Shortly before attending GDC 09, I learned that Crytek announced the CryENGINE 3. I’m not a massive PC gamer, so I didn’t really look into the announcement. It’s Crytek, so I knew it was going to be bigger and badder than ever … and you’d most likely need a rig like this to run it. Needless to state, I was quite shocked when I walked into my appointment with Crytek to see an Xbox 360 sitting on the ground running the CryENGINE 3.

Read on to find out how the CryENGINE 3 is going to make developing games easier then ever and what this means for Personal computer and console gamers.

I sat down with Cevat Yerli, the president and CEO of Crytek, and Jens Schafer, PR Manager, as they walked me through the CryENGINE 3. The video above shows off everything that I got to see happening all in real time. Crytek really wanted to drive home the point that this engine can work on the consoles so they ditched the Computers and all of the content shown last week at GDC was through the PS3 and Xbox 360. The engine looks exactly the same running on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Typically, one version will suffer, but Cevat wanted to make sure the engine runs the same on both systems. It wasn’t that hard to make happen, as Cevat told me: “People always state the PS3 is a bitch to work on [laughs], but it’s not actually.”

The tech demo started off in the room you see in the video starting at the three second mark. The purpose of this room was to show off how advanced the lighting system has gotten. With the CryEngine2, three to eight light sources could be used at a time. Now, as you can see in that first portion of the video, over 300 lights are being shown.

A little later in the demonstration, we take a visit to a level from Crysis. Yes, thanks to the CryENGINE 3, Crysis is possible on the consoles. It doesn’t mean we’re going to see a Crysis port, but it’s a realistic possibility now.

I want to remind you again that I saw this all in real time as we toured the different locations on the Xbox 360. Not once was there a loading screen through these different portions of the demo. The transition from each scene was instantaneous and I had to remind myself several times that this was on the Xbox 360.

The CE3 was built with a top down approach. The priority is of course, for the Computer. When a company puts out a game using the CE3 on multiple platforms, it’s going to look the ideal on the Computer. But now it’s easier than ever for a developer to bring their game over to the consoles and not have to put in a ton of work to get their game to run on the console when developing a multiplatform game. On top of all that, CE3 is ready for whatever the next huge systems Microsoft and Sony are working on. The engine is next-gen ready.

The beautiful part of the CE3 is how developers will be able to edit their games almost instantly. State you just completed a level and want someone to have a quick run through of your creation. While the player is going through the level, you’re going to be looking at everything to make sure things are running smoothly. If you something wrong, you can go fix the problem and immediately update the game across all the platforms it’s being developed on. Usually it can take hours, but now, developers won’t have much of an excuse to mend bugs other then plain laziness.

Mass Effect wasn’t a competent shooter. Mass Effect 2 could be. In fact, you may even view it as a “shooter RPG.”

The good physician Ray Muzyka recently spoke at GDC and touched on two huge improvements BioWare are cooking up for the sci-fi RPG’s sequel: action and character interactions.

“There’s a few larger buckets of things we’re working on,” Muzyka stated. “One of them is the intensity of the action, amping that up so people will see this as a shooter RPG … It’s going to feel like shooter fans are going to have a great experience…”

“Another category we’re working on are the moment to moment interactions, kind of grabbing control of them more, and we’ll show that later [in the year] as well.”

I checked my shooter expectations at the door with the original Mass Effect. Why? Because it’s an RPG. While I welcome improvement with Mass Effect 2, I don’t want story or design sacrificed for the sake of action elements. But, hey, maybe I’m just crazy. What do you guys think?

[via IGN and Kotaku]

Via Destructoid

When Nick asked me if I was okay with spending the entirety of my time at GDC visiting and reporting on conferences, I told him in a high-pitched, nasal voice that if anyone was showing the new Batman game, I wanted to be there pretty pretty please with sugar on top and goddamned sprinkles.

He obliged.

