It's all in the execution

Homefront's premise is a bit goofy:

Set 20 years in the future, Homefront puts you at the spearhead of the resistance against North Korean occupation of the USA.

...but you have to admire its ambition:

In addition to a story-driven single-player campaign, Homefront promises a massive multiplayer component, most likely class-based, which aims to match the faster pace of games like Call of Duty to the scale of things like Frontlines.

... and the trailer is very well done:



[Quoted text from Eurogamer.]

A different kind of multiplayer?

Maybe.

Splash Damage and Bethesda revealed Brink last week, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun has some insight:

Your team of eight, whether all human, some human, or just you and the machines, has tasks to complete. Many, many tasks. And many each. These aren’t objectives everyone works together on - instead you pull up the Objective Wheel (OW, because it’s funny in capital letters) to see what needs doing. Perhaps an enemy needs interrogating, or an engineer is needed to perform some specific tasks, or a robot needs escorting. Pick one, it becomes your task, the floaty compass pointing you toward it, and it may well effect the tasks available to everyone else on your team. Perhaps they’ll now have options to help back you up.

Part of this means being able to change class at any time you can find a terminal. Become a soldier and you’ll be tasked with blasting through enemies. Switch to engineer and you’ll have jobs like laying down turrets or fixing cranes. Find that the bot escort mission you were on isn’t making good progress? Switch out to another challenge and perhaps help clear the way. In order to pick things from the OW you’ll need to spend XP, which is earned by completing tasks and shooting the enemy. XP is also spent on new weapons and customisations for your character, which are persistent changes in the game world.

If you’re muddled about any of that, then frankly so are we. Quite getting to grips with how eight people choosing different objectives but working together is going to work we can’t know without playing it. But Splash Damage say they spend all day every day playing the multiplayer, and are confident they’re tweaking it to perfection.

Online multiplayer games can start to feel pretty formulaic after a while, even with the surge of co-op stuff we've been seeing lately. I'd very much like to see some kind of quantum leap forward before I die, by which I mean a broad and deep departure from the standard online FPS feature set.

Maybe Brink will do that. Hell if I know.

And yes, I did say online F-P-S. I still refuse to cavort with the glorified garden gnomes in WoW.

Splinter Cell: Convinction

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is still one of my top five all-time games. Even if you have no love for the series, this trailer is still worth watching. The word "visceral" is overused in the industry, but it nonetheless applies here:

More on L4D2

1UP has a basic preview, Shack News got an interview with Valve's Chet Faliszek, and Kotaku got some hands-on time with the game. There's enough information between those three articles (and the RPS post I mentioned before) to get you excited ... or not.

At the moment, I'm not terribly interested. But November is a long way off, and there is a lot to like. For example:



If all that isn't enough for you, Shack has another gameplay vid.

BioShock 2's MP: bare bones, it seems

From Ars Technica:

Players will only have a limited combat load-out during the multiplayer matches; during the demo, only two weapons and three plasmids could be used. According to 2K Marin, this is because keeping it simple is the best way to make gameplay flow, as players will be able to switch weapons and abilities on the fly instead of having to flip through a series of choices until finding the right item for a proper scenario.

The one thing about the multiplayer mode that didn't feel natural was that in each match, a Big Daddy upgrade will spawn in a random location; when a player picks it up, they transform into a Big Daddy. This changes the nature of play for a while, as all the other players essentially have to team up against the upgraded player in order to survive, while the latter is armed with some incredibly powerful weapons and can take quite a large dose of damage.

Currently, only two game modes have been revealed for the multiplayer system: free-for-all and team deathmatch, though it was mentioned that at least one more unrevealed play mode was forthcoming. The game will also be able to support up to ten players in a match, though further details about the multiplayer mode were promised before the game's release this fall.

UPDATE: Shack News has more information. Not encouraging.

In Brief

Lots of useful bits of information around the interwebs today:

■ World of Warcraft - Patch 3.1.2

■ Far Cry 2 - Patch 1.03

■ Demigod - Patch 1.01

■ Nvidia drivers - beta forceware 186.08, containing the 9.09.0428 PhysX drivers (WHQL), which can be downloaded separately.

■ Windows 7 - retail release confirmed for October 22, 2009.

■ Bing.com - Microsoft's new search engine is live.

Project Natal

A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box. manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”

I feel much like the man in the parable (a favorite of Douglas Adams). I know the technology exists. I even have a rough understanding of the science. Maybe it's a sign of age, but I just do not believe that this thing will work as advertised:

MW2 - E3 "stage demo"

Warning: spoilers ahead.

In all likelihood, this is the mission that will be released as a single-player demo in the run-up to November 10 (and of course, will be one of the main set-pieces in the full game).

"

I'm not seeing anything with the engine that suggests a substantial upgrade at this point, but it all still looks very nice. It's obvious by now that Infinity Ward has recycled most of the assets from CoD4, with a certain amount of new stuff (e.g. the motion sensor) thrown into the mix. While that's not a bad thing by itself, it is likely to make the game feel like more of an expansion pack, as opposed to a proper sequel.

If the same holds true on the multiplayer end -- and I have no doubt that it will -- there won't be much to distinguish MW2 from CoD4.

E3 ... here we go

Once again, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is upon us, and that means an unholy surplus of gaming news to consume and digest. I couldn't make it out to LA this year, as I'm in the mood to punch too many of the attendees, but I have compiled a list of essential information from Day One to present to all of you. Here it is:

VALVE ANNOUNCES LEFT 4 DEAD 2

The trailer is decent, but the real story is on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, which has an exclusive (and highly-detailed) preview, and a podcast interview with Valve's project lead, Chet Faliszek. L4D2 will feature "new characters, in a new location, with new zombies, new weapons, new twists, and an improved Director, in five completely new campaigns set in the Southern United States." And a freakin' chainsaw. That's right, kids: Valve have brought you ten steps closer to living out your Evil Dead 2 fantasies. Call me Ash.

There's too much tantalizing information in the RPS posts to reproduce here, so hover over the link, and jam the left mouse button for all you're worth.

CRYSIS 2

All we know is that it's on the way, it will run on a whole new engine, and it will be multi-platform. The last bit is usually bad news for PC gamers, but we can hope.

MASS EFFECT 2

The reveal is well behind us, but the first proper trailer and the latest video should keep the juices flowing. If you haven't played the original, grab it out the clearance bin. Definitely worthwhile.

BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2 - trailer

JUST CAUSE 2 - trailer

STARCRAFT 2 - targeted for release at the end of 2009

BORDERLANDS - teaser trailer and developer interview

DEAD RISING 2 - trailer

TF2 top plays - week 3

Best soldiering I've ever seen.

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