Archive for September, 2006
Uru Live Relaunch May Allow You to Make Your Own Mysts
Myst III was the first time I actually started to dig the whole Myst thing, as the static graphics before then were just too oppressive. Since Exile I haven’t bothered with the Myst universe but that may be about to change.
[...] Rand Miller, co-creator of the Myst empire, Myst Online: Uru Live will eventually let users build their own ages. Miller has always had this poetic goal of letting players “write” Myst environments of their own; Cyan Worlds plans to provide its own development tools to gamers to make this happen.
I never played Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, Uru Live, or any iteration thereof. And in fact am so out of the Myst loop that I had never heard of them until now. I’ve been craving a good zone out lately, so maybe I’ll grab ABM to mess with until I can poke at Uru Live.
More here [Joystiq]
Kotaku Originals: Creamy Calves to a Raging 5-Year-Old
Wow, what a week. Good thing it’s Friday. Here’s a summary of the week’s worth of original features and stories from Team Kotaku.
Solid Snake From Russian With Love
We’re Giving Away a PS3 60GB
Rumor: PS3 Connect and PSP Connectivity Tidbits
A Butt Pops Up in Okami
TGS06: Video Round-Up
Amazing Nintendo Candies
Son Snaps DS Lite in Fit of Rage
Feature: Hanah Stuart, Halo Violinist
This Day in Gaming
Use Msoft Points to Buy Zune Music
The gadget obsessed mouth-breathers over at Gizmodo point out that Microsoft’s answer to the iPod, the Zune, will let you buy your music wirelessly with Microsoft points, that’s right the stuff you’re using now to buy games on Live.
A single track will sell for 79 Msoft points, or about a buck. Am I the only one who just felt a chill run up their spine? How long till where buying Milk for 100 Microsoft points?
Fact: Zune In your Hands for $249.99, Songs a Buck, November 14th
[Gizmodo]
Penny Arcade’s Gears of War Fan Art
You know you’re doing something right as a game developer when Penny Arcade’s Gabe decides to whip up a little fan art for a game you’re working on. Yes, I’m excited about Gears of War too, I just can’t draw.
What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Every week, I tell you guys what I’m playing this weekend, then open everything up to a stream-of-consciousness comment thread where you guys gush on about your consumerism extravagances.
So what will I be playing this weekend? You really want to know? Absolutely nothing. I just have too much shit to do. I hired my first cleaning lady and, ironically enough, that means I need to spend all weekend cleaning the apartment to such an extent that her services will no longer be required.
Boring, I know. But that’s adult life. And, frankly, some weeks, I’m pretty sick of games after writing 60 posts about them. But what about you? You aren’t cynics; your enthusiasm for our dorky little hobby always leaves me in the dust. What will you guys be playing? Maybe you can stoke me up by proxy.
Kutaragi on Sony’s competition: “We don’t care.” [update 1]
Filed under: Culture, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360
Kids
Maybe Ken was having a bad day. Maybe he’s tired of all the unfavorable publicity the PS3 is getting. If not, someone get this man a muzzle. Any businessman that implies an absence of competition seriously needs a reality check.
[Update 1: Linked to original MCV article, that was not sourced by our Gamespot via link]
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Wanna Rate It? Play It Through!
Republican Senator Sam Brownback doesn’t want the ESRB to half-ass a game, but to play it through. Dubbed the Truth in Video Game Rating Act, the legislation has been previously proposed and seeks to force ratings bodies to complete a game before rating it. Senator Brownback is trying to push it through the U.S. Senate and says:
The current video game ratings system needs improvement, because reviewers do not see the full content of games and don’t even play the games they are supposed to rate. For video game ratings to be meaningful and worthy of a parent’s trust, the game ratings must be more objective and accurate.
That’s a valid point, but this might be tricky for longer titles or online games. But to understand the content, review boards should definitely play through the entire game. To the end. And presumably get a high score.
