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1

DICE: Battlefield 3 Console Maps are More ‘Compact’ + Jets!

By
Michael Frangione
– July 27, 2011Posted in: News, News

In an interview with Gamezone.de, DICE executive producer Patrick Bach explained some of the differences in Battlefield 3′s multiplayer mode between PC and consoles. “The biggest difference between the PC and console version of Battlefield 3 is that we have 64 players on PC and 24 players maximum on console. The rest is more or less the same: we use the same engine, the same technology, the same animation system, the same lighting system. Our aim is to give the player the exact same experience and not try to dumb down the console version.”

Bach ensures players that “Everything is a compromise. It’s not that we’re evil or stupid. We didn’t choose not to have more players – we would love to do 64 players on console but then we would have to cut away so much; people would get very upset that it looked worse, played worse and wasn’t as fun as the PC version. We would never do that because the fun is always more important.

Another compromise Bach mentioned is compacting the maps on the console versions, although he assured players that “it’s not that we have cut them in half. But we tried to compact them slightly to keep the action up” Also confirmed from the interview is the inclusion of Jets on the console versions.

All versions of Battlefield 3 are set to release this October.

Source: CVG

 

1

Left 4 Dead 2 ‘Dead Air’ Episode Release Details

By
Michael Frangione
– July 18, 2011Posted in: News, News, PC/Mac, Xbox 360

Valve is planning on releasing the classic Left 4 Dead 1 episode ‘Dead Air’ early as a thank you for helping them beta test the new community created map ‘Cold Stream’. Valve challenged the community to unlock the “Stream Crosser” achievement 200,00 times by completing the episode. Within four and a half hours the community had reached their goal and after 24 hours Valve reported that the achievement had been unlocked 60,774 times.

Due to the success of Cold Stream, Valve has promised to release the long awaited Dead Air campaign on PC and Mac as early as possible but by July 22nd at the latest. Additionally Valve mentioned they have been busy testing a new finale for the L4D2 Dark Carnival and gameplay improvements to some the rest of the episodes’ finales. Valve said that Cold Stream and the L4D episodes will be released on Xbox 360 once they have been thoroughly tested on PC.

Source: L4D Blog

1

Editorial: Sony E3 Conference Recap

By
Michael Frangione
– June 12, 2011Posted in: News, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable/PSVita

The conference started off with a montage of clips including Uncharted: Drake’s Deception, Ratchet and Clank, and Infamous 2. After about five minutes, Jack Tretton, the President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, was welcomed onto the stage. After a ten minute apology for the PlayStation Network outage, he thanked everyone for their patience and support during that dark month in gaming. Next came the numbers – Jack explained how the sales of PlayStation have increased exponentially from last year and then told the audience to put on their 3D glasses because all PS3 games being showcased will be available in 3D.

Naughty Dog got things rolling with a gameplay demo of a new Uncharted game – Uncharted: Drakes Deception. Drake was shown fumbling around a ship as it rocked side to side in a storm. After a few interesting stealth kills, quick time events and some gunplay, the ship began to sink and cinematic camera angles follow Drake as he tries to escape its hold. After a trailer, Naughty Dog announced a partnership with Subway restaurants that promises codes for access to Uncharted’s complete multiplayer mode up until release with a purchase of a meal.

Next came Insomniac’s Marcus Smith showing off Resistance 3. The demo showed off some great visuals and game play mechanics. New enemies, such as shield drones that protect the Chimera infantry, could be seen, as well as an improved Auger rifle (a weapon that can deploy a shield and shoot enemies through walls). The demo ended with an encounter with a giant insect like monster destroying St. Louis. Jack Tretton then revealed a Resistance 3 bundle that will include the PlayStation Move, camera, navigation controller, and a Sharpshooter gun. The bundle is set to release on September 6 for $150 USD.

Jack then pointed out Sony’s complete commitment to 3D on the PS3 by showing off two 3D collections: God of War: Origins, featuring re-mastered versions of the PSP games Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta, and also the ICO collection, featuring re-mastered versions of the PS2 hits ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. The release dates for these collections are slated for September.

Jack Tretton then tackled the issue of barriers for consumers when it comes to taking advantage of 3D gaming. He introduced a PlayStation branded 24-inch 3D display with some very intriguing technology in it. The display has the ability for two people playing a game to see two individual full screen images rather than a split screen image dividing the screen in half. The monitor is to be bundled with a pair of 3D glasses, Resistance 3 and an HDMI cable for $499 with additional glasses retailing at $69.

