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Preview: Aliens: Colonial Marines

Posted 4/4/12 9:10 am EST by in aliens: colonial marines, PC, Previews, PS3, sega, Wii U, Xbox 360


By Kevin Kelly

Gearbox and Sega recently invited us to Dallas, Texas to check out the progress on their upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines title, and we weren’t sure what to expect. But, our expectations were raised pretty high when we got to the venue which was accessed by a creaky cargo elevator (shades of Ripley fleeing from the Alien Queen) and dense fog covering the ground, only to be brought up face to face with the actual Alien Queen from the film, which was on loan for the event by 20th Century Fox.

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DICE and EA announce Battlefield 3: Close Quarters, Armored Kill, and End Game

Posted 3/7/12 11:50 am EST by in battlefield, dice, ea, PC, PS3, Xbox 360


Are you ready for more Battlefield 3? While the game made quite a splash when it launched last year, EA has only released one update for the game in the form of the "Back to Karkand" DLC for the game that featured four Battlefield 2 maps updated and remade using the new Frostbite 2 engine, along with 10 new weapons, four new vehicles, and new achievements/trophies. That came out in December of last year, roughly two months after the game was released.

Last night at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, EA held a joint event with both DICE and Danger Close to announce new things. Danger Close will be releasing a new Medal of Honor game entitled Medal of Honor: Warfighter this October, while DICE announced three new DLC packs for Battlefield 3 coming this year, the first of which is "Close Quarters" available this June. That pack introduces four new small maps meant to highlight tight infantry fighting, along with 10 new weapons that can be brought into "vanilla" Battlefield 3.

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Preview - The Secret World MMORPG Modern Meets Massively Multiplayer

Posted 2/27/12 11:50 am EST by in PC, Previews


Funcom has been hard at work on The Secret World, and they've only recently starting letting people loose in the game to check things out. We visited the Funcom offices in Montreal recently for a look, and while it still holds a lot of secrets and riddles, it's not so secret anymore. Read More...

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Preview Transformers: Fall of Cybertron - There's A Lot Of Energon Left In The Tank

Posted 2/21/12 1:50 pm EST by in activision, PS3, transformers, Xbox 360


High Moon Studios has been busy doing something lately that often gets overlooked in the day and age of ship it and forget it: actually listening to the gamers. They listened to all of the feedback from Transformers: War for Cybertron and realized that they could have done some things better. But rather than hiding behind sales figures and metacritic scores, they've come right out and said "We've heard you, and we're going to make the next game better." Read More...

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Preview - Prototype 2: The Second Time Is Actually The Charm

Posted 2/16/12 2:13 pm EST by in PC, prototype, PS3, Xbox 360


Last week in Las Vegas during the DICE summit, Activision invited people to check out the first hour of their upcoming Prototype 2. This was complete and unfettered access to the experience, hands-on and with no one telling you what you could and couldn't do. As it turns out, the game takes care of most of that for you. Throughout the first 15 to 20 minutes of the game, you're driving newcomer Sergeant James Heller through a training course, learning how the controls work and seeing his horror of a world unfolding in front of him after the man who apparently killed his wife and daughter infects him with the same Blacklight Virus that gave Mercer his powers.

Unfortunately, the promised Mercer vs. Heller "Murder Your Maker" storyline that was teased when the game was announced back in 2010 never surfaced during this first hour of the game, and Heller actually looks like he's going to work hand-in-hand with Mercer to discover what Blackwatch and Gentek are doing, and why the Blacklight Virus has broken out in NYC again. Mercer makes an appearance only at the beginning of that first hour, luring Heller into the Red Zone at the center of the viral outbreak, infecting him, and sharing memories with him to let him know the truth. Read More...

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Bethesda's Todd Howard: Skyrim Designer and Motivational Speaker?

Posted 2/10/12 5:39 pm EST by in bethesda game studios, dice, PC, PS3, Xbox 360


Todd Howard gave the opening keynote at the DICE 2012 summit in Las Vegas entitled "Why We Create, Why We Play," which proved to be a highly entertaining speech with an equally hilarious PowerPoint presentation. Todd has been with Bethesda for 18 years, starting in 1984. When he joined the company, Terminator Rampage had just come out. E3 didn't even exist yet, and according to Howard, "We had CES, but the video games were in a big tent outside with the porn." Look how far we've come since then.

To put things in perspective, he noted that Doom came out right around the same time he was joining Bethesda. Terminator: Future Shock first game he worked on, which was promptly one-upped by id. "I've worked on a few games since then, and we bought id a few years ago. So..."

Check out Howard's full keynote below, which features things like a gorilla high-fiving a shark.

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David Jaffe: "Video Games and Movies Go Together Like Chocolate And Tuna Fish"

Posted 2/10/12 2:30 pm EST by in dice, PS3, sony


David Jaffe has never been one to muzzle his thoughts, and when he gets riled up about something, he's very quick to take himself to a keyboard and vent his frustrations. He infamously aired his grievances about a review on Joystiq on his public blog, and he was certain that the comments about his DICE session would quickly be filling up with comments like "Jaffe's a fuckin' idiot."

Is he right? While you might not always agree with him, it's always heartening to see someone who is passionate and outspoken about their beliefs, and who have the arguments to back them up. Jaffe readily admits that he got into video games because of the allure of movies and that he wanted to put that type of storytelling into gaming. But he's also quick to point out that it doesn't work, and that developers should not attempt to tell stories or impart philosophies in their games. He also thinks that it is dangerous. Watch his keynote below to find out why.
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Batman: Arkham City Creator Sefton Hill On The Secrets Of Successful Game Design

Posted 2/10/12 11:10 am EST by in batman, batman: arkham asylum, dice, Features, PC, PS3, Warner Bros., Xbox 360


At the Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain Conference in Las Vegas, Sefton Hill, game director and co-founder at Rocksteady Studios, developers of the popular Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City games took to the stage to talk about the video game development theory at Rocksteady, offering up the five simple strategies of their studio that helped shape these two licensed games for Warner Bros. Interactive. While designing games isn't something that can be easily be picked up from reading a list of key components, these building blocks should be helpful for anyone out there looking to get into game development.

Read on for Rocksteady's 5 simple strategies for people looking to develop games.
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