I’ve been a fan of Macross stuff since I was a kid and one of the more ‘must find’ memorabilia would be the video games that Japan churns out once in a blue moon. Since the creation of Macross, various games went with it starting with the classic side scrolling Macross Game, then came the ‘upgraded’ version of the side scrolling classic Macross Do You Remember Love (sporting bigger and better art, nifty gimmicks such as 2D/3D level design and multi-missile attacks that actually swarm, not spread out). During the PlayStation era, aside from the DYRL, then came the 3D games like Macross VFX and Macross VFX 2, which gave players the feel of being in a dog fight, spinning around and dodging side-to-side like heck. The tradition lives up to day on the PSP, Macross Ace Frontier (which I loooooveee playing even at work, even with my busy schedule)

But since this is a PC games blog, let’s back track a bit to the year 2000. During this time, there came a Macross PC game, the only simulator style game called Macross VO.  It originally ran on Windows 95, 98 and Me, and with the release of the NT based Windows (2000 and XP) came some compatibility problems and it was re-released as Macross VOXP. I was figuring out how to play this over Vista and 7, and it’s quite simple. Just set the compatibility option to Windows XP SP2, and it should work like a dream.

*Pardon for the heavy technical Jargon in this blog post, as I’d expect not everyone knows Macross. I’ll try posting some background info after the article.*

Unlike the other Macross game releases, the Macross VOXP game didn’t touch on the other series except for the original 1980s show and movie. Meaning we’re stuck with variations of the legendary VF-1 Valkyrie fighter, and Zentreadi/Meltrandi units. However, there’s a big selection of weapons load out depending on our custom character’s level. The higher the level, the more credits to use more advanced Valkyries, like the VF-1S Strike Valkyrie, specialized gun pods and a wide range of missiles.

Another bit that separates this game amongst other games is that we required to reload are armaments, since the developers made it quite similar to an air combat simulator. Aside from just reloading and repairing our damaged craft, we’re also open to upgrade our fighter, and/or improve our weapons.

For its time, the game did boast relatively nice graphics, but required minimum hardware support (a 32MB video card with a measly 30MHz graphics processing would do well). I have it installed on a Windows 7 powered EEE PC 900 (Intel Celeron) and runs relatively fast. The only pixelation that is very noticeable would be the in-game videos, as they were built for lower resolution monitors back then. The player graphics, however, is scalable to the latest sizes.

The game interface is relatively straightforward, we have a map, the target reticule, life gauge, fuel gauge, speed, enemy target, and selected weapons. The only gripe would be the clutter of the targeted enemies as represented by hexagons on screen. There would be an orange hexagon to indicate the targeted enemy but it usually fails to give proper marking. Also another annoyance would be the popup of character text as it would block the speed, armor and fuel gauges partly.

Though for all intent, the way the targets are presented to be similar to the anime where enemies are shown to be targeted one by one by the heroes then missiles are released to take them down all at once. This provides that high feeling of being part of the show.

Model wise, the artists in the game faithfully designed the VF-1s to be exact to their show counterparts. from the parts down to their decals. The only thing that’s quite off in my opinion would be the flight physics of the craft, as it seems a bit loose.

Control wise, it’s indeed built with the PC in mind as it utilizes many of the keyboard keys for flight. I myself use my X360 Controller for playing, but the controls are quite limited. The game has controls for: target prioritization (cap ship, or fighter), another would be ECM (yes they have it here), Chaff (again, they have it here), and Autopilot (!!!)

As far as customizations go, we can’t change the overall appearance of our craft (color and all), but with the assortment of VF-1 types, there’s quite a handful to choose from. However, for the most part, we can change the type of missiles we carry (as long as we have the points to get them), gunpod, laser, or cannon.

Missiles range from the regular missiles, to long range missiles, to micro missiles that have the best maneuvering but with poorer power, to high maneuver missiles (regular missiles that have the maneuvering power of the micro missiles), and nuclear missiles. One nice trick is to mix up the variety of missiles loaded ex. missile/micro-missile/micro-missile/large missile or high maneuver missile/micro-missile/nuke/micro-missile, etc. The provided setup helps in putting in as much missile to a target in the least amount possible time, unlike having the same missiles. (I’ll try getting a video of that up)

For further customization, there’s quite a number of people who’re working on modifying the game to include designs coming from latter part of the series, like the YF-19, YF-21, and even I’ve hear there’s going to be skins from the recent Macross Frontier series VF-25 mecha.

