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The developers behind the popular Burnout racing series, Criterion Games have unveiled their newest project, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit — a title that’s said to take the Need for Speed series “back to its roots,” intense cops vs. racer chases.
Inspired by the classic game with the same name, Hot Pursuit lets players “experience the thrill of the chase and the rush of the escape as they play through full careers as both a cop and a racer.”
“We are honored and excited by the opportunity to reinvent the franchise for today’s connected audience,” said creative director, Craig Sullivan. “Our goal has been to create cops vs. racers pursuits that are so fun, fast and exciting it really brings to life the adrenaline and intensity of the high speed cop pursuit experience with your friends.”
We don't think many would contest that, after the brilliant Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the classic racing series lost its way. Need for Speed: Carbon? Mediocre. ProStreet? A bad experiment. Undercover? Don't even ask. Sure, last year's Shift was actually a rather under-rated sim-style racer, but was it really Need for Speed? Not on your life. So, the news that the new Need for Speed is (a) under development from the Burnout team at Criterion and (b) going back to the series' roots is some of the best we've had from this year's E3.
You see, Criterion understands what makes the series tick: exotic cars and great police chases. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit will have plenty of both. Two full career modes will allow you to race either as an illegal racer or a cop, and in either you'll find some of the hottest vehicles ever made, many in police livery for the first time. We've already seen Lamborghinis and Bucattis, and we're assured that dream cars will not be short on supply.
Most importantly, Hot Pursuit is built from the ground up for online play. While you can make progress as a solo player, facing off against strong AI, the game is designed to work with an online system that Criterion calls "Autolog". This connects up to eight players for online match-ups, with four cops vs four racers, seven cops vs a single racer, and any combination in-between. Progress will be synced between online and offline profiles, and you'll be able to check against your friends' achievements, and challenge them to an epic chase.
In action, the game looks dazzling. The section being demoed here at E3 is a sprawling network of highways, tunnels and dirt-track shortcuts running through a highland area of pine woods. The scenery is gorgeous, but the cars are even more so: beautifully rendered, gorgeously lit supercars that buckle and shatter realistically when they collide. And collide they do, because the section we're playing is a one-on-one hot pursuit.
As you'd expect from the team behind Burnout, the action is ludicrously fast, with our cars weaving through the fairly sparse traffic, screaming around bends and making sudden handbrake turns to confuse your opponent. Even at this stage the handling is excellent: gritty enough to make the game feel a challenge, but not so sim-like that you can't pull off outrageous stunts. In short, the new Need for Speed looks and feels like a premium class contender.
The demo also gives us a chance to try out another of the game's features: a simple system of power-ups you earn through daredevil driving feats. Earn enough points and the cop can call in roadblocks, and while we didn't get the chance to put any of the racer's moves into action, we're told he'll get equivalent tools, like an option to disable the cop's tracking radar for a time.
Our First Impressions Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit looks fantastic and feels great to play, but what really makes you smile while you play is that it makes the series genuinely thrilling once again. Playing the demo both as cop and racer, one thing hit us: if it's this much fun with just two players, what on Earth will it be like with eight? We haven't really scratched the surface of the game, and what was shown was - apparently - an alpha build, but the fundamentals are in place for a great arcade racer, and a real return to form. The November release can't come soon enough.
Just as the past games, the speed was blisteringly fast and there wasn't a visual hiccup in sight. Aside from some great detail seen on the cars, you could also get a visual representation of how bad your car looks after hitting obstacles or trading paint with the opponent. As bad as the twisted metal of a car looks in real life, it has some beauty in the game. The sound also adheres to some of the series' ideals. Epic chase scores, piercing tire screeches, and loud engine hums blasted through the speakers to make the chase more exciting. Even though the title is months away from release, those who are looking for Criterion to pull out the technical stops won't be disappointed.
Overall, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is shaping up to be another memorable entry in the legendary series. The Autolog feature really feeds in to the whole mentality of trying to play just one more match in order to best your opponent. It also brings with it the sense that everything you do counts in the game world, making the return of car chases much more exciting for both sides. More information about the other on- and offline modes will be coming in hot as the November release date approaches.
Most of the startup learning curve is a learn-on-the-job endeavor. Nothing replaces the real experience of managing your own company; however there are some lessons that are worth learning ahead of time.
Smart entrepreneurs learn to pick out which teachings should be followed and which should be discarded.
This is my common response I send when friends ask for a book list. I actually think blogs are far more important because they're real-time and often include comments that can help the reader learn the subtleties and exceptions of an argument. As I've said before, instead of reading this blog, I highly recommend these:
But there's something nice about books. Books are consumed in a different setting. They linger on bookshelfs. They get highlighted and earmarked. If you're new to the startup world, I would recommend reading and re-reading the following 6 books. In fact, I would go farther and say that you should not start your company until you read through this list:
The 6 best startup books to read before starting your company
A lot of this book is understanding how to put luck on your side. I put this book as first though because it can help you understand if you want to be an founder or a manager. Founders are a special breed. Peabody claims it's the B- players that like to hack systems so that they get 80% of the result for 20% of the efforts. Managers are early employees, A+ players, that can take a founders vision and create something remarkable. It's helpful to understand which one you are. And it's helpful to know how luck and intelligence work together.
As he says: "I was smart enough to realize I was getting lucky"
If you've never built a product or if you're a non-technical MBA, start here. The purpose is to learn the basics of agile development early on.
The m.o. of 37 Signals is:
"We believe software is too complex. Too many features, too many buttons, too much to learn. Our products do less than the competition – intentionally. We build products that work smarter, feel better, allow you to do things your way, and are easier to use."
Guy will show you how to start the company and how to raise money. This is your replacement for whatever textbook you used in your entrepreneurship class. It's a nuts and bolts guide to what you do at each stage of start-up process. Kawasaki is great about helping you understand how investors will view you.
One great example, he directs you against putting a competitive profile slide in your pitching deck that shows your features vs. their features. He's seen this enough times to know it's a useless cliche: the entrepreneur always claims to have more features than the competition. His solution is to list out your unfair advantages and their unfair advantages in order to prove you have a reasonable perspective on your market. Good stuff.
From my vantage point, Steve Blank is this year's favourite author, blogger, professor, and speaker. I know that some venture capitalists give his book out to all newly-funded management teams.
Blank outlines a method called customer development. In his words:
"Your startup is an organization built to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Your job as a founder is to quickly validate whether the model is correct by seeing if customers behave as your model predicts. Most of the time the darn customers don’t behave as you predicted."
Rework is a collection of essays from their wonderful blog, Signals vs. Noise. Reading it as a whole is a nice way to learn about how to think of your startup as a business that needs to make money. These guys are pro-bootstrapping, pro-profits, and anti-venture investing. They're a nice counterpoint to much of the startup literature that focuses on how to raise money as the primary goal in the early part of a company.
This is a good last book for this list because it gives you insight into founder culture. One of the most interesting (and unexpected) aspects of being in Y Combinator is that we got to see so many other founders working on their startups. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavor and it's nice to have some perspective on how other founders manage ups and downs while executing at very high levels. The early days of the startup are the most interesting and unlike anything that comes afterward.
In her words:
Quote:
"This is what productivity looks like. This is the Formula 1 racecar. It looks weird but it goes fast."
Those are my 6. Would love to hear in the comments what other books you recommend.
“Before I begin, our guys are running around backstage trying to figure out what’s up. Why? There are 570 WiFi base stations in the room… would you like to see the demos? All you bloggers need to turn off your base stations, put your notebooks down.”
The iOS in context
- “Now, there’s another major milestone we’re about to hit: this month we will sell the 100 millionth iOS device.” Applause. “That’s iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, 100 million. There is definitely a market for your applications.”
Cisco iOS Cisco IOS (originally Internetwork Operating System) is the software used on the vast majority of Cisco Systems routers and current Cisco network switches. (Earlier switches ran CatOS.) IOS is a package of routing, switching, internetworking and telecommunications functions tightly integrated with a multitasking operating system. The first IOS was written by William Yeager.
isco IOS® Software releases deliver cutting-edge technologies and industry-leading Cisco IOS Software functionality. Continuously adapted to meet evolving business needs, the full portfolio of Cisco IOS Software releases is tailored to address the requirements of specific markets and customers. Sound software development, quality assurance, and rapid time to market are fundamental to the success of Cisco customers' networks, and the Cisco IOS Software release strategy reflects these needs. This strategy, designed to minimize operational spending, maximize return on investment, and improve business productivity, assures the reliable delivery
This has left the tech blog in a bit of a predicament—according to Editorial Director Brian Lam, Gizmodo is going to use the liveblogging of a number of other sources to construct its own, well, liveblog, of the WWDC keynote instead of its planned, "we're actually there" coverage.