More Here [1Up]
Meet Hawthorne Heights, Play Wii Tuesday at Nintendo World Store
Nintedo Fusion Tour headliner Hawthorne Heights will be swinging by the Nintendo World store this coming Tuesday (Oct. 3) to do an in-store acoustic perfomance and play some Wii.
The first 300 people to get into the store at Noon on Tuesday will be able to play on the Wii as well as listen to the live music. The band is set to play for about 30 minutes and then mingle and chat for another 30. After that those lucky 300 get to hang and play Wii games until about 2 p.m.to 3 p.m. or so.
Sounds pretty cool. If you go make sure to send us pics.
Fusion Tour Accoustic Set Starring Hawthorne Heights and Wii.
Street Fighter 2: The Virtual Reality Ride!
This may very well be the lamest thing to ever come out of the Street Fighter franchise: a Virtual Reality ride through Bisonopolis. What’s the point of putting Street Fighter and VR together if you’re not going to use it to zoom up Chun Li’s vagina in first person?
Sponsors Thanks
The pilot said the plane could handle the flight. It was a straight shot across the ocean, but the weather was treacherous. We hit heavy turbulence somewhere over Fiji and were worried when we saw our trusty fly boy turn a little green. Our Sponsors in tailored cabin attendant uniforms rushed to our side, providing air sickness bags and words of comfort: Hang in there, we’re almost there. And we are. It’s Friday, and this week, Air Kotaku is brought you by: AT&T, HD-DVD, American Apparel, Comedy Central, DigitalLife Conference and Rockstar Games.
Interested in flying with Kotaku? How about advertising? Click here and find out how.
Wii hands-on by unfiltered younglings
Filed under: Nintendo Wii
Aeropause solicited impressions from three young gamers after playing Wii for the first time at the Nintendo Fusion Tour that began this week. Reactions were mixed but promising on what the system can do. 16 year-old Matt White from Indiana had this to say:
“All in all I feel positive about the Wii, and I truly believe it could be the next sensation in gaming if and ONLY IF they get games that truly make good use of the controller. Forget about Wii Channels or the cute little Mii characters; even the Virtual Console won’t be enough to hold it up if the new games fail. This thing will live or die by it’s games and playing with the Wii proved that it can live an amazing life or die an early death, all depending on what the developers do or do not do.”
Sounds consistent with what’s been said before, and how competent, higher risk products are initially received in general. We also wonder how much the demo environment can change the overall console experience, for better or for worse. I always feel like a guinea pig in testing environments (i.e. E3).
[Thanks, Luke]
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Win A Free Playstation 3 From Kotaku
Don’t forget to check out our Playstation 3 contest this week. You have until Saturday to solve the first question and win an extra entry. If you solve this month’s riddle next month you’re still in, but no extra entry.
This Day in Gaming, September 29
1996: Nothing happened*
1998: The Resident Evil 2 Storyline begins, 2 months after the original Resident Evil. Luckily somebody beat the game so we are still alive today - unless we are all actually zombies and don’t realize it because our zombie nature seems normal to our zombie selves.
1999: Nintendo of America announces its US patent for the Nintendo Gateway System, in-flight videogame entertainment. Too bad it’s only implemented on overseas flights.
2004: Jamdat Mobile (mobile games publisher) goes public, raising $61 million, their shares jumping 40%. That’s it, the Kotaku staff is going public. We will make crappy mobile games that no one plays for more than 5 minutes and farm the actual work out overseas.
* We know N64 was launched in US today, but we will celebrate on the original launch date of the system. Otherwise it gets to be like that kid who got Christmas and Hanukkah and we don’t want you spoiled.
Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you’d like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com
Horror Games for Halloween
This October, I hope I will spend the vast majority of my days sitting in a rapidly expanding pool of hysterically evacuated urine. And I need your help to do it.
