the rez post (k-project, synaesthete)
(I'd opt for slicker graphics, more little details (like the trees that change their shapes to the beat) that would completely transform the game into a classic X-MIX techno movie and music from licensed artists. )
Watch this space for more Rez-related games in the near future.
dardenbahst: steampunk lego mecha
It's a shame I don't cover the new steampunk contraptions but Dardenbahst, this amazing piece of LEGO machinery could make me reconsider. You have a full-on schematic to use your old Technics pieces with - if you're laziness incarnate (or just too young), do try out the free LEGO Digital Designer. You might have a chance. (via bb gadgets)
mirror's edge: new concept/images from the cyberpunk parkour game
Hardwired shows off some new (concept) images from DICE's cyberpunk parkour game Mirror's Edge. Gamers at the HW forum have a hard time deciding whether Faith (protagonist) is a well-equipped woman or not but honestly, martial arts and physics-heavy sports are sort of more geared towards this kind of build. (Check my previous post on ME here.)
amegatana, fula - innovative japanese gamer performance gadgets
yuichiro katsumoto
has a new video for two of his pet projects out on youtube - the first being amegatana [sword of rain], the one he'd been presenting at ars electronica, 2007 (see my yt linked at the end of this post) - an umbrella linked to an accelerometer that obviously detects the types of swings that you try to pull off and plays a few sound effects (like thunderclaps and rumblings) if you succeeded in doing so. katsumoto-san describes this "an umbrella for enjoying a blissful walk after a rain", which obviously means that all Japanese with umbrellas have this innate ability of kicking our asses hard without even trying.fula, he says, "is a muffler for warming the user's body and soul on a cold winter's day", but it's more like a gadget with dramatic effects, blowing a scarf off our backs and keeping it floating while we show off our blissful shadow-swordsman technique. if i'm nonsensical, just tap play and you'll see what I mean.
funny thing is, I did a brief talk-to with him back at second city. turns out he's a huge fan of bushido blade and this really leaves a mark on the whole amegatana thing. secondly, he said that since the Japanese mobile market is starting to get flooded with handsets with built-in accelerometers, he could rewrite the software for mobiles instead of umbrellas adding multiplayer support. which could leave him with a righteous amount of revenue, so all thumbs up for yuichiro katsumoto!
mirror's edge: cyberpunk meets parkour (and apparently, nic endo)
We'd have a secret crush on Faith at the office: she's young, Asian, makes a living by doing parkour runs as a courier in a future where information has to be distributed physically (Gibson's Virtual Light plays the very same card) and has barcode-looking tattoos that give an extra. Instead, this very lady also looks like Bai Ling with her face pressed conveniently flat in a foundry, genetically merged with an alien and ripping off half a mascara off Nic Endo. No pussyjob for Faith.
But seriously. She's just a jpeg off DICE and a fanpage for a game DICE develops entitled Mirror's Edge. (Faith is the protagonist but there's a slim chance that the Asian chick is just a geek hit factor, nothing more.) This is going to be a FPS parkour game in a cyberpunk future with no weapons use at all, the body's gonna have all the focus, which is nice, as parkour is all about perfect body use in an urban environment. At the present On Mirror's Edge has all the info you need. Below, two screenshots and below that, a brief scene from one of the hottest parkour action movies ever, called Banlieu 13. The movie also headlines David Belle who is the founder figure of parkour.
phun - a fun 2d physics playground
Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction. (via, link)
hellgate: fed up
Giving up on Hellgate:London after a few months of alpha and beta testing, followed by three months of subscription enema is something I have to consider either a feat of prehistoric will or simply common sense. Think about it. You're level 33, you've seen your share in combat, instead of doing tai ch'i, studying Japanese or receiving a proper blowjob, you level up and you farm palladium. And the most intense experience you ever get in the game is that you receive some military pants that looks like just the other thousand you've sold and it makes your ass cheeks glow yellow instead of purple.
