Recently in Games Category

I enjoyed this.

And I get to shill! Also my bathroom is now fixed

Well, after Sam's post about Spore the other day, I did some investigating to find out if Spore is coming to Mac, my platform of choice these days.

The answer is yes. And no. Mostly no.

Allow me to explain.

According to this EA press release, "Spore for the Mac will be made possible through TransGaming's Cider Portability Engine, with experience gained from the past EA Mac titles."

Without getting too technical, Cider is basically a Windows emulator. "Portability Engine" is code for "Software we use so that we don't actually have to port the game to another platform."

And what all THAT is code for is that Mac users get a third-rate product: Third-rate compatibility, third-rate performance, and if their track record with "past EA Mac titles" is any indication, third-rate support.

The performance issue is one of my biggest pet peeves, and will probably stop me from buying the mac version. Basically, the game will need all the memory, graphics, and CPU power the PC version does, PLUS all the resources needed to run Cider, the 'emulator'.

This means that on a Mac and PC with exactly the same specifications, the game will run much slower on the Mac, just because EA didn't feel like the Mac audience was worth the time and effort to make a real port, but is happy to take Mac user's money just the same.

The third-rate support problem really seals the deal for me. If I get this game, I'm getting the PC version and playing it in boot camp. See, when EA put out Battlefield 2142 for the Mac, they did it on Cider.

The first nasty surprise I got is that it ran about the same on my brand new mac and my four year old PC.

The second nasty surprise I got is when EA released a major patch for 2142 for the PC... and then waited a month to release the patch for the Macs... *EVEN THOUGH THE MACS WERE RUNNING THE EXACT SAME PROGRAM AS THE PCs, ONLY THROUGH CIDER*. So it wound up that all the PCs, and most of the install base, were on the new version... and so none of the Mac people could play on any of the updated servers. For a month.

(And, actually, they're charging more for a worse product. At the time of this writing the PC version is $19.99. The Mac version is twice that. Oh! And I almost forgot. The expansion, Northern Strike, which is required to unlock all the weapons, is not available for Mac and there are no plans to bring out a Mac version - even though it's just a map pack.)

I eventually complained enough that EA gave me a refund... But the fact remains that Cider ports of PC games are phoned-in half-assed products that don't work nearly as well as fully ported software that runs natively on your OS. So when EA says they're releasing Spore using Cider "with experience gained from the past EA Mac titles," don't believe them! As long as they're still using Cider, they haven't gained enough experience.

From Free Radical, working on Haze, and previously TimeSplitters, and in a previous life, GoldenEye.
sorry for the crappy quality of the photos


Little TimeSplitters monkey over the ebayjesus, and a small rib at the Ubi Assassin Creed group at the end. Cue Charlie Brown Xmas theme, or maybe Dar Williams "Christians and the Pagans"

Teehee. Call of Duty 4 has been releasing leaders of the world videos where Putin and Castro review the game. Bla bla. This one is purdy funny. VidJump

DylandMichelle cameos 22 minutes in or so! I also like people speaking german saying "gamejew."

uh update.

12 centimeters of yum or of cute? Can it be both?

Konami vs. Capcom

I don't get to a lot of retro stuff at work, so this was fun. I 'produced' this, wrote some of it, editted a bunch of it, and whipped 3 final cut editors into making it look purdy. It may not be my canonical list (where's goonies 2?) but its ok and i got to wax poetic about Kuribo's shoe.

p.s. Sam - Castlevania 2 isn't that good.

To be ignored by most. Uh, Sam, this sound familiar?

This game is made by a hungarian.

Another after the jump.

With the M & D in the H, it seems to be popping up everywhere for me, like pictures of Jesus or celebrity deaths.

Read on, dear readers, for sausages, nick cave and pokemans.

Hey Dylan, check it!

ObWikiLink

First off watch the first 30 seconds of this:

Now looky here at the blog for Castlevania: Dracula's Curse the blog for the movie based on Castlevania III (Sorry Sam, #2 is still left in obscurity.) So it seems Warren Ellis is writing it and James Jean is doing the art direction. It's going to be animated, but the above makes me think probably not in an Eastern/Anime style, but who knows. I really like the quaity of the animation in the trailer above, but I'm sure Mr. James Jean (which sounds really funny when said aloud. Well kinda funny) will be able to do a great job.

Eric, Sam, care to fill anyone in on the Ellis and the Fables?

See the amazing videos of a prospective Ghostbusters video game for the XBOX 360.  It looks good enough to make me want one of those those systems.   Let the right people know.

