Antikewl Daily » Video games

Halloween Papercraft Big Head costume

Trevor May — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:01:58 +0000

I’m going to make this a tradition. Each year I’ll pick out the best Halloween costume and post it up here. A couple of years ago I featured these fantastic Bioshock costumes — and they’re still one of the post popular things on this site.

This time it’s another videogame inspired creation. 3D game artist Eric Testroete has recreated his own head using Pepakura, 3D Studio Max and copy of Photoshop in the style of those Playstation-era video game characters in “big head mode”.

The emotionless expression is also very slightly unnerving.

Gowalla: The location based travel game

Trevor May — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:08:45 +0000

Ok, “game” might be pushing the term a little bit but it’s still good fun. Much like other location based social services like Brightkite and Foursquare, Gowalla allows you to “check in” to locations in the real world to update your profile on the website and on the iPhone app.

What makes Gowalla a little different is that it’s been created by Alamofire, the people behind the moderately addictive Facebook card collecting and trading (stealing) game, Packrat.

Simply, as you check into places in the physical world (using GPS — no cheating here!) you might find that someone who has checked in before you has dropped a virtual item and, if you want it, trade it for an item in your possession. Trading, checking into locations and other actions offer rewards in the shape of virtual pins, much like your Xbox or PS3 achievements.

So, what’s it got that’s better than Foursquare, the current fore-runner in this area? Well, for starters you can play it anywhere — Foursquare is limited to a few cities, mostly in the US. Secondly, Trips. Checking into a series of locations such as a series of iconic locations in Central Park, or Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings in Chicago unlock bonus pins. These are limited at the moment but there’s promise of more.

Finally, it features a lovely user interface and exquisite collectable pins, stamps and location badges illustrated by Brian Brasher and David Lanham.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? What are you waiting for? Get collecting!

Gowalla Free (iTunes App Store link)

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain DS

Trevor May — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:30:41 +0000

While working this evening I downloaded and listened to the latest Retronauts podcast. I hadn’t listened to it before and was surprised to discover that it had been replaced with a podcast for another 1Up offering, The Grind — an RPG games blog. As I’m not adverse to such things (and because they mentioned Fallout at the start of the episode) I listened to it anyway.

But that’s not what this is about! When I was about seven years old I ordered a book called The Warlock of Firetop Mountain from the school book club. Probably because, to a seven-year-old, it sounded pretty cool and most likely because it shared a premise with my favourite game of all time, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for the Intellivision.

Part-way through the podcast I thought I heard a reference to this book and — sure enough I had! It turns out that a company called Big Blue Bubble, developers of, uh, nothing really, are producing a game based on the original Steve Jackson/Ian Livingstone-penned book for the Nintendo DS. It’s unlikely that the game will live up to the lofty heights my wide-eyed seven-year-old self held the book but the screenshots look promising.

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain for Nintendo DS is scheduled for release at the end of 2009.

Monkey Island Special Edition for iPhone

Trevor May — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:59:47 +0000

Following the recent rumours of a port, Lucasarts quietly slipped The Secret of Monkey Island onto the iTunes App Store this week without fanfare… So quietly that it still isn’t mentioned on the game’s official site. But yes, that’s right, you can now play the updated point and click classic on your iPhone and iPod Touch!

Weighing in at a hefty (for an iPhone app, anyway) 350Mb, it includes the new “special edition” version with the voices and enhanced soundtrack found on the Xbox and Windows versions as well as the original VGA version, just as it appeared in 1990. Simply swipe two fingers across the screen at any time while playing to switch between them. Swiping two fingers sure is easier than messing with DOS extended memory and Soundblaster drivers for hours on end! Oh how I miss 1990s PC gaming… You really had to work to play a game back then. None of this plug and play nonsense.

I digress…

The new high-definition visuals work just as well on the less than high definition format of the iPhone’s three and a half inch screen. The controls, while seemingly cumbersome at first, work incredibly well once you realise that the screen is functioning in the same way as a laptop trackpad to guide the cursor around. This offers much more precision than if you were to use a greasy finger stump to directly select objects on the screen.

Just as in the original it’s possible to store multiple saved games which means you can let your friends and family have a go. It’s a simple feature that’s surprisingly lacking in many iPhone games that would benefit well from it. Yes, I’m looking at you, Rolando!

