Archived News:

Monday, Jun 18, 2007

EA Reorganizes

EA to Organize Under Four Labels: EA Sports, EA Games, EA Casual Entertainment and The Sims (thanks FiringSquad) has word on a reorganization by the world's biggest computer and video game company. Yes, The Sims is an entire division, in fact, according to this report (thanks Next Generation), it was The Sims that got this whole concept rolling:
The changes were based on the success of a pilot program that placed games based on "The Sims" franchise into their own unit, EA said.

"We ran an organizational experiment and it was pretty damn successful. The Sims grew aggressively," Gibeau said.

QUAKE 4 Patch

The id Software Website now offers a new patch for QUAKE 4, updating the shooter sequel to version 1.4.2. The patch, referred to as a point release, is available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh, and is described fully in the read me. Word is: "This update includes a host of features added during the 1.4 beta program, such as: refined hitboxes, optimized sound and network code, configurable fps caps, weapon balancing, server direct autodownloading, addonpak fixes and Q4TV to name only a few. The majority of our additions have been included thanks to direct community feedback and beta participation. We hope everyone enjoys the new content, features and fixes!"

RACE Expansion Free on Steam

Steam News announces that the new Catherham expansion for RACE – The WTCC Game will be freely available via Steam for the next week. From today through June 22 the add-on for SimBin's racing game is free, after which it will be sold for $4.95, or for $24.95 bundled along with the game. Here's word on the expansion:
Celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Caterham Cars Ltd, players now have the opportunity to expand their WTCC Experience and race these exceptional classic sportscars. RACE: CATERHAM introduces a total of 60 individual new cars/car skins based on some of the most exciting models of the Caterham sports car range, including the Caterham CSR 200, CSR 260 or the CSR 320 Concept, a concept version with a grueling 320hp. Racers can run the cars on two exciting new tracks: the legendary circuit of Imola and the former GP-track of Estoril.

Euro Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Patch

A new patch for Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Patch updates European editions of the RTS game to version 1.72. Details on what's new and different can be found in the patch notes. The patch to update version 1.3 is available on FileNuts and The Patches Scrolls, while the patch to update any prior version can be found on FileNuts and The Patches Scrolls.

Darwinia Vista Patch

The Darwinia Support Section now offers downloads of a new patch for Introversion's virtual themepark, though the version 1.5.11 patch is intended for Windows Vista users only. WinXP, Linux, and Mac users looking for support are directed to the previously released version 1.42 patch (story). The patch is mirrored on FileFront, Gamer's Hell, and The Patches Scrolls.

The Witcher Website

ATARI announces The Witcher Official Website is live, which (witch?) it actually has been for over four years now (story). The site has been redesigned, however, offering information and media from CD Projekt's upcoming action/RPG, as well as more noisy Flash than you can shake a stick at. Updates are promised for the future that will add new videos, music, and more.

Transformers Movie

The introductory trailer for Transformers: The Game is now available, offering a movie from the game based on a movie based on a cartoon series. Word is: "This cinematic was done by Academy Award nominated effects house, Blur, who also did all the cinematics for games like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance." The clip is available in two resolutions, downloads of one or both are available on 3D Downloads, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.