*Edit by Stephen - According to the creator's website, the game, like the third movie in the series, is being held up by intellectual property issues. In other words, they can't get the rights to release the game. So don't hold your collective breath.

I've gotten my pantleg tugged on several times by pretty much everyone on here for a new banner. Which is fair; I've had sole possesion of all the pictures we took together at that party at Josh's house for a new banner.

But no more!

I am releasing them into the wild internet.

So I say to you now: You want a new banner?

MAKE ONE.

Apples to apples is a very simple game. It takes about 30 seconds to learn. Basically, there is a stack of red cards, which are nouns, and a stack of green cards, which are adjectives. This is a group game, and players take turns being the judge. Each player holds a bunch of random noun cards in their hand, and the "judge" puts down an adjective card, for example, "sexy". The other players then have ten seconds to put down the card in their hand that they think best represents sexy. The judge then decides which card is the best match and the person who played it wins that round. Sounds sort of lame, right? I thought so.

But it isn't. Because the judge goes through each card that is layed down, eliminating them with explanations, "Clearly the least sexy of these cards is "creamed corn". Who the hell put down creamed corn?" And then the putter downer of creamed corn shouts, "Creamed corn is ridiculously sexy! It's all warm and smooth and creamy!" and then there is a burst of argument over whether creamed corn is sexy or no. And this repeats for every card put down. It is the groupiest group game I've ever played. Everyone is involved and even meek game playing personalities become brazen. And as you start to learn what certain people like, what their humors lean towards, you start to playing to the judge, which actually tends to complicate things.

On Thursday night, I played this game for 5 hours with 8 people. On Saturday, about 4, with 9 people. It is by far one of the best group activites in the world. No one can feel left out with Apples to apples. Or feel bored. It is group gaming perfection.

After my almost embarrassingly lazy Christmas break in Maine, I came home to something truly magical. The first game for PS2 that's been able to hold my attention since God of War. I had never heard of Gitaroo Man, but Liam, after looking up something about Elite Beat Agents, found a refernece to this cult classic, and found himself a semi-rare American version on eBay, and it was waiting for my perusal when I got home. And peruse I did. I really can't seem to stop perusing.

It's kind of like Parappa the Rappa (for Playstation, and then I think some updated version for PS2), but it looks more like a seizure, it's a lot more enjoyable to listen to, and the gameplay is a lot more interesting (and challenging). You're still doing pretty much impossible button combinations, but you're also "playing guitar", meaning follwing a line with your joystick which ebbs and flows as the melody does. It probably sounds kind of easy, but it's really not.

Karen and I have been unable to locate a Wii, The Only Thing I Want For Christmas This Year, so instead Karen got me a subscription to Make magazine and put together this to-scale papercraft Wiimote. It's the next-best thing to dropping $400 on a Wii, an extra controller and nunchuck, and the new Zelda.

We are reading VERBATIM (word of the day, possibly mispelled) from angry message board posts.

i also modern dance in this. Take that bennington dancers. Mediate this Scgorboti

A collection of Wii-related accidents, Wii Have a Problem is a great reiteration for the reminder before each Wii game to put on the wrist strap and tighten it good and tight like, and don't stand near anything while you play. Images of cracked TV and computer screens abound. Looks like bowling is the biggest culprit. These crazy kids are just letting go of the remote like it's the ball. I blame these people who don't like videogames, but like the wii (because no one is immune to the wii). They just don't know how to control themselves. Also, some of the straps are just breaking, so there's that too. The swiit thing about most of these accidents, is while the TV screens shatter, the Wii remote usually works just fine. Built like a rock.

That said, has anyone played any sweet Wii games besides Red Steel, which isn't sweet at all, but rather a most mundane of first person shooters? I'm sure wii're all looking forward to Touched's release in January. And can wii all agree that golf is by far the best of the sports games?

There will never be enough time.

DS Guitar M-06

There is a nice big profile of Will Wright in this week's New Yorker which, true to the style of the magazine, is also a brief history of video games and a peek at the industry at large.

Also contained in the article is this little piece of trivia:

In the spring of 1981, Wright answered an ad in a car magazine: Richard Doherty, a rally enthusiast, was looking participants to compete in a point-to-point race between Farmingdale, Long Island, and Redondo Beach, California. Wright had a Mazda RX-7, which he and Doherty modified with a larger fuel tank and a roll cage. They wore night-vision goggles so that they could drive fast in the dark without headlights and avoid the cops. “Will said we should take the southern route, even though it was longer, because if we got stopped he’d be able to talk to the cops,” Doherty told me. “We did get stopped in Georgia. We were doing a hundred and twenty, with no headlights, but it didn’t take Will more than a couple of minutes to make the officer see why he had to let us go without a ticket.” They won the race, establishing a new record of thirty-four hours and nine minutes.

