Pixelsocks.com

GDC 2010 Hub

pixelsocks — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:56:51 +0000

span.gametitle {text-align:center;font-size:x-small;font-style:italic;} 2010 IGF Main Competition and Student Nominees Aaaaa! A Slow Year Closure Cogs Enviro-Bear 2000 [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Valve Can’t Wait for GDC

pixelsocks — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:14:47 +0000

Exceeding your Portal RDA: Portal 2 confirmed, with 2 player co-op and bonus Steam for Macs. Related posts:

Valve Steamed at Activision Once upon a time, Valve and Sierra had a happy...
Valve Trying to Unite Left 4 Dead Multiplayer With Sequel In a move you’d expect from the Umbrella Corporation, Valve...
Left 4 Dead Getting New Content In the wake of fan outrage that Valve could be...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Portal Patch Propounds Possibilities

pixelsocks — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:44:34 +0000

Portal was the first game I ever reviewed here at Pixelsocks.com, so my ears perk up whenever I hear any news. Valve recently released two patches for the groundbreaking first person puzzler. The patch notes were brief: Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations (March 1) and Added valuable asset retrieval [...] Related posts:

Cognitive Dissonance and Cheap Apps One of the funnier properties of human thought is that...
Torchlight Gets Mod Tools Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that I have...
Left 4 Dead: Retro Evolved This one comes straight from the awesome files: Eric Ruth...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Review: The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

pixelsocks — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:13:16 +0000

SEE: Artistic vision forgotten since the silent film era. HEAR: The extraordinary soundtrack. KNEAD: The inimitable P.B. Winterbottom's pastry obsession into something nobler. ENDURE: Unflattering couplets that hurt your feelings. MARVEL: As P.B. bends time to eat pie! ALL THIS AND MORE inside this PIXELSOCKS EXCLUSIVE review of THE MISADVENTURES OF P.B. WINTERBOTTOM. Related posts:

Zeit^2 Zeit2 Developer: Technische Universität Berlin Nomination: Student Showcase Platform: Windows,...
Review: And Yet It Moves Fans of graphic novels will have heard about the...
Review: Splosion Man ...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Metroid: Other M and the Garden Path

pixelsocks — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:20:10 +0000

Is it just me, or does something seem a little off about Metroid: Other M? It's subtle, so bear with me for a moment. According to 1up, the game will open by revisiting the climactic finale of Super Metroid. If you weren't gaming in the mid-90's (poor soul), here's the cliff's notes: intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran exterminated every Metroid on their homeworld, but the last larva hatched and imprinted on her. It was later abducted by space pirates, but the larva remembered Samus and sacrificed itself to protect her from series adversary Mother Brain. It's one of the first good examples of integrated nonverbal storytelling in gaming, and it tugs at old gamers' heartstrings. A followup has been a long time coming, so that's all well and good. Now consider that Other M developer Team Ninja is making a significant departure from Metroid as it has been previously established. The first series of games were 2D platformers, and Retro Studios adapted the series to 3D in the Metroid Prime trilogy as a deliberative FPS. Metroid: Other M is again another beast. It's pacing the game to be more action-oriented, and pitting Samus against waves of enemies. At the same time, the controls are being scaled down to the sideways Wii remote, so the mechanics are being built with an eye to accessibility over control. It should be interesting to see how the new approach plays out, and history will do the critical analysis of what worked and didn't. However, Team Ninja will almost certainly make a better game by following their creative vision than by making concessions to reactionary fans. So what's the problem? These two facts don't fit well together. Making an appeal to Super Metroid invokes older series tenets. Following that invocation with a drastic change in pacing and mechanics is like leading gamers down the garden path. Even if the lead-in is good and the game is good, the jarring shift from one to the other may leave players feeling duped. When Retro made Metroid Prime, they made a break with series continuity by hollowing out a space in the story and building their own game inside it (hence the prime). Team Ninja may be building themselves a cage of expectations, and they're courting gamer ire if they can't escape it. I really hope they can. Related posts:

GDC 2009 Blueberry Garden Hands-On We couldn't get our hands on a few of the...
Moving to the lee of the stone Hey all! Sorry for the dropped news on Friday, but...
2010 Will be Good to Nintendo Dust off your Wii, because 2010 is the year that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

2010 Will be Good to Nintendo

pixelsocks — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:05:25 +0000

Dust off your Wii, because 2010 is the year that Nintendo remembers that they’re a development house. The Nintendo Summit took place today (via 1up), and the developer/publisher/console manufacturer announced a whole slew of release dates. The biggest by far is Super Mario Galaxy 2, which will arrive on May 23. Nintendo released a new [...] Related posts:

Mario Marathon Earns $28.8K for Child’s Play The Penny Arcade Child’s Play charity generally gets the most...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Review: Plants vs. Zombies

pixelsocks — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:43:42 +0000

The iPhone port of Plants vs. Zombies isn't quite as feature rich as its counterparts, but it's also a tenth of the price. The smart tower defense gameplay and adorable aesthetic remain intact, and the touch interface is actually superior to other ports. It's only a pity that the reduced content will cut down on the time you'll spend with such an excellent game. Related posts:

Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening Defense Grid: The Awakening is a refreshingly gameplay-oriented experience....
Review: Peggle for iPhone Peggle has been getting the Tetris treatment, and not...
Interview With Ashley Monif of Fieldrunners When I asked Ashley Monif to tell me about Fieldrunners,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ubisoft Suspicious of Your Money

pixelsocks — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 02:56:42 +0000

Every now and again, someone pronounces PC gaming dead, but it might really be happening this time. MTV Multiplayer is reporting that the PC distribution of Assassin’s Creed will ship with some bloodthirsty DRM. In addition to the usual requirement that you be online to start the game, Ubisoft also wants you to maintain a [...] Related posts:

Assassin’s Creed 2 Preview We'll be wrapping up our PAX coverage with preview impressions...
Assassin’s Creed 2 Ruins Save Games A bug has been discovered in Assassin's Creed 2 that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Blizzard Earns $1M for Charity, Keeps Remainder

pixelsocks — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:13:32 +0000

News item If you doubt the viability of cosmetic fob microtransactions, Blizzard has 220,000 reasons why you’re wrong. That’s how many people bought a Pandaren Monk pet from the Blizzard store. The MTV Multiplayer blog crunched the numbers from Blizzard’s Make-a-Wish charity drive, which announced a $1.1 million take for sick kids. At $5 a panda [...] Related posts:

Blizzard Lets You Play Warcraft a Bit Less Blizzard announced about a week ago that the World of...
Warcraft Shrinks by Half Shortly after Blizzard tried to transfer their China licensing to...
Mario Marathon Earns $28.8K for Child’s Play The Penny Arcade Child’s Play charity generally gets the most...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Review: Bioshock 2

pixelsocks — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:30:58 +0000

Bioshock 2 manages to feel overly familiar and awkwardly different at the same time. The storytelling and ambience ape its predecessor while the mechanics shift away from role-playing and toward FPS. However, it's difficult to fault developers for sticking with the formula that gave them a game of the year, and the polished plasmid/shotgun gameplay is still there for everyone who liked it the first time around. It's just ironic that Bioshock is always overshadowed by expectations. Related posts:

Review: Left 4 Dead 2 Left 4 Dead 2 does the sequel thing right....
Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum It's a tired fact that licensed games try to...
Review: Overlord Overlord is essentially Pikmin with a little more attitude...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.