In summary, it’s a great port of a lovely revisiting of a fantastic classic. Buy it now and help ensure Lucasarts re-release Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle and the rest of their point and click adventure back catalogue!

The Secret of Monkey Island £4.99/$7.99 (iTunes App Store link)

Eliss, the multi-touch iPhone game

Trevor May — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:25:26 +0000

A game that simply couldn’t exist on any other platform, Eliss is wonderful in its deceptive simplicity in much the same way Tetris was (and is).

Split circles — planets — apart with your fingers to form smaller planets and slide them together to form larger ones in an attempt to adjust them to just the right size to slot them into a squeesar to cause a supernova. When different colour planets collide your health goes down, to recoup health grab the little stardust triangles.

And that’s it! Easy… right?

Eliss £1.79/$2.99 (iTunes App Store link)

Eliss Lite Free (iTunes App Store link)

Little Big Planet’s “Sacktue of Liberty”

Trevor May — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:41:46 +0000

To celebrate 4th July this year, Media Molecule are offering a free downloadable “Sacktue of Liberty” costume for your Sackboy or girl to wear. If the summer solstice is more your cup of tea then you’ll be after the druid costume from last week, also free to download.

If they’re not cool enough for you, then how about these lovely in-game stickers designed by illustrator Jon Burgerman? They’ll set you back a couple of Dollars/Pounds/currency of choice though.

You’ll need a copy of Little Big Planet on the Playstation 3 to grab any of these and the Liberty costume is available world-wide from July 2nd.

Alice and Kev: The Homeless Sims

Trevor May — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:28:41 +0000

What if The Sims were played as homeless people? Robin Burkinshaw, a games development student wanted to find out. He’s created Alice, a girl with no money, no home, no food… and the worst Dad in the world.

When you create a Sim in The Sims 3, you can give them personality traits that alter their behaviour. Kev is hot-headed, mean-spirited, and inappropriate. He also dislikes children, and he’s insane. He’s basically the worst Dad in the world. He is a horrible human being, but he’s also amusing to watch.

His daughter Alice is a kind-hearted clumsy loser. With those traits, that Dad, and no money, she’s going to have a hard life.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.

The story that unfolds is at times funny, often sad and incredibly moving. (via Simon)

Busted Up Pokémon by Justin White

Trevor May — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:23:18 +0000

Californian illustrator and designer Justin White has been creating a series of Pokémon portrait illustrations.

The idea was to capture each character after a long battle
recuperating inside their pokeball. Or maybe I just wanted to imagine pokemon in a lot of pain. This was really just a fun way to keep active and creative.

You can find all of them on his Flickr stream or in his portfolio. While you’re there, also check out his other great projects including the Mario Brothers portraits and the Alphabet vector illustrations.

Wondering if I can fit the word “illustration” into this article one more time. Done. Enjoy!

A five minute roundup of the cool stuff at E3 2009

Trevor May — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:42:25 +0000

Here’s an super-condensed round-up of the cool stuff from E3 this year.

First up, the presentation that’s undeniably caused the biggest buzz: Microsoft’s Project Natal, a motion sensing device that allows you to interact with your Xbox 360 using gestures and voice without the need for a controller. Peter Moyneux presented a scripted prototype of an interaction between an on-screen boy, Milo, and a real-life player. It’ll be interesting to see how and if this will actually work in the real world with real games. It has no announced release date but is expected to be released in late 2010.

Nintendo presented their Wii MotionPlus which plugs into the Wii Remote to add greater motion sensitivity which will be used in games such as Wii Sports Resort, as well as their Vitality Sensor. Sony, too, demonstrated their version of a motion controller which tracks the location of two “wands” — this will be available in Spring 2010.

E3 certainly wasn’t short on cool games either. LucasArts showed an impressive first cinematic teaser trailer for the forthcoming Star Wars PC MMO, The Old Republic. They also announced the return of Monkey Island on both Xbox and PC in the form of an enhanced Special Edition version of the classic Secret of Monkey Island as well as reveal that Telltale Games, the guys behind the new Sam & Max games, are working Tales of Monkey Island, a brand new episodic game.

