Archives

Musical indie Cipher Prime has returned to its roots with a sequel to the firm’s mesmerizing debut, Auditorium. I adored – and still adore – that brilliant, beautiful puzzler. Fractal, Cipher Prime’s sophomore achievement, I could have done without. Still, they’ve made a name (and a living) for themselves in a hard, harsh world… and now they’re Schaferizing, using Kickstarter to help fund Auditorium Duet, a multiplayer sequel to the original.

Do I want it to be multiplayer? No, I hate other people. And Auditorium’s beauty has always been a very single-person thing to me. But still, I wish the best for Cipher Prime, and if you have some change in your couch cushions, you should do the same.

The 3DS is doomed. Nobody wants dedicated portable games consoles anymore. iOS is taking over. Nintendo going third party confirmed. Pack it up guys, it’s over. Well no, actually. Turns out the 3DS is pretty popular. So popular infact that the system has just pushed past the five million mark in Japan alone, a feat managed in just 51 weeks and faster than the Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii. For comparison’s sake, the …

I don’t think there could be a better email in the world on a rather grey Tuesday, than an invitation to take part in the Guild Wars 2 Beta.  Though I can tell you very little (other than it begins this weekend and I’ve already packed off my entire family) rest assured I will be providing some in-depth coverage come Monday the 20th, so be sure to check back here. If you have any suggestions on what …

Super Mario Bros. Crossover is a pretty basic idea: a fan-made Flash game where you play Mario’s levels with other characters. Each character retains the abilities from his or her original game, and power-ups do different things than they would normally!

So a lot of people like Tim Schafer. 19,689 people to be precise, at the time I’m writing this. Perhaps yesterday you heard about this? In case you didn’t I’ll summarize: the folks at Double Fine productions don’t believe it’s possible to receive publisher funding for a “classic adventure game”-type game in 2012. Not going to happen. So instead, they reached out to so called “people” to fund their adventure dreams. $400,000 worth of funding, to be specific. Kotaku figured it wouldn’t take a week. Turns out it didn’t take a day.

Check out Double Fine’s “Kickstarter” page for all the details. Tim’s amusing plea video follows the break.

Right this very second, people are making games. The ripple started in New Zealand, then Australia, then began moving slowly west. By this evening my time, the indie-game development plague will hit the Americas.

I haven’t written anything about Guild Wars 2 in a while. Which makes a change.  But, its been relatively quiet on the news front.  Thankfully ArenaNet havn’t disapointed and today they have officially revealed the final class; the mesmer! Unfortunately for ArenaNet, Gamereactor.dk decided to jump the gun yesterday and release the mesmer skill videos before the big day (resulting in an instant withdrawal on their part) but sadly the damage was done and the mistakenly (or intentially) …

Sports Interactive Studio Director and football gaming man-God Miles Jacobson has revealed that his studio are “looking to hire six to ten engineers” to work on “next generation tech,” but has ruled out a return to consoles with the NextBox and PlayStation 4. The studio will instead work with cloud and mobile based services, with some particularly curious thoughts on the future of tablet devices such as the iPad.

GSC Game World is closed, officially. 1C’s Sergey Galyonkin offers more info here, if you can stand the piteous Google translation. Truly a sad day. Good luck to all of GSC’s former employees.

So it turns out Nintendo consoles are rather popular. I know, pretty wacky right? After all, almost 90 million Wii consoles have been sold around the world and despite a troubled debut year the 3DS has shifted more units within eight months than the DS did in twelve. But enough of those sales figures. Who are we, Nintendo shareholders? The real news is how many Miis are living on all those waggle and three dimensional consoles. …

Wadjet Eye Games yesterday announced that the wonderful Gemini Rue has come to Steam. Indeed, it has already gone live as of yesterday. This is excellent news for people who like great games, but also only like purchasing their computer games through the ever dominant Steam platform. It’s there, it’s 15% off ($8.49), and it could be one of your more memorable adventures this year. So, non-owners, your excuses are running out. Also, if you stroll …

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.. I’ll start with the good news. We finally have a fixed date for the PC version of Batman: Arkham City. Now to the bad news. It’s a full month away. On today of all days, when the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions launch across North America and just three days before the UK launch, Warner Brothers have confirmed that PC gamers will need to wait until November 18 to go hands on with …

Over the course of this weekend, it’s almost seemed as though I’ve spent as much time tweaking RAGE as I have actually playing RAGE. If you’ve been following the launch of the PC version, you’ll know that it’s just that sort of game. The beauty of PC gaming however is that as much as these inconveniences can frustrate and annoy, the rewards are often so great for those who invest the time to fix their own experience. …

The 2011 Interactive Fiction Competition, often referred to as IF Comp, is underway! If you’re totally unfamiliar with the concept, now I can introduce to you another one of my random gaming passions.  The IF Comp judges modern-day text games. These are new games, written in a style frequently associated with old games, where one simply reads and types text to interact.  The topics of the games range across the board from adventure, to horror, …

The annual trade show circuit may be drawing to a close at this time of year, but for those of us in the UK the fun is only just beginning. The Earls Court exhibition centre in London has today opened its doors for this year’s Eurogamer Expo, the largest event of its kind on our shores and a valuable opportunity for the UK-based press and gamers to get their hands on the latest wares from …