Yesterday, Sony Computer Entertainment announced that they had acquired the developer Media Molecule, who are best known for their PS3-exclusive action-platform creative funbox of a game, LittleBigPlanet. SCE Worldwide Presdient, Shuhei Yoshida, then went on to praise Media Molecule for the innovative and outside-the-box approach to games development, and mentioned that acquiring Media Molecule was a valuable step in securing quality titles for the current and future PlayStation hardware. Looks like another big developer has found a place in Sony’s stable.

Whether you love it or hate it, there's no denying the sheer technical brilliance of LittleBigPlanet.

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It was bound to happen. Someone found a way to turn Heavy Rain into Hot Coffee (Rain?). Over at Kotaku, the person who discovered how to glitch Quantic Dream’s new ultimate-quicktime-event game into having the female lead be totally nude when not behind the safety and cover of a shower door, tells us how he did it. There’s also a video, if you’re old enough to watch, which you are, otherwise you wouldn’t say you were, right?

Because we’re tasteful about these things, we’ve marked over the offending items with bright red pen, and marked over her eyes so you don’t know who she is, other than a character in a videogame, meticulously modelled to be totally anatomically correct in every way. She even has a little intestine (no she doesn’t, she’s hollow inside, like us, for reporting on this as if it’s really newsworthy).

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When it comes to console action games, three big titles basically ruled the roost: Devil May Cry, God of War and Ninja Gaiden. Recently, they’ve been challenged by the might of this young upstart called Bayonetta, which is a fantastic action game on every level, and not too long ago we had Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was also respectable in many ways, enough to get a sequel. The recently released Dante’s Inferno from EA is another attempt to reckon the might of the top dog action games, so let’s see how it fares.

The premise of the game is based loosely on a section of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and sees our hero, Dante, a veteran of the Crusades, returning to his home in Italy to find his fiancé murdered and in the hands of Satan. Desperate to save her soul, even at the cost of his own, Dante plunges headfirst into Hell to battle the devil’s most nightmarish servants. As in the epic poem, hell is comprised of nine levels, each one representing a different sin and each one inhabited by malicious and disgusting enemies matching that theme. For instance, the stock enemies of the Circle of Lust are naked women who are now cursed to wander the halls of Hell eternally seeking satisfaction. They also attack Dante with what appears to be a twelve foot long prehensile penis, just one of the many indications that this game is for older players only.

In terms of gameplay, Dante’s Inferno is slick and satisfying, even if it borrows most of its ideas from other action games, most notably God of War. Dante uses the Scythe of Death, a bony weapon he won after defeating the Grim Reaper himself, which allows him to deliver all kinds of combination attacks using the weak and heavy attack buttons. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Well, yes, it’s not very original, but it works. As Dante defeats enemies, he’ll acquire souls which he can use to buy new abilities and attacks. Hmmm… Where have we seen that before? Almost every action game, perhaps? So, yes, it’s another cliché, but what makes it interesting here is that every enemy can be dispatched in one of two ways: through punishment or absolution. By punishing his enemies, Dante earns Unholy souls, which can be used to buy Unholy abilities that mostly grant special attacks with brute force. By absolving his enemies’ sins and freeing them from Hell, he earns Holy souls, which can be used to buy Holy abilities: usually ranged attacks, counters and other defensive abilities.

Whether these borrowed ideas make the game less appealing or not depends on how particular you are about originality. Sure, it gets a few points deducted for being a little derivative, but there’s still a slick action game with decent graphics and a compelling story behind it – not to mention the undeniable appeal of the violence and adult content to the right crowd. You decide.

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Before the turn of the millennium, the PC was really the only way to go for in-depth role playing games. Sure, console gamers at the time had a lot Japanese-style, linear, hand-holding RPGs to play, but what few western-style, free-form RPGs were available on consoles weren’t all that comprehensive, to be honest.

Realms of Arkania 3: Shadow Over Riva on the PC is a good example. It’s relatively unknown title based on a similarly-obscure German pen and paper role playing system. Not only does it give players a huge amount of freedom, it’s packed full of unique options and offers a huge world full of interesting quests and unusual characters to meet. It’s not quite as accessible as other PC role playing titles of the same era, like Ultima, The Elder Scrolls or Lands of Lore, and its unique systems require quite a run-up to get acquainted with, but the adventure behind this red tape and fiddly interface is highly engrossing.

The story isn’t all that original: Something is going down in the city of Riva, and only a party of brave heroes with the balls to do anything about it stand a chance to save the day. When the player begins their quest, they are handed a pre-generated party of six members. You can play that way if you want, but it’s far more fun and rewarding to kick them all out and generate six entirely unique characters from scratch. What makes Realms of Arkania 3 unique in this regard is that each character will have not only skills and good points, like swordsmanship, conversation skills and dance abilities (I’m not joking), but also bad points, like a foul temper or cowardice. All of these things have a tangible impact on the game. In addition to improving their laudable aspects as they level up, these characters will also have the responsibility of diminishing their bad points while they’re at it.

Exploration of the city is handled via a very pixelated 3D perspective that looked a little dated for its time, but it serves it purpose. Everything else, from interacting with other characters and merchants to combat instantly boots the player into a different 2D view. Combat is handled in a top down, isometric view where players move their characters on a segmented map. The combat is turn-based, giving players plenty of time to think about their actions, which is good, because it’s really quite complicated, and even the simplest of choices can have far-reaching implications. It’s not unusual to see two or three party members drop dead as the result of a single enemy action, leaving you wondering just what the heck happened before you get the hang of it.

In this case, a recommendation is easy. RoA3:SOR was obviously made only for avid RPG fans who have the patience to adventure for hours and weigh up each choice for ages. If you can see beyond its dated graphics and fiddly controls, there’s plenty of fun to be had.

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In a dramatic break from tradition, this news item isn’t just something I’ve sourced from the usual press outlets — it’s something I’ve actually dealt with. Just yesterday my friend in the UK got ahold of me on Yahoo and mentioned that she couldn’t play Assassin’s Creed 2 on her PS3 because of some “trophy error” or something. Confused at first, I ran through every technical solution I knew to try and help her out, but to no avail. A bit of research on the net revealed that this problem ran deeper than I had at first imagined.

A relatively new outbreak, it seems to be leap year date-related, and seems to only affect certain older models of the PS3 — preventing users from signing into PSN or playing any of their games with trophies. Yow, thank goodness I have a slim now. Anyway, apparently Sony is aware of the problem and working around the clock to come up with a solution.

If you see this, don't panic... Sony is fixing it as we speak.

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With the Borderlands value-adding downloadable content clocking in at almost a total of 4GB for the three DLC packs released so far, it’s no surprise that Take 2 is releasing Borderlands + DLC on a retail disc. The three DLC packs to be included are:

The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned, a fun zombie-filled romp through an entirely new location, built from the ground up. Plenty of missions to keep you busy, with some funny were-Skag action.

Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, a Horde/Firefight derivative where up to four players enter an arena to survive successive waves of themed encounters. It’s really tough, so teamwork is essential.

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, the newest DLC, is a giant 65 mission expansion that follows right after the single player campaign, with huge new areas, new vehicles and new weapons.

