The Humble Bundle is Back Again, and Now For Android
Great, it's another Humble Bundle. These are going to be the death of me. This time, it's indie games for your Android phone, or tablet, or Kindle Fire if you don't think it counts as a tablet (it totally counts as a tablet). These are games that ahve been on the Humble Bundle site before, but the Android versions are new, or at least new for the Humble Bundle.
You know the deal. Spend as much money as you want and distribute it to the developers and Child's Play and EFF charities (and the Humble Bundle folks, because they have costs, too) as you see fit. If you spend more than the average, you get a bonus game. This time, the games are Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and EDGE, and if you spend more than the average of currently $5.73, you get World of Goo, too. You don't just get the Android versions of the games, though. You also get the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, including Steam keys. They're not available on iOS through the bundle, because Apple is terrible at making software actually accessible outside of its own store. There's a good chance the Humble Bundle will add more games to the group before the deal runs out, so keep checking the Humble Bundle site over the next two weeks.
3DStravaganza: Photos From The Union Square Best Buy Midnight Launch Event
Well, the Nintendo 3DS is now on sale. In fact, I can tell you exactly where I was the moment the first Nintendo 3DS went on sale in the country. I was in the Union Square Best Buy, a few minutes after a goddamn confetti cannon hit me in the face. It was like getting hit with a sock with a softball in it. But anyway, the event. It was an all-day shindig that ran from noon to past midnight. Best Buy and Nintendo set up a big screen to look like a 3DS in Union Square, and gave people a chance to try out the system. At 9, the big party began, as the people who were waiting in line for hours (and in some cases, days) for the sale got free swag, free food, and appearances from Reggie Fils-Aime, who wandered the crowd like the Pope of Nintendo. At midnight, Reggie and the president of Best Buy had the crowd throw 3D glasses into the air, ceremonially "graduating" from 3D with glasses to the 3DS. Then, the very first 3DS was sold to Triforce, who stood in line since last Monday to get the handheld. Check out our full gallery of the event below.
Is the iPad a Gaming Device?
Apple just announced the iPad 2, and it looks pretty sweet. It's thinner, lighter, and faster than the original iPad, and its better GPU means developers can make even more impressive games for it. Considering the iPad is already a formidable gaming platform, with many developers putting serious muscle behind iPad games, this raises a very good question: Is the iPad a gaming device?
No. No, it isn't. But we can still discuss it. Friend site 2D-X has broken out into a heated argument over whether the iPad is or is not a gaming device. You should definitely join the fray, and add your own insights as to whether the iPad is a gaming device below. But here's why it isn't, and why if you disagree, you're wrong.
Seriously, Get The Humble Indie Bundle
You have three days left to get the best deal of the holiday season: some of the best indie PC games available for however much you want to pay, with ample opportunity to give to charity while doing so. The Humble Indie Bundle #2 is on sale, letting you pay any amount of money for 5 great indie games. If you pay more than the average donation (currently $7.47), you'll get the Humble Indie Bundle #1 to boot! That's 10 total games for less than $10, if that's how much you want to give.
There's good reason for paying $20, or $30, or even $50 for the bundle, though. The Humble Indie Bundle was put together to raise money for charities like Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and you can choose exactly how much of your cash goes to the charities and how much goes to the developers. If you've ever wanted to put money toward some good causes while directly supporting independent game developers, this is your best bet.
Highlights of the bundle include old-school adventure with gorgeous art Machinarium, critically acclaimed (and admittedly pretentious and confusing) puzzle-platformer Braid, critically acclaimed physics-based puzzle game World of Goo, aquatic Metroidvania-style platformer Aquaria, and pants-wettingly scary Amnesia precursor Penumbra Overture. Every game is DRM-free, Mac- and Linux-compatible, and integratible into Steam. What are you waiting for?
(Also, consider donating to Child's Play through the widget on the right side of the screen. Just two donors so far will get the wonder that will be our Street Fighter Rifftrax! Come on, good readers!)
