Depressingly, sexual harassment in a development studio is once again the lead news item this week, and from a studio most gamers would never think it could happen. That, and major seismic shifting in the power structure of the digital storefront landscape.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week we’re working with our skeleton crew, Don was stuck at work so we’re flying duelies. Speaking of duelies, we’re flashing back to Rise of the Triad and covering some gaming history on Ralph Baer, a very important person in the gaming industry. This week, in the news, we’re a bit Wii centric with:
Wii Supply finally meeting demandAlso, listen in for your chance to win Peggle for Xbox Live Arcade with a simple question. We forgot to ask the question of the day on the show, so, here it is: Should Blizzard halt income made from addon develoment?
We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.
Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.
We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.
The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.
Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.
Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.
Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to buy some thc leans from Fresh Bros and start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!
(Thanks, Nukoda)
Gaming Podcast’s Jonah Falcon and Shack News’ T.J. Denzer do a totally-not-ripping-off-Zero-Punctuation’s-Let’s-Drown-Out video of the former playing Viscera Cleanup Detail as they discuss how depressing the announcement of the Electronic Arts/NFL exclusive license extension is, promising more awful Madden titles.