It’s unclear what this Borderlands Bonzana Boxset will go for, or when it will hit Southern Africa. We’ll keep you posted.

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PlayStation Homeless

According to sources, advertisers are abandoning PlayStation Home.  “The product has disappointed both users and advertisers,” says Brand Week. “In fact, Red Bull remains one of the few non-endemic advertisers to carve out space in the world.”

What’s PlayStation Home? It’s this “free” virtual world thing on the PlayStation 3 where you can roll your own creepy, lifeless “avatar” and parade it around a bunch of virtual spaces. Mostly, your avatar just gets dry-humped by other avatars who scream ‘TAKE IT’ over and over. Initially, Home was just a bunch of meeting point spaces, like a courtyard outside a mall, the area inside the mall where you could buy virtual clothing for real money: and then slowly, more spaces got added that either tied into games, or advertising.

Click to Embiggen (comic from www.penny-arcade.com)

The game-spaces usually had some kind of game-related theme going, or some minigames to play, while the advertising-sponsored spaces were just giant areas with big logos that may as well say CONSUME, BUY, CONSUME! But that’s a little cynical. Regardless, while Sony boasts that millions have logged in and millions have bought $1 bits of virtual clothing, much like the ill-fated second-reality, Second Life, the real-reality of PlayStation Home seems to be that of stagnation and disinterest.

“From moment one, it kind of felt clunky,” said John Rafferty, creative director at Publicis’ Denuo. “And once you got through that, there wasn’t much there.”

Sony has rebutted all this negativity, by saying the FOX network and US Army still advertise with them. Unfortunately, FOX network and the US Army advertise with everyone and everything indiscriminately.

Itagaki Defeats Tecmo

Remember the court case between Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki and ex-employer and game publisher, Tecmo? That’s okay, we forgot too.

The short of it: back in June 2008, Itagaki announced his plans to resign from Tecmo and sue for “unpaid completion bonuses”. Tecmo denied all this, fired back with a counter-suit, and said Itagaki smelled funny (this bit is made up). Now, the court case has been resolved: and by resolved, we mean that Tecmo settled out of court. According to Itagaki, the settlement was “harmonious”.

Pictured below (which was found here), is what we think Itagaki’s new game at his new developer, Tokyo Cowboys, should be:

Click to Embiggen

Naughty Dog Moves

“Naughty Dog is proud to reveal that after six years in our current studio space, it’s time for the Dogs to move on to a bigger, better Kennel. As of March 1, 2010, we’ll be based out of our new studio less than 500 feet away from our current space.”

“We’ve built out our new studio from a raw and open floorplan to a killer new studio that provides us with more flexibility in space, layout and adjusting to fluctuating staffing needs – not to mention there are some significant upgrades to help us keep developing cutting-edge, award-winning games.” - Naughty Doggy Bloggy

The Development Hero Squad that brought us Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter and Uncharted, finally gets a bigger dog run. Go Naughty Dog, Go! They drew us, their fans, this little picture to commemorate the event:

Click to Embiggen

Third Party Games Sell On The Wii

You hear it all the time from the Big Publishers, the party line that “third-party games don’t sell on the Wii”. They usually say this when one of their hand-me-down games with moody, angry plot and “mature” content, bombs by not selling to people who realize it’s crap before even picking it up off the shelf. The story that these publishers don’t tell, however, is how much frakking money they’re making from all those other games that they release on the Wii, that go on to sell millions.

Fifty-four third-party titles have cleared the million-mark on the Wii, according to Nintendo. This is comparable (if not higher) to the Xbox 360, and completely blows past the PlayStation 3. Yes, the popular ‘hardcore’ rebuttal is that these games are all ‘pandering’ to the ‘casual’ market, blah blah blah. Same old cowdung, different generation. Just remember kids, today’s hardcore is tomorrow’s casual.

Regardless, Nintendo finally releasing some solid figures does cast a serious light on how disingenuous publishers can be when they’re pushing an agenda. With these figures released, the final piece is now in place, and all the bullmanure is put to rest.

“The Wii is a fad!” – Four years after release, and it still outsells the 360 and the PS3. Clearly, it is not a fad.
“Third-party games don’t sell on the Wii!” – Except when they sell millions.
“The Wii is for the idiot casual!” – Ah yes, when it’s not YOUR kind of game, it’s obviously STUPID. Gaming racists. (Gamists?)

So, can we as a gaming culture, please move on from being stupid about things we don’t personally agree with?

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After nearly a decade of waiting, fans of the Aliens versus Predator games were beginning to wonder if they’d ever get another acid-spraying, head-biting, marine-disemboweling fright fest. Sure, we’ve had the movies to turn to in the meantime, but let’s face it, those atrocities were more like a kick in the pants than a decent piece of driftwood to cling to.

Well, the wait is finally over, and the latest game in the franchise, aptly titled Aliens versus Predator, has been recently released. It’s an entirely new story, I guess we could call it a “reboot” of the franchise – but the previous two games had no sequential links, so it might not be an entirely appropriate term. Anyway, in a nutshell, the Weyland Yutani Corporation, the greedy conglomerate from the movies that never learns that breeding Xenomorphs always ends in disaster, has found the ruins of a Predator temple on a remote planet. This temple was used a breeding ground for Xenomorphs, which young Predators would then fight as a rite of passage into adulthood. With both a Xenomorph breeding ground and a temple full of Predator technology at their disposal, the greedy corporation decided to establish a research facility and bring in a crew of workers. As you probably already know, this is where things go horribly wrong.

As in the previous games, players get to play through three separate campaigns: The Marine, the Alien (Xenomorph) and the Predator. Each campaign offers a unique experience and tells a different part of the story. The Marine will probably be the first one most players engage in, since it’s the most familiar in terms of feel. Players take on the role of a nameless rookie member of a squad sent in to investigate a distress signal from the Weyland Yutani research base at the temple.  His gameplay is comprised almost entirely of completing objectives like restarting generators, finding keycodes, investigating distress beacons and trying to escape through the obligatory “only remaining route”. These are all very typical sci-fi-horror reasons to venture down dimly lit corridors, checking every shadow with a flashlight or sprinting balls-out along narrow corridors while being chased by hordes of nasties before a critical door slams shut – and the developers were gracious enough to make fun of it in the game from time to time. It’s clichéd, but it works. As one could expect, there are some collectibles to be found in each area, audio diaries in this case, which paint a picture of what went wrong.

With the Predator, Rebellion has gone down a completely different route than in the previous two games. The Predator’s main task is to investigate the disappearance of some “young bloods” – Predators who were in the process of completing their rite of passage into adulthood. To do this, he must battle the newest wave of Xenomorphs at the temple and get rid of the human invaders while he’s at it. Rather than the very typical weapon-switching FPS style of the previous games, this time the Predator’s arsenal remains localized. He has his claws available at all times, enabling him to lash out at will or block attacks. Doing this allows him to engage in fisticuffs with the Xenos (I kid you not), and it feels not entirely unlike Condemned 2 and other games that use a dual trigger system for delivering punches. In addition to this, he has a few Predator gadgets at his disposal, including his shoulder cannon, disc and spear gun. He can turn himself invisible and also use a special distraction technique, which projects a sound that humans will then investigate. What’s also really cool is that, for the first time, the Predator can actually jump as high as he can in the movies, enabling him to leap to higher ground while stalking his prey.

