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Archived News:
Steam News announces the
promised release of CONSORTIUM, the
Kickstarted first-person shooter inspired by Cavedog's
cancelled shooter Amen: The Awakening. Here's word on the game, which
is 10% off for the first week: Taking place entirely aboard a massive
futuristic aircraft, CONSORTIUM is a first person science-fiction role-playing
experience unlike any other. The story begins in our world - the "real world" -
where we here at Interdimensional Games have developed a satellite (iDGi-1)
capable of opening a digital rift through time and space...
Anyone with an internet connection can travel through this rift and awaken
within an alternate dimension from our own - the "game world" - in the year
2042.
Though it doesn't seem to be on the
Official Ubisoft Online Store, the Illustrious Pirates DLC pack is
now available for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, bundling all the
various preorder incentives for the stealth/action sequel in a single pack. The
Ubisoft blog has all the details on what's included, adding that this is
free for Season's Pass holders. The pack is available on
GamersGate,
GameStop PC Downloads, and
Steam.
A post on GOG.com
celebrates the fifth anniversary of the launch of this DRM-free online
marketplace. They offer a
first 5 years video and the following explanation: The beginning of a
new year is a good time to stop for a moment and take look back on your past.
You take note of your accomplishments, try to learn from your mistakes, and you
get all nostalgic about the days gone by. You know we're big on nostalgia,
right? With 5 very successful years in the digital gaming market, we thought
we'd chat about the company's history a little. We invite you to join CD
Projekt's Marcin Iwiński, Guillaume Rambourg, our Managing Director, and Piotr
Karwowski, our Creative Director (both of them core members of the GOG.com team
who were with us for years), as they talk about the company's history, the
concept behind it, and the best (and one not very good) ideas in our
history.
Continue here to read the full story.
A video developer diary
is online for Alien: Isolation, featuring some of the staff at the
Creative Assembly discussing the newly unveiled Alien survival/horror game.
Topics include the reasons for undertaking this project, their efforts at
getting the story right, the isolated and vulnerable state of the player, the
influence of the original movie on their art direction, and more. Thanks
Joystiq. Continue here to read the full story.
The
Infinite Crisis website announces Atomic Poison Ivy as another of the
champions in Infinite Crisis, the DC Comics-based MOBA that's currently
in beta. They offer details about the character, illustrated by screenshots and
this trailer showing
API in action. Word is: "In Gotham Heights, Atomic Poison Ivy's slower move
speed makes it difficult to roam freely. Consider using her alongside allies to
defend held Control Points before attempting to capture new points. Her strong
crowd control and support skills can hinder enemies, slowing their escape or
chase and helping to sway team fights in your favor." Continue here to read the full story.
- Battlepaths - Undead Legions Bundle on
GamersGate. Save 64%.
- The Choices 2013 Bundle on
Indie Royale.
- Cold War on
Steam. Save 25%.
- Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves on
GOG.com.
Save 66%.
- The Testament of Sherlock Holmes on
Steam. Save 75%.
I've been meaning to get the evening updates posted earlier than I had been,
though this is a bit sooner than planned. Still, it's a step in the right
direction.
AMD's CES 2014 Press
Conference Webcast Replay is online, letting us play fly-on-the-wall for
their presentation at the show. At
this point in the
presentation they discuss their upcoming
Mantle API, claiming for the record that they've seen an up to 45% framerate
increase in Battlefield 4 using the same hardware under the new API. They
offer a little BF4 gameplay footage to show this off, but there is no footage
not using Mantle for comparison (oddly, the tidbit they show had two visible
full-stop hitches). They brag that Mantle development is booming, with three
engines working on integration at five developers, encompassing 20+ games. The
patch to enable Mantle support in BF4 is expected
sometime this month. Thanks
PCGamesN.
