Category: Video Games

E3 ’08 aftermath

19

Lemme start off by apologizing to anyone who’s just came to my site to read about FPA. There’s plenty of links to FPA related content on the right… The rest of this is for those gamers out there who like to keep their eye on the industry. Really, first and foremost I’m a gamer, and I believe that the most important part of creating video games is having a love and understanding of the medium. So, I figure that posting as a gamer is just as relative to my blog as posting as a developer.

Anyways, about E3 ’08. Pretty disappointing eh? No matter what I tell myself, I still, I suppose by some terrible habit, act like E3 is still what it used to be. If you’re a serious gamer who likes to keep his eye on the gaming pipeline, E3 could be a lot like Christmas morning. In reality, it’s now about nothing more than talking numbers and bullet points for the shareholders and mainstream news outlets.

That’s really the truth of it. My inner gamer wants to claim how full of fail all 3 press conferences were, but come on, E3 isn’t what it used to be. Nintendo announced their next big thing, and if you haven’t heard about MotionPlus, I’d look into it, because it’s awesome. Aside from that, they’re being Nintendo and not announcing games until a month or two before they ship, just like Apple does.

Technically, I am part if the gaming industry, but being on this side of the fence is still pretty new to me, so I still geek out about game announcements just like I used to, so that’s why I’m even writing about it in the first place, haha. I still tend to root for Nintendo, but I have to remember that E3 in no way represents their full target audience. The E3 PRESS CONFERENCE is for the casuals, sneaky behind the scenes interviews done by gaming sites are for us ‘core gamers.’

Besides, Nintendo works on a little bit of math that goes something like this:

Casual games = $$$
$$$ = Zelda, Metroid, Mario, etc.

So as far as I’m concerned, Nintendo can make and sell as much casual software as it wants. Besides, that leaves a big empty space for other developers to fill.

Yeah… don’t really know why I choose this post to actually put that disclaimer up on… guess it finally just hit me how many people come to this site every day, and that this really is my site as well as just a blog…

Comments E3 ’08 aftermath

E3 ’08

6

I tend to get far more excited about e3 (the big show where Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all show off and announce new stuff), and no, I have nothing to show off for e3 as a developer, but as a gamer, I still can’t wait to see what Nintendo’s got up their sleeves. For those of you not scouring the internet for late breaking new, Microsoft just announced Miis for 360, to satisfy the legions of hardcore Gears of War players who complain that there is not enough of ‘teh kiddie’ on their console. Before Microsoft’s conference, Nintendo announced a new add-on to the Wii remote that allows the console to know exactly where the remote is being held, probably in case Microsoft announces a Wii-like controller (yet that was the only thing they didn’t copy…). And no, that’s not what the controller was supposed to be able to do in the first place, absolute positioning and reading tilt are two completely different things.

So yeah, Nintendo’s conference is usually the one that I look forward to most (as long as they’re not just announcing 4 player Pac-Man, that is…). I’m predicting WiiSports 2 bundled with the new MotionPlus peripheral, and there’s been rumblings of announcements of Animal Crossing Wii (it’s about time, I’d say) and Punch Out! Wii (and if that’s true, I’m positive it’ll use the TrueMotion add-on). Pikmin 3 is practically guaranteed, as is Nintendo showing at least something about a new Kid Icarus.

Might happen: TrueMotion bundled with WiiSports 2 for a good price (30 altogether? 40 at the most…), news that Nintendo actually cares about The Conduit (and a big thanks to High Voltage Software for that one), Animal Crossing Wii having some sort of ‘adventure’ single player game mode, and at least one other big ‘core’ game announcement.

Probably won’t happen but I wished it would: New awesome Star Fox game that’s a true sequel to Star Fox 64, new Zelda title that’s built from the ground up for Wii using TrueMotion, firmware update for USB MASS STORAGE SUPPORT AKA HARD DRIVES OR FLASH DRIVES for Wii downloads, a new Retro game (the guys who did the Metroid Prime trilogy), Disaster: Day of Crisis playable and almost finished, and finally: Red Steel 2 being shown off and looking as good as the first one almost was (I liked the first one a lot, the control was just terrible).

(and while I’m at it, New Super Mario Bros. 2 would rock)

So, what you guys looking forward to? Any predictions?

