The End of RTS? A Command & Conquer 4 Interview

EALA lead designer Sam Bass discusses the ideas that his team has injected into Command & Conquer 4, the last game in the series, to help make the RTS genre more approachable to newcomers and more satisfying to all.

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The End of RTS? A Command & Conquer 4 Interview

The End of RTS? A Command & Conquer 4 Interview

EALA lead designer Sam Bass discusses the ideas that his team has injected into Command & Conquer 4, the last game in the series, to help make the RTS genre more approachable to newcomers and more satisfying to all.

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The End of RTS? A Command & Conquer 4 Interview

What’s On Deck For MLB 10 The Show [Sports]

MLB 09 The Show was widely hailed as a best-in-class game, for the sports genre as well as baseball. But Sony’s San Diego Studio understood that even last year’s effort didn’t excuse them from improving on it this season. Players will find plenty of difference between last year’s game and MLB 10 The Show, which releases a week from Tuesday. The team outlined to me the major changes it made over a 30-minute conference call on Friday. I was unable to get myself to their studio for a hands-on preview, so this will have to suffice. Then again, The Show has earned plenty of gamer goodwill and trust. So here’s what players can expect in this year’s edition. Real-Time in the Field Sony posted a video of this a couple weeks back and reaction to it was very strong. “We wanted to create an atmosphere where you feel like you’re watching a game on the television, you just never leave the action,” said senior producer Chris Gill. Other presentation modes (which will remain with the game if you prefer them) are, between the game action, cutscene-based, and “You feel like you’re leaving real time or fast-forwarding into the future,” he said. In real-time presentation, MLB 10 The Show’s camera will deliver appropriate camera shots relative to the most recent play as the next batter is coming to the plate. For example, say, a shortstop stabs a hot smash and guns the runner at first. The game will cut between shots of the player getting back into position, the reaction in the dugout (which, by the way, will be fully populated with players not in the field or bullpen), then the ball coming back to the pitcher as the batter walks up to begin the next play. As a first-year offering, Gill says there’s still a lot to build on with this design decision. “I don’t want to take anything away from the default (broadcast) mode, there’s a phenomenal amount of work that’s gone into that. And they’ve expanded on that mode in this game, that should be noted,” Gill said. “This gives the player an opportunity to play in a different style. It doesn’t slow the game down, and it’s how I play the game now.” Pitchers and Catchers on the Road to the Show Now in its fourth year, Road to the Show will see several additions to its core experience, but those in the pitcher-catcher battery will see the biggest difference. Pitchers now have their own set of drills to improve specific pitches or traits. Last year, the game had only baserunning and batting drills, so their absence then was a little disappointing. Senior designer Eddy Cramm explained that the plan was all along to have pitching and fielding training, but rather than rush an complex pitching drill set into last year’s game, the team chose to focus on two sets of drills per release. This is great news for those who like to play as pitchers in the career simulation. In the past, you could spend attribute points on something like your hits-per-nine-innings trait, and the game would tell you you’d pitched a simulated game and the score went up marginally. Now you will pitch that simulated game, Cramm said, and the outcome will affect more than one attribute. “It’s a three inning simulated game with a live lineup, the goal is to not allow a run,” Cramm said. “You allow a run and the inning ends; you get everybody out and the inning ends. And you’ll be judged on your choices and outcomes. If you get a ground ball out, that’ll help with your home runs-per-nine trait. If you’re efficient with your pitches, it’ll affect the stamina.” Another pitching drill, called knockout, requires players to clear eight squares in a grid of nine on the strike zone in as few pitches as possible. (Eight, because you’re not supposed to chuck it down the middle.) Depending on how accurate you are and what pitch you use, you’ll improve both those pitches and other performance traits. Cramm said players can expect to be served up