Hands On: Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus (iPhone)
If you love FPS games on your iPhone, you may want to try Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus. As a game that promises multiplayer capabilities, a large variety of weapons and loads of shooting and killing, Modern Combat 2 really does seem to push the boundaries for what has so far evolved on the smartphone gaming platforms. I was able to get some hands-on time with the game recently at Gameloft's studios here in NYC, and though it didn't seem like the final version the game certainly didn't seem to disappoint at all.
Interplay returns with publishing program for small developers
Interplay, best known for publishing 80's and 90's-era hits like The Bard's Tale, Earthworm Jim, Descent, and Fallout, plans to return to the gaming industry long after it was left for dead. According to The Escapist Interplay's hopeful ticket back into business is the Interplay Discovery program, purportedly designed to assist smaller developers with publishing. Two titles are already scheduled for release this year: Tommy Tronic is a 2D, PC-based platformer by Ukranian developer Oasis Games, and Pinball Yeah is a pinball game for iPhones and from Portugese code house Coderunners. Yeah, it's called Pinball Yeah. It doesn't really seem like a particularly auspicious return from the company that published Fallout.
Interplay had a rough downward spiral after several titles underperformed commercially, eventually leading to a buyout by Titus Interactive - developer of the legendary failure Superman 64. Titus itself closed shop in 2004 and Interplay was left with debt and legal investigations for worker non-payment. They managed to scrape by on the sale of the Fallout license to Bethesda in 2007, which would later release the critically-acclaimed, top-selling Fallout 3. Before the recent announcement of the Interplay Discovery program, the only signs of life from Interplay were vague teases of Fallout Online development. Maybe this marks the start of a comeback trail.
Every Game System Ever
This is a video about video game systems. It switches about every 3 seconds. It's 23 minutes long. You do the math. The NES shows up at 13:32.
The Insane Console History Video 2.0 from Elder-Geek on Vimeo.
Bonk! Team Fortress 2 hits the Mac tomorrow
At last, the Orange Box shall be complete on the Mac. Steam came out on the Mac a few weeks ago, and Half-Life 2 (and its two expansions) and Portal quickly followed suit. Team Fortress 2 has been taking its sweet time getting out of the gate, though.
Finally, tomorrow, TF2 will hit the Mac side of Steam. It will cost $20 for a stand-alone download, but if you've already bought the Orange Box for your PC or your Mac, you'll be able to download it for free as part of the bundle.
Now, if only Valve would hurry up and finish the Engineer update. And they better have some new deployables! Maybe a spy radar of some sort?
Mac, PC, I’m the system with the games
It's been a big month for Mac users. First the iPad sold 1 million units, just weeks after its April release. Then Valve released Steam for the Mac with a sizable number of games already ported and ready through Steamplay. Now Apple is killing the smarmy "I'm a Mac" ads.
It's funny. The "I'm a Mac" ads have focused around the Mac being able to do what PCs can, better than PCs. Now, with Steam available on the Mac, Apple's fancy white box is starting to get a respectable game library. Yes, many PC games have been ported to the Mac over the years, but Steam is the first real push to put games on the Mac across the board. Valve's fully behind it, and since Steam is one of the biggest online game stores on the Internet, many other publishers/developers have a strong incentive to make their games available on both PC and Mac.
Steam finally hits the Mac with dozens of games
At last, Valve has rolled out Steam for the Mac. Valve initially only said that Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and the Orange Box games would get Mac ports at first, and so far only Portal has hit the Mac side of the games service. Even without the Valve-powered goodness, Steam's Mac library has hit the ground running with a surprising number of Mac ports available from the start. Besides Portal, Mac users can download Tales of Monkey Island, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, Braid, Torchlight, Civilization IV, and several dozen other games.
All Mac-compatible games on Steam are available through SteamPlay, a system that lets users play their games on either PCs or Macs. If you buy a Mac game on Steam and download it to your iMac, you can download the same game to your PC without having to pay again. Likewise, if you get a game on your PC and it has a Mac port, you can download it to your Mac without shelling out extra money. Way to show some foresight, Valve.
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