Easily one of the best part about having friends or coworkers who are also die hard gamers like yourself, is the fact that you can talk to this person about how the developers don't know what they're doing, how you would've done such and such game better, and ultimately, "back in my day..." Personally, "back in my day" is the best part of any gaming-related conversation. Mainly for the sake of bringing back fond memories, but also because I always manage to realize something that I never noticed before as a kid, or simply ...
Kyle here with another edition of The Music Vault! Last time we looked at Team Teamwork's "Vinyl Fantasy VII," a mash-up of hip-hop lyrical stylings and the music of Final Fantasy VII. This time, we're gonna have a look at the just-released music on Harmonix's latest addition to rhythm gaming - The Rock Band Network.
The Ace Attorney series proved to western shores in 2005 that a game in which you play as a lawyer could be not only fun, but downright awesome at times. Sure it had a tendency to be silly and extremely over the top, but snappy writing and simple and intuitive gameplay made the original game a joy to play. Sequels followed almost yearly, culminating in this year’s instalment: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.
The original BioShock was considered a masterpiece by gamers and critics alike in 2007, and whenever something's successful a sequel usually gets announced. Now the time has come to return to Rapture, but is this a welcome one? BioShock 2 puts you in the diving suit of one of the prototype Big Daddies, the first one to be successfully bonded to a Little Sister. On New Year’s Eve, 1958, your Little Sister was forcefully taken away from you, putting you in a chemically induced coma. Now, ten years later, you have awakened to find a city in utter ruin, with a ...
With access to the Heavy Rain demo coming to us earlier than expected, this gamer took it upon himself to download it as soon as he had the chance. My personal conclusion? It works, and it works far better than many cynical gamers thus far have been willing to believe it could. The demo gives you three different segments to play through; a tutorial to guide you through the basic controls, an action heavy scene set in an run-down apartment block, and the crime scene of a murder committed by the Origami Killer, the character at the centre of Heavy Rain's ...
According to Official PlayStation Magazine, a “Massive Sequel” will be announced in next month’s issue. Luckily, OPM has revealed a significant clue. The “Massive Sequel” is a racing game that may challenge GT5’s racing crown.
Straight from OPM, “We’ve seen a top-secret driving game that may threaten GT5’s racing crown. More next month – be excited.”
What it could it be? Could it be Motorstorm 3, Need For Speed, or Burnout?
Stay tuned for more information.
Anyone who has been a fan of gaming for a while now is more than familiar with Insomniac Games, long time supporters of the PlayStation formats and creators of famous franchises such as Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet and Clank. If certain rumours are to be believed though, this exclusive support may soon come to an end.
A “trusted source” who spoke to IGN anonymously during GDC claims that the company intends to go multi-platform.
Existing franchise are, as far as we know, locked into exclusivity on the PS3 for now, but this does not stop the company from creating a new franchise for the other existing consoles, the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
Insomniac is refusing to comment on this rumour for the time being, but we’ll let you know if something comes of it. I personally would be extremely surprised if this turned out to be true.
Well, this is interesting. According to Andriasang, Square Enix’s recruit page has a listing looking for staff for work on a “next generation” gaming engine.
“At Square Enix, in anticipation of the appearance of next generation platforms, we’ve started development on a new generation game engine for competing beyond the level of the strong developers throughout the world, and are presently seeking a lot of talent.”
Square used the image of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII in the listing, but we probably shouldn’t read into that too much – it’s most likely just a picture for the sake of promoting the company’s image. The FFVII remake rumours stopped running their course a long time ago.
In these sandbox times established by the likes of GTA, Carmageddon and Sim City, it seems to me like linearity has become a sin when it comes to game development. Unless you’re making a certain type of game, a linear style of gameplay and story progression seems to have certain fans screaming for blood.
Final Fantasy XIII in particular has had to endure a lot of flack for keeping the first 25 hours of the game strictly linear, while other games that used to be linear like the Prince of Persia series are going for something more akin to a sandbox title.
I’ve always upheld that linearity is far from a bad thing. I grew up playing linear games and some of my favourite games of all time are completely linear. So I ask you
- Why is linearity considered such a pet peeve of certain gamers?
- Is a sandbox title inherently better than a level based, linear game?
Valve boss Gabe Newell told 1UP that Portal 2 would allow the studio to take the concept and apply it on a much larger scale.
“One of the nice things about The Orange Box was it allowed us to try out a couple of different things, and Portal really seemed to resonate,” Newell said during his GDC spot.
“We got the signals that we wanted – this is what people liked; this is what people didn’t like. And to us, it was like, ‘OK, now we know how to take this big,’ so that’s what we’re going to do with Portal 2.
“It’s the best game we’ve ever done,” he added.
While the original Portal was fairly short (clocking in at about three to four hours), Portal 2 will be an standalone full-fledged game.
Portal 2 is due out this holiday season for PC, Mac and Xbox 360.
Valve boss and co-founder Gabe Newell spoke openly about the subject of DRM on PC games during the GDC conference yesterday.
