Strategy is successful

By Andrei Dobra, Games Editor

Softpedia.com

Real Time Strategy games are extremely popular on the PC. Just take a lot at the recent PC sales charts, which are currently dominated by three top strategy titles: Dawn of War II, Empire: Total War and Red Alert 3 Uprising.

But a lot of modern RTS games are also launched for consoles, some of them even being exclusive to said platforms, like the recently released Halo Wars title that appeared on Microsoft's Xbox 360. Considered Ensemble Studios' magnum opus, it was the first in the Halo franchise to branch out from the traditional First Person Shooter genre and take on a more strategic overview on the battles before the first Halo title.

We've already heard Microsoft say that it pins high hopes on the strategy title, but now it seems that these expectations have been met, as the North American company announced that Halo Wars sold over a million copies worldwide, showcasing that even strategy games could be popular if they had a successful brand attached to them, like Halo.

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image: A popular title, says Microsoft. Image credits: Wikipedia

By Chris Kohler

December 3, Wired

Consider the scene above. Below our hero the Prince is a 100-foot drop onto some jagged rocks. If his bit of wall-running doesn't work out just right, he'll plummet straight down to his ... immediate salvation. Because his constant companion, gal pal Elika (in the background), will automatically save his ass and return him back to solid ground. You could not fail at Prince of Persia even if you tried.

Yes, there's something to be said for attempting to eliminate a player's frustration. And Prince of Persia, released Tuesday for PlayStation 3 (reviewed) and Xbox 360, is a largely pleasant and inoffensive experience. But its designers might have just thrown the baby out with the bathwater: They have eliminated the lows, but also the highs. It is free of frustration, but it is also free of joy.

Prince is the latest reboot of the decades-old franchise that follows the adventures of an acrobatically gifted Persian hero who saves a princess by jumping over dangerous things. In what should now be considered irony, the original 1989 game was one of the most difficult action games of the era.

2003's The Sands of Time was a critically acclaimed rebirth that shifted the gameplay into 3-D, and this new version largely borrows from that game's features: Climbing and jumping on columns, running on walls, and avoiding the moving obstacles that often get in the way of your daring circus act. In updating the game for the next generation of consoles, Ubisoft added some impressive new features, but lost others.

The singular visual style is beyond reproach. The use of cel-shading with realistic features has created something between cartoon and reality, with characters that deftly skirt the boundaries of the uncanny valley without simply becoming caricatures. There is very little plot, but hours of well-performed conversations between the Prince and Elika flesh out their own back stories and those of the evil characters. The environments are occasionally breathtaking.

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image: Prince of Persia is one of the least frustrating games ever, because you can't die (by Wired).

The schedule is too demanding

By Andrei Dobra, Games Editor

October 14, Softpedia

Microsoft has definitely had a busy Tokyo Game Show. With announcements left and right about Tekken 6 or about the New Xbox Experience, the company is getting the hype going around about their updates and products. During this convention, John Schappert, corporate vice president of Microsoft, spoke about the Xbox 360 update development cycle for Spring/Fall. He said that this schedule might not apply after the launch of the NXE, the biggest and most elaborate update to have ever worked on.

“I don't know if we are going to tie ourselves to a spring/fall release schedule as much,” said Schappert at the TGS. “I think one of the things that I worked with the team with when I joined -- let's do a big release. Spring and fall sounds like there is a lot of distance between the two but there is an awful lot of... it's pretty hard to make a new dashboard because you have to certify it against every revision of the hardware, and there's a bunch of different specs. It's a pretty time-consuming and challenging thing to do. Which is why we only did it twice a year.”

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image by Gamepro

Get it here

By Andrei Dumitrescu, Games Editor

September 15, Softpedia

Electronic Arts is getting ready to launch the most anticipated soccer related game of the year, FIFA 2009, and they are preparing gamers for the shock by releasing a demo. If you want to see what's new in this iteration of the franchise, you can download the demo from Xbox Live, get it on the PlayStation Network and even play it on the PC.

The demo features no less than six playable teams, which are Marseille, Schalke, Real Madrid, Chelsea, AC Milan and Toronto FC, that will face off against each other on one pitch. You can also perform a bit of training before the match or take care of the setup of the team by accessing the team options. All the downloads are about 1 GB big and matches are limited to the length of four real time minutes. It's a big download for such limited gameplay, but at least it should show us what FIFA 2009 is all about.