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Normally, I’m not one for free-to-play browser-based games as I find they tend to fall somewhat short of what I look for in a game. But they’re obviously taking off, and I don’t think it will be long at all before they tie in somehow with mainstream commercial games. This will probably happen round about the time the internet becomes sentient and consumes us all. Still, I must admit, this one is fairly interesting, if only for the subject matter.

Released by Wizard Productions, a developer with a respectable stable of online, browser-based games, Hitman’s Life is a free-to-play browser based game allowing players from around the world to indulge their fantasies of living the life of a highly-paid contract killer. If you want to check it out, his the official link and take the tour here.

It's free.

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The Nintendo Media Summit in San Francisco, California, United States of America, has just finished. Lots of stuff happened, all Nintendo stuff, obviously. We’ve got you covered, right here.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Release (North America): May 23, 2010

Super Mario World. Literally. Hah.

Mario returns, he’ll jump on stuff, run around planets , and Bowser may be involved.

The short-and-sweet rundown:

Every level is 100% new, no recycled assets from the first game. You can ride Yoshi in some stages. Yoshi can eat a Dash Pepper to run up vertical walls, while eating a Blimp Fruit makes him expand like a balloon and thus float. Mario can now drill into planets. Skilled players can collect new Comet Metals which unlock more difficult levels with more challenges. Two-player support returns, though no word on if it’s expanded from the first game’s ‘help cursor’. You can control Yoshi’s tongue with the Wiimote. There will be a lot more 2D platforming segments than in the first game. HD Trailer, if you want it.

Metroid: Other M

Release (North America): June 27, 2010

Corridors: check. Alien thingies: check. Samus: check.

Team Ninja brings us a more cinematic, action-packed kung-fu capable Samus in a traditional Metroid adventure. Explore, shoot, scan, discover.

The short-and-sweet rundown:

It’s not first-person like Metroid: Prime, but 2D from the side like Super Metroid. You can go first-person by pointing the Wiimote at the screen, though this is used just to look around, scan, and solve puzzles. The game doesn’t use the Nunchuck at all, only the Wiimote. You can even go first-person during cutscenes, just to check out the action from a different perspective. Nintendo promises voice-acting, and a backstory on the decommissioned Bottle Ship.

Monster Hunter Tri

Release (North America): April 20, 2010

OM NOM NOM!

Hunt giant monsters alone or with your friends, local co-op or online co-op. Monster Hunter is serious business, you’ll have to track, carefully observe and cunningly attack your prey, or you’ll die.

The short-and-sweet rundown:

No monthly fees for the North American version (in Japan, you have to buy a monthly Hunter’s License to play online). Will use Wii-Speak peripheral for online play, letting you voice chat. Lucky America gets a pre-order bonus in the form of 500 free Nintendo Points, and an online-capable demo, before the game is released. In the US at least, you can buy the game seperate, or for $10 more, get the slick $20 black Classic Controller Pro with it. Supports USB keyboard for texting online.

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This in itself is okay, but creating a “lite” design doc for even your simplest of endeavours can move it from the realm of “something crappy and experimental” to the hallowed fields of “something crappy and experimental that has everybody going insane”. Taking your game seriously (or at least taking the time to document stuff) will benefit your final product immensely. The idea of becoming a more organised dev doesn’t guarantee passage to Awesomeville, but at least it can get you in the queue for a ticket.

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For a start, lite docs offer you the opportunity to clearly realise your own game goals. In the same way that crafting a one-sentence summary of your game is a notable marketing must, the ability to jot down and regularly refer to a few of your overarching design goals can be surprisingly valuable for the game creation process. Want to add a new enemy? Check your goal list: if it emphasises momentum-based platforming action, then you can design an enemy to slow you down or bounce you away instead of doing something cliché like firing bullets.

Scribbling these core goals somewhere, even if nothing else is added to your documentation, can help you fight off looming feature creep: throwing random movement schemes into a game intended to be purely deterministic would be a bad move, yet it’s one that’s startlingly easy to make if a written reference isn’t handy. And when the game gets bigger and more complicated, you may not always remember the reasons why you’ve gone in a particular direction: plans made at the beginning of a project may well become blurry or even forgotten by the time you’re halfway through. This, more than anything else, can cause undesirable departures from your core “game plan”.

A design doc is also just a great way of forcing you to think through a game in advance. Sometimes, a project’s balance or progression can be vastly improved with a few scrawls and some pseudo-maths without writing a single line of code: for example, taking a page to summarise all potential enemies and their statistics helps you spot and fix undesirable effects before they emerge in-game among a bunch of more dissociated game objects and states.

...but an indie hobbyist's "design doc" can be hacked together in any form desired, for any purpose needed!

Remember: a lite doc doesn’t need to be “proper” in any way. It doesn’t have to be a cast-iron set of rules that you adhere to. It can take the form of a comprehensive game plan, a stats sheet or even just a to-do list (if your game reaches any level of popularity at all, you can bet that there will be far more feedback and suggestions than you can easily remember). You can use a tool like WikidPad to organise your thoughts, or just fire up a handy copy of Notepad and start jotting down ideas.

The ability to communicate and store your ideas is an important life skill, so why not apply it within the realm of game dev? It’ll help you out immensely — both now and later.

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This is not the first, and it probably won’t be the last time a website puts together their own Top Ten list of the scariest videogames of all time. But let’s face it, we love Top Tens, especially to see where our favourite games rank in the eyes of those we trust to tell us about these things. Whether you like to agree or submit your a protest all in caps about the omission of your peculiar favourite is all part of the fun. This time, Joystick Division has posted their own Scariest Games of All Time Top Ten, check it out here.

Personally I agree with most of these choices, except their number 1: The Gamecube remake of Resident Evil. I’ve never actually found Resident Evil to be scary, and I’ve always thought of it more like a sci-fi game, a dark sci-fi game. But maybe I’m just desensitised after so many years of playing scary games. Hell, I don’t regard Bioshock as having any horror elements at all, but some people I know find it terrifying. Is it actually scary, or are my senses just dulled?

Games are definitely one of the best vehicles for delivering an engrossing horror experience.

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A recent post over at Slashdot, reporting on something said by Scott Harris over at Moviefone, posits on the the often baffling trend of Hollywood movie ticket and DVD sales. Sometimes things just don’t pan out — for no good reason. The Chronicles of Riddick movie, for instance, didn’t perform all that well, truth be told. It didn’t do all that well on DVD, either. But combining that with the revenue generated by the games and it seems that there might be the possibility of another movie in the franchise featuring everyone’s favourite bald-headed, personality-lacking muscle man, Vin Diesel. The short article has a few technical words in it that are hard to understand, but that’s the gist of it. Check out the original post here, if you’re really interested.

He's bald and has no personality, but we like him that way.

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Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, who released their Stargate-themed online third-person shooter a few weeks ago and are working on a Stargate-themed MMO, have just filed for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy protection).

This puts their new shooter and upcoming MMO in a dangerous position, and there is a good chance the MMO will never see the light of day.

“Cheyenne Mountain’s corporate structure has undergone some dramatic changes in the last few weeks, and that has resulted in various actions such as the filing for Chapter 11,” said a statement, posted to the Stargate Worlds forum.