Comments E3 ’08

Update, other stuff

12

Update

Nope… update’s not ready yet, sorry…

Basically, the deal with the update is, I’m both lazy and extremely picky about my games, I’m sure you all know that by now… So it should be no surprise that I keep finding new things that I want to fix in World 2. I think I have it locked down now, so there’s really not that much more to do… you guys should be glad, though. If it was merely a bunch of bug fixes, you wouldn’t really have much of a reason to replay it. The biggest addition is the 2 more transitional levels, added after Level 3 and Level 4. I’m trying to be creative with these two, since they’re so small, I figure more thought should go into them, right? Nothing mind-blowingly amazing or anything, of course, but new content is new content, right?

There’s a few additions to the backgrounds, in Level 5 and Level 4 mostly, that I’d say are worth checking out. And don’t forget the timer… oh, and what some people would probably consider the best additions, if you hold a button while at the title menu or dialogue, it’ll speed them up. Definitely a plus if you play the game more than once.

Hopefully around the time the update gets out, I’ll have some fancy standalone players for the game, too, I’ve gotten a few requests for those…

Forum

The new forum’s been great, too, so here’s a big thanks to everyone posting and being generally awesome in the forum, and to Fairly who’s taking care of most of the admin functions there. We’re getting 108.765 average posts per day, and 5.529 average topics per day, in 2 weeks. Sounds pretty good to me.

Ah, that reminds me, I still gotta add the Forum door to the banner… but first I have to finish this update, argh.

Check out the topic rofl lmao: currently covered in cats and captions, and I approve. I want to start linking to more topics in the future, but I really haven’t had time to lurk around in my own forum lately…

I’d like to do more topics like this in the future, and build up some sort of collection of tips and how-to’s for making Flash games…

And finally, games I’m currently playing, since it would be too long to post that here…

On a completely unrelated note

You know what I hate? Those hand driers with the sensor on the front with small text that says ‘sanitary touchless’ or something like that. I mean, not once have I not rubbed my hands all over the thing looking for a sensor or button before I actually notice the small sensor in front. And gamers / developers who think online gaming is a replacement for multiplayer gaming in person, I REALLY hate that…

Comments Update, other stuff

Donations, Forum, and Portal

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Well I’m getting sick of how ads work. I’m allowing people to advertise on my site and I’m only getting paid when they actually click a link? Hey, if your product isn’t interesting enough to get people to click on it, it’s your fault, not mine. I guess I could make the same complaint for MochiAds, but so many more people play World 2 than visit my site that it’s not nearly as big of a problem. I also know that those guys are working to get use developers the best deals that they can, so…

So, instead of using ads on the site, I’ve added a Donate button to the sidebar. I’m sure that most of the people who enjoy playing my games aren’t exactly able to donate through Paypal, but… they have parents, right? 😀

Also new: What I would consider the next step in expanding the site: a forum! Yep, now you guys get to post off topic comments, and off topic forum posts! (kidding, kidding! you know I love you guys’ ‘creative posting’!). WordPress names carry over to the forum, and yes, I will make a door for them… eventually…

Current categories are:

Brad Borne, Makes games, which will soon be filled with thought provoking questions such as, ‘when is World 3 going to be release?!’

Game Development: I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer everything, but I’m hoping this can turn into some sort of database for the most asked questions.

Your Work: A place to show off your own creative side. Drawings, animations, games, fan art, engine builds, music, whatever. If you made it and want to show it off, you can post it here.

Video Games (current) and Video Games (classic): I’m not too sure if I want this classification yet, not sure if I’ll stick with current and classic, or ‘reviews’ and ‘analysis,’ or something…

Music: I’ve always said that having a good beat in your head is extremely important while animating, so I’ll probably end up ranting about a bunch of bands that I like that you probably haven’t heard of.

Serious Business: There’s a few topics that I would like to talk about, not necessarily related to gaming, that I don’t think would work well as a blog post. I do plan on heavily moderating all threads under this category, but no, I won’t be censoring anyone’s opinion that differs from my own.

Off Topic: Because I know my forum would explode if you guys didn’t have this section 😉

I was going to write on Portal and it’s current seemingly endless influence on any and all online puzzle games… but instead I think I’ll go use my newfangled Forum thing to do that…

Comments Donations, Forum, and Portal