> Read more

During my time with EGM, it was my job to destroy but sometimes love terrible games. And I'm happy to say that after several years and five PlayStation suicides...Mission Accomplished. They have stopped making bad games.

This won me the Congressional Nintendo Seal of Official Nintendo Sealing, and impressed the founders of Bitmob so much that they put me in charge of something even more important: fixing the lives of its readers and contributors.

Do you have a problem you can't solve? Do you have a question you can't answer? Send it to letters@bitmob.com with the subject "Seanbaby."

You might ask, "Mr. Baby, how will your experience with Jenga on the Nintendo Wii help me?" Stop making your problems about me. My Nintendo Wii and I have looked into the eyes of the Devil. There is bacteria living in a fat person's septic tank that wouldn't touch some of the games I've played. So unless you want to drag your thumbs through hell like I have, I'm the only chance you've got....

> Read more

> Read more

Lot of sequel talk this morning. One officially announced, the other not. To keep with the theme, we'll be doing a sequel to this post later today. It'll be like Teen Wolf Too. Without the stupid punctuation.

News Blips:

• Eidos steals number 4, attaches it to Thief. The publisher (who recently got sntached up by Japanese role-playing game giant Square Enix) officially announced Thief 4. Good news for gamers, bad news for number 5. [Shacknews]

• EA developer unofficially announces Dead Space 2; PR feel neglected. A technical director over at EA foolishly listed Dead Space 2 on his LinkedIn account not knowing job-searching nerds would apply his mistake to the web. Well, he is a "technical" director -- what did you expect? [Eurogamer]

• Weekly Nintendo download titles feel naked without box. Three choices this week: Real Soccer 2009 (as opposed to "fake" soccer?) for DSiWare, Family Pirate Party for WiiWare, and Galaxy Force II for the Virtual Console. Do us a favor, give these guys some clothes -- it's embarrassing. [Joystiq]

• Brutal Legend concept art shows us different concept of main character. It appears main character Eddie used to look like Motorhead's lead singer Lemmy. Behind the scenes stuff is always cool, just ask fellow Bitmobber Brett Bates. [1UP]

Click the jump for some video blips, including some Duke Nukem Forever footage, a funny Punch-Out!! ad, a Game & Watch TV, and...more.

> Read more

Last week, David Jaffe posted some early documentation (with sensitive bits blurred out) for a new game on his blog, along with the following paragraph:

Ok ya’ll- will post more next week but you know, at least for now, I’ve been thinking more and more about turning this blog into more of a ‘behind the scenes’/’making of’ style blog and doing less personal rants and stuff. So I may start posting a bit less (until we have stuff to reveal about our game…then I’ll post like a madman!) but the stuff I do post will be more related to our game and our company, and less about me personally. But I will also start Twittering more about the day to day workings on my end of making our game. Once we get our company website rolling (soon, I hope) ideally we can wrangle in a coder, artist, producer,etc to do some blogging and twittering on the official site. It would be great to give ya'll a good idea of what those crazy talented folks do all day.

Of course, the Internet being what it is, some intrepid but misguided soul immediately defogged the images, and they ended up on the major gaming blogs. Stung by how his openness was treated, Jaffe has since removed the post and threatened to stop blogging altogether. He recanted on that, but I do think he's now going to think twice about his "behind the scenes" idea. And that's a shame, because the videogame industry could definitely benefit from pulling back the curtain a little bit and revealing the creative process.

Think about the film industry: How many movies made in the last 30 years had separate crews documenting the filmmaking process? Sometimes, these "behind the scenes" documentaries even outshine the movies they're documenting (see Lost in La Mancha). Even when they don't, the documentaries provide an essential look at how a film gets made, useful for future film scholars. And they're often entertaining to boot.

If film can be so open, why is the videogame industry so buttoned up? What do we have to hide? It's a sad fact that we know more about how The Hottie and the Nottie got made than Ico. One could argue that a filmed documentary makes sense for a filmed movie, and not as much sense for, say, a brainstorming session at Insomniac. But there are a myriad of different ways to document the game-making process: concept art, early renders, email exchanges, design documents, and so on. One might also say that we need to protect intellectual properties. But how important is that after a game is on store shelves?

