Brandon Boyer

Fake plastic mess: the official Harmonix instrument compatibility list

Somebody had to do it, I guess it may as well have been Harmonix themselves: the official Rock Band site has just updated with this new pan-console compatibility list that lets you know which of the gajillion technicolor instruments piling up maddeningly in your bed/living-room over the past five years will work with which games. Mentioned here mostly because it's really, really time for me to cull the lot.

Brandon Boyer

E309: the 5 things you need to know about Sony's press conference

1.) Sony unveiled their own new motion tracking system, aptly titled the PlayStation Motion Controller

Sony were up front about the rampant leaks in recent weeks, saying up front "we consider ourselves to be industry leaders, and press leaks are no exception," but it still had a few surprises up its sleeve.

Primarily, the PlayStation Motion Controller, a 'magic wand' type add-on that utilizes the PlayStation 3's camera to track 3D movement across one or two hands. Sony went through a bevy of demonstrated uses, making the controller act as first person shooter aiming device, writing utensil, two handed archery simulator, and real-time strategy unit selector, all with a legitimately impressive amount of finesse.

The company said it would be releasing more information about the device soon, in anticipation of an early 2010 launch.

2.) Sony are circling the wagons and re-emphasizing a lineup of third party exclusives

After losing Grand Theft Auto to competing consoles, first and foremost Sony announced that Rockstar North, the studio behind the GTA series, would be creating Agent, a story of global espionage and assassins set in the late 1970s that will be exclusive to PS3.

Sony also showed the first footage of Final Fantasy 14, a new online version in the series (the first since FF 11) that was announced as a game that would "launch exclusively" for the PS3.

Also shown: the first official trailer for The Last Guardian, the third game from Ico and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda that leaked recently as Project Trico -- the updated trailer showed a fantastic deal more detail than that early target video.

For the PSP, Hideo Kojima came on stage to reveal Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a game he said was set, too, in the late 70s, and would serve as the official sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3, and would take full advantage of the PSP's capabilities. Kojima promised he was heavily involved in the game both as script writer and as executive producer, with much of the same original team as MGS4, and would not be a simple spinoff project.

Other PSP titles in its lineup coming in the near future: a new exclusive Resident Evil, LittleBigPlanet, SOCOM, Monster Hunter Freedom Unlimited, Motorstorm, Hannah Montana, Harry Potter and the exclusive Gran Turismo mentioned in the Qore leak.

3. Sony is placing greater emphasis on the PSP as a media device

Sony's already widely leaked PSP Go will be launching on October 1st in America and Europe at a 249 dollar/euro price point, and alongside it will come a new PC media manager app called Media Go, meant to better sync photos, music and video between your PC and the PSP.

Also added to the new PSP model firmware this fall (as well as the PS3) will be an on-device port of its proprietary musical application SensMe, that, like iTunes' 'Genius' functionality, will analyze your music with '12 tone recognition' and create new playlists based on your mood.

Adding to the PS3's already sizable video library -- which will now include new content partners Showtime, G4, E, HDNet, Starz, TNA, Magnolia Films, and new anime and sports channels -- Sony announced that content delivery will be coming natively to the PSP this fall, as well.

4. Sony still strongly believes in the 'play, create, share' theme

To that end, they not only announced new partners for LittleBigPlanet like Disney -- who will be adding Jack Sparrow, Cinderella and The Incredibles costumes -- but they announced a new PlayStation 3 exclusive game from its internal San Diego studio and Vancouver's United Front called ModNation Racers.

At heart a kart racing game along the lines of Mario's own, the twist is -- like LittleBigPlanet near-infinite customizability in both characters, cars, and tracks. United Front demonstrated the track building feature, which was as easy as painting tracks, terrain types, scenery like trees, mountains and villages, and powerups with a virtual PhotoShop brush applicator, and then instantly tested out the track with no loading or delay.

The game featured a superdeformed character design style similar to LittleBigPlanet's Sackboy, which the developer said was inspired by vinyl toy scene artists like Kidrobot and Tokidoki, and are therefore completely after my one true heart.

5. As I suspected, Sony are actively chasing more independent developers for PSP

How? By announcing a price drop for its PSP developer kits by some 80 percent to $1,500 in North America, and 1200 euros across Europe and PAL territories.

Brandon Boyer

Colossal find: the last Shadow of the Colossus art archive you'll ever need

This is a heads up simply to point out that there exists a fantastic Picasa gallery that's collected all things Shadow of the Colossus, from the stupefyingly hi-res screenshots like the above, to scans of its artbook and viral campaign images, and, oddly, a fan-made collectible card game based on Fumito Ueda's second PS2 masterpiece. [via Tom]

Brandon Boyer

Priced to move: last chance to pick up Alien Hominid on GameCube/PS2

A note as quick as theirs: The Behemoth has announced via their Twitter that the direct-sale GameCube and PS2 copies of their debut shooter Alien Hominid are the last available for good, so if -- for some reason -- you haven't already made the jump to Xbox Live Arcade's HD version, the Wii/mostly-PS3 playable versions are just $10 away.

The same goes for the fantastic vinyl toy five-pack, which comes as highly recommended.

The Behemoth store [via Twitter]

Brandon Boyer

Ico creator looks back at Colossus development

1UP's just-published interview with Ico creator Fumito Ueda looking back at spiritual sequel Shadow of the Colossus some three years later was interesting not so much at what it revealed about the game, but about the practicality of Ueda in his approach to its creation.

