I don’t understand how EA can shut down a studio mere weeks before they ship a game. The Saboteur looks interesting, but its release is irreparably tainted by this news.

Hooray for that.

Stardock estimates that Impulse has 10% marketshare against Steam’s 70%, while Direct 2 Drive, GamersGate, and other services split the remaining 20%. 10% for Impulse feels generous, but assuming it’s accurate, I wonder how their marketshare will be fairing now that the Steam-exclusive Modern Warfare 2 has shipped. With MW2, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, and Day of Defeat, Valve controls most of the PC’s multiplayer FPS market. Consider supporting the competition, people.

Speak of the devil…

…and his pal Judas.

Such as first-party dedicated servers?

I’ve spent over 50 hours playing Dragon Age, and frankly, I can’t wait to throw more money at more content.

This sounded really cool until I read that one of the cases from the DS version will be excluded. What gives?

I feel silly for discussing box art, but people have been pretty down on this new Mass Effect 2 cover. Although they still have a planet/moon in the background that seems inappropriately close, I prefer this new cover to the old one. It reminds me of the covers of cheesy Sci-Fi paperbacks — in a good way.

I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoyed Kane & Lynch. They’re on the right track with the movie by casting Bruce Willis as Kane, and I’m digging the style they’re establishing for Kane & Lynch 2 with these teasers.

Following its release in February of 2007, Peggle Deluxe for the PC was not a game that a self-respecting hardcore gamer wanted to be caught playing. The game is colorful, it’s made by PopCap (the guys who make those jewel games that your sister plays), and it has cute anthropomorphic animals that you don’t even get to kill. Although Peggle rose in popularity throughout the year, it wouldn’t pique the interest of the hardcore crowd until just before the release of Valve’s Orange Box in October of 2007. At this time, someone with the business acumen of, at the very least, Warren Buffett’s tie, decided that taking a special version of Peggle — a game where you shoot a ball at pegs and then watch stars and rainbows happen — should have Valve game characters tacked on to it and be released on Steam for free under the name Peggle Extreme. This move paid off for PopCap in spades: sales of Peggle Deluxe skyrocketed, and PopCap went on to port it to the iPod classic, iPhone, World of Warcraft, and Xbox Live Arcade. In 2008, a full sequel titled Peggle Nights was released for the PC; this sequel would later be bundled with Peggle Deluxe and ported to the Nintendo DS. The version I prefer to play, and will recommend here, is Peggle Nights for the PC.

Peggle’s key to success and mass appeal (once PopCap had everyone’s attention) lies in its simplicity and the constant stream of feedback and rewards given to players. Each level is a board with blue and orange pegs on it. Shooting a ball at any peg results in points, flashing lights, and positively reinforcing sounds, but the victory condition in Adventure mode is to clear, at the very least, all of the orange pegs. Green gems exist on the board as well; these are power-ups whose effect depends on which of the eleven characters is being played. The real action begins once Adventure mode is completed and Challenge mode unlocks. Any character can be chosen in this mode as the victory conditions vary from stage to stage. No matter the game mode, Ode To Joy plays over top a fireworks display upon every victory.

It was difficult for me to reconcile writing about Peggle; it’s such a successful and popular game that covering it felt redundant. I make an effort to cover uncelebrated games foremost, but I decided that Peggle is too important to PC gaming (and video game culture in general) to ignore it. Although each games’ levels are unique to them and Peggle Deluxe is still worth playing, I recommend Nights over it because it has smoother graphics, an extra character, and PopCap releases free seasonal level packs for it. Nights and Deluxe are available on Steam separately for $9.99 each, or as a bundle for $14.99. Peggle Extreme is, as always, free on Steam.

Just as The Phoenix Wright Files was chocked with fan-service and silliness involving fan-favorite characters from the Ace Attorney games, so is The Miles Edgeworth Files. If you aren’t prepared for absurdity such as Edgeworth going to extreme lengths to keep Pearl Fey from being exposed to the sad ending of a TV movie, or seeing Edgeworth fight a bear while armed only with Pink Princess Chocolate bars, look elsewhere. Or just skip those stories, because there’s plenty more where they came from. Over twenty, in fact! Many of which have obviously been written with the swooning fan-girl in mind, but any fan of Ace Attorney should still be able to appreciate even the most frilly stories. Not every entry in The Mile Edgeworth Files is a stranger to seriousness, though; the very first tale in the manga concerns Edgeworth considering ending his career in prosecution. The legendary “frienemy” relationship between Miles and Phoenix is also spotlighted throughout the book.