One of the most interesting things in the new game, apart from new players and better graphics, is the wealth of tactical options that you can play around with to make the team you manage take on your style of play.

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image by softpedia

By Mike Smith

August 21, Yahoo

Move over, Angelina Jolie. There's a new Lara Croft in town, and she's a 23-year-old gymnast from South London, Tomb Raider publisher Eidos announced this week.

Ever since actress Rhona Mitra first took on the role of Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft in 1997, Eidos has sought real-life counterparts for its acrobatic archaeologist heroine, and they've helped propel the video game series to worldwide sales topping 32 million. Up until now the British publisher's picks have tended to be models or, like Jolie, movie stars, but Alison Carroll might just be the first Croft to have the physical abilities to do her famously acrobatic opposite number justice.

Carroll boasts 12 years of gymnastics training and numerous honors representing Great Britain in sporting displays. Although her Lara role won't involve any movie work, she'll still be kept sufficiently busy traveling the world promoting the latest Tomb Raider game, Underworld, to allow her to quit her day job -- as a receptionist.

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photo: Alison Carrol as Lara Croft (Yahoo)

July 17, CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Consider it "Star Wars III and a Half" -- complete with a pivotal plot twist.

When LucasArts releases "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" on Sept. 16, the video game will serve as George Lucas' official median between 2005's "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" and 1977's "Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope." In the game, players become Darth Vader's secret apprentice and use The Force to hunt the remaining Jedi.

"Force Unleashed" allows gamers use supercharged Force powers to bust through objects, wield a lightsaber, blast lighting bolts and fling around foes. The game will also change the way fans view "Episode IV" through "Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi," LucasArts project lead Haden Blackman told The Associated Press at the E3 Business and Media Summit.

"There's a couple of big twists and turns in the story," said Blackman. "One revelation in particular really impacts the rest of the saga as a whole. It goes way beyond filling in gaps. We try to make a bridge on every level. The story has a real implications on 'Episode IV.' In some ways, without the apprentice, 'Episode IV' couldn't happen."

Versions of "The Force Unleashed" will be available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2. Blackman and his team worked with Lucas to craft the original saga, which mixes both pre-established elements from the "Star Wars" universe as well as new characters, locales and details from game developers.

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photo: Attendees at the E3 Summit check out the Playstation 3 booth. (AP)

By Chris Kohler

May 6, Wired

Steven Spielberg knows a thing or two about action games. He advised on the development of the Medal of Honor series, based on his film Saving Private Ryan, and he claims to be on his second play-through of the processor-punishing PC title Crysis. So it's a bit surprising to learn that for his first venture as a videogame creative director, the man behind Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park is making not a photorealistic shooter but a cross between Tetris and Jenga. It all goes back to when he was a kid, Spielberg says. He'd spend hours setting up his electric trains so that the locomotives would crash into one another. Now, with the help of a design team at Electronic Arts, Spielberg hopes to recapture that spirit of creative destruction in Boom Blox, out in May.

Inspired by a Wii tennis session, the auteur got the idea of combining Nintendo's innovative Wiimote motion-sensing controller with his youthful delight in mayhem. In the first few levels, you hurl balls at a pile of blocks. The aim? To knock it down. But it's not just mindless destruction — you have to think strategically about which blocks to take out in order to bring the whole stack down quickly. "When you pick up that Wiimote and start bashing stuff, it satisfies something primal," says Amir Rahimi, the game's senior producer.

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image by Wired

April 29, BBC News

Highly anticipated video game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV has received a string of near-perfect reviews ahead of its worldwide release on Tuesday.

The game is expected to break records for the fastest-selling game of all time and many shops opened their doors at midnight for gamers.

The game has been classified as 18 in the UK and Mature for US gamers.

US regulators have reminded parents that the title is not designed for children under 17 years old.

In the UK, 41 shops are understood to have put the game on sale at midnight, including outlets in Stevenage, Hertfordshire; Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire; Hammersmith, in west London; and Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent.

Reviews for Grand Theft Auto IV have been unanimous in their praise.

UK-based games website Eurogamer called it "game of the year" and handed it a 10 out of 10 review score, while the New York Times said it delivered a "new level of depth for an interactive entertainment experience".

