"New" Terran unit - Tauren Marine

They did it again! A new super unit for Terran is revealed. It is Tauren Marine. Short blurb about it says:

The obscure planet of Azeroth was found to harbor a dizzying selection of humans, mutants, and aliens in a state of perpetual superstition and conflict. The most physically imposing of these warrior races were the so-called 'tauren,' an anthropomorphic bovine genotype with super-human stamina, overpowered racial combat abilities, and bizarrely well-developed horticultural skills.

While most tauren were satisfied with their agrarian culture and primitive existence, the Confederacy was able to lure away large numbers of young bulls for a life of adventure and violence along the galactic rim. Other tauren referred to these adventurers as 'mad cows,' and they were ostracized from the rest of their kine. The newly created tauren marines didn't care--they got neat-looking armor and big guns to own everyone else with. These beefy new soldiers are now an integral part of the Confederate military, and have managed to horn in on the roles traditionally filled by firebats and other infantry units.

 

See them in action against Terran

or against Zerg

 

For the real gems check the link and watch the moovies. Some serious butt kicking there!

 

 

No, this is not a spelling error or typo. They wrote moovie...

 

P.S. Did you really  believe them? On April 1st news?

Starcraft II gameplay video

There is a new gameplay video available on GameTrailers. It if focused on the Protoss (the player) fighting both Terran and Zerg. The nice feature is commentary of old units with new abilities and new units as well.

Here is the video (standard resolution). Be patient, it is about 21 minutes long.



If you want to see this in HD head over here.

The real treat is at the very end of the movie (if you like Zerg)...

First Zerg units in Starcraft II revealed

Finally, after a long wait first units for Zerg are here. There is a brief description of the Zerg race which I'll quote:

The zerg are a race entirely unlike the terrans or the protoss. They are composed of many different species integrated into the Swarm via zerg infestation. These creatures are rapidly and selectively evolved into deadly and efficient killers to further the driving zerg imperative of achieving absolute domination. The zerg make no use of technology to create their weapons, armor, or starships. Instead, these functions are efficiently fulfilled through biological adaptation and planned mutation of the zerg strains. Even zerg buildings are in fact specialized organs within the living, growing organism of a zerg nest.

When the zerg first arrived in the Koprulu sector, they were unified by their absolute obedience to the zerg collective sentience known as the Overmind. The Overmind ultimately directed the actions of every zerg creature in the Swarm, functioning through a hierarchy of lesser sentiences. The first and most important tier of these consisted of the cerebrates, each entrusted with direct control of a sizable section of the Swarm. The cerebrates' commands were disseminated in turn by the overlords, which directly ordered and controlled the mass of zerg creatures both in their nests and on the battlefield.

Although the Overmind was primarily driven by its desire to consume and assimilate the advanced protoss race, it found useful but undeveloped material in humanity. Taking a powerful terran psionic, Sarah Kerrigan, the Overmind evolved a new and unique creature: the Queen of Blades. When the protoss destroyed the Overmind during the invasion of Aiur, the Queen of Blades manipulated the dark templar into eliminating the surviving cerebrates. As a result, she came to dominate the Swarm.

After this I guess you want to see the new Zerg units. Now, back to the units. Not surprisingly, first two units are Hydralisk and Mutalisk.

Hydralisk

The origins of Hydralisk are from planet Slothien. Before the Zerg assimilated them they were peacefull herbivores. Now they have a reputation. A one as vicious killers... Main "weapon" is the armor piercing spine. Hydralisk is using great deal of muscle power (total of 4000 muscles) to launch spines. A single spine will go through 2 cm of solid neosteel at maximum range. Recommended defense for Terrans - siege tank. A very handy feature of Hydralisk is burrowing ability (I've been using that a lot). Hydralisk is known for getting convoys by surprise or waiting for slow and vulnerable units to come close and then destroy them.

Mutalisk

This is the flying force of Zerg. Mutalisk can attack targets both on land and in the air. This makes them quite versatile unit capable of good defence or attack. The primary attack is glave wurm - voracious symbiote that can rapidly strike at several opponents as it explosively disintegrates. In large numbers they can devastate a moderately defended base.

Now we have some videos to see how new units actually look like and how they operate.

Zerg vs Protoss gameplay

From GameTrailers here is the video of Zerg fighting Protoss. First half of the movie shows more or less standard destruction and burrowing of Hydralisk. In the second half you will see how Protoss got tricked into chasing remaining Zerglings just to find their own destruction by some new awesome powerful and self-destructing Zerg units.

Zerg vs. Terran

Here is how to trash the Terran army, again from GameTrailers. In the beginning there is a new unit, travelling underground and undetected by Terran infantry. They infect the barracks and then the carnage begins... Mid section of the movies shows another new unit defending the base -very efficiently against Marines and Vikings. Next, there is a new flying unit infecting several Battlecruisers.

From other source (GameVideos) comes a shaky cam of new Zerg trailer.

That is all for now. We expect a lot more soon...

