiplayer RPG, but having 200+ hours of gameplay logged should be enough to get a good idea of what the game's about. I'm shooting for the review to be up on Friday. Playing is starting to actually feel like work, I forgot how tiresome leveling could be... It doesn't help that the Horde got the short end of the stick for quests either; damn those Alliance noobs and their easy levels. :)
Today's question is: What's your pick for best role playing game of the year? Massively or otherwise. Usually we'd seperate them, but I can count the number of quality single player RPG releases this year on one hand with a few fingers to spare. Feel free to include console games as well.
Sunday , December 05, 2004
The Week Ahead04:47 pm
- Jeff Tom
- in-house: in other news...(5 comments)
Quite an interesting week for movies as Ocean's 12 and Blade Trinity come out as well as The Ultimate Matrix Collection and Bourne Supremacy on DVD. No huge titles for the PC but Knights of the Old Republic II hits the XBox this week. Enjoy:
PC Games
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth (DVD), Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion, Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs, The Chronicles of Riddick, Demon Stone, Bad Mojo, X-Plane 8, Final Fantasy XI Atlas.
GameCube
Mario Party 6, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2, Cabelas Big Game Hunter 2005 Adventures.
XBox
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, GunGriffon: Allied Strike.
GameBoy Advance
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Nintendo DS
Ping Pals, Ridge Racer, Sprung.
DVD
24: Season 3, Beautiful Joe, Bourne Supremacy, Carnivale: Complete First Season, Dodgeball: True Underdog Story, Dracula 3000, Garfield & Friends 2, Gargoyls - First Season, The King of Kings, The Last Horror Movie, Lion King Trilogy Gift Set, M, Maria Full of Grace, Mash TV Season 7, Mickey Mouse Club, North & South Complete Collection, Out Cold, Phantom of the Opera, Smoot Talk, Species 3, Star Trek Voyager: Season 6, Testament, Ultimate Matrix Collection, White Thunder, Wild at Heart.
Rumor has it that Bad Brain is attempting to acquire the rights to Sam & Max: Freelance Police. What can you say about that?
No comment (I signed an NDA). All I can say is: yes, we are talking to LucasArts about a game that might involve animals, but that's all folks! I guess we will see what�s happening in March 2005 at the latest. Also check our website for more information about our games.
In Other News...02:54 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- in-house: in other news...(27 comments)
Sorry for the late start today, our usual Sunday posters must be hung over or in lockup somewhere (perhaps both). Nothing much is going on, so no big deal I suppose. Speaking of not much going on is this week's new releases. For the PC, we have Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs, Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion, The Chronicles of Riddick, Demon Stone and The Lord Of The Rings: The Battle For Middle-earth (DVD). Actually, that isn't too bad... I still want to check out Battle for Middle Earth despite the less than stellar reviews (I usually like Westwood games) and Riddick looks good as well. Catacombs offers at least a visual upgrade for Camelot, but I don't think anything can save Shadowbane at this point. Demonstone? It bombed pretty bad on the PS2, but maybe the improved graphics on the Xbox and PC will change people's minds. We can take a look at the full week ahead a bit later.
Today's question is: What games are you currently playing? Yeah, kind of a boring question, but like Dante said in Clerks, "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
