A few weeks ago, I made my way to Ubisoft's Montreal studio to interview a pair of team members working on the latest Prince of Persia, and it turned out to be one of those interviews where we kept talking longer than we probably should have.
Below is an excerpt from that interview as follows:
1UP: Were you guys disappointed when those first couple of screenshots leaked out and everyone assumed it was going to be a two-player game?
BM: [Laughs] Disappointed? No, it was to be expected, really. I think if you see two characters on the screen, some people are going to assume one of their friends can control one of those two characters. So it didn't really disappoint me to see people saying, "Oh, oh, I think this is going to be a co-op game."
But we really haven't had much negative backlash about the fact that it's single-player. I've been reading the forums, I get e-mails, I get Facebook messages and that sort of stuff, and no one ever... More »
Rumor has it that Windows 7 will drop in the middle of next year, but last month Microsoft released a "preview" tester build of Windows 7. After living in the Windows 7 Preview for a week now, several features and niceties jumped out at me which promise to make Windows a better place to work come 2009.
Here are just a few of the things to look forward to in Windows 7.
10. Ding-dong, the Sidebar is dead.
One of the first things I hunted down and killed in Windows Vista was the Sidebar, which loaded by default and docked Vista's Gadgets to the right side of your desktop. In Windows 7, the sidebar is no more, and gadgets, should you want them, can roam free across the desktop. This time around, the gadgets feel less distracting to me—the CPU meter and calendar gadgets are my favourites, though this screenshot shows many more.
9. Calculator, WordPad, and Paint got overhauled.
It sucks that Windows 7 is stripping the built-... More »
PCWorld reports today that security researchers have developed a way to partially crack the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption standard used to protect data on many wireless networks.
However, the attack does not however work with the WPA2 standard states Dragos Ruiu, the PacSec conference's organizer who will be discussing it next week in Tokyo.
To quote: "Everybody has been saying, 'Go to WPA because WEP is broken,'" Ruiu said. "This is a break in WPA."
If WPA is significantly compromised, it would be a big blow for enterprise customers who have been increasingly adopting it, said Sri Sundaralingam, vice president of product management with wireless network security vendor AirTight Networks.
Although customers can adopt Wi-Fi technology such as WPA2 or virtual private network software that will protect them from this attack, there are still may devices that connect to the network using WPA,... More »
The latest research from Frank N. Magid Associates takes a look at how receptive gamers are to in-game ads. It seems that price drops or free games makes advertising very worthwhile for most.
Advertising in console games (as well as PC and other games) has become increasingly common in the industry today. Even presidential candidates are advertising in games these days.
We wondered, though, how consumers would feel if this trend grew and significantly more advertising was placed in console games but the price of the game was also cut in half or, was even free.
As it turns out, most gamers were quite receptive to this idea. Very few were negative about having major price reductions or even free games in return for considerable amounts of advertising in the games.
In fact, less than 20 percent of gamers said they were less likely to purchase a game, at half the price, but with more advertising. The plurality, 31 percent, said i... More »
Sony has already picked "loyal" European community members to join the PlayStation Home BETA, and will send them invites when version 1.0 of the virtual world goes live.
"Your next question is, 'How do you decide who gets picked?' and we had a couple of plans on how that was going to be done and my boss is away so I cant ask him which one he chose (yes, we've picked the names already and no, I'm not going to reveal the list)," said TedTheDog, Home community manager, on the European PlayStation forum.
"I'll let you know what I can, once I find out, but both were broadly based on the concept of loyalty. That's very vague I know, I'll firm up what I can, but don't expect too much detail, it was really complicated last time."
When Home version 1.0 will launch nobody knows, unfortunately, but with American PlayStation 3 owners ... More »
While my experience with the XBox 360 version of Bethesda's Fallout 3 was rather pleasant, PlayStation 3 owners don't seem to be getting on nearly as well.
Complaints of choppy frame rates and graphical glitches are peppered throughout Bethesda's forums for the game, with others complaining about random lock ups and various other issues - textures not loading, significant slowdown etc.
Two major bugs have already been addressed by Bethesda in the forums, one concerning the game freezing during the GOAT test earlier in the game, and another dealing with the game pausing whenever a PS3 notification occurs. The first issue can apparently be solved by saving and restarting, while they suggest turning off notifications in the XMB for the second.
We've contacted Bethesda regarding these issues, specifically inquiring as to the possibility of a patch to fix problem with the PS3 versio... More »
THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) and JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAKK) today announced the WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 playable demo is now available for free download via PSN exclusively for the PS3.
In addition, consumers may obtain a demo copy and take advantage of exclusive gift-with-purchase promotions by pre-ordering the game at select retailers.
Press Release: WWE® SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 Playable Demo Now Available for Download via PlayStation®Network
Leading Fighting Videogame Franchise Offers Consumers Game Sample and Exclusive Retail Incentives Prior to November Launch
AGOURA HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 is currently scheduled for a North American release on November 9 for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PLAYSTATION 3, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, Wii™ home videogame system and Nintendo DS™. The mobile ve... More »
SCEA's Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller announced that they have seen significant interest in the Ratchet & Clank Size Matters PSP Entertainment Pack in North America, which includes the updated PSP-3000.
As a result, they will be streamlining their PSP hardware lineup and will no longer be offering the previously announced 4GB Memory PSP Entertainment Pack.
Many customers had received e-mails from online retailers to inform them that their orders for the 4GB Memory PSP Entertainment Pack had been cancelled.
This fueled rumors that there could be a recall of the PSP-3000 because of scanline issues with its screen. Consumers who are interested in a larger capacity memory option can purchase a 4GB PSP Memory Stick P... More »
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