Gamasutra’s carrying interesting and unexpected news that Sonic the Hedgehog co-designer Hirokazu Yasuhara — who left Sega to work stateside for Crash Bandicoot/Jak & Daxter/Uncharted creators Naughty Dog — is now working at Namco Bandai’s U.S. studio on a new 30th anniversary Pac-Man game.
No details were given beyond Yasuhara’s involvement, but Gamasutra says Yasuhara’s already stated his desire to create a “new character action game,” so presumably we’ll be getting something more along the lines of his 20th anniversary Pac-Man World series than Taito’s re-imagined retro futurist Space Invaders games, with Xbox Live Arcade’s Pac-Man Championship having already fit that bill in 2007.
Click the link for the full details from Gamasutra.
Right, this might be one of the most amazing videos I’ve seen all week, and I haven’t even managed to fully translate it (I think it speaks a universal language!) and it’s now in English!
In announcing their forthcoming iPhone game Elemental Monster TD, Bomberman and Adventure Island creators Hudson show what I’m presuming is a low-poly version of company spokesman/producer Takahashi Meijin (Hudson really only have one notable chrome-domed personality) literally calling iPhone tower defense favorite Fieldrunners out by name, as he berates the hapless quivering mid-level assistant director for not coming up with something that can adequately compete.
In the end, the assistant gets inspiration where you’d least expect it, and the game is born.
Hudson don’t have much more information on the game apart from a March release date, but the adorably named arigato-ipod.com has a 10 minute presentation by producer Makoto Shibita [google translation] on Hudson’s lineup that shows a bit of that and other upcoming iPhone games.
Said without a trace of irony or any hint of self-congratulation for my own middling freelance contributions over the years, Edge magazine was and still is the single best games magazine I’ve ever laid my hands on, and the biggest influence on how I approach, filter and target this hulking colossus of an industry.
I say that primarily just to punctuate the importance of the mag just announcing that it’s hit its 200th issue, and, in celebration, they’re printing up no less than 200 separate covers (199 really, the fantastic Media Molecule created cover at right will be for subscribers).
It’s impossible to pick a favorite of the bunch — my eye keeps getting dragged from beloved game to game, and I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit this morning trying to name them all. Click both for the full zoomed view, and if you’ve never been exposed to the mag, head over to the official site for online features and subscription information.
UPDATE: Edge have just added a gallery view for individual closeups of all 200 covers.
I’ll say this about Ngmoco, they’ve got their genre priorities very straight. Their latest new game, revealed by new ‘ngmofo’ Stephanie: a new tower defense game that appears to take place in a world nicely inspired by PS3/PSP shooter Super Stardust.
… or is BOY just fleein’ reality, as I know he’s liable to do?
I’ve been extremely neglectful in my Noby Noby Boy duties ever since Keita Takahashi’s game fell into my patiently awaiting PS3. It’s not that I don’t have a lot to say, it’s that I don’t quite yet have the words to say it. Believe me, though, when I say that with some 130,000 meters under my belt so far, I’ve been putting a lot of time into Noby’s world.
But let me break that silence quickly for this: if you haven’t been following the daily progress happening at official game site o–o.jp, you’ve been missing out. Not only do we have the daily Today’s GIRL updates, but lately Noby BOY has started to dream.
In these dreams, other multi-colored BOYs have come to play, even though Noby BOY was offline.. in a manner (and hue) precisely like my video of Noby Noby‘s original GameCity debut. In other dreams… the sounds of castanets, maracas, triangle, and guiter [sic] have been making their way into his thoughts..
Surely it’s just a matter of when (when GIRL reaches Mars? An arbitrary GIRL length?), and I’m as happy for it to be a surprise, that continual sense of wonder (every time you travel to a new map) being one of Noby‘s most pronounced joys.
And, honestly, even if the dreams were just that, I’d almost be as satisfied just having that drawing of BOY praying for his wishes, which slays me every. single. time.
Muttpop Bob says that soon after Alien Hominid‘s 2004 console debut, he presented the developer with a plan to base a new game off the Luchadores Five characters from Jerry Frissen’s Lucha Libre comic series.
Bob explains:
Behemoth had just released ALIEN HOMINID for the Gamecube and Xbox. I really felt like the spirit of that game had something in common with what we were doing. I heard that the Behemoth guys were thinking of doing a multiplayer game so I was trying to convince them to do one with the Luchadores Five and Tequila [below right]. Both Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin got back to me via email. They really loved the designs I sent them (I sent the 2 ‘pitch’ jpegs below and a few final pencils images of some of the other characters from Luchadores Five) and were going to talk to their investors about the possibility of collaboration.
They got back at me a few weeks later and said the investors didn’t feel comfortable investing in a game that they couldn’t have full ownership of (which I totally understood) but wished us well on our endeavors. That multiplayer game ended up becoming the amazing CASTLE CRASHERS. I assume they were already in development with Castle Crashers when I approached them. Whatever the circumstances, it was a great honor that those guys loved our designs enough that they considered collaborating (even if it was for just a second).
A shame all around: the Luchadores world is one I’d desperately love to explore first-hand — see more of their incredible characters in Muttpop’s Lucha Libre news section.
ComputerMusic4Kidz is an interactive electronic music installation for kids, inviting them to explore the history and sound of classic gaming consoles…
The installation mainly focuses on the sounds that can be produced with classic gameconsoles and enables children to create music using classic gameconsole soundsamples. By using an intuitive interface children can navigate through a visual library that contains a selection of gameconsoles produced between 1972 and 1990. By selecting a gameconsole they can produce music with samples that originate from the chosen gameconsole.
Essentially, from what cruelly static images I have seen, kids will use a trackball to choose a console on an animated timeline running beneath Verbiesen’s fantastic pixel characters, and then use what appears to be an oversized Monome/Tenori-On-like sequencer to create their own chiptunes.
You can read more about the assembly of the installation at its work-in-progress blog, and, like me, repeatedly slam the F5 key on its still empty video page until something appears.
Richard over at pyweek.org just announced the Pyweek 8 (April ’09) competition. Pyweek (if you didn’t already know) is a 1 week gaming challenge to write a video game from scratch in python. There are some pretty cool indy games which have come out of it, so it’s definitely worth checking out.
Registration will officially open on the 27th, with the theme chosen (the last was “the length of a piece of string”) and the challenge officially underway a month after that. We’d love to see something amazing come out of it.
You can browse all the former entries on the site, each of which, most charmingly, gets various trophies assigned to them — I loved how many motion sickness/vomit awards Digby Marshmallow’s Space Adventures! racked up.
The latest T-shirt from the reliably awesome Glenn of GlennzTees, this 8-bit mashup ‘Called For Help,’ following the similarly ghostly ‘Haunted Housework.’
Glenn’s the same designer behind one of my other T-shirt faves, the nicely understated ‘Ground Defenses.’
Originally revealed in a surprise conference call in late October of last year, MTV, Harmonix and Apple Corps have made the official announcement that The Beatles: Rock Band, a new entirely remade custom version of Rock Band that will trace “an unprecedented, experiential progression through and celebration of the music and artistry of The Beatles,” will be released on 09/09/09 for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii.
The game will come as a standalone version, or packaged with “a limited number of new hardware offerings modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career,” with LOVE album co-producer Giles Martin serving as music producer. Harmonix also says exclusive content will be offered in coming months along with a preorder campaign.
Harmonix has also just unveiled the official site for the game, which for now is simply a warm-up teaser set inside a recreation of Abbey Road Studios (above, you can spy nearly the same camera angle at around 2:40 of this video).
