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"News That Sucks" Department.. Doom 4 Rumors.

This is a painful Kotaku piece to summarize so ill just let you read it now and go over some of the more cringeworthy aspects of it.

http://kotaku.com/five-years-and-nothing-to-show-how-doom-4-got-off-trac-468097062

So first off, this is nearly entirely based on a hidden source at iD. I am not saying this is bad information, its just hard to validate. That said, this years QuakeCon is coming up and Carmack always gives a keynote and he will talk about some of this I imagine. Since I am a huge iD fanboy ill be watching it, I always do and its usually very awesome because Carmack is rad.

"Larger creature ambitions turned into mediocre garden variety behaviors,” the source... Read All This is a painful Kotaku piece to summarize so ill just let you read it now and go over some of the more cringeworthy aspects of it.

http://kotaku.com/five-years-and-nothing-to-show-how-doom-4-got-off-trac-468097062

So first off, this is nearly entirely based on a hidden source at iD. I am not saying this is bad information, its just hard to validate. That said, this years QuakeCon is coming up and Carmack always gives a keynote and he will talk about some of this I imagine. Since I am a huge iD fanboy ill be watching it, I always do and its usually very awesome because Carmack is rad.

"Larger creature ambitions turned into mediocre garden variety behaviors,” the source said. “[The story] again became lame and unfit for a late night sci-fi channel, and the team didn't feel a whole lot of ownership and contribution to the project. Cue the exodus of talent leaving ever since."

I have worked for companies where that happened and it can turn out to be good, but often times signals the end. iD has been around since the infancy of PC gaming, I really hope they come out swinging with Doom 4. Not just because I love Doom, but because I really fucking love Doom. Kind of knew about a few people that left, I wonder how widespread it was.

The Kotaku piece outlines that they merged the Doom 4 and Rage teams together and it was challenging and that makes sense. Its odd they couldn't nail down a design because they could simply take the Rage engine and remake Doom 1, 2 and 3 and it would sell fairly well. I think the next logical evolution of Doom is some badass war on earth in cities, so you know something like that.

"One source described a meeting in which ZeniMax executives told Id leads that “Doom 4 can and should be as big as Skyrim,” as far as both sales and cultural impact. (Skyrim, Bethesda’s massive role-playing game, shipped 7 million copies during its first week on shelves in November of 2011. And everyone had heard about it—not just hardcore gamers.)"

On one hand, I would love a Doom game as epic as Skyrim. On the other hand, the way this is worded, it sounds like ZeniMax is being a bit unrealistic. I mean how does someone simply make a game as impactful as Skyrim because you say they must. That said, I could see Doom 4 being as impactful as Skyrim given the right design.

At the end of the day this news isn't awesome and if this is all true, its sad to hear. I hold out hope for iD to do well with Doom 4 but as with many things, time will tell.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/05/2013 at 03:03pm

I wonder if iD has done this to themselves in a way. From my outside perspective, it just doesn't seem like they're learning. They were true pioneers back in the day, and made some of the most influential titles around. But now, people expect more than that, and where others have become the new pioneers for more advanced FPS gaming, it seems like when iD tries that it's just cliche and derivative. They either need to stick to what they do best, because that gameplay still holds up, or hire new talent who can bring fresh ideas to the table, and be sure they're surrounded by people who will listen.

Because I'm like you, Jon. I don't want iD going anywhere, but with that level of tearing down and rebuilding, you can't sustain long.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/05/2013 at 06:55pm

I think expectations are much higher than they were for certain. That said, if they returned to their roots with a simple Doom game, im not sure people would have a problem with that. I have been thinking of doing a pixel based Doom shooter similar to the original with a more modern touch. Thing is, I think the whole triple A thing is kind of nuts in some instances and I think they are falling prey to pushing for ultra pixel HD triple buffered rad. In Rage, that was fantastic no question but I have had just as much fun in FTL lately.

Id either cut it down to be a simple retro title OR scale it up Skyrim huge. Either game I would love to play.

