Archive for the ‘GDC08’ Category

I played Lair today and the controls wouldn’t work.  Why?  They reconfigured it for analog use.  Now you can choose which controls you like.  It’s too bad so many Lair owners balked at the innovation.  It’s still good to have a choice.  The patch will be available sometime in March for download. 

Xbox LIVE Arcade Awards – 2007 Winners

• Best Overall Arcade Game: “Bomberman Live” (Hudson Entertainment)
• Best Classic Game: “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night” (Konami Digital Entertainment)
• Best Original Game: “Pac-Man: Championship Edition” (NAMCO BANDAI Games)
• Best Family-Friendly Game: “Pac-Man: Championship Edition” (NAMCO BANDAI Games)
• Best Competitive Multiplayer Game: “Bomberman Live” (Hudson Entertainment)
• Best Cooperative Multiplayer Game: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Ubisoft Entertainment)
• Best-Selling Game: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Ubisoft Entertainment)
• Most-Played Game: “Worms” (Team17 Software Limited)
• Highest-Rated Game: “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night” (Konami Digital Entertainment)
• Xbox LIVE Arcade Staff Choice: “Pac-Man: Championship Edition” (NAMCO BANDAI Games) Read the rest of this entry »

Someone slipped me an invite to the CCP/White Wolfe Party tonight.  It’s supposed to be the hottest party at GDC.  I didn’t know why until I showed up.  I guess it’s an S&M themed party.  They had girls all over dancing in cages and on poles.  The girl pictured above was my favorite.  I named her poptart because she kept popping out of her corset and didn’t mind at all.  Drinks and food were great and so was the atmosphere.  As far as CCP goes, they are supposedly working on an expansion for EVE that will allow you to leave your ship and walk around.  Pretty slick eh?

They had Wii Fits out at Nintendo’s booth today.  I figured I’d give it a try.  Now you must know that I’m 6′4″, 355lbs.  I know the Japanese version is rated at 300lbs, but supposedly the American version of the Wii Fit is rated at 330lbs.  I gave it a shot anyways.  I stood on the Wii Fit, it started calculating and then shut me down.  It said I was too heavy to play Wii Fit.  So if people think they can get fit by using a Wii Fit and they are over 330lbs, then they’ll have to get fit just so they can use Wii Fit so they can get fit.  Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?

Today at Sony’s Blogger Lounge Insomniac had a press briefing detailing their Nocturnal Initiative.  NI is basically open source tool development and sharing.  Insomniac believes that the same thing shouldn’t be done twice when it comes to making tools for game development.  What they have done is setup a website and wiki to give out free pipeline tools to other developers to help them streamline their game development.   They hope to build a huge community around NI and get feedback from other developers as well as tweaks to the tools that they have already given out.  They said the pipeline tools can be used on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 game development.  Yep, you read that right.  They said “Xbox 360″ at Sony’s Blogger Lounge. 

Nocturnal Initiative

Just got back from Microsoft’s Blogger Breakfast and it was a hoot! The smoked bacon was delicious! Several bloggers got to throw questions at Chris Satchell, Aaron Greenberg and John Schappert. They answered all the questions and even recruited Ron Workman to their PR team. Here are the bullets as I wrote them down: Read the rest of this entry »

Who says the Xbox community has nothing to look forward to in 2008? Sequel mania this year. After all of the denials over the past few weeks, we see that Epic was waiting to drop the news at GDC . . . Gears is coming back, folks! Although the movie-going community has been tortured by one horrible sequel after another (not to mention all of the prequels), the gaming community has so much to look forward to this year with the much-anticipated releases of several huge IPs: Gears of War, Ninja Gaiden, and Fable. The big new IP that Microsoft will be introducing this year is Too Human, which seems to be a cross between Gears and Diablo. The Big M also announced several Xbox Live Arcade titles including the Penny Arcade game which was featured at PAX. Read the rest of this entry »

Among several announcements made at the GDC, one of the major ones made by Microsoft during a keynote address is that they would open up game development to the console community. Since the early days of home gaming, PC users have had the opportunity to download and enjoy many gems through various Internet portals like CNET’s Download.com and IGN’s FilePlanet. This could bring similar opportunities for console gamers who are looking for hours of mindless titillation (Desktop Tower Defense anyone?). Although PC gaming has seen some resurgence of late, it pales in comparison to the dominance of next-gen consoles in the market and the hour is ripe to bring some of this creativity to the rest of the gaming world. Although this will probably indundate the space with tons of crap games, perhaps this will reveal the hidden talents of aspiring developers just as MySpace and YouTube has done for musicians, comedians, and other low-profile performers. Read the rest of this entry »

As promised, here’s the trailer footage for SS7 and KOFXII.  Notice the violent finishers at the end?  Yeah, it’s gonna be sweet.  As far as KOFXII goes, these videos don’t do it justice.  I think SNK may have the one up on Capcom for 2D HD fighting.  Enjoy!

I capped off my busy day at Sony’s Blogger Lounge.  Played some BUZZ! and got my ass handed to me.  Jeff Gerstmann was there as well as a fuckton of other media analyst, bloggers and press geeks.  They gave away a $5000 donation in the name of the winner of the BUZZ! contest to a charity of his/her choice.  Good food, good fun, good Sony.

Spent some time at SNK’s press area at the Prescott today. They have some amazing things coming down the pipes. You already know about the Arcade Classics: Volume 1, Samurai Shodown and World Heroes Anthologies. Well SNK dropped another bomb today; Metal Slug 7 for the Nintendo DS. If you ever needed a reason to own a DS, this game is it. More after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Rumor has it that Capcom will be showing playable versions of Resident Evil 5 and Super Street Fighter II HD at the Game Developers Conference next week.  Funny thing is, I don’t see Capcom listed as an exhibitor.  They might have kiosks in both Sony and Microsoft’s booths though.  I won’t be there til Wednesday so if you find out it’s true, give us a shout.

Gamespy is back in the game with the new Scaleform In-Game Lobby. It was made popular in Crysis and now it will be available for developers to use in other games. Don’t feel like coding an in-game lobby? Pick up a Scaleform kit. Read the rest of this entry »

PS3 owners have been screaming for a feature like this in XMB.  PlayXpert allows cross game communication with your friends from your friends list.  It’s supported in all the major SOE games and even works with non-SOE games.  Full release after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

The big Game Developers Conference 2008 is around the corner and one wonders what goodies they’ll have at the show.  I have some info that was already sent to me that I can’t discuss.  I do however, have a short list of predictions to list. Read the rest of this entry »