Published by rapture May 7th, 2007
in FASA.
It has been reported that HALO 2 (PC) has been delayed (I’m not expecting to get my copy tomorrow). It was originally due out May 8th but now no official release date has been given. It was rumored that there are serious problems with Games for Windows - Live and that is the cause for the delay. I suspect that to be untrue. In fact, we can see that Games for Windows - Live is working (and can read that Microsoft has mentioned other issues as to the cause for the delay for HALO 2 (PC). But GFW - Live is working. Proof?
Check out gamertag “The Todd“. When he wasn’t getting owned he found time to unlock Shadowrun cross-platform achievements (he did it on May 4th). Three of his recently unlocked achievements are:
- Play Public Match with players on both XBox 360 and Windows Vista.
- Play Public Match in a Party with players on both XBox 360 and Windows Vista.
- Performed a cross-platform Resurrection.
There. Proof that Games for Windows - Live is working. Proof that cross-platform play is working.
By the way, how do you like his new Shadowrun gamerpic?
Tags: achievements, FASA, games for windows live, the todd, vista
Published by rapture May 7th, 2007
in FASA.
Check out a couple of the new gamerpics that the developers at FASA are using on their profiles. I wonder if there any more that we haven’t found. Post a comment if you find one.
used by The Todd
used by Mantis
Of course the beta testers have the follow pic:
used by Fall360
Thanks to glitch720 on the Shadowrun beta forums.
Tags: FASA, gamerpic
Published by EnragedGnome May 1st, 2007
in interviews.
There’s a new top story over at Bungie.net enititled Shadowrun Shenanigans. In it, the guys from Bungie have a little chat with the folks over at FASA. They talk about Shadowrun and the extent to which Halo influenced their game.
Fun fact from the article – Shadowrun was prototyped using the Halo engine while they worked on completing their own custom engine, codenamed Badger.
Tags: Badger, Bungie, FASA, Halo
Published by EnragedGnome April 30th, 2007
in FASA and beta.
FASA kept their promise, the beta did end with a bang. At 8:00 p.m. EDT the Shadowrun beta ended — several hours earlier than anticipated, sending waves of confusion through the IRC chat FASA had scheduled.
After the initial shock died down, FASA members continued the festivities by taking more questions from the community. A write-up with a list of announcements made during the IRC chat will be available later.
I must say that this has been the best beta I’ve been a part of. It’s sad to see it end, but it was really fun while it lasted. FASA Studios maintains a very close relationship with the testers, and I feel that my contributions have made a lasting effect on the final product. I hope to see you all after the retail release!
Tags: beta, FASA
Published by rapture April 24th, 2007
in FASA.
The Shadowrun beta is ending soon. Fall sends word that FASA is going to host an online IRC chat next Monday (April 30th) on the irc.gamesurge.net network to kind of have one last get-together. They’ll be taking questions from the gamers about Shadowrun for PC and 360. They’ll also be giving away prizes to lucky gamers. See you there.
With the beta coming to an end, we’d like to invite all fans of Shadowrun to join us in one last get together before the beta wraps up.
Join us on IRC chat channel #Shadowrun.FASA on the Gamesurge server from 2-6 PM PDT on Monday, April 30th. We’ll be giving away prizes, answering questions about the game, and chatting with everyone while we play Shadowrun.
See you on Monday!
Tags: beta, fall, FASA, irc
Published by EnragedGnome April 16th, 2007
in FASA, media and interviews.
The fine folks over at 360arcadians.net have managed to net an exclusive interview with Bill Fulton. There’s a lot of material covered and more than a few bits of juicy goodness inside.
RSS 2.0
Direct Download
iTunes
The interview is basically the second hour of the show, but they talk about Shadowrun off and on throughout the whole.
A few points of interest from the interview:
1) The demo may not be released until just before or even after the game is released.
