Here’s a look at eight new levels for Quake Arena Arcade. The Arena Gate map, which came with Quake 3, is included in the 40 original maps from Arena and Team Arena will be included in the bundle. The latest generation of the classic first-person shooter is headed to the Xbox 360.

According to GamerBytes, Pi Studios is getting busy with a dedicated site for Quake Arena Arcade coming online soon. Unlike certain other titles that have turned out to be big teases, it looks like you and up to 15 of your friends will actually be able to duke it out to see who has the mad skilz.

ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, has acquired id Software. This acquisition puts franchises like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Doom, Quake, and RAGE under one roof. The best news out of all of this is that all of the principals at id Software have signed long term contracts, meaning that id will continue to operate under the same management going forward.

In discussing the deal, id Technical Director and industry icon John Carmack said, “This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward. We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

So, what sort of speculation can we make because of this deal? Bethesda games driven by id engines? That would seem to be a logical step, wouldn’t you think? What do you think this news means to the future of the two companies?

You can read the full text of the press release after the break.

ZeniMax Media Acquires id Software

Brings together two of world’s best game studios

Library of powerhouse franchises will include DOOM, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls,
QUAKE, Wolfenstein and RAGE

June 24, 2009 (Rockville, MD) – ZeniMax Media Inc., parent company of noted game publisher Bethesda Softworks, today announced it has completed the acquisition of legendary game studio, id Software, creators of world-renowned games such as DOOM, QUAKE, Wolfenstein, and its upcoming title, RAGE. The acquisition by ZeniMax Media joins together two of the finest, most respected videogame developers in the world, combining the first person shooter (FPS) expertise of id Software with acclaimed role playing game (RPG) developer Bethesda Game Studios – creators of the 2008 Game of the Year, Fallout 3, and the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Bethesda Softworks will publish the titles of id Software other than upcoming releases previously committed to other publishers.

Founded in 1991, id Software established itself as an industry leader with some of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed video games of all time. id Software created the original first-person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D, and subsequently set new standards in the genre with the blockbuster releases of its DOOM and QUAKE titles. In addition, id Software developed cutting edge, proprietary technology with the id Tech engine which powers many notable FPS titles, and continues to make great advances in game technology under the direction of John Carmack, one of the country’s technology leaders and a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) Hall of Fame.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, commented on the transaction: “This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles. In addition, we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans.”

id Software will continue to operate as a studio under the direction of its founder, John Carmack. No changes will be made in the operations of id Software in the development of its games. All the principals at id Software have signed long-term employment contracts, assuring they will continue in their roles developing games at the studio.

“This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward,” said John Carmack, who will continue to serve in his current role as Technical Director. “We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

Robert Altman, the founder, Chairman & CEO of ZeniMax Media stated, “We, along with many others, consider id Software to be among the finest game studios in the world, with extraordinary design, artistic and technical capabilities. They have demonstrated, repeatedly, that rare ability to create franchise properties that are critical and commercial successes. Our intention is to make sure id Software will continue to do what they do best – make AAA games. Our role will be to provide publisher support through Bethesda Softworks and give id Software the resources it needs to grow and expand.”

ZeniMax Media Inc, which is privately held, was founded in 1999 to create quality interactive entertainment products to meet the growing worldwide demand. The Company is headquartered in Rockville, MD and maintains offices in Hunt Valley, MD, London and Tokyo. Among its wholly owned subsidiaries are Bethesda Softworks, a premier publisher of video games, Vir2L Studios which develops games for the casual market, and ZeniMax Online Studios, a studio dedicated to massively multi-player online games (MMOG).

Bethesda Game Studios, the development group at ZeniMax Media, is one of the top video game studios in the world. Its most recent release, Fallout 3, was the 2008 winner of more than 60 Game of the Year awards, including The Associated Press, Official Xbox Magazine, Yahoo, PC Gamer, IGN, Game Critics Awards, Game Developer Choice Awards, and Gamespy. Bethesda also created the 2006 PC and Xbox 360® Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and the 2002 PC and Xbox® Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Bethesda Game Studios has created 2 of the 10 best games of all time, Fallout 3 and Oblivion, on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation® 3 platforms, as reported by the industry scoring system found at www.metacritic.com and www.gamerankings.com.

