Remember back when Surfer Girl predicted that Far Cry 2 (PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360) would become the best shooter of 2008? Well, judging from what's streaming - nay, outright overflowing! - from Ubisoft's Ubidays event, there will probably be no first person shooter videogame title like it. EVER. Hands on demonstrations, interviews with dev leads, and trailers all outline pretty ambitious new features. Get those that captivated audiences, updated with a new video, at the full story.

Turok's (Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360) lead level designer Josh Bridge showcased Propaganda Games' upcoming game and its realistic visuals coupled with believable AI. Dinosaurs, blood, and the video await at the full article!

 

Been aching to flex your PC's muscles (or mouse reflexes)? You're in luck, because Splash Damage has released a demo for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PlayStation 3, Windows PC over DVD, Xbox 360) just for the PC community, with a chock full of goodies for the multiplayer goon and single-player soloist in everybody. As promised, the finalized version of Valley is now ready to be re-experienced.

Because if you've participated in the Beta phase for Enemy Territory, you've already scurried (or driven) across the map's landscapes to beat back the Strogg, and kept your glass of water poison-free. But if tackling with FPS hustlers was never your style, you could ease down the pressure notch a bit with a more cooperative single-player mode.

And if hordes of other players keep flooding the various dedicated servers provided, you can always opt for the classic LAN fest for local, high-speed gaming. Get a feel of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars before it hits shelves on October 2 in North America and September 28 in Europe. Oh and yes, it is also coming for Linux and Mac gamers worldwide.

In the plus side, however, a recent interview conducted by GameSpot AU has revealed that the console versions won't be different from the leading PC version. Nerve Software's Brian Matt did confirm several things coming to the Xbox 360 version, the major ones every bit as identical to Splash Damage's version.

• Single-player mode with up to 15 bots (player makes 16), check.
• Same bot artificial intelligence as PC version, check.
• Multi-player mode with ability to turn consoles into servers, check.
• Multi-player mode with console friendly matchup service, check.
• Proficiencies leveling up in single-player and multi-player (reset after campaigns are completed), check.
• Subtle aiming aid, plus other helpful controller features, check.
• Cross-platform multiplayer, dropped.

No word yet on Z-Axis, who are busy at work on the Sony PlayStation 3 version. More on Splash Damage and id Software's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars as they drop in.

A small group of journalists was invited to an exclusive preview of Halo 3 in Seattle. There they were given control of the human forces to what may be mankind's final battle as they face off with the Covenant. But they did so only for two missions.

The group previewed the third and fourth missions of Halo 3, both set in South Africa. The third mission, named Tsavo Highway, is the first vehicle mission of the game. The mission starts with you riding a Warthog through a mountain path as you fight your way through enemy forces.

You are eventually forced to leave your vehicle and move forward on foot, through a destroyed highway and over a bridge. Suddenly, you are ambushed by Covenant Brutes backed by a Covenant Wraith tank.

The fourth mission, called The Storm, takes you through a factory complex where you will face off with hostile forces until you come face to face with the Scarab. The battle, as one of the group testifies, "has more enemies and allies than the entire first mission of Halo 1."

The Scarab will have have improved AI in this game. Jamie Griesemer, the design lead, describes it:

In Halo 2, he was a big piece of moving geometry. He wasn't really real. He was hand-animated and didn't really react to what you were doing. He had a scripted path that he went on. But in Halo 3, he's an AI (artificial intelligence). He'll chase you around, he'll acquire targets. If he can't find you, he'll search for you. He's the biggest character we've every done, essentially. And there are dozens of ways to kill him.

Developers promise that this game will provide all the answers to the huge questions by the end of the game. Halo 3 will be released this September 25 on the Xbox 360. It's time to finish the fight.

Yesterday wasn't a great day for multi-platformers, or at least for Shadowrun. It was reported that the game's beta testing was delayed because of the unexpected Xbox Live downtime the other day. Anyway, as they say, past is past and today is a new today. And as for the other multiplatform game Two Worlds (X360, PC), the sunshine is turning out to be just fine.

