Raven Could Be Making Call of Duty Titles [Rumblings]

Some might say that Activision is in crisis. Their “A Team”, Infinity Ward, has been emptied over the past month or two since Jason West and Vince Zampella were fired, and the legal fallout came to light.

Activision has three Call of Duty games that we know of. There’s Black Ops, in development at Treyarch, and there’s an untitled CoD game by Sledgehammer, which sources say could be something like ‘Future Warfare’, ‘Advanced Warfare’, ‘Secret Warfare’, or ‘Space Warfare’, according to recent discoveries based on domain and trademark registrations by Activision. The third is obviously Modern Warfare 3.

There’s a rumour floating around the internet that Raven, another studio owned by the publisher, is going to be making DLC map packs for Black Ops.

But the question that everyone wants to know is: who the hell is going to work on Modern Warfare 3? Bungie certainly made it clear that they don’t want to.

Now, I must be honest when I’ve made clear my impressions of Raven titles in general. They’re good – just not great. Look at Wolfenstein or Quake 4 to get my drift. But their latest effort, Singularity, when released, might be the telling factor in whether it would be a good move to potentially let them handle Modern Warfare – Activision’s most profitable franchise.

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Sources:

Rumor: Raven Working on New Call of Duty [Shacknews]

Trademark and Domain registrations [Superannuation]

Raven Could Be Making Call of Duty Titles [Rumblings]

Singularity Release Confirmed for June, 2010

Singularity is a game that might have come out last year if it hadn’t been for Modern Warfare 2, which Activision pushed majorly. Singularity was said to have been kept back until 2010.

After some delays and so on, they’re finally going committing to a release date, which is June 29, 2010, and Activision has confirmed that the game will ship for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 simultaneously.

Singularity is a game developed by Raven Software, but unlike some of their other titles, mainly id Software creations, like Quake 4, and Wolfenstein of last year that both received a lukewarm reception at best, this is an original title that looks pretty good from what I’ve seen. It involves using time to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies.

There’s also been a new trailer released for the game too.

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Source: Shacknews

Singularity Release Confirmed for June, 2010

Video Game Delays: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ruse, Singularity, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Another year starts, and just as expected, the delays are coming in. It’s been said that Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Conviction has been delayed again, as has Ruse. For Conviction, instead of February 2010, it’ll now be April – for the time being.

And Singularity, a title by Raven and published by Activision, has also been pushed back later into 2010, while Star Wars: The Old Republic has been sent to 2011 without any supper.

Oh, and by the way, another title by the name of Elemental: War of Magic is going to come out later on in 2010 now. That’s also a delay right there.

I must say that Singularity in particular looks quite good, and more original than most Raven titles. And that’s saying a lot.

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Ubisoft

Ubisoft Delays Splinter Cell Conviction, RUSE

Star Wars: The Old Republic Delayed Until 2011?

Singularity delayed again?

Elemental: War of Magic now due in third quarter 2010

Video Game Delays: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ruse, Singularity, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Apocalypse Then: Heretic

15 Years of Heretic

On this day in gaming, 23 December, in 1994, Heretic was released.

It’s a FPS shooter developed by Raven Software and published by id Software. It was one of the first games in the long lasting relationship between the two companies.

For years afterwards Raven would use id game engines for their own projects, and later on id would outsource their projects to Raven to develop, like Quake 4 and Wolfenstein, until recently when id was bought out by ZeniMax Media, for that very reason – publishers were hesitant about doing business with id because some games in their series were externally developed by Raven and published by Activision, the parent company.

While John Romero was still with id Software, he was the Executive Producer and Game Designer  on Heretic. The game used the id Tech 1 engine, used in the original Doom games, except with some added functionality, like being able to look up and down and featured “gibs” – a term that became well-known over the years.

Instead of the usual weapons associated with most FPSs of the time, the weapons were modelled more after a fantastical, magical arsenal, seeing as the main protagonist, the player’s character was a Sidhe elf, who possessed magical powers.

Like Doom, the original release of Heretic was available through mail order, in addition to the shareware version, and had three episodes. The retail edition that came out later on included another two episodes. This was the expansion, Shadow of the Serpent Riders, essentially an extended version of the mail-order one, although their was a patch that could be downloaded for people who all ready had the mail-order one to upgrade it free of charge.

The game was nowhere near as popular as the Doom series, although it did well enough to receive several sequels in the Hexen series, as well as Heretic II.

Nowadays you can run Heretic on modern systems, most simply by using the JDoom or Doomsday source port which supports Heretic and Hexen, as well as the Doom games.

You can pick Heretic up here, if you want to play a classic.

Apocalypse Then: Heretic

Déjà vu: Wolfenstein Pulled out from Germany

Wolfenstein, the latest in the legendary series, has been recalled from German stores. Stores have been ordered to take down any and all copies of the game in stock. And this was all allegedly because of one swastika that was spotted in the game, and this was missed by Activision. That little thing is what caused all this? Well, any Nazi symbols are illegal in Germany nowadays, apparently.

Of course, as I’ve heard before, it was the Nazis who started the war, not the Germans. Some German readers who have commented on the story at various websites have more or less said, "It's more complicated than that. You're not German, so you don't understand."

Yeah, we do. You lost the war!

This situation has occurred before. Remember Wolfenstein 3D? The game was banned in Germany due to the swastikas and "Horst Wessel Lied" being the theme song. People still played it there though, although not legally, but referred to it under the name "Hundefelsen 4C".

When the game was ported to different platforms, the dogs were replaced with giant rats (which was alluded to in Spear of Destiny), the swastikas and such were replaced, and Hitler was replaced with the “Schtadtmeister”.

Anyway, about Wolfenstein: Planet Wolfenstein notes that it's not known whether a new version will be made and sent there to replace it. The game hasn't sold extremely well (it certainly didn't outsell Madden 10, so you won't get your money back), and teams at Raven and Endrant that worked on the game have been laid off. This happened right after the game's release.

Might as well not bother then. In fact some people question why Raven bothered in the first place. I liked the game, though. Thank goodness I don't live in Germany. No offence...

Sources:

Wolfenstein Recalled in Germany - UPDATED
German Wolfenstein PC Recall
http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/
Wolfenstein Sells Just Over 100K Combined
Latest Wolfenstein pulled from German store shelves
http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=5982811

Déjà vu: Wolfenstein Pulled out from Germany