While using the classic game as a promotion tool worked well for me with Quake 4 and Doom 3 (Quake 2 was included as a pack in bonus on the 360 Quake 4 Collector’s Edition, and the original Doom was bundled with Doom 3 on the Xbox) I know I’m going to pick this one up just to relive the glory of killing cyborg Mecha-Hitler as B.J. Blaskowitz, Ultimate American Hero.

The downloadable version will include all 60 original levels and still maintains its original “M” rating – though I admit I still find the gunned down nazi blood animations rivetting its hard to see this in comparison to a modern violent “M” rated title.

After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” – Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III – Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 – Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R – Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 – new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

The original Doom has been ported just about everywhere by now. It can be downloaded through Xbox Live, it can be played on your DS with a mod, and it can even be played as in RPG-form on your cell phone. Well now, the classic FPS has shown up in yet another placed: your web browser. One programmer on NewGrounds has now recreated the entire first episode of the series in Flash 10. It may not have music, and the controls are a little different, but now you can blast through the legions of Hell on almost any computer.

You can check out the Flash version of Doom for yourself here.

Today we are proud to post some progress on our TC development statuses. Yes, the plural form. As many of you know we are developing a total conversion called Resistance, but we decided to start again with the development of Trek Battles 3.

Read: NG Total Conversion Development News
More Star Trek: Legacy News: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

A new month and a progress report on what is going on with Aftermath. This news post will take a different direction to all the previous ones as this one there will be some bad news but there is good news too. It not all doom and gloom.

Read:Aftermath News: Change of Pace and a New Team Member
More Star Trek: Legacy News: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

Read: Large Newspost from the XWW2 mod
More Battlefield 2 News: FileFront’s Battlefield 2 Files

Read:Black Mesa source – A celebration of the last decade!
More Half-Life 2 News: FileFront’s Half-Life 2 Files

Read:Visions Of Chaos Lord Of Change Preview and Updates
More Dawn of War: Soulstorm News: FileFront’s Dawn of War: Soulstorm Files

Once again we welcome back [i]Ace40k[/i] to the stage so that he can deliver to you, the Company of Heroes gamer the next version of his extremely popular sound modification! If you enjoyed his previous release…or, if you missed out on it, and you are of the mind that the weapon sounds that you hear while playing Company of Heroes lack that certain something, then count yourself lucky, as you are about to download a mod that will improve what you hear!

Download: Ace40k’s Sound Mod
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Stargate : La Releve (”The Relief” in English) is a French mod developed on the Battlefield 2 engine. The ambiance of the TV show is reincarnated in video game form to give you a new battlefield experience.

Download: Stargate: La Relève
More Battlefield 2: FileFront’s Battlefield 2 Files

dev_akm is now carrying over development after Oscuro’s retirement; Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul aims to make Oblivion a much more interesting, challenging, realistic and dangerous place, and also offers great rewards for the daring adventurer regardless of your level.

Download: Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul (v1.32f)
More Oblivion: FileFront’s The Elder Scrolls Files

Download: Commanders Revenges Extreme Edition
More Supreme Commander: FileFront’s Supreme Commander Files

Fast Fun and Crazy : Lite is a modification that edits a lot of the different units and structures in the game. This modification tries to make the gameplay faster while trying not to go out of control or unbalanced.

Download: Fast Fun and Crazy: Lite (v0.230)
More Command and Conquer: FileFront’s CnC 3 Files

Download: Silenced M21
More CoD 4: FileFront’s Call of Duty Files

Download: Otherworld Episode 1 Beta (v2)
More Oblivion: FileFront’s The Elder Scrolls Files

Download: =AaTc= Jet Mod
More Star Wars Battlefront: FileFront’s Star Wars Battlefront Files

Download: Experimentals Wars
More Supreme Commander: FileFront’s Supreme Commander Files

Making a return engagement, ab2531 has submitted his updated version to his super-popular mod! NHCmod is what you want to download if you’re looking for a more juiced-up Company of Heroes!

Download: NHCmod | OF
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Download:Aliens vs. Predator 2 Master Server Patch
More Aliens vs Predator 2: FileFront’s Aliens vs Predator 2 Files

Download: Voice Chat Icons

More Return to castle Wolfenstein: FileFront’s Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Files

This is a nice surprise…a very useful mod by our buddy, Jose: “Throwable” objects! First order of business….the PK3 is named “throwable_sfutt.pk3″ Sfutt? Made me laugh…..sfutt. XD

Sorry, just had to point that out.

