Burnout: Paradise - 3 New Screenshots

Criterion Games has released 3 new screenshots for Burnout: Paradise. One screenshot also compares the in-game image quality with SSAO turned ON and OFF:

We’re just implementing Ambient Occlusion (AO).

If you’re not familiar with this term, it’s an effect that uses soft shadows to add extra depth. Enclosed spaces naturally receive less light than open spaces and look darker – that helps us to see how close objects are to each other.

Some games already use AO but most rely on artists to build this into the environment. For Burnout this would be a nightmare, because we like to smash things up and move them around a lot! For this reason, we’ve implemented a dynamic AO system that affects fast-moving and destructible objects!

Screenshots after the jump.

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Dead Island - New Screenshots

New images for Techland’s upcoming survivor horror first-person-shooter Dead Island. A couple flying to the vacation of their dreams is torn apart by a violent plane crash. Take on a harrowing quest to find your lost wife. Enter into the dark world of a devastated tropical paradise now plunged into chaos. It is a place where the word “dead” has an entirely new meaning. Face the nightmare and fight for survival. Explore the secrets hidden in the darkest regions of the island and fight your way through. Survival is your main goal! Read more

Valve: “NPD Group is to blame”

Recently, “PC Gaming is dying” has been a hot topic across many, many forums. This argument was originally sparked when Crysis was released; Crysis was critcised heavily for being overly resource intensive and alienating a large player base by demanding a powerful PC to run on. Hence most people assumed PC gaming had peaked and it was time for it to go downhill… If that wasn’t bad enough, recent NPD sales charts showing poor sales have added fuel to the fire. If that wasn’t bad enough, developers have starting blaming piracy and statements like “Trying to make a game for PC is a freaking nightmare” certainly don’t help. Valve’s Dough Lombardi sat down with GamaSutra to for a QnA session discuss all these matters. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

Lombardi blames the retail-heavy NPD report for the anxiety wave. “That totally ignores the money changing hands, and properties like World of Warcraft with their monthly subscriptions. That totally ignores Steam sales, and any other MMOs and online distribution systems and a host of others… it also ignores things like PopCap games. Peggle’s not in that number.”

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