May 31 2008
It’s Capcom’s turn to hold their no gamers allowed “gamers day” and with it comes the release of a new Resident Evil 5 trailer. In it Chris Redfield confirms his last partner was a woman, putting to rest those rumours that have been floating around lately.
May 29 2008
Once upon a time Sony got together with Nintendo to produce a CDROM add on for the SNES. In the end Nintendo sided with Philips for the project and Sony went off to create it’s own console called the PlayStation. The rest as they say is history. But what became of the Nintendo/Philips deal?
With the SNES CD drive never getting a release, Philips did the same as Sony and created their own console, the Philips CD-I. However, Philips still had a deal with Nintendo to be able to produce CD games featuring Nintendo’s most cherished characters, and so Hotel Mario was born. Released on the CD-i in 1993 and since deemed the worst Mario game of all time by ScrewAttack, relive this classic moment in gaming history below:
May 29 2008
If you thought Nintendo DS titles couldn’t get anymore stranger then think again. On the 20th of June Nintendo are set to release “Cooking Guide™ Can’t decide what to eat?”. Billed as having varying difficulties of recipes and being suitable for all, the titles voice recognition is said to make it simple to go through each stage of a recipe. “Want to make yourself a quick dinner after a long day at work? Want to plan a week of meals for your family? Or do you want to make a Sunday roast for 10? Cooking Guide can help you solve all these and many other meal dilemmas” so says the promotional material.
The games key features are:
It’s times like these we’re reminded of all those interactive multimedia titles that came out when CD drives started to take off and you had the likes of “Gardening By Choice: Flowers & Foliage” and “Randy McNally’s America: U.S. Atlas” being released on the Philips CDI.
May 29 2008
Here’s a round up of a few of the more interesting game footage videos from the UbiDays 08 press conference yesterday:
Tom Clancy’s End War live demo:
May 28 2008
Check back here around 5:30pm BST today where we be running a strange new concept in live blogging. Yes that’s right were going to live blog our virtual attendence at the Ubidays 08 press conference! You won’t have experienced a live blog like this before, that I can guarantee! Look forward to the “hilarious” outcome from 5:30 BST. Please feel free to comment on how bad good the coverage is at the bottom of the page. You can watch along with us at uplay.com, but you need to keep this page open in another window of course so you can follow our fantastic coverage of the event.
(The event is now over. Take a look at what happened below)
12:30: -We’ve arrived at the venue nice and early. The website site still looks the same as it did yesterday, meanwhile the building itself looks stunning. We’re looking at it right now and the pictures look very good. We’re all very pleased they decided to hold it here, it should really add to the whole experience.
17:28: - There’s been some activity, Uplay.com has a still image up saying “The Ubidays 2008 Live Event will begin shortly!”. Ubisoft say they are proud to welcome us to the conference. Not a problem guys, just make sure you start on time, this seat is very uncomfortable. The site itself is working 100% perfect at the moment but let’s see how it goes at 6.
May 27 2008
Sony has sent over some new screenshots of PlayStation home in a press release. Apparently last week Home Beta testers were invited to a virtual version of the Sony “Gamers Day” event held recently at London’s O2 arena. Sony says in the release:
“Attendees were drawn from 10,000 PS3 users who have been test-driving Home as ‘closed beta’ users. Given exclusive VIP entry to the Space, they were greeted by an impressive, large-scale area dressed with various elements from real-world PlayStation Day, including the iconic hexagonal branding and artwork from each of the day’s PlayStation zones. Users were able to explore the Space, experiencing highlights of the day such as a photo gallery of games developers and a jumbo screen of the day’s speeches with an introduction from Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai, President and Group Chief Executive Officer of Sony Computer Entertainment. Users were also able to enjoy a video stream of all the action from the real-world PlayStation Day experience. The online Media & Events Space can be re-dressed and re-branded just like a real-life venue. Following the test event’s success, Home will now start scheduling more elaborate and exciting productions for the Space, which will be available for use by both first and third parties.”
