Red Faction Guerrilla, in stores now on XBOX 360, PLAYSTATION 3 & PC
 

Related Sections: News

Little Big Planet and Fidgit wish you a happy 4th of July

Little Big Planet and Fidgit wish you a happy 4th of July

On July 4th, the United States celebrates freedom, independence, and gratuitous three-day weekends. So I leave you with the above picture of sackboy from Little Big Planet wearing a costume that evokes one of those three things. You can get your own Sacktue of Liberty* from the Playstation Store for the low low price of free.

Have a safe, fun, and happy Fourth of July weekend wherever you are**.

* I wish I was making that up. They actually call it that.
** Except England.

(1) Comments

checkers:
Cool! Usually you americans are a day late with the time, now you're an hour early! ;-)...More »
 
Game Diaries

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Dawn of Discovery: heavy metal

Dawn of Discovery: heavy metal

This is where the heavy iron comes into play. In the foreground are various smelters and workshops, including a weapons smithy and cannon foundry. These process the ore I take from the mine in the background, powered by a water wheel. The thick patch of forest off to the right is an important source of fuel for the smelters that process the ore.

Far in the background, in the upper left of the screen, is a monastery. It was here when I arrived. Occasionally, I can petition the monk who lives there for goods. He saddles up his donkey and rides down the mountain path to bring me beer, wine, and stone.

Click the thumbnail below to see a quite lovely larger version:

Dawn_02_1280.jpg

Up next: cows!

(1) Comments

Chijts:
It looks like a pretty cool game, I love those screenshots. Shame my PC would probably stutter as the monk came dow...More »
 

Related Sections: Lists

The ten best games of 2009. So far.

The ten best games of 2009.  So far.

The first half of the year is gone. That means it's time to make a list! How is 2009 shaping up so far? I'd say pretty well, since I had originally intended to make a list o the five best games so far. No such luck.

After the jump are the ten best games of the half-finished year.

(22) Comments

Mihos:
I would agree with Red Faction... ...More »
 

Related Sections: Shooters

Ticker infestation brings extra fireworks to Gears of War 2

Ticker infestation brings extra fireworks to Gears of War 2

In celebration of the 4th of July, Gears of War 2 will be infested with even more tickers (pictured). From a forum post by Gears producer Rod Fergusson:

...to give a little extra bang to Horde we're bringing the Ticker squad (a group of Tickers that all spawn at the same time) into full effect. They'll be showing up a lot more throughout all the waves of Horde and they've completely infested every 10th wave with nothing but Tickers.
You'll also get double xp over the long weekend, as well as a 500xp bonus every time you're on a winning team. Unless you're playing from an IP address located in England, in which case you'll be forced to wear a bright red coat to make it easier for other players to shoot you.

(1) Comments

Chijts:
Well I guess that's fair. *dons the red coat*...More »
 

Related Sections: Strategy Games

Cel-shading effect enhances Elemental's fantasy look

Cel-shading effect enhances Elemental\'s fantasy look

Stardock has just posted a few more screenshots from their fantasy strategy game, Elemental. Above is an image from a tactical battle. You can see screenshots of castles and the kingdom map at the game's site here.

Cel-shading is characterized by flat shading on solid areas and a dark outline around the edges of objects. By recalling traditional animation and comic books, it's a great way to bring a touch of child-like innocence to your artwork. To me, it looks a bit out of place in earnest games like Gearbox's upcoming Borderlands or Ubisoft's XIII. But it works wonders for fantasies like Dragon Quest VIII and the last Prince of Persia. Kudos to the developers at Stardock for using it to present Elemental's fantasy world.

(3) Comments

O.G.N:
When Frogboy posted those shots he included this line: Note: Shadowing isn’t in yet so these are not representative...More »
 
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Game Diaries

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Dawn of Discovery: postcards from the 15th Century

Dawn of Discovery: postcards from the 15th Century

Rather than bloviate about Dawn of Discovery, the (mostly) wonderful new city builder from Ubisoft, I'm just going to use the "postcard view" to show you some of the places I've been. Above is a typical starting harbor, with a couple of fishing huts to the left, a warehouse in the center, and a harbor master's office to the right. As a city grows, this area will develop into a bustling harbor. But in the early days of a game, this is what your center of commerce looks like.

