Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
1. Half-Life 2
2. World Of Warcraft
3. The Sims 2
4. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
5. The Sims Deluxe
6. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
7. Halo: Combat Evolved
8. Zoo Tycoon 2
9. Nascar SimRacing
10. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century Of Flight
Burnout 3: Takedown (Criterion Games / Electronic Arts)
Paul Glancey, Chris Roberts, Paul Cross, Fiona Sperry, Alex Ward
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North / Rockstar Games)
Leslie Benzies, Adam Fowler, Aaron Garbut, Sam Houser, Alexander Roger, Obbe Vermeij
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Ken Birdwell, Gabe Newell, Jay Stelly
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Keita Takahashi
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Mark Kern, Mike Morhaime, Rob Pardo
New Studio
Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes)
Michael Lewis
Crytek (Far Cry)
Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli
inXile entertainment (The Bard's Tale)
Brian Fargo, Matthew Findley
Obsidian Entertainment (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords)
Chris Avellone, Chris Jones, Darren Monahan, Chris Parker, Feargus Urquhart
the Behemoth (Alien Hominid)
John Baez, Tom Fulp, Brandon LaCava, Dan Paladin
Audio
Call of Duty: Finest Hour (Spark Unlimited / Activision)
Jack Grillo, Caleb Sweazy
Doom 3 (id Software / Activision)
Christian Antkow, John Carmack, Tim Willits
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North / Rockstar Games)
Craig Conner, Allan Walker
Halo 2 (Bungie Software / Microsoft Game Studios)
C Paul Johnson, Marty O'Donnell, Jay Weinland
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Yu Miyake
Character Design
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Ted Backman, Dhabih Eng, Bill Fletcher, Bill Van Buren
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Keita Takahashi
Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within (Ubisoft Montreal / Ubisoft Entertainment)
Nicolas Bouvier, Mickael Labat
Sly 2: Band Of Thieves (Sucker Punch Productions / Sony Computer Entertainment America)
Travis Kotzebue, Dev Madan
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Brandon Idol, Chris Metzen
Game Design
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North / Rockstar Games)
Leslie Benzies, Adam Fowler, Aaron Garbut, Sam Houser, Alexander Roger, Obbe Vermeij
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Gabe Newell, Jay Stelly
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Keita Takahashi
Pikmin 2 (Nintendo)
Masamichi Abe, Hino Shigefumi
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Chris Metzen, Rob Pardo
Technology
Burnout 3: Takedown (Criterion Games / Electronic Arts)
Alex Fry, Ciaran Rooney, Paul Ross, Hamish Young
Doom 3 (id Software / Activision)
John Carmack, Robert Duffy, Jan Paul van Waveren
EyeToy: AntiGrav (Harmonix Music Systems / Sony Computer Entertainment America)
Eran Egozy, Eric Malafeew
Far Cry (Crytek / Ubisoft Entertainment)
Timur Davidenko, Vladimir Kajalin, Andrey Khonich, Anton Knyazyev, Cevat Yerli
An update has been released for the Windows dedicated game server which addresses some issues found in yesterday's release. The Linux dedicated server and other products are unaffected. Server administrators can either restart Steam or run the HLDS update tool to receive the update.
Meanwhile, Valve has announced de_port, a new map for Counter-Strike: Source, which you can get the first glimpse of here.
Lester reaffirmed his group's commitment to making Windows gaming "a simple, straightforward, and robust experience" that isn't marked by long game-install times, driver conflicts, and downloading patches. To this end, we were shown a demonstration of "Tray and Play" with the PC version of Need For Speed Underground 2. "Tray and Play" is exactly what it sounds like--dropping a game disc into an optical drive and loading it up immediately, rather than having to install it to a hard drive. True to form, the game itself cut straight to a start-up screen in less than a minute (including the game's own built-in load time).
Yes, Fable is finally coming to the PC. But things are never done easily at Lionhead Studios. Studio head Peter Molyneux is careful to make sure that those working on games delivered to the public aren't going to slack in any area. He's so dedicated to bringing the best experience possible that Fable: The Lost Chapters will include a whole lot more for players to do, see, and take part in.
The biggest addition is likely the huge new content portion of the game. In a meeting yesterday, Molyneux reported that the game will be a third bigger than the Xbox version of the game. While he doesn't want to give away details on the extra parts of the gameplay just yet, he did mention that players who noticed the door right outside the Heroes Guild in the Xbox game will have also noticed it was closed and locked. The PC version will open that door up along with everything behind it. Apparently that includes a dragon and a completely new land for players to explore.
Irrational Games is proud to announce that Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich, the follow up to the popular heroic tactical RPG Freedom Force, is now on store shelves and shipping directly from
www.freedomfans.com. Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich is being distributed to retail stores by Vivendi Universal Games throughout North America.
