News – Page 43 – StuffWeLike

Ron Gilbert allies with Hothead for hilarious RPG-Adventure “DeathSpank”

Among the gaming halls of fame is a platinum bust of Ron Gilbert, famed video game designer, two great works of his being Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. If you had any assumptions that Mr. Gilbert had been abducted by adventure-game-loving aliens, think again, because you were somehow right. HotHead Games, developers of… uh… have taken dragged Ron Gilbert into their fortress of doom to design a video game he had in his mind for a long time – DeathSpank! This video game will truly be used for nefarious purposes to enslave mankind!

DeathSpank will be an RPG-Adventure hybrid, and I have a feeling we’re talking real adventure here, because that’s Ron Gilbert talking. He describes it as a Diablo-Monkey Island hybrid, which sounds like beautifully twisted fun for all ages. It will be an episodic game, with its first episode titled rather sombrely as “Orphans of Justice”, which will be coming rather soonish, according to the big poster on their website.

And now, because your subconscious mind really asked for it, here’s the official press release(!):

HOTHEAD GAMES TO PUBLISH NEW RON GILBERT GAME DEATHSPANK
Gilbert joins the Vancouver crew as Creative Director

The Great White North, January 9, 2008 – In a move that may upset the balance of the universe (or at least that around the 49th parallel), Hothead Games announced plans to publish Ron Gilbert’s long-awaited RPG-Adventure game, DeathSpank. Described as “Monkey Island meets Diablo”, the game will be released in episodic format and feature Gilbert’s unique style of humor and storytelling. In a related move, Ron Gilbert will be joining the company’s Vancouver-based studio as Creative Director, effective immediately.

Speaking from his secret game design cave, Ron Gilbert said, “I’ve spent over four years trying to find the right publisher for this strange little game. Now that I’ve done it, you just know that somewhere four horsemen are saddling up.”

The episodic game follows the thong-tastic adventures of a misguided hero named DeathSpank, a character that first appeared on Gilbert’s Grumpy Gamer website in a series of animated comics he penned with long-time creative collaborator, Clayton Kauzlaric.

Hothead prepared for Gilbert’s arrival by ordering the finest morsels of jellied moose meat and lager brewed with water from the nearest available glacier. “We’re all huge fans of Monkey Island and we love Ron’s unique vision and sense of humor,” said Joel DeYoung, COO of Hothead Games. “Ron shares Hothead’s goal of bringing much-needed humor and innovation into games, so having him here in Vancouver as our Creative Director is an excellent fit.”

“I’m really excited to be working with Hothead Games not only on DeathSpank, but as their new Creative Director,” said Gilbert. “I got to know everyone at Hothead while I was helping with On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. They really understand humor and being creative like very few publishers do.”

As Creative Director, Gilbert will work in the Vancouver-based studio on all of Hothead’s games. He is also expected to improve his hockey skills substantially during his stay.

Cloverfield monster attacks Chuai Station, could be Ninja!

Ah, Cloverfield – there has been no better viral marketing in the world. In fact, I’d warrant that the viral marketing itself has gotten more people on than the movie ever will. It’s coming out in only 11 days now, and we still know what/who the great monster guy is.

Continuing the viral marketing, a new video (or rather, series of videos) have appeared across the Internet, that take the form of news channels reporting that the Chuai Station that belongs to the Tagruato Corporation has been mysteriously wrecked. According to Tagruato’s site, Chuai Station is located quite a ways off the North American East coast (a good place to start ravaging New York) and was “opened” in September 2007.

While of course, we have no doubt that the monster should be at work behind this, Tagruato Corp. released a statement:

There has been an altercation at the Chuai Station. Although details are limited at present time, be assured that Tagruato is taking every measure necessary to ensure the safety and well being of all staff and crew. Specialty teams have been deployed, and are working aggressively to restore harmony at the site.

The cause of the problem is currently being investigated, although it is suspected that an eco-terror cell is responsible for the disturbance.

We have top investigators on our side. Everything will be resolved shortly, and all problems will be fixed. If you have any questions, please contact us at +81-3-5403-6318 for further instructions.

For those of you not in the know, Tagruato Corp. doesn’t actually exist, and it’s only part of Cloverfield’s vast viral marketing campaign.

That’s the Spanish version of the video, with the German and Italian versions also available (they all have slightly different footage, so you’ll want to check them all out). Very conveniently, there is no English version yet.

