Not many screenshots for BioShock! been released, but Shacknews has one up today.
Archive for April, 2006
April 27th, 2006
A couple of previews popped up of GRIN’s tactical first-person shooter, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. The first is from 1UP and the second is from Gamespy. Here’s a clip from the 1UP article:
The PC version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is leaving us continuously and happily surprised with both its high level of quality and the way it makes itself different from the 360 version. We recently got to play through some of the co-op and domination modes that will ship with the game, and hear about the plans for the deathmatch and other modes that will be released in the months to come, and we did it all with one of the development team members coaching us as we hunted through the sprawl of Mexico.
April 26th, 2006
Another gone gold announcement today, this one from Ritual announcing that their first-person shooter, SiN Episodes: Emergence, has gone gold. You can start playing on Steam May 10th if you preordered it, or go out and buy it retail that day.
Firing up the demo that was released earlier today, I was deluged with introduction screens that, fortunately, can be skipped by pressing the mouse button. Other than the fact that my native widescreen resolution isn’t supported (1680×1050) out of the box, I’m glad to report that the developers, GRIN, has made the interface and options PC-friendly. Being that they developed the game from the ground-up for the PC, you won’t find any consolitis with the PC version of Ghost Recond: Advanced Warfighter.
Once I’ve outfitted my Ghost team, I found myself in a helicopter, barreling towards a hot zone amongst the urban sprawl of a dense city. Once landed, we proceeded towards our target, meeting heavy resistance along the way. I can say that the game feels visceral; the sound is superb, the graphics are above-average, and since feel is important in a FPS, it feels fluid. It didn’t take long for me to figure out all the controls after looking through the Options>Controls screen. GRIN has made the game easy to get into, even commanding your team is a breeze.
I’ve already played through the demo 3 times, and I keep wanting to go back through it. Due to the unpredicatable A.I. of both the enemy and your teammates, the variations in achieving an objective, different weapons and accessories you can use, and sheer fun factor, the game seems to have great replay value, and this is just the single-player portion of the game I’m playing. Multiplayer should be a whole other ball of wax.
One thing to note with this demo is that Ageia PhysX drivers were required to be installed in order to play this game. I found that quite odd, considering it said you had to have them installed even if you don’t have the hardware in your system. There’s no report of any early-adopters of the PhysX add-on card for this game, as of yet.
Update: The “Follow” command seems to be largely ignored by your teammates. Could be a bug. Other commands have unpredictable results, as well. After a fourth play through, one of my men jumped in the middle of fire, in the middle of the street, laid down, and got sniped. The more I play, the more I see flaws.
In November 2004, an anonymous blog post from a spouse whose husband worked for the publisher, Electronic Arts, brought to light the harsh overtime working conditions that some were experiencing working under EA. It provoked a chain reaction that spawned lawsuits, changes in the industry, and a backlash of anger towards EA.
Now Mercury News has the true identity of the EA Spouse, and reveals more details about the incident and how it changed working conditions almost overnight.
So Hoffman, then 23, poured out her frustration — under the pen name EA Spouse — in a November 2004 blog that resonated so strongly with other video game developers that it helped spark an employee uprising inside EA and six lawsuits for unpaid overtime against three of the industry’s most prominent employers.
The result of all of this is GameWatch.org, a site where developers can go to swap stories about the companies they work for.
The pseudo-MMORPG, Guild Wars: Factions, is now shipping. Factions does not require the original Guild Wars, will cost $49.99 and will be going live on April 28th, at exactly 12:01 a.m. PDT/7:01 GMT. Here’s some more info from the press release:
“New features in Guild Wars Factions such as guild scrimmages, alliance battles, ranked character titles, and some surprises still to come all resulted from our drive to create a truly unique gaming experience for existing and new fans of the Guild Wars universe,” says Mike O’Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet. “With a full year of development and a passionate design team, we think what we’ve created delivers on that and much, much more. Either played as a stand-alone game, or linked with your original Guild Wars account, Guild Wars Factions is a game we are thoroughly proud of—and still carries no subscription fee.”
