Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The New Studio in Town: BitMonster

Senior gameplay designer Lee Perry of Gears of War 3 (Epic Games) has formed his own studio, BitMonster. Exciting right? And, due to a multi-liscensing deal, Mr. Perry will still have access to Epic's Unreal Engine for his newly announced game Lili on the iOS.

Is the game anything like the beloved Gears franchise? No, but does it need to be? Take a look at the trailer and discover for yourself the wonderful Hayao Miyazaki, Castle in the Sky like experience you'll be getting your hands on in Lili.



Let us know what you think about the new trailer and what Lili might bring to the iOS that Mac fans aren't seeing in their gaming library.

Monday, July 16, 2012

LET THERE BE GAMES!!!

By Nicolas Gibson


Steam kicked off their Summer Sale this past Weekend and the deals are definitely not worth missing out. July 12th - 22nd every single day there are going to be new games on sale (some of which can go as low as $2.49) as well as some killer bundles from famed gaming companies and publishers such as Rockstar, Square Enix/Eidos, 2K Games, and many many more. One of the coolest parts about this year's sale is that the you will have influence over which games will go down to 75% off, for a limited time. Not just talking indie titles, but Triple A title games as well. So what are you waiting for? Check out Steam right now and find a game you've missed out on.

Share with us some of the great games you've seen, or have gotten, this year's sale.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

OUYA? A GAME CHANGER OR GAME BAILER?

By Egan Click

A new counsel?

If you haven't heard about Ouya I am quite surprised.  I am sort of proud of you for not being so Internet dependent like the rest of us lonely people.  But you are missing out on a lot.  Pretty much every single day, everything you thought you knew is changing because of our friend called the Internet or in other words, the Post Modern's Farmers Almanac.  Well here is Ouya http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console.  It's only a kickstarter and I don't follow up on these sort of donation sites and I don't even know if these companies actually make the things they get money for.  Basically people give you money for having a cool idea with the promise that they will make it.  Do they actually make it, I have no clue.

 People are praising this for it's sleakness.  Where can I put this?


Ouya broke the kickstarter record and is still breaking it with the most money donated to a single cause.  It's over like three million and they only asked for 900,000 (only!? jeez that's a lot of money for their first console and just a promise.)  The console is only 99 dollars when the CORPORATIONS charge us 300.  But why is it so cheap.  Well it looks like it's made out of plastic and the thing isn't real.  Plus they are using already developed software for it's operating system or whatever mumbo jumbo tech heads call it.  It's just an android.  You know the android marketplace where you can't really find anything actually new so you just devolve into the cool thing that was on Apple's store a few years ago.  Yeah since the Android has an open marketplace i.e. anyone can make anything for it with hardly or no verification of it's worthiness in the store (thus eliminating standards).  Now we get it for games.  A cheap console with unlimited gaming opportunities.

Will this hurt games or benefit games is the main question.  The company behind Ouya wants every game to be played at least on a trial period so consumers don't have to waste money on a broken game. I am definitely for that.  What I am not ready for is the already over saturated marketplace for video games.  Even between the two consoles I already scratch my head.  PS3 has blue ray and better rpgs.  Xbox gets things first but you have to pay for the internet.  For all the fanboys, I have both and I am already to sign up for the wii u.  I missed out on the Wii and only got to play it at my families house.  The Ouya doesn't really have a place in the industry since the android market is already available to all android phones and computers.  This is for people that strictly think gaming is meant for the television or people who are too selfish to give up the television for movies and t.v. shows.




No developers have officially said they are developing for this.  IF you like independent developers and are hip as fuck and on the down low, this is the console for you so you can go up to all your gaming buddies and show your obscure knowledge of games that don't actually make an impact in the game culture but are just rip offs.  Nothing against independent, I love amateurs.  Fuck go read, listen or view anything I make and you'll see that I am an amateur at heart.  But the influx of independent developers doing something new isn't that big.  They take pre-existing genres and cross pollinate traditional mechanics with a few new ones.  Wow and I only have to pay 5 dollars for something I have already played but it's like 5 games gangbanging 1 program!  I don't care and neither should you.  Like I said all this is available else where.  Are consoles/controllers even relevant anymore.  Just fucking look at the wii u.  Now that is modern.


Pros
-Cheap gaming
-They talk about how the controller will be state of the art.  Sounds sweet
-unlimited gaming.  It will be like youtube, millions of hours uploaded every second.
CONS
-Already available elsewhere
-Television hog
-TOO MUCH GAMING
-Independent doesn't mean important or cool.