The future of the feature is obvious, and console gaming needs to embrace it.
It's been a long time since the days of the Doom wad, when obscure tools were required to make maps and only the truly dedicated could create something worth playing. Level design tools have come a long way since then, and now anyone with creativity and a bit of perseverance can play game designer. While the distribution methods on the PC side of things have evolved nicely, with the clear leader in the field being Trackmania's incredible community website, consoles… Hmm… How to put this kindly…
Level distribution on consoles sucks syphilitic goat wang. That's the polite, sugar-coated version.
N+ had its online level distribution yanked by Microsoft at the very last second. Boom Blox lets you share your levels with friends, putting Nintendo in the unique position of being smarter about the ways their online infrastructure is used than Microsoft. Echochrome is even better, automatically uploading a handful of user-created levels every week or so in addition to allowing users to trade. Taking things a step farther, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy will allow players to upload their levels to BlastWorksDepot.com to share with the world, and Little Big Planet will do roughly the same thing a few months afterwards. Now we're talking!
Tangent- Part of the reason given for Microsoft pulling the plug on N+ level sharing was fear of rude words and genital-shaped creations polluting the minds of America's youth and upsetting their lawyer-happy parents. While I have no doubt that there will be more than a few giant penis bosses to download for Blast Works, Nintendo is still showing themselves to be less afraid of the shenanigans their users get up to than its more "mature" competitors. -End Tangent
Creating things can be a lot of fun, although I'll admit I'm not particularly good at it. There's not much point, though, if you can't share what you've made with other people, and so far it's been very difficult to do on consoles. The PC world has been dealing with the content for years without any problem, and in the age of memory sticks, USB drives, and web browsers built right into the system it's time for the console world to follow suit. Every game with a level editor needs to have a web site where users can upload, trade, and rate their levels, from now on. It's being fixed, slowly, but two games working to build an online community around shared content barely qualifies as a nice start.
This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext's official position on the subject.
Grab a Snickers, take the week off, and kiss your free time goodbye.
No, it’s not a belated April Fools joke, but I sure wish the news wasn’t true. We’ve come to expect Metal Gear Solid to feature extensively long cut scenes, but MGS4 will end up taking it to a whole new level. According to an article reported by PSW Magazine, the game will feature cut-scenes that approach the 90 minute mark. Read that again for a sec because you probably missed it - several cut scenes will average 90 MINUTES. Holy Xenogears!!!!! No offense, but what’s Kojima thinking?!?
Ocelot is just as outraged as you probably are.
It’s been known for some time that the game would be the most extensive installment to date, going as far to be produced on dual-layer discs and now it’s all starting to make sense. (I take that back, it still doens’t make sense. I was merely trying to justify how bizarre this is). PSW made an apt comparison to MGS4 is being the equivalent of “three Godfather movies on one disc.” Perhaps they should have just converted the game into a full CG production if 50% of the time will be taken up by non-interactive cinematic sequences. Fortunately, players can skip the cut-scenes, however PSW delicately discourages fans from doing so as MGS4 boasts the most “finely crafted examples of FMV footage anywhere in gaming.”
I hope this doesn’t end up developing into a trend. There’s clearly going to be some major upsets within the gaming community, but I for one, won’t let this news stop me from picking the game up on June 12th. What about the rest of you?
Source: CVG
This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext’s official position on the subject.
Alternative medicine offers new options for gaming.
Some of you may have heard of Biofeedback. I for one, never associated it with gaming, until a colleague mentioned how a number of companies are now forming interactive experiences around the concept. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it, well at least it sounds credible enough to me. It sums up Biofeedback as:
While it's primary use it to teach us to better relax, imagine if it was used to effect character and environment status in a game? All the health nuts could claim one more beneficial use for gaming and gamers would gain further interactivity. There are some primitive interactive experiences right now, but what if the atmospheric marvel that is BioShock used Biofeedback as part of the engine? Your character could respond based on your body's response. The angrier you get, the worse you aim. Your heart rate increases, so you fatigue more quickly. The more calm you are, the better you perform. Would it even be possible to build in this kind of logic to a typical controller? My gym has treadmills with basic heart-rate monitors that respond to touch… Could they be developed further to do even a primitive amount of interaction and would anyone besides me even want to see it happen?
And what about everyone's favorite survival horror series? Resident Evil would be insane if it could incorporate this functionality. As we move towards perfecting open gaming and more interactive experiences, this is one area that could really be developed. Right now, there are PC-based experiences that incorporate Biofeedback, but I would love to see it in console games, especially the good ones with atmosphere so thick you can taste it.
So what are your thoughts? Too far off in the horizon to even care? It may not work for all genres, but FPS and survival horror are ripe test pilots for it.
This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext's official position on the subject.
Penny Arcade's first game appears on PC, Mac, Linux, and XBLA.
Coded up by newcomers Hothead Games, this first of a planned four part RPG adventure has hit the downloadable street, available over Xbox Live or Penny A's and Hothead's own Greenhouse digital distribution platform (www.playgreenhouse.com) for the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions. All versions have a demo you can snag for free, and discover if this colorful steampunk adventure is worth your $20. Expect the full game to run you 6-10 hours of enjoyment if you're a fan of Penny Arcade or ATB style combat, a la Final Fantasy 7. The official word runs like this:
"Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is an RPG-Adventure game set in the deranged 1920s universe of New Arcadia, delivered togamers via accessible episodic releases. Players join Gabe and Tycho, the crime-solving team of the Startling Developments Detective Agency, to combat savage enemies and solve mysteries hidden deep in the sinister heart of New Arcadia. The game is the result of close collaboration between Hothead Games and Penny Arcade, featuring distinct artwork and characters designedexclusively by Mike "Gabe" Krahulik, story and dialogue by Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, both brought to life by the Hothead team."
I've tried the demo on both XBLA and PC, and I have to say it's hard choosing which to go with the final buy. The production values in everything from the visuals to the sound was beyond my expectations, especially how my own customized character shows up right as I made him in the 2D cut-scenes. Yet when it came to playability, I felt that combat was really designed for the mouse and got adapted to the 360 controller in a way that's just a little awkward, especially with three people to control in real time. The comedy comes through loud and clear on either device, complete with clever narration and jovial item descriptions. So if you're a fan of the comic, I can't see how you can go wrong.
In the spirit of Kojima's highly anticipated release, an anonymous poster published a short animated clip that parodies the opening sequence of Lupin the 3rd (a popular anime series for those of you scratching their heads). So what makes this something of interest of us that you'd be guaranteed to LOL? We'll let the video do the talking.
Ok, perhaps you won't quite get the nature of this post, though the developer deserves a great deal of credit for using MS Paint (and a commercial animation program to put it altogether! Anyways, we thought that you would enjoy it whether that seemed like a logical news post (which you've probably figured out by now that GN no longer regularly spends time dishing out rehashed press releases).
I am counting the days for MGS4; it can't come soon enough.
