Sony began selling the PlayStation Vita last night a midnight Eastern time. The portable gaming device is the company’s bid to stay relevant to gamers in an age of iPads and smartphones.

The sales kicked off in the U.S. with a big crowd (pictured) showing up at the Sony Style store in New York. Jack Tretton, pictured below left, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, had the honor of handing over a Vita to the first customer.

This is the moment of truth for Sony, which has struggled with losses and just changed its chief executive.

“Today marks a historic day for the PlayStation brand and our fans,” said Tretton in a statement. “PlayStation Vita is the most powerful and connected portable gaming system ever created.  For the first time ever, consumers will find compelling PS3 console-like gameplay experiences on-the-go from the most popular PlayStation franchises as well as titles unique to PS Vita.”

Sony is launching a $50 million ad campaign in the U.S. to get consumers to buy into the PlayStation Vita brand, which is expected to be around for five to 10 years. That amount of money is a record spend for the launch of a new game platform by Sony, according to Guy Longworth, senior vice president of marketing and PlayStation Network at Sony.

The Vita is selling in the U.S. for $250 and the games go for anywhere from $5 to $50.The device has also begun selling in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Australia. More than 25 games are available at launch. A 3G version sells for $300, with a $15 a month data plan for 250 megabytes of data per month, a $30 plan for 3 gigabytes, and $50 for 5 gigabytes.

The device is already on sale in Japan and it replaces Sony’s PlayStation Portable gaming device. The Vita hardware includes two analog joysticks, a touchscreen, a back touchpad, PlayStation control buttons, and a 5-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) screen.

It will be interesting to see if Sony sells out in the U.S. Longworth said the company has been working closely with suppliers to ensure adequate supply, but would not say whether the company expects a sellout.

For a roundup of our reviews and coverage of the Vita, click here.

[Photo credits: Sony]

Striiv has taken the humble step counter and turned it into a “personal trainer in your pocket.” The Redwood City, Calif.-based company says that in the two months since its release, the company’s step-counting gadget has inspired people to walk a lot more frequently and farther.

The results show that it is possible to change the behavior of sedentary people and make them more fit. As such, the company has begun to validate its belief that “gamifying” fitness with positive feedback could create a more healthy population.

Striiv counts the number of steps you walk in a day. If you swipe across the screen, you can see how many miles you’ve walked, how many stairs you’ve climbed, the number of minutes you’ve spent being active, and the number of calories burned. You are prompted to do more with rewards and achievements, such as energy to build things in a fantasy world.

After 12 weeks, the majority of Striiv users check their results about 29 times every day to see how many steps they walked. That’s nearly as frequently as they look at email on their smartphones (34 times). The more people use Striiv, the more they walk. Users who unlock the Striiv gadget (pictured) 34 times a day walk about 69 percent more than users who unlock Striiv just five times a day.

“There is a handful of gadgets geared to health, like Nike’s FuelBand which claims ‘life’s a sport,’” said David Wang, chief executive of Striiv. “But we are for everyday, busy people, who may not have time for the gym, or aren’t avid athletes. Striiv fits into any schedule; making it fun and meaningful is the key.”

Wong said that the longer people have the product, the more they use Striiv. And the more they interact with it, the more they walk. Striiv charts your progress and tracks your records, such as how much you walk in a day on average. I’ve used Striiv for about a month and it tells me I walk 8,622 steps on average, or 4.1 miles a day. My personal best was 7.8 miles walk during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Knowing that makes me want to beat those records.

Striiv also has a “walkathon” feature where the company donates toward causes such as clean water, polio vaccines or saving the rainforest. The more you walk, the more it donates.

On average, Striiv users are walking nearly 60 minutes per day. They log about 3 miles per day and walk up eight flights of stairs per day. The Striiv device costs $99 and is available on the Home Shopping Network, HSN.com, Amazon, and Striiv.com.

The company was founded in 2010 and it has raised $7.5 million to date. Investors include Ronald Chwang of iD Ventures; Colin Angle, founder of iRobot; Dado Banatao of Tallwood Ventures (a private investment); along with other angel investors.

Rival technologies include Basis, which makes a wrist band that you wear so that it can measure both your movement, heart rate, and perspiration. Other rivals are FitBit, Jawbone, and Nike.

[Image credits: Striiv]

Ever since the Justice Department opened the door to the legalization of online gambling, the leading creators of social games are feeling increasingly lucky. PopCap Games just launched Lucky Gem Casino with a collection of seven slot machines themed after its brands such as Bejeweled and Zuma. It marks the entry of the Electronic Arts subsidiary into the increasingly active casino game market.

Leading Facebook game publisher Zynga is adding Bingo and Slingo to its Zynga Casino family, which already features the most successful Facebook Poker game with more than 30 million active monthly users. Traditional gambling companies are quickly moving into the market as well. In January, slot machine maker International Game Technology acquired Facebook casino game publisher Double Down for $500 million.

The current crop of luck-based Facebook games are legal in the US because there is no way to cash out the virtual earnings. In Lucky Gem Casino players can purchase additional coins for real money, using the Facebook Credits system. But even if they hit the jackpot, payouts occur only in virtual currency and can’t be converted back into cash.

The big prize for social game makers could arrive when more states follow Nevada’s example and legalize online gambling, a move made possible after a Justice Department ruling in December that allows online betting as long as it does not involve sports. Companies who have already gathered large player communities could see revenue boosts if social game platforms allow money payouts.

Though the initial release version is limited to slot machines, PopCap pledged “to evolve Lucky Gem Casino to enhance the experience, add more games [and] community features” — which sounds a lot like the ideas behind Zynga Casino. PopCap VP Dennis Ryan also promises they will be “enlivening traditional casino games with our franchises,” as seen in the Bejeweled Spin slot machine. All of a sudden, a Plants vs. Zombies poker table doesn’t seem quite such a far-fetched idea.

The PlayStation Vita launch is happening right now. For all those looking to upgrade their gaming-on-the-go to the next level, GamesBeat is giving away a bunch of Vita launch games so that you can focus on buying memory cards, 3G data plans, or, of course, more games!

Entering is simple:

• Follow @VentureBeat and re-tweet this post on Twitter
• “Like” GamesBeat on Facebook

At 1pm PST on Monday, February 27, an equal number of random winners will be chosen from Twitter and Facebook. Each winner will get to claim the game of their choice from the list below on a first-come first-served basis until all the games are gone!

A few rules:

• You need a Twitter and/or Facebook account to enter, obviously.
• The number of winners will be the same as the number of free games available.
• You will be contacted via the method you used to enter the contest (Facebook or Twitter).
• If you don’t reply after winning with 48 hours, a new winner will be selected.
• Valid for U.S. residents only. Void where prohibited.

More games will be added throughout the week! Here’s the list so far:

1. ModNation Racers: RoadTrip
2. Lumines: Electronic Symphony
3. Dungeon Hunter Alliance
4. Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (downloadable)
5. Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (downloadable)
6. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (downloadable)
7. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (downloadable)
8. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (downloadable)
9. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (downloadable)
10. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (downloadable)

This week marks the launch of the PlayStation Vita, the successor to Sony’s PlayStation Portable handheld gaming device. Launched last December in Japan, the Vita did not fare particularly well, being consistently outsold by its predecessor even during the Christmas shopping period. Part of the blame lay on a more Western-friendly lineup of launch titles, but is another portable device really what the mass public wants, or are we all satisfied with our multipurpose iPhones and tablets?

We’ve already got a ton of Vita-related content to help you decide whether the device and its games are worth the $250 point of entry, and throughout the week we’ll be releasing more reviews, more features, and giving away more free games.

That’s right, VentureBeat is giving out tons of free games for the Vita, and all you have to do to be entered is re-tweet this post on Twitter and/or share this post on Facebook.

FEATURES

Tuesday – PlayStation Vita: THE Hardware Review

Wednesday – VentureBeat Staff Impressions

Thursday – Five Things You Didn’t Know About the Vita

Friday – PlayStation Vita Launch Awards

Saturday – Top 10 PSP Games for Your New Vita

REVIEWS

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Wipeout 2048

Lumines: Electronic Symphony

Super Stardust Delta

FIFA 2012

Reality Fighters

Little Deviants

ARTICLES

Amazon, Target, and Best Buy holding “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” sale for Vita games

Amazon reveals best-selling video games worldwide (Feb 13-18)

Report claims developers are abandoning PlayStation Vita for Nintendo 3DS

ATT unveils wireless data plans for PlayStation Vita

Icon Games: Ongoing PS Vita development “difficult” and “a little scary”

Image via CVG

Guy Longworth, senior vice president of marketing and PSN at Sony’s U.S. game division, said in an interview that the $50 million U.S. advertising spend will be the biggest the game division has ever spent on the launch of a product in history.

Dressed as their favorite game characters, fans are already lining up at the Sony Style store in New York for a live launch event. The marketing plan ranges from “cosplay” live events to a lot of TV advertisements based on the theme “you can never stop playing.” Longworth said Sony’s marketing will show off the line-up of 26 launch titles that are already on the market and underscore the fact that the platform will last for five to 10 years. He noted that a hundred more titles are in development.

“We’re focusing the attention on the strengths of the Vita platform: the hardware, the great lineup of games, and access to all of your digital entertainment,” he said. “We think it’s all pretty compelling. We’re aiming it at core gamers who are crying out for the opportunity to have a console-like experience on the go.”

Those gamers likely haven’t found the iPad or iPhone compelling enough when it comes to playing hardcore games based on outstanding game brands, such as Sony’s Uncharted series, which is making it to the Vita in the form of Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

While that title hasn’t gotten the best reviews (see ours), he said, “What it does is allow you to play a franchise that many gamers are familiar with in a new and engaging way. It has dual analog sticks and touchscreens.” Longworth claimed that reviews of the games and hardware are ahead of Sony’s expectations.

