Author Archive | Jared Newman

Bastion and the Slow Rise of Downloadable Console Games

Posted by Jared Newman on July 26, 2011 at 5:48 pm

Despite a growing stack of unplayed or unfinished video game discs in my living room, I spent a good chunk of last weekend playing Bastion, a downloadable Xbox Live Arcade game.

It’s a beautiful game, with a grizzled narrator who turns your every move into the stuff of campfire legends, an addictive combat system that strings you along with new weapons and powers, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world that literally reassembles itself chunk-by-chunk as your character trudges forward. I easily spent eight hours playing Bastion from start to finish, all for the Microsoft Points equivalent of $15.

I’ve played some excellent Xbox Live Arcade games over the years — Braid, Limbo and Shadow Complex, to name a few — but Bastion feels more like a full retail title than any of them. And it does so for a fraction of the price of a new game on disc.

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Mozilla’s “Boot to Gecko”: The Anti-Chrome OS

Posted by Jared Newman on July 26, 2011 at 4:13 pm

Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, has announced plans to get into the mobile operating system game with a project called “Boot to Gecko.”

The goal is to create a web-based operating system that includes all the core functions of a smartphone, including phone calls, text messages and photos. For now, Mozilla plans to build the OS from a low-level chunk of Android, but apps that run on the phone would ultimately be available in any web browser.

In typical Mozilla fashion, the company is laying out its intentions even as the project is in its rudimentary stages.

“We will do this work in the open, we will release the source in real-time, we will take all successful additions to an appropriate standards group, and we will track changes that come out of that process,” Mozilla wrote on its Boot to Gecko wiki. “We aren’t trying to have these native-grade apps just run on Firefox, we’re trying to have them run on the web.”

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That’s a Start: AT&T’s 2011 Android Phones Will Get Gingerbread

Posted by Jared Newman on July 25, 2011 at 5:01 pm

AT&T is now trying to do right by Android by upgrading all 2011 phones to Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread.

The upgrades start today with Motorola’s Atrix 4G, followed by HTC’s Inspire 4G in a few weeks. Also on the update list are LG’s Phoenix, Pantech’s Crossover and Samsung’s Infuse 4G. The Samsung Captivate, which launched last year, will get the update as well.

Gingerbread is the latest version of Google’s Android OS for smartphones, and includes improvements to the software’s keyboard, text selection and power management. A minor update for Gingerbread phones with front-facing cameras also added native video chat through Google Talk.

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Google+ Games Might Not Be Obnoxious

Posted by Jared Newman on July 22, 2011 at 9:45 am

As Harry and other tech pundits have noted, one of the nice things about Google+ is how little noise there is compared to Facebook. Now there’s a hint that it’ll stay that way even after Google starts building games into the service.

Slashgear’s Chris Davies discovered a Google+ help page that describes how users can see different sources of content in their streams. “If you’re looking for updates shared from games, check out your Games stream,” the page said. (Google has since removed this reference from the page in question, which isn’t surprising because Google+ doesn’t have any games yet.)

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Guitar Hero Will Make a Comeback

Posted by Jared Newman on July 21, 2011 at 3:16 pm

Back in February, Activision announced that it was stepping away from the Guitar Hero franchise. The publisher dissolved its Guitar Hero business unit and cancelled development on a game that was supposed to launch this year.

Now, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says that a comeback is in the making.

The publisher has formed a new studio to reinvent the Guitar Hero franchise, Kotick told Forbes. There’s no word on when the next Guitar Hero will launch, but it seems like the project is in its very early stages, with the new studio exploring “a variety of different prototypes,” Kotick said.

The general consensus on Guitar Hero games — and games where you wield fake plastic musical instruments in general — is that they saturated the market to the point that people stopped caring. Kotick’s take is slightly different, but it touches on a similar theme: Activision failed to innovate with the Guitar Hero franchise. And although the spin-off series DJ Hero was innovative and critically praised, Activision overestimated how many people really wanted to act out a video game DJ fantasy.

