Earlier today the developers behind the upcoming and highly anticipated Battlefield 3 released a new blog post pertaining to the Back to Karkand DLC that is to ship post Battlefield 3.
The Back to Karkand DLC is going to bring back fan favorite classic maps, such as Gulf of Oman, Strike at Karkand and Sharqi Peninsula; all of which are going to be re-rendered in the new frostbite engine 2. The DLC will also feature many weapons from the previous entry, Battlefield 2.
The blog post is a question and answer type ordeal, with one of the developers behind the DLC answering various questions based on the development of the game. It’s an interesting read and gives us a little insight into the development process as well as other bits of information as to what type of gamer the developer is.
Hi Niklas Fegraeus! You’re Lead Designer on Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand, where the classic Wake Island map will be remade. How far do you and Wake Island go back? — Wake Island was my very first Battlefield experience, like it was for so many others. In 2002, I was actually involved in a professional Counter-Strike clan. We had just trounced our opposing team, when they proposed a rematch – in the recently released Battlefield 1942 demo on Wake Island!
Star Raiders Developer: Incinerator Studios Publisher: Atari Release Date:May 11, 2011 Versions: XBLA (Reviewed), PSN, PC Price: 800 MSP, $9.99 – Download Trial Now
Overview:
Lately Atari has brought back many of its classic franchises in the form of an upgraded XBLA, PSN and PC title. We’ve seen things such as Haunted House and Yar’s Revenge in the past but neither of these titles holds a candle to Atari’s Star Raiders. Star Raiders was originally created back in 1979, making the original title 32 years old which means there is plenty to upgrade from. Has Atari’s latest venture in bringing the past back to a more updated future been successful?
Story:
Now the story of Star Raiders places the player in a war against the Zylons. Humans have managed to make it into space but unfortunately they aren’t met with friendship. I wish there was more to explain here but there really isn’t anything much more in-depth than this. The story is forgetful at best and is told through a number of still image cutscenes and text that is usually voiced over. Now the main reason that the story is at best forgetful is simply due to the problems with these two things alone, besides the fact that little is not actually ever developed, nor do the Zylons receive backstory of any sort.
Graphics:
The artwork in game is actually relatively good looking. Space ships are well modeled and have a nice feeling of vastness and speed as they fly through the emptiness of space. Players will really receive the feeling of being in space as there really isn’t a whole lot to see in the universe around you besides enemy ships which look great and galaxies or planets in the distance.
Unfortunately when you actually step away from the gameplay graphics you find a much less pretty picture. Whenever something story related is worth explaining it occurs through still cutscenes that are relatively well drawn, but characters seem to be an issue as many of the characters drawn are odd looking to say the least, especially considering they are all supposedly human.
Now earlier I mentioned that these cutscenes are voiced, and this is most certainly a good thing as the text in the game is small enough to make you feel like you’d be better off ignoring the text altogether and flying off on a wing and a prayer. In this day and age it is depressing to see text as tiny as this is; even with a large HD television the text doesn’t reach levels above eye bleeding tiny.
Audio:
The voice work for the cutscenes is suitable at best but doesn’t really add much to the experience beyond allowing you to understand what is happening at any given moment. Explosions and other sound effects sound well enough in space but there is nothing noteworthy here as they did not leave any impression other than the fact that there was sound.
Gameplay:
Players are given a space ship that has three different modes of fighting the enemy in space. These modes are the highlight of the game as you can change at the slightest touch of a button. These modes are Turret mode, Assault mode and Attack mode and each varies in both weaponry and appearance. They also vary in control scheme but I will address that later.
The first few levels you are given in the story are treated as tutorial levels that help walk you through some of the basics of Star Raiders and teach you each of the various ship modes and the weapons equipped to each one. This tutorial ventures outside the combat and into the customization area as well as players are given the ability to customize their weapons and their AI co-pilot. Unfortunately the co-pilot is nothing more than a fancy way to say stat boosting item.
