E3 2010 round-up · 22 June 2010, 08:10
Good and busy year in Los Angeles for E3 again this year. Here’s a round-up of my coverage.
CBC News Online
- Canadian video game developers strut at Los Angeles expo
- E3 2010 Photo Gallery: A look at the gamer expo’s quirky fare
Georgia Straight
- Microsoft’s Project Natal unveiled as Kinect for Xbox 360
- Microsoft reveals new Xbox 360 design, Kinect details
- Electronic Arts, Ubisoft demonstrate different strategies for success
- Nintendo jumps into 3D with announcement of 3DS handheld
- Sony stakes PlayStation’s future on 3D
- Valve’s Gabe Newell thanks Sony reps for not punching him in the face
Game Room, Alan Wake, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Red Dead Redemption, Scrap Metal, Split/Second, Super Mario Galaxy 2 · 3 June 2010, 12:19
This week’s Georgia Straight includes my look at Microsoft’s Game Room, as well as reviews of, in alphabetical order, Alan Wake, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Red Dead Redemption, Scrap Metal, Split/Second, and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
Lots of good stuff to play out there. Find some time.
EA Sports unveils hockey stick controller for NHL Slapshot Wii game · 1 June 2010, 13:51
NHL Slapshot is a video game being developed for Nintendo’s Wii, and you’ll play it by wielding a hockey stick.
Okay, it’s not an actual hockey stick. It’s not as big. Or as expensive. It’s a plastic mini-stick which holds the two Wii controllers, the Remote and Nunchuk. It’s much like the mini-sticks that I and my siblings, cousins, and friends used to use in the living room while playing knee hockey.
Which is to say that it’s enough of a hockey stick that you – or your kids – will be winding up to shoot virtual pucks at the television.
A word of advice. If you want to preserve your fancy flat-screen, carefully explain to your children – or husband/boyfriend – that they should not shoot actual pucks at the television.
Those little hockey sticks were part of the inspiration for NHL Slapshot, coming from EA Sports this September.
David Littman, creative director for EA Sports’ hockey games, created a prototype for the development team by sawing down a $200 composite stick and taping Wii controls to it. The final product, he told me by phone, is just like holding a real stick in your hands.
“When you want to take a slap shot, you wind up and shoot,” he said, “just like you would on the ice.” The hockey stick controller is also used to pass and body check.
In the past couple of years, EA Sports has only developed hockey video games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. NHL Slapshot, being developed in Burnaby at EA Canada, expands the hockey simulation experience with a Peewee to Pro mode.
Joe Nickolls is the line producer on the game. He said that while the virtual hockey players start out younger than with the PS3 and Xbox 360 hockey games, they are doing the same things.
“You work your way up the ranks and the game gets progressively deeper as you go along,” he said on the phone. “This is not an arcade experience. You still need to be concerned with performance.”
NHL Slapshot, explained Nickolls, is as “deep or shallow as you want it to be”.
“You can play backyard hockey with your friends,” he said, “but you can also go full-on with five-on-five, drafts, trades, playoffs.”
NHL Slapshot will also include mini games such as a two-player shooter versus goalie mode, or two-on-two pickup.
Wayne Gretzky will be a playable character and is the cover athlete for the game. In a press release, the Great One said, “Being on the cover of the new Wii version of the game is exciting and is probably going to make me a bit cooler in the eyes of my kids.”
Gretzky was an easy choice, according to Littman and Nickolls, because he’s already done so much to grow the sport of hockey.
“EA has grown the sport of hockey through our video games,” Littman said, “and we just want to get hockey in the hands of more people. Gretzky’s grown the sport already. Now we can grow it together.”
Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight
ModNation Racers is mucho fun · 20 May 2010, 16:20
Vancouver’s United Front Games studio releases its first game next week, and ModNation Racers is just what you want from a kart racer.
My look at it – and the studio – are featured in this week’s Georgia Straight. Also there is my review of the game.
EA moves online to grow business · 13 May 2010, 13:55
In today’s Georgia Straight, I write about how the future for EA Sports – a video game developer – is to become a sports entertainment brand. And it’s doing so with some bold moves into the online space.
EA Games, another label under the Electronic Arts umbrella, is doing similar things, and Need For Speed World is leading the way.
