Brandon Boyer

Offworld's Retro Remakes week: what needs to be remade?

As you've probably spotted by now, this morning we've kicked off Retro Remakes week here at Offworld, which will supplement Offworld's regular coverage with a series of posts on essential remakes of classics that you need to play, and the remakes never made that we'd love to see done.

Before we get started then, a quick straw poll on the latter: what's the one game from the past 30 years of classics or overlooked underdogs that desperately deserves the remake treatment?

Leave your answer via the comments below, and we'll round up the results at the end of the week.

Brandon Boyer

Home again, home again: I'm back on Offworld

A quick personal note: ten days and god knows how many hilltops mounted later, I'm officially back on Offworld duty after my San Francisco jaunt, and ready to bring you back up to speed on all the developments that took place in my absence. I'm not even going to pretend that I'm caught up on the tens and tens of thousands of RSS posts accumulated over the past several days, and I'm also resisting the temptation of that "Mark all as read" button, because who knows what magic might lie somewhere in the noisy mix of endlessly re-blogged items that have propagated through the press.

So, three things, the first of which is that today may end up being a day of older news that I think deserves to be re-noted, where tomorrow we should be basically back on track.

And the second: a quick thanks to everyone that made the trip special, Morgan 'Crashfaster' Tucker and the 8bitSF crew for all the hospitality at Sunday night's wicked DNA Lounge show, DocPop for organizing Sunday's pre-show burger-time deluxe at Zeitgeist (though we ended up making it quite late), and Steph Thirion, Tiff Chow, David Hellman, and Ginger Anyhow for all the skimpily Flickr-collected marvelous misadventures.

And finally, specifically for you SF readers: Steph, Tiff and I took a few post-burger/pre-show hours on Sunday to start picking away at the first layers of local Alternate Reality epic The Jejune Institute, which, if you haven't yet experienced, like, do not pass go, etc. and carve out two or three hours as soon as possible to take part in its induction ceremony.

Under penalty of I don't even know what, I won't delve in to what you will find once you get there, but will only say that turning up to its 580 California St, Suite #1607 offices will start you on a journey that you will not regret.

Right, so, on with it.

Brandon Boyer

Hey San Francisco: I'm coming to your town

A quick housekeeping note: in just an hour or so here I'll be on vacation through the end of the month, leaving Austin for the night-time wiles of San Francisco*. Steven, Lisa and Rob from over Gadgets' way will be keeping the site buoyed with the occasional post, as you will have already noticed, and I'll inevitably be popping in and out throughout next week if I stumble on something too amazing to not share.

For any Bay Area readers (games industry or no), I'm always happy to hear any suggestions for things to see and/or do throughout the week: send me a note at brandon@offworld.com or @brandonnn on twitter, should the need arise!

I know for sure a few of us will be seeing Anamanaguchi et al. at the upcoming 8bitSF show on the 30th -- I'll do a proper post later in the week as a reminder for anyone interested (as you should be).

Otherwise, play nice while I'm gone.

[* night-time wiles here represented by Chiho Aoshima's City Glow]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: Lost: The NES Game

I've played this Lost: The Game, and even this Lost: The Game, but the whole time, I would have much rather been playing that Lost: The Game. [Adam Campbell, via Tiff]

Offworld Crew

Congratulate the finalists in EA/Phenomic's BattleForge contest

The votes have been cast and the polling's now closed: congratulations to Offworldians Chiro, Infiniteammo and BDJSB7 for taking an overwhelming majority of votes for their user-submitted legends in the BattleForge contest.

We'll be passing along your e-mail addresses to EA/Phenomic to get in touch and claim your prizes, after the Phenomic team chooses one of the three final entries to be included in the game itself.

Hit the jump to read the legends from the three finalists.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Offworld at SXSW: come say hello

As the throngs descend on Austin, a quick note to say that I will indeed be wandering around the city at various interactive, film, and music events over the coming week (including next Wednesday's DataPopParty, which cruelly was scheduled against the Anticon/Ghostly showcase I'd like to duplicate myself to also attend [if you've never seen the one-man tender looped madness of Andrew Bird drummer Dosh, do not miss this show]).

