I had the opportunity to try my hand at the preview build of EA’s upcoming horror-thriller “Dead Space” at the EA Experience organised by EA India in Mumbai.

To sum up my impressions of the game, I will give it a new name, “Gears of Doom 3″.

The game plays itself out in an “over-the-shoulder” third person perspective, in the Gears of War mould. And that’s not the only thing the the game draws from Gears. The character movement is exactly like Gears, and I mean “exactly” right down to the tank-like movement speed, turning speed, aiming and firing system. What it doesn’t have is a cover system like Gears and the dash function is activated by a different button, but doesn’t have the same frenzied pace of running or camera angle. In fact, Isaac’s (the protagonist) running is more like a leisurely trot and on more than one occasion, I found it inadequate to escape from the quick moving enemies.

Now on to the Doom 3 side of things.
The setting for the game is a mining and research facility - Check
Some mining expedition/experiment gone wrong unleashes monsters - Check
Claustrophobic indoor environments with solid mood lighting - Check
Ghastly looking monsters that pop out of nooks and crannies - Check
Cheap scare tactics - Check

What the game does do very well is the mechanics of dealing with the monsters. Your character is equipped with a powered suit of armour (yawn) and is capable of dishing out vicious looking melee attacks, including powerful hooks and a mean curb stomp. Early on, you get your hands on a plasma cutter which fires out plasma bolts that can cut through flesh and metal alike. Enemy monsters have multiple limbs which can be individually targeted and attacked to dismember them and slow them down or finish them off. In fact your allies advise you to target the limbs in order to conserve ammo. And it is this aspect that is extremely visceral and satisfying. The blood and gore made their appearance in full force in the preview build and I hope EA carry it over to the finished game intact because this game is all about wonderfully gory ways to dispose off monsters.

The graphics are good, if a little too reflective, but the animation is excellent and the lighting is superb, setting the mood perfectly. The in game menus and HUD are sharp and well done and the inventory system looks like it could be fun later in the game. You can also presumably never get lost since a click of the right analog stick will show you the route to take thanks to a helpful path finding device that Isaac carries with him. And going by the dark and gloomy environments, I believe this to be a good decision. I couldn’t gauge the sound well enough because of the ruckus being caused by the FIFA 09 match that was underway at the adjoining booth.

I didn’t have enough time to complete the preview levels since I had to dash back to the office, but the little time I did spend with the game, plus the Dead Space back story videos available XBLM and PSN, have got me excited about the full release. A title to watch out for for action/horror junkies.

Join the discussion at the IndianVideoGamer Community forums

When I got to the show floor at Games Convention Asia for the first time, my eyes wandered around frantically trying to locate the Mirror’s Edge booth. No game on show there appealed to me as much as DICE’s fresh take on first-person action did. I forced my way past the FIFA 09 and Need For Speed Undercover kiosks and literally shoved other visitors out of the way to get to Mirror’s Edge. When I finally got there, Tom Farrer, the game’s producer, was there talking another journalist through the game. Then it was my turn. After a quick explanation of the controls, Tom restarted the level and handed over the DUALSHOCK 3 to me. From that point on, it was just Faith and I.

The level that was available in the GCA build is the same one that we’ve seen in countless screenshots, trailers and gameplay videos – the rooftop tutorial level. I myself had watched these videos countless times; I knew the route I had to take and I knew the parts where I was more likely to die. So I was feeling pretty good about myself when I watched the guy before me fail miserably and struggle to find his way across the rooftop. But nothing I had seen before had prepared me for the feeling I got when Faith took those first few steps at the top of the level. It just felt so real – the head bobbing, the weight shifting, the momentum picking up. I wasn’t quite ready for this.

After a few strides, came time for the first jump. The game uses L1 to jump and L2 to slide below objects or trigger a parachute roll after a big jump. It’s all very simple and easy to pick up. I missed the jump the first couple of times; not because I didn’t hit the jump button, but because I hit it too early. The game requires you to extensively use the right analog stick to look around. It was only once I knew exactly where the ledge ended and made sure that I only jumped from the edge, that I made the jump safely. But triggering the jump is only part of it; landing it properly is just as important. You can either just have Faith land and come to a standstill and have her health drop a bit in the process, or you could hit L2 just as she hits the ground, which triggers a parachute roll.

Read the rest of this entry »

At Games Convention Asia in Singapore, IndianVideoGamer caught up with Tom Farrer, Producer of Mirror’s Edge, one of the most eagerly-awaited titles of the year, for a leisurely chat. Probably everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Mirror’s Edge has been discussed here, including the time trial mode, multiplayer, boss fights, working with the Unreal engine, DLC, sequels, and possible ports to other platforms.

So the game’s got a time trial mode with ghosts?

Yes, the way it works is you run a stretch and as long as you beat a fixed qualifying time, your ghost will be uploaded automatically. It’s also saved locally. Each time trial area has got three star ratings, with three stars being the most difficult to beat. The maximum star rating a player can get in the game is 57 stars, I believe. None of us have actually managed to get there.

