The Drake's Gun is not licensed or in any way sanctioned by SCE and one we certainly do not condone... We are investigating the source of this product and will proceed with the most appropriate action.

Like telling King of Swords to put the newer blond lady sidekick in its ad?
Sony To Take Action [Games Industry]

We had hit reactions and even some death animations for the wildlife in the game but we chose to remove it. It was flagged as a potential issue by the ESRB and it seemed like a small concession to make in order to maintain our "Teen" rating. It may have also affected the rating in Europe.

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY NAUGHTY DOG'S EVAN WELLS: PART ONE [Three Speech, via Game|Life]

Narrative-based videogames have a wish fulfillment aspect to them, and gamers expect their protagonist to match the setting and game play. People don't buy Gears of War so they can hear Marcus Fenix wax philosophical on the nature of the soul, crying softly every time he curb-stomps an enemy.

But it's the Uncharted mini-game that has us far more pumped.

According to our sources, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune comes to Home armed with a side-scrolling 2D arcade game, described to us as reminiscent of both Contra and Out Of This World. Sounds kind of like Capcom's 2D remake of Bionic Commando in its execution, full of enemies and exploding barrels to shoot.

Sony is apparently pitching features like these to developers to extend the lives of their titles, using strong first and second party development showcases to prove that Home can effectively market outside of traditional means. We hope they take them up on their offer, because we're definitely excited about the prospects.

This week, in between some scathing political commentary, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw reviews Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for the PS3. Does he like it? Of course not. Can you imagine his reviews happy? We can only pray that divine intervention keeps both love and ecstasy from Yahtzee's grasp, lest we lose Zero Punctuation forever.

Quote of the week: "Saying that an action game's got a vehicle section these days carries about as much weight as saying that it comes in a box."

Zero Punctuation [TheEscapist]

Ex-Naughty Dogs Form Steel Penny Games, Become WiiWare Dev

AUSTIN, TX — Steel Penny Games, an independent Austin, TX-based game developer, announced their acceptance into the Nintendo WiiWare developer stable, and is busy at work on an original IP title set to release in mid-2008. Steel Penny Games states that the upcoming title blends a challenging puzzle game with dramatic fantasy environments and appealing characters for an exceptionally satisfying experience. Other details about the upcoming product are not available at this time.

The company, organized in early 2007 by former Naughty Dog veterans Jason Hughes and Andrew Gilmour, joins the ranks of studios initially focused on digital distribution. Steel Penny Games president Jason Hughes described their strategy as "the modern equivalent of the garage method for an independent to gain a foothold in the industry—a unique opportunity WiiWare presents that we appreciate." At Naughty Dog, Hughes was a senior graphics tools engineer, and Gilmour was a senior background artist.

The team at Steel Penny Games have spent the past year building a proprietary engine geared toward the Wii platform's capabilities, and creating a new intellectual property to span a series of games. Hughes elaborated, "I am impressed with the egalitarian approach Nintendo has taken toward WiiWare developers. It allows the risk burden to shift back onto the creative developers."

He writes of Drake's shirt "Jet skiing, swimming, and almost kissing—nothing can dislodge or fully tuck Drake's half-casual shirt. It is draped in a purgatory state, half in, half out, never completely free." A bold and fascinating analysis from a visionary mind that anyone who has even a passing interest in video game fashion should read. Compelling stuff.

Half-tuck is the new Mullett [Double Fine]

..., it's anybody's guess. At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2.

The PLAYSTATION 3 is a complex yet powerful system. We could not pull off the rich, seamless world of Uncharted on any other console. Because the system is so powerful, it means that tapping into that power requires great engineering efforts. We're lucky that Naughty Dog has some of the best programmers in the industry. I can also tell you that as we're finishing Uncharted, we've found new ways of optimizing our engine to take advantage of the hardware. All of which means that, as beautiful as our game is, there is a lot more in store for the PLAYSTATION 3.

I've had a pet project I've been working on for years, three of them if my memory is right. It started as a simple idea: You can judge a lot from a person's desk. I bet you could judge just as much from their home entertainment system. So I decided it would be fun to try and track down some pictures from the work desks and home gaming set-ups of the people who work in and cover the video game industry. Simple right? Not so much.

