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Ouya: The $99, Android-Powered TV Game Console

<< Previous | Next >> The Ouya console and controller were designed by Yves Behar.<< Previous | Next >>View all TV videogames are due for a disruption. Is a $99 console called Ouya the device that could do it? It wasn’t that long ago that the vast majority of portable videogames were purchased much like console games, on a disc or cartridge for $30-40 each. Smartphones have since thoroughly disrupted that market, giving gamers an array of portable devices that play games with an upfront cost of either 99 cents or nothing at all, with much of that money being funneled directly into developers’ pockets. Now that Apple’s crazy idea has become established wisdom, it would seem to make sense that a similar business model could work for television games, doing to the Xbox and Wii what iPhone did to the Nintendo DS. But although rumors have long been swirling about an updated Apple TV box that would introduce 99-cent apps to the living room, nothing has materialized yet. This, at least for the time being, leaves the playing field wide open. Enter Ouya, a startup founded by Julie Uhrman, the former head of IGN’s digital distribution business and who has also held executive positions at GameFly and Vivendi Universal. The company says it plans to launch an eponymous gaming console, for which it will launch a Kickstarter drive on Tuesday, that brings the smartphone paradigm to living-room gaming. The $99 Ouya is built on the Android platform, will allow developers to easily create and sell their games and be fully “hackable” — anyone will be able to pull the machine apart and tinker with it to their heart’s content. Ouya expects to ship the first boxes in March 2013. “I grew up playing games on TV, and I wasn’t along in feeling that the game industry is experiencing a brain drain,” Uhrman told Wired in advance of Tuesday’s announcements. “Developers are leaving triple-A shops and going to mobile, and we feel that’s a shame.” Inside The Box Ouya’s technical specifications, as provided by the company Console Tegra 3 — Quad-core processor 1 GB LPDDR2 RAM 8 GB on-board flash HDMI connection to the TV at 1080p HD WiFi 802.11bgn Bluetooth LE 4.0 Enclosure opens with standard screws Controller Wireless controller with 2.4Ghz RF Standard game controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button) Touchpad, for porting mobile games more easily 2x AA batteries Enclosure opens with standard screws OS and Software Android 4.0 Custom TV UI Integrated custom game store — find and download games (and other apps) Includes SDK for game development Ability to root device without voiding warranty “The money is in the living room,” Uhrman said. “Three out of every 4 dollars are spent on TV [games].” Ouya’s cubic design and game controller were created by Yves Behar, designer of the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop. The box packs a four-core Tegra 3 processor and 1 GB of RAM. The controller looks like a standard Xbox 360 pad with a touchpad, which Uhrman says will allow touch-controlled mobile games to be ported to Ouya more easily. Although Uhrman has secured funding from many private investors, Ouya is attempting to make a splash with a campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter. It has set a lofty goal of just shy of one million dollars, which it says will be spent on the development of the hardware and software, producing the first Ouya machines and funding the development of early games. Uhrman says that every game developed for Ouya must either be free-to-play or have a free trial version. Thirty percent of revenue will go to Ouya, the rest to the developer. Ouya has recruited a handful of independent game designers to sing its praises before the launch, giving a little bit of street cred to an otherwise nebulous project. “I’m excited for Ouya,” said Journey creator Jenova Chen in a statement. “I am a firm believer that there is always room to challenge the status quo.” Other indie devs on board with Ouya include Markus “Notch” Persson of Minecraft fame, Canabalt designer Adam Saltsman and inXile Entertainment’s Brian Fargo. The company says that every Ouya box sold includes a software development kit at no extra cost. The console and controller will even use standard screws so that they can easily be pulled apart, examined and tweaked. Everything sounds good on paper. But can it work? Getting into the game console business has generally been a Sisyphean task for startups. The only two companies that have had any success at it since the formative days of the videogame industry have been Sony and Microsoft, established technology giants willing to burn billions just to get a foothold. Ouya might well be correct that the App Store model is what television games have been waiting for. But even if it has read the tea leaves correctly, it’s also possible that Apple or another major player is preparing a product that will grab all of the mindshare that Ouya is hoping to gather for its project. The reason that game developers can get rich selling iOS games for a dollar is that they’re selling to a massive userbase, something Ouya doesn’t have. Apple was able to sell iPhones because people need phones, but nobody needs another game console under the TV. Then again, it’s not as if Ouya is starting entirely from zero. By basing its console on the Android OS, it makes it easy for a wide range of developers to port games to the platform. The biggest reason that previous attempts at breaking the dominant paradigm of the home game console business have flopped is that they were fighting against established players like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Ouya, if it positions its product correctly, isn’t really competing against any of them. They don’t have to fail for Ouya to carve out a modest success. There’s no $99 game machine on the market today, not even Wii, and nothing with an App Store-style ecosystem. It’s quite likely that something like Ouya will soon enough be ubiquitous in our living rooms. Whether or not it’ll be Ouya is anyone’s guess. All images courtesy Ouya

Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition for iPad Screens

1 new shots posted. Get the full article at GameSpot "Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition for iPad Screens" was posted on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:49:02 -0700

Comic-Con 2012 360 Costume Cam

Costumes and cosplay are to Comic-Con as peanut butter is to jelly or Cloud is to Sephiroth--they're inseparable. Take a look at some of the costumes of Comic-Con 2012 like never before with the 360 Costume Cam, brought to you by IE9! Get the full article at GameSpot "Comic-Con 2012 360 Costume Cam" was posted by Staff on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:19:21 -0700

Farm Kingdom Screens

10 new shots posted. Get the full article at GameSpot "Phantasy Star Online 2 Screens" was posted on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:54:00 -0700

Dotcom extradition hearing delayed

An extradition hearing in Auckland for MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has been delayed until next year.

Are We Screwing Over Future Generations By Taking All Of The Best Domain Names And Gamertags? [Kotaku Presents]

There is a serious epidemic going on that all of us are ignoring, and it's been bothering me for quite some time. I don't care about mercury in the water, toilet snakes, or swallowing my own tongue anymore. This is a far worse threat to society. More »

Let's Play San Diego Comic-Con Bingo! [Sdcc 2012]

The 2012 San Diego Comic-Con kicks off on Wednesday night! Are you going to be there? If not, illustrator Mike Yamada and his lovely wife have crafted a special Comic-Con Bingo card so you can play along at home. Only problem is it might be too easy to fill. More »

You'll Soon Be Able To Help Decide What Games Get On Steam [Valve]

Valve is crowdsourcing the approval process for its Steam distribution platform, it said today. More »

Prometheus Actor Fassbender to Star In Assassin’s Creed Flick

Just picture Michael Fassbender’s chin under that hood.Image courtesy Ubisoft Ubisoft wants Assassin’s Creed to be its next game franchise to hit the silver screen. Actor Michael Fassbender (Prometheus, X-Men: First Class) will star in and co-produce the film, according to Variety. “Michael Fassbender was our first choice,” Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet told Variety. Ubisoft opened its own film studio last spring following Disney’s adaptation of the Prince of Persia video game series in 2010. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time under-performed at the box office, but Ubisoft is keen to try Hollywood again. By finding its own star, writer and director before negotiating with the studios, Ubisoft hopes to retain creative control, says Variety. There is no word yet on who Ubisoft is planning to find to fill those latter two roles. Ubisoft has released seven Assassin’s Creed games in the past five years, with two more due out this October: Assassin’s Creed III for home consoles and Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation for PlayStation Vita. The studio also produced a series of live-action Assassin’s Creed shorts in 2009.

Playfire Acquired By European Games Retailer Green Man Gaming

Longtime UK gaming community startup Playfire has been acquired by Green Man Gaming, an independent games retailer in Europe. Founded in 2007, Playfire now has amassed more than 1m gamers which allows members to track their gameplay, see what their friends are playing, and follow new games. When gamers sign up, the service automatically captures real-time data from their gaming accounts across PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms and sends it into the service. In many ways it pre-dated the kinds of activity we see across Twitter and Facebook apps. Playfire says it now has almost 100 milion individual pieces of data and insights into the buying and playing habits of core gamers worldwide. Founder Kieran O’Neill will only be staying on in a consultancy role, but retains a “significant stake” in the company. GMG will be integrating its existing retail customers and Payfire users close together to reach around 1.5m gamers. Kieran O’Neill, Founder, Playfire, said: “The deal will give us the chance to expand and improve Playfire, while being able to capitalize on the large community we have built. There are so many things we want to do in 2012 and this deal will allow us to execute faster.” Paul Sulyok, Managing Director, Green Man Gaming, added: “We’ve grown Green Man Gaming organically since selling our first PC download in 2010, and the merger with Playfire is a sound fit that deepens our relationship with gamers and prepares the business for its next stage of growth. Playfire’s powerful community strengthens our current position in the PC games space, and also offers us an ideal entry point into the console market.”

