Red Dead Redemption Release Date on the Horizon

post from PWN or DIE on 03 December 2009 04:04:19 PM. © PWN or DIE

Red Dead Redemption can now officially be expected for a release- as per most games from Rockstar, in April.

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Faces Design Conundrum'>Mirror's Edge 2 Faces Design Conundrum

post from Press The Buttons on 03 December 2009 04:00:00 PM. © Press The Buttons

Electronic Arts really wants to bring last year's Mirror's Edge for the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, and PC back for a sequel, but there's a few design issues that need to be sorted out before that can happen. As Kotaku details, the company can't quite decide what needs to change about the first game in order to make the sequel better. Here's a snippet: "I think Mirror's Edge was a fascinatingly original world. Fascinatingly original art direction. Music...

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Rumor: PSP Minis to be playable on your
PlayStation 3

post from Destructoid on 03 December 2009 04:00:00 PM. © Destructoid

Rumor: PSP Minis to be playable on your PlayStation 3 screenshot

If Joystiq's sources are to be believed, Sony may be significantly upping the value of its PSP Mini titles. How does allowing you to play them right on your PlayStation 3 sound?

Rumors have Sony enabling support for Minis on your PS3 as early as this holiday, with multiple sources confirming to Joystiq it will happen "before Christmas" or "this month." Sony, of course, refused to comment throwing out the standard "We don't comment on rumor or speculation."

I've only purchased one PSP Mini title myself, Zombie Tycoon, which is a neat little title at least worth the small admission price. Being able to play it on my television (without the use of PSP to television A/V cables) certainly sounds like a good idea to me. Why? Because I'm lazy, and wires are scary and complicated.

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Try the Bayonetta demo now via PSN and XBLM

post from Gaming Nexus on 03 December 2009 03:55:00 PM. © Gaming Nexus

by: Chad Smith
NEWS - Bayonetta is set to hit stores early next month. If you have been drooling over the footage and other videos that have been released lately, your wait is nearly over. The good news is that a demo is now available on the Playstation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace. What else could you want? Fire up your console and check it out to see if Bayonetta will be the first "must have" title of 2010.

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Oddities: Laurel & Hardy - The Videogame

post from Gaming After 40 on 03 December 2009 03:50:00 PM. © Gaming After 40

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were one of the greatest comedy teams of the early sound movie era, starring in classic shorts like The Music Box and features like The Flying Deuces.

Unfortunately, this 1987 Commodore 64 game from UK publisher Advance Software Promotions fails miserably to honor their legacy:

The game attempts to mimic the look of the silent movie era, which isn't completely inappropriate as Stan and Ollie made their professional debuts, solo and as a team, before sound came along. For example, there are intertitles presented in an appropriate font, in this case as Ollie steps into a bar:

The game also features a dynamic "bouncy" animation of the backgrounds, mimicking the look of the Max Fleischer Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons. There's even a plinky piano rendition of the Laurel & Hardy theme song, with an animated theatre pianist in the center section of the split screen. But after these initial positive impressions, the fun drags to a stop.

The first problem is that the license is based on Larry Harmon's 1960s Laurel & Hardy television cartoon series, not on the original films. Presumably the secondary license was easier to obtain and avoided estate and likeness rights complications, but as a consequence the duo's most memorable situations are off-limits for adaptation, leaving the game designers to come up with a generic plot.

This they did, saddling our heroes with repetitive and boring gameplay centered around the classic pie fight. But the design entirely misses the point and the pacing -- as implemented, the goal for each player is to find a flan (i.e. pie) somewhere in town, then locate the other player and throw it in his face. The first player to score the requisite number of SPLATs wins.

Even setting aside the relative paucity of pie fights in the Laurel and Hardy shorts, the gameplay fails to capitalize on this simplistic idea. The basic problem is that the game map is HUGE and the flans are scattered scarcely and randomly around town. The players therefore spend the majority of their time wandering around looking for a flan, then more time finding the other player so as to be able to fling it. The cream pie confrontation itself is an anticlimax, and happens so quickly and non-visually that I wasn't even able to capture a proper screenshot.

Here, in this post-SPLAT image, Stan has pie on his face in the status area, Ollie having scored the first hit. And the pointless wandering continues anew.

Where are the nagging wives? The troublesome pianos? The mustachioed nemeses? The annoying little dogs and children? The insurmountable work assignments? The Hal Roach-inspired action of any kind? Such felicities are nowhere to be seen. All we have are Stan and Ollie, wandering endlessly through the digital wasteland.

I think I know what went wrong. The designers saw the derbies, and mistook the characters for Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for Godot. And so, per Samuel Beckett, there's nothing to be done. We shall pause.

(Pause.)

Now let's go play something else.

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-videogame.html

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Gardener Escape

post from Escape Games 24 on 03 December 2009 03:41:00 PM. © Escape Games 24

Gardener Escape is another new point and click type escape the room game from stoneagegames.com. Serve your lord well to escape this poor job. Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

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http://www.escapegames24.com/2009/12/gardener-escape-walkthrough.html

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Will the sequel to Borderlands be called
'Borderworlds'

Will the sequel to Borderlands be called 'Borderworlds'? screenshot

Assuming there is a sequel, of course. But based on Borderlands' strong sales as a new IP and prior comments to come out of both Gearbox Software and Take-Two, it's more a question of "when," not "if" in regards to a follow-up.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant work of superannuation, a trademark filed by Gearbox for "Borderworlds" has been found. With Borderlands being the fine game that it is and only needing a few crucial additions to see its distinct style of play perfected, a sequel sure would be fantastic.

While I'm personally not a huge fan of the name "Borderworlds," I'd be glad to suck it up and deal with the title if it meant getting a sequel to one of my favorite games of this year. Perhaps the more I hear it, the more I'll get used to it? Things tend to work out that way.

We've asked Gearbox for a comment, but I wouldn't hold your breath. It's seems too early for anything substantial to be discussed on the record.

[That VideoGameBlog]

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