03.31.08
Rock Band: Still Alive
It’s up, and it’s free! This week’s Rock Band DLC is HL2: Portal’s credits music.
7/7 approaches.
It’s up, and it’s free! This week’s Rock Band DLC is HL2: Portal’s credits music.
The long-awaited confirmation of a Halo 3 remake of Lockout has arrived. Below, I have included excerpts from Bungie.net’s article on this, along with all the screenshots they released of the map. This map, along with Ghost Town & Avalanche releases on April 15th via the Legendary Map Pack and will cost $10/800pts. Bungie is currently not aware of any plans by Microsoft to make the maps free in the future.
As its name suggests, Blackout is a remake of the Halo 2 classic Lockout, a cold series of interconnected platforms and walkways. Where Avalanche was retuned, reworked and massaged into something both familiar and unfamiliar, Blackout is a remake in a pretty strict sense of the word.
The setting is a UNSC Antarctic weather station with the completely arbitrary and stupid number z/41, it means nothing. Until the fans write some fictional significance into it and we eventually have to reverse engineer it into our canon. Thanks a lot, fans.
Its predecessor, Lockout, was set on a Forerunner installation. This time around we thought it would be cool to see what a human version of this same map would look like. So we created the fiction of it being a human weather station in the middle of frozen nowhere.
It’s a UNSC research station set in the Arctic, and I am pretty sure that this is also where all of the R&D on military grade Otter Pop rations took place. Early on I thought it was going to be an oil derrick, but that changed over time. We have some cool racks of glacier core samples, Doppler radar and other pieces of research gear strewn about, which makes for a nice touch – and when you look up to see them make sure you notice the beautiful Aurora Borealis in the sky. There were other, more outlandish settings done in the concept phase, but we’ll keep those secret as you never know when we’ll dig into that bag and pull it out for a future project.
What’s changed between Halo 2 and Halo 3 that affected the remake process?
PR: Equipment, field of view tweaks, higher resolution, widescreen, and Forge.
DM: I would guess the main change would be that jumping has changed and it made certain jumps easier to make. I wonder if the Assault Rifle’s influence also changed how the level plays vs the SMG. I think the level plays a little more mid-range because of the Assault rifle.
AM: The general pacing in MP changed between Halo 2 and 3, and the sandbox changed drastically, so that affects all remakes, but for Blackout specifically we wanted to keep things as close as possible to what was built in Halo 2. That means that the biggest changes come from actually gameplay as the way weapons and equipment interact on the map make a game on Blackout so much more different than a Halo 2 game on Lockout.
This is the first time I believe we’ve tried a full-blown nighttime multiplayer map. Originally I wanted it to take place on the back of a giant llama. I’m still bitter about this.
We almost didn’t do it because we already have Guardian, which was similar and ‘inspired by’ Lockout. But when I started up the DLC project we gathered a ton of data from the community, looked at the most played maps on Live and did some very unscientific polls on Bungie.Net and other community websites and Lockout was leaps and bounds ahead of every other map in terms of games played and the public demand. It also fits a need in our overall map portfolio to help round out the small maps that are available in Halo 3 and was a great artistic exercise.
The toughest part of making it was trying to be as faithful to the original as possible while also accommodating the inherent gameplay changes between Halo 2 and 3. The second toughest was getting Paul and the gang to fix their bugs on time and making sure lightmaps weren’t screwed all of the time.
Three more weeks!
Lots of news already for today, and we still have the revealing of the third and final Halo 3 map in the upcoming Legendary Map Pack coming tonight!
The Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack is now available for free from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
Microsoft today busted some of the GamerScore cheaters out there in the Xbox Live community, and what they’ve done to these people is hilarious, here are the details:
Today we took action on some of the accounts we have identified as the most serious offenders who have violated the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use by tampering with their GamerScore and Achievements.
The steps today takes the form of the following:
• Resetting the entire GamerScore for an account to zero
• The account will be unable to regain all previously obtained achievements and GamerScore, however, the players will have the ability to gain future Achievements by earning them fairly, like the majority of the Xbox LIVE community does.
• The account will be clearly labeled as a cheater for the community to view on xbox.com. You can see an example here. In dash, the personal view of the gamercard will be labeled as well.
Xbox LIVE remains committed to keeping the service free of cheating in order to maintain a fair and level playing field for everyone. To read more about GamerScore corrections read the FAQ on Xbox.com
In other news, the Arcade game Switchball is being re-released tomorrow and will be getting an upgrade in visuals and in smoother gameplay. Switchball was a fun game that I got a little over half-way through, and was just thinking a couple days ago how I should go back to it. The next day, the news of this upgrade hit, and now I have even more reason to go back to it. It’s an awesome game, so make sure to at least check out the demo of it on Xbox Live Arcade.
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Rock Band also received a large amount of songs today, a 6-song pack of Boston. For 800 points you get the following songs:
More Than A Feeling
Peace of Mind
Smokin
Rock & Roll Band
Something About You
Hitch A Ride
While the SAW videogame might not be out until Halloween 2009, the SAW franchise will continue later this year when SAW V hits theatres on October 24th. It has already been announced that SAW VI will release alongside the game in 2009.
SAW V began filming last Monday, March 17th, in Toronto, and is being directed by the franchise’s former Production Designer, David Hackl. According to Hackl, one trap can potentially kill the actor meant to be placed in it, so paramedics will be standing by while filming.
