At an Electronic Arts event in New York yesterday I got my first chance to ride a motorcycle in “Burnout Paradise.” What I sampled is the hit racing game’s second major free update, formerly called Davis, but now called Burnout Bikes. It’s slated for release in the next couple of months.

But how in the world do motorcycles work in the T-rated crash-heavy realm of “Burnout”?

First of all, don’t expect motorcycles to be smashed to bits. Read more…

I’ve been attending E3 for more than a decade, but this year marked my first Comic-Con.

Games, like movie and TV before it, have continued to become a bigger deal at Comic-Con every year. Towards the end of the show, it struck me — this is where the old E3 should end up.

Merging with Comic-Con would allow gaming to become part of the spectacle that was so desirable at the once-mammoth E3. It would fill the growing need for a public showing, giving companies a rare chance to meet one-on-one with their hardcore fans.

It makes perfect sense!

Read more…

Don’t like “Diablo III“’s colorful art direction? Too bad. We were told today that it’s not going anywhere.

Lead “Diablo III” designer Jay Wilson told me that even though 52,000 “Diablo” fans have signed a petition asking Blizzard to return to the darker, more gothic look of the old “Diablo” games, the new, vibrant art style is here to stay.

This is how he put it: Read more…

Well, that didn’t take long.

The creators of “Scrabulous” for Facebook, a popular user-created take on “Scrabble” that was recently disabled under legal threat from from Electronic Arts and Hasbro, have returned with “Wordscraper.”

“Wordscraper” is just like “Scrabulous” — but different. The interface has been tweaked, the graphics modified, new rules added. In other words, the hope is that it’s just different enough for the lawyers to go barking elsewhere.

Will people make the crossover? So far, none of my friends, who were very vocal when “Scrabulous” pulled a disappearing act, have commented on “Wordscraper.”

The initial launch of Apple’s application store has brought some promising (“de Blob”), and surprising (“Aurora Feint”) games to the table, but things aren’t perfect.

If the iPhone wants to start competing with the major handheld players, there are some issues to be worked out, iPhone developers have told me. Some suggestions fall on the publisher and developer; others require some forward thinking by Apple.

I asked Publisher X founder Doug Kennedy, War Drum Studios CEO Thomas Williamson and Phantom EFX president Jim Thompson — they collaborated on the Reel Deel line of casino games — to tell me what needs to be done in order to improve gaming on the iPhone . Here’s what they said:

* A battery life comparable to PSP or DS (Some iPhone games can last just an hour or two if you’ve also been using the iPhone regularly as a … phone)
* Infrastructure to support multiplayer and online communities (The only multiplayer gaming currently supported is pass-around single-phone gameplay.)
* Tiered price guides for games (Prices are currently determined by developers for all games. The developers I spoke to don’t expect this to change, even though they want it to.)
* Improved promotional space (Kennedy says Apple already has new policies coming soon to aid developers in this area)

Readers, do you have any other suggestions?

Related Posts:
iPhone Is Wii Of Portable Gaming, Says Publisher
iPhone Does Not Scare Nintendo And Sony Gaming Execs, They Say

If I was able to be one of 36 members of the gaming media to nominate the best games of E3, surely someone will allow me, today, to nominate my pick for best Xbox Achievement of 2008?

Who cares if the year is barely halfway finished? How can there be a better Xbox 360 Achievement than “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2“’s Wax Off?

Let’s back up for a second. In my last diary entryI wrote about my Tuesday morning session with “GWRE2.” I liked the twin-stick shooter but didn’t feel yet that it was the best game in the series.

I hadn’t unlocked all of the game’s six modes yet. On Tuesday night I did, and the game became my favorite “Geometry Wars,” after all. Credit the new game’s Pacifism mode, which ensnared me with the best let-me-try-one-more allure of a good bag of potato chips. Pacifism Mode also contains what I think is the best and most smartly designed Achievement of the year: Wax Off.
Let me make my case.. Read more…

Earlier today we posted the first comprehensive description about the U.S. version of Sony’s strange upcoming downloadable PS3 game “The Last Guy.” It’s not out yet — merely “coming soon,” according to Sony reps. But could we interest you in playing a watered down version that uses this website or any other as its terrain?

Last night I went to a Japanese website for “The Last Guy” and inputted “multiplayer.mtv.com”. Suddenly I was using my mouse to control a little guy who was walking all over our blog. He could run through the lanes and into the nooks of our front page, rescuing people while avoiding spiders. The goal was to bring a parade of people to a safety zone near our top banner ad.

