Michael McWhertor

Noby Noby Boy Is Coming To The iPhone

Like his previous creation, Katamari Damacy, Keita Takahashi‘s Noby Noby Boy is bound for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The developer showed a working demo of the game today. The version we saw appeared to be touchscreen controlled, apparently from a top-down perspective and, frankly, not very clear, as the speaker showed the iPhone game…

Little Giant Robots End Japan’s PS3 Software Streak

For the past three weeks, PlayStation 3 software has topped the charts. But this week, the Nintendo DS strikes back, kicking previous bestseller Musou Orochi Z out of the top spot. This week’s winner? It’s Super Robot Taisen K, Banpresto’s robot battle-gasm for the DS, moving 117,000 copies last week. The Shoko Nakagawa television commercial…

The Hideo Kojima GDC 09 Keynote Liveblog

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima is taking the stage at this year’s Game Developers Conference to discuss all things creative in his talk “Solid Game Design: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible.” We’ll be there. We’ll be liveblogging Kojima’s talk, which we expect to focus a little more on the development of Metal Gear throughout the…

Modern Warfare 2 Dated For Nov. 10 In First Trailer

Activision and Infinity Ward capped off tonight’s Game Developers Conference Awards with the first trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Tim Schafer described it as the complete opposite of baby pictures. The trailer starts with the Infinity Ward logo, with background noise on a green waveform turning into a series of human shaped…

Game Developers Choice Awards Super Liveblog Of Waiting For Tim Schafer Jokes

The Game Developers Choice Awards are about to kick off, with Megan Scavio and Simon Carless warming up the crowd for a night full of Tim Schafer jokes. Should be a smashing time. While neither is as funny as Tim Schafer, we appreciate all their hard work in making GDC and the GDC Awards show…

IGF Awards Semi-liveblog Challenge

The Independent Games Festival is underway, giving the indie game developers of the world a chance to accept awards in t-shirts, possibly recently washed. Let’s list the winners! Since I’m doing it on an iPhone, it should be interesting. The Digipen students walk away with first kudos for Tag: the Power of Paint. Possibly the…

Come Touch Hideo Kojima At San Francisco’s Apple Store

The man behind Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders is making a more public appearance at GDC this week, giving San Fraciscoans the chance to meet Hideo Kojima in person. Kojima will be following up his GDC keynote on Thursday with an appearance at the San Francisco Apple Store on Friday for “a…

Activision Moves In To Home With ‘Backstage With Guitar Hero’

PlayStation Home has a new tenant in Activision. The publisher is bringing the Guitar Hero franchise to the halls of Home with “Backstage With Guitar Hero,” a space for fans of the ultra-popular rhythm game. While the majority of Home will be a hang out space where one can do the Running Man with friends…

Incredibly Awkward Moments From GDC: When East Meets West Meets Fallout

Pro tip: when two Japanese video game designers are your co-panelists, mind your references to the atomic bombing of Japan. It makes talking about future game development… weird. Unfortunately, Fallout 3 designer Emil Pagliarulo from Bethesda Softworks unintentionally referenced that very subject during today’s “Evolving Game Design: Today and Tomorrow, Eastern and Western Game Design”…

Nintendo Plans “Nintendo DSi Enhanced” Game Cards With DSi-Only Features, DSi-Only Games

Masato Kuwahara, project leader of the Nintendo DSi Hardware group, responsible for the development of the new Nintendo handheld, says that the company is planning “Nintendo DSi enhanced game cards,” offering DSi hardware-specific game features. That means games that play on both the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DSi, but have features that can’t be…

Team ICO’s Fumito Ueda Tries To Describe His New Game

At today’s Evolving Game Design panel, featuring Emil Pagliarulo of Bethesda Softworks, Goichi Suda of Grasshopper Manufacture and Fumito Ueda of Sony, the creative lead of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus discussed his future. It was actually Suda who asked the question on everybody’s mind “Can you tell us about the new games you’re…

Hands On With Nintendo DSiWare

The American launch of the Nintendo DSi brings with it the introduction of the downloadable DSiWare service, Nintendo’s handheld foray into digital distribution for games and applications. We previewed four of the initial U.S.-bound offerings. The Japanese DSiWare service is already going strong in Japan, with a few dozen games and a handful of non-games…

Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata GDC Keynote Liveblog Party

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will get his keynote on at the 2009 Game Developers Conference today, waxing behind his LCD screen lectern about “Discovering New Development Opportunities.” Oh, yes, we’re excited too. According to the official description of the talk, Iwata will focus on Wii and Nintendo DS development, as well as “Nintendo’s role in…

Wii Punch-Out!! Has Another Control Scheme: Your Feet

Nintendo’s European arm leaks one more previously unannounced Punch-Out!! features, noting that the Wii remake of the NES classic will offer Wii Balance Board support for a third control scheme. Seems Little Mac has a fitness ultimatum of his own to issue, as Nintendo of Italy’s press release brings first word of Balance Board support,…

Be Good, Be Evil In inFamous

We played inFamous at Sony’s GDC PlayStation Lounge today, giving us our first hands-on with the PlayStation 3 exclusive from Sucker Punch and our first look at the game’s newly revealed karma system. It’s pretty straightforward and not exactly a trailblazing concept—similar mechanisms have been fully explored in popular games like Star Wars: Knights of…

Titmouse Nabs Heavy Metal For Sexy Sci-Fi Adventures

Not enough nubile warrior princesses/sexy robots in your video games? Since the answer to that is obviously “Yes,” you’re clearly excited about Titmouse Games new arrangement to create games based on Heavy Metal magazine fiction. The recently announced development studio, already hard at work on Seven Haunted Seas, has a serious catalog of fantasy and…

First Details On Star Trek: DAC

We can tell you what Paramount and Bad Robot‘s new downloadable Star Trek game for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network is—it’s a top-down, space combat arcade title—but we can’t tell you what that “DAC” means. Star Trek: DAC is “focused on fun, not a retelling of the story” of JJ Abram’s upcoming Star Trek reboot,…

OnLive Makes PC Upgrades Extinct, Lets You Play Crysis On Your TV

You may never buy a new video card ever again. Actually, the only PC gaming hardware you might ever need will cost you less than a Wii, should OnLive’s potential live up to its promise. OnLive is a new video games on demand service that may just change the way you play PC games. The…

First Peek At Madden NFL 10 Is Full Of Big Ben

EA Sports meister Peter Moore has a Madden challenge for you. What game improvements can you detect in the first screen shot from Madden NFL 10? If you don’t know, the answer is forthcoming. Mr. Moore proudly touts that this year’s edition of the two-decade-old footballer is hitting the “real sweet spot of development for…

Wii Rock Band Has Eminence Front Put On It

Wii owners, your weekly, downloadable Rock Band music library catch up is here and it’s full of The Who. Well, the press release is here—you’ll have to wait ’til Tuesday for all this Who. The eight tracks from The Who, which include “Eminence Front,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Who Are You,” join four more bonus…