All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#hollywood Pixels, the animated short about game characters rampaging through New York, got Adam Sandler's attention earlier this year. Now he's put one of his top writers to work on the story for a cinematic release. More »

In a recent postmortem on Gamasutra, the team behind Deadliest Warrior discussed the game's successes and failures. Slotted firmly in the success column are the sales numbers, with Gamasutra noting that Deadliest Warrior has racked up over 225,000 units in sales since its XBLA launch in July (it later arrived on PSN in October). Spike Games' Prithvi Virasinghe and Pipeworks Software's Jeremy Mahler agree that one key to the game's success was its realistic approach to combat.

Strangely enough, Spike and Pipeworks independently reached the same conclusion: An approach similar to Square's classic Bushido Blade would help Deadliest Warrior stand out in a genre dominated by combo-heavy fighters like Street Fighter, Tekken and Soul Calibur. The two also discuss the challenges of overcoming the stigma associated with licensed games. The team opted to preview the game to as many outlets as possible to dispel any reviewer's desire to undeservedly write the game off. "We wanted the game to speak for itself on its own merits," recalls Virasinghe. In Joystiq's case at least, the strategy certainly worked.

#crime Tragic news coming out of Atlanta tonight, as a 40-year old man has been shot and killed after interrupting an armed hold-up at a GameStop store in Conyers. More »

He may be stout, moustached, and not the world's highest jumper, but Mario knows "he'sa tha best!" Even during his brutal roasting by gaming's greatest -- he keeps a cool head! Also, he talks a ton of smack.

#microsoft The Xbox 360's fancy motion-sensing camera Kinect may cost you $149, but according to a report from UBM Tech Insights, it costs Microsoft a whole lot less. More »

EA isn't prepared to reveal much on the upcoming Vanguard Entertainment game, Gatling Gears, but thankfully saw fit to provide us a sneak peak through a pair of new screens. Check 'em out in our gallery below -- it follows the art style of Greed Corp. just, you know, with less hexagons.

#howisthisnews Man, it's been kind of a tense day. Let's shake it all off with a little off-topic conversation, clear the air and... hey, I just had a crazy thought... what about a cuddle party? More »

#capcom Capcom today said the latest installment of its superbike racer, MotoGP 10/11, is under development and due for release in March. Developer Monumental Games is back on the case. Check out this gallery of a dozen screenshots. More »

Taking to the US PlayStation blog, EA Bright Light producer Justin Manning revealed the imminent release date for his studio's next game release, Create: November 16 (aka: next Tuesday!). We've also confirmed that Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii iterations of the game will arrive on the same day next week. Given the game's user created level sharing ability via PSN and PlayStation Move functionality, perhaps Create can fill the hole left in your heart by the LittleBigPlanet 2 delay? M ... maybe?

#doublefineproductions Tim Schafer, creative force behind Grim Fandango and Brutal Legend, is ready and willing to give you that Psychonauts sequel you've been dreaming of. Now he just needs a publisher to finance the damn thing. More »

#worldofwarcraft Backsliders in the church of Warcraft are being coaxed back to the flock with an offer of seven free days of gameplay, to whet their appetite for the Cataclysm expansion due in December. More »

High Voltage certainly had ambition and vision when designing the original Conduit for Wii, hyping it as a marquee FPS title for Nintendo's console. Unfortunately, the execution wasn't there. Fast forward a year since its release, and High Voltage is working on a sequel. Although the team admits the first game didn't meet expectations, I couldn't help but get a sense of déjà vu while watching the strictly hands-off demo. This time, it's actually going to be really good -- but isn't that what you guys promised us last time?

Conduit 2 has all the features you'd expect of a sequel. More locations! This time, you'll be wandering around a variety of locales, including the mythical Atlantis. (You do make a return trip to DC, but only for one level.) More weapons! With more human, alien and Atlantian guns to use this time around. Better graphics! Or, at least, better art direction and a closer attention to detail. Each level looks very different, with an intentional focus on offering different color palettes throughout the game. Humor! In an attempt to take things a bit less seriously than in the first game, expect many more quips from Ford as he goes through his mission. The banter felt strangely reminiscent of a Duke Nukem game.

Yet, in spite High Voltage's efforts to build upon the previous game, there's one feature I still couldn't find in the hands-off demo: fun.

Though Sackboy's opposable thumbs weren't doing him a lot of favors in the original LittleBigPlanet, the "Grabinator" power-up in the upcoming sequel lets him haul around any old object (or any fellow player). Check out a sporty featurette showing off the uses of this new ability after the jump.

Activision's CFO Thomas Tippl has promised at an industry conference in New York that 2011 will bring the company's "largest digital offering ever" in the form of DLC for the Call of Duty franchise. Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg made a similar statement last week, saying that Activision would offer "the Call of Duty community our largest line of an exciting new digital content ever." That could just be lots of new maps and content packs to download, or it could finally be the long-rumored subscription-based service Activision reportedly wants to put in place.

Either way, if you were one of the many, many people who shelled out $60 for Call of Duty: Black Ops earlier this week, Activision says not to put your wallet away just yet -- it's got some other offers coming soon that you might want to take advantage of.

