Thursday, March 19, 2009
Hello. The topic for today is:
Game Developer's Conference [GDC] was first held in 1988, and it has been a yearly event ever since. As its name suggests, it is a conference held for game developers to meet. New games, gaming related peripherals and industry changing technology are revealed during the yearly event.
As you would have probably guessed, I am really psyched for this year's GDC. Not only will there be official announcements for new games, as well as new trailers for many existing games, there will also be the revealing of the CryEngine 3.
This is a big deal, because that is going to be the game engine that most next generation games are going to be running on. I've already seen screen shots of games built on the CryEngine 3, and they look stunning, as you can see from the three screen shots below. But I've yet to see the games in motion. Looking forward to that.
Do bear in mind that that these are standard definition, low resolution screen captures. Imagine how they will look in full high definition glory. The Cryengine 3 has been developed mainly for game consoles.
For PCs, it's just going to be a minor improvement from CryEngine 2. For consoles, it's a whole new level of graphical power. With this beast on the next generation of consoles, I wouldn't been surprised that after a few months, all console games will look at least as good as Crysis, which is on PC.
There's also this thing called OnLive, which is possibly meant for the next Xbox. No one has seen what it looks like before, but it is described as something like Xbox Live, but with tons of other functions. You can purchase and download games, you can record clips of any games, and you can upload all these clips onto the network for others to watch.
Also, several major announcements are going to be made. Most are just rumours, but I'm hearing that Max Payne 3 will be revealed. More information for games like Wolfenstein and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion.
Speaking of Marvel, it seems that the cancelled Marvel Universe Online game is back in production, thanks to Microsoft and the team behind City of Heroes. The game, which is an Xbox 360 exclusive, is going to be competing head on with PS3 exclusive DC Universe Online.
I was disappointed back then when they cancelled it, especially since DC Universe Online was still due for release, but now I'm happy again. With the exception of the characters of Watchmen, and Batman, I would pick Marvel over DC any day.
For PCs, it's just going to be a minor improvement from CryEngine 2. For consoles, it's a whole new level of graphical power. With this beast on the next generation of consoles, I wouldn't been surprised that after a few months, all console games will look at least as good as Crysis, which is on PC.
There's also this thing called OnLive, which is possibly meant for the next Xbox. No one has seen what it looks like before, but it is described as something like Xbox Live, but with tons of other functions. You can purchase and download games, you can record clips of any games, and you can upload all these clips onto the network for others to watch.
Also, several major announcements are going to be made. Most are just rumours, but I'm hearing that Max Payne 3 will be revealed. More information for games like Wolfenstein and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion.
Speaking of Marvel, it seems that the cancelled Marvel Universe Online game is back in production, thanks to Microsoft and the team behind City of Heroes. The game, which is an Xbox 360 exclusive, is going to be competing head on with PS3 exclusive DC Universe Online.
I was disappointed back then when they cancelled it, especially since DC Universe Online was still due for release, but now I'm happy again. With the exception of the characters of Watchmen, and Batman, I would pick Marvel over DC any day.
Of course, since it is a conference for game developers, I'm interested to see how each of the big three has their year planned out. Analysts are going crazy at the moment, claiming that PS3 might lose out to the other two consoles again this year, if Sony doesn't give it a price cut. Also, they are saying that the Wii might lose its popularity this year. No attacks on the Xbox 360 yet.
I'm also eager to see how Activision is going to solve that problem it has been having with the attack dogs in Call of Duty: World at War. It initially was a small problem, since it was only a small group of students protesting against the killing of dogs in the game.
I would protest as well if the dogs we killed in Call of Duty: World at War looked like this.
But the dogs are much more like this. If you don't kill them, they will start doing ninja shit like that.Now, Peta has joined in as well. On top of everything I've just mentioned, there's also the possibility of game development studios suing each other, and the chance that the rivalry between Sony and Microsoft may turn ugly. GDC 2009 is going to be awesome.
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I didn't do much today. I downloaded the Guitar Hero Metallica demo and played it for about an hour. It's much better than I expected. There are only four songs in the demo, and all of them are metal songs, which is good. No other crappy forms of music.
I'm only a little disappointed by the difficulty of the game. It's not that it's hard or anything. More like a little too easy for Metallica. I got 5 stars on all songs on Hard mode when I played them the first time.
Expert mode is a little more challenging, but manageable. I only screwed up a bit at the Seek and Destroy solo. That one really took me by surprise. The song is reasonably easy for the most part, and then the killer solo comes in. Still managed to pass it though, with the help of Starpower.
Anyways, you can watch this short video if you want to get an idea of how hard the solo is:
I stopped playing for a while to rest my fingers, then I went to download the Wanted: Weapons of Fate demo. Didn't get a chance to play it yet since I went out for a while in the afternoon, and I've been using my computer ever since I got back. I'll play it tomorrow.
Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. [KOAS KW!!] Ending off, see you tomorrow.
posted @ 11:19 PM
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