Archive for January 1st, 2007
Clips: Halo 3 Gameplay
Short but sweet, these two videos show the first brief snippets of Halo 3 in action from a beta test Bungie put on for some American troops in Iraq.
23C3: Console Hacking 2006
Julian from SelectParks was at the recent 23rd Chaos Communication Congress leet haxor conf in Berlin, where Felix Domke presented his “Console Hacking 2006″ talk. Julian, bless’im, took copious notes. What’s 23C3?
23C3 was more a hackers mecca than an ethically pointed security conference; a festival celebrating media and technology reclamation where the right to repurpose and dissect technology is considered inseparable from the right to learn from it.
Amen to that. Julian’s notes cover Felix’s overview of the console hacking scene, along with starters for ten for those of you curious about how to take your beloved boxen apart to turn them into chore slaves. Mmm, chore slaves.
In Defence Of God Hand
God Hand should have been a relative success. Developed by Clover and taking the rare, but much-needed step of poking fun at video game clichés, it’s the kind of self-deferential breath of fresh air that this medium needed. Or at least that’s what I thought. The “market” thought otherwise. The game’s sunk without a trace, selling about four copies since its release, and never really set the critics on fire, either.
As you often get with games like God Hand, Beyond Good & Evil and Psychonauts, when a quality title is shunned by the masses people are bound to complain. Bitterly, and if you’re really lucky, loudly. But this…this is a little different. Like the game itself, it’s a refreshing break from the norm, a thoughtful treatise on why everyone who wrote God Hand off without giving it a chance just might have been missing the point.
God Hand [Hardcore Gaming 101]
Japanese Developers Vague On 2007
What do you get when Dengeki Online ask a bunch of prominent Japanese developers about their upcoming 2007 titles? Fanboy-baiting comments? New game announcements?
Nope. You get nothing. Unless a whole bunch of “no comments” constitutes “something”. Which it doesn’t. So that’s nothing.
It’s almost as if there was a party official sitting in the room with them, pistol drawn, thinly-pursed lips locked in a menacing snarl that served as a warning to any developer that should he reveal even the slimmest morsel of information about his upcoming game he would be shot, his family thrown in the gulag and his name never heard again.
Come to think of it, it’s kind of a shame the Soviet Union was never known for its game development. It would have made press releases a much simpler affair. It’s also a shame these developers were so tight-lipped; there were a few hints dropped that the Wii was the mostest awesomest thing ever (PSU’s Takao Miyoshi and my favourite Sega man, Yuuji Naka), but nothing official. So many developers and so little news…tsk tsk tsk, disappointing.
Japanese Developers Talk 2007 [RPG Fan, via NeoGAF]
Bungie Get US Army To Beta Test Halo 3
If you’re going to let people play your game before it’s released, you may as well get guys and girls who have some reference point as to how a battle rifle actually works. Their feedback at this stage of development would be invaluable.
In what was either the afore-mentioned beta testing idea or a Christmas present to US soldiers in Iraq (admittedly, most probably the latter), Bungie flew some early-build copies of Halo 3 out so American troops not able to get home for the holidays could at least get some kind of Christmas cheer.
And what’s best, we now have some screenshots (blurry shots are better than no shots) after the leap.
Not too shabby a Christmas present.
What’s better than getting to play Halo 3? [You NEWB]
Best of the rest: Kevin’s picks
Filed under: Culture, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, Fighting, Online, Puzzle, RPGs, Simulations, Meta (about Joystiq)
Saint’s Row (Xbox 360)
Sure it’s a ripoff of Grand Theft Auto, but the graphics, gameplay, and plotlines are loads better. Plus you get to throw Mila Kunis out a window. What other game offers you that? It wasn’t a feature in the recent Family Guy game.
