Apocalypso's Atomic Arcade: 9/6/09

2009/09/12

It's National Video Games Day Today

I read about this a year or two ago on Kotaku, that the 12th of September is National Video Games Day in the USA. Take into account that the 9th of September is now officially Video Game Innovation Day, in Massachusetts at least.

Check here for more information on an event that is happening for this day made for gamers.

This Week's Deals and Releases on Direct2Drive

Releases

Mini Ninjas

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Darkest of Days

Pre-orders

Borderlands

Tropico 3

Deals

D2D Turns 5! 5 weeks. 50 awesome games. $5 each

Get $5 OFF Section 8 for PC

Bethesda Sues Interplay Over a Lot of Things

First it was Take-Two and 3D Realms, now Bethesda is suing Interplay, the original creators of the Fallout series over their misuse and abuse of the Fallout licence.

This apparently happened due to the release of Fallout Trilogy- a pack which includes Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics.

Even though Interplay was able to sell the original games, they had to show Bethesda the details first before commencing. Beth also doesn't like the fact that Fallout games are available online at places like GoG.com, Steam, and other digital distribution services. Their also upset that Interplay hasn't begun "full development" on the Fallout MMO, rumoured to be titled Project V13.

Now Beth claims that people are confused with their Fallout 3 and Interplay's Fallout Trilogy, and perhaps that therefore means Beth is losing sales (hardly).

But funnily enough, this has happened to me. I know the difference between the two titles, but not everyone does, at least not non-gamers.

I've been in a store before, looking for Fallout Trilogy and the package I was shown had Fallout 3 written on it as well as Fallout 3 artwork and all and yet there was a sticker on the box that said Fallout Trilogy.

Source:

Bethesda Sues Interplay Over Use Of Fallout License

AAA now on Twitter

I've just made a Twitter account today. I'm just getting everything set up at the moment. The username isn't what you'd expect, since all the other ones I wanted were taken- even Apocalypso!

There's a "follow me on twitter" link in the left hand sidebar which I hope to make prettier with perhaps a button or banner or something.

2009/09/10

PAX Spells Doom for Gamers and Journos: Swine Flu

At PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo 2009, in Seattle, Washington this past weekend, something became a reality which was avoided, but put a damper on things at E3 earlier this year: Swine Flu. Some people who attended, which includes a number of gaming journalists, developers, and enthusiasts among the over 60 000 people in total, are now infected.

Penny Arcade has a list on their site which details the flights from Seattle and the destinations, which contained infected people. It looks as though the United States will now experience the epidemic more so than in recent months. North America all ready has the second highest death toll behind South America.

This is what Penny Arcade had to say:

"Just heard of our first test-confirmed swine flu case at the show. PLEASE if you feel symptoms (fever, etc) go to the doctor."

"This is the real thing. If you get this number of people together in this close a proximity it is the perfect storm for these kind of wild fire virus spreads. We just want to make sure everyone is informed."

On a lighter note, Giantbomb is now referring to Swine Flu as E1M1, instead of H1N1, named after the first level of Doom, titled "Hangar". According to them, 60% percent of their office is infected.

People have survived Swine Flu, but there have been deaths, make no mistake. If you have the symptoms of the disease, which can be learned about here, then see a doctor.

Sources& Resources:

PAX Organizers Confirm Swine Flu Case at Show
http://twitter.com/Official_PAX
http://twitter.com/Official_PAX/status/3845571614
rkhoo@penny-arcade.com
http://www.penny-arcade.com/
Swine Flu Confirmed at PAX
PAX Organizers Report "Confirmed Swine Flu Case" From Show
Swine Flu, PAX, And You
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/sick.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

2009/09/09

ZeniMax Acquires Rights to Prey: Prey 2 a Reality?

ZeniMax Media, who recently acquired id Software to add to their stable which also includes Bethesda, have now got the rights to Prey from Apogee, and have registered trademarks under different and almost all forms of media.

Now there is speculation as to who will work on the sequel to Prey which nobody has heard that much of. It was initially announced by Radar Group- a Scott Miller project, but there hasn't been that much news about it until now.