I've already talked to a few of you about meeting up at some point, but if you're in town and would also like to talk things Offworld-ly, show me the amazing iPhone game you've been toiling on for the past several weeks, or anything otherwise, you can drop me a note via brandon@offworld.com, via twitter @brandonnn, or use the handy pictorial equation above to spot me in a crowd and just wander up to say hello.

Offworld Crew

Only on Offworld: Write a legend for EA's card-game RTS BattleForge

In this latest contest, EA and developer Phenomic have partnered with Offworld to get readers into Phenomic's new online real time strategy game BattleForge, coming to PC March 24th.

BattleForge is unique, EA says, in combining the pace of RTS gameplay with the customization of trading cards in an online environment where friends can play together, and one reader will have the chance to pen the description for an Offworld-exclusive in-game trading card. The top three submissions will also receive ATI Radeon HD 4800 graphic cards and T-shirts.

Hit the jump for the full details, and a key to enter BattleForge's ongoing closed beta ahead of its release.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Housecleaning: Offworld RSS feed no longer an uninterrupted jumble of words

Unless it's my own over-dense prose, that is. As you may or may not have been experiencing, since launch our RSS feed has had a bit of a rough time properly converting line breaks, resulting in a single, near-unreadable mashed-up paragraph.

But no more: our own resident renaissance man Rob has finally kicked out the last of the feed gremlins and restored order, so you can now (re-)subscribe with confidence. Thanks to everyone who stuck that out.

I've also been getting an increasing number of emails and anonymous comments that some of you are having problems logging in to leave comments -- we're currently working on issues there and will let you know when those wrinkles have been ironed.

Let me know if you're experiencing any other issues putting a damper on your stay here via the comments (you know, if you can) or that send-a-tip email at top right.

Brandon Boyer

A new Hanes Beefy-T awaits

This T-shirt -- fortuitously spotted by a twitter search, and, I've just sussed out, purchased by Southampton DJ James Zabiela -- is just a few quick fixes away from being an amazing bit of site merch.

No luck finding my own, but at very least I've just learned the kanji for Offworld. [Update: Buy it here at Last Exit To Nowhere, thanks Transmission3000!]

Offworld Colonies t-shirt [via search.twitter]

Brandon Boyer

Happy Holidays from Offworld (feat. Keita Takahashi)

Before the site goes any darker and the posting gets even lighter for the remainder of the week, I just wanted to drop off one last little gift, drawn exclusively for all of you Offworldians by (obviously) Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi.

Hope everyone's having a happy holiday, and thanks for all the smart comments and well wishes we've received over our first month here.

Brandon Boyer

Would You Like To Play A Game? Networking Edition

It's been a bit too long since we've done one of these, but let's make it a bit different this time. We're all on different pages this weekend, Rob having just put Fallout 3 to bed as Joel just now re-emerges from the vault, John looking for groups on Left 4 Dead (via XBL name 'drcrypt' -- mention Offworld in your request, please!), and me honestly still not sure where the weekend's going to take me (I've been having a desperately hard time lately escaping Banjo Kazooie's Xbox Live Arcade remade paw/claw grip, and am looking forward to sinking in further to XBLA's Meteos Wars).

So, this seems as good a time as any to launch our official Facebook presence, where I've kicked off a thread with our Steam/Xbox Live/PSN/Wii/etc. information, and encourage anyone interested to do the same. Hopefully, while we still fiddle with coming up with something a bit more official, we'll have something more stable than our comments to keep us all together.

As usual, you can also join our Boing Boing Steam group and while I'm passing out our various web presences, I might as well mention that our Offworld Twitter feed is in its neophyte stages and will begin in full soon.

Brandon Boyer

Offworld on BBtv: Awesome edition

Clearly still struggling through Infinite-Jest-esque urges to purchase beauty-enhancing video phone masks and the anxiety of talking to yourself while staring into a tiny, lit, terrifying Hal 9000 eye-hole, I've made my official non-gnome deathknight debut on BBtv.

In it I recap what we've been doing on the site (most notably, the debut of Monster Mii), recommend Dr. Awesome, the first game that's felt to me like a proper 'iPhone game,' versus a game that's merely been made for the iPhone, and let you know what's happening on the site in the coming weeks.

Bonus points for recognizing any of the ephemera in the background, and, as usual, a direct download link so you can blow it up full screen and shoot suction darts at my scruffy mug.