Also shown off inside the E3 showroom was some incredible looking gameplay for the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. From developer Relic, the creators of such titles at Company of Heroes and Homeworld, comes the next big thing in the real-time strategy genre. Take a look.
The release of Dawn of War II marks the first Games for Windows LIVE title where gamers have the full support of being able to play along with Xbox 360 owners without having to pay for an Xbox LIVE Gold membership. While this is definitely good news, I find it ironic that no Xbox 360 version of the game has been announced. I guess those playing Dawn of War II will be playing against those playing Gears of War II! (I know, I know. I wasn't supposed to mention that game.) Or perhaps we'll hear about a 360 version at some point; we'll have to wait and see.
Recently delayed until early 2009, Sony's potential killer app has had gamers talking ever since the showing of the faux real-time extravaganza at their E3 press conference back in 2006. And when actual footage of Killzone 2 was released, there was little to be disappointed about. This year's E3 has produced even more gritty details about the upcoming "Halo killer" for the PlayStation 3, this time in the multiplayer arena. Here are the high points from Guerilla Games' long-winded presentation given by Senior Online Game Designer, Eric Boltjes.
- Support for online matches for 2 to 32 players via the PlayStation Network
- Matchmaking system available for players who desire to join matches with players of their own caliber
- Extensive badge and medal system spanning 12 military ranks to progress through
- Eight multiplayer maps
- Five multiplayer game modes
- Six character classes including engineer, medic, scout, assault, and saboteur
- Live video feeds of each spawn point available to view before choosing to respawn
- Squad support for up to four players per unit with the ability to respawn on your squad leader
- Clan support for up to 64 players via Killzone.com
- Dedicated leaderboards for comparing stats with other players
This year's E3 conference also brings us a live preview of DX10 rendered S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, a prequel to 2007's long-awaited hit PC title, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. Clear Sky is scheduled for release on August 29th and looks to rival pretty much any game you can throw at it. With that in mind, I invite you to sit back, relax, and most importantly, be amazed - be very amazed!
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yyrkoon - Friday, July 25, 2008 - link
" Rage has been announced as a DX9 game with no plans for DX10 support. Here's to hoping the developers have a change of heart. [Ed: Interesting to note is that Rage for the PC will apparently not use OpenGL as is standard for id Software; however, the Mac version will use OpenGL. Perhaps DirectX has reached the point where Carmack no longer feels it's a handicap, or maybe he's just throwing in the towel as one of the few remaining holdouts.]"Or Maybe idsoft wants to port the title to the xbox360 ?
JarredWalton - Friday, July 25, 2008 - link
I've had a few debates/conversations with people online lately about the state of DX10 games. With no DX10 hardware on consoles, and with a huge installed base of DX9 hardware... plus with the Vista requirement for DX10... basically, I don't think we're coming anywhere near to utilizing what DX10 really can do. Everything so far is a DX9 game with DX10 stuff added, because no one is willing to ditch support for all the XP and DX9 user base. It's almost as bad as the state of 64-bit applications. Almost. Still, the fact that id is releasing an OpenGL version on Mac makes the use of DirectX on the PC interesting.yyrkoon - Friday, July 25, 2008 - link
Actually Jarred, what I meant was that I'm nearly positive that the xbox360 uses Direct3D 9, and there is a development kit for Directx that can be used for PC, or xbox360 titles(sorry, I do not recall the resource kit name). What I was trying to get at here was that IF IDSoft has any hopes of releasing said title for the xbox360, Directx9 *would* be the only way to go, and since this resource kit can be used for xbox360 AND PC titles . . .JarredWalton - Friday, July 25, 2008 - link
But since they're doing a Mac version, they've already got OpenGL. There's some confusion on the subject of whether or not it's really using DX9, or if it's a DX9-class OpenGL solution. Not that important in the grand scheme of things, of course, as the final game and gameplay is what matters.phideo - Friday, July 25, 2008 - link
The PC/Windows version still uses OpenGL according to John Carmack. It's a D3D9-class renderer, not a D3D9 renderer."The PC version is still OpenGL, but it is possible that could change before release...I am going to at least consider OpenGL 3.0 as a target, if Nvidia, ATI, and Intel all have decent support."
'Course, this was way back in September of 2007...