Game on: 2011

Monday, January 17, 2011

Worms 2: Armageddon XBLA Review || Returning Gamer column on Game People

Worms 2 Armageddon XBLA combines time limited decisions with careful planning to create a game on a knife edge. The tension is then wonderfully relieved by the insane stars of the show - the soft squishy pink megadriles.

Worms 2: Armageddon, considered by many to be the best of Team 17's turn-based blaster series, has arrived on Xbox Live Arcade as a budget download. It's a fun, colourful affair that brings simple, addictive joy to your Game Library.

Upon downloading Worms 2 I found myself suddenly feeling very nostalgic indeed. In my mind's game catalogue Worms sat somewhere between James Pond, Lemmings and Cannon Fodder as examples of bright cartoon games that were designed to make the most of the Amiga's graphical capabilities.

Now, feeling nostalgia is often pleasurable, but can sometimes overwhelm your sense of enjoyment about playing the game itself, for example, when I downloaded The Secret of Monkey Island to my iPhone last year I spent a long time switching between the updated and original graphics simply for the effect of being transported back to a time far away in my past, rather than concentrating on the game's challenges.

Worms 2 however, quickly overcomes any feelings of Proustian displacement. I was soon lost in the classic Worms buzz that comes from puzzle solving and wiping out the enemy. It's hard not to feel attached to your team of worms. My team, Hell's Rejects, composed of Compo, Clegg, Foggy and Derek, were to become my best friends across the 35 missions that constitute the Campaign mode. Willingly they laid down their lives for me, blowing themselves up, as well as the enemy. It occurred to me this was one of gaming's few acceptable representations of suicide bombing.

However, during the Campaign mode I hit the wall a couple of times - frustrating hours of working out the best strategy to take down my opponents, when every missile they delivered was frighteningly accurate and my forces were destroyed with ease.

That frustration didn't turn to anger though. I found myself constantly going back and trying new tactics, because the game responds to that type of creativity. It rewarded my inventive and positive thinking and I felt validated by that.

I think it was the voices she liked best, the Worms chatter in cute, high-pitched tones.

Where Worms is most rewarding however is in the Theatre of Cruelty multiplayer mode. I recalled long hours of sitting up with friends playing the original and am pleased to say that Worms 2 can still give you the same satisfying glow of nuking a loved one's army.

Unlike Wii-Sports or SingStar, Worms may be too complex and silly to involve your Mum in - although my partner took to the game with worrying ease. I think it was the voices she liked best, the Worms chatter in cute, high-pitched tones that are rather funny. So much so that she enjoyed mimicking them when I managed to blow myself up: "Stupid!" was the cry from both the Worms and my girlfriend.

In multiplayer you stand a better chance of survival and I think this added to my enjoyment. We spent hours locked in a war of attrition, with neither of us weakening or indeed tiring of the fun we were having. The next thing we knew it was midnight and Worms had eaten away our evening.

Worms 2 is addictive because it manages to combine both the instant gratification of killing your enemy, with a sense of achievement for thinking through the subsequent defensive problems your attack may create. Limiting each move to thirty seconds made positioned my Worm correctly or getting the trajectory on a shot even more tense.

I think it was the voices she liked best, the Worms chatter in cute, high-pitched tones.

Worms 2 is never going to stretch the 360's technology or make you feel like you've participated in an incredible interactive movie. It will, however, demand that you return to it time and again.

It's a cheap, cheerful and fun experience that rewards the time and effort you put into it. As a returning gamer, it was a moment that made me feel why I'd come back to playing games in the first place, while satisfying that need for a little nostalgia.

Guest review by John Rivers

John Rivers wrote this Returning Gamer article under the watchful eye of Sinan Kubba.

"As an 80s kid I was obsessed with gaming. But university, stress and life relegated my hobby to the backseat. After years in the wilderness, I'm back into video games. I don't just want to play games that remind of a happy youth though. I'm just as excited about games that take things forward, experiences that re-ignite that curiosity and fascination I had years ago."

window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '109307872451260', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }());© Game People 2006-10 | Advertise | Huh?

