Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Left 4 Dead To Be Cut Scene Free

11:30PM Brian Crecente | Left 4 Dead is very much a zombie apocalypse game — you’ll find no deeper meaning here, no Romero-esque political message. More »
Share Comment

Earn Gold Unlock Fable 2 Items with Web Games

1:30PM Brian Crecente | Fable 2’s pub games was the first cross-over Xbox Live title that let you earn something for a retail game by playing. Sure it was glitched, but they’re fixing it, and it’s a very neat idea. More »
Share Comment

Fable 2 Hours From Gold, Molyneux Awaits Gamer Reactions

12:00PM Brian Crecente | Fable 2 is days, if not hours from going gold, Lionhead Studio’s Sam Van Tilburgh told me today. More »
Share Comment

Problems at PAX – Hundreds Turned Away From Fallout

9:30AM Kotaku US Edition | The Fallout 3 demo was schedule to run in the Main Theatre at 2:30 -the exact same time as the Harmonix: The Rockening panel ended. The demo would also run over the Warhammer Online demo by a good half hour, ending at 3:30. More »
Share Comment

Halo Wars Playable, But Not Here

9:00AM Brian Crecente | The only sign of real-time strategy title Halo Wars at PAX comes during Graeme Devine’s presentation of the game during the show. More »
Share Comment

Microsoft Hasn’t Forgotten About Live Anywhere, iPhone Either

8:29AM Brian Crecente | Just ran into Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb over at the Microsoft booth in the PAX exhibit hall. After a bit of chatting I brought up the crash-prone iPhone Live app. More »
Share Comment

Challenges Versus ‘Learn By Death’ Frustrations

7:00AM Maggie Greene | A few people have written on the ’softer, kinder’ ethic found in games these days — more and more games seem to be offering less challenging/frustrating mechanics so that players can actually complete them. I think a lot of this discussion does centre around different play styles — after a long day of banging my head against the walls of the Ivory Tower, I don’t want to come home to bang my head against the gaming wall — so I always read these essays with a critical eye. But regardless of what I (or anyone) personally like to play, it does seem like the era of extraordinarily frustrating games has passed, at least for AAA titles: More »
Share 3 Comments

Bionic Commando Comparisons

6:00AM Owen Good | Show of hands, how many of you got Bionic Commando: Rearmed and then went out and found the ROM for the original Bionic Commando and played it? Tooling around on the Bionic Commando blog I found a link to two videos Gametrailers put up last week, splicing gameplay from both titles and highlighting some things you might have missed. More »
Share 1 Comment

The Protagonist, the Player, and the Game Designer

5:00AM Maggie Greene | How do a game’s designer, player, and protagonist interact? Mike Rubin takes a look at how three parts of a gaming experience interact — especially in terms of interactive fiction games, where many designers plan for responses that don’t correlate with how the protagonist should act, but how players make them act. The fact that designers do figure out responses to problems that aren’t necessarily part of their ‘vision’ is a double edged sword: More »
Share Comment

A Taste of PAX Bit Boxing

4:30AM Brian Crecente | A pretty huge crowd formed around this trio of chip musicians ensconced in front of the doors to the Washington State Convention Centre. I would have taken a longer video, but Dancing Man wouldn’t get out of my shot. More »
Share Comment