... I cut and pasted that from their online version of the article, though I had a hard time finding it because the print version of the article says "In the summer of 1980..." versus the online version's claim that it happened "In the spring of 1981..." (I was searching for "summer".)

Anyway, you can read the whole damn thing without paying for it, but I suspect it'll be gone next week when the new issue comes out, so step to it.

Sam and Michelle should team up for a duet...

HOW IT WORKS: Musicians should go to (www.myspace.com/godofwar) to register for the contest and upload their song onto the God of War II MySpace entry page. All musical entries will be available for fans to listen to. Fans will be encouraged to vote for their favorite song - musicians are encouraged to get their fans, friends and family to go to the site to vote for their song. There are three rounds.

Round 1 "The Beginning" - Starting OCTOBER 11 - Musicians can log on and post their own recording on the official entry site. Fans can listen to all the entries and then vote for their favorite. The top fifty vote getters will make it to Round 2.

Round 2 "The Semis" - The top 50 songs/vote getters from Round 1 will be whittled down to the top 10 songs by the development team behind the creation of God of War II. They will pick their ten favorite songs that best embody the spirit of the game and potentially deserve a place on the official soundtrack.

Round 3 "The Finals" - The top 10 will be announced on the website and fans will be encouraged to listen to the top 10 and vote for their favorite. The song with the highest number of votes will win and it will be featured on the God of War II soundtrack alongside other major recording artists (recording artists to be announced).

The nicely designed Stationary movies has a bunch of scenes from famous movies made with office supplies, and you guess what movie they're from. I got 12/20 so far, and the ones I can't get are driving me crazy! (If my explanation didn't make any sense, just go check it out, you'll understand). You can also take your own picture and send it in, and if it wins, you get a big old certificate to buy a bunch of movies. Let me know if you get them all so I can be jealous of you and be properly put to shame. (I'm counting on you, Stephen, I know how you like puzzles).

I'd make it this one. A conspiracy of signing music with melody. I love it.

"Quirky Nintendo music composer Kazumi Totaka has a 19-note tune that he likes to hide in his games."

Instead of sleeping last night, I downloaded and played a number of the old DOS adventure games that I grew up with. Its odd, but I feel way more nostalgia for these old PC games than any of the old NES or SEGA games. I think maybe its because "NES-Culture" is still being parlayed by plenty of Williamsburg Artists types Nintendo itself, and Beck. The Sierra and LucasArts game series, such as Quest For Glory, Monkey Island, Kings Quest or Liesure Suit Larry, take me instantly back to being curled up in front the ole 486.

This game binge fest was brought about by my discovery of DOSBOX, a Dos emulator for both Windows XP and all flavors of MacOSX. Want to get down with it? I linked up everything...

But, unfortunatly, tis not me culture that is the odd one

I'm working on a review for a game called God Hand which is a modern day brawler, with tank controlls and is very odd. Above is a Japanese promotional video for it.

Wythe-y, can you tell us what's going on?

I know some of you kids love that Settler's of Catan thing so I thought I'd mention that it's coming to Bill Gates' box (Maybe Emerald can tag it??) with over da internet support. eh.

my legs are bruised from shattering a six foot glass vase in Barcelona. My skin seems to be reacting badly to glass.

Did you guys know that New York City houses a Nintendo World? (I don't recommend this link...their site is infuriating). But wow, the store is fun. It's big and bright and looks like it's from the future. But more importantly, there are video games to play with everywhere you turn! They had about 30 DSs and GBAs scattered about, and a bunch of game cube setups on the second floor. Children were running around like headless chickens. Liam and I were by far the largest people there (besides the parents, who were NOT having fun). One inspiring conversation was overheard, a young boy telling his nanny that he felt guilty making his mom buy him a DS, a game, AND a case. Good for him, he should feel bad. The cost of that fun bundle could save like 500 African kids. The Nanny just told him not to feel bad.

I wish I was still a kid.

James Kolchalka may be a media super star. He's from Vermont and has great comics about elves and monkies'n'robots (which had a video I saw on the SciFi Channel one summer) and recently did a music video on a Game Boy Camera which has got some press and goddamn kotaku.

Well, nothing against Mr. Superstar and his Twinkle Twinkle Ringo Star but to drink from the cup of hubris, world (who doesn't have expanded basic cable) feast your eyes on my year old opus from Cinematech: Game Boy Camera DJ BATTLE.

