Ralph is the antagonist in a Donkey Kong-like arcade game called Fix-It Felix Jr, but after thirty years of being the bad guy he wants something more; so Ralph, voiced by John C. Reilly, ventures to other game worlds to try and be a hero. The writers for the movie seem to be positively aware of what games are and what they used to be, and there’s a great scene with cameos from villains ranging from Bowser and Dr. Eggman to Clyde the Ghost from Pac-Man and a zombie.
South Park- The Stick of Truth is looking to be as genuine as any episode in the series. Not only are Trey Parker and Matt Stone providing all of the real voices, they’re helping to write this unique RPG experience.
Hitman Absolution‘s pre-order bonus sniping game has been a huge hit, tasking players eliminating an arms manufacturer and his entourage from afar. It’s been so positive, that IO Interactive is looking to ways to extend the experience and maybe even have a sequel.
“The response to Sniper Challenge has been incredible,” says art director Roberto Marchesi. “I can’t go into detail, but yes, we’re definitely interested in exploring that gameplay. The response isn’t falling on deaf ears, let’s put it that way.”
“The highest score we know about is past five million but our highest score internally was only in the high three millions. What we know is that, to get the highest scores, the first nine shots aren’t aimed at anyone. They’re all distraction shots, putting people in the right places.” he added. “I’m not sure I should talk about this, but our metrics are a really good way for us to understand the game because some kills happened in places we never expected at all and to get that five million score, they restarted many times!”
Source: CVG {link no longer active}
Gaikai and Machinima announced a partnership to host Machinima’s content on their cloud platform. Machinima’s online global video entertainment network has over 168 million engaged viewers every month who consumed over 1.61 billion videos in April 2012.
“We’re greatly expanding the value of what Gaikai offers gamers and our platform partners by collaborating with Machinima to provide award-winning video content that dramatically enriches the end-user experience,” said Robert Stevenson, EVP at Gaikai. “Machinima has quickly grown into the world’s most popular video entertainment network for gamers by creating exceptional programming, which can be integrated seamlessly using the Gaikai cloud service.”
“Our content keeps our fans highly engaged and active with their favorite games, and has increasingly expanded to original series,” said Sanjay Sharma, EVP Strategy and Business Development at Machinima. “Gaikai’s open cloud platform and ever growing list of impressive platform partners will allow us to increase our brand’s reach across multiple platforms.”
Hitman Absolution game director Tore Blystad recently took time out to address what has become a rather infamous “Attack of the Saints” trailer for Hitman Absolution. The mixture of S&M nuns with heavily violence drew criticism from people both in and outside of the gaming realm, though Blystad denied that they were trying to stir the pot.
“We’re sorry that we offended people – that was truly not the intention of the trailer,” said Blystad. “Of course we understand, this has been a very big topic for us and we’ve been reading as much as we could of the articles and responses. We were surprised that it turned into such a huge topic. Something similar happened with our Sniper Challenge pre-order bonus… We just wanted to make something cool, it wasn’t the intention to stir up anything.”
Blystad strongly denied that the trailer was a marketing ploy designed to attract attention as some asserted. “It really came as a big surprise to us how it all went down,” he said. “It was never the intention to provoke people with it.”
“It’s a level from the game called ‘Attack of the Saints’, and this trailer I guess you could say represents one possible outcome,” he explains. “As you know with Hitman games, you can go about it any way you want. The problem with showing off a Hitman game in a trailer is because there are many different ways to play, you’re only ever showing off one of any number of potential scenarios.”
When asked why there were professional assassin’s dressed as nuns, Blystad responded, “The Hitman games as a series has always been extreme in many ways. The religious themes have been there from the very beginning, along with outlandish party scenes. And there are a lot of movie influences in Hitman Absolution, like Tarantino and Rodriguez. The grindhouse theme is something that we’re using throughout the game. It tends more towards sixties exploitation movies – these were a fascination [for us] because they were so extreme.”
Source: IGN
The ESA announced during their 2012 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry report that roughly half of all American households have a game console. The number of smartphone game players has doubled since last year to 40 percent and the number that play on wireless devices has also doubled since 2011 to 26 percent.
“Games have evolved from a thing you buy to an experience enjoyed by a wide and diverse population everywhere, anytime, on any screen. This research reflects that new reality,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of ESA. “The creativity of our developers and publishers produces an ever-expanding variety of games in different formats and across all platforms. Their innovations drive consumer demand for our products, solidifying our industry’s position as one of the strongest and most cutting-edge sectors in the American economy.”
33 percent of gamers said they play social games, while 15 percent said they pay to play online games and 62 percent says they play games with others in-person or online. The ESRB got high ratings as well, with 98 percent of parents saying the rating system is either very or somewhat helpful in choosing games for their children and 73 percent said they believe the parental controls available in all video game consoles are useful.
The report also stated that 42 percent of game players believe that computer and video games give them the most value for their money when compared to DVDs, music or going out to the movies. Consumers spent nearly $25 billion on game content, hardware and accessories in 2011.
Ninja Gaiden III was a Japanese developed game that attempted to appeal to a broad audience in the West, but ended up watering down the experience and resulting in a disappointment critically and commercially. Team Ninja head Yosuke Hayashi reflected on this at E3, saying that Japanese developers should take a different tack than their Western counterparts.
“Maybe if the industry is going for that Hollywood blockbuster direction, we can offer something that’s different,” Hayashi said. “That’s Hollywood, but we can still offer solid entertainment, and make sure that it reaches the people that are looking for that solid entertainment.”
“All Japanese developers are right now treading water, and doing everything they can just to basically stay above water,” he noted. “We feel that, actually, you’re going to get an answer coming from that, because everybody is so desperate to stay there and stay alive that you’re going to get answers for how to move forward and how to make things work in the future.”
Source: Gamasutra
Humble Bundle V has blown past the milestone of over 400,000 downloads, with total payments exceeding $3.2 million. The top donation so far is $9,999 from Notch.
Humble Bundle V features a collection of somewhat better known titles than previous bundles, including Limbo, Psychonauts, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP with those paying over the average price getting Bastion. Additionally, those that participate get the game soundtracks for free.
Source: HumbleBundle.com
Ubisoft has taken the wraps off Assassin’s Creed III Ubiworkshop Edition. The collector’s edition will be available exclusively at ubiworkshop.com for $109.99, though it will be up for pre-order at a reduced price of $99.99.
The Assassin’s Creed III Ubiworkshop Edition comes with the game and two books. Players heavily invested in the mythology of Assassin’s Creed can get Assassin’s Creed Encyclopedia Second Edition and the Assassin’s Creed Subject 4 graphic novel.
Reports are that Zynga has acquired developer Buzz Monkey. The Oregon-based developer adds another 50 people to Zynga’s growing arsenal of studios, with 18 satellite offices in total.
Buzz Monkey Software has mostly worked on console and handheld projects, including several Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk games. They’ve also worked with Zynga in the past, however, on games like Frontierville, so that likely contributed to the appeal of the company for Zynga.
