Posted on: August 14th, 2009 Bleep, Bleep. Bloop, Bloop. Video Games. 08-09/15-09
For the week of August 9-15: Cliff Blizinsky is looking for a pen pal and Tubby Dog does Street Fighter 4 (update).
First off, a small correction from last week about the Xbox dashboard update. It is not a fall update. It is a last Wednesday update. My bad. New features include games on demand for a select number of 360 games (the ability to download 360 titles to the hard drive), a user ratings system, Netflix added functionality for US residents, and much faster navigation around the dashboard menus.
A couple of weeks ago I posted about Tubby Dog’s Street Fighter 4 night. I’ve gone a handful of times now and have to say it’s a lot of fun and growing every week. Last Wednesday they added a 3rd set up and every station has arcade sticks and the whole nine yards. Usually there’s a small tournament bracket you can get in on, or just have some casual games. Tubby Dog is licensed so expect beers, food and great music and of course a couple dozen guys playing Street Fighter 4.
Let me know if any of you decide to go.
I was flipping through this months Game Players magazine (from 1994) and to my surprise, right there in the letters section there’s a Pen Pal request from our old friend Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director for Epic Games. Makers of Gears of War, Unreal Tournament and Jazz Jackrabbit. 1994, eh…… according to my calculations (and Wikipedia) that puts him at 19 years old when he wrote in. Pretty cool to see what that kid went on to do.
Just a reminder, Shadow Complex comes out on Xbox Live Arcade next Wednesday. This is related because Epic Games bought Chair, the games developer. Just a heads up.
If your looking for a good read this weekend, Wii.com has been putting up extremely interesting interviews among the staff at Nintendo of Japan. I particularly liked this one with Saturo Iwada (President), Shigeru Miyamoto (General Manager and the guy that made all the games you love from childhood) and some of the developers of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! from back in the day.
The interview is extremely candid and they talk about all the little Easter eggs they put in the game and why they made some of decisions they did. One of them even reveals that they didn’t have permission to use Mario as the ref in the game but did so any way. That’s why he looked a little wonky.
Check it out at Wii.com – Iwata Asks – Punch Out!!
Until next week.
Dale can also be found over at www.8bitcyclops.com, looking at design, photography and old video game magazines or follow him on twitter @fatwreck.