If you were like me – and chances are, if your name is Ross and your grew up in the sticks, you are – then you spent a lot of your formative years playing the game that helped make Fable maestro Peter Molyneux a household name, Populous. (Or perhaps Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods, which was even better.) Possibly – probably – the first God game, populous created the template followed by later Gods-eye view sims like Civilization, Sim city and, well, name the game that fits the format. Unfortunately, the franchise has been property of Electronic Arts since its beginning, and in typical EA style they kind of mismanaged it. The last PC version of the game, 1998′s Populous: The Beginning was badly botched due to it having also been intended for use on the original Playstation. And the less said about Populous DS, the better.
So Populous has lain largely dormant for 14 years. But if information dug up by an enterprising Neogaf forum member named Kifimbo pans out, it may be due for a triumphant return. They searching for more information about a rumored Insomniac title called Outernauts and stumbled onto a wiki page bearing the name “EAP Marketing FY13 Home Page“. Searching around this site,they claim to have located references to the following games:
*The Secret World
*Overstrike
*Populous
*Outernauts
*Respawn
The Secret World (Funcom) and Overstrike (Insomniac) are already scheduled to be published in partnership with EA. The other three are not confirmed titles, though Outernauts’ doman registration has been confirmed by VG 24/7. As for the other two, Kifimbo speculates that Respawn probably refers to a new game from Respawn entertainment, a guess that sounds as good as anything we’re likely to offer.
We were not able to replicate Kifimbo’s results on the site, so take all of this with a grain of salt. That won’t stop us, however, from being excited about the possibility of a new Populous game. We really need this to happen. We’ll even pray, if it helps.
If you were like me – and chances are, if your name is Ross and your grew up in the sticks, you are – then you spent a lot of your formative years playing the game that helped make Fable maestro Peter Molyneux a household name, Populous. (Or perhaps Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods, which was even better.) Possibly – probably – the first God game, populous created the template followed by later Gods-eye view sims like Civilization, Sim city and, well, name the game that fits the format. Unfortunately, the franchise has been property of Electronic Arts since its beginning, and in typical EA style they kind of mismanaged it. The last PC version of the game, 1998′s Populous: The Beginning was badly botched due to it having also been intended for use on the original Playstation. And the less said about Populous DS, the better.
So Populous has lain largely dormant for 14 years. But if information dug up by an enterprising Neogaf forum member named Kifimbo pans out, it may be due for a triumphant return. They searching for more information about a rumored Insomniac title called Outernauts and stumbled onto a wiki page bearing the name “EAP Marketing FY13 Home Page“. Searching around this site,they claim to have located references to the following games:
*The Secret World
*Overstrike
*Populous
*Outernauts
*Respawn
The Secret World (Funcom) and Overstrike (Insomniac) are already scheduled to be published in partnership with EA. The other three are not confirmed titles, though Outernauts’ doman registration has been confirmed by VG 24/7. As for the other two, Kifimbo speculates that Respawn probably refers to a new game from Respawn entertainment, a guess that sounds as good as anything we’re likely to offer.
We were not able to replicate Kifimbo’s results on the site, so take all of this with a grain of salt. That won’t stop us, however, from being excited about the possibility of a new Populous game. We really need this to happen. We’ll even pray, if it helps.
Newsbrief: UK-based racing game studio Eutechnyx has teamed up with racing simulation specialist Brain in a Jar to work on a “key project” in 2012. Eutechnyx is currently developing free-to-play Auto Club Revolution, for which it received $ 2.8 million from the UK government’s regional growth fund late last year, while Brain in a Jar has in the past provided development work for Codemasters and Reflections. Brain in a Jar will provide Eutechnyx with its proprietary …
Face it, everybody: Of all The Beatles, the one with the most impressive musical talent was Paul McCartney. Yeah, I said it. The man wrote more incredibly complex and extremely memorably tunes in 8 short years than an army of songsmiths could write in a single lifetime. His only crime is that he kind of sucked at writing about politics and spirituality, two things people cared a lot about in the 60s. Also, he long ago kind of turned into the cheesy goofball his detractors always said he was.
Even so, one hopes he might pull it out and actually write interesting music again. Maybe the thing he needs is to be taken out of creative comfort zone, kind of like when he recorded an album with Nigel Godrich and it didn’t suck. Perhaps writing for a video game? Lo and behold, it’s happening! In an interview with the German-language publication Zeit (‘Time’, auf Deutsch), he was asked if he’d ever consider writing for a game and revealed that he already is.
McCartney said it was an exciting opportunity for him, and a chance to reach a new audience. While confirming that he’s never actually played video games, he gets how big they are, noting that video games outsell records these days. Way to be modern, gramps! Now the only question is, what’s the game? Some clues:
* He’s obviously been given permission to speak about it, so either the developer is not keeping it under wraps, or they’re hoping to build early buzz.
* Macca’s statements in the interview indicate that he’s still in the compositional stages. However, writing music for a kind of like scoring a film, so he’s almost certainly looking at footage from something that is at least alpha.
* It’s probably not a music based game. This sounds like a real soundtrack.
* We can also rule out any small publisher, since Sir Paul didn’t become almost a billionaire by working for scale.