The next section of the conference was focused on the PlayStation Move. It showcased NBA 2K12 being played by Kobe Bryant horrifically demonstrating the new on the Move technology which allows gamers to aim at team-mates for quick passes and for player selection. Medieval moves was shown next on the floor – it’s a family game that utilizes all the mechanics in the move title Sports Champions into a medieval themed first person platform game.

After some footage of the currently available Infamous 2, they showed some previously unannounced PS3 games. First was was game from Incognito, the team behind Warhawk, titled Starhawk. It features jet fighters that transform into huge Mechs and some epic space battles. Second was a trailer for a Sly Cooper game featuring Dimitri, the Hispanic disco dancing lizard from the series. Dust 514 was next – it looks like a first person shooter PS3 exclusive set in the EVE online universe. Dust 514 will be a persistent shooter that will be directly connected to the PC MMO Eve Online. Ken Levine from Irrational Games then spoke about the inclusion of Move support for the new Bioshock Infinite and showed off some gameplay. The new Star-trek movie themed game was then shown and confirmed to support the Move as well. Battlefield 3 was next up to bat and Jack mentioned the PS3 version will include Battlefield 1943 on the disk.

Kaz Hirai, the Executive Deputy President of the Sony Corporation was then welcomed onto the stage to announce the new portable gaming device the PlayStation Vita, for more details on this please see my article about the PlayStation Vita here. After the PSVita reveal, the floor was opened up to the audience to demo all the new products while dancers, DJ’s and performers ended the conference with style.

All in all I felt it was a great conference for Sony. Sony has some great exclusives lined up for this holiday season such as Uncharted 3, Resistance 3, and the ICO collection.  I liked the fact that Sony is really dedicated to pushing 3D entertainment to the public and I was definitely intrigued by the 3D monitor they announced especially by its ability to display two images separately. I would of liked to see some more PlayStation Move demonstrations, as I felt the move really hasn’t evolved much over the last year. I was very impressed with the PlayStation Vita; I felt that, for its price point, Sony has a very well made handheld and I’m excited to see how developers will utilize all of its bells and whistles when it’s released.

1

E3 Preview: PlayStation Vita

By
Michael Frangione
– June 9, 2011Posted in: News, PlayStation Portable/PSVita


The NGP, now known officially as the PlayStation Vita, was unveiled to the public during the Sony press conference at E3 2011 to a very excited audience. The Vita is Sony’s new portable gaming console and successor to the PSP released in late 2004.

The PlayStation Vita sports a 5-inch OLED Multi-touch screen, two front and rear facing cameras with head tracking, a rear touchpad, Sixaxis motion sensing technology, two analog sticks and built in microphone. Under the hood it has a Quad Core Processor, Bluetooth, Wi-fi and, on certain models, 3G. This time around, software for the PlayStation Vita will be distributed on NVG Cards, a new proprietary flash card format, rather than on Universal Media Discs (UMDs).  NVG cards will be able to store 2 – 4 GB with 5 – 10% writable space reserved for game patches, DLC or save data. This new memory format is sure to conserve battery life over UMD disks due to the lack of moving parts needed for reading data.

Sony announced that the PSVita will launch just in time for the 2011 holiday season at a starting point of $249 USD for the Wi-Fi only model, and $299 USD for the Wi-fi and 3G enabled model. Sony revealed that the PSVita will be fully backwards compatible with all PSP games available on the PlayStation Network’s library and will offer an optimized experience for them, such as Resistance Retribution taking advantage of the second analog stick for tighter controls.

Sony also announced that the PSVita will be fully integrated with the PlayStation Network established for the PlayStation 3. They confirmed Trophy support along with friends lists and access to the PlayStation store. Michael Denny, Sony’s Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe, also confirmed that the PlayStation Vita will be Region Free, Meaning you can pick up games for it anywhere in the world including imports and be able to play them on the handheld without restriction.


During the press conference Sony showed off Uncharted: Golden Abyss. The game featured some beautifully rendered graphics with dynamic lighting and shaders comparable with the great visuals of its PS3 predecessors. They showed off the touchpad and sixaxis technology for melee and traversal that worked flawlessly with the button controls; by sliding a finger along a series of ledges drake automatically traversed through them, and by touching an enemy while dangling over a ledge Drake performed a stealth takedown. The developers stressed that you can play the game anyway you want to, if you prefer to use the buttons and sticks to maneuver your free too.  With the Addition of the second analog stick to aim with, weapon combat worked flawlessly and rivaled that of the PlayStation 3′s uncharted games. Next they showed a new Mod Nation Racers title where the presenter used  his finger to draw out a racetrack on the touch screen and then used the touch pads to quickly and easily create mountains and craters in the terrain. They also announced a new Little Big Planet title which makes full use of the touch screen to manipulate the environment, similar to how the PlayStation Move worked with the downloadable PSN game Sackboy’s Prehistoric Moves for PlayStation 3. Sony also showed off a new Wipeout game taking advantage of the Sixaxis feature for directional steering.  Sony mentioned during their conference that they currently have over 80 games in development for the PlayStation Vita to drive its success on the market.