Unfortunately though, getting this game will be quite hard, since it was out of production for over 7 years I believe.

Source for Macross background information:

Macross Compedinum      http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Main_Page
Macross Mecha Manual     http://www.new-un-spacy.com/m3.html
Macross Mecha Designs    http://www.steelfalcon.com/macrossmecha.html
MAHQ                             http://www.mahq.net/

These are all english sites (as the official ones are Japanese only)

Though it’s not out for the PC yet. I’m sharing Capcom’s Manual (usually issued to game reviewers) I found linked over at Joystiq.

http://static.capcom.com/streetfighter/manuals/SFIV_TM_SE_02252009_SML.pdf

*disclaimer* It’s quite big. And if you’re planning to print it, make sure to make it into a nice book. The art blows me away!!

Been quite busy with work and real life lately. Here’s something that I’ve seen a week ago.

To those who don't know yet, Games for Windows has its own forum all of its own and could be found here:

http://forums.gamesforwindows.com

I bought Grand Theft Auto IV a few days before Christmas (and explains why not a lot of posts popping up) and the first gripe people will be saying... "It has a beast of a requirement". True, but as I've been looking around various sites, I've come to notice that the game has a sort of restriction in the way the game is being configured. Given that my PC's Video Card only has 256MB of DDRIII RAM, the game limits my settings to LOW, LOW, and yes, LOW settings, since it believes that my video card couldn't handle the processing well.

RAM's been quite a problem for me this time around, as the game requires a huge amount of RAM to work nicely with. Here's a cap of my system and see the available dedicated memory that I have at the moment. Now, if I can have the game perform better and have great high resolution (big screen size) work.

Though in a sense using shared RAM isn't the best practice, since I'm using a relatively powerful video card, I could use some shared memory for use, to the point of having relatively balanced performance and quality within the game.  -- update -- though simple as it is to plug-in the command line arguments; through a friend, I found out there's another way to tweak the graphics, though basing it on the Dedicated RAM of the video card (so we'll be sacrificing the better textures on Medium), but on the upside, we can play the game on bigger resolutions, w/o having the nasty issue of having missing textures while playing.

Here's the link: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=384473&st=0

The explanation can be lengthy and may cause nosebleeding to some, but it gets the job done.

More like, Need for Speed Under -whelmed, -developed, -planned. That's what the latest Need for Speed says about. In its latest incarnation, EA promoted the game to have been in development at the same time as ProStreet, leading to a longer development time. And it was promised to be similar to Most Wanted (and I mean Most Wanted Need for Speed game), something I've been hearing about from gamers in the forums and in previews in other sites. Other promises included a game akin to that of playing Transporter (starring Jason Statham).

I've played the game and completed it after a few days of racing around with three cars. The cars that I got are mostly pink slip cars and I only bought a Tier 1 car from

Some quick observations:

a.) The game isn't similar in structure with the previous games where we're obligated to complete each and every task, like taking on races, evading cops, and taking out cops. Since we're playing as an undercover cop, the main focus/mission is to stake out the leads of a car smuggling ring, so the story's driven through "Jobs" which are opened by joining races and other objectives. New jobs are frequently revealed through video cutscenes prompting us to either race/have an encounter with the law to build up credibility.

b.) There's none of the old event/objective marker found while driving, what we have now is an event notice appearing on the dashboard. Having this format, makes navigating around the city less important, since we could all just go to the map and select the race/job to do.

c.) The game suffers severe frame rate problems. Even if I bump down my system's resolution to 800x600 (I normally set my lowest to  1024x768), I still get parts of the game that lags buffer doesn't load the next set of frames. This is quite disturbing, as my video card is quite capable of running the game at higher detail, yet struggles in loading the frames of some of the races.

