Posts by Simon Carless
Farewell And Goodbye
12:00PM Simon Carless | To: Ash From: Simon Well, thanks to your good self, Right Admiral Crecente, and the rest of the Kotaku kru for making me feel welcome here this week during my Thanksgiving-filled guest spot. As promised, I pointed out weird/cool indie games, and talked to developers, and even delved into video game history during my stint as Guest Editor – and hopefully it brought something different to the table. Now I’m wandering off back to our Gamasutra/Game Developer editor blog Game Set Watch, where I actually got a guest blogger, Schadenfreude Interactive’s ‘greatest living German game programmer’ Karsden Mörderhäschen, to guest in my absence – how complicated! Of course, the creator of such classic games as Accordion Hero and ‘karaoke survival horror game’ Nachtmusik has been causing havoc, with marzipan mascot controversy just one of the tragedies that await me on my return. But hey, them’s the breaks. Have a great weekend! What you missed today: The Guys Behind the Rock Band Music Tomb Raider Anniversary Hits Xbox Live Valve Bringing More Achievements to Steam, Soon What Are You Playing This Weekend? More »
Ten Years Ago: LucasArts’ Monkey Island Duo
10:00AM Simon Carless | After taking a look at what Peter Molyneux and Demis Hassabis were up to ten years ago, the final instalment of this ‘how did their predictions turn out, a decade later’ feature series asks some adventure game veterans. Specifically, it chats to LucasArts’ Larry Ahern and Jonathan Ackley, who were just about to complete 1997’s The Curse Of Monkey Island, the first post-Ron Gilbert version of the franchise, and the last to use the famed SCUMM adventure game engine. Read on for what they said and whether they were right… More »
What Suda51 Did On His Trip To Michigan
8:08AM Simon Carless | The folks at Japanese developer Grasshopper Manufacture (Killer7, No More Heroes), headed by Suda51, have an enduringly pop culture trashy angle on game development – targeting Star Wars geeks and gravure fans ahead of the Japanese release of the Wii-exclusive No More Heroes, for starters. But a lot of Western audiences are less aware of the pop culture-infused oddness of Suda51’s earlier PlayStation 2 title Michigan – which echoes many of the voyeuristic elements in other Grasshopper titles, and is the subject of a handy new overview by Insomnia.ac. As the site explains of the PS2 title, which got an obscure European release via 505 Games, you play a news camera-man in an American town (‘Chicago, Michigan’ apparently), and “…whilst the real meat of the game involves simple lock and key puzzles to progress from area to area, points are awarded on each shoot [for the player filming in one of] three categories: suspense, immoral and erotic.” Blimey. ‘Michigan’ Game Impressions [Insomnia.ac] More »
Game Inspirations: Julien Merceron, Eidos
6:00AM Simon Carless | Finishing up this original series talking to game developers about the games that inspired them, we follow up High Moon’s Clinton Keith by chatting to Eidos Chief Technical Officer Julien Merceron. Obviously, Merceron now oversees technical matters for the House Of Lara Croft, but he started out programming titles like Super Burnout on the Atari Jaguar (!), and was a long-time Ubisoft veteran, helping to program the original Rayman and working on R&D strategy for the French company. So what game particularly made him believe that the medium had ascended to a higher level? Read on… More »
Indie Picks #4, #5 – Blackwell Unbound, Chocolate Castle
2:00AM Simon Carless | My final set of indie game picks as Guest Editor follow my previous ones – Professor Fizzwizzle & The Molten Mystery, Venture Arctic and Deadly Rooms Of Death. However, this time two under-publicised independent games for the benefit of the Kotaku audience are squished together in one post (so they appear before my time as Guest Editor is up). They’re dissimilarly wonderful, so check them out: More »Morrissey Or Corgan? The Eternal Question
2:14PM Simon Carless | To: Ash From: Simon RE: Don’t Eat At Empty Sushi Restaurants Oh dear – the “Sushi Incident of 2007″ sounds unfortunate, but it might just be your imagination, and you didn’t really eat any improperly prepared fugu. Or are your lips getting numb? I kid, of course. As with most of the rest of the Kotaku editors, my day has been spent trying to get work done and not play Rock Band – something I’ve managed fairly well. However, when creating my first character for the game last night, I ran into some interesting style decisions over the insanely dynamic Rock Band character maker. My first attempt at a guitarist was guided by my wife, who ended up picking a dark-colored pompadour hairstyle and a cleanshaven, rock-styled look. Add to that the requisite clothing, and ‘Hol’ ended up looking a bit like Morrissey – or at least one of his bequiffed backing band. I was OK with that, but most of the songs in the game require a bit more scuzz than that, so after she wandered away, I switched ‘Hol’ to shaven-headed, and switched out the lip coloring to darker – hey presto, an instant Smashing Pumpkins look. Cooler? Nah, just different, and so easy to change, too. I wonder what bands our dutiful Kotaku readers are styling their characters after? What you missed today: Frankenreview, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3) Kill The Silent Protagonist? Ten Years Ago: Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux, Demis Hassabis Unreal Tournament III PS3 Goes Gold, Saves Christmas More »
Five Indie Picks: #3 – Professor Fizzwizzle & The Molten Mystery
12:07PM Simon Carless | The third of my Guest Editor-impelled picks for great indie games you might have missed, following Venture Arctic and Deadly Rooms Of Death, is for Grubby Games’ indie/casual puzzle title Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery. Created by the small Canadian-based studio, the puzzle-based 2D platform game was recently reviewed on indie site GameTunnel, who explain handily of the gameplay: “Your goal is simply to guide the kindly professor and inventor through levels from one teleporter to another teleporter. Along the way you’ll need to ensure that the Professor can cross all manner of gaps and blockades and dangerous bat-bots that bar his passage.” So it’s logic puzzles in a cute family-friendly manner? Yep, and you just don’t see this kind of thing from the mainstream any more – also worth noting there’s a prequel and the Katamari vs. Breakout fun of Fizzball also in the company’s line-up – neet. Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery [Grubby Games] More »
Adventure Games Get Very Own Digital Portal
10:10AM Simon Carless | Over at his GamesLOL site, blogger and designer Marek Bronstring has been remarking that not only is the adventure game not dead, but there’s a new digital store which is _just_ for PC adventure games: “Just wanted to quickly point out that AdventureGamers.com now runs a partnership with Lezard Electronic to offer digital downloads of many popular adventure games. It’s called Adventure Shop and it launched with a catalog of 23 titles. New games will be added regularly going forward… It already has some titles that are hard to find elsewhere. Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsène Lupin won’t be in stores until sometime in 2008, but it can already be downloaded from the Adventure Shop.” Holmes vs. Lupin? Forget about Sonic Vs. Mario, this is the matchup to watch for this holiday season. Digital downloads of adventure games [GamesLOL] More »
Ten Years Ago: Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux, Demis Hassabis
9:35AM Simon Carless | Firstly in the ‘Ten Years Ago’ series looking at old game interviews, we checked Valve’s Marc Laidlaw, and after that we tried 3D Realms’ Scott Miller. Thus, our third instalment of “how did their predictions turn out, ten years later” picks out Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux and Demis Hassabis, from an interview originally conducted by me in 1998 for Videogamedesign.com. What did they say? Does it still make sense, almost a decade later? Time to find out… [Thanks to Way Of The Rodent's 'Peter Molyneux Presents...' article for the very useful picture of the duo!] More »
