After a couple days’ exploring the Game Developers’ Convention expo hall, the most interesting trend was the proliferation of new, powerful and above all, intuitive tools for professional game design. Game development continues to democratize, and if the offerings on display are any indication, high-production-value development tools are well within independent studios’ grasp. Here are
E-Sports and the competitive gaming scene are a growing part of the industry and gaming culture, despite the many false starts and inconclusive attempts at formal leagues. At Game Connection, I took the opportunity to ask Mr. Caleb Fox, head of Wargaming America, about his views on the competitive scene and how it affects game
Game Connection is a growing site of marketing and business development in the games industry, and while there weren’t that many booths on hand, there were a number of marketing and business experts in the field present who provided an insider’s view of a very different aspect of the gaming industry than the creative one.
Activision’s launch trailer for The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is bloody and mournful. The game, evidently set before the series, dramatizes about Daryl Dixon’s quest to find his missing brother Merle. Unfortunately, standing in the way of his sibling are hordes of walking dead and a desolate landscape, hostile landscape. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Why did DmC: Devil May Cry fail and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance succeed? What can we learn from the stark contrast of these two very different attempts to outsource popular franchises? You might argue, of course, whether the former failed at all. After all, the aggregate scores on Metacritic place the two roughly in the
“Horror protagonist” is usually a life sentence. If you don’t get shuffled off in the last few minutes of your debut feature or job for the villain in the first few of the sequel, you’ll probably get dragged back, again and again, to deal with the latest threat du jour. Having narrowly escaped both the
How often do we hear games damned as bad influences upon children and the impressionable? In light of this latest surge of gun violence, and the predictable storm of politicians and pundits who would find it easier to move against violent media than the tools of violence themselves, it’s more important than ever that gamers
DmC: Devil May Cry, Ninja Theory’s new title, bills itself as a Devil May Cry game, but it’s clearly aimed at non-fans and new audiences. If the public-relations trainwreck of its development process hadn’t made that obvious, the game’s defanged combat, bland boss battles, brooding atmosphere and absurdly unconvincing anti-corporatist pretenses will not satisfy series
The Sandy Hook school shootings may have triggered a storm of political fervor for gun control laws, but there are those who are determined to distract us with tried-and-true diversions – most notably, blaming everything except for the ability to take human life. It began, once again, with NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s by-now infamous statement