Archive for May 3rd, 2007
News: Microsoft Game Studios to land in Europe
In order to streamline development efforts on the European continent, Microsoft has announced that it will be setting up shop in the U.K. by establishing a Microsoft Games Studio office in Reading.
News: Microsoft promises profitability next year
Microsoft’s Robbie Bach, head of the company’s entertainment and devices division, recently promised that the Xbox 360 will finally show a profit starting next year.
Screen Update: Gears of War: Hidden Fronts Map Pack
Check out these new screenshots of the incredible new maps for Gears of War!
Review: Spider-Man 3
If past history is any indication, Spider-Man 3 should have been a twice cursed game: not only is it a movie-licensed game (strike one), it’s also a game based on a comic book (strike two).
News: Microsoft clamps down on “abusive” Xbox Live accounts
Microsoft moves to implement measures restricting people from illegally accessing content outside of their country of origin.
Screen Update: New Screenshots for EA Playground on the Wii
New screenshots of EA Playground! All the playground fun without losing your lunch money!!
Review: Spider-Man 3
If past history is any indication, Spider-Man 3 should have been a twice cursed game: not only is it a movie-licensed game (strike one), it’s also a game based on a comic book (strike two).
News: Sony to unveil PS4 in 2008?
According to a covert Sony insider, plans are currently underway to make the next wave of PlayStation consoles, which may be available in just over eighteen months.
News: Halo 2 Vista officially delayed
According to a breaking message from Microsoft, last-minute changes to Halo 2 for Windows Vista will delay its release for an as-of-yet unknown period of time.
Leak: Clips: More Juicy Halo 3 Goodness
The “leaks” are so fast and furious around Halo 3 these days it’s hard to keep up with what’s new and what’s rehashed. I believe these show are new bits and pieces of Halo 3 including a map called Epitah.
The NeoGaf guys were quick to dissect it. Digital Limit points out these things to note in the videos:
* Delicious-looking water
* Grenade explosions
* New Equipment (Fake Motion-tracking-entities grenade)
* Pistol is used (dual wielded)
* Valhalla is looking rather lush
* Sexy lighting
* Amazing textures
* Spartan Laser Scope
Hit the jump for the other two.
Elbow, Elbow, Wrist, Wrist: Casting Spells on Harry Potter
Fans of Harry Potter and movie-themed video games will be happy to know that this year’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will use not only the motion sensors in the Wii, but in the PS3 as well.
Executive producer Harvey Elliott told GameSpot:
Instead of pressing buttons to fire off specific spells, we use each console’s unique controls… If you want to use ‘depulso’ to push an object away from you, you press the right analogue stick forward on the 360 and PS2, you push the Sixaxis controller away from you on the PS3, and, of course, you flick your ‘wand’ away from you on the Wii.
Right now, I’m imagining what that scene from Forrest Gump when father and son start leaning to the side simultaneously would look like if it were two grown people and swearing.
Harry Potter Gestures for PS3 and Wii [Pro-G]
Baby You’re The Best: Alien Hominid Players Go For The Gold
So you’ve spent all your waking hours scattering, smothering, covering and chunking the FBI, KGB, Area 51 guards, robots, and finally a mirror image of yourself, trying to reach the very top of the Alien Hominid HD leaderboards, and now you’ve finally made it. What do want, a trophy?
Alrighty.
These shiny, handmade beauties have just been shipped by The Behemoth to the top Alien Hominids on Xbox Live across three categories. Each is inscribed with the gamertag and high score of the champion. Suitable for display, the trophies are also excellent for putting in a box somewhere, pulling it out every now and then and saying, “Hey, I forgot I had this thing!” before burying it again. That or eBay.
For details on how you can get yours own shiny imitation gold tribute to your skill at sloth, check out the Alien Hominid leaderboards, or hit the press release below, which pretty much says what I did with out the extra added snark.
IT’S GOOD TO BE FIRST!
The Behemoth Ships Exclusive Handmade Trophies for Top “Alien Hominid HD” Players on Xbox Live Arcade
San Diego, CA, May 3rd, 2007– Independent game and toy developer The Behemoth announced today the first shipment of exclusive handmade trophies honoring the top players of Alien Hominid® HD on Xbox LIVE® Arcade. Xbox LIVE Arcade on the Xbox 360™ is the premier destination for digitally distributed, high definition original and classic games.
The trophies, built with love and elbow grease at the developer’s studio, are being mailed out to players who have scaled the heights of the Alien Hominid HD leaderboards.
