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'Sunset Overdrive' shows Ubisoft just how easy it is to put female assassins in a game
We're pretty big fans of Insomniac Games' upcoming Xbox One release Sunset Overdrive 'round these parts, but now that love has grown a bit more. In the latest episode of the development team's web series, noticed by Eurogamer, it was revealed that you can create a female avatar in the game. What's more, if you want to be a dude in a skirt, you can totally be a dude in a skirt -- Insomniac isn't really worried about it either way. The funny part of this is that the female character that's shown is dressed in garb that looks pretty similar to what we've seen a certain male killer from Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 2 wear. If you're asking yourself what all of this means, well, last week Ubisoft said putting playable female characters in the franchise's next entry, Assassin's Creed: Unity, would require resources the team simply doesn't have.
Insomniac's Dezern and McCabe talk new North Carolina digs
Insomniac's push eastward was one of last week's most intriguing items of interest, despite a lack of details concerning what exactly the Ratchet & Clank developer has in store for its new Raleigh, NC studio. However, while we don't know exactly what the Burbank, California-based developer has up its sleeves, we figured if anyone had the scoop it would be current Insomniac art director Chad Dezern and gameplay guru Shaun McCabe, both of whom will be given reigns over the company's eastern arm once it opens in January.We recently spoke with both execs about the new studio, and we couldn't help but kick off the interview by asking the one nagging question on our mind: Why North Carolina?"We wanted to expand Insomniac's capabilities while retaining the small team culture in Burbank. Opening up an office in The Triangle lets us do that while also offering an alternative for talented people who want to stay on the East Coast," Dezern answered. "Plus, Shaun and I are from the South and we missed the distant strumming of the banjo."
Do not resist the tease with Resistance 2 teaser trailer
Most of us here at PS3 Fanboy are quite excited about Resistance 2; however, perhaps we're not as big Insomniacs as all you readers who stayed up watching the special midnight reveal of this teaser trailer. You see what this blogger just did there? While we relished much-needed sleep, many of you have already seen it. But, for all who missed it and are waking up to a beautiful Saturday morn at nearly noon, now's your chance to check it out -- with crusty eyes and all.Our thoughts on the teaser you ask? As far as looks go, it's quite evident that R2 is going to blow the first Resistance right out the water. 19 hours to live Mr. Hale? Interesting. But a June 13 gameplay premiere reveal? Perhaps not the best time, especially with such a huge game coming out the day before ... and the fact it's Friday the 13th![Thanks Leigh B. and everyone who sent this in!]
Final Resistance 2 logos revealed, new look at multi-player classes
Over at the PlayStation.Blog, the community relations manager for Insomniac Games posted the final logo designs for Resistance 2 (as seen above). The San Francisco Bay Bridge can be clearly seen on the logo's "A" letter; this is the second appearance for the iconic landmark after initially turning up when the game was first unveiled. It's nice to see the bridge being showcased like this, but when will other American landmarks be revealed? We've known for sometime now that our hero Nathan will be going cross-trekking across the USA, but what other locales will he be going to? Well as long as the next revealed landmark isn't the overused Statue of Liberty, we'll be happy. We've seen that one too many times in most aliens-are-gonna-kill-us type stories.Other than the logos, some concept art was also posted. These art pieces are on two of R2's co-op multiplayer classes: sniper and medic. To check those pics out, head on over to the PlayStation.Blog.
A small taste of Ratchet & Clank Future's E3 outing
On the cusp of E3 week, PlayStation.Blog has produced a promised good from the folks at Insomniac Games: a screenshot from the upcoming Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Not just any screenshot, mind you, but one depicting the very first playable moment from their E3 demo. Right now, some E3 attendees are totally making out with their plane tickets. Their saliva soon to grace more than just paper, but the floors of many a Santa Monica convention center.Smaller details as to why the city is being blown up are skirted, however, transforming penguins are not. Larger sizes of the shot have been made available as to avoid hordes of PlayStation fans going blind.
