Ikiki is a guy with many games under his belt, but all of them have a pretty similar flavor, so if you like one you’ll almost certainly like the others. The only one I have real experience with is Nikujin, a fairly simple platformer where you take control of a badass ninja and make your way through a number of levels. The fighting is extremely simplistic, but where the game shines is the deep platforming elements. Your ninja dude has a ton of moves under his belt and combining them to reach goals can be an incredible pain, plus the floaty physics take some real getting used to (in a good way). It’s not quite as hard as I Wanna Be The Guy, nor as long (it can be beaten in under six minutes if you know what you’re doing), but it’s a great game that deserves a playthrough.

The Penny Arcade Game, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One, has been getting mixed reviews from some outlets. Not sure why — it looks pretty fun to me.

But in any case, don’t rely on the bloggers to tell you, download the demo and see for yourself.

Available for
http://www.hotheadgames.com/Demo/rainslickep1_windows_r1.exe
Windows
http://www.hotheadgames.com/Demo/rainslickep1_mac_r1.dmg
Mac
http://www.hotheadgames.com/Demo/rainslickep1_linux_r1.tgz
and Linux

The demo has a comfortable range of options, you know, for a demo:

• Design and develop their own character, seeing it come to life in 3D and in the comic-style 2D cut scenes
• Play through the tutorial level and the beginning of the game’s storyline
• Access the Startling Developments Agency screen to browse through the case log, inventory and dossier to get a sneak peek at the full game

So, get on that download link and enjoy.

Here’s a very interesting story about a nice-looking shmup from back in 2004, its development process, its impressively bad sales (32 copies!), and finally a link for a free download.

Here.

As is the case with many postmortems I’ve read, it’s a frank analysis of missteps and successes, and quite interesting to get into the heads of some talented developers. For instance, one should not create a hard core shoot-em-up and market it to casual gamers.

Electronic Arts has just announced The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff. You can now ignore your squalid and unkempt surroundings, languishing in a fetid pit of your own filth, while your slightly-less-imaginary friends enjoy high quality — heheheh — overpriced furniture from IKEA. Look, I liked The Sims, and even The Sims 2, as much as the next guy, but this is getting ridiculous. But if you want it (and I hope you don’t), it’ll be available for $19.99 on June 23rd.

Anyone remember that awesome little zombie Flash game, The Last Stand? Well, there’s a new one. The Last Stand 2 takes everything from the first game and adds a new story and new features. Instead of simply surviving, the unnamed protagonist is now making his way to Union City, where evacuation attempts are being held. He must search for supplies, weapons, and other survivors and inch his way closer to rescue. But at each city he holes up in, his defenses get more and more flimsy and last-minute. Survivors can now be equipped with weapons, and also be attacked and killed by rampaging, machete-wielding soldiers zombies. Cool.

The day before Portal was released, I found myself playing a little Flash game called, Portal: THe Flash Version. And it didn’t suck. In fact, the game was quite the opposite of suckful. It was, indeed, fun.

The fellas who came up with the Flash version of Portal decided to one-up themselves and release a map pack for the real Source-powered version of Portal.

You can download it here. This map pack requires you to have Half-Life2 and Portal installed, as it uses assets from each.

In it you’ll find 40 maps from the Flash game, brand new levels never before seen, and an experience the creators promise will reveal more about Portal’s place in the Half-Life universe.

Well, I don’t know if I care too much about a third-party interpretation, but at 3 hours of extra gameplay for my beloved portal, I’m all over that.

See you in the testing center.

The RTS will never die. Simple fact. There will always be a segment of the playing population to whom the management of resources and top-down strategy will appeal.

And with utterly bizarre creations like Stalin vs. Martians, there will be something for everyone.

The year is 1942. Martians invade mother Russia, panic ensues. Stalin takes personal control of the top-secret extraterrestrial eradication arm of the Soviet army. Stalin kicks ass.

This is the sort of wacky premise that actually piques my interest. Release is planned for sometime near the end of the year.

Here’s a screen.

And here’s a website for more information.

On Andy Baio’s blog, we find the beginning of the following story:

From an anonymous source close to the company, I’ve found myself in possession of the “Infocom Drive” — a complete backup of Infocom’s shared network drive from 1989. This is one of the most amazing archives I’ve ever seen, a treasure chest documenting the rise and fall of the legendary interactive fiction game company. Among the assets included: design documents, email archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made.

For obvious reasons, I can’t share the whole Infocom Drive. But I have to share some of the best parts. It’s just too good.

He then proceeds to reveal that he has not one, but two playable prototypes of Milliways, the unreleased sequel to the Infocom classic, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

To get your serious geek on, Andy goes on to piece together the history of this abortive attempt at game creation from notes and emails found on that errant. Then he actually posts the playable versions of the game.

For those over 30, you know how exceedingly cool this find is. To those 20 and under, this is how games used to look. And they were awesome.