Nintendo didn’t announce, as many were expecting, a new Wii-based Zelda game but did reveal that Mario would be back in New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Valve announced a sequel to the co-operative zombie shooter Left for Dead for Xbox 360 and PC and presented an hilariously over the top gameplay trailer. Also delightfully over the top was the opening cinematic for Harmonix’ The Beatles Rock Band, directed by Pete Candeland.

BioWare showed their new trailer for Mass Effect 2, the eagerly awaited space RPG for Xbox 360 and PC.

Sony showed new trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and Heavy Rain and announced that God of War III would be released in March next year. They also announced Agent, a new “espionage action game” from Rockstar North, the team who brought us Grand Theft Auto.

We also got a more polished look at The Last Guardian, the fortcoming game from Team Ico who brought us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus for the PS2. You may remember the leaked Project Trico trailer a few months go — this is the same game.

Finally, a superb looking little game for the DS caught my attention called Scribblenauts. It’s a side-scrolling platform-ish puzzle game where the player summons objects to solve problems by writing the name of the object you want on the screen with the stylus. Scribblenauts will be released late this year but here’s a video of the folks from nintendorks.com having a play with it.

The Beatles Rock Band intro by Pete Candeland

Trevor May — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:11:58 +0000

Harmonix have just released this superb animated game intro video / trailer for the The Beatles Rock Band game due to be released in September. It’s directed by Pete Candeland who’s most well known for the numerous videos produced with Jamie Hewlett for Gorillaz. Have a look at his portfolio over at the Passion Pictures website.

A new gameplay video was also released and is available to view and download from the game’s website.

Monkey Island: Special Edition plus brand new episodic game announced

Trevor May — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:28:03 +0000

Lucasarts have just released further details on the forthcoming Monkey Island remake for Xbox Live Arcade, along with the news that it’ll also be available for Windows. Sadly no news on whether it’ll make the Playstation 3, Wii or Nintendo DS. The latter would be especially interesting as the stylus-based interface would be ideal for this kind of game.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition stays faithful to the original but with new brand new 2D artwork and audio. It also has its own website. Well, a widget, anyway, with a tiny video stuck in it. If you want to view it in full HD you’ll need to head over to their Facebook fan page and check it out it there.

But that’s not all! It’s also been announced that Telltale Games, the team who produced the new Sam & Max series, are producing a brand new episodic Monkey Island adventure for PC: Tales of Monkey Island. Like Sam & Max Season One and Two, the new games will be 3D-rendered and split into five downloadable episodes, released monthly.

Here’s the trailer to whet your appetite:

Stunning Blade Runner Scene Recreated Using CryENGINE 2

Trevor May — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:55:06 +0000

It’s no secret that Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies so I’ve just been ~~salivating~~ looking through some superb images created using Sandbox 2 and CryENGINE 2, the video game engine used for the first-person shooter Crysis.

The images were created as entries to a movie-themed contest at game-artist.net and winning entries included sets from The X-Men, Aliens and I Am Legend. This Blade Runner set deservedly took winning place and you can view the process behind the construction on this message thread. (via N4G)

Henry Hatsworth Concept Artwork

Trevor May — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:14:02 +0000

Offworld have just begun a new series of posts around the production art of video games entitled Concept Album and I’ve just been thumbing through the first of them — an extensive three-page collection of concept artwork for the Nintendo DS platform-puzzler Henry Hatsworth.

I always love to see the creative that eventually evolves to become a video game, animated feature, theme park attraction or motion picture. This one I find particularly interesting as, ultimately, it’s all going to be crammed into a screen no wider than two and half inches!

Be sure to check out Henry Hatsworth Art Director Jay Epperson’s own blog for more sketches and art. And here’s the official game site.

Happy 20th Birthday, Nintendo Game Boy

Trevor May — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:58:54 +0000

As incredible as it sounds, the Nintendo Game Boy is 20 years old today!

The now iconic hand-held video game console was launched in Japan on 21st April 1989 as the spiritual successor to Nintendo’s Game & Watch line. The console, which went on to sell nearly 119 million units worldwide, was released to the US a few months later in August and to the UK and Europe the following year.

