Video Games – Page 39

Terry Deary’s “Horrible Histories” to get Video Games!

Now if one of my favourite book series as a kid are Goosebumps, another will be Horrible Histories. Written by Terry Deary, Horrible Histories are essentially history books. They tell you history. But there’s a twist. They tell you the more horrible, the gorier, the more twisted parts of history. The sort your history teacher doesn’t.

Interestingly, there’s going to be an expansion to the franchise. While we won’t be seeing a movie for it, like Goosebumps (hmm, interesting idea), Horrible Histories will be going into the video games arena, with developer Slitherine Strategies taking it up.

If you’ve never heard of Slitherine, do not despair, for you haven’t missed anything. Slitherine’s previous works appear to be rather obscure titles I’ve never heard of either. Still, I think it should be in the right hands, since all of Slitherine’s previous works have been historical strategy games.

To be entirely honest. I’m not sure how a strategy game on Horrible Histories will work out. HH is more about the obscure facts and secrets of histories that were either distorted or maybe censored in time. How can you convert a series like that into a strategy game?

And the second focus of Horrible Histories is humour (and black humour at that). The last game I’ve seen that was actually funny would be Psychonauts. Okay, there’s Portal too. My point being, comedy in video games is an art. How well will Slitherine capture it?

Gearbox Working on Halo 4 for Next Xbox?!

One of the industry’s best upcoming FPS studios, Gearbox Software has been long rumoured to be working on a secret project that is “bigger” than anything they’ve ever tried. Since this is the team that made the entire Brothers in Arms series, the Halo PC port and many awesome expansions of Half-Life, this is something.

Rumour has it that they’re working on nothing but a Halo 4. Apparently the fight isn’t quite finished. Supposedly, the game is in development for a next-generation Xbox console. It should be noted that while we don’t have any announcements of a new console generation, we haven’t even heard talks about anything like that.

The rumour comes from the Official XBox Magazine, and there doesn’t seem to be any hard verification. Still, it doesn’t seem unbelievable or contradictory. Gearbox only has one product on their plate, Borderlands and Bungie announced that they’re done with the Halo franchise.

In any case, Microsoft milking out the Halo franchise definitely isn’t news, what will all that promotion during Halo 3‘s launch. What is news is the weird, outlandish rumour. So is Microsoft working on a next-gen Xbox? How powerful is it? Is Gearbox actually working on a sequel to Halo 3? Will it come anytime before 2015? Questions galore.

We have no doubt that Microsoft has an answer to them all. ‘Microsoft does not respond to rumors’ or some such.

Wallace & Gromit the Episodic Game series!

Wallace & Gromit, two of my most favourite animated characters, will be converted into video game form by Telltale Games, the guys behind the great Sam & Max line of episodic adventure games. The series will be titled “Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures” which sounds like a pretty decent, yet generic title.

The game will work along the lines of Sam & Max, but knowing Wallace & Gromit, it should be an easy adaptation. It will also most likely involve a lot of building and zany contraptions. We still have no clear details on this game, but I’d expect it to be an adventure game. I mean seriously, you thought it would be a first person shooter?

Telltale will be really working on this one to give it the clay look. Hell, I didn’t think the screenshot you see above was CG! It’d be really nice to interact with Wallace & Gromit in their native medium! Interestingly, while the claymation in Wallace & Gromit is pretty simple, Telltale is still working hard on it:

“Clay presents a challenge if you really get into the detail of it. For example, adding fingerprints in a medium where there aren’t any is one of the discussions of how far we should go with the game’s detail.”

No idea on the whens and whats of this game, but a good guess would be that the game wouldn’t come around anywhere this year.

Asus unveils Godlike PC Gaming Rig

There are computers. And then there is this monstrosity from Asus’ stables. Behold: The ASUS ARES CG6155 Desktop PC, designed to give gamers the ultimate gaming experience. Hell, the experience is so ultimate, even the game developers have no clue what it feels like.