Evening Q&As

  • Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
    The Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Q&A on Computer and Video Games talks with Grant Collier of Infinity Ward about the upcoming continuation of their military shooter series: "I think a lot of people in the past have knocked us, like 'Oh my gosh it's scripted, it's scripted'. Every cut-scene that you've ever seen, they are always scripted. There's not a single cut-scene that you'll see that isn't scripted. And we allow the player to play through these cut-scenes. So I think it's unfair for people to knock us for that because we give them an added benefit where we don't stop the screen, we don't pull you out of the immersion. We're creating a really immersive, entertaining product where we actually give the player the ability to move through and follow storyline. If we got rid of all that, that would be like getting 'What would we do to add cut-scenes back in?' Which is something we don't want to do."
  • The Agency
    Joystiq interviews Hal Milton, lead designer, The Agency is a conversation about the upcoming espionage game: "As you advance in the game you'll gain the ability to recruit Operatives that you can use to provide goods, services, and some much needed abilities in the field. Long-term assignments are all carried out in real time, whether or not you're logged in. These include R&D on weapons or gadgets, or deep cover intel gathering to generate new missions for you. Operatives, as a system, is something I can't wait to talk about in greater detail, but suffice to say that you'll collect, grow, trade, share, and be surprised by the interactions Operatives will have over time with you, your other Operatives, and even other players."
  • BlackSite: Area 51
    The Blacksite Q&A on Computer and Video Games discusses BlackSite: Area 51 with Ricardo Bare: "I think it's pretty important. I think a strong multiplayer component enhances the longevity of the game; it keeps people playing after they've completed the single-player campaign. Some people are multiplayer-only fanatics. They get the game and they don't even touch the single-player campaign. I know people who got Gears of War and didn't even touch the single-player campaign. So I think it's pretty important. We're going to ship with a few competitive multiplayer types; the standard deathmatch, capture the flag; that kind of thing. Then we're going to have a few game modes that are inspired from Area 51 like Infection and stuff like that."
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
    The Making of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., part two on Computer and Video Games continues this postmortem discussion of GSC Game World's shooter: "To let you know, we have already released the MP SDK and now work on SP SDK. We do a lot to improve the MP part, such as optimising the traffic, remote control function, anti-cheating... We're preparing a big update with a new game mode - Freeplay, with no story tasks, including only the A-life driven ones, and where the goal is to gain ranks, climb up in rankings, so as to become the best s.t.a.l.k.e.r. in the Zone."
  • Shadowgrounds Survivor
    The Shadowgrounds Survivor Q&A on FiringSquad talks with Joel Kinnunen of Frozenbyte about their upcoming Shadowgrounds follow-up: "The perspective will be kept the same. It works, so there's no reason to mess with it. We're of course doing some small tweaks to the camera based on the feedback we got from the first Shadowgrounds, but overall it will be very similar. New graphics will include a higher overall quality all around, new effects of course, even better lighting and new shader effects thanks to some improvements to the engine. I'd also like to mention that the game will have physics. We'll be announcing more details on that later, but we've already integrated physics into the game engine and it works perfectly. It adds a lot to the overall atmosphere and mayhem!"
  • Fallen Earth
    The Fallen Earth Q&A on WarCry talks with Chris Gardner about the MMO middleware Icarus Studios created for Fallen Earth: "It depends. A seasoned studio may have all of the expertise it needs in-house and as such may only want to license our platform and tools for its use. Other customers want to not only use our platform, but they also want our studio to deliver the project. Most of the time, we partner with our customers, providing the platform and at least some other resources as needed. We also have a large asset library that we let our customers use that can really speed their time to market."

Evening Previews

Evening Screenshots

etc., etc.

Earth No More Announced

3D Realms announces Earth No More, an upcoming cross-platform game that will be revealed in the July 2007 issue of Game Informer Magazine appearing in subscribers mailboxes today and on newsstands later this week. Earth No More is in the works at Recoil Games, founded by Samuli Syvahuoko formerly of Remedy, and the announcement says the game is due in 2009, oddly deferring to the magazine for this tidbit ("slated for 2009 according to the article"). The magazine piece will offer an interview and screenshots (as well as a new Duke Nukem Forever shot), but the story online is scant on details like genre, offering the following bits of tid:
"The development team is specifically moving away from what they call the 'lone hero,' while also avoiding a squad-based direction." "'We're going to design almost every weapon in the game to where it's going to have a sort of collaborative mode to it,' says Miller. One gun called the Linker works like a reverse proton pack from Ghostbusters."

"The good guys aren't the only ones who can team up, however. Enemies are being designed to complement each other's skills as well."

"The team is intricately analyzing how group dynamics work in movies like the Alien, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and 28 Days Later, hoping to emulate that kind of tension in game form."
3D Realms concludes their story on this promising another big announcement (unrelated to DNF) soon.

Armed Assault to Expand

505 Games, Bohemia Interactive Studios, and Black Element Software announce ArmA: Queen’s Gambit, an upcoming expansion for ArmA: Armed Assault (A.K.A. Combat Operations), due in the third quarter of this year. Word is the add-on will offer a pair of new campaigns, and the release also makes mention of the version 1.08 patch (story) that allows the European and North American editions of the game to compete on the same battlefield:
505 Games is proud to announce the official expansion pack for its critically acclaimed title ArmA: Armed Assault - considered the most realistic tactical combat simulation ever made - entitled ArmA: Queen’s Gambit. The ultimate test of human war skills has reached its climax!

Key Elements

- Two new story based campaigns

· Rahmadi Conflict: The true conclusion to the original ArmA story, with enormous battles taking place within massive fortifications on the Rahmadi Island and brand new Porto Island.