When WB Interactive invited us for a hands-on of Arkham Asylum, I didn’t know what to expect; essentially every Batman game ever made has been complete trash, yet from watching trailers and reading previews I literally could not help but be insanely excited for it. A game with the setting-heavy atmosphere of BioShock mixed with the satisfying stealth combat of Metal Gear Solid, all wrapped up in the Batman universe? The Arkham Asylum of my imagination was the Batman game I, and any self-respecting Batman fan, had been waiting for since the Dark Knight first started whoring himself out to the interactive medium in the first place. The fantastic premise, combined with Batman’s videogame history and my own Dark Knight fanboyism, convinced me of only one thing: I was probably going to be disappointed.

After spending a half-hour playing through Arkham Asylum’s challenge rooms, I can’t say for sure if I was correct. Hit the jump to see what I mean.

The first thing I noticed about Arkham Asylum is how damned pretty it is. The combos Batman endlessly chains together move just as fluidly as his cape, which, according to the representative we played alongside, was a particular point of pride for the dev team.

We played through three “challenge rooms” that, while not an actual part of the single-player campaign, use existing areas and enemies from the story mode and are gradually unlocked as the player progresses and completes “Riddler Challenges.” What these story mode “Riddler Challenges” might entail wasn’t explained, but we were guaranteed that there would be a reasonable amount of them.

We first played a low-difficulty melee combat challenge room, which tasks the player with linking together as many attacks as possible in order to build the largest possible combo and gain points. As gorgeously fluid as the combat was, I couldn’t help but feel it was a bit simplistic. The vast majority of the time, I simply hammered the X button over and over to pound on a single baddie until a lightning bolt symbol appeared over the head of a second enemy, at which point I pressed Y and was treated to a remarkably violent animation of Batman turning to this second enemy and dispatching him with a few hits (most notably, Bats grabbed a goon’s leg, and hoisted it above his head before delivering a full-force punch to his groin). I could occasionally stun enemies with the use of the B button or evade attacks with A, but it reminded me somewhat of Path of Neo’s combat system — fluidly animated and gorgeous to look at, but relatively shallow in terms of actual challenge or strategy. That said, I actually kind of liked that game, and I felt the same rush of arcade-y excitement in building combos and luxuriating in the visual reward of fluid combat animations in this first challenge room. Nick, Rey, and I exchanged more than a few interjecting shouts of “nice!” and “Jesus Christ!” with each successfully executed combo.

Next, we moved onto a “predatory” room — named as such, if you can remember from Samit’s preview, because the developers thought “stealth” implied weakness. After pressing the left bumper to turn on Batman’s investigation skill (subsequently turning on a sort of thermal vision), Batman looked around and was informed via a HUD alert that there were five people in the room, all of them armed. With a batarang, explosive gel, and a grappling hook called the “batclaw” in his inventory, there were a few ways to go about ridding the area of enemies. The representative took the first baddie out by simply sneaking up behind him and hitting a face button for what I initially assumed was a silent takedown, until it was explained that all Arkham inmates are equipped with neck collars that immediately alert everyone in the immediate vicinity when any of their number are taken out. This contrivance presumably served to force Batman to constantly retreat to the shadows, and only a swift grapple up to one of the many lofty gargoyle statues that jutted out around the perimeter of the room got Batman out of sight.

It was at this point that Nick took hold of the controller and nearly instantly leapt from the safety of the gargoyle to execute a glide-kick (imagine Batman opening his cape up to slow his descent before planting his foot in a baddie’s face), which stunned his target until Nick could get up close for the permanent takedown (in this case, coming in the form of several brutal, consecutive punches to the face). Nick lingered a tiny too long, however, and was immediately torn apart by enemy fire. If God Mode hadn’t been on, he might not have had time to escape to a nearby ventilation shaft and follow it to a different room (we were assured that these shafts weren’t only good for escape, but also for planning ambushes).