We can actually point out a number of reasons why Two Worlds is doing perfectly okay. In fact, it will take us a good long time before we finished with that kind of stuff. But for you, just for you, we made a summary of the game's different exciting features. All the game's goodness packed into just one article, isn't that great? Also, the accompanying ten new screenshots will surely brighten up your day as well.

Two Worlds was developed by SouthPeak Interactive and in collaboration with Topware Interactive. It will be available in retail stores on March 7, 2007.

Features:

• Offering a freedom of choice unseen in other Role Playing Games. The world literally comes to life as it immediately reacts to the player's actions and changes accordingly -offering new and exciting challenges.
• Strong, non-linear storyline. Players can shape their own story by choosing the path of conducting the main conflict and resolving meaningful side-quests.
• Spectacular and dynamically choreographed fights. The combat system combines intuitive steering, tactical challenges and movie-like visual experiences.

The rest of the features and the screens after the jump!

Analyst Rhian Hibner was on gaming news the other day and he brings with him some unfriendly comments for the upcoming PSP title Family Guy and the rest of the industry. We are not quite familiar with this guy Hibner but fortunately, stalwarts of the industry are just around the corner and are ready to defend the kingdom.

Accordingly, Hibner had seen the PSP title and thought it was poorly produced. He then made some rants and uttered baseless and hasty generalizations. NCSoft former employee Brian Plauche couldn't agree less with Hibner as he wrote: "To use one game to make blanket comments regarding the industry displays ignorance regarding modern games. I can say with confidence that he is completely out of touch with the industry."

Plauche then reiterated that graphics is not just as simple as 1-2-3. It is actually composed of entwined features such as dynamic lighting, world size, sound, musical score, story line, artificial intelligence, environment interaction and physics. Plauche even went further by saying: "Physics and interaction with artificial environments are such important developments that soon players will have to add a physics card to their computers just to ensure the game can be played properly."

In the end, the former NCSoft employee couldn't help but praise the Splinter Cell franchise and Halo on X360 and upcoming MMO Tabula Rasa. The X360 titles according to him have penetrated unprecedented levels and are only possible with the hardware in next-generation consoles. Lastly, Tabula Rasa was given the thumbs up for revolutionizing MMORPG titles by skipping grinding and just enjoy game play.

It's been so long since we last heard anything from EA about its 2007 title, Army of Two, so we're pretty happy that this new video has just popped up, letting everyone know just what EA's been working on.

Dubbed as a "co-op third-person shooter", this game is unique because it can be played either on co-op mode with a second player, or alone but with the PAI or Partner Artificial Intelligence on board. Either way, the characters Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem will be working with each other at all times. The focus and challenge of the game would be to complete missions and assignments that are given to the pair using proper coordination.

As seen in this video, hovercrafts will have to be driven with one person at the wheel and another on the machine gun, an injured partner will have to be dragged away from the line of fire, and cover could be created by flipping over large objects with  your partner's help.

At the moment, details of this game's story are still vague, though it has been known that Rios and Salem are hired men who were meant to supplement government military forces.

So will business be as good for this game, as the narrator in this video predicts? We'll find out, come 2007, when the game is finally released on the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Download: [Army of Two "Security and Strat" video]

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." We're not too sure if he was a Splinter Cell fan, but from the looks of it, he was.

AI developer SpirOps just announced that the enemy AI in Splinter Cell: Double Agent will be running on their latest-generation Artificial Intelligence programming.

The AI will be running on SpirOps' "Drive Oriented" technology, which allows the virtual character they're programmed into to independently learn from their surrounding environment and the player's behaviors to better their own battlefield survivability - much like how a real soldier adapts.

“Bots had to be a realistic alternative to human players. We needed an AI solution that could handle various human behaviors while letting us keep control over the game. SpirOps AI, thanks to its Drive Oriented layer approach, totally fit this need.” said Olivier Saillant, Lead Programmer for Ubisoft’s Annecy Studio.

