technabob » multiplayer

capture the sister in brutal bioshock 2 multiplayer

alisha k. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:20:44 +0000

Frenetic flaming fights get a lot more complicated when you’re carting one of Rapture’s creepy unchildren around, as the newly released BioShock 2 multiplayer trailer proves… but they still look a lot like regular ol’ Capture the Flag. It’s just that the flag, in this case, happens to look a lot like a little girl.

It’s a little hard to figure out just what’s going on here. Oh, the gameplay seems simple enough: one team has to capture the Little Sister, and the other team defends. What’s strange is that the capturing team’s goal is to return the Little Sister to her vent… and the defending team (which includes a Big Daddy) tries to stop you. Shouldn’t lil’ girl want to go back to her vent? The gameplay begs the question of the different dynamics in BioShock 2, and whether or not this setup is just a way to keep the multiplayer mode from being too over-the-top. The game is already a little uncomfortably kidnap-tastic… maybe they wanted to keep the added creepiness of harvesting the Little Sisters out of it.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Though, to be honest, all philosophical concerns fly right out of my head while watching this trailer. The Little Sister’s reactions – all of them – are enough to make the skin crawl.

[via SCRAWL]

civilization spreading across facebook

alisha k. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:45:01 +0000

We’re all doomed: Civilization is coming to Facebook. If you have managed thus far to avoid the traps of Facebook gaming, accept your fate now and begin preparing for the time-sucking apocalypse. There is one consolation, at least: it will be awesome.

If you are not familiar with Civilization, you might just be an alien or golem of some sort, but take heart all the same: you’ll soon be educated by your friends’ wall posts about their adventures in world domination. Sid Meier’s Civilization is a legendary series of highly addictive turn-based strategy games that are equally incredible in their multiplayer and single player forms. Civilization has turned up on computers and consoles of all sorts over the years, so the franchise’s move to Facebook is not altogether surprising… only sad, because come 2010, I don’t know if I’ll be able to peel myself away from Facebook long enough for important things like eating and leaving the house.

The game was just announced, so there isn’t much in the way of news beyond the fact that the Facebook version will launch next year, and there will soon be a beta in which a few lucky players can get an early start on playing their lives away.

[via Games.com]

4 dead 2 demo release expected next month: zombies here we come!

alisha k. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:37:19 +0000

If you’re one of the folks not convinced by the necessity of Left 4 Dead 2 when there’s a perfectly good Left 4 Dead game already around, released just last year, then next month’s demo may help you ruminate further on the possibilities of zombie-hunting in New Orleans.

The demo, available October 27 (just in time for the game’s November release) will feature not only the game’s new melee weapons, but of course, multiplayer action, because everyone knows it’s no fun much less fun to hunt zombies alone. More dangerous, too.

I may have already pre-ordered the sequel, but you can bet I’ll be getting in on some demo action. I’m dying to know whether or not the big guy hates vans (and everything else).

[via Joystiq]

bioshock 2 multiplayer: rapture at its most chaotic

alisha k. — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:28:47 +0000

Does every game necessarily need multiplayer? Nah, certainly not, but these days, it’s pretty standard, though the excellent BioShock was allowed to stand on its own as an (amazing) single player experience. For the sequel, however, players get a chance to experience the fall of Rapture firsthand in the new multiplayer mode. At least there’s a good idea fueling the multiplayer mode!

Forget the Circus of Values–this is a circus of death. Violent, flaming, bullet-riddled death. BioShock in multiplayer looks like a very bad day in Rapture indeed. Something tells me that frequent, inescapable death will be the order of the day when settling down for a few rounds with all the crazies.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Just in case you didn’t die enough in the single player mode. Or maybe that was just me.

[via NeoGAF]

left 4 dead dlc rushing in for the kill

alisha k. — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:50:41 +0000

The amazing co-operative zombie FPS Left 4 Dead is about to get a little bigger. Valve just announced the game’s first DLC: the Survival Pack. The new content will be available for both Xbox 360 and PC, and will include two new versus campaigns as well as a new multiplayer mode called, unsurprisingly, “Survival.” No word yet on whether or not the versus campaigns will be all-new, or if they will simply open up the game’s other two existing campaigns for team-on-team action.

Survival mode sounds like the kind of thing that could be serious business. Many of the game’s fans have idly wished for even more of a challenge (as though the game’s expert mode wasn’t hard enough!) and who knows? With a name like that, I can hope it will deliver that very thing.

