Tag: gaming
Gaming BAFTAs – winners announced
Last night, the gaming BAFTA winners were announced. They went predominantly to ‘hardcore’, more traditional games and ignored more recent successes. Particularly missing out were GTA IV and the Guitar Hero/Rock Band franchises. Call of Duty 4, on the other hand, cleared up – winning three awards.
Action & Adventure: Fable II
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto IV, Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider: Underworld
Artistic Achievement: LittleBigPlanet
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dead Space, Gears of War 2 (Eh? – ed.), Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Best Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Rock Band
Casual: Boom Blox
Nominated: Guitar Hero World Tour, Buzz! Quiz TV, LittleBigPlanet, SingStar Vol. 2, Wii Fit
Gameplay: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band, Super Mario Galaxy
Handheld: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Nominated: Geometry Wars: Galaxies, God of War: Chains of Olympus, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Patapon, Soul Bubbles
Multiplayer: Left 4 Dead
Nominated: Buzz! Quiz TV, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band
Original Score: Dead Space
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Sports: Race Driver: GRID
Nominated: FIFA 09, Football Manager 2009, MotorStorm Pacific Rift, Pure, Wii Fit
Strategy: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution
Nominated: Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Ninjatown, SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise
Story and Character: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mass Effect
Technical Achievement: Spore
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet
Use of Audio: Dead Space
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet, Super Mario Galaxy
GAME Award of 2008 (public voting): Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Left 4 Dead, LittleBigPlanet, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wii Fit, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Gary won’t be too happy, given how few of his original recommendations won awards. I’m fairly pleased though – CoD4 is fantastic, as is Spore, Civilization, GRID, Left 4 Dead and Fable 2. Given the competition, it’s good to see excellent games beating off the populist choices like GTA IV and Gears of War.
(via Buzzin Games)
Space Phallus – the best 8-bit game you've never played
Space Phallus Trailer @ Yahoo! Video
Space Phallus. Just from the name you already know what to expect. It’s an 8-bit shoot-em-up game featuring many, many cocks. You control the disembodied head of a dog, and you’ve got to make your way through space while waves of evil space penises assault you.
It’s available as downloads for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and it weighs in at about 10MB (well, the Windows version does, anyway). Download. Unzip. Cocks. The arrows move your ship around, z shoots, x shoots missiles, and c activates ‘fire breath’.
The best thing? It’s not only completely ridiculous, it’s actually an incredibly fun game, too. Kudos to creator Charlie of Charlie’s Games.
Space Phallus (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
Nintendo releases 'Pro' Wii controller
Nintendo’s got a new controller for the Wii, in addition to the Wii Remote/Nunchuk combo and the ‘classic’ controller, used to play retro console games. It’s called the “Pro”.
It rejects some of the differences between the classic controller and most other gamepads, adding back in the ‘legs’ and moving the wire back to the top of the device. The shoulder buttons are also made more accessible, and the whole thing’s put on some weight, too.
Unfortunately, there’s “no plans” for a European release, let alone any pricing. I wouldn’t chuck away your classic controllers just yet.
(via Eurogamer)
VIDEO: Circulafloor – intelligent floor for virtual reality use
Circulafloor is a set of four tiles that can intelligently position themselves so that you never fall off, but remain in one place. It’s an interesting idea, and not one that hasn’t come up before, though this one seems to have a long way to go before it’s ready for production.
Looks like you’ve got to walk really rather slowly for starters, and I wouldn’t trust it if I saw the thing first. You never know, though, if this ends up a little more practical, with more tiles, it could be a winner.
(via Dvice)
Quake Live is now open to all
Ever play much Quake 3? Lots of people did, and now you can enjoy that same twitchy deathmatch experience in your browser. Quake Live is now open for business to everyone, after an extensive closed beta. Oh, and did I mention it’s totally free?
Just point your browser to the Quake Live website, sit in a queue for a bit, install the plugin, restart your browser, sit in the queue for a bit longer, and then you’re in. The game ranks you by completing a 10-minute training match, and then you’re ready to go.
Technically, it’s less impressive than it seems. It basically just uses your browser as an interface for a program that runs on your PC. That said, though, the ranking and matchmaking system is sophisticated, pitting me mostly against people that weren’t a million miles better than me.
Developers ID Software make money from it from ads on the walls of the arenas, as well as advertising on the socreboards at the end of the matches, and in the border of the browser window.
You’ll find that the site’s rather busy right now, as it’s only just become available, but if you perservere, then the actual ingame experience is pretty good, even on an aging PC with a rubbish internet connection.
