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11 Mar 05
I played a little Freedom Force 2 today. Sure it's more of the same, but since we have Martha back, "That's a good thing." Actually it is even better than the first. The interface is streamlined. The effects are better. Individual AI seems a little sharper. And it still captures that comic book atmosphere. If you liked the first, don't hesitate.
I think the Game Developers Conference was a good predictor for E3 this year. We'll see a lot of hard stuff for the handhelds, but the focus will be firmly on the next generation of consoles. I'm left with a few interesting questions to ponder until E3. What is Nintendo's 'revolution'? How much more powerful will the PS3 be than the rest of that generation? Why does Microsoft think they have a strong launch line up lined up? And what is developer friendly.
I was discussing this via email with Bill Harris. He made me think of something interesting. Some of Microsoft's XNA initiative, particularly the XNA studio, is more publisher friendly than developer friendly. It's sort of the age old thing. Developers look at a project like carving a statue. Publishers want to look at it like building a bridge. Microsoft uses the term 'productivity gain' in describing XNA studio. I think you see where I'm going.
If you listen to some of the rants from the GDC, you'll see there's still plenty of animosity between publishers and developers. Perhaps the biggest question is will Microsoft's XNA initiative be a balm that soothes that wound or will it be a wedge driving them further apart? The answer to that could tell you a lot about the next generation.
Jason
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10 Mar 05
Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich is out today. Early reviews make it sound like they didn't break anything. They just gave us more heroes, more powers, more graphical effects and, of course, more of that classic comic book story. It's even more impressive that Irrational is self publishing. Fortunately, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Bioware has gotten on board and is even selling the game through their online store. Irrational has also released some mod tools for the game. Check out the post in the news section.
In perhaps my favorite article coming out of the Game Developers Conference, GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Sony has learned their lesson. The PS3 will be developer friendly. They're promising tools using standards from OpenGL and Cg to aid partners. They admit that load balancing the cell cores will be an art of optimization, but the actual code to control it will be simple.
Nintendo let out a couple of interesting tidbits today as well. The Revolution will feature built in Wi-Fi capability and will be backwards compatible. That eases some worries. If it's backwards compatible with the Gamecube the controller can't be as radical as some have predicted. That leaves open the possibility of at least some multiplatform titles. Wi-Fi means that Nintendo is not going to ignore the online world for another generation.
So we're getting a better, but still blurry picture of the upcoming battle. Microsoft wants to be first out of the gate. The experience will be consistent across games with a strong online focus. They're hoping to keep the title of most friendly to developers with the XNA tools. They want to run a virtual marketplace for gamers to buy whatever they want for their games.
Sony wants to win the power battle. They want to improve the online experience, but keep it free (at least for non subscription games). They want to leverage their huge installed base into the next generation. And they want to take advantage of the huge storage capacity of their blu-ray disks.
Nintendo wants to go their own way offering experiences unavailable on other platforms. They want to continue to focus on their quality franchises. They want to expand online. They still want to leverage their handheld market domination into the next generation of consoles.
It should be a fun ride to E3 and more solid information.
Jason
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9 Mar 05
Thanks to Coz at Groovaliscious Games for pointing out some news to me. According to this IGN article, Sega has bought the Creative Assembly. Yes, that Creative Assembly that brought you Rome: Total War. I wouldn't panic yet. Sega has quietly been a PC publisher for a long time. While I'm sure this will be an incentive to break into the console market for CA, I'm equally sure that they won't be abandoning their PC roots any time soon. It looks like the first console game will be a combat action game set in the middle of huge battles called Spartan: Total Warrior.
Microsoft has released some of the first official information on the Xbox 2 (I think Xbox 360 is the current front runner in the naming rumors). While there's not a lot of hardware information, the direction is promising. They want all HD all the time, all Live all the time and all custom playlists all the time. I like the fact that they're building on their strengths. With what they're offering, Sony has huge work to do if they want to push Microsoft out of the top spot in online console gaming.
On the flip side, I'm looking at what could be a disturbing trend. If you look at all the things Microsoft wants developers to put into their games, you'll see that almost all those features would not be easily ported to another console. Then we have Nintendo's earlier statement that they're going their own way and if it means losing third party support, so be it. It might be my imagination, but it seems like these companies have an interest in shooting the horse they rode in on.
Let me know if this makes sense. Nintendo's biggest weakness has been their small library of games. They benefited greatly by multiplatform development because it kept releases coming between the Nintendo hits. Those releases also make the Gamecube viable as the only console in a house. Companies even overcame the smaller disk format's limited capacity and controller button shortage to deliver those games.
