graphical
Latest
Brack clarifies graphical update plans
We heard just last week that J. Allen Brack said Blizzard was definitely considering a graphical overhaul for WoW in the future (something players have been asking about for a while), and now WorldofWar has asked Brack to clarify exactly what's going on with the game's graphics. And he's answered. He says that Blizzard's approach to updating the game's graphics will likely be very different than other games' attempts -- they want to do it organically and iteratively rather than all in one go.Which follows with what's happened already -- Burning Crusade got a few tweaks and upgrades, and Wrath has its own. Not only will they implement that shader system we heard about way back, but the shadows for each model ingame will be updated (and real-time, very cool), and Blizzard is increasing the view distance (to help out with vehicular combat, we hope?). But other changes, Brack says, will come in waves, not all at once.He does mention an upgrade of how the water in the game looks, though of course he doesn't say when that might happen, only that Blizzard is looking at it. But it seems like a pretty sure bet not to expect an upcoming content patch to be "the graphical update patch." Blizzard is improving the way the world looks, but they're doing it one step at a time.
John Carmack planning a "graphical tour-de-force" for the iPhone
Ah, game developers (especially EA game developers, of which id software's John Carmack is now one, after their announcement at E3 that they'd work together to publish games). They thrive on hype, and live, it seems sometimes, off of speculation. That's probably why Carmack has told Forbes that not only does he love his iPhone, and not only does he not want to "announce anything specifically," but id wants to make a game for the iPhone and "it would be," according to Carmack, "a graphical tour de force." See what we mean? Ah, game developers.Anna Kang, who's the president of id Mobile (no relation), says that any id game they might be working on for the iPhone wouldn't be a new IP, so that puts it very much in the range of a Doom, Wolfenstein, or Quake game, and considering that another Wolfenstein sequel is being worked on right now, that probably makes it the most likely.For his part, Carmack sounds really excited to have the iPhone as a platform (especially since he hasn't always seen eye-to-eye with Apple) -- he equates it in terms of power to a PS2 or Xbox, and says that a company could easily shell out $10 million on an iPhone game, be it a first person shooter or a deep MMORPG. But he admits that the 99-cent sales in the App Store can't support that yet, and it probably wouldn't be the best thing for id Mobile to pour their resources into something like that quite yet. Nevertheless, we'll wait and see what they come up with.[via Joystiq]
Safari, meet Cover Flow
I'm not sure why eye candy gets such a bad reputation-- we all need a little beauty in our lives, and no UI designer should ever argue that a "cool!" factor is a bad thing to have, when you've already hit all the other bases. Cover Flow is a perfect example. When people made their wishlists before iTunes 7, I don't know anyone that said they wanted a visual way to browse their albums. But everyone loved the Cover Flow plugin, and now those designers are working for Apple.So Jimmy G has an idea: why not add Cover Flow functionality into Safari? You could browse updated versions of your bookmarks just like you browse your albums in iTunes. I'm not sure I'd implement it exactly the way he has (click the pic above to see a bigger version), as if I'm browsing my web visually, I'd rather more real estate was given to the pages themselves. But it's an interesting idea.And I think we could use a little more color in the web browsing experience-- the space between the browser tabs, if you will. If you're a Firefox for Windows user you really should try out the Tab Effect**; it lets you flip between tabs like a rotating cube. It's actually a little much to use all the time, but it's a cool idea, at least. And the PicLens plugin for Safari also puts a little oomph in your picture browsing-- it can create slideshows of Flickr pictures with just a click. You may think it's superfluous (and yes, if your app doesn't function already, it is) but we all need a little bit of eye candy now and again.Thanks, Jimmy!**Whoops. As commenter Rae notices, Tab Effect is Windows only, because it requires Directx 8. But it's still a cool effect.
DS wishlist is an excuse to talk about Snatcher
We'd like to thank Racketboy for composing this list of games he'd like to see on the DS. Sure, everyone's got their own wishlist, but they're not online, and they don't all include Snatcher and Policenauts. And we want more opportunities to talk about those two games. He's absolutely right that these games are a good fit for the DS: between Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright and stuff like Suda 51's The Silver Case, the DS is pretty much the only system that can be said to be experiencing a graphical-text-adventure boom. It also happens to be the current sales leader. If there were ever a time to shovel all your old adventure games onto a console, this is it.Snatcher and Policenauts are high-quality games that would both sell to and satisfy the Phoenix Wright crowd. Throw a "FROM HIDEO KOJIMA, PRODUCER OF METAL GEAR" sticker on the box and you've got a game that is guaranteed to sell. Here's our totally unsolicited advice for Konami: port Snatcher first, and then if that sells, put some of the profits into translating Policenauts.Other notable games on the list include Metroids (yay) and Pac-Man Vs. We can get behind that, since with Wi-Fi play, we'd actually get to try Pac-Man Vs. against another person for once. Unfortunately, we kind of think that Nintendo is loath to embarrass themselves further by referring back to the GBA/GC connectivity experiment. But more adventure games? That's an easy call.
GDC07: Classic Suda 51 weirdness hitting the DS
Suda 51's first games as part of Grasshopper Manufacture are being remade for the DS. The games, called The Silver Case and The Silver Case Ward 25, were originally released for the Playstation and mobile phones, respectively. Suda revealed this fact during his GDC keynote "Punk's Not Dead".Both are graphical text adventures; Ward 25 uses static art and the original Silver Case uses full-motion video. Unfortunately, because of the amount of text that would have to be translated, Suda isn't sure the remakes will be released outside Japan. Someone tell him that American DS players love graphical text adventures! And tell him that we <3 Grasshopper Manufacture too.
