Archive for February, 2009
Independent Creativity – ‘Creative Downturn’ Editorial
Feb 28th
GameIndustry.biz has a very interesting editorial article on how the dire economic situation™ might stifle creativity in the industry following the risk associated with commercial failure of products based on newly developed IPs such as Dead Space & Mirror's Edge.
Luckily, there's light at the end of the tunnel as, with the avenues for distribution ever expanding on every format under the sun, independent creativity will almost certainly ensure a constant stream of reasonably priced, overtly playable and, most importantly, innovative releases for years too come.
Check it out here.
Bench those Remnants – Square release Last Remnant Demo & Benchmark tools
Feb 26th
To celebrate the release of The Last Remnant on PC, Square Enix have given everyone the opportunity to see if they like it before having it locked to their Steam account for ever and a day (the game uses Steamworks for save games, possibly giving SteamCloud more too do that just store L4D & TF2 control sets) but putting out a demo that weighs in at approximately 1GB.
Alongside the demo comes a benchmarking utility to prove that the hyper-optimised Unreal 3 engine is, well, hyper-optimised. For the record, my aging Core 2 machine (going on 2 years old now) managed a average 65fps, only once dropping below 30fps for a fraction of a second. Eat that Xbox 360!
Come Get Some (Good Old Games) – Apogee titles cheap & DRM free
Feb 26th
After a week long Twit-a-thon via some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) tweets, Good Old Games have announced that they are bringing classic Apogee titles, including Duke Nukem 3D to their protection-free geriatric software love fest...
Wait, that just sounds wrong...
Press release after the hop.
Independent Game Rush – Braid, The Maw, DHSG news
Feb 26th
Lots of sudden indie news out there...
Firstly, Braid is coming to the PC via. Steam, Impulse and (unless I missed the announcement) a further un-named service (probably Greenhouse, see below) for the sum of $14.99/£9.99/€12.99 on March 31st (well, that's the Steam date anyway).
In addition, Hothouse Games, of Penny-Arcade Adventures fame, are handling the Mac port of the indie hit, which will be delivered exclusively by their Greenhouse digital distribution system.
Hothouse will also be handling development and distribution of cross-platform versions of the XBLA hit The Maw. Likely platforms include Steam, Impulse & Greenhouse.
Finally, Dangerous High-School Girls in Trouble! is available on Steam with a 10% discount.
Braid on Steam & Hothead Games press releases hiding somewhere below...
Quake Live Beta… erm… Live!
Feb 25th
In a case of doing what it says on the tin, John Carmack's pet project that is the browser-based offshoot of Quake 3 has now officially entered Beta and can be played at the official site located here.
Impressions will come later, at a time when playing it in a browser will not get the poster fired!
Play ball! – TF2 Scout Update Approaches *UPDATED*
Feb 24th
It's been a while, what with Left 4 Dead throwing a spanner into the works, but Valve are back on track with the Team Fortress 2 updates with The Scout Update.
Just like The Heavy Update, information is being dripfed over the next week and this post will be updated accordingly.
Skip the jump for details...
Steam delivers Remnant to the PC
Feb 24th
In what seems like a resurgence in love of the PC following Capcoms announcement that pretty much all their upcoming releases are coming to the PC, Square Enix are bringing their recent Unreal 3-engined Action RPG, The Last Remnant, to the PC on March the 24th via Valve's Steam platform.
Press release (& now trailer) hiding below...
Fallout 3 – Operation: Anchorage Review
Feb 21st
Andrew Bryant steps out of the radioactive post-apocalyptic frying pan and into the freezer.
Raising the Titanic? – UT3 Titan Pack Dated & Details
Feb 19th
Epic have started drip-feeding information about the mega update due in March.
The update brings a shedload of maps, 2 new character models, nearly 60 achievements (courtesy of the games recent Steamworks update & the PS3 Trophy system) and a (literally) massive new mutator called 'Titan' which allows players to morph into Titans & Behemoths - 15 & 30 foot tall, respectively - presumably as their scores rise.
The pack is out March the 5th for the lovely price of £0.00/$0.00/insert currency here for PC and PS3 owners. Reasons cited for the Xbox 360 not getting any UT3 loving are worries over disk space, presumably because all the Xbox are going to be filled up by the exclusive GTA IV content. That and they already have had their full of Epic's manly meathead character models through Gears of War.
Press release and lots of bullet points after the jump...
Left 4 Dead Survivor Pack Details & Guide
Feb 19th
Those lovable scamps at GameTrailers have the exclusive on the Survivor Pack add-on for Left 4 Dead (skip to the final chapter if you don't care about the GTAIV DLC).
There's no footage of the new Survival mode (just lots of Dead Air & Death Toll Versus gameplay), but it turns out it is basically everything we expected - Gears of War 2 Horde mode in L4D clothing. Teams of players will compete on a worldwide leader board to survive the longest, with Source playing its usual 'track every stat under the sun' trick to make sure that my friend Pete will surely reign supreme on 'most shots that completely missed their targets' leaderboard.
Bit-Tech also has posted The Complete Guide to Left 4 Dead, which is worth a read as it outlines both tips and hints that even experienced players may have missed, plus a frank revelation about the Witch and her aversion to light.
More news as we get it. The pack is due in 'the Spring', which, according to Valve Time, is 42nd of Julember in the year of our Ant Overlords, 2078.
Thanks to Bit-Tech for the news & guide & Jon Culshaw for the Julember joke.
