Here goes with the first linklog of the NEW REGIME, including such random things as Scottish game biz shenanigans, Kohler waxing lyrical on DS, and fun manuals for putative Introversion masterpieces - read on, dear GSW-er, and be informed:

- This is a bit quirky but cool - Scottishgames.biz has been set up, dealing exclusively with game-related biz issues from the fair region of Scotland. A recent post has student diary updates from the Scottish bits of the DARE To Be Digital game compo. Neat!

- FrankC points out, over on eBay UK, a Nintendo Game Boy dev kit, of which the seller claims: "I know little about this Item except that it originates from Sculptured Software (Who Later Became Probe Software, then Acclaim)". Actually, we think Sculptured was a separate U.S. entity, or something more confusing? Either way, this is a nice hunk of circuitboard.

- A press release from the ever-crazed Shrapnel Games reveals a new band contest (aka cheap soundtrack kthnx!) for the wonderfully named PC title Shady O'Grady's Rising Star, which is "a turn-based musical RPG/Sim for Windows that proves that you can still rock in America, all night, all right" - American Idol-icious! Here's more info on the game.

- Chris Kohler is subbing for Clive Thompson over at the Wired game column, and chats about cooking instruction DS titles, adding this interesting piece of commentary: "As the user base of the DS expands, both in terms of broadening demographics and sheer numbers, I have to wonder whether Japan's game industry will really need super hits for very much longer. That is to say, rather than a one-Mario-fits-all strategy, greater success might come from releasing a wide variety of games that appeal to different kinds of people." Horse... for courses!

- Finally, the nice folks at Introversion sent us a preview version of their next game Defcon today, and, apart from the booklet having the wonderful game promo URL of everybody-dies.com, the manual has some awesome Cold War style art, including the four Introversion-eers dressed up a top military brass, and some totally fun 'instructional' illustrations which are a bit reminiscent of the Portal promo video. Hooray to them for putting the fun back in manuals!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, time for some little changes on GameSetWatch. As some of you may have spotted, I (simonc) have been responsible for just about all of the non-column posts over the past 6 months, and a lot of fun it's been!

Due to my OCD-type nature, I managed to keep going with around 6-8 posts per day, even though I have plenty of other things (like running Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra, the Independent Games Festival and our new websites!) to worry about.

Well, no more - with the IGF ramping up and nothing letting up on the other fronts, I just don't have time to deal with full GSW posts for each new thing I find. However, what I'm going to do is simply revert to linklog stylee - so, in addition to the columns, you'll get a daily linklog wrap-up with text links to the cool stuff we run into online. This has the added bonus of accentuating the columns, which I think are the gems of our coverage anyhow - thanks to our great contributors! So... onward and upward!

[Talking of columns - we want more of them! If you're interested in writing a column about weekly or bi-weekly goings-on and/or your own leveling experiences in your favorite MMO (from World Of Warcraft to FFXI to City Of Heroes and beyond!), or talking about mods, machinima, dojin titles, video game soundtracks, the translation scene or anything else you're passionate about on a regular basis, then contact us and we'll set something up.]

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

[GameSetWatch is extremely proud to debut this first exclusive article from veteran game journalist Joseph 'BUZZ' Berkley. 'BUZZ' really has the measure of today's youth, and his first story for us delves deep into the seamy underworld of the Big N/]

Will Nintendo's Wii be the first home console to feature an Adults Only rated game from a major publisher? And could that publisher be Nintendo itself? Will Mario finally get lucky? The Buzz has the exclusive scoop on this major development.

'Art' Exhibition? Smut Exhibition!

Sources close to The Buzz have revealed that Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto was recently spotted at a Modern Art exhibit which included several paintings, referred to as "classic nude studies", that focused on salacious adult oriented content. When asked why he was attending the exhibit, which included more than one portrait which literally included a woman with no clothes on, the seminal creator of the Mario series replied that he found the artwork "inspiring".

Does this mean that we can expect Super Mario Galaxy, or one of the other upcoming Wii games being worked on by Miyamoto to include Mature Themes? While there has been no official announcement from Nintendo of Japan, the Internet forums are already ablaze in controversy, since the information we have leads us inexorably to this particular conclusion.

Mario's Fall From Grace!

In general, consumers are stunned by the notion that Nintendo, long known for their adherence to a family friendly formula, would suddenly move to include nudity or sexuality, especially in one of their franchise games. Said one forum user, under the handle PwnN00bz15, "It's about time. Nintendo finally realizes that games aren't just for little kids. If the game had some guns it would finally be like Mario for grown-ups."

What's more, another aggravated forum user, OMGpants23, ranted on this shocking development: "I can't believe that Nintendo would do this. I'm deleting all my N64 ROMs immediately, and will also return my GameCube games to GameStop at the earliest opportunity so I can trade in for those Naruto DVDs. Nintendo is irrelevent - and so are you! Pwned!"

Plumber... For Sale?

Sources speculating wildly on the basis of this original report have also intimated that Mario, who is long due a relaunch, is being retooled to be more like one of Miyamoto-san's allegedly favorite game characters - Leisure Suit Larry.

Long a fan of the lovable misadventures of the adult-rated lounge lizard, it's reputed that upcoming additions to the Mario series may include rakishly adjusted hats and salacious Liar's Dice competitions. If our sources are right, expect Mario to be looking for love in ALL the wrong places, come the launch of the Wii!

Of course, none of this is confirmed, but that shouldn't stop you from speculating. But remember, kids - Buzz knows best!

['Berkley's BUZZ' is a regular column from veteran game journo Joseph Berkley, whose illustrious career extends from the formation of Video Game BUZZ Monthly back in 1982 all the way to the founding of seminal teen game mag 'GameBUZZ - For Kids!' in 1992. More recently, he was a regular columnist for much-loved late '90s game mag Big Important Thing, and the author of self-help manual: 'BUZZ Says - Less Drugs, More Games!' His column appears regularly on GameSetWatch, and is rarely actually true.]

Posted by jberkley at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to give out a reminder for the deadline on this GameSetCompetition, in which we were giving away three copies of the PlayStation 2 version of excellent semi-retro compilation Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, but a bunch of you remembered to enter anyhow, yay!

As the official Capcom blurb notes, the game is "...compilation of Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold and Street Fighter Alpha 3... [and] as an added bonus the "pint-sized" Super Gem Fighter MiniMix (released on consoles as Pocket Fighter) is also included." The question was:

"Which noted Street Fighter character was added to the Alpha roster in Street Fighter Alpha II Gold, and was also portrayed by Kylie Minogue in the 'seminal' Street Fighter movie?"

The answer? Cammy, of course! Thanks again to Capcom for providing the games, and for making Street Fighter in the first place, actually. The winners, who are currently 'Doing The Locomotion' with delight, are:

Nicholas Rotondo, Jim Squires, Matt Harper.

[Also, there are still three people who haven't claimed their Metal Gear Saga DVD from a previous GSW competition - if you're on the winners' list and haven't got yours yet, then send us an email, or we'll have to give them to somebody less deserving - ourselves.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jetlagged on my return from China and trying to get back into the swing of things (look for a mini-announcement on GameSetWatch posting frequency soon!), but in the meantime, here's a gem courtesy of Jeremy 'Toastyfrog' Parish - an awesome localization tidbit from the upcoming Grasshopper Manufacture-developed Contact for Nintendo DS.

Yes, the game says: "Try to hit his weakpoint for massive damage", and it's all totally Genji 2 E3 demo, and this has all the makings of a tragically inbred joke that everyone who gets will _adore_. Of course, we're a fan of inbreeding (duhh!), so we like it a lot.

Also, teh Parish adds to the end of his post: "Given the general sense of "Wow I've never heard of this but suddenly I am interested!" that seems to be accompanying links to this image, may I recommend you learn all about the game with the world's greatest Contact preview?" And it is!

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[’Free Play’ is a regular weekly column by Ancil Anthropy about freely downloadable video games, and the people who make them. This week’s column profiles Metanet Software.]

"There are a lot of good games out, but at the same time there is an unsettling trend towards becoming more and more mainstream: to emulate the 'big leagues' of the video game industry. Looking at the music industry, it's depressing when the independent scene becomes a second mainstream." Metanet Software—who supplied the above quote in an interview with The Independent Gaming Source—are developers of freeware games.

Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard, who comprise Metanet, see independent game development as an avenue for innovation and experimentation. Since they "don't owe anything to anyone," they're free to develop games that mainstream development houses might consider too risky or unprofitable.

The ninja is driven not only by a thirst for gold, but also by a physics simulation

"Sometimes you want to play a game that doesn't exist yet. So you make it, and all is well with the world again." Metanet's first release, N, most resembles single-screen action puzzle games like Lode Runner and Puchiwara No Bouken: there is gold to collect, enemies to elude, and an exit to find.

Where N differs is in the mobility of its protagonist. N stars a ninja, and where Lode Runner's stages are dense mazes in which getting from point A to point B is a puzzle, the acrobatics of N lay each stage wide open. The ninja is affected by momentum and inertia, and a measured running start and leap will allow the player to soar from one side of the screen to the other, jump up a wall and slide down the other side.

The obstacles in N are not the walls, which bend to the player's motive abilities, but the octogonal robots that patrol the corridors. There are drones which give chase, turrets that launch missiles, and mines positioned in just the right places for the ninja to brush against them. A brush is all it takes. Fortunately N mitigates the frustration of frequent deaths by animating every death. The explosion will blow the ninja to pieces, a limb might fly across a room, brush another mine, and be propelled back in the opposite direction. The most elaborate physics in the game, according to Raigan, are the ones that animate the ninja's death. Death in N is the game's second pleasure.

The stages that challenge the player are lovely to look at, combining smart two-tone visual design with devious level arrangement. In the course of revising and re-releasing the game, Metanet has created over a thousand stages. Thousands more have been created by players using Ned, the N level editor.

One day robots will reach out to the stars

Currently, Metanet is working on their next game—tentatively titled "Robotology"—developed in OpenGL and C++. Like Umihara Kawase, the protagonist will be able to fire and swing from a wire and use a variety of parkour-like gymnastics to navigate a Phillip K. Dick-inspired future world of robots (some comparable in size to the population of Fumito Ueda's latest release). As with N, a level editor and user-created stages will be an important part of the game.

Finally, be sure to check out...

Freeware Rebellion, a ten-minute documentary on Metanet filmed by Jim Munroe, in which Mare and Raigan talk about freeware, their favorite games, and desktop katamaris.

[Ancil Anthropy is a game developer and space invader. She fills dessgeega.com with lots of good stuff and writes for a bunch of places, including The Gamer’s Quarter and The Independent Gaming Source.]

Posted by dessgeega at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

When I ran into GameTunnel and Reflexive's Russell Carroll at this year's E3, I mentioned that I couldn't find a good RSS feed to get all of the GT goodness at once. Well, ask and ye shall receive, and there's now a GameTunnel uber-RSS feed you can subscribe to to get all updates. Yay!

Thus, I also noticed that the July indie game round-up is up over at GT, and looks like the game of the month is the completely insane shooter Bullet Candy, which " is inspired by Williams classic Robotron, vertical shooters such as Treasure's Ikaruga and Capcom's Gigawing, and Jeff Minter's awesome Llamatron and Tempest 2000."

Carroll grins about the game: "This game is all about the undeniable oneness with your computer that can be had when the formula is done well and this game PULLED it off AMAZINGLY well. There are some cool graphics, especially in Minter mode, but the game is really all about the CONSTANT action that keeps you glued to the screen." Woo!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More from the ChinaJoy game expo in Shanghai, and one of the more notable things about the show was a big booth from Sega, who haven't really been big in the Chinese market to date, but are apparently trying to make a play into it with a site called Segame.com - perhaps a casual portal?

Therefore, there were a bunch of casual PC versions of notable Sega titles available, including (not pictured!) Puyo Puyo and Chu Chu Rocket, but I managed to snap some pics of the following Sega-related fun:

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Just before I left for China, I got a tip from a friend of mine (thanks Jon!) that there was a really inexpensive solution to Xbox 360 wireless connection issues. For those who don't know, the official Xbox 360 wireless adapter is as much as $100, which is a little bit ridiculous.

Well, it turns out that there's an odd third-party product called the Logitech Play Link, which was reviewed by IGN early last year, and "...is an RF Ethernet bridge which allows you to unite console to broadband connection without having to run any foot-tangling wires. The package contains two paired transceivers, two power adaptors, two short Ethernet cables and an installation pamphlet."

The connection works for up to 100 feet, and the Play Link originally cost $100 (!), but there's a large selection of them on eBay for $10 plus shipping now, making it a great way to connect your X360 to your router wirelessly. So, basically - no more leads to trip over, yay!

[As the IGN reviewer notes: "You can transmit data up to 1.5Mbps which, although slower than my wired network, is fine for gaming. I didn't detect any noticeable difference between playing on my wired network and playing through the wireless Play Link connection." Those have also been my experiences so far, though if you have a fast enough downstream or upstream, you might quibble with the Play Link's results.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

I don't cover it in these roundups because of its dirty Britishness, but Retro Gamer (available in a lot of Barnes & Noble stores) has to win some sort of award for Most Improved Game Magazine Ever. I bought the first few issues in 2004, but gave up on it pretty quickly -- not for its British-centric coverage (Jeff Minter was not a pioneer of anything, guys, come on), but because the design was awful and the text read like barely-rewritten stuff found on the web.

Wot a difference a couple years make! After going under and getting bought by a new publisher, Retro Gamer got rid of its pack-in CD and has done a total about-face -- it's now absolutely thrilling to read and the refreshingly innovative design outclasses more than one mainstream US game magazine. I would love to have a mag that's more concentrated on American and Japanese retro-gaming, but regardless, Retro Gamer still deserves a lot more attention from gamers everywhere, not just cheap-ass 8-bit junkies with massive ROM collections. If you haven't seen it, hunt for it.

Getting back to the main subject, click here for a full report on every game magazine that's hit US store shelves over the past two weeks.

Official Xbox Magazine September 2006

Something interesting happened this month which you'd think would be a more common occurrence: two different rags have almost the exact same main feature. In OXM's case, the editors noticed that there's pretty much jack going on in Xbox-land this summer, so this month they decided to appeal to those gamers who read OXM regularly, yet haven't gotten around to upgrading to an Xbox 360 quite yet. (Which I appreciate, to be honest, because I'm one of them. Although, frankly, I'm not buying new games -- I'm snapping up all the ones I didn't get around to the first time for cheap, like Jade Empire.)

So the main feature this month covers 30 games for the original Xbox, headlined by six pages on Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and flanked by LEGO Star Wars II and a bunch of games I really don't care about, like Destroy All Humans! 2 and Knights of the Temple II.

The Disc: Continues the theme by offering "Best of Xbox Volume 1", demos of five old Xbox classics: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Half-Life 2, Mercenaries, LEGO Star Wars, and DoA Ultimate. There's also a demo of Saint's Row -- parents, hide the disc from your kiddies!

Filler-tastic: A six-page feature on custom 360 faceplates, including an interview with a guy who's spent around $4000 collecting rare ones. I'd make fun of him, but, well, I'm typing this in a room with thousands of magazines in it, so...

Play August 2006

In contrast to OXM's look at the future of the original Xbox, Play concentrates on the past with a feature called "X Marked the Spot" that's really right up self-described "Xbox whore" Dave Halverson's alley ("I'm not sure I'm even ready to let go, even after all the times it's reminded me that my disc is dirty or damaged"). He uses it to go over the great hits and misses of the system, from Armed & Dangerous and Voodoo Vince to Galleon and Shrek ("it remains the one and only wall-to-wall bump-mapped Xbox game"). The feature's a lot of quick-to-read snippets of text, and it works well with the usual clean visual style of Play's layout.

Oh, right: The cover is Ultimate Ghouls 'N Ghosts, the last time a PSP game may get the cover of any mag for a while, and the art inside is fantastic, as it is within a follow-up feature on Okami.

Only in Play: Will you find (a) a full-page preview of Snoopy vs the Red Baron that (b) actually makes the game look good. There's also an interview with the head of Artificial Studios, an indy outfit making some sort of anime-ish action game, and the producer of Adult Swim pilot Korgoth of Barbaria, misspelled "Kogarth" on the cover. (If you missed it when it aired two months ago, sucks to be you.)

Game Informer August 2006

Mr. Informer, I have a hot tip for you: stop letting lame games hog up the entire cover just to keep up the "world exclusive" streak. Seriously, there is a ton of cool crap in this issue and the casual bookstore buyer (which, admittedly, you don't have a ton of) wouldn't know about any of it because the cover's always taken up by an anonymous scowling space marine, or U.S. Marine, or space mercenary, or U.S. space mercenary/SEAL/secret agent. Or Batman.

The entire "Connect" section (the news/opinion part of GI) is gold this month, for example. The ESRB article mentioned on the cover is four pages long and features commentary from both sides of the recent ratings controversy, including ESRB head Patricia Vance and anti-violence media group head David Walsh, and it cites all sorts of studies and hearings. It's a superb piece to read and learn from, especially compared to efforts from other mags which largely just make fun of Jack Thompson.

Connect also has bits on state-of-the-art character modeling techniques, "the top 10 design trends" (i.e. motion sensing and microtransactions), machinima, Warner Bros. video game guy Jason Hall, why casual games are the future of gaming, and a pro/con about whether licensed games are good for the industry. It's all well written and backed up with real game-business people and research, and I think it's worth a free GameStop subscription all by itself. In an era when most game mags have kinda given up on "news," GI ought to be lauded for trying to be more in-depth than any other outlet in print or online.

As for the cover: Man, I really don't give a flip about Kane & Lynch. Then again, with a game like this where the screenshots all show situations you've probably played through before in GTA countless times, it's difficult to be very interested in the feature. I think GI's feature style (one long text narrative; sidebars nonexistent) is also a detriment when the game isn't top-tier -- without any pull quotes or sidebars to explain why this particular game is special, it's hard to drum up the effort to actually read the story.

I will conjecture that the "world exclusive" streak may have affected GI's cover negatively this month. Why? Because Turok (the other big feature in this issue) would almost certainly have made a more interesting and unique cover. Everyone knows that a dinosaur on the cover always bumps magazine sales. That and gorillas.

Computer Gaming World August 2006

And speaking of covers, CGW's is brilliant this month, arguably the best of this roundup. The subject matter of most PC games being what it is today, it's pretty rare for a PC games mag to really stick out from the crowd with its cover content. But oh yes, this does. The feature itself, which goes over the grand history of Sam & Max after their game came out in 1993 (including two separate canceled projects), is similarly brill, although it inclues a full-page photo of creator Steve Purcell at the end for no apparent reason (did an advertisement drop out at the last minute?).

Viewpoint: Is the new name of CGW's review section, which has evolved so much over the past couple issues that the reviews aren't really reviews anymore -- they try their best not to be comprehensive, instead commenting on individual bits they enjoyed or hated and occasionally quoting from other people's reviews and even web-forum posts to make a point. It's utterly unique, to be sure, and while the quoting sometimes seems a little forced, it does seem to free up the CGW writer's mind a bit more -- instead of striving to cover every little thing in 600 words, he's more free to just write about whatever the 'ell he feels like without feeling guilty. I'll be interested to see how this style evolves as the staff gets more accustomed to it.

PC Gamer September 2006 (Podcast)

This month's PCG has a little bit on the ESRB too, as well as a piece on Hillary Clinton's new Media Safety Guide (they're pretty soft on it), but as the cover portends, the real meat this month is an eight-page feature on Bioshock that goes into extreme detail on bits overlooked in the Game Informer blowout a few months back.

It's interesting: How different PCG and CGW are these days, after several years where it was getting hard to tell between the two titles. PCG's emphasis these days is still on "the latest," with its cover proudly proclaiming that "online previews told you NOTHING" about Bioshock and the brunt of the mag still devoted to up-to-the-moment reviews and previews. This makes it a bit difficult to point out any individual bit of this month's PCG that non-PC game enthusiasts should watch out for, although the assorted editorials in each genre section are always worth reading. The bit on a 3D mod of StarCraft is also kinda neat.

GamePro August 2006

Oh my, that cover.

But seriously: The contents of this issue are surprisingly hardcore -- there are large roundup features on HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and every next-gen system, including an excerpt from Dean Takahashi's new book on the development of the Xbox 360.

Newsstand editions: Are packed with a copy of Rush City #0, a new title from DC Comics about a firefighter who gets into a coma or something. Nice, but no Sly Cooper.

Innovation in advertising?: There are two ads for Super Dragon Ball Z inside the table of contents and one department of the news section -- the logo, a character from the game, and the word "ADVERTISEMENT", all in a space the size of a business card. Weird.

Game Developer Presents Fall 2006 Game Career Guide

The one-off of the moment this time around is Game Developer's fifth annual career special, filled with features on breaking in, taking classes, and not going to DeVry and making an idiot of yourself. Highlights include a "day in the life" at Neversoft, Ubisoft, and Rockstar San Diego, as well as extensive coverage of student games and how to make one that isn't stupid.

For non-industry dorks: The main draw may be all the help-wanted ads you won't see anywhere else, from outfits like Nintendo, LucasArts, Insomniac Games, and all manner of developers great and small.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He owns enough magazines to smother himself with should the need arise, and his secret fantasy is for someone flush with game-publisher stock options to give him a monthly stipend so he can spend a year researching their full history and finishing the site. In his "off" time he is an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Continuing the updates from the ChinaJoy game expo in Shanghai, when we had a chance to look around the show yesterday, we spotted a number of Western MMOs which had been licensed to the territory, and so appeared in some form.

Obviously, we've already covered World Of Warcraft, but here are a couple of other neat ones:

[BTW, if you think it looks a bit quiet in those pictures - don't worry, it was just after opening on the first day for ChinaJoy, for the period of time when the show was just open to trade visitors. After they opened the doors to the hordes of public, it got a whole lot more crazy!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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So, as you might have heard, Blizzard's World Of Warcraft is the biggest MMO in China right now. You may have even heard that WoW-related imagery has appeared on Coke cans and bottles in China, alongside some great TV ads promoting the team-up.

But even so, it was surprising to go to the ChinaJoy game show today in Shanghai and see basically an entire hall dedicated to a tie-in between the soft drinks giant and Blizzard/The9.

So we took a few choice pictures, as follows (and apologies for lack of specificity on captions, I'm a little vague on WoW races and don't want to get flamed into oblivion for getting any wrong!):

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

['Compilation Catalog' is a regular biweekly analysis of retro remakes and compilations old and new. This entry's subject is Capcom Classics Collection Remixed, released this year for Sony's PSP.]

Capcom has been releasing compilations of their 8- and 16-bit arcade games since the 32-bit years with the import-only Capcom Generations packages, though since that time the company has stuck to giving the retro treatment to a very specific set of their hits. The Ghosts n' Goblins series, the series of shooters beginning with 1942, Commando and a couple of close relatives, Final Fight, and the Street Fighter II series have all seen multiple releases on multiple platforms since then, but many of Capcom's well-loved - though perhaps less-successful - titles have languished. Thankfully, this compilation seems to signal a change in the wind.

Capcom Classics Collection Remixed brings together 20 titles that were released for several of Capcom's custom arcade boards, up to and including their wildly successful Capcom Play System hardware. Several of the titles (most notably Final Fight, Forgotten Worlds, and Strider) have received well-respected home ports in the past, and while they are in perfect form here, the true stars here are the long-neglected titles that have rarely or never been seen at home. Black Tiger is an extremely well-crafted platformer that was scheduled for NES release at one time, but never made it out.

The fast-action dungeon-platformer Magic Sword received a SNES port once upon a time, but it's a relief to finally see it preserved in proper form here. The three-game compilation Three Wonders may seem like an oddball grab bag at first, but it includes some of the prettiest visuals in this package, and the run n' gun Midnight Warriors is strongly reminiscent of Treasure's Gunstar Heroes (which it preceded by two years). And despite three separate rereleases of 1942, 1943, and 1943 Kai, the nicely polished fan favorite 1941 hasn't made it home since it came out for NEC's ill-fated SuperGrafx console - until now.

Along with the cult classics, there are some oddballs that are so obscure that even if they were denied home release indefinitely, Capcom might be forgiven for not taking the risk with them. Quiz & Dragons is a fantasy-themed, uh, trivia game, that incorporates a few RPG elements and has a body of questions that draw heavily on '80s and early-'90s pop culture. The references to TV shows of the era are especially difficult these days, though the game's no slouch when it comes to questions about anatomy or history.

The Speed Rumbler, Avengers, and Last Duel are three odd little top-down, vertically-oriented action games, each with fairly original (and often strange) mechanics. Block Block is a Breakout clone, but it's polished and well-made, and seems to be one of the better examples of a well-trod genre. And Varth is a very tough, very long vertical shooter, with thirty (!) levels and excellent art design.

Capcom's development for NES often involved the practice of adapting arcade releases with significantly different level layouts, graphic styles, and even different gameplay. Also preserved here are three examples of arcade games that received well-known NES treatments: Section Z, Legendary Wings, and Bionic Commando. Some might argue that the NES versions of these games are better remembered because they're simply better games, but the games' presence here means that the curious can find out for themselves.

Even those titles that have been around the bend consolewise are in excellent form here. Forgotten Worlds includes some interesting approaches to adapting its uncommon rotary controller's firing scheme to PSP controls. One involves using the face buttons to approximate a second D-pad, while the other has the player turn the PSP upside-down so that the analog nub can be used to fire in any direction and the face buttons used to move the player. The well-loved beat 'em up Captain Commando is in perfect form here, after an unflattering SNES port and a now-rare and expensive showing on the Japanese Playstation.

The horizontal shooter Side Arms may have fared well on the TurboGrafx-16, but it's nice to see all of its animation restored. Mega Twins, a platformer that's almost a spiritual successor to Black Tiger makes it home here without compromise for the first time, even after a few ports back in the 16-bit days. This likely marks the first perfect port Final Fight has ever received (discounting the resolution-challenged version in the console Classics), and Strider finally gets to stretch out into its native aspect ratio. The old-and-moldy Street Fighter makes a token appearance here, too, though it's not much more than a curiosity these days.

The package uses a notebook-themed menuing system that's very similar to what was seen in the multiplatform Capcom Classics Collection. There are unlockable tips, artwork, and music for each game, and each includes a short description linking it to its time and to Capcom's history. It's clear that great care was taken with how each game is presented, as there are multiple video and control modes available for each game. Most games can be displayed at native or stretched resolutions, and every game that used a vertically-oriented monitor in the arcade has an option to be displayed vertically, with controls automatically rotated to suit the orientation. All of these settings are automatically saved and maintained, so there's little to fuss with as far as configuration goes.

And speaking of aspect ratio: games on the CPS hardware used a resolution that put them very close to a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means they fit the PSP's screen particularly nicely, even without stretching turned on. The only real technical problems present mostly seem to be due to issues with the PSP hardware itself. Starting any given game involves around fifteen seconds of loading, and return to the menu screen takes nearly as long. There's some of the PSP's infamous ghosting present here and there, though it's mostly limited to games that use a lot of black in their backdrops. Overall, though, emulation-workhorse developer Digital Eclipse has turned out a very polished product here.

