Stumbled across this on Reddit when I was looking for evergreen features earlier in the week. If you like monochrome graphics, inscrutable physics, confusing environmental interaction, floating hairy turds/eyeballs and half-assed production values, you’ll love Shit Game, an ode to game programming’s less-creative endeavors.
Indie programmer Mark Johns says he developed this in about a week back in February. The (world exclusive!!!) trailer is above, and the game (for Windows PC) is available for download from his site. The soundtrack is trailer only, Johns says the in-game soundtrack is entirely pop music done in MIDI. Sounds even shittier.
A Game By Any Other Name Would Still Be Shit [Doomlaser, by Mark Johns]
Exidy’s Death Race, of 1976, might have been the first game adaptation and yeah, it was kind of lame, setting a standard for adaptations for decades to come. (It was inspired by 1975′s Death Race 2000 starring Sylvester Stallone and David Carradine). But man did it cause a stink. Players ran down stickmen with a car, eliciting screams and turning the screen into a graveyard of pedestrians. The game had no colour, no digitized sound, no blood splatter, no ragdoll physics, its violence was abstract in both audio and video, and it made 60 Minutes as a national outrage.
Valve’s latest post on the official Team Fortress 2 blog says that they’re looking at creating a new environment in which to build levels for the next TF2 update.
“We’re pretty happy with the way our environments have turned out so far, but as we create more and more maps with these achievement packs, we want our level designers to have more to work with in terms of giving their settings a unique look”.
I think this can mean only one thing: HEAVIES … IN … SPAAAAAAAAACE …!
TF2 Environments [TF2 Official Blog via VE3D]
Good ole rumour-speculation combo, begun by the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly and applied by Wiifanboy. First, EGM in its rumours column of the Sept. 2008 edition, promises that “one of the most beloved (yet overlooked) action-adventure franchises of yore will soon get a surprise retro-revival sequel”. OK, that, like, rules out Contra, right ? Because that’s anything but overlooked.
Said title will also stay true to its 2D roots, says EGM, which knows what’s coming but won’t name names, except to exclude Bucky O’Hare or Biker Mice from Mars Wiifanboy runs with the ball of speculation, offering some possibilities Konami could be working.
I guess my question is, why wouldn’t it be Contra? Unless they’re thinking after Mega Man 9 and Bionic Commando: Rearmed, people will have exhausted their supply of nostalgia for platform action games. If it’s Rush’n Attack I’m gonna choke.
About two months back we posted some impressions of Luc Bernard’s Eternity’s Child, the indie-game, stylised-2D platformer coming to PC and the Wii. Well, it’s out for PC now, via Steam, and you can have it for $4.99 if you’re so inclined. You get a level editor and some exclusive levels in the PC version. Above is the trailer.
There’s no word yet on the official site for either Eternity’s Child or Alten8, which is handling the port, on when it will arrive for Wii. When it does it’ll have exclusive levels and four-player co-op mode. If you appreciate indie games, it’d probably be a nice gesture to crowbar the five bucks out of your account and support this one.
Eternity’s Child on Steam [Steam, thanks reader Cpt_bongwater]
Japanese researchers have discovered and named a unique protein after Pikachu. The protein — Pikachurin — “plays a role in the efficient transmission of kinetic vision information from the eyes to the brain.” If that has anything to do with causing seizures, then this is a most appropriate naming.
In fact, they named it because both the character and the protein are fast acting little guys. And of course, normal transmission of visual information to your brain has a lot to do with gaming, so the name might be an homage to that, too.
Researchers: ‘Pikachurin’ protein linked with kinetic vision [The Yomiuri Shimbun, via Destructoid, thanks reader Estee W.]
Rockstar sent notices out sometime after midnight to players who achieved 100 percent completion in Grand Theft Auto IV during the game’s “Key to the City” contest (now closed, so if you’re at 98.3 percent, suck it up.) Reader Farnic sent us a screenshot of his (fullsize after the jump). The fine print: “If you do not respond within seven days, you will be made ineligible for the prize”. Also, it could take up to 120 days to get your key, depending on how many they have to make.
I think there’s a legal compliance reason for that. I got a prize for being a finalist in a bad-movie contest run by Radar, and they made me sign an affidavit and send it back in seven days too. OK, so that was my passive aggressive way of linking to some OT bullshit. Anyway, the Rockstar notice has the image of what looks like the key all the eligible 100 Percenters will receive. So congrats to Farnic and all who got it. When it arrives, take pictures of the unboxing and send them along.
100 Percent Club Contest Notices Delivered [Rockstar Games Social Club]
Multiplayer’s Steven Totilo (we like him round these here parts) connects the dots on why crashes in the new Burnout Bikes expansion can’t be as smash-em-up awesome as the car wrecks in Burnout Paradise. To keep a T for Teen rating, you probably can’t have ragdolls flying off bikes and slamming into telephone poles, the pavement, etc. So when you fly off the handle of your racing bike, you’ll disappear, and the bike itself will stay fully intact.
Totilo got a hands-on with the expansion pack, due out in the next couple of months. The rundown: Your rider can be of either gender; weather effects and a day/night cycle are due in the final version; and while it’s due for both consoles, the PS3 will get it first, as Electronic Arts wants to get a previous expansion already out on PS3 to the 360, and then bikes. There’s more at the link.
More Wheelies, Less Crashing — How Motorcycles Work In ‘Burnout Paradise’ [MTV Multiplayer]
PC World’s Darren Gladstone got an itching to make some custom characters in SCIV, and created U.S. presidential candidates John McCain (Vietnam vet headband, big arse mallet) and Barack Obama (shirtless and swingin’ nunchaku.) And of course, the video ends with their series tied at 2-2, just so no one thinks this is an endorsement of or in-kind advertisement for either — because FEC paperwork is a bitch.
I’m trying to make allegories between their fighting traits and campaign positions but to be honest, haven’t followed things that closely. I do think the choice of weapons is rather adroit. Do you want your president to be some dancing elitist who prefers foreign fightin’ styles with sticks, or a guy with good-ole cornfed brute strength enough to pound his enemies with a massive phallic object?
As one commenter on GamePolitics aptly pointed out: Thank God Hillary did not get the nomination. I’ll let you think on it for a second.
McCain vs Obama — FIGHT! [PC World, via Gamepolitics]
At Square Enix’s DKS3713 — which sounds like a California licence plate or the name of a clone from Star Wars — the trailer for Final Fantasy Versus XIII made dead damn solid certain to specify it was “Playstation 3 Only Worldwide”. Hope we can all get back to the pre-betrayal state of things now.
Internet access was nonexistent, perhaps deliberately, for this event so a number of those who attended couldn’t get up liveblogs. Also images of the screens were prohibited but you know someone’s bootlegged at least one trailer, so if any tumble out we’ll try to get them up (send a tip if you see one anywhere.)
We already got up the event’s major announcements regarding Final Fantasy Agito XIII and Parasite Eve on the PSP, and the March 2009 due date for the Final Fantasy XIII demo. But there are a couple after action reports if you want descriptions of trailers seen and speculation on gameplay features arising from that. NeoGAF’s is a pretty deep aggregation of Japanese blogs covering the show, I’d start there. Some things that caught my (untrained) eye:
