A MUCH SMALLER TRIPPER APPROACHES
Just a day after mentioning its PS3 remake Astro Tripper, PomPom Games has uploaded a new video teaser for the iPhone version of the original Space Tripper, which I will now more correctly note shares far more in common with classic Commodore 64 game Uridium than it does with Defender.
Though the stony silent video doesn’t give away much, so far as I can tell the game will be of the auto-fire variety, controlled by the iPhone’s tilt-sensor, and the ship flipped with a tap on the screen, all of which is looking quite elegant.
Space Tripper running on the iPhone [Youtube, via PocketGamer]
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SEGA LAUNCHES CASUAL PORTAL PLAYSEGA
As more publishers take to the web to capture casual-gaming dollars, Sega has taken a page from EA’s Pogo.com and launched its PlaySEGA portal. The site currently is offering reworked Flash versions of its own hits (most notably the unfortunately Mario-less Sonic at the Olympic Games) as well as third parties (see: anything by pixel-geniuses Nitrome), and says that its for-pay VIP service will soon offer Sega classics like Columns, Puyo Pop, Chu Chu Rocket, Sonic The Hedgehog and Super Monkey Ball Tip n’ Tilt.
Like Pogo’s “gems,” playing PlaySEGA games will net you Sonic’s “rings,” which you can use to customize your avatar and add items to your delightfully named “Escape Zone” profile page.
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TRINE: BLUE WIZARD IS ABOUT TO DRAW
Frozenbyte, the Finnish studio behind Steam’s top-down sci-fi action game Shadowgrounds, are making good on their new original IP strategy with the announcement of the forthcoming Trine for PlayStation Network and PC.
The short teaser above goes a long way in selling the game, giving away one of its most intriguing gameplay aspects: a drawing mode looking nothing if not like Crayon Physics brought to fantastic life, placing platforms and boxes into its fully physics-based world, and hot-swappable characters which each have their own specialty to advance you further into its levels.
The studio says the game should appear in the second quarter of 2009.
YouTube – Trine Gameplay Teaser Trailer 2008 (PSN, PC)
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METAL GEAR’S DECEMBER SURPRISE
Back in July, as many may have forgot, a French games blog suggested a rumor that Kojima Productions might have a December Surprise up its sleeve. December 12th, they said, six months after the release of the game (that length of time, players will note, fitting in nicely with the fiction of Metal Gear Solid 4) might trigger an in-game event.
Kojima’s no stranger to time-based fourth-wall-shattering trickery: one of Metal Gear 3‘s aged boss characters can be secretly defeated by saving in the middle of a fight, exiting out and forwarding your PlayStation clock by a few days, and returning to the game to find him dead from waiting.
All of that’s preface to the widely reported new teaser on Kojima Production’s website which simply reads “A Next Metal Gear is…” accompanied by an image that is surely only coincidentally similar to the green glow of the Xbox 360’s power ring (note: it’s just as similar to the PS3’s own [colorless] power symbol).
We’re as much in the dark as anyone for now, but thought the timing of the new teaser seems oddly serendipitous and worthy of note.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
PS3’S LUMINES SUPERNOVA TO INCLUDE LITTLEBIGPLANET SKIN
Japan’s game news service Dengeki Online is reporting that Lumines Supernova, the first version of Q Entertainment’s music/puzzle game for the PlayStation 3, will be getting its own LittleBigPlanet skin (that is, music track and accompanying background art). Q hasn’t mentioned which song will make the cut, but we’re hopeful it’s Go! Team’s “Get It Together,” the deliriously cheerful recorder-laden tune.
A number of sites are dubiously reporting that the Lumines game would be playable from inside LittleBigPlanet itself, we’re fairly confident this is not the case. No date has been set yet on Supernova — Dengeki says the game will be available “this winter.”
Lumines Supernova collaborates with LittleBigPlanet [Dengeki, Google translation]
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GO UNDERCOVER FOR THE RESIDENT EVIL 5 DEMO
With Microsoft and Capcom only releasing the Xbox 360 demo for Resident Evil 5 in Japan import-focused blog Siliconera has released a comprehensive guide for the rest of the world to sneak in under the radar and download it for yourself.
The bonus? Once you’ve got your digital paws on it, the demo plays fully in English, and even calls itself Resident Evil versus its rest of the world name, Biohazard.
How To Get Access To Japan’s Resident Evil 5 Demo [Siliconera]
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SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR GENERATION BURLAP
Right, well, this has instantly become my new favorite web-project: Chris ‘ixalon‘ Warren has pulled some manner of black data-slurping magic (which I’m still trying to piece together, and suspect can’t have come without at least a little assistance from Media Molecule themselves) to create Sackbook, a fully automated social network for LittleBigPlanet.
By visiting Sackbook’s in-game world and leaving a confirmation-code comment on the level, the site will be instantly updated with your friends, hearted levels, and hearted creators, all of which are fully searchable, and accompanied by the photos that get snapped in-game.
It also makes for a much better level browser and discovery tool than flipping through LittleBigPlanet‘s overcrowded and spherical search results, and I suspect will become invaluable as the game evolves and grows as a platform.
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THE BITCRUSHING SEGA MASTER SYSTEM
Chiptune artist and circuit bender Sebastian Tomczak over at little-scale has figured out a way to turn a Sega Master System II into a real time ‘bitcrusher effect unit.’
Sega Master System II as a Bitcrusher Effect
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MIRROR’S EDGE, RUNNING THE VOID
Though I’m still reserving judgment about how the just announced DLC for Mirror’s Edge will work without true-life guideposts to get my peripheral bearings, what I do like (apart from the gawpingly beautiful plain shapes they’ve created) is that it’s bringing me warm feelings of Super Mario Sunshine‘s secret “void” levels — pure, self-aware videogame environments that exist for no other reason than to play in.
Watch the trailer for the DLC pack, which will be released in late January (with an exclusive additional map for the PS3) at YouTube.
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RIDING THE IPHONE’S RAPTOR COPTER
Following on our earlier post on indie dev Flashbang’s amazingly literal Minotaur China Shop (which we’ve heard well-placed whispers might be crashing about some time next week), the developer has shown a quick preview of their first fully 3D iPhone game, Raptor Copter.
As it sounds, the game will see players snaring raptors with a hooked ball hanging from a transport chopper (in a very similar manner to their PC title Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, just on a different axis) and depositing it in proper raptor receptacle, via, we’d be willing to wager, a tilt-sensitive interface and Flashbang’s signature focus on physics-enhanced play.
The game’s set for a December release, with pricing and more details promised shortly.
Raptor Copter Teaser [Flashbang]
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