I can confirm (to a reasonable extent) that there will be a Mac version of Civilization 5 and we are hopefully not far away from its release. In every Civ 5 mod there is a file called the modinfo file. It contains, among other things, the description of the mod and who made it etc. It also includes a property called
You heard it here first, Civ 5 for Mac!
A news post on all the stuff that has been going down. It has been a bizarre week (give or take a few days) for the games industry, so I figured I should probably write something about it. After this, I promise to deliver my Mass Effect posts along with a review (and a review of a little PS3 downloadable game called Blue Toad Investigations).
Starting with the AppoclayPS3 (kudos to whoever came up with that). If you missed this, for 24 hours every single fat PS3 bricked. As it turned out, it was to do with the internal clock, which got confused as it thought that 2010 was a leap year. Fortunately for PS3 owners and Sony, the problem resolved itself when a new day dawned. Clearly Sony had no idea to fix it: they provided virtually no updates on their twitter stream (never a good sign) and the fix was wait until the next day.
Then Valve took centre stage, hinting at two separate things. Firstly, a mysterious patch to Portal meant that if you picked up and walked around with the radio, you could pick up encrypted signals. Which, if you are far clever than me, lead you through some Morse code clues to a BBS (a bulletin board system). The other cool Valve related story is that Steam is coming to the Mac. Whilst it hasn't been announced, the pictures give a pretty clear story...
Since starting writing this and thanks to an internet failure, Portal 2 has actually been confirmed and it will have co-operative too. Stay tuned for more details.
Then things started to get nasty. Activision, publisher of the $1 billion grossing Modern Warfare 2, has sacked the two leads at Infinity Ward (the developers of Call of Duty), Jason West & Vince Zampella. As always happens when nobody knows anything, the internet went crazy. However, as the dust has settled details are emerging. More recently, the two ex-employees have filed a law suit against Activision.
The basis behind their case is that the reason they were fired was not actually strong enough to justify getting rid of them and instead was timed so they would not have to be paid royalties for Modern Warfare 2.
The other key aspect is West and Zampella challenging Activision regarding the ownership of the Call of Duty IP. If they are able to satisfy the court that they still own the IP, then they could stop Activision from releasing further Call of Duty titles until the matter has been resolved.
Some of the stuff in the court documents, if true, is very scary:
"Activision conducted the invesigation in a manner designed to maximize the inconvenience and anxiety it would cause West and Zampella. On little notice, Activision insisted on conducting interviews over the President's Day holiday weekend; West and Zampella were interrogated for over six hours in a windowless conference room..."
My two favourite franchises, Civilization and Fable, are both receiving sequels this year! Fable 3 we already knew about, however the Civilization announcement is new. Please note, Civilization 5 is different from the previously announced Civilization Facebook, which should also be coming out this year.
Fable 3
I mentioned that Peter Molyneux would be demoing and talking about Fable 3 at this years X10. The key things to take away from it are:
In an interview with Peter Molyneux, the legendary designer said he was going to make an announcement at X10, a Microsoft conference on the 11th of February. He said the announcement was going to "upset people".
Obviously, I don't know what it is. However, given that we know Fable 3 will use Natal in some respect, I would not be surprised to find out the announcement is that Fable 3 will require Natal. He also said that he thought it was "the right thing to do". Given his support for Natal, and the fact that Natal's success depends upon high profile games being released on it, this would appear to support the theory.
I'm of two minds about Natal. I am still struggling to see how it can be used to enhance game play interactions. Sure, it is technically impressive, but the whole emotion recognition thing that Milo was doing isn't magic. That requires impressive software as well as impressive hardware. I fear this means that more likely than not, Milo-style interaction is going to be a rare phenomena rather than the norm. Natal is going to be a lot of money to buy and a lot of money for developers to develop for. Given there is a certain sense of the Wii reign coming to an end, I suspect developers will be weary about jumping on the next band wagon until it has been proven viable.
Obviously, I can't help but be excited anyway.
In other news, I have finished Darksiders and will post a review hopefully before the end of the week. Then I am on to Mass Effect 2, which so far has been amazing.