The price point of this new handheld is very competitive with current mobile gaming devices. It may give the Nintendo 3DS and iOS devices a run for their money. The technology used in its design is definitely more then I could ask for. My main complaints with the PSP were the lack of a second analog stick and no integration with the PlayStation Network, and I’m glad to see that those issues have finally been addressed. Adding 3G to the device will definitely improve its sales as gamers will no longer have to hunt down Wi-Fi hotspots and finally be able to play games anywhere a cell phone signal is found. This is truly a device for the future and I applaud Sony in making another fantastic product with a strong lineup of games backing it up. I for one can’t wait to get my hands (and greasy fingers) on this come the holiday season.

0

Sony Unveils Its Customer Appreciation Program

By
Michael Frangione
– May 17, 2011Posted in: News


The Playstation Network is mostly back and running, minus the PSN Store. Sony unveiled its plans for its “Welcome Back” appreciation program as a way to repay their customers for their patience and loyalty through those dark times. The Playstation.Blog reports that the Welcome Back program is available to all existing PlayStation Network and Qriocity users in North America (US and Canada) and will be available shortly after the service has been fully restored. Here are the details:

All PlayStation Network users can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days after the PlayStation Store is restored and they can be kept forever.

  • Dead Nation
  • inFAMOUS
  • LittleBigPlanet
  • Super Stardust HD
  • Wipeout HD + Fury

For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days after the PlayStation Store is restored and they can be kept forever.

  • LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
  • ModNation Racers
  • Pursuit Force
  • Killzone Liberation
  • A selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network users over one weekend, where video service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.
  • 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.
  • Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.
  • Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
  • Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
  • To welcome users “Home,” PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

For Europeans, the Welcome Back program will be indistinguishable to North America’s with the exception of the following PS3 game choices:

  • LittleBigPlanet
  • Infamous
  • Wipeout HD/Fury
  • Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty
  • Dead Nation

As for Germany, Infamous and Dead Nation will be replaced with Super Stardust HD and Hustle Kings.

5

Is PC Gaming Dying?

By
Michael Frangione
– December 28, 2010Posted in: Blogs

I’ve been in countless arguments with friends and coworkers over the future of PC gaming and the latest trends of the gaming industry. A lot of people seem to think that gaming on your Computer is dying and the coming generations of consoles will take over the entire market. As an avid PC gamer this is the last thing I’d want to see happen, but is it really on the verge of extinction?  Will the future of PC gaming consist only of World of Warcraft, Farmville and online Poker? The short answer is no. The PC branch of the gaming industry has never been doing as well as it is now. With plenty of exclusive releases every year, the great market opportunities for indie developers, and the immense MMO and free to play game markets available, the pc gaming industry is not dying  - it’s actually thriving.

PC gaming deserves a lot of credit for enduring it’s greatest hindrance, piracy. Piracy is hurting the PC gaming industry more than it’s affecting all of the gaming platforms combined. Due to the open source and uncontrolled nature of PCs, there is no perfect way to prevent piracy and this problem only seems to get worse every day. Piracy is so rampant that developers such as Epic Games are, according to Mike Capps, president of Epic Games,  ‘reluctantly’ starting to pull out of the PC gaming market and focus solely on the consoles just to make a fair income. Capps told the Escapist, “the ratio was 20:1 on Crysis, for pirated to non-pirated use. So guess what? That’s why there’s no Gears of War 2 on PC, because there’s no market, because copying killed it – and that’s gruesome to a company like ours that’s been in the PC market for so long.” In an attempt to fight piracy, some developers end up holding back the PC versions of games a few months after their console releases in order to encourage PC gamers to  purchase the game on a console before it has a chance to be pirated. A more drastic but commonly used solution to counter piracy is to introduce DRM (digital rights management) in an effort to limit when and how games can be played. The biggest example of this would be Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed 2 which launched for PC in early 2010 – a couple of months after its console counterparts. In order to play Assassins Creed 2 you are required to have an active connection to the Ubisoft servers at all times. If you get disconnected from the network the game will not let you continue playing until the connection is re-established. This did not go over  well with PC gamers as the community was outraged at the absurd restrictions placed on software that they had legitimately purchased.  Determined to prove a point about DRM, pirates found a way to bypass it a few days after the game was released. If a drastic solution like Ubisoft’s fails, why should companies even bother continuing to develop games on PC? Companies have to think differently about their approach to counter piracy if they want to make a profit without looking like greedy tyrants. When a game is easier for gamers to pirate than it is for them to play legitimately who wouldn’t steal it?

