During a Tokyo press conference earlier today, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada admitted that the overwhelmingly critical response to the PC release of Final Fantasy XIV means that "the Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged."
Thatgamecompany's Flower follow-up, the online adventure Journey, never had a concrete release date, though the initial fact sheet said it would be released this year. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, co-founder Jenova Chen reveals that Journey will now be released next spring.
Jonathan Blow, the independent developer of lauded time-shifting puzzler Braid, has admitted that his upcoming open-world puzzler The Witness is unlikely to appear on the current generation of consoles.
In an interview, one of the most outspoken independents in the industry tells us that porting The Witness to the ageing Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 would be too arduous a task given their RAM limitations.
Christopher Plummer, Max Von Sydow and Joan Allen are among the Hollywood actors who will lend their voices to the upcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, publisher Bethesda has announced.
Plummer, known for his roles in The Sound Of Music and The Insider, will play Greybeard elder Arngeir. Von Sydow, star of The Seventh Seal, Minority Report and The Exorcist, will voice Esbern, chronicler and agent of the Blades.
Bethesda Softworks and Mojang will settle their trademark dispute in court, Markus Persson, head of the Minecraft developer, has revealed.
During Renegade Ops' first moments, it's tempting to think you're in Panau. The opening level's shimmering sea, perfect beaches and lush foliage sell the game as a sort of top-down Just Cause 2; the return of developer Avalanche's signature explosions merely reinforces that feeling. While Rico Rodriguez's adventure was all about his grappling hook, however, the focus here is on bouncy vehicle physics.
UK retailer Game Group's financial woes continue following today's announcement of its latest fiscal results, which saw losses more than double and turnover fall by over ten per cent.
In the six months to July 31, turnover fell fom £624.6 million to £558.8 million, a drop of 10.6 per cent. Its pre-tax losses rose by almost 140 per cent, from last year's £21.5 million to a miserable £51.5 million.
For a preview in our issue that is now out in the UK, we sat down with Braid designer Jonathan Blow to play and discuss his new game, The Witness. An surreal and beautiful open-world puzzle game, developed by Blow and a small team of two core developers, it's a fascinating experiment in player freedom and non-linear game design.
While Just Cause 2 developer Avalanche Studios' top-down shooter was released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network two weeks ago, publisher Sega has remained tight-lipped about the PC version's release date. Until now: Renegade Ops will be available from Steam on October 14.
To make up for it, PC buyers will be able to choose a fifth playable character: Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman. Naturally, he'll be driving the Half-Life 2 buggy, and his special ability sees him unleash the Antlions, as you'll see in the video below.
While games arrived on Google's social network, Google+, back in August, support from social gaming titan Zynga was limited, with only Zynga Poker available on the service. That has now changed with the launch of CityVille, the most successful social game on Facebook.
Sony has announced Bootleggers, a free-to-play FPS due on PlayStation Home before the end of the year.
The game will launch as part of a thorough overhaul of the PlayStation 3 social network, which will see Home split into hubs, dubbed "districts", according to genre. Bootleggers will sit in the Action district, with avatars facing off against each other in a basic multiplayer shooter.
With its Xperia Play exclusivity deal expired, Minecraft will be available for all Android devices when developer Mojang releases it on the Android Market this Thursday.
Bethesda Softworks was last week denied a request that would have forbidden Masthead from continuing development on the Fallout MMOG.
A Los Angeles district judge denied Bethesda's motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Masthead, the Bulgarian developer which was contracted by Interplay to develop the MMOG, provisionally titled Fallout Online, before Masthead had even had an opportunity to state its case.
Over the past few years the Consolarium team has invested in a variety of technical/digital equipment that it wanted to explore in relation to how its effective and innovative use could impact favourably and positively on teaching and learning contexts in settings from 3-18 years. We have been thinking how best we can utilise this [...]
Over the past few years the Consolarium team has invested in a variety of technical/digital equipment that it wanted to explore in relation to how its effective and innovative use could impact favourably and positively on teaching and learning contexts in settings from 3-18 years. We have been thinking how best we can utilise this [...]
