SCOTT MCCLOUD NAILED IT: GAMESRADAR PITS AVATAR VS. AVATAR
Though the results are a bit stacked, with some really curious selections of particular character creations (and the most horrifying Home ‘Sarah Palin’ you’ll ever see), GamesRadar’s Avatar Showdown has pitted the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3’s personalization features against each other to interesting results.
Not only does the feature near-scientifically prove the theory of the Uncanny Valley, it also perfectly highlights Scott McCloud’s point in Understanding Comics about the universality of cartoon imagery.
Microsoft did very well to find a happy medium between the Miis (which Nintendo itself also did well in allowing more flexibility) and Sony’s honestly fantastically misjudged Home models (now that it’s widely available, I basically dare you to create an avatar which you can comfortably look at and say “that’s me!” — send us comparison shots if you think you’ve succeeded).
There’ve been steps in the right direction on the first two parts (Mii masks in Animal Crossing, avatar support in Xbox 360 games), but obviously the killer app would be the extensibility of the former with the social networking of the latter.
All-Console Avatar Showdown [GamesRadar] [bonus links here and here to decent celebrity 360 avatars]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
EXTRA HYPER KORG DS-10 PERFORMANCE
Still riding high on Jetdaisuke’s infectious Korg DS-10 saiko-fever, I was happy to see this live performance from October’s EXTRA Hyper Game Music Event via GameSetWatch, which brought together Ridge Racer composer Nobuyoshi Sano, all-star Final Fantasy rock band The Black Mages member Michio Okamiya, and Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda for an all-Korg techno blowout (skip to 5:20 to see what it looks like to get crazy down and dirty with a DS).
GameSetWatch correspondent Jeriaska talked with the three after the show where they talked about how the software came together and how the Chemical Brothers inspired Sano’s soundtrack for PS2 fantasy RPG Drakengard (!).
GameSetInterview: Korg DS Trio Talk App Creation, EXTRA Concert [GameSetWatch]
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THE XBOX 360 SNOW GLOBE
Well, this is certainly cute: making good on its promise of providing a New Xbox Experience, Microsoft has got into the spirit with an embedded shakable snow-globe that populates itself with your friends’ avatars. Entirely superfluous but well integrated, it’s just one more step on the path to make the console “the place you and your friends live.”
Stir your friends up in the Xbox LIVE Snow Globe [Major Nelson]
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THE BEHEMOTH TALK CASTLE CRASHERS BALANCE, LADIES
Before descending into punch-drunk madness of its own on the merits of pooping animals in games, Gamasutra’s recent interview with Offworld favorite The Behemoth — makers of sidescrolling shooter Alien Hominid and the recent Xbox Live Arcade retro-inspired beat em up Castle Crashers — covers some interesting ground on balance issues and the “gigantic nightmare” of stat tracking beneath Crashers‘ simple exterior, and their continued focus on consoles versus PC portals.
But, even better, artist Dan Paladin drops a metaphor for the Mythical Man-Month so succinct and apt that I’m tempted to try and get it redubbed Paladin’s Law:
A lot of people say, “Oh, one guy was drawing, and one guy was coding, so that’s why it took so long.” But that’s really not true. You can have nine ladies, but it’s not going to take them one month to have the baby.
Taunting The Behemoth: Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin Cry Out [Gamasutra]
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BRüTAL NEWS IS NOW: EA TO PUBLISH BRüTAL LEGEND
I knew funny business was afoot early this morning when Double Fine moved their Brütal Legend threat level system to “violated lemon” (‘I hear news knocking at the door!’), and it wasn’t for naught: the developer has just announced that EA will publish the they’re-making-me-call-it-NWOB-heavy-metal action/adventure for PS3 and Xbox 360 in Fall of 2009.
It’s good news not only for the game, which has been floating in somewhat of an uncomfortable news-void for the last year following the Vivendi/Activision merger, but also for EA, who’ve been moving from strength to boutique-gaming strength with this and the recent announcement that they’d be releasing a new game from Killer7/No More Heroes dev Grasshopper Manufacture.
As noted before (where you can also see its debut trailer), the first new footage of the game will be shown Sunday night at the Spike TV Video Game Awards show.
Brütal Legend [EA/Double Fine]
See more posts about: Brütal Legend, Double Fine, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
BETHESDA RELEASES FALLOUT 3’S GARDEN OF EDEN CREATION KIT
Bethesda has just sent word that its Garden of Eden Creation Kit has just gone live. The G.E.C.K., as mentioned in late November, is the official editing tool for the PC version of Fallout 3.
The full wiki user guide is over here, and be sure to leave us any comments when you’ve created something wonderful, as we saw over here.