This collection does more than previous Capcom retro-releases to illustrate the consistency of graphical and musical style, as well as some consistently great gameplay, that was present across nearly a decade worth of Capcom's arcade releases. Many of the games here share gameplay elements, shading styles, and other bits and pieces - like the way a key or treasure chest might be drawn, and the ubiquitous "zenny" currency - that link them across the years despite a lack of any sort of franchise links.

It's this consistency that really helped establish a name for the company's in-house development. And even though this collection is full of what might seem to be considered B- or C-list releases, there's more sheer quality and genuine love of the medium to be found here than in compilations brought from the dusty corners of many other software houses.

[Trevor Wilson is a web developer and amateur game developer who indulges his unhealthy obsession with obscure, strange, and unique video games over at his weblog, namako team.]

Posted by trevorw at 1:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over at the VORC chiptune resource, they have some excellent new info about a fun compilation from a Japanese hentai game musician.

It's explained: "Takahiro Yonemura aka Chemool is a Japanese hentai game music composer who is known with Comic Party, Steam Hearts, Advanced Variable Geo etc. He'll release a new PC-8801 music disk for the first time in a decade at upcoming Comic Market 70: Japan's biggest exhibition and sale for hobby productions."

What's more: "The disk includes various FM synth tracks made with PMD + the Sound Board II since 1998, and maybe some guest's works. Available as 5"25 floppy disks as well as CD-Rs featuring bonus recordings from the PC-8801. Overseas distribution is not planned." Any release in this day and age which comes with 5 and a quarter inch floppy disks is good with us!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, the folks over at Second Life have announced a movie trailer contest, in which the Linden Lab chaps "need your help to create the ultimate movie trailer to show off the best of Second Life".

It's explained: "For this installment of the Second Movie trailer contest we're going to do things a bit differently. We've broken down the contest into six distinct categories that highlight some of the most popular activities in Second Life: Love and Romance, Gaming, Action/Adventure, Music, Fashion and Design, RL Research and Education, Building in Second Life, Social Networking in Second Life." Where does the furry diaper club factor into that, again?

Also noted: " Your movie trailer should revolve around one of these categories and prominently feature at least two new features introduced in Second Life within the last year. These could include: Hardware Lighting, Flexible Objects, FollowCam, HUD Attachments, Ripple Water." Prizes are in Linden dollars, so huzzah!

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few more updates from Shanghai, and the first is an update on something you might already have heard hinted at, but didn't realize the extent - there's really quite a lot of Xbox 360 game piracy out here in China.

Supposedly, there's only a limited amount of games available thus far, but we saw "at least one vendor offering Xbox 360 titles such as Hitman: Blood Money for around 30 Chinese yuan ($3.50)." As noted: "This development has occurred after an incident in March 2006, in which hackers managed to flash changes to the BIOS on the Xbox 360's Optical Disc Drive which allowed non-authenticated (copied) games to be played. Further information on the hack surfaced in late May, when other parties appear to have released a public version of the exploit." Baaad news from Microsoft, this is.

Also published - a longer feature looking at the Chinese console outsourcing biz, which is just starting to take off. As noted: "The top companies located in Shanghai can produce art assets, programming elements, and even entire console game projects at a cost significantly below that of Western titles." Games such as Midway Arcade Treasures 3 and the PSP title Street Riders were done entirely in China at a fraction of the cost of Western development. Hopefully this won't mean job losses for Western developers in the long-term.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[The 'Game Rag Slapdown' is an exclusive bi-weekly Thursday feature written by The Game Rag's Nathan Smart that's always video game related, sometimes funny ha ha, but mostly funny hee hee (and sometimes funny, period). This week, Nathan apologizes to G4TV.]

<== Here is what this apology references ==>

Dear G4TV,

I just wanted to take this time to apologize for publishing a series of articles in which one of my writers watches your channel for 24 hours and then talks about what he experienced while watching.

This is truly unacceptable. I know that one of the bullet points of your mission statement is to "get rid of viewers" and with this article we have stopped that with a bullet point proof vest. I have talked with the writer and he is being promptly promoted to Features Editor as punishment for this journalistic crime. He will now have more work than ever and your staff, more than anyone, knows how much it sucks to have to work.

When he first approached me with the idea I said no right away. I had told him that you guys didn't like people watching their shows but he went ahead and did it against my wishes. When I read it, I felt I had to publish it. If anything I thought that maybe it would do your viewers good and turn them away, thus, fulfilling your mission statement.* What I didn't realize is that you don't even want ONE person watching - even for the greater good!

This is why I, Nathan Smart, applaud you. You don't subscribe to the 'mix in a little bit of evil with the good' philosophy and that's commendable. You stick to your guns. You shoot from the hip. You keep it real. You're the man now dog. You are.

So, again, I say, "I'm sorry." I apologize for boosting your ratings by one. I'll be keeping a steady hand over my writer stable from now on. Anyone steps out of line... *SMACK* "You lose all the money you made today!"** Thanks again for voicing your concerns and then deleting them like you never said them. I appreciate the taken back criticism.

*Am I supposed to put a comma after 'thus?'
**That is what I would say to them because I treat my writers like whores.

[Nathan Smart is a fake news writer for The Game Rag and really enjoys the benefits of it (no facts, no research, no real interviews). He also does Bobby McFerrin versions of indie rock songs with his one man group Indie Blockedappella. He thinks things are funny.]

Posted by nathansmart at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Rake in the Grass Games has released a demo of their latest project, Styrateg. A turn-based fantasy RPG, Stryateg is certainly not breaking any phenomenally new ground, but if it's recovering old territory, at least it's doing it well enough.

With your standard Elf/Warrior/Dwarf/Magic User loadout, Styrateg puts you in a mildly generic mythic kingdom with a standard "fight the evil" storyline. The dialogue is peppered with poor english, but the point gets across: kill the monsters. Whether or not the story develops from there is unknown: the downloadable demo limits you to a set number of turns.

These turns are governed by action points, in which you can plot a course for one of your handful of controllable characters (you get backup,) make attacks, use items, and so on. Like I said, nothing new, but it seems like it could be a good way to kill a weekend. To be honest, though, I expected more from the creators of the absolutely stellar (and pragmatically named) Jets N' Guns.

Posted by chasem at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though the ChinaJoy game expo doesn't start for another day or so, I'm out here in Shanghai meeting with a number of local companies, and the fruits of my labor are up at Gamasutra.

Specifically, there's two write-ups so far - 'The State Of The China Game Biz - Part 1', in which I give an overview, and also comment: "On the way to my hotel from the airport, it's clear that Shanghai is the in the midst of a significant boom - massive new multi-level apartment buildings in various stages of construction dotted the side of the road on the way from the Pudong Airport. And, even though the roads were populated with a combination of souped-up BMWs and trucks containing pigs or watermelons, the amount of tech companies setting up in the industrial parks along the way showed this is, in many ways, a rising force."

There's also 'What Chinese Gamers Look For In MMOs', in which lots of fun insight from Radiance's Monte Singman (my old boss at Infogrames!) is relayed: "As for the graphical sophistication of Chinese MMOs, especially in a post-World Of Warcraft market, the stereotype that the Chinese are happy to play purely 2D titles is going away - Singman noted: "Pretty soon in China 2D games are going to be history, just like in the U.S."... In addition, it was noted: "PK is almost a must for Chinese MMORPGs" - definitely not the case for the North American or even the Japanese market, where player killing is not a major factor in an MMO game's success."

[I've also been taking some pictures, but since ChinaJoy hasn't started yet, most of them aren't relevant to games - though there is a tragic picture of a closed-down 'Sega World' arcade, as well as a billboard for a racy Chinese MMO to tide you over for now.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Matthew over at Fun Motion has posted about a new physics game by Rag Doll Software called Rocky the Monkey.

Much like the physics-engine bubble baubles that had you dragging a scantily clad woman (or in one variant, George W. Bush) through a field of randomly generated orbs, Rocky the Monkey has you put in charge of the spunky, stick-figure monkey armed with a pixelated grappling hook.

The objective, instead of falling lazily through bubbles with realtime ragdoll physics, is to make your way up them, climbing as high as you can while a vicious tide of water rises beneath you. Collect bananas to fill your "banana bar" (a timer) and keep going up. That's it. It never ends, and it never gets old. Expect some finger cramps, however. The games WASD controls coupled with mouse clicks will have your hands working overtime to keep Rocky afloat.

I love that little monkey.

Posted by chasem at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[‘Letters from the Metaverse’ is a regular weekly column by Mathew Kumar about his adventures in the massively multiplayer online world of Second Life. This week’s column covers gaming in Second Life.]

Last week when I left you I was in Yadni’s Junkyard, trying to make head or tails of the system of ‘animation overrides’ that is required to change your animations from the unbelievably terrible defaults set by Linden Labs.

I've given up. While yes, buying a box of animations is easy enough (point and click!) And viewing said animations is easy enough (point and click!) Actually overriding the animations seems to either involve coding, or using someone else’s animation override system. Of the two I found on offer (for free, admittedly) in Yadni’s Junkyard, one came with a help file which said “It’s open source, work it out yourself” (really!) and the other, it seems, expected you to be familiar with the other! So, looks like I’m stuck jerking my way around the world of Second Life for some time yet.

But enough about that. Really, the past few weeks I haven’t managed to prove to anyone, least of all myself, that Second Life is much more than a glorified chat room, with a dress-up doll attached, for players who don’t want to get their hands dirty with coding. As the voracious kind of gamer that reads Gamesetwatch, I imagine you’re simply chomping at the bit to find out what opportunities there are for real ‘game’ experiences in the world.

Well, I decided to go and find the most obvious and popular game experience in the world, Tringo. Already discussed on these hallowed pages by SimonC (who linked to a nice article at Wired) Tringo is a kind of competitive Tetris/bingo. Flying over to creator Kermitt Quirk’s island (“The Home of Tringo”) I found absolutely no one there that was interested in playing. Luckily, however, I could see one of Kermitt’s neighbours was in her house, and in traditional RPG manner I just barged in without knocking and rifled through her stuff, by which I mean I asked her nicely if she knew where I could play Tringo. She let me know the ‘hot’ place to play was Ice Dragon’s Playpen, and finding there was a Tringo event running, I dashed off to get involved.

Tringo can initially be bewildering. You have to find a space to sit and click the board to receive your game card, and as soon as the game master decides the game begins. Your game card is an in-game object on which you can see your 5x5 game board, score and the next piece to be played, and during the game all players must place the pieces on their board to make rectangles of 2x2, 2x3 or 3x3 for points. As all players receive the same pieces the strategy really is about maximising your score through your arrangement, rather than speed. I mucked my first game up completely, uncomfortable with the way in which I interacted with the game board in the world, but with my second game I managed to come second.

Tringo is not *exactly* a gambling game – it’s free to play but you can choose to donate to the pot and it’s this aspect, that you’re competing for as tangible a prize as is possible in the virtual world, that makes Tringo so thrilling. When playing for a pots of over $500 Linden (equivalent to a dollar) it had the same kind of addictive, one more go thrill of cash-prize online poker. I found myself playing for hours simply to try and win one game. Alas, I still haven’t yet.

The strangest thing about Tringo, and perhaps its flaw, is that taken in isolation it’s actually quite boring. You can play it online here, but playing for points alone just isn’t the same as playing for prizes, and the utter lack of coverage for the solo play GBA port perhaps hammers this home.

It’s going to be hard to tear myself away from Tringo, particularly with the idea that I could start to actually make money with it, akin to those who play online poker as a career. However, the more I play it, the less I’m sure I’m enjoying it!

NEXT WEEK: SimonC checks my character into a Second Life Rehabilitation Centre to get me over my Tringo addiction.

[Mathew Kumar is a freelance journalist who’s dabbled in MMORPGs, but is too cheap/strong willed to play past a free trial. He got his break with Insert Credit, and his work has been featured in publications as diverse as The Globe and Mail, Plan B magazine and Eurogamer.]

Posted by mathewk at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tim at The Independent Gaming Source has a post up beckoning us to try out a new puzzle game called Poyo. Made in under a month using Game Maker, Poyo is the brainchild of Lazrael, an active member of the Game Maker community.

The game is simplistic, hearkening to the days of Dig Dug and Lode Runner, with the character possessing the means only to run, jump and warp. Still, Poyo can be punishing at times, and for a game coming out of nowhere, feels like it will stand the test of time.

Though I don't know if agree with Tim's likening of the game to such heavy-hitters as Cave Story, it's a solid indie offering and a great way to kill some time.

Posted by chasem at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Pocket Gamer, a UK-based mobile games site, has gotten word of mobile publisher Gameloft's latest offering: a simulation/dating game based around the television series The O.C.

Apparently after the success of Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest, Gameloft realized a branded sim game could do well in today's market. As you take control of the windswept and/or glistening girls and boys of one of TV's most popular dramas, we'll see if this theory holds true.

Date, fight, offer items, drive, and play host to a sweeping wave of self-pity as you realize you're playing a game based on a teen drama...on your cell phone. Gameloft assures that the character customization and bounty of minigames will make this a must-have, but personally I'm holding out for a Twin Peaks game tie-in.

Posted by chasem at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[Our Blazing Destiny is a weekly comic by Jonathan "Persona" Kim about our society, cultural postdialectic theory, and video games. And about the indigenous people of Japan fighting in fictious historic battles against highly fictionalized historic icons.]

"I've been playing Samurai Spirits: Tenkaichi Kenkakuden and my thoughts remained on the dramas of the cute mascot sisters of the Samurai Showdown series: Nakoruru and Rimururu.

You know, considering that Samurai Showdown takes place sometime during the 18th century, I guess it's kind of odd for them all to be sitting around a kotatsu in the middle of summer. And for Rera to want five American dollars. ANACHRONISTIC SLIP!!"

[Jonathan "Persona" Kim is sometimes a character animation student at the California Institute of the Arts, other times a ninja illustrator, but in his heart, a true comic artist looking for his destiny in the sea of stars. His path on the torrid road of comics include a quarterly manga on The Gamer's Quarter and his website on the awesome collective, Mechafetus.com. Visit and take a look at the new Oekaki board!]

Posted by persona at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Gus at Looky Touchy has a link to a post over at The Wiire, a site devoted to the Nintendo Wii, about an upcoming title, HeROes.

Produced by Suda 51, aka Goichi Suda, of Killer 7 fame, the game sports the distinctive art style that had pundits postulating on "games as art," though it appears to sport a slightly less demented storyline and substantially more ultra-violence.

Though the links seem missing out of the Looky Touchy post, I managed to dig up a video over at The Wiire, or peep the whole directory here for more options.

The trailers look incredible, and will rumble your subs with gunfire aplenty. Try to ignore the characters when they talk, though. The dialogue is cheesy and poorly done and hopefully just filler for the trailers. With Killer 7 not exactly faring fantastically at the checkout counter, let's see if the guys at Grasshopper Manufacture and Capcom can drop something a little less...esoteric on us come Wii season.

Posted by chasem at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

['Parallax Memories' is a regular weekly column by Matthew Williamson, profiling classic '16-bit' games from the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and other seminal '90s systems. This week's column profiles Sega's accessory: The 32X]

The 32-bit Promise

The 32X is the reason that I lost faith in Sega. As a kid, I was jealous of my friend's Master System and its superior graphics. A little older and able to make my own purchasing decisions, I was an early adopter of the Genesis and Game Gear, which I proudly tauted as the best possible systems in their respective fields (even though I had to carry around an adapter for the Game Gear). The Sega CD was a little too much for me, and after playing a few games of Sewer Shark at a friend's house, my desire to own one waned. The 32X, on the other hand, got me excited.

The 32X was the first console add-on that fundamentally changed a console into something else. Unlike the CD add-on, which only expanded the current possibilities of the system, the 32X actually altered what the Genesis was capable of. The original system was only capable of 64 colors on screen (although a few games had some programming trickery which gave the appearance of more), yet the 32X promised over 32,000. The processor was also truly 32-bit with onboard scaling, rotation, and 3-D capabilities that were previously impossible.

What Went Wrong?

Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama started the cartridge-based 32X project (originally titled Project Jupiter) . But Sega found that a CD-based system was more viable, and the production of the 32X was moved to the United States along with some of Sega of Japan’s engineers. SOJ continued independently with Project Saturn, the CD-based 32-bit system that would become the Playstation’s main competition.

In order to meet the promised release date of Christmas 1994, the 32X was released with the hardware availability well below initial demand (much as the PS2 and X360 would be in later years). Games were cut down and scaled back to get them out on time. Levels were cut and game-crashing bugs were left unresolved. On top of that, many systems had compatibility problems or were just plain faulty. Though initially popular and surrounded with hype, the console proved to be a major failure.

A Quick Death

Unlike NEC’s console, the 32X did not thrive in any environment. There was only one region-exclusive game for the console in Japan (Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV). And the Saturn—which had superior hardware and software—had already been released in Japan by the time the 32X was available. In the United States, it debuted only six months after the United States release of the 32X.

Sega promised to support the 32X despite the release of the Saturn. But it was a lie. In less than two years, the final game for the 32X was released; the system never even had a “killer app” to justify its price. The system quietly died after being lampooned time and time again by the major gaming news outlets. All the goodwill that Sega had built up with me on the Genesis was in ruin after the 32X. I like to think that the Saturn's steady decline was a direct result of the 32X’s antics. I know it’s why I never purchased a Saturn until just two years ago.

[Matthew Williamson is the creator of The Gamer’s Quarter, an independent videogame magazine focusing on first person writing. His work has been featured on MTV.com, 1up.com, Chatterbox Radio, and the Fatpixels Radio Podcast.]

Posted by Matthew Williamson at 3:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Scott Rettberg over at Grand Text Auto (A group blog about digital narrative, games, poetry, and art,) has posted a new entry about guest-editing a just-released issue of the Iowa Review Web focused on the ways that different forms of new media writing reconfigure concepts of place and space.

More to the point, this issue of the Web is a who's-who of Grand Text Auto posters, with an interview with Nick Montfort on his interactive dramaBook and Volume, as well as an interview with Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern on their IF game Façade.

To see what all the fuss is about, check out Interactivestory.net, the home of Façade, and also check out the Book and Volume homepage for a taste of some new interactive fiction.

Posted by chasem at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got a note from the ever-geeked Christian Nutt over at Future's GamesRadar, and we, indeed haven't linked them in a while, so here's what he said:

"Thought you might want to check out this feature we've done at GamesRadar, our first big elaborate one really. It's called "Top ten years in videogame history" and covers the entire history of games... selecting the best ten years of games from the gamer's perspective. We took in PC, console, arcade and handheld releases and judged each year, narrowing it down to ten, and then writing up our reasoning behind it."

I would cite some suitable witticisms from it, but the hotel Internet connection out there in China is actually on the terrible side, so you'll just have to make do with the above link for the meantime - and thanks to ChaseM for helping me out by posting in my semi-absence.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

GameSetWatch is no stranger to "3DO kid's" blog, an entirely readable retro blog that seeks to chronicle the misadventures of the nigh-forgotten console.

The latest entry, about the space shooter Starblade, is bursting with praise for one of the fallen console's greatest hits:

"For ten minutes this deep space epic over shadowed the freedom of Elite and the story line of Wing Commander. For a moment the awesome spectacle that is Starblade dwarfed its nearest rivals absolutely. With its scale, its sense of reality, its wonderment, its incredible power and its tribute to the technology of its time. For a moment Starblade showed you exactly what you wanted. What you hoped. What you dreamt games like Privateer would be like but never were."

Whether or not you owned a 3DO, this is one of the most engaging reads on the game-blog scene today.

Posted by chasem at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[’Free Play’ is a regular weekly column by Ancil Anthropy about freely downloadable video games, and the people who make them. This week’s column profiles d_of_i.]

Most of the games on d_of_i's website were originally blog posts, physics toys created in Processing, a Java-based programming environment aimed at non-coders, but the blog entries were so frequently linked that they ended up on d_of_i's frontpage. d_of_i's creations, which now include Flash- and Windows-based games, revolve around a set of physical laws which the player must learn to manipulate. Some of them are just toys, sandboxes where the player is free to tinker with the rules and pieces endlessly.

Sand sand sand

World of Sand may be d_of_i's most impressive toy, a literal sandbox. Sand and water, salt and oil pour from the sky, and the player can use the mouse to draw walls, creating containers, fountains, mixing pots. The substances all interact in different ways—plants grow when exposed to water, burn when exposed to fire. Oil will ignite if it catches flame.

Being a toy, it has no real goal—you just tinker with it as much or as little as you like. More game-like variants exist: slay slugs with salt or extinguish fire with sand. Similiar is War of the Hell, where the player dangles a rope that tiny, damned stickpeople grab onto, and swinging your mouse will toss them up towards heaven (the top of the screen). Later, d_of_i combined the game with World of Sand to produce Hell of Sand.

Other Java-based games worth playing include Rolling Omusubi, a game about a spinning rice ball's journey home, and its more interesting sequel in which the rice treat swings from its nori wrapping like Umihara Kawase. X Snow Cats is a kitten bobsled race—the Z and X keys are used to make the player's cat turn in mid-air, executing flips and backflips for points.

Neko neko neko

In addition to blog-posted browser games, d_of_i has also released a few downloadable games for Windows. In Cannon Cat, the titular kitten uses a mounted gun to propel itself through polygonal caverns while fighting giant sprite enemies. The mouse is used to aim and fire—shooting backwards will propel the kitten forward. The goal is to get the cat to the rightmost end of the cave before the time limit expires, but the exit usually won't open until all the enemies have been defeated—also with the cannon, backfire still applies.

The same cast of monsters makes an appearance in Magic Puppet (guide to downloading from Vector for non-Japanese readers), but in this game they have to be hacked up with sword slashes and magic attacks. The player controls a wooden puppet that can change its size by consuming mushrooms, and explode into pieces as a special attack.

Finally, be sure to check out...

Egg Way is a short but tricky game that asks the player to use the drawing mechanic of the sand games to guide an egg into a frying pan.

[Ancil Anthropy is a game developer and space invader. She fills dessgeega.com with lots of good stuff and writes for a bunch of places, including The Gamer’s Quarter and The Independent Gaming Source.]

Posted by dessgeega at 3:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Poking around on Kevin Gifford's magazine history website Magweasel, we noticed a bunch of cover scans from PC Accelerator, and one in particular caught our eye.

Yep, the cover is for 'Quake II killers', from the first ever September 1998 issue of the mag, and the contenders are Daikatana (uh, not so much!), Duke4ever (well, maybe, but more of a Quake V contender!), and Klingon Honor Guard, which I didn't even recall actually existed. Still, it's actually a fun cover, and isn't the babe-heavy stylings of the mag's later run.

If you want to check out some of the other covers from one of the edgier titles in U.S. game mag history, you can search for 'pcxl' in the search box - the likely most ridiculous one is this cover, for '69 hot new games', with an unimpressed, semi-undressed significant other.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

A mysterious wizard by the name of Cendamos has set up his homepage of Nintendo debug goodness, and lo, it was actually pretty interesting.

For example, there's a page on playing as 'Dark Link' in Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time - all a bit scary! And too: "As an added bonus, I even created a Play as Kafei code for MM (USA Release)... go to Clocktown's main street at 6 AM and press L when you see Kafei!" Also, there's a Stalfos House code, fun.

The other bits of goodness are various hidden code-unlocked debug rooms - for Metroid Fusion, and a Wario Land 4 GBA debug, plus Kirby for GBA, heh. [Via Jiji.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, you may see non-column updates on GSW run a little slow over the next few days (though I'm queuing ahead a few posts right now!), since I'm off to Shanghai for the ChinaJoy game expo. We'll also be meeting with Chinese game companies to understand the region better and help shape the CMP Game Group's editorial plans there.

However, I'll be posting regular 'State Of China' articles on the show and what's happening in the Chinese game biz over at Gamasutra, and I'm also going to try to upload additional comments and perhaps some pictures, here on GameSetWatch.

Also, I'll try to get some pics of the cosplay contest and other game-related goings-on in Shanghai, since we don't see much Western game press coverage of that scene right now. In the meantime, enjoy the 'normal' GSW programming.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, the UK has resurrected the wonderful sci-fi series Dr.Who (second series just ended in the UK, first series has been running on Sci-Fi in the U.S.), and the "mysterious time-travelling adventurer known only as "The Doctor", who explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil" has spawned a new webpage on the BBC site.

The game involves robot dog sidekick K-9, who recently made a re-appearance (to much fanboy frothing!) in the second series of the new Dr. Who, and the game is a keyboard-controlled Flash action game where you need to help destroy The Doctor's enemies - yay.

Oh - one good quote from the Wikipedia entry on K-9: "All the K-9s referred to whoever owned them as "Master" or "Mistress" depending on their gender. The units were programmed to be both loyal and logical, with a penchant for taking orders literally, almost to a fault. The Fourth Doctor would often use a glib remark to disarm those who were surprised by K-9's appearance; in The Stones of Blood he said, "They're all the rage in Trenton, New Jersey."" [Via Aderack.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May have been around a while, but the folks at EvilAvatar have made me see the light - they pointed out the guide to Jeff Minter's X360 visualizer secrets, some of which I had no idea about.

It's explained: "Jeff Minter creator of the music visualizations available in the Xbox 360, has a guide up on his Llamasoft site that explains how to make the most of the visualization program. Did you know that each of the 4 controllers on the 360 affects the effects of the music visualizations differently?"

And yes, there is a section about the 'Psychedelia and Boingy' effects available on Controller 3, and includes the Yakkiest sentence ever: "If possible use a nice gentle piece of music to practice to, so that Boingy is mostly in a small flower-shape in the middle of the effect. I've got some Tangerine Dream playing through Neon right now as I'm making these notes, and it's just lovely."

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at Siliconera, they've got an interview with Atlus' Tomm Hulett about DS title Contact, as created by Suda51's company Grasshopper Manufacture, and previously mentioned on GSW.

Hulett hasn't actually played the game (which is created by Akira Ueda, currently working on a sequel), in that much detail yet, has just translated it, heh, but has some notable words on why the U.S. might dig the title more than Japan: "I’m not sure why it didn’t do well in Japan, though I do suspect its release just before the highly anticipated Mother 3 had something to do with it. However, Contact’s US release will be the only wackiness infusion American Earthbound fans get for a while, so we can at least corner that demographic."

He adds: "I also think most of the DS users in this country are still gamers (as opposed to Japan, where a large majority are non-gamers), so there should be more people who will appreciate the humor featured in Contact. Which isn’t to say non-gamers won’t enjoy Contact; they totally would. They should go preorder it RIGHT NOW." So, covering all bases, then!

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

Over at casual site GameZebo, they've added a neat interview with Kenny Dinkin of PlayFirst, chatting to the producer at the California-headquartered casual game publisher/developer.

The most interesting part of the interview, for me, is the fact that the sequel to the Gamelab-developed casual game smash hit Diner Dash (PlayFirst's major slamdunk thus far!) wasn't actually done by Gamelab: "We were really lucky to partner with Gamelab on the first Diner Dash game, so the foundation for a great franchise was built when we took on doing the next one internally at our PlayFirst studio." In fact, it sounds like Gamelab didn't retain any of the IP to Diner Dash - not something I'm very used to when it comes to casual games - but not completely crazy, or anything. Just... surprising..

