February 27th, 2010

My words about it are over here.

Does game design work best when it’s analogous to film making, or to music composition? Neither, and I don’t think it’s important to make the distinction. Games shouldn’t imitate a specific art form, they should express the qualities of them all. Because they can. Video games are the culmination of art as technology, and technology as art. They’re amazing. We shouldn’t limit such a medium by trying to make sense of it in the context of less capable mediums.

Games as we know them today owe a lot to Carmack’s work. I can’t think of a person more deserving of this award.

This week also marks the first year anniversary of Quake Live, as well as the 14th year anniversary of QTest. In celebration, Quake Live received an update and event, and id employees past and present have reflected on QTest on the Bethesda blog.

Of course it is.

EA/DICE restricting dedicated server files to certain “partners” is leaving me conflicted about wanting Bad Company 2. They’re keeping dedicated servers on a leash, just out of reach of total freedom. But whether I like it or not, the market is changing, and we players seem incapable of shifting it in our favor. If EA’s restriction really is just to maintain statistic and rank integrity, and to sell maps (which seems benign in comparison to Activision’s or Ubisoft’s), I can be okay with it. Or I could, if it weren’t for EA’s history of shutting down online games.

But I’m probably overreacting. EA appears to deactivate games based on how many people still play. There’d be greater cause for concern if Battlefield 1942, despite its persisting popularity, had its master servers taken offline in light of a sequel being released. Besides, the Bad Company 2 beta was a heck of a lot of fun, and we haven’t had a successful non-Call of Duty, non-Valve shooter on PC in a long time. I’ll probably give in to temptation and buy it.

This is an hour-long “Quick Look” where every cut scene from Amped 3 is shown. I had no idea the game was so surreal.

June 27th, 2009

Paul Wedgwood of Splash Damage brings to our attention what seems to be common sense, but may not be. I’ve never considered, for example (and maybe I’m just out of touch here), that I can’t think of a single developer who has a history of making licensed games and/or ports that eventually went on to make a break-out hit. I’m sure there has to be some exception to the rule, but I can’t think of one.

Maybe I didn’t react as harshly as John Romero did, but I was definitely caught way off guard by the news of ZeniMax buying out id Software. Once my brain caught up with my gut, though, I decided it might not be such a bad thing for id to have some stability in a publisher. Reading this interview earlier today put me further at ease.

The only thing I’m left wondering about now is, how does Splash Damage and their collaboration with Bethesda on Brink fit into all of this? Did SD play matchmaker? Is an acquisition in their future as well? After all, the partnership was announced way back in May of 2008, well before the E3 meeting between id Software and ZeniMax.

Ah! News like this frightens me. Remember Westwood? What’s left of them are called EA LA now. Admittedly, this is a different EA than the one that acquired Westwood, but this development still gives me pause. For purely selfish reasons, I’m glad to see that BioWare seems to be The Top in the relationship.

June 13th, 2009

It’s really too bad that I’ll probably never own an iPhone (or an iPod Touch… or any other piece of Apple hardware, for that matter), because I’d really like to play this game. I can only hope that Carmack’s enthusiasm for the iPhone does not translate to him being exclusionary to other mobile platforms with his games.

This just isn’t that amazing to me, considering that if you have an SOE account for games like EverQuest, Vanguard, PlanetSide or Star Wars Galaxies, you already have the beginnings of a Free Realms account. All you have to do is go to the Free Realms website and log in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that people seem to be into the game (I like it, though I’ve played very little), but I thought I’d try to put things into perspective.

If you’re aching for new hints at what Guild Wars 2 will be like, look to the blog that’s linked above. These pieces of concept art shed more light on the game’s setting than anything that ArenaNet has said or shown so far.

Herein the controls for Dragon Age: Origin’s Xbox 360 version are detailed. While the gamepad controls sound cumbersome, they also sound like they’ll work fine enough. And although having to pause will probably be off-putting for most console players who aren’t used to RPGs of this type, I’m glad that BioWare doesn’t seem to have compromised on the number of spells and abilities available due to the limits that a gamepad imposes.

March 3rd, 2009

Way back in April of 2008 I made a post talking about some of the games I was most looking forward to in 2008. Later, in November, I made another post reflecting on that list, what I’d actually gotten to play, and what I my impressions. Right now is that time of year just before games start getting announced en masse; GDC is just a few weeks away, and E3 has been moved to June this year, up from July last year. There are some PC games that we’ve known about for a while now which will probably be coming out this year, so I think I’m ready to share my list for 2009 right now.
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October 28th, 2008

I wanted to quickly share with you a video that has me geeking out. This is a video of a Lunar Lander Challenge in which Armadillo Aerospace competes with TrueZer0 for a prize of $350,000. Armadillo Aerospace is a private aerospace group that was founded in 2000 by John Carmack. Carmack is co-founder and lead programmer at id Software, a pioneer in the gaming industry which has developed such games as Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake and are currently developing Rage. I’m no rocket scientist (har), so I’m not sure how unique an accomplishment this actually is in the world of privatized aerospace, but I still think it’s pretty damn cool to watch.

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