You can do play a rough version of the game using Multiplayer’s front page as the game’s level at this direct link, but first, take a look at what I did and note the instructions for the game (which you can only find here at Multiplayer, I believe)… Read more…

No game design concept is too bizarre for the PlayStation 3’s downloadable game service, PSN, it seems. Today Sony has revealed to Multiplayer full details for the U.S. version of another strange one: “The Last Guy.”

Word broke several weeks ago about a mad concept being hatched by developers at Sony’s Japan Studio about a game that uses real aerial maps of major cities as its levels. “The Last Guy” populates those maps with digital characters — a hero, people to be rescued, and rampaging spider and blob monsters. The goal is to run the hero past the people who need rescuing, absorb those people into a parade of followers and then lead that trail of people to safety zones without getting attacked by monsters. It’s a melding of the mechanics of old-school games “Choplifter” and “Snake” — sort of.

A demo version of the game was released today in Japan, according to a Sony rep who gave me a heads-up about the title

What’s going to be in the full game, which is “coming soon” to the U.S.? There will be 14 different cities, including L.A. and Tokyo for starters…

The full fact sheet is below. Read more…

I couldn’t believe how many video game figures were on display at Comic-Con 2008. “God of War,” “Gears of War,” “Resident Evil 4,” “Final Fantasy XIII,” “Halo 3,” “World of Warcraft,” — the list goes on and on and on. More impressively, many of them were debuting for the first time at Comic-Con.

Games were a bigger deal at Comic-Con than I could have ever anticipated. Below, I’ve slotted many more game-related figure shots. Unfortunately, I didn’t take notes on prices or release dates, but what I do remember from all of them…they’re all going cost a pretty penny. Time to start saving.

Read more…

“I was so close to winning a Scrabble game. WHY EA? WHY?” shouted a friend of mine on Facebook.

In the last few days, my Facebook status updates have been flooded with users discovering that the “Scrabulous” application has finally been put to rest.

“Scrabulous” was a user-made version of the popular board game “Scrabble” that came under legal fire once Hasbro and Electronic Arts, working on their own version of Facebook “Scrabble,” discovered its popularity.

I’m not sure how many users have decided to make the switch to the official version or whether they’ll just drop Facebook “Scrabble” altogether, but recent status updates coming through my Facebook page aren’t encouraging.

“I’m amazed at how much the scrabble interface sucks compared to Scrabulous,” said another friend.

The current version of EA’s “Scrabble” is available in beta and limited to players in the United States and Canada. Scrabulous allowed for worldwide play.

Are you a Facebook “Scrabble” player? Will you add the new, official application?

Many called Wii a fad. Publisher X, a new publisher focused on digital games and one of the first behind Apple’s iPhone, believes iPhone is handheld’s Wii.

“Up front, the console manufacturers and the handheld [markers] are telling you ‘Oh, we’re not worried about it, it’s Apple,’” said Publisher X founder Doug Kennedy in a phone interview this morning. “I’ll tell you first-hand, behind the scenes, they’re paying very, very close attention and I think there is a level of concern about the level of publishers and developers [working on the platform].”

Publisher X wasn’t supposed to be announced until this fall, but Kennedy moved up his company’s schedule up for the launch of Apple’s application store.

Both Nintendo and Sony told MTV Multiplayer they’re watching the iPhone, but neither addressed Apple’s device as a serious threat. “The way this industry operates, they will discredit and not actually validate the platform until it damages their credibility not to validate it,” he said. “They won’t even address it, they won’t talk about it. They won’t have anything to say about it because it gives more credibility to the iPhone if they start talking about it in the same realm as DS and PSP and those platforms.”

Sounds a bit like how the gaming industry treated the Wii, no? “It’s exactly how Wii worked,” concluded Kennedy. “Everyone said it’s just a fad, it’s not going to take off, it’s going to be a typical Nintendo product, it’ll fade off. And sure enough, it’s right in line with the other two console manufacturers.”

Readers, is the iPhone the Wii of portable gaming?

Chuck Norris kicked my butt.

In his mobile phone game, that is. While in GameLoft’s pimped-out hummer during E3, I got to play the new Chuck Norris mobile phone game called “Chuck Norris: Bring The Pain.”

Made in conjunction with cult website ChuckNorrisFacts.com and the Texas Ranger himself, the game includes loading screens that give such great Chuck-isms as “On Chuck Norris’ phone, there are no loading times” or “Chuck Norris makes onions cry.”

As for the story, the game is a classic beat-em-up that revolves around the martial arts hero rescuing hostages and saving America from the invading Communist threat. I played the first level where the rogue Soviet army was holding POWs hostage in Cambodia, using the 2, 6 and 8 buttons to navigate as well as 5 to fire Chuck’s weapon at enemies.

And who are said enemies? Me! Read more…