Bundled with it was, of course, a copy of Tetris but it was neither that, nor Super Mario Bros nor any of the big-selling titles that left a lasting impression with me — possibly because it’s one of the few video games I’ve actually completed that honour goes to Final Fantasy Legend.

Final Fantasy Legend was a western port of the Japanese RPG Makai Tōshi Sa·Ga and, despite being made by Square, wasn’t a Final Fantasy game at all, merely re-badged to cash in on the popularity of the Final Fantasy series in the US. It was apparently enhanced and re-released for mobile phones in Japan in 2007 and the series also celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Too bad I traded mine in for a copy of Chase HQ… I don’t think I’m ever going to let my 13-year-old self live that down!

Still, at least I kept my copy of Solar Striker and if I ever lose that I’ll always have its theme tune permanently etched into my brain.

Update: Be sure to check out the Game Boy timeline over at Gizmodo.

Free Realms: Sony’s Family-friendly MMORPG

Trevor May — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:46:12 +0000

I recently got my closed beta invite for Sony’s new family-friendly MMORPG Free Realms and spent half an hour this afternoon checking it out. Sadly I can’t say much more about it as I’m under NDA but (rather oddly) they encourage beta testers to post feedback to the forum — which happens to be entirely public!

As I suspected from the trailers and videos I’d seen it’s very much a World of Warcraft “Lite” — but not in a bad way. They’ve taken a clearly winning formula, cutesied the style and remarketed it for a younger audience, adding a multitude of minigames and making character classes something your can switch between as the need arises, rather than choosing just one.

Free Realms is and will be, as the name suggests, free to play although you can “upgrade” for a $4.99 monthly fee to access an assortment of extra features like the ability to have more than one character and members-only items and quests. The beta is currently PC-only but it’ll also be available on PS3 later in the year.

After checking out Sony’s PlayStation Home earlier in the year and feeling distinctly underwhelmed I’m very pleasantly surprised by what Free Realms has to offer. Maybe Sony should ditch the Home team and get these guys in instead.

If you’re on there, look me up. I’ve called my character, not entirely voluntarily I might add, Trevor Flamingtree (login required).

Scarygirl: Nathan Jurevicius’ illustrated web-based platform game

Trevor May — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:21:32 +0000

Just been playing this adorable web-based platform come puzzle-ish adventure game Scarygirl. It’s absolutely wonderful despite it being a little buggy at present. Go check it out. It’s free too!

The game was produced by Touchmypixel and is based on distinctive artwork of Australian designer, artist and illustrator Nathan Jurevicius. You can find his vinyl toys over at Scarytoys.

Bioshock 2 Gameplay Video

Trevor May — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:41:23 +0000

I still haven’t finished the original but I’m excited to see what they’re doing with the sequel. Set ten years after the original story you play as the last surviving (and first-built) Big Daddy, saving and protecting (or, optionally as before, harvesting) Little Sisters whilst being taunted by Big Sister, a child-snatching former Little Sister from the first game who now rules the abandoned underwater city of Rapture.

While the new game appears to function in much the same way as the plasmid-injecting first, Bioshock 2 will feature multi-player for the first time, something I’m rather sceptical of. The original was a really strong single player experience and strength lied in its simple, linear storytelling. How that can be translated to a multi-player game remains to be seen.

A video without captions is also available and here’s the teaser trailer from last year. Bioshock 2 is due for release in November 2009.

Also, Bioshock is being made into a Gore Verbinski-directed movie — I’m trying not to even think about that!

Zork Returns as Casual Web-based MMO

Trevor May — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:52:30 +0000

Zork, the renowned text adventure released in 1979, returns in a new, free, web-based guise for the Facebook Generation as Legends of Zork, developed by Jolt for Activision.

Legends of Zork sees the Zork franchise re-invigorated for the first time since the release of the graphical point and click adventure Return to Zork in 1998. No longer a text or point-and-click adventure, Legends builds on the more casual social web games such as The Nethernet (formerly PMOG) and those that riddle Facebook.

Players create their character then venture further out into the world through simple battles (there doesn’t seem to be any way to use different attacks but as I’ve only been able to play to level 3 these may be learnt later in the game) and levelling. As the character’s level increases more areas become available to “adventure” in. Skill points are awarded as you level to spend on new skills. Money can be found on enemies and acquired by selling recovered items when returning to your home, The White House.

