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Sunday Comics: Dead Island Several former employees at Blue Omega, developers behind the recent Damnation, have confirmed with Kotaku today that the entire dev team has been laid off following “issues” with Codemasters, Damnation’s publishers.
After my last look at Damnation, I wasn’t totally convinced that Damnation was really a Steampunk game on account of there being no zeppelins or frilly Victorian dresses.
Building the vertical-oriented worlds found in Blue Omega’s Damnation takes a great deal more effort than simply plotting out points on graph paper.
Last Thursday’s Codemasters event had some major pluses and minuses. I’m counting Overlord II as a plus – and all three times the speakers blew out as minuses.
Damnation is looking nothing like the buggy, crash-prone demo I saw at the Penny Arcade Expo last summer – thank goodness, too; the release date is right around the corner.
Yesterday we reported on the delay of Codemasters’ action RPG Rise of the Argonauts to “hopefully before the holidays”, and now another Codies title is being wisely held back in the face of the holiday rush. Blue Omega’s vertical steampunk shooter Damnation will now see release in early 2009. “Damnation is being rescheduled for an early 2009 release…The game will be much stronger and better as a result, and will also give people time to get all the pre-holiday releases out the way – ready for the fresh (and vertical) gaming experience that Damnation offers.”
Another Penny Arcade Expo come and gone and I find myself on my couch trying to remember the games I saw, the things I did and the people I talked over the last three days. I can sort out the panels from the events and the events from the experience – but beneath all of that is the most important part of PAX – the part that you want to hear about: the games.
Hit the jump for hazy, disjointed hands-on impressions for Infinite Undisovery, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Damnation, Rise of the Argonauts, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and Mirror’s Edge.
The best thing about going to E3 are the little surprises – games you either didn’t know about or hadn’t paid attention to that simply knock you off your feet. Blue Omega Games’ Damnation is just that sort of game. Due to be published by Codemasters for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, Damnation combines third-person shooting with acrobatics in a unique steampunk setting to create a game that has amazing potential, both online and off.
Damnation takes place in an alternate early 20th century U.S. where the Civil War has been raging for decades. Now a wealthy industrialist is hatching a plan to wipe out both sides of the conflict, and it’s up to your character and his teammates to stop the bastard from recreating the country in his own twisted image.
I actually got to play through a bit of a level of the game with Blue Omega’s Jacob Minkoff and Richard Gilbert guiding me through. The level starts with the main character and a couple of AI teammates (one of which can be played by a friend for co-op action) tasked with destroying a far off bridge before the enemy forces can cross, decimating a small, strategically located town. The only problem? The bridge spans the middle of a large chasm, which you just happen to be standing on the side of.