The robust new Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich beta mod tools are now also available at www.freedomfans.com. With these tools, fans of the game will be able to add to the already huge Freedom Force mod community. The tools include:
1. Character Tool 2: a complete solution for viewing, managing and sharing character data including meshes, skins, animations and hero files.
2. Mod Tools: a set of tools for making game modifications including the new version of FFEdit, used for mission and data editing and complete scripting documentation.
3. Art Tools: a set of tools for making art content for the game. Includes exporters for 3D Studio Max to game format, a viewer for game NIF files and complete documentation.
I actually looked for this at a couple of places today and they didn't have it in stock yet.
During the hour-long event Iwata revealed that the Revolution will come equipped with wireless Internet out of the box, and be backwards compatible with GameCube titles, suggesting a continuation of their proprietary media format. With regards to the Nintendo DS, Iwata announced that subscription-free wireless Internet play will begin this year with the release of Animal Crossing DS.
Complete with 'Broadway' IBM CPU and 'Hollywood' ATI GPU, Iwata made clear that Revolution is something different, but declined to reveal further information, or a projected release date.
Update: Other bits from the keynote:
DS titles using voice recognition were demonstrated. Nintendogs tasks players with nurturing a pooch of choice, while Electroplankton is a harmonic chill-out title (This is designed to produce harmony, not adrenaline - Iwata).
Iwata dabbled in a live eight-player wireless local network game of Mario Kart DS.
4 million DS units have shipped to North America and Japan; figure expected to rise to 6 million post-European launch.
Iwata defined Nintendo's strategy: "This is Nintendo's plan: make our existing game world better. For us, this is a passion. This is a mission of adventure."
And... Iwata showed incredible unreleased footage of the new Zelda game, which you can download right here (mirrored on IGN & Worthplaying). Update to the update:New screenshots now also available.
Update: A complete transcript of the keynote speech can be found on IGN.
Don't get me wrong; WoW is a great "game". But if you want to truly immerse yourself in the game world around you, you're going to have to make a lot of excuses in order to make it work with the universe as the developers have envisioned it. And while the graphical visions in the world are stunning (and believe me they are; Blizzard Entertainment won a gamut of awards for their graphics last year), the beauty and dynamic feel to the world is simply crushed when you start looking at it from a role-playing perspective.
For starters, many of the instanced and epic quests are repeatable... is therefore hard for role-players to accept the world.
The legislation requires stores to label violent or sexually explicit games with black-and-white stickers reading "18." Stores would have the burden of figuring out which games could legally be sold to minors and which couldn't.
David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said the legislation's restrictions on games depicting "human on human violence" could mean that stores can be fined for selling football games to teenagers.
Matrix Online Goes Gold12:28 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- MMOG: Role-Playing(4 comments)
Monolith's massively multiplayer Matrix online role-playing game has gone gold in North America, and is set for a March 22nd launch:
Developed by Monolith Productions in conjunction with the Wachowski Brothers, creators of The Matrix Trilogy, the game will be a re-creation of the virtual world of the Matrix, employing cutting edge 3-D graphics, networking and server technology. Gameplay in The Matrix Online will be based on intricate and exciting "wire-fu" combat, an extensive mission structure, social interaction and completely customizable skill and ability system.
The Matrix Online also features many of the original talent from the films - Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus), Monica Bellucci (Persephone), Mary Alice (The Oracle), Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian), Harold Perrineau Jr. (Link), Harry Lennix (Lock), Nona Gaye (Zee), Collin Chou (Seraph) and Tanveer Atwal (Sati).
"Gamebryo is the technology that enables our development team to create the stunning graphics and outstanding gameplay that have become the hallmark of our titles," said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis. "Gamebryo provides a flexible graphics engine and comprehensive set of tools for special effects and shader support that bring that extra level of polish to our games."
Using the Gamebryo graphics engine, Firaxis will deliver new 3D graphics, advanced multiplayer gameplay and stunning new features to the next iteration of the Sid Meier's Civilization series. To be published by Take-Two's publishing label 2K Games in late 2005, Sid Meier's Civilization IV will continue its great design and award-winning originality while adding new challenges and game-play experiences.
Xfire Lodges Countersuit Against Yahoo09:25 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: General News(4 comments)
The game browsing and joining folks over at Xfire attempted to respond nicely to Yahoo's claim that they violated their patents, but it appears Yahoo was having none of it as Xifre today announced a countersuit:
Yahoo had previously filed a lawsuit against Xfire for allegedly infringing U.S. patent number 6,699,125 (the '125 patent). In today's filing Xfire refutes all allegations that it is infringing Yahoo's patent. In addition, Xfire has filed a countersuit stating that the Yahoo lawsuit is an attempt to drive Xfire out of business (and therefore avoid direct competition in the marketplace) or to force Xfire to sell or license its proprietary technology to Yahoo for far less than fair market value to settle the expensive litigation.
