CROTEAM, FORMER GAMECOCK CREW BRINGING SERIOUS SAM TO XBOX LIVE ARCADE
A bunch of names I wasn’t quite expecting to come up against today: casual powerhouse Majesco has sent word that Serious Sam — the cult classic tongue-in-cheek PC shooter from Croatia’s Croteam — is currently being remade and will be re-released for Xbox Live Arcade (and, later, PC) this summer as Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD.
Development duty on the game is being done by Austin upstart Devolver Digital, which, it turns out, is the latest venture from former Gamecock heads Mike Wilson and Harry Miller.
If Serious Sam passed you by on its original 2001 release, chances are you also weren’t a reader of Old Man Murray, the long-favorite PC games blog run by Chet Faliszek (who you’ll be hearing more from on Offworld soon) and Erik Wolpaw — two names that should now be familiar to Valve fans as the reason Left 4 Dead and Portal are so well written and designed.
The site tirelessly championed the game on its original release, and made the rest of us aware that for as much as Sam was an uncomplicated, straightforward shooter, it was fantastically so, and featured what remains one of my favorite cheat modes in gaming history: the hippie mode that replaced blood splatter with a floral bouquet, and meaty gibs with hamburgers and fruit (above).
Majesco says the “run and gun, twitch FPS” will offer “BIG guns, TONS of enemies, 4-Player Online Co-Op and stunningly superfluous HD graphics” later this summer.
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ONE SHOT: THE GROANING, ACHING SLUMP OF AN OVERBURDENED BIG DADDY
More concept art retrospectives from BioShock 2 devs 2K, looking at the development of the sequel’s original Big Daddy — the model that all future Daddy’s (ie. the ones you fought in the first game) would be based on.
While I appreciate the less-monstrous utilitarian simplicity of the near-final version at bottom (doubly fitting since you yourself will be playing as this Daddy), I can’t get over that wicked titular aching slump of the first version at top left.
Previously:
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RAGDOLL METAPHYSICS: COULD THE XBOX 360 BE THE LAST CONSOLE YOU BUY? (OR, THE ACTUAL MOST IMPORTANT NEWS OF E3)
Oft-quoted industry analyst Michael Pachter, of Wedbush Morgan Securities, had something to say about E3’s announcements. All that games chatter was one thing, but Pachter thought the real news was all the other web media deals that Microsoft had made for the 360.
“The announcement that I thought was missed was the opening of the Xbox Live Dashboard interface to the internet,” Pachter told Gamasutra. “Later this year, Microsoft will allow members to access last.fm and to select music, to access Netflix and instantly watch films/TV shows, to access Facebook and interact with other friends, and to access Twitter and post/read tweets.”
Pachter argues that the gaming media entirely missed the significance of this announcement, which puts the 360 firmly in the same territory as Apple’s AppleTV, only with a library of awesome games. With so many 360s already installed around the world, MS have a good chance to become the default choice for web media on your TV. A colleague of mine – one of the big boys of the games media who definitely didn’t miss out on the significance of the this particular announcement – proclaimed that “Microsoft have won, and no one even said anything.”
My kneejerk reaction was to say that no, it’s not that this idea has been ignored – indeed it’s been bounced around for so long that I don’t think it really came as a surprise to anyone and, consequently, it didn’t get a great deal of coverage. But, far more importantly, this is gaming, and the platform which ends up having the best library of games will win. (more…)
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Ragdoll Metaphysics, Xbox 360
RED RINGS TO STOP DRINK RINGS: PABLO SUZARTE’S RROD COASTERS
A gift to commemorate the worst day of your gaming life: flickr user Pablo Suzarte shows off his set of Xbox 360 ‘red ring of death’ coasters, then aped by the ‘gamergrrlz’. No rote instructions are given, but anybody with a standard set of Perler beads should be able to copy the pattern easily. [via technabob]
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SONIC SICKNESS: GUITAR-CONTROLLER PLATFORMING IN PIECES’ FRET NICE
Unmentioned during or following E3 week is a game I suppose I shouldn’t let slide by any further. The reason was mainly down to the fact that for as long as I’ve known it — since its first days as an Indie Games Fest finalist — I still don’t exactly have a handle on just how it plays.
The long and the short is this: it’s Fret Nice, made by Swedish indie Pieces Interactive, and its claim to the 2008 IGF’s Design Award nominated fame is that it’s played entirely using one of the several handfuls of spare Guitar Hero/Rock Band guitars you’ve now got laying around your house.
Tecmo very, very quietly made the announcement that it’d picked up the game for distribution on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network at E3, and alongside it sent along the first batch of screenshots showing off its new photo-collaged look.
