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Eidos confirms next Deus Ex game, headed to PS3
If anyone was fortunate enough to play the PC FPS/Action/RPG title Deus Ex, this news should be particularly exciting since the game has become somewhat of a cult hit. The director of Eidos France recently announced on a French-language TV station that a sequel to Deus Ex is indeed in the works. Eidos' new Montreal studio is making this sequel their first priority, calling it the "first mission" for their 40-person staff.The first sequel to the game, Invisible War, didn't generate that much buzz, so hopefully the new crew leading development of this title will deliver an experience matching that of the first. Like ... using more intelligent dialogue like in the original game, as opposed to the sequel. With original devs Ion Storm out of the picture and creator Warren Spector busy with other projects, it's going to be a battle to win over longtime fans. We'll keep you posted on this one -- it may be good.[via IGN]
Eidos Montreal studio developing new Deus Ex
Developed under the watchful eyes of one Warren Spector, Deus Ex (promiscuously pronounced Day o' Sex) was a cyberpunk masterpiece which utterly laid waste to genre barriers and linear storytelling. The post-apocalyptic results are still remembered to this day, though less ambitious games have already rebuilt almost everything that was lost. It's about time we were visited by another catastrophe to conformity and indeed, a proper Deus Ex sequel. According to the director of Eidos France, Patrick Melchior, the plans to make that happen are already in motion.In an interview with French-language television station, MusiquePlus (translated by IGN), Melchior asserts that the publisher's new Montreal studio has made its "first mission" an attempt to revitalize the Deus Ex franchise. It's awfully tempting to suggest a remake of the original, but that very thought seems like an insult to what the game meant to accomplish. Still, this seven year-old game would put many modern titles to shame.[Via Xbox 360 Rally, IGN]
Warren Spector collaborating with Hollywood on new title
Coupling the refined sensibilities of Deus Ex designer, Warren Spector, with the more commercial tendencies of Hollywood seems like a dangerous situation, especially in how it allows for ill-advised Perfect Strangers references. During last week's Game Developer's Conference, Mr. Spector vaguely described two of his upcoming projects to Eurogamer. One is based on an original gameworld he created with his fantasy writer wife, Caroline Spector, while the other is a "collaboration with a fellow you would have heard of out of Hollywood." The latter title seems particularly interesting, if only because of the unusual cooperation between an entity that traditionally encourages compartmentalized safe bets and another that takes pleasure in smashing genre conventions with a mallet. Since it's unlikely to be a licensed title, it leaves us speculating about how exactly the Hollywood touch will play into Spector's plans. Could a first-person Night at the Museum RPG be in the works? Of course not, don't be reedigulas!
Warren Spector tells us some game stories
Three years ago, Deus Ex creator Warren Spector spoke about the sad state of narrative in the then-current crop of games and challenged the industry to makes some changes. Three years later, Spector today told a packed GDC auditorium that they had made some progress, but there was still a lot of work to be done.Spector broke game narratives down into a few basic forms. There's: The rollercoaster: An exciting story that gives the illusion of a lot of exciting twists and turns, but inevitably ends up going in more or less a straight line. Spector said the influence of this type of game story is weakening, but it will never go away completely. The "Will Wright": Like archetypal games SimCity and The Sims, these games build stories with the player's input rather than overpowering them with a narrative decreed from above. These games are built on the idea that players can share better stories with each other than the ones told to them by developers. Procedurally generated stories – Games like Facade that can alter the story on the fly without following pre-defined paths. These games offer a "terrifying amount of freedom," and provide a great way to "explore the innerspace of personal relationships as much as the outerspace of the game world," as Spector put it. While game stories have made progress on issues like structure and character graphics, Spector said stiff character interaction and animation remained the biggest obstacle to creating engaging stories in games. He also chastised the industry for not offering enough ways to interact with a game story without killing things. "I want the opportunity to play a game and not play the part of Vin Diesel," he said. Spector also encouraged developers to build fully explorable worlds, not simple, flimsy movie sets that are "just an excuse to shoot stuff."Fixing these problems is going to take some major time and effort, Spector said, as well as a willingness by developers to fund something other than better graphics. It also take a fundamental change of perspective for many game writers. "Get over yourself," Spector told the audience. "Your story isn't that interesting. Trust the players a little bit ... let them off rails. ... This is as much a design issue as a technology issue at this point."
Developer spotting: Warren Spector
I tend not to notice the many faces flying by when I'm rushing to and from various booths in the LA Convention Center, but the aura of genius emanating from the man responsible for System Shock, Deus Ex and Thief: Deadly Shadows (amongst others) was simply too great to ignore. I managed to snap a picture of Mr. Warren Spector before he had to rush off to a super top secret meeting."I look forward to your next game, Mr. Spector.""Yeah, me too."
GDC: A game worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize
What kind of game concept would be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize? That's the question GameLab CEO Eric Zimmerman posed to the group of developers competing at the third-annual Game Design Challenge.The winning concept (as judged by audience response), Peace Bomb, developed by Deus Ex lead designer Harvey Smith, would be a multiplayer game for the DS. Players would join together and trade resources, eventually leading to real world flash mobs — a crowd that assembles suddenly in a public space, performs a notable act, and then quickly disperses. It's Smith's hope that the Peace Bomb flash mobs would erupt around socially constructive movements, encouraging players to transform an entertaining game into an effective social project.
