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How To Do A Red Carpet Right: Add Video Games
Attention, Joan Rivers. Heads up to the E! Network. Pay attention, producers of the upcoming Academy Awards pre-show. I am about to show you how to do a Red Carpet right. Because everything is better with video games. Last week, I consented to perform what I believe is the lowest act of journalism practiced in…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 22, 2010 -
Reviews
Link ‘N Launch Micro-Review: How About ‘Pikmin Rockets’ Or ‘Better Than Bioshock Hacking’?
The latest Nintendo-published downloadable game for the DS may be one of the worst-named Nintendo games of all time. It’s also another proof that top Nintendo-affiliated developers could school a lot of iPhone game creators. Link ‘N Launch is a DSiWare game from Intelligent Systems, the development studio behind such Nintendo-published greats as Advance Wars,…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 20, 2010 -
Borderlands Creator Wanted Me To Pick A Card, Any Card
Randy Pitchford, head of Gearbox Software, makes games and performs magic. On the red carpet for the awards out here at DICE, I asked Pitchford to show me a trick. He happened to have a deck of cards. Of course!
By Stephen Totilo Published February 19, 2010 -
My Silliest Interview Of The Week
I worked the red carpet for the Interactive Achievement Awards yesterday, doing my best not to ask the gaming luminaries who walked by what they were wearing. Silly mini-interviews can happen at these things. Such as this one: David Adams and Tim Campbell of Vigil Games walked up to me. Their studio made Darksiders. I’m…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 19, 2010 -
OnLive Resurfaces: Crysis On An iPhone, Data Centers Located
There’s still no official release date yet, but this week at the DICE Summit, the head of the possible video game revolution On Live was offering more proof that his service is coming together. OnLive CEO Steve Perlman gave attendees at this gaming conference a look at the all-streaming gaming service in action, running multiple…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 19, 2010 -
EA’s Five Tips For The Next Three Years, If You Want To Make Games And Money
Times are tough in gaming these days, for the people making what we play. That’s a common theme at the DICE Summit, as studio shutdowns and declining sales have darkened the mood here. But EA today offered some survival tips. Recognize the stakes, before you read on. The EA man talking this morning at DICE,…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 19, 2010 -
Jokes About Video Games, Not For The Kids
For the last few years, comedian Jay Mohr has hosted the Interactive Achievement Awards and kicked the show off with a not-for-kids, profane half hour of jokes about the year in gaming. Here are some of the cleaner ones. Note that one of Mohr’s favorite themes is the lack of diversity in the crowd of…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 19, 2010 -
Next Assassin’s Creed Will Have Full Campaign, “Justified” Multiplayer
On the red carpet for the Interactive Achievement Awards here at the DICE convention yesterday, two of the top creators of the Assassin’s Creed series provided a little better sense of what the series’ surprise next installment will be like. Ubisoft creative director Patrice Desilets and series lead writer Corey May were both there to…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 19, 2010 -
Alan Wake Used To Be An Open-World Game
In another sign that maybe it’s time for developers to stop aggressively chasing the Grand Theft Auto style of game, Matias Myllyrinne, managing director of Remedy Entertainment, revealed today this his team’s game, Alan Wake, used to be, mistakenly, open-world. The developer was sharing the story here at the DICE gaming conference of the several-year…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 18, 2010 -
Activision Chief Regrets Not Making Guitar Hero With Harmonix
In 2006, Activision bought Red Octane, publisher of Guitar Hero, resulting in series developer Harmonix launching the rival game Rock Band and starting one of the uglier public feuds in gaming. Today, Activision’s CEO said shunning Harmonix was a mistake. “When we were buying Guitar Hero, or buying Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero,…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 18, 2010 -
Bobby Kotick, Warm and Fuzzy, Defends Notorious No-Fun Statements
Bobby Kotick, head of Activision, thought he was Luke, not Vader. And he didn’t mean that thing about wanting to make game-making no fun. “I don’t know how this happened, but all my life I was the rebel flying the Millennium Falcon or the X-Wing fighter and suddenly I wake up and I’m on board…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 18, 2010 -
Alan Wake Preview: The First Full Episode
The first two words of Alan Wake are “Stephen King.” The next big Xbox 360 exclusive game is an interactive thriller played in the shadows of America’s Pacific Northwest. I recently played the game’s impressive first full “episode.” Remedy Entertainment’s May-dated game comes on a disc but is divided into episodes. These chapters are sometimes…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 18, 2010 -
Thank Kingdom Hearts For Epic Mickey
No, the head of Disney’s gaming division wasn’t taking the bait and announcing Kingdom Hearts 3 here at the annual DICE convention near Las Vegas. But he did tell Kotaku that franchise paved the way for another big Disney game. “It forced us to challenge assumptions,” Disney’s game studio chief Graham Hopper said of the…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 18, 2010 -
Bioshock: The Toys
If people were apprehensive about Bioshock sequels, how about Bioshock statues/toys/figures? For true believers and skeptics, here are some pics and a video I shot at Toy Fair 2010 of NECA’s Bioshock line. Some of the Big Daddys are out. Some are coming soon. The hairy hand at the end of the video is a…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 17, 2010 -
Barbie Doll Destroyer Will Wright Visits Toy Fair, Hints Toy Plans
Will Wright was on a recon mission on Tuesday in New York City. On a snowy day on Manhattan’s West Side, one of history’s top game developers was at his first Toy Fair, his wheels turning. Since April of last year, Wright has been in a new phase of his life. The recent era of…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 17, 2010
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