“Certain parties believed that was the right thing to do, other parties do not and this is still being evaluated and may be rescinded. Even if the bankruptcy should go through, however, Chapter 11 simply allows a company to restructure its debt to a manageable plan approved by the courts. It does not absolve a company of debt, and it does not shut it down or otherwise affect its daily operations.

“This will all be sorted out in the legal and proper manner, and all of us on the development side of things hope it’s done as quickly as possible. That said, our entire staff is in-house working on upgrades and expansions for Stargate Resistance, and we continue to be motivated and excited by the response we’ve received from our customers.”

“The shareholders and board of the Company have removed Mr. Whiting as a board member and as an officer and terminated his employment with the Company and any of its subsidiaries. The Company has joined the litigation against Mr. Whiting for alleged wrongdoing.”

According to a statement on the company’s site, CME has also severed ties with its former chairman and CEO following “various wrong doing against the company”.

“The Company [...] became aware a few months ago that Mr. Whiting, was named in a complaint filed in Utah County, Utah, (Case No. Civil 0904022438), and that he has caused the Company to be named in that same lawsuit, and he has allegedly obligated the Company for monies paid to Garvick Properties, LLC, a limited liability company controlled by Mr. Whiting (“Garvick”),” it reads.

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The March issue will be on shelves this Thursday, the 25th of February. Guaranteed to be 100% sand-free.

Click here for the contents PDF [240KB]

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Guess what? I'm still yawning. *yawns*

I have to admit, a lot of new tech that I read or hear about, or see, is enough to get me pretty excited. My internal hype engine is tuned only to technology and games these days — the newest Lamborghini only gets a yawn from me; it’s far too much like the Batmobile. But there are a few new toys on the block that pique my interest — while these look kind of gimmicky, I thought I’d share these with you anyway.

THE APPLE iPAD

Seriously, who thinks up these silly names in the Apple labs? Not only is it in direct violation of Fujitsu’s own marketed iPad brand, but it just sounds really silly in this, the 21st century.  We’re in an age where computing is more a part of your life than a necessary evil. It is my opinion that the sandbox environment for iPad users will be more  frustrating than previously thought possible, and here I believe Google’s Chrome tablet will impress to no end.

Fail in most areas, but the iPad may be another feather in Apple's ridiculously priced cap.

Additionally, the iPad is already in trouble from both the HP and Notion Ink Adam tablets, both of which are far more capable devices than the iPad. Apple also makes a killing off various models, and starts off with $208 profit from the low-range model. This is clearly a ripoff for most. Gimmick spotted!

EYEFINITY

I’m unsure about this one. With this, ATI has single-handedly changed the way game developers are looking at gaming on multiple screens. In the past, you could only play on the one monitor while the other sat idle [Assuming that SupCom never did this, of course. -Ed]. Well, its no longer the case, and there are games out there right now that can easily take advantage of this sweet feature. But is it a gimmick?

I recently saw this in action in a couple of cellphone-shot videos (because I’m obviously not rich enough for something like this) and can really see the benefits of having three screens. On the one hand, I’ll never have to dig around for that app I left open buried underneath all the others – I can leave it on the one screen and monitor what it’s doing. On the other hand, this picture below:

NVIDIA, eat my left nipple. THIS is the way that games are meant to be played. Just look at that – the view, the wrap-around feeling is completely amazing, and I already know a few people who have similar setups. Eyefinity on six or more monitors is a gimmick, but on 3, it’s perfect. I’m getting a setup like this in the near future.

DRM

Yes, I know, DRM has never been something people can actually use to their benefit, and to this day neither has any company strived to do that. There are many other gimmicks out there, but this one always deserves mention — because no stupid gimmick leaves us sitting with a dead game that requires the Internet for LANs. Please, developers, release your games with Steam integration in the future — Valve knows a hell of a lot more than anyone else about how to satisfy their customers offline.

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Fear not, nerd brethren! According to a recent study* – while women say they want tall, dark and handsome, what they really want is slightly hairy and kinda geeky. The skinny straight from DailyMail:

Most women claim to be attracted to tall, dark and handsome men, but a new study has revealed that facial stubble and a geeky personality are their biggest secret turn-ons.

Despite complaining that it looks unkempt and feels rough to touch, the unshaven look on a man is actually a turn-on for 41 per cent of women. A slightly geeky personality came second, proving that women really do like a guy who knows their stuff when it comes to technology. A hairy chest was voted third, followed by a man who loves to read or cries at a soppy film.

Other secret turn-ons to feature in the top ten include grey hair, glasses and being a passionate supporter of a sports team.

But almost one in five would never admit what they really find attractive in a man to other people.

A spokesman for www.onepoll.com, which carried out the research, said: ‘Publically, girls will claim they want a muscly guy, who is hair free and manly enough not to show his emotional side.

‘But these results prove that they secretly want something different. It seems women really do like a guy who is able to show a softer side, or who is carrying a little bit of extra weight.

‘I’m sure it’s a relief to men all over the country to find out that women aren’t actually looking for that perfect guy.’

The poll of 2,500 women also revealed that 91 per cent would actually prefer a guy who had a few flaws over someone who is perfect.

And more than half would rather a guy who was soft and cuddly instead of toned and muscly.

Almost two thirds would prefer to be with a naturally hairy man, while 56 per cent like a guy with a little bit of stubble over someone who is clean shaven or has a full beard.

Women also prefer a guy who doesn’t spend too much time on his appearance, with 63 per cent saying they would like a man who got ready quickly rather than fussing over what he looked like.

Fifty-eight per cent of women even want a guy who doesn’t care what he eats over someone who is watching his weight and counting calories.

So there you have it. Chubby, hairy nerds? You’re in! That is, if you look anything like Toby McGuire or Johhny Depp…

* the study was nothing more than a poll aimed at women, so it’s not really research at all, since it would imply women know what they want.

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I often wonder what it must be like to work for a games studio, creating the sequel to a game that was highly acclaimed and won its fair share of Game of the Year Awards. Sure, you might surprise gamers and reviewers the first time round, but next time everyone will be watching closely. Well, I wondered about it again recently, when all eyes were on 2K Games for the release of Bioshock 2, the sequel to the critically-acclaimed 2007 shooter.

Once again the story takes place in the city of Rapture: a secret underwater utopia where people seeking respite from government, religion and other forms of oppression could go to seek their fortunes freely. Well, that was the idea, but an internal civil war fueled by a genetic tonic called Adam soon reduced this utopia to ruins. This time, players assume the role of a Big Daddy, a genetically-altered man confined to an armoured diving suit whose sole purpose is to protect the city’s iconic Little Sisters — small girls who wander the city harvesting the coveted substance, Adam.

This particular Big Daddy, named Subject Delta, is an early model, which means that he has a few differences to the others, the most important being that he is exclusively bound to a particular Little Sister. In Delta’s case, the Little Sister is a girl named Eleanor Lamb, the daughter of a prominent Rapture psychiatrist who now serves as the leader of a cult in the crumbling, leaking halls of the city a decade after the events of the first game. In the hope to be reunited with Eleanor, Subject Delta follows the guidance of Dr Tenenbaum (remember her?), who has returned to Rapture to put an end to the project she started once and for all. Bioshock 2’s complex story is also full of jarring opinions and commentary on human nature.

