Posts Tagged ‘epic’
Natal demo games based on Unreal Engine 3
If you followed this year’s E3 you may remember the live demonstration of Microsoft’s Project Natal where two different game demos entitled Paint Party and Richocet, were showcased. If you’ve seen said demos you were sure to have noticed that they featured some rather impressive physics.
Those impressive physics could be attributed to none other than Unreal Engine 3. This realization was made known during an OXM interview with Epic’s Mark Rein.
Sure, it proves that Unreal Engine 3’s capabilites are still prevalent years after it was released but the real gem here is that current game engines could in fact support the new motion control technology. This inevitably means that game developers will be able to create immersive Project Natal games without much difficulty.
Videos of the Paint Party and Richochet demonstration from E3 ‘09 included after the break.
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Gears of War 2 gets price cut to $39.99
Just in time for its Double XP weekend Gears of War 2 has been discounted from it’s normal $59.99 retail price to a much more palatable $39.99. Best of all, if you order on Amazon, that price (further discounted to $36.99) includes shipping.
There’s no telling if retailers will decide to hike the price back up so if you’re planning on purchasing Gears of War 2 at this discounted price, do it fast.
Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant continues Gears 2 story
The upcoming Gears of War book, Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant, written by Karen Traviss, A New York Times bestselling author (and hack), continues the story where Gears of War 2 left off. We won’t go into details and spoil it for you if you haven’t played the game, but the book is out on July 28th.
Super Paper Mario Game Review–A Really Surprising Epic
I have to admit that it’s nice–downright nice!–to be able to play a Wii game that doesn’t rack my arms or shoulder all to ruination, and I got my chance with one such game today, Super Paper Mario. And while I’d set out to play this one with little more than a hope of rest, what I found instead was a surprisingly decent RPG built around action elements and a whole searing load of nostalgia. Big N seems to love to pound my nostalgia button and usually to good effect.
Super Paper Mario may be the most surprising epic I’ve ever found, featuring Mario and Luigi hanging around their house and wishing that something would for crying out loud happen already. Naturally, they get their wish and Princess Peach has been kidnapped once again. Suspecting Bowser, King of the Koopa, the brothers rush to his palace only to discover that, for once, he had absolutely nothing to do with it and the plumbers had landed on him while he was planning to do what had already been done. The discovery is made that a new evil, in the form of Count Bleck, was the one behind the kidnapping. Count Bleck has a plan that easily trumps anything Bowser ever came up with for terms of sheer catastrophic evil, namely, the summoning of a massive void that will destroy all reality everywhere as the inhabitants know it. It’s up to Mario to go forth and tangle with Bleck and his numerous minions to rescue the princess and save all reality.
While the game itself controls much like the original Super Mario Brothers, with the Wiimote held like an original two button NES controller, you’ll occasionally use the Wiimote in its newest form to analyze monsters and locations for added effect. This is a fairly interesting new twist on an old classic, which lends a note of credibility to the proceedings. But the new twists don’t stop there–early on, Mario is given the ability to “flip” between dimensions, allowing him to go from 2-D to 3-D and back again. But spending too much time in 3-D is clearly taxing on the normally flat plumber, as spending too long “flipped” causes Mario to take damage. You’ll be able to collect and use a whole host of items for attack and defense, and you’ll also run into different fairies called Pixls that give Mario various special abilities.
It’s downright surprising to see Mario adapted into RPG status, though it’s happened before with the Paper Mario series, and even farther back with Super Mario RPG. This time, Super Paper Mario gives us an entire large and sprawling storyline to go with your standard action elements. Even many of the stages you’ll troop through bear a striking resemblance to those from the original Super Mario Brothers. I found bonus level pipes in Super Paper Mario through vague half-remembrances of the original game, and this was a development that made me doubly happy. Sure, the graphics are Wii-standard and lag way behind the next gen, but this is a truly minor point as there are so many good points to this game. It’s a lot of fun and the control schemes are pretty nicely adapted to the Wii. I have to admit, I liked this game, and there’s plenty of reason to believe that you’ll like it too.
Tags: Action, action game, Bowser, epic, Luigi, mario, Mario Bros, Nintendo, role playing, RPG, RPG game, Super Paper Mario, Wii
Bully Scholarship Edition Game Review–Makes The Honor Roll With A Bullet
I’ve been looking forward to trying this one for a long time. It’s true—this is the first time I’ve managed to get my hands on a copy of Bully: Scholarship Edition.