The EA Hackathon 2014 website is back
online, offering a Code Wars competition for small teams to compete to develop
winning apps and games in a limited time frame (thanks
GameInformer). The contest launched late last year, but
was pulled after
concerns emerged that the rules gave EA too
much license to use the entries commercially. This time around the
EA Hackathon 2014 Rules and
FAQ works to quell such fears: Q: Does EA get to keep my code or
idea?
A: No – what you create is all yours, you own it. We have no intention or desire
to use your submission for our business and we are not even keeping copies of
the submissions after the event. However, due to the nature of the business
environment we operate in, we have to take measures to avoid potential future
conflicts for any user generated content created at our events. To address this,
we ask that participants grant us a nonexclusive license as a measure of
protection.
We know that there was some confusion and frustration around this policy when we
first announced the event and we understand. We would assure everyone interested
in participating that we have no intention to proactively use these measures or
make money from your ideas. The measures are simply there for our protection.
The purpose and goal of Code Wars is simple: to create a fun environment, foster
new ideas, and meet new talent to potentially join the EA team.
A post on NeoGAF
has a screenshot of a Steam statistics screen that seems to have gone a little
haywire, showing stats for games with as few as one player. This reveals a few
unfamiliar games, including Killing Floor 2, as no follow-up to
Tripwire's first-person shooter has been announced. There are also listings for
Half-Minute Hero 2, a port of mobile fighting game Batman Arkham
Origins: Blackgate, and more. There is only the single screenshot to support
this, however, so some skepticism is probably in order. Thanks
PCGamesN.
John Carmack is developing games for Oculus VR headsets, reports
Engadget based on a conversation with Oculus Rift's Brendan Iribe and Aaron
Davies. Carmack joined Oculus Rift as their CTO last year while maintaining ties
to id Software, the developer he co-founded a couple of decades ago, but it
seemed his game development days were at an end when
he later departed id before this
news that the itch remains. "He's working on a lot of exciting tech," Iribe
tells them. "But, his heart and soul and history certainly lies in the
game-development side." Iribe compares this to how Epic Games supports the
Unreal Engine with internal development. "That's always been Epic's philosophy.
And it's what allowed them to make what they made," he explains. "It's certainly
been id's philosophy in the past. It's been John Carmack's philosophy -- you
gotta eat your own dog food here, and develop internal content also." He wraps
up by telling them they will be hiring more game developers in the next six to
12 months to support their plans. Thanks
CVG.
Dutch developer Two Tribes
announces that during the last two months of 2013 their office has been
mostly empty, and that the "old Two Tribes, founded in 2001, doesn’t exist
anymore and we had to send everyone home." They explain that their transition to
indie developer was difficult, and that delays and weaker-than-expected sales of
Toki Tori 2 "basically took the company down." This all said, they
announce they are rebooting: For the outside world nothing much will
change. Two Tribes Publishing is still in good shape and all our previous games
will remain for sale. With the support of you, our players, the games will
supply the funding for our new titles which will be released under the Two
Tribes name.
We’ve got a ton of hindsight to work with and we’re going to be applying the
lessons we learned to the new Two Tribes. Behind the scenes things will change
quite a bit. We’ve decided to move away from creating custom technology and
focus on what’s readily available. As a result we’ll be working with a much
smaller team on our next game, a 2D side scrolling shooter, which will be
re-using the existing Toki Tori 2+ engine.
Our focus will be on the design of our games, which we plan on making more of in
less time than before.
Respawn Entertainment's Vince Zampella
tweets
about multiplayer support in Respawn, saying their upcoming mech game
will support six-on-six multiplayer games, saying limiting this to 12 players is
best for game balance: "6v6 is max player count. Turned out to be the best
balance with ai for us,"
then
clarifying "that's humans only count. There are lots of ai, everyone can
have a Titan in follow or guard mode too." He follows with some responses to the
reaction this inspired, saying " we
had it higher at points in testing, this felt best," and " a
6v6 game can be a crazy experience, very fun." Thanks
Destructoid via
Beyond
Entertainment, where they note a
post
from a Respawn employee about this on NeoGAF, and here's part of
that: And FYI, for amount of stuff happening at once in a map you'll be
hard pressed to find a game that keeps the action higher. I literally have to
stop playing every few rounds because my heart just can't take it some times.
