You spoke, they say they listened. For a decade, Spike TV has been hosting one of the only nationally televised video game award show in the country. It was a show of celebrity, of glitz, and, oh yes, of video games too. Over its ten year history, the show seemed to constantly tweak its mix of glitz and games, bringing…
One of E3's best demos this year was shown, not on a glitzy mega-booth, but in a quiet back room, without fuss or fanfare. "Back to Dinosaur Island 2" is a proof of concept virtual reality demo from Crytek, for its forthcoming game Robinson: The Journey. Shown on an Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype, it's the follow-up to a demo…
The best way to prepare yourself for 40+ hour gaming session is to first create a "marathon groove," says Andrew Seklir, one of the two men behind the crowdfunded documentary Man vs. Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler. The film has already reached its funding goal on Kickstarter, earning $62,298 of its initial $53,470 goal as of press…
In an industry banking on the draw of realistic visuals and dizzingly-paced action sequences, motion sickness is not uncommon. How serious of an issue it is varies from game to game and player to player, but some developers are doing everything in their power to make sure it's not a problem on their own table. During E3 earlier this year…
I finished Alien: Isolation last weekend, after a glorious, 3-week slow burn with the game. Despite its issues (and it does have issues), I feel comfortable saying it's likely going to be my personal game of the year. More importantly, I think there's a lot to learn from it. Spoiler warning for Alien: Isolation ahead. Alien: Isolation is an intense…
Yesterday, the game developers community talked about GAME_JAM, a failed reality TV show about game jams. It fell apart for a variety of reasons, all better explained by the links in this article. This blog describes my part of the story, a minor part as I perceived it from the periphery, and includes some important advice on how to deal…
Japanese games were hard to ignore at E3 this year. Japanese role-playing games dominated the PlayStation Vita bar at Sony's booth, with titles like Valhalla Knights, Dragon's Crown and Ys: Memories of Celceta taking up nearly half the rows of demo units. The words Dark Souls 2 seemed to bubble excitedly on attendees lips. And in the tidal wave of…
Ubisoft's Dean Evans and filmmaker Jason Eisener are as different as night and day. Eisener's creative passion is at a measured, steady simmer, while Evans is a firecracker. One makes video games, the other horror films. One works with Games4Lifes, the other blood made with corn syrup. But both men are part of the same story: the birth of Far…
Game developers and publishers have made a fetish out of placing their quivering ears to the lips of consumers and 'listening' to feedback about their products being, in the perverted argot of the marketing department, 'transparent.' How much this is an exercise in public relations, and how much it actually converts into palpable action is, well, opaque. But one game…
Apple summoned the tech world to San Francisco and, yet again, announced nothing meaningful in video games. Pokémon did, however, with Pokémon Go, an all-new game for mobile devices. A court hit an overdue Kickstarter with fines and damages triple that of what it originally raised. And Microsoft has begun shutting down the Xbox Live Indie Games service, and will close it for good…