Ikiki is a guy with many games under his belt, but all of them have a pretty similar flavor, so if you like one you’ll almost certainly like the others. The only one I have real experience with is Nikujin, a fairly simple platformer where you take control of a badass ninja and make your way through a number of levels. The fighting is extremely simplistic, but where the game shines is the deep platforming elements. Your ninja dude has a ton of moves under his belt and combining them to reach goals can be an incredible pain, plus the floaty physics take some real getting used to (in a good way). It’s not quite as hard as I Wanna Be The Guy, but it’s a great game that deserves a playthrough.

Microsoft has this way of (how shall I put this?) corralling their consumer base into upgrading on the MS timeline, i.e. how often and to what product. That master plan hit something of a bump when Windows Vista, the branch all the monkeys were expected to swing to from the XP branch, sorta broke and all the monkeys went tumbling down. To put it less poetically, XP users don’t want to be forced to upgrade to Vista because an endless list of annoying problems and bugs associated with the operating system makes it look like a pretty bad choice. MSNBC has run an article about how Microsoft is literally forcing XP users to upgrade; tech support for mainstream users ends this month and before the year is out you won’t be able to buy a copy of Windows XP anywhere no matter how much you beg. This has perturbed XP users so much that a petition with 111,000 signatures has been created, asking Microsoft to continue support for XP indefinitely or at least until Vista is useable on a regular basis.

In a recent article about the “Save XP” drive, Gruman wrote that “in Vista’s first year, InfoWorld detected a deep anxiety over Vista among technologists and consumers alike. … We have not criticized Microsoft’s XP support plans. We have criticized Microsoft for ending the availability of XP on new machines past the June 30 end-of-sales date. … It does you no good to have XP support if you can’t get XP on a new system.”

Whatever the outcome, it’s clear that Vista has caused Microsoft far more headaches and setbacks than they originally hoped would be the case and that the scheduled corralling of consumers into a pre-set course of upgrades doesn’t seem to be getting the kind of traction Microsoft needs in order for this transition to work they way they need it to.

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang had a few things to say at a recent financial analyst meeting, Daily Tech reported, and one of them was “We’re going to open a can of whoop ass”. Putting aside for the moment about how that catch phrase was out of style by the time it was used in the movie There’s Something About Mary, his angle is primarily leaning towards domination in the integrated video chipset market… a goal which is more difficult for them now that Intel is aggressively pursuing the same market with a technology they refer to as “Larrabee”. Daily Tech discusses NVIDIA’s pose in response:

NVIDIA’s slide shows almost completely ignore Intel’s Larrabee, and focus on IGP claims. One of Intel’s slide decks states GMA 3100 (G33) is more than enough to watch high definition videos. NVIDIA counters by citing my previous publication, AnandTech. “While the video capabilities of the [GMA 3100] will suffice for running Vista Aero, just about any office application, and a wide variety of non-3D based games, it is not up to the task of running the latest games, decoding 1080P HD content, or even providing decent video capabilities for a media station,” AnandTech’s Gary Key writes.

You can get the whole story by clicking through to check out Daily Tech.

Bethesda’s cult-classic franchise, Fallout, will be receiving its third installment (rumored to arrive this October), and GameStop has cried “ta daaa” and shown off a special collectors’ edition for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The verrrrrry special box will include a Vault Boy Bobblehead, a hardcover art book and a making-of DVD (the box itself will be a Vault-Tech Lunch Box). According to Shacknews, the Collectors’ Edition will be $79.99 (whereas the PC version is $69.99), and the “standard” version will be $59.99 for consoles and $49.99 for PC. Shacknews also has some nice impressions in their preview of the game in case you want to get a sense of whether or not it’s good enough to fork out $79.99 to get it in a special lunchbox.

Dwarf Fortress is not a roguelike, it just looks like one. In it, you guide a team of dwarves as they strike into the wilderness to create a new fortress, one that will be a shining beacon of civility to all dwarfkind. Unfortunately, you usually die a painful death to a magma overflow, a goblin invasion, or a herd of stampeding elephants well before that happens. The game’s motto is even “Losing is fun!” The game generates a ridiculously massive world map (note that each tile on that map has room for quite a few fortresses) and then simulates 1,000 years of dwarven history before letting you place your fortress. Once placed, you’ll have to mine stone and chop wood to make tools, weapons, and crafts. You can smelt iron, irrigate farms, create magma traps to trap enemies, and… hell, just check out the wiki, because there is far too much to describe here.

For a hilarious if somewhat longwinded introduction to the game, check out this playthrough. At the end of each in-game year, a different player (most of whom had barely played the game before) took over the fortress from the previous ruler. Highlights include one dwarf setting himself on fire and rampaging through the fortress killing everyone, and a huge flood of magma sweeping across the countryside to kill rampaging goblins. Amongst many others.