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image: Grand Theft Auto IV is expected to sell six million copies in a week (by BBC News)

By Andrew Wallenstein

April 2, AdWeek

I have a shocking confession to make. I have never once played a Grand Theft Auto game.

With the impending release of Grand Theft Auto IV, it's time for me to play the series that turned the world on its head. The series is notorious for becoming the media's favorite whipping boy of violent videogames. But it is also responsible, perhaps more importantly, for the popularization of non-linear gameplay in action games and "sandbox" worlds that let a player explore with no particular goal in mind.

Now, it's not entirely true that I've never played any GTA title. When I was studying in Kanazawa, Japan, one of the great pastimes in the international dorms was Grand Theft Auto 2. But the first two GTA games were quite different from the ones that gained such notoriety. Though they too featured the adventures of a criminal tearing up a city, they were arcade-style, 2-D titles.

We had a great time with that game's networked multiplayer modes, and this led to me being incredibly wrong a year later, when I looked at the first screens of Grand Theft Auto III and decided that it could never work, because the move to over-the-shoulder 3-D meant you lost the overhead city view from whence blossomed the entire gameplay of the original.

And it's true that it did, but Grand Theft Auto III was like the birth of an entirely new, and far more appealing, game series. The original games were moderately successful. GTA III was a phenomenon. As of last month, publisher Take-Two said it had sold 14.5 million copies of the game.

As the years passed and the games' notoriety built, I knew I should try them, but I was writing about Japan at the time and GTA didn't really fit in to that area of coverage. Also, I'm weird: If I don't do something immediately, I generally never do it. I like Haruki Murakami, but I've still got my day-one copy of Kafka on the Shore sitting unread on my bookshelf, for example.

I have since made what I consider to be a successful effort to broaden my gaming horizons, but I left the Grand Theft Auto series untouched even as I've played other sandbox urban crime games. As I said: I am weird.

But enough of that. With Grand Theft Auto IV's April 29 release date fast approaching, I've resolved to play the games I've missed. In doing so, I'll try to turn a negative into a positive: When was the last time anyone wrote about GTA with truly fresh eyes? Will I come up with some brand-new observations about the series, or just the same stuff everyone else has?

Either way, tune in every Tuesday this month for thoughts on another game. Today: Grand Theft Auto III.

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image by wired

Glide is frustrating, according to the game developers

By Calin Ciabai, Games Editor

March 28, Softpedia

Usually, big companies are the ones getting sued for various (and generally stupid) reasons, but this time things are different: World of Warcraft creators, Blizzard, are suing Michael Donnely,
a guy that created the so-called MMO Glider program that automatically performs different in-game tasks (fighting, for example).

According to BBC, both sides have submitted legal summaries to a court in Arizona: Blizzard claims that the Glide software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game, while Mr. Donnely says he was offended by the company's "audacious threats". What is this bot about?

Well, its main purpose is, as we said earlier, to perform different tasks in the game automatically. According to Blizzard, the software infringes copyright because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by WoW's anticheat software. Also, a company rep said that "Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time."

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image by softpedia

Suddenly, 'Risk'-like games are cool, and Google is getting in on the action.

By Nicole Guanlao

March 26, MTV

There's a fierce competition afoot. Alliances are forming, and armies are fighting for recruits, territories and, of course, bragging rights. These intense rivalries have yet to graze the front pages of newspapers, but to those who spend every day defending their territories, these daily clashes are worth the blood, sweat and tears shed in the ultimate fighting ground, cyberspace.

The online game "Turf" and rival "GoCrossCampus" ("GXC") have caught the attention of thousands of college students around the country. The games' young creators have taken the concept of strategic territorial conquest — the bread and butter of board games like "Risk" — online, allowing students to duke it out on cyber versions of their campuses. And, lest grownups get too jealous of the college kids, the corporate world is eyeing its own versions of the games, beginning with Google.

Yale University alum Gabe Smedresman gave birth to the idea that translated intra-campus rivalries into the virtual realm. As an undergrad, he created "Old Campus Tree Risk."

"I wanted to make a game that existed both in the real world and on the Web and sort of somehow involve flags on trees, and it just evolved from there," Smedresman explained. And though he had to drop his real-life flag idea, he eventually developed "Turf" in January 2007, which attracted an estimated 62 percent of Yale undergraduates (3,300 students) to its first tournament.

