Vid-game: `Mario Party 8' serious fun
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It's becoming easy to extoll the virtues of Nintendo's successful Wii console. The system's interactive controls have given many of us good reason to get our butts off the sofa and into some animated flailing with the Wii's remote control.
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Gabe: The Crash of the Titans demo just landed on Xbox LIVE. I just finished it and I was really impressed. It's a beautiful platformer with some really slick animation and character design. It also does a great job of capturing the feel of the old Crash games. It ends a little abruptly but it definitely sold me on the game.-Gabe out
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Tycho:  Stop whatever you're doing right now and watch this video - offered in HD for Windows Media or Quicktime.  That's Level 5's White Knight Story, and I must stress for readers that Level 5 is in no way fucking around.  That's how you sell us a Goddamn Playstation 3.  We are almost impervious to many of the brands that define Sony's hardware:  for us, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo emit no will crushing pheromones.  Compare that to the White Knight clip, which is a fairly comprehensive tour of my private desires.
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Highlights included Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party for the Wii, Contra for the DS, Castlevania for the PSP, and, of course, Metal Gear Solid 4.
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Tycho:  Last year's iteration of Tiger Woods had a fairly serious glitch in multiplayer, in that the game could not be played in multiplayer mode.  Or, it worked sometimes, but there was no way to know how or when - what combination of dances and burning herbs would right this aloof mechanism.  It was most likely the rush of new owners securing tee-times on simulated links, but after a week of trying to use the product without success I decided that I had better things to do than try and contextualize EA's grave miscalculations.    The few times we were able to jump on and actually get in there were the kind of epic, unadulterated "guy fun" one sees lionized in hilarious summer comedies.  Golf as a sport (and as a videogame) has the strong undercurrent of shared misery that one usually finds only in dive bars.  The recently released demo for this year's product - on both PSN and XBL, now - recalled those moments to us, independent of the rage that bookended each round of powerfully communal spirit lodge golf.  This year's product has a huge focus on Gamernet, a kind of user created content initiative that will hopefully see them approach the performance of their online infrastructure with more conviction.     GameFace, their face making thing, has seen a significant jump this year as well - it can take pictures from your console's camera and create actual face geometry, and I understand that photos can even be uploaded online and then brought down on the console for processing.  We were able to get some pretty good results with the earlier versions of the tool, but this is very much appreciated.  Of course, in the wrong hands, every tool is a weapon.     Ubisoft is now saying that Haze is an exclusive exclusive for the PS3, and not one of them timed or partial exclusives one might see in the lesser houses.  Truly monogamous games are rare these days, and this is certainly a surprise, but this thing has been hopping back and forth for months.  There was even a leaked document that showed this "exclusive" being released a week later for PC and 360, though all traces of the document were soon obliterated.  Assassin's Creed was (as you'll recall) a PS3 exclusive as well.  For a week, at any rate.        I'm really excited for Haze, but I'm not sure if that's a universally held belief.  The writer made a good impression on me at E3 several years ago, and Free Radical makes a good impression on me whenever they make a videogame.  It's also a four player co-op experience with a unique, asymmetrical multiplayer proposition that you've probably read about.  But, as with Bioshock, I'm really in it for the story - and, also like Bioshock, I think anything that limits its potential audience is a serious mistake.