Download: Throwable Stuff
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Open up your bandwidth and submit! Submit, I tell ya! MUHAHAHAHAHA!! …errm *cough* yeah. Dartborne is here with what would appear to be the largest of the mods that are at your disposal…this bad boy weighs is at a whopping 430+ megs! And it is worth every kilobyte!

Download: Dartborne Mod
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Ever felt like your German potato masher just wasn’t enough? Well this is definitely your fix, how about not two potato mashers, but six of them! These grenades actually existed during World War Two under the name Geballte Ladung. Probably something pretty hard to scream as you are running away from it in battle.

Download: Big German Grenade (1.0)
More CoD 2: FileFront’s Call of Duty Files

Faction commander is a powerful mod that allows you to dictate orders that your faction follows. The command system of this mod is composed of six types of commands and three classes of action codes.

Download: Faction Commander
More Stalker: FileFront’s Stalker Files

It wasn’t long ago when GobDemoMaster gave us a mod where we could open doors that were locked in the game Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Now he has come through with yet another version!

Download: Restored Doors/Rooms

More Knights of the Old Republic II: FileFront’s Knights of the Old Republic II Files

This is a simple tweak to saber colors and trails. By simple, I mean that a person who knows what they’re doing can probably replicate these effects in 10 minutes or less. I don’t think this 10 minutes was wasted, though.

Download: SM Cool saber effects
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Download: AOE Sound Pack

More Return to castle Wolfenstein: FileFront’s Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Files

Finally, what many Revolt fans have been waiting for, Revolt 4x — a version of Revolt you can play without crashing your entire game! smile This version features a number of key bug fixes that contributed to the instability of previous versions of the oldest CoD total conversion!

Download: Revolt 4x UO (Final)
More CoD: United Offensive: FileFront’s Call of Duty Files

After a bit of an absence, we are lucky to have Robin back with us to once again‘ wow’ you with some fantastic Far Cry adventure! This time your gaming experience will get a little spooky, with a bit of a dark ambiance…so if you’re scared of things that go bump in the night, then you shouldn’t leave furniture in the hallway…and you shouldn’t visit the far away island Lucifer Island!
Download: rll_Lucifer Island
More Far Cry: FileFront’s Far Cry Files

A Peaceful Moment is a screen shot captured by the author depicting a German officer overlooking a river beside a bridge. It actually is a quite peaceful screen shot, it’s a nice change of pace from all the action packed screen shots that are regularly viewed. This picture can also be used as a wallpaper if it fits your fancy.
Download: A Peaceful Moment
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

From the maker of the popular mappack: Insomnia, this developer has decided to create, and release, another map in the [i]‘Hell’[/i] style. WarlorD69 has stated that he made this map with the intentions of it being both beautiful and terrible…a tough combination to pull off, if you ask me! however, I think that he has done a fine job of it!
Download: Kings Cemetery
More Doom III: FileFront’s Doom III Files

For those of you that enjoyed the original release (and those of you that may have missed it) bigdane is back to tantalize you with his newest version! All of you sniper-lovers, don’t fret, there are still plenty of places to pick from…Essentially, Crater Lake (v2) is more or less, a total remake of the original Crater Lake, which will provide you with even more Far Cry 2 goodness and some serious Assault action!
Download: Crater Lake (v2)
More Far Cry 2: FileFront’s Far Cry 2 Files

The Last Palace is a 4 player map based on a war torn city in which 2 players start at a ruined Imperial Palace. This map is greatly detailed with craters, bombed out buildings, building rubble, and etc are littered throughout the map to give that warn torn city look; and coupled with custom decals, it just adds more to the experience.

Download: The Last Palace
More Dawn of War Dark Crusade: FileFront’s Dawn of War Dark Crusade Files

Download: Game_Jedi’s Map Pack

More Star Wars Battlefront 2: FileFront’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 Files

Download: rpg_dy100a
More Elite Force: FileFront’s Elite Force Files

Lafayette is a very small map that is built for 4 players mainly designed for instant action as the game starts due to how the points are laid out. Teams start at forested regions of the map which are located at opposing sides of the map and a road way is located in the middle.