The biggest irony about this one is that it’s a next-gen update of a previous-gen release. The first time I got my induction into the world of Bullworth Academy, it was back on the PS2. But then, the tail end of 2008 comes along and, boom…Bully gets an update. The Scholarship Edition comes packed with lots more new content, and frankly, is a whole new class by itself.
But just for a refresher course, in case you’ve already sampled this one back in the PS2 days, you play as Jimmy Hopkins, a young man with a lousy family life as his mother’s neck-deep in what seems to be a lifelong round of Wheel Of New Husbands. Jimmy’s mom and newest hubby are about to head for a cruise ship for their year-long honeymoon, but something’s got to be done with Jimmy. Jimmy’s new stepdad has just the concept—Bullworth Academy, a boarding school with plenty of problems. Jimmy’s first meeting with one of the students is both opportune and problematic—he meets Gary, a kid with even more problems than Bullworth itself (he’s admitted to having ADD and being on medication that he’s recently stopped taking, and getting to know this scary bastard reveals that he’s got at least sociopathic tendencies.). Gary’s given Jimmy an interesting idea, though—taking over the school. But with four separate cliques in operation, and a whole town outside Bullworth Academy, such a feat won’t be easy for Jimmy. And if Gary takes exception to Jimmy’s methods…well…Gary has the potential to make Jimmy’s life a living hell.
Who will win? Who will lose? And will Bullworth Academy be left standing?
This is about half of why I love Bully—the sheer epic of this storyline is fantastic by itself. But when you add the OTHER half, couple in the spectacular variety of things to do in and around Bullworth, you get a game with all sorts of replay value. I love how you gather new skills not by defeating enemies or collecting things, but by going to class. Almost ironically, Jimmy is very much AGAINST bullying, and it’s his repeatedly stated goal throughout the course of the game to end it at Bullworth. There’s a lot of unexpected fun in this game, and it’s especially worth mentioning as a result.
Sure, maybe the graphics look a little last-gen for a product developed so late in the season, and sometimes the game mechanics get a downright aggressively skewed in favor of screwing the player over—hypersensitive enemies, floods of enemies, you know what I mean—but none of this really gets in the way of a good time. And that’s what Bully: Scholarship Edition will offer–a good time action game with an epic storyline and lots to do in between.
In no uncertain terms, this is a fun game. I had literally hours of fun with it, and I gladly came back for more. You may want to try the original first to appreciate the fullest extent of the additions and changes made, but it’s not strictly necessary. The key take away? You’ll have fun. That’s what counts.
Tags: Action, action game, Adventure, bully, Bully Scholarship Edition, Driving, epic, next gen, previous-gen, Sports, Wii, xbox 360
Unreal Engine 3 getting MMO features
Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, the de-facto standard for the current generation of pretty titles (like Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3, Mirror’s Edge etc.), is getting an addition of MMO features.
The new version of the engine will be getting a full MMO dev suite, including scalable statistics, data management backend and a content browser. More details about the new features will be detailed at GDC, where another heavyweight engine will be showcased, CryTek’s CryEngine 3, which also features MMO functionalities.
Unreal Tournament III getting huge update
I feel Unreal Tournament III was a great game, but not regarded so highly as many. Perhaps Epic’s recent announcement of a huge DLC pack could spurr some forgotten interest.
Included in the Titan Pack are 11 all new maps along with 2 new game modes called Betrayal and Greed. The new Greed mode is described as a “tug of war style kill points battle”, whatever that means. And Betrayal seems to be a mode where teams are changed throughout the match leading you to kill your previous teammates, hence Betrayal.
Other than that, the Titan Pack adds a bunch of new weapons, vehicles, and new characters. Yes, really lives up to it’s name because that’s not all. It also adds support for Steam Achievements and Trophy Support for the PS3. Phew.
The Titan Pack for Unreal Tournament III will be released for the PS3 and PC on March 5th. No update for the 360, I guess.
Read (That VideoGame Blog)
Unreal Tournament 3 Goes Steam-Crazy
Bracing itself for the large Unreal Tournament 3 patch that is due out soon, Valve today enabled free Steam registration for the game.
