Labels: announcements, Emergent Game Technologies, Gamebryo

• There's a rumored Xbox 360 Dashboard spring update that may support motion controllers.
  
• The footage for Too Human (August) and Ninja Gaiden II (June) has me stoked; (and while the NGII trailer is slick, I'm ticked TH has downgraded co-op from 4 to 2).
  
• EA's moving away from quarterly guidance (take that, non-logical knee-jerk market), and talked its 3-year growth plan.
  
• EA recognizes the PC growth opportunity, and CEO John Riccitiello correctly said the PC market has "been growing for several years... it's categorized wrongly by looking simply at the box side of the equation."
  
• The free Battlefield Heroes is looking slick.
  
• Battleforge, that collectible / RTS(ish) thing, has me interested.
  
• Left 4 Dead, more zombie-killing (and being) love, is still leading me on.
  
• I want Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts to resurrect Rare; lotta people working their tales of on middling received titles, so let's knock one out of the park.
  
• Atlus announces great concepts, and I'm waiting for one to pay out for me. Zoids may be it (I dig the IP).
  
• Fable II? It may end up being my third anticipated game (after Too Human and Ninja Gaiden II)
  
• Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is coming May 21. I will buy it for its lengthy title (eat it, Peter Jackson's King Kong the Official Game of the Movie!); I will buy it to support snarky indie devs everywhere.

Labels: announcements, events

Labels: announcements, companies

Labels: announcements, fighting

Labels: announcements

Labels: announcements

"Did you know our system update package is only 7MB in size? Or that the entire 360 O/S resides on a tiny 16MB filesystem and when running it is only given 32MB of system memory?"

Labels: announcements, Microsoft, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

Labels: announcements, rumors

"Viewpoints expressed in this Weblog do not reflect or represent the thoughts,
intentions, plans or strategies of my employer, family, friends, acquaintances,
other gamers, or even, quite possibly, me as the author."

Labels: announcements, ramblings, releases

"With no disc necessary, and at just 1,200 Microsoft Points per game, Xbox LIVE members can easily rediscover these hit titles, or check out a game they missed the first time around. This launch lineup is only the beginning, as Xbox 360 owners can expect to see a growing catalog of Xbox games to download and own over the coming year."

Labels: announcements, Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

Labels: announcements, events, Microsoft, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

"The new version of the PS3 will come with a 40-gigabyte hard drive, cost $400, and go on sale on November 2, said Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America.

"The price of the 80-gigabyte version will be cut to $500 from $600."

Labels: announcements, PlayStation3, Sony

Labels: announcements, BioWare, companies, Microsoft, RPG

Labels: announcements, Xbox 360

Labels: announcements, companies

1. I'm a toy fan.
2. I'm a fan of Todd McFarlane.
3. I like McFarlane's toys for their sculpts, and dislike them as action figures (as a generality, they're not pose-able).
4. I said I'm nervous about the articulation for the Halo 3 toys.
5. I call Todd McFarlane "Toddy", because no one else seems to. No word yet on whether he's OK with that, but I'm told someone is checking this out for me.

Anyway, as far as point #4 (from a prior post):

...at least Master Chief will have "more than 18 points of articulation" (would that be "19"?), which ups the Joyride Series One's 15 points. No articulation notes are given for the other figures, which makes me nervous.

Master Chief:

Master Chief does, indeed, look decent. The photos, unfortunately, are not good at showing how much range of articulation the figure has. A little of critical analysis yields encouraging stuff, though:

• Photo 1: Looks like the shoulder joint is pretty versatile
• Photo 2: (with Photo 1) showcase a range of motion for the knee joint, and similar jointing for the ankle (which would be good news)
• Photo 3: Looks like the elbow has great range of motion

What I can't tell from the photos is what the hip joints are like (Photo 2 is closest to giving a view, but it's too dark to see). To be fair, hip joints are hard -- you have to avoid the whole "adult diaper" look (epitomized by Hasbro's Marvel Legends White Queen). But I can't tell if the Chief can stand straight, or he's eternally ready to crap Brute spike grenades.

The deco looks spot-on, though, and I'm curious about the tenuously attached frag grenade -- Clever magnet gimmick? Pin and socket? Breakable and child snortable in waiting?

Cortana:

Cortana is a non-articulated statuette with a light up base. And honestly, Scott Fischer set the sexy bar for our favorite semi-corporeal Femme AI in The Halo Graphic Novel. That's the new Femme AI Sexy Bar, or FAISB(TM). And "Mother" from Alien is our favorite non-corporeal Femme AI. So I'm mheh on this sculpt until I see it in person.

