This weekend the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational is being held in Paris. There will probably be some big announcements. But what could they be? At GDC Paris, Blizzard’s Rob Pardo was asked about the “the new game” to which he replied:
So you want me to announce the game before our announcement? No offence, but I think there’s like 300 people here, and I’ll be ripped apart by 8000 people there [at the Invitational]if I pre-announce it — but it’s going to be really exciting. I think everybody here will be really excited about the announcement.
Sounds really exciting, and yes, we’re really excited.
Blizzard to unveil new title at Worldwide Invitational? [Games Industry][Pic]
Current gen video games look pretty darn good! Almost like movies. But there is a difference. Ask ask Ralph Eggleston, production designer behind Pixar’s upcoming movie, Wall-E (pictured). He’ll tell you!
How much of a gap exists today between current-gen consoles and the tech you use?
A vast, vast difference. If the player is involved in the narrative they can render it only so fast, really, though it will get faster. But when you’re in control of a narrative, as we are as filmmakers, the level of detail has to be much greater and we have the opportunity to create that because we have full control – our worlds are finite as opposed to video games, which are not entirely infinite but a lot more infinite than what we do… I think it will get better and better. But for me, the big thing lacking in video games, and I haven’t seen one that has done this for me, is how you involve a strong narrative story. Not just a set-up that you jump in to, but a narrative story in which the player is an active participant. I’ve had this conversation with friends now for almost a decade on how you could actually do that with a videogame. Unfortunately, although I think there would be a market for that, I don’t think the market would be large enough.
M’kay. If it’s good, Ralph, people will buy it. Don’t underestimate your fellow human!
Pixar Interview [Next-Gen]
If you purchased Commando 3 on XBLA the other day, good news! What may well have been the real reason you bought it – the Street Fighter II HD beta – kicks off today! Remember, you’re supposed to be helping Capcom test the game, not scamming some kind of free, early access, so your complaints that it features only one stage and two fighters (Ken & Ryu) will fall on deaf ears. If you’re stuck on how to actually access the beta, it should appear as an option on the game’s main menu.
Watched so you don’t have to! The New York Asian Film Festival recently kicked off, showing lots and lots of, you guessed it, Asian films. Included in that pan-Pacific cinematic buffet was OneChanbara — a film we actually want to see. That Girl from the cleverly named That Girl’s Site saw the flick, blogging:
I went to go check out Chanbara Beauty on Friday but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I had a little too much to drink right before the movie so I didn’t get to see it in its entirety because I fell asleep. I remember some zombies and some chick in a bikini named Aya who had a sword, and she used this sword to fight the zombies. At some point I woke up and she was fighting some other chick who was in a school uniform of some kind. I don’t remember ever seeing this little girl [with arrow]in the movie so I have no idea who she is or what she has to do with the movie. And then the movie ended.
We would’ve remembered everything if we had seen it. But we didn’t, so tough tooty.
OneChanbara Review [That Girl's Site]
Capcom are all aboard that Unreal train. Having licensed the Unreal Engine 3.0 in February for use on a title being developed in North America (Dead Rising 2?), they’ve today licensed the engine for use in a second project, this one being worked on in Europe. No idea what that one could be (maybe a new IP!), but that’s not the point! The point is a lot of Japanese developers talk about trying harder in the Western market. It’s nice being reminded there’s at least one doing something about it.
The Atlanta, US-based DJ Le Castle Vania, otherwise known as DJ Dylan, is currently touring Australia with his disco-electro beats. I don’t know about you, but I cannot stand dance music, but going by the name alone, I thought this might be worth a look-see.
Problem is, his “music” has nothing at all to do with Konami’s classic. Nothing. In fact, I can’t see any reason why he’s taken the Castlevania name, other than because it sounds cool. If this guy played the games when he was younger (though he looks borderline 12 as it is), he makes no references to it on his (*urgh*) MySpace page.
It’s a free world I guess, and anyone can go by whatever name they want, but it makes me sad seeing the Castlevania name abused with neon. Neon!
Le Castle Vania [Official site, thanks Christian]
Our favourite source for gaming news, the Wall Street Journal, has a piece up that examines how and why Monster Hunter Portable is so damn popular in Japan. That game has totally energized the PSP, breathing all kinds of new life into it and opening the platform to a wider audience. From the WSJ:
Many Japanese are uncomfortable with the idea of playing videogames with strangers over the Internet. That’s why online games for multiple players aren’t as popular here as in the U.S. and other markets… Osaka-based Capcom, better known outside Japan for titles like Street Fighter and Evil May Cry, launched Monster Hunter as an online multiplayer game for Sony’s PlayStation 2 console four years ago. Sales weren’t huge. Many consumers shied away from the game, which was best played with other PS2 users over an online network… But Ryozo Tsujimoto, the producer of the portable Monster Hunter games, saw a big opportunity for a PSP version because the device could be carried around easily, so gamers could introduce the game to friends. Sales figures soon showed he was on to something.
If gadget mag T3 has any insight into the future of gaming, 2010 is gonna be Hell on Earth. Someone at Nintendo will have some harebrained notion that we want mind controlled games and a new Wii Remote that looks like a, well, “back massager”. Of course, we’ll be playing the “Wii 2″ alongside our hot, blue-haired sex robot girlfriend that we’ve given a horrible haircut, so it won’t be all bad, just regularly depressing.
We’d provide our own conceptual design for the next Nintendo console, but don’t really have the time to Photoshop three GameCubes taped together right now.
Halo is, without a doubt, Microsoft’s biggest bread-winner. By a country mile. And even with the Chief’s story now finished, you can bet they’re looking at ways to leverage the brand’s popularity into more cash money. Halo Wars and the Peter Jackson games are a start, but what else may Microsoft have in store? This excerpt from a marketing survey, completed for a company that was very interested in Xbox 360 gaming (Intellisponse, perhaps?), was sent to us by tipster frostcircus. If you’re a Halo purist, you may not want to click through.
Pandemic PS3 coder Tony Albrecht already has a unique unit of measurement, called the “Tony”, for explaining the differences in processing power between the major consoles. He even went so far as to break it down for the less technically-minded.
Now, I think Tony units are great. Albrecht however felt a deeper understanding of where the consoles sit on the grunt scale was required, so he went and compared the latest generation of gaming platforms with the planet’s fastest supercomputer – the IBM Roadrunner. His findings are fascinating:
