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Xbox Live Arcade Games Will Soon Offer Double The Gamerscore
Maybe it’s due to the slumping sales of Xbox Live Arcade games that game developers have been complaining about. Or maybe we can call it Gamerscore inflation. Or is Microsoft just being generous? Whatever the case, XBLA games will be able to offer 400 Gamerscore points instead of 200, starting in April and will be…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2012 -
I Don’t Care for Modern Warfare 3 Much, But I’d Play These Two New Maps
I avoid Modern Warfare multiplayer, because it’s no fun to lose all the time. (I’ve got no time to practice!) But you might be having fun—and I might finally have the will to join you, thanks to a twist in two of the three new maps coming to the Xbox 360 in the coming days.…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2012 -
A Normal Life, An Extraordinary Death and the Video Game That Wasn’t Meant to Be
In late 2003, a friendly, attractive and perfectly normal 38-year-old woman named Joyce Vincent died in her London flat. She was in the midst of wrapping Christmas presents. No one knew that Joyce Vincent died that day. Not right away. Not for a while. Joyce’s remains were eventually discovered when building officials entered her apartment…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2012 -
These Guys Tied Game Controllers To Their Butts, For a Good Reason
Doug Wilson makes unusual games, like this one that you have to play on all fours, with a PlayStation Move controller tethered to your rear end. It’s called Dog the Wag It’s goofy. It’s not quite his best game, though it might be his wackiest. His best game is probably the graphics-less Johann Sebastian Joust,…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 9, 2012 -
GDC Notebook: Day 4: How Many Times Will They Play The Same Game?
The Game Developers Conference is nearly done. And what have I learned? On day 4 I learned that the Valve console, should it ever exist won’t be out soon. So said Valve, proving that a little shoe-leather-burning can get you the answers you need. Thank goodness for the weeks when just about anyone who makes…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 9, 2012 -
Valve Delays Counter-Strike GO To Summer
You’re going to have to wait a tad longer for the next Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be a summer game, instead of a spring game, Valve’s Doug Lombardi told me today. The game is still coming to Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac, but Valve needed a little more time to get it to…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 8, 2012 -
Shooting Down Rumors, Valve Says They’re Not Making a Game Console Any Time Soon
Delay those dreams of a Steam Box competing with a PlayStation, Xbox or Wii. Valve Software is not making a gaming console in the near future and that the various rumors swirling around don’t add up to them making their own set-top box. “We’re prepping the Steam Big Picture Mode UI and getting ready to…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 8, 2012 -
How To Make Terrific Video Game Tree. A Video Demonstration
If you want to make trees in video games, you can grab a program called SpeedTree and get to growing, pruning and playing god. This is what game developers do, including apparently the makers of Batman: Arkham City, whose game had trees I forgot about. This is the kind of tech they’re showing at the…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 8, 2012 -
Please Let This Be The Thing That Gives Us Great Video Game Clothing And Hair
Clothes often look horrible in video games. People look like they have their suits and dresses painted on their bodies. Or their capes clip right through their arms. Terrible. And hair… long hair almost never works. So you get all these games that won’t let you give your character long hair. Thank goodness we’ve got…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 8, 2012 -
GDC Notebook: Day 3: The Death of Consoles And/Or Their Rebirth
By Wednesday, the Game Developers Conference is really happening. It ramps up slowly every year. You get your mobile games panels and your social gaming talks on Monday and Tuesday. Indie developers dream and inspire for crowds of their peers. Then comes Wednesday and things get smashingly busy. Big-name game developers start pulling in crowds.…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 8, 2012 -
How Do You Make a Super Mario Game At a Time of National Tragedy?
Most of Koichi Hayashida’s talk at the Game Developers Conference today about making the most recent Super Mario game for Nintendo was silly. Some of it was even a joke. Until he got to the earthquake. March 11, 2011. Japan’s worst natural disaster in ages. He was in the fifth floor of a building in…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 7, 2012 -
GDC Notebook: Day 2: Al Gore in Deadwood, Super Mario What?
A second day of the Game Developers Conference ended sometime in the blurry evening several hours ago. The day had started pure of heart for me—a panel of game developers lobbying for the creation of romantic video games—and ended with the bang of corporate spectacles for massive and/or noisy new games. In the middle of…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 7, 2012 -
Peter Molyneux Is Leaving Lionhead Studios and Microsoft, Will Finish Kinect Fable
Peter Molyneux, one of the most respected video game developers in the world and one of the top creative minds on the Xbox team, is leaving Microsoft and Lionhead Studios, Kotaku has learned. “It is with mixed emotions that I made the decision to leave Microsoft and Lionhead Studios, the company that I co-founded in…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 7, 2012 -
‘Make Love Games, Not War Games,’ Says Former First-Person Shooter Creator
Enough with the war video games, says Marin Hollis, former chief creator of the great first-person shooter GoldenEye and now one of the ambitious handful of people at the Digital Romance Lab. The Lab is a group of game creators, academics and other thinkers and tinkerers who believe that it’s time for video games about…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 6, 2012 -
GDC Notebook: Day 1: The PS4, Far Cry 3 and the Accidental Movie Star
A few of us are in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference this year. Thousands of people who make video games show up to this thing. Here are some observations and personal follies from Day 1… Just like last year, smack in the middle of the Moscone Center complex where they’re staging GDC, Apple…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 6, 2012 -
Jesus Vs. Dinosaurs is An Amazing Video Game About Cars (Of Course)
Did God make all life on Earth? Or did life on Earth evolve? That debate is not settled in Jesus Vs. Dinosaurs, unfortunately. It is true: a game that pits one player as the creator of cars made out of dinosaur parts against another player who makes cars out of Jesus parts (huh??) settles nothing.…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 6, 2012 -
Love Is Still One of the Prettiest Video Games, But Now It’s More Violent
“Have you met Eskil Steenberg?” I ask this question a lot when I go to the Game Developer’s Conference, an annual gathering of more than 15,000 game developers here in San Francisco. You’ve got to meet Eskil, I tell my fellow reporters. The guy is amazing. “You need to.” That’s usually what I say next.…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 6, 2012 -
Iran Overturns Game Developer’s Death Sentence
There is new hope for the survival of an American sentenced to death in Iran for spying today, as Iran has overturned the death sentence for Amir Hekmati. Judges have said the case was “not complete”, according to a BBC report and have ordered a retrial. “There were objections to the verdict by the Supreme…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 5, 2012 -
Is This a Photo of Valve’s Rumored Console, Or At Least a Prototype?
Less than 24 hours since the website The Verge reported that Valve is working on a video game console, we’ve got what could be a photo of a prototype unit. The image comes from the Twitter feed of Valve employee Greg Coomer. It was Tweeted on November 2, with the caption: “Built this tiny PC.…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 3, 2012
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