Thursday, March 10, 2011
Trenched is a third-person tower-defense game
7:13 PM
The Game Peddler
by Ben Gilbert 
(5 hours ago)
(5 hours ago)14
G4 explains that the tower-defense-style battles of Trenched take place atop walking, upgradeable trenches. As it turns out, television monsters (referred to as "tubes") are attacking the world's mobile trenches and handicapped hero Frank Woodrof is bent on defending them. You'll employ Woodrof's ultra-manliness to defeat said "tubes" and restore alternate reality's normalcy. Or, ya know, Double Fine's bizarre version of normalcy in the world of Trenched. Schafer's team expects the game out on Xbox Live Arcade at some point in 2011.
Free Comic Book Day brings free The Darkness 2 prequel comic
7:09 PM
The Game Peddler
by JC Fletcher (4 hours ago)
(4 hours ago)
In observance of this ritual, Top Cow Productions is releasing a free The Darkness comic book that is intended to act as a prequel to the upcoming The Darkness 2 game in the works at Digital Extremes. Although we'd argue that if you really want a prequel to The Darkness 2, you could check out The Darkness -- or the comic book series that ran from 1996 to 2005. But those wouldn't be free!
Nintendo 3DS review: Depth, charge
7:03 PM
The Game Peddler
by JC Fletcher on Mar 10th 2011 6:00PM
on Mar 10th 2011 6:00PM
After the break, find out all about the 3DS hardware and its built-in software, along with our impressions of each component. We might not be able to present the review in 3D, but that hasn't stopped us from going in-depth.
The hardware design
The 3DS is very shiny. Very shiny. This has the effect of making it sort of a fingerprint magnet, sure, but it also makes it seem more futuristic. It also feels heavy for its size, compared to a DS Lite. Its buttons, including the D-pad, feel "shallower" than those on previous DS units, like they don't travel as far. That D-pad, by the way, is fairly inconveniently placed, giving a clear indication of how Nintendo would like you to control your games (using the circle pad). The circle pad feels pretty much like a PSP analog nub -- it slides away from the center freely in any direction, and snaps back -- but with a much more comfortable top than the tiny, ridged PSP nub. It's quite comfy.
The stylus -- which is now stored on the top left side of the unit, and I'll never get used to that -- is now a telescoping metal pole with a big tapered piece of plastic at the end, as opposed to the small plastic styli with tiny nubs that came with previous DS systems. It feels ... solid. A definite upgrade. The touchscreen at which you poke with this new stylus remains the same kind of resistive touchscreen you know from the DS, so if you were dreaming of a multitouch DS interface or something like that, you might be disappointed to find it identical to the current DS.
I can clearly see where Nintendo is going to concentrate its tweaks for the inevitable next iteration, though. There are some elements that seem out of place for Nintendo's minimalist hardware design. The wireless connection gets its own slider switch on the side, which could just have easily have been handled in software. The 3D Slider has a glowing green "3D" indicator next to it when 3D is active, which seems unnecessary. The manual warns that you can pinch your fingers in the hinge, an odd, and utterly avoidable, design flaw.
The other big design flaw, of course, is the battery. While I didn't leave it on next to a stopwatch, 3-4 hours is a reasonable estimate of how much time I got out of each charge. Luckily, the charging dock is super nice. You can just set the 3DS down on it and charge. If you're traveling, you can just take the AC adapter and charge the system without that bulky dock.
The 3D
I've mentioned it on the site before, but amblyopia prevents me from seeing stereoscopic 3D effects. So I experienced the 3DS's namesake feature vicariously through my wife, who spent time playing AR Games, Face Raiders, the 3DS Camera app, and generally messing around with the system in 3D.
And her reaction was that it just worked. Some things -- like reasonably close-up pictures -- looked more convincingly like things popping out of the screen than others, while some looked like multiple layers of flat objects in space, but the 3D effect was, according to her, easy to see and effective. For my own part, I can confirm that the 3D slider does a great job of turning the 3D off.
AR Games
The system ships with "AR Games" on board, which use a set of six included cards. To initiate the program, you have to put the ? card down and hold the camera about 12 inches away, at which point the card "opens up" into the menu. Games include a time-attack shooting gallery (which, in the last stage, becomes a dragon boss), a sort of bomb minigolf thing, fishing, and photography apps that allow you to pose your Miis or flagship Nintendo characters in the real world. By putting the Kirby card down, you summon a Kirby you can move around and cycle through various poses. In addition, more modes can be purchased with Play Coins.
(Yes, that's my washing machine.)
As long as the camera can see the AR card, the effect is seamless. You can move the 3DS around and the perspective of the rendered character will change with it. However, it's all too easy to lose sight of the card -- remember, you have to be around one foot away or closer at all times, or it'll lose its position. I can't imagine this AR app will have long-term appeal (though it's pretty fun to work on improving your time in the shooting game) but it fulfills its purpose as a gee-whiz feature to sell systems, with aplomb.
Activity Log
In a rather cool touch, the 3DS keeps a record of everything you've done, sort of like the Wii's Message Board. You can look through a virtual "book" showing you everything you've done with the system, in order, and for how long, with crowns ranking the most popular uses of the 3DS.
This is also where "Play Coins" live. The 3DS acts as a pedometer, exchanging every 100 steps for a "play coin," which can be used in games to buy extra content. For example, it unlocks additional modes in AR Games, and virtual figurines that can be used in StreetPass fighting in Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition. It's a pretty neat way to reward you for carrying the 3DS around. In my case, I totally forgot about it until I opened the system later and found that some virtual currency had accrued.
3DS Camera
The 3DS Camera app allows you to snap 3D pictures using the two outward-facing cameras of the device, or 2D pictures of yourself using the inside camera. You can also do some silly, gimmicky stuff like take simultaneous pictures of yourself and someone else using both cameras, and morph them together to surprisingly seamless, and horrifying, effect. You can save your pictures, both 3D and 2D, onto an SD card, and view the 3D pictures using any device that can open MPO files.
3DS Video Player
Shortly after the release of the system, the Japanese 3DS got its first firmware update, which added a 3DS Video Player app, complete with an included clip of Koji Kondo and a band of musicians playing the Super Mario Bros. theme at the recent Nintendo World 2011 event. There's not much to say here -- it plays video, in 3D, and is easy to use. It's worth noting, however, that the video played smoothly and instantaneously, which has never been true of the Wii's Nintendo Channel.
