By Luke Plunkett from Kotaku:
In the upcoming Iron Man movie sequel, Tony Stark won't be going it alone. He's got James Rhodes, aka War Machine, to help him out. And you know what that means: yes, Don Cheadle action figures.
This 1/6 scale figure is by Hot Toys, the same people who brought you
the amazing Iron Man Mk III figure we showed you the other week.
No idea on price (think expensive), but it'll be out towards the middle of the year, is perhaps even more detailed than Iron Man thanks to his shoulder-mounted weapons, and that Don Cheadle face is
really freaking me out.
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By Brian Ashcraft from Kotaku:
For the uninitiated, Final Fantasy XIII might seem like the sequel to Final Fantasy XII. It's not. Each game is its own title, so if there was a FFXIII sequel, it would be FFXIII-2.
When asked about the chances of a direct FFXIII sequel, the game's producer Yoshinori Kitase replied, "In the past three years we worked both on the world and on the various systems. Creating these systems isn't very glamorous and can frankly be a bit boring." Okay, go on.
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By timothy from Slashdot's 'strailian's-too-difficult deptartment:
An anonymous reader writes
"The Australian Informatics Olympiad programming test is being run in a couple of months. I'm an experienced programmer and I'm thinking of volunteering to tutor interested kids at my children's school to get them ready. There will be children of all levels in the group, from those that can't write 'hello world' in any language, to somewhat experienced programmers. For those starting from scratch, I'm wondering what language to teach them to code in. Accepted languages are C, C++, Pascal, Java, PHP, Python and Visual Basic. I'm leaning towards Python, because it is a powerful language with a simple syntax. However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C. Is it better to teach them something in 2 months that they're likely to be able to code in but possibly run foul of the CPU time limit, or struggle to teach them to code in a more complicated syntax like C/C++ which would however give them the best chance of having a fast solution?"Add / Read Replies (0)
By Meredith Woerner from io9:
We've seen the graphically hilarious and violently entertaining
Kick-Ass. Read our first impressions and learn why any film that makes fun of
The Dark Knight, Spider-Man and
the Spirit is ok in our books. Plus, Nic Cage's final superhero debut.
The Good
Enough Genre References To Last A Lifetime
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
That Game Company's Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, saw their team's game Flower nominated for several Game Developer's Choice Awards, winning for Best Downloadable. We talked about their future, Pokemon, and, since they made motion-games for the PS3, PlayStation Move.
This is one of a series of Kotaku video interviews with many of the award-winners and special honorees from the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out the rest of our
GDC Backstage clips, featuring the creators of some of the world's best video games.
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By Annalee Newitz from io9:
It's last night's South by Southwest party - now with the amazing live-action video technology you've been hearing so much about. See a clip of MC Frontalot (filmed singing "Goth Girls" by
avinyl) live at our party, plus more swordfighting!
Here is some great swordfighting from the High Fantasy Society, one of whom got challenged to a duel by another person at the party.
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
Two of Naughty Dog's top people collected five Game Developers Choice Awards lat week for Uncharted 2. Short on material for
my backstage interviews, I asked them which awards they deserved most and least. They answered and offered Pokemon tips.
This is one of a series of Kotaku video interviews with many of the award-winners and special honorees from the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out the rest of our
GDC Backstage clips, featuring the creators of some of the world's best video games.
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By Cyriaque Lamar from io9:
A Vanderbilt University study has new findings on how psychopaths weigh risk and reward. The study suggests that psychopaths may possess amped-up dopamine reward system that compel them to pursue their goals, regardless of the cost.
Study co-author David Zald notes that previous studies of psychopathy focus on the personality traits of psychopaths rather than the way psychopaths assess incentives:
Quote:
There has been a long tradition of research on psychopathy that has focused on the lack of sensitivity to punishment and a lack of fear, but those traits are not particularly good predictors of violence or criminal behavior [...] Our data is suggesting that something might be happening on the other side of things. These individuals appear to have such a strong draw to reward — to the carrot — that it overwhelms the sense of risk or concern about the stick.
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By Owen Good from Kotaku:
Haiku is so overdone, and would be verbose compared to these spot-on assessments of nearly 100 video games, done in just five words by Games Radar. Some rate a spoiler alert.
"
Max Payne: Dead family means bullet time." "
Bomberman: Trapped in a corner. F**k." "
Assassin's Creed: Eavesdropping on conversations gets boring." And, right after that, "
Grand Theft Auto IV: Quit calling me about TEETEES!" "
Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Quit gettin' naked around zombies!"