* We can probably rule out anything like Grand Theft Auto, given his politics.
I can’t speculate on the studio – this list of the world’s most successful developers might be a good place to start – but I wouldn’t be shocked if this is a late 2012 or early 2013 release. I suppose we’ll have an official announcement soon, and you’ll be updated as soon as we know. Let us know in comments if you have any ideas.
Super Meat Boy creators Team Meat have been critics of iOS devices as well as the App Store itself for quite some time now. If you want to get up to speed, the best place to start would be the Team Meat Blog where Tommy Refenes goes over his GDC rant session, including the Zits n’ Giggles pricing drama, and more. Tommy also mentioned, “I have no intentions on doing anything for iPhone or iPad ever…I hate the platforms and I hate the stores.” Well, per a recent interview with IndieGames.com, Team Meat has changed their tune to “The next game will probably be iPhone. Probably.”
…And that’s all we know about it currently. I really just hope that whatever their next title happens to be is actually a game and not another App Store troll like Zits n’ Giggles. There’s some serious talent at work in Team Meat, and I’m really excited to see what they can do with iOS devices.
Oh, and if you haven’t yet, consider this your official reminder to download Super Meat Boy. It’s available on the Mac, PC, and the digital download area of home consoles. Here’s the trailer:
Remember that bill that California Gov. Arnold “It’s not a tumor” Schwarzenegger and state Congressman Leland Yee pushed through last year? It was the one that said games couldn’t be sold to minors in California — which is already enforced by most every retailer going — and which was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision that ruled it unconstitutional. Brown vs. EMA was the case, and it was the landmark ruling that recognized video games as art.
Now that we’re all back up to speed, we can get to the matter at hand: California has been ordered to reimburse the Entertainment Software Association, which was the plaintiff in the lawsuit to fight the law, for its legal fees for the case. And that figure stacks up to be about $ 950,000, billed to the California taxpayer. Thanks, Leland Yee and the goddamn Terminator.
Couple postives: first, California negotiated that number down from the originally requested $ 1.1 million, so that’s good. But in total with reimbursements from another case in 2008 with the same law (which have already been paid), Cali dished out $ 1.327 in reimbursed legal fees to the ESA. Which means we California taxpayers made some lawyers very happy.
But the other positive is that the ESA is giving some of that money away to California’s youth. The press release the ESA sent out doesn’t say how much or how it’ll work, but it does mention a new “charitable education initiative” to launch this spring, which will “harness young peoples’ natural passion for playing and making video games and connect them to the development of critical 21st Century job skills.”
I’m not going to say that this is totally a PR move to smooth over the ESA’s really rather terrible backpedal maneuver as the SOPA and PIPA bills imploded under massive Internet pressure last week, but… okay, I am going to say that. The ESA looked like jerks after backing two bills that could very seriously hamper free speech rights on the Internet, immediately after it asked gamers to support it in a court battle in which it claimed to be championing free speech rights. Damn right some of that taxpayer money better go to the taxpayers. ESA doesn’t have much good will left in the tank right now.
Public media provider Thirteen today published a new educational web game that teaches students about U.S. history by putting them into the shoes of a runaway slave in the years leading up to the Civil War. The game, dubbed Flight to Freedom, is the second in Thirteen’s “Mission US” series, which will eventually offer four unique web games intended to complement a traditional history curriculum. The previous title, For Crown or Colony?, covers the events …
[Attorney and frequent Gamasutra contributor Mona Ibrahim breaks down what internet blackout bills could mean for video game developers.] A lot of congress’ time lately has gone to drafting, revising, and negotiating legislation that in some way shape or form controls America’s ability to access content on the Internet. You have likely heard about SOPA, PIPA, and maybe even OPEN?but how does this legislation apply to game developers, and why have these pieces of legislation …
Newsbrief: UK-based racing game studio Eutechnyx has teamed up with racing simulation specialist Brain in a Jar to work on a “key project” in 2012. Eutechnyx is currently developing free-to-play Auto Club Revolution, for which it received $ 2.8 million from the UK government’s regional growth fund late last year, while Brain in a Jar has in the past provided development work for Codemasters and Reflections. Brain in a Jar will provide Eutechnyx with its proprietary …
Super Meat Boy creators Team Meat have been critics of iOS devices as well as the App Store itself for quite some time now. If you want to get up to speed, the best place to start would be the 
Public media provider Thirteen today published a new educational web game that teaches students about U.S. history by putting them into the shoes of a runaway slave in the years leading up to the Civil War. The game, dubbed Flight to Freedom, is the second in Thirteen’s “Mission US” series, which will eventually offer four unique web games intended to complement a traditional history curriculum. The previous title, For Crown or Colony?, covers the events …
[Attorney and frequent Gamasutra contributor Mona Ibrahim breaks down what internet blackout bills could mean for video game developers.] A lot of congress’ time lately has gone to drafting, revising, and negotiating legislation that in some way shape or form controls America’s ability to access content on the Internet. You have likely heard about SOPA, PIPA, and maybe even OPEN?but how does this legislation apply to game developers, and why have these pieces of legislation …
