Archive for Games
July 3, 2008 at 10:43 am ·
Filed under Games, Fun
One of the funniest time-wasters I’ve seen in the latest year is the quite popular LineRider app. A very simple thing, but still oh so fun to try out. It’s been turned into a real art form by some, who’ve taken the design of their own game to the extreme (as shown in the clip below):
And to top it off, LineRider even got it’s own moment of glory as it was fully integrated in a MacDonalds commercial:
A few days ago, an email got sent around in the company that said the LineRider.com website was now running on Silverlight technology, which is an even better reason to try it out and promote it. And so, here we are :)
May 6, 2008 at 11:41 am ·
Filed under Games, Releases, Fun
If you’re familiar with mash-ups and you’re into gaming, then this is the rocking fun zone for you! As the name suggests, this release builds on Popfly’s current set of mashup and Web page authoring tools to add support for easily creating and sharing casual games. There are 2 ways to get to the Game Creator. On the landing page, you have the “Create a Game (Alpha)” link, or if you select the “Create Stuff” dropdown, you will see “Game” there.
Here’s a tutorial and walk-through to get you started:
See you in the next level :)
Related:
PopFly site
The PopFly Wiki
Snapshots on TechCrunch
April 14, 2008 at 11:01 am ·
Filed under Games, Technology, Fun, Gadgets
I have a few friends who own a Wii. As much as I love XBox360 and the experience it gives me, I’ve got to admit that this Wii has something special about it. I love playing with that too. I’m planning a Wii Weekend together with my friends to have 4 of them bring their Wii to a location, probably the garden of ‘friend number 1′, and have a giant screen with a beamer there, so we can game in group. I think that’s going to be a super great and fun evening. Other than that, the reason why I write here about Wii, is the clip that’s been released from the TED talks. Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. Lee is a graduate student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Enjoy this trip :)
March 25, 2008 at 7:59 pm ·
Filed under Games, Releases
Guess what? We know Microsoft’s Flight Simulator is really cool and they make it better and better with every release. But something really neat is cooking and this has nothing to do with flying and air. This time it’s on rails. Game Studios is prepping the new release of Microsoft Train Simulator, and it’s scheduled for early 2009. The first screenshots already looked very promising and the details are incredible. I know it probably doesn’t beat that old train system you have on your attic, but surely it opens up perspectives to a whole new experience.
Train Simulator 2 will model almost all of the world’s railways using sophisticated processing techniques and real-world track data.
Powerful tools will let users build upon this framework by customizing, extending, creating, and sharing their own content with other virtual railroading enthusiasts.
I’d love to get my hands on this one and I think I’ll try to dig up some local train collector clubs and get a launch party together in an old abandoned station, with the release of the game on full screen and a nice experience around it. This game is developed for the Games For Windows section, and helps you get the most out of your Windows experience. Trains rule!
Keep an eye on TSInsider, the home site of the game.
Check out the screenshots on the site
February 22, 2008 at 12:34 pm ·
Filed under Games, Video, XBox 360, Community
From the presspass: In a landmark announcement during the keynote address at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft Corp. promised to soon allow Xbox LIVE members to play, rate and share community-created games. As the first in the industry to pioneer high-speed online gaming and high-definition games, Xbox 360 once again broke new ground by introducing a new, open distribution service for games created by the community and soon playable by its 10 million Xbox LIVE members. Community-created games on Xbox LIVE will quickly double the size of the Xbox 360 game library. By the end of 2008, Xbox 360 owners will have access to more than 1,000 games, making it the largest, most creatively diverse library across all next-generation platforms.
That is really AWESOME news. Especially because the game created by fellow Belgian Loïc Dansart (”Little Gamers”, a 2-D high definition action side-scroller based on the famous Web comic) has been selected to be made available together with 6 other XNA created games. The platform will be opened up, so that ‘consumer generated games’ can find their way to a worldwide audience!
The game was developed using Microsoft’s XNA technology, so it’s currently able to run on both PC and XBOX360 (the later requires a Creators Club membership). A fully playable XBOX360 prototype of 5 levels was submitted to the Dream, Build, Play! competition, and it won a place as a finalist. Currently, the full version is in development, and should be available for Windows in a few weeks.