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
Doom co-creator John Carmack earned a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Game Developer's Choice Awards, but he's not done. Oddly, he wasn't sent an early iPad despite being a
big iPhone games booster. We discussed that, plus, naturally, Pokemon.
Note that the iPad is set for release early next month. Carmack's id Software has been one the best-regarded major game development studios working on games for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
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By Owen Good from Kotaku:
Tuesday is named for Tiw, the Norse god of war. Fittingly it's also the day Sony's
God of War III releases.
Other highlights:
Pokemon HeartGold and
SoulSilver are out today for the DS, the
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening DLC is available Tuesday for all three platforms, and Perfect Dark comes to Xbox Live Marketplace on Wednesday.
This week's count: eight for DS, seven for Wii, six for PC, four for PS3 and 360,
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By Cyriaque Lamar from io9:
Today (3/14) is Pi Day, a hallowed celebration in which radius and circumference lovers everywhere convene to eat circular pastries and challenge each other to decimal-reciting contests. Score your festivities with the awesomely underrated soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky's
Pi.
The 1998 soundtrack not only launched Clint Mansell's composing career; it also acts as a veritable who's who for electronic music at the end of the 20th century. It's kind of incredible how this indie movie with a budget of less than $1 million managed to attract such heavyweight talent as Aphex Twin, Massive Attack, Orbital, and Autechre. In the spirit of Pi Day, we've posted a retrospective of the soundtrack below. On second thought, you better not spin this at your Pi Day Party. It'll just fill your guests with profound psychological dread and perhaps inspire some impromptu self-trepanations.
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By Annalee Newitz from io9:
It was like the dreams of a million geeks compressed into a highly-explosive substance and launched at high speed into the heart of Austin. It was io9's Timebender party at South by Southwest. Here is photographic evidence.
The evening began with lines snaking down Trinity St. outside the Pure Volume House, which was hosting the Timebender party last night. Before you could enter the doors, you had to run a gauntlet formed by members of the local 501st Star Garrison, who showed up in some fantastic gear: We had a storm trooper, a Ventress, a Clone, and a Boba Fett. Syfy Channel's Craig Engler was so impressed
he tweeted about it.
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
Batman: Arkham Asylum art director David Hego did better than I could, talking in a language other than his native one, about Batman winning Best Game Design at the Game Developer's Choice Awards. Plus, he tolerated my Pokemon tips request.
This is one of a series of Kotaku video interviews with many of the award-winners and special honorees from the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out the rest of our
GDC Backstage clips, featuring the creators of some of the world's best video games.
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By Josh Wimmer from io9:
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel SO BORED AND ANGRY. If Fritz Leiber's 1965 Hugo winner proves anything, it's that the award isn't a stamp of guaranteed quality.
I'm not quite sure where to start with this one, because after I finally finished
The Wanderer, late last night, I dug around online for a couple of seconds and found two other reviews of it —
this mostly positive one by Marc Goldstein, and one by Sam Jordison headlined
"Why on earth did Fritz Leiber win the Hugo?" that more or less mirrored my own feelings — which, combined, summed up most of the obvious points I could make about the book. Note that there are spoilers in both reviews, and that there will be here, too. (Usually I try to avoid them, but doing so here will not make this book any better, I promise.)
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By Cyriaque Lamar from io9:
Last week, Julie Knight of Coxley, England came home to a gruesome sight. More than 100 dead and injured starlings had fallen out of the sky and onto her property. Was it an invisible UFO or a
Flashforward-like event?
According to Mrs. Knight,
Quote:
The sky was raining starlings. One of my neighbours saw them. They seemed to just fall out of the sky. About 70 were dead straight away.
The only way to describe what they looked like is that they seemed to have had a fright and were petrified.
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
After Valve's Gabe Newell was honored as a Pioneer at the GDC Awards, I asked him to predict gaming's future and to offer
more Portal 2 teases, a Half-Life 2: Episode 3 update and Pokemon tips. My success rate: 50%.
Notes: The "John" who Newell refers to is John Carmack. The Portal 2 thing he refers to is the blue-screen "
crash" that occurred minutes earlier when he was accepting the Pioneer award.
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
The creators of fan-favorite Penny Arcade (comic, expo, cultural force) earned the Ambassador Award at the 2010 Game Developer's Choice Awards. I asked these fine gentlemen for advice so that I too could win ... and I got Pokemon tips.
(Mild profanity in this one.)
This is one of a series of Kotaku video interviews with many of the award-winners and special honorees from the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out the rest of our
GDC Backstage clips, featuring the creators of some of the world's best video games.
