Archives for September, 2009
Posted on Sep 30, 2009 under Main |
Hello Games, a new indie games start-up formed by ex-Criterion, Kuju, EA, Sumo and Climax developers, today announced their first title, the utterly unique stunt-em-up Joe Danger, which is planned for release on a download platform in Spring 2010.
Joe Danger aims to recreate the childish joy of the first time you took a toy motorbike, doused it in lighter fluid, lit it, and launched it at high speed over your carefully constructed ramp out a second story window said Sean Murray, the teams lead developer. You are Joe Danger, the worlds most determined motorbike stuntman. You live to thrill the crowd and break World Records. A call back to retro classics like Excitebike, this 3D side-scrolling stunt-em-up is a burst of sugar-rush fun for todays jaded gamers.
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Posted on Sep 30, 2009 under Main |
eldavojohn writes “OnLive is a new cloud gaming service that is in beta testing. While it might sound like nothing more than corporate buzzwords creeping over into the gaming world, a new video reveals how the CEO claims his service will work. Perlman explains OnLive’s solution to the video game compression problem and talks about the ‘80 ms latency budget.’ It’s pretty interesting to listen to him figure out this budget and where the “costs” come from. (Video only.) Now, this all hinges on the ‘microconsole,’ which — as he reveals at the beginning of the video — is so cheap they plan to give it away. We may also see it incorporated with TVs and other electronic devices. He goes on to talk about perceptual science and dealing with packet irregularities on the internet.”
Posted on Sep 30, 2009 under Main |
An anonymous reader writes ‘Sean Lind over at PokerListings has written a really interesting piece on how to configure Rock Band (or Guitar Hero) instruments to use them as controllers for playing online poker. The instructions given in his how-to could really be used to configure the instruments for any game.’ Or how about a genuine chording keyboard?
Posted on Sep 30, 2009 under Main |
Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced that Crash Course — the second downloadable content (DLC) update for its zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead (L4D) — is available now for Xbox 360 and PC. To celebrate, Left 4 Dead (PC) is available via Steam for 50% off its regular its regular price thru Oct 1.
Entitled “Crash Course,” the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, “Crash Course” bridges the gap between the end of the “No Mercy” campaign and the beginning of “Death Toll” in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale
While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of “Crash” is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game’s existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay.
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Posted on Sep 29, 2009 under Main |
BUST-A-MOVE Live! (PUZZLE BOBBLE Live!) returns to Xbox LIVE® Arcade this Wednesday, your premier destination for downloadable games. With its beloved original gameplay revamped and better than ever, get ready to fire bubbles at the bubble clusters to destroy them!
With 135 stages to clear in the Single Player mode, eight colorful opponents to play against in CPU Battle mode, and a never-ending cluster of bubbles to destroy in the Infinity mode, BUST-A-MOVE Live! offers endless matching-colored bubble fun. Purchase an additional 270 stages and Multiplayer mode in the Extra Pack 1 and Extra Pack 2 game add-ons for competitive head to head play that can be enjoyed at home or over Xbox LIVE.
Published and developed by Taito Corporation, BUST-A-MOVE Live! will be available for 800 Microsoft Points worldwide, except in India, Korea, Australia/New Zealand. The game is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. For more details, please visit: www.xbox.com/en-US/games/b/bustamovelivexbla
*Xbox LIVE Gold membership required for online multiplayer
Posted on Sep 28, 2009 under Main |
The NY Times is running a story about the effect Apple is having on the console gaming market, making Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo worry that consumers will be satisfied playing games on devices that aren’t necessarily focused on gaming. Quoting: “The concerns highlight an accelerating shift away from hard-core games, which have traditionally driven console sales, to more casual ones played on cellphones. Of the 758 new game titles shown at the Tokyo Game Show, 168 were for cellphone platforms — more than twice as many as in the previous year. … Apple’s assault could even eat into sales of home consoles like Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3 or Microsoft’s XBox, as game-playing quickly becomes centered on cellphones. Many in the industry say that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft need to explore more radical changes to their businesses, including an emphasis on software rather than hardware and a better way for users to download games. ‘As a platform, the cellphone has the biggest potential, because everybody owns one,’ said Kazumi Kitaue, chief executive at another game maker, Konami Digital Entertainment. A family with three children might buy just one Wii or PlayStation to share, but those children will probably have cellphones of their own and download and play games, Mr. Kitaue said.”
