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Early Look At the New Wolfenstein Game
Attendees of this year's GDC were given an early look at Wolfenstein, the new shooter in development by id and Raven. We've previously discussed the "Veil" ability that protagonist BJ Blazkowicz uses to hide himself, and much of the coverage relates to how it affects gameplay. "Early on, Blazkowicz stumbles upon an experiment and manages to blow it up, releasing waves of ethereal blue material. The Veil seems to turn gravity on and off as Blazkowicz tries to escape the area, making for some very original gunplay. ... The folks on hand told me that the Veil would be incorporated into game's multiplayer, but wouldn't go into details." A trailer for the game is available at Joystiq, and they had this to say: "Wolfenstein's look and gameplay is dated — and not in a retro chic way. Without the Veil, the game could be mistaken for a last-gen title, so the game's success rests on how compelling this feature will be throughout an entire playthrough."
Pluck an epic game from the past, slap on a 'feature' = cheap marketing and product development = low-risk/decent return game product.
http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/wolf.htm
Graphics in these games are already getting into the uncanny valley, getting further into it doesn't make for a better game. I'd rather have higher framerates during busy action sequences (like in Left4Dead) than have a slightly more realistic pimple on BJ's nose or whatever. If the gameplay is fun (TF2, Quakewars) the graphics don't have to be super awesome.
Hell, probably one of my favorite mindless action games of all time is Gain Ground for the Sega Genesis, and the graphics on that are... not so good (by today's standards of course). In fact, while looking for that link I found out that you can play this game on Wii's virtual console. Neat.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Graphics in these games are already getting into the uncanny valley, getting further into it doesn't make for a better game.
Unless you are talking about pornographic games... in which case, the uncannier the better!
As expected, I didn't read the article. Just skimmed the images and text. They're reviewing a game that is prioritized for console sales, not PC. ID has sold out for quantity over quality. They're aiming for the people who used to play PC games, but have switched to consoles and remember playing ID releases like Wolfenstein 3D in the olden days. And they'll scoop up some curious new customers as well. Goodbye ID.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Please...please...no more sequels...please... ...our culture is rotting away, packed with tons of sequels and remakes...
Somebody...please make something new and fresh...my survival depends on it... ...farewell from the vault...
I, and many others, still play RTCW Enemy Territory. Sure, the graphics are completely dated, as the game itself is about 4-5 years old, and even when it came out it was behind the times. But it's still one of the most fun and sometimes frustrating multiplayer fps games out there. Why?
Not a single map can be won by a single person. Only if the engineers, covert ops, medics and field ops work together you can accomplish the objectives. Even soldiers are useful, as not much can defeat an mg's suppression fire, or clear a room as quickly as a panzer.
I don't care that the textures look a bit cheesy, that the walls and fields are plain or that there are no fog, shadows and other gimmicks. In the end it's the gameplay that makes or breaks a truly good fps. I can only hope that the new Wolfenstein's multiplayer will follow similar rules as RTCW:ET.
Been a RTCW and W:ET(play everyday) i only hope it will retain the gameplay that made those 2 game amazing.
Sadly our hopes are not really up, since the SP has ironsight which will really slow down the game. All we hope is that the MP part of the game remains true to their roots and doesn't have ironsight.
This is an open letter to the dev of Wolfentein that ALL the community agrees upon
http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=column&mode=item&id=436
I'd rather make a sniper shot into Hitler's head in Wolfenstein or be accompanied by a platoon and taking on enemy positions.
If they're going to 'brand' a game about fighting the Nazis - WTF do ghosts, the paranormal and all this other BS come from. WFS II was great up until all the paranormal crap starting coming up. I just cheated through the rest of the game after. I'd lost all interest.
I would have hoped that the quality work ID does could be implemented into a -A++ version of COD, brother in Arms or similar with the WFS environment.
Game reviewers are the worst bunch of people on the planet. I'm sick of reviewers panning a game because the enemies do not have a great A/I, or there is a paucity of options. Just like every movie does not have to be Star Wars, or every song does not have to be a symphony, not every video game needs to be an ultra realistic tactical shooter with advanced A/I enemies and 900 combat moves.
I, for one, am actually rather excited by the new Wolfenstein.
1) The screen shots look pretty cool to me, or at least cool enough. I mean, did we bail on Dr. Who because it was not Star Wars?
2) Killing Nazis is NOT dated and overused, as the game reviewers say. Killing Nazis never goes out of style. I would even argue that, if a video game does not have a Nazi to kill in it at some point, it almost automatically sucks.