Let’s face it: despite the fact that almost every game has monsters in it, there aren’t many truly scary games. Games that have scared me, off the top of my head, include Silent Hill, System Shock 2 and, ironically, quite a few adventure games, like Gabriel Knight and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. Most of these games are frightening not because of monsters or mere spooky moments, but because there’s something deeply unsettling philosophically behind them.
I want to spell all of October playing some truly scary games. The thing is, I don’t really know of many that don’t merely fall into the FPS with monsters mold. I’m looking for games with less monsters jumping out of closets to blaze down with a shotgun than I am looking for games that disturb on a deeper level. For example, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is terrifying because of the reality-shifting cruelty of an insane, malicious god willing to torture for infinity. System Shock 2 is unsettling because of the horrors of losing your humanity in infinite space, all alone. Silent Hill’s dreamlike psychological symbolism touches something raw.
So help me, guys. Help me find some good horror games, fitting the above criteria. Any suggestions you have, no matter how old, would be welcome. Remember anyone can comment now: just enter your comment, a username and a password and you’re on your way to becoming a Kotakuite!
Women make majority of casual gamers
Filed under: Culture, Business
eMarketer covers two recent studies, saying that casual games make up the most popular genre, and women are the majority of casual gamers. According to a May, 2006 study by AOL, 29% of respondents said that casual games were their favorite genre, with strategy games rating a distant second place at 17%. A survey just released by PopCap says that 76% of casual gamers are female, and 47% are 50-and-older.
But marketers can make numbers mean anything; another way to look at the initial survey is to say that 70% of respondents had a favorite other than casual games. (1% said they weren’t sure of a favorite.)
However you interpret these surveys, we like the idea of games reaching a more diverse audience. Only after that happens can games be as culturally significant as books and movies.
[Via: Adrants]
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Multi-Tap: A Week In Comments
Maybe I’m missing something here, but if there aren’t going to be any 360 games that require the HD-DVD drive to function, then why would anybody buy this instead of holding out for a dedicated HD-DVD player?
I think it’s dishonest for Microsoft to push this as some kind of must-have attachment when it’s basically just like any other HD-DVD drive except with a color scheme to match another piece of hardware you own.
Sure, $200’s probably a great price right now, but if I were interested in high-resolution video, I’d wait awhile until there were more movies on the market and the price of a regular HD-DVD drive has gone down.
by mashuren
Hey Kotakuites! What Do Your Names Mean?
when i first met my wife some 11 years ago she worked in a mall coffee shop and i at a KB Toys.i would call her at work during our courtship and try and woo her with my wit and charm, i had noticed that they had a hand carved wooden turkey for sale, and for some reason i decided to call her using one of our robot voice changing toys, and posed the question “Do you have any woodenturkeys?” and the rest is history, 11 years and one child later i still use the name
by woodenturkey
You guys are right. There’s absolutely NO advantage in having a format with more storage space for games.
But why stop there? Let’s blast Sony and Microsoft for forcing that DVD crap on us with the PS2 and Xbox, because that certainly didn’t improve gaming. You damn well know that they were just trying to push the format on us to make us give up our easily-pirated VHS tapes.
Why not go back even further? How DARE Sony and Sega force those ridiculously expensive CD drives on us?? We were PERFECTLY happy with cartridges and tape cassettes, and then they have to come along with these new-fangled compacted discs!
Living in the past FTW!!
by V1L3
I will Never EVER let my girlfriend know that she can see my playtimes. EVER.
by Fuzz
Peter Moore Talks Wii60 and PS360
It’s seems a bit strange that many people seem to want the Wii for either “hardcore games” with the new innovations, or as a casual, fun piece of hardware. Anyone else in it for everything? I think both the traditional games and the casual games look really fun, so I’ve pre-ordered a Wii knowing I’m going to enjoy just about every style of game, be it Zelda, Wii Sports, an old NGC game or even a Virtual Console game. Having said that, I fully intend to buy a 360 when my budget allows, and a PS3 eventually. But Wii will be the first.
