After spending a few hours with Remedy’s Alan Wake, the much delayed and much hyped title has won me over to the point where I can safely say it’s one of the most intriguing games I’ve played in a long time.

I’m about an hour and a half into the game (just after the first episode) so there are a few things I can judge straight off the bat. The visuals are crisp and detailed, Alan’s character model in game is a multi layered and beautifully crafted avatar, several pieces of clothing layered on top of each other pop from his body as he moves around the world; realistically and with just the right amount of weight. The dreary looking preview video’s made it very hard to get excited about the environments but having played the game I can’t see how I missed the great use of colour and light in the world Remedy have built. Foliage moves as Alan Walks past, light and shadow duck and dive around him as makes his way through the nightmare he’s landed in.

I am slightly disappointed with the facial animation during cut scenes, when Alan looks shocked his mouth opens like he’s getting ready to throat a horse, infact his cut scene model is no where as pretty as the in game Alan. Mass Effect 2 and God of War 3 set the facial animation bar for 2010 and in truth I feel sorry for any developer who has to deliver anything graphically after such a strong start to the year. The night scenes are actually surprisingly colourful when your in them and not as boring as the trailers would have had you believe, it doesn’t hurt that Remedy pressed the atmosphere button until they wore their fingers down to the knuckle. The sound and music are fantastic, especially when an attack is becoming imminent, the forest barks and screams at you if your lucky and whistles and whispers if your not.

Whatever about the visuals – Combat and presentation are really what this game is all about and Remedy are firing on all cylinder thus far. I don’t want to spoil any part of the story, if you have followed the game at all  then you know as much about the story as I’m willing to tell you. So far, its been delivered extremely well and pushes the medium in a direction that hasn’t really been explored this well as of yet. The episodic format hits all the right notes and thanks to some Nolan North quality voice acting it keeps you strapped tightly into the story. Very cool indeed, cant wait to see where it goes. If you like Lost, Twin Peaks or Stephen King novels then you’re in for a treat. So far the survival horror angle isn’t that heavy handed but for me this is a good thing, I’ve never been a huge fan of that genre anyway.

Combat is very tight and not at all as clunky and awkward as I expected. Left trigger focuses your flashlight and right controls Alan’s weapon fire. The controls are very well thought out and  minimal tutorial is needed before you start popping fool’s. Firing a flare gun at a group of Taken as the screen brakes into slow motion, the flare burping and hissing out into the darkness…is awesome and very satisfying with a yummy amount of feedback coming from the gun play.

So there is it, the game is good so far and I’ve gotten all the rudimentary admin out of the way for my review. Cant wait to dive back in, expect our review early next week!

Source: [Joystick.IGN]

Grab Bag, Free For All, Headhunter, Stockpile and Generator Defense

The first three are all new versions of old game types, the last two are where it gets interesting.

I’ll let Bungie explain:

Stockpile is a little more complex. Two teams scrap over four neutral flags. Flags are scored by bringing them into your team’s designated territory and protecting them until the timer reaches zero. Flags are collected every sixty seconds.

If the flag is outside the zone, even if you have it in your hands, it won’t count. If you allow a player on the other team to infiltrate your territory and toss all your flags outside the clearly marked boundaries, those won’t count either.

There’s two ways to win.

Score a total of 10 Flags.
Score the most flags in the ten minutes allotted.

Sounds pretty simple, right? It’s actually really nuanced. There’s a lot of push/pull going on and a coordinated team can employ multiple strategies to keep things mixed up.

Generator Defense. Three Spartans defend three generators from an all out assault launched by three Elites.

Why only three per team? We’re testing out some pretty specific stuff on the networking side of things. In fact, the entire concept of Generator Defense was created simply to support what’s actually called Network Test 1. It’s just that Network Test 1 doesn’t sound like something anybody would really get pumped up to play, dig?

But Generator Defense? That sounds awesome! And actually, it really is. As the Elites begin to damage each generator, you’ll be notified with audio and visual cues in your HUD. If you want to prevent them from exploding, you need to get up close and activate the temporary blast shield. Each time you engage the lock down, you’ll earn thirty seconds of breathing room.

At the start of each round, you not only get to pick from a broad selection of Load Outs, you also get to choose your general spawning location. Choose wisely. As an Elite, you’ll need to destroy all three generators to win the round.

Pete gives away some slight spoilers in the video but he gives you due warning before hand so still watch if you want to see some of the new features that will be included in Fable 3.

