art-style posts

BioWare blog defines "stylized reality" in The Old Republic

by Shawn Schuster Jan 3rd 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, MMO industry, New titles, Education, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Sure, the news of Star Wars: The Old Republic was kept a secret (kinda) for a few years, and during that time we really heard nothing of the game itself. Yet here we are now getting a steady stream of useful information on a game that is not even predicted to launch this year. This week we have two examples of this from the team at BioWare: a look at the art style of the game, and an entertaining blog entry from Principal Lead Animator Mark How.

In the blog entry, How explains a bit about how enthusiastic the animation team is for getting every lightsaber battle exactly right. He reflects on how powerful the toys were to him as a child and how the work they will do with TOR can be 10,000 times better than anything we could imagine back then.

Gallery: Star Wars: The Old Republic Concept Art

Tags: animator, art-style, bioware, blog, concept-art, lightsaber-duels, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor, tor

The Chronicles of Spellborn scores 8/10 in an early review

by William Dobson Dec 8th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Launches, New titles, Reviews, The Chronicles of Spellborn

Although a great deal of the world is still playing the beta version of The Chronicles of Spellborn, continental Europe has had access to the retail copy since the 27th of November. Since Eurogamer has had a couple of weeks to put the game through its paces, they've posted a review. Now, we're sure you know the various problems with MMO reviews in general -- the two biggest being that most (good) MMOs are updated frequently post-launch, and that there's usually too much content to get through to provide accurate insight to all levels and areas of a game -- but it's worth nothing that this one comes with a rather healthy eight-out-of-ten score at the end.

The art style and environments get an approving nod in the review, and so do the action-based combat mechanics. The "Skill Deck", which is the replacement for the traditional action bar you might be used to from a huge number of other MMOs, is both praised and knocked for its complexity. The primary criticisms that the review levels against TCoS are that it can be a bit generic at times, and that it lacks the glossy polish that you see in big-budget titles. Obviously these complaints were not significant enough to stop the reviewer from enjoying the game, and we look forward to seeing how it shapes up by the time it's released to the rest of the world in January.

Tags: acclaim, art, art-style, chronicles-of-spellborn, combat, eu, europe, review, skill-deck, tcos, the-chronicles-of-spellborn