Johnny Depp does a great job playing an off-kilter buccaneer in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but can a pile of LEGO bricks—a pile of virtual ones, no less—nail the performance in a new video game? I checked the brand new LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game and, well, they nailed it.
We'll have more on the new Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, DS, 3DS, and Wii game soon. But for now, marvel at Depp and LEGO Depp.
One of the writers of Portal 2, Erik Wolpaw, gave a talk last week at NYU's Game Center. You may have become aware of this because of the number of stories that ushered forth from the talk, like Wolpaw's passion for Rick the Adventure Sphere or why Chell doesn't speak. Or perhaps you were one of the dozens of people who were forced to stand outside the at-capacity lecture hall.
Now you can watch the whole talk online, hosted by NYU's Frank Lantz. Superfans should notice the call out to Kotaku's own Stephen Totilo and part-time-own Leigh Alexander.
NYU Lecture Series [Gamecenter.NYU.edu]
With the ten year anniversary of the release of the original Xbox shooter Halo looming, Titan Books is preparing to publish a collection of art from the series.
We asked the publisher to send us a few examples of what people will find inside Halo: The Great Journey: The Art of Building Worlds. The book includes more than 400 images including sketches, commentary and concept art pulled from all stages of development. Among the collection are pictures of characters, weapons and the landscape of the Halo universe.
The book is set to hit stores on Oct. 18 for $29.95 ( £24.99 ).
Now onto the gallery. (Don't forget to click on the bottom right of each image to see the full, big image.)
In Splash Damage's Brink, rival factions do battle over the fate of a post-apocalyptic floating city called The Ark. Judging by the critical reaction of some video game critics, The Ark may have already sunk.
Brink's intriguing combination of class-based team shooting a free-running movement have kept it high on gamers' radar throughout its lengthy development cycle. It's distinctive visual style, unique setting, and countless character customization options only fueled the fires of anticipation.
Now the game is live in North America, and as gamers run rampant over The Ark for the first time, the assembled game critics have already been there, done that, and painted an often disparaging picture of the future of this floating utopia.
Brink is unfinished. And that doesn't mean it's full of technical problems. Well, it's got those too. But mostly, it's just an unpolished, poorly executed mess of ideas. Wait, let me temper that. There are times when Brink looks like it's going to break out of its shell. There are times where the fairly interesting and cool (honestly!) ideas seem to be just about to bubble up and make the game worth playing. And then, suddenly and without warning, they're pushed back into the murky depths under the boot of poor design choices and lack of polish. It's exceedingly disappointing. Of course, for a game to be truly disappointing, it has to have potential. And Brink has more potential than it knows what to do with. (Note: Metacritic converts 1UP's D letter grade to a score of 25)
Here's one of the first major problems with Brink's objective-based structure: Each level that a player earns lets them unlock a new ability. Though there are a few permanent boosts the player can spend their unlocks on, most of these abilities are class-specific, meaning eventually, you're going to find a class you like and spend most of your points on it. Naturally, you'll have a predilection to play as that class — but should you refuse to switch your class to suit the objective, you're going to feel like your services aren't really required three-quarters of the time.
Brink's one shining aspect is SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain). Using SMART, holding a single button lets you navigate up walls, over obstacles, and through the game world. Depending on your body size, you can do more or less with movement, but overall this finesse is fantastic. Nothing in Brink feels quite as good as sliding under gunfire into someone, taking them out with a shotgun. However, it's easy to forget which size your character is in first-person perspective, as movement abilities don't change dramatically. While the Large size allows miniguns and shotguns, they still move only slightly slower than the Medium size. Only Small characters can really burst through levels, leaping off of walls and finding clever passageways.
My central beef here is that anemic feel to the action. I love complexity in games like this, and strategizing how to utilize the varying skills of the different player classes to achieve your goals. But when the core action doesn't feel good, it kind of weakens the entire venture. When I shoot an enemy, especially in the head, I want them dead. Not laying on the ground waiting for a medic to revive them, dead. Especially when I pop someone in the head. If there is a cardinal rule of shooters, it should be that no one survives headshots. No one.