Some of you may have heard of a gaming news site called Crispy Gamer. Earlier this month, the upper management laid off all of the writers. Quite aside from the fact this obviously sucks for all those involved, this was one of the best gaming sites out there, with thought provoking and excellently written articles on various different topics. They employed a collection of very talented writers that, regardless of whether you agreed or not, always drew you in to a good debate.
It had the feel of more of a Sunday news paper rather than Gamespot. Instead of just covering the latest news stories and blockbuster reviews, it examined topics such as the No Russian mission in Call of Duty or the punishing difficulty of demon souls. It also had a light-hearted video section, the the most useful review score system ever and even a comic strip.
As you can tell from this rambling love letter, I will sorely miss the writers on this site and will make a concerted effort to follow them, wherever they go.
What I am worried about is what this implies for digital games journalism in general. Presumably the reason these writers were let go was because it was not financially viable to keep them on. Crispy was funded by adverts, and while there was hardly a shortage of them, it is difficult to believe they were making a fortune out of it.
Talent writers want decent pay. I am worried that there isn't enough money to pay for talented writers and the only option is to turn to people like me who are just desperate to write about games.
To be fair, this is not limited to games, or even digital media. All news outlets are struggling to deal with this era. Advertising is becoming worth less and less as we all become attuned to just ignoring it. Someone needs to come up with a viable business model for journalism because no one seems prepared to pay for it any more.
It has been announced today, that a persistent version of my favourite game, Civilization, will be coming to Facebook. Without a shadow of a doubt this may be the most dangerous combination ever known to man. While I am not a Facebook user, social networking sites are super addictive, and we all know the powers of Civilization. I expect to see this game banned in many countries under the drug regulations act.
In all seriousness, I am always unsure about persistent games, but if any game is going to turn me one way or anther, it will be Civilization. I cannot wait and will certainly be signing up for the beta.
The first expansion pack to Dawn of War 2 has been announced. It will feature, amongst other things, the Chaos Space Marines. For me, I was really hoping for the Imperial Guard, but I am hardly surprised by their choice; Chaos was a frequent demand and they should fit in with the current races online.
The expansion pack will also include some new units. This is fine if it doesn't upset the very carefully balanced multiplayer. Personally, I thought the multiplayer had enough units, the last thing I need is a bunch of redundant units I need to try out; or worse, that totally unbalance the whole thing.
It will also include a new single player campaign which, given how much I enjoyed the first one, is something I am looking forward to. My worry is that the novelty will have worn off and the missions will simply be repetitive A to B jobs. However, as you can carry through your characters, there should be a continued sense of attachment to your troops.
It is also worth noting that this is different from the previously announced Last Stand, which will be a free add-on coming out this October. This includes a new co-op mode similar to Horde mode in Gears of War 2.
The full stand alone expansion pack will be out in Spring 2010, when I will surely buy it. Until then, Dawn of War 2 remains one of the few games I actively play online, so if you are up for a game, my live ID is theTHK123 and my Steam ID is thk123.
On a side note, I went to see Coldplay at Wembley on Saturday (19th September) and they were really good! You can view all my videos on youtube.
A few days after me making a prediction that Lionhead were working on something big, Lionhead announce Fable 3!
Fable 3 will put you as King or Queen in the land of Albion. The game is set not long after Fable 2 and you will be playing your hero's son or daughter. Hopefully this means the game will use your actions in Fable 2 to shape the world that Fable 3 is set in. The press release hints at some election campaigning, where I would assume you can either promise good things or beat people in to submission. It also suggests that you will be controlling policy. It is unclear what kind of game this Fable will be, given these strange implications. However, the employment includes combat animators so I think it will still be an adventure game, at least in camera perspective.
I think it is fairly safe to assume that it will use Natal in some respect. What I hope happens, and would build on from the AI demo at E3, would be you have to talk to your people. This would certainly be a significant step up from Fable 2, where you had to communicate in sign language. If the E3 demo was not staged, then it is not inconceivable that you could give speeches etc. However, given that it almost certainly was, maybe not. All I hope is that I don't have to do the walking in real life.
Fable 3 is scheduled for release in late 2010, which probably means early 2011 which is still 2 years away. This will probably wind up being the game that sells Natal for me. Stay tuned for more updates.
