Drawn to be Alive - a must-see UT2k4 mod!

[Varsity]

I am at a loss to describe how awesome this UT2K4 mod is (http://news.moddb.com/17874/). It has some seriously crazy ideas - every bit as fascinating an evolution of the stealth genre as Assassin's Creed!

You're a paper drawing come to life, and you can hide by slipping through cracks, behind furniture, against white walls, and (this is the best bit) in pictures. The art has a very strong Psychonauts vibe, if you need any more encouragement to give it a butcher's.

Seeing as the link to the trailer is a bit buried in their news post, this is it here (http://www.jeuxvideo.tv/drawn-to-be-alive-video-22195.html). Stick with it: it gets a WHOLE lot better!

It's not out yet, but they are saying October so there isn't too long to wait.

I am completely besotted.

[thecrazyd]

Huh, Psychonauts? Sold.

[phantomhitman]

that would actually be an amazing real game. great story and from the looks of it great gameplay.

[The Continental]

It's too bad the UT2K4 community is horrendously small, and the mod playing contingent smaller still. Many a great UT2K4 mod abandoned the game due to such a small player base.

Oh Air Buccaneers, how I miss thee...

[Liquidize105]

Very cool, I'm moving this over to news.

[Varsity]

Oh Air Buccaneers, how I miss thee...
I hear you. That mod was nothing short of inspirational. Teamwork within teamwork? Yes please!

Hopefully they'll port it to Red Orchestra. That's got a fairly big player base, not to mention Steam.

[Heretic Machine]

Air Buccaneers was mighty fine, but I could never find a server with a high enough population to play a game effectivley. This game looks good, but it sounds like it is pretty far off.

[Varsity]

Two months is far off now?

[Nameback]

Is there any way to view this video anywhere else? The 56k isn't agreeing with it too well.

[Gamefreaks]

That looks awesome. I want it on Xbox Live Arcade - Now!

Pity it almost definately never will be :(

[Sion]

Not to troll, but anyone notice how 2k4 mods have never generaly been as good as HL2/Source mods even though there has been more incentive to make 2k4 mods?

[Xerxes]

Wow, they made a Flat Stanely game?

Later that day, the mod team was hired by Gabe Newell on the spot to make HL2: Episode 3 content.

[The Continental]

UT2K4 had some great mods around the time of the Make Something Unreal contest, but for mod developers who really want people to play their mod, and want the chance of being hired by Valve (which is becoming rather common at this point), Half-Life and its much larger install base is the way to go.

[Returner]

Genius
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[51|RandoM]

Not to troll, but anyone notice how 2k4 mods have never generaly been as good as HL2/Source mods even though there has been more incentive to make 2k4 mods?

Part of it may be the relatively quick release cycle of each new version of unrealtournament. If you built a half-life mod, it was quite some time before you had to start thinking about half-life2.

[TheEpicOfTyler]

Wow, they made a Flat Stanely game?

Later that day, the mod team was hired by Gabe Newell on the spot to make HL2: Episode 3 content.

I wanted to make that joke! :(

[Shandor]

Wow. That looks very cool. I'm definately interested in playing it when it comes out...

[Xerxes]

I wanted to make that joke! :(

Which one...

[Phades]

Not to troll, but anyone notice how 2k4 mods have never generaly been as good as HL2/Source mods even though there has been more incentive to make 2k4 mods?

What? How has there been more incentive???? Sure, they had that "Make Something Unreal" contest. But now that that's over what's the incentive? And by the way, what HL2 mods are so fantastic?

[StoneGut]

Looks very promising.... might have to get UK2K4 (Which I assume would be pretty cheap) if it turns out any good.

[Camel]

I love the way the little paper guy runs.

[torrefaction]

That looks fucking great.

[51|RandoM]

"what would you do?"

"spend all my time in a bra at the strip club"


slow day at work.

[Sion]

What? How has there been more incentive???? Sure, they had that "Make Something Unreal" contest. But now that that's over what's the incentive? And by the way, what HL2 mods are so fantastic?
I didnt think there was anything else worth mentioning than the make something unreal. I thought that was incentive enough. I sopose the other incentives could be the very well made tutorials, plus the legacy of the first unreal engine.

HL2 mods(that I have played) that are fantastic: The Hidden, SourceForts, Garrys Mod, CTF, Empires, and Dystopia. There are quite a few more on the way that look very cool as well.

[Wyrm]

I kept thinking there would be another mod that someone made for Half Life 2 that was as good in terms of overall quality, as Counterstrike. So far, I'm left thinking we wont ever see that mod (or I'm thinking Portal might be as close as we get to that).

This mod looks exceedingly cool and it screams creativity from its very core. I may have to reinstall UT2k4...

[Murtaug]

Tempted to pick up UT2k4. Forgot all about it since I bought this new rig, one of those games I could not play on my old rig and had to pass up. This looks neat enough to push me into it.

[Phades]

I didnt think there was anything else worth mentioning than the make something unreal. I thought that was incentive enough. I sopose the other incentives could be the very well made tutorials, plus the legacy of the first unreal engine.

