For the release of Turok, members of the Propaganda development team participated in a Future Shop chat event at the store in downtown Vancouver. We were there to talk to them and get the facts on the highly anticipated game.

First off was the new Microsoft Home Server. This is a new software package that comes pre-installed on home server solutions from hardware manufacturers like HP. The Microsoft Home Server is a plug-and-play solution that connects to your network through a normal ethernet cable and becomes available both to all the computers and other units on your network as well as through the internet. Home Server serves two purposes; it’s a back up unit for all your computers and it’s a place to localize and share content throughout your home and make it available if you are out of your home. So who needs a Home Server? If you ask Microsoft, everyone. The product is created to address the growing need for backup, storage space and file sharing in the home environment. If you ask me I’d say anyone who has a lot of pictures, music and video on their computer and want to be able to access these files from one location rather than having to either have several copies on different computers or or using USB drives or other cumbersome media. It could also work for small businesses who are looking for a cheap and easy backup and storage solution although I think Microsoft would want them to go with a more business oriented product. Finally it will tie well in for all those of you out there who download purchase movies on-line and want to view them on your TV through your XBOX360.

Personally I wish this product had been launched about 8 months ago so I didn’t have to build my own custom backup solution on our systems at home. The rock solid plug and play capabilities and ease of use plus the expandable storage systems like the HP Home Server is a cheap and easy way of solving several problems.

Next on the list was Microsoft’s many gaming solutions. There really wasn’t much new here in terms of revolutionary innovation but we were presented with some fairly palatable updates to existing products. On the XBOX360 front there was the much talked about black XBOX360 Elite with it’s 120GB hard drive and HDMI output, the HD-DVD player that turns your gaming console into a full home entertainment system and the new pink and blue controllers that will be available in the near future. In the games department they presented two new titles: Viva Piñata: Party Animals and a multi player version of the hugely popular board game Scene It! Both of these offerings are targeted toward the family market and from what I saw I’d say they are pretty strong.

Viva Piñata: Party Animals is an action/adventure version of the on-line community game Viva Piñata which will appeal to a much larger audience. Personally I found the original to be dreadfully boring and tedious but this game looks like a lot of fun. It features 40 mini-games like speed eating and races and has lots of fun little animations and quirks.

Scene It! Lights, Camera, Action is a console version of the hugely popular DVD/board game about movie trivia. It can be played by 1 – 4 people and can easily get highly competitive. All the standard Scene It! plays are included, from “find the missing piece” to “picture puzzle” to “name that movie” making it a fairly entertaining game. The only problem is that the number of players is limited to the number of controllers (so if you only have two controllers forget asking your friends to come over to play) and considering the speed at which this game can be played you wonder how long it will take before you start getting repeat questions. Nevertheless I think the XBOX360 version of this game works better than the DVD version.

On the PC gaming front the only thing that really grabbed our attention was the highly customizable Sidewinder gaming mouse. I’ll be posting a video on this one ASAP. The mouse lets you change the weight and balance, sensitivity and even glide with buttons and accessories. I’m not much of a gamer myself but I’d like to try it out as a PhotoShop mouse because I think the sensitivity options would be excellent for designers. More on that later (meaning when Microsoft gives me one to test out).

Third up: Windows Live. We all know MSN Messenger and Hotmail and some have familiarized themselves with the MySpace alternative Live Spaces. Microsoft has made the wise choice to consolidate all their on-line offerings into one package simply called Windows Live. This all-inclusive download now gives you all the Live applications at once: Messenger, Live Spaces, MSN Mail, Photo Gallery, the blogging tool Writer etc etc. It’s pretty obvious Microsoft is feeling the pinch from Google (with Picasa, Blogger, YouTube etc) and social networking sites like Facebook so they are trying to gain some ground with this block release. The idea is that you have one login that covers everything, from your Messenger list to your blog to your email to your search preferences to your photo gallery. Whether it’ll work or not is another matter all together. But for now let’s just see where it goes. The Windows Live package was released today so jump on in and try it out. I know I will.

