All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 claims GPU supremacy.

Will we see a major announcement?

Will we see a major announcement?

It’s almost here! On March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco the Game Developer’s Conference officially kicks off and Naughty Dog plans to have a big presence. Many of our folks will be participating in numerous sessions, panels, and tutorials. For the full list, please see below, but first let’s talk about one session in particular.

On Thursday, March 11 from 4:30 – 5:30 PM PST, Naughty Dog’s co-lead Game Designer, Richard Lemarchand, will be participating in a session with Baiyon, graphic artist and composer of Q-Games’ PixelJunk Eden, and they want to take your questions to be answered during the panel!

The session will take form as a lively discussion on the inherent similarities of artistic endeavor and will encompass conversations on Richard’s and Baiyon’s games, and the nature of creativity and process in games. We’re hoping to use a number of questions submitted by the community to lead the conversation. If you have a question you’d like to have answered during this panel, please submit it in the comments below and we’ll do our best to get it answered at GDC. We welcome all kinds of questions, serious, fun, etc…we’re looking for variety! Get your questions in before Friday; we’ll close all submissions after that.

Finally, if you’re planning to attend GDC, we hope to see you in the audience or around Moscone!

Naughty Dog at GDC

Thursday (March 11, 2010) 1:30pm — 2:30pm
Among Friends – An UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Post-Mortem
Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog)
Room 134, North Hall

Thursday (March 11, 2010) 3:00pm — 4:00pm
Behind the Scenes: UNCHARTED 2’s Unique Cinematic Production Process
Josh Scherr (Cinematics Animation Lead, Naughty Dog), Amy Hennig (Creative Director, Naughty Dog, Inc.)
Room 303, South Hall

Thursday (March 11, 2010) 4:30pm — 5:30pm
Micro or Massive: It’s Fricking Tough to Achieve a Vision
Baiyon Tomohisa Kuramitsu (Graphic Artist/Composer, PixelJunk/Eden), Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog)
Room 135, North Hall

Friday (March 12, 2010) 9:00am — 10:00am
GDC Microtalks 2010: Ten Speakers, 200 Slides, Limitless Ideas!
Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog), Ian Bogost (Associate Professor, The Georgia Institute of Technology), Chaim Gingold (levity lab), Gary Penn (Guru, Denki), Sam Roberts (Festival Director, indiecade.com), Margaret Robertson (Consultant and writer, Lookspring), Kellee Santiago (President and Co Founder, thatgamecompany), Suzanne Seggerman (President, Games for Change), Jesse Schell (ETC Carnegie Mellon, Schell Games), Jane Pinckard (Business Development, Foundation 9 Entertainment)
Room 134, North Hall

Friday (March 12, 2010) 1:30pm — 2:30pm
Creating the Active Cinematic Experience of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves
Bruce Straley (Game Director, Naughty Dog), Neil Druckmann (Co-Lead Designer, Naughty Dog)
Room 305, South Hall

Friday (March 12, 2010) 4:30pm — 5:30pm
UNCHARTED 2 Art Direction
Erick Pangilinan (Art Director, Naughty Dog), Robh Ruppel (Art Director, Naughty Dog)
Room 306, South Hall

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 10:30am — 11:30am
UNCHARTED 2 Character Pipeline: An In-depth Look at the Creation of U2’s Characters
Richard Diamant (Lead Character Artist, Naughty Dog Inc.), Judd Simantov (Lead Character Technical Director, Naughty Dog Inc)
Room 135, North Hall

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 1:30pm — 2:30pm
Animation and Player Control in UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune and UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves
Travis McIntosh (Lead Programmer, Naughty Dog Inc.)
Room 135, North Hall

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 1:30pm — 2:30pm
Getting Noticed: Why You Need an Online Portfolio and How to Make One
Jacob Minkoff (Game Designer, Naughty Dog Inc)
Room 306, South Hall

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 3:00pm — 4:00pm
UNCHARTED 2: HDR Lighting
John Hable (Programmer, Naughty Dog)
Room 305, South Hall

#grandtheftauto 2K's BioShock sequel is off to a good start. Take-Two Interactive announced today that the 2K Marin-developed BioShock 2 has surpassed 3 million in sales since its release on the Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3. Good job, Mr. Bubbles. More »

A portion of the Baxy-z review: ‘AAI’ is a game of few faults, which are in accordance with the typical Ace Attorney formula. The intuition of some of the logic involved is sometimes frustrating, as the game refuses to accept anything but the one answer. Much of the time, it is all about getting into the [...]

