My experience with the Real Time Strategy genre began not amongst the spice-filled hills of Dune II. Nor did it begin at the side of Kane, crushing my enemies under the Iron hand of NOD. No – it all began amidst the star-spangled banners of the allies, charging the front lines even as the colossal front of Soviet Mammoth Tanks pushed forward against all that stood before it – be it tanks, helicopters or infantry. Such is the affection towards the game that if my heart were considered an Italian mafia restaurant, the best table would always be reserved for the boss of the place and his son, Red Alert 2. No other game – regardless of how powerful or good - would dare to eat at that table, lest find themselves at the bottom of the creek with their feet in cement blocks.

And yet today I find myself in a dilemma of sorts. When I was given the opportunity to partake in the Red Alert 3 beta thanks to the bossman, I was nothing short of elated and excited. To finally see the continuation of the series and the third installment – to relive part of that experience along with something more – it was and still is an exciting opportunity. However… I seemed to have fallen into a trap.

There is something I try to keep reminding myself everyday: to stop falling prey to hype, flashy banners and pimped-out sites. Unfortunately, those constant reminders failed with Red Alert 3 (RA3) as I got into my sub and dived into the beta, completely ignoring the warning signs along the way. By the time I emerged back from the murky depths, my impressions of the game had changed significantly – both for better and for worse.

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Back in May, we got an early glimpse of some less-than-riveting screens of LoveStory 2050 for the PC, the official game based on the upcoming sci-fi film that unapologetically “borrows” as many flicks as Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer can do with Hollywood blockbusters in a few months time (minus the near-existent humor). Then Sanjit Daniel, CEO of Rocking Pixels and 2050’s developer, pops in and slaps us with a large cartoon trout with “Engine Tests!” written all over it. He also promised we’d be seeing some real info in about “two weeks time”, but that was nearly a month ago. Fast forward to today, and now we’re hearing talks of a massively multiplayer online game, backed up by Indian gaming portal Zapak. A sphincter says what?!

Rocking Pixels has associated with Love Story 2050 to create for the first time a Bollywood based 3D game that will bring realistic “avatars” of the stars to the masses that will be able to connect with their most popular icons in a way never before possible. The massively multiplayer games with hundreds of thousands of players competing with each other provide the most interactive lean forward medium which associates players with the stars.

On this occasion, Sanjit Daniel, CEO, Rocking Pixels said, “When Love Story 2050 was announced we realized that the movie will be a great fit to showcase our technology as it was futuristic and loaded with special effects. With Harman himself being a hard core gamer we managed to create a breakthrough game which brings the movie in all its glory to the world of 3D gaming. The game will be released as a massively multiplayer game and will feature exciting game play in a futuristic Mumbai, exactly as depicted in the movie”.

Talk about unexpected developments. Yet, there’s still no mention of a pinned release date or what sort of a MMO will this be exactly. RPG? FPS? Second Life meets Blade Runner? Tieing up with Zapak seems like a good initiative, but having to deal with the weight of a thousand or so players all interacting at the same time is a huge undertaking. That doesn’t come from just an everyday gamer’s perspective, that personally comes from a QA tester too.

The movie will be releasing this Friday. As usual, more info when it hits.

 

I heard it from a colleague at the office… “there is gaming competition at Rajpura”. I didn’t pay any attention. There couldn’t be anything big in this part of the world. They only play CS. But my colleague, knowing about my connection with gaming from my regular rants about TAP, was intent on showing me the website. Is this really big enough that it has its own website? I saw the site here and it looked good. Damn they have big sponsors, and I knew… this is big. And so began… the rush to cover the event.

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This really is good news or bad news, depending on which way you choose to look at it. It’s a pragmatic statement, so I’m not going into why I think so, because frankly, no one gives a flying hoot about what I think.

But BioWare have announced today that Mass Effect will grace all modern PC’s in May 2008. The EA slaves announced that the award-winning space epic Mass Effect™ published by EA and will sport some redesigning for the PC.
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Although Halo 3 managed to reclaim it’s throne from Call of Duty 4 (COD4) on Xbox LIVE a few days back, it did prove the popularity of Infinity Ward’s  breathtaking offering. Infinity Ward managed to revive a dying a genre and my, what a revival it has been! So it comes as a no surprise that gamers have been salivating all over there controllers ever since the news of an expansion for COD4 surfaced. Now, while a concrete date hasn’t been fixed for the expansion, there is something more coming our way to keep us busy till the promised expansion shows up.

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