Gaming - Page 1199

Game Developers Choice Awards were held, with big winners for Valve's Portal 2, and Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Skyrim walked away with non other than Game of the Year (GotY) award, which is quite the epic achievement.

Game of the Year had some serious competition, with Skyrim going up against Batman: Arkham City, Portal 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dark Souls. Portal 2 took home the most awards, with it winning Best Narrative, Best Game Design, and Best Audio. Battlefield 3 took out Best Technology, when when pitted against Crytek's CryENGINE 3-powered Crysis 2.

The event itself was hosted by Cliffy B, who you'll know from Epic Games. A full list of the nominees, and winners, is below. I've bolded the winners:

Battlefield 3 is set to receive some themed downloadable expansions, with the first one 'Close Quarters' arriving in June. The new expansions will feature new weapons, and vehicles that can be used across the entire game, as well as new multiplayer maps.

Console players are set to receive something quite new, with a rent-a-server programme, allowing them to run dedicated game servers that can be customized to their own rules and preferences, just like the PC players know and love. This is a first for any console shooter.

Close Quarters is as it sounds, focused on up-close-and-personal indoor infantry combat with verticality to the map designs. It drops on the PS3 one week early, includes 10 new weapons and four new maps. It has been described as "hectic and intense". The map was shown off at EA's GDC event, and featured a "swish-looking" office block called Ziba Tower, according to Eurogamer, with, my favorite: lots of glass to shatter.

Crytek's first game in the mobile universe is called 'Fibble - Flick 'n' Roll'. Crytek say that the game is a "highly engaging puzzle game" that "combines strategy with physics-based interactions" with vivid and highly detailed visuals.

CEO and President of Crytek, Cevat Yerli says:

EA have removed The Simpsons: Tapped Out from the App Store for a, well, weird reason. First up, an anonymous gamer posted on EA's help forum, asking about the game, and had a very interesting response from an EA representative:

So, EA removed The Simpsons: Tapped Out, because it was too popular? I was never the popular kid in school (contrary to popular belief from my flowing locks and eagle-sharp eyes, I look like a young Alec Baldwin), so I don't understand how this happens. EA predicts that players who have already downloaded the game will experience a smoother experience, with EA saying "actually, your experience should only improve as we work on a solution".

GDC 2012: EA have just announced that SimCity will be named, well, SimCity. No numbers, no space, just SimCity. It's being made by Maxis, and is a PC-exclusive. Yes, you read those words right: PC-exclusive. EA/Maxis have thrown a trailer into the lions pit, aka, the Internet, and boy is it exciting me.

Maxis' goal is to create a vision o the game that includes more choice, while simultaneously making the game the most playful and most responsive one in the series. The game will be in 3D, and will offer online components, but the emphasis of this full announcement is on how much the spirit of the original games are to them, which is great.

Maxis stressed that everything you see in the game, is there for a reason, with greater emphasis on detail, and a greater impact from your sim-building decisions. You'll be able to interact with the cities of your friends, and for example, if your city pollutes, you could lower the air quality in your neighboring cities. SimCity also sports roads like I like my women: curvy. A city is not built on a grid, and now we have curvy roads, finally.

Ah, Halo. I have fond memories of the hours upon hours that I pumped into the original game when I grabbed the midnight-launched Xbox in my home town. It's hard to believe how much the Halo franchise has grown since then, and how now left the proud parents Bungie, and gone into the hands of 343 Industries.

343 Industries along with Microsoft Studios are proud to show off Halo 4. The first proper sequel to Halo 3, not taking into consideration ODST and Reach. Halo 4 will be released this fall, and the above video shows off some of the game, the new armor that Master Chief sports, as well as some new built-for-multiplayer maps that will be included.

Master Chief's armor has been redesigned for the new game, which looks nice and slick. The video continues with the Halo 4 team talking about how amazing the new game will be, and shows off that the multiplayer side of things has a story-based reason behind the reasoning of huge amounts of spartan's going at it all over the galaxy. Multiplayer maps will not just be lifted from the single-player campaign, and are designed specifically to allow for balaned gameplay.

GDC 2012: The first news off the startling line of this years Game Developers Conference (GDC) is news from Razer, which is very interesting indeed. Razer and Sixense Entertainment have just announced that they have full integrated motion gaming support now built for Valve's most popular titles: Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2.

Not only that, but future Valve-made games such as Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will support full motion play with Razer Hydra. The news does continue to get better, though. Sixense and Valve have also integrated Sixense MotionCreator 2.0 software into Valve's Steam gaming platform. This does something quite special indeed: it enables backwards compatibility for motion gaming with the Razer Hydra controller to over 250 of the most popular titles on Steam!