Dinkin has some great comments on some of the best casual game makers, too: "I respect what Patrick Wylie at Big Fish has done with the Mystery Case Files series. There's an attention to narrative immersion, and of course a really compelling (but simple and accessible) mechanic there. I also admire the games that are coming out of Sandlot Games. Tradewinds is a personal favorite."

He ends: " Mostly, I like to see developers that are taking new risks on gameplay and narrative - whether it's games like Q-Beez 2 or Fish Tycoon. Best of all, we have seen some amazing concepts from small indie developers, both from within the PlayFirst circle and from new groups. Check out Professor Fizzwizzle or Pirate Poppers to see what I mean."

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

   

For a magazine collector, there few greater challenges than trying to collect all the assorted mags and one-offs with the Game Players name on them. Why? Complexity. Signal Research (the Greensboro, NC-based publisher behind the Game Players name) was the first company to get a Nintendo-specific magazine out on newsstands in the summer of 1988 -- Nintendo Power was still subscription-only at the time, and the other mags were still a few months or so away. They tried to make the Game Players name a universal brand for kids, and along those lines they put out a dizzying array of magazines, specials, books, videotapes, and other merchandise.

The resulting output dwarfs that of any other publisher at the time, and yet the early era of Game Players titles (up to around 1995) is really, really hard to find nowadays. Looking at the mags today, the reason behind this is pretty easy to deduct -- the paper's cheap, the visual design is boring, and the screenshots are tiny and lack detail. About the only thing GP had going for it was that it (a) covered unlicensed games aggressively (b) wasn't afraid to spoil endings in strategy guides, which sounds evil but was really a breath of fresh air considering how hard a lot of NES games were.

Myself, I'm at the point where I only have a few holes to fill before completing my collection (with the exception of their PC games magazine), and that took me a couple of years and more money than I'd like to admit. If you'd like to try collecting them yourself, here's a quick tour of what to look for. (Click through to read the full column.)

Signal Research was founded in 1988 by Robert Lock, the former publisher of COMPUTE!, who set up the outfit in the same town as his old company. Game Players was the flagship title of the outfit, and much like early issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly, it was heavily text-oriented with only a few screenshots and other art. This gave it an extremely bland look that was improved upon only slightly in later issues, making it look outdated compared to the competition in 1991. This led to the curious situation of Game Players (the alleged flagship magazine) being outsold by its Nintendo sub-magazine, Game Players Nintendo Guide.

   

Nintendo Guide got its start in 1988 with two separate titles: Game Player's Nintendo Buyer's Guide, and Game Player's Nintendo Strategy Guide. The exact timeline of these publications is sketchy, as publishing dates generally do not appear in Signal magazines until late 1989. However, judging by advertisements and editorial coverage, it seems that Signal began with a one-off Buyer's Guide sometime in the early summer of 1988, then launched both Buyer's Guide and Strategy Guide as regular publications just a month or two later.

Until early 1989, Buyer's Guide and Strategy Guide were separate magazines, with Buyer's Guide coming out semiannually and Strategy Guide coming out quarterly for a total of six issues per year. (In practice, however, both magazines had a fairly haphazard schedule until mid-1989.) The former offered capsule reviews of hundreds of NES games, while the latter was filled with in-depth strategies. After three (?) Buyer's Guide issues, the two magazines were officially merged in the spring of 1989 and became a single magazine, Game Player's Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games. (One more buyer's guide, the Game Player's Buyer's Guide to Nintendo, was published in October 1989, but this was counted as a regular issue of Strategy Guide.)

In terms of coverage, the magazine's early issues were very close to the Nintendo Power of the era, with heavy emphasis on strategy and very little critical coverage of games or industry news. With the launch of the SNES in 1991, the magazine's name was edited down to Game Players Nintendo Guide (no apostrophe) and adopted fuller reviews, features, and numerical ratings for games.

   

In 1990, Signal followed up the success of Nintendo Guide with a few other platform-specific mags. The first one I have is Game Player's Strategy Guide to Game Boy Games, which worked pretty much the same as Nintendo Guide and lasted (I believe) only six issues.

   

Fall 1990 saw the launch of Game Player's Strategy Guide to Sega Games, a Genesis-specific publication. Structurally it was the exact same as Game Players Nintendo Guide. The main emphasis was on strategy and cheats, although reviews were published in the rear of the magazine. These reviews began to be numerically scored in mid-1992 in a redesign to bring it up-to-date with the rest of the mags in GP Publications' stable.

Its main competition on the stands was Mega Play, and that competition often became heated -- editor-in-chief Firme pointed out in one editorial that it was the "real" number-one independent Sega magazine and that it knew its readers "don't want a screenshot and a paragraph on every Mega Drive game in Japan". While its screenshots were lower-quality than Mega Play's and its coverage generally more outdated, it was the clear winner in feature stories and strategy.

In addition, there was also Game Player's Sports for Kids, a non-video-game mag devoted to sports and aimed at a pre-teen reading audience. I've never seen one of these mags, but I'd love to get my hands on a sample. If you got any issues, let me know.

   

Finally, there was Game Player's PC Buyer's Guide, which later became Game Player's PC Entertainment. This magazine apparently started up in 1989 right alongside Nintendo Guide, but I'll be damned if I can find any examples from that early on in the run -- all of my issues are towards the end of the run, just before Future bought the publisher and changed the magazine to become the US edition of PC Gamer. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

   

In October 1991, Signal defaulted on a loan from one of its venture-capital investors, thanks to over-optimistic sales expectations, mounting printing costs, and the 1991 recession. The company made a last-ditch attempt to save itself by canceling three titles (Sports for Kids, Game Boy Guide, and Game Players itself), but this didn't stave off its creditors, and it was officially foreclosed in February 1992.

This means that the October 1991 issue of Game Players (which, ironically, is a redesign-launch issue) is the last known edition of the first era of the mag. A November 1991 issue was almost certainly completed, but it is unknown whether it was actually published.

The Game Players multiplatform title was resurrected in 1993 with the merging of Game Players Nintendo Guide and Game Players Sega Guide, the two surviving magazines of Signal Research, which was bought out by its creditors in 1992 and renamed GP Publications. The two magazines were continued mainly so the creditors could find a buyer for them, and they found it in Chris Anderson, founder of Future Publishing in Britain. Searching for an entry into the US magazine market, Anderson bought GP in 1993, eventually leaving the UK to work at GP full time and moving the outfit to Burlingame, CA.

Under his guidance (which had already began with the Nintendo and Sega mags), Game Players became a far more professional and well-written magazine. Writers like Chris Slate, Jeff Lundrigan, Mike Salmon, and Bill Donohue turned GP into a reader-oriented magazine filled with offbeat and engaging humor -- a very UK-like product in the US marketplace.

   

This new Game Players was renamed Ultra Game Players in 1996 following a redesign, then renamed once more to Game Buyer in 1998. This final redesign was fairly drastic and launched in a last-ditch attempt to save the magazine -- by this time, PSM and PC Gamer were much better sellers for the publisher, and it was obvious that UGP would never compete with the GamePros and EGMs of the time as it was.

However, Game Buyer aimed for an "authoritative review resource" bent, trying to outclass EGM with exhaustive reviews of nearly everything under the sun. Even in 1998, the audience for this sort of reference magazine was satisfied with web sites -- and the remaining non-online readership was satisfied with EGM's multi-reviewer system over Game Buyer's over-designed approach.

More importantly, however, Game Buyer was the successor of a magazine that built a cult following through its sense of humor and extraordinary level of reader participation. Game Buyer had neither, and as a result, its alienated audience became a perpetual machine of bad word-of-mouth for the mag -- just like what had happened to VideoGames magazine, although that title lasted a great deal longer.

Strapped for sales, Imagine slashed the title's newsstand price to $1.99 in Issue 3, making the mag cheaper than even Mexican publications but guaranteeing that the operation would never sustain itself in the long term. Issue 4 was the last, and Imagine closed the magazine without any notice in the final number. Subscribers received Next Generation starting with the November 1998 issue, and most of the staff moved on to other magazines or Imagine projects. (It can be argued that the old Game Players spirit lives on in most Future publications -- especially PSM, which has been packed with GP alumni since practically its inception.)

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He owns enough magazines to smother himself with should the need arise, and his secret fantasy is for someone flush with game-publisher stock options to give him a monthly stipend so he can spend a year researching their full history and finishing the site. In his "off" time he is an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We previously ran a note about Electroplankton creator Toshio Iwai appearing at the Manchester-based Futuresonic festival, and UK site PixelSumo has now posted some neat, but shakycam video of the event.

It's explained (unfortunately, there's not video of the entire event!): "Toshio began talking about his childhood and obvious early inspiration. First he showed books that were bought for him as a young child, one of insects and one about the science of light, sound and heat. At the age of 9 or 10, his mother said he would get no more toys. Instead she gave him materials (paper craft etc) and he started using his imagination to make his own toys and games."

Moving on from there: "He liked to combine old media with new technologies. His zoetropes were fantastic, the 3D model collaboration with a film maker made my jaw drop. A series of these were created, more detail soon. On to the musical applications, he discussed how for his moving films he could never compose music through lack of understanding traditional score. A mechanical toy music box allowed him to punch holes in the paper, feed it through to create a tune, making a very visual way of creating sound." Makes total sense, given what he creates now! [Via Edge-Online.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We haven't returned to the Life Meter Comics website for a while, and they've updated with a totally great new Bubble Bobble image from one of their roster of video game-lovin' artists.

As they note: "Looks like Bub (Bub is green, Bob is blue) is hitting the soap, again! This piece, titled "Drink Soap", is the second from artist Matthieu Beaulieu and is also the second Bubble Bobble drawing!" Dude, that's some hardcore soap abuse.

There's also another recent entry with a neat picture of Princess Peach from Ashleigh "Py" Firth, and of which it's commented: "It's about darn time Peach is doing the buttkicking and saving the day." Also fun.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We've previously covered the announcement of Game Boy Advance title Rhythm Tengoku, which is indeed created by the Wario Ware designers, and looks like an awesome 2D rhythm mini-game blast, yaaay.

Well, now GamesAreFun has spotted more Internet-available information on the title, explaining: "The official homepage for Rhythm Tengoku, a new rhythm title from the makers of WarioWare, has updated with a number of commercials for the title, as well as a gameplay video."

Also spotted is a video of "the staff learning about rhythm prior to the game's development", and commenter TheHawk speaks much truth when he notes: "t certainly looks like it has that WarioWare randomness. It's that randomness that always made me laugh as I played. I think I'd like to try this one." Here's hoping Nintendo brings it Westward, ho!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently refocused blog site eToychest (which is overseen by current Gamasutra news contributor Jason Dobson) has posted a neat Chris Chester-authored editorial called 'Strategic Thinking: The Carebear Capers'.

In the intro, Chester explains, in case you forgot: "A reference to the American Greetings Care Bears property, a group of lovable, huggable teddy bears living in the clouds that can shoot beams of happiness out of their stomachs... the term carebear has come to refer to players of a given game who are less pre-disposed to fighting and player-versus-player combat than their fellow gamers."

The crux of the argument seems to be that strategy games, and particular RTSes, need more ways to co-operate in multiplayer modes: "There are any number of games one can imagine where players can be put in a cooperative scenario against an AI opponent and forced to utilize that unique level of stimulating communication only really possible with multiple players at the table. Supporting and engaging one another, I think that, given the right approach, a game based upon these sorts of cooperative encounters would be well-received by the general public."

Also, there's an _absolutely hilarious_ anonymous comment appended to the post: "It seems to me that coop games can be the gateway drug for the huge untapped market of "girls who date gamer guys." You can call me a "carebear" all you want, but at the end of the day I get to play video games and get laid." What, both at once?

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Don't say we don't break the absolutely hottest next-gen news here at GameSetWatch, thanks to tipsters like Sander Van De Vegte, who has provided us with the following red-hot image of classic Sega Megadrive/Genesis box art, and the following explanation:

"While sitting at the dining table, I looked at some Sega Megadrive covers and saw a funny resemblance. It's probably not very newsworthy, but maybe you like to see it anyway." Well, apparently it's newsworthy enough to make front page news here!

Basically, De Vegte's hypothesis is that there was a global conspiracy to subvert the cause of justice and brainwash the world's kids with deliberate placement of Disney icons in SUSPICIOUS POSES and... oh, OK, he's just spotted that a bunch of the Genesis game covers had very similar hero, enemy, and sidekick layouts. But we like it, so we're bally well posting it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Edge Online has been reprinting articles from the latest August 2006 issue of Edge Magazine once again, and the piece on the making of obscure BBC Micro text adventure Twin Kingdom Valley.

The game (which has a good Wikipedia entry) sounds pretty, well, spaced-out: "Twin Kingdom Valley gave you room to wander and wonder. Hall not only provided space to explore – and with 175 locations, increased to 190 for the C64 version, there was much to see – he actively encouraged you to roam and revisit. The inspirational moment when you drink from the magical waters and the ‘secret of concealed doors’ is revealed to you, the first time you stumble upon a gorilla, or when you naïvely put a lit lamp in your holdall and watch in horror as it’s engulfed in flame… the valley is full of surprises."

A commenter also points out that there's an official domain for the game, dedicated to "an extended version of this classic text & graphics adventure game for your mobile phone & pda" - everything old is new again!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yay, so it's time for another GameSetCompetition of the highest order, and, thanks to the folks at Capcom, we're now giving away three copies of the PlayStation 2 version of excellent semi-retro compilation Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, which brings together the post-SF II evolution of the classic fighting game franchise.

As the official Capcom blurb notes, the game is "...compilation of Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold and Street Fighter Alpha 3... [and] as an added bonus the "pint-sized" Super Gem Fighter MiniMix (released on consoles as Pocket Fighter) is also included."

So, the question, for the purposes of this competition, is:

"Which noted Street Fighter character was added to the Alpha roster in Street Fighter Alpha II Gold, and was also portrayed by Kylie Minogue in the 'seminal' Street Fighter movie?"

Please send your answers to editors@gamesetwatch.com any time before Friday, July 28th at 12 noon PST. There will be only one winner randomly picked from the correct answers, the judges' decision is final, and that's that. Have fun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

GSW co-editor Frankc is actually at Comic-Con right now on assignment for Gamasutra, and while helping him pick some questions to ask the folks at Telltale Games, who are working on the new Sam 'N Max game, I came across some extremely neat new art.

Specifically, CGW magazine's [EDIT: August!] issue has Sam 'N Max gracing the front (doesn't look like the article is online yet), and it's revealed that it's "...Telltale's first cover story and the first big coverage of Sam & Max: Season 1, so we're all pretty stoked. The nine page article includes snippets from interviews with Dave Bogan, Dave Grossman, Brendan, and Steve, insight into the game design process, and some never-before-seen art from the first Sam & Max episode. Not to mention a hand-painted Steve Purcell original on the cover!" Holy awesome!

There are also a whole bunch of user-made Sam 'N Max comics - and, though a number of the top-rated ones are astoundingly bad (I can vouch for this - I read them!), a bit further down the list, there are some particularly apposite gems in the vernacular of the bear and the bunny. Though the less said about 'Sam & Max & the Wii', the better, right?

[UPDATE: Thanks to Emily from Telltale Games for commenting and pointing out it's the August 2006 issue of CGW, not July (it's on sale next week), and also that Dave Grossman (the co-designer of the new Sam 'N Max) wrote the user-made comic I liked - so this perhaps bodes well for the game itself, no?]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I realize that sometimes, GameSetWatch may come across as a little, well, overwhelmingly positive about the crazy alt.gaming world in which we try to live. But, if you will, raise this post way, way above the previous positiveness, since the Mega64 Season 2 DVD is out now, and the San Diego-based former cable access game skit japesters have done it again.

There's actually a final Season 2 trailer up on YouTube which only hints at some of the fun to be had within - we saw a bunch of the sketches when we were helping pick the ones used in this year's Game Developer Choice Awards (and yes, that led to Sony Japan "asking to use the Ico skit for the upcoming Japanese re-release of Shadow of the Colossus!"), but from Burger Time ('Hell no!') to Luigi's Mansion, Donkey Konga and beyond, they're pretty much priceless.

Of course, we're waiting for our Season 2 DVD to ship, just like you should be, and it'll be interesting to see how the actual _story_ bits inbetween the public-interaction skits have improved from the first season - in this MTV interview, Dr. Poque explains the actual show premise: "It's about a video-game console called the Mega64 that makes video games come alive inside your brain, and each one of our videos is an experiment from it." But really, with a soundtrack that includes The Aquabats and Freezepop, you can't go wrong, we claim.

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

Las Vegas is, of course, a popular holiday destination, as well as the location for the next Rainbow Six title, much to the chagrin of the Mayor, and we've heard that many people enjoy gambling there - some of them even video game fans!

So it was only natural that the GS2 next-generation wireless handheld gaming unit, part of the hopefully soon-to-be Nevada State-ratified WiFiCasino system. Apparently: "The GS2 model introduced today features a 6-inch screen and is the largest GS2 model, while other models feature 4-inch and 3-inch screens. The design of all GS2 models include a portion of Diamond I's patent-pending biometric security technology, specifically its finger-print security technology." Totally Mission Impossible.

Probably the most interesting part of the release, which is light on what the system actually _looks_ like (picture to the left is a MobileMag mock-up), is the mention of "the passage of Nevada Law AB471, which authorizes the use of mobile communication devices for gaming in public areas in Nevada casinos". So you won't even need to sit down at a slot machine or a bar, soon - you can just wander around idly gambling!

"Our GS2 is sleek and offers a great way to play Texas Hold 'em or video slots," said David Loflin, Diamond I's president and CEO. "The GS2 represents the future of gaming and will appeal to the video-game generation, the generation coming of age in the casinos," Mr. Loflin added. [Looks like this same company hit the news last year too, btw, though this is a new announcement.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Regular GSW columnist Jiji has also been keeping up with D3 Publisher's hilarious Japanese shenanigans on his weblog, and the July D3 Monthly update is now online, hurray, chronicling the latest games from the Japanese ultra-budget publisher.

There's definitely some geekout exclusive info in here: "A full-color booklet with information regarding D3's upcoming releases - the June edition of it, that is - leaked to the net, and I made a PDF out of it. It's 3MB, so beware the download time and/or the Acrobat loading time. It's got information on and images of The Maid Uniform & Machine Gun, The Let's Make a Robot, and a new kanji quiz game for PSP." Aha, The Maid Uniform!

But here's the excitement: "Retailer release lists have yielded a couple of upcoming titles, one of which should be familiar to many. Vol. 109 is The Taxi 2, the sequel to one of Tamsoft's (apparently) better titles, while Vol. 110 is...The Escape From Los Angeles. What can this be? A faux eyepatched Kurt Russell dispatching street punks and grinding up experience levels while using an ambulance to escape from a hilariously inaccurate L.A.? We'll see." Indeeeed! [Above screenshot is from D3's 'The Japan Special Forces', btw.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The ever-reliable TIGSource has pointed out awesome PC freeware indie title The Blob, "a game about painting a city with a rolling, growing ball of paint."

As the very Dutch creators explain: "The game was a school project for an outside client. The station area of the city of Utrecht in The Netherlands is getting a thorough face-lift, as the station and many buildings around it are being rebuilt. Our task was to make a game that plays in the station area as it will be ten years from now, so that while playing, the audience is informed about what is going to happen."

The gameplay stylings are also ably explained by Brien from TIGSource: "It reminds me of (here it comes) Katamari Damacy and to a lesser extent of Mario Sunshine. I can’t believe I just wrote that. You must be sick of inane Katamari comparisons." Well, we can deal.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at the physics game blog Fun-Motion, they've done the surprising and actually added a review for a commercial console/PC game, wacky racing smash-em-up FlatOut 2 from Finnish developer Bugbear.

As Matt explains: "It’s rare that I review AAA retail games, or driving games, but Bugbear Entertainment’s Flat Out 2 is too remarkable to pass on any mention. I was a huge fan of the first title. It delivered very well-tuned driving physics in a standard race mode, as well as ragdoll-based minigames. FlatOut 2 takes the same formula—solid vehicle physics, an insane amount of object interaction on the track, and ragdoll minigames—and embellishes it with amazing production values. The result is worth talking about."

What we loved in the first FlatOut title were the minigames, of course, and it's explained: "FlatOut 2 has 8 minigames, from the high jump to soccer to curling. The core of these minigames is selecting the angle of launch, but you can also direct your ragdoll driver midair to fine-tune your intended landing. The minigames have a very Dismount-like or demoscene-ish feel to them (which makes sense, since roughly a quarter of Bugbear’s employees have demoscene backgrounds, and their business development director is one of the main organizers of Assembly)". Nice - there's an accompanying video, and the 'stone skipping' mini-game where you actually hurl a person looks particularly fun.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Game Ads A-Go-Go' is a bi-weekly column by Vintage Computing and Gaming's RedWolf that showcases good, bad, strange, funny, and interesting classic video game-related advertisements, most of which are taken from his massive classic game magazine collection.]

After writing too many funny and highly entertaining columns in succession and attracting many admirers (*ahem*), I thought I would try as hard as I could to make this column not funny at all. Therefore, I will be discussing the following overcomplicated and poorly-designed ads as seriously and humorlessly as possible.

Baseball So Real, It's Really Complicated

Some people would find this supremely overcomplicated, screenshot-filled sports game ad hilarious. But let me tell you something, mister: sports game ads are no laughing matter. Two-hundred innocent children died in the making of this very game. So the next time you snicker at an ad like this, remember that you're doing it at the expense of a dead child who has been robbed of life before his time by the evil slave-drivers at Tecmo.

BAM! BOOM!

I know what you're thinking: "Man, I really wish I could eat some tasty Froot Loops right now." But how on Earth can you think of food at a time like this? Can't you see that innocent children all over the world are starving to death because they don't even have one scrap of dirt to eat? Can't you get off your butt for one minute and at least send a couple boxes of Super Blasto-Frosties over to China?

What? I heard that, you heartless bastard.

The Ultimate Scoring Machine

Why are you wasting your time looking at useless old ads right now anyway? You should be out in the real world saving innocent children from constant exploitation.

Can't you get your priorities straight? There you are, stocking your cushy, plush-walled game room with thousands of dollars worth of "video games" every year, when children all around the world can't even earn one dollar from making air-filled tennis shoes to buy a single marble to play with. There's only one thing to do about this: you should sell your entire video game collection and buy some marbles for the kids. In fact, sell everything you have and donate the money to somebody else, because you're too selfish. Oh, I hear your whining -- "But I need food, shelter, clothing, a car, a house...a private jumbo jet!" Well Blah Blah Blah! You don't really need those things.

The starving children of the world do.

Get Your Kicks on the Go!

Oh, and one more thing -- I'm not done with you yet. See the ad above? Well, the heartless, brutal, innocent-child killer featured in this ad should definitely not be admired or glorified in an ad for an obvious murder simulator / soccer game. Depressed that his football career was all washed up, Kimmler Dietrich ran down a line of twenty dirt-eating children last year in Baden Baden. Oh, the brutality. The cruelty. The heartlessness. I also heard that he's a godless, devil-worshipping homo-erotic lesbian bisexual abortionist sinner that doesn't even go to church to repent for his blatent blasphemy. Knowing his history, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Will somebody please help me kill him?

---

[RedWolf is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Vintage Computing and Gaming, a regularly updated "blogazine" that covers collecting, playing, and hacking vintage computing and gaming devices. He has been collecting vintage computers and game systems for over 13 years. Please direct all hate-mail to yourself.]

Posted by Benj Edwards at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We obviously heart Alien Hominid creators The Behemoth - we've had 'em on the cover of Game Developer magazine, for one. So we're delighted to see that they're showing their new game, Castle Crashers, at Comic-Con, and have confirmed it as an Xbox 360 Live Arcade title.

An earlier version of the game showed last year, but there's now an official website revealing the game's name and that you can "play with up to three friends and discover mind-boggling magic and mystery", woo! Plus, the nice folks at Xboxyde have created a streaming version of the trailer - the one of the official site is ridiculously large.

So, apart from this immediately becoming our most-wanted XBLA title, as someone on NeoGAF pointed out, check out this GameVideos.com footage of the first level and stick around til the end for video of the 'All You Can Quaff' mini-game - yep, it's a button masher which approximates multiplayer medieval feasting, just like Las Vegas buffets of today! Thank you, The Behemoth! [UPDATE: Hey, this Game Informer interview says Alien Hominid is coming to XBLA too later this year - neat!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Over at artblog We Make Money Not Art, chief blogger Regine has interviewed Wagner James Au, aka Hamlet Linden, on his time within virtual world Second Life, both as in-house and now freelance world chronicler.

We've had the odd tangle with Au in the past, but he is eminently sensible on the issue of 'virtual world marketing': "The biggest challenge is to create an interactive, sustainable marketing experience that has an actual value to virtual world players. Otherwise, they'll just ignore it. We're fast approaching the end of this kind of marketing's novelty value, so it's not enough for big companies to slap together an online world presence and expect users and the mainstream media to take notice."

When talking about gold farming, however, Au makes an interesting distinction between real-world mapping game economies (like Second Life's) and those using money in other more abstract ways, suggesting that "...traditional game developers are very retrograde and hypocritical about the matter, designing their fantasy worlds with an internal economy-- i.e., a system for handling supply and demand of scarce resources-- then getting offended when many of their players treat it as such."

He also adds: "Game designers may get smart enough to take a clue from Second Life, creating an economy where genuine production of value is rewarded with real money, but really, I doubt it. The hyper-competitive game industry is always tottering on the brink of disaster, and to expect any kind of deep innovation from the giant media/software corporations that own most of the big online game publishers is pretty far-fetched."

Not sure I really 'get' this - isn't there a Second Life lawsuit pending over 'gaming the system' - effectively exploiting the game world in ways not unlike gold farming? Also, if it was financially viable for them to do so (due to gameplay structure), wouldn't people just gold farm the heck out of SL, too? That's not an economic-related constraint, to my mind. Questions, questions!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Over at FiringSquad, there's an interview about forthcoming PC MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea, and I _love_ it that it starts with an explanation of why pirates are so cool in the first place.

Producer John Tynes explains: "Even in the days of real piracy, the pirate life was attractive to many sailors. Given that navy ships could impress them for years of service, the fact that pirate ships tended to be very democratic was appealing. Journalists and authors soon romanticized them further, conjuring up a life of freedom and adventure." Those darn journalists!

Anyhow, this MMO, which has been in Beta since December but is still fairly low profile, looks pretty darn interesting, and Tynes also illuminates on overcoming development issues of note: "We had to solve a lot of problems: real-time vehicular movement and combat was the biggest. It took us almost two years of constant iteration on those systems before we got to a point where we were happy. The technical issues weren't the biggest hurdles at all -- it was really just finding a way to make naval combat fast and fun without overwhelming the player with complexity." Also, arr harrrr!

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As you may have spotted, other sites (yes, including our sibling Gamasutra) are reporting on a truckload of new GameTap content announced today, "including multiplayer gameplay, instant messaging, and multiple streaming animation series on GameTap TV, including exclusive titles."

It's noted: "Among those games given new multiplayer features include classics such as Burger Time, Galaga, Zaxxon, and Pac-Man. Initial head-to-head games include such games as King of the Monsters, 1941: Counter Attack and Bust-A-Move."

