The PC Centric Extravaganza 8.05.08
Posted by Chris Evans on 08.05.2008
QuakeCon has come and gone with a heap of "id" related news emerging. Read on for the details!
The PC Centric Extravaganza 5th August 2008
Welcome to another edition of The PC Centric Extravaganza! I am your host Chris Evans and I have a great column for you all this week. A great big round up of id at the QuakeCon and news regarding EA are the highlights of the week. Lets get on with the show.
id Software at QuakeCon
QuakeCon is surely the best place for getting a boat load of news that has any relevance at all to id Software. This year is no different with Wolfenstein, Doom 4, Rage and the Doom movie being discussed and shown off. You want a low-down on all the news, then read on my friends.
So the first bit of news on the agenda is that the above trailer has been released for the new Wolfenstein game. Well I am interested, but not jumping up and down in excitement like I was hoping to be. Having read the PC Gamer preview of the game in the latest issue I felt a bit deflated. It all seems as though the game is going too far into the world of the paranormal with two worlds and more and more of these elements emerging. It does kind of put me off, I have great memories from playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein which had its fair share of that stuff, I just don't want the new game to take it too far and ruin the underlying game experience.
Anyway that new trailer for it looks damn good, so why don't we wait for some more information to emerge before jumping to too many conclusions.
Now that is what I call an action packed, full of thrills, exciting trailer. The game of course is Rage, a post-apocalyptic first-person shooter which id are keen to make clear is not a driving game. Project lead Tim Willits told Eurogamer that the company felt that following the revealing of Rage at last years QuakeCon that many people thought it was going to be more about racing and vehicular combat.
"That's one of the things that we want to try and address - the game is a first-person action game that has a variety of gameplay that is no longer just run-and-gun. It focuses on story-driven missions. It's not this huge mindless open world. But it is a first-person action game that has a variety of gameplay built upon id Tech 5. That's really our key message."
If that trailer is anything to go by then we will be in for a treat of a game, one that seems to be pushing the boundaries of graphics and gameplay. Rage looks really exciting right now, however in that talk with Eurogamer it emerges that we will be waiting quite a while to see it in shops.
We asked Willits if Rage is a 2009 game, 2010, 2011, and all he'd say is that it's "not that far out" in response to the last one.
And in shops it seems it will be for Rage and Doom 4 if this Maximum PC report is anything to go by. It reveals that Rage and Doom 4 won't be receiving the digital distribution treatment despite EA publishing the Rage. EA has its own digital distribution service and the entire id back catalogue is available on Steam. This is indeed interesting, can we expect things to change closer to the release of Rage, I hope so.
In further news regarding Doom 4 Kotaku has word from Todd Hollenshead (id CEO) about the naming of the game. So can we really be calling it Doom 4?
"We are working on what the story is going to be for the game right now, the logo (shown during QuakeCon) didn't have a four or a subtitle. We haven't made the decision about that yet. There is probably a let's not make a numeral game and some say we should make it one."
Hollenshead also told Kotaku that the game will stick true to the roots of Doom by presenting a very visceral experience with lots of big guns and demons.
Personally I will be really looking forward to this next Doom game, as long as there is more variety than was present in Doom 3. A potentially great game that was let down by being too dark with too many corridors. It always sticks out to me as failing to match what was achieved with Half-Life 2, I hope with the next Doom those failings can be fixed.
It also emerges on Kotaku that Hollenshead would love to do another Doom move (perhaps based on the next game?) but that it is up to Universal whether anything happens.
Finally Eurogamer has some of the big bits of gossip that emerged from John Carmack's keynote speech at QuakeCon. Details focus largely on Quake Live but the article also covers Carmack's thoughts on the PC-Console war.
"We are retooling these titles [on the PC] to take advantage of the online connectivity in a bigger and more meaningful way,"
So next year we can expect titles such as Madden, NCAA Football and I assume a whole host of others to appear on the PC. With a focus on online connectivity.
Really if that is all EA are planning on doing to restart many of these franchises on the PC then they are missing out on something. A focus on online connectivity is coming a few years too late, the PC has long been an online platform so to finally decide to "take advatange of the online connectivity" is a sure sign of EA Sports' lack of interest in the PC over recent years.
This must just be the tip of the iceberg in the return of EA Sports titles to the PC as their treatment of their titles on the PC has been shoddy recently. Here is to seeing them develop their PC games with a focus on the PC, not just porting over a console version.
EA to release a Crysis PC
According to Chris Remo (of Gamastura fame) was at the Comic-Con at over these past few days and has revealed some interesting new plans from EA. The mega-publisher has revealed that they are planning to market pre-built machines as being Crysis ready. It seems that EA are intent ensuring that customers can buy a PC that they know will play Crytek's upcoming Crysis Warhead.
There will be various machines available costing from $600-$800 which will provide customers with a range of performance levels for Warhead. Chris reveals that names like the Crysis Warhead Performance PC are due to be used.
I really think this is a great idea from EA. The original Crysis was a game with very high system requirements. Many people claimed that they only pirated Crysis to see if it would work on their machines. While Warhead has reportedly been better optimised than the original game, anything EA can do to help customers buy a machine which will play this game the better.
New Cryostasis details
Cryostasis has been in the back of my mind for quite a while, and when Jim over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun reveals some great new details on the game I was most intrigued.
"With the help of Mental Echo players can travel into the past of the ship and find out what really happened there and the reasons for the catastrophe. In this way Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason is more like an unusual detective story with an ability (for the reader or in our case - the player) to interfere the course of actions in the past and change the situation in future. The main task of our team was to create a game [in which this ability] is perceived as something integral."
If anyone is interested in Cryostasis and wants to learn more about the game and the story then head on over here for the low-down.
Tally Ho!
And that is a wrap for this week, unfortunately for me the week ahead is again full of work and family visiting. What fun! Hopefully I can still get some good content ready for next week. See you then.
