That Gaming Podcast.com

Posted by Rob

Eagerly awaiting the impending release of GTA IV I started to question just how “sandbox” is sandbox gaming. Im beginning to question the limited nature of some open world environments, this type of gaming is hitting us from all directions now starting with on foot rpgs and rpg-alike gaming and more recently fully fledged driving titles. All of these games are extremely linear in design albeit with a very roundabout way of approaching tasks, don’t get me wrong im a massive fan of open world titles and snap them up when available but these games do just…….well……..end. Its great to be given a task and then left to approach it in any way that feels right the buzz you get from being given a smash and grab mission that ends in a botched assassination attempt followed by a messy car chase then a painful limp out of harms way to lose the police and get back to the safe house, a second attempt at this sees you mastermind a daring scheme filled with award winning headshots a heart stopping car chase through cross town traffic making the police look like fools as you slide unseen into your safe house. However my problem is this these games still have a goal you have five missions that can be done in any order until then you are invited to the wondrous pleasure of having nothing else to do when will developers take advantage of randomly generated events also having a game continue to let you explore the city after the final mission is sometimes wasted as THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO DO OR SEE.
My life is sandbox I have to get up, go to work fulfil all tasks given to me in any order I decide best then go home after all this my time is my own but if I have nothing left to do I may as well go back to my safe house go to sleep and start the next days missions. This has all been a petty little rant I suppose but until single player titles take a leaf from the “BIG BOOK OF MMO BUILDING” they will always be an open world that you can complete.

Posted by Ian

Whilst attending the Play.Com Live show yesterday at Wembley Stadium I managed to get a place in the Far Cry 2 Demo theatre. They had the game there in playable form running on PC with commentary by the Game’s Producer.

Even though the build they were showing was from November 2007 it still looked very impressive and ran smoothly (on the whole). There was some pop-up and texture loading present in the demo but they assured us that this would be taken care of by the time the game launched and that the latest build of the game back at their offices had already taken care of these problems.

One interesting thing that was confirmed during the demonstration was the fact that the game would be launching on both Xbox 360 and PS3 and that both versions wouldn’t simply be some shoddy cut-down version of the PC original, as was the case with the original Far Cry on 360. Instead, it was confirmed that the console versions would contain all of the same assets and physics going in to the PC game. Also, they have the game up and running on the 360 already and told us that the 360 version already looked better than the PC version they were showing off today (remember the version they demoed to us was from last November and was running in DX9).

I wasn’t too interested in the game before yesterday, but now that I’ve seen it running I am very keen to see more. The game has some amazing physics and AI and is a lot bigger and more open than the original Far Cry.

One to keep an eye on methinks.

Ubisoft have created a site for the game which can be found here.