Just a quick post, but I think Lionhead are working on something. This is hardly an announcement, I don't think anyone thought they were just sitting around. Obviously they have the thing they are working on for Natal. However, be it that or be it something else, I think we are going to hear something about it soon.
Firstly, they have a new website (which is at the moment, at least on my computer, very laggy and likes to crash for no apparent reason). Each day it has had a different quote from famous historic people. Also, they are recruiting a lot of new people, most notably programmers on contract working on high profile Xbox 360 game. The fact that they are on contract suggests that they are approaching the finish rather than just starting. Finally, I think if there were more Fable DLC, we would have heard about it by now.
All in all, I think we will see an announcement fairly soon (I hope) for something unexpected. I don't think it is their AI project thing because that has little do with history and I can't see them needing a Technical Combat Designer to help create creature combat animations for a game where the demo showed the player drawing a fish for a little girl (call it a hunch).
Anyway, on holday tommorow so another expanse of no posting, sorry.
It is rumoured that Project Natal – Microsoft's new motion camera and voice recognition hardware - will launch with a new console. This is a shocking revelation if Microsoft really is going to be releasing a new console. This announcement, assuming it is accurate, is highly disturbing.
In the article, they talk about how games will be developed for both platforms, with the new platform having slightly superior graphics. This has a number of implications. Firstly, the already expensive business of producing HD games is going to get a whole lot more expensive. Ok, so the hardware is going to be similar, and it won't be double production costs. None the less, it is going to cost more, even if it is only one and half times more.
And what do developers get with this increased cost, certainly not increased sales. It isn't like there is a market waiting for this console. Think about it, casual gamers, who would be lured in by Natal would prefer to buy the (presumably) cheaper Xbox 360 with Natal. The traditional gamers already own a 360 and the best case scenario is that they will ditch the 360 for the new box. Net gain in customers due to the new console, 0.
This increased cost without increased profit might contribute to the safe-bet game market. We will see more sequels and less new IP. We might even see increased cost in games across the board (Microsoft, I don't imagine, would want new Xbox games more expensive that 360 games, and Sony and Nintendo might be tempted to follow suit).
Speaking in really predictive terms, this may speed up the inevitable, piracy on consoles. One of the reasons the PC market is shrinking compared with the console market is piracy. It is assumed that piracy on console is impossible. Nothing is impossible for a pirate. Given time, all the consoles will be cracked, the market will level out and new anti-piracy measures will have to be taken. Increasingly expensive games may act as a catalyst to the process.
And then you start hitting other problems. Sure, at first the new games will look slightly better on the new console, but hey, us 360 owners don't mind, our games still look fine. But then developers start investing money in making new games look great for the new console. There are a couple of levels that don't quite run at 60FPS on the Xbox 360. No huge deal, they were epic levels. Then it starts appearing in places where it matters, online. New Xbox owners will get a lag free (read: advantageous) experience, whilst 360 users have to lag along. Then 360 owners have to start installing games to get them to play. They have to start turning down graphics options in game if they want a solid 60FPS. Remind you of any other dying piece of hardware (in terms of game sales). Oh yeah, the PC!
It is very early days, this console hasn't even be confirmed. None the less, I play console games because everything just works. As a gamer, I prefer RTS's to action games and FPS's are better on the PC (except Halo 3, which I enjoy loads, but not because it is on the console) None the less, I play a huge amount of console games because everything on the PC is a bit iffy, even though my PC is good. This development, however, represents a trend (along with patches) towards the PC for consoles. Hopefully I am over-exaggerating, but consider this a warning.
Due to technical issues and my review copy of Sims 3, I did not watch either the Sony or Nintendo conferences live. I have since watched the recording of Nintendo's (I'll watch Sony's tomorrow). Here are my thoughts on said conference.
It was really lame. I don't even mean what they were announcing, which actually had some nice games, which I'll come to in a minute. What it was really lacking was any glamour, excitement or show pizazz that make E3 E3. In actual fact, I am more excited about a forth coming Metroid than ODST, but when Microsoft announce something, they are so much better at it. Everything that they announced at their conference, felt like a huge thing which you could really get excited about, as you can tell from my coverage of it. With Nintendo, even with their big announcements, I found myself falling asleep. The whole conference was poorly presented and, unlike Microsoft, did not make use of multiple presenters, instead relying on Reggie and the stupid ski woman from last year.
