Far Cry fans the world over have gotten a fresh taste of Ubisoft's coming open-world shooter via a trailer that was released yesterday.
It looks… well, as a known Far Cry 2 obsessive, I'm not quite ready to say how it looks. But I can talk about how it sounds, and it sure sounds dubsteppy to me.
Before we saw the full trailer, we got a short teaser which was called the "Stranded Teaser."
In it, we hear that crazy guy from past trailers daring someone to shoot him. Then, someone gets shot! Was it him? Was it someone else? A guy's eyes open and then
WUBBBBB WUBWUBWUBWBUWUB
Here's the teaser trailer.
Ubisoft has, of course, become quite enamored of dubstep, using the distinctive music in several of their other game trailers. Fans of Far Cry 2 may have been a bit put off by the extreme drop at the end of this trailer—after all, that game had a distinctive, compelling soundtrack made up mostly of African vocalists and string instruments.
Vox Games' Justin McElroy, on the other hand, appears to have fallen in love with the idea, and has hilariously cut together a series of videos that… well… I'm not going to spoil them. Just watch (and listen) for yourself.
"The Princess Bride"
"You keep calling things dubstep. I do not think that word means what you think it means."
"Little Rascals"
"I've got a drop, I've got a drop, I've got a drop, hey hey hey hey."
"It's a Wonderful Life"
"Every time a drop drops, a dubstep fan gets his wings."
The latest installment of Ubisoft's open-world FPS series comes into focus in this new trailer, where we see that it's never a good idea to get blackout drunk on an uncharted island. You'll watch regular guy Jason Brody—bro is even part of his name!—just trying to get away from civilization for a few relaxing days with his girlfriend. They got further away than they ever bargained, it seems. Far Cry 3 will hit PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 7th of this year in Europe and September 4 in the U.S.
Listen: the first thing you need to know about the music in the newest Rayman game is that it's got some kickass virtuoso kazoo playing.
Yes, kazoo. Like, a plastic one. And it kicks a lot of ass.
That bit of whimsy comes courtesy of Christophe Héral, a musician/composer who's worked on Ubisoft games since 1999. Being a huge Beyond Good & Evil fan, I had a strong suspicion that Rayman Origins' musical identity came from the same guy who created the sonic backdrop for Michel Ancel's 2003 cult classic. One of the things that's made BG&E such a beloved game is a heartfelt soundtrack which punctuated every action thrill and dramatic turnaround in the sci-fi adventure perfectly.
Héral goes in a different direction here, with wacky taking precedence over poignant. There's still some swells of emotion but they take a backseat to giggle-inducing flights of fancy. Nevertheless, the Frenchman's oeuvre remains consistent in its embrace of polyglot sonic recipes. In a game scored by Héral, you'll hear tiki lounge tropicalia, downshifted reggae funk or bamboo flute ballads. He pulls influences from cultures all over the world, making the games he works on feel more universal as a result. More impressively, Héral somehow manages not to overplay the outré elements that he seeds through the Rayman Origins soundtrack. So, the twang of a Jew's harp, the moans of a digeridoo or the woody trill of a marimba never overstay their welcome and never feel like cheap turns of exotica.
For Rayman: Origins, Héral's soundtrack channels the beautiful incongruity that powers Michel Ancel's latest game. Rayman: Origins looks like it sprang to life from a sketchbook—which it kinda did—but it's powered by the cutting-edge UbiArt Framework engine. The music feels the same way: analog yet digital, primitive yet sophisticated.
UbiSoft likes to position Rayman as a latter-day avatar of mischief, like Bugs Bunny, and this music reminded me of the musical accompaniment in classic Looney Tunes shorts. The game's collection of tracks made me want to keep on playing Rayman, if only to keep discovering what gorgeously weird musical journey I'd be jumping and slapping my way through next. Here's a few standout selections:
"The Lum King"
This track takes high-pitched chipmunk voices—belonging to the Lum fairies players collect throughout the game—that should, by all rights, be incredibly annoying. However, Héral's stellar arrangement lets you can hear that the cuteness generated by Lum squeakiness isn't supposed be the point. Welcomed by a peppy ukelele-and-horns interplay, the voices peak and get tremulous in a ragged harmony, which undercuts any software tweaks used to create their unnatural pitch. As the whole affair twining in and out of the percussion backbeat, the listener knows exactly what kind of fun Rayman: Origins has in store for him or her.