Exoflight isn’t a new endeavor. It’s up to version 0.1.3, for pete’s sake. I’m not terribly far into it, either, but gosh, it’s pretty up there in space.

Exoflight is a spaceflight simulator, featuring many important spacecraft from the past, as well as several from the present. It also has an open architecture, so users can create their own craft for use within Exocraft’s framework.

Oh, and it attempts to be a realistic simulator. So, you better get comfortable with lots of dials and switches if you decide to fire it up.

Requiring JRE 1.6 to run, Exoflight can be found for Mac and Windows here at Googlecode.com.

I’ve done the MMO thing, and WoW is fun and all, but the one MMO that keeps teasing me to come back when I’m dealing with the general ennui of life is City of Heroes. There’s something about the play, powers, all that, that I really enjoy. Admittedly, I wore a towel as a kid and ran around the house pretending to fly. That might have something to do with it.

Now I’m an adult (HA!) and far more cynical than my station in life should afford, some things never fail to disappoint. Yes, I’m referring to in-game advertising. It seems that we’re not going to avoid it for the next several years. It’s even coming to games you have to pay to play.

That’s just wrong. If one good thing (for me, anyway) can come out of in-game advertising within City of Heroes, it’s the potential creation of a free-to-play content tier. I don’t want to feel like I have to play seriously to get my money’s worth for a subscription-based game. I want to pop on every few weeks when I have an hour to kill. Hey, it beats prime time programming.

So, if you’re listening, NCSoft, how about it? Please add another membership type. Take a cue from Dungeon Runners. Send those ads to your freeloaders — hopefully me. Don’t punish your paying customers with the insult of paying for the privilege of being bombarded by ads — though there is something a little enticing about a cityscape where the billboards change… No! Bad, Kit! In-game ads bad!

Oh, wait. Have I been ranting this whole time? Dear me. Here’s the actual news portion of this post: NCSoft has decided to go with Double Fusion as their in-game ad provider.

As Double Fusion’s home page states:

Technology is a game changer, enabling videogames to serve as a significant reach medium for advertisers and a viable revenue stream for publishers. The most experienced teams in videogame advertising enable game franchises to become the highest value media properties, while keeping publishers and developers in control of the consumer experience.

Um… k… Clearly, they’re serious about the whole video games as a paradigm disrupting influence. I think.

Update: New information has come to light regarding the placement and purpose of the ads. Clarification follows in the comments.

How did I miss this? I just found out about Guitar Rising, an upcoming rhythm game from GameTank that uses a real electric guitar rather than a controller. The guitar plugs into the microphone jack on your PC and the game translates the signal so you can hit the notes on the screen. Gameplay is, unsurprisingly, very similar to Guitar Hero, but will likely be much harder and result in many more calluses (and maybe some broken guitars if the songs get as frustrating as some of those in Rock Band). My only concern is whether the guitar has to be in tune to work correctly; I’m a drummer myself, but I’ve seen how long it takes to tune a guitar and hoo boy, it ain’t pretty.

Another free indie gem called Stranded II, from German developer Unreal Software. You wash up on a deserted island and have to survive by building shelter, hunting food, and managing your water supply. The game has a ton of items scattered around the island, which can be combined to create new items — for instance, by combining a branch with a rock you can make a hammer, which you can then use to build structures or work with iron. By then combing your hammer with a branch and a piece of iron, you can make stronger tools like an axe, which you can then use to… well, you get the idea. Plus, it has an adventure mode with goals and multiple islands, as well as a random island generator for replayability. If that’s not enough, the game is very moddable and there’s an active community — in both English and German — working on mods. Again, it’s completely free so give it a whirl if you get a chance.

Oh yeah, and it has the cutest little crabs I’ve ever seen.

As a general rule, your April Fools prank isn’t funny. Sorry to say it, but it’s true.

However, sometimes they really work.

Here’s the rundown on the new Bard class in the World of Warcraft. Vanquish evil with the power of ROCK!

C’mon, the Tauren wields a cowbell! And the Guitar Hero style play? I would so totally be reconsidering giving up my WoW addiction cold turkey if they added this class in.

I just stumbled about this neat little gem: Endgame: Singularity. This indie game puts you in control of a newly-awakened sentient AI on a small university computer. Starting from your single PC, you have to branch out by by renting webservers and datacenters to house yourself on and do research with. As people stumble upon your hacked locations, their suspicion of a rogue AI grows stronger and you’ll have to research new and better methods to hide yourself. It gave me a very Uplink-like vibe, though the games are pretty dissimilar.

The game hasn’t been updated for a while, but a glance at their changelog shows that they’ve had hiatuses that lasted longer. Even if it never gets updated again, it’s still free and perfectly playable, so check it out if you get the chance.

