NINTENDO OVERLOAD: PINK/WHITE DSI, BLACK WII-MOTE, WII BROWSER GOES FREE
A quick run-down to re-cap the flurry of colorful announcements from Nintendo this morning: the company will launching new models of the DSi this month — adding pink and Japan’s launch color white to the existing blue and black models — and launching a new black Wii remote/MotionPlus and separate Nunchuk accessory this holiday season.
They’ve also announced that their updated fitness app Wii Fit Plus will be released October 4th at a lower price point of $19.99, for users that already own the Balance Board accessory.
Finally, the company says the Internet Channel — a downloadable version of Opera that lets users browse the web via their Wii — has just dropped its price from the usual 500 Points ($5) to free, and that all users that purchased the browser will be credited the 500 Points to be used on a Virtual Console NES game of their choice. The new, free browser has also been upgraded to support the latest version of Flash.
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HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN: I’M BACK ON OFFWORLD
A quick personal note: ten days and god knows how many hilltops mounted later, I’m officially back on Offworld duty after my San Francisco jaunt, and ready to bring you back up to speed on all the developments that took place in my absence. I’m not even going to pretend that I’m caught up on the tens and tens of thousands of RSS posts accumulated over the past several days, and I’m also resisting the temptation of that “Mark all as read” button, because who knows what magic might lie somewhere in the noisy mix of endlessly re-blogged items that have propagated through the press.
So, three things, the first of which is that today may end up being a day of older news that I think deserves to be re-noted, where tomorrow we should be basically back on track.
And the second: a quick thanks to everyone that made the trip special, Morgan ‘Crashfaster‘ Tucker and the 8bitSF crew for all the hospitality at Sunday night’s wicked DNA Lounge show, DocPop for organizing Sunday’s pre-show burger-time deluxe at Zeitgeist (though we ended up making it quite late), and Steph Thirion, Tiff Chow, David Hellman, and Ginger Anyhow for all the skimpily Flickr-collected marvelous misadventures.
And finally, specifically for you SF readers: Steph, Tiff and I took a few post-burger/pre-show hours on Sunday to start picking away at the first layers of local Alternate Reality epic The Jejune Institute, which, if you haven’t yet experienced, like, do not pass go, etc. and carve out two or three hours as soon as possible to take part in its induction ceremony.
Under penalty of I don’t even know what, I won’t delve in to what you will find once you get there, but will only say that turning up to its 580 California St, Suite #1607 offices will start you on a journey that you will not regret.
Right, so, on with it.
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FREE AGENT: SPORE TECH LEAD CHRIS HECKER GOES INDIE WITH SPYPARTY
The most bittersweet news that dropped during my recent SF getaway (and has gone too long unmentioned here on the site) was an announcement that Spore developer Maxis had laid off over 20 members of its staff — most notably, technology lead Chris Hecker, responsible for heading up the game’s complex solutions for reliably animating an infinite variety of user-generated creatures (via a tool, as I talked about in my 2006 Edge Magazine feature on the game, appropriately called SPASM).
Hecker’s clearly not bitter, as he cheerily blogged that his post-launch efforts had “generated lots of goodwill but no revenue, which tends to be a problem when you’re expensive and the economy is down”, and it may turn out to be a fruitful misfortune, with Hecker also revealing that he’s now turned all his attention to the pursuit of the indie, starting with SpyParty.
Described as an “asymmetric multiplayer espionage game about subtle behavior and deception”, and actually first revealed at this year’s GDC Experimental Gameplay Sessions that I’m now and forever kicking myself for missing, SpyParty intends to do precisely what more games need to do: forgo games as big budget thrill-rides and focus instead on the richness of subtle interaction.
Here’s the quick gist, scrobbled together from the various GDC reports: one player plays as a spy, who needs to accomplish a series of espionagical tasks amongst a field of AI controlled party-goers (say, planting wires/bugs on ambassadors). Another player plays as a sniper, who needs to single- and take out the spy as quickly as possible, with only the tiny ‘tells’ of a real human acting suspiciously to guide them — a game using the cool/international intrigue 60s type spy as its inspiration, over the stunt-jumpin’, big exploding 90s-00s style Bond we’ve been handed more recently.
You can follow Hecker’s new indie course via his SpyParty blog, and look forward to more concrete information coming soon.
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FUEL ECONOMY: THE LATEST LOOK AT MOMMY’S BEST GRAPPLE BUGGY
The last trailer for Grapple Buggy — the sophomore Xbox Live game from Weapon of Choice creator Nathan Fouts — goes beyond the debut trailer’s mechanical preview to give you a better idea of the branching energy-crisis storyline lying somewhere underneath, and the cutely low-budget voice-acted conflicting relationship between human pilot Nova Commander Javeya and her alien sidekick Drozo.
The game is still hovering somewhere between either Xbox Live Indies and Arcade proper, though there’s a good amount of time between now and its newly pushed back 2010 release date to get the channel straight.
