And so is this podcast!
Hey folks! Welcome to another technical issue-laded episode of Nerds Without Pants. Apoligies, but once again the internet has conspired against us, and this episode is not up to our normal standard of quality. Hopefully you stick around though, because there is some good stuff in this episode!
Sitting in for Nick and Chessa in this week's PixlTalk is the one and only Jon "JD" Lewis.
It has been quite an uneventful week, but we're still playing video games. JD, Jason, and Joaquim talk about their experiences with what they're currently playing. We then introduce a new segment which rumors say is called "Rumor Mongering," and then head on to discuss the iOS release of "The World Ends with You", and end the podcast with a quick chat on the supposed Wii U release date leak by PDP.
Warcraft developer issues a notice of opposition to Valve's mod based game.
The acronym DOTA may not mean a whole lot to some people, but it apparently means a lot to Blizzard. Short for Defense of the Ancients, DOTA began its life as a popular mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the expansion The Frozen Throne. Valve, a company that is decidedly not Blizzard, took notice of the mod’s popularity and began development of a sequel, aptly titled DOTA 2.
Notch to Schafer: Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen.
Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine studios, wants to make Psychonauts 2. “I would love to do Psychonauts 2, I’ve actually pitched that to publishers several times and no-one has taken the bait so far,” said Schafer in an interview with Digital Spy.
The studio that birthed Spyro and Ratchet & Clank is done with Resistance.
Resistance 3 was a great game and a fitting end to a trilogy that Insomniac started with the launch of the PlayStation 3. While it was a critical darling, the shooter wasn’t as successful at the register, selling roughly half the copies of its predecessor. Low sales aren’t keeping Sony from having developer Nihilistic Software bring the series to the PlayStation Vita in the form of Resistance: Burning Skies, but as far as Insomniac is concerned they’re done with the franchise.
Does this mean that the next Nintendo console will see more support?
What Nintendo showed at the 2011 E3 Wii U reveal was only a taste of what their new console would be capable of. The sizzle reel displayed footage of games running on competing platforms and the conceptual demos were not running on final hardware. Truth be told, the Wii U’s coming out party may have resulted in more questions than answers. Nintendo promised strong third party support, but it’s largely been unknown when developers would get a chance to really work with the hardware.
Future game developers, take note!
Apps! Apps! Apps! Best Buy and Hooked Media have launched an app development contest for the Android marketplace! The “Get Discovered!” contest is open to all game developers and, using Hooked Media's design platform, will be able to monitor the metrics and analytics of their game, should it make it to the marketplace. The contest is a great opportunity for developers of all sizes, as all apps will garner some form of promotion on the marketplace, with those receiving higher scores going further in the competition.
The Last of Us team has been hard at work for over two years.
Usually when a studio decides to reveal a new game you only get a short snippet, not the full length trailer that Naughty Dog revealed at this year’s Spike TV Video Game Awards for their upcoming PlayStation 3 exclusive title, The Last of Us. This reveal was especially surprising since Naughty Dog has traditionally been a ‘one game at a time’ studio with a singular creative team.
The creator of Sim City and Spore is now developing Hivemind.
Will Wright is one of the great pioneers in gaming, so when he says he’s working on something new people have a tendency to listen. Called Hivemind, Wright’s new game is promising to be as inventive and far-reaching as you would expect from the venerable developer. The game is said to take into account events and aspects of the player’s life and personality – creating a new genre of game that has been dubbed “personal gaming.”
