Alone in the Dark has been in the news for quite some time. The game is a major release for Atari and has been doing rather well. There is a lot of mixed reactions about the game, but to be honest there are many things that make AITD a great buy. I recently completed the game, and although the controls take some time getting used to, but even then the gamelay has its moments. Some of the game levels are really very well presented, with various camera angels, innovative puzzles and some good sound effects. The game has its share of flaws, but it has a certain charm to it. The presentation is top-notch and deserves kudos, so basically you will either love it or hate it.

Check out a trailer of the game below, and keep watching this space for more info on AITD.

This is funny and somewhat insulting to us Indians, but still really funny. A new game called The Last Guy is being developed for the PS3 and they thought of a unique way of promoting the game. The video below is a must watch and don’t try to make sense of it…The Last Guy… a part of the video says this in hindi…..Hello. I am programmer for the last guy. My name is Viye Bokhare. The last guy uses the PS3’s cell and the use has cleared the graphics alot. *shows the screen* As you can see, i have cleared the picture of PS3 using my brain. I am number one in calculation in the entire Himalayas

A few days back we posted in-game pics from the upcoming LoveStory 2050 game developed by Rocking Pixels. Today we go deeper with a detailed interview with the CEO of Rocking Pixels, Sanjit Daniel:

Q) Lets begin with a brief introduction about the Lovestory 2050 game, please give us a brief description about the game.
Q) There have been a few games based on Indain themes bollywood included but they have been heavily critisized, the team must have been under tremendous pressure while working on Lovestory 2050?

Will answer both of the questions above here.

Well, 2050 is not really a “game”. It would be foolish to release a multi-level 3D game into the Indian market and have it pirated. We will not be following the Hollywood model where a game based on a movie is a complete game in itself and is sold through the standard publisher driven distribution channels. Large development costs and a small market in India make this un-viable from a business standpoint for us.

Bollywood however does have tremendous recall and drives the youth entertainment market. Since we already have in-house engine technology available freely to us which enables us to make Bollywood based games rather easily, we hope to make smaller 3D gaming experiences aimed at competetive events which help publicize the movie as well as 3D gaming in India.

Q) The screenshot show a very detailed Harman Baweja charactrer model, and honestly this is by far the best looking game developed in India. My question is regarding the game engine, was it developed in-house?

Our USP is our shader based 3D engine technology. We have a complete unified dynamic lighting model on par with the best in the business. We have deep integration with Ageia PhysX for destructible environments and vehicles. Physics driven moving objects combined with our lighting pipeline means that we can make very interesting levels where everything moves and interacts with scene casting realistic soft shadows etc. We can do large outdoor terrain with a very realistic sunlight model as well as indoor moody levels all seamlessly blending into one another.

We also have solid online multiplayer technology to handle thousands of players per server cluster.

We have put in over 5 years of R&D into the core engine technology. We believe this is what will differentiate us from the others in the fray and deliver high quality 3D gaming to India - no bullshit.

Q) Who are you targeting as your main audience, the hardcore gamer or is the focus more on a causal gamer.

The terms “hardcore” and “casual” are overused dubious terms.

We are targeting the CounterStrike / DoTA players who are looking for more challenges. Also in our radar are players who are just about getting into gaming and like action in general and so will take to the shooter genre easily.

Q) What other projects are under-wraps at Rocking Pixels

Our main project is “Karma”, a series of online multiplayer 3D games along the lines of Battlefield, CS etc with DoTA style RPG elements. The design is based on futuristic Indian mythology which sets the look and feel of the graphics but the gameplay will be adhere to standard multiplayer design principles. More info, e, demos etc coming up on our website soon.

Q) Your advice to aspiring game developers (individuals) in India, how to go about fulfilling one’s dream to be a game developer?

There are really two paths that you can take.
(a) Level Designers (b) Programmers.

For Level Designers you need to break free from the 3D artist environment that currently exists in India which is a factory environment geared at low end outsourced projects. Artists in these “factories” only are allowed to do one thing - modeling, lighting, texturing, animation etc. If you want to be a level designer you need to pick up a 3D tool and learn a bit of EVERYTHING. Also start modding existing games - the level editors are all free to use and you should make your own level and make it exciting.

For programmers: you need to be very very good at hardcore C++. Thats a hard fact. Your education might help but is not important - you just need to write great code. Also observ games carefully - look at how others have implemented their technology and then dig into documentation from NVIDIA etc and implement that on your own.

In both streams a huge level of commitment is required - game development is unforgiving. You need to fight your way into the machine. But the rewards are great !

Q) Last question, what do you think about the future of gaming India?

India is a HUGE opportunity for anyone who has the commitment to make great games. What most companies are missing is that gamers are all the same. They will not accept a poor product - flash / mobile “casual” games just don’t make the cut. We need seriously good localized 3D games which gamers will love - no compromises.

We have a plan, we have the technology and we are pro-gamer. We hope to deliver great 3D gaming experiences to the Indian gamers and be the driving force for the gaming industry in India.

Thanks for appreciating our work and stay tuned for more rocking stuff from us !

The people at Bioware sure know how to tease its fans, they have built a community of 4 Million eager gamers making them wait. The Dragon age website was supposed to be updated on 9th July but the update was not so satisfying. The official websites states that:

Dragon Age: Origins, the highly anticipated dark fantasy epic from leading video game developer BioWare is set to be shown during E3 2008! Beginning with a world exclusive trailer on GameTrailers TV, airing this Friday night at 1:00 AM on Spike TV and Spike HD, fans will get their first look at Dragon Age™: Origins before it is shown to media during E3 2008, July 15-17. The trailer will be available in high definition after it airs on TV at www.gametrailers.com.