Download: Lafayette
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Nope, this isn’t based on the firm, but rather a map from D2tm called Tropic Thunder Here we have a eight player map that is based on the topical landscape which isn’t done that bad; added in are few foliage, trees, canopy and the like to make the map more detailed.

Download: Tropic Thunder
More Dawn of War: FileFront’s Dawn of War Files

Far Cry 2: Canyon

Hot on the heels of the release that was just mirrored, DobiKuba has gone about sending in another rather large map to rouse the old killer instinct in you and to show off his mapping skills!

Download: Canyon
More Far Cry 2: FileFront’s Far Cry 2 Files

Before we begin I will hold up my hands and admit I’m a Final Fantasy fan, I attend regular mettings to kick the habbit so wish me luck there. Anyhow, FF VII being my favorite of the series I just had to grab this file and set traps around it to keep those other reviewers off. Now onto the review…..

Download: Final Fantasy VII Compilation
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Download: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-F.I.L.E.S.-Computer Screen
More Stalker: FileFront’s Stalker Files

This is the Guardian Class, Oberth refit. Many of you should recognize this baby as it has popped up in a few news posts recently. Well its been a good wait for this to be finally done and dusted and props to Phoenix for getting her finished! Phoenix has also uploaded this as an entry to the ever growing list of entries to the Starship Contests.

Download: Federation Guardian Class
More Star Trek: Legacy: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

Download: SM Steel Lasersword
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Download: Colt-1911- Texture -
More Stalker: FileFront’s Stalker Files

This is the Ambassador class and “Late Refit” originally released for BC by LC/Legacy and ported to Legacy by yopyop. This is a really high quality model which showcases yopyop’s impressive reworking of LC’s impressive model from BC.

Download: Ambassador Class
More Star Trek: Legacy: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

Again, we regret that we cannot provide you with this weeks Demos, Patches and trailer. We apologize for the inconvenience! For now, here are the links to redirect you.

Earlier today we filed a report from the Austin Game Developers Conference in which id Software lead designer Tim Willits stated the storage capacity of DVDs on the Xbox 360 had forced id to alter content from its upcoming shooter Rage. During his discussion on storytelling and technology he mentioned that he “wouldn’t say the overall story was changed in any way in order to fit on the Xbox 360 version, but how the player experiences Rage’s story has been altered.” It wasn’t just disappointing to hear the game would be changed because of such an obstacle, but that it was also going to affect the PS3 and PC versions of the game. It didn’t take more than a quick glance at comments on the original story to see that gamers were none too pleased with the news.

However, following all the online reaction to the story Tim released a statement to Shacknews in which he clarified his statements, saying, “There was NO CONTENT removed from RAGE because of the 360–NONE AT ALL,” before adding, “We feel the 360 is a great platform and will provide a fantastic Rage experience.”

You could argue that first point isn’t entirely true, as id has said on more than one occasion that the Xbox 360 version won’t look as good as the PC/PS3 iteration due to DVD size constraints, but what did he mean by “Rage’s story has been altered” because of the Xbox 360 in his discussion earlier today, then?

“During my talk today I mentioned that we originally wanted to have around 5 or 6 smaller wasteland environments but later decided instead to have 2 larger wastelands,” he explained. “Mostly because we were going to be shipping on two DVDs for the 360 and felt that it would play better with one large wasteland on each disc so there would be no loading between wastelands.”

So while it’s reassuring to hear that no content has actually been removed from the game due size constraints (after all, degrading the graphical quality on the Xbox 360 is enough of a knock on DVDs), it’s interesting that a multiplatform game’s story and pacing is being dictated by one console’s technical specifications. We’ll be following up with id and Willits and try to bring you further details on this story as we can.

There’s no denying that piracy is a significant problem for PC game developers. While some overplay or downplay its significance, it is no doubt an issue. But consider the effect of piracy on PC hardware manufacturers. Without a top-of-the-line graphics card and processor, it doesn’t matter how many copies of Crysis you can pirate, you’re not going to do much without the hardware to run it.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, id Software vice president Tom Bramwell floated an interesting theory that PC hardware manufacturers might not be the biggest opponent of the piracy scene.

“There’s lots of things that they could do but typically just they just line up on the wrong side of the argument in my opinion,” Hollenshead claimed. “They have lots of reasons as to why they do that, but I think that there’s been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content – even if you’re supposed to pay for it on PCs – is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games.”