three training drills a month in Road to the Show, so there’s plenty of opportunity to improve your player if he’s taken a beating in live games and hasn’t earned a lot of skill points to spend. The game will also add fielding drills. “Fielding is for the most part automatic, so this is difficult to design for,” Cramm admitted. The drills will be more reaction-based, he said, judging how fast you are off the crack of the bat, your path to the ball, and throwing decisions. All of these drills are accessible on their own from the game’s main menu, so players can train themselves to the game before jumping into it in-depth. The biggest position-specific upgrade is for those who play as catchers. In this game, catchers will be responsible for calling pitches. In the past, as a catcher you knew if the game fast forwarded to a fielding career event, you were going to have to pick off a base stealer or catch a foul ball. Calling pitches makes the game more realistic to catchers’ responsibilities and keeps base-stealing situations from being so telegraphed. “That’s exactly why we did it,” Cramm said. “The catcher is a lot more involved in the game, and I don’t think we reflected that well in the past. He’s involved in every pitch of the game. You’re responsible for calling the pitch, and the location, from the start of the game. And our AI batters will adapt, so you have to know the situation well. You have to mix things up and pick a good location.” The game will offer pitch suggestions based on batter and pitcher tendencies, the same as if you were on the mound as a pitcher, but you are as free to ignore those as a catcher as you would be as a pitcher. One other tidbit: As we discussed the amount of time people spend with their Road to the Show players, Cramm said they hear a lot about the ability to import a created player from a previous Road to the Show into the current edition of the game. While that is not a feature of MLB 10 The Show, it is “something we’ve started looking into,” Cramm said. They’re mindful that players can spend more than a year (real-time) in their virtual careers. The Details Every year is an opportunity to improve the gameplay’s realism, Gill said. “It’s important to us that we never go toward an arcadey style, ever,” he said. “Everything we do is based on real life.” This year the ball physics have been redone, Gill said, and will include balls striking players. “If the pitcher can’t catch a comebacker, but maybe he tries, it could deflect off a body part, maybe it ricochets to the shortstop and he barehands it to first,” Gill said. Second, the team noticed some unrealistic friction on ground balls last year, so they’ve massaged that to include truer bounces and more choppers. Also, balls hit hard enough to roll all the way to the wall will bounce around in the corners as they would in real life. This resolves a nettlesome quality of the previous game, where a hard-hit ball into the corner settled so quickly that a runner couldn’t get extra bases out of it. More than 1,200 gameplay animations have been added into the game, Gill said, and will be apparent in the catch-and-throw sequences. For that, the throw meter has been remade. It will look the same, but criticisms that the meter didn’t do anything in the past have been answered. It’ll more distinguish between hard and soft throws, and late throws, too, although you will still be able to preload them. Cramm added that the pickoff system has been remade, too. One of my complaints with MLB 09 The Show was how the base buttons were inverted for pickoffs, because it was mapped to your pitching perspective, not the field. This is because you couldn’t hit X to throw to second, as it was the pitch button. Now, players will bring up a pickoff attempt with the L2 as a modifier, and throw to bases per the standard fielding alignment. Further, they’ve added three attempts, a casual throw, which is a simple tap; a quick pickoff as a double-tap, and then a deceptive pickoff, which is a hold of the button. Deceptive pickoffs will bring up a pitch meter, in case you’re playing a human opponent. Also, if you have runners at the corners, it’ll allow a righthander to fake the throw to third and then pivot and nail the guy at first. During the call I asked for the team’s elevator pitch for the game, and that’s what I got, so it would take a very long ride to cover what’s new and enhanced. Of course, I haven’t seen MLB 10 The Show with my own eyes. But given the quality of last year’s game, if they can pull off all of what they told me, MLB 10 The Show will be very impressive, indeed. I’m looking forward to spending time with it.

