Keith Devens .com

Halo 2 and UT2003

Via Yaysoft.com, Halo 2 Announced.

The game itself is everything you loved about the original Halo, but with all the knobs turned up to 11 this time round. This is not a quickie "Halo 1.5" follow-up using the same engine. We are using a completely rewritten graphics engine which allows our artists to work in previously unimaginable complexity and detail. Anyone who thinks the original Halo stretched the Xbox's graphical abilities to the limit is mistaken. There are gorgeous new realms to be explored, and Halo 2 will take you there. There will be several new weapons in addition to the reliable old standards from the first game. Not to mention the new vehicles you'll ride into battle. Or the many new enemies you'll face. If you had a hard time with the handful of Covenant races you met in the first game, you may wish to start practicing now; you'll need it when they unleash the rest of their army.

Multiplayer is an entirely different kettle of fish. Halo 2 is designed from the ground up to support internet multiplayer games over Xbox Live. You're no longer limited to playing LAN games against friends who live nearby. What's more, the multiplayer experience is being completely redesigned. The first Halo offered just a glimpse of what we originally had in mind; now, in Halo 2, our designers' vision will come to glorious, explosive fruition.

They have some amazing looking screenshots, and some desktop wallpaper.

Oh man, I can't wait - this game will be great. Halo had some of the best AI ever.

Also via Yaysoft, an interview with James Schmalz, Unreal Tournament 2003's "creative director", on gamespy.com.

New in UT2003: They've changed, improved, removed, and added some weapons, they have a new double jump, a new game type, amazing graphics, etc. I just hope I can play it on my computer.

As I was playing UT 2003, one thing I noticed right away was the changes in the weapons. Aside from cosmetic enhancements (most all of the weapons look completely different than before), it felt like all of the weapons have gone through an intensive balancing phase. All the popular weapons have returned, including the rocket launcher, pulse gun, flak cannon, shockrifle, biorifle, and the mini-gun. The popular Enforcer handgun is gone and in its place is an assault rifle that doubles as a grenade launcher. The sniper rifle has been put back on the rack, with a lightning gun taking its spot. Shooting out a bolt of lightning at your foe, the lightning gun can also shift to an alternate sniper mode where you can zoom in for headshots.

The crew from Digital Extremes. "We've done some major weapon tweaks for UT 2003," continues Schmalz, "mainly in play balancing. In addition, the 'luck' factor we've seen in the past is no more. For example, we've tightened the blast radius of the flak cannon when you shoot, so players really have to aim at their opponent to get the kill. Before, the spread was so wide you could literally be off aim and still get the kill. Random kills are less likely to happen now. Also, the chards don't bounce around that much anymore. We toned them down a bit. The rocket launcher only holds three rockets, instead of five, and the spread of the rockets have been tightened up. Again, this eliminates the randomness or lucky shot kills. We want the player to rely on their skills rather than guessing on a shot."

The cool thing about the double jump it gives the player extra mobility when going around the map. For example, an experienced player with a rocket launcher will know exactly where you're going to land if you're jumping to avoid his rocket. However, while you're jumping and you see that rocket is coming toward you, you can hit jump again and move forward away from the rocket and run off without getting killed. The double jump is just going to open up different strategies for players.

"Bombing Run is probably one of the bigger things we added to the UT 2003," explains Schmalz, "it's like a really violent game of football. Players can pick up the ball, pass it amongst themselves, and then deliver it to the other teams' goal. Meanwhile, you can shoot and kill the guy who is trying to take the ball away from you.

We spent a lot of time trying out dozens of different game types and prototypes for new games about a year and half ago and we didn't want to have ten new game types in UT 2003. We wanted the old favorites and something that was so amazing that we felt was just as kick-ass or more so, than Deathmatch or CTF. We wanted that one or two extra game types that were just totally killer.

Of course, an Unreal Tournament game wouldn't be complete without lots of blood and giblets. "I spent a lot of time on the death animations," laughs Schmalz. "Blood will spray out when you kill someone. If you snipe someone with the lightning gun just right, you can take off their forearm and leave them with a stump. We have this cool rag doll effect in the game so when you kill a guy, the physics system takes over the skeleton. So when they fall down, their body parts will react to the surroundings. For example, if they are killed on a flight of stairs, their arms will flop as their sliding down the steps. Or, when you shoot a guy and he is propelled against a rock. If his arm hits the rock a certain way, it will make him flip over toward that side. The death animations are different every time, and most importantly, extremely gratifying." One other cool effect: after you kill an opponent, their body turns into a ghostlike wire-frame figure that floats away as if being picked up by something. The whole effect is pretty wicked.

An an official demo by the end of the month! Oh man oh man oh man.

Also check out Planet Unreal.