Posted: April 30th, 2006 | Author:Simon | Filed under:Clippings | Comments Off
It occurred to me that I have never ever heard of a game that was released for some handheld platform and then ported to a “stationary” console (lack of better word).
Many (many many) times before has a game been released at the same time for all the platforms you could imaginable, but always in different versions, one for the “stationary” consoles and one for the handheld ones. Or if the game had been released on the handhelds first, it would get a “stationary” console release latter, but it would be a different game.
That is, until Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is released by Rockstar in a month or two. That game might very well be the first game ever to be “up-ported” from a handheld system to one of the major consoles.
So Steve Ballmer was here and talked the talk, and did indeed walk the walk. He was every bit as energetic as I had hope he would be. Although he didn’t dance he did shout most of the time. The microphone they had put on him was by no means necessary.
The plan was that he was suppose to talk about globalization and what than mean for the IT business, but instead he talked about what he saw coming in the next 10-12 years. He had some very interesting points about the inevitable convergence of all computers and media, and all of his points were surprisingly non-Microsoft centred.
Had the event ended there, I would have been buying Microsoft products for the rest of my life. But, nooooo… they had to put some of the Technology Evangelists on talking all the “new” fancy features of Windows Vista.
If that was their religion, you can count me as the first atheist. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE?!? You come to a IT university, will a room full of hundreds of highly educated IT students, and you show us WHAT? How to tag my music in the new Windows Media Player and how to tag my images in the new desktop explorer! How to tag my stuff? Oh, yeah, and that fancy 3D tab program changer… looks very nice, but that’s just eye candy. What is WRONG with you? If that is all you have to show for after 6 (?) years of development I have lost all confidence in your company.
I know that Vista is not going to include all the fancy stuff Microsoft had planed in the first place, and that these features will be released later when they’re done, but that is still no excuse for taking 30 minutes to show some of the most irrelevant and stupid features of Vista.
If you have someone like Steve fucking Ballmer talking the talk then put someone after him to walk the walk and show me some real juicy stuff from your upcoming OS. Come on people… Know your audience and stop wasting my time.
The last few days some Men in Black have tried very hard to blend in with the crowd here at ITU, while they were obviously checking out the security. But they were blending in just as good as Klingon would do at a Star Wars convention (ok ok… I was out of ideas)
I booked by ticket for the event the second I heard about it, not so much because I wanted to hear what he has to say but more because I wanted to see him dance.
No, seriously, this is a chance in a lifetime to meet one of the biggest players in the software industry (or in the case of Microsoft – any industry), and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Posted: April 27th, 2006 | Author:Simon | Filed under:Clippings | Comments Off
We wanted to take one of the most violent, sick, fun games of all time–with all its weirdly oversexed-looking characters–and turn it into something else. Josh Funk wrote some spectacular music.
People are really excited about the game, but after playing the first game and being used to it and getting through to expert mode, people just wanted more, and so we knew that for the sequel, “more” means a lot of things. It’s not just more music, or more characters or venues, they want to have the full experience filled out. In Guitar Hero 1 you’re playing just one stream [of audio], and in co-op mode, you’re actually sharing that stream and it alternates back and forth and you share the two channels, the left and right channels. But it’s really just one stream that comes off the disc, the lead guitar.
For the sequel, for every song, there’s going to be two streams. Some of those second streams are going to be rhythm guitar, and some of those streams are going to be bass guitar. So there’s not three streams, there’s actually two streams. But with two guitars you’ll actually be able to play co-operatively and you’re not playing the same exact track, like sharing the lead guitar track. You’re actually playing your own track.
This post is intended to function as a meme. I’ll write my predictions for E3 and then you add yours in a comment (and I’ll update this post) or send a trackback to this page from your own weblog with your own predictions. Let’s see how many we get right.
Ah, sweet crystal ball, show me the future….
I predict that on E3 2006 expo…:
… at least 5 AAA games with the name “Black” in it will be announced.
… David Jaffe will announce what his secret PSP project is all about.
… Blizzard will announce the new Alliance race.
… Nintendo will reveal the titles of the 20 game that will the ready for the Revolution launch.
… Nintendo will reveal some more information about the Revolution…
… and therefore E3 will be a Revolution bonanza… everyone will talk about it.
… Sony and Microsoft will have (their own) people talking about how powerful their respective consoles are.
… Will Wright will show another 35 minutes presentation of Spore and every jaw in the room will drop (again).
… Peter Jackson will announce that he and Michel Ansel is working on a new game based in the King Kong universe.
… Michel Ansel will announce that he is working on Beyond Good & Evil 2
… Harmomix will officially announce that they are working on Guitar Hero 2, but it’s not what we’re expecting (acoustic guitar anyone?).
… Bungie will announce that they are working on Halo 3… no Halo Zero… no… Halo X… no Halo Black… whatever…
… Sony will announce a price cut for the PS2
… Microsoft will announce a price cut for the XBox and the XBox 360
… Microsoft will deny that their are working on a new version of the XBox 360 with HD-DVD, a larger hard disk and a less noisy fan, but will nonetheless have release such a version before next years E3
… Microsoft will not talk about their portable XBox, because it will take focus away from the XBox 360. They will not deny the existence of the portable XBox, but will just not talk about it.
Posted: April 9th, 2006 | Author:Simon | Filed under:Clippings | Comments Off
Guitar Hero is a brilliant and extremely fun game. Doing a guitar solo with The Ramones and Black Sabbath is so much fun that even though you’re not even hitting 50% of the keys correct you’re laughing your ass of while trying.
And look, I can play “Smoke on the Water” now. The game is very easy, everyone can pick up the guitar controller and play, and at the same time it is very demanding if you want to become a super rock star in the career mode.
There is just one strange thing; the easy setting is actually quite hard, since they remove so many notes that playing the songs you know beforehand is very difficult, since you tapping away on the controller when there is no key to tap and therefore getting errors. So anyone that’s planning on getting the game, I highly recommend starting on at least the medium setting.
Guitar Hero is very expensive, in Denmark it costs around 130 dollars (= 800 DKR), but I’m telling you, it the most fun I’ve had with a game in a very long time. Even my wife thinks it fun! How about that!
