Okay, I’m back from my meeting with the CEO of Machinima.com and lunch with a friend. On the way back home I picked up Majestic: The Final Cut
Are You Ready for Final Fantasy Friday the 13th?!?
Square Enix has some big plans for Final Fantasy XIII
What are you expecting from Final Fantasy Friday the 13th? North American release date info? Exclusive NA features revealed? An amazing act of kindness in which the company sends me one of those awesome white and pink limited edition FFXIII PS3s?!? Leave a comment and let me know (please)!
Oddworld’s Lorne Lanning on Reaching a New Audience on PSN
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus hitting Sony’s PlayStation Network. These are two fantastic games from one of the most creative and imaginative developers in the business: Oddworld Inhabitants. I recently asked company co-founder Lorne Lanning what it was like reaching a whole new generation of gamers through PSN. He told me:
It’s a joy to see the fan mail from new players that have just discovered these games. A bit time machine’ish I should say. The feedback is fresh, it’s new to them, so there’s something that feels very much like it did when the games first came out. A lot of people got passionate about Abe. Now we’re seeing it again, and it’s the same vibe and reaction of newness, but a different generation. A bit Déjà to the last millenium.
When I see them write, “I remember my father used to play, but I was too young” it’s a serious testament to just how quickly time flies and how quickly the times change. We’re thrilled that the Abe games are finding a new audience, especially considering that we didn’t even foresee the future of digital distribution back when we originally built these games. I mean, most people still didn’t know what www.com meant back in ’94 when we started building Abe. Strange how different a world it already is today.
Strange? How about odd?!? Bwahahahahaha!!! Seriously though, this is just a snippet from my conversation with Lorne. He went over a wide variety of topics with me and his answers were most interesting (some of them even juicy!). Stay tuned for my full interview with Oddworld Inhabitants’ Lorne Lanning!
For now, I wanted to see if any of you have downloaded these Abe re-releases or if you’re planning to. Anyone digging the Oddworld universe more than a decade after it was revealed? Are you excited by the possibilities of more Oddworld games in the future?
Coffee Talk #24: Hilarious Happenings When Gaming Until 4AM
Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Verizon possibly getting a CDMA iPhone, how Filipinos around the world are preparing for Saturday’s Manny Pacquiao fight, or the odd things happening at Oddworld (hint, hint), Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Today’s Coffee Talk is probably going to be a little weird. I’m going to chalk it up to spending most of my nights playing Dragon Age: Origins
Let’s start with Teryn Loghain. Whenever I hear his name, I think of how many Asian people reverse their L’s and R’s. Lots of Asian peeps — including a lot of my friends and family — would call him Teryn Rogaine. If that were really his name, Ferelden would be safe from male pattern baldness.
Then there are the dwarven cities that are call “ortans”, as in Ortan Thaig. As a WWE fan, I can’t help but think of Randy Orton whenever these towns pop up. So yeah, I was totally adventuring in Randy Ortan Thaig.
I actually had a third one to mention, but then I realized that none of these things are that funny. They might be hilarious at 4AM when you can barely keep your eyes open or hold your controller, but Dragon Age already has all the humor you need. After all, it has a bisexual elf assassin in it — pretty hard to top that.
Can you remember any instances when a game railed you with unintentional comedy? How about a time when you found something in a game hilarious, but realized it wasn’t the next day?
Today’s Poll: You Demanded Chris Jericho, You Got It!!!
[poll id=”7″]
Verizon Getting a CDMA iPhone by Summer 2010?
Rumors of the iPhone heading to Verizon have been swirling for months, but most of them pointed to the carrier getting an LTE version of Apple’s hardware. According to Northeast Securities, that’s not the case. GigaOm has reported:
According to Northeast Securities, the device may finally arrive next year. Citing its supply-chain checks, the financial services firm said in a research note issued today that Apple will launch a WCDMA/CDMA2000-enabled version of the device — not an LTE version — through Verizon by the summer of 2010.
Whether it’s CDMA or LTE, getting the iPhone would be huge for Verizon. I’d jump at the chance to get an LTE iPhone, but a CDMA iPhone is a serious contender. Of course I’m still waiting for T-Mobile to release an Android phone with a beefy processor, an OLED screen, UMA functionality, and a great keyboard…but something tells me that I’ll be waiting for a long, long time.
Any Verizon customers out there excited by this news? Would any of you switch to Verizon to get an iPhone on its excellent network?
Project Natal Pricing and Release Date Leaked
Gathering information from Microsoft’s visits with European publishers and developers, MCV has discovered possible pricing and release date info on Project Natal. The site reported:
Our sources say the innovative controller-free 360 camera will be released worldwide in November 2010.
The device should cost under £50 when sold solo. One publishing source says Microsoft is “trying to get as close as possible to ‘impulse buy’”. Another even says the camera could even retail for just £30.
For those of you that aren’t up on current currency conversions, that’s around $75 and $45, respectively.
Any thoughts on the rumored pricing for Project Natal?
BioWare’s Mike Laidlaw Talks Combat in Dragon Age: Origins
BioWare lead designer Mike Laidlaw discusses combat design in Dragon Age: Origins
While I’m absolutely loving the game, I don’t really get the BG2 feel — more of a progression of Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect really — but perhaps you disagree. Maybe it’ll be more like BG2 when I play it on PC. Anyway, check out this cool video that talks about the combat in this outstanding game.
On a side note, let me know if you find it funny every time Laidlaw says about in his Canadian accent. “A-boot” always cracks me up.
Win Some RPad.tv Swag!
To celebrate RPad.tv’s first month of existence, I’m kicking off a little contest. All you have to do is keep writing comments and you’ll have a chance to win an RPad.tv refrigerator magnet. Yeah, it’s not the best prize in the world, but I have a bunch of them to give away and I wanted to say thanks to everyone that’s helped the site get this far. Besides, if you’re on a diet then seeing my face on your refrigerator should help you out.
Here’s how the contest works:
Facebook Coming to PlayStation 3?
It looks like Facebook integration will be part of a future PS3 firmware update. ScrawFX has uncovered some screens and reported:
The leaked images show the ability to manage your Facebook in your PlayStation Network account settings, changing the color of your PlayStation Network gamercard and a new, more sufficient way of looking through your photos.
As we discussed in Coffee Talk #21, social-networking features are becoming a big part of the console experience. It was only a matter of time until Sony bolstered the social-networking functionality of the PS3.
Any of you guys and gals excited for this feature?