Retro can mean all sorts of things – especially when, as it is in gaming, it's trendy. Retro tends not to deal in specifics, the description often presaging a blocky aesthetic that skins a modern game rather than something that could have been made thirty years ago. But Forget-Me-Not isn't trendy retro: you could have found this on a C64 compilation, and it's infused from title screen to the music’s ascending bloops with old-school values.
Eve Online developer CCP has revealed that players of its upcoming PS3 massively multiplayer FPS Dust 514 will be required to pay a "cover charge". According to the developer, the charge will be refunded as in-game currency and is in place to help manage the rollout of the game.
If someone had told me a decade ago that I would prefer digital media – downloads or streams – to physical media, I’d have said they were crazy. After all, I didn’t have broadband in my Brooklyn apartment, just at the office. My Palm VII wireless handheld and my SkyTel two-way pager were the pinnacle of technology. And I still fancied myself a proud collector of CDs, DVDs, books, comics and games.
Zumba Fitness remains at the top of the UK all-formats software chart this week, while Dirt 3 makes a late bid for the top rising from seven to two.
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon also ascends the chart, buoyed by the release of the film, settling at number three. Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean and LA Noire round out the top five.
UK trade association TIGA has warned that the nation's game industry is facing a continued "brain drain" of skilled development staff. The warning was based on results from a recently conducted survey of 104 UK game business which revealed that 20 per cent of them had lost staff to foreign countries in the past 12 months.
Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi will help out on the development of Tiny Speck's upcoming casual MMOG Glitch (check Glitch's tag page for a full preview of this fascinating game) according to a blog post on the developer's site.
Takahashi, who left Namco Bandai last year, has moved to Vancouver in order to join the team.
Zynga has acquired Toronto, Canada-based developer Five Mobile for an undisclosed sum.
“Zynga is crossing the border,” the social gaming firm said in a blog post announcing the deal, which includes “certain assets and intellectual property” created by Five Mobile.
The acquisition is Zynga’s 15th in just 13 months.
Five Mobile founders Ameet Shah, Jeff Zakrzewski, Oliver Tabay and Troy Hubman will all remain on board, with Shah heading up the studio.
Zynga has acquired Toronto, Canada-based developer Five Mobile for an undisclosed sum.
“Zynga is crossing the border,” the social gaming firm said in a blog post announcing the deal, which includes “certain assets and intellectual property” created by Five Mobile.
The acquisition is Zynga’s 15th in just 13 months.
Five Mobile founders Ameet Shah, Jeff Zakrzewski, Oliver Tabay and Troy Hubman will all remain on board, with Shah heading up the studio.
Sony has said it’s working on PlayStation Plus problems blocking full members from accessing content on the digital service.
Currently, the Welcome Back offer introduced following the recent PSN security breach is not expiring, leaving those that have purchased a PS Plus membership unable to access all of the service’s content.
At EA's Summer Showcase event, the publisher announced that its internal studio Playfish would be bringing Stainless Games' XBLA, PSN and Steam title Risk: Factions to Facebook in the near future.
In addition, the developer will also create IOS versions of its Facebook social titles Pet Society and Restaurant City.
The Facebook version of Factions will introduce faction-specific weapons to better differentiate armies with a greater emphasis on competitive multiplayer.
FIFA 11 remains the highest-selling game in the Nordic all formats chart, which collates data from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
LA Noire has taken a two-place tumble to number four, allowing Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Sims 3 to inch up the chart into positions two and three respectively.
The only new entry to the top ten this week is the lycra-clad Pro Cycling Manager 2011: Tour De France, which charts at number seven.
FIFA 11 remains the highest-selling game in the Nordic all formats chart, which collates data from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
LA Noire has taken a two-place tumble to number four, allowing Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Sims 3 to inch up the chart into positions two and three respectively.
The only new entry to the top ten this week is the lycra-clad Pro Cycling Manager 2011: Tour De France, which charts at number seven.
The Gran Turismo developer is opening a new studio in Fukuoka amid widespread nervousness in the wake of the earthquake that struck Japan in March and the nuclear contamination threat that followed.
50 production staff of Polyphony Digital's total of 150 will move to the city, which lies over 500 miles southwest from Tokyo in the very far west of the country. It follows a reported study into possible new locations the developer made after the earthquake.