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Gabe: I know we don't talk about our game much. We really don't want to beat you guys over the head with it. Honestly we handle most of our big projects that way. We try to make coming here "easy" and I don't want you guys to feel like you're constantly being pitched something. Balancing that against the fact that if we don't tell you about things like new shirts and books you are less likely to purchase them is tricky. another reason for the lack of coverage is that we really weren't sure the game was going to be any good. We're doing a lot of the art and all the writing but the reality is that this was a collaboration with the Hothead guys and until very recently I wasn't convinced making the game was a good idea.Tycho said it best in a couple interviews "games look like shit until they look awesome." it's really more than that though because they also play like shit until they are fun. I remember getting the first build months ago and telling Tycho we should scrap the entire thing. The builds kept coming though and they kept getting better and better. I understand now that that's just how game development works. It wasn't until the most recent build that I finally saw something genuinely fun. The Hothead guys obviously knew what they were making but for me it was like looking at a sketch and not understanding how it could ever be a finished painting. I've played through it multiple times now and I can tell you truthfully that it's funny and it's fun to play. If you like PA I believe you will enjoy it. If you don't know about PA I think you will still laugh and If you hate us you'll hate our game. The game just hit beta and Hothead is polishing it more and more every day. I can tell you that what I see right now I'm honestly proud of. Tycho has written some of his best stuff for this game. Like me, he hates himself and hates the things he makes so he would never link you to this, but I feel like he deserves it. A while back Tycho spent a week at the Hothead studio writing non stop for the game. Ron Gilbert was up there as well and he posted this on his blog shortly after."Jerry from PA is up here as well doing the writing and it's a thrill to see him work.He's a top-shelf writer, right up there with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman."I'm sure when Tycho sees I linked that he'll go right for his wrists, but it's true. An early build of the game recently made its way through the media digestive system. The result is that you will see coverage of it popping up at many of your favorite game news sites. Everything I've seen so far has been very positive but I guess that's the way it is with previews. I think the best place to go is Gametrailers as they simply post high quality video of the game being played. You can make your own decisions based on what you see. If you want more you can watch the 1up show where a narcoleptic Jedi will tell you that the game is "like not really like PA but also like totally like PA." Maybe that's helpful to someone? The Gamelife blog over at Wired also has a very complete write up of the game if you want more than just raw footage. It's funny, before the game I never would have thought twice about calling someone a narcoleptic Jedi. After I had typed it out though I paused. Am I Derek Smart now? Will this effect our PR persons relationship with 1Up and other media outlets? Will they savage us in their review and will that hurt sales? Should I not talk about the coverage at all?Even if all of that is true should I care?Obviously the answer is no. -Gabe out
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Don't let a funny title like "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater" fool you - this latest PlayStation 2 offering from Japanese video game guru Hideo Kojima is serious fun.
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Gabe: I took the Wii home over the weekend and was able to put quite a bit of time into Zelda. There was what I would describe as a bru ha ha over at Joystiq when one of their bloggers claimed the game was a flop. He cited its terrible graphics as reason enough to dismiss it entirely. The response in the thread afterwards was heated with lots of people claiming that the graphics weren"t as bad as he claimed and that the game actually looked really good. Having played it all weekend I"m here to tell you that"s not the correct response.
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A Pac-Man-like game that delivers electric shocks to gamers reveals the brain's reaction to danger.
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Life & style: Blokarting, octopush, goalball - weird new fusion games are being invented all the time to encourage more people to play sport. Anyone for blackminton?
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I spent large chunks of last year playing the same AAA video games everyone else played: "BioShock," "Rock Band," "Super Mario Galaxy" and so on. But if I actually kept track of my gaming hours, I wouldn't be surprised to find that I spent just as much time enjoying the simpler delights of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade.
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Blog: Plenty of other game companies were throwing parties Wednesday night, but this one had a mechanical bull. Watch the video.
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Online video is no longer just  fun and games: You might actually learn something.
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"Come Out and Play Festival" to bring together out-of-the-box designers, techno-philosophers and utopian free spirits. Oh, and gamers too. Photos: Playing PacManhattan
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Nintendo has pulled its new Wii console game Mario Party 8 from UK shops just days after its release and during a massive TV advertising campaign for the title.â¦
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Gabe: There is some really nice HD footage from PAX available over at gametrailers.com now. They have a pretty slick behind the scenes look at how the show comes together as well as an interview with Gaybe and Tykoh from Pennies Arcadez!
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Now that the Mii Channel lets you insert a 3-D avatar of yourself into video games, the world is your virtual oyster. How about inserting Mario avatars wherever you see fit or transforming your enemies into Anne Coulter simulacrums? Commentary by Lore SjÃ¶berg.