Mii Maker
The Mii system from the Wii has been expanded to include a few more facial options, including different hairstyles and eye shapes. In addition, Nintendo has added a feature that builds a Mii based on a picture it takes of your face. After it snaps the photo, you can choose from eight generated Miis to find the one that looks most like you, and then tweak it as you see fit.Or, as in my case, you can give up and make one from scratch, because the photo feature does not work. At least, it didn't for me. My auto-Mii came out looking a bit like Lurch from The Addams Family.
Perhaps the coolest thing about the Mii Maker is that you can share Miis not only by passing by others' 3DS systems and catching them with StreetPass, but you can send them out to others via QR codes. There's a bit of potential confusion here, though, as QR code-acquired Miis will only go into your Mii Maker for editing purposes, and not the Mii Plaza that collects all your friends' Miis. It's weird.
Face Raiders (aka the best thing to ever happen to handheld video games)
I don't want to oversell this simple game, so I'll just say it's the most wonderful thing to be included with a handheld system since Tetris. The gameplay itself is compelling: you move the 3DS around in space to find flying enemy heads attacking you, and shoot projectiles at them with the A button.; occasionally, they'll break the fabric of reality and throw it at you, leaving a hole in the world. Six increasingly difficult levels have you spinning around in 360 degrees, blasting away at flying faces.
But the gimmick makes it absolutely dumb and irresistible: the enemies' faces are all animated versions of your or your friends' faces. Why is this so great? Here's my cat as a boss:
Conclusion
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try the StreetPass feature, which beams Miis and game data to other nearby 3DS systems automatically, because there aren't any other 3DS owners anywhere near me, that I know of.
In addition, I wasn't able to explore the eShop or play Virtual Console games because that doesn't exist yet! The download shop will be added in an update in "late May," according to Nintendo, leaving the 3DS without the ability to download games at launch. Because of this, I also wasn't able to test the DSiWare software transfer. It's a noticeable omission, especially if, say, you have a Japanese unit and want a convenient way to get games on it.
The biggest negatives to the 3DS (besides the absent eShop) are the battery life and the DS emulation. You'll need to get used to charging the system every time you come home, and while the DS display isn't bad enough to necessitate carrying another system around, it's at least worth playing DS games on a real DS at home.
The real measure of a system is its software lineup, which it's too early to evaluate -- but given Nintendo's dominance in the handheld space, expect the 3DS to be pretty well-supported. In general, looking at it as a gadget, I'm pretty impressed. The 3D feature works as advertised (if you've got two working eyes, of course), is quite pleasant to behold and to hold, and it's loaded with built-in content that is actually worthwhile.
Monday, March 7, 2011
GDC: The Future of Graphics and Unreal Engine 3
8:57 AM
The Game Peddler
by Arthur Gies
Epic announced a host of new features in their Unreal Engine 3 development platform today at this year's GDC, the biggest of which is support for DirectX 11 and its assorted tools. The problem is, for most people, these kind of announcements might as well be in Sanskrit -- they're full of tech jargon that goes right by the average gamer.
I've gone through in an attempt to translate what Epic means by Subsurface Scattering and Deferred Rendering. The bolded segments are features of the updated Unreal Engine 3 courtesy of Epic, followed by our explanation of what this means for games. Epic gave us the thumbs up for accuracy. Yay, us.
Reflections are hard to do in games without wrecking performance. You'll notice that many games you'll play go out of their way to break any mirrored surface so that there's a plausible reason for them to avoid rendering your character's reflection. The solution Epic discusses here sounds like it'll take a simplified version of the scene around a reflected object (like, say, your character in a mirror or a polished metal surface) and apply all the different effects you'd expect on top of them.
Materials like skin and other non-shiny surfaces aren't opaque, believe it or not. Your skin is colored the way it is in part because of the color of the blood running through the capillaries in it, and you can see some veins. This also means that when light hits it, it doesn't just bounce off. Some light penetrates it, which then eventually reflects back. Subsurface scattering sort of emulates this effect with light that hits surfaces the developers designate. Think of the difference between a plastic action figure's skin surface and your own. That's what Epic is selling here.
Aliasing, put simply, is the jagged appearance that plagues edges in game visuals. Have you ever seen, say, a wire running diagonally from the ground to a structure that looked like it was a collection of horizontal lines laddering upward? That's aliasing. Anti-aliasing smooths these edges. There are a variety of means of anti-aliasing, but the most effective methods can be really hard on video cards. Hair is especially effected, because of its overall complexity. Epic is claiming a better implementation for materials like hair in the new version of Unreal Engine 3, as shown below.
If I understand correctly, this will help with things like grass and trees too. When you play games like Bad Company 2 on the consoles, you can see this kind of aliasing (jagged edges) in the bushes and such.
Deferred rendering has been a buzzword in game development circles for the last few years. Most engines use a forward renderer: this means the scene you see is drawn in passes - the environment, the figures, the lighting, other effects, etc (this is a simplified explanation, obviously).
Killzone and Dead Space use deferred rendering. Deferred renderers store all those passes I was talking about without drawing them until the last possible second, which allows developers to push the detail you're seeing and aggressively ramp up the lighting they can use. This kind of renderer has issues though, one of which being a lack of proper anti-aliasing support (which smooths out jagged edges in your games).
The new version of Unreal Engine 3 supports deferred rendering out of the box, and Epic is claiming to have solved the anti-aliasing issue, allowing M-ulti-S-ampling-Anti-Aliasing (the sort of default form of AA) to work with a deferred solution.
Bokeh can mean a couple of different things. At its most basic definition, it's the blur in out-of-focus areas of a photographic image. It also pertains to how "pleasing" that blur is. There are different definitions of what "pleasing" means for depth of field (DOF) blur, but generally it means a clean look that isn't especially distracting. Unreal Engine games have had DOF effects for a while, but they've been pretty hit and miss. This improvement in bokeh in UE3 will mean better, more film-like DOF effects, and also sounds like it'll allow more creative use of DOF, like we see in movies with great cinematography.
A dynamic shadow means a shadow generated, er, dynamically. That means it reacts to light sources "on-the-fly." This one's sort of self-explanatory right? Better shadows? Look at the screenshot. LOOK AT IT.
NOW LOOK AT ANOTHER ONE.
Epic also mentioned several other features, but the most interesting may be tessellation. Tessellation takes less complicated geometry and makes it more complicated.
