- Xbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In Box

Xbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In BoxXbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In Box

September 27, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 11:15 am

Much like Kameo: Elements of Power, Fable 2 ships without online co-op mode on day-one. However, Kameo didn’t promise the co-op mode prior to the games release, or talk about it in their presentations and hype machine conferences.

How does that happen? It’s easy to promise a feature but words do not make games true. More than likely the online co-op was a bit more complicated or had some bugs that needed to be shaken out prior to shipping. Microsoft is talking about releasing a patch for the new co-op play on the first week or so of the game release.

There are two options: ship a product that’s buggy and deal with the online PR nightmare with bugs and day-one patches, or, ship it without the feature and promise it early in the launch phase of the game. Once the code is complete, game software has to go through the packing, duplication and shipping phase. A lot of last minute testing can get done in the time it takes to produce the boxed product.

Hopefully Microsoft is doing some last minute testing to make a more reliable presentation of online co-op which everyone can use. However if it releases with a bunch of bugs…

(Thanks, GameSpot)

Activision’s Dance Hero?Activision’s Dance Hero?

September 27, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 10:00 am

Konami’s working on Rock Revolution in a battle of the band… games, against Rock Band and the Guitar Hero franchise. Activision, now, may be attacking Konami’s current dancing title Dance Dance Revolution with a new dancing franchise known as Dance Hero.

The US Patent and Trademark Office now has on file, an application by Activision to trademark “Dance Hero.” This news doesn’t solidify any real title but tell us their design teams are kicking around some new ideas to attack their competitors turf.

In January 2007, Activision trademarked “Guitar Villain” and “Drum Villain”, with no sign of a game bearing either handle having yet surfaced. This past February, it locked down rights to the title “DJ Hero” without announcing a new product, although rumors of a turntable-based mash-up game bearing the name are beginning to bubble up. (gamespot)

Does another dancing game sound interesting?

Rock and a Hard Place: Sony’s Japanese DilemmaRock and a Hard Place: Sony’s Japanese Dilemma

September 25, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 12:33 pm

What a dilemma it is, Sony’s PlayStation 3 isn’t as hot as the Nintendo Wii in Japan. Even the Xbox 360 has had some minor success stories in Japan while Sony sits back saying “wtf?”

President, SCE Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida is pointing the finger at the publishers saying, “What’s happening is that lack of support from the Japanese publishers – not necessarily from intentions but from development capabilities.” (kotaku) Why, though, would publishers push to produce games on the console that’s currently losing market share?

Sony’s position is very tough to deal with because they’re not market leader so publishers are looking for the biggest bang for their proverbial “buck” and that’s not the PS3 right now. You can produce an expensive game for an expensive console or a cheaper game for a cheaper console and make more money.

How, then, can Sony get out of this situation? They must find a way to promote an incentive for publishers to create Sony exclusives or, at least, a Sony “port” of a game to build up their library of must-have titles. Perhaps Sony’s punishment at the hands of Nintendo and Microsoft in the States has a bit to do with their global marketplace issues — they need to put a concerted effort into one of their regions and champion themselves in one realm before trying for all of them. Right now, they’re a watered down expensive console with very few exclusive titles.

Metal Gear Sold 4, Home and Little Big Planet are great reasons to own a PlayStation 3 if the price was a bit more reasonable. Looking at the future, we’ve got Resistance 2 and a few other titles that may make some waves in the industry, at least in the United States, but it’s going to be an uphill battle in which they are the second best this time.

It’s always easy when you’re on the top. PlayStation 3 is not on the top so it’s time to start struggling, cutting prices or enticing publishers to build good exclusive titles.

EA’s Spore Spawns Class Action LawsuitEA’s Spore Spawns Class Action Lawsuit

September 24, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 2:47 pm

As most folks expected, Electronic Arts use of the SecuROM trojan install has sparked up a little class action lawsuit against the publisher. At first, EA thought they could just bump the total installs from three to five to make gamers happy, but they’re out for blood.

