Damn this looks hot. The first game was fantastic. The second game, whilst it hit a bit of a lull in the middle, was still pretty awesome thanks to the last few chapters. The other good news is that Ken Levine is back on board for this one. Can’t wait to check this out.

If you haven’t seen this before – man, you’re missing out!  This is Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, and features the following ground-breaking features:

• There is no collision detection with anything other than the ground. Bridges are simply a mirage. You can also drive off the end of the map. Physics? Pah, take that Newton!
• The box and gameplay description of the game advertise that the player must escape from the police. Lucky for you, there are actually no police in the game. The law is a lie. In fact, there is pretty much zero plot to the game whatsoever.
• In the originally released version, enemy trucks had no AI and, as such, never left the starting position. Praise be that a patch was eventually released which gave life to these lumbering beasts. The patch also gave the great privilege of adding sound effects to the game.
• Text on the player’s HUD doesn’t fit properly.
• The game fails to distinguish between the player starting or finishing when crossing the line, so you may receive a “YOU’RE WINNER” message within a second of starting the game. Rewarding feedback leads to high levels of player engagement, right?

Despite all this, the game still sold 20,000 copies. In fairness, from watching the video, it looks pretty damn entertaining.

I was first introduced to Carcassonne thanks to it being given away free of charge for a limited time on Xbox 360 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Xbox Live. After a few plays and having grown accustomed to the rules (well, most of them) the game really began to grow on me, and I’ve since played the original board game. Within the last few days an iPhone version of the game has been released… and its pretty damn good!

Read my full impressions of the iPhone version…

Engadget have posted a video from a Microsoft event in Tel Aviv yesterday which showcased some of the technology which will be present in the upcoming Project Natal. The video below shows how Natal recognises full body movement, of not just one but two people in real-time.  This definitely has potential for some cool competitive and co-op mini-games, for example a Wild West dual or some beach volleyball (off the top of my head). As well as that, Natal uses face recognition to determine the gender of the player and represents them with a male or female avatar accordingly. Pretty cool right?

But what of butch ladies and girly gentlemen? I can see some offended players in the future. In relation to that, I found some of the comments on the Engadget post hilarious, notably “How’s Lady Gaga supposed to get her game on?” to which someone replied “Natal obviously can’t see her Poker Face silly”.  Genius.

Hit the jump for the video.

Read rest of story…

We went to see Alice in Wonderland (in 3D) at the cinema last night. Although not an amazing film by any means, it was still thoroughly enjoyable (as with most, if not all, of Tim Burton’s films). Wonderland looks rather nice in 3D, though nothing compared to the world of Pandora (Avatar). As with Avatar and other 3D cinema I’ve experienced (e.g. old 3D Imax shows), watching the film just excited the hell out of me for when I can play games in 3D. In particular, I can’t wait to play a 3D Elder Scrolls game. I just keep imagining that moment when you walk out of the sewers in Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls IV) and the glory of seeing Cyrodiil and The Imperial City in the distance in 3D.

Bring it on! Eurogamer recently published this interesting feature on the current state of 3D TV’s and 3D games.

“Rom Check Fail” is a very cool indie game that should warm the heart of any retro arcade game lover.  From the website:

“Carefully place a dozen arcade classics in a large mixing bowl. Add a dash of awesomesauce, cover the bowl, and allow the ingredients to ferment over three weeks. Uncover in a well ventilated area, then mash until loud and glitchy. Serve over the internet.”

I played through it recently – very crazy, but very cool.  Check it out!

This is an extremely impressive trailer for the upcoming game “DogFighter”, from game developers Dark Water Studios, based in Derry, Northern Ireland (my home town).  There’s no official word yet on what platform the game will be on, but it is looking like it’ll be a hell lot of fun.  I’d love an XBLA release. :)

Image by Damien Lopez

I’m currently making my way through Jesper Juul’s “A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players” and I came across this useful diagram.  It is missing a few entries, but overall its quite handy for reference (and nostalgia).

Jordan Mechnar, creator of the classic Prince of Persia (which kick started the franchise), has published his old journals from back in the days when he was working on the original PoP game. They make for fantastic, nostalgic and insightful reading. Not only that, but he has also included original video footage which he shot of his brother running and diving around a park – footage which eventually became part of the digitised animations used in the game. Its incredibly strange after all these years to watch someone run around in real-life with those moves.

Reading these journals just makes me want to have some quality time to make a game.

(Thanks to Leila Johnston on Twitter (whose adventure book “Enemy of Chaos” I have just bought today) for tweeting about these journals, otherwise I might never have found them.)

One of the downsides of a touch screen device such as the iPhone is that it often doesn’t lend itself well to typical game control schemes.  Prime example – Marble Blast, a game which I am a huge fan of on the Xbox 360, is awful on the iPhone primarily due to its controls.  On the flip side, one of the great things about the iPhone is some of the unique games that appear on the platform that make great use of touch screen controls.  One such game is Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor.

The idea is fairly simple – you take the role of a spider exploring a rather eerie mansion and you must spin webs with the goal of trapping insects for you to feast upon.  Once a certain percentage of the insects in the level are eaten, a portal opens to the next level.  However, it won’t take long before you realise that, as suggested by the title of the game, the manor holds a dark secret.

The game’s controls are simple yet elegant – touch the right side of the spider to move right, touch left of the spider to move left and flick in a particular direction to jump and weave your silk.  Once you connect up a closed shape with your silk lines, it will form a web which insects can get caught in.  Moving around in this game just feels right and really makes the game play very well – its great to finally see a platformer that actually controls this good on a touch screen.

The graphics have a nice hand-drawn style and provide a graceful and polished environment.  The twinkly ambient music furthers this grace and gives the game a very artistic shine throughout.

The game contains 28 levels with various types of bugs which must be trapped in different ways.  It may feel a bit short in length to some, but for me its pretty much the ideal length a mobile game should be and is definitely replayable.  The gameplay can become somewhat repetitive if played for a long period, however since I only tend to play mobile games in short bursts I rarely found the game tiring. Overall, the game is enjoyable and at its low price point of £1.79 (less than a bottle of beer) it is an essential purchase for any iPhone owner. Highly recommended.