Shooting this required a DVCam deck and a hacked original GBA with video out and needing an external powersource, meaning the GBA was very very tethered. Some things in order of apperance:

I'm a huge nerd. Kids, be over 18 or something...

(I swear I'll stop posting these soon.... my next one is NASCAR. I think it involves driving. Or magic.)

I haven't posted in awhile because I've been home sick for the past few days without internet (Damn you, Time Warner Cable! You replaced our broken modem with another broken modem and then said you wouldn't have time to give us another (probably broken) modem for two and a half weeks! Don't you know we're living in the age of the information superhighway?! How am I supposed to function?!) Aware of my circumstance, our very own angel, Stephen, brought me over a handful of DS games to occupy my many lonely, tea drinking, kleenex crumpling, vitamin c popping, mucus hawking bed ridden hours. Among others, he brought the intriguing "Trauma Center: Under the Knife". The game reminded me of this game for my old PC that I used to love where the rules made it too complicated to actually play, but I spent a lot of time carving my name into the patient's stomach with my trusty scalpel. He would scream something awful (early 90's computer screaming just wasn't what it is today). Then the screen would show my dead patient with the toe tag and that death song would play. (you know, dum dum da dum, da da da da dum da dam) Anyway, Trauma Center is nothing like that.

So I got my DS Lite (my d-slight) and it's truly a thing of beauty. Slim, shiny, white, elegant, dead pixel...Wait, what? Dead Pixel? That's right, my D-slight came complete with Red Dead Pixel. I tried to take it back and exchange for alive pixels, but the store informed me it ain't their problem, and that I would have to send it to Nintendo. And wait longer and longer for gameplay heaven? I decided that my D-Slight's dead pixel displayed a kind of beauty that only a mother could love, and chose to keep him, to protect him from those cruel people who don't accept him for his differences.

But yeah, DS rules! Thank you for all the suggestions, I ended up going for 2 standards for the time being, Brain Age and New Super Mario Brothers. I can't wait till I have enough money to buy more. I played Brain Age on the commute this morning (I got a 25...not bad for first thing in the morning, huh?)

Read this:
http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152635

Edit Sorry Stephan. Woah, HD art assets? Well its not like anyone owns an HDTV but 640 sprites vs 320 should be luverly.

Achievements are going to be scary.

Hey Michelle,
remember yr DS can play GBA games as well and imports have no lockouts.

Dotstream is amazing. Prism light racing. music straight from the nanoloop cd. Yum.

I'm doing it! Despite desperately trying to save money and continually telling myself, "okay, me, you're in money-saving mode officially now, so no buying things", and despite telling all my friends at work that I'm not spending any money this week, and suffering on flattened peanut butter and jellys for the past 3 weeks instead of buying lunch like everyone else, yes, despite all this, I'm buying a Nintendo DS. I'm doing it today...in the heat wave, I'm walking a good 25 minutes each way, and I'm getting it. Getting it good. And I'm getting Brain Age. Although anyone played Big Brain Academy? I've read good things about it.
But I want another game too, and I need advice. What's a good one? Something like Star Fox DS or New Super Mario Bros. You know, something where I'm a little guy going through levels. Tetris DS perhaps? Or maybe something just totally weird like Cooking Mama. What about Nintendogs, it seems so lame? Something I can enjoy for many hours alone while my PS2 has been taken hostage at the Jug. Any and all suggestions will be lovingly considered and humbly appreciated.

I suggest you skip ahead to the middle of the video. Thats where it starts to get interesting.

P.S. The girl who wins is Annie Duke A.K.A. the Duchess of Poker.

For more info on the RPS Championships...http://www.rpschamps.com/

This sounds stupid. Though I do like the part were the middle aged woman hisses "I think it's performance art!" Owned. This Jillian Mcdonald is a Canadian. And using zombies. So i'm torn, but the embracement of celebrity worship, of even highly alliterated celebs ala Billy Bob makes me a bit sick in my gut.

Maybe Heather will run into her on the subway, call her stupid and punch her in the neck.

On the flip side, the game Zombie Vs. Ambulance isn't that good.

Hey Wyther, remember that Prey game you were talking about? Yeah, it kinda sucks. This here is the Acme Portable Hole© game that has a similiar concept and this trailer is pretty 'dope' or 'fucking dope' as the kids say.