As for Peter Moore, I can see where he’s coming from with his observations, but I’m not too worried about carrying the controller for extended periods of time. Surely the testers and developers must have played for several hours straight by now? A design concept so (seemingly) carefully thought out wouldn’t manage to ignore something so simple as strain of using its main feature. I guess we won’t know for sure until we can play the damn thing.
by Alyn
Rumor: PS3 Connect and PSP Connectivity Tidbits
Dear Sony:
We want games for our PSP, not subpar multimedia capabilities for our portable GAMING system.
-Your Fanbase.
by Deathcoil
Want to make comments? Go ahead. We dare you. Those who provide insights will be approved. Those who provide trolling will be taken out back, whipped, then banned and then whipped again.
HP to buy Voodoo, don’t think about HP scandal
HP plans to buy gaming PC company Voodoo Computers in order to reach gamers and their wallets. Voodoo will continue to operate — now under the HP umbrella — with co-owners Rahul and Ravi Sood staying on with HP jobs. The acquisition should close by November, after the requisite approvals by shareholders and the SEC.
Well look who’s following Dell (which bought Alienware earlier this year). While this sort of buyout must take months or years of anticipation, we think the timing is a little more than coincidental; HP is currently being scrutinized by the press, Wall Street, and Congress for spying on media outlets and its board members. There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned buyout to push your scandal out of the headlines.
[Thanks, Derek]
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Clips: New Gears of War Play Video
I just finished watching the latest video for Gears of War gameplay. Wow, I can’t wait for this game to hit.
I have to give credit to Epic, this game seems to have a different look and feel to it than most shooters. It almost seems to have a God of War feel to it. I’m not sure why I think that, but I do. I guess because it’s so cinematic.
I also love the whole Pick Your Own Adventure element to the game, where you can decide the route you take. What a cool idea. Though it would have been neater if they had just built it into the game without text. Just have you go one way or the other to choose.
Assassin’s Creed Preview Spills Controls
IGN has an interesting look at Assassin’s Creed, including some informative notes on how you actually control a character as fluid as the assassin Altair:
In order to control Altair, Ubisoft attached four “puppet strings.” One to his head (the Y button) his weapon hand (X), off hand (B) and his lower body (A). The right trigger has been jokingly dubbed “emotional control” by Raymond and her team. In short, it is a strength modifier. While walking, hold it down to run. While swashbuckling, hold it down for a lumbering power strike.
Using Y, you will do things like eavesdrop and use intuition. A, then, would be used to jump. An interesting control feature is climbing, done in a way we’ve never seen before. We didn’t get a chance to touch the controller, but you will actually feel for handholds, like rock climbing.
I wonder how feeling for handholds will be handled.My guess would be the best way to do it would be rumble, but that would only be viable on the 360. And speaking of the 360, apparently the crowds will be smarter in the 360 version, thanks to threading. Of course, the concept of playing a game where primary gameplay is trying to push your way through crowds of too-slow assholes doesn’t quite appeal to me, no matter how smart they are. That’s already what I deal with walking down Grafton Street every day.
Assassin’s Creed Preview [IGN]
Alternate carrying cases for PSP & DS carts
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Portable, Sony PSP, Peripherals
Our post exhorting Nintendo to make their temporary switch to paper permanent generated a fair number of comments on both sides of the issue. Some gamers are very, very attached to their plastic DS cases, so much so that they used impolite language encouraging me to — how do you say it? Ah, yes! — violently procreate with myself.
Ok, so you want a durable, plastic case to carry your games around. Surely, readers have come up with better options than a big ol chunky thing that won’t even fit in a back pocket? If you’ve got an innovative carry-case, post a photo here. We’ll update the post with the best ones. Or the worst ones. Or both.
Photo above (from ashka’s flickr pool) shows several plastic cases at work.
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