How many times have we been sitting on the city bus, bored and without handheld, only to turn to our cellphone for some bastardized version of Snake or Bejewelled? It's not something we like to think about, being forced to drive down the nail of boredom with the Great Hammer of Meh. However, a new mobile partnership now looks to have us struggling to pull off dragon punches on our keypads as well.
According to mobile content provider Handango, the company has partnered with Capcom to bring the Street Fighter and Mega Man franchises to its online store and mobile client on BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones. Other franchises are promised as well, including miniaturized versions of Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and the deal's underwhelming debut release, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? It will be interesting to see what other Capcom franchises make the jump to mobile phones as part of this agreement, though honestly we're more interested in how in the world we're going to pull off that dragon punch.
Mobile games developer Gameloft recently spoke with 1Up about its remake of the elementary school computer room classic, The Oregon Trail. Gameloft's VP of Production Julien Fournials says the game stays true to the core gameplay, but some of the micro-management is out to make it "more accessible to the casual player." Wow, we had no idea The Oregon Trail was a hardcore game?!
Fournials explains that buying specific items at the shop is out, along with other resource management, to keep players moving. New additions are mini-games, more decision making, events, alternate routes and being able to watch your party die off one by one. Yeah, but can we name the youngest kid after the elementary school bully (like we did back then) and starve him to death ... or better yet, have him die of cholera?
Marvel Comics has announced the hiring of Ira Rubenstein, a 12-year vet of Sony Pictures where he oversaw digital distribution, casual and mobile games including properties such as Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, as well as mobile titles like Spider-Man 2: The Hero Returns and Ratchet and Clank: Going Mobile.
His new role will be much the same as the executive vice president of Global Digital Media at Marvel, where he'll handle digital distribution of content across across all platforms, as well as lead Marvel's charge into mobile and casual games -- meaning we'll know where to place the blame when someday we're coordinating the drapes in Stark Tower from our mobile phones.
Did you know that Oblivionand Fallout 3 dev Bethesda had a sibling named Vir2L Studios? Known primarily for releasing games for cellular phones, the ZeniMax-owned outfit has announced plans to bring a pair of titles to the Nintendo DS this summer. However, while this would have been great news had the company decided to bring its ElderScrolls Travels mobile titles to the handheld, life has taught us that life is seldom that generous.
Vir2L will instead release touchable versions of its AMF Bowling and Ducati motorcycle racing series on the DS. Both AMF Bowling Pinbusters! and Ducati Moto promise multiple characters and Wi-Fi connectivity, and will each carry a budget price of $19.99. Still, our hope is that Vir2L is simply testing the waters with these titles, and we may someday be able to save Oblivion's Tamriel, stylus in hand.
At E3 2006, Microsoft announced Live Anywhere, an initiative to bring Xbox Live, well, everywhere. The goal was for integrated play (MMO enhancement?) and Live access from Xbox 360, PC and mobile phones. MTV Multiplayer contacted Xbox Live executive John Schappert for an update on the program.
In an email response, Schappert said, "We continue to make progress against the vision laid out for LIVE Anywhere and remain committed to building out the network that connects you to your games, your friends and your entertainment in a variety of ways." He also cited XNA and Zune integration as an example of this.
Microsoft also told MTV that there no Live Anywhere announcements were expected in the immediate future. The PC aspect of Live Anywhere -- Games for Windows Live -- has materialized to mixed resultsandacceptance.
When we first walked into the session, "10 Things Journalists Hate About Your Game," we were excited to hear an insightful debate between reviewers and the developers who have been on the worst end of their words. Two minutes into the session, we realize the session is completely focused on mobile games, and 95% of our readership loses interest.
Despite the mobile focus, we still feel like mobile-centric journalist Stuart Dredge outlined concerns applicable to the entire games and game review industry.
Not everyone is a fan of cell phone games and their development. Said an anonymous attendee at the Telltale party tonight, "Sure, mobile games are big business. Selling cocaine is big business, too. That doesn't make it respectable." It does add a new meaning to the term "Crackberry" (yeah, we're punny).
If the test we performed during Podcast 37 was any indication, the Skype feature which was recently made available to PSPs, while neat, probably doesn't cut it when it comes to your main form of mobile communication. However, we can't be expected to carry around our cell phones and our PSPs. We only have one pair of multi-pocketed cargo pants, and, well, they really don't do much for our figure.
We might be in luck -- a recent issue of Sony Magazine has stoked the fires of a finely aged rumor that a PSP phone is currently in the works, possibly under Sony Ericsson. One article briefly mentions that a "PSP-style phone is apparently in development," and that the device could hit retail "as early as February." While it wouldn't be the first time Sony released a handheld upon an unsuspecting public with little to no fanfare, we would think we'd hear about something like this more than a month before it hits store shelves. We mean -- part gaming device, part mobile phone? The world's never seen anything like this before!
