The
Spore Community Website
now offers downloads of ParticleMan, one of the simple, playable prototypes
they've built to test subsystems they are incorporating into
Spore, EA
Maxis' upcoming evolution simulation (thanks Mike Martinez) and
Kotaku).
Word is: "ParticleMan simulates gravitational attraction between particles in a
cloud. This system was used to study such gravitational dynamics as orbits,
nebula formation, star formation and particle streams from sources like pulsars
and black holes."
The
Demigod Website features an admittedly "tentative" release schedule for
Demigod, Gas Powered
Games' upcoming action/strategy game (thanks
Gamer's Hell). According to distributor
Stardock, the first beta will begin next month for preorder customers, though
this is an engine stress test, and not a "fun" beta. Beta 2 is set to follow in
October, again less focused on fun, as this will be to elicit player feedback.
Beta 3 will follow in December, and while they don't comment on its fun-factor,
it will presumably be present (or one has to worry the game will have no fun
either), but this may be a public test. After that they plan on testing release
candidates in January and hope to release the game in February. They conclude
with the following:
We do plan for the game to be available at stores
roughly the same time in North America, Europe, Russia, and Australia/NZ at the
very least.
Users who are part of the beta will be getting something special but I am not at
liberty to talk about it yet.
The
Project Origin Website is
now showing off the
E3
trailer for Monolith's upcoming F.E.A.R. sequel, warning is to "Fear Alma
Again." Word is: ""The E3 Trailer pulls the curtain on all-new footage
showcasing the latest weapons, deadliest enemies and bone-chilling locations
from the world of Project Origin. Players will find themselves thrust in a
near-future cityscape filled with unknown horrors, high-tech combat and the
supernatural. Face tense and highly kinetic combat against enemy forces and
unknown paranormal forces in a desperate struggle to stop Alma, a girl with
immense power and a thirst for revenge." It seems you've got a date with
destiny. And it looks like she's ordered the lobster.
GameTrailers now
offers the promised
Dragon Age: Origins Trailer. If you were expecting a
payoff on the hype preceding this first look at BioWare's upcoming RPG, you may
be let down, as the trailer offers less than a minute of all cinematic footage.
id Software's John
Carmack and Marty Stratton Talk Quake Live, PC Gaming, and More on Shacknews
offers a Q&A with id Software. Topics include the accessibility being built into
Quake Live (or QUAKE LIVE, as the case may unfortunately be), Carmack's
regrets that id "didn't have the manpower to do something that would be what we
would consider our best foot forward" for the new iPhone (wtf?),
Rage,
community support, and more. Of particular interest are Mr. Carmack's reflections on a changing landscape for PC gaming:
Yeah, I think that the PC definitely
can't.. we can't go on making PC games like we used to. The combination of the
dominance of the consoles, as far as market forces there, and piracy.. the
traditional AAA, media-heavy boxed game that sells for a bunch of money, and
goes out on the PC for a single player experience--it's just not happening. Even
if we look at something that had such a push like Crysis, it didn't really do
all that well.
While at id Software we're still certainly doing those types of AAA titles on
[the PC platform], we have to look at it from a cross-platform product
perspective on there, rather than being PC-focused like we used to be. I mean,
all the way up to our last major title, which was Doom 3, we were a PC company.
We made PC games, and we gave some thought to how they might be deployed on
consoles, but that wasn't what we were fundamentally doing. And that has changed
with this generation.
But still, there are some things that the PC does fundamentally better than the
console. I mean, the internet interaction, as far as displaying and navigating
large amounts of information on a website--while you have web browsers on
consoles, they suck, you know, they're just not good. It's not like what you've
got on the PC.
And from a first person shooter perspective, the keyboard/mouse interface is
still just a lot better than a console interface. It's a much more direct
position vs. integrating over time.. it's just plain better, and that's one of
the things we want to cater to.
So there are strengths that the PC has, and we think Quake Live is very much
playing to them. While given infinite resources, yeah, it'd be great to go ahead
and do another technology showcase on the PC, because you've got a couple times
the power in a modern high-end system than you do in a current generation
console.
But it's just not feasible for us as a company to continue taking that route. So
we are branching out into some different areas and diversifying a little bit,
where we've got our id Tech 5, cross-platform, high-end stuff that we are
pushing, and we've also got Quake Live and our mobile products.
So E3 is tomorrow... hope you have your sandbags filled!
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