This can mean a lot of things, but what it means to you is more detailed looking stuff with less system resources to do it. I grabbed some images from video card maker EVGA demonstrating some things that tessellation can do. Pictures say it better sometimes! And I can't think of a good way to explain how tessellation works without discussing geometry, and I can actually hear your head slumping onto your keyboard right now.
Tessellation in particular is a possibly major addition to Unreal Engine 3. The Xbox 360's graphics processor actually supports tessellation, but to my knowledge it's never been used. This alone could lead to some major enhancements to the visuals in 360 games - assuming that the 360 version of the Unreal Engine 3 development kit supports it.
I've gone through in an attempt to translate what Epic means by Subsurface Scattering and Deferred Rendering. The bolded segments are features of the updated Unreal Engine 3 courtesy of Epic, followed by our explanation of what this means for games. Epic gave us the thumbs up for accuracy. Yay, us.
"Image-based reflections that allow surfaces of any shape to reflect an approximate version of scenes, with varying glossiness across surfaces, anisotropic HDR highlights and anti-aliasing."
Reflections are hard to do in games without wrecking performance. You'll notice that many games you'll play go out of their way to break any mirrored surface so that there's a plausible reason for them to avoid rendering your character's reflection. The solution Epic discusses here sounds like it'll take a simplified version of the scene around a reflected object (like, say, your character in a mirror or a polished metal surface) and apply all the different effects you'd expect on top of them.
"Subsurface scattering (SSS) that simulates the light that scatters inside semi-translucent materials (this makes character skin come alive)."
Materials like skin and other non-shiny surfaces aren't opaque, believe it or not. Your skin is colored the way it is in part because of the color of the blood running through the capillaries in it, and you can see some veins. This also means that when light hits it, it doesn't just bounce off. Some light penetrates it, which then eventually reflects back. Subsurface scattering sort of emulates this effect with light that hits surfaces the developers designate. Think of the difference between a plastic action figure's skin surface and your own. That's what Epic is selling here.
"Anti-aliased masked materials that super sample the edges of masked and alpha-tested materials (this makes hair more look realistic than ever before)."
Aliasing, put simply, is the jagged appearance that plagues edges in game visuals. Have you ever seen, say, a wire running diagonally from the ground to a structure that looked like it was a collection of horizontal lines laddering upward? That's aliasing. Anti-aliasing smooths these edges. There are a variety of means of anti-aliasing, but the most effective methods can be really hard on video cards. Hair is especially effected, because of its overall complexity. Epic is claiming a better implementation for materials like hair in the new version of Unreal Engine 3, as shown below.
If I understand correctly, this will help with things like grass and trees too. When you play games like Bad Company 2 on the consoles, you can see this kind of aliasing (jagged edges) in the bushes and such.
Deferred rendering has been a buzzword in game development circles for the last few years. Most engines use a forward renderer: this means the scene you see is drawn in passes - the environment, the figures, the lighting, other effects, etc (this is a simplified explanation, obviously).
Killzone and Dead Space use deferred rendering. Deferred renderers store all those passes I was talking about without drawing them until the last possible second, which allows developers to push the detail you're seeing and aggressively ramp up the lighting they can use. This kind of renderer has issues though, one of which being a lack of proper anti-aliasing support (which smooths out jagged edges in your games).
The new version of Unreal Engine 3 supports deferred rendering out of the box, and Epic is claiming to have solved the anti-aliasing issue, allowing M-ulti-S-ampling-Anti-Aliasing (the sort of default form of AA) to work with a deferred solution.
"Bokeh depth of field providing close to film-quality DOF, with artist-controllable Bokeh."
Bokeh can mean a couple of different things. At its most basic definition, it's the blur in out-of-focus areas of a photographic image. It also pertains to how "pleasing" that blur is. There are different definitions of what "pleasing" means for depth of field (DOF) blur, but generally it means a clean look that isn't especially distracting. Unreal Engine games have had DOF effects for a while, but they've been pretty hit and miss. This improvement in bokeh in UE3 will mean better, more film-like DOF effects, and also sounds like it'll allow more creative use of DOF, like we see in movies with great cinematography.
"High-quality dynamic shadows from many lights on the environment (shadows for point lights and other light sources)."
A dynamic shadow means a shadow generated, er, dynamically. That means it reacts to light sources "on-the-fly." This one's sort of self-explanatory right? Better shadows? Look at the screenshot. LOOK AT IT.
NOW LOOK AT ANOTHER ONE.
Epic also mentioned several other features, but the most interesting may be tessellation. Tessellation takes less complicated geometry and makes it more complicated.
This can mean a lot of things, but what it means to you is more detailed looking stuff with less system resources to do it. I grabbed some images from video card maker EVGA demonstrating some things that tessellation can do. Pictures say it better sometimes! And I can't think of a good way to explain how tessellation works without discussing geometry, and I can actually hear your head slumping onto your keyboard right now.
Tessellation in particular is a possibly major addition to Unreal Engine 3. The Xbox 360's graphics processor actually supports tessellation, but to my knowledge it's never been used. This alone could lead to some major enhancements to the visuals in 360 games - assuming that the 360 version of the Unreal Engine 3 development kit supports it.
GDC: Darkness II Off to a Great Start
8:52 AM
The Game Peddler
by Daemon Hatfield
Here at the Game Developers Conference I got my first look at The Darkness II, the sequel to the 2007 comic book game. I wasn't sure what to expect because the sequel has been handed to a different developer, but it ended up being one of the most exciting games I saw at GDC this year.
The Darkness II is still a first-person shooter starring Mafioso Jackie Estacado, current host of a chaotic force known as the Darkness. When Jackie is in the light, he's your regular Wiseguy. But when he steps into shadow the Darkness emerges and you'll see two serpent heads appear onscreen. This is what makes The Darkness' gameplay unique: you can run around dual-wielding guns while using your dark tentacles to mangle and abuse enemies, giving you four weapons at your disposal all at the same time. But you'll often have to think about, avoid, or remove light sources in order to maintain your more powerful form.
Vocal virtuoso Mike Patton, of Faith No More fame, will be returning as the twisted voice of the Darkness.
Perhaps most notably, The Darkness II has a new developer. The original was developed by Starbreeze, creator of the Xbox cult favorite The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. This sequel is being handled by Digital Extremes, developer of Dark Sector. Digital Extremes has altered the art style, going for a glossy graphic novel look.
