‘Pokken Tournament’ is the Pokémon brawler you’ve been dreaming of
It used to be that if you wanted to make two Pokémon really wail on each other, you’d have to fire up a fan-made game like Pokémon: Type Wild. At long last, those days are over: after a bit of teasing last year, The Pokémon Company and Namco confirmed today that Pokken Tournament is an honest-to-goodness, button-mashing brawler that’ll see the light of day next year. Beyond the thrill of watching a Machamp just going to town on a Lucario, Pokken’s arrival is yet another example of Nintendo’s new openness towards using game mechanic mashups to liven up long-running franchises. Hyrule Warriors, anyone? What’s next, a Punch-Out boxing manager sim? A Fire Emblem RTS? (Please make that one, Nintendo!) Anyway, Pokken is slated to hit Japanese arcades some time in 2015, but given the sad state of arcades in the US, we’ll have just to pray for an international console release down the road.
Via: Kotaku
Source: The Pokemon Company (YouTube)
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The Big Picture: How EA captured player faces for Madden NFL 15
If you’ve ever wondered how video game studios transform real-life people into their multi-pixeled personas, here’s one method. SB Nation’s Sarah Kogod recently made the trip to Baltimore where EA was set to capture facial images from the Ravens’ players for Madden NFL 15. There, she encountered the developers new “mobile” rig that leverages a dozen DSLRs situated in two rows of six each in order to snap all of the close-up details. The frame is part TV stand and part wheel chair lift that allows the entire thing to be positioned just so from a connected laptop. In fact, three teams, each outfitted with one of the multi-camera rigs, set out this summer to capture player images from all 32 NFL teams during OTAs and training camp. Before now, artists have had to work from stock photos in order to create a player’s virtual counterpart, and accuracy suffered. The folks at EA say that as games become increasingly more life-like, that gamers notice “any blemish that’s off… people catch that.”
[Photo credit: Sarah Kogod/SB Nation]
Filed under: Gaming
Source: SB Nation
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Amazon buying Twitch, expanding video empire to live streaming
It’s official: after plenty of rumors about both Google and Amazon buying massively popular video streaming service Twitch, Amazon announced it as official this afternoon. Amazon is buying Twitch for $970 million in cash, though it’s yet to go through government approval. Amazon head Jeff Bezos is pretty excited about the deal and, apparently, about gaming:
“Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month – from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old.”
Yes, the head of Amazon did just shout out Valve’s annual “The International” game tournament. Sure. Anyway, Twitch released its own statement about the deal. In it, CEO Emmett Shear thanks the Twitch community for believing in his company. He also details why he and his executive team chose Amazon:
“We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.”
Earlier this year, reports from a variety of publications cited ongoing talks between Twitch and YouTube-owner Google about an acquisition. VentureBeat even went as far as to “confirm” the deal; reports surfaced this morning about the Amazon deal, which Bezos and co. confirmed this afternoon.
Today’s news isn’t Amazon’s first foray into gaming. The company previously purchased game dev studio Double Helix and hired up a sizable staff of game industry veterans to operate what’s now known as “Amazon Game Studios.” Heck, Amazon released a gamepad with its Fire TV set-top box and launched one of its own games (Sev Zero) alongside the box.
Twitch is the most widely-used live game streaming service, besting competitors like Ustream and even the mighty YouTube. The service, previously known as Justin.tv, primarily hosts livestreams of gaming content, though it’s also used for live events and other broadcast functions. The service is built into both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, though it originally gained popularity with the PC gaming crowd. As of late, it’s become the go-to service for livestreamed gaming events, from the aforementioned annual Valve tournament to the major press conferences at the game industry’s annual trade show, E3.