Garden of Eden Creation Kit [Bethesda]
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GIMME INDIE GAME: I FELL IN LOVE WITH THE MAJESTY OF COLORS
Currently making the rounds is Gregory Ludus Novus Weir’s I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colors, which he succinctly describes as “a tale of love, loss, and balloons.”
It does share a lot in common with Daniel Benmergui’s previously mentioned I wish I were the Moon, both aesthetically and in its multiple endings it’s up to the player to experiment with to ferret out. Part of me wishes Weir had the same confidence to leave the narrative implied rather than explicit, though I suspect that has more to do with its participants not ‘reading’ quite as clearly as The Moon‘s in their low-res form.
But either way it’s a successful playfully lonely Cthulu-ish journey of discovery that I’ll not go into too much detail on for fear of giving away its best lines — have a look and let us know what you think.
I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colors [Kongregate]
See more posts about: Gimme Indie Game, Offworld Originals
GIMME INDIE GAME: MINOTAUR CHINA SHOP, HAPPINESS IN SHATTERY
Minotaur China Shop might not be Flashbang’s most accessible game (that prize would have to go for the much more parent-friendly puzzler Splume), but it is its funniest. It’s not just the latest blog entries from the overly defensive Minotaur himself, though that helps, or that in-game, Flashbang have played everything perfectly, wryly straight, even when the pegasus in leopard print walks in and desires the ‘fancy plate.’ It’s also the more subtle joke that, at heart, China Shop is a subversion of and a gentle dig at the current casual game glut of Diner Dash clones.
But it’s also that, played “right,” Flashbang have perfectly pegged that ever-present anger-management underlying tension. You get that from the Minotaur’s stiff bipedal wobble (who you “drive around” more than “make walk”), as well as the precariousness of the shop packed tight with breakables, and the absurdity of the beast choosing a new profession so dainty at its core (that’s made the juxtaposition an apt cliche from the start). All together, there’s never any doubt that you’re only one misjudged turn away from havoc.
And, smartly, Flashbang have tuned that havoc into just as lucrative an option as playing straight: once the Minotaur has let his rage get the best of him, insurance kicks in and compensates you for every broken item, though you’ll obviously lose your customer base and have to deal with security firing arrows to keep your aggression in check.
Set in five separate days over which you can tune and upgrade both the happiest and angriest play styles as you wish, Minotaur lends itself perfectly to experimentation and replay — exactly what you’d want from a web game — and has instantly rocketed itself to the top handful of our 2008 indie game list.
Minotaur China Shop [Blurst]
See more posts about: Blurst, Flashbang, Gimme Indie Game, Offworld Originals
WII FIT TOPS 2008 JAPAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL GAMES ENTRANTS
Celebrating “creative activities and the development of media arts” from games to animation to web design, the Japan Media Arts Festival has announced that Wii Fit has topped the list of its game entrants.
The organization says it recognized the game for “[broadening] the appeal of a device that tends to be thought of as a boy’s toy, turning it into a family communication tool; we can see in it a glimpse of the future of video games.”
Nintendo’s game beat out other entrants like Devil May Cry 4, PixelJunk Eden, Pokémon Platinum, echochrome, and augmented reality cube puzzle levelHead, but ultimately — and very fairly — was bested by Electroplankton creator Toshio Iwai’s electronic instrument Tenori-On.
2008 [12th] Japan Media Arts Festival | List of Award-winning Works [via Siliconera]
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TREASURE TROVE PROMISES WI-FI HOT SPOT ITEM HUNTING
Still yet to be publicly released, Justin ‘CosMind’ Leingang was one of the winners of the Austin GDC’s all-Texas Indie Games Festival showcase for his art-game Glum Buster, a game only described in the vaguest terms as “a collection of my daydreams, for your daydreams.”
As we patiently await more details on that (which he says are “coming soonish”), Leingang has been slightly more forthcoming about his new game for Austin publisher Aspyr that sounds similarly ethereal. According to a new interview with Gamasutra, Leingang is behind Treasure Trove, a DS game that lets players “hunt” for items that are generated from wi-fi signals in the surrounding area.
It’s a compelling idea — it’s nice to be able to harness all of that invisible data that we’re awash in to creative ends. And it’s an idea that that worked well in Konami’s PSP title Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, which generated new collectible soldiers based on that similar mechanics. That game became a mainstay of my long Chicago bus trips — when I knew I’d continually hit fresh points as I moved across town — and Leingang reports similar results for the prototype of Trove.
It’s still not clear what kind of game he’ll be hanging the technology around — Gamasutra only further reports that collectible items also have musical properties that can be used to create exchangeable compositions — but it sounds like it’s coming together as a properly interesting portable mashup.
Interview: Aspyr’s Treasure Troves To Use DS As ‘Real-Life Treasure Hunt’ [Gamasutra]
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