Epic would 'love' Gears of War on PS3

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 11:05:25 PM. © Destructoid

Epic would 'love' Gears of War on PS3 screenshot

Are you the kind of PS3 owner who regularly insults Gears of War while secretly wishing it was on your favorite console? Well, Epic Games is right there with you, because apparently the studio would love to put the series on the Black Box o' Blu-ray.

"Do we wish we could take all those Killzone and Resistance fans on PS3, and get them to say 'Gears is awesome'? Yeah, sure I'd love to ship the Gears trilogy on PlayStation," said president Mike Capps. "That would be fun. I want to be there; I want to be everywhere."

Despite his words, however, Capps apparently has no attention to abandon whatever sweet deal Microsoft is passing his way: "Time and time again, when it came down to figure out what we do next with Gears, we sat down with Microsoft and they've given us really good, compelling reasons to work with them again."

So, the short story is -- Epic would love to put Gears on PS3, but money, bitches!

Epic Games 'Would Love' to Put Gears of War on PS3 [Industry Gamers]

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Day three of IGDaily's GDC coverage, now with
Tara Long

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 11:05:25 PM. © Destructoid

Day three of IGDaily's GDC coverage, now with Tara Long screenshot

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Two days ago, Hamza appeared on Machinema's Inside Gaming to help with the show's GDC coverage. It was great. Yesterday, Max and Nick appeared on the show as well. It was also great.

Today, Tara Long co-hosts the show, and it is awesome. Totally awesome. Tara Long is awesome. She is slowly taking over the world of gaming, and the funny thing about it is, she doesn't even have to try. It's just the natural way of things. Just as the dinosaurs eventually died out and made way for the coming of man as the dominant life form on the planet, everyone else in the gaming press is slowly dying out and making way for the coming of Tara Long. To everything turn turn turn. There is a season turn turn turn. And a time to every purpose under heaven. A time for war, a time for peace. A time for Tara, a time for Long. "Stop, Tara time. Can't touch this."

Tara Long is the dicktits.

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Come join the Destructoid show live stream

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 11:05:25 PM. © Destructoid

Come join the Destructoid show live stream screenshot

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Any moment now, Max and I will be starting tonight's live stream of the Destructoid show with special guest editors Nick Chester, Conrad Zimmerman, and your favorite furry animal, Hamza Aziz. You can check it out at our YouTube account here.

We'll be doing a recap of today's events at GDC, so if you're at least mildly interested in video games, you should come join in on the fun. And if you're not, why are you reading this?

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Ubisoft: Not our fault that our sex game's rated
for kids

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 10:04:44 PM. © Destructoid

Ubisoft: Not our fault that our sex game's rated for kids screenshot

Ubisoft has commented on the age-rating for its "sexy" party game We Dare, after a week of pretending not to notice how f*cked up it is. The response? Blame PEGI, the European ratings board!

"We Dare is intended for a mature audience and Ubisoft created its marketing campaign accordingly," asserts the publisher. "The PEGI ratings system is decided upon by a pan-European body and the rating for this game was bestowed by the independent PEGI board. Ubisoft has added a ‘Parental Discretion Advised’ sticker to the game in order to ensure that parents are informed of the potential sensitive nature of the game content."

PEGI stands by its rating, believing it to be the correct one: "PEGI does not take into account the context of a game when rating it, we only look at the contents of the game. [We Dare] has been rated as a PEGI 12 because it contains mild swearing, minor assault on a human-like character and words/activities that amount to obvious sexual innuendo, explicit sexual descriptions or images and sexual posturing."

Hilarious stuff, but it does somewhat expose the arbitrary nature of videogame ratings. One would think context is important, and when you remove that, you end up with 12-rated sex games. I mean, on its own, a dildo shaped like a bunny isn't going to be pornographic, but you wouldn't give it to your daughter on her tenth birthday. Unless you're Josef Fritzl.

It's a strange business, and a perpetually imperfect one, but maybe software raters should do a little independent thinking when judging a title.

Ubisoft and PEGI Address We Dare Age Rating Concerns [Cubed3]

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GDC 11: First look at Risen 2

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 10:04:44 PM. © Destructoid

GDC 11: First look at Risen 2 screenshot

"Looks beautiful" is the first thing that popped into my head when I saw Risen 2 being played in front of me. Deep Silver put up screens of the first Risen 1, side by side, next to the upcoming sequel -- the difference is basically night and day. A lot of work has gone into the character design, environment, and animation. Everything is significantly more detailed and realistic this time around.

Deep Silver also learned from their mistake with the last game in terms of the bad console port that was Risen. This time around, they're doing multi-platform development between the PC and Xbox 360 from the start instead of later on in the development cycle.

Story-wise, Risen 2 focuses on the last remnants of humanity that have been eradicated by titans and monsters. It's your job as the player to defend against these threats and travel to multiple islands in your quest. Essentially, the world is f*cked and you're the key in helping fight back.

The hero you play as is a broken-down drunk, a sharp contrast to the hero from the first game. It's a nice touch, and something I welcome as I'm sick of the perfect hero syndrome we always see in these types of games. So I don't think I'll be getting sick of the main character in the 40 to 60 hours it takes to play.