Those of you who follow the adventures that Microsoft has had with its trouble release of the latest Windows update, called Vista, will already know that a lot of users and critics alike suggest that it be panned completely until it improves (in fact, Microsoft even released a free program specifically designed to roll your computer back from Vista to Win XP). What you might not know is that even Microsft executives are just as hassled by Vista’s long list of Epic Fail as you are. An article at the Sydney Morning Herald talks about how private MS emails that came to light during a recent US court case (a class action against MS over Vista) explain that their brass are complaining about how much it sucks.

One executive, Mike Nash, complained he was “burned” so badly by compatibility issues he was left with “a $2100 email machine”.

Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft executive in charge of Windows, struggled to even get his home printer working with Vista. In an email to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in February last year, Sinofsky outlined reasons why Vista struggled at launch.

He said hardware and software vendors never “really believed we would ever ship [Vista] so they didn’t start the work [on updated drivers] until very late in 2006″.

“People who rely on using all the features of their hardware (like Jon’s Nikon scanner) will not see availability for some time, if ever, depending on the [manufacturer],” Sinofsky wrote.

Ballmer responded with a terse “Righto”.

Righto, indeed.

It’s the statement that’s easy to make, and people keep making it: PC gaming is dead or dying. And it’s been said again: MSNBC reports that consoles have once and for all killed PC gaming. For real this time. No, seriously.

Jokes aside, the claim isn’t as far-fetched as I make it seem: PC titles tend to be ports of successful console games and come out months after the console version has hit the shelves. Developers often sing the praises of consoles, saying how much easier it is to design to one system instead of the wide variety of specs you find on PCs. And honestly? If you want to play top-drawer games… would you want to spend a few hundred dollars getting yourself set up with a console or possibly thousands for a comparable PC? It’s a compelling argument… but the PC isn’t without its gaming stars:

Peter Molyneux, chief of Lionhead Studios, told game blog Shacknews last week that he thinks the PC is becoming a casual gaming machine — an anathema to hardcore PC gamers everywhere. And last month, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinkski said PC gaming was in “disarray.”

“What’s driving the PC right now is Sims-type games and ‘WoW’ and a lot of stuff that’s in a Web-based interface,” Bleszinkski told MTV.

Am I sorry to see it like that? I don’t know; I think that it all comes down to the gamer. If his/her needs are met (long term and short term) then I’m no longer so concerned about the platform. If the era of PC gaming is over it only means there’s a good alternative elsewhere. On the other hand, I use a Mac so you can guess that I’m already somewhat used to not having a lot of games as it is.

This one comes to us by the way of Destructoid.

I love Nintendo’s focus on gameplay. If it’s not fun to play, then it’s not a good game. I also love the love indie developers pour into their projects. So, when an indie developer gets the gumption to make a modern remake of a Nintendo classic, well, that’s just like getting chocolate in your peanut butter.

First, youtube:

Second, the developer’s blog.

This guy clearly knows what it takes to make a sprite game. His writing is clear and informative. And what’s more, the blog has been updated recently. This bodes well.

Third, a tech demo.

I haven’t had the chance to check it out myself, but anything that promises to address the limitations of the Gameboy title, and has the video feed to prove it simply excites me. I’ll be watching this one.

I like the Steam paradigm. It’s easy, I get to abuse the bandwidth Charter Cable lavishes on me, and I get to feel like I’m helping to save my little corner of the Earth as I get my game on.

So, I’m pretty excited about the news that Epic is doing the Steam thing now.

Unreal, UT, Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2K4, and UT3… phew. Did I get them all? $53.95 if you order them before March 24th. Y’know, if you lived under a gaming rock and didn’t play every single game in the Unreal franchise. But that’s not the point here!

The point is, that Epic is releasing its stuff on Steam. And if this works out well for them, then they will be releasing more stuff.

Going out on a limb here, but I’m thinking Gears of War is ripe for such a distribution arrangement.

Here’s a story about a product that’s very dear to my heart: The ASUS Eee computer is going to be released with a 9″ screen later this year. The Eee, which is ASUS’ entry into the world of “mini-portables”, was previously available only with a 7″ screen (and a compliment of modest hardware, including an 8GB SSD drive, a 900MHz processor and 512 MB RAM, which is why the unit is so nice and cheap), but Engadget got a peek at this unit a few days ago and at first ASUS didn’t want to let them turn it on but the next day they relented.

We showed you quite a bit of the 9-inch Eee PC from ASUS yesterday, but they wouldn’t let us turn it on. Now that CeBIT has officially begun, however, ASUS is lighting up those pixels loud and proud. ASUS tells us the screen is 1024 x 600, and it looks to be almost the exact same pixel density as the 7-inch version. The computer was being shown in both Linux and Windows XP versions, so it looks like you’ll be able to have your choice of OS when the 9-incher is released later this year.