Video courtesy of IGN.

Microsoft big boy Stephen McGill had this to say on the matter:

“We have no plans to adopt [a] Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment started last autumn when Xbox 360 became the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies.”

Well that’s a step forward, but if Microsoft fully believe this, why are there still DVD boxes with Xbox 360 games in them? I honestly think it’s a ridiculous claim to make, but that’s just my opinion … which maybe shouldn’t feature in a news post … anyway, I wonder what Sony will have to say on this one?

Check out the video, which features jetpacks and assassinations below:

The game looks awesome, I’m really loving the universal charger needed for keeping your flashlight and night vision goggles working, also you have to love a pneumatic pump action sniper rifle.

Bags of imagination then, even if most of it is ripped from the source material. If only the English version of the novel would get released so we can find out just how much is ripped off.

Walkthrough below {Source}

In response to the growing global opportunities presented by the gaming industry, Dublin Institute of Technology has launched a one-year full-time Masters Degree in Digital Games. This programme has been designed in collaboration with many of the world’s top game industry companies including Microsoft Games Studios.

Microsoft Game Studios currently employs over 1,000 people worldwide and works with a significant range of independent developers throughout Europe. Microsoft Game Studios Ireland has been responsible for the localisation of some of the world’s biggest games including Halo-3.

Molyneux, creator of popular video game titles such as Fable, Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White, spoke about Role Playing Games and their inherently cinematic nature. Connelly, an Irishman who is in charge of the development of one of Microsoft’s biggest releases for the Xbox 360 this year, talked on the confluence of gaming and film. This was followed by a panel discussion addressing RPG game development within the Irish gaming industry and was chaired by Aphra Kerr.

The games industry is one of today’s most dynamic and fast-moving creative sectors and there is high demand in the industry for experienced and skilled programmers, producers, and designers. This exciting new programme has been introduced by DIT to meet the increasing demand from the games industry for postgraduates with the highest level of skills required by the industry.

A recent report* shows that employment in this sector in Ireland has grown by 400% in the past seven years. With the success of Irish owned companies such as Havok, Demonware and Jolt Online and the increasing presence of multinational players such as Microsoft, PopCap, Gala Networks, Goa, Blizzard and Activision, the profile of the digital games industry in Ireland is growing internationally. According to Prof. Brian Norton, DIT President “DIT has been providing courses on game programming since 2006 and has a proven track record in producing graduates with the highest level of skills. DIT’s new MSc in Digital Games presents a fantastic opportunity to broaden the pool of expertise in Ireland.”

The MSc in Digital Games will address the key occupational areas identified by the Forfás report on the International Digital Media Industry. These are “design; artistic/creative; programming; management/project management and quality assurance”.

DIT’s MSc in Digital Games is aimed at individuals who wish to innovate or work in the digital game industry, anyone with a serious interest in understanding and making interesting games. It will appeal to graduates from diverse undergraduate and work experiences, including visual arts and media, and computer science. The programme has been designed to prepare graduates for a broad range of careers across the computer gaming industry including game designers, level designers, game software engineers, project managers, consultants, and games analysts.

The programme provides students with a state-of-the-art learning environment in specialised design and game programming labs. It combines the very latest technology with classes given by highly experienced lecturers, many of whom are involved with cutting-edge research in serious games, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, embodied agents and music technology ensuring that students have access to the very latest thinking, and techniques . Uniquely building on the combined expertise of DIT’s School of Media and the School of Computing, this industry-oriented programme will emphasise creativity and innovation through interdisciplinary study, cross-faculty cooperation, and constant industry input.

This full-time programme has both a technical and a creative stream and will provide modules in ludology, game design, game engine programming, animation, modding, digital audio and video, motion graphics, project management and the business of games.

For more information see www.dit.ie and www.seriousgames.ie . To see our liveblogging of the event head over to our twitter account, @shoryuken_ie.

However if you don’t get a chance at coming down to the event itself, we’ll be liveblogging from our twitter account on @shoryuken_ie, so do join in the banter as we twitpic our way through an evening of fun and brash comments about gaming, and narrative.

On top of this, the event will showcase a brand new MSc from DIT focusing on game development.

Oddly enough  a pop up appears during the video saying ‘they say by the time of launch, lag times will have disappeared and response times will be ”nearly” instant.

In other news its looking extremely likely that post E3 Natal will have a name change, several sources online have talked about this and even some folks talking out of industry Illuminati event Dice 2010!

SIGH