What thoughts go through my mind after watching that?
- Great to have Hell March playing, a sign of Frank Klepacki to be involved in the game?
- Classic sounds from the GIs and other troops, reminds me of Red Alert 2…always good!
- Damn they really could do with having used a new engine for this. Looks good, but not great.
Pretty much it for my initial thoughts! October though…interesting!
So yesterday I had my last exam for my second year of university. Wahooo! I am now free from education until September or October, so plenty of time for blogging :D
I have ordered some new components to sort out my PC, they will be arriving next week. Expect some blogging on that next week!
Now to enjoy the FA Cup.
C’mon City!
Boogie Bunnies has been released on the PC and is avilable for $19.99 or you can try out the free trial.
The aim of the game is simple, match up three bunnies of the same colour to prevent some great evil falling upon them. Cute and fun this looks so get more information here.
Press Release after the jump and expect some thoughts from me next week after my last exam of this year of uni!
Burnout Paradise has been confirmed to come out on the PC. I report this while a massive thunderstorm kicks off outside…some bloody loud thunder!
Good news though for any PC gamers who enjoy racing games as the console hit will the PC sometime. Burnout Paradise offers all the classic Burnout crazy racing with a pretty open world city to race around in. Criterion promise that the game is being rebuilt specifically for the PC with a whole host of new multiplayer and online features. That thunder is still going!
Some might say I was calling for blood when I talked about the anti-piracy measures being implemented with Mass Effect and Spore, well now I can take back my outrage and let you all know about some good news.
EA have changed tact and the anti-piracy measures announced the other day are not going to be part of Spore and Mass Effect when they come out later this year. While both will still be using SecuROM and require an initial online activation the 10-day re-activation has been done away with.
Great news (with more infomation following) as it shows that EA have listened to the many complaints that were raised following the initial announcement and have changed tact to better cater to many users. Also this stops us feeling like we are being punished for legally buying games!
I read yesterday somewhere that Sony was giving up on the F1 licence as Bernie Ecclestone the F1 ringmaster was demanding too much money for it. I instantly hoped that Codemasters would pick it up. Codemasters are famed (by me) for their racing games with GRID soon to be their newest addition.
Now CVG reports that Codemasters have indeed picked up the F1 licence and, unlike Sony are intending to take the F1 franchise to all home consoles and the PC.
Previously Sony had kept their F1 games limited to Sony consoles, a move which greatly limited the potential for massive sales of a game based on such a popular sport.
Rod Cousens, Codemasters CEO told CVG the following:
“As a world-leading creator of driving games, this alliance with Formula 1 is the jewel in Codemasters’ racing crown and creates an undisputed segment champion.”
Expect more information to come out later this year with plans for a new F1 title to coincide with the 2009 season opener in Australia.
The NPD which tracks game sales in the US has revealed that US online gaming subscriptions top $1 billion a year. The findings were based on data gathered between October 2007 and March 2008 and the NPD also revealed that 11 million people in the US subscribe to online games each month.
NPD analyst Anita Frazier told GamesIndustry.biz the following.
“Now that NPD can estimate the value of the subscription market, it’s clear that there is a sizable chunk of revenue being generated by PC gaming beyond what is reflected in retail sales,”
“The variety of content available to play games on the PC clearly can draw a diverse audience.”
This shows that those people claiming that PC gaming is dying are short sighted individuals who cannot see the true potential of the PC as a gaming machine. $1 billion is not a figure to be scoffed at and is a clear example the the online gaming industry for the PC is a massive business.
What is Fyreball? from Mike McCain on Vimeo.
Fyreball is a new place on the web that provides you with an easy to use platform to share hot links, videos and whatever else you want, be it with your friends or with everyone. Still in beta right now so it may not be perfect.
A recent posting on id Software confirms that Doom 4 has entered production. Do we thus expect to see another Mars based, dark corridor set, zombie filled Doom 3, or a full throttle fun Doom the Original? Who knows!
“DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. “It’s critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles.”
Expect this to be the only bit of news for some months on Doom 4.
Last week I talked about Dark Rock Games with Adam Griffiths.
Adam brought my attention to Dear Esther, a Half-Life 2 mod that Dark Rock was called in to work on by Dan Pinchbeck.
Dear Esther is now available here along with a movie here.
Dear Esther puts traditional game technologies to innovative new use. Rather than a story told through the medium of games; a 3D environment has been constructed to disperse a story throughout. The user navigates the environment, triggering audio fragments of a narrative which, together with visual clues and codes embedded in the world, build to create a story which is inherently constructed around the innate slippage of meaning and fragmentary nature of interactive experiences. It is a fusion of original text, music and world within an existing media framework.
Reading more information on Dear Esther is really quite interesting, I just wish my PC was working so I could check it out. I recommend you go out and give this a whirl and see what it is all about.