Gaming Technology Blog

Unless you don’t watch TV (in which case, why the heck are you surfing the Internet?), you’ve probably seen all the commercials out there for Afro Samurai.  Even if you aren’t really paying attention, Samuel L. Jackson’s infamous bad-ass voice is likely to pique your interest at least a little.

This game is available on the PlayStation3 and Xbox 360 platforms, and thus far the reviews seem to be good.  People are give an average score of 8-8.1 out of 10.  I have to confess, I haven’t played it, and I have no intention of doing so — well, probably, who knows.  I’m just generally not into the whole samurai bit.  Why write about this game, then?  A question, really.

Most big name stars — A list, B list, mostly — have at least one video game voiceover over on the IMDB credits list.  Some of them are understandable.  I mean, I bought the LOTR games just because Elijah Wood’s voice is in them, omg!  But is it possible, even just a little, that some of these games have big celebrity voiceovers just as a way to fool some of us gamers into thinking it has to be an awesome game, even if it’s not?  Discuss pls.  Kthxbye.

Last time, we focused on a home computer game designed to turn all of us into fashion designers.  This time, we’re going to see how we can fulfill our secret dreams of becoming a stellar interior decorator — at least, when we’re playing around on the computer.

Home Sweet Home is an awesome time management game which lets you play decorator to your heart’s content.  The first game in the, as yet, two-part series focuses solely on living rooms.  Your boss gives you clues involving what the owners of the room want.  Your score is based on how close you get to the ideal.  Some people want Asian inspired design, others want a homey, country feel.  You get the picture.  After completing the room to your — and your client’s — satisfaction with a variety of furniture, tables, lamps, entertainment pieces, paints, wallpapers, and flooring options (not to mention paintings, wall hangings, window treatments, and other accessories), it’s time to get the room built with the help of three carpenters.

Home Sweet Home 2: Kitchens and Bathrooms is, clearly, dedicated to kitchens and bathrooms.  The second game in the series is much improved over the first, with several bugs and problems dealt with satisfactorily.  We fans of this game are hoping that, soon, we’ll be able to tackle bedrooms and maybe even dens next.

So … this is not going to be about standard gaming news.  I have recently gotten into PC games – not WoW or things like that, but the kinds of games you can find on places like BigFish and iWin.  Two titles stand out, each of them with two games in their series’.

First up is Jojo’s Fashion Show, parts 1 and 2.  This is known as a time management game.  I played the first one for hours upon hours.  Basically, you get to go through a succession of fashion shows, wherein you match clothing to the style of each model.  It begins with Bollywood and Sockhop styles; in later levels you get to deal with everything from Disco, Bridal, Goth, and even Flamenco Punk.

In part 2, all the antes are upped.  There are few repeat fashions, so you get to deal with a whole new world of styles and awesome clothing.  Furthermore, you get to dress male models as well, and participate in photo shoots.

Part 1 features Jojo and her daughter Ros.  Jojo is returning to the fashion world years after her assistant and protégé, the game’s villain, stole her designs.  With her daughter’s edgy sense of fashion and well timed help, naturally she rises to the top again.  Part 2 features new characters and a new storyline: this time Jojo and Ros are teamed up, forming Las Cruces.  But will Ros’s trendy style be able to mesh with Jojo’s classic elegance?

Stay tuned next week when we take a look at Home Sweet Home – and then, I promise, we’ll get back to some gory games!

Silent Hill: Homecoming is due out September 30, much to the delight of creeptastic fans everywhere.  This is the sixth installment of the popular horror based survival series, which gamers have been anticipating since it was announced in the summer of 2007.  Platform wise, the game is set to be available for Xbox, PS3, and there will be a PC version through Microsoft Windows.

Alex Shepherd, a war veteran, will be the game’s protagonist.  He comes home from a tour of duty overseas, only to discover that his dad and baby brother are MIA and his mom’s pretty much catatonic.  In searching for his brother, Alex rather predictably ends up in Silent Hill – because where else would he go?  However, Shepard’s Glen and the “Otherworld” versions will also be featured in the game play.  The requisite Girl Tuesday is a chick named Elle, a friend of Alex from the old school.  We’ll also get to see Pyramid Head.

The game’s combat will rely heavily on Alex’s experiences as a soldier, and the plot will be rich with psychological aspects.  Nemeses will include nurses, an androgynous enemy named Siam, a humanoid, pointy headed creature named Schism, and a boil covered, emaciated, poisonous gas spewing corpse named Smog – very reminiscent of Silent Hill 2′s lying figure.

Okay, I admit it: I have a strong tendency to assign to blame for every gaming- related crime I hear about to Grand Theft Auto. I don’t know why, I just do.

Thankfully, though, this one doesn’t seem to have a GTA connection, just a Lame Pathetic Crook connection.

The guy walks into a video game store, asks to see an XBox 360, then lifts up his sweater to show the pistol stuck in his pants, and walks off with the console and just two games. Yes, just two.

If you know Heath Ledger, then you’ll probably know that his last film, Batman The Dark Knight, has  landed on the number two spot of the all-time box office hit list.

That said, I can’t imagine how Eidos and Rocksteady’s upcoming Batman Arkham Asylum can fail, even though it is really a separate project from the Nolan films.