So far, the Uncharted title has been the top game selling via preorders and on store shelves, Longworth said. Other hot titles include Mod Nation Racers, Hot Shots Golf, and Little Deviants. Sony’s Unit 13 is also aimed at shooter-game fans. And he noted that Lumines Electronic Symphony from Q Entertainment is also getting a lot of attention.

“We are excited to have a lineup that appeals to anyone who is interested in gaming,” Longworth said. “We want to bring the best experiences and best brands to the platform, not only from Sony but from third parties as well. The hardware offers a canvas for developers to do different things. FIFA Soccer plays incredibly well on the Vita, and we think sports games in general will be big on it.”

Longworth acknowledged that developers will face a learning curve in creating games for the Vita, but he said, “We are delighted with the speed with which these developers can deliver great experiences. We couldn’t be happier with the quality of the games, and that is why we are spending the $50 million in the first few months.”

As for supplies of the Vita, Longworth said the company has been working closely with suppliers to ensure adequate shipments, but he said the availability of the handhelds will depend on demand. While some gamers have balked at the $249 price, Longworth said, “We think this an incredible experience you get with the Vita and that gives great value to the consumer. We have something for everyone, from AAA titles at $49.99 to downloadable games at more accessible prices.”

He added, “We have to reiterate that we are in this for the long-term.”

There is something extravagant about the release of a new game system: the promise of new and previously unheard of software experiences … hardware that is faster, better, and more capable. It is something that will be around for years and thus promises a level of quality generally reserved for far more expensive equipment.

But the times, they are a-changin’. Consumers expect more from electronics than ever before. Over 50% of Americans own smartphones that not only make calls but run applications and play games — they are quickly replacing standalone media players. Even Sony has experimented with a smartphone game system in the Xperia Play, which has found only limited commercial success.

Even amid fierce competition from products like the iPhone, Android smartphones, and tablets, there is still a burgeoning market for portable video game consoles. The Nintendo 3DS has sold over 15 million units worldwide in less than a year, making it the fastest selling video game machine in history. Can Sony match that success with the more expensive, better connected, and higher-quality PlayStation Vita?

Hardware and design

At first glance the Vita appears almost identical to the PSP. It shares nearly all of the PSP’s dimensions, but the Vita couldn’t be more different. It’s sleek, bold, and immediately stunning, unlike the plastic frame every PSP model has shared. The eye wants to look at the Vita’s gorgeous glass front, very crisp labeling, and expertly crafted controls.

The front of the Vita is almost exclusively made of glass, a design shared by Apple’s iPhone 4. The Vita doesn’t look like a kid’s toy; it looks like a serious gadget, a futuristic piece of technology. It isn’t soft around the edges nor does it feel childish. A plastic frame is glossy but easy to grip, and on the back are two finger rests to grip the Vita.

From top to bottom the Vita looks and feels solid. I carried it around in a bag and pockets, and though the glass front did give me pause, the Vita is a stable device. It is huge (3.3″ x 7.2″ x 18.6″ h/w/d and 9.8oz), so don’t expect to carry it in tight jeans or small bag pockets. The build quality is very high, and I had no trouble or worry when holding it in a pocket.

The Vita has a very similar control layout to the PSP and DualShock controller: a D-pad and analog stick on the left, four face buttons on the right, as well as a PlayStation (home/return) button, start and select buttons, two shoulder buttons, volume controls, and power. The Vita is the first portable game system with a second analog stick, which makes traditional home-console-style titles easier to play on the Vita. Nintendo’s 3DS will receive an attachment with a second analog stick, but the Vita has two unique features over the 3DS: a 5″ OLED touchscreen display and an equally large rear touchpad.

Display

The Vita has an OLED display. Not AMOLED, not Super AMOLED, and not any of the other OLED technologies many companies are touting. This seems like a questionable design choice; although Sony first brought OLED into the home with the 11″ XEL-1 TV, OLED displays have been consistently lambasted for a lack of visibility outdoors.

Solutions used by LG and Samsung address that problem in recent smartphones but don’t solve it entirely. At CES Sony engineers I spoke with said that OLED technology is inferior to LCD panels for several reasons: the lack of brightness, inaccurate colors due to over-saturation, and a blue hue to the screen. That’s why the upcoming Xperia S and Xperia Ion will both come equipped with LCD displays. The Vita, by comparison, seems to have a plain old OLED. Sony isn’t marketing it in any other way.

It certainly isn’t plain.

The 960×544 display is one of the most beautiful and vibrant I’ve ever seen and is certainly the best in its size. It isn’t dense at 220ppi (the iPhone’s Retina Display is 326ppi, the HTC Rezound is 342ppi), but for gaming and video it is dense enough. Nearly every problem with OLED displays is gone, eliminated in some way that Sony has not discussed publicly. I’ve tested the display indoors and out and am extremely impressed with both color accuracy and brightness. The only trouble is in direct sunlight, not because the pictures on-screen aren’t visible, but because fingerprints and smudges block the screen. The display doesn’t appear to have an oleophobic coating, so cleaning the screen to better see in direct sunlight is difficult.

It’s an absolute pleasure to view anything on the Vita’s display. Pictures and video are crisp and very clear — more so than on any smartphone or tablet. Games are reproduced on the display in the best possible light, likely better than most TVs can muster. I can’t recommend using the Vita instead of an iPad or Android tablet for watching videos — bigger is better, of course — but if the choice is gaming and watching movies on one or the other, the Vita wins hands down. The 5″ panel on the Vita is extraordinary.

Continue reading for internal components…

The third map in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′s current content season is now available for Call of Duty Elite Premium members on Xbox Live.

Overwatch takes place in a construction site atop a New York City skyscraper, where battles will rage along two levels in a near symmetrical layout. A lack of safety barriers around the perimeter should provide plenty of chuckles for those who enjoy watching their enemies fall 70 stories to their deaths. The map is in the same general location of the New York setting in the single-player campaign, which depicts a world war in major cities of the globe. But it’s a fresh map for multiplayer fans.

Modern Warfare 3′s content season will ultimately include more than 20 pieces of brand new DLC over a 9-month period. The first maps, Liberation and Piazza, were launched last month. Another new map called Black Box and two new Special Ops Missions are coming in March. Call of Duty Elite Premium members on Xbox Live get first dibs on the content as part of an exclusivity deal Microsoft made with publisher Activision. PlayStation 3 and PC Elite members will get access to the DLC at a later date, while everyone else will eventually be able to download the content in a bundle pack.

You can see Modern Warfare 3′s full content season schedule here: http://www.callofduty.com/contentcalendar.

The game targets older women and is the company’s second title in the hidden-object game genre, where users look at a densely packed scene to find objects hidden within it. While there are a handful of such games on Facebook, there are tons of such titles available on casual downloadable web sites on the web. Games such as Blackwood and Bell Mysteries aim to make these games a lot more social.

The story is deeper and darker than Gardens of Time, which launched early last year and became a huge success for Disney-Playdom. That earlier title remains the company’s largest game on Facebook with more than 7.1 million monthly active users. Blackwood and Bell Mysteries stars two detective agency characters, James Blackwood and Catherine Bell, who scour the world to solve crimes, said Joey Klein, executive producer of the game. The title was made by Disney’s Playdom division in Palo Alto, Calif.

There’s more competition in hidden-object games now compared to last year. Zynga came out with Hidden Chronicles in January and Making Fun just announced its Hidden Haunts game. Hidden object games focus on still scenes, so the animation required for them isn’t technically difficult and the games play nicely on Facebook, which usually is a platform for slow-action games.

“We expected more competition and we think there is space in the market for top-quality storytelling games,” Klein said. “We also expect players can play more than one of these games at a time.”

The Victorian-era game has some interface tweaks compared to Gardens of Time. Users who played the earlier title will know how to play this game. The Blackwood and Bells Mysteries game consists of four chapters with six scenes each in places such as a haunted Louisiana mansion and a ghost ship.

Klein said more content will be released over time as fans race through the content. Clues in each scene guide players toward solving crimes. The game has a number of modes that make it social, such as challenging a friend to solve a scene in a time trial.

Last year, Gardens of Time won accolades as Facebook’s top recommended game and best social game at the Game Developers Choice awards.

Peak Games, a maker of social games in Turkey, is acquiring Saudi Arabia’s Kammelna Games to expand its presence in the fast-growing social game market in the Middle East.

With more than 20 million monthly active users, Peak Games says it has become one of the top four social game companies in the world in the past 14 months, mainly on the strength of its games that are tailored for various countries and ethnic groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey. Istanbul-based Peak Games wants to become the leader for online social games in the region, said Rina Onur, chief strategy officer of Peak Games, in an interview.

“We have been expanding and hiring aggressively,” Onur said. “Kammelna is a great fit for us because they create culturally relevant games that are social and multiplayer in nature.”

While other game makers often pay lip service to localizing their games for the Middle East, Peak Games goes far beyond simply translating games into Arabic. Peak Games has Zynga-like content such as Happy Farm, which has 2.2 million daily active users. That means the game is the second-most popular social farm game in the world in a region with more than 400 million consumers. The region already has 65 million Facebook members.

But it also has multiplayer titles such as Okey (pictured at top), Okey Plus and other titles that are culturally relevant because they are based on traditional regional board games.

With Kammelna, the company gains new executive leadership, local talent, a new studio and some hugely popular games. One of Kammelna’s popular games is Baloot, based on a popular regional card game.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, says that Peak Games is exploiting a first-mover advantage in delivering culturally relevant games in the region. The result is one of the highest levels of user engagement and average revenue per user in the world, Pachter said.

The Middle East has been in the midst of turmoil as a result of the Arab Spring revolt and its aftermath. But you would never know it, based on the games that Peak Games is creating. Onur said that her company is not making political games. Clearly, the unspoken truth is that doing so would get the company in a lot of hot water with local governments. But Onur said that the company’s developers are simply focused on making casual and hardcore games that they believe will be fun to play.