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photo: GoCrossCampus.com

And a new genre is born: SPG – Sexy Playing Game

By Calin Ciabai, Games Editor

March 06, Softpedia

It was just one or two days ago when I said that sexy girls in video games (with a bonus from nakedness) help these games sell, even if they are not exactly what you could call a good game.
I made fun of X-Blades just because it features a heroine wearing thongs and a little bra, together with big weapons. But now I realize it's a trend. We're doomed to get hit from everywhere by games where sexy chicks do all the dirty work. So, bring it on!

Witches is a game that brings it on and it's trying to do it for quite a while, having in mind that it's in development since 2007. Its story? Simple: sexy and sensual chicks fighting against ugly males, backed up probably by a futile storyline. It appears that you will control a witch called Shadow and try to fight against the Hordes of the Beast, some horrifying, satanic creatures, sometime during the medieval times. Your main priority: enjoy the contrast between sensual beauty and sinister horrors!

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image by softpedia

By Chloe Lake, Technology Editor

Feb 29, News.com.au

THE head of Australia's videogames industry body says there is a way to solve the R18+ videogame rating issue but the South Australian attorney-general has dismissed it as "pornography".

Ron Curry, chief executive of the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, said an R18+ rating could still be introduced into federal legislation.

The issue will be discussed for the first time since 2005 at the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) next month.

South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has reaffirmed his opposition to an R rating, which would prevent the full consensus required for legislative change.

However, Mr Curry said a classification can still be banned in one state even if it is permitted in Australia.

"In Queensland, they don't allow X-rated publications," he said

"Although it is legal federally."

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photo: Illicit pixels ... a promo image for Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, rated M in 2003 / Eidos interactive

By Andrew Ramadge, Technology Reporter

Feb 22, News.com.au

A NEUROHEADSET that allows the wearer to play videogames simply by thinking has been unveiled at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and will go on sale later this year.

The Emotiv EPOC "brain-computer interface device" looks like a headphone strap with 14 neurosensors that branch off it like fingers. The sensors sit on the sides of the temple and top of the head.

The device can detect conscious thoughts, areas of brain activity, facial expressions and even some emotions such as frustration, shock and anger, and will cost about $US300 ($326) when it is released in late 2008.

The EPOC will ship with a range of games designed specifically for the headset, but gamers will also be able to use it with existing PC titles by mapping certain thoughts to keystroke patterns.

"Being able to control a computer with your mind is the ultimate quest of human-machine interaction," said Emotiv Systems CEO, Nam Do.

"When integrated into games, virtual worlds and other simulated environments, this technology will have a profound impact on the user’s experience."

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photo: EPOC ... Emotiv to release a headset that lets the wearer play videogames simply by thinking / Supplied

Feb 21, ChannelNewsAsia

SAN FRANCISCO: Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) said on Wednesday it is luring women into video game design with a 10,000-dollar scholarship and paid internships.

"We are under-represented," Devra Pransky of SOE told AFP after the announcement of the scholarship at a major Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"Video game-making is male dominated and we need to change that."

A Sony-sponsored survey in January of female students enrolled in game design and programming at The Art Institutes showed that about half of those surveyed think more women would play video games designed by women.

The perception of the video game industry being a male bastion deters women from getting into the field, those surveyed agreed.

"It is a misdirection that women don't like video games," said SOE publicist Taina Rodriguez, who sported a lime green t-shirt with the acronym G.I.R.L. – Gamers In Real Life.

"If more women make games, then more women will play games and get excited about making games. We want to strengthen that cycle."

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photo: The new model of Sony's portable video game console(CNA)

By Edwina Gibbs in Japan

Feb 18, News.com.au

LINING up for an hour and a half may seem like a long wait to pick a fight, but for those in the gaming industry the unveiling of Street Fighter IV was a chance to throw a few fireballs down memory lane and try out some new moves.

Game developer Capcom, which will release the first version of the classic fighting game in almost eight years to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original Street Fighter's debut, said it was hoping to draw back old fans of the game and hopefully their kids as well.

To that end, Street Fighter IV is most like Street Fighter II, the most popular version of the game that was released in the early 1990s, with the emphasis more on tactics and strategy than difficult gameplay techniques.

