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Watch the epic first 15 minutes of Enslaved

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:37:23 +0000

Trailer Trashing: Adrenalin Misfits For Kinect

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:28:52 +0000

Gamescom 2010 was huge – so huge that our staff, despite their best efforts, wasn't able to see every game at the show. I'm sure they were super busy. That's the only reason I can think of why they neglected to call my attention to this Adrenalin Misfits (known as Crossboard 7 in the Europe) trailer.

I hadn't heard of the game until I saw this trailer, but from now on it will be seared into my memory as the exact moment I gave up on Kinect. However, something this ludicrous shouldn't just be written off – I feel that it's complete lameness demands further study. To that end, I will be giving you a second-to-second analysis of what surely must be the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

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0:04 – "Oh, 'sup y'all, I'm just your average tween with a orange hoodie and *** mullet. Right now, I'm feelin' to chill and play a little Xbox, you know….no big thing."

0:06 – "You like my A/V stand? I stole it from a space ship an early 1970s sci-fi movie."

0:07 – "W-w-WHAT?!! My controller disappeared! My stars! Where did it go? Behind me??"

0:08 – *disembodied robot voice* "BZZZT…THRRP…THE SENSOR WILL READ YOUR MOVES. YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER"

0:13 – "Are you talking to ME? I am the controller? Whatever do you mean, Kinect sensor bar?"

0:16 – "Despite my confusion, I feel now is the perfect time to pretend to stand on an invisible skateboard!"

0:17 – We look on in horror as reject cartoon characters snowboard.

0:23 – OH MY GOD THE KID IS ACTUALLY CONTROLLING THE CHARACTER ONSCREEN BY PRETENDING TO SNOWBOARD! THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED!!!

0:25 – We have a possible sighting of a frog with dreadlocks. Repeat: We have a possible sighting of a frog with dreadlocks. Please remain calm.

0:29 – WHEN GAME SAYS "TURN!" THE KID PRETENDS TO TURN AND THE WEIRD FOX THING ONSCREEN TURNS ON HIS SNOWBOARD!!!! *passes out*

0:30 – *regains consciousness*

0:35 – The kid's Hot Mom shows us that you can jump!

0:38 – The other family members jump! Even the Cool Dad, who is wearing a hip track jacket and looks like he's 28, and the kid looks like he's about 10 so we now now this child was conceived while his parents were in high school

0:42 – Cool Dad appears to be "heading" a soccer ball that does not actually exist

0:46 – You can do tricks like spinning….by spinning! This is something we have never seen in any snowboarding game ever.

0:53 – Hot Mom shows us how to glide, which is done by standing in your living room and holding out your arms and saying "i'm a plane! I'm a plane! Look at me, I'm a plane!"

0:56 – Lil' Sis stomps on the floor and the announcer dude says "BUMPIN'!" and a crazy lizard tiger snowboard shoots what looks to be like a laser out of his snowboard…I guess?

1:02 – The announcer says "Cheer and speed up!" and the family acts like they are the stands at an imaginary football game. From this I gather that you must cheer loudly to speed up, which does not sound like an annoying control mechanic at all.

1:04 – Observation: Cool Dad looks a little bit like a younger version of EA CEO John Riccitiello

1:08 – Weird Fox Thing reaches the finish line, and *** Mullet Kid "skids out" to stop the board

1:10 – *** Mullet Kid points his fingers in the sky like two pistols and says "Yeah!" Weird Fox Thing mimics this motion onscreen, forcing us to see this annoying gesture twice.

1:12 – We see a montage of the whole family (and some new random children) pumping their fists and saying "YES!"

1:15 – A bunch of people jump up in the air in slow motion

1:19 – The screen reads "Free your experience." Okay….I will do that. Thank you.

1:22 – Game logo….copyright Konami Digital Entertainment…The End.

1:23 – I reflect on what I've learned in this last minute and a half, suspecting I will never be the same again.

News

CosBlog #34: Aion Asmodian By Kamui

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:29:04 +0000

Cosplayer Kamui impresses with her interpretation of an Asmodian character, infused with Aion’s distinctive look. A half a year of work and over a thousand dollars went into the project, and we can tell.

Enjoy!

Who: The Character
Female Asmodian Plate Set from Aion – Tower of Eternity

Why: The Decision
Every year I try to improve my skills a bit and search for costumes that give me a new challenge. My goal is to learn about new techniques and materials with every costume and I always dreamt to build armor. One day I saw a commercial of Aion and was just stunned by the armor and character design of this game. I tried it, searched for references and picked up the hardest plate set I could find. I also love the history and the character of the Asmodian and knew that I had to cosplay one of them!

What: The Progress
It took half a year to finish this costume, despite the fact that my boyfriend painted a lot of the armor. After some planning I decided to use a combination of Wonderflex and craft foam for the armor. I was also very afraid of the wig, because I never styled one before. But the problem was not that I never built armor before, or that the materials were quite new to me. It was just an amazing amount of work steps for this costume. When I finished one part, two further parts were waiting for me.

This costume didn't want to get finished and I was very often disappointed about my failures. I built my breast armor three times for example and the paint was just crazy. But the hardest thing I had to solve was the fixing. I tried a lot of methods, until I choose to use a huge amount of Velcro tape in combination with buckles. Yes, this costume was really hard to realize. Despite of this I had a lot of fun, learned a lot from it and it was just awesome to finish such a huge project.

I guess, final cost is around 1300 USD, but I gave up with counting.

Where and When: The Debut
I debuted my costume on Animuc 2009, Germany. A photoshoot followed one month later, which was taken by my boyfriend, Benjamin Schwarz.

The Gallery

Links: The Cosplayer
You can follow all of my progress on my blog and my cosplay.com account.