Asked if he thinks the manufacturers are secretly happy about the the situation, Hollenshead replied, “Yeah I think they are. I think that if you went in and could see what’s going on in their minds, though they may never say that stuff and I’m not saying there’s some conspiracy or something like that – but I think the thing is they realise that trading content, copyrighted or not, is an expected benefit of owning a computer.

“And I think that just based on their actions…what they say is one thing, but what they do is another. When it comes into debates about whether peer-to-peer file-sharing networks that by-and-large have the vast majority, I’m talking 99 per cent of the content is illicitly trading copyrighted property, they’ll come out on the side of the 1 per cent of the user doing it for legitimate benefit. You can make philosophical arguments that are difficult to debate, but at the same time you’re just sort of ignoring the enormity of the problem.”

He certainly raises a good point. You can’t come right out and say this is true without some evidence, but it seems to make too much sense to be untrue. Either way, Hollenshead probably shouldn’t count on getting any Christmas cards from Intel, AMD and Nvidia this year.

The video above is from QuakeCon, and it shows off the newest IP from id, Rage, which will combine FPS and driving action with a post-apocalyptic setting. Looks pretty sweet, doesn’t it? Well, don’t expect the same quality of visuals on the Xbox 360 version. The game’s creator, John Carmack, recently revealed that the 360 version would have to be scaled back visually due to some storage issues. Apparently, the royalty fees for a third DVD were too high to make that a viable option. Instead, the developers will have to compress the game even further to fit it on two DVDs. On the flipside, the PS3 version will be shipping on a single Blu-Ray disc, while the PC and Mac versions will release in both Blu-Ray and DVD formats. So basically, if you have the option, you might want to skip the Xbox 360 version of this game whenever it comes out.

Via ShackNews

At QuakeCon, id decided to unveil a brand new trailer for the next installment in the Wolfenstein series. As you can imagine — this being one of the earlier trailers — it shows very little in the way of gameplay. Still, you can definitely tell it’s Wolfenstein. I mean, what other game would feature Nazis, the occult, and lots of shooting…you know, that was being developed by id. Regardless, I’m sure this game will live up to its heritage, and I definitely can’t wait to play some of the new objective-based multiplayer.

Competition Details:
What: Charisma+2’s Head-to-Head Competition with any challenger at QuakeCon
Date: Thursday, July31st, Friday August 1, Saturday August 2nd
Time: varied: check Charisma+2 booth for details
Location: The “Charisma+2 presents QuakeCon Girls After Hours” Booth

Gamers who’s egos are easily bruised should be content to just watch. These ladies have an average of 13 years of gaming experience across different genres and platforms. For more on Charisma+2 read the full article on PRWeb.

Right off the bat, I was in a sour mood entering EA’s press conference. This was mostly due to the fact that they held it in the Orpheum Theater, which was several annoying blocks away from the main convention hall (whereas every other sane developer has chosen to hold their events near the main hall or at least provide shuttle service to their events). I warmed up a bit though after I got seated and was treated to some surprisingly good-looking games, along with a few duds. After an opening video running through most of their upcoming games, John Riccitello, the president of EA, kicked things off by pretty much getting on stage and saying that he was going to leave it to the developers to talk about their projects. From there, it was basically one impressive showing after another (with a few mind-numbingly dull ones just to remind us that it was a press conference).

Rod Humble, the head of The Sims Studio, came out first to talk about (what else?) the Sims brand. He started off by debuting a new game called “SimAnimals,” which is pretty much what it sounds like: you’ll be able to control a community of animals and have them interact with each other. The main feature for this is that the interface is incredibly simplistic. A new trailer showed a floating hand being used to pick up animals and place them elsewhere in the world and even grabbing trees and reshaping the landscape. There’s also some dynamics between “good” and “bad” animals, with bears and foxes trying to kill squirrels for example. It looks pretty tame, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it went on to sell plenty of copies. That game is set to be released for the Wii and DS in January 2009. He also showed off a new trailer for the highly-anticipated Sims 3. It was kind of a goofy video, but the game does look a few leaps and bounds more complex than The Sims 2.

