Tom Bramwell Wishes homebrew would be sanctioned by platform holders
Doom creator John Carmack believes the DS would make a great proving ground for upstart programmers if only platform holders didn't stifle homebrew development.
"It is a shame that homebrew development can't be officially sanctioned and supported, because it would be a wonderful platform for a modern generation of programmers to be able to get a real feel for low level design work," Carmack told IGN in an interview about Orcs & Elves, "to be contrasted with the high level web and application work that so many entry level people start with."
Carmack took a similar route to creating Orcs & Elves, id Software's upcoming Nintendo DS game - created as a collaboration between Carmack and Fountainhead Software.
As he explained at QuakeCon 2007, he got the 3D code that underpins the game up and running in four days during one of his "working retreats" - where he locks himself in a hotel room for two weeks with no internet connection "for completely focused work".
Unofficial homebrew solutions do exist for DS, using flash cards for storage, but they're not supported by Nintendo because of the potential for piracy.
Nollenberger Capital Partners' analyst Todd Greenwald has stated that Call of Duty 4 could outsell Halo 3. Straight from the horse's mouth:
"Thus far, the game has an average score of 9.5/10 on Metacritic.com, which is almost unprecedented and puts it on par with Halo 3. It certainly is the highest-rated game Activision has ever created. Keep in mind, CoD4 is launching on four times as many platforms (Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PC, DS) as Halo 3 (360 only). Halo 3 has so far sold about 4 million units. A year ago, Call of Duty 3 sold about 3 million units, and we anticipate this year's version could do four million or more."
BioShock and Halo 3 earn most nominations when Spike TV unveiled the list of nominees for its 2007 Video Game Awards
To be eligible, a game must have been released between November 16, 2006 and December 1, 2007. The nominees were chosen by Spike TV's advisory panel, which is made of nearly two dozen game journalists.
BioShock and Halo 3 received the most nominations, with seven each, including nominations as Game of the Year and Xbox 360 Game of the Year. No Wii or PS3 exclusives were nominated as Game of the Year.
The "Most Addictive Game" category will be selected by online voters polled on the official VGA website.
The 2007 Video Game Awards will be shown on Spike TV on December 9. The complete list of nominees is as follows:
Game of the Year
- BioShock
- Halo 3
- Mass Effect
- The Orange Box
Best PS3 Game
- Heavenly Sword
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
- Warhawk
Click the read more link for the full list of nominations..
If you've played Halo 3, we hope you've also checked out Bungie.net.
The collection of detailed stats on just about every Halo 3 game ever played will spin your head. And it just got better. Along with some cosmetic upgrade, there are two awesome new features:
Global Heatmaps: These shows you where most people got murdered on each map, worldwide.
Local Heatmaps: The same info, except about you!
Bungie's Favorites: A much needed video filter where the best videos are spotlighted and the worst ignored.
Sign on to Bungie.net and check them out. Very impressive stuff.
You’ve got red on you - Ryu Hayabusa sharpens up his act for a 360-exclusive sequel, while Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, like the initials, fits perfectly on to the DS.
Anyone else would have crawled under a rock after last year, when Tomonobo Itagaki railed against the makers of Tekken, dismissed underachieving gamers as ‘ninja dogs’, then produced the utterly average Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2. But there he was, the brains and mouth of Team Ninja, swaggering across the stage at this year’s TGS. His trademark braggadocio may have lost some currency over the years, but mention of Ninja Gaiden clearly has not.
With many still discovering and returning to 2004’s breakneck bloodbath, be it through 360 emulation or PS3’s Sigma remake, there’s no denying the timeliness of announcing a proper sequel. The hardcore, faced with the rise of non-gaming and Japan’s labored uptake of new consoles, are yearning for some old-school pain. Ninja Gaiden 2, as you discover from the off, has more than enough to go around.
“I’d like to say that we’re not depicting this violence for the fun of it,” insists Yoshifuru Okamoto, the game’s producer. “We want it to actually have meaning inside the game, in terms of the experience. Violence is a key challenge of this project – we don’t even think it’s possible to alter it. I understand that in Japan we will be Z rated [the dreaded adults-only rating, which effectively brands games as culturally hazardous]. In the US, though, we’re confident we’ll be an M [for Mature].”
Integral or not, the violence in Ninja Gaiden will have you feeling like Lady Macbeth after just five minutes’ play. Granted, heads did roll in the first game (in most versions, at least), but this is something else. Ryu Hayabusa’s staccato sword-swipes literally chop his opponents to pieces, leaving heads, shoulders, knees and toes in great puddles on the floor. Better – sorry, worse – still is what happens to the pieces left attached: without a hand or foot, for example, enemies will writhe, hobble and hop around until finished off. And like the Black Knight himself, they’ll fight you the entire time.
“The enemy AI changes as he loses an arm or a foot,” Okamoto explains. “Our objective is to show cool action right up until the enemy is killed. But our ninja won’t search bodies or steal weapons from the dead. Bodies remain solely for the purpose of graphic realism. I think the increased power of Xbox 360 has made a unique way of depicting violence possible: how the blood is spilt, how the body is dismembered and how the parts remain on the ground.”