In the first game, Jackie could deliver brutal executions to his enemies such as bashing their heads in with the butt of his gun. Now his Demon Arms can get in on the fun and finish off goons in fun, gory ways. The Anaconda execution is when a tentacle coils itself around an enemy and then bursts through his chest Alien-style. For the Wishbone, each arm grabs a bad guy's leg and then splits him in two from the crotch.
Story-wise, two years have passed since the events of The Darkness. No longer just a hitman, Jackie is now the head of the Franchetti crime family. When you have power, though, someone is always going to try and take it away from you.
Very positive. The opening moments of The Darkness II are kind of amazing. Jackie awakens from a blackout to find he is literally being crucified by some jerk that wants the Darkness for himself. As his hands are nailed to the cross you see his power is being drained into some sort of ancient vase -- all from a first-person view. Through several playable flashbacks you come to learn how Jackie ended up in this predicament.
Jackie had arrived at an Italian restaurant earlier that night and received the suitably royal treatment. As he was led through the building I got a good sense of the space of the restaurant, which was busy with all sorts of chatty patrons. When Jackie arrived at his table he was greeted by two lovely ladies that he didn't at first recognize with their clothes on.
I won't spoil exactly what happens next because it's pretty shocking, but needless to say Jackie's nice evening is spoiled by an attempt on his life that leaves his leg crushed and the restaurant in flames. As one of his friends pulls Jackie to safety through the blazing wreck, players will be able to take aim and shoot down the invading mobsters. The flames are too bright for Jackie to change into his dark form, but once they reach a back alley he can transform and have his fun with the goons. It was a thrilling intro to the game and made me want to play.
The Darkness II is currently set for release later this year. Put it on your radar.
Here at the Game Developers Conference I got my first look at The Darkness II, the sequel to the 2007 comic book game. I wasn't sure what to expect because the sequel has been handed to a different developer, but it ended up being one of the most exciting games I saw at GDC this year.
What's the Same?
The Darkness II is still a first-person shooter starring Mafioso Jackie Estacado, current host of a chaotic force known as the Darkness. When Jackie is in the light, he's your regular Wiseguy. But when he steps into shadow the Darkness emerges and you'll see two serpent heads appear onscreen. This is what makes The Darkness' gameplay unique: you can run around dual-wielding guns while using your dark tentacles to mangle and abuse enemies, giving you four weapons at your disposal all at the same time. But you'll often have to think about, avoid, or remove light sources in order to maintain your more powerful form.
Vocal virtuoso Mike Patton, of Faith No More fame, will be returning as the twisted voice of the Darkness.
What's New?
Perhaps most notably, The Darkness II has a new developer. The original was developed by Starbreeze, creator of the Xbox cult favorite The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. This sequel is being handled by Digital Extremes, developer of Dark Sector. Digital Extremes has altered the art style, going for a glossy graphic novel look.
In the first game, Jackie could deliver brutal executions to his enemies such as bashing their heads in with the butt of his gun. Now his Demon Arms can get in on the fun and finish off goons in fun, gory ways. The Anaconda execution is when a tentacle coils itself around an enemy and then bursts through his chest Alien-style. For the Wishbone, each arm grabs a bad guy's leg and then splits him in two from the crotch.
A new Demon Arm execution called The Anaconda.
Story-wise, two years have passed since the events of The Darkness. No longer just a hitman, Jackie is now the head of the Franchetti crime family. When you have power, though, someone is always going to try and take it away from you.
First Impressions?
Very positive. The opening moments of The Darkness II are kind of amazing. Jackie awakens from a blackout to find he is literally being crucified by some jerk that wants the Darkness for himself. As his hands are nailed to the cross you see his power is being drained into some sort of ancient vase -- all from a first-person view. Through several playable flashbacks you come to learn how Jackie ended up in this predicament.
Jackie had arrived at an Italian restaurant earlier that night and received the suitably royal treatment. As he was led through the building I got a good sense of the space of the restaurant, which was busy with all sorts of chatty patrons. When Jackie arrived at his table he was greeted by two lovely ladies that he didn't at first recognize with their clothes on.
I won't spoil exactly what happens next because it's pretty shocking, but needless to say Jackie's nice evening is spoiled by an attempt on his life that leaves his leg crushed and the restaurant in flames. As one of his friends pulls Jackie to safety through the blazing wreck, players will be able to take aim and shoot down the invading mobsters. The flames are too bright for Jackie to change into his dark form, but once they reach a back alley he can transform and have his fun with the goons. It was a thrilling intro to the game and made me want to play.
The Darkness II is currently set for release later this year. Put it on your radar.
Bleszinski: Marry gamers, don't date them (or: design long-term engagement for fans)
8:42 AM
The Game Peddler
by Ludwig Kietzmann on Mar 6th 2011 3:30PM
on Mar 6th 2011 3:30PM
With consumers constantly immersed in an information feed -- via social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook -- it's important for game designers to be "surgical" and "devious" in creating IPs that thrive in an always-on, heavily branded world. According to Bleszinski, the market only tolerates games that land on the far ends of the spectrum between freemium or "snack" games and big-budget productions like Gears of War. "I believe the middle class game is dead."
The power creative understands how to engage fans over a long period of time -- "make gamers marry your game, not just date it" -- and how to capitalize on viral phenomena, such as Red Dead Redemption's donkey lady video. Bleszinski noted that Gears of War 3 had been crammed with enough easter eggs to remain a talking point among fans and press for weeks. "If they don't find it, we'll leak it," he said.
Bleszinski's talk urged designers and future power creatives to consider all marketable aspects of their properties, even giving thought to in-game quotes people could cite easily, or logos that make for good tattoos (the iconic "crimson omen" from Gears of War, for instance, regularly finds success on skin). And while this process of ensnaring players via the game's fiction and online play may seem manipulative, Bleszinski believes that players are capable of detecting disingenuous and impersonal efforts immediately.
Ideally, he said, an intellectual property should act as a delivery mechanism for a good gameplay idea, that also reinforces the fiction and shows off new technology. In the case of Gears of War 3, the physically warped "lambent" creatures provide an interesting shooting challenge, push the plot forward and demonstrate Epic's latest modeling and animation techniques. This best represents Bleszinki's proposed intersection between design and sales.
Though the power creative should be integral in both the design and promotion of the game, Bleszinski ascribed great value to maintaining ownership of intellectual property -- the loss of an IP in a publisher-driven deal shouldn't be underestimated. Or, to put it more bluntly: "Are you fucking high? That's the most valuable thing imaginable."