Ratchet and Clank show they do indeed have hearts of gold
Insomniac Games is making headlines in the most unexpected places! They've recently been featured on the ABC show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" where good stuff happens to people who don't generally experience good stuff happening to them. We're not being facetious -- it's true. It's a nice show. Watch it on April 22nd at 8pm central time (time zones are terrible) to see what's up.Basically, Insomniac created a replica of a 9-year old paralyzed boy named James and will put him into their upcoming Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction because the boy said his greatest passions included designing and playing video games. Go Insomniac, reaching out and stuff! Sony even did their part and equipped James with a PS3, PSP, PS2 and a harem of sexy games. Go Sony! Reaching out and stuff.If you want to hear about James and his family, we're going to go ahead and tell you to watch the episode. It'll be cool. Again, April 22nd and 8pm central. This post deserves our patented giant fuzzy-armed thumbs up.
Beautiful, high-res, direct-feed screens of Ratchet & Clank
We're not going to fool you -- these screens aren't new, per se, since they've circulated around on forums or been pulled from magazines. You've also probably been witness to the trailer in all it's neato pseudo-cutesy glory. If not, go clickety-click and enjoy. If you want. Why wouldn't you? Because Insomniac has tossed it all up on their official Ratchet & Clank website -- screens and a high-definition trailer.These screens aren't just any ol' screenshots, these are huge, high-res screens that demand your complete attention (and for the fanatics, wallpaper-ization). The game looks absolutely glorious, so check out their site, see if you like what you see and take a chance when the game comes out! Everything is worth a rental, or a borrow from a rich friend...
Jaffe: fixing scoring gap reason for Calling All Cars delay
Insomniac Games (Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank series) interviewed David Jaffe (God of War) for the second episode of their new podcast, The Full Moon Show. Of note is Jaffe's explanation for the delay of his upcoming PlayStation Network title, Calling All Cars.Jaffe said that during playtests people were enjoying themselves more when the scores were close, rather than when the scoring gap was wide. He talked to some industry vets who had worked on a few Midway titles to see if they had any code that could be used to narrow that scoring gap, and sure enough they had some code."We certainly don't want to go into and put in tons of that, but we've gone in and added just a little bit," he said. He continued to say that his hope is folks who are within 20% of each other's skill levels to have very competitive matches. Jaffe also explained that this was the reason for another playtest, and if the code's effects are noticeable then they will take it out.Jaffe noted that they are still planning for a release during the month of April.The interview starts 21 minutes into the 2-hour podcast. Jaffe also talked about his frankness in discussion, his love of playtests (the fifth one is coming up) and his ambitious, now on permanent hiatus, PSP tearjerker Heartland. The podcast also includes updates on Resistance: Fall of Man and the upcoming Ratchet and Clank Future.[Via Aeropause]
Resistance and Motorstorm topping charts in UK (not Europe)
After briefly, mistakenly and idiotically reducing the entirety of Europe, with all its many cultures, languages and shoes to just the UK in an article yesterday, we've taken steps to reinforce the pathways that connect our brains to our rapidly typing fingers. Said fingers insist that we now draw your attention to the PS3's continued success in Madagascar the United Kingdom, with launch titles Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm perching comfortably atop the Chart Track software list for the week ending 24 March.Insomniac's first-person shooter debuted in the number one spot, with the muddy Motorstorm slotting into second position. Virtua Fighter 5 is all the way down in 14th position, bested by Namco's symphony of slide, Ridge Racer 7 (11th) and the comparitively out of tune F1: Championship Edition (7th). Finally, historically accurate crab battle simulations find themselves relegated to 16th position. With these PS3 exclusive (for now, in the case of Virtua Fighter 5) titles making a splash in the charts alongside the PS3's strong launch performance in Guam the UK, it seems the doom and gloom impression that resulted from so many dead launch events was unwarranted. The coming weeks will show us whether or not the PS3 can maintain its momentum in both hardware and software sales.
Insomniac launches podcast, listen to sleep-deprived developers [update 1]
With Insomniac Games launching its podcast today, It now seems like everybody has an online audio show. But the Insomniac approach intends to be different than most because gamers get to hear what goes on inside a developer; the twice-monthly show should could be a great marketing and community-building move.Insomniac plans several regular segments, including interviews with members of its staff and even gaming personalities outside of the Resistance and Ratchet developer. The show will cover basics like gamers' mail and Insomniac product updates as, but we'll be regular listeners if it pulls off its fly-on-the-wall aspirations.[Update 1: Insomniac let us know that it changed its mind and won't have a "/podcast.html" URL for the audio show. Instead, the main page will be updated when the podcast goes live in the next few hours.]
New PS3 Ratchet & Clank game given a title!