“We wanted to find a way to recognize the top players of Alien Hominid HD,” said Alien Hominid HD producer John Baez. “Making some spiffy trophies here in the office from genuinely simulated gold seemed like just the ticket.”
The trophies are customized individually for each player, with their Gamertag, high score and date etched into the trophy’s base. The select few who manage to maintain the top position for a combined total of three weeks will be catapulted into the Behemoth Hall of Fame, where they will bask in the light of gamer stardom forever; or, at least, for as long as The Behemoth keeps the Hall of Fame posted on its website.
Warhawk: On Warhawk
So I played Warhawk for about an hour yesterday with the devs during the weekly Warhawk Wednesday’s and I find myself really enjoying the game.
It’s really a solid, fun title. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not some robust shooter that will change the way you play games, but it’s got a quality, something that makes it hard for me to put down, until they turn off the servers.
The funny thing is that the thing I find least enjoyable about the game right now is the Warhawk itself. That’s not because of any design flaw or play mechanic problems, I just suck at flying the damn things so I find myself sticking to the ground. Sometimes I run around on foot, but usually I grab a tank or a jeep or head off looking for a AA gun of some sort.
I envy the guys who know their way around the Warhawk, I see them up there zipping around in the sky, doing barrel rolls, jetting along a bridge churning up the ground with machine guns or loosing missiles at tanks. It looks like great fun, but I can’t do it. So I do the next best thing: I hop into a ground missile launcher and blow them up as soon as they touch off. And then I laugh and laugh and laugh… until someone comes up behind me and kills me.
I suspect when this game finally hits it’s going to be the thing that keeps me on the PS3, but I only suspect that. The thing is, playing a new game for an hour a week, it’s hard to tell if I’m suffering from lust or love. I haven’t really played in long enough stretches to know if I’m going to grow bored of the game after a few weeks or if it will be like Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six and have me coming back to it again and again.
Has anyone else been playing the press demo? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Summer Lovin’: D3 Publisher Bring Summer Fun to XBLA
D3 Publishers of America or D3PA, are bringing more titles to Xbobx LIVE Arcade later this year. D3PA are reponsible for publishing such games as Naruto 3 and HI Hi Puffy AmiYumi: The Genie and the Amp for the DS.
The first list of titles coming out will be Pull-Back-And-Go Racing Game Mad Tracks, Miniature Bowling Game RocketBowl and Competitive Matching Game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlord. While I’m not totally overjoyed by list, I did like the retro-styling on Large Animal’s Rocketbowl. It’s kind of like alien bowling in the 50s. Finally, a game John Waters can love!
D3 Publisher of American to Bring Games to Xbox Live Arcade [Gamertag Radio]
Size Matters: Denis Dyack - Less Game is More
Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack and I are on exactly the same wavelength, at least as evidenced by the second part of his interview over at GameIndustry.biz. The Too Human developer says that while games have been getting longer and longer over the past 15 years, gamers no longer want games that take them days to play.
“If we’re going to craft an epic story we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer,” he said, referring to Silicon Knights’ proposed Too Human trilogy for Xbox 360, the first installment of which is currently in development. “At the same time we wanted to do a game that it has a chance to evolve and take advantage of development changes.
What he says makes sense from both a developer and a player point of view, if you think about it. Instead of spending years developing an epic masterpiece that might be a bit behind tech by the time it finally hits, break it up into manageable chunks. Gamers don’t have to wait so long between games, developers can keep up with the latest techniques, and professional game reviewers won’t have to waste their time pretending to play through an entire 60 hour game before writing up their reviews. If we’re really lucky, it could even bring the price of the games down a little.
What do you folks think? Would you rather have a bunch of small yet satisfying game nuggets on a regular basis or one massive, seven course meal of a game?
Gamers want shorter, better games - Dyack [GamesIndustry.biz]
Pc V 360: Shadowrun Achievements Discovered
Xbox 360 Achievements found the list of 50 achievements that unlock 1,000 points for the upcoming 360 shooter, Shadowrun.
Most are pretty basic, giving you points for your training or using specfic tech or magic well, but it’s interesting to see that the game also awards points for console to PC or PC to console actions like performing a cross-platform resurrection or killing 100 players on the opposite platform.
The beta was console only, so I’m not sure if there’s a way in-game to determine if an opponent is on a PC or 360. I’m sure there is in the lobby, but it would be nice if there was a way to figure it out in the heat of battle. Better still, I wonder if it will let you team by platform so you can have 360 versus PC battles if you want.
