The Rumble Pack

I’ve spent a good deal of time with the Bad Company 2 beta on the PC, and I’ve got some initial thoughts about the multiplayer and the new mode showcased in the beta called “Squad Rush.”

It’s kind of weird to consider this beta as anything more than a glorified demo. I’m sure the DICE team is hard at work using this as a stress tester for online play and using the large pool of players to verify stability on a variety of setups. I have a hard time imagining that any significant tweaks will be made two weeks prior to release. (Is a last minute change like that even possible?)

The big question: will this be worth your money?

Read more

(originally published at Smile Politely, 9/23)

Earlier this year, the Champaign-based developer Volition, Inc. launched Red Faction: Guerrilla, the third game in the franchise and the first for the current generation of consoles. The game was absolutely packed with content - from the sweeping campaign to the jet-packing multiplayer bouts - it seemed as though there was more than enough Martian architecture to blow up. However, shortly after the game’s June debut, Volition and publisher THQ announced that three Downloadable Content (DLC) packs would be released in the fall.

Demons of the Badlands, a prequel to protagonist Alex’s storyline, was released in August, and a multiplayer pack with new modes and maps was released last week. According to Luke Schneider, lead technical/multiplayer designer on RFG, these three projects presented an opportunity to try many new ideas, but not before a number of technical and logistical issues had been addressed.

The Rumble Pack: How long did the DLC packs take develop? At what point did you start to plan out what would be included in the packs?

Luke Schneider: The first team members started on DLC in December of 2008 as we began post-production on RFG. The core team was fairly small at first - less than 10 people - but it swelled to almost 20 as production on RFG wrapped up.

We’ve been discussing the DLC packs much longer than the eight or so months it took to finish them. We certainly discussed DLC in 2007 in terms of planning how it would work. Read more