Michael Fassbender starring in and co-producing Assassin's Creed film

When he's not playing a cold, conniving artificial man, Michael Fassbender is sharpening his hidden blade (and his hidden check book). Not because he's way into hidden knives (he isn't, as far as we know), but because he'll be playing the starring role in an upcoming Assassin's Creed film adaptation, says Variety.Fassbender's company DMC Film is co-producing the film as well, teaming up with Ubisoft Motion Pictures. It's unclear which plot line of the game series that the film will follow, if any. Variety says the "plot revolves around a man who learns his ancestors were trained assassins after he is kidnapped by a secret org with ties to the Knights Templar, and sent back in time to retrieve historical artifacts," which sounds like a game revolving around Desmond to us. It also sounds like the basic root of the entire game franchise, so do with that what you will.The new deal with Fassbender's DMC Film helps to put Ubi's previous Sony talks to bed. Talks last November apparently fizzled, though Ubi is still open to "re-discuss" things "once the production package is finalized." Ubisoft Motion Pictures will hire the project's director and writer before getting involved with any third parties - a response to the lackluster reception Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time got at the box office, which Ubi apparently attributes (at least in part) to a lack of creative control over its own property.[Pictured: Filming of Assassin's Creed: Lineage]Michael Fassbender starring in and co-producing Assassin's Creed film originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Mind Candy Acquires Origami Blue Games Studio To Become Its Labs Arm

Mind Candy, the company behind the successful Moshi Monsters online kids game and character franchise, has acquired a games studio, Origami Blue, to power a new initiative being dubbed ‘Candy Labs’. The move marks another twist to the Mind Candy playbook which has seen it develop into comic books, music and toys. The team joins as full-time Mind Candy employees. ‘Candy Labs’ will be an R&D studio to spin up new ideas around entertainment for children, as is Mind Candy’s focus, though they are keen to stress than some will be digital and some non-digital concepts. “Some of the new concepts will be acquired from third parties, but most ideas will originate in-house,” said a spokesperson. Origami Blue has until now been known as a small studio originally set up by ex-Disney Blackrock studios creatives Edd Smith, Mark Knowles-Lee and James Ovnik. They set out to create character animations, but most notably they developed augmented reality gaming applications for large corporates. They’ve also been working with a team of educational psychologists to develop a state-of-the-art touch-typing system for children. In a statement Michael Acton Smith, CEO and Founder of Mind Candy commented: “We clicked creatively with the Origami Blue guys from the outset and are hugely excited to bring them onboard. Developing new IP has always been part of the plan to expand Mind Candy. We have lots of ideas bubbling away and can’t wait to see the new visions come to life.”

How Blade Runner Teaches Bad Japanese Table Manners [Culture Smash]

It's something I've noticed. I've noticed it in the US, and I've noticed it among Westerners who visit Japan. After breaking apart chopsticks, they begin rubbing them together. More »

June retail video game sales expected to be a dud

U.S. video game sales for the month of June are expected to down 34 percent compared to a year ago, according to a forecast released tonight by analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities. The sales are a closely watched barometer of the health of the traditional game industry and they do not include some of the fastest-growing parts of the game industry, such as social, mobile and online games. Market researcher NPD is expected to report final numbers for the physical sales of games on Thursday July 12. Year to date overall retail game industry sales are down 25 percent. Pachter said he expects software sales for June to hit $305 million, down 34 percent from $462 million a year ago. Sales will likely be led by new releases Nintendo’s Pokémon Conquest (DS) and Warner Bros.’ Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (pictured above) for the PlayStation 3, PS Vita, 360, DS, 3DS, Wii, and PC. Another strong seller is expected to be Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Pachter said that he believes the Nintendo Wii sold 75,000 units, down 72 percent from a year ago. The Xbox 360 likely sold 225,000 units, down 56 percent from a year ago, and the PS 3 likely sold 145,000 units, down 48 percent. For handhelds, the DS likely sold 100,000 units, down 74 percent. The 3DS likely sold 125,000 units, down 13 percent. And the PS Vita (launched earlier this year) probably sold 60,000 units. GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your tickets here. Filed under: games

WordSearch HD Screens

5 new shots posted. Get the full article at GameSpot "Crossword Lookup Screens" was posted on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:03:07 -0700

And Suddenly I Want to Play a Star Wars Trials Game [Video]

Given their disastrous performance at the Battle of Endor, it's no surprise that Imperial forces have since opted to equip its Scout Troopers with something a little more reliable. More »