Combat is relatively basic, fly around space and enter dogfights with the Zylon fighters. You will find a number of different mission varieties that will ask you to either destroy a certain amount of enemies, protect a ship for a certain period or destroy a very large enemy battle ship. Unfortunately even with this extra variety combat simply has little actual challenge or enjoyment outside the first few minutes.
There are a number of reasons for this, as players will find that the enemy AI is usually quite poor and they will not bother you heavily until you are right on their tail firing on them. The bland combat is made worse by the fact that there is little actual challenge. It is interesting to note that players are shown a Recharge station where they can recover health as well as secondary weapons for their ship, but in truth there is no reason to even bother with recharge stations.
The reason for this is that there is no penalty for death in Star Raiders besides a three second respawn. Players will find themselves crashing into asteroids or space debris simply to gain their supplies back faster and take down enemies. The UI helps players always find where they will find their next target and often a heat seeking missile is enough to finish off the majority of enemies you face.
If anything will add difficulty there is the control scheme. Earlier I mentioned that each of the three ship modes has a different control scheme, and each is customizable. This may be your barrel of fish if you enjoy micromanaging everything about your fighter but for others this barrel of fish is rotten and should be jettisoned out of an airlock. The controls are extremely hard to get used to as they do not lend themselves well to a console. Once you obtain mastery of the controls the game gets even easier than before but this at least adds further challenge to the beginning few levels.
Also there is no multiplayer mode at all which is truly a disappointment as a dog fighting mode with other players would have been a definite plus for the title. There isn’t even any co-operative play mode which would have worked flawlessly but unfortunately is not implemented. The lack of any multiplayer is a true loss for the title and for those who pick up Star Raiders.
Overall:
Now Star Raiders is a title that made History back when it was released in 1979. Unfortunately this remake in 2011 doesn’t lend itself well to modern times. The most depressing thing about the title is that there is truly a lot of potential here. Spaceship fighting simulators on current-gen consoles can most likely be counted on one hand and with Star Raiders multi-mode ship combat it could have created a great title. But instead it became something that is extremely bland that has little challenge outside of its control scheme and reading the text.
Although it was first announced in February, Robot Entertainment’s upcoming title Orcs Must Die! has only just caught my attention, due to the regular videos on their YouTube channel showcasing each weapon.
Founded by developers from Ensemble Studios, the people behind Halo Wars and the classic Age of Empires franchise, this is their first original game as Robot Entertainment, and it looks awesome.
Orcs Must Die! is being called a tower defense/strategy/action game. From the looks of it, players are placed in charge of defending a fortress from relentless waves of orcs, setting traps, using environmental elements and weapons to find the most creative and effective ways to stop the horde.
Instead of the common top-down view associated with tower defense games, and the power to place objects anywhere you can see onscreen, control is tied to a character viewed from an over-shoulder third-person perspective, and players must run around the fortress placing traps, triggering events and if necessary, directly attacking the invaders.
Gameplay will essentially involve players setting up traps like arrow walls, elven archers, spike floors, and swinging blades before the horde arrives. Once the horde enters the castle, players must run around and maintain these traps, sit in strategic locations to drop chandeliers onto them or ignite boom barrels, and use your crossbow to take out those who survive.
The gameplay looks fun, the visual style looks somewhat cartoony, and the game as a whole gives off a light-hearted, funny vibe. Definitely one to keep an eye on. Orcs Must Die is due as a digital download for PC and consoles sometime in “Summer” –i.e., June/July/August, for those of us down south.
Check out the gameplay trailer below, and keep an eye on the official site for updates, and the comical descriptions of the game elements.
Hey everyone, to celebrate my time at Capsule Computers, I have decided to let the community have a chance at getting to know me a little more closely.
Today and any other day after this article has been published, you can head over to the forums (linked below) to launch me a question and assuming that the question is one that I would deem reasonable, then I will do my best to answer it. These questions don’t just have to be personal though, they can be my opinions on things and what-not. I’ll leave you all with the quotation from my staff page and hope to hear from you all soon.
