If you are not already excited about the imminent release of GTA 4 I highly recommend you checkout Edge’s in depth interview with Sam Houser that covers the development of the entire series and where Rockstar are headed in the future.
The one thing that hasn’t been covered to date by the official PR channels are the multiplayer portions of the game. Aside from magazine leaks much of the detail is going to be discovered when the game ships and gets into people’s hands. Make no mistake about it, 16 players in Liberty City is a huge deal
Thinking back to first 2D GTA games which had network multiplayer on PC I remember how fun it was due to the variety of ways you could take the fight to your enemies. Shoot a rocket at their car, car jack them and back over the splayed out body and so much more. Then the GTA 3 trilogy came about sans multiplayer but that didn’t stop enterprising modders from trying to get some kind of network play going. Through all the bugs and glitches I played Multi Theft Auto with many a university house mate and everytime it was clear - this could be a gem of an experience if done properly by Rockstar.
I am more intrigued by this than the main game in a lot of ways. Crackdown, while a great co-op experience, was unfortunately limited to 2 players leaving me a few times having to pick between friends. The technical challenge involved in getting 16 players synced up in an open word environment must have been hard to overcome and I will be blown away if the online experience is smooth.
The secondary issue is the split player base. My friends who know a lot about games own Xbox 360s. My friends who are less well informed own PS3s (or intend to). From everything published the 360 version is looking to be the best in terms of performance, online play and exclusive downloadable content. Those three facts won’t make a damn bit of difference in the UK as GTA is associated with Playstation very strongly over here. As such I won’t be able to play with everyone I know.
Hopefully some fresh information will come out in the next few weeks. Hard to believe it’s only a month away. This time things will be different!
There is something about the no holds barred hate towards the PS3 over at UK:RESISTANCE that just warms the cockles of my heart. A fine fine website.
This week’s 1-UP show has the most credible and positive discussion I have seen/heard/read on the PS3 yet. Aside from the lackluster keynote this is probablly the best week SCE have had in a long time and they certainly proved they have no intentions of losing the Japanese market just yet. As for the West, that’s shaping up to be a completely different battleground.
Early this morning brought about the colossal announcement from Sony that the PS3 wouldn’t be hitting Europe untill March 07. Many people claimed to have seen this coming due to the lack of PS3s actually being manufactured but even they must be shocked by this amazing blunder.
By all accounts this should allow Microsoft and Nintendo to clean up this Christmas giving them a serious lead on their much delayed rival. The console business was always going to be a tough nut for Microsoft to crack but Sony apear to be doing everything in their power to give them a huge piece of the pie, all on a silver platter at that.
Looking further into today’s news and it looks like this won’t only affect Europe. Japan and the US will only be getting 100,000 and 400,000 units respectively, much less than the 2 million vaunted by Sony.
And why oh why are Sony floundering so badly right now?
Blu-ray.
If they hadn’t bet the company on their new format all the consoles and more would have been ready for launch. Infact they could have launched earlier in the year. Better than that it would have cost half as much!
Is it really worth risking it all on a new media format?
No, but they think it is.
And in an era of broadband and high capacity hard drives no one but Sony understands why.
Well we just had a raft of announcements on the future of Half-Life from Valve. It includes the return of Team Fortress 2 and the simultaneous release of Episode 2 on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. It’s interesting for such a PC focused developer to suddenly bring their next gen console ports into the same release schedule as their main platform. Also, the episodic nature of the series means that it is best delivered on Steam or Xbox Live but as of yet the PS3 does not have a firm infrastructure to do this.
With this as the case I highly doubt we will be seeing a downloadable version of Episode 2 on the PS3 on launch day due to the untested and unproven nature of Sony’s online service. Instead we would only see a retail release at a budget price (ala Episode 1) making it the cheapest PS3 game around.
With the extension of support to these other platforms and the addition of TF2 and Portal (crazy Prey style game) to Valve’s development schedule I can definitely see Episode 2 slipping into 2007. I hope they prove me wrong but as it has been proven in the past Valve will keep working till it’s done and all this extra work can’t help. Wish I could start preloading now.
If there is one thing this year’s E3 showed us it’s the continuing struggle at Sony to innovate.
The next generation should be about bringing new ideas and fresh concepts to the table, something which Nintendo and (to a smaller extent) Microsoft have become familiar with. Instead what Sony plans to deliver with the PS3 will be a mashed up version of what their competitors are providing only with more horsepower and more sequels.
You only have to look at the way they reacted to the Wii by bundling in a poor version of it’s motion tracking at the last minute. The fact that the Warhawk developers had only two weeks of development time to produce a demo before the show tells us all we need to know. Of course there was also the removal of rumble from the pad (not mentioned in the conference) which despite what Sony might say was due to legal pressure and not technicalities.
Then there is the online functionality. I felt PS2 was a real snub to the consoles that preceeded it (Dreamcast) for not including any kind of network adapter or modem on launch day. The PS3 will include a network card and the online service they have planned looks strikingly similar to the Xbox 360 (hell they even have a dashboard button on the pad). They also have the marketplace functionality for upgrading games with new weapons, items, etc. But when you look over to their rivals it all seems too little too late as Microsoft has the largest online user base and a tried and tested service. I don’t for a second believe we will ever see the kind of experience that Live Anywhere will provide on the PS3.
As we all know one of the PS3’s key purposes for Sony is to win the high definition format war in favour of Blu-Ray. The inclusion of a Blu-Ray drive is an expensive move and one that could prove to be a disadvantage rather than an advantage. Long term the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will result in DVD staying strong and downloadable content taking its rightful place along side it. If this thing was launching two years from now then it would be viable but right now it’s just too early.
So overall I do think Sony have lost their way, rushing things to market and dealing with their own internal politics. Of course they will have no problem taking Japan, that’s a given, but in the much larger markets of North America and Europe I see a much closer battle being fought with Microsoft taking a larger piece of the pie. Oh and don’t count out Nintendo, they have a niche and they are not afraid to expand it.
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