Halo: Reach factoids have been popping up all over the place like decloaking Elites, thanks chiefly to the chaps at Edge and Game Informer but also, somewhat less officially, to EB Games, who let slip a few gameplay screenshots on Wednesday morning. You know what this means, readers? It means Whining Season has officially commenced.

We’ve had a good old gander at the material, and we’re ready to throw down a gauntlet or two. Brace yourselves for some serious subheadings.

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Posted by Edwin on 22/01/10 in Best FPS Games, Features, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Spotlight, and tagged with Bungie, Microsoft, PC, preview, sci-fi, Xbox 360.
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Battlefield Bad Company 2 saw a burst of somewhat unexpected sunny publicity last year thanks to Infinity Ward’s decision to scrap dedicated servers for Modern Warfare 2 on PC. DICE’s Gordon Van Dyke was quick to reassure official forum posters that his game would tick all the boxes on server support, to considerable applause.

Bad Company 2 online has more going for it than a sound network backbone, of course. According to producer Karl-Magnus Troedsson (whom we accosted at a recent preview shindig), the franchise’s approach to team play “has always been deeper” than that of most rivals – and remains deeper today.

Asked if there was anything he felt other multiplayer shooters were doing wrong, Troedsson replied: “Well I wouldn’t say ‘wrong’ – I don’t want to judge people, other games like that. But for us – multiplayer, online play, we’ve been doing that since Battlefield 1942, and to us it’s open environments, it’s sandbox, it’s team play.

“Because team play – what we’ve done in Battlefield for a long time is team play,” he went on. “You play as squads, you play teams, it’s very important. A lot of the other shooters are still actually in team deathmatch mode – they have tons of different game modes, but they all one way or another are just people playing to get the maximum score.

“This game is deeper, and Battlefield has always been deeper, and that’s due a lot to the gameplay. Like for instance you can heal each other, you can give each other ammo, you can revive each other – we’ve got the shock paddles in now.”

We find this claim a little dubious, to be honest. Among other current generation highlights, Killzone 2, Left 4 Dead and Gears of War have all done compelling things with player revival, healing and ammo sharing. 1942 may have been a trend-setter, but Battlefield faces stiffer competition nowadays. What do you think?

The game’s out on 2nd March in North America and 5th March in Europe.

Posted by FPS Gamer Staff on 05/01/10 in Multiplayer, News, Realistic & Historical, Spotlight, Tactical FPS, and tagged with Battlefield Bad Company 2, DICE, EA, fps, interview, PS3, Xbox 360.
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Singularity is what happens when crackpot Cold War sci-fi and gritty contemporary realism have a punch-up. Brought to you by Wolfenstein dev Raven Software, the game takes place on a mysterious Russian island facility with a highly volatile temporal signature. Besides shooting people in the face, players can manipulate time itself with the imaginatively titled Time Manipulation Device, tapping into the facility’s dark mid-century past. FPS Gamer recently lent its lungs and ears to a roundtable discussion with Activision’s Kekoa Lee-Creel. Results below.

FPS Gamer: So how does it feel to be working on one of Activision’s few original properties?

Kekoa Lee-Creel: As you said, Activision doesn’t do new IP often so it’s a huge deal for me, I’m really glad to be working on it. I worked with Raven on Quake 4 as well, and they’re a fantastic team, so I’ve got a good new IP, I’ve got great marketing behind me, and I’ve got a great development team, so I’m pretty psyched. It’s a big deal.

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Posted by Adam Doree on 23/12/09 in Interviews, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Spotlight, and tagged with Activision Blizzard, fps, interview, producer, Raven Software, Singularity, time travel.
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So we weren’t planning on posting screenshots today, but when Rare’s community lead Mike Wilson popped up with side-by-side comparison snaps of Perfect Dark on Xbox Live Arcade and the original game, we couldn’t say no. Wilson would have pulled his Sad Face if we had. I’ve never actually seen Wilson’s Sad Face, but he’s from Rare, so I’m guessing it resembles Gruntilda off Banjo Kazooie. Ugh.

Joanna Dark isn’t currently wearing a Sad Face. She’s quite the alluring one in fact, thanks to the Xbox 360’s graphical chutzpah. That PVC-trimmed physique no longer looks like it’s been hacked from foam packaging blocks with a pair of half-melted plastic scissors.

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Posted by Edwin on 11/12/09 in News, Retro & Indie, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Spotlight, and tagged with fps, Joanna Dark, Nintendo 64, Perfect Dark, Rare, screenshots, Xbox Live Arcade.
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