Saturday, March 5, 2011
GDC: 72 Percent of Players Finished Heavy Rain
7:44 AM
The Game Peddler
by Kristine Steimer
When you first see a statistic like "72 percent of players who started Heavy Rain finished it", it can be difficult to determine what that means. After all, data needs context. Sure, that number seems high – but in high school that'd be the equivalent of a C, which is average. However, if you compare it to the industry average completion rate, which is 20-25 percent, it's downright astounding.
David Cage, president of Quantic Dream (the company behind the title), revealed this information today at a panel during the Game Developers Conference.
To add in some extra perspective I thought I'd compare Heavy Rain's statistics to another extremely popular title, Mass Effect 2. IGN's overall Game of the Year for 2010, Mass Effect 2 only boasted a 50 percent completion rate despite receiving more critical acclaim. Heavy Rain garnered an 87 average on Metacritic.com, while Mass Effect 2 secured an almost perfect score of 96.
Are you part of the 72 percent that finished the game? If so, sound off in the comments and let us know what you thought.
When you first see a statistic like "72 percent of players who started Heavy Rain finished it", it can be difficult to determine what that means. After all, data needs context. Sure, that number seems high – but in high school that'd be the equivalent of a C, which is average. However, if you compare it to the industry average completion rate, which is 20-25 percent, it's downright astounding.
David Cage, president of Quantic Dream (the company behind the title), revealed this information today at a panel during the Game Developers Conference.
To add in some extra perspective I thought I'd compare Heavy Rain's statistics to another extremely popular title, Mass Effect 2. IGN's overall Game of the Year for 2010, Mass Effect 2 only boasted a 50 percent completion rate despite receiving more critical acclaim. Heavy Rain garnered an 87 average on Metacritic.com, while Mass Effect 2 secured an almost perfect score of 96.
Are you part of the 72 percent that finished the game? If so, sound off in the comments and let us know what you thought.
GDC: Is Dead Island Anything Like Its Debut Trailer?
7:42 AM
The Game Peddler
by Daemon Hatfield
Serious. Somber. Disturbing. These are words I would use to describe Dead Island's amazing debut trailer.
You saw it, right?
Today I got to see about 15 minutes of Dead Island in action. What words would I use to describe the gameplay?
Silly. Wacky. Goofy.
Oh, and fun.
Dead Island is a first-person hack-and-slash game set in the midst of a zombie outbreak in a tropical paradise. It's more Dead Rising than Resident Evil, with a focus on action over suspense. The developers themselves say they're going for "zombie zombie zombie all the time." An abundance of makeshift weapons lying around like paddles, baseball bats, and wrenches – and the fact that these can be combined and upgraded – further reminds me of Dead Rising.
The game has a very different tone than the somber trailer. It's fast and arcade-like. The plaintive piano and strings of the trailer are replaced with video game heavy metal. You can be clawed, bitten, and mauled by zombies and then be in perfect health a moment later. Tools and equipment can be jammed together to create ridiculous weapons, like an electrified machete. Is an electrified machete cool? Of course it is! But the macabre giggles it coaxed out of me are quite different than the quiet unease I felt while watching the trailer.
When developer Techland played Dead Island for me today, they chose the stereotypical "video game black guy" character. As he ran around slicing up zombies and bashing in their heads, he would exclaim things like, "Daaaaaamn, that bitch was huge!" and "You a dead bitch now!" Imagine hearing that sort of commentary over the trailer that depicted the tragic death of a young girl.
Games are about gameplay, not CGI movies. A game trailer that shows no gameplay might be entertaining, but it is useless as a metric for judging a game's quality. This should be an obvious statement, but think about how many game trailers we see these days that are bereft of gameplay footage. You can create an incredible trailer that draws attention to your game (DC Universe comes to mind), but that trailer could very well end up being more entertaining than the actual game (DC Universe comes to mind).
What if Angry Birds was really an advertisement to promote a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds? It would still be an amazing game, but it wouldn't have anything to do with that movie. Would that make any sense? It's an extreme example, but a lesser form of that bait-and-switch is happening with Dead Island.
The takeaway: Dead Island looks like good fun, even if the debut trailer was a little disingenuous. Like shooting Nazis or making robots explode, hacking up zombies really never gets old, and Dead Island seems to offer a slightly different perspective on the pastime. The level I saw today was fairly straightforward, consisting of moving from point A to point B to point C while dispatching the zombies that got in our way. But at one point I saw a plane coming in for a landing. That fascinated me: does the outside world not know of the outbreak? Did someone send help? Is a zombie flying the plane?! I look forward to finding out.
The next step is for us to actually play the game for ourselves, which we'll get the chance to do before E3.
Serious. Somber. Disturbing. These are words I would use to describe Dead Island's amazing debut trailer.
You saw it, right?
Today I got to see about 15 minutes of Dead Island in action. What words would I use to describe the gameplay?
Silly. Wacky. Goofy.
Oh, and fun.
Dead Island is a first-person hack-and-slash game set in the midst of a zombie outbreak in a tropical paradise. It's more Dead Rising than Resident Evil, with a focus on action over suspense. The developers themselves say they're going for "zombie zombie zombie all the time." An abundance of makeshift weapons lying around like paddles, baseball bats, and wrenches – and the fact that these can be combined and upgraded – further reminds me of Dead Rising.
A game trailer that shows no gameplay might be entertaining, but it is useless as a metric for judging a game's quality.
Then there is the four-player cooperative play, also giving Dead Island a little Left 4 Dead flavor. At the beginning of the game you select your character (which represents your class) and are stuck with that choice for the duration of the adventure. Whomever you choose, you are special among the survivors on the island -- you seem to be the only person immune to the zombie disease, and therefore can go toe-to-toe with the undead without fear of being converted. The game has a very different tone than the somber trailer. It's fast and arcade-like. The plaintive piano and strings of the trailer are replaced with video game heavy metal. You can be clawed, bitten, and mauled by zombies and then be in perfect health a moment later. Tools and equipment can be jammed together to create ridiculous weapons, like an electrified machete. Is an electrified machete cool? Of course it is! But the macabre giggles it coaxed out of me are quite different than the quiet unease I felt while watching the trailer.
Electrified machetes are cool, but do they fit the mood of Dead Island's debut trailer?