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Nich Maragos Talks Localization, Ninjas
Nich Maragos is Mr. Localization for Atlus. To get us on the same page, Atlus also published the awesome Contact. In an interview with Siliconera, he pulled up a chair (probably), lit up a cigarette (maybe) and spoke at length about how they’re going about translating the dialogue for upcoming Atlus title Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (Best. Name. Ever).
The localization process is always an interesting story when some effort and/or love goes into it (see Treehouse for reference), and this is no different. Most interesting is probably the approach taken towards the game’s humour: already a slightly comedic game from the outset (unemployed ninjas find it hard to be taken seriously), the western release of Izuna sees some added gags from the title character.
One of the odd things when working on Izuna was that a lot of the situations lent themselves to humor-like the premise of the unemployed ninjas, and the ridiculous curses that affect the townspeople-but the actual dialogue was pretty tame. So although we left a lot of the villagers’ lines more or less alone, we focused on making Izuna herself funnier. Since she’s involved in just about every conversation in the game, there were plenty of opportunities to do that.
If Contact was anything to go by (in the humour department, at least) Izuna should be good times.
Nich Maragos on Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja [Siliconera]
Best of the rest: Justin’s picks
Filed under: Nintendo DS, PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters, RPGs, Simulations, Strategy, Meta (about Joystiq), Rhythm
Company of Heroes (PC)
Bringing the most gritty and realistic view of World War 2 yet, Company of Heroes managed to give the glut of WW2 game made over the past decade a new breath of life. Company of Heroes managed to build a RTS that didn’t focus on traditional resource gathering but on capturing and holding strategic points. The atmosphere of the game is, bar none, the best produced, ranging from fully destructable environments to excellent sound production.
Continue reading Best of the rest: Justin’s picks
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New games this week (lousy new year edition)
Filed under: Nintendo DS, PC, Sony PlayStation 2
Happy new year! But you couldn’t tell if it were based solely on new games. Sure, publisher’s would be stupid to release more new titles this close to the holiday onslaught that just finished up. And do you really need more new games? Do you need the added stress of a larger “to-play list?” Maybe … if you’re play-like-crazy James or have no soul. So look hither, gamers; the paltry quantity of titles for the week of January 1, 2007 is here:
PC
Great Invasions
Model Train 3D
Air Cargo Pilot
Hipsoft Puzzle Game Collection
Mozaki Blocks Deluxe
DS
Super Collapse 3
Yu-Gi-Oh!GX Spirit Caller
Paws & Claws Pet Vet
PS2
Karaoke Revolution American Idol
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Kid Hits Jackpot With Madden 07 Porn Edition
Kolton Mahoney, from Layton, Utah, scored a copy of Madden 07 for his 360 for Christmas. He was expecting to indulge in some football goodness. He got…some t&a. Supposedly.
Kolton Mahoney was shocked when he put the Madden NFL 07 game in his new Xbox 360 console Christmas day and an explicit image popped up on his television screen.
The Mahoneys have been in contact with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force sponsored by the Utah Attorney General’s Office, which will attempt to determine how porn ended up on the video game.
This story raises two key points:
1) This is a twelve year-old boy who complained about finding porn on his new 360 game?
2) Just what is he complaining about? How the hell can pornographic images appear on a single copy of Madden? If there was porn on new Madden discs, trust us, we’d know by now.
This whole thing smells fishy. Either the “explicit images” weren’t on the disc at all (HDD, anyone?), or this is some balls-up involving some pirated pre-owned game. Trust both those options to be overlooked by the media if this story blows, up, however.
Unhappy Christmas surprise [Standard.net]
Best of the rest: Alexander’s picks
Filed under: Arcade, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, Driving, Fighting, Meta (about Joystiq), Rhythm
Civilization 4: Warlords (PC)
Civilization 4 is still one of the best games out there — even though it’s from 2005 — and Warlords polished it to a finished product. Adding some random bits of goodness to the game, Civ 4 delivers epic strategy, intuitive gameplay and the best replay value of almost any other title out there. Civilization 4 delivers like few games can. And as I can’t help myself, whenever I mention Civilization, I’ve got to ask: Sid Meier, where’s Alpha Centauri II???
