Technically, that’s a slight exaggeration, but from the perspective of most other development teams, the sheer number of bodies Activision assigns to making Call of Duty games still boggles the mind. According to Activision’s executive vice president for studios Dave Stohl, the publisher has at any one time around 500 people working on the Call…
This Philips webcam, from a 2001 Swedish catalogue, should look familiar to fans of Valve’s Portal series. What do you think? Awesome coincidence or awesome (given the nature of the “characters”) inspiration? Portal Webcam of the Day [TDW] You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him…
Later today, Sony is bringing the PlayStation Network down for a little spring maintenance. I know it’s not spring in the US, or Europe, but it’s spring here, so that’s what I’m calling it. Between the hours of 0900 and 1100 US Pacific Time (convert time here), “the PlayStation Store, registration and Account Management will…
The Brian Wood Memorial Trust, set up to assist the family of a Relic developer killed tragically in a car accident last year, is raising funds this month with some great Warhammer 40K swag. With the studio having just wrapped up work on Space Marine, they’re auctioning off a range of memorabilia that includes signed…
It’s either heaven. Or blasphemy. But I’m leaning towards the former, especially since there’s also a PC involved. Timofiend has built a machine that combines the guts of an Xbox 360 and a PS3 in the one shell (a PC case). It’s not a simple project, but one that just on principle alone is more…
If you’ve ever wondered why recent Zelda games have been a little easier than they used to be, consider the man in charge of the series, Eiji Aonuma. Who has never finished the first Zelda “I’ve never actually finished it,” Aonuma told Game Informer. “I almost feel like there’s still no game more difficult than…
In 1988, Nintendo released a modem for its Famicom system in Japan. A crude device, it didn’t allow for online play; just some downloadable stuff and access to basic news and information services. The device was never released in the United States, but it wasn’t for want of trying. Indeed, Nintendo figured at the time…
As is customary, Blizzard’s first beta for Diablo III – which has now begun – is with employees and family of the company. That probably doesn’t include you. But that’s OK. You can watch other people play! There’s no non-disclosure agreement covering the beta, so those employees and their families are free to broadcast whatever…
Around 2003, Black Rock Studio (which is sadly now no more) was working on something fairly unique: a Metallica game that didn’t involve plastic instruments. It instead was a “post-apocalyptic driving/adventure game”, in which the band’s members were badass, gun-toting characters. Destined for the PS2, nothing ever came of the title. It was never even…
Last month, Microsoft very quietly swept a broom through the Xbox Live userbase, finding—and banning—a number of Xbox 360 owners for “illegitimately [accessing] Xbox LIVE Marketplace downloadable content”. As the company “will not divulge additional information regarding individual suspensions for these offenses”, it’s unclear what brought on the crackdown, or how the culprits were able…
The 3DS’s new second thumbstick is, to be blunt, horrific. It’s an ugly, quick fix to a problem that should have been identified during the handheld’s design phase, not six months after. It is, however, not the first time Nintendo has done this. Indeed, you could say if there’s one thing Nintendo does better than…
Star Command is like Game Dev Story. Only instead of running a games studio, you’re running a starship, its crew, and dealing with aliens. So, yes, it’s an exciting prospect. It’s essentially Star Trek without the license, and with cute retro graphics and the promise of, well, commanding your own starship (something few games seem…
Artist Michael Casteel has reimagined the Pokédex as something you would have found in the tattered diary of a 19th-century British man with a Pith helmet and a magnificent beard. He calls it his “Pokémon Field Guide”, and alongside the hand-drawn illustrations are rough notes detailing the first encounters between the bumbling Professor Baobab and…
This impromptu little piece of street performance involves a large building, Kinect, the cover of darkness, a copy of classic arcade game Breakout and some very interested bystanders. Put together by the art/marketing team at WECOMEINPEACE, all it asked of players was to jiggle around a bit and watch as they played the biggest arcade…
The biggest problem with iPhone gaming at the moment is that, thanks to the lack of control options, it’s hard to play a game with much meat to it. This rather left-field solution may have a…solution to that. Granted, you lose much of the iPhones portability with this, but when you see what it’s got…
I played Deus Ex on PC. It was…OK, but didn’t run as nicely as I thought it would, and didn’t give me as much control over things as I would have liked. Know what it was missing? A debug mode. Know what we’ve got now? A debug mode! How’d you guess? A mod has been…
Despite annual reminders, Hollywood has never made good on its threat to release a sequel to classic 1985 adventure flick The Goonies That didn’t stop video games from coming up with their own Goonies II, though. In 1987, Konami released The Goonies II on the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System. And proceeded to confuse the shit out…
I’ve never liked Angry Birds. Not because I’m angry with any birds in particular, but because I always preferred the free game that came before it, Crush the Castle Rather than get bitter at Rovio’s billions, Crush’s developers (well, hosts) Armor Games, are sticking at it, and have released on iOS a revision of the…
A former comic book artist, Andy Park is one of the main men to thank if you liked the look of the last two God of War games, as he was a senior concept artist on both God of War II and God of War III That means many of the series’ classically-inspired nasties, as…
Having given up on Minecraft a long time ago, I’m actually looking forward to the vaunted “Adventure” update, which will finally add a little purpose to the game. Minecraft 1.8, as the Adventure update is more formally known, will add improved graphics, tweaked health systems, improved combat mechanics and, most important of all, stuff to…
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