Rich Briggs, a Producer on EA’s Dead Space puts the S-E in SEXY with his work on Scripted Events and Focus Groups. These are the major building blocks of the Dead Space storyline. Briggs has a colorful analogy on the roll of SE in the game.
Dead Space is a horrific roller coaster ride that we want to take you on. The framework of the coaster is already there, as our core gameplay mechanics will drive your second to second enjoyment. The SEs are the paint, the decorations, and the lights. They are the dark tunnel you plummet through, and the plumes of water that spray up as you skim along the water. It’s the name of the experience, which is why roller coasters are called “The Viper” or “Death Rail” as opposed to “Mobile Cart Precariously Connected to Wooden Tracks.”
The biggest challenge for the development team is making sure that you can’t break the SE moments in the game. They occur while you still control the main character, and while they want you to experience these as spine tingling episodes, they don’t want to take away your control, like say Dirge of Cerberus.
Dead Space is scheduled for release in North America and Europe October 2008.
Siren: New Translation will furthermore be known as Siren: Blood Curse. This was confirmed through the official list of content to hit the PSN which was issued this morning.
This survival horror game exclusive to the PS3 takes place in a landlocked and extremely traditional Japanese village where everything is serene and everyone co-exists in peace. Then all of a sudden, the mountains turned into an infinite sea of red water and which emits a strange call which causes the inhabitants to immerse themselves in it. What comes out is one scary looking former human being.
With a much better sounding name, it is only fitting that Sony would release some new screens for the game as well, and I have posted as many as my poor hands would let me. Enjoy.
Apparently the reason that Atari kept changing the release date for Alone in the Dark was to give gamers a more polished gaming experience and you can’t really argue with such a reason. Take heart though, because Atari confirmed this morning that Alone in the Dark will hit North America on June 24 and Europe on June 20.According to an Atari representative:
“The game has been delayed to allow Eden Games to polish the game to an even higher standard. We want to deliver the best possible experience to gamer, because we have a remarkable product. We’ve been getting an incredible response from the people that have seen it in demos. We’ll soon be supplying code to the market.”
Granted, PS3 owners will still have to wait until later this year without any set time frame at this point, but PC, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii users can start to finally get excited about it. Hooray!
It always seems like all the cool stuff happens in Japan, and when that cool stuff involves Resident Evil (known as Biohazard over there), and especially Resident Evil 5 it just makes one a little green with envy.
To celebrate the release of their newest title in the ever popular horror-survival series Capcom will include a free DVD featuring footage from RE5 along with an interview and will be attached to the new edition of Weekly Famitsu when it hits magazine racks on March 28th.
The only thing that keeps me from getting too jealous over this is the fact that some dear person will have that DVD posted online within the first hour it is made public. Thank you Al Gore for inventing such a wonderful thing called the Internet.
A huge collective “meh” has made its way through the gaming community in the UK today. News of Manhunt 2 finally being released with an “18″ rating even after the BBFC’s refusal to give the game any sort of UK classification. Now, thanks to the High Court’s ruling allowing the release with said rating, the BBFC has now decided against vetoing the release and will wait until it hits the public before pursuing any further action.
I suppose if the game was not so crappy I would be thrilled for gamers in the UK dying to get their hands on it, but considering the fact that it was nothing but a big fat steaming pile of disappointment, I feel sorry for them instead. Its one thing to be waiting patiently for a controversial game if it is worth the wait, but when its quite the opposite, it all just becomes rather anticlimactic.
To catch up on all the drama surrounding the UK vs Manhunt 2 debacle, check out our previous posts.
The newest trailer for Gravity Interactive’s horror based MMO is bloody violent. I mean that in the most complimentary sense though, because I am honestly looking forward to trying out Requiem: Bloodymare, especially now that I have my beta key. Watching the latest collage of action shots from the game with some nice, angry, metal music in the background pumped me up for it even more than the last trailer, and since the beta starts today, my weekend is pretty much planned out for me. Since I am starting to get the hang of what to expect out of an MMO, and also add to the fact that I am no longer prejudiced towards them, this could be just what the doctor ordered.
If you found this trailer interesting, and are looking for an MMO that caters to a mature audience, check out our previous posts on Requiem: Bloodymare.
A spokesperson for Konami in the UK has stated that Silent Hill V will tentatively be released during Q4. While Q4 is the time-frame for the release, there is still not an exact date planned. The spokesperson did say though that they will know more by the time March is halfway through, so keep your fingers crossed!
Until we get an exact date to get our scare on for our Xbox 360 orPS3, enjoy the new screens for Silent Hill V that were released today.