Gameplay: The game plays mostly similar to Need for Speed Most Wanted, all except for the case being that we're a cop rather than just some guy who joined in the racing scene of a city. Our job is to go deep undercover as a racer and get associated with some of Tri-City's street gangs in order to get to the bottom of the illegal car smuggling Tri-City is having. The single player portion is broken up into several types: Races and Jobs.

With Races, we have the regular Sprint, Circuit, and Checkpoint races, but the game introduces the Highway Battle (reminiscent of the arcade game Midnight Wangan) and Outrun. Jobs, are story driven missions where the tasks are similar to those of the movies Gone in 60 Seconds or Transporter, as well as some missions are "takedown" missions where we need to takeout the villains in the game... Chase HQ style, though with the risk of alerting the cops. The online mode features races with other players as varied as the game, and with the addition of a cops and robbers mode. Gameplay reminds much of Most Wanted, except for the fact that there's no Blacklist, fewer bosses, and un-friendly interface, but still provides some degree of intense (and fast) racing.

Graphics: The game's graphics somewhat similar to Most Wanted with the bloom effects in high gear making at times the entire area too bright. Other concerns include game slowdowns, wherein the game suddenly stops in order to load the rest of the world during the race. It's quite a no-no for game design/QA, as these experience could usually mess up a race (and in my case it did happen several times). The graphics' nice but not optimized enough to make things a lot better.

Sound: EA mixes in a varied tracks in the game, however, I must say that the tracts have some kick in them that doesn't annoy or bore me out while playing it. Voice projection by the actors are clearer and radio chatter is certainly audible.

Control: I used the X360 Controller for Windows and it's a satisfying feeling to know that games going to the PC now have support for the X360 Controller which makes racing much easier. Still one may encounter that some cars may be too sensitive on turns, especially those that have very high handling stats.

In all, Need for Speed Undercover plays a lot like Most Wanted, but really lacks the oomph, the innovation and planning to what it should have been. It's playable, but the short game, much simpler AI is something old timers of the series would not look for in this game.

I just visited Datablitz and found out an offer for buyers of Electronic Arts games (PC, all consoles and handhelds) an offer to get a free EA Classic Game of their choice... as long as stocks remain.

http://www.datablitz.com.ph/catalog/images/eaclassicspromo.swf

Better go grab one now while it's hot! (hmm if I buy an EA game... then I could get that NFS Most Wanted under Classics? I wonder)

Command and Conquer Red Alert series continues with Red Alert 3, back are the cheesy and campy cutscenes loaded with heavy Soviet accent, gorgeous field operatives and kooky units.

The premise of RA3 starts with a plan by Lt. Cherdenko (played by Tim Curry) to alter history by eliminating Dr. Albert Einstein in the past. Einstein very much contributed to all major Allied piece of weaponry, from the Mirage Tank, the Prism Tank, Chronosphere, Chrono Legionnaire, Weather Control Center, and more (which pretty makes the Allies incredibly strong in the last game). But by eliminating him, the Soviets were able to surpass the Allies and change history... or so they thought.

Gameplay: The game now features three different factions, far different from the old Yuri faction where there's a tinge of Soviet-ism in the faction. This time around the Empire of the Rising Sun provides a little more refreshing experience in playing. If the Soviets use their armor as their primary means, and the Allies focus on air power and their high end technology, the Empire of the Rising Sun has both, but not significant enough to dominate both areas.

As said, Allies tend to work on hit-fast-and-hard tactics, relying on their air force with combined armor and infantry to take out enemies. It requires a careful approach with planning the necessary units for attacking an enemy. The Soviets, have a more direct strategy of using armor: (don't they always?) tanks and mobile walkers. While the Empire units have the flexibility of having its units transform (from aircraft to ground unit for example).

The variety of units makes the game a lot more balanced since with the variety of units come differences in performance. For example, the Soviet sea/land unit Scorpion is a very weak combat scout/boat but once grouped, their charged up Tesla discharge could instantly destroy anything within their area of effect. The Empire Tsunami tank, while being the weakest tank among the three sides, has the capability of going through water AND has the fastest firing rate (though it is weak), while the Allied Cryocopter has no effective weapons whatsoever (vs the Soviet counterpart) but has a shrink and freeze ray that provides a support to their other units.

