Wolfenstein 3D 4

Oh, I wish it really were called that. I miss the days when game names were ritually suffixed with '3D'. I might start doing it anyway. "Next week, we'll be posting about Fallout 3 3D, Spore 3D, Warhammer Online 3D and Peggle..."

There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of buzz around Raven's upcoming occultist-Nazi shooter just yet, at least not compared to id's own Rage 3D, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. Here's what was shown at Quakecon, anyway. It's possibly a little more subtle than the E3 footage - but it's nevertheless certainly not subtle. I think/hope it's pushing for deliberately silly, and it could be a lot of Serious Sam-y fun if so.

Still, I do find myself wishing for primary-coloured corridors and Nazis in bright blue uniforms. Oh, why must every modern (not going to say 'next-gen') game favour the greys and the browns, the dinge and the grit?

On that note, here's Blizzard explaining their thinking behind the controversial dayglo Diablo III 3D palette: "There’s a lot of gray-and-brown games out there, and there’s lots of photo-realism out there. If you want that, there’s no end of games for you to play. We didn’t want you to look at ‘Diablo III 3D’ and go, ‘Oh, that looks like ‘Gears of War 3D.’"

I appreciate their thinking entirely, but I guess it does seem a little odd they're employing an ostensibly (but most certainly not identically) similar look for all three of their ongoing game series. Very likely they're aiming for The Blizzard Look, in the same way there's The Apple Look or The Malnourished British Games Journalist Look. Which isn't an altogether crazy idea. Outside of Nintendo, there's not many developers who carry a signature look across their games. While it might upset a few thousand old school Diablo fans, it's a clever branding exercise - a visual seal of quality, at least if that's your idea of quality.

Whoops, rambling wildly. Back on subject - new Wolfiness. In 3D.

Again - I'm sorely hoping it's shooting for waaaaaaaay over the top, and not just messy visual goth-noise like Clive Barker's Jericho. There's stuff so wantonly ridiculous in there that it surely has to be tongue in cheek, and that appeals. It'd be great to see Raven hit it out of the park for the first time in a long while.

Thanks to Wesley for reminding me we should probably post this.