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High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle Gizmodo had this jaw dropper yesterday: “Sony’s merchandise that was being delivered to nationwide Circuit City distribution centres was stopped in transit and ordered to return to Sony ‘among worries that Circuit City couldn’t pay for the shipments.’ ” Giz attributes the tip to one of its reliable inside sources.
Ian Bogost has a timely piece up on the issue of political-themed games, and their use — or lack thereof. Bogost draws a clear demarcation between politicking (which he feels most of these games do) versus politics — games have the potential to really speak towards politics, but wind up being more or less meaningless tools for politicking:
It’s touted as “a visual programming language for kids” in a Seattle Times blog post. Really, Boku is a game, the 360 controller is its input, and you can bet this Microsoft project seeks to tap the enormous enthusiasm for user-generated content seen in games like LittleBigPlanet. No release date has been set for Boku yet, but at Microsoft’s Professional Developer’s Conference this week, project lead Matthew MacLaurin indicated we’ll get the chance to play it early next year. Whether that’s a beta or full release was not specified.
I’ve been watching the movements of Beijing Perfect World with some interest; in comparison to some of the up and coming companies, they’ve certainly kept a reasonably low profile lately. Until, of course, they launched the ‘international’ version of their original MMO, Perfect World. Now they’re eying another go with the Japanese market, bringing their Chi Bi (‘Red Cliff’) MMO to Romance of the Three Kingdoms-mad gamers. I’ve heard tell Perfect World will be releasing another of their games to the US market in the near future, and we can only hope that it’s Red Cliff — I’m all about some classical Chinese fiction renovated for a 21st century audience. The Three Kingdoms gaming phenomenon is fascinating to me, and one that I hope to write on formally at some point in the not-too-distant future. Press release after the jump.
All the raving over Mirror’s Edge makes my snark seem misplaced, of course. But I’d say this video game could have more than a transformative effect on the whole free-running/parkour craze. It might completely take it indoors, because there is no way you’ll ever do anything this cool in real life. Nor, frankly, do most of us live in cities with this kind of a landscape. What am I gonna do, go run up the side of Steamies’ Bar down by Hillsdale Boulevard? The Mirror’s Edge demo is available for download now on PSN and XBLA, and you can get access to the demo’s time trial stage if you pre-order it.
Greenhouse Interactive, the digital distribution service run by the Penny Arcade guys, has a new take on in-game accomplishments and is now pitching it to indie developers. The Nitrogen Software Development Kit offers games the option of being enhanced with “triumphs” and “standings” — achievements and trophies of course, but just more achievement-y sounding.