2) Downloadable content in the form of new maps, magic, and tech is likely. Multiple maps are already mostly complete, but they were cut from the retail release because they didn’t meet FASA’s high standards.
3) Achievements can only be earned in a public match with at least 4 people on each team.
4) Why doesn’t the Shadowrun FPS feature Shadowrun staples such as decking and rigging? One of the best answers I’ve heard can be found just after timestamp 1:32:25.
UPDATE: Bill Fulton took the time to clarify how achievements work.
Any game (public or private) that maintains at least 4v4 for the entire round can earn achievements. So you and 7 friends can unlock them all in a private game, provided you meet the conditions.
Tags: 360arcadian, achievements, bill fulton, demo, downloadable content, FASA, interview
Published by EnragedGnome April 5th, 2007
in FASA and interviews.
GameSpot sits down with FASA Studio Manager Mitch Gitelman during a new Q&A session. It mostly looks back on the how the project has developed and what is in store for FASA next. Mitch throws a teaser out to the fans of a Shadowrun RPG:
GS: If the game does well, could we expect to see more Shadowrun-related products down the road? For instance, the longtime fans of the franchise would really love to see a Shadowrun role-playing game.
MG: Yeah, I heard somewhere on the Web that longtime fans might want an RPG. We’ll look into that.
He also talks about some of the abilities that were cut from the game.
GS: Is there a feature, weapon, power, or ability that was dropped in development that you wish you could bring back? If so, what was it?
MG: Oh sure, plenty of them. The one I loved the most was the ability to climb walls like Spider-Man. You could still use your weapon while wallcrawling, so we got plenty of spider snipers in places you’d never expect. When combined with glider and teleport, it was insane.
Take the jump to read the whole thing.
Tags: FASA, gamespot, mitch gitelman
Published by EnragedGnome March 28th, 2007
in FASA and interviews.
Bill Fulton, Game Designer at FASA Studio, has posted an excellent description of Shadowrun’s best feature — teamwork.
The aspect of “Shadowrun” that keeps me wanting to play it is how well it delivers the feeling of teamwork, that compelling experience of being a part of a team that has to coordinate and work together to defeat a dangerous and determined enemy. While “teamwork” is hardly a revolutionary new idea, “Shadowrun” was designed from the ground up to maximize teamwork, whereas other games feel like it was “tacked on” without much thought.
Go read the whole thing over at the FASA Dev Blog at IGN.com.
Tags: bill fulton, FASA, features, teamwork
Published by rapture March 16th, 2007
in FASA and interviews.
Joe Waters, Graphics and Effect Developer at FASA Studio, has posted some juicy info over at the FASA dev blog at IGN.com.
Enter “Shadowrun’s” High Capacity Particle System or HCPS – we pronounce it “hiccups.” After identifying a need to include simple environment effects in levels (steam, smoke plumes, etc) with almost no CPU usage, HCPS was designed on paper before E3 2006…HCPS is designed as the ideological counterpoint to PixelStorm: where PixelStorm is extremely flexible at the cost of performance, HCPS does one or two things, but does them very well. In the case of HCPS, we wanted to cover the common case usage of PixelStorm – that is, camera-facing particles or “sprites” with very simple movement and no environment interaction – and make displaying them use almost no CPU time.
And he goes on
HCPS is optimized for one thing: rendering lots of sprites to the screen very fast. As such, it has a number of significant limitations:
HCPS only renders camera-facing “point sprites” – that is, it doesn’t render odd aspect ratios (long rectangles) or fully modeled objects.
HCPS uses simple pixel shaders – to keep performance high, HCPS doesn’t handle multi-pass rendering and instead uses the point sprite functionality built into modern graphics chipsets.
HCPS particles use simple physics – particles follow the classic parametric equation that freshman physics students learn, but they have no concept of drag, angular motion, or environment collisions.
Fascinating read. Go check it out.
Tags: effects, FASA, graphics, HCPS, Joe Waters
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