Turns out that many of the people are either too busy or too private to want to participate in such a project. To make matters worse, there's always fear that something sitting on someone's desk, that ends up in a photo, could actually be news worthy. Like a secret project or the next big thing. But I didn't give up and about once a year I'd harass a bunch of game developers for photos. Finally, this year, the harassment paid off.

What started as a trickle of photos turned quickly into the collection of galleries you'll find on the jump: More than 40 different photo galleries from 17 studios, seven publications, two industry movers and shakers and a couple of fun surprises.

You'll get to see the desk of such greats as Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux and Tetsuya Mizuguchi along with plenty of others. Remember you can comment both on the next page and on each individual photo if you click on them.

If I find there is interest, I will try to periodically update this gallery of galleries with more developers, journalists and industry movers and shakers. Have fun.

DEVELOPERS
2K Games

ASTRO Gaming

Buzz Monkey Software

Capcom

Eat, Sleep, Play

Electronic Arts

Firaxis Games

Flying Lab Software

Gearbox Software

Harmonix Music

Incognito Entertainment

Insomniac Games

Kojima Productions

Lionhead Studios

NanaOn-Sha

Naughty Dog

NCSoft

NetDevil

Neversoft Entertainment

Ninja Theory

Pandemic Studios

Petroglyph Games

THQ

Q Entertainment

JOURNALISTS

Blue's News

BoingBoing

EGM

The Escapist

GameLife

Joystiq

Kotaku

MTV

Slashdot Games

VE3D

VH1

INDUSTRY FOLK

MISCELLANIES
I AM 8-BIT

Penny Arcade

Whorecraft

Video Games Live

We aren't planning any downloadable content for Uncharted...we are planning to take advantage of whatever kind of integration into Home is possible.

Uncharted getting Home support from Sony? [play]

If you are reading this grave, you're a huge nerd. Please get a life and a girlfriend.

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY NAUGHTY DOG'S EVAN WELLS: PART ONE [ThreeSpeech]

But Uncharted ended up being pretty good after all. Hit the jump for our Frankenreview: the full story on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Well, not the full story. We're not spoiling the game or anything. Or will we...

IGN
Uncharted does what few titles manage — it completely immerses you in its experience. From the moment the game begins with a sweeping camera move through the waters off Panama, a rich score and the words of Sir Francis Drake etched on screen, Uncharted will have you hooked. It'll maintain that hold with its story, style and gameplay.
GamerNode
...the characters in Uncharted are awesome. I thought Heavenly Sword was an anomaly, being a game rivaling most films in terms of voice acting and dialog, but Ratchet & Clank and now Uncharted have proven to me that it wasn't. Whether you hate the PS3 or not, you can't deny that a lot of the big titles do a great job in the voice acting and dialog department
TotalPlaystation
For a game that is really quite front-loaded with combat, you would think it could have felt a little more satisfying. Maybe it's a byproduct of this fancy-schmancy animation system that calculates and layers multiple pre-set animations on the fly, but the bullets never seemed to smack home with enough force (excepting the way a shotgun or a desert eagle could send someone flying 10 feet, mind you)...
1UP
Almost all of the handful or so of puzzles require you to crack open old-man Drake's diary for a hit-you-over-the-head solution. Think turning statues to the four compass points or rotating some rotting engravings...
Variety
At first blush it would be easy to compare Nathan Drake, the treasure-hunting star of Sony's new adventure videogame "Uncharted," with "Tomb Raider's" Lara Croft. But Drake leaves Lara in the dust, delivering the Indiana Jones experience better than gamers have ever seen it before...Anybody pick it up yet?

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune [iTunes via NeoGAF]

Having had the pleasure of playing a fair amount of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune over the last couple of days I can tell you that it's quite a good time. Watching this video might lead you to believe that the whole game is shooting, but it's so much more. They seem to have taken the best bits from some great games and combined them together to create a really fun and entertaining gaming experience. Think Tomb Raider with some Gears of War thrown in, a little Prince of Persia for good measure and a storyline that will have you fondly reminiscing over Raiders of the Lost Ark. All this plus some of the best, if not the best graphics I have seen on the PS3 thus far. Make the jump to check out some of the wall scaling action.

