All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Math can be... well, it's math.

We’ve posted about episodes of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show being on Netflix before, but now you can check out a full season instantly, with Netflix’s instant watch feature. What better way to spend your weekend than with these classic pizanos!

Some tweaks under the hood might be needed.

Japan gets PlayStation's final numbered FF.

#column In Jason Rohrer there's a fascinating schism between the tone of the work and that of the designer. More »

This paddle is too slow. This paddle is too fast.

You can always count on Steam for some sweet weekend gaming deals, and this week's is a doozy. The online distributor is pushing Borderlands and its 87 bazillion different guns for a mere $24.99. Yes, that's a full 50 percent off the retail price. But, Borderlands is much better with friends, so you'll be happy to hear that the Borderlands Four Pack is also 50 percent off, ringing up at a paltry $74.98. With 16,164,886 different guns available in Borderlands, that makes for a dollar-to-gun ratio of ... carry the one ... well, it's a lot.

The deal ends on Monday at 10am PT.

We spend some time dodging tanks and shooting down UAVs in Bad Company 2's added content.

Japan gets PlayStation's final numbered FF.

Terrible name, but really good game.

#milestones Free Realms continues to be an unrelenting engine of family-friendly fun and frivolity, reaching the 10 million player mark just short of its first birthday, with Sony Online Entertainment doubling Station Cash purchases this weekend in celebration. More »

I don’t watch FlashForward, but reader ProudRomanian was nice enough to get us a screen cap while he was enjoying the latest episode!

- pictured focused on the “Star Viewing Tower” - Star Viewing Tower exists within the game world - People look up at the stars from this tower, point to their guardian star, and speak - one meeting at the tower involved two characters speaking about their dreams - “In this place that’s sacred to the Arganan Family, their hearts [...]

By far, the most believable April Fools’ Day joke was the ‘Blaster Master: Destination Fred’ announcement. Today Sunsoft Games has confirmed that the news was nothing more than an April Fools’ Day joke. I can’t tell you how upset that makes me, as the project is something that I really wanted to see. [...]

Again, we don’t know that Nintendo will be using this in the 3DS, and Sharp isn’t willing to comment on that topic either. With that said, you can check out a demo of the technology at the link below. Report here

#ipad Flight Control HD will have an interesting twist when it hits the iPad tomorrow morning: A fully playable 3D version of the game. More »

Risk: Factions is coming to Xbox Live Arcade this summer, and a version of the classic Risk board game, dubbed Classic Mode, will be included.

The verdict? It's classic Risk, albeit with a couple of key tweaks. Most game-changing is a bonus star feature, which randomly awards players 1-2 "stars" at the end of a turn. Stars can be used to make additional troop movements. Additionally, Classic Mode abandons the card system of the original game. Getting rid of the cards streamlines the game a bit, and so does the option to skip the dice-rolling attacks (and just view the results), but the random star bonuses can lead to one player steamrolling the opponents rather quickly -- as happens to me and another human player in the video above.

Just like in the original game, once a player builds up a powerful army, there's nothing to stop total domination of the game board. But that's always been a part of the game of Risk, and now, through Xbox Live, diehard tabletoppers can test their riskiest maneuvers on a truly worldwide battlefield, say, against an opponent from the Ukraine.

One thing Risk: Factions is sorely lacking, however? Little wooden cubes. Toss in some DLC wooden cubes, and I'll be happy.

We’ve all returned – and mostly recuperated – from our trip to Boston this past weekend to attend PAX East. It was both a pleasure and an honor to make it out for the inaugural PAX on the East Coast, not only to attend the show, but also to participate in panels. Everyone at Penny Arcade deserves all our gratitude for putting together such a smooth first –- and completely sold out PAX in Boston. We’re looking forward to PAX East 2011!

We weren’t expecting the massive turnout for our panel on Saturday, “Naughty Dog LIVE: Game Design with the Dogs.” When I got to the Naga Theater to setup for our panel, the line waiting to get in was insane – and it was a whole half-hour before our panel was due to start. I heard some people had been waiting in line for over an hour at one point. It was sad to hear that PAX Enforcers had to turn away a ton of people waiting to get in by the time they started to fill the theater. There is no doubt that it was awesome for us to see that kind of turnout, but it was also a little bittersweet that we couldn’t get in everybody who wanted to attend.

Our panel focused on showing the inner workings of how game design works at Naughty Dog, led by game designers Richard Lemarchand, Jacob Minkoff and Justin Richmond. We picked a spot in UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune that had a minor narrative hole – between Chapters 3 and 4 – and used that as the basis to explore a fictional Chapter 3.5 we titled “Strip Search.” The first half of the panel was spent laying out the objectives for the design of this chapter and the type of structure and pacing that was important for us to maintain so that everything would fit neatly into the UNCHARTED universe in look and feel.

Jacob fired up Autodesk Maya for the second half of the panel and loaded an example blockmesh level for Chapter 3.5 that he sketched out in his spare time over the couple of weeks leading up to PAX East. It was Jacob’s responsibility on the panel to pitch his level to Richard and Justin, explain his game design choices, and receive feedback to demonstrate our collaborative and iterative design process. We also stopped briefly and turned to our audience to let them give us their ideas on how to solve a specific design challenge within the level.

