In Deep Shadows

Martyn Zachary 2 Comments

Remember Boiling Point: Road to Hell? The ambitious, sprawling “high-maintenance” 2005 PC FPS title that in many ways beat Far Cry 2 to the punch and was, erm, sternly chastised for being released in unfinished state, but ultimately got patched up with several then-massive patches and in the process became a minor cult hit among the PC shooter crowd. Despite the proven updates, the game nevertheless became a bit of a poster boy for bad launches.

But did you know a sequel for the game exists and has been out for years? Running on the 3rd version of Deep Shadows’ Vital Engine, White Gold: War in Paradise was released in October 2008. The sequel, set on the Caribbean islands in the year 2010, very much structurally mirrors the first entry to the series: Like in the first game (which is called Xenus I in its motherland; the sequel is therefore titled Xenus II), the player is sandwiched in the power struggle between a government military, drug cartels, local natives and other islanders.

But that’s not nearly all; Deep Shadows have also published, in-between then and now, their other project, Precursors, which was released in Russia this previous December.

Precursors is characterized by the studio as a freeplay RPG/FPS/space combat mash-up with an economical component. This rather Outcast-looking game also contains vehicles, space shuttles for travelling in a seamless universe  as well as organic weapons that you have to feed and care for.

As influences, the developers have name-dropped David Braben’s classic Elite and Andre Norton’s science fiction novels; a presentation for the game wonders why the three aforementioned gameplay styles have never been combined before, perfectly illustrating the ambitious derring-do of the Russian studio.

Why have we not heard anything of these projects, then? Neither game is currently distributed in the English-speaking world, that’s why. While the developers worked with Atari on distributing Boiling Point, no suitable publisher has apparently been found for these two games. While there might still be some small hope left for Precursors, with more than a year having already passed with White Gold, I’m afraid there is relatively little hope of seeing an official English language release materialize for the game.

Therefore, the only concrete hope of playing either game in English are fan translations! In the Deep Shadows forums, dedicated Russian-to-English translation threads can be found both for White Gold and Precursors. While neither translation is close to being ready, some success has already been displayed, and since both games have been released on the same version of the Vital Engine, translators seem to have a good grasp of the situation (there are traces of unfinished English translations left in the Russian versions of the game) as well as access to a working SDK.

Here’s to hoping these two games will be playable sooner or later!

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Eyeing E.Y.E.

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

E.Y.E. is a dystopian cyberpunk/sci-fi/fantasy “50% FPS, 50% RPG, 100% immersion” 1)http://eye.streumon-studio.com/press/press_kit.pdf game from French bedroom developers Streum On Studios, who have, much like Natural Selection, Red Orchestra, Killing Floor and Nuclear Dawn, decided to undertake the long hard road from modification to full retail game on the Source engine.

Halt. Enter The Metastreumonic Anarchist Conspiracy Movement website.

Confused yet? I know I am. The only thing that’s absolutely clear is that E.Y.E., by all means, is a labour of love (do check out the fantastic concept art above). In the game, players become a planted spy seeking to discover a traitor in E.Y.E., a twofold group of Secreta Secretorum monks fighting against the Federation:

The story takes place in a dark future that has seen unending wars between the Federation – a several worlds union, and the Metastreumonic Force – an ancient and mysterious power.

The player embodies an infiltrated spy in E.Y.E – a group of elite monk warriors – made up of two rival factions in constant internal power struggles, themselves serving the Secreta Secretorum you work for: a multi-thousand-years-old secret organization desirous to steal power from the Federation. The organization ordered your infiltration to control and survey E.Y.E actions, as well to unmask a traitor to the cause. 2)http://eye.streumon-studio.com/index.php?page=game_details

Metastr…? Secretoru…? (Scivela…?) Though there exists a wealth of background information on the game’s website, the more I learn about the game, the more confusing it gets, as much of the material available is multifaceted and obscure.

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The Not-So Silver Lining

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment
Lost at the Sea

Fan games based on more or less commercially viable licenses have always faced the unenviable task of navigating the stormy, abbreviated seas of C&D and DMCA all the while keeping a low enough profile to avoid the aforementioned corporate shallows, at the same time maintaining a public enough face to attract necessary fan interest.

Some projects, like Indiana Jones & The Fountain of Youth and AGDInteractive’s remakes have surprisingly managed to stay afloat; others, like the very latest target of this type of license injustice, The Silver Lining, a King’s Quest fan game, are fish food:

In 2005, Phoenix Online Studios received a Cease & Desist letter from Vivendi Universal, the owners of the King’s Quest IP, in regards to our work on The Silver Lining. We complied with the request, and over the months that followed, we were able to work out a non-commercial fan license with Vivendi that allowed us to continue our work on the game.…

Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website. 1)http://www.tsl-game.com/

Closed Due to Tragedy

The Silver Lining was eight years in the making, and while this final blow in a long uphill battle must be a massive, massive disappointment to the members of the development team, it is also exactly that to the most dedicated fans of Roberta Williams’ classic adventure series; is it not the most interested of fans, after all, that come to develop, find out about and care for these underground fan games?

