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Contrary to popular belief, the Army isn't looking for just any ol' pizza roll munching, message board trolling gamer. No, they're only looking for the best of the best. So when the Army dumps somewhere around $2 million dollars into the Global Gaming League, you better believe they're on the head hunt.
With their eyes set on the 17-24 male demographic that makes up 80 percent of the players on the site, the Army isn't stopping at just mere advertisement. America's Army is one of the games played by the league and potential tournament victors may win a chance to check out actual computer simulations of combat situations utilized by the Army.
Naturally, CGL players will be able to opt out of these situations, but it still gives us the creeps.
We have a slew of screenshots and concept artwork from the upcomingHalo 2 map pack for you, in a joy-filled Joystiq gallery. The new maps, Desolation and Tombstone, are less than a week away ... but that still gives you plenty of time to study these and try to come up with some kind of strategy for action.
They're both pretty wide-open maps, and does that giant crane in Tombstone actually do anything? Looks like it might drop fusion cores, although we're hoping you can crush people with it, Ivan Drago style.
The legendary Gene Simmons (of KISS fame) rocked hard in Times Square promoting the newly released Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360. The nation's (supposed) top Guitar Hero masters were invited to perform in NYC's Virgin Megastore, and the top hero would be gifted with an autographed guitar and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with Simmons. Of course, as any legitimate rock star would do, he played with the ladies too.
The large audience may have proven too nerve-wracking, as many of the performances were stiff, littered with missed notes, and lacking personality. Of course, everything changed when Simmons walked in the room, tongue intact. His charismatic interaction with the audience proved that it takes a lot more than fast fingers to become a real rock star. Remember that, next time you "strap on."
Tournament.com is looking for a few good beta testers and giving the participants $1 credit for every match they complete before the official launch later this spring. Tournament.com is looking to become a skill-based tournament environment where players compete for real money. Co-founder Marcus Pearcey says, "Much like golfers or chess players can compete against each other in tournaments, Tournament.com users can prove their skills and make some cash in secure, fair, competitive matches that reward winners with more than just bragging rights." Tournament.com has received the rights to use Valve games Counter Strike and Half-Life 2 for the beta, they plan to announce more titles after the beta.
Of course, this sounds just a tad bit like gambling, but Tournament.com insists this is skill-based competition. There is a list of locations that believe this is gambling and won't allow you to play. Competitors are only allowed to place $150 USD into their account every month to wager $1 to $10 on their competitions -- you must also be 18 or older to participate. The beta testers who receive the $1 credit per round need to use up their credit value before they can cash out. For gamers into competition, the stakes just got real. The $150 cap prevents us from saying that this is just begging for intervention. Tournament.com doesn't sound any different than bars that hold gaming competitions with buy-ins. Just make sure to check that the software is legal to download in your location before you go trying to pwn n00bs for cash.
One man decides to give up the World of Warcraft, for another addiction entirely, and the result is an experiment in cinematical over-the-topness. Sweeping soundtracks, fighting, Burning Crusade Collector's Editions flying through the air ... what more could you ask for?
If you're going to give something up, it's probably best to do in a grand way, involving videotape, your friends, trailers for other games, and lots of slow-motion. One thing everyone is asking though, would you go mental living in that house?
Any commercial that starts off like this is gold in our book. We can't remember seeing a commercial so disproportionally different from the actual gameplay experience. Even the raw processing power *ahem* of the Atari 5200 couldn't make Pole Position look this exciting.
You've got 80s metal, crazy haircuts, wacky family racing, and something that'll leave skidmarks on your soul. We need more commercials like this for video games.
Ohio University's Post Online brings us a story on the Ohio Game Jam, a competition among amateur designers who try to create the best game possible in only 24 hours. The winning title was developed in only two hours, which is still a longer development cycle than some commercial products seem to have.
Says "Event Overlord" Ian Schreiber: "You don't end up with Shakespeare, but you have some high levels of creativity because of the time constraints." By most accounts, you don't end up with Shakespeare even if you spend years on a game, so that's okay. And a quick-and-dirty contest like this is bound to result in ideas you'd never see in a game developed over three years by a committee. For instance, one of the Jam games used Chuck Norris's head as a projectile. We'd love to play that. But then, we'd also love to be called "Event Overlord."
This one slipped into the Bothan couch cushions: Those rebels at Games Radar report that Star Wars Battlefront III is looking like an Xbox 360 exclusive, yet another salvo in the war for exclusives. Their source is PlayStation World magazine, which makes the info a bit harder to swallow.
According to the article, LucasArts is moving the sequel from developer Pandemic to Free Radical, where it'll be made as a 360-only title, although it's unclear why. Maybe Pandemic crossed George Lucas, and once you cross him ... you never come back. Especially with that Jabba the Hutt-like neck of his. Now, if this post had vanished right after that was typed, that would be some comedy.
Given the extreme success of the Lego Star Wars games, it seems highly unlikely that they'll confine Star Wars Battlefront III to just one console, especially given the fact that it's a sequel to a game that has appeared on just about every platform except your watch. More on this as it develops, unless Lucas squashes us.
What has already been hinted at has finally been confirmed: Aqua Teen Hunger Force is getting a console game. This fall, the mooninites will be invading retail outlets with Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am. Billed as an "epic, action-adventure combat golf, cart racing game," ATHFZNP-A will pit players as the dynamic fast food trio, complete with weapons and golfing equipment, to face bad guys derived from the show.
Licensed games, with some exceptions, generally fare badly in terms of quality. There is a glimmer of hope in that ATHF creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis will be "working closely" with Midway, but we're not getting our hopes up.
