GAME Australia Lays Off 281 Employees, Closes 60 Stores 
How Diablo III's Always-On Internet Requirement Makes It A Better Game GAME: No Buyers Yet, Crisis To Drag On For Another Month 
Have Your Say On Video Game Pricing 
35,000 Telstra Passwords Reset After Games Services Hacked 
Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review Trying to keep up with all the Independent Games Festival nominees is quite a chore, much less trying to actually play them. But, every once in a while, one really sticks out and really makes you want to play it. Such is the case with Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel’s gorgeous and quirky World of Goo. Under the name 2D Boy, gabler and Carmel have created a captivating game experience that has netted them three award nominations in this year’s IGF: the Design Innovation Award, Technical Excellence Award and the highly coveted Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
Gamasutra got a chance to sit down with the boys and discuss some of the things that make World of Goo what it is. When asked what they felt the most interesting part of their game is, designer Gabler had this to say.
I am perpetually lagging behind on my gaming list: too much to do, not enough time, and it’s all I can do to eek out a little chunk of something like Puzzle Quest here and there. So I kinda like the ‘top 20′ or ‘top 10′ or ‘top whatever’ lists – at the very least, I can jot down a few more games to add to my ‘to play in the next 5 years … I hope’ list. Poisonous-Pixels has a nice little list up of ’07 games that you maybe should’ve played, but probably didn’t – a few of these even made it to our 2007 Goaties. I’m even feeling inspired to actually finish Odin Sphere. The 20 Games that You Should Have Played for 2007, But Didn’t[Thanks Sumantra]
With all the hoopla that was raised regarding the Wii Zapper and its similarity to using real guns, I thought it would be nice to take a look back at one of the Nintendo gun peripherals that would never be made today. The Super Scope 6 was not only gun like, but you rested the thing on your shoulder with the object of blowing things away whilst looking through the titular scope. I can only imagine the insane dialog that would ensue if this thing came out in 2008. “Won’t someone please think of the children!!”
Big thanks to the guys at RetroGamevideos.com!
I was thrilled to come across a most glorious article on Chinese MMORPGs (specifically, the wildly popular Zhengtu Online), translated to English from the original that appeared in the Southern Weekly. As Steve at PlayNoEvil sums it up, “While wimpy Americans can whine about “cheating” in online games, quibble about Real Money Transactions (RMT), complain about gold farming, gripe about power-leveling, and otherwise aspire to a mythical “purity” of game play, the most popular game in China, ZT Online, from Giant Interactive has embraced all of these things.. and online gambling to boot.”
The main Southern Weekly article on ZT Online follows a gamer as she first becomes interested in the game, through her rise to power, and her eventual disillusionment with the money-sink it had become.
Woven into the narrative are descriptions of the often shockingly brazen tactics ZT Online uses to soak the “RMB gamers” who would rather spend money than grind out levels. The picture resolves into that of an online casino dressed in the trappings of an adventure game, and Shi Yuzhu [the brain behind ZT]ends up looking a lot like a shady used-car salesman.
It’s a really, really great (if somewhat lengthy) article from a number of perspectives – it’s one of the better mainstream media articles I’ve read on gaming, though not without its flaws. But as the PNE commentary points out, the fascinating thing is how it turns a lot of ideas about ‘good’ MMORPGs upside down … and is reaping major rewards. From the sounds of it, I doubt we’ll be seeing it Stateside, but one never knows.
Gamble your life away in ZT Online [Danwei via PlayNoEvil]
Wired’s GeekDad teamed up with the blog-free GeekMom to get their equally blog-free GeekChildren a Wii this Christmas. But once they set things and started playing one of the remotes went all funky.
GeekDad, living up to his name, tried to fix the remote himself. He put in new batteries, tried re-syncing all of the remotes, tried resetting the remotes. None of that worked, so he called Nintendo’s call support. After checking out the Wii Sensor the friendly Nintendo lady went into Angry-Dad-With-A-Broken-TV mode:
Friendly Nintendo Help Desk Lady: “Okay – I want you to take the remote, button side down and smack it into the palm of your hand two or three times.” Russ: “You’ve got to be kidding” Friendly Nintendo Help Desk Lady: “No sir, do it hard enough that I can hear it across the phone line but not hard enough to damage the remote” Russ: “You’re sure?” Friendly Nintendo Help Desk Lady: “Yes, sir.”
The thing is, it worked. See, this just shows you that if all else fails try violence.
Famitsu is currently hosting some new Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP) and Final Fantasy Dissidia screens. Also available are screens for Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (DS) and Kingdom Hearts: Coded (cell phone). I got a chance to check out trailers for all of these games at TGS and was on the whole not terribly impressed by the latter two titles although Birth By Sleep looks like it will be the best of the lot. Dissidia also looks great as far as the graphics are concerned, but for gameplay, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Make the jump to check out a small gallery of screens.
To: Crecente From: Ashcraft RE: Fund Raiser
Dagnabit! If you moved the fund raiser (and by a few, I mean a week), I could conceivably come! Sounds like it will be a good time, and it’s fantastic that you’ll be coordinating it with Joel’s fund raiser. Oh, so next month, we are going to have some kick arse contests. Can’t wait to unveil them to the readers!
Was talking to Mark Wilson earlier today, and he mentioned that Halloween is only two hours or something. It was a brief conversation, so it sounded like there was an imposed curfew or something. Like one that lasts between 4pm and 6pm? Is this just where Mark lives or is it true for the rest of the country? ‘Cause I have many happy memories of staying out pretty late as a kid on Halloween. It would suck of Halloween was now an afternoon dealio.
What you missed last night MGS4 Delayed Tetris creator is getting money Halo 3 shit talkers Smash Bros. Level Building begins now!
Opposable Thumbs sat down for tea and biscuits with Christophe Balestra, co-President of Naughty Dog, ostensibly to chat about the super-great-looking Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. And chat they did, Balestra trotting out some familiar sentiments when it comes to PS3 exclusives: In terms of Blu-Ray, we just couldn’t have made Uncharted without it; with Uncharted we have almost filled it (91 percent). We’re also using the hard drive to pre-cache data from the Blu-Ray disc. That allows us to stream up to 12 streams for sound, load level data super fast and more importantly to stream textures constantly to guarantee high-res quality on the screen.
91% seems such an odd number. Why not just whack in some HD cutscenes, fill the thing, eh? Balestra also divulges a little on future plans for Uncharted, suggesting it’s but the first game in a franchise, and that the game’s trophy (ie achievements) system will later be incorporated into Home. Getting technical with Naughty Dog co-president Christophe Balestra [Opposable Thumbs]
Halo 3 is a good time. So is this video that’s making the internet rounds. We laughed. Out loud, even.
