Ubisoft Montreal’s trailer for Watch_Dogs, which has been viewed countless times in the last many months – indeed, even at the Eurogamer Developers Presentation today they admitted they’d “seen it way too many times now” (not seen it yourself? YouTube to the rescue!) – makes a big deal of how technology has evolved in ten years, talking about how in 2003, a computer virus blacked out a whole district for a day and led to four people dying; and now ten years later, everything is computerised and a whole town could be hacked by just one individual. Indeed, technology HAS moved fast, even in just half that time. Watch_Dogs is a game that’s been in development for over five years, originally under the codename “Nexus”. Even part of the game’s original logo appears on protagonist Aiden Pearce’s face covering.

However, speaking at Eurogamer, Ubisoft explain that despite the futuristic undertones, Watch_Dogs isn’t as made up as it seems, explaining that in five years technology has evolved from traditional computers to smartphones. “What was the next step up from Smartphones? Smart Cities. It sounds futuristic, but it’s already happening”, citing examples of certain Asian cities investing in city-wide computer networks ahead of the Olympics and other major events. But Watch_Dogs doesn’t take place in Asia – rather, it’s based in modern-day Chicago. Ubisoft cite the reason for this as because Chicago is a large town that’s always evolving; indeed, the Chicago that rose after the Great Fire of Chicago hardly resembles its predecessor. “Every time Chicago has rebuilt, they bring in something new that evolves the town. That was one part of choosing Chicago as the setting. … Another aspect is the density. You need to build chaos. Chicago has complete second layers on the ground, for example intersections where roads go under worlds. No flat world.”

Watch_Dogs tells the story of Aiden Pearce, a vigilante who fears the evolution of a city-wide computer network threatens him and his family. He finds ways to hack the computer network; and using his phone or computer terminals to control it, makes it work for him; uses it to get out of trouble; or gets information about criminals and bad activity around him. Described in Concept Art as “a hero by any means necessary”, Ubisoft explain they take “vigilante” to have a different meaning to the standard assumptions, explaining that when people think of vigilantes, there’s extremes: Many people think of characters like Batman, caped crusaders who deal justice alone; but it’s also true of less “good” characters like Dexter from the TV drama – a serial killer who targets the guilty, thus helping the law but not being part of the law and breaking the law himself with murder. “Aiden is in the middle between Dexter and Batman – Aiden is neither a good guy, nor a bad guy; he’s just taking justice into his own hands to protect him and his family.”

Essentially, Watch_Dogs makes a game of dynamic events and always thinking on your toes. Aiden is constantly aware of his surroundings. For example he always tries to keep his gun concealed; and walks in a relaxed manner, so he doesn’t draw attention. “There’s a lot of different ways to handle a situation. For example, say you have a reputation; and you walk into a shop and while you’re there, a police notice flashes up on screen with your face. One NPC who sees you might try to call the cops. You could shoot him, but then you might attract attention and suddenly there’s two other people calling the cops – then it’s four other people. You can ignore it, but then the cops know where you are and others might call in too as they notice. But if you jam the communications, no-one can make a call. And if you just flash your gun, you might intimidate the first person into thinking twice about making the call himself.”

“Everything is about dynamism. If you’re in an open world and you plan to give people control, everything has to be connected. … A living city has to be heavily pushed. You need to see people interacting, living. … You’re going to escalate matters based on the choices you make; and there’s nothing more satisfying than barely surviving a situation you create because of good, or sometimes bad, choices. So an emphasis is always on choices and consequences … meanings to things.” Later, Ubisoft added: “Nothing is separate elements. Everything is connected.”

This connected focus extends to the game’s multiplayer. Even when playing solo, you are never really alone. Others can potentially join your own games; and just like anyone on the street, you can hack them to get information on and connections from them; but they can do the same to you. As the crowd brought up concerns of griefing, however, Ubisoft explained this has been thought about and will be solved by a Firewall mechanic. All your technology will be protected by a firewall; but if you hack another player, you let down your own defences. When YOU get hacked, however, the firewall goes back on and you can’t be ganged up on by others. Ubisoft plan to adjust the Firewall mechanic based on player feedback. The people who enjoy the challenge may find themselves hacked more often, those who can’t cope will get stronger protection. You can turn it off completely too; but then you’re missing out on what they describe as “a cool additional gameplay experience.”

We’ll leave it to Ubisoft Montreal to have the final words (though these may be somewhat paraphrased):

“It’s absolutely possible to act all the time as you play; so you can think every two seconds. As you play more you’ll think more, and the game will feel fresher. You’ll start thinking more about escape routes as you’re just moving around; avoiding cops if you draw attention etc. – and the game will always feel like something new. That’s what makes our game something truly new.”