"We are very disappointed that Yahoo has refused all of our offers to immediately demonstrate we don't infringe," said Mike Cassidy, CEO of Xfire, Inc. "The facts of the case will prove we have not infringed." In its filing today, Xfire seeks, among other things, dismissal with prejudice of Yahoo's complaint, an order enjoining Yahoo's unfair business practices, and damages resulting from Yahoo's unfair business practices.
RFA: If last year at E3 we dusted off the cobwebs and grabbed people by the throat and shook 'em around a little bit, what we're gonna do at this year's E3 is take them to the next level. Maybe not as aggressively as last year's show, but certainly more emotional. What you will see will be more and more about Zelda. You guys have had the luxury of having some sneak peeks into that game, but we're only scratching the surface as to what that game's gonna be all about. The new games we have coming out for DS, what we're doing on the SP front. There's a lot of work that we're gonna unveil at E3.
Nintendo's GDC speech is today, so look out for more news from the company later.
Bioware & Irrational Games Team Up08:05 am
- Jeff Tom
- Games: Action / Strategy(0 comments)
Bioware and Irrational Games have announced a partnership to promote Irrational's Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich and in doing so Bioware have also posted an interview with Irrational:
What are the major changes from the first Freedom Force game?
Ken: Besides tons of gorgeous enhancements like dynamic lights, the game features an epic new storyline featuring six new heroes and dozens of new villains. The AI has also been immensely improved. Now, your team members will fight back if evil shows its face while the player isn't paying attention. In short, everything has been streamlined, reworked, and polished. In addition, multiplayer has been completely upgraded with an in-game browser, tons of modes, dynamic content transfer to support custom skins, and more.
Investors Flee Eidos07:55 am
- Jeff Tom
- Games: General News(4 comments)
GamesIndustry.biz have a news story with word that Eidos' stock dropped 30% yesterday over poor financial news though there are rumors of a buy out. Here's a clip:
The company also confirmed that it received a buy-out offer earlier this month and that a deal is still possible. A "proposal received on 2 March 2005 of a possible cash offer at a price of 53 pence per share, subject to one principal condition," was made, according to a statement made to the City this morning. "However there can be no assurance that this condition will be satisfied and no certainty that an offer will be made nor as to the terms on which any offer might be made. This disclosure has not been made with the consent of the other party."
Empire Earth 2 is the same thing in that once again, the full spectrum of combat is playable, all the way from mankind's first inkling to smash things in the heads with blunt objects. Far from being a rip-off of itself though, Empire Earth 2 not only adds to itself from content and technological standpoints, but it also adds a couple of new features that just might become standard in RTS titles to come. Aside from a few balance issues in the preview build, Empire Earth 2 is just as addictive as the original, only with a little more depth to keep you playing even longer.
NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today expands its award-winning NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series of graphics processing units (GPUs) by unveiling two new products: a 512MB version of the performance-leading GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU and a new lower cost AGP version of the GeForce 6200 GPU which brings Microsoft� DirectX� 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 technology to even more affordable price levels.
"Whether you are an extreme gamer or someone looking for an amazing upgrade, NVIDIA has the right product," said Ujesh Desai, general manager desktop products at NVIDIA. "These two new products further validate our commitment to bringing leading-edge performance and features to both the AGP and PCI Express markets."
Working with leading DDR manufacturers, the NVIDIA 512MB DDR3 GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU almost doubles the useable bandwidth and provides faster frame rates at higher resolutions and colour depths. The 512MB DDR3 GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU also features SLI technology to deliver an ultimate gaming supercomputer for the extreme gamer. In the mainstream space, the new GeForce 6200 AGP GPU brings Shader Model 3.0 functionality to the $79 price point.
Visually, the game already looks well-crafted, with a great sense of scale. From the footage shown at the event, the moments when players leap right into battle could become very visceral and noticeably more immersive than the distanced RTS perspective. Our primary complaint is the tightly packed unit formation, which artificially keeps warriors in rigid geometric ranks. Crash a couple lines of battle against one another, and see how long they define a perfect rectangle. Emphasis on "tangle," please.
Computer Games - First, World of Warcraft has had perhaps the biggest launch in terms of initial sales than any other US developed MMORPG. Did the sales figures exceed Blizzard's own internal expectations for its release?
Shane Dabiri - Well, we weren't necessarily surprised at the number of people who wanted to play World of Warcraft. What we were surprised at was how quickly it happened. Our internal projections were that we would probably see over 500,000 accounts creations and 200,000 peak concurrency, but only after a year of slow steady growth. Instead, as we all know now, that happened after just a few weeks. We're very grateful and despite our faith in our game, still a little surprised at the rapid adoption of World of Warcraft. But as for being taken completely by surprise, we weren't. We're just surprised it only took three months instead of the 12+ months we thought it would take.
