Sometimes, I don’t really pay attention to things. I had no idea Shatter was in the works but I’m so happy I do know now. I’m not even sure how or why I even clicked the link to see the new Shatter video but I am really glad I did as it looks absolutely amazing. Shatter looks like it’s the child of Geometry Wars and Breakout after they had crazy drunken sex at the annual videogame puzzle party fest, which is something I just made up.
Just look at the trailer after the jump. LOOK AT IT! It looks so beautiful. The puzzles, the visuals and the music all look hot. Shatter will be coming to the PlayStation Network later this year.
-
Under :
destructoid
-
Tags: culture, destructoid, entertainment, media, music, myspace, network, news, psp, rumor, video-game-news, video-games, xbox
Yesterday afternoon id Software community manager Peter Sokal revealed the minimum PC specifications for Raven Software’s Wolfenstein. While we haven’t seen the suggested specs, it’s probably safe to write that the Wolf follow-up won’t require a Crysis system. The base numbers below are mild: one gig of RAM, an older video card, and eight gigs of hard drive space are the beefiest things we’re seeing.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP or Windows Vista(R) (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
- Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included & required for Windows XP & Vista)
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
- CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3400+ processor
- RAM: 1GB RAM
- Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(R) 6800 GT or ATI Radeon(TM) X800
- Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
- HDD Space: 8GB (Plus an additional 800MB for Windows swap file)
- Media: 100% Microsoft Windows compatible DVD-ROM drive
- Internet: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer
We suspect that if Wolfenstein starred a wolf, the specifications would be bananas. Think about it: wolves jump high, shoot fire from their eyes, pee lasers and occasionally work in tattoo shops on Saturdays. B.J. is cool and all, but he’s got nothing on wolves. Seriously.
[via the Wolfenstein message board]
If you’re too lazy to fiddle with the Media Extender or plug in a USB device into your Xbox 360 in order to stream music, Last.FM probably sounds like a good deal. Theoretically, it’ll operate much like Netflix: turn on your box, hit a tab, find something and go to town. But there’s a small caveat. Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers will be the only ones able to dance (or whatever) to their favorite tunes whenever they want. Silver subscribers will be allowed just three hours of streaming glory a month.
Joystiq recently spoke with Xbox LIVE general manager Christina DeRosa, who explained how the forthcoming integration would work across Gold and Silver memberships.
"Silver users will be able access what we’re considering a trial period of three hours a month, which comes with video advertising,” DeRosa said, “Gold users will have unlimited ad-supported access, so they can use it 24 hours a day. There will also be a premium offering on a subscription basis from Last.fm, that will be commercial free and will also have more sophisticated personalization features, like Loved Tracks."
Sounds like Netflix with a twist. As Joystiq notes, Last.FM charges three bucks a month to kick the advertising — not a bad price if you’re a music junkie.
In a recent interview with Ultimania (helpfully translated by the folks over at Kingdom Hearts Insider), Director Tetsuya Nomura stated that he has multiple ideas for the next Kingdom Hearts game, and that it’s likely that the next game he starts working on won’t be the hotly anticipated Kingdom Hearts 3. While discussing the upcoming Birth by Sleep and its connections to the original Kingdom Hearts (as Birth by Sleep takes place before the original game), Nomura stated that BbS would contain a lot of unanswered questions. When asked if Kingdom Hearts 3 would be the game that bridged Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts, he responded as follows.
Who knows? I already have ideas for the next installment. But since Birth by Sleep isn’t even out yet, I don’t have to think about it until awhile from now. Recently everyone kepts asking me when I’m planning on coming out with KH3. Even though I’m currently busy with Final Fantasy Versus XIII, I’m also thinking that it’s almost time to start thinking about it seriously. Though it’s entirely possible that the next game in the series won’t be KH3.
While I don’t think this necessarily means that the game hasn’t been started at ALL, it’s definitely a sign that fans of Kingdom Hearts will be waiting a while before KH3 is finally released, particularly since it sounds like yet another spin-off game is being made first. When asked about what this mystery spinoff game might be, Nomura only said that it would be "more official than a side story" and that it is a "mystery KH". Regardless of which game ends up coming out first, Nomura suggests that both games are not very far along in the development process.
The full interview goes into a lot of detail about Birth by Sleep, coded, and 358/2 Days, so if you’re interested in Kingdom Hearts it’s definitely worth reading.