Risen 2 wasn't playable, but the game looks promising based on this early look I got.

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GDC 11: Amnesia and Minecraft rock the 13th
Annual IGF

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 10:04:44 PM. © Destructoid

GDC 11: Amnesia and Minecraft rock the 13th Annual IGF screenshot

Yesterday evening, the Independent Games Festival Awards ceremony took place in San Francisco as part of the Game Developers Conference. It was fun to watch, whether you were there in person or simply viewing from home thanks to the live stream.

Here are the 13th Annual IGF winners:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($20,000): Minecraft, by Mojang
Nuovo Award ($5,000): Nidhogg, by Messhof
Excellence in Visual Art ($2,500): Bit.Trip RUNNER, by Gaijin Games
Excellence in Audio ($2,500): Amnesia: The Dark Descent, by Frictional Games
Excellence in Design ($2,500): Desktop Dungeons, by QCF Design
Best Student Game ($2,500): FRACT, by University of Montreal
Technical Excellence ($2,500): Amnesia: The Dark Descent, by Frictional Games
Best Mobile Game ($2,500): Helsing's Fire, Ratloop
Audience Award ($2,500): Minecraft, by Mojang
Direct2Drive Vision Award ($10,000): Amnesia: The Dark Descent, by Frictional Games

Well, now what? I'll tell you what! You need to play these games -- every last one of them.

[Image source]

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Rabbit Room Escape

post from Escape Games 24 on 03 March 2011 09:05:46 PM. © Escape Games 24

Rabbit Room Escape aka Usagi's Room Escape is another Japanese point and click room escape game developed by Strawberry Cafe. In this game, you are locked in an room and you have to search the room to find items and some clues for solving puzzles and escaping from the room. Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

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GDC 11: You need to pay attention to Skullgirls

post from Destructoid on 03 March 2011 09:05:38 PM. © Destructoid

GDC 11: You need to pay attention to Skullgirls screenshot

#More Videos

Lead Designer Mike Zaimont is the man behind Skullgirls. He's also a pro fighter who's competed in EVO tournaments, so he knows a thing or two about making a good fighting game. I got some really good hands-on time with this new fighter, but I'll have a more detailed preview next week when all the chaos of GDC has subsided.

In the mean time, I do want to at least put this game on your radar as it has the serious potential of becoming a big fighting franchise. What really fascinates me about Skullgirls is that it's actually being designed with exploiters in mind so people can't abuse the system. Fighting fans know what I'm talking about here. Fighting games tend to suffer from combo moves that can't be broken if the player knows what they're doing. Skullgirls looks to answer that in order to make the experience fair for everyone.

I promise I'll have more for you soon and explain in detail how this all will work. Until then, check out the beautiful art style of the game done by Kinuko and Persona, two amazing artists from the Mecha Fetus Visublog.

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GDC 11: Physics-based racing on the Wii with
MotoHeroz

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The makers of Trials HD are bringing their brand of physics-based racing over to WiiWare later this year with MotoHeroz. While you are racing around in different cars through the 75-plus levels, MotoHeroz feels more like a platforming experience. Whichever way you cut it, the goal of the game is to get to the end of the level as fast as possible, using physics and items all along the way.

The levels are typically multi-layered courses all with some sort of obstacle that you'll need to get through and you can see exactly what I'm talking about in the trailer above. It seems simple enough, but races get insane when there are four people playing.

Multiplayer is broken up into two ways. There's online mode, which will have 50 levels. But only three to five levels will be available within a 12-to-24-hour window every day. Once that time is over, the previous levels close up and new levels are released.

Then there's Party Rally mode, where up to four players can race around through 25 levels locally. This is the mode I got to play through and it was an absolute blast. There's a learning curve when it comes to the physics at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly. I think the best part is the fact that even if you're in first place, something can happen to easily set you back all the way into last place.

Simply put, MotoHeroz is a fun racer that Wii owners will be able to enjoy later this year.

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GDC 11: Jaffe: Games should be patched four times
a year

GDC 11: Jaffe: Games should be patched four times a year screenshot

Outspoken game director David "Glistening Bull" Jaffe has criticized games that release huge amounts of patches in a short space of time, suggesting that a game should be updated four times a year at most.

"Hardware manufacturers, I feel, should only allow one to four updates to the software per game per year," he suggested, to a large applause from a GDC crowd. "None of them should come within the first one to two months the game is shipping.

"When I first started, when the disc was shipped it was our last chance [to get rid of bugs] off the bat. If developers could make it work then, then today they can at least make sure our games don't have to be updated the first week they hit shelves."

I've long been against the "patch culture" that seems to encourage the development of rushed games, and developers who concentrate on shipping a game first, and ironing out problems later. While I do agree with Jaffe, I'd like to see him extend his criticism to the hardware itself -- having Sony restrain its stupid PS3 Firmware updates would be lovely.

Jaffe: Console makers should limit game updates to four per year [Joystiq]

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