Happy Halloween 2008! We now have official word from EA that Dead Space will hit shelves on Halloween this year.
The above trailer is new footage from Dead Space, a third-person sci-fi survival horror game. The title is currently being developed by EA Redwood Shores. It will be released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. I’ve been getting a little burnt out on the typical survival horror games lately, so perhaps adding a space scenery to the game will be enough to make it original. From what I have seen so far, the game certainly looks interesting.
Developers of the game claim to have gotten their inspiration from Event Horizon, Alien, and The Thing, as well as from videogames like the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series.
Did any of you ever see that John Carpenter movie “The Thing” starring Kurt Russel back in 1982? Well, I may have been only 10 years old at the time, but it scared the beejesus out of me, and every time I see some sort of nature special on TV about the Antarctic, I get the screaming willies. If there is a scientist’s shack being shown, and men all bundled up in subzero attire, it only makes it worse - so imagine the tiny goosebumps I got when reading the story synopsis for Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason - although this game takes place in the Arctic Circle it too is an icy wasteland and creeps me out a bit; therefore the reason “The Thing” popped into my strange brain.
Action Forms’ and the 1C Company’s newest first-person action game puts you in 1968 at the Arctic Circle, Russian North Pole station “Pole 21”. The main hero Alexander Nesterov is a meteorologist caught inside an old nuclear ice-breaker called the “North Wind”, frozen in the ice many years ago. This steel beast once fought for its country, but it fell into an ice trap as did every living thing on board where every living thing on board not only lost their natural look, but also the right to die. Alex will fight the cold and what lives within as he tries to find out what happened. Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason is a drama about a Captain and his Ship evolving in the atmosphere of ice and animal fear.
It gets even more creeptacular - the zombified creatures you will encounter will be able to use the cold against you, and as if this is not bad enough, Alexander does not have your standard heath bar - but a “heat bar” instead. Your strength will come from warmth and if you stay in cold areas too long you will die - but the good news is that in the game you will come across heat sources that will replenish your bar. Every bit of warmth you can find will give you the strength you need to defeat over fifteen different terrors which will include zombies, but not just any ole zombie, but “mutant zombies”. The eight different weapons you use in the game are accurate for your time period and will include bolt-action rifles and handguns which are typical fare amongst most FPS, but your environment will be the largest weapon at your disposal, if you can use it strategically.
The game develops with the unique “Mental Echo” ability which will penetrate another character’s memory and change the actions taken by the character in the past to affect the present. While Alexander is trying to figure out what happened so long ago, one of his goals will be to release the souls of the seven sailors trapped in this freezing hell and when he uses the Mental Echo, he will relive his target’s last minutes of life and hopefully change the course of that souls fate.
Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason will also feature its own physics and weather system which will supposedly provide realistic ice, frost and snow effects to the game. We do not have many screens of the game, and the trailer sent to us back in October is nothing more than 15 seconds of stuff flashing before your eyes - so if you are prone to seizures, you may want to skip it. Personally I have never had health issues like that, but after watching the trailer I almost had an epileptic episode - soc you may want to check back once in a while to see if we received any new videos which give you a better idea of the gameplay and effects.
Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason will be made available for the PC sometime this year, in the meantime, for more information check out our FileFront page and the 1C Company website.
D3 has released a trailer featuring footage from Dark Sector which includes a behind the scenes look with Michael Rosenbaum doing the voice of the main character, Hayden Tenno. Developed by Digital Extreme Dark Sector is being toted as a dark, gritty, action-packed, third-person shooter where the main character possesses incredible superpowers. Sent on a dangerous assassination mission into Lasria – an Eastern European city on the brink of ruin that hides a deadly Cold War secret, Hayden is attacked by an unknown enemy, and he awakens later to find part of his body altered by an infection that has granted him inhuman abilities.
I described the contents of the trailer only for those who are underage according to ESRB standards - therefore all viewers must go through an age gate to watch it. For more information on Dark Sector, read through our previous posts, and proceed to the age gate by clicking here. Dark Sector is expected to hit shelves on March 25th in North America followed by a world-wide launch on March 28th. It will be available for both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Gravity Interactive have released the official trailer for their upcoming “M” rated horror themed MMO Requiem: Bloodymare. Although still excited about this title, I am a bit disappointed that the trailer does not depict the blood and gore they have promised us. The screenshots they sent us last week looked so promising - full of decapitations, fountains of blood gushing forth from your foes, scantily clad drowish looking creatures, and disgusting monsters hell-bent on devouring your person. Why in the world did they not show this in the trailer? There is hardly anything shown in this video that warrants and “M” rating - you see tons of magic and hit effects flying about, and maybe once in a while a few blood droplets hit the camera - but that is it. Instead of a gratuitous blood soaked fightfest we get a video that is a bit blurry, the colors are washed out and the action happens so fast that one can scarcely blink lest something is missed.