According to the announcement, Yamake mini-games (because "ya make" 'em ... get it?) will lets users add "personal content such as text, pictures, sound clips and movies from the mobile device or PC" to create picture puzzles, trivia quizzes and more. Sure, it doesn't sound like anything you can't already doonline, but the ability to create and share these little personalized games easily on your phone might be cool. Trust us ... even if you don't get it, your little sister will love it.
Quick, name one thing that could improve the epic, graphically and acoustically rich experience that is BioShock. If you said "squeezing it onto a cell phone with a three inch screen, tinny speakers and a memory cache the size of my old 486" then you could probably get a job at mobile developer IG Fun, which has just secured the mobile phone rights to the game.
"We're trying to do great things and BioShock on mobile promises to offer a whole new gaming experience and unmatched excitement amongst mobile gamers the world over," said IG Fun CEO Sean Malatesta. Unmatched excitement, you say? Surely you don't think BioShock mobile will be more exciting than IG Fun's other mobile "hits" like Rush Hour 3 and the improbably named Good Night Mr. Snoozleburg. Because that would just be crazy.
The one problem with World of Warcraft (besides all other facets of your life disintegrating like a tomato in time-lapse footage) is that you can't play it on the go (no, this guy doesn't count). Though a new app being spit-balled at Blizzard won't fix that problem, it may just make traveling a tad bit more bearable.
MTV got the scoop during a sit-down with Frank Pearce, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, in which he talked about a mobile division working within the company. "I don't think we're looking at it as something like, 'We're going to make mobile games,'" he said. "We want to look at the mobile devices as something we can use to enhance the experience of our existing games." To that end, Pearce mentions the possibility of an app that would let mobile users monitor their auctions or read their in-game mail while on the go.
It's still in the brainstorming stages, but it's probably enough to start getting fans excited. What would you like to see in a WoW mobile app?
Update: EA let us know that only the DS game will be called "Spore Creatures." The mobile version keeps the simple "Spore" handle. Spore Creatures for mobile phones is launching with the rest of the Spores on September 7. I figured that this Spore had no chance of infecting me. But after recently playing, I was impressed and surprised by its quality. The graphics -- and even its concept -- would be at home on a DS or Game Boy.
Like Spore on the DS, the mobile version of the game doesn't even try include everything from the PC version. Spore for phones centers on the Cell Phase of the game. You use the phone's joystick to steer the creature through a slurry of suspended protein and other early life forms, eating objects and avoiding enemies.
But like the other versions of Spore, you'll regularly use a creature editor to upgrade the character. While the body part choices are also scaled down, there's enough variety to make the creature your own. Certain parts, like a dangling lure, affect how other organisms behave. That lure attracts food to you, for example. Or you could add a shell for personal defense; hit a button, and hide inside for temporary invulnerability.
THQ continues to grow its licensing buffet and recently added Playboy Enterprises to the menu. GameDaily reports THQ Wireless will develop "lifestyle themed" mobile games using the Playboy name that will ... eh, "not have nudity" in them? Looks like someone missed the point of this license. The first title expected this summer is Playboy Games: Pool Party. So, adding insult to injury, its a Playboy pool party with no nudity? Yup, little confused on this issue.
The multi-year agreement between Playboy and THQ didn''t have a public dollar number attached to it. Hopefully at some point they'll make some "move-the-tiles-around" puzzle game to put back together the digi-boob girls Playboy featured for the last four years. What's the fun of playing a mobile Playboy game if the old lady next to you on the train doesn't gasp at naked bunny Peggle?
You know it's a bad sign when the trailer for a game only uses six seconds of gameplay footage. To be fair, what did you expect? When we first heard the idea of Guitar Hero on a cell phone, we scoffed so hard that we needed to sit down. You may feel just like Hendrix as you shred on your touch-tone pad, but something tells us if we saw anyone actually playing this in public, it would look like they were trying to disarm a tiny cellular bomb.
MTV's Stephen Totilo "somehow wound up with an exclusive" about new casual games based on The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy. While most of us are scratching our heads about the properties, maybe this signals a new trend for old IP; there's that Dirty Dancing game after all. Clearly, these titles aren't for us. (And by "us," we mean people who get jokes about the potential for cake and also think that those jokes are played out.)
Beanbag Studios anticipates launching at least one Lucy trivia game and one Honeymooners bowling game this year. Yes, these PC and cell phone games are being built into long-term franchises. Witness videos of each game after the break.
When we first walked into the session, "10 Things Journalists Hate About Your Game," we were excited to hear an insightful debate between reviewers and the developers who have been on the worst end of their words. Two minutes into the session, we realize the session is completely focused on mobile games, and 95% of our readership loses interest.
