SpellForce 2 – Faith in Destiny announced

Written on May 27, 2009 at 12:41 am, by James Fudge

JoWooD Productions and DreamCatcher Games have teamed up once again to bring a sequel to SpellForce to North America. SpellForce 2 – Faith in Destiny combines real time strategy with role-playing game elements wrapped up in a whole new story about a showdown between good and evil. Further details on the game are under wraps right now, but here’s what JoWooD had to say about today’s announcement.

“Developing another game in the SpellForce saga is an exciting opportunity for us. Faith of Destiny is developed incorporating feedback from the community and feedback from those who have assisted in the development of previous Spellforce games,” says Clemens Schneidhofer, PR Coordinator at JoWooD Productions. “I’d like to add that we bow before the loyal fans of the brand and want to thank all of them for their amazing support.”

The game will make its way to North America sometime this winter for the PC and will be published by DreamCatcher Games. Expect to hear some more about the game next week at E3 Expo 2009.

Painkiller gets Resurrected

Written on April 13, 2009 at 12:37 pm, by John Keefer

Be prepared for another descent into the world between Heaven and Hell.

JoWood and Dreamcatcher have signed on small Austrian developer Homegrown Games to produce another Painkiller game, Painkiller: Resurrection. The new team will be using an upgraded version of the original game’s engine, and will be adding a co-op multiplayer mode, created by Dr. Steven Wilkins and known by the name Blowfish in the Painkiller community. It was Wilkins who came up with the PK++ mode that added competition-style elements to the original game.

As with the original, the hero (antihero?) gets caught in Purgatory after he kills a few bad guys and a few innocents along with them. The game again revolve around the quick, in-your-face action style of DOOM and Quake, while the main character is used as a pawn by the forces of Heaven and Hell.

The game is planned for late this year, and IGN is reporting that an Xbox 360 version may come out sometime after that.

It will be interesting to see how this develops, literally. I played through the original and thoroughly enjoyed the action. I’m hoping they can come up with enough new gameplay to keep it fresh. Some games that have successfully capitalized on the old-school action have fallen flat in the sequel.Serious Sam 2 pulled off a good sequel, so we know it can be done.

Dungeon Lords Gets A Sequel

Written on June 25, 2008 at 12:00 am, by James Fudge

Really? Really?!? Proving that some companies have balls bigger than church bells, DreamCatcher Games, JoWood Productions and D.W. Bradley’s Heuristic Park announced today that a sequel is in the works for Dungeon Lords. Yes, you read that lead-in correctly. For those unfamiliar with the game, its release was marred by show-stopping bugs, missing features and the most unpopulated game world in video game history. Fans were less than forgiving, railing against its North American publisher for months after its release. While DreamCatcher did what it could to support the game, many fans walked away from that particular purchase with a bad taste in their mouths.

The sequel, The Orb and the Oracle, promises a continuation of the storyline from the first game and enhanced gameplay, though specific details were not released at press time. Other promises include a massive fantasy world to explore, a new combat and magic system, new quests and single and multiplayer co-op game modes.

D.W. Bradley is a decent game designer (he helped create Wizardry VII), so it is pretty easy to understand why so many of his fans were disappointed with the buggy mess that was Dungeon Lords. Dungeon Lords players are owed a product that delivers the gameplay that was promised the first time out. I hope that Bradley will redeem himself with this product.

The Orb and the Oracle will be released this winter for Windows.