So, right, still, how does it play? The latest trailer above doesn’t show off much but the game’s wicked looking graphic design, so let’s go back a bit to Pieces’ original IGF trailer. I’m presuming it’s changed in the intervening nearly two years, but there it gets a little more clear: your strum bar seems to be an action button, the fret buttons used for — running? — and the star-power tilt controlling jumps.
Tecmo will surely be closing the knowledge gaps in the coming months until its projected 2010 release, which will also be just about the time the trailers’ vaguely Katamari-esque Vibrant Chordblasters theme finally gets unstuck from your head.
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ST. HUBBINS & TUFNEL & SMALLS: SPINAL TAP TRACKS COMING TO ROCK BAND
It’s been too long since I made mention of notable Rock Band track pack additions, but with the imminent release of four new Spinal Tap tracks, that’s going to change for the moment.
Due June 16th and 18th (on Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively) alongside the release of their new album itself, Rock Band will be getting “Back from the Dead,” Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare” and “Warmer Than Hell” from Tap’s new Back From The Dead album, as well as Jack The Ripper-based themetune “Saucy Jack.”
Said bassist Harry Shear– err, Derek Smalls, “Tap has always gone where the audience is. We hope this time the audience reciprocates. Whatever that means.” [via Harmonix]
Previously:
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OFFWORLD WEEKEND GIVEAWAY: WINDOSILL & SPACE INVADERS EXTREME
6.12.2009
Brandon Boyer
In celebration of the now online playable (as opposed to the original downloadable) version of Patrick Smith’s fantastic surreal adventure Windosill, the ongoing greatness of Backbone and Taito’s Xbox Live Arcade version of Space Invaders Extreme, and partially because I’ve simply got codes to spare, let’s have a weekend giveaway.
I’ll make it easy, this time: at any point from now until let’s say noon CST Monday morning, simply send me the following message on twitter: “I wanna be invaded. @brandonnn http://is.gd/10fzR” or “I do wanna see it at my Windosill. @brandonnn http://is.gd/10fzR” to specify which game you’d like (click either message to auto-generate the tweet, all due sincere apologies to both The Ramones and Arcade Fire).
I’ll pick two people at random for Space Invaders Extreme, and three people for Windosill and send the codes from there. Note that while the Windosill codes will work worldwide, the SIE codes are available for North America only. Good luck!
Previously:
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LATE NIGHT NATAL: MICROSOFT’S MOTION CONTROL MAKES ITS NETWORK TV DEBUT
I expect this YouTube video to get unceremoniously yanked in T-minus 59 minutes or less, but for now, you can see a mind-bogglingly wicked six-degrees cross-cultural explosion as Microsoft’s Project Natal is publicly unveiled on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show to the tune of Ratatat’s Bruleé (!), with The Office’s John Krasinski (also director of my highly anticipated adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men) and True Blood star Stephen Moyer each taking their turns at the Cosmic Smash-esque demo.
I’m pretty sure that’s game-set-match on some version of hipster-gamer bingo.
Previously:
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ONE SHOT: BAYONETTA’S SCARBOROUGH FAIR, GUNS TO LOOK HOT IN A GIRL’S HAND
Platinum Games weapon designer Muneyuki “Johnny” Kotegawa discusses the staggering amount of detailed attention that went into the design of Scarborough Fair, the guns used by the eponymous Bayonetta in her upcoming sexually charged (no, really) PS3/360 debut.
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SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT: NEW SCREENSHOTS OF VALVE’S LEFT 4 DEAD 2
I essentially resolutely refuse to chime in with ongoing posts elsewhere covering the asinine kneejerk ‘Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott’ because, flatly, we don’t have the first clue what Valve are planning to do for either the retail release of the sequel, and even less their continued plans for the expansion of the original.
It’s interesting, of course, to see a developer inadvertently shoot themselves in their own survivor foot by doing nothing more than providing a fantastic, free service to its community (here, the Team Fortress 2 audience) for the past few years, and stirring up a hornet’s nest of car-alarm-angry infected by even suggesting they might have to pay for additional content.
‘Nuff said there, then, and I won’t stretch the metaphor any further, but I will add these new screenshots of the upcoming dirty south expansion (with nice, wide extras under the fold), and idly wonder aloud what it might mean that Ellis (aka ‘the hick-looking one’) not only appears to change his hat, but also his pants (possibly into fire-retardant slacks?) over the course of the shots, and note that Valve recently said that The Wire’s Chad Coleman (‘Cutty‘, aka ‘the one that started the boxing gym’) will be doing the voice of Coach, aka ‘the one in the awesome shirt’, which is a Very Good Thing. (more…)
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