The real-time strategy game sequel to Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends, has gone gold and should be in stores on May 9th. Here’s the official on Rise of Legends:
The RTS gameplay of “Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends” has been improved for a more rewarding experience – gamers have the choice of drawing out battles for multiple hours for the classic RTS feel or focusing on shorter, 20-minute, campaigns. As the second installment of the “Rise of Nations” franchise, “Rise of Legends” also extends the gaming experience using a 3-D engine with dynamic lighting, deformable terrain, destructible buildings, ground-rattling earthquakes and massive armies locked in enormous strategic battles. “Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends” combines cutting-edge, industry-leading technology with awe-inspiring art design to create environments unlike anything ever seen.
Microsoft wants a piece of the advertising pie so they are looking to buy Massive Inc. Massive is the advertising firm responsible for pushing ads inside game worlds. If you played Anarchy Online or Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, you may remember seeing ads for soda pops, movies, and more while running around in the world. Microsoft looks to cough up mere pocket change — between $200 to $400 million for the company. Rumor has it that they will use ads in games to make money, and possibly make Xbox Live free.
Whatever the case may be, look for a massive push for ads in your games.
Prey has been pushed back from early June to sometimes in July.
As expected, the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter demo (532MB) for the PC is now available for download, allowing you to try out GRIN’s tactical first-person shooter. The demo includes two singleplayer levels and can be played across a LAN in coop mode. Here are some mirrors:
April 25th, 2006
IGN.PC has the new official trailer for the racing game, FlatOut 2.
Gamespy has an extensive hands-on look at the upcoming MMORPG, Age of Conan. Developed by Funcom, the company behind the MMORPG Anarchy Online and the critically acclaimed adventure games, The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, Age of Conan promises to deliver some unique fun in the busy MMORPG genre.
Age of Conan is really a single-player game, that once you beat it, you can go online and continue using your character in a MMO-type world. It’s an interesting concept that sounds like it’ll work well. The game is due out around the Christmas holiday season this year.
One of the unique features of Age of Conan is that the game begins with what may be one of the best tutorial sequences ever — a full-blown single player game. Indeed, Funcom fully expects that many of those who purchase the game will never enter the online space once their character reaches level 20 and finishes the single-player adventure. For those who do, however, they will find that entering the MMO at level 20 is significantly different than starting a new character at level one. “We don’t want players fighting rats,” Godager said. “Players will enter the online world as characters of significant power and experience who already have a history of great accomplishments behind them.
NCSoft unveils a new online game in the works, called Soccer Fury, which combines 3-on-3 arcade soccer (football for you non-Americans) with kung fu fighting. The game will be part of a new series of games that comprises of the NCSoft gaming portal.
Under the tagline of “No rules. No limits. No mercy.”, the game seeks to allow aspiring Diego Maradonnas/Chuck Norrises to “tap into a devastating arsenal of martial arts, trick moves and team tactics as you power your way up the field and tear down the opposition in epic online pitched battles.”
According to Xavier Carrillo Costa, CEO, Executive Producer and Founder of Digital Legends, the company was very pleased to be working with NCSoft and that Soccer Fury would represent a “key element of PlayNC’s online games portfolio - integrating soccer, fighting and character evolution to appeal to a large audience.”
Wired.com is infatuated with Lara Croft, and they let us know why she’s back in our hearts again. It doesn’t have to do with her looks, but how men identify with her now. Beware, psychoanalyzing babble inside (although it does raise some good points.)
I beg to differ. I think young boy gamers loved Lara for reasons that were considerably stranger. They weren’t just ogling her: They were identifying with her. Playing the role of a hot, sexy woman in peril — surrounded by violence on all sides — was, unexpectedly, a totally electric experience for young guys.
I am not merely pulling this argument out of my butt. I’m basing it on a famous piece of film theory: the “Final Girl” concept of slasher movies.
Recent Comments