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Gears of War 3 executive producer Rod Fergusson and design director Cliff Bleszinski have provided an audio tour of Gears of War 3 in video form.

Each video includes screens and art from the game and are rather large, so they may take a while to load. But if you are a Gears fan, it should be worth the time and effort – depending upon your perspective.
Source: games news and review

Over on the Guild Wars 2 site, ArenaNet has revealed some of the dynamic events its toying with for the MMO.

Colin Johanson, lead content designer for the game, has revealed that the traditional quest systems has been nixed, and you will no longer have to “read a huge quest description to find out what’s going on”.

Instead, you will know what is going on by seeing and hearing things going on within the game’s world.

“If a dragon is attacking, you won’t read three paragraphs telling you about it, you’ll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack,” wrote Johanson.

“You’ll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege”.

Also, one of the other things being worked on is NPCs will no longer just be standing around with impending danger lurking behind the trees.

“The character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character’s home, and you need to kill them,” said Johanson. “You then get a quest which says, ‘Kill 0/10 ogres’ and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies.

“Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character’s home – they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren’t actually doing what the quest says they are – the game is lying to you.

“At ArenaNet, we believe this is NOT good enough. In Guild Wars 2, if a character tells you ogres are coming to destroy a house, they will really come and smash down the house if you don’t stop them.”

Sounds interesting.

The game is slated for 2011

Star Trek Online’s executive producer, Craig Zinkievich, has revealed some of the upcoming content for the MMO, and one bit in particular that fans should get a thrill out of, is the addition of Deep Space 9’s roulette-like game Dabo.

There’s also work being done on Memory Alpha, special task force difficulty, Season 2, a skill point cap, Klingon Episodes, and a Federation diplomatic corps.

The new update should hit sometime in July.

Cryptic’s also hosting a free trial of the game, which allows you to play the tutorial and an early mission as part of the Federation.

Then, on top of that, there’s a welcome back weekend going on until Monday. There will be gifts, rewards for recruiting other players into the game, and much more.

It’s good time to be a space jockey, we suppose.

Loads more info can be found through the official site.

John Garvin, creative director at Bend Studio, has announced over on the US PS Blog that Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow will be made available for PS2 on June 1.

Originally released on the PSP in 2007, the game will include some added tweaks for the PS2 controller: a snap button to ease the transition in and out of cover; a “swing out and aim” command for L1; and some re-tuning for the extra analog stick.

The devs also updated the textures and effects.

While announcing the game, Garvin also revealed that this summer, the first-ever Syphon Filter digital graphic novel will be released.

Called Syphon Filter: The Opposition Effect, it’s over 120-pages long and bridges the stories of Dark Mirror and Logan’s Shadow.

All sounds rather neat.

Source: games news and review

Bethesda’s Pete Hines has said that id’s “true potential” will be shown soon, thanks in part to Doom 4 and Rage.

Speaking with MCV, he said having the studio under the Bethesda family is a “tremendous advantage”.

“id Software brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the first person shooter genre,” said Hines.

“To have a group like id working as an internal studio for Bethesda is a tremendous advantage.

“I think what they’re working on with RAGE and Doom 4 is going to show the world their true potential,” he went on to add.

Doom 4, meanwhile, is expected to be revealed at Quakecon in August.