View the original article here

World Rally Championship PS3 Review || Race Gamer column on Game People

World Rally Championship PS3 doesn't fare much better electronically than it currently does in real life. Although it's great to see a sensible and level headed approach to rallying, none of that mattered because it simply failed to deliver a believable experience.

The poor old World Rally Championship has had a bit of kicking lately, with manufacturers dropping like flies, famous events dropped from the calendar (no more Rally Monte Carlo) poor TV and media coverage as well as a lack of competition has turned the once mighty series into a shadow of its former self.

So it's a bit of a surprise to see this official WRC title. Still, it's good to see a proper rallying game that focuses on the sport properly without the extreme flavour of Codemasters' DiRT (PS3) games.

World Rally Championship offers a choice of modes, allowing you to have your own career, play time-attack, run single stage, a whole rally, or multiplayer for up to four players. The menus are there to do a job, don't expect any pretty presentation because you're not going to get it-the aim here is function.

Sadly, things don't really improve once you get going. Following the real-life series, the choice of cars is limited to either the Ford Focus or the Citroen C4, while the P-WRC (cheaper, Production like cars) and the J-WRC (Junior World Rally Championship) offer more variety.

Once you get to the gravel it's more of the same. WRC can best be described as bland. The game's colour palette is washed out to such an extent that while on the Wales Rally GB it's all but impossible to make out the road ahead from the verge, meaning you'll frequently find rocks, trees and other such debris rushing to greet you.

World Rally Championship makes a valiant attempt to offer decent handling, but having hustled a car or two over the loose stuff, I know the feel of a car on gravel and the cars in WRC feel decidedly twitchy. Even the rumble feedback didn't transmit the feeling of driving the different terrains rallying offers.

I know the feel of a car on gravel and the cars in WRC feel decidedly twitchy.

Sadly, that's not where the problems end, either. The audio track for the cars is almost laughable in places and the music feels as if it's been lifted from a copyright free catalogue.

The worst thing though has to be your co-driver. One minute your instructions are being delivered in a flat monotone voice, the next minute he or she is screeching at you to concentrate, or berating you for not driving fast enough. It's so infuriating that pretty quickly I'd opted to turn the co-driver speech off, which of course, makes the driving that bit tougher. Why they couldn't have opted for a real co-driver like Nicky Grist, for example, is beyond me.

So by now you're probably thinking that WRC is a pretty bad game. Well that would be harsh. The smaller cars, like the Suzuki Swift are good fun and multiplayer mode isn't too bad.

If you can get past the poor presentation and the limited range of full-spec WRC cars, there's a solid enough rallying game here that will find considerable favour with those, like me who were put off by the direction Codemasters went in with DiRT.

WRC is a tough game to recommend, it fails to involve you on anything more than a basic level.

The publishers would normally be commended for remaining so faithful to the source material, but when that material is some what mediocre; the game is bound to be little more than average. So, as it stands, WRC feels like a game sorely lacking in polish, and therefore is somewhat of a missed opportunity.

WRC is a tough game to recommend, while it provides a passable driving experience, it fails to involve you on anything more than a basic level. This game would have been great in 2005, but in 2010 it all feels somewhat dated. You'd be better off saving your cash and going for Colin McRae 2005.

Guest review by Adam Sloman

Adam Sloman wrote this Race Gamer article under the watchful eye of Jon Starkey.

"Joining Game People is still a little daunting, but I hope to offer some insider knowledge and insight into the best and worst driving games and peripherals available on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS lite and PSP."

