It seems a new day may soon dawn for Atari's
Neverwinter series of
Dungeons & Dragons games, as
superannuation expands upon a
Gen Con 2010: D&D New Products Seminar article on Critical Hits with a cryptic mention saying: "Atari has an announcement coming about some kind of D&D video game but they couldn’t talk about it here." They offer a bunch of domains they've sleuthed out that likely relate to this, which are
visitneverwinter.com,
neverwinter-game.com,
neverwintergame.com,
play-neverwinter.com,
playneverwinter.com,
save-neverwinter.com, and
saveneverwinter.com.
Candella Software Ltd and Saga Wonderworks announce
Cargasm, an upcoming arcade game about the joys of motorsports, where presumably every race has a happy ending. No release date is offered at this time, but Cargasm is in development for Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii and iPhone, boasting a number of planned social networking features. They also promise "meticulously recreated photorealistic real-world locations," saying settings will include San Francisco, London, Yosemite National Park, Egypt, Switzerland, and Mount Kilmanjaro, adding that the "central London levels in Cargasm are the most photorealistic in the history of videogames." And in case you were worried the slightly lurid name is misdirection, they say the game will also feature a "Cargasm Harem," which are basically female trophies, and that there are other trophies with lusty names as well: "The trophies that can be won include Cargasm Rave, Thrust, Lesbos, Orgy, Gigolo, Lothario, Playboy and the most coveted of all, Cargasm Sultan." The game has an online home at
Lovegasm.com, where there are some details on game features and some screenshots, while this
batch of screenshots have a couple that aren't on the site.
Whatisicarus.com is where to expect the upcoming CGI trailer from Irrational's next project. The trailer was
already promised for August 12, and now the teaser site narrows this to August 12 at 1:45 pm EST (which should be EDT). Thanks
Big Download.
Massively has dug up a
German-language article on
Star Wars: The Old Republic that's said to be based on an upcoming print article in
PC Action magazine. The article offers indications that space combat in the upcoming MMORPG will be on rails, saying: "Der Raumkampf ähnelt auf dem ersten Blick dem 1993 erschienenen Rebel Aussault. Man fliegt einen vordefinierten Pfad ab und knallt Gegner ab. Diese Spielweise nennt sich Tunnel-Shooter." Google helps us translate: "The space combat is similar at first glance appeared the 1993 Rebel Assault. You fly from a predefined path and slams from opponents. This way of playing is called tunnel-shooter."
High Voltage Software has laid-off 25 employees, reports
Joystiq. They follow up on their initial report that was based on information from a "trusted source" with a confirmation from High Voltage. Word is the remaining staff are working on a
Conduit sequel, and there's an implication the staff cuts were the result of disappointment in
Tournament of Legends. Thanks
Big Download.
The 26th
Chris Taylor's Kings and Castles Video Blog is now online, Chris discusses "the slow and complex process" of making video games as he further slows and complicates things with his video blogging. This time out we meet some members of the team, and learns about troop flow, herding cats, and receptioning.
Here's Valve's list of the ten bestselling titles on
Steam for the past week:
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- Worms Reloaded
- Gratuitous Space Battles Collector's Edition
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Pack
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Just Cause 2
- Counter-Strike: Source
- Alien Breed: Impact
- Left 4 Dead 2
- SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
A new Direct3D 10 renderer for Unreal 1-engine games like Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, and RUNE is now available on
kentie.net, where they say it "requires Windows Vista or later; it works fine on DirectX 11 systems." Word is this project "aims to provide a good, consistent looking and future proof renderer for these games. The focus is not on fancy effects; the idea is to have something that will allow these games to perform well and look good on modern systems, something which I can support and bugfix." There is another similar project that precedes this with an
enhanced OpenGL renderer for Unreal Tournament. Thanks
BeyondUnreal.
CNN.com - What does 'video game' mean, anyway? Thanks scorcese.fan.
From plummeting sales to a shift to social networks, critics love to endlessly debate what ails the gaming business. But ironically, the biggest problem of all may be that there is no singular "games industry" to speak of anymore, and that the term "video game" itself is hopelessly outdated.
I just don't know what to say about this:
Isiah Thomas Returns to Knicks as a Consultant. Sometimes I think this team is just trying to kill me.