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New Terraria PC Updates Leaked

Updates are coming for Terraria on the PC and to spoil some of them, Redigit, the developer working on them posted some screenshots to the official Terraria forums. After sending these screenshots to the official Cheerful Ghost labs for deep analysis we have figured out a few things.

The new update contains turtles. From the looks of it, a possible pet and enemy turtle. Pet being the turtle in the house and hostile turtles in the over world.

Waterfalls are coming to Terraria.

New Wizard armor and a flying sword looks to be added.

There is a pot with slightly different art.

I sent these results back to the lab many times but it came back with the same results as... Read All

Blue_Element wrote on 04/05/2013 at 07:53pm

There also appears to be different colored water / biome specific water! :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/05/2013 at 08:04pm

Ah good point, ill have to talk to the lab about missing that! I wonder how much stuff will be included in the PC update? Hmmmm.

Do some of these changes show up on the console version @ Blue_Element?

Blue_Element wrote on 04/06/2013 at 02:07am

No, all the new features in that screenshot aren't in the console version. :(

Blue_Element wrote on 04/06/2013 at 02:09am

Ooh, and there appears to be a "Bean Sword" in the pic if you look at the hotbar!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/06/2013 at 02:57am

Huh, interesting. I wonder how that works... I guess we will see :D

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LucasArts was more than Monkey Island...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/LOOM_Cover_Art.jpg

This is just a quick, nostalgic sendup of a fantastic adventure game of a bygone era: Loom. It's blowing my mind that this game is over 20 years old; when I got my hands on it for the first time it was already a classic.

Loom is not a particularly challenging game; this was right about when the industry was overcorrecting a bit for the mind-punishingly difficulty of the early adventure games. That's alright, though, even if the puzzles are not particularly stumping they're fun to play with and solve, and though the graphics and sound are definitely dated, they have aged well. Loom would probably be right at home next to some well-polished "retro" indie titles of... Read All

A Winning Build

I finally made it through FTL! Once. On "easy" mode. But let's not dwell on details, shall we? :) Spoilers ahead!

The winning build was, at the time of the Big Fight:

Redtail Kestrel layout
6 power in shields (3 dots)
6 power in engines
3 power in cloaking
4 power in drone control
Anti-Ship Drone II
Burst Laser I
Basic Laser
Basic Laser
Small Bomb
7 crew members

Sensors, Doors, Oxygen, Medbay weren't really relevant, but for the record Medbay and Sensors were each upgraded by one point.

I think the two biggest pieces here were the Cloaking and the Small Bomb, both of which were *critical* to the second round of the boss fight. Without cloaking you will have a hard time surviving... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/04/2013 at 07:07pm

This is awesome, thanks for sharing this.

I am thinking that doors and O2 upgrades might not be as useful as I think. I haven't nabbed a cloak yet, but since the cloak comes standard with the Kestral Layout 2 I think I need to work on getting that upgrade. I can live without the missile by default and frankly don't use it that much as is.

CapnCurry Supporter Post Author wrote on 04/04/2013 at 09:32pm

Actually, the cloak is not standard with Kestrel's Plan B Layout - I had to pick that up somewhere on the way.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/05/2013 at 01:12am

Oh. Ok that makes sense, thanks!

CapnCurry Supporter Post Author wrote on 04/05/2013 at 07:36am

Got my wife playing FTL as of this evening. On her third-ever jump she wound up in front of a too-close sun with her Oxygen and Doors on fire. We switched to my machine and paired for a sector after that, then she fired up her own game again. This game is brutal, I tell ya. :)

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/05/2013 at 05:53pm

It really is. Not as brutal as some Roguelikes i've played though. Like I said in an earlier review of FTL, it dares to be fun.

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Starbound Releases Awesome Roadmap

Totally can't wait for Starbound to drop later this year. Heralded as a spiritual successor to Terraria in space with quests, planet exploration and a ton more awesomeness this game looks to be completely bad-ass. Recently Chucklefish released the Starbound Roadmap as well as added lots of information about its current completion level with all the games features.