Quantum Conundrum show enters heavy dimension, is still awkward

It's Sunday, and you know what that means: We watched the Quantum Conundrum YouTube show and we now want to share our confusion with you. The Super Dimensional Quantum Learning's Problems and Solutions Gametime Spectacular!! features the heavy dimension this week. And a Kevin Pereira in a wig.Quantum Conundrum show enters heavy dimension, is still awkward originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Dark Knight Rises Figure Might be the Most Realistic Toy Ever Made [Toys]

The full name for this product is "Batman - Bruce Wayne DX Sixth Scale Collectible Figure". That's for retailers, though. People like you or I will just know it as "holy crap it's a plastic Christian Bale". More »

Check Your Inbox for an Invitation to LittleBigPlanet Karting's Beta [Littlebigplanet]

The closed beta for LittleBigPlanet's racing spinoff, LittleBigPlanet Karting begins on Tuesday, with codes and invitations going out very soon to the anointed participants. More »

LittleBigPlanet Karting beta goes live on Tuesday

Sony has announced that the online beta of Sackboy’s newest adventure, LittleBigPlanet Karting, will be available on July 10. Only a select number of people who signed up through the online registration form will be tapped for the opportunity to give the game a free test run. The beta will be available through the end of the month. LittleBigPlanet 2 was supposed to be the game that let players create any kind of game they wanted. So, arguably, if you wanted a customizable LittleBigPlanet kart racing experience, you’d be able to create that already. But not everyone has that much time on their hands, so Media Molecule and development partners United Front Games will be bringing Karting to the PS3 as the next LBP entry. LittleBigPlanet is also making its way to the PlayStation Vita platform as well, so the series is still going strong. A post on the PlayStation Blog described the new game, saying, “Our goal with LBP Karting has been fairly simple – provide a fast-paced experience that captures the best of classic karting gameplay, married with the unbridled creativity of LBP. This new adventure will be accessible to players of all ages and have all of the variety necessary to satisfy both the hardcore and more casual players.” Further details, including release date information, will be released at a later time.

Sci-Fi Author's Sword-Fighting Game Hits its Fund Raising Goal [Clang]

Coming into the final two days of its fund raiser, CLANG, the arena sword-fighting concept proposed by renowned science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson, was short about $50,000 of its total $500,000 goal. Overnight it made up that difference and then some, standing at about $504,000 (from more than 8,000 contributors) with more than a day to go. More »

Report: How Homefront's developer crumbled

The slow demise of Kaos Studios leading up to its June 2011 closure has been attributed to poor management and a misallocation of resources, according to conversations anonymous ex-staff members had with Gamasutra. One of the Homefront developers believed THQ's "plan was to close the studio regardless."Management issues reportedly stemmed from inexperienced team members leading more qualified peers during Homefront's development. One ex-staff member said the studio "had this level of leads with tons and tons of experience, and you had the directors with much less." Those directors "didn't listen to the very talented team they hired."Former THQ Executive VP of Core Games Danny Bilson was also the target of former team members' frustrations. Ex-staffers spoke of Bilson's heavy involvement in Homefront's development and his tendency to "hand out mandates on high and then disappear," adding that "he's not qualified to talk about game mechanics."We've contacted THQ for comment on this story.Report: How Homefront's developer crumbled originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Give 'Em a Hand [Kotaku 'shop Contest]

Creating a night light out of a severed hand probably isn't a great way to reassure children frightened of the monster under the bed. An Assassin's Creed retracto-blade gauntlet probably isn't an age-appropriate toy, either. These are our two exploitables for this week's edition of the Kotaku 'Shop Contest. Unhand me! More »

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Heihachi Character Demo

EVO 2012: Developer Omar Kindell runs Maxwell McGee through the moves for one of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale's newest combatants: Heihachi. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Heihachi Character Demo" was posted by erickt on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 00:14:41 -0700

AMD Trinity Review

When it comes to buying a gaming laptop, the accepted wisdom up until this point has been simple; integrated graphics processors are well-suited for playing the classics of yesteryear, but venturing into modern territory - games like Battlefield 3 or Skyrim - requires a dedicated, power-hungry GPU: in other words, a serious card for serious gaming. Nevertheless, Intel and AMD's integrated graphics cores continue to gain traction in the laptop market for being cheaper, and more energy efficient than dedicated graphics cores. But for many, these integrated processors simply can't escape the stigma of being the budget choice for gaming, dismissed completely out of hand. The thing is, we've now reached the point where even IGPs can put up a strong fight against the current generation HD consoles - and in some cases, even surpass them. Cue the long-awaited arrival of AMD's second generation Trinity architecture. This revision sets out to defy common preconceptions of what's possible with integrated graphics, and perhaps more importantly, to make a stand against Intel's popular Ivy Bridge processors and HD4000 graphics chips. This is a bold promise indeed, but given AMD's concurrent position in markets for both CPUs and graphics cards, the potential for it to capitalise here is huge. For the sake of demonstration, we've been sent a prototype laptop by the company to showcase the strengths of its hybrid processor in a practical sense. While this particular unit is unlikely to ever see an actual retail release, the Trinity processor is slowly trickling its way into laptops via other brands, with the most notable entry in the UK market so far being Samsung's NP355V5C notebook. "Integrated graphics cores are no longer the gameplay jokes they used to be: both AMD Trinity and Intel HD4000 can run Battlefield 3 and Skyrim beyond the console standard." Read more…

