F1 2010 Developer Diary #1

Find out about the graphics, career mode, and “the most complicated weather system ever seen in a racing game” in this first developer diary.

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F1 2010 Developer Diary #1

F1 2010 Developer Diary #1

Find out about the graphics, career mode, and “the most complicated weather system ever seen in a racing game” in this first developer diary.

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F1 2010 Developer Diary #1

Max & The Magic Marker Preview: For Those With Imagination [Preview]

Already released for computers and coming to WiiWare this Monday, Max & The Magic Marker gives a good impression. Especially if you play it on a screen that’s 137-inches diagonal. For those of you who don’t have 137-inch screens, just trust me about this, ok? The people from Press Play, the Danish development studio behind the game, had access to one last Friday and let me play their game on it. Max & The Magic Marker is a side-scrolling platform game starring a hero who can run and jump and hope that you will aid his journey by drawing things into his world. Two Press Play developers talked me through a couple of levels in Max’s fifteen-level game. Using a Wii nunhuck, I made Max run and jump and collect blobs or orange marker ink. With the remote I was able to use that orange marker to draw structures into the world. The drawings follow rudimentary laws of physics, falling, tilting and leaning as they drop into place, creating ramps, shelter, seesaw counter-weights or enemy-killing bricks. Ink is finite but can be sucked back into the marker when needed. The ink reserve resets at every checkpoint, meaning you can’t horde. One of the nicest touches is that more complex things can be drawn into existence if you overlap your lines. For example, a straight line might fall and create a steep ramp. Drawing a few short lines across it will add rigid ladder-like rungs which Max can climb up. The drawing gameplay is similar to what was presented in last year’s Drawn To Life sequels, but the developers maintain that they were unaware of that when they started this project almost two years ago. I was impressed with the clever level design which required increasingly inspired line placement. But I was more wowed by the polish. The graphics are the best kind of cheerful, colorful renderings that make a platformer fun to play through even when the going gets heard. Sound effects are synced to the music of the game, somehow making even Max’s footsteps match the soundtrack’s beat. When the game is put into a freeze mode to allow more careful drawing, the art style you see in these screenshots changes into a crayon-style rendering of the graphics on-screen. I got the impression that Max & The Magic Marker will be a brief game. It has hidden items that can be collected to unlock special replay features and enhanced modes (altered physics, for example). The main appeal of this game, though, looks to be the polish of a tight, carefully designed experience. The levels I played were smartly made. Fun trivia note: Press Play is located on the fourth floor of a building in Copenhagen. On the floor above are the makers of Limbo, another artfully designed and well-crafted side-scroller that it was a joy to play and preview this week. There’s something good about that building, it seems to me. Max & The Magic Marker will be out for WiiWare on Monday for $10.

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Max & The Magic Marker Preview: For Those With Imagination [Preview]

Hello, World’s Fastest Graphics Card [PC]

This is the Sapphire Radeon HD 5970, and it’s apparently the world’s fastest production video card. Which it had want to be, with a price tag hovering around the $700 mark. It’s got an overclocked ATI GPU that’s running at 850mhz, three large (and surely cosmetic) fans and, as you can see in the middle there, one enormous heatsink. Oh, and it also has 4GB of DDR3 RAM. So yes. With a 3DMark Vantage score of 22,000 , it will run Crysis. Hell, it can probably run Crysis ragged, then read its palms . The Sapphire Radeon replaces the regular Radeon HD 5970, which had held the title since November 2009 . The Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 Is Faster Than Every Other Graphics Card [Gizmodo] [image credit: fudzilla ]

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Hello, World’s Fastest Graphics Card [PC]

Shoot 1Up [Reader Writer]