There has been a franchise that has continued to sneak in under the radar in the PlayStation family. This franchise is consistently well-received. We're talking about Ratchet & Clank. From crazy weaponry to classic platforming/action, these guys are well near the top of the list. I'm not speaking from experience, honestly. I've never had the time to get into these, but it appears every place agrees that these games are great. Now we have one coming to the PS3... and it has a name!Insomniac Games issued this statement on the new game: "The name Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction works on many levels. It signals a new era for the franchise, ties into the game's story, and includes one of our signature subtitle double entendres." Is it because one of the characters is, in essence, a tool? Or the characters' names are tools? Hmm. Much debate is to be had here! If you want to learn more, the April issue of EGM will have more details. Which I subscribe to, so I'll bring it to you too.
Next Ratchet & Clank officially titled
1UP informs us that the forthcoming Ratchet & Clank adventure is featured on the cover of April's Electronic Gaming Monthly, complete with its full title, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Brian Allgeier, design director for Insomniac Games, notes that the name "works on many levels. It signals a new era for the franchise, ties into the game's story, and includes one of our signature subtitle double entendres."Tools of Destruction might even mark the first time that Insomniac's playful choice of words survives the trip to Europe. You might recall the PlayStation 2 titles, Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal, being respectively changed to the more polite Locked & Loaded and Ratchet & Clank 3. It's just as well Insomniac didn't go for their original and somewhat less subtle choice, Ratchet and Clank To Come: Implements of Ravaging.
The big Resistance: Fall of Man update -- more lists!
All right, if any of you have been playing Resistance in the past few days, you may have noticed an update or two. Well, the good folks over at MyResistance have compiled a list of update changes that have either happened already or are scheduled for the near future (correct us if everything is already in place). It's a really, really long list so we'll have to ask you to click on the "continued" link -- it's worth it, if you care about your lovely launch title.
Resistance using a single sign-in ID for online play
Well, Sony had already confirmed that each game for the PS3 will use the same universal sign-in and online ID, but some will have the option to use an extra buddy list system via xfire, like Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. As for Resistance, UK producer Dan Brooke "wishes to be clear that Resistance uses the PlayStation online ID to sign into the game. There is no separate login for Resistance and the online ID you create will be the same you use for all titles." All right, so basically, don't make your ID "fallofmanfragger" or else you'll look foolish in an online... like... Sonic match or something.As far as other features Resistance will offer, you've got some advanced community junk like clan support, party support, match-making and the more or less mandatory ranking system. The PS3 doesn't currently have these options as a standard, so those are specific to Resistance (does that mean you won't rack up entitlement points or whatever? Bah, online squabbling). In essence, this is still dangerously close to the PS2's online system, but give it a few software updates over the course of a year and it should be a viable online console.
Why does Resistance take over 20GB? Glad you asked...
Ted Price from Insomniac has humored himself by reading the theories everyone has offered as to why the upcoming PS3 title Resistance: Fall of Man will take well over 20GB. Now, he's tired of that and wishes to tell us why. We'll just toss up the whole quote so no word can be twisted on our behalf.Ted Price explains: "Consider that even with compression, each of our 'levels' (or loaded areas) has more than 300 megs of unique data. And keep in mind that we're also streaming data during level playthroughs. It doesn't take too much level data before you've gone past what can be stored on a dual-layer DVD. And between single player and multiplayer we have a lot of level data (over 40 different large loaded areas) – yes, more than will fit on a dual layer DVD."Also mentioned is the fact that all game movies are in more than one format, multiple full language tracks, and a fist full of extras. That clears that up, sort of. Kind of. Mostly. Should they have focused the storage space more for AI and less on extras, different movie formats, etc? If you could arrange the game's focus in terms of memory space and features, would you have done it any differently?