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Software, Amazon
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Amazon reportedly ready to snatch Twitch away from Google
Remember that rumored $1 billion deal Google worked out to purchase the internet’s most popular game-streaming service? Amazon may be taking it over. According to The Information, folks close to the deal say that Twitch and Amazon are in late stage talks for a $1 billion acquisition. Why the change in buyer? It’s not clear (or confirmed), though it might be a response to concerns that joining Google could stifle innovation or competition. Either way, neither company is talking about the rumor right now, though one person involved suggested that the deal could be formerly announced soon.
Filed under: Gaming, Google, Amazon
Source: The Information
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PlayStation Network goes down following cyberattacks
Sony may be experiencing a few unpleasant flashbacks this weekend. Both the PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) are slowly recovering from a denial of service attack that flooded their server connections, kicking many gamers offline. The group claiming responsibility, Lizard Squad, reportedly started out bombarding servers run by Blizzard (World of Warcraft), Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) and Riot Games (League of Legends) before swinging its attention Sony’s way.
The motivations are fuzzy at this point — the attackers don’t take themselves too seriously — but you likely won’t have to worry about your account being compromised like you did back in 2011. As SOE’s John Smedley explains, the culprits are simply trying to overwhelm Sony rather than break in. That won’t be much comfort if you wanted to squeeze in a few rounds of Killzone before the weekend was over, but it hopefully means that you can get back to playing without worrying that your data is vulnerable. In at least SOE’s case, some services are already back up and running — give it a try and let others know how it’s going in the comments.
Network update: our engineers are aware of the issues and are working to resolve them. We’ll keep you posted – sorry for the inconvenience
– PlayStation (@PlayStation) August 24, 2014
Services will be gradually restored. For some it’s up now. For others the route they take may be flooded so they can’t log in yet.
– John Smedley (@j_smedley) August 24, 2014
Source: PlayStation (Twitter), LizardSquad (Twitter)
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Recommended Reading: An MIT engineer’s coffee quest
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you’ll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.
Can Blossom’s MIT-Enhanced Brew Win Over Skeptical Baristas?
by Danielle Sacks, Fast Company
The quest for the perfect cup o’ joe has led to some rather amazing new brewers over the last few years, and the same goes for this MIT engineer’s creation. The Blossom One Limited is a brewing unit that gives the barista complete control over all aspects of the process, except for the actual roasting of the beans. Water temperature, coffee dosage, grind, immersion time and more can be tweaked during the search for the best combination. Creator Jeremy Kuempel notes how coffee is more complex than wine on a genetic level, so he sought to make a unit that could showcase the unique properties of different varieties. Oh yeah, the ability to calculate perfection will cost your coffee shop $4,950.
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One Year In, Fox Sports 1 Hasn’t Lived Up to the Hype A year ago this month, Fox Sports 1 debuted with much fanfare, and many expected it to give the sports-broadcasting juggernaut ESPN a run for its money. Even with the addition of baseball in the spring, numbers haven’t improved and the massive expectations seem to have been too great. Tweaking daytime studio shows and adding the likes of NASCAR and Major League Soccer, the network looks to boost the viewer tally in 2015. Pocket!function(d,i)if(!d.getElementById(i))var j=d.createElement(“script”);j.id=i;j.src=”https://widgets.getpocket.com/v1/j/btn.js?v=1″;var w=d.getElementById(i);d.body.appendChild(j);(document,”pocket-btn-js”); |
Death of the Car: The Tech Behind Helsinki’s Ambitious Plan to Kill Off Private Vehicles Thanks to a complete overhaul of the Helsinki, Finland, public transit system, by 2025, the changes could make having an automobile futile. As you might expect, adding more buses, trains and taxis is part of the plan, but there’s also a new high-tech system with its own payment platform that sorts fares for all of the available options. The idea is to have all of the modes, and the ability to pay for them, in one convenient place. Pocket!function(d,i)if(!d.getElementById(i))var j=d.createElement(“script”);j.id=i;j.src=”https://widgets.getpocket.com/v1/j/btn.js?v=1″;var w=d.getElementById(i);d.body.appendChild(j);(document,”pocket-btn-js”); |