At the rep’s recommendation, Nick turned on his investigative vision again and we noticed that certain walls were marked with massive explosion icons. After applying some explosive gel to one of these walls nearest a baddie and setting it off, the debris knocked the bad guy out cold. Once again, the surviving enemies were drawn to the scene and once again, Batman retreated to the gargoyles nearest the roof to evade their vision. The last few guards were taken out with fisticuffs and the batclaw, as Nick yoinked an unsuspecting baddie from a high-level balcony to his demise a few floors below.

On the one hand, the predation room seemed quite cool — it prioritized planning and discretion and seemed to provide many different ways of taking out enemies — but at the same time, it was hard to get a true feel for how it played considering God Mode was on. When Nick retreated to the rafters and was able to hide again by simply jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle, tapping the right bumper over and over again, I was torn: would it work like this in the real game? Would it really be that easy to just escape the enemies’ vision and try again? Or would Batman be torn to shreds after his first jump? I wouldn’t begrudge affording the player the chance to correct their mistakes and have another try without having to die and reload, but it felt a little too easy to escape capture just by retreating to high ground really quickly — sort of like jumping into hay carts in Assassin’s Creed, but worse. But, again, we were playing on God Mode, so it’s entirely possible that once Batman can, you know, actually take damage, the predatory sequences have a greater sense of consequence and difficulty.

The final room we played was a more difficult melee challenge, where the enemies would occasionally pick up guns from a nearby wall-mounted armory. Allowing an enemy to get a gun is a very, very bad thing: a loud warning klaxon blares if a baddie is trying to get a gun from the locker, and if they succeed, then other bad guys can pick up and use the same gun even after you knock out the guy who initially grabbed it. Though we (sorry) still had God Mode on, I got a better feel for the potential difficulty in the fighting system; nothing screws up your combo like a dude blasting you with a shotgun from from a few feet away, so depending on how much damage Bats takes, the seemingly shallow melee combat could take on much more strategic dimensions when combined with the predation mechanics and fully-armed enemies. I guess we’ll have to wait until the game launches in June to know for sure, but after leaving the Arkham Asylum demo I felt something akin to cynical excitement — the mechanics I saw have definite potential to fail, but if handled correctly, could make for a truly kickass Batman experience.

Via Destructoid

A new expansion is coming to Fable II soon — as in “weeks,” soon. Peter Molyneux recently sat down with Kotaku during GDC and spilled some tiny beans on the previously hinted, aptly named downloadable content, ‘See the Future.’

Too many puzzle games, so little time. It’s been a while since I’ve played Q Entertainment’s Xbox Live Arcade version of Meteos Wars, but I’m thinking about jumping back in. This day, Q Entertainment announced the game’s second bit of downloadable content, ‘Galaxy Pack.’

The DLC adds nine new planets to the base game. If you’re a fan of the Nintendo DS version, the content should be familiar: all but two of the additions are new to the series.

It’s priced at 350 Microsoft Points. I can’t do that math — I don’t think in alien numbers — but I do know that it’s cheaper than 800 Microsoft Points, which is equal to ten bucks … or something like that.

Hit the break for the press release and check out the gallery for a screenshot.

METEOS WARS DLC “GALAXY PACK”

Available This day March 25

Can’t get enough of Meteos Wars?

No, it’s not your eyes. Red exclamation marks and rainbow soldiers weren’t intended to be a part of Bethesda’s latest expansion for Fallout 3, ‘The Pitt.’

Bethesda vice president Pete Hines essentially confirmed player reports that the English version of the Xbox 360 DLC is borked. He cited that the file may have been corrupted, which definitely explains all the missing geometry and game-breaking hang-ups. Hines also mentioned that Bethesda is “working with Microsoft” to remove the content for the time being.

“We are continuing to look into the issues people are experiencing with The Pitt for Xbox 360,” wrote Hines on the official Bethesda blog. “As of now it looks like the file for the English version on Xbox Live was somehow corrupted. We’re currently working with Microsoft to remove the existing file off of Live to prevent any further downloads. Our plan is to replace it with a new file as soon as possible. We hope to have another update for you shortly.”