Balestra says that when he learned of the news, he hopped in his car, carefully obeyed the speed limit on the drive back to the office and remedied the situation. Apparently, the values for hate_PAL and hate_JAPAN were both set to TRUE. Oops! It's a simple mistake.

Sure, you're gonna be on the ugly end of another 1.2 GB download, but I think you've whined enough. Enjoy!

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Demo Back on the World Map [PlayStation.blog]

I completely understand them, just because this is a genre which is not that widely used in videogames for whatever reason — people tend to focus more on science fiction. This more realistic, treasure hunting, pulp action adventure genre really hasn't been tried by that many. So I think just by the very fact that both Nathan Drake and Lara Croft are treasure hunters, there will be comparisons. But beyond that, they diverge pretty rapidly. From a character standpoint, Nathan Drake is an everyman who struggles to get by, who you can see on his face that he's stressed out as he's flinching from bullets ricocheting off the cover he's hiding behind, while Lara is the more stone-faced acrobat, perfect landing every time. And then the game play, obviously we were very focused on third person cover-based play, while theirs is more auto-aiming and a little more heavy on the puzzle-solving.

Uncharted gets firm US date [Eurogamer]

They [Naughty Dog] just preferred her blonde.

Dan Arey, former creative director of Naughty Dog, has signed up with Ready at Dawn to work on the company's first original, yet to be named, title. Arey was the "lead creative force" behind Jak&Daxter as well as the upcoming PS3 title Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

"It was actually a very easy decision to make," said Dan Arey, "because when I first got the chance to hear about this new property, I immediately knew I had to be a part of it and get a chance to join forces with the incredible talent over at Ready At Dawn Studios®. These guys have taken the time to mature their team, their technology and this new concept. Believe me, this is going to be something special."

With Daxter under their belt and what is shaping up to be a pretty damn hot God of War PSP title, I can't wait to see what sort of original franchise Ready at Dawn is brewing up.

DAN AREY JOINS READY AT DAWN STUDIOS.
SANTA ANA, Calif. - August 3rd, 2007 - Ready At Dawn Studios® today announced that Dan Arey, former Creative Director of the US's premier Playstation team Naughty Dog®, has joined the company to work on a new original intellectual property already in development.
"Getting someone of Dan's caliber is obviously a huge deal for us," said Didier Malenfant, President and co-founder, "having spent the last 4 years slowly putting together the best console development team we've ever had the chance to work with, and Dan being one of the industry's most acclaimed designer and creative talent, this is further proof that we have now become a force to be reckoned with."
Known for his early involvement in the Crash Bandicoot® series at Naughty Dog®, Dan was also the lead creative force behind the Jak&Daxter® franchise as well as, more recently, the Playstation® 3 exclusive title Uncharted™: Drake's Fortune. With over 17 years of experience, Dan has worked with publishers and developers ranging from Electronic Arts, Accolade, Sega of America, Crystal Dynamics, Sony, Pandemic, among others. As a Senior Designer and Creative Director at Naughty Dog-Sony for ten years, he helped develop and design 7 platinum best selling game titles, totaling more than 35 million units sold.
"It was actually a very easy decision to make," said Dan Arey, "because when I first got the chance to hear about this new property, I immediately knew I had to be a part of it and get a chance to join forces with the incredible talent over at Ready At Dawn Studios®. These guys have taken the time to mature their team, their technology and this new concept. Believe me, this is going to be something special."
An early proponent of interactive and convergent media, Dan designed games using film content and stronger narrative techniques as early as 1992 and has been an industry leader in story enhanced gaming for more than a decade. Dan has been a contributor to Game Developer Magazine, Creativity Magazine. and a frequent lecturer at the Game Developers Conference, E3, DICE, SIGGRAPH, and the Writer's Guild of America. He is also an adjunct Professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts.
Dan Arey will take the title of Creative Director for Ready At Dawn Studios® and is now hard at work, together with Ru Weerasuriya, co-founder and Vice-President of Creative Development, on the company's first original IP, details of which will be announced at a later date.
About Ready At Dawn Studios LLC
Founded in 2003, Ready At Dawn Studios LLC is a creator of cutting-edge console video-games based in Santa Ana, California. In 2006, Ready At Dawn Studios® became an instant sensation by releasing the #1 selling award-winning BAFTA nominated PSP® title "Daxter®". The game has since become part of the exclusive "Greatest Hits" collection and continues to be one of the platform's top sellers over a year after its release. Ready At Dawn Studios® is currently putting the finishing touches to the most anticipated PSP® game of 2007 "God of War®: Chains of Olympus". More information about the company can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at www.readyatdawn.com.
"Ready At Dawn®" and "Ready At Dawn Studios®" are registered trademarks of Ready At Dawn Studios LLC. All rights reserved. "Crash Bandicoot®" is a property of Universal Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. "Jak & Daxter®", "Daxter®", "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune™" and "God of War®: Chains of Olympus" are property of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