The game is a 2D action sidescroller which borrows many gameplay elements from action games such as Metal Slugs and Madness Interactive and mixes them with the webcomic feel and humor of Little Gamers to create a unique cute but deadly combination.
An Xbox 360 community game created using Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio software and XNA Creators Club membership will be able to be submitted for distribution on Xbox LIVE. Each community-created game must then undergo a thorough peer-review process and be evaluated for accuracy in representation and appropriateness. Community game developers will be able to beta test the process this spring and will be able to distribute their games on Xbox LIVE by the end of this year.
Related:
Little Gamers - Teh Game (info + download)
PressPass Release
Check out the comic!
See the demo below:
February 21, 2008 at 11:12 pm ·
Filed under Games, Technology, Fun, LSE
A little while ago, on the quarterly company meeting, we’ve had a ‘mystery guest’ - just like ‘we’ always do. This time it was a promising startup with a technology that blows away all competition. Meet SoftKinetic, a Belgian company with ideas that will rock your world!
Game developers, game publishers, and game console manufacturers are looking for ways to differentiate in this increasingly competitive marketplace. Transforming the user experience through an immersive, transparent (marker-less) and intuitive interface represents a fantastic opportunity to establish a leadership position in the next generation action, casual, sports and fitness gaming markets. The commercial availability of low-cost 3D depth sensing devices is about to make this revolution possible.
Softkinetic anticipated the availability of such 3D depth sensing cameras and is today the leading provider of 3D gesture recognition solutions for building immersive, transparent and intuitive interfaces and game plays.
Basically this company is using one single infrared camera to capture X, Y and Z coordinates of any moving object. They created an SDK that will allow any input device to be linked to the 3D movements detected by the camera, so that you can control any application with full body movement. The technology they use for that is called “Softkinetic iisu™” and it’s the most advanced 3D gesture recognition software platform available today. iisu is compatible with all major 3D depth sensing devices and allows developers to build natural, immersive, transparent and intuitive interfaces for games, interactive marketing, fitness, industrial simulation, education and military applications.
Check out their demos on their site and see for yourself how promising this superb technology is. Bye-bye Wii with your battery consuming remotes.
February 4, 2008 at 2:25 pm ·
Filed under Games, XBox 360, Community
A little while ago a part of the American nation was shocked as it was pointed to ‘extremely graphical scenes of a sexual nature’ that were to be seen in the Mass Effect game for XBox 360, which was just released on the market. The scenes of frontal digital nakedness could seriously confuse younger gamers and therefor the game should be forbidden or at least edited so the graphic sex would be removed. Despite the fact that the violence of the game really outstands the (mostly suggestive) sexual actions, and despite the fact that Miss Cooper Lawrence, who raised hell on a talk show where she pointed the nation to this fact, the game has now 1.4 million copies sold. Which would make it a popular game.
Miss Cooper Lawrence gave her honest and sincere opinion on the scenes of a telepathic encounter between a man and an alien with a blue skin. This was soon descripted as ‘interracial sex’. Obviously she has never seen Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek, where such close encounters are happening ALL THE TIME! Other than that, Miss Cooper Lawrence based her judging on pure hearsay, because since the game still had to be released at that time and the gameplay takes up to 30 hours, so it seemed really unlikely she would have had the skills or time to have run through the game to be confronted with those specific scenes. EA Games demanded an apology, and miss Cooper Lawrence actually did so, publicly, in the New York Times. She said she realized that she was wrong and that, now that she has seen the scenes (a french kiss and a bum are all that’s shown) she thinks it’s rather ridiculous and thus she overreacted.
