Now that Fallout 3 has proved that acquiring the Fallout IP was a good move, they seem to be putting more fuel on the post-apocalyptic fire. They’re considering legal action to get the rights to a Fallout MMO back from Interplay, though Bethesda doesn’t have much experience themselves in creating an MMO. They’ve just announced the existence of Fallout: New Vegas.

As is usual for an initial announcement they’re short on details, but fans of the series who weren’t as happy about Bethesda’s version will be a little more interested when they hear that Obsidian Entertainment (a studio founded by members of Interplay’s Black Isle Studios) are doing the actual developing for the game. When asked about what engine it’d be using, the spokesperson said that you could ‘make educated guesses’ so we’ll probably be seeing another first person perspective game. It’s set for the same consoles, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 and set to release in 2010.

You’d never think that jigsaw puzzles could make for good console gaming, but the sheer fact that Puzzle Arcade exists on Xbox Live Arcade is all the proof anyone could need.  And you too can experience this proof for eight hundred Microsoft points.

Basically, I’ve already given you the plot–you’ll have a series of jigsaw puzzles to assemble all on your TV screen using your Xbox 360 controller, a concept that I had thought would be boring but turns out to be at least somewhat entertaining.  Between that and the music, it’s one of those excellent kind of “chill games” that you can sit down to with a hot cup of tea after a long day and just unwind with, slapping puzzles together, and without having to keep a whole bunch of cardboard boxes in your hall closet and find some decent smooth jazz.

It’s a very niche title, and definitely not for everybody, but if you can appreciate a game that’ll calm you down just as much as it’ll pick you up, then you’ll definitely enjoy a round of Puzzle Arcade.

To most of us, the Spaced Invaders game will always be a figment of our past. It has addicted a lot of us mature citizens today and incidentally, it would be glad to note that this game which turns 30 years old today is still up and about.

Space Invaders, for the one or two of you who haven’t had the pleasure, is a two-dimensional shoot-em-up in which the player controls the left and right movement of a laser cannon across the bottom of the screen. The player’s cannon is partially protected by several stationary defence bunkers which can be shot away gradually by both the player and the advancing ‘invaders’.

Space Invaders spawned a number of sequels, remakes and remixes on several formats. In 1980 a Space Invaders release on the Atari 2600 console proved to be one of the first ‘killer apps’ and quadrupled sales of the hardware. Some other ports and copycats received a far less enthusiastic reaction however.

Space Invaders is as synonymous with electronic gaming as the guitar is to rock music. It opened the doors for what is now a bigger industry than film or music. The pixilated imagery of the invaders is known across the globe by consumers spanning three generations.

It’s an icon of a time where games were designed to make you want to insert another coin, then another until your pocket money had vanished down that slot at which point you’d stand there and enviously watch the next kid do the same.

(Source) Stuff

You know those games that start off with such promise but can’t quite seem to hold onto it? Those games that put so much into a really interesting storyline and some sweet cinematics and then blow it all when they ask you to actually pick up the controller and do something? Mirror’s Edge is EXACTLY like that.

The story is nothing short of awesome. Ripped from today’s headlines in a Next Sunday A.D. sort of way, the world is gradually descending into a morass of fascism and censorship. Soon, all communications are monitored and those who dissent are criminalized by the government, who has a network of cameras and surveillance equipment everywhere. The only way to communicate in secret any more is to employ runners, couriers who hand-carry messages across the rooftops of the city. One runner, Faith, recently saw her sister get framed for murder, and finds herself forced to use her runner’s skills to attempt to keep out of the clutches of the law, and clear her sister’s name.

Okay, remember how that sport Parkour was big for like twenty minutes a year or so ago? Mirror’s Edge is a gigantic attempt to cash in on that popularity. And while they made an interesting enough setup–that plot is STRAIGHT out of Orwell and might well have made a decent movie if it had a solid script and a decent director behind it. I bet Devon Aoki would make a sweet Faith. But anyway, I digress. Like I said, the plot is fun on a bun, but the game itself is downright unplayable.