Does this ‘mystery Kingdom Hearts‘ sound appealing to you, or are you ready for them to stop messing around with spinoffs and finally make a true sequel?
[Via The Examiner]
Last week’s debate was the last odd game debate in our almost year long journey! It also ended with one of the best "odd debate" matchups of the entire series, with a legendary multiplayer game with virtually no story going up a legendary single player game that oozes in verbal detail. Even though Valve didn’t create the initial spark in Portal, I think the torch has officially been passed. Don’t worry, we’ll get some Team Fortress 2 debates going in a few months. Here are last week’s results:
- Portal (65 votes) — "Terrorists. Lose." — Winner!
- Counter-Strike (37 votes)
This week we go back to our debate roots, picking random reader suggested game discussions over which game, series, developer, genre, console, characters or anything else you’re interested in, is the best out of group of options. This year’s worth of odd debates has bought us plenty of time to keep from running dry, so I’m looking for some really interesting reader debate ideas!
So which game do you think is better, and why? They’re both mindless fun games that feel like twins in some aspects, and definitely cater to the same crowds of gamer audiences. There’s already been countless debates between the two, so let’s get to the bottom of it once and for all! Give it some serious thought, get some friends to share their opinions as well, and check back next week for the winner.
Bonus Question: What is one thing you disliked about the game you voted for?
Monolith Productions needs new blood for a new game. According to a fresh job posting on the F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin studios’ Web site (spotted by IGN), Monolith needs a software engineer capable of working on a “triple-A next-generation console title.” But that’s not all: the engineer must also be able to share with others and create a property destined to land on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
We haven’t the slightest idea what this “cutting-edge” FPS could be. That shouldn’t be a shocker, by the way: we’re not supposed to. We’re hoping it’s a game that has kittens, because frankly, there haven’t been many FPS games with kittens. Monolith probably won’t go that route — their latest game wasn’t too family friendly (or cute).
Speculation time: is this a new F.E.A.R., a new property or a sequel to one of Monolith’s older games? Discuss.
[via Joystiq, image]
Nothing like honoring a dead celebrity than by putting his memory in a game where you have to kill each other.
There will be two Michael Jackson-themed costumes coming for free to Battlefield Heroes soon. One is the "Smooth Criminal" white suit outfit for the good guys and the other is the the black leather outfit from "Bad" for the bad guys. It looked like users were going to have to pay $3 for the outfits but Electronic Arts cleared up the situation to MTV Multiplayer and stated that the outfits would be released for free.
Something about this is just really off putting. It’s a nice gesture to pay tribute, but it just feels wrong to do it in a shooting game. Especially so soon after Michael’s death.
What you see above is a screenshot of an absolutely brand-spanking-new fighting game called Dark Presence, being developed by Galloping Ghost. If it looks a tad dated, that’s because Galloping Ghost has decided to use digitized actors, instead of 3D models or sprites, a technique I haven’t seen since Mortal Kombat 3. And that was in 1995.
The game will feature eight different characters and over 150,000 frames of animation, which Galloping Ghost boasts is the highest number of animation frames of "any other game ever." It took over two years to greenscreen and capture all the moves in the game, and Galloping Ghost admits that it’s "easy to see why other companies just go with 3D characters."
If the "Features" tab on Dark Presence’s official Web site are anything to go by, the game will feature the most realistic game reactions ever seen in a fighting game, as well as a fully fleshed-out narrative. For Galloping Ghost’s sake, I really hope that’s true: even if its the best game ever made, those digitized actors are going to be a hard pill to swallow. I try to be positive most of the time, but I can’t see this turning out well for Galloping Ghost. Is there some sort of niche arcade market that totally digs on digitized actors that I’m not aware of?
The game should hit arcades later this year (although there’s already a sequel, Conquering Light, in the works).
[Via GameSetWatch]
Here’s something that I never knew existed even though I grew up working in a videogame store for a better part of my life. It’s called the Super Game Boy Commander and was a controller for the Super Nintendo. More specifically, it was a controller themed after the original Game Boy to be used with the Super Game Boy adapter for the Super Nintendo. Super.
This controller, from what I can tell, was made for no good reason at all. TinyCartridge believes it was made for people that couldn’t play anything Game Boy on the SNES unless they were able to feel speaker vents under the two main buttons. Sounds like a good reason to me.
Whatever the case, you can buy a brand new Commander for only $19.90 over on NCSX. Not bad for all you retro collectors out there.
Podtoid 104: Billy Mays here