Wednesday 10 May 2006
Online gamers will be able to rain down fire, crash to earth, parachute into action and radio requests for transport in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, once it touches down on PC at the end of the year.
To keep you in the thick of it, the Enemy Territory in-game menu allows players to call in quad bikes, tanks, artillery... and Strogg players will spawn from orbit, crashing down to earth in rocket pods!
We've just witnessed developer Splash Damage putting the game through
What if you dropped into an online game and always knew what you were supposed to be doing? We're not talking about a causal Halo match where you just have to shoot dudes and forget 'em. We're talking about a game where you fulfil a specific role: say, a saboteur who sneaks behind enemy lines to destroy its equipment, clothed in the skin of one of its own soldiers. What if you could jump right into a game like that and understand your role? What if you could help your team achieve its goals
"We wanted to try to take the Doom technology and move it outdoors, with vehicles, multiplayer ... the whole nine yards." That's id Software designer Kevin Cloud's summary of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Activision's promising take on high-tech, massively-multiplayer warfare. In other words, there's a lot of people playing the online action wargame Battlefield 2; how can you get them to play something Quake-flavored instead?
First, give the people familiar environs ... to a point. Enemy
Despite warnings of incoming tremors - that will surely thin out Battlefield and Counter-Strike server populations around the globe - seismologists continue to show no concern over ids next big Quake. But fragging fans, waiting to stress their systems and fingers on ids upcoming title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars would do well to prepare for this years next big team-based shooter. We recently had the opportunity to score some time with the beta version of the game, and its looking good, really
When your previous online game netted you a worldwide audience of no less than eight million, going one better than that isn't easy. Yet Splash Damage is making it seem that way.
By swapping WWII rifles for the energised piledrivers of intergalactic conflict, and setting out to make every gameplay element of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars better than it is anywhere else, the Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory developer has fashioned some awe-inspiring firepower.
Key to Quake Wars is its desire to make
One of the lead Quake Wars developers summed it up best as we were basking in a post-playtest glow of fading adrenaline. “I think weve found the perfect balance of chaos.” After three hours of matches on some near-complete maps, its hard to disagree.
There were worried murmurs when it was revealed the games vast maps would be optimized for a scant 24 players, but this isnt a problem. Quake Wars even works with three players to a team, because like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory,
Announced in 2005, shown at E3 2006, and confirmed for the 360 in 2007, Quake Wars is still an awkward one to preview. The coders at id Software love showing off their technology but aren't so keen on going into specifics about the game, yet as the launch draws near, morsels of information are starting to emerge and once again we find ourselves looking at one of the highlights of the year's many online first-person shooters.
Quake Wars favors massive Battlefield 2-style maps, but adopts a much
Let's be brutally honest here - we weren't expecting much from Escape from Paradise City (formerly known as Paradise City). But, surprise of surprises, we actually like it. It's easy to grasp, far from ugly and above all, likable. Not bad for a game that's related to the rather painful - for all the wrong reasons - Gangland.
Fortunately, developer Sirius Games has learned from its previous misjudgements. For instance, you can now save anywhere in the single-player story - a pretty major
Aug 15, 2007
If you read our first preview for Escape From Paradise City then you know that it's a blend the RTS and RPG genres, but, while that sounds like a great idea, you may find yourself asking how exactly will it work? Is it too much like mixing swords and Kevlar vests? - Wait, we like that idea. Well, we got to play through the first few levels on our own and can say that the game pulls off the combination in an easy to pick up and fun way.
The three playable characters all do RPGish
Retro indie platformers are a dime a dozen these days, so it's takes something truly special to stand out from the pack. Escape Goat manages that by combining an absurd premise with some complex and clever puzzles...
