Almost a decade ago I was lured into the fascinating world of football by a franchise which was already making inroads into becoming “The colossal gaming franchise” of this planet. For most of the games, EA’s attention to detail, gave the gamers a lot to cheer about. With the new installment of the next-gen FIFA 08 series it has added another feather to its cap. (Bravo EA, bravo!!!) The buzz is that EA has already set out to make the 09 version, “The Best Soccer Sim” available (my friends at KONAMI might beg to differ). As an ardent soccer fanatic I am waiting with bated breath to see what unfolds from this exhilarating saga.
But amidst this hoopla there is still one glaring fact that empowers me with gloom. And that is the step-sisterly treatment towards another equally popular sport which we all know as CRICKET. The efficacy of the aussies, the tenacity of the Indians and the glamour and glory of the T20 have added to the popularity of the sport, leaving a true cricket fan wonder, why EA has not managed to perform admirably with its Cricket module. I have been following the evolution of EA’s cricket games since its glorious Cricket-97 era. From then on, EA has taken baby steps towards making the game a comprehensive and a delightful package for its gamers. There is no outright change in the entire setup starting from the Cricket 02 to the current version, all of which have left a lot to be desired. The upgrades as one might like to project it, have been few and far between.
The fielders running after the ball still resemble the velociraptors from the Jurassic Park movie. The batsmen are awfully rigid and the ambience, repetitive and dull. The game itself suffers from lethargy, slowly dragging itself to oblivion and beyond. Player movements have time and again been emphasized in football and basketball versions. Why not cricket? Euro 08 game has an ambience which makes you feel a part of the team and gives you goose bumps every time the player on screen enters the arena. Then why not cricket? If one has seen the cricket matches live from a stadium in INDIA, one might agree that whenever TENDULKAR has walked out to bat there has been a deafening roar from the buoyant crowd across the stadium. On the other hand, the ambience noticed in Cricket 07 feels as though we are watching two second division clubs playing against each other.
Keeping in mind the giant steps EA has taken with its football and NBA franchise, I only hope we see a dramatic overhaul of its cricketing module. The advancements in gaming have reached unprecedented heights but the ones made towards EA’s cricket games are dilatory and depressing. I dream, not the one that Martin Luther King Jr. had, but the one that a day will arrive when EA wakes up and takes note of the fact that Cricket is a serious game and needs to be dealt with utmost professionalism and sincerity. Till then I guess I need to turn my attention towards Codemasters impish take on the game.
Guest Blogger: Nikhil Naik from Bangalore.
We have seen Starcraft 2, we recently saw Diablo 3 and we know that Wraith of the Lich King is on its way. Those three projects are good enough to keep a small army of developers busy for years, plus add to that Blizzard’s standard, make that almost a decade. But apparently Blizzard is working on one more secret game, which has a small dedicated team working on it. Destructoid.com says that :
At the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, vice president of Blizzard Rob Pardo confirmed that Blizzard is working on an unannounced title. The confirmation came from a video interview with OnlineWelten, in which Pardo fields multiple follow-up questions regarding the “unannounced MMO” job listing. When specifically asked if the job listing was for Diablo III, Pardo answered quite assertively.
“No, [Diablo 3] is obviously not, since Diablo is not an MMO. We have another development team…”
At this point the interviewer cuts off Pardo, and his response gets quite jarbled. But immediately following, Pardo confirms that there is still “another unknown project” in the works. The big question is, was Pardo referring to the MMO ad still, or was he talking about another game altogether?
This is big news……so what do you think, which game is in the making?
The game was just announced and fans are already finding flaws in the latest Diablo game. A few of the organized lot got together to start a petition to voice their concerns. I came across this post on Actiontrip.com:
It appears that Blizzard’s new art direction for Diablo III made certain fans of the franchise rather unhappy. They’ve decided to express their discontent with a petition that asks people to support the notion of a darker, more realistic art style, and not something that’s, as they put it, so similar to World of Warcraft. Here are some of their wishes:
- A darker, gothic, cryptic and creepier environment.
- A more realistic artistic direction, more independent from the Warcraft universe art direction.
- Darker dungeons without a blue/green environment, Diablo dungeons are dark and shadowy.
Well whatever the reason, this isn’t good news for Diablo 3, lets hope that this doesn’t push the game back to 2012.
Earlier in the day, we carried the news that Blizzard Entertainment, has finally announced the long-awaited third installment of the Diablo games series - Diablo 3.
Blizzard has opted for Havok physics - acceleratable on both Nvidia and ATI graphics cards, but now owned by Intel - over Physx, the physics platform from Nvidia.Brian Morrisroe, art director, had a few words to say at Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational 2008 to explain a bit about Diablo III’s general visual and narrative design. Morrisroe stressed on the importance of art design as it relates to narrative and gameplay. As we all know the original Diablo style was inclined towards the horror genre. Morrisroe said, “We were remembering it as a much more dark grey, colorless game. But when we played through the two previous franchises were discovering a lot of vibrancy of the creatures and the environments and that’s something we wanted to expand upon in Diablo III.”
He further added, “We have a new updated engine, we’re in 3D but we decided not to do a full 3D roaming camera. It’s still an isometric game, it’s still very true to the Diablo universe. And when we started looking at that camera, what we could use a fixed isometric camera for as an art staff was probably the best decision we could made. It really makes our job easier to make the art and environments really come alive and just much more vibrant.” Diablo III is stylized (but not cartoonish), and it has retained fantasy environment but added a teaspoon of realism into it. It still has the isometric view of the previous two versions.
Remember “Crysis” the really awesome game with system killing graphics. The game was heavily critized for not being properly optimize, as it was a daunting task to run the game on most systems. Although the game was a technical marvel, it didnt sell really well due to its shortcomings and piracy. The next game in the series called Crysis Warhead is coming up in a few months and a new trailers was released featuring some very familiar gameplay, check it out below:
Well, with most of the internet guessing the announcement of Diablo III at their Worldwide Invitational in Paris, wishes have finally come true. Diablo III, the popular strategy-RPG series from Blizzard, takes place twenty years after the events of Diablo II and an evil has risen again, it is up to the heroes of Sanctuary to defend the world against the powers of the Burning Hells. However, Blizzard feels it is too early to announce the exact date of release. “We intend to take as much time developing Diablo III as is necessary to ensure the game meets our own high expectations and those of our players,” reads one entry on their FAQ.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgbUSsblCSQ
The question is, “Will Blizzard release the game on consoles, especially when Blizzard has been losing out on millions since they have not been releasing games on consoles?” You can check out Diablo 3 at the official website. Also, checkout the gameplay video below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn00tHnNwn8&feature=related
Valve has just confirmed that the rumor of Episode 3 at this year’s E3 is just a rumor, nothing else. The highly anticipated Episode 3 from the Half Life 2 series will be the last chapter of the Half Life Universe and gamers worldwide are looking forward to it. A report from Voodoo Extreme:
Next-Gen has learned that Valve won’t be showing off Half-Life 2: Episode 3 at E3 this year, although there’s a very good chance Left 4 Dead will be there in playable form for all to enjoy, which is okay with me.
Valve marketing boss Doug Lombardi said in an e-mail on Friday that the next installment in the Half-Life franchise would not be showing up at E3 2008, shooting down rumors that began circulating the Internet yesterday. But, he said that a “playable Left 4 Dead will be on display in a Valve-hosted suite.”
The Diablo franchise is a benchmark in RPG gaming, this is one game that is still played by a horde of gamers even 10 years after release. Fans have been waiting for a Diablo 3 update forever and with blizzard teasing gamers for the past few days, many believe that the game may finally be announced.According to a report on Gamespot.com
After drawing out last year’s reveal of StarCraft II via a long series of cryptic teasers, Blizzard appears to be at it again. Once more, the Irvine, California-based developer is preceding one of its Worldwide Invitational events with a week of mysterious homepage art on its official Web site. Though Blizzard has declined to comment, speculation is rife that the $100-million-per-month company will use this Saturday’s WWI in Paris to reveal Diablo 3, the existence of which has been rumored for years.
The World of Warcraft or WoW as it is popularly known is a virtual world that boasts of more than 10 Million players. This massive world has had its share of problems and here is a new one. As per a report on crunchgear:
The MMORPG world is too big a target to resist, I guess. Worm-wranglers in China created a worm falled Frethog, which this new one Taterf is based on. It copies itself around, executes whenever you look at it, and by means of keylogging, packet sniffing, or other methods, determines your online game login info. It’s targeting the big ones, like WoW, Lineage, and even Steam.
Once they’ve got your info, they’re free to do what they want: auction off your items, change your password and sell your account, or just play it I suppose, though I doubt that’s happening much
Is DRM making you unhappy? Well now its futile to worry about it. 2K removes the hated install limits on the PC version of BioShock. Now you don’t have to install anything or patch it up when you buy your copy of Bioshock- it is already done!
They move of fixing Bioshock DRM free has happened earlier than expected.They haven’t done everything right but still this move at-least shows that we can trust them in the long run. Bioshock’s SecuRom -supported copyright protection had created a huge controversy at the time of its release, which led the simultaneous limit of installation from 2 to 5 PC’s . Thanks for taking away SecuRom. EA should take a note of this.
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