Hopefully the next trailer they send us will be much better than this one - and by “better” I am hoping that it shows brighter colors, better editing, and more blood. If you are interested in seeing any other videos from this MMO, YouTube has a few character creation videos and a gameplay clips posted. I would have put them on here, but I do not know if they are “unauthorized” clips or legitimately ok to post. You view them here, and while we are on the subject of Bloodymare, you can check out our previous posts on the game by clicking here.
To view this trailer you have to go through and age gate so click here to view.
Lighthouse Interactive and developer Zoetrope Interactive released the first patch for their psychological horror adventure game, Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder. The update includes several new features and upgrades.Patch v1.01 Notes:
Inventory Management – Several inventory related issues have been corrected
Graphics Improvements – The game now uses the default refresh rate of the player’s monitor and the antialiasing option now supports “2X” and “4X” instead of “On” and “Off”
Document Underlining – Improvements have been made to the interface and game mechanics
Sound Issues – Audio problems have been fixed
Alternative Clues and Solutions to Puzzles – There is now more than one way to garner clues to some puzzles (i.e. Clark’s birthday) and alternative ways to solve a puzzle (i.e. photo puzzle)
Interface Improvements – Upgrades in functionality have been made, especially to the DES feature in the Inventory menu
Darkness Within was released in stores on November 27th. If you are looking for a decent and sometimes suspenseful PC game inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, you will not be disappointed with this game. For more information on Darkness Within, check out our previous posts, and if you own the game, you can get the patch by clicking on the badge below. Full patch notes are listed after the break.
It may have a derivative premise (space station crew gets turned into hideous alien monsters), but Dead Space is still shaping up to be one creepy game. There are some new screens up showing a bit more of the environments and the aliens you’ll encounter as an unwitting engineer sent to repair the station. You’ll be up against murderous creatures with spikes and tentacles, with only a weak engineering tool to bash them with at first. This is exactly why you should never go into space without a machine gun or a flamethrower.
Lighthouse Interactive and developer Zoetrope Interactive have announced that their psychological horror/adventure game, Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder is available in major retail stores across Canada and the US. The PC CD-ROM game, inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, is Vista compatible.
Erik Schreuder, CEO of Lighthouse Interactive said, “Darkness Within sets a new standard for PC games in the Horror Adventure genre. Not only are there 3 difficulty levels, a built-in hint system, eerie special effects, and dynamic environments, but the sound effects, musical score, and lighting and shading effects, all combine with a chilling story to create a truly horrific game world.”
STORYLINE:
As police detective Howard E. Loreid, players are tasked to solve the murder of Clark Field, a wealthy man involved in the occult. At the top of your list of suspects is Loath Nolder; a highly respected private investigator who mysteriously abandoned his last case for reasons unknown. Rumor had it that he ventured to several exotic places around the world learning from tribe shamans and sorcerers. It remains a great mystery as to why Loath Nolder disappeared so suddenly, resurfacing five years later and resuming his investigations just as abruptly as he had left them. Why does this venerated P.I. now sit on the other side of the law?
Your seemingly routine investigation takes a dramatic twist as strange and terrifying happenings begin to plague your psyche. You experience lucid horrifying dreams and are tormented by paranormal happenings. Why do days pass instead of hours when you sleep? What’s real and what’s not? As you pursue fugitive murder suspect Loath Nolder, you must face dire truths hidden deep within a haunting darkness and the recesses of your mind.
FEATURES:
Built-in Hint System with 3 Difficulty Levels - Players can choose to play in Standard, Detective or Senior Detective modes.
Unique Inventory System - Utilizing the ‘thinking screen’ allows players to collect and examine items, and thoughts. Clues can also be researched, combined or used.
Dynamic Puzzles and Features - Traditional adventure game puzzles are complimented by deciphering dreams and underlining excerpts in documents to garner critical clues.
Enhanced Gameplay Experience - The proprietary game engine enables compelling special effects, stunning visuals, and dynamic lighting and shading, in a panoramic first person game environment.
Eerie Gameplay Atmosphere - An immersive experience is created by a fascinating story, chilling real-time cut scenes, and haunting music.
For more information on the game, you can check out our previous posts and the official website. I have also posted the latest screens for the game after the break.
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.
