All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

SAN FRANCISCO – November 22, 2010 – Today Ubisoft announced it will give away a replica Michael Jackson glove to mark the launch of the Michael Jackson The Experience video game through a unique “golden ticket” style sweepstakes. Ubisoft worked with the Michael Jackson Estate to create a philanthropic campaign specifically tied to the launch of [...]

#clips As the year wraps up, so does everyone's take on what they think are the best games of 2010. More »

We've got the review build of GT5 and some killer video to prove it.

#blizzard In two weeks, World of Warcraft gains Goblin, Worgen, and a healthy dose of high-end content, but first the world must die. WoW lead systems designer Greg Street talks us through the rebirth of Azeroth coming in tomorrow's massive patch. More »

You've seen the European Signature Edition of Gran Turismo 5. Now, to make you jealous again, and to prove that Gran Turismo 5 exists, PlayStation Blog has posted an unboxing video for the American Collector's Edition. Surprisingly little time is spent playing with the toy car!

Deathwing Takes Flight

The trio of starters now have official U.S. names.

#wii Give thanks for the opportunity to lob penguins into a basketball hoop this week, courtesy of WiiWare and Snowpack Park, a game you might want to download to your Wii? No? Maybe Tetris then? More »

#clips Angry Birds and green pigs together at last, discussing peace, posing for photos, telling each other to.. *crag* off? More »

If you've got a deep well of love for your Kinect, but a shallow reservoir of software for your Kinect, you can add a little something-something to the pile at no charge. If you're an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, you can now download a demo for Sonic Free Riders from the Marketplace.

Then again, based on meta-criticism that's called out the game's apparent unresponsiveness, just about anything could serve as a demo for Sonic Free Riders. Flail your arms while watching your daytime soap operas, for example -- that should deliver roughly the same interactive experience.

You're in for quite the piping-hot treat of justice today, as the Xbox 360 Fancast crew find themselves in rare form for the 190th episode of this podcasting institution. There's plenty of punny taglines for our coffee-themed super hero we've concocted in our noggins, but there's also talk of this Xbox 360 video games console thing, as well -- specifically, about how well Kinect has been doing and how much fun it is to stab your friends. Download and listen, lest you allow the Borgia to win!

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (MP3)
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in Zune Marketplace (MP3)
[RSS MP3] Add the Xbox 360 Fanboy Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly

Hosts: Richard Mitchell (SenseiRAM, @senseiram), Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander, @xandersliwinski) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad, @davehinkle)

Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta; Break: "Musow" by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba

For fans: Xbox 360 Fancast Facebook group

Last week we brought you the 2nd installment JAPAN Studio’s upcoming title Beat Sketcher, a PlayStation Move exclusive title that will be available for purchase in the PlayStation Store tomorrow, November 23rd.

For this week’s developer profile, Art Director Kenei Hayama created the following video using Beat Sketcher.

Kenei Hayama – Art Director: “I just enjoyed drawing. My goal was not to draw a tune but to draw what I wanted to draw with freedom, as I drew, the music emerged naturally.”

Here are a few more cool pictures that were drawn using Beat Sketcher, just to give you all an idea of what you can create.

Don’t forget to post links to your best YouTube Beat Sketcher videos! We’d love to see what all of you create! Also, as we mentioned in our previous blogs, the team will answer some of your questions in an upcoming post so don’t forget to to include them in the comments below.

Be sure to download Beat Sketcher for PSN available TOMORROW!

Lastly, let’s finish up our interview with the Beat Sketcher development team.

Q: What is the most exciting aspect of using PlayStation Move in Beat Sketcher?

A: With simple and intuitive game control that Beat Sketcher provides, you can create various works and draw a tune with your imagination. We believe this game experience will be very exciting moment for anyone who plays with PlayStation Move.

Q: What are your favorite moments so far in developing Beat Sketcher with PlayStation Move?

A: The moment when I could draw a soothing line as intended with PlayStation Move controls. Also, the moment when I could play tuneful sounds much better than expected, as a result.

Q: What challenges did you encounter in creating Beat Sketcher with something as innovative as PlayStation Move?

A: This is the first time the team developed a game using PlayStation Move, so we have encountered many challenges at every aspect during the production, and we keep our best to overcome these. Specifically, in terms of creating a very unique game experience that anyone can enjoy regardless of gender, age, or nations, we took a process of trial and error so many times, and finally decided the current final game design.

