Couch Lounger

The road to video game development is fascinating; we will never tire of hearing stories of hurdles faced by developers and the incredible solutions developers came up with to create the titles that shaped our youth. Nintendo in particular has an incredibly rich early history. Mario’s development is incredible, as is the supporting titles that made the company into a powerhouse in the early 1980′s.

IGN had a great article about some early decisions made about the first Mario Games…. some fascinating stuff from Mario’s early history.  Check it out!

Earth is under attack in Mass Effect 3.   Check it out.  I am very excited for this one.

This year’s annual iteration of the old Canadian came of puck came out recently.  NHL has been a very succesful series the last few years.  It seems since it was revamped in 2007 (for the Xbox 360) it has improved a great deal each year.  NHL 11 is no exception to this recent trend.

For those of you like me who are eagerly anticipating the release of Fallout: New Vegas, tomorrow is the big day!  For those of you are unfamilair with the franchise, Fallout is a grim depiction of the a post-apocalyptic future – as it was envisioned in the 1950s.  Fallout 3 stands as one of my favourite games made yet, and for those who have not tried and are curious, this piece of software is highly recommended.  And yes, this image is just Death Valley, not a nuclear blast, but hey – it looks convincing, doesn’t it?

It had been brought to my attention recently that a remake of Goldeneye – the N64 classic – is in the works.  It will feature Daniel Craig though.  This project is something I intend to follow.

I had a chance to try Perfect Dark’s port on the Xbox Live Arcade the other day (sells for about 800 points), and it is everything you remembered from the N64 version – awkward controls and all!  My buddy and I played a few hours of multiplayer, and I felt at home again. The port has Xbox Live compatibility, but I can’t speak too much about the modes since I spent my time in the offline part.  Back in the day, I spent many hundreds of hours hunting the arenas in one shot kill mode of Perfect Dark as my alien-headed President character, and it’s great to play the game again.

I feel like it is long past time I said a few words about the Xbox 360′s Mass Effect 2.  Mass Effect 2 is Bioware’d space RPG that continues the story of Command Shepherd in his battle against a great threat to humanity.  I am leaving plot references vague, in order to to avoid spoilers, but be warned regardless.   Long story short: It was a good game with a lot of great things to say about it, but I was still disappointed.

I recently had time to play Pandemic Studio’s final game (they were shut down) on the Xbox 360.  I will admit that I knew very little going into this game and did not have high expectations.  I never was one for Thief or other games that encouraged you to not be seen – I have this nasty habit of sticking out like a sore thumb when I should remain unseen.  The name ‘Saboteur’ implied that this was a game that might not be for me.  I am pleased to report that I was very mistaken.

It was announced today that 2K will be releasing Civilization 5.  A major change already announced is that the new game will jump to a hexagonal grid from the traditional square grid.  Other gameplay changes will supposedly allow more complex diplomacy and more massive wars with the ability to bombard enemy forces from behind your lines.  According to the IGN piece, the engine is being built anew from the ground up.