The story is interesting and compelling, but what makes Bioshock 2 even more engrossing is the in-depth gameplay. On the surface, the game plays like a standard first-person shooter, but a good hour or two of play will start to reveal the true depth of play it truly possesses. Subject Delta has two main offensive options at his disposal: weapons and plasmids. The weapons seem fairly standard at first. Delta starts out with the huge drill attached to his arm. He can smack enemies with it or rev it up to deliver a high-damage drilling attack. He can also find plenty of other weapons, including the standard-issue Big Daddy rivet gun, a Gatling cannon, a shotgun, and rocket launcher, among others. Each of these weapons can be upgraded up to three times, with each upgrade offering an interesting new benefit, like increased damage, larger ammo clips or ricocheting bullets. Each weapon can also use three different types of ammo, each of which is useful in a particular situation.

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The master of turn-based onion-layered diplomatic strategy returns. Civilization V sports a new hexagonal tile map, a new combat system, more diplomatic options and a large community hub for sharing content and civilization-dueling.

Developed by Firaxis (who’ve been doing all of Sid’s good works since 1997 when he left Microprose), Civilization V has a completely new game engine that allows for colourful, lush landscapes. The new combat system and hexagonal tiles ooze tabletop war gaming. Hopefully, a few of the smooth ideas implemented in Civilization: Revolution, will return in Civilization V.

“Each new version of Civilization presents exciting challenges for our team,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. “Thankfully, ideas on how to bring new and fun experiences to Civ players never seem to stop flowing. From fully animated leaders and realistic landscapes, new combat tactics, expanded diplomacy and shared mods, we’re excited for players to see the new vision our team at Firaxis has brought to the series.”

The more casual Civilization fan can look forward to an upcoming Facebook rendition of Civ:

“In addition to Civilization V, Firaxis Games is also currently developing Sid Meier’s Civilization Network, a Civ game for Facebook. With Sid Meier leading design, Civilization Network will offer yet another option for world domination to both the casual gamer and the biggest fans of the series. It’s another way to access the famously addictive world of Civilization.”

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OK, if there’s ever any news on Street Fighter, you can be sure that I’ll report on it. In this case, I’m particularly excited because three more characters have been revealed for the upcoming Super Street Fighter IV – the mandatory upgrade to long-awaited 2D versus fighter. Now, we’ve already had a bunch of new characters – but sod Cody and Guy and T.Hawk and that new chick… whatever her name is, these new faces come from Street Fighter III – among them my favourite character, Makoto.

Makoto is a karate user, but she’s not just another Ryu clone. In fact, she’s completely different. She’s damn hard to use (or at least she was in SFIII: Third Strike, we’ll see in SSFIV), but she really packs the pain behind every blow. When Makoto landed a hit, her opponent knew all about it.

Ibuki is the second new face to be revealed. She’s also from Street Fighter III, and she’s quick, flighty and has a lot of moves. She was also pretty damn hard to use because her damage output was rather low compared to most characters.

Dudley is the final new mention, and he’s a boxer from Street Fighter III, but unlike Balrog, he’s quick and nimble. In SFIII, he had a whole bunch of quick, canned-combos players could use and mix up with his special moves. He was also fairly beefy, and his moves dealt some respectable damage, so he was considered one of the more powerful characters.

This news comes courtesy of some scans from Kotaku.

Ibuki and Makoto have a chick fight.

Dudley squaring off against T. Hawk... does anyone actually use T. Hawk?

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Over at the C&VG, a blog post from Capcom was recently quoted to say that the decision makers over at Capcom are toying with the idea of making Street Fighter IV on the PSP. According to Capcom project manager Natsuki Shiozawa, she and many of her colleagues believe that it is the perfect game for the PSP.

I’m inclined to agree, although that depends largely on which model of the PSP you have. Players might struggle to perform the moves on the older models, but anyone with a PSP Slim or later (where the D-pad is vastly improved) shouldn’t have any trouble. I’d totally buy it, and it’s bound to work better than on the iPhone.

Street Fighter IV on the PSP - it could happen.

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A report over at g-news reveals some shocking statements by Peter Molyneux at Microsoft’s X10 convention. Among other changes to the upcoming Fable game will be the complete axing of the RPG elements. Yep, you heard that right – no more health bar and, more shockingly, no more experience bar. That’s right, Peter Molyneux thinks that the idea of earning experience in videogames to level up a character’s abilities is a thing of ’90s. If this is the case, it certainly has taken Lionhead a long time to realise that it was a thing of the ’90s, since we’re pretty much finished with the naughties already.

He also expressed concern about how this would be received by the fans. It seems that it’s common knowledge that gamers will bitch and moan about every little change before they even see if it works or not – something that almost makes me ashamed to call myself a gamer. Personally, I’m all for change. If games didn’t change from time to time, we’d still be playing established genres with the old flaws still present – FPS games without a grenade button, 3rd Person shooters without camera-directed aiming, fighting games without a mid-level strike…

Anyway, long story short, the player’s progression in Fable III will handled in some as yet undisclosed way, but it seems that learning new combat moves and magic will not be governed by a character level or ridiculous amounts of accrued orbs – but instead by how the player chooses to play the game. My only hope is that Peter Molyneux doesn’t make a thousand promises about Fable III and then deliver only five hundred of them as in the last two games.

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Of course, my own humble words may be considered about as effective as hamster droppings in a hailstorm. After all, who am I to persuade people that these shiny, simple games aren’t every bit as heartless, money-grabbing and uninspiring as popular culture makes them out to be? What self-respecting developer would create a game using only an elegant ruleset, a super-friendly interface and a streamlined routine that can see a session’s completion in as little as five minutes by practically anyone? The sheer nerve!

Contrary to popular belief, this isn't the only end goal for gaming.

I know that there are many cash-ins out there, and quite a few projects on websites like Facebook are the sort of things which make me silently throw up in my mouth until the mess starts dribbling down my chin, but this doesn’t mean that the casual game market as a whole should be maligned by developers. I recently had a delightful exchange with Jason Kapalka, a PopCap co-founder who confided that many PopCap employees — despite their drive to make “light” and accessible games — are gigantic fans of hardcore titles such as roguelikes and in-depth strategies. The devs that they employ certainly aren’t stupid, and even their most outwardly simple titles are created with determination and purpose: design decisions are made carefully, and everything is polished to a shine to make for a well-balanced and rewarding game experience.

Casual game development is one of the best ways to train up good game development skills: offhand, one can reason that it teaches you how to be nice to players, encourages you to make your games function on a very raw (and fun) level, and even frees up a bit of time to let you focus on alternative game design skills such as writing and level design.

Many people play and enjoy Minesweeper, yet it can still be maligned in "serious" game discussions.

Of course, casual games are a breeding ground for not only refinement, but experimentation as well. Consider Flash portals like Newgrounds and Kongregate which host thousands of online games, many of them under a megabyte and requiring only a few minutes of very simple play. Sure, there’s a bunch of pretty epic titles in the list, but many of them are designed to marry charisma, accessibility and a completely new play style to appeal to anybody who has half a mind for experimentation but not a lot of time to pour into anything.