Blu-ray makes good on its promise... lots of storage! [Update 1]
We heard about a supposed graphical boost for Resistance: Fall of Man late last week and the boost is very true. In fact, the game is taking up about 22GB of space on the PS3's Blu-ray disc. That's 7 whole GB's more than an HD-DVD disc, which isn't even being used as a standard format for games yet. Just a side-by-side, the Xbox 360's games top off around 8GB. Further, most PC titles only go up to 7GB. So why the insane jump in size? Is it necessary? Some space could be filler, difficult programming or what-have-you (we all know our computers aren't as "full" as they say they are). The grand total may be lowered a little, possibly to 20GB. Just a shot in the dark, though.So what's the deal with the game now? Aside from the high-res graphics and orchestral music boost, Sony and Insomniac Games are boasting a few other key selling points. Namely: tilt-function will let you rifle butt aliens with a quick jab o' your controller online support exceeding Xbox Live launch titles (that's not really a valid claim until it's tested, guys...) 40 player online games some sort of ranking system It is definitely looking good! But looks only go so far. How will it play? We've only a few months until we find out.[Thanks to VJ as well from his comment and link on the previous Resistance: FoM article!][Update: fixed interpretation of online experience, changed HD-DVD comparison to single layer]
Will Resistance: FoM justify the PS3 pricetag? [update 1]
Insomniac Games, the guys behind the Ratchet and Clank series, were in the Big Apple showing off the latest build of their upcoming PS3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man. Kotaku had a Gawker cameraman on the scene to grab some video, and MTV News' Stephen Totilo managed the impossible. He extracted some positive press about the PS3 (Sony must be furious at Insomniac, this goes against their entire pre-launch strategy). Turns out that Blu-ray drive that every armchair analyst is convinced is a giant wooden equine built to penetrate our consumer-weary walls and then attack with an army of HD movies may actually be useful for gaming afterall. The game currently takes up 22GB! That's seven whole gee-bees more than a single layer HD-DVD disc that the Xbox 360 won't (?) be using for gaming. The Dual Shake functionality that was supposedly tacked on at the last minute ... well, it looks like it was still tacked on; nevertheless, it holds some serious promise. Ninety days before this thing has to be on store shelves the developers have still not activated the functionality on the controller, but they have added in some clever gameplay currently triggered with a button press. Shake off a melee attack by shaking the controller, or introduce the end of your rifle to their face with a quick jab of your right hand. Sure, you won't feel the vibration when that blow connects, but it's something. But there's also multiplayer. How will Sony's secretive service compare to the superlative Xbox Live? R: FoM will feature: "40-player online matches at launch; 60 levels of player progression while playing online; two-player offline co-op." 60 levels of player progression ... sounds like another popular online game. According to MTV News, Insomniac even promised "better, deeper support than any Xbox Live title." Has the PS3 buzz finally begun? We've been increasingly anxious that someone at Sony didn't get the memo that their latest and greatest was launching in a few scant months. [Update: Insomniac's Ryan Schneider called MTV News to clarify what exactly is on those 22GBs. "While the music and vocals in Resistance take up only about 1 Gigabyte of disc space, graphics, level data and programming code occupy most of the remaining 21."] Watch - New Resistance: Fall of Man video Read - MTV News on Resistance: Fall of Man
Resistance is futile, you will be exposed to marketing
Have you heard of the game Resistance: Fall of Man? If not, you most certainly will. Posted at the NeoGAF forum, people have been buzzing about the new marketing plan Sony is initiating. To quote: "Sony Computer Entertainment America will support Resistance: Fall of Man with a blockbuster multimillion dollar marketing campaign. This will include aggressive national television, print, online and viral advertising campaigns, full promotional support, dedicated point-of-purchase displays and merchandising support, broad-based public relations support, an immersive and interactive website and feature coverage in the Official PlayStation Magazine/Underground DVD." Wow! That's a lot of advertising for one game, even though it was speculated this game would get a lot of press.If you're interested in multiplayer bouts, James Stevenson, a new addition to Insomniac Games has posted a blog about his adventures with the 40 player online mode, also summed up at the forum. Check it out, get excited, whatever. Does anyone think this game will prove worthy competition to the much anticipated Gears of War? That's a tough call and probably a good battle to watch upon both releases.
PS3 impressions: Resistance Fall of Man
What is this Resistance: Fall of Man? It's not fun. We want Killzone back. Where's that game?We asked a Resistance developer what made his game unique. He stared at us blankly for a moment, fumbling for an answer, and then he told us that we would have to figure that out for ourselves. Not a good sign.What we figured out were a number of winding hallways, stretching through an abandoned medical facility. Every few feet alien creatures would appear. Sometimes they attacked, and sometimes they just stood around. Either way, we filled them with hot lead and continued on. Rinse. And repeat.Resistance is a derivative FPS. It's got no backbone. But with no Killzone in sight, Resistance looks to be one of the few -- if not the only -- option shooters fans will have on their shiny $600 (you're not really gonna buy the "core" system, are you?) unit come launch day.