Advance warning here–if you have any kind of fear of heights, this game WILL freak you out. And if you tend to get motion sickness when playing a first person shooter, then Mirror’s Edge will be downright unplayable. Here–let me give you a VERY early example just to show you what you’ll be getting into. This is from the TRAINING LEVEL, implying that it will be the easiest level in the game. You’ll jump off a roof ledge onto an overhanging boom crane, which you’ll slide down before running to a series of jumps involving razor wire. Then, you’ll learn how to run ON WALLS, jump off a zip line to land on a pillowy mass of something and ultimately walk across a gap between rooftops by balancing on a section of PVC pipe.

Now, in terms of SHEER PHYSICS there’s at least two things wrong with what I just said. The kind of momentum required to run across a ninety-degree oriented sheer surface like a wall is astronomical unless you have some kind of modified footwear or a body weight of like ten pounds. And I don’t even want to think about trying to use PVC pipe as a balance beam. It’s curved. It’s plastic. It’s probably slippery. Trying to balance on that would be almost like trying to balance on an oil slick.

Now try imagining doing all this while fighting off the cops.

Yeah, I know–I’m freaking out too.

But that’s the biggest problem with this game. It’s a GREAT idea–credit where credit is due and all that–but man, they didn’t go very far with it, nor did they put a whole lot into the gameplay. I had a rough time trying to get anywhere in this world. Even when I knew where I was going, I really didn’t want to go there. And that’s a problem. When you don’t want to make that roof jump or walk that pipe or shimmy down that high-tension power line strung across two thirty-story rooftops, then there’s just no point. It’s worth a rental if you want to experience that high-flying mayhem, but otherwise, just keep both feet on the ground.

I really love Square-Enix.  I really do.  I tell you, they can take what should be the worst crap imaginable and make it fun, engaging, and really, really pretty.  Take, for example, the concept of desktop tower defense games.  A dime a dozen, right? Exactly.  But let Square-Enix put one on, as they did with their game Crystal Defenders now on Xbox Live Arcade for eight hundred Microsoft points, and it turns out to be a fun experience that looks really, really good.

The plot is pretty much as advertised–you defend crystals from being captured by various monsters, and you’ll do so by stationing various Final Fantasy figures like soldiers, black mages, monks and archers along paths leading to your crystal storehouse.  Then, a series of monsters will walk those paths, and you’ve got to lay enough firepower out to make sure that the monsters can’t reach your crystal storehouse.

I know, you’ve already played this kind of game several times before, and sometimes you’ve even played it at work when you were supposed to be doing something else, but I definitely don’t remember ever being able to play it on my Xbox 360.  So for the shockingly cheap price of eight hundred Microsoft points, you too can have an extremely pretty good time with a game you’ve played before, but never with one that’s looked this good.

Much of the attention for Street Fighter IV has been on the PS3 and Xbox 360 release date on April 24. However, the PC version will also be released soon, most likely summer. But to make sure you don’t miss the release of the PC version, the release date will be made official come May 1.

Over at the official Japanese Street Fighter IV blog, project manager Natsuki Shiozawa made a casual announcement in a post about the game’s upcoming Championship Mode features: The release date of the PC version will be revealed May 1. Shiozawa even ventured, “the game will be out this summer, before it gets super hot!”

(Source) 1UP

Greek mythology has always been a fertile source of inspiration for game designers, especially considering the massive success of the God of War series.  But Kratos isn’t the only one who’s dealt with Ares and Athena and Zeus and such–in Rise of the Argonauts, you’ll be able to get a whole new side of the whole Greek mythology inspired action-adventure sort of thing.

Rise of the Argonauts puts you in control of King Jason of Iolcus, who was about to get married when his bride to be was suddenly assassinated by representatives of a supposedly dead assassin society called the Blacktongues.  King Jason, of course, didn’t take this lightly and went on a killing spree of everyone in the palace who wasn’t supposed to be there.  But after the blood was mopped up and the corpses were dragged out of the palace, King Jason was still left with a dead fiancée.  Thus, he set up a massive quest above the most technologically-advanced boat of all time, the Argo, to go forth and recover his fiancee’s soul and get it jammed back into her body before it boils off into a kind of metaphysical sludge throughout the cosmos.

In order to do this, you’re going to have to proceed through a series of quests to bring the earthly descendents of Ares, Hermes and Athena to the island of Delphi, where the descendent of Apollo, the Oracle, is already waiting.  Doing other side quests will also allow you to gain bonus traits and powers, giving you advantages in attack and defense as well as resistances and health bonuses.

