The super-fun game physics weblog Fun Motion has just added a profile of PC indie physics title Solid Balance, explaining of the title: "It’s a physics game that replicates something we all probably did in our childhood: stack boxes. The goal of each level is to stack an ever-increasing number of boxes and other objects without tipping everything over."

The Fun Motion chaps comment of the game, which has a 1-level demo available on its official site, that, even though "the behavior of the blocks is a little weird" at times: "All told, Solid Balance is a good implementation of a stacking physics game. More variety would certainly be appreciated, but for roughly $10 USD the game delivers adequately at that price point... It’s relaxing fun and certainly much easier to clean up after than stacking real blocks." But we like throwing our toys out of our playpen!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Genki Videogames, a new small import shop in the UK, has put up a little Animal Crossing story using the Animal Crossing toys/playsets, and a rapidly defrosting refrigerator (or so I've heard). Quite cute, and not in any way offensive (unlike this guy).

It tells the rather endearing tale of a snowman who gets caught in the heat. I did expect this to have something of a humorous bent, but (rather humorously!) it reads more like a fanfi. To wit: "A few of the old boys were down by the lake. Captain was happily rowing away on his boating trips, singing songs of some old maiden in some far away town. KK was playing the blues, strumming his acoustic guitar whilst starring into the deep blue abyss with a rather melancholic look on his whiskered face."

Posted by bsheffield at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You probably know Jordan Mechner from his creation of the Prince Of Persia series, and you might also remember his later, cult classic The Last Express. But a new interview with Mechner on LAist reveals his latest non-game project, the new documentary short Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story.

Mechner discusses the doc, which is "a look at how the community of Chavez Ravine was destroyed and eventually replaced by Dodger Stadium", and comes with music by Ry Cooder, and also discusses the in-production Prince of Persia movie ("John August and I brought the project to Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Pictures, who hired me to adapt the screenplay. I'm also an exec producer on the movie along with John, Mike Stenson and Chad Oman. Jerry Bruckheimer is the Producer with a capital P".)

Finally, the interview also discusses the differences between film and games, with some interesting comments ("One of the biggest traps for a screenwriter/game designer is to overestimate the importance of the writing, as compared to other aspects of the game designer's job. You have to remember you're making a game, not a movie.") Wonder what the game writers think of that?

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Over at 1UP, Gamasutra news editor Nich Maragos contributes an article on digital delivery of games, an extremely hot topic nowadays, and cannily starts by noting: "The digital revolution, far from the violent and bloody overthrow the word implies, has been a long, slow, creeping process of change."

Maragos goes on to check out Valve's Steam content distribution system ("For titles with little chance of success in the Darwinian (no pun intended) world of retail, Steam is more and more an attractive alternative"), and also discusses Xbox 360 Live Arcade, particularly mentioning the re-releases of classic games ("Digital downloads of cheap, legal emulated games could fill a niche that no retail channel has yet been able to provide, and ensure that yesterday's generation of seminal games isn't gone forever.") Fun stuff.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unfortunately, there's no equivalent for the game industry right now (though maybe GSW should do something about that!), but there is some significant game relevance to this year's Razzie Awards, of which it's explained: "To hear Hollywood tell it, 2005 was a total disaster... but one Tinsel Town group perversely ranks the year that was as The Berry Best Ever: The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation. The hardest part for GRAF members this year was keeping their [worst of] list to just five nominees in each of 10 categories."

Lucky video game-related nominees naturally include German wunderkind Uwe Boll, nominated for Worst Director for the absolutely terrible Infogrames/Atari game adaptation Alone In The Dark (2.2 out of 10 on IMDB!) Boll spread the love around to his cast, too, with Tara Reid nominated for Worst Actress for her performance as a "genius anthropologist" in the movie. But another game to film adaptation also sneaked in there, with The Rock also grabbing a much coveted Worst Actor nomination for his gruntin' performance in the movie version of Doom.

Congrats to all game-related nominees! You can find out who wins in March, since: "This year's Razzie ceremonies will be held the now-traditional 24 hours BEFORE That Other Award Show: 7:30pm PST, Saturday, March 4 at the historic Ivar Theatre in Hollywood."

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rather amusing EverQuest II-related weblog Aggro Me has a new post up discussing a group of students 'playing Everquest II for college credit'.

According to a post on the official EQII forums, "Hailing from Trinity University in Southern Texas, Professor Aaron Delwiche and his band of merry undergraduate students from the upper division seminar Communications 3344, 'The Ethnography of On-line Role Playing Games'" have joined up with the Vindicators clan, which, incidentally, is run by seminal text adventure creator Scott Adams.

There are a number of student weblogs documenting the experience, and some of the first entries showcase the learning curve: "Perhaps there is a guide for shortcut keys, but I could never find it. It's probably easier to search for that on Google than within the game itself... By the end of the first day I sincerely wondered why anyone would put a significant amount of time into playing games like this." But, fret not: "My outlook improved after a second day of playing, however. Being in a group is more fun and more rewarding than playing by yourself, especially if you're new to the game."

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We posted about pinball a few days back, and in the process spotted something that's up for auction on eBay even as we speak - the Thrustmaster Wizzard Pinball Controller for the PC (albeit Windows 3.X/Windows 95, apparently).

Not sure if it's Windows XP-compatible, but an older review at pinball site LastBandit notes: " It's still not like the real thing (maybe try standing up at your desk and leaning yourself into the keyboard ends, drink and ashtray nearby) but it adds to the feel of playing pinball on a computer... I am disappointed in the lack of support this controller has received from pinball game manufacturers." So it'll probably only work for about 3 late-'90s games unless it has easily configurable drivers, doh - anyone got one and can tell us?

But wait - it gets better! Not only was there a Thrustmaster pinball controller, but there's also the Philips Virtual Pinball controller for PC, "a pinball controller which you place on your desk and then stand right-up in front of, you can then nudge, slam or tap the flipper buttons." Bulky and bizarre looking, and even sporting built-in tilt sensors, RetroBlast points out one recently for sale on eBay.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Earlier this week, the excellent modding site ModDB went ahead and announced the winners of its Mod Of The Year Awards, ranking some of the best indie-developed total conversion and other mods for PC titles such as Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament, and Doom 3.

We won't spoil the overall winner (go check it out yourself!), but some of the Editor's Choice picks are plenty of fun - overall choice goes to student mod (and also IGF Mod Competition finalist) Eclipse, of which it's mentioned: "A group of talented Guildhall students... came together to build the best game they could in five months... This third person mod utilizes an interesting form of combat in which you use telekinesis to lift objects and throw them at your foes. While it may not be a long game, it comes with gorgeous visuals, excellent level desgin and even an original soundtrack."

Also picked as Editor's Choice for an unreleased mod is Max Payne 2 mod Hall Of Mirrors, of which it's raved: "Have you seen this trailer? In the immortal words of Starsky and Hutch - DO IT! Slowmo, Matrix-like scenes with tons of bad guys, big moves (flips and stuff)... I damn near wet my pants in anticipation for this mod. Hall of Mirrors is a Total conversion of Max Payne 2 that allows you to live out the journey of Cleric John Preston." So there. [Via EA.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

UK Resistance (which used to be exclusively a Sega Saturn fansite, lest we forget!), has put up a new post linking to Richard Jacques' sole Sega Rally 2006 music track, named 'Hand-Breaks'.

For those not in the know, Jacques, while having moved on since then, was the in-house musician at Sega UK in the mid-late '90s, hence a set of credits that include contributions to a number of great Sega titles - the Sonic R soundtrack is particularly beloved among fans of well-produced, too darn catchy game-pop.

As for Sega Rally 2006 itself, handily reviewed by Eurogamer, it appears to be a vaguely OK PS2 racing game with a wonderful port of the original Sega Rally attached, the real news for fans out there. Yum. (Oh, and since we're on the subject of Sega Rally - have you seen the Sega Rally papercraft? Fun!)

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The art pranksters at WWMnA have been off visiting the 'Artgames. Structural analogies of art and game' exhibition in Aachen, Germany. There's certainly some fun game-related stuff there, including the ever-popular PainStation (for the confused: 2-player Pong which mechanically whips you if you lose), which now has exchangable whips, plus some enhanced Pong-styled gameplay, woo!

But talking of Pong, WWMnA also points out Pong Mythos, which is an entire exhibition "about one ball, two bats, a playing field and our situation in a digital world", and opens in Stuttgart next month, before making a stop at the gigantic consumer/trade Game Convention (think - a European E3!) in Leipzig later this year.

The full list of exhibits is pretty awe-inspiring, and includes Mathilde P's piece, featuring stationary bicycles that control a game of Pong by pedaling, the excellent electro-mechanical conversion of Pong by Niklas Roy, and even the ASCII Art Ensemble piece, "a gallery installation of a Pong Arcade running a continuous loop of the ASCII version of Deep Throat." Riight.

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You know Phoenix Wright, right? But do you _really_ know Phoenix Wright? Well, an exhaustive feature on Capcom's Phoenix Wright game series over at Hardcore Gaming 101 will make sure that you know your DS-based habeas corpus from your Harvey Birdman.

Or actually, maybe not, as the HG101 author notes: "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is often classified as a "lawyer sim", but that's not entirely true. Phoenix is a defense attorney whose job it is to defend witnesses on trumped-up murder charges. But thankfully, you don't need any prior legal knowledge, because the game world kind of makes up its own rules anyway. "

Although, as it's pointed out: "The only problem with the Phoenix Wright games are their linearity - there are almost never instances where the game deviates from the set path, so they hardly provide any replay value. This can get frustrating in the event that you lose a case, since you need to start from the beginning of the chapter", well... (EDIT: commenter MJS points out 'Actually, you can save at any time by hitting start', so... objection overruled?) [Via SiliconEra.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

UK game-ish site Noooz has expanded its normal linklog coverage to present impressions from the 2006 ATEI arcade show, which was held in London this week, and there are plenty of handy impressions of new arcade titles (plus more to come) from hardened arcade veterans.

The first instalment checks out Time Crisis 4 ("F*cking awesome. Right now, there are two GREAT gun games in the arcades. One is Sega's Ghost Squad, the other is Namco's Time Crisis 4"), plus the new Fist Of The North Star fighter ("Watching the game, it looks like a Guilty Gear clone. Playing it tells another story. Firstly, it's a good game. So you can relax"), as well as Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection ("All who played it gave it a favourable response, as proven by the nasty scuff that appeared in the hand resting area by the joysticks (it smelt too).")

Oh, and also - it's rumor time, thanks to a Namco representative that Noooz talked to at ATEI who claimed "that Time Crisis 4 is currently aiming to be a European launch title for PS3 and current talk within the company is that it will hit around March 2007 and be format exclusive." Please apply pinch of salt now, although that really doesn't sound unlikely.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The forthcoming Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival, which is being held from March 9-11 at the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, has announced a major (and fun!) addition to the schedule, in the form of the first U.S. concert by The Star Onions.

A review of The Star Onions' first album explains things well: "The Star Onions (a band originally formulated in order to perform in a concert celebrating the release of Final Fantasy XI Chains of Promathia, September 2004) are responsible for both the arrangement and performance of the pieces. The various [Square Enix employee] members, who include Naoshi Mizuta (Parasite Eve II, Rockman & Forte [and FFXI expansion pack music composer]) and Kumi Tanioka (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon 2), provide an eclectic approach to musical arrangement..."

Heck, there's even a lead guitarist (Tsuyoshi Sekito) and a guest drummer (Arata Hanyuda) for this U.S. concert who also moonlight in The Black Mages, Nobuo Uematsu's own Final Fantasy tribute band. So - even if you don't want the special Moogle Rod in-game item that you get for turning up, this alone may be reason to go hang out with fellow FFXI freaks?

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The World of Warcraft stretches beyond the bounds designated by its maker, Blizzard Entertainment. Third-party services such as Thottbot and the Goblin Workshop have latched onto the massively-multiplayer game's vast quantity of data, offering players of the game an easier route to coveted level 60 status. Now, that route has literally been mapped with the entrance of MapWoW.com, a third-party service plugged in to the Google Maps system. This dynamic system allows one to zoom in and out of Azeroth (Warcraft's world), toggling on and off data points such as the location of specific herbs, ore, and treasure collected in the game--there are over 15,000 such items currently covering 69 resources. It's bound to be a useful resource for players, but will also give those pesky gold farmers an edge. My advice: Enjoy this new service while it lasts.

Posted by at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The nice folks over at indie site GameTunnel have added their PC indie game review round-up for December, including mini-reviews of a host of games by GT's Russ Carroll, Sykhronics' Mike Kasprzak, Robinson Technologies' Seth Robinson, and Hamumu's Mike Hommel.

One of the most notable games this month is 2D bike stunt title Motorama, of which Seth Robinson comments: "While we can find oodles of brick breaking games every month there aren't a whole lot of "2d side-view bike physics" games being served up, so it was a treat to play Motorama. It's good. It's punishing."

In fact, Motorama ties for game of the month (at a relatively slow time of year!) with isometric shooter Theseus: Return Of The Hero, regarding which Russ Carroll suggests: "Trying to follow in the footsteps of Alien Shooter, which in my mind is one of the best games of all time, is no easy task. Theseus plays a lot like a mod of the original game...a very good mod with original weapons and music in addition to expanding the game play." Mm, weekend indie goodness.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at the Something Awful Forums, user "Handre" has posted the latest in his series of disturbing game box parody art, this time based on Kirby's Adventure.

On his inspiration for these pieces, of which this is the sixth, Handre explains:

"It just started with the realization that certain (usually Japanese) games in the 80's and early 90's that were meant to be light hearted and cute were often portrayed far more seriously and dramatic in the US box art than they should have been. Many times it was blatantly WRONG. The characters were also sometimes portrayed a lot older and muscular than they were meant to be. They looked like the old American super heroes. The reason I use the bulging crotches and hairyness is to show how masculine they are supposed to be... Actually that's mostly for cheap laughs. But that is also inspired by the silly and sometimes revealing outfits (like Robin in the old cartoons) that American super heroes tend to wear. Then I just started adding more and more grotesque elements."

Previous pieces in the series include, in chronological order: Mega Man, Bomberman, Capcom's Snow Bros., BurgerTime, and Hudson's Adventure Island (pictured). Handre is taking suggestions for future crotch-oriented pieces, our favorite suggestion being David Crane's A Boy and His Blob. Additionally, there are plans to make prints available for purchase through Something Awful itself. Collect them all; we will!

Posted by Frank Cifaldi at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, following up with the portable Cenix GMP-M6 handheld which GSW posted about some time ago, there's now a full, devoted page. There's also one in our old friend English!

So it looks as though you purchase the console, and it comes with two games already loaded; shooting game Star Force and Strategy RPG Battle Armor (at the very least they're available for free).

All other games can be purchased for 2,000 won, which is just under $2 US. Not a bad price really, but I've still no idea how much the unit itself costs, or if there are functional buttons aside from the one that says 'play.' I can't even find a way to buy it from the online store - perhaps you can help. To paraphrazy Ryo in Shenmue - Do you know anyone who speaks the language of Korean?

Posted by bsheffield at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

The brand new art-related website Life Meter Comics, billed as "a collection of comics and cartoon art inspired by our love of videogames", has just set up, and it already has some awesome illustrations up.

