The majority of UK gamers will look back fondly on the year 1992 as it saw the start of the cult gaming show,GamesMaster,air on television. 12 years later, the classic show is rumoured to return by Q4 2010. GamesMasterwas the very first television programme aired in the UK exclusively involving videogames.The original showwas marketed in the sports category as the shows main focus was competitive gaming, but also covered reviews, hints and tips....
Imagine a dozen indie game devs in the same room at the same time, each given exactly five minutes to rant about anything on their minds. If it sounds enlightening, entertaining, and relatively difficult to cover if you’re a crappy journalist on a laptop with a low battery life, you’re correct on all counts. Steve Swink (IGS organizer), Phil Fish (Kokoromi,Fez), Heather Kelley (Kokoromi), Erin Robinson (Wadjet Eye Games), Mare Sheppard and Raigan Burns (Metanet), Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany), Petri Purho (Kloonigames), Mark Johns (Doomlaser), Chris Lobay (Infinite Ammo), and MichaëlSamyn and Auriea Harey (Tale of Tales) all had something interesting to say, and after the jump I will attempt to, with varying degrees of success, convey the general gist of each of their rants....
Jeff Minter, the man behind the upcoming aural-psychadelia-turned-video-game,Space Giraffe, kicked off the Independent Games Summit, here at GDC just a short while ago. He talked at great length about the upcoming game, and you have to admire the man’s desire to differentiate himself from the rest of the development crowd. He seems absolutely hell-bent on doing things his way, and while we have no idea how successful that route may be, in this case, at the very least, it should make for an interesting development cycle....
Alisting for somethingcalledHalf-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climaxhas been found on Australia’s rating board database. It’s developed by Marvelous Entertainment and published by Microsoft.Half-Minute Herofor Xbox Live Arcade? Make it so! Whatever this game is — it could be a port of either of the two PlayStation Portable titles or even an entirely new installment — I want it.Half-Minute Herois easily in my top five favorite PSP games for its belittling humor and fast-pacedeverything....
Hellion: Mystery of the Inquisitionis one of the more obscure new games coming out, but it’s certainly interesting. Its medieval setting and quasi-religious tone gives it a very unique premise, and today we’ve been introduced to the game’s main character, Godric of Glastonbury. Godric is a Dominican knight, dedicated to the Pope and determined to rid the world of evil, following a traumatic event in his youth. A skilled sword fighter, he learns the ways of exorcism and joins the inquisition, ready to battle heretics, demons and any other blasphemy that decides to take him on....
The finalists for the IGF Main Competitionhave been revealed, and if you’re going to be branching out to lesser-known games this year, these are the ones to hit up first. The contenders for the Seamus McNally Grand Prize areAmnesia: The Dark Descent(Frictional Games),SpyParty(Chris Hecker),Desktop Dungeons(QCF Design),Minecraft(Mojang), andNidhogg(Messhof). You can tell the competition was rough this year simply by glancing at the honorable mentions. That’s what happens when you have hundreds of entrants, I suppose....
If you’ve been busy hating onFront Mission Evolvedfor not being a turn-based strategy game, and have the good fortune to be living in Europe (or have a PAL PlayStation Network account), then you’re in luck, becauseSquare Enix is rereleasingFront Mission 3to the European PlayStation store, the better to wax nostalgic about those halcyon days of action points and tiles and pressing “End” on the menu a bunch. Said Larry Sparks of Square Enix Europe: With the forthcoming release ofFront Mission Evolved, theFront Missionseries is back with a bang....
When you spend your days talking about all manor of games, it’s easy to forget certain less-prominent titles exist, even when they’re as promising as something likePrimal Carnage. We first mentioned itearlier this year, and that was pretty much it. Thankfully, the boys at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have reminded me about the grand human vs. dinosaur conflict. There’s a new trailer, attached above, and quite a lot moreon the website; most notably, the circle of death that is theNemesis Systemand the acceptance of donations....
Dead Risinghas more zombies thanResident Evil; hundreds more. That would probably lead you to think thatDead Risingis harder. More zombies, more challenge, more danger, right? Wrong. As anyone who’s played both series knows, the zombies ofDead Risingjust are nothing compared to the undead of theResident Evilworld. That’s not by accident. According to Capcom’s Shin Ohara, who spoke withSiliconera:“As far as Dead Rising goes, zombies are dumb, basically. In Resident Evil, zombies are an enemy that you fear because they’re strong and you have limited ammo....
Today will undoubtedly be a day of celebration for Stardock, for digital distribution platform Impulse got its third major update yesterday, and it was a doozy. Seeing as how one of the most noticeable changes for the client is a sleeker user interface, it’s only fitting that I outline the other additions using bullet points. Wow, that’s a lot of text. My thoughts on the new Impulse? It’s inching closer and closer to rivaling what Steam offers....
There are a few certainties when it comes to Team Ninja game designer, Tomonobu Itagaki. So no one is surprised when,in a recent interview, he says something likethistoGame Informer: I’d like to show everybody some of the new stuff that we’ve been working on in the near future. The only problem with that is that when the other developers see what we’re doing, they’re going to lose all of their motivation to create any game in the same genre, because there’s no way they can beat it....
So this will be my last posting for quite a bit. Due to some personnel concerns, I need to be more cautious from revealing too much behind-the-scenes stuff at this stage. I have to admit, one of the main issues is that someone has been pretty proactive in trying to expose who is working on the project. The last thing I want is to get my guys in hot water, because a few still have full-time gigs....
Jesse James Allen is a freelance composer for Electronic Arts who has done music forMass Effect 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011and a few other games. Among the many wonderful tracks on Jesse’s page is a song called “Under Fire” for an undisclosed EA project. Jesse says that “Under Fire” took him over a month to write and is the “most complex musical score” he’s ever made. Jesse “held nothing back when arranging the track” as he wanted it to be “melodic, immersive and yet somewhat menacing to support the theme of the project....
