Peter Molyneux

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 9.7.07

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Molyneux takes a shocking stand – his company is more influential than its competitor
In a recent interview, designer Peter Molyneux said that Microsoft’s Live will be more impactful than the Wii remote. Molyneux was clearly kidding – would anyone use the non-word “impactful” in a serious statement?

Pretend he was serious. Is Live more influential than motion sensing controls? This is not easy to answer, partly because it’s comparing apples to gypsies, partly because the Wii is very young and partly because in some form, both things being compared have already existed for years. At its base level, Live is the internet. Should we thank Al Gore for being more impactful on games than Microsoft? If that’s too far a leap, what about X-Band on the Genesis or SNES? Surely Seganet was impactful as all get out.
OMG Nintendo copied Hasbro!

The motion controlled Star Wars Lightsaber Battle game Hasbro released in 2005 is more fun than most Wii games. →  Think outside the post.

Dreamcast Mania! – Canceled games: PC Ports

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The Dreamcast was home to many excellent games, but due to its early demise, it was also home to many canceled games. These games, though varied, can be broken up into three main categories – ports of PC games, games that made it to other consoles, and games that never came out. Today, we will look at the PC ports and imagine how things would have turned out had the Dreamcast lasted a few more years.

Black and White
What was it?
A very well received god sim by Peter Molyneux.

Would it have been good?
Probably but it would be infuriating without the Dreamcast mouse.

Would it have sold?
Yes but not nearly as well as on the PC. Complex PC games and console games have different audiences.

Would it have actually come out?
I doubt it. The DS Black and White was announced forever ago and nothing has come of it. Lionhead seems to be unwilling to actually port their games, or at least their Black and White games. →  Snap! Crackle! Read!

GDC: D is for Developer

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Wooh boy, it’s been one hell of a week. GDC was filled with some crazy announcements. We had Sony’s “Home” thing, LittleBigWorld, and Peter Molyneux’s “dog” in Fable 2. It started to look like GDC was turning into E3’s successor in some respects. That is, until the Miyamoto conference.

Basically, Shigeru Miyamoto, the one person everyone was looking to for some steamy Nintendo megaton, denied the raving rabbid press and talked about, you guessed it, developing games. No big game announcement or anything of the sort. Just tips on how to make good games.

Apparently the press (or at least Game|Life) wasn’t too keen on how the big show turned out, almost calling it a complete waste of time.

Funny thing is, the damn show is called the Game Developers Conference, and is meant to help developers with their unreleased wares and brewing ideas. It’s not the Game Press Conference, so no one should have expected to hear anything as big as an E3 announcement. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

The Electronic Arts I remember

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A long, long time ago, back when Electronic Arts went by the abbreviation ECA, the company was not clearly evil. It turns out that they screwed Chris Crawford in the 80’s and undoubtedly weren’t the pinnacle of business ethics, but they also published good games. Every now and then, usually after reading a review of some terrible EA published game or news that they bought and destroyed a small developer, I reminisce about the good old days when the ECA logo didn’t make me cringe, but was actually a sign of quality. What’s that, you ask? You’re a snobby gamer who dislikes EA, too, but you wonder why they were once a respectable publisher? Like all good questions, this one can be answered with a list.

Archon II: Adept — 1984
The first Archon is a bonafide classic, but I still prefer the sequel. Both games play like Battle Chess (which came out after Archon), but the second has cooler creatures and more of an emphasis on building an army. →  Xenosaga 2: Jenseits von Gut und Pöst

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.7.06

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Bloated cash cow, I choose you!

Nintendo engineers talk about the process of designing the DSLite
I personally find this article to be fascinating. More interviews with hardware designer’s would be a welcome thing.

Nintendo has great year financially
Despite having a dead console, Nintendo made a lot of yen this past year, thanks to the “favorable” performance of the DS. Maybe one day they’ll stop living off of handhelds and Pokemon and be a real player in the console wars again.

First Amendment bitch slaps anti-game lobbyists
Said the judge, “Video games are a form of creative expression that are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. They contain original artwork, graphics, music, story lines and characters similar to movies and television shows, both of which are considered protected free speech.” The system works, who knew?

Sega buys another company, further dilutes it’s name
Apparently out to make sure the Sega brand doesn’t mean anything other than “large publisher,” the company buys another western developer (or two). →  A reader is you.