Watch_Dogs will hit Windows PCs, PlayStation 3 & 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U, with release dates ranging from November 15 to November 29, 2013 depending on platform and region. Here in the UK, all releases except PS4 will be on November 22, 2013; with the PS4 a week later.

So it’s a Friday afternoon and I am finishing up work for the day when Lonesamurai PM’s me saying “Hey want a beta key for War for the Overworld?”  (I picked up a spare beta key for STEAM from the awesome guys at the stand at Eurogamer 2013 ~Lone)

To which I reply “Huh? Is that a new game or something” but already I feel something tingling at the back of my mind like you forgot to get a present for your anniversary or that you are on your way to work and realize that you have the day off.

Then suddenly before my eyes flash visions of imps, Horned Reapers and digging for gold all accompanied by an unforgettable evil narration.

I then dropped everything to install and play the beta that can ONLY be described as the TRUE spiritual successor to one of the greatest game I ever played in my teens. If you ever played either of the originals (and if you haven’t GO DO IT NOW!), then you will IMMEDIATELY be slapped in the face by the back of an evil hand as the waves of nostalgia overcome you.

The interface received a makeover but everything has retained the iconic feel of the original Dungeon Keeper games.

I quickly found myself digging out rooms to lure more monsters into my domain to create an army to thwart a rival “Under lord”.
I played through the 2 “Tutorial” levels of the Bedrock beta and found myself cursing for more story, to hear MORE of the evil tutor’s voice.

The only two times the experience was let down was when the so far fantastic voice acting had its standard lowered by a cliché and not quite as well done section of voice acting by a noble hero who descended into my dungeon (The Fool!!, he died a painful death I assure you!).

The other was that unsurprisingly the game appears to be missing some of the iconic imagery of its spiritual ancestors. The Horned Reaper and “The Mistress” two characters that became a bold symbol of the originals, however I do not hold that against the game as Intellectual Property is a big thing and not something companies would allow the use of lightly.

If I were to give the game a score purely from the beta it would be a solid 9.0 out of 10.0 with room for improved voice acting (to bring it up to the level of my under tutor) and also to beg whomever currently holds the rights to the images that Bullfrog made famous all those years ago.

When this comes out, it will fill a hole that was created by a simple trailer that came with one of his beloved games that until now had been turned into a lie…

For more info on the game, head over to https://wftogame.com/ and also follow Stumpy the Imp on Facebook and Twitter

(Massive thanks to the WFTOGame team at Eurogamer for the codes and putting up with my fanboy jumping around and to Movian, who I dangled this in front of on facebook to try 😛 ~Lone)

Kicking off the third day of Eurogamer action, CD Projekt Red took to the stage first to unveil some design facts about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the third game in its Witcher series of Role-playing video games loosely based on Polish books of the same name, which is planned to hit the PC, PS4 and XBox One next year.

In a break from the usual style of Eurogamer, CD Projekt Red decided to not to send any of their design or programming team to conduct the presentation. Instead, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz – Lead Quest Designer – came all the way from Poland to discuss it; and during the Q&A made obvious his unusual position by stating that many questions being asked would have been better answered had a member of the Design Team accompanied him or he had more details on the technical side of things.

Still, the show must go on. Witcher 3, he explains, builds upon the high level of storytelling and detail kept up on previous titles in the series: “We always put a lot of effort into our storylines in our games to make them mature, to make them interesting and to make the characters interesting. And we focus on properly introducing characters to make good connections and to make them convincing. But we felt something was missing.”

That missing thing is described best in one word: “Immersion”. With Witcher 3, the aim of the game is to get the players more hooked into the game world and the events going on around them. “We really felt the need to allow players explore more and immerse themselves in the game world. We feel open-world game play does this best”, explained Mateusz.

What this means is Witcher 3 is the first title in the series to use a large-scale, open-world which players will be able to explore at their will, giving them total freedom to explore the land. “[However,] we’ve tried to avoid sending you a different side of the map or different landscape just for a single dialogue or task.” Instead, Witcher 3 utilises the concept of Quest Clusters: Quest chains will be kept in a small area. So while in a town or village, for example, you will find a chain of events to do there; when you move further out to another part of the game world like another town, forest or whatever, they will have their own cluster of quests. As you travel between clusters however, you will find side-games and wider-area quests to allow you to continue to perform tasks and keep you interested as you travel from cluster to cluster.

Another focus of Witcher 3 is accessibility. “We are working hard to introduce the story to new players as well, so if you haven’t played Witcher 1 and Witcher 2, you will still understand Witcher 3. It was actually an issue reported of Witcher 2 that people who hadn’t played Witcher 1 weren’t catching up with previous events; which we realised was a problem and we’re working to fix in Witcher 3.” Mateusz went on to explain that the team recognises that those who’ve played previous games – and/or read the books Witcher is based on – will always have a heads-up; the aim with Witcher 3 is to ensure the new players don’t feel disadvantaged by not knowing what veterans will and keep the game fun for both camps.