Mommy’s Best Games Shoot 1UP explores the idea of taking a traditional shooter and having the player control a whole fleet instead of a single craft. You control the fleet by expanding or collapsing the group formation. When you expand the group, you charge and unleash a super laser but at the expense of making your fleet more vulnerable to enemies and their shots. It’s a really neat mechanic. Power-ups in the game are extra ships which get added to your fleet, increasing your firepower by their presence. When you lose all of your ships, you die. Game over. Destroyed ships leave point markers — not medals or anything but actual screens with the point value displayed on them — which can be collected to bolster your score. Mommy’s Best Games made Weapon of Choice and the upcoming Grapple Buggy. Shoot 1UP looks like crap by comparison. You get some absolutely huge bosses, but the ground is Truxton flat and boring to look at. There isn’t a hint of slowdown, but when the graphics are this barebones, you would be shocked if it did, even with all the stuff on the screen (and there is a lot). Shoot 1UP is a lazy effort in part by Mommy’s Best Games but an interesting experiment nonetheless. I know the developer is more than capable out putting out a better looking and sounding product, but given the wholly unique gameplay and the low price of entry (just 80 points), it’s definitely one to buy if only to encourage this kind of innovation in games, particularly one needing it as much as the shooter genre. #xboxindies Reply Republished from kotaku.com

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Shoot 1Up [Reader Writer]

Nintendo DSi XL Review: Super Size Me [Review]

The Nintendo DSi LL, (DSi XL in the West) is the latest addition to the hugely successful Nintendo platform. “LL” is the Japanese equivalent of “XL”, or “extra large”. But is bigger really better? Released in Japan in late November, the Nintendo DSi XL features 4.2 inch screens that are 93 percent larger than the DS Lite’s screens. It is also bundled with an extra (and larger) 5 inch touch pen. The redesign comes at the request of customers who said they wanted a larger screen — however, the pixel count is the same. Nintendo claims that the bigger screens make it easier to watch others play. The DSi XL is available in three colors: Dark Brown, Wine Red and Natural White. While the handheld has been announced for The West, the colors have not yet been announced. The Japanese version is also packed with three DSiWare titles pre-installed: Two brain training games (one for humanities, the other for sciences) and DS Easy Dictionary. Loved The Big Screens: Even though Nintendo is touting the DS XL’s screen as making it easier to watch others play, the most refreshing about the new, bigger screens is how they breathe life into old titles. While the graphics are the same, old favorites like Mario Kart look wonderful (and not blown out) running on the XL’s screens. The extra size both adds to the experience and creates an entirely new experience. The screen size is also well-suited to younger players who often stare over each other’s shoulders when watching a friend play. Brain Age also feels surprisingly fresh on the XL — a larger touch screen means a larger space to write. That, certainly, is a welcome addition. The Big Pen: The XL’s new Touch Pen feels like, well, a pen. The DS Stylus, traditionally, has been on the small size — not so great for games that require writing. To overcome this issue, players have, in the past, had to find third party solutions. For those looking for a larger pen that’s easier to grip, the XL has that. But if you are happy with the traditional DS Stylus, the portable is bundled with that as well. The smaller stylus slides into the DSi XL’s body, while the larger pen does not. The Buttons: As with the regular DSi, the buttons are clicky — in a good way. They’re responsive and certainly don’t feel mushy. The Finish: The top of part of the DSi XL’s clamshell has a glossy, smart finish. Looks great. However, the rest of the portable has a matte finish, making it practical. It’s easy to hold and isn’t a fingerprint magnet. The contrast works well, too. Hated Not So Portable: Yes, yes. The DSi XL is big. That’s the point! And while it works great playing it at your kitchen table or sitting on the sofa, it’s heavy and less great to lug it around outside of the house. Nintendo, it often seems, makes reiteration after reiteration of its products. The DSi XL might simply be that — the latest iteration until the next one comes along. As customers, it’s hard not to feel that we are directly involved in Nintendo R&D process (more so than with other companies), that the company sometimes releases products just to see if they catch on with consumers (ditto). In Japan, the DSi XL does seem to be catching on as the product posted strong initial sales. The extra large DSi could very well be here to stay — which means that this must be one of the first examples in which a Japanese company has released a bigger version of its products to commercial success. The larger screens are great. If only Nintendo could shave a bit off the DSi XL’s thickness, making a slightly slimmer and lighter DSi XL, if only. DSi XL Slim anyone? The DSi XL was released in Japan on November 22 for