This comes a few days after San Mateo County authorities announced that a "special master" had been appointed to assist in the search of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's belongings: goods seized as part of a police investigation into the disappearance (and Gizmodo acquisition) of one of Apple's prototype iPhones. It's the very device that's rumored to be announced at the Monday keynote.
The special master—a third party that's been appointed by the court to ensure that its instructions are carried out – will be working with San Mateo County authorities to ascertain what information about the prototype can be pulled from Chen's seized belongings. The purpose behind the introduction of a special master is to ensure that only information related to the case is noted down: It's based on an agreement between the district attorney's office and Chen's attorney, Thomas Nolan, regarding the potential legal ramifications of California's shield laws for reporters.
But that's not the only dispute that still surrounds the missing prototype story. According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in an interview at the D8 conference earlier this week, there's still a question as to whether said prototype was actually lost in a Redwood City bar—as the story has panned out thus far—or whether it was stolen out of software engineer Gray Powell's bag.
"When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people that said you've got to just let it slide. You shouldn't go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you," Jobs said. "And I thought deeply about this, and I concluded the worst thing that could happen is if we change our core values and let it slide. I can't do that. I'd rather quit."
This isn't the first time Gizmodo has found itself short of a party invitation based on the actions of its editors or staffers. In 2008, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) banned Gizmodo TV blogger Richard Blakeley from its Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for life. The hammer came down as a result of a CES video Blakeley shot, featuring the blogger walking through the CES floor using a TV-B-Gone kind of device to shut off television displays throughout the convention.
Editor Brian Lam is calling for volunteer conference attendees to help cover the conference in Gizmodo's absence.
No prizes for seeing this one coming: tech blog Gizmodo - who have been making headlines recently after posting pictures of a stolen prototype iPhone on their site - have been left off the list of invites for Apple's 2010 World Wide Developers Conference.
The snub is the latest development in a case that has seen the involvement of the California police, Apple's legal team and the raid of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's house.
Despite not being invited, Gizmodo still plan to cover the event live, and have posted a call on their site for attendees of the conference to get involved and keep them updated with photos, video, audio and text messages.
Age of Heroes Online is a multiplatform online RPG-strategy based on series of mobile games «Age of Heroes» by Qplaze ®.
It is based on profoundly developed fantasy world with its unique history, geography, magic and traditionally intricate political situation.
Age of Heroes Online is built on the basis of one of the most popular settings in fantasy style – a story of huge world inhabited by humans, elves, orcs and gnomes.
Controls elements used in the game are simple and intuitive… history of the world and game features are presented to the player gradually, step by step.
For player are available all the races in game and plenty of development ways for every game class. With almost every NPC or object in game player can interact – talk, fight, look over.
Age of Heroes Online is available both for users of PC and different mobile devices – mobile phones, pocket PC, communicators – at any time and almost in any place;
The list of supported platform includes – Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile 5-6, Symbian OS. Also Age of Heroes Online successfully works on most of mobile phones with Java MIDP 2.0 support and Internet access. However, game functionality on different devices is completely the same and gives no advantages to any of the players.
For Age of Heroes Online players is available an enormous game world that greatly exceeds the sizes of other multiplatform MMORPG:
ú More than 60 locations with more than 200 unique maps for travelling and exploring;
ú More than 60 buildings and objects – from palaces to tombs, from tradesmen shops to gladiators’ arenas.
ú 9 different types of locality and game landscape vividly illustrating the differences between game races;
ú More than 25 types of battle fields completely depended on type of locality.
Gameplay of Age of Heroes Online can surprise with its variety even experienced players of online PC games:
ú In game there are more than 100 creatures with most of which player can not only fight but also hire them to his army;
ú 4 races of Age of Heroes Online not only have their own set of creatures but also unique locations, architecture, cities, heroes and magic schools;
ú For player there are available more than 130 unique quests and tasks of different degree of complexity and in different localities full of danger and adventures;
ú Player can select from 12 unique heroes with more than hundred of different skills and special abilities available for development;
ú More than 100 different animated effects go with battle actions – spectacular magic, explosions, lightning, special heroes’ abilities and many others, - creating truly epic battle canvas;
ú In the world exist 400 different magic objects and artifacts all of which can be found, purchased or gained by player in the battle.
These include some titles from larger publishers that should’ve knownbetter – and niche publishers that should’ve known better to boot.Special thanks to Chris Remo, Kris Graft, and Leigh Alexander forsuggestions:
Javaground’s UniWar is a hex-based strategy game for iPhone that didn’t get nearly enough play. While Hudson was providing inferior ports of Military Madness to XBLA (and a decent port to Android), UniWar took the tried-and-true formula to the next state, with simple tweaks and clever unit pairings.
This was one of my favorite iPhone games of the year – it wasn’tamazing, but it provided a solid tactics experience in a year wherethat was really difficult to find on a handheld. Unfortunately itdidn’t really get picked up by the masses.
With more swearing than an American porno, HotD: Overkillrubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Its over-the-top exploitationfilm love, married with the classic light gun gameplay was too much forsome people. But it was not too much for Gamasutra’s Kris Graft, wholoved this game to pieces and put this on our list.
I do welcome the return of the light gun genre, and Headstrong did anexcellent job of recognizing what was good about the genre from agameplay perspective. Shame the “hardcore” Wii userbase doesn’t reallyseem to dig the old lightgun thing.
This was one of my personal surprises of the year. With Raiden,you pretty much figure you know what you’re getting, and to some extentI did. But there was so much more there under the surface. Raiden Fighters Acesgot me to fall in love with scores again, through its perfectimplementation of arcade fun. Big explosions, chunky pixely graphics,and ridiculously responsive controls, it’s the best I could hope from ashooter, in this day and age, or any previous.
I found myself going back to attempt single credit playthroughs,because the game essentially teaches you itself. Far from thebullet-hell shooters of the current era, RFAwinds up being more accessible and more inclusive than even modernindie shooting games. Well worth a spin, especially given the valueprice in the West.
Chinese developer Meridian hit it out of the park with Alive4Ever, but it was understandably somewhat glossed over. It’s one of many twinstick Smash TV-styleshooting games on the iPhone, so is easily dismissed. But theresponsive controls, and more importantly the different missions - fromrescuing survivors, to defeating enemies in specific ways, toharvesting gold - kept the missions fresh.
The game is plain fun, and when you layer on a level system withvarious upgradable weapons, accessories, and attributes, you’ve got agame that really caters to the “just one more” voice in all of us.
This is another one that I totally understand people skipping over. Thefighting genre is niche to begin with, and SNK releases so many KOF variants and ports that nobody but the hardest of the hardcore can keep up. But KOF 98 UM is a rebalanced version of the most popular KOF ever, with new characters to boot.
The game feels more kinetic and more explosive than ever, and thebalances really help make the game work much better in versus mode. Butin the shadow of the arguably regressive KOF 12, 98 UM really didn’t get the chance to shine. If you like fighting games and have ever wondered what KOF was all about, this is the game to start with. It showcases almost everything that is good about the series.
The Silent Hill series has taken some serious knocks,after the third. Most recently development shifted to the West, and forbetter or for worse, it seems here to stay. Double Helix dropped the ball on Homecoming, and Climax’s Origins didn’t fare much better – but the latter developer got a second chance with Shattered Memories,a reimagining of the original, and it works quite well. Though itdoesn’t have the scares of the PSX game, it does have thoughtfulpuzzling and a very well developed UI.
I’ve argued about this with the developers in person, but the blue icedenvironments just don’t have the scare factor of the originalrust-colored chainlinked worlds of Silent Hill for PlayStation – but the newest entry is the best Silent Hill in years, and it seems most have written off the series entirely at this point.