"Desert of Dijiridoos - Shooting Me Softly"
The trick Héral achieves with this kazoo-centric track is making you take it seriously. You laugh at it at first, but then—as the drama of the rest of the ensemble masses around it—you're like, "Man, that kazoo's going through some shit!" And said kazoo travels all up and down the plastic instrument's register, even as the chromatics of the music behind it changes color several times. Our intrepid kazoo fights while loop-de-looping around Russian Volga boatmen-style chants, Spanish bullfight olés and Gregorian monk intonation. And that's just on the vocal side. By the end of the track, you realize it: You are Rayman. The kazoo is Rayman. Therefore, you, too, are the kazoo.
"The Tricky Treasure"
As with the sly kazoo misdirection in "Shooting Me Softly," the first measures of this cut's down-home banjo-&-fiddle pairing seem to invite guffaws. But, then the cinematic bursts that punched open the song return and it's another "whoa, serious business" moment. The country western tandem snuggles up with those movie-house symphonics and in just under a minute, you get to feeling like Rayman's become a cowboy hero.
"Sea of Serendipity ~ The Lums' Dream"
All of the tracks for Origins' Sea of Serendipity levels are great. For the most part, they feature underwater Lum scat vocals. Those get coupled with a gibberish-that-sorta-sounds-like-and-might-be-mixed-with-real-language technique that Héral used on BG&E's "Propaganda" track. The fusion creates pure, infectious joy and the themes for this chunk of the game swing jazzily or urgently drive you forward. But then you get to "The Lums' Dream," where those high-pitched voices aren't funny at all. With minor synth atmospherics behind the vocalists, the Lums get out front in ethereal and haunting fashion. It's the kind of musical experience that stays with you even when you're not in front of a console.
As of this writing, there doesn't appear to be an official release of Christophe Héral's Rayman: Origins soundtrack. But a little bit of digging will deliver the tunes from the limbless wonder's newest adventure in no time.
"The Best Game Music of 2011" is a multi-part series highlighting the best video game soundtracks of the year.
Today only, Microsoft is selling the HD re-release of Michel Ancel's cult adventure game Beyond Good & Evilfor a mere $3, discounted from its usual $10. If you've ever wondered why so many people love this game, now's a good time to find out. [XBLA]
Over the weekend, Beyond Good & Evil creator Michel Ancel gave a talk at the Montpellier in Game conference in France. As a treat, he showed off some concept art and footage from the game's sequel, the long-in-development Beyond Good & Evil 2.
That's the good news! The bad news is that, because the talk was behind closed doors, the only way we're seeing it now is because somebody filmed it on their phone. Meaning everthing's more than a little shaky.
At around 0:45 you'll see concept art for the game, while at around 2:20 you can see a fly-around of what looks like the stage from the game's 2009 demo.
As for what was spoken of, apparently the development team travelled to India for inspiration, while the game's engine can produce "huge, fully explorable cities".
Far Cry 2 is a high-powered shooter for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. That's not all, apparently!
According to the resume of Ubisoft's Philippe Baude, there was a version of Far Cry 2 in the works for the PSP and the Wii in late 2006 and early 2007, but the games were cancelled.
Far Cry 2 was the sequel to Far Cry, which was developed by Crytek. There was a Far Cry title released for the Wii, 2006's Far Cry: Vengeance (above). It looked like a dog's breakfast.
Ubisoft is currently working on a new Far Cry for 2012, which is cleverly titled Far Cry 3.
You can contact Brian Ashcraft, the author of this post, at bashcraft@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
Ubisoft's E3 2011 demonstration of Far Cry 3 was—obviously—not the only way to run through the jungle and get to the chopper. Flexibility and player choice are key in Far Cry games, which Ubisoft illustrates in the above gameplay demo.
It's the other way to skin the cat that was Far Cry 3's E3 showcase, plus some commentary from Ubisoft Montreal on next year's game. You can revisit the other way to complete this same objective, with commentary, afterward.
