Category: games

While Doom 3, Half Life 2, Halo 2 and RE 4 (lost of sequels come to think of it) are all highly anticipated, I must confess I am most excited for Burnout 3. The Burnout series has to be the best sleeper racer out there, in a genre that has been around since near the dawn of time, Burnout has a killer sense of speed which lends to its great playability. For my money the latest Need for Speed Undergound game had nothing on Burnout, its graphics were mediocre and the racings was repetative and standard fare.

Since EA purchased dist. right and ultimately the entire Criterion company behind the game I have been a little nervous, but also happy for the great developer. I was recently able to play the demo and it only helped to make me more impatient for it's release, outstanding graphics, cars that blur in peripheral vision and redonculous crashes make this game look to be another in a line of superb racers.

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http://www.atari.com/transformers/

A nice new site for the Transformers, it looks like Atari is actually going to give the license some respect. I said it before I may have to pick up a PS2 for this.

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Money Trail

EGM has an interesting little article on the breakdown of game money distribution.

Are you nerdy enough for this?
Onimusha 3 unsheathes katana controller

"Game-controller manufacturer Hori Japan is releasing an interesting official tie-in for Capcom's upcoming Onimusha 3. Modeled after a Japanese katana sword, the wireless "Soul Controller" measures three feet, two inches (96.5cm) in length, has gold accents, and even comes with a ceremonial stand....The sword will also have a full PS2 controller button array in its hilt, for when gamers get tired. "

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1080: Avalanche (prices):

• Official sequel to the hit N64 racer 1080: Snowboarding
  Play as five different snowboarders including Ricky Winterborn and Rob Haywood


• Unlock new boards including a penguin


• Bust out a variety of different grabs, spins and flips for style and points
  
• In Match Race, shred down 15 standard tracks on novice, hard and expert modes. Then unlock Extreme Challenge and race seven additional courses


• Other modes include Gate Challenge, Trick Attack and Time Trial


• Features four-player split-screen multi player mode


• Four-player LAN


• Progressive scan support


• Dolby Pro Logic II support


• Requires three memory blocks for saves

(resource IGN)

SSX 3 (prices):

• Officially the 3rd installment of the SSX franchise coming from the Playstion 2's launch list


• Unlock new boards, artwork, players and new clothing


• Bust out a variety of different grabs, spins and flips for style and points
  
• Two player Multi-play


• Progressive scan support


• THX Game Audio


• Requires three memory blocks for saves

1080 Avalanche is utterly Nintendo. From presentation and graphics, to gameplay and philosophy. While this is a matter of taste ultimately, I think the company aims for a younger audience with its presentation style, and it is starting to grate on me that they refuse to continue to refine their previously fantastic level of polish. Nintendo continues to hang their hat on there previous success, which while being only a few years old, in the world of video games are decades old and beginning to loose their luster and value. Nintendo's greatest success of the year was Metroid Prime, a game that broke new ground, invented a genre and did not aim to recreate the previous franchise but to elevate it and evolve it into a new era. The presentation of 1080 is the same as Mario Kart, Wave Race, Mario Golf and each of Nintendo's other re-hash tiles of late.

The game leverages everything from the first game, updates the graphics and adds a minimum of elements to the previous formula of Easy (blue), Hard (green) and Expert (black), and the unlockable Extreme course layout and Time Trial, Trick Attack and Gate Challenge modes. There are a few additions, a balance meter for correcting poor landings, which is well done and uses a slow down effect and a twisting of the joystick to regain your balance, as well as a grind balance meter ala THPS. The addition of the balance system in 1080 is good, fun and better than the SSX system of repeatedly pressing the B to regain your balance. The graphics of 1080:A are less than impressive, and really hearken back to the original more than they should. In the end 1080 is a remake of the original, in almost as much as the Resident Evil remake was, updated graphics and some different approaches, but overall there is little new.