With an amazon rating of 1.5 stars and 2900+ ratings, it’s obvious that people are not happy with the security system used by Electronic Arts for this title. Forbes mentions how pirated the game has become since the DRM news went hot and pirates are touting to download it for free to make your “voice” heard. Legally, you can make your voice heard by setting up a class action lawsuit and so it begins!

“Although consumers are told the game uses access control and copy protection technology, consumers are not told that this technology is actually an entirely separate, stand-alone program which will download, install, and operate on their computer,” read the complaint. “Once installed, it becomes a permanent part of the consumer’s software portfolio. Even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecurROM remains a fixture on their computer unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive.” (gamespot)

It seems everything boils down to the how EA went about protecting their assets. Nobody faults the publisher for trying to keep their products out of the hands of pirates. The pure fact that EA has chosen to install separate products that snoop on your operations and can malfunction your system is the hart hitting point. Rubbing it in worse, pirates had the game broken and free to download prior to the release of Spore in the US.

Although the license agreement will state the product uses a digital rights management technique, it fails to explain the details of the SecuROM’s stealth install and inability to remove itself without wiping the hard disk.

The suit accuses EA of “intentionally” hiding the fact Spore uses the SecurROM.

TD Gaming Podcast 89: Epic Amount of FunTD Gaming Podcast 89: Epic Amount of Fun

September 23, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 7:48 pm

This weeks gaming podcast covers some cool news, some cool haiku’s and takes a look back at Paperboy and the history of the Apple Bandai Pippin. This weeks gaming news includes:

LA Noir No Longer a PS3 exclusive
Little Big Planet Goes Gold
Age of Conan: An In Depth Look
Activision Cracking Down On Pirates

We also ask the question, is Rare’s skill set out of date? Doug does his late talk like a pirate day impression.

Ensemble Studios Had A MissionEnsemble Studios Had A Mission

September 23, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 1:17 pm

In 1995 Ensemble Studios formed as an independent studio and kicked out a little game franchise known as Age of Empires. The title has received many accolades from the first in the franchise extended out to all the Age of Empires releases and spin-offs, all-in-all selling millions of copies.

Ensemble Studios had a mission “to create great games and a great place to work,” says Bruce Shelley from Ensemble Studios. Bruce Shelley also helped design Sid Meier’s Civilization and Railroad Tycoon with MicroProse prior to his work at Ensemble Studios. Now, however, he’s a bit upset at the closing of Ensemble Studios because they were profitable, created top-quality titles and had a great working environment.

Ensemble Studios, from his perspective at least, was a place you’d go to work and be happy with what you’re doing. When you’re working along nicely and become blind-sided by the news, it’s not surprising he didn’t take it lightly.

“Everyone at our studio was shocked, and I think remains very disappointed that this is going to happen. I believe we thought we were immune to shut-down talk because our published games have done so well and have been so profitable. Plus we felt we had built a really stable (low-turnover), talented, hard-working, and creative team, which is not easy to do. We thought we were among the best studios in the world, and that may be true, but we don’t fit in the future plans of MGS as an internal studio so we’re out.” (ensemblestudios.com)

What’s the future plans for Ensemble Studios? As we’ve stated before, they plan to live on in spirit, within the bounds of a new name and a new game plan. “I believe the spirit and mission of ES will be carried forward in this new company if enough of the key leaders agree to take part, which I expect to happen. There has been no announcement about what the new studio will be working on when it gets going,” says Shelley.

This is a horrible way to have to launch a hot new intellectual property. Usually creating a new title with a building fanbase would lead to excitement, parties and high hopes for the future of the franchise. Instead, people will be dusting off their resume in hopes to continue a life of game development.

Hopefully the leaders will indeed form a brand new company and build brand new hot products with their entire staff intact. Then, take their titles to a different publisher (besides Microsoft) and make some money and fans.

