terminal-reality posts

At PAX East, just a few hours after NVIDIA announced the launch of the 400 series GPU, a panel comprised of John Kreiner (Terminal Reality), John Abercrombie (Lead Designer at Irrational Games), and Michell Shuster (Co-owner of LanSlide Gaming PCs) came together to discuss the future of PC gaming. Moderated by Jeff Kalles from Penny Arcade, the panel took questions from the audience to figure out where PC gaming is headed, given the trends and approaches publishers are taking combined with the leaps in technology. Although the room was almost filled to capacity with PC gamers and all three speakers are self-described fans of PC gaming, the mood quickly turned a grim comparison with console gaming. It soon became clear that the future of PC gaming was already going through a long, dark and ominous tunnel into the unknown. The only question is whether there's any hope of seeing light at the end of it.

With the news hitting the series of tubes this week that Uwe Boll is prepping to direct a third film in the BloodRayne series, you might forgive many people for perhaps wincing a bit that the franchise is best known for the crummy films than the solid action games they are based on from developer Terminal Reality.

This week the DRM-free web site GoG.com reminds us that the games were pretty darn good by adding the 2005-released BloodRayne 2 to its game line-up. The Majesco-published action title is selling on GoG.com for $9.99 and comes with some extras like a screensaver, some artwork and the soundtrack to the game. Now go find a blindfold to put over your eyes whenever any Uwe Boll-directed movie shows up on the TV.

Uwe Boll. You know him. You love to hate him. Now the director of not just some of the worst video game movies ever made but some of the worst films made, period, is getting things prepped to make a third flick based on the Terminal Reality-created Bloodrayne action-horror game franchise.

DreadCentral.com claims they got the info straight from Boll himself during a chat with the director at the American Film Market earlier this month. According to the article, the movie will be titled Bloodrayne 3: Warhammer and will begin production in January. Actress Kristanna Loken, who starred as the title character in the first Bloodrayne movie, will be wearing her vampire fangs once again for the third movie. Most interesting of all this third movie will be set during World War II which was also the time period for the first BloodRayne game. There's no word yet if the third flick will use any plot elements of the BloodRayne game.

Last week GoG.com announced that they had brought in Majesco as their latest publisher that will provide the DRM-free PC game download site some of their game titles. Today the latest addition is arguably one of the publisher's most well know games. Bloodrayne, the 2002 released third person action game starring a "good" vampire with guns is now available to purchase and download via GoG.com for $5.99.

The GoG.com version of the Terminal Reality-developed game comes with some free extras like the game's soundtrack, concept artwork and avatars. The game itself was popular enough to spawn a sequel and Uwe Boll, director of so many bad films, helmed not one but two Bloodrayne movies. With vampires more popular than ever, perhaps its time for Bloodrayne to make a comeback.

Just a few weeks before Atari was due to release Ghostbusters in both the US and in Europe, the publisher unexpectedly sold the European PS3 and PS2 rights to the movie based action game to Sony. That move meant that the other platforms, including the PC port, had to wait their turn in Europe while the Playstation ports got a few months of exclusivity. In the meantime the US got the PC version of the game as planned in mid-June (although without the multiplayer modes that the console version have).

Today Eurogamer reports that the multiplayer-lacking PC version will finally be released over the ocean on October 23 along with all of the other ports of the game. In the meantime, Atari sent out a press release today announcing that the game has sold over 1 million copies in North America since its launch in June. The press release did not break down how many copies of each port were sold.

Gamers were upset when it was learned a few days ago that the PC version of Ghostbusters would lack the multiplayer features that its Xbox 360 and PS2 counterparts have. We asked the game's publisher Atari for comment on this issue and they sent over a response from Dan Irish, the CEO of the game's multiplayer developer Threewave Software:

Multiplayer for the PC version of Ghostbusters is something that Threewave and Terminal Reality always wanted to do. However, our focus was on making the console version the best that they could be - an experience that allows multiple players to re-live and re-fight many of the themes from the movies. When we looked at the resources necessary to pull off multiplayer on the consoles and the PC, it became a question of what could we do and still be excellent in our execution. We couldn't do all versions with multiplayer simultaneously with the resources that we had available - there was simply too much to do. Something would have to suffer. Therefore, we kept our focus on making the console versions deliver on the promise of being an integral player on the Ghostbusters team.

We have yet to receive a response to our other question on if Atari plans to add multiplayer support for the PC version of Ghostbusters via a patch.

This week, PC gamers can look forward to getting slimed and getting shot at with a new retail release and the next version of a popular free multiplayer shooter.

Ghostbusters: After switching publishers and getting delayed for several months, developer Terminal Reality and publisher Atari release this long awaited movie-based action game made with the assistance of several of the original film's cast and writers. Time to cross the streams as you get to play a new Ghostbuster alongside the classic team to fight new and returning beasts. Unfortunately the PC version lacks the multiplayer modes that most of the other ports of the game will have.

Atari is about to ship their long awaited Ghostbusters game to stores this coming week but a few folks have gotten their copies a bit early and such as the Ghostbusters fan site Ecto-Web. They have discovered something that hasn't been mentioned once in any of the previews of the Terminal Reality-developed title. While the Xbox 360, PS3 and ports will have some sort of multiplayer options, the PC version of Ghostbusters has no such multiplayer features . . . at all, offline or online.

Quite frankly this is pretty appalling on the developer's part. We can't remember the last time a multiplatform game nixed PC multiplayer features while the console ports got to have that privilege. Oddly enough the PC version does require an Internet connection for authentication before you can play the totally single player experience.

[Via Blue's News]

While Atari has pulled out of exhibiting at E3 next month they are still planning to publish the long awaited Ghostbusters game later in June for the PC in North America (Europeans have to wait until later). Today GameTrailers debuts a new movie that shows of the multiplayer action in the game.

While Terminal Reality handled the single player portion of the Ghostbusters game it was multiplayer game specialists Threewave Software that created the multiplayer modes. The trailer shows off the fact that the game will allow you to play as any of the Ghostbusters team in co-op style multiplayer against AI ghost enemies so your dreams of playing as Dr. Peter Venkman can now be fulfilled. Look for the final version to be released on June 16.

And the topsy turvy publishing duties of the Ghostbusters game continues. The continuation of the comedy action movie series was first announced by Vivendi Games, and then picked up by Atari after the newly merged Activision Blizzard decided they didn't want it anymore. Now Europeans will deal with another publisher for the game, Sony.

In a very last minute decision, Sony (who actually owns the Ghostbusters franchise) has finally figured out that, hey, maybe they can directly publish the game themselves . . . at least in Europe. Sony will now publish the PS2 and PS3 versions of the Ghostbusters game this June, with the PSP version due out this autumn. And what about all the other platforms, including the PC version? While details are vague, MCV reports that Atari will publish the game for the rest of its planned platforms later this year. Atari has sent over a press release confirming that the game will still be released for the PC in the US on June 16.