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October 17th, 2011 by: Ryan
In the movie world, sequels are often met with lukewarm, “meh” reactions, as so many have failed to live up to the potential established by their predecessors. But when it comes to gaming, that sentiment is flipped on its head, with sequels often delivering as much excitement as first installments, adding a load of additional bells and whistles to boot.
One of the year’s most anticipated new video game releases, ‘Batman: Arkham City’ will most likely continue the trend of video game sequels that pack more than a punch.
Photo courtesy of GamesRadar.com
In ‘City,’ a host of new villains join the Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill) and the Riddler, including Two Face, the Penguin, and other classic Batman characters. And, besides playing as the “Caped Crusader,” players will have a chance to navigate the game’s landscape as Catwoman, and even trusty sidekick Robin.
Video game development is provided Rocksteady Studios, a British developer based in London. Rocksteady opted to stick with its successful formula, creating ‘City’ as an open world, action-adventure game where players can direct Batsy all around town with stealthy tactics – of course, all while collecting and using famous Batman gadgets on the way to saving Catwoman and securing Gotham’s safety.
Photo courtesy of G4TV.com
The game will release Tuesday, October 18th for play on the Xbox 360 and PS3, as well as on Microsoft Windows and cloud gaming platform Onlive.
All in all, the game promises to be bigger and better – hard to believe considering the success of 2009’s ‘Arkham Asylum,’ but a refreshing statement for those looking for elevated, high-flying gameplay.
October 17th, 2011 | Tags: how to make a game, new video games, ps3 games, video Game creation, video game development, Video Game Summer Camp, video games, Xbox games
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
October 11th, 2011 by: Pete-V
There was a time when I didn’t have the absurd game catalog that I sport today. I’m not bragging – I would quickly give up my library for more time to spend with some quality titles. The problem with getting older is that games become more affordable and free time becomes less available. I hate to admit that I’ve never finished “Mass Effect” because every time I sit down to play, I get sidetracked with something seemingly more important, like work, family or sleep. The majority of my gaming is portable, predominantly iPhone and iPad, simply because of convenience. I do steal some late night sessions with my Xbox or PS3, but I have to limit those experiences to quick interactions such as “Super Meat Boy,” “Zen Pinball” or the occasional “Battlefield 1943.”My childhood was littered, though, with constant gaming for lack of other things that interested me or my friends. Sure, we’d go out and play, but time moved slower and there was always a couple of hours available to pop a game in the Atari, Coleco, NES or Genesis (or PC!), regardless of how awful the gameplay turned out to be. My menu of options was quite limited back then, which meant that sometimes I would become quite obsessed with games that were simply awful. Here are ten of my favorite horrible games – please include yours in the comments!
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns(Atari)
Yes, I realize that Pitfall II was a groundbreaking game for the Atari and platform games in general. This also happened to be the very first game that I beat, at the tender age of 5, in fact! The game, though, required ridiculous patience. Identifying the single ledge that had a special jump that triggered a balloon was enough to make anyone mad with rage. Follow that with the final climb through bats and vultures and bats and vultures (again and again and again), any mistake in timing resulting in falling all the way to the bottom was infuriating. The only true positive from beating Pitfall II as a child is that Super Meat Boy does not really phase me… at all.
Swordquest: Fireworld (Atari)
Swordquest was some sort of contest game – there were clues that inside the game needed to solve a real world puzzle. I never knew that. I just played this game (and the other Swordquest) again and again without any purpose. There was no save, so I just thought that I was running from room to room collecting items that would eventually bring about a grand end-state. Instead, hours of my life were spent running around with the notion that a purpose would present itself – and it never did.
Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle (Coleco)
The music from the Smurfs game still haunts my nightmares. Yes, I did rescue a couple of Smurfs from Gargamel, but most of the time I was cursing out the screen because of the mind numbingly impossible jumps (which was difficult, because at the time I didn’t know any curses)! The game was so frustrating that I eventually decided that if the Smurfs cannot in a world of fences or bushes, they do not deserve to be saved.
Looping (Coleco)
Fly a plane through some hazards and unlock a door – that’s fairly easy, right? Now fly through the inside of some wacky building with pipes and water hazards – still not bad. Now try to make it to the end without getting hit by a giant bouncing ball… Yeah. Looping is an incredibly bizarre joystick and shooting game that defies reality and rides the fine line of too difficult and satisfyingly successful. The music is great, but the premise is so overwhelming weird that it falls under the “what the heck did I just spend 3 hours playing?” category. I can imagine a 2012 sequel could put sense the insanity, but for now, I’m still scratching my head.
The Adventures of Bayou Billy(NES)
I do not even want to write about Bayou Billy. I was terrible at this game! I know that’s an unfair way to judge a game, but the only was I got past the first level or two was with Game Genie – and that went for all of my friends as well. I think I made it to first on-rails shooting level only a couple of times without completely dying. Yet I kept trying, day after day, because I really had no other option.