Also, alongside a tonne of existing Cartoon Network animation for streaming, the new show Computer Lab, "produced by GameTap and Soup2Nuts, the creators of Adult Swim’s "Home Movies", and chronicles the lives of the denizens of an all night computer lab at the University of State College." We want a GameTap/Sony deal for PS3, we've decided - not having this stuff easily available in front of our TVs is killing us.

Oh, also Turner-related and announced today: "Cartoon Network has announced that it is developing its first massively multi-player online game (MMOG) in a partnership with a Seoul, South Korea-based Grigon Entertainment (Seal Online). According to the company, The Cartoon Network MMOG will launch in North America in Spring 2008 and specifically target the kids' interactive gaming market, presumably in a similar way to titles such as Disney's ToonTown Online." Good luck to 'em - certainly an interesting move.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Scott Adams has been working with computers since the late 60s, and was introduced to Crowther and Woods’ Colossal Cave Adventure in the late 70s. Following this, he began working on a similar game, despite the fact that Colossal Caves ran on a mainframe and used 300K of memory, to a 16K Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. This game was Adventureland, the first text adventure on a personal computer, and is widely regarded to be the first commercially released text adventure.

Adams went on to set up Adventure International, which released the fourteen games in the Scott Adams Adventure series, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and three games in the Questprobe series, the first Marvel Comics licensed videogames. Additionally, the company opened a UK subsidiary named AdventureSoft UK and released games from other developers, including the Mysterious Adventures, and Fighting Fantasy series.

At its peak in 1983 to 1984, the company employed around 50 people, but went bankrupt in 1985 – a fact that Adams attributes to an industry downturn. He has continued to work as a programmer in a non-gaming field, though released Return to Pirates Island 2 in August of 2000. He is currently working on a new title based on the Old Testament of the Bible - The Inheritance: SAGA Bible Adventure #1.

GameSetWatch contacted Adams via email to talk about Adventure International, working with Marvel, and his continuing enthusiasm for videogames. (Click through to read the full interview.)

What's your background with computers?

I started working with computer in high school back in the late 60s. The state of Florida decided to try an experiment and put one mainframe terminal in a chosen high school. It was North Miami Senior High and it was the math department that got the terminal. When I found out about it I purchased a programming manual from the University of Miami and proceeded to start teaching myself to program.

This worked out well as I was originally scheduled to go into medicine but found I loved computers. I have been a professional programmer ever since.

When did you first encounter Colossal Cave Adventure?

I was working at Stromberg Carlson in Lake Mary Florida when the IT department got a copy of Colossal Caves for the DEC mainframe. I spent a week coming in before work and staying late to play it. This was around 1977/78 or so.

Other pieces I've read that either interview or quote you seem to suggest that you considered Adventure to be a genre all to itself at the time.

Actually it would really be Interactive Fiction that is the true genre. There is still quite a following in these type games today.

Have you seen any of the current IF development systems?

I saw a printout for INFORM once. Looked like it used up and entire pine tree! I did not actually read it though. Just saw the printout.

What inspired you to attempt to write Adventureland?

I had a TRS-80 model I at the time and wanted to write a game that would utilize Basic Strings. I had mostly worked in assembler and FORTRAN up to this time and to have a language that incorporated text was a novel idea. After playing Colossal Caves I decided I wanted to do something similar for the little home computer.

What problems did you run into trying to create a game for a 16k TRS-80 in a style that you'd previously only seen running on a mainframe using 300K of space?

Obviously I wasn't going to get Colossal Caves to fit in such a tiny memory. My first order of business was to design my own adventure language and then write a compiler and interpreter for it. Then I was able to actually start writing my game. I never saw the source code for Colossal Caves so my solution was totally unique.

How long did Adventureland take to write, all up?

About a month for the first version that was playable.

How long before you began on your second game?

Was about 2 months later I think.

The commercial sale of Adventureland all began with a small advertisement. Where was the ad printed?

It's been a long time, I think it may have been in Softside magazine but I am not sure.

From there, how did you go about starting Adventure International?

Well the first game was really the start of the company. My first real order though was from a fellow by the name of Manual Garcia who was the manager of a Radio Shack in the Chicago area. He ordered 50 tapes. I tried to sell them to him at retail and he had to explain wholesale pricing to me! Needless to say it took awhile to create those 50 tapes one by one on my TRS-80!

What motivated you to begin selling the game?

I always enjoyed small entrepreneurial enterprises. When I was a kid I had lemonade stands, joke stands and a slot car racing business.

Was it a steep learning curve to go from not knowing about wholesale prices to being heavily involved in the financial side of a business?

Not really, as the business grew I learned as I went.

How did the release of Infocom's Zork change the way that you looked at your business?

By the time Infocom came along we had been in business for some time. They were targeting the new disk drive machines like Commodore 64 while we where still supporting the cassette based units.

So you never really felt in competition with them?

Sure there was competition as we both were selling similar type games. They had bigger bankroll though and were doing things like using a DEC mainframe as their development machine. I was still using the end user computers as the development environment!

Was the competition part of what inspired you to push the technology forward, going from a two word parser to full sentences, or was this something that you had intended to work on from the start?

I was always trying new things. Ever adventure game I wrote would add at least one new thing that I had not done in a previous version. So the eventual translation to full sentence was a given.

What about the move from text based to graphical adventures? Was this simply to try and keep up with the marketplace?

Pictures were a fun challenge that I had to try. Plus it gave a better demo than the plain text games. In reality the text games are far more deep, as folks paint a better picture in their mind then what the computer can show.

Were the graphics your work?

I hired artists.

You said back in the 80s that you wrote your games as text only, was this an effort to secure a larger piece of the gaming market?

Well originally there were no graphical computers! Text was really the only option on the limited machines that first came out.

How many games were produced by Adventure International?

There was a total of 14 in the Scott Adams Adventure series, and 4 in the licensed series - Buckaroo Banzai, Spiderman, Hulk and The Fantastic Four.

Were the Marvel Questprobe games originally released as text-only games?

No Questprobe was always graphics with the underlying text. Note all my adventures could be played with the graphics off if wanted. The game never depended on them.

So there were three games in the series - Spider-Man, The Hulk, and The Fantastic Four (Human Torch and The Thing)?

Correct. There was supposed be a full series of a dozen games, but the company went out of business before this was completed.

Oh, so you'd licensed further characters from Marvel?

I had rights to use their entire character set.

What was it like to work with Marvel, back in those days?

It was a great privilege to work with the Marvel writers and artists. Jim Shooter was the editor in chief at the time and I really looked up to him. In fact since he was soooo taallll EVERYONE looked up to him!

How did you begin working with Marvel?

Joe Calamari who was vice president of Marvel at the time contacted us. He was real big about trying to get the characters licensed in different areas and thought we would be the best fit for home computer games.

How did you go about writing the games? Did you work with anyone at the company to get the characters right?

This was just before the first Marvel Universe series came out. It outlined ever character ever done by Marvel in a set of comic books. They gave me a pre-release copy of the set and I sat down and read the whole thing. Also while I was doing this series I had them subscribe me to every comic book they were making and every month I read the entire stack!

Why was the second Fantastic Four game never released, despite having a release date?

The game was never written. Only the one with the first two characters.

What led to the bankruptcy of Adventure International?

There was a tremendous downturn in the industry at the time. You might remember the $1,000 TI99/4a selling for $50. AI did not have deep enough pockets to survive.

Following that, what happened with the copyrights of the games you'd developed?

The licensed characters reverted back to the licensee such as Marvel and Paramount etc. Eventually my original games came back to me.

What have you developed since then? I know there's been Return to Pirate's Island 2, but were there any in between?

Nope that was it.

What can you tell me about your newest project, The Inheritance: SAGA Bible Adventure #1?

I have the prologue done and have not worked much on it in the last few years. Just in the last month have I picked it up again.

As someone who was working with stories in games at their purest level, do you think the focus on storytelling has shifted for the worse?

Well I have to say that the story lines in Oblivion are totally outstanding. To me the absolute best role play/adventure game out there right now is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. It was the first game to get me always from EverQuest 2 in a long time!

How did you feel about the popularity of the adventure genre in the 90s, and its current demise – or hiatus, hopefully?

I don't play adventure type games myself currently. Other games tend to hold my interest more.

Are you playing mostly MMOs, or is there something else holding your interest too?

It is varied. By far most of my gaming time is in EverQuest 2 but currently I am also playing the following games:

Oblivion (Xbox 360)
King Kong (Xbox 360)
Halo 1 and 2 (Xbox)
Titan Quest (PC)
Sims 2 (Nintendo DS)
Animal Crossing (DS)
Lord of the Rings: 7th Age (GBA on the DS)
Metroid Prime Pinball (DS)

It’s interesting that you’re such a fan of MMOs, considering your comments from the mid 80s:

"Fantastic Four Part I will be a two player adventure - either two people can play, or one person can play, playing both roles. I can see down the road to a time when fifty players will be playing one adventure."

Do these games feel like what you had envisioned back when you said that? Is this what attracts you to them?

In many cases they do, but in general MOGs are more about character advancement then story telling. There are some great stories in the MOGS but in general that is not what is attracting people.

Posted by alistairw at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, we got a note from game tools company NaturalMotion: "I thought you might be interested in watching this humorous simulation of the infamous Zidane headbutt [YouTube link] which was created using endorphin, NaturalMotion’s award-winning 3D animation software." And we were!

I guess that the simulation, which sorta uses AI-aided animation technology with realistic physics plugged in, if you can describe it like that, 'proves' that Materazzi didn't dive - which is kinda obvious from the original video, but hey - it's fun! Incidentally, a real-time version of this tech is being used in the next Indiana Jones game.

There's also a thread in the NaturalMotion forums which includes the scene file so anyone can recreate it, and some amusing banter: "On materazzi, why did you have to keep the walk animation going throughout the entire timeline? As soon as he gets the headbutt, he obviously won't try to walk anymore, the simulation taking over from the walk cycle..." I also would not try to walk if someone headbutted me off my feet! [Via Nich.]

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

For any slightly older readers (OK, not _that_ old!) who grew up in Britain in the 1980s, you may remember the seminal early video game mags from Newsfield, including CRASH for ZX Spectrum and sister mag Zzap!64 for Commodore 64, often sporting very distinctive painted cover art.

Well, the fairly new book publisher Thalamus Publishing (which, yes, keen-eyed folks, has the same logo as the Newsfield-related former game publisher Thalamus, and involves a number of the Newsfield co-founders), has recently published The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey, showcasing the main behind that self-same, often awesome cover art.

As the book blurb explains: "Frey worked on some of Britain’s greatest comic institutions — the Fleetway War Picture Library, Dan Dare in Eagle, and The Trigan Empire in Look & Learn, as well as his celebrated 1930s-style opening sequence for the film Superman — The Movie. But for an entire generation of boys in the 1980s, it is Frey’s exuberant art on the covers of cult computer games magazines that came to express the sheer excitement of the games they played." Here's a full CRASH cover gallery, if you want to get a basic idea of his rather fun style - haw, Solar Jetman!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Something you may have seen spread more or less all over the Interweb is this very neat trailer for Valve's 'Portal' game (YouTube link), which will be bundled with Half-Life 2: Episode 2 when it ships next year, and adds fiendish spatial portal puzzles to the Source Engine.

But it's also worth pointing out that this is a great 'rags to riches' story (OK, maybe mild wealth!), since, as we mentioned in our Gamasutra report: the "spatial portal dropping concept, using a gun for placement... is based on IGF Student Showcase winning title Narbacular Drop (FilePlanet download link, the official site is down), which was previously reported to be in the process of being re-imagined in the Source Engine, with the help of its original creators."

We also ran a Q&A with the DigiPen student developers on Gama earlier this year, and it's great to see an originally indie-created title like this causing more buzz than all the other games at the Electronic Arts Press Day - doesn't that say something for small teams and originality? [Oh yeah - also, Team Fortress 2 - awesome art style.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A particularly pointless discussion on the Lost Levels forums led me to another interesting Toshio Iwai-related project (yes, we've mentioned him a lot recently) - this time unreleased SNES title Sound Fantasy.

It's explained: "Sound Fantasy, [which was] due to arrive in a larger game box (the size similar to the EarthBound’ or Mario Paint boxes), was to come packed in with the SNES mouse and mouse pad. Developed by Nintendo, this interesting-looking title was probably scheduled to be released early 1992 (around Mario Paint, which debuted on May 12th of that year), but obviously Mario Paint was the one released."

The Wikipedia entry for the game has more: "Toshio Iwai eventually went on to convert his work into the PC game SimTunes in 1996, and many of the unreleased gameplay elements of Sound Fantasy can be found there. In April 2005, to celebrate the Japanese launch of Toshio Iwai's latest work, Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo opened an exhibit at Tokyo's Harajuku Station to focus on the new game and on Iwai himself. Nintendo made available for persual the box art and manual for Sound Fantasy, but the "lost game" was not made playable there."

It's also suggested: "Those who appreciate Iwai's work, however, hope that someday the completed game will be made available for download via the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service." Yes!

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The extremely useful Neologasm DSBlog has updated, not on DS, but the GBA Bit Generations games, explaining in detail of them:

"The first three bit Generations retro casual games are out now in Japan. Get Dialhex, the puzzle color-dropping game; Dotstream, the Tron-cycle-ish race game; or Boundish, a multimode Pong clone. You can see the “trailer” movie for the whole series over here (click where it says “7.5 MB” to load)."

The blog also notes: "If you'd rather wait for a US release, they are already ESRB rated, as the “Digideluxe” series, but a date hasn't been announced yet."

In addition, probably the best thing about the post is a handy English-language review of the Bit Generations series thus far by Ben Grundy (also one of the first posts we've seen on Six Apart's new Vox blogging system!), which comments: "The first thing that struck me about both these games was the clean, simple design. Its essentially effective and yet deceptively beautiful. Combine this with quite possibly the most perfectly matching soundtrack ever created and you have a retro gaming experience that leaves you feeling like you've just discovered something on the cutting edge."

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Grand Text Auto, they've successfully spotted the newly launched Game/Play UK exhibition, described as "a networked national touring exhibition focusing on the rhetorical constructs game and play", but actually far more interesting than that academikwak explanation implies!

GTA notes: "With a dozen or so pieces in total, the show has four installations alongside Mary [Flanagan's giant joystick exhibit, pictured] including “Fluffy Tamagotchi (teddy bear material, Chicco toy TV set, 25 year old BBC microcomputer and some sensors), which can sing, wave its arms around and shit blue turds.”" Uhh... nice!

Also: "There are seven screen-based works — three online and four in the gallery, including... The Endless Forest from Tale of Tales, a funky second-person shooter by Julian Oliver, and your and my favorite digital marital arts game." Wait, is that marital arts or martial arts? Inquiring minds want to know...

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yo ho ho! All manner of piratical jibber jabber! Over at RetroBlast!, they have the news that Stern is launching a new Pirates Of The Caribbean pinball machine, continuing a run of neat-looking pins from the sole mass-market manufacturer left in the pinball construction biz.

It's revealed: "The goal of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean pinball is to go on a pirate adventure to defeat Davy Jones, Jack’s nemesis in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean/Dead Man’s Chest.... Two former Williams’ developers designed Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, game designer Dennis Nordman and rules designer/software engineer Dwight Sullivan." Oo, Dennis Nordman - White Water still rocks.

And just listen to the features: "A mechanical pirate ship that the player strikes with the pinball. With each hit, the ship lowers its sails and eventually sinks into the playfield, thus revealing a shot into the Kraken’s mouth... A mechanical treasures chest, the Dead Man’s Chest, through which the player can shoot the ball... A map compass comprised of playfield inserts that shows the player each feature they need to finish." The excellent Pinball News has lots of close-up pictures of the machine too, for those interesting in ogling some more.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We've previously covered Japanese dojin shooter semi-God Kenta Cho a few times, of course, and the great Independent Gaming blog (whose new slogan is 'Next Week's News, Today!', haw!), has dished on a new Cho production.

As they explain: "Kenta Cho has a new game out! Well, perhaps just a light show. His latest experiment is called Dngn. (requires Flash Player version 9)."

We checked it out briefly, and it looks even more surreal than his usual stuff - even the control descriptions have a degree of Dada to them ("Fire / Change a firing interval * Left Click Change a firing direction * Mouse Wheel (not works on Firefox) / Arrow L,R." So have at it!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New Gamer's journal has pointed out a rather fun art project, the GAMEOVER video series from Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond, involving, yes, people with colored sweatshirts moving around theater seating, each acting as a pixel in a retro game.

TNG's G.Turner: "In this case, it's Pong and Space Invaders recreated frame-by-frame in a large auditorium, using people as pixels. The Pong video is OK, but the Space Invaders video is a must-see."

The MetaFilter comments on this artiness are also fun, with commenter YHBC criticizing the Space Invaders strategy: "Lame. Everyone knows that the first thing you do in SI is blast away the bunkers yourself, so as to get direct shots at the approaching invaders. And if that strategy were to mean mass carnage and wholesale human destruction from flinging people up a couple rows, again and again, atop their stunned and helpless compatriots; well, so much the better."

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[‘Letters from the Metaverse’ is a regular weekly column by Mathew Kumar about his adventures in the massively multiplayer online world of Second Life. This week’s column covers some 'newbie' areas.]

Teleporting For Fun, Profit

Well, after buying myself some sweet duds last week I was actually at loss for what to do. And as a newbie in the world, this is a pretty easy situation to find yourself in – you get yourself all dressed up and have no idea where to go.

The first idea to get out of your head is the most obvious one – to just randomly teleport places and see what happens. This probably isn’t such a good idea, as you’re just asking for trouble.

Making that decision I found myself on more than one island of ill-repute, and I don’t think I’m quite ready to talk about the trauma I experienced teleporting somewhere only to find myself trapped in a cage by a huge muscular goth. Let me just say I’d noticed he was already dragging around two naked slaves on a chain and I decided he didn’t need a third.

A Different Kind Of Orienting

As a newbie, it’s much safer to stick to areas where people are going to be a bit friendlier to you. The first thing I found, actually, on my quite random travels, was an area advertising Orientation Castle, which is worth stopping by if you’ve managed to forget how to do anything in the world. It’s not particularly clearer than Orientation Island (and frankly, probably less helpful to navigate) but at least it’s there, and wonderfully under populated. It’ll send you off to a Help Island, too. But if you are (as I am) past trying to find out how to do things and you’re looking for things to do, one excellent place to start off is The Shelter.

Gimme Shelter!

A fairly well known area in the world of Second Life, it’s the first ‘club’ in the world I decided to visit. Now, as a Scot, clubbing to me means drinking too much alcohol while standing in a dark room full of people where music blares too loud for anyone to hear anyone else, before buying a kebab and then making a quick stop off in an alleyway to sick up said kebab and alcohol.

Naturally this isn’t an experience that can be easily replicated in the world of Second Life. For one, no matter how loud you turn the music up you can still ‘hear’ what everyone’s saying.

You could recreate the real club experience by getting really drunk at home, I guess, which makes your typing worse, but despite not really feeling like a club the shelter is a nice example of a clean, friendly area in Second Life, though, it is in a Mature plot of land, which means, as per usual, there’s a ‘Sexoporium’ about two doors away.

When I arrived people were just dancing away and chatting, and who was I not to join in? There are also piles of free stuff at the door, there are regular events, and if you want to learn of other places to go or people to see, plenty of people are willing to help.

Yadni's Hunks Of Stuff

It’s there that I learned of Yadni’s Junkyard, for example, which is absolutely chock a block with free stuff (or stuff which costs only $1 Linden, which is nothing, really). This is a nice place to go to pick up either new clothes, new stuff to have fun with (Weapons! Vehicles!)

Or, indeed, plenty of free builder tools if you’ve decided you want to take an active role in creating new objects, animations or clothes. Personally I’m too lazy to even work out how to switch my animations from ‘jerky cripple’ to something half decent, but to each his own!

NEXT WEEK: I get banned for using my free watermelon gun to fire watermelons at passers by, because I’m too scared to go to any areas where people might fire back (or force me into BSDM servitude).

[Mathew Kumar is a freelance journalist who’s dabbled in MMORPGs, but is too cheap/strong willed to play past a free trial. He got his break with Insert Credit, and his work has been featured in publications as diverse as The Globe and Mail, Twitch Film, and Eurogamer.]

Posted by mathewk at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Former GSW editor TonyW has put a most informative post on the 2006 Machinima Festival up on his Clickable Culture blog, noting that "the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS) has announced that the 2006 Machinima Festival and the 2006 Machinima Awards will take place on November 4 and 5, 2006."

What's more: "According to AMAS, the two-day event "will include screenings of Machinima films, Q&A with machinimators, special presentations, and seminars about Machinima production techniques... The hosting venue, the Museum of the Moving Image (www.movingimage.us), will provide an excellent location once again, with its diverse collection and exhibitions of motion picture, television, and digital arts."

Tony then goes on the mention: "I'm personally rooting for BloodSpell, a feature-length machinima project made in 3 years using BioWare's Aurora Toolset (used for the game Neverwinter Nights)."

Well, from our point of view, the favorite machinima we've seen in the past 12 months is maybe the oddest and funniest all at once - PANICS from the guys at Rooster Teeth Productions (Red Vs. Blue), which "is a comic science fiction mini-series created by Rooster Teeth Productions... produced at the request of Monolith Productions as apart of a tie-in with the Director's Edition of the video game F.E.A.R." Hope it wins big.

[EDIT: Nuts, apparently commenter FritzMeaning notes: "PANICS took the Mackie for Machinima Screenwriting last year. Not sure if they would be in contention this year." So they actually already won in 2005, thereby either vindicating me or making me look uninformed - take your pick!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Over at Insert Credit, the often-obscure Recap has unearthed a piece of neatness - news on a Compile semi-resurrection as part of a division of Japanese developer Idea Factory.

The Wikipedia entry for Compile explains: "COMPILE was a Japanese video game company founded in 1983. Founded by Masamitsu Niitani (otherwise simply known as 'Moo'), they were responsible for developing some of the most colourful and popular action and puzzle games ever made, including their signature franchise, Puyo Puyo."

Well, as Recap notes: "It's quite interesting that Idea Factory recently formed up a brand-new group (yeah, yet another one) with the name 'Compile Heart', whose first work was the Japanese localization of the Korean RPG Astonishia Story, in its PSP incarnation. More surprisingly, the company's logo bears a clear resemblance to that of the old Compile."

He continues: "Yesterday we learned that it's indeed related to the legendary Puyo Puyo maker (which, you can say, currently carries the name 'Aiky'), and is developing an arcade game (no less) called 'Takoron' which will be based on the Puyo Puyo formula and it's being supervised by Puyo Puyo's creator Moo Niitani." So Compile isn't formally back, as such, since Sega still owns the Puyo Puyo rights, but it's sorta kinda back in spirit, woo.

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

OK, he doesn't really, but official 'nicest guy we know' Nich Maragos has been interviewed over at 4 Color Rebellion on his current job as Atlus localization editor - he was formerly a staffer at The GIA (never etc.), 1UP, and a long-time news editor for our sister site Gamasutra.

Nich says some pretty darn smart things on the art of translation, noting: "The simple fact that Japanese grammar, word order, and phrasing is very different from English means you have to edit a lot to avoid sounding stilted. Then, too, Japanese has words that we don’t, and we have words that they don’t, so sometimes you have to make a best approximation rather than avoid a long, unwieldy phrase. I wouldn’t say that I change things “to appeal to a Western audience” because I don’t go around changing “sake” to “beer” in Devil Summoner or that kind of nonsense."

He also has some dead on advice for those wanting to get into the biz: "If you want to work in games and you don’t now, either become a tester or start making mods for Neverwinter Nights or your FPS of choice. If you want to be a journalist, start a fansite. The way to get paid to do something, in my experience, is to be paid little to nothing to do exactly that for a long time first. If you really love the work, then you’d do it anyway; the industry has no room for people who wouldn’t literally give everything they have to be an editor, or designer, or journalist, or artist, or any position you could name."

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Our Blazing Destiny is a weekly comic by Jonathan "Persona" Kim about our society, cultural postdialectic theory, and video games. And avenging your father's death by collecting capsule toys and drinking soda.]

"Ryo Hazuki is my role model in life. Girl problems? Be completely baffled yet expressionless and then make a note to apologize later while never following up on it. Searching for tattoo parlors? Gossip with the local ladies, kick a soccer ball, and raise a kitten or two. Avenging your father's death? Ignore his last words ('Keep friends close!'), leave everything behind, and go on an international vengeance trip that ultimately lands you in the middle of nowhere, rescuing deers from rivers while accompanied by random ethnic girls."

[Jonathan "Persona" Kim is sometimes a character animation student at the California Institute of the Arts, other times a ninja illustrator, but in his heart, a true comic artist looking for his destiny in the sea of stars. His path on the torrid road of comics include a quarterly manga on The Gamer's Quarter and his website on the awesome collective, Mechafetus.com. Visit and take a look at the new Oekaki board!]

Posted by persona at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The latest post by Matt 'Fort90' Hawkins points to the impressive set of Segagaga videos uploaded by user Sixfortyfive on YouTube, revealing more on the cult DC title than you might have previously known.

For those who don't know the game, the HG101 review of the title explains it pretty well: "The concept behind the game isn't too far from reality - Sega is in DEEP trouble, having lost all but 3% of the world marketplace share to the insidious Dogma Corporation. In order to save the company, the president initiates the super secret plan Segagaga, wherein they pull some random kids off the street, put them in charge of the company, and hope they put the company back on the track to success. Naturally, you're one of those kids."

Matt linked to the YouTube Segagaga vids with commentary - very handy! His comments are as follows: "- an ad for the Dogma (that’s the evil company you compete against, whose logo looks remarkably like Sony Computer Entertainment’s) system, the Pyramid; - chapter 8 part 1 (somehow, Shining Force CD is involved… I guess you create it in the game?); - chapter 8 part 2 (this one’s battle heavy and features many special moves with elements borrowed from other Sega titles, like After Burner, Space Harrier, and other stuff); - chapter 8 part 3 (make sure to check out the surprise guest star at the end); - chapter 9 (basically the same stuff from before, just in one vid); - ending and closing credits (you just gotta love that Fantasy Zone ship)." Awesome!

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For those (especially Europeans and South Americans, most likely) who remember the late, legendary Brazilian Grand Prix driver Ayrton Senna, we just got a press release indicating that "Meantime Mobile Creations, a company of mobile entertainment, and the Ayrton Senna Institute have closed a partnership to create exclusive contents for mobile phones".

But it's not just Ayrton Senna's likeness that Meantime gets - oh no, it's Senninha, too, the cutesy cartoon version of Ayrton Senna, who appears in licensed kids' products, and of the cellphone games: "The two first games are to be launched this month: _Ayrton Senna -_ _Pole Position_, which simulates a battle for the front grid, and _Senninha Racing_, that takes the character’s gang for a kart racing." The Ayrton Senna Institute webpage has more on the charitable foundation behind Senna's legacy.

Also, a quick look over at Meantime Games' official website reveals that the Brazilian company is big on licensing hometown heroes, since they also publish Ronaldinho Total Control, themed around the Brazilian soccer player: "You’ll need to prove that you are indeed the World's best football player! Try Ronaldinho’s shoes, be quick and stay put in order to get the timing to keep the ball bouncing." Keep it up!

