covert.creations

All of these games are released, but I’m waiting for payday to start delving in.

#1 Dragon Age : Origins



From the RPG experts comes Dragon Age : Origins. The excitement I have for this has not waned over the years, in fact the various YouTube developer previews have exceeded my expectations. The combat looks plain fun, together with a rich detail in environments, spell effects and gritty melee action. It’s obviously a heavily story-driven game, so I’m hoping it isn’t too cutscene heavy. This is my next game purchase and I can’t wait to have a go!

#2 Torchlight



Torchlight came out of nowhere, and I’m honestly not sure where I heard about it. For the quick and fun Diablo-style dungeon crawl, this will be a nice ‘casual’ game to break out once in a while, as the content randomization doesn’t suggest I need to remember any story arc or quest objectives. I lament the lack of anything multiplayer, but I did enjoy it’s spiritual predecessor, “Fate”. Just something to tie me over until Diablo 3.

#3 Borderlands



This one got my attention recently. The “RPG and Shooter made a baby” tagline is an idea whose arrival was only a matter of time. The “RP Shooter” aspect is displayed readily, and is easily grasped right away. It’s a shooter, but as you ‘level up’ you’re obviously taking on bigger challenges and pouring out more damage and extra abilities. I like the idea of a small co-op mission-based style of game, ala Left4Dead. And I have to say the trailers are pretty funny.

Last month, footage for (the unfortunately named) Half life 2 : Episode 2 exploded onto the ‘net with tremendous speed and enthusiasm. And for good reason, too. The game looks fantastic, as we’ve come to expect. The interesting part of this story however, was not the continuing struggle of Alyx and Gordon Freeman, nor the next iteration of graphics and physics technology that the next chapter will have.

The excitement was about a little game that will be bundled alongside Episode 2. A little game called “Portal”.

(continue reading…)

Thanks to the continued excellence of Valve, we get an old favourite from the Quake era, Team Fortress 2! I just had to show it. We suspect that it was featured for a select audience at either PAX or Leipzig. I’m surprised that this hasn’t seen a broader release.

I think I like the promo as much as I’ll like the game!

Words won’t do this justice. You have to see it to believe it.

Source : YouTube.

Technorati tags : half life, videogames, team fortress.

photo from joystiq

“The Xbox360 will be id’s primary development platform.” – John Carmack.

All I can say is, “Did I read the article right??”

This is the man that popularized OpenGL and brought the opensource mindset into the hearts of the general public. Before the upstart iDSoftware, virtually no one had released the sourcecode for a hit commercial game before (to my knowledge).

PC Gaming would likely not be where it is today if it weren’t for iD’s efforts… I know its probably not true, but does it sound like to you that iD is abandoning the PC?

Dystopia, the best Source mod ever, gets to Update 4 this week. Signed, sealed and released! Cyberfans rejoice and a big congratulations out to Team Dystopia.

The update contains two new maps, with numerous gameplay tweaks overall. I am guiltily addicted to this slaverous mix of teamplay and action. Forget BF2! Dystopia features mixed team objectives and dual-sourced gameplay. Play as a decker and breach security systems in cyberspace… or join the fireteam and forage ahead as a heavy mechdroid in meatspace. Its fast. Its hard. But so much variety and choice are packed into this game that its virtually impossible to get bored. An extremely well conceived effort, and a visual treat.

Support the Source mod scene and go vote for Dystopia as Mod of the Year!

Valve and Dystopia

Team Dystopia’s early intentions were to release this as a demonstation of their capabilities. First as a Half-Life2 Source Engine modification, and ultimately as a commercial venture. They’ve met with mixed success, partially due to Valve’s (the maker of Half-Life2) resistance. Valve, rarely famous for kind shepherding of young game-makers, typically likes to completely own property invented within their engine. And with Dystopia, we can only guess that Valve is playing the same old game.

When Dystopia was released, Valve introduced a crashing bug into their game engine, which effectively killed Dystopia completely. Momentum lost. Its not likely intentional, but once that was fixed, we heard murmurings from Valve stating that “commercial-level releases in the mod community are discouraged”, supposedly because quality is “never achieved by indies on the first go”. Do it fast, do it iteratively, and build your fanbase. This was Valve’s preference. Listen to us, they said : Be Like Counterstrike.

Ah Counterstrike. The mod that grew into the most popular online activity since pr0n.