That’s not all Valve’s got up their sleeves for Left 4 Dead, however; the DLC will be released concurrently with a “Critic’s Choice” edition of the game that will include the new content, for those who have yet to pick up the game. PC players will also have access to the first Left 4 Dead release for the Source Software Development Kit (Source SDK), which means we’ll be seeing a lot of custom campaigns soon after. No prices yet, or a firm date, but Valve says spring.

[via Game Focus]

wiids: new final fantasy crystal chronicles allows wii-ds multiplayer

lambert v. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:30:30 +0000

The first Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (for the GameCube) made use of the Game Boy Advance as a controller and 2nd screen. While it was a good idea on paper, in reality the feature was a shackle: multiplayer was only possible if every player had a Game Boy Advance to use as a controller. No GBA, no multiplayer. Square Enix are giving this cross-platform mashup another shot, and this time they have a much better idea: Let Wii players play with people who have a DS version of the game.

GayGamer has quoted Squeenix, saying that they promise “seamless, hassle-free in-game switch from single to multiplayer mode”, and that the switch from solo to mutiplayer can be done at anytime. The screenshot above is from the Wii version of the game. This one is from the DS version:

Squeenix didn’t exactly go into the details of the multiplayer, but GayGamer’s Wootini thinks it’ll probably make use of Nintendo’s stupid friend codes. Let’s hope not.

What I want to know is if multiplayer on a single Wii console is possible, because even though the DS actually has its own version of the game insteaed of being a mere controller, this setup is still quite expensive, especially if you and your friends don’t have either platform. I guess in Japan shooting stars are more common than people who have no Wii or DS.

ipong: multi-player pong on the iphone

technabob — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:18:24 +0000

This nifty proof-of-concept demo shows off just one of the many gameplay possibilities for multi-player video games on Apple’s wonderphone.

iPong is a variant of Atari’s classic paddle ball game, with a multi-device, multi-player twist. Using some clever trickery, players can actually bounce their ball off of their iPhone’s screen onto the display of another phone. While the game can’t actually detect the proximity of the devices at this point, it does appear to store the exit position of the ball on one screen and transmit that as the entrance point on the adjacent screen.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Given the fact that it only took the guy who developed iPong a couple of hours to put this game demo together, I can’t wait to see what sort of games emerge when there’s actually time to design and develop. Very cool stuff indeed.

[via Waxy via TUAW]

xbox live is five: happy birthday!

technabob — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:31:05 +0000

Wow, time flies when you’re having fun. Can you believe that it’s been five years since the Xbox LIVE online service got its start?

It seems like only yesterday, but on November 15, 2002, Microsoft’s groundbreaking online gaming platform made its debut as an add-on to the original Xbox. Five years later, it’s still leaps and bounds beyond the other onling gaming platforms, with easy downloads of add-on content, always on chat, a unified friends list, and a robust online movie store.

In celebration of the big day, Xbox LIVE is throwing an Live is 5IVE online party on November 15th and 16th, including chances to win prizes, play against game developers, get your ass handed to you by some serious gamer girls, and much more.

Congratulations to the Xbox LIVE team for hitting this important milestone. You’ve stolen countless hours of my life that I can never get back. Thanks for the memories.

[via Kotaku]

microsoft working on massively multiplayer fps tech

technabob — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:24:45 +0000

The gaming world is full of MMORPGs, games that feature interaction of hundreds or thousands of players. However, these games usually don’t put them all in the same place at the same time, and don’t have hundreds battling each other at the same time. Because of bandwidth constraints (especially upstream), it’s been impossible to pull off high speed games like first-person shooters and racing games that have more than about 16 or 32 simultaneous players without severe lag problems.

Now Microsoft Research is working on a solution to this problem. The project, codenamed “DonnyBrook” is developing a system that enable FPS games to have hundreds of players duking it out on the same map at the same time.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The way they pull it off is by calculating the handful of players that you have a tendency to focus on (as well as things like frequency and recency), and only update every frame of those players’ data. For players that you’re not “paying attention to”, the data updates less frequently. The players that you’re not focusing are simulated locally by a “bot” with AI that’s influenced by those players movements. As soon as you start paying attention to those other players, the data updates more frequently for them as well.

At this point, it’s just a research project, but hopefully the tech will find its way into some commercial FPS in the future. There’s a little more detail on how it all works in this presentation.

[via on10]