We have a date, Agent. At last. Being the only major title present at Microsoft's X10 event that didn't get a confirmed release day, Crackdown 2 is no longer a mystery.
July 6th in North America, July 8th in Asia, and July 9th in Europe. Those are the days that Ruffian Games let us loose once more in Pacific City, this time to battle mutated freaks in glorious 4-player co-op. Though, you won't be recording any of your shenanigans on your console right out of the gate, sadly.
Ruffian Games also dropped the first in a series of development diaries alongside the news, called "Fun with Friends," wherein the team members talk up "what it takes to design a living, breathing sandbox world with the most gripping multiplayer experiences yet, including 16-player PVP and 4-player co-op."
A playable demo is slated to hit before launch, but no date has been announced as of yet.
Bethesda aren't all about first-person shooters and RPGs, or first-person shooter RPGs, either. The company announced this morning that they will be publishing a brand new third-person co-op, fantasy action title from inXile Entertainment, called Hunted: The Demon's Forge.
Due out later this year, Hunted is powered by Unreal Engine 3, stars E'lara and Caddoc, two characters that have to as they work together on their quest to do fantasy action things. Traversing various dangerous locales, eventually confronting a main bad guy is probably a good guess for what will go down, right?
"Taking control of either E’lara, a ranged weapon expert, or Caddoc, a master swordsman, you must use a variety of weapons, powerful spells, and cover tactics to battle your way through menacing dungeons, overgrown ruins, and downtrodden towns. Discover secrets and complete co-op-based puzzles whilst exploring the sinister world to discover answers to the game’s deep, dark mysteries." As for the story, which is usually key in a game like this:
"The dark ages have become corrupted. Heinous creatures have emerged from underground. Townsfolk across the land are disappearing. Upon the promise of their fortune in gold, mercenaries E’lara and Caddoc take on the daunting task of discovering where the innocent villagers have been taken. Their journey will lead them on a dark and twisted path where they will encounter death, slavery, and sacrifice. Travel deep within the world of Kala Moor...and to the secrets of The Demon’s Forge."
“inXile has an extremely talented team and we couldn’t be more pleased to have them working on one of our upcoming titles,” added Vlatko Andonov, President of Bethesda Softworks. “We believe gamers will be really excited about what these guys have in store for them."
Big week for Xbox LIVE, this week is. Let's get right to it, shall we? LIVE Arcade's Block Party is now into its third week, and quite possibly the most anticipated digital release of the year if finally here. Rare and 4J Studios' HD port of Perfect Dark arrives on Wednesday, March 17th, sending all 360 owners back into the era of the N64 like it was yesterday.
Expect to find the full single-player campaign just as it was all those years ago, as well as LIVE-enhanced multiplayer, including support for up to 8-players, split-screen, and of course 2-player co-op. So good. Pick it up for the ridiculous bargain of 800 MS Points.
The first Fable, available on Xbox Originals, is the newest Deal of the Week, alongside GTA: San Andreas and Max Payne 2 -- all being reduced to just 800 MS Points.
Both Alan Wake and Perfect Dark gear is here to cover up your Avatars, dropping into the Avatar Marketplace on March 18th, and Dragon Age Origins: Awakening -- the first full expansion for BioWare's RPG -- launches tomorrow. Get it for 3,200 MS Points, and embark on more adventures.
Microsoft have filed a new patent for an "automated direct transaction and delivery system for digital content" over Xbox LIVE, discovered website Broke My Controller. This new application is aimed at players on LIVE who may connect to a multiplayer title via invitation (such as Halo or Modern Warfare, for example), and are not possessing some required downloadable content (in this case, map packs); this system would then allow for that player to go ahead and purchase/download said content without exiting that game/party invite, and proceed with playing. Nifty, huh? According to the patent itself, mention of "maintaining communication between the inviting player and invitee player while concurrently downloading" a Title Update is also made.
A racing game is used as an example, that may "allow a player to race on the 24 Hours Of Lemans circuit in France, the Daytona International Speedway in the United States, The Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the United States, the Fuji Speedway in Japan, the EuroSpeedway in Germany but not the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Australia."