But still, you’ll have gaming fans waiting for it, and curious movie and comic book fans, and I wouldn’t be surprise if Heath Ledger fans might give it a looksee to see to check if the in-game Joker can live up to their idol’s definitive portrayal.

Click here for screenshots

It seems “Tales of Vesperia”, the latest in Namco’s series of “Tales of” games, had what it takes to help push Microsoft and its XBox 360 video game console over the top against it perennial rival, the Sony Playstation 3.

The new game catapulted sales of the XBox last week to beat the PS3′s numbers in Japan, where it has until now met little success with the Japanese gaming population.

We here at the ol’ Gaming Technology Blog really love keeping tabs on the continuing tit for tat, give and take, mano a mano dialogue between people who think video games are bad, evil, unwholesome corruptions sent by the devil, and people who use their brains.

Example of people who use their brains? These psychologists who have
“discovered” that playing video games has benefits, and that you can’t just lump them all up under the “bad” category.

You can read the whole article by clicking on this link.

Despite being a decade old, the Playsation 2 is still the best-selling console of all time. And here are the ten best games ever for that system, according to PCAdvisor:

10: Gran Turismo 4
9: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty / Substance
8: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater / Subsistence
7: God of War
6: Final Fantasy XII
5: Okami
4: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
3: Shadow of the Colossus
2: Resident Evil 4
1: God of War II

What They Play, a parents’ guide to video games, conducted two separate studies asking parents about things their kids did that they as parents found objectionable.

Around 3,000 parents responded by ranking video games a “more objectionable” activity than watching porn or drinking beer.

They also ranked violence in video games as more objectionable than sexual content.

Crytpic Studios dangled some interstellar combat footage as well as screenshots and concept art for its Star Trek Online massively multiplayer role playing game. The footage was revealed at a ceremony presided over by Spock actor and Star Trek film director Leonard Nimoy at a Star Trek convention last week.

Check it out here.

We all know online gaming– World of Warcaft, Lord of the Rings Online, and all those other immersive, sprawling time suckers– can get pretty addictive, and some of us are more addicted than others.

Well if you do your compulsive online gaming on a Mac, here’s something that might help: an application that disables your machine’s Ethernet and wireless networking for up to 6 hours at a time.

Read about it here.

Define Godlike: you think it, and it is so. Or if you’re an atheist, think of it as telekinesis practice, moving things with just your mind.

I’m talking about Emotiv’s EPOC game control helmet, which allows players to move items on their screens by just thinking about it.

It reads your mind–no, really– using 16 brain-wave sensors built into its frame, and recognizes thoughts like “push”, “pull”, “lift” and so on, and translates those into in-game actions.

The EPOC is due for release by the end of the year, and will retail for about $299.

If the biggest Nintendo announcement in recent times–its newest accessory, the Wii Motion Plus–isn’t enough to get your pulse racing in anticipation of increased precision for your existing Wiimote controller, here’s a quick cheap thrill: the Wii add-on’s going to be very reasonably priced.

So says Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, during a Wall Street Journal interview. He also hinted at more accessories in development.

With a game like Grand Theft Auto, you’re bound to get an “I told you so” from some crime-obsessed, watching-out-for-the-kids type media watchdog, somewhere along the line.

And we certainly didn’t have to wait. This week a Thai teenager knifed a 54-year old taxi dead, in part, according to the youth, to find out whether it was as easy to kill and rob in real life as it was in the video game. The teenager had a self- confessed obsession for the GTA4 game.

More fuel to the fire of video game violence, certainly. In 2005 a teenager was killed two police men and a 911 dispatcher after months of playing Grand Theft Auto.

CDC Games, a pioneer of the “free-to-play, pay for merchandise” micropayments model for online gaming has announced that its upcoming title, based on the popular Digimon franchise from Japan, has been ranked number one by Chinese players via online recommendation on the most popular Chinese search engine, g.baidu.com.

The Digimon online game is scheduled for release sometime in the coming months.

So the idea was to find and collect letter shapes formed by the corpses of Elites and Spartans (those are playable characters from the game). What they got was a full alphabet, including numbers and even a few punctuation marks!

Take a gander at this monumental achievement by clicking on this link.

Interesting tidbit from the World News Network… they claim that in the Asia Pacific region, online activity is on the uptick with online gaming leading the way, while online video and music fall to the wayside due to rampant piracy.

Hm. Maybe online audio and video execs could learn something from the gaming industry about how to protect their products from piracy.

You can read the full article here.

The results are in: the second quarter of 2008 was all Nintendo’s.

The company shipped 5.2 units of its Wii gaming console from April to June, dwarfing its nearest competitor Sony, which shipped 1.6 million PS3s. Microsoft brought up the rear, moving 1.3 million XBoxes.

Nintendo also trounced the competition in terms of software and handheld gaming unit sales.

Market research company Onepoll released a tally of the best 20 video games of all time, according to… well, a bunch of people. mostly in the United Kingdom. It’s a surprisingly varied mix:

20. Guitar Hero
19. Wii Play
18. Street Fighter II
17. Pokemon Red, Blue and Green
16. Frogger
15. Lemmings
14. Gran Turismo
13. Final Fantasy
12. Wii Sports
11. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
10. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
9. Mario Kart 64
8. Donkey Kong
7. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
6. Space Invaders
5. Sonic the Hedgehog
4. The Sims
3. Tetris
2. Pac-Man
1. Super Mario Bros.