Probably GSW's favorite so far is the awesome Katamari Damacy mini-comic from Quezzie (who has a larger version on her/his own site), and of which it's noted of the picture in the comments: "It's colored pencil and gouache on Canson illustration board." Wow, real drawing on paper, we remember that!

However, running a close second in the coolness stages are both a gorgeous Zelda: Wind Waker illustration from French artist Bannister, plus a stark black&white illo of Kid Icarus from Pishio artist Zack Giallongo, both of which are both voguish and not simply fanart, stylistically. [via Fort90.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The folks from Game Informer Online were at the Konami Gamer's Day in San Francisco this week, and caught up with former game journalist and current Metal Gear Saga director Ryan Payton for information on the MGS 3: Subsistence pre-order DVD documentary, neatly explained by GameSpot, noting that the doc "...does the seemingly impossible by making sense of the five major games in the Metal Gear canon."

Payton is delightfully charismatic on his somewhat random induction into Kojima Productions, following a magazine interview with Hideo Kojima ("And so Mr. Kojima sort of walks by us at the time, because I didn’t really talk to him after the interview, and he overhears me say that I was living in Osaka... He was like,'“What do you do? Are you looking for a job?'").

He also has some great anecdotes on Metal Gear Solid packaging designer Ichiro Kutome ("He’s so crazy and hard to work with… in a good way. You know, he’s so demanding. He’s like, “We need more budget.” I’m like, “You know how much we’re giving you for this package? This is a lot of money.” He’s like, “I need more. I want silver foil embossed on the front. Otherwise this is not going to fly.”") Definitely a fun interview piece, even for non-MGS heads.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A dark thrall has been cast across the beautiful towns of Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World for DS, as 4 Color Rebellion reports on a 'red tulip plague' spreading throughout online users of the game, apparently due to a broken network-transmitted gift item.

According to 4CR: "From what people have been reporting, you’re receiving a letter from _blank_, marked as “From ” containg a gift named “Red Tulips”. The letter contains no content whatsoever and has no closing. The item shows up as a piece of furniture (green leaf) and this is where the fun begins... If you drop this piece of furniture in your house, it’ll be an “invisible” item that you can still walk over, but not put anything over it, nor push any other piece of furniture over it neither. You basically “lose” a space on your floor, not being able to pick the item back up."

The GameFAQs boards are going frantic with worried gamers over this, and there are already commenters in the 4CR story speculating: "Nintendo wouldn’t send out it. Someone must have sent it out themselves… well, hacking the system." So... tragic Nintendo mistake or evil globe-spanning Animal Crossing spoiler attempt? The world will soon know the answer, one way or another...

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Southern Music Ltd. Entertainment, the distributor founded in 1956 whose claim to fame is, according to their company bio, being "one of the first companies to introduce jukeboxes to the Calgary market," has signed a deal with TAB Austria to distribute its Virtual Pinball units throughout commercial locations in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Virtual Pinball (pictured) retains the basic structure of Regular Pinball, though in a slightly more compact form, and with a 42" plasma display instead of an actual game board. Its designer, TAB Austria, has previously released a number of MP3-based jukeboxes, and Silverball, which is one of those touch screen thingies you see on bar tops all the time. Silverball has 140 games available, though I've never looked beyond the one where you find minute differences between two naughty photographs. There's a naughty jigsaw puzzle game too, but I hate jigsaws.

There's unfortunately nothing naughty about Virtual Pinball's five built-in games, which are upgradable via an online connection. Only two of the five games could actually be considered pinball, and that's only if you're counting this monstrosity. We're not sure what's worse, the Bizarro World perspective, or that yellow couch that's sure to bounce the ball into the dead zone repeatedly.

SML Entertainment has plenty of pinball experience, and is a distributor of all those recent Stern machines you probably weren't aware existed, like Elvis, Nascar, Lord of the Rings and The Sopranos. So, we like them, and wish them well, even if we can't find any of their machines around here.

Posted by Frank Cifaldi at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Posted by bsheffield at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We recently covered Brazilian site FinalBoss' interview with Yuzo Koshiro, and now they've gone and interviewed Q? Entertainment's Tetsuya Mizuguchi as well, bless their cotton socks.

In particular, Mizuguchi reveals how his company's forthcoming PSP version of dojin title Every Extend came about: "Every Extend Extra was a very special case. It happened kinda by accident. On my staff, there was someone who played Every Extend -- the PC version -- one day, and then everybody saw it and started playing. "Oh, what is this?'' “It's a free game.'' Three days later, still playing it... ''That's still fun?'', "Yeah, it's still fun.'' (laughs). That staff member asked me if I wanted to talk with this guy who made the game. He sent an email to the creator of Every Extend, and he met him, so.."

Away from happy freeware frivolity, Mizuguchi muses about the future of games, particularly commenting of next-gen console power: "High-def has very positive possibilities, but also dangerous possibilities, because it can provide an experience that is too strong. Like... shooting people in a game in high-def can be too strong... We are going to the next step, and we'll have to think about the morality." In other words, with great power comes great responsibility to, as he suggests, provide "emotional content and attachment". And amen to that.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The jolly good chaps over at the (new to us) British Gaming Blog have compiled a great pictorial selection of every single Nintendo DS variant, from the obvious (standard Titanium and Electric Blue colors in North America), all the way to the obscurest DSes of them all.

Some of our favorites? The "11 custom Electroplankton DS systems", of which: "One belongs to the game's creator [Toshio Iwai], and the other ten were won by visitors to the Electroplankton exhibition in Japan", are really smart-looking, and the Japanese 'Hot Summer' DS series are pretty darned attractive, as well. [Via SiliconEra.]

[Oh, and talking of limited-edition variants of handheld items, check out a blast from the not-so-ancient past Segagaga's Dreamcast VMU catalog page, with more Visual Memory Units than you can shake a stick at - the 'Dream Point Bank Ichigo' strawberry VMU is precious, my precious.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

GSW previously reported on The New Gamer's quest to test its concept of 'averaging gameplay' using multiple, layered-together videos of people playing Gradius. You remember that, right?

Well, the full results of the experiment are in, using 15 different submissions, and a remarkable amount of diversity in the final video (26.4mb .MOV) - for example: "The average time taken to kill the end level boss was 20.055 seconds, with the fastest player finishing him off in a mere 10.01 seconds."

R. LeFeuvre concludes of the test: "There's also a lot to find that just cannot be easily expressed in text. Watching how different players react to a spray of bullets; seeing how some go on the offensive and attack nearly all enemies while others fire less and dodge more; looking when certain people retreat to the back edge of the screen and when they charge forward; monitoring the enemies as they are destroyed, slowly peeling back the layers of color, possibly leaving a mostly transparent ghost to escape off the left side of the screen." Poetry in motion, eh?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Chris Senn, a former employee of the Sega Technical Institute, has opened up a specialized forum to discuss the creation of Sonic X-Treme, the Sonic the Hedgehog title for the Sega Saturn that was cancelled mid-development for various reasons. Senn served various roles in the development of the game, including music composer, art director and coordinator, and toward the end of the project, co-lead designer.

"I've received so many emails asking for information, pictures, playable versions, etc. that I just couldn't keep up. This is my way of trying to give back to the community," Senn said in an introductory forums post. "I spent 3 years pouring my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into the game. I started as an artist and worked my way to designing, leading the design and coordinating part of the team. Many problems occurred on the project. I was young, very ambitious and a perfectionist. I was a part of a large team that started small and grew to 30+ people... This game was canned almost 10 years ago, so I won't remember as much as I'd like."

Senn has been sporadically sharing some of the media he has saved, including very early concept animation, design sketches for a female hedgehog protagnoist named Tiara Boobowski (no, seriously), and even Senn's proposed cover art for the game. The total sum of his work will be released later, he says, in a massive online document called the "Sonic Xtreme Compendium," or SXC for short.

Anyone curious about the development of this lost Sonic chapter can join in the discussion on Senn's official forums, though reader beware: many of the threads contained therein are authored by a number of amateurs discussing their plans to "finish the game" via limited, open-source game creation software. Yeah, you do that, kids.

Posted by Frank Cifaldi at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Sister website Gamasutra has just posted an interview with former City Of Heroes creator Rick Dakan, who was displaced as lead designer before the game's launch. He's now written a book called Geek Mafia, which is "...the story of a rogue game designer who enlists the help of an underground group of con-men to enact revenge on the developer that fired him, and make a small profit on the process."

So the question immediately arises - how autobiographical? Dakan admits: "There's a ton of sort of big and small aspects of the book that are inspired by just my time at Cryptic and my time in the Bay Area in general", but insists: "None of the people in the book are supposed to be people in real life that had those same positions when I was there."

However, the intriguingly honest Dakan does end by noting: "There's strange art imitating life sort of stuff. Like, I had started that book and then while I was plotting it, and before I really started writing it, I ended up selling my stock out to Mike [Lewis]. But I already plotted out those early pages that had that sort of activity going. So it was a weird life imitating art sort of situation there." A strange whirl, indeed.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rightly getting a lot of blogosphere linkage right now is Cabel Sasser's analysis of Nintendo's Brain Training for DS, as posted on his personal weblog by the Panic co-founder and Katamari Damacy T-shirt vendor.

Cabel comments: "So, the #1 game in Japan is a non-game. My (shocking) conclusion: there is a huge market for new styles of games and new game players, and the gap between "games" and "apps" is getting smaller." And he concludes: "At first it's hard to imagine something like Brain Training ever hitting the top of the USA video game charts. Virtually impossible, I'd wager... But, if you had told me that "Deer Hunter" would've become the top-selling computer game a few years ago, I would have pulled the car over and laughed you out of it — and yet, it happened, stunning a whole generation of developers who were working on "Brown Devil Alien Guns III"-style games."

So, what do people say - is Brain Training really going to set the West aflame, or is it much more of a Japanese thing than any of us, including Nintendo, have necessarily bargained for?

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by bsheffield at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Gadget weblog Gizmodo has been having lots of fun with a story on 'The Tale Of The Beached Xbox', referencing Beatrice Murch's finding of a washed-up Xbox near San Francisco last weekend. (Yes, yes, and by washed up, we mean from the sea, not all out of style, etc.)

Gizmodo wittily claims: "Every day millions—or one or two—XBoxes wash up onto our beaches where they die an excruciating and horrible death. They are lured to the sands by the lights of million-dollar condos and teenage jackanapes involving beer and bonfires", but as commenters vaguely spot, it's likely the recent floods in Marin County that dumped the Xbox from a home, down a local river and out to sea.

But we have a better explanation - the giant jellyfish invading Japan of late? We heard they're shock Microsoft-trained troops importing Xbox 360s, buried inside their poisonous bodies, to the East by sea, where they will disgorge the consoles onto beaches to breed and multiply, whether the Japanese buy them or not. This poor Xbox? It's just left over from the U.S. test program, but the caustic libertarian media atmosphere of San Francisco made its jellyfish host perish and decompose, as the chanting sounds of 'M$, M$, M$' filled the air. Honest.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to an email GSW got from Ahmad Ghourab, "the founder of TwinAdv, the largest Little Big Adventure news source on the web", there may actually be hope for Little Big Adventure 3, a second sequel to the cult adventure game series, actually making an appearance soon.

Ghourab comments: "In a recent e-mail I received from [LBA creator] Frederick Raynal, he makes mention of the fact he is now expanding his latest company, Ludoid... he has also announced that he is submitting several projects (ideas) to several publishers. Amongst these proposals is Little Big Adventure 3, subtitled "Genesis of the Stellar Entity", which is the sequel to the highly respected and successful series Little Big Adventure 1 & LBA 2 (AKA Relentless/Twinsen's Odyssey in the USA)."

TwinAdv has more information on the possible resurrection of the franchise, noting hopefully: "If publishers take interest in Little Big Adventure 3, then Frederick Raynal plans to commence work on it, while collaboration with former Adeline creative director Didier Chanfray, who along with David Chomard founded the studio Little Worlds." It'd certainly be nice to see such adorable original IP, but who's going to take that chance? Somebody, we hope dearly.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The folks over at GameSpy, who seem to be a little adrift since joining the IGN mothership, have made a powerful redemptive move with a gigantic guide to World Of Warcraft at Level 60, which is, quite frankly, fascinating for virtual voyeurs who don't even play the game, let alone high-level characters in Blizzard's insanely popular MMO.

The intro to Sal "Sluggo" Accardo's painstakingly compiled, well-illustrated piece points out: "For many players, reaching level 60 is actually the beginning of an all-new game within World of Warcraft. There's epic lewt to be won, bosses to be beaten, and raids to be, uh, raided. This content, however, can be an impenetrable maze of intersecting quests and raid instances. For someone who's just reached 60, simply figuring out where to start can be a daunting task."

Some of the fun stuff (and yes, this is a spoiler alert!), include pictures and info on some of the game's biggest bosses, including Lord Kazzak, who "occasionally appears in the Tainted Scar in the southwest Blasted Lands... [and] once defeated, he will not respawn for several days", as well as "the huge blue dragon Azuregos", who looks, well, huge and blue.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FlashBang Studios' development director Matthew Wegner has kindly sent over news of his fascinating new game weblog, which is called Fun-Motion, and specifically deals with "physics based computer games".

Though it's only just launched, some of the highlights include a review and an interview regarding little-known, but apparently rather smart shareware 2D rag doll fighting game, Ragdoll Masters - in fact, Wegner comments of it: "While I appreciate the artistic care Mark Healy put into the production of [Rag Doll Kung Fu], I must admit that I had a lot more fun playing Ragdoll Masters."

In addition, there's a review of Ski Stunt Simulator, another obscure piece of goodness that "implements a realistic planar simulation of the physics involved in performing acrobatic ski stunts", and plenty more weblog updates are promised in the near future. Looking forward to it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The niche text/graphical/strategy MMO firm Skotos Tech has been going for a few years now, and also publishes a range of articles on game development, many of which are pretty darn interesting.

The latest in Operations Director Shannon Appelcline's previously GSW-referenced series on 'Trials, Triumphs & Trivialities' discusses the game design behind reality TV show The Amazing Race in some fascinating detail. As the intro notes: "Unlike Survivor and Big Brother, The Amazing Race is not a voting game. Instead, it offers up the other gaming element that's very common in reality-based TV shows: straight-up competition."

In a particularly interesting section, Appelcline discusses the concept of teams 'yielding' other teams on the show, suggesting: "Sometimes no matter how strategic of elements that you offer in a game, players will instead make knee-jerk choices. I think this happens more in a real-time high-pressure game like The Amazing Race, but it can happen anywhere, and ultimately as designers you need to decide whether that's a good thing or not. Do you offer players the opportunity, accepting that they'll waste them?" Plenty of suckers out there, or so we heard.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Trust those japesters at 1UP to come up with 'Schtick 'Em Up: The Shooter Gets Weird', certainly one of the most eclectic features to appear from a mainstream game site in a while, since it deals with a "collection of outlandish, offbeat and sometimes just plain bizarre takes" on the shoot-em-up genre.