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BLOWN AWAY: FRONTIER ANNOUNCES LOSTWINDS WIIWARE SEQUEL WINTER OF THE MELODIAS
And the other fantastic news of the week (the impact of which was spoiled only slightly by paltry scraps leaked from the pages of the latest issue of Edge): Elite developer Frontier has announced Winter of the Melodias, a new sequel to its WiiWare debut game LostWinds.
Frontier says the game will continue to star tiny adventurer Toku and his wind-spirit guardian Enril, this time on a journey to investigate the disappearance of Toku’s mother Magdi, this time aided by a new spirit that will give the two the power to change the seasons between summer and winter.
That new ability, the studio adds, will see “frozen Winter ponds and waterfalls become deep, teeming Summer pools and chambers in which to dive and unlock secrets,” and that “enemies can be frozen or doused, and the very air itself used to form snowballs or moisture-laden clouds,” while a new ‘cyclone’ ability can be used to “transport Toku, smash powerful enemies and even drill through the rocks of the Mistralis’ diverse, richly interactive Chilling Peaks and Melodia City areas.”
The original LostWinds — one of Offworld’s top 20 games of 2008 — remains one of the best games WiiWare has to offer since the service first launched: a gorgeous and gentle puzzle/platformer that expertly exploited how the Wii Remote and Nunchuk could be used in tandem for mechanics exclusive to its platform.
Hit the jump for more screenshots and concept art from the new sequel.
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DEATHSPANK: THE FIRST LOOK AT MONKEY ISLAND/MANIAC MANSION CREATOR’S NEW ADVENTURE
1up.com scored a true coup with a week-long exclusive look at Hothead’s DeathSpank — the action/adventure game crossover from Ron ‘Monkey Island/Maniac Mansion‘ Gilbert.
Check their preview special for the first real tidbits of gameplay information, from its marriage of loot-collecting/Diablo-esque action RPG and LucasArts-ish adventuring to the simple pleasure of its Animal Crossing-ish rolling cylindrical world.
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ONE SHOT: OLLY MOSS DOES A LIFE WELL WASTED
Apparently not content with just bringing you what continues to be the internet’s most original games-related podcast (with the latest of its fantastic This American Life-inspired episodes having just been released), A Life Well Wasted series creator Robert Ashley has all-star tag-teamed up with oft-mentioned designer Olly Moss to create limited edition Giclée prints for each of the four episodes, and it’s basically impossible to pick just one (particularly after you’ve just bought Moss’s similarly phenomenal official poster for TV series Lost).
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GIMME INDIE GAME: THE ONE BUTTON ACTION FILM OF ADAMATOMIC’S CANABALT
Ignore for just a few minutes the fact that there’s an already admittedly excellent stripped down Flash version of DICE’s Mirror’s Edge, because Canabalt — the just-released Experimental Gameplay entry from Fathom and Flixel creator Adam ‘Atomic‘ Saltsman and musician DannyB — strips that down even further, and better.
Consider it, maybe, the souped-up Tiger/Game & Watch LCD version of Mirror’s Edge, then: you have one goal, and one button, and the goal is to run, and the button is jump, and the game comes from simply maintaining breakneck momentum as you leap from rooftop to randomly generated rooftop.
Saltsman is an unabashed devotee of the Hollywood action flick, and the fact that his last recommendation was Peter O’Toole film The Stunt Man seemed somehow appropriate the instant you take your first dive through the game’s opening breakaway window. And then he moves on to John Woo, scattering a flock of doves skyward as you leap to the next roof, and then like take your pick from any sci-fi action/disaster as the first crashing alien ship rumbles past the screen, or you first notice the megalithic monsters trampling the far background.
For a five-day start-to-stop development it’s exceedingly confident and exceptionally accomplished: in keeping with the Experimental Gameplay’s ‘bare minimum’ theme, there’s a laundry list of things Saltsman could’ve added (I’m still not sure what my high score is from the 30-40 playthroughs today — I’m too busy compulsively slamming the retry button to take the half second to notice), but nothing he could have taken away, and it’s going to be quite some time before you find something so simple so thrilling again.
Canabalt [AdamAtomic, super-wide HD version for hi-res monitors]
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ONE SHOT: MIKKO WALAMIES GOES INTERGALACTIC
What’s next for Rolando artist Mikko Walamies? All we’ve got to go on for now is this ultra-vertical deep-space artwork for his next games venture, which may or may not be related to Rolando-creator Simon Oliver’s next game, which he’s just let slip will not be for the iPhone.
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ONE SHOT: THE NEW FACE OF ROCKSTAR GAMES
Tigers with lasers, fire-breathing grizzlies, and stunt-jumping polar bears: it’s obviously a wallpaper for Grand Theft Auto creators Rockstar Games (available in all monitor/iPhone/PSP sizes). [via Steve Gaynor]
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