Both games are heralded as some of the high-water-marks of games as art, and Ueda wins points for his approach the narrative debate ("there should be game design first and a story that suits the design, not the other way around"), and commercial intentions ("if I were to choose between something that sells for a moment and is forgotten, and something that doesn't sell much but is remembered, I would choose the latter").

His response to the hero dynamic was interesting, though:

Making a lead character female seems to be fascinating cinematically, but I picked a male character since most game players are male, and they need to become emotionally involved with the lead character. However, recently there have been many female gamers, so it is possible to have a female leading character, I guess.

And it was interesting to see that in both games, unlike most other adventures which are built on the very foundation (see: Zelda), Ueda deliberately left out unlockable weapons that would operate as "skill changes" -- keeping the player on an even keel throughout.

As for what the team is doing now, nothing much has been said other than the above teaser image used for a recruitment ad, and a comically unhelpful appearance on the PS3's Mainichi Issyo channel (aka, where those Sony cats come from), where he showed up and parted with nothing more than a drawing of the cats being chased by a colosso-feline.

Shadow of the Colossus Postmortem Interview [1UP]

Brandon Boyer

Pikilipita's ultra-hypnotic PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance VJ kits

My shameful admission: I have wasted more time today than I'll willingly fess up to watching this video on repeat, completely transfixed by nothing more than: pulsing circle, moving checkerboard, strobing Hello Kitty, shifting rainbow bar, strobing Hello Kitty backward, file browser, sunburst heart. And again, and again.

The video is a 2-player live demo of Clément 'Pikilipita' Cordier's PS24VJ, a custom-coded homebrew kit for 'video jockeys' to import their own graphics and video via a USB stick, and cut and manipulate from each to each using the standard DualShock controller, and -- in the hands of its creator, at least -- it's way more mesmerizing than it should be.

Interestingly, PS24VJ is the third iteration of Cordier's tools that span back to both a Game Boy Advance version, where you're limited to his built-in graphics but freed up by its pocket size, and Pikix, a later version for the Linux-based Korean handheld GP2X.

Cordier is selling PS24VJ as donation-ware (contact him with an offer), and custom-flashed GBA carts appear to still be available alongside standalone ROM files (Pikix is available as a free download), and, just as I'd hoped, he notes that he's eager to work on an iPhone version with networking capabilities for multiple VJs to mix at once.

PS24VJ: VJ software for Playstation 2 [PIKILIPITA, via Digital Tools, the best blog I've discovered in weeks]

Brandon Boyer

Rock Band bucking the sequel trend in 2009

The best games news I've heard out of CES thus far? Via Crispy Gamer, Harmonix's Alex Rigopolus bucking the sequel trend and maintaining development focus on Rock Band as a pure platform, very much as it should be:

“We’ve actually made a choice to break out of the annual release cycle for Rock Band this year,” Rigopolous told the assembled press and industry members. “[This is] partly because the annual cycle places limits on the choices you can make as a developer. We’re trying to take a long term view.”

That doesn't mean Harmonix hasn't given up on standalone releases -- in October the company announced a new deal with The Beatles to provide a custom one-off Rock Band-esque exploration of the band's back catalog, slated for release later this year.

Harmonix’ Rigopolous: “Rock Band 3 breaking the annual cycle” [Crispy Gamer]

Previously:
Going deep on music with Harmonix - Offworld
Expect new Guitar Hero releases for the next ten years - Offworld

Brandon Boyer

Autonomous Katamari-Roomba clean sweeps in 71 minutes

As part of his 'PSX' interface project that "disrupts conventional game interaction rituals," Julian Bleecker has created a custom PS2 dongle and script and dedicated himself to answering an important question:

I decided to do an absolutely crucial bit of game science. Something that I am entirely sure is mulled over constantly, but never properly investigated. The question is but stated thusly: how long would it take the Little Prince to roll up an entire room based on a random path algorithm?

His result, via the video above, clocks in at just over 71 minutes, after a semi-excruciating period of consistently missing the final 10 objects (which Bleecker mercifully manually grabs in the end). The full explanation and code are available at the link.

Autonomous Game Controllers [Near Future Laboratory, thanks Tom!]

Previously:
Manifesto for "blogjects" -- objects that blog - Boing Boing

Brandon Boyer

Going deep on music with Harmonix

Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos has some very smart reflections on the birth and evolution of music gaming in this recent chat with Wired, talking about the work and non-work of music creation software -- which the company was founded to create -- versus their music performance software as we know it today.

He also expounds on how familiarity with the music helps guide you as a player, and the risks in broadening its catalog from Guitar Hero's cherry-picked 'best of the history of rock' catalog to Rock Band's more all-encompassing selections that attempt to foster music discovery rather than just appreciation, and, implicitly, makes you understand why the company is at the fore of the music gaming genre.

Game|Life Video: The Man Behind Rock Band [Wired]

Brandon Boyer

Eliot Min's little drummer girl

Seen via Rock Band's "zine," this gorgeous concept art from illustrator Eliot Min, who also worked alongside Steven Kimura for the game's Beast of Burden concept costume.

The People's Artist // The 'Zine [Rock Band]

John Brownlee

J.C. Denton responds to an ontological quandary

Compelling. I wish I'd seen this a decade ago: with the benefit of this clip and some hindsight, I would never have bothered actually writing my dissertation in metaphysics.

Brandon Boyer

Ghostbusters: The Game: The New Trailer

Just as we said we hadn't seen near enough of the Ghostbusters game yet, Atari delivers, with digital Bill Murray looking so much more spritely than we've seen him in his last howevermany sad sack films.

YouTube - Ghostbusters: The Video Game - Atari Live Trailer