"Later Street Fighters became complicated and were very expert-focused. This is more accessible but still with plenty in it for experts," said Seth Killian, a Capcom events organizer and former Street Fighter champion.

A new Street Fighter movie is also in the works, rumoured to star actress Kristin Kreuk, best known for her role as Lana Lang in the Superman TV series Smallville.

The game, in which characters with their own special moves fight other combatants, has a six button layout that allows players to throw light, medium or hard punches and kicks.

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photo: Street Fighter IV ... fans waited for up to an hour and a half to play the new Street Fighter game in Japan / Capcom

Video games provide relief, therapy for soldiers in Iraq

By Kristin Kalning
Games editor

Feb 12, MSNBC

In April, Army 1st Sgt. James Rowell will ship out for his third tour in Iraq. And in his Tuff Box, along with his other necessities, he’ll pack his Xbox 360, his “Halo” games and his “Call of Duty 4,” a military shooter.

“We take our gear down range – down range means deployed — and we have a lot of fun on our off-time,” says Rowell, who lives in Olympia, Wash. “It really does help out the esprit de corps, and the morale of the enlisted personnel — and all personnel.”

Rowell recalls with relish a time that he played a superior officer in “Halo 2.”

“I beat the crap out of him so bad, that he actually threw the controller out of his hands onto the ground, and walked away and wouldn’t talk to me for two days,” he says with a chuckle. “That’s how intense it is.”

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photo: U.S. soldiers from the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, play with video games at a base in Baghdad. Games can help soldiers deployed in combat zones deal with stress, boredom and loneliness (Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images)

Feb 11, MonstersandCritics

Yet more Grand Theft Auto IV news today, following the arrival of the game’s official Web site, with Microsoft Corp. beating its oiled chest in Sony’s direction ahead of the April 29 arrival of Rockstar’s eagerly anticipated free-roaming epic.

Specifically, while chatting with technology magazine Wired at the DICE summit, the head of Microsoft Game Studios has said that owning the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV is a high priority for Microsoft.

“We already own it, I believe, from a content standpoint, because we have the exclusive episodes,” trumpeted studio boss Shane Kim before adding that the “Xbox 360 is still going to have the ultimate experience for GTA IV… we have to make sure the customers know that.”

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photo: Microsoft Game Studios boss Shane Kim says the Xbox 360 will own the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV (Credit: Xbox.com)

- No, it's not E.T, nor any other SF game. It's a casual Wii title

By Calin Ciabai, Games Editor

Feb 8, Softpedia

A lot of rumors could be heard in the past few weeks regarding a mega game that was going to come from Steven Spielberg. Some feared that we'll get another E.T. game, others were fantasying about the coolest sci-fi game in the world. Nobody was expecting a Wii title and that is exactly what Steven Spielberg and EA were planning. Boom Blox is its name and the game will be released in May 2008 as a Nintendo Wii exclusive.

Although it is not very clear at the moment what genre
will Boom Blox be, a "full site coming soon" about the game makes us believe that it will be a strange combination between tetris games and monkey characters that look like square pieces of soap. And, honestly, it is not exactly the thing we were expecting from Spielberg.

Anyway, the game promises to offer action-packed interactive activities that takes Wii play to a new level of creativity and fun with single player, co-op, and versus gameplay. There will be four themed environments available, Tiki, Medieval, Frontier, and Haunted, which don't give us too much of a clue of what should we expect, as well as over 300 levels to play.

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photo: Steven Spielberg using a Wii remote (wrong). Photo by Softpedia

By Stevie Smith

Feb 5, MonstersandCritics

Leading videogame publisher Activision has today confirmed that Infinity Ward’s breathtaking FPS spectacular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is to receive a shot of longevity adrenaline thanks to the development of upcoming additional multiplayer content.

Scheduled to be unleashed upon fans of 2007’s award-winning shooter this coming spring, Activision says that downloadable multiplayer maps spread across “a variety of intense multiplayer locales” are currently in production for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game.

“We’ve demonstrated our commitment to delivering the best multiplayer experience in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and that continues with our plans for new downloadable content,” explains Infinity Ward’s Community Manager, Robert Bowling. “We’re excited about the new maps, and the added gameplay variety, and we can’t wait to wrap things up and get online with everyone.”

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photo: Inbound to target: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare gets new multiplayer maps. Credit: Activision.