Some of the larger features are mostly complete such as World & Universe Generation, Dungeons and Villages, Items & the User Interface. Many of the remaining items with much to go have quite a bit complete already.

When a more formal date drops for Starbound ill let you know. Can't wait to try this... Read All

Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia

Doom: The Board Game is my favoriate board game of all time. So when I saw Plaid Hat Game's upcoming Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia I was pretty interested. The goal of the game is to build an army to fight booker for ultimate control of Columbia. It looks like you and the other players can have control of Elizabeth in some fashion but the details are a bit sparse as of now.

The game pieces and overall build look fantastic to me. I imagine ill see this in my local game store pretty soon and want to give it a shot when it does.

Have you picked up a board game for a video game before? If so how did it turn out for you? What do you think of Bioshock Infinite: The... Read All

Disney Closes LucasArts

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles."

Can't say as this is really surprising. Making games is hard and LucasArts really hasn't had a home run in some time. They did create some fantastic games of the retro era in Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Tie Fighter and a ton more.

LucasArts was working on Star... Read All

Terraria on the Playstation 3

I have been pretty excited to try out Terraria on the PS3 and today I took it for a spin. Its a fairly small download and it was running in a few minutes. The demo has Tutorial mode available and as such, played that.

The tutorial is fairly interesting as it runs you thorough a few game basics from mining to crafting a few pieces of starter gear. I never realized how much stuff Terraria packs in to the PC version. The console version has to make sense of all that and as such, its a very dense system of menus to navigate through and is a bit overwhelming at first. That said, after a few minutes I was fairly acclimated to things and didn't have a problem crafting and... Read All

Enhanced Game Platform Support

Today I launched the first pass at "ULTRA DELUXE SUPER-ENHANCED PLATFORM SUPPORT HD!" Which is to say, Game Platforms on Cheerful Ghost are now first class citizens.

Click around on the site and you will not see platforms as clickable tag links. Clicking a Platform tag will take you to the new Platform pages. Each Platform has its own page and a few bits of interesting data on it like a Wikipedia reference link as well as the most popular games the site has in reference to it.

Some platforms have a ton of games and some are very new and have only a few. Ill be working over the next bit to flesh out these pages even more with a description and other bits.

... Read All

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:34am

Is there a way to set a game to a certain platform? There are a few games on my list that are for Mac or PS3 but don't give me the option to change it to that.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:37am

Yeah, hit me up with the games and ill add them as options!

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:48am

"AwesomeNauts" and "Portal 2" on PC are also for Mac. There are a lot of other games on PC that are for Mac as well, so I'll tell you if I find anymore.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:49am

Also, there's a cool 2D pixelated online multiplayer game called "King Arthur's Gold" (KAG) that's for PC and Mac, and I was wondering if you could add it to the game list. :)

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:56am

Realm of the Mad God is also for Mac since it's a browser game, which got me thinking it would be cool if there was a platform option for "Browser" games. But technically the platform for browser games is actually just "Computers". So could you just add the "Mac" platform option to Realm of the Mad God? Haha.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:56am

And I also realized I still can't delete games from my games list. :(

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:58am

Wow, I think this is the most I've commented on a post, like ever. :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:11am

Added that stuff.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:13am

Yay! Thanks! :D

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:17am

Also, "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" is only listed for xbox, but it's for PC and PS3 too. And Crysis 3 is only listed for xbox as well.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:56am

Added.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 02:56am

PS King Arthur's Gold is awesome. Thanks for letting me know about it.

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FTL Wins GDC Awards & More

FTL recently won the GDC Audience Award and Excellence in Design. Both awards are very well deserved and FTL is the game I am playing right now. Each one of my games lasts an hour or less. I have made it about 75% of the way to the end on Easy and am currently refining my strategy to go further but I heard there is a boss battle at the end that I am kind of nervous about. Ill have a party when I beat this one.

Gamasutra recently posted an Interview with the FTL devs about the games design.

“We started with a very vague idea for a concept and used that as a guiding light for the entire project,” said Davis. “By having one singular focus we were able to abandon... Read All