Shattered Memories is worth a shot for fans of the adventuregenre more than the survival horror genre. Fans and critics alike willdiscount the game based on the downturn in the legacy - but if you canget past the arguable lack of horror, you’ll have a nice gameexperience on your hands.
Here’s a protip if you want to get on the overlooked list – release agood, but very niche handheld game for $40. That will assure almostnobody will play it in spite of its quality, as is the case with Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble,the third in Spike’s awesomely irreverent look at the world ofhighschool delinquents, released for $10 too much by Atlus in the U.S.(and not at all in Europe, so far).
This third person action game has you starring as an ambitious younggangster (bancho) who lacks street cred. As you progress, you use youreye beams to stare down other gangsters, (unfortunately staring atpeoples’ butts and crotches has been severely de-emphasized in this,the third entry in the series. It was rather hilarious.)
Crouch on the ground like a hooligan to regain your power, and engagein smack talking battles to raise in ranks and achieve dominancewithout fighting (of course, you do wind up fighting an awful lot). Theridiculous humor, fun action, and B-level nature of this game wouldhave you singing this game’s praises to your pals – if only it weren’tpriced out of most people’s “sure, I’ll try that” range.
There have been many theories as to why this game didn’t get thepopular reception it should have, in spite of overwhelming criticalapproval. Marvelous blames its own lack of brand appeal. Thedevelopment lead, producer Yoshiro Kimura worries that the game might appear too kiddy for more sophisticated audiences. But the fact is, this bizarre Pikmin-like game had way more to offer than most people realized.
It came from the mind of the creator of Chulip (Kimura), a game in which you must kiss people of all genders in order to make the world a happier place. In Little King’s Story,you play as an unintentional king who must unite the land, in anincreasingly bizarre adventure full of game and culture references,both obvious and obscure, which charmed the pants off of journalists,but they got it for free.
Those who had to pay kept their pants firmly affixed to their belts,and didn’t shell out for the title. Which is a shame, because if anythird party Wii game was trying to make something to fit the coreaudience while pleasing the casual, this was it.
It sure feels odd to put an EA game on the overlooked list, but here Igo. This is the final release from a whole Pandemic Studios, and in myopinion, their best game. I’ll admit to not being a huge fan of thestudio’s last work, but this one hits the right chords. It’s a GTA-likein which you throw Nazis to their doom (that’s fun), while liberatingParis (well, Paris is awesome), and driving sports cars and runningaround on rooftops (I’ll admit, I have a mild videogame rooftopfetish).
Like Infamous, Prototype, and Assassin’s Creed before it, The Saboteurfeatures parkour as a main method of getting around (it’s admittedlythe worst of the bunch at it – still fun though), and uses the player’sabilities to get into some interesting situations. One of my favoriteaspects is sneaking, in which you can sucker punch, garrote, orotherwise stealthily disable a Nazi and then steal their clothes toblend in and engage in subterfuge. Throwing a Nazi off a building,stealing his clothes, then blowing up his sniper roost has a certainkind of satisfaction associated with it.
The icing on the cake though, is the Will to Fight mechanic. The world of The Saboteuris black and white when controlled by the Nazi, and in color in areaswhere the French resistance is strong. This works surprisingly well –in the black and white areas, the main color you can see is the red ofNazi insignia – on armbands, on buildings, and on every Nazi target youcan blow up with dynamite (you do a lot of this).
This not only shows you an easy list of targets, it actually feelsoppressive. There are enemies everywhere, and in fact they’re the mostvisible thing in the environment. The environment changes back to colorin real time as you destroy more Nazi installations – it’s subtle, butfor me the mechanic really works.
If only the tone of the game had been more serious they could’ve reallyhad something there. But still, the game is good, I’m still playing at12 hours in, and it got neither the recognition nor the marketingbudget it deserved. It’s not perfect by any stretch, and it does havesome dastardly design choices at times, but it’s most definitelyoverlooked for its quality. And a fitting final effort from a studiothat exists now in name only.
1. Cryostasis (Action Forms Ltd./Aspyr/505 Games/Zoo Corp. – PC)
Ukrainian developer Action Forms Ltd. has released good games before - Chasm was well received, and the company’s other games have done rather alright. But Cryostasis,an FPS survival horror game, of a sort, is Action Forms' magnum opus. Ihave absolutely no doubt that if the game were released on homeconsoles, this would be one of the more talked-about games of the year,but the curious shape of game journalism means most of us tend toignore PC games in favor of the dedicated console experience. As itstands, this game hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.
What’s so special about Cryostasis? A few things. First,it gets across the idea of cold (and for that matter warmth) incrediblywell. Cold is your enemy, and also very tied to your health. The gametakes place on a huge ship that’s been wrecked in the North Pole – andthe prior inhabitants have come back to life as horrific shadows oftheir former selves. You have to battle the cold, as well as the actualenemies, in order to stay alive.
In this game each encounter matters, in true oldschool survival horrorstyle, avoiding huge waves of enemies in favor of important dedicatedbattles. The main “gimmick” of this game is the ability to dive intothe memories of dead crew members you find, during which time you canattempt to avert the deaths of these characters. If you’re notconvinced, try on one of the more unusual brain dives for size. Mildspoilers included, but none that are really tied to the main story.
You come upon a meat locker. There, you have the ability to dive intothe memory of a slab of beef. You become a cow in a field – there’sreally not much you can do, other than die. But later, you have theability to play as the ship’s butcher. You can choose not to kill thecow – by not killing the cow, not only is that particular slab of beefno longer present in the meat locker, the butcher lives, because he wascrushed to death by that very beef slab.
The past few weeks have come with two major reveals for the weirdoswho follow online social networks. The first was big news. Twitter’sinternal documents leaked and the identity-crisis of earth’s most popular start-up is now public. The second was more under the radar but just as important. In a memo that went out to staff, the CEO of MySpace admitted that their users are caught between three competing notions of what MySpace is or should be.
Twitter and Myspace are different companies in different markets butthere is a lot of evidence to suggest that they share, and will alwaysshare, the exact same problem. MySpace and Twitter are hugely popular for uses neither company anticipated.The mission of each company is so vague that their products arestretched and molded into a variety of different uses. Instead oftargeting and building their business around one of these users they take their sudden popularity as a sign they have a killer product. They don’t.
Scale is Everything
When an industry is in transition or an idea like ‘social networking’ is still being fleshed out, getting explosively popular without knowing the nuances of why is a curse.Twitter is young but in my opinion, it’s already too late. It has growntoo big, too fast, for too many different purposes. It will take 2 orthree years but Twitter will be lapped by a variety of similar services with focus and actual business models; how Facebook developed in response to MySpace sheds light on what kind.
How MySpace Scaled
Since its inception MySpace has gone after users as if they werePokemon’. MySpace managers ran competitions on sign ups and theemployes used a slew of methods to capture. The result was a sprawlingnetwork of users but by 2005, it seemed to be working. If you looked at the stats, MySpace was an utter phenomena. It destroyed Friendster and after it was purchased by Murdoch it was getting all types of press and valuations. What the raw stats didn’t tell you is that user habits on the site looked something like this:
The problem with this way of scaling is simple. When a new cultural practice, like ’social networking’, is in the grass roots stages of development you can’t assume that people are going to your site because they like it.Your competition doesn’t really exist yet. What they might like are certain aspects of your productor they might be using parts of it in ways you never designed. The onlyway to address this is to study your users obsessively, focus on aparticular experience, then update your product accordingly.
Because MySpace grew in so many different markets at a single timeand gave users so much space to use the service how they liked, they’ve never been in a position to either watch or effectively control this experience. How do you update a product without knowing its target? You don’t. MySpace at its height and the current MySpace look remarkably similar, it lost control to its users. It has gone from being hailed as one of the best acquisitions ever made to a drain on News Corps portfolio. The results look like this:
How Facebook Scaled
When it comes down to it the mechanisms of MySpace and Facebook are not that different.Thepieces and concept are nearly the same. Both are constructed of userprofiles, avatars, walls, interest spaces, groups, photo capabilities,and a friend confirmation/listing process.
Facebook distinguished itself philosophically and pragmatically. Zuckerberg’s biggest insight into designing the site was that you are online who you are in real life. Facebook was one of the first social networks to emphasize genuine identityinsofar asthey required full names, university email addresses, and deleted accounts that used aliases. The second was pragmatic. Facebook launched in a single target market. In this case, of course, it was Harvard.