Metal Gear - 25 Years On

A quarter of a century ago in the Japanese home computing market, a Microsoft-sponsored machine called the MSX2 dominated. It had done so since launching in 1983 and, despite the rising fortunes of Nintendo and the Famicom, remained a key platform for the region's game developers. In late 1986 to early 1987 Konami was on a blistering hot streak, producing first Castlevania for Nintendo's Family Disc System then Contra in the arcades. Nevertheless, July 7 1987 saw the exclusive release of a new title on the comparatively underpowered MSX machine: Metal Gear. The first of what would become a defining series, it was also Hideo Kojima's debut as a lead designer, and did well enough to earn several ports (including an altered NES version) as well as a quick Kojima-less sequel. 25 years ago, gamers took their first steps as Solid Snake. Metal Gear is hard to see with fresh eyes, not least because of Kojima himself. The version I played came with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, a more or less faithful port but one that has had a slight re-touching. The original western translation is a bad one, and is replaced - meaning certain phrases appear with real resonance for series fans ("All-terrain, nuclear-equipped, walking battle tank") but you're not quite sure if it said that in 1987. Read more…

Add The History of Sonic the Hedgehog to Your Bookshelf This October [Sonic The Hedgehog]

Amazon now is taking preorders for The History of Sonic the Hedgehog, a huge tome detailing every Sonic game, both 2D and 3D, with breakouts on spinoff games and Sonic's many cameo appearances in and crossovers to other video games. More »

Halo 4 Forges Ahead With New Mapmaking Capabilities [Halo]

Halo 4 will get mapmaking support under the Forge toolkit that has long followed the series. A panel today at Rooster Teeth's RTX event in Austin, Texas revealed the new Forge's feature set. More »

Space Raider Screens

3 new shots posted. Get the full article at GameSpot "Infection Screens" was posted on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:02:58 -0700

Space Raider Screens

5 new shots posted. Get the full article at GameSpot "Space Raider Screens" was posted on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:05:46 -0700

A Video Game Must Draw the Line Between Immortal and Unbeatable [Stick Jockey]

Archie Griffin is the only player to win two Heisman Trophies. The last guy to win a Heisman and finish as high as second for the award in another year was Herschel Walker, 30 years ago. I wouldn't know where to begin in rating either player for an appearance in a video game. For what they accomplished, and what they mean to their sport, hell, I'd probably write a 99 in every box under their names. More »

Paul McCartney working with Bungie

Ex-Beatles legend tweets that he’s ’really excited’ to be writing music with Halo developers.

Paul McCartney working with Bungie

Ex-Beatles legend tweets that he’s ’really excited’ to be writing music with Halo developers.

Is Paul McCartney Writing Music for Halo's Original Studio? [Bungie]

Back in January, Paul McCartney—yes, the former Beatle—said he was working on music for an unnamed video game. It now appears that video game is being made by Bungie, the original studio behind the Halo franchise. More »

Laugh talks about the up and coming Korean Fighting Game Scene

Slasher finds out more about the up and coming Korean Fighting Games Community with Laugh. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot "Laugh talks about the up and coming Korean Fighting Game Scene" was posted by erickt on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:12:31 -0700

The Best of Kotaku, This Week [Kotaku Round-up]

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week's best content. More »

Review: Spelunky Is Frustrating, Random and Brilliant

Spelunky's ability to assault players' decision-making abilities using randomly generated worlds is awe-inspiring.

