Exploring Stuff That Makes Life Great
Every now and then PR campaigns are fun and exciting. Bethesda Softworks is definitely doing both with its upcoming Fallout 3 title.
Here are some new videos that were just released today! What are your thoughts? Do these videos make you want to purchase the game or are they too vague?
Either way check out more at PrepareForTheFuture.com.
Jimmy and The Fatman
VATS
That’s Right Abe
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?
Holy shit, did anything even remotely think of this? The Inquirer reports a breaking that Google may be buying Valve any second. And why this seemingly random move? Google most probably wants to acquire Steam, Valve’s trusty and super-successful content distribution service. So is Google taking it’s first step in the video game industry by bridging the Internet and video games?
There is no doubt that Steam is the greatest, most effective and most awesome content distribution ever. It looks like Google is interested in distributing content around. Owning Steam would definitely be profitable for Google, but it would only enforce peoples’ opinions that Google is turning into a Microsoft-ish monopoly with their webby hands over everything related to the Internet.
I personally think that the acquisition will still give Valve some space, a bit like the Activision-Blizzard merger, I’m thinking. But Google will definitely want Steam for itself. I just hope they don’t change the default theme to their boring white-blue nonsense, that just sucks.
Microsoft very recently announced their plan to dissolve one of their most famous and profitable studios: Ensemble Studios, who have provided them the Age of Empires series for so long and are now working on Halo Wars. But what happens after Halo Wars? Will the Age of Empires franchise be lost into the abyss of nothingness?
Microsoft earlier seemed to suggest that that is not so. While AoE is in their safe hands (some might use other adjectives), what exactly will happen of it? Sequels? Spin-offs? When?
In an epic interview with gamesindustry.biz, Phil Spencer from Microsoft says that they have a plan. Microsoft plans to push the franchise ahead, as it is one of their pillars of support for Windows (a bit like Gears and Halo are for the Xbox 360, I suppose). All 3 iterations of the series have done very well, so Microsoft wouldn’t give up this franchise so easily anyways.
Of course, Ensemble Studios won’t be making anything anymore, and Spencer says that they won’t be necessary for the next Age (heh, pun not intended). But yep: Age of Empires is alive and well and may be coming anytime now.
That image above comes from an artbook released with the collector’s edition of Age of Empires III. It seems to suggest that Ensemble had a big franchise in mind that stretches all the way to version 5. Continuing the series’ historical progression, we’ll head from the Renaissance/Industrial era into the Modern Era with AoE 4 and then the future with AoE 5.
Sounds like a decent enough plan, but I’d rather they go back through history all over again. In any case, the modern age sure as hell wasn’t an “age of empires” and I’d like it if the future wasn’t either. 😉
These are mysterious times. Mysterious indeed. Apple, after dominating the music industry and making a respectably deep dent in the cellphone industry. The Apple TV is also running decently enough, making sure that Apple can invade your TV screens as well. The only field left is… book publishing? No, video games.
According to Don Reisinger here at Cnet, this is not only plausible, but actually should and will most likely happen. Reisinger speculates that Apple in fact, has the ball rolling and will jump into the market sooner or later. Despite the market’s hard-coded domination by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, Apple will break in. Then again, it’s the only company that can break into the market on their own.
Apple’s focus on hardware and it’s controlling standard entertainment media such as TV, music, your computer and so on, only points at a game console next. Apple also the money to spare, Reisinger notes: $20 billion, which can give it not only a console, but an Xbox-Live style gaming experience that may thrash Microsoft.
What do you think? Will Apple enter the gaming market?
Now that console gamers have had their fun with the epic Grand Theft Auto IV, it’s time for us PC gamers to have our turn. Of course, it’s still a ways off, and will be in your DVD drive on November 18.
Microsoft’s Games for Windows site just unveiled the Recommended System Requirements for the game (not the minimum ones, mind you), and they are:
OS: Windows XP SP2
Processor: Dual core processor (Intel Pentium D or better)
RAM: 2GB
Hard Drive: 18GB free hard disk space
Video Card: 512MB Direct3D 10 compatible video card or Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader
Drive: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive
Looks fine and dandy by today’s standards, but what is that I see? 18 gigabytes of free space? Pardon old uncle Zombie, but he’s still stuck in an era where 80 gigabyte drives were plentiful, Pentiums ruled the streets and the Allies fought Nazis.
As you can see, I won’t be trying this game anytime soon, at least until I get a damned new computer. Microsoft does have some info on what you can expect in the PC version:
Looks like the usual console-to-Windows port features to me.