One of the other reasons why she was so fast to apologize could also have been the fact that her book ‘The Cult Of Perfection’ dropped to the bottom of Amazon’s ‘most popular books’ list faster than she could say the name of the game. A few disgruntled fans had catapulted bad reviews into her general direction and the book dropped down the charts like a brick in a river. It was obviously an orchestrated event because one of the negative reviews read: “Obviously I haven’t read a letter in this book, but that doesn’t really matter”. Yes. Payback in a consumer generated world can be a mass effect. :)
November 21, 2007 at 10:04 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Games, Community
Coming up next on November 29th, which is next week: Are you a student, academic or an independent games developer interested in learning how to build great video games for either Microsoft Windows or the Xbox 360 console? Would you like to be one of the first to see the all new version of Microsoft XNA Game Studio before it releases later this year? Want to discover just how easy it is to build a game with XNA Game Studio in just 60 minutes and get to grips with the XNA Framework and the disciplines of games development? Then the XNA Game Studio European Tour 2007 is a not to be missed event, visiting seven different countries and bringing together top speakers from the Microsoft XNA product group in the US, local Microsoft speakers as well as experts from the games industry. Microsoft XNA Game Studio is the revolutionary tool that makes it easy to develop video games for Windows and Xbox 360. So whether you’re an experienced games developer or a total newbie, sign up for the XNA Game Studio European Tour to build the games of your dreams.
Session Abstracts
- Keynote: The Ongoing Democratization of Game Development
Dave Mitchell, Director, Microsoft XNA, Microsoft Corporation
Join Dave Mitchell from the Microsoft XNA organization as he shares Microsoft’s plans to democratize game development beyond the initial XNA Game Studio Express offering. As the video game industry is reaching a critical juncture in its growth as a mainstream entertainment form, consumers are becoming an increasingly important partner in the creation of innovative, fun gameplay experiences which compliment commercially released titles. This keynote will share the next instalment of the XNA vision to further democratize game development by the community.
- Diving in to XNA Game Studio 2.0 and the XNA Framework
Dave Mitchell, Director, Microsoft XNA, Microsoft Corporation &
Charles Cox, Developer Educator, Microsoft XNA, Microsoft Corporation
XNA Game Studio 2.0 is the highly anticipated new release of a revolutionary game development tool that gives hobbyist, academic and indie game programmers a chance to develop and share their own games on Windows and Xbox 360. This demo-heavy session will take a closer look at what is new in 2.0 including the newly-added networking libraries based on Xbox LIVE, support for Visual Studio 2005 Standard, Professional and Team editions, new multiplayer starter kits, samples and more.
- Building a Game in 60 Minutes with XNA Game Studio 2.0
Charles Cox, Developer Educator, Microsoft XNA, Microsoft Corporation
During this live session we put XNA Game Studio 2.0 to the test and build a fully-realized casual game running on an Xbox 360 in just sixty minutes. Whether you are a seasoned games coder or a programmer thinking of moving into game development, this demo-packed session will give you plenty of food for thought and the information to get you started.
More info:
Chez Walter Stiers
Sign Up for this event
The Agent (deep dive)
September 14, 2007 at 3:10 pm ·
Filed under Games, Releases
I used to play C&C Generals a lot. Nights in a row I’d spend my time behind a screen trying to solve all the missions. Right now, there’s a new game that’s been thrown into my world and it’s called World In Conflict. Two weeks ago, on August 27th, the public demo has been released and I must say I am really really REALLY impressed by the quality of the graphics and the flow of the game-play. World in Conflict is an award-winning action-strategy PC game, the demo contains both single player and multiplayer maps and the full game is scheduled for world wide release in mid September 2007.
Get your copy of the demo on www.worldinconflict.com.
See more screenshots on the Massive Entertainment site.
Download the trailers [HQ -HiRes]
August 23, 2007 at 4:20 pm ·
Filed under Games, Video, Technology
Check out this super-amazing setup: a BMW M3 series, fully modded to be a full option game theater. The projector mounted in the back displays the game screen on the front window, some controls and interfaces on the dashboard. There’s a PC behind the car, and a large LCD screen next to the car so you can see what the driver is doing and how he’s cruising the circuit. You can even take a few friends for a ride :-) It’s a bit expensive to have this at your own house, but I can definitely see an amazing WOW factor if you put this on an event.
Video: Future Of Racing [source]
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