Miss the past few CosBlogs? Check out the CosBlog Hub for a full archive and information on how to submit a costume of your own.

News

PAX 2010: inFamous 2 Gameplay Footage

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:42:41 +0000

The highlight of PAX so far, to me, was the inFamous panel. I liked it mostly for some stuff I’ll bring you later this week, but but I also liked it for what I’m about to show you: one of the Insomniac bros playing inFamous 2 on a giant projector screen. Because it looks totally great and about a million times more awesome than inFamous. Also, it takes place in and around Fake New Orleans, which is way cool.

So I could continue to talk and blah blah blah all over the place, but instead I’ll just let you watch this thing. Note that they had some issues with the projector at first, but they fix it. Watch it, please.

Download this

Gaming Today

Life As A Pixel Shouldn’t Be So Rough [Hot Flashes]

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:01:58 +0000

Multiplayer gaming is hard enough when you can talk to your colleagues, but trying to achieve some kind of cohesion with zero communication? It’s madness. More »

Kotaku

Hothead Unleashes Swarm Gameplay Trailer

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:28:41 +0000

Ignition Entertainment and DeathSpank developer Hothead Games have unleashed the first gameplay trailer of their upcoming action platformer Swarm (due out next year).

In Swarm you'll guide a group of Swarmites through "gauntlets of death and destruction" in search of DNA. In this Swarm gameplay trailer, you can see the ways in which Swarmites can be sacrificed. Check it out below.

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News

In-Depth: Saltsman, One Year On From Canabalt

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:24:57 +0000

This week marked the first anniversary of Adam Saltsman’s one-button Flash game, Canabalt, whose stylish visuals and ‘outrun the carnage’ concept made it one of the signature indie titles of recent times. Produced in just five days as part of the monthly themed Experimental Gameplay Project, Canabalt gained an evangelical following on release, its fanbase growing yet further following its later arrival on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Gamasutra caught up with Saltsman …

Gamasutra News

PS3 Firmware 3.42 mandatory update available now

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:02:09 +0000

Another month, yet another PS3 firmware update. Little over one month since 3.41 (and two months since 3.40) comes yet another mandatory update for your PS3. Firmware 3.42 seemingly doesn’t add any functionality to your system beyond the usual “system software stability,” but it is required if you want to continue accessing the PlayStation Network or the PlayStation Store.

While unverified, this update may be a response to a recently-released jailbreak tool, which supposedly enables piracy on Sony’s once-bulletproof system. We’ll update this story if Sony provides any additional details on what this firmware does exactly.

PS3 Firmware 3.42 mandatory update available now originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq

Befriending Civilization V’s City-States

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:28:54 +0000

My previous hands-on report with Civilization V indicated that I felt pursuing diplomatic relationships with the new city-states to be underpowered relative to other ways to spend your resources. A few thousand years in Alexander the Great's shoes has taught me otherwise.

First things first, for those of you not up to speed on Civ V: City-states are minor nations that never expand, but will defend themselves and can be befriended by major civilizations. When you're allied with a city-state (which takes a 500 gold buy-in and 250 gold every 30 turns to maintain the relationship, though those numbers can be modified by various things as you'll see in a minute), they'll send you any luxury or strategic resources they have and help you out depending on what sort of state they are. Maritime states send food to each of your cities every turn, cultural states add culture to your civilization, and military states occasionally gift you units.

The baseline benefit doesn't sound that good on paper. After all, 250 gold can be a lot of things: An instant worker unit, a research agreement with a rival, a few hexes brought into your city borders, or more. Thirty turns of a luxury resource (all city-states spawn near one, and sometimes will expand their borders to control a second or possibly a strategic resource like iron or horses) and a little food or culture or a single unit isn't that great, especially considering that it's not a permanent bonus and it can all be for naught if a rival conquers the city-state. On the other hand, you can make it work for you with a little effort. Allow me to explain.

Alexander's trait is the Hellenic League, which makes his influence with city-states degrade at half the normal rate. Right out of the gates, Greece gets 60 turns of alliance per 250 gold rather than the typical 30, significantly altering the equation. Furthermore, the Patronage social policy*, which is available starting in the medieval epoch, grants several more city-state bonuses, and is worth a deeper look.

*Civ V's social policies are a replacement for Civ IV's civics. These permanent choices are unlocked by accumulating culture through constructing buildings like Temples in your cities, and by allying with cultural city-states. You get to pick a new social policy every X amount of culture generated, where X depends on the number of cities you have and how many policy picks you've already gotten. Each policy branch – Tradition, Honor, Patronage, Rationalism, etc. – has several sub-branches, each of which cost a pick on their own. Maxing out the Patronage branch, for instance, costs a total of six picks – which is something like 100 turns of cultural development, even if you're focusing on it.

(Next up: The power of Patronage)

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News

PAX 2010: Hands-On with inFamous 2 (VIDEO)

Salat — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:42:36 +0000

You didn’t think that panel footage was all the inFamous 2 gameplay footage you’d get, right? Nope, Sucker Punch also had a playable demo of the game on the PAX show floor, and I played the hell out of it. Here’s a quick rundown on what we’ve got here before I post the video:

It’s in Fake New Orleans in what looks like the French Quarter.

There’s a lot of cinematic slowmo and zooms and stuff. The presentation this time around looks pretty killer.

Cole fights some mooooooooonsters which an electrified crowbar. The guys at Sucker Punch said at the panel Friday that they wanted to have more melee this time, and the demo puts a focus on that.

Cole chases down a limo so he can yell at some old dude, and then what the old dude says makes him so angry that he starts taking out everything nearby with some extremely badass vortexes.

And here’s the vid of the entire demo. It’s sooooo cool, I swear, and that’s coming from a bro who was pretty lukewarm on the first game.

Gaming Today