No, not yet, but the possibility of Australia getting games rated 18 and older has increased quite a bit with the chief opponent to the move, trouble-plagued South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, stepping down from office this weekend. Atkinson, who was elected to Parliament in 1989, announced his decision to step down from his position Sunday morning in Australia, saying he wants to be there to watch his son grow up and attend the boy’s soccer games. The decision comes on the heel of a string of embarrassments and the increasingly loud call by gamers for the politician to step down. The reason Atkinson is so hated by gamers in Australia is because he has blocked a change in the nation’s rating system that would allow the inclusion of a 18+ rating for games.
For five bucks, a Dante’s Inferno player can have the most powerful Dante in the video games. The Dark Forest add-on pack for Dante’s Inferno, released at the beginning of this month, is a an uncommon piece of single-player-oriented downloadable content. As aggressive as publishers have been to issue DLC for big console games lately, they seem more interested in selling multiplayer content — new maps, mostly. That makes Dark Forest feel just a little more experimental, in line with new Assassin’s Creed II and Heavy Rain content that offer a little something extra for those of us who prefer solo gaming
I spoke to the men running the studio behind many of the world’s biggest role-playing games a couple of weeks ago, to discuss a variety of things. I left with a bonus: The BioWare Vision Statement. Here is that vision, from the mouth of Ray Muzyka, EA’s general manager for (as he named them) BioWare Edmonton, BioWare Austin, BioWare Mythic and BioWare Montreal: “Create, deliver and evolve the most emotionally engaging gaming experiences in the world. That’s the vision for the BioWare group across the four studios, and they all have different ways to approach that.” He mentioned this during an interview in San Francisco tied to the 2010 Game Developers Conference
OK, we are done with the tangible stuff. The machines you own, the games you play. To finish off our census, we’re going to dig a little deeper.
As we mentioned earlier this week , GDC got some class this year with some pole-dancing, clothes-on erotic dancers. I’m not quite sure how a cluster of scantily clad women cavorting around metal poles helps to push home the point of a game, but the place was packed when I arrived and remain packed ten minutes later when I left. Several of the devs on hand during the “dancing” at True Crime’s Club Bam Bam party pointed out to me the skill and ability required to do some of these pole tricks. I’ll take their word for it.
I’ve been slowly reading through a draft of the big screen adaptation of IO Interactive’s Kane & Lynch today, the movie set to star Bruce Willis as Kane , Jamie Foxx as Lynch . Screenwriter Kyle Ward has done some… interesting things. The version of the Kane & Lynch script we got our hands on dates back to September 13, 2007, so what we’re reading may not represent the final product
I didn’t have the same problems at SXSW this year that some people did. Was it too crowded at some events? Sure. But there were plenty of alternative things to do
What was everybody (on Twitter) talking about during this year’s GDC? Game researcher Jesper Juul offers his annual look at the most tweeted highlights from the week of GDC, during which “pocket protector” was a surprisingly hot topic. Back from Game Developers Conference 2010 and trying to get my bearings like everybody else.
If you’re a photographer and use a Mac, chances are you’re using Lightroom or Aperture. Probably Lightroom, since Aperture is less popular among pros — and the latest version seems to be an acknowledgment of that. The features added in version 3 are clearly intended to draw casual shooters using iPhoto to the paid image editing honey pot.
With the use of some red ink and some blue ink, we reviewed some video games this week. Links to the results are below. How’d we do? Brother In Arms 2 Micro-Review: Oh, Brother Where Art Thou