Inspired by the latest trailer for the game, we’ve got to admit, we’re frankly a bit worried for Microsoft’s soon to be released karaoke game Lips: it’s got a lot to prove, being released into this post-Rock Band, post-SingStar environment — despite the promise of both its motion sensitive performance based play and letting you use your own music collection for an essentially limitless song selection.
But there’s good reason to have some hope: developer iNiS is one of rhythm gaming’s underdogs worth rooting for. The acoustic serenade in their sweetly ridiculous PlayStation 2 (and later PSP) game Gitaroo Man is a sappy but affecting, heart-tugging genre moment leagues away from the usual rawk-out star fantasy that music games (including the rest of Gitaroo itself) normally and happily provide. It’s also a moment that has yet to be matched — the closest anyone has come since is iNiS themselves, with various suddenly emotional scenes spread across their similarly over-the-top DS Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan franchise.
Essentially, iNiS gets that personal connection between music and the listener, and especially between the serenader and the serenaded. That feeling seemed to come through in Lips‘ debut commercial (once that initial shock of — Hey! Peter Bjorn and John! They are a somewhat obscure band whom I also have in my iTunes! — wore off), though we’re still and forever devastated that the girl passed the mic and wandered away, leaving someone to hijack The Moment with their Zune and devolve the budding romance into a generic house party.
Lips is due out this week, and we’ll update you with full details of what it ultimately has or hasn’t brought to the genre — and of any hard-won affections gained in the course of play — at a later date.
Boing Boing Gadgets had originally opened up the floor to doing community gaming sessions well before Offworld had launched, but now that it has, I’d like to kick off an official regular weekend group-play feature. Seeing as how it’s just dropped and is by all means terribly smart and perfect for actually gaming together, this week’s Would You Like To Play A Game?.. err, game will be Valve’s Left 4 Dead.
Xbox Live: While we work on getting Xbox Live Gamertags linked off of Boing Boing profile pages, you can leave your own via the comments below. Mine is brandonnn (as with Steam), and the 360 is likely where I’ll actually be fighting back the zombie onslaught. BBG’s Joel is Joelev, and BBG’s Rob and John still may not have fully joined the console era yet. In the meantime, you can check that earlier post for other community IDs.
Just please remember, what we’re trying to do is not startle the Witch.
While it might be too regrettably late to make a last minute journey to Montreal for tonight’s previously mentioned Gamma 3D, before you pull a low-bit four-color freakout (as above), I’ll note that there’s still plenty of time to plan for NYC’s forthcoming BlipFest, the December 4-7th celebration of NES, C64, Atari ST, and Game Boy “chipmusic and its related disciplines.”
The schedule is all still TBA, so I can’t yet point toward any single can’t-miss night, but the overall line-up is star-studded enough that any night’s a sure bet for something a little bit amazing.
Currently just about everybody’s most anticipated iPhone game, publisher ngmoco has released the latest trailer for developer Hand Circus’s candy-colored tilt-and-touch platformer Rolando, highlighting a new pop-up book style world selection screen and a new December release date.
Ngmoco have boldly claimed that their company charter is to become the “first party” of iPhone games. Following on the release of their low-cost/high-quality Maze Finger and Topple, and with Dr. Awesome and Dropshipon the way, there’s serious potential behind that posture.
A little about me: I’ve worn a lot of different hats over the past several years in trying to lead my wild, pure, simple life, running an indie record label, working as an artist and programmer, and, more recently, contributing to and editing various games magazines and websites like Edge and Gamasutra.
As Offworld lifts off over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be bringing to it a focus on the overlooked, the underappreciated, the rise of the independents and, in general, the games that are bringing genuine excitement and innovation (in both gameplay and design) to the industry.
Offworld will also be home to a number of guest appearances by and regular features from people outside the games industry proper and those that have had only marginal influence but deserve more, because it’s when those influences come in that the results have been some of the most magical and memorable, from illustrator Rodney Alan Greenblat and Masaya Matsuura’s unforgettable Parappa the Rapper (the face that would launch the rhythm gaming genre proving so profitable today), to studio artist Toshio Iwai’s musical Electroplankton, to Keita Takahashi’s Katamari Damacy.
That’s not to say that Offworld won’t also be exploring and featuring gaming’s blockbusters, powerhouses and the history of its respected decades-old institutions, but in general we hope to chase away a lot of the industry’s cynicism and myopia that’s set in and bring the joy of discovery and a fresh breath of playfulness and wonder back, because we’re all in this to have fun, aren’t we?
As originally pointed to on the Mother Boing, electronics kit manufacturers Evil Mad Scientist have announced that its Meggy Jr RGB handheld gaming kit will be shipping this week. If your homebrew skills have been hampered by too many fancy pixels and colors, you’ll be pleased to learn that the Meggy Jr comes in at just 8×8 LEDs, looking nothing so much like the kid-friendly Game Boy version of Toshio Iwai’s Tenori-On.
Meggy will ship with EMS’s own “pixel-blasting side-scrolling shoot-em-up” Attack of the Cherry Tomatoes, and we fully expect to see your own low-res rainbow-light creations over coming months.
It seems likely that LittleBigPlanet has cemented 2008’s legacy as the breakout year for bringing user-generated content to games, but on the even-littler side, Nokia and UK mobile developer Gameware have been making strides to do the same with Yamake, Nokia’s N-Gage game that it says will let players make and share mini-games from photo and video content created on their phone, sounding not entirely unlike the WarioWare Myself project Nintendo is preparing for its camera-enhanced DSi.
While Nokia’s been somewhat tight-lipped on just what Yamake will offer, they have geared up on the participatory side with the Yamake Art Project, a promotional campaign curating vinyl toy customs of the game’s soft-form mascot, and, even more wonderfully, the above reality-enhanced video from Helsinki motion-graphics studio Fake.
On top of the already massive archives of fan art the Earthbound community has produced over the series’ lifespan, the release of the third game’s previously mentionedunofficial translation has already kicked off a new wave of inspired illustration, most notably so far Harvey James’ latest takes on the game’s porcine villains, the Pig Mask Army.
A massive collection of Harvey’s fantastic retro and manga-inspired work can be found at his website, including our favorite, this T-shirt design for soon-to-be-launched games inspired fashion outlet Attract Mode.
One of the most intriguing features of Microsoft’s New Xbox Experience is the ability to install and launch games from the Xbox 360’s hard drive. Our own tests have proven the feature has made trawling Fallout 3’s Wasteland that much more seamless, but Binge Gamer has set up the first beta-tested chart to denote just how much, showing (if currently somewhat anecdotally) improvements on the order of 30 percent to, simply, “a lot faster.”
By now you might already know the terrain like the back of your hand, but Planet Fallout’s recently launched user edited Capital Wasteland Google map is digging even further into the minutiae packed into every crevice of Fallout 3’s DC metro area, with growing guides to all of the special weapons, Enclave outposts, and easter eggs Bethesda have snuck in.