Unfortunately we started to run out of time towards the end, because we wanted to talk about how to turn this level into one that works in our multiplayer game and also open up the floor one more time to get suggestions from our audience. Perhaps we can get to that another time if we ever get a chance to do a similar panel.

Once it was all over, we met with a lot of our fans in the audience that came up to chat. We’re really grateful to have such awesome fans and we owe you all thanks for attending our panel and coming up to say hi!

If you were at PAX East and weren’t able to get into our panel – and I know there were a lot of you – you can read a recap of our panel on Joystiq. In addition, we should have the full video of our panel available on NaughtyDog.com sometime in the next couple of weeks. Check back later on to check it out!

#blur Because of the overwhelming demand for access to upcoming racer Blur's multiplayer beta, the folks at Bizarre Creations have decided to open the beta to all Xbox 360 users next week. More »

We don't even have to try to explain the significance of today's Virtual Console game. It's Super Mario Kart. Well, okay, for our younger audience members: Super Mario Kart is like Mario Kart Wii, but older. Europe's been on a roll recently, first with the Hanabi Festival granting Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and others, and now Super Mario Kart!

DSiWare has four games this week, including the remake of the Amiga Oscar in Movieland and Puzzle to Go Diddl, a jigsaw puzzle game whose title we're doing our very best not to giggle about.

• Super Mario Kart (SNES, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
• Family Mini Golf (WiiWare, 1-8 players, 500 Wii Points)
• Chronos Twins DX (WiiWare, 1 player, 700 Wii Points)
• AiRace: Tunnel (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• Oscar in Movieland (DSiWare, 1 player, 800 DSi Points)
• Puzzle to Go Diddl (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)
• Spaceball Revolution (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)

Morality wasn't just a black and white issue back in the Wild West, you know. There were plenty of gray areas as well, such as: Shoot that outlaw, or don't shoot that outlaw? Shoot that horse, or don't shoot that horse? Shoot everyone in that town, or don't shoot everyone in that town? Rockstar will contextualize this moral ambiguity in Red Dead Redemption, forcing protagonist John Marston to make some difficult choices, as previewed in the trailer above. (As you might have guessed, all decisions are shooting-based.)

As you watch the video, think about what type of gunslinger you'd like to become. We're thinking Gene Hackman from The Quick and The Dead. Or, possibly, Gene Hackman from Wyatt Earp. Or, better yet, Gene Hackman from Welcome to Mooseport.

#gameon In case your favorite fantasy football team didn't make it into the initial PC release of Cyanide Studio's adaptation of the Games Workshop board game, chances are they'll be showing up in Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition later this year. More »

Tiny heroes make for big fun in this free RPG.

Here's how you make Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sound like a massive sales success: "As of February 2010, Chinatown Wars' unit sales in the US represented nearly 50 percent of the unit sales of all M-rated DS titles in the history of the platform." That's Take-Two CEO Ben Feder, putting Chinatown Wars' sales into perspective. That means it met the combined sales of the 6 M-rated games on DS to date, which include Dementium: The Ward, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence and Ultimate Mortal Kombat, and the smaller releases: Theresia, Touch the Dead and C.O.R.E.

Despite comparing GTA's sales to 3 games most people have never heard of, 2 games that most people didn't know were on DS, and Dementium, Feder kind of admitted that the game's sales weren't where Take-Two wanted them to be, echoing Nintendo's statement last December. What's to blame? Piracy, of course. "Piracy is a real and present danger for our industry and must be addressed, especially in the handheld market," he said. "The commercial performance of Chinatown Wars has certainly suffered at the hands of piracy."

#stimuluspackage So you're upset that you have to pay $15 for five maps, two of which are old, and that the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package launched broken. You know what'd cheer you up? Free night vision goggles for your avatar! More »

#ipad We are, for the most part, limiting news of new games hitting the 700 and growing iPad gaming library to our enormous iPad guide. But Sam & Max deserve their own mention. More »

Adding more depth to the already eye-popping rumor that the Nintendo 3DS will use Sharp's parallax barrier LCD screen, Sharp today detailed its latest 3D, no-glasses-required screen for mobile devices. Engadget spotted the announcement this morning -- one that advertises the 3D touchscreen as "ideal for mobile devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones, and smartphones" -- rightly pointing out that the screen falls near-perfectly in step with Nintendo's recently revealed 3DS handheld.

The announcement also confirms that the screen can switch between 2D and 3D modes, and that the non-touchscreen iteration of it will go into production in "the first half of fiscal 2010 [beginning April 1]." Presumably we could see the touchscreen version going into full production soon afterward, and a new Nintendo handheld on retail shelves by this holiday. We've contacted Nintendo to see if Sharp will be lending its screens to the 3DS, but we wouldn't go holding our breath for an official response any time before E3.

[Via Engadget]

Next week's Rock Band DLC features a mix of bands. Although music afficionados may recognize several of the tracks, the only one that jumps out at us is Switchfoot's "Meant to Live" ... and the only reason for that is because it's on the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. (Gawd, we are such nerds.)

All of next week's tracks will also be available in Lego Rock Band. Check out the full release list after the break.