When the B&W2; demo began we were first struck by the scalability of the world. Peter started a few inches off the ground where tiny strands of grass swayed like lumbering redwoods above hundreds of scurrying ants, simulated right down to their clustered hive. He then smoothly swept out a touch to include the nearby villager going about his daily routine of farming and wandering. After a few indications of how impressively detailed even the most mundane characters are, Peter had the camera pulled all the way back to reveal the island's enormity. Below us stretched crystal clear, reflective water that lapped against serene beaches. And in the distance we could see small villages nestled snuggly between jutting rock formations and densely populated forests. Very, very cool. Just as we were beginning to appreciate this eagle's eye view of the world, Peter swooshed us back down to ground level, where we could become the gods he wanted us all to be.
In related news, Sir Peter gave his lecture on next-generation game design.
Today at the Game Developers Conference, we finally got our our hands on the single-player side of things. But first, we were treated to a spooky intro clip. Light on dialogue but heavy on stylized action, it set the tone. A man is kneeling in a cell. The door opens, and a little girl is standing in the doorway. He screams, and we cut to a prison guard, who's felled by a knife in the back a moment later by the prisoner in a move reminiscent of anime swordfighting--a slow-motion uppercut, a stream of blood, then we cut to some more guards. Some masked soldiers enter, and next thing we know, all the guards are dead, and the escaped prisoner is flanked by the soldiers and kneeling down in front of one of the guards. We hear chunky sounds, but we can't quite tell what the prisoner is doing to the body. The camera moves closer, the prisoner whips around, briefly, and his mouth is covered in blood. End sequence.
The first part of the demo was actually something new and a bit of a surprise. To show off the power of this new engine, as well as demonstrate that this engine can in fact be used to make games, Epic played a game, real-time, right in front of the crowd's eyes. Stunning is a good word to use here. Breathtaking would be another. Booyakasha might be something some folks might say. It rocked. Textures were unbelievably crisp. Animation was excellent. Lighting was ridiculous. Architecture was well designed. The gameplay focused around a soldier ambushed by some aliens from within an abandoned structure. The level was played from the 3rd perspective, giving an awesome view at the back of this superb model. Light effects from enemy weapons simply looked dangerous. The character dived behind cover, bumped up against it, peeked out and fired from around it with an over the shoulder view while firing. I really wish I had screens to share with you, but I don't. The rumor, heard from a little birdie after I had left the event, is that this is a game being developed in-house for the PC and next-gen consoles due out in Q1 2006. Unfortunately, no video was allowed inside of the demo theater so we are unable to bring you any pictures. It's really hard to understand the amount of detail without actually witnessing it.
In Other News...12:05 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- In-House: In Other News...(43 comments)
Epic is cleaning up with new Unreal engine 3 licenses, most namely Microsoft selecting them for a number of Xbox 2 games. I doubt Halo 3 will among the titles since Bungie usually uses in-house technology, but cool for them nonetheless. After reading about all this cool upcoming technology coming out of GDC (Xbox 2, physics chips, etc) I'm going to put off getting a new secondary PC and just snag an el cheapo video card replacement and hope that clears things up on the ole 'work' puter. I don't need the thing to do much, just web related stuff and perhaps run a bot account for DAoC, so I'm thinking a Geforce 6200 or something. To be honest, the Xbox 2 specs sound better than a top of the line PC you can buy now, so what's the point, really? The only pricey thing you need to enjoy the experience is a $1500+ television (cough) which leads up to today's question of:
What kind of TV do you currently have, and do you plan on getting something better to go along with the next-generation of consoles?
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
EA To Pay Overtime Following EA_Spouse Debacle10:22 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: General News(24 comments)
Many will remember the uproar concerning EA's business practices after the wife of an employee revealed that her husband had been worked to the bone month after month without any overtime pay; pay that she believed would have left them over $15,000 better off.
Following industry pressure, EA has caved, and will soon begin offering overtime pay to employees, but these same employees will no longer be eligible for stock options or bonuses.
"The tool vendors are working with us to create the importers and exporters for you," DeLoura said. "It's their job to make sure your stuff arrives intact."
Such reassurances were especially welcome after Dominic Mallinson, research director for SCEA, explained likely programming models for getting the most out of Cell's nine processing units, a task he likened to creating music for a large orchestra. System-level work will be handled by the operating system, but it'll be up to developers to figure out how to slice and dice their computing tasks.
"You, the developers, are the composers," Mallinson said. "It's up to you to assign tasks to get the best possible performance."
More, including word of OpenGL usage, can be found on GameSpot.
IGNcube: Will the DS online network serve as an infrastructure for future online Revolution games?
Reggie: About DS wireless Internet play. Yes, we're going to be making announcements about that tomorrow. And there's going to be a lot of activity that we'll be sharing now through E3 and to the end of this year. We'll be launching wireless enabled games on DS this year. Could that framework be compatible with Revolution? Certainly it could. We'll be talking more about that, again both tomorrow and at E3. But it's very important for your community out there to understand that we see the potential for Internet play for all of our platforms to be a huge opportunity and something that we're going to be driving very aggressively.