“We are not very interested in political games,” Onur said. “We just want to do what we know best.”

With Kammelna, Peak Games will continue to launch more free-to-play multiplayer online games that are based on traditional Arabic board and card games. Peak Games is run by chief executive Sidar Sahin.

Kammelna was founded by Essam Alzamel, who will continue to run the studio in Damman, Saudi Arabia, where more than two-thirds of the Internet users play games online. On average, Kammelna’s users play more than one hour per play session. Peak Games already has studios and offices in Istanbul, Ankara, Barcelona, Berlin, San Francisco and Amman Jordan.

Peak Games also recently acquired Umaykut and Erlikhan game studios. The company is funded by Earlybird Venture Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, and serial business angel Evren Ucok. Peak Games has 150 employees and Kammelna has 30.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the marquee game for Sony’s all-or-nothing bet in portable gaming, the PlayStation Vita.

This handheld device is Sony’s last stand against competitors such as the Nintendo 3DS, not to mention the iPad, iPhone, and all of the other mobile devices out there that have become vehicles for inexpensive or free games. The Vita is a beautiful piece of hardware, and Sony hopes Golden Abyss is the showcase title to prove the system can keep up with high-definition consoles and can justify $50 price tags for game software. Sony wants the Vita to last for a decade.

But stacking Golden Abyss up against big-brother predecessor Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception really shows the inferiority of the portable platform.

Uncharted 3, which I and millions of others played in November, is fresh in my mind as one of the best games of 2011. On the other hand, the developers of Golden Abyss compromised the cinematic nature of the game — one of the series’ main selling points — just to show off some of the Vita’s unique control features (such as its touch-based back panel).

This is not to say that the Golden Abyss isn’t stunning and impressive at times for a handheld adventure. I can’t think of another that has this much spoken dialogue, voice acting, cutscenes, and lengthy levels with plenty of room for exploration. Sony’s Bend Studio should be commended because its game comes as close to a real console experience as any portable game has ever come, at least from my experience. It is far better than past PlayStation Portable narrative-based titles that were full of text-based dialogue and clunky graphics. Yet the marketing hype got too far ahead of reality on Golden Abyss, and its handful of flaws keep it from getting universal acclaim and being an all-around fun experience.

Protagonist Nathan Drake’s newest quest follows the familiar formula of the three Uncharteds before it, which have collectively sold at least 13 million units on Sony’s PlayStation 3. It has semi-accurate shooting, a movie-like action-adventure story with cutscenes that go on for minutes, lots of climbing (and nearly falling), and exotic environments. One of the problems is that it follows the formula too well, leading to a lack of surprises and freshness. It copies technical flaws, such as the inability to track a moving target and shoot it down quickly. It has fewer characters than a typical Uncharted and less character development. Multiplayer is non-existent (at least out of the box — downloadable updates may change this later), and the whole experience lasts around eight hours, somewhat shorter than a typical campaign in the series.

Into the Golden Abyss

In this story, set before the events of the first Uncharted, the treasure-hunting daredevil Drake (voiced again by actor Nolan North) is on the trail of an ancient Spanish cult that was possibly behind the massacre of a conquistador expedition to Panama about 400 years ago. He shows up as the historical expert at an interesting archaeological site, and naturally, all hell breaks loose.

Drake is a polished character, making wisecracks and performing uncanny feats of parkour-like climbing as he moves through ancient ruins. Lead female Marisa Chase (voiced by Christine Lakin), on the other hand, makes a lousy first impression. Some of the dialogue early on between the two falls flat. And while she is sassy, she is nowhere near as likable a character as Elena from the Uncharted console games. Unlike her, Chase doesn’t fight at the outset, and Drake protects her for much of the adventure, as if she were entirely helpless in the face of bad guys. This dynamic forces the player to be aggressive in attacking enemies, as Chase always seems to be running headlong into danger so that Drake can bail her out.

At a couple of points, Chase complains that Drake is being sexist by not letting her do anything dangerous. But when the situation involves gun play or fighting, she’s perfectly willing to sit back and be rescued. Drake sticks his neck out over and over again for Chase, but it’s not because he really likes her. In fact, she’s kind of annoying. So it’s not really clear why he is so devoted to her.

Jason Dante, Drake’s fast-talking con-artist friend, on the other hand, is a comic figure who has a few witty lines that keep the cinematics from being completely forgettable. Dante fluctuates between good and bad, conveniently choosing either the role of a greedy compadre or a double-crossing villain, as it suits his purposes. Dante’s idea of being a good friend is to say in deadpan style, “No dying on me now, not while I still need you.” Meanwhile, the true bad guy is the rotund Roberto Guerro (voiced by JB Blanc), an ambitious general who runs drugs and is trying to seize the ancient treasures to finance a revolution in the country.

These characters fall short of the familiar cast of Uncharted, and only when one of them (to be nameless here for spoiler reasons) actually comes back into the picture does the game becoming more entertaining.

The early part of Golden Abyss

Uncharted: Golden Abyss opens with a prologue that is similar to the narrative styles of previous games. The scene takes you forward to a couple of weeks ahead of the beginning stage of the game. Nathan Drake sees his enemy in the distance and tells him he can go to hell. It’s not exactly the best opening dialogue, and it is far weaker than the dramatic intro of Uncharted 3.

The prologue teaches you how to control Drake, who appears onscreen in a third-person perspective. You can use the Vita’s two analog joysticks to move him around and change his facing. When Drake is climbing, you can “paint” the touchscreen with your finger to guide where you want him to go. This gesture requires you to take your finger off the action button (X), but it works reasonably well in these non-combat situations.

You can sneak up on enemies and quietly dispatch them with a single tap either on the right side of the screen or on a “fist” icon on top of the enemy. If you get into a melee brawl, you tap the fist icon repeatedly or swipe your finger across the screen, a gesture that the touchscreen often fails to recognize accurately. And that often results in Drake dying and a long load time to restore you to the last checkpoint. The touchscreen just isn’t a match for button pushing when it comes to accuracy and speed. (The boss melee battles are a little too tough just because they’re choreographed and timed — one misread with your finger and you’re dead.)

 So-so aiming

The Vita does shooting better than any other handheld I’ve played. But with Uncharted, it’s more often frustrating than satisfying. This is the crux that makes or breaks the whole experience of playing the game.

When you pull the left trigger of the Vita, a target reticle appears. If you disable auto-aiming (as any self-respecting gamer would do), then the reticle does not appear on top of the enemy you’re facing. To move it, you can push the analog joystick, which is pretty hard to control precisely, just as it is on any PlayStation controller. To assist your aim, you can lower the sensitivity of the joystick. I had to do this because my thumb moved the crosshairs all over the screen. I couldn’t hit anything at first.

The Vita offers some aiming tools that can help compensate for that and help neophyte players. If you tilt the Vita, the motion sensors will nudge the reticle toward your target. In a sniper rifle’s scope view, you can zoom in on an enemy in the distance by stroking your finger along the right side of the screen. With the tilt assist here, you can hit the targets reasonably well. I got used to this kind of shooting over time.

It’s not a bad system, but the nature of Uncharted’s enemies makes it more frustrating. The console version of the enemies are smart enough to know (call it a sixth sense) that you’re aiming at them as they’re hiding behind a rock. They will stick their heads out to shoot at you but not where your target reticle is sitting. So you have to move your aim quite a bit before you can nail enemies.

But there is almost no way to hit a moving enemy with any precision in Golden Abyss. That’s because your character turns too slowly when you are aiming — the same problem that Uncharted 3 has in its shooting system. It takes you a full 10 seconds to turn around 360 degrees while aiming down the sight. That’s just unacceptable when you’re trying to hit a moving target. It probably took me about 20 of the 34 levels to get used to this shooting system. The only good thing I can say about it is that I did get used to everything in time to deal with the increased difficulty of the latter levels, when you face tougher enemies with better weapons.

Other Vita control novelties

Tossing grenades is a unique experience on the Vita as well. You can tap on the screen to just throw one straight ahead in the general direction of the enemy. But this rarely seems to work because the automated system seems to have no depth perception. If you’re behind a barrier, the odds are good the grenade will bounce off of it and kill you instead.

But you can also tap the grenade icon in the lower-right section of the screen and drag the explosive to a spot on the screen. A white arc appears to show whether the path of throw will be obstructed or not. Then you simply take your finger off the screen to complete the maneuver. It works OK but not brilliantly.

The Vita’s rear touch pad also comes into play. You slide your fingertips to climb up or down ropes, which didn’t work that well (so I resorted to using another method). You can also rub the touch pad to simulating rowing in a canoe. I thought this was just a bad gimmick.

The touchscreen comes into play during puzzles, like when patching together torn pieces of paper to form complete images. You can rub the screen to wipe dirt off an object or get a charcoal imprint of an artifact. You can also take a picture of a scene to add to your collection as a sightseer in cool places. But this feature becomes frustrating because it takes a while to get the exact snapshot that matches a preset image in your photo-collectible achievement system. The photo capture is imprecise and a lame part of the gameplay.

In the end, all of these game and puzzle mechanics seem gratuitous. They exist because the developers seemed to desperately want to justify the many different hardware mechanisms that Sony’s crazed hardware engineers put on the Vita. They’re not really worth interrupting the narrative flow of the story or the gameplay.

Kiip is announcing today that it has hired Zynga’s ad boss Manny Anekal as chief operating officer.

San Francisco-based Kiip is a fast-growing startup that offers real-world prizes as rewards in mobile games. Hiring Anekal from recently-public Zynga will add some cachet and some executive firepower for the company, which is headed by 20-year-old entrepreneur Brian Wong.

