Archive for category RTS
E3: Day 1 rundown
Posted by Sam in Gaming, MMO, Multiplayer, Preview, RTS, Shooter, Single Player on 16 June 2010
In addition to Dead Space 2 and Medal Of Honor, some other games have made an appearance at this years E3. Here’s a brief rundown on what’s happened so far.
Portal 2
This has the potential to be the most disappointing announcement during E3. During Sony’s Press Conference yesterday, Valve announced that Portal 2 would be coming to the PS3, along with steam services such as automatic updates and steam cloud technology which will make it the best console version of the game (better than the Xbox360 version, essentially). How a game so dexterous as Portal is supposed to work well with an analogue stick I don’t know, and I don’t really care. They also showed a decent trailer for the game, though it was lacking in the humor of the first one, which is a great shame, I hope they don’t decide to drop the humor from that actual game.
The potentially disappointing part of this announcement is that if this is Valve’s E3 ‘Surprise’, that means no Episode 3, or Half Life 3 at this year’s E3. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what else Valve has in store for us, and personally I doubt that is all they’ve come to show.
Shogun 2: Total War
New screenshots of the latest in the Total War series, Shogun 2, have been released, showing how beautiful the game is. I’ve never really been into the series, I only owned Medieval 2 Total War, but this may rekindle my interest.
Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online
Two years ago, Mythic Entertainment released Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning. It was a good game, but ultimately flawed and failed financially. Vigil Games are now having a crack at the franchise with a 40K MMO, which should be a breath of fresh air for the MMO genre. From first impressions, it looks like players will have Space Marines, Chaos, and Orkz available to them, which brings up some interesting problems such as how do you balance the races, as lore-wise, Space Marines typically fight in small squads of 4-5, while Orkz rely on massive numbers. Screenshots are here here here and here.
Bad Company 2: Vietnam
An odd departure for the incredibly successful modern combat FPS, an expansion taking it back 40 years to Vietnam. Expect a new singleplayer campaign, new multiplayer maps along with new guns and unlocks. Sounds good to me! Along with this announcement was a short teaser.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
I don’t have much information about Bioware’s upcoming Star Wars based MMORPG, but it is Bioware so my hopes are high. Lucas Arts have managed to pull together a fantastic CGI short movie for the game, which you can see below.
Crysis 2
I don’t hold much hope for the sequel to the graphics card melting original Crysis. From what I’ve seen, it’s suffered from the transition from PC exclusive to console, gone are the beautiful vistas and tropical scenery, and in are the common and dreary urban rubble settings you see from many B list console shooters. It still looks spectacular of course, and it may well run a lot better than the original, which would be a good thing, as Crysis is still one of the most graphically intensive games out there.
Also
This post is already long enough, so I’ll just give a brief mention to Brink, a group based multiplayer FPS set in a post-apocalyptic flooded world, and Rage, a FPS and racing game also set in a post-apocalyptic world. I did say brief.
Starcraft 2 beta arrives
Most of you are probably aware that Blizzard’s sequel to the massively popular Starcraft (in North Korea anyway) has been in development for some time, and is finally due for release sometime this year. A closed beta for the game was opened some time last week and keys were handed out randomly to anyone who had enabled the beta opt-in for their Battle.net account. Initial reactions of the actual beta seem to be very positive, as you’d expect. You can check out livestreams of gamers playing the beta and also discuss it over at the GameReplays.org Starcraft 2 section.
For the lucky few who did get beta keys, they had a choice of either activating the key and playing the beta, or selling the key for up to $300. Yes, you read that correctly. Starcarft 2 beta keys are selling for exorbitant figures of over £200 on ebay. I guess this is the price some people are willing to pay to play the game a few months before everyone else. Myself, I’d rather have the cash.
A thought then… Presuming Diablo III will have the same beta service, and a new Battle.net account only requires one Blizzard game activated on it. You could probably pick up a budget copy of Warcaft 3 for less than £5, and every Battle.net account can potentially get a beta key… Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Mindless monster slaying has never been this much fun
It’s never been this cheap either, because this week Torchlight is 50% off in Steam’s Weekend Deal. Personally, Torchlight is one of my top games of 2009. It’s a fantastic example of how simple yet addictive a game can be. I’m not sure if Runic Games falls under the category of and independant development team, but the amount of support they are giving the game is standard of indie principles.
So why is this game so good? Essentially, the game takes the form of a traditional RPG in the same vein of Diablo (to be expected) where the only objective is to battle hordes of enemies in various environments, gaining in power with the end goal of defeating the mega-boss at the end. As I said before, the premise is stupidly simple, but for some reason this simplicity is what makes the game so great. Because you are cleaving through group after group of goblins, kobolds, drakes, wierd cat like creatures, and so on, your brain enters a sort of automatic mode where you can simply focus on the beautiful graphics and maybe listen to music or a podcast in the background
As with all RPGs, one of the most addictive elements is how you ultimately build your character. There are three classes to chose from, falling into the massive stereotypes for the genre, a warrior class, a mage class, and a rogue/ranger class. Each character has three skill trees, must like talents in World Of Warcraft, but you can chose skills from any tree once your level permits. Torchlight also posesses the mandatory enchanting and trading systems so akin to all modern RPGs and MMOs.
To me, Torchlight feels more like a singleplayer MMO than an RPG, which is probably a good thing because Runic Games have plans turn it into just that for free to all existing owners, an exciting prospect to say the least. There is also a demo available on Steam, so you have no reason to check it out before you make your mind up.
R.U.S.E: Do want multiplayer beta
Posted by Sam in Gaming, Multiplayer, Preview, RTS on 15 December 2009
This game really intrigues me. RUSE is a game where instead of using ‘uber micro’ to defeat your enemies, you use a set of ruses (ruse – noun. an action intended to mislead, deceive, or trick) to instead beat them with superior intelligence. The developers are definately trying something new, and a concept which has the potential to be either fantastic or unbelievably dull. Multiplayer will always be at the forefront for me, and to keep me playing there needs to be enough depth that you can’t read a guide and determine the best strategy and execute it during a game to automatically win.
Unfortunately, there are mixed opinions being released from people who have access to the beta. Some people say that because the game has been developed for consoles as well as PC, it has been over-simplified to the point where there is almost no micro involved and the macro involves chosing a few ruses from a list and using them to win you the game. However, others say that there is a lot of depth in ruse selection and timing is essential because you need to plan out your attack and ruses long before your troops reach the battlefield.
Another thing is the scale of the game, with zooming done in the same way as Supreme Commander, where if you zoom out far enough you see icons (or board game pieces as is the case here) instead of units, but you can also zoom in and see individual soldiers walking around. I’ll keep an eye out for any beta key give aways because I would love to experience the game first-hand.
The multiplayer trailer looks particularly aruseing.
Recent Comments