News about the forthcoming Champions Online, to Codemasters expanding their business, to how the LEGO Universe economy will function. Hopefully well, we all know how unstable those LEGO financial institutions are. One swift kick from your older brother and the entire infrastructure comes tumbling down, and I’d rather not have to deal with bailing out LEGO Bear Stearns.

So check the numbers, look to the future, and admit you’ve lost (you know who you are). This is…

The MMO Report

With Spore set to take fire on PC’s & Macs this September 7th, and scaled back versions of the game also being released for Nintendo DS & mobile platforms there has been relatively little information regarding gameplay and online aspect of the game.

A grandiose simulation of every stage of life, from the primordial soup to space exploration is how Wired.com’s Chris Kohler described Spore in his extensive first look at the latest version of the game.

The following video interview features designer Will Wright & EA producer Caryl Shaw describing the massive online scope of this massively single player game. Huh? Watch the video and you will understand.

Twenty-six minutes of new footage has just been released from the Huxley Korean beta. The following new footage shows some of the Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter (MMOFPS) aspects of the game scheduled for release on Xbox 360 & PC.

Huxley features:

I. FPS IN A PERSISTENT WORLD
Huxley delivers the excitement and rich gameplay experience of an MMORPG while combining the knuckle-whitening action of an FPS. Players can communicate with each other in a virtual online city, and participate in side battles with the intuitive PvP (player vs. player) system. Everything a character does in the Huxley world directly affects the success of not only the individual, but also of their race and party; from battles to behaviors, all interactions are linked to the survival of a character’s entire race.

II. LARGE-SCALE BATTLES
Huxley goes past traditional death match FPS gameplay by challenging players to adapt to new forms of combat to protect the interests of the camp. Servers will be solely dedicated to accommodate millions of users engaged in fast paced, large-scale combat. Players will require strategy and cooperation to achieve victory. Extensive multiplayer battle modes are available each with a variety of unique fighting techniques and special characteristics.

III. ADVANCED A.I. AND QUESTS
Huxley has advanced A.I. that rivals other online games. Enemies in Huxley demonstrate remarkable intelligence, which can be used to a player’s advantage or demise. Quests in Huxley will take players on paths of intrigue to uncover conspiracies resulting in confrontations. Each quest is continually updated so players feel as though they are enjoying a new story mode every time they play.

IV. CHARACTER GROWTH AND UNIQUE PLAY STYLES
The characters in Huxley are continuously growing, which is rare in FPS games. Players are able to enhance their own combat styles by obtaining out-of-this-world weapons and new skills, which in turn continuously challenges players to adopt different gameplay styles as they progress.

We’ve already had some of the big bombshells of 2007 come out already, including the big boys like Halo 3, Heavenly Sword, and Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction … but what’s still coming down the pipeline? Guitar Hero III will be out tomorrow, and the rest of October and all of November are bringing a ton of great games out for every platform from the Xbox 360 to the Nintendo DS.

Megatonik has put together a great list, chock full of release dates and goodies, or what’s left in store for the rest of this year. Chances are once these games start dropping, you’re not going to have much left in your wallet for the holidays. So it’s time to start figuring out where you’re going to get that cash from and get your game on.

[source]

SarcasticGamer has this new track available, entitled “Bad Game: The Shadowrun Song” this is what Doc Adams had to say:

“With the incredible line up of highly-anticipated games hitting the shelves this fall, we thought it might be nice to put a few less-spectacular titles in the rear view mirror. Here’s a song all about the games we enjoyed the least this year, most notably, Shadowrun.

[source]

Gametrailers presents this video comparing hardware that was covered at E3 2007. The systems included are the Nintendo DS, Wii, PC, PS3 & 360 and they use each platforms lineup of promoted games as the criteria for their award. Since the public wasn’t allowed at this years E3 we have to rely on what the press has to say, the following is Gametrailers take of the recent event.

During the WWDC 07 show in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced id software’s John Carmack to the audience, watch the video-on-demand (VOD) in QuickTime and MPEG-4 by visiting via Apple.

At the 10:13 mark, the video shows the first look at the engine in the works at id Software, the intriguing visuals are accompanied by the following:

“So the last couple of years at id we’ve been working in secrecy on next-gen tech and a game for it… this is the first time we’re showing anything we’ve done on it publicly.” id Tech 5™… “What we’ve got here is the entire world with unique textures, 20GB of textures covering this track. They can go in and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with no impact on the game.”

The id Software website has more:

In a surprise demonstration during Steve Job’s keynote at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference today, John Carmack unveiled id’s latest revolution in game engine technology with the very first showing of id Tech 5™ running live on the Mac with OS X.

The ground breaking technology unveiled today will power id’s new internally developed game and will be available for licensing to third parties. The new id rendering technology practically eliminates the texture memory constraints typically placed on artists and designers and allows for the unique customization of the entire game world at the pixel level, delivering virtually unlimited visual fidelity. Combined with a powerful new suite of tools designed to specifically facilitate and accelerate this content creation process, id Tech 5™ will power games that contain vast outdoor landscapes that are completely unique to the horizon, yet have indoor environments with unprecedented artistic detail.

While shown for the very first time running in real time on a Mac, id Tech 5™ additionally supports the Xbox 360 and Playstation3 console platforms as well as the PC, and will be available for licensing to developers and publishers interested in working with a truly next generation rendering and game development solution. id Software will be showing id Tech 5™ to interested developers and publishers by appointment only at the E3 Media & Business Summit from July 11 – 13, 2007 in Santa Monica, Calif.

This new technology looks to be quite promising and will compete with Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, Valve’s Source game engine, and Crytek’s CryTECH 2 engine.
[press release]

Today NVIDIA announced 3 new GeForce 8 Series video cards,

• NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
• NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT

NVIDIA now offers Vista solutions at all price ranges, from the under $100 for the entry level 8500 GT to much more. Follow the link for the press release with all the details.

Read the rest of this page »

According to Juarez newspaper El Diario (link is to imperfect Google translation), the governor of the Mexican state of Chihuahua has ordered the seizure of all copies of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.

Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza Terraces apparently took the action following recent criticism of GRAW2 by Juarez Mayor Héctor Murguía Lardizábal, who called the game, which deals with battles between an elite U.S. force an Mexican rebels, ”a crime against the intellectual capacity of Juarez residents.” The Juarez mayor offered this blanket condemnation:

Violent video games instill values which are upside down, and these actions are despicable because they attempt to divide the good will of the residents of American and Mexican cities.

Protection of the border between the United States and Mexico is, of course, an extremely hot political topic these days.

[via GamePolitics]