ONLY ON OFFWORLD: INTRODUCING JAMES KOCHALKA’S MONSTER MII
I’ve been a long-time follower of comic artist and musician James Kochalka, and so was quite happy when we first met through the ‘net and traded Wii friend codes, and even more thrilled when a small but steady stream of delightfully bizarre characters filed in upon opening my Mii Channel the first time following.
So, in the spirit of sharing, and as part of that drive to widen the games community that I’ve been harping on about since the beginning, James and Offworld have partnered to bring you Monster Mii.
Monster Mii will be a regular feature introducing a new Mii monster each time for you to bring home to your own Wii. Once there, they’ll give you creepy stares from the sidelines of your Wii Sports, lap you rudely during your Wii Fit jogs, and in general liven up your Plaza and gaming day.
This week’s monster is Kzorx, who’s down on public affection, but big on incandescence. To bring him home, enter the Check Mii Out Channel’s Posting Plaza, click ‘Popular,’ then the ‘Search’ button at bottom. After that, hit the arrows at top right and enter in the code: 6140-6148-3207.
And let us know how he gets on with everyone else.
[James Kochalka’s daily diary strips, which run at AmericanElf.com, have just entered their tenth year and been collected in three print volumes. He is also the author of more books and comics than you can count on both hands, including some that are excellent for children, and others not so much. All are excellent. James also plays rock and roll and Game Boy rock as James Kochalka Superstar, and recently exhibited artwork at Giant Robot’s GR2 gallery. We are very happy to count him as a genuine Offworldian.]
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AT THE CORE OF THE WORLD OF GOO
2D Boy’s World of Goo is a fast and obvious pick for indie game of the year for myriad reasons, and in the spirit of showing, not telling, fellow indie developer David Rosen of Wolfire picks apart just about damn near every one in this lengthy and very incisive video. Although heavily design oriented, it also makes a smart introductory primer on the game, should you not mind getting a peek at its later levels, but it’s at its best elaborating on all the brilliant little details you intuited but perhaps didn’t explicitly notice.
Design Tour – World of Goo [via IndieGames]
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MICROSOFT KICKS OFF WEEKLY XBOX LIVE HOLIDAY DEALS
Following its previously posted Black Friday deal (which, according to my just-now check of the NXE, is still available), Microsoft has announced that it’ll be dusting off a weekly holiday deal from now until the end of the year, starting with a third-off price drop on Halo 3‘s Legendary Map Pack, originally released in April. The pack contains three maps inspired by multiplayer levels from earlier games in the series: Avalanche, Ghost Town, and Blackout.
My suggestion for next? A price drop on the Xbox Originals versions of Psychonauts, Dreamfall and Indigo Prophecy, which would make for many happy holidays indeed.
Xbox LIVE Marketplace Holiday Deal of the Week
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GANDREAS BRINGS ROGUE TO IPHONE
What better way to show off the glittering power of your 22nd century handheld communications device than with a 1980’s ASCII UNIX RPG? Gandreas Software has ported Epyx’s seminal early-PC RPG Rogue to the iPhone as a free download, and — to be fair — has done a very noble job of bringing the game up to date.
Gandreas’s version adds tile graphics (and a very smart tilt-mode that morphs the landscape view’s ASCII mode into graphics as you turn it up to portrait) and gesture based commands (trace a W on the screen to wield a weapon, R to remove a ring), but keeps the same brutal difficulty of the original: be prepared to die a lot by the crooked claws of kestrels.
Rogue – classic Unix game comes to the iPhone [Gandreas]
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EA REVIVING DUNGEON KEEPER AS ASIAN MMO
At a time when even NES cult brawler River City Ransom is finding new life as a sidescrolling MMO, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to hear that EA plans to do the same with its classic Bullfrog franchise Dungeon Keeper, especially given that the Asian online market is one of their biggest perceived growth opportunities.
Very few details have yet come out on exactly how the game might translate online. In their press release, developer NetDragon (who also are behind Ubisoft’s Heroes of Might and Magic Online and a forthcoming turn-based Disney RPG) have only dryly stated the obvious in calling it a “3D massively multi-player online role playing game.”
Bullfrog’s game was famous for turning the tables on RPG standards and letting players be the one to architect dungeons, placing traps and monsters to stymie marauding heroes. We only hope the game continues that same tradition and lets players switch off on directing dungeon design for others to plunder, and that the game gets localized for the wider world — the original release is coy on whether it’ll remain in the ‘Greater China’ region.
NetDragon Enters into Agreement with EA to Develop New Online Game – Dungeon Keeper Online
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CHRONICLE HOLDING LUCASARTS BOOK SIGNING
Via BigDownload we note that Chronicle Books will be holding a San Francisco signing on December 4th for Rogue Leaders, its upcoming visual history of the golden age of Lucasarts adventures.
Chronicle says the book is “a deluxe compilation that traces its history through never-before-published interviews,” with “more than 300 pieces of concept art, character development sketches, and storyboards have been lavishly reproduced to showcase the creative talent behind such videogame classics as The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.”
Cartoon Brew ran a scan of the one-sheet several weeks back with a selection of the images inside. The signing will be this Thursday, December 4th at Chronicle’s 680 Second Street outlet, and the book itself will be released more widely in mid-December.
Rogue Leaders signing [Chronicle Books]
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THE GAMER’S GUIDE TO THE WILHELM SCREAM
I obviously haven’t been spending near enough time plumbing GiantBomb’s user-generated depths, because this is the first I’ve noticed of the growing list of games that use the ubiquitous Wilhelm Scream. As the description notes, the Scream is a delightfully obscure in-joke amongst Hollywood sound-mixers, who’ve been tucking the clip into anywhere and everywhere they could, and once you’ve heard it a few times in a row, you’ll never be able to un-hear it again.
The biggest repeat offender on the list is the LEGO series (Star Wars and Indy) and various other Star Wars titles, which is no coincidence, as LucasFilm sound effect designers Ben Burtt and Richard Anderson were the pair credited with starting the trend. I’m going to have to replay Bionic Commando Rearmed and Team Fortress 2 with more open ears next time, though, and apparently even Halo 3 got in on the action.
Wilhelm Scream (video game concept) [GiantBomb]
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BLACK MESA IN MOTION
The week’s off to a good start: as promised, mod team Black Mesa Modification has shown off the first trailer for their original Half-Life remake, which is shaping up better than we could’ve imagined.
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YOU’VE GOT TO SPEND TO SAVE
File this under practical nostalgia: tchotchke megamart StrapyaWorld is offering new Tetris and Breakout LCD toy arcade machines done up in the style of Coleco and Nintendo’s original 80’s tabletop units which serve dual purpose as piggybanks, apparently charging a penny per play.
I’m sold, but I’m also holding out some scrap of hope that Tomy will have the good sense to localize BankQuest, their RPG piggy bank (which, coincidentally, was part of a recent Wired photospread).
TETRIS/ ATARI Breakout Arcade Gaming Piggy Bank [StrapyaWorld, YouTube video]
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MUSIC TO GET A BRUTAL BEATING FROM YOUR SUPPOSED FRIEND BY
On top of the hip-hop tribute Capcom put together for its Live Arcade/PSN remake Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, it worked with game music uber-community OC Remix to set down a reimagined version of all the game’s themes, which the site is releasing for free. Personal favorites: all of Malcos’s Dhalsim stage mixes, and Vurez’s perfectly Morricone-esque spaghetti Western themes for T.Hawk’s stages.
OC ReMix: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Official Soundtrack – OCRWiki – OverClocked ReMix
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