I can imagine that a lot of business people might not take a company with a 20-year-old CEO seriously. But Wong has built a track record for his company, launched numerous products, created several key partnerships, and has raised money. If the company needs some extra cred because Wong isn’t old enough or lacks experience, then Anekal can bring that to the company as its global chief operating officer.

“Kiip is undeniably one of the world’s most innovative companies with a great story to tell — they’re also sitting at the epicenter of three burgeoning markets: mobile, gaming, and advertising,” Anekal (pictured) said. “They’ve taken an angle that I’ve never seen any company tackle with such prowess, and the growth opportunity they sit on is absolutely massive. I’m excited to help them take this to the next level.”

San Francisco-based Kiip was founded in September 2010 by Wong, Courtney Guertin, and Amadeus Demarzi.

Kiip offers rewards at the moment when you achieve something in a mobile game, such as getting past a level or a boss. Wong calls this “moments based” advertising, or catching a consumer when he or she is having a great time with a game. It recently also started offering Swarms, or mobile game tournaments with big-ticket rewards.

Anekal will be responsible for managing the growth and operations of the rewards network. Anekal led the brand integration and ad efforts with top-tier consumer brands in titles such as FarmVille and CityVille. Anekal has a decade of experience with the development of games and online advertising products. He was global director of brand advertising at Zynga, the social game giant, and he led global ad operations at Electronic Arts. He also had a similar position at in-game ad startup Massive, which was acquired by Microsoft.

Regarding the age question, Wong said in an email to VentureBeat, “I’ve been very fortunate and I’m able to have conversations with the right people who I can respect and they reciprocate. I think the amount of progress we’ve made and the partnerships and brands we’ve struck deals with are indicative of that. I think brands and agencies are looking for the younger generation to propel them to areas they would have never considered. Manny will certainly help, but he’s joked that he’s always felt like the young one too. This industry is also very young.”

Kiip is backed by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, True Ventures, Verizon Ventures, and Crosslink Capital.

[Photo credit: Kiip]

“I miss making them and I miss playing them. Because there’s a certain kind of player who doesn’t really like a lot of the games that are popular now,” he said.

As a writer and programmer for LucasArts in the 1990s, Schafer was responsible for co-designing some of the genre’s most well-regarded titles, including Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, and The Secret of Monkey Island. However, in an industry currently dominated by first-person shooters like Call of Duty, he says it’s hard to get publishers to take a risk on a more thoughtful, slower-paced game.

“They’re just looking at the numbers. They’re just looking at how much those games have typically sold and how much they could make if they did something like a shooter, and I think the numbers just don’t make sense for them.”

So for his latest title, temporarily-named Double Fine Adventure, Schafer turned to crowd-funding website Kickstarter and his loyal fan base for help. His goal was to raise $400,000, a modest number for a modern day video game budget. Not only was the project fully funded in just over 8 hours, it raised a record-breaking $1 million by the end of the first day.

“We’ve always had really passionate and dedicated fans, but I did not expect this kind of financial reward,” Schafer said. “I really thought that we might make our goal of $400,000 by the end of the 30-day period, but when we hit a million in the first 24 hours we knew that we were on to something really unique.”

Double Fine Productions is the first major studio to finance a video game through Kickstarter and develop it in the public eye. Schafer says all of the donated money will go towards making the product bigger and better. It will now launch on multiple platforms, including PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. It will also feature voice acting and localized text in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. A documentary series filmed by 2 Player Productions will follow the Double Fine team as they work on the project and will be available to backers.

“They’ll get to see our brainstorming sessions. We’re going to get people together and do like we did in the old days, just sit in a room and talk about anything we want to talk about until we come up with a couple of puzzles each day. We’ll let people see that. And they’ll see what the artists are drawing, the kind of thought process we go into when we’re shooting, what character designs we like. We want to make them feel as much as possible like they’re here in the office sharing in the game development process with us.”

Schafer says his team is not nervous about the thought of cameras following their every move, having already taped an episode of G4 TV’s Icons during the crunch period for the 2005 3D platformer Psychonauts. “That was really revealing. We had some people complaining about how hard the work was. Some people were sleeping on the couch. We’ve opened our doors to cameras before, but this is really the first time people are going to see the beginning of the creative process, not just the painful conclusion.”

With the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter project now past the $2 million mark, many have questioned whether or not its success will change the way video games get published. Developers like Obsidian Entertainment’s Chris Avellone and InExile Entertainment’s Brian Fargo are now toying with the idea of launching crowd-funding campaigns of their own. Schafer sees it as a good thing.

“I think people have asked, ‘Is this a game changer? Is this going to revolutionize game production? Are the publishers doomed?’ And I don’t think it’s that extreme, but I also think when people dismiss it as just a one-off deal that only Double Fine could have done — and it only could be done once — I think that’s not true either,” he said. “I think as long as someone else comes up with a similar story, whether it’s a game or not — just the right project, the right person making it, the right time, and a reason why only something like Kickstarter could fund it — I think you could have another explosive funding project on your hands.”

“I think it’s a great way for a lot of projects, games or not games, to be made whenever the ‘gatekeepers’ — the big companies that decide what gets made and what doesn’t get made — are not serving certain segments of the fan base,” he added. “And enough of those fans can use the Internet to coordinate and kind of pool their resources. They can make it happen for themselves instead of waiting for these gatekeepers to do it.”

Schafer says it’s the relationship between creators and backers that makes the Kickstarter process interesting. “Instead of making a game and risking all your money and hoping the fans show up, here the fans are showing up at the beginning. So the risk is over and they’re paying for the game in advance, essentially. And what that requires is just a lot of trust and faith that we’ve built up doing this for 10 years with Double Fine and 10 years before that with LucasArts. Hopefully, we’ve built up enough trust where they feel like I’m gonna do my best to deliver something worthwhile to them.”

Reality Fighters is misleading from the start. I’ve yet to meet a Bavarian giant in the English countryside or stumble across a murderous ballerina on the way to the Taj Mahal. I’ve very rarely had to box an Irishman next to Chinese ruins (although there was that one time outside The Forbidden City…). Rather than offering a realistic fight as the name suggests, Sony’s PlayStation Vita augmented-reality fighting game does the complete opposite.

So where does the “reality” come in? From you, actually. Using the Vita’s camera, you can shoot the world around you to create stages for one-on-one battles. Alleys, living rooms, playgrounds, offices…if you can photograph it, you can beat someone down on it.

You can also attach a photo of your face to a generic body that you can manipulate in many different ways. If you’ve ever wanted to see yourself as an overweight member of the opposite sex, the time is now. To add some audible personality to your onscreen fighter, you can record two sound clips, one for before and one for after the fight. These features showcase Vita’s capabilities quite well and offer a few chortles along your character’s journey.

Each fight offers up coins, which unlock an array of different costumes and quirky props. Most of these are available quickly, giving the game limited longevity. After a few minutes tinkling with your appearance, the novelty wears thin. From here, the lightheartedness in character creation starts to become less infectious.

You can make up for that, however, by getting adventurous with the background stages. Before each contest, the game instructs you to pick your location of choice. Plenty of pre-existing destinations are available, including stereotypical settings from Asia, America, and Europe. These grow old quickly, though, so it’s more fun to utilize Vita’s rear camera to create your own battle arenas. They don’t even need to be static. If duty calls, you can walk around with each conflict overlaying your active, ever-changing surroundings (like the back of that bathroom stall door).

Lighting plays a huge part in the quality of custom areas. Expect Vita to struggle when the room is too dark, losing focus of the on-screen shenanigans. While the default levels are well-produced and full of color, making your own leaves a lot to be desired. Sure, it’s cool to witness a topless magician tackling Santa Claus on the desk in your office, but the laughs can’t last forever.

Once they do stop, an extremely limited fighting game shows itself. Executing each move is too simple, meaning it’s easy to spam an opponent with the same special combo. Various fighting styles are on offer, but they poorly mimic iconic characters from other games. Boxers amount to nothing more than a knock-off version of Street Fighter’s Balrog, and capoeira artists jive back and forth like Tekken’s Eddie after a hernia operation. Regardless of style, the best tactic is to suffocate your enemy, forcing him into the corner of the screen with a barrage of similar attacks. Hardly a challenging prospect.

If there’s one thing fighting games need to nail, it’s hit detection. Too many times throughout my quest, I got hurt from a move that didn’t land properly. In particular, aerial assaults are prone to damage when they shouldn’t. Expect to get caught up when the overweight German contender slams his gut into the ground, even if the commotion sails over your head. Zombie types also serve up a fair amount of frustration, randomly grabbing you from underground. A lack of interesting commands ensures Reality Fighters is a shallow and forgettable experience, even with the addition of weapons after 30 minutes of play.

Conclusion

Sony designed this game around the ambition to show off Vita’s augmented reality, a decision that backfires. Just like Little Deviants, this easily could have been a free incentive to those who buy the new handheld. Reality Fighters is a missed opportunity, and despite its sense of humor, amounts to nothing more than a boxed tech-demo. Score: 50/100

Reality Kings was released for the PlayStation Vita on February 15, 2012. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of the review.

Great games immerse players in fantastical worlds and adventures so extravagant, you actually wish they were real. But what if video game characters crossed over to our reality instead?

I located a magic warp zone behind a toilet…the same interdimensional gate that led me to really good Sonic the Hedgehog games. This time I saw a bizarro reality where historic events did not take place quite as you remember them. Dare to take a look?

Bald Bull defeats Sonny Liston.

In 1964, Turkish boxing sensation Bald Bull (formerly known as Gaseous Calf) defeated Sonny Liston in the seventh round to become the new heavyweight champion. They squared off again a year later, where the hairless beast knocked out Liston with his trademark “Bull Charge” in the very first round.

Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth prevents the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

During a function of the play Our Ace Attorney Cousin, a shadowy figure with a gun (Philadelphia Derringer to be precise) snuck behind President Lincoln’s seat. Miles Edgeworth’s eagle-like vision spotted the would-be assassin and immediately shouted, “Hold it!” …deviating the bullet’s course.