Unreal engine 3 updates

At GDC some improvements to Unreal 3 engine were demonstrated. At Gametrailers site you can see the HD video of these. The list includes:

• ambient occlusion - adds more realistic display of the individual objects in the level by generating more realistic shadows
• advanced character lighting - this really helps to see the actors. Check the video to see the difference!
• high density crowds - now you can blast away hundreds of enemies
• dynamic fluid surfaces -now water looks very real
• matinee improvements - now with real time preview in editor
• soft body physics - now famous demo with "meat cube" showing incorporation of Ageia's technology for soft body physics and liquids.
• destructible environment - an extension of PhysX engine. Just check the video to see new level of realism that can be achieved.

Here are some examples in relatively low quality (screen capture from the video)

Horde

Fluid surfaces

Soft body

Destructible environment

My favourite feature is destructible environment. If used wisely in a level it can influence gameplay in a really good way. Let say we have a level with multi level buildings but with destructible components (roofs, walls and floors). The battle starts and as the time progress top level(s) or building(s) crumbles and changes the way you play - there is no more cover or it is greatly reduced.

DM-Lego map for Unreal Tournament 3

This looks like a fun map to play. It is simple and destructible! To see what I mean heave a look at the video.

If you like it get it from here.

If you would like to know more about UE3 updates check this inverview with Tim Sweeney on Team Xbox site - 4 pages long.

Ender's Game will become a game

Not too long ago Chair Entertainment announced on their News & Press page that they have bought interactive rights for Ender's Game. The plan is to bring this novel to all next generation consoles and PC.

If you are not familiar with Ender's Game I would recommend you go to the bookstore and look for a copy. The novel was published in 1985 by Tor Books. Of course, I won't re-tell the story! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. As reassurance of my recommendation this book won Nebula award and Hugo award next year as well!

Personally, one of most memorable parts of the book are the 'Battle Room' war games descriptions. Quite often I would find myself imagining the battle in zero-gravity and how I would tackle the situation instead of reading the book. Now I will have a chance to do that!

From technology point of view, game will use Unreal 3 (U3) engine. The U3 engine is one of the leading game engines on the market right now. The best examples of capabilities of it check out games like Unreal Tournament III, Gears of War, Bioshock and lots of other titles. As core technology U3 engine is supporting Ageia's PhysX hardware acceleration. If you read my previous post there are some really exciting news on that front.

Lets' wait and see if all factors will fall in place (nVidia making cheap PhysX cards in mass production, Chair Entertainment doing a good job and U3 engine handling game content) and hope we don't have to wait too long.

Ageia + nVidia = Awesome!

Well, well, well.

Today nVidia has announced that they will aquire Ageia Technologies Inc.

This in not a surprize, really. Ageia has really exciting technology but didn't manage to gain a considerable market share. Of course stroke a deal with Sony for Playstation 3, but appart from that not many PC stores are selling them successfuly. I think I don't have to say anything about nVidia. It is very likely that you have their product in your PC.

What is really exciting is that now we could expect to have one of two options:

• nVidia starts mass production of Physx cards with little or no modifications. This would hopefully bring the price down so we mere mortals can afford one
• new breed of cards will emerge - graphics + Physyx. This would take more time to develop but would have better penetraction to the market, e.g. high end graphics cards have physyx chip bundled

Let's wait and see what will happen. Anyway I think we (gamers) will benefit from this aquisition.

Don't waste time nVidia, bring on the goodies!

Starcraft II - Crucio siege tank

Yet another one of Terran units is revealed. This time it is Crucio siege tank. It is an updated version of the Arclite siege tank. Here is a brief description what is capable of:

Originally designed to serve as a "final defense" security
cannon, the siege tank adopted a two-stage configuration in its final form:
a mobile assault mode and a deployed siege mode that brought
its massive shock cannon to bear. The immense flexibility of
an armored battle tank that could advance and then deploy itself as heavy artillery was a huge success, and the design was widely copied.

The Crucio has been designed for increased survivability with
an enlarged, reinforced turret and hull. The new turret layout also
features an upgraded assault-mode armament package so that the Crucio can
fend for itself more successfully in an open battlefield. Force deployment
costs for the Crucio have increased over the older Arclite, but the increased versatility of the powerful new siege tank more than compensates for the additional
expense.

"Official" details about armament are:

Builds From: Factory

Armament: Twin 90mm Cannons (assault mode)120mm Shock Cannon (siege mode)

Role: Armored Support and Mobile Artillery

What does this mean for other players, like Zerg?

This is powerfull unit doing a lot of splash damage to basic units. Check the video on Starcraft II page. My approach would be to attac it with large number of units like zergling from multiple directions. Zerglings are fast and they do a considerable damage to buildings. The problem would be in narrow passages where couple of crucio tanks could hold off large number of troopers. Another option would be to use a unit with range longer than crucio's like Guardian.

Another aspect mentioned here is that this unit is expensive and hopefuly you won't encounter them very early in the game.

For now we don't know much about Zerg units but let's hope we won't have to wait for too long Blizzard starts publishing Zerg unit details.