S2 Games announced that when they release their upcoming game, Savage 2: A Tortured Soul, they will allow everyone to download the game free, and try out AI practice mode, play the tutorial, and so on. If you want your stats saved, play online, and more, you would have to pay for the game. It’s a great concept, and I hope it works out successfully for them. Savage 1 was revolutionary in many ways, and Savage 2 looks to improve upon that recipe.
“We pride ourselves on being truly independent and basing many of our decisions on how our fans will benefit,” said Marc DeForest, co-founder and lead designer of S2 Games. “By offering a fully functional game as a free download, it will give gamers an opportunity to ‘test drive’ Savage 2 before actually paying for an account and playing online. As gamers, we know we would appreciate that kind of treatment ourselves, so it’s only right that we do unto others.”
Jeff Orkin of Monolith gave details at GDC how the artificial intelligence in F.E.A.R. really worked. There are different styles when it comes to A.I. and it seems F.E.A.R. approaches it in a unique manner.
First of all, the AI powering F.E.A.R. was based around the idea of giving the AI a need. As illustrated by Orkin, this need could take the form of Alma (the creepy little girl in F.E.A.R.) being hungry and wanting to eat, but in terms of the game, this means something like “see player, attack player, find cover.” The actions that the AI could take to satisfy its need are strung together and happen based on the player’s actions; each action the AI can take is assigned a “cost” and the AI goes for the least expensive action.
A pilot approached a bunch of gamers to help train other pilots how to fly planes for El Al airlines using a virtual cockpit game system, and it has worked out so well that they are now training F-16 jet fighters to learn how to fly Boeing 767 jumbo jets.
A few months ago, Capt. Alon Pereg, who was about to command the next 737NG pilot’s course of EL AL airlines, had an idea - the trainees could practice Airliner procedures, 737 automation (FMC) and ATC communications during the ground school stages of the course by flying online. He approached Kobi David, Vatsim Israel’s CEO. Alon and Kobi went to the home cockpit of a Vatsim member, and took the PMDG 737 for a ride. Alon was very impressed with this demonstration, and now the ball was at his hands.
I hadn’t encountered this, but some of you may. There’s a bug in Oblivion that could have some severe consequences if encountered.
There are a certain few quests that provide a certain kind of reward. This certain kind of reward causes a skill to never be able to learn or advance moving forward from that point. The skill is ’stuck’ if you will. I have spent a couple of hours making sure there was no way around it except for not completing the quest. Unfortunately, I have no workaround. My digging into the quests in the construction set reveals a bug that needs developer attention. The only work-around in the construction set is to alter the reward to not be the certain special kind. Not a big deal to actually perform this mod, but a bummer in removing something interesting.
I wish I was kidding, but I’m not. Mooooo!
Perhaps living by the motto “every franchise a tie-in,” Buena Vista Games today announced a game based on hit television series Desperate Housewives. Described as a “lifestyle simulation,” the game puts players in the role of a new housewife who has just moved onto Wisteria Lane where scandal abounds beneath its bucolic surface.
Gamespot has a preview of Crysis, the game from the developers who created the pretty first-person shooter, Far Cry. I’d say from the preview, they were mightily impressed with the showing of the game at GDC:
Crysis is easily one of the best-looking games at GDC, and we’re already pumped for the game. Visually, it makes Far Cry, as well as almost everything else, look incredibly dated, which is quite an accomplishment. The GDC trailer indicated that we’ll be able to play Crysis at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in two months, and we’re looking forward to it. Until then, we’ll keep you up to date on further developments. Yerli said that we can expect the game to ship this winter.
Not only has the first episodic content, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, been delayed, but now Ritual are delaying the first SiN episode to sometimes in May. It sounds like there could be a problem with episodic content delivery through Steam since both have been delayed at around the same time.
Trying to fend off fans, Ritual’s QA manager Michael Russell took to the message boards, claiming “there is actually a very good reason for the game being released in May. However, it’s not my place to say what that reason is.” What that reason could possibly be other than technical issues, though, remains unclear.
There’s a few jobs listed by the developers of the Grand Theft Auto series, Rockstar, that can lead one to believe that they are being hired to work on a massively multiplayer online game (MMO). If this is the case, it would be a step in a different direction for the series, and may prove to be insanely popular like World of Warcraft. Who wouldn’t want to play online against thousands of other gamers, stealing cars, running over prostitutes, and possibly enough extort Jack Thompson in a mission?
There’s a report that the release of Half-Life 2’s expansion, Episode 1, has been pushed back to June 30th. This was the expansion that was formerly titled Aftermath, and is part of a series of episodic content that gives you bite-sized pieces of gaming in the HL2 universe. It is stated that Episode 1 will contain around 7 hours worth of gameplay.
We have our review up of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the much talked about role-playing game from Bethesda, and it is a beauty of a game. Not only does it look good, but it is insanely fun, immersive, and improves upon Morrowind greatly. It is already in the running for Game of the Year awards. Here’s a sample from the review:
Combat, unlike in Morrowind, is visceral and frenetic. Blows connect, tendons scream when your blow glances off a shield, and if that wasn’t enough, your enemy will taunt you if he feels confident he’s going to best you. Magic combat is rich and varied, there’s nothing more gratifying than seeing an enemy go down in a flurry of flames, or keel over after being frozen to death from a frost spell. A particular foe giving you a hard time? Bring out a shield spell, suck out his fatigue, even push him over the edge of a cliff if you have to. The options you have in any given fight are near limitless, only limited by your own imagination. Intelligence plays a factor with fights in Oblivion.
A collection of tweaks for Oblivion I’ve posted up.
Update: A comprehensive guide for tweaking Oblivion can be found at TweakGuides.
If you want to try out Guild Wars: Factions, you can this weekend for free. Factions expands on the original Guild Wars by adding new character types to choose from, a whole new land, new spells, weapons, armors, and more. It’s been a while since I’ve played Guild Wars, and I don’t anticipate picking this expansion up, but who knows, maybe this preview event will change my mind.
Join us the weekend of March 24th for the Factions™ Preview Event! This will be your first chance to visit the breathtaking continent of Cantha, the newest world of the Guild Wars saga. During the event, you will get the chance to play roleplaying and player-versus-player characters, and to pursue a variety of gameplay options, including story missions, competitive missions, and a new form of PvP called alliance battles!
When it rains, it pours. Starforce employees are miffed that someone did research and found Starforce exhibits worm-like functions, travelling across partitions and even network drives to grab control elsewhere. Of course, this isn’t confirmed yet, but it has hit a sore spot with Starforce employees.
Starforce Admin are up to their usual antics yet again. We are not even 2 weeks down from when they posted warez links to Stardocks Galactic Civilizations II.
Now they have resorted to, posting libelous comments claiming my research into partitioned primary SATA/SCSI drives and how Starforce spreads accross all partitions as well as any networks drive with read/write capability.
Wired has an article, entitled “You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired!” about how World of Warcraft may be the best kind of job training you can receive.
In this way, the process of becoming an effective World of Warcraft guild master amounts to a total-immersion course in leadership. A guild is a collection of players who come together to share knowledge, resources, and manpower. To run a large one, a guild master must be adept at many skills: attracting, evaluating, and recruiting new members; creating apprenticeship programs; orchestrating group strategy; and adjudicating disputes. Guilds routinely splinter over petty squabbles and other basic failures of management; the master must resolve them without losing valuable members, who can easily quit and join a rival guild.
That makes sense; I’ve been in a number of guilds/clans over the years, and leadership was rarely there. However, when someone was a leader, it made the experience of the game that much more fun and organized.
An entertaining look at games of the past compared to games of today.
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