Psychic Aquatic World Cup news now, as Paul the Oracle Octopus is up to his old tricks again with some predictions for tomorrow’s World Cup grudge match between England and Germany in South Africa. Paul, who happens to be something of a celebrity in his German homeland, isn’t prepared to join most television pundits in sitting on the fence. Paul likes to call things as he sees them – from the future – and the …
Having announced their new subscription service at E3 last week, Sony have this week followed up the unveiling of PlayStation Plus with a firm run through of the services cost, features and other notable bits and pieces. In an update posted to the Official European PlayStation Blog, PlayStation Plus looks all set to deliver a range of content to users in return for your monies and/or soul. Or something. Full run down and some opinions …
So I guess someone spilled some oil in the Gulf of Mexico recently. Unlike Dr. Robotnik – who always saw fit to implement a new plan when an old one had failed spectacularly – BP has essentially given up trying to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf, and is just waiting around for the big relief wells to be dug, sometime in August – smack in the middle of the Gulf hurricane season. …
Some screenshots of thatgamecompany’s follow-up to the tree hugging-floaty-petal fest Flower have leaked on to the net and after the amount of leaks I’ve had to fix over the last few weeks I can honestly say, this is my sort of leak. The game is called Journey and involves exploring a mysterious and desolate land not too dissimilar in appearance to… oh why bother, judging from the screenshot above, you should know the answer to …
Two beloved semi-indie developers made a return today at E3. Éric Chahi, best known for his obscure but adored adventure Another World, has announced Project Dust as a PSN/XBLA download for 2011. Kotaku described it as “a little bit Populous, a little bit Black & White,” which doesn’t sound too bad to me, except the Black & White part. Meanwhile Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi promised an even better experience with Child of Eden, a new …
E3 is officially upon us. No, I’m not there, but the beauty of the internet means that for another year, Los Angeles can come to me. Which is handy, as I’ve been to Los Angeles before and frankly don’t care much for going back. First out of the blocks is Microsoft, who this evening laid their cards on the table with one or two major hardware announcements. Having stolen the attention at many an E3 …
Yo yo yo, dawg, Realtime Worlds’ banger MMO APB be in the hizzle with the nizzle, foshizzle, be gettin ON with its phat beta. Some folk been K-in fo this, fo sho. Ain no dis, no hatin. Roll on wit some funky-fresh APB bling. Pimp out yo gangsta or yo po-po (if dat be how you roll, dawg) and get yo bad self OFF THE HINGES wit da Keys to da City, yo. I ain’t …
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 …
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.
…And gave it a respectable 7/10, complaining about the game’s overall lack of polish and balance while complimenting its ability to keep you playing despite these issues. Obsidian Entertainment has never been great at polish; the company is much more about design and writing than technology, but they’re nowhere near as bad as Troika used to be. For some people, the fact that Chris Avellone (Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Planescape Torment, KOTOR 2) is lead designer …
In what could quite easily be a direct follow up to our last Wow, I Was NOT Expecting That post, Sony have finally placed an official rubber stamp of confirmation on Killzone 3, to the surprise of just about nobody. Indeed, there are more than a handful of parallels to be drawn with this announcement and that of Gears of War 3. Like Microsoft, Sony were pretty much cornered into the announcements thanks to more …