Developers React To Winning E3 Critics Awards

This past week the winners of the 2007 E3 critics awards were announced. Newsweek's LevelUp blog had the chance to speak to some of the developers behind the award-winning games. Along with speaking to folks like Alex Ward for Burnout Paradise , Alex Rigopulos for Rock Band , and Herman Hulst for KillZone 2 , N'Gai chatted with the men behind Bioware's Mass Effect , Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka. It's an interesting look at what the folks behind the games think when they get public praise of this nature. Says Zeschuk: "Going into the show is always a little daunting as the competition is extremely fierce, but Mass Effect being recognized by the key industry press really gives us a lot of confidence that we're doing things right. We believe that Mass Effect will settle the "are games art?" argument once and for all ..." He also spoke to Eiji Aonuma for Phantom Hourglass , Cevat Yerli for Crysis , and Alex Evans for the innovative LittleBigPlanet .

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[deftcoder]

There was an E3 this year?

</tongue in cheek>

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[nschubach]

Only one exclusive?

Special Commendation for Graphics : Killzone 2
Best Original Game : LittleBigPlanet

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[powerlord]

1. I've seen screenshots of Killzone 2, it's nothing to write home about. Or about at all.
2. A "special commendation" isn't a freaking award. It's the trophy you give to the idiot who shows up to a competition they're woefully unqualified for as a sort of "participation" trophy.

I'm only counting the actual awards, not "commendations".

Well ... considering anyone who has a PS3 can (and probably has) downloaded the trailer from E3, you should know that any "screenshots" you might have seen don't do it justice.

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[powerlord]

Do you mean this video from the last time, that was pre-rendered from E3 2005? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko9xC6TMdiw [youtube.com] because this isn't the video they released of actual game footage. Just asking because its the first thing that shows up on You Tube, is 2 years old, and is acknowledged as pre-rendered by Sony.

Or did you look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e18ljZacSGg [youtube.com] which is the footage from this E3 in 2007, and is in-game footage from a working engine?

And yeah ... YouTube always does justice to t

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[Anonymous Coward]

The video itself looks just fine under any other medium.

The only giant pixels are because its on YouTube (or do you mean the giant blocks of concrete that have lost all detail in YouTube?)

The original video has parts of it motion blurred, filled with smoke and particle effects, and heat blur. Some of the lighting effects (night w/spot lights) are gorgeous, and YouTube truly does not do it justice.

Try taking a look at it, as it was meant to be seen. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21504.html [gametrailers.com] ... of cours

Re:who cares?

[nutshell42]

There's nothing as informative, interesting and insightful as acceptance speeches. People tend to save their most thoughtful insights for the person shoving a microphone in their face right after they got a prize.

This is even more true if the prize is meaningless and instead of an immediate reaction it is dispensed by press release.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[heinousjay]

And yet so many people play it. Naturally, they're sheep, right? Of course, the massive amount of people supporting the PS2 were not sheep but thinking individuals who recognized superiority, right?

What I don't understand is why you guys bother with Slashdot, of all places. Your techniques would be much more effective on a board populated by dipshits. There are too many free thinking people here to fall for your tricks, as they are old and transparent. Just some friendly information for you.

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[Das Modell]

Free thinkers? On Slashdot? That's a good one.

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[Rebelgecko]

To put it into perspective, Gears of War has an 8 player limit for Vs. mode online and is one of the most popular and most well-received games on the X-Box 360. More players doesn't necessarily mean more fun.

Only 8 players?

[ToasterMonkey]

Eight?? Seriously? There is nothing better to play online? I like small fps matches now and then (mostly for games with realistic damage models), but small IMO is 16 players. Didn't old IPX based DOS games support more than eight players? Maybe GoW's maps are tiny.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever played any of the Worms games? 4 players is where it's at!

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[powerlord]

To put it into perspective, Gears of War has an 8 player limit for Vs. mode online and is one of the most popular and most well-received games on the X-Box 360.

More players doesn't necessarily mean more fun.

Yeah ... Sony better catch up fast in On-line.

Warhawk only had 16 vs. 16 as the max in the Beta (with rumors of 32 vs. 32 in the final product).

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[RamblinLonghorn]

Warhawk only had 16 vs. 16 as the max in the Beta (with rumors of 32 vs. 32 in the final product).

Considering they scrapped Single Player, I'd hope they have 32 vs 32

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah ... because everyone's bought Halo for the Single player mode. ... get real.

I agree with the GP Halo has become an overpriced moneymaker that MS is trying to squeeze for all its worth (take a look at the "extra super Legend edition", "collectors edition" and the "limited edition").

Its also been hyped to kingdom come and will probably sell well because of that, but that doesn't make it new, or innovative, or a leader in the field. At most it makes it successfully marketed, something MS does well.

Part o

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[CelticLo]

And the final insult is you are stuck paying for a crappies online experience with Microsoft's weak online service that can't handle dedicated servers and free modding like the PS3 and PC online does.
Actually XboxLive can handle third party dedicated servers, EA for instance runs their own servers on Live. And here lies the problem...
EA have actually shutdown online support for a few of their xbox360, (and a lot of xbox), titles whereas Microsoft continue supporting all Live titles on their servers.
htt [arstechnica.com]

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[DaveCBio]

Also, there are games that support dedicated servers like Rainbow 6. You'd have to have a spare 360 and an extra copy of the game though.

This does not bode well...

[MMaestro]

The game looked great at E3. How much work is left to be done before launch, and when can we expect to hear some details about multiplayer?

At E3 we wanted to show that we can live up to the promise of the original trailer. As for the second part of the question, we plan to follow up with more information on the game as additional details become available.

First off, he did not answer the first past of the question which is pretty damned important since Resistance:FoM lost a lot of the hardcore FPS gamers aft

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[ilyaaohell]

I think the most pathetic thing out of that Q&A, by far, is that they basically admitted that they're basing their entire damn game on that CG movie that they didn't even have a hand in creating!

It just boggles my mind that the sequel to one of the most mediocre PS2 games ever is getting this much hype that we're even discussing this matter at all.

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[powerlord]

You're right. He dodged the question. If you want to pick up a fun game that is focussed on multiplayer for the PS3, look into Warhawk. Its due out soon and the closed Beta was a lot of fun (32 player team or free-for-all matches, ground, and air based combat, different vehicles, weapons, etc).