This might have been one of the worst kept secrets in gaming for a while now, but it’s always nice to receive official confirmation of such issues. To be honest, I’m not sure if this even qualifies as news anymore, but it brought a smile to my face too wide to ignore. Following months of leaks and tip-offs, an ESRB classification last week and under cutting an expected E3 announcement by a couple of days, …
Suddenly no more amusing notes from Aperture Sciences or assurances that Surprises are coming, no more tantalizing videos or you-need-to-invert-it-in-Photoshop graphics leaks. Valve announced this morning, via a curt email to journo/analysts, that its press event for E3 has been canceled. The beloved developer will have a booth on the expo floor and that’s it. Technical problems before a big reveal? Or an internal decision that said reveal wasn’t kickass enough? Half Life 2 also …
It’s not really that alarming. Actually it’s not alarming at all. It’s just a bunch of pre-E3 news, and an opportunity to use the word “confluence.”
Portland, Oregon fiction writer, writing professor, and gamer, Tom Bissell, was interviewed in my local alternative weekly concurrent with the release of his book, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. It’s a long, rambling interview that touches on, among other things, why Portal is so important, why most game reviews aren’t very good and how tedious it is actually writing for a game developer. “There’s this whole world here that is not being written about.” …
How do you solve the problem of updating one of the most revered console franchises of all time and making it relevant for a whole new generation of consoles and gamers? Personally I’d suggest the best way would be to just not bother, avoiding desecrating the memory in the process, but Activision would clearly disagree. According to Eurogamer, Activision are all set to reveal GoldenEye at this years E3, which kicks off in Los Angeles …
Since the dizzying heights of my birthday post about a month ago I’ve changed my mind on the name of this musical interlude featurette. The phrase “I can feel the epicness flowing through my balls” did originally make me laugh, but now… now it’s just a questionable YouTube comment. I feel so dirty. Anyway, since I can’t think of a witty name I’m putting the onus on you funny bastards to come up with something …
I take back what I said about Steam being evil because it made me buy Alpha Protocol. How can you hate Valve? Those guys crack me up. Big outlets (read: not us) got an announcement today, regretfully informing them that the Portal 2 event at E3 was canceled. But as is always the case with Valve, there’s more to it than that.
Based on yesterday’s flurry of bad press for Obsidian’s new Spy-PG, I’d decided to contradict myself (when I said I would buy regardless of reviews on account of Chris Avellone’s penmanship) and hold off on Alpha Protocol. After all, I still haven’t finished Final Fantasy XIII or Mass Effect 2 or Metro 2033 or Splinter Cell Conviction or Tropico 3, Dobry just loaned me Bioshock 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 and sooner or later I’ll …
GamesBrief ran a piece last week with the somewhat hysterical title “Five Reasons why Steam will Destroy the PC Games Industry.”
In a word: it’s a monopoly. Or it’s fast becoming one. And monopolies, historically, are dangerous, regardless of industry.