Warren Spector talks storytelling and gaming's relationship with cinema.
Speaking at GDC 2013, Deus Ex creator and the founder of the recently shuttered Junction Point Studios has reaffirmed his belief in games as a storytelling medium - but argued they need to rely less on film.
Ubisoft Toronto boss talks AI, emotion, economics and online.
The Guardian has a rather interesting interview with known interesting interviewee Jade Raymond, about what to expect of next generation hardware. Like a good churnalist, I'm going to copy-paste large chunks of it.
Is there no end to the nautical punning? Not just yet.
Ubisoft has released the first footage of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag in action, revealing ships buffeted by monstrous waves and tropical islands prowled by belligerent hoodies. Watch it below.
25% fewer US releases support online today than in 2006, reveals report.
"Every game nowadays has multiplayer crowbarred into it," goes a popular and, as it turns out, inaccurate refrain. According to the latest Penny Arcade Report, the number of Xbox 360 and PS3 releases in the US that support either online multiplayer, local multiplayer or both has dropped sharply since 2006, or roundabouts the birth of the current hardware generation.
Music rumoured to be "Hanna's Theme" also surfaces.
Battlefield 4 will launch in fall 2013, according to a poster scooped up by Gamersky and passed along by Pixel Enemy - apparently you'll get some real-life dogtags with "Battlefield 4" written on them when you preorder. All highly unconfirmed, non-official and worth taking with a sack or two of salt.
Xbox 360 "has legs that will carry it well into the future".
Quick, check under your TV. Has Microsoft somehow managed to announce, release and sell the next generation Xbox without actually bringing it to anybody's conscious attention? Oh wait, seems the key part of "in many ways the next gen is already here" is the "in many ways" part. You see, according to principal Xbox program manager Pete Isensee, we don't even need another Xbox - the existing one will be a success for years to come, and hey did you hear about this Kinect thing? Because it's practically a next generation console in itself.
EA Origin page gives the game away.
Sign up for Battlefield 3's Premium Service and you'll get exclusive access to Battlefield 4's beta, originally revealed as a pre-order perk for the distinctly rubbish Medal of Honor: Warfighter.
"We are developing a whole new universe," says Hudson.
I'd assume the goodly Casey Hudson isn't just talking about a spaceship when he says "new way for you to explore", though a new kind of spaceship is probably in the offing. More likely, he's talking about some sort of... functionality. Is it the smartphone kind, or the motion control kind, or the cloud-based kind? Only time will tell. Get a move on, time.
Dispensers, Nether Bricks, Spawn Eggs, beaches and, of course, The End.
Sweet Lady Gratification! 4J Studios has released the full changelog for Minecraft Xbox 360 update 9, in which there are dragons and vines and buttons and sheep who regrow their wool. Take a whiff of the goods, right below the trailer.
Also rumoured: playable female characters, 2020 timeframe.
Just one more news piece, before we sign off for a restful weekend's lying facedown on a mattress. DICE has released a new Battlefield 4 teaser, showing the coast of Shanghai. What does this say to you? Because it says "Chinese setting" to me - and funnily enough, that ties in with a rumour from last August, which makes a number of other interesting claims.
Competition taken offline following "technical difficulties", circa 3000 people affected.
If you're thinking of entering yesterday's Xbox Live Entertainment Awards, you might want to hold off for the moment. If you've already entered, you might want to change any and all of your passwords.
Platform-wide price-hacking spree runs 26th March till 1st April.
What's with all these sales recently, Microsoft? Not that I'm complaining. The latest is a real show-stopper - it's open to Silver and Gold subs, kicks off Tuesday, 26th March and runs till Monday, 1st April. Skyrim's Dragonborn expansion, the entirety of the Walking Dead XBLA series, several Hitman titles, Max Payne 3 DLC packs and Midnight Club: Los Angeles are among the participating parties.
Alas, it's PC-only for the moment.
Boom: you now have another reason to smile at the thought of Resident Evil 6, one of last year's more divisive sequels. The forthcoming Mercenaries: No Mercy DLC for PC adds Left 4 Dead 2's Ellis, Coach, Nick and Rochelle as playable characters, along with two new foes in the shape of the (Mini) Tank and the Witch.
Ed discusses the game with Gamesblog editor Keith Stuart.
Tomb Raider's been out for a while now, but the game remains the focus of some attention online, thanks in large part to an on-going scrap over just how successfully it emancipates Lara Croft after a decade of jeering objectification. Do words like "emancipate" and "objectification" get you hot under the collar? Then you'll probably enjoy this extensive video commentary, originally published on release day over at The Guardian.
"We want to keep plenty back for the actual game release.".
The life of a Grand Theft Auto 5 fanatic is a lonely one, consisting of scrolling down Rockstar Newswire threads in search of the yellow post backgrounds that denote official Rockstar commentary. Posting in the comments to its GTA 5 release date announcement, the studio has reassured fans that the shortage of news isn't down to inexplicable malice, or to some grand marketing plan - there's simply nothing to report right now, though Rockstar does concede that it'd rather not spoil aspects of the game ahead of time.
Another map pack? Or a sequel?.
Of note: Reflections is also the name of the Ubisoft studio that developed Driver: San Francisco. I thus deduce EITHER that Tanner will shortly be available as a playable character, with his own "reborn" narrative and horrendous QTE death scenes, OR that Tomb Raider multiplayer is about to get vehicle support. Or that Square Enix is working on a spin-off of some kind, possibly in the vein of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light...
The crest of the wave.
I've been wondering what the Big New Thing with Battlefield 4 will be. Going by the latest teaser video, that Big New Thing is waging war at sea, which means the game will compete directly with Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. Or not. How many beards has yours got, DICE? Because Ubisoft's way ahead of the pack when it comes to nautical facial follicles.
Signal throws open the gates to fans.
Signal Studios is about to launch a closed beta for Ascend: New Gods - that bizarre mixture of open world elements, 'bot nurturing, SmartGlass features and asynchronous multiplayer, due on Xbox Live Arcade sometime this year. Get involved here - you'll need an email address and the willingness to untick boxes that threaten to send you news of exclusive offers.
We have nothing to lose but our loot drops!.
Gentlemen! Ladies! Gird your undergarments, start your engines and set your S-foils to attack position. The Minecraft Xbox 360 update 9 trailer is upon us, and a release date surely can't be too far behind. Right, 4J Studios?
Producer anticipates a future where "platform" doesn't mean "hardware".
Tekken X Street Fighter is, in theory, a current generation game. Except we've heard nary a word of it from either Capcom or Namco lately, and the current generation now resembles a crumbling cliff edge. Will this cross-over fighter make the leap to future platforms? According to producer Katsuhiro Harada, there's a distinct possibility it will.