We specifically didn't want[Uncharted: Drake's Fortune] to be a launch title... We wanted time to really understand the hardware.

Aside: I played Uncharted at E3. I really liked the title, but Naughty Dog, PLEASE change how enemies are killed. In the demo I played, if you shoot someone a couple of times, they died. If you punched them a couple of times, they died. That makes no sense! Add a finishing moved like a neck snapping or something.
Not for Launch [Games Radar]

Jason Rubin used to make video games. You may have heard of them, one was Crash Bandicoot, another was Jak & Daxter. Or maybe you know him as the founder of developer Naughty Dog. Or perhaps as the guy, who in his last public speech to the industry blamed publishers for weakening the industry by failing to appreciate and promote talent.

Shortly after that DICE Summit speech Rubin bid a polite adieu to video games and took a sort of vacation. But it wasn't long until he was back into the creative side of things. After starting up and then selling Flecktor.com, Rubin decided it was about time to turn an idea he's had for about ten years into a comic book.

Iron and the Maiden makes its official debut at Comic-Con today in San Diego. Rubin took a few minutes on his way to the Aspen booth on the show floor to talk about his life post video games.

Most of it, it seems, has been consumed by Iron and the Maiden. The new book, which will run as a four comic mini-series totaling 128 pages, had lengthy pre-production work that make it a prime target, perhaps not accidentally, to be turned into both a video game and a movie.

"It has all of the hooks in to make a great game," Rubin said. "You learn, as you make video games, that there are certain things that make it easier to turn something into a video game. I didn't do it on purpose, but it has all of those hooks in there."

Rubin said he would be delighted if the mini-series were picked up to become something other than a comic. He said that what he loves doing is creating original worlds, IPs, and his hope is that they can have a life outside the medium in which they were created.

"I view comic books as a stepping stone to other places, games could be one of those places," he said "But I'm not doing this to get back into games, I do it to create new intellectual properties."

"In the video game world I get to make a new IP every four or five years. My theory is to do that in the comic book world where you can do multiple IPs if you want to. If it's a good comic book than you can try to do other things with it. It's a better way to develop a world.

"This gives me a way to stay in the entertainment world and not have to commit millions of dollars and the time you need to commit to one (video game) title."

Rubin said he has been in talks with people about both the possibility of a video game and a movie based on his new comic, but wouldn't say which developers. He did say that a Naughty Dog created Iron and the Maiden game was unlikely.

"I would love to work with the Naughty Dog guys, they are absolutely brilliant, but I think structurally that's not going to happen," he said. "I'd have to go through Sony. It would be a very difficult thing to do."

Rubin has been showing off his latest work to his buddies in the game industry and while they're impressed with the end result they still seem confused about why he decided to make his idea into a comic.

"Some people think that if you were born a game developer, you'll die one."

But for Rubin it's more about the story then the medium. He says he just wants these worlds he creates to spread.

"I made this to be the best comic book it could be, but I would be disappointed if it didn't go beyond that."

In addition to allusions to Gears' brand of "pop and stop" shooting, Uncharted features plenty of platforming. Rock climbing, jumping, rope swinging—much of it controls very well. Occasionally, some ledge traversing feels off or unpolished, but its more likely a product of the game's more organic level design. You won't see block by block levels a la Tomb Raider.

In fact, some levels are so realistic in their design, you might find yourself looking for your next destination with the game's look button (R2). I found myself missing some of the game's hints, such as gates or more heavily lit portions of the map and relying on the helpful look button.