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What’s On Deck For MLB 10 The Show [Sports]

Mile Marker 21: Owlboy [The Road To The Igf]

Tired of stodgy corporate games made by The Man and his minions? We’re playing the 31 best indie games for a change of pace —- and so we can judge them. Today, Owlboy! In A Sentence Mute Owlboy communicates with facial expressions and takes on enemies by clutching friends with weapons and flying around with them as he fights the pirates threatening his sky island home. State Of Completion The team is working to have a fully playable demo in time for the Game Developers Conference in March. Thoughts Owlboy was nominated for excellence in visual arts, and I can see why. The game makes stunning use of pixel art to create a colorful and surprisingly detailed world with depth, interesting lighting and great character design. But the game isn’t just visually interesting. Owlboy uses facial expressions to communicate with everyone, his slow-flapping wings offer a type of flight that takes some effort to master and the puzzles I came across in the relatively short demo show great potential for a game with depth. Answers We Demanded Kotaku: How did you come up with the name to your game? Blake Edwards: We worked on Owlboy for a few months before settling on the name. My girlfriend had once suggested to us (half-jokingly) that the name of our hero/game should be called Owlboy. At first, we thought the name was too silly, but before long the name stuck and we couldn’t think of it being called anything else. Simon S. Andersen: Despite it sounding extremely cheesy, we started liking it for just that reason. It was like a throwback to the old platform game names like: Super Mario, Megaman, Wonderboy and Alex Kidd. It was easy to remember and had a nice ring to it, so why not. Besides, if we want to modernise it later we can always add ‘Reloaded redemption evolution round-2 ultimate’ at the end for a special release. Kotaku: What do you do for a living now? What do you hope to do? Andersen: Right now I work as a freelancer doing art- and game related jobs whenever someone needs me. What I hope to do is create games for a living. We’re already well underway in that department, but we still need that big break to get everything moving so for now, it’s working our collective sitting utensils off till we get there. Edwards: I started Owlboy as a hobby programming project when I was in college studying computer science. Now I’m a programmer at CCP Games, doing my dream job. Jo-Remi Madsen: Making video games has been the focus of my life since I was a toddler. Initially, meeting Simon and discovering Owlboy immediately triggered my interest of getting to work with such a talented artist as him. His art-style fits perfectly with the one I’ve been eager to put into all my own video game designs, and I decided to help Simon completing Owlboy and, with his help, start making video games on a full time basis. I truly believe, with the skills we both possess, we can develop magnificent video games in the future. Making video games is what I hope, and definitely will continue to do. Kotaku: The entries of the IGF are an eclectic bunch, ranging from esoteric art titles to straight forward drop-in-and-play casual games. In creating your entry what do you hope to accomplish with your game? Andersen: I’ve always had a goal of creating something unique whenever I start a project. I’ve always been fascinated by how 2D games work, and with Owlboy, I wanted to explore a concept that would only work in a 2-dimensional setting. I feel in the race to promote bigger and better hardware, marketing teams have instilled this idea that 2D games and indeed pixel art is somehow obsolete. As an artist, I reject the idea that a medium gets canned when a new one comes along. People still make paintings despite the camera being invented. So I wanted to see what new things could be done with a 2-dimensional pixel game, maybe inspire others to rethink their idea of what it is as a medium and hopefully show that an original concept can be successful in an industry filled with genres and rehashes. Owlboy is probably not the best way to do this, but it’s a start. Oh, and naturally, I want it to be a damn entertaining game too. Have to add that in there. Madsen: This is the first game I’ve developed with the backing of a team. I’ve been working solo up until now, developing small games for my website. Finishing Owlboy will be a tremendous leap for me as an aspiring game-developer. I wish to stay in the team even after Owlboy’s completion, and with the team’s help, continue to develop games that aim to entertain. Make sure to check out the rest of the Independent Games Festival finalists as we head toward the March awards show.

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Mile Marker 21: Owlboy [The Road To The Igf]

Civilization V Hexes PCs This Fall [Game Announce]

Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise returns this fall with a fifth installment, featuring hexagon tile maps, a new combat system, deeper diplomatic options, and a community hub where players can share content and compete without leaving the game. Civilization marches on relentlessly in the fifth installment of the classic strategy series, published by 2K Games and developed by the team at Firaxis. Civilization V features a completely new game engine, allowing for lush, organic landscapes unlike anything seen in the series previously. With the new engine comes a new combat system, which might separate the casual Civ player from the hardcore. The new hexagon tiles scream war gaming to me, and that’s not traditionally a genre for the stay-at-home mom. The new system promises more strategic options in battle, with new elements such as ranged bombardment sure to make combat much more interesting than it has been in the past. More peaceful players should be pleased by the inclusion of fully animated leaders and deeper diplomatic options, while players seeking online interaction need look no further than the game’s player hub, where community-created content can be swapped and multiplayer matches launched. “Each new version of Civilization presents exciting challenges for our team,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. “Thankfully, ideas on how to bring new and fun experiences to Civ players never seem to stop flowing. From fully animated leaders and realistic landscapes, new combat tactics, expanded diplomacy and shared mods, we’re excited for players to see the new vision our team at Firaxis has brought to the series.” It sounds rather intense, but what of the more casual Civ players? “In addition to Civilization V, Firaxis Games is also currently developing Sid Meier’s Civilization Network, a Civ game for Facebook. With Sid Meier leading design, Civilization Network will offer yet another option for world domination to both the casual gamer and the biggest fans of the series. It’s another way to access the famously addictive world of Civilization.” It looks like Firaxis is going in two different directions with the Civilization franchise. Which side will you be on?