Level randomization is boring. Monsters are boring. Coloring is dull. Item design is dull and boring. Finding an item is not funny anymore. In a 3D game where DirectX10 effects are supposed to be the shit, I sort of expect my character to look cool and I expect to find shitloads of items that look cool on me. I also expect to be generously handed a vanity cam that works in various ways the current version doesn't. You grind on and on just because you expect to find something new and interesting and it really pulls you into the game. For a time. US and EU players cannot migrate to servers, shared stash and auction house still not working and as for the characters, they are fucking unappealing. Seriously. I do not expect (although I should) the graphical diversity of Guild Wars, but seriously, those guys know their shit. None of the characters look good. The faces, terrible. Mod support? None. And for all that, 10 euros per month? No way in hell and that's not because I couldn't afford it.
I have worked in the game testing/development arena and I have been eaten by wolves every day and worked with fat fascist workaholic cocksuckers, lots of them. So I sort of know what it means not to be able to finish things by deadlines and continuous ego clashes between developers (who shat the universe, basically) and all the lower-level scum. Good intent and the distant prospect of a good game might have led Bill's troopers. Right into the cesspool.
No cocaine ammo for Bill.
second skin: the dark side of mmo's
mizuguchi talks rez
In Japan, we had 200,000 copies, including the special package with the Trance Vibrator. I think that in the United States, it was very small. So small. I don't know why, but I think it was too challenging at that time, for the United States market. Recently, we had a big success with Lumines on PSP in the U.S., but before that, many people said to me, there's no market for puzzle games. So it's changing. Now, with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and new types of music games, I think it's a very good timing. (via)
rez hd hands-on (boingboing)
And if you don't have Rez, my goodness, what you're missing! The masterwork of maverick designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Rez is to shooters what Mizuguchi's later Lumines is to falling-block puzzles. Everything flows to the beat of the game's awesome techno soundtrack; you lock on to enemies then let go of the button to let your fire fly, they explode to the beat of the music. As you progress through the levels, the music goes from a simple back beat and a few rhythmic beeps to a dramatic multi-layered piece, and the vector-line graphics get more and more intricate as well. (via boingboing)
tribal tattoos on the rise
This footage, taken from Japanese TV, gives a hint of things to come in the world of game gaming/entertainment. It has been suggested that the PS3 will include technology that allows gamers to interact with the gaming environment in this manner.
lemonquest: cyberpunk the arasaka's plot
A klasszikus Cyberpunk2020 jobb pillanataihoz visz vissza a Cyberpunk: The Arasaka's Plot című java-applet, munkábamenet még álmosan, vagy munkából visszajövet kurvafáradtan ideális lehet(lehetne, ha lenne egy normális mobilom, amire lehetne feltölteni anélkül, hogy különleges driver, kábel és erkölcsi bizonyítvány kéne hozzá), képek itt vannak hozzá, egy letölthető verzió itt figyel, a szándékosan be nem linkelt videóból meg kiderül, kísértetiesen hasonlít a Flashbackre vagy az Another Worldre, kinek hogy. (via)
audiosurf
2008 februárjában újra megpróbálja az indie játékgyártás az eddigi lehetetlent: saját zenéinkből pályákat felépítő és azokat beversenyző cyber-gyorshajtó istenveréséből eddig volt sok, mindegyik ronda volt, de legalább nagyon. Az IGF Seumas McNally-nagydíj-esélyes Audiosurf elméletileg ilyen lesz. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. (link, via)
deus ex 3 teaser trailer
Cyberpunk gets an upgrade. Deus Ex 3 is in the making. Montreal, you'd be better good.
black ice white noise
Az Atari Jaguarra fejlesztett, Gibson könyvei által inspirált, végül ki nem adott cyberpunk játék egy gyors bemutatója. Oldschool to da bone! Interjú, képek, mimás.
bloodnet vs bernes> all to zero
My sources tell me Jasper Bernes is now a minor household name in cyberpunk poetry. He also runs a blog on bs. Burt says that it's the poetry the world of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash would include if that world could include really good poetry (and I'm not sure it could). Snow Crash does include poetry, although it's more like the updated twentieth-century version called lyrics. My best bet for cybepunk poetry still lurks in the depths of the previous-millennium era, in a PC game called Bloodnet - that would still be a treat for moviemakers or even series producers, for that matter, easily taking the best bits of Strange Days, Hellgate:London (it's more like templars fighting vampires in lower Manhattan) and lots of street-gang bravado. The link for Bloodnet is here, quite unconveniently killed by an ESA notice. Lucky I bought it in a miserable RPG shop for something like four bucks. (Update: that was a hilariously bad way of finishing up this post. I am frustrated.)
the zombot is on
DJ Shoom - Titan Tripping. Level 10 multi, nem bírtam ki.