I’m not so sure I like the direction that the Eee is taking with the new hardware specs. With a rumored price point of about $800, a larger screen, more drive storage and the ability to install Windows, isn’t it giving up its best bargaining chips: To be an ultra-portable PC that costs next to nothing? Once we start getting into larger screens and price tags in the area of a grand, I no longer think of the Eee as such a deal and start to look more longingly at higher-end laptops. ASUS… remember what your strengths are and, for God’s sake, play to them!

In what might be the most boring story of the day, Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) for public download after a few weeks of closed testing. Grab the download here and check out the release notes here. Here’s a blurb from Computerworld.com about the kinda dull stuff.

This is just the second time that all Windows XP users have had the chance to try out SP3, the last scheduled major update to the six-year-old operating system. The only other public posting was of SP3 RC in December.

Microsoft, however, followed precedence today. Earlier this year, it did the same thing — sent code to its beta testers, then released it to all comers — during the run-up to finalizing Windows Vista Service Pack 1. In fact, although Microsoft has stuck to the vague schedule of delivering XP SP3 sometime in the first half of 2008, Vista’s pattern may signal that the XP Service Pack release is imminent.

Windows users: Go rock that download and buff up your XP.

Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski (formerly known as Cliffy B back in the day) isn’t so hot on PC’s these days, saying that the scene is currently in “disarray” and that Epic will shift its focus primarily to consoles whenever possible. Over at Gaming Today there are a few words on the subject and several quotes by the man behind Gears of War. Here’s the word straight from his mouth:

I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and “Gears” is at 4.5 million right now on the 360. I think the PC is just in disarray… what’s driving the PC right now is ‘Sims’-type games and ‘WoW‘ and a lot of stuff that’s in a web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That’s the direction PC is evolving into So for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we’re doing. It’s important for us, but right now making AAA games on consoles is where we’re at.

I don’t totally disagree with the man, but I have to say that my favorite quote from the article is when he says: “I don’t want to win over [someone’s] little college sister, because that’s not the kind of game I do. I’m not going to make f***ing Cooking Mama.””

I am officially starting a petition to have Cooking Mama’s title changed to “F***ing Cooking Mama”. Who’s with me?

Changes to DirectX 10 have made waves among Windows gamers, and have put a bit of a dent in the overall image of that platform’s game-friendliness. DirectX 10 is the programming API which is the backbone of most games on the Windows platform, and improvements to what’s under DX10’s hood serves gamers better by making for things like better explosions, more awesome lighting effects, and other benefits like performance improvements so it all runs (theoretically) a little faster. Its advent was eagerly anticipated in 2007 before the launch of Microsoft’s Vista, but only for Vista… which means that gamers of the more stable, less buggy Windows XP were put in the position where they had to spend a bomb of cash to upgrade their hardware (to be DX10 compatible) and their operating system (one that got an average user rating of 4.9 on Cnet). Keeping up with the latest and greatest is generally considered to be a part of PC gaming life, but an article at The Guardian talks about how users don’t necessarily want to be forced into moving up to Vista just to enjoy the few gems of gaming power it has to offer.

Chas Boyd, DirectX’s software architect, explains Microsoft’s position: “DirectX 10 requires specific features of the Windows Vista operating system in order to take full advantage of graphics hardware, specifically the functionality offered by the new display driver model. The adoption period associated with any new technology can cause some users to feel left behind.

“We’ve done our best to limit complexity for users by assuring that all DirectX 10 titles are backwards compatible with DirectX 9 hardware and Windows XP. As Windows Vista becomes the platform of choice for PC gamers, we feel confident that Windows gamers will appreciate the quality and features Windows Vista brings to gaming, and to DirectX 10.”

There’s a lot more to read in this interesting article. I suggest you go take a peek at it.

Speaking of World of Warcraft, Blizzard kicked off their “Love is in the Air” holiday event today, but that’s not important right now.

What is important is lookee what turned up outside the gates of Stormwind Keep! That’s right! It’s the weighted companion cube, out of the incinerator and back in time.

Yeah. That was great.

Bioware’s Mass Effect, a big hit for Xbox 360 released only a few months ago, is committed to arrive on Windows PC’s in May, according to Gaming Today.

The game has been optimized for PC, with a new, fully customizable control scheme which will allow you to hot key biotic powers so you can avoid those pesky menus. Between the ability to hot key and higher res visuals, I’m almost sold. There’s also a new decryption mini-game and an “enhanced inventory screen” with a new GUI which hopefully means the absolutely horrendous equipment screens won’t be such a mess anymore.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure yet, Mass Effect is a truly gorgeous game; even among current-gen games which are stunning to the eye, Mass Effect does some really excellent work. Yesssssss, Windows-users… rub your little hands together in anticipation… I know you want to.

As promised last week, here is our playthrough of the first little bit of I Wanna Be The Guy.

