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As promised, the Gears of War 2 interview is now up. Andy got some face time with Cliff Bleszinski to ask him your questions about Gears of War 2.
Andy covers a good deal of the questions as well - he even goes off reservation a little bit when Ry_Ivan's question about Unreal Tournament comes up (Quake is better than UT, by the way), but both Andy and Cliff handle it like seasoned pros. Even if you didn't ask a question make sure you watch the interview for more details about the Gears of War 2 development process now!
BigPond GameArena Gears of War 2 InterviewPosted: 15 Oct 08 | 10 views | 25 downloads | 177.1MBEither I need to go see an optometrist, or the lines between console and PC shooter are blurring. Far Cry 2 is doing the blurring – and it’s doing it in the prettiest way possible.
Take a look at any trailer, any screenshots you see for Far Cry 2 and you’ll immediately see what I mean. Far Cry 2 looks hands down amazing – and the trailers are representative of Xbox 360 quality, not just some uber-PC. The game runs with no visible slow-down as well, which is a further testament to the development team’s excellence. It’s not immediately apparent how Far Cry 2 is in anyway a sequel to Far Cry – nobody I’ve encountered in-game has a brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt and I didn’t see any Island of Dr. Moreau mutants – until you realise… Far Cry 2 isn’t a sequel to the story. 
Far Cry 2 "The Jackal" TrailerPosted: 13 Oct 08 | 477 views | 153 downloads | 147.4MBAndy Wells has been super busy this week - Prince of Persia isn't enough for our star reporter, so he got face time with Clint Hocking, the Creative Director on Far Cry 2 and Vinh-Dieu Lam, the Lead A.I. Engineer at Ubisoft Shanghai for Tom Clancy's EndWar.
Vinh is a local boy - a Melbournite with a lot of talent working on the excellent EndWar. The game is looking fantastic - hands-on time left us with the impression that it will probably be the future of RTS games on consoles - and Vinh is more than happy to give all the juicy details. Clint Hocking meanwhile gives us some idea of Far Cry 2's magnitude - watch Andy's interview for a great idea of what the game is all about - stay tuned for a GameArena hands-on report later today. Coming up soon - your questions answered by Gears of War 2's Cliff Bleszinski - and don't forget to check out Andy's interview with Prince of Persia Producer, Ben Mattes
BigPond GameArena Far Cry 2 InterviewPosted: 15 Oct 08 | 107 views | 66 downloads | 227.9MB
Great romances that never were: Take Two and Electronic Arts
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Is there anything worse than unrequited love? You put on your best clothes, put on that "special" aftershave and roll up on the object of your affections and then don't even get the time. We all deal with rejection in different ways. Electronic Arts boss John Riccitiello? Well he's still dealing with Take Two's rebuff.
We think John can get over this, if Take Two just gets in touch. Come on, what's a quick phone call or letter going to do? But no, Take-Two insists on pretending he doesn't even exist. Please Take-Two, drop John a line, even if it just to see how he's going. Perhaps you don't know where to begin - so we offer the following suggestion:
See? It's not that hard is it? The ball's in your court Take-Two - let the healing begin. Riccitiello talks about take-over (again), speculators likely to be the big losers in failed deal [DealJournal @ wsj.com] Andy got some face time with Ben Mattes, the producer for Prince of Persia, to ask him some questions about the game's direction.
The game itself is looking really good. The open-world idea is used to great effect - you can travel all over the game world with no loading screens and approach each of the game sections from any direction you please. The art direction is really nice as well - watch the video to see what Mattes has to say about it all. Andy been pretty busy - stay tuned for a Tom Clancy's EndWar interview, Far Cry 2 interview and your questions answered by Cliff Bleszinski - the top dog on Gears of War 2.
BigPond GameArena Prince of Persia InterviewPosted: 15 Oct 08 | 73 views | 20 downloads | 226MBHercules, or Kevin Sorbo, is back in business with the upcoming Wii shooter The Conduit.