F.E.A.R. Delayed Till Fall?09:57 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: Action(0 comments)
The official Sierra page for Monolith's F.E.A.R. now states that the game will be released Fall 2005, although this has yet to be officially confirmed by other sources. Thanks Chris E.
Physics are also going to be a huge feature of Unreal Engine 3, especially as new technologies such as multi-core CPUs and dedicated physics processors emerge on the next-generation of consoles and PCs. The sheer amount of computing power will allow for far more interaction with the environment. To demonstrate this, Epic showed an Unreal Engine 3 demo in which boulders rolled down a hill. In Unreal Tournament 2003, the engine could calculate and display about 10 boulders rolling down a hill at a time. Unreal Tournament 2004 increased that number to about 20. Both of those combined are nowhere close to the number of physical objects that Unreal Engine 3 can handle at the same time. To illustrate this, an avalanche of more than 600 boulders rolled down the hill, each reacting realistically to collisions and each casting its own shadow.
Update: You can now grab shaky-cam recordings of the tech demos from 1UP.
IGNPC: We understand you've built on the existing engine from Age of Mythology. How much of the original engine remains? What were the key changes you needed to make?
Dave Pottinger: We started with the AOM engine, but it's been very, very heavily modified by now. We've done wholesale replacement on everything with the renderer, the animation system, the model system, pathing, movement, and the multiplayer systems (client and server). The renderer changes are the most sexy, of course. The Age 3 renderer is built to be cutting-edge and take advantage of the latest technology. But, since our games sell a bunch of copies, we also have to make the graphics gracefully degrade if you don't have an uber box under your desk. That's a tough challenge given the breadth of hardware out there right now. Age 3 easily has the largest compatibility spectrum of any game that we've ever done. I'd wager that we've probably spent as much time on those lower-end parts of the renderer as on the super high-end components.
Steam Updates06:34 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: Action(1 comment)
A variety of changes have tonight been released for Counter-Strike: Source, the Source SDK, and the Source Engine in general:
CS:S
Fixed an issue which was affecting player movement prediction
Stopped players on de_dust2 being able to hide inside of rocks
Added clipbrushes to de_train to prevent players from reaching certain areas
Enabled bots to navigate their way out of the carts in cs_compound
Source Engine (game server changes)
Added "stats" command to print the current cpu usage, players and net bandwidth in use
Fixed rcon responses to properly reflect request id's
Added rate-limiting to connectionless queries to prevent flooding (as in HL1, the rate-limiting is controlled via the cvars: sv_max_queries_sec, sv_max_queries_sec_global, and sv_max_queries_window)
Removed sv_allowlocalquery cvar
Source SDK
Added Snow and rain materials
Added qc_eyes.exe
Made various improvements and fixes to .FGD files
Fixed an issue in Vrad which was causing visible artifacts when lighting very large objects/areas
Fixed an issue in Studiomdl which was allowing bad $modelnames to be used
The version of Battlestations Midway we saw was only about 50% complete, but that was enough to get a good look at the models. The planes and ships are well-constructed, of course, and look surprisingly realistic. Honestly, you'd expect a few graphical corners to be cut, given what Battlestations Midway is asking the hardware to do, but such did not appear to be the case. The particularly impressive bit was that each ship is capable of taking unique location damage as you attack, enabling you to cripple enemy ships with strategic hits to various locations. Each ship will sink differently depending on where it's been hit and how hard.
Physics Solutions For Xbox 2 Announced12:27 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- Consoles: Xbox Next(12 comments)
Meqon (suppliers of physics for Duke Nukem Forever) and AGEIA (inventors of the new Physics Processing Unit) have both today announced physics packages that support the Xbox 2:
Meqon: Tracey Frankcom, Program Manager, Xbox Tools & Middleware, agrees, "As the power of games hardware increases, the complexity of games must keep pace. Providing developers with tools that take advantage of the multi-core architecture of the next-generation Xbox platform to facilitate the creation of ever more sophisticated environments and interactions will breathe life into the high-definition gaming experience. This will be crucial to the next generation of games titles. We are pleased to have Meqon's Game Dynamics software in development for the next generation Xbox platform."
AGEIA: "AGEIA's NovodeX Physics SDK is a powerful middleware engine for game developers who want to make the most of the multicore architecture of the next generation Xbox platform," said Tracey Frankcom, program manager, Xbox Tools and Middleware. "The real-time physics capabilities of NovodeX, combined with the high-definition graphics and audio of the Xbox, enable the creation of totally immersive environments and unbelievably lifelike character interactions."
Full press releases available via the comments.