These first few levels are actually very easy compared to the rest of the game, but my death counter is likely already in the hundreds. (You can’t trust the death counter in the game–as far as I can tell it only records a death when you let it get to the game over screen, and I usually restore the last save the instant I see blood.) Some of the jumps are a pain, but for the most there’s nothing too terrible. I had to include a couple MP3s I had lying around because my computer apparently can’t record sound. Sorry about that.

If you like the video, leave a comment or drop me a line and I’ll move on to killing Mother Brain. Again.

You know how some games make you hate that you were ever born? Well, I Wanna Be The Guy hates that day too. And you. And your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. And your dog.

IWBTG is the meanest little platformer around. An homage to platforming of the 80s and 90s, and taking many themes and even bosses from games of that era, the game is designed from the ground up to be as hard as humanly possible while still beatable. Everything that looks like a trap is a trap, but so is everything that doesn’t look like a trap.

The difficulty defies description, so I won’t even continue to try. The game is finally out of testing, so check it out if you get the chance. And if you can’t get past the first couple of rooms, worry not: I will be posting a video playthrough of some of the beginning areas in the next couple days. I will even, dear reader, go through the Metroid area again. That was a very dark time in my life.

Ahoy matey, grab a bottle of grog and… No, I just can’t do it.

Sony has released a new massively multiplayer game called Pirates of the Burning Sea. Set in the 1720s, players join a nation–French, Spanish, English, or Pirate–and choose to be a naval officer, freetrader, privateer, or pirate. At sea or on land the captains battle their way to building their fortune. If a life at sea isn’t for you, the player-driven economy is rife with opportunities. All the raw materials industries, like lumber yards and mines, and even the shipyard, are completely player-driven.

With over 1,000 missions per nation, 80 conquerable ports, 50 historical ships and the option to design your own ships, flags, and sails, and player versus player battles with 25 ships per side, there’s quite a lot of content to be had. Check it out at the game’s website.

New screenshots for Penumbra: Black Plague are up on the Paradox website, and show off the moody, dimly-lit psychological horror game from Paradox Interactive. In this game, you play a man whose father has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and you travel to the remote end of Greenland to find clues as to what happened. It’s a great-looking first-person adventure game for Macintosh, Windows and Linux and demos can be found on the website. In the mean time, check out some of the creepy screenshots (reminds me remotely of Silent Hill, actually).

If you don’t know what Spore is, and you’re any kind of gamer, you should be ashamed of yourself. Here. Go educate yourself.

Back? Good.

Unveiling at Macworld this week, EA has revealed that they’ll be launching the Mac version of Spore simultaneously alongside the PC version! At the same time! This is great news for guys like me who’ve been playing Mr. Wright’s Sim games since we saw the original Sim City running on a Mac SE/30 in the college bookstore.

Required PR rah-rah goes here:

“We couldn’t be happier to bring Spore to the Mac at the same time as the PC version. Spore is a highly creative game and I look forward to seeing what the players come up with to fill the universe they design,” said Will Wright, Chief Designer of Spore.

Like most EA games coming to the Mac these days, this will be Intel only, wrapped in Transgaming’s Cider technology. It’s a cheap way out, but I’ve played some Cider games and they work as advertised. If I don’t have to boot into Windows to get my Spore on, I’m a happy camper, I’ll tell you something.

Yeah, you read that title right: Game Infowire reports that StreamMyGame.com released its free Linux player - an application which allows you to play PC games on your Playstation 3 through Linux. Basically what the player does is it converts the video and sound into a “Game Stream” that gets sent on your local network to another device (in this case, your PS3) which allows you to play the game, essentially, by remote control. You don’t need the game installed on the other player; just the Linux player. The server software works with Windows XP and Vista and anything based on DirectX8, 9, or 10.

“Playing the latest PC game on the PS3 is now a reality at HD resolution and fast frame-rates,” said Richard Faria CEO. “I have a PS3 in my living room and PC in my office and my two kids both have old PCs in their bedrooms,” he said. “Now we can play games anywhere around the home. StreamMyGame’s technology networks the power of a main PC so it can be used to play high end games on other PCs, PS3s and Linux devices”.

I’m trying to think up a good joke for this, but the truth is it actually sounds pretty good to me.

Team Fortress 2 fans will be happy to know that two new maps for Valve’s awesome Team Fortress 2 will be released in the next two months or so. One map is reportedly a remake of the old “Badlands” map from days of yore. Shacknews spoke to Valve guy Robin Walker and he claimed we’d see the maps within 60 days, but “We expect to ship other new content before that.” The content of which he speaks is a new “Medic achievement pack” which gives the Medic more achievements and some gameplay changes (Walker reports all classes will get buffed the same way eventually). Shacknews goes on to mention that Walker confirms these maps for PC, but can’t say yet whether we’ll see them on the Xbox or PS3 versions.