GameTrailers.com have just put up an exclusive video (a first) to the recently announced sci-fi survival horror 3rd-person shooter, Dead Space. Resembling an amalgam of Resident Evil, Bioshock, and the movie Event Horizon, Dead Space intends to scare the bejeezus out of us with the tried and true scare tactics of freakish monsters popping out of the vents, walls, and floor panels accompanied by equally creepy dynamic music. Here’s a small backstory to the game via Game Informer:
“You are Isaac Clarke, a space engineer who specializes in fixing giant mining ships for the Concordance Extraction Corporation, or C.E.C. As most stories of the like go, your company receives a distress call from the USG Ishimura, a “Planet Cracker” class ship that takes dead planets, and destroys them to extract valuable ore for the company. In the assumption that the ship has had a mechanical failure, Isaac gathers coworkers Lt. Zach Hammond, security officer, and Kendra Daniels, local Tech specialist. As you set out to meet with the ship upon the cruiser class Kellion, you soon realize that this is no ordinary distress call. In the classic sci-fi manner, you soon find that the ship has been over ran by a mysterious alien race. After boarding the ship, you are separated from your party and this routine check, becomes a race for your life.”
The really cool thing about Dead Space is its take on zero gravity. The player seems to be moving about a “dead” ship with debris, corpses, and (frozen?) blood floating weightlessly around in vaccum. Of course, Dead Space will also be using the typical flashlight probing in the dark gameplay that will, no doubt, have us looking over our shoulders from time to time. Atmosphere seems to be the key feature to Dead Space thus far. I just wish the trailer above showed more gameplay.
Using Unreal Engine 3 technology, EA Redwood Shores are developing Dead Space for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles. Dead Space is slated for a 2008 release.
Codemasters has announced that its action/horror game Clive Barker’s Jericho has shipped to retail outlets nationwide. The squad-based shooter is available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 and mingles the darkest elements of Barker’s horror fiction with an age-spanning story aimed at mature gamers. The game demo is still available on XBL Marketplace, and 360 owners who wish to play the game - I HIGHLY suggest you play the demo first before making your purchasing decision.
Jericho dispatches gamers to the Middle-Eastern city of Al-Khali, where the most ancient of evils has resurfaced; causing intense paranormal activity that has caught the eye of the military. Controlling the Jericho squad, an expert strike team skilled in both conventional and paranormal warfare, players fight their way through slices of time on a grueling journey as they make their way toward the heart of the evil. Along the way, gamers encounter the horrific armies of hellish denizens that now rule the city and corrupt everything they touch, and as they incrementally approach the source of evil, players will have to rely less and less on traditional weapons and instead focus on the combined psychic talents of the Jericho Squad.
GameTap Gold level subscribers can also a purchase Clive Barker’s Jericho via download from GameTap’s digital storefront and play on the same day as retail release. For more information on GameTap, click here.
We received two new trailers and some screenshots from Codemaster’s today, and although one of the trailers is a TV advert, you must still go through an age gate. I have provided links to the trailers below and a link to more screens.
A community member over at Left4Dead411.com has snagged almost an hour and a half worth of in-game footage (at The World Cyber Games) of Valve’s upcoming Multiplayer Co-Op based Zombie/Survival Horror 3D Shooter, Left 4 Dead. The 9 minute video clip above represents but a small fraction of video footage found over at Left4Dead411.com.
The interesting thing to note here is how far along the game has come (not that we’ve seen alot about the game since E3). This game simply looks fun. I’m definitely sold on the CounterStrike meets Dawn Of The Dead style gameplay they’ve got going on. Valve has certainly been snagging up all the great commmunity mod ideas lately. This title is definitely one to look out for next year.
If you’re craving for more footage, don’t worry, there’s 84 minutes of the stuff over at Left4Dead411.com. Just follow the screams from the link below.
Sega and Monolith are intend on scaring us to death when Condemned 2: Bloodshot is released, which, all things considered, is not such a bad idea. As mentioned in a previous post, Condemned 2: Bloodshot takes the series to a whole new level by introducing a variety of online multiplayer modes, including deathmatch, which should provide an interesting twist to online play. Look for the game to be made available for the PS2 and Xbox 360 sometime next year - but check back with us often because an official release date will be announced in the near future. Meanwhile, enjoy the new artwork.
With an October 23rd release date just around the corner, the assets that Codemasters have been handing us for Clive Barker’s Jericho are starting to give us sensory overload - but in a good way. Today, not only did we get a new trailer featuring the game’s resident healer and exorcist Father Paul Rawlings, we also got some really neat background information on this important squad member - very useful information. He may be ordained by the church, but do not be fooled… this man of the cloth packs a punch with dual pistols he has named “Faith and Destiny”. Sounds great to me - what can be more fun than a gun slinging priest?
Father Paul Rawlings Bio, a link to the trailer (it requires age verification), and more are posted after the break.
