Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
Indie studio Brain In A Jar tells us of their Steam Greenlight experience with Indianapolis 500: Evolution.
TPCG: Tell us a little about Indianapolis 500 Evolution.
BIAJ: Indianapolis 500: Evolution was originally made as an Xbox 360 game back in 2008. Unfortunately it didn’t really see the light of day back then as the publisher ran into some troubles and the US version saw only a limited release. The European version, which had passed Microsoft submission, didn’t see the light of day at all. We were pretty disappointed but had to accept that the game was gone. Then, in late 2011 Indianapolis Motor Speedway Licensing contacted us as they had reacquired the rights to the games. We suggested an updated PC version, they thought it was a good idea, an agreement was signed and Brain in a Jar started updating the game ready for PC on Steam.
TPCG: What is the importance of Steam as digital platform to Indianapolis 500 Evolution?
BIAJ: Steam is very important to us. It provides an incredible backbone of support for matchmaking, leaderboards, community and management of the game itself once it goes live. Without Steam it probably would not have been possible for us to consider the transition.
TPCG: Brain in a Jar has been a multiformat indie for over a decade now, could Greenlight be considered a somewhat inconvenient hurdle for an experienced developer like you?
BIAJ: Greenlight has sparked some pretty mixed emotions for us. On the one hand it provides the opportunity to try to build an audience for the game from the great community of Steam players, but on the other it’s an open ended process, with currently no real way knowing how many visitors to the page are converting into Yes voters. As one of the early games to post to Greenlight the first weeks were very confusing, the information available on the public page and our own submission page changed regularly. Now that it has settled down and the joke and copycat submissions have been pretty much eradicated it has the potential to be a great way of self publishing games. For us though the toughest hurdle now is generating traffic to our Greenlight page and those all important Yes votes so we can get the game out there, and take everyone on at the world famous Indianapolis 500!
TPCG: If Indianapolis 500 Evolution does get Greenlit, would that pave the way for more Greenlight submissions from Brain in a Jar?
BIAJ: Without a doubt if the game gets Greenlit and we manage to build a good audience for it we will submit more games to Greenlight in the future. We already have some ideas and designs we are working on that we think would work really well on Steam.
AS MUCH OF A REVOLUTION AS WAS PROMISED?
Read More
If there’s one image that encapsulates the Assassin’s Creed series, it’s that of a hooded figure balancing atop some skyscraping parapet, looking down into the city below. It’s a snapshot that shows off a lot of what makes these games special – their incredible attention to detail, breath-taking verticality, fascinating architecture, unique historical settings - but it also represents their limitations. Assassin’s Creed games are easy to admire, but you often feel a bit distanced from them, too, held back from inhabiting these worlds as fully as you’d like to. You’ve always been on the outside looking in.
Not so with Assassin’s Creed III, which hauls the series across the ocean into a new setting that’s absolutely bursting with things to do. It turns a fascinating section of history into a vast open-world playground, letting you conquer the rooftops, stalk the forests and sail the seas of revolutionary America and authoring a main storyline that puts you in the middle of some of the most important events of the period, like a fly on the wall of history. It’s all about enjoying the freedom of movement the game affords you and immersing yourself in its world, as well as setting up the set-piece assassinations that form the climax of each chapter.
Where the storyline missions usually follow a pattern of gathering information, stalking and eventually killing a high-profile target (with the odd naval mission or large-scale battle thrown in for variety), outside of that you're free to do whatever you want: hunt for trinkets, clamber over the rooftops of New York in search of almanac pages, or pick fights with the Redcoats on behalf of the populace. There is a vast amount of content in this game, from liberating Boston and New York to building up a homestead on the frontier to sailing the high seas to just enjoying the outdoors and hunting wildlife. But perhaps because Assassin's Creed III is so huge, it can be pretty inconsistent. It attempts an astonishing amount, and doesn’t always succeed.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Far Cry 3 will its own improved version of the user-friendly level editor that shipped with Far Cry 2. That’s according to a report from Far Cry 2 mapper Fallen Champ, who visited the Ubisoft Massive studio in Malmo, Sweden, earlier this month and got an early look at the updated tools. He’s posted plenty of details of his experience on the Ubisoft forums.
The vibrant jungles of Far Cry 3′s islands means plenty of new themes and terrain types to experiment with. Town, Temple, Airport, Village, Mines, Radio Tower, World War 2 and more are listed as asset types. Different types of water and waterfalls will be available and a tunneling tool should allow for more inventive caves and hidden routes. Mappers will also be able to drop AI-driven NPCs into maps to test out combat, though it sounds as though full maps can’t be exported if they contain NPC animals and pirates, which suggests we won’t be able to create co-op maps with the tools.
There’s always a chance that modders will make their way around that particular limitation. We’ll find out soon enough. Far Cry 3 is out on November 29 in Europe and Australia, November 30 in the UK and December 4 in North America, and it’s rather good. Find out why in our Far Cry 3 review, and see the Far Cry 3 level editor in action in the video below from Platform 32.
It’s happening again. PCGamesN report that Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 are not available on the Steam store in the UK, mirroring the fate of a number of EA games in the last year or so.
“We’ve been in discussions with Valve about Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3, but for the time being the games are not available via Steam in the UK,” Ubisoft told PCGN. “In the meantime, UK customers wishing to purchase either of these games can do so by visiting the Uplay store, our retail partners or other digital distributors. Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 are available on Steam in other regions outside the UK.”
EA have previously explained that a desire to retain full control of the patching and updating process motivated their split with Steam. “We take direct responsibility for providing patches, updates, additional content and other services to our players. You are connecting to our servers, and we want to establish on ongoing relationship with you” wrote Origin head, David DeMartini on the Origin blog back in July 2011.
Ubisoft have rebooted their Uplay service recently, and its verification procedures and achievements are built into FC3 and AC3. It’s odd that they’d disappear from the UK store and remain available in the US. Hopefully they’ll re-appear, as Brink eventually did.
Source : pcgamer.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)