Last but not least was a comprehensive walk through of the security features in the new Microsoft flagship Vista. I think this presentation was designed to quell some of the fears surrounding Microsoft and security and they did a pretty good job. Vista features some very advanced parental controls which allow parents to block their kids from surfing certain sites on the web, playing certain games and even sets time limits on when they can use the computer. These are all features I know my parents would have loved (and I would have hated) when I grew up and with the enormous amount of shall we say inappropriate content available out there it is important for parents to regain some control of what happens on the home computer.
In addition to the standard security features on Vista, Microsoft now offers OneCare – coined as “All-in-one security and performance for your PC”. Basically it’s a software package containing antivirus, antispyware, anti-phishing and a software firewall along with some other tools. I have to say I find it somewhat questionable that Microsoft sells a security package when many of the security problems it fixes are caused by bad program design on their end. However much of the security problems we see on the web today such as spyware and phishing can’t be blamed on Microsoft and these are problems that have to be dealt with appropriately. The yearly subscription covers 3 pcs and is in the same price range as the competitors so I guess it boils down to who you trust your computer security to. I have yet to see a comprehensive test of OneCare versus other offerings so I really can’t give you any advice other than to try it out and see what you think. For most people any antivirus software will do the trick and a router will keep most evildoers out of your private files.

Overall it was an interesting event and it shows that Microsoft is a lot more than just spreadsheets and pie-charts like some people claim.

He praises Activision Inc.’s Guitar Hero series and Vivendi SA’s online World of Warcraft and says that the industry has to find new avenues to pursue if it wants to keep up.

Full article here.

In the meantime you can drool over all the things he will see and you won’t (and maybe even drop us a comment or two about what you want him to find out for you).

If you’re a PC gamer you’ve probably heard of World in Conflict, the upcoming release from Massive Entertainment. Now Massive, in conjunction with Intel, is releasing a beta version of the game for open testing. From the website:

Massive Entertainment, Sierra and Intel invite you to join the open beta and find out what you are made of. By enlisting you will be able to exclusively experience the most intense and highly anticipated action-strategy game first hand before it hits the streets in September. Furthermore, you will actively help us to improve World in Conflict, making it this year’s ultimate RTS game.

To register and take part in the development of this highly anticipated release click here.

Since it turns out that no ammount of dismal movie sales, plummeting audience numbers and reviews that make Plan 9 From Outer Space seem Oscar worthy will be enough to make the producers of these atrocities see their own mistakes, let us all remember the bastard children star studded gallery of screen gems this cross-over genre has created. Who could forget the gripping story line in Doom. Or the breathtaking performances in Undead. Not to mention the Oscar worthy script in Resident Evil and it’s successor Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

From BlizzPlanet

British Columbia is home to 138 video game companies employing close to 3,000 people, generating $300 million in revenues and boasts presence from 4 out of the 5 major global publishers. In other words, Vancouver has become a major hub for the gaming industry. This week the best and brightest of Vancouver’s gaming community met at the Sheraton Wall Centre for the Vancouver International Game Summit to share ideas, learn from each other and engage in some friendly poaching. More on that last one later.

A major part of the event was New Media BC ’s announcement of the formation of a “task force to keep the Province a world leader in digital entertainment.” Their goal is to “maintain the momentum the province has created and to keep the province a world leader in digital entertainment” – in other words make sure the past 20 years of success continues for another 20 years. And based on what the people at the summit told me, this doesn’t seem to be too lofty a goal. After all, who wouldn’t want to live and work in Vancouver?

But enough with the formalities. What I wanted to know was what it’s like to work in the gaming industry in Vancouver. Driving past the enormous Electronic Arts campus in Burnaby and passing the Radical building on the SkyTrain on my way downtown I’ve always been curious about what goes on on the inside. So while the nerd herd game designers assembled to talk about multi-threading advanced design techniques and applying agile methodologies to game development, I talked to those left outside to tend the booths.

