Rock Band: what you really sound like

by Devin Kent, Posted June 16th, 2008 at 5:53pm

Hahahah. There’s really not a whole lot to say, except this: I am vastly more attractive than that drummer and I always play on expert. Take that!

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People go nuts with the Creature Creator

by Devin Kent, Posted June 16th, 2008 at 5:49pm

The Creature Creator for Spore was recently released, and there have been a bunch of creations going up all over the web. First up is SporeCraft, where some enterprising people created various StarCraft creatures like the Zegling and the Dragoon. We also have the cute little turret from Portal, and something I will have nightmares about.

And, of course, lots of penises.

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Niko Bellic in the flesh

by Devin Kent, Posted June 16th, 2008 at 5:42pm

Well, sort of. Pixeloo, a blogger and very talented artist, is well known for his realistic depictions of characters like Mario, Homer, and even Jessica Rabbit. Now he’s tried his hand at Grand Theft Auto IV protagonist Niko Bellic. Very cool.

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Next Tony Hawk game to feature balance board

by Devin Kent, Posted June 16th, 2008 at 5:37pm

Someone inside Activision has leaked new info that the next Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game will feature a balance board. No, I’m not exactly sure what that means either, but it’s some sort of motion-based controller for the game, and will be available on the PS3, the 360, and the PC. No real details as of yet, but I’m sure we’ll hear more as the game gets closer to release.

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Ray-traced Quake Wars

by Devin Kent, Posted June 13th, 2008 at 4:00pm

Intel has just finished up a modification to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars that allows the engine to use ray-tracing rather than the traditional hodgepodge of methods used in other games. In most games, programmers use a variety of different tricks to determine, for instance, the opacity or transparency of objects, what the player can and can’t see, reflections, etc., mostly centered around the z-buffering algorithm. With ray-tracing, millions of simulated rays of light are shot out of each light source. Each ray, or photon, is then tracked along its path. This method can very accurately determine reflection (how many photons bounce off an object), transparency (how many pass through vs. how many are absorbed), and refraction (how the photons’ paths are bent as they pass through an object). The upshot of this is that most objects look only slightly better, but anything involving glass or water looks orders of magnitude more real, as you can see from the screenshots in the article.

Don’t get your hopes up that you’ll be running this version anytime soon, though. Using a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz, Intel was only able to achieve between 10-25 FPS. Ray-tracing is not an easy task.

3D rendering, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, intel, prototype, ray-tracing
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Limbo of the Lost rips off Oblivion

by Devin Kent, Posted June 13th, 2008 at 10:50am

No, I don’t mean theme or setting, I mean directly stealing objects, textures, and even entire rooms — down to the placement of books on a bookshelf. GamePlasma stumbled across the thievery while doing a review, and posted some screen shots showing off just how blatant it is. In most cases the rooms are exactly the same except for Limbo of the Lost being graphically inferior. One developer ripping off another has a long and glorious past, but you rarely see anything so obvious as this. GamePlasma also raises the excellent point: how often does this happen, and no one sees it?

Limbo of the Lost, oblivion, plagiarism, screenshots, theft
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Street Fighter: The Later Years

by Devin Kent, Posted June 11th, 2008 at 2:02am

I just came across this hysterical video series from CollegeHumor. How have Dhalism, Zangief, Blanka, M. Bison and the rest of the gang fared after all these years? Of course, I’m a huge dork for liking it, but I can’t help laughing after seeing Zangief mopping floors in an arcade. Check out the first video above, and don’t miss the rest of it.

Capcom, CollegeHumor, Street Fighter, Video
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Portal 2 info and spoilers

by Devin Kent, Posted June 11th, 2008 at 1:42am

Kotaku has got some info on a rumored antagonist for Portal 2, sequel or possibly prequel to the underdog hit Portal from The Orange Box. Cave Johnson, founder of Aperture Science, is said to be a strong contender, and there is some dialog that hints at to whether the game takes place before or after the events of the original game. If you want to possibly spoil the game for yourself, head on over to Kotaku and take a look.

Portal, Portal 2, rumor, spoiler, valve
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Nvidia says PC-exclusive games have no future

by Devin Kent, Posted June 11th, 2008 at 1:36am

Roy Taylor, VP of content business development at Nvidia, has been quoted as saying that there is no future in PC-exclusive games. The PC is far from a dying platform, however: more and more, developers and publishers are releasing games on consoles and then converting them to desktop versions. Taylor says that companies are using the console code as a “baseline” and adding new features to make it more attractive to gamers who might have already bought the game on a console. “The PC version [of Gears of War or Assassin’s Creed] was better. That’s something that people need to get their heads around - the console is a baseline, the PC is going to be an improved version. That’s an exciting future, and that’s why I don’t see anything threatening about console at all.” It remains to be seen whether Taylor’s vision plays out or gamers get increasingly angry about the perceived need to buy a game twice if you want all the features.

console gaming, gaming industry, nvidia, pc gaming, Roy Taylor
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Two new Spore videos: Creature Creator

by Devin Kent, Posted June 9th, 2008 at 5:04pm

Electronic Arts has released two new Spore videos today. They both take the form of a tutorial, with the first (above) teaching you the basics of building a creature, and the second walking you through texturing your new beast. Building a creature looks to be easy and fun, and it allows incredible amounts of detail. You can even add more joints to the creature’s arms and legs, which is sure to cause some weird looking creatures.

The Creature Creator comes out on the 17th (well before the full game, which is currently slated for September), and some of the creatures made in it will be used to seed the universe when the full game comes out. If you hop on the bandwagon early you might see a familiar face later on. Check out the texturing video after the jump.
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Creature Creator, spore, tutorial, Video, YouTube
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