A student blocks the path of General Morden during a protest in Tiananmen Square.

As part of his plan for world domination, General Donald Morden implemented stupid economic reforms in China, creating a massive protest in Tiananmen Square. One ballsy student halted a column of SV-001 tanks (also known as Metal Slugs), sending the generalissimo into a hilarious hissy fit.

Ash brings down Team Rocket’s “Hindenburg” dirigible.

For years, Team Rocket has harassed Ash Ketchum. The Pokémon trainer intercepted Jessie and James’ airship, the “Hindenburg,” in Manchester Township, New Jersey. Ash unleashed fire-type pocket monsters on the hydrogen-filled blimp, setting it ablaze faster than you can say, “Oh, the humanity!”

The Apollo 11 crew encounters a “Marker” on Earth’s moon.

On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. became the first humans to set foot on the moon. Besides a pile of rocks and space dust, the rocketeers discovered a huge alien artifact. After a few hours of studying the “Marker,” some members of the team turned into hideous monsters. Armstrong and Aldrin managed to escape and return home. To this day, NASA denies any existence of the Marker, the church of Unitology, and Tony Danza.

Note: This story originally appeared on Bitmob.com. At Bitmob, community members can post stories, and if the staff editors like any, they will edit and promote them to the front page. We will be merging the two sites within a month or two, but until then, we’ll post an occasional Bitmob story here on GamesBeat.

Before there was Halo, there was XGirl, apparently. Former Angel Studios Chief Creative Officer Michael Limber lists some interesting design work on his online portfolio, including what he describes as an “interactive girlfriend project” for Microsoft for the launch of the original Xbox. XGirl had “natural engaging facial animations” and “reacted to various controller inputs.”

XGirl

Makes sense, seeing as how Limber was also responsible for the eight minutes of virtual reality sequences in 1992′s The Lawnmower Man, which included the world’s “first cyber sex scene in a movie.” Angel Studios is now Rockstar San Diego, the dev team behind the Midnight Club series (not what you might think, given the context of this article) and Red Dead Redemption.

Before becoming an internal studio at Rockstar in 2002, Limber states that Angel Studios worked directly with Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto for five years. He claims this experience was “very influential” in shaping his approach to interactive design.

Life-like artificial intelligence is something the gaming industry has experimented with for years. Microsoft again toyed with an interactive AI more recently with the canceled Project Milo, helmed by Fable creator and Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux. It’s been heavily suggested that the demonstration in the video below was faked, but the technology definitely did exist, albeit in a far less accurate state.

And lastly, who can forget Seaman, the creepy AI man-fish that absolutely no one asked for on the Sega Dreamcast. I still to this day…. I can’t even… just no.

Now that Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to bring Portal 2′s Space Core to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the “arrow to the knee” meme is slowly being snuffed out by the sound of likable sentient robots and the relentless abuse they’re undergoing at the hands of inventive players.

Exhibit A: YouTube user Kennaay1891 rapidly spawns 300 Space Cores… on the side of a mountain. Why not, right? If you don’t at least get a good chuckle out of the ensuing mayhem, I guarantee your money back.

Note that when each batch of Cores is spawned they all say the same thing in unison, which can get kind of loud. Mute or skip to 0:30 to get to the good stuff without waking up your neighbors.

BIG DIPPER!

You know how app developers are always talking about Apple’s mysterious and allegedly thorough iTunes app approval process? Apparently it can’t be too restrictive considering the company just allowed a trio of apps onto the App Store that blatantly infringe on three big-name brands.

Daniel Burford, operating under the company name “Home of Anime” is currently selling Pokémon Yellow, Digimon+, and YuGiOh+. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? I’m fairly certain Nintendo, Bandai, and Konami have….

Thanks unnamed media outlets! Why not just attribute them all to IGN? No one would doubt it.

Despite the rave reviews the app has already somehow received, the customer reviews are not quite so positive:

• I want my money back if I don’t get it I’m going to sue the person who made this application this just a rip off lying to us of what it contains!!!!!!! (faustino angel)
• Shoulda read the bottom comments before purchasing, this is a scam. Crashes after main screen (Chewybaka 0508)

Currently there are roughly 600 reviews averaging 1.5 stars for the Pokémon app. Pokémon Yellow was released for the Game Boy in 1998. Note also that the screenshot (below) used on the App Store is from a more recent Pokémon game, not Pokémon Yellow, though none of this matters since the app only loads the title screen before crashing (confirmed).

I half expect Zynga to take this as a sign that “Pokémon with Friends” is something they should try getting away with.

Borderlands 2 is one of 2012’s most anticipated shooters. It’s developed by Gearbox Software, the same team behind Duke Nukem Forever and the upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines, but the details about the game have been scarce since last year’s unveiling at PAX Prime.

Not content to wait, GamesBeat caught up with Gearbox Co-Founder & CEO Randy Pitchford, Executive VP & Chief Creative Officer Brian Martel, and writer Anthony Burch to squeeze some Claptrap-related information out of the trio (along with the two pieces of exclusive concept art you see above and below). What is the likable-but-occasionally-diabolical tin can up to these days? What role will he play in the sequel? And most important, can robots love?

GamesBeat: One of the more interesting things that you talked about with Duke Nukem Forever was implementing a “gay robot sidekick,” but you said it didn’t fit with 3D Realms’ original vision for that game. With Borderlands 2 coming up — the Claptraps and everything in that lore — you have the opportunity to re-explore that. Is that something you’re considering?

Randy Pitchford: I was actually at the BAFTA awards when I was asked some questions, and I talked about… What I was joking about, and I thought the implication was a little more clear than how I had made it, but what I was joking about was, Claptrap would be in Duke Nukem Forever. Which of course is not the case. Of course, the idea that a robot can have a sexual identity is kind of an absurd one. But it’s fun to play with that notion.

GamesBeat: But then also the idea that a robot could be an interplanetary–

Pitchford: –ninja assassin, right?! [laughs] It’s a little more likely, actually, than a robot re-creating… Sex is a function of biology, the necessity to reproduce, right? Robots don’t need to reproduce that way. Having said that, this character, Claptrap, has emotions, right? He can feel them, and that’s really interesting. And so what we learn is… Love, harmony… We can divorce that from sex. And we can have people that can have love for one another. It doesn’t matter. Gender, species, or even whether they’re robotic or not I was kinda playing with commentary on that level. But I think people interpreted things differently than what I was expressing. I’ll put that on me. I think I was more ambiguous than I should have been when I was joking around there.

GamesBeat: Claptrap’s dialogue and even his dance moves are inspired by countless pop culture references, but what about Claptrap himself? Where did the idea and his design come from?

Brian Martel: It was pure luck. One of our concept artists, Lorin Wood, posted a quick sketch of him as a joke in a task for another one of our projects we were working on. We all instantly fell in love when we saw it and asked him to do some additional riffs as we could picture him being in the Borderlands universe. The rest was history!

GamesBeat: Is it hard to write for the sequel, knowing how high expectations are for Claptrap to be funny and interesting?

Anthony Burch: It’s a bit more difficult. In earlier drafts of the script, I wrote Claptrap much closer to how he behaves in the web shorts: arrogant, insulting, profane, etcetera. It took a bit of internal discussion, and a couple of rewrites, to put Claptrap in a place where fans who hadn’t seen the shorts wouldn’t be shocked at Claptrap’s sudden doucheitude in BL2, while also making sure that he wasn’t just the exact same guy from the first game. It’s been five years, and Claptrap’s had some hairy stuff happen to him — he’s gotta be a bit worse for wear.

GamesBeat: Who does Claptrap see as his primary competition? Is there any internal aim to have Claptrap be more beloved by fans than GlaDOS or Wheatley, or at the very least, the Companion Cube?

Burch: “Write a character more beloved than the Companion Cube” is number seven on my list of Things That Would Be Awesome and Will Literally Never Happen, right before “play seven minutes in heaven with Tina Fey” and right after “high-five David Hayter while playing seven minutes in heaven with Tina Fey.”

So, no. Speaking personally, that’s never been an aim of mine.

GamesBeat: Aside from the basic Claptraps, there are a number of unique models throughout the original Borderlands: the wooden Jakobs Claptrap in Zombie Island; the hidden claptrap in Fyrestone, and the tuxedoed Claptrap Banker in Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot. What are your favorites?

Burch: I like the Jakobs Claptrap — specifically, the bit where he gets sick of waiting for the player to finish a mission and whines, “stop grinding and get over here, already!”

GamesBeat: Where does a Claptrap go from being an Interplanetary Ninja Assassin? That’s kind of like the pinnacle of any robot’s life, I’d imagine.

Burch: You imagine correctly. Claptrap experienced about as much power as any Claptrap possibly could, and now his situation has totally reversed — he’s hiding out in the middle of nowhere, lonely and bitter at Hyperion for ruining Pandora.

After the robot revolution, the Hyperion Corporation wiped out all the CL4P-TP’s except for our original Claptrap friend. He now seeks vengeance for his race, but he employs humorous and slightly pathetic tactics.

Amazon’s weekly sales data is in, and it included some definite surprises this time around. The following charts are for the top 10 best-selling titles across all platforms.

North America:

1. Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 (Xbox 360 Kinect)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360)
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
4. Just Dance 3 (Wii)
5. Zumba Fitness (Wii)
6. Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PS Vita)
7. Kinect Sports (Xbox 360 Kinect)
8. Twisted Metal (PS3)
9. Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure: Boomer (3DS, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360)
10. Zumba Fitness 2 (Wii)

No Final Fantasy XIII-2? No Darkness II? That’s a bit depressing, especially when half of the Top 10 are low-budget workout games for the Wii. It’s also interesting to see November’s Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012, a Kinect-only title, outselling Modern Warfare 3. Your Shape is an excellent game, and I was supposed to review it last year, but instead I just shamed myself by finding out how desperately out of shape I was.

