Friday November 21 2008
Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes - Gameloft's latest iPhone title
Last week, French mobile games giant Gameloft lent me an iPhone stuffed with its first titles for the Apple platform. The likes of Asphalt GT 4, Real Football 2009 and Guitar Rock Tour (currently pick of the week on App Store) really stood out for their imaginative and confident use of the accelerometer and touchscreen features. Asphalt is something of a revelation, an urban racer controlled by tilting the phone itself.
At first, it feels uncomfortable and over sensitive, then you realise the slightest twitch is enough to take most corners and it quickly becomes an enjoyable and intuitive driving experience - a million times more fun than using a crappy keypad to jab out the racing line.
Anyway, earlier this week I talked to Gonzague de Vallois, Gameloft's SVP of Worldwide Publishing about the company's thoughts on iPhone so far. He immediately downplayed the launch titles, developed extremely quickly thanks to the tardy arrival of the SDK in March, barely four months before the launch of the 3G iPhone model.
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An image from the casual MMO Strawberry Diva
This week's pitch is from the team behind Strawberry Diva, an indie MMO with a casual bent aimed, as founder Paul Carey describes it, "firmly at women". The interaction is based purely on "social navigation": every action must invoke trust or disdain, affection or enmity. So no smacking rodents and orcs with handbags. Damn.
Read on to find out more about the game, and the most rational argument I've ever read for the rise and rise and rise of indie games.
Thursday November 20 2008
The Lost and The Damned: sounds like a cross between a US daytime soap and an F Scott Fitzgerald novel
It's called The Lost and the Damned, it'll be released via Xbox Live on February 17th and it's a whole new story drawn from the GTA IV universe. Yep, it's the first of two downloadable Grand Theft Auto episodes for the Xbox version of the latest in Rockstar's series.
The self-contained story follows biker Johnny Klebitz, a member of Liberty City biker gang The Lost, which appears once in a while during the main GTA IV narrative. From the press release:
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You probably won't be surprised but Wrath of the Lich King, the new expansion for World of Warcraft, has become the fastest selling PC game of all time.
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guardian.co.uk
With the release of the new Banjo Kazooie game and their involvement in the avatars on the 360's dashboard update these are busy times for veteran UK developer Rare. I had a chat with studio head Mark Betteridge.
Continue reading...Wednesday November 19 2008
Look at Mii
Microsoft is hyping NXE – the new dashboard update for the Xbox 360 which launched today – up to be as important as the launch of colour TV. Ha. But ridiculous hype aside the NXE is actually rather nifty and a definite improvement on the original blades (although these can still be accessed). Whether it will make the console more mainstream-friendly is debatable – it could be Xbox 720 before that happens – but the 360 certainly feels more approachable than before. Continue reading...
Call of Duty: World At War - operating in an ethical minefield?
I think I'm done with World War II. Playing Call of Duty: World at War last night, as well-designed and effective as it is (and it IS brilliantly executed), I found myself heading out on a sniping mission and just losing heart. The same bomb-battered urban environments, the same gruff commander running up ahead, the same targets, the same objectives. From Battlefield 1942 to Brothers in Arms and back to Call of Duty, shoot-'em-up fans will now have played through most of the key campaigns of the conflict. I've had enough. Going by the strong sales I must be in a minority.
But there are darker questions surrounding this particular game, and they are to do with its incredibly shaky morality...
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As folks turn to new moneymaking options with the economic downturn from traditional businesses, one arena seems untouched - and a possible haven for those wishing to cushion devaluing securities: the sale of virtual goods. Yep, it's still going on, and some places continue to turn real-money-transfer between players in online games and social virtual worlds into quite palatable bankables. Just witness the phenomenal sales opportunities on eBay Category 1654 (Internet Games) - just one of the marketplaces for this new economic world order.
A few years back, the US federal government looked closely at the issue of taxables on non-existent (take that with a pinch of salt, pedants) content based in universes fabricated by games people. That seems to have fallen by the wayside there. It was never even seriously brought up in the UK.
However, in China, where RMT represents $1.37bn active industry (often to the dismay of Western game players), the government has stepped in to tax the sale of virtual goods. Continue reading...
Tuesday November 18 2008
It's funny because it's outrageously polemical
"She looks innocent enough – a happy woman who has a twinkle in her eye and loves to cook – but if you take just a minute to think about what happens to the animals who are killed for Mama's meals, a fun cooking game no longer seems quite so innocent..."
Continue reading...The annual South by Southwest Interactive event has become the must-go party of the year for people who like to make digitalia. It's a place where gamers hobnob with new media types, and pick up the occasional pop star who's arrived a couple of days too early for the celebrated Music festival. And of course it's got the annual Screenburn game design competition.
It's also a good opportunity for companies interested in pimping their products overseas to meet, greet and rub shoulders with international investors. Apparently the ratio of VCs to fundees increases every year.