Naturally, some of the more obvious titles such as Parodius ("Hardcore Gradius fans may not like the idea of their favorite shooter getting the Mel Brooks treatment, but it's hard not to love Parodius once you look beyond the stinging satire") and the infamous Cho Aniki ("It really is raining men in the world of Cho Aniki, and the digitized downpour won't quit until you've either finished the game or run out of the room screaming.")

But there's some (even more) obscure goodness in there, particularly in the form of Game Tengoku for the Saturn, for which it's noted: "Some of Game Tengoku's other classic moments include battling a giant robot built entirely out of interconnected game systems (viva la 32X!) and an unexpected trip through the early days of gaming." Mm, game hardware conglomerations.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've previously mentioned Kevin Gifford's insane video game collecting habits here on GSW, so we're delighted to see that he's launched Magweasel.com, "a website that aims to chronicle the history of video game and (certain) computer magazines, as well as become a source of information for magazine collectors and nostalgists."

So far, as Kevin freely admits, there's largely just "a collection of unorganized cover scans and wiki pages" up now, with lots of awesome mag covers to randomly browse.

But some significant progress has been made already, including both the Game Buyer page, including detailed info on each issue, and a basic stab at the Video Games and Computer Entertainment page. Overall - sterling stuff, and we're looking forward to more well-informed updates soon.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When the behemoth that is GameSpot does feature-like content, it tends to be pretty interesting, and so is the case with its news feature on South Korean and Japanese video game TV shows posted today.

The intro notes: "If you think you've seen the best of what TV can do in the area of game coverage, you need to take a trip to Korea. Two cable TV networks, known as Ongamenet and MBCgame, compete for viewers with their own 24-hour programming dedicated to PC and console gaming", before discussing some of the content - apparently, apart from the inevitable Starcraft popularity rush, "South Korean teen supermodel Kim Sae-Rom hosts Hello PS Market, where new Sony PS products are introduced to viewers in the program."

In addition, the piece discusses Japanese show GameCenter CX, which "...stars comedian Shinya Arino and has more of a retro-gaming focus. Arino sits down to play popular retro video games in a small room in front of a camera crew. Arino interviews famous video game designers in-between games and visits popular local game arcades." Sounds like fun - and, as the article says, we really would like to see these translated for the West - we presume TVK24 doesn't have English subtitles for its OnGameNet content?

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eurogamer's own Ellie Gibson provides one of the few mainstream reviews of German publisher CDV's decidedly seedy PC 'adventure' game Lula 3D. And, though the game is meant for "12 year old boys" worldwide, Gibson does a good job of explaining why it "looks and plays like it was developed by a 12 year old boy, on a 12 year old PC, at least 12 years ago."

For starters, a rundown of the franchise's awesome power is worth perusing: "Lula, for those who aren't familiar, first made her appearance back in 1998 in a game called Lula: The Sexy Empire. A sequel, brilliantly titled Wet Attack: The Empire Cums Back, was released a year later and a variety of spin-offs followed, including Lula Flipper (a pinball game that's nothing to do with dolphin sex, disappointingly)."

But overall, Gibson concludes: "The game's presentation is terrible, from the hideous music to the stupid cut-scenes to the way that Lula somehow manages to store every item she picks up - keys, beer bottles, porn mags, you name it - in her already rather full bra. The voice acting is worse than you'll have seen in most porn films, if you like that sort of thing, and the poorly translated dialogue just makes matters worse... Avoid like the clap." Will do!

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Guinness World Records have a many and storied history as "an internationally recognized collection of world records, both human achievements and the extrema of the natural world."

But unfortunately, some of the video game-related 'records' on the book's website, lacking the bug eating or death defying of many of Guinness' most famous records, are a little on the, well, odd side. Some are pretty straightforward, such as the Game Boy reigning supreme as 'Most Popular Handheld Videogame System'. And, actually, Yu Suzuki's Shen Mue winning out as 'Most Expensive Computer Game Development' isn't completely insane, since it's quite possible nobody has admitted to a bigger budget than $20 million yet.

But... Black & White's creatures as 'Most Complex Character In A Computer Game'? That's a tad subjective, although apparently, 'The size of the creature's mind increases from 6–7 KB up to 500 KB.' So there. Most of all, how about Beatmania as 'Most Popular DJ-Simulation Video Game' with, uhm, 6,700 copies of the arcade game sold? Oh dear - possibly not completely wrong, just uber-random. Still, it would be fun the dig through the video game records in old editions - anyone want to volunteer? [Via Defective Yeti, who pointed out the Beatmania entry and got us searching.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Thanks to a bit of poking from GameSetWatch staff, coder and Namako Team overlord Jiji has completed his PSP port of Robotfindskitten, the uber-surreal ASCII game which is handily described on the official RFK website as "Yet another portable zen simulation".

The game, which is available in an insane multitude of versions, including a Web browser Java applet version, is simply played as follows: "In this game, you are robot (#). Your job is to find kitten. This task is complicated by the existence of various things which are not kitten. Robot must touch items to determine if they are kitten or not. The game ends with robotfindskitten." It's absurd and delicious all at once. Especially if you like robots and kittens.

As a coda, there's really no reason not to be delighted that Leonard 'Crummy' Richardson, the alleged discoverer of Robotfindskitten all those many years ago, has also discovered Robotfindspanties, which are, yes, RFK-themed underwear for girls, as modeled by 'idealforbarbecue'. Remember, GSW readers, it's never an Internet fad without the tie-in undergarments.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UK Times has posted a news story discussing Nintendo's new 'Keep Evolving' ad campaign, which is due to debut in the UK next week, and reveals: "The company is gearing up for a £2 million [$3.6 million] marketing campaign, which will see it take ads in Saga magazine — a title for over 50s — because it has come to the conclusion that targeting young adults is no longer enough."

Those who heard Satoru Iwata's Tokyo Game Show speech last year and have checked out the spectacular performance of the DS in Japan over the holiday season will have no doubt that Nintendo's 'Touch! Generations' strategy is paying off bigtime in the East.

But can the same market broadening happen in the West? Dawn Paine, Nintendo UK's marketing director, is quoted in the article as noting: “The games industry is just going to have to expand the market. Although there has been good growth in terms of units and value over the last 20 years, the proportion of people actually owning games machines has plateaued at around 30 per cent.” In the casual market, companies such as PopCap are exploring the concept of pitching games as both entertaining and mentally beneficial, and it's going to be interesting, given Sudoku's recent world domination drive as a mind sharpening tool, to see whether Nintendo can score the same result for the Brain Training games. [Via Kotaku.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The somewhat mysterious Ancil 'Dessgeega' Anthropy writes for both The Gamer's Quarter and TIGSource, and on her personal site, there are a bunch of eclectic DivX game videos, from video of UPL's Return Of The Invaders to an ever-handy vid of Jeff Minter's Tempest 2000 for Jaguar.

But the latest addition, named 'A Mean Pinball', is a DivX collection of three of the best ever video game pinball titles, and starts by noting: "Video pinball is enticing not only in that it is much more affordable than pinball machine collecting, but also in that it allows the developer to liberate the game from the constraints of real physics while making those physics serve the game."

The titles include Naxat's classic Devil Crash for Turbografx/Genesis, Codemasters' Psycho Pinball for Genesis/Megadrive, and most notably, the revelation that "...the only idea better than pinball with the devil is pinball with Cthulhu, and this was the concept behind Kaze's Saturn video pin Necronomicon... the sound design is particularly notable, and includes a narrator intoning lines like 'far away a temple stands. far away in the dreamlands'."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The good folks at import store NCSX have posted detailed impression of new import PlayStation 2 title Rule Of Rose, in which, "...set in 1930 England, players adopt the role of a 19 year old woman named Jennifer who is caught up in a surreal 3D adventure tinged with touches of madness and the preternatural."

The SCEJ-published PS2 game has an official Japanese site where you can learn more, and watch a seriously spooky trailer movie (click left-hand 'yes' link for age approval!), which shows the creators are going for an almost Silent Hill franchise level of extreme unease (talking of which, we're presuming you've seen the new 'Silent Hill' movie trailer from Christophe Gans, which appears to be double plus awesome.)

Of course, it may be that Rule Of Rose, with its young female protagonist and story-heavy attitude, may not be 'kickass' enough for the West, in the same way that the relatively passive Haunting Ground/Demento was received somewhat ambivalently. But, given the level of artistry shown by the trailers, we're hoping the title gets a Western release of some kind, so we can all work it out for ourselves.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wandering over to the UK Guardian Gamesblog once more, Aleks Krotoski has scribbled down a list of the 10 'most interesting' people in gaming, following a similar GamerGod piece a few days back.

Krotoski's choices are effectively eclectic, with a particularly interesting choice being Takumi Yoshinaga ("...the creator of the marvellous and surreal grown-up version of WarioWare, Project Rub[/Feel The Magic]. His Where Do Babies Come From? (Rub Rabbits here in the Euro regions) will be out in February and is stylish and silly, and made by a team of mostly female programmers, designers and artists... and implements every gizmo on the innovative Nintendo DS, from the stylus to the microphone. It also does everything in its power to encourage people to play together."

Others standing out include Keita Takahashi, Will Wright, and David Cage, of which it's commented regarding the Omikron/Fahrenheit creator's output: "While both titles are flawed – arguably constricted by technology – they notably pushed the boundaries for gameplay mechanics. In this world of never-ending sequel series, this studio provides a light at the end of the tunnel."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There seems to be a distinct rise, of late, in online game publications that have magazine-like layout. You may well have heard of The Escapist, which does it in a browser, and The Gamer's Quarter, which does it PDF stylee, and now there's also Disposable Media, which is a joint gaming/music free PDF zine.

As an RLLMUK Forum post notes, the third issue is out now, and includes "...an interview with Tsietisin (the man who created the home made Revolution controller), a discussion on the evolution of the Mario Kart series, a look at the role of music in video games."

Also on the mag's website, if you haven't spotted it before, there's an Xbox 360 launch special mini-issue, which has some fun stuff on the tumultuous UK launch, alongside a suitably gnomic Peter Moore caricature (pictured above). We always want more Moore, honest.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We know that this is a video game weblog, but heck, some people use their PSP for non-interactive stuff too, and ThinkGeek has just got the Neuros PSP/iPod Video Recorder in stock. We haven't tried it out, but it looks like a pretty fun piece of hardware, since "it allows you to create movie files compatible with your iPod or PSP from any video input like your DVD Player, Cable Box or DVR."

Heck, it doesn't even need a PC to work, since it connects directly to your TiVo output (or similar) and encodes to WQVGA (368 x 208) PSP-compatible movies on the fly. Want to watch last night's Colbert Report on the train the next morning without futzing around with BitTorrent and additional transcoding?

This looks like the device to get, though PVRBlog references recent news that TiVo is meant to be expanding TiVoToGo to include the PSP for an extra fee - but this will likely be a dual-step process (TiVo => PC => PSP), so unless it's user-friendly enough to delight, Neuros' option still looks plenty viable. [Via Timothy.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The 'RetroGaming with Racketboy' weblog has just posted an interview with console hacker extraordinaire Ben Heckendorn, maker of some of the most wondrous portable console hacks around.

As Ben's Wikipedia entry explains, he "...builds new game systems by taking old video game systems such as the Atari 2600, or the NES and cutting up the internal PCB until he can fit in his hand." Some of his most elegant hacks include the Sega Exodus, the oak mini-Atari 2006 'VCSp', and the not entirely crazy PS2 Portable.

In the interview, Ben reveals which portable version have thus far eluded him: "The Dreamcast was a target for a while. But, like the Gamecube, it's kind of square shaped, so the components are on top of each other (rather than beside), so it's hard making it thin. Another system with this quirk is the Gamecube, which I might be taking a look at soon. " Yes, please! [Via Press The Buttons.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at The Hollywood Reporter, Paul Hyman's latest column discusses the role of writing in video games, and starts with the bold: "When it was announced that the very first Game Writers Conference would take place in Austin last October, it took a lot of people by surprise. You mean video games are actually written?"

Apart from good quotes from Valve's Marc Laidlaw and some nice tips of the hat to the writing in Psychonauts and God Of War, possibly the most newsworthy part of the column is the revelation that unionization may be trying to sneak into games via the writer, as, according to Writers Guild Of America West president Patric Verrone, the WGA "is less than two years away from approaching game publishers to work out overall signatory agreements."

Verrone notes: "I can't say exactly when, because I don't want to give away strategic planning... But I would say that the industry should be on notice that writers want these benefits and this is how they're most likely going to get them. This is absolutely on our radar." Hollywood planning to get a little more union spice into the game gumbo? We'll see how that goes, then.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, having kept a close eye on Hirameki International, the PC visual novel company that was recently mentioned by Brandon here on GameSetWatch, we noted that their latest weblog update includes news that "we'll be conducting advance sales of "Animamundi" (scheduled for sale on March 10) at NY Comicon. Plus, we'll be hosting a panel called 'Visual Novel Games and the Japanese Otaku Market.'"

The panel sounds fascinating (any GSW readers turning up?), but otherwise, Hirameki's 'Anime Play PC' website has more information on Animamundi, which is "...a gothic horror game targeting mainly women that comes alive with decadence and ecstasy from an up and coming team of creators in the novel game industry." And the screenshots certainly look pretty... gothic. Interesting to see Hirameki continuing to do work in this generally English-language neglected 'love story' genre.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The UK Guardian, which also runs the excellent Guardian Gamesblog, has posted an article on the boom in secondhand video game sales, subtitled: "The market for 'pre-owned' games is thriving, but publishers warn that cut-price sales put the development of innovative genres at risk."

Particularly interesting is a statement by a Sony spokesperson, commenting: "We recognise the secondhand games market is part of the revenue mix, for retailers at least... However, if it continues to grow, it could potentially starve us of the funds necessary for research and development, and therefore, developers will be less willing to take a risk on new and genre-diversifying titles. It's this creative diversity that makes the games industry so popular, and without sustained funding from new software sales, this could be at risk."

So... should secondhand games be a furtive, underground act instead of the overt profit machine it is for even U.S. outfits like GameStop right now? Why is the secondhand video game market so much bigger than music and movie markets? And will anyone try to crack down, as has happened in Japan - even though secondhand titles are 30% of the market there, according to comments from Capcom's Kenzo Tsujimoto at GDC 2005?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Firingsquad's often fire-prone Jakub Wojnarowicz has just posted a new editorial, 'Nintendo For The Win', in which he postulates of the Big N's next-gen strategy: "Nintendo is poised for a coup. As someone who not so long ago was dismissive of what the company can accomplish, I today firmly believe that they’re capable of taking the #1 position from Sony."

These are strong words from someone who comments at the start of the article: "Disclaimer: I am not a Nintendo fan", but Woj's enthusisasm for the forthcoming Revolution console is palpable, as he suggests: "Slumping game sales, unimaginative games, expensive consoles and expensive games, consoles that will have features (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD) that we’re not sure we’ll need."

But, he croons: "In comes Nintendo, with the promise and the tools to let developers create cool games again. It’s guaranteed that we’ll see Castlevania, Zelda, Metroid, and Mario on the Revolution – but this time there’s the potential for so much more." There's much more detail if you click through, but - Nintendo outpacing Sony? Think it can really be done? Please don flameproof suits and begin the discussion forthwith.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Over at Adventure Gamers, they've recently posted a review of new Swedish PC indie adventure title Hope Springs Eternal, created by Swedish couple Mikael and Eleen Nyqvist.