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The Evolution of the Headphone If you’ve ever wondered what the lineage of the personal listening devices that your employ daily looks like, ponder no more. Thanks to UK-based retailer liGo, you can scroll through the 120-year timeline that’s complete with complimentary tunes for the personal audio journey through time — starting with the Electrophone in the 1890s and moving through Beats’ wares today. Pocket!function(d,i)if(!d.getElementById(i))var j=d.createElement(“script”);j.id=i;j.src=”https://widgets.getpocket.com/v1/j/btn.js?v=1″;var w=d.getElementById(i);d.body.appendChild(j);(document,”pocket-btn-js”); |
Saluting the Women Behind the Screen Here, Chris Suellentrop takes a look at the somewhat limited part that women play in game development. Or at least, the limited amount of credit they’ve received for their work over the course of gaming history. It serves as a primer to learn about the important roles women have played along the way, and a call to keep diversifying the industry. The piece concludes: “Video games will never be widely accepted as the art form of interactive culture if half of humanity doesn’t help to shape their future.” Pocket!function(d,i)if(!d.getElementById(i))var j=d.createElement(“script”);j.id=i;j.src=”https://widgets.getpocket.com/v1/j/btn.js?v=1″;var w=d.getElementById(i);d.body.appendChild(j);(document,”pocket-btn-js”); |
Filed under: Misc
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Microsoft’s DeLorean is a cloud gaming system that knows what you’ll do next
When it works, cloud streaming video games can feel like a magical experience. Think about it: some remote server is pushing high-quality gameplay directly to your TV — through the internet! It’s a crazy, impressive achievement, but it’s still not ready for primetime. Cloud streamed games face latency and control delay issues far too often, and the easy solutions (moving servers nearby or increasing bandwidth) can be expensive. Microsoft proposes another fix: a system that predicts what the player is going to do before they do it. It’s called DeLorean, and well, it’s ambitious.
The technology hasn’t been announced as part of a budding cloud gaming service, but Redmond is hard at work developing it all the same. A paper from Microsoft Research describes DeLorean a “speculative execution system for mobile cloud gaming that is able to mask up to 250ms of network latency” by sending a streaming client the results of the player’s next action before it’s made. Technically, the system sends multiple possible actions. Imagine a situation where a player could chose to make their character jump, attack or stand still — Microsoft’s system would render all of these possibilities and send them all to the player’s game console early, which would simply choose the “correct” option after the player made their choice.
The team created demos using the technology using both Doom 3 and Fable 3, and found that players “overwhelmingly prefer DeLorean to traditional thin-client gaming.” In other words, it had less of a noticeable delay then the methods employed by today’s cloud-gaming setups. The predictive angle is a little creepy, but it could significantly reduce input lag for future generations of the technology, though it sounds like it will require quite a bit more processing power on both the server and client sides of the equation.
What about the DeLorean nickname? Well, Microsoft’s project isn’t exactly time travel, but it is predicting multiple future outcomes, which, could be interpreted as splits of alternate timelines. Not that we’re geeky enough to think about the world that way. Not at all.
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Via: TechCrunch
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Text adventure ‘game’ offers a taste of what clinical depression is like
Unless you’re deep in the throes of it yourself, actual, clinical depression can be incredibly hard to wrap your head around. Sure, you can scroll through the Wikipedia article all you like, but intellectually knowing about and feeling depression are two completely different beasts. Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest (which recently hit Steam after a year floating around on the web) is an experience that sort of straddles the line between the two, and — in spite of a related mess that’s still unfolding — is still worth checking out.
The thing to bear in mind is that Depression Quest isn’t a really a game. On a purely mechanical level, it has more in common with visual novels (though DQ doesn’t really have any visuals to speak of) and the choose-your-own-adventure books of yore. The choices available to you fluctuate depending on the ones you’ve already made, and while it’s not hard to figure out how to reach the “best” ending, it’s still frustrating to see what options get shut out as you embark down branching mental paths.