Law And Order: PS3: PS3 Kills Xbox 360
Like a bad Sunday afternoon rerun of a Poroit, this mystery starts off with the usual suspects: kids, a confined PS3, an exposed XBOX 360, and mucking around on a typical morning. This, of course, becomes a recipe for murder and as John Davidson finds out that the motive was simply one entertainment unit wasn’t big enough for the both of them. As one child accidently turns on the PS3 while the Xbox is being actively played, unforeseen events unfold:
Needless to say, temperatures rise, fans kick in, then more fans kick in, then some new, untold level of nuclear reactor-grade cooling kicks in deep within the bowels of the PS3, and the first thing I know of this is when a little voice cries, “Dad, something’s wrong with my game.”
Conditions in the confined space had become so super-heated that the 360 red-ringed out, big time. So. Bottom line, my PS3 killed my 360.
Death by heating fan. Could be the first, probably won’t be the last.
My PS3 just killed my 360 [John Davison's Page at 1Up]
Space Paranoids: Two Trons Confirmed For XBLA
Yet again the ESRB website ruins another perfectly good press release. As we had pretty much figured out, Disney Interactive is bringing not only the premier digital bloodsport Discs of Tron to Xbox Live this summer, but also one of the world’s earliest minigame collections, simply called Tron. Tron contained all the good bits from the movie except for the disc competition - light cycles, tanks, random electric spiders and the MCP boss battle.
It’s all part of the 25th Anniversary of Tron, the movie that helped my stepfather bond with me when I was just a little guy and convinced me to get an Intellivision Aquarius as my second computer so I could play Tron: Deadly Discs, the first of a long line of poor computer buying decisions on my part.
Check out the shots of the game in both regular and enhanced flavors below, and then hit the jump for the well-meaning press release that ESRB castrated.
The World Of Tron Prepares To Take On Challengers Once Again
Disney Interactive Studios Celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the Landmark Film “Tron” with the Re-Release of Tron and Discs of Tron - for Xbox LIVE Arcade
BURBANK, Calif. - May 3, 2007 - Since the early era of video games, “Tron” has been synonymous as both a landmark CGI film and the engaging arcade games inspired by that film. In honor of the 25th anniversary of “Tron,” Disney Interactive Studios today announced the classic arcade games Tron and Discs of Tron will be re-released this summer through Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360TM video game and entertainment system. Xbox LIVE Arcade is the premier destination for digitally distributed, high-definition original and classic games. “The ‘Tron’ film has captured the imaginations of video game players and film fans for generations with its ground-breaking visuals and action-filled story,” said Craig Relyea, vice president of marketing, Disney Interactive Studios. “The classic arcade games Tron and Discs of Tron are returning this summer through Xbox LIVE Arcade with new features and options for the film’s 25th anniversary.”
Each game includes the original version as well as an enhanced version with new graphics and audio features. Through Xbox LIVE Arcade, players can also compete in both games against another player in four online modes.
In Tron, which first appeared in arcades in 1982, players must complete four increasingly challenging game types to advance through levels. Players battle tank forces, engage in treacherous light cycle combat, attack the MCP cone and fight off grid bugs to enter the I/O tower.
Discs of Tron, a follow-up 1983 arcade game, enables players to fight Sark, the defender of Master Control Program, in one-on-one battles taking place in three-dimensional futuristic arenas. Players must move between platforms while throwing energy-charged discs at Sark and deflecting oncoming discs to avoid being “derezzed.”
Published by Disney Interactive Studios and developed by Backbone Charlottetown, Tron and Discs of Tron are rated E for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Both games will be available individually this summer exclusively on Xbox LIVE Arcade.
##
Mario In The Sky With Diamonds: Clip: Mario Hooked on Shrooms
We see a lot of fan videos and humor videos here at the Kotaku Tower, but this is probably one of the best ones I’ve seen in quite awhile. There’s a rolling argument in the editor’s chatroom about whether the “fuck you” directed at Princess Peach is funnier than the sink scene or Mario’s hallucinations. Me? I love the whole thing.
Night Note: Night Note: Monsters And Back Aches
To: Crecente
From: Ashcraft
Subject: Hunting
So today, I was out of pocket for a good chunk. I have a few vids and a gallery I need to do when I wake up. Covering that Monster Hunter event was a killer on my lower back! The power walking is making me more limber, but I dunno if I need to change my shoes, put in insoles or what when I’m on my feet for most of the day.
What you missed:
- Monster Hunter Rally!
- Iwata’s all cranky!
- Somebody likes Postal. A human.
- Devs begged for Xbox 360 version of VF
Alrighty. Niters!