When developer Techland played Dead Island for me today, they chose the stereotypical "video game black guy" character. As he ran around slicing up zombies and bashing in their heads, he would exclaim things like, "Daaaaaamn, that bitch was huge!" and "You a dead bitch now!" Imagine hearing that sort of commentary over the trailer that depicted the tragic death of a young girl.
Games are about gameplay, not CGI movies. A game trailer that shows no gameplay might be entertaining, but it is useless as a metric for judging a game's quality. This should be an obvious statement, but think about how many game trailers we see these days that are bereft of gameplay footage. You can create an incredible trailer that draws attention to your game (DC Universe comes to mind), but that trailer could very well end up being more entertaining than the actual game (DC Universe comes to mind).
What if Angry Birds was really an advertisement to promote a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds? It would still be an amazing game, but it wouldn't have anything to do with that movie. Would that make any sense? It's an extreme example, but a lesser form of that bait-and-switch is happening with Dead Island.
The takeaway: Dead Island looks like good fun, even if the debut trailer was a little disingenuous. Like shooting Nazis or making robots explode, hacking up zombies really never gets old, and Dead Island seems to offer a slightly different perspective on the pastime. The level I saw today was fairly straightforward, consisting of moving from point A to point B to point C while dispatching the zombies that got in our way. But at one point I saw a plane coming in for a landing. That fascinated me: does the outside world not know of the outbreak? Did someone send help? Is a zombie flying the plane?! I look forward to finding out.
The next step is for us to actually play the game for ourselves, which we'll get the chance to do before E3.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Risen 2:Dark Waters..first look
5:27 AM
The Game Peddler
We take our first look at Piranha Bytes' sequel to Risen and the spiritual successor to the Gothic series.
If there's a better reason to attend the 2011 Game Developers Conference than the opportunity to take a first look at Gothic developer Piranha Bytes' role-playing sequel Risen 2: Dark Waters, we don't want to hear it. This sequel takes the high-fantasy world of Risen, which took place on a besieged island, and will become a full-on, full-fledged, full-featured, full-monty pirate role-playing game, where you play not only as Piranha Bytes' established "Hero" character, but also as a seafaring adventurer in a fantastic age of sail.
Risen 2 takes place some in-game years after the events in the first game. Specifically, the Hero has vanquished the powerful titan monster that threatened his island home after first defeating the evil inquisitor and claiming the villain's magical eyepatch--an artifact that let the Hero identify the titan for what it was--a malevolent creature disguised as a natural disaster. Unfortunately, bigger problems are afoot--other titans are awakening near other islands in the area, and worse yet, hideous sea monsters have emerged from the deep, completely disrupting trade routes and generally causing the few survivors who exist in the world to be very, very grumpy.
And as it turns out, the Hero is the grumpiest of all. In a first for a Piranha Bytes game, the Hero does not suffer from amnesia and does remember his hard-fought battles and narrow escapes perfectly well, thank you very much. However, his cool reception by an unappreciative populace has made him bitter and frustrated, though he still seeks to save the world by finding some means to rescue the other islands from their impending doom.
While we took our first look at the game during a hands-off demonstration session, Piranha Bytes representatives took a great deal of time to address the specific complaints from Risen's fan community, including bland-looking character models, flat-looking environment textures, a lack of variety in enemies to fight, and technical problems in the console versions. The studio is addressing every single one of these concerns by creating highly detailed character models with varied animations and modular apparel that can be more easily mixed and matched, enhanced environment texturing that makes the environments seem much more realistic, simultaneous PC and console development to ensure all versions of the game are created in lockstep, and lots of new enemies to populate the islands.
Yes, islands. While the first game took place on a single landmass, Risen 2 will take place across a series of different islands. The developer isn't commenting on exactly how your swashbuckling pirate Hero will make his way between these beleaguered areas, but given that Piranha Bytes suggests that the game will be "the perfect pirate RPG," it's not hard to guess how you'll be getting from point A to point B. And you won't be going it alone, either; like in Risen, you will from time to time have companions join your side. At least one of the companions will be a mysterious woman practiced in the dreaded art of voodoo magic. This character appears in one of the game's early video trailers and rescues the Hero by means of a voodoo doll and a lit match, just as he's about to be finished off by a group of attackers.
We then took a brief look at a pre-alpha version of the game in motion and found it to already look considerably better than the previous game. In addition to featuring beautiful water effects (which allow for underwater vegetation and darting schools of fish), Risen 2's environments seem highly detailed and will be populated by townspeople who have their own daily schedules and tasks that they'll attend to whether or not you happen to be in the area.
The game is still very early in development but already looks extremely promising. Risen 2 will offer better graphics, a bigger world, and an all-new story. The game will be released later this year.
Risen 2 takes place some in-game years after the events in the first game. Specifically, the Hero has vanquished the powerful titan monster that threatened his island home after first defeating the evil inquisitor and claiming the villain's magical eyepatch--an artifact that let the Hero identify the titan for what it was--a malevolent creature disguised as a natural disaster. Unfortunately, bigger problems are afoot--other titans are awakening near other islands in the area, and worse yet, hideous sea monsters have emerged from the deep, completely disrupting trade routes and generally causing the few survivors who exist in the world to be very, very grumpy.
And as it turns out, the Hero is the grumpiest of all. In a first for a Piranha Bytes game, the Hero does not suffer from amnesia and does remember his hard-fought battles and narrow escapes perfectly well, thank you very much. However, his cool reception by an unappreciative populace has made him bitter and frustrated, though he still seeks to save the world by finding some means to rescue the other islands from their impending doom.
While we took our first look at the game during a hands-off demonstration session, Piranha Bytes representatives took a great deal of time to address the specific complaints from Risen's fan community, including bland-looking character models, flat-looking environment textures, a lack of variety in enemies to fight, and technical problems in the console versions. The studio is addressing every single one of these concerns by creating highly detailed character models with varied animations and modular apparel that can be more easily mixed and matched, enhanced environment texturing that makes the environments seem much more realistic, simultaneous PC and console development to ensure all versions of the game are created in lockstep, and lots of new enemies to populate the islands.