A portion of the NintendoLife Review: Aside from the lack of WiFi leaderboards, Dracula: Undead Awakening on DSiWare is exactly the same as the WiiWare version. For some reason it’s half the price at 500 points, plus, of course, it has the advantage of being portable — it’s a no-brainer that this version of the game [...]

#multiplayer The Twitter-integrated challenge system in Blur allows players to send friends times to beat, regardless of what platform they use. Bizarre Creations says they'll also be sent as Xbox Live dashboard messages, allowing for some multiplayer without a Gold account. More »

Don't know morse code? Can't decode SSTV images? Don't worry, this latest Portal update (the second in one week) is a bit easier to understand. The finale of Valve's beloved puzzle game has been extended with about 15 seconds of new content. In it, players will be introduced to a brand new character, likely one to appear in Portal 2.

While you can go through another Portal adventure by accessing the update on Steam, we'd like to provide you an easier solution. You can watch both the original and extended endings after the break.

[Thanks, Devin!]

Activision SEC filings sure have gotten interesting lately, haven't they? First we learned that the company ousted the heads of Infinity Ward, then we saw World of Warcraft listed as a potential risk and now we have word that Blizzard is currently developing Diablo sequels. Take a breath and read that again: Sequels, as in "more than one."

Yes, the very same SEC filing mentions that Blizzard is currently hard at work on Cataclysm, StarCraft II and "sequels to the Diablo franchise." It's very possible, and even likely, that the filing refers to Diablo III and its inevitable expansions (which had better include the Necromancer). It's also possible that the phrasing is meant as a forward-looking statement, stating that Blizzard continues to work on the Diablo franchise. It's also worth noting that the same SEC filing refers to "development of a sequel" to the game, so reference to "sequels" could simply be a mistake. Or maybe, just maybe, Blizzard is pumping out more Diablo than we thought.

When reached for comment, a Blizzard representative told Joystiq, "We don't have any new announcements to make." He added, "For the Diablo franchise, our full focus is on Diablo III." So that means it's coming out really soon, right? Right?

Our first entry covering the PSP's advanced features. Copy music, enable WMA playback and change video output.

The 'Master of Unlocking' unlocks some gaping holes in zombies.

Leaner and more user friendly, there's a lot to like about Gas Powered Games' sequel.

A good looking game of baseball to be sure.

Once again proving that the protoss are the only good thing to come from worshipping magic stones.

Hidden in a dark, damp crevice of the Take-Two mega-mountain of news today was a brief, albeit interesting, comment from Ben Feder, president and CEO. After referencing the success of Gearbox's Borderlands, Feder stated that Take-Two "will continue to support the title with add-on content."

So, if you've finished The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot and The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, expect more soon. But, where will our intrepid foursome go next?

Sgt. Frog RPG, .hack//Link and Bioshokku Tsu lead the way in Japan this week.

Sgt. Frog RPG, .hack//Link and Bioshokku Tsu lead the way in Japan this week.

More details will arrive soon.

#theroadtotheigf Tired of stodgy corporate games made by The Man and his minions? We're playing the 31 best indie games for a change of pace —- and so we can judge them. Today, Heroes of Newerth. More »

#insomniac Big speculation is that tomorrow's "surprise Sony Sequel" is Resistance 3, but if it is - a) Insomniac's community manager is not saying and b) even if it were, the studio is also working on a second game. More »

Known as Million Ton Barabara in Japan and the work of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?! dev Acquire, Patchwork Heroes is hands-down the coolest-looking PSP game about sawing up giant airships we're ever seen. Okay, so it's the only game of the type we've ever seen -- viva la originality! Sony has announced that we'll all get to experience the (we hope) joys of dismantling flying war machines tomorrow, Thursday March 4, when a demo of Patchwork Heroes hits PlayStation Network as part of the service's usual weekly update. It all goes well, it should fulfill our weird 'n wacky gameplay needs through the entire weekend.

Having trouble with Mega Man 10? Perhaps these video guides can help you past some robot masters!

Hockey series taking a year off on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Sony goes yard.

#speakup In this week's installment of Speak-Up on Kotaku, Cptn.PaxtonAstypalaea, IncD, ZeroAnd09, and Bwwardiii sound off on splitscreen online play, Team Ninja's Metroid, mega awesome birthday gifts, and a new way to sell used games. More »