“One thing that you hear us talk a lot about is entertainment as a service,” Newell said. “It’s an attitude that says ‘What have I done for my customers today?’
“It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping those negatives around them.”
Develop says that Newell’s comments about the subject were met with cheers.
Ubisoft is the latest company to institute a type of DRM that restricts a player’s usage of their games (in this case, a constant internet connection is required, or else the game is unplayable), and this decision has caused a lot of negative feedback from the PC gaming community on the subject.
Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic games, the developers behind PC Action RPG Torchlight, said that the game may be headed to consoles and that a “serious effort” is being put into the idea.
“We’re going to put some serious effort into it — pretty quick — getting ‘Torchlight’ onto consoles,” Schaefer said.
“There’s a lot of really cool things about the console world, too, that would work well with our game.”
For fans of Diablo and Diablo-type games, Torchlight is an excellent addition to the genre, especially since Diablo III won’t be seen on PC for at least another hundred years or so.
Wow! Harmonix are relentless with the releases! More songs are up on the Rock Band Network as of today (in addition to the already announced Lady Gaga songs on the way).
I’ve seen some interesting things done with YouTube’s annotations feature. Mostly providing your own subtitles, notating certain points of a video, or taking you to a related web page.
I’ve also seen some YouTube channels where the page “breaks”, or is otherwise interactive. However, these are always done by major companies, not your average guy with a camera.
The crew of Hey, Ash Whatcha Playin? (HAWP) has found an awesome middle ground between these two and created a review of Mad Dog McCree (ported to Wii). If you want to watch the full review, you’ve got to “play” the quickdraw game and get a perfect score to finish.
As the review requires you to view the page directly from YouTube, I can’t embed it here. Check out the full review here and good luck.
In what most people would believe is a sign of the Apocalypse, Lady Gaga is not only dominating mainstream media, but now making her way into video games. First it was LIPS, and now she’ll be appearing in a four-song DLC pack for Rock Band and Rock Band 2 on March 16th.
Not only that, we also have The Subways, Mute Math, 3 Doors Down, and the notorious Eric Cartman with his own version of “Poker Face” as seen on South Park.
Full list of releases after the cut.
read the entry »
Disney has a new Tron movie coming out at the end of the year, Tron Legacy. For this, they’ve pulled out all the marketing stops. Viral sites, an ARG campaign, A recreation of Flynns arcade at Comic-Con, and, of course, a tie-in video game.
But that’s not what I want to talk about now. Instead, let’s have a look at the viral site Arcade Aid. Within it is a visual quiz, where they have hidden 56 classic game titles. Check it out.
Personally, I got up to 35 by myself, then I found the rest by collaborating with a couple of friends. How many can you find? Post your scores!
Note: If you are gonna post an answer in the comments, make sure to provide a clear warning first, so nobody gets spoiled.
You might remember this trailer for Deus Ex 3, which didn’t really tell us much of anything about the game. In fact, there’s no gameplay in the video. There’s really nothing in the video at all, except for some abstract… Stuff.
Well, we’ve got a new trailer for you, which shows off a little more than “stuff”.
Unfortunately, we don’t get to see any combat in this trailer, either. But we do get to see what appears to be the main character having some sort of trippy, angelic dream where he flies into the sun and burns.
It’s unclear whether or not you’ll be playing as JC Denton or another clone of him like the previous titles, but the likeness is uncanny, so I feel it’s a safe bet that you play as another clone again.
We’ve got some screenshots and the new trailer after the jump.
With Sony’s many, many announcements covering the Playstation Move, we’re seeing more new titles being announced. One of the most recent announcements to come out of the GDC is a title called Slider.
We don’t know much about this title yet, other than the fact that it allows one to recreate my favorite fantasy: downhill office chair racing. We’ve got the few details we know after the jump. read the entry »
Well, here it is, folks. The next single-band installment from Harmonix, Green Day: Rock Band, has been announced for a worldwide release of June 8th, 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii consoles.
Full PR available here with more information and screenshots under the cut.
Billy Mitchell, your barrel-dodging reign has come to a screeching halt. Say hello to the new king of arcade game Donkey Kong, New York City plastic surgeon Hank Chien!
Chien has dominated over Mitchell’s old score by 10,000 points, as verified by Twin Galaxies, the official name in arcade scoring.
The real kicker behind this? Chien has been playing the game less than a year. He says he started playing it just last September. “It’s something to add to my resume,” says the Harvard graduate.
Chien said that he was turned on to the game by watching the 2007 documentary The King of Kong, which depicts how Billy Mitchell defended his title from those who would contest it.
“This film made me realize there was a whole group of people that were playing the classics,” he told the New York Daily News. The overtaking occurred during a February snowstorm when Chien decided to take a day off and attempt a shot at the record on the machine he keeps at home.
“It’s something I can be proud of,” he added. “Donkey Kong requires reflexes, it requires strategy, it requires foresight planning and timing. It requires everything, which is the beauty of the game.”
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