Activision tends to be a polarizing company, and Kotick a polarizing figure. But from the Forbes interview it’s clear that he has a strong grasp on what people want, and why Activision eventually failed to deliver with Guitar Hero. The publisher gets a lot of well-deserved flack for milking its franchises dry, but I have a feeling that whenever Guitar Hero returns, it’ll be something to watch.

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Yep, Roku 2 is a Game Console, Too

Posted by Jared Newman on July 20, 2011 at 8:50 am

Roku’s new streaming set-top boxes are smaller and sleeker than ever, but the bigger news is that the Roku 2 is the start of a serious push into home console gaming.

The high-end Roku 2 XS, which will launch later this month for $100, will include a Wii-like motion controller with a directional pad and two buttons (like an old-school Nintendo), plus a free copy of Angry Birds. The lower-tier Roku 2 HD ($60) and Roku 2 XD ($80) will also support the game controller, sold separately as a $30 bundle with Angry Birds and a 2 GB MicroSD card.

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Capcom’s Community Efforts Backfire With Mega Man Legends 3 Cancellation

Posted by Jared Newman on July 19, 2011 at 10:53 am

Capcom enraged some of its biggest fans on Monday when it announced the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 for Nintendo 3DS.

This wasn’t just an ordinary cancellation. After revealing Mega Man Legends 3 last September, Capcom started soliciting feedback from its community on how to proceed with the game. An online forum allowed fans to communicate with developers as they worked on a prototype, which would eventually become a downloadable prologue to the main game.

Capcom now says that it won’t be releasing the prototype, and will stop updating the game’s development forum.

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Dolphin Browser Beefs Up for Mobile Battle

Posted by Jared Newman on July 18, 2011 at 7:07 pm

Here’s a pretty good indication that competition among mobile browsers is heating up: MoboTap, the company that makes Dolphin Browser HD for Android phones and tablets, just got a $10 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. MoboTap will use the money to hire more people, make partnerships (to get pre-loaded on Android devices, most likely) and expand to new platforms including the iPhone, TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid reports.

Those seem like worthy pursuits to me. First-party smartphone browsers tend to be stagnant, touting speed gains and little else with each new operating system version. It’s taken Apple two OS updates to add tabbed browsing to the iPad, and neither Apple nor Google have figured out faster ways to switch browser windows on smartphones. Extensions? Gesture commands? Custom home screens? Forget about it.

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Ubisoft Joins the Used Game Punishment Party

Posted by Jared Newman on July 15, 2011 at 1:53 pm

The act of charging $10 to play a used video game online is slowly spreading through the video game industry, with Ubisoft becoming the latest publisher to sign on.

Starting with Driver: San Francisco, Ubisoft will require a voucher, cutely called a “Uplay Passport,” to play its most popular new console games online. One voucher is included with each new copy of the game. Buyers of used games will have to pay $10 for a new voucher.

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Chromebooks: Not Flops!

Posted by Jared Newman on July 15, 2011 at 12:55 pm

It’s been exactly one month since the first Chromebooks–netbooks powered by Google’s Chrome OS–became available for purchase, and so far, sales seem to be holding up.

Over at CNet, Brooke Crothers checked Amazon’s list of best-selling laptops, and found the number four spot occupied by Acer’s 11.6-inch, $349 Chromebook. (It’s in fifth place as I type). Only Apple’s MacBook Pro and a pair of Toshiba laptops ranked higher. Samsung’s Series 5, a 12.1-inch Chromebook with built-in 3G service for $499, is ranked 10th.

Amazon’s sales charts don’t necessarily signify that Chromebooks are a hit. There are lots of other places to buy laptops, and PC makers tend to sell many different models, reducing the chances that any particular one will dominate. But the chart does at least prove that Chromebooks aren’t a failure. People are actually buying them.

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