What’s your experience been of Quake Live, so far? Let us know in the comments.
Quake Live
Medion unveils cheap, high-spec, gaming PC – the "Erazer".
Medion, known for rebadging expensive PCs and selling them cheap, has just sent us word of its new gaming PC – the Erazer. It’s a reassuringly high-specced machine considering the price, with perhaps only its graphics card letting it down. Let’s have a look in more detail.
The machine is centred around the fantastic Intel Core i7 920 processer, which runs at 2.66GHz with 8MB of cache. That’s paired up with a respectable 9600GT graphics card with 512MB of graphics memory and DirectX10 compatibility. There’s a 1TB hard drive, a whopping 6GB of RAM, a full 10 (10!) USB ports and your average Wi-Fi, optical media drive, memory card reader and a few bits of bundled software.
All that’s available right now for the low low price of £899, though that doesn’t include mouse, keyboard, monitor or mousemat. And we all know how important a mousemat is. I’d have been happier if Medion had swapped out the i7 for a slightly lower-spec, but just as capable, Q6600 processor and upgraded the graphics card instead, to an 8800GTX, perhaps.
Dell launching PC software and games download service
Massive PC ubercorporation Dell hasn’t got the best reputation with gamers, despite owning the expensive Alienware gaming PC brand. That hasn’t deterred them, however, from launching a download service where you’ll be able to get PC games and software, as well as music.
Codemasters, Sega, Electronic Arts, Eidos and Atari have signed up on the gaming front to offer titles including Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Spore, Tomb Raider: Underworld, F.E.A.R. 2, Alone in the Dark and Football Manager Live. You’ll notice that none of those, with the possible exception of F.E.A.R. 2, could be called “gamer’s” games.
That might be because gamers are generally already invested in one download store -Valve’s Steam. I think Dell realizes that they’re going to find that audience very tricky to crack, so they’re aiming at a more mainstream target demographic instead.
As well as games, the service also offers software from Kaspersky, Nero and Lavasoft, presumably Kaspersky Antivirus, Nero Burning Rom and Lavasoft Ad-Aware respectively. It’s a bit of a shame for PC owners, because programs duplicating the functionality of all those bits of software are widely, and legally, available on the internet for free (for home use).
Lastly, there’s also music. Albums from “major artists” are available, there’s no DRM, and there’ll be new titles on a weekly basis. The catalogue doesn’t look incredible, and the prices aren’t any better than other download sites, but I suppose it could be handy for people who haven’t checked out Spotify yet.
The Dell download store will roll out across Europe in the next few months, starting with the UK, France and Germany. It’s been up and running in the USA for a while, and the UK site is here.
YouTube Video of the Week: Doctor Spin – Tetris
You might have forgotten this, or been unaware of its existence, but I thought it was worth some nostalgia. This is Doctor Spin performing their rave-tinged version of the music from “Tetris” on Top of the Pops in 1992. Oh da!
REVIEW: F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin for the Xbox 360 and PC
When Duncan and I were offered to take F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin for a test drive, there was a bit of a scuffle over who should be the lucky one to review it. On the one hand, Duncan’s a much more experienced and discerning gamer than me. On the other, I’m his boss. So, instead we thought we’d do the early fair thing which was for both of us to test it from each of our point of views, each of our expertise and each of the two different formats – PC and console.
Duncan on PC – the expert’s take
Let’s get one thing straight here, before we begin. I’m sure as hell not going to put full stops between the letters of F.E.A.R. every time I write it, so you’re just going to have to cope with me calling it FEAR. That alright with everyone? Okay, then we can begin.
FEAR 2 is the sequel to 2005’s rather successful military horror first-person-shooter FEAR, which ostensibly stands for “First Encounter Assault Recon”. The plot revolves around combatting an army of telepathically-controlled clone soldiers, created by a company called Armacham, and gone rogue.
Also central to the plot is a creepy little girl called Alma, who appears constantly in nightmarish visions and flashbacks…
Video Game BAFTA nominations announced – Call of Duty, GTA IV and Rock Band lead predictable line up
The Video Game BAFTAs are nothing to do with the proper BAFTA awards that happened over the weekend. It’s different. It is, more importantly, a separate event, so you don’t get the oddly-shaped, bearded, podgy video game makers of the world mingling with the beautiful people of the film universe.
The gaming BAFTA winners will be announced this March and the Academy has just released its full, vast list of all the nominations. They’re all here, right from “Best Game” to the odd world of “Best Audio”.
You and I, the common folk, are allowed to vote in only ONE category – the GAME-sponsored “GAME Award of 2008”. Nine games are in this category – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero…
