Archive for July 17th, 2008
Jul
17
2008
 
E3 2008: Red Faction is back, and it’s fun as hellPosted by: admin in Official Tech NewsDo you like to blow things up? Do you like to watch buildings come down? Then you probably bought into the hype of Red Faction 1 and 2, both of which promised a lot of that, and delivered, well, not as much as we’d have liked. Fortunately, Volition has been spending the last four years […]
I was one of the fans of RF 1 and 2, which surprised the developers (mainly the part about 2 — I told them it was fun but “comprimised”). So when I saw the Red Faction Guerrilla logo on the wall I went nuts; after all, a modern development environment grants for so much more in the form of realistic destruction. And that’s exactly what was demoed to us.
Almost everything is destructible, except ironically the landscape, which makes sense gameplay-wise since you’re no longer in a mine. Each building is made of cement, steel, and mortar, and can be taken down with a few well-placed charges, a rocket to the lobby, or even your trusty (and ridiculously powerful) sledgehammer. The building deformation looks great; this is truly a revolutionary step in destructible environments. I just completed Crysis and while that had some good blowin’ up, this is far beyond it.
The game has an open world, full of little missions, activities, and stumble-upon events. Or you can grab a vehicle and cruise around looking for new buildings to smash. If it sounds a little 2-dimensional, it’s — well, it’s not really, but seriously blowing stuff up in this game is just so damn fun that you can easily forget about the other things you can do. Of course, since they built the whole game around destruction, it’s also integrated with the missions and gameplay itself; it’s not just window dressing. But believe me, once you get your hands on a demo or something, you’ll be sitting there laughing like an idiot as you make some random structure come crashing down around you. Laptop has some hands-on footage of Voodoo’s Splashtop browsing system for instant-on functionality in its Envy laptop. It offers instant messaging, browsing, and Skype. It then takes about 50 seconds to boot into Vista. Laptop has some hands-on footage of Voodoo’s Splashtop browsing system for instant-on functionality in its Envy laptop. It offers instant messaging, browsing, and Skype. It then takes about 50 seconds to boot into Vista. Sony announced this week that they are slashing $100 off the price tag for the PS3. This fall, the 80-gigabyte version will be marked down from $500. The 40-gigabyte version, which sold for $400 will be discontinued. At $400, the 80 GB configuration will be a direct competition with the new Xbox 60 GB model. […]
Sony announced this week that they’re slashing $100 off the price tag for the PS3. This fall, the 80-gigabyte version will be marked down from $500. The 40-gigabyte version, which sold for $400 will be discontinued. At $400, the 80 GB configuration will be a direct competition with the new Xbox 60 GB model. Microsoft recently cut prices on the Xbox and is phasing out the 20 GB model entirely. Their new 60 GB model will be priced at $349, the same previous price of the 20 GB version. By offering bigger hard drives at the price points customers are familiar with, both companies hope to spur sales. An extended price war seems iffy though, considering the Wii is by far, the cheapest of the new consoles at $249. Sony continues to try to entice customers by adding video downloads. While the Xbox announced a deal with Netflix earlier in the week. Nintendo, for now is staying out of the streaming video fray. |