Remote Control (NES)
In the late 80’s, MTV had a game show that was actually based on music. I loved the show because it didn’t involve music videos, which I was too young to enjoy, and contained PG-13 level humor, which I was too young to understand. Somehow I was given the NES version of the show, which I played over and over again until I memorized all of the questions – otherwise, how would I know ANYTHING about Jon Bon Jovi? The game wasn’t broken, except that a 9 year old could easily win if he or she happened to play for more than 10 – 20 hours a week. I showed them!
Caveman Games (NES)
This game is impossible. There’s no other way to describe the mildly entertaining Olympic-like exploits of these cartoony cavemen. Young gamers may know some Wii games that are merely based on shaking the controller endlessly – this was an early variation that required the player to repeatedly hit the “a” or “b” button at a machine-like pace. We bought a “turbo” (read *cheat*) controller specifically for this game and it made it much more interesting. My hands still hurt from the pre-turbo days.
The Three Stooges (NES)
I actually still love this game – it’s a series of mini-games where the Three Stooges try to accumulate the most amount of money to save the orphanage (?) or something noble like that. Perhaps they were kicked out of their house or grandma was dying – I do not recall and I’m much too busy to Google right now. The games were interesting and scattered throughout was real-life digital voice sound effects, which was novel outside of “Blade of Steel.” I included this because the whole game was fairly mindless and it distracted me from replaying the first 3 minutes of “The Adventures of Bayou Billy.”
Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool (Genesis)
This game looked great. At the time, Chester Cheetah was one of the sharpest looking cartoon-like games out there. The game even had a cool platform twist, which was that Chester would be invincible whenever he was dancing. Unfortunately, the designers saw fit to use that skill against Chester as often as possible. One level includes some fast-action boat platforming on the high seas – every move must be perfect or splash! Toward the end, almost unavoidable, is a nice dancing power-up that changes the music and sends Chester right into the water. Oh – did I mention this game is based on a character from a bag of cheese-covered junk food? Yeah. Gross.
Aero the Acro-Bat (Genesis)
I know it is unfair to (again) judge a game simply on how difficult each level is, but this is my blog entry and I’ll do what I want. Aero was so horribly hard that I could not fathom how someone could find any enjoyment from loading up the cartridge. I’m pretty sure I never got past the flaming ring in the first level. The *first* level. Yeah. I have no idea what the rest of the game looks like or if the “Sabre Dance” continues over and over again, nor will I ever find out. I prefer to live with the understanding that the game was an impossible hoax without any subsequent story or challenges…
October 11th, 2011 | Tags: addictive video games, game culture, game design, gamers, games, Inspiration, nostalgia, video Game creation, video game design, video games, worst games
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers, iD Tech Camps, Summer Camps
July 19th, 2011 by: Ryan
Brown University hosts a summer camp for the cyber age
By Gina Macris
PROVIDENCE — In another era, 11-year-old Joseph Laflamme of Smithfield might not have developed his storytelling skills, since English is not his favorite subject at school.
But as a video-game developer, Joseph has created Freezor, a villain covered in icy blue fur who steals the tacos in “Julio Taquito’s Epic Adventures in Quality Mexican Food.”
To get the tacos back, the game player must board a spaceship and chase Freezor across another dimension, dodging the circular blades the monster throws like Frisbees.
Click here to read the full article about our Providence summer camps
July 19th, 2011 | Tags: accredited summer camps, camps at Brown, computer camps, computer games, Rhode Island summer camps, video game camps, video games
Posted in: Brown University, iD In The News
December 1st, 2008 by: Pete
I got a chance to catch up on some reading over Thanksgiving. There was one particular headline that jumped out at me, “No playing around: Video game sales jump 18 percent.” The article by Troy Wolverton of the San Jose Mercury News explained that “retail sales for the month of October tallied $1.31 billion, up 18%” from the same period a year ago.
Of course, this got me thinking. If sales are up, it signals more demand for video games, consoles, etc. And if there is more demand, it should generally translate into good news for gaming publishers, developers, etc. And if the publishers and developers are doing well, that means they’ll be able to hire those lucrative graphic arts, software development, marketing, and other positions.
It feels good to know that iD Tech Camps and the iD Gaming Academy teach real-world game development skills including Maya® Unlimited, Unreal® Engine and other industry-standard tools. We’re teaching skills that will be useful in college–and in a possible future career in the gaming industry. At our summer video game camps, students get a real taste for what it means to work in the gaming industry–and its not all glitz and glamour. Working at a gaming studio means long hours, lots of teamwork and collaboration, the ability to multitask and hit deadlines…and the acknowledgement that one must constantly improve his/her own skills. The industry is filled with amazing talent and is very competitive. So, how do you break in to the industry?
Get started early! Practice makes perfect! Tiger Woods is not the best golfer on the planet by chance. He got an early start. He had great mentors. He is fiercely competitive. And he knows that he has to work hard day in and day out to stay competitive.
The good news is that the video game industry is growing. It is a sweet spot in our economy. Long term, the industry is poised to continue its phenomenal growth. The question is, will there be enough talent to continue the innovation in the gaming industry? The answer to this question rests with the new generation of gamers. Good luck!
December 1st, 2008 | Tags: gaming camps, video games
Posted in: CEO's Blog
