Archived News:
Eurogamer
has a quote from Epic's Mark Rein revealing plans for a "major expansion" for
Unreal Tournament 3, though details are scant. Here's what he says: "In
fact, we're working together on a major expansion to Unreal Tournament 3, that
we expect will excite and grow our UT3 customer base which, incidentally, now
numbers over a million units sold-through world-wide."
E3 Returning To Past Size And Spectacle In 2009 on G4 reports that the 2009
edition of the Electronics Entertainment Expo will go back to its excessive
roots, ending the low key approach that has reduced the influence of the trade
show. Word is the event is scheduled for June 2-4 in the Los Angeles Convention
Center, and while it's not "technically" open to the public, the vetting process
will be far less rigorous, implying folks will be able to gain entrance if they
are sufficiently motivated, another hallmark of the old days of the E3. More
details are expected with an official announcement from the ESA tomorrow.
VideoGamer.com is posting a Call of Duty: World at War Q&A tomorrow, and in the
meantime are highlighting a couple of informational bits from their conversation
with Treyarch's Noah Heller.
In this bit he
says the game's multiplayer is "much better" than that of Call of Duty 4: Modern
Warfare. They also have
this portion,
which discusses plans for post-release downloadable content, which Noah says
will offer "a few surprises," and he goes on to comment about possible
additional co-op missions: "I can't confirm anything we might do, but the idea
of adding new online co-op missions is definitely something that's been
discussed a lot. And if co-op proves to be very popular then I'm sure the demand
will be very high for it."
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
The
interview with PCGA president Randy Stude on VideoGamer.com offer the full
conversation that spawned Stude's criticism of LucasArts mentioned yesterday
( story). Along the way, Randy offers further perspective on the
hot topic of piracy, ripped, as it were from today's headlines
( story), saying: "If you're taking a release date mentality, OK
I'm putting anti-piracy protections that are pretty strong on console, pretty
strong but not fool proof, and I'm waiting till the day I ship this thing off to
the post-production house to put anti-piracy on say like a Fallout 3 or last
year Hellgate London had an infamous piracy issue, if your product is not
protected all of the way through production, you're going to be faced with the
scenario where some guy sitting at the duplicator house, this is where all the
piracy starts, the guy sitting at the duplicator house, back doors the code to a
buddy or flat out sells it to make money off a torrent rip of the game, that's
where the problem is."
PC Gaming
Alliance's Stude On The 'Urgent Imperative' Of Piracy on Gamasutra has
further comments from Stude on the topic.
Voodoo Extreme has word on plans for open beta testing of Call of Duty:
World At War, the military shooter sequel in the works at Treyarch. The test
will be open to all who register via the
Call of Duty Headquarters, as word is: "You will be required to enter a CD
Key for the BETA, much like you will when you get the full game this November.
These PC keys will be available to all registered users of CallOfDuty.com,
including any new users who sign up after the PC BETA releases. These keys
aren't intended to limit the BETA to a certain number of players; they are here
to allow you to create these unique profile names for our Friends and Invites
features." Users will be able to host dedicated servers for the beta, which will
test the game as well as "Friends and Invites" features, which they point out
"are typically console staples."
Hotfixes for Far Cry 2 are now available to offer performance
improvements for owners of ATI accelerators, a couple of days in advance of the
release of Ubisoft's first-person shooter sequel. There is a hotfix for Windows
Vista on AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell; and a hotfix for Windows XP on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell. Meanwhile,
PCGH has benchmarks and performance analysis for the hotfixes. Meanwhile,
Console
Monster reports that HMV is offering four bonus missions for those who
reorder the game from HMV in the UK. Thanks Mike Martinez.
Eurogamer
follows up on news that two of the classes cut from the design for Warhammer
Online before the release of the MMORPG will be added in a future update
( story). They have news that one of the Dwarf Hammerer and
Greenskin Choppa, the other two classes that were axed, will not be restored as
planned ( story). Mark Jacobs says: "I can't tell you which yet,
that's a surprise. We're probably going to be replacing one and putting in
another class in its place. But we'll be talking about that in a few months."
The bottom line is that they will be adding four classes to the game in the
future, just not necessarily the four people are expecting.
Left 4 Dead Interview
on [OC]ModShop talks with Valve's Chet Faliszek about Left 4 Dead, the coop
shooter that's currently approaching retail with the relentlessness of a zombie
hoard (which is pretty quick in this case, as Chet points out: "We had used fast
zombies in Half-life 2 and like the intensity they brought to that game. They
just seemed a perfect fit for the high intensity action we wanted in Left 4
Dead."). Topics include the game's AI, their classless approach to character
classes, locales., weapons, and more.
The
Battlestations: Pacific Q&A on Boomtown talks with Botond Szalacsi, lead
designer on the upcoming sequel to Battlestations: Midway, Eidos'
action/strategy game: "Players can find huge troopships and landing ships in
their arsenal and these ships behave pretty much like other ships in the game.
The only exception is that if they are close to an island or a location which
can be captured, players can give orders to launch a landing operation with a
single button press. Then, smaller landing boats will be released and they try
to capture the island itself. It’s advised to provide fire support for your
marines with naval or aerial forces – destroying bunkers and other defences on
the islands will make the life much easier for your landing troops."
Drakensang Interview- From Fable to Fallout on bit-tech.net discusses the
upcoming European release of this party-based RPG. One interesting question is
about expectations for territories where The Dark Eye German pen-and-paper
role-playing system is not well known: "Well, when we started making the game we
wanted it to be able to stand on its own because we know that The Dark Eye RPG
system the game is based on is only really well known in Germany. On the other
hand, there have been other games based on it like The Realms of Arkania series
which were published in nineties and were very successful internationally. They
won all sorts of ‘Best RPG’ awards. So, Drakensang is made to stand on its own
and you don’t really need to know anything about the background or RPG or lore.
All that you need to know is already in the game – if you like fantasy RPGs then
you’ll enjoy it."
- Banish land is a
browser-based MMORPG that's now entering open beta testing…
- Dragon Tavern, a web-based
persistent-world game that launched several months ago, has upgraded
servers, and incorporated several recent game enhancements…
Congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays on making the World Series. I can remember how
dismissive the "experts" were about the team's success earlier in the season, so
I guess some words are being eaten right now. Anyway, for a team that lost 90+ games
last year to win the pennant with the second lowest payroll in baseball is
pretty damned impressive.
R.I.P.:
Hollywood fashion maven Mr. Blackwell dies.
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