Monday 7 July 2008
Saturday 28 June 2008
Wednesday 11 June 2008
Jools Watsham: Game Designer, fighter, loverman
Tuesday 20 May 2008
The Conduit - New Trailer
The first gameplay trailer was released a couple of days ago.
Will certainly be keeping an eye on this one.
Monday 12 May 2008
Last day of school
Thursday 24 April 2008
Key Retro Studios staff leave company
Just one of the masterpieces created by the art team for Metroid Prime
No other information is available at this time about the reasons for the sudden departure, but it is unlikely that management at the company terminated their contracts early (ie, they probably weren't fired), but it's strange for several influential figures from a developer to leave purely on an coincidental basis, so there is a chance that Pacini, Matthews and Keller are planning to start up their own company.
In the mean time, Retro is NOT SHUTTING DOWN and will continue to develop great, AAA games for Nintendo. Some of the maestros behind the Prime behemoth may have left, but one thing remains the same, and that's that Retro Studios' next title will be one of Wii's most anticipated.
Friday 18 April 2008
OMGZ, le mature game for teh Wii?!!
IGN recently scored a world exclusive with the Illinois-based team on their next game, and it looks set to hit the big time. FPS "The Conduit" has been secretly in development for around a year now and it seems to focus on graphics - something with may seem unimaginable to 99% if Wii devs. Working on a completely ground-up engine going by the name as Quantum3, The Conduit is a futuristic shooter set in Washington DC. It looks to sport many Halo-esque mega-beam-weapons-of-death but the whole thing seems to have more of a Half-Life air to it; with action scenes ranging from big, open spaces to quiet, heart-pumping, deserted trains.
Herro!
As many a Wii owners know, their beloved white box has been incredibly deficient of FPSs; bizarre considering that Medal of Honour: Heroes 2 proved that the genre could easily blast any console counterpart out of the water in terms of control. High Voltage knows this, and also understands that many 3rd party titles are severely lacking in the technological departments:
"We think it's a real shame that publishers and developers aren't taking advantage of the technical possibilities of the Wii platform. Most Wii games don't even look as good as the later day PS2 titles and that's a real slap in the face to consumers" says Kerry Ganofski CEO. It's a true joy to see a serious publisher voice what so many hardcore Wii gamers have been fighting to say over the past few months. The Conduit looks to not only appeal to those craving some AAA shooter action, but also wants to quash the perception that Wii can't house games that look no better than last gen titles.
If you're wondering how HVS' much flaunted Quantum3 engine expects to achieve this, below is the official tech demo video:
So there you have it. Could The Conduit be a real pioneer for future mature Wii games that actually have effort put into them? Who knows? It can certainly be a big pay-off if you're the first one to get your idea out there: look at the runaway success Guitar Hero 3 on Wii has become.
For all the available screens and full info/press release on The Conduit, visit the IGN page here.
Sunday 6 April 2008
France vs Children
Monday 31 March 2008
Do not watch this space for the next 48 hours
Unfortunately, numerous sources have already been getting over excited and begun to dust off their cobwebby imaginations early. So forget any "MEGATONS!!1" you may have heard over the interweb - it's complete BS. I happened to come across a story on Wii60 earlier elaborating on plans for Nintendo to introduce DLC for 35 of its games, including Twilight Princess, Metroid and Brawl. Super. Predictably, the article was bashfully removed within hours.
So, if I do update the blog tomorrow with some major announcement that is too good to be true, take no notice. In fact, lets just not go on the internet tomorrow: that makes everything easier eh?
Friday 28 March 2008
The Byron Report and what it means for the industry
It's unclear exactly who decided that a change was necessary, but I'll bet my murderous disposition that it was some ill-informed MP who perceives that all games are Columbine simulators. Keith Vaz then, probably. But a study was carried out nonetheless by Psychologist Tanya Byron, and the resulting changes are, shock horror, actually... not damaging at all to the industry. If one reads the report, they'd be pleasantly surprised to know that this shrink isn't actually a female Jack Thompson, and has put in place a plan that doesn't banish adult games to the point where anyone seen buying one would be ousted from British society as a middle-aged paedophile who lives with his mother.
Basically, before you know the changes, one has to understand how games are currently classified in the UK. Well the company who decides the age rating is an independent organisation called PEGI. Their age labels consist of:
3+
7+
12+
16+
18+
Now, some gamers may notice in their library that some of their more "mature" games have "that film logo on", IE, a BBFC rating of either 15 or 18. The BBFC are an "official" classification company who rate films in the UK, and regularly rate some of the more fruity games (like all Resident Evil games as 15 or Manhunt 2 as 18).
After this report, all video games will pass through PEGI as per usual, but if they feel the game is deserving of a !2 or above rating, they must be approved by the BBFC, who will then classify the games themselves. It isn't totally clear why this will avoid the illegal transaction of video games to minors, but the strength of an official (and familiar) logo may be enough to get the message across to parents that not all games are for children. A responsible parent wouldn't let little Timmy see a 15 rated film, so why would mummy buy him Grand Theft Auto. So technically, this shuffle shouldn't actually affect anything, but the subtleties of the the change might. To that degree, it's a well though-out plan. So kudos to Ms Byron for that .
But most importantly, this move may spell an end to the whinging of scores of MPs the industry has faced these past years.