It was like they forgot what E3 was, a chance to show off your best. They did precisely what Microsoft said they weren't going to do, talk about sales. Seriously, it is so dull. The who press conference lacked excitement or charisma. It felt like they hadn't even tried.
So if you could keep yourself awake through the dull presentation, you were rewarded with some interesting game announcements. Admittedly, they had nothing on Microsoft. There is a trailer for a new Metroid game. It is unclear even what perspective the game will take place is, with shots that seem both in the first person and side on. Once again, Nintendo let themselves down by not having a play demo or anyone talking about the game. They said there were some surprises for Metroid fans, but they didn't say what. Nintendo, this mysterious thing doesn't work! Give us something.
They also announced a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy which looked identical to the first, but providing the level design is just as good, then that will be good. Once again, there was no demonstration of the game or explanation or anything.
They also announced a new Mario game (they made 4 Mario related announcements, if your keeping count) where the main feature is 4 player co-op. It looks quite interesting, and back to basics Mario style platforming. It looks like it could be a lot of fun when you get four players together. No doubt it won't use online, which is a shame, so it will stay as a fun party experience.
They also demonstrated Wii Motion Plus, a heart beat monitor, and Facebook on DS, but I wasn't fussed by these. Wii Motion Plus was out did by Natal and should have been in the Wii Remote in the first place.
There was no Zelda announcement (except for DS), a short video for the Conduit and very little to keep my attention. I am sorry Nintendo, I stuck up for you last year and the year before. I have stood by the Wii when all my friends have turned away, but that was pathetic, I am so sorry, you have failed.
Well, I unbelievably forgot all my E3 predictions beyond the announcement of Forza 3, which is pretty much a given anyway. The Microsoft press conference is scheduled for 18:20GMT tonight. You can watch it live on Gamespot. I will be posting thoughts here as the conference starts. The one thing I am desperately hoping for is Metal Gear Solid for the 360, although I am not optimistic.
The other major thing to look forward to at this conference is Peter Molyenux. The very fact that he has been given as slot means he must have some announcement. I think it is one of three things.
I read an interesting interview with the developer of Dawn of War 2 with Tom Chick. In it, they talk about how the genre has gone stale when compared with other, more successfully genres (such as first person shooters).
While I completely agree with what is being said, I think part of the shrinking sales is to do with the PC as a whole. Halo Wars has not saved the RTS genre (more information about this some time next week) but only showed that RTSs are almost always better on the PC, hence RTS survival is completely dependant upon the PC.
Sadly, however, the PC market is dying. It is, in part, to do with piracy. It was reported (I have sadly lost the link) that one game had a piracy rate of 85%! Compare this to the current generation of consoles, where it is virtually impossible to pirate games and even harder to distribute them, you can see where the money is going to go.
None the less, they raise a couple of interesting points about how console games are changing and why PC games need to do the same; and they are right. Console games are being simplified and shortened. Even Civilization on the console can be played through in a single play. Personally, I liked the depth that PC games offer. However, what might speak more is I love being able to dip in to console games for maybe 10 minutes - and I do probably spend more money on the console than I do on PC.
For those who are interested in Dawn of War 2 itself, I have a review copy of it which I am currently playing. I am not allowed to post anything before Friday though. My plan is to post my (detailed) first impressions on Friday and the full review on Sunday, allowing me to get a good feel for the game and what not. However, if I am allowed one sentence it would be this: Thankyou Relic for not making me repeat my sentiments that I have used so frequently in the past 12 months; "it's just another sequel". Stay tuned for more!
Last year, Free Radical (Time Splitters) went in to administration. I, along with many others, was both shocked and upset, I was looking forward to Time Splitters 4, scheduled for this year. It was rumoured there were a number of third parties looking to buy in. However, it was not until earlier this month that it was revealed who was going to take them on.