I’m Linkage Ayexe, LinkageAX, Ayexe, or in reality – Benjamin. I have been gaming since as early as I can remember, but it’s probably longer than that. My earliest memories of gaming are watching my dad play through Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the SEGA Megadrive (Genesis to everyone overseas). This is also probably the first ever game I played.At the moment I’m a serious QuakeLive player, but not so serious that I attend tournaments and things… I will when I think that I’m good enough though Outside of Quake I play World of Warcraft, I’m ‘Ayexe’ on the ‘Caelestrasz’ server, hit me up sometime. As you can probably tell, I’m primarily a PC gamer but I do also play consoles and handhelds. My favorite console franchise is the ‘Legend of Zelda’ series, which is (as we all know) the greatest franchise to have ever graced gaming. My favorite TLoZ game would be Ocarina of Time simply because of it’s excellent level design, memorable characters and it’s amazing settings. My second favorite franchise is of course ‘Megaman’ for it’s tough as nails platforming gameplay and entertainingly sci-fi storyline. I started with Megaman X on the PC and ended up moving on the Zero games on the GBA, which are to this day my favorite Megaman games. The ZX games are also pretty good, but I have a soft-spot for Zero.
I was an N64 kid as opposed to a Playstation one, so I saw more top rated games over the years. I grew up with games that were always critical successes on this console, Super Mario 64, Goldeneye64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and many other greats, like LylatWars (Star Fox64) and Perfect Dark (which was sooooo good that it got a HD remake on Xboxlive Arcade! ).
In less than two months, the highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 will arrive in theaters worldwide. Of course there is also a videogame adaptation underway from EA Play, which will release alongside the movie and EA have now announced a contest to celebrate. Labeled the “EA Reporters” contest, fans of both the Harry Potter franchise and videogames will compete to win a trip to EA’s UK-based Bright Light Studio to meet the development team behind the Harry Potter video games as well as Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in the films.
To enter, fans need to create a short and original video which highlights their love for the films as well as the videogames. Finalists will be then be chosen by an internal panel at EA and the community will cast a vote to see who takes home the top prize. EA have also stated that “Originality and creativity are absolutely critical to success”, so this would be a time to put on your best cosplay face and fully show off all your Potter belongings. For details on how to enter as well as submission instructions, check out www.harrypotter.ea.com/facebook, and may the best fan win.
Over the past few weeks, many of us here at Capsule Computers have soaked many hours into the Gears of War 3 beta. I am sure many of you know by now the withdrawal we will all have until September when the game is actually released, but it looks like Gears 3 is preparing for an “epic” launch due to the fact that over 1 million pre-orders have been placed for the heavily anticipated sequel, which has now set a new record of being the fastest pre-ordered title on the platform. Quite an astonishing feat for a game that doesn’t even launch for four more months.
“Consumer demand for ‘Gears of War 3’ has been incredible,” said Bob McKenzie, Senior VP of Merchandising at GameStop. “It is one of the few times in our history that we’ve seen a title hit this level of pre-order numbers four months out from launch, putting ‘Gears of War 3’ on track to be one of the year’s biggest blockbuster gaming hits.”
Microsoft have also stepped in to celebrate by releasing some eyebrow raising stats from the official beta in which 1.29 million people participated in:
145 different countries participated in the beta
249 years worth of matches played
More than 11 million matches completed
More than 927 million kills recorded
More than 131 million executions performed
More than 23 million deaths by chainsaw
Nearly 23 BILLION bullets fired
4.9 billion ribbons and 291M medals earned
435K people earned the Beta exclusive Thrashball Cole skin to use in the retail game when it launches in September
234K people earned the Beta exclusive Gold Retro Lancer to use in the retail game when it launches in September (sadly, I was not one of these..VERY CLOSE THOUGH!)
So what is next? Cliff Bleszinski and the team at Epic Games are currently using all of the feedback from the beta to “refine and polish ‘Gears of War 3’ to ensure it’s truly the culmination of the trilogy we promised to the fans”.