Everyone's favourite demi-god is back in business, playing Prometheus (he has a thing for Greek myth it would appear) the terrorist in the game. He'll be joined by Mark A. Sheppard and William Morgan Sheppard as part of the "Hollywood cast" for the game. Mark A. Sheppard played Badger in Firefly and gets the main role in The Conduit, while William Morgan Sheppard played Captain Witwicky in last year's Transformers movie. The Conduit, in development by High Voltage Software, is scheduled for release early next year. The team at High Voltage have been putting a lot of work into making a great First Person Shooter - good story, good voice acting and a great looking engine will hopefully carry this one over the line. We hope The Conduit does well - not only does the Wii need a good first person shooter - we want Sorbo to make up for Meet The Spartans. Kevin Sorbo seems confident - he said, "It looks like a riot, I’m looking forward to it."
The Conduit GC 2008 TrailerPosted: 27 Aug 08 | 169 views | 20 downloads | 16.5MB
Global cash crunch to affect games?
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Analyst outfit Gartner thinks if you're in the IT hardware biz, you might be in a spot of bother next year. As part of it's report titled Driving IT through the Credit Crunch (phat cash or a corporate account required to view) the forecast for tech spending worldwide has been er, more than halved. Their old guess was 5.8% growth for the IT biz, now it's 2.3%
The software part is interesting. All software (obviously a heck of a lot more than games) grew 13.5% last year. Gartner is tabbing it to do around 8.6% this year. Makes you wonder what will be top of the list for that 5% shortfall in most people's minds. Consumers may be one thing but businesses investing in games development may be checking their dollars as they hope to ride out the stormy weather. And if Adobe and co start stepping up their licensing protection/piracy prevention measures in the following months to counteract the folks deciding they don't need the latest upgrade...well you heard it here first. For us specifically, the Asia Pacific region's overall IT growth is predicted to come in at 8.3% - higher than average, while North America - where you may note cheap credit is STILL available - is tipped to manage a miserly 0.5% Are we likely to be even affected by this? Where does games spending fit in on your radar - if you had some belt tightening to do, would gaming suffer? We get it. A good portion of the population of The United States of America thinks the USA is the centre of the universe. That's why many games feature American main characters. Secret Service, a new game from Activision Publishing, might be taking the whole American thing a little too far.
Announced today, the game puts you in the shoes of a Secret Service operative on Inauguration Day in Washington D.C. - the President is under attack and it's up to you to save him! While fighting through a number of famous landmarks like Marine One and Air Force One! Dave Oxford from Activision Publishing makes it sound pretty interesting as well,
Why couldn't you be a hired bodyguard protecting a massive oil conglomerate from attack or something. In Washington D.C. On Oil is cool day or something. You can still have your generic American focused shooting game - without directly alienating 75% of the world. Then again, the game has only just been announced and maybe it will weave a thrilling tapestry of suspense and we'll eagerly await mods to let us protect one of the 194 other heads of state throughout the world. Secret Service is coming out later this year, so time will tell. "The Secret Service videogame is not approved, endorsed or authorized by the U.S. Secret Service." Stargate Worlds was almost vapourware for a little while there, but it's getting more corporeal with the announcement of the closed beta starting Wednesday (probably Thursday our time).
Sign-ups for the beta are still going so if you want to get your MacGyver on head to the registration site and put in your details. Testers will apparently be drawn at random, so it's not an early bird gets the worm sort of deal. The game itself looks pretty innovative. There are a number of races announced so far with the Humans, Goa'uld, Jaffa, and Asgard all getting a chance to impose their will on alien civilisations, and the storyline will follow the story of the series. The classes in the game are pretty varied as well, with diplomatic characters, scientists and a variety of different types of soldiers giving the game a lot of depth. Does an MMO in the Stargate universe interest you? It will be interesting to see how the shooter based combat works out - now that you've had a taste of <100 ping MMOs with Warhammer Online can you go back? Weekly Update specialist, GDAA judge and all-around champion Andy Wells is going toe-to-toe with Cliff Bleszinski - the design director at Epic Games - in an interview.
Better than just asking our questions though, we thought you guys might have some things to ask the veteran developer about Gears of War 2. Post your questions in the comments below - before noon tomorrow - to get them voiced... Assuming there's enough time and they're appropriate of course.
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