Meewella | Fragments

The Life of P

Sunshine People

<![Trinity]Matt> get out in the sunshine people
<![tithall]grape> oh yeah what a great idea hang on what’s this blocking the door oh yes it’s seven hundred years of culture

fireworksThis exchange on the Cambridge hub pretty much encapsulates life here now that the weather has actually improved but the welcoming lawns lie empty. Except for yesterday evening, that is, when College was filled with the sound of celebration, commemorating the bicentenary of the laying of the foundation stone. By “sound” I mean an explosive firework display and by celebration I mean that the scholars were all invited to a dinner of drunken revelry (presumably in an attempt to extricate them from the library).

fireworksBy this time E3 would normally have gamers buzzing with excitement about the industry’s big releases over the coming year. However, as announced last year, the annual event has been massively downscaled to avoid the incredibly expensive one-up-manship that invariably occurred between rival developers and publishers. It looks as though the Leipzig Games Convention may reap with biggest benefits with a projected expansion of 40% this year.

Yet despite the lack of a single focal event, there has been a flood of video footage released in the past several days, particularly from Ubisoft’s “Ubidays” event. The best of the bunch, for your delectation:

  • Splinter Cell: Conviction shows a fugitive Sam Fisher hiding in plain sight in crowded environments and a new approach to stealth action that feels more like Jason Bourne.
  • Starcraft II is the belated return of Blizzard’s classic sci-fi RTS.
  • Team Fortress 2 oddly mirrors the G-Man video prior to Half-Life 2, showing off detailed facial animation and emotion despite the characters being cell-shaded.
  • Assassin’s Creed demonstrates a little more swordplay, climbing and free running.
  • Haze suggests more quasi-political private military musings behind its futuristic FPS veneer.
  • Tom Clancy’s EndWar um, ends war? Unlikely, given this explosive trailer…

5 Comments

  1. I’m on the lawn! :d (you need a smiley with sun glasses!)

  2. We do… b-)

    And thanks for not rubbing it in.

  3. As the marine says in the SC2 trailer… It’s about time.
    No word from Duke Nukem Forever this time around? Surely not!

  4. They did leak another Duke Nukemm Forever screenshot in a job advert. It’s tiny but apparently in-engine. No other news though. I think subconsciously I’m now equating it to Daikatana so it’s going to have to be really impressive to win me over again.

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"Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has."

(CC) BY-NC 2004-2023 Priyan Meewella

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