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

Over at Guilded Lilies they've spotted that the Oblivion Book Jacket Mod is complete and has been officially released, yay.

We previously commented on this unique mod, which aims to "to replace all of the 300+ in-game book jackets [in the PC version of Bethesda's RPG]... with dynamic looking covers". At 92mb for the high-res version, it's bigger than a lot of Web-downloadable games, and just for making some in-game books look nice - but glorious things often aren't small, of course.

As for what's happening next, modder Phoenix Amon proclaims: "I do want to relax and play the game a bit. I've been asked to contribute books to a few mods in progress and to make covers for those Morrowind and Daggerfall books added by mods. For the Morrowind books, I want to try creating new meshes to fit my old textures rather than doing the textures again." A bookbinder's work is never done!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Richard Meurling has been working on Zelda Mobile - a homebrew, unofficial fan remake of the NES title The Legend of Zelda for mobile phones using the pseudo cell shaded graphics style of the GBA's Minish Cap - for just over a year.

The second demo for the game was released at the end of June, and while it’s far from a finished product, it’s a good indication of where the project is headed. It features the first three of the game’s dungeons, a large overworld section, and an extraordinarily irritating attack sound that one imagines will be replaced prior to the final version.

Meurling intends to release a third demo with updated graphics in three months time – he intends this to be the final one before the full version of the homebrew remake. GameSetWatch contacted Meurling via email to talk about the game, and the advantages and disadvantages of creating the title for the mobile phone format.

What inspired the project?

About a year ago I was working on a MMORPG, and we got the idea of making a smaller version of the game which you could download and play offline. So I made a small javaME game engine, later the MMO was put on hold. But I still wanted to put the engine to some use. That is when Zelda Mobile was born. Zelda is one of my favorite games ever, so it was sort of natural to do a remake of it.

What experience do you have in programming?

Actually I don't have much experience with java at all. This is probably my first major java app.

But I have about 12 years of programming experience, and right now I am working full time as a c# developer (non-game related). I love creating games, and have done so for many years, mostly proof of concepts and test engines, which I almost never release.

What kind of restrictions do you face with the mobile format?

Oh, there are a ton of restrictions. The most annoying are the memory limitation and the slow graphics, this game was tested on my Sony Ericsson T610 and that phone can only have about 150k graphics loaded at same time. First we'll need a drawing buffer, without it there would be no smooth scrolling. 256x176x2 (16-bit pixels) that is about 90k. That leaves us with about 60k of free video memory where we can put our sprites. What I am trying to say is that I found it difficult to find the right mix of speed and memory usage.

Other limitations are that every phone maker and every phone is different in terms of memory, screen size, input controls and speed.

What advantages are there?

The things I like with java and cell phones is that it is free to develop, it is/was free to download Sun one studio 4ME (mobile edition) and the emulators are free from most big phone makers, I use Sony Ericsson emulators and documentation cause I feel that they stick to the standard more than most other phone companies. One of the biggest advantages is that most people got a cell phone these days. And of course it is portable and I love handhelds (I’m currently doing some home brew for the PSP too). But in terms of performance, and memory there really are none.

Are the graphics all your own work, or are they sprite rips from Minish Cap?

Most of it is rippped from Minish Cap, and some of it is from BS Zelda. I am not good at making my own sprites. But some of it is my own work. As much as I hate stealing other peoples work, I could never have made any thing this good looking myself without doing so...

You've talked about the next demo being improved even further graphically - what can we expect to see in that?

I am testing a few things that I would like to add, alpha blended fog and light and few more alpha effects. Hopefully more animated tiles and larger monsters. The screenshot above is an example of what you could expect.

There are some limitations to this, it might be very slow on some phones, therefore I am going to provide 2 versions with and without alpha functions.

I gather demo 3 will also be the final one before the full release - how much extra work is that going to be?

The code is almost complete, so for the most part it is map making for dungeons 4, 5 and 6. The media player class also needs some major work, now it does not detect the hardware of the phone properly, it just assumes there is support for 2 simultaneous streams. All the midp2 phones I tested on had this, but from the feedback I have gotten I can clearly see that is not the case.

Will the final release be a faithful remake of the first Zelda, or can we expect additions?

After playing later Zelda games, I don't know if I can be true to the original, there are just too many fun things missing. One thing I really missed in Zelda is a town.

But I intend to make people recognize most of the game, and all secrets in the original will be included in some way. And did anyone EVER take the potion instead of the heart?

Will the work you've done for the project allow you to create new environments? Does it function as a game engine?

Zelda Mobile is a complete game engine, if you where to load a map with different settings it could be a side scrolling adventure. I have tried to keep most of the settings in the map files. The only limit is that it has to be 2D (and you'd probably have do add some code for new weapons, special AI and stuff like that).

The most useful thing I wrote for this project is resource management class, I'll try to explain...

All resources in the game are managed by class which keeps track of what is loaded and what is safe to release. If for example a monster needs a sprite which is currently not in memory, the class loads it and feeds it to the monster class (if it gets an out-of-memory exception doing so, it tries to release all unused sprites and load the monster sprite again, if that fails that monster is skipped). This is useful for phones with lots of memory, cause it only releases resources when it needs the memory, after playing a while everything is probably cached. And on phones with smaller memory it always fills it up to the max.

Posted by alistairw at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Physics blog Fun-Motion has an important update about a neat physics toy, explaining: "Souptoys Toybox, the physics-based desktop toy software, has been released for free."

Matt Wegner continues: "It’s unclear if this is a permanent change, though, as the announcement is “While we continue to develop it, we have decided to make the Toybox free for everyone to play with and enjoy.” My guess would be the core package will stay free and addon toys will be available for purchase."

F-M has previously reviewed the package, explaining: "Basically, Toybox is a collection of 60 different physics contraptions: Levers, balls, balloons, catapult, and so on. The application is a desktop toy in the sense that it doesn’t go full screen or have its own primary window. Instead, the toys have their own transparency and fit into the normal Windows drawing order." Neato.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've previously remarked on the forthcoming Dead Rising for Xbox 360, which we lovingly described as "Keiji Inafune and Capcom's semi-comical zombie holocaust".

Well, now Achieve360Points has a full list of achievements for the game, and they're.. awesome! Let's try, for example: "Gourmet - TYPE: 1 Play REQ: Eat all types of food available in the mall", or "Costume Party - TYPE: 1 Play REQ: Place novelty masks on at least 10 zombies."

Some of the more bizarre achievements seem positively survivalist: "7 Day Survivor - TYPE: 1 Play REQ: Survive for at least 7 days", or even the insanest of them all: "Zombie Genocider - TYPE: 1 Play REQ: Defeat at least 53,594 zombies." Apparently, that number is the total population of the town, as shown in the intro - one would imagine it might take a while to knock that many off!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[’Free Play’ is a regular weekly column by Ancil Anthropy about freely downloadable video games, and the people who make them. This week’s column profiles iteration GAMES.]

In 1999, Mark Overmars—professor of game and media technology at Utrecht University—began developing a program called Game Maker. Now in its sixth iteration, Game Maker is a software package designed to simplify PC game development—referred to as "middleware", it allows developers to create games in a straightforward drag-and-drop environment without having to deal with serious coding.

Jph Wacheski discovered Game Maker while searching for a way to make games without having to learn C++, and over the last few years has been releasing Game Maker "experiments" under the name iteration GAMES. Prior to creating games, Jph was "deeply devoted to" designing sounds and creating music with the Buzz synthesizer, and Jph's experience working with audio shows in the sound design of iteration's games.

The games—sadly Windows-only, due to Game Maker's reliance on DirectX—are evocative of the arcade experience, combining Minter-like screen effects and staticky bursts of audio to create an effect that oscillates between hypnotic and unsettling. These games have a presence, and you're never quite sure whether it's playing with you or against you.

Remember when we used to play?

Iteration's "experiments" (all downloadable from the front page of the site) draw from a library of older arcade games, sometimes literally. Joust 3 applies the mechanics, characters and sprites of Midway's original series to new scrolling stages. Sub Atomic began development as a remake of Taito's Electric Yo-yo, and the first three stages of that remake have to be played before the new game will be unlocked. And there's 100 Invaders, which begins as a straightforward Space Invaders game (using sprites designed by another Game Maker developer, Graham Lackey), until the ghosts of invaders you've slain return to haunt you.

But perhaps the most impressive remake is Wizard of Wor Remix, an expansive recreation of Midway's maze shooter. The labyrinths in the remix are larger and more tangled, with passages that admit players but not bullets. Players can use a new charging teleport ability, and an AI will step in to control player two if there's only one person at the keyboard. But the most compelling addition is the harsh new audio: the static-heavy laughter and mocking taunts suit Midway's dark arena crawl perfectly.

Survive long enough to get the high score.

Lock-On, with its downtempo background music and drum-like sound effects, is closer to the "hypnotic" end of the spectrum. The player and enemies drift on the blue-grey screen like lilies on a pond. Laughter accompanies a miss in this game, but it sounds like a chuckle, an invitation to play another game.

The goal is to clear each stage of enemies. A forward shot fires in the direction and speed the player is moving, but the lock-on shot is more reliable, sending a homing missile toward the nearest enemy. When destroyed, some enemies leave pick-ups behind. As in Joust, if the pick-ups aren't collected quickly, they'll transform into new, more dangerous enemies. Collecting enough will provide a color change and greater firepower. As stages progress, the wind that blows on the pond becomes more severe, and the enemies more numerous.

Finally, be sure to check out...

Seeds, an "artificial life" sandbox that the player is free to fill with various lifeforms that transform the screen into a living kaleidoscope.

[Ancil Anthropy is a game developer and space invader. She fills dessgeega.com with lots of good stuff and writes for a bunch of places, including The Gamer’s Quarter and The Independent Gaming Source.]

Posted by dessgeega at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Kieron Gillen's blog, he's quite rightly pointed out a highlight from the new Consolevania game-related video show, named 'Independents Day', and showcasing a whole caboodle of Scottish wit.

Gillen rhapsodizes: "25 minutes into it, nu-skool journalist Kevin Leddins, yet again, says it best: “Indie games are love. Pure love. But what is love? The great Philosophers did not know. Neither did Haddaway.” I’m moved." And with coverage of a crapload of great indie titles, from the Pickford Bros' awesome-looking Naked War through IGF faves like Narbacular Drop, there's plenty to love.

For those not aware of Consolevania, the Wikipedia entry handily explains: "Consolevania is a video games TV show created by First Person Shooters Productions and filmed in and around Glasgow, Scotland. It is notable as one of very few online TV shows to make the leap onto broadcast TV, as the show videoGaiden." More to the point, this episode has absolutely _the_ best Jaz Rignall-related Turin Shroud joke ever. No, really.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at 1UP.com, they've noted that a PC demo of Every Extend Extra has been released, noting: "Even though Sony was distributing a PSP demo of Q Entertainment's latest at E3, you'll have to make due... for the time being."

Also, some handy extra info from 1UP commenter Aggies11: "The official page mentions the demo/trial, but does not host it. It's hosted on other sites. The official has a links section to those sites to download the demo. After perusing many of those unintelligible pages, I was able to dig out this link. That should allow you to download the trial. Good luck with that, and see if you can decipher/figure it out."

For those interested in learning more about the game, originally a Japanese dojin title, Ancil's Anthropy's recent 'Free Play' column talks about the history of creator Omega, who has hooked up with Q's Tetsuya Mizuguchi to make the PSP version - yum, much Japanese indie goodness.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're The New Gamer website, then the garage/thrift store hunting never ends, and the 'Chi-Style Drunksaling: Vol. 5.3 - Family Matters' edition is up now - we previously covered these guys' thrift game stylings.

This time, the depressing intro starts: "According to the classifieds, this week looked not-so-promising. In fact, there was a distinct lack of electronics in all of the week's listed sales, with the exception of one sale far, far, far out west in the outskirts of 'Chicagoland', in an area that neighbors Chicago but is much too far to be considered part of the city-proper. Yeah, we aren't driving that far for anything less than a guaranteed Turbo-Grafx 16."

But find stuff they did: "Buried away in this desk was a complete NES and a number of games, including Castlevania III, Zelda 2, Bubble Bobble, Ghosts 'n Goblins. Of particular interest was a copy of Fester's Quest, which also came with a dog-eared copy of Nintendo Power opened to a walkthrough for Fester's." All were grabbed for $20, and let me just say that the Bay Area is abysmal for sales like this, thanks to the surfeit of video game geeks cruising for bargains, damn them.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Having written a story for Gamasutra earlier this week about Infogrames selling UK developer Reflections to Ubisoft, along with the Driver franchise - having previously sold the Stuntman franchise to THQ, I was sufficiently embarrassed by enjoying one of the above titles to set a new GameSetQ.

The question for you good people out there in Internet-land is, simply enough:

"What video game have you enjoyed playing more than any reviewer ever suggested that you would - perhaps more than you should have if you were actually sane?"

In other words, I'm talking about games with clunky game mechanics, poor execution, and otherwise dubious merits, but nonetheless, you couldn't stop playing through them. For me, Stuntman was that title - it turns out I enjoy the hardcore 'trial and error' gameplay of the title, even though it meant tens of frustrating retries to get stunts _just perfect_ and complete the level. Go figure. What's your weakness?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Australian blogger Jamie Sam (which is actually two people, but I digress), has put up a little expose of sorts. Seems there's a massive used game store in the gumyo area of togane, southeast of tokyo, off the togane or keiyoo lines. Images of the stops before and after right here.

The store, the front of which you can see here, is massive. He claims it looks like an adult shop from the outside, but I say it looks more like a right-wing nationalist organization's headquarters - the type that rides around in vans yelling pro-japan slogans from the bullhorn on top.

Just look at all this famicom disc system software, or this older hardware. Trouble is, though this place is absolutely huge, and looks quite impressive, the hardware prices all look a bit high, which could bode ill for getting nice deals there. Though the SFC Square Enix RPG collection looks alright at 5,000 yen (bottom right, includes the FFs and DQs), round about here you'll feel you shouldn't be paying 2,480 yen for Tales of Phantasia.

That said, there are simply rows and rows of the stuff, so this might well be a place to check out if you're in the area. [Original post by bsheffield, X-posted from IC with permission and lurve!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at shmup weblog Shoot The Core, the ever amiable Posty has a handy review of Zun's latest PC dojin title, Shoot The Bullet, a title in which "...the premise is to take the best photograph (screenshot) of the boss that you can while dodging the bullet storm headed your way."

The mechanic is fascinating, and Posty explains: "Knowing when to sacrifice player speed for camera charge is a KEY factor in beating some of the levels, and the player must not only make quick judgements to dodge bullets, but also to know when to use this feature. Zun has also found a way to revive his Tohou series while keeping the same signature components that bring his fans back."

In way of a conclusion, it's noted: "Lets face it, Perfect Cherry Blossom, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and Imperishable Night [all well-documented on shrinemaiden.com] are all practically the same game.....not that that's a bad thing, but the formula was getting stale. STB is a nice change of pace that I would put in a sub-genre all its own." Good stuff.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cool news via newish blog A Bunch Of Nerds, discussing intriguing indie 'sim life'-style game Kudos, for which the official website has lots more info on the PC-specific 'game of social relationships and choices'.

As is explained: "Kudos is a turn-based life-simulator title for the PC (at the moment) created by ex-Lionhead Games AI programmer Cliff Harris, who also was behind the much acclaimed political-sim title Democracy. In the game, players create their sim (almost a mini-game in itself!), decide where they work, who their friends should be, what they do to relax in their spare (game)time and many other activities."

The game "...explores gameplay that other mainstream games ignore, allowing the player the freedom to do everything from watch television, to raising pets, to being an alcoholic starting drunken brawls with sims they don’t quite care for. Kudos to Cliffski for again releasing a solid and entertaining title and proving yet again that indie games market is emerging as both a viable and high quality alternative to mainstream gaming." It's also a genre that very few indie games explore, which is why my interest is personally piqued.

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)

Over at casual site Gamezebo, there's a good interview with Daniel Bernstein from Sandlot Games, a casual game developer best known for, as is described in the intro "hit trading and adventure Tradewinds series (my personal favorite casual games of all time) [and] Cake Mania, among the most popular and sweet-tasting casual games of the year."

Discussing other great casual titles, Bernstein has some fun picks: "I've always loved the gameLab games - they are very original. Obviously, the production values of PopCap titles, including Chuzzle, are first rate. In fact, "chuzzling" is a word we use in the production of our titles that means that extra bit of personality and polish. Thanks, PopCap. Andy, our Director of Development, just finished Tropix, and loves lots of things about it."

He also has some bold thoughts for the future: "I believe casual gaming as a valid and fulfilling social activity will replace traditional TV as the dominant entertainment platform... What's the demographic for TV? Everyone watches TV. Everyone will play casual games. Pretty soon the term "Casual Gamer" will be as silly as "TV watcher" because everyone will be one."

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

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

It's funny. I thought the whole point of subscribing to magazines was that you didn't have to worry about having to track them down every month at the bookstore. Yet all of my Ziff Davis subscriptions seem to have mysteriously stopped sending after three months, and none of the subs from other publishers have been processed after around four months of waiting. Ah well. I guess I was spoiled by living 10 minutes away from all the publishers for so long.

Without further ado, then, let's take a look at all the game magazines that hit U.S. newsstands over the past two weeks. (Click through to read the full column.)

Electronic Gaming Monthly August 2006 (Podcast)

This month's EGM -- besides "having a nice-lookin' coupla men on the cover" (as editor Crispin Boyer put it in the podcast) -- has a fairly bold theme running through its pages; namely, sequels suck and you know it. The preview feature is "The Top 50 Coolest New Games," with emphasis on "new" -- the editors actually managed to find fifty games under development right now without a single "II" or "The Revenge" or "Return to Wankerdor" in the titles, and they've ranked them up and busted them out over 27 pages of this 110-page issue. Number-one is EA's Army of Two, which seemed to get a little drowned out in E3 show-floor coverage but looks a fair bit more impressive now that a magazine's devoting larger acreage to it.

The sequel hatin' continues: In the reviews section, where a 8.0/7.5/7.0 rating is enough for Game of the Month. NCAA Football 2007, in particular got badly dinged (resident sporto Bryan Intihar gave it a 9 last year; it got a 7 from him this time) for looking great on the 360 but still not having all the new gameplay bits of the lower-gen versions. NFL Head Coach gets reviewed, and while it doesn't receive a rating (since it came late in the cycle), it's obvious that the game was the bane of Bryan's existence all month.

The ESA will love: The news feature on Jack Thompson and the subculture of put-down games that grew around him. Also, the other news feature about a 10-year-old who went to computer camp and made his own video game, complete with a development staff and everything. This is the sort of story that warms the cockles of Doug Lowenstein's heart.

The ESA may not like so much: A caption in EGM's Final Fantasy III feature that suggests gamers "check eBay for fan-translated copies" if they want to play the original Famicom version. (Actually, come to think of it, the fan-translators would probably be angrier -- they tend not to enjoy people selling their stuff.)

Official PlayStation Magazine August 2006 (Podcast)

Two months after E3, and a lot of mags seem to be paying attention to controllers all of a sudden. OPM #107 is no exception, opening with a piece on the PS3's gimmick-not-a-gimmick controller that asks nine developers their opinions on it. The top feature this month, though, has to be their long-form interview with Ted Price, the man who got his start in games by purchasing a 3DO development system and cold-calling companies about his hot concepts. Lucky man. Another bit takes a look at independent giant Pandemic, which we're told has a "quality of life director" who has a six-figure budget devoted to making sure the devs are all happy and sane.

Other features: Include an RPG preview blowout (lotsa FFXII English stuff, if you're interested) and "The Opposite of Fun," a look at the 20 worst PlayStation games ever made. I think they're far too rough on The Guy Game, myself. 50 years from now we'll look back on it and see it for the important cultural signpost it is, I swear it.

The disc: Has Yakuza on it, and that's all you really need to know.

Nintendo Power August 2006

Nintendo Power seems to have the slowest newsstand distribution of any game magazine out there. This mag hit the stores earlier this week and just now they're getting to their E3 blowout sex-travaganza. The wait is worth it for the diehards, though -- the mag reads almost like one of those collector's programs for the Super Bowl, with lots of previews, Wii-views and pix of happy people enjoying what will undoubtedly be Nintendo's future dominance of video games. There's a ranked preview of 25 Wii titles, with Super Mario Galaxy up top and NP's editors doing creative things with the games they didn't have art for (a guy in a moogle cap illustrating the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles piece, for example).

Interviews: NP tends to get dev interviews that no one else gets, and this month's little exception, with Kouichi Ishii (the Mana series), Goichi Suda (Contact), and Mark Pacini (Metroid Prime 3) stepping up to the plate.

Making its triumphant comeback: The "You found the Ocarina!" ad, although it's all fancy-looking and sadly lacking in elves riding dragons now.

Tips & Tricks August 2006

The editorial this month (T&T started doing editorials a few months back) makes an interesting point -- increasingly, gamers are seeing "codes" in games (such as the Konami code) as a thing of the past, even though mags like T&T still have a readership. "There are a lot of very popular games that are actually much more fun to play when using cheat codes," the editors write. "It was an eye-opening experience to find that our message is still not being received by the masses. Wake up, America! Those games you're playing are loaded with secrets, and we're here to tell you all about them...so pay attention!"

Case in point: The "Mystery Codes" section at the back each issues, covering codes that seem to be accepted by the game but have no apparent effect. This month's top mystery code is for the GameCube edition of Cars -- the code ("WATCHIT") unlocks movie clips in the PS2 and Xbox version, but the Cube port doesn't have any movie clips ('cos Nintendo sux HURRR), yet the code's still accepted. Does it do something...else, then? T&T have apprently been proven wrong before with codes like these. We'll see.

Funniest bit: Associate editor Niles Livingston's quest to finish every single mission in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja. The developers at Bandai must have wanted to see Japanese children slit their wrists after attempting to complete the mission mode, which includes such innovative challenges as "Get 9,999,999 gold!" and "Fight every character against every other character 99 times!" For those of you slow on math, completing that last mission requires that the player goes through 14*13*99 = 18,018 matches. Luckily, since you don't actually have to win these matches, Niles screwed around with the game settings and stuck some rubber bands on his controller to speed up the process. However, even with these cheats, finishing the mission takes 17 straight days of play, and T&T's press deadline arrived on Day 16. I look forward to a full update next month. Presumably it unlocks some utterly jaw-dropping concept art, or perhaps bin Laden's location.

Hardcore Gamer Volume 2 Issue 2

This is, I think, the first issue of HCG where the cover wasn't drawn by Mr. Airbrush himself, Terry Wolfinger (although there's a lovely centerfold of Super Mario Galaxy drawn by him inside).

There's a huge bit on the Wii this month, leading me to wonder if Nintendo's new system will be to HCG editor Greg Off as the Jaguar was to GameFan's Dave Halverson.

Kindly skip: The cosplay page. Not to toot my own horn, but Newtype USA has a cosplay column written by Jan Kurotaki, and she is the only person who does cosplay right. In the world. I mean it. Buy a copy and see. Please.

Xbox Live Gamer 2006

Oh lord, it's Future one-off mania! First up is the second edition of Xbox Live Gamer, a co-op job between the editors of OXM and Maximum PC. This one (unlike CPU's effort a while back) is actually pretty remarkable, featuring nearly all original content and a great deal of neat art and design. There's even a bunch of E3 coverage that didn't make it into any other Future mag, including interviews with CliffyB and the producer of Rainbow Six: Vegas. It's all info that anyone with a 360 probably knows already, but still, a remarkable effort and a contender for Best One-Off of the Year.

The Essential PSP Handbook

This one isn't quite as impressive as Xbox Live Gamer, mostly 'cos there just isn't as much interesting stuff to discuss about the PSP for 112 pages. A lot of the tech stuff is nothing a net search wouldn't reveal, and the great majority of the mag is devoted to standard previews and reviews. The design's still nice, though, and the mag comes with one of those Sportflics-style postcards for Pursuit Force. (Yes, I know they're called "lenticular" postcards, but I was raised in the 80s, and so they're Sportflics, forever.)

Beckett Spotlight: Cheat Codes

Could someone please make me stop buying Beckett one-offs? Seriously, this magazine looks straight out of 1988. And, oh cripes, I see that Beckett Sports Video Gamer is due out this month, too. God, give me strength.

(Note to self: The next time I'm unemployed, make sure to use my secret pen name when begging Beckett for work.)

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He owns enough magazines to smother himself with should the need arise, and his secret fantasy is for someone flush with game-publisher stock options to give him a monthly stipend so he can spend a year researching their full history and finishing the site. In his "off" time he is an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Poking around the awesome Music Thing blog and its entry on bizarre musical instruments at the Futuresonic festival in Manchester, we discovered something wonderful - Toshio Iwai has an official Tenori-On weblog in English, and he also talks about Electroplankton on it.

We've previously covered Tenori-On, which is Iwai's insane-looking new Yamaha co-produced touch-based musical instrument, which shares a lot of ideas with his DS title Electroplankton (and his previous cult PC title Sim Tunes!), but there's lots more info on the blog, as well as a post on Electroplankton's European debut.

In it, Iwai comments: "Electroplankton was released in Europe today, July 7th. I am very happy, so I made a drawing which Electroplanktons
were swimming to Europe through the Milky Way." Darn, wish there was a wallpaper-sized version of it.

He also reveals: "European version of Electroplankton recognize the language setting of Nintendo DS, so the language of the menu and etc. is changed. And the voices of Volvoice in the Audience Mode are also changed. I asked Nintendo of Europe to record children's voice of each language. (Original Volvoice's voice is my daughtar's voice ;-)" Cute!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some quirk of fate led us to the In The Groove homepage, where Roxor Games' distinctly DDR-'inspired' rhythm game for arcade and consoles lives, and there are a bunch of potentially intriguing things there - not least an image from the Play Meter arcade trade magazine which reveals that In The Gro(o)ve 2 was the highest rated 'Video Kit' (upgrade!) in June 2006 by the surveyed arcade operators.

From this, we can guess that the Konami lawsuit against Roxor filed last year (the upgrade kits are often going into DDR machines!) must either be settled or stalled. It's also neat to see the entire Play Meter arcade charts to see what smaller U.S. arcade operators actually care about nowadays - looks like The Fast And The Furious by Eugene Jarvis' Raw Thrills is way up there, alongside fun stuff like House Of The Dead 4 and Initial D Ver. 3 from Sega.

[Oh, and in case you missed the 'classic' In The Groove April Fool from this year, as we did - it's EverGroove - "a unique game combining the best elements from the In The Groove dance games plus the addictive features of massively multiplayer online RPGs (MMORPGs)", which "adds a new SUPER MASTER difficulty with up to 50 steps per second". Well, the first bit isn't actually too crazy an idea, heh.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, editing Jim Rossignol's 'Blogged Out' column for Gamasutra today, we came across the extremely insane 'Insurgents' image by game-related artist Brody Condon, who runs Tmpspace.com as his virtual gallery.

Though we were aware of some of Condo's earlier projects, such as the Waco: Resurrection FPS and the real-life John Carmack model which is "a low polygon likeness of the famous game engine programmer" which was "milled in polyurethane, and textured with hundreds of hand placed inket decals", we hadn't seen some of his newer game art.