Some producers and developers are opening up, and I applaud them for that. Occasionally the supplementary material for the "special edition" version of a game contains insightful information. 2K Boston released to the Web an excellent book of concept art for BioShock. Valve even offered a "commentary" playthrough for the Orange Box. More significantly, indie developer Introversion has revealed a wealth of "behind the scenes" documents for their upcoming Xbox Live Arcade title, Darwinia+.

Unfortunately, most "extra" content found in games is nothing more than marketing material. Which is what makes the controversy around David Jaffe's post so sad. Whether he likes it or not, Jaffe has the clout in the industry to cause a sea change, and I feel that his "behind the scenes" blog would be just that. David, if you're reading: I hope that you do pull back the curtain on your creative process. Not only because I'm curious, but also so that future generations can understand how your latest classic came to be.

> Read more

Bet you can guess what we'll be featuring here -- we sure hope so at least. If you have a question or comment for us, send it to letters@bitmob.com, and we just may answer it in this weekly column. This first batch came from our prelaunch Facebook and Twitter callouts. Let's kick it off in classic Letterman style:

Letterrrrrr Num-berrrr 1:

It's good to see the core EGM guys back in the saddle. I hated to see you guys go. Enough of that...now it's time to make you do your jobs!

Is there ANY word at all about L.A. Noire? Last I'd heard they were going to make it for both the 360 and the PS3. Then...zilch. Are there any new developments at all with this one or has it been scrapped?

-Derrol F.

> Read more

Looking for a trite top ten list? Too bad; this is another article on videogame preservation. (Read my first post on why game preservation matters here.) But don't worry, fanboys, there will still plenty for you to argue about in the comments, because we're going to take a look at the creation of the Digital Game Canon.

Way back at the Game Developers Conference of 2007, the Game Preservation special interest group of the IGDA convened a panel -- consisting of Henry Lowood (Stanford University), Steve Meretzky (ex-Infocom), Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Thief), Christopher Grant (Joystiq), and Matteo Bittanti -- to discuss their choices for a digital game canon that would provide a starting point for preservation work. (Read more about the Digital Game Canon here, and listen to audio and view slides from the panel here.) Each panelist chose two games, breaking down as follows:

* Henry Lowood (Spacewar!, Warcraft I/II/III)

* Steve Meretzky (Zork I, Civilization I/II)

* Christopher Grant (Super Mario Brothers 3, Doom)

* Matteo Bittanti (SimCity, Sensible World of Soccer)

* Warren Spector (Star Raiders, Tetris)

The panelists picked their games on a variety of grounds. Perhaps the gameplay was pitch-perfect, or the game provided a technological breakthrough. Maybe the title was emblematic of a genre or just fun to play. Throughout, one common thread emerged: Each panelist felt a personal connection to their games. For these reasons and others, they felt their choices represented a significant addition both to gaming and to the culture at large.

Archivists are now working to preserve some of these games and the creative processes that formed them. It's a tricky task -- what exactly should be included in preserving a game is still up for debate -- but lucky for most of us, we can simply shout from the sidelines.

So my question for you is: What two games would you add to the Digital Game Canon and why?

> Read more

Editor's Note: I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of the JRPG genre myself, but Sarah's point about the Catch-22 developers face, especially when creating new IPs, is interesting. - DemianÂ

---

Now is not a good time to be a developer of Japanese role-playing games. JRPGs face an increasingly bewildering double standard: If a game sticks too closely to the norms established by series like Final Fantasy, it's labeled as derivative and uninspired. However, if a game ventures outside those boundaries, then it's criticized for straying too far from what games like Final Fantasy have conditioned us to expect from "good" RPGs. So, even if you're a reasonably established Japanese developer trying to create an original IP in the current console generation, you just can't win. Case in point: Infinite Undiscovery.

My experience playing this game strongly reinforced the fact that game criticism, in its current incarnation, should largely be ignored. Or taken with a grain of salt, at least. A quick search of Metacritic or Gamerankings reveals that Infinite Undiscovery's average review score is 68%. While the law of averages dictates that there are some positive reviews, the majority fell into the abyss of mediocrity. While I don't trust individual scores too much, seeing a trend can be more telling. Since so many reviews labeled it as formulaic and unoriginal, I resigned myself to the idea that there must be at least some grain of truth to their criticisms. Being a fan of developer Tri-Ace's earlier works, such as Valkyrie Profile, I wanted to give Infinite Undiscovery a shot. It was one of the reasons I wanted a 360, actually. I managed to get a brand new copy from Amazon Marketplace for $20, figuring that was a fair price to pay for a game that the majority had dubbed mediocre. Turns out that the majority can be totally, totally wrong.

