Category: General Game Development

Crysis patch in two weeks, Performance to be improved (Yes!)

[Update] – Crytek has updated the status of their latest patch. 

 

Crysis

inCrysis, a Crysis fansite recently hosted an IRC interview with Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek and Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA. They’ve posted the transcript of the event at their site, which can be found here. While most of the stuff is technobabble, I did extract the following information from it:

  • Crytek is currently collecting feedback information and will have a patch ready in 7-14 standard, human days.
  • They are seeing improved performance with every driver and patch update, which is good thing. This also means that performance will be increased in upcoming patches and driver updates.

Some other things worth pointing out:

  • Crysis is designed as part of a trilogy, so the abrupt ending of the singleplayer was very deliberate. That’s right – why make a spectacular story for one game when you can stretch it to fit three and make more money at the same time?
  • Cevat says that if you want to get into the gaming industry, start making maps and mods and things. You’ll be noticed if you try hard enough. No guarantees here.
  • Roy’s response to whether GPUs should handle advanced physics:
    • Generally we believe that the GPU can stand by itself as a powerful processor more than capable of accelerating advanced physics for today’s and future games. The GPU lends itself well to scalable, violent or destructible physics. What we need is an industry standard API that developers and the community can get behind, that isn’t proprietary. Ideally the developer can then select the GPU or other processor as they see fit. We dont have one today, and this is something we are looking into.Specifically with regard to CryEngine 2 we are in discussions with the team about this but can’t add more right now.
  • You should use NVIDIA for playing Crysis.

Thanks, Crownest!

Check out the StuffWeLike.com review of Crysis.

A KotOR-fanboy-ish analysis of the LucasArts-Bioware press release

Cropped version of Knights of the Old Republic cover

Two days ago, LucasArts and Bioware released a press release announcing their newly-forged alliance and made a fancy domain address at www.lucasartsbioware.com as well. This has put all the internets on red alert, especially considering the recent rumour that Bioware’s top-secret MMORPG is based on Knights of the Old Republic. I, being the KotOR fanboy that I am, could not resist it.

Below, we have dissected the press release to try and guess its meaning, and build up some more hype for this unannounced game in hopes of being hired by the LucasArts marketing team. For the full press release in its unadulterated form, use the LA-Bioware link above. Hit the jump to read the analysis in all its glory.

Continue reading “A KotOR-fanboy-ish analysis of the LucasArts-Bioware press release”

Leaked info on Battlefield 3 shows 80-player battles, late-2008 release

It looks the waterworks just got broken, because the leaks have started afresh. DigitalBattle has gotten their murky hands on a PDF that outlines Battlefield 3’s (which has not been announced yet) features and stuff. The document was supposed to be for investors, but, ya know.

The game looks fantastic from where I stand. There will be two factions – the NATO and the Middle-Eastern Coalition, who will fight it out in “ticket-based” battles. 8 maps will be included in the release and 40 players will be the max for each team – making for a humongous 80 player standoff! Wow!

Maps will mostly be set in Middle-Eastern cities, with one map titled “Baghdad Burning”. There will be 24 vehicles per faction, (total of 48!) 17 weapons per faction and 22 unlocks – which makes for a whole lot of weapons included. The game will also introduce “Battalions” which will consist of 3-4 squads. Five classes – Five playable classes; Sniper, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Support are present – not a big surprise there.

Other features include:

  • Online stats tracking, awards and “real world ranks”
  • “Soldier” feature, looks like MMO-styled characters and avatars
  • Ranked servers will be available for resellers weeks before the game ships (for testing, apparently, ed.)
  • In-game replay and recording feature
  • VoIP, friends list, in-game IM-client and “extensive clan support”
  • Built-in auto software updater (no more patches!, ed.)

As for release and stuff – here’s what we know. It will be released in late 2008, with a teaser and announcement in January. Vista and OS X are supported, with no mention of XP (oh noes!). EA has played the diplomatic corporation and has given a stern “no comment” comment right now. We stand by for updates.

Force Unleashed for Wii in 2008!

Force Unleashed Screenshot

We brought you news last week that the famed lightsaber-swinging Star Wars Wii game will not be the next installation of Lego Star Wars. This left us wondering as to what LucasArts has up its sleeves. Well, it turns out that one of my predictions went right – LucasArts is porting Force Unleashed to the Wii, and the package will be released in Spring 2008!

I can immediately see the game get massive sales for the Wii, because you WILL get to control the lightsaber with your Wiimote and use force powers with the nunchuck. How friggin’ cool is that? Plus, the game will include a Wii-exclusive duel mode, which allows you and your equally geeky buddy to fight with lightsabers ‘fer rel’! This is certainly something Star Wars fans have anticipated for a long, long time.

“Wii is a great platform for The Force Unleashed, because the console’s motion-oriented controllers really bring the game to life,” said Jim Ward, the president of LucasArts. “We’ve worked hard to make the Wii version of the game unique in order to truly let you unleash the Force.”

Holy hell yeah!

Blizzard’s “really awesome” project is codenamed Hydra

Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga

We brought you news of Blizzard working on a secret, “really awesome” project some 2 months ago, but you’ve probably forgotten all about it. Here’s a bit of a refresher. The game is under development by a certain “team 3” comprised of 40 members. Nothing is known about the game other than Frank Pearce’s (Blizzard Sr. VP of Product Development) words: “really awesome”.

Now, the snoopy reporters at The Inquirer did some invisibility-cloak-enhanced spying on Blizzard employees and heard the following conversation:

Blizzard Employee 1: What are you working on?
Blizzard Employee 2: Starcraft II, and you?
Blizzard Employee 1: I am working on Hydra.

The codename “Hydra” has been confirmed, though it makes one wonder as to whether it will be the actual game’s name. Are we still staring at the game that will one day become the hugely-anticipated Diablo III? One can only be left in the shadows at this point.

[Via Kotaku]