Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I love Portal!

This post is just to tell you to go and buy Portal. Right now! Stop reading this and just buy Portal :)

Alone in the Dark 5 - Central Park Trailer

Halo 3 - Landfall, live-action trailer

Interactive storytelling & dialogue

The game-industry in it-self hasn’t produced that much new the last couple of years. One of the more interesting was of course Indigo Prophecy which as one of the best attempts of a true adventure-game in a long time.

Still, there wasn’t that much innovation in terms of story-telling and the same must go for the game I myself worked on, The Darkness, where the steps on interactive story-telling we did take are evolutionary and where the story should be immersive rather than have true choices.

One of the bigger problems in my opinion is the lack of techniques that can be used to talk to non-player characters. Having dialogues as catalysts for story-telling is crucial for most movies and books, but they are so very hard to do believable in an interactive media.

Very few games today offer anything more interesting other than multiple dialogue-choices, substituting any real interactivity with a set of predefined questions. To me, that’s a step backward from back even from 1966 when ELIZA was created.

An exception is of course Façade, an experimental game where you converse with an arguing couple. It combines an advanced AI with a text-input system and it’s an noteworthy accomplishment, but still failes to convince in my opinion.
Interactive storytelling & dialogue

Evolved Virtual Creatures

Evolved Virtual Creatures

Lucasarts and Bioware to work together again

Lucasarts and Bioware Corp. To Develop Ground-Breaking Interactive Entertainment Product

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Will Wright: Games are not stories

There was this guy, and he walked into a room, and he saw a person sitting on the other side of the room, absorbed in this device. And he was so fixated on this device that he didn't even notice this fellow walking into the room – he could tell, it was like he wasn't even there, and he'd displaced himself to another time and place.

And it creeped him out, he thought this guy was possessed by the devil.

What this was, it was the sixteenth century, and it was the first time he'd seen somebody reading a book.
Will Wright: Games are not stories

WoW Machinima Evening

Ultimate Dreamscape by Snoman


The Ballad of the Sex Junkie by Olibith


Unlimited Escapism vol. 0 by BaronSoosdon


I'm So Sick by BaronSoosdon


Eat It Raw - Trailer by TehTaco


Cocaine by TehTaco

Well, I'm back home from Germany now

Food for 3 people :)

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Okami is coming to where it belongs... the Wii

Capcom has finally confirmed persistent rumours that Okami is coming to Nintendo Wii, telling a London audience this week that the game will arrive on our screens in spring 2008.

Celebrated on PS2 for its absorbing puzzle and action adventure mechanics, gripping narrative inspired by Japanese folklore and beautiful watercolour visuals, its rebirth on Wii has been much hyped.

The game also lends itself rather well to the potential of Nintendo's Wiimote for control. Amaterasu's Celestial Brush - a paintbrush used in combat and for solving puzzles - is a perfect fit for the Wiimote, and so it proves, while combat will also include various "motion-controlled physical attacks".
Okami confirmed for Wii

Jade Raymond talks Assassin's Creed again

Bionic Commando Debut Trailer

Grin working on Bionic Commando next-gen

Making progress in Adobe After Effects 5

Took one evening/night to make this. Although, I overslept today because of it.

Making progress in Adobe After Effects 4
Making progress in Adobe After Effects 3
Making progress in Adobe After Effects 2
Making progress in Adobe After Effects

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Grin working on Bionic Commando next-gen

And they'll have Mike Patton doing the voice for the lead character Nathan Spencer. Mike Patton also made the voice of the Darkness in The Darkness that was developed by us at Starbreeze :)

Bionic Commando

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Friday, October 12, 2007

Salary level up!

Woo-hoo!

Project Offset - 6x new screenshots

Project Offset - Screenshots
Project Offset trailer is from a year old build

EA acquires BioWare and Pandemic Studios

Electronic Arts has announced an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire BioWare and Pandemic parent company VG Holding Corp for $620 million plus an additional $190 million in other charges, bringing the 800 employees of the companies under the EA Games wing.

