This week’s gaming podcast paints its face with your blood. Okay, not quite, but we’re definitely hitting up some news, reading community comments and looking back at Sinistar and the history of the Power Pad. This weeks news includes:
We’re also asking the question, are you looking forward to a LEGO mmo?
This week’s gaming podcast covers a bunch of topics you’d expect to hear in a gaming podcast. What? Yeah, we’re flashing back to Master of Orion and taking a little look into the background of Stephen Barcia all while covering a bit of news and community comments. This weeks news includes:
Microsoft Having Trouble With Halo:ODSTThis week’s question of the week is pretty simple: what, in your opinion, is the best generation of consoles from the earliest until today’s consoles?
SimCity was released in 1989, was originally called Micropolis and was designed by the infamous Will Wright. For those that don’t know Will Wright, its suffice to say he’s one of the most popular and influential game designers of our time. SimCity, TheSims, SimAnt, SimFarm and Spore are a few of his hits and TheSims has taken many records since its original release.
Wright had trouble finding a publisher for a game in which you couldn’t really “win or lose.” Turned down by Broderbund, Wright eventually pitched the idea to Jeff Braun of Maxis. Maxis agreed to publish Simcity as one of its first two games.
When near complete, Wright and Braun took the game back to Broderbund to clear the rights for the game. Broderbund executives Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw how addicting the game could be and signed Maxis to a distribution deal. Four years after initial development, SimCity was released for the Amiga and Macintosh platforms, followed soon after by the IBM PC and Commodore 64. On January 10th 2008, the SimCity source code was released under the GPL license as… Micropolis!
The objective of the game is simple, build and design a city. Though the player could focus on building a highly efficient city with an ever growing populace, it was by no means required. In a sense, open ended, the player was free to design the city as they chose.
Included in the city building experience was the possibility of natural disasters such as flooding, tornadoes and more. Pre-designed scenarios were also included in the game such as the Boston 2010 nuclear meltdown, or mass coastal flooding of Rio de Janeiro of 2047 … even a Godzilla attack of Tokyo in 1961.
In the years to follow, the SimCity franchise would continue to expand with greater detail as SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1999), SimCity 4 (2003) and a host of other “Sim” games and until the release of “The Sims” in 2000, the SimCity series was the best-selling line of games made by Maxis.
In Fall of 2008, EA will release the next child in the SimCity family, SimCity Creator for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems. And thus, history continues!
This week we’re touching on a couple key gaming podcast style stories. We didn’t get through the gaming history this week because we had a lot of content to cover. We did, however, hit up the gaming flashback with M.U.L.E and learn about Tony Hawk’s ugly baby. This weeks gaming podcast includes:
This week’s question of the week: Are you ready for a next-generation console yet?
acing that intro jen, keep it up =p
acing that intro jen, keep it up =p
In responds to Derrick
I lived in Cooktown (far north Australia) -.- got to do something else with my Munny, then just spend it on rent, spirits & liqueurs =p. + I don’t want Microsoft’s the next gen to be a more powerful system with more features. I want something revolutionary.
In responds to Derrick
I lived in Cooktown (far north Australia) -.- got to do something else with my Munny, then just spend it on rent, spirits & liqueurs =p. + I don’t want Microsoft’s the next gen to be a more powerful system with more features. I want something revolutionary.
……Logo MMO? ……. *unOfficially Lame*
……Logo MMO? ……. *unOfficially Lame*
– twitch games, like in reflex-based. Like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament as twitch shooters.
– affording games: so is it safe to say that some of the charm of a game comes from not affording it?
– 2K Boston – Irrational Games: it makes sense somehow to keep the name, for rainy days I guess … I mean having a name that’s already known is better than trying to come up with a new one, do marketing for it etc.
@CoD series: I guess the CoD brand name is owned by the publisher, so they can switch the developers as they please.
– LEGO MMO? Not interested.
I mean, for what market segment? Most people above 18 (and a lot of the younger ones) are either into realistic stuff (think COD4, STALKER) or fantasy (WoW).
But LEGO? That would target what, the 10 years old? Now, would you really like having your 10 year old kid playing an MMO for hours?
Just doesn’t make sense. A 10 years old can’t afford buying the game or paying for the subscription.
That’s it for my rant 🙂
Your podcast is office-dangerous: I was drinking tea and I almost spewed it on the monitor when you guys did that voice to text thinggie.
– twitch games, like in reflex-based. Like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament as twitch shooters.
– affording games: so is it safe to say that some of the charm of a game comes from not affording it?