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Civilization V Hexes PCs This Fall [Game Announce]

EA Sports Restores Warner, Other Retirees, to Madden Roster [Sports]

A week ago EA Sports removed Kurt Warner and other NFL players who retired at the end of the season from the final Madden roster update. Pressure from the game’s community and a sports gaming website has restored them. The removal was apparently a departure from past practice, although EA Sports told Pasta Padre the decision to remove Warner, the Arizona Cardinals’ starting quarterback is because he retired before the conclusion of the season. (Two others, Junior Seau and Bertrand Berry, were also removed.) But Madden NFL 10 is supposed to represent the rosters of the 2009-2010 season, and Arizona Cardinals fans were left without the starting quarterback who led their team into the second round of the playoffs. They were stuck with Matt Leinart, who appeared in eight games and completed 51 passes, none for touchdowns. Naturally, you can imagine their unhappiness. Madden NFL lead producer Phil Frazier said the team heard the outcry, and gave a statement to Pasta Padre saying that “overwhelming response” via a poll on that site (and also EA Sports’ own forums ) has led the team to reverse itself. An update, which is expected to move by the weekend, will add back all the retired players who had been removed. This is the right thing to do. While fans could play with the roster that shipped with the game, it was accurate as of August and if anything was even less realistic than one absent the Cardinals’ starting quarterback (It also lacked Brett Favre). And that’s for singleplayer or offline play; online multiplayer requires the latest roster. So kudos to EA for fixing the problem, and to the community and Pasta Padre for keeping after the issue. Kurt Warner Returning To Madden 10 [Pasta Padre]

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EA Sports Restores Warner, Other Retirees, to Madden Roster [Sports]

All-New Aliens vs. Predator Gameplay Trailers Released

Developed at Rebellion by the team responsible for the original 1999 PC classic, the all-new Aliens vs. Predator allows players to take the role of three infamous species: Colonial Marines, Predators and Aliens; today we have two new trailers.

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All-New Aliens vs. Predator Gameplay Trailers Released

Square Enix Has "No Plans" For Final Fantasy XIII DLC [No Plans Watch]

In an age in which downloadable content is often discussed when a game is released (or even before!), Square Enix has stated that it does not have currently have any plans for Final Fantasy XIII DLC. “Regarding the DLC content, we feel that the final product is 100% enjoyable…it’s the complete package,” says Final Fantasy XIII producer, Yoshinori Kitase, and director, Motomu Toriyama in a joint statement.” So we’re not planning any DLC at this time.” No plans. At this time. That doesn’t exactly rule out planning for the future, now does it? “In regard to the rumored cut content, we feel it was taken out of context,” the pair continues. “There are a lot of ideas that are brought to the table, and then the team takes the best ideas out of those, and the final product is polished that way.” A lot of those ideas were just that: ideas. They didn’t make the final cut and are not in the game. According to Square Enix, the team is not looking into releasing this unused content as DLC. Perhaps Square Enix is not ready to discuss downloadable content, and that’s fine. But if there’s no DLC, there will be disappointed FFXIII players. These days, DLC is not just expected, but a given. Final Fantasy XIII: Your Questions Answered [PlayStation.Blog.Europe via VideoGamer ]

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Square Enix Has "No Plans" For Final Fantasy XIII DLC [No Plans Watch]