The registration is a simple matter of entering the CD key in Steam’s activation menu. Any CD key should be eligible for activation, including versions of the game purchased from other digital distribution services. However, the activation will require a new installation of the game, so if you don’t want hard drive bloat, be sure to uninstall your old version first.
The update will bring over 50 Steamworks Achievements, as well as new features and enhancements in AI, mod support, server browsing and more.
Y2K9 Strikes Gears of War
Those who bought the PC version of Gears of War are in for a treat, as the game has been entirely disabled since Wednesday when the game’s digital certificate expired.
The expiration date on the certificate was apparently set for January 28, and when the date switched over, the game became completely unplayable.
Epic knows of the problem, with programmer Joe Graf expressing his surprise on the company’s official forum. He writes that they are currently working with Microsoft to resolve the issue.
Other games have faced similar issues, most notably Lord of the Rings Online. Interestingly, there’s a simple solution to the problem that users found: set the system clock back to a date prior to the expiration to activate the game.
Much needed Gears 2 patch coming soon
There’s a lot of turmoil on the online battlefields of Gears of War 2 these days, main concerning exploits such as invisible shields and melee attacks that go through walls.
Epic’s Mark Rein popped into the official forums and revealed that the new patch should be ready for release this month, and that many of the mentioned bugs will be fixed, including harsher penalties for those who quit early (you know who you are!).
The patch should also fix bugs, add an achievement progress numbers to the War Journal and better spawn protection against planted grenades.
Gears of War 2 matchmaking tweaked again
Has anyone else noticed that matchmaking for Gears of War 2 still takes painstakingly long, even after the recently released patch?
It seem’s we aren’t alone as after several complaints, Epic has issued yet another fix. But this time it’s not client side, they have announced they have tweaked their own servers to allow for faster matches let’s just hope it works this time.
Senior Producer for Gears of War 2, Rod Fergusson, also went on to say that the slow times can’t completely be blamed on Epic. Sometimes there will be a low population in any given playlist, so you’re going to have to wait a bit longer for that.
Read (TGR)
Good Old Games Goes Unreal
DRM-free digital download store Good Old Games now carries titles from Epic’s classic shooter series Unreal.
Priced at $9.99 are Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition. More titles, including Unreal II and Unreal Tournament 2004 are slated to hit in the coming weeks.
"We know that a lot of gamers have been waiting for new deals," added GOG managing director Adam Oldakowski. "We’re sure that the Unreal games will satisfy their lust for alien blood and intense multiplayer action… DRM-free, of course."
Gears of War 2 Gone Gold
Epic and Microsoft announced today that Gears of War 2 has gone gold, assuring its November 7 release date. The original was released in 2006, with the PC version out after approximately a year.
The sequel improves on the original with more and “bigger, badder” action, as well as drop-in-drop-out cooperative gameplay both on and offline. It also features a ten-person multiplayer and a new Horde mode that has up to five players going up against increasingly difficult waves of enemies.
No word on whether it will eventually make its way to PC or not.
Why Gears of War 2 isn’t on PC? PIRACY!
Piracy, piracy and piracy. That’s all developers seem to talk about these days. And that’s also the reason they are abandoning the PC as a viable platform for video games.
Talking to Total Video Games, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski discussed the absence of a PC version of Gears of War 2, citing piracy as one of their problems.
"Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons,” he explained. “Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy."
He elaborates on the matter, saying how anyone who is “savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software.”
Epic: Xbox 360 Limits Being Reached
The Xbox 360 may be at the end of its limits, as developer Epic recently revealed that the studio’s titles are starting to reach the upper end of the console’s abilities.
Talking with Gamasutra, Rod Fergusson, Gears of War senior producer, said that he believes developers are nearing the limits of what the console can do, though he believes that games will continue to look better as they spend more time working on the platform.
“With the two to three more years of optimization that we’ve had, we’re much further along than I think, three years ago, we thought we were going to get,” he said. “So I think we’re certainly approaching the upper end of it, as far as what developers are able to do with it… It’s clear that all the games just keep improving, and keep pushing that bar.”
He concludes by saying that “there’s [still] room to grow,” noting that there are games in development that won’t ship till 2010, and that they are surely going to look “killer”.