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Zeno Clash

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

This year’s standout finalist in the IGF “Excellence in Visual Art” category and ModDB’s Best Upcoming Indie game for 2008, Zeno Clash, a tiny yet potentially explosive close combat -oriented indie FPS built around the Source engine, is coming fresh off the back of a string of accolades preceding its actual release.

Ghat and Deadra
Ghat and Deadra

In the game, players settle in the role of Ghat, a young man fleeing away from his creator, the Father-Mother, the most powerful clan leader in the city of Halstedom. The rebellious chap must escape and fight his way thru the dangerous lands of Zenozoik together with his companion, the high-spirited and trust-worthy Deadra.

The most distinct quality of Zeno Clash seems to be its ability to potently divide an audience like Moses did water, and if anything, the fearless look and feel rooted in a mind-bending array of influences – including Hieronymus Bosch, John Blanche and Dark Crystal 1)http://www.moddb.com/games/zeno-clash/features/zeno-clash-interview-part-1 – seems like an open call for opinionage.

Obviously, for an indie game, it’s definitely better to go down in flames than simply fade away, and the ACE Team have this all planned: Project leader Andres Bordeu indeed notes that the team actually feels safer about the off-the-hook stylistics:

From a certain point of view going for the unconventional has been the safe thing to do for us. … We knew it was impossible to compete with big companies that tend to put a lot of their muscle in technology graphics-wise.

If you’re interested, RPS have posted an article on the game in their Unknown Pleasures series, and the two-part ModDB article can be found here and here, respectively. The team promises a solid 4-5 hours of gaming, for the competitive price tag of $20, and if Arkane’s Dark Messiah from 2006 is anything to go by, Zeno Clash is bound to be an exciting, corporeal experience at best, and a curious piece of gaming ephemera at worst.

Personally, I expect nothing but the best from the project. For a few more screenshots, check out the gallery after the jump.

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Square Enix Offers to Buy Eidos

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

Japanese giant Square Enix has made a buyout bid for Eidos, for $120 million – a 129% premium over the worth of the latter company’s stock. Eidos has been the subject of buyout rumours for some time now, with its rocky financial state over the last few years. The buyout is likely to go ahead, and what effect this will have on the development of Deus Ex 3 remains to be seen.

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BioShock 2 Embargo til April?

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

Considering that BioShock 2 is expected to come out this fall, there has been a distinct lack of information since its announcement. A teaser trailer is all we have been given, telling us very little beyond some thematic hints. An inquiry to Community Manager Elizabeth Tobey as to when we were likely to be getting more information was met with a cheery lack of comment.

Petter Hegevall, a contributor at Swedish gaming site Gamereactor has reportedly seen BioShock 2 in action, but is not saying a word til April. It is reasonable to assume then that the information embargo will last until April, barring any exclusives.

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Telltale Takes Marketing Turn, Offers Free Swag Again

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

I’ll be a tattletale and let you know that Telltale is at it once again, furiously handing out free copies of their products. This time around you get to choose, too, between Sam and Max: Ice Station Santa and Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3.

The catch? Sign up to the mailing list. For once your multi-account e-mail hell is good for something, since I know you are already registered, ha!

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Dystopia and Eternal Silence Steamworked

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Hot off the Steamworks oven, Dystopia and Eternal Silence, two grade A Half-Life 2 modifications.

Dystopia is a cyberpunk-themed, team- and class-based modification that has its techno-augmented players combating and completing various objectives both in and out of cyberspace. To jack yourself up to cyberspace, hop to steam://install/17580

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Eternal Silence is a large-scale science fiction space combat modification that focuses on dogfights between smaller ships and assaults on larger motherships that result in human-sized FPS shoot-outs on decks and hangars. To get your flight on, consider steam://install/17550ngm_nebular13

Obviously, both projects stand out in the current modification landscape, not only because of their sci-fi –based setting and extremely polished look and feel, but also because both teams pride in dual-layered (cyberspace/real world and space/decks, respectively) game design, and as an indirect result have also somewhat struggled to find an audience large enough to sustain the core game mechanics to their fullest.

Both teams have also suffered some severe setbacks down the line – Eternal Silence being released with less-than-stellar (no pun intended) net code and a backlash after an IGF “Best Multiplayer Mod” nomiation in 2007 and Dystopia failing to meet its over-hyped expectations in its demo version. Let us hope both games will finally find their well-deserved player base thru Steamworks!

Check out a gallery for both games after the jump and stay tuned for more discussion on the positives and negatives of the Steamworks platform for modifications.

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