One of the core reasons developers are continuing to support PC gaming is Valve’s Steam – the number one digital distribution method on PC (albeit criticized as having a monopolistic hold on the PC gaming industry and hated by retailers).  Steam isn’t just a digital distributer but also the PC’s answer to Xbox Live and PSN. Steam’s ability to chat with friends in any game and launch any application (not just purchased steam games) from the library makes it an effective social gaming hub.

Steam, and digital distribution in general, is great for developers because they can charge less for a game and turn out more profit by eliminating distribution fees; Without physical copies and the related costs of packaging, shipping, stocking, and eye-catching retail displays, Steam is capable of amazing sales every week. Steam games are sometimes on sale for 50% to 90% off the regular price which increases sales figures and popularity of the Steam client. Another great thing about Steam is how it deals with content updates. Unlike Microsoft, developers do not have to pay royalties for updates on Steam, which allows tons of free or cheap DLC for games sold on the platform; Look at hugely popular games such as Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead (2) which are updated almost monthly since they have been released. Even non-Valve games like Tripwire Interactive’s Killing Floor get regular updates with tons of new content every few months.

Valve and other like-minded companies stand to profit as digital distribution becomes more popular with consumers. In 2009 Steam sales have increased by 205% over 2008s figures and the amount of users continues to rise.

The next topic I wanted to bring up is the enormous market for MMOs and free-to-play games. In a survey done by gamesindustry.com the entire MMO industry in the US generated over $3.8 billion in 2009 and had about 46 million active users. PC gamers also get the option of many free to play games such as Lord of the Rings Online, Vindictus and Dungeons and Dragons Online; Games like these provide an alternative to paying for games and still generate a fair profit for developers with cash shops (selling in-game items for real world money) and micro transactions. The idea is that if someone likes a game enough they will pay for additional content and can still enjoy the game if they choose not to pay for the content.  With tons of popular MMOs and a great Free to Play market the PC gaming industry is great for casual gamers and younger audiences who can’t always afford the latest AAA games.

Let’s take a moment to look at the great potential for indie game developers on PC. On PC, developers aren’t forced to pay royalties to hardware manufacturers as they would if they were developing for consoles. All they need is a website and some form of file hosting.  Look at the popularity of the games like Minecraft which started as a free (and still partially free) Java game which managed to sell more than 500,000 copies without any structured distribution methods or over-the-top advertising.

PC gaming is often considered expensive – involving lots of tweaking and technical expertise. Therefore, PC gaming is believed to not be as user friendly as consoles and exists only for elitists or enthusiasts whose pants moisten over having the latest and greatest hardware to push those extra few frames using the sharpest textures and polygons; This statement is very untrue. PC gaming is not as expensive as people think it is, if you know where to shop, and even cheaper if you can build one yourself. A decent computer that is capable of everything the 360 or PS3 can do will only run you about $500 – $700 and, when you think of all the other things you use your PC for, the price doesn’t seems so daunting. Sure, if you are an enthusiast you can end up paying over $2000 for a PC, but the average gamer doesn’t need a fancy pimped machine that even Xibit would be envious of. Another argument is that PC owners need to upgrade hardware frequently in order to keep up. However, many people are still using older video cards such as Nvidia 8800s and Intel Core 2 duos which have been around for over 4 years and are still able to play the latest games smoothly. This is because of a recent trend in the gaming industry where developers design games around the consoles first in order to maximize profits. This developer focus on console gaming means that games aren’t pushing PC hardware as much as they were in the past.

Growing up, I remember playing games like Doom, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen, and Quake. I also have fond memories of early online multiplayer games like Starcraft, Counterstrike, and  Unreal Tournament. While consoles were great in their own way they lacked much of the capabilities of PCs. Though PCs have traditionally held the technological edge, consoles are catching up and pushing ahead in the gaming market with new innovations like the motion control – changing the way we play games while encouraging casual gamers, who may have felt overwhelmed by a controller, to join the gaming community. But PC gaming still brings many advantages over consoles such as lag-reducing dedicated online servers, as well as user-created mods and developer tools that allow gamers’ creativity and talents to manifest and develop;  In this way, gamers are not tied down to a single disk and are able to freely explore, customize, and share their gaming experiences with other players. Keyboards and mice also allow an extra level of control that consoles can’t replicate – Anyone have fond memories of Starcraft 64? This isn’t to say that consoles can’t support a mouse and keyboard in the future, but doing so may divide the community and create an uneven playing field for gamers. Some gamers may overlook PC gaming in favour of consoles, but PC gaming will never disappear.