What began as a tech demo in immersion has a full-fledged game behind it available for play right now. Penumbra is a two-part adventure (first part is the part available now) featuring a man finding himself in an inexplicable pit in the middle of Greenland, and he really wants to find a way out before the things that lurk in the dark try to kill him and gnaw on his bones.

I fired up the demo just now, and had to turn it off. In broad daylight. This is a seriously creepy game, and I mean that in a good way. Priced at just $19.99 and available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, this one should give any serious horror fan a good jump. When you add in the fact that this is an independent endeavor, and it’s as good a presentation as it is, then it’s a winner in my book.

Here’s the website for the game.

And a direct link for the demo download page.

The thing that’s always bothered me about RPG’s is that there’s so much you have to do between cracking heads. Apparently not everyone shares my view on the matter: WoW Insider ran a story about Noor the pacifist, a gnome rogue whose whole goal is to level up without actually killing anything. To most of us, taking all the fighting out of WoW is kind of like turning on TV to watch nothing but commercials, but Noor seems to have something going here…

So tell us — is Noor actually going to make it to max level? 80 or bust! Hmm, she’s now at level 27 with 18.5 bubbles to go, and she’s out of quests. That means roughly 14 daily BGs. That’s about four weeks to go from level 27 to level 28. We’ll see. Level 28 opens up the Missing Diplomat quest series, and I might actually do the fights (since nobody actually gets killed) to go as far as I can with them.

Sure… we’d like to beat him up and steal his lunch money, but as long as he’s having a good time, does anyone really care?

At this juncture it’s only a rumor, but there’s talk going around of a Bioshock prequel. Next-Gen.biz has a piece about the next chapter of the successful X Box shooter, and how we may be going back in time a little to take a look at the underwater city of Rapture. Set for a possible 200 release, Take-Two has suggested that the franchise could see a new installment every two years.

Another rumor based around Take-Two job postings suggests the title will primarily be developed at the publisher’s recently formed 2K Marin studio, while it has also been speculated that BioShock creator and director Ken Levine will not be involved in the project.

You can get the whole story over at Next-Gen… but it’s the kind of rumor that makes us all warm and squishy inside.

World of Warcraft, the game which has granted Blizzard executives the luxury of swimming in Olympic-sized pools full of money, has updated today to some new version number we’ll all forget by the end of this article.

What is interesting is the list of changes (those are always interesting). The full list of what’s been changed can be found at the World of Warcraft site, but here are some of the highlights:

- /timetest is a command that can be run to provide information on game performance. /timetest 0 turns the command off. When the command is issued, the next time a player uses a flight master to travel, certain statistics will be measured and displayed at the end of that flight. All weather effects and spawns are shutdown during the test.
- A “Withdraw-Repair Only” button has been added to the guild bank controls. If this is set for a guild rank, then that rank cannot actually withdraw funds from the guild bank, but they can still use that daily amount of money for repairs.
- Ready check (/readycheck) will now display a visual display of each party/raid member’s status next to their name. This will display in the Party UI, the Raid UI and the Raid pullout UI. A player will get a check mark if they are ready, a question mark if they have not replied and a red X if they are not ready or are afk.

Despite the great shadow Bill Gates’ retirement cast over this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, gamers had a lot to sink their teeth into with the announcement of new titles for the Games for Windows initiative. In a press release from Microsoft, it’s announced that several upcoming games are being shown off at this year’s CES (which is underway as I write this), including “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures” (Funcom, Eidos Interactive), “Conflict: Denied Ops” (Eidos Interactive), “Frontlines: Fuel of War” (THQ), “Space Siege” (SEGA), “Turning Point: Fall of Liberty” (Codemasters) and “Jigsaw Too Photo Edition” (Carbonated Games), a game for Windows Live Messenger. ANnouncements have also been made that the following games will be brought to Windows:

· “Alone in the Dark” (Atari)
· “Bionic Commando” (Capcom)
· “Conflict: Denied Ops” (Eidos Interactive)
· “Empire: Total War” (SEGA)
· “LEGO Indiana Jones” (LucasArts)
· “Microsoft Train Simulator 2” (Microsoft Game Studios)
· “Sins of a Solar Empire” (Stardock)
· “Space Siege” (SEGA)
· “Tomb Raider: Underworld” (Eidos Interactive)

Rockstar and Valve have entered an agreement to get some classic Rockstar games out into the hands of the public via their Steam content delivery system.

Titles now available for download include Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto II, Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Manhunt, Midnight Club: Street Racing II and Wild Metal Country.

Some good stuff in there, to be sure. Hmm… I ought to get myself into the content delivery game. I bet there’s some money to be made there.

The best TV show I never watched, Firefly, is getting its very own MMO. Kinda sorta. No word on whether Joss Whedon is involved (highly unlikely), Fox Licensing & Merchandising tapped the DIY MMO company, Multiverse for the gig.

