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The Darkness II Announced February 8, 2011

Posted by Maniac in Game News.
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If there was one game that defined my Summer 2007 it was The Darkness.  Here was a highly polished game which came out of nowhere released during a time which usually was devoid of major game releases (games usually either came out in March or November, and they only come out in March because they miss November) and just blew myself and everyone else away.  Here was a little known comic franchise brought to life in a realistic setting.  The game was highly polished and had a great script I enjoyed tremendously.  It was developed by Starbreeze, who made the famous Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay game.  In the same summer I first bought a PS3, I must’ve played this game as late as I possibly could every weekend to try to get as far as I could in it before I’d have to go back to work.

2K Games has officially announced today that The Darkness II is coming out this Fall.  It’s being developed by Digital Extremes and promises to pick up exactly where the first game left off.  The main character of the first game and the comic, Jackie, is now the boss of his mafia family, and he has to deal with running his mob, as well as the curse it is to wield The Darkness, a supernatural force he recieved on his 21st birthday which gives him incredible power.

The Darkness II will come out for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 Fall 2011.

UPDATE:  There was an announcement today that The Darkness II will use cel-shaded graphics in order to mirror the look of the original graphic novels.  I don’t know how I feel about this.  The first game was able to have an emotional impact on me due to its realism.  The fact that they were keeping this supernatural force grounded in a realistic setting with a recognisable look made it all the more interesting for me.  However, I really did like the graphics shown in the initial screenshot, and couldn’t actually tell at the time it was in fact cel-shaded.

Reflections on Hellgate London February 8, 2011

Posted by Maniac in Game News.
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Gamasutra has a facinating inteview up with former Flagship and Blizzard developer Bill Roper on Flagship Studio’s only release, Hellgate: London.

Hellgate: London had a ton of promise.  The company was formed of former Blizzard developers who worked on Diablo, a staple of PC gaming.  It was one of the first PC-Exclusive titles to embrace the early Games for Windows Inititive and offer DirectX 10.0 support in an industry where consumers were just refusing to upgrade from Windows XP.  It had a full Single Player campaign, and a full MMORPG component that would have support for both paid and free subscribers.  Within months of release, the single game release had spawned at least three books and a manga, and a main character was given a nude spread in magazines.  The game’s collectors edition DVD had one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen detailing the start of a Triple-A company working together in a guy’s house!

But the game was simply not sustainable.  By many accounts the game was rushed to release and came out at a timeframe that was flooded by a lot of ambitious new projects and major sequel releases.  The game could not bring in the players it needed to be sustainable and it shut down.

Bill Roper talks about all this in the first part of an interview with Gamasutra.  It’s a facinating read, espessially for those interested in the financing and investments that make games possible, and what it takes to make a big game a success.