The History of Sonic the Hedgehog available for pre-order on Amazon

A forthcoming book will document the history of Sega's mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega announced today. The 300-page book, The History of Sonic the Hedgehog, covers the Blue Blur in exhaustive detail, including "every 2D and 3D Sonic game" and "every spin-off game, every crossover, and even rare cameo appearances by Sonic across the gaming universe." You can see some preview pages over on the Sega Blog.The History of Sonic the Hedgehog is now available for pre-order on Amazon. We're guessing it gets pretty dark after the first 30 pages or so.The History of Sonic the Hedgehog available for pre-order on Amazon originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Sega’s Aliens: Colonial Marines to scrap female characters

This is sure to strike at least a modicum of controversy. Brian Burleson, a producer on the upcoming game Aliens: Colonial Marines, said in a recent live chat with fans that there will be no playable female characters in the game. This is of course at odds with the storied "Aliens" legacy. Developed by Gearbox Software, Colonial Marines is a spiritual sequel to the original trilogy of films that defined the alien movie genre. It will have both single-player and cooperative multiplayer modes. Gearbox's Randy Pitchford wrote on the official Sega blog when the game was announced that Aliens "inspired a generation. We can see all around us the clear and profound impact the films have had on our popular culture and our collective image of science fiction." He admitted that the release of the movie Prometheus - by the same man who created Aliens - made the alien mythos alive and interesting again, making the new Aliens game even more relevant. "Our vision is for the game to be fully featured with an exciting, suspenseful, thrilling and action packed narrative campaign that can be played alone or cooperatively combined with a robust competitive game where human players can take on the roles of Colonial Marines or Xenomorphs and do battle online," Pitchford continued. Apparently, though, the team was not very concerned about keeping true to the film franchise, in which there are plenty of integral female characters. There is now an online petition to get Sega to reverse course and add a strong, playable woman character to the game. It was set up with a goal of 1,000 signatures and already has received more than 2,000. Aliens: Colonial Marines will be released worldwide on February 12, 2013.

First Week Impressions - The Secret World

Kevin VanOrd talks about his first week playing the Funcom MMO, The Secret World. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot "First Week Impressions - The Secret World" was posted by JimM on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:48:24 -0700

Activision Turning The Walking Dead Into a First-Person Shooter

An anonymous reader writes "Activision, along with developer Terminal Reality, is turning The Walking Dead into a first-person shooter. For those of you who aren't familiar, The Walking Dead is a story about a group of people who are trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. It began as a comic book series, and was adapted into a successful television show by AMC. Now, apparently Activision feels the world needs another zombie shooter, and thinks The Walking Dead is the perfect backdrop. The game will 'revolve around Daryl Dixon and his brother Merle on a "haunting, unforgiving quest to make their way to the supposed safety of Atlanta." Players will control Daryl as they attempt to avoid detection from zombies that hunt using sight, sound and smell and will choose between fighting them or using stealth to avoid detection.' A video game adaptation of the story already exists as an episodic adventure game." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New discovery game is a creepy virtual popularity contest for Twitter (exclusive)

We got the sneak peek at Mind of Man, a popularity game for iPhone and iPad that uncovers how your friends and enemies really perceive you. The game, released this month, is the brainchild of indie gaming studio 2PaperDollars that specializes in creating game experiences to blur the lines between reality and fiction. The game is about revealing the dark side of your digital persona. By analyzing your text and behavior on Twitter, including your flaws and antisocial tendencies, the game creates a unique avatar known as a “MindPrint.” This avatar is then pitted against your friends and favorite celebrities. What’s cool about it? Mind of Man uses sentiment analysis to determine whether you have a celebrity twin or an archnemesis and reveals how much social media influence you really have. Andrea Ravenet, community manager, said the experience is like holding up a mirror to see how you appear in the Twitterverse. “We’re having fun — a lot of fun– lifting the mask of persona,” said Ravenet. She added that Mind of Man is less of a game, and more of a utility to reveal how the crowd perceives a voice on Twitter. Be warned: This is not for the fainthearted. The creators say on the website that its core technology “peers into your soul and sees how blackened, or saintly, it really is.” Ugh, creepy. In an Orwellian twist, the game consistently reminds you that you must fulfill your duty to the Mind of Man (MOM). You’ll notice that the promotional image depicts a shadowy puppet master and strings. According to Ravenet, this was intended as a social satire to remind you of the all-powerful entity that can slowly unveil aspects of your online persona. Not sure I buy it. Is it just me, or does this game seem like the creation of an obnoxious teenage girl on a power trip? The site responds to perceived criticism by claiming that judgement “strengthens the collective mind” and a little “vote-sourced pyscholinguistic artificial intelligence never hurt anybody.” Given the prevalence of cyberbullying in recent years, I don’t agree that learning to judge each other better is a positive lesson for gamers. So why should we play the game? The creators claim that your MindPrint will net you discounts and prizes from retailers. “Players earn both virtual and real-world rewards for judging each other,” said 2PaperDollars’ Louis Ravenet in a release. Mind of Man will be available for free and through premium subscription on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, but it does not have a release date yet for Android. Filed under: games