An anonymous source told us that the person responsible for corrupting the file receive -200 Karma for the dastardly deed.

[via PlanetXbox360]

Via Destructoid

Wanted: Weapons of Fate hits store shelves tomorrow. Since it’s so close to launch, Universal released a pretty teaser trailer loaded with action, narrative and sexy quotes from past coverage of the game. Hit the break to the check it out.

I usually don’t bother with licensed games that don’t have the bald-headed stud Vin Diesel, but I believe I’ll give Weapons of Fate a spin. Slow motion effects still give me a hard-on, plus there’s the promise of decent story elements. The game is a true sequel that expands on the fictional foundation of the movie.

A demo for the game is available on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. If you’re still straddling the fence after you play, check out our full preview and NY Comic Con coverage of the game. (Paula Abdul may or might not make an appearance in the game.)

Via Destructoid

This is actually happening: Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper is coming to the Xbox 360. Chew on it and let your imagination run wild for a few seconds before moving on to the second paragraph.

The adventure title, being developed by Frogwares Studio on the Personal computer, places you, as Sherlock Holmes, during the time of Jack the Ripper’s hooker-viscera fueled rampage in London. The objective is to solve the historically unsolvable and catch Jack before he destroys the city’s celebration atmosphere — point and click style.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper is due out on the PC in May, however, no word on when the port (being handled by Spiders Games) will be available for the Xbox 360. Whenever that date is, it can’t be early enough. Hurry up, Spiders Games. I can’t wait to start digging in corpses for candy clues.

[via The Examiner]

SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. JACK THE RIPPER – THE HUNT CONTINUES IN SEVERAL NEW IMAGES AND SOON ON XBOX 360

Frogwares Studio and Focus Home Interactive are pleased to share with you new images from Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper, the upcoming adventure/detective title for Personal computer but also for the first time on Next Gen console. Indeed, Sherlock Holmes will also track down the atrocious serial killer on a Xbox 360 version specially adapted by the Parisian studio Spiders Games.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper allows you to play as the greatest detective of all in the London of 1888. A series of particularly horrible murders creates a real psychosis throughout the country. Atrociously mutilated prostitutes’ bodies are found by the police without them being able to find a serious lead. Sherlock Holmes starts looking for clues in the dark and sinister alleys of Whitechapel in order to follow the macabre trail of the one the press now calls Jack the Ripper. During an adventure full of twists, Sherlock Holmes will try to bring out the true identity and the motives of the one who hides behind this scary alias.

The Sherlock Holmes series is known as one of the best franchises in adventure games and is very popular with around 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. Now, Sherlock Holmes is back with a game that will give a new dimension to the series. Indeed, Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper will offer players two different views that are accessible at any time: a third person view in the purest style used in point & click adventure games, as well as a first person view. The player will be free to play in one or the other modes or even combine them for greater immersion into this terrifying adventure. Another novelty: the player will also find an original crime scene reconstitution system that’ll allow him to test his theories during his progress in the investigation to follow the bloody trail of the terrifying serial killer.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper will be released for DVD ROM Personal computer in Might of 2009.

Via Destructoid

Ah, post-apocalyptia. Humans have always seemed to have a peculiar fascination with the End of the World, from the Bible all the way through, well, Terminator Salvation, the upcoming film starring Christian Bale as John Connor. It’s set to hit theaters on May 21st, and a videogame based on the movie will be released the same month.

Earlier this month, I was given an eyes-on demo of an early build of the game, a third-person shooter being developed by GRIN (the same studio behind the current-gen Bionic Commando and Wanted: Weapons of Fate). Hit the break to read all about it.