This includes 'Need For Speed (Cargo Cult)', which is "a Lamborghini Countach from 1985 made in cast urethane branches. The original 3D model for the car was extracted from the popular racing simulation Need for Speed." Also neat, and a bit older, is DeResFX.Kill < Elvis; 2004, which " is a modification of the first person shooter computer game Unreal 2003. As the viewer camera floats through an infinite pink afterlife, twitching multiples of Elvis are controlled by the original game's "Karma Physics" real-time physics system." Fun fun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ever had a pet eat one of your favorite gaming handhelds? Jacob Kaplan-Moss has, and he's blogged about his puppy's attempt to consume his DS Lite on his weblog.

Jacob notes: "So I came home to find this: Bad Dog! [A moment of silence for my so-recently-new toy...] He mangled the thing pretty good, but amazingly it still turns on, albeit with a busted touch-screen."

However, Nintendo's customer service provides a happy(ish) ending to this story! Amazingly, when he called, Nintendo said: "So it looks like the best I can do is to charge you $50 to repair it, how does that sound?" Jacob grins of this development: "Major props to Nintendo's customer service. I don't know many companies that would replace a unit that's been eaten by a dog for around 1/3 of the sticker price. That rocks."

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last weekend was the totally awesome California Extreme, and Andy 'Waxy' Baio has written up his favorite titles from the show, concentrating on the quirky and gorgeous, of course.

Some highlights: "Panic Park. One of the funnest arcade games I've ever played. The goal of this Japanese two-player import is to shove your opponent around in a number of great minigames. The controls are like two big cushioned levers, which you throw your entire weight against to move your character around onscreen. Tilt your head sideways and watch this video to get the idea." Yay, another Panic Park mention on GSW this week!

Also: "Bumper. Released in 1936, Bally's "Bumper" was the first pinball game to use bumpers on the playfield. Funny enough, early pinball machines wouldn't get flippers for another 11 years, until Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty in 1947. Until then, gameplay was limited to shooting the balls and watching them fall. If you want to see it for yourself, Bumper can be found at the Lucky Ju Ju pinball gallery in Alameda."

[Incidentally, on a quick office poll of people that weren't sick at the time (rats!), so actually attended, FrankC's game of the show at California Extreme was a completely restored, pristine Funhouse pinball machine. YUM! BSheffield's game of the show was 'play the arcade cabinet before they take it away', because he turned up late and they were wheeling cabs away before the official exhibit end date. Apparently, he lost!]

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

We heart 'I'm OK' artist Derek Yu (hey, here's a full video walkthrough on Google Video!) - so much so that we got him to do the Pac-Man themed cover for Game Developer a few months back.

Anyhow, he's been doodling on his personal site again, and has come up with the best Zidane-related video game parody we've seen (and yes, the game-related vids based on the event are 'hilarious' too) - captioned 'Zonk's Revenge', it's either a Zidane-renamed Bonk or actually Air Zonk in the picture, though we're probably being stupid in not working out which.

Oh, also in the doodles - 'Paul Giamatti is Cao Cao in a Romance Of The Three Kingdoms Movie' - uhh, can anyone say totally awesome? We also want a Puppy Chaser T-shirt, but maybe that's just us.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at GameSpy (which really doesn't seem too connected to the 'blogosphere', despite posting some neat articles!), there's a preview of the Guitar Mania peripheral range, showcasing three different third-party Guitar Hero controllers.

It's revealed: "The low-end model, or entry level guitar is named the Shredder, a wired controller in a similar shape to the standard RedOctane controllers that Guitar Hero fans are used to. The mid-range model is the Rocking V, in the shape of a Flying V guitar. The high-end model that we got to play with is the Freedom V, the most exciting release for current fans of the game who already own two guitars, as it's the first wireless guitar peripheral on the market." Hot diggity!

However, the version GameSpy tested had some tilt sensor issues, and their conclusion: "Our play testing of the TAC Wireless Freedom V guitar resulted in mild disappointment. The RedOctane guitars are more functional, and are your best bet for competitive, hassle-free gameplay. While we wish that we could get wireless versions of the standard guitar, at the moment we're still stuck with annoying controller cables." Still... wireless!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over at fighting game HQ Shoryuken.com, they've posted lots of videos from the recent Evo West tournament, showcasing the tournament which went down on July 1st-2nd in Los Angeles, and showed an impressive variety of winners across the multiple games.

The site proclaims, happily: "I’m sure you’ve all heard such stories as Alex Wolfe’s comeback against Alex Valle in HSF2 at Evo West. Well, now you can see it for yourself. We have Match Videos from the Finals of Hyper Street Fighter 2 and Capcom Vs. SNK 2 at Evo West 2006 for you to download! Grab them and see how it all went down!"

Well, unfortunately, the site had pretty slow download speeds when we tried, but don't worry - Alex Wolfe, who came 2nd in the Hyper Street Fighter II tournament (yay!), has posted videos of his own fights onto YouTube, including the insane last-round comeback mentioned in the above description - start watching at about the 3 minute 10 seconds mark!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Slightly retro blog The Dreamcast Junkyard has an extremely fun article up regarding going online in the UK with the Sega Dreamcast, even in this day and age.

Blogger Gagaman(n) explains: "Firstly, from browsing Sega-Europe's website hey still have a Q&A section for the Dreamcast (go see for yourselves), and one of them was about obtaining the last edition of the DC internet disc, Dream Kit Ver.3. It appears they still have piles of them, so they're giving them away to anyone that requests one for free. I requested one for the fun of it recently, and in two days it popped through the mail."

Having also grabbed a VGA adaptor (although not the somewhat insanely rare broadband adaptor, unfortunately!), next up: "I didn't want to pay the per-minute stuff to try it out, so I hunted down a free ISP for it and luckily enough there was one. Right here... Using this I slapped the Dreamkey disc in, put in the details I printed out from that site, and there we have it! My DC was online again, if only temporarily. The ISP worked, although I cant tell if it was truly free yet until the next phone bill arrives." There's even a video on the site showing his DC happily motoring along using its inbuilt modem, aww - not exceptional, but entertaining!

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Here's a fun piece of randomness - we got a brief note to Gamasutra from an amused reader who had checked out the announcement of John Romero's new studio, named Slipgate Ironworks, which "will specialize in massively multiplayer online games".

The reader noted wryly: "I found it funny that the logo is based upon/copied from a Soviet poster "We smite the lazy workers" - here." And what do you know, it is! Is this just another covert way of revealing that, if you take a job there, you're going to be bitch-smited? Almost certainly.

Now, Romero does comment on his blog that: "Fear not, the name Slipgate Ironworks is only a temporary name for my company. We'll be renaming it sometime during the next year to something real. :)" So perhaps the final company name will be 'The Bread Starts Here'? Thank you, we'll be here all week.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The ever-crazy 3DO Multiplayer Blog has what must be a world-first English language review - for Warp's bizarre 3DO title Rush and Fire Megadas, a particularly obscure title from Kenji Eno's mystery machine.

Blogger 3DOKid comments: "Say 'Warp' to any 3DO fan and they immediately wax-lyrical about D's Diner or perhaps mention the much delayed D2 for the 3DO M2 that never materialised and that the Dreamcast version that did materialise was nothing like the version destined for the M2. Us 3DO fans being real wows at diner parties. Not unsurprisingly, we 3DO fans don't mention Megadas. You're dying to know why I guess - or perhaps not, but here goes."

He explains: "The premise is that it is a Warp TV channel. You get a News channel, Weather, Shopping, Movie, Educational, Adult and the game channel - Megadas. They are all pretty sorry." The most 'interesting'? "The final game is called "Oda Nobonaga over sleeps". The objective being to wake this major daimyo of the Sengoku period of Japanese history by slapping away at the 'A' button and eventually waking him up. Once he's awake you get rated." OK, I think we see why this is obscure, now.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This one's been floating around for a bit, but I didn't realize how insane it was until I looked at it properly - a YouTube-hosted promotional video for Goku Makaimura, aka upcoming PSP title Ultimate Ghouls 'N Ghosts from Capcom, which plays out like a particularly surreal absinthe dream.

Along with a spectacularly redbearded Japanese guy hanging out his famous underwear and using his lance to turn out the light in his dingy apartment, we then see him switching some of his treasure for money and hanging out in karaoke bars with hostesses, before getting in shape to kick ass as Arthur the Knight - sublime.

If you haven't seen them, actually, the trailers for Ultimate Ghouls 'N Ghosts itself are particularly satisfying - sounds like you'll be getting to play the title if you turn up to the San Diego Comic-Con next week, too - so have at it!

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at GameSpy, a new Japanese-themed column by Jonti Davies talks about the effect of new hardware sales restrictions in the country, as previously covered at Gamasutra, and it's all extremely bizarre.

As Gama noted: "The Electrical Appliance and Materials Safety Law, passed in 2001, already requires manufacturers to place "product safety of electrical appliance and materials" (PSE) safety certifications on new electronic goods, and beginning in April, retailers will be prohibited from selling pre-2001 electrical items without the PSE mark... Pre-2001 consoles such as the Dreamcast and original PlayStation would fall under the law, but as Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun explains, there are several ways of getting around the regulation."

In Davies' case, it went a bit like this: "Me: Hello, I'm looking for a Dreamcast... Staffer Number Two (upstairs): Well, you see, there has been a new law passed which says we can't sell such hardware in this store. Me: Really? You don't have any Dreamcast consoles here? Staffer Number Two: Oh, we do have one. Would you like to see it? Me: Certainly. Staffer Number Two: It's in perfect condition... just 5000yen. Me: Um...? Staffer Number Two: Just buy something for 100yen so we can give you a receipt, and then we'll sell you this Dreamcast... unofficially." Well, that's ONE way of dealing with it!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Our chums at Achieve360Points have sent over some very important news about the new Digital Eclipse-developed Xbox Live Arcade version of Frogger - the classic Konami Code is included in it, thank the Lord!

A360P notes: "The Konami does in fact work in Frogger, but there aren't many benefits to it at all. Enter the code and begin your journey as a giant frog dodging traffic. The classic code must be entered at the player select screen. Simply enter: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A."

The full Frogger info page has pictures of all the achievements for the game, incidentally - we've only got 4 so far, showing us to be kinda hopped out, unfortunately - it's 25 years old, and it's still really tricky on later levels.

[Oh, and a tip from us to you - it's highly recommended that you go to the pause screen and switch the art back to the original coin-op style - it's cleaner and easier to play with, in our humble opinions. Also, people around the GSW office have been heard to call the updated graphic stylings '90s shareware style' - not a compliment!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

DB Weiss is the author of 2003's Lucky Wander Boy, a critically acclaimed fictional story dealing with obscure video games. Born and raised in Chicago, he has a Masters of Philosophy in Irish Literature and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing.

He's currently living in Los Angeles, where he is writing the latest version of the screenplay for the Peter Jackson executive produced movie Halo, based on Bungie's best-selling game franchise (following on from an initial draft by Alex Garland), as well as a screenplay for Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game along with David Benioff.

GameSetWatch managed to reach Weiss via email to quiz him about his well-received piece of game-related fiction, as well as his current work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, with particular reference to his current work dramatizing Halo for the big screen.

(Click through to read the full interview.)

Lucky Wander Boy was praised by many people for doing the unthinkable and combining contemporary fiction and gaming culture - why do you think this is so rarely done, and what inspired you to attempt it?

I’m glad they liked it, wherever these people are. I think it’s probably a natural thing that videogames are a relatively new subject for fiction, being the youngest popular artistic medium. I wanted to write about them because they’ve permeated my life, along with books, music and movies. As more people for whom this is the case come of age, I think we’ll see more videogame cross-pollination.

What sort of feedback do you receive about the book?

Generally very favorable. I do get a fair number of emails about it, and it’s gratifying to know that something you wrote means something to someone you’ve never met. There are some people who don’t love it, of course. I take them seriously too. I think that, if I were to write it again, now, it would be better. But I have no plans to do that.

How much research about the history of gaming went into Lucky Wander Boy?

More than I expected. When I realized the character had to be a lot more obsessed with gaming than I actually was, I went back and read books by Steven Kent, Leonard Hermann, lots of others… I also did a lot of “research” playing emulators, and looking at pics in Van Burnham’s excellent Supercade videogame art book from MIT.

How seriously do you take criticism?

If it’s useful, I listen to it, definitely. I mean, "THIS GUY SUCKS ASS" is not useful. But "THIS GUY SUCKS ASS *BECAUSE*...", sometimes that’s someone tell you something you ought to know.

A while ago you said that you would be working on "quasi-journalistic stuff about games, sooner or later". What has come of that?

Nothing, unfortunately. Too busy with other stuff.

What is your own history as a gamer?

I played games obsessively between the ages of about 8 or 9 until maybe 15 (Atari 2600/Intellivision through NES). Then I took a pretty long hiatus, only really picking them up again when I was in my 20s. Now, it depends how much work I have to do. Whenever I have the time, I play. A lot of handheld stuff now, DS, PSP – they tend to swallow your life a bit less.

What are you enjoying most at the moment?

New Super Mario Bros. on DS and Lemmings on PSP. (What am I, eight years old?)

What are you working on at the moment?

I write for film now, mostly – appropriately enough, I’m currently adapting Halo for producers Mary Parent, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. I’ve got another novel finished that needs a second draft – and maybe someday, I’ll be able to work in games. I certainly hope so.

That's pretty exciting - I know you mentioned being a fan of the game's multiplayer mode a few years back, but were you attracted to the storyline of the single player game back then?

Yeah, I’m pretty excited about it. And I did always think there was a lot more to the Halo universe than most games -- I remember switching to “Easy” mode on the first game, so I could plow through it more quickly and find out what happened next.

How did you become involved with the project? It wasn't anything to do with an interview you did where you said:

That’s pretty damn funny – I’d forgotten about that. Let’s hope that, except for the “terrible” part, I was right!

Actually, it came to me in a far more prosaic way – producer calls agent and mentions project, agent sends sample script to producer, I go meet producer and we really get along, etc.

How far along with the screenplay are you?

Just starting in on an entirely new second draft.

[NOTE 07/19/06 - DB Weiss pinged us again and said he wanted to make sure this was made clear: "When I said I was starting "An entirely new second draft," I meant *my* second draft. I didn't mean to imply that there weren't many elements of the Garland draft in it, which of course, there are, in both drafts I've written."]

How long have you been writing for film, and was this something you wanted to accomplish from the beginning?

Yeah, it’s something I’ve always kept a hand in, so it’s very gratifying that it’s finally starting to work out. I was writing scripts for years, sometimes even for extremely small sums of money -- but I’ve only been working in Hollywood proper for around two years.

Going back to your views on criticism, you must realise to some degree that the screenwriting projects that you've taken on will inevitably attract criticism from some elements of their associated fanbases - does this worry you?

Not really. I do think about it, but it’s inevitable. There will be the 5% on the fringe of any hardcore fanbase that get angry about any change you make to the source material. The truth is that novels, games, comics, and what-have-you are not usually ready to be slapped up on screen as-is. If you did do a 100% faithful version, 999 times out of 1000 it would be a mess, and even the 5%-ers would recognise as much.

What can we expect from your new novel?

17th century, 30 years war, lots of weird stuff with alchemists...really have to get back to that...

Finally - regarding your desire to work in games, Ron Gilbert recently criticised the state of storytelling in videogames, saying:

Well, I loved Psychonauts and think Tim Schafer's story is smart and a lot of fun. God of War was great too...but in general, I think Ron is more or less right.

There are a lot of writers in film (and presumably in fiction as well) who love games, but I’m guessing that many of them get caught between stations, in a way. What I mean is, maybe they don’t feel comfortable with the world of games to try to kick-start their own game projects as a creator -- which is a nightmarishly difficult process anyway, probably much harder than getting a movie made -- but on the flipside, there’s no equivalent of the spec script in gaming, to the best of my knowledge. Honestly, even in film, the role of the original script has shrunk to almost nothing. And if they’re lucky enough to be working for film...well, it does pay better.

Still, I think that games will inevitably up their game in the writing and story departments, they’ll have to, if they really want to be mainstream. All the "games are bigger than movies" talk is ridiculous, of course, total 'lying with statistics’ type stuff. The truth is, for better and for worse (very often for worse) movies make so much damn money because lots and lots of people go to see them. They’re made for everybody. Hardcore gaming audiences exert a lot more influence over the direction of games than cineastes exert over the direction of film. But a move in a mainstream direction is inevitable, from a business point of view. Which, alas, is usually the point of view making the decisions.

Posted by alistairw at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Well, looks like alt.gaming Web magazine The Escapist, formerly wrapped up in a magazine style interface which we found made it difficult to remember to link at times, has broken out, and is now a website (with added magazine-like content still there!) - which is cool.

They say: "To mark its one-year anniversary The Escapist announced today the launch of its new web portal... the magazine’s current issue remains the centerpiece, with the site now integrating The Escapist Lounge blog, industry news coverage and contextual discussion forums for readers to voice their opinions about everything the site has to offer."

In addition: "After careful consideration and much discussion, we’ve decided to eliminate the ‘Casual Friday’ edition of the magazine,” said Julianne Greer, Executive Editor. “Instead we will publish the full issue every Tuesday, offering readers the magazine in its entirety any day of the week. In addition to the publishing changes, we are now featuring a text-only version of one article per day on the new portal, as well as the stylish print version the magazine is known for,” continued Greer. ”This option is in response to those readers who prefer reading The Escapist in a more traditional web format.”

Hurray, readability! And here's some new stats showing that they've really published quite a lot of articles in the last year. But what, no GameSetWatch link in Recommended Sites? We're TRAGICALLY disappointed, haw. [EDIT: Yep, the nice Escapist folks added us to their blogroll, and we thank them from the bottom of our attention-whoring hearts.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

[The 'Game Rag Slapdown' is an exclusive bi-weekly Thursday feature written by The Game Rag's Nathan Smart that's always video game related, sometimes funny ha ha, but mostly funny hee hee (and sometimes funny, period). This week, Nathan solves race relations with an ape.]

This week I’ve been playing a lot of Black & White 2. I got the game because I thought it was going to be the sequel to race relations from the Civil Rights Era. I was wrong.

I have been feeling guilty lately because I haven’t interacted much with the opposite color - as much I’d like to - and this game was going to be my ticket out of guilt city.

I opened it up, installed it and instead, was treated to a game where I’m a God trying to choose between helping my people or being mean to them. I was really angry at first because I was thinking how the heck am I going to get over my guilt now? Then, something weird happened. Something that touched my heart. Something that pulled on my teste strings.

I chose the ape character and he was just moseying along gathering grain and pooping on storehouses. This got me kind of angry so I punished him. I don’t want him gathering grain, I just want him to poop on storehouses.

Anyways, an opposing army approached and so I decided to destroy their city. I can’t have armies approaching my town – not even just to walk by. I took my armies and my ape creature and directed them to tear up the enemy’s town. My armies went to task but my ape decided to ignore me and this is where I was touched.

Instead of destroying the town, he decided to gather trees. I watched him gather a tree and I assumed he was going to take it to our storehouse. Instead, he planted the tree in the enemy’s city.

What a perfect metaphor for race relations in our times! Racist people are always getting so angry at black people for approaching them and instead of attacking their towns (like Harlem and Beverly Hills) – wouldn’t it be nice if they planted trees there? Or better yet. Pooped on their storehouses?

I know, I know. I’m living in a dream world. What kind of a utopia am I thinking of where trees are planted and poop is pooped? Well, before you completely think I’m a nutjob, just hear me out.

The next time someone you don’t like does something mean to you, instead of retaliating, why don’t you just look them in the eye, grab a tree and plant it in the nearest piece of property they own? Or look for a shed where they store stuff and just drop out a little poop on it? Wouldn’t that just blow their minds!

It’s a new thing I’ve come up with that I’m calling Poop It Forward and I hope you’ll pass it on.

[Nathan Smart is a fake news writer for The Game Rag and really enjoys the benefits of it (no facts, no research, no real interviews). He also does Bobby McFerrin versions of indie rock songs with his one man group Indie Blockedappella. He thinks things are funny.]

Posted by nathansmart at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So sure, we all spotted the announcement of Xbox Live Casual Wednesdays, and that's great news for rabid XBLA fans such as ourselves at the good ship GSW.

For those not in the know, and I'm adding info on price here, since that wasn't in the initial announcement: "The complete schedule [for XBLA releases] is announced as follows: July 12 – Frogger ($5/400 points); July 19 – Cloning Clyde ($10/800 points); - July 26 – Galaga ($5/400 points); August 2 – Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting ($10/800 points); August 9 – Pac-Man ($5/400 points)." Hopefully it'll go beyond August 9, too.

But XBLArcade.com has spotted the real story here, something Microsoft were clearly trying to hide from an adoring public (joke!): "It seems that along with Frogger being set loose, MS quietly released the long awaited patch to fix the match-making issues they’ve been having with Uno." Yay, this is great news - we had a lot of trouble finding XBL partners for the game and thought it was just us - evidently not.

"When asked about the update on various forums this morning, Richard Thames Rowan, UNO Program Manager at Carbonated Games, had the following to say: 'Yes, this update fixed the multiplayer matchmaking (both Quick Match and Ranked Match), along with another of other bugs, including better theme deck support (which is invisible until new theme decks are released).'"

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We continue to be fascinated by the good job that Stardock and Brad Wardell are doing in making people care about their hardcore indie PC games such as the Galactic Civilizations series, and FiringSquad has a good interview with Brad on the GalCiv II expansion, named 'Dark Avatar'.

For a 'niche' PC game, GalCiv II seems to have sold pretty darn well, and Brad notes: "Everything we had planned on was based on a projected linear increase from what happened during Galactic Civilizations I. Way back when GalCiv I came out, Master of Orion 3 was new and a lot of people were anxious for space-based strategy games. So the success of the first game had taken us by surprise. With Galactic Civilizations II, there wasn’t that situation so we did not think there would be the kind of mass-market demand for a space-based strategy game."

The company is also renowned for being light on game protection, and Wardell explains just why: "But the bottom line is that we are certain that CD copy protection costs more sales than it gains through “preventing piracy.” Gamers — particularly people who buy games — resent being treated like criminals, and it affects their purchasing decisions. If I thought that a retina scan would increase sales, then you can be assured that a GalCiv III would require it. Not having CD copy protection has definitely helped our sales."

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

So, we were reading a new weblog post by Rob 'Xemu' Fermier at Ensemble Studios, where he discusses the phenomenon of 'Underwear Man', and it got us to thinking.

Wha - 'Underwear Man'? Rob explains: "For many months now, whenever someone would take a screenshot from within the editor, one of our units would appear prominently in the final image. This alone might have been amusing, but as it turns out, the unit would always appear stripped of any techs the player had researched. Due to how we represent the player's military units, that means he wouldn't have even his baseline civ-specific armor so he would appear, well, mostly naked. Fortunately his modesty would be preserved by a pair of underwear that was painted into the base mesh."

Terrible! "Thus was the legend of "Underwear Man" born, making his ubiquitous presence in every screenshot we would make for internal distribution. He was, as you might imagine, the subject of much amusement. But all good things must come to an end, and today I finally fixed the bug, banishing Underwear Man forever."

So, our GameSetQ for today is:

"What video game bugs have you seen that have made in-game characters appear in incredibly undignified ways? Name the game and the tragic disfigurement - stretched limbs, missing clothes, messed-up colors, and missing body parts will get bonus points!

Please comment below - our useless contribution is that we've definitely played a game where your character can front clip into the viewing plane, allowing you to see through their face and into the inside of their head, where their eyeballs are separately modeled and look really weird, but we can't remember which game it was - one of the Resident Evil-s? [And yes, the screenshot is from SimCopter, obscure reference ahoy.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

['Compilation Catalog' is a regular biweekly analysis of retro remakes and compilations old and new. This entry's subject is Falcom Classics, released in 1997 for the Japanese Sega Saturn.]

The amount of time and effort the venerable Japanese PC developer Falcom has spent remaking and re-remaking their classic franchises (most notably Ys) has become almost a running joke over the years. It's tempting to see this package, developed by JVC Victor and released in 1997 for the Japanese Sega Saturn, as more squeezing of the same bloodless stone. But included along with the requisite Ys are two of Falcom's earliest hits, Dragon Slayer and Xanadu, which influenced the entire course of Japanese action RPGs afterward. While fans who are only familiar with Ys might not see these two dusty old relics as classics, they're still quite playable today, and an interesting look at a genre in its infancy.

Each of the three games has been completely overhauled in colorful 32-bit-era 2D, far cry from the originals' EGA-ish graphics. Each has redone - or new, depending on the case - music, too, though the games have tended to retain their original sound effects, appropriately. Most importantly, though, the earlier two games in the pack have had their controls streamlined and adapted to the Saturn's joypad, making them much easier to get into than the Japanese PC originals are these days. Plus, each of the games has a new "Saturn Mode" that add additional gameplay tweaks, but these can be skipped in favor of an "Original Mode" for each.

Dragon Slayer, released in 1984, is the very first action-RPG ever made. At first it might look very much like the graphical derivatives of Rogue that have proliferated over the years, right down to the way you bump into enemies to attack them. But even apart from the fact that it runs in real-time, Dragon Slayer's rules are a bit different. The game plops the player down in the middle of a 2D overhead map that's scattered with blocks, potions, monsters, chests, gold coins, and a fair variety of items whose purpose will surely be a mystery to any new player, including a...house? There doesn't seem to be much of a goal to the game at first glance. Sure, there are monsters to kill and treasure to find, but the functions of items are a mystery, there's nothing to buy with the treasure, and enemies don't add to a player's experience levels. And where's the exit to this level?!

The point of the game becomes more clear when one notices that picking up one of the crystals scattered around a level and then "using" it on the house (the player's home, which is located right in the dungeon, for some reason) increases the player's strength by a good deal. Additional items increase health and damage potential, while others can be used to defend against the attacks of enemies. Further structure is noticeable when the player comes upon a gigantic, unmoving, three-headed dragon situated in one corner of the first level. Attacking it early on is an easy way to experience a quick death, but thankfully there have been more than enough items placed within the level to allow the player to grow strong enough to (of course) slay the dragon.

Once that's been accomplished, the game moves on to the next stage, with a new layout and another dragon to beat. It's like a series of miniature, abstract RPGs laid end to end. One could be forgiven for noticing a resemblance between this game and a fourteen-year-old's summer project, thanks to its seemingly nonsensical nature and arbitrary mechanics. And once you've figured out how to play the game, all is not roses: it can be irritating juggling the one item you can carry (a key, a cross, a ring) and those that you accumulate, and making trips between item fields and home can be a chore, even after one learns how to push the house around (!). However, it's interesting to see how such an untamed project gave birth to a relatively measured genre.

Xanadu (which has no relation to Olivia Newton John) was developed as a direct sequel to Dragon Slayer. It was one of the first big hits in the Japanese PC game market, having sold over 400,000 copies after its release in 1985. Its graphical style and assortment of items bear some resemblance to its predecessor, but Falcom practically started from scratch with the game's design, resulting in something that should be much more recognizable to modern players. The bulk of the game takes place in an underground, 2D dungeon that's viewed from the side this time, and there are ladders, doors, pitfalls, and shops to navigate. Enemies can be seen roaming around on the map, and when the player's character collides with one, a top-down encounter begins. The player can attack the enemies by simply running into them, or magic can be used to attack from afar. Once each of the enemies are killed - or once the player escapes - the game continues as usual. Each of the game's ten areas (called "floors" even though each has many of its own floors and distinct areas) has smaller, self-contained sub-dungeons. Upon entry, these are represented entirely by rooms in a top-down perspective, with individual enemies infesting each room.