Game|Life Podcast: Talking Walking Dead With Telltale’s Writers

Put a microphone in the center of the table and this would be an awesome podcast.Image: Telltale Games We talk with Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, project leads on Telltale’s The Walking Dead adventure games, on today’s episode of the Game|Life podcast. Telltale Games, creator of episodic point-and-click games like Sam and Max and Tales of Monkey Island, has recently turned its attention away from cartoons and toward more realistic franchises like Law and Order, Jurassic Park and now The Walking Dead. The zombie-apocalypse game has received the most favorable feedback, largely thanks to its intricate branching storyline. Every dialogue option that you select will cause characters to treat you differently, and the story can go all sorts of different directions based on your decisions. Vanaman and Rodkin join Chris Baker and me somewhere in the middle of this week’s podcast to discuss the process of creating such a tangled web of interlocking stories. This is bracketed by segments featuring Marty Cortinas and Peter Rubin, largely focused on whether or not our listeners like him or not. Spoiler: Somebody really does not. You can call in with your questions or text us at 567-694-5326 (56 POW! GL FAN), and we may answer them and we also may give you fabulous prizes. Game|Life’s podcast is posted on Fridays, is available on iTunes, can be downloaded directly and is embedded below. http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gamelifeaudio/gamelifereboot_037.mp3 GameLife Reboot: Episode 037 Subscribe to RSS feed Subscribe on iTunes http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gamelifeaudio/gamelifereboot_037.mp3

The Escalating Campaign Against Anita Sarkeesian And The Long-Term Weakness of Sexist Trolls

I can’t even bring myself to embed it here: some trogolodytes have created a game that lets players beat up Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist video blogger who’s been subject to an unremitting campaign of harassment since she created a Kickstarter to support a project to explore tropes of female characters in video games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: anyone who thinks that feminists who push back hard against online harassment are being oversensitive needs to understand that we’re all trying to keep ourselves from becoming Anita Sarkeesians. No matter how strong you are, and no matter how much support you have, this kind of concentrated campaign of harassment affects the targets of it. And the goal of these campaigns is to terrorize people into silence. It’s not disagreement. It’s not creative trolling. It’s deployment of a weapon. And even though it’s frightening, ugly stuff, the campaign waged against Sarkeesian illustrates the fundamental cowardice and weakness of the people attacking her. If you so lack confidence in your ideas, if you’re so uncomfortable defending your appreciation for problematic things (which, by the way, is tricky but not that tricky) that you can’t even put your hands over your ears and sing loudly and ignore them, that you have to actually go out and try to prevent anyone from from saying anything that could make you remotely uneasy, you are a coward. That’s cold comfort to folks like Sarkeesian who have to go through this now. But it’s why, long-term, angry, petty sexists are going to lose, and why it’s important to throw up bulwarks against trolls who try to venture out of their holes and take over mainstream conversations. These ideas don’t stand-up to discussion and debate. And sexist trolls can’t shut down all of those debates, no matter how hard they try.

Chinese iPad Game Depicts Slaughter of Stereotypical Japanese

Enemy Japanese soldiers are torn to pieces in Defend the Diaoyu Islands.Screengrab: Wired A new iPad game called Defend the Diaoyu Islands takes an ongoing dispute between China and Japan and makes a game out of it — one that paints the Japanese as invaders and tasks you with brutally killing them. The conflict concerns what Japan calls the Senkaku Islands, a small chain of islands situated between Okinawa, Taiwan, and mainland China. Japan has controlled the islands for decades, first claiming them in the 19th century. China believes that Japan ceded its authority following its surrender in World War II. No one lives on the islands, but recent years have seen non-lethal maritime confrontations between the Japanese coast guard and encroaching vessels from China and Taiwan. Defend the Diaoyu Islands, published by Shenzhen ZQGame Company, depicts the islands as sovereign Chinese territory under siege from the Japanese. The website Mobisights translates the App Store description as follows: Defend the Diaoyu Islands, for they are the inalienable territory of China! Recently, the Japanese government has been saber-rattling, making attempts to seize the Diaoyu Islands and even arresting our fishermen compatriots while selling off fish from the islands. Today, you can vent your anger by trying this game demo, working together to eradicate all Japanese devils landing on the island and turning them back towards their own lands. Defend the Diaoyu Islands! The game is free and only available on the Chinese iTunes store. Wired was able to download and play it. The Japanese enemies range from World War II soldiers to stereotypes such as samurai, sumo wrestlers, and ninjas. No Chinese soldiers are depicted on the battlefield. Players defend a wall on the left side of the screen by tapping and swiping on the Japanese forces, hurling them into the air or dragging them across the ground. The Japanese are not merely killed: They flop around like rag dolls and become dismembered after a few strikes. More powerful weapons are unlocked as the game goes on, fueled by a “rage” meter that is refilled by spirits that float up from Japanese corpses. The basic actions of playing the game are actually fun. But the context and cultural depictions make it grotesque. Bloggers in Japan are none too thrilled with the game, pointing out that it violates the App Store Review Guidelines regarding “personal attacks” and “violence,” specifically section 15.3: “Enemies within the context of a game cannot solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity.” A Korean iOS app also concerns two disputed islands between Korea and Japan and contains a tower defense game, but the enemies are rendered metaphorically, as generic sea monsters trying to eat birds’ eggs.