I also liked last years SSX Tricky, but not as much as the original 1080, I felt like the trick system was too over the top and just too unrealistic. I felt like I finished it rather quickly and never was really compelled to continue to play it. I was wary of the new incarnation because I think I tend to like the more realistic sports games. SSX 3 takes a free roaming, truer, GTA 3, True Crime, style system of goals. I may be in the minority of people who finds this a bit off putting at first. I am an old school gamer in a lot of ways and like to have goals and finish them and on to the next goal, this is much the way 1080 operates (in traditional Nintendo fashion) so I was initially a little lost with SSX. you have one open peak and start out sort of randomly placed at the top of the hill, the runs are treated much like a real mountain and each run has its out place in the games freeride, race and freestyle modes of play. So you can choose to skate by the race run and on to the freestyle run, much like a real mountain. After a few chances with the game I was able to understand the game philosophy and learn to love the flexibility, but nonetheless the game has not training mode and little to no explanation of what you are supposed to do. The training mode is replaced by a PDA style device which has "email" style messages on it which you can read to figure out what you are supposed to do, not the funnest addition to a video game ever, but it is there. SSX is only 2 player multi-layer versus 1080's 4 player which never skips a frame. The biggest draw back of SSX is just how easy it is to fly out of bounds where the game forces a respawn, as you play you learn where you can and can't go, but for a game that forces you to find faster routes down the course, and that has such huge spanning environments it is disappointing and frustrating.

In the end SSX has better graphics, more tricks, more replay and more fun, while 1080 is a rehash of a 5 year old game on a new system.

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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GC)

One of the most fluid and beautiful games I have played this year. Ubisoft has my vote for development house of the year, as far as art direction and game feel go. Think Splinter Cell meets Mario meets Resident Evil. A fantastic interpretation of the early PoP games, though I never played the 3D variety, only the early 8-bit incarnation. The game as has an amazing atmosphere and a great story that held me into it the entire game, the levels are vast and attractive, the art direction on the castle is amazing and the perspective well done. The fighting is great, well done sword battles, but at times gets to be tedious and blocked from view at some points by the multitude of enemies. The camera actually works great I thought, with the usual issues with 3D cameras not going exactly where you want them all the time, but overall very effective.

Gameplay features the ability to reverse time, which is great for trying a certain flip or wall run and reversing your death, along with very fluid jumping and wall running. At times my knees actually felt weak while jumping from bar to bar thousands of stories in the air, very cool. A pretty intuitive sword system with blocking and the ability to jump off walls and run over enemies to strike from the back.

My biggest complaint, and biggest flaw with most reviews out there, is that there is little to no replay value in the game, and no reward for finishing the game. It took me a little over 7 total hours to finish and there is NOTHING that opens up or is new as far as I can tell. The only extra in the game is the original PoP game (and PoP 2 on the xbox and ps2) which is opened in some obscure secret room method during the 1st 1/4 of the game.

Overall, great atmosphere, graphics, story and gameplay, too short and with no benefit for finishing it, or even finishing it well, or anything.

IGN-GameCube: Nintendo Going Back to the Basics

"Early Thursday morning Nintendo confirmed that it had posted a loss for the beginning half of the fiscal year, the first time ever in the company's history..."

"In a meeting with investors and analysts, Nintendo detailed more of its philosophies and business plans in regard to its future in the game industry. And it appears that, despite the growing popularity of complex adult-geared software and rapidly growing numbers in the online arena, the company will "go back to the basics."

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This is so the wrong philosophy, and I feel bad for Nintendo. The gaming industry and the fans have just passed the company buy and it seems like they are falling into a typical trap that their failure to evolve and lead there market means that there is something wrong with the Market and not the way that they are doing business. Nintendo deserves much credit, they have created some awesome fantastically fun games in their time, but they are done. What made Nintendo was their ability to be scrappy and push a new market not dodgy and old fartish about making "back to basic games".

I mean how do you take a cutting edge industry and believe that" back to basics is the answer? It is such a defeatist attitude. They are saying that they cannot compete in todays market so they need to somehow recapture the glory days of old, but they are doing that by looking at nostalgia, not the sound and swift business practices that made them great. For it was not some great polished software designer that brought them to greatness, it was a man who wanted to manufacture coat hangers for kids. Miyamoto-san used the crappy 8bit tools he was given to innovate with and created interesting, and ground-breaking games. It's like saying that the company should go back to making playing cards because thats what where gaming really is, "that was fun", "thats when we made money".

