Far Cry 2 - Play The Game You Want To Play

It's about giving the player the opportunity to play the game he wants to play the way he wants to play it.

What If Your Character Was Only As Fit As You Are

We've seen the theme before: Video games, forsaking all outdoor activity to play them, can lead to obesity. Recently someone sent me a video, which does a great job of getting that message across. It also reminds me of this idea I had last year for a game that would use over-the-counter heart rate monitors to track your running ability and then port it into a first-person shooter. Can you imagine, a game where your character can only run as fast as you can? A game that would get you to go to the gym to improve character stats. Yes, I know there are plenty of devices out there that try to port over your physicality in real time, but I think the best way to do this is to pop in your real-life stats, so you don't have to be screwing around with weird controllers.

Alright, I'm totally calling you out video game industry, I want someone to come up with a mode for Call of Duty or Half-Life or some PC shooter that makes this happen. Get to it.

Check out the video on the jump.

Microsoft sent over this pic to us, just for the Kotaku community, of a home in Fable 2 and pointed out that another new screen on the upcoming game's official blog shows off the game's graveyard. I really like the atmospheric look of both screens, especially the second.

I'm told that the Lionhead Video Diary Six has been wrapped and submitted to the Xbox Live marketplace folks for processing and eventual upload onto the Xbox 360 service. The Msoft folks tell me it's the best one to date and that it will focus on "Art and The Hero". Wonder what that means?

Analyst Says That Gaming Needs More Super Stars

Evan Wilson, a senior research analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, has an interesting take on how game companies should handle their most talented members of their staffs—that's not so different from what we see in professional sports, music or the movie industry.

There are very few people in this world who know how to create hits...multiple hits. Those creative minds should be recognized and remunerated in the video game industry for their contribution as much as other forms of media. From a business perspective, that might be more expensive, but if the reward is better selling games the trade-off is worth it.

American Game Developers Make $73,600 (On Average)

Game Developer magazine has just published the results of their annual Game Developer Salary Survey. Their findings? The average American developer salary—excluding people like part time testers and richie rich studio heads—was $73,600 in 2007. That's up scant $284 from 2006. Other findings of note include:

• 18% of producers are women (that's high for the industry)
• Business/Marketing personnel made most, averaging $101,848/year
• QA testers made the least, averaging $39,063/year

But there are lots more fun facts and figures in the release after the jump. So enjoy! (Our apologies if you make less than average. It's time to ask for that raise. Just make sure to print the report on company paper.)

Iron Man Behind-The-Scenes

Too Human Development Diary, Silicon Knights Officially Goes Crazy Edition

Video Diary: Offline Multiplayer and Magic in Fable 2

Fracture

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I was lucky enough to get a chance to sit down with Lego's Mark Hanson to talk a bit about their upcoming MMO project, LEGO Universe. What we've seen and heard about it so far has been a bit limited so I was looking forward to hearing about what could be one of the most interesting and fun MMO's to come along in quite a while.

The Lego world is all about creativity and building and Lego Universe will be no different. Players will start the game by customizing their mini-figs. According to Hanson, each figure will be endlessly customizable so that you can create a character that looks just like you (or not) to inhabit your little section of bricks. Each world of the universe will have a different theme that corresponds to the different sets of Legos. For example, you will be able to visit the Pirate Planet or perhaps jet over to the Medieval Castle Planet. Lego will provide the basis for each world and then the rest is all up the the users. You can own property and build up whatever creations your mind can come up with using your stock of bricks. Bricks can be earned by a combination of randomly finding them, completing missions and even battling. The more you play, the more bricks you can earn. While there will be no actual PVP battles, players will be able to create creatures/machines and use them to battle other players creations in their quest for more bricks. And of course, in the Lego Universe no one ever bleeds or dies, they just break apart.

PlayStation Eye Tank War Demo Is "Next Gen" Tech

For the record, I would never go to a talk about me... unless I was invited. Nora Paul, with the University of Minnesota school of journalism's Institute of New Media Studies, emailed me over the weekend to clue me in to the talk she was doing entitled: "Being Brian Crecente: Using an Off-The-Shelf Role-Playing Game to Teach Journalism."

Actually, the whole name thing really was a last minute add-on. It sounds like Paul had been working on the idea, introducing college-level would-be journalists to the profession through a video game, for a number of years.

Valve Offers Up Steam Online to Devs for Free

It looks like Valve just fired a shot in war to become the dominant support for online PC gaming. They are now giving away Steamworks, a suite of publishing and development tools that include copy protection, social networking services and server browsing, to developers and publisher worldwide.

Steamworks is the online back-end used in both Half-Life 2 and The Orange Box.

"Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today's market," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing."

Fighting In Assassin's Creed

Ubisoft confirmed today that they were at one time interesting in picking up Lara Croft publisher SCi, but are now totally over her the company and want nothing to do with purchasing it.

"Ubisoft has no intention to make an offer and will not make an offer on SCi." Ubisoft reps told Thompson Financial News. Ouch, sounds like someone got hurt.

Ubisoft Ends Interest in Acquiring SCi [Gamasutra]

Providing some very enjoyable tit-for-tat, God of War II director Cory Barlog provides his own mirrored responses to the questions asked of Shadow of the Colossus director Fumito Ueda in a recent Famitsu interview. He tackles Ueda's more successful game, only briefly touching on ICO.

It's just as enjoyable as the translated Ueda piece , but might have less of an immediate impact, partially because we get to hear from Barlog and his peers fairly often, while it's a rare treat to have the opportunity to hear from the creator of two of the best PlayStation 2 games of all time. Regardless, it's a good read, only because Barlog's entry about his personal discovery of the beautiful intricacies of SotC's gameplay is so easy to relate to.

God of the Colossus [Don't Play Games With Me!]