What this enabled was a less abstract more manageable mission.Instead of having to define what an ‘online social networking space’was supposed to be for everyone, Zuckerburg just had to answer forHarvard. As Facebook became popular on campus, he was able to see directly into how his peers interacted with the site and was able to update the product to help them use it more efficiently. Becausethey were all college students, the feedback he was getting was focusedand nuanced. Having less users also meant they could redesign theirentire product without pissing off disparate subsections. The resultwas an incremental evolution. The Facbeook that started at Harvard looks radically different than the one we use today. It worked.
How Twitter Scaled
Twitter grew much like MySpace. It ran competition for signing upusers, aliases were allowed, and it grew in multiple markets at theexact same time. Twitter started as a group SMS texting service then became popular for something wholly different. By restricting the length of a message the site inadvertently addressed one of the oldest problems in group communication. How do you hear many voices at a single time? Twitter’s answer is dead simple. 140.
This little restriction has produced a fascinating, highly-addictive product. If you look at the stats, Twitter seems to be working. It’s one of the most popular websites in the world and now has an excess of 44 million members.For those who invested or employees that had stock options, it must bean incredible feeling. I have grown to love Twitter but in my opinion we are rapidly approaching its peak.Its parallels toMySpace in 2006 are explicit. Twitterhas been bootstrapped for a vast number of uses and while its exciting to watch, its service is not containable . Like MySpace, Twitter is getting pulled in a variety of directions:
Why Twitter Will Dissolve and Turn into Detroit
The ability to hear and communicate messages with a group is what brought Twitter its initial wave of users but the real allure of Twitter, the reason it has caught the imagination of the press and millions of users, is something much more abstract. On Twitter, you can hear a public. Of course, there isn’t just one public, there is an infinite number.Whether it’s your country, your college, your city, or a shared nicheinterest like nyc media,everyone belongs to many publics and most everyone has a natural curiosity about what’s happening inside of them.
Twitter offers a way to manage how you see these publics. The problem is that its 140 character restriction is a blunt instrument. The site does not reflect the potential or nuance in which a public can speak to itself online.
Twitter as a network is an ungodly mess. From the onset, the site has allowed users to register aliases on custom URLs and because of it, usernames are inconsistent and confusing. It’s hard to find people who you know and its often even difficult to deduct wether that person is who they claim to be. Twitter is mobbed by impersonators,some of them hilarious, others manipulating. Twitter addresses thisissue recently by creating a ‘Verified Account’ stamp, its sloppy butmore importantly, perpetually incomplete.
There are a host of other problems related to reputation and maintaing users but the biggest issue concerns its identity, which is also where the leaked documentsgot interesting. Twitter employees are so clearly uncertain about whattheir product is even doing. Shots at it swayed from, “Twitter is fordiscovering and sharing what is happening right now,” to, “Twitter makes you smarter, faster, more efficient and more powerful.”
Twitter became popular before it had a mission. What this means is that its employees and investors will forever be trapped in boardrooms having these inane cyclical discussions about its identity. Twitter will either perpetually be simple insofar as its millions of users will have to hack the service to reflect their own values or it will roll the dice on a focus, put the site through chronic redesigns, and risk a mass user exodus.Either way its top talent will likely get frustrated and leave thecompany. Its top users will drift to something else then jump.
How Twitter will Resolve
The first thing to realize is that thereprobably isn’t going to be just one product to replace Twitter, therewill be several and they will battle it out or find niches. I see theirdesign following two trends with a potential for a hybrid.
The first trend is a service with the most minimal centralization possible. Both Dave Winer and Anil Dash have discussed plans for such a product. Winer calls his the RSSCloud and Dash describes the project more generally as the Push Button web. The RSSCloud grew from discussions with Jay Rosen over frustrations with Twitter and how its users have been bootstrapping. The line of thought is that your data belongs to you, not Twitter, and you should be able to use your data how you like with as little brand interference as possible. The proposal is to build RSSCloud, a loosely coupled service that will push your data to any website in real time.
The second is a product that is centralized but has an elegant way of organizingits content and attracting users. This is a product that would look andscale much like Facebook. It would start in a single target market anddevelop as a place for users to hear and communicate to thatpublic. Ideally it would begin in a cloistered network like auniversity where establishing members is as easy as checking their .eduemail address.
Addressing what’s wrong with Twitter isn’t going to come from thin air. It’s going to take a lot of time, development, and platform competition.
Many will soon be working on this, myself included. What will fill the blank is likely to define modern news production.
It’s fair to say that the founders of Metacritic never foresawit generating the attention it has attracted. Intended as a way ofseeing at a glance whether a game was worth buying, it’s now used asa measure of game quality by the largest publishers, developers andretailers.
John Riccitiello has used its scores todefine EA’s business strategy to analysts; Steam prominently displaysthem on its product pages; developer Frontier uses them for salesforecasting.
And this simple set of numbers is deemedresponsible for many industry ills, from over-examination of reviewscores to influencing developer royalties. “I’ve heard thatpublishers will try to put a step in royalty levels depending onMetacritic scores, or some sort of Metacritic-related compensationstructure to a deal,” says Andy Eades, development director atRelentless.
Metacritic is still edited by just one man,Marc Doyle. But his focus remains very much on the reason why it wasestablished in the first place. “I really see myself as a kind ofgatekeeper to tell people that these are the games you should be payingattention to,” he declares. His role is to gather scores andcomments for every game released in the US, choosing whichpublications are included and concocting the formula that combinesthem into a single number.
A night owl, he works into thesmall hours from his office in Los Angeles. And though it’s nowowned by CNET, Metacritic is still his baby, Doyle co-founding itafter studying at USC Law School. There he met Jason Dietz,who came up with the concept and name in 1999. They launched itin 2001 and sold it in 2005.
Metacritic isn’t the onlyinternet game review score aggregator. The other major site is GameRankings, also owned by CNET. Doyle and GR’s editor, Lee Alessi,“talk to each other,” but have different methodologies. GR’sscores are based on averages, while Metacritic weighs publications’scores differently, depending on Doyle’s opinion of their prestigeand quality. But he won’t reveal how.
Both work on the sameprinciple, however: consistently include enough reviews fromenough publications across enough games and the results will smoothout. “A big game – one of the GTAs – I know Edge is going toreview it, and I know an easy grader will too, and so the biggames will get the same treatment,” Doyle explains. “If I includeall your reviews and all theirs, it all works out.”
Certainly,viewed broadly, the games at the top of the scale are generally thebest games around, and the bottom ones certainly aren’t. Thechallenge for Doyle [pictured above] – and the main source ofcontroversy – is in his selection of publications. The originalbasis was: “Who is the most credible, who has the best reputation,the best analysis?”
But now, he says: “It’s essentiallyabout whether gamers are going to them because they’re reliable foradvice on what games they should buy. I really don’t have to do toomuch research because they just come to me. I check out their scoringmethodology, send out a questionnaire asking when they launched,how many reviews they cover a week, total reviews done, aboutstaff – all the things I’ve learned over the years that I have todo.”
Clearly, much credence is placed on metascores, buttheir use as a metric for business decisions also depends on whetherthere really is a causal relationship between scores and sales.“There’s anecdotal evidence both ways,” says Doyle. “I know thatcertain publishers have done very comprehensive studies and they’vebeen able to highlight certain types of games and certain types ofgenres for which predictability will be much higher – racing,sports and certain types of action games, certain types offranchises. Others you just don’t know, like why did the Ben 10game sell through the roof? I don’t know. It’s not sopredictable, it’s not scientific or perfect.”
Activisionhas made such studies. Executive VP of publishing Robin Kaminsky saidat the 2008 DICE conference that higher-quality games, based onscores from Game Rankings, on average sell more, and that for everyfive points above 80, on average, sales double. But she notedthat many games buck this trend, and that the largest publishershave found that the greatest sales growth tends to occur in gamesscoring in the region of 70 compared to those scoring 80 ormore.
She also presented 18 products achieving scores of90 or more in 2008 and 2007. Only two were projected to sellover seven million copies, while seven sold less than a million.Overall, 12 out of the 18 sold less than two million, afigure that marks a rough break-even point for a triple-A game. Inother words, there is a correlation but quality does not assuresuccess.