Nintendo DSi XL Review: Super Size Me [Review]

The Nintendo DSi LL, (DSi XL in the West) is the latest addition to the hugely successful Nintendo platform. “LL” is the Japanese equivalent of “XL”, or “extra large”. But is bigger really better? Released in Japan in late November, the Nintendo DSi XL features 4.2 inch screens that are 93 percent larger than the DS Lite’s screens. It is also bundled with an extra (and larger) 5 inch touch pen. The redesign comes at the request of customers who said they wanted a larger screen — however, the pixel count is the same. Nintendo claims that the bigger screens make it easier to watch others play. The DSi XL is available in three colors: Dark Brown, Wine Red and Natural White. While the handheld has been announced for The West, the colors have not yet been announced. The Japanese version is also packed with three DSiWare titles pre-installed: Two brain training games (one for humanities, the other for sciences) and DS Easy Dictionary. Loved The Big Screens: Even though Nintendo is touting the DS XL’s screen as making it easier to watch others play, the most refreshing about the new, bigger screens is how they breathe life into old titles. While the graphics are the same, old favorites like Mario Kart look wonderful (and not blown out) running on the XL’s screens. The extra size both adds to the experience and creates an entirely new experience. The screen size is also well-suited to younger players who often stare over each other’s shoulders when watching a friend play. Brain Age also feels surprisingly fresh on the XL — a larger touch screen means a larger space to write. That, certainly, is a welcome addition. The Big Pen: The XL’s new Touch Pen feels like, well, a pen. The DS Stylus, traditionally, has been on the small size — not so great for games that require writing. To overcome this issue, players have, in the past, had to find third party solutions. For those looking for a larger pen that’s easier to grip, the XL has that. But if you are happy with the traditional DS Stylus, the portable is bundled with that as well. The smaller stylus slides into the DSi XL’s body, while the larger pen does not. The Buttons: As with the regular DSi, the buttons are clicky — in a good way. They’re responsive and certainly don’t feel mushy. The Finish: The top of part of the DSi XL’s clamshell has a glossy, smart finish. Looks great. However, the rest of the portable has a matte finish, making it practical. It’s easy to hold and isn’t a fingerprint magnet. The contrast works well, too. Hated Not So Portable: Yes, yes. The DSi XL is big. That’s the point! And while it works great playing it at your kitchen table or sitting on the sofa, it’s heavy and less great to lug it around outside of the house. Nintendo, it often seems, makes reiteration after reiteration of its products. The DSi XL might simply be that — the latest iteration until the next one comes along. As customers, it’s hard not to feel that we are directly involved in Nintendo R&D process (more so than with other companies), that the company sometimes releases products just to see if they catch on with consumers (ditto). In Japan, the DSi XL does seem to be catching on as the product posted strong initial sales. The extra large DSi could very well be here to stay — which means that this must be one of the first examples in which a Japanese company has released a bigger version of its products to commercial success. The larger screens are great. If only Nintendo could shave a bit off the DSi XL’s thickness, making a slightly slimmer and lighter DSi XL, if only. DSi XL Slim anyone? The DSi XL was released in Japan on November 22 for

Just Cause 2 Won’t Support Windows XP [PC]