Also, structures in the game now allows us to build over water (except for the war factory and barracks for obvious reasons), and some sides have restrictions on where to expand their base and tech upgrades on some sides are now building oriented, meaning that some command structure would only allow certain units to be built.

Graphics: Command and Conquer Red Alert 3's graphics are very reminiscent of the past Red Alert series with bright colors, but, with the advancement of graphics technology, unit details are clearer, there's a wider variety of objects found within the maps, and water effects are significantly improved from the last release.

Nice graphics (as it's the same engine used in Command and Conquer 3 last year), though one will be having problems if the system's not to spec, as it's not your old Red Alert game anymore. Specifications tells me that the game should be at least be an Intel P4 2.2GHz, the same minimum for CnC3.

Sounds: The game remixes some of the old CnC Red Alert themes, and I'm not sure if there were any new tracks added, since do note that their music sounds repetitive at times. But, the isn't lost with the continuation of the tradition of giving kooky voice acting to the game's various units. Example of this would be the Soviet's mission to assassinate the Emperor, pure classic. Also try clicking on the units several times to hear their calls.

Expect hours of enjoyment playing the game and getting to master each side.

Apparently my sickness and hectic work schedule the last couple of months did take its toll on me, as I've just learned that there were several updates made over the past several months (including the rumored ultimate extras add-on to Vista).

From the newly updated Windows Blog: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/09/23/new-windows-ultimate-extras-now-available.aspx 

To recap, some of the new extras are:

"Microsoft ® Tinker (TM): Microsoft Tinker is a casual game that provides players with short puzzle game play sessions set in a warm, calming environment."

Ultimate Extras Sounds from Microsoft Tinker: Based on the positive feedback we received from the release of additional Windows Sound Schemes in April, we've integrated the unique audio sounds from Microsoft Tinker into a new sound scheme.

Windows ® DreamScene (TM) Content Pack #4 Windows DreamScene Content Pack #4 which adds three additional nature-setting Windows DreamScenes. 

Tinker's quite the puzzle game indeed. Pretty nice addition!

Here are some upcoming PC games that'll be keeping us quite occupied for the Holidays:

1.) Fallout 3 - Bethesda Game Studios: It's the 3rd official series to date from the Fallout series of Role Playing Games. This time, as a survivor living in Vault 0, you venture out to the post nuclear world. Armed with the PIPBoy 3000 as a guide, and a vast arsenal of weapons, vehicles and armor, you roam the land for adventure and discovery.

2.) Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 - EA Games: It's the 3rd (as well) game for the Red Alert series of the Command and Conquer francise. This time around, the Soviets decided to undo the history made by time traveling back to the date when Albert Einstein removed Adolf Hitler from history, changing it into the future of Red Alerts 1 and 2. With Red Alert 3, a new history was made, and with it a new adversary.

3.) Lego: Batman - Traveller's Tales: Putting aside The Dark Knight's grim and serious settings with some campy (yes Campy) results. A nice game for kids to play as well as adults. Featuring Batman characters as Lego objects.

4.) Grand Theft Auto IV - Rockstar: Finally, they're releasing one of the year's best games onto the PC. Grand Theft Auto IV puts us right back in a re-imagined Liberty City (very different from GTA III's Liberty City), with new game mechanics thrown in to give us a fresh experience in playing GTA.

5.) Need for Speed Undercover - EA Blackbox: Well, ProStreet was a mixed bag of a racing game, they removed the world system and limited play on closed circuits, added some cool cars, but it ended up as a dud to most NFS fans since the things they loved from Need for Speed Most Wanted, was left for wanting. Good thing there was another development team in EA taking their time with the development of the "continuation" to the last storyline based, but also lacking, Need For Speed (Carbon). In Need for Speed Undercover, we play as a driver (who is it this time I wonder) recruited by the Feds to go deep into a ring of Car Smugglers in the fictional Tri City. By the looks of things, we'd pretty much see something similar to Need for Speed Most Wanted, which I'd think everyone wants. It'll still have lots of racing and cop chases, though now we're on the right side of the law.