And yet Metacritic is still gaining in stature, apoint illustrated by the fact that Doyle is receiving increasingcorrespondence from publishers. “If I’m missing something,publishers contact me and ask whether there’s a bias or a systematicissue – ‘Why are you covering this publication and not another?’”
Indeed,many PRs are strongly affected by a greater use of metascores aswell. Certainly, we’ve spoken with a PR for a major publisher whoexpressed huge frustration with the stress their companies place ongetting the best they can. “PRs who haven’t been in the industry verylong will get angry when certain new publications that I know haven’tearned their reputation aren’t included, or some local daily paper,”says Doyle.
“I say, ‘Guys, they haven’t made it yet’ –I try to be as kind as I can because I know sometimes they haveclauses in their contracts that make them affected by metascores interms of bonuses or penalties.”
The practice could be subtlychanging the relationship between developers and publishers, too.“You really want a producer to focus on doing everything that’s rightfor the game, not to be focused unduly with the review score it’sgoing to achieve,” says Splash Damage’s Paul Wedgwood [above].
“Ifhis bonus is wound up at a score of 70 or 80, he might betempted to err on the side of caution rather than taking risks andpushing for an 85 or a 90. Look at projects like BioShock,for example – on paper that isn’t something any sane producer wouldtake on, but it’s obviously well justified by its review scores.”
Furtherto this, many developers of games for broader markets feel thatmetascores are unrepresentative of their work. “If you look at familygames and kids’ games, they consistently score as many as tenreview points lower for, dare I say, what’s similar quality,”says Frontier’s David Braben. “It’s actually really hard to make areally
good kids’ game.”
For Wedgwood, developers canbe more directly affected by a poor metascore. “The negative sideis if developers are penalised for achieving low scores despite nothaving control over the resources and schedule for the project.”
Doylethinks so too: “If they’re having to achieve a certain metascore withthe same budget, that’s disturbing.” But it depends on therelationship between developer and publisher as well, as Wedgwoodsays: “Obviously, if the developer is wholly or partially funding agame or has a strong relationship with the publisher and can determinewhen it’s going to be released and how much it’s going to cost tomake, it’s their responsibility. And I think in that situationit’s quite common for a publisher to have an expectation for quality.”
Indeed,Wedgwood is a proponent of the idea that publishers should offer abonus related to earning certain metascores: “I think that reallyshows confidence from the publisher, saying ‘irrespective ofwhether or not this is a commercial success we’re going to pay you abonus just for achieving a certain review score’ – that’s a realincentive.”
But Braben [above] argues that developers have hadincentives all along. “Think of sales as a great big glorifiedMetacritic,” says Braben. “There’s been a lot of earnest talk aboutusing Metacritic and Game Rankings to incentivise, but the one reallyobvious way of incentivising things is royalties. EA has giveninterviews in which it mentioned average Metacritic scores as being ametric of the quality of its games. The problem is, why is itquoting that and not sales success?”
Eades agrees,reminding us that game companies are businesses: “There’s no pointin getting nine out of ten, ten out of ten and then not sellingenough products to justify a sequel.”
Which brings us back to the fact that Metacritic was only ever meant to be a general
guideto what to play for a game-buying public. For as long as everyone inthe videogame industry remembers that at the heart of it are one man’sdecisions, it could have value as just one of many other ways ofmeasuring a game’s overall success.
And perhaps, among allthe fears that a new focus on quality by publishers has emerged, thisis a change for the better. Wedgwood certainly agrees: “Wouldn’teverybody rather be working for a publisher that’s more concerned aboutquality?
wwdc 08 really disappointed me, i was expecting apple to give out a mac book without keyboard, but a multi touch functional screen
Really ? I was hoping steve would sumo wrestle with ballmer. Why is it everyone gets these inflated expectations of apple events. Then whines when the magic pony touchscreen doesn't appear ? Seriously when apple do a tablet it won't be a mac book without a keyboard , you want that get a mod book ( they look quite nice ). What will likely make an appearance is a larger say 7 -10" ipod ala the touch. Why ? Well tablets suck they form factor is totally askew. Anything over that 10" size is too unwieldy. I doubt we'll see this tablet anytime soon. The iPhone OS is still evolving & spin off products won't make an appearance until development of the OS has stabilized. But hey we can all wish for that flying pony next time steve takes the stage ( either of them )
UK videogame industry leaders have demanded greater ties betweenbusiness and academia to ensure that Britain's games developers remainglobally competitive. But will any of them step forward to foster therelationship?
At games industry conference the Westminster Media Forum, held inLondon this week, Mary Matthews, Strategy and Business DevelopmentDirector at game developer Blitz, said that ineffective training isholding the industry back.
“We can’t do what we want to do because we can’t find the right people,” she said.
Yet, acording to Kate O’Connor, Executive Director of Policy andDevelopment at Skillset, an industry body for skills and training, UKuniversities already offer 80 videogame-related degree courses. Nonehave any industry recognition, however.
Paul Harris, Professor of Screen Media at the University of Abertay,Dundee, agreed that accreditation by game design firms is crucial. Hesaid it is the best way for universities to ensure that students’skills match firms’ requirements.
Matthews also called for a similar frequent refreshment of the curriculum.
Matthews has other ideas too, such as recruiting potential gamedesigners from the age of 14. In her view, this would help kidsestablish much earlier a link between enjoying games and developingthem, thus steering more designers into the industry.
However, no one appears willing to take responsibility for theproposals. Instead, both industry and academia are hoping thegovernment will do the job for them.
Margaret Hodge, Minister for Culture, Creative Industries andTourism, said at the conference: “The games industry must do more toencourage students to choose the right qualifications [for videogamedesign], such as maths and physics.”
The government, she said, also has plans in the pipeline to createof centres of excellence for videogame development where gaming brainscould unite to develop the next smash hit.
While talking to TGR, VP of Marketing and Development at Valve DougLombardi touched on the PC market in general and what Valve thinks ofthe stories regarding the fate of PC gaming. Lombardi told us:
“We have really been outspoken lately about that. There is this brokenstory about the PC being on the decline, right? And that is one ofthese things like that we are really sort of being cranky about rightnow and being outspoken about and saying, it is not the PC market thatis dying, it is the PC retail in the states that is dying.”
Doug backed up this claim with comments regarding the state of PCgaming in other countries. “If you look at the revenue that we aremaking from Steam and the revenue that Blizzard is making from World of Warcraft,"he told us, "and you look at the sales of retail products in placeslike Germany and cyber café business in Korea, etc., there is moremoney now being made from PC business then ever before and it isactually dramatically increasing. I mean our Steam year over yearrevenues are up over 190%.”
Translation: with the increasing popularity of MMO games and the hugePC growth in Korea, PC gaming is here to stay for a long time yet. Anystory claiming PC gaming is dead hasn’t researched the facts or, justlooking at the sales chart in America.
Google has defended its controversial Street View photo-mappingtool, saying it will meet local privacy laws in European countries atlaunch.
Following the news that Google Street View image capturing cars havebeen spotted in London, it seems Google's plans to bring the service tothe UK is under threat.
It's time to lock up your daughters, and here's why: The rovingspycar of Google's Street View has been spotted prowling the meanstreets of London...
At london bridge: T
Also
http://flickr.com/photos/rodcorp/2653406304/
Inverness:
That aside - my mate snapped one of these devices on a few lampostsin his street that turned up the same day the Google-mobile was about.
http://c.imagehost.org/view/0124/thing.jpg
A quick call to the Highland Council street lighting departmentconfirmed they knew nothing about it, and that it should definitely nothave been put there without their permission.
So, over to you, readers. What the hell is it ???
The tool, which matches real world photos to mapped locations, has drawn fire from some privacy campaigners.
In the UK, Privacy International said the tool could breach data protection laws if people's faces were shown.
Google has said it is using face blurring technology to preserve the privacy of individuals photographed.<!-- E SF -->
"In our view they need a person's consent if they make use of aperson's face for commercial ends," Simon Davies, of PrivacyInternational told BBC News.
Street View has already been launched in the US and includesphotos of streets in major American cities. Photographing of areas inthe UK, including London, is believed to have started last week.
Mr Davies has written to Google asking for details of the face-blurringtechnology, saying he would ask the UK Information Commissioner tointervene if he did not receive a satisfactory response.