… and consider the original game prototype for World of Goo, which basically consisted of stacking a tower of icky blocks to see how high you could go without the whole thing toppling over. What a simple, charming, casual game concept!

If you still think that casual games are limited to the realm of the uninspired and money-hungry, it’s probably time for a radical paradigm shift. Defining what a casual game is can be a difficult task in itself, and standing on the hardcore pedestal is one of the single most limiting acts that you can take as a gamer and designer. Don’t fall into this trap: keep your mind pried wide open and remember that you don’t need an insurmountable wall of complexity and prestige to prove a game’s worth to anyone.

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From boom to bust in a few short years: the rhythm game genre.

Thanks to overzealous publishers who pushed too much product and super-saturated the market, the genre is no longer the cash-cow it once was and publishers are starting to cut and run. In the case of Activision and their Guitar Hero franchise, they’ve simply fired all the people involved and have handed Guitar Hero 6 development over to a third-rate developer for the sake of releasing one last title in the series.

In the case of Rock Band from Electronic Arts,  scaling back development isn’t the only thing on the table. Viacom, who initially enjoyed ludicrous profits from Rock Band, gave developer Harmonix a nice bonus for being such a good boy. Now that sales have tanked, Viacom is asking for that bonus to be refunded.

“In 2008, we paid $150m under this earn-out agreement related to 2007 performance,” a Viacom SEC filing revealed, according to Gamasutra. “We believe that we are entitled to a refund of a substantial portion of amounts previously paid, but the final amount of the earn-out has not yet been determined.”

Time to give back all that nice stuff you bought with your bonus, Harmonix.  You’re not making Viacom enough money anymore, so you have to give their money back.

The first Guitar Hero was published by Viacom-owned MTV Games and Activision, developed by Harmonix, with plastic guitar made by Red Octane. Then Activision took Guitar Hero away from Harmonix and gave it to their pet developer Neversoft. In retaliation, Harmonix left Activision and went to Electronic Arts, where they created Rock Band. Activision recently shut down Red Octane and Neversoft, because Guitar Hero isn’t making them enough money anymore.

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A recent article over at Nintendo Everything reveals some surprising facts about Nintendo’s marketing around the world. Now, we know that some hardware developers are pretty pushy with their marketing and brand-building, but Nintendo takes the cake – and you’ll see why if you read up here. Game shows, cunningly-placed ads, themed areas in kids’ TV shows… in some countries, it seems you can’t swing a dead cat without smacking a Nintendo logo.

Everywhere wii look...

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Welcome to Oddworld, home of the Magog Cartel’s premiere consumer industrial facilities, and SoulStorm Brew™. When RuptureFarms 1029 carelessly exhausts the local population of Meeches, grinding its production of the immensely popular novelty meat snack Meech Munchies™ to an abrupt and potentially commercially devastating halt, CEO Molluck the Glukkon turns a prospective eye to the next readily available source of protein – the Mudokon slaves working his factories. Fortunately for the intended Tasty Treats™, our protagonist overhears the insidious plan, and scurries off to rescue his chums from almost certain extinction, and the howling indignity of being a cheap, low carb entrée.

Representing some of the finest platform-puzzle gaming of its generation (and still largely unsurpassed), Oddworld Inhabitants’ Abe’s Oddysee (1997) and sequel Abe’s Exoddus (1998) saw its titular hero creeping, walking, running, rolling, hoisting, jumping, crouching, and farting his way through a series of daring rescues and unlikely escapes. In real life, nobody would be actually able to outrun a Scrab.

Since Mudokons are routinely blinded by their employers, Abe must make use of simple spoken commands to get stuff done. Nearby Mudokons can be instructed to follow or wait for Abe, as well as manipulate environmental paraphernalia like levers. In Abe’s Exoddus, this feature is expanded to include pre-existing emotional states and physical afflictions. Miserable Mudokons, for example, will remain unresponsive until Abe expresses sympathy for their wretched plight, while sick Mudokons must first be healed with a special chant. All of this is ultimately aimed at cooperatively negotiating the environment and escorting Mudokon slaves to Bird Portals and emancipation. It’s usually harder than it sounds.

Abe is also able to assume control of certain enemies through possession. A possessed Glukkon, for example, can be used to gain entry to otherwise inaccessible locations, or issue orders to nearby Slig guards in much the same way that Abe interacts with fellow Mudokons. Possessed Sligs, in turn, can boss around their not-dogs, Slogs. As an added bonus, both Glukkon and Slig targets are killed (more accurately, they explode) when this telepathic link is terminated. Hotdogs for everyone!

Both games are, however, both extremely challenging and extremely unforgiving, and you’ll watch Abe and his pals die a thousand horrifying, completely preventable deaths because you miscalculated a jump or forgot about the blind guy who walks straight into a meat grinder. While this isn’t of much consequence in the sequel, the lack of a quicksave function in Abe’s Oddysee can make this game a bit frustrating.

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One of the newsies over at C&VG posted a comment by Lionhead spokesperson Sam Van Tilburgh, who told us to expect Fable III round about Christmas time this year. In a later update to this post, it was confirmed by Microsoft that, yes, Fable III will be available in time for the holidays. That gives Lionhead a solid year to work on the title… a bit shorter than usual I think. Let’s see if this new title can actually have more than half of the designers’ original ideas in it.

Again, an early piece of concept art for the game. It's quite large, so click on it to see the full thing.

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I remember playing the first AVP game for months and months with my LAN friends. We tried AVP2 for a while, only to find that they messed up the Xenomorph side of things. I also played the single-player mode repeatedly, yelping every time a face-hugger managed to get my marine.

So I’m waiting with bated breath for the next game – and I’m far from the only one. There’s a huge fan-base out there who are also twiddling their thumbs anxiously while they count the days until the launch. It’s going to be great, surely. Anyway, if you’re one of these anxious fans, you might be interested in this interview from the C and VG, with the producer of the upcoming AVP game, Dave Brickley. In it, he discusses some of their aspirations and the key points in the development of the game.

Aliens lunging out of the darkness - sounds like fun, doesn't it?

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I work at Ibayi PC, one of the busiest IT solutions companies in Port Elizabeth. I’ve worked here long enough to start seeing patterns in the problems customers have, and with my previous personal experience fixing friends’ computers, I though I’d share a bit of my troubleshooting knowledge with you, in the hope that this saves you a truckload of cash.

Rule #1: Its usually a virus or malware infection.

In fact, a large majority of the problems many users face are as a result of an infection. Most viruses floating on the Internet have been analysed and scanned by anti-virus companies, so those that get through are either dormant, or extremely scary. The chances of your PC  catching one increase every day, but not if you have good firewalls and an up-to-date anti-virus suite. Do a scan, have some coffee, relax for a while.

Rule #2: If it isn’t a virus, it’s buggy software.

This is a bone of contention among a few people I know. They spend hundreds on a suite of software to protect their computer because they think it’s a virus, when it’s actually another piece of crummy software that hasn’t been updated in a while. Stuff does get released broken; those of you playing Fallout 3 should be familiar with that. If it hasn’t been updated in a while, then do it now — chances are that it will fix whatever problems you’re facing.