Look closely and you can see the busy fisherman. Or better yet, click the thumbnail below, which I heartily recommend. Dawn of Discovery is definitely a game that looks better fullscreen.

Dawn_01_1280.jpg

Tomorrow: heavy industry

(3) Comments

Geoff:
Yeah, I'm irritated by the RTS label on this one too. I mean, it's real time, and contains strategy, but that's no...More »
 

Related Sections: Movie Tie-Ins

Is Grease game the one that you want? Ooh ooh ooh?

Is Grease game the one that you want?  Ooh ooh ooh?

Are you ready for a videogame based on a thirty-year-old movie about some kids goofing around over half a century ago? I haven't seen Grease (not pictured) since I was too young to remember anything but Olivia Newton John stirring strange feelings in new places. But I'm sure whatever rhythm-based Nintendo DS and Wii game the publishers at 505 have in store will sell better with some sort of license. This one was probably cheaper than Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, or Xanadu.

Read the press release breaking news here, where you'll learn that the Grease license is "cherished" and that fans will respond with "nothing less than total delight". Do you hear that, fans? Partial delight is not acceptable.

(1) Comments

repinsnug:
I was completely unaware that grease fans played video games. Or maybe that is why it is coming out on the Wii and ...More »
 

Related Sections: Unique  Video

Game makes awkward leap From Guitar Hero to Movie Hero

The above video is a cautionary tale about what can happen when you put real people where actors dare. Keep it in mind as you read Variety's dire warning about something terrible slouching its way towards an August release.

YooStar, a startup company that debuted in January, is getting ready to launch a system that lets fans insert themselves into classic movie scenes and act "alongside" the movie stars for $170. In a nutshell, YooStar wants to be "Guitar Hero" for movies.
Wait, what?
The YooStar retail package, which hits stores in mid-August, includes a greenscreen, a high-resolution webcam (which includes dual microphones and remote control), stand and software.

Once fans have inserted themselves into a scene, they can share the clip on their own computer or upload free to a YouTubelike site hosted by YooStar, where anyone can view it.

Among the 14 clips shipping with the game will be scenes from Beverly Hills Cop 2, Sunset Boulevard, Terminator, and, of course, Employee of the Month.

(6) Comments

Steiner:
Wow, was that You tube link horrible to watch. The real actors weren't much better. The editing was horrible, too. ...More »
 

Related Sections: Patches  Strategy Games

Huge Dawn of War II update open for sneak peak

Huge Dawn of War II update open for sneak peak

The next update for Dawn of War II will add eight new multiplayer maps, a hearty spectator mode with referee options, and a list of balance changes as long as a lictor's flesh hook. And although the update isn't due until later this summer, you can start playing it today as of 2pm Pacific time.

Developer Relic details here how to download and install a beta version of the update. You can freely move back and forth between the beta and the official version of the game. Take a look at the full list of changes here.

 

Related Sections: Strategy Games

Hire your own personal Starcraft tutor for as little as $20 an hour

Hire your own personal Starcraft tutor for as little as $20 an hour

This Craig's List entry promises to make you better at Starcraft.

I'm 100% full blooded Korean, meaning I have been gifted with unparallel talent to master any video game, particularly, Starcraft: Brood War...I'm offering my expertise in Starcraft to be taught to non-Koreans that wishes to have the skill of a Korean player. I have advised and coached many professional gamers such as Im Jae Dong, Park Myung Soo, Ma Jae Yoon, and more. Boxer and I were great friends until he started using my dropships to gain his fame. I started training other players to be on par with Boxer and eventually surpassing Boxer. He is no longer the best player thanks to my contribution to rest of the players. I did not compete in pro gaming because they KTF did not agree with my seven figure contract demand.
The hourly rate you pay to learn Starcraft skillz vary by whether you're looking for basic training, advanced training, or race specific training. For some reason, it's only $20 an hour to learn the ways of the Zerg. The rate skyrockets to $30 an hour is you want to learn the ways of the Terrans.