He told BBC News that he was concerned that Google's technology would not work.
Google's senior privacy counsel Jane Horvath has responded saying that the technology had already been deployed.
She wrote: "We actually launched this technology publicly in early May, when we refreshed our imagery in Manhattan, New York.
"Since then we have applied face blurring to all new imagery launches in the US, including a major launch in June."
Google has said it plans to launch Street View in a "few European countries" but did not give any more details.
In a statement, a Google spokesperson added: "We think this type ofprivacy-enabling technology is the best way of meeting the challenge ofcontinuing to respect people's expectation of privacy, while notstifling the development of new products and services that everyone canenjoy and benefit from."
Have you seen Google photographing the UK? Do you have any picturesof the cars Google are using to take photos?
Heres some US sights from the likes of
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/request_for_urb.html
Gears of War guyCliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski makes hardcore games, but isn't too hardcoreto say that there are too many buttons on controllers these days.
"I hope if there's a new Xbox that there'll be fewer buttons on the controller," he told CVG recently.
"Thisis purely me speculating in my own realm of game development, but ifyou look at a controller right now it looks like an alien spaceship,"he added.
Of course, as Nintendo's found out, Bleszinski has a point here. Too many buttons=too scary for grandma.
Butnow I'm scared. It's beginning to dawn on me that my beloved dualanalogs (which I've enjoyed since Sony updated the original PlayStationpads) may be in their twilight years. What will the next generation ofcontrollers bring? Will they all be remote/"nunchuck" combos? 3Dglasses with headpieces that read your thoughts? Will toes somehowbecome involved?
CliffyB elaborated, "I think you could dothings with a built-in camera or a little motion sensitivity. You lookat the Wii controller with less buttons - they added functionality bydoing waggle. Not a lot of games use the waggle well, but Super MarioGalaxy for example uses it perfectly. Zak and Wiki uses it rather well."
Eventhough I'm scared about the next generation of controllers, (you canalmost bet on something radically different from Sony and Microsoft), Iimagine that the console makers are a billion times more scared.Probably just about as scared as Nintendo when it introduced the Remote.
The video game market is changing incrediblyquickly right now, probably at the fastest rate since the big crash ofthe mid-1980s.
Not only is the market expanding to include women and casual gamersonce again, the definition of what constitutes a game is expanding. Iwouldn't say it’s expanding within the minds of game developers, but itis expanding in the context of the mass media and mass consumers, andthat’s who drives the market in the first place.
As sick to death as we all are of talking about microtransactions,free-to-play MMOs, and casual online spaces, the advent of these thingsis changing the game landscape for good, whether we like it or not.
Interactive Media - At Face Value The lines between an online community portal and an MMO are blurredto the point of being indistinguishable. Consider the numbers — Audition Online has tens of millions of users worldwide, and a dedicated TV show in Vietnam. Kart Rider has tens of millions of users. Ditto Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin.
Traditional games - like most people reading this are developingtoday - may never be able to reach that large of an audience. Our gamesare too focused, too hardcore, and bear too much of the stereotype of“gamer.”
Right now, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, and World of Warcraftare considered our blockbuster titles, and flagships for the industryin popular culture. But when you think about it, it’s still justshooting aliens, playing gang banger, and swinging your sword in theforest.
Boiled down to their essentials those things appeal to a verylimited group of people, and the complexity of game controls preventseven blockbuster movie attendees, whom we should be attracting, fromplaying these things.
At least, that’s the common line. But is that really the case? Doaliens, wizards, and soldiers really make a piece of entertainmentinaccessible? Many millions of people went to see the Iron Man movieover the past two months, and a large percentage of them have probablynever picked up a comic book in their lives.
Why is it that people will go see The Lord of the Rings' movies, but many of them will not play the games?
The Real Mass Market It’s common knowledge that game controllers are intimidating, thatconsoles have a certain stigma to them, and that most mass marketconsumers consider games to be either a waste of time, or activelydetrimental.
These can all be debated until the end of time, but the perceptionexists, and either that has to change (Nintendo is doing good workthere), or we have to change. Otherwise we’ll end up with acomparatively small fraction of a growing market.
Will it be possible to make a game like Assassin’s Creed or BioShockin 2015? It’s already becoming difficult to justify large budgets forsingle-player experiences, and it stands to reason that it will getmore difficult as time goes on. What does that mean for developers ofthese games? What happens to the concept of a game auteur?
One possibility is for these hardcore games to essentially becomethe art-house cinema of the video game world, which would be odd, asthat’s a role currently filled by indie titles.
Interestingly, never has the film/game analogy worked less well than it does currently. In the PS2 era, you could correlate Grand Theft Auto III with a movie blockbuster, and Ico with an art-house film.
But now, in terms of scope, money, and global social impact, Kart Rider or Club Penguin would be that blockbuster, and Call of Duty 4 would be the art-house equivalent, though content- and budget-wise Call of Duty 4 is much more your traditional blockbuster material. Something seems awry there.
The fact is, these simple-to-play social experiences are here.They’re growing in popularity, they’re dwarfing our multi-milliondollar projects that sell through to 5 million people at max, and theycost a fraction of the price to make.
With the market expanding as it is, and the dollars going wherethey’re going, the $20 million budget bestselling console title oftoday is going to be the hardcore niche title of tomorrow, art-house ornot. Unless development costs get significantly lower, it seems we havean online future to look forward to.
New Things Are Stupid To wit: online games are taking over, and I, curmudgeon that I am, don’t really like it.
Certainly there will always be the hardcore players that will wantthat deeper experience. There’s no doubt about that. But the questionis: in an industry where we’re getting our asses kicked financially byweb developers, of all people, who will pay us to make it?
30. Rise of the Argonauts (PS3, X360, PS3) Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Liquid Entertainment
Est. Release Date: Sep 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Anaction RPG that promises to be way more action than RPG, Rise of theArgonauts has a winning mythological premise and lots of little designtouches that keep the game looking fresh. Take the Argo—the ship oflegend will act as a seafaring headquarters from which your recruitedArgonauts will provide support. There is also a “deed” system that willincrease Jason’s abilities via the acquisition of Xbox LiveAchievement-like trophies. So it’s bursting with interesting ideas, andit’s all running on the reliable Unreal Engine 3—this could be thesleeper hit of the year.
29. High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance (PC, Wii, PS2, NDS, X360) Publisher: Disney Interactive
Developer: TBA
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Considerthis your representative sample of licensed games that promise to sellgangbusters regardless of quality or media reaction. And High SchoolMusical 3 is likely to be the biggest game of its breed this year: themovie of the same name is the first time this children’s blockbusterfranchise will see a theatrical release, meaning the marketing for theproperty is likely to be even more inescapable than usual. Beyond theusual niceties of rhythm games—coop and competitive modes, mechanicsspecific to each system’s control scheme—it will have the songs fromHigh School Musical movies past and present. That last one is almostcertainly the only feature the game needs to add another million insales to the franchise’s life-to-date count.
28. Borderlands (PC, X360, PS3) Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software
Est. Release Date: 2009
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Capabledeveloper Gearbox has never swung for the fences with quite as muchgusto as with Borderlands. The fact that the game is original IP isn’teven the half of it—it also promises a procedural item creation systemthat will provide this sci-fi first-person shooter over half a millionweapons. If that’s not enough, Borderlands also shares some ambitionswith big-budget role playing games: the world will be expansive,character growth and classes comes standard, and missions and sidequests will populate the landscape. Borderlands has all the earmarks ofa breakout hit, and its scope should easily take the breath away fromboth shooter and science fiction fans.
27. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (X360, PS3) Publisher: Midway
Developer: Midway
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Goingon the title alone, Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe feels a decade late,like it should have been slugging it out with Marvel Vs Capcom for thequarters of 90s teenagers. But it’s actually a better idea,commercially, in 2008—now the game can ride the tide of successfulcomic book film blockbusters. It can pull from the years of soliddesign work and franchise reputation rebuilding that culminated inMortal Kombat: Armageddon. And with an anticipated ESRB rating of T forTeen, there’re no retail hurdles to keep the adolescent maledemographic from eating this up with a spoon.
26. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (PC) Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: GSC Game World
Est. Release Date: Aug 29, 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl was hardly the biggest first-person shooter of 2007in the west. But it posted platinum-level sales in Eastern Europe,where its freeform gameplay and mythos steeped in Russia’s uniquescience fiction struck a strong chord. With little similar competitionin the region, its sequel Clear Sky should do well for itself therealso. Which isn’t to say the rest of the world shouldn’t (or won’t)give it a go as well—Clear Sky will add a tactical, squad-based turfwar to the already eccentric proceedings, and should be just as curiousand interesting a beast as its predecessor.
25. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3, X360, Wii, PS2, PSP, NDS) Publisher: LucasArts
Developer: LucasArts
Est. Release Date: Sep 2008
Officially Announced for E3: No, but it might as well be
TheForce Unleashed could well be the biggest project to bear the Star Warsfranchise name since Episode III ended the franchise’s non-animatedtheatrical run. Every Star Wars fan has been curious about the periodright before the Original Trilogy when Darth Vader had his run of thegalaxy; Force Unleashed promises to capture this period from theperspective of the Dark Side, using exciting new technologies torealistically render bot the AI and the Force itself. If the persistentrumors are true, this could well be the last project completely builtby LucasArts’ internal studio—but in that case, it will be one heck ofa send-off that a lot of Star Wars fans will experience.
24. Beyond Good and Evil 2 (PS3, X360) Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier (likely)
Est. Release Date: TBA
Officially Announced for E3: No
Allthat’s known about Beyond Good and Evil 2 is that it’s currently beingworked on by Ubisoft premier designer Michel Ancel. But in this case,that’s more than enough—Ancel’s resume does include perennial hitRayman and (naturally) the first Beyond Good and Evil, after all. Andthe first Beyond Good and Evil is particularly beloved. The smallaudience that played it has been talking about it ever since, praisingits varied gameplay and realistic, strong female protagonist Jade. Sothe sequel is exciting, and though its commercial success is by nomeans assured it’s possible that maybe the adult gaming audience isfinally ready for this franchise.
23. Lock’s Quest (NDS) Publisher: THQ
Developer: 5th Cell
Est. Release Date: Fall 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
2007’sbiggest surprise sales blockbuster was a little DS game called Drawn toLife, built by a little mobile developer called 5th Cell. That gamegave the independent studio a reputation for creating innovations withstrong market appeal, and it could cement that reputation with Lock’sQuest, a curious RTS/Action/RPG/minigame hybrid with cute graphics,quick thrills and a world that can be completely remodeled by theplayer. In other words, it has a lot of elements that appeal across awide variety of gaming demographics, as well as a lot of ambition. Ifthis one lives up to its potential, it would be great to see it succeed.
22. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (PC, X360, NDS) Publisher: D3 Publisher of America
Developer: Infinite Interactive
Est. Release Date: Fall 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Lastyear’s Puzzle Quest combined the most addictive parts of the casual“match three” puzzle game with the most addictive parts of RPGcharacter development, a powerful cocktail that murdered productivityand sold in huge numbers. There’s no reason this follow-up shouldn’tcontinue in that trend—it’s still a match three puzzle game (this timemore Collapse than Bejeweled), it still has those all-important RPGelements, and it’s being built by the same studio. The only differences(besides the science fiction setting) all look like improvements.There’s an element of strategy gaming. Players can enhance not justtheir character, but also their spacecraft. Downloadable content willabound. It all sounds like a game that players will itch to play afterthe first hit.
21. Crysis: Warhead (PC) Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Crysis
Est. Release Date: Fall 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Allegedlythe last PC exclusive from the bastion of PC gaming high technology,Crytek’s side story to 2007’s Crysis looks every bit as graphicallydazzling as its predecessor. It also promises to be a moremarket-friendly title (a tall order considering Crysis’ million-sellingstatus); Warhead provides a less strategic, more bombastic run-and-gunaffair compared to the original Crysis. And with a year of hardwareadvancements in between Crysis and Crysis: Warhead, that more widelyappealing design will find that a lot more people have the rigs toactually run it well. And who knows? If Warhead does manage to findthat perfect balance, perhaps Crytek will stick to their PC-exclusivestomping grounds for a while longer.
20. Tomb Raider Underworld (Wii, PS2, PS3, X360, PC, NDS) Publisher: Eidos
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
It’sbeen a few years since Crystal Dynamics took the Tomb Raider franchiseand reinvigorated it with Legend. But it’s really with Underworld thatthe series’ previous mistakes have been taken to heart. Rather thanrest the game on its laurels again, Underworld is a creation that lookstoward with the new; the game engine is all new, the way the worldinteracts with Lara is more realistic, combat now has melee and willflow fluidly into the puzzle mechanics. And if that wasn’t enough toguarantee sales, Lara has a motorcycle now too.
19. Sonic Unleashed (Wii, PS2, PS3, X360) Publisher: SEGA
Developer: Sonic Team/Dimps
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: No
Thesedays it feels like SEGA promises the moon with every Sonic title, tothe point where it’s hard to fall for it anymore. Take Sonic Unleashed;it’s promise of a revamped, re-invented Sonic echoes the promises SEGAmade before this generation’s first Sonic the Hedgehog hit the Xbox 360with a sad plop. And yet, franchise sales have never followed the samecurve as the blue blur’s review scores. This is mostly because ofSonic’s strong appeal to the child market, but on some level thegraying Genesis owner wants to believe what we’re told, that this nextSonic really will reclaim the glory days. Anyway, Sonic Unleashed. It’srunning on a new engine and has some 2D environments. It’ll sell, andas for the rest of it? Here’s hoping.
18. MadWorld (Wii) Publisher: SEGA
Developer: Platinum Games
Est. Release Date: 2009
Officially Announced for E3: No
PlatinumGames, formerly Seeds, formerly Clover Studios, isn’t known for makingcommercial hits. No, that team is known more for making instant,beloved classics. Okami certainly, but Viewtiful Joe is in there aswell, and the only people who remember God Hand these days love it toabsolute death. MadWorld, a blood-soaked black and white Wii exclusive,feels like a return to the playful, experimentation that made this teamfamous. Will it sell? Well, it’s nice to think that just maybe, thistime, the market has caught up to what Platinum is doing.
17. Animal Crossing Wii (Wii) Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Est. Release Date: TBA
Officially Announced for E3: No
Asof this writing, Animal Crossing Wii still exists as a hopeful glimmerin the eye of the gaming public. Nintendo hasn’t said anything at allabout it yet, though almost all speculation says that it exists andwill be announced soon—and if that’s the case, E3 is as good a place toshowcase it as any. It’s a completely believable theory. Nintendo’sChristmas lineup is currently a complete mystery, and Animal Crossing,already a surprise hit on GameCube and DS, is such a good fit for thecasual Wii-loving audience it’s startling it’s not on the systemalready.
16. Left 4 Dead (PC, X360) Publisher: Valve Software
Developer: Turtle Rock Studios
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Valvedoesn’t release duds, and it doesn’t buy teams that can’t deliver. Sothe fact that it purchased Turtle Rock Studios and have put a greatdeal of PR muscle behind Left 4 Dead speaks volumes as to how good thisgame could be. The game has a completely innovative, yet highly marketfriendly hook in its “four survivors must cooperate to survive thezombie horde” premise, though players of a less polite persuasion canalso take up the role of a super-powered zombie. This could very wellbe the next major online phenomenon, like Team Fortress 2 before it.
15. Resistance 2 (PS3) Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Insomniac Games
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Thefirst Resistance was the big win for the PlayStation 3 at launch, butResistance 2 looks set to spin that good first impression into anempire. Resistance 2 pushes the game out of London to the morerelatable (in the US, anyway) environs of the United States. A goodmove, but not as good as the massive 60-man multiplayer that the gamepromises. That’s fantastic scale for an online console game; add onsome more focused, objective-oriented teamplay and Resistance 2 is agood contender for gamer’s next networked obsession.
14. Killzone 2 (PS3) Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Guerilla Games
Est. Release Date: 2009
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Threeyears on and Killzone 2 is still trying to shake off its disastrous“showing” at E3 2005. Admittedly the team at Guerilla has done a finejob of actually approaching the target in that first badly marketed“target render,” with more recent previews showing the game asappropriately attractive and bombastic for its high position in Sony’sportfolio. But it still needs a big floor to show off, and it needs aman to say “in-game graphics” about one thousand times in front of somehuge HD Killzone if it wants to really nail the market. E3 historicallyhas had some very big floors.