And I must admit, I was surprised to find it was Crytec, most well known for Crysis. If I had to think of two first person shooters that were as different in style and execution as possible, it would probably be these two! Crysis is ultra-serious with incredibly realistic graphics and physics, a clichéd, with no tongue in cheek humour, action story. Time splitters has a weird, goofy, genuinely funny script, cartoony graphics, some of the worst physics you will ever come across and a monkey gun.
Can it work? I am not convinced. With the economic climate, and that FR was rescued from administration, Crytec may not be willing to fund a FPS that is less serious (as it may be considered more risky, just compare the sales of Time Spiltters with Halo or even Cyrsis itself). On the other hand, it could be absolutely awesome. It depends on whether the Cryengine can handle cartoony graphics as well as it can handle real graphics, and whether Crytec let FR run with their crazy monkey schemes!
I played the Halo Wars demo, so expect some first impressions coming soon. On top of which, some very exciting VG news:
While I am not getting my hopes up just yet, I think I may have secured a review copy of Dawn of War 2. As a result, I will be getting my act together and actually witting the review on time! The review cannot be posted before the 20th, but I aim to have it released exactly as the embargo is listed. Don't worry, I won't let it get to my journalistic integrity! But, however I score it, I want to say a big thank you to THQ, and if the beta is anything to go by, I am sure it will be awesome.
Just a very quick post for the moment. Two excellent articles on IGN on Ten trends that are destroying video games and Ten trends that are saving video games are well worth reading.
A lot of what they say I highly agree with. I think 2009 is going to be an interesting year. During Q4 of last year, despite the global depression, the video game industry as a whole grew. However, I think this year could be the crunch year. The economic crisis is going to force causal gamers to either pick more carefully to make their purchases more £/hour effective or quit video games and sell the Wii on Ebay. As a result, I can see shovelware to start to decrease. With any luck, because of the Wii Motion Plus, developers will be reinspired to create decent innovative Wii games all over again.
Anyway, I'll be posting more about my thoughts for the future of the industry soon, but I strongly reccommend reading the above articles.
Update, fixed link to things that are saving video games. Sorry!
It has been announced today that Dawn of War 2 has been completed and is now moving in to production phase. The current release date is February 19th. I haven't quite decided whether I am going to get this. On the one hand, I know they are going to bring out loads of expansion packs which I will end up buying because I want to use the Imperial Guard and I should just wait for the box set. Plus, Starcraft is coming out soon also. However, I really enjoyed Dawn of War and what they are doing with the campaign sounds really interesting.
One of things that did interest me in the press release was this:
"Disposable units will become a thing of the past as gamers feel the intimate brutality of war and develop a personal connection with fully customizable squads."It is one thing to have customisable squads, but to actually make players care... Also, if you have spent ages levelling up a unit players will fear losing it. However, this could just mean that disposable units play an even bigger part, as you cannot risk your good units and so just chuck rubbish units at the enemy and only use your best units in the worst case scenario.
We all knew that Spore was would have expansion packs, but November 18th really was fast! it is not a full expansion pack but will contain:
more than 100 new creature-building components themed in two distinct styles—charming, cartoon-esque creatures and scary, monster-like creatures
This looks awesome, and the final few seconds prove it will be running on Halo's engine. This presumably means that it will be DLC as opposed to a new game. Maps, I do not hold with paying for, I pay for them yearly as far as I am concerned when I cough up £40 for Xbox Live. But a new campaign, that sounds sweet as!
Also, November 19th is the date for the new dashboard with Mii support. Sorry, Microsoft avatars. And, at long last, group private chat. Looking forward to all this, and Fable. That's your Microsoft update for today folks!
It has been confirmed that Fable 2 will ship without online co-op. It will be available as a patch, "hopefully within a week" after the American launch. Now, I am pretty sure this will be free, as it would be the biggest joke EVER if it wasn't. However, if they can actually get it patched within the week, why not just delay it for a week. Then I realised, the only people who would gain from this are people without online, in which case it doesn't matter, as it is only the online co-op that is being patched.
So all in all, this is fine, providing it is free and providing it is out within a week. I was looking forward to questing with my friends. Ah well, at least it gives me more time to find a secure castle to hide my wife in while my friends decide to destroy my game!
