Filed under: Mac, PC, On the internet

An evolution of Breakout and a game based on a Canadian vampire show join GameTap this week. With all the GDC coverage though, let’s get this out of the way and get back to everything that’s going on. Also, in case you missed it, check out the screenshots for Grimm, which starts on GameTap this summer.

• Ball 7 (Windows) - Bounce the ball, break the bricks. The evolution of a tried and true classic gaming formula.
• Blood Ties (Windows) - Join Vicki Nelson and her vampire partner in this game based on the Canadian TV series.
• Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat (Windows) - An adventure game where you play as a billionaire 26-year-old. Not a celebutant simulator.

After the break you’ll find GameTap’s list of free games with new additions bolded for simple reference. Joining the ranks this week is Rogue Trooper, a good game … especially for free. Don’t forget, the death clock ticks on for Myst Online: Uru Live — it will die in 43 days.

Continue reading GameTap Thursday: The Blood Ties of Largo Winch’s Ball 7

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Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters, Online

Our prognosis for mods on the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3: not so good. In an interview with Joystiq, Epic Games’ VP Mark Rein told us that there’s no progress with Microsoft on making UT3 mods work with Xbox Live. One would think Microsoft would be more open to community content given the current Xbox Live Community announcement, but Rein noted that the system is different. Rein said the Xbox 360 version has no set release date.

Conversely, Rein did acknowledge the current PS3 mod system is less than stellar and told us to anticipate improvements coming soon. We’ll have more from our interviews with Mark Rein, CEO Tim Sweeney, and Cliffy B later this week.

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Filed under: Culture, Nintendo DS, On the internet, GDC, Casual

Bob Sabiston, creator of the rotoscoping software behind A Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly wanted to draw and animate on his DS. So he wrote his own application, Inchworm. He says, “[It was] sort of a passion project, something we really want to see on the DS.” In between his GDC meetings to find a publisher, I sketched through the latest build of the tool.

Even though Inchworm is closer to Painter than Mario Paint, it’s still fun for dabbling. Artists use the stylus to scribble out stills or cels. Top-tier tools that I’d expect in Photoshop even filter down to this level, including layers, opacity settings, alpha channels, selections, and onion-skin animations. Sabiston also intends to add smear brushes to blend paints and sound effects for animations.

Continue reading GDC08: Hands-on Inchworm

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Filed under: Mac, Personal computer, On the internet

An evolution of Breakout and a game based on a Canadian vampire show join GameTap this week. With all the GDC coverage though, let’s get this out of the way and get back to everything that’s going on. Also, in case you missed it, check out the screenshots for Grimm, which starts on GameTap this summer.

• Ball 7 (Windows) - Bounce the ball, break the bricks. The evolution of a tried and true classic gaming formula.
• Blood Ties (Windows) - Join Vicki Nelson and her vampire partner in this game based on the Canadian television series.
• Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat (Windows) - An adventure game where you play as a billionaire 26-year-old. Not a celebutant simulator.

After the break you’ll find GameTap’s list of free games with new additions bolded for easy reference. Joining the ranks this week is Rogue Trooper, a good game … especially for free. Don’t forget, the death clock ticks on for Myst Online: Uru Live — it will die in 43 days.

Continue reading GameTap Thursday: The Blood Ties of Largo Winch’s Ball 7

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Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters, On the web

Our prognosis for mods on the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3: not so good. In an interview with Joystiq, Epic Games’ VP Mark Rein told us that there’s no progress with Microsoft on making UT3 mods work with Xbox Live. One would think Microsoft would be more open to community content given the recent Xbox Live Community announcement, but Rein noted that the system is different. Rein stated the Xbox 360 version has no set release date.

Conversely, Rein did acknowledge the current PS3 mod system is less than stellar and told us to anticipate improvements coming soon. We’ll have more from our interviews with Mark Rein, CEO Tim Sweeney, and Cliffy B later this week.

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Filed under: Nintendo Wii, On the internet

We’ve been annoyed with the Wii’s lack of downloadable Virtual Console demos for quite a while now, so we probably shouldn’t be too surprised that Nintendo has declared games in their upcoming Wii Ware service won’t be required to have downloadable demos. Surprised isn’t really the world … slightly miffed is more like it.

We’re only slightly miffed because Nintendo hasn’t quite banned demos from the service. In an interview with Newsweek’s N’gai Croal, Nintendo of America director of project development Tom Prata said that “having demos [is] … not a requirement from Nintendo.” If we’re reading that right, that means demos would be granted on the service, but that they won’t necessarily be available for each game.

The decision to forgo a demo mandate was made, according to Prata, because demos are a “very high-priced type of endeavor” for a developer. That might be true in the short term, but overall we wonder if developer can afford not to have demos on a service like this. After all, Xbox Live Arcade has managed just fine by requiring developers to create those “expensive” demos — in fact, by, early stats showed about 20 percent of XBLA demo players purchased the full game, leading directly to increased revenue for all involved. Still, we guess giving developers more choice in these matters is usually a good thing. We just hope many developers will choose to help their customers and themselves by letting us try before we purchase.

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