Not much is known about the movie, and I’m not one to search out spoilers, but from the bits of info I have read so far, fans of SAW IV can look forward to seeing the return the mysterious “Glass Box Trap” that viewers were given a glimpse of in IV.
You should already be going to Unscripted360.com, but in case you missed it earlier today, Deacon has begun a very interesting several day long contest over there, where you have to search out “Easter Eggs” that he has hidden all over his site.
The second map has been revealed, and it’s a “remake” of Halo 1’s Sidewinder. It wouldn’t be wholly accurate to call it a “remake,” but elements of Avalanche are certainly culled from Sidewinder – it has the same familiar U-shape, multiple ways from base-to-base, and a whole sandbox full o’ vehicles to play with. But there are many, many changes too.
Sidewinder’s new name is Avalanche, and Bungie has posted an interview with some of the designers and artists, along with the announcement that the map pack will be releasing on April 15th, and will be priced for 800 Microsoft Points, (they also point out that they didn’t set the price, Microsoft did).
Below this you will see I have posted all the pictures they have released so far, along with some interesting excerpts from the announcement article. For the full Q&A session, click here.
Avalanche is a large forerunner power station set on the front of a huge glacial shelf on an under construction Halo installation. The structure is pulling its power out of the densely compacted ice that constantly builds up behind the station before it falls into the ocean below.
The map has a lot more vehicle action now. We’ve included flying vehicle and fast transport vehicles (Ghosts and Mongooses) to the roster. The equipment plays a major role in objective games. In fact, for CTF I would even say that equipment works better in Avalanche than any other MP map.
Q: Why Avalanche instead of [someone from the Internet’s favorite map, here]?
JS: Honestly there are so many maps I would personally love to see placed within Halo3’s DLC. And for me and others Sidewinder was one of them. I think it’s just one of many we really wanted to do. Not to mention I believe there were allot of folks banging on the door requesting it.
LB: Since the Halo: CE days, Sidewinder has been a fan favorite. Sure it might not be on EVERYONE’S list, but it seemed to be on the short list for a lot of incredibly vocal fans. And hell, it’s HUGE! And we needed more BTB maps.
MB: It just made sense. Looking back at the release maps and DLC1 maps, everyone could see that we needed another Big Team Battle map along the lines of Sandtrap, and with the Community’s love of Sidewinder, it was a great fit.
NS: Two reasons: Sidewinder is one the most requested remakes and we also needed another big vehicle map. And maybe this isn’t the only classic we’re remaking. There’s always hope for said Internet Halo fan.
“Team Slayer, and Team King are good, but the favorite Friday afternoon playtest has become Multi Flag on Avalanche. It’s definitely brought back memories of Halo CE LAN parties. The games are completely epic, and by adding vehicles into that mix, crazy things are guaranteed to happen. Can you say Capture the Flag with a Hornet?”
Just under a month to go until Tuesday, April 15th!
There had been some rumors that Microsoft pushed back the press release date until Wednesday, and obviously Bungie are not very happy with this after telling everyone in last Friday’s update that it would be today. Bungie employee Luke Smith has now said they will be releasing all the information on the three new multiplayer maps extremely late this evening, so keep an eye on Bungie.net.
I should have the news posted shortly afterward as well, unless I am completely sucked into Condemned 2, which I am going to begin shortly.
Prey 2 Concept Art
“This time, abandoned and framed for the disappearance of his family, Tommy escapes an Earth that no longer wants him for a future that cannot survive without him.”
The already-revealed Ghost Town will be joined by a pair of other maps in the Legendary Map Pack, the first of which will actually be formally unveiled Tuesday– there’s one of those press releases announcing it and concrete details about the map’s release date and other sundry details. So, much to your chagrin, the wait is a few days longer.
However, below are a bunch of images of vehicles and their custom paint jobs for their appearance on next week’s map.
-Via the Bungie.net Friday Update, click here for all the pictures.
Hmm…I wonder what the new map being revealed on Tuesday could be….
Fifteen Gameplay Modes, Sixteen Players, & Customizable Characters
March 14, 2008 - IGN.com:
If your Friday needed a boost, we’ve got one for you — we have possible multiplayer details on Grand Theft Auto IV.
It seems our neighbors to the east — PSM Spain — got their paws on the title’s 15 multiplayer modes and are ready to tell all. According to a translation on GTA4.net, online supports 16 players each with their own customized character — race, sex, hair and clothing are up for grabs.
The article lists all of the game’s modes — we’ve got them below as well — but goes into a bit of general detail on the ones it was able to play. Race and GTA Race lets the host choose which vehicles can be used and how many laps can be played; Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch has the host set the amount of pedestrians, traffic and police along with what weapons will be available; Mafia Work and Team Mafia Work cast you as one of Kenny Petrovic’s men and assigns you hits to carry out before your opponent can; a single-player mission titled Hangman’s NOOSE allows you to play with a friend as you move a mobster that’s being pursued by SWAT agents; and finally, a team of police is charged with stopping a team of criminals in Cops N Crooks.
The translation says that all of these missions were played on the same map that is used in Niko’s single-player adventure, but Rockstar Games has yet to officially respond to IGN on this article.
Want more in-depth details on GTA IV’s multiplayer? Keep it here on IGN for updates as they arrive. Until then, check out PSM Spain’s list of multiplayer modes.
Unfortunately, it’s not an actual sequel, it’s a remake of the original game, which explains why it was leaked via the rating boards so early (it’s easy to rate a game that’s already done). Lost Planet: Colonies will sell for $29.99 and will include the following: