A lot at E3.

Yeah, E3 is very different this year. Gone is a lot of the hoopla and it's now a closed-to-the-public event. Still, a lot of great news has been coming out from it.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Having successfully developed Quake 4, Raven was also revealed as the developer of id's revival of its seminal first-person shooter franchise Wolfenstein. First teased by id CEO Todd Hollenshead way back in February 2006, the tentatively titled Return to Castle Wolfenstein once again drops players into the role of all-American hero BJ Blazkowicz as he wages a one-man war on the supernatural sect within Nazi Germany's Third Reich.

As for new details, Activision said today that Wolfenstein will be a story-driven shooter that will be presented over the course of interlinked missions. The publisher also noted Wolfenstein will offer "class-based team objective gameplay," and online gamers will be afforded both conventional and supernatural weaponry. It is currently slated to arrive on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
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EA publishing id's upcoming title, Rage.

Today's Electronic Arts press conference at the E3 Media & Business Summit ended with a shocker. Namely, that id Software had decided not to partner with longtime publisher Activision for its next project, Rage. Instead EA will distribute the game under its EA Partners program, which lets independent developers take advantage of the massive publisher's marketing, sales, and support expertise without having to surrender any sovereignty over their IPs.
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Random stuff from EA event.

[3:32] A totally unassuming Will Wright shambles onto stage in a black T-shirt to talk about Spore, which apparently began with his childhood chemistry set.

[3:33] A slide show describes his fascination with science, up to and including the work of Dr. Frankenstein.

[3:34] He said the goal of Spore is to have science and expression overlap.

[3:35] He said they reason the Spore Creature Creator was released first was to have everyone populate the game with 100,000 creatures in two months. The game now has 1,756,869 species of creature--more than on Earth itself.

[3:36] And that only took 18 days--just 11 more than God, Wright jokes. Ergo, Spore creators are 38 percent of God. Lightly blasphemous laughter ensues.

[3:37] Now slides of various creatures are shown, including all-bone animals, realistic humans, and a giant red living whack-a-mole machine.

[3:38] YouTube now boasts 85,000 Spore videos, including ones from celebrities ranging from David Lynch to...Melissa Joan Hart?!?!?!?

[4:12] Onto the stage walks Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare, to loud whoops. He's gonna show off the recently renamed Dragon Age: Origins. He says the game is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.

[4:13] He says the "origins" refers to the fact both that it's a return to BioWare's roots, but also how the characters will have detailed back stories. "You origins are the lens with which you will see the game."

[4:14] Roll Dragon Age trailer. It shows a very Lord of the Rings-like stand off with Orc-ish monsters attacking a castle.

[4:15] The game's Elf-like hero is assaulted by a minotaur, and then ends the trailer.

[4:15] Looks like the subtitle isn't the only announcement from BioWare. Dragon Age "is coming to the PC and consoles in the future," says Zeschuk.

[4:15] Enter Valve Software's Gabe Newell to display Left 4 Dead, which "will let you feel like you're inside in a horror movie."

[4:16] He says the goal of Left 4 Dead is to combine the social aspect of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the narrative of Half-Life 2.
[4:19] The game will have an AI "director" which will change how events unfold in the game depending on how you play the game. Play badly and the game will offer lesser challenges, but also lesser rewards. He shows the difference in the form of a shootout at a gas station. The bad players only face a few zombies, while the skilled players face a whole wave of zombies--and are rewarded by a massive explosion.

[4:20] After showing some detailed character models, Newell says the game is shipping November 4 for the PC and Xbox 360. Cue another trailer--easily the bloodiest yet.
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Dragon Age: Origins E3 2008 trailer

Apogee to return.

In December, 3D Realms shocked the industry by showing, for the first time since 2001, brand-new footage for the long-regarded-vaporware Duke Nukem Forever. While scarcely more than a minute of footage, the teaser indicated that 3D Realms was on the verge of releasing Duke Nukem Forever in 2008. Comments by 3D Realms' George Broussard notwithstanding, a report from the Dallas Business Journal indicates the developer is targeting an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 release, in addition to the PC.

