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ERste Bilder und infos zu G.R.A.W. 2 (PS3/X360)
Quelle: Gameinformer
Außerdem ein Interview und neuer Trailer zu Dark Sector
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/674/674095/vids_1.html
FN3 visuals Video
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=3339
Sehr geil^^
Quelle: Gameinformer
Außerdem ein Interview und neuer Trailer zu Dark Sector
Dark Sector Interview
The game's project lead gives us new details on the first PlayStation 3 game ever announced.
by IGN Staff
November 21, 2006 - Two and a half years ago in April of 2004, Digital Extremes announced the first in-development title for this latest generation of consoles. Dark Sector debuted with an eerie, dark, sci-fi laden trailer. Its visuals were extremely impressive, especially compared to what we'd seen at that point, and everyone began speculating over exactly what sort of game it would turn out to be. Looking at the latest trailer, which you can find on our video page right here, the developer seems to have changed gears a tad in that time, but the game looks to be no less interesting (and mysterious).
We recently had a change to speak with Project Lead Steve Sinclair about Dark Sector, currently scheduled for release next year. Have a look:
IGN: When the game was originally announced a couple years ago, it had a very sci-fi-heavy look to its visuals and the trailer made it look something like a stealth game of sorts. Now it appears to be completely different on both accounts. Why was there that change?
Steve Sinclair: Basically, that was way long ago when we were building up our engine on speculation of what the [Xbox] 360 was going to be. We basically had specs, but we had no hardware So what that essentially was was a tech demo for some kind of third-person action game that we had in mind. And at the time, when people were talking about next-gen, when we started shopping it around, people were really getting stuck on the manga stuff that we had in there. And we were really flexible on the fictional backdrop on what we wanted to do, basically kind of like a superhero story with some cool sci-fi elements. And the thing that started to resonate with us was that if everything else was weird, then the character is going to be much more mundane. So if you're in a spaceship with giant robots and you have some cool armor, you're going to just look like a part of the scenery.
So what we're trying to do is put it in a more conventional setting so that the weird **** is far more strange and that when you come into it we can sort of gently ease people into the stranger elements. But generally I think, for the fans of the sort of science fiction tech demo that they saw, in my mind it's a way for sort of amplifying the distinction of the character and the stuff that's gong to happen as you progress in the game.
So there really wasn't a whole lot there - it wasn't like we had built this entire massive science fiction theme - it was six minutes of tech demo, really. I guess we're trying to bring people into the fold a little more gently and amplify the stuff that's weirder.
IGN: Does that mean that the game is going to be fairly heavy on character emotions? Are you going to see what Hayden is going through in his head, or will the story be a little more removed than that and focused on the action?
Sinclair: No, no, it's going to be much more focused on what he's feeling and what he's going through and I think that's something that we're really excited to utilize with the change to the third-person. I think traditionally, as the co-creators of Unreal, yadda yadda, we've never had anything but the hands of the character you're inhabiting, and so with the third-person stuff when a big blast smashes into the concrete wall near Hayden's face and he's going to brush the dust off his face, or when the thing that's sort of taking him over is changing him, those are things that we convey throughout the game at all points because the guy's always onscreen.
Let me give you a really simple, mundane example of that: At the beginning of the game when we do the prologue he's just kind of this anti-hero kind of guy. And very simply, concretely in the game, there are certain types of barriers that he has to open with contextual stuff. And then when he changes, then he begins tearing those things off and becomes much more brutal. So what we're trying to do is convey that evolution on the inside, but also convey it on the outside so that those game elements that are around him are evolving as he does.
So basically we're trying to make it so that there are these emotional changes within him, but also make it as relevant as possible to the moment to moment gameplay. Usually there's a big disconnect because, "Oh, this guy's my friend, and he's supposed to help me in the story but really has no relevance on the gameplay..." Whereas when you see it done well, like in Episode 1 of Half-Life 2, where Alyx is actually someone who is a gatekeeper, who opens things for you, gives you health kits and ammo and those sorts of things... We're trying to do the same sort of thing with the character evolution.
IGN: Let's talk about how Hayden's infection is tied to the story. What happens to him, and how does it tie into the game's progression?