– 2K Boston – Irrational Games: it makes sense somehow to keep the name, for rainy days I guess … I mean having a name that’s already known is better than trying to come up with a new one, do marketing for it etc.
@CoD series: I guess the CoD brand name is owned by the publisher, so they can switch the developers as they please.
– LEGO MMO? Not interested.
I mean, for what market segment? Most people above 18 (and a lot of the younger ones) are either into realistic stuff (think COD4, STALKER) or fantasy (WoW).
But LEGO? That would target what, the 10 years old? Now, would you really like having your 10 year old kid playing an MMO for hours?
Just doesn’t make sense. A 10 years old can’t afford buying the game or paying for the subscription.
That’s it for my rant 🙂
Your podcast is office-dangerous: I was drinking tea and I almost spewed it on the monitor when you guys did that voice to text thinggie.
having never actually played a lego game, except for lego island when I was like, 6, I may not be the best personto comment on a lego mmo, but TBH the entire idea of the lego series kinda repulses me. They remind me of the acme company out of the roadrunner cartoons, like, bad versions of aproduct, eg acme axe, acme anvil, acme game, they see a real game that works, then slap the word “lego” on it and remarket it. This kind of thing has never appealed to me, as you could play the actual game rather than the lego one, even though if there was a lego 4 dead 2 I would be tempted, if just to see what happens when u fire a grenade launcher at a brick zombie 😀
having never actually played a lego game, except for lego island when I was like, 6, I may not be the best personto comment on a lego mmo, but TBH the entire idea of the lego series kinda repulses me. They remind me of the acme company out of the roadrunner cartoons, like, bad versions of aproduct, eg acme axe, acme anvil, acme game, they see a real game that works, then slap the word “lego” on it and remarket it. This kind of thing has never appealed to me, as you could play the actual game rather than the lego one, even though if there was a lego 4 dead 2 I would be tempted, if just to see what happens when u fire a grenade launcher at a brick zombie 😀
lol lego fps, now thats something i wanna C =p
lol lego fps, now thats something i wanna C =p
I wasn’t going to comment on the whole LEGO thing, but since I’m seeing a bit of flak for the franchise I feel the need to speak up on its behalf.
If you’ve played the demos at least, you’d see that LEGO (or whoever the design team is that creates the LEGO-like games) has put a lot of care and effort into creating a unique gameplay experience that still remains relatively true to the content in question, albeit in a facetious, wink-at-the-player manner. And c’mon, who didn’t at least smirk the first time they saw the screen shot of darth vader’s head on the bikini-clad Leia body?
I equate the LEGO games as being a video game parallel to Pixar, who are also big on doing homages (particularly in their shorts), and those have a wide age range of appeal.
But then again, I’m also one of the few people who thought “Stupid Fun Club” was an awesome name for Wil Wright’s company. ‘;)
I wasn’t going to comment on the whole LEGO thing, but since I’m seeing a bit of flak for the franchise I feel the need to speak up on its behalf.
If you’ve played the demos at least, you’d see that LEGO (or whoever the design team is that creates the LEGO-like games) has put a lot of care and effort into creating a unique gameplay experience that still remains relatively true to the content in question, albeit in a facetious, wink-at-the-player manner. And c’mon, who didn’t at least smirk the first time they saw the screen shot of darth vader’s head on the bikini-clad Leia body?
I equate the LEGO games as being a video game parallel to Pixar, who are also big on doing homages (particularly in their shorts), and those have a wide age range of appeal.
But then again, I’m also one of the few people who thought “Stupid Fun Club” was an awesome name for Wil Wright’s company. ‘;)
(BTW, I don’t like your new edit plugin. Or rather, your new edit plugin doesn’t like me. ‘:P [Wouldn’t load before the edit time was up.])
(BTW, I don’t like your new edit plugin. Or rather, your new edit plugin doesn’t like me. ‘:P [Wouldn’t load before the edit time was up.])
Oops, almost forgot to say what I’d intended before the LEGO tangent!
I wanted to answer your question from Facebook about whether playing games ever made people want to become a game designer.
Yes. Many times.
In fact, that’s what I went to college to do. Though as is evident by my not being a game designer, that didn’t pan out. Partly because none of the colleges within my range offered any sort of computer game programming/design courses (unlike today), but mostly because I sucked at modular design, as prior to college I was self-taught at programming (my high school was severely behind the times where programming classes were concerned. We learned on Apple II’s!)
Anyway, here are just some of the game designs I worked on over the years:
16 – [Your Name]’s Bland Adventure. (Programmed in BASIC w/ minimal save data, but had “high-res” graphics.)
