Archives for Gaming News and Reportage category
Nihilistic Software, the once-upon-a-Zerg-dawn developer of Starcraft: Ghost, have been laying low since the fiascoes surrounding the tactical stealth game based on Blizzard’s popular sci-fi universe. Their last title was Zombie Apocalypse available on XBox Live and Playstation Network, but it appears they’ll be returning to the AAA forefront in the years to come.
As a recent listing by Nihilistic on Gamasutra shows, it’s “hard at work on its new, Next Gen project”. They’re hiring an animator for the project, and some of the qualifications lend to interesting theories. For instance,
“Extensive knowledge of skeletal and deformation systems and the principles of character motion required to build high quality characters of all types (bipeds, quadrupeds, snakes, etc)”
Snakes? So that’s why there are none in Metal Gear Solid Rising – Kojima left ‘em to the zombie men! On a more serious, less poor-joke-ful fashion, a resurgence of Ghost is unlikely. It never hurts to stop hoping, but here’s hoping that after “Meh” efforts like Conan and Zombie Apocalypse, Nihilistic captures the public’s eye like it did all those years ago with Ghost.
Posted on December 29th, 2009 at 12:58pm by Split-Screen
Filed Under: Gaming News and Reportage
Some people may question Bungie’s development time when it comes to Halo, especially after news that the company created Halo 3: ODST in only 14 months. Well, that may get all the more uglier as we’ve uncovered info regarding just when the so-called “biggest game of 2010″ Halo: Reach will wrap up development.
Hong-Wei David Liu is a Sound Designer/Engineer who’s previous record includes 2 years with Big Huge Games as an Associate SD. He’s been working at Bungie since November 2009 as their Sound Designer on Halo Reach.
On checking out his site, we see the following post, dated 28th November 2009, which would be the time he’s already begun working for Bungie.
On reading the 2nd to last paragraph, we see the following lines:
“Work here is supposed to last eight to nine months here, as I’m under a contract to last until the end of the project which may or may not be at the end of July. Knowing the company I’d be working for, however, I don’t expect them to miss their mark.”
Since it’s announcement this past June at E3 2009, give or take a few months of development, this would apparently place the development time of Halo: Reach around more than a year, but less than two years. Now remember, it may or may not finish development around July 2010, and Bungie has not officially revealed when they first began working on Reach. However, it’s important to note Bungie themselves saying the game will release by Fall 2010. Hence, the game could be released some where between September and November.
Posted on December 22nd, 2009 at 2:36pm by Split-Screen
Filed Under: Gaming News and Reportage
Jan-Bart van Beek is no stranger to perfection. Especially when he was behind the painstakingly nuanced environments of Guerrilla Games’ Killzone 2 for the PS3. There’s certainly an interesting past to his involvement – he played a key role in the notorious E3 2005 “target render” trailer of KZ 2 – and he commented not too long ago on the direction he believes gaming technology will take in the next 10 years.
van Beek spoke about the challenges of predicting what the future could hold for gaming:
“What technology will bring in ten years is hard to predict. Character pipelines and software from ten years ago look nothing like their current-day counterparts, and the character pipelines and software we’ll be using in ten years will look nothing like what we use today.”
However, he goes on to say,
“If I have to make a prediction, it’s that we will witness the debut of a break-through technology like ZBrush. Hopefully, it will be a technology that bridges the gap between modeling and texturing, as the state of this area is still less than ideal at the moment. I also hope that volumetric pixels with rich material data (which are at the heart of ZBrush) will become possible as a real-time format.
“I honestly can’t wait to get rid of all the baking, downsizing, and polygon-reduction techniques we currently use.”
And yes, this is the same company who still hasn’t fully utilized the power of the PS3 (clocking in at only 60% of it’s total SPUs). Still, it represents an interesting thought on dev tools being the bottleneck in a game’s development. More evidence that the PS3 will be around in the next 10 years? We’ll just have to wait and find out.
(via CGSociety)
Posted on December 21st, 2009 at 3:22pm by Split-Screen
Filed Under: Gaming News and Reportage
It may rattle you to know that an updated version of Capcom’s Street Fighter IV exists. The debate is still on regarding whether any of this – new stages, characters and whatnot – could not have been made available through DLC. Nonetheless, Capcom recently revealed five new stages that’ll feature in the upcoming Super Street Fighter IV. Including our very own India, there’s a construction area in Metro City, the wilderness of Africa, the streets of Korea (North or South, wasn’t really mentioned), and Seth’s Lab after it mated with a disco. Sure India is still a sari-clad, elephant-filled land of yore but we doubt the rest of Africa has that much of grass, either.
Super Street Fighter IV will be available for XBox 360 and Playstation 3 in Spring 2010. No news yet on a PC release though.
Posted on December 19th, 2009 at 4:04pm by Split-Screen
Filed Under: Gaming News and Reportage
Microsoft India is ringing in the festive season with a vengeance. In celebration of St.Nick’s one-night Solid Snake impression, you can buy an XBox 360 Arcade for Rs. 16,690 and get five games for free. These aren’t your small lame-grossers either – critically and commercially acclaimed titles like Forza 2 and Halo 3 are among the heavyweights. But that’s not all. You can even get an XBox 360 Arcade, plus a 60 GB HDD, wired headset, 3 months XBox LIVE subscription and ethernet cable all for Rs. 19,990. Hit the jump for the full press release.
Ring in the festive season with great games, fun and togetherness. Microsoft Xbox 360 gets you excitement unlimited this Xmas and New Year!
Smile your way to the Xbox 360 this festive season with exciting offers and free gifts! This Christmas, get the Xbox 360 Arcade console at Rs. 16,990 with five free games worth Rs. 10,709 including the blockbuster titles like Forza 2 and Halo 3. And that’s not all, you can also get Xbox 360 Arcade console along with five games and the Xbox LIVE 60GB starter pack at just Rs. 19990 instead of the normal price of Rs. 34,689 and save Rs. 14,695. The addition of the Xbox LIVE 60GB starter pack that includes 60GB hard drive, wired headset, 3 month LIVE subscription and Ethernet cable makes this offer even more exciting.
Zoom into the New Year with a rush of adrenaline and power packed action with amazing sound and graphics and the best of blockbuster games on your Xbox 360. Play games, check out pictures and videos, listen to music or get onto Xbox live and compete with 20 million friends across the globe while you are also connected on Facebook and Twitter. The Xbox 360, with its easy to operate and extensive features, is the ideal option to unwind and celebrate with during this holiday season.
Posted on December 19th, 2009 at 3:31pm by Split-Screen
Filed Under: Gaming News and Reportage