First up were two game balancers there to demo Company of Heroes and Dawn of War: Dark Crusade – two strategy games for PC with roots in classics such as Command & Concor and WarCraft. The games themselves were impressive enough but I found their jobs more interesting. As a game balancer you play the game to find inconsistencies and work flow problems in the both the designs, story and gaming itself. The balancers then take their findings to the designers and propose solutions and workarounds to make the overall gaming experience more attractive to you and me. Like one of them told me: “Designers work out a lot of things on paper, but sometimes when they are implemented they don’t play out exactly as they had envisioned so we make sure that all the elements of the game play out as envisioned and if they don’t we discuss with them and help either work out a new design or alter the existing design or even just alter the existing mechanics so that it does fit with the overall design vision.” In short they play games over and over, get to impact the end result and get paid for it – every gamehead’s wet dream!

Further down the line was a stand that prominently spelled out Technicolor . A film buff myself I was puzzled to find a company largely known for providing colour to motion pictures at a game summit. But after talking to their people it made a lot more sense. Turns out Technicolor has a gaming division (albeit located in Burbank, CA but still) and a large visual design studio in Vancouver, BC. The woman at the booth (whose last name was Reynolds and first name I am embarrassed to say I couldn’t quite make out) told me that with the advances in gaming and the introduction of CG in movies there is more and more crossover between the two genres. As a result people are now more free to work in both fields as opposed to confining themselves to one creative outlet. Reynolds herself moved from Technicolor’s Toronto office to Vancouver to be a part of the booming visual effects industry out here on the West Coast. Her story was reiterated at the Art Institute of Vancouver ‘s booth where they proudly displayed the work of a visual effects student saying that “even though this student focuses on visual effects for movies his skills can just as easily be implemented in the creation of games.” Watching the reel I couldn’t agree more.

Rockstar had a stand prominently featuring the Vancouver-made game Bully . One of the designers Jacob whose name and accent gave away his Danish origins talked enthusiastically about the merits of the game. “It’s a whole new genre I would say. Yes, it’s built on the GTA engine but the game is completely different. No blood and more realistic game play. You even have to go to classes if you want to win.” On the appeal of the game he said that everyone likes it because we have all gone to school at some point in our lives and we all had someone we hated there. Looking around the booth I saw countless paraphernalia promoting the fictional school Bully takes place in Bullworth High. A cricket bat, t-shirts, hats, even stickers and team banners. As I lingered at their stand I noticed that the entire Rockstar had a rapport normally only seen in a group of old friends.

Finally I walked up to a stand with some breathtaking artwork and a loop of what looked like a game stuck between Gears of War and Lara Croft. The guy told me it was the new version of Turoc – currently in production at Propaganda Games in Vancouver under the umbrella of Disney Interactive Studios . Noticing his title of recruiter I asked him why he was really here. The answer was quite interesting: Apparently most of these conventions and summits are like hunting grounds where different companies scope out and try to catch the best talent from their rivals. As one attendee told me: “Almost everyone in Vancouver at some point or other worked for EA . Then they either broke out and made a new company or they joined an earlier break out. That’s just the way it goes here.” And although at this particular event most of the attendees were higher-level people and not designers it was still important to be there to make your presence felt. I guess in such a competitive environment it is important to make it clear you are still in the game.

The release includes King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry.  The collections contain all the original games except for a couple of Larry titles – namely the last game Love for Sail which included some very adult hidden content and the language track on Shape Up or Slip Out (for the same reason).

Until now the only way of playing these old games was on old computers or through emulator software.  As the computers got more advanced the outdated programming caused catastrophic failures in the games causing desperation and despair in the hundreds of fans.  The new releases are designed to run on all new systems which means we can once again start torturing the English language with gramatically horrendous sentences like “look pidgenhole”, “open door” and “talk woman”.

Space Quest 2 hint: The secret word is just that – “word”.

	No known issues to date
	Should play on PLAYSTATION®3 with some minor issues
	Should play on PLAYSTATION®3 with noticeable issues

The software emulators come packaged in the System Software Version 1.60 update and more games will be added to the list in new updates.  The update can be downloaded through the PS3.