Remember, you can get out of your Titan and let it roam on AI mode - meaning
there can be 12 Pilots wallrunning around, 12 Titans stomping below, and dozens
of AI doing their thing.
Oh, and I keep seeing people thinking we've got "bots" when we talk about AI.
Thats not how they are. The AI in Titanfall are not replacements for human
players. Our playercount is not 6v6 because of AI - AI play their own role in
the game and are a different class of character in the game.
The
Farm 51 website has more details on Get Even, the
recently announced first-person shooter from
the Painkiller Hell & Damnation and Deadfall Adventures developer,
explaining the game "blurs the lines between single and multiplayer." Meanwhile,
the game's Facebook page offers a new
what is real teaser trailer
showing off the game's graphics, saying "To create the photo-realistic visuals
that bring the gritty universe to life, Get Even is the first game to use
large-scale, real-world scanning to create expansive and lifelike environments.
This 3D scanning technology combines with advanced lighting effects to create a
stunning and believable world that pushes the boundaries of the genre." Here's
more from the website update explaining that this strict sense of realism won't
necessarily apply to gameplay: Similarly, the team has worked to provide
advanced weaponry and technology that exceeds current capabilities but are not
beyond the realm of real-world application. For instance, weapons that fire
around corners play a large part in Get Even, allowing the user to shoot from a
safe position. These weapons can be linked with the player’s in-game smart phone
to not only add a sight functionality, but use apps to bolster attack options.
Corner-shot weapons are fully customizable throughout the game.
Continue here to read the full story.
SOF Studios
now offers a pre-alpha
build unveil trailer for H-Hour: World’s Elite, a new milestone for
this tactical third-person shooter designed by David Sears, Creative Director on
SOCOM 1 and 2. The trailer shows a prototype that some gamers will get to test
soon, and they are expecting a full release for Windows and PlayStation 4 next
January, saying: "The milestone for the turn of the New Year is releasing a
video of a pre-alpha (prototype) build of that demo they committed to deliver.
As they turn the corner into polishing and fine tuning the demo, some lucky
community members will be play testing the build. With a full game release date
of Jan 2015 on both PC and PS4 planned, they’re looking sharp." Continue here to read the full story.
Eugen Systems now offers a
teaser trailer from Wargame: Red Dragon, the next installment in the
Wargame series of real-time strategy games, saying they will be revealing more
about the project over the coming weeks with new screenshots and videos. Here's
a bit: The NATO and Pact armies and their allies finally deploy in Asia.
This first Red Dragon video gives us a taste of the strategic and pyrotechnical
delights in store for you in this new Wargame title, which takes place at the
start of a new major armed conflict. You can look forward to new factions, new
units and combat vehicles (for a total of over 1,300!) and, in particular, the
introduction of naval units: the landing craft, amphibian vehicles and warships
will thrill fans of complex strategies, who will now be able to include the
waterways as an integral part of their tactics!
Continue here to read the full story.
OS news The gaming press and Steam Machines. Thanks Ant.
The Xbox One and PS4 are sold not on what they offer now, but on
what they will offer in the future. I see absolutely no reason why
Steam Machines ought to be treated any differently.
Reality check: right now, spending $499 on a Steam Machine gets you access
to a lot more games and a lot more functionality than the Xbox One and PS4
offer combined. Of course, a Windows PC will offer even more games (not
functionality, Linux has that covered just fine) - but that applies just as
well to any console.
I want to take a moment to send out best birthday wishes to Frans, one of the
few times I've managed to do this on time over the years. I'd say happy
birthday, but that might be a stretch, as he is currently mourning a death in
the family, so I'll wish him peace and comfort for now, along with sincere
condolences for his loss.
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