Xbox 2 Keynote Speech12:21 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- Consoles: Xbox Next(2 comments)
Major Nelson is now hosting a 17MB MP3 of J Allard's GDC keynote speech that focussed on the Xbox 2/Next/Xenon (delete as desired), with a video of the speech expected on Xbox.com later today.
Update: Pictures of the Next-Generation Xbox Guide can now be found here.
Update #2: A .zip containing hi-res Xbox Guide images is now available to download.
Epic Games, one of the world's leading developers of cutting-edge computer and video games and the pioneer of the award-winning Unreal� Engine, today announced that its Unreal Engine 3 technology and tools will be used in games developed by and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Earlier this year, Epic became an official licensed tool and middleware provider for the next generation Xbox� platform, and its partnership with Microsoft Game Studios further demonstrates its commitment to meet the challenges of developing for next generation hardware, and to deliver tools and technology that empower the development and publishing communities to efficiently deliver high quality, unique content.
In using Unreal Engine 3, the Microsoft Game Studios team will be able to truly exploit the unique hardware features of the next generation Xbox platform and harness the enormous power that its team has at its disposal.
"We only work with the best partners and utilize the best technologies, and Epic and the Unreal Engine 3 hit the mark on both those fronts," said Shane Kim, General Manager, Microsoft Game Studios. "Our teams are creating incredible games and content for the next generation Xbox platform, and by integrating Unreal Engine 3 into our development infrastructure we are able to really maximize our teams' performance and deliver the quality content and creativity that the market has come to expect from us."
Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games agrees, "We are hugely excited that Microsoft Game Studios have selected Unreal Engine 3 for its next generation Xbox platform games. It's an opportunity for us to show the industry the true capabilities of our tools and technologies and is a testament to the incredible amount of hard work by our teams here to deliver tools and technologies that are 100% tuned into the needs of next generation development. It further demonstrates our ability to deliver the most flexible, most productive tools and technology in the market today."
The new single-player level we were able to see and play seems to have a setup similar to the area in the E3 demo (which we were told featured some actual areas from the game), in that your character is part of an elite military force that's only called in when already-elite Army corps like Delta Force can't get the job done. The setup is fairly routine--you and three Delta troopers hit the gates of the installation and send you in to find a switch that opens the front gate. It's a simple enough task, and as the gate opens, your comrades will call you back down. However, once you've arrived, they seem to have disappeared, and only three small clouds of ash remain. This is one of the first tipoffs you'll receive about the game's supernatural aspects, which will come much more heavily into play later on. As executive producer Chris Miller explains, F.E.A.R.'s pacing will be marked by moments like these--instead of fighting continuous hordes of enemies, you'll instead often find yourself walking through brief lulls in the action before things get hairy, either with an intense firefight or a bizarre paranormal manifestation.
In a short but hugely impressive real-time demo, a room is almost completely demolished using a weapon that fires tennis-ball sized projectiles. In the first section of the demo, glass panels shatter realistically and fragile boxes full of objects suspended from the ceiling are smashed, leaving jagged corners hanging on ropes while the contents smash to the floor.
In another section, a tiled wall is destroyed realistically, with tiles breaking and popping off the wall when they're hit sufficiently hard, while further demonstrations of the engine's prowess include human shaped "rag doll" models in glass boxes, which react realistically to the environment around them being damaged, and most impressively of all, a completely interactive piece of cloth suspended between poles - which billows and stretches when it's shot, and can even be filled with balls like a hammock.
Cool and all, but just get the damn game finished eh?
Israeli Army Says No To Dungeons & Dragons09:20 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing(14 comments)
There's an amusing story on Slashdot which says that the Israeli Army frowns on Dungeons & Dragons players, giving anyone who admits to playing it it a low security clearance. "These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says. "They may be detached from reality or have a weak personality - elements which lower a person's security clearance, allowing them to serve in the army, but not in sensitive positions."
Xbox 2 Specs & Info Revealed By J Allard09:01 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Consoles: Xbox Next(31 comments)
Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA Architect J Allard will tonight announce many details regarding the Xbox 2, as has been revealed by a leaked press release, the entirety of which is available to read below:
SAN FRANCISCO — March 9, 2005 — Today at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft Corp. announced the first details of its next-generation Xbox video game system platform, highlighting how hardware, software and services are being fused to power enhanced game and entertainment experiences.
Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA Architect J Allard further outlined the company's vision for the future of entertainment, citing the emergence of an "HD Era" in video games that is fueled by consumer demand for experiences that are always connected, always personalized and always in high-definition.
"In the HD Era the platform is bigger than the processor," Allard said. "New technology and emerging consumer forces will come together to enable the rock stars of game development to shake up the old establishment and redefine entertainment as we know it."
Building on 10 years of innovation with the DirectX API, the Microsoft Windows and Xbox platforms will enable ground-breaking game experiences in the HD Era. Illustrating what that means for gamers, Allard shared the first details about the next generation Xbox guide. Persistent across all games and media experiences, the guide is an entertainment gateway that instantly connects players to their games, their friends and their digital media.