3) Sometimes I do not want to fight people that are as smart as I am, or smarter. The great genius of the first Doom wasn't the 3d graphics. It was that the 3d graphics were used to provide a great venue to just exterminate thousands of on-screen enemies. The quantity of killing in a video game is often better than the act of hunting down one person.
4) The so-called realism of a tactical shooter is just as much a fantasy as the other game plays it replaces. Statistically, squad on squad infantry engagements are not the way most people in wars get killed. If you have infantry engaging other infantry, that means the sides did something wrong, as you want to kill the other guy's infantry with the likes of artillery, cluster munitions, mines, chemical weapons, and other assorted goodies before they even engaged. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but it is to say that in the case of war, the largest causes of death are not from enemy gunmen and so the whole concept of balanced teams and play is absurd.
This is my sig.
I don't care how "dated" the graphics look... if its anything like Return to Castle Wolfenstein (or Enemy Territory, which is still my primary game), then I'll snatch it up as soon as it's available.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I think it's the Doom 3 engine + poor modeling, not the uncanny valley. Some of those models have the same freaking ghostly Doom 3 skin.
Sorry if this isn't based on the Doom 3 engine, it just looks like it to me and makes sense if it's in development by id software.
Gameplay over graphics, no exceptions.
Just what I thought when reading the summary. Who cares if some blogger out there doesn't like the graphics? IMHO, at this point, graphics look "real enough" to stop noticing them after a few minutes anyway (and have been that way for a few years).
RTCW had plenty of (again, IMHO) undeserved criticism, but to me, it was just about perfect (well, except near the end). If they can keep about the same level of variety in the story/missions (supernatural, covert ops, plain shoot-em-up, etc.) throughout this one, I'll gladly play it.
(Oh, and a Linux port. Not going to bother otherwise.)
...forgive me if I'm missing something, but... it was announced at GDC? I haven't been to GDC for a number of years, but it used to be a developer's conference with lectures, round-tables, etc - not something like E3 where you announced release titles, and nothing much the general public was interested in. When did publishers start pushing wares to the press there?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Generic FPS, slightly-outdated graphics, potentially-fun gravity gimmick, not much else going for it... hrmmm, where have we seen this before?
Then again, iD tends to make good games so maybe it'll be good this time around.
It's not exactly rocket surgery.
It's heavily modified Doom 3 engine. Modified by Raven. They also licensed HAVOK for the physics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VAhzPcZ-s
Here be signatures
Wow, yeah that other guy's clearly a moron.
If your gonna post thisw crap please start a new article.
Funny I never thought about it before, why are these id Software Nazis dabbling with abrahamitic zombies...
At least one could expect them to summon Wothan, Thor, or some other Germanic deity.
A. This has nothing to do with the Uncanny Valley. No commercial game has come anywhere close to reaching that level of realism; indeed, it's doubtful that it will even be possible to achieve that response via a computer monitor.
B. You don't appear to even know what the Uncanny Valley is.
C. The Uncanny Valley is an interesting idea but may not even exist.
Is this going to be the latest in the recent spate of games that really should have been designed primarily for PC, but instead have been detrimentally console-based? What's the deal with that anyway? Are console games harder to pirate or something?
Any economist, liberal or conservative, will tell you to get out of a severe recession/possible depression is spending on job creation (particularly with how unemployment is right now). Most of the crap you are posting (like the decline of the dollar) has nothing to do with Obama. It has been dropping like a rock for awhile now mostly because the overnight lending rate has been dropped to 0 reducing the worth of a dollar. Everything you have is overly biased. It is fine if you think Obama is spending too much or in the wrong places. But to say Obama is going to bankrupt the nation when he is doing the things every economist and history tells him to do, well, that's just stupidity on your part.
The game "Return To Castle Wolfenstein" was a very entertaining single player FPS. The graphics were very good, the plot was suburb, and the whole game atmosphere made you want to finish it.
There is a group of video game players (that I belong to) that do not enjoy multiplayer FPSs. There is no thrill, for me, in killing other players. The thrill is to explore the environment, adapt to the situation and overcome the obstacles. Perhaps this group has become too small, because there are no FPSs for us any more.
My hope is that the new Wolfenstein game will be one such game (the other is Duke Nukem Forever, but I don't see that be released in this century).
http://www.dukeisback.com/ in September. At least so they say...
Yeah, because Hitler totally worshiped Odin.
From stuff I have previously read on this title, it will be developed for consoles and the ported to PC, which means in no uncertain terms that it will suck horribly.
As much as I like Wolfenstein, and loved ET, I will take a pass on this one I think.
D. Profit.
Google Necrovision, its made by some obscure Ukraine company.
