Sony-owned game developer Naughty Dog - the guys behind Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter and Uncharted - announced an entirely new franchise at the VGAs, and what we've seen so far looks amazing.

The company showed off a trailer for The Last of Us, which Naughty Dog says a character-driven, story-based zombie game. Keep in mind that this game - and these graphics - are exclusive to PS3.

But there's a twist - it seems Naughty Dog is hinting that the zombification is caused by a fungus like the fungus Cordyceps, which essentially controls the minds of ants and makes them become cannibals. We'd guess it's a similar fungus that can affect humans, but not the same one.

Here's a teaser from the company, which has taken the clip from the BBC's Planet Earth segment about Cordyceps.

The game, which will be single-player only, revolves around two characters, Joel and teenage Ellie, a duo who've been on the run for so long, just surviving, that Ellie can't remember normal life. The two will journey across the United States in the game.

Ordinarily when there's very little information about a game other than a cinematic trailer (albeit one that was created using in-game graphics), I try not to get too excited. After all, the DC Universe Online trailer was by far the best part of that game, and Dead Island was a crushing disappointment. But Naughty Dog is a fantastic company, and (at least so far) doesn't deal in bad games. If you've been waiting for a great zombie game that's really story driven - like we all thought Dead Island was going to be - then The Last of Us could be it.

To be honest, like many people I've gotten a bit of zombie fatigue. But I'm willing to make an exception for a game like this one, if Naughty Dog gets it right.

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 11:05 AM | Comments ( 0 )

New Zealand developer Luxaloffle has launched the alpha of a little indie title called Voxatron. The game itself will cost US$15 when it officially launches, but right now it's available on a pay-what-you-want basis through a cool system called the Humble Bundle.

So far, Luxaloffle has sold 96,109 copies of Voxatron, and that number is rising by the minute. The total payments made currently add up to more than US$427,000 - and this is only a day after the deal went live.

Voxatron is a platform shooter, with interesting, retro-but-not-retro graphics and super retro music. Check out the video below:

Anyone who buys Voxatron through Humble Bundle will receive all the patches and updates for free, and they can divide what they pay - however much it is - between the game developer, the Humble Bundle website, and charities.

Interestingly, the website has some stats that show what people using each operating system - PC, Mac or Linux - were willing to pay. As it turns out, Windows users are cheaper than Mac or Linux users - on average, Windows users spend around $4. Mac users sit in the middle, paying around $5.70, and Linux users are happy to pay an average of $7.30.

If your curiosity is piqued, you can check out the game, pay for it and download it at http://www.humblebundle.com/

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 4:45 PM | Comments ( 0 )

Not every game developer will take the time to say thank you to fans of the publications that review their games. Cliff Bleszinski, design director for Epic Games' Gears of War series, is obviously not every game dev. He's recorded shout-outs to Stuff.co.nz, Gameplanet, NZ Gamer and, well, us! That's a top bloke. Thanks Cliff!

Check out the video:

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 2:04 PM | Comments ( 0 )

If you're into games, podcasts, or both, check out the Well Played podcast on iTunes. We're a bunch of local game journalists - there's yours truly, plus Aylon Herbet from NZGamer, Gerard Campbell aka 'Game Junkie' from Stuff/The Press, Julie Gray from Game Culture, and Chris Leggett, freelancer and previous editor of Game Console. We talk about games, game journalism and the gaming industry at large, and in the episode linked below - the most recent - we talk the Resistance 3 multiplayer beta, our hands-on with Dead Island, and GamesCom.

If you're interested, download from iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/nz/podcast/well-played/id453388114

We're quite a few episodes in now - we've been doing it for the last 12 weeks - so if you feel like going back and listening to previous episodes they're all there. If you have feedback, you can review us on iTunes or join our Facebook group here.

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 12:46 PM | Comments ( 1 )

Ubisoft showed off Assassin's Creed: Revelations at E3 today, and my, does it look epic!

More E3 trailers are incoming, but I just couldn't wait to get this one up on the blog for you guys!

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 3:42 PM | Comments ( 0 )

I recently got to play the Gears of War 3 beta, and that got me pretty excited for the full game. But is it just me, or is this trailer really... samey? War, explosions, big monsters, yawn.

What are your favourite video game trailers? I have to say that Dead Island's trailer was pretty incredible, although I learned nothing about the game except that there would be zombies.

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 12:01 PM | Comments ( 1 )

The virtually unanimous game of the year last year was Red Dead Redemption. It won nearly every gaming website's top award for 2010. Can Rockstar do it again with LA Noire?

Red Dead Redemption was dubbed 'Grand Theft Auto on horseback' by many gamers, and the style of LA Noire looks fairly similar. Check out the gameplay video below:

But Rockstar has a few new tricks up its sleeve. Most notably, they're introducing improved facial expressions. I played Heavy Rain for PS3 over the weekend, which requires you to interpret facial expressions to an extent, but for the most part they're just not good enough to depict any real emotion. In the trailers for LA Noire, you can see every line on a character's face and read into every furrow of the brow. It looks nice, but more importantly if you can read those expressions correctly, you'll make the right choices and fare better in the game.