That is to say, if you’re a fan of Ace Attorney — and especially if you’re looking forward to the upcoming Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth game — you should definitely pick up Official Casebook Vol. 2: The Miles Edgeworth Files.

Another Todd Hollenshead interview. This time he’s talking about businessy stuff; the size, success and direction of the company and their projects. He sounds happy with how their mobile games are performing. Why do I care? Well, while I don’t have a phone to game on, I am still holding onto hope for an Orcs and Elves sequel that would eventually make its way to DS!

The next game from Klei Entertainment, developer of Eets for PC and XBLA. Though early in development, Shank is only being shown for the Xbox 360 here. The video has me hooked, my fingers are crossed for a PC version.

In the words of Sam himself: “Bring it on!”

If you ever wanted to know how to completely kill the sales potential of the PC version of your game in an entire region by encouraging piracy… well, this is how. Thanks for the lesson, Sony.

It’s still pretty cool to see that people are paying attention to Broken Sword again. I get sad when I hear people older than me say the Wii and DS Director’s Cuts of The Shadow of the Templars is the first time they’ve heard of the series. Just cast Tim Robbins as George Stobbart and Audrey Tautou (shh! no, that similarly themed movie that she was just in… yeah, that didn’t really happen) as Nico Collard and I’m on board.

Overgrowth’s dev tools are pretty impressive and all (seriously, go watch some of their other videos on GameTrailers), but this video in particular is great because it brings the funny. This video’s worth a look whether you’re interested in the tools or not. Bonus, if you are!

That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!

Unbeknownst to me until very recently, a manga based on the Ace Attorney series of video games have been coming out in Japan since 2007. Fortunately for us fans, Capcom has a hit on their hands and in September of 2008 they, along with Del Rey Manga, brought it to the western world under the name Official Casebook Vol. 1: The Phoenix Wright Files.

Seemingly taking place some time after Trials and Tribulations (the third Ace Attorney game), The Phoenix Wright Files consists of twenty short stories, with each one featuring a new creator or creative team and a unique glance at the happenings that take place before, after, and during a case. Since an entire trial is never depicted ad nauseum, expect most of it to be a behind the scenes look at some of Phoenix and Maya’s more non-pertinent-to-non-superfans everyday activities that you miss out on in the games. Since there’s a different artist for every story, expect to see some interesting interpretations of your favorite characters’ appearance (chibi Edgeworth and Von Karma are a sight to behold). The creators also appear to be fans of the video game series as the back of the book contains personal messages from them accompanied by a drawing of their favorite character. I found this to be a nice touch. Also at the back of the book is an untranslated four page preview of Volume 2 of the Ace Attorney Manga: The Miles Edgeworth Files.

I enjoyed reading these stories immensely. The Ace Attorney series is by far my favorite Nintendo DS franchise and this manga collection did a lot to enrich my love and appreciation for the game’s characters. I’ll recommend that any fan of the games gives it a read, but I’d advise you to wait until you’ve finished the first three games as minor spoilers are sprinkled throughout; the writers definitely assume that you’ve played through them by way of references and guest appearances. The cover price is $14.95 in the US but it can be had for $11.95 at ScifiGenre.

In my original article I mentioned that THQ is bringing it to Wii and DS sometime in 2008. The Wii version dropped a week or two ago and seems to have been met with critical success. It’s currently the 17th highest ranked Wii game on Metacritic with an average score of 82. Worthplaying gave it a 90 and said “It is a rare game that can appeal equally well to both the casual and hardcore crowds, yet de Blob does just that.”. EuroGamer had a grim comment that I hope won’t turn out to be true, “Probably the best and worst thing about de Blob is that it’s got ‘Destined For Cult Status’ written all over it.” GamePlayer felt De Blob worthy of a perfect 10 saying that it is “The first third-party Wii game that would have Mr Miyamoto bowing in awed respect.” Nice.

Reviews aside, the purpose of this post is simply to remind you about De Blob and its roots as a student project on the PC. While the breadth of its gameplay has evolved significantly during its transition to the Wii, its whimsical spirit and aesthetics appear to have stayed intact. Check it out on PC and consider giving it a look if you happen to own a Wii. The DS version looks like it’s going to bake a bit longer before it’s ready for consumption; it’s the version that I’ll be giving a try.