General gaming |
- The Prototypes Behind Journey
- How Gravity Rush's Designers Took the Third Option
- MechWarrior Online Adds Depth to the Series
- Next Xbox Rumored to Lack a Disc Drive, But is That So Shocking?
| Posted: 09 Mar 2012 04:31 PM PST
Feature At one point shortly after finishing Flower, the developers at indie studio Thatgamecompany rounded up members of the God of War team and other staff in Sony's Santa Monica office, sat them down "in random rooms and closets in the building," according to producer Robin Hunicke, and presented them with a 2D Flash prototype running on a PC. It looked more like a 2600 game than anything the studio was known for, with the main character appearing as a circle with a line sticking out -- "like a little tank," says Hunicke -- next to flat blocks in a top-down view. Focus testers moved from point A to point B, with mechanics designed to reward them for interacting with one another -- when one left a path on the ground, the other could run along it for a speed boost; if the two stuck close together, the camera zoomed out to let them see farther into the distance.  |
| How Gravity Rush's Designers Took the Third Option Posted: 09 Mar 2012 03:29 PM PST The existential crisis facing the Japanese game industry lurked beneath the surface of this year's Game Developers Conference with uncomfortable omnipresence, often giving a sense of Japanese designers coming to San Francisco humbly to take notes on what sells in the U.S., only to be scorned and derided for their trouble. Of course, it wasn't really so dire as all that, but one could certainly be forgiven for walking away with that impression. |
| MechWarrior Online Adds Depth to the Series Posted: 09 Mar 2012 03:00 PM PST MechWarrior has always been a fairly shallow series at heart. Despite featuring endless customization options for mechs, almost all of the previous MW titles suffered from major exploits that rendered gameplay one-dimensional. Every MW 2 mission could be easily completed using nothing but long-range-missiles, while MechWarrior 3's gameplay boiled down to shooting off the enemies legs as fast as possible. The general rule throughout the series' history has been that a heavier mech is almost always a better choice than a lighter one -- armor always trumps speed. MechWarrior Online aims to add depth to the series when it launches this summer by offering players a reason to choose a variety of mechs, "Ending the arms race," as the game's developers referred to it in a hands-off demo at GDC. The CryEngine-powered, free-to-play game's 12v12 online matches require specialization and teamwork; each side will need light mechs to scout and report enemy locations to the rest of the team, as well as heavy assault mechs to lead and soak up damage alongside medium mechs equipped with specialty weapons and heavy ordinance. |
| Next Xbox Rumored to Lack a Disc Drive, But is That So Shocking? Posted: 09 Mar 2012 01:54 PM PST Rumors regarding the Xbox 360's successor are only going to become more frequent as we approach its announcement, whether that be coming at this year's E3, next year's, or some other point in time. The latest report suggests Microsoft's third home game console will ship without what has been a critical component in the past: a disc drive. According to MCV, partners of Microsoft's have been told the new system will make use of "some sort of interchangeable solid-state card storage" in lieu of the disc-based media that console owners have become accustomed to for many years now. This flies in the face of previous speculation and reports that Microsoft would abandon DVD in favor of Blu-ray and its superior storage capacity. |
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