The first gameplay video for Battlefield Heroes has popped up on YouTube in the form of a tongue-in-cheek trailer starring several members of the BFH development team. It looks official but as it’s not yet on the BFH website this may be an unauthorised leak. Watch it below before ‘they’ delete it from the internet update: the trailer is now up at www.battlefield-heroes.com.
David Jones, creator of Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto and Xbox 360 hit Crackdown, demonstrated Real Time World’s next project at the recent Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. APB is an GTA-esque MMOG set in a contemporary urban environment where players take the role of criminals or enforcers. Those on the wrong side of the law can get involved in ram-raiding, hijacking and other nefarious activities, while police will receive all-points bulletins alerting them to crimes. Unlike other MMOs there’s no levelling, grinding or statistics, instead your character will gain access to more powerful items and new clothing and accessories. The four videos below show some gameplay, but most impressive are the character creation tools which should ensure that no two players ever look alike.
City Of Heroes creator Cryptic has unveiled a teaser trailer of its next project, a superhero MMO called Champions Online, based on the pen and paper board game. Until recently Cryptic was beavering away on an official Marvel Comics MMO, but following the cancellation of that project they acquired the Champions licence. This early footage shows a game that doesn’t look a million miles away from City Of Heroes, though its cell-shaded visuals are looking very slick. NCsoft now owns City Of Heroes and its evil spin-off City Of Villains, and continues to regularly update the game with new content. See the trailer after the jump, or visit the official homepage.
Ubisoft has released new footage demonstrating the capabilities of Far Cry 2’s ‘Dunia’ engine. There’s no combat, but the three vids show off environmental features including mutilated trees that regrow their branches. Name aside, Far Cry 2 is unrelated to the original CryTek game, and is this time set in Africa rather than a tropical island. It’s being developed by Ubisoft’s Montreal studio and promises to offer an open-world FPS with some of the most realistic physics and AI yet. Far Cry 2 is currently slated for release sometime before the summer.
New Zealand indie developer Lexaloffle Games has released its latest title, Jasper’s Journeys. A platformer in the style of the Apogee shareware classics, Jasper’s is an unashamedly old-school adventure with exploration, monster-smooshing and pixel-perfect jumps. A demo is available for Windows and Macintosh and the full game costs just $19.95. Lexaloffle’s previous titles also come highly recommended, particularly the fiendish and cutesy puzzler Chocolate Castle.
NVIDIA’s almost total dominance of the graphics card market continues with the release of the new 9600 GT. The folk at Expreview.com found that two 9600’s in SLI beat AMD’s flagship 3870X2 in almost all benchmarks, a surprising result considering that the X2 costs around £280-300 and the 9600 GT can be found for as little as £112.