Features of the guide include these:
Gamer Cards: Gamer Cards provide gamers with a quick look at key Xbox Live information. They let players instantly connect with people who have similar skills, interests and lifestyles.
Marketplace: Browseable by game, by genre, and in a number of other ways, the Marketplace will provide a one-stop shop for consumers to acquire episodic content, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins and new community created content.
Micro-transactions: Breaking down barriers of small-ticket online commerce, micro-transactions will allow developers and the gaming community to charge as little as they like for content they create and publish on Marketplace. Imagine players slapping down $.99 to buy a one-of-a-kind, fully tricked-out racing car to be the envy of their buddies.
Custom playlists: This feature eliminates the need for developers to support custom music in games. The guide instantly connects players to their music so they can listen to their own tracks while playing all their favorite next-generation Xbox games.
Typifying the HD Era game experience, the guide requires hardware designed with software in mind. System-level features of the guide such as custom playlists, the Xbox Live Friends list and voice chat are enabled at the chip level, liberating developers to focus on creating games, not developing for technical certification requirements (TCRs).
To support consumer demands for the HD Era, the next-generation Xbox is designed around key principles that let developers maximize real performance, using concepts they are already familiar with.
The next-generation Xbox hardware design principles include the following:
A well-balanced system that will deliver more than a teraflop of targeted computing performance
A multicore processor architecture co-developed with IBM Corp. that provides developer "headroom" and flexibility for the HD Era
A custom-designed graphics processor co-developed with ATI Technologies Inc. designed for HD Era games and entertainment applications
In addition, familiar software technologies such as DirectX, PIX, XACT and the recently announced XNA Studio — an integrated team-based development environment tailored for game production — complement the new hardware to help game developers unlock increasingly powerful and complex silicon.
The HD Era gaming platform will strike an elegant balance of hardware, software and services to power the new experiences consumers demand. Games and entertainment features such as the next-generation Xbox guide represent a shift toward more immersive and integrated consumer experiences. This shift will be further illustrated by a significant leap to high-definition graphics, where character movements and expressions are intensely vibrant and nearly indiscernible from real life; by multichannel, positional audio fidelity so clear and precise that players will be able to hear the faintest enemy footsteps sneaking up behind them; by richer online communications; and by an abundance of on-demand content for game consoles.
The Bear touched, rubbed and blew the crowd away, as he got to grips with the new handheld whilst sharing his sofa with four stunning female Nintendo fans.
The Bear was heard excitedly growling that: "This new machine is UNTOLD!!!"
(Click to Enlarge & Expand Gallery!)
Well, Nintendo's certainly full of surprises...
Dreamfall Preview07:19 am
- Jeff Tom
- Games: Adventure(2 comments)
More from the guys at GameSpot as they've also shot out a preview of the Dreamfall, the sequel to the Longest Journey, an adventure game from Funcom as well as a video developer interview. Check it:
Norwegian studio Funcom created what many adventure game fans consider to be a classic in The Longest Journey back in 2000. But the successor to that acclaimed game won't be the traditional point-and-click adventure game its forebear was. The developer is purposely attempting to make a game that's different than most others on the market. Designer Ragnar Tornquist explained that he finds it difficult to classify Dreamfall: The Longest Journey within any standard game genre, and that frankly, this doesn't bother him one bit. In fact, the designer likens the game, which will combine elements of adventure games, stealth games, and third-person combat, less to a traditional adventure game and more to a page-turning "thriller" novel, especially since the game will emphasize its multilayered story and characters.
Since the premise of the game is that you're a mercenary, you must purchase your own weapons, armor, and ammunition; you can't pick up weapons or ammo from fallen enemies. You can also hire up to four computer-controlled mercenaries as backup. However, you'll also have to pay to outfit them with weapons and equipment. This will allow you some tactical flexibility, though, as you can arm and outfit them in a variety of ways. You can give one mercenary a heavy shield, which can deflect incoming rounds, while you give another a heavy two-handed weapon for support. One tactic in the game is called "turtling." Basically, one mercenary with a heavy shield will provide shelter for another mercenary, who will provide fire support. This is essentially an updated version of the old Roman Legion testudo formation (as seen in Rome: Total War), but on a much smaller scale. Of course, the enemy will be able to use shields against you, too. One way to defeat a shield is by tossing a grenade at it...at which point physics will take care of the rest. Bet on Soldier will actually make use of the Novodex physics engine, the same one that's being incorporated into the Unreal Engine 3.
GS: Give us an overview of the gameplay in Boiling Point. We know that the game will primarily be a first-person shooter, but since the story behind the game is also about investigating the disappearance of the main character's sister, what other elements can we expect--character dialogues, quests, racing?
