New game releases of May 20-26
Killzone: Mercenary shoots onto Vita on September 10
Trion Worlds hit with more layoffs, Defiance team impacted
Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault defending Vita next week
Game & Wario was originally going to be pre-installed on Wii U
Evening Reading
by Brian Leahy, Jan 07, 2011 5:00pm PSTAnother weekend is upon us and that means it is time for gaming and relaxing. What will you be playing this weekend? How are you all progressing through your inevitable gaming backlog, which most certainly grew in number after the holidays and the Steam sale?
You'll find out what the Shack staff is playing in Xav's Weekend Discussion post.
Gaming News of the Day
- Weekend Confirmed Episode 42.
- Million dollar contest returning for MLB2K11.
- Lord of the Rings Online continues to find success in free-to-play.
- Civilization Worlds (Facebook game) seeking alpha testers.
Links from Morning Discussion
Speaking with OXM, producer Tanya Jessen said the early gameplay was "completely different than it is now," revealing that Bulletstorm has transformed from "a third-person shooter to a cover-based first-person shooter to a non-cover-based first-person shooter."
Now if only Epic could shake the habit of saddling their PC games with Games for Windows Live.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 78 replies.
We knew we wanted an over-the-top pulp sci-fi feeling and we knew we wanted it to have a very distinct attitude and tone. But the gameplay was completely different than it is now at the beginning. It was cover-based. So it went from a third person shooter to a cover based first-person shooter to a non-cover based first-person shooter.
We actually went through lots of iterations of how cover could work really well in a first-person shooter. But when it came down to it, once we started to see how great some of the weapons were coming along, we felt the core of Bulletstorm is the face of the enemy and the player figuring out what to do. So in that case cover-based combat didn't really work so well.
...
So what was the origin of the visual style? It's unique amongst video games these days to have colour.
Well, that was actually the lead artist Andrew. From the very beginning the art direction document was full of "Colour! We need colour!". He even took screenshots of other games and put crosses through them, saying "no colour!". So that that was awesome, and we knew we had to use colour in a way that made it feel consistent and tie it all together.
For us the global illumination was the piece that tied all those colours together. With the pulp sci-fi feel, we looked at a lot of old comic books for inspiration for colours and the ones that really stood out were green and blue.
It's nice that they concentrated on bringing more color into the game, but the "over-the-top pulp sci-fi" thing is what Epic has been doing for their art style since UT2003. I'm also disappointed that after having made two more cover-based third-person shooters, PCF brought in a cover-based third-person shooter that eventually evolved into a first-person bolo-and-QTE'er. Judging from the original preview video last year and some of the press videos recently, the attitude's crass, the storyline looks forgettable.
And I'm very disappointed in the Games for Windows Live mandated integration, especially considering that Epic had previously made a big deal about Steamworks integration in Unreal Engine 3: http://www.epicgames.com/news/steamworks-integration-now-available-to-unreal-engine-3-licensees/ .
This essentially means that I'm going to watch the weeks pass by on Bulletstorm, and wait to hear about Unreal's unannounced project that was recently hinted. I'm hoping that they'll at least try to take a few steps farther away from Gears with this one, and actually lead by example with UE3 Steamworks integration, instead of continuing the love-in with GFWL.
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