"In a multiplayer environment, one or more players may send an invitation to a player to join the racing game. The inviting players may already have purchased the content for the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit while the invitee may in fact not have this content. Upon being presented with an invitation and attempting to join an ongoing race on the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, the invitee would typically be confronted with some type of error notification that he or she did not have the requisite content and resources. The invitee would then be required to back out of the commenced multiplayer session, manually locate the desired content, purchase the content, install the content, relocate the inviting players, prepare his own request to join their game and then join the game that may already be well underway," reads the filing. Microsoft claim that the current process of doing things is often "highly frustrating" and "may lead to many players simply abandoning a session."
"...there is a clear need for a method and system to allow multimedia participants a direct bid to purchase and install required resources contemporaneously with the detection of an event that the content is not available. Such direct to bid system should seamlessly integrate with an already ongoing game session and should be made available to a player without requiring the player to back out of a session that is already underway."
Interesting. What the patent doesn't account for (as far as I can tell) is the time it takes to obtain content from Xbox LIVE. That might be a problem. Perhaps this but one change coming to LIVE, now that ties to the old version are being severed, allowing for expansion?
And boom. There it is. On this week's Major Nelson podcast, Infinity Ward’s creative strategist Robert Bowling confirms the details of Modern Warfare 2's Stimulus Package DLC, and drops a massive (nuclear?) bomb: the price.
"We announced the Stimulus Package this week, it's coming out March 30th first on Xbox LIVE," says Bowling. "We have five maps that it's gonna include, totaling up to 1,200 Microsoft Points." That's $15. Uh oh.
He adds that "there's a lot of good maps in there that I know our community have been wanting, and then some they're never expecting." Those maps are, as we found out yesterday, "Bailout," "Storm," "Crash," "Overgrown," and "Salvage" -- two pf those being fan favorites returning from CoD4, with IW having "upped the graphics a bit" and added in the sequel's various tweaks.
The Stimulus Package will also drop alongside another MW2 title update, Bowling confirms, adding new playlists, fixes and more.
So, that just happened. Seems like ages have passed since CoD4's Variety Map Pack, which included 4 maps, and only retailed for 800 MS Points, doesn't it? I love me some Infinity Ward and I support those guys (especially as of late), but this is hard to get behind. Thanks, Activision.
During GDC last week, Epic took the opportunity to, as they typically do each year, pimp the latest and greatest additions and enhancements to the Unreal Engine. This year's big news being that Unreal Engine 3 can now do much more realistic vegetation. If only Mass Effect 2 had been able to utilize these tweaks for some of its side-missions. Sigh.
Also shown off was a new technique that allows for developers to independently alter an object's surface from its base material or object. The company debuted what they called a "mercury cube," essentially a step beyond the infamous meat cube that preceded Gears 2 in 2008. The ever-resourceful engine has now received upgrades to its particle effects system including a new "ribbon" tool that makes for pretty water, air, and blood spray, as well as volume-based lighting.
Unreal 3's newest iteration can also allow for detailed and snaking vines, like you see in the above image, thanks to a new spline deformation tool. New procedural city/architecture-building allow for the quick creation of various complex systems (like buildings) from simple geometry like a square, fitted with a texture. Put it all together, and it looks like we have sme early hints at ideas for Gears 3 settings.
"One day we'll show you what we're doing with this," teased Epic's VP, Mark Rein. "When you see what we're doing with this, it's going to blow your mind."
When will that be, Epic? Possibly when it's a bit warmer, like around E3 time?
Earlier this month all of the Fallout: New Vegas shots that had been exclusive to fancy print magazines were finally made available in high-resolution for us internet dwellers, but those weren't all that are out there. Someone always has to have a little something extra that they hold back.
Over on GamesRadar, the site posted a couple of new images of Obsidian's open-world RPG, revealing an awesome sniper perch located inside the mouth of Dinky the Dinosaur (who we've already become familiar with), as well as Black mountain Radio Tower, located at New Vegas' center, and populated by many a Super Mutant.
There's also a concept piece for The Strip itself (which avoided direct blasts from the nukes), in addition to the Helios One solar power station, a location that will play a pivotal role in some of your decision making early on. Nifty stuff for your Fallout-starved brains to consume while we await gameplay footage.
Report: Project Natal needs spacious conditions to function properly 21 March 2010 02:54
Forget about getting your game face on with Project Natal in that cramped dorm room later this year, as the 360's new hands-free camera will require a fair bit of space to accommodate your flailing...