HL2 mods(that I have played) that are fantastic: The Hidden, SourceForts, Garrys Mod, CTF, Empires, and Dystopia. There are quite a few more on the way that look very cool as well.

I guess I just consider the lack of a large player base that will actually play your mod to be a major LACK of incentive. I'll agree though that there was more help in creating Unreal mods with those tutorials that are out there.

HL2 seems like a logical choice if you're going to make a new mod nowadays. You've got a decent sized audience and the posibility of getting picked up for distribution on Steam. Of course, as we saw with Red Orchestra, that can happen for Unreal mods too.

[Spigot]

I haven't played an Unreal game in ages, but this might get me to go out and pick up a copy of UT2K4 just to run the mod. Can't wait to see if it pans out.

[Animated X]

That looks awesome. I want it on Xbox Live Arcade - Now!

Pity it almost definately never will be :(

I completely agree, this game looks really original, and just plain fun. I hope it will be ported to a format easier for me to play (I barely ever play PC games, let alone mods), but I will make a point of playing it either way come October.

[MagicAlex]

This looks absolutely fantastic. I knew the Unreal engine was capable of some nice stuff, but all the mods I ever got to play tended to reek of the core game. People never even got around to changing the main menu.

And mods for UT2k4 should be popular seeing as it's a 2-3 year old engine which means more people can run it. Half-Life was/is the same way.

[ToxicWaste]

Taking Paper Mario one step further.

[SexualChoc]

Innovative, amazing and well thought out. This could warrant a purchase of the game.

[Sion]

Taking Paper Mario one step further.
Parappa rip off

[atariv8]

Wow, innovative, creative, good soundtrack...WHOOPS...too bad nobody will ever buy it, even though I would. (See Psychonauts, Vodoo Vince, Beyond Good and Evil, etc.)

[Xerxes]

Parappa rip off

Art direction wise, maybe Gameplay wise, hell naw. In Parappa you played simon. This is seems more free form like you can actually control the character.

[gzsfrk]

Parappa rip off

Other than the characters being paper-like constructs, there's nothing else the game has in common with Parappa (great game though that was).

Actually, watching the video, I was first struck at how similiar it seemed to Voodoo Vince. And then, once the music changed about midway through the preview, it even SOUNDED like Voodoo Vince. The gameplay seemed a bit similiar as well (jumping, hovering, being in a small perspective compared to the world around you), which isn't at all a bad thing, since VV was an extremely underappreicated game (I loved the level where you're in the museum and the huge dinosaur in the middle of the room is eating bits and pieces of the scaffolding as you run around).

In short, this game looks to be quirky awesomeness along the same lines as Psychonauts and VV. I certainly hope it sees the light of day and that those responsible get some nice jobs in the industry, since I'd like to see more of this kind of creativity coming out in the future.

[51|RandoM]

Parappa rip off

You can't rip off a game mechanic.

If you do it better, you deserve the money. If you do it worse, you won't get any.

Its like saying people who paint landscapes are ripping off the first person to have painted a landscape.

[atariv8]

Off topic but if you go to bleepindustries.com (Developer for Voodoo Vince) they put this quote next to the Voodoo Vince entry:

"Buy two million copies and we'll throw in Voodoo Vince 2* for free!

*Once we actually make it."


I thought that was pretty funny...a lot of good developers whose games did poorly seem to be going with web game type content. Luckly, Double Fine still seems to be a player.

[Varsity]

I kept thinking there would be another mod that someone made for Half Life 2 that was as good in terms of overall quality, as Counterstrike. So far, I'm left thinking we wont ever see that mod (or I'm thinking Portal might be as close as we get to that).
Now you see, that is one of the big problems with the Valve mod community. The desire to "beat" CS and the other mods Valve have taken on and made into full games has led to teams turning themselves into professional developers lite, spending years producing something that just has to be 100% complete before they let anyone play it, lest someone form a bad opinion. As a result, almost all of the teams with the talent to produce something to rival Valve in the way you are thinking are only just getting ready to release something. It's throwing away most of a mod's advantages while taking on most of the baggage of a game.

In fact with Valve's episodic model, some have suggested that THEY are the new modders (http://www.garry.tv/?p=109).

[easi]

I stopped watching after "prisonner". Auto-fail.

[Ravenlock]

Yes, it's unfortunate that they misspelled prisoners, but being that the announcement is on a French website (and says the game was designed at a French game design school), it's entirely possible that no-one on their team is a native English speaker. Cut 'em a little slack.

The visual style looks fantastic, and some of the gameplay elements shown towards the end of the video look like tons of fun.

When this comes out, I think UT2K4 is going back on my hard drive. Which is really quite impressive. Go mod community. :D

[Rirath]

"to give it a butcher's" -- "completely besotted."

What language are you speaking, man?

At any rate, UT2k4 was, for me, one of the last games I bought and got into with any real mod community. Doom 3 had promise, but utterly failed to deliver. Half Life 2 has some good mods, but not nearly as many as I had hoped for.

UT2k4 is has both maps and mods that blow me away.