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The Music Game Is Dead (Long Live The Music Game?)
There once was a time when music games were the biggest – and in some cases best – thing to happen to the video game industry. Oh, how those times have changed. Gamasutra’s chart fiend Matt Matthews has got hold of the revenue generated by the sale of music games over the past three years,…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 20, 2010 -
You Know What, Ian Is A Cool Name For A Horse
The upcoming Legend of Zelda game on the Wii will make use of a fair bit of motion control. Which should be fun, but there are perils in that amount of waggle, as seen in this cautionary tale. It’s funny, I almost always give my characters stupid names when I’m given the chance, but in…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
Leaving Lord Of The Rings 4 Dead
As someone who loves zombies almost as much as I love Lord of the Rings, this is certainly something: it’s a Left 4 Dead map made to look like the fortress of Helm’s Deep. It’s not exactly canon for either franchise, I’ll grant you that. The music and ramparts don’t exactly scream “zombie infested urban…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
Can Games “Hook” You Like Movies Can?
In movies, there’s a simple rule: if you haven’t hooked the audience by the time the film’s ten minutes in, you’ve lost them. But how can this work for video games? A great piece over on Gamasutra by Leanne C. Taylor offers some ideas, showing how some of the industry’s most successful games have used…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
Assassin’s Creed Meets The Matrix With Breathtaking Results
Most glitches, serious ones at least, will ruin a game. This one, encountered during a site’s playthrough of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, is the opposite of ruined. Throwing the player into the sky, where for the first time in the series’ history, they’ve actually gotten a good look at an entire city, is so glorious it…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
Why GameStop Wants Your Used Games So Bad
It’s common knowledge that GameStop is reliant on the used game trade to stay afloat, but if you ever needed hard numbers to put it in perspective, here you go. Releasing its latest quarterly financial results, the global games mega-retailer has revealed that the sale of pre-owned games and hardware accounted for 47.4% of the…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
There’s More Waggle Here Than One Man Can Handle
On the left of your screen, Sports Champions for the PlayStation Move. On the right, Dance Central for Kinect. And in the middle? One man trying to play both games at the same time The PlayStation Move has many uses, but glowstick? That’s a new one He seems a bit crap at both Sports Champions…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
The PlayStation Portable “Was Doomed” From Launch
Sony’s PlayStation Portable, while hardly a failure, hasn’t really caught on the way most were expecting it to around the time of its launch back in 2004. Why? Because, as one developer says, it was “doomed”. “It was doomed from the very get-go”, says Ready At Dawn’s Ru Weerasuriya. “There are some things which aren’t…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
Your First (Brief) Look At Kinect’s Panzer Dragoon
Project Draco is basically Panzer Dragoon for the Xbox 360’s Kinect. It’s even made by the same guy. First revealed at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, though, it’s only today we get our first proper look at the game. These two screenshots, courtesy of Japanase game site Famitsu, show that, yeah. You ride dragons! Project…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
ReviewsReview: Guwange Is Bullet Heaven
Guwange is a scrolling shooter that was first released in Japan all the way back in 1999. It’s now being re-released on the Xbox 360, and it’s – pardon the pun – one hell of a time. Despite being more well-known in the West for games like DonPachi and Deathsmiles, Guwange is one of Cave’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 19, 2010 -
Vaporware Legend Returns From The Dead
Wardevil, a game five years in development that was reportedly cancelled last month, is for some reason now being brought back from the dead and given a new name. British creators Ignition have decided that, rather than develop the game in-house, it will now be built via a combination of local and outsourced talent, and…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
Dead Space, Figure, Doopedy-Do
Toy company NECA has released the first official shot of their upcoming figure based on the upcoming Dead Space 2. Seeing hero Isaac in colour and in such clear detail for the first time makes me realise he looks…familiar. He looks like he did in the first game, sure, but look down. Past the helmet,…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
They Really Need To Stop Making These Mega Man Online Trailers
Why? Because all it makes us want is a Mega Man movie, not some side-scrolling online game. These teaser trailers for the Korean online game Rockman Online (or Mega Man Online) are getting better and better, turning the cute platformers into dark, violent, exciting affairs. Which makes it all the more disappointing when you see…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
How Long Until Kinect Turns Into Skynet?
Why play games on Kinect when you can hook it up to a robot, teach it how to learn from its surroundings then take your orders with the wave of an arm? Philipp Robbel, a student at MIT’s Personal Robotics Group, has done just that, connecting Microsoft’s motion-sensing peripheral to a small robot (a hacked…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
Uh, Where’s Fable III On PC?
It’s a valid question. After all, the Xbox 360 version is out, while the PC version is not, and does not even have a release date. Well, according to Lionhead, it’s still…in development, the team behind the series saying “Fable 3 PC Version is still in development here at Lionhead so PC GAMERS don’t panic.…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
Great Shot Kid, That Was One In A Million
There are one-in-a-million kills, and then there are one-in-a-gazillion-million-billion kills. Or, in this case, suicides. Reader Adam sends us this clip of a game of Halo: Reach, in which he fires off a shot that misses its target. He does, however, manage to hit first the ground and then a distant mountain, which results in…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
The “Future Of Video Games” Goes On Sale Tomorrow
OnLive, the streaming service that has the potential to change forever the way we play (and purchase) video games, will begin selling its small TV “console” tomorrow. And it’s got a rather attractive price-point to go along with it. The small unit, which plugs into your internet connection and then into your TV – bringing…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010 -
ReviewsReview: Hoard Will Set Your Friendships On Fire
With so many multiplayer experiences these days revolving around perks and persistent characters, it’s nice to see a game that remembers the key to good competitive gaming is often just to keep things simple. Hoard is a party game that creates small boardgame-like maps, puts players in control of dragons then has them competing to…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 18, 2010
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