Halo Waypoint Coming to Windows Phone 7 August 17, 2010

I make it no secret my favorite feature of the Xbox 360 is the Halo Waypoint. It’s not even a year old and it’s been giving me a huge incentive to dust off my old Halo games and get achievements I missed out on.

Well the it was announced tonight on Xbox live, the popular software is coming to Windows Phone 7.

You’ll be able to log in to your live account, track your waypoint awards, read the latest news, and stream all the exclusive waypoint videos all from your phone, the same day the phone releases, at no charge.

Unfortunately this is only coming to Windows Phone 7 right now, even though after getting a look at it I’m sure a Droid or iPhone could run it.

Anyone having Live Anywhere flashbacks? There is currently no release date for Windows Phone 7.

Post Quakecon id Software News August 16, 2010

Well Quakecon is pretty much a wrap right now, but there’s still plenty of information coming out of it about id Software’s current projects.

Doom 4, the unfortunate no show of the event, is likely to get a cross platform release, for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.  Now the last information I heard about Doom 4 indicated that it was going to use Tech 5, the same engine that powers Rage, but whereas Rage is going to be locked at 60FPS (across all platforms), because Doom 4 is going to tax Tech 5 even more than Rage will the game will be a 30FPS game.  Doom 4 still has no release date.

I also read some news about id’s mobile division.  Now I had previously reported that Rage will see an iPhone version, but it’s recently been added that Quake Live (the online browser version of Quake 3 Arena) is being ported to the iPhone as well.  Great news, Quake 3 Arena is a staple of multiplayer deathmatch.  No release dates on those games either, the iPhone is notorious for having a “one second it’s not there, the next it is” reputation.

Latest Alan Wake Musings August 16, 2010

There’s a really good post-release Alan Wake interview here.  Things seem to be going pretty good, but while it wasn’t a no-holds-barred conversation, they did let a lot of information spill out.

• The Second DLC, “The Signal” is coming in the Fall.
• A sequel is defiantly being considered.
• A PC version is not in the cards right now.
• “The Signal” may not be the last DLC, but it will conclude the story started with “The Writer”.

A lot of information to take in.  My conjecture is the team hasn’t yet decided if the continuation of the Alan Wake story will be in DLC or a full sequel yet, but it’s obvious they have plenty of ideas where the story is going to go.  Honestly I’d be happy with them stopping after “The Writer” and then just going into full Alan Wake 2 development.  I like DLC, but there gets to be a point where the amount gets to be overkill and your wallet slowly gets emptied until there’s nothing left.

The talk about PC development was interesting.  The possibility defiantly exists for a PC version of Alan Wake or if there was a sequel, there could very well be a PC version of that.  The thing is that Alan Wake is just so tightly designed for a console right now, developing for a PC version would take an amount of time they just can’t devote right now.  That tells me it’s because they’re busy doing “The Writer” and planning for what’s coming after that.

Rage May Not Lose Dedicated Server Support August 14, 2010

We all know how protective PC gamers are of their dedicated servers.  When it was pulled from one or two games, the internet universally (and in some cases rightfully so) went absolutely apeshit.

Rage never officially lost dedicated server support, but then again they never really had announced dedicated server support in the first place.  There have been musings during Rage E3 showings that made it likely that Rage would also lack a dedicated server option on release for its PC version.  In fact John Carmack mentioned in an interview he was just glad his game was just not the first to announce it if that was what they decided.

However it seemed that the fervor of dedicated server love has made id Software take another look at lacking the dedicated server option, and while they haven’t made a decision yet if Rage will include a dedicated server, the possibility does still exist.

Rage will release October 13th, 2011 for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

Crysis 2 Release Date August 14, 2010

The highly anticipated Crysis 2, the first Crysis game to see a console release, finally has a release date.

The first Crysis game was a PC exclusive, which maxed out the systems of everyone who tried to play it, and delivered the highest fidelity graphics at the time.  It was also one of the first games to support DirectX 10.

Crysis 2 will release March 22nd, 2011 for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.  It will support 3D on all platforms.

Rage Release Date August 14, 2010

Big news from Quakecon today. The release date for id Software’s highly anticipated next game, and new IP, Rage has finally been announced.

This will be the first game released by id in years, the last being Doom 3. Wolfenstein and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars were co-developed with other studios. The reason for the long development was this game was built entirely from scratch with a new revolutionary graphics engine.

Rage is coming September 13, 2011 in the US, September 15, 2011 in the UK. It launches for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Rage is coming to iPhone August 12, 2010

Announced and demoed at Quakecon today, aversion of Rage was shown on the iPhone 4.  id Software really seems to be interested in using their new IP.

The game currently runs at 60fps, and has graphics that attendees said rivals that of the Xbox and PS2.  There will be two versions avalible, the one that comes out first will just show off the technology and the other will be a full game.

The game was demoed on iPhone 4, but it should be compatable with iPhone 3GS.  Looks like I have a reason to upgrade my phone.

Quakecon 2010 Has Begun August 12, 2010

Today marks the start of Quakecon 2010, the very first one where id Software is no longer an independent software company.

Last year, it was promised that Doom 4 and Rage would make an appearance, with Quake Live being played quite a bit along the way.

Quakecon was originally started by fans to be the biggest gathering of Quake players so they could play without latency, but was taken over by id Software, where they show their upcoming games on top of the massive LAN.

You can be sure I’ll be reporting as much as I can on the events as they come in.

SDCC Halo Universe Panel August 11, 2010

One of the other panels at San Diego Comic Con was the Halo Universe panel.  This panel focused mostly not on the game related aspects of Halo but actually the other aspects such as the books or the recently released anime.

Its impressive that one game series that’s only been in existance for nine years has branched into almost every aspect of our culture.  Granted, the majority of the branching didn’t start taking place until only a few years ago (I would say it really started taking off after the release of the Halo Graphic Novel) but most game series have never seen the exposure Halo has had.

In fact I remember Greg Bear (featured in the panel) mentioned in the Halo Legends documentary (on the SE DVD and Blu-Ray) he usually writes for franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, the fact that the next franchise he’s going to write for is Halo is really telling that maybe video games are where the next major franchises are going to come from.

SDCC Halo Reach Panel August 11, 2010

There really hasn’t been that much gaming related news to speak of over the past few days, which has been really dissapointing.

Since I wasn’t able to attend San Diego Comic-Con since I live on the other side of the country, I wasn’t able to attend on any of the gaming-related panels, even though I reported on whatever I could at the time from here.

I did find this however, the Halo Reach Panel from San Diego Comic Con was videotaped and put online for all to see.  It’s also been posted up on the Halo Waypoint, so you can watch it on your Xb0x 360s.

It is quite a funny panel, and you get to see some content the ViDoc did not include, like what it’s like to play Firefight alongside the enemy waves, and you also see one of the players strategy to defeat his opponent was *ahem* (singing) try to kill him with a forklift.

You also get a much better look at the Forge World map, and a really good look at the improved Forge toolset.

Halo Reach will be out September 14th, 2010 for Xbox 360.