Charing Cross. Hat órán keresztül pofoztam össze a Zombot halloween event-only petet, ami ugyan a szaladgáláson kívül nem képes semmire, de eszerint a videó szerint Jacko ihlette a mozgáskultúráját. (Láttam, egyetértek.)
wanted: the trailer (and some assassin's creed)
Orgyilkosok titkos szövetsége, Angelina Jolie, Angelina Jolie fegyverrel, Angelina Jolie éjjelnappaliban kilencvenfokos szögben golyódarálva (ezt a trükköt majd Morgan Freeman is elsüti, némivel több szőr kíséretében), Angelina Jolie tengelyszaggató sportkocsimutatványai és össze-vissza ellőtt pisztolygolyók, amik természetesen mind célbatalálnak, woot: mindez a március 28-án robbanó WANTED trailerében. Nyilván elég ahhoz, ahogy felsneakeljek a West End akármelyik mozitermének tetejére, hogy a sajtóvetítés másfél óráját ott töltsem fejjel lefelé függve, a sors iróniája, hogy a link előtt tíz perccel sikerült megtalálni az Assassin's Creed egyik fejlesztői videóját (Montserrat mission), ami ötvözi a hongkongi smart mazafaka akciók higgadt gerincroppantásait a Thief középkori kaszabolásaival és néhol még Angelina Jolienál is jobb, pedig. Holnap az első dolog lesz a munkahelyen megkérdezni a HR-es kolleginákat, akad-e orgyilkosképző tréning esténként a háztetőkön.
the hellgate is on
HELLGATE: LONDON. Emiatt nem updatelek. (Fansite.)
Update 1: US/Shulgoth, thedamage, ha valaki csatlakozni akar. Riasztóan addiktív.
toribash 3.0
A világ legaprólékosabb verekedős játéka, a TORIBASH új verzióhoz érkezett és még ingyenes is. Csutkázd le forgóbédekkeres triplaszaltóból ellenfeled veséjét, majd az ádámcsutkájkát, végezetül a bal szemgolyóját, mindezt egy 360 fokos kamerafordulat közben, majd fogd mindezt sanyarú gyermekkorodra és a tesztoszteronos kalácsra. (link)
splume
Fizikai motorral megfejelt, browserben hasítható színlevevős játék a Splume, 3 megás installálandó plugin (Unity) kell hozzá, szórakoztató, gyors és már sokmillió pontom van, kecsegek.
portal: the flash game
Amíg nem próbáljuk ki a Valve új, 3D-s őrületét, a Portal-t, ami a Half-Life enginébe oltott logikai útkereső játék, addig jó a flashben megoldott síkbeli is. Aki nem értené, hogy ez mi és miért jó neki, nézze meg a videót, a játék a kép mögött.
Dawn of War: Soulstorm 2008 tavaszán
Teljes csillagrendszert ölel fel a Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War stratégiai örökbecs folytatása, a DoW: Soulstorm. A 2008 tavaszán megjelenő kiegészítőben két, teljesen új faj csatlakozik az eddigi héthez - ezek közül az egyik a Dark Eldar, a másikkal kapcsolatban ugyan még nem érkezett hivatalos bejelentés, de remélhetőleg a tiranidák lesznek, ha már. Az eddigi hét faj extra egységeket kap (köztük légieket is, végre), a multiplayer módban pedig megjelennek a különféle elért eredményeket megjelenítő medálok. (sajtóanyag @ worthplaying.com)