Reviewer Laura McDonald explains of the background regarding the Myst-style game's genesis: "With the proliferation of low cost/free game engines and an increased interest in freelance game development, independent titles are appearing in increasing numbers for sale. No longer limited to shareware or freeware status, these games are budget-priced with clear commercial aspirations." The creators' previous game, Remedy, also reviewed on Adventure Gamers, is another great example of this.

The thing we enjoy about Hope Springs Eternal, for which there is a playable demo, is that it just seems so _relaxed_, as McDonald suggests in her conclusion: "So what is the final word on Hope Springs Eternal? It's a charmingly presented, unpretentious game... If your idea of pleasing gameplay is to leisurely stroll through a delightful game world populated by some gentle locals, with fairly simple challenges, this game is well worth a look."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's something that slipped under the radar (though not by much, it just came out on the 14th). DJmax Emotional Sense Portable is a South Korean DJ game for the PSP (with mobile and online PC variants), with a very nice art style (with some images from a Falcoon draw-alike), good music, and a bunch of extras.

For instance, you can listen to all of the music on its own in OST mode, view all of the images and movies (which play in-game) as well. Check out the official SCEK site for screens and music samples (toward the bottom). I happen to like five out of the six songs they've provided. That's a good ratio!

The game uses the top six face buttons of the PSP for control - that is to say left, up, right, square, triangle and circle. So likely you'd want to place this on your lap (or similar!), and use your fingers, rather than thumbs, like with the better DJ games out there. Pentavision is the company that made this, and it appears to be their first effort. From the look of things, a right solid one, too! All we have to do is wait to see if someone picks this up for US distribution (I wouldn't rule it out!).

Posted by bsheffield at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a few weeks since we first mentioned the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer weblog, correctly self-described as "some insane ramblings about a games console that died almost 10 years ago."

Well, the ramblings are still going strong - over 35 reviews over the last 3 months, and the latest is for Digital Pictures' Corpse Killer, an FMV light-gun title that's in some ways poignantly timely, since it stars the sadly recently deceased Vincent Schiavelli.

Blog owner Skykid comments delightedly of the early CD-ROM title: "In my opinion Corpse Killer is a classic. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with it, for what it set out to be -Which is a B-grade Zombie horror movie with interactivity. It is bang on the money." And that's why we like him - cheerfulness in the face of extreme 3DO adversity!

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Turbine and Atari have rather cutely announced that Dungeons & Dragons co-creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson will be making cameos in the forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach MMO, and specifically "will provide the game's first celebrity "Dungeon Master" voiceovers for certain in-game adventures."

The duo's return is somewhat reminiscent of Stan Lee's cameo in the Spider-Man 2 movie, in terms of retro hat-tipping. But wait, 'the game's first' celebrity DMs? Which celebrities are next? We vote for Wil Wheaton and Vin Diesel, but we're dumb like that.

The instance-heavy MMO apparently uses scripted DM talk extensively, something discussed in previews since the NDA got lifted last week. The buzz seems a little odd, though, if even the aforementioned fans are concluding: "I think this game is a 'niche' game. It'll play best for those dedicated gamers that like to play with a core group of people." I guess we'll see when D&D Online launches next month.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're presuming that you've heard of Japanese comedian Hard Gay, thanks to the insane amount of videoclips circulating online. If not, his Wikipedia profile probably helps: "Dressing in a tight black leather outfit reminiscent of the stylings of the Village People, he goes around performing acts of charity (yonaoshi, “social improvement”) for unsuspecting bystanders while simultaneously incorporating plenty of pelvic thrusting and vocal exultations."

Well, Hard Gay's latest feat is to be incorporated into a video game - specifically, as a guest character in the Japanese version of cartoon golf MMO PangYa (also known as Albatross18 in the States, and recently mentioned on GSW.) Aand.. well, words aren't sufficient - just check out the page, you'll get the idea.

[Via Kotaku, which also notes: "Players can snag leather hotpants and sunglasses for their characters, including the female character. His “Fuuuuuu” catch phrase even makes an appearance via one of the characters in the game. Apparently the man himself even came up with a special “Aztec” golf ball that makes HG noises."]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Eurogamer, the inestimable Kieron Gillen chats to Introversion about its new PC indie title, Defcon, the title from the creator of Uplink and Darwinia that's previously been referenced on GSW.

As Gillen explains in his intro: "Essentially, [Defcon] is a real-time tactical game charting a nuclear falling out between the world's superpowers, a multiplayer game with a multibillion death-count."

And, as Introversion co-founder Chris Delay explains: "We've gone for a very minimal atmosphere, with some wonderful ambient music playing (written by Alistair Lindsay and Michael Maidment - the same guys that did the awesome Darwinia audio). There's very little in-game sound except deep rumbles when nukes hit. It's like you're ten miles underground in a bunker, bringing the world to an end one city at a time, completely detached from the millions of deaths you are causing." Sounds on the intense side?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Long-time Japgeek site Insert Credit (home to GSW co-editor bsheffield!) has posted an excellent in-depth analysis of Mitchell's puzzle game Polarium, which also includes a spectacularly frank interview with Mitchell president Roy Ozaki.

The extremely entertaining Ozaki comments, regarding how Nintendo ended up publishing Polarium for DS: "Basically, I'm lazy. I never went to Nintendo. A Nintendo director came to us through Capcom. We were showing him another game and, he spotted Chokkan Hitofude [Polarium]. It was fate - it controls us all. We weren't making it for the DS until we were asked."

Ozaki is also spectacularly outspoken on the recently GSW-mentioned similarities between his company's Puzzloop and PopCap's Zuma, commenting: "My lawyers in Japan are supposed to be on this. Progress is slow because if we do court battle in US, we would be at a disadvantage. You know the Americans and their mentality. We will be up against American jurors. You know how biased they are towards Oriental companies. PopCap Games' lawyer replied my mail and the one from my lawyers' office. In essence, they don't give a sh*t."

He concludes angrily: "I think they knew what they were doing from the start and they are bad businessmen... Ripping off someonelse's idea is bad; they don't belong in the game business. In a few months, you will see what I am doing. I am not a lawyer so we will do battle in a different court." That would be the court of hard knocks, then?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In 2002, JoeForever was on the run, having left the big city for the town of Adamsvil in Animal Crossing. Joe's diary dug deep into the darker side of Adamsvil, and while it revealed little of his shady past, it uncovered a wholly unflattering angle of of Animal Crossing few players got to see.

Joe writes:
"On the train to Adamsvil, I met a simple cat named Rover. Already I am suspicious... a cat with a dog's name? When I reveal that I have no place to live, he slips to the back of the car and calls a "friend" of his named Tom Nook. Sounds like a scam, and when I meet Tom, I figure out why. My new crib costs 18,000 Bells, and Nook expects me to work for him to pay it off."

"Dred Island has yielded an unexpected bonus. The sole inhabitant, June, has taken a shine to me. She's wearing my clothes and has agreed to enter into a money-laundering scheme. I bring her my bootlegged fruits, and she turns them into bags of clean money. Even out here in the country, there are those who want to turn an easy trick."

Read the entire sordid original 2002-era Animal Crossing saga here.

[UPDATE - Even better, since Animal Crossing Wild World for the DS debuted, JoeForever has started a DS-specific Animal Crossing diary, which includes such seditious gems as 'Dover School Board Targets Museum Exhibit'.

This shocking expose reveals: "Intelligent Design proponents in Pennsylvania have launched a new campaign to get the controversial theory "equal time" in the county's education system, this time targeting the Adamsvil Museum's fossil exhibit... The Museum became a target shortly after Joe, a relatively new resident in the community, unearthed and donated a fossil of the prehistoric human known colloquially as 'Peking Man'." - Simon.]

Posted by at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The good citizens at game-art-fiction weblog Grand Text Auto have noted the release of Persuasive Games' Disaffected!, "a parodical critique of working life at FedEx Kinko’s", wibbling in a state of high theoretical alert: "Will FedEx deliver a threatening legal letter to Persuasive Games?... What will happen when late-generation situationists take the game into FedEx Kinko’s and play, or invite employees to play with them?"

In related news, MTV News has also posted an excellent piece on the game which quotes creator Ian Bogost as suggesting of the free PC/Mac title: "We had two goals... One was to parody this experience that I think is universal enough to customers of that store that I think it will be well-received and we can have a laugh. But also to dig under that and say, 'What's going on here?... Is it just a bunch of seditious kids who couldn't care less about their jobs? Are they getting paid crappy wages and are disinclined to get their job done well?'."

We at GSW could tell you, but, well, we can't be bothered. But we did notice that Persuasive Games have also completed a Coldstone Creamery employee training game, which focused "on the issue [of] portion sizes and their relationship to profitability", and includes "ice cream viscosity model for accurate scooping." Did Persuasive's corporate game design experience drive them to become 'seditious kids'? Probably not, but it's fun to speculate.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe we're being a bit doomy, but we here at GSW aren't sure that Turner's GameTap subscription PC gaming service is being embraced by the game community in the way some hoped it would.

We've seen a lot of 'OMG! $14.95 a month for ROMZ?' comments from the hardcore, and the casual players may have been turned off by the plethora of more in-depth game content - though there's been more casual and educational game additions recently.

But we still like GameTap, and here's a couple of fairly recently added obscurities which help explain why. First, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow & The Flame is an interesting sequel to Jordan Mechner's classic original, though, as rightly noted in reviews, it's somewhat fiendishly difficult. Second, another recent addition is Sega's Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium, one of the more interesting later titles in the Phantasy Star series for Genesis - and GameTap has the first three, too.

So, like we say - we wish it was on our TV, not our PC monitor, but we appreciate GameTap a lot, as game fans, historians, and general geeks, and hope it's around for a while - if only to play some of those proposed SNK titles. In the long-term, having GameTap on a cable/satellite set-top box or media center PC with a good quality controller could be a surprising killer app?

[Oh, and another fun note - the front page of GameTap has a 'Top 10 Most Played' GameTap titles right now, which consists of: Virtua Racing Deluxe, Galaga, Pac-Man, Toy Commander, Dig Dug, Golden Axe, Heroes Of Might & Magic IV, Worms Armageddon, BurgerTime, and Hydro Thunder. Now there's an eclectic bunch!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Gigantic food conglomerate Kraft, which "markets many of the world’s leading food brands, including Kraft cheese, Maxwell House and Jacobs coffees, Nabisco cookies and crackers, Philadelphia cream cheese, Oscar Mayer meats, Post cereals and Milka chocolates", is getting into the exergaming arena with its 'Active Gaming' aimed Kraft Game Pad.

The DDR-style PC dance mat is available to order for just $9.99 in shipping/handling, and you can then download two free games from the Kraft website, Groove Master and Rockin' The Boat, to help you shape up, presumably so you can eat more Kraft products efficiently.

But seriously, judging from recent press releases from Kraft, the U.S. obesity epidemic has led the firm to offer this mat as a form of social responsibility, since it doesn't seem to be directly advergame-related - CEO Roger K. Deromedi comments: "Our health and wellness program is an important business initiative that we believe is critical to the long-term success of Kraft... We’re taking steps that are responsive to societal concerns, while at the same time driving our business results by transforming our portfolio to better align with consumer trends." So there. [Via Joystiq.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Always nice to see another intelligent video game news site launching, and those wags at GamersWithJobs have just debuted GWJ Press Pass, a news commentary site that promises to "deliver gaming related news at a higher standard...There are deeper stories to be told, more to the news than press releases, and a better method than dealing in quantity before quality."

Obviously, GSW had this idea first, and will be suing Press Pass in the near future, but in the meantime, the site has a particularly fun mini-interview with SplitFish’s Cisco Schipperheijn over the DualFX controller, a very Revolution-looking two-handed console peripheral that drew howls from Nintendo fans for alleged plagiarism, and for which it's explained: "Keep in mind that this is wildly different technology, even if the end result is similar. The Revolution is based mostly on gyros and positioning, where ours is based on lasers." Sharks with laser beams?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Video game site Siliconera has posted a fascinating discussion of game reprint house Game Quest Direct, which, according to the site, are the company behind the "brand new copies of Rez, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Gitaroo Man, Persona 2 and Resident Evil 3" that have recently appeared in retail.

Though Siliconera's piece doesn't include direct quotes from the company itself, according to the article, "directly contacted Capcom and arranged a deal to reprint [Resident Evil 2 and 3 for Gamecube], but Game Quest Direct would have to front all of the money. They paid a lofty sum and took a heavy risk. Each reprint costs Game Quest Direct nearly $100,000 to do. But instead of getting a low profit margin that retail stores struggle with, Game Quest Direct would get 50% of the profits on each sale. The gamble paid off and GQD made a sizeable profit."

The article also reveals: "What’s next in 2006 for the publisher/retailer? Recently they purchased the now defunct Working Designs’ remaining inventory. Copies of Growlanser: Generations Deluxe Edition, and Silhouette Mirage can be picked up. What’s really surprising is a number of extremely rare titles like Sega Ages for the Saturn, Exile, and Cosmic Fantasy 2 for Turbo Graphix 16. They’re currently in talks with Square-Enix, Atari and Konami for more reprints. It’s possible that reprints of Valkyrie Profile, Ikaruga and Suikoden II may pop up eventually." Uh.. yum?

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sister website Gamasutra has posted what may be one of the most important video game postmortems of all time, with Schadenfreude Interactive's analysis of avian PC strategy title Age Of Ornithology.

Fortunately, Schadenfreude, whom you may recognize from their yearly adverts in Computer Games Magazine, have come through with the goods, explaining in the 'What Went Wrong' section regarding AI problems in Age Of Ornithology: "Our most recent titles were two auto-racing games (Nazgul Thunder and Cthulhu Karts) and a Battlemech fishing simulator (Steelhead Battalion), none of which had much strategy beyond “veer to the left a bit before a right turn so you can maintain higher speed” and “use the spinnerbait.” So naturally, we made a few fledgling mistakes. We didn't foresee the need for a complex birdseed-scattering algorithm to distribute food evenly, so early versions were plagued with 'chicken rushing.'"

Although the article's introduction notes that: "This special postmortem... recently arrived via Aeroluftenpigeonpost from Germany. Unfortunately, the package did not have a return address, so we were unable to officially fact-check and verify this article", we believe that Schadenfreude's postmortem presents a vital addition to the world's video game knowledge base. Look out for further Gamasutra columns from them in the near future.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The tres amusant Scott Sharkey, whose 'Memoirs Of An Urban Vigilante' column, which saw him pranking his way through Cryptic's City Of Heroes, was one of the plain funniest video game article series of 2005, has written an article on 'MMOsploitation' for 1UP, explaining gleefully: "It's a long, hard fight from newbiedom to level awesome. But that's a game for chumps. You and me? We're smarter than those boobs."

