Ragnar’s Realms

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Filed under: PC, GDC, Video

Although you might be feeling a Spore overload as of late, we thought it’d be fun to take a moment and look back at Spore from GDC 2005, three years ago, and see how the game looked then.

After the break, footage from the unveiling. We’ve also embedded The Powers of Ten, a 1977 short film documentary that reportedly inspired Will Wright to make the game.

Continue reading Today’s most retrospective video: Spore’s GDC 2005 unveiling

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Today,  

Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth

Reader Minou of Alonsus sends in this sad but true story of an unfortunate Ogre who managed to bury himself chest-deep in the ground. Alas, this Orge is not even as tall as a Gnome and totally unable to escape. Says Minou, “Poor thing was going crazy from the itch in the middle of his back.”

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we’d love to see your idea of the best looking instance on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: PC, Simulations

click to magnify

EA today passed out some new media of Spore’s first stage, the “Cell Phase,” a top-down 2D minigame that looks a lot like flOw (but, you know, maybe, actually … fun). Perhaps not coincidentally, flOw’s original designer Jenova Chen was briefly employed by Maxis, suggesting that Spore’s Cell Phase may be a direct evolution of Chen’s elegant Flash-based creation. Like its predecessor, Cell Phase features a player-driven microorganism, a little fish in the primordial ooze, which can be designated as herbivore, carnivore or omnivore before crashing into the ocean by way of immaculate meteor. The primary objective is to eat — and not be eaten — as you “earn DNA” and collect parts to enhance your creature’s abilities (read: grow legs and get on to the good parts). Everybody’s gotta start somewhere, eh?

Don’t miss the Cell Phase trailer posted after the break!

Continue reading Spore ‘Cell Phase’ flOwts into view

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: News, Xbox Live Arcade

Sega just crushed the hopes of North American Playstation fans who are interested in Sumo Digital’s upcoming Outrun Online Arcade, announcing that the game will not be releasing to the PSN in NA. Instead, Outrun will release exclusively to the Xbox Live Arcade in NA, but Europe will remain unaffected by the exclusivity deal.

That said, we have a hunch that hardcore U.S. Outrun‘ners on the Playstation will find a way to access the goods. That’s what profile region settings are for, right?

Sega confirms Outrun XBLA exclusivity in NA originally appeared on Xbox 360 Fanboy on Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sports

Ah, the best laid plans of game developers and men. Originally selected because of his youth, Vince Young succumbed to the “Madden Curse” this past weekend, suffering a strained right quadriceps muscle in a 13-10 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (we should have placed that bet!).

He’s listed as day-to-day by the Titans, but let this be a lesson to any future cover boys out there: the Curse remains. Just ask Garrison Hearst, Barry Sander, Dorsey Levens, Eddie George, Daunte Culpepper, Marshall Faulk, Michael Vick, Ray Lewis, Donovan McNabb, Shaun Alexander, or of course, Vince Young.

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Filed under: Fan stuff

With the undeniable recognizability of the character, the design of the Master Chief has become an iconic part of popular culture. And just like any other part of pop culture it sees reinterpretation, exploitation, and well, perversion. In celebration (or possibly disgust) of this fact GamesRadar collected a whole host of various iterations of the Chief, across all sorts of different mediums. It’s an interesting collection of images and info, and reads as a sort of vertical slice of the property, showing all the ways that it has been seen, viewed, used and skewed. With versions across everything from papercraft to Lego to stained-glass, the Master Chief is definitely a fan favorite. But has the character and likeness been sold-out to the point that it has become cheapened in the eyes of the masses, or is this motley collection of fan-made products and art just a sign that the property is finding it’s “expanded universe” feet?

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Mods

Once upon a time there was a girl who had limited use of one of her hands. Not to worry, she is still able to game after mastering the use of a Super Nintendo controller. However, she also enjoys the PSP but is understandably reluctant to learn how to play it with one hand. What’s a gal to do?

Fortunately, a clever bloke was commissioned to create a mod for her so she can use the SNES controller to play games on her PSP. Here’s how it happened: he added a small socket originally intended for a cell phone, put together a custom cable and plug for the socket, then wired it to be used with the vintage controller. The mod even acts as a stand and keeps the PSP at an angle. A video of this in action, after the break:

[Via Engadget]

Continue reading PSP mod allows the use of a SNES controller

PSP mod allows the use of a SNES controller originally appeared on PSP Fanboy on Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today,  

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Odds and ends, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King

You will be unable to learn a new one. In a bug first noticed by new DK’s wanting to craft an epic to bring to Northrend with them and later confirmed by other characters, if you go to Winterspring to pick up a weaponsmithing specialization the three NPC’s do not give it to you. As a swordsmith myself, I’m not willing to unlearn my profession to test it out, it does seem very strongly corroborated at this point.

While this isn’t a major issue to those of us at 80 as there are currently no top end weapons that require one of the three specializations, it not only prevents these leveling characters from making the epic weapons it could prevent a character who currently is an armorsmith from being able to trade specializations. It’s certainly not the end of the world for most of us, just don’t try and retrain until it’s fixed, but it’s got to be a bummer for the people who intended to have a fun new toy in Northrend and will instead be staring at a pile of mats they won’t have any use for.

Don’t unlearn your blacksmithing weapon specialzation originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today,  

Filed under: R-Type

For some reason, PSP games take a while to reach the European market. The upcoming release of Crisis Core, for example, is comically late compared to the Japanese and American releases. (At least Square Enix is making up for the tardiness through a number of great bonuses in the territory.)

R-Type Tactics, Irem’s strategy game for PSP, is finally announced for release in Europe. It will be available on September 26th, and will be distributed by Rising Star Games. The game is unlikely to be enhanced for its release there, but who knows? Maybe Rising Star will figure out a pre-order bonus as cool as Atlus‘.

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Culture

By a margin that the faint of heart might find slightly overwhelming, Hsu & Chan’s Norm Scott took home the gold in last Saturday’s quarter-monthly webcomic revue with his one-shot send-up of God of War’s grumpy-faced protagonist, appropriately titled God of Warrrrgh! This marks Scott’s first triumph since his inclusion in the contest over a month ago. Mr. Scott, you may now approach the podium to deliver your ecstatic, Cuba Gooding Jr.-esque acceptance speech.

Second and third place went to Digital Unrest’s depressing look at the lesser loved Mario Bro (Belong) and Dipswitch’s all-too familiar tale of Left 4 Dead treachery (Internal Motivations), respectively. Did your favorite not get picked or, worse yet, was it not even included in the line-up? Make sure to voice your staunch dissatisfaction in the comments section — it’s the only way us blockheads will ever learn our lesson.

Readers pick best webcomic: God of Warrrrgh originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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