While some of the levels have a more even chance of success for either side, I have a feeling there are certain stages that players are going to eventually refuse to play, rage-quitting should they find themselves on the wrong side. Had Brink employed something similar to Killzone 3 — where objectives constantly shift and are evenly split between teams — it might have worked. Instead, the game has a totally bizarre flow where even if a team is dominating an enemy and wins two objectives, they can still lose a hard-fought match because they failed the third imbalanced requirement.
Brink deserves to be ranked among the finest co-op games available. As a multiplayer experience, it is exquisite. But as mentioned earlier, it falters if played solo. While all the modes can be played in single-player, the bots that act as stand-ins for other players are a poor replacement. It certainly isn't the case that gamers who buy Brink will feel ripped off if they don't have access to their console's (or PC's) online network. But until you've fought both with and against living opponents in Brink, you have yet to sample the best of what it has to offer.
I've been impressed with SpyParty since the day I first played it, but soon you'll no longer have to take my word for it. The game's creator, Chris Hecker, is about to pull a Minecraft and launch a $15 beta.
You'll be able to join by signing up at an official web page (this one). Hecker will then start sending out invites over the next few weeks.
Those who pay $15 for the beta will receive all updated versions of the game, including its officially-released form. So you won't need to buy it all over again.
SpyParty is a two-player game that pits one person as a spy and another as a sniper. The spy player must blend in with computer-controlled characters, all of them attending a party, where the spy must smoothly complete a handful of missions (bug the ambassador, poison a drink, etc.) The sniper player gets to watch the party from outside, training their sniper scope and laser sight on any of the guests. The sniper gets one shot to ID the spy and shoot. The bullet won't miss, but they'd best be correct about who they shoot. It's subtle, complicated and clever.
A match of SpyParty is nerve-wracking. As a spy, you have to worry about any little hitch in your character's movement that just might give everything away. As the sniper, you have that one shot, so you keep doubting.
"My most important goal for the Early-Access Beta is to tune and balance the game to as close to perfect as I can get it, and to make it as deeply player-skill focused as I can," Hecker told me. "Basically, I'm trying to make a Counter-Strike or a Starcraft II here, at least in terms of the importance of player-skill to the outcome of a match. Those kinds of games need (and had) long-term large-scale betas for tuning and balancing, and the same is true for SpyParty."
The beta will be for Windows PC players only, for now. Hecker isn't sure of the specs required, but he said he plays it on a two-year-old laptop (and not a beast of one, as I can attest from having played the game at multiple trade shows).
The initial beta build will essentially be the version Hecker showed to long lines of fans at the PAX East show in March. It will consist of three maps (think: party rooms), six missions ("Bug Ambassador, Contact Double Agent, Transfer Microfilm, Swap Statue, Seduce Target, and Inspect Statues. Two more are half done, Poison Drink and Steal Plans"), three game types ("Call Your Shot, where the Spy has to complete N missions and the Sniper knows which ones (the missions and N depend on the map and skill levels), Subset, where the Spy has to complete N of M missions chosen in advance, and the Sniper only knows the M missions, and Any Subset, which is like Subset, but where the Spy can pick the missions opportunistically as he or she plays"), and 20 or so characters ("all the ugly prototype art everyone loves to hate.") There will be a lobby for text-chatting and primitive matchmaking, with more traditional matchmaking services being added as the beta continues.
In the first phase of the beta, which will start "very soon, maybe within weeks," Hecker will start adding five to 10 players at time. Throughout the spring and summer he'll add bigger and bigger groups of people and is considering running contests to let some people who have signed up skip ahead. Everyone who signs up should be playing by early fall, at the latest. He hopes to eventually have thousands of beta testers. Everyone will compete online at first, with LAN and player server support only coming later.
One of his reasons for doing the paid beta was simply because so many people have told him, at places like PAX East, that they'd pay for the game even in its raw, programmer-art state. "[That] kind of blew me away," he said. "Combine that phenomenon with the knowledge that I had to do a large open beta anyway, and it could mean I don't have to take any investment money at all, which would be amazing, because even friends and family investments come with strings attached. I think games like Minecraft and Overgrowth have really opened up this funding model for indies. I have no idea if it will work for SpyParty, but if it does, that will allow me to make the game exactly the game I think it deserves to be. My fingers are crossed."