Posted on Sep 28, 2009 under Main |
In a recent article for Offworld, Jim Rossignol writes about how the experiences offered by games are broadening as they become more familiar and more popular among researchers and educators. He mentions Korsakovia, a Half-Life 2 mod which is an interpretation of Korsakoff’s syndrome, a brain disorder characterized by confusion and severe memory problems, and makes the point that games (and game engines) can provide interesting and evocative experiences without the constraint of being “fun,” much as books and movies can be appreciated without “fun” being an appropriate description. Quoting: “Is this collective imagining of games one of the reasons why they tend to focus on a narrow band of imagination? Do critics decry games because games need, more than any other media, to be something a group of people can all agree on? Isn’t that why diversions from the standard templates are always met with such excitement or surprise? Getting a large number of creative people to head out into the same imaginative realm is a monumental task, and it’s a reason why game directors like to riff off familiar films or activities you can see on TV to define their projects. A familiar movie gets everyone on the same page with great immediacy. ‘Want to know what this game is going to be like? Go watch Aliens, you’ll soon catch up.’ We are pushed into familiar, well-explored areas of imagination. However, there are also teams who are both exploring strange annexes and also creating games that are very much about imaginative exploration. These idiosyncratic few do seem like Alan Moore’s ‘exporters,’ giving us something genuinely new to investigate and explore. Once the team has figured out how to drag the thing back from their imaginations, so we get to examine its exotic experiences — like the kind we can’t get at home.”
Posted on Sep 26, 2009 under Main |
eldavojohn writes “Crispy Gamer is running a very interesting article on why games cost $60. Many games start out at this retail price — but why? Did the makers of The Beatles Rock Band game just happen upon $59.99, as did the makers of Batman Arkham Asylum? After all, those two titles surely took different amounts of man hours to develop, and result in different averages of entertainment time enjoyed by the consumer. They interview a director at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, who breaks down the pie as $12 to retailer, $5 to discounts/returns/retail marketing, $10 toward manufacturing costs and shipping. That leaves $30 to $35 in the hands of the publishers. Though lengthy, the article looks at three forces of economics on why game publishers continuously end up in lockstep for pricing: sensible greed, consumer stupidity or evil conspiracy. When asked about the next step up to $70 or $80, Hal Halpin (president and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association) says, ‘I’m not sure that we’ll see a standard $70 price point at all. To my mind, emerging technologies, subscriptions and episodic and downloadable content should all enable price drops — increasing accessibility to a much wider audience.’”
Posted on Sep 26, 2009 under Main |
Ars Technica has a great look at the latest installment in the Ratchet and Clank series, “A Crack in Time.” Along with the great looking graphics and same great gameplay, A Crack in Time offers a brand new game mechanic: “time pads.” Time pads allow you to make a copy of yourself and move through a series of action, then shift back to “real time” and interact with your past self. “It’s a game mechanic that’s hard to describe in words, and wrapping your head around it inside the game isn’t much easier when it’s first described with an example or two. You have to play with it and bend time to your will before you see just how ingenious the whole thing is. The puzzles begin simply and grow harder as the game moves on. The use of time is done very well and elevates what we’ve played of the game from another platforming experience to something truly special.”
Posted on Sep 25, 2009 under Main |
Play as Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, or any number of your favorite South Park characters in South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! It’s the fast-paced action/strategy game, where you play to save the town of South Park.
Combining snowball-throwing action with tower defense strategy, the game is designed for players of all skill levels. Unlock special content and new characters throughout the game for your in-game scrapbook. Play locally with up to four players or team up on Xbox LIVE in the story-based campaign or the extra-demanding Challenge levels.
Take a look at the first images of this upcoming XBLA title based on the South Park series.
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