Not that Veterans will find the game easy, since enemies will become smarter just like they have. “We aim to have more opponent types and have the opponents interacting with each other, so [they will work together] in battle – fighting will feel more natural than our previous games.” Also, while many enemies will stay within their own quest clusters or defined territory, this is not guaranteed. “Some enemies, if you try to run, will chase you even going outside of their own area. It’s very divided.”

Opening the floor to a Q&A session, Mateusz finished with a final note to those worried that a game hitting three platforms at the same time will play differently on each. “We are working hard right now to work on keeping the game even on all three platforms and our developers are working hard to create a like experience for all of them.” They added that while the team were looking into achievement structures and taking advantage of specific console-exclusive features, it was important for them that the game plays and feels as similar as possible regardless of your choice of platform – which is good news for everyone.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will launch in 2014.

Sony today put on a presentation talking about why the PS4 and the company’s other consoles are becoming fond of supporting indie developers and their games.

Playstation’s Indie Showcase, given by Shahid Ahmad of Sony Computer Entertainment, was put on to replace the cancelled DriveClub session and was a talk on what indie gaming is, what it means to be an indie game developer and contained many little stories that are a good representation of how the indie gaming market is changing how the gaming scene is being shaped right now.

It began with an acknowledgement that thinking outside the box and going it alone is a risky and sometimes seemingly unpopular choice and on why people would want to go into Indie Game development if this was the case. Explanation of how self-publishing had paid off for people in other formats (Amazon’s Kindle and Youtube were mentioned) were then brought up and a question on whether publishing was dead. Ahmad gave his opinion that while publishing and AAA gaming titles were not dead, there was increasing competition for the best recruits to big game studios and a restriction on what they could do in the name of improvisation within the big franchises. He said that a passion and drive to make something that is truly what you want it to be is at the core of most indie developer’s ideas and that was why it was a growing market. People have ideas and drive and now some of the tools and know-how to make the games a reality.

There was talk about marketing and how important word-of-mouth and face-to-face meetings were in getting games known out there, how good relationships with other people leads to good business. Out of the many stories told to us, about games such as Starbound, Samurai Gunn and Rogue Legacy, what was noticeable was the mostly informal ways we were told meetings went from contracts being signed on the top deck of a bus to meetings held entirely over Skype. Again, it’s example of how different indie game developing can be to those of the big name studios.

It’s this that gives rise to the indie game ideas that come out, and because so much time is spent on developing an idea that is exactly what the developer wanted to make, Playstation is beginning to look upon the smaller studios and begin to work with them to bring these smaller games to the console market and even wider audiences.

The next instalment of the long-running FIFA football simulator series was shown off today in a developers session at Eurogamer Expo.

EA talked about the new game, FIFA 14: Next-Gen, which is being released at the end of November for both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4, as well as a touchscreen controlled f2p version for mobile phones. The big thing EA seem to be aiming for with FIFA 14 is for their next gen game to be even more realistic in as many different ways as possible, with the tagline for the game shown in the trailer even being ‘it just got real’. Built upon the EA Sports Ignite engine and with ‘three pillars’ of how the game should feel in mind (human intelligence, true player motion and living worlds), the presentation talked a lot about the ‘massive gameplay changes’ to make the new FIFA game feel as ‘alive’ as possible, including smarter AI for more human-like reactions to situations, different playstyles (so faster players have more trouble keeping the ball close while dribbling compared to the slower players now for example) and what was described as ‘real biomechanics’. There have also been changes made to the ‘broadcast’ system of the game which replays shots and incidents from the virtual match from many different camera angles to give the illusion of a television-broadcast match. Even the crowd is now 3D and animated.

FIFA 14 is to contain 13 different play modes including skill games, co-op seasons, match day play, EA sports football club, career mode and ultimate team as well as containing many new leagues and teams. Each stadium within the game now also has an exterior rendered in 3D to resemble the real-life counterparts they are based on as well, again to add to the game’s real feel.

FIFA 14 is also able to take data from the previous FIFA game and transfer it over, allowing the player to bring over their teams, trophies and more from FIFA 13 and keep them (although it is a one-time transfer and possibly one-way too). Also discussed was the Xbox One exclusive content for the ultimate team part of the game: Legends. This additional part of gameplay allows players to put together a team of players from around 40 legendary players and play matches with them, choosing from players from many of the recent decades as well as modern champions.

FIFA 14 is out for the Xbox One on November 21st and for the Playstation 4 on November 29th.