Next up was Glen Schofield with EA Redwood Shores, who had one big title to show off with Dead Space. His whole presentation was basically an impressive live demo of the game. It started with the protagonist checking his weapons so the developers can show off the in-game HUD. Your inventory, for example, is displayed as if it were in the game world, allowing you to move the camera around it. From the he enters and area that’s suddenly locked down for “biocontainment” (i.e. “big freakin’ monster about to eat your organs”). A big monster jumps out and roars, while the main character backs off and draws a weapon. He starts taking shots at the monster and occasionally getting knocked back by it. Eventually he manages to blow off some limbs and bring the thing down. The whole scene was quite a spectacle and definitely felt tense. The demo ended by having the main character suddenly grabbed by a big tentacle, trying to shoot his way out, and ultimately getting dragged into the darkness. This game is going to scare the crap out of me when it’s released on October 21st.

The European Studio head, Patrick Soderlund, was up next with a live demo for Mirror’s Edge. It basically showed a quick run-through of a portion of a mission. The whole time, the audience “oohed” and “aahed” and gasped when it seemed like the person playing the demo was about to plunge to their death. Overall though, the game looks a lot like Prince of Persia in the first-person; and I mean that as a compliment. The game’s main character, Faith, has about the same skill set as the Prince: balancing on narrow ledges, jumping huge gaps, running along walls, etc. She can also use a variety of combat moves to disarm opponents and beat them down. Lately, I’ve been thinking of it as kind of the “Assassin’s Creed” of this year; that is, a really unique and interesting game that a lot of people are going to love, and a lot of people are going to hate.

Will Wright took the stage afterwards to talk about Spore and steal the show in my opinion. His whole presentation was filled with tongue-in-cheek humor and some great examples of how even just the Spore Creature Creator has far surpassed their expectations. For instance, their goal of 100,000 creatures in their database by September was met in 22 hours (a fun fact he stated: there are now more creatures in the Spore database than there actually are in existence). He stressed the fusion of science and creativity when it came to designing Spore, and topped the whole thing off with a new trailer. I don’t think there was anyone in that room doubting that Spore is going to be one of the biggest and most innovative games ever.

Following that was another well-known name in the industry: Peter Moore, who came to talk about EA Sports. These aren’t exactly the most thrilling titles around, and Moore seemed to know that since he brought in a few celebrity spokespeople. For NBA Live 09, he was accompanied by NBA Hall of Famer, Bill Walton, who then went on to crack up the entire audience. They discussed the new “dynamic DNA” system for the game, which will analyze how strong players are in certain situations — this information will be updated daily during the season. Moore also announced the new “All-Play” brand of games, which basically provides some optional assistance in games to make it more accessible to some people. To demonstrate this, he played some Tiger Woods 09 on the Wii against pro-golfer (and super-leggy) Natalie Gublis. The games weren’t all that interesting, but the demonstrations sure were.

Then came the lull in the show; the part that seemed to just have one unimpressive announcement after another. EA Online reps came out to discuss their new “Nucleus” system whcih basically gives you a gamer profile for EA games. You’ll also use this profile for microtransactions (there was lots of muttering from the audience at that point). Shawn Fanning (yes, the Napster guy) announced “Rupture,” which is essentially another type of gamer profile with achievements. The only distinctive feature seemed to be the fact that you can create your own achievement and challenge your friends. Then Travis Boatman from EA Mobile was up next to talk about EA’s line-up for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I actually felt kind of sorry for him up there, especially when he asked if anyone in the audience had an iPhone and only ten people raised their hands.

Then we came back to the exciting bits; or so we though. Greg Zeschuk from BioWare came out to debut the first trailer for their new game Dragon Age Origins. Frankly, the trailer wasn’t impressive at all. All it showed was a cinematic of a human army and a monster army running at each other; it was like watching The Lord of the Rings.

Gabe Newell from Valve walked out on the stage next, looking like he’d just woken up from a nap…and proceeded to wow the audience with some new details on Left 4 Dead. For one, the game will actually include two-player splitscreen (good news to those who get tired of having their Xbox-less friends being out of luck). For another, the game will include a “director,” which will shape the game based on how you play and reward you for playing well. To demonstrate this, he showed two clips of two different groups. The first group hadn’t been playing well and were low on ammo and health, so they only had to deal with a couple zombies running at them. The second group had been organized and playing well, so they had to deal with a dozen zombies; but they got a crazy explosion for a finale when they defeated them. This game is definitely going to develop a following once it’s released.