Sinclair: Well, hopefully you don't mind me being too deflecting there because there's a lot of stuff where we're trying to build interest in the game but we're also trying to be careful and not tell everyone the little twists and turns. On the surface of it, obviously something happens to him. When it happened, who's responsible and all that sort of nonsense is sort of crucial to how we're able to make the twists and turns kind of relevant to you. It's going to be something that's extraordinarily personal to him and not just, you know, "random genetic experiment gone wrong, super-soldier created, yadda yadda yadda " So yeah, basically at the beginning of the game you experience his skills and abilities and what kind of persona he has, and then an "event" occurs, and then you follow him the rest of the way through what I'm hoping to be a pretty important character arc where you've got someone who It's supposed to be the kind of ironic twist, which I'm going to sound really artsy-fartsy for but, where you have someone who's actually quite horrible and as they are being turned into a monster become someone much more human. That is the goal that we're trying to convey.
IGN: What sort of new abilities do you get from this transformation and how do they change the way the game is played?
Sinclair: Basically the whole centerpiece, the pillar of the game design is the evolution of a superhero, which basically means that you're going to be evolving quite a bit. I don't want all the evolutions that you're going to get, because halfway through the game there's some pretty wild stuff that happens and we're kind of holding that back. But right off the bat you basically have this sort of partial change in him and he gets incredibly strong on that side and he has what I guess is sort of the Dark Sector version of a lightsaber - this glaive, this sort of throwing, spinning, bladed Frisbee if you will.
The technology of the game and the explanation of the game might invoke something like perhaps maybe Tesla would be one kind of interesting reference where you have this sort of "what if" alternate history of science, where if you research a guy like Tesla he had some really bizarre, outrageous, ahead of his time ideas and some of them were actually pretty practical. Like the particle canon was an idea he had in the 20th century, and this would have been the foundation of the Star Wars Defense Initiative had they gone through with it, and so on and so forth.
So this weapon has interesting properties in conductance and magnetic properties. So basically you throw this thing around, you chop people to hell, but then you learn that it's basically able to superheat and conduct elements that you discover in the game so that you will basically be able to do progression challenges, you'll be to try out things like "if you superheat the disc, what kind of effect does it have on this enemy and how does that change the gameplay around this guy." There's this one enemy who is this fearsome shotgun-only type of enemy who now converts into sort of this resource, a weapon to be used against the other ones. So that's kind of the glaive, and this conductance thing is what I would consider to be the most important first steps in how that character's evolving.
IGN: With the more advanced uses of the glaive, like heating it up and using it on an enemy, do you hold gamers' hands through these and force them to use that, or are these uses in there for advanced players who want to dig in and experiment?
Sinclair: I guess that's something that we perhaps have more in common with the adventure genre than the straight-up shooter genre. When we introduce a new element, like the fire glaive, we put it in a context where the player sort of has to prove that they understand the basics, that they need to progress with it, that they need to mix it with these other things so that it's kind of like a recipe. Then they'll figure out that "if I destroy this truck with this canon, then I'm going to get a flaming wreck. I can then get the fire glaive from that and then I can use it on these flammable obstacles in my path."
But then what happens is that we take those elements that we use as basically pacing between combat, right, so you've got these sort of progression challenges - in other games you might call them puzzles, but there really isn't a mind **** going on, they're just progression challenges that require you to use your superpowers. Because again, the whole point there is that there's not just a keypad to press, there's not just a door to kick down, only Hayden can make this journey so all of the things need to be pivoting off his superpowers. So then what we do is we place what we call "one off sources", like a gas lantern or whatever, so you've got this one shot and you see the guys coming down and that's when the player is able to experiment and try to formulate a plan that isn't really rammed down their throat like the progression challenges are.
The progression challenges are there to expose them to the ideas, and then they're going to say, "Okay. So I've got basically one fire glaive shot for this fight. I've got six guys coming in this way, it looks like I've got an alternate path there that I can open up if I explode this way. I've got a diesel drum here that I can use to create a smokescreen, so I might be able to close in and do some finishers and neck break maneuvers. Or, there's that one bastard with the shotgun and I really hate fighting this guy all the time - I'm going to get him, light his ass on fire and then the guys are going to rout and I'm going to fight it that way." So that's basically what the goal to use the conductive aspects of the glaive is that you give possibilities for combat where it's kind of open-ended. I hope it doesn't sound too complicated when I explain it that way because it's really kind of spur-of-the-moment stuff like, "Boom!", big fires, big explosions, that kind of stuff. So that's kind of how that works.
IGN: Aside from the glaive, it sounds like all of the other weapons in the game are going to be picked up from enemies, like machineguns and such. What's the intended balance between using what you have and what they have?
