Monday, September 17, 2007

Dual Shock 3 ‘Confirmed’ For TGS

6:30PM Mike Fahey | Oh my god! Stop the presses! Do we even have presses? Anyway, according to the latest 1UP Yours podcast, Sony plans on unveiling the return of rumble at the Tokyo Game Show this week, with the Dual Shock 3 making an appearance on the show floor. If this is true it will no doubt spawn countless photographs of what will undoubtedly look just like the controller we are all used to anyway, but hey, it will rumble. Maybe we can create an animated GIF that shakes to help convey the full impact of the controller’s appearance on the scene. Finally, after nearly a year on the market, we’ll get a glimpse of the controller we should have had in the first place and will soon have the opportunity to pay an undisclosed amount of money for. Hit the link to listen to the nearly two-hour podcast for more information, or just if you are very lonely and crave the sound of guys talking. Oh, and ignore the boomerang pic, it just makes me giggle. 1UP Yours Podcast 9/14 – [1UP - Thanks Everyone!] More »

Eye Candy of Judgement

5:39PM Logan Booker | All the Sony talk today is pure coincidence, I swear. But, you have to admit, the box in the picture above is about as sexy as press kits get. They do not cheap out when it comes to packaging review code. The Eye of Judgement is no exception. I’ll pull it apart tomorrow and take some more snaps of the new EyeToy, the playing cards and the board. Until then… Note that this is not what the retail box will look like. More »

Reach Out Reaches Into Feel Good Gaming

4:50PM Logan Booker | For young adults, Reach Out can be an invaluable resource. Growing up can be a difficult part of life, especially if like me you weren’t served a full deck of Man cards. Peer pressure, stress from work and school and self-esteem issues all manifest themselves during these turbulent years, so it’s nice to have a website that provides solid, useful advice on managing it all. In an innovative, creative and downright awesome move, Reach Out has launched an online flash game called Reach Out Central (ROC). It’s no Call of Duty, but then, it’s not meant to be. Imagine a realistic, uh, Australian version of The Sims, and you’re kind of there. Big props to Sony for donating $500,000 to the project. There’s even a nice quote in the press release from Michael Ephraim, the man in the big chair at SCEA, which you can take a gander at by reading on. More »

FFXI Wants Your Spare Tenner

11:29AM Logan Booker | Now might be the best time to get into Final Fantasy XI, Square Enix’s massively multiplayer online RPG, seeing as JB Hi-Fi has the game going for just $10.99. True, it’s sans expansions, but it’s a miniscule outlay for 30 days of play. Just don’t get addicted. Or slay your mate over virtual property. Or play for 72 hours straight and cark it. JB Hi-Fi [via Atomic MPC Forums] More »

Intel Snaps Up Havok

10:29AM Logan Booker | Egads. This well and truly marks the end of AGEIA and its PhysX hardware physics processor. Havok already has a commanding lead – or should that be a monopoly – on the physics middleware business, and this will only make it bigger, better and more ragdoll-y. So, it’s up to Unreal Tournament 3 to bring back the biff for AGEIA – but I don’t see that happening. Take BioShock, based on Unreal Engine 3, which includes PhysX by default. 2K Australia/2K Boston went to the trouble of replacing PhysX with Havok. When you consider the former is free while the latter is not… well, it’s bad tidings for AGEIA indeed. Full press release after the jump. More »

Week in Games: Eternal Sonata Edition

10:00AM Flynn De Marco | There’s a little something for everyone this week from the gorgeous Eternal Sonata and the uber cute MySims to the gritty World In Conflict and action-packed Stranglehold. As I will be spending the next two weeks abroad I won’t be playing much of anything until I return but Eternal Sonata is definitely my pick for this week. Anything you’ll be picking up? More »

China’s Gaming Companies Trying To Combat Piracy

9:00AM Maggie Greene | In a move that seems like it will be about as effective as trying to herd cats, China’s CDC Games has announced the formation of Online Games Alliance Against Piracy (OGAAP) to attempt to stem the tide of piracy in the country. Considering we’re talking about China, where it’s frequently harder to find legitimate merchandise than it is bootlegs, and big companies have been involved in large-scale IP suits, they have their work cut out for them. Other founding members of the alliance include “CCP, the Iceland-based developer of EVE Online; Ons On Soft Co. Ltd., the Korea-based developer of Shine; Sonokong Co. Ltd., the Korea-based developer of Shaiya, and Come on Baby; T3 entertainment, the Korea-based developer of Audition online game; and Wemade Entertainment, the Korea-based developer of Legend of Mir II and MIR III online games”. Full release after the jump, and we’ll see how well this winds up working. More »

Keiichi Yano on the Elite Beat, XBLA, and the East-West Divide

8:00AM Maggie Greene | We mentioned Keiichi Yano earlier this week with the announcement that iNiS is working on a 360 title, but Gamasutra has an interesting interview up with him touching on topics ranging from the success of Elite Beat Agents, to the advantages of the Live Arcade format, to the East-West divide (or lack thereof). A sampling on his thoughts on the flow between East and West in terms of game design: There needs to be more insight from a technical vantage, and just more of a game design sampling, I think. I know that Western developers are interested in Japanese thinking in terms of game design, so that’s why I think a lot of game designers are called to GDC this year, including myself. I think it’s really several things, but those two are probably the major reasons, I think. Hopefully, that’ll continue to grow and Japanese developers come to the States or Europe more to gain information that we wouldn’t be able to gain just being in Japan. It’s an interesting interview with some nice perspectives on a variety of topics. We’ll be waiting for the next update on exactly what iNiS is working on for the 360. Feeling The Elite Beat: Keiichi Yano On Crossing Over [Gamasutra] More »