It had to happen eventually. Having wowed people ceaselessly since E3 with a a succession of explosive trailers, Just Cause 2 has finally put a foot wrong. And as far as the PC crowd is concerned, it’s a big foot. It’s been revealed that the game won’t run on Windows XP. Why? Because it’s DirectX10 only . So only those running Vista or Windows 7 will be able to play the game, making it the first high profile release to completely lock out the nine year-old operating system. Sure, that makes it old , but as Rock, Paper, Shotgun point out, it also makes it established, the latest Steam hardware survey revealing 42.15% of users were running XP. That’s one hell of a market share to freeze out of a game. The rest of the game’s PC specs are below. Minimum: – Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Windows XP is unsupported) – Processor: Dual-core CPU with SSE3 (Athlon 64 X2 4200 / Pentium D 3GHz) – Graphics Card: Nvidia Geforce 8800 Series / ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB memory or equivalent DX10 card with 256MB memory – Memory: 2GB RAM – DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 10 – Hard Drive: 10GB of free drive space – Optical Drive: DVD-ROM drive – Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible sound card – Internet Connection: Internet connection required for product activation – Input: Keyboard and mouse (Microsoft Xbox 360 controller optional) Recommended: – Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Windows XP is unsupported) – Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz or AMD Phenom X3 2.4GHz – Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 Series with 512MB / ATI Radeon HD 5750 Series with 512MB or equivalent DX10 card with 512MB memory – Memory: 3GB – DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 10.1 with Vista SP1 – Hard Drive: 10GB of free drive space – Optical Drive: DVD-ROM drive – Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible Dolby Digital 5.1 sound card – Internet Connection: Internet connection required for product activation – Input: Keyboard and mouse (Xbox 360 controller optional) UnJust Cause: No XP Support [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

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Just Cause 2 Won’t Support Windows XP [PC]

Endless Ocean: Blue World Review: The Wii Game You’re Wrong About [Review]