6.) Crysis Warhead: Crysis was such a magnificent game, it needed magnificent hardware to run on (and mine's not one of the best). Crytek took the existing code, made it better, and gave it a plot on how things went on the other side of the island as Nomad was out in the original game. It also gave us a different perspective to Psycho whom we've thought as some useless bloke in the first game. The game also fixes the boring action less travel through the island by giving us more enemies to play with.

The "expansion" game for the original Crysis is out in stores already. And some game reviewers have now started publishing their reviews. See the Gamespot article.

Just a brief background: Crysis Warhead, puts us players into the role of the British soldier Psycho, the other surviving teammate of Nomad (from the first game), who was given a separate task of investigating the presence of a nuclear warhead in the island they're in.

So in essence, it kind of explains Psycho's absence for the most part in Crysis. I yet to grab myself a copy of this since I'm saving up for something for next year too.

I remember playing the first installment of this game on my newly bought PlayStation 2 during my early college days. The game's gotten several sequels dealing with Dante's past and future forays. Devil May Cry 4 takes on a slight change of the wind by introducing a new character to the story, Nero.

The game expands by slightly altering the way we play. As Nero, we're granted the power to use his right hand, used for grabbing opponents for slamming to the ground or grabbing as a setup for a stylish combo. Nero's Devil Trigger also is much different to Dante's DT, wherein a devil warrior aura floats behind him, with the Yamato (yep, Vergil's sword) at hand. Kinda reminds me of the anime Shaman King's Yoh Asakura and his guardian ghost Amidamaru. So whenever Nero slashes with his Red Queen blade, the shadow also pulls of an attack. Plus there are two very damaging attacks for Nero's DT form to be earned through proud soul collection.

Aside from just Nero, there's a section in the game where we'll be using Dante to fight. Using a familiar fighting technique from Devil May Cry three involving different styles. The styles are: Swordmaster (specialize in Sword/Close range weapons), Gunslinger (specialize in firearms), Trickster (specialize in rapid movement and evasion), and Royal Guard (specialize in defensive moves). This makes Dante's character more technical, and have a bit of a more challenging task for mastering his play. While Nero has a broad range of moves available for him, Dante's moves are grouped into the varying styles that he has, compound it with various weapons and with some degree of mastery, Dante can pull off very stylish moves, giving massive amounts of style points (exceeding that of Nero's).

The game's plot is straight forward: Corrupt Order wants power --> turns over to demonic power for their source (aka get Dante and Sparda's sword) --> Dante gets a wind of it, and must stop the Order from getting his power for their own --> Nero gets to the bottom of it all and fights the corrupt Order all the while saving his girl from the Order.

Experience playing the game over on the PC is quite similar as to what playing on a console is. Though in my case it was on my old PS2 for DMC1. 60 FPS speed is generally achievable on a mid-range PC running on a Pentium D @ 3.00GHz with 2GB (but was running on 4GB with several other apps on the background... say IE7, Yahoo IM, Live IM, folders... etc) on top of Windows Vista, but the meat would be on the video card. I'm running on an NVIDIA 8600GTS card I got last year for around $150 I think. The game requirement in Vista asks for a 4.0 to play it normally, but requires a 5.6 to have it run quickly, but I only have a 4.9 due to the old processor and RAM.

Though as an after thought, I did try running the game on my dad's laptop. It runs on an AMD Turion 64 x2 processor with 3GB of RAM and has a MOBILE version of NVIDIA 7150... which is sad to say, an entry level card. The minimum would be a 6600 or ATI similar video card. The 7150 wouldn't really cut it since its performance wouldn't still be enough to match the 6600's performance see here. (and to think the 6600 will only support DX9, plus the fact it went available almost 4 years ago is something).

Though one thing you'd ask is, how did Nero become related to Dante. And that's a mystery, maybe Devil May Cry 5 will answer it.

Well it's kind of obvious it'll be this way in the end. Rockstar Announced the availability of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC. Well I for one will feel a little bit more satisfied that PC games are still ok as a platform (now how to resolve the pesky piracy problem).

New York, NY – August 6, 2008 – Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto IV will be arriving on the PC on November 18th and 21st in North America and Europe, respectively.

