New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land 
Why Robin Makes Batman Better 
Resistance: Burning Skies: The Kotaku Review 
Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle It isn’t, but this guy definitely role-plays the zombie-movie staple character of Terrified Whiner Sacrifice. Warning, this guy is loud and at times profane. Sounds like he’s partly laughing at the end, but he completely freaks when the horde first moves in, and by the time the lobber (I guess that’s what hit him) covers him in pus, he drops into full-terrified shriek mode. “Why did you let this happen to me?!?! You left me out there to die!!!”
Left 4 Dead Plan Gone Wrong [YouTube]
Yet another nice piece from the Guardian; Keith Stuart takes up the issue of innovation and whether or not reviewers really get it. Using Mirror’s Edge as a launching point, he notes that there seems to be too much focus on some of the little details and not enough emphasis on deconstructing the experience:
The U.S. Army has created a video game training unit that will begin operation in 2010, and has funding for it set aside to the tune of $US50 million, reports Stars and Stripes. This isn’t for recruiting or marketing, but the training of its soldiers in virtual environments.
Game journalism is a pretty maligned corner of the journalism world as a whole — sometimes for good reason, but as Gus Mastrapa argues, we’re not really deserving of the broad brush we get painted with. Why, he even points to Kotaku as a ‘sure sign that we’ve arrived’! Games journalism doesn’t lag behind many other enthusiast presses, he says, despite their advantage of age:
So yesterday saw a huge row over the issue of used game sales, specifically one writer’s now-disowned call for them to be regulated heavily in favour of the publishers. Victor Godinez of the Dallas Morning News wrote to me to share some details of an interview he had Thursday with Dan DeMatteo, the chief executive officer of GameStop, in hopes they can better inform this discussion.
There’s a really fun interview up at Gamasutra with Keiichi Yano, chief creative officer of iNiS (the Ouendan series and Elite Beat Agents). The subject is ostensibly Lips, the recently released 360 karaoke title, but a lot of ground is covered in terms of game design and future potential. My favourite part of the discussion is when Yano gets into the decision not to include a fail condition, and instead allow (possibly drunk) warblers to mangle music to their hearts’ content:
PlayStation@Home went to version 1.0 recently and expanded its pool of beta testers. I’m not sure Sony Computer Entertainment had this sort of thing in mind when it did, though. Given the options of going bowling, or playing arcade games, or buying virtual stuff and decorating an apartment well cooler than any you’ll ever live in, roughly 30 people all somewhat spontaneously lined up to to form the (virtual) world’s longest chain of avatars doing the running man dance.
GameSetWatch and Gamasutra have reprinted a really interesting article from Game Developer, where Soren Johnson of EA Maxis takes up the issue of 2D versus 3D in game design. Johnson maintains that while 2D is frequently seen as a relic of antiquated technology, there are plenty of places where it can make sense to utilise 2D over 3D. And, as Johnson points out, 3D graphics don’t necessarily equal 3D gameplay, and 3D gameplay comes with its own challenges. 2D graphics also have their less obvious advantages:
David Nieborg has a thoughtful essay up over at Valuable Games on the subject of Fable 2 and its moral system — and the relative success (or not) of that system. As Nieborg points out, it would be entirely possible to play through the game and ignore the moral aspects, and in his view, the morality system is implemented more like a ‘feature’ or ‘upgrade’ — a nice add-on. While he finds a lot to like about the attempt to insert a morality system into the game, Nieborg does have some quibbles, especially when it comes to feedback:
In a wide-ranging interview with Crispy Gamer, Hal Halpin, the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, calls Senator and gamers’ preferred punching bag Joe Lieberman “largely misunderstood and painted with a very broad brush.”
