“Halo’s” Cortana Coming to the Real World
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/22/14 at 02:11 PM CT
Cortana, the AI sidekick to whom the ‘Halo’ franchise’s Master Chief delegates all activities that don’t involve shooting aliens, looks to be moving up in the world. According to recently revealed information, the AI character will no longer be confined to a virtual reality within a fictional game universe, but will become a competitor to Apple’s Siri digital assistant in an upcoming upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS.
While it has long been the case that Microsoft’s Xbox line of game consoles have only really existed to play ‘Halo’ games, and Microsoft’s Game Studio division has only really existed to make ‘Halo’ sequels to play on Xbox consoles, it looks like the logical circle will finally be broken, allowing something from Microsoft’s gaming division to contribute directly to the company’s bread-and-butter: OS development. According to available information, Cortana will replace Bing, Microsoft’s ill-loved-but-actually-quite-good Google …
Procedural Generation: The Death of Design
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/16/14 at 03:15 PM CT
I first encountered the concept of ‘random number generation’ in RPGs shortly after my initial exposure to THE original RPG. Specifically, in the course of running weekly AD&D 2nd Edition games during high school, I came to embrace randomness in every way. I created elaborate tables containing every race and class, then mandated that players at my table create characters not by CHOOSING these fundamental aspects, but by ROLLING for them. My logic, at the time, was to prevent players from constantly creating characters that were cookie cutter carbon copies of each other. I knew that one of my players would ALWAYS be a dwarf fighter, given the chance, and I knew that my own preference would lead me to an eternal cycle of playing as the same wizard with the same complement of spells over and over again.
My introduction to Random Loot came as part of the same game. When I bought a complete four-volume set of the “Encyclopedia Magica” (which I still own), the massive treasure …
Iwata Knows Best? Two Big Ideas for Nintendo’s Future
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/08/14 at 02:44 PM CT
It seems nearly impossible to read an article about Nintendo anymore without a few ignoramuses in the comments section suggesting Nintendo ‘pull a Sega’ and become a games-only third-party developer/publisher. The second most common cry of idiocy in such instances is the call for Satoru Iwata to step down as president of the Japanese company.
I won’t dignify the first of those assertions with a response right now, but the motion for the removal of Iwata has recently suffered a blow. In a recent Q&A session (which was handily summarized by Ars Technica), Iwata has proven that he is aware of Nintendo’s current problems and that he does have a plan to deal with them. It helps bolster Iwata’s position in my mind, mainly because two of the big things he wants to do with the company are things I’ve been suggesting for quite some time.
First, Iwata wants to unify Nintendo’s handheld and stationary consoles. This seems like an essential step, considering that Nintendo’s …
Backlog: The Embiggening - February, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/02/14 at 05:07 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Like last year, February is proving to hold a bumper-crop of new releases after a disappointing and austere January. Also, miraculously, both licensed shovelware and multi-platform M-rated shooters are in short supply. So, with all the new games coming this month, surely my backlog will grow? Don’t count on it.
Two pieces of licensed trash still managed to appear this month: One, a tie-in to a movie that is itself a tie-in to the world’s greatest building-blocks; the other an annual release in the official religion of Rednecks (no, not Evangelical Christianity, the other one).
Outside of shovelware, the multi-platform releases don’t look particularly inspiring. First, there’s the PS4 and XBONE port of “Rayman Legends,” which was originally intended to be a WiiU exclusive before Ubisoft hedged their bets against the struggling 8th Generation pioneer and released the game on EVERYTHING. Then there’s the creatively-named …
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