Familiar elements abound here, for fans of both Eastern and Western RPGs old and new. When starting a game, the player is set free in a surface-level town, which has various shops and training facilities that can be used to improve the player's starting statistics (most of which are swiped wholesale from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons). There's experience to be gained here, and underground churches where the player can level up (each level of fighter or mage experience has its own title - a nice touch). The items that can be found are pretty close to the consumables seen in later (and even modern) action RPGs. Subterreanean shops carry weapons, armor, keys, and food, the last of which is consumed slowly over time and is essential for keeping our intrepid adventurer alive. Weapons and armor change the player's sprite visibly when equipped, which is a cute touch, and the game's indigenous monsters are nicely varied (if not always original - watch out for those Beholders).

The game does have its share of problems. Game balance shouldn't be mentioned in this case so much as a complete lack thereof, and the archaic, inertialess "jumping" takes some getting used to. Starting around Floor 3 or 4, dungeon design becomes pretty devious, and it's often easy to find oneself stuck in a room without a key to get out. Granted, there's an in-game escape button included just in case that does happen, but who wants to get sent back to the first floor every time the level layout gets the best of them? Judicious saving can help avoid this, however. Also, the "karma" stat, while an interesting predecessor to more developed morality systems, is a sticky matter. Killing certain enemies raises the player's karma by a certain amount, and if a player's karma is too high, priests in churches will refuse to grant level-ups. The only way to decrease karma is to drink a black potion, which also has the effect of knocking off half a player's health bar. It probably won't be clear to most players which enemies are "good" and which aren't, so it's easy to end up facing either a drug habit or a restart.

Even so, learning the dungeon layouts and figuring out how to best use the game's sytems for survival is satisfying, and boss encounters are rare enough that they're thrilling when they're discovered. And discovery is key here: it might have tiny graphics, but this is a big, big game, with lots to explore and find and see and do. Plus, even when the game's balance has you down, the whole thing is practically begging to be exploited for all it's worth. It can be a vicious game, but it gives the player more than enough means to be vicious right back to it. (Check over here for a video of the game being completely taken apart in 13 minutes.)

1987's Ys doesn't bear series links to either of the above games, but Xanadu's collide-to-attack mechanic was included and practically refined into an art form. This game is most often compared, unfavorably, to its contemporary The Legend of Zelda, and many players aren't sure what to think of a game that doesn't require you to swing your sword to hit enemies. But the heavily action-based play style is still as solid and addictive as it always was, and while the game's messy dungeon layouts haven't aged as well as its setting or story, it's still easy to see why Ys has remained popular all these years. Ys was originally the main draw in this package, and most of the bonus material included in the limited edition of Falcom Classics is strictly Ys-related. The game had already been remade a couple of times and ported to many, many platforms before this package came out, and it would go on to be remade again in the super-polished, high-resolution Ys Eternal.

This version of the game is certainly attractive, and its Saturn Mode adds a run button and diagonal controls. How much these actually aid the original gameplay is debatable, though, and the lack of voice and the relatively high level of Japanese required - at least, compared to next to nothing in Xanadu and Dragon Slayer - make this remake hard to recommend as a reason to track down the package. Plus, the remixes of the classic tunes - which are arguably what the series is known for - are merely pedestrian and functional. Luckily, the other games in this collection provide an interesting enough glance into the (pre-)history of Japanese computer games and RPGs that they make this package more than worthwhile, especially for its easily-manageable going price on eBay.

[Trevor Wilson is a web developer and amateur game developer who indulges his unhealthy obsession with obscure, strange, and unique video games over at his weblog, namako team. Thanks goes to the always excellent Hardcore Gaming 101 for the screenshots of Ys and Xanadu.]

Posted by trevorw at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

GSW columnist RedWolf of VintageComputing 'fame' has just posted an extremely fun interview with video game memorabilia collector Brett Martin, who has "about ten to fifteen thousand individual pieces" of game merchandising, yikes.

The neatest bit is Martin singling out his most treasured items: "My favorite Zelda sets are the two sets of original 1987 unpainted enemy gashapon toys, as they have a figure of every character in the original game! Also in that link is a great set of hand painted Zelda figures. You can find the rest in each section. There is also a similar set of Mario unpainteds from the original Super Mario Bros. that I have. How can a collector pass these up? I even have some doubles for sale on the site (hint hint)."

But wait, there's more! "My favorite Zelda piece is the Link statue I have, where my favorite Mario piece would be my 4′ statue. I’m big on statues, but also love the intricacy of smaller pieces. I also have to say I love my prototypes that I have of Metal Mario, Starfox’s Fox McCloud, Banjo-Kazooie, and the Donkey Kong 64 characters. 1 of 1, can’t beat that!" Wow, insane geekout.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yet again, we get all the top, breaking Maori motion-capture related news from New Zealand, as follows: "Game developer Sidhe Interactive and Ngāti Kimihia Hāpu (sub-tribe) of Ngāti Toa Rangatira announced today that Sidhe’s upcoming videogame title “Rugby League 2” for Xbox would feature the traditional Māori Haka known as Ka Mate."

As is explained: "The Haka is a warrior challenge, traditionally performed at the meeting of Maori tribes as a means to both show respect and intimidate opponents. Still used ceremonially today, Ka Mate has also been adopted by New Zealand sports teams and is performed before international sporting events..."

Thus: "Sidhe Interactive consulted with the Ngāti Toa Rangatira at length to ensure both the accuracy of Ka Mate within the game and obtain tribal approval. Ignite Studios acted as advisor to the collaboration and produced the haka component - traditionally trained specialists were sourced to record the vocals and perform motion captured actions. In the game, Ka Mate is performed by computer animated representations of the New Zealand national rugby league team, the Kiwis, before international matches. Ngāti Toa Rangatira elders reviewed and approved the final result." Is this the point where we ask whether Prey did something similar with depressed Native Americans hanging out in seedy reservation bars?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:01 PM | Permalink

Nintendo fansite Cubed3 has a neat interview with WayForward's Matt Bozon posted, in which the Shantae and Sigma Star Saga creator dish on any number of interesting things.

Most bizarrely, it's revealed of Sigma Star Saga: "We had a very cool opportunity to reinvent a brand that was flopping in Japan (a... game called Star Ixiom). We signed on, but the deeper into the details we got the less Namco wanted to follow the original game. So in the end, we were allowed to make a completely new one."

Also, the prospects of a Shantae sequel coming out seem more and more remote, but there's some far-off hope shown: "The GBA game hasn’t been forgotten. Believe it or not, there are still negotiations going on for that game, and the DS sequel. Because GBA is slipping away, I’ve put my attention on DS. But that’s not to say the GBA game couldn’t come back on Virtual Console as a SNES game."

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

Well, firstly, is any feature starring an Accordion Hero controller in the artwork _NOT_ going to be featured on GSW? You knows the answer, clearly, which is why we're linking to Chris Kohler's new 1UP piece, 'Out Of Control', which discusses 'the craziest game controllers evar', oh yes.

There's a particularly fun section on the original Street Fighter's 'hydraulic buttons': "Apparently, the buttons had no theoretical upper limit on how strong your attacks could be. Once players realized this, they would pretty much resort to any means necessary to kick the ever-loving jeebus out of the pads. Dropkicks from the top of the cabinet were not out of the question. Scientists at the time estimate the average life of a Street Fighter machine to be approximately eight minutes."

Unfortunately, Kohler manages to insult two of our favorite arcade machines OF ALL TIME on the last page: "But for every game with a unique input device that makes sense, there are some that are just plain ridiculous. Take Namco's Prop Cycle -- please. Hop on a stationary bicycle and fly yourself around a river valley? No thanks. And then there's Panic Park, which, we are shocked to find, has not yet caused any deaths." In penance for hurting our feelings, he must buy us both of these machines out of his own pocket. [The reason we like Prop Cycle so much? You don't have to pedal too hard, so it fits in with our sedentary lifestyle.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Of course, you can't expect that UK Resistance will provide you with anything remotely newsworthy (haw!) - but in a funny way, they have, in their wide-eyed look at new UK girl gaming duo VersuS, who sent UKR gallery links and discombobulated them a great deal: "This kind of reverse anticipatory stalking is confusing and has put us on the defensive. Still, we'll power through, as it's pictures of girls."

But here's the fun bit that's mentioned in passing - the newly monikered 'Siren' is formerly known as Voodoo, and has just left the Ubisoft-created Frag Dolls UK 'clan', where her newly posted farewell comments contentedly murmur: "I've had some really great times as a Frag Doll. Something I'll always be grateful for though is that it's allowed me to meet some truly amazing people."

However, the About Page for VersuS seems to indicate some decidedly strong opinions on, say, sponsored girl gamers, with the caption 'Freedom instead of Adverti$ing', and the following comments: "We’re not here to endorse any product or sell you anything. If we say it, it’s because we mean it, not because it pays our wage. We’ve both seen the perils and pit falls of “selling out” and have learnt one vital lesson; if you love something then honesty, independence and freedom are the best path to take."

There's more: "On a similar note, we may both be girls who game but we are not here to wave the “girl gamer” flag... In our experience “promoting girl gamers” can often be used as the cover story of big business trying to widen its market whilst still getting some pretty faces in the Magazines, in other words: Free advertising."

[On the other hand, VersuS themselves do have a distinctly 'girl gamer'-esque gallery ("because we are proud of ourselves, what we do, and what we stand for"), but it's free self-advertising, not free corporate advertising, I guess? They try to explain it, a tad awkwardly, in any case.]

Sooo.... interesting! Those with long memories may recall that I had a bit of a dust-up with the U.S. Frag Dolls around the time that they launched, for what I felt at the time was 'hidden agenda' Ubisoft product promotion, something that I will say that they've addressed by making it _somewhat_ more obvious that they're paid Ubisoft promoters - which is good. But it seems like at least one Frag Doll has been disillusioned by her Monkees-style manufactured past. Wonder if she'll say anything more about it? We await developments ghoulishly.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

We still dig just about all of the posts on The New Gamer, and the latest discusses why the cutdown Game Gear version of Columns is strangely moving - though I'm not even sure it's intentionally so, honestly.

Apparently, it's partly the music ("Instead of the chinsey, hokey reverberations of the Genesis version, the Game Gear's score (as well as the almost-identical Sega Master System soundtrack) resonates with chirpy but languid tones... the track comes across as spirited, but sad, and sets a melancholic tone that I'm not accustomed to with my puzzle game".)

But it's also the game's backgrounds ("As the levels progress, the sky gets darker and a crescent moon comes into view. By the ninth and final level the moon has become full, the town is blanketed in shadow and stars litter the sky. You'll never advance further than this level; the sun here will never rise again, but the columns will continue their freefall while the solemn soundtrack loops over and over in the background.")

Writer G. Turner sums it up: "How can a handful of gems seem so melancholy? Why does this puzzle game instill sadness when there's no story, no characters and no real conflict to speak of? There's hardly any intensity in its falling columns, but yet, it still manages to be emotionally moving." Can anyone think of any other curiously downbeat games?

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Having caused a large amount of anguished self-reflection from anybody who has ever written about video games ever, journalist Chuck Klosterman has popped up over at GameSpot News in a detailed, interesting Q&A in which the Klost "outlines the reasons he threw down the gauntlet".

For me, Klosterman comes across most strongly as surprised that anyone actually cares, but his key point is this: "I think that people were confused by my piece. What they seemed to think that I was saying is that no one is doing good video game criticism. And that's not really the point, I wasn't making that argument. What I was saying is that there seems to be no dominant person writing about video games in a way that transcends the insular culture of gaming."

Another good point is made, actually: "If there's somebody in the gaming community that has a problem with it, I totally understand it, and that's fine. I'm just surprised that this is the first time that someone's ever written about this in a mainstream publication. That alone makes it seem worth having done it."

So certainly, the 'enrage game journalists' box can be successfully checked at this point, and some good issues were brought up. But overall, I think we've learned... well, what have we learned? Maybe that we need more forthright personalities in game journalism - people willing to battle the PR machine head on and slay the hydra of mediocrity foreve... oh, it's time for my pills? Thank you, nurse!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[‘Letters from the Metaverse’ is a regular weekly column by Mathew Kumar about his adventures in the massively multiplayer online world of Second Life. This week’s column covers shopping.]

After my first column last week I got a rather lovely comment from the poster fluffybunny, who said “I have to admit I'm looking forward to your next post, even though I generally feel Second Life is getting way too much attention these days.” Fluffybunny picks up a good point – Second Life does seem a bit overexposed, doesn’t it? (Not that I’m trying to put you off this column, or anything.)

For example, only seconds ago SimonC mailed to let me know of a brand new Second Life blog, Second Life Insider, which has about nine hundred million posts already. There’s a nice one which joins me in my opinion that Orientation Island is absolutely bloody useless, at least.

The recent reaction of the world at large to the launch of Second Life’s branch of American Apparel, though, more than adequately shows off how much exposure the virtual world is getting. It was actually SimonC’s post on this very thing which intrigued me enough to start this column, as I decided I absolutely had to visit the store; American Apparel is the only brand I’ll let myself wear without shame.

For those of you not familiar with American Apparel, here’s a quick overview - begun by Montrealer Dov Charney, it sells 100% cotton clothes in block colors that are, more importantly, produced 100% sweatshop free in downtown Los Angeles. Slightly less importantly, it’s pricey, and advertised mostly with perverted images of girls in their skimpiest offerings.

It’s pretty much for twenty-something hipsters. Of which I am one. Unashamedly. So unashamedly that my favorite piece of clothing is their California Fleece Track Jacket. I have it in brown, so it’s only fitting that my avatar in Second Life should wear something analogous.

Shops in Second Life are a strange proposition. Most simply consist of a wall of static images of what you can expect to get if you stump over your cash, and you’ve got absolutely no way of telling if it’ll look good on your avatar, or even work, it seems, until you’ve paid up. After scouring the web for the slurl of the American Apparel store (which took a lot longer than I expected it to) I teleported in, hoping for something better.

The first thing that strikes you about the American Apparel store is how much like an actual store it is, unlike the boxes full of image boards that I’m used to seeing. Of course, it’s all smoke and mirrors. Items are still purchased from image boards (cleverly placed above clothes racks) and there’s STILL no way to tell what the clothes would look like on.

(The image boards actually only show store designer Aimee Weber’s avatar wearing the clothes, so she either thinks that only women would shop there, or she’s just a little bit too in love with herself.)

Seriously, people. Am I the only one who thinks it would be trivial to have mannequins in stores? I haven’t seen any in the world yet, and I’ve seen plenty of statues. None the less, the place does have a nice American Apparel ambience, even it is even heavier, if anything, on the NSFW images scattered around the virtual store. That’s everyone’s favorite Torontonian porn actress/proud wearer of American Apparel socks [and little else-Ed.] Lauren Phoenix.

So, even though I couldn’t be sure what I was buying was good, I decided to stump up the cash (350 Linden dollars, which is about one US dollar) on getting myself a track top. Thankfully, though I didn’t have enough money on me, buying currency is effortless, even though at that point you have to come to terms with the fact you’re now spending REAL money on virtual things.

So, breaking that psychological barrier, I was soon the proud owner of the track jacket, and off to the changing rooms I went (more for effect than anything) and emerged looking pretty sweet in the cranberry version. Success.

Now I just need to get some designer frames.

NEXT WEEK: I suddenly realise I shouldn’t have revealed my player name as it could make undercover reporting impossible, before being talked down when it turns out no one reads what I write anyway. I celebrate by going clubbing with some furries, or something.

[Mathew Kumar is a freelance journalist who’s dabbled in MMORPGs, but is too cheap/strong willed to play past a free trial. He got his break with Insert Credit, and his work has been featured in publications as diverse as The Globe and Mail, Twitch Film, and Eurogamer.]

Posted by mathewk at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This has been floating around everywhere, but it's too good not to post - an excellent, literate interview with former Sega president Tom Kalinske over at Sega-16, where he spills on everything from Yuji Naka's rebel attitude to a then-proposed Sega/Sony console!

Regarding Yuji Naka's decision to work on Sonic 2 in the U.S. office, and whether that upset Sega of Japan, he commented: "I'd imagine it did. Yeah, it most likely added more fuel to the fire. I think he (Naka) wanted more freedom, and since Sonic wasn't as successful in the Japanese market as it was in this one, he probably wanted to be closer to where it was successful and listen to why people thought it had been successful, as well as get the input of Americans who loved the character and gameplay and all that. I think there was a lot of that in there too."

On the Sega/Sony uberconsole: "I remember we had a document that Olaf and Mickey took to Sony that said they'd like to develop jointly the next hardware – the next game platform, with Sega, and here's what we think it ought to do. Sony apparently gave the green light to that. I took it to Sega of Japan and told them that this was what we thought an ideal platform would be – at least from an U.S. perspective – based on what we've learned from the Sega CD, and our involvement with Sony and our own people. Sega said not a chance." Wow.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The vigilant Fort90 sends along word of this extremely cool 'Circuit Bent NES' modified by Philip Stearn, also known as Pixel Form, to create abstract NES-triggered graphics when given an external audio trigger. [UPDATE: Thanks to commenter RavenWorks for pointing out that the mod doesn't create NES audio, but rather creates visuals from external audio.]

Stearn explains: "In early June I was contacted via email with a request to modify an NES game console for use with chiptunes based music performance. I accepted and have made some incredible progress over the past few days. I've already completed the manual bends and have pretty much solidified the circuitry that will be handling the audio reactivity." The result looks pretty awesome, and sounds/looks nice [.MOV link] too.

There are also some marvellous ghosts in the machine to behold: "One glitch I found bounces the screen around in response to the audio. For whatever reason, the amount of image bouncing that occurs once it's setup is controlled by the knob for the high frequency threshold." You've wired the tweeter to the crossfader, man!

The same person also does some very cool TI99/4a mods: "Over the past year I've been messing these computer up by short circuiting their video circuitry and adding mods that will do all sorts of crazy things to the graphics."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[Our Blazing Destiny is a weekly comic by Jonathan "Persona" Kim about our society, cultural postdialectic theory, and video games. And about the dramas that happen behind the two-dimensional playfield.]

Here's Persona's info on this week's slightly delayed comic, which is [*WARNING*], vaguely disturbing and ever so slightly NSFW, but hey, Nintendo, don't hurt us: "Sorry this comic took so long! I've been hit by my yearly cold and it's messing me up pretty badly. I hope the colors at least look okay on this comic.

"Anyway, I've been playing the New Super Mario Bros. for the DS lately (thanks to Aderack, Aerisdead, and Thatbox!) and the new mushrooms that either make Mario gigantic or miniscule started me on a track of thinking about all of Mario's past power-ups. Whenever he ingests something, he always has some sort of change in constitution, whether it be a P-balloon, a mushroom, or a metal cap. Not only that, his power ups usually come with a wardrobe change - from raccoon ears and tail, capes, and Hammer Bros. shells to frog suits, statues, and even Kuribo shoes!

"So is Mario some sort of cosplay fetishist?"

[Jonathan "Persona" Kim is sometimes a character animation student at the California Institute of the Arts, other times a ninja illustrator, but in his heart, a true comic artist looking for his destiny in the sea of stars. His path on the torrid road of comics include a quarterly manga on The Gamer's Quarter and his website on the internet drawing hub Mechafetus.com. He's also working on a report about his Anime Expo experiences soon to be posted here, probably within the week!]

Posted by persona at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Not that I'm trying to start beef, following the Kotaku vs. IGN incident, but VH1's Game Break has a post up sharply criticizing Kotaku's treatment of women, and referencing a Michael McWhertor post from last weekend.

In the post, McWhertor comments: "So, you girls want to come into our boys club and play our video games. Fine. A lot of us like girls. But you've got to understand our natural instinct to harass you over the internet at the slightest hint that you might be the bearer of actual breasts—the naturally occuring kind, that is, not the masculine version borne of fistfuls of Peppermint Patties and Cheese Puffs.”

VH1's Harold Goldberg rants: "Kotaku wants girls to spend $99 for a tech item so they won’t be harassed when they play an MMORPG? Why not simply say, “Hey, guys, grow up: don’t harass”? And by saying that a guy’s natural instinct is to harass women is pretty low … and pretty scary. Sounds like the “He-Man Woman Hater’s Club” with a gamer bent. At its best, it’s written by a guy who’s afraid of girls."

Wait, but here comes the capper from Game Break: "At its worst, McWhertor is promoting something religious extremists like the Taliban would enforce: the idea that it's a girl's fault that a guy harrasses her. She was the one that didn't have a veil on her face (or in this case, a voice changer on his mic, right)?" Yay, jihad reference!

Here's our view on it - McWhertor, who posted a few times on GSW in his day and runs GeekOnStun, has been getting very much 'this way' on his personal weblog, such as this one - but we think it's highly, highly ironic and significantly based on the UK Resistance school of being well adjusted and playing at being heavily maladjusted. Does this mean some people won't take it the wrong way? Probably not!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

['Parallax Memories' is a regular weekly column by Matthew Williamson, profiling classic '16-bit' games from the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and other seminal '90s systems. This week's column profiles NEC's console: The Turbo Duo]

A Hell of a Life

I admit that while writing this column, I have been woefully negligent of one system for far too long. This console was released in October of 1992 in the US and died in December of 1995, enjoying hardly more than three years of life. If you could even call it a life. NEC and Hudson’s Turbo Duo was the dream of many young, broke gamers but the possession of few.

The Sega CD was released the same month and was technically inferior to the Turbo Duo. But the established market of Genesis owners and the deep pockets of Sega helped to crush the Duo. Of course, considering how poorly the Sega CD did anyways, "crushing" may not be the best description.

The PC-Genjin

It is a little unfair to start with the Duo though. The original console was the TurboGrafx-16, which was released about three years earlier in 1989 for the US. In 1987, the PC Engine was released in Japan, one year prior to even the Sega Genesis. The console also saw an extremely small release in 1990 in Europe as the Turbografx. If you’re lost, the PCE and TG16 are the same thing in a different plastic housing.

To help sell their system, Hudson Soft and NEC needed a mascot. Sega was promoting their system with Sonic and his "attitude," so the TG16 tried to cash in on their ornery little cave man, Bonk. (In Japan, Bonk was known as PC Genjin, which was not only a pun. "Genjin" functionally translates into "primitive man.") It worked well, and early sales of the system were strong in the US.

It didn’t last long though. The early sales were quickly killed by the Genesis, and the TG16 was taking a back seat to even the original Nintendo Entertainment System by 1991. Shortly after that, the TurboGrafx CD add-on was released and doing abysmally, with only five games released during its six-month life span.

But the Soul Still Burns

By late '92, NEC is ready to release the total package of TG16 plus TGCD, with a few additional bits, as the Turbo Duo. Sales started off decent, and brought back some interest to the dying platform. For $299, you received six CD bundled games and one random Turbo Chip (also known as the HuCARD, which is a thin card on which games are stored). The system could take full advantage of every game previously released for NEC consoles as well as Super CD games, which otherwise required a special card to be played with a TGCD.

But by next year's holiday season, the system was scarce, and by '94, it was almost impossible to find one. The system was dead in 1995. Dead in America, that is. The US only saw about 75 CD games; Japan got over 270. Of the 300 plus HuCards that were released in Japan, the US hardly received 100. The PC Engine saw new games all the way into 1999, even though the US branch had completely shut down four years earlier.

This system intimidated and eluded me for years. On all corners of the internet, amazing things were whispered about this rare and haunting console from my youth. It wasn't until after I had finally acquired one of the most coveted games for the PCE CD that I finally ended up breaking down and purchasing the Japanese CD behemoth. That was a few years ago, and there's still so, so much to catch up on.

[Matthew Williamson is the creator of The Gamer’s Quarter, an independent videogame magazine focusing on first person writing. His work has been featured on MTV.com, 1up.com, Chatterbox Radio, and the Fatpixels Radio Podcast.]

Posted by Matthew Williamson at 3:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

At Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost has posted a fun entry on how Nintendogs was pre-empted by PF Magic's PC 'dog sim' Dogz, which was available around 10 years back - but his write-up includes a certain amount of sour puppy chow.

[We've previously discussed the very recent GBA version of Dogz from Ubisoft, which is the game in name only, since it's actually a Japanese game by MTO given the name of the original virtual pet, but did actually pre-empt the Nintendo title as well in original form, oddly enough.]

However, I do disagree with Bogost more than a little in his comments: "Given [Dogz co-creator] Andrew [Stern]'s role in an arguably more sophisticated and certainly much earlier dog simulation, I must admit that I grimace a bit amidst the effusive praise heaped upon Nintendogs". Why? It's not like people haven't considered pet simulators before, and Nintendogs is a well-done one.

Also, it's claimed huffingly: "It's certainly a serious, legitimate title, and I don't mean to discount that fact. But Nintendogs is also intended to backdoor new players into a Nintendo DS. "I don't play games," a target buyer might think, "but I do like puppies."" Well, to that, I retort - isn't Nintendogs is just a game that Nintendo thought would appeal to a wide audience, who would enjoy playing it - which they do? Overanalyzing a bit much, here? You've certainly backdoored me into linking your article, though, Monsieur Bogost!

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On our regular daily Google News trawl, we came across a tragic Bucharest Daily News article discussing "a Romanian computer game that roused controversy due to its racist theme that encourages the players to carry out a war against ethnic Hungarians."

Apparently, Romanians In Space's slogan is, wait for it: "Follow your destiny. Kill any non-Romanian alien prick in cold blood." What's more: "The epic story of the game starts in 1988, when Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu conquers the United States and becomes the emperor of Earth ten years later. Romanians dominate the planet for 100 years, but the new emperor, Traian Basescu (the current president) promises to conquer the entire galaxy. However, his plans are hindered by what the game calls "alien pricks."" Uh... lovely.

However, the game's creator claims this was all satire: "Out of ten missions, only one is against the ethnic Hungarians. Everything was a joke and it was meant to be a joke that mocks all the problems between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians." We just spotted that Eurogamer has more on the controversy, which all sounds... controversial.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Those scamps and wags at the AOL-owned Joystiq have just launched their latest blog, Second Life Insider, and are the latest company to jump on the ever-accelerating Linden Lab virtual world express.

Already, some fun articles have been posted, including one on why people would make themselves ugly in SL: "I've gotten so used to walking around admiring those avatars that are attractive to me that when I see one that's less so, I do tend to stop to talk with him/her."

The post concludes: "One thing that's been made perfectly clear to me while writing this post is my own bias toward beautiful people. It just seems to be easier to do nice things for pretty folks, or to offer help to someone you find nice-looking. I've always thought that one of the strengths of interacting in SL is the fact that you learn fairly quickly to look beyond an avatar's outward appearance and focus instead on their actions and speech." Well, working in the video game biz, you learn to be nice to ugly people very quickly (joke! joke! joke!)