They need to capture adult disposable income, like Sony, and they need to innovate, like dare I say M$. I was always taken back by the glut of thousands of crappy PS1 games on the market for 5$ while the 64 could barely scrape together 100 titles all over 50$. I don;t always want to play great games. Some times I want to play fun games, sometimes I want to pick it up and play it for 10 mins and put it down. I have no personally connection to Mario or any of the brand characters that N wants to hang its hat on, beyond the fact that Mario 64 revolutionized gaming. We live in the Mario 64 era, few games have been made since that break that mold. That game was innovative, it took a classic idea, and took it to the next level, the last thing 64 did was go back to basics.

Basics killed Sunshine, basics will kill Double Dash. To hell with the basics Nintendo, don't fall for it, you have been back to the basics for too long already.

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Sony has released a concept image of their handheld gaming machine due in 2004.

In some ways I think that people actual building a network and software to play the gamecube on line could be a whole lot cooler than if nintendo actual came up with one. It would be truley market driven and it 3rd parties can figure out how to make it work and somehow make money in the long run, I am sure nintendo would be willing to let them have at it. Maybe, I dunno Nintendo is pretty proprotary I guess, whatever, I hope they get it rolling and I think it will be better that what the Big N is willing to do.

Warp Pipe Project

GamerFeed : Sony : Transformers Armada Announced

Atari today announced plans to bring Hasbro Inc.'s TRANSFORMERS ARMADA, the enormously popular male action property to PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system with TRANSFORMERS ARMADA: PRELUDE TO ENERGON. All the rage in the '80's, the TRANSFORMERS brand is as popular as ever with the top-selling TRANSFORMERS ARMADA toy line and comic book series, and Cartoon Network television series."

I may buy a PS2 finally if this is any good, but I am not very hopeful, based on passed TFMRS materials. Though Infrotari is kind of kicking butt on some stuff lately.

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"Police were acting on orders issued late Monday by Mohammed Asif Qazizada, deputy governor of Nangarhar province. He said he was reacting to complaints from parents that their children spent time and money in the shops instead of going to their schools, Shah said.

``The morals of the young people were corrupted there,'' Shah said. ``Many things were done there that are forbidden by Islam.''
"
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Afghan City Closes Video Game Store

This will never make thier children more moral.

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CNN has yet another article on the Sims Online and the emergence of "bad social behavior", the media seems to find the whole thing intreging, which is kind of funny, maybe they think it is opening up a whole new market of news reporting.

CNN: The popular commercial game, where thousands of people interact electronically, is turning into a petri dish of anti-social behavior. And that's raising questions about whether limits on conduct should be set in such emerging virtual worlds, even if they are huge adult playpens.

No its not, it is a video game, an electronic toy, a fictional world, and it is certainly not raising questions for middle America about whether or not there need to be limits of conduct in it.

CNN: Shevenock quit playing "Sims" because she was spending too much time in it -- up to five hours a day. "If you're not careful, you begin to play this game with your real emotions."

5 hours a day? Lord. Seriously, that is so off. I mena I like games and the like, but 5 hours a day, and I am sure there are people that do more with these types of games especially with the new Star Wars MMORPG. Get a life, produce something for the economy that benifits yours and others lifes.

CNN: "We're going to be forced to create a whole new area of social convention -- and probably law -- that reflects that kind of behavior," said psychologist David Greenfield, founder of the Center for Internet Studies and author of the book "Virtual Addiction."

AHH! No we are not, go home, get out of here and stop trying to pray on people psycological fears.

CNN.com - Sex, mob hits: Sims tests virtual morals - Jul. 5, 2003

I like these lists, there are so many bad GB games it is nice to have a list of top choices.

Game Boy: 15 Must-Have GBA Games

1. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
2. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
3. Konami's Collectors Series: Arcade Advance
4. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
5. Mario Kart: Super Circuit

and so on...

I think I will be picking up Ninja Five-O

The bikinis from DOA volleyball on the xbeast are now available for purchase for you or your fair lady. It is an intersitng thing I think, and not all that strange really, I think it is really just a part of the japanese culture spilling over to the US.

