At this year’s PAX, one of the games that seemed to constantly have a long line of anxious gamers waiting to play it was the upcoming PS3-exclusive, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Luckily, while I was there, I got a chance to talk with Sam Thompson, one of the producers for the game. He discussed how the highly-advanced animation system in Uncharted differs from most video games, and how the complex story will unfold throughout the game. You can check out my impression of the demo they had on display here (to summarize: it’s really really good), and read the full interview below. Read the full article »

Hard to be a God is a new RPG from Akella (Tales of Pirates) slated for release sometime in December, and recently we here at Gaming Today were given the opportunity to speak with Hard to be a God lead designer Stephan Vakhtin. This interesting RPG is not going to be your average hack and slash or dungeon crawler, but something more in the realm of science fiction at its most intriguing.

GT: Please introduce yourself to our readers and tell them a little bit about Hard to be a God.

Stephan Vakhtin: Hello! My name is Stephan Vakhtin, and I am the leading designer of project Hard to be a God. Well, Hard to be a God is both a hack’n’slash and role-playing game. The events in the game take place in a universe depicted in the novel of the same name, written by the Strugatsky brothers. But the storyline of the game doesn’t repeat what’s happening in the book, but rather continues it. The action in the game takes place about two years later after the events described in the novel. Hard to be a God is a third-person-view game featuring dynamic combat, many weapons and fighting techniques and also a well thought-out and diverse role-playing system. Also, special attention has been paid to in-game dialogs and the storyline.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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In case you haven’t heard of Rumble Fighter, it’s the free to play action game focused on fighting from OGPlanet. Recently, Gaming Today was lucky enough to sit down with Jack Liu, the Cofounder and Chief Creative Officer at OGPlanet, to ask him a few questions regarding this fun martial arts inspired game with its patented “Exocore” system.

GT: Please introduce yourself and tell our readers a little about Rumble Fighter.

Jack Liu: Hello Gaming Today, I’m Jack Liu – Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at OGPlanet. Since OGPlanet is a video game company, being the chief creative dude pretty much means I get to dabble in everything the company does – from game localization and production, to overseeing our community department and marketing strategy. But ultimately, my job is simply to make sure all of our players have as much fun as possible when they launch one of our titles. This makes me really excited to introduce our newest online game – Rumble Fighter. On the surface, Rumble Fighter is a melee style fighting game, featuring up to 8-player battle modes where players can either gang up in teams, or duke it out on their own in true last-man-standing fashion. But what really sets this title apart from any other online fighting game is in the customization options players have when building their fighters. Not only can you alter your appearance (facial features, costumes, accessories, etc.), but Rumble Fighter features a “Sacred Scroll” system that allows players to choose from a wide variety of actual fighting methods, each with their own distinct style and special combo moves. Like ninjas? Then go with Ninjitsu. Dig Bruce? Then go with Jeetkundo. From Taekwondo to Kungfu, classic Boxing to Jujitsu, Rumble Fighter gives players the freedom to create their version of the ultimate fighter. The entire game is free to play but features upgradeable items that can either be bought with in-game points (known as Carats), or with OGPlanet’s universal cyber-cash (Astros). Players can upgrade their fighters purely through the use of Carats by simply collecting them as they play, but may choose to spend some real money for premium items that are not available for Carats. The beauty of this system is that it allows players to decide how much they want to spend, if anything at all, within Rumble Fighter.

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Its not every day an interesting new Source based game can grab the attention of jaded players but Left 4 Dead, the upcoming co-operative multiplayer survival horror game from Turtle Rock Studios and Valve is garnering a lot of attention. The collaboration of the two studios previously produced Counterstrike: Condition Zero and with the new game the focus is more on survival of the fittest.With QuakeCon in full swing this weekend, we took the opportunity to conduct an interview with Chet “Mr. Awesome” Faliszek who is a writer and contributor for Left 4 Dead who works at Valve.

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Recently Sparter, a virtual currency commodity broker for MMORPG games, entered the market with their Gamer2Gamer website services. There has been some debate regarding what makes this startup any different from the IGE’s and gold farming operations that are proliferating in the virtual game worlds many of us spend hours enjoying. Sparter’s stated aim is to make the RTE market safer for gamers by reducing fraud and working with developers to let gamers who want to spend real money for virtual capitol leverage a rating and protection system to conduct their business.

Before our interview with the owners of Sparter at E3 this year I had an opportunity to interview Dan Kelly and Boris Putanec on GameOn!. Gaming Today readers commenting on our E3 piece indicated they didn’t buy the load of goods Sparter was selling for the MMO industry with their gamer-to-gamer initiative so I thought it might be interesting to dig up the original interview and publish it here for folks to read.

Going into the interview, as I state at one point, I was ready to attack the concept. I’d read the information, I’d done the research, but I was not convinced that Sparter was looking out for gamers the way the site claimed so I took the opportunity to ask Dan and Boris about the company and its goals. Here is a transcript of the podcast interview in its entirety.. and embarrassingly at points.. unedited. (it looks funny to read a transcript of what you say.)

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NCSoft has several MMO projects in the works. One of the most interesting, and most secretive, is Aion. While we weren’t able to see a lot of the gameplay, we were able to get a look at where things stand with the upcoming title.

Players will choose between two factions, the Asmodion and the Elios. In addition to the player factions, there will also be a faction populated entirely by NPC’s, known as the Baalor. Aion takes place in a world that has been split in two by cataclysmic forces, leaving the two halves connected by the Tower of Eternity. There is a dark half of the world, so called because the sun rarely reaches it; and a light half below. In the area between the two halves, know as the Abyss, the Baalor reside.

Right of the gate, Aion’s visuals are stunning. The game looks gorgeous, and honestly, looks ready to release graphically. There is a lot of detail utilized to give the game atmosphere, and to make the world seem immersive. It’s not surprising, since the title is running on a heavily modified version of the CryEngine.

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