> Read more

I can't decide if I love or hate Twitter, or if I love to hate it. But I definitely hate people who can't stop talking about it. Which is why Rick Sanchez is my most-hated person in the world right now. That's also why I want to concentrate all Twitter references of my own to this semi-regular Game Twits series.

(Note: I'm 'borrowing' this whole concept from Valleywag. I don't know of any other site that does this for game industry people though, so it's open season as far as I'm concerned.)

 

EA's Jeff Green links to an IGN article and subconsciously forgets how to spell. Coincidence?

 Q Games boss Dylan Cuthbert and his team apparently has five non-PixelJunk projects in the works!

Area 5's Jason Bertrand preps for a delicious heart attack.

Booyah, the iPhone games developer started by a bunch of ex-Blizzard folks, moves in on Facebook's territory.

Insomniac reminds the world why it was ranked among California's best places to work for like the last ten years or something. 

 

Game Informer's Andy MacNamara had his year defined twice in one magical day. That he can't tell you about. But he can tell you that he can't tell you.

> Read more

Howdy, folks! Below you'll find the first episode of my new weekly series. Hope you enjoy it. And mad props to Jason Bertrand and the Area 5 (creators of the CO-OP show) folks for helping to make this possible. You guys kinda rock. A lot.

Aight -- hope y'all enjoy it.

> Read more

Normal 0 false fal-->

Hey, so it turns out game developers are...like, normal people. They like to drink and party and...well, that's where most of the similarities end, but throughout the week of the 2009 Game Developers Conference, I got to witness them in shaggy-hair-down mode, away from the hypnotic glow of their work computer monitors.

And just why was I allowed to mingle freely with these creatures, who are normally well-protected by their overprotective public-relations handlers? It seems GDC -- although still filled with mind-numbing tech-speak seminars -- is becoming more and more consumer focused, probably picking up the fun slack that previous Electronic Entertainment Expos (E3) have left behind. Each year, we see more and more game announcements, game demos, and game parties at this show...ironically, all stuff geared more toward consumers and gamers than your typical developer.

Cool by me -- I like fun. And to show you how mind-numbing-tech-speak-free this GDC was for me, here is my behind-the-scenes diary of the week, which was unfortunately cut short due to last-minute surgery. Sure, this story's a bit late, but, hey, better late than...well, never mind that. How about if I just bribe you (free games!) into reading this post? (Read on for details....)

> Read more

Editor's Note: I was a fan of the show when it was on the air, so I've secretly been looking forward to this game. Thomas' live-diary-style coverage of the Canadian beta does a nice job of explaining how the game works while getting his opinions and concerns across. -Greg

---

I'm playing 1 vs 100 right now. Well...that is to say, I'm watching 1 vs 100 right now.

Let me start again.

The Canadian beta of Microsoft's new Xbox Live "Primetime" program, 1 vs. 100, is presently ongoing, and I am...participating, after a fashion.

What is 1 vs 100, and why should you care? Read on to find out.

> Read more

Well, this is odd -- someone besides BioShock 2 developer 2K Marin is working on the multiplayer for the game. Odd, but good -- more time for 2K Marin to keep the single-player from sinking. Because, honestly, does BioShock 2 really need multiplayer? Would you kindly agree with us? Thanks!

News Blips:

• Developer Digital Extremes fishes up BioShock 2 multiplayer duties. The developer of Dark Sector is bringing gamers back to Rapture so they can kill each other repeatedly. Sounds fun. Except for the part where we'll be muting our headset after hearing, "Who's your big daddy?" for the umpteenth time. [Eurogamer]

• Obvious news blip of the day: Nintendo-published games sell well. The unstoppable company recently released all their million-unit sells figures for fanboys to awe at. And third-party publishers to cry at. And us to link to. Top of the list: Wii Sports with 45.7 million sold. Now if only Nintendo made us pay for it. Think of how much money they'd have right now. Actually, let's not -- we're broke. [GameSpot]

• Duke Nukem Forver will forever be remembered by leaked screenshots and concept art. Or at least until next week when it will be forever forgotten. But until that time comes, take a peek at what the game would have looked like if it actually came out. [Shacknews]

• Star Wars game has troopers in it, really. Lots of them, actually. And you can play as them, too. Amazing. BioWare, makers of the upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic, released some details about the class today. Will these troopers ever find the droids they're looking for? It's the question we ask ourselves everyday. [Kotaku]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including a trailer that may or may not be Beyond Good & Evil 2, Prototype's bloody opening cinematic, what Star Trek thinks about the future of videogames, and...more.

