Tag Archive for 'RPG'

BioWare Unveils Two Trailers for ‘Dragon Age’

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on July 13, 2008
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BioWare released two trailers for their upcoming computer RPG Dragon Age: Origins this week.

The first trailer shows the beginnings of a rain-soaked battle between humans and an army of monsters. The second starts off the same, but includes some more combat sequences.

Neither trailer shows any gameplay or story features, and the graphics look incomplete. More information on BioWare’s new game should come from this week’s E3.

Dragon Age: Origins is scheduled for an early 2009 release on PC and is the first in a new franchise for BioWare. Billed as the spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, the game is set in an open, epic fantasy world with a strong party element, and will hopefully be more complex than the studio’s recent console games.

Previews of ‘Too Human’ Enjoy Story But Not Shortness

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on July 3, 2008
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Early run-throughs of Silicon Knights’ upcoming game Too Human have drawn interesting responses from critics.

Creator Denis Dyack has already promised that story will be essential to his upcoming opus, following the tradition of past Silicon Knights games such as cult classic Eternal Darkness.

Chris Kohler at Wired enjoyed Too Human’s story, a cyberpunk retelling of Norse mythology, but saw combat gameplay, not story, as the game’s main drive.

“Too Human is not the story-driven Silicon Knights title that we, the long-suffering fans of Eternal Darkness, have been waiting for these last five years,” says Kohler.

“Just as I came to grips with the gameplay,” Kohler adds, “and just as the story seemed as if it was starting to ramp up into overdrive — the game ended.” He took ten hours to finish Too Human’s campaign, which ends in a cliffhanger.

Tycho at Penny-Arcade took a more leisured fourteen hours to finish the game and was more satisfied with his experience.

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Blizzard Rumored to Announce ‘Diablo III’

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on June 25, 2008
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UPDATE: Blizzard officially announced Diablo 3 Saturday. Their Web site has a teaser trailer and gameplay footage, plus screenshots and information on two character classes, the returning Barbarian and new Witch Doctor.

Signs have popped up all over the Internet that Blizzard is prepared to announce Diablo 3 this Saturday at the Worldwide Invitational in Paris.

WoW Insider reports that a leaked schedule suggests a Diablo-related announcement, and DiabloII.net claims that industry insiders have confirmed that Blizzard will announce a new Diablo. Blizzard acquired the Web address diablo3.com earlier this year.

This information accompanies a piece of viral marketing on Blizzard’s homepage, which has been taken over by an evolving icy image. The ice has grown larger and opened up over the past three days, and two runic symbols have joined the original one.

Blizzard.com Screen on Wednesday, June 25

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‘Xenogears’ Veterans Back Together For New Game

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on May 3, 2008
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Three key members from the staff that made the 1998 cult classic Xenogears have reunited to develop the upcoming game World Destruction for the Nintendo DS, says Wired blog Game | Life.

Writer Masato Kato, character designer Kunihiko Tanaka, and composer Yasunori Mitsuda are all heavily involved in the development of the new game. All three are Square veterans who held similar positions on the staff for Xenogears.

World Destruction is a fantasy RPG developed by Image Epoch and produced by SEGA. It will be released, along with an accompanying anime series, this summer. The Japanese language site is already up with a few pictures, and the current issue of Famitsu also has screenshots.

The game follows Kyrie and Morute, two revolutionaries who join an organization out to destroy the world, where humans have been enslaved by monsters, according the Wired blog.

BioWare Founders See Narrative As More Than Just Story

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on April 26, 2008
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Another interesting interview with BioWare folk sprang up this week, this time with the two doctors who founded the well-known studio, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk.

Muzyka and Zeschuk see multiple narratives within every game. “The story, VO, and the character interactions for us is an important one, but it’s not the only one,” said Muzyka in the interview.

“There’s also you as explorer, exploring new areas with that sense of awe and excitement,” he continued. “Or you and combat as you as a combatant and progressing your abilities. Or developing your skills assuming your personal identity, growing your character, or interacting with other players in your online guild or community.”