Will Sony Reduce Prices and Heat with 45nm Chips?Will Sony Reduce Prices and Heat with 45nm Chips?

September 22, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 4:34 pm

Reportedly we’re going to see smaller 45 nanometer cell processors in 2009 which leads to similar cost savings as we saw in the Xbox 360 hardware. Cost savings appear on the manufacturing side, of course, along with less power consumed by the processor leading to less heat generated by the console.

The Xbox 360 was able to benefit from chip reduction when for stability and overall heat issues, although the stability is still out for debate at the moment. The concept is fairly simple to understand; heat causes problems in closed systems with few fans and a high degree of complex components. Reduce the heat means reducing the overall need to cool and get air flow into the hot little box.

Console hardware is owned by a broad audience, not all of which understand technology and its ability to boil an egg. Consumers toss consoles and their power supplies in closed cases within their entertainment system and restrict air flow further. Any reduction in heat is a good thing for the console developer.

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First Impressions: Rock Band 2 Drum KitFirst Impressions: Rock Band 2 Drum Kit

September 22, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 2:03 pm

Many Rock Band fans are considering the new Rock Band 2 drum kit, but are on the fence as to making the buy on the product. Some people want to feel it out first, see if it holds up better than the last one and is worth the buy more than just for the lowered decibel ratings.

As a huge fan of Rock Band and the original drum kit, there is a few key elements that make this a must have product if you’ve got USD $90.00 to throw around. Besides the future extendability with the snares, this kit shows off a lot of “lessons learned” by Harmonix.

Have you played the Rock Band drums on a hardwood floor? A subtle update to this kit adds little rubber feet, which we didn’t find on the original kit, allowing the kit to stay stationary after a long hard beating rather than skipping across the floor with each kick. Much more professional and well thought out update.

Have you busted your kick pedal? They’ve re-enforced the pedals with this release with a plate, screwed down to the pedal and much more polished and professional than the wooden ones people (like us) were buying on eBay.

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Distributed Game Development Using ContractorsDistributed Game Development Using Contractors

September 21, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 2:17 pm

Gamers around the world have noticed a large trend in the video game industry in the last 15 years, massive growth with massive projects and unbelievable costs, goals and sales. We’ve seen the impossible become achievable in epic projects like World of Warcraft and huge sales figures from Halo 3 but we’ve also seen game titles fall down in a burning wreck.

Each studio tries to beat the next studio with crisp realistic graphics, real time physics engines, life-like explosions all with huge costs. Does it all sound familiar? If you’re a movie buff you’ve probably seen movie studios cranking out the same style of movie, high computer graphic effects with talented high priced actors making longer and longer films.

The only big difference? A game studio hires most of their talent for full time positions and then has to figure out what to do with them when the project ends. Perhaps this explains Microsoft’s effort to remove game studios like Ensemble, Bungie and FASA, it’s all too much to handle when a high budget project ships and time frees up in the studio.

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Has Rare Lost Touch With The Gaming Industry?Has Rare Lost Touch With The Gaming Industry?

September 19, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 4:23 pm

In an interesting interview this week at 1up.com, Peter Moore, now at Electronic Arts, believes the skillset that Rare holds is a bit dated for our gaming industry. Moore, best known in his role of VP at Microsoft in their Interactive Entertainment Business division, understands how great Rare and their games once were but seems to believe the industry has passed them by.

Looking at their latest Microsoft titles, mainly Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata and Kameo: Elements of Power, it’s not hard to believe his statements as fact. None of the titles have blown away a market full of Grand Theft Autos, Halo’s and other top selling titles. None of their games hit the epic review scores of Bioshock or Crysis. It’s not all first person shooters are taking the big sales numbers; Spore was given rave reviews by online review sites (sans Amazon) and that’s a completely different style of game.

Popcap’s Peggle has had more fame and glory than some of the bigger titles from Rare, probably made with less money. Is Rare a dying breed of developers with no good direction to react to the changing ways of the game industry?

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