If you observe the videos carefully, you’ll notice that there are gun-toting ninjas escaping the station. Perhaps this is all a secret ninja conspiracy, whereby they secretly control the world? As you know, Ninjas are too fast to be seen – and if we are seeing them in the video, they’re probably decoys! There is a ninja conspiracy afloat, people. Be very, very careful.

The Moral Cost of Video Games

Well, at least they’re not harping on the violence anymore. Christian Science Monitor, perhaps perceiving that that trope has run its course, offers a rather novel critique of our beloved hobby- the lack of consequences.

But what games conspicuously lack is moral consequence. Once you’ve killed someone, stolen something, or blown up a building, that’s usually the end of it – you’ll rarely get to see the emotional impact of your actions on the characters around you.

Every bit of mayhem becomes just another item on a video-game to-do list. Games ignore moral consequence and emotional nuance to focus on the purely visceral. There are only two types of decisions you can really make: the strategically correct one or the strategically incorrect one. There is no “right” or “wrong” – only success or failure.

Get the full story here.

Rockstar Games now on Steam!

In a press release sent out late Friday Valve has announced that a ton of high profile games from Rockstar are now available on the Steam download system. As a promotion all the games are discounted 10% during launch week so this is the time to brush up on your GTA skills before GTA4 is released. There is no word however on what upcoming Rockstar titles will be added to the system but we can only hope that a PC version of GTA4 will be made and added. All we can say is we hope you are not on a download limit!

The list and comments below are from the press release.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto II
Grand Theft Auto
Midnight Club II
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Max Payne
Manhunt
Wild Metal Country

“We were immediately excited by the opportunity to offer our PC catalog via Steam because it allows us to reach out to gamers around the world in exciting new ways,” said Rowan Hajaj, Head of Finance and Corporate Development of Rockstar Games. “We are continually looking for ways to give back to our fans and this collaboration will give people a chance to easily revisit some of our greatest titles.”

“Rockstar Games brings some of most viscerally engaging games the industry has ever witnessed to Steam’s expansive library of titles,” says Jason Holtman, director of Steam business development. “We’re delighted to provide a place where gamers across the globe can discover all the fine work Rockstar Games has produced.”

For more information about Rockstar Games on Steam, please visit www.steamgames.com/v/index.php?publisher=rockstar

Crysis Patch Status Update

[Update] Crysis patch version 1.1 is now available

Crysis

For those of you who don’t know it was announced to the press that there would be a patch released for EA’s Crysis title between 7-14 days after its release back in November. After a really quiet period with no news at all details have arrived via EA about what has been the delay and when we should expect the two, yes two patches. From what we have read though unless it has been left out they have not fixed the stuttering nuke or machine gun sound effects left after you die. Or the problem with hovering guns that don’t exist, or the other multiplayer problem where if you buy an AA vehicle and then fire the gun it blows itself up instantly without taking a hit. We can hope though but when more than one patch is announced it doesn’t give you much faith. Expect 600MB Battlefield 2 size patches soon.

Below is the full release from EA.com

Dec. 21 2007

Community Update: Patch Release

Greetings Community!

Lots of questions from the community regarding Crysis Patches, the SDK and the Linux Dedicated Server have been asked, and we wanted to get all of them answered right before Christmas and right before we have our holiday break.

So let’s get started…

Patch #1 Delayed – The Reason

In an interview around the street date of Crysis we have mentioned to release the first patch within the next two weeks. Till then we already made quite a good progress on the patch itself and it was close to being shipped. Unfortunately due to heavy technical issues that appeared right before the patch was declared final we could not release it in time.

Patch #1 – Current Status

Thus we fully concentrated on the issues to get them addressed and resolved. So far the progress on the patch is quite satisfying since everything seems to be working as intended. Currently the patch is being reviewed by Crytek’s and EA’s QA departments and we expect to get the final feedback submitted in the first week of January.

Patch #1 – Scheduled Release

Based on this feedback we will be able to set a release date for the long awaited Patch #1 for Crysis. If no major problems occur we expect to have it available for public download within January 2008. This is of course related to the reports from the QA departments, but we are confident to match the schedule.

Patch #1 – Content

The last time we have provided you with a rough list of fixes the patch will include. Today we would like to go a bit more into detail and mention the major changes/bug fixes. Patch #1 is still meant to be a performance patch and does not include major gameplay changes or new features. These are being addressed in Patch #2, but more about that further below.