Both Muzyka and Zeschuk are incredibly smart industry veterans with opinions worth listening to. In this interview, they comment on dealing with Fox, their upcoming MMO, Nintendo, film and, most interestingly, narrative and storytelling.

“It’s not narrative in the game that’s the thing,” said Muzyka, discussing games as a medium for art. “I think it’s the emotion, that whatever play experience you’re having, whether social interaction or gameplay interaction, or in the game having combat, it’s the emotion you’re feeling that makes you feel connected to it.

“That’s why art resonates,” he continued, “as you start feeling something for the characters or the experience.”

BioWare Writers Discuss Their Craft

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on April 20, 2008
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BioWare writers Mike Laidlaw and Drew Karpyshyn discussed dialog, working with user-created characters, and world-building in an interesting interview with CVG.

“Getting to the same level of quality as film is good,” says Laidlaw, “but just trying to make a film isn’t the right direction. Interactivity gives us something no other medium has.”

Karpyshyn agrees: “We’re finding that the technology is finally reaching the point where it’s starting to feel very realistic - we can actually have interactive conversation where you talk with people rather than them just talking at you.

“I like to use the analogy that we’re at the point where Hollywood was in the early ’30s where they’re just starting to add sound, they’re starting to get the technology locked in place. It’s all about our skill set, coming up with our own conventions, our own language of telling stories, something film has developed over the last century.”

Not surprisingly, writing an open-ended narrative is extremely tough. “Fortunately at BioWare,” said Karpyshyn, “we’ve kinda got used to it, but that’s why it requires a full team of four or five writers for one of our games.”

There’s a lot of fascinating tidbits in here. The BioWare writers reveal how they create characters, from the protagonists to the quirky barkeep, and how they develop their appearance alongside their dialog.

One of the most interesting things they reveal is that the team spent nine months planning out the details of the “Mass Effect” galaxy before deciding on characters or plot. Hopefully that means the sequel will get here sooner.

PREVIEW: BioWare Fine-Tunes ‘Mass Effect’ for PC Release

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on April 13, 2008
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Although the PC port of “Mass Effect” was recently pushed back to May 28, it’s still worth getting excited about, especially if you have yet to play through the game. BioWare promises to offer a polished version of the role-playing game originally released on the Xbox 360 last November.

BioWare has yet to say if the PC release will include any additional content, but the gameplay is being improved. Combat will take on PC shooter controls, and your two cohorts will be managed with a reformatted heads-up display, revealed just last week. In addition to better organizing party management, this HUD allows you to issue separate move orders to your party members.

'Mass Effect' PC HUD

Inventory management, which was a pain in the ass on the Xbox 360 version of “Mass Effect,” should be much more fluid in the PC release. Items that were once lumped into a long list will be sorted by type and grade.

BioWare is also improving the game’s already impressive graphics for the PC release, says 1UP’s Jeremy Parish. Textures look more detailed, colors more vibrant. Character animations may need improving, according to 1UP’s preview.

Performance-wise, “the development team wants the game to run smoothly, even on a lower-powered system,” writes Parish, “although they won’t say precisely what they consider ‘lower-powered.’” Because the game will be installed, load times are much reduced (although I’m somewhat frightened by how much hard disk space the extensive dialog will take up).

I’m glad BioWare chose to focus on gameplay for the PC release of “Mass Effect.” The original was a great game bogged down by a clunky interface and party control, both of which should work much better with a PC. This more polished version of one of last year’s best games should hold us over until the promised “Mass Effect 2.”

EDIT: The PC version of “Mass Effect” will also include the “Bring Down the Sky” DLC and its 90 minutes of additional gameplay for free, reports Shacknews. There’s one more reason everyone who bought the Xbox 360 release should have held out: Xbox users had to pay 400 Microsoft Points, just over $5, for the content.