Japan:

1. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (3DS)
2. New Love Plus – Normal Edition (3DS)
3. Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
4. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
5. Gravity Daze: Gravitational Dizziness (PS Vita)
6. Monster Hunter 3G (3DS)
7. Resident Evil Revelations (3DS)
8. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
9. Just Dance Wii (Wii)
10. ToHeart2 DX PLUS – Limited Edition (PS3)

Okay, this makes a little more sense. Only one Just Dance title, some Mario, a couple of Final Fantasy titles, Resident Evil, and the excellent-looking Gravity Daze for the PlayStation Vita. We poor Americans will have to wait a few months to take that one for a spin (put that joke in your pocket and save it for later).

Via Videogamesblogger, who also points out that Final Fantasy X still appears on the PlayStation 2 chart, where it has remained for the past decade.

French gaming site Gameblog.fr claimed that Activision blacklisted them after they ran a Call of Duty-related article earlier this week. The article pointed to Amazon.fr, which had posted a product page for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which hasn’t officially been announced yet.

Gameblog claimed Activision asked them to remove the article (and also notes that other sites had been contacted and chose to oblige the game publisher), and when they did not they were uninvited from an upcoming media event and taken off the company’s mailing list for reviews. Activision also allegedly canceled any current or planned advertising being done on Gameblog’s site.

Earlier today an external PR firm gave VentureBeat the following statement on behalf of Activision: “Activision doesn’t blacklist journalists. We believe this was a misunderstanding and are working towards a resolution.”

Speaking in an interview with Kotaku, Gameblog editor Grégory Szriftgiser elaborated on the situation:

The journalist who wrote the first newspiece—”Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 confirmed by Amazon“—Julien Chièze (who is one of the co-founders of the company with others and myself), originally spotted the info on Twitter.

He then proceeded with verifying it, by witnessing it first-hand on Amazon.fr and getting a screenshot their product webpage. The French website Jeuxvideo.com also had done a piece of its own, with their own screenshots, by the time our article was posted, and this was included as another reference in our own piece. We also had confirmation later that several people had received the Amazon France newsletter in the meantime, with a reference to Call of Duty : Black Ops 2 in it.

Our article was posted at 1:05 p.m. French time (that’s CET). Activision first tried to call me at 2:16 p.m., but I couldn’t answer, then sent an email (subject : “Pulling of a newspiece – URGENT”) to both Julien and myself at 2:24 p.m., asking to “please take down the newspiece now”, that “Activision didn’t make any announcement”, that “Amazon took upon themselves to publish this information without consulting [Activision]” and that it was “asked as a favor”. I returned the phone call at 2:30 p.m., during which Activision asked the same thing, as a favor, insisting that this was a very serious matter to them for internal reasons they couldn’t elaborate on and that the other major web outlets had already taken down their piece.

They also made clear that the relationship was to be severed, all advertisement plans cancelled, games not sent, and invitations to later events cancelled.

I explained that I couldn’t do this and why (mainly, that Activision didn’t have any right to intervene in our editorial, that it was newsworthy to us, that our job was first and foremost to inform our readers, that the newspiece didn’t argue that it was anything official on Activision’s end, and was correctly phrased to reflect it, notably, with the question mark), at which point Activision argued that they were disappointed – they asked that we please consider it “with all the consequences this could lead to”. I agreed to do so, told them I would get back to them later to give them my final decision. They were unreachable for the rest of the afternoon. After business hours, I had a short text conversation in which I re-stated that we wouldn’t pull the article, and asked if we should consider ourselves blacklisted as a result. It was around 8:30 p.m., and Activision answered we would resume the conversation by phone the next morning. The newspiece stayed online untouched during the night.

The next morning, we talked on the phone. They tried again to explain they needed us to pull the article, I refused again. They insisted again that it would seriously deteriorate the professional relationship we had, that we weren’t fully aware of the consequences this could have, and that they had already contacted their Advertising Agency (which buys ad space for them). I asked them again if we should consider ourselves blacklisted, and more precisely if my journalist (another one) was still to attend the preview event of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron that was planned next week and to which we were already invited. Activision said no. They also made clear that the relationship was to be severed, all advertisement plans cancelled, games not sent, and invitations to later events cancelled as well. I explained that if this was their decision indeed, we had to inform our readers of it, and would do so later in the day.

We then proceeded with writing the article stating we were blacklisted, and we published it at 3:01 p.m.

Games PR is not shy about flexing muscle over smaller outlets to get a preferable end result. Just last year, Jim Redner contemplated withholding review copies from outlets that gave Duke Nukem Forever bad scores over Twitter; a move that quickly got him fired by 2K. Electronic Arts was found to be surveying Norwegian journalists in order to prioritize outlets that would likely give Battlefield 3 a favorable review. I’ve personally encountered similar situations throughout my career, most notably with Bethesda’s VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines threatening to pull ads from a website I worked for (briefly, obviously) after another writer gave Fallout: New Vegas a less-than-perfect score.

I wonder if that was just a misunderstanding too?

Update: As expected, Amazon has matched the Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale for Vita games. The Amazon offer ends on February 25.

Original story: In Target’s latest weekly ad the retail chain revealed a “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” promotion for PlayStation Vita games. The Vita hits store shelves next week, February 22, and the Target sale runs from today, February 19, to Friday, February 25.

However, forum-goers at cheapassgamer.com have been having mixed or negative results, saying some Targets are not honoring the deal, even when the customer has the ad in-hand.

Luckily, rival chain Best Buy is openly “price-matching” the ad and also has a wider selection of Vita games available (Target apparently isn’t carrying all launch titles).

Originally Posted by dagarcia2678

I got Best Buy to price match this with no fight. Didn’t even get a manager involved. Possibly the easiest PM I have done in a long time.

Amazon.com is expected to follow suit for those who prefer to do their shopping from the comfort of their own home.

Check back tomorrow for VentureBeat’s massive PlayStation Vita launch coverage.

Double Fine’s Tim Schafer has been fielding questions for years about a potential followup to his much-loved 2005 3D platform game Psychonauts. Buzz about a sequel grew even louder earlier this month when Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson expressed an interest in funding the project on Twitter. During a recent interview with VentureBeat, however, Schafer said there’s still a lot of stuff that needs to be worked out first.

“It’s definitely a possibility. Notch and I know each other, and he has some resources, and so it could happen. But I think it’s going to be a while before we’ll be able to figure out what it would take to actually make it a reality,” he said. “Publishers take months to move on a deal like that, and it’s not any one person’s money. In this case, it’s one guy talking about millions of dollars being put into a risky proposition. So, it’s not something that happens overnight.”

Psychonauts follows the exploits of Razputin “Raz” Aquato, a circus performer who runs away to join a psychic summer camp and uncovers a conspiracy to steal children’s brains. Critics praised the game for its unique premise, sense of humor, and charming characters, but most people consider it a commercial failure. Schafer says that has made Psychonauts 2 a tough sell to publishers.

“It’s a game that has a reputation as being a cult hit — a game that sold less than half a million on its first release — and so I think people think of it as a low-selling game, and therefore, who’d want to sign a sequel to a low-selling game?”

Schafer says he’d gotten used to the idea of Psychonauts 2 not happening, but Notch’s offer has made him re-examine the project again.

“Games are more emotional for developers than I think people realize. [Psychonauts] means a lot to me, and to let it go once and then get it back and let it go again…it’s something that I have a lot of feelings about, so it’s hard to switch gears overnight based on one tweet. But it’s definitely a world and a character that I love and would love to go back to someday.”

VentureBeat will have more on Tim Schafer and his recent record-breaking Kickstarter project next week.

While I like them both, I would really like one giant mashed-up uber-game, if you will. Sky Age, perhaps. Or Dragon Rim. No, scratch that last one. Ew, just ew. Hell, let’s just begin with a look at what Skyrim really should improve upon, using Dragon Age II’s example.

Better voice acting
First up, what is with the same five guys voicing all the parts in Skyrim? Yeah, there’s Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, and Joan Allen to raise the bar, but in a game as expansive and fully voice-acted as Skyrim, there have got to be hundreds of parts.

I’m not suggesting that publisher/developer Bethesda hire hundreds of actors, but how about someone who can convincingly do a Norse accent without sounding like the Swedish chef? Dragon Age had Claudia Black (and who wouldn’t, right?), and Dragon Age II has Eve Myles. The supporting cast, however, really shines. I care about the side characters as much (or more at times) as the main ones. Skyrim just feels like local theater.

Better lip syncing
This might be more of the reason why, of course. In Dragon Age II, the lips, teeth, and tongues generally move in the way I expect them to, even given the fact that it’s a video game, uncanny valley, yeah yeah, etc. The facial expressions and the synchronization between voice and mouth allow me to suspend my disbelief and engage with the characters.

In Skyrim, however, I might as well grab a couple of ventriloquist dolls and act things out on my own. The puppet-y lip sync and facial movements just make me look away in pity. Honestly, Bethesda, you can do better.

Easier quest management
While some might complain about the quest map in Dragon Age II, I found it to be a lot easier to use. Yes, Skyrim’s map looks cooler, what with all the 3D and cloud cover, but boy is it fiddly.

I get the point behind making me travel to far-off places before I can fast-travel to them, allowing me to see the expansive environments of the game (really, the best part of Skyrim). But the little arrow always points in odd directions, mountains get in the way, and I just want to get to the next quest.

If I’m not engaged in the story, I’m not playing the game. I can only roll so many cheese wheels off a mountain before I’m longing for some direct gameplay.

Better combat animation
Look, I like Skyrim’s combat a lot better than Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s, but no one is using the word “visceral” to describe the battle system here. Fighting still feels like controlling a marionette with rigid strings, and even the dragon skirmishes are more about toddling around in circles until they land and then shouting at them to death.

