In case you still haven’t made it through archive video of Microsoft’s E3 conference, meet Milo, the virtual playmate from Black and White and Fable producer Peter Molyneux and his cohorts at Lionhead.
In the works for some time now and originally known as Project Dimitri, Milo will use Microsoft’s just-announced motion/voice/facial recognizing hardware Natal, allowing you — as the video above only slightly unbelievably promises — full, fluid back and forth conversations with Milo, and other fourth-wall breaking tricks like “handing” Milo a drawing via instant Natal scanning, a drawing he will be able to recognize as well.
Watch the ‘real magic’ in the video above, and see Joystiq’s live demo impressions for some early real-world interaction, who also note that, yes, there will be a ‘Millie’ for those that are more in need of female companionship.
My new favorite reason to slog through the week: Polytron’s continued work-in-progress looks at their forthcoming Fez. Adds co-founder Phil Fish this week:
We’re getting really close to finally coming clean regarding Fez, platforms and release. We haven’t been able to so far for legal reasons.
As they quietly teased a few weeks ago, Media Molecule has just confirmed that Shadow of the Colossus DLC (and, presumably, Ico as well?) will be coming to LittleBigPlanet next week as part of their ongoing game crossover campaign.
19-year-old, precious, wind-swept Tom ‘hexachordal‘ Milsom does a fantastic cover of All My Little Words by long, long-time Offworld favorite Magnetic Fields (sobering realization: I first discovered them when Milson was three), equipped only with a Game Boy and a copy of LSDJ. [via Buzzfeed, via Tiff]
Just released by Adam ‘Atomic‘ Saltsman for the benefit of indie devs everywhere: the Flixel engine, an open-source, fully featured, newly updated version of the Flash AS3 library Saltsman used for both his original web hit Gravity Hook, and the most recent Offworld-featured Fathom.
Flixel, which is meant to forgo the Flash IDE entirely, contains a number of improvements to how Flash handles 2D games, with support for spritesheets, baked in basic physics and particle effects, and the procedural map-generation code he used for the deep fathoms of Fathom.
You can dig through Flixel’s documentation via the official home site, and try Mode (above), the included de-Mo (see what he did there?) game that demonstrates the engine’s built-in features.
At a post-E3 press conference meeting, Nintendo quietly let slip a ridiculously large print-ready concept art teaser of the next Legend of Zelda game, currently in development. [via BitMob]
E3 is over, and my feedreader, Twitter-stream and pub conversations have, at long last, all calmed down from their temporary frenetic haze of hype and speculation. As usual with the industry’s tentpole conferences, there’s always far too much to take in, far too big a glut of announcements, and at least as many announcements of returning franchises as new IP.
Yes, I dropped the F-bomb. Franchise is such an unpleasant word; it signals the point where a game becomes a business, where annual or biannual updates are guaranteed until the title is unpopular, and where the return on your investment is likely to decrease between each successive installment.
Or does it? Much as the F-word makes me nauseous, many of my favourite games end in a number. There’s nothing wrong with a good sequel, just as long as it is a genuinely good sequel. And lots of the suffixed titles shown off this year looked jolly good.
The footage we’ve seen of Modern Warfare 2 (above) once again proves that, when it comes to pacing and technical perfection, Infinity Ward really know their stuff. I’m quite excited by what’s been shown of Bioware’s Mass Effect 2, both in terms of where they’re taking the narrative tone and the tweaks and enhancements being applied throughout the game’s mechanics.
I’m trusting Valve in their decision to make the already high-up-my-list Left 4 Dead 2 a stand-alone title in its own right. I’m even, dare I say foolishly, somewhat interested in the spectacular (yet potentially dull) Assassin’s Creed 2 (above). And I don’t think there’s anyone that won’t relish the chance to return to all those beautiful planetoids in Super Mario Galaxy 2, especially now there’s a dinosaur companion to enjoy them with.
Looking down that list serves a purpose other than tiding me over the quiet summer months and starting to write my Christmas list, though. It also reminds me of how many games on my shelves aren’t finished.
And so that’s my plan for the weekend, and indeed the coming weeks: triaging the stack, and Finishing Some Games. I’ve returned to Mass Effect, having cleared the horrible difficulty spike that is Matriarch Benezia, and am looking forward to wrapping the adventure up, my savegame ready to be imported into the sequel come next year. I’m slowly pushing on with my plan to get my regular cohorts into Advanced campaigns on Left 4 Dead, and maybe – just maybe – survive one without dropping the difficulty level.
And, having just acquired a Wii, I’m stepping into the majesty of Super Mario Galaxy for the first time. What a game! It charms and thrills in equal measure, and whilst I may be collecting stars for the first time, I’m sure many of you still haven’t collected all 120. If not, now’s the time to fire it up again and remember what that wonderful world feels like.
And then, when all my games are wrapped up (as if that will ever happen), I’ll be ready – dare I say it, even deserving – of the treats to come in the Autumn and beyond. What’s on your unfinished stack, Offworlders, and what are you going to be finishing up this weekend?
For a while there, the updates on Heroes & Villains — the superhero iPhone puzzler from Paper Moon creators Infinite Ammo — were coming thick and fast, only to drop off suddenly in the weeks surrounding this year’s GDC.
So, wha-happen? As you can see by the latest video above, the game’s caught in flux between tantalizingly near-complete, but struggling to make that last jump, as Infinite Ammo co-founder Alec Holowka explains:
The main stumbling block with releasing the game is that there are some interface problems. Right now its too hard for most people to pick up and play – which is a required aspect of iPhone games.
There’s also the question of being able to produce enough level content to make the game worthwhile. I wanted to aim for about 50 levels. There’s a fair amount of work involved in that, and I want to be sure that it’ll be worth the effort.
To whit, I’m employing the aide of some of my indie game developer friends – to have them assess, praise or destroy what I have in the game now, and hear how much potential they think it has. I think it’ll at the very least be educational; hopefully it’ll lead to the game improving and eventually being released.
The main reason for Holowka’s dilemma: he’s also putting the majority of his development efforts into the previously teased Marian, the tale of a re-animated puppet who’s “caught in the dream world between life and death,” and a game that was only spoken about in hushed, reverent tones by the Ammos during GDC.
The Ammos are actually taking a community poll to see what players would prefer them to focus on, and I’ve made my own vote, but will also publicly say that for as much as I’d like to see the Marian magnum opus come to life as soon as possible, I’ve been hangin’ on so long for the Heroes that I’d be devastated to see it get the premature axe. Knock that one out of the park and then go full-tilt heads down on Marian from there, please!
Probably the most unlikely custom toy I’ve run across in recent weeks, in which “joe of war” takes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Jiles, and morphs him confidently into BioShock antagonist Andrew Ryan, who clearly always packs heat for his putter practice. [via toycutter]
Even though it’s still worrying listed as a ‘TBD’ release, Nintendo has just given us the strongest sign that it intends to bring the game to the U.S. with an appearance as Picross 3D at E3. That’s no sure bet: its GBA bit Generations lineup made a strong debut at E3 the year they unveiled the Game Boy Micro, as well, but let’s hope this little bit of noise will be proof that the game does have a willing audience.