13. Fable 2 (X360) Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Est. Release Date: Oct 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Alot on Fable 2 is already known, and most of it is interesting on avariety of levels. There’s the in-game dog, a character ofunconditional love that will act as the player’s anchor to the game’sworld. There’s the Pub Games, a series of Xbox Live Arcade titles thatwill act as both encapsulated products and previews for the bigrelease. Then there’s the gay marriage, pregnant adventuring, and allmanner of family matters to deal with in the game as well. It’s a gamethat promises to push boundaries and break some of the medium’s moreridiculous unnecessary taboos. Considering the success of the originalGable, it’s likely many people will choose to experience this moveforward—surely a good thing.
12. Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, X360) Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Los Angeles
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
RedAlert’s Cold War gone hot is one of the most beloved scenarios is allof strategy gaming, and the franchise’s long seven year absence makesthis game even more exciting and desirable. And by adding thepseudo-Japanese Empire of the Rising Sun faction the festivities geteven more campy and strange, complete with towering mecha, psychicschoolgirls and parachuting bears. So it’s got a lot of hooks for boththe longtime fan and sugar-crazed newcomer alike.
11. Far Cry 2 (PC, X360, PS3) Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: No
FarCry 2 has found a unique gaming setting in the jungles, savannahs andtowns of Africa, and it plans on giving the player a lot of thatsetting – 50 square kilometers, to be precise. Plenty of new gameplayelements will make themselves known as the player crosses that expanse:some wounds have to be treated with field medicine (ie. fishing abullet out with a knife) and brush fires can be started, only to bewhipped up realistically by wind. Far Cry 2 is an underutilized brandmoving to an underutilized setting while adding multiple newinnovations, making it an extremely strong contender in the hardcoreshooter market.
10. Prince of Persia (X360, PS3) Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Est. Release Date: Holiday 2008
Officially Announced for E3: No
Princeof Persia: The Sands of Time was one of the last generation’s definingmoments, so it would have been easy for Ubisoft to just build astandard sequel on the successes of its previous trilogy. The fact thatthis is not the case, that the series is instead being rebooted with anincredible hand-painted aesthetic and open world, show a strongdedication to making the Prince one of the most lasting and importantfranchises in gaming (though the big budget movie helps on that scoreas well). While previous PoP titles did sell well, after theblockbuster success of Assassin’s Creed, the timing is perfect for thePrince to really make it big.
9. Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Est. Release Date: TBD
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Sinceclosing the door on the last console genre, Square Enix has relied onhandheld games and Wii side stories alone. If the publisher’s lastfiscal statement said anything, it was that’s no way for a company tolive—so while Square Enix has some other interesting console games inthe pipe, it needs to bring its megaton franchise back into the publiceye. It’s not surprising that Final Fantasy XIII will show up in someform at E3—and regardless of what form it takes or what the game lookslike now, it could certainly steal the show if it tried.
8. Street Fighter IV (PC, X360, PS3) Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom/Dimps
Est. Release Date: 2009
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Atworst, this is a surprise come back of one of gaming’s most iconicfranchises. At best, this could be the surprise come back of agenre—certainly if anything could revive a flagging fighting gamefield, a new numbered entry in its greatest series would be the thingto do it. Perhaps the best sign that this game knows what it will taketo succeed is its reverence to Street Fighter II—all of the charactersfrom that game will return, and the gameplay mirrors the measured paceof that early entry. Considering versions of SFII still sell in strongnumbers, it’s easy to see how this strategy could succeed on the market.
7. Rock Band 2 (X360, PS3, PS2, Wii) Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
Est. Release Date: Sep 2008 (X360 timed exclusive, with other versions to follow)
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Nomatter what other companies say, the fast-paced game of catch-up thathas gripped the music genre says one thing louder: the four-piece RockBand is the standard for the field. And while little is known about itat this point, what is known proves that Harmonix hasn’t lost the plotwith Rock Band 2. Sticking to its “platform” guns, the game will befully backwards compatible—with old DLC, with old instruments, theworks. And while user-created content is not a go this time, there arecertainly things about the game yet to be announced—you don’t want tomiss this one at the show.
6. LittleBigPlanet (PS3) Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Media Molecule
Est. Release Date: Oct 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Despiteseemingly constant delays, LittleBigPlanet remains one of the mostunique products in Sony’s first-party arsenal. The idea of a game thatlives and dies by the content created by its users has been triedbefore in first-person shooters, but LittleBigPlanet, with its lovelytextured graphics and universal, non-violent charm wants to be muchmore—the YouTube of games perhaps, or the Legos of the 21st century. Ofall the games that could bring PlayStation 3 to the mass market, thisremains the best hope.
5. Halo Wars (X360) Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Ensemble Studios/Bungie
Est. Release Date: Oct 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
HaloWars is more than just the next title from Microsoft to have the Haloname. It’s also more than the first Halo project not spearheaded byBungie. Halo Wars wants to be a revolution in real-time strategy, aconsole exclusive built from the ground up for a console controller—inother words, Halo Wars wants to do for real-time strategy what Halo didfor first-person shooters. If it succeeds, it could crack wide open thenascent console RTS market as gamers try it based on the franchisealone. It’s been reported that the game will be playable by the mediaat E3, so the show should give a much better idea as to how itssucceeding.
4. Spore (PC, Mac) Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Maxis
Est. Release Date: Sep 7, 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
It’scertainly something that even after the seemingly endless amount ofwords typed about Spore, even though it’s appeared in publications asnon-game centric as The New Yorker, even though the wait for the gamehas been years long and interminable, almost everyone who knows aboutit is still excited at its promise. And after the success of therecently released Creature Creator, that excitement is still mounting.Will Wright’s SimEverything could very well the next big thing, tossingaside silly ideas like “demographics” and just appealing to everyoneeverywhere. In other words, the next Sims.
3. Gears of War 2 (X360) Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Epic Games
Est. Release Date: Nov 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Gearsof War 2 is a lot of things. To the gamer, it is epic, the sequel tothe game that dominated man hours spent on Xbox Live for most of 2007.To developers, it’s the new baseline, as every new Epic game has cometo represent the state of the art for the now industry standard UnrealEngine 3. In both regards Gears of War 2 looks great. A fewimprovements to the constantly evolving engine have already been shown,and most gamers agree that new mechanics like martyrdom and the “meatshield” look like fantastic fun. Gears of War is already one of thisgeneration’s emblematic franchises, so it will be great to see how thesequel goes about cementing that status.
2. Resident Evil 5 (X360, PS3) Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Est. Release Date: 2009
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
RE5is not even close to a retail release, and yet it’s already one of themost interesting topics in the industry. It brings with it the highlyrespected pedigree of Resident Evil 4, hands-down one of the best gamesof the last generation, and will probably sell strongly to the audiencethat loved, or even heard about, that game. Yet it’s also mired incontroversy over some concerns regarding racism. So it’s a projectthat’s walking many tightropes of expectation, and there’s potentialfor huge success or massive failure here. As a result this E3 could bethe most important public showing for RE5 until its release—it shouldbe fascinating.
1. Fallout 3 (PC, X360, PS3) Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Est. Release Date: Oct 2008
Officially Announced for E3: Yes
Fallout3 shows great evolutionary leaps every time it’s displayed for publicviewing, with recent revelations—the childhood simulating charactercreator, the 500 endings—being particularly fascinating. Now that it’scoming precariously close to its announced release date, this E3 shouldrepresent the game’s biggest showing yet. If there are any surprisesleft in the title to announce, expect them to get announced at somepoint during the week. But even if there aren’t, Fallout 3 has alreadyproven itself to be a sprawling, ambitious project that anyone in thegaming audience would wait to spend more time with.
RedAlert’s Cold War gone hot is one of the most beloved scenarios is allof strategy gaming, and the franchise’s long seven year absence makesthis game even more exciting and desirable. And by adding thepseudo-Japanese Empire of the Rising Sun faction the festivities geteven more campy and strange, complete with towering mecha, psychicschoolgirls and parachuting bears. So it’s got a lot of hooks for boththe longtime fan and sugar-crazed newcomer alike.