Beyond battling with friends (and enemies) PvP-style in arenas there doesn’t seem to be much more social stuff available but, again, this is early days and more could easily be added in the future.

Die-hard Zork fans might unwelcome the lack of any real adventuring in this new game — there appear to be no quests to speak of, other than going out and bashing stuff of increasingly higher level for cash — but it still appears to be a competitively fun social past-time for when your arms hurt from trying to beat your mother’s high score in Bejeweled Blitz over on Facebook.

You’ll find me on Legends of Zork as Travelling Salesman Muttonchops, named after the very first character I created on World of Warcraft all those years ago. Feel free to say hello!

Finally, for the incredibly nostalgic, you can still play the original Zork adventure online for free.

Video Game Level Design Learned from Disneyland

Trevor May — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:24:58 +0000

Yes, yes, yes! A belief I’ve maintained for many years — that Disneyland is an experience designer’s wet dream — has been confirmed! I’m so glad to see that THQ’s Creative Manager Scott Rogers shares my understanding. Scott worked on games including Pac-man World, God of War and Drawn to Life.

Thankfully Cory Doctorow took notes from Scott’s presentation at GDC today and made them along with photos of the slides available for all. Scott states on his blog that he’ll make his slides available shortly.

Update: The slides are now up.

This has just brought to mind the piece Cory wrote for Wired back in 2006 interviewing former Disneyland Imagineer Danny Hillis about Disneyland as an alternate world, a precursor to today’s massively multiplayer games. It all gets me wondering whether anyone else has written about or has been inspired by this topic… Some investigation awaits!

(via Boing Boing)

Tim Schafer Point and Click Adventure Mini-game

Trevor May — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:03:45 +0000

Host Master and the Conquest of Humor

I love this mini adventure game starring game designer Tim Schafer created by his Double Fine studio in the distinctive style of the games he produced for LucasArts back in the day like The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. Play Tim as he searches, at the last minute, for jokes to use in his GDC presentation. Wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and frightfully nostalgic.

Makes me wonder why LucasArts haven’t yet re-released those classic point and click adventures on platforms like the Wii and DS. They’re made for them — and wouldn’t cost a thing to port! (via 1Up)

Game Boy-inspired screenshots of recent video games

Trevor May — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:36:44 +0000

Hah! Blogging! Remember that? Er, where was I…?

Recently (and by “recently” I mean “over a year ago“) Pixelation ran a little contest on their forum to see who could create Game Boy-inspired screenshots of more recent video games. The entries are fantastic — some of my favourites, World of Warcraft, Bioshock, Sam & Max and American McGee’s Alice, are above.

Go take a look if you haven’t seen them already… and if you have it was probably so long ago now that you’ve forgotten about it and should go have another look anyway!

Guitar God: The 1980s Guitar Hero!

Trevor May — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:47:59 +0000

What would have Guitar Hero been like if it were released in the early 80s? I’d imagine something very much like this! I particularly like the grating (but familiar) “game over” sound. (thanks Dave!)

The Onion: World of World of Warcraft

Trevor May — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:58:43 +0000

While we have a bit of a running theme of stuff I should have posted ages ago and World of Warcraft, here’s The Onion on the forthcoming World of Warcraft sequel.

‘Warcraft’ Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing ‘Warcraft’

Blizzard Announce Diablo III

Trevor May — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:51:08 +0000

While firing up World of Warcraft today for the first time in months (funnily enough to use as a chat client to see if a friend was around, not to play!) I noticed that Blizzard had announced Diablo III.

An intro trailer and all the usual bits and bobs over their site but, most interestingly, a pretty hefty introductory video to the gameplay. Rather lovely it looks too, introducing the Barbarian and Witch Doctor character classes (there’ll be three more, in both male and female flavours) it looks rather WoW-inspired — no bad thing — with lots of lovely touches like destructible scenery which can used to the player’s advantage.

And, oh yes, walls of zombies! I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

Atari 1981 Product Catalog

Trevor May — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:41:32 +0000

Remember Atari? They used to be good. Actually they were rather great and pretty much defined my childhood. Anyway, Kotaku do too and have uploaded a rather cool catalog of Atari stuff from 1981.

Those sure were the days…