Game Daily News

SEATTLE — Above, a Pink Godzilla employee cuts China Warrior, maybe the single worst TurboGrafx game ever, off the company’s giant wall of retro games in its Penny Arcade Expo booth.

I wanted to buy a bad TurboGrafx game but didn’t want to make the decision on my own. You, the readers, have done it for me. Thank you. Also, I hate you because for some reason I promised to play this on a TurboExpress when I get back home.

Pink Godzilla is pretty fantastic, for what it’s worth. Their prices on classic Japanese games are pretty much what you’d expect to pay in Akihabara. They’re totally reasonable, the people are friendly, and their stock is absurdly deep. We’ll have a gallery of Top Ten Things You Should Have Bought At PAX up later this week, and there’s some really interesting stuff in there.

Image: Chris Kohler/Wired.com

SEATTLE — I watch a lot of those Food Network Challenge cake things, and so it was pretty cool to see that a local bakery had put together this novelty Penny Arcade Adventures cake.

Unfortunately, it was all but destroyed by day two, and just sitting there, next to Wil Wheaton, unattended. The Fruit Fucker’s arms had broken off. In fact, pretty much everything was broken and ruined, just from the jostling that the table took from all the foot traffic and gawkers. At this point I don’t think you could pay someone to eat it.

Oh well. I’m sure it was pretty awesome in its day. (Friday.)

Image: Chris Kohler/Wired.com

Since the game was originally announced, a PlayStation 3 version of Left 4 Dead has never been confirmed. Rumors have come and gone but for the past 6 months all we have seen is footage and gameplay from the Xbox 360 and PC. Why no PlayStation 3 love? Kotaku asks the tough questions for us.

Faliszek said that it’s mostly a matter of development time. Creating the Xbox 360 version of the game is close enough to creating the PC version that it’s “almost like pushing an A button,” he said. The PS3 version, though, essentially requires starting from scratch.

There we have it. Development for the Xbox 360 is almost identical to development for the PC. While a PlayStation 3 version is possible it definately looks like we will have to wait until after the original release. Read the full interview at the link below.

Source

SEATTLE — The second episode of Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People is down on the show floor at PAX (right when you walk in, actually), but I didn’t want to play it. I want to remain pure and unspoiled for its release next month.

That said, I did want to check out the second of the faux classic videogames that will be included in this episode. This one is called, to the best of my recollection, Math Kickers: Featuring the Algebros.

Telltale said that they did actually experiment with including actual mathematic puzzles in this game, but it was too difficult and frustrating. So now you just punch things and the equations pretty much solve themselves. That’s the idea I got, anyway. It’s pretty hilarious.

Image: Chris Kohler/Wired.com

SEATTLE — A great deal of my yesterday was spent planning for and then executing on the Panel, otherwise known as "Game Criticism and Old Game Journalism."

I didn’t know how many people would actually show up, so imagine my surprise when the combined allure of three journalists and one ex-journalist packed the entire theater full of attentive, wonderful listeners, many of whom had to be turned away during the Q&A period because there wasn’t any time. It all went pretty well, I guess. That’s what people said after.

I did record the speeches that myself, Gus Mastrapa, Karen Chu, and Patrick Klepek gave, so hopefully those will come out okay and I can transcribe them later.

Of course, now that I’ve spent so much time on the panel and our front page PAX gallery, I get to go back to the show today and actually (gasp) play some games. I know, right?

Image: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

dachshund writes “The Baltimore Sun reports that security firm Independent Security Evaluators has disclosed vulnerabilities in the popular MMORPGs Age of Conan and Anarchy Online. The flaws (which have since been patched) allowed a malicious user to read files from and take control of another player’s computer. The full details of the attack are available, including a video (hi-res MOV) showing how the targeted player’s client can be crashed, and how an attacker can save and run scripts on the victim’s computer.”

dachshund writes “The Baltimore Sun reports that security firm Independent Security Evaluators has disclosed vulnerabilities in the popular MMORPGs Age of Conan and Anarchy Online. The flaws (which have since been patched) allowed a malicious user to read files from and take control of another player’s computer. The full details of the attack are available, including a video (hi-res MOV) showing how the targeted player’s client can be crashed, and how an attacker can save and run scripts on the victim’s computer.”

As had been expected, Electronic Arts has released the original Command & Conquer: Red Alert for free to celebrate the release of the original Command & Conquer 13 years ago.

At FileShack you can find the ISOs for the Allied and Soviet discs. Both are about 500mb downloads.

Red Alert can be installed under Windows XP, 98, 95 and ME. Vista is not officially supported, though it should be able to run on that OS as well.

Catan: Traders & Barbarians, Soon to Seat Six

Mayfair Games, presumably working hand-in-hand with Kosmos, has an expansion in the works for Catan: Traders & Barbarians that will allow players five and six to join the game. Expect news about this release in the near future.

Start Player, A New Edition from Z-Man and daVinci

Ted Alspach’s Start Player, a goofy “game” to determine the subsequent start player that lasts ten seconds in most cases, is coming out in a newish edition from Z-Man Games in English and daVinci Games in Italian. (The box is shared between the companies, but the cards themselves are in only one language.) DaVinci has announced a Spiel 08 release for its edition; no word yet on when Z-Man Games might release Start Player or what the set will contain, other than that the package will be a fixed set of cards and not random assortments.

This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.