Looking Glass, The Series Finale June 28, 2010

Something interesting has found its way onto YouTube this week.  A former Looking Glass employee has uploaded the original video he took from the final day of work for the famous Looking Glass Studios.  Looking Glass Studios was considered a major company responsible for the groundbreaking Thief series.  Many alumni of the company would go on to become Game Gods, including Warren Spector and Ken Levine.

It always hurts me when a company with so much succesful talent and such good games has to be shut down.  Ritual and Ion Storm Dallas probably hit me the most.  You watch their progress from birth, following their news on what they are working on for years, play the fruits of their labor, and then the company shuts down, and it’s almost like a part of you goes with it.

Without further ado, I present you with Looking Glass, The Series Finale.  I wonder how that star-studded movie is coming along.  Please, if anyone else has videos they shot of the closings of their companies, put them online!

Heavy Rain Playstation Move Edition June 28, 2010

As I mentioned in a previous story, Quantic Dream has been working to port their recently released PS3 exclusive game, Heavy Rain, to the Playstation Move.  I’ve been pretty curious how the game’s control scheme is handled by the Playstation Move, and this trailer taken from E3 2010 shows just how it’s going to work.

As someone already familiar with playing these scenes, I think the gestures required look very natural to the action on the screen.

All owners of Heavy Rain will find their games compatible with Playstation Move after a free patch is released.

Playstation Move will be released September 19th, 2010 in North America.

Rage E3 2010 Information June 27, 2010

They were the founders of modern gaming on the PC, and every new release they did defined a graphics generation and pushed technology beyond what was possible.  Well, id Software is close to releasing its next game, and it’s a whole new IP called Rage.

It seems like they’ve really been refining a lot of the major gaming innovations of the past few years.  Health will regenerate, and death will give you the option to come back, without having to load a savegame.

Rage has been locked at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360, and you can expect the same performance on PS3 and PC.  An Editor will ship with the PC version.  This editor is identical to the development tools used by id to make the game.

There will be multiplayer.

Rage will release for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2011

Epic Mickey E3 Preview June 27, 2010

Disney’s Epic Mickey is shaping up to be the major release this holiday for the Nintendo Wii.  The art style looks beautiful and stylish, the gameplay looks unique and yet recognizable, and a Game God (Warren Spector) is directing  it.

Director Warren “God” Spector narrates this little preview of Epic Mickey, and you get to see some gameplay in action.

Epic Mickey will be released Holiday 2010 only for Nintendo Wii.

Dead Space 2 E3 Preview June 27, 2010

EA has done a pretty good job about taking down all the videos of anyone who was hosting Dead Space 2’s E3 trailer, but failed miserably at putting the Dead Space 2 press conference demonstrations up on their own YouTube channel.

They have however posted up this preview of the game which includes some gameplay from the E3 demo, and describe the story of the new game, and what kind of gameplay you can expect.

Dead Space 2 will be released multiplatform January 2011.

Sims 3 Console E3 Interview June 27, 2010

EA has posted up an interesting interview about the upcoming console version of The Sims 3.  In it, the developer talks about the enhancements done from the PC version of the game, and makes a mention that the entire editor system from the PC version has been brought to consoles, making you Sims purists without PCs powerful enough to run Sims 3 very happy.

iPhone 4 Released June 24, 2010

The iPhone 4 is going to be released today at 9am at Apple Stores and corporate owned AT&T stores all over.

Make sure to check your store’s website for availability. Be aware the preorders sold out on these phones (before I could place mine). Supply is expected to be low.

Data Transfer Possible With 250GB Xbox 360 Slim June 24, 2010

Have an Xbox 360 already but want the new model slim?  Want all your existing data on the newer larger hard drive?  Upset the new slims don’t have a compatible socket for the existing hard drives?  Don’t worry one bit!

If you at any point purchased an individual 120GB Xbox 360 HD, you already have all the tools you need to transfer your data.  If you haven’t, you will be able to buy those tools soon.

For those who are unfamiliar with how to transfer data between two hard drives, I’ll break it down.  You must choose a hard drive of smaller storage capacity as the one to transfer the data from, and the hard drive of larger storage capacity to transfer data to.  Remove your old hard drive, and connect it to the Hard Drive Transfer Cable.  Install your new Hard Drive into your Xbox 360.  Plug the Transfer Cable into your rear USB socket, and insert the included transfer disc.  Then have a coke while the disc migrates your data from your old hard drive to your new one, then wipes your old one, allowing you to sell it to whomever you choose, or just put it into storage.

The Xbox 360 Slim does not use the “shoe” style Hard Drive of the previous Xbox 360s, instead opting like Sony does, to just use a regular hard drive of certain specifications, which can be swapped easily by hardware enthusiasts.  However, the procedure behind the cable is still sound.  Microsoft has promised that the slim is fully compatible with the HD Transfer cable and software, and the software itself (in theory) should work as long as your old hard drive has a lower capacity than 250GB.

If you do not currently have one of these cables and disc combos, Microsoft should have them on shelves soon.  They will NOT be included with Xbox 360 slims.

I would gladly record how this procedure worked with a video, but unfortunately since I make no income from the site (or anything else for that manner), I can’t afford a new Xbox 360 Slim, however I invite you to picture it in your mind now and if you do I promise not to sue you for violation of copyright.

Quantic Dream Unlikely to Continue DLC for Heavy Rain June 23, 2010

Heavy Rain was certainly the MUST-OWN PS3 game of this past February.  I was a huge fan of Indigo Prophecy and I waited four long years from their E3 2006 technical demo to play the final version of the game, and I was not disappointed one bit.

Quantic Dream is busy at work porting Heavy Rain to the Playstation Move.  When the Move becomes available, a free patch will be released for Heavy Rain which will allow you to play it with the Move controller.

However, it does mean that any subsequent episodes of the Heavy Rain Chronicles, the planned episodic post-release DLC for Heavy Rain, has been put on the back burner and might not be picked back up after the Move patch has been released.

I’m really disappointed about this, Heavy Rain was defiantly on a 2010 favorites list for me and I wanted to play more content.

Only one Heavy Rain Chronicle episode has been released, The Taxidermist, and it was given out for free with pre-orders.  It is still on the Playstation Store for purchase at $4.99 US.

Wii System Update 4.3 Released June 22, 2010

My Nintendo Wii has been blinking with a blue light for the past few hours indicating a message. The message was the notification of a Wii system update version 4.3.

Nintendo does not include release notes with their system updates. I have no idea what it does. I heard the previous version had a pretty buggy bootloader (never gave me problems but I’m not a pirate) maybe this fixes that? Really I have no idea what changed, but if you have a Wii, my advice is to perform a system update immediately.