Sharkey has some interesting comments on various method of cheating, particularly on duping: "In World of Warcraft, for instance, most duping tricks involve trading gold or items to another player and then getting your character rolled back to the state they were at before the trade, either by entering bugged instances, making a character with an inappropriate name and deliberately having it reported, or just conning a GM. Some are even weirder. If you ever happen to see a pair of priests taking turns mind controlling someone in Alterac Valley, there's a pretty good chance they're up to something. Unless they're just perverts." Haw.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Brazilian video game website Finalboss has posted an English-language interview with famed Streets Of Rage composer Yuzo Koshiro, quizzing him on recent projects and long-past glories.

Koshiro, whose Wikipedia profile is a useful summing-up of his career, actually makes some interesting comments on the Xbox 360's debut in Japan, suggesting: "About Xbox 360, I think it will get some success here in Japan, more than before – the previous version – because there are many talented designers who joined the Xbox who will make good games for mainly Japanese users."

Otherwise, the brief interview has some fun tidbits, but you'd do well to go grab some recent Koshiro music samples at his company Ancient's official website - one of his most recent high-profile projects was the sadly never-destined-for-the-West PS2 SRPG Namco Vs. Capcom. [Via EvilAvatar.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Ludologist's Jesper Juul points out that a new Rubik's Cube world speed record has been set, since during the Caltech Winter Competition, according to SpeedCubing.com, "Leyan Lo broke the official Rubik's 3x3x3 Cube world record during the Caltech Winter competition 2006, with a new record of 11.13 seconds."

Juul, who recently wrote video game-related book Half-Real for the MIT Press, comments: "Not that “world records” for the Rubik’s Cube are that important - a lot of luck involved in the way a cube is scrambled. I admire the focus that people bring to the thing, I never thought about being so systematic about it. Old puzzles never die."

Heck, 'old puzzles' can be fun in video game form, too - the Alexey Pajitnov-designed Pandora's Box is a great, supremely under-rated example of this from Microsoft. And, let's not forget, there's been a video game version of Rubik's Cube (scroll down), albeit a rebranded version of a non-Rubik title (plus, the above link has gemlike information on the Rubik's Cube cartoon series, lest we forget!)

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by bsheffield at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The second Independent Games Festival announcement on Sunday was the revealing of the inaugural Mod Competition finalists, "highlighting the best in innovative, creative independent 'mods' created in Half-Life 2, NeverWinter Nights, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Doom 3" - the winner in each category, to be announced at GDC in March, gets $2,500, for a total of $10,000, which isn't bad.

Again, quoting directly: "The finalists for the IGF Best Mod - Half-Life 2 category are UrbanLegend Games' 'authentic' school sports recreation Dodgeball: Source, Team Dystopia's cyberpunk-themed total conversion Dystopia, The Guildhall at SMU's lush student-created fantasy mod Eclipse, Hidden: Source Team's 'Predator'-like hunting title Hidden: Source, and Agora Games' strategic team-based shooter Plan Of Attack."

"As for the IGF Best Mod - Neverwinter Nights category, finalists include Scrotok's skilful player DM (dungeon master)-controlled Bitter Harvest, Ernest Noa's classic RPG dungeon crawl Hythum II: The Halls Of Kilgirn, BRC's multi-perspective mod with console RPG-style gameplay upgrades Rose Of Eternity - Chapter 1, MadWombat's epic Fable-style adventure Runes Of Blood, and The Guildhall at SMU's completely overhauled action-RPG mod The Hunt."

"Regarding the highly competitive IGF Best Mod - Unreal Tournament 2004 category, finalists comprise LudoCraft's "surreal insect-laden action game" Dragonfly Variations, Eigensoft's adorable hamster-ball action mod HamsterBash, Lotus.Arts' Jade Empire-esque third-person Asian action mod Path Of Vengeance, The Art Institute of Vancouver's multiplayer survival horror mod The Awakening, and HELM Systems' epic fantasy action multiplayer mod The Soulkeeper."

The news piece ends: "Finally, the finalists for IGF Best Mod - Doom 3 are Platinum Arts's co-op 'classic Doom' throwback Last Man Standing, and Games[CC]'s closed captioning modification Doom3[CC]." Go poke all the mod finalists - you'll find good things.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's a new, tres amusant 2D Flash side-scroller in town. Its name? Ninja-Man! The official site for the free-to-download, graphically slick game, which was created by Adam Searle, Jason Chow and Johnny Jei Le, has links to play in 25fps and 50fps versions, with the 50fps version playable "only if you have a high-end computer... we recommend at least a 2ghz processor."

The title, which allows you to "wreak havoc upon the evil hordes" in a vaguely Metal Slug-esque way, has already reached more than 100,000 views on NewGrounds. The media page has more screenshots and a fun teaser trailer, but now the actual game has debuted, you have no excuse for not playing it, lots. So do so. [Via TIGSource.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at sister site Gamasutra, the 2006 Independent Games Festival organizers have announced the Student Showcase winners for this year, and there's some really, really good indie PC student games among them.

Excerpting in full: "This year's winners in the overarching Student Showcase category include the much-discussed University of Southern California's Cloud, a human flight game "that lets you fly through the clouds, make shapes in the sky, and create storms to purify the air", as well as DigiPen's Narbacular Drop, a cunning "environmental puzzle [first-person] game" using portals that has been licensed by Valve for a forthcoming Steam-downloadable, Source-engine version."

"In addition, other winners include Michigan State University's physics action-puzzle game Ballistic, SungKyunKwan University's South Korean stained-glass window puzzle title Palette, Full Sail's side-scrolling, abstract color-creating platform title Colormental, DigiPen's nautical 3D combat game Sea Of Chaos, Grinnell University's paintbrush-wielding eyeball adventure game Ocular Ink, and DigiPen's fiendish 3D puzzle title OrBlitz."

"Also awarded as winners in a new Middleware student category, freshly set up for this year's Independent Games Festival competition, were the Auckland, New Zealand Media Design School's team-based vehicle action game Goliath and The University of Texas' robot training title NERO." Some great stuff in here, much of it free to download, so go check it out.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The annual South by Southwest Festival, held in Austin, Texas, features stellar music, film, and interactive tracks. This year the Interactive component of the fest will play host to the first annual ScreenBurn Beta Festival, intended to showcase the future of the electronic gaming industry. ScreenBurn will take place March 11, during the Interactive track's March 10-14 span.

The addition of ScreenBurn suggests the greater South by Southwest festival has embraced gaming as a premier interactive form. Last year, the festival's panels included a look at virtual-world journalism, the "terrible business model" of Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, and the development of The Behemoth's Alien Hominid.

This year, the South by Southwest Interactive track features panels on virtual-world entrepreneurs and "The Secret Sex Lives Of Video Games." [Disclosure: I'm moderating the sex/games panel this year but am not affiliated with SXSW.]

Posted by at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Backstage.com has posted a Hollywood Reporter news story revealing the 'Chrysler in the Movies' machinima competition for Lionhead's The Movies, "set to be launched Jan. 20 at the Sundance Film Festival."

According to the piece: "The shorts created as a CITM entry must include one of the Chrysler vehicles that already are part of the more than 7,000 scenes, 45 sets, hundreds of props and thousands of costume combinations available in The Movies."

There's apparently a Chrysler Studio, in association with the Creative Coalition, where attendees at Sundance can find out more, but this online competition isn't just for the kudos, either: "The winning film will be announced during May's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, and the grand prize will be a Chrysler Crossfire."

Looks like news has leaked a little early, since the official The Movies site hasn't announced anything yet, but it does have another film update linking to the winners of their Xmas competition, including Every Christmas To 2005, where "a young man remembers every Christmas since his birth." Heartwarming.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1UP.com's Editor-in-Chief Sam Kennedy has posted two extremely lengthy weblog posts regarding 'the state of game journalism' (part 1, part 2), which are well worth perusing for a little more intelligent commentary on the increased 'OMG GAME JOURNOS SUCK' barrage of late.

An interesting point from Kennedy's first post: "I find our industry's reluctance to actually help push journalism forward a mighty shame. I can't tell you the number of times I've worked on potentially incredible stories that just fell apart because of the uncooperativeness from a publisher." This seems to be due to the pragmatism of PR people in only granting interviews relative to current projects, or the general reticence of Japanese developers to talk in detail about their creative process, at least in the examples given, but it's nonetheless an intriguing angle.

In the second post, which talks of the perennial review bugbear, another contentious point is raised: "Oh, and to answer the age old question of whether game reviewers actually play through every game before reviewing it: Sadly...no. We try our damnest to -- and I'd say we finish nearly all of them." When do games get a raw deal in terms of reviews, though? Is it really when someone didn't play through all 80 hours of it, or is it just when the reviewer doesn't understand the genre or context of the title? Opinions welcome.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is on, uhm, the wealthy side. So he's able to do things such as fund the launch of a new early computing website, in the form of PDP Planet.

Though the site itself slightly on the plain side, it's noted: "Before co-founding Microsoft, Paul Allen honed his coding skills by teaching himself to simulate how microprocessors work using PDP-10 computers", and the points of it is some pretty amazing opportunities to play with old hardware: "Via the new Web site, registered users from around the world can telnet into a working DECsystem-10 or an XKL Toad-1, create or upload programs, and run them -- essentially stepping back in time to access an "antique" mainframe."

Why is this interesting to video game geeks? Well, Infocom's original Zork game "was implemented on a DECsystem-10 at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science in a local Lisp-like language called MDL." Of course, we're not sure that the original _original_ Zork source still exists, but other primitive text adventures and MUDs ran on similar hardware, but there's already people considering getting "multi-player space war game[s]" running on the hardware, so who knows - maybe some variants on the original Space War are playable too.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at video storage ubersite YouTube, fairly recent uploads (thanks for the tip, Tkoch!) include part of a Toshio Iwai interactive music demonstration video from last year's Spanish ArtFutura 2005 festival, where-in the Japanese artist and Electroplankton creator demonstrates some of the music art pieces that directly inspired the Nintendo DS title.

There's a Spanish-language report on Iwai's appearance last October over at VidaExtra, but YouTube (thanks to Hardware12V) also hosts another part of Iwai's presentation, an awesome video demo of Iwai's Tenori-On, a new digital musical instrument co-created by Iwai and Yamaha, and incorporating many of Iwai's overarching themes also explored in Electroplankton. Awesome stuff.

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scandinavian magazine firm MagWerk has launched three intricately-designed online magazines, laid out like normal mags, but with a host of Flash animated adverts, editorial sections, and other clever gubbins. Interestingly, one of these is an English language version of the 'game culture' magazine Probe, also available in Norwegian and Swedish.

Some of the neat ideas on the site, which is sponsored by Mini and Sony Ericsson, include 'pages' that actually link to HTML weblogs, so are regularly updated, and other fun shenanigans, including an actual game of (unlicensed?) Asteroids on two pages.

In addition, on at least one of Probe's spreads, the editor's animated pictures are attacking each other - and the editorial, with Xbox 360 features and lots of game reviews, is reasonably readable too. In conclusion - well worth perusing. [Via The-Inbetween.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at long-time Dance Dance Revolution fanhome DDR Freak, something remarkable has happened - the announcement of a new DDR arcade incarnation in the U.S., named Dance Dance Revolution Super Nova.

According to the official statement: "[Konami arcade distributor] Betson Enterprises and DDR Freak are proud to announce that the newest DDR arcade game, DDR Super Nova, is coming to North American arcades (EU also possibly), and very soon. We're sure you all have many many questions about the game, and we'll be giving you more information as we get it, including news about the upcoming location tests, so watch this space!"

Little more is known, other than the title allegedly being developed by Konami of Japan, and commenters at GamesAreFun seem guardedly happy, with mkelehan noting: "Take DDR Extreme JP, add the new songs added to the series since then, and you've got a monstrous mix already. It's incredibly stupid that Konami didn't do this two years ago, but it's great that they're finally getting around to it."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The wags at VintageComputing.com keep coming up with the retro goods, and their latest is an intricate guide to Deadly Towers for the NES, a dungeon-crawling action game that many consider one of the worst games ever.

The game is certainly tedious: "Some of the first enemies you encounter in the game require you to stand in the same spot for a minute, hitting them about fifty times with your wimpy starting sword to kill them."

But RedWolf's 'best friend', who got obsessed with the title in 2003, beat the title without cheating, and "not only completed the game entirely, but mapped all of its completely useless dungeons (which you don’t even have to enter to beat the game), and found most, if not all, of the secret exits in the towers, which contain special weapon upgrades and the like."

Thus, Vintage Computing has compiled the hand-drawn maps in PDF form, explaining: "Their format might also give you more of an idea as to what an epic accomplishment this really is. The intrepid artist’s name? Ben Johnson. From now on, let these be known as The Johnson Maps." How noble - the additionally scanned notes ("1st Left -> on 1st chipmunk level, far right, hyper boots") are also a great 'help'.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

GameSpy has a new piece up in its 'My So-Called Live' column praising and berating the addictiveness of the Xbox 360's 'Gamerscore', for which gamers worldwide are striving hourly to complete obscure challenges.

Author Will Tuttle points out a few balancing issues, though: "There are some titles that pretty much give their achievements away, and playing these games can be an easy way to (some might say artificially) inflate your score. The most obvious example is King Kong, which gives the player 1000 points for doing stuff that's essential to finishing the game. One playthrough (of a fairly short game, we might add) will net you all 1000 points."

Tuttle ends by suggesting that "...as more and more games are released and an increasing number of people get their hands on the system, I believe that achievement addiction will begin to sweep through the world like wild fire." Have you got Gamerscore Fever yet (myself only v.mildly, since it's via the GSW office offline Xbox 360), and is the cure cowbell?

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.S. PC game magazine CGW has published an intriguing article on Christian online video game clans via 1UP, and in it, quotations from many hardcore gamer Christians reveal a pleasingly openminded view of game morals.

According to the piece: "'We view games as just games," says Kendrick Kenerly, founder of +CGO+, Christian Gamers Online. "They all boil down to a few things: They have a goal, they have a reward for the goal, and they have a set of rules that need to be followed to reach the goal. The violence in most games isn't something we get worked up about. It's merely 'presentation'...'"

Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games, who GSW has recently mentioned, also gets in some choice quotes in the article: "Radio and television gave ministries the ability to reach millions simultaneously worldwide. Online games are just the latest in communications technology, so it's natural to assume such virtual communities will be used to bring together large numbers of people for a variety of purposes, including prayer." Praying for felicitous results in the next item drop, you mean?

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some enterprising IC forumites have spotted a new 'unofficial' cartridge-compatible NES clone, the Blaze RetroCon, which has been available on Success-HK's Asian website since before Christmas, and allows you to play all your favorite classic Nintendo Entertainment Games on newer, less dust-festooned hardware.

There haven't been any longform reviews of the console, which comes in three variant colors and apparently costs just $14.30, so it's not clear whether the 'NES-on-a-chip' technology is as yucky as the Generation Nex allegedly is, or whether the two included controllers are any cop.

Interestingly, the website also claims "PAL and NTSC compatible" for the Retrocon, but we'll just have to see what the 'experts' make of it. In the meantime, let's work out which color is the yummiest - black, blue, teal? [UPDATE: Thanks to commenters for pointing out that the four buttons on the controllers include variants of the A and B buttons with 'turbo' effect, effectively auto-fire versions. Cheeky!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Over at GSW, we recently got hold of a copy of The 2006 Gamer’s Tome of Ultimate Wisdom: An Almanac of Pimps, Orcs and Lightsabers, a fun book from Que Publishing that tries to present a guide to 2005's best games and a look forward to 2006's most promising, alongside lots of random fact, tidbits and side articles.