There’s an optical illusion that sometimes appears to be an ugly hag, sometimes a beautiful lady. There’s a Rorschach blot that looks like a butterfly and a couple making love. This is the Wii equivalent. The people who run Nintendo might want me to describe Endless Ocean: Blue World to you as the Wii’s second scuba-diving simulator. And it is. It is a vast simulation of scuba-diving and seal-life-spotting set in lovely locales around the world, all easily controlled with a Wii remote. But, sorry Nintendo marketing people, your secret isn’t safe. This game is also a stealth role-playing game, a game with more than a hundred esoteric side goals, and enough obscure side quests that it makes Rune Factory Frontier look streamlined and the average Final Fantasy quest for ultimate weapons seem as simple as a walk to the mailbox. What in the world? Exactly. Loved The Quest For Beauty: The first and this second Endless Ocean are unusual games that propel the player through their adventure by dangling the disappointingly uncommon carrot of aesthetic beauty. Why keep playing an Endless Ocean? While the second one gums up the answer by adding so many traditional gaming quests to the formula and Xbox Achievement-like statuses to seek, you play these games in order to witness the next beautiful thing. As you swim through an Endless Ocean game, your reward for diving to the black depths is the majestic whale you find serenely swimming past your cave. Your reward for swimming to a new corner of your tropical dive spot is the school of fish that dances by the coral as a sea turtle gently flaps its flippers near two gliding manta rays. In real life and virtual life there are people who climb mountains to stand on a summit or to say how many meters they’ve hiked. But there are also, in real life, people who do it for the sights and the beauty. Endless Ocean: Blue World is a video game for those people. Bigger, Better And More Blue: Endless Ocean: Blue World enjoys many of the advantages common in sequels. While the first Endless Ocean let the player dive into and explore one large sea of diverse climate, arming them with an underwater camera and pen, the new game sends the player from the Arctic to the Antarctic, under water, down to shipwrecks and occasionally up onto land, armed with camera, pen and a zapper gun that, goofily, heals sick fish and calms enraged ones. The game also adds a deeper companion system for diving with more characters, and being able to train and swim with more dolphin pals. It adds an optional aquarium simulator that allows you to worry about visitor attendance, exhibit variety and income. Also it gives you a base island to alter and upgrade as well as a coral reef that can be decorated with collected items and used to attract any of more than a hundred of species of sealife. There’s more, but you get the idea. And It Looks Good Too: When your character is on the boat from which he dives or chatting with the ever-expanding group of people in his diving team, the graphics are about as impressive as crayon scribbles I made in kindergarten. But when our scuba hero gets underwater, this game looks as lovely as most games in the so-called HD era. The kelp forests are magnificent, the jellyfish enchanting and, well maybe the sharks look a little stiff and silly when angry,but the penguins look darn good even as beaching killer whales are trying to eat them. The Right Controller: Endless Ocean Blue World may support the classic controller, but there is a simple elegance to controlling your diver with the gentle pointing and tilting of a Wii remote. Motion control is ideal here, though some of the button assignments, which had me sometimes using two hands on one Remote, are unfortunately ill-placed. The Fact That This May Be One Of The Wii’s Best Japanese Role-Playing Games: I promise you this, prospective Blue World players: Play this game long enough and you’ll think you are playing a JRPG. Characters dole out quests like they’re applying for a job in Dragon Quest. The girl wants you to give diving tours to clients and will pay for maps you assemble of your diving spots. The old man will give you photography assignments. The brash guy will hint where exotic treasure lies, the better of the 200 pieces of treasure you can seek and dig up from the sea floor using an interesting CSI-style sensing tool. The aquarium curator will give you a whole other set of quests. Even buying firewood and lighting a fire on the beach starts a quest. So does playing a guitar (I think!) and staring into a telescope or petting the dog you find. If there’s a corner of this game that isn’t the first breadcrumb on another obscure quest to find a giant shark or sunken cache of machine guns, I haven’t found it. Hated The Music: Endless Ocean: Blue World will make you a fan of New Age music, because it’s only the moments when you find lovely underwater caves and such that trigger the Celtic Woman songs on the soundtrack. These songs thankfully interrupt the otherwise painful, looping game soundtrack ceases. A man dives underwater so he doesn’t have to hear the world’s most annoying soundtracks, dear developers. The Main Quest: You can tell that this game is an RPG based on the fact that its main quest is not nearly as interesting or enjoyable as its sidequests. I’m being overly simplistic in my genre criticism, but trust me that this game’s silly and supposedly emotional quest to discover the secret to the Dragon Song merely gives way to annoying cut-scenes of false emotion and frustratingly linear sections of a game that is best played as an open-world explore-anything-at-any-time wander. That this quest ends with the most unnecessary boss battle since the one in Bioshock is redeemed by the fact that you can keep playing the game well after that main quest is over and focus on the fun stuff. Bad Menus: I thought JRPGs couldn’t go any further backwards in their unfriendliness to players trying to keep track of the items they collect and the many quests which they accept, but Blue World proved me wrong. Keep a notebook handy as you play this game so that you can log your dozens of juggled quests. Otherwise, you will have to abandon your dive spot and sail back to your home island, then go to your “table,” then open your notebook, then click a couple more times, just to see your quest-listing again. I’d rather get stabbed by a swordfish Endless Ocean Blue World is a huge surprise. Not only does it provide a vast expansion of the interactive nature film format of video game that any of the older members of your family could enjoy, but it offers the depth of adventure and goals that make it one of the best role-playing games I’ve encountered on the Wii. That said, the game is as much an eyesore above land as it is a beauty below the sea and some of its menu and button configurations bear the fingerprints of a development team not remembering that Wii ethic of making gamers’ lives easier. Thankfully, you spend most of your time in this game in its virtual aquatic paradises, chasing whales and having a lovely, relaxing time. Endless Ocean: Blue World was developed by Arika and published by Nintendo for the Wii on February 22. Retails for the unusually low launch price of $29.99 USD, bundled with Wii Speak (for online co-op which I was not able to test). A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Dove for more than 8 hours, played for more than 10, and barely scratched the sea foam of the side quests. Found the dog and the stash of flamethrowers, but failed to complete the quest that unlocks the ninja suit, and, no, I’m not making that up. Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ .

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Endless Ocean: Blue World Review: The Wii Game You’re Wrong About [Review]

Braced For The Skeptics, Richard Garriott Challenges Gamers And Teases What’s Next [Dice 2010]

Richard Garriott, back from space is now back in video games. Last week, his new venture Portalarium was announced. This is an adventure that comes with a challenge to you the Kotaku reader, and a tease of Ultima-meets-Farmville. As we reported last week , Portalarium is a new venture from Garriott, aka “Lord British,” the chief visionary behind the groundbreaking massively multiplayer online game Ultima Online and more recently the lead creator of failed science fiction MMO Tabula Rasa. Since leaving the company that made Tabula Rasa, the wealthy and adventurous Garriott paid his way to go into outer space on board a Russian rocket. His gaming return is a bit of a plot twist though. When he was last in this realm he was promoting a giant video game. He’s back promoting the less sexy idea of a portal that allows games to run across multiple web platforms and social networks. That might seem like a less thrilling exploration for a man who relishes deep-sea diving and other far-flung adventures. Well, no, Garriott told Kotaku. This fits. “There are moments when the time is right to go do something and those moments come, in my mind from moments of artistic challenge and interest and business challenge and interest. You kind of need both.” Some context, for the skeptics. Garriott knows people thought he was going the wrong way before: “I don’t know if you know, out, Ultima Online, when we were pitching it and getting it started, no one wanted it,” he said. “As it became a best-selling title, outselling all previous Ultimas combined, most traditional media looked at it and said, ‘The graphics are three years old. It’s a pretty crappy game’ [but it] opened the door to what, in the last decade, has been the only growth area of gaming which was online gaming.” Now Garriott believes that casual games are taking over — and by casual games he means games that anyone can play at any time. That includes people who won’t go to a store to buy a game, but want to hang out with their friends and play games their friends are playing online and send them a link to — no installation, no instructions, no headaches needed. Those potential “casual gamers” includes him, who plays many and most of his games on his iPhone these days. And, believe it or not, that audience Garriott believes the kind of gaming model he’s advocating is great for even includes those who might consider themselves Farmville-hating, console-loving, so-called hardcore gamers. “Pick your favorite game,” he said. “If your favorite game could have been delivered in a way to where you didn’t have to make an up-front investment, you didn’t have to read the instructions, you could just sit down and play it; it was available just by somebody sending you a link; and only after you played it and were hooked on it would you then have to pay for it, I guarantee you that would be a game you would find even better than your current favorite game. And yet you just would have met the criteria of what I think is important in this casual gamer framework.” Frankly, Garriott said, his old colleagues who made Guild Wars achieved their success with their online game for meeting many of those standards. All that said, the first game from Portalairum is… not a Lord British MMO… not Ultima Online all over again… it’s a poker game: Sweet @$! Poker , to be specific. He’s back with a poker game? Just go look, Garriott said. “Just go compare the qualitative aspects of our poker game to the qualitative aspects of the ones that are already kicking the butts of every game they’ve ever played from a financial standpoint. And I believe it will be very clear from a little inspection why ours is tangibly easier to use, faster to load , faster to install, smoother graphics, everything. And that’s purely because of the foundation we decided to build upon. Then you can extrapolate and go, ‘Okay, I know that a quality game can be produced even launched through one of these community portals. Well… as soon as they start making MMO-type games, that will be something I’ll be interested in.” Garriott said his new venture will be producing a couple of in-house games and a couple of third-party games. “Today we’re talking about the Portalarium,” Garriott said. “We have yet to announce quote-unquote my game.. what motivates me is to go back and make Ultima-esque, familiar Ultima-esque games. But I believe the right place is to do that on this platform.” Sounds like Ultima through Facebook or something. Any objections?

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Braced For The Skeptics, Richard Garriott Challenges Gamers And Teases What’s Next [Dice 2010]

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