Well a couple of topics to cover today. I already got my rant out of the way. Time for some gaming news. We are now post-TGS. All kinds of Wii music announcements and Nintendo shit was made public last week. Nothing too spectacular to talk about there unless you like all the import RPGs.
It looks like "Good Old Games" has gone live with a public beta. You can get access to all the cool games of the late 1990's such as MDK and Citizen Kabuto and newer games like Colin McCre Rally 2005. It looks like its a game tap type setup, except no monthly fee, looks like you pay per game. $5-10 is a reasonable price for an older PC game when a NES game is going for $5 dollars on Wii's Virtual Console.
Rumors abound that Legendary Pictures is looking to purchase Epic Games. Epic's Mark Reign is trying to quell the rumors saying that the speculation is all false. This comes on the heals of the public announcement that Legendary and Epic are teaming up for the Gears of War movie. Reports say CliffyB is looking for a "Clive Owen" type to play the lead roll. Interesting.
MMO news out of LucasArts this week. It seems EA and LucasArts are departing on a MMO adventure of the StarWars kind. The Old Republic looking to be the next step from Bioware's Knight of the Old Republic standard RPG released a few years back. Could be good, could be bad, the recent rash of StarWars licenced games have sucked. (I'll make an exception for Lego StarWars.) The MMO space has a lot to chew on with WoW's 10 million users and growing.
Lord of the Rings Online's new expansion "The Mines of Moria" is due out November 18.
Valve's zombie-survival coop game "Left 4 Dead lands Nov. 18 as well. L4D is looking to be the multiplayer game of the year if it can make it on time.
Finally! Little Big Planet? Anyone play this yet? Looks kinda neat.
Showing posts with label Epic Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epic Games. Show all posts
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Eat your words Clifford, PC Gaming Aliance Formed
Over at the ever polular Game Developers Conference, a not-so secret alliance was being announced to the public. My previous post with the toutings of Cliff Bleszinski, head hauncho at Epic Games, and how he said that Epic was not primailry focusing on PC games. Well, I think THIS might say otherwise. Here is a snippet.
The artlice goes into some detail on what the PCGA is going focus on in the comming months and years. I think this goes to show you that there is alot of hardware manufacturers who do not want the PC gaming industry to die. But lets hope that this isnt just failed bargins like "Games for Windows." This somehow seems to address everything that CliffB was complaining about. Interesting turn of events.
"One of our main major objectives is to provide one voice on PC gaming market. There's no one source that says 'hey this is where the PC market is going'. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are always calling their market share - we're going to call our market through this group."
-Randy Stude
PCGA President
The artlice goes into some detail on what the PCGA is going focus on in the comming months and years. I think this goes to show you that there is alot of hardware manufacturers who do not want the PC gaming industry to die. But lets hope that this isnt just failed bargins like "Games for Windows." This somehow seems to address everything that CliffB was complaining about. Interesting turn of events.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
CliffyB Defies his Master, PC Gaming "Secondary"
This seems like giant slap to my face. In a day when gamers should stick together, CliffB, the Unreal dude, says via MTVMultiplayer
There you have it. Cliff Bleszinski doggin' his home court, giving PC gamers the cold shoulder! What gives Cliffy? You're game not selling well? Get a hot spark in your eye? From an economic standpoint, I can see where he is coming from. As one of the few independant developers in the US, they must sell units to put food on their plates. However, "sims type games" aren't the reason PC gamers still use the platform. Its diversity of Genres that exists. The inharent multifunctional nature of the system makes it great. I have yet to see a decent RTS on the Xbox. What about MMO? I think what Cliffy is seeing is the fact that gamers (on the PC anyways) expect much more from an app than some console kiddie. The PC has plenty of shooters. Shooters with guns, bigger guns, cars, trucks, bigger trucks, tanks, rockets, chainsaws, etc, gamers are looking for something that pushes the boundaries, not just last years game packaged with new graphics and fancy Special Edition DVD bullshit. It is what divides the true "hardcore" gamers from the "I got this for Christmas" gamers.
CliffyB, I hereby challenge you to start bringing your innovation to the table. Keeping such a corporate mindset will disorient you and stifle the creative process. Personally, I think Unreal Tourney has been the same game since the 2002 iteration. What else have you changed besides the look and maybe a few game tweaks? What "new" or "bold" content have you added; and by bold, I don't mean "HOLY SHIT HEADSHOT" with the crazy announcer voice.
I think developers are starting to wallow in the financial advantages of the console war. A stable platform for witch all the games can use the same engine till the end of time. Collect royalties from other developers when they use your product. Well, untill Microsoft recoups their R&D costs and makes another Xbox and then all your games are...well...useless.
We will talk then CliffyB.
WASD
"I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and “Gears” is at 4.5 million right now on the 360. I think the PC is just in disarray… what’s driving the PC right now is ‘Sims’-type games and ‘WoW‘ and a lot of stuff that’s in a web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That’s the direction PC is evolving into So for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we’re doing. It’s important for us, but right now making AAA games on consoles is where we’re at."
There you have it. Cliff Bleszinski doggin' his home court, giving PC gamers the cold shoulder! What gives Cliffy? You're game not selling well? Get a hot spark in your eye? From an economic standpoint, I can see where he is coming from. As one of the few independant developers in the US, they must sell units to put food on their plates. However, "sims type games" aren't the reason PC gamers still use the platform. Its diversity of Genres that exists. The inharent multifunctional nature of the system makes it great. I have yet to see a decent RTS on the Xbox. What about MMO? I think what Cliffy is seeing is the fact that gamers (on the PC anyways) expect much more from an app than some console kiddie. The PC has plenty of shooters. Shooters with guns, bigger guns, cars, trucks, bigger trucks, tanks, rockets, chainsaws, etc, gamers are looking for something that pushes the boundaries, not just last years game packaged with new graphics and fancy Special Edition DVD bullshit. It is what divides the true "hardcore" gamers from the "I got this for Christmas" gamers.
CliffyB, I hereby challenge you to start bringing your innovation to the table. Keeping such a corporate mindset will disorient you and stifle the creative process. Personally, I think Unreal Tourney has been the same game since the 2002 iteration. What else have you changed besides the look and maybe a few game tweaks? What "new" or "bold" content have you added; and by bold, I don't mean "HOLY SHIT HEADSHOT" with the crazy announcer voice.
I think developers are starting to wallow in the financial advantages of the console war. A stable platform for witch all the games can use the same engine till the end of time. Collect royalties from other developers when they use your product. Well, untill Microsoft recoups their R&D costs and makes another Xbox and then all your games are...well...useless.
We will talk then CliffyB.
WASD
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Hot ticket Items
I have some juicy tidbits from around the net today. Nothing really exciting happening on the weekends or even this week for that matter. The demo for Unreal Tournament 3 is out now, and available for download.
Some other big news from around the industry. EA foresees gaming's future as an open platform with one console or set top box. Hmm..that sounds an awful lot like the PC platform. And man, the backwards compatibility is amazing on the PC.
Anyways, just thought I might let you know what's been happening around the net. Expect a full digestion of EA's latest acquisitions and moves next week. I'm working on something special for you.
Some other big news from around the industry. EA foresees gaming's future as an open platform with one console or set top box. Hmm..that sounds an awful lot like the PC platform. And man, the backwards compatibility is amazing on the PC.
Anyways, just thought I might let you know what's been happening around the net. Expect a full digestion of EA's latest acquisitions and moves next week. I'm working on something special for you.
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