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Hey, What’s That on Owen’s Grandpa’s Bookshelf …
To: Luke From: Owen Re: Same Desk, Different Apartment Funny, you know, I’ve got that same thing in six parts on Betamax. Well, it was released under a different title. Some highlights from this weekend: GDC Design Challenge: A Game About Gettin’ Lucky Study Says Playing Shooters Improves Vision Leaked Footage Gives a Shaky Look…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Week in Games: Is This April Fool’s?
Guitar Hero: Metallica is this week’s big drop, coming out today. Anyone else find it funny Duke Nukem Trilogy is out on April Fool’s? Especially when you consider its E3 trailer. After Lars and Duke, I’m thinking Gardening Mama. Not sure what the hell “Burger Island” is. Maybe if they made “Bacon Island” I’d buy…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Four New Screens for Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings
Ordinarily I’d look at these Wii screenshots and think, it doesn’t look like much (get those spiders!) but it’ll probably look great on the core consoles. Then I remember it’s not being made for them. Coupled with the gameplay footage – I know this is a third person action game, but it looks like it…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Now, the Periodic Table of Controllers
So there was the Periodic Table of Game Characters, and that spawned numerous imitators and spinoffs. Now we’ve graduated to the Periodic Table of Controllers: Console peripherals on top, handheld controls at the bottom. Given my admittedly limited understanding of the actual periodic table, this arrangement would make the Sega Saturn the most reactive controller,…
By Owen Good -
UncategorizedYouTube Fan Tops Halo Song Spoof
Couple weeks back, Jude Kelley and Dan Amrich (he of OXM) recorded “Halo (All I Play-Oh),” a virtuoso spoof of “Snow (Hey-Oh)” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now someone’s matched the lyrics to footage. That’s a ton of work, considering Usethefork (the YouTuber who created this) had no video output and was setting up…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Kick Ass with Shoebox Fight Sticks
A $300 tournament edition fightstick on the gray market? Screw that. Reader Rotundo made one for himself and another for his friends out of $40 in spare parts and two shoeboxes. Oh, and one’s wireless. He picked up a couple of Happ joysticks and 14 buttons for $35, then set about taking apart some Xbox…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
iPhone Fart Apps Bring Out the Lawyer-Mans
With enough chutzpah to make a patent troll wolf-whistle, a Florida company has claimed the phrase “pull my finger” – used by a competing iPhone fart app, of course – infringes on its intellectual property. The two sides, Air-O-Matic, maker of “Pull My Finger,” and InfoMedia, developer of iFart are in negotiations to settle the…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Waiting on That Marvel MMO? Maybe It Gets Here in 2012
The tentative release date for the Marvel Comics MMO seems to be timed with the release of the Captain America and Avengers movies. That, or the end of the world according to the Mayan Calendar. Simon Phillips, who is Marvel’s president of worldwide consumer products, floated 2012 as a possible date to MTV’s Splash Page…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
GDC Design Challenge: A Game About Gettin’ Lucky
Picking outfits, buying condoms, setting mood music – the sixth annual design challenge contest at GDC tasked panelists with thinking up a game about “your first time.” What didn’t win? “Zack & Miri Make a Portal.” The Game Design Challenge, a staple of the conference, brings in top designers to grapple with a quirky challenge…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Study Says Playing Shooters Improves Vision
How’s your “contrast sensitivity”? What’s that? Well it helps you see in the dark, and read, and it degrades in old age. But a study found it improves in gamers who play shooters. The research, reported in the latest edition of Nature Neuroscience, took a very deep look at how games affect vision. The results…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Games Get Huzzah in Parliament
MP Edward Vaizey last week introduced a motion recognizing (sigh, recognising) games recently honored (sigh, honoured) by BAFTA. He also used the motion to decry “the complete lack of support from Government” of the industry. Fable II (Lionhead Studios), Race Driver: GRID (Codemasters) and LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule) were all developed at UK studios, and all…
By Owen Good -
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Leaked Footage Gives a Shaky Look at Mass Effect 2
This 2 minute clip came from a Bioware presentation at GDC about the development of Mass Effect 2. The gameplay is at a very, very pre-alpha stage. No spoilers per se, and the shakycam makes it hard to take in any visual differences. If you listen closely you might be able to piece together one…
By Owen Good