"We are very excited to be releasing the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "The whole team is dedicated to bringing an amazing gaming experience to the PC. The game looks and plays beautifully on PC and we can't wait for people to play it."

Developed by series creator Rockstar North and set in Liberty City, the latest installment in the enormously successful Grand Theft Auto series features a painstakingly detailed and life-like city for players to explore; a rich, immersive narrative experience; an original soundtrack highlighting the cultural eclecticism of Liberty City; and newly expanded multiplayer just for the PC.

For more information please visit: http://www.rockstargames.com/IV

About Take-Two Interactive Software
Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a global developer, marketer, distributor and publisher of interactive entertainment software games for the PC, PLAYSTATION®3 and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment systems, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, Xbox 360® and Xbox® video game and entertainment systems from Microsoft, Wii™, Nintendo GameCube™, Nintendo DS™ and Game Boy® Advance. The Company publishes and develops products through its wholly owned labels Rockstar Games, 2K Games, 2K Sports and 2K Play; and distributes software, hardware and accessories in North America through its Jack of All Games subsidiary. Take-Two's common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at www.take2games.com.
Important Legal Information
In connection with the tender offer commenced by Electronic Arts Inc., the Company has filed with the Securities Exchange Commission a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9. The Company's stockholders should read carefully the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 (including any amendments or supplements thereto) prior to making any decisions with respect to Electronic Arts' tender offer because it contains important information. Free copies of the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 and the related amendments or supplements thereto that the Company has filed with the SEC are available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. This communication does not constitute an offer to sell or invitation to purchase any securities or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, pursuant to Electronic Arts' tender offer or otherwise.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The statements contained herein which are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Such forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to them. The Company has no obligation to update such forward-looking statements. Actual results may vary significantly from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of factors. These risks and uncertainties include the matters relating to the Special Committee's investigation of the Company's stock option grants and the restatement of our consolidated financial statements. The investigation and conclusions of the Special Committee may result in claims and proceedings relating to such matters, including previously disclosed shareholder and derivative litigation and actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission and/or other governmental agencies and negative tax or other implications for the Company resulting from any accounting adjustments or other factors. Further risks and uncertainties associated with Electronic Arts' tender offer to acquire the Company's outstanding shares are as follows: the risk that key employees may pursue other employment opportunities due to concerns as to their employment security with the Company; the risk that the acquisition proposal will make it more difficult for the Company to execute its strategic plan and pursue other strategic opportunities; the risk that the future trading price of our common stock is likely to be volatile and could be subject to wide price fluctuations; and the risk that stockholder litigation in connection with Electronic Arts' tender offer, or otherwise, may result in significant costs of defense, indemnification and liability. Other important factors are described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2007, in the section entitled "Risk Factors," as updated in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2008, in the section entitled "Risk Factors." All forward-looking statements are qualified by these cautionary statements and are made only as of the date they are made.
# # #

Rockstar announces that the game will be around "November 18 in the US and November 21 in Europe" (what about Asia? Oh there's Play-Asia anyway ). One of the plusses there would be additional content (well that's what we get if we wait LOL).

http://ir.take2games.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=326627

I have tried out making a game using C# 2 years ago using the earlier version of XNA on top of my free Visual Studio 2005 on Windows XP. I was able to compile it and play around the sample game of PONG.

Unfortunately, I had to go to work, and it wasn't game development so XNA got shelved. Forward 2 years. I get my MVP award for Games for Windows, spending most of my time playing games, shooting (photography), moved into Windows Vista (therefore scrapping my old Visual Studio 2005 setup, plus the old XNA installation), and most of the waking hours (aside from blogging), spend my time at work.

With the release of Visual Studio 2008, several other add-ons got their upgrades, and so was XNA (3.0 CTP). I now see through the XBOX Live Arcade the possibility of creating games, not just your graphics intensive, or wonderfully orchestrated music that will be the factor now, since the games coming out of XBOX Live Arcade are little fun games. And now the objective of XNA looks a little more solid now than what it was several years back.

XNA's (2.0 or 3.0 CTP) still free (heck Visual Studio's still free via the Express edition via 2005 or 2008). It has a new website with even more helpful tutorials.