View the original article here

Monday, January 10, 2011

Black Ops Sales Pass $1 billion

Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Black Ops Sales Pass $1 Billion | Edge Magazine @import "/files/css/a87aca02b7bde17ab6bf4eff7f397ee3.css"; @import "/sites/next-gen.biz/themes/edge_theme/css/print.css";

Community Join Username: * Password: * Forgot password? Newsletter 10am GMT 10am EST Magazine Latest Issue Buy now Subscribe

NEWS Black Ops Sales Pass $1 Billion

By Nathan Brown

December 22, 2010

Activision Call of Duty: Black Ops Sales

Treyarch-developed shooter passes the milestone after just six weeks on shelves.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops has generated more than $1 billion for Activision in just six weeks on sale, the publisher has announced.

The Treyarch-developed shooter continues to break records. It sold 1.4 million units, grossing some £58 million, in the UK alone, breaking the record set by last year's Modern Warfare 2 by 14 per cent. Within five days it had generated more than $650 million worldwide, beating Modern Warfare 2's record of $550 million.

Activision also claim more than players have spent in excess of a combined 600 million hours playing the game’s online multiplayer component, with Microsoft saying the average player logs on once a day and plays for more than an hour.

“In all of entertainment, only Call Of Duty and Avatar have ever achieved the billion dollar milestone this quickly,” Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO, said. “Our ability to provide the most compelling, immersive entertainment experience, and enhance it with regular, recurring content that delivers hundreds of hours of audience value, has allowed Call Of Duty to continue to set sales and usage records.”

Black Ops launched in the US and Europe on November 9. You can read our review of it here.

Related Articles COD: Black Ops LaunchesActivision and Treyarch's FPS hits the ground amid an aggressive price war.Black Ops Tops November Nordic ChartActivision shooter continues to bestride world's sales data like an annually iterated colossus.US November Sales "Best On Record"Record figures lead to retail's biggest ever November, with 360, Kinect and COD: Black Ops leading the charge. Comments

On December 25th
BenKrotin said:

I have to say... For being a coked-out CEO, Bobby Kotick is pretty damn coherent in his comments here.

On December 23rd
A.I. said:

Of course i don`t want to tell the masses what to like an what not. I´m an older guy who started playing pong in 1977 on an arcade and then i bought an atari vcs 2600 and after that the computers came. C-64, Atari ST, Amiga and after that the pc hardware. I still own all these machines and there are a lot of games on them which to me are more fun to play than most of the new released stuff. 25 years ago you had a huge variety of games being released in one week in almost every genre. To me a good game or movie has to pass the test of time and in both cases to me there hasn`t ben much around in the last couple of years. The fps shooter genre is like having the same meal day by day for the last ten years and i think people should ask for something different right now than eating the same stuff for the next decade. People are buying new hardware to play a game they already own but they still buy it because it`s the new version. I had great fun playing the first cod but i didn`t buy the sequels because the content was always the same. And as long as these circle works no one will dare to release something different.

On December 23rd
A.I. said:

Well this is about what kind of entertainemt a majority can expect in the next ten years. All kind of content will be around special effects (Avatar) and stupid content (COD Black OPS). In the case of COD this is the same crap as ten years ago but with better graphics and this will go and on.

On December 23rd
jb1 said:

You are seriously saying that the fps shooter genre hasn't progressed in ten years? There are still good niche games being released but there will always be gaming's equivalent to the movie summer blockbuster and why not? Even if Avatar and COD are not your thing (too bad examples as they are both mostly excellent) why would you deny the masses what they like?

Animation Programmer - Rockstar North

Physics Programmer - Rockstar North

Environment Artist - Rockstar North

Character Animator - Rockstar North

Audio Programmer - Rockstar North

Place your job ad Browse more jobs Top Stories The Making Of: PlayStation

The dramatic story of how Sony entered the videogame industry. Making Of PlayStation Sony Interview: Shigeru Miyamoto

The man behind some of the gaming world’s favourite icons discusses his sparkling career. Nintendo Shigeru Miyamoto Generation When?

