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id, Raven Developers Discuss New Wolfenstein
CVG is running an interview with Kevin Cloud, executive producer at id, and Eric Biessman, who leads Raven Software's programmers and artists, about the upcoming installment to the Wolfenstein series. They provide some detail about what kind of weapons will be available, what those crazy Nazis are up to this time, and BJ Blazkowicz's new ability to "shroud" himself.
"Press a single button, at any time, and you'll see the other side of reality: a green and violent dimension that's filled with strange creatures and whirling tornadoes of energy. Just being in the shroud gives you options: floating above the ground are 'collectors' - fleshy heavy metal album cover worms that are scavenging electrical energy. Pop them, with a single rifle round, and they'll blast apart, damaging enemies in the real world. They are essentially exploding, hidden, organic barrels. ...In shroud mode, too, occult symbols etched into the masonry are transformed into holes in walls that BJ can simply step, shoot, or lob a grenade through."
3DRealms has had duke nukem doing this for ages now.
Good people go to bed earlier.
That's some really radical progressive thinking going on over there at ID's game design corner.
I can't get over the fact that the main character is called BJ.
The Long Now Foundation
Does anyone else hope that Id will throw in the original Wolfenstein gameplay, but with updated graphics?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Anyone else think that the shroud mode sounds a lot like the spirit mode in Prey? Especially the part about symbols on the wall changing into things when you go into shroud mode.
Wow, sounds like it gives new meaning to "god mode"
or a violence induced psychoses.
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
the supernatural element has been in Wolfenstein 3D since Spear of Destiny. It's nice to see iD taking that just one step more.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'd really rather have another installment in the Hexen/Heretic series.
I understand that the Wolfenstein series et al. has never been about realism in the strict sense. C'mon, you can take ten bullets to the face and still shoot perfectly until you drop dead...
All the same, this does sound a little ridiculous. I realize that the Wolfenstein series has never been all that grounded in reality save the connection to the Nazis (see -- mecha Hitler, zombie things?), but really? Then again, it might give a nice shot in the arm to the vanilla WWII realism shooters... but I don't hold much hope out in that regard since Call of Duty II / IV have apparently wrapped up those two eras of warfare...
In any event, I don't care much so long as they make it fun -- I'm not expecting a seminal work of art here. It doesn't sound much like a breath of fresh air -- Prey did something similar three to five years ago? With id's idTech4 Engine (i.e Doom 3 engine), no less...
Sometimes I wonder if I think too much.
heavy metal album cover
Ok I've been making fun of Id for years for their cheesy use of heavy metal album cover-style art design. Now they just up and admit it? That takes some of the fun out of it.
Is anybody else here tired of this? The Wolfenstein franchise, imo, has run it's course and is growing boring and overly reused. I'd like to see a new game, not a rehash of the old constantly (and it's not like id isn't already guilty of that - see Quake 4 and Doom 3).
About Wolfenstein, it's best to just consider it a alternate reality WWII shooter, I don't think the game ever really took itself seriously so why should we, and that is where half the fun is.
Also it seems like FPS's in general have been trying more and more to make us use an extra-dimensional elements, PREY's spirit form and 'shroud'. What else could developers do to expand on the game play without overwhelming players? Any ideas?
(awesome game btw., highly recommended)
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
to go along with the shoot em up?
Or is that too much to ask...?
I don't know what it is with ID and their terrible 'revive our old games' thing.
Seriously, good as the engine was, doom 3 was a bad game, it lacked much of the gameplay associated with the original games. Obviously things had moved on in many ways, but it played more like an AvP knockoff to me, and not a well designed one at that.
Quake 4 was also pretty poor. There wasn't much to wolfenstein, so they can pretty much start from scratch and go any way they like. Looking at their recent track record in games sat atop their (undeniably excellent) engines, I won't be shelling out the pounds for this until its been around long enough to be cheap.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Enough B.J. Blazkowicz, let's talk about his grandson: Billy Blaze, best known as Commander Keen. How about a modern reimagining of the old games?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Press a single button, at any time, and you'll see the other side of reality
That sounds pretty neat. But will anything happen if I press the "i", "l" and "m" keys at the same time?
Before that, Soul Reaver had similar shifting between real world and spectral world, required to solve some puzzle.
Even "Spear of Destiny" (wolfenstein prequel) had a (scripted) shift to a parallel world once you picked said spear. (Although not an "at-will" ability used for solving puzzles)
And lots of old 2D games had similar "shift", as far back as SNES games (Zelda : Link to the past) and Megadrive games (Sonic CD had a system with past/present/future time shifts).