18 – Space Gerbils From The Planet Pumbly Fraxelcrud (text parser w/ audio effects; wanted to beat Infocom level interactivity, which meant never getting far enough to actually meet the titular “space gerbils.”)
19 – Pureluck Jones And The Maltese Chicken (another text adventure, using the Adventure Game Toolkit. Included musical numbers “The Maltese Chicken Blues” by The Singing Thug Troupe, a group of thugs who enjoyed singing, dancing, and beating people up in alleys.)
20 – Bunnyman (a superhero parody graphic adventure based not at all loosely on both Spiderman and Batman The Animated Series. Used some other game-making utility whose name eludes me. Gave up after I saw “The Tick” and realized the idea had already been done, if not in game form.)
[Several years skipped for space]
25- Mall Mogul, a business sim idea inspired by the likes of Rollercoaster Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, etc. The difference being it would be more graphically intensive (Betani and I were self-studying graphic techniques off and on), mimic mall behavior, and double as a cool sandbox environment. Yeah, rather lofty goals, ones we knew we’d never pull off by ourselves, but we thought if we designed a meager prototype we mght find people willing to help us on it. But then the game “Mall Tycoon” came out, not only beating us to the punch, but also doing such a sucky job at it that nobody would ever willingly jump in to do a similar title. So we pretty much gave up after that.
In recent years I’ve fiddled with the Adventure Gaming System, which mimics the environments of old LucasArts and Sierra games, with minimal programming required beyond logic scripting. I started to make a proof-of-concept mini-game involving a sarcastic wishing well (to see how many interactions I could get in one scene), but beyond that the only real end “product” I’ve come up with was an animated Indiana Jones parody greeting card for my dad on Father’s Day.
Anyway, I’m sure that was more than you wanted to know, and I don’t really expect you to read this whole freakin’ thing, but I felt like sharing anyway. ‘:)
Oops, almost forgot to say what I’d intended before the LEGO tangent!
I wanted to answer your question from Facebook about whether playing games ever made people want to become a game designer.
Yes. Many times.
In fact, that’s what I went to college to do. Though as is evident by my not being a game designer, that didn’t pan out. Partly because none of the colleges within my range offered any sort of computer game programming/design courses (unlike today), but mostly because I sucked at modular design, as prior to college I was self-taught at programming (my high school was severely behind the times where programming classes were concerned. We learned on Apple II’s!)
Anyway, here are just some of the game designs I worked on over the years:
16 – [Your Name]’s Bland Adventure. (Programmed in BASIC w/ minimal save data, but had “high-res” graphics.)
18 – Space Gerbils From The Planet Pumbly Fraxelcrud (text parser w/ audio effects; wanted to beat Infocom level interactivity, which meant never getting far enough to actually meet the titular “space gerbils.”)
19 – Pureluck Jones And The Maltese Chicken (another text adventure, using the Adventure Game Toolkit. Included musical numbers “The Maltese Chicken Blues” by The Singing Thug Troupe, a group of thugs who enjoyed singing, dancing, and beating people up in alleys.)
20 – Bunnyman (a superhero parody graphic adventure based not at all loosely on both Spiderman and Batman The Animated Series. Used some other game-making utility whose name eludes me. Gave up after I saw “The Tick” and realized the idea had already been done, if not in game form.)
[Several years skipped for space]
25- Mall Mogul, a business sim idea inspired by the likes of Rollercoaster Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, etc. The difference being it would be more graphically intensive (Betani and I were self-studying graphic techniques off and on), mimic mall behavior, and double as a cool sandbox environment. Yeah, rather lofty goals, ones we knew we’d never pull off by ourselves, but we thought if we designed a meager prototype we mght find people willing to help us on it. But then the game “Mall Tycoon” came out, not only beating us to the punch, but also doing such a sucky job at it that nobody would ever willingly jump in to do a similar title. So we pretty much gave up after that.
In recent years I’ve fiddled with the Adventure Gaming System, which mimics the environments of old LucasArts and Sierra games, with minimal programming required beyond logic scripting. I started to make a proof-of-concept mini-game involving a sarcastic wishing well (to see how many interactions I could get in one scene), but beyond that the only real end “product” I’ve come up with was an animated Indiana Jones parody greeting card for my dad on Father’s Day.
Anyway, I’m sure that was more than you wanted to know, and I don’t really expect you to read this whole freakin’ thing, but I felt like sharing anyway. ‘:)
Lionhead studios, from memory, is London and/or UK based.
QotW: no
Lionhead studios, from memory, is London and/or UK based.
QotW: no
The edit tools seems fine you have fast internet Krud?
The edit tools seems fine you have fast internet Krud?