Rule #3: If none the above, then it’s a driver.

Well, this rule actually changes in the context of things. I recently had a customer with a virus in her e-mail that would kick Outlook Express into an endless cycle of restarts and downloads, eating up her bandwidth. Getting rid of the virus was easy, but doing so caused her network drivers to malfunction. I spent an hour trying to figure that one out and a driver re-install got her ADSL working again. If you’re having sudden errors that only began when you installed a driver for new or existing hardware, logic dictates that those drivers are to blame.

Rule #4: It must be a hardware problem then!

I fix hardware faults on a daily basis. Sometimes the hardware’s too old, other times it overheated from dust build-up, or maybe a certain silly customer tried to clean it with dishwashing liquid (true story). Whatever the case, you can usually use the system logs to find out what’s causing your problem. These can be found by right-clicking Computer and selecting Manage. The logs are on your left, be sure to check the system ones if you suspect a hardware failure.

Rule #5: Okay, it must be a bug.

A little on the less plausible side, but I experienced this first-hand over the weekend. A customer brought in a PC, wanting it to be revived. I had to install a chassis fan into the front of the case and when I opened the front, bugs started crawling out.

Rule #6: Pay attention to the problem.

If Windows dies before it gets to the loading screen or before the desktop loads, its generally indicative of a bad driver. If it consistently fails even in Safe Mode then you need to repair or re-install Windows. If you’re unfamiliar with this, there are plenty of forumites out there who can help. If there’s an error code or if you have an idea of what’s missing, Google it. It’ll help save you that R342 that you’ll blow in less than an hour.

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Constructor is a DOS-based, tongue-in-cheek management sim that places you in control of a construction company trying to do what construction companies do best. This means, of course, that you’ll spend most of your time building cheap houses, pacifying annoyed tenants, making deals with the mob and completely screwing over any and all rivals.

Before actually describing the game’s mechanics in any detail, one thing needs to be made absolutely clear: its dark humour and overall style may persuade people to liken it to Theme Hospital, but this would most definitely be a mistake. Theme Hospital doesn’t actively display hatred for it players: those who venture anywhere near Constructor, on the other hand, have to be prepared to be mercilessly bludgeoned with a monkey wrench over and over again. Easy mode won’t save you, and the PDF manual merely gloats at your impending doom.

Let’s explain this difficulty with a few of the game’s core concepts:

Yep, you can build your own hippy army.

(1) Constructor has no campaign setting. You select a core mission, a difficulty level and a play area before tackling your work head-on. New players are presented with vast maps to build their structures on, divided into estates which they have to fill by laying down plots for an astounding array of housing, resource buildings and special structures. This means that there’s no gradual introduction of gameplay concepts, and players have to learn the game through trial and error from the deep end of the pool.

(2) You are ultimately building to appease the city council. And the council is rarely — if ever — impressed by your work. Heck, if there’s an easy way to do something in the game, you can be damn sure that the council will somehow manage to get angry about it. Failure to meet their many demands always results in a game over: plain and simple.

The button that every player will eventually learn to hate.

(3) While the council exerts pressure externally, you also have to please your own tenants with the limited resources at your disposal. Tenant complaints can result from quite a few problematic situations: maybe they’re living near a noisy factory, or have to deal with an infestation of some kind. Or maybe a mouse sneezed somwhere. Failing to meet their demands after a certain amount of time will cause them to turn to the council. Refer to point (2) above about not messing with the council.

(4) Finally, you have to deal with rival construction companies, sabotaging their work while they attempt to do the same to you. To put things in perspective: points 1 to 3 above already make for an incredibly challenging game experience, but that’s without considering what an astounding emphasis Constructor puts on playing dirty: you can hire gangs of thieves, thugs and insidious clowns to do your bidding, and an entire tab of the game is dedicated to your dealings with the local mob boss.

This is game attempt number 53. Will it yield victory this time?

How you react to this review is pretty much up to you. If the difficulty level sounds scary and you decide to run in the opposite direction very, very quickly, nobody will judge you for it. If, on the other hand, you’re intrigued by the promise of high complexity, some pretty fine-tuned game balance and all of the fascinating ideas that this title offers … well, Constructor may just be the perfect sim for you. Sure, it’s a punishing experience. And yes, the array of tools you need to use is astounding. But if you’re the sort of person who likes a challenge and gets all twitchy whenever a new management title rears its head, then Constructor really is a must-have. Play it now, and even the council may just show you the slightest glimmer of their approval.

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I found a link to this chart while surfing general news sites, digg.com in this case. It’s meant to be a joke, I’m sure, but there’s a kind of ironic truth to it. Now, I’m not the sort of gamer who trades in games (at least, not my games). I did once, in a moment of sheer desperation, and never again – in fact, I’ve since reacquired the three titles I traded in. But I know a good few people who tend to trade in their latest titles, and the funny thing is that sometimes they regret it afterwards. It often happens immediately afterwards, the hankering to play a game you’ve just traded in. Yeah, luckily I haven’t felt that way apart from that one time.

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Sonic 4

Episodic, exclusively over download for Wii, PS3 and 360, the blue speedster is back and serious this time (about not sucking). 2D, side-scrolling, traditional, Spin Dash, Rolling Attack, CG-rendered enviroments, special stages… everything inspired by the Genesis-era style. What could go wrong? Read an interview with the developer, or check out the short trailer.

Axe Cop

Written by a 5 year old, illustrated by a 29 year old, a match made in heaven. You should be reading Axe Cop. You won’t regret it. It has a baby with a unicorn horn, space stuff, people from other planets, asparagus and Ask Axe super-awesome question and answer sessions.

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Of course, this sacrifice of normality brings about some really interesting and awesome scenarios. Imagine this: you’re locked inside a computer lab for 48 straight hours with several dozen other crazies and the end goal of making a game before your detention time expires. Aside from fellow developers, your only companions are some webcams tracking your work, enough caffeine to poison an elephant and whatever you can bang together to sleep on for an hour or two. Free pizza is abundant, and the frayed psyches of participants are held together by high hopes, amazing concepts and raw grit. This is the ultimate test of man’s endurance and determination.

Caffeine: our shining beacon in the darkness.

The Global Game Jam, which took place over the final weekend of January, was the execution of this very situation. Despite the misery and insanity that the above description implies, it was also surprisingly awesome: grouping so many individuals with such a passion together and asking them to do what they love can be an amazing thing despite the odds, and the promise of prizes and glory just sweetens the deal. On top of that, the “global” part means that people are doing this all over the world at pretty much the same time.

Ten games were produced in the local leg of the Jam at the University of Cape Town, with the competition theme of “Deception”. Additional game constraints and achievements were provided for bonus bragging points, and participants were able to use whatever tools they desired: Flash, Game Maker, PyGame, Unity, Unreal … anything they could get their hands on and bring to the table.

The Game.Dev community sported two entries amongst the local participants: first place went to ~Press Tilda, an intriguing platformer game which relied on “console commands” to manipulate obstacles, destroy enemies and find cunning ways to the level exit.

A herd of wild developers is spotted on the horizon.

Game.Dev’s other representative game, YouDunnit, took second place at the UCT competition, presenting a causality-based, futuristic murder mystery where the player is trying to establish a suitable alibi for the heinous crimes that they committed.

