May 2010
33 posts
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BioWare man: FFXIII is "not an RPG" →
Final Fantasy XIII is not a true RPG by BioWare’s definition, according to Star Wars: The Old Republic writing director Daniel Erickson. “You can put a ‘J’ in front of it, but it’s not an RPG,” Erickson told Strategy Informer, after the site suggested FFXIII had an excellent story but slightly tedious gameplay.
Shouldn’t someone who actually works in...
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BioWare Announces New DLC for Mass Effect 2 →
Time to dust off your Commander Shepard. Cerberus has lost communication with one of its research facilities. Probably just a crossed wire or something, right? Wrong. This is Mass Effect 2, people, and in the upcoming Overlord DLC, Shepard and crew must once again battle hordes of Geth, a homicidal artificial intelligence, and save the galaxy from certain destruction.
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Patrick Jean's 'Pixels' might hit the big screen →
“Pixels” is a short film which popped up about a month ago featuring classic game characters breaking out of a television and wreaking havoc through New York City. It was pretty damn cool. So cool, in fact, that Adam Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison Productions, has partnered with “Pixels” creator Patrick Jean to develop a feature film based on the...
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DOSBox v0.74 Released →
Nearly a full year since the last official release, the DOSBox team has updated the popular emulation software to version 0.74.
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PORTAL IS FREE.. IF YOU WANT IT. →
playerspulse:
Act until May 24th to get a FREE COPY of Portal (FOR MAC USERS TOO!!)
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Dead Space 2 coming to PC after all →
It turns out that Visceral Games is making a PC version of Dead Space 2 after all. “Dead Space PC lovers can relax! Dead Space 2 is officially coming to PC,” according to the game’s official Twitter account.
Dead Space was actually a pretty solid game, let’s hope the sequel doesn’t disappoint.
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The Making Of: Alone In The Dark →
Alone In The Dark was made at the point in gaming history in which 3D truly came alive, flat-shaded polys giving way to textures, and requiring the efforts of increasing team sizes to become real. Production staff numbers grew from one or two people to almost ten, each with their own competencies. Structure became key, especially with real businessmen as managers: people who wanted to make...
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It's Tuesday
So go here and vote for your favorite tumblog.
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Character Creation, Gender, And Fallout 3 →
Gamasutra is offering up a retrospective-of-sorts for Fallout 3, focusing primarily on the game’s pace, character creation, “environmental storytelling”, and how the team at Bethesda overlooked the female protagonist.
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Obama: Gaming A Concern For Education →
“With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations - none of which I know how to work - information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said, according to Reuters.
An American president flat-out admitting that he’s not very intelligent? What a novelty.
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"Serious Games" Industry Gains Traction →
“So-called ‘serious games’ are gaining traction in military, business, education, and medical applications as Gen X and Y come into power, iTnews reports. While game developers acknowledge the risk of trivializing real-world issues (as in the Six Days in Fallujah controversy), intelligently designed ‘serious games’ could allow complex situations to be presented in a...
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May 11, 1951: RAM Is Born →
1951: Jay Forrester files a patent application for the matrix core memory.
RAM, yeah, it’s pretty important.
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A Fine Line: Making RPGs Accessible →
The latest entry to 1UP’s RPG Blog examines the growing trend of role-playing games being made “more accessible” in order to appeal to a wider audience, and how gamers can help reverse the trend by having more patience when learning a game’s mechanics. Several JRPGs are referenced, though Mass Effect 2 comes up for a bit as well.
Why the fuck would you want to make RPGs...
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Quick Guide: Remove the Google 'Everything Bar' →
At the start of May 2010, Google began forcibly implementing a new look for its world famous search engine which has quite a few people scratching their heads in wonder. Given that Google shot to tremendous fame and fortune based in large part on its minimalistic yet highly useful interface, it comes as a bit of a surprise to see that interface steadily becoming more cluttered, and some might...
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Achron: indie RTS where time is your plaything,... →
Time travel is a tricky thing to implement in a video game, especially when it fundamentally affects the title’s play mechanics. What if time travel is not only an active part of play, but its use constantly changes the game’s experience? Independent game developer Hazardous Software is figuring out the answer to this question with Achron, a real-time strategy game that requires...
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StarCraft 2 Beta Patch 11 and a Situation Report →
The 11th StarCraft 2 beta patch, a gameplay-focused update, introduces some interesting balance changes all across the board. Unlike any previous patch, Blizzard has decided to clarify the rationale behind the adjustments in an extensive Situation Report post. The result is a nice insight into the balancing process and the Blizzard’s goals with the new changes to the game.
Nicings.
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Trine Retail Patch 1.07 Released →
Finnish game developer Frozenbyte is happy to announce the release of the Patch 1.07 to the PC retail version of Trine, its award-winning action-platformer game. Patch 1.07 includes the free DLC level “Path to New Dawn”. Frozenbyte has also created a new trailer to accompany the release of the patch.
Haven’t played Trine yet? Do it.
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Why Won’t You Let Me Be Stupid? →
This isn’t the first time that a game gave up on me. I’ve noticed that more and more AAA titles give us a puzzle, and then immediately hint at the answer. In BioShock 2, I was just loping around in Grace’s bedroom in Pauper’s Drop, searching for my target. And I guess I took five seconds too long, because the game told me to check behind a movie poster for the hidden switch. Uncharted 2 was all...
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GDC Canada: What Do Game Publishers Want? →
What do publishers want from developers? A panel of business development experts, both from the publishing side and the development side, appeared at GDC Canada on Thursday to nail down some of the things both parties should be considering.
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“You kind of have to know what the publisher likes,” added Charla. “Some really want passion, they want to know about the story, they want to know...
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Drop the Prozac, Pick Up a Game →
A recent study commissioned by PopCap Games found that casual games like Bejeweled and Peggle can help lift people’s moods and help combat stress, fatigue, psychological tension, and anger. In a six-month study of 134 people, they found that playing Bejeweled reduced stress by 54 percent compared to a control group. The games also help lift participants’ moods, particularly with...
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Another view of game piracy →
We’ve been hearing a lot about game piracy recently, with big developers inflicting draconian online-only DRM systems on their users, and blaming their declining PC game sales entirely on piracy. I’m not questioning that piracy is common, since even honest, DRM-free, indie developers like 2DBoy report a 90% piracy rate. I am, however, questioning what this means. How much revenue are...
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Study: Game Developers Remain Happy With Industry,... →
So how do game developers feel about the future of their industry? Despite a clear positive attitude about the current state of their careers, and trepidation about the job market, we found industry professionals nearly split when asked to look forward: of those who expressed an opinion, 55 percent said they felt the game industry is gaining momentum, and 45 percent disagreed. The sample for the...
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The consistency of game-worlds. →
As the quantity of the base assets increases, though, and as more and more of them are individually edited, the scenes these objects compose become increasingly unique. This borderline hand-sculpting of a game’s world creates very pretty visuals, but it also introduces issues of recognition.
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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Given Release... →
LucasArts has revealed the released date for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II on its Facebook page. The game will ship on Oct 26, 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, DS, Wii, iPhone and PC.
Hopefully the PC port will be somewhat less BRILLIANT (read: utterly craptastic) than the first one.
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Blizzard Announces Battle.net Integration with... →
In a brief statement issued this afternoon, Blizzard Entertainment said it is linking its online gaming platform with the world’s biggest online social platform. Battle.net and Facebook are being “integrated,” Blizzard COO Paul Sams said. The possibilities of that integration are many, but to start, Blizzard said it will be taking a basic first step: StarCraft II players will...