Blade FSAA Shots - posted by Warlock @ 22:09

Yup, we got them eventually! The shots are available in a zip-file from our downloads section, including three screenshots with full-scene antialiasing turned on and three similar shots with FSAA turned off. The captures were done with a GeForce, in 32bit colour-mode. The performance is only reduced by about 5% (contrary to other games, which can take up to 50%). So, how do you like it?

1 Comments

Engine licensing article - posted by Warlock @ 20:10

Eurogamer has posted an article titled "The Engine Licensing Game", which takes a look at the ups and downs of licensing an engine from another company.

Various game developers comments on the pros and cons of licensing an excisting engine and building it from scratch. You'll find a few comments from RAS project manager, Xavier, in here as well.

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Interview at IGN.PC - posted by Warlock @ 11:34

IGN.PC have kicked up an interview with Rebel Act programmer Jose Raluy. Here's a little snippet from the interview:

At the beginning the difference in the characters is not that much, as everyone's experience level is very low. But then, as you progress and get more experience, mainly through killing enemies, you get more sets of combos particularly geared to your character's weapon preference. So the Knight is going to get much more sets of combos for the normal sword, the Barbarian is going to have more combos for the two-handed sword, and so on.

For more goodies, browse your way to the full interview at IGN.PC

4 Comments

Blade FSAA - posted by Warlock @ 18:09

I've noticed that the news is out about some Blade screenshots posted here at Blade Universe, showing off Blade in 32 bit colors and full scene antialiasing with the GeForce. I'm afraid this is not the case. The mail I recieved is the same as the one the sites that have posted the news got, which did not include any attatched files. We will recieve the screenshots sooner or later, so hang in there...

10 new screens at GamesReview - posted by Warlock @ 13:18

The Spanish gaming site, GamesReview, have posted ten brand new and ass-kicking screenshots of Blade. It looks like the first group of screenshots are taken from the toturial level...What do you think? The screenshot of the Dwarf, sitting there with a cup of brew, are actually a scene taken from the system used for selecting the hero you want to play in the beginning of the game :-)

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Developers Update - posted by Warlock @ 18:58

What has come to be one of our most popular features here at Blade Universe, the on-going article covering the developers and their work on Blade, has been updated. This time we've spoken to the man behind the toon rendering raster, Carlos García Cordero. Carlos is also the author of several of the tools used in-house by Rebel Act Studios and he is one of the main developers of the engine core.

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New Preview at AT - posted by Warlock @ 17:15

There is a new preview of Blade over at ActionTrip.com. Here's a little something:

As all thirty five different types of your enemies start pouring in from all possible sides you will soon discover that each type has a lot of various dynamic way of getting hurt, and to make the enjoyment better still, a decent number of gore-zones and mutilation models. The enemies will range all from tiny yet thoroughly irritating critters going for your shins to gigantic behemoths (the remaining 33 types are somewhere in between). Each race will have its own psychology and race-specific tactics and skills. The enemy AI should prove very smart according to what I've heard. One of the catches about combat strategy is that there is a specific winning combination for each PC vs. each NPC; meaning that the strategy you use to fight a troll when playing the Barbarian will much differ from what you will have to use if you play the Dwarf.

All the screens are from Blade Universe, so you won't find any new screens in the preview I'm afraid.

Spotted on: VoodooExtreme

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More Mirror Sites - posted by Warlock @ 17:07

New mirrors for downloading the new Blade video appears across the network, so if you havn't already downloaded it, you can get it from the following sites:

- Blade Mpeg @ CNET Download.com
- Blade Mpeg @ FilePlanet
- Blade Mpeg @ 3dfiles.com (has more mirrors listed)
- Blade Mpeg @ GameSpot-ES
- Blade Mpeg @ MeccaWorld

The list will be added to as new sites appears. If you know of a mirror not listed here, please send me an e-mail with the info.

Cool Barbarian Render - posted by Warlock @ 19:48

I don't know if you've already noticed, but if you go to Rebel Act Studios main page you'll see that they removed the link to the english version of the official Blade site. The pages are still there, but the link from the frontpage is taken away for some reason. Our friend ADi made me aware of this a couple of days ago, but I decided to wait a little bit and see if anything more happened. Nothing did and for the reason below, I just couldn't hold on anymore...

You see, the Spanish version of the Blade site has been updated with a pretty cool render of a Barbarian, leaning a big-ass sword over his shoulder! A larger version of this, with the title "Blade: The edge of darkness" printed above, would make a really great wallpaper!