Dragon Age: Origins voted Game of the Year at first ever Canadian Video Game Awards · 6 May 2010, 10:32
The first Canadian Video Game Awards were handed out last night during a modest but slickly produced event at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
Some 650 people filled the ballroom. About 300 were industry VIPs seated at tables, with another 350 or so in the general seating area. And while the ballroom wasn’t filled to capacity, there was plenty of excitement and energy.
Early during the planning of the CVAs, there was a plan to include animation and digital effects among the award categories, but these were wisely dropped from the program. Instead, the CVAs focused on the Canadian video-game industry, presenting 11 awards, all to titles created by Canadian studios.
The fact that some of last year’s best games qualified for the awards simply speaks to the quality of games being developed in the country.
As it was, the two-hour event was just the right duration. Video Games Live — the symphonic celebration of video-game music — provided entertainment with four audio-visual segments that split up the handing out of the awards, including one segment honouring the history of video games created in Canada that ended with a title card pronouncing, “Look how far we’ve come.”
The line is somewhat of a mantra for Victor Lucas, co-executive producer and emcee of the event. He’s long been an advocate for the Canadian video-game industry, and the CVAs are an extension of his will, as much as anything. Lucas kept the program light and celebratory, although there were a couple of moments when the love-in got a bit syrupy.
As the organizers promised, the CVAs were a snappy affair, and they moved along with pace. It helped that the production crew for the event — Lucas enlisted his Greedy Productions staff who make EP Daily and Reviews on the Run — is used to putting together rapid-fire television shows. The technical aspects of the production were top-notch, with sound and lighting design that suited the space. Better yet, it seemed as though not a cue was missed, although some of the presenters had some fun with their own technical limitations.
The full list of winners is below, but the evening’s big winner was Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed II, which was nominated for six awards. It won four, including Console Game of the Year. Toronto’s Capybara Games was another multiple award winner, taking home the prizes for Critter Crunch and Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.
Game of the Year, which was determined by on-line fan voting, went to Dragon Age: Origins, developed by Edmonton’s BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. That game also won the award for Best Writing.
PricewaterhouseCoopers representative Rick Griffiths said that despite his company being the adjudicators for such awards shows as the Oscars, “This is the one we’ve been waiting for.” It was only partially a joke, as he went on to say that in its latest analysis, his company was predicting that the video-game industry will be the world’s fastest growing entertainment sector for the next five years.
The entire event will be the focus of a 30-minute special airing on G4 on May 16 at 8 p.m.
The Canadian video-game development scene has indeed come a long way. As such, it deserves an opportunity to pat itself on the back. Even if it seems like nobody else gives a damn.
Winners of the 2010 Canadian Video Game Awards:
Best Audio
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (developed by Relic Entertainment in Vancouver, published by THQ)
Best Technology
Tie between Assassin’s Creed II (developed by Ubisoft Montreal, published by Ubisoft) and Prototype (developed in Vancouver by Radical Entertainment, published by Activision)
Best Visual Arts
Assassin’s Creed II (developed by Ubisoft Montreal, published by Ubisoft)
Best Game Design
Assassin’s Creed II (developed by Ubisoft Montreal, published by Ubisoft)
Best Writing
Dragon Age: Origins (developed by BioWare in Edmonton, published by Electronic Arts)
Best Downloadable Game
Critter Crunch (developed and published by Toronto’s Capybara Games)
Best Handheld Game
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (developed in Toronto by Capybara Games, published by Ubisoft)
Most Promising Game
ModNation Racers (developed by United Front Games in Vancouver, published by Sony Computer Entertainment)
Best In-game Cinematic
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (created in Vancouver by Terminal Reality and Rainmaker, published by Atari)
Best Console Game
Assassin’s Creed II (developed by Ubisoft Montreal, published by Ubisoft)
Canadian-made Game of the Year
Dragon Age: Origins (developed by BioWare in Edmonton, published by Electronic Arts)
Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight
Canadian Video Game Awards aim to honour deserving developers · 29 April 2010, 08:58
In today’s Georgia Straight is my look at the new Canadian Video Game Awards, which will be presented for the first time next Wednesday, May 5. Contributing music and entertainment for the event is Video Games Live, which will also stage a stand-alone event the following night.