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Robots In This, Guys

Nabeel Burney 2 Comments

Like a certain caped crusader up until very recently, the Transformers IP hasn’t had much luck in the gaming space, with generally mediocre attempts over the years despite the no-brainer concept. That could change, though, if the new game from High Moon Studios delivers on its potential.

Transformers: War For Cybertron was announced at the end of last year with a teaser trailer, showing pre-rendered carnage taking place on Cybertron. Details were scant at the time; Game Informer had the exclusive preview in a recent issue which revealed some interesting information. The game uses the Unreal 3 engine, and has a gritty, war-torn look a la Gears of War. The design of the characters lies somewhere in between Generation One and the Michael Bay films aesthetics, with changes not only to the characters’ looks but some of the transformations as well – Megatron’s alternate form is a hovertank, Optimus’ is a hovertruck without a trailer. In fact, all the ground vehicles have been changed to hover-something or other, to allow for a shared control scheme between the two forms 1)http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/26/impressions-transformers-war-for-cybertron/.

Today a new trailer went up, with realtime footage using the game engine as opposed to pre-rendered CGI. While we still have no gameplay to make first impressions, one thing’s for sure: High Noon makes some epic trailers. I’m not exactly a diehard fan of the series, but I did grow up with the original animated show and toys, so I am excited by the promise of this title. A few gameplay impressions have gone up, Stephen Totilo’s at Kotaku gives a cautiously optimistic recap of the demo he witnessed. I only hope the game turns out better than the last game people were cautiously optimistic about.

As Totilo explains, there are two campaigns, the Autobots and the Decepticons, with up to three-player online co-op. Players choose from a selection of Transformers each with its unique weapons, vehicle and abilities. In the demo shown to the press, Optimus (not yet a Prime) had an area-of-effect stat boost called War Cry. Transformation between forms is done with the touch of a button and is smooth, keeping the momentum going. Joystiq remarks how the game plays a lot like linear third-person action games such as Ratchet and Clank.

High Noon may not have the best credentials with their previous less-than-stellar efforts in Daywatch and The Bourne Conspiracy, but they recognise the task at hand and assure that are trying to “make a great game” that is “true to the spirit” of people’s expectations. Transformers: War For Cybertron is due this May 2)http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/10/activision-singularity-transformers-war-for-cybertron-due-in/. After the jump, said epic trailers.

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Subversion, Procedural Cyber-Espionage From Introversion

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

It’s been more than three years since Introversion, indie developers behind Uplink, Defcon and Darwinia, first dropped the name of their new project, Subversion. That blog post and every subsequent entry were incredibly candid about the process of building the systems behind the game with screenshots and videos. But what kind of game it actually is was never revealed, until now. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has the scoop with news from Introversion’s launch event for Darwinia+, where Subversion was demoed for the first time.

From the very early work-in-progress demo that was shown, it appears that the game is about infiltration and sabotage. Where Uplink was a game of hacking and espionage on the intangible, ethereal level of the internet, Subversion takes place on the physical, infrastructural level, with the same kind of goals to accomplish. In the examples given the player was tasked with finding a secure server room in an office building, and had certain tools at his disposal including a stolen keycard and a wallscanner. A second run demonstrated a brute-force approach with guns and explosives 1)http://shfts.com/?p=2497. The way RPS’ Jim Rossignol puts it excites me:

On a wider, genre basis, it sits roughly in the Commandos area of careful execution of planned procedures. Or perhaps it is to Syndicate as Thief was to the shooter tradition…

The visuals of the game will no doubt use the neon-retro style that Introversion is known for. As you can see in the early development screenshots, flat-shaded and wireframe graphics portray the city blocks and interiors. It suggests an abstraction of the action, placing the player in the role of an overseer, able to witness the situation from various camera views.

As explained in the blog posts (and in the video embedded below), the art assets like the buildings and room layouts are all created procedurally – that is to say, generated by a computer algorithm as opposed to hand-crafted by a person. Changing certain values or randomising them produces completely different results, and in this way whole cities and offices can be created. Perhaps this will be done every time you play a level in Subversion, which would mean that each playthrough would have different maps to infiltrate.

Update:
Chris Delay of Introversion has updated the blog with a post about the Subversion demo, with screenshots of the build shown. Hit the jump to check them out.
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