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time for a little more GameTap, of course, and this time, the PC gaming subscription service is listing some of the most immediate releases to debut in July - haven't had chance to check on the GameTap client itself, is anything else listed into the future?

For now, we have the following: "Sports are in the air all around the world, and this includes the world of GameTap with a full week devoted to sports games! GameTap’s “Sports Week” launches this week with “3 Count Bout,” “Super Sidekicks,” “Riding Hero,” “Football Frenzy,” “League Bowling,” “Summer Games II,” “2020 Super Baseball,” and more." This is pretty cool, actually - a few fun Neo Geo titles and a classic C64 game, among others.

Oh, and we also get a list of 'June’s Top 10 Most Played' over all of GameTap, which is as follows:

1. Super Burger Time
2. Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness
3. Kohan II: Kings of War
4. GigaWing
5. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
6. Heroes of Might and Magic IV
7. Street Fighter Alpha 3
8. Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc
9. Bust-A-Move
10. Human Freeway

Again, a fun combination here - some CPS2 games, some PC RTS titles, classic Genesis games, some wayback Atari 2600 and arcade games, all the way up to newish Rayman titles. In conclusion.... we still like GameTap, and you can't make us hate it!

[UPDATE: Just went and booted GameTap to look in the in-game 'Coming Soon' section, and it claims that, later in July, we'll get the following: 1943, 1944, 19XX, Black Tiger, Capcom Sports Club (!!!), Final Fight, King Of Dragons, Lost Duel, Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man 2: Power Fighters (!!), and Son Son, all legally licensed. Man, those GameTap guys have some powerful geek voodoo.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ever-educative game blog SiliconEra has posted a fun interview with the 'Mario In MySpace' parody guys, including a new video that has Mario and Luigi complaining about MySpace-related friend mishaps, following the popular original video along the same lines.

As the blog explains: "The duo took their talents online when they made their Myspace sketch using clips from the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. In the story Luigi complains about having to add Toad’s band to his friend list, even though he isn’t friends with him. In the dubbed over cartoon Asterios voices Mario and Toad while Geoffrey does Luigi’s voice. The YouTube video was a surprise hit for the team with nearly 40,000 people who watched it."

We actually think it's quite funny, despite all indications that it might be tragic, and the interview ends: "With a point to get across and some great source material Overtime Comedy struck gold. Best of all both of them are having fun in the process. “I really enjoy making these cartoons,” Geoffrey exclaims. “If you told me that I was going to be spending my time syncing mouths to a vocal track, I would tell you that I’d rather kill myself. For some reason, however, it’s a lot of fun.”" Hurray?

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Started by Barrie Ellis three years ago, OneSwitch is a website aimed at providing information on assistive technology for moderately to severely disabled gamers. Ellis specifically focuses on accessibility switches – modified controllers with an on/off button that can be connected to the unit to operate particular functions within the game. “If a person happily presses a switch to roll a dice in a group game, even if they do not grasp the concept, it is their luck that provides a result, and no one elses,” he says. “This has value.”

OneSwitch aims to not only provide instructions for the modification of controllers, and suggestions of games playable using this equipment, but also to illuminate the issues associated with disabled gamers so that developers might learn too. It is in this capacity that Ellis was recently asked to act as Accessibility Advisor for the 2006 Retro Remakes competition, themed Good remakes of good games that anyone can play, regardless of their ability”. He will also be appearing as a member of the International Game Developers Association's Game Accessibility Special Interest Group giving a talk on Accessible Gaming at the Brighton Game Developers Conference on July the 14th. We spoke to Barrie about accessibility, the Retro Remakes competition, and what the industry can do to accomodate disabled gamers.

(Click through to read the full feature, including plenty more interesting info on accessible gaming.)

Why did you start OneSwitch?

OneSwitch was started in June 2003, after nearly ten years of working paid and voluntarily for severely disabled adults. I spent a lot of time tinkering with accessibility ideas after discovering assistive technology at 'Thurrock Care' day centre in 1994. Here, old BBC computers with various accessible interfaces were in regular use, for educational aims, and for pure fun too.

People seemed to react positively to technology, and the power it could bring them. I started to wonder if I might be able to adapt some of the old games machines and gadgets I had in my loft from my childhood. Things progressed from there...

In relation to gaming, what is "assistive technology"?

Basically, anything that assists you in playing video games, where you couldn't otherwise. It can range from things as complicated as Eye Trackers for people unable to use any other part of their body, to things as common place as a pair of head-phones for blind gamers wishing to play Audio Games.

My personal focus is on controllers adapted for use with accessibility switches. These enable gamers to use different parts of their body to activate different controls with the most appropriate specialised switch. The picture above demonstrates a boy (Christopher Myers) playing a mini-game of darts on Sega's Shenmue II on Dreamcast using a red head switch.

I gather you're pretty handy with electronics?

I'm self taught, and would only say that I have pretty basic electronics skills. Thanks to the Internet, I've almost always managed to track down people that can help, where I've been stuck.

How difficult are the interfaces talked about on your site to create?

It depends. Adapting old Namco Arcade Sticks is not particularly difficult, but is very time consuming. You need to wire fourteen accessible switch sockets to each and every control. Adapting something like a PC USB game controller for a single switch gamer is probably the best place for beginners to start.

I imagine there'd be a lot in terms of minigames that are playable using one-switch, but has there been much in the way of complete games that have been released in the recent past?

Many PC and on-line games have been written that are single switch compatible - I particularly recommend Aurikon and Alice Amazed.

As for games from main stream developers:

In 2002 NAMCO released Star Trigon in Japanese Arcades, which aside from a START button, was played entirely with a single button. Great fun game.
In 2000 Clap Hanz’ PlayStation game Everybody's Golf 2 could be played with a single button (although menu navigation is more involved).
Um Jammer Lammy could be played with a single button in Easy mode (again - needing more controls for menu navigation).
In 1998 CAVE released Uo Poko in Japanese Arcades, which could be played entirely with DOWN on the joystick.

So - pretty obscure! Of course there have been quite a few single button mobile phone games, but I don't really consider these very accessible games, due to the tiny controls of a mobile handset.

Do you think accessibility is ignored by developers?

Accessibility for disabled gamers, which include young children and novice gamers, is rarely considered by main stream developers. There have been some notable exceptions. Atari included "Special Feature" game options on their golden age Atari VCS games. These were aimed at very young children, opening their games up to a wider audience. Valve included subtitled descriptions of sounds in Half-Life 2 fully opening up the game to deaf gamers.

The reasons why wider accessibility is generally ignored by developers are down to three reasons as I see it:

1. Ignorance. Developers unaware of this area are understandably a little daunted by the huge range of disabilities. They don't seem to realise that many accessibility features are quite simple to implement, and could benefit a wide range of gamers. No one is realistically expecting a game to be made accessible to everyone. Many are expecting a little more consideration though.

2. A lack of easy to digest help. There is yet a concise collection of accessibility help and advice. In the meanwhile, I can recommend these sites:

An umbrella of the major players in gaming accessibility.
Features an excellent research area and forum.
Top Ten Accessibility wish list guiding the Retro Remakes 2006 entrants.

3. No agreed ratings system. A standard needs to be agreed for categorising and announcing accessibility features, along the lines of the American ESRB and European PEGI age ratings systems. This will make life easier for game producers and consumers alike.

I guess, in terms of what you're saying with simply implemented features, I've heard a lot of people complaining about things like lack of support for colour blind gamers - it's just a simple thing, but, like you say, it's just not considered.

Precisely. Developers will find that adding just one simple accessibility feature will open up their game to more and more people. Who could possibly lose out from this?

Well, as you mentioned, Valve subtitled Half Life 2, and it did widen the audience for their game. This seems to have been one example of accessibility technology that's filtered through the mainstream media and has been duly praised.

A good thing. More please!

Do you think the rating system is the kind of thing that we could reasonably expect to see implemented in the next few years? It doesn't seem like something that would be overly difficult.

I think it is more difficult than it seems, but is definitely possible. With the IGDA's Game Accessibility Special Interest Group we are planning a book which will hopefully be looking at ways in which this can be put in place.

What is your relationship with Retro Remakes to date?

I first became aware of them in the lead up to the Classic Gaming Expo UK in 2005 which we had a stall at. A guy called 'Merman' contacted me, telling me that a mini-competition had reaped a handful of one button games at Retro Remakes. I got in touch with them, asking if I could host them on my site. They agreed, then went one better, and ran a competition solely to create accessible one button games. Seventy odd games that came from this international endeavour accessible to play with a single button.

The team at Retro Remakes seem very sympathetic to accessibility, which has led to this year's competition. This was kicked off thanks to ‘Caffeine Kid’s desire to see a worthwhile game programming competition for 2006.

You're on board as "Accessibility Advisor" for the 2006 competition - what does that entail?

I helped with the rules and advice that opened the accessibility side of the competition. From thereon I've been on hand to give advice to programmers as questions have surfaced.

Have you had many people asking for help so far?

There have been a good number of intelligent questions from a wide range of people. Some of the programmers have remarkable knowledge in this field and have at times answered their own questions. Where I and the entrants have been unable to provide good advice, I have relied upon the IGDA's Game Accessibility Special Interest Group. Posting questions on their mailing list generally garners some very helpful replies.

What are you hoping to see come out of this competition?

An idea of how difficult it has been for programmers to create fun games, with good accessibility features in a three month time scale. This might help persuade main stream developers to do the same with their games. I'm also hoping to see some novel ideas on how to provide accessibility, such as the "ActionCaptions" suggested by ‘Rogue’.

What kind of features would you like to see implemented?

I posted a personal wish list for the Retro Remakes programmers. I can't think of much more that I would wish to see at this stage. If there were only a few things that started to filter through, it would be: Game options supporting simplified controls. Speed control options over the entire game. Very wide difficulty setting options, with developers remembering that there is no such thing as too easy for some gamers.

Is there anything coming up in the near future that you think will improve the situation? I'm curious as to whether you think the Nintendo Wii controller will impede or assist accessibility.

The Wii one handed controllers will certainly help a range of gamers, but not all. It's certainly a step in the right direction. There are a lot of gamers out there already using one handed controllers. Microsoft have recently announced that they are looking at releasing a simplified controller for the Xbox 360. They realise, perhaps on the back of the Wii and present day concerns, that very complicated controllers are alienating a whole range of potential gamers.

Sony seem to be lagging behind with their PS3 as regards any accessibility. They have announced the most complicated standard controller yet seen on a games console, and with the move to USB and wireless controllers, the massive range of PSone and PS2 controllers have been shut out. I really hope that Sony consider releasing a PS2/PSone game controller adapter for the PS3. The previous PlayStation consoles have been the games console of choice so far.

Do you think we'll see things changing in the future?

Yes, and it already is slowly. I just hope things keep getting better. Everyone has the right to fun.

Posted by alistairw at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back, once again, to TIGSource, and they've spotted an rather intriguing new free graphic adventure, named The Shivah, as entered in the monthly MAGS competition.

As is explained: "The story is about a rabbi who had received a large sum of money from a former member of his congregation, and being extremely suspicious the man decides to investigate the origins of his good fortune.

The TIGSource folks also point out: "A few things are done differently in this murder mystery, for example there are no puzzles requiring the use of your inventory and practically no items to collect. Progression is usually achieved by extracting clues from conversations with other characters." Yet more neat stuff from the graphic adventure clans, basically.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The giganto-uberblog (worship them!) Boing Boing has posted a story on The Tetris Company cracking down on a Mac shareware version of Tetris, and horror scandal horror has ensued.

According to correspondent Kirk: "Quinn, probably the most attractive of all tetris clones, got a nastygram from The Tetris Company. This program, which has been around for years, but which recently got enough publicity to draw it to the attention of the Tetris Company, is no longer being distributed. I don't know the legal basis for this nastygram - after all, there are dozens if not hundreds of tetris clones - but the developer certainly has no resources to fight the big magilla."

The official Quinn website has a note from the developers in question: "While both Simon and I (Chris Wells) feel that Quinn does not violate any trademark or copyright law international or otherwise, we have decided to cease distribution while we explore our position and where we can go from here."

Not sure if BB is trying to paint this as 'big guy vs. little guy' scandal - there's been plenty of vitriol directed in the direction of The Tetris Company before - but if it's got identical tetrominos in an identical gameplay style to Tetris, then I think The Tetris Company has a point. Not so keen on their evolving 'Tetris Guidelines', mind you, but that's a whole other kettle of blocks.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

[’Free Play’ is a regular weekly column by Ancil Anthropy about freely downloadable video games, and the people who make them. This week’s column profiles OMEGA.]

"I think too many people take part in one game title," says doujin freeware developer OMEGA of the videogame industry, in an interview conducted by NTSC-UK's Jamie Davies. Though friends often contribute graphics or music, OMEGA develops alone. "OMEGA is a circle like other doujin game circles....a solo circle."

OMEGA's most recent release, TwinTower, appears to be a straightforward balancing game. Blocks fall from the sky, and the player catches them on a set of scales controlled with the mouse. The goal is to build two towers—one on each scale—that reach the height the stage requires without tipping the balance and making them topple.

There are only ten stages, but the game's depth comes from how those stages are scored. A stage only ends when both towers have been capped by a special top piece, so the player is free to keep adding to them—bonuses are awarded for final height and weight, and for any coins still attached to the tower at the end. They're easily knocked off, so the player has to build carefully around them without upsetting the balance. A quick play with a deep scoring system—TwinTower is an OMEGA game.

Have a strong will!

OMEGA's design philosophy is more often applied to shooters. Dan! Da! Dan! gives the player three minutes to clear three stages with the highest possible amount of points. These stages are filled with Mr. Driller-like configurations of different-colored blocks. Shooting a block removes it and any adjacent blocks of matching color, and those blocks will give up whatever's inside them: credits that extend the timer, sunbursts of bullets.

Tapping the shot button shoots bullets straight ahead, while holding it creates a small field that can destroy hard-to-reach blocks and slow down bullets. Pressing the special button—when fully charged—will turn those bullets into points, and activate a spread shot that lasts for a few seconds. Smart use of these abilities is essential to achieve a decent score.

Every Extend is a shooting game in a less strict definition, as the game involves no shooting. Rather, the player controls a guided bomb that will explode at the touch of a button. Crossing the screen are formations of blocks that, if caught in the explosion, will also explode—allowing a crafty player to engineer large chains for lots of points. Learning how to get those points is necessary: since one stock is lost whenever it blows up, the player needs enough points to earn extras—needs "every extend".

Huge object approaching!

In 2005, Q? Entertainment—developers of Meteos for the Nintendo DS and Lumines for the Sony PSP—announced that they were developing the sequel to Every Extend, Every Extend Extra, for Fall 2006 release on Sony's handheld. Like Q?'s prior PSP release, each stage seems to feature a new skin and a different trance track. One skin is modeled after OMEGA's original game—another appears to be an homage to Dreamcast rail shooter Rez, which a number of Q?'s staff worked on. It's a curious collaboration between freeware and commercial development, and the results ought to be interesting.

Finally, be sure to check out...

Geki Pori, a game of belly-bumping platform combat starring monsters from Ragnarok Online, played by up to four people at a single computer.

[Ancil Anthropy is a game developer and space invader. She fills dessgeega.com with lots of good stuff and writes for a bunch of places, including The Gamer’s Quarter and The Independent Gaming Source.]

Posted by dessgeega at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ever-prescienct Press The Buttons has been poking around on '80s TV show websites, ever a font of wisdom for weird video game related shows, and has uncovered some fun info on a Nintendo-related TV show that I, at least, had no idea existed - and maybe that's for the best!

As is explained: "One television series that seems to have been completely swallowed by time is a local market kiddie show featuring everyone's favorite turtle despot, King Koopa. For a brief time the king reigned on his own low budget thirty minute southern California series, King Koopa's Kool Kartoons. The show has been merely an Internet rumor for years, but now someone with an old VHS tape has rediscovered the program and has offered it up as proof that the show really did exist."

Looking elsewhere around Retro Junk, the site in question, there are a bunch of old TV video game ads to browse, including our personal favorite from a cursory glance - an Xmas-themed ad for the Atari 2600 version of E.T.. Yes, you too can have an extra terrestrial deliver you a terrible, landfill-bound video game!

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

Meester Tom Chick has handily pointed out that Yahoo! Video Games, which has a fair amount of exclusive content as well as GameSpot-licensed reviews nowadays, has posted their picks for the best games released in 2006 so far.

Most interestingly, EIC Rich Greenhill picks a couple of unexpected titles: "THQ's The Outfit is a WWII action game unlike any other WWII action game; don't hold the mundane theme against it. If straightforward deathmatch bores you to tears, this is the Xbox 360 tactical shooter you need to check out... Meanwhile, eking out the spot for my best pick so far is the awkwardly named Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends -- it takes all the innovative mechanics of its predecessors, refines them, and then adds fascinating fantastical races and beautiful art design."

Then, Mr. Tom Chick himself notes: "Oblivion, Titan Quest, Rise of Legends, Chibi-Robo, Syphon Filter, Monster Hunter: Freedom, and even Drill Dozer and the latest Yu-Gi-Oh card game on the GBA are all top-notch titles", before picking out Electronic Arts Los Angeles' Battle for Middle Earth II as his top title: "marry[ing] almost perfectly technology, gameplay, innovation, pacing, and sheer knock-you-back-in-your-seat awesomeness."

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

Best event of the weekend? Definitely not the streaming cold I'm currently suffering from (in the middle of the summer in California, MEH!), but rather Gamasutra news contributor Jason Dobson's new Mega Man tattoo, as documented on his own eToychest site, woohoo!

El Dobbo reveals that the classic pixel character was "...not my first choice, to be sure. I initially had decided on Simon Belmont to take up a permanent residence on my upper arm, but as his sprite is mainly orange and brown, I feared that over time the thing might just look like a bad case of melanoma." Eugh!

As for the tattoo event: "Honestly, I found the pain of the actual procedure to be far less painful than the traumatic event that I had built up in my mind. It stung, to be sure, but a short while into the initial outlining of Mega Man, the area on my upper left arm where I was getting the tattoo simply began to feel numb." You go, Jason!

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone mentioned it in comments a few days back, but we finally got round to checking it out - the latest issue of The Adventure Lantern PDF zine has debuted, with Al Emmo And The Lost Dutchman's Mine on the cover.

The full list of zines show that 7 issues have debuted thus far, and there are also a bunch of online reprinted reviews/previews from previous PDF issues, including the review of Gumshoe Online: The Murky Truth, another of those niche but intriguing PC adventure titles.

As is explained: "Gumshoe-Online is a web based detective game. The entire game is played online... You are a detective hired to get to the bottom of the latest crimes occurring in Wheaton City in the 1930’s." It's also noted: "Be forewarned; as many in the forums can attest; Gumshoe Online is very addictive. You really don’t get the full effect from the free tutorial case." We like nichiness when it's like this.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Over at the 'War And Video Games' weblog, there's a new post up discussing a new video game-related story which is in the rather fun "bi-monthly 40,000-copy newsprint periodical" Arthur Magazine.

As blogger Ed Halter explains: "The latest issue of Arthur is now available for download as pdf. Check out my article "Playing Dead: How Protest is Entering the (Video) Game of War," in which I interview Joseph DeLappe about his dead-in-iraq project."

He also adds: "(And don't miss Arthur's profile of director Peter Watkins—whose mind-blowing films are essential viewing for those interested in games and war.)" Didn't know about Arthur Magazine before - it's not very game-related, most of the time, unless you count previous cover subject Grant Morrison (who has worked on the Battlestar Galactica game among others - keep up, kids!), but it does seem cool.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Brand new weblog A Bunch Of Nerds has posted about some exquisite pinball machine photography from Kevin Tiell.

The site notes: "Forget these new fangled consoles with their multi-core processors and fancy graphics, it’s all about pinball today. Photographer Kevin Tiell is a brilliant photographer whose many hobbies include arcade-photography and naturally, pinball machines."

It continues: "Tiell’s recent project, “The Game, Reflected”, is a series of photographs taken from the perspective of the actual ball itself, following the motion of the ball and highlighting pinball machine design and form." Of course, if you wanna see gorgeous pinball machines like this in person, California Extreme is the best way to do so, if you're in San Jose, CA on Sunday. But we mentioned that already. Oh well!

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

   

I was recently lucky enough to add a few copies of 3 For 3DO Enthusiasts to my collection. This means that I now have six issues of America's top (and also only) full-color magazine devoted to the wonder console of the early 1990s. Foreign 3DO owners had it much luckier -- while 3 only lasted seven issues (plus one free giveaway), 3DO Magazine lasted until late 1996 in Britain (with a demo CD, even), while an unrelated Japanese magazine with the same name ran for twelve issues over the course of two years.

The 3DO Company did have their own internal newsletter, but neither it nor 3 never really took off much. It's simple why, really. The 3DO console had a pretty poor market position by the time someone bothered to start a mag for it in America (the system was already on the skids by early 1995), and there simply wasn't the userbase nor the advertising revenue available to make a big, fancy magazine. That, however, didn't stop Don Hicks, head of Massachusetts-based PiM Publications from talking up a big game in his kickoff editorial for 3:

"3DO has a broader appeal. 3DO attracts a different type of consumer than Nintendo or SEGA machines. This means a publication dedicated to those 3DO users must explore the platform differently than most multi-platform game machines available in the U.S. or Europe. In fact, 3 should be a blend of product reviews, technical information, market information, and stories on new developments and the people that make them happen."

In short, Hicks wanted to create a type of mag that was already in something of a vogue in the mid-90s: a "multimedia" magazine. Remember that word? How it got bandied about all the time in Next Generation, Wired, Fusion, Electronic Games, Electronic Entertainment, and about a hundred other computer mags? 'Twas a bold new future that gamers had to look forward to ten years ago -- one with lots of video, lots of pre-rendered game sequences, and lots and lots of Tim Curry...with a dash of Mark Hamill on the side.

Unlike most of these avant-garde info-tainment magazines, though, 3 kept a pretty low profile through its existence. A very low profile. No issue was over 64 pages, and each one featured surprisingly straightforward design, which black text on white backgrounds and screenshots aligned next to each other in neat little rows and columns. (The screenshots are pretty obviously taken with a regular ol' flash camera in early issues, but Hicks hooked himself up with a real screen grabber later on.)

Towards the end of 1995, 3's page size went below 50 an issue and the mag's days were obviously numbered, despite the unwaveringly cheery tone of Hicks' editorials ("The 3DO Company has matched their competitor's efforts with more product, better design, and a company filled with people to make it happen," he wrote in the next-to-last issue). The mag closed without comment with its December 1995 edition and has since remained largely forgotten by pretty much all gamers everywhere.

   

The funny thing about this story isn't 3 itself -- it's your typical game mag, pretty much, and once you get over the amateurish design you'll find that it's pretty darn well-written. The real story doesn't begin until you look at Don Hicks and the state PiM Publications was in at the time 3 was launched.

Until 3 came along, PiM's main title was Amazing Computing, a monthly mag devoted to the Amiga computer line. It was one of the first Amiga mags in America, debuting on a monthly schedule in early 1986, and it was arguably the most respected -- only IDG's AmigaWorld held a bigger readership. Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994, however, put a rather obvious period at the end of Amiga's story -- while the fanbase might keep it going for a while, it was plainly never going to rival the PC in the marketplace again, no matter what the Amiga's notoriously optimistic fanbase thought.

So Hicks, like any decent businessman, decided to diversify a bit. He signed a deal with The 3DO Company to let PiM distribute the first two issues of 3 for free to their user mailing list, similar to the way Nintendo launched their own magazine in 1988. Unfortunately, his timing couldn't have been worse. The PlayStation and Saturn were launching in Japan just as 3 hit newsstands, and most hardcore gamers of the time decided to wait and see what Sony and Sega would do in America before spending $500 or so on a system without any "killer" titles. To put it another way, Hicks did everything right with 3's launch; it's just that the audience simply wasn't there.

With 3 closed, Hicks' only product was once again Amazing Computing, a mag appealing to an ever-diminishing base of Amiga users. Amazingly (hur hur), he kept the mag going until late 1999, and even when each issue was cut down to 32 pages and printed on paper that the phone book would be ashamed to use, Hicks still tried his damndest to remain upbeat in his writing. "This issue's diminshed size might have a negative effect on the North American Amiga market," he wrote in what became the final issue (above, right). "Yet, we have no choice, if Amiga vendors are not able to get product, make sales, and earn a living, then we need to design a system where they can. We stated many years ago Amazing would continue as long as there was an Amiga market. If this means removing Amazing from the newsstands to lower ad prices for Amiga vendors to keep them in the here [sic], we just may need to do that."

I know it's impossible to keep a diehard Amiga fan down, but I can't help but feel sorry for Mr. Hicks. He stuck with his choice of computer through the good times, then the bad, then the very bad, and his "Plan B" out of his dilemma was to launch a mag for a doomed game system. PiM Publications declared bankruptcy in late 1999 and Hicks disappeared from the Internet soon afterward, but wherever he is, I hope he's still got that positive can-do outlook on life. That, and I hope he gave up and got a PlayStation 2, at least. Hopefully he wasn't one of those (shudder) Nuon early adopters.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He owns enough magazines to smother himself with should the need arise, and his secret fantasy is for someone flush with game-publisher stock options to give him a monthly stipend so he can spend a year researching their full history and finishing the site. In his "off" time he is an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Another neat get-together that we completely missed was the Games 4 Girls student game competition held by the University of Illinois, in which "eight [all-female] teams (27 college students) participated" to create the best female-friendly game using GameMaker.

The overall winner was Green, Eggs, and Pan from a Cornell University group, in which "two players must work together to help Pan and Greeny save the dragon eggs that have been stolen by the evil lizard king! This game is a cooperative 2-D sidescrolling platform adventure game."

The game's screenshots seem kinda fun, and there are a host of other entries to check through = our favorite description: "Honorable Mention: University of Buffalo created a game called 'Fluff'. This game designed to motivate the player to protect the fluffs and give a feeling of remorse when a situation forces them to eliminate a few for the greater good." Remorse-based gameplay! [Semi-via GTA.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It looks like the official Neverwinter Nights website has added 'BloodSpell: From Concept to Finished Scene Part 2' (and there's a Part 1, if you missed that), dealing with the previously GSW-mentioned machinima movie from Hugh Hancock and friends at Strange Company.

This second part starts by talking about how the voice actors were cast: "We cast our film in much the same way a conventional film or theatre director would do: created some posters for the film (using suitable artwork from the 'net before we had our own), plastered anywhere we might reasonably expect actors in Edinburgh to frequent with said posters, and waited for e-mails. We took over the cellar room of a convenient pub on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, and proceeded to audition down to the cast we've got today."

Also interesting is how multiple takes/setups were done in the game engine: "As you'll see from our raw footage here, one of the biggest advantages for us in using NWN is the simplest feature - the "Pause" button. Using that, we're able to set up a little bit of action, run that for a moment, then pause the game, set up more, and repeat. In the Jered on the Steps sequence you see here, for example, we set Jered cutting his wrist with our custom blood VFX, ran our camera script, let that run for a few moments, then paused it and fired off some effects through the DMFI One Ring."

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

God Of War creator David Jaffe, who's currently working on an unnamed PSP title, has updated his personal weblog after a long hiatus, and it's