Free passes available to GDC Canada · 21 April 2010, 18:31
Video game developers laid off in the past year are being offered a complimentary pass to attend Game Developers Conference Canada.
In a conference call, Izora De Lillard, event director for GDC Canada, told me that the decision to provide unemployed developers with a free, main conference pass was made to ensure that nobody was being left out.
Last year, organizers also decided to make free passes available to unemployed developers.
The convention, which will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre, starts with Epic Games’ opening night party on May 5 and runs through the end of May 7.
Dan Irish, CEO of Threewave Software, and Tarrnie Williams, executive producer of EA Sports Active, are on the advisory board for the conference.
Irish said that the conference is an opportunity to learn from the best and to meet people face-to-face. “That’s why I’ve always encouraged my teams to pick the sessions where they will learn the most,” he said.
Williams agreed. “There is no better way to get connected to other people in the industry.”
De Lillard said that attendees at GDC Canada, which is considerably smaller than the main GDC convention in San Francisco every spring, benefit from the intimacy of the event. Last year, she said, speakers were still taking questions in the hallways long after their sessions were over. “Everyone is so willing to talk and to share,” she said.
Highlights of the conference include a keynote speech by Zynga’s Bill Mooney, who is general manager of FarmVille, the runaway hit game on Facebook. He’ll be speaking about the social gaming market, which he characterizes as “games at the speed of light”.
Glenn Entis, a veteran of DreamWorks Interactive and Electronic Arts, will be presenting a session – Funding for Game Developers: Do’s and Don’ts – intended to illuminate methods of funding a studio. Entis is a founding general partner with Vanedge Capital, a Vancouver-based venture capital firm.
Williams said that one of the great benefits of Vancouver’s video game sector is its huge talent base. “The big thing missing is the access to capital,” he said, adding that Entis’s ability to share some insights will benefit companies, new and established. “By putting the talent pool together with the money pool,” he said, “great things will come.”
Prospective attendees who want a complimentary pass to attend GDC Canada must have been laid off from a “Canadian video game or creative/digital arts company within the past 12 months”. After pre-registering, attendees need to show a record of employment at the registration desk on site to receive the free pass.
De Lillard also said that if there are others who don’t qualify for the pass and who want to attend but are limited financially, they should contact the conference organizers. “We’ll work with them,” she said. “We want them to come and have a good experience.”
Irish said that offering free passes is a good investment. People won’t always be unemployed, he said, “and that goodwill will pay off”.
Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight
Reviews: Final Fantasy XIII, Splinter Cell Conviction, Bad Company 2, Just Cause 2 · 15 April 2010, 18:10
This week in the Georgia Straight are my reviews of Final Fantasy XIII, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Just Cause 2, and WarioWare DIY.
You know what? They’re all worth playing. Find out why.
iPhone and video games enhance the NHL playoffs · 13 April 2010, 14:07
The latest NHL hockey season has come to an end, and while many – including my father – aren’t too happy that the Calgary Flames missed the playoffs, I’m certainly excited about the post-season.
And if the annual EA Sports simulation is to be believed, the Chicago Blackhawks will win the Stanley Cup after a seven-game series against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
For years, EA Sports has used the latest release of its video games – which are supported with real-life data and groundbreaking artificial intelligence – to predict the results of professional sports playoffs.
EA Sports representative Duke Indrasigamany told me that it took about 20 minutes – “give or take” – to run through the playoffs using NHL 10.
The simulation also predicted that the Vancouver Canucks will get past the Los Angeles Kings and the Detroit Red Wings, before losing to the Blackhawks in a seven game Western Conference final.
Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin face off in the Eastern Conference final, after the Philadelphia Flyers upset the New Jersey Devils in the first round.
For those of us who can’t always get to a television to watch a game, CBC announced today that the Hockey Night in Canada application, created for the iPhone and iPod Touch, will enable live streaming of every Stanley Cup playoff game broadcast by the CBC.
Single games will cost $2.99, Stanley Cup Final games will cost $4.99, or you can buy all the games broadcast by CBC for $14.99.
So you’ll be able to watch those games no matter where you are.
Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight: NHL 10 playoff prediction, CBC to live stream playoffs on iPhone