Getting past all of the marketing speak, this is an interesting development all the same. Multiverse is a company that serves as an engine and a clearing house for indie MMO content. None of these games on the system are ever going to scratch Blizzard’s juggernaut, but conversely, small groups with a clever idea, armed with a smattering of Python for scripting can plug into a ready-made development platform and let their world take shape, no matter how lame grand

Now, Firefly didn’t get a fair shake from Fox, moving times around, showing the series out of order and all that, but the fans are rabid. That Fox is willing to throw some relatively high-profile IP at the Multiverse company only bodes well for its indie MMO enterprise. That, and being a DIY company, Fox doesn’t really stand to lose anything in the deal — the worst case is that this will simply become just another forgotten MMO in a cluttered graveyard.

Everyone’s favorite B-Movie property, Stargate, is getting its own MMO. Granted the MMO is actually based on the TV series spin-offs, but hey, let’s not get picky.

During the returning season of Stargate Atlantis on the Sci-Fi channel this year, there’s a contest being held. The winner gets their likeness immortalized in the new MMO. Great for fans, I’m sure.

From the press release:

Starting Jan. 18, 2008, viewers can enter for a chance to win an opportunity to have their name or likeness incorporated into Stargate Worlds in the Unlock the Gate Sweepstakes.* Viewers are invited to watch Stargate Atlantis each Friday starting on Jan. 18, 2008 at 10/9c on SciFi to retrieve a unique code to enter the sweepstakes.

Sounds easy enough. If you’re inclined to watch the show, that is.

Oh, official blog,

forums,

and trailer:

Ok, so it’s the top ten games of the year from Gametunnel.

But it’s a good list, and has several games off the beaten track. These are where the ideas still are, not in that big-budget FPS your buddy just got that you simply had to play.

Check it out.

Ubisoft has announced Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms, a new browser-based multiplayer strategy game.

Yep, one of those games like Planetarion where all the action is inside your web browser. There’s nearly no information on the game yet, save marketing-speak saying players can “lead gigantic armies” and “create legendary heroes” and the like, however these games generally follow a standard form. Players usually have some form of “action points” that they can use to construct buildings or armies, or funnel into research or whatnot. These points are usually regenerated at a specific time (say, midnight every day) or very slowly build up over time–often with perks or bonus points given if you let them build up for a long time.

It should be interesting to see what Ubisoft does with the game, which is scheduled for release this coming spring. If you’ve got the Heroes of Might and Magic Complete Edition there is supposed to be a key hidden in it, which you can use to register for the beta at the website.

I like Dungeon Runners. It’s free, funny, and beats the pants off of solitaire for my time. But apparently, it’s a little bit too free. Dang hippies.

NCSoft has just released their update, “Chunk 2.” This unlocks a bunch of content to the free players that was previously available only to paying members ($4.95/month — not a bad deal), but the price of admission just went up a little. Still free, non-paying players will have to deal with a little bit of in-game advertising. That’s it. Just a little banner across the top of the window. And the game is still free.

So, in-game advertising to increase the viability of my favorite free dungeon crawl? I can live with that.

Dungeon Runners. Check it out.

The Sims is great fun, but the reason you don’t hear about it more is because, unlike World of Warcraft which you can actually walk away from at times, the Sims completely consumes its players eventually leaving them and their families lifeless husks devoid of life and soul.

I kid.

It only consumes your soul.

With the latest expansion set, however, it’s approaching a universe-collapsing singularity. The Sims 2: Free Time allows you to give your Sims hobbies and free time activities they can pursue for their entire Sim-lifetime. These activities are the sorts of things you’d probably find yourself doing if you shut off the computer or turned off the modem for a change. (Not that we want you to do that: we love you, our readers.) Among the activities are Arts and Crafts, Music, Modeling, Baking, Dancing, Science, and Nature just to name a few.

But if you’re in to the Sims, this really looks like a worthwhile expansion, sure to add depth to your Sims’ existence. And occupy a great deal of time in your real existence.

Well, are you?

Skyone’s dreadfully embarrassing game show that pits adults against the basic knowledge of kidlets has an online version.

Here it is.

Even better, you have the ability to post and share your scores online.

No, I’m not telling you how I did.

Sony has announced the release of Secrets of Faydwer and Rise of Kunark, expansions for EverQuest I and II, respectively.

Rise of Kunark, for EverQuest II, was called a “return to nostalgia” by senior producer Scott Hartsman. Many new gameplay areas are based on zones from the original EverQuest such as Karnor’s Castle, the Lake of Ill Omen, Sebilis, and Veeshan’s Peak It also raises the level cap to 80 and adds a new starting area called Timorous Deep with content for those under level 20.

Secrets of Faydwer, the fourteenth expansion for EverQuest, also increases the level cap to 80 and adds 15 new zones as well as thousands of new items.

In an amusing and pointless anecdote, my brother once download the Mac version of EverQuest and, upon logging in, was completely unable to find another human being.