Personally, I am not a big fan of current shooters aside from a small handful of current titles, so I never got a chance to really dive into Gears until as of late. I must say though that the beta has completely turned me into a fan as I am currently about to start progressing through Gears of War 1 & 2 to get caught up with the plot which should hold me over a while until September 20th rolls around. A big congrats goes out to CliffyB and everyone at Epic though as Gears 3 is certainly looking to be one of this years heaviest contenders and seems to be preparing to shatter even more records in the future.
Dead or Alive: Dimensions is looking to have the widest selection of characters to choose from ever in the DoA franchise. To do this they have integrated a number of boss characters into the game as actual playable characters. This includes Alpha, Genra, Tengu and Raidou and the game will take the first four DoA games and tell them all in one neat package. You can find videos from all of the bosses available to play as below.
DoA: Dimensions is set to be released on May 24th in the US and May 20th in Europe on the 3DS. Japan will get the title on May 19th, tomorrow. Also it is good to provide a quick reminder that early purchasers of the title will be rewarded with additional costumes from the SpotPass system because every day, including release day, there will be a new costume released for the title via SpotPass.
It is rare that a game’s box art is actually something that is commissioned from an artist. But in the case of Insomniac Games’ upcoming Resistance 3 they have partnered up with artist Olly Moss to provide a very unique looking route with the games box art. That being of a minimalist attitude that looks like something you would want to hang on your wall as a promotional piece of artwork.
As you can see to the right the box art shows a Chimera skull in white on a reddish orange backdrop. The skulls teeth are actually the New York skyline as you can see the Statue of Liberty there on the right. This box art will certainly help the game stand out on shelves across the country with its unique artwork.
Now The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has teased us with the fact that there will be dragons in the game. We’ve seen games in the past that are billed with Dragon even in the name, I’m looking at you Dragon Age, and then only have one or two dragons actually in them. That won’t be the case however in Skyrim according to Bethesda’s director Todd Howard.
Todd Howard said in a statement that “there is an unlimited number of dragons.One of our designers actually put in a random event I encountered, where I ended up being chased by three dragons and I thought, ‘who the hell did this?’ I felt like Frodo in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and was really frightened. So I asked him to remove it. But no, dragons are generated automatically (in addition to that there are a number of specific encounters, of course).”
This is great news as it will truly provide the feeling that players will be able to experience a full on dragon assault without the need for it being forced in. From his statement we can assume that there are a number of times you will find Dragons without it being plot oriented. Better hope that you and your horse armor are ready for death from above.
If there is one thing you can count on for a game by a Japanese developer, there will always be information leaked ahead of time from one source or another. This leak comes from Famitsu as Andriasang has reported on what the magazine will contain in its upcoming issue. Soul Calibur V will take place 17 years after the events of Soul Calibur IV, this was known already, also known was that the main character will be Patroklos who is the son of Sophitia.
What isn’t known however is that the game’s producer Hisaharu Tago stated he wishes to have at least as many characters that were in in SCIV, special weaponry that we haven’t seen before, a few new characters that have yet to be announced will be included, older characters with new weapons and that Siegfried will be using his Requiem weapon from Soul Calibur I and III. Also revealed was that the game is only 10% complete at the moment so much of the information now is subject to change by the time the game is released next year.
Outside of Quake I play World of Warcraft, I’m ‘Ayexe’ on the ‘Caelestrasz’ server, hit me up sometime. As you can probably tell, I’m primarily a PC gamer but I do also play consoles and handhelds. My favorite console franchise is the ‘Legend of Zelda’ series, which is (as we all know) the greatest franchise to have ever graced gaming. My favorite TLoZ game would be Ocarina of Time simply because of it’s excellent level design, memorable characters and it’s amazing settings. My second favorite franchise is of course ‘Megaman’ for it’s tough as nails platforming gameplay and entertainingly sci-fi storyline. I started with Megaman X on the PC and ended up moving on the Zero games on the GBA, which are to this day my favorite Megaman games. The ZX games are also pretty good, but I have a soft-spot for Zero.