The game has virtually no HUD, relying on other cues, some context sensitive, to replace a traditional HUD. When you take damage, you'll see the screen become desaturated. Despite the protagonist's real world nature, he can magically recover from bullet wounds simply by resting and recharging his imaginary, invisible shields, a la Halo. The only on-screen clutter you'll normally see is your ammunition supply. It's very clean and lends itself to a more cinematic approach.

The action controls well, along with some unique uses of the SIXAXIS. As you may have seen, traversing things like fallen logs will require some balance, aided by the PS3 controller. Throwing grenades, for instance, requires one to aim the weapons throwing arc by tilting the SIXAXIS forward or backward. Some camera issues aside, it works rather well.

At this point, the game feels like a solid blend of action, platforming and puzzle solving. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is very easy on the eyes and may wind up being a graphical showcase for the system. A few minor quibbles about camera control aside, it looks like the game is shaping up to be very solid when it's released for the PS3 this November.

The game was to allegedly feature song-themed levels but never got off the ground due to Metallica's attempts at overreaching creative control. Bummer. I'd have loved to romp through a Cliff Burton memorial level or run from some Creeping Death.

Hell, it couldn't have been worse than Crüe Ball. Michael McWhertor

Exclusive: Rubin Talks Naughty Dog's Metallica Game [Game Set Watch]

Kikizo spoke with Naughty Dog design lead Richard Lemarchand in an effort to squeeze out more details on the PLAYSTATION 3 exclusive, including talk about SIXAXIS support, trophies for Home and the typical PS3 developer Cell lovefest. Oh, nice new screens, too!

This is looking a lot like some of that "promise" I paid for. "TBA Date" can't come soon enough. Michael McWhertor

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Interview [Kikizo]

Game Informer's April Cover Story Revealed! [Game Informer]

Little in the way of details were revealed for Uncharted since May of last year, but we know it features a baseball-jersey clad protagonist who looks more "I'm a Mac" than "I'm a PC" running through the jungle, one rich with foliage and bloom lighting. The trailer for the game promises great animation, awesome platforming, and a dash of stealth. The newly revealed name hints at a quest to reclaim Sir Francis Drake's lost silver fortune from a Caribbean island.

Other fun trademarks uncovered by user gofreak were the EyeToy for PLAYSTATION 3 (aka "EYE3") logo and a mysterious registration and logo for "beats." which looks to be an SCEE submission for distributing music and videos over a network. Michael McWhertor

Sony trademark snooping (ND's game..?) [NeoGAF]

I'll admit that I might have drank away most of my impressions from the Sony press conference, but one game that did manage to wake me up after watching Ridge Racer emulated on the PSP was Naughty Dog's untitled PS3 project. Sporting a refreshing look, beautiful animation and lighting, the still moniker-less third person action adventure title looked hot—without a space marine in sight, to boot.

Also refreshing, Naughty Dog designer Evan Wells perspective on next-gen games and where his dev house stands:

Looking at the landscape of next-generation games being developed it was clear that there were a gluttony of titles that featured bald, buff space marines wearing body armor and fighting aliens. Fortunately for us, we didn't have much interest in heading in that direction and we felt that we could work in a style that really excited us and stand out from the crowd at the same time.

Sweet. The more guys with hair on the PS3, the better. Read the full Q&A at IGN for more. MICHAEL MCWHERTOR

Q&A: Naughty Dog's PS3 Project

Ha ha! Plucking his title like a tick from the retarded skull of the smelliest metal head doofus who ever lived, ex-Naughty-Dog Jason Rubin has announced on his — ha ha ha! — MySpace page that his next game will be called Iron and the Maiden.

After 20 years at Naughty Dog I've decided to try something new. "Iron and the Maiden" will be my first solo project.

It isn't "Crash Bandicoot", and it isn't "Jak and Daxter".

This is something new. Raw, Uncensored, Uncut.

It's been in the back of my head for years looking to get out, and I've assembled an incredible team to bring it to fruition.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! *sniff* No, we're sorry, really, please excuse us. *snicker* It sounds like a really great game, Jason! *chortle* METAL!

Iron And The Maiden [Jason Rubin's MySpace]