If we've learned anything from our bi-weekly viewings of Cheaper by the Dozen, it's that fatherhood is a pretty tough gig. There's so many tasks related to keeping your offspring alive, healthy and happy -- but imagine how much more difficult those tasks would be if you didn't have any bones. Or hands. Or if you had six-too-many legs. Or if you were covered in suction cups. Or if you tasted delicious when deep fried and covered in red wine and tomato sauce. Oh yes. Yes please.

Sorry, we lost our train of thought. The scenario described above is the basis of the latest onus from the DePaul Game Development program (the group behind last year's excellent indie gem Devil's Tuning Fork), a 3D adventure title called Octodad. The game's as free as it is bizarre and charming -- but if you're reserving your precious bandwidth until you can be sure of its capacity to win your heart, you can check out a trailer after the jump.

Just look at him waddle around, trying to mop. We love you, Octodad.

#clips LittleBigPlanet 2's already brought us grappling hooks, bounce pads, Sackbots, and the Creatinator. Now Media Molecule reveals a fourth tool - the Grabinator, with which Sackboy can pick up carry and even throw massive things of a great weight. More »

The following information comes from producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto… Check out the loading times video demo here - “We’ve broken the two second wall for switching maps and other areas. Thanks go out to the programmers who continued their research over a long period!” - do your farming on the islands that Ymir pulls up from under the water - [...]

#pc Loving husband. Caring father. Secret octopus. This is the tagline for Octodad, an adventure game in which players struggle to raise a family, maintain a secret octopus identity and somehow walk upright on tentacles. More »

Dennis Durkin, COO and CFO of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, wants to keep you engaged. In his presentation at the BMO Capital Markets Annual Digital Entertainment Conference in New York today, Durkin highlighted how the social Xbox Live ecosystem, in conjunction with content provided by both Microsoft and third-party partners, is designed to provide ceaselessly entertaining ensnarement.

More than half of Xbox Live's 25 million users are paying subscribers, which means that over 12 million players make use of the service's online multiplayer and non-gaming offerings, like the streaming ESPN3 service. "Those are very, very engaged customers, which is a good business," Durkin said. On average, paying subscribers use Xbox Live for 3 hours a day. Before you calculate how many Black Ops matches fit into that period, keep in mind that users spend forty percent of their Xbox time using non-headshot services -- like listening to music on Last.fm, watching a movie on Netflix or rapidly exiting the Facebook app that they accidentally clicked on.

Keeping users "engaged" and interacting with the system is "really, really key for any business," Durkin said. He also pointed out that Xbox Live's digital transactions business (think: downloadable content, Games on Demand) is actually bigger than its subscriptions business. Again, Durkin emphasized that good content was crucial in keeping players connected, "and our marketplace allows for that." And to keep you engaged, Microsoft needs to keep its content-creating partners engaged too. "Obviously, the majority of the revenue that we get in this segment of our business, we share with our partners."

[We had a "circle of Live" joke here to cap off the ecosystem discussion, but we deleted it.]

#nintendo The upcoming character-driven Wii sports compilation Mario Sports Mix is being developed by Square Enix, which explains how five iconic Final Fantasy characters have made it into the game's roster. Who made the cut? You tell me, Kupo! More »

#clips Halo Reach player and Forge tinkerer "Carnage A51" spent a month in the Xbox 360 game's level maker, crafting a Rube Goldberg machine with a red letter ending. It may take a while to get there, but it pays off. More »

On March 15, 2011, Shogun 2: Total War will wage war for your dollars (and maybe a few cents, too) when the next installment in The Creative Assembly's strategy series launches on March 15, 2011. The sequel will not only boast a new AI system "inspired" by Sun Tsu's Art of War, but also a host of graphical upgrades including deferred lighting and tweaked fire and explosive damage. There will also be some new mo-cap combat animations to see.

Along with the announcement, Sega sent along some new screens. Assault our gallery below and conquer them with your eyeballs.

Keynoting the IGDA Leadership Forum last week, THQ "core games" boss Danny Bilson not only reflected on the publisher's steady turnaround (despite a recent slump), but also focused on its goals for the future. Previously reported updates from Bilson on Homefront, Darksiders 2 and Guillermo Del Toro's project, however, were just mere nuggets from his near hour-long presentation, which kicked off with a retelling of his personal journey from non-interactive media to games.

Back in the late-90s, Bilson recalled, he was working in television in Vancouver -- specifically, on Viper and The Sentinel. During a business trip, a stranger sitting next to him on the plane asked about the scripts Bilson happened to be reviewing. That stranger was Don Mattrick, who was president of Electronic Arts at the time. Bilson would eventually join EA, launching his career in video games.

#salesget The most exciting new addition to this week's Japanese game sales chart is the appearance of Fallout: New Vegas. Looks like that "protest" against Japanese role-playing games campaign worked. More »

Look, we're not going to lie. We've been checking out new screens and a trailer for Fancy Pants Adventures -- coming next year to XBLA and PSN -- and we have to admit: Those are some darn fancy pants. They just might be the fanciest we've ever seen. Look for yourself and just try to disagree.