Monthly Archives: June 2012

Train2Game News: South Park creators on the research going into their RPG

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South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have spoken of the difficulty they’ve had bringing their show accurately to a video game, revealing that a lot of research has gone into the game design of South Park: The Stick of Truth, the upcoming RPG being developed by Obsidian.

“The funny part was writing it and saying, ‘Ok, maybe you’re here, and then you’ve gotta go from Stan’s house to Kyle’s house,’ and after fifteen years of doing the show it was the first time that Matt and I were like, ‘where is Kyle’s house?'” said Parker, speaking at E3

“The only thing that really interested us was if we could make a game where it felt like you were in an episode of South Park,” added Stone, saying that despite South Park’s simple look, a lot of R&D went into it.

“To do that you had to get the look right; it had to look like an episode of South Park- which is pretty crappy. So we worked with Obsidian, and we said we wanted to do this, and you would not believe how hard, how many hours of R&D, how much work went in to really making that distinctive, crappy South Park look, but they did it.”

You can see how South Park: The Stick of Truth is coming along after all that research in the trailer below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

There’s more news from E3 2012 here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the research going into South Park: The Stick of Truth? How important is research to game development as a whole?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Develop Online]

Train2Game News: Square Enix show off next-gen Final Fantasy tech demo

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Square Enix has used E3 to show off a tech demo of what will be powering their games on next-gen consoles, and it’s really quite impressive.

Agni’s Philosophy, the Final Fantasy real time tech demo gives us a glimpse at what Square Enix are developing behind the scenes with Luminous Studios.

“The Luminous Studio game engine aims to bring about greater productivity within game production teams, while simultaneously offering an environment to create games of fantastic quality,” said a statement from Square Enix.

“Furthermore, the Luminous Studio game engine is planned to support game consoles, PC, smartphones, and the web, encapsulating the many platforms of the next generation of quality”

Watch the Final Fantasy tech demo from Square Enix below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

There’s more Square Enix news here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the Agni’s Philosophy tech demo? Does it make you more excited for next-gen consoles?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Nintendo Wii U is the “Swiss army knife” of gaming

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E3 saw Nintendo reveal more about the Wii U, with one analyst dubbing the upcoming console the “Swiss army knife” of video games.

The one hour presentation saw Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime and Shigeru Miyamoto discuss how the tablet controller can be used in conjunction with the current Wii-remotes and how a “social window” allows new ways to play while allowing users to connect with others.

“For 30 years, game machines … couldn’t take on a more important role than the TV itself,” said Miyamoto  “We knew our next system was going to have its own dedicated screen even if it had to be small. We wanted it to be the first screen people went to when they went into the living room.”

Using the mini-monitor on the game pad was demonstrated by Pikmin 3 and how it uses it to monitor your strategy and the game world as you play through a TV, along with showing off a variety of other things the Wii U can do.

Nintendo has made the console a “Swiss Army knife” said P.J. McNealy of Digital World Research. “Nintendo has a history of creating hardware devices that it takes advantage of over time, whether it was voice commands, the touch panel, the accelerometer, or the gyroscope.”

As of yet there are no price or release date details for the Nintendo Wii U. Games shown for the console however include Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3 and a Wii U version of Batman: Arkham City.

What are your thoughts on the Nintendo Wii U? Do you have a clearer idea of what its about after the E3 presentation?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.


Train2Game News: Paradox on “major hassles” of developing Crusader Kings II Sword of Islam DLC

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Paradox Interactive have posted information about their upcoming Crusader Kings II DLC, Sword of Islam, detailing a number of changes they’re making in order for the game to make sense when using one of the soon to be playable Muslim characters.

The amount research going into Sword of Islam is evident in a post on the Paradox Interactive forum that should make interesting reading for Train2Game students.

“One of the major hassles with making Muslims playable was the prevalence of text with obviously Christian or Western terminology.” said ‘Doomdark’ senior programmer and project lead.

“Therefore, we had to go through all text to make it fit the setting if you are playing a Muslim. Often, this required writing whole new events and decisions. For example, Muslims don’t hold tournaments, they have the Furusiyya instead, which is an exhibition of martial arts and horsemanship.”

“They don’t hold Grand Feasts, they observe the Ramadan, etc. We also added some completely new decisions, like going on the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca), which will initiate a cool little event driven story of what happens on the way to and from the holy city. Of course, there is also a whole slew of events dealing with various new gameplay features.” they added.

A trailer for Crusader Kings II: Sworld of Islam is below.

Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam DLC is scheduled for release later this month. There’s more Paradox Interactive news here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam DLC and the work and research going into it?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: When and where to watch Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo E3 conferences

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Train2Game News won’t be updating over the Bank Holiday, as we’ll be enjoying the extended weekend like many of you. However, the games industry won’t be stopping, with E3, the biggest event in the video games calendar beginning at the start of next week.

Many of the large publishers and hardware developers will be streaming their conferences live from Los Angeles, allowing you to watch them as they happen, or in the case of some, watch them you’re willing to stay up until the early hours here in the UK!

Microsoft are the first of the console manufactures to give their E3 presentation on Monday 4th June at 17:15 British time, which you can watch live on the Xbox website, or through your Xbox console if you’re an Xbox Live Gold subscriber.

Sony’s E3 press conference in which they’ll run through their latest plans for PlayStation, takes place on Tuesday 5th June at 02:00 British time, and will be available to watch through the Sony E3 2012 website.

Nintendo have three separate live streams planned, but all of them are likely to follow the same theme; their next console, Wii U. Their main conference takes place on Tuesday 5th June at 17:00, a Developer discussion, perhaps the most interesting part for Train2Game students, bright and early on Wednesday 6th June at 07:30a.m. Nintendo’s Software Showcase is on Thursday at 02:00a.m. All three Nintendo presentations can be seen on their official E3 website.

Of course, The Train2Game Blog will be back on Wednesday, ready to bring you all the big news that comes out of E3.

What are you most looking forward to about E3 2012?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Hideo Kojima talks Zone of the Enders HD Collection in E3 2012 developer diary

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Get behind the scenes of Zone of the Enders HD Collection in an E3 2012 developer diary from Konami.

The video sees director Hideo Kojima discussing the robot anime influences of Zone of the Enders, where the HD updates are most noticeable, and how the new opening animation was produced.

Watch it below here on The Train2Game Blog.

Zone of the Enders HD is coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Japan later this year.

Get behind the scenes of many more games by watching other developer diaries here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the Zone of the Enders HD developer diary? Were you a fan of the original?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Dota 2 officially confirmed as free-to-play by Valve

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Dota 2 will be free-to-play with a microstransaction store allowing players to buy community and developer created items, Valve has announced.  Steam Workshop will be the way in which players submit items to be used in the game.

“The opening of the Dota Store is a big part of our final push to launch,” said Dota 2 lead designer IceFrog.

“With support for the Steam Workshop, the majority of the items made available on day one were created and being sold by members of the community. By making the game Free to Play, we hope to give gamers the ability to decide how – and how much – they want to invest in the game.” he added.

The significance for Train2Game students is that, potentially, items they submit to the Dota 2 workshop could become a full part of the game.

Valve a targeting a full release of the RTS/RPG hybrid before the end of this year, with a Dota 2 closed beta currently underway.

Dota 2 follows in the footsteps of Team Fortress 2 in both allowing users to submit items to the Steam workshop and being free-to-play.

For the latest news from Valve, keep reading The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the decision to make Dota 2 free-to-play, with the ability to contribute items to the store?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.