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
Beating Zelda and Grand Theft Auto, Jeremiah Slaczka's 5th Cell won top handheld and innovation honors at the Game Developer's Choice Awards for Scribblenauts. After winning, he explained why
the sequel isn't "Scribblenauts 2" ... and I got Pokemon tips.
This is one of a series of Kotaku video interviews with many of the award-winners and special honorees from the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out the rest of our
GDC Backstage clips, featuring the creators of some of the world's best video games.
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By Graeme McMillan from io9:
As everyone knows, you can't have a franchise without licensed spin-offs these days, even if no-one demanded them. But which Expanded Universe is a book/comic book/videogame too far? You decide!
The father of all Expanded Universes has to be
Star Wars, of course; with television shows, books, videogames, toys, comic books and all manner of other material needing to be fed, the six movies have been spun out to literally thousands of years' worth of material to choose from, including multiple rises and falls of the Jedi. Close behind is
Star Trek, which has makes up for staying close to television/movie canon with the sheer amount of novelizations and comic books to spin out from it. Everything else -
Battlestar Galactica, which had spin-off books and comics, similar to
Stargate,
Jericho and
Buffy, amongst many others - seems miniscule in comparison, with the potential exception of the
Aliens and
Predator cosmologies, because
Aliens Vs. Predator started life as a comic spin-off before it turned into a movie franchise. But is that an exception, a valuable and worthwhile EU? Do
Star Wars'
Legacy,
The Old Republic and suchlike have life beyond cash-ins? Do
Lost's ARGs and webisodes give answers to the show's questions? Did
anyone appreciate the
Battlestar Galactica spin-offs? We want you to tell us which Expanded Universe feels like the biggest waste of effort from everyone involved.
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By Owen Good from Kotaku:
I have a fear of horror films, and by extension horror games. I'm just too attenuated to suspense and having the hell scared out of me. But what I'm really experiencing, argues one writer, is just that: scary, not horror.
Craig Lager, at Gaming Daily, points out the real differences in the two themes in arguing that the horror games genre has to grow up. Calling such games as
Doom 3 and
F.E.A.R. "lazy in execution" and stocked with jump-out-at-you tropes, he compares them to scenes in other games that truly are horrific.
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By Stephen Totilo from Kotaku:
Zynga's Bill Mooney obtained the 2010 Game Developer's Choice Award for Farmville in the Best Social/Online Game category. To celebrate, he allowed Kotaku to brainstorm with him about world domination, Farmville: The Movie and ... I got Pokemon tips.
This is one of a series of Kotaku video interviews with many of the award-winners and special honorees from the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out the rest of our
GDC Backstage clips, featuring the creators of some of the world's best video games.
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By Graeme McMillan from io9:
Witness a model of new energy-producing skyscraper from Polish architects mode:lina that mixes wind, kinetic and water production for maximum efficiency, while looking curiously organic and mechanic at the same time. If this
is the future, we like it. [
Designboom]
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By Soulskill from Slashdot's flailing-of-arms-and-marketing-departments deptartment:
An editorial at Eurogamer delves into
what Sony and Microsoft hope to achieve with their upcoming console motion control systems, despite entering the market several years after Nintendo set the standard. "The cards Sony has placed on the table this week suggest one answer to that question. It sees PlayStation Move as being an upgrade path for Wii owners — an invitation to the tens of millions of consumers who have invested in Nintendo's platform to swim upstream to the more powerful, HD-enabled system. Yet even Sony's most optimistic view of the market will be tempered by a dose of realism here. ... What's more likely — and what Sony are probably quietly hoping to achieve a significant proportion of the Move's success through — is that the technology will expand the appeal of the PS3 in the family setting." The Digital Foundry blog has
an in-depth look at the PlayStation Move from Sony's event at the Game Developers Conference, saying, "... if there was one positive you could take away from the event, it was that Move is clearly a far more precise implementation than the Wiimote. Some of the games felt clearly more 'tactile' than the Wii equivalents."
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By Cyriaque Lamar from io9:
In tonight's National Geographic special
Sizing Up Sperm, the act of conception is re-imagined as an insane, dystopian game show replete with booby traps, gangs of killer leukocytes, and 250 million pushy contestants.
As you can see from the below photos, the production team of
Sizing Up Sperm has transformed spermatozoa into white-suited drones straight out of
THX 1138. Also check out the creepy masked leukocytes, who seem straight of
Zardoz. We presume this special has a happy ending and not millions of writhing white-suits choking to death on a giant prophylactic force field.
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