As the press release explains, as well as a plethora of single-page game overviews (both reviews from 2005 and previews from 2006) thanks to author William Abner, there's some lighter material in there too, from a page on Xbox cheat tools, through 'closet classic' pages dedicated to titles such as Little Big Adventure, all the way to a section on 'The Best In Play By Email Gaming'.

Overall, the '2006 Gamer's Tome' a bit of an odd fish, with so-so design layouts and a bit of a weird overarching concept, but it's well-written and includes lots of relevant, well-researched info in it, so if you want to remember what 2005 was like in the game world, and wish to reminisce further back and look further forward at the same time, by all means, grab it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few days ago, we featured the excellent 'World Of Sand' Java toy, and now, TIGSource has drawn our attention to the fact that creator 'd_of_i' has several other fully playable browser games on his site, with the highlight being the marvellous 'Cats Sledding'.

What's 'Cats Sledding'? It features, uhh, cats sledding! As explained by TIGSource: "The game controls like a konami motocross game or some other games you might have played recently: use the z and x keys to lean your cat and flip in midair. like in nintendo's uniracers/unirally, successful tricks are rewarded with speed boosts."

Additionally noted by the author of the blog post? "you might also want to check out this game and its breakout-like sequel by the same author, which involve swinging rice balls around with your mouse. you cannot go wrong."

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the more notable multi-nominated titles at this year's Independent Games Festival is French strategy-RPG MMO Dofus, which has startlingly pretty character designs and graphics throughout its Flash-utilizing video game incarnation.

However, we only just noticed the Dofus Shop, which, in a similar way to the Alien Hominid action figure bundles, allows the independent developer to feed the fan community with cool merchandise, but still keep game development (and funding!) humming along.

We particularly like the lovingly designed miniatures, which include unpainted and painted variants of The Treechnid, The Crackler, and The Wa Wabbit - wonderfully out-there Franco-Japanese designs. The special artbook looks pretty neat, too - hopefully they will show some or all of these off at Game Developers Conference this year.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The scary hairy monsters at tabletop gaming site OgreCave pointed our way to a spectacular collective of pen&paper game designer interviews recently compiled at Protospiel, a mid-2006 U.S. convention which is described as "an annual get-together of amateur game designers to test and promote nearly-finished game prototypes."

Some of those that even video game geeks might know include James Ernest, the Cheapass Games founder, and whose answers perhaps betray why Cheapass is one of the most loved companies out there: "Personally, when I am tired or drunk, and in the mood to gamble, I will seek out a game that requires no strategy at all!."

Even more interestingly, the Protospiel guys managed to collar Reiner Knizia, whose prolific Teutonic output of games such as Samurai have endured himself to many. His varied responses show some surprising (or unsurprising?) comparisons to the video game industry when pitching board game projects: "I feel particularly as a new designer that you want to have a very developed, very beautiful, very functional prototype. Because that's where you can differentiate yourself from other people with publishers, who look at it and catch an eye of it and will be interested in it because you offer something special. "

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Those comedy rogues at UK Resistance have, bizarrely enough, gone into the clothing business, complete with hilariously posed pictures of 'models' who apparently don't know how to use popular gaming handhelds.

The actual store, Rival Crews, includes the excellent Sega vest (UKR used to be a Sega Saturn fansite, don't forget!), with the following immortal description: "When you need to feel the safety of Sega, simply break out the SEGA VEST and put it on! You'll feel warm and snuggly! People will also recognise you as a reader of UK:Resistance. Which might be a bad thing, so you should wear it under a jumper if you're going outside."

Now we're just waiting for a 'Blue Sky In Games' tee, which is, of course, necessary to complete our enjoyment of that particular meme. Because we are Nathan Barley.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Casual-games maker PopCap Games and The Games For Health project have melded minds in a joint effort to research the positive effect of digital games on cognitive health. Findings will be presented in a public knowledge-base this spring, summarizing both the research and market development activities associated with the use of digital games for feeding healthy brains.

On the other side of the coin (and the pond), researchers have found that educational games are actually harming childood learning. According to a Sydney Morning Herald report, "research published in the journal Education 3 to 13 has found that pupils who use interactive programs cannot remember stories they have just read because they are distracted by cartoons and sound effects."

Games: healthy diversion, or harmful distraction? I say "Yes!"

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The results of a Stanford University competition that encourages innovative and wackily designed games, as part of the CS248 course at the university, have just been officially announced, and first prize winner is the terrifying Deadly Soccer Ball in which you should apparently ...imagine yourself as a space soccer ball shooting missiles around." Done!

But, though we think Baron von Puttyngton versus the Cancerous M.C. Escher Maze of Cheese should have won on name alone, the special 'Wackiest Game' prize for the most creative title, and winner of an Xbox 360 thanks to space soccer ball monopolist Electronic Arts, is Labyrin3D."

According to the official site, Labyrin3D is "A takeoff on the familiar Labyrinth(tm) board game... [which] takes advantage of a special sensor in Apple Powerbooks and allows the user to tilt the board simply by tilting the laptop itself!" But if you drop it, can you lose the ball? [Via SlashGames.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now, we hate to get all erudite and stuff, but Josh Korr at the St. Petersburg Times has posted a well thought-out response to Matt Sakey's recent GSW-referenced column on games, art, and safety dancing.

And, while we hate to see the pessimism card over-played, Knorr argues that noted film 'auteur' Orson Welles "...and his collaborators put [multiple outstanding elements together] in the service of telling Charles Foster Kane's story", going on to suggest: "The oft-cited video game "auteurs" are nothing like this."

More tellingly, Knorr advances: "Psychonauts has a visual flair -- though never derivative, it recalls a mix of the most out-there Looney Tunes and Burton -- and a comedic touch wholly foreign to other video games. The box says "A psychic adventure by Tim Schafer" -- and you can immediately tell this game reflects one man's vision and sensibility. I can think of few other video games that come close to this. (Earthworm Jim for the Genesis and the Oddworld games come to mind, but they're not as visually unique and have minimal dialogue)."

But... playing devil's advocate, since games are arguably framed by a greater collaboration than film, do we want one person's muddy pawprints messily defining an overarching style at all times? Is there an American McGee in the closet? Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Poking around on the site of NinjaBee, the oh-so-indie creators of Outpost Kaloki X for Xbox 360 Live Arcade, we spotted that their parent mini-company, Wahoo Studios, have recently been working on a really neat-looking kids' Windows educational title called Piano Wizard (and it used to be called Piano Commando, which is even more fun!)

Evidently a bit like the Miracle Keyboard for consoles released in the early '90s, this tool apparently "combines the fun of a video game with the fundamentals of piano lessons", as colors are mapped to notes, and the title moves from fantasy worlds triggered by key presses to full stave-based music reading.

Heck, the purchase page even has an 'As Seen On TV' icon, so it must be good stuff - though at $200 including a MIDI keyboard, it's a little more than a copy of Guitar Hero.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at sister site Gamasutra, we've just put up an interview with Alien Hominid artist Dan 'Synj' Paladin about his work on the 2006 Independent Games Festival nominee for Best Web Browser Game, the distinctly twisted Flash title Dad 'N Me.

Paladin lays down one of the scariest answers ever when asked about the inspiration for the game, explaining: "This game was inspired by our original web-game, Chainsaw the Children. We thought it would be fun to explore the world of the chainsawer and give him a family - give him strong family values that don't extend anything having to do with manners into the real world. His child has been taught the same thing, and acts upon it when dropped off at the park by Dad."

This is one of a series of mini-interviews with IGF finalists running on Gamasutra over the next few weeks - we've also recently posted a chat with Grubby Games' Ryan Clark regarding their puzzlicious Grand Prize finalist, Professor Fizzwizzle. So have at it!

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pointed out via GAF, and apparently originating via the UK gamegeek RLLMUK Forum, there's a Google Video up which showcases a perfect completion for the last level of Rez, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's recently GSW-mentioned, perma-fawned upon 'art shooter'.

But while many moon over the game, less do this well playing it, so kudos to 'Magic Lord' for this video, which is described as: "100% Shotdown rate for Area 5 on Dreamcast Rez. Missed a couple of item appearances but still, at least it shows how easy it is to do and achieve the special pink butterfly ending." There are actually plenty of complex unlocks in Rez for both DC and PlayStation 2, but it's good to see this one in particular displayed for all to see. [Click the 'original size' button in the bottom right if you want it less (unintentionally) pixel-y.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Terra Nova's Mike Sellers has put up an excellent post trying to decipher what 'user numbers' really mean in online gaming, contrasting the often massive 'registered user' numbers cited by free virtual worlds with the more locked-down active and paying subscribers in MMOs.

Citing Habbo Hotel's '40 million subscribers' as a good random figure to attack, he points out: "How many of HH’s 40M members are old defunct accounts (I know at least a few are old ones of mine)? Similarly I doubt that CokeStudios really has 4M active users – they say those are “registered users” and that’s a very different thing. As Daniel James said recently here on TN, 'Puzzle Pirates has had over 1.3M 'users' if you count registered accounts' but actually has 'substantially less than that, however, at ~23k subscribers/equivalents.'"

Whatever the case, Sellers points out in his conclusion: "How can we accurately assess a world’s population size? This is important for both reasons of social research and commercial viability. It is important that as MMOs continue to grow as a cultural phenomenon that we neither downplay their impact nor over-inflate their growth." So... how long is that piece of string?

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The folks at essential ARG ('alternate reality game') website ARGN.com have released a 'year in review' for the entire ARG scene, analyzing what it sees as "one of the most successful and eye-opening years in the short history of Alternate Reality Gaming.."

The excellent, comprehensive overview notes in its introduction: "As the world became more familiar with ARG through hit games The Art of the Heist, Perplex City, Jamie Kane and Last Call Poker, the community was also treated to many interesting and in-depth grassroots projects like Omnifam and Seen Steve. Overall, the year was very good for the genre, and the community is thriving and growing very day."

Particularly interesting is what the site saw as 'the move towards the self-sufficient ARG': "While the majority of the "big budget" games continued to have marketing tie-ins (with corporate dollars attached), Perplex City continued to turn heads for their efforts to create an Alternate Reality Game that is large in scale but is maintained through its own sources of revenue. The partnership between game creators Mind Candy and UK retailer Firebox has proven to be successful for both sides, and a recent influx of capital funds by Index Ventures, a major venture capital company, shows that ARG is becoming big business the world over." Overall, an essential article.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though some of you may have given up on game-related U.S. cable network G4, now it's turned to Star Trek, we're here to tell you that Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions is actually one of the most randomly fun video game-related TV shows thus far aired, simply screening obscure game-related ads, in-game footage and cut-scenes.

A recent edition we saw sported clips from the ever-grumpy Seaman, D3's Nadesico, and a Japanese ad for, of all things, Britney's Dance Beat. Oh, and also, they're not afraid to show the unthinkable, as in that latest episode: "Have you heard strange internet rumors about the end of The Matrix: Path of Neo? Well, cover your eyes and ears if you don't want to have the ending spoiled, because we're gonna show it all."

Sure, 'Nocturnal Emissions' may be a bit overfond of the interactive Japanese pr0n, Sexy Beach-style, but hey, it's the channel that syndicated The Man Show, right?

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sage Publications is now making the first issue of its 'Games and Culture' academic journal available online, and the full issue contents show a number of interesting articles (free registration needed to grab PDFs).

In particular, Stanford's Henry Lowood has a piece called 'Game Studies Now, History of Science Then', in which he "compares the growth of history of science as a discipline to the situation faced by game studies today. What can researchers learn from the elevation of the history of science to an established discipline and profession that might help scholars understand the situation of game studies?"

Another potential article of interest? James Paul Gee presents 'Why Game Studies Now? Video Games: A New Art Form', commenting that "video games will challenge researchers to develop new analytical tools and will become a new type of "equipment for living," to use Kenneth Burke's phrase for the role of literature." So sure, some of this is a bit ludological, but isn't it nice for games to be taken seriously?

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Via Alice's Wonderland, a mention of venerable UK political TV program Newsnight, which was broadcasting from Second Life last week as part of the delightfully named 'Geek Week'.

Newsnight's business correspondent, Paul Mason, quickly got the hang of Second Life itself: "I discovered the most popular places "in world" are lap dancing clubs, bars, casinos, rifle ranges and - in a rare piece of inspiration that could only happen in the fantasy world - places that are all of the above."

He then got in touch with Cory Edo - real name Sara Van Gorden, who "recreated the Newsnight set, Jeremy Paxman and myself - the latter with wrinkles and stubble rendered in full 3D realism, sadly - so we could record the historic "two-way" that will go out before my piece on online games." And it also looks like Paxman was 'busting some virtual moves', judging by the accompanying pictures.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The IGDA's latest issue of its Casual Game Quarterly online newsletter, edited by Large Animal's Wade Tinney, has a very interesting piece on price point testing for casual games, talking to CJ Wolf of IWin.

According to Wolf, regarding his company's licensing of the Family Feud PC downloadable casual game, which they consider "a strong brand", the traditional casual PC game price actually made less money compared to higher price points, after users downloaded the free version and decided whether to pay for the full game or not: "The $19.95 price converted at 1.3% generating $.26 per download, the $24.95 converted at 1.1% producing $.27 per download and the $29.95 convert at 1.1% yielding $.32 per download. Our conclusion was that if a person is willing to pay over $20 for a game then their price elasticity stretches to $29.95."

Wolf comments: "I believe we have proven that people are willing to pay more than $19.95 and that prices should be going north as the quality of the games improves and as brands are introduced into this market." But - would you pay more than $20 for a casual PC game? What's your 'magic number'?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The folks over at hardcore collector's haunt Digital Press have announced the free PDF and $28.99 fully printed version of Kevin Bryan's book 'PSX: The Guide to the Sony PlayStation'.

As the book's intro explains, the book "...provides the ultimate collector resource for fans of the system. A 60-page rarity guide, based on three years of price tracking and the input of the top Sony collectors in the world, lets the user find exactly the information they need to complete their own top-shelf collection".

There's also a bunch more pages of features, rare game spotlights, and other neatness, and you have to set up a Lulu.com account to download the PDF, but it seems eminently worth it if you want to know about Little Big Adventure or the Capcom Generations set for PSX. [Via Joystiq.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eagle-eyed GSW readers may recall that the UK magazine Retro Gamer, which gloried in classic gaming shenanigans and "included interviews with leading 1980s programmers including Matthew Smith and Archer Maclean", closed down later last year after Live Publishing sadly went bankrupt.

However, what the less observant (especially outside the UK, such as yours truly) may have missed is that Retro Gamer was bought by Imagine Publishing, a small UK magazine publisher set up in 2005, and Retro Gamer has already relaunched, with the second new issue available this month, featuring a big Rare feature, a look at the 'underrated' Neo Geo Pocket, an in-depth analysis of Technos Japan (!), and a round-up of the best Game Boy Advance platformers. [EDIT: And here's a brief sample of the first Imagine issue, thanks to commenter 'Serious Ham' for the correction.] There's also a new forum for the magazine, which is monthly - you could often find issues of the old Retro Game in specialty bookstores like Barnes & Noble in the States, so hopefully the same is true for the new breed.

