Monday, July 14, 2008
11:30PM Luke Plunkett | Too Human Demo – There’s a demo for Silicon Knights’ upcoming giant bear sim Too Human up on Xbox Live. Go see if you can make out what all the fuss is about. More »
News
Warren Spector + Pixar? Sure, Why Not
11:00PM Luke Plunkett | Warren Spector keeps a tidy blog. Sometimes, he even updates it. He did so yesterday, in fact, letting the world know what he’s up to now he’s working with the chaps at Disney. No firm details on just what it is, but even this vague suggestion is enough to set our short, stubby tongues wagging: My team and I have been working hard on our own and (get ready for the cool factor to go way up) in collaboration with folks from Disney Feature Animation and Pixar. If I say anymore, I’ll get in trouble, so let’s just leave it at that. Yes, Warren, the cool factor just went up by about as far as a Disney games-related coolfactorometer can go. I’m ba-ack…[Warren Spector's Blog] More »Halo Fan Goes A Lightbridge Too Far
10:00PM Luke Plunkett | Above vid shows a kid who is very proud of his cardboard Halo weapon collection. Perhaps too proud. Especially the parts where he’s able to repeat the game’s standby and reload animations almost perfectly. The clip’s called “The New Starwars Kid”, and it’s not hard to see why. More »
Capcom’s Plunder Gets A Name Change
8:00PM Luke Plunkett | Capcom once had a game called Plunder. Pirate game, kind of like Settlers of Catan, only with swashbuckling. Due for release on XBLA, PSN and PC. I say once, however, because while the game itself is still coming, it’s had an enforced name change. Seems something else had already trademarked the name Plunder, forcing Capcom to rename the game Age of Booty. Yes. Age of Booty. Bringing the number of expected E3 games featuring the word “booty” to two. Can’t wait for the inevitable booty-off. Plunder Gets Some Booty! [Capcom] More »New Dawn Of War II Trailer Forged In The Furnace Of War
7:00PM Luke Plunkett | There’s a new Dawn of War II trailer doing the rounds, no doubt minted in honour of the week’s E3 festivities. Its purpose seems two-fold: to show that Relic, bless them, aren’t afraid to put out a trailer comprised solely of gameplay footage, and also (SHOCK) to announce that the Eldar will be amongst the game’s races. More »
Michael Atkinson, No R18+ For Games In Australia: Why It Hurts Children
6:00PM Logan Booker | Australian Gamer has posted a letter one of its readers received from Michael Atkinson, the South Australian Attorney-General against an R18+ rating for games. The letter is in response to the reader’s arguments for the new classification.
I encourage you to read Atkinson’s entire response so you can formulate your own judgement. I’ve previously dissected his position at length, and I won’t be doing it again here – I’m afraid my head would explode from the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
What I would like to do is pull out a few key points from his letter and explain why I feel they’re “not a good enough reason” to deny an R18+ rating – to use the Attorney-General’s own words. More »
News
Sony Boss Sees Wii As ‘Expensive Niche’
6:00PM Luke Plunkett | Sony boss Howard Stringer loves the PS3. Has to. But the Wii? Sony don’t make the Wii. So all bets are off, and Sir Howard can hate on it to his heart’s content. Speaking in Sun Valley, Idaho last week, Stringer said of Nintendo’s console: I’ve played a Nintendo Wii. I don’t see it as a competitor. It’s more of an expensive niche game device. We’re selling a lot of PlayStation 3s now and it’s still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player. I’ve heard the Wii called a lot of things over the past two years, but “expensive niche game device” is definitely a new one. Well done, Howard! Sony’s PlayStation 3 Gaining Ground on Xbox With Games, Blu-Ray [Bloomberg] [Pic] More »
5:30PM Luke Plunkett | PSP Firmware 4.05 – Yup, another PSP firmware update’s on the horizon! Exciting, no? This one’s due “soon”, and seems designed solely to spite Robbie Bach and his anti-PSP-as-a-music-player sentiments, as it’s geared towards making your PSP music-playing experience just that little bit more pleasurable, which it will do by adding some new visualisers for music playback, “among other features”. And by “other”, pretty sure they mean “you won’t notice them”. More »
News
More On That Master Chief-Free Halo Game
4:00PM Luke Plunkett | Earlier this month, we heard a rumour that Microsoft were going to be unveiling a new Halo game at E3. A new Halo game with a twist: there’d be no Master Chief. That rumour’s just picked up a little more steam, with GameSpot reporting that – according to “a source with knowledge of the studio’s development slate” – Bungie will be announcing a new Halo game “sometime this year” (so not necessarily at E3). This game will be a “darker, grittier” Halo game, featuring a squad of human soldiers and gameplay that’s “a cross between Ghost Recon and Gears of War”. If Bungie are developing, that’s exciting! But we’ll wait for confirmation before popping the champagne corks, thanks. Next Halo squad-based, Master Chief-free? [GameSpot] More »
Game Devs Need To Do More To Save The PC
3:30PM Logan Booker | The PC hasn’t had a great time in the last few years. The latest generation of Xbox and Playstation consoles can rival, and in some cases exceed, its graphics and online capabilities, while the Wii is innovating with peripherals in ways manufacturers such as Razor and Belkin can only dream about.
id Software’s John Carmack hasn’t given up on the old girl, not yet. He’s voiced his opinion of the current state of the platform before, and in a new interview with Shacknews, he reinforces his view:
Yeah, I think that the PC definitely can’t.. we can’t go on making PC games like we used to. The combination of the dominance of the consoles, as far as market forces there, and piracy.. the traditional AAA, media-heavy boxed game that sells for a bunch of money, and goes out on the PC for a single player experience–it’s just not happening. Even if we look at something that had such a push like Crysis, it didn’t really do all that well.
I love the PC, and I’d hate to see it pushed into the background as consoles go from strength to strength. MMOs and online distribution systems like Steam are opening new doors, but I agree with Carmack – more needs to be done.
id Software’s John Carmack and Marty Stratton Talk Quake Live, PC Gaming, and More [Shacknews] More » 
