Adelaide Now reports that South Australia Attorney General and game-hater Michael Atkinson has announced that he will leave Parliament in 2014, the time of the next election. Apparently the international outrage over Atkinson’s proposal to require – under penalty of a fine – that any Australian posting anything to a comment, blog, or forum be required to provide his or her true name and physical address prompted him to “fall on his sword,” as the …
A quest for revenge. Blood spilled on the cliff sides of Mount Olympus. Betrayal from an ally. Untold numbers of casualties slain by the Blades of Athena, etched into Kratos’ flesh and chained to his arms. A boss battle. The slaying of a God at the hands of a vengeful Spartan and the resulting condemnation to the depths of Hades. At that point, the opening hour of God of War III draws to a frenetic …
You would not believe how many people – on a daily basis – assure me that videogames are no longer in serious jeopardy of being censored, content regulated, or banned outright. Tell that to Australia. Or, if you prefer, you can now tell it to Switzerland, which today passed long-feared legislation allowing Parliament to ban games that require “cruel acts of violence against humans and humanlike creatures for game success.” These are nations with free …
It’s mortifying to be cheated and robbed by a hooker in a videogame. I mean, sure, if it happens in real life, I guess it’s to be expected. But when you’re playing a game where survival is a daily challenge, where ammunition is money and money is scarce, knowingly paying a whore for some sweet loving is kind of like inviting failure. It’s not my fault, though, I am a sucker for Russian accents. I …
True story: since playing Heavy Rain I have heard the name “Jason” so many times that it has lost all meaning. It now registers simply as a blurred noise in my head, like the distant ringing of somebody else’s telephone or a car alarm down the street. Now, I loved Heavy Rain, but some of the voice acting was just awful. Press X to Jason pays homage to that with this simple flash game, which …
I should probably start this piece by laying my cards on the table right away. I am a self-certified, unashamed Apple fanboy. One who will make no apologies for being so. I have bricked up all of the windows on my house in an effort to rid myself completely of the dirty “W” word, I have more of those cute Apple stickers than I now have non-Apple items to falsely re-brand, and when Steve Jobs …
Mortal Online, currently in Open Beta, is a new massively multiplayer online RPG by the Swedish video game developer Star Vault. Inspired by Ultima Online, the game places significant emphasis on sandbox-style game design. Unlike other MMOGs, MO proposes to offer the player a level of freedom yet to be experienced in the current generation of World of Warcraft clones…
In an odd and eerie parallel to the recent Activision/Blizzard-fueled enema of Infinity Ward, Gamasutra reports that Quest Online, developer and publisher of the MMO Alganon, fired President/Founder Dave Allen for “insubordination” and now has new leadership. In the form of Derek Smart.
Beautiful, gripping and powerful. These are all words you wouldn’t associate with Stephen ‘increpare’ Lavelle’s Starfeld, a strange, miniaturised space oddity. I played this a few weeks ago and had a good giggle but after all the talk of RPGs, freedom and linearity here recently it seems only fitting that I throw this one out there now. You Mass Effect players may appreciate the satire here more than I did. I just appreciated the line …
So in the wake of their bosses getting fired under increasingly suspicious circumstances, analysts ranging from me to Michael Pachter have predicted mass departures from Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward. Yet no one has left. A guy I know who’s in a position to be the bearer of such news tells me that the reason no one has left is because owner Activision/Blizzard still hasn’t paid Infinity Ward any royalties – not a dime – for the …
Mat and I were talking about this just the other day, but the poor fellow had work then a soccer game, which doubtless delayed him. I’m hoping to see his first impressions of Square’s latest epic soon, but you know how those football fans are…
There comes a time in the life of every gaming girl and boy when we just hit a wall within a video game. It may be an individual game or an entire franchise, and it may even be something we’ve enjoyed playing immensely for several weeks, months or years. It might not even happen within every game we play, nor is it necessarily restricted to typically “bad” games. Make no mistake however that once that …
JRPGs were one of my key food groups growing up. As a console lad, RPGs (they hadn’t sprouted the J prefix yet) were my favorite play format, chiefly during the sunlit days of my SEGA Genesis-owning period. The first three Phantasy Stars, Sword of Vermilion, Shining Force, and, later, Lunar: The Silver Star, Vay, and others I can’t remember. Menu-driven, predictable, hours of fun. I knew, vaguely, that the SNES – a console I did …
Info is slowly trickling out about the recent bang-up between Activision/Blizzard and Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward. Terminated studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella have filed suit against their former corporate masters, alleging wrongful termination, meanness, and stealing of royalties, and asserting that they own the rights to the Modern Warfare IP. My buddy Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality has his usual insightful analysis of key portions of the lawsuit, so rather than …
Mat and I took part in yet another lengthy email exchange today, discussing a Japanese gaming industry that has struggled to make a global impact in recent years, while undergoing something of an identity crisis. What follows are our collaborative thoughts on the matter…