Your favorite bikinis from Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball can be yours! Specifically designed by Team Ninja and manufactured in Japan, these bathing suits are one-of-a-kind and available right here, on the Tecmo website! So make sure you pre-order all your favorites because these teeny-weeny bikinis will only be available for a limited time!

Tecmo :: 100% Games

Pigeons to promote tennis game in UK - Sega Sports Tennis News for PlayStation 2 at GameSpot

Acclaim Entertainment, which last year saw fit to advertise Shadow Man: 2econd Coming on gravestones in the UK, has today announced that it plans to employ homing pigeons sporting Virtua Tennis 2 logos to advertise the game at this year's Wimbledon tournament. According to today's press release, around 20 pigeons branded with a Virtua Tennis 2 logo on each wing using a harmless water-based paint have been trained to fly in and out of the home of British tennis during the competition, the final stages of which will be played between June 23 and July 6.

"The Virtua Tennis 2 pigeon marketing campaign is highly targeted, as it brings awareness of the game directly to tennis enthusiasts," said Larry Sparks, VP of marketing international at Acclaim. "The Wimbledon tournament is famous for the occasional descent by pigeons onto center court, but our advertising pigeons are trained to go straight for the fans and flap their logos in front of them."

What?

gamesindustry.biz - Publishing section

Anyone who has been watching Sony's ambitions in the games market, since the death of its SNES CD drive collaboration with Nintendo spawned the PlayStation project, will know one thing - this is no idle dabbling in a new marketplace for the Japanese giant, and never was. Sony clearly sees the games market as a stepping stone to dominance of the home entertainment sector, and in keeping with the approach of many Japanese companies, it has a long-term gameplan for its PlayStation brand and technology.

Need to finish reading this...

GameCube: Nintendo's Preview Disc

I picked up my GameCube preview disc at Fred Myers today, I had a bit of trouble finding somewhere that was selling it with out the cube, seeing as how it has NOT FOR RESALE printed on it. Thanks Freddie's. Splinter Cell is pretty awesome, sonic is still too fast for me to enjoy, Soul Caliber is dope, the egg game is much like monkey ball with plot, and viewitiful joe is one of the better games I have played in a long time, WarioWare is bit odd, but all in all I am happy Nintendo Released it, I might go pick up a used Splinter Cell because of it.

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Simple. Money.

You've Seen the Movie, Don't Play the Game - Enter the Matrix, yet another crummy movie-based video game. By Mark Van de Walle

This shouldn't be a surprise. I used to write video game ads for a living. One of our clients was a company with a richly deserved reputation for putting out awful games based on licenses purchased from television and movies. During a meeting about a particularly awful licensed game, I remember one of the marketing people saying, "That show's so hot right now, we could put out any piece of crap and people would buy it." The client's company then put out several pieces of crap based on the license, and as predicted, people bought them. It's worked out for Enter the Matrix, too: Gamers bought a record 1 million copies in its first week on the shelves.

Not sure if everyone gets it, but for me at the bottom of this article was ad ad to buy Lord of the Rings for Xbox, on slate, which is owned by M$, below an article that says that it is actually the only good movie licensed game. That is good internet advertising.

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BBspot - New Xbox Sized McDonald's Combos Stretch America's Bladders to the Limit

"The Xbox is the largest video game system known to man, and now we offer the largest fries and Coke known to man," said Yang. "And with a Double Big Mac it's about the same price as an Xbox."

Funny.

Xbox sings a new tune | CNET News.com

David Hufford, Microsoft product manager, said before the press conference that the package helps expand the utility of the Xbox by allowing it to become a conduit for running slideshows on a television and for doing karaoke using the microphone included in the kit.

This must be to help M$ gain tracktion overseas, if ya know what I mean. The article also talks about a slimmed down version of the xbeast coming out soon which would be a welcome change to the monolithic ode to american industrial design of the first.

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Sony is to unveil a portable (PSP) to combat the GameBoy and I have to say it is about time. Though I just got my damn gameboy sp. Sounds pretty sweet, lots of memory, optical disks w/1.8GB of data (huge), memory sticks, 16:9 aspect. USB hookup and more. No pics available yet, and it won't be out till 2004 for the 10th aniv. of the playstation brand.

