Last Friday, Bungie, the publishers behind the all-conquering Halo series, announced that they would not be showcasing any new content at this year’s E3.
This will come as a disappointment to many fans of the developer, as they have been teasing us for months with their new project, which is supposedly a far cry from the Halo franchise.
No show - Bungie will be absent from this year's E3
The announcement has led to speculation that Bungie do not want to overshadow something that Microsoft already has in the works, which many reports suggested was the Xbox 360’s successor, the “Xbox 720”. These rumours have since been debunked by a Microsoft source.
Wishful thinking - There will be no new Xbox at this year's E3
So what can we expect from E3 this year? Do you think that it is still too soon for another new Xbox? Or will you be dusting off the ol’ Mega Drive and getting your money’s worth out of Sonic & Knuckles??? Sound off in the comments below!
Apparently the title of Ubisoft’s fourth entry in their highly popular Assassin’s Creed franchise has been revealed.
Forum members of NeoGAF managed to extract information from a Ubisoft Facebook page post, revealing Assassin’s Creed Revelations, likely the fourth major title for consoles following last year’s Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.
Nothing else is known about the title, and the report is till unconfirmed by Ubisoft themselves, but an announcement will likely be made at their E3 2011 news conference on June 6th.
Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot previously went on record in February stating that the next AC game would be revealed this May, and that it would be a full retail title. Assassin’s Creed: Lost Legacy was previously announced for 3DS and is slated for release this year.
An Ubisoft spokesperson said the publisher has nothing to confirm at this time.
Is this the next chapter in the Assassin's Creed lineage?
A couple of weeks ago, rumours started to circulate that we would be seeing a new home console from Nintendo much sooner than any of us anticipated.
The “Wii 2”, or to use it’s super secret codename “Project Café”, is set to make it’s debut at this year’s E3 expo, with a projected release date of some time in 2012.
So what do we actually know about this new console? Below is a list of what we know to be true, and what at this point is typical internet speculation.
What is Nintendo cooking up?
The Controller
According to numerous sources, the new Nintendo controller will feature dual analog sticks in addition to standard d-pad and trigger buttons. It’ll mirror a Gamecube controller in general function but not in specific form. Sources have confirmed that the new controller will allow players to stream entire games to the device from the console, saying it’s like a miniature television. The screen size on the controller is also confirmed to be six inches in size. The price of course depends entirely on how much Nintendo is willing to invest into the development of this ‘Wii 2’, which will ultimately determine the retail price. Initial reports have suggested that the console will sell for up to $500 (around £300).
Could this be the new controller for Project Café?
The Hardware
Again, there is no definitive answer from Nintendo at this early stage, but many reports have suggested that the new console will be “significantly more powerful that the PS3 and xbox360, and will also be capable of running HD AND3D games.
The console is also said to be backwards compatible with both Wii and Gamecube games, allowing those of you with an abundance of Wii games to keep playing them until your hearts content.
Obviously the HD speculation is completely understandable, and that will probably be a given when Nintendo finally announces the specifications, as the graphic capabilities of the Wii are most definitely outdated and obselete when compared with those of the PS3 and X360. The more interesting report however, is the one suggesting that the console will be capable of running 3D games. Again this is just specualtion, but Nintendo are known for being innovators in the field, what with having introcued the first 3-dimensional game in the form of Super Mario 64, and revolutionising the way we play games with the Wii. It is not too far a stretch of the imagination to believe that Project Café will have 3D capabilities, but again this will most certainly be reflected in the retail price, and let’s face it, 3D technology ain’t cheap.
One can’t help but think that Nintendo is finally looking to recapture the ‘hardcore’ gaming market from Sony and Microsoft. Fans of the Wii have been left wanting when it has come to hardcore titles, and the novelty of Nintendo’s revolutionary console only lasts so long.
Whatever Nintendo is planning, it’s shaping up to be a big reveal come this year’s E3, and it could be the shake up that the games market needs.
Two weeks ago at GDC, Unreal debuted their new update to their Unreal 3 graphics engine, giving us a glimpse into the future of gaming as we know it.
The trailer for the update, entitled simply “Samaritan” as showcased the potential for Unreal Engine 3 and DirectX 11.
So what does this update mean? Epic released pictures and videos illustrating the potential of the engine, and displaying it’s already impressive capabilities.
“Image-based reflections that allow surfaces of any shape to reflect an approximate version of scenes, with varying glossiness across surfaces, anisotropic HDR highlights and anti-aliasing.”
Reflections are hard to pull of in games. They require a lot of complex algorithims and equations to get right, and if they’re not done properly, the end result can look sloppy and unconvincing. Epic’s solution to these problems is to take a simplified version of the scene around a reflected image, like your character reflected in the surface of water, and add all of the different effects that you would want to see on top of it. The picture below illustrates what they mean.
[courtesy of IGN]
The graphics look amazing, and I think it’s safe to say that they are the most realistic I have ever seen. Epic went on describing the new technology and its applications, continuing with “subsurface scattering” (SSS).
“Subsurface scattering (SSS) that simulates the light that scatters inside semi-translucent materials (this makes character skin come alive).”
This will mean that the skin of, say, a character in a game, will behave like skin does in the real world. Light isn’t simply reflected off of it; some of it is absorbed as well and eventually reflected back. Think of the difference between the plastic skin of a doll and your own, and that is what Epic are pertaining to.
“Anti-aliased masked materials that super sample the edges of masked and alpha-tested materials (this makes hair more look realistic than ever before).”
Put simply, aliasing is the appearance of jagged edges in game graphics. Hair up close, for exampl, often looks like a lot of horizontal jagged lines joined together, as if someone had created it in Paint on a PC. Epic claim that this will be a thing of the past.
This will mean far more realistic looking characters and environments, something that can decide if a game is a roaring success, or if it is destined for the bargain bin.
The update was released on March 9th, and anyone can download it from www.udk.com.
For now, here is the Samaritan trailer, showcased at this year’s GDC. Enjoy.
The G@mePad 