INTERVIEW: ‘Age of Decadence’ Developer Says Choice Defines RPGs

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on March 31, 2008
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Iron Tower Studio’s lead developer Vince D. Weller was kind enough to answer some questions about his upcoming tradition-minded RPG “Age of Decadence” in an email interview.

He talks about his own game, the importance of choice and story, and how his studio’s approach to storytelling contrasts with that of big name developers like Bethesda and Oblivion.

Down the Wall: First, could you introduce yourself and your team?

Vince: 5-people team: designer, programmer, artist, modeler, animator. My name is Vince, I’m the designer.

DtW: “Age of Decadence” has a very interesting setting. How did you decide on that?

Vince: We wanted to make something different. High and generic “medieval” fantasy has been done to death and then some. We also wanted to go with a “fall of an empire” scenario for storytelling reasons and the Roman Empire is an obvious choice there, both as an inspiration and as a reference. The rest was influenced by some Michael Moorcock’s works (city of Quarzhasaat) and Lovecraft’s stories.

DtW: What games exemplify the non-linear story that you are going for with “Age of Decadence”? What’s your inspiration?

Vince: Prelude to Darkness, a great indie RPG that nobody’s heard of, and Arcanum, a Troika RPG masterpiece.

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PREVIEW: ‘Age of Decadence’ Harkens Back to RPG Classics

Published
on March 24, 2008
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I think back to games like “Baldur’s Gate II” and “Planescape: Torment” as the epitome of gaming narratives. The lack of photorealistic graphics and voice acting allowed developers to create non-linear experiences with literary exposition and protagonists born entirely out of the imagination of the player.

“Age of Decadence,” an intriguing offering from the small and independent staff at Iron Tower Studio, promises to be an RPG in that traditional sense.

“Age of Decadence” art from irontowerstudio.com

“Age of Decadence” is turn-based and isometric with a well-developed character creation system and an emphasis on player-driven plot. The game immediately brings to mind classics like “Temple of Elemental Evil” and the “Baldur’s Gate” series, and is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world torn apart by magic.The game boasts around 100 total quests, including no MMORPG-like delivery or hitlist missions, and over 20 large areas.

“Overall, dialogues and choices are the main aspect of the game and the main attraction,” said lead designer and writer Vince D. Weller in an interview at Gnome’s Lair.

“We have seven different endings and only two involve mortal combat,” Weller continued. “You’ll be able to talk your way in and out of trouble, make allies and enemies (there are no default good and bad guys), and handle quests in non-combat ways using dialogues and text adventure elements.”

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A Great Year for Role-Playing Games in 2008

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on March 6, 2008
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A feature in Australia’s Gameplayer looks at the state of the Role-Playing Game for 2008. The article includes interviews with many of the genre’s top players and highlights the most promising RPGs of 2008, including Last Remnant, Fallout 3, and Fable 2.

“I would like to insist about the difference between the RPGs of the East, the J-RPGs, and those of the West, such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” says Takeahiro Kaminagayoshi, director of Mistwalker’s Lost Odyssey. “In J-RPGs, especially under Sakaguchi-san, emotion is a fundamental part of the game, as well as certain narratives, which are also extremely important to the storyline.”

Todd Howard, executive producer of the proudly Western Fallout 3 at Bethesda, puts it more simply. “We stay away from all the big cut-scene/story-telling stuff, to be honest,” he says. “We’re more fans of the ‘make your own story’ idea.” . . .

But different as they are, both types of RPG are recognizably the same species. They’re big, involved, complicated worlds that support big, complicated storylines — and they are extremely expensive to create. Really, really mind-bogglingly expensive and that’s not just expense in terms of money, but in terms of time, resources and, occasionally, sanity.

The article goes on to discuss differing treatment of story in Western and Japanese RPGs, namely that Japanese games have stories defined by the game makers while Western RPGs allow the player to create his own story. And games from both sides of the world inevitably focus on a hero achieving great heights from humble origins.

Not much to comment on here. Whether you’re into linear games or open worlds, this year promises to be a excellent one for RPG fans, especially on the Xbox 360.