GDC 2008
Here is a loose conglomerate of random facts about GDC 2008 and recent happenings.GDC stands for Games Developers Conference. GDC was held in San Francisco, a couple of weeks ago. GDC is a gathering of developers who talk technology, ideas and show off some their handy work, much like an enormous trade show. GDC is like DICE but on a larger scale and their is more focus on games unlike DICE.
What happened at GDC 2008?
Gears of War 2 was announced and scheduled to be released in November. Epic talked about new technology developed for Unreal Engine 3. Some of the new features made for Unreal Engine 3 are new shadow effects, which make for a more realistic experience. The ability to show many more characters on screen, ie. on demonstration showed tons of Locust running down city streets. New water effects, which is the bane of every developer. The never ending search for perfect water. And how could I leave out new, fancy meat effects. A video showed Marcus Fenix beating the crap out of a giant cube of meat. I guess this will make mutilated bodies more grotesc and icky. Just what I wanted.
Coop was announced for Fable 2. This means you and a friend can play through the game together. Oh the possiblities. You can get pregnant, and then your buddy can kill your husband.
Ninja Gaiden 2 is due in June.
Too Human, made famous by their little altercation with EPIC over the Unreal Engine. Oh it was nothing, developer Silicon Knights, sued EPIC, stating that stuff went wrong and the jibber wasn't on the doodad.
Anywho, Too Human is an action RPG, built around Norse mythology but instead of fighting bad guys back in the day, you are fighting robots in the future. A demo was shown showcasing some of the various features in the game. One is a smart camera, which follows you around and makes adjustments based on where you are in a room. So no manual camera control, which should be nice as long as it works. There will be no loading screens, all loading will be done during cut scenes. The inventory system looks to be very cool. You have the ability to collect epic sets of armor, and if any of you have played World of Warcraft, you know what I'm talking about. But fear not, getting a hold of an epic set in Too Human won't be as exhausting as in WOW. From what I've seen, Silicon Knights is basically making Diablo on a console. Which is friggin' awesome because we all know that Diablo is one of the best games of all time.
GH3 Aerosmith edition. Band selected songs, you start at the beginning of Aerosmith's career and build up to large arenas. Personally I could care less about an Aerosmith themed GH3 game. So I'm not talking about it anymore.
HD DVD is dead. Blu Ray is now your HD. Technologically I think it is the better format. but the major reason Sony won that battle is because it owns just about everything. Sorry Toshiba. Now, if you are into HD movies, I would say, go out and get a PS3. They are nice but a regular DVD in an Xbox, PS3 or upscaling DVD player looks damn good. To all of you that bought HD DVD players. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Silly early adoptors, patience is a virtue.
EA puts an offer on the table to buy Take Two Interactive for $2 Billion, and Take Two said, hell naw. Why would Electronic Arts want to buy Take Two you ask? One reason is Take Two owns some of the biggest franchises in the video game universe, like Grand Theft Auto. But the main reason is EA wants to buy out the competition. Take Two owns the 2K Sports franchise. You already have to play Madden if you want a football game with licensed football players, do you only want one choice when it comes to other sports games? You can't blame EA for trying but that would be bad for gaming.
Street Fighter 4 was shown and I have to say that it looks like Street Fighter 2 but with better graphics. Right now it looks like only the original 8 characters are playable with two special characters. I hope that other characters will be unlockable. What I don't want are downloadable characters on Xbox Live Marketplace for money. There has to be something extra in Street Fighter 4. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, coming out sometime this year, is a remastered version of Street Fighter for Xbox Live Arcade. But still, Street Fighter 4 is look amazing, and I will buy it.
This is too long. The End.