Video Games

Taking a moment to go a little off-topic here….well, not too off topic, as it does involve video games and SimAnimals/Spore Hero composer Winifield Phillips.  I wanted to share with you the following article from Kotaku on the music from the PS3 game LittleBigPlanet2.  One of their favorite pieces is Phillips’ Victoria’s Lab.  Here’s what they had to say on her work:

Well, let’s just start with my favorite track from the whole game. “Victoria’s Lab” pops up early in the game, and it was from this moment on that I realized that LittleBigPlanet 2 was going to do a whole lot more for me than its predecessor had. The music is great on its own, but in the game it does this very cool thing where depending on where you are in the level, it layers and builds until it climaxes during the final few parts. The tunes all appear to have been broken down into a series of layer-able sections, and the layers are automatically added as players progress through each level.

For example, this track starts with the simple beat, and not much else—if you hop around the beginning of the level, you’ll hear that same simple beat until you decide to move onward. Then, the music grows in complexity along with the level, and right when the beat drops, you’re making your way through these crazy robot enemies and dodging deadly flooring and the entire thing is rocking like a Wile E. Coyote contraption.

(It helps that the tune is bitchin’ in its own right.)

This video, meanwhile, is hilarious and amazing—it looks to have been created entirely with in-game assets. Whoever did this had a lot of fun; I could watch it all day.

ARTICLE HERE

I love Winifield’s work, and after reading its YouTube description, I am not alone – many others do too – in fact, it has been nominated for so many awards!  Check it out when you get a second, it’s well worth it :D  I am left to wonder what her future works will be…I would love to see her do something related to The Sims franchise (EA HAS to get her on board for The Sims 4) or with SimCity if that ever happens.

I don’t get EA and their decisions, sometimes.  They say that they want to go all digital, and fade away the physical media of games, but the next day, they’re all like ‘physical media isn’t going anywhere’.  I for one prefer to keep hard copies of the games that I own.

In this recent article from Eurogamer, Jens Uwe, EA Europe’s boss, gave three reasons why physical media won’t be going anywhere:  the data size of the games are often increasing, many folks like owning physical copies, and the ability to gift games:

“The amount of data our developers put into a game grows so fast,” he told Eurogamer. “Software engineers, you give them storage space and they use it. As fast as the pipes grow, those guys are so creative.

“Secondly, there are people who just like to have a physical copy of a game. Thirdly, there is still this impulse purchasing and gift purchasing where people just like to give a physical present to somebody rather than a voucher or an attachment to an email.

“So I think there is still a lot of reasons why physical goods in bricks and mortar stores will have an interesting future.”

All good points.  Who wants to open a present come Christmas morning only to find out it is a sheet of paper that says ‘redeem your game here’?  I love physical copies of games, don’t you?!

Read the story here

Top IP Transforming to Year Round Digital Businesses Across Console, Online, Mobile and Social

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) will showcase the best of interactive entertainment at this year’s gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The company’s top intellectual properties are set to delight visitors, highlighting this year’s blockbuster launches and offerings for console, mobile phones, tablets and the Web.

Jens Uwe Intat, Senior Vice President of EA European Publishing, said, “The old model of making games every few years to coincide with new hardware launches is gone. We have a very powerful set of games for today’s consoles, and now we offer that IP to players as year-round entertainment across all of their devices and platforms. We’re looking forward to our fans’ response when they get hands-on with our line-up at the show — we think they’ll like what they see”.

Highlights at the show include:

• 350 gaming stations at the EA booth allowing more consumers than ever before to get hands-on play with each game.
• FIFA 12: Huge space that puts players on the pitch to experience the gameplay action.
• Battlefield 3™: A dedicated 64-person multiplayer area with the most authentic modern shooter experience of the year.
• STAR WARS®: The Old Republic™: 36 hands-on stations with Origin Worlds and 16 hands-on stations for PvP.
• Need for Speed™ The Run: Get behind the wheel in a race for your life from the Golden Gate to the Empire State.
• The Sims™ 3 Pets: Hands-on play on all platforms
• Mass Effect™ 3: A high octane alien invasion adventure explodes in an all-out galactic war. The time has come to join the war effort and experience the industry’s most critically acclaimed RPG first-hand.
• The Sims™ Social: The Sims on Facebook® — coming soon!
• The Secret World: Funcom producers will be showing an exciting live demo in one of many dungeons, highlighting combat, progression and boss fights.

EA Press Briefing at gamescom, August 16:

Palladium, Tuesday, August 16^th, 4pm (doors open at 3:30pm)

Schanzenstraße 36, Gebäude 197, 51063 Cologne. For media and invited guests only.

EA Press Briefing Webcast:

A webcast and replay of EA’s Press Briefing at gamescom will be available for all viewers at http://live-event.ea.com/gamescom/.

EA Booth: Hall 6 / B070, August 17-21

Battlefield 3, FIFA 12, FIFA Manager 12, Mass Effect 3, Need for Speed The Run, The Secret World, STAR WARS: The Old Republic, The Sims 3 Pets, and The Sims Social

Behind Closed Doors Game Presentations, August 17-21

EA Business Lounge, Hall 5.1 / A010. For media by appointment only.

Battlefield 3, Burnout™ Crash!, Dragon Age™ Legends, FIFA 12, FIFA Manager, Kingdoms of Amadur: The Reckoning™, Mass Effect 3, Need for Speed The Run, Need for Speed World, SSX™, STAR WARS: The Old Republic, The Secret World, The Sims 3 Pets, New games from EAi include The Sims Social; Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition from Playfish™, EA SPORTS™ FIFA Superstars and Pet Society™ Vacation; EA Mobile™ offers FIFA 12, Battlefield 3: Aftershock, Spy Mouse™ and Theme Park™; and Chillingo offers Pixel Ranger, Rogue Sky, Swing the Bat, Gum Drop, Contre Jour, and Roll in the Hole.