Hecker still has no release date for the game. As he has intimated, the game is enjoyable as it is. It just looks crude and doesn't work too well when an expert player competes with a novice, but those are the exact areas that Hecker wants to explore next.
If you're interested, go sign up.
You could soon be playing the game and look just like this guy.
While Sony Computer Entertainment of America still isn't releasing a new timeline for getting their Playstation 3, Qriocity and Sony Online Entertainment services back online, they said this afternoon that it "will likely be at least a few more days." My money is on Friday night. [Playstation Blog]
Betrayed by the only people he trusts and hunted by the police, the beautifully bald and barcoded Agent 47 navigates a vast conspiracy in Hitman: Absolution, the latest adventure for IO Interactive's killer-for-hire.
IO Interactive makes the game official today, after a trademark filing outed the name of Hitman: Absolution late last month. According to the announcement, Absolution sees Agent 47 take on his most dangerous contract to date. He'll travel a corrupt and twisted world in order to get to the bottom of a dark conspiracy. Sounds like par for the course, really.
"For the first time we are taking Agent 47 on a personal journey which allows us to explore other parts of the Hitman fantasy," said Tore Blystad, game director, IO Interactive. "This is both a familiar and yet significantly different experience from other Hitman games; something our silent assassins will relish, as will all those new to the Hitman world."
Built using IO Interactive's Glacier 2 proprietary game engine, players can expect a cinematic story, distinctive art direction, and an original game design that combines Hitman's classic game mechanics with entirely new ones.
Hitman: Absolution will make its grand debut at E3 2011 next month for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. Until then, keep your eyes peeled on the game's official website for fresh intel.
Here's our first, sadly static, look at the map you get for free if you pre-order the Limited Edition of Electronic Arts' Battlefield 3.
Back to Karkand is a chance to relieve the "greatest Battlefield maps ever," according to a developer blog about the expansion pack bonus. The pack includes the four most played maps in the history of Battlefield: Strike at Karkland, Wake Island, Gulf of Oman and Sharqi Peninsula. Combined, DICE says, these maps have been played for 25,000 years.
Check out the DICE Battlefield 3 blog to read through the entire interview about this bonus pack.
Brink is a strange game. Is it the next must-play shooter? Is it a forgettable Team Fortress knock-off? Or is it something else? Is it really a decent single-player game? Actually, how does its multiplayer even work?
The best way to explain this odd game to you is to show it to you. I played through it this weekend, and now, if you can give me 10 brisk minutes of your time, I can zip you through one of the game's missions and provide enough commentary so that you can know all you need to know.
Fair? Press play, and let's get started.
(I'm playing on the Xbox 360. The game is also out for PC and PlayStation 3. Also, as some commenters have noted, the game is getting a patch that is supposed to address the issue of graphical texture pop-in—you'll know it when you see it. This video was captured prior to the release of patches, the day before the game was released.)
You've had two months to look at videos and screenshots and complain about how much of a World of Warcraft clone it is. Now you can try Trion Worlds' Rift for free and potentially score your Rifting friends a virtual puppy in the process.
Today Trion Worlds launches two new initiatives to get more players into the world of Telara in time for the massive 1.2 game update. First up is a seven-day free trial, which gives any new player a full week to try and figure out the game's complicated (yet strangely satisfying) soul system. Once in game, free trial players can purchase the full game at any time.
But why simply participate in the free trial when you can help a friend score virtual loot instead?
With the Ascend-a-Friend program, existing players can earn special in-game items for luring their unsuspecting friends into the game. One trial to full game conversion earns the player an in-game puppy named Courage. Two conversions earns the player the sexy Trailblazer Hat. And three? With three you get the Swift Ember Steed, which is much sweeter than the stupid two-headed turtle my characters are currently rocking.
Interested in trying out Rift but don't have a friend to refer you? Perhaps we can work something out.