Yes, islands. While the first game took place on a single landmass, Risen 2 will take place across a series of different islands. The developer isn't commenting on exactly how your swashbuckling pirate Hero will make his way between these beleaguered areas, but given that Piranha Bytes suggests that the game will be "the perfect pirate RPG," it's not hard to guess how you'll be getting from point A to point B. And you won't be going it alone, either; like in Risen, you will from time to time have companions join your side. At least one of the companions will be a mysterious woman practiced in the dreaded art of voodoo magic. This character appears in one of the game's early video trailers and rescues the Hero by means of a voodoo doll and a lit match, just as he's about to be finished off by a group of attackers.
We then took a brief look at a pre-alpha version of the game in motion and found it to already look considerably better than the previous game. In addition to featuring beautiful water effects (which allow for underwater vegetation and darting schools of fish), Risen 2's environments seem highly detailed and will be populated by townspeople who have their own daily schedules and tasks that they'll attend to whether or not you happen to be in the area.
The game is still very early in development but already looks extremely promising. Risen 2 will offer better graphics, a bigger world, and an all-new story. The game will be released later this year.
L.A. Noire hands on preview
5:24 AM
The Game Peddler
We review the evidence in a first play of Rockstar's latest tale of redemption.
We have heard rather a lot about L.A. Noire since it emerged from the shadows three months ago. Since then we've been impressed by the technology behind it and intrigued by its detective story premise, but we haven't been able to play this long-in-development game. We finally got to try our hand at a few cases on a recent visit to Rockstar's London offices. But be aware: some of the case notes below could be considered spoilers.
L.A. Noire is, as the title suggests, heavily influenced by the golden age of film noir, seemingly offering as rich and murky a vision of 1950s America as the classics of that genre. It has you step into the shoes of fresh LAPD detective Cole Phelps. At the start of the game you'll be pounding the streets as a patrol officer, but as the game progresses, you'll move up the ranks. First stop is the traffic desk, and then you enter where we picked up the game for our demo--homicide.
After a cutscene showing a shadowy figure beating a woman to death, we found ourselves in a briefing room. There we were told we were being moved up to the homicide division following the retirement of one of the team's stalwarts, and we were quickly briefed on our first case. A woman had been found brutally beaten, with a number of hallmarks suggesting a serial killer called the Werewolf.
After being introduced to the case, we headed to the patrol car with our new world-weary and work-shy partner to drive out to the scene. Driving in L.A. Noire will be a familiar experience for anyone who played GTAIV--the controls are the same, the car handling feels similar, and we're told many of the same rules will apply. As a police officer you'll be able to commandeer any vehicle in the city should the mood take you, but according to Rockstar, this will come with penalties if you do it indiscriminately. You can also drive with the same reckless disregard you used in GTAIV; while the other pleasingly rendered 1950s cars will drive along at a fairly sedate pace, you're free to tear up the roads if you so wish--but you may well end up being charged for property damage further down the line if you're too cavalier.
Getting to the crime scene was easy enough via the minimap and full-size map in the menu system, though the lack of route planning was a little strange, given that even Red Dead Redemption's horses seemed to be fitted with sat nav. When we were there, a brief chat with the beat cop on the scene laid out the few key facts, and we set to looking for evidence. The first was the most obvious--the bloody, naked, beaten body in the middle of the scene.
Portentous music swelled in the background as we strolled towards the unfortunate woman's remains, but settled into the background quickly. Examining the body was a matter of examining the salient points in turn--one button lets you choose the area you want to investigate, and then the analogue sticks let you move that body part around to check for clues, with a gentle controller rumble letting you know you've found the right angle.
In the case of the head, this meant moving it to one side until severe blunt-force trauma was revealed on one side, with similar procedures for each arm, with one revealing that a wedding band had apparently been cut from the finger. The torso provided a more obvious, less cryptic clue--a message seemingly from the killer, signed off with an obscenity scrawled across the victim's stomach in red lipstick.
L.A. Noire is, as the title suggests, heavily influenced by the golden age of film noir, seemingly offering as rich and murky a vision of 1950s America as the classics of that genre. It has you step into the shoes of fresh LAPD detective Cole Phelps. At the start of the game you'll be pounding the streets as a patrol officer, but as the game progresses, you'll move up the ranks. First stop is the traffic desk, and then you enter where we picked up the game for our demo--homicide.
After a cutscene showing a shadowy figure beating a woman to death, we found ourselves in a briefing room. There we were told we were being moved up to the homicide division following the retirement of one of the team's stalwarts, and we were quickly briefed on our first case. A woman had been found brutally beaten, with a number of hallmarks suggesting a serial killer called the Werewolf.
After being introduced to the case, we headed to the patrol car with our new world-weary and work-shy partner to drive out to the scene. Driving in L.A. Noire will be a familiar experience for anyone who played GTAIV--the controls are the same, the car handling feels similar, and we're told many of the same rules will apply. As a police officer you'll be able to commandeer any vehicle in the city should the mood take you, but according to Rockstar, this will come with penalties if you do it indiscriminately. You can also drive with the same reckless disregard you used in GTAIV; while the other pleasingly rendered 1950s cars will drive along at a fairly sedate pace, you're free to tear up the roads if you so wish--but you may well end up being charged for property damage further down the line if you're too cavalier.
Getting to the crime scene was easy enough via the minimap and full-size map in the menu system, though the lack of route planning was a little strange, given that even Red Dead Redemption's horses seemed to be fitted with sat nav. When we were there, a brief chat with the beat cop on the scene laid out the few key facts, and we set to looking for evidence. The first was the most obvious--the bloody, naked, beaten body in the middle of the scene.
Portentous music swelled in the background as we strolled towards the unfortunate woman's remains, but settled into the background quickly. Examining the body was a matter of examining the salient points in turn--one button lets you choose the area you want to investigate, and then the analogue sticks let you move that body part around to check for clues, with a gentle controller rumble letting you know you've found the right angle.
In the case of the head, this meant moving it to one side until severe blunt-force trauma was revealed on one side, with similar procedures for each arm, with one revealing that a wedding band had apparently been cut from the finger. The torso provided a more obvious, less cryptic clue--a message seemingly from the killer, signed off with an obscenity scrawled across the victim's stomach in red lipstick.
As we wandered around the scene, there were some helpful yellow evidence markers on the floor from the preliminary investigation team highlighting some of the bigger pieces, while the rumble that was present investigating the body came into play highlighting objects that could be interacted with. Somewhat akin to the pointer changing in a point-and-click adventure, this became a quick way to ascertain if things were of interest, and a useful tool to resort to when stuck.
