One of the hottest games of the fall was the shooter / RPG title from Gearbox, Borderlands. Recently, we were fortunate enough to get to sit down with Matthew Armstrong, the Director of Borderlands, to talk about the recently released Zombie Island of Dr. Ned DLC, as well as the upcoming Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot.

Gaming Today: Could you tell our readers a little bit more about yourself, your role in the development of Borderlands, and what you do at Gearbox?

Matthew Armstrong: Matthew Armstrong, I was director of Borderlands. Right now I’m just one of a group of extremely talented people working on DLC.

Q: You’ve recently announced the Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC. Coming so close on the heels of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, it begs the question: How much DLC can fans of Borderlands expect to see beyond Mad Moxxi?

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I don’t know about you guys, but here at Gaming Today, we’re always up for a game that includes zombies. Of late, we’ve been playing Left 4 Dead, and keeping our eyes on Killing Floor, the upcoming release from Tripwire Interactive. Killing Floor isn’t exactly a zombie game, but genetically engineered zombies are close enough for us.

If you’re a Unreal Tournament player, you may remember Killing Floor as a mod for UT2K4. Since then, the mod team behind Killing Floor has teamed up Tripwire Interactive to bring their mod to retail release as a standalone title, and it looks to have some serious potential.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with a few of the people responsible for Killing Floor. Read on to find out a little bit more about the upcoming survival horror title.

Gaming Today: Let’s get the boilerplate stuff out of the way up front. Can you tell us who you are, what your role in the production of Killing Floor is?

Alan Wilson, VP of Tripwire Interactive. I get all the non-tech stuff to do. Some writing and design, bit of voice acting this time, project management, PR and trying to manage the testing.

I’m Alex Quick. I’ve worn a few hats over the course of KFs production, but primarily I’m working as a level designer, and texture artist. Oh, and the mod this game is based on was largely my undertaking, so I’ve been pretty active in gameplay design discussions for the sake of consistency.

Dayle Flowers, Senior Programmer at Tripwire Interactive. Aside from the typical working on game play, I get much of the highly technical stuff that many people overlook and simply expect to work. I was responsible for connecting Killing Floor to the Steam system to support Authentication, the Master Server, and Perks/Achievements. [Edit: and designing a lot of that stuff, too! AW]

Dan Nassick, audio designer and musician. I’ve worked on the Killing Floor mod since 2005 and my responsibility on the audio team has been to organize a complete audio overhaul in the transition from modification to commercial game.

Myles Lambert, part of the original mod team. I get to do a great mixture of work, environmental art and level design and when I’m not working on that I’m working on some future DLC map content.

GT: So, judging from everything I’ve seen, Killing Floor is a survival horror game featuring some very interesting adversaries. Can you tell us a little bit about these zombies?

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In the past few years, games have become more and more tied to the music industry. Obviously, games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have cemented this tie, but another publisher that is putting new bands in the spotlight is EA Sports. Each of the EA Sports titles includes a number of popular songs in the jukebox, and there are always a few in there that get some great exposure out of the deal.

This year, one of those bands is up-and coming British rockers Pint Shot Riot. Recently, we were afforded the opportunity to sit down and chat with the band, specifically bass player Baby Dave. We chatted about how they got involved with EA Games, and about what kind of gamers they are as well.

Gaming Today: To get us started, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and the other members of Pint Shot Riot?

Pint Shot Riot: We are a 4 piece British rock and roll band and we love making music and playing music together. We just try to write songs that come from the heart and mean something to us.

GT: How did you first become involved with EA Games? How do you feel about having your music placed in the Sims 3 and Fight Night? Do you feel these titles expose you to the type of people that might enjoy your music?

PSR:E.A and our publishers Artwerk were scouting U.K for some fresh artists when our name came up, we met, got on and the rest is history! We feel very happy about being in their games! Obviously, we knew all about what they do and it was awesome to be asked to be part of it. All kinds of people will be buying those games so we would hope to reach people who will like it and also some people who might not of found us otherwise.

You can find the rest of the interview after the break.

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Stardock released its new distribution platform, Impulse, just a few weeks ago and I’ve already found myself using it all the time. Whether it’s the dock or the store of any of the other features it sports at this early stage, there’s a lot to Impulse, and I was interested in finding out more about the platform’s future.

In the games space, it feels like nothing more than a competitor to Steam, but Stardock CEO Brad Wardell explained that there’s much, much more that they have planned. Whether that’s the ability to easily jump into a game with friends or download all of your software and games at the click of a button, Stardock certainly has lofty hopes for Impulse. Brad shared with me his ideal scenario for what Impulse will ultimately be capable of, and it sounds phenomenal — I’m very excited to see where things go from here.