Probably once I get that spark of inspiration, I might just make that fun little game, why not? (now about that developer/photography laptop I'm saving for... )

http://creators.xna.com

Coming from Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5030871/game-critics-best-of-e3-finalists-announced

And every year, the various members of game critics belonging to the wide wide selection of magazines, websites and more gather and choose what they believe are the best in show at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). It's a bit surprising for me to learn that FFXIII isn't one of those games on the list, coz apparently, only games with playable demos are allowed to be nominated (well that's a new lesson for me).

And the winners are:

Best of Show
- Fallout 3
- Gears of War 2
- LittleBigPlanet
- Mirror’s Edge
- Spore

Best Original Game
- Flower
- Left 4 Dead
- Little Big Planet
- Mirror’s Edge
- Spore

Best Console Game
- Fallout 3
- Gears of War 2
- LittleBigPlanet
- Resistance 2
- Resident Evil 5

Best Handheld Game
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
- Chrono Trigger DS
- Puzzle Quest: Galactrix
- Resistance: Retribution
- Rhythm Heaven

Best PC Game
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Left 4 Dead
- Spore
- Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II
- Warhammer Online

Best Hardware
- Lips Microphone
- Rock Band 2 Ion “Drum Rocker” Set
- Wii MotionPlus

Best Action Game
- Far Cry 2
- Gears of War 2
- Left 4 Dead
- Mirror’s Edge
- Resistance 2

Best Action/Adventure Game
- Dead Space
- Prince of Persia
- Resident Evil 5
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
- Tomb Raider: Underworld

Best Role Playing Game
- Chrono Trigger DS
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Fable 2
- Fallout 3
- Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Best Fighting Game
- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
- Soul Calibur IV
- Street Fighter IV
- Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Best Racing Game
- Baja: Edge of Control
- Midnight Club: Los Angeles
- MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
- Pure

Best Sports Game
- Madden NFL 09
- NBA Live 09
- Shaun White Snowboarding
- Skate It
- Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09

Best Strategy Game
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
- Empire: Total War
- Halo Wars
- Tom Clancy’s EndWar
- Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II

Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game
- Guitar Hero World Tour
- Lego Batman: The Videogame
- LittleBigPlanet
- Rock Band 2
- Wii Sports Resort

Best Online Multiplayer Game
- Gears of War 2
- Left 4 Dead
- LittleBigPlanet
- Resistance 2
- Rock Band 2

Meh, pretty nice showing that majority of these games are available on the X360, and some would find ports on the PC. Also pretty nice showing for the Games for Windows titles here!

An announcement made by Microsoft recently revealed that Games for Windows Live (the PC version of the XBox Live free/paid membership service) users will have their accounts updated to Gold Level for free, meaning PC gamers would no longer have to pay the necessary amount for either monthly or annual subscription to XBOX Live to play with other XBOX Live members.

Another announcement made was the upcoming release of the Games for Windows Live Marketplace  which I would believe that will sell games developed through XNA, downloadable content, full games and the like. It's great to see some progress being made on this platform.

However, in order to make it a more viable/popular platform; I believe that adding more games to have the achievements system as well so PC gamers are kind of equally rewarded with gamerscore points by playing through PC games as well.

By the way, Games for Windows Live accounts are the same as XBOX Live accounts and would work cross system wise.

for more info: http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/live/Pages/AboutLive.aspx

and another news article: 8301-17938_105-9996906-1.html-part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

I miss playing combat flight sims on the PC, luckily Ubisoft's releasing one onto the PC under the Tom Clancy brand of military games. Here's a game demo from E3 that came from G4TV. Pretty sweet, now I could probably use my Flight Stick more often again.

Aside from the uhhhmmm new line of games being marketed by Ubisoft for the teens and kids, Their presentation was quite solid. Far Cry 2, Assassin's Creed 2 I mean Prince of Persia, Endwar, are just some of the must see games in 2008 and 2009. Here's a feed from the G4TV site:

*Took a while and a clear cache to get the G4Tv site working right again...

Shared by fellow MVP (and XBOX MVP to boot) Philip aka scytherage is a video feed from G4TV

Woo7!