There is, actually, a ready comparison for the gameplay on this one—it plays a LOT like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with multi-level dialogue choices and customizable team-building with AI controls over your teammates.  It’s actually kind of fun in this way, but only kind of.  This allows for a pretty nice story to be instituted, and give you a lot of interaction sort of challenges to do.  How do you handle a situation?  Do you try and convince your conversation target to agree with you?  Do you appeal to their sense of justice?  Or do you just bludgeon your way through the conversation and hope for the best?  These options are available to you on almost every conversation, and will help determine how you progress through the game.

See, Rise of the Argonauts has a LOT of problems to it.  One, it’s going to focus heavily on that dialogue, and the voice acting is not that great.  Two, there’s not a whole lot of fighting to be had here.  I spent way too much time running around between goals and not nearly enough time busting heads.  And when I get into a game like this I expect to be busting a lot of heads from the moment I walk in the door.  I shouldn’t have to be waiting to start the beatdown for everyone to stop talking.  That’s just not right.

However, if you’re into a good story, Rise of the Argonauts will definitely provide plenty of that.  You just have to be willing to accept that you won’t have a whole lot to DO with that story, and if you can handle that, then you’ll likely have at least a rental-grade good time with this game.  Otherwise, you’ll probably want to go find a game with a lot more action in it..

I’ve talked about a lot of Xbox Live Arcade titles, and I have to admit, out of all the titles I’ve tried so far, I’ve never met one that was so enthusiastic about you winning as Peggle.

A strange sort of action / puzzle hybrid, which, frankly, I love playing, Peggle features you shooting balls at pegs in an attempt to clear a board of orange-colored pegs.  You’ll be able to hit green colored pegs for powerups like guide lines and the ability to light up surrounding pegs, and purple pegs will give you a score bonus.

Completing a level will allow your ball to continue moving, and any other pegs it hits will add to a score multiplier before your ball falls into one of five holes with different value scores.  When your ball finally DOES come to a stop, a cascade of fireworks will burst into life.  All of this is done to the tune of “Ode to Joy”.

See what I mean?  It’s a really over the top victory celebration.  Not that I’m not glad for it, mind you–I had a lot of fun solving this action packed puzzler–but still, if you like your games understated and subtle you won’t like this at all.  Meanwhile, I loved it, and I’ll recommend it freely to anyone else who wants to try.

Most game developers have focused on improving the digital imaging of games today and apparently the need to complement them with suitable interface devices has become apparent. With that in mind, 3Dconnexion introduces the SpacePilot PRO to provide easier access to the power of professional 3D applications, fewer interruptions in the design workflow, and superior comfort.

Specifically, the SpacePilot PRO features a new color LCD Workflow Assistant, second-generation QuickView Navigation technology, Intelligent Function keys, and an improved design for enhanced comfort and control.

“3Dconnexion’s 3D mice have rewritten the rules on the way design engineers and professionals interact with 3D environments,” said Dieter Neujahr, president of 3Dconnexion. “Our new SpacePilot PRO builds on our market-leading industry experience, delivering the most powerful 3D mouse we’ve ever made. It enables increased performance that ultimately results in better designs, created in less time.”

(Source) Press

There was always a small issue with piracy; people selling copied VHS tapes out of the trunk or their car or selling bootleg casettes, but the electronic age took this minor industry annoyance and gave it fangs, claws, poisonous stingers, camouflage and an armored exoskeleton. After Napster made the average internet user aware of their ability to get stuff for free online, piracy has been an issue for every entertainment industry.

The sharing method of the day is Bittorrent, which allows users to download files from other users. Many websites have launched that offer easily searched indexes of everything from eBooks to leaked films. As you might expect the industry is doing what they can to go after these people and recently Swedish courts punished the founders/owners of a popular site called Pirate Bay with a year in jail.

The ESA is applauding the Swedish courts for doing so: “piracy is the single greatest threat to the development and release of innovative and creative entertainment software”. While piracy is probably a big issue for some companies I think many would agree with me that the biggest threats to innovation is the lack of innovation and creativity that all but the best game developers show.