Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle 
The Last Moments Of GAME 
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things 
She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant 
The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks Considering how Spore‘s been hyped for eons now, it’s hard to keep that level of excitement up. The game’s user-generated content aspect though has piqued our interest once again. Says the game’s lead designer Alex Hutchinson says, “I expect a portion of our audience to never play the game. They will make stuff, share stuff, and send it around.” In the game’s creator editor, there’s a camera icon that even props a pop-up window with a YouTube logo. Players can send clips of their creators directly to the site. Hutchinson does add that it’s not possible to create realistic humans as they “made a conscious decision to make the rigging blocks not one-to-one with real humans or animals.” Though, Hutchinson adds, You can have a penis car flying into a vagina house. If you want to live in penistown, that’s fine. We’ll give you the filter to ban it out.
Thus, users will be able to filter Second Life-esque content they don’t like from their own experience. We’re sure the creator editor will be loads of fun at the beginning — like Miis were. Fingers crossed the game has enough grist to keep our interest over the long haul. Penistown sounds like a start! Spore Surprising [Multiplayer][Pic]
I. Love. Arcades. Seems I’m not alone! Forbes has a short piece about the retro arcade revival going on in the States. While some Americans are content to play retro titles on emulators and whatnot, there is a growing number of gamers who want a realer experience. And with the US arcade scene limping along, some are getting their gaming fix by purchasing retro game cabinets for home use. Says Rick Kirby of coin-op supplier Betson Enterprise:
The last few years, we’ve seen an all-time high in sales of machines for home use… The buyers of these machines are families, husbands and wives who grew up playing the games in the arcades and today want them for their game rooms.
Of course, there are places in the States like Brooklyn’s Barcade, which do a lovely job of preserving these cabinets. Shame there aren’t more places like Barcade. Arcade Games Make A Comeback [Forbes via Arcade Renaissance][Pic]
Red Ring of Death sucks. Those who’ve seen the mark know the feeling of having to send their console back in hopes of getting it fixed — or better yet, a new one. But some people don’t want a new one. Perhaps they are attached to their console and have fond memories of it. They want their machine fixed. One Japanese Xbox 360 owner (and iDOLM@STER fan) sent his off to repairs and made this short clip when it got back. He writes: My bride came back.！ My Xbox 360 is back from Repairs and I couldn’t be any happier. I was so happy… I decided to make a very simple very short video showing my wonderful Xbox and how it is after getting back from the repair
And how does he know its his? The serial number and, well, his topless teen faceplate. Yep.
Oh, sorry about the clip size. You’re going to have to squint. But, really, perhaps that’s for the best. Thanks, Muu for the tip! sm2127319 [NicoNico]
Never fear, loners of the world. If your heart’s gentle song goes unheard on Valentine’s Day, you can always turn your affections towards free electronic entertainment. Like the Patapon demo, which will be out tomorrow. And not just out on the slightly-annoying PC-PSP store, but the PS3 one as well (just for downloading purposes, you can’t play it on your PS3), which should make things a little easier for you. Valentine’s Day Demo Download [PlayStation.Blog]
We’ve seen charts like this before. You know, ones that show how Nintendo characters evolve. That doesn’t mean we’ll ever get tired of them. No way! Here was have a look at Mario, Link and Donkey Kong over the years. Do yourself a favour, ignore that some of them are out of order! It’ll ruin the effect.
Full chart after the jump.
DARK SECTOR – I played Dark Sector at TGS. Thought it sucked. Anyway, word’s come through that the game’s been refused classification in Australia, mostly because it’s a “violent and sometimes gruesome game with a sinister storyline and ominous outcome. The violence and aggression inflicted upon the protagonist is of a high level, naturalistic and not stylised at all”. It’s expected the game will be edited and resubmmitted for classification at a later date. While the loss of Dark Sector itself isn’t going to cause too many sleepless nights, it is troubling that the OFLC have found it unacceptable, since while violent, it wasn’t particularly more violent than something like, say, Gears of War.
Next month’s Game Informer has the scoop on two big-name upcoming shooters. One is Gearbox’s Aliens game, the other Volition’s third Red Faction title. While the mag’s not out yet, leaving us frustratingly short on info and screens, we can see that both games at least have snappy new subtitles, making it all the easier for us to differentiate them from past titles in the series/franchise. “Gearbox’s Aliens game” can now be referred to as Aliens: Colonial Marines. What, I hear you ask, no Aliens, no Predator, no vs? Not a big surprise: we’ve heard the game is based very closely on the look/feel of Jim Cameron’s film and Syd Mead’s designs. “Red Faction III”, meanwhile, must now be known by its official title, which is Red Faction: Guerilla. Game Informer March Cover Revealed [GI]
And here we were thinking there were only three Gears of War figures from NECA. Hah. How wrong wrong wrong we were. Turns out there’s four figures, with the fourth announced today as being a Locust Sharpshooter. He comes with a great big gun and beady little goggles, and will be shipping right alongside the other three figures in April.
Early last week we got our first look at Firaxis’ upcoming turn-based strategy title Civilization Revolution for DS. Now, 2K Games has sent through a fresh batch of screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Though I have to admit, I took some joy in viewing them as well. Hope I didn’t steal away too much excitement.
Shot #1 can be seen to the left (tada!) and five more await you after the jump.
Item #417 in the “Starcraft Ghost isn’t dead yet” files: speaking with MTV, Blizzard’s Frank Pearce says that while the company’s attention has turned in recent months (well…years) towards some more high-profile titles, Ghost is not, and never was, cancelled: It never was technically cancelled. It’s just a focus thing for us right now. We’ve got a finite amount of development resources and a lot of different things that we want to focus on so there’s always the possibility, but right now we’re spending our time on “World of Warcraft” and our expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” and “StarCraft II.
So when one or two of those products ship, you can all get back to badgering Blizzard about bringing back Ghost. Or Diablo III. Actually, you’ll probably find the time to badger about both. Blizzard Explains Why ‘StarCraft Ghost’ Wasn’t On The DICE Cancelled Games List [MTV]