Besides pornography involving nuns (speaking of nun-sex, anyone remember Bad Lieutenant?), gin, asking any given dog if the dog is a good boy, then affirming that, in fact, that dog IS a good boy, and/or World of Warcraft, the most addictive thing on the planet might just be:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/proximity.html

After winning a rousing game of Scattergories yesterday evening, I was feeling pretty good. I felt accomplished, like I completed a crossword puzzle or solved a semi-difficult math problem. Scattergories has always been one of my favorite games. Actually, before I even knew it was a board game, my sisters and I would make up ghetto versions of it on long roadtrips and play it for hours. This is the kind of game that you can play for hours because it feels good to play. It's a game that asks you to search your brain, think quickly and creatively, and adds competition to the mix. I love board games like this, the kind that require you to think fast and be clever. It feels good to use those parts of your brain that don't get exercised too often. Of course, it can be tough to find enough players on a daily basis to sit down for Scattergories, Sets, Chess or Go (kids these days, all they want to do is drink and dirty dance and do the dope!). Which is where the ever gratifying DS game Brain Age comes in...

Monday, June 26th, 2006 - Will Wright and Brian Eno

Will Wright, creator of the video games "Sim City," "The Sims," and the forthcoming "Spore," will speak (with Brian Eno) on playing with time.

This talk will be at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco

--- Summary ---

In a dazzling duet Will Wright and Brian Eno gave an intense clinic on the joys and techniques of "generative" creation.

Back in the 1970s both speakers got hooked by cellular automata such as Conway's "Game of Life," where just a few simple rules could unleash profoundly unpredictable and infinitely varied dynamic patterns. Cellular automata were the secret ingredient of Wright's genre-busting computer game "SimCity" in 1989. Eno was additionally inspired by Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain," in which two identical 1.8 second tape loops beat against each other out of phase for a riveting 20 minutes. That idea led to Eno's "Music for Airports" (1978), and the genre he named "ambient music" was born.

See if you can see what I did here....

1. Tautonyms especially the non-taxonomic ones.

2. Thusly, Xiu Xiu

3. In turn, perhaps incest albiet between cousins could have an exception for these two:

Is this

a) All the awesome shit you can do on your DS Lite with the new Opera browser?


2) The new 6 Deadly Sins Of The Internet, bundled with a DS Lite with a new Opera browser?


marmalade) Aweome advertisement for a firewall/filtering service to protect the wee ones from drugs, parents bickering, lipstick smears and unflattering swimwear on a DS Lite with the new Opera browser?

Please answer in a small essay, 50 to 57 words. There is a pencil and a cynaide capsule underneath your seat.

God of War is easily the best looking game I've ever played. The story is set in Greek Mythology, and it is pretty much the most awesome vision of Greek mythology ever. The scenes are huge and with great details, greek statues and colomns abound. Every aspect of the design in considered, from the potted plants to the hanging tapestries to the stormy skies, down to the cracks in the stone floors. The character design is excellent as well, bad guys like Gorgons (medusas) slithering around on snake bodies, and stomping minotaurs that show every muscle as they attempt to crush you with their stupid mallets (takes away lot of health, those). The special combos for killing them are great, like ripping the gorgon's heads off with a wave of blood pouring out (using specific analog stick rotations), or repeatedly stabbing the minotaurs in the skull (using button combos as they appear on the screen (A little like PaRappa the Rappa. Remember him?)). The magic you can do as the game progreses is equally gorgeous, from the crackling blue lightning of Poseidon’s Rage (my favorite magic) to the writhing green beam of Medusa's Stare that turns your enemies to stone (which the gorgons in turn can use on you). Also, the Sirens, so sexy. (and snap, the Oracle! She's the hotness, and you have to save her from peril at this one point and you totally feel like such a man, she's all like, "oh oh, hurry Kratos, save meeeeee! pleeease!!!" while you're swinging on robes and climbing walls and walking on ledges and saving her ass.)

Warning: Storyline Spoiler Ahead...

So, I've been playing around with Sphere now that it's in open beta. I sphere'd the word Vectrex and found listing number two very interesting: Hidden Village at Tyndall Assembly concert 5. Now this was odd, since I did some Vectrex-y videos for our own Tyndall few years back. I was hoping maybe I ran into Sam's parents' (who are awesome, even if they love Sam tooooo much.) blog. But no, its some experimenal sound guys from Australia (dime a dozen there) who have been doing some cool things with videogame music, including the awesome Atari 2600 Synthcart, and visuals with a Vectrex and Vectrex Logo, which is news too me and now I fiend over. Check it out.

Oh, and to auto-felate myself: Small, soundless excerpt of some of my old Vectrex animation. Whee. I got a replacement lightpen a few months back; I need to start doing some more stuff.