Over the past few years the Consolarium team has invested in a variety of technical/digital equipment that it wanted to explore in relation to how its effective and innovative use could impact favourably and positively on teaching and learning contexts in settings from 3-18 years.
We have been thinking how best we can utilise this ‘cupboard of super stuff’ and how it can be out in schools helping teachers teach and children learn rather than not doing that! After some thought we came up with the idea of establishing a loan service that Scottish teachers could access via Glow – this is what we are now calling CPDConsolarium. Based on the excellent leading work of Con Morris and the CPDCentral team we have designed a community of practice that aims to act as the focal point for teachers to share their experiences, successes and challenges in using GBL, game design and other technologies in their practice.
We have an inventory of over 220 assets that can be loaned by any teacher that joins CPDConsolarium. Before they do this they must first of all join the community by filling in the online membership form. Once this is done they can then browse the searchable catalogue and see what resources are available and when they can loan them. If a resource is free then a bid is submitted. This is an important part because we are asking teachers to begin to reflect on how they plan to use the resource, what impact they anticipate on learning as well as what it means for their own professional development in relation to how the Standard for Full Registration is being addressed by their work in this area. Once submitted it goes through an approval process which can involve e-mails, phone calls to the school or Twitter DMs by myself to the bidder in order to iron out any problems and to get the resource out to schools.
However, any bid that is accepted comes with a blank wiki page dedicated to that teacher and the resource that they have loaned and an expectation that the developing narrative of their experience will be documented and shared with everyone else. Without agreement to this no kit is sent out.
Some of the kit that is available includes:
Already the community is growing and we have already approved quite a number of sets of kit.
This resource is here for any Scottish teacher who can access CPDConsolarium with their Glow account. It is our resource, for us to use and to help inform each other of our developing practice. Come and join and empty my cupboard of superb stuff!
Radiangames' Luke Schneider has announced that Super Crossfire, his first iOS game, will be published by Chillingo.
Speaking to Official Nintendo Magazine, vice president of PR and marketing Pete Hines said that, while there was a "possibility" of Bethesda developing for Wii U, the amount of work involved in porting and localising games for multiple platforms presented something of a stumbling block.
"Boobs and horror are like spaghetti and meatballs - they work better together," says Marc Bell at Digital Romance Lab (don't worry, entirely SFW), because it enhances a feeling of vulnerability in the viewer, but games don't seem to deal with nudity anything like as well. He brings out the less than stellar examples of Splatterhouse and Shadows Of The Damned, asking why they fail to make the skin they show mean anything.
In news that may come as a relief to those frustrated by the boss battles in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the game's upcoming DLC The Missing Link was designed and coded in-house at Eidos Montreal.
Nintendo's two most beloved characters arrive on the 3DS eShop this week with the releases of The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.
The work of Charles Dickens frequently illuminated society’s dark side. In A Tale of Two Cities, he examined the French revolution – on its face a noble rebellion against a dispassionate, entitled ruling class – and portrayed in kind the ugliness of the bloodthirsty revolutionaries who manned the guillotines. Dickens wanted readers to understand the complexity of rebellion, and that even those who act for just causes can be capable of as much injustice as the institutions they protest.
EA, like Sony, has taken advantage of a recent ruling by the US Supreme Court, and updated its online terms of service to forbid disgruntled users joining together in class-action lawsuits.
Gears Of War 3 is the new number one in the UK all-formats software chart, almost outstripping the launch sales of the first two games in the series as the best-selling new release of the year so far.
Codemasters racer F1 2011 enters the chart at number two as Dead Island, number one for the last two weeks, slips to third after its sales fell 54 per cent.
Crytek's 2007 PC shooter Crysis will be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 4, publisher EA has confirmed.
The game will only be available as a digital download: for 1600 Microsoft Points from the Xbox Live Marketplace, or £15.99 from the PlayStation Store. The 2007 original has been remastered, runs on CryEngine 3 and supports stereoscopic 3D.