With the Duke's revival assured--dare it be said--it now appears that one more remnant from the past will reemerge. Today, Apogee Software--abandoned by 3D Realms as a publishing label since 1996--announced that it would be relaunching its publishing efforts for smaller-scale development by bringing back a number of games from its legacy catalogue, as well as all-new properties.

Apogee's first project will be a three-episode Duke Nukem Trilogy that it plans to bring to the "handheld market." The trilogy's individual installments will be titled Critical Mass, Chain Reaction, and Proving Grounds. However, Apogee did not elaborate on which specific platforms the games would arrive, when they are expected to hit the market, or if the three titles were part of a single product or part of a trio of releases. Apogee had not responded to requests for comment as of press time.

"This marks a new beginning for a famous publisher with a history of market-making innovation," said Apogee chief operating officer and cofounder Terry Nagy. "I can't think of a better character than Duke or a better franchise than the Trilogy to usher in a new era for Apogee."
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Upcoming Golden Axe title for PS3.

Golden Axe's triumphant return to the modern era is largely unchanged from the classic medieval brawler. You still run around with a huge sword, unleash magic attacks and beat up sack-wielding gnomes for goodies. The biggest difference is that cooperative play has been left out entirely; you'll have to slay these dragons alone. We went hands-on with the first level of Golden Axe: Beast Rider today, and it retains the fun, grizzly feel of the original.
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Hands-on with Ghostbusters game.

There was no Stay Puft Marshmallow Man this time, but Terminal Reality and Sierra did stop by to give us a tour of the famous library scene from the original Ghostbusters movie back in 1984. With PKE meter in hand, we got a chance to play the PlayStation 3 version and make our way through the library to trap the pesky ghost while racking up a small fortune in damages. What stood out the most was the detail in the environments that we were exploring and the proton pack--it kind of makes you want to get your own.
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Hands-on with Fable II.

While roaming the E3 showfloor earlier today we noticed that a demo version of Fable II is playable on two of Microsoft's kiosks there. We have an appointment to check out the game with Peter Molyneux tomorrow but we're as eager to play the game as you are so, ahead of what will likely be a more substantial Fable II story 24 hours from now, here's a rundown of what we saw:
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Hands-on with Left 4 Dead.

It's not often you can say you were lucky enough to be caught in a zombie apocalypse, but that's just what happened to us earlier today when we paid a visit to Valve's E3 2008 meeting room. Tucked away from the show floor proper, Valve had four PCs running to give players a chance to test out their co-operative skills in this four-player shooter that uses the Counter Strike Source engine. Although our team of four failed just shy of reaching the salvation, we enjoyed every moment of it.
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Gears of War 2.

The opening cinematic narrated by Marcus Fenix is accompanied by a sweeping view of the world that we will return to in Gears of War 2. Ever since the Game Developers Conference earlier this year, it has been hard not to keep a close watch on this sequel. At the Microsoft Press Event to jump-start E3, design director Cliff Bleszinski and senior producer Jonathan Zamkoff were able to play through a brief but exciting section where the locusts have returned and are now sinking entire cities.




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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

The yearly E3 convention is traditionally the time and place to reveal exciting new details on upcoming games, so what better venue to take the wraps off of the hard-hitting new intro video for Dawn of War II, the sequel to Relic's fast-paced and violent real-time strategy game based on the classic sci-fi universe? The mighty Space Marines return to battle against the feral Orks and their other rivals in a sequel that will feature impressive destructible terrain and a brand-new single-player campaign in which you'll guide a small squad of soldiers and equip them with piles of loot, not unlike how you'd normally develop an adventuring party in a role-playing game. While you watch the new trailer from Plastic Wax, you can also pick up some new details on the game at E3 in our exclusive interview with producer Mark Noseworthy and lead designer Jonny Ebbert.




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