The Code Games News Report 12.15.06
Posted by Shawn Struck on 12.15.2006
An epic film told with game engines, hottest game system in November, and lots of pretty pictures.
Launchageddon is behind us, and the holidays are ahead of us, while lots of retrospectives on the year that was in gaming will look at the past behind us. With all this looking around, you might miss some wacky, obscure, interesting or quieter bit of news going on. And that's why we have this column..
You don't need visions of sugarplums to fire the imagination when you've got... The Code.
And the winner in console sales is... the Sony Playstation... TWO? (via Wonderland)
That's amazing! I wonder though, if this is just a result of people trying to getting something, anything matching the "Playstation" name? Is it a cheaper alternative to the PS3?
Machinima epic Bloodspell concludes
The 14th and final episode of the epic machinima feature film "Bloodspell" has just been posted. The series was the product of an artist collective called Strange Companion Scotland. For those unfamiliar with the term, machinima is used for films that are made by generating custom graphics for sophisticated video-game engines and then "playing" the game in such a way as to generate the 3D animations for the film, then dubbing in your own audio.
"Bloodspell" stands as the most ambitious machinima project ever attempted. Each installment has been released under Creative Commons licenses (basically a way to retain intellectual ownership but allow for certain levels of derivative works, like mashups, fan works, remixes, or whatever the author would like), and the film's audience has taken an active role in the production, adding subtitles in many languages.
So, now that it's complete and hosted on Archive.org, now is the perfect time to watch it all .
Press B To Create A Happy Tree... and Wave The Wii Remote To Create Happy Little Clouds (via MTV)
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much can I say about how jazzed I am that a Bob Ross painting game for the Wii has been formaly announced that will do my happiness justice?
Seriously, guys, I used to watch his show on PBS with my mom when I was little, and there were many a Saturday and Sunday afternoon I'd have "The Joy Of Painting" playing in the background as I was doing apartment chores or reading or something. It was like a meditation aid in a box, and they was such simple joy and happiness in the way he did his programs.
The Wii Remote just lends it to all sorts of great artistic applications; the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube never really got thier equivalent to Mario Paint, and hopefully this game will rectify that. I certainly hope so-- it was Mario Paint got me intersed in graphic design and learning how a mouse worked.
Pinball Hall of Fame Pics (via GameSetWatch, Kotaku)
GameSetWatch has a wonderful gallery up showing off some of the amazing pinball machines that can be found at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Pretend I just wrote the word "awesome" two thousand times instead of the above pictures, because man, I love me some pinball.
My personal favorite pinball games EVER are "Pinbot" and "Taxi", though I have also played "Capt. Fantastic", pictured above. It's about as ridiculous as it seemed. Supposedly the Museum is the only play one can check out and play "Tommy", and that truly is a multimedia experience-- including a black screen sliding down periodcally ('cos in the song and movie of the same name, Tommy was a blind pinball wizard).
Clips: The Wii Safety Manual Gets a Narrator (via GameVideos.com)
There's been a lot of jokes going around on the Intertubes about the sometimes-ambigous Japanese Wii warning illustrations.
Someone with a dashing Australian accent recorded a video version of voiceovers to go with 'em. I lawled, then I roffled.
1up reports that DS modders and hackers are getting ready to start shipping a DS add-on that adds motion sensitivity to the system.
According to the official site, the unit "contains a 3-axis accelerometer and a single-axis gyroscope, and plugs into the DS card slot to enable full motion sensing on the DS and the DS lite."
More technical info about the card is available at the page, and you can pre-order it from DSPassme.com (they're scheduled to go out in January).
I am champing at the bit to see just what sort of projects DS homebrew DIYers and system modders and the like will do with such an awe peripheral unit.
Independent Games award shortlist
The Independent Games Festival has released its shortlist of independently produced video games of merit -- the grand prize winner will be announced at the Festival in San Francisco, March 6-9. In my view,Indiegames's emphasis on low-budget, risky and original games makes it the best place to find out about the best games you never heard of.