The AI will be used in the game's multiplayer mode, and will be the first time that bots are to be placed in a Splinter Cell game. Axel Buendia, SpirOps CEO:“Artificial Intelligence is one of the major steps forward in next generation gaming and together, SpirOps AI and Ubisoft are bringing life to games.”

Somewhere out there, Hideo Kojima-san is probably reading this, and googling SpirOps' web site....

Yesterday, we gave you updates on the upcoming Xbox 360 title Forza Motorsport 2, now we have more. Forza which means power in Italian is a very appropriate title for this racing simulator video game developed by Microsoft Game Studios. Here are some new details on Forza 2 (including those that were revealed yesterday):

• The mathematical model for the computation of vehicle damage and handling amounted to 6 months work time. While gathering the data necessary took 9 months.
• Unlike in PGR 3, there wouldn't be any inside/cockpit perspective for Forza. The reflection mapping ran only with 30fps and the texture quality of the decals were too low for a close up.
• The developing team is closely working with Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing series) for the photo and TV mode.
• There will be three damage types - optical, normal and simulation.
• The ' Drivatar ' is again present and is to play a larger role.
• Just like its predecessor players can customize their car. The tools necessary for it did not change greatly. It will be further not possible however to import pictures.
• Downloadable contents are planned, e.g. new Vinyls.

In an interview, Forza Motorsport Lead Game Designer Dan Greenawalt shared that the "Drivatar Technology" is going to be extended, so that the opponents would have more personality and techniques. Artificial intelligence is also shaped by the personalities of the players. Some drivers would go very fast initially but would slow down once they encounter some traffic and vice versa. Every computer opponent has a name, so the player can easily take note on how a certain competitor behaves.

Aside from Drivatar, he also mentioned that offroad running may not be included in this game as well as weather effects. When you crash, parts of the car will fly all over the place, which I think some people would do on purpose just to see this effect. The developers received the first prototype of the ' Wireless Racing Wheels ' two weeks ago.

With all the hooplah over next gen graphics, physics, high definition signals, network services and controller innovation, one element seems to have been largely overlooked by many, an aspect that for me  will truly herald the coming of the next generation... intelligent artificial intelligence.

Developers would argue, and with good reason that character A.I has come an awfully long way since the days of Quake and Doom, and in some respects it has, but the end result is still largely the same - the enemies pop out, we shoot at them, they duck/hide behind some cover, wash, rinse, repeat. We've occasionally heard devs talking about their enemies using true squad AI to flank you, force you out in the open, surround you and basically perform all sorts of dastardly clever military tactics. To this day the only game that's really come close to delivering on this promise is F.E.A.R. (on the PC).

The truth is that current generation A.I is tremendously simple, rigid and predictable. Consider that the most lasting impression made by a game is how the player experiences and interacts with the world (profound, I know). For the most part game worlds have been painfully static, and only recently have we truly begun to breathe life into them with detail and physical simulations. It's time we started doing the same to the characters that inhabit these worlds as well, if we can see real intelligence and genuine malice behind the face of the bad guy who kidnapped our gal, we're more likely to invest in the game, if we understand and respect a defenseless enemy soldier we're more likely to feel the pang of guilt that comes with shooting him.

This thinking doesn't just apply to first person shooters, but all genres across the board, if I play a team at soccer, I want to feel like each individual player has his own tendencies, idiosyncrasies and strengths, not just the hive mind mentality we're currently seeing. If I play an RPG I want to invest in the characters emotionally because of who they are and how they react to situations spontaneously, not prescripted events. If I'm playing Splinter Cell I want to feel bad for having killed that innocent because I killed an innocent, not because you'll terminate my mission. And how awesome would be to play multiplayer Lumines against HAL 9000!?

For the most part we've been playing through worlds populated by puppets on strings, and worse, we hold those strings, maybe with the second and third generation of next gen games we'll start to see all that horsepower put to good use. What say you guys, are you satisfied with where are right now, or would you like to see more?