From now on, Steam users will receive automatic motion control updates for current, and future games, as well as a new in-game overlay which lets gamers view control maps for the Hydra controller, as they play. CEO and Co-Founder of Sixense, Amir Rubin, says:

Well, well. This would not only make sense for Valve, but for the PC community. Rumor has it that the company behind absolutely huge hits like Half-Life, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Counter-Strike, are working on their own gaming console.

It has been talked about for a while, with Gabe Newell himself even saying "well, if we have to sell hardware we will". That can be taken many ways, but could this be the reason? An actual Steam Box console? Valve have been rumored to be secretly tinkering with gaming hardware for the living room, and having Steam at the center of that gaming device.

This doesn't sound too hard, considering the phenomenal success Google has enjoyed with Android. Within the same interview that Gabe said they'd have to sell hardware, he's quoted:

WHERE WAS MY INVITE, ROCKSTAR?!?! Anyway, the worldwide gaming press have had their first hands-on taste of the slow-mo, gun-toting Max Payne 3 and have some seriously amazing things to say about it.

Rockstar showed them a bit of the game, with the story early on, they find Max and his partner Passos meeting up with the ruthless Comando Sombra gang at a local football stadium in an attempt to exchange cash for the captive Fabiana Branco. However, things quickly turn bad as the deal is crashed by unknown assailants. From there, they're also given a taste of a level where Max tracks Fabiana's kidnappers to the hostile, rain-soaked docks by the Tietê River...

The impressions and quotes? Incredible. Excitement... building... The only thing holding me back is most of these sites give games like Call of Duty: Yet Another Sequel games high scores, but Max Payne is quite close to my heart, please let these quotes be complete 100-percent excitement and truth.

Rumors of Doom 4 being cancelled have once again been shot down by Bethesda Softworks, after All Games Beta publishing some information stating that the game had been cancelled, simultaneously releasing leaked screenshots that originally surfaced on 4Chan.

Bethesda vice president of public relations and marketing, Pete Hines, said to Joystiq in a statement, that Doom 4 is not cancelled and that when they are ready to discuss the game and show it off, they'll let everyone know. All Games Beta opened the floodgates and have now added more screenshots to their gallery, totalling 170 images.

Considering that id's RAGE was not that great, personally, critically and across the world, it would be hard to have faith in this after RAGE took five-plus years to develop. id need to go back to their roots as a PC-exclusive developer and push the envelope with Doom 4 if they want their time in the lime light once more. A PC-exclusive, PC-crushing, crap-your-pants horror game is what we need right now. Doom 4 could re-spark PC's constantly-dimming light.

Ah, Sonic, the memories I have of you are so great. AnandTech have had some hands-on time with the Tegra Zone enhanced version of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II, which was only announced yesterday for NVIDIA's quad-core 4-PLUS-1 Tegra 3.

Cross-platform development of games is important these days, with Sega looking to tap the gamers of XBLA, PSN, iOS and Android for Sonic. The Android port more specifically, saw NVIDIA work closely with Sega to crete a Tegra 3-enhanced version of the game, which is said to mimic the quality one would expect from the console-based ports.

AnandTech said the game "does indeed look very impressive", and had the fast-moving hedgehog plugged up to a 50-inch-plus LED TV. Water and fire effects are said to be pretty much what the console versions look like, but NVIDIA did not have a console on-hand for a side-by-side comparison between the various platforms. Performance-wise, AnandTech reports that the framerate did dip below the 30fps mark a few times, but did not hurt the overall experience of the game.

We still don't know what the next-generation Xbox will be called when it launches, but if we're to believe a short and sweet Tweet from a Crytek developer, then we'll have to believe the Xbox 720/Next/whatever they call it, has the codename of "Durango".

Senior technical designer at Crytek, Sean Tracy, wrote on his Twitter feed (which has now been deleted):

Epic Games are set to show off their next-generation gaming engine, Unreal Engine 4, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week. Epic will unveil a preview version of it's "next-generation game technology" - Unreal Engine 4 to "select licensees, partners and prospective customers during the exhibition" according to its announcement earlier today.

Epic have already teased what is capable from the next-gen engine with their high-end Unreal Engine 3 Samaritan tech demo, with Epic's Vice President Mark Rein saying at the time:

Ah, Angry Birds. Waster of tens of hours of my time, and just today I'm out at the shops and see a constant flow of plush toys that I'm ever-so-tempted to buy. Out today from Samsung Mobile's Facebook page, I noticed a tease of... Angry Birds: Space.