Other Grand Prize nominees included Queasy Games' cleverly designed abstract shoot-em-up, Everyday Shooter, which grabbed 3 nominations in total - nominees for the top prize were rounded out by Peter Stock's intelligently complex physics puzzle game Armadillo Run, Three Rings' Wild West indie strategy MMO Bang! Howdy, and Naked Sky's Xbox Live Arcade/PC action-puzzler RoboBlitz.
Finally, the Excellence In Audio category includes Skinflake's Racing Pitch, in which the player uses a microphone to imitate a car engine in order to power his on-screen vehicle, and Technical Excellence also has a multitude of stand-outs, including Cryptic Sea's physics puzzler Blast Miner and EvStream's multiplayer space title Armada Online. Here's a link with more info.
This Week's "It Came From..." Ebay! Custom Guitar Hero Controller, For Charity
Wired's Joel Johnson has a hot, hot eBay auction he wants you to go bid on. Yes, that is a Guitar Hero controller in the body of an actual wooden guitar. All proceeds go directly to Child's Play. You know you need this. If my money wasn't tapped out, I would go for this, good cause or no. This is pure, unadulturated Awesome-mantine in Wicked Axe.
Friday Morning Funnies (from Order of the Stick and Toastyfrog's Talking Time Forums
The excellent Dungeons and Dragons-based humor web comic Order of the Stick takes a side-quest into Final Fantasy III (or VI, depending on how old you are) SNES territory in the latest comic.
And Talking Time member Loki posts an epic mini-series of hilarious Nintendo comics that he submitted under the name Cooltendo. Here's a taste:
This comic is hilarious, has a great, loose art style, and if there is any justice in the world, he will continue to do these. You can read them all in this thread here. Give Loki some encouragement, willya? Tell 'em 411mania games sent ya!
Tokata's Song Guide:
Remember the hidden Easter egg that's woven its way though many Nintendo Titles? You can give 'em a listen here!
http://nindb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/totaka.shtml
This is apparently been a very long running easter egg, and the hunt is on to see if this has appeared in all the games Tokata-san has worked on.
Steve McHugh returns with another Retro review, this time covering Zombie Revenge for the Sega Dreamcast. Personally, I don't think that brain eating is that unreasonable. I mean, no one's gonna eat your EYES.
Jordan Willams returns with another installment of Working Title's Hyped series, giving the upcoming Super Smash Brothers Brawl a once over. He also posits that Sonic vs. Mario in this series would be less like mixing peanut butter and chocolate, and more like mixing vanilla ice cream and manure.
Andrew Millick weighs in on all things Sony in this week's THE SIXAXIS, including rumination on Assassin's Creed. He also says Reggie Fils-Aime is more like baby Huey, and aside from the fact that the The Reg isn't yellow, feathered, nor wears diapers, I think the guy's more like Reggie Fils Ai(wso)me. To quote rootdown, who is INTERNET FAMOUS: "guys you don't understand. Reggie Fils-Aime is (fils-)amazing. He's like a terrible, thundering Nintendo elemental."
We have a Nintendo para-elemental, did you know? His name is Theo Fraser, and he recently ascended to the Plane of Elemental News Reports with his delightful weekly News Report Nintendophiles.
And last but not least, we have Tommy Coloma's Negative Edge report. He's always dependable for great cheap game alerts, as well as awesome wallpaper downloads. I will have to disagree with you on one point though; there is no way in hell Nintendo will EVER... (Eh-eh-eh-EH-VURR!) have Tengen Tetris available on the Virtual Console.
And finally, a feature article I wrote for 1UP.com, focusing on our current generation of video gamers and how we're balancing gaming, work and life. I interviewed everyone from Penny Arcade's Gabe to Sci-Fi author John Scalzi, and even a sociologist AND a futurist! The article can be found here. It's called "The Gaming Generation" and I hope you enjoy the read; I'm really proud of how it turned out.
1up 
