In case you weren't paying attention to the Consumer Electronics Show last week...well, you didn't miss much. CES isn't for the game industry; the game industry tags along at CES, slides a few products and minor announcements in where there's space, then drinks itself into a four-day stupor before stumbling back to either coast in a drunken fugue.
With that rousing, sure-to-excite-you introduction, here's what you did miss!
Rock Band Happenings
In way more invigorating Rock Band news, Engadget had the story on Sandisk's must-have Rock Band 2 Wii SD card (pictured at right), with its snazzy white casing, brand-heavy label, and insulting $6.49/gigabyte price-to-storage ratio. CES: Where important stuff happens!
For those who don't understand that any SD card will work in your Wii, the 2GB Rock Band 2 Secure Digital card will reportedly hold up to 75 downloadable songs -- or 2GB of anything, actually. For those in love with the logo (yes, we're talking to you), it'll ship this Spring for the low, low price of $12.99.
Reminder: price not actually "low, low."
inFamous Video, Interview
Sony was at CES, showing off LittleBigPlanet (out) and Killzone 2 (almost out). But in terms of games you haven't played at all yet and won't anytime soon, they also had the not-even-close-to-being-out inFamous, from Sucker Punch, of Sly Cooper fame. I'm pretty stoked about the game's mixture of Assassin's Creed-style urban traversal and over-the-top electrical superpowers (with some moral ambiguity and really nice-looking animated graphic novel-style cutscenes thrown in for good measure).
Anywho, a lengthy trailer and Sucker Punch interview both came out of CES, both of which I urge you to view with your eyes.
Fat Princess Walkthrough
While we're on the Sony tip, Gametrailers posted a pretty nice video walkthrough of Fat Princess, the silly-looking team-based something-or-other coming to the PlayStation Network. This is looking like one of the more promising PSN titles in the pipeline. (Here are parts two and three of the walkthrough.)
You have to appreciate any game that properly combines cartoon aesthetics with blood and guts. Not to mention rapid weight gain, a phenomenon I've become intimately acquainted with over the last month.
Kodu Unveiled
Microsoft upheld its penchant for repackaging popular trends (user-made content, in this case) with Kodu (previously: Boku), a downloadable Xbox 360 creation kit that lets you make games...or playgrounds, or...hell, I couldn't even figure it out from the snippet of press release in Jeff's story.
"Kodu" created playgrounds are expressed in physical action-reaction terms, using basic concepts like vision, hearing and time to control your character’s behavior. Players can start their own unique “Kodu” created playgrounds from scratch or, if they aren’t in the mood to create, they can choose from several pre-loaded levels for quick play. With almost 200 different game-creation building blocks to choose from, the opportunities are endless.
Um, yeah. You could just read Nick Chester's hands-on over at Destructoid, whence comes this quote.
Using the right analog stick, MacLaurin moves the camera, and the left stick controls a small "donut" cursor around for object selection and environment manipulation. He selects the UFO and presses "Y" to open the programing menu. The idea is simple, based on basic programming principals like "if this happens, then that happens." The difference here is that it's all very visual, and as MacLaurin put it, the game won't let you really make any wrong moves -- you'll never get a programming "error."
As an example, MacLaurin pulls up the tools and creates a simple script based to make the UFO interact with an apple. Everything is spelled out in physical, easy-to-understand terms for a non-programmer; there are variables or constants, no abstract terms to confuse the user. In this instance, the script is basic: if the UFO "sees" the apple, then it "eats" the apple. The fancy stuff happening behind-the-scenes in Roku [sic] means it knows exactly what to do, with no further instructions.
OK, that does sound pretty neat, actually.
Big (?) Xbox Live Updates
I can't commit to when that will happen, but that is something we want to do. It's definitely something we're looking at expanding and, as this social network grows, we've absolutely heard the pleas for that. It's on the list.
That would be a Good Thing. There's nothing sadder than having to figure out who you're going to sacrifice every time you want to add someone new. At least Facebook has the courtesy to give you a free Whopper for every tenth deletion.
There was also the confirmation that Xbox Live Primetime, the big online game show thing that slipped from the NXE launch, will be out this spring. Great news if you're eager to see how 100-player games are going to work on Xbox Live, I suppose.
Yeah, that's about all I've got. We originally intended to run this story on Friday, since it felt a little weird to run a wrap-up story only halfway through a major tradeshow. Then the show proceeded to occupy the weekend without generating any further interesting game-related news. CES: Miss it!