A new wave of gaming consoles should be visible by now, but there’s not a codenamed project in sight. Why are we waiting? Consoles Next-Gen PC

new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: 'profile', rpp: 4, interval: 6000, width: 300, height: 250, theme: { shell: { background: '#ba1536', color: '#000000' }, tweets: { background: '#ffffff', color: '#000000', links: '#ba1536' } }, features: { scrollbar: true, loop: false, live: true, hashtags: false, timestamp: true, avatars: false, behavior: 'all' }}).render().setUser('edgeonline').start(); Latest reviews Disney Epic Mickey Review Infinity Blade Review Who's That Flying?! Review Gran Turismo 5 Review Rage Review The Undergarden Review

Copyright 2006 - 2010 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885

if(typeof enable_takeover == 'function') { enable_takeover()}

View the original article here

Friday, January 7, 2011

Citing inspiration from removal of OtherOS option, coders deduce security keys that could irrevocably open system up to homebrew, piracy.

While the Wii has its own unauthorized Homebrew Channel and Microsoft plays whack-a-mole with pirates on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 has remained a relatively secure system for Sony. That could soon change, as BBC News is reporting on new breakthroughs made by hackers that threaten to crack the PS3 wide open for people to install and run unauthorized software on the system, from homebrew applications to pirated games and custom firmware.

Hackers are proclaiming victory over PS3 security.

The breakthroughs came from a group of hackers known as fail0verflow, and George Hotz, who originally gained notoriety for jailbreaking the iPhone. Speaking at a hacker conference in Berlin last month, fail0verflow members pointed out flaws with the PS3's security, and explained a method that could be used to determine security keys, numbers that tell the system a given bit of code has been approved by Sony to run on the console.

That was followed shortly by Hotz discovering and disseminating the system's master key. While Hotz had previously used an exploit with the system's OtherOS feature to run unauthorized software on the PS3 (an exploit that was addressed when Sony removed the feature from the system), the release of the master key causes problems that aren't easily fixed with a firmware update.

"The complete console is compromised - there is no recovery from this," a member of fail0verflow going by the handle pytey told the BBC, saying that the only way for Sony to fix the problem would be in future hardware iterations of the PS3. He added that Sony's removal of the OtherOS option from the PS3 Slim drew the hacking community's attention, and the firmware upgrade to take the feature out of the original model PS3s outright antagonized them, making the previously secure system a target for hackers.

Neither fail0verflow nor Hotz condone piracy, but they all acknowledge that it will be a likely outcome of their recent breakthroughs. As of press time

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Indie iPhone holiday sale raises $25 K, Canabalt of now open source

Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
.rss_ul ul {padding-left: 0px; margin-left: 0px;}.rss_ul ul li {padding-bottom: 5px;} GameSetWatch - Indie iPhone Holiday Sale Raises $25K, Canabalt Now Open Source Our sites:GameSetWatch IndieGames GamerBytes FingerGaming WiM Gamasutra

« The Best Of 2010: Top 5 Facebook Social Games | Main | Best Of Indie Games: Rush the Castle, But Mind the Wall »

Thursday, December 30, 2010 Indie iPhone Holiday Sale Raises $25K, Canabalt Now Open Source

Developer Semi Secret announced that the Indie iPhone Holiday Sale, the recent Christmas promotion discounting a six independent and celebrated iOS titles to $0.99 each, has so far raised over $25,000 for the Child's Play charity -- the sale lasts for a couple more days, too, so you can still buy Canabalt, Ellis, Drop7, Solipskier, Spider, and Osmos real cheap!!

To celebrate this milestone, Semi Secret has made Canabalt's source open and available, allowing curious developers to download and tinker with the game's code, graphics, sound effects, music, and Flixel for iOS. The code is taken from the game's latest version, which includes optimizations for 60 FPS performance on iPad/iPhone 4 and proper retina support.

