THREE DOG’S ITUNES MIX TAPE
Even months later, my Wasteland time has left me utterly earwormed with nearly all the songs on Fallout 3‘s stellar soundtrack (as would be expected, I suppose, after being marooned nearly 70 hours with the same song shortlist), and short of GameStop’s pre-order 5-song sampler, or, you know, a modicum of effort at chasing them all down on iTunes, there was no way to collect everything in one fell swoop.
Enter: Bethesda, who have updated their blog with word that iTunes’s ‘iMix’ section has an essentially definitive Fallout 3 mix that nets you 13 songs for just under as many dollars. The blog’s got full instructions on chasing it down, but you can also get there directly via this phobos link.
Fallout 3 iMix on iTunes [Bethesda]
Previously:
Three Dog’s Wasteland Top 40 – Offworld
Fallout 3: Everybody Dance! edition – Offworld
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DANGEROUS HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS GETS WRITER’S GUILD NOD
Variety reports that the Writers Guild of America have nominated this year’s videogame selection for the best writing of 2008, the second year since it founded the new category. The selections are always somewhat slanted, with their prerequisite that nominees be part of the WGA itself (leading to last year’s left-field winner, Vicious Cycle’s otherwise lovely PSP action title Dead Head Fred).
This year’s nominees included EA’s Red Alert 3, Bethesda’s Fallout 3, LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Eidos’s Tomb Raider Underworld, and this year’s curiosity, indie dev Mousechief’s Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!.
The last game, an IGF entrant two years running, actually, is primarily the reason I wanted to call attention to the list. It’s a game we haven’t yet mentioned here, and we’re pleased to find that certifiable friend of Offworld Leigh Alexander has an extensive writeup from late 2007 over at Play This Thing on the “charmingly stylish, elegantly macabre” game about the most terrifying of all creatures, the high school girl.
Writers Guild videogame award nominees announced [Variety]
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CASTLE CRASHERS GETS KINGED
While January 21st will see the release of The Maw, Twisted Pixel’s anticipated 3D adventure recently noted in the Offworld Guide to the IGF, tomorrow’s Xbox Live Arcade update will include new downloadable content for The Behemoth’s retro-inspired beat em up Castle Crashers.
The so called ‘King Pack’ is set to add two new playable characters, the ‘Open Faced Grey Knight’ and the King himself, as well as a new healing spell via the King, three new weapons and Pelter, a new animal orb sidekick, all of which, now that the game has been properly patched and fixed issues with its online play, is as good a reason as any to discover why the game landed on our Offworld 20 best 2008 games list.
Previously:
The Behemoth talk Castle Crashers balance, ladies – Offworld
The Offworld 20: 2008's Best Indie and Overlooked – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
LISTEN: BIZARRE GIVE US 46860 CHOICES
Bizarre Creations’ new years gift for fans of early Xbox Live Arcade flagship title Geometry Wars? ‘46860 Choices,’ a 13 minute megamix [direct mp3 link] of the series’ music done up quite nicely by Audio Antics‘s Chris Chudley — series composer, and musician for a majority of Bizarre’s output — which should tide you over until the developer manages to get the official soundtracks to iTunes.
Try as I might, I still haven’t managed to track down the inspiration for the name.
A late Happy New Year! [via everywhere, it seems, including NeoGAF]
See more posts about: Listen, Music, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
LEFT 4 DEAD: SAVAGE BEYOND BELIEF
This month’s greatest superfluous game-mod: ‘Guido-Anchovy’s Left 4 Dead hack, which, apropos of nothing, replaces all infected clips with the sounds of Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage, creating something that’s way, way funnier than it needs to be.
Left 4 Dead – Randy Savage Infected Sound Mod addon [Mod DB, via Shacknews]
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FIDGET’S SCI-FI REDEFINING GAMES LIST
Very much enjoyed Tom Chick’s latest list for Sci-Fi Network’s games blog Fidgit that, appropriately, focused on the 10 games that redefined science fiction — videogaming’s, as Chick put it, “Gattica, Dark City, Clockwork Orange, and Wall-E.” Pleasingly, the list contains a number of undersung classics that are always well overdue for a revisit from Eric Chahi’s Out of this World/Another World (which got a high-def anniversary re-release just a few years back) to Belgian developer Appeal’s fantastic Outcast — and saves an unexpected twist for its number one.
10 videogames that redefine science fiction [Fidgit]
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MICROSOFT RESHAPES BOKU AS KODU FOR XBOX 360
The best part of Ballmer’s CES keynote last night? It wasn’t the old hat Halo sequels and Xbox Live Primetime games — it was the announcement that not only would Microsoft’s game-maker studio codenamed Boku be officially released as Kodu, but that the suite would become an integral part of the Xbox 360 Community Games channel.
First demonstrated in March of 2007 and again brought to light in October of 2008, as above, the kit is meant as an introductory course to games programming (but done purely via the controller with simple formulaic logic): more LOGO (and including a turtle of its own) than LittleBigPlanet (to which it’s been most often and annoyingly/lazily compared).
What’s not clear yet is just how it’ll be delivered and how its sharing functionality will integrate into Xbox Live, but its bright pixel-organics (actually strikingly similar to Tibori’s Dotter Dotter art I mentioned in December) are a very welcome development, and there are few things on my 2009 radar I look forward to playing with more.
Kodu – Microsoft Research [press release, live project demo]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
ROCK BAND BUCKING THE SEQUEL TREND IN 2009
The best games news I’ve heard out of CES thus far? Via Crispy Gamer, Harmonix’s Alex Rigopolus bucking the sequel trend and maintaining development focus on Rock Band as a pure platform, very much as it should be:
“We’ve actually made a choice to break out of the annual release cycle for Rock Band this year,” Rigopolous told the assembled press and industry members. “[This is] partly because the annual cycle places limits on the choices you can make as a developer. We’re trying to take a long term view.”
That doesn’t mean Harmonix hasn’t given up on standalone releases — in October the company announced a new deal with The Beatles to provide a custom one-off Rock Band-esque exploration of the band’s back catalog, slated for release later this year.
Harmonix’ Rigopolous: “Rock Band 3 breaking the annual cycle” [Crispy Gamer]
Previously:
Going deep on music with Harmonix – Offworld
Expect new Guitar Hero releases for the next ten years – Offworld
See more posts about: Harmonix, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
WEAPON OF CHOICE
In the most dangerously superfluous update of the day, the juvies at Destructoid have spotted this Instructables how-to that will turn your now outmoded Xbox 360 HD-DVD player into a real live ray-gun, capable of (at very least) burning electrical tape, popping balloons, and lighting matches from across the room, all of which seems like appropriate responses for having sided with the wrong team in the video format war.
New 007 Laser Weapon – Revealed! [Instructables, via Destructoid]
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REMEMBER MADBALLS? THEY’RE BACK! IN GAME FORM.
Winning the Offworld award for Franchise I’d Thought Least Likely To Ever Make A Comeback, Playbrains has announced that cult indie arena-ball-brawler BaboViolent 2 will be given a facelift in 2009 with a new PC and Xbox Live Arcade version, now sporting original characters from short lived 80s fad Madballs (in their first appearance since Ocean’s “we’ll make a game of anything, really” C64 and Spectrum title from 1987).
Truth be told, my interest is actually slightly piqued by the video above, and, as GamerBytes points out, the original BaboViolent worked up enough of a community to spawn its own comprehensive fan-site: this may just be the retro revival we didn’t know we needed.
Madballs in BABO:INVASION [Playbrains, via GamerBytes]
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