Wishful thinking has led to some to believe that id Software, busy working on Rage, which will probably be followed by Doom 4, will develop or have something to do with Prey 2, or perhaps Bethesda Softworks will. Others say that naturally the game will be delayed for even longer, but on the plus side, if Apogee sold the rights to ZeniMax, it may mean they have the funding to do something about the whole DNF situation.

Yes, we still care about Duke.

Prey used the id Tech 4 (Doom 3) engine when it came out back in 2006, and because of id belonging to ZeniMax, even if they don't work on the game, I'd say it's probably a safe bet to assume that Prey 2, whenever it comes out, will likely use the id Tech 5 engine (note: this is just my opinion, don't state it as fact).

I played the original Prey, developed by Humanhead, and I thought it was okay- maybe not brilliant though. I remember seeing a music video that had detailed a Prey deathmatch complete with wall and ceiling walking and all that stuff, playing to "(Can't You) Trip Like I Do" by The Crystal Method and Filter.

Yeah, that game was weird.

Sources:

id Owner ZeniMax Obtains Prey Rights
http://supererogatory.tumblr.com/post/182700715/http-assignments-uspto-gov-assignments-q-db-tm-qt
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=tm&qt=sno&reel=&frame=&sno=76529121
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77818114

Halo 3: ODST Original Soundtrack out Soon Alongside Game

Halo 3: ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) is a title that I have been reading about a lot lately. It's set to be released soon, on the 22nd of this month for Xbox 360, and alongside it will be the game's soundtrack, available now for pre-order.

Pre-order Halo 3:ODST

Pre-order Halo 3: ODST OST

2009/09/08

Free Programs for Taking Screenshots in Games

For years, it's been a bother. You know what I mean: Pressing Print Screen and then hopefully remembering upon exiting a game to open up MS Paint or GiMP or a similar program, and paste and save. And this method isn't always that reliable at all.

Some developers have thought ahead, and made it so that if you press a predefined screenshot button (usually F12 or so), your screen will be caught and automatically sent to the game's directory. Other games even work with the print screen button.

Then you've got games that haven't yet realized that some people want to take screenshots in their games, and you have to resort to the above mentioned print screen, paste in paint, look at the sometimes ghastly results. And if you want to take multiple screens, you have to alt+esc, and paste, and then listen to your PC moan as its CPU usage goes through the roof, with all these applications running.

So anyway, I read that FRAPS has a new release out as of late August 2009. Now FRAPS sin't free. There's a full version for paying members, and there's another version for the rest of us, which I hear is horrible as it leaves watermarks on your images.

There is a similar program called HyperSnap, which also leaves watermarks on your images if it isn't the full registered version.

So, I went on to try a program called Screenshot Pilot, which is free, but found that it was horrible. I tried following the instructions, only to find that sometimes the program works, and other times it doesn't. And the results are also sometimes quite cr@ppy. When I set it to save the screen in JPEG format, it turned it black&white without me telling it to. Sort of reminiscent of Paint actually...

Plus it hasn't been updated in four years.

Then I realized all along what had been sitting on my hard drive, copied off of a PC Format DVD. It's simple. It's small. It's free. It works.

It's called Screenshoter. You should get the latest version (v 1.2) however- it works even better. All you do is click "Screenshot" or press Print Screen after setting your directory settings and image format, and your screen will be saved to that location. And it works in games too.

Simple yet effective. These types of apps are the best.

2009/09/07

Moron of the Moment: Yoshiyuki Tomino

"Video games? Ugh!"

Recently, Japan’s CEDEC 2009 game developers’ conference, Yoshiyuki Tomino made some rather unwise comments about games and gaming, and this has led to some conversation over the net, naturally.

I've read that the video games he's worked on aren't very good anyway. I've never played them.

Some of his comments that are causing a fuss are:

“Video games are evil,” and "Has there been anything better than Tetris since it first came out?"

Two-faced hypocrite.

Sources:

Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino "I think that video games are evil,"
A videogame developer calls videogames evil
http://gamasutra.com/news?story=25118
http://gamepolitics.com/2009/09/06/video-games-are-evil-says-guy-who-made-lot-money-creating-video-games