What it is — at least to me — is evocative. As you guide your nameless protagonist through pained days and seasons (don’t worry, the whole experience is pretty short), you might feel the occasional twang of empathy as you blow off a fictional coworker’s invitation to hang out or struggle with the prospect of adopting a kitten. At times that twang might grow into a dull throb when some of these situations strike a little too close to home. They certainly did for me; I’d occasionally read through a paragraph or two of exposition only find to myself asking some weighty questions when I finished. Am I weird for feeling the same way? Should I choose the “right” option, or what I know I’d do in that situation? Do I need to explore some of the options available to my protagonist? It’s that weird sort of cognitive dissonance that can make Depression Quest such an experience.
That’s not to say the experience is a flawless one. Quinn admits in a prologue that the story doesn’t strive for medical accuracy, and you’ll occasionally be struck by how clichéd and hamfisted things can get. If you frequent Tumblr or spend your time in the geekier corners of the web, you’ll probably also know that Quinn has recently been caught up in a personal and ethical firestorm or two (which has been dissected endlessly elsewhere) that might color your perception of her work. Try to resist that urge. At worst, you’ll get sick of Depression Quest, quit Steam after 10 minutes and move on with your day. At best, though, you just might get a taste of the sort of self-loathing and smothering ennui that so many people with depression experience to varying degrees everyday.
Source: Depression Quest
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‘Halo 2: Anniversary’ edition shows some games get better with age
Halo: The Master Chief Collection promises to be the ultimate compilation for fans of John-117′s adventures and online competitors alike, featuring remastered versions of all four numbered Halo titles (and access to the Halo 5: Guardians beta when it’s live). Undoubtedly the most exciting part of the package is Halo 2: Anniversary, a fully remastered version of the 2004 title that set the bar for online multiplayer gaming on consoles. With attentive level design, balanced gameplay and a strong online ranking and matchmaking system, the game spawned a pro scene that’s persisted from sequel to sequel, console to console. Halo: Combat Evolved may have introduced us to Master Chief’s world, but it was Halo 2 that assured the franchise’s legendary status, and it’s coming back for more.
Microsoft’s 343 Industries, the studio compiling The Master Chief Collection, showed off more footage of Halo 2: Anniversary at Gamescom last week. Four fantastic games updated for a new generation of hardware is a mouth-watering proposition, but Halo 2 is the jewel in the crown, being the only title to receive a complete visual overhaul. The other three main installments in the saga haven’t needed nearly as much attention. Halo 3 and 4, which both made increasingly efficient use of the Xbox 360′s horsepower, have improved lighting and run at higher frame rates. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary has received more or less the same treatment, since it’s a heavily remastered version of the original game anyway.
It’s key to the modernization of Halo 2 that the core experience remains unchanged, emphasized by a player’s ability to switch between classic and remastered visuals on the fly. The transformation is remarkable. The graphical detail is so far improved as to be almost incomparable to the original, and jumping between these two views instantaneously is something to marvel at in itself. As an ex-Halo 2 addict, I expected nostalgia to impact my enthusiasm for the reboot in the same way the remake of your favorite childhood film is always a disappointment. Instead, I’m only excited for a new game — one that just happens to have a multiplayer experience I already know and love. Not to mention online co-op has been included in the Anniversary version, previously only a feature of the Halo 2 PC release.
Halo 2‘s online ranking system, which is based more on won/lost games than play time, remains intact. (In fact, all games in The Master Chief Collection will use this rating method, though progress will be separate for each one.) The studio has even made a point to preserve Halo 2‘s glitches, many of which were an important part of high-level play — I got the impression from 343, however, that including an option to disable them is being considered. Every multiplayer map ever conceived for the game will be included in Anniversary, and they’ll be old and new matchmaking modes, as well as a few favorites that were created for later games. Six remastered versions of popular levels have also been rebuilt specifically for the Xbox One and modified with power-ups, additional weapons and a new vehicle, the “Gungoose.”