> Read more

Editor's Note: I have no idea what Kurtis is talking about in the last two paragraphs, but this seems to be something some of y'all may like. -Shoe

---

This is a mirror of my blog found on 1UP's The Grind.

Last night was NIS America's "Holy Drunken Shenanigans, Badman!" event. The title is very fitting, as it's no secret that I mainly attend these events simply to gorge myself on food and booze. If you're ever in San Francisco, Zebulon (where the event was hosted) has some fine fried shrimp and beef eggrolls. Hell, I would have completely forgotten about the shenanigans if I hadn't noticed Jeremy, Justin, and Ray forming a salivating man-train out of the office.

As the name of the event implies, NIS was mainly showcasing Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I do to Deserve This? But there were some other titles such as Last Rebellion and A Witch's Tale. However, the one that really caught me off guard was the announcement of bringing Sakura Wars 5 to the States.

For those that aren't familiar with the Sakura Wars series (known as Sakura Taisen in Japan), the games are SRPGs that take place in various countries and cities (Tokyo, Paris, New York) during the 1920s, but with the added twist that everyone seems to pilot a giant robotic mech. When not battling to save the world, you also seduce and date your teammates, all of whom happen to be cute attractive females. The women typically tend to be diverse, unique, and bizarre enough that those of us at the event made comparisons to the members of the Burger King Kids Club.

> Read more

Because of yesterday's traffic, we decided to upgrade our server, even though we currently can't afford such luxuries. Stupid us, we didn't ask our server people to make this switch at 3 am, so as many of you noticed today, our site went down for a little while during the transition to our new box and new IPs.

It's slowly coming back online for visitors here and there. By tonight, Bitmob should be 100% back to normal. The good news: Even though our personal menus say nothing but "ramen" for the next year, we're now like the Robocop of small gaming websites. Three times the RAM...10 times the bandwidth.

OK, back to work!

> Read more

Editor's Note: We're not big fans of piracy under any circumstances, but we thought Allistair's post was a good conversation starter.... -Demian

---

I have something to confess. Yesterday, when I went to the Valero down the block, I did something I probably should feel ashamed of. I pumped a couple tanks of gas into my Honda, paid the obligatory $32, and decided to step inside the store to get something to drink. After taking a bottle of Fuze (green tea always) from the fridge, I eyed a mostly delicious package of Corn Nuts. Feeling I paid enough to the greedy bastards of the Valero corporation, I sneaked the package into my pocket. I paid for the drink and the gas, and got some Corn Nuts for free--although, we all know the price of gas and the overpriced drink would also cover the Corn Nuts if the store had any interest in being fair. Yet, I still feel no remorse for my actions.

Here's another confession: That Corn Nut thing isn't actually true. I don’t steal from stores, I don’t scam eBay users, and I always put back what I borrow from someone. However, there is one unethical thing that I do on a frequent basis: I pirate games. I’m not going to argue that it is objectively right, but I can never feel guilty for taking a product and not giving anything back in return when it comes to media readily available on torrent sites. So much of this has to do with how openly accepted the act of piracy is. I remember when people used the term warez and felt like they actually accomplished something when they finally found a working link to download Final Doom over their 56k modem. When people tell me they have DirectTV, I tell them I have The Pirate Bay as if it’s a no-brainer alternative. When no one except the corporations are condemning your actions, it’s a lot easier to get something for free without a guilty conscience.

> Read more

With the news about various websites using Konami's classic cheat code yesterday, it's only fitting that a blip this morning involves the game that made it famous: Contra. If only this code would get some more love. Sigh...