VideoGaming247 report that Home Beta testers have been sent a message advising that the Ubiday’s 08 press conference will be the first event to use the facility. Beta testers are invited to attend the event at 7PM BST, which is one hour after the start of the live stream on uplay.com. Sony plan to allow all gamers to try out PlayStation home from November onwards in an open beta test. Owners of PS3’s at least anyway. The new screenshots can be found below:
May 27 2008
Just a reminder that the Ubiday’s 08 press conference is tomorrow (at 6pm BST on the 28/05/08) and it’s being streamed live online at uplay.com. Ubidays is Ubisoft’s version of the recent “Gamers Day” events held by Sony, Microsoft and Sega amongst others. The only difference is that Ubisoft are allowing gamers to view what’s going on as it happens. It’s a strange concept I know, marketing your games directly at the people that buy them. I can’t see it catching on… Ubisoft have said that the conference is specifically targeted at gamers themselves and will be presented in English with live dubs in French, German, Spanish and Italian. Presumably this means lots of footage and live game demo’s rather than boring facts and figures like Sony and Microsoft always bore everyone with in their E3 press conferences.
The screening starts at 6PM BST and you need to be a registerd user of uplay.com to be able to watch the live stream. If your planning on watching then we recommend registering in advance of the event as usually these kind of things just get snowed under with traffic and end up being a presentation of Internet Explorer error messages instead of what’s supposed to be being shown. If you register in advance and stay logged into the site then you should increase your chances of being able to watch. Demand might have been correctly predicted of course and it will all go off without a hitch. I guess we will find out tomorrow.
Expect announcements and big reveals on Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia, Raving Rabbids and Tom Clancy’s HAWX amongst other things.
May 26 2008
We caught up with Ralph Fulton, Chief Game Designer for Race Driver: Grid while at a community day for the game at Omega Sektor in Birmingham. We attempted to ask questions that hadn’t been asked before elsewhere as well as ask about areas of the game people have commented on in Codemasters own forums. Here’s how it went:
GiantHaystax: Race Driver: Grid is out on the 30th May. Are you pleased that development is over and how do you think the final product has shaped up?
Ralph: yeah, I’m absolutely delighted that development’s over. It’s been quite a hard slog, obviously we have been desperate to get everything into it we wanted to get into it and I think we’re all really pleased now the dust has settled on it with the product we’ve got. I think it’s a really exciting racing game, I’d go as far to say it’s the most exciting racing game ever made, it looks stunning and I think were all going to take a well deserved rest after this.
GiantHaystax: You’ve got a couple of weeks holiday coming up or something then?
Ralph: We do yeah, I think the whole team room will be desolate for the next couple of weeks.
May 26 2008
Speaking to ButtonBandits.com, Chief Game Designer Ralph Fulton has said that he believes forthcoming title GRID is the most exciting racing game ever made and that competing titles such as Forza and Gran Turismo are all about the car list rather than racing.
When asked if he was pleased development was now over and how he thought the final product had shaped up Ralph said “we have been desperate to get everything into it we wanted to get into it and I think we’re all really pleased now the dust has settled on it with the product we’ve got. I think it’s a really exciting racing game, I’d go as far to say it’s the most exciting racing game ever made, it looks stunning and I think were all going to take a well deserved rest after this.”.
On comments in forums and online on the number of cars in the game compared to competing titles such as Gran Tourismo and Forza, Ralph said “Yeah I can understand that. When you have competing games like Gran Turismo and Forza, which pride themselves on the car list, there all about the car list, that’s their focus. I know Turn 10 have been quite open about the fact that Forza is just really a car list. Which is great for them. Does it make sense for Codemasters to try and do the same? Probably not, I think from a number of perspectives. Not least of which is that their doing that already. I think you can put a different slant on a racing game and I think we have done that by making it about racing.
You can read the full interview on ButtonBandits.com right here. In it Ralph talks about the games flashback feature, damage modelling, being commited to developing for the PC and more.
May 26 2008
On Friday we had the opportunity to attend a Race Driver: Grid community day to get a look at the full version of the game before it’s release on the 30th of May. If you can’t be bothered to read the whole article then I’ll sum it up by saying that later in the evening I put my pre-order on in ready for release day.
Race Driver: Grid is getting a lot of attention and for good reason. It looks good, plays well, appears to have a good online multiplayer component and brings new ideas to the racing game genre that change the way you play the game. Codemasters are definitely onto a winner here. The biggest stand out and unique feature of the game has to be the highly original (in a racing game at least) flashback feature. When I first used it in the demo version I was amazed at how easy it worked and how it effectively changed the way you go about playing a racing game.