What chance do we have then?

Actually, when we made Rallisport Challenge, the guys actually set their times, took the best times they could get, and they cut a few seconds off them. Those times got beaten in about three days after the game launched. So I think we’ll be alright.

One thing that was very interesting was that I played through the level on the show floor and then someone else played it after me and took a completely different approach to it. There are so many ways you can go through this level.

That’s something I’ve been trying to emphasise when I talk to people. Even in the smaller areas, there are ways in which you can combine moves to pull of some really cool stuff. I like having that ability. Actually, the time trial on that particular level is set on the second half of the level. And just when we thought we had found all the different routes and approaches to go though the level, a few weeks ago someone found another way. It was an approach I would never have thought of.

Hit the jump for the rest of the interview

Read the rest of this entry »

And we had the opportunity to get a sneak peak at a truly impressive line-up of games from EA evenly spread out across genres and platforms. EA India held a small event at a South Mumbai hotel to showcase its holiday 2008 line-up to the media. They had held a similar event last year at the same venue, but now it has a name – EA Experience.

On show at EA Experience were FIFA 09, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, Crysis Warhead, Dead Space, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, Facebreaker, My SIMS, Spore, and my pick of the lot – Mirror’s Edge. And contrary to what the images below might suggest, Need For Speed Undercover was not available for trial at the event, and its absence was all the more conspicuous thanks to NFS posters and cut-outs strewn all across the room. EA officials informed us that the game was scheduled to make an appearance at the event, but for a courier delay.

I spent most of my time at the event playing Mirror’s Edge, which, if I may say so myself, I’ve pretty much mastered by now (well, that rooftop level at least). And yes, I did take a little time out to hand Rishi an ass-whooping (3-ZERO!) in a game of FIFA 09, which incidentally was not the downloadable demo, but a more advanced build that seemed to contain the full selection of leagues and teams. Vikram stopped by the event briefly in between work and tried his hand at Dead Space. May be he can post some of his impressions of the game later.

Hit the jump for images from the event.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jayant Sharma has been in the video game business for over ten years; in terms of the Indian video game industry, that’s forever. His company, Milestone Interactive, was instrumental in helping Sony bring the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and now the PlayStation 3 to India. But there’s a lot more to Milestone than its partnership with Sony and I had the opportunity to sit down and have a chat with Jayant about the past and present of video games in India and where he thinks the industry is headed.

Can you tell us a bit about Milestone? How you started and your current operations.

We started in 1997. At that point we were distributing EA, Eidos, Virgin Interactive, Interplay and Acclaim. Couple of those labels don’t exist anymore. Prior to 1997, I was CEO of a company called Head Multimedia, which actually launched PC gaming in India in 1995. From that background when I set up my company, a lot of publishers moved to us. The business was solely PC-centric because that was the only market. And it was a combination of games as well as edutainment and multimedia content. A large part used to be cliparts, fontmakers and other productivity software. Gaming was just 50 per cent of the business and the rest was edutainment and productivity software. In 2001, we pitched for the Sony business. By then, the PSOne had started making waves and there were ample grey units in India. Somewhere in the interim, Sega had launched the Saturn in the mid 90s and I think they kind of failed over a one-year period. So there was some console experience, but not much. Sony went through a large, in-depth analysis over who their partner would be and we had made detailed pitches and presentations. Finally they signed us on in August 2001. At that time, the strategy was that we would focus on software because we were a software company and Sony India would focus on hardware.

This went on till early 2003, at which point Sony India decided that it wasn’t a business that was exciting them, so they exited the hardware business. That was the time the PS2 was to be launched, even though it was 3 years late. That’s when we were given the option of taking over the hardware business. Finally, the PS2 we launched. Between 2003 and 2006, we were doing both hardware and software. We launched the PSP in India as well. By 2006, we had started sensing that the market was gaining traction and things were going to get bigger. And the market dynamics of he country demanded that we build a team that can service the length and breadth of the country. That’s when Sony came back into the scheme of things, with the difference being that they would only operate through their channels – consumer durables, and we continue with our channels. That’s the model we’ve continued with.

We’ve had pretty much all leading publishers with us. Ubisoft came on in 2000 till 2005. We had Activision till about 2004, Take-Two till 2005, THQ from 2001 to 2004 and we had Konami for a year, but their pricing just didn’t match the market. So as a company, we’ve worked with the entire industry in one form or the other and for various reasons these relationships come and go. We also went through a bit of a bad patch between 2005 and 2006, where the market wasn’t going anywhere. PC gaming was flat; it wasn’t growing and prices were constantly dropping. On the console side, all the efforts we were putting in weren’t really working out because pricing was all wrong and at that time, our principles weren’t really inclined to doing things in the market. So we were left to ourselves to fight the market forces, to the degree where the efforts we were putting in were benefitting the grey market because we couldn’t compete with those prices. The PS2 was the dominant format but it was all piracy. So we didn’t have a software business, and we couldn’t do much on the hardware business. That put us in a bit of a negative mode at that time, but I’m fortunate that we withstood that ground, fought that phase and bounced back. And the growth we’ve had in the last year was fantastic, and hopefully there’s no looking back now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blackrock Studio’s surprisingly fun ATV racer Pure is still a long way away from seeing store shelves in India. Excel Interactive, who are the distributors for Disney Interactive (the game’s publishers), have said that they are yet to receive the game from their American counterparts.