Oh, and as for the articles for the issues between the magazine going bankrupt and getting picked up again? They were compiled for Retro Survival, a special one-off "that contains the missing features from the ill-fated Issue 19 of Retro Gamer, which never made it to print. This includes all of your favourite articles, along with entirely new content, plus a specially written foreword by everyone's favourite Teletext talking head, Mr Biffo." Yay, Mr. Biffo!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Everyone has been going (quite rightly) bananas over Harmonix and RedOctane's Guitar Hero. But we thought it was interesting that import store NCSX's latest update includes news on a super-deluxe Japanese ASC ('arcade-style controller') for the original guitar-strumming game title, Konami's Guitar Freaks, available for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 in Japan.

As the full listing explains: "Last night, Konami gave the green light for the production of the ASC Guitar for use with Guitar Freaks games. Although the final specs of the guitar are not available for perusal yet, the company's website specifies that it will be modeled closely after the guitar used in the coin-op GF machines. If previous Konami ASCs are any indication, the guitar will be another example of excellent craftsmanship and quality."

It continues: "Pricing is set at Y21,000 which is roughly US$200 but based on information from our vendor in Japan, the shipping cost per unit from Japan to the US will be approximately US$80." Youch, $289 for one controller? Still, the Beatmania ASC controller is $399 in some places, so maybe it's a bargain?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Matt Sakey's latest 'Culture Clash' column for the IGDA is on the oft, oft, oft-discussed throwaway Roger Ebert comments about video games not being art.

The article naturally concludes that games, like any other creative medium, have artistic elements to them, but also contains the following somewhat flamebait-ish section:

"The fact that the art evolved later has led to the misconception that there is no artistic value in games – something many developers hold to today, limiting their creative potential. Dubious creativity has repeatedly threatened the business. There are industry people who refuse to accept the idea that games are art, to the point of finding that suggestion personally insulting. Others, like industry albatross Rockstar, believe in the art but, perversely, spend their days struggling to abase the medium."

Why would game developers self-consciously rule art out of the games they create? Why does Rockstar's choice of subject matter 'abase the medium' in any way? And why does a non-developer have a column on the IGDA website accusing developers of lacking creativity, even in an offhanded way?

Apparently, it's an angry Saturday here at GameSetWatch, but sometimes it seems like that those picking at problems dysfunctionally from the inside do far more harm than the Roger Eberts of this world (also see: the debate on video game journalism.)

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

One of the more controversial aspects of the recent casual game boom has been 'the clone wars'. And no, we're not talking Count Dooku, but rather, certain simple game designs that seem unduly influenced by other, earlier games, but are still extremely popular, because the casual game-playing public don't know who created it first.

For example, PopCap's Zuma is one of the most popular casual games of all time, but it's being challenged in the download charts by both MumboJumbo's somewhat different Luxor, and by recently Big Fish-acquired French developer FunPause's Atlantis, which even goes as far as to put 'Luxor' and 'Zuma' in its homepage's HTML keywords.

But, while PopCap's James Gwertzman comments in a recent interview of Zuma's success in 2004: "We were all very excited about it, but it's 2005 and there have been a ton of very obvious Zuma clones", we have to ask - how about Mitchell's 1998 title Puzzloop for arcades, also known as Ballistic for PSX in the States? The game's basic design seems identical to Zuma.

There was even some talk of Mitchell, which has released a PC version of Puzzloop, taking PopCap to court over the issue, though neither company has ever made public statements about it. But wherever the first version of that game originated, it's clear that, as Gwertzman comments: "Making clones of existing games isn't as profitable as it used to be."

Yet, it's 2006 and it's still going on, and the most egregious yet is ToyBox Games' Roller Rush. It's not only such a blatant copy of gameLab's Diner Dash that it hurts, and it's already in the Top 10 on Yahoo! Games, ahead of Diner Dash, showing that clones can be just as financially successful in the short term.

So here's the real question - who's going to be the first to sue, as Namco did with Pac-Man clones, over a casual game concept? Maybe many of these ideas are too simple to be copyrighted, but something feels just a little over-ripe in casual games right now regarding game clones.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Import fansite RPGFan has its review of the top RPG titles of 2005 online, and, alongside some brief non-RPG picks, there are plenty of obscure and interesting games mentioned by a plethora of otaku-esque editors.

For example, Neal Chandran cites a couple of Hirameki International's PC games recently mentioned on GameSetWatch, noting of the English-localized Ever17 that it's "a fresh take on the love adventure genre with often intellectually stimulating storylines."

Elsewhere, Patrick Gann makes a perhaps controversial choice of Square Enix's oft-debated, oft-maligned Romancing SaGa, commenting: "I know that this title did not appeal to every gamer out there, but for me, this game is really something incredible." For further, surprisingly positive perspective on the title, Jiji at NamakoTeam has a detailed analysis of the game, noting of the PS2 title's controversial charms: "Romancing SaGa is a completely player-motivated game. The only fixed point shared by the game's playable scenarios is the final boss." So you'd better be committed, then.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GamesPress' feed on biz site GamesIndustry.biz has news of Player One's mobile game licensing of 'Young Bond'. As the release eplains: "Licensed by Young Bond rights' owner Ian Fleming Publications Limited, "Young Bond - SilverFin" the game takes a look at an embryonic spy just embarking on a life of espionage which ultimately leads to his vocation as MI6's top secret agent."

Despite the potentially cheesy-sounding concept (you were thinking of James Bond Jr., weren't you?), the Young Bond books are written by English comedian/writer Charlie Higson, and there's a a great series of interviews with him over at MI6.co.uk which show that he's trying to make the teen-aimed novels well thought-out and interesting. Whether the mobile game, developed by 'Bluetooth Biplanes' developer Morpheme, will be shaken and not stirred, we'll no doubt find out soon.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The folks at the iGames gaming LAN center firm have passed on the news that: "Brice Mellen, the blind videogamer who burst onto the scene this past summer, will be taking on all challengers in a special Mortal Kombat [specifically Mortal Kombat: Deception?] competition at iGames member center DogTags [in Lincoln, Nebraska on Sunday, Jan 8th from 1 to 3pm] in preparation for his first trip to Japan, where he will take on some of Japan’s best players as part of a special for Nippon TV’s Power of Memory, Part III."

The DogTags gaming center website has a page all about Brice, and, according to iGames: "Blind since birth due to Leber’s disease, Brice has been playing games since he was 6 years old. It was difficult going at first, but as with everything else Brice does, he kept at it until he memorized the commands and audio cues in his favorite games until he became the master he is today. Brice has appeared on NBC’s Today Show and G4’s Attack of the Show, in addition to being featured in the Associated Press, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and thousands of other outlets around the world."

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The folks over at annual art show and collective I Am 8-Bit have revamped their official website, adding the news that there will be a brand new I Am 8-Bit exhibition at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight in Los Angeles from April 18 through May 19 2006. For those in town for E3 2006, from May 10-12, this should provide an opportunity to check out the awesome art - there's a big gallery of pictures from last year's exhibition over at Fort90.com.

In addition, the site also mentions Chronicle Books' 'I Am 8-bit' artbook, out this March, and described thusly: "Pac-Man. Frogger. Super Mario Bros. These classic videogames are burned into the collective consciousness of an entire generation, thanks to countless hours spent at pizza parlors and bowling alleys across the country. Now artists such as Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, and Ashley Wood put their memories to paper, canvas, and wood to create original works of art inspired by the art of the videogame." Sounds like fun on a bun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New Gamer's latest update deals with storytelling and Neversoft's new Wild West title Gun, which has swung quickly into the 'flawed but interesting' pigeonhole for most who have played it.

Writer G. Turner points out: "From varmit-hunting with Ned to being ambushed by Indians the absolute moment you exit the town boundaries, Gun is a halting, stop/start experience. There's no build-up, no tension, no excitement, just scenes where you're shooting and scenes where you're on the cusp of being shot at."

Nonetheless, the game has some interesting reviews, despite its definite problems, and we're hoping that a forthcoming Game Developer postmortem should reveal more about the original console IP's genesis, even if the game wasn't a Tony Hawk-ish slam dunk.

But Turner's conclusion is positively stark: "While a hail of bullets will keep most users glued to their controller, what's the point of a Western motif for your game if it fails to include uniquely or optimally Western devices?... There's a lot to fight for in the West, but sadly it's all glossed over in favor of making sure the audience is stimulated beyond thought."

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I'm drawn to IDG's editor weblogs sometimes because, well, they're a strange mix of the articulate and the inarticulate.

This is, again, the case in (GamePro editor) LongHairedOffender's post about the U.S. arcade scene, in which he reaches wondrous levels of rage: "Americans play videogames for one reason and for one reason only, to kick ass. It doesn't matter if you're crushing skulls in the fighting arena or on the football field. Being a virtual DJ, riding a horse (not into battle), and playing other violence-free games is not enough to draw people into arcades. Gaming isn't about having family-friendly fun it's about indulging in man's carnal desires."

And, to be clear, there's one particular company to blame: "And then Konami drove the nail through the heart of coin operated gaming... The abomination of videogaming known as DDR served as an outlet for wannabe Travoltas to flail around wildly and quickly made the house of tank simulators and street fighting a haven for lamos." Uh, yeah, damn you for widening the arcade market, DDR!

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The GameCrits website continues to pick and elegantly criticize some interesting and alternative games, and its latest post is regarding Mono, an intriguing free-to-download PC title which is described on its homepage as "part Asteroids... part Robotron... part Paint Shop Pro."

The critique on GameCrits suggests "As a game, I think Mono derives as much of an influence from simple ramping difficulty puzzlers such as Tetris as it does from the more obvious top-down shooter genre. I think it succeeds at least partially for this reason", and also notes: "Visually, Mono uses simple abstractions to represent the on-screen happenings. This seems to be a growing mini genre within the world of shmups, including other titles such as rRootage and noiz2sa. " Definitely worth checking out.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Even after the past month of critical gushing, if you're still left unconvinced of Guitar Hero's unparalleled power to transform even the most mild-mannered into strutting and posing exhibitionists, the Harmonix team has just posted, via their MySpace page, conclusive video proof.

Witness in stunned disbelief as the news studios of Sacramento's UPN31 succumb to the blazing guitar licks, headbanging, devil-horning, hollering their approval and generally falling all over themselves for resident "Game Guy" Scott Fera's pre-Christmas coverage of the game.

We could spend an hour outlining precisely why Guitar Hero is good, but it's easier to point and say, well, there's why Guitar Hero is good.

Posted by at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

American digital television network DIRECTV will feature video game tournament coverage on its upcoming "Massive Gaming League" planned for launch this year. According to an official announcement by DIRECTV Inc., the League will use "new technology" allowing in-game cameras to capture the action, which will be presented like a traditional sporting event. Additionally, "Stories of the competitors will be told via interviews and features, complemented with coverage of their exploits in actual competition," meaning that American star gamers may soon enjoy a similar status to their exalted Asian counterparts. So far no games have been announced as the subject of competitive coverage, but I'm looking forward to a no-holds-barred cage-match of Nintendogs. Two dogs enter, one dog leaves!

Posted by at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The recently launched VintageComputing site comes up trumps again with a retrospective of Atari Program Exchange game Dandy Dungeon, which was "a 1983 release... written by then-MIT-student John Palevich."

The game is particularly interesting becase - well, we'll let VintageComputing explain: "At first glance, [Dandy Dungeon] appears to be a Gauntlet clone with primitive graphics (the Gauntlet of which I speak is the 1985 Atari Games arcade release), but it turns out that Gauntlet, not Dandy, is the clone."

Indeed, the Wikipedia page for Gauntlet backs this up, as does the AtariProtos.com article on follow-up Dark Chambers which notes: "Ed Logg created his arcade mega hit Gauntlet, using Dandy as inspiration. John was none too happy about this and planned to file a lawsuit, but later settled out of court (rumor has it he received a free Gauntlet machine)." Nonetheless, the VintageComputing article goes on to explain how Logg was inspired by but actually improved Dandy Dungeon's gameplay - so, a happy ending for all, then?

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another very pertinent TomChick news post over at QuarterToThree reveals that Civilization IV modding has got well under way, with the delightful news of "a mod that adds Protestantism as a religion founded by the first civ to research the new Luther's Reformation tech." But that's not all: "Unlike all the other boring religions, Protestantism gives its founding city 5x trade and culture production. That's because everybody wants to visit the Protestants and they love their stuff."

Meanwhile, over on the Apolyton forums for fan site Civilization4.net, we have users called 'FuzzyBunny' asking Civ IV religion-related questions which start out with the wonderfully surreal: "At the moment, I'm the founder of all the major religions..." Forget about 'Hot Coffee', wait 'til The 700 Club gets hold of this firecracker!

[And, yes, Martin Luther looks a bit Indian in the picture accompanying this post, but it was the best we could do on short notice.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Freelance journalist and Gamasutra news editor Nich Maragos has a particularly interesting post on his personal weblog as a reaction to recent stories over more U.S. States attempting to implement anti-game legislation.

Maragos points out with regard to the movie biz: "There’s a new trend in DVD marketing where the home video edition of the movie is the “unrated” version. There were three such titles in the new releases section that I looked at - The 40-Year-Old Virgin got an unrated DVD last month, and this week saw two new ones for The Wedding Crashers and Dark Water." He continues: "I don’t really care that this is happening in itself... what I do care about is how little concern or commentary this has garnered from the same people bent on government regulation of the game industry.... Doesn’t it concern any of those lawmakers even a little that Hollywood is talking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to content regulation?"

The conclusion? "A common argument from the weary Doug Lowenstein of the Entertainment Software Association when fighting these ridiculous anti-game bills is that it imposes a measure of government enforcement on games that no other form of media enjoys. The unrated DVD craze shows how right he is." Of course, the usual suspects are still raising somewhat of a stink about unrated DVDs, too - a recent Family Media Guide article, for example. But Maragos' point is still provocative and pertinent.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The website of Brazilian/Norwegian mobile game developer Microways shows details on a number of amusingly 'familiar' games. Sure, there's 'Kingo Kongo', which may or may not remind you of a certain Nintendo classic, and cheekily and half-assedly flips the scenario, since "the purpose is to help Kingo save his family who has been imprisoned by an evil hunter."

But even better, there's Cop-Man, in which the 'nothing like Pac-Man' entity is helping 'move' some money, but "the ghosts of former security employees will do their best to make you into a happy little jailbird as soon as possible." Wow, so it's all about betrayal, death, and redemption? Take that, Indigo Prophecy. Oh, and Cop-Man 3D is also absolutely nothing like Pac-Mania, just to get things straight. Oddly, the games seem very professionally coded, even the ones 'borrowing' from Game & Watch, so it's a shame the gameplay couldn't be a little more... original? [Via normalroach.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over at the personal weblog of 1UP's Features Editor Jeremy 'Toastyfrog' Parish, there's a new post showing off the somewhat adorable Katamari Damacy fridge magnets constructed by his sister over the holiday period.