News Blips:

• Wii rebirths old-school frustration. Publisher Konami announced a re-envisioning of its classic Contra series is coming to WiiWare. In Japan. Sorry, masochists! (Note: Inputting the Konami Code on Konami's website does nothing. Um, lame). [Konami via GoNintendo]

• Franchise Fighter: Capcom's best-selling series. Fans of stats and/or lists best check out the all-time sales numbers for Capcom's biggest moneymakers. Can you guess the winner? We'll give you a hint -- it's not Steel Battalion. [Kotaku]

• Gotta catch 'em all...again? Oh, hell. Nintendo announced it's remaking the GameBoy Color versions of Pokémon Gold or Silver for people who still care. Or are 12. Regardless of how stoked you are, you're nowhere near as jazzed as these cats. [GoNintendo]

> Read more

Let’s play a game: You’re a graduate student 300 years from now, studying videogame history at, say, the University of Mars, and the object of the game is to write a holopaper on the PlayStation Era and the God of War series in particular. How do you do this?

Sure, you could download the games into your eyeballs for 1,254,493 omnibucks and play them to your heart’s content, but what does that tell you about the people who made the games, or the people that played them back in the day? For that information, you’re out of luck. You can’t pop in the original disc because the data on CD-ROMs has rotted away. You can’t read a FAQ because GameFAQs had their servers shut down in 2065, or read any online reviews since Google closed its doors during the Great Browser Wars. You can’t read any design documents or email exchanges because every time a developer left the company, his hard drive was wiped. You can’t play any early builds of the game, since they were burned on CD-Rs, which rot faster than CD-ROMs, and anyway all the builds were kept in a supply closet that flooded after a particularly rainy day. In short, you’re screwed. No more lives. No more continues.

Okay, maybe that bit was a little silly, but I wrote it to emphasize a point: There is a very real danger that the videogame industry will lose much of its essential history if steps aren’t taken soon.

> Read more

Nintendo lives in its own world -- one where everyone loves their games, where they're always making plenty of dough, and where employees get kidnapped by Mario daddy Shigeru Miyamoto...to play games. Think of it as a best-case scenario kidnapping.

You won't find a description of these "random employee kidnappings" in Nintendo's employee handbook or in the "about" section of the company's website. These are impromptu one-person focus groups...er, focus individuals...whom Miyamoto stops in a hallway, pulls aside into an empty room, and sets down with the latest game in development, just so he can observe their gut reactions.

Is this just one ingredient of Nintendo's development magic? Or is this just a horribly inefficient alternative to traditional focus-group testing?

Or maybe it's just pure and fun Nintendo eccentricity, the sort of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory moment that we like to think happens at a place like Nintendo all the time.

Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America's Vice President, Corporate Affairs, was one of Miyamoto's kidnapping victims when she first started working at the company. She smiled and laughed her way through the process, however. (A bit of Stockholm Syndrome? Or was it the Wii Music she was playing?)

In this not-really Barbara Walters-style exclusive video interview (spoiler: nobody cries), we sit down with Kaigler to discuss her time in captivity, as well as some sales charts, hardcore vs. casual games, and more.

Look for the full transcript of this interview early next week, which will include Q&A; not in the video.

Special thanks to Tracy Peterson of One Two Many Video Production for the camerawork and editing.

> Read more

Today's news is dominated by Activision Blizzard. Heard of them? They make games. And sequels. Lots (and lots) of sequels. They recently had an investor call, so that means a lot of stuff was yapped about. Below you'll find some of the more interesting bits.

News Blips:

• Obvious news blip of the day: Activision Blizzard is kinda making a lot of money. In the first quarter of 2009, the megapublisher made, oh, only about $981 million. Couldn't top a billion, guys? Pathetic. [Joystiq]

• Activision Blizzard ramping up new Tony Hawk game for E3. An investor call today revealed the everlasting skateboard franchise will be shown at this May's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Pretty obvious, sure, but at least it shows Tony Hawk is still a pro in videogame land. Kelly Slater? Not so much. [Kotaku]

• StarCraft 2 demo strategically hitting this summer. Blizzard head honcho Mike Morhaime confirmed today that you'll soon be able to tryout the eagerly anticipated real-time strategy sequel. You hear that sound? That's Korea exploding. [Shacknews]

• New Zelda DS game is going for a wider audience; narrow audience feels insecure. According to Nintendo's 2009 fiscal year results, the company says the upcoming DS title The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is going for a "wider age group." Lost's Richard Alpert approves of this news. [Kotaku]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including an electrifying demo of the PS3 open-world action game Infamous, Robot Chicken creators fooling around with Spore, boob-touching mini-games on the DS, and...more.

> Read more