Long story short, whether you’re an old hand or new blood, you’re getting an all-access pass to revisit one of the most important console games in history. Multiplayer appeal has been so carefully considered, in fact, I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a healthy resurgence in competitive play when The Master Chief Collection launches this November, 10 years after Halo 2 graced the original Xbox. And I mean beyond promotional tournaments like the one held at Gamescom. It’s never been easier to drum up interest in such competitions, either. No longer is the community reliant on complicated streaming setups and highlight clips buried on YouTube. Ten years on, Twitch is our window to that world; Twitter is our forum. You can even bet on e-sports matches these days to make watching them a little more interesting.
A solid fan base is what allows 343 to invest in making things like Halo 2: Anniversary and The Master Chief Collection happen. And as if the game compilation wasn’t fan service enough, true devotees will also be able to get all the UNSC-approved content they could ever want through the new Halo Channel.
The Halo Channel
Launching for the Xbox One, Windows 8.1 and its mobile equivalent on the same day as The Master Chief Collection, the Halo Channel is a portal to all manner of video content related to the game franchise. Some may have played around with Halo Waypoint on the Xbox 360, which was a similar front for hosting interviews, strategy tips, machinima, the Halo Legends animated shorts and more. You could also digest news and fiction, buy games, review your Halo career and earn in-game achievements and new gear for your Avatar.
The Halo Channel is more than just a Waypoint update with a prettier UI. It wants to be the HBO of Halo, with scheduled programming and on-demand content connecting seamlessly with The Master Chief Collection and later, Halo 5. Rather than just a video dump, you’ll be able to interact with practically everything on the Halo Channel in one way or another — a new weekly show called The Bulletin, for example, will run polls and solicit viewer feedback from within the Channel’s apps. Twitter is fully integrated, too, so you’ll be able to check your feed and tweet about the new episode of Red vs. Blue while you’re watching it. The Channel will also be tailored to individuals based on their viewing habits, though you can bet everyone will be seeing a lot of the new live-action series Halo: Nightfall on their home screens.
Nightfall‘s narrative will intersect with Halo 5: Guardians, and watching the show will unlock things in-game, and vice versa. Even when you’re enjoying an episode, more content will never be far away; 343 used a clip from Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn to show an overlay that’ll give you a synopsis of the scene, the characters involved, the gear in-shot — everything you need to know from Halo lore about what’s on-screen.
Personally, I’ve never cared much for Halo media outside of the games, which is why I was most interested to hear about the Twitch integration. The Halo Channel not only pulls streams and their associated chatrooms from Twitch, but also bundles in other game data like an activity log and team/player scores. This feeds into making the multiplayer aspect of The Master Chief Collection and Halo 5 extra accessible, and I can’t wait to catch a stream with this richer, more informative layout. And when you’re pumped after watching someone nail a long-range sticky, you can jump straight into matchmaking right from the Channel app. In which case, see you online.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
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Next stop for Ouya Everywhere: China
Now that everyone from Google to Amazon is getting into the Android gaming set-top box business, Ouya is going to have to get creative. It’s already announced plans for “Ouya Everywhere” to extend its sizable library of 900+ TV and game controller-ready games to other platforms, and now the company tells Reuters it’s working out a deal with China’s Xiaomi. CEO Julie Uhrmann says the arrangement will see an Ouya channel added to devices like the Mi TV and MiBox, where users can shop for and download games, and with Xiaomi “likely” committing to marketing the games. On the backend, Xiaomi, Ouya and the game’s developers split the money. The $99 console has gone through a number of changes (both hardware and software) since it arrived on the scene as a Kickstarter hit, now we’ll see if Asia can help provide a second wind for the platform.
Source: Reuters
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AIVAnet 