Industry will die without innovation, says David Cage

Quantic Dream boss says industry will fail without new ideas, laments ubiquity of first-person shooters. Without attempts of innovation, the game industry will perish, according to Quantic Dream boss David Cage. Speaking to GamesIndustry International, the developer said studios must at least try to create new and inventive projects. The industry needs innovation, Cage says. "I mean this industry will die if it doesn't try more to be innovative and to come up with new ideas and to talk a bit more--not necessarily serious, but deeper things at some point," he said. "It's great that you can shoot at monsters, and that's great and it will always be there and it will always be successful, but at the same time, what about giving the choice to people? Give them different options. So if they like that they find it, but if they want something deeper and interactive, they can find that too." Cage also sung the praises of ThatGameCompany's downloadable adventure game Journey. He said this game is about storytelling and emotion, and represents exactly what the industry needs at this time, a "breath of fresh air." Contrasting this, Cage also lamented what he described as an over-saturation of first-person shooters. "How many first person shooters can we create per year? How many can we play per year? How many of them will be successful?" he said. "Even from a business point of view, does it make any sense? I'm not sure." Cage's latest project is Beyond: Two Souls for the PlayStation 3. Cage claims this narrative-focused game will be emotional, mature, and unique, and one that creates moments that players remember for a long time. Juno and Inception actress Ellen Page will provide the voice and likeness for the game's mysterious young woman Jodie Holmes, and Spider-Man actor Willem Dafoe is rumored to have a part in the game. For more on Beyond: Two Souls, check out GameSpot's previous coverage. [ Watch Video ] Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot "Industry will die without innovation, says David Cage" was posted by Eddie Makuch on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 06:46:44 -0700

10 Perfect Summer iOS Games for Kids

Games built for iOS appeal to a wide range of people, and that includes kids! Whether it's younger kids just getting their first taste of technology or those who are looking for experiences that will encourage more than just hand-eye-coordination, there are plenty of great examples. Here are some of the most entertaining ones out there. More About: contributor, features, games, ipad, mobile apps, mobile games

Why I was Pokemon’s Greatest Villain [Pokemon]

Going into Pokémon Black and White 2, I had high hopes for the game. This wasn't for the new aspects of the game like Pokéwood (Pokémon Hollywood) or even the chance to explore new areas of the world. No, the thing I was most excited to see was the return of Team Plasma. More »

Sound Byte: Meet the Composer - Skullgirls

We put up our 2D-animated dukes and talked to audio director Vincent Diamante on the game's musical inspiration and the tough bits of sound designing. Get the full article at GameSpot "Sound Byte: Meet the Composer - Skullgirls" was posted by Jonathan Toyad on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:19:23 -0700

Ask Slashdot: How To Get Old Commercial Software To Be Open-Sourced?

First time accepted submitter Optic7 writes "Many gamers have probably dreamed about the idea of an old favorite game or other no longer supported or developed commercial software being converted to an open-source license so that it could be updated to add new features, support new hardware, other operating systems, etc. However, this type of change of license seems exceedingly rare, unless the copyright holder itself decides on its own that it would be beneficial. The only examples I could think of or was able to find in a brief internet search were Blender (3D animation software that had its source code bought from creditors after a crowd-funding campaign) and Warzone 2100 (Game that had its source code released after a successful petition). With those two examples of different strategies in mind, have any of you ever participated in any efforts of this kind, and what did you learn from it that may be useful to someone else attempting the same thing? Even if you have not participated, do you have any suggestions or ideas that may be useful to such an effort?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.