Continue reading Best of the rest: Alexander’s picks
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Guitar Hero-esque Frets on Fire working on Mac OS X
Our Mac-obsessed brothers at TUAW pointed out that Frets on Fire — the free, open-source music game that’s more than a little bit like Guitar Hero (let’s say it was heavily influenced by) — is now available for Mac OS X. Before you all scream, “Who plays games on Mac OS anyways? LAWL!” we’d like to point out that the game was previously released for Mac OS … it just didn’t work. Now it’s been updated and should be working. We’ve gotten some random crashes on a MacBook Pro, but otherwise it works great.
[Note: Interested gamers should use the Sourceforge mirror; we had some trouble with the download linked in their post.]
[Via TUAW]
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Happy New Years!
January 1. The first day of a new year. Time to do away with all those resolutions you drunkenly blurted out a few hours ago and come to the cold, harsh realisation that 2007 will in all likelihood transpire much like 2006 did. You won’t diet. You won’t get in touch with long-lost friends. You probably won’t give to charity (though you damn well should), you won’t quit smoking and you definitely won’t quit drinking.
What you will all do, though, is keep popping in here to see our smiling faces. You wouldn’t want to miss all the good stuff we’ve got planned for 2007, would you? No. Didn’t think so.
Happy new years, everybody.
Best of the rest: James’s picks
Filed under: Arcade, Nintendo DS, Features, Nintendo GameCube, Mac, PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Portable, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, Driving, Fighting, First Person Shooters, Online, Puzzle, RPGs, Simulations, Sports, Strategy, Meta (about Joystiq), MMO, Rhythm
Bully (PS2)
Bully is my current favorite and has renewed my faith in Rockstar as a forward-moving publisher. The familiar game mechanics don’t feel stale in this decidedly more innocent universe. Bully relies more on mischief than shock value, a relief, as are the smaller scale and lower difficulty level (really, the missions are simply less frustrating than some of the tedious tasks that abound in the GTA series). Bully isn’t deserving of ‘Game of the Year’ honors, but Rockstar Vancouver’s effort is one of the most refreshing and outright fun titles of 2006. [See also: "Dissecting Rockstar's formula"]
Continue reading Best of the rest: James’s picks
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Joystiq’s Game of the Year
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, Meta (about Joystiq), Rhythm, Exergaming
Gears of War (Xbox 360)
What the hell just happened? Did we honestly pick Gears of War as the best game of 2006? No, that can’t be. The plan was to throw juvenile tantrums and to violently thrash against the machine! To blind the world with an elitist badge and proclaim an innate resistance against games that are both popular and heavily marketed! It’s a shooter, for Allard’s sake. You shoot things. With guns.
The senseless violence is but one reason to look away from the screen in disgust. The other, as you may have concluded already, is the appalling state of the game’s graphics. They make Pong look like an M.C. Escher painting being displayed in a room pumped full of hallucinogenic gas. If you can even discern your pixelated soldier from the flat environment, you’ll note how you get repeatedly punished for running blindly into a hail of bullets and neglecting to take “cover.” Not only is this completely unrealistic and contrary to modern warfare, it’s a needless refinement to a bizarre, self-preservation concept in the genre. See, it’s not even a very good shooter.
The complete lack of immersion and excitement carries over into the game’s terrible online cooperative mode. Some idiot on your friends list can rudely jump into your game at any point and then proceed to get in your way at every available turn. Multiplayer deathmatch isn’t any better, forcing you to work with 3 other buffoons (who can’t even circle-strafe or jump) if you hope to succeed.
Add a forgettable MIDI soundtrack, poor pacing and a complete failure to emulate an action film to your considerations, and you become perfectly equipped to answer the pertinent question. Game of the year? Obviously not.
The runners-up are presented (in order) after the break.
Continue reading Joystiq’s Game of the Year
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