The game is due out this fall on PlayStation 2. If there is any parallel to be drawn between the game and the movie, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theatres, however, some sensationalist event might cause the game to expand its horizons to newer generation consoles.
Boyfriends aren't the only ones facing dilemmas. Publishers and developers have been struggling to develop games that appeal to women, because they represent a huge demographic who haven't traditionally been associated with the video game market, and that translates to lost dollars. But how do you begin to approach making a game for girls, or is it even a mistake to set out to do that from the beginning, rather than just making a game that's fun?
The panel first asked the question, "What constitutes a female gamer?" Jame Pinckard said, "Women aren't just this monolithic block of 'gamers', they all want different types of games. Just because a Barbie video is made for a 12 year old girl, doesn't mean a 26 year woman has to play it." Sheri Graner Ray took it a step further, adding "There is no definition of a female gamer, and trying to tack a label to them does a disservice. The female gamer is simply a female who plays games. She's just a diverse as any other market out there."
This panel discussed the rise of virtual worlds, the NPCs that frequently populate them and how games like World of Warcraft are much more populated with human players and their avatars. Although it devolved into a sort of "he said/she said" argument over user-created content and in-game behaviors, it did introduce us to a particular nasty bout of griefing in a WoW realm.
Apparently a player who died in real life had a funeral procession on the server she played on, and tons of her guild members and other players turned out to honor her. Of course, it wasn't long until some funeral crashers showed up and pretty much slaughtered the entire funeral party. In a way, it's sort of fitting, don't you think? Check out the video after the jump. Yes, it's been around for eons, but it sort of brilliantly explains, in a visual sense, what this panel devolved into.
After this, things sort of went awry and off-course. There was a lot of verbal jabbing, both good-natured and not, throughout the rest of the panel without it really going in a particular direction. We were too busy trying to find a good spot to grief from.
Ever since the success of The Beast, the alternate reality game created to help pimp Spielberg's A.I. back in 2001, alternate reality games (ARGs) have been popping up left and right, most notably the I Love Bees ARG that was used to launch Halo 2. Based on what the panelists were telling us, there are a lot more coming down the pipeline.
However, one of the problems was that the panel promised to help define the term "alternate reality game," but that never happened. Wikipedia calls it "an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions." Which is quite a mouthful. But that makes us wonder, does it have to use the web as a medium to be an ARG? When people used to play T.A.G. or Killer on college campuses, that was definitely an ARG ... but where did those games go?
It looks like board game lovers are going to be getting even more Euro gaming goodness. At least, that's what the signs are pointing to. We already know that Xbox Live Arcade will be getting games like Settlers of Catan, Alhambra, and our personal favorite Carcassonne, but according to some rumors at GameStooge it looks like another Rio Grande Games classic will be coming down the pipeline ... Puerto Rico.
Apparently in the threads over at BoardGameGeek.com (which is a fantastic site for board games and such, along with the equally as fantastic FunAgain.com) the German gaming site BrettSpielWelt has taken down their online version of Puerto Rico, and replaced it with a message that another company has purchased the rights for "online exploitation." And c'mon, no one is better at exploiting things than Microsoft, right?
Puerto Rico is a fun game that takes about an hour to play, and is all about shipping goods and building cities. It's been critically hailed as one of the best games of the past twenty years, already has a PC version out, and it's continually voted the number one game at board game sites, and it sure would be nice to see it on XBLA.
Spain's Yelmo Cineplex company recently splurged on a "Cinegames" setup, converting one of its small theaters into a sizable LAN arena. Inside, some 50 17-inch LCD screens have been bolted to armrests, a gamepad dangling below each one. Once the fog and low smoke start to roll in, the black light and flashing green lasers get going, and the seats start vibrating, one gets a sense of why this innovative concept could reinvigorate the movie theatre business -- and resurrect the arcade.
Developed by Enrique Martinez (pictured), Cinegames is slowly drawing crowds to an otherwise unprofitable small-screen theater at the Yelmo multiplex in Madrid. Aside from tourneys featuring chart-toppers like Pro Evolution Soccer (published by Konami -- not EA!), Martinez hopes Cinegames will appeal to educational institutions that could use the space for learning and testing; he's even marketing to corporate and senior citizen groups. If the concept takes off, Martinez plans to expand Cinegames throughout Europe, eventually hopping the Atlantic to target North American audiences. So how 'bout it? Would you desert your cushy spot on the couch and lose the Xbox Live headset to brush shoulders with your competitive peers? Tickets are only $4.
Microsoft has sent word along that yes, Alien Hominid HDwill in fact be on Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday and that it can be yours for the low, low price of 800 Microsoft Points. This is actually a pleasant surprise as Alien Hominid is seen as one of the more full-bodied titles on the XBLA block and one that could have fetched a heftier price. Suddenly, 1200 MS Points for Lumines Live feels even more ridiculous.
The developers over at The Behemoth also have some treats in store for those awesome enough to scale their leader boards. Should you be a bad enough dude to land at the top of any of the charts, The Behemoth will send you a trophy. No fooling! A physical manifestation of your skills in which to utilize while gloating! The contest is set to last "until we get tired of sending you guys stuff."
In other news, serious cat? It looks like you've got this Wednesday off, buddy.
Contrary to popular belief, the Army isn't looking for just any ol' pizza roll munching, message board trolling gamer. No, they're only looking for the best of the best. So when the Army dumps somewhere around $2 million dollars into the Global Gaming League, you better believe they're on the head hunt.