· Royal Flush: 18 months after the original conflict, a group of seasoned mercenaries arrives to help the government with a sensitive matter that the army can‘t handle by itself any longer. However, there is something highly suspect about this job…

- New Multiplayer Missions

· Urban Raid: A cooperative multiplayer scenario designed for a group of six battle-hardened Special Forces soldiers.

· Battle of Porto: A “capture and hold” scenario for forty players on a brand new and beautiful sandy island of Porto.

- Final patch 1.08

The latest patch brings to the ArmA world new weapons, vehicles and characters, along with a new resource management feature and gun dealers. It also brings dozens of multiplayer and technical improvements, which finally enables North American players fight on the same battlefields as the International community.

New Piranha Bytes Game Planned

GamesIndustry.biz reports that Piranha Bytes and publisher Deep Silver have "settled their differences" (though we thought those differences were with JoWooD), and the developer and publisher are collaborating on a new project. The new Gothic game in the works at a new developer (story) still seems to be a sore spot, as they quote a spokesperson as saying: "We aren't speaking about Gothic 4 at all, as it isn't a game that will be released by Piranha Bytes; we are speaking about a new project." They promise more details on the project in about a month.

Pro Evo 2008 Announced

Eurogamer has word on plans for Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, the next installment in Konami's football series. The noteworthy innovation for the update will be a new AI system, dubbed Teamvision. The game is expected this fall for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP, and DS.

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm Patch

A new patch for Starshatter: The Gathering Storm is now available, updating the space combat game to version 5.02. Among other things, the update adds support for the TrackIR controller. The download is available on FileFront, Gamer's Hell, and Strategy Informer.

Morning Q&As

  • Steve Polge
    The Steve Polge Q&A on PC Games Online (thanks BeyondUnreal) talks with the Epic programmer about his work: "The AI needs to understand the rules, strategy, and tactics of the game as well as a player of similar skill level would. It needs to have a knowledge model about the game world and game state that is similar in limitations to what a player would know. For FPS games, it's also very important for the AI to have a human-like aiming model, with the same kinds of strengths and weaknesses in hitting targets under various conditions that would affect a human player. These are three areas in which we believe we have made significant strides with UT3. "
  • Ultimate Baseball Online
    The Ultimate Baseball Online Q&A on GameInformer talks with Sean Mackay, community manager on the MMO baseball game: "The UBO leveling system is associated with any positive (or negative) action in the game. If you hit a homerun, strike an opponent out, or catch a fly ball - you earn what we call Experience Points. When enough Experience Points are earned, you level up. Each time you level up, you are allowed to enhance your character's athletic ability with 3 Parameter Points and enhance a specific baseball skill (hot hitting zones, more break on a curveball, etc) with 1 Skill Point. There are 99 Levels in UBO, so there is plenty of variation between players."
  • 9Dragons
    A 9Dragons Post-Launch Q&A with Steven-Elliot Altman on TenTonHammer discusses the launch of this MMORPG: "Sure thing. Now that we’ve stabilized the game following the influx of new players and the mechanics that allow the game to generate income to sustain itself, we’ve turned our attention to creating new content. Two new maps have been created that dwarf anything players have already seen in-game, and they have just entered alpha test stage. Third level roles are being tested with all sorts of new Kung Fu for players to train and master. About 100 new quests are about to enter the game, and we’re developing new items for the Item Mall based on player demand. Yeah, I guess we’re keeping busy."

Morning Screenshots

Monday Game Reviews

Monday Hardware Reviews

Out of the Blue

We didn't go to Manhattan for MrsBlue's birthday dinner, but rather found a fascinating place in nearby Tarrytown set on a farm where they raise their own produce and livestock on the premises and specializes in local food. Even though we were in Westchester, we had another of our brushes with celebrity, albeit on a lower scale than out recent Woody Allen sighting or when we saw Benicio Del Toro a couple of years ago. This time out we spotted Ernie Anastos at a neighboring table, and while I'm not sure he'll be familiar in other parts of the US, much less other countries, he'd be immediately familiar to anyone from the greater New York area.

Star-struck Links! Thanks Ant.
Stories: Drug War Gets Dirtier as What You Flush Becomes Evidence.
'Buffy' Arrested on Assault Charges.
Science!: NASA looks at the next Great Wall of China.
Images: Green Games.
Media: Annie and Jar Jar Reunited.
Does size matter? Thanks Michael. Probably NSFW.
Conan's Embarrassment Fort.
Follow-up: Victim's dad can seek rights to O.J. Simpson's book.
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