Lots of E3 news going on....New Mario Kart will be cool, even if it is kiddy....Microsoft is also dropping the xbox price...

Microsoft said Wednesday it would cut the price of its unprofitable Xbox game machine by $20, to $180 in the United States after rival Sony Corp. said it would add a free $40 modem with PlayStation 2, which costs $200 in North America

IHT: New Sony device to take on GameBoy

Kristin got me a GBA SP for my upcoming birthday and anniversary, cause she is so cool. I have to say it is a pretty cool little machine, so far I only have Metroid Fusion, and I have ordered Advance Wars, which I hear is one of the best. The size is great very small, it is about the size of a 1 + 1/2 business cards and about 1" think. Screen light is killer and playing these old SNES style games is great so far and a great contrast to the cube. I have not hooked it up to the cube yet but plan to with the cable and Zelda and see whats up. So the games I think I should get are:

1. Advance Wars
2. Metroid Fusion
3. Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
4. Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advanced
5. Street Fighter Alpha 3
6. Colin McRae Rally 2.0

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First look: Futurama - Futurama Screens for All at GameSpot

This game will probably suck, just as much as every simpsons video game ever made, but that does not diminish my hope of it being a fun cell shaded romp.

Currently scheduled for release in the spring of this year

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The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus won numeerous awards, Go Lee's buddy.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 Game Codes

Unlock Everything
Enter Watch_Me_Xplode on the cheat menu.

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Burnout 2

Why does the GameCube not have any decent racers? I think there are like 2 racing games in total. This is even worse than the Air combat selection. The 1st Burnout was tight but a little limited, this new one looks pretty cool, but really it is the only decent racing game on the horizon. Need for Spped sucked something horrible, it was disgusting.

To be far I am pretty hyped about F-Zero as well, but there are like 3 other "futrustic" racer out there, and the NEC one (the unfortunatly titled TubeSteak Slider) is coming out at the same time.

Aero Elite: Combat Academy

Why Doesnlt the Gamecube have any air comabt games? And I don't count top gun , which was lame.

Seanbaby.com - EGM's 10 Naughtiest Games of All Time

I am WARNING you, DO NOT read this if you are sensitive to material with odd sexual references, esp. "Boong-Ga Boong-Ga". What a wierd world.

Take this Warning seriously, concerned parents and/or fags: adult game designers often cross the line between sexily risque and fucking lunacy, and some of the games you'll read about here are disturbing with our without my potty mouth.

New game system "The Phantom" announced focused almost solely on online gaming. This looks like the next 3DO to me, built in games? that will never work, too much of a paradigm shift for a major market like games and I cannot imagine where they think they will find 3rd party support from since they will have no 1st party support anyone will care about.... Microsoft will kill this just by looking at it, there is nothing that I can see this machine doing that the next xbox will not do if not much more coupled with PVR service and the massive library of games and marketing power of M$, this is crazy, I have to believe it's fake. I can;t imagine who would invest there money in this, wait stupid old men that have never played a game in there life. Now maybe I am wrong and that is the great part of writing something down here, because if this thing kicks ass it a year, I can look back and see my mistake, but that will NEVER happen.

Had class 2 tonight, focused on marketing. Neither speaker was particularly interesting, and Lee was right there should have been more discussion based involvement. I mean we are in a room with pretty dynamic people I imagine, and we are listening to people who are not business owners, but professors of marketing at SU, and yes one guy was a marketing "professional" from Steenman & Associates, but I have to say I was really not feeling his vibe. He was a guerilla marketer extraordinaire, but after looking for their website, which I don't think they even have (so I can't show you his laughable logo) I did find this ad which is actually interesting because in comparison to the Think ad on the same page is much more fucking informative, but man how depressing is it to look through that marketing index of companies in Seattle, it reminds me of looking through all those mug shots last night.. there are just too many people out there doing somewhat the same thing in design, that is why I like Lee's ideas on business communication and making it effective, and simply communication in the larger sense, I know there is an angle for design in there somewhere, more than neat banners and icons but effectiveness, and clarity of message.

Interesting article on coke's brand and how it is good they were not creative with there new approach, btw I am looking at www.adage.com because it was recommended in class tonight.