Final Fantasy XIII: Your Questions Answered

Earlier in the week, we told you we’d be meeting up with Square Enix to talk Final Fantasy XIII with Producer Yoshinori Kitase and Director Motomu Toriyama, along with the Battle Director Yuji Abe. So all your questions went to the former, which you can read in full form below. But the FFXIII love fest didn’t end there. With the game less than a month away (March 9!), Jeff and I got to play a nice chunk of the game…enough to get familiar with the battle system to chat all about it with Mr. Abe. In the video, you’ll get an in-depth look into the game’s battle system, which I have to say, once you understand it, it’s quite intense. PSB: With western RPGs becoming so popular, how were you influenced in Final Fantasy XIII to encompass all audiences? – via DMPrince Kitase/Toriyama: No games were a direct influence in particular, but we definitely looked at the FPS genre and other Western games to incorporate more speed and increase the pace of gameplay in Final Fantasy XIII. In terms of the FPS genre influence, the story progression of FFXIII is very similar to that (FPS) genre in the sense that different challenges and situations are presented to the character one after the other. That’s how they progress in the storyline. Of course, there are a lot of North Americans that imported the game. What do you say to those who say the game might be too linear? Does the accusation bother you? The earlier part of the game was intentionally created to be a linear experience because we wanted to make the experience similar to a movie or drama where players really get to know the characters and what is behind their actions. And also, since this is a brand new system for FFXIII, we wanted to take the correct steps to make sure players can control that system at will. So it is a surprise that so many people are commenting that the game is linear, but once you get into the area of Pulse in the game , it’s much more of a free world and the battle system really comes to life. And once you have a good idea of how to control it, you can go full force and it should be a completely different experience. Do you think that the idea of RPGs from the 80s and 90s being wide open is a dated stereotype? There’s sort of a template to the RPG system, traditionally, where players would go to the town and find out information through text, leave town to fight monsters and then come back to town and buy health and items, etc. FFXIII didn’t really look for some sort of template to follow, but we tried to go out and create and set a new trend for RPGs. So there isn’t really a thought to stick to tradition. How long would a play-through of the game with missions take? As far as hours, of gameplay…if you play straight through the story it would be about 60 hours of gameplay. But if you decided to play through all the missions, it would be, well, basically eternity. It could last forever. The enemies in the Pulse area are much stronger, as well, so there’s lots of replay value there. What is the native video resolution and audio format on the PS3? – via kturcotte Final Fantasy XIII runs in 720p and Dolby Digital 5.1 Final Fantasy traditionally chooses a song to accompany the game. Why did you go with Leona Lewis in the Western version instead of a traditional Japanese artist? – via ROFLdrg Previous FF titles brought over the Japanese songs to the Western versions of the game, but we felt that with a song that’s sung in a language that’s understandable to North American or European users, it would bring the game closer to the player and depart from the idea that Final Fantasy is a game that comes from overseas. Overall, it would tighten the relationship between the player and the game, so that’s why we decided to go with an English theme song. Are they any plans for PlayStation Home integration with FFXIII in North America? – via Jetup As you know, there’s some activity in the Japanese PlayStation Home but for North American activities, things are still in the planning stages and there’s nothing confirmed at this time. How does Final Fantasy XIII compare to the First Final Fantasy game that you worked on? – via KazeEternal (Toriyama): The first FF game I worked on was FFVII, and similar to XIII, it was a title that brought a drastic series as a whole (moving also from the Nintendo platform to PlayStation), the graphics were extremely renewed and different, so there was a huge jump there. For FFXIII, it’s the first time the series is coming to high-def consoles, and the graphics are so high-quality that you can express very detailed expressions and emotions. So did you see a lot of the same challenges with FFXIII that you saw with VII? The challenges were different because with FFVII, the team was in the dark and 3D graphics were so new that they really had to figure things out from scratch. So they got a hold of the 3D technology with VII, and fined tuned it for X, so with XIII, it’s kind of going along the same path. The team already has this knowledge and skill to work on 3D graphics, but of course with XIII things are so much more polished and the level of the CG movies are on par with movies. The team is really looking to inspiration for movies for comparison points for FFXIII. So the challenges were different for both games. What did you learn from working on your first high-definition FF game? – via Shadow780 One thing that the team, and especially the art team can take from the experience of developing FFXIII to future titles is the CG tech, especially the textures for the characters. For previous gen consoles, the art was essentially drawn and it was more of illustration work. But for FFXIII, a lot of CG tech was involved and getting the art and texture of the skin right was a key component for FFXIII…definitely something that the team will take to future titles. And of course every developer is really looking to make their characters and worlds look as realistic as possible, but we wanted to go one step behind and evoke emotion through the characters. The shine of the lip or the look of the stockings can evoke a sexual tension. The same goes for the male characters…we want the fans to think they are cool, and they are more than just a game characters. What was it like working on the PS3 for the first time? The PS3 is definitely a spectacular machine and the team was really able to realize its visions for the characters and graphics, and at the same time, were able to have big onscreen battles going on. The PS3 hardware was something that really helped envision the game. I heard there was content removed from the original game? Could it possibly resurface as DLC? – via @ericsavatar Regarding the DLC content, we feel that the final product is 100% enjoyable…it’s the complete package. So we’re not planning any DLC at this time. In regard to the rumored cut content, we feel it was taken out of context. There are a lot of ideas that are brought to the table, and then the team takes the best ideas out of those, and the final product is polished that way. There was content that were “ideas” that didn’t make the final content, but the team isn’t looking to release that as downloadable content. In FFXIII, it seems like there’s a movement toward more realistic characters. What’s the direction you’re going with these particular characters? There is definitely a conscious movement toward depicting emotion and realism for the characters. The team wants to create characters that mature audiences can relate to, as well. Any news on Agito or Versus? No set date yet, so you can keep on the lookout for new information. And though we can’t really go into detail, a quick overview of the status of development; 100-200 staff members from FFXIII are now finished with the game, and all the people that have been working on it, they have all this knowledge of PS3 tech (and PSP) and they can bring it to these different teams and the development speed will probably increase.

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Final Fantasy XIII: Your Questions Answered

The Road To Hell: The Creative Direction of Dante’s Inferno

Jonathan Knight, creative director of Dante’s Inferno, discusses the thinking behind the path he and his team took in choosing and adapting the classic poem for use in the Visceral Studios action game.

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The Road To Hell: The Creative Direction of Dante’s Inferno

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