And Valve owns it.

Now their reticence starts to make some sense. Don’t make your mod perfect on the first go, they say. Perhaps they mean : Let us examine its potential, first. Its too bad we’re a little smarter about this stuff now? The early mod days, including Counterstrike’s debut, had very little engineering sense to them at all. This made quality releases almost impossible. But when you look at the detail and the testing that go into upper-echelon mods today, you’ll find an entirely different animal. Some of them have pros on their teams. Others are funded. And many hope for a commercial payoff one day. The mod scene runs the spectrum, of course, with jokers and amateurs alike. But with Dystopia, it was a wholly different beast, and was professional right from conception to execution. Truly a model that should be rewarded. You can’t really blame the publisher, since its in their interest to see a return on their investment – which was the very platform from which these games have sprung. Yet, arguably, it was precisely those initial successes that fed Valve’s success today. They simply wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want to play the new Counterstrike (including yours truly – seven years running!). Valve wants to own the best of them, and its far easier to do that when they exhibit the merest seeds of success.

Rest assured, there are many people (some of whom I know personally) that are watching the outcome of the Dystopia venture with intense interest. Dystopia’s success could serve as a model for indie gamedev in general. I sincerely hope that Valve does the “right thing” and gives them a Steam publishing deal (like they did with Darwinia, another indie developed game). With quality, with fanbase, with a dedicated team and a healthy product, what do they have to lose?

In the meantime, we’ll have fun with Dystopia, and here’s to one day seeing them take their game to the bank. This stuff is the power politics of business, and Dystopia may not win. Personally, it’s Valve’s loss if Dystopia chooses to go elsewhere. I mean, what if Counterstrike was made for Quake?

I have an assortment of posts on the backburner, but in the interests of maintaining a pulse here, I just decided to share some 2-line reviews of some of the new stuff I’ve tried in the last month. In case you’re interested :

Age of Empires III : A very, very pretty yet shockingly un-innovative version of AOE 2. Tweaks abound, but not much more, except for a very repetitive soundtrack.

Fun Factor : I liked AOE2 a lot, and the challenge is decent. So yeah!

Myst V : Sad to say, this last chapter in the Myst universe has the worst graphics of all of them. You’d think the engine was Lithtek. Having said that, I’m enjoying the challenge. A must for Myst-fans, a myss for everyone else.

Fun Factor : I cannot disguise my disappointment, but I intend to tough it out.

Splinter Cell : Chaos Theory : With the Amon Tobin soundtrack, absolutely kickass visuals, one could not go wrong with SC:CT. The odd spike of console-itus mars the feeling a little, but all in all a masterpiece of production by a fine studio.

Fun Factor : Hard to put it down! Every corner is lavishly created, and pulls you in. So great, I love Splinter Cell.

F.E.A.R. : Haven’t delved too deeply into the latest FPS favourite, but surely impressive (if not a little gruesome).

Fun Factor : Firefights are spectacularly intense, and its a challenging and interesting experience.

Guild Wars : Not new, but new(er) to me. The “all instance all the time” model defies the “massively” in this MMO for me. Its treats you with a lush environment with interesting combat, quests, and gorgeous player models… and punishes you for having invisible walls and absolutely no JUMP!! Arrhhh!!

Fun Factor : Do I care about the plight of the Regents of Ascalon? Not really, LOL. I paid for this diversion, and thats what I got.

Having an interest in design theory and computer games, I thought it interesting to do somewhat of a survey of top-selling games for my own edification. There’s even a contest going on out there, although I confess it might be a little out of my reach to evaluate 100 PC Games!

Dystopia is a brand new HalfLife Source Mod, fusing Shadowrun with CounterStrike. These guys have done such an amazing job. Hats off to their prowess and execution!

Its quite kinetic, but certainly not shallow. There are different loadouts, roles and goals baked into the game. If you try it, check out the player guide to figure out the innards, as its not totally apparent how things are done.

I particularly liked the objectives listed as waypoints during gameplay. This means that one can join up in the middle of the action and know exactly what needs to be done. On the negative side, I’m not entirely sure what the actual purpose to the missions actually are. The objectives seem somewhat arbitrary, other than to “win”. But don’t let that stop you, its one of the most lavish and appealing mods I’ve played in a very long time. Again, congratulations to Team Dystopia! So stop reading and go try it!!!