Q: Is there anything else you want to add about Beat Sketcher and PlayStation Move?

A: Other than enjoying doodling freely, Beat Sketcher is packed with many fun elements such as a new game mode fused with doodle and rhythm action game, or a game mode that you compete or cooperate with your friends and family that everyone from children to adults, alone or multiple people together, can enjoy.

Also, your created works in Beat Sketcher can be shared via globally – for example, a movie taken in the game can be uploaded to YouTube. We are looking forward to seeing that many great surprising works are created from Beat Sketcher all over the world!

More car art here Driver: 01 Jamie McMurray Born: June 3rd, 1976 Hometown: Joplin, MO Team: Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Crew Chief: Kevin Manion Jamie was named Rookie of the Year in his first full NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, in 2003. Driver: 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Born: September 20th, 1975 Hometown: Bogota, Columbia Team: Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Crew Chief: Brian Pattie Juan Pablo is the first Formula [...]

The funniest hand of poker you'll ever play.

Nintendo Week 11/22 Donkey Kong Country Returns - TV Spot The Mario Drawing Song Created with Flipnote Studio Demo Versions of WiiWare Games Available on Wii Shop Channel Super Mario Bros. 2 - Super Play Movie Ultimate Wii Challenge - Kirby’s Epic Yarn Disney Epic Mickey - Info Video Sonic Colors Wii - Info Video Sonic Colors DS - [...]

Did the trailer for the Noble Map Pack fail to sate your still-watering palette? Did you need a more extensive taste of the new Halo: Reach multiplayer arenas before their release next Tuesday? S'cool, we gotcha -- IGN has posted a video tour of the new maps, which we've embedded past the break.

Namco rolls up some retro remixes with classic chestnuts.

Last week, ModNation Racers was officially nominated for Best Driving Game and Best PS3 Game in the 2010 SPIKE TV Video Game Awards! To celebrate this great double honor, we’re going to kick off another week of Double XP. Starting tomorrow, November 23rd, go nuts and double your XP in MNR during the Thanksgiving holiday. It really is a special feeling to be recognized for making a game that we believe in, and we sincerely thank our awesome community for all your support.

Carnival Pack Available

We’ve seen what you’ve done with the Stunt Pack, and we can’t wait to see what that Carnival Pack brings to the Nation. Check it out tomorrow!

Progressive Kart Available for Free Tomorrow!

Flo needs wheels, and here they are. Starting tomorrow, you can pick up your pink slip for this sweet offroad truck for FREE courtesy of our good friends at Progressive Insurance! The Kart includes the Truck body and Progressive decals.

ModNation Creations of the Week

Amazing creations in ModNation get shared every day and we are playing a ton of them. If you are interested in submitting your mod, kart or track to be a future “creation” of the week be sure to visit up on the official ModNation Community site and who knows? You might see your handiwork on the PlayStation.Blog.

With the release of the new Carnival and Stunts parts pack we want to see your tracks with those new props in them!

Mod & Kart of the Week

Mod Name: MNR Police Officer
Kart Name: MNR Police Pursuit
Creator: decrates

Ramone says: This little dude looks pretty cool. He’s clean all the way down to his detailed white gloves, and I get the distinct feeling that he’s ALL business. Coincidentally, he kind of resembles one of the guys at United Front Games…Decrates also made the perfect kart complement to MNR Police Officer in the MNR Police Pursuit. From the “To Boost And Drift” motto on the sides to the “Pull Over” message in front for any unlucky Mod’s rear view mirror, the detail and precision on this one are top notch. I really, really dig this Kart.

Track of the Week

If you have a video(s) of your track submit them to MNR’s YouTube channel by emailing ModNation@Playstation.Sony.com and we will include them in the blog if your track is showcased.

Track Name: Elite Theme Park
Created by: RockToonz

RockToonz says: “This track has seven unique Elite Challenges, uses the Theme Park environment, and is good for Hot Lap and Track of the Week (action races)… Try it and you decide!

Ramone says: I’ve heard of underground racing, but I’d never really heard of race tracks with underground race hazards. You’ll just have to give try this track out to see what I mean. This track has got some awesome uses of the Stunt Pack, and I always love it when there are cool drift and jump opportunities that also involve risks. There’s a great, wide turn to get your Boost on, but it’s littered with flaming clowns that you’ll have to work around, and the big jump needs to be navigated in order to avoid obstacles and/or collect pods. I had nightmares after racing this one. I dreamed that I was about to jump a ramp and a mechanical dinosaur came up out of the ground to eat me. Well played, RockToonz. …well played.

Track Name: Venom Pit
Created by: MightyDeuce

OverReAction says: “Created this track based around a pit of snakes, modeling using blocks and a few other props for eyes and detail. The track itself is an up and down twisting track designed for great racing and drifting. Track also incorporates two big jumps and a sprinkling of pods. There are no shortcuts in this one as I wanted the races to be as close and hard fought as possible. Thanks for looking.”

Ramone says: I should’ve known by the title that this might not be the track for me. The track is crazy fun, with some really good zig-zagging drift opportunities, but once I hit those jumps and got a bigger sweeping view of the track, the ophidiophobia kicked in and things got creepy. Look it up. It’s no fun on a track like this. This is a great one, though. Great for Action or Time Trial, this is one of those tracks that makes a perfect run achievable without being easy.

Hot Lap Roster for this week

Continuing with the trend we started weeks ago this weeks Hot Lap roster features all new community created tracks.

Monday: Elite Theme Park, by RockToonz
Tuesday: Venom Pit, by MightyDeuce
Wednesday: Mountain Switchbacks, by OverReAction
Thursday: Altago City, by apricot-jam-IS
Friday: ALPHA CITY, by SergioChileno
Saturday: Mystery Track
Sunday: Mystery Track

More news next week, until then… see you in the ModSpot!

#clips We've seen some fun and sometimes funky homebrewed uses of Kinect for the Xbox 360, thanks to the release of open source drivers for Microsoft's camera sensor, but how many of those apps support house cats? This one does. More »

Speaking to a packed room at New York University's Game Center last week, developer Chris Hecker -- a man perhaps best known for giving ... impassioned rants -- detailed his "depth first, accessibility later" approach to development of his latest project, SpyParty. The game is a twist on the Turing Test: one player is "the Spy" while the other is "the Sniper." The Spy must complete a set of objectives without being spotted, while the Sniper looks on and tries to pick out who the Spy is from a group of NPCs (and then murder that Spy) before the time runs out.

How does the sniper spot the spy? By paying attention to a variety of "tells" -- from the subtle (a human Spy's order of actions may differ from an NPC's) to the "hard" (catch the Spy covertly slip an object to an NPC). As Hecker is keen to point out, SpyParty is a game about human interaction. "You have to decide where you're going, go there and don't look back (basically). Of course, I also make the NPCs fidget occasionally, just to *crag* with people," Hecker revealed to a laughing audience. "And that's interesting -- that interplay ... I mean, it's an inverse Turing Test at a certain level."

Looks like we’re going to start the English naming process on Monday! This is going to be a long road to release, but it should be fun to see what these guys get as their English names!

Game Informer has posted its recent print interview with Oddworld Inhabitants founder Lorne Lanning, a (five-years-later) followup to the magazine's April 2005 announcement of The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot, OWI's would-be effort to delve further into the "more hardcore" elements of the Oddworld ... world.

After finding the situation with EA (which published OWI's Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on Xbox in 2005) "unworkable," Lanning recounted, OWI turned to Majesco to fund and publish the Fangus project, another Xbox game built on Stranger's core framework. But only a month after the game's announcement, "the shenanigans started" and OWI shut down its development studio. "Sometimes developers get fired by publishers and sometimes developers fire publishers," Lanning said coyly, "and that's probably all I should say about it."

Publisher "incompetence" aside, Fangus did sound like an odd pitch: A "close to the Earth" dog-man herdsman turned "pit fighting" slave -- to the Russian-like cat mafia -- who escapes his years-long imprisonment a hardened killer dead set on vengeance and the liberation of his people ("the timeless mythical battle between cats and dogs," in other words). Also, Fangus has terminal rabies and "would control a flock of ravenous sheep-like creatures to take down enemies and solve puzzles," according to GI's description. "We wanted it to be really hardcore," Lanning concluded.

When you wish upon a star...

#deals If you'd (wisely) prefer to avoid the stampeding, budget-obsessed crowds sure to storm the Walmarts and Best Buys this Friday, why not stay at home and get your video game savings digitally through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network? More »

#2dboy 2D Boy, makers of WiiWare/PC hit World of Goo, are bringing their game to Apple's iPad, bringing with it support for up to 11 fingers at once. When can we expect this all-new, touchscreen-controlled World of Goo? More »