So here is the major change log for Patch #1: (the complete change log will be announced once the patch ships)

Fixes

Damage dealt to vehicles when shot by LAW has been made consistent
F12 (screenshot) now works in restricted mode as well
When player melees during gun raise animation, their gun will not be in a permanently raised position anymore
Memory leaks and potential crashes

Updates

Improved SLI / Crossfire support and performance
Improved overall rendering performance (DX9 and DX10)
Enabled VSync functionality in D3D10

Tweaks

Reduced grenade explosion radius in multiplayer
Clamped water tessellation to avoid cheating in MP
Reduced LAW splash damage vs. infantry in PowerStruggle mode
Slowed Rocket projectile speed down in MP slightly

Crysis SDK – Status

Due to the great feedback we have received from the pre-SDK teams till now, we have adjusted and improved both the set up and the content of the final Mod SDK (Software Development Kit) for Crysis. Due to technical limitation the retail version of Crysis is only partially supporting Modifications.

Patch #2 for Crysis will address this topic and provides full Mod support for both Singleplayer and Multiplayer. Not only that the current problems with loading up a mod in Crysis are fixed, additionally the game menu includes a mod loading system. Thus we decided to delay the SDK release until the second Patch has been finished in order to provide you with a correctly working Mod set up for the game.

Of course we will continue and extend our support within the upcoming weeks and months. For example it is planned to constantly update the official Sandbox2 Editor documentation and you can probably expect the next update on this to happen around Christmas.

Crysis Linux Dedicated Server – Status

The Linux version of the Crysis Dedicated Server is still in development and we don’t have an estimated released date for it yet. We want to make sure it is working fine and running without any problems before we release it. After some problems that have been resolved already the progress is good and we expect to have a beta version ready soon.

Patch #2 ? Information

As you might know already we are working on Patch #2 for Crysis simultaneously. The content is based on the feedback we have gathered during the Crysis Beta and the first weeks of release. In addition we are tracking several threads in the Fan Site forums where the community has given constructive feedback and suggestions.

Currently we are evaluating the collected data from the community and taking multiple suggestions into consideration for adding them to the patch. Quite a few community requests have been implemented already and others are work in progress. The patch will be a full content patch and is addressing stability, gameplay tweaks, balancing issues and new features for both Singleplayer and Multiplayer. Next to that we will fix several security holes in our system and also improve both the Punkbuster implementation and our internal Anti-Cheat solution.

We will keep you informed on the progress and announce more details on the change log within the next weeks. Once we have reached a nearly finished status of the patch we will let you know about the release date.

Regards,

-Crysis Dev Team

Add The Pipeline – Video Games to your page

Harmonix, Activision brawl over Guitar Hero PS3 controllers

In what is a most amusing series of events, Harmonix and Activision are fighting like kindergarten kids over who’s responsible for not releasing a patch for Rock Band.

Harmonix, with some help from MTV, thought that releasing a patch for Rock Band, which would allow Guitar Hero III controller compatibility is a good idea. The idea did, after all, come after thunderous public request. However, it didn’t go down as well as they had expected. Harmonix’s patch was approved by Sony, but not by Activision, who supposedly objected to the patch.

This makes Harmonix and MTV heroes who want a free and liberal gaming area and where everything is good and compatible. Activision is suddenly a dark, evil EA-esque villain who wants the depraved gamers to buy Rock Band controllers. And because we need a fine background for a fight, we have Sony and their PlayStation 3.

Sony promptly replied that this is a matter out of their hands, and one that should be “amicably resolved” by Harmonix, MTV and Activision. Well, at least Sony has nothing to do with the whole fiasco. Then again, it’s the ill-fated, all-cursed PlayStation 3 that serves as a setting for this tale.

Activision struck back yesterday by saying that MTV/Viacom is unwilling to participate in a healthy ~~tussle~~ discussion about the issue. According to their press release, Activision were the good guys all along and Harmonix/MTV have been the ones who were not talking with Activision about their technology.

This fight is almost like the Silicon Knights/Epic brawl, except there’s no legal matters here and the subject is ridiculous. What’s bad is that the gamers are suffering in the long run. They are the ones who haven’t gotten the patch yet, while the big corporations talk about how they love gaming and want gaming to be accessible.

How will Harmonix/MTV respond? Is the PS3 really cursed? Isn’t watching this silly fight fun? Comment and conquer!