Pandemic Studios and BioWare Corp. employ roughly 800 people across four studios located in Edmonton, Canada; Los Angeles; Austin; and Brisbane, Australia. The companies have ten franchises under development, including six wholly owned games.

BioWare Corp. is currently developing the highly anticipated Mass Effect, which will be published by Microsoft in November, and is in the early development stages of a massively multiplayer online game. Pandemic Studios is currently working on the upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Saboteur, in addition to several unannounced projects.

Pandemic Studios is led by Andrew Goldman, Josh Resnick and Greg Borrud. BioWare Corp. is jointly led by Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka. These teams will join the EA Games Label run by Frank Gibeau, President of EA Games.

EA will pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp., which will be subject to time-based or performance-based vesting criteria. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options. In addition, EA has agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition.
Electronic Arts, BioWare, Pandemic: The Conference Call

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Game Developers Conference '08

Third time is a charm. This year (well, next year) I'll do my best to be able to attend to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Almost feel like I already have to start packing and preparing for it now. I would be really disappointed if I missed out on it this time again...

Game Developers Conference '08 - Registration
No GDC'07, aims for GDC'08 instead!
GDC'07 - San Francisco for a week

Assassin's Creed: Limited Edition

It seems possible to book it now from swedish retailers, which hasn't been possible before as far as I know. If I can't afford anything else for this november, I'll atleast get this and the Mass Effects Collector's Edition. I've also been promised a special package of Kane & Lynch which I'm really looking forward to :)

Mass Effect Collector's Edition Contents
Interesting games coming out this November

Battlefield 3 PDF leaked?

  • Release in late 2008
  • Powered by “Frostbite DX”
  • Set in year modern day (just like BF2, ed.)
  • Will ship with 8 maps, each supporting up to 40-players per team
  • Two playable factions, NATO and MEC (Middle Eastern Coalition)
  • Same “ticket-based” gameplay style as before
  • Maps are mostly urban, based in Middle East
  • Squads and Commanders are present, introduced are “Battalions” which consist of three to four squads.
  • Five playable classes; Sniper, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Support
  • Will feature 48 different vehicles (24 for each faction)
  • Will feature 34 different weapons (17 for each faction) and another 22 unlocks (for both factions), in total 56 different weapons.
  • Other unlocks include different types of ammunition, body armor, helmets, camouflage and accessories.
  • Possible public beta in “Summer 2008″
  • Online stats tracking, awards and “real world ranks”
  • “Soldier” feature, looks like MMO-styled characters and avatars
  • Ranked servers will be available for resellers weeks before the game ships (for testing, apparently, ed.)
  • In-game replay and recording feature
  • VoIP, friends list, in-game IM-client and “extensive clan support”
  • Built-in auto software updater (no more patches!, ed.)
  • Widows Vista and OS X (no XP?!, ed.)
  • Announcement and teaser trailer in January 2008
Breaking: Battlefield 3 Leaked Info
Within the walls of EA DICE

Why I don't trust review scores anymore

I think something is flawed with todays rating system...

Friday, October 05, 2007

Bungie becomes independent once again

As you have no doubt read on the web today, Microsoft Corp. and Bungie Studios, have reached an unprecedented and exciting agreement – starting immediately, Bungie will become an independent company and will retain a long-term publishing agreement with Microsoft Game Studios for “Halo” titles.
Bungie Branches Off
Is Bungie going to buy itself free from Microsoft?

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Advance Wars 2 confirmed!

Gone are Max, Andy and the others, replaced by a whole new crew. IS went with a whole new, more realistic, miltary look, and quite frankly, it seemed like a pretty wise move Graphically-wise, the look went with the new design, though it looked pretty much the same.

New combat animations were pretty low-quality though, blurry and badly animated. Surely that's gonna be fixed by the time it comes out. Had time to notice a new unit - bike infantry unit - and that pretty much sums it up.
Advance Wars 2 playable in Paris @ MGS 2007