The lessons promise the following outcomes:

Bragging rights, that you're as good as a Korean in Starcraft
You will be called a hacker because you're so good.
Korean girls will be intrigued that you're such a good Starcraft player.
If this was any other game but Starcraft, I'd be inclined to think it was a goof. But I've seen first-hand the impact of Starcraft on Korean culture. This level of earnest isn't a stretch.

(Thanks StGabe!)

(6) Comments

KeysE2S:
"KTF did not agree with my seven figure contract demand. " But if you just want to go hourly, his fees max out at ...More »
 

Related Sections: Strategy Games

Ubisoft can't be bothered with Dawn of Discovery

Ubisoft can\'t be bothered with Dawn of Discovery

That picture up there is both a screenshot from Dawn of Discovery, a quite lovely city builder released last week, and a metaphor for how the publishers at Ubisoft are treating its North American release. The church is the game: grand, serene, majestic. The burning shantytown is Ubisoft's support: unsightly and well on its way to being a forgotten smoldering ruin that will lower the property value of the lovely church.

For starters, the documentation is pathetic. This is a richly detailed game with a thin manual and no in-game reference for all the various buildings, populations, resources, and interface elements (the previous games in the series, called "Anno ", shipped with a cute in-game reference called the annopedia).

Since Ubisoft maintains a message board with sections for each of their games arranged alphabetically, you'd think you could just check between Chessmaster and Driver. No such luck. Dawn of Discovery doesn't appear on the list. Instead, if you look hard enough, you might stumble across a post directing you to the English language section of a German forum for the series as a whole. If you don't leave, and instead ask a question about Dawn of Discovery anyway, the community manager will politely tell you to go away.

So if you have questions about Dawn of Discovery, here are a couple of tips: The big long word with "name" in it means "username". "Ubermitteln" means "enter". "Abbrechen" means "cancel". "Passwort" means "password".

But the more dire problem is that there is apparently zero support for Dawn of Discovery's online features. The game has a truly wonderful system of achievements and medals. These give you points to spend on unlockables tracked across all your games, such as unique buildings for your cities, as well as coats of arms, portraits, and titles for your profile. This all hooks into an online server, where you can upload screenshots and even saved cities.

So once I realized that the button on the main menu labeled "Gateway to the World" was a button and not just a bit of decoration, I gladly started over my profile. I gave up the gems, awards, and unlockables I'd earned and even reset my progress in the campaign. I really enjoy Dawn of Discovery, so I'm happy to start over so I can plug into the online community, called the "Anno Portal" by the button in the game that will take you there.

Once I had reset my profile, I pressed the button to visit the community site. Here is a screeshot of it:

Anno_portal.jpg

After a bit of hunting around online, it turns out the site is actually working. You have to track it down yourself. Apparently, the "Gateway to the World" button in the game is like one of those fake doors Wile E. Coyote paints onto the side of a cliff.

Come on, Ubisoft. This is a really swell city builder. How about giving it some of the love it deserves?

(12) Comments

intruder:
The series is HUGE in Germany with over millions of sold copies that's why they still make those builders. The DRM ...More »
 

Related Sections: Downloadable Content

Downloadable content for Red Faction Guerrilla starts in August

Downloadable content for Red Faction Guerrilla starts in August

So there's something else out in there in the Badlands after all. This summer, Red Faction: Guerrilla intends to revisit the irradiated wastes out east where Marauders were hiding the mysterious nanoforge.

THQ Inc. today announced plans to release three downloadable content packs for Red Faction®: Guerrilla™, starting with Demons of the Badlands scheduled to be released on August 13th, 2009. Demons of the Badlands will feature a destructive single-player mission arc that takes place in a new Mars landscape outside of the game's expansive world.
Developer Volition released some pretty disappointing add-ons for Saints Row 2, advertising them similarly as "single-player mission arcs". Hopefully, Volition will do something more substantive for Red Faction: Guerrilla. The first -- and presumably second and third -- add-on will be available for $10 on the Playstation Network and Xbox Live.

