Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

What's Midway doing next

So, Warner Bros. has bought the once-great Midway.

Which begs the question -- what will Midway do next?

Part of me hopes they'll be working on "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" games. Only because I think it would be funny if the house that built Mortal Kombat built "The Bachelorette".

With Fatalities.

(Funny ha ha.)

Labels: humor

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Zorsis is Dead Space for Wii's Daddy

OK, not really, but I am pretty tickled by the similarities.

If you're not up to speed on the Wii offering for the top-notch survival horror Dead Space title from Electronic Arts, it's not going to be a port -- it's going to be a prequel, implemented totally differently as an on-rails, almost light-gun(esque) title.

If you're not familiar with "Forbidden Terror on Station Z!" (aka, "Zorsis"), it's the technical demo Emergent Game Technologies did for our Wii engine offering for the 2008 GDC (I wanted a gritty, atypical Wii "grown-up" demo), and it's a zombie on-rails "light-gun" shooter (in space).

Here's a Zorsis screen cap from GDC a year ago:

Zorsis screenshot from Emergent Game Technologies; contact Adam Creighton for more information

And here's a screen cap of Dead Space: Extraction (shipping from EA this fall):

Even the Extraction targeting reticules have the same blue and orange motif!

All kidding aside, kudos to EA for not just shoe-horning Dead Space as a quick-and-dirty port to the Wii. This new entry in the franchise really showcases their commitment to treating it like a leverage able IP (not that the comic books, animated film, etc. didn't).

Still, there is a weird, kindred similarity to "Zorsis" ...

Zorsis gameplay vids (PC and Wii) can be found on YouTube, and you can download the PC version of the demo to play as well.

Labels: Electronic Arts, Gamebryo, GDC08, humor

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Begun, the Shark Wars have ...

Ah, the joys of company culture.

We folks at Emergent Game Technologies work wicked hard. It turns out putting a commercial game engine that doesn't suck into the market is a wicked lot of work. Putting out one that kicks it hardcore on multiple platforms takes a wee bit more work than that. So we work hard. Constantly.

That said, if you put a bunch of wickedly smart people together, things get wickedly wonky, and, well, entertaining.

Here's a snapshot.

It started with a quote and bet, and then spiralled from there.

The quote is from Austin Powers' Dr. Evil:

"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done."

The bet was ... multifaceted. But let's just say part of it was made between two engineers, and dependent on the creation of an actual shark with frickin' laser beams.

So, after a bit of jury rigging to a rubber shark (provided to Engineering by Yours Truly), Emergent ended up with a shark that, indeed, has frickin' laser beams attached to its head. And independently controlled fans. And is pluggable into a computer to receive notifications (like when we lose network access to our source control repository).

Below, feast your eyes on the Engineering Shark, traditional lasers and all:

Me? I saw opportunity for a bit of a friendly competitive battle, and having provided Engineering this cute little fellow, I ordered a five-foot inflatable badboy, attached red faux gems (and had a bad 80s denim Bedazzler flashback) and red yarn to the eyes, to create "analog lasers".

Behold, Product Management Shark 1.0:

Analog lasers and all:

Now, the fact that the Product Management shark is hanging in my office, the red gems' propensity to pop off at a moment's notice, and the general irritant of the phrase "analog lasers" created a culture of engineers walking into my office and taking shots with NERF guns at Jabberjaw (affectionately and respectfully named for the Hannah-Barbera character, and, uh, my loquacity; and/or my tendency to say, "bite me"). His poor little eyes kept popping off.

To protect Jabberjaw and mitigate the "those don't count as a defense mechanism" verbal barbs (words hurt), I picked up some cheapy motion-activated dart launchers, strapped them around his middle, and put the sensors near my door.

Enter Jabberjaw 2.0.

That gave me a couple of weeks of giggles as visitors were beaned in the head (or nether regions) before someone got done and stole my darts. Jerk(s).

Undaunted, and guessing the toy dart launchers were too cheap to use unique RF signals, I picked up another set. Sure enough, one set of transmitters will set off multiple missile launchers, so Jabberjaw 2.5 (I'm just enhancing functionality he already had, after all) is now equipped with two launchers, each capable of launching 2 missiles, for a 4-missile volley that makes people think about whether they really want to talk to me.

Jabberjaw 2.5:

There's more to the back-and-forth Product Management and Engineering good-natured ribbing, but I think I'll save recounting the next round of that for another aggrandizing post.

Labels: Emergent Game Technologies, Gamebryo, humor

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Odd choice for a PlayStation3 loading screen

I found this a wee bit (painfully) funny.

Check out the Flash loading logo for the SCEA PlayStation Website:

Look similar to anything else in the game space? ;-)

Labels: humor, ramblings

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Gaming April Fools tomfoolery

Ah, it's my national holiday.

Since happenings beyond my control have removed me from creating the brilliant events that could have been, instead I'm going to point to gaming related shenanigans that made me chuckle. Or chortle. Perhaps even guffaw.

Microsoft / Xbox pranks -- Including a "Wireless Helmet" (with "Flex-plasma In-sight Display" and looking like it belongs to Red 5); "Xbox LIVE The Board Game" ("simply attach the USB adapter right to your console and sign on to Xbox LIVE"); "Xbox 360: Recon Edition (with "Built-in passive sonar"); and "Xbox 360 Vintage Edition" (my favorite -- a wood-paneled Xbox form factor that looks like it was birthed from the loins of a floor-standing 1950s radio).
Blizzard / Activision -- "Introduction" of a new Hero Class -- the Bard -- which can use their "magical axes" in a WoW / Guitar Hero crossover (unfortunately, just "available" for the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion); a Tauren class "added" to Starcraft II ("an anthropomorphic bovine genotype with super-human stamina, overpowered racial combat abilities, and bizarrely well-developed horticultural skills"); the "announcement" of World of Warcraft: The Molten Core coming to ... the Atari 2600 (!); and my favorite, the "Diablo Loot Piñata" (which "provides the same fun and excitement as traditional piñatas while also letting longtime Diablo players relive their epic battles with the Prime Evil").
Kotaku.com -- All of the cake crap is a joke. All of it.

Labels: humor

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Watch the Team Fortress 2 soldier in action ...

Do yourself a favor -- go watch the Team Fortress 2 soldier trailer from Leipzig this week.

I'll have more Leipzig stuff later but ... just go watch this video.

A reminder that there is goodness in the world. Twisted goodness, but goodness.

UPDATED: While you're waiting for my brilliant winnowing of the Leipzig wheat from the Games Conference chaff, you can get the relevant tagged stories at the fine sites below. By "fine", I mean "other".

Labels: humor, shooters, Xbox 360

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.