The case you see above has been inspired off of armours from both Eastern and Western influence, perfectly matching the PC’s theme of providing- I dunno, UNLIMITED ABSOLUTE POWER. It looks stylish and Asus makes it a point to add substance as well.

The machine contains only the most high-end components money can buy, easily making it the ultimate gaming rig you can buy. Oh wait, you can’t: the price will probably be large enough to buy a Pacific island and build your own vacation home on it. Still, if you are the sort willing to sacrifice a great vacation for unlimited Crysis gameplay, be my guest.

The specifications:

OS: Microsoft Vista Ultimate

CPU: Intel Core2 Extreme QX9650 (Overclockable up to 4.0GHz)

Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI

Memory: Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz up to 8G

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 3-Way SLI

HDD: Up to 4TB

ODD: Blu-ray DVD

LAN: 2 x LAN 10/100/1000

Power Supply: 2 Kilowatts (Dual Power)

Accessory: Gaming Keyboard, Mouse, Mousepad, Headset

Seriously, it’s like Asus decided “Okay, show me the topmost stuff in every possible PC component. Great, now let’s package it all together with a killer CPU case and sell it and hope that some rich-ass geek will buy it!”

First Look at Gerard Butler in Game

Gerard Butler: ever since 300’s first trailer came out, he has been seen on dictionary entries for “awesome”. Butler will be next seen doing awesome shit in Game from Lionsgate studios. As the name suggests, the movie will be about a game, but judging by the first photo released (that you see above), it is going to be a far cry from Game Over and most other abysmal video-game-inspired movies.

In Game, we see a huge uber-violent multiplayer game called Slayers, that involves real death row inmates. Butler plays Kabel, one such inmate who must go through what must be one hell of an adventure of death, fury and destruction. Funny thing is, Kabel will be completely controlled by a nerdy teen, who, going by our experiences with Halo, will be screaming expletives while munching on potato chips and tacos.

No, seriously: Kabel will have to fight the creator of the maniacal game and overthrow the system, while at the same time being entirely controlled as a sim character. This is a very promising concept that should most likely go pretty well. The photo above seems to suggest that a bit of 300 style will be applied here as well, which can only be good. The plot also sounds pretty similar to Death Race, starring Jason Statham. Personally, I’d prefer this to Death Race.

The plot also sounds unusually similar to Unreal Tournament and its sequels. In UT, we see a futuristic gladiatorial tournament where humans, aliens, mutated humans and other such beings fight each other for fame, glory and fortune in a ultra-violent killing frenzy of a tournament relished by seemingly adolescent viewers across the globe. Interestingly, the background on some of the characters in UT2003 says that they were prisoners and were forcibly entered into the tournament.

Whatever the case, this is one movie to watch out for. It is scheduled for release this year, although we have practically no information about it, such as more photos, a trailer or anything like that…

GPG confirms Dungeon Siege III

Dungeon Siege not only represents an idea gone wrong, but also how you can waste about $50 on absolute boredom. While I have yet to play (i.e. never) Dungeon Siege II, I hear that it does not differ much from the point-click-kill-rinse-repeat formula. Seriously, the game had no storyline, no deep gameplay value, no detailed character customization, practically none of the hallmarks of Western role-playing games.

I could go on and on, but I restrain myself now to bring you this. Talking to Eurogamer Germany, Chris Taylor from Gas Powered Games confirmed that Dungeon Siege III will happen. Gas Powered Games is already working on Space Siege, a sci-fi RPG that looks like it will have some depth, but I can foresee that it won’t get nearly as much hype as Mass Effect.

As for details on the game, Taylor confirms that the game will be all about a single hero, unlike multi-character parties from the last game. This will go in tune with Space Siege, which focuses on a single protagonist and the changes he is willing to make on his body to take on alien adversaries. No other details have been announced yet, such as a release date or a platform. GPG’s games have, however, all been PC exclusives, so it’ll be a bit of a surprise if DS3 goes multi-console.