Third place was awarded to Module, a physics-based machine creator which required players to go head-to-head and carefully manage resources while constructing the ultimate spaceship to destroy their opponent. This project was constructed by a team of six dedicated UCT students.

Prizes included several Take2 vouchers, assorted gifts from sponsors such as Derivco, Afrigraph and UCT, and even an Xbox 360 elite along with a full range of accessories.

If you’re interested in the Global Game Jam, hop into the Game.Dev GGJ discussion thread or visit the site itself for more info. It happens at the same time, same place next year and is a whole whack of fun.

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If you’ve never been the websites of ScrewAttack or Cinemassacre, and never seen anything by the Angry Videogame Nerd, then you don’t know what you’re missing. He’s basically long-time gamer who makes videos in which he moans about some of the worst old games out there – and often they’re hilarious. Sometimes he seems to be hiding his lack of skill underneath his whining (Double Dragon III, for instance, which he rates as impossible – but I thought was ace and finished many times on my own), but usually he’s more or less on the money. This time, he’s tearing apart a genuinely hard game, Ninja Gaiden on the NES. Check it out below or at this link. Warning, obscenities and adult-oriented language aplenty.

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I’m not an avid Bioware fan, but I must admit, I was waiting with bated breath among the Bioware fanatics for the release of Mass Effect 2 – the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed RPGs of 2008 with exciting shooting elements and in-depth character interaction.

Mass Effect 2, like its predecessor, is a sci-fi role-paying game where players take on the role of Shepard, the first human Specter in a galaxy filled with different alien races. A Specter, in case you don’t know, is a galactic Alliance operative with the freedom to do whatever is necessary, legal or otherwise, to defend the galaxy. After dealing with Saren and the Reaper threat in the previous game, Shepard and the crew of the Normandy are attacked by a secretive alien race known as the Collectors. It’s no secret by now that Shepard doesn’t survive the attack, but is resurrected by a shady organization known as Cerberus and recruited to help solve the mystery of Collectors and their attacks on human colonies.

In typical Bioware fashion, Mass Effect 2 has an entire crew of potential allies Shepard can interact with and recruit as the mission goes on. Shepard’s interaction with them determine the nature of her relationship, whether they’ll be on good terms or bad terms, friends or enemies, or even lovers. It’s not simple either. Each character has a wildly different personality and set of values — so it’s easy to accidentally offend them with a careless dialogue choice when trying to make friends. A nice touch is that each character also has a personal mission or side-story that Shepard can choose to help them with. Successfully completing this mission will usually make the character in question very loyal to Shepard, which unlocks more special abilities for them to use in combat. This highly believable social aspect is one of the things which makes Bioware’s games so great.

This in-depth social interaction spills over into Mass Effect 2’s missions. Shepard can engage in long conversations with just about every important character in the game – digging for info or alternative solutions to missions. Just like last time, Shepard gains Paragon or Renegade points depending on how the player chooses to react to certain events. Paragon points are usually gained by choosing diplomatic, non-violent solutions, whereas Renegade points come from brash, abrasive or intimidating options. The more points Shepard accrues in each area, the more Paragon or Renegade-related conversation options the player will have access to, to the point where they’ll start to affect the flow of the entire game.

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OK, that intentionally bad rhyme aside, THQ recently revealed their upcoming lineup during a telephone interview with the C&VG. In this interview, they revealed that sequels have been confirmed for Red Faction: Guerrilla and Saints Row 2. The Red Faction sequel is likely to land this year some time, but Saints Row might only come as late as 2012. They are also working on something entirely new, joking referred to as Secret Project X. In my opinion, THQ is poised to become another Ubisoft, all they need is a few more strong IPs under their belt and they’re A for away.

A sequel to Red Faction: Guerrilla - I'm totally down with that.

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EA’s action game based on Dante’s Divine Comedy is just around the corner, so to give you some insight as to why people are so excited for it, check out this montage of gameplay footage to get an idea. It only gives us a glimpse of a few interesting ideas, and we only seem to be able to see the protagonist’s primary weapon, a skeletal scythe – but the footage does leave us with a taste for how the game will play. From what I can tell, it looks like it will feel not too dissimilar to God of War, maybe a bit smoother, with dodge mechanics not unlike the recently released Bayonetta. Looks like there will be a heavy focus on button-press events for those more cinematic big enemy and boss fights. All things considered, it will be interesting to see everything Dante’s Inferno has to offer, especially after Bayonetta was so well received.

Let's hope this turns out well, then the year will really have started off well.

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It seems that SEGA has barely enough faith in their failed Shenmue series to make a third installment – as long as one of the big hardware developers, Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft, front the cash for the endeavor in exchange for platform exclusivity. Shenmue was amazing when it came out – only hardly anybody got to play it, especially the second one, and it was quickly surpassed in everything it offered in a matter of years. I don’t think SEGA could possibly blow enough smoke to interest someone to fund this project. Shenmue was a good idea… once. It was just a victim of the times and is probably best left in its shallow, waterlogged grave.

FREE - That's Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment... the genre Sega was trying to create never really caught on - but some of Shenmue's ideas live on.

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There is, however, a certain hard limit to how surprised a player is allowed to be. Shock them in a safe environment, sure. Maybe even throw in some danger as long as it’s not immediately lethal. But for the love of gooballs and meat men, don’t ever go down the dark path of complete unfairness. Avoid dickery: give your players reasonable warnings.

Good games, old and new, know when to “telegraph” the right messages to players in advance. In classic platformers, bosses blink or shift posture before unleashing an attack. In Shadow Complex, power armoured opponents laboriously lift their arms before unleashing a killer strike. No matter how subtle these warnings may be, players take note of them and use them to do something before they get sliced/squished/punched to death. Like important clues in a detective game, advanced warnings of any sort — even if they’re just half a second in length — make the difference between a fun, challenging experience and a purely frustrating one. Being proactive is a good trait, but in the world of gamers, skilled reaction can be just as important.

For example, consider the two different gaming experiences offered by these Super Mario Bros. screenshots:

You’ll probably notice right away that simply having access to the full screen offers players a vast array of warning information not provided by the subsection. Leaps of faith aren’t required — platforms can actually be seen before a jump attempt is made, and the presence of enemies is noted long before the player can make actual contact with them. Even “surprise” elements such as cannon balls or Bowser’s fiery projectiles still offer a critical second or two of “Hey look, I’m over here!” before they actually meet the player.

Would you be able to play through the adventures of everybody’s favourite plumber if you only ever had access to Screen B? And even if you could, would you really want to?

Giving players suitable warning space is an oft-overlooked and rather subtle feature in game development. This is hardly surprising: it’s just one of those game elements which goes completely unnoticed when done properly, but ruins everything when it’s screwed up. If you put surprise or shock elements into games — particularly action titles — always ask yourself two questions:

(1) Could the player have reasonably predicted this behaviour or event?
(2) If not, does the player at least stand a reasonable chance of survival?

Consider these questions carefully: answering them honestly may just make the difference between a crappy and frustrating game, and a totally rad one. Nobody likes leaping off-screen only to be instantly chowed by a giant walnut — don’t make the same mistake in your own work. Give your players the break they deserve.

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