With this in mind, together with an image of Jack Thompson spontaneously combusting upon sight of it, it’s worth pointing out that there is a story beneath the carnage. While Itagaki will doubtless say otherwise during the remaining months of development, Team Ninja is especially keen to expand Ninja Gaiden’s audience. “After we released the previous Ninja Gaiden,” says Okamoto, “we thought about the game and realized that a gap was forming between what we originally wanted and the reaction of the players. It was very much about the difficulty level – and we felt the need for casual gamers to enjoy our game as well.”
It’s too early for Okamoto to go into detail, but he promises a more intense and ‘interesting’ game than before, with a wider variety of rival characters and boss battles. Foremost will be a rival ninja to Hayabusa – a nemesis central to the game’s events. The proposed enemy types sound a mite familiar – demonic beasts and gun-toting commandos join the usual ninja hit squads – but their attack patterns and strategies, whether grouped or isolated, are more varied. The need to find the right weapon for each challenge, furthermore, will be brutally enforced.
“It all started with the weapons we wanted Hayabusa to carry,” says Okamoto, “turning him into some kind of super ninja. This led us to think about the actions which would fit these weapons, and how that in turn would affect the game’s fun factor.”
But the problem, as it exists in this early alpha code, is less a question of challenge and intrigue than that old Team Ninja bugbear, visual evolution. You could cut and paste concerns over Ninja Gaiden 2’s technology from reviews of either DOA4 or DOAX2: it just doesn’t feel particularly modern. Ironically for a game which cuts more flesh than a chef who moonlights as a serial killer, it’s disconcertingly clean. Light and shadow effects, for both characters and environments, are quite deficient, leaving some very smooth (60 frames per second) but flat visuals.
He might not have lived under a rock for the last year, but you have to wonder how much Itagaki and his team have isolated themselves from the influence, and more importantly the examples, of other studios’ games. Okamoto openly admits to a policy of looking away from ‘the competition’, and speaks little of conflict with Devil May Cry 4 because he ‘hasn’t seen it’. Ninja Gaiden will certainly make headline news simply for its gore, and will probably be enjoyable as hell for the masochistic elite. But if it wants to speak to casual gamers as well, then graphics are a language it can’t afford to ignore.
DivX followed up Tuesday night’s earnings report with a presentation at the JP Morgan SmMid cap conference. JP Morgan analyst Paul Coster coyly probed Kevin Hell about whether or not we were about to see DivX support on the Xbox 360. The question seemed to catch Hell off guard, and while his initial reaction was enthusiasm, there was something about his tone that suggested that Coster might be onto something.
Here is the exchange verbatim, but in order to appreciate the awkwardness of the exchange, you should really listen to the quote at the 24 minute mark of the presentation and make your own decision as to whether or not you hear a sense of urgency in Hell’s response.
Coster - “Just a minor point here, but there was a recent Microsoft (MSFT) conference where I believe their media extender now incorporates the DivX codec on it, is that correct? Can you confirm that and does that mean we’re soon going to see Xboxes with DivX on them?
Hell - “Yes! that, uh, we’re in discussions with Microsoft on that at this point in time, so I can’t go into any great detail on that. Um that is not a certified, that is not a certified or licensed product at this time.”
At that point DivX CFO Dan Halvorson jumped in and quickly changed the subject.
It was only a brief exchange, but after pretty much giving up all hope of seeing DivX on the Xbox, I found the news to be very encouraging.
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"It is a shame that homebrew development can't be officially sanctioned and supported, because it would be a wonderful platform for a modern generation of programmers to be able to get a real feel for low level design work," Carmack told IGN in an interview about Orcs & Elves, "to be contrasted with the high level web and application work that so many entry level people start with."
"Thus far, the game has an average score of 9.5/10 on Metacritic.com, which is almost unprecedented and puts it on par with Halo 3. It certainly is the highest-rated game Activision has ever created. Keep in mind, CoD4 is launching on four times as many platforms (Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PC, DS) as Halo 3 (360 only). Halo 3 has so far sold about 4 million units. A year ago, Call of Duty 3 sold about 3 million units, and we anticipate this year's version could do four million or more." 
BioShock and Halo 3 received the most nominations, with seven each, including nominations as Game of the Year and Xbox 360 Game of the Year. No Wii or PS3 exclusives were nominated as Game of the Year.
With many still discovering and returning to 2004’s breakneck bloodbath, be it through 360 emulation or PS3’s Sigma remake, there’s no denying the timeliness of announcing a proper sequel. The hardcore, faced with the rise of non-gaming and Japan’s labored uptake of new consoles, are yearning for some old-school pain. Ninja Gaiden 2, as you discover from the off, has more than enough to go around.
Here is the exchange verbatim, but in order to appreciate the awkwardness of the exchange, you should really listen to the quote at the 24 minute mark of the presentation and make your own decision as to whether or not you hear a sense of urgency in Hell’s response.
