Empire: Total War, is the new installment in The Creative Assembly’s Total War RTS franchise and will maintain the series 3D battles, grand turn based campaign map and rich historical flavor; while for the first time introducing 3D naval combat into the series.
Below is an interview with one of the game's developers:
WP: Who has the honor to speak with us? State your name, rank, and occupation!
Kieran Brigden, studio communications manager for Creative Assembly.
WP: Empire Total War marks the first time that the Total War series has had really intricate naval battles. Why have them now?
KB: Well, it's a combination of factors. One, we've wanted to do it for a while but the technology was ready now. Two, it's the period that's right for it. When you add naval battles to the game, you have to do it when it's interesting, enjoyable, and fun. The 18th century was the absolute height of cool naval warfare. You had thi... More »
With Call of Duty: World at War the all in all fifth title of the series has been released. Lets take a look behind the scenes of the CoD series that has dominated the sales charts since 2003.
The original and thus first part of Call of Duty was released in late 2003 and utilized an engine that once was the basis for an id Software shooter in 1999. But back then heavily modified code enabled up-to-date graphics in extensive outdoor levels and some pixel shading for improving water surfaces.
Call of Duty 2 hit the market about two years later. The distinctive features this time: Call of Duty 2 takes place in World War II and utilizes a self developed engine that massively used DX9 features to create the possibly most realistic visualization back in 2005. Even with today's standards the game is still looking very good.
Part 3 had been for the consoles exclusively and thus the transfer to modern battlefields came to the PC in November 2007. Call of... More »
The National Institute on Media and the Family is to release its 13th annual video game report card today and have given a list of 10 games parents should not buy their children.
They are Blitz: The League II, Gears of War 2, Saints Row 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Legendary, Left 4 Dead, Resistance 2 and Silent Hill: Homecoming.
The group recommended the following five T-rated games: Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, Rock Revolution, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Shaun White Snowboarding.
To quote: Bloodshed and brutality are staples in the list of 10 games to avoid. All the games were M-rated, intended for those aged 17 and over.
"Blitz: The League II" players can target which body part of their football rivals they want to injure. Warriors in "Gears of War 2" use a combination rifle and chain saw. "Saints Row 2" features gang violence and allows players to shoot police officers.
Steve Demeter, a former banker who has created a game development house following the success of his first game called Trism.
The respective game earned the developer $250,000 in profits for just the first two months alone, as you'd expect, such figures and the democracy offered by the App Store has motivated him to pursue developing full-time.
To quote: It's also become a potential gold mine for entrepreneurs who create games for the device. Just ask Steve Demeter, developer of the popular puzzle game "Trism."
A former ATM software designer for a large bank, Demeter created "Trism" in his spare time and pitched it to Apple last spring. The company made the game available for download with the July launch of its App Store, an online provider of applications for its iPods and iPhones.
Priced at $5, "Trism" earned Demeter $250,000 in profits the first two months.
"It's done phenomenal business," said Demeter, 29, w... More »
There's general agreement that Sony stumbled out of the gate with the PlayStation 3. Months of intense hype were followed by a late launch (fully a year after the Xbox 360) and a staggering $600 price tag for the deluxe model.
Even worse, the PS3 didn't initially have any real must-have exclusive titles, and despite the power of its vaunted Cell processor, multiplatform games from third-party developers didn't look appreciably better than the respective titles on the Xbox 360.
Since then, the company's been modifying the PlayStation product line to better fit the competitive market landscape. As of August 2008, a new "bargain" PS3 is available with a larger, 80GB hard drive, and a "deluxe" model is due in November, doubling the capacity to 160GB.
Both, however, lack backward compatibility with PS2 games and do not come with flash card readers. If those features are a must, it might be best to pick up the 80GB "Metal Gear" bundle version on eBay w... More »
Nine years ago, the DVD of "The Matrix" shattered records and catapulted the budding DVD format into the mainstream. Can "The Dark Knight" do the same thing for Blu-ray?
The Blu-ray release of "The Dark Knight" is slated to Dec. 9, and as Video Business [via High-Def Digest] reports, Warner Brothers has more than a million Blu-ray copies of the Batman blockbuster teed up for retailers—reportedly, the most ever for a Blu-ray movie to date.
Indeed, "The Dark Knight" is perhaps the biggest gotta-have Blu-ray title yet, bigger even than "Iron Man" (which has sold about 500,000 Blu-ray copies so far, according to Video Business) and "Transformers."
But here's the big question: Will the popularity of "TDK" translate into a tipping point for Blu-ray, as "The Matrix" (which was the first DVD to ship more than 1.5 million units back ... More »
Google's hotly anticipated push into operating systems for mobile phones was a media sensation, but HTC's version of its Android-powered device is falling short of the hype. Critics say the "Google phone," which went on sale Oct. 22, is a little clunky with design flaws like no earphone jack and an oddly jutting chin. Close, but no iPhone killer.
Zune video MP3 player - Price: $230
Microsoft's latest answer to the iPod, with 120 gigabytes of storage and a 3.2-inch high-resolution color screen, is a vast improvement over the original Zune, which debuted in 2006. But the new Zune faces the same problem as the iPod: Smartphones and other Web-enabled devices chock full of features (think iPhone) threaten to render these one-trick players obsolete.
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After downloading and spending a good hour with both Demo versions of Mirrors Edge, it's clear Dice Studios are headed in the right direction in terms of gameplay. In terms of Graphics, Mirrors Edge has a fantastic art style to it that compliments the unique gameplay and control mechanics.
Of course, like the majority of Multi-platform releases, there were a few differences between the versions, specifically in the Graphics department. Here's what I noticed during my playthrough:
- PS3 version has richer and more defined colors than the Xbox 360 version.
- PS3 version has slightly sharper textures (Not to be confused with jaggies, which brings me to my next point).
- Xbox 360 version has slightly less jaggies than the PS3 version.
Overall, both versions look great, and while the PS3 version edges out the Xbox 360 version, it's not a big enough difference to claim one version completely floors the other.
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