What if I reviewed Lord of the Rings Online, Ancient Sparta, Infernal, Stalker, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Hitman Trilogy, Zendoku, Armored Core 4, Bullet Witch, and Shining Force EXA? Would it be possible to do it under 6 minutes? Yes, yes it is, but that might not necessarily be a good thing…
Category: PC
Far Cry 2 announced, teaser site launched
Far Cry was one of those games that ushered in the new era of video gaming, which encompassed everything with glossy graphics, overused bloom, hackneyed plots and large corporations. Of course, there were lots of good things too, like advanced AI, realistic graphics and so on. While Crytek, the prodigal developers are busy working on Crysis, Ubisoft has announced the sequel to Far Cry.
There was already info and some screenies floating around the internet about this game, but yesterday, Ubisoft laid it down and hard. Apart from the game’s title, Far Cry 2, we know nothing more about the game. Well, not much at least. It is being developed by the Ubisoft Montreal studio and is scheduled for a Spring 2008 release, but we know how that goes. It will be coming out for the PC only, as of now.
Ubisoft has also released a teaser site for the game. The site, being a trailer, doesn’t show much. What it does show is an awesome Savannah backdrop, which hints at the game’s next exotic setting. The next explosive screen shows the game’s logo, as well as lots of jungle music in the background.
It should be noted, that during the transition of screens, a presumably African man can be heard saying “Dawa ya moto ni moto!” According to “Claws_The_One” from the game’s official forums, it means “The remedy to fire is fire”. As you can guess, it is a proverb from the language Kiswahili, spoken in some parts of Africa. If you didn’t get it, replace it with “An eye for an eye.”
And to finish off, we’ll give you something from the press release:
“Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era of gorgeous graphics and of advanced artificial intelligence,” declared John Parkes, EMEA marketing director at Ubisoft. “We are confident that Far Cry 2 will have the same impact again on the FPS genre landscape.”
While I would have preferred Crytek handle it, this looks great!
World of Warcraft: The Comic Book.
Right, if you really want to, you can click the image above to get a jumbo-sized version of the same.
Now then, it appears that the guys at Blizzplanet were intrigued by Jim Lee’s name being listed at the San Diego Comic Con 2007 schedule. After some thorough digging, they foundthecomicforums.com, where a user (under the name ‘thefreakytiki’) posted that he found a free comic sampler at a local comic store. The credits for the sampler included Jim Lee as a cover artist.
Further digging found the scan you see above. This is going to spur thousands of webcomic jokes, I’m sure. That cover looks awesome to me, and I’m guessing it is for real. Lee will be making an appearance at the upcoming Blizzcon on August 3rd, 2007. So whatever happens next, happens there.
[Via Blizzplanet]
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Prequel announced out of nowhere
Right when you thought all the action is at E3, GSC Game World announced a prequel to this March’s well-acclaimed first-person shooter, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The prequel is titled S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and will be invading stores in the first quarter of 2008.
The game starts off a year before the events in the first game, in the year 2011. The synopsis is, as penned by GSC Game World:
A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone – Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. An immense blowout of anomalous energy changes the Zone. There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads. The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies. Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed on the lost territories. New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map. The Zone continues to shake with blowouts. The Zone is unstable. The anomalous activity is at its maximum.
Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone. Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artifact fields and spheres of influence. There are no more old enemies or friends – now everyone is for himself. The Factions War has started between the groupings.
Our fancy protagonist is a mercenary who appeared “at the edge of the opposition between stalker factions” and is named Strelok. Your character will be responsible for creation of the Zone and laying the foundation for the original game which is too friggin’ long to type.
Clear Sky’s list of features is rather intimidating and will feature DirectX 10 rendering, a new animation engine, inverse kinematics, a very improved DirectX 9 renderer and several other additions and changes. Visit the game’s official site to get the full feature list.
E3 2007: Age of Conan trailer
Legendary: The Box
It’s coming out in Spring 2008 for PC and next-gen systems.
“Like most developers, we’ve always had a dream game that we’ve secretly been working on,” said Craig Allen, CEO of Spark Unlimited. “We’ve made a name for ourselves with World War II first-person shooters, but Legendary: The Box is our labor of love. It’s a thrill to work with Gamecock; they want to see the game completed exactly as we envision it.”
“If there is one genre that needs a shot in the arm, it’s the
first-person shooter,” said Harry Miller, Head of Development of Gamecock Media Group. “Spark’s Legendary: The Box is going to be a classic, in terms of story, game-play and technology. I’m inspired by where they’re taking the genre.”
Legendary: The Box tells the story of Charles Deckard, an art thief who is duped into stealing Pandora’s Box. When he opens the box, he releases hordes of beasts thought to be fictional – such as werewolves and gryphons – into an unprepared modern world. A full scale war between man
and myth begins, and it is quickly complicated by the actions of powerful secret societies. As the person responsible for releasing this terror, Deckard’s unwittingly become the only person capable of containing it once more and saving civilization from being destroyed by the terrifying creatures of the box.
Sweet-looking screens thumbnailed below:
