The big winners at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards were Little Big Planet (Best Game Design, Best Technology, Best Debut Game, Innovation Award) and Fallout 3 (Game of the Year, Best Writing). Both deserving winners, especially Little Big Planet which has probably been my most played PS3 title so far apart from Pro Evo. World of Goo also picked up Best Downloadable Game.
The lifetime achievement award went to Hideo Kojima. Kojima is the man behind the Metal Gear Solid franchise and he pretty much created the stealth game genre. He gave a talk at the conference about how nothing is really impossible, you can always work around it if you ditch preconceptions. The things that are currently impossible will soon become possible as technology improves. He has worked at Konami since 1986 and certainly deserves the award.
Tags: Fallout 3, Game Developers Choice Awards, Hideo Kojima, Little Big Planet
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The Independent Games Festival awards are announced each year at GDC and they always highlight a few really cool titles which are worth checking out. Here are the winners from this year.
Blueberry Garden won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and it is the weird creation of Swedish developer Erik Svedang. It features a constantly changing environment and entices you to explore the Bluebery Garden.
The Innovation Award went to Between which is a clever dream like adventure which you should play with a friend. Philosphical stuff for the gaming world.
Musaic Box won the Design Award and it is truly inventive with musical puzzles to be solved.
Visual Art Award went to Machinarium another new point and click adventure with beautifully drawn backdrops.
Brainpipe won the Audio Award and it offers a psychedelic challenge for your reflexes with bizarre sound effects and dreamy musical backing.
The Technical Award went to Cortex Command a 2D platformer with a physics engine that challenges you to take command of all kinds of machines and bodies for your own ends. It features split screen multiplayer too and it also won the Audience Award.
Tags: Between, Blueberry Garden, Brainpipe, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Musaic Box
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A new service was unveiled at GDC yesterday called OnLive which threatens to do away with the need for gaming hardware altogether. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will be hiring hitmen as we speak because according to OnLive boss Steve Perlman demanding games can be run on remote hardware and streamed across the net to run on your television or a cheap laptop.
You will need to buy their tiny micro console if you want to just use your TV and of course you’ll need high speed broadband, at least 1.5 megabits per second for standard definition and 5 megabits for high definition. They showed off Crysis running on a crappy laptop and it appears to work.
The possiblities are obvious, no more expensive upgrades so you can run the latest games, in fact what’s the point of a big console system taking up space in your living room either? All you need is a good connection and your controller of choice and your inputs control the action which is run on high end hardware miles away. Their micro console will cost less than any of the current generation consoles and sports two USB connections, support for four Bluetooth devices, audio, video and HDMI outputs.
This system also does away with installation and download times and unsurprisingly a bunch of the big publishers have jumped straight onboard. It will protect them from cross platform hassles and piracy.
They even claim lag won’t be a problem with a ping below 1 millisecond. They have developed extremely fast video compression techniques at Reardon Studios, in fact the micro console is just a video decoding control hub.
OnLive are planning to offer a monthly subscription service and if it works the potential is obviously massive. There is a beta test this summer and then it goes live later in the year. I wouldn’t throw out your hardware just yet but this is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Tags: OnLive, Steve Perlman, Streaming Games
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Well real life banking has proved to be a total disaster lately with Scottish banks in particular making a stunning mess of things. While the real world economy seems to be struggling virtual worlds are turning over more and more cash every year.
Gaming economies have been growing steadily and the amount of money changing hands in virtual worlds has now reached impressive heights. One of the leading examples is the MMO Entropia which boasts the most expensive sale ever in an MMO. It is now set to rake in even more money with the news that the developers, Mindark are about to open fully functioning banks which will allow you to deposit your wages, pay bills or even borrow cash from the in-game bank. They claim that over $400 million changed hands in Entropia last year.
The Entropia economy has an exchange rate of 10 Project Entropia Dollars to 1 real US dollar. It is a free piece of software but the game is full of micro-payment transactions, basically you can buy all sorts of content or pay for various services in the game world. Some people are even making a living from it.
The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority have actually granted them a license so virtual banking is now tied to the real world. They have deposit insurance up to $60,000 and to combat fears of criminal money laundering they are giving regulators oversight of the transactions.
With all that cash you’d think Entropia would have more users, they claim nearly a million registered but regular users number under 100,000. Anyone fancy joining up? I’m looking to put together a crew for the first virtual bank heist in history.
Tags: Entropia, virtual banking
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Welcome to Frankengamer where I’ll be bringing you all sorts of game related news, reviews and information. Anything that interests me which is game related will be fair game for a post.
I’ve been gaming since I was in single figures starting on my Grandad’s old wood veneer Atari with Pong. Over the years I’ve spent many hours in video game arcades, I’ve worn away the rubber keys on an old Spectrum, played the Atari ST to death and graduated to consoles.
First up was the NES, then the SNES, a Gameboy, then the Sega Megadrive, the Playstation, the Playstation 2, the Xbox, the Nintendo DS, the PSP, the Xbox 360 and finally the Playstation 3. Not to mention a new PC every couple of years.
I’ve filled my belly with dots in Pacman, raced round the beach front in Outrun with the wind blowing in my hair and cleaned up the mean streets of Double Dragon. I’ve smashed opponents to pieces in Speedball 2, nuked worlds in Civilisation 2 and flown at crazy speeds in futuristic hoverships with Wipeout. I’ve managed teams to treble success in Champ Man, banged in hat tricks with Pro-Evo and eaten my way out of a dead guys chest in Alien vs Predator 2. I’ve killed many a Nazi and Combine and Terrorist, defeated zombies and sweated in the jungle hunting my prey in too many FPS’s to mention. I’ve led armies in Total War, pulled off numerous Grand Theft Autos and solved many a puzzle in a decayed old tomb. Ok you get the idea I like gaming.
I like it so much I got a job in the games industry. I worked as a games tester and then lead games tester at the now defunct VIS Entertainment on games like State of Emergency and Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick. I worked as a games designer and producer at Outerlight on The Ship and another soon to be released game. Working in games can be more stress than it’s worth and I left in search of a life. A new life as a freelance writer and so here I am.
I write about games for a number of websites so I’ll occasionally post links to my other articles. I hope you’ll enjoy this blog, I am going to be deliciously and cruelly honest about my opinion on all manner of game related things. Free of the restraints of editorial control this is where I’ll run wild. Feel free to get involved, post a comment, ask a question, whatever you like.
Join me as I assemble the choice parts of the gaming world like cadaverous limbs to construct the Frankengamer.
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