Brute Chieftain:

The Brute Chieftain has probably the coolest deco scheme of the lot. The picts are also better about showing a range of motion the other product photos don't. The gravity hammer accessory is almost a character in itself (hmm, new weapon for the game?). My only concern is whether his "I'm compensating" loin cloth thingy gets in the way of posing the figure. I dig the sculpt, though.

Jackal Sniper:

Imagine if there was unholy wedlock between Pan (the goat dude, not the cross-dressing broadway dude/tte) and Skeksis (from The Dark Crystal). This would be their baby.

The sculpt and deco are complex and detailed, the picts again show a more varied range of motion, and I'm curious what the spiky things on the head and forearms are made of. I'm more curious as to the balance of the figure, given the goatish legs. This will either be amazingly done, or amazingly frustrating.

Grunt Two-Pack:

Speaking of balance, that could be the bugaboo with these cooly crafted little ... buggers. The Grunt Two-Pack has one each teal and burnt orange armoured Grunts (What? Specificity is good.) that look great, down to the nubby little feet that could make their back-heavy Notre Dame(ish) humpbacks a problem. But if the weighting is good (and the rock-like feet are cleverly sculpted to compensate for character tilt), these could be a couple of little winners.

I do hope the guns are removable. And I wonder if it's too late to have Jason Staten voice clips emanate randomly from the figure as they sit otherwise quietly on the shelf?

So, there's my unsolicited (but stunningly brilliant) deconstruction of the toys. If I get permission to post picks from McFarlane Toys, I'll update this post with those.

Labels: announcements, Halo, media intersection

• Lost Odyssey will be out December 6 (in Japan; probably)
• Ace Combat 6 from Bandai Namco is exclusive to the Xbox 360
• Gundam Operation Troy will be out in 2007, as will Katamari, and Gundam Musou International (that last one is a maybe)
• Dynasty Warriors 6 will be out in November
• Ninja Gaiden 2 was announced, and looks to be an Xbox 360 exclusive
• Age of Empires, Crysis, World in Conflict, the new Viva Pinata party game will all be out for Japan's Games for Windows Live
• New controller colors have been announced (possibly just for Japan): green, black, pink, and white
• New XBLA titles include Rez HD, Every Extend Extra Extreme, Ikaruga, Trigger Heart, Exit, and Omega Five
• New RPG Infinite Discovery was announced, a joint project between Square Enix, Microsoft, and developer is Tri-Ace
• Square Enix's other project, The Last Remant, will be playable at TGS this week

Labels: announcements, events, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

Labels: announcements, rumors

Adam Creighton. Video Game Nut. Comic Book fanboy. Actor. Biz and Tech Dev Wunderkind.

1. That game had potential.
2. It gave superstar artist Jae Lee a platform to showcase his awesome work.
3. The new game is being done by EA Chicago, and spearheaded by Kudo Tsunoda, the wunderkind behind Fight Night Round 3 and Def Jam Icon.

There was a preview of the game when it first aired on SpikeTV's Game Head, but I noticed clips showed up online today. They're not the whole picture that was in the full episode, but they do give you gameplay, CGI cinematics, and behind-the-scenes insight. Besides Tsunoda (who continues to look like he's channeling his inner Tomonobu Itagaki), there are sound bites from Liam Miller (Line Producer), Darren Bennett (Senior Produce), Josh Tsui (Art Director), Dave Pasciuto (Lead Environment Artist), and Nathan Turner (Lead Environment Artist).

For comic book fanboys, yeah, that looks like Ultimate Captain America in the gameplay, and possibly a variation of Ultimate (shirtless) Juggernaut, but (thankfully) with the traditional helmet.

The game's still a year out, but already looks great, and I can totally see EA Chicago rising to the high bar set by Raven Software and Activision with their Marvel Ultimate Alliance game. There better be customizations and unlockables out the wazoo.

And on the sour grapes side, I'm irked host Geoff Keighley got placed into the game, when I as a trained and skilled voice and on-camera actor can't get EA to give me the time of day. And Chicago is a union town; but maybe Canuck Geoff's SAG. Dunno. End Gripe.

Anyway, the vids:

World’s First Look at the Marvel Fighting Game:

The Hulk’s Destructive Gameplay:

Level Design on the Marvel Fighting Game:

Labels: announcements, comic books, fighting, Xbox 360

• Gamasutra Austin GDC 2007 coverage (the best, since they're both owned by CMP Game Group)


• Kotaku.com coverage (maybe; wicked light right now; why don't they hire an Austin local (me) who's been doing this for 5 years? Fahey's gonna be wicked hungover after tonight's Tabula Rasa party; and his feet will be dirty)


• TenTonHammer.com (maybe)

As an aside, one of my pet peeves is people with no sense of history. Or can't remember where they parked their car. The game industry seems to be particularly full of both. Anyway, a lot of the online sites are talking AGDC's "new theme" of being MMO-centric this year.