2011 has started pretty much in the same way that 2010 ended; with a slew of rumours and hype about the next round of portable game consoles. Although Sony continues to dance around the Xperia Play – the as of yet unannounced but obviously real PlayStation Phone – we’re pretty much also guaranteed to see the long awaited PSP2 arrive during the next 12 months. Hey, you didn’t expect to see Miyamoto and chums have …
Chalk this one up to another prediction Steerpike got wrong. Microsoft’s motion sensing Kinect hardware has moved a stunning eight million units in 60 days… far, far more than the company’s prediction (one that I at the time thought bombastic, absurd, and unbelievably out of touch) that it would move three million units by the end of 2010.
Former Infinity Ward (Call of Duty, Modern Warfare) founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, now founders of Respawn Entertainment, are calling foul over their foe Activision/Blizzard’s latest legal tactic. The pair were fired from Infinity Ward because – according to A/B – they were illegally colluding with EA to sell the company… which wasn’t theirs to sell. You doubtless remember the crazy news flood that followed. West and Zampella sued Activision for unpaid royalties, wrongful …
Civilization V Lead Designer and Programmer Jon Shafer has apparently left his job at Firaxis and moved to Plymouth, Michigan, to join Stardock Entertainment – makers of the Galactic Civilizations series and, more recently, the somewhat disastrous Elemental: War of Magic. For starters, Big Download reports, Shafer will be helping the Elemental team get that game up to some semblance of snuff; later on he’ll helm his own dev team at Stardock on another game. …
Two Mothers Of All Patches came out in the last day – Stardock Systems has released a monstrous 1.1 patch for its bomb Elemental: War of Magic, and Firaxis unleashed an update they’re actually calling The HUGE Patch to Civilization V, tweaking nearly every aspect of game AI. As the patch notes, linked above, indicate, neither of these are little bitty fixes. They are huge tracts of patch. Elemental 1.1 apparently ups the game from …
Time magazine has named Remedy’s horror shooter Alan Wake 2010’s Game of the Year. Our own Mat C also thought highly of it, as the above review indicates. Time talked about the game’s inherent maturity and complex storyline, even using the word “Hitchcockian” at one point: Lots of video-game covers have a bold M on their lower left corner, but none have felt as mature as Alan Wake does… Its mix of meta-awareness and Hitchcockian …
Behold! Well Played 2.0, a college textbook on video game theory, has been published by Carnegie-Mellon’s imprint, Etc Press. You can and should buy a digital or book-shaped copy here. Why? Because it includes a chapter by me, about me. Not about me. About STALKER. Because that’s a more interesting subject than me. Seriously, me would bore you to tears. And so might this STALKER article. But buy the book and read it all. Published …
Can you feel it? The crazy train is rolling into town again. And not a crazy Steam powered train either, no, one fuelled by Wolfire. Yes it’s the return of the Humble Indie Bundle: five sweet indie games each compatible with Windows, OSX and Linux, DRM free, individually giftable and all going for whatever price you like. Choo choo indeed. The best bit is that your payment can be split any way you like between …
So, SSX is back! Sort of. As one of my personal favorite franchises on the PlayStation 2, sitting alongside TimeSplitters as an early example of what Sony’s new machine could offer back in 2000, it’s long awaited return should be big news. But 10 years is a long time and much can change over the course of a decade. Just how much can things change, exactly? It would seem quite abit. That most beloved arcade …
In a move sure to chap the ass of former South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson, the Aussie federal cabinet has approved the adoption of an R18+ classification for games down under, effectively eliminating the tacit ban on any games deemed unsuitable for an R15+ – formerly the highest rating. This still has to be approved by Australian states and territories, and presumably adopted by Parliament as well, but it’s a step in the right …
Whatever it is, it’s currently packaged and sat in boxes at retailers all around the world, waiting for next Wednesday to arrive. More importantly, it’s finally finished! People are even playing it! It’s no longer just vaporware! Yep, Gran Turismo 5 is almost here. The 5 year wait threatened to reach comedy levels at numerous points in a development cycle that more people doubted the longer it went on, but with less than a week …
Bad news trickling in from the vine indicates that Emergent Game Technologies, creators of the popular middleware GameBryo engine, are being forced by their investors to sell the technology along with most or all other assets and IP.
There’s, uh… There’s gonna be a STALKER TV show.
Today, I did something I didn’t think I would end up doing this year. Like millions of other gamers around the world, I went into a shop and bought Call of Duty: Black Ops. Why is this strange? Well, it isn’t really, but up until today I’d managed to suppress any desire whatsoever to play Activision’s latest blockbuster. Not for any particular reason. Don’t get me wrong, there are countless reasons why any one person would wish …
If there’s a scenario that defines the phrase “Egg on Your Face,” the opening days sales totals for the much celebrated Rock Band 3 are probably it. Having told Eurogamer “It’s possible that sales of other games in the category are down because people are waiting to spend their money on Rock Band 3” in an interview last week, project director Daniel Sussman may be feeling a little red faced this evening. In case you’re …