Ouch: Women In Games Conference cancelled for low
numbers

This whole industry is a sausage-fest. I have the highest respect for the ladies that stick with it, because they're very few in number. I had a chat with a few of the brave soldiers on the press side of things during GDC. From what I've heard, it is not an easy life.

It's just as bad on the other side, where they make games. A Bradford, UK annual event called the Women In Games Conference has been called off due to low attendance. "We are very sorry to announce that this year’s Women in Games Conference has been cancelled due to low delegate numbers," the website stated.

This event was going into its seventh year. Speakers had to be sent home.

"Canceling the event was not an easy decision to make, but our delegate numbers this year were far below the figures needed to break even financially."

Women In Games Conference Cancelled Due To 'Low Delegate Numbers' [Gamasutra]

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Sushi Cat Review

Sushi and cats go together like... well, they don't go together at all really. But who knew that such a pairing could prove to be so charming? Sushi Cat, Armor Games' take on the Japanese peg board game Pachinko, is a cute romp bolstered by some solid physics-based gameplay as well.

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Mogo-Mogo Review

When playing last year?s indie Flash favourite Little Wheel, did you ever stop to wonder where this wonderful world of robots came from? Developer One Click Dog is looking to answer that question with Mogo-Mogo, a prequel to last year?s popular robot parable that places you in the shoes of Bogo the Inventor. Be warned though, if you love Little Wheel, there?s a good chance that the only thing Bogo is going to invent for you is some pretty serious disappointment.

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Restaurant City Review

They say that the key to running a successful restaurant is to be hands-on. And that's certainly true in Restaurant City. The restaurant management game rewards players for being dedicated and returning to the game on a regular basis, making it a perfect fit for Facebook. But while the core mechanics are fairly simple, the game quickly becomes very addictive, something which is aided by some terrific production values and great social networking features.

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Fare City Review

Line drawing games have certainly carved out a good niche in the world of iPhone gaming and Fare City looks to join the fray. It?s an exciting game of routing and re-routing taxis to get them to their destinations quickly, narrowly avoiding collisions and trying to snare higher and higher fares. Ahh, the life of a dispatcher in Fare City isn?t an easy one, but it sure is fun.

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CreepyTown Review

I went into CreepyTown with no expectations, save for those I took from the game's title and its bargain basement price on the iTunes store. From the former I expected some sort of story-heavy horror mystery game, which I definitely did not get. From the latter I expected a game that might be a little rough around the edges and hard to use, which I definitely did get.

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Door Cracker

Doorcracker is a challenging puzzle type riddle game where you try to crack the doors to open them. In this game, you have to use your mind and riddle solving skills to crack the doors. Can you able to crack all the doors? Good luck and have fun! [Subbed by Dorislovely]Update: Door 33 is available now to play.Warning: Please don't post exact answers. Just post hints for the levels.Play This GameAlternative LinkPlay Safecracker

[[ This is a summary only. Visit EscapeGames24.com for game links, walkthroughs, comments, and more! ]]

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Demo impressions: Splinter Cell Conviction

Splinter Cell: Conviction is my most anticipated game of 2010. I've always loved stealth games in theory, but even the genre's best entries like Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory fall too heavily on one side of the difficulty spectrum. Metal Gear Solid is forgiving to the point of laughability on anything but the hardest settings; previous Splinter Cell games have been so high-consequence that  single mistakes can force you to restart entire missions.

After Arkham Asylum renewed my faith in the stealth genre, I was desperate to see what Conviction could bring to the table. Would it be a stealth game? A tactical third-person shooter? An unholy, potentially incredible combination of all these things?

Today's demo answered some, but not all, of those questions.

Hit the jump for my impressions.

My first playthrough of the Conviction demo saw me acting like a complete idiot. I'd mark the wrong guys, awkwardly sprint toward a guy with the intention of melee-killing him after he'd already started firing at me, and generally act like the exact sort of idiot that the game didn't want me to be. I survived through a normal-difficulty playthrough like this, but I couldn't shake that feeling I'd grown so accustomed to over the course of the Splinter Cell series: that I was doing everything wrong, and ruining the experience through my own stupidity.

I cranked the difficulty up to "realistic," and tried again.

About half of that playthrough still resulted in really, really dumb decisions (note to self: don't bother throwing an EMP grenade when there's nothing electronic around to disrupt), but occasionally, and quite suddenly, I'd become the exact sort of player Conviction wanted me to be. Instead of heading through a front door, I'd climb through a window and pull a guy out; instead of awkwardly defeating a room full of soldiers using Nathan Drake-esque stop-and-pop tactics, I'd hang from the ceiling, crush them using environmental hazards, and actually think about who I should mark for execution.

This, to me, is where Conviction shines. When the higher difficulty convinces-slash-urges you to stop playing the game like a shooter and start planning the optimum way to take down your enemies in the shortest span of time possible, some cool shit can happen.

Example:

I'm on the second floor. A click of the sonar button (which I now prefer to Sam's typical thermal vision, actually) reveals what I'm up against. Below me, two baddies stand back-to-back in a relatively cramped room, while a third lingers near the exit. They're too spread out to kill with a single grenade blast, so I toss a frag at the furthest guy. He sprints back to his teammates. Marking two of the baddies for execution, I jump over the railing and perform a "death from above" move on the third, unmarked baddie. As he dies, I press the Y button. Without stopping for breath, the two other soldiers die less than a second after I've landed.

At the risk of sounding like a shill, these are the moments the trailers and previews promised us: observation followed by planning followed by sudden, violent execution. I'd previously worried that the mark and execute mechanic would make things too easy on the player or take too much control out of the player's hands, but it ended up being my favorite part of the game. Without it, you wouldn't be able to pull off the explosively fast kill combos that set Conviction apart.

That said, it's extremely easy to screw these moments up. It's much harder to die in Conviction than, say, Chaos Theory, but Conviction still feels like a high-consequence game. The only difference this time around is that failure results in you killing the bad guys but feeling like an idiot, rather than getting killed and having to restart the section. Screwing up doesn't provide cool, improvisational opportunities; it just makes you feel dumb. And that's not fun.

For me, the challenge will be how the full game can balance its difficulty against the player's ability to pull off really cool takedowns. Can the full game empower me to think critically and act efficiently, or will half of my attempted executions result in awkward quasi-failure?

I like where the game is going, regardless of how different it may be from the wonderful Chaos Theory and the somewhat less-wonderful Double Agent. I dig the environmental HUD. Since I always killed every guard I met in previous Splinter Cell games, it's nice to see Conviction base its stealth entirely around taking down enemies rather than avoiding them. As it stands, I'm still very much looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the full game (even if I won't be reviewing it -- that bastard Conrad nabbed the spot before me).

Until then, I'm gonna find out if I can get through the demo without alerting anyone to my presence.

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Cars - Hidden Objects

Cars - Hidden Objects is another free online point and click hidden object game from 123chase. Find out the objects displayed below, which are hidden in the image. Find them in short time duration to score more. Good luck and have fun!Play This GameMore Free Hidden Object Games

[[ This is a summary only. Visit EscapeGames24.com for game links, walkthroughs, comments, and more! ]]

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