 
Game Diaries

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Alienware M17: four loveable quirks

Alienware M17: four loveable quirks

So in closing my week-long trial run with the Alienware M17, I leave you with four things that bugged me at first, but that I eventually learned to love and accept. These aren't necessarily pluses or minuses. They're just observations. And one of them is probably too anthropomorphic, because I don't think the M17 is sentient enough to plot murder. That would require one of the more expensive CPU options.

Read about the M17's quirks after the jump.

(12) Comments

Felipe 058:
You could probably make some pretty good air-popped popcorn with the Fan of Death. It's certainly healthier than bu...More »
 

Related Sections: Strategy Games  Video

Command & Conquer on the iPhone? Well, sort of...

You'd think the iPhone's interface would be a natural for a real time strategy game. So why not try adapting an early and relatively simple RTS to the system?

As you'll see in the cringe-worthy video above, that's not quite what happened. Instead, using an emulator, the terrible Playstation version of Command & Conquer was crammed unceremoniously onto an iPhone. Well, the top half of an iPhone not occupied by the big fat icons standing in for a Playstation controller.

And as anyone's who's played Command & Conquer can tell you, this is not the game you want to try to play with two layers of interface and a teensy screen between you and action.

(1) Comments

Grim Pinata:
At least it wasn't an official CNC release. Was a little worried there......More »
 

Related Sections: Wii

Wii's Water Warfare offers watered down non-violent shooting

Wii\'s Water Warfare offers watered down non-violent shooting

I sort of feel sorry for kids who have to play watered down non-violent shooters. What they really want to play is Halo, but they're stuck with paint ball shooters or something with the Nerf (tm) license. Or something literally watered down in the case of Water Warfare, which is available as a Wiiware download this week from Hudson Soft, the folks responsible for the passable alien bug killing shooter, Onslaught. Until The Conduit was released, Onslaught was one of the better instances of how to use the Wii controls to do a shooter.

Water Warfare is an awfully earnest name for a game. I actually entertained the thought that it might be some sort of modern naval combat sim in which I had to position Arleigh Burke cruisers along picket lines, deploy sonar buoys, and skirt under thermoclines. The above screenshot disabused me of that notion.

But still, Water Warfare? If I was making a squirt gun shooter, I definitely would have tried to work in the word "squirt". In fact, the press release stumbles across a far better name for the game:

In this fast-paced non-violent game, players can run around playgrounds and beaches and soak each other with squirt guns. With different types of guns, bonus items, and offline and online multiplayer, there's tons of squirt gun fun to be had!
Squirt Gun Fun! Isn't that way better than Water Warfare?

(2) Comments

Miramon:
Troy: Don't worry, he said "Arleigh Burke cruisers" -- no danger there, since they're destroyers :) ...More »
 

Related Sections: Culture

NPD Group reports substantial increase in female gamers

NPD Group reports substantial increase in female gamers

For the most part, I think videogaming is in a very healthy place, commercially and creatively. It's easy to find stuff to gripe about -- in fact, I could argue that it's my job -- but as a guy who's been deeply into videogames for 20 years, I'm thrilled with the state of the industry.

So if I were pressed to come up with one issue that I find most troubling -- the #1 Worst Thing about Videogaming, if you will -- it would be the way we exclude women. And I'm not just saying that because I really wanted to find some excuse to use that picture up there. I'm saying that because I think it's an important obstacle to videogames growing up. We need to stop reducing women to sidekicks, damsels in distress, or just breasts. We make too few games that reach beyond our boyhood fantasies. And when we do, we partition women into their own separate category. Many women look at us and shake their heads and go about doing whatever they were doing. They see us for the silly boys we so often are. Although it's getting a lot better, it's still a big problem with a lot of room for improvement.

But that's why I consider the NPD Group's recent report really encouraging. According to Gamespot:

The industry-tracking group revealed new figures that show 28 percent of all console video gamers are female in 2009, up from 23 percent last year. NPD attributed the five-point rise to the Nintendo Wii, which it believes has attracted a large number of new female gamers.
You go, girls. Because the next step after more women playing games is more women talking about games, followed by more women writing about games, finally followed by more women making games.

