I just saw an interesting article on MacWorld. It seems that Bungie Studios founder Alexander Seropian left Bungie soon after it was bought by Microsuck, and created a new game company in Chicago called Wideload Games Inc. (Bungie was also based in Chicago). The article talks about how Aspyr is going to publish Wideload’s new game in 2005.

It seems that Wideload has the same old Bungie sense of humor, too–take a look at Wideload’s web site. And check out this tidbit from their about page:

Wideload is a game company based in Chicago. Yes, we’re one of THOSE companies who live in flyover country and don’t get the chance to have lots of kissy-face lunches and time-sink meetings with the heavy hitters of the game industry. We have to content ourselves with the ability to sleep at night and look ourselves in the mirror each morning. Such is life.

Wideload employs veterans of the game industry, including several people who used to work at Bungie Software, developers of Halo and some other great games you are probably not cool enough to remember.

It’s probably a bit early to speculate, but they say they’re going to have info about their new game soon. It’s certainly something we can keep an eye on in the meantime.

Slap.

Today instead of sitting at my apartment in the blazing heat, I’m standing in the noisy air-conditioned server room at work getting ready for a project launch tomorrow. While I wait for the endless Windows updates and hotfixes to install, what better way to pass the time than by reading my latest issue of GMR magazine? The good news is that it’s making the work pass quickly. The bad news is that it’s encouraging me to make a stop at EB Games on the way home.

The newest gotta have it game I’ve seen in here is Fable. Its development has been supervised by Peter Molyneux of Black & White fame and features music by Danny Elfman. It’s an RPG for XBOX and it’s promising a different adventure every time based on decisions you make at different stages of the game. I know lots of games have advertised this before and implemented it weakly, but these guys say they’re doing it for real. Regardless, when it comes out on September 14th, I’m likely to be plunking down my $50.

Around 7pm last night I headed out for some food. Usually on Friday’s I hit Marty’s Liquors for sandwiches but I had don’t that the night previous and Pizza Palooza the night before that. My night was pretty much shot. I ran into a friend on Harvard and she mentioned there was a new burrito/taco/teriyaki place just up the street. I was curious. And then it happened. Who was sitting right in the front but Jeff and Erin. One thing lead to another, we went to Marty’s for beer and then to Jeff’s.

Erin slaved away at the stove while Jeff and I got it on in the bedroom like I used to in college. After conquering Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A select start, we conquered the vile Red Falcon in Contra. We were told to consider ourselves heroes and so we did.

This snowballed into playing Joint Operations. I think my favorite was Jeff trying to lob a grenade into the hovering Blackhawk Helicopter. SSX3 came out which wasn’t all that fun cause we were drunk, then Halo online which was a huge improvement. For a night cap we hit the first episode of the Office Season 2.

It was great night, and I’d like to thank Jeff and Erin for making what I thought was going to be a random crap Allston night into a night to be remembered for the ages.

PS. I’m having a party tonight, all are invited. Tim, you’re expected not invited. Keg, yes.

Keeping Russia safe from Kazaa…

If you aren’t playing this game right now, why not? Are you a Commie or something? This game has everything: punching, shooting, rappeling, motorcycles, cars, helicoptors… Plus a scantily clothed Heidi Klum and Shannon Elizabeth!

The missions are doled out in small but very hard pieces . You’ll find yourself doing some ridiculous things such as rappeling backwards down an exploding building while killing enemies who are rappeling after you, and driving a motorcycle under a train and grabbing on right before a bridge where your bike tumbles down to the river below. That level so far was the best. You have to catch up to a speeding train and they even let you choose between using the motorcycle or the Porsche! There are a ton of different ways get where you need to go and lots of secret places to explore.

On top of that, there are separate split screen Co-op missions. Jeff and I went through most of the first chapter and got schooled time and again, but we kept coming back for more. The key in this game is finding good cover and flanking your enemies. There are a lot of them at times and you need to find a good place to take them on in small doses or avoid them altogether.

I’m barely into this game and so far it’s extremely well made and addictive.

Kill Zone: Right Ass Cheek

Tonight I dusted off this game that hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as it deserves. The last time I wrote about it, we were just playing the multiplayer mode of the game. Now I’m playing the single player missions so I’ll give a little more detail here. Ravenshield is a continuation of the famous Tom Clancy: Hunt for Russian Citizens series and falls into the genre of tactical first person shooter. It’s got all the tactical planning and action of the earlier Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games but it uses the Unreal Tournament 2003 engine rather than the homegrown one they have used for earlier games. The difference in graphic quality is significant as you can tell from the screenshots.

(Read on …)

Ok so the comments were broken but now they’re fixed. Blame the internet.

Ta-daaa! The site is now running on WordPress and what a relief it is. I think you guys will find the new system easier to use for creating/modifying your posts. I’ve emailed all editors with instructions for logging in to the new system. Drop me a line with any comments or suggestions you may have. And now back to our regularly scheduled gaming.