Far Cry 3 is on the books for a 2012 release on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, Far Cry 3 opens with a psychotic bandit lecturing you on the nature of insanity. Crazy is doing the same thing, expecting different results, goes the oft-quoted saying. And again, for the third time now in this series, you are surrounded by a jungle, up to your ass in trouble.
You're soon up to your neck in it, and beyond, as the bandit kicks a cinderblock, bound to your feet, into a deep pond. The protagonist, this time a guy named Jason Brody, struggles free of his bonds and surfaces in a cavern in a two-stage quicktime event. He then transits into a one-man ambush of the bandits' camp, a scene of civilian executions and other atrocities.
Far Cry 3, due in 2012 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, seems to deploy much of what made the first two games critical successes: Richly detailed environments with complex lighting and heart-in-your-throat sound design. The drowning escape sequence, Brody is fighting to free himself, surrounded by dozens of corpses tethered to their blocks, arms bound and raised over their heads in a ghostly pose. In the shootout, Brody was free to use the sniper scope to scan a very broad environment, using it to identify hostiles, assets, and his objective, a helicopter. The thugs went about their business in the desaturated color of the scratched-up scope. I saw all of this in a live gameplay demonstration at E3 2011.
What unfolded was reasonably conventional combat that, while plainly the optimal way to negotiate the challenge, was not forced by the game itself or funneled to the key points by the environment. Brody sought out a zipwire to begin his guns-blazing party crashing, but I got the sense he could have run in on foot and handled business that way, if a bit more difficult.
Enemy AI appeared very challenging, as the demonstrator was constantly flanked and taking fire, but naturally shrugging it off. Cover was abundant and firing from it blindly was the predominant tactic I saw. A sense of action-movie desperation pervaded the encounter.
Introducing the sequence, our demonstrator said only that Brody had found himself on an island, his boat had been destroyed, his girlfriend had been kidnapped, "and everyone here is crazy." It seemed to be in the South Pacific, as a wrecked World War II-era fighter was part of the landscape during the brief exploration period preceding Brody's capture.
The game is being developed by Ubisoft Montreal, which handled Far Cry 2 and served up the rich visuals one expects of a game series with its roots in CryEngine. I was shown the game on an Xbox 360.
In the windup of the opening battle, Brody fights his way to a helicopter, puts a gun to the pilot's head and orders him to take off. The helicopter is barely airborne when a rocket-propelled grenade slams into its fuselage, bringing it down with an ear-ringing explosion.
Brody blacks out and awakens where he started. Surrounded by jungle, up to his ass in trouble, and the bandit lecturing him on the nature of insanity.
Ubisoft's recent financial report indicated that, following a fiscal year loss of $74 million, a number of projects were being scrapped as part of an internal reorganization. Since we've heard very little from Beyond Good & Evil 2in the three years since its teaser trailer was shown, some thought it finally meant curtains for that long-awaited sequel.
Well, worry not. An Ubisoft spokesman confirmed to Eurogamer that BGE&2, plus I Am Alive are both still in development. "Terminated projects were unannounced projects," a Ubisoft spokesperson said. As these two are announced, they are safe.
Of course, they didn't say how far along BG&E2 is in development, or when the game would finally release.
I Am Alive is a disaster survival game headed for a PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade release.
Earlier this year, the US Copyright Group filed a lawsuit against 4,577 people it accused of pirating the movie Far Cry, a big screen adaptation of a 2004 PC shooter. In December, things aren't going so well.
A District Court judge has ordered that the case can only apply to defendants who lived in the same district the suit was filed in. This leaves only 140 accused pirates left in the District of Columbia to face the music.
That's not only good news to the 4,437 people who are off the hook, but also thousands of other Americans currently facing similar action from other copyright organisations, as the same precedent will now apply to their cases as well.
As for the 140 still stuck on the case, hopefully they get off. Not because we advocate piracy here, but because surely watching Far Cry was punishment enough.
Far Cry fans the world over have gotten a fresh taste of Ubisoft's coming open-world shooter via a trailer that was released yesterday.
Listen: the first thing you need to know about the music in the newest Rayman game is that it's got some kickass virtuoso kazoo playing.