Sinclair: That's actually a great question because this is one of our bigger challenges. We've got this signature weapon that we feel is really, really important to make Dark Sector unique and different in that, "Well, you've got this cool weapon and you're playing Dark Sector. Oh, and the machineguns and shotguns are still there..." So the glaive is kind of like this short range, you need to actually recall this weapon, there are flight time differences and that sort of thing. So really what that is for what you might see as being like a slow shotgun type of weapon, but it also has these conductive properties and so on and so forth. And of course there are some enemies that are very resilient to it and so on and so forth, so that's kind of how that fits in.
So you've got the players kind of opening up the combat with this thing or using it in a very quick opportunity, and then transitioning into a gun battle, and then you sort of clean up the rest with the glaive. So that's sort of how this works, similar to the rhythm that you might find with short and long-ranged weapons in a traditional shooter. But again, with the conductive properties as being this sort of recipe as a combative puzzle, if you will.
IGN: We're going to assume that over the course of the game you'll fight less humans and more mutated creatures, which would mean that you'd have less machineguns and such dropping, which in turn would mean that you'd have to rely on your powers more and more.
Sinclair: That's a pretty reasonable assumption. We bring in more alternate history technology, which the human element is representing, and then we bring in more of the corrupt element with these conversions of people and how they work... But the balancing is something that you kind of have to sort of "pause" it from the rest of the experience. So some of the enemies, for instance, need to be opened up by the glaive, and then finished with conventional weapons. So there is quite a mix in there that's not just as simple as "once we go to the monsters it becomes only glaive fighting."
IGN: Speaking of the enemies and monsters, what can you tell us about the AI? We've heard that they can do some pretty advanced things, like attempting to lure you into traps and such.
Sinclair: The AI for the monsters in the game are kind of patterned off of animal behavior, so... I guess the example that you're alluding to there is the harder of the standard enemies, not a mini-boss - they work in pairs of two and they do the kind of killdeer maneuver where one will try to draw you away while the other one is trying to flank you so that they can close in for what we call a struggle, which is basically getting on and chewing you in the face and so on and so forth. So they really work in kind of an exaggerated kind of species type design.
They've all got their little tricks and strategies. And then you've got human enemies which are going to be working kind of like what you'd expect from military combatants where they're using cover, and they're trying to flank and that sort of thing. But the corrupt enemies of the game are working in far more exaggerated and interesting animal behaviors.
IGN: We know that the game features something of an automatic cover system. How does that work?
Sinclair: Well, I would give the proviso that it's still something we're heavily iterating on, so I can tell you how it works, but it's not a guarantee that it's going to make it out that way in the end because obviously we're still focus testing this stuff. But basically there's a detection system that tries to posture the character appropriate to the environment, so if you walk up to a bit of low cover and there are enemies present you're going to get down, and if you're sneaking up behind someone then your posture will change and you'll kind of convey that you're in a sneakier mode, ready to go up and break the guy's neck without him noticing. So that's basically how it works, it's using detection from environment hints.
IGN: So you don't have to press a button to take cover, you'll just sort of do so when you're near a wall then?
Sinclair: That's how it's working right now, yep. [laughs] I mean there are a lot of potential downsides to that so that's why I'm a little bit gun-shy of you there. Because there's a lot of tuning involved - what you're trying to do is to guess the player's intentions.
IGN: That leads directly into our next question - If you have a cover system like that and you're also using contextual actions, where a single button performs a number of actions based on your environment, do you think that can take away from what the player is supposed to be doing and sort of playing the game for them?
Sinclair: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, every time we do a pass and we simplify things, you want to remove the mundane stuff, but at the same time you want to continue that sense of authority over your character. So, I think that's a very valid point. We're not going to simplify it such that people feel like they're just pushing forward and then "win, win, win", you know? The "I Win" button, right?
IGN: Wrapping up here, since you have a character that's evolving over the course of the game, and we're going to assume that he's quite powerful at the end and constantly moving towards this final transformation, how do you prepare that in case you decide to create a sequel? So that you don't basically end everything and then keep yourself from being able to expand upon it?
Sinclair: [laughs] That's a great question. We have an answer for that, but I mean there are plenty of examples out there where time and time again, like something as simple as the Castlevania series, where you can kind of play with that, and my hope is that this evolution is a theme that we can carry throughout the series. Castlevania, Metroid, these games will play with your starting state and preserve some of your character, so there's always stuff to do there. Great question, though!
IGN: Great. Thanks a lot for your time, Steve.
Sinclair: Absolutely. Thank you.
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/674/674095/vids_1.html
FN3 visuals Video
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=3339
Sehr geil^^
