Video Games – Page 277

Should Apple Enter The Gaming Market?

These are mysterious times. Mysterious indeed. Apple, after dominating the music industry and making a respectably deep dent in the cellphone industry. The Apple TV is also running decently enough, making sure that Apple can invade your TV screens as well. The only field left is… book publishing? No, video games.

According to Don Reisinger here at Cnet, this is not only plausible, but actually should and will most likely happen. Reisinger speculates that Apple in fact, has the ball rolling and will jump into the market sooner or later. Despite the market’s hard-coded domination by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, Apple will break in. Then again, it’s the only company that can break into the market on their own.

Apple’s focus on hardware and it’s controlling standard entertainment media such as TV, music, your computer and so on, only points at a game console next. Apple also the money to spare, Reisinger notes: $20 billion, which can give it not only a console, but an Xbox-Live style gaming experience that may thrash Microsoft.

What do you think? Will Apple enter the gaming market?

GTA4 Recommended System Requirements

Now that console gamers have had their fun with the epic Grand Theft Auto IV, it’s time for us PC gamers to have our turn. Of course, it’s still a ways off, and will be in your DVD drive on November 18.

Microsoft’s Games for Windows site just unveiled the Recommended System Requirements for the game (not the minimum ones, mind you), and they are:

OS:     Windows XP SP2
Processor:     Dual core processor (Intel Pentium D or better)
RAM:     2GB
Hard Drive:     18GB free hard disk space
Video Card:     512MB Direct3D 10 compatible video card or Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader
Drive:     DVD-ROM dual-layer drive

Looks fine and dandy by today’s standards, but what is that I see? 18 gigabytes of free space? Pardon old uncle Zombie, but he’s still stuck in an era where 80 gigabyte drives were plentiful, Pentiums ruled the streets and the Allies fought Nazis.

As you can see, I won’t be trying this game anytime soon, at least until I get a damned new computer. Microsoft does have some info on what you can expect in the PC version:

Optimized controls
Expanded multiplayer
Matchmaking
High Resolution
Video Recording, Editing and Uploading

Looks like the usual console-to-Windows port features to me.

Microsoft: Age of Empires in Safe Hands

Microsoft has making some funky business decisions and the victim will be the veteran Ensemble Studios, who, after finishing Halo Wars will shut shop. But what about the franchise they are most famous for: Age of Empires? Will it also disappear into the black hole?

Microsoft assures us that it is perfectly safe. “Microsoft continues to own Age of Empires.” says Shane Kim, VP of Interactive Entertainment at Microsoft. Of course, with Ensemble Studios biting the bullet, they won’t be the ones making any future games in the franchise. But the franchise isn’t dead either.

“We’re still super excited for the potential for the franchise. The Windows gaming world continues to evolve, and we believe in the future of that property.”

So, who will keep the continue the pedigree? We have no clue. But a good guess would be the new development studio Microsoft is talking about that will probably replace Ensemble Studio. Of course, we have no idea on what this studio is, or what sort of games it will making. But yep, Age of Empires is still alive and well.

And that sparks a question for AoE fans such as myself: where does the series go from here? A logical step in progression would be continue where Age of Empires III left off: at the Industrial Age. We can probably work our way up to World War I, maybe even World War II.

Or perhaps an even enticing proposal would be reboot the franchise and start all over from the Classical Era? Or maybe a sequel to Age of Empries II, to give that awesomesauce medieval action back? The possibilities!

Tiger Woods 2009 Wii Breakdown

[Guest post by: Family Gamer]

Since the success of Wii-Sports Golf The Wii-mote motion controller has always seemed a perfect match for golf. Since then a number of games have tried to work a golfing control mechanic around it. We Love Golf stuck to their trigger three stage swing, whilst Super Swing Golf aimed to provide a one-to-one motion experience. Tiger Woods 09 combines the realism of Super Swing’s controls with its rich resource of courses, players and shot types to provide an experience that feels the closest to real life.

Continue reading “Tiger Woods 2009 Wii Breakdown”

Will Wright’s Top 5 Favourite Video Games!

Tired of random bloggers and trolls and other nobodies listing their top 5 video games, lists that nobody cares about? Now read it from game designer extraordinaire, Will Wright, creator of Spore, Emperor of Maxis and a Geek Hero. Here’s Will Wright’s 5 favourite games, straight from MSNBC.

The ‘Civilization’ series

“I think the strategic diversity of ‘Civilization’ always interested me. There’s just so many different strategic approaches to playing the game.”

‘Grand Theft Auto’ series

“It’s such an open-ended world … you can actually be very nice in the world and drive an ambulance around saving people, or you can be very mean. The game doesn’t really force you down one path or the other unless you’re playing the missions. For me, it’s not really about the missions, it’s about the open-endedness … going out and living a life in this little simulated city. It’s like a big playground.”

‘Battlefield’ series

“I really liked the first one the best – ‘Battlefield 1942.’ I’m a big World War II history buff. It’s a team-based shooter but it’s about the only team-based shooter that I can remember where half the time I’m playing, I’m laughing. It’s humorous because of the weird things that happen. It very much feels like kids playing in the backyard, cowboys-and-Indians-type thing. It’s not so much gritty reality as it is a bunch people just having fun in a multiplayer environment.”

Advance Wars’ on the DS

“This is a turn-based strategy game on the DS. I used to play these board games as a kid – these elaborate, real board games, so it’s kind nostalgic for me, for that reason.”

‘Flight Simulator’ series

“Even though this isn’t a game, one of my very first introductions to computer games was the original ‘Flight Simulator.’ The original one was black-and-white, with wireframe graphics and before Microsoft bought it, Bruce Artwick designed it. It was this little micro world inside the computer that always fascinated me.”

Duke Nukem Movie in Works; Release Date Unknown

With Duke Nukem Forever right around the corner (you wish), it seems that 3D Realms has already gotten some ambitious plans in their delayed minds. Scott Miller from 3D Realms is collaborating with Scott Faye, producer of the upcoming Max Payne movie. The result will be just that: a goddamn Duke Nukem movie.

To start with, there’s the severe lack of potential for Duke Nukem. He worked as a hero back in the 90s, that too as a gaming hero fabled only among hardcore gamers and relatively obscure otherwise. Can he seriously come close to making a dent on film?

Add to that the utter lack of storyline for Duke Nukem. The whole thing was pretty much a pop culture rip-off that worked as a pastiche or a self-parody of itself (see what I did there?) and something to fill in the gaps while to blasted the next pig-faced alien. That for a movie? Go to hell.

And finally comes what 3D Realms are perhaps best known for. Will the movie even make it? Or will it spend another century “under development”?