Merry Christmas from BU! - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 14:23

Well it's christmas eve already (where did the year go?!), so on behalf of all of us here at Blade Universe I'd like to wish everyone a very merry christmas. We'll still be on hand to make sure you don't miss any Severance\Blade of Darkness news, so don't forget to keep checking in over the next week or so.
Unfortunately we'll have to wait another month for the best present, but it'll be worth it :)

Cheers everyone!

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GameSpy Preview - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 14:05

GameSpy have posted a very positive preview of Blade of Darkness accompanied by some screenshots:

The complex textures and shading are truly brilliant, making for some of the most realistic looking environments we've seen in an action adventure RPG such as Blade of Darkness. Other incredible effects such as weapon swooshes, flickering torches, and cool looking water ripples makes Blade of Darkness one of the better looking games coming out early next year.

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Previews and Screenshots - posted by Warlock @ 12:58

There is a new preview up at GamesDomain.com and over at GameSpot.uk - both very positive and interesting readings.

Also, German site, Gildenweb, has posted some new screenshots.

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Preview at DailyRadar - posted by Warlock @ 12:49

DailyRadar has previewed the Alpha 0.09us build of Blade of Darkness. The preview comes with a nice collection of new screenshots.

The explorable areas are huge and varied, featuring indoor and outdoor sections. While the engine is still be optimized, it's already performing admirably at 1024x768x32, even with multiple monsters on screen. The amazing part is that everything that can cast a shadow does, and it's all done in realtime. Fighting near a torch? Everything will shift in realtime while strafing. More than one light source? There will be multiple shadows, including soft-shadowing. It seems like a small detail, but it adds almost immeasurably to the suspension of disbelief.

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Interview at GameSeek - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 11:14

GameSeek.com have posted an interview with Juan accompanied by 16 screenshots (a handful of which are new). One of the most notable statements Juan makes during the interview is that they will be delivering the gold master to Codemasters US on the 20th of December. Presumably Codemasters Europe will get theirs at the same time, and so things are looking good for the worldwide release date of January 26th (if not earlier perhaps?).
Anyway, here's a snippet from the interview:

GameSeek: Are you going to support the mod community (If there will be one for this game)?

JDB: Yes! You only need to see what has already happened with the demo!!!

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Updates - posted by Warlock @ 22:43

Sorry for not being able to keep up with the news these last days. Here's a few things you might have missed:

Arena Mod v.1.3
There is a new version of the popular Arena demo mod available for download, with a whole lot of fixes and added 'features'.

New Fan Art
I've added a new picture by Chris ^Mace to our Fan Art Section - check it out!

Misc press-stuff
- New preview and screenshots over at French site overgames.com (thanks justin paplus)
- First "review" is up in the latest issue of PC Gamer. You can find a text version by Trojan here.
- Codemasters will soon release a "Fan Site Toolkit" utility to help budding webmasters build their own websites for Severance. More info when it is released.
- You can send a Severance Christmas card to all your friends right here and there is a Yahoo Blade club available (havn't been able to check this stuff out myself yet). Thanks to the Blade street team for the news!

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Interview at Telefragged - posted by Warlock @ 16:25

Tellefragged has posted a brief interview with Juan Diaz-Bustamante.

Bakshra: I recently read that Rebel Act would be licensing it's game engine soon. Has this started yet? Is there a specific feature that is drawing these companies to your engine?

Juan: It has not started yet, as we need some previous polishing of the tools, as they are more thought for internal development. But we will start soon to license the tecnology, even adding some new features.

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Preview at Gamespot - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 0:56

Gamespot have posted a detailed preview of Blade of Darkness. The article is accompanied by some nice new screenshots (19 in all) showing gameplay from all four characters and some previously unseen locations, including one which appears to be from the in-game tutorial (which is described in the preview).

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US Blade of Darkness Demo - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 0:43

A US version of the demo has been released by Codemasters USA. There is no new content, except for the obvious changes to splash screens and so forth to reflect the different title of the game.
Avault have got a mirror here (thanks Blues News).
Update: it transpires that the base code of the US demo is some weeks newer than the other demos, rather than it being simply a 'repackaging' of the spanish\english demos, and some people have reported performance improvements. Thanks Juan.

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