This is rather disappointing but at least we know that a trailer is coming this week. Lets hope the game can live up to its hype.

 The highly anticipated sequel to the 2007 smash hit Gears of War is releasing this November.  The original game was quite popular for its adrenaline pumping single player as well as for its multiplayer. As per shacknews.com:

Though developer Epic Games and publisher Microsoft have yet to announce an official release date for Gears of War 2 (360), a new splash image on the game’s official site suggests it will arrive on or around November 6.

When translated to their corresponding ASCII text values, the numbers on the dog tags–033 116 117 126 071–reveal a hidden message of “ESC Nov 9.”

Let me break it down for you….I am an avid and have all the consoles so I will try and make it easy for you….

Xbox 360:

Pros: Biggest library of games (amongst the current generation)

Great online matchmaking capabilities,

Good exclusive titles like Gears of war 2, alan wake etc,

Affordable.

Xbox Live has a lot of content like movies, arcade games.

Cons:

You have to pay for the most basic of things like online multiplayer and themes (ticks me off),

A high fail rate due to the infamous RROD,

More for a hardcore FPS game

Playstation 3:

Pros:

Superior graphics, some of the best looking console games are PS3 exclusives like MGS4, Uncharted, Heavenly Sword, Gran Turismo,

It is a blu ray player, it has wi-fi and web browsing,

Integration with the PSP is a nice touch,

PSN has better casual games

The PS3 will soon have Home- a very unique free service, which will surely give Xbox Live a run for its money.

Little Big Planet looks like a good reason to buy the PS3

You can change the HDD on your own and pimp the PS3 to a 250GB HDD monster.

Sony will support the PS3 with all its upcoming movies via digital distribution and most big studios will follow.

Cons:

Online multiplayer isn’t as good as Xbox Live (should change with Home)

more expensive than the Xbox 360

the 40GB version has no backward compatibility

some games have issues as they are ported on the PS3 like Orange Box

Final Verdict:

Both are amazing consoles, the Xbox is a great gaming console but has its share of problems and the same goes for the PS3, I have both consoles and I enjoy playing them both. But to be honest the PS3 is a much safer long term investment, it will last you at least 7 years and still provide all the facilities that other consoles at that time would.

Last weeks debacle cost many PS3 owners valuable data, as they had to format their PS3s to get it working. The much talked about 2.40 patch was buggy and lead to many problems, now Sony has released a new patch and fixed the bugs. 1Up.com reports that:

PlayStation Network director Eric Lempel on the PlayStation.Blog informed us on Monday evening that the 2.41 update would be released, resolving issues with the anticipated 2.40 release. Those who didn’t get in on the patch last week will now be able to enjoy some hefty upgrades to their next-gen console, including the new Trophy system and in-game Cross-Media Bar functionality. Check out 1UP’s full video walkthrough of the firmware update for more info.

“We want to extend our apologies to the PlayStation community for any inconvenience,” Lempel wrote. “Now we’ll be looking forward to seeing everyone online and racking up those Trophies!” 

A Russian man, Nikolai Sazhin (Mathematics student, 19 ) has been crowned world champion in the novelty sport of chess boxing afterknocking out a 37-year-old German policeman Frank Stoldt, who served as a peacekeeper in Kosovo until recently.

The chess part is speed chess, which can be quite difficult and heavily favors those who are well practicedin strategy and able to make decisions faster.Players are given 1 -5 minutes each to win a game, which generally does not result in a checkmate outcome.

Wouldn’t this heavily favour brawn over brains? I mean any half decent bruiser could just avoid getting checkmated right away and then knock the nerd out in the first round. All you need then, is someone who can stand a single round in the ring and isn’t a complete moron. Your pure bruiser fails the knockout, then gets suckered into a scholars mate. But a bruiser can punch you and keep punching, while in chess you’d have to wait for him to move before enacting your Master Plan.

The best strategy is to set up complex positions on the board that require ample thought
on the part of your opponent and watch his or her time expire.

The world just cant get enough of MGS 4, and Konami is making sure that they keep the gamers happy. Last time they released an MGS encyclopedia, this time they are releasing a few new camo patterns. The Camo Patterns are called Raging Camo and Lauhging Camo.  Eorogamer states that:

The new ones are Laughing Camo and Raging Camo, both of which were quietly released last Thursday. Enemies will apparently laugh or rage more when they see you wearing them.

Both patterns can be accessed by going to the Extras menu from the title screen and navigating to the OctoCamo page. Both are 153KB downloads and join the Digital Red and Digital Blue camo patterns added in mid-June.

In case you haven’t checked the Extras menu recently, it’s already home to a pair of downloadable songs for use on your in-game iPod. Click here for the full story.

David Hayter is a really lucky man, he has a good career as a screen writer and has voiced one of the most legendary gaming characters of all time aka Solid Snake. Recently at an event gamers interacted with David Hayter, who told them that he was a little disappointed with the MGS 4 climax. The following is his official quote:

“I didn’t agree with that [Snake flinching at pulling the trigger on himself] at all, and I begged them to change it, but I think it’s still in the final game… I didn’t buy it at all. I think it’s weak for Snake to be killing other people and then not be able to kill himself when it’s time. If he knows it’s time, then it’s time.”

 Well he may not agree with the end…but I know millions of Solid Snake fans who were…your opinion.