first person shooters – Page 4

Harvey Smith of Deus Ex fame working on “Immersive” FPS-RPG

Ask me my favourite video game genre and I’ll tell you it’s the FPS/RPG hybrid. Deus Ex, is of course, my favourite game of all-time, but other notable games in the rare genre are the System Shock games, or Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. But these games, like my second-favourite genre, Adventure games faded into an abyss.

But let’s hope this is set to change. With a Deus Ex 3 already in the works, we have some more optimistic news. Harvey Smith, who partnered Warren Spector to design Deus Ex now has his own studio: Arkane, which he is going to use to create “immersive” FPS titles, in the same vein as Deus Ex. Talking to Gamasutra, he says that Arkane’s focus will be on these immersive titles.

He didn’t release any specifics just yet, but that is as good an announcement as any. Oh, and they’re working on a strategy game for the iPhone, if you are interested in that, for any arcane reason.

Is this finally it? Are FPS/RPG games making a comeback?

Duke Nukem Movie in Works; Release Date Unknown

With Duke Nukem Forever right around the corner (you wish), it seems that 3D Realms has already gotten some ambitious plans in their delayed minds. Scott Miller from 3D Realms is collaborating with Scott Faye, producer of the upcoming Max Payne movie. The result will be just that: a goddamn Duke Nukem movie.

To start with, there’s the severe lack of potential for Duke Nukem. He worked as a hero back in the 90s, that too as a gaming hero fabled only among hardcore gamers and relatively obscure otherwise. Can he seriously come close to making a dent on film?

Add to that the utter lack of storyline for Duke Nukem. The whole thing was pretty much a pop culture rip-off that worked as a pastiche or a self-parody of itself (see what I did there?) and something to fill in the gaps while to blasted the next pig-faced alien. That for a movie? Go to hell.

And finally comes what 3D Realms are perhaps best known for. Will the movie even make it? Or will it spend another century “under development”?

Release Dates: Call of Duty 5, Dead Space, Lich King

In October, no one will hear you scream. No, we’re not talking about Halloween, but the release of the highly anticipated sci-fi horror shooter from EA, Dead Space. Yes, we love taking potshots at that tagline that much.

EA has confirmed that the game will be heading into stores on October 14th for all the consoles (all meaning Xbox 360 and PS3), while the PC version will come ambling in on October 20th. Need to give it special time and all, I guess.

In any case, this will make for a good Halloween costume idea…

Next up, on November 4th will be coming World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Man, how long has that been in development? A year and a half? Pretty long for an expansion, methinks. That prolly goes to show how freakin’ awesome it just might be…

There isn’t any official word on this, but Kotaku seems to have found it out by abducting and interrogating random store employees.

And finally, on November 11th, the world goes to war as Call of Duty: World at War will be released. This one’s official, yes sir and comes straight from the investors site at Activision. It’ll be coming out for all consoles on that date, except, of course, the PS2.

In my honest opinion, this won’t be something very special. Especially not as special as the glorious Call of Duty 4. Because this one’s more of a “filler” game, and is, therefore, being developed by Treyarch, instead of everyone’s favourite Call-of-Duty-devs Infinity Ward.

Far Cry 3 Set in Africa

Wow, it seems like only yesterday I brought you the news of Ubisoft Montreal announcing Far Cry 2. With that game coming close to release now, Ubisoft Montreal goes further to announce another addition to the franchise. No, it’s not the Far Cry: Africa Pet Zoo for the DS, it’s a full-fledged Far Cry 3.

Announced at Leipzig, it has been confirmed that the game will be set in Africa. Ubisoft Montreal seems to be keen on boosting African tourism industries with their repeated interest in African wildlife and the promise it holds. I agree with that, too: you can only fight so much in Normandy! Still, I was expecting a Far Cry set in, say, an East European urban setting, or maybe the Great Wall of China or someplace equally exotic.

The team has made a commitment to Africa, supposedly, but shows interest in the Antarctic setting as well, which would be totally cool in my opinion, no pun intended. They also admit that the Africa setting will save time. Hmm.

The game will use the same engine as Far Cry 2 and we don’t have any more details on it, as usual. Suffice to say, it’ll involve lots of exotic, open-world, instinct-based action. Crytek is, as usual, out of the picture, probably too busy working on Crysis 2 or some such.

Gearbox Working on Halo 4 for Next Xbox?!

One of the industry’s best upcoming FPS studios, Gearbox Software has been long rumoured to be working on a secret project that is “bigger” than anything they’ve ever tried. Since this is the team that made the entire Brothers in Arms series, the Halo PC port and many awesome expansions of Half-Life, this is something.

Rumour has it that they’re working on nothing but a Halo 4. Apparently the fight isn’t quite finished. Supposedly, the game is in development for a next-generation Xbox console. It should be noted that while we don’t have any announcements of a new console generation, we haven’t even heard talks about anything like that.

The rumour comes from the Official XBox Magazine, and there doesn’t seem to be any hard verification. Still, it doesn’t seem unbelievable or contradictory. Gearbox only has one product on their plate, Borderlands and Bungie announced that they’re done with the Halo franchise.

In any case, Microsoft milking out the Halo franchise definitely isn’t news, what will all that promotion during Halo 3‘s launch. What is news is the weird, outlandish rumour. So is Microsoft working on a next-gen Xbox? How powerful is it? Is Gearbox actually working on a sequel to Halo 3? Will it come anytime before 2015? Questions galore.

We have no doubt that Microsoft has an answer to them all. ‘Microsoft does not respond to rumors’ or some such.

Deus Ex becomes a free download next week

I would unabashedly list Deus Ex as one of the most underrated games ever, because I personally hold it as the greatest video game made yet. This comes as joyous news to hear that Deus Ex will be an officially free and legal download next week! That’s right: free body augmentations, global conspiracies and paranoia for all!

Hit the jump to find out where to catch it!

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