wanted posts

Having a multiplayer componant can sometimes be considered to be a major feature to sell a title to game fans. But is the pressure to add multiplayer features hurting some titles? According to Pete Wanat, the executive producer of the upcoming single-player only movie-based game Wanted: Weapons of Fate, the answer is a big, "Yes."

Gamespot chatted with Wanat about his opinions on the subject and he apparently has some strong views on when and when not to add multiplayer features to a game. He feels that many times adding multiplayer maps and features are a waste of time. Wanat believes this happens because, "...a couple years ago the press was all about saying, 'This game has to have multiplayer, there's no re-playability.' F*** that. That's a bad joke." He added that multiplayer features are sometimes added to a game at the request of the publisher's marketing department. That move can sometimes hurt the game's single player development, according to Wanat.

He states, "You don't get to add multiplayer [at] no cost. If you're going to make a multiplayer version, you take people, time, and money away from the single-player experience. And that all goes to hurt the single player." Wanat feels like games like Halo, Call of Duty and Left 4 Dead are examples of games that make an effort to truly create a solid multiplayer experience, saying, "There are places and times to do it and do it right."

This developer diary for Wanted: Weapons of Fate discusses how major elements from the movie, like bullet curving, were adapted into the game along with a number of other features.

Download Wanted: Weapons of Fate Developer Diary #1 (178 MB)
Check out all Wanted: Weapons of Fate downloads

While not as big as the San Diego Comic Con the New York Comic Con has grown by leaps and bounds in its short history; it was launched in 2006 with about 20,000 people but by last year's edition attendance had grown to 64,000 people. The 2009 show is being held on Feb. 6-8 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City and the show will have a surprising amount of game-related panels.

Panels at the show will spotlight, among other games, Prototype, Warhammer Online, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online, X-Men Origins Wolverine, Wanted, and the still mysterious 38 Studios. The Penny Arcade team will also be making appearances at the show. In addition Activision, Atari, Codemasters, Konami, Mythic Entertainment, Southpeak Games, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others will have exhibits on the show floor. All in all it's not a bad line-up of companies and activities if you are a gamer in the NYC area.

Mark Millar and J.G. Jones's comic book mini-series Wanted from Top Cow became a hot commodity to adapt to a Hollywood movie since the comic was released. That movie adaptation, while different in many ways than the comic, was still an over-the-top and highly violent "R" rated movie that was a big hit with both critics and the box office this summer.

What few people knew at the time was that Wanted's movie studio, Universal, was self-funding a Wanted game that was designed to continue the movie's storyline. Developed by GRIN (Bionic Commando) Wanted: Weapons of Fate turned into a third person shooter that's due in stores for the PC and other platforms in early 2009. Big Download got a chance to ask some questions of the game's producer Nick Torchia.

One of the few surprises at last July's E3 was the introduction of Wanted, the action-shooter from Universal that's being based on the hit R-rated summer movie (and itself based on the Wanted comic book). Now the game's publisher Warner Bros. Interactive has released new screenshots of the game that's being developed right now at GRIN.

Along with the new screenshots comes word of the game's full and official title. The game is now referred to as Wanted: Weapons of Fate, a line that is spoken by Morgan Freeman's character in the movie to refer to the Fraternity of assassins. The game, which actually takes place after the events of the movie, is still scheduled for release later this year.

While the game industry is beginning to understand that they can sell high profile games any time of the year the truth is that the time period between the first of September and the first week of December remains the biggest time of the year for new games to be released. 2008 seems to be no exception to this rule as PC gamers have a ton of new and promising titles to choose from this year.

So which games are we most looking forward to playing this fall? Well it so happens that we have created a feature gallery that has our picks for the PC game titles we most want to play in the next few months. That list include a long awaited MMO, a new expansion pack to the biggest MMO, an alternate history RTS game, a number of great looking first person shooters, a post-apocalyse RPG and a title that some are already declaring "the greatest game ever made." (in fact you can get a clue as to one of the games on our list from this custom case mode we saw at QuakeCon).

Our list of games is ordered by their scheduled release dates. Keep in mind while checking our picks that release dates can and do change at the last minute. Our picks represent the best info on these dates at the time of the posting of this article but if any changes are announced afterward we will report on them on the news site.

Click on the image above to continue reading "Most Anticipated Fall 2008 PC Games"

Every time at E3, there's a game that you have never heard of before you arrive that you get to see and totally surprises you. For us, that game at E3 2008 was Wanted, a title that actually serves as a sequel to the impressive Universal Studios action game based (loosely) on the Top Cow comic book from writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones.

At a last minute appointment during E3 we got to see a quick live demo of the Wanted game at Warner Bros. Interactive's meeting room (the company is distributing the title) on an Alienware PC using an Xbox 360 Windows controller. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, here's a MAJOR SPOILER WARNING as we intend to talk about the ending in the next paragraph

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming in the last 24 hours. And, of course, that means even more E3 coverage from the floor of the convention and in the conference rooms where we were hands on with many popular titles.

	E3 08: Hands-on with Spore So you have likely been playing with the Spore Creature Creator for a few weeks now, either in its free version or the full $9.99 version. But how, you may ask, is the actual Spore game actually looking. Quite well, thank you. In fact it's a lot deeper experience than we first imagined.
	E3 03: Hands-on with Fallout 3 It's extremely hard to really get a feel for what a game that has about 100 hours of gameplay in less than 30 minutes of time. Yet that was our constraints while playing Fallout 3 at Bethesda Softworks' E3 2008 meeting room. It was enough time to confirm that the game plays well in those 30 minutes but that's about it.
	E3 08: Hands-on with Far Cry 2 We named this game our most anticipated PC title of E3 2008 and when we went behind closed doors at Ubisoft's meeting room to check out a PC demo build of Far Cry 2 our expectations were certainly high. We came away from the demo impressed by the game's promise, even though we are still scratching our heads as to why the game is even named Far Cry 2. With the exception of a couple of minor similarities, there's really nothing that ties in this game with Crytek's original 2004 shooter.
	E3 08: Hands-on with Project Origin Last year, Warner Bros. Interactive had a hands-on theater demo of Project Origin, the long awaited true sequel to developer Monolith's 2005 scary shooter F.E.A.R (in fact the official name of the game had not been announced at its 2007 E3 appearance). The demo was more akin to what was seen in F.E.A.R.. it took place in an office corridor. It had some shooting of AI driven soldiers and it had a scary scene at the end.

It looks like the rumors were true; a game based on the recent action film Wanted is indeed in the works. Today the official press release came down the wires with word that developer GRIN (Bionic Commando) is handling the development chores for the game which will be published by Warner Bros. Interactive.

According to the press release the Wanted game will be in third person and take place after the events of the movie as Wesley Gibson learns more about to be a super assassin. The game will feature a "multi-layer cover mechanic" and allow the player to curve bullets in flight. We are expected to see at least some aspect of the game at E3 today. In the meantime Wanted is due out for release this fall for the PC and other platforms.

The same NeoGAF message board threat that revealed Game Informer's cover story on Wolfenstein has also revealed previously unannounced plans for a game based on the movie version of Wanted, the recent critically acclaimed (and ultra-violent) film based loosely on the Top Cow comic book mini-series by writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones.

There's no other info on the game in the thread (no publisher, developer or release date) except that it takes place sometime after the events in the movie. There's also no word if any of the film's actors will voice their characters as well. Hopefully we will get more info on the Wanted game title in the near future.