The last presentation came as a surprise. Riccitello took the stage briefly to announce a new partnership with id to produce their titles (a job previously in the hands of Activision) and then introduced John Carmack. Unfortunately, all we really got from Carmack was that we’ll hear more from them at QuakeCon. However, he did end the show with a quick trailer for their new IP, Rage, which promises to fuse Doom’s playstyle with some driving gameplay. The trailer was certainly pretty, but it was hard to gauge just what the game will be like from it.

They might not be as big as Activision or Vivendi, but the list of companies that have left the Entertainment Software Association. GamePolitics broke the news yesterday of the fifth publisher to leave the ESA this year. Crave is best known for some lesser known games such as the World Championship Poker games and that terrible Bad Boys game.

While they originally obtained the information from a source, GP has since confirmed the news with the ESA. Senior VP Rich Taylor issued the following statement regarding Crave:

We can confirm that Crave has decided not to renew its membership in the ESA. We value each member of our association, but respect their decision. In conversations with Crave, representatives stated that they value their longstanding membership with the ESA and remain committed to the values and goals of the association.

Clearly, the ESA needs to act, and act fast. If they don’t, they aren’t going to have any members left to cater to.

At a recent event, Intel demonstrated Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with ray-tracing. ETQW reportedly ran at 14-29 frames per second in 1280×720 on a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz on a 64-bit Linux operating system.

Trendwatch reports seeing physically-correct refractions of water as well as incredibly detailed glass reflections. Intel supports ray-tracing on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Linux and Windows operating systems.

Check out TGDaily for a gallery of exclusive screenshots from ET: Quake Wars.

Finally, we get a chance to check out the new Enemy Territory: Quake Wars on the Xbox 360. Um, if you missed the retail release the other week, that is…or the PS3 version…or the PC version that came out eight months ago. But that’s not important. The point is: free stuff. Everyone loves free stuff, even if it’s late free stuff that probably should have been released a long time ago. Anyway, the demo for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is available on Xbox Live for the four of you that haven’t seen the game yet. Enjoy.

Via Major Nelson

Gallagher’s] been kind of quiet since that [September WaPo profile]… After a Fox News show featured an uninformed pundit going off about the allegedly sexually explicit nature of… Mass Effect, some gamers complained that the ESA did not step in to defend the game industry…

While top-ranking game industry executives were quick to get on the phone or respond to my e-mail queries about Gallagher last year, they weren’t as chatty this year… Last year, Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft’s game division, got on the phone to sing Gallagher’s praises. This year, Microsoft sent me a statement: “We’re as committed as ever to the ESA, and we look forward to participating in E3 this summer.” Nintendo released a shorter, nine-word statement along the same lines.

In other words your asking more for less… what have you done for me lately.

via GamePolitics

File-N-Forget returns this week with a discussion of the changing face of gaming. Our topic: Cooperative gameplay and its evolution over the last few generations of consoles. Additionally Shawn raves about the good part of the the Xbox Live! Arcade game delisting and Ron gets wishy washy with praise and damnation for Funcom’s Age of Conan.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

We’ve all heard it over and over recently from many pessimistic sources in the games industry. They cite software piracy as a major culprit, claiming an incredible percentage of games are stolen. We’ve heard how PCs are so much more expensive to upgrade than consoles and with the seemingly infinite combinations of hardware, software and drivers is it any wonder consoles look so promising to developers? With each successive generation of systems, consoles have become more sophisticated and now rival the performance capabilities of midline PCs.

PCs are hard to write games for. Again and again, developers complain about the time and money involved in creating games for systems that have no standard specifications and have a wide range of performance capabilities. Consoles represent a base configuration, sure they may or may not hare a hard drive and even when they do the size might vary but its nothing like PCs and its use of different hardware, OS and drivers. There’s no guarantee that a game will work for every build out there even if the machine meets the minimum system specifications.

All these are legitimate complaints, but I think there is one very important reason why the cries of PC game death are false. PC games have an appeal that is uncommon among the proprietary game consoles by offering a training ground for future developers. Gamers modify PC games adding increased value for other players while granting the titles a longer life span if the mod scene takes off after release. Developers even plan for and encourage game owners to create new content and change existing code. What console offers this sort of tool? Some games come with tool sets packaged with the game, while others are free to download. Its become common for development teams to challenge amateur game makers to enhance or create new game content through contests, some – like the Make something Unreal contest, offer substantial prizes to the winners.