Shifting between alternate world isn't a new concept at all.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This also sounds like the "Scrye" spell from Clive Barker's Undying.
I want a game where I can walk into the Capitol in the middle of the day and just blow the living shit out of Congressmen and all the police who show up. Hitman: Blood Money came close; you have to infiltrate the White House and kill the Vice President, but it is dark, raining, there are not enough guards, and the guards are pushovers. It just doesn't feel right. I would also like a game where you have to kill somebody at a baseball or football stadium during a game with thousands of NPCs walking around.
Shrouding into occult dimensions, really? Let me guess, the market is saturated with WWII shooters which are all a variation of the same thing, the same weapons, with the same game modes, and they really don't know what to invent anymore to do something even a bit different?
You just got troll'd!
No pussy for YOU!
Sounds innovative at first, but then I came up with two words to say about that:
my... precious!
stuff |
>The Jews has invented communism which killed far more people than the Nazis.
Well a Frenchman invented the automobile.
Well, I for one, have been faithful to Castle Wolfenstein, since it's Apple ][ debut. Yes, you guys think Castle Wolfenstein on the PC, I used to play it when it was really and I mean REALLY, 2d, maze like. It's gone a long way.
I don't want wolfenstein to be based on realism, in fact, the more Hitler/Nazis/Occult/Weird Science/Monsters we get, the better it is.
And of course, that BJ finds new types of weapons and defences based on what the enemy has been unearthing, researching, etc..., I love it!
Bottom line, I want to have fun, and I love the Wolfenstein series for that. It's fun! :)
I still have the PC version and I run it through DOS Box on XP.
As for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, I have loads of fun with that, loved it!
So, a new Wolfenstein! YES!!
Remember our motto: There's a hole in the sky, through which things can fly.
Now you're thinking with Portals!
You appear to have some anger issues... care to talk?
So I mentioned this to my brother...
Me: "Hey, the new Wolfenstein will have [...]"
Brother: "Prey."
Me: "And they'll have [....]"
Brother: "Prey."
Me: "And they'll have [....]"
Brother: "Prey."
Me: "And they'll have [....]"
Brother: "Prey. It's called Prey. Why are they calling it Wolfenstein?"
Sounds like Wolfenstein meets Lord of the Rings.
Dude, it's an ID game. It's HIGHLY unlikely that it's windows only. Or you were trolling, of course.
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Here's hoping for a Linux port, as id has been Linux-friendly in the past. And would that it is x64 as well!
great. lets devote a website to not knowing what a rimshot is.
just looked in wikipedia -
"The term is often used misleadingly to refer to the sting played by the drummer in cabaret shows to accentuate the punchline of a joke. As a result, a particularly obvious laugh line is sometimes called a rimshot."
the morons are taking over the world.
I still want my next heretic or hexen installment, *cry*
BJ... Don't wear the ring! I know it's very tempting....
You need more psychedelic art in your life. rhesusmonkey.deviantart.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUY-ciT-mu4
It's a video game with the opposite perspective.
I don't understand why everybody says Doom 3 was a 'demo'. It was not. It was an awesome game. Highly entertaining, as it kept the player on the edge with different events, an awesome atmosphere, amazing environments, high adrenaline etc.
But when will Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory 2 be released? :)
...Call me when Raven are making HeXen III! I loved HeXen 2, all that dirty stained glass and plants etc, very cool atmosphere for its time. The Heretic games and Arx Fatalis (although good) never quite matched it for me.
Regarding Wolfenstein I thought Return to Castle Wolfenstein was OK, but not one of my favourites. This one sounds like it's got some interesting new ideas though.
Your ad here.
I just hope the keep and improve on the multiplayer aspect of the game. It was the best part and why I loved the game and particularly why I played it for so long. It really gave the game long lasting legs on which to stand.
I hope the take note of Enemy Territory and the team based multiplayer. Quake Wars is good, but I remember ET was the best.
Wolfenstein used to have a simple and timeless premise: a Polish-Jewish supersoldier invades a Nazi stronghold and singlehandedly defeats everyone whose path he crossed, including a cyborg Hitler with rail guns for arms.
I don't see why they had to go and complicate the story with "shrouding" and "occult portals" and whatnot.
What they need to do is increase the scale and realism. Let BJ drive vehicles. Make the environment more of a challenge. Have him learn some new fighting moves.
Better than the worst sex? Yes.
Better than the best sex? No.
Posting AC as the women likely to be offended by this post could kick my ass.