games convention 08
Heavy Rain: You’re Soaking In it
4:30AM Michael McWhertor | Quantic Dream’s David Cage walked us through a playable version of the developer’s shrouded in mystery PlayStation 3 game Heavy Rain at Games Convention. The roughly twenty minute demo featured scenes shown in the teaser trailer from SCEE’s keynote. But before we actually got to take a look at the game, Cage prepped us on the team’s design philosophy. Heavy Rain, he told us, was an adventure game devoid of traditional “interactivity” — shooting, driving, fighting — with a story driven by a player’s actions. Those choices, he said, would have a tangible impact on the outcome. He compared Heavy Rain’s story structure to a rubber band, one that can be deformed and stretched by your choices in-game. Cage told us that what we were about to see would help us remain spoiler-free — our demo was a standalone scenario, not integral to the game’s actual story. More »
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4:00PM Logan Booker | When I saw the trailers for Speed Racer, I thought “hey, that looks kind of neat”. Then, the reviews came out. A rating of 37? That’s got to hurt. NZ dev Sidhe Interactive, which was responsible for the game tie-in, thinks the movie took a giant dump on its chances of success. Here’s what Jos Ruffel, the company’s business development manager, had to say at this year’s GC Developers Conference:
“When we were first asked to do Speed Racer the property it was incredible, it was very exciting. It was a film by the Wachowski brothers and it was about car racing – awesome that’s going to make a great game”.
The Wachowski brothers? I mean, other than the first Matrix film, have they done anything good? Did you see Invasion? No, neither did I.
It can’t be easy balancing demands and expectations from a studio with the desire to make a solid game. To be honest, I don’t think the sort of people who buy games based on a movie like Speed Racer are expecting the next Gran Turismo. Stick to the basics and add a bit of jazz, that’s what I say.
Poor Speed Racer movie hindered our game, says Sidhe Interactive
[GamesIndustry.biz, via Tsumea] More »
Bad Speed Racer Movie To Blame For Average Game Reviews
4:00PM Logan Booker | When I saw the trailers for Speed Racer, I thought “hey, that looks kind of neat”. Then, the reviews came out. A rating of 37? That’s got to hurt. NZ dev Sidhe Interactive, which was responsible for the game tie-in, thinks the movie took a giant dump on its chances of success. Here’s what Jos Ruffel, the company’s business development manager, had to say at this year’s GC Developers Conference:
“When we were first asked to do Speed Racer the property it was incredible, it was very exciting. It was a film by the Wachowski brothers and it was about car racing – awesome that’s going to make a great game”.
The Wachowski brothers? I mean, other than the first Matrix film, have they done anything good? Did you see Invasion? No, neither did I.
It can’t be easy balancing demands and expectations from a studio with the desire to make a solid game. To be honest, I don’t think the sort of people who buy games based on a movie like Speed Racer are expecting the next Gran Turismo. Stick to the basics and add a bit of jazz, that’s what I say.
Poor Speed Racer movie hindered our game, says Sidhe Interactive
[GamesIndustry.biz, via Tsumea] More » 
Space Invaders Attack World Trade Centre At Games Convention
4:10AM Michael McWhertor | Let’s file this one under “Too Soon”. Seen at the “Invaders!” booth, tucked away in Hall Four of the Games Convention being held in Leipzig, Germany right now, was this non-interactive installation of the classic Taito space faring aliens laying waste to the Twin Towers. It was projected on a massive screen in the vicinity of lots of classic Space Invaders goods, as the game is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It was… it was weird. This hits three year’s after the first and last game to take on the World Trade Centre hit Brooklyn. Honestly, we’re not quite sure what’s going on here quite yet, as we didn’t know the German translation for “What the fuck?” We do know, however, that the 8-bit tower jumpers and the negative score applied to each WTC tower to indicate damage aren’t going to sit well with, we’re thinking, everyone we know who doesn’t hate freedom. Update: It is an art exhibit, according the the French-American artist. More »
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Heavy Rain Gets Public Showing At Games Convention
1:50AM Michael McWhertor | The Quantic Dream developed Heavy Rain, described by president David Cage as dark and emotionally driven, made its public debut at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s press conference today. Little details were divulged on the PlayStation 3 horror game during its brief cinematic showing, but David Reeves of SCEE called it “horrifying”. We watched the game’s protagonist, seen in the ‘casting call’ trailer shown at E3 years ago, investigated an abandoned house, filled with what we assume to be ghosts frozen in time. Visually, the game looked spectacular and moody, heavy in sepia tones but with occasional dashes of primary colour, but we’ll have more in-depth impressions of Heavy Rain when we see it behind closed doors tomorrow. More »
PlayStation 3 Controller Getting Wireless Keypad
1:40AM Michael McWhertor | Sony showed off a new wireless keyboard for the PlayStation 3 controller, intended to help with in game text messaging and PS3 browser navigatoin. The black keyboard clips on over the front of the DualShock 3/SIXAXIS with the keyboard located above the main controller area. The wireless keyboard also features a touchpad mode to allow for mouse input. David Reeves, president of SCEE, said that this touchpad control mode may be used in future game development. The keyboard will ship in eight configurations in Europe to support the numerous languages and keyboard types in the continent. More »
PlayStation 3 160GB Model Coming To Europe
1:30AM Michael McWhertor | Sony will be bringing one more SKU to the PlayStation 3 family this spring, doubling the storage of the soon to be offered 80GB model. While the functionality of the console remains the same, the hard drive size will be doubled when the 160GB model ships out to European gamers on October 31. Price? Just 499 Euro, with 70 Euro worth of downloadable content out of the box. More »
Sony Announces New PSP Model
1:21AM Michael McWhertor | SCEE president David Reeves announced at the company’s Games Convention press conference that the PSP-3000 would being shipping this Fall, boasting new hardware features over the current PSP Slim and Lite. Featuring a built-in microphone, a new, brighter LCD screen and Skype out of the box, the PSP-3000 is expected to ship to Europe in October. Visually, the new PSP 3000 is nearly identical to previous iterations. It will ship with eight bundles, with pack-ins featuring Harry Potter, Buzz Master Quiz and more. Each bundle will be priced at 199 Euros. More »
Gary Oldman Answers Call of Duty
1:20AM Michael McWhertor | Activision is adding another famous name to Call of Duty: World At War. Joining accomplished shouter Kiefer “Damn It!” Sutherland, who plays Sgt. Roebuck in the Treyarch developed World War II game, will be Gary Oldman. The co-star of The Dark Knight and The Professional will voice one of the characters in the Russian portion of the World at War campaign. More »
Wonder Woman, Raiden Two Of Four New Kombatants
1:00AM Michael McWhertor | Midway announced, in a roundabout way, four more additions to the cast of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe at the Leipzig Games Convention today. After Ed Boon left the stage, having been properly grilled by German personality Oliver Pocher, four images flashed on screen, quickly confirming more of the MK vs. DC line up. On the DC side, Wonder Woman will clash with Deathstroke (aka Deathstroke the Terminator), who joins the short list of known DC Universe bad guys. On the Mortal Kombat side, two from the original cast return as Raiden and Kano — both of whom bear a striking resemblance to their Mortal Kombat III versions — round out the “greatest hits” cast. More »
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