Frequent weapon changes are encouraged, but the lag between choosing a new weapon and actually getting to use one is, well, laggy. I can’t count the number of times I switched to the Axe of Whiterun only to be stabbed to death by a dead Nord in the time it took to do so.

Dragon Age II, while more of a button-mashing fun-fest, is responsive and quick when choosing tactics, selecting spells, or even switching weapon sets.

More variety to colors/environments
Oh man, Skyrim designers, I get it. Skyrim is a cold, brown, and gray place. Even the underground is brown and gray. And cold. The monsters there are brown. And gray. The dragons, for the most part, are a variety of grayish-brown.

Please, Skyrim, can I have some color? Just a little? The northern lights at night are pretty, but they are not enough to counteract all the…wait for it…brown.

And repetition? It’s like they got the same guy with the bad Nordic accent to design all the inns. Every. Single. Inn. Has the Exact. Same. Layout. And some minor variation of an annoying bard whom I continue to want to shoot in the head.

Dragon Age II, with all its maze-y back channels and Deep Roads and such, at least has some variety in color and in environment.

Not everything’s perfect in the world of Dragon Age, though. What can DA2 learn from Skyrim?

As a prequel to all previous entries in Sony’s long-running anti-gravity racing series, Wipeout 2048 immediately piques your interest with its opening cinematic. The short intro visually dissects the evolution of racing from classic open-wheel roadsters to futuristic hovercrafts. Unfortunately, that’s roughly where the innovation stops, as Wipeout 2048 is virtually identical to its predecessors in all the ways that matter.

The developers do not explore the birth of the Anti-Gravity Racing Championships a single step further; instead, Wipeout 2048 succumbs to the Phantom Menace aberration where technology in the prequel is somehow just as good — if not better — as what’s seen much later in the timeline (i.e., Wipeout Pulse, which takes place in the year 2207).

The setting is a missed opportunity, though the gameplay remains top-notch. Studio Liverpool nearly perfected the Wipeout formula somewhere between the PlayStation Portable versions and Wipeout HD for the PlayStation 3, so it doesn’t seem entirely motivated to venture out of its comfort zone. This is fine, as the fast-paced racing and combat are still expertly executed and enjoyable, but how many more entries can players withstand before things become stale? I certainly hope Sony doesn’t intend to find out.

Campaign
The offline campaign is spread out over three race seasons (2048-2050), though that doesn’t really mean anything since it’s all just a bunch of event tabs in a single touchscreen hub. You’ll partake in a handful of different event types, including Races, Combat, Time Trials, Speed Laps, and Zone Events.

You can either Pass an event by meeting the easier minimum requirements, or you can Elite Pass it, usually by coming in first place. I found Elite Passes surprisingly easy to obtain on a first try, though there are a few that gave me some trouble. As you progress through the seasons and earn passes, you’ll gain experience points and level up, unlocking new ships and secret events.

Ships come in three different classes: Speed, Agility, and Fighter. Speed ships can outrun any other type of ship but at the sacrifice of shields and weapon power. Agility ships fall somewhere in the middle, providing excellent maneuverability without excelling in speed or firepower. Fighter ships may be slower and clunkier, but they can take more damage and open up new weapon types. For example, if a Speed class ship picks up a Rocket weapon, it will only fire one explosive. If a Fighter ship picks up a Rocket, however, it will fire three rockets simultaneously. You can discover and earn prototype ships as well (five prototype challenges unlock every 10 player levels). These ships have unique attributes such as starting with a lower max speed that increases each time you hit a Speed Pad during a race. The class system is a nice way to diversify the usual roster of team-based vehicles, especially with the addition of variable weapons and prototypes.

Technically, Wipeout 2048 conforms to the familiar-but-high standard set by previous titles. The visuals are crisp, though the courses would benefit from some slightly braver level design. I feel like I’ve been racing on the same freaking tracks for years (and in some cases, I have been). Each event does suffer from some pretty hefty loading times though, a reoccurring theme with Vita launch titles.

The music selection has your usual lineup of licensed electronica. It’s not a bad set at all, but it’s no Wipeout XL either. Still, when an instrumental version of The Prodigy’s Invaders Must Die peaks just as you’re flying into a shootout in a Combat Event, it’s hard not to get amped up by the soundtrack.

Zone
Yes, Zone Events get their own section in this review! First introduced in Wipeout Fusion, the unique mode really shined in Wipeout HD’s 1080p format. Zone Events simplify the gameplay down to one objective: survive. Your hovercraft accelerates automatically, so all you need to do is steer. The longer you survive, the faster your ship gets. Hitting walls shaves points off your health, and eventually you’ll be screaming along so quickly that one wrong move can pinball you into obliteration.

While the dynamic gameplay keeps Zone mode exponentially exciting, the psychedelic visuals play an even bigger role in the experience. Environments have been stripped of textures, instead replaced with vivid monochromatic colors. Wipeout 2048’s Zone seems to be the most aesthetically brilliant yet, truly taking advantage of the Vita’s OLED display. With techno music pounding away and the track’s color scheme reinventing itself each time the speed class is increased, Zone is a lot like what I imagine Lumines would be like if it had a F5000 anti-gravity engine strapped to it.

Little Deviants fell into a trap. The release of Sony’s new hardware has triggered an influx of games that feel compelled to overuse the PlayStation Vita’s features. Bigbig Studio’s offering is the worst example of such forced design. As one of the cheapest PS Vita launch titles, this game is proof that you pay for quality.

Like many other minigame collections, Little Deviants tries to do too much. The product fails to introduce a set of well-produced and quality challenges. This amounts to a throwaway experience that doesn’t advertise Vita’s capabilities well.

As with LittleBigPlanet, Sony tried to establish a cutesy race of characters to rival the ever-popular Sackboy. While the deviants are expressive and worthy of a quick “Awww”, they lack the personality to have lasting appeal. Instead, the chirpy first impressions soon turn to annoyance, a description that fits the entire product.

Attempts at a narrative are made, but the emphasis is very much on showcasing what Sony’s handheld can do. An army of evil “Botz” have struck, forcing the deviants into sudden action. Yes, “Botz”. If any hint is needed, this game is pitched towards the younger generation. Minors are sure to enjoy the various stages on offer, but even they will feel short-changed after a couple hours of play.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Little Deviants forces you try out Vita’s touchscreen, rear touchpad and tilt functions. Sony are inclined to stick with safe design, a decision that dismisses any intrigue. You’ll get used to rolling pests through mazes, destroying enemies with a quick prod, and flying through constricted courses in order to evade the threat of a robotic whale. Each section throws up a number of frustrations, and never feel as if any of them were crafted with optimism. Hints litter each level, but often appear at the wrong time. Sony waits for you to make a mistake and then kills the flow of the game, producing a continuously stop-start affair.

One stage instructs you to caress the rear touchpad with a single finger tip. This manipulates the ground, pushing your character across an arena that houses extra-life, time, and even the odd weapon. Keys are your only hope of escape. Collect them and a portal provides sweet release from a combination of poor controls and terrible level design. If you’re going to succeed, a smooth, consistent motion is needed to keep your deviant away from trouble. Botz are not the main threat. Instead, hurling your Vita at the wall provides the most poignant danger.

Unfortunately, this kind of irritation is a persistent theme. The developer reveals all of its ideas far too soon and with little imagination. I’d be extremely surprised to find a player who squeezes worth out of each challenge more than once. Certain stages echo the essence of a “Whack-A-Mole” carnival stall, forcing you to poke Botz via both the touchscreen and rear touchpad. This kind of simplicity is insulting. Other levels use Vita’s tilt function in a race to the finish line. Obstacles and scenery slow you down in a section that strives to emulate Sony’s competitors.

At this point, a number of comparisons can be made. Lack of 3D makes the hazards of each location difficult to unearth, especially when you’re moving at speed. Similarly, stages that implement Augmented Reality are tiresome. Sony has included these just to highlight it can match Nintendo’s innovation, a notion that quickly dissipates. Even Apple will feel aggrieved, as Little Deviants traces over various templates for iPhone games and submits the result as something to be proud of. The copycat tactics fail every time.

Conclusion
“Touch, Tap and Tilt” is plastered onto the retail case. This moniker indicates what to expect, as Sony gets caught up in Vita’s potential. It would work nicely as a free gift for those who purchase the handheld, but such generosity is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Sony expects you to part with more cash for an investment that doesn’t have much to offer. Little Deviants imitates the experience of the iPhone App Store, repackaging age-old ideas into an expensive commodity. Devoid of originality and staying power, the only deviation this game provides is away from any sense of fun. Score: 40/100

Little Deviants was released for the PlayStation Vita on February 15, 2012. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of the review.

Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard has finally broken his three-month-long silence regarding The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s notorious technical issues.

“Statistically, it is not nearly as bad as it seems,” Howard told IndustryGamers. ”Meaning, by all the internal and external data, this is our most solid release.”

Bethesda Softworks’ games have a long history of being released with countless bugs and glitches, often rendering certain quests and content impossible to complete. The PlayStation 3 version of Skyrim in particular suffered from tremendous slowdown after a couple hours of play.

The PlayStation 3 “lag” also occurred in previous triple-A titles from the studio, including Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, so the whole “Oh man, we totally didn’t expect this” line is a little hard to believe. A member of Obsidian Entertainment, who developed Fallout: New Vegas (also published by Bethesda), acknowledged the issue and explained why it keeps popping up.

