Slashdot Mirror
Domain: futurenet.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to futurenet.com.
Stories · 7
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Wario Ware Grabs Edinburgh Games Festival Award
Thanks to BBC News for its article discussing GBA title Wario Ware's victory in the Edge Awards at this week's Edinburgh International Games Festival. The official webpage explains that the award honors "a willingness to prioritise creativity over a narrowly focused commercial appeal", and Margaret Robertson of Edge Magazine says of Wario Ware: "It's a game which hinges on the kind of video game literacy that millions of people across the world have built up without even realising it." Other nominees for the award included Katamari Damacy, In Memoriam, and Viewtiful Joe. -
On Early Driv3r Reviews, World Exclusives
(54)T-Dub writes "SPOnG has a very interesting article about Atari's latest iteration in the Driver series: Driv3r. Back in May there was a SpOnG messageboard post claiming that Atari was demanding a 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. In the heated race for the early reviews, two UK-based Future Publishing publications, Xbox World and PSM2 ran cover stories for Driv3r, and coincidentally gave the game a 9/10 score. XBox World even dubbed it 'the new GTA' while PSM claimed to have 'the World's first and only review' of the PS2 version. As earlier reported on Slashdot Games, subsequent reviews for the quite buggy Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game have hovered in the 60s. Having shipped 2.5 million copies it's estimated that Atari is gambling over $60 million on this game." While the source is hardly concrete, and claims of 'bribery' are likely overblown, it's interesting to ruminate on how getting an "exclusive review" affects game scoring, a phenomenon not limited to Driv3r. -
On Early Driv3r Reviews, World Exclusives
(54)T-Dub writes "SPOnG has a very interesting article about Atari's latest iteration in the Driver series: Driv3r. Back in May there was a SpOnG messageboard post claiming that Atari was demanding a 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. In the heated race for the early reviews, two UK-based Future Publishing publications, Xbox World and PSM2 ran cover stories for Driv3r, and coincidentally gave the game a 9/10 score. XBox World even dubbed it 'the new GTA' while PSM claimed to have 'the World's first and only review' of the PS2 version. As earlier reported on Slashdot Games, subsequent reviews for the quite buggy Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game have hovered in the 60s. Having shipped 2.5 million copies it's estimated that Atari is gambling over $60 million on this game." While the source is hardly concrete, and claims of 'bribery' are likely overblown, it's interesting to ruminate on how getting an "exclusive review" affects game scoring, a phenomenon not limited to Driv3r. -
On Early Driv3r Reviews, World Exclusives
(54)T-Dub writes "SPOnG has a very interesting article about Atari's latest iteration in the Driver series: Driv3r. Back in May there was a SpOnG messageboard post claiming that Atari was demanding a 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. In the heated race for the early reviews, two UK-based Future Publishing publications, Xbox World and PSM2 ran cover stories for Driv3r, and coincidentally gave the game a 9/10 score. XBox World even dubbed it 'the new GTA' while PSM claimed to have 'the World's first and only review' of the PS2 version. As earlier reported on Slashdot Games, subsequent reviews for the quite buggy Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game have hovered in the 60s. Having shipped 2.5 million copies it's estimated that Atari is gambling over $60 million on this game." While the source is hardly concrete, and claims of 'bribery' are likely overblown, it's interesting to ruminate on how getting an "exclusive review" affects game scoring, a phenomenon not limited to Driv3r. -
Deus Ex Clan Wars Morphs Into Snowblind
Thanks to Edge Magazine for confirmation, in its July issue, that the Eidos console FPS Snowblind, shown at E3, "was originally designed to be a spin-off from [Deus Ex], but has since gone its own way." The IGN PS2 product page for Snowblind also backs up this little-reported fact, following previous Slashdot Games news discussing the cyberpunk-influenced PS2/Xbox title, then called Deus Ex: Clan Wars. Additionally, the IGN PS2 E3 preview mentions "Crystal Dynamics looked to Warren Spector and Ion Storm for inspiration and advice on this game", further confirming info on the "Winter 2004"-due title whose E3-dated preview at 1UP explains: "The city environment was dark, neon-lit and vaguely Deus Ex-like, but the feel of the action was closer to something like Call of Duty." -
Out Run 2 Xbox Enhancements Analyzed
Thanks to GamesRadar for its Edge-reprinted cover article interviewing UK developers Sumo Digital on its conversion of Sega's arcade title Out Run 2, and trying to explain why "Sega has handed the Xbox conversion [of the new AM2-developed arcade game] to an unknown dev studio responsible for exercise bike software." The developers discuss the issues is conversion: "The arcade board has essentially got twice the memory that the Xbox has... and most of that was used", before explaining a new-for-Xbox Mission Mode which "will feature in excess of 50 missions consisting of Heart Attack-style challenges, marathon routes and AI character challenges", and also revealing "[Xbox] Live compatibility, which promises score uploading and ghost downloading while also permitting online play." -
The Making Of Halo Illuminated
Thanks to Gamesradar for their Edge-reprinted feature on the making of Bungie's seminal Xbox FPS, Halo. According to a Bungie producer, the team "...decided they wanted to go back to the roots of a game like Marathon, combining it with some of the things we learnt from Myth." Other topics include the originally impossible tutorial level ("I actually had several play testers decide they wanted to quit playing the game and go home, rather than go through the opening level"), and the relative disappointment of The Library level ("A lot of the little things like that added up to make the Library a lot less than what we wanted it to be.")