A FRESH LOOK AT BLACK MESA’S HALF-LIFE REMAKE
On the 10th anniversary of the release of Valve’s original Half Life, mod team Black Mesa Modification has released a slew of new work in progress screenshots of their detailed remake of the game in the current Orange Box engine, which, if the mod ever sees the day, will easily lead to our third or fourth playthrough. Says the team:
2008 has been a very eventful year for us. Making a 12+ hour game is a monumental task, but we’re still powering ahead with development and making great progress. Our programmers have been hard at work overhauling and expanding the AI, and lots of our NPCs have been brought to life by our talented voice actors. Levels and chapters continue to be worked on and fine tuned, with large sections strung together and playable.
[…]
Last but not least, the team worked very hard to get a trailer out along with all the other media. But as we’ve always done when faced with the choice, we decided to take a few extra days to polish it to a mirror shine before releasing it to the community. Be sure and look for that in the days ahead!
A celebration of the last decade! [Black Mesa Modifications]
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INTROVERSION PLAYING WITH FIRE WITH UNBEATABLE DEFCON AI
Apparently having learned nothing from Hollywood history, indie developers Introversion have put out a public call for AI students to create an unbeatable computer opponent who can mutually assure total destruction in their serenely-terrifying 2006 real-time wargame DEFCON.
The fab-four have been working with The Imperial College Department of Computing and API creator Robin Baumgarten (interviewed here on the subject) to push the development of DEFCON AI in academic study, and Baumgarten has made the that API publicly available inviting everyone to, as Introversion put it (to our horror), “write the most efficient killing machine.”
DEFCON [Introversion Software]
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OTHELLO GETS PUZZLE QUEST TREATMENT WITH NEOPETS PUZZLE ADVENTURE
Readers over a certain age will be forgiven a healthy dose of skepticism in accepting that a game featuring Neopets — the plush animal franchise which includes a digital version of each toy to interact with online (which anyone with an acquaintance under that certain age will likely be familiar with) — might be the next to occupy an inordinate amount of their time.
But anyone that’s lost a chunk of their life to Puzzle Quest, the 2007 RPG/puzzle game that’s touched as many people through word of mouth as it has platforms that will take it (the count currently stands at PC, PS2, PSP, PS3, Wii, Xbox Live Arcade, and mobile phones) will also understand that developer Infinite Interactive has an uncanny ability to tap into that lizard brain sector of the human psyche and keep it dead-locked for hours at a time.
And so it will likely go with Neopets Puzzle Adventure, an online demo of which Capcom has just released. Like Puzzle Quest‘s embedding of an essential ‘Bejeweled‘ match-three core inside a complex RPG framework, Puzzle Adventure does the same with the classic game of Othello.
What you don’t get in the demo version is the taste of the new game’s true complexity: like Puzzle Quest’s spells, Adventure will require you to capture and train ‘petpets’ and find items that throw curveballs into the otherwise straightforward Reversi design, but what you will get, (or at least, I did) is the first thrill of an absolutely crushing victory you’ve had against an AI controlled Othello opponent in as long as you can remember.
Capcom plans to bring the online playable game to DS and PC in late November.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure demo [Capcom]
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DISCRIMINATING NINTENDO PRIZES FOR JAPAN’S DISCRIMINATING TASTES
Right, sorry Nintendo fans, it’s time to get jealous: Nintendo of Japan has just announced this year’s prizes for Platinum and Gold members of its Club Nintendo service, which lets players trade in points earned from buying Wii and DS games.
This year’s Nintenderati will be able to choose from a gold-plated Mario Kart wheel, a life-sized puffy polyester Mario hat, and the slightly more subdued desk calendar set, none of which, the internet has decided (and we wholly agree) are quite as outright desirable as last year’s classic reproduction Super Nintendo controller for the Wii, or (my personal favorite), the laser-etched personalized Wii-mote battery cover adorned with the grinning visage of your Mii.
There’s still hope, though, earlier this year Nintendo of America announced that it would be bringing Club Nintendo to the States, and, unlike Europe’s version — which sees a paucity of prizes distributed to a handful of people while the rest have to vie for desktop pictures and icons — will be, according to a recent interview with MTV, “weighted more toward physical goods.”
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EA TOSSES NEW PARTS INTO SPORE PATCH
Celebrating the release of its first expansion, the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, EA has revealed that the latest Spore patch, which otherwise fixes achievement syncing and Sporepedia background issues will also come with a small selection of 24 additional limbs, including Lesser Tubercles, Sinew Slugs, Humorous Humeruses (Humerii?), and the Proprioceptive Flex — a word you should all now be intimately familiar with having read Clive Thompson’s look into his motion sickness issues with Mirror’s Edge.
Spore Patch 3 — With 24 free creature limbs! [EA]
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THE PROMISE LIPS HOLDS
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.
See more posts about: inis, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME? LEFT 4 DEAD EDITION
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.
Here’s how to play:
Steam: Join the Boing Boing Steam Group to play with us or other Boing Boing readers.
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.
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BLIP FEST HEADED TO NYC DECEMBER 4-7
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.
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HAND CIRCUS’S ROLANDO ROLLING EVER NEARER
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 Dropship on the way, there’s serious potential behind that posture.
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
WELCOME TO OFFWORLD
Hi everybody, I’m Brandon, and this is Offworld.
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?
[Laugh-Out-Loud Cats guest appearance courtesy Adam ‘Apelad’ Koford]
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