The studio's Adam "Atomic" Saltsman posted the following with the announcement:

"Canabalt has been a crazy ride for us. It's helped keep the lights on and pay for our health insurance, and allowed us to take the kind of risks that indie devs love to take. But, in the spirit of the Humble Indie Bundle, the holidays, and a (likely) bout of temporary insanity, it's time to open our trenchcoat and show everybody what we've got going on under there!
DISCLAIMER: We wanted to offer our condolences to everyone who downloads this and goes poking around in there. This was a rushed Flash game, ported, in a rush, to the iPhone, before iPads or iPhone4s even existed. We try very hard to stay up to date and do good work, but we're just two dudes -- it's possible if not likely that some of the way we do things is not ideal or optimal."

Saltsman also shared some interesting stats for Canabalt, revealing that the game has so far sold over 225,000 copies! You can download Canabalt's source and read more about its release at Semi Secret's site.

Posted by Eric Caoili on December 30, 2010 4:00 PM | Permalink

The best of 2010: top 5 Facebook social games

Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
.rss_ul ul {padding-left: 0px; margin-left: 0px;}.rss_ul ul li {padding-bottom: 5px;} GameSetWatch - The Best Of 2010: Top 5 Facebook Social Games Our sites:GameSetWatch IndieGames GamerBytes FingerGaming WiM Gamasutra

« Babycastles Hatches A Secret Animal Plan For New Year's Eve | Main | Indie iPhone Holiday Sale Raises $25K, Canabalt Now Open Source »

Thursday, December 30, 2010 The Best Of 2010: Top 5 Facebook Social Games

[In this round-up of the year's top Facebook titles, sister site Worlds in Motion's editor Eric Caoili examines the social games that've broken away from the practice of relying on virality tricks to attract users, instead focusing on depth and engaging gameplay.]

For the social game leaders who've built their empires on social network Facebook's platform and the backs of its users (which accounts for pretty much all of them, although iOS is an increasing force here!), 2010 was just as much a tumultuous year as it was a prosperous one.

The giants in the industry, like Zynga and Disney/Playdom, grew not only their total audience sizes but also their headcounts and coffers, opening and acquiring a myriad of studios around the world -- expansions funded by the hundreds of millions of dollars raised from investors wanting a piece of this flourishing market.

It wasn't an easy year for the titles that relied heavily on viral channels for their inflated user base numbers, though.

Facebook sent a message to developers with changes it implemented in March: the social network would not stand for spam-like tactics that many games relied on to attract and retain players.

After Facebook limited the application "notification spam" that aggravated its users but benefited social games looking for fast/cheap growth, many of the site's most popular games lost millions of users.

Zynga's FarmVille, the biggest Facebook app for most of the year, dropped from its peak of 84 million monthly active users to now 57 million, according to AppData.

Since then, more developers have espoused the idea that their titles need to focus on compelling gameplay and metrics-based design, rather than virality tricks, to succeed. It's an approach that many social gamers, especially those new to gaming and now looking for more depth in Facebook's offerings, surely appreciate.

Here are our picks for the top five social network games featured on Facebook and exemplifying that trend:

5. Millionaire City by Digital Chocolate

If 2009 was the year of countless farming and mafia game clones, 2010 was teeming with empire-building simulators inspired by Sim City and Civilization. For developers looking to create social games with more complexity and a satisfying sense of progression, there are few better titles to imitate than these two classics, which have enslaved players for decades.

Digital Chocolate, a strong proponent of the idea that social games shouldn't be shallow, created one of the most popular sims with Millionaire City, which is more about snatching up and managing real estate than carefully planning the layout of a city. The game offers missions, achievements, the ability to visit friends' towns, and other features designed to grab and keep players' attentions quick.

The developer has naturally followed up Millionaire City's success (nearly 13 million monthly active users) with recent releases like Vegas City and Hollywood City.