You play as an American who went to World War One because he is a badass, and you spout cheesy one liners all over the place as you impale zombies on your bayonet.
I already think it will be better than Wolfenstein.
Do you seriously expect someone to refute this point to point? I will if you really *really* want me to.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'm not expecting anything cogent, but feel free if you want to waste space in a database somewhere.
I think I'll confound my critics by devoting this screed not to describing hectoring, hostile anthropophagi in general, but RyuuzakiTetsuya in particular. Some background is in order: We are observing the change in our society's philosophy and values from freedom and justice to corruption, decay, cynicism, and injustice. All of these "values" are artistically incorporated in one person: RyuuzakiTetsuya.
RyuuzakiTetsuya's obnoxious attempt to construct a creative response to my previous screed was absolutely pitiful. Really, RyuuzakiTetsuya, stringing together a bunch of solecistic insults and seemingly random babble is hardly effective. It simply proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he hates youyes, you, because you, like me, want to give him condign punishment.
A more fundamental problem is that this is a lesson for those with eyes to see. It is a lesson not so much about RyuuzakiTetsuya's odious behavior but about the way that RyuuzakiTetsuya motivates people to join his sadism movement by using words like "humanity", "compassion", and "unity". This is a great deception. What RyuuzakiTetsuya really wants to do is put the prisoners in charge of running the prison. That's why RyuuzakiTetsuya has found a way to avoid compliance with government regulations, circumvent any further litigation, and hasten the destruction of our civilizationall by trumping up a phony emergency.
RyuuzakiTetsuya always sounds like he's reading a prepared speech. This is all well and good, but if we are to compare, contrast, and identify the connections among different types of silly commercialism, then we must be guided by a healthy and progressive ideology, not by the shabby and short-sighted ideologies that RyuuzakiTetsuya promotes. Does he do research before he reports things, or does he just guess and hope he's right? The reason I ask is that I don't care what others say about him. RyuuzakiTetsuya's still venal, warped, and he intends to fleece people out of their life's savings.
RyuuzakiTetsuya is absolutely determined to believe that big emotions come from big words, and he's not about to let facts or reason get in his way. RyuuzakiTetsuya, you are welcome to get off my back this time and stay off. We don't need to demonize him; RyuuzakiTetsuya is already a demon, and furthermore, his offhand remarks are rife with contradictions and difficulties; they're absolutely bumptious, meet no objective criteria, and are unsuited for a supposedly educated population. And as if that weren't enough, I never used to be particularly concerned about his platitudes. Any damned fool, or so I thought, could see that we must shoo away him like the annoying bug that he is. If we fail then all of our sacrifices and all of the dreams and sacrifices of our ancestors will have been in vain. The key is to realize that even if one isn't completely conversant with current events, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that what RyuuzakiTetsuya is doing is not an innocent, recreational sort of thing. It is a criminal activity, it is an immoral activity, it is a socially destructive activity, and it is a profoundly unprincipled activity.
It may seem difficult at first to fight the good fight. It is. But I and RyuuzakiTetsuya part company when it comes to the issue of resistentialism. He feels that he defends the real needs of the working class while I suspect that we have a choice. Either we let ourselves be led like lambs to the slaughter by RyuuzakiTetsuya and his trucklers or we chastise RyuuzakiTetsuya for not doing any research before spouting off. While I don't expect you to have much trouble making up your mind you should nevertheless consider that when you tell RyuuzakiTetsuya's functionaries that this is kind of a touchy subject to some people, they begin to get fidgety and their eyes begin to wander. They really don't care. They have no interest in hearing that when I hear him say that his jeremiads are Holy Writ, I have to wonder about him. Is he utterly ruthless? Is he simply being jealous? Or is he merely embracing a delu
Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. YOUR WRONG.
Dr Cox wrong song for you there bupkiss.
Anyways, a lot of the things going on today are unprecedented. So don't act you know the outcome is going non-negative.
What a presumptuous tard.
I had Gain Ground on the Master System and you get it for the PSP now in the Sega Classics Collection ...
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." -- Salvador Dali
Keep it up... There aren't enough people shouting about this...
Requiem for the American Dream
some commercial games are pushing into uncanny valley space, especially sports games that want to put real players faces into the games. There is also a company selling facial and movement software and one of their targets is video games.
the theory does have some merit, IMO - those creepy talking japanese baby robots are freaky (look on youtube - they're white and somewhat anime looking, and that's about all I remember).
here's a link to the company I was referring to - guess they are only facial - the video response has the creepy dolls I mentioned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF_NFmtw89g&feature=related