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Details in the new video - posted by Warlock @ 2:27

Here is a list of some of the cool and nifty details I’ve taken notice of in the new and awesome Blade video:

• How the zombie ducks to avoid an attack by the Knight when he swings the torch at him (and how lovely the shadow and light are)
• The scene right after, when the Barbarian swings his axe at two minotaurs, you can see the fleshwounds left in their stomach
• In the very next scene, you see through the 1st person view, and that big fellow swings his large sword at you, crushing your shield in bits
• The sound when the Amazon rolls and smash the skeletons head off (love that sound hehe)
• Another shield breaking in the next scene, in the fight with the Knight and the dark/traitor knight
• How the sword swings when the Knight throws it at his opponent, hitting him in the arm so that he drop his shield and cover the wound with the other hand
• The trailing mark from the arrow that flies by in the next scene and the FX showing the Amazon as she reach a new level
• Some of the different skins used for multiplayer in the scenes between the fight with the Knight and the Barbarian, which is actually showing some of the multiplayer action (one of the players is named Conan)
• The monster behind the flames, which are being exhaled towards the player character
• How the traitor/dark knight, in red armour, stings the Knight and the blood is dripping from his sword afterwards
• The defensive crouch-move the Knight does towards the end when that magic missile is launched at him
• The skeleton the Amazon fights against is on fire
• The smoke pouring out of the zombie’s neck after the Barbarian cuts his head off
• That the game is actually titled "Blade: The edge of darkness"

5 Comments

New Poll - posted by Warlock @ 1:28

I've put up a new question for you in our poll, asking (naturally) what your impressions were with the new Blade video. If you havn't seen it yet, I strongly recommend you to click your way to our downloads section and pick it up - you won't regret it!

4 Comments

New Screenshot! - posted by Warlock @ 21:32

The newly redesigned and reinforced El Rincón de Blade have posted a new screenshot of (duh!) Blade, which suits us fine since we don't have any for you today ;-) (we did hand you the video though).

Anyway, the new screenshot is of the Knight doing some archery action towards a skeleton. You'll find the screenshot to the left on the first page of the site. Enjoy!

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Mirror Sites - posted by Warlock @ 14:04

Here you'll find a list of alternate sites to download the Blade video from:

- Blade Mpeg (zipped to approx. 41 Mb) @ 3dgamers.com
- Blade Mpeg (45,7 Mb) @ Vgames.co.il

The list will be added to as new sites appears. If you know of a mirror not listed here, please send me an e-mail with the info.

New Blade Video!! - posted by Warlock @ 12:11

I just got the new Blade video uploaded to our FTP from Rebel Act!! The video is in asf-format and weights in at 26 Mb, lasting for about 3.5 minutes. If you can't settle for the medium-quality, we will have the 46 Mb Mpeg version available for download here at Blade Universe later today.

Remember that we do not have unlimited bandwidth, so we encourage the ones who can to mirror the video and notify me by mail or post in the comments and/or our forums.

Oh...almost forgot, the new video kicks some serious ass! Go get it from our downloads section while it's hot!!!

4 Comments

The Comments Feature - posted by Warlock @ 23:32

I've put the comment feature back into the news script. Hopefully it will work well, but if you experience some problems or abnormalties, please let me know about it.

4 Comments

All Sections Converted - posted by Warlock @ 22:14

I've now finished converting the last sections to the new layout, namely the Blade Preview and The Developers at Work. If you havn't checked out these articles, I can strongly recommend you do so.

Be aware that some pages have changed destination URL's, so some of the links in the old news will result in a 404 error (document not found). If this happens, simply use the links from the main menu on the left part of the page to find what you're looking for.

Next step will be to get the comments feature back in the news script and fix some issues with the template used for the search result, but all in all, we should(!) be pretty much back to normal now.

New Layout - posted by Warlock @ 18:17

As you might noticed, we have completely redesigned Blade Universe to make it faster and easier to navigate. It should also support different browsers better. All the latest news headlines will always be available from the right pane and you can now search thru the news from the search field above the headlines.

Most of the old content are now converted to the new layout, but some pages are not done yet. Please report any broken links, bugs or other problems to [email protected].

Hope you like the new look!

Poll Results - posted by Warlock @ 18:07

In our last poll we asked you what part of Blade intrigues you the most. Of the 267 registered votes, 34% voted for action, 30% voted Adventure, 29% RPG while 7% was not sure. This seems like a good result for Rebel Act, as Blade is more focused on action and adventure than it is on RPG.

In our new poll we naturally ask you what you think of the new design for Blade Universe.

New Screenshot - posted by Warlock @ 13:44

Here we go with this weeks screenshot! Want to see water? Then take a look at the extreme reflection in this shot. Too bad you can't see it in motion, but, as you know, it's not long until we'll be able to do just that - when the new video is released!

More Video Snips - posted by Warlock @ 14:07

Xavier popped by our forums today and let us in on a few more details on the new video of Blade. To sum it up for you, the video will give you a really good idea of the gameplay, the combat and the multiplayer in Blade. The video will not include any scenes from the intro, but focus stricktly on the various gameplay aspects. Rebel Act is very satisfied with the new video, which Xavier defines as "best of Blade".

Xavier promise that we'll see all we're expecting in the new video, so you might read thru this thread at our forums to learn some more gritty details.

The new Blade video will be released someday during June.

The Developers at Work - posted by Warlock @ 16:08

Our on-going article The Developers at Work has been updated, featuring 3d artist/modeler Luis Miguel Quijada. As usual the update also includes a picture taken from the developer's desktop. And in this one, Luis Miguel was working on the 3d model for the minor demon, which I've heard will be pretty hard to kill and have great AI behaviour.

Weekly Screenshot - posted by Warlock @ 15:45

Sorry for not having this up on Friday, but in return the wait should be worth it! I'm not quite sure what's going on in this screenshot, but it seems like two smoking skeletons are amused by their friend doing some nasty stuff to the knight...