Video Games – Page 276

Red Alert 3 – REMIX, an Official trailer to Laugh at

Continuing from yesterday’s post about the Fallout 3 PR campaign being absolutely abstract, Electronic Arts has released a new Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 trailer that begs the question of: what were they smoking?

While I totally did enjoy the REMIX video, I have to say that this came out of left field. Usually marketing campaigns stick to an idea and expand on it over time. This trailer seemed as if an editor was bored at 3am and decided to spice things up.

I still can’t wait for Red Alert 3. If it can maintain this over the top, campy feeling, it may just be one of the best games of the year.

id’s Rage To Enrage Modders?

id’s long tradition of keeping games mod-friendly and mod-supportive appears to have broken with their revolutionary new game: Rage. Tim Willits from id says that it is impossible to mod Rage even on the PC, but the matter is still under consideration.

While id is as always, supportive of mods, Rage is simply too complex a product to mess around with. The biggest hindrance will be the much-talked-about MegaTexture system. For those not in the know, id’s new idea is to create something of a “super-texture” that the game streams seamlessly, rather than rendering hundreds of different textures on different objects.

The system itself is said to consume heaploads of processing power at id. A large number of computers are working hard to process them in a similar not unlike a CG render farm. And if id is taking that long, it will probably take years on an average computer, I imagine. I don’t even want to know the size of that thing.

Still, Willits doesn’t rule out modding entirely. He does say that it may just be possible for users to create mini-mods that will add to the gameplay, in small chunks of stuff. So full mods and conversions may be out of the question, but we’ll still be able to make smaller mods. Sounds fine by me, I guess. Then again, I’m not a modder.

Prepare For The Future – Fallout 3 PR Campaign

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

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?

Google to Buy Valve? WTF?

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 “Has A Plan” for Age of Empires

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. 😉