Microsoft benefited from multiplatform releases because they had the most powerful hardware of this generation. That means the Xbox version usually won the head to head competition. That consistently drove sales of multiplatform releases to Microsoft.
Now both seem to be unfriendly to multiplatform games. This could result in more exclusives for both companies, but at the expense of larger libraries of games. The risk of making the choices more stark is that your console might not be the one chosen. I would be most disappointed if just when the competition was really benefiting gamers, Sony cleaned house and knocked the competition out. I'm not saying that will happen. It's just that these moves seem to make the risk much greater than it has to be. As always, we'll see.
Jason
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8 Mar 05
I get a lot of press releases. Most of them have nothing to do with strategy or tactical gaming. That's why I like days like today when I get a couple of articles to post on the News section. Take Two announced a new cocaine kingpin RTS and a turn based combat game where players try to force reunification of a United States shattered by civil war. Wow, I don't even get to use a more of the same joke.
I noted with amusement that Epic called stories about increased game prices nothing but scare tactics by big publishers. Here's the Games Industry dot Biz article.
I keep saying that developers shouldn't be rebuilding everything from scratch every time. Epic seems to understand that if you build the engine and tools with modularity and scalability in mind, you don't need new tools for every project. Film makers, to use my favorite analogy, don't build new cameras, research new lighting techniques or even make costumes for every bit player. They only build the specific sets, costumes and props they need for that film. It saves money. So while you've seen movie tickets slowly creep up in price, they haven't jumped up 10, 20 or 30 percent at a time.
Larger companies like EA (especially now that they own Renderware) should be able to make massive use (and re use) of common, shared tools and engines. The huge budgets aren't necessarily justified for all project. Just like Hollywood, you only spend the big bucks on the ones you have confidence will make it back. Also keep in mind that not everything demands a realistic graphical style. Some simpler styles don't need the polygonal horsepower. Sure, we may have one more generation that relies on graphics, but after that it will depend on what you do with the graphics. Why not get started now?
Finally, in case you haven't seen it, the free Wing Commander Privateer remake project has released version 1.0. For those who don't remember, privateer placed you in the boots of a freelance pilot just trying to get by. You started off small and built up your ship. You could choose to run cargo, provide security, become a pirate or some combination of those. It gave you the sort of open ended gameplay that everyone calls Grand Theft Auto like. Check it out Here.
Jason
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7 Mar 05
Continuing with the shameless plug theme, the new 48 Hour madness has started at GoGamer (see the side of the page). They have Cops 2170 on sale, but I'm probably steering clear due to extremely poor reviews despite the promising set up. However, they also have Nexus the Jupiter Incident on sale for $20. Very tempting. They also have received Darwinia in stock. That's a game you almost have to buy on principle.
Speaking of shameless plugs, I've been trying to figure out what I've been doing wrong with the Google adwords. I could try adding them to the news section of the site. That might help. It's just that I get a decent number of impressions, but my click through rate is abysmal. I don't know if the words I'm writing don't generate ads that people here are interested in or if the ads themselves while appropriate aren't interesting enough for people to click.
As an aside, I read an interesting article. It turns out if you really want to make money with adwords, you should run a personal injury information site. The lawyers bid to get their ads up, and they have the money to really drive rates up. I believe mesothelioma is currently the top priced word. The article mentioned it was over $50 per click. Wow. Most of my ads are 1-2 cents per click. I guess that makes sense as gaming sites are a dime a dozen.
I don't want people to break the rules and click just to make the site money, but I could use a little feedback as to what type of ads you might click. Then I can try to get with Google and see what I'm doing wrong. I try to throw the words strategy and tactical in as often as I can, but I'm not sure it's generating appropriate ads for you. Please send me any thoughts you might have or add a comment.
This weeks game might help our situation. It's Empire Earth 2 (official site) from Mad Doc Software. It's by far the most popular section of our screenshot gallery, so I'm guessing people here are interested. Mad Doc claims to be trying to fuse the best things from Rise of Nations and the original Empire Earth. Once again you sweep your way through 12,000 years of history trying to crush everyone in your path. You've got 15 epochs to advance through (including 2 future epochs). There's over 500 units to command while multiplayer supports up to 9 world leaders. They're promising interesting trade offs and lost technologies that give players incentive not to just race through the epochs as fast as possible. Look for it to hit shelves shortly.
Jason
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