The Terminator Salvation film is set in 2018, but the game takes place two years prior. Judgment Day has come and gone, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake, and morale is at an all-time low in the bombed-out ruins of Los Angeles. Skynet has been gradually pushing the resistance army further and further outside of the city, which is where the game picks up the action. Mic Rogers of Halcyon Games explained that, since the game begins and ends before the film, it doesn’t follow a typical videogame hero story arc — for example, you don’t lead the fight against Skynet and vanquish the machines once and for all in the climax of the game. Instead, the resistance’s mission is twofold: to expand its ranks, and to inspire hope in humanity.

The game opens with an assault on the Skynet command center, but it fails miserably; a never-before-seen enemy wipes out most of the attacking force, and your commanding officer gives the order to evacuate and retreat to downtown L.A. But just as the remnants of the army are lifting off, a radio transmission comes in: three soldiers are trapped behind enemy lines. Your practical leader doesn’t think they’re worth saving, that it’s a suicide mission, but Connor believes that every life is sacred — so you hop off the helicopter and make your way back towards Skynet HQ. You’re joined by Blair Williams, a main character from the film who is played by Moon Bloodgood (she, Common, and Rose McGowan lend their vocal talents to the game).

Rogers described Salvation as a very story-driven game. While a film can only be two or two and a half hours long, games tend to be much more expansive experiences; the focus of this one is to provide character development and backstory for John, Blair, and Barnes (Common), all three of whom play significant roles in the motion picture. (McGowan voices Angie Salter, a high school teacher whose character only appears in the game.) So gamers who play the game before seeing the film will have a leg up in terms of knowing about the characters’ history, relationships, and motivations. Much of this is conveyed through in-game dialogue, and the designers included a neat little feature: anybody who’s speaking will be bathed in a Left 4 Dead-like white outline, which helps you to quickly and easily associate voices with characters.

I was first shown the opening portion of the game, the initial escape from the futile attack on Skynet. The visuals and gameplay immediately made me think of Gears of War — Salvation is a stark third-person shooter with a cover mechanic that’s very similar to the one used in Epic’s franchise. You need to take cover, or you’ll swiftly be blown away by a variety of robotic adversaries. When in cover, you can blind fire, and you can also move to other pieces of cover pretty easily. It’s a pretty standard setup. Early on, the game introduces the three main types of enemies you’ll be facing, and each one has a weakness to a certain weapon, so you’re going to want to switch it up to be as efficient as possible.

Next, I got a look at the game’s first on-rails level, a cinematic vehicle sequence in which you man a turret on a jeep driving across L.A. freeways from the evacuation point to the escape helicopters. There are a number of these sections interspersed with the regular stop-and-pop gameplay; Rogers called them “rewards,” and they did indeed look like fun. You can’t just rest simple and blast away, though; you can definitely die out on the back of the 4

Aaron Greenberg is such a quote box when it comes to saying abrasive flamebait that I’ve decided to come up with a new tag called Aaron Greenberg Says. Today, Aaron Greenberg states many things, really taking off the gloves and laying into Sony, as he likes to do so much.

“You can’t underestimate that we’re half the price of the PS3 at a time when consumers were looking for great value,” beams Greenberg. “The PS3 was down in February two percent even with the launch of Killzone 2 — that’s months of year-over-year declines. Xbox continues to head north while the PS3 is heading south. We’re gaining share.

“But what we hear from our partners is that it’s not just PS3, it’s also PS2 down 62 percent year over year. With that business declining, and with the PS3 business declining, it’s been described to me as hemorrhaging at retail right now, and it just keeps getting worse. What we’re finding in our research is that a huge portion of the volume we’re driving with Xbox 360 purchasers is actually PS2 owners choosing Xbox for the next generation. We’re switching people from the PlayStation brand over to the Xbox brand.”

Greenberg also says that if GTA: The Lost & Damned had sold at retail, it would have outsold Killzone 2, and boasted that Xbox 360 titles currently have over 130 titles rated over 80 on Metacritic, while rival platforms don’t even have 100. Aaron Greenberg states so many things. He’s a gift from God to blogging comment boxes everywhere.

Via Destructoid