“[Skyrim is] also our most popular by a large factor,” Howard said, “so we do have a lot of people on the PS3 who play the games a lot, and their games are at a state that the game is just taxing the PS3 enough. That’s a fact; so, it really wasn’t until we were able to get save games from the users — because, literally, how they play the game over 100 hours — some of it, very little of it, we were able to reproduce and take care of on our own and a lot of it that you’re seeing now, we weren’t. So over the course of, like, December, the community helped us. We got their save games. We’d literally have to look in and say, ‘What quests do they have running, what order? Oh, he’s doing this. He’s got these dragons here. This script is running. Why is it kicking out this many things?’”

For those not familiar with game development, what Howard is referring to is also known as “quality assurance,” and is usually done before a game releases.

Howard gave the opening keynote at last week’s DICE 2012 conference in Las Vegas, Nev. and curiously did not take the opportunity to address Skyrim’s issues. Instead, to kick frustrated customers while they were down, Howard obliviously teased a number of highly desirable features (such as dragon mounts, new weapons, graphical enhancements, etc.) that the development team had created in one week.

The Bethesda Blog post announcing the 1.4 patch (which allegedly corrects nearly 60 major bugs including the PS3 slowdown) quickly became overrun with users listing many more outstanding issues.

I understand that Skyrim is an extremely ambitious title, and for those unaffected by the PlayStation 3 lag effect, the game is quite enjoyable, even despite many of the technical issues. But the fact that unfinished, untested retail releases have become a seemingly acceptable signature of Bethesda, all while selling upwards of 10 million units, is concerning. It fuels what is already a dangerous mindset of many publishers who believe a product can be released now and fixed later — and ultimately diminishes the overall quality of new games. This is in direct opposition to companies like Valve (Half-Life, Portal) and Blizzard (Warcraft, Diablo) who are known for the tagline: “It will be done when it’s done.”

The silver lining is that Howard also stated downloadable content for Skyrim will be far more substantial than in Bethesda’s previous games and will feel more like expansions. Luckily none of the DLC has been tied to an arbitrary marketing date like 11/11/11, so there’s a better chance they’ll be given more rigorous testing before being sold.

Along with the ESRB, online game retailers are notorious for revealing unannounced games long before their publishers would like them to be. Amazon France seems to have done just that, according to GameBlog.fr. GameBlog took a screencap of the above product listing before stating that title was changed to “Call of Duty 9″ and then delisted altogether.

Soon after GameBlog updated its story claiming that Activision France demanded the news be taken down from the site, and when GameBlog did not comply it was subsequently blacklisted, the full details of which can be read here. GameBlog also reveals (through archived screencaps) that a number of other game sites did pull down news reports regarding Black Ops 2, allegedly at the behest of Activision PR.

Activision has already admitted that Treyarch was working on this year’s iteration of Call of Duty. Treyarch has also never been one to innovate on its own, so it makes sense that they would follow in Infinity Ward’s footsteps and try to make Black Ops a franchise-within-a-franchise a la Modern Warfare.

BlackOps2Game.com recently reported that Activision stealth-acquired BlackOps2.com, further pointing to confirmation that the title is indeed in the works.

Last but not least is the mention of Call of Duty Black Ops 2 on a a Nerve Software artist’s public LinkedIn page. It has since been taken down, but the internet never forgets:

Nerve Software has previously worked with Treyarch on Quantam of Solace and the original Call of Duty: Black Ops. Oops!

We’ve reached out to Activision for comment and will update the story if they choose to reply.

Update (2/19): Step3, an external PR firm that frequently works for Activision in the U.S., commented to GamesBeat on behalf of the company: ”Activision doesn’t blacklist journalists. We believe this was a misunderstanding and are working towards a resolution”. No comment was made regarding Black Ops 2.

Though the event had been over for nearly an hour, a few fans, including myself, patiently gathered outside in hopes of getting the former designer of Eat Sleep Play to autograph our pile of old TM games and memorabilia.

As soon as Jaffe finished up his last interview of the night with EGM Managing Editor Brandon Justice, we received our wish. He had a quick chat with each of us as he signed our gear, and we eventually packed up our stuff — which included an Ikea table laser-etched with the Twisted Metal logo that we were able to take home — thinking the night was over. We started to go our separate ways as Jaffe and Brandon began to discuss places to eat nearby.

Suddenly, Jaffe broke from the conversation and asked us, “Hey, you guys wanna grab some food?”

Hated by some and loved by others, David Jaffe is a bona fide celebrity within the video game industry. Who else can generate news headlines whenever he speaks? While he is most known for his crude vulgarity and long, rambling speeches, you can’t deny the man’s passion for making games. I’ve long admired and respected him for both the Twisted Metal franchise and God of War, so the thought of meeting him in person, let alone grabbing food with him, was enough to send me into an anxiety attack.

I had a chance to sit down with, arguably, one of the most interesting and thought-provoking designers in the industry, and I just didn’t know how to react. All I could do was nod along with the rest of the guys as we headed down to Mel’s Drive-In across the street.

Among the fans who tagged along with me were three others. One guy was a truly dedicated fan of the TM franchise who flew all the way from Texas just to see David and the game. Another was a young producer for Electronic Arts. And the last guy was a programmer for a local developer who made free-to-play titles.

Then there was me, a recent college grad that had absolutely no idea what to do with his life. Originally, as a starry-eyed freshman, I started out as a computer-science major who had aspirations to work in the gaming industry. How hard could programming be, right? Well, let’s just say I quickly burned out after about a year’s worth of courses and was on the cusp of failing out of college entirely.

I fell back to my backup major, English — a dangerous word that carried a frighteningly bleak future of endless job hunting and not much (if any) money. As someone who enjoyed his high-school English courses and actually liked writing, I thought that there had to be some way to combine that pursuit with another similar passion — video games.

Shortly after I switched majors, I tried starting my own blog and attempted to do the whole shebang — news, reviews, features, etc. Anyone who has done this alone can testify to how hard it really is trying to keep your motivation up, especially when it comes to the lack of readers. It also becomes a problem of trying to do too much in such a small amount of time.

Coupled with the demands of homework, midterms, and my extracurricular responsibilities, I eventually gave it all up after only a few months. I felt my heart just was not in it anymore.

There are certain expectations when one graduates from college — that you’re now competent enough to take on the world and to find a career path that’s right for you, especially with the pressure of student-loan payments and the usual bills that goes along with being an adult. This was the situation I found myself in last summer when I finally walked out of college with my BA in hand, still uncertain of what sort of shape my career was going to take.

While I was trying to figure this out, I stumbled across a video of David Jaffe’s speech about a week before the Twisted Metal event. It was from the 2011 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, the semi-annual convention that also takes place in Boston. In the video, Jaffe talked about the struggle of finding and listening to one’s voice.

Through a series of unrelenting pressure and adversity throughout the course of his career, Jaffe discovered that it’s easy to lose that voice and difficult to gain it back. I found his struggle a parallel to my own where I was still searching for a way to define my own voice in the midst of an uncertain future. Writing about games had always been on the back of my mind, but ever since giving up my blog, I had a lot of self doubt as to how feasible that prospect could really be.

Call it coincidence, serendipity, or what have you, but only a few days after discovering this video, here I was sitting across from David, eating our late-night burgers while I had difficulty just trying to get the words out of my mouth for the current conversation about major trends in the industry.

Given that most of our group had at least some experience and insight in this matter, you can imagine how overwhelmed I felt just sitting there and listening in — whether they were talking about the rise of the free-to-play model in games or the nature of storytelling (where much of what Jaffe said about this ended up in his recent speech at the DICE Summit). I jumped in when I could, but I was mostly just satisfied hearing everyone’s views.

The weird part about this whole experience was that nobody said anything particularly enlightening to me. It’s not like the conversation drifted into the whole “how to break into the industry” discussion. If you really look at it, we were just a bunch of guys chatting about games.

There is, however, something special that occurs when you’re around people that are so passionate about the same hobby, so passionate about its future, and so passionate about why we play what we play. It’s infectious.

I knew I couldn’t let this night go to waste without it fundamentally changing the way I thought about myself and my future.

We all left the diner and said our goodbyes around 12:30 a.m. or so. The guy from Texas (who, crazily enough, was heading back to the airport) and I practically ran to make the last BART train out of the city. The entire time, my head was buzzing and my heart was practically clawing out of my chest. My voice came screaming back from oblivion, yelling at me again and again, that this is the world I belonged to — that this is the place where I need to take a stand and let my thoughts be heard.

Whether I make it or not as a gaming journalist is irrelevant. What matters is that I try.

As a friend of mine told me: It isn’t everyday that something like this lights a fire in you.

Note: Giancarlo is a community writer for Bitmob.com. At Bitmob, community members can post stories, and if the staff editors like any, they will edit and promote them to the front page. We will be merging the two sites within a month or two, but until then, we’ll post an occasional Bitmob story here on GamesBeat. This is the first.

Angry Birds has been the major success story of mobile games in the past couple of years with more than 700 million downloads for the game.

For the three people unfamiliar with how the game works, you shoot cute Angry Bird characters via slingshot at some big green pigs who hide in structures that can be crushed by the birds. The game has made its way into emerging markets in a big way and debuted on Facebook this week. No game has grown so quickly and so broadly in the mass market, and Rovio is milking the success as much as it can with everything from movie appearances to plush toys.

The company says Angry Birds Space is “the biggest game launch since the original Angry Birds.” It will include simultaneous launches in mobile gaming, animation, retail, and publishing.

Angry Birds was the fifty-second game created by Rovio. The new space game will have numerous new characters, and players can expect the physics part of the game to be accurate (Vint Cerf would be so pleased). The only exception, of course, is that pigs and birds can’t breathe in space. On top of launching birds at pigs in zero gravity, the game will have a variety of other gameplay elements, including slow-motion, light-speed destruction, and other new features.

Angry Birds seems ready to enhance its worldwide presence even further this year, with this growth across the Facebook community. As it does so, Rovio chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka’s dream of building an “integrated entertainment franchise” akin to Disney looks to be getting one step closer.

Here is the teaser trailer: