PS3 – Page 67 – StuffWeLike

Fallout 3 Available October 28

Not much else to say after writing that title. If you haven’t heard about Fallout 3 already, you don’t play video games. Prepare to fire up your Xbox 360, PC, or PS3 systems soon enough!

“We are very excited to let gamers get their hands on Fallout 3, the latest chapter in this beloved and highly acclaimed franchise,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “To meet the huge demand for this title by our fans worldwide, we are planning one of the biggest launches of any game released this year.”

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Fallout 3 features one of the most realized game worlds ever created. Set more than 200 years following a nuclear war, you can create any kind of character you want and explore the open wastes of Washington, D.C. however you choose. Every minute is a fight for survival as you encounter Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders, and other dangers of the Wasteland.

Hailed as one of the most anticipated games for 2008, Fallout 3 has already won numerous awards including Best of Show from the official Game Critics Awards at E3 2008, a selection voted on by an independent group of journalists from 36 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry.

I Am Alive to Become Major Franchise

With the race for awesome graphics having finally rested, developers are coming up with some really innovative titles at last! Probably spurred by Portal, EA will be doing Mirror’s Edge and Ubisoft will do I Am Alive. What is so innovative about that, you ask? Well, I Am Alive will put you in your own disaster movie as you will have to use real-life skills and techniques to save yourself from an earthquake.

It looks like Ubisoft is all ready to turn the game into a franchise already. This is a pretty weird trend I’ve been noticing lately, with developers starting franchises before the completion of the first game (Mass Effect, Crysis being examples). Well, it’s not bad, so who’s complaining?

It is no genius guess that in the potential sequels, we may have our hero facing other objects of natural fury: floods, tsunamis, tornados, storms, maybe volcanos. In any case, you just know that if I Am Alive‘s style can be used on earthquakes, further iterations are inevitable. Oh well, guess the franchise idea wasn’t that far off either!

Also, the first trailer of the game was rather mysterious in itself. Perhaps the events of I Am Alive aren’t as natural as you think. Of course, we, who have been raised on the X-Files will be first to theorise this being part of some global conspiracy, alien invasion or some test created by our alien benefactors. So Ubisoft is going to have to come up with something more original in the story department.

Another question is if the game will at all work. I’m not saying that non-violent games don’t have a chance, but Portal was a work of utter genius, and I’d be shocked if we get a Portal every year. I Am Alive will focus largely on character interactions and problem-solving. Now that we mention it, I’m starting to think that a zombie survival game along the same vein would be awesome…

Hmm, I hope Ubisoft is listening.

Epic Making New IP with EA

Epic, impressed by their work on the Gears of War PC port, bought People Can Fly not very long ago. Now’s the time for action. Epic has announced that their Poland-based PCF studio will be working on a whole new IP to be released for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, all by EA. About time.

And we just got you excited on that, then sorry, we don’t have much else to report. That’s pretty much all that has been released upto now. No title, no hint of story, nothing. Still, being the keen industry analysts that we are, we’re guessing it will be a sci-fi first person shooter, involving either a dystopia or an alien invasion.

Epic seems to have been on a roll recently. While they have always prospered by selling their uber Unreal Engine to other devs, they took a walk out of the tent with Gears of War and are working on its sequel as we speak. They’re also doing great licensing Unreal Engine 3 and have a 4th version in the works.

Their flagship product, Unreal Tournament 3 didn’t do so well, however. This has left the franchise abandoned for the while, as no more news has been announced regarding it yet. Still, in an informal chat conducted by BeyondUnreal, an Epic employee (hehe) had said that Unreal Tournament will last as long as Epic does.

New Batman Game Announced

With E3 came many announcements, but among them, one has been circling the internet and game stores with vast excitement: The announcement of the new Batman game, Batman: Arkham Asylum. Rumors that the game will be based on the movie were soon proven to be false as Eidos Interactive and Rocksteady Studios have decided on the dark secrets of the mental institution of Gotham City as the basis of their story line.

The game will start off with our hero Batman delivering the Joker to Gotham’s haunting Arkham Asylum, which is where the game hails its name. The Joker manages to escape and take over the mental institution, awesome gameplay ensues. Although the Joker is the main villain, you will also encounter many others throughout the game, such as Harley Quinn and Killer Croc, just to name a few.

There have been no confirmations yet as to who the voice actors will be, yet. The previous Batman game, Batman: Begins included an all-star cast with almost every actor from the film providing their voice for the character they played. Even so, the previous game failed on the market. Fans are hoping history will not repeat itself. Due to the success of The Dark Knight and the hype following this video game, it is more than likely this game will make up for previous disappointments.

Systems: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Release: Fall 2009

QuakeCon: More on Rage, Rage Extended Trailer, Doom 4

Finally, with QuakeCon going, we can get some more dope on Rage, id’s flagship project for their much-touted id Tech 5 Engine, which appears to have been dubbed the Rage Engine now, albeit unofficially.i

Carmack clears the fact that even though their website claims Rage to be a “vehicle-based” game, the vehicular element is not the focus of the game, and it’s still a very first-person shooter. It won’t be a “mindless” open world game, and all its missions will be pretty story-based. Still, it’ll put quite a bit of focus on the open world aspect, seeing as that’s what id wants to prove with id Tech 5.

The engine which Rage will be showcasing is pretty much near completion, according to Carmack. It’s been in development for some three years, and id still has some polishing to do, such as working on the animation system and some tweaks to the big-time MegaTexture system. But all the biggie stuff is done and the engine is almost ready.

While Rage will showcase all the large world environments in the engine, the real meat should be “the next Doom” game, which is to you and me, Doom 4. According to Carmack, Doom 4 will have 3 times the horsepower of Rage, but will have to run at 30 FPS, which is half of that of Rage.

Doom 4 will also be significantly better on the “creative aspects” and “level design”, which isn’t surprising since Doom 3 blew everyone else out of the water for level design. As for what it will feature, Carmack merely says that we’ll have “guns, blood, demons, and gibs” which is a shocking departure from Doom‘s tradition of magical pixies, fairy dust and ponies.

Still, details on Doom 4 are pretty bleak, so we’ll head back to Rage.

Rage will be delivered for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac. On the Xbox 360, however, id seems to be coming across some problems. The game will fit on 3 DVDs for the Xbox 360, which seems to be a limiting factor. Due to royalties, the cost of a third DVD would go into millions. This would mean that id would be forced to compromise on textures and compress them into 2 DVDs. Darn you, Microsoft!

The PS3 goes sailing smooth with the Blu-Ray discs and the game should come on both DVD and Blu-Ray formats for the PC and Mac. As for when it will arrive, ask any id fanboy and you will get the curt reply of “when it’s done.” id isn’t really sure, but denies it would take as long as 2011. I’d place my bet on early 2010 then, with Doom 4 later that year.

And finally, id played an extended trailer at QuakeCon, which the folks at Shackvideo caught. It’s almost the same as the one at E3, but has some extra stuff. Check it out!

Two downloadable Watchmen games confirmed

Movie video game tie-ins aren’t news, but what Warner Bros. is trying to go with them is. Warner has announced that they will be experimenting with downloadable tie-in games for Watchmen and two are already in the works!

The first will be around the release of the movie (i.e. March 2009), while the second will arrive shortly after the DVD release. What’s more, if these two games end up successful, Warner will go ahead with further episodes.

Seeing the sorry fate of movie-based video games was probably what spurred Warner into action. The downloadable format means that the game will be shorter and more appealing to the fans. According to Warner, this model will end up better at pleasing fans and critics, which is definitely going to be a tough task.

Interestingly, the source article at Variety also says that if the series ends up successfull, there might even be future pics tie-ins with the games. We’re not sure if a downloadable series can get that successful, so we’re just gonna go with a “Yeah, right” for now.

Right now we know that the first game will be released for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. It will be developed by Danish developer Deadline Games. I checked out their Wikipedia entry and I don’t see any titles ringing any bells. The game will feature Rorshach and Nite Owl battling crime.

This would mean that the game is something of a prequel to Watchmen, where a close friendship between Rorshach and Nite Owl as crimefighting buddies is hinted at. Would be great to see this in the form of a video game, but again, we’re totally not sure if this is gonna work.