Angry Birds: Space has a YouTube video, above, and teases with "Houston..", "We have a slingshot", then bam - Angry Birds: Space's logo splashed upon Samsung's Galaxy Note that is set to launch soon.

What should we expect? Well, I'm guessing a space-themed Angry Birds game. But will it introduce new things to the game? That's what I'd like to see. Hopefully Rovio don't just expect to continue this franchise by releasing new themes - break out of that usual cycle and change the game up. I'm excited, now I just need a Galaxy Note.

[UPDATE] I've received an e-mail from a reader who has pointed me to a post by Blizzard Community Manager "Daxxarri", where he has a pretty big message that goes against the post below. He says that the game is in good shape, and that he thinks we will love Diablo III when it is released. He also adds that they want you/us/everyone to have high expectations of not only Diablo III, but all Blizzard-produced games. He also adds that if Diablo III wasn't a worthy instalment in the Diablo III series, they wouldn't bother releasing it, adding that that's the way they've always done it.

Take a look at the post here, which should calm not only my nerves, but your nerves, too. Thanks for the heads up, Andrew!

I've felt this for quite some time now, it started at about the time Blizzard were rumored to be working on Diablo III for consoles, but now they're actually coming out and saying that people should actually lower their expectations for Diablo III. Say. What!!! Direct quote from "Bachiok", Community Manager on Diablo III's forums:

The Penny Arcade Report has a pretty juicy review with gaming development god himself, Gabe Newell. In the interview, we don't find out the most importan news to man-kind: the release date of Half-Life 3, but we do find out that Gabe says Valve don'e want to get into the cycle of constantly developing sequels.

Even though that's all they do: Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Counter Strike: Source/Global Offensive, Half-Life 2 (and the Episodes), and more. Gabe also talks about DRM, and says that rather than telling game developers what they can and can't do with their anti-piracy techniques, Newell prefers to show them actual data.

I thoroughly enjoyed the original Borderlands, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't too excited about Borderlands 2. Until now. 2K Games and Gearbox Software just have announced the official launch date of Borderlands 2: September 18th, 2012. The game will be released internationally three days later on September 21st.

On top of the announcement of the game's release, is a brand new, three-minute trailer which asks you a very important question: are you ready to joy puke your face off.

CCP Games, the boys and girls behind the MMORPG that is EVE Online, have stated that they cleared more than $66 in revenue last year. EVE Online launched in 2003, with its subscriber base increasing each year, to its current total of 400,000.

Revenue has grown just as much, at a compound annual growth rate of 53-percent, bringing in a total revenue of $300 million over the game's lifetime. Profit-wise, CCP would only say that it has "very healthy margins". CCP has been experimenting with something that gets close to a free-to-play model, where it allows EVE Online's rich subscribers to essentially pay for others to play, in exchange for virtual currency, something that is used by more than 40,000 people.

CCP Games' next game is 'DUST 512', and is set to hit this summer, and will push EVE Online further, and in a new direction. CCP Games will charge people for in-game credits rather than subscriptions or playing time. There is however, and initial "cover charge".

Oh noes, piracy on PC is so strong, oh noes! Until, you release a worthy game and realise, in 48 hours it's a financial success. 48 hours. Not days, weeks or months. Alan Wake debuted as an Xbox 360-exclusive, and made its way to the PC late last week.

Remedy have since come out and announced that Alan Wake on PC was profitable within just 48 hours of release. Remedy's Aki Järvilehto commented on their forums, saying:

The latest trailer to Max Payne 3 is here, where it unveils more of Max's story. It seems as though whilst under Max's protection, Rodrigo Branco's wife, Fabiana, is kidnapped. Max then goes on a journey of slow-mo, gun-slinging, bodycount-crazy fest, where he uncovers the truth and returns her to safety.

All while dodging bullets from lawless stress gangs, ruthless paramilitary units, and of course, his own personal demons. The latest trailer is made from all in-game graphics, and I think it's actually looking worse than previous teases of the game.

I really expect this to be, sadly, a console port, without much being put into the PC version. I could be wrong, but from what I've seen, it's very console-centric, where the first two Max Payne games were PC-exclusive. However, I'll still be grabbing this game, just because it's Max Payne. Bring it on! Max Payne 3 arrives for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 15, 2012 in North America, and on May 18, 2012 in Europe. The PC version doesn't arrive until May 29, 2012 in North America, and June 1, in Europe.