As Jeremy points out: "My sister made me [the magnets] for my birthday last year -- the King of All Cosmos, the hapless Prince and half a dozen of his royal cousins, all depicted with loving care via the woefully underappreciated medium of Shrinky-Dinks... Imagine my surprise when I visited my sister's apartment over the Christmas break and discovered she's been holding out on me. At some point she made herself a complete set of cousins."

However as Toasty quips, quite apart from the extra We Love Katamari relatives: "I tried telling her about the eight new royal cousins in the PSP game but for some reason she clamped her hands over her ears and shouted 'LA LA LA NOT LISTENING.'"

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jim Rossignol, who is a regular Gamasutra columnist as well as a veteran PC Gamer UK writer, has posted a copy of his recent PC Gamer article, 'Sex, Fame and PC Baangs: How the Orient plays host to PC gaming’s strangest culture', on his weblog.

It's fascinating stuff, and is marvellously specific on the extent of South Korea's obsession with gaming culture, to wit: "There are five cable channels devoted to games and one of those just to RTS titles like Starcraft. Recorded and edited bouts of top-level Starcraft matches accounts for viewing figures in the millions, taking up 1% of all the TV watched in Korea. There are two weekly newspapers and three four-hundred page monthly glossies that cater just to PC gaming. There are 26,000 gaming cafes in Korea, which make $6 billion a year from tens of thousands of visiting gamers."

On that subject, we note, via this Blizzard Insider page that there's even a book called 'Starcnomics', "an academic look at the positive effects StarCraft has had on the Korean economy." So... only Blizzard can save us from the housing bust by providing WoW virtual housing for us all? This is clearly only logical conclusion.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at sister site Gamasutra, we've just posted a news story about Philips' Entertaible, a hybrid gaming technology which continues the company's interest in the area following its recent announcements regarding its amBX 'ambient gaming technology'.

The Entertaible, currently just at a concept stage, "...comprises a 30-inch horizontal LCD, sophisticated touch screen-based multi-object position detection, and all supporting control electronics, and, according to the firm, "...allows the players to engage in a new class of electronic game which combines the features of computer gaming, such as dynamic playing fields and gaming levels, with the social interaction and tangible playing pieces, such as pawns and dies, of traditional board games.""

There are also hi-res pictures of the current Entertaible set-up on Philips' site - perhaps our universal dream of board games as exciting as the Star Trek 3D chess set is closer than we think?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're referencing GSW contributor weblogs again, but over at Clickable Culture, TonyW has a great post on the 'hidden prison' in virtual world Second Life.

According to Tony: "Dubbed the "The Corn Field," the moonlit environment contains only rows of corn, two television sets, an aging tractor and a one-way teleport terminal allowing no escape. It exists as an alternative to standard disciplinary measures, which traditionally prevent access to Second Life completely."

SL player Nimrod Yaffle, recently imprisoned in the area for unspecified transgressions, seemed relatively unimpressed: "Yaffle was disappointed at the "insanely slow" pace of the tractor, and bored by the only channel available on the televisions--a presentation of the 1940 film "Boy in Court," about a troubled teenager on probation trying to avoid a life of crime." That industrial film is available for download as part of the Prelinger Collection over at the non-profit Internet Archive, for the curious, even if Yaffle wasn't 'scared straight' by it just yet.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For whatever reason, sometimes Paul Hyman's game columns for the Hollywood Reporter get a little lost in the shuffle, and this excellent pre-Christmas article on new business models for MMOGs is another comprehensive piece from the veteran author (who also writes for GameSetWatch sister publication Game Developer magazine regularly.)

In particular, Hyman covers Chinese company Shanda's shift from subscription to 'free to play, pay for items' on its older MMOs, with Shanda's Donglei Zhou commenting: "Instead of hanging around and waiting for these older games to lose more and more users, we proactively changed the revenue model and, as a result, expect the user base to pick up again as we attract users away from the competition."

In addition, SOE's John Smedley talks about the unspecified Western online game his company plans to launch in the near future using the same model, commenting: "The goal here is to just give the game away, invite the gamers in, and get them playing... And then, as they get further and further into the game, start saying things like, 'Hey, here's something you can buy if you'd like. Interested?"

So... "I heard shoving is worse than pushing, But I'd rather know a shover than a pusher, 'Cos a pusher's a jerk"? OK, OK, we'll try not to quote De La Soul again in an MMO-related post.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Josh Korr of Florida newspaper The St. Petersburg Times kindly wrote in to point out that the paper recently started its own video game weblog, joining mainstream newspapers such as the San Jose Mercury News and the UK Guardian in the (buzzword alert!) 'game-specific blogosphere'.

Korr recently added some intriguing commentary on Microsoft's Xbox Live online service, referencing recent WSJ and NYT pieces on the service. He particularly suggests that Xbox Live Arcade and other 'casual' services may be far more important to the Xbox 360's online success than some might suggest: "If growing the installed base for the Xbox 360 is based on growing the number of casual and new gamers who buy the system, Microsoft won't get a 25-50 percent Xbox Live subscriber rate if the main reason to go online remains to play deathmatches." We'd love to analyze too, but we're too busy playing Mutant Storm Reloaded.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our competition giving away a copy of Beck's Guero UMD special edition has now finished, yay! Our question was:

"Which UK collective directed the video game-like music video for Beck's E-Pro from the Guero album?"

The answer, of course, was Shynola, who have also recently been responsible for the awesome 'Guide' graphics in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie.

The randomly picked winner was Andy Johnson - congrats, Andy, you'll be getting your UMD over the next few days! Look out for more GameSetWatch competitions in the near future, some of them even including items you'd want to own.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In order to commemerate little else than cross-branding and pure gold lust, Nintendo of Japan and the Mitsubishi Materials Corporation have joined forces to release a set of pure gold Nintendo playing cards. Presumably honoring Nintendo's corporate roots in the playing card business, the deck of 54, nearly indistinguishable from any other brand of playing cards save their Famicom hue, will ship within the month to precious metal enthusiasts who like Nintendo logos.

Retailing at 425,250 yen (about $3600 USD), you'll probably have to limit yourself to one or two sets. Look for them at your locally owned MMC subsidiary retail outlet or the Shinsyu Golden Castle.

Posted by at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Defense Tech has discovered that the US Air Force is looking at game technology to provide space combat training for its stalwart pilots. According to an official Air Force call for proposals, the effort is intended to help develop "counter space tactics, techniques, and procedures..." with an emphasis on four key tasks: "detect, identify, track, and disrupt activities from space vehicles."

The game, to be developed for multiple players, will incorporate 3D models representing both space and ground units, and involve live command and control information. Is a war in space is imminent? If so, which country will be piloting the X-Wings and which the TIE fighters?

Posted by at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of days ago, we thought we'd finished out 'Best Games of 2005' listings. But of course, we didn't. So here's some more. First off, Scott 'Lum The Mad' Jennings offers up his Top 10 new games of 2005, excluding MMOs, and throws some decidedly alternate choices in there, including Mercenaries ("It’s Grand Theft Auto: North Korea and that’s all you need to know") and Hearts Of Iron II ("I played this more than any game has a right to be played.")

Secondly, casual game don JayIsGames has released his Top 20 webgames for 2005, and there are all sorts of neat titles, including the incredibly addictive Nanaca Crash ("an action game remake of the Yetisports penguin tossing games of 2004"), and the distinctly weird Kingdom Of Loathing ("a turn-based, text adventure RPG with a self-mocking twist.")

Finally, a couple of leftovers - Japanese-dwelling GameSetWatch friend Jason and Nihongonauts has posted his top five games of 2005, interestingly headed by Taito's 2D puzzle-action title Exit for PSP, which is due out in the West this February from Ubisoft. And in a 'Top X of 2005' update, SomethingAwful's Zack Parsons completes his 'worst game journalism evah' piece by attempting to eviscerate Insert Credit terror, Next-Gen.biz contributor and general Internet controversy Tim Rogers.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sharp-witted folks on the Gaming-Age forums have pointed to a Japanese-language interview with Alpha Dream, the developers of Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time for DS, via the Official Nintendo Online Magazine website. [Here's a particularly mangled translation via Altavista.]

Fortunately, the particularly choice part of the interview is visual - a snapshot of Alpha Dream's 'development DS' which the team concocted before the real Nintendo DS hardware was available. As they explain: "The っ which 2 is attached to the top and bottom being able to connect GBA with the け て communication cable, because the っ which means 4 being the button, it is, you attached the controller of the super Family Computer, it is, (laughing)." Hah - well, I guess that doesn't explain it too well - but it's a SNES controller plus two Game Boy Advances connected with a link cable, and it's absolutely priceless.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The front page of disorderly messageboard hang-out QuarterToThree has news of journalist TomChick's 'Quarterlies' Awards for 2005, described thus: "For the 2005 Quarterlies, I took each game's score from Gamerankings and Metacritic, weighed them according to the 7-9 scale, entered them into an Excel spreadsheet and arranged the list from top to bottom, adjusting them by fun factor and innovation. Then I deleted the file and made a list of my ten favorite games, as well as my choices for most disappointing and most surprising."

We won't spoil the entire thing for you, but a particularly interesting pick is Call Of Duty 2 for 'Most Surprising Game of 2005', as Mr. Chick notes of Activision and Infinity Ward's WWII shooter: "Call of Duty 2 is a perfect storm of noise, effects, scripting, and flexibility that manages to balance it all just right. It hasn’t been done this well in a long time." And it's true - CoD2 is definitely one of the most refreshing titles couched in conventional flesh this year.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a riddle for you - which Western-originated franchise is now arguably more popular in Japan than in the West? Why, that would be the Wizardry RPG series, which "was created by Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead of Sir-Tech" back in 1980 while students at Cornell University.

Amazingly, the series, which made it through 8 PC iterations plus several spinoffs in the U.S., is still very much alive in Japan - as the Wikipedia page for WIzardry notes: "The popularity of Wizardry in Japan led to the making of an anime OVA (direct-to-video animation), and several original console sequels, spinoffs, and ports. Most have not been released in the US." In fact, the latest in the series, Starfish's Wizardry Asterisk for the Nintendo DS, was released last week in Japan.

Looking back, one of the most recent console versions of the series, Wizardry: Tale Of The Forsaken Land for PS2, did get a limited North American release in 2001 thanks to Atlus, and has a definite cult following for its oldschool RPG leanings. As for Wizardry Asterisk, Starfish's Japanese homepage for the game isn't that helpful, but a preview from The Magic Box offers up some neat screenshots of the game - think anyone will pick this up for Western release?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over at MMO blog Terra Nova, Ren Reynolds has posted a fairly exhaustive round-up of all the sex-related MMOs due in 2006.

As he explains: "For those with better things to do than keep up with MMO acronym variants: the terms MMOEG (MMO Erotic Games) and MMOVSG (MMO Virtual Sex Games) are used pretty much interchangeably for a genre of multi-player online game that gives primacy to some aspect of sex or sexuality", and he then lists a number of (NSFW!) links that most notably include Spend The Night, the higher-profile erotic MMO to be launched this year by LA-based Republik Games.

Interesting, Reynolds then asks: "Commercially the question that I think hangs over these games (like a dildo of Damocles one might say) is: What’s the point?", suggesting that "...the problem that these MMOs face is that if cyber-sex interests you there is no shortage of [non-MMO] ways to explore it." Busted.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're not entirely sure how long it's been up, but the front page of seminal game musician Tim Follin's website has a note from him officially announcing his retirement from video game music. He explains: "The games industry has offered me a slow and irregular trickle of work over the last ten years or so, that has caused me a great deal of distress and illness... It is thus... that I bid it farewell, as I embark on a new and, God willing, financially stable career in television advertising."

Though Follin is glad to be going, devotees of his amazing music output, such as the guys over at The Follin Drome fansite, are going to be pretty upset. A recent Follin interview at Gamasutra revealed his frustration with the game industry, despite his amazing early NES score to Solstice and his more recent classic soundtracks such as Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, commenting: "It’s getting to the point now where I’d rather be doing anything other than writing music – anything that pays as much for the same amount of work, that is!" Darn. Follin's last completed project will be Lemmings for PSP, then, and we're sad, too.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Are we bored of end of year awards now? Probably, but let's cast our eye over the final few. Firstly, Eurogamer has been running its Top 50 for the year, with plenty of insightful commentary from the whole crew. The top title was announced today, and even if it's not out til February in Europe, Tim Schafer is likely delighted.

Elsewhere, fellow GSW-er GeekOnStun has released his 2005 Video Game Awards, and there are 5 joint games of the year, all superduperspecial. Oh, and much kudos for awarding Takashi Iizuka of Sonic Team the 'Best Smile Under Difficult Circumstances' - dude, Shadow, ouch.

Finally, we never specifically mentioned here, but a number of GameSetWatch editors and colleagues have posted their Top 3 games of the year over at Gamasutra. Among others, Brandon Sheffield waxes lyrical about obscure homebrew and arcade titles (surprise!), Frank Cifaldi plumps for a few choice cuts, Simon Carless (that's me!) digs on a little Katamari, and Brandon Boyer loves up the neglected Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Japanese-based video game and 'chiptune' music site Vorc has released its 'VGM or Chiptunes of the Year Awards' for 2005, and the Best Record Of The Year goes to the "elegant vocal + NES-pop style" of the previously GameSetWatch-mentioned YMCK and their 'Family Racing' album.

In addition, the Game Boy-utilizing "blip pop" of David E. Sugar gets him the Best Artist Of The Year award, and the ever-reliable 8BitPeoples come away with Label Of The Year. It's also worth reading previous year's round-ups for some perspective, but this year, Vorc editor Hally notes that "the number of chip/lo-fi musicians is rapidly increasing", but some knowledge of the historical chiptune scene is being lost: "[in the] next year or so, 'generation gap' might surface as a key word."

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Having stumbled across the newly launched Gamecrits website, we note that they've just put up a critique/review of free PC indie title Rumble Box, which is an IGF 'Innovation In Design' finalist.

Though waxing overlyrical in spots, there's some useful criticism ("My primary complaint about this title is a mechanical one. It’s difficult to control... The camera swings around, while the controls remain fixed"), before a happy conclusion is reached: "Much like [previously Gamecrits-reviewed title] Rag Doll Kung Fu, this title is an outstanding example of what independent game development can aspire to be. It’s small and simple, while being unique and stylishly executed."

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it's the New Year, but mobile games are getting any less silly. Late in December, Touchlink Mobile released details on its 'College Girls' cellphone game [pixel-ish NSFW], which apparently "proved a great success in Russian market, [and] is coming out in English, Polish, Czech and Greek."

In the game, the player "...has to learn 20 sexual positions... [and] walks around the dormitory, meeting sexy inhabitants, making love to them and they teach him the secrets of sex." Oh, and Robert Mueller, the General Sales Manager of Touchlink Mobile said: “The key factors ensuring the success of College Girls are everlasting demand for adult content and exciting gameplay of the application. Personally I am still having a lot of fun playing this game." We bet you are, Robert.

[Also, Touchlink have an (unintentional?) eye for the hilarious cellphone game title - for example, Trivial Chicken, Forest For Mist, Sphere Rollers.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (70)