Considering the time it would take for replication, packing, and other production activities, Excel has said that the game would take at least another 30 days to release in India. Also, please note that Excel will only release the PC version of the game in India. So if it’s a console version you’re looking for, Play-Asia is your best bet.

This delay surely comes as a huge disappointment to many of us who were eagerly awaiting Pure’s Indian release. Looks like we’re going to have to get a lot more mileage out of the demo until then.

Join the discussion at the IndianVideoGamer Community forums

Just got back from Games Convention Asia 2008 (September 18-20 at Suntec International Convention & Exhibition Centre) in Singapore. There’s a lot to share with you guys, including game impressions for some of the games I had the opportunity to play - Need For Speed Undercover, FIFA 09, FIFA Online 2, Saints Row 2, Mirror’s Edge, etc.

We will also have interviews with Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek, John Doyle, producer of Need For Speed Undercover, FIFA 09 producer Clive Gorman and Christopher Teskey from the FIFA Online 2 team.

There’s also an in-depth interview with Tom Farrer, producer of Mirror’s Edge. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Mirror’s Edge will probably be answered in that interview. Also, Nash and I haven’t recorded a podcast in a while, so you guys can expect a GCA 2008 podcast soon; we have a lot to talk about.

So while I gather all my thoughts and transcribe all the interviews, here are a few pictures from GCA 2008:

Hit the jump for more images

Read the rest of this entry »

Arguably the best racing game this year so far is finally getting some DLC treatment. Codemaster’s today announced that downloadable content for Race Driver: GRID, in the form of 8 stunning new cars and 2 new online events, will be part of the “8 Ball” Pack, which will make its way on to Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network this autumn. Details for the PC version will be released later.

The eight cars included in the pack are the McLaren F1 GTR, TVR Cerbera Speed 12, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, Honda S2000, Nissan GT-R (S-G2008), VW Nardo, Pontiac Firebird Trans AM, and the Volvo C30; a neat list if you ask me. All cars included in the pack can be used online and in the game’s “Race Day” mode.

While we wait for a confirmed release date and pricing for the downloadable pack, Codies have already announced their future DLC plans. Coming later this year will be V8 Supercars from the likes of Ford and Holden as well as the Bathurst circuit.

To sweeten the deal further for Xbox 360 owners, the 8 Ball Pack will also come with additional 100 achievement points. Hit the jump for a list of achievements.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aman Kapoor from IndianVideoGamer.com attended the Human Weapon Gaming Nights event in the city of Bangalore, India, and came away with a craving for pizza.

The background:

The History Channel has been promoting certain shows on its channel by organizing gameing nights in major cities in India. It started off with the Dogfight Nights gaming events in Delhi and Mumbai earlier this year and now they are hosting Human Weapon Gaming Nights with Bangalore playing the host.

To begin with, I didnt have many hopes from the event. It was woefully under-advertised and we only came to know of it because one of our members got a press invite. The theme continued when I reached the venue because there were no cutouts or advertisements outside the location promoting the event. Things didnt get much better inside. There was a small turnout and I would estimate that hardly 30-35 participants showed up.

There was a total of eight 37″ LCD TVs and 4 kiosks with 26″ LCD TVs with 12 consoles, which is a very decent setup and kudos to the organisers for this. But the biggest disappointment was the fact that the event which was supposedly a promotion for Gears of War 2 didnt have any Gears 2 promos at all. The event began with a deathmatch with 2 people per console and 8 teams in total. Last Avenger and I were in one team. I wasn’t captivated and in middle of my game I decided to hand over the controller to Arun360 who has just arrived.

Read the rest of this entry »

IndianVideoGamer.com spent some quality hands-on time with a preview build of the latest iteration of the long running Need For Speed series, “Need For Speed : Undercover” at the Games Convention Asia 2008 in Singapore, and came away with some positives and some negatives.

We asked John Doyle, the producer of the latest game about the possible release of a demo of Undertcover before the game hits stores. He stated that EA would not be releasing a demo of the game since they wanted to concentrate on the game rather than spend time on the demo.

Which throws up a few questions…

1] Do developers use a separate team for churning out demoes of their games ? I assumed that you simply copied the code for the first level or two and pressed them into an installable image. Does it really take so much time to crank out a demo so as to interfere with the development of the actual game ?

2] Could the reason for not releasing a demo be the fear of negative backlash similar to what we witnessed with the last NFS offering, “NFS : Prostreet” ?

Huh ? Huh ?

Join the discussion at the IndianVideoGamer Community forums