mario July 13th, 2007
… Smashville may be my favorite Smash Bros. stage ever!
When I choose an arena in which to do battle with friend and foe alike in the Smash Bros. series, I will generally lean toward a large flat stage without any random events. It bugs me when I’m going toe-to-toe with someone, and suddenly an Arwing blasts at us from behind and upsets the balance of the match, or the stage scrolls upward too fast for one of the players to jump to the next platform (like that even makes sense logistically; how would the battlers know where the camera was looking at any given moment? Only assholes think Icicle Mountain is a fun stage). Final Destination is of course the best option when available.
But the new Smashville level announced on the Smash Bros. Dojo like an hour ago combines my love of non-obtrusive flat level design with my possibly even bigger love of Animal Crossing. This is totally awesome! Townsfolk drink coffee in the background while watching the battle! Totakeke jams with some tunes Saturday nights at 8! Gracie’s standing around with her fancy car, and is a total bitch! I hate you Gracie, I hate you so much.
Gracie taunts me in my dreams.
Uh, yeah, Smashville rocks hard. Play there all day every day.
(courtesy of the Smash Bros. Dojo)
[discuss]
mario July 11th, 2007
I’ve got good Marathon news, and I’ve got bad Marathon news:
The good news is that Marathon: Durandal is being updated for the next-generation, with support for HD graphics, new online multiplayer modes and leaderboards. Long-time Mac game developer Freeverse (formally Freeverse Software) is heading the project.
The bad news is that it’s only coming to Xbox Live Arcade.
I suppose those of you that love your Xbox 360s will get a big kick out of this, and have worlds of fun kicking Pfhor ass through the night. It’s bad enough that Microsoft took Bungie away from the Mac platform, but to take away our classic Mac games is just cruel.
(Freeverse, you’re still awesome)
[discuss]
mario July 11th, 2007
Stef and I like to play video games communally. By that I mean that if one of us is playing a single-player game, the other likes to sit and watch. On console games, this works like a charm: we’ve got a (decently-sized) TV that both of us can view unobstructed. But when we want to play some Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, it’s a difficult affair to say the least. The DS screens don’t have very good horizontal viewing angles, so we had to keep tilting the system back and forth to be on the same page. Sometimes I read the dialogue aloud.
Not all that fun.
So now I’m reading through GamesAreFun’s liveblog of Sony’s E3 2007 keynote, and I see that a new version of the PSP is coming along with the ability to output video to a television. This is just what I want! … on the DS (I don’t really care much one way or the other what the loser PSP can do, except for TV-out of course). Nintendo, if you’re reading this blog (which is totally likely), please release an also-ran DS with TV-out support! I didn’t buy the DS Lite, but I’d buy this in a heartbeat!
(thanks GAF)
[discuss]
mario July 4th, 2007
The footage is not actually anything remotely resembling in-game, of course, but any update is a good update when it comes to my LEGO Universe.
Check out the video at GameTrailers! (stupid embedded GameTrailers video code screwing up my page layout)
The video highlights what appear to be early conceptual versions of character creation (this sequence actually would probably be easy to implement in-game), the workshop (vehicle-building; that guy can build vehicles really fast) and the city (which looks far too chaotic and freeform to be anything but pre-rendered video). Despite the whole thing clearly being a big ol’ teaser, I’m still quite psyched. The mixing of LEGO eras (like seeing the medieval dragon in the city) is gonna be a lot of fun. Of course, a lot of questions remain to be answered. Here’s a big one: what are we players going to do all day in this expansive interactive world? I’m guessing it ain’t gonna be an RPG as we commonly know it (no slaying LEGO boars for quick EXP), though I’d certainly enjoy some kind of level-up aspect. I’ll keep you posted when I learn more.
(courtesy of GameTrailers)
[discuss]
mario July 4th, 2007
Jeff (from The Orange Belt forums) pointed out this nifty little piece of gamercraft via Craftster: a sewn Nintendo Entertainment System! The attention to detail is commendable, though I’d really like to know how big the system is. It’s hard to tell with felted crafts sometimes, especially when there’s nothing in the photos to use as a frame of reference. Of course, this doesn’t diminish the project’s awesomeness in the slightest. Make sure you check out the rest of the photos in the Craftster thread, it really is a wonderful piece.
(I’m not gonna dupe-post every piece of artwork posted on Gamercraft, but this was too cool for school.)
(courtesy of Gamercraft)