PW: The game is really part shooter and part role-playing game. As a character, you start off with neutral relationships with all of the game's factions including the CIA, local guerrillas, bandits, the Realia government, native cultures, and, of course, the mafia. All of your actions in the world, including your success or failure in a given mission, affect your relationship with each faction. There are very deep character dialogue trees--you can interact with every character in the game to learn more about the locales and the interaction between factions.
LEGO and Star Wars - it's probably not the first combination most gamers would think of. Why go for LEGO Star Wars?
Jonathon Smith: Because we wanted to do something no one had ever seen before. And while there have been LEGO games, and Star Wars games, there's never been a LEGO Star Wars game. And now there is! From LEGO, we get freedom, playfulness and accessibility. From Star Wars, we get epic action, cool characters and great locations. Put together, we have a game world full of possibilities, which was just so fun to work in.
"The reaction to Gran Turismo 4 from retailers across PAL territories has exceeded even our high expectations," said David Reeves, President, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. "This Day One number reflects the popularity and broad appeal of the series - not only with seasoned GT buyers but with driving fans, motoring enthusiasts and casual gamers alike. We expect Gran Turismo 4 to become the "must-have" title for anyone who owns a PlayStation 2 or anyone thinking about purchasing one."
Lawmakers looked impassive, even bored - After the decapitation, dismemberment and multiple shootings, though, looks of shock and disgust swept the committee room.
"What I saw there had no redeeming social qualities," Del. Michael D. Smigiel (R-Cecil) told the Judiciary Committee. "I would say it's pornographic."
To say Sony relies on gaming is an understatement. In the last three business years the game unit has been its biggest driver of operating income and one of its top revenue sources, aside from the struggling electronics segment.
"When you consider that Mr. Kutaragi can now concentrate his manpower just on games, it's positive for the game business," said Yuta Sakurai, a senior analyst for Nomura Securities.
"He's going to have to keep a balance with the rest of Sony going forward. Since he's lost responsibility for semiconductors he won't be able to sacrifice the rest of Sony for PlayStation in terms of both money and people," said Deutsche Securities analyst Takashi Oya.
Sega Purchases Creative Assembly04:18 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: General News(3 comments)
Along with yesterday's announcement of the console-only Spartan: Total Warrior, Sega also revealed that they have purchased the developer, Creative Assembly, who are also responsible for the Total War franchise:
The deal sees SEGA acquiring a company at the very pinnacle of games development - a unique group of talent who are second to none with an outstanding global reputation. The style and genre of The Creative Assembly's games perfectly complements SEGA's own long term strategic vision and SEGA will empower the team to continue on their existing development path whilst also expanding their resources for the future. SEGA will not only be releasing Spartan: Total Warrior this year, but will also be supporting The Creative Assembly to develop the Total War strategy series, as well as exploring ambitious new ventures.
Naoya Tsurumi - CEO: SEGA Of America & SEGA Europe commented "This news is direct evidence of SEGA delivering it's strategic objective of strengthening our emphasis in the western market. As our first developer acquisition in the West since we became a publisher it clearly demonstrates that we have set our sights on working with the very best talent in the industry".
Sonic: Total War coming soon?
Update: MCV reports that Sega paid $30 million for the studio.
In Other News...12:54 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- In-House: In Other News...(4 comments)
Brothers in Arms PC gone golden; a dedicated physics processing chip announced (we can tag another four or five years of Duke Nukem Forever development on because of this I'm sure); Xbox 2 specs revealed -- oh my! Rather than a normal QoTD, here are some of the highlights of yesterday's news:
The PhysX chip is a gadget they'll smack on a video card (or something) whose sole purpose is to speed up the physics calculations in games, so instead of seeing maybe 5 or 10 objects in a scene that you can manipulate, there's really no (practical) limit. Just think of more stuff to blow up, kick around and interact with. There are a lot of unanswered questions like How much will it cost? Will hardware vendors actually use it? Console or PC? Time will tell.
Brothers in Arms went gold for the PC (and PS2) which hits stores March 17th. Brothers in Arms is as good -- if not better -- as Call of Duty, so I'm looking forward to picking this up very much to say the least. Best World War 2 game evah?
Xbox 2 specs surfaced over at Gamespy where they spill the beans about some of the features included in Microsoft's next-gen console. Triple 3.0 GHz PowerPC cores, next-generation ATI graphics CPU that's better than anything currently on the market today for the PC, an optical drive (hard drive optional) and an improved Xbox Live service. The real question is: How much will all this goodness cost? How bad of a hit is Microsoft taking per unit bringing it to market? Will games run like $70 so they can break even? For that matter, will Sony and Nintendo be able to keep up?
As a footnote (sorry to be the fun police) the @VE3D email and stuff still isn't working, so make sure to use @VoodooExtreme.com if you have a burning desire to send us news (or steamy man-love letters).
