Saturday, October 18, 2008
What Would Happen If Miyamoto Was Trapped In His Own Games?
3:30PM Luke Plunkett | I can tell you. He’d die. He’d run out of time, get stomped by a Moblin, fall of a ledge, take your pick. He’s a small, middle-aged, human nerd, not a plumber, not a warrior. But then, when you’re looking at the premise “What would happen if Shigeru Miyamoto was trapped in his own games?”, reality shouldn’t really be taken into account. Story-telling should be. This animation – by Luis Logam – is, for a flash job, surprisingly polished (especially the in-game sequences), though you may want to turn the sound down if you’re not a big Fatboy Slim fan. Legend of Miyamoto [Newsgrounds, via Go Nintendo] More »
What Late 2008 Releases Are You Looking Forward To?
3:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Hi, there. It’s Friday, time to pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink and chat. No, wait. Pour yourself two drinks and pull up three chairs. That’s right, time for Tell Us Dammit — rather, TELL US DAMMIT. Here’s how it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn’t some marketing survey or whatever. It’s an emotional investment in you. Yes, we’re interested in knowing you, Kotaku reader person. You probably know fucktons about us — more than you even want to, we’re sure. But, hey, we’d like to know about you. That way you won’t be some faceless blob — and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban your arse. Or not, because really we’re incapable of human emotion. Yeah. As we lurch towards the end of the year, what releases are you looking forward to the most? More »
News
September PC Sales Charts (With Bonus Office Software Comparisons!)
2:30PM Luke Plunkett | No weekly PC sales charts this…week, as the release of NPD’s monthly console data also lets us take a look at the PC market’s September sales figures. Unsurprisingly, Spore was the biggest-selling game of the month, though by how much we don’t know, as unlike the console charts, PC figures don’t include hard numbers. Warhammer Online came in at #2, beating out WoW, while the most heartwarming entry has to be at #14, which is where the timeless Civilization IV placed. Also included – possibly just for shits and giggles – were the overall PC sales charts, showing how well games fared against less exciting fare such as Microsoft Office and Norton Antivirus. More »
News
Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg: We’ll Outsell PS3 Worldwide This Holiday
1:20PM Michael McWhertor | September marked the Xbox 360’s best month of 2008, in terms of sales in the U.S — its performance in Japan hasn’t been too bad either. Following a price cut that made the 360 the least expensive current generation console on the market, the company moved 347,200 units to American consumers. While it wasn’t enough to supplant the Wii as the best selling console in the country, it was enough to beat the competition from Sony. We spoke to Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, just after NPD sales numbers hit to get his take. Unsurprisingly, he seemed rather pleased with the company’s recent hardware successes. “We expect to continue our price advantage over the PlayStation 3 for a long time,” Greenberg told us, pointing to the $199 price tag of the company’s entry level Arcade console, assuming that Sony would issue no pre-holiday price drops. “And we feel confident that we’ll outsell the PS3 this holiday season in North America and in Europe. We’ll do it on a global scale.” More »Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days: The TGS Trailer
12:40PM Michael McWhertor | Someday we’ll learn how to read Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days out loud, as the Square Enix developers intended. Until then, we’re going to have to settle for trailers, which highlight just how good the Nintendo DS is at rendering flamboyant hairstyles. The above trailer, a blend of gameplay and cinematic cut scenes, was new to the Tokyo Game Show. If battling bad guys with giant keys is your speed, do watch. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days [GameTrailers] More »
News
EA Working On New Syndicate Title
12:20PM Luke Plunkett | Cast your minds back to February, and you’ll remember some excitement surrounding the revelation Starbreeze had been tapped by EA to work on one of the company’s “classic” franchises. Some comments by EA boss John Riccitiello made it seem like that franchise was Road Rash, but CVG now say that – according to a “secret agent” – it’s not. It is instead Syndicate, which EA didn’t develop (Peter Molyneux’s Bullfrog did), but which they do own the rights to. Exciting news, if also a little terrifying, since the chances of another studio capturing the feel of the original are – as we’ve already seen – slim. EA at work on new Syndicate [CVG] More »
Red Cross Offers Traces Of Hope
12:00PM Stuart Houghton | The Red Cross has launched a charity Alternate Reality Game called Traces Of Hope. Set in Uganda, the game lets you use real-world internet resources like email, Facebook and search engines to help guide a sixteen year old refugee – Joseph – back to his mother. “We’ve pulled out all the stops to create an experience where players will feel they are really interacting with Joseph’s world – by communicating directly with Joseph, players find themselves caught up in a hunt across the internet to reunite him with his mother,” said Dorothea Arndt, British Red Cross, New Media Manager. One slightly unfortunate side-effect of the game’s quest realism became apparent when I realised I had missed four of the email messages from Joseph because I wasn’t expectng them and they they triggered my mental Spam/Scam filter. Top tip guys, starting a seemingly unsolicited email with either “Hello! It is me Joseph… I am near Hopetown, Uganda!” or “Thanks for your email the other day” is going to set off alarm bells… My idiocy aside, Traces Of Hope is worth a look. The Red Cross are a great cause and they are genuinely trying something new here. [Traces Of Hope] More »
News
A Tour of NetDevil’s Game Studio
11:30AM Adam Barenblat | After Crecente and I got a good look at Jumpgate Evolution we convinced them to show us around the joint. The place is like Disneyland meets game development. It’s a creative person’s heaven. Basically their new studio is divided into two parts. Half of the building is dedicated to Lego Universe while the other half is of course, Jumpgate Evolution. There’s also a Lego builders area containing millions of bricks – so the 3D artists can physically build their creations- before they input them into the computer. Last but not least, we got to see some of the insane LUPS (Lego Universe Partners) creations. Some of the projects consisted of thousands of Legos and must have taken days to build. More »
Capcom Gets Its Own PlayStation Store
11:00AM Luke Plunkett | As a, I don’t know, reward for their continued excellence in the field of digital delivery content, Capcom have been given their own company-branded PlayStation Store. Visit this Capcom store and you’ll find all of Capcoms stuff – demos, games, themes, etc – in the one spot. The store was Sony’s idea, which means we’ll probably see other company shopfronts spring up in the coming months. As for the 360, Capcom say that the impending launch of the New Xbox Experience dash means they can hopefully do something similar on Microsoft’s console. Capcom’s PSN Storefront [Edge] More »
