Games Archive

I just went out in the blistering cold (windchill factor -12) for a very specific purpose: a certain online retailer had broken the embargo on a certain product, and in the faint hope that real-world stores would follow, I figured I'd be able to get my hands on said product that way, too. What are we talking about here? Oh, only what will most likely be the game of the year.

"The first hacker to successfully jailbreak the iPhone says he has pulled off yet another modding marvel, this time penetrating the previously impervious PlayStation 3 gaming console. The hack by 20-year-old George Hotz, aka geohot, is significant because the PS3 was the only game console that hadn't been hacked, despite being on the market for more than three years. The feat greatly expands the functionality of the box by allowing it to run unrestricted versions of Linux and a wide range of games that are currently forbidden. The hardware and software designer told El Reg it took him five weeks to develop the hack using a combination of modifications to the console's hardware and software."

Wired has a very interesting article detailing the demise of 3D Realms and Duke Nukem Forever, the iconic game that never was. "It was never completed. Screenshots and video snippets would leak out every few years, each time whipping fans into a lather - and each time, the game would recede from view. Normally, videogames take two to four years to build; five years is considered worryingly long. But the Duke Nukem Forever team worked for 12 years straight. As one patient fan pointed out, when development on Duke Nukem Forever started, most computers were still using Windows 95, Pixar had made only one movie - Toy Story - and Xbox did not yet exist."

Thanks to the massive success of the Wii and DS game consoles, Nintendo was able to turn the tide and once again become the number one game company in the world. As with any honeymoon, however, it must come to an end at some point. Nintendo reported its financial results for the first half of 2009 yesterday, and it didn't look good.

"Manomio's Commodore 64 emulator has finally been approved by Apple. We first reported on the project back in June, after Manomio had received their first rejection from Apple. The rejection was particularly disappointing considering the efforts that Manomio had made in making sure their emulator fully licensed and legal." Update by Kroc: The app has been pulled, after Apple caught wind of the much publicised trick to enable BASIC in the emulator. Tsk, tsk; if you're going to put in easter eggs, the point is to keep them a secret, umm'kay.

"Popfly, a platform developed by Microsoft to help people create and share games with their friends, was shut down this week, according to a blog post on the project's Web site. It's not a total loss to the gaming community, however, since Microsoft decided to open source the code and host it on CodePlex for anyone who still wants to tinker with the game engine."

PC gamers vs. console gamers. There's this assumption that PC gamers are capable of playing more complex games than console gamers. The games industry itself has picked up on this assumption and generally dumbs down games for the consoles because they assume us poor console gamers are not capable enough, and as the consoles have increasingly become the focal point of the industry, PC games also started suffering from the dumbing down effect. That's why the developers behind Sacred 2 deserve all the more praise for not assuming all gamers on consoles are 13-year-old Halo-addicted kids by releasing a traditional top-down hack and slash game with an incredibly detailed world and intricate character development.

"The many thousands of free games available for Linux has made it difficult to select which ones deserve a special mention. For this article, our objective is not to necessarily select games which have flawless graphics and sound, but instead to identify games which are highly addictive and have great playability. It has taken us weeks of heated discussions to whittle down the games into just 42 titles. We have tried to cover a wide range of game genres. Hopefully there will be something in this article which will be of interest to any type of gamer."

EA has already redesigned a group of its games specifically for the iPhone, and the company's been pretty successful in its plight thus far. However, they're changing their focus to design entirely new games specifically for the iPhone platform, and they've made an entire (small) studio, called 8lb Gorilla, to design and deploy said games. The first iPhone title coming from the group is, of course, all about zombies and the splattering thereof.

The folks over at Phoronix had an interesting interview with Linux game porter, Frank Earl. Despite the apparent decline in PC gaming, Earl has worked for Linux Game Publishing for several years and was seeking input from the community at large for game suggestions at Phoronix. He's also done work independently on porting various software over from Windows. The interview covers work that Earl has done, difficulties that arise in porting commercial games to Linux, successes they've had, his views on Linux in general, and his thoughts on the future of gaming in Linux.

Thanks to documentaries like Jump London, free running was all the rage a couple of years ago on TV. Since the gaming industry is more or less completely void of creative thinking these days, it was only a matter of time before someone would take free running, and shoehorn it into a game. Behold, Mirror's Edge.

Korean company GamePark Holdings have finally released the GP2x Wiz portable games console, the successor to the popular, but abruptly end-of-life'd, GP2x. What makes these portable devices special is that they run Linux, and are more or less aimed at the enthusiast and homebrew markets.

"The Pip-Boy 3000 is by far one of the coolest gadgets I can imagine owning, and it's no surprise to me that some crafty guy with a little spare time on his hands might try to create the real thing. YouTube user larpcast uploaded a video of a fully functional Pip-Boy, created using the one that came with the Amazon.com exclusive version of the game and an iTouch . Mix throughly and tah-dah, your very own Pip-Boy!"

Not only can this nifty old-school 8-bit computer play all of your old NES games (with a converter, of course), but you can also program your own mind-challenging games, stimulating chiptune music, and "circuit-bending art" with this affordable keyboard, mouse, and controller combination. The package includes the keybaord, mouse, two game controllers, an OS cartridge (containing a GUI in Madarin Chinese as well as an English DOS prompt, BASIC programming language and sprite manipulator, and an 8-bit music composer), RCA cables, and a nine-volt power supply. What's more is that it ships in 3-5 business days, so you can relive the golden days of Saturday mornings with the NES before the week is out.