EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: petermolyneux
Mass Effect and Heavy Rain were two titles that came out tops at the British Academy Video Games Awards (BAFTA) recently held in London.
Heavy Rain walked away with three BAFTAs, for Original Music, Technical Innovation and Story. Mass Effect was crowned Best Game, applauded for being a “combined achievement of technology, art, design [and] audio… a beautiful complete gaming experience.”
At this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards, not only will a batch of games and development studios receive awards to recognise their contributions to the medium of videogames and interactive entertainment, but an absolute veteran and luminary of the craft will receive the highest honour his peers could attempt to bestow upon him.
During the 11th annual Game Developers Choice Award, none other than Peter Molyneux will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, following in the footsteps of similarly legendary recipients including John Carmack, Sid Meier, Hideo Kojima, Richard Garriott and Shigeru Miyamoto.
Is this a new tactic to discover release dates and unannounced information for upcoming games? Or maybe a devious plan on the part of game companies that wish to uncover future strategies of their competitors?
In any event, it makes for two minutes of entertaining video, as Peter Molyneux’s son, Lucas, asks Valve Software where Half-Life 3 is, while complimenting the developer on Portal and the upcoming Portal 2.
Peter Molyneux himself makes a few cheeky appearances to shill for the release of Fable 3.
Highly amusing stuff! Watch below:
I’ve read and heard about Peter Molyneux’s effusive and legendary game demonstrations in the past, but even after watching and listening to these selfsame demonstrations with video and audio, I’ve only ever been half-way to appreciating what makes a ‘Molyneux Demo’ anything special.
But after recently receiving a behind-closed-doors gamescom presentation on Fable III from Peter Molyneux himself, I now fully appreciate what makes his demos so special and memborable: Even if it’s all according to script, and even if it’s artificial at some level, Molyneux speaks with a passion and sincerity that anyone in the games industry would do well to emulate, as he effortlessly enraptures listeners with infectious enthusiasm and a level of powerful, subdued energy that I’ve yet to experience in a developer demonstration.
Speaking at the recent GameHorizon business conference in Newcastle, England, Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux has detailed a few of the developer’s goals for the upcoming RPG, Fable III, as well as revealing that following the game’s launch at retail, it will be released as a series of downloadable episodes.
Molyneux’s sales goals for Fable III are ambitious, but not crazy:
A new developer diary has been released for Lionhead’s epic RPG, Fable III, and talks about an “exciting time” during the game’s development, because ‘real changes’ are currently being made to the title, as studio head Peter Molyneux explains that the experience is moving “more towards action-adventure and we’re diminishing a little bit the RPG.”
“We still love RPGs, we still adore RPGs,” Molyneux insists, “but we also love the drama and excitement that action-adventure games bring.”
The developer diary then goes on to talk about Fable III’s revised interface system, with a new 3D graphical user interface to help you more easily navigate the world, and bring information to your fingertips.
At PAX East over the weekend, former videogame journalist (now videogame consultant) N’Gai Croal and Kotaku deputy editor Stephen Totilo hosted an extremely interesting (and what sounded like an extremely entertaining) panel that tried something a little different in trying to come up with a ‘best ever’ list of games, by enlisting the help of not only the audience gathered to witness the panel, but a group of top industry luminaries who had agreed to help shape and evolve an original list into something they felt was a little more accurate.
The original list of top ten ‘best games of all time’ upon which these proceedings were based was taken from that currently registered at Gamerankings.com, based on reviews aggregated by that site. By the end of the panel, that list (which follows below) was barely recognisable:
Fable III got a new showing at the Game Developers Conference this year, and with it, a new set of screenshots were released by Microsoft and developers Lionhead to reveal one of the sections from the game – what looks to be an abandoned mine haunted by ghostly soldiers. Isn’t that always the way?
Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux, as usual, spilled a few more beans about the project, including the reveal that non other than British comedian and actor John Cleese will play the role of your in-game butler, in addition to the news that, in some form or another, Fable III will include support for the social messaging system, Twitter, as Molyneux says:
If you love him, hate him, or you just think he’s OK, you can’t deny Peter Molyneux is a games industry legend, and most of the words that come out of his mouth are pure gold - inspiring, visionary, comedic or otherwise - and this new interview with the legend is no different. Take this quote for example:
“Fable III, what it’s really all about, it’s all about power, man!”
Molyneux then goes on to describe how Fable III allows you to feel incredibly powerful where other games may take that power and experience away from you (i.e. right at the end of the game), and how that power manifests itself not only in your battle abilities, but an on-the-fly judicial system as well.
Riveting stuff, no jokes! Molyneux’s enthusiasm for his game really comes across in the video interview below (aided, perhaps, by a pint or two…):
Developers Lionhead have today treated us to a clutch of fresh new screenshots from the studio’s upcoming RPG epic, Fable III, all of which show some stunning overall detail and dramatic graphics technologies that really add to the scenes.
Also releasing today is the very first developer diary for Fable III, which not only features some of the developers speaking about the game’s development process, but also allows you to bear witness to some of the first extremely impressive in-game footage.
You can find all of that below:
In the lead up to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 X10 event (where Fable III’s release window was announced), industry legend Peter Molyneux made a statement that, not unlike other comments he has made in the past, caused a bit of a stir.
The statement in question involved a design direction that Molyneux and the team behind Fable III had worked in – a direction that he is convinced will upset the fans, even going as far as to say:
“I’m really scared that when I go out and tell people what it is, they’re going to be super pissed off. They really are. But it’s the right thing to do, man. I’m sure it’s the right thing to do.”
During a demo at the current X10 event, Molyneux was asked what this new design direction present in Fable III is, at which point Molyneux swung around to the demonstration monitor and exclaimed:
Game industry legend, Peter Molyneux, has been promoted within the ranks of Microsoft Game Studios (MGS), to creative director of European studios at MGS.
While Molyneux will continue to manage operations at his company, Lionhead, his duties have been extended to oversee projects at Rare and external projects, amongst others, and ensure better communication and understand within the group. Molyneux commented on his new responsibilities:
“What you’re not going to see is ten Peter Molyneux games. The value of this role is for someone like myself going in and making those little tiny lights of an idea shine as brightly as possible and ensuring everybody within the organisation clearly understands why we’re making those titles, the purpose of those titles and their importance to Microsoft overall.”
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