After examining the scene and finding a few personal effects, we also found a puzzle-cum-lighter that provided our next line of enquiry--a country club not too far away. At this point the music faded out, serving as an audio clue that we'd found all there was of note in the area. This is where this section of the demo ended, and the Rockstar rep whisked us on a little further in the storyline to the case of a similar murder.
To get some more information on the next case we'd be handling, we headed to a diner where our boss was having a spot of lunch. With what sounded like Billie Holiday coming through the jukebox, we got a briefing on the our next case. Despite the similarities, there was even more scepticism from our partner that this was the work of the same man, in part because there was apparently already someone in custody for the case we'd been working on previously.
This crime scene was even more brutal than the last. The victim was again naked with writing scrawled on her torso in lipstick, but this time as well as basic blunt-force trauma being present, she'd been viciously slashed. Clues were scattered over a wider area this time, with fewer markers. Your partner acts in a similar manner to Fable II's dog in situations like this, moving around various possible items of interest and gently--or sometimes not so gently--prodding you in the right direction.
Following a blood trail down the alley, we found a key tied to a hydrant in the wall, and more blood smears leading up to the roof. Further items discovered up there clearly indicated the killer was toying with us by this stage in the investigation--a letter had been left, along with a handbag containing the second half of a card that allowed us to identify the victim with relative ease.
Then, having identified the victim, we headed to her rooms in a nearby boarding house. After a look through her things and finding evidence of a break-in, we got to conduct our first interrogation, the showpieces for the game's much-touted facial capture technology. The landlady, and instantly recognisable Myra Turley (one of many cast members the game shares with AMC's ongoing period drama Mad Men), very clearly had something to hide. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't very good at it. In interrogation scenarios you have a first-person view, letting you get a good look at every little bit of reaction as you ask your questions.
Based on those reactions and the evidence you've gathered, you've got three options for a response: you can accept what they've said at face value; you can express doubt they're telling the truth if you've got a hunch that they're trying to pull the wool over your eyes; or you can call them out for lying, if you have the evidence to back up that assertion. The capture technology means this isn't so much a gameplay trick as a purely human skill--it's not a matter of learning tells, or gameplay being shoehorned in; it's a mater of looking at someone's face and telling if they're lying. In those sections we saw, it was relatively easy to tell if someone was being less than honest with you, but knowing which approach to take to get the right information out of them was slightly trickier.
However, sometimes words just don't cut it. Later in the case we paid a visit to the victim's husband and ended up in a fistfight. The brawling will feel relatively familiar to anyone who played Red Dead Redemption; while the fights won't play out in quite the same way, the mechanics are very similar. Another action sequence cropped up later on; after uncovering some apparently damning evidence on another suspect, the suspect fled on foot before leaping into his car, which led to a lengthy chase across the streets of LA, while our partner hung out the window of our car trying to shoot out the tyres on the suspect's car.
Though this may all sound linear and formulaic, there are often multiple paths to important story points. While we managed to pick up an important clue by interrogating the landlady above, a later search provided us with a matchbook pointing to the same location. This means that while failure has consequences--you won't be rated as highly for each mission--roadblocks aren't thrown up after small errors that force you to backtrack and attempt sections again.
The mix of gameplay mechanics, branching investigations, and intriguing overarching narrative looks to be marrying up well with L.A. Noire's impressive technology. We hope to see the game again before its release in May, so keep it tuned to GameSpot for more on Rockstar's latest.
After examining the scene and finding a few personal effects, we also found a puzzle-cum-lighter that provided our next line of enquiry--a country club not too far away. At this point the music faded out, serving as an audio clue that we'd found all there was of note in the area. This is where this section of the demo ended, and the Rockstar rep whisked us on a little further in the storyline to the case of a similar murder.
To get some more information on the next case we'd be handling, we headed to a diner where our boss was having a spot of lunch. With what sounded like Billie Holiday coming through the jukebox, we got a briefing on the our next case. Despite the similarities, there was even more scepticism from our partner that this was the work of the same man, in part because there was apparently already someone in custody for the case we'd been working on previously.
This crime scene was even more brutal than the last. The victim was again naked with writing scrawled on her torso in lipstick, but this time as well as basic blunt-force trauma being present, she'd been viciously slashed. Clues were scattered over a wider area this time, with fewer markers. Your partner acts in a similar manner to Fable II's dog in situations like this, moving around various possible items of interest and gently--or sometimes not so gently--prodding you in the right direction.
Following a blood trail down the alley, we found a key tied to a hydrant in the wall, and more blood smears leading up to the roof. Further items discovered up there clearly indicated the killer was toying with us by this stage in the investigation--a letter had been left, along with a handbag containing the second half of a card that allowed us to identify the victim with relative ease.
Then, having identified the victim, we headed to her rooms in a nearby boarding house. After a look through her things and finding evidence of a break-in, we got to conduct our first interrogation, the showpieces for the game's much-touted facial capture technology. The landlady, and instantly recognisable Myra Turley (one of many cast members the game shares with AMC's ongoing period drama Mad Men), very clearly had something to hide. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't very good at it. In interrogation scenarios you have a first-person view, letting you get a good look at every little bit of reaction as you ask your questions.
Based on those reactions and the evidence you've gathered, you've got three options for a response: you can accept what they've said at face value; you can express doubt they're telling the truth if you've got a hunch that they're trying to pull the wool over your eyes; or you can call them out for lying, if you have the evidence to back up that assertion. The capture technology means this isn't so much a gameplay trick as a purely human skill--it's not a matter of learning tells, or gameplay being shoehorned in; it's a mater of looking at someone's face and telling if they're lying. In those sections we saw, it was relatively easy to tell if someone was being less than honest with you, but knowing which approach to take to get the right information out of them was slightly trickier.
However, sometimes words just don't cut it. Later in the case we paid a visit to the victim's husband and ended up in a fistfight. The brawling will feel relatively familiar to anyone who played Red Dead Redemption; while the fights won't play out in quite the same way, the mechanics are very similar. Another action sequence cropped up later on; after uncovering some apparently damning evidence on another suspect, the suspect fled on foot before leaping into his car, which led to a lengthy chase across the streets of LA, while our partner hung out the window of our car trying to shoot out the tyres on the suspect's car.
The mix of gameplay mechanics, branching investigations, and intriguing overarching narrative looks to be marrying up well with L.A. Noire's impressive technology. We hope to see the game again before its release in May, so keep it tuned to GameSpot for more on Rockstar's latest.
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