Unreal Engine 3 RoboBlitz for Xbox 360 Announced

[Evil Avatar]

Naked Sky Entertainment sends along a Press Release announcing that their Unreal Engine 3 title, RoboBlitz, will be available for downloading via the Xbox 360's Xbox Live in Spring 2006.

Naked Sky Entertainment today announced that RoboBlitz will be available to gamers through the Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft in Spring 2006. RoboBlitz is a fast-paced action game featuring puzzle-solving and unique physics-based weapons. Players blast through 15+ levels of high-intensity action as Blitz, a multi-talented robot on a mission to save its factory from a band of invading mechanical brains.

“With RoboBlitz, Naked Sky brings to Xbox Live Arcade an enjoyable action title combined with imaginative design,” said Ross Erickson, Xbox Live Arcade Games Portfolio Manager. “It’s terrific to see a game that delivers both thrilling gameplay and cutting-edge technology that really demonstrates the power of Xbox 360.”

RoboBlitz combines the power of the Unreal Engine 3 and Ageia PhysX to deliver a new gaming experience. The core gameplay is supported by advanced physics simulation, which offers players a world built entirely from the latest in game technology and robot control theory. Remarkably, RoboBlitz does all this while having a total download size under 50MB, thereby enabling its distribution via Xbox Live Arcade.

Xbox Live Arcade delivers full-featured downloadable games on both Xbox videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Xbox 360. “Releasing RoboBlitz through the Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 puts us at the heart of digital distribution,” said Naked Sky CEO, Tian Mu. “Xbox Live Arcade is a new, cost-effective way for independent developers like Naked Sky to get our console games to market.”

For more information on RoboBlitz, visit www.nakedsky.com. (http://www.nakedsky.com.)

[Stryfe01]

looks like this marketplace thing is taking off for MS. Nintendo should have equal success as well....u know...what's to stop third parties from releasing games they had on older non-MS systems on Live! ? As well as vice versa when the other new consoles come online.

[MaiXu]

So, is this a full-featured 3D game available for download via Live? How much space will it take up on one's HD?

I gotta think that this is pretty cool news. It opens up all sorts of possibilities for smaller developers to bypass the entire retail landscape (and, perhaps, publishers), and offer the game almost directly to gamers. Assuming MS's piece of the pie is roughly equivalent to standard licensing fees, I think this could be a real boon to getting new and creative ideas out there in the mainstream gaming world.

[SymetriX]

It's good to see a real next-gen game being released through this distrubution service. I really think it would be cool if Sony and MS took the chains off their systems and let any homebrew developer post games online for people to download and play.

I'm really dissapointed that the PSP has gone out of its way to block this, and of course Live is dictated strictly by MS.

So in a way, yeah this is nice for Naked Sky, but in another way, how much of a profit is MS making on this exactly? I see this turning into another RIAA where musicians are getting ripped off, but since the distribution medium is so powerful they have no other alternative.

[dojoteef]

So this is the NVIDIA SLI repackaged, huh?

[rjcc]

According to the nakedsky website and teamxbox post, it will be less than 50mb.

Now we just need to see if the game is quality.

So, is this a full-featured 3D game available for download via Live? How much space will it take up on one's HD?

I gotta think that this is pretty cool news. It opens up all sorts of possibilities for smaller developers to bypass the entire retail landscape (and, perhaps, publishers), and offer the game almost directly to gamers. Assuming MS's piece of the pie is roughly equivalent to standard licensing fees, I think this could be a real boon to getting new and creative ideas out there in the mainstream gaming world.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

15 levels of an Unreal Engine 3 game and it only takes up 50mb??

That seems awfully small - maybe the levels each consist of two very small rooms?

Maybe it's a homage to Deus Ex 2? :p

[EGO]

Unreal 3 is bigger than 50mb, so I don't see how they're going to cram a game and the engine into 50mb.

Also, it looks very Unreal 2k4-ish, not very Unreal 3-like.

It'll be interesting to watch, though...

[Morrolan]

Could it be some sort of procedural version of U3?

[rjcc]

apparently it also contains no hand drawn animations, fully physics based w/ the Aegiea engine.

really it seems like a fleshed out tech demo from the description, that said it may still be fun, and if it works, it will that it can be done and hopefully somebody can make a really new original game w/ this technology.

[Twinkie]

Also, it looks very Unreal 2k4-ish, not very Unreal 3-like.


Conisdering the size and the fact that it wont be available in retail (and the obscure developer), I'd have to assume that it's going to be a pretty low-budget game. But hey, if the gameplay's fun, then it's all gravy, right?

[RMan]

Also, it looks very Unreal 2k4-ish, not very Unreal 3-like.
You mean not very GoW or UT2007 like? Unreal3 is just an engine, after all, I doubt it comes with an army of content creators :). Graphics look fine though, good enough to keep if from being considered "weak" and overlooked because of it.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

I really doubt that this actually uses the Unreal 3 engine. Who's going to pay 250,000 dollars or whatever the licensing fee is just to release a little 50mb game on Xbox Live Arcade??

[Pokute]

Either they have more games under development that use Unreal 3 engine or they got the licence cheap. I'd think that Epic could licence the engine on cheaper terms if they were guaranteed that the game wouldn't be a full-price one, therefore it wouldn't reduce the perceived value of the engine.

Of course, this is all just hyphotesis.