The first large mod making community emerged around Id Softworks Doom. WAD files allowed players to create custom levels for the game. Modders didn’t stop there. They created new monsters and altered gameplay drastically. According to the Doom Wikipedia entry, some of the most popular unauthorized WADs were Aliens, Star Wars, The X-files, The Simpsons, South Park, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Red Faction, Pokémon , and Batman. WADs launched the careers of several game developers who were once game enthusiasts.

One of the earliest examples of a developer releasing a tool set for a game is Interplay’s Bard’s Tale Construction Set published by Electronic Arts in 1991. Players didn’t have to own the Bard’s Tale Construction Set to play games created with it, so players could legally create and distribute their personal games. Unfortunately, because the game pre-dates the modern Internet, many of these user created scenarios were lost on floppy disks in basements the world over.

Since then, many developers began providing tool sets with their creations. BioWare made an effort to give modders the same tools in the retail release that they used to create Neverwinter Nights. The sequel, developed by Obsidian, continued this trend to less spectacular results due to the core changes when they changed from a tile based game to one where creators had to place every tree and paint every blade of grass on the landscape. The BioWare Forum continues to provide a place for players to share their new tile sets, modules and unexpectantly whole user created mini-mmo’s called Persistent Worlds even saw release for both games. Bioware and Obsidian both often feature their favorites in the regular Community Updates. CD Projekt, who licensed the original Aurora Engine from NWN only to basically rewrite it from scratch released its Djinni Adventure Editor for its popular game The Witcher. The new Story Tellers’ Tavern is already getting teams of modders together to work on mods for the game.

Bethesda is a sterling example of a developer that encourages and applauds the efforts of modders and their work on the Elder Scrolls series. Morrowind is one of the most modded games around. Even after its sequel Oblivion was published, modders still continue to create new weapons, armor, monsters, NPCs, quests, dungeons and whole new territories for the game. One of the most ambitious mods ever created is Emma’s Children of Morrowind mod. Children are conspicuously absent in the Elder Scrolls series, even though they carry a mature rating because all NPCs can be killed.

Modders aren;t merely adding content to new games, they are resurrecting old favorites. Troika Games has been gone for three years now, but fans continue to enhance Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines; unlocking new weapons, disciplines, occult and quest items and even action sequences based on content left over from development hidden in the installed game files. The latest unofficial patch is up to 5.3. Other favorite games like Interplay’s popular Fallout 2 are still being enhanced by dedicated fans. The Fallout 2 patch enables a higher visual resolution and adding DirectX 9 support, making it easier for fans to continue playing on modern hardware and operating systems.

Some of the most popular mods out there are for real time strategy games and first person shooters. Valve actively challenges its players to create and share new Portal scenarios. Some total conversion mods, mods that completely change the nature of the original game, became games in their own right. Team Fortress began life as a mod for Quake and is now a full game with an excellent sequel on the Source engine. Counter-Strike became more popular than Half-Life. These games continue to inspire prospective developers and fans. Players can even find mods for the recently released FPS Crysis including 28 Months Later which is currently under development. These are all additions to a core game designed by professionals yet enhanced by enthusiasts, some of whom will one day join the ranks of game creators.

Sure, the handheld and console markets are slowly developing a niche “homebrew” market… but guess where these garage band developers do their work? Is it on these consoles they eventually port their creations to? No, its on the PCs – because the PC is not merely a game machine or DVD player, its also a development platform.

Long live the PC!

We can confirm that id Software has decided not to renew its membership in the ESA.   We admire their creativity and innovation.  We also respect their decision.

The ESA continues to lead the thriving video and computer game industry.  We are dedicated to protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire entertainment software industry.

id might not be as big a blow as Activision or Vivendi, but the latest departure isn’t going to promote confidence in the ESA among its remaining members.

It’s always a little strange to see a new trailer for a game released long after the game as hit store shelves. So it looks like whoever was given this task at id decided to spice things up a bit. Thus, there are three new trailers for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, delivered in an infomercial style format. The one above addresses the dangers of “projectile dysfunction,” while the other two advertise a “human juicer” and the game itself as if it were a monster truck rally. You can check out the other two trailers after the break.