I hate (i.e. love) to out my friends, but I have to share this message I just got over the Playstation Network from someone who shall remain anonymous because he’s normally a bigshot RPG writer who specializes in PC games.
dude — if you still have LBP 1 would you mind hoping on for a sec and “hearting” me as a player? I literally need just one more heart for the platinum trophy. Yes, I have become “that guy”
I happily complied by loading up Little Big Planet, giving him a heart, and then admiring his platinum trophy.
In not necessarily but possibly related news, congratulations to Stefan “Desslock” Janicki for his first platinum trophy on the Playstation Network. It wasn’t that long ago that Stefan, a longtime champion of hardcore PRGs on the PC, derided console systems as the platform of “magic mushroom games”. Now he’s the proud owner of the platinum trophy for 100% completion of Little Big Planet.
Sony’s trophy system is wonderful for how it recognizes the relative difficulty of different achievements by awarding trophies of different colors. I’ve got plenty of bronze and silver trophies, and even a few golds. But as a guy who has no platinum trophies and a predilection for the Xbox 360 controller, I have a lot of respect for those of you who’ve reached for the platinum.
As someone who has been exceedingly vocal about his difficulties watching movies that show children in peril, I can totally get where this guy, Geoff, is coming from as he tries to watch the Dead Island game trailer. I’m a sensitive and protective father too. I can get past this if the filmmakers know what they’re doing, but I’m always going to be more uncomfortable watching something with a kid in danger than I was before I became a father.
I love this guy’s reaction–aside from the Polish slurs. Dude, lay off the Poles!–but it wasn’t my own. Is that because I’m father to a son? I doubt it. I think it has more to do with the fact that this is completely haunting and earned my appreciation, as hard as it is for me to watch. It is one of the most beautifully edited pieces of work I’ve seen in a long time. It’s heartbreaking. The image of the girl on her dad’s back will not soon leave me.
Still, I respect your reaction, brother. I’ve been there. Hope I can talk to you someday and let you know that while your Dad-ness forced you to miss beating Dead Rising 2, the Case West DLC is totally SFD.
“Never played as her before,” the anonymous person playing Sivir types.
“Me neither,” is my chat response. Meaning my champion, Ezreal.
“Me too,” types the dude playing Blitzcrank.
Solidarity. We have waited just north of ten minutes for this match to begin, and we are bonding before heading into the fray. Not with small talk either. We are revealing our little insecurities before heading into battle. I think this is a good sign.
Every now and again I’ll come across a level whose sole purpose is to share an element of design with the LBP2 community. Sometimes the creator does this to get some love (hearts, thumbs up) from the players. Sometimes this is done for the sole purpose of sharing something new, at least as far as I can tell. Today’s level, LBP2 Bounce Pads, seems to be the latter. Before you get through the starting gate a warning pops up announcing, “Please note this level is just a demonstration of bounce pads.” What follows is a pretty nifty demonstration. You bounce all around collecting bubbles and racing against a clock. In the screenshot above my sackbot is bouncing at hyper-speed between floor and ceiling pads. At the end of the level, you get another text bubble.
I allow this level to be copied so you can “object capture” the bounce pads. PLEASE DO NOT REPUBLISH MY CREATION!!! Thanks.
I can’t say I really understand what all that is about, as far as getting the difference between “object capture” and publishing the designer’s creation, because I have absolutely no understanding of how any of these creation tools work. But I like this sharing aspect, and I wonder if it is, indeed, just for the joy of sharing, or if there are pins or trophies involved. Doesn’t really matter. This was a cute little diversion either way. I’m just curious.
I’m also increasingly pleased with the fact that the creators of LPB2 decided to label the area where you experience these levels “Community”.
I’m not up on my Star Wars lore, since I lost interest forever as of about half way into the text crawl that opens Phantom Menace. But apparently an evil grey duck named Darth Sidious (pictured) figures prominently. Lucasarts announced today that he’ll be an unlockable character in Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. You can jump into an insufferable Flash game featuring Mr. Sidious by going here, hitting enter, typing “darkside”, and then hitting enter again. Quack quack!
Arcen Games’ Chris Park (i.e. the dude who made AI War and published Tidalis) has posted an extensive update on his next game, A Valley Without Wind. It’s mainly a bunch of technical stuff, but it’ll give you a sense for how the game is coming. To get really excited about A Valley Without Wind, here’s the product page.
Park has a penchant for long explanations, which are great for those of us already sold on his games. I love his patch notes for AI War, for instance. But he needs a more concise sales pitches for the uninitiated than that entire page. For instance, the answer to “What is A Valley Without Wind?” should be “a procedurally generated infinite open-world post-apocalyptic fantasy survival RPG with permadeath from the guy who made AI War”. Or, to put it in less wonky terms, Din’s Curse meets Minecraft.
The current schedule is to make an open alpha available to the public next month, with a final release later in the year.
Felicia Day reveals in this Jimmy Fallon appearance that she’s been training with daggers for months, all in the service of promoting Dragon Age II, which comes out on March 8. Miss Day has written and starred in a webisodic elf saga, shot in the woods around LA, which won’t be out until this summer.
Telltale’s upcoming Jurassic Park game features the best product placement a shaving cream company could ever hope for.
The game storyline picks up on the stormy night as Jurassic Park began to fall apart — when Dennis Nedry stole a Barbasol can full of invaluable dinosaur embryos. He died trying to deliver it. He never knew it contained a tracking device. That same night, a desperate smuggler infiltrates Isla Nublar, hunting the canister and its precious cargo. She collides — literally — with park staff trying to evacuate. They are trapped together as the park collapses, left behind with the newly-freed dinosaurs. When InGen launches a perilous rescue operation, mercenaries, saboteurs, and survivors are thrown together in the struggle to escape the island. They confront T. Rex, Velociraptors and other dinosaurs in spectacular showdowns. As human agendas clash, secrets of the park are exposed, and a new threat emerges: an eerie, nocturnal predator stalking the group, hunting them relentlessly across the island.