(12) Comments

Giulia Single:
Even if your interest seems really market-oriented (aimed at augmenting market share!) I appreciate your post Tom. ...More »
 

Related Sections: Video

Stop motion Legos and 80s arcade hits induce nostalgia overload

Check out Michael Hickox's excellent stop motion animation of various 80s arcade hits, rendered with Legos. No offense to Mr. Hickox's fine work, but those are some of the least convincing space invaders I've ever seen. However, what a great Pac-Man presentation! Bravo.

(Thanks Offworld.)

(2) Comments

IsoTek:
Well, at least he had an omage to TRON. Can't really talk about 80's games without mentioning TRON in some way. I l...More »
 
Game Diaries

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Alienware M17: It ain't heavy, it's my laptop

Alienware M17: It ain\'t heavy, it\'s my laptop

Yeah, it's expensive, it's heavy, and it sucks down battery power like it's going out of style. But at the end of the day, I don't care. I'm getting the Alienware M17 laptop. And here's why.

After the jump are three reasons I've decided I love the M17.

(7) Comments

W0579:
when you say "it sucks down battery power like its going out of style", how long exactly does one battery life last...More »
 

Related Sections: Unique

GameDr says "no" to videogaming and really means it

GameDr says \

That's the GameDr up there. I have no idea how to say its name. "Game Doctor"? "Game durr"? "Gammederr"? Whatever it's called, is it a crutch for weak parents, or an insidiously effective device I'm glad I didn't face when I was a kid?

The GameDr Video Game Timer is an easy-to-use electronic time management device for video game systems and other electronic devices. Parents simply set the time allowed for video game play and when the allotted time is up, the game timer automatically powers off the game system. Players even get 10-minute and 1-minute warnings so games can be saved. Take the stress out of managing the amount of time your child spends playing video games with the game timer!
The thirty dollar doo-dad clamps onto the end of a power cord. Of course, a resourceful kid can pretty easily get a back-up power cord for anything except a Nintendo Wii. The real solution is parenting. But barring that, this GameDr doo-dad is an interesting alternative. You can get it here and you can read about the old guy in Minnesota who invented it here.
[John Morrisey] holds degrees in chemical and nuclear engineering, and in the 1960s worked on nuclear rocket propulsion at NASA.
Will the GameDr will find more of an audience that nuclear rocket propulsion?

(Thanks Blue's News.)

(16) Comments

MasterEducator:
As an educator I find the number one problem among young males and their studies is the time they spend on video ga...More »
 

Related Sections: Culture

Gamespotting: The Hurt Locker

Gamespotting: The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker began its limited release this weekend. If it's not already at a theater near you (i.e. if you don't live in Los Angeles or New York), it's hopefully on its way. The movie follows a bomb disposal squad in Iraq tasked with finding and disarming IEDs. Along with HBO's superlative Generation Kill, it's not really about the events of the war so much as the effect of the war on the men deployed there. Hurt Locker is to war movies what The French Connection was to cop dramas.

And guess what game gets some prominent screen time. The original Gears of War (the movie was shot in 2008 before the release of Gears 2). One of the three lead characters is playing the game when either a Corpsman or a psychiatrist comes up to conduct an impromptu therapy session in the wake of a traumatic event. There are several seconds of game footage and you can clearly see the Xbox 360 and controller.

You might consider this just a contemporary take on how today's soldiers spent their idle time, sort of like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, playing volleyball and glistening in the sun. But instead, Bigelow is a shrewd enough filmmaker that she's intentionally making a point that this is part of how soldiers in combat deal with stress: violence as recreation. The movie opens with the observation that "war is a drug". So it's no coincidence that the scene is about playing Gears of War as a way to deal with a traumatic event. Rather than turning to the man trained to help him, he has his nose in a videogame.

To Bigelow's credit, it's not played like a value judgment so much as an observation. Like so much of Hurt Locker, it's subtle and effective.

(1) Comments

Grendelpete:
From the pic, I thought we were in for some more Fallout DLC....More »
 

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