You can read the full interview after the break.

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Coming this Fall to a PC near you is Akella’s newest RPG/strategy title Disciples III: Renaissance. This is the third installment in the popular Disciples series and builds on the successes of the first two games by introducing a host of new features as well as the same style of gameplay that made the previous titles popular. This will be the first time in the series that the gloomy world of Disciples will be rendered in full 3D by using the Virtual Dream engine which will in turn allow players to experience this realm as it should be.

As a Lord of one of the fantastical races of Nevendaar, players must fight to restore their deity’s rule over the world by choosing one of three playable races: the Empire, the Elven Alliance and the notorious Legion of the Damned – each with its own unique units and city design. Advances have also been made in the gameplay which will allow increased fluidity in multiplayer games and less downtime when playing alone, while a new upgrade system allows the player to assign attributes to their leaders. The RPG inventory system in Disciples III has been tweaked and now includes player stats and abilities along with visual representation of character’s equipped armor, weapons and artifacts.

Recently, we were given the opportunity to ask Marina Vashurina from .dat, the developers behind Disciples III, to tell our readers a bit more about the third installment in this popular RPG franchise, and explain to us what makes Disciples III different from the other RPGs that seem to have oversaturatting the market lately.

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Sometimes it seems like we live in a world that expects video games to be nothing but toys that cater exclusively to children and avoid controversy at all costs. In times like these, it’s actually a little refreshing to have a game like The Club coming out soon. In this game, the focus is less on story and more on killing tons of enemies as quickly and stylishly as possible. By now, most of us have played the demo for the game, but we’ll still have to wait until next week to see the full product. To get some more insight on what went into creating The Club, we decided to go to Bizarre Creations’ Community and Web Lead, Ben Ward, for some insider info. Full interview after the break. Read the full article »

These days, great music and video games seem to go hand in hand. There are of course the more obvious examples like the soundtracks for the Guitar Hero games and Rock Band, but in recent years it seems many sports titles have provided an opportunity for lesser-known bands to gain a fresh audience. One such band is Jupiter One.

If you’ve played an EA sports title in the past few months, odds are you’ve heard at least one of their songs. Named after a supposedly ill-fated spaceship from the Lost in Space TV show, this New York-based band has made a name for themselves with their energetic indie style. Their tracks appeared in a hat trick of popular games in the past few months, including Madden 08, FIFA 08, and NHL 08. Now that Burnout Paradise will also be including one of their songs, we thought we’d ask them a few questions about what it’s like to have their music served up with video games. Read the full article »

If you’re a gamer and you’ve ever been left alone with a TV set at some point in the past few years, odds are you’ve seen G4TV’s X-Play. The show, known for on-target game reviews and hilarious comedy sketches featuring hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb, has been around long enough to change their format, title, and even network before. And now, the series’ producers are ramping up for another big change to make the program into a half-hour of solid, current gaming news starting January 14th. I spoke with executive producer for X-Play, Wade Beckett, today over the phone about what sort of changes you can expect to see and generally why this may soon be the best source for witty and informative gaming news on your TV. Full transcript of our conversation after the break.

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We all know Team Awesome, or at the very least, of their work. And if you don’t, shame on you. Team Awesome is the group behind the excellent Contra and Punch-Out!! trailers which you’ve undoubtedly seen around the ‘net. I recently had a chance to speak with Team Awesome about everything from what inspired them to Big League Chew.

Seriously.

First off, there’s a question on the mind of every Team Awesome fan out there: How many years of grueling acting school did the entirety of Team Awesome attend before becoming so awesome?

We’d like to take the time to thank our teachers, Uta Hagen, Stella Adler and Constantin Stanislavski…ok, so those aren’t our teachers, but they’re the most famous ones we know. All of us have done some acting in the past, but Natasha is the only bona fide actor. Oddly enough, she gets the least amount of screen time. That’s just how we roll.

Schooling was an important aspect for the videos, however. Steve (The Vaj) studied music composition and sound technology, and Andy and Nathan went to school to study filmmaking.

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We’ve all been watching as Clive Barker’s Jericho hit stores recently (It’s on Gametap as well). After all, there’s never anything wrong with a quality, horror-based shooter, especially one that bears the legendary name of Clive Barker. But what makes a horror story great? It’s the monsters, of course!

Now, courtesy of the folks over at Codemasters, we’re going to bring you some exclusive artwork showing off the monsters you’ll encounter in Jericho. Not only that, but we’ve included a short Q&A session with Lead Designer Joe Falke. Find out what it’s like working with the visions of Clive Barker firsthand.

You can find more images, and the complete interview after the break.

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