4. Zuma Blitz by PopCap Games

Just as puzzler fans were finally pulling themselves away from Bejeweled Blitz, PopCap brought another of its addictive PC/console/mobile titles to Facebook. Similar to Mitchell's Puzz Loop/Magnetica series, Zuma has players frantically aiming with their mouse and firing colored balls at a chain of incoming spheres, matching three similarly colored orbs to explode a segment of the stream.

Zuma Blitz condenses the concept into a polished one-minute experience (power-ups can extend your play-time much longer) and adds an XP/leveling feature that unlocks new power-ups, a satisfying "Hot Frog" mode that sends sphere-clearing fireballs across the screen, and of course social features like weekly tournaments, leaderboards, and medals/achievements you can show off to friends.

3. Ravenwood Fair by LOLapps

Built under the creative direction of industry notables Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry) and John Romero (Doom, Quake), Ravenwood Fair has a completely different atmosphere from the sims you typically find on Facebook: Players create and maintain a fairground, entertain woodland creatures with different attractions, and explore and complete quests inside a sinister, magical forest.

Ravenwood Fair's offbeat premise and dichotomy between cute critters and menacing woods not only transforms the game into something more than a FrontierVille clone; it also afforded LOLapps the opportunity to add more character and flavor to NPC interactions than one typically expects from social games, and to present the world with a distinct visual style that's both adorable and ominous.

2. It Girl by CrowdStar

Created by the largest independent game developer on Facebook, CrowdStar's It Girl melds MMO and RPG mechanics with shopping, fashion, cliques, and parties. Players shop for/collect as many outfits and accessories as they can find, then compete against each other in "Showdowns", quick battles that take into account clique size, confidence, and wardrobes.

Obviously targeting younger women (and designed by a mostly female team), It Girl goes beyond the "pink games" approach many developers take to appeal to girls with simple games about ponies and dolls, and provides a rich experience with elements reminiscent of "hardcore" MMORPGs: player-versus-player combat, countless fetch quests, and, yes, lots of rare gear to collect.

1. FrontierVille by Zynga

During a post-virality period when many believed a studio producing another major hit -- one that could quickly take in tens of millions of monthly players and rise to Facebook fame -- was highly unlikely, Zynga released just that with FrontierVille, an engrossing Old West pioneer sim that now has over 30.5 million users on the social network (not quite CityVille numbers but still impressive).

Veteran strategy game designer Brian Reynolds (Civilization II, Rise Of Nations) and his team at Zynga East took the habit-forming FarmVille formula and its farming/livestock mechanics, and expanded on it with varmints to clobber, quests/goals to complete, virtual partners to marry, families to raise, neighbors to visit and invite, badges to earn, and more in FrontierVille.

Honorable Mentions

City of Wonder by Disney/Playdom
Mighty Pirates by CrowdStar
Social City by Disney/Playdom
FIFA Superstars by Electronic Arts/Playfish
CityVille by Zynga

[Previously in our end-of-year round-up: Top 5 Unexpected Gaming Events, Top 5 Cult Games,Top 5 Handheld Games, Top 5 PC Games, Top 10 Indie Games, Top 5 Developers, Top 5 Trends, Top 5 Major Industry Events, Top 5 Surprises, Top 5 Disappointments, Top 5 Controversies, Most Anticipated Games Of 2011 and Top 10 Games of the Year.]

Posted by Simon Carless on December 30, 2010 12:00 PM | Permalink

Game on

best pc games

Monday, January 17, 2011

Worms 2: Armageddon XBLA Review || Returning Gamer column on Game People

World Rally Championship PS3 Review || Race Gamer column on Game People

Monday, January 10, 2011

Black Ops Sales Pass $1 billion

Friday, January 7, 2011

Citing inspiration from removal of OtherOS option, coders deduce security keys that could irrevocably open system up to homebrew, piracy.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Indie iPhone holiday sale raises $25 K, Canabalt of now open source

The best of 2010: top 5 Facebook social games

get the best hosting for your business

About Me

Blog Archive