LA Noire is out on 20 May - I definitely can't wait to play this one. What do you think the game of the year will be?

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 12:16 PM | Comments ( 1 )

Into realistic FPS games? Looking forward to Battlefield 3? (Who isn't?) Check out this 12-minute long gamplay trailer. It's really less of a trailer and more of a walkthrough of a mission, but it looks noooice. There were a couple of moments in here that are really impressive - let us know what you think.

Warning for those of you who are in or were in Christchurch during the recent quakes: There are tremors in this video, so don't watch it if it freaks you out.

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 12:06 PM | Comments ( 0 )

When we think of motion gaming, we don't really think of titles like Call of Duty - despite the fact that Call of Duty 3 was launched on the Wii - but a number of games for hardcore gamers, rather than just casual gamers, are either in the works or on shelves now.

One of the most exciting things about Kinect when it first came out, for me at least, was the idea that I could one day play a game where I physically had to run, duck for cover, hold my arm out and shoot. It would be a totally immersive, unique experience, and it's one of the big reasons I'm looking forward to the Gears of War title being made for the sensor. Of course, Microsoft will have to go through with that firmware upgrade and improve accuracy or I imagine it'll be hard to play.

I recently had the opportunity to play Killzone 3 with PlayStation's super-accurate Move device, though, and while I won't go into it too much - I'm going to be reviewing it for April's issue - I thought it was pretty cool. I literally had to hold my breath and steady my wavering hand to snipe at someone, and it added an extra air of realism.

The real hurdle for game developers making motion-controlled games for "real gamers" - in quotes because saying people who game casually aren't gamers is pure snobbery - will be the already-upturned noses of many people who label themselves "real gamers". The decision has already been made that Kinect and the Move are, like, for n00bs, bro, and it'll be hard to get them to have a change of heart.

It's funny. Realistic graphics - great! Interacting with the game more realistically - hells no.

Posted by Siobhan Keogh at 5:29 PM | Comments ( 2 )

The Global Game Jam is an annual event in which artists, animators, writers, programmers and other creative types get together to develop video games in just 48 uber-caffeinated hours.

This year I reported live from the Auckland event; this post contains my updates throughout the weekend. Also be sure to check out the pics on our Facebook page.

Not your first time here? You can jump to the final results.

-- Harley Ogier, Reviews Editor, PCW

Friday 28/01/2011, 9:15pm:

A late start on my reporting; between brainstorming, consuming The Official Food Of Gaming (pizza) and getting connected to the Media Design School's Wi-Fi, a few hours have passed.

We now know the theme around which games must be developed: unfortunately for you, that's a closely guarded secret. The Game Jam tees off around the world at 5:00pm, locally in each time zone - therefore, I can't splatter the theme across the interwebs until 5:00pm tomorrow, when the last Game Jammers have begun.

There are great ideas abound, and various teams have formed - my favourite so far? A console-aided drinking game (being prototyped on PC). I'll be keeping a close eye on that one, especially when they begin beta testing on Sunday.

I've opted to work on my own, producing an oldschool text-mode game named "Zero". Details to follow -- trust me, the other games in development here will far eclipse mine. There's a lot of talent on the top floor tonight, and I'm just a long-retired code-monkey with a borrowed Alienware and a Nikon D90.

Friday 28/01/2011, 10:58pm:

Starting to quiet down around here... the drinking game team has left the building. They've got the right idea... if they don't get some sleep now, they're not going to survive a weekend of testing.

Must get some interviews done tomorrow, and see what everyone is up to. I'm trying to remember how to write code quickly, functionally and without a constant supply of caffeine and alcohol. The former two are easier than the latter.

Friday 28/01/2011, 11:41pm:

Only a few people remaining now -- I'm going to head off, before the city crushes my car into a cube or something. You can see my progress... yep, a whole lot of zero. Er... zeroes.

Check out the Facebook gallery for the final pics of the night - I'll be back tomorrow, live and caffeinated.

Saturday 29/01/2011, 08:24am:

Arriving at 8:00am, the only peeps here to meet me were uber-dedicated Media Design School students; one chap's even conscious and working after a 4:00am baking session. Good job, I say. Sleep is for the weak.

(Note: The dude pictured was not the one baking, for the record. I just like watching the awesome imagery that covers his screen.)

Saturday 29/01/2011, 09:24am:

Still not that many people here... another couple of teams have arrived, but nowhere near the numbers we saw last night. Without much to report on right now, I guess it's time to get some game programming done.

Saturday 29/01/2011, 11:28am:

Still a few people short... the drinking game team is here now, though, and that's something. My own game is going well enough, the simple little text-based thing it is. Right now, I have a strong urge to play New Vegas, or possibly Minecraft. Neither of which I plan on doing today.

Saturday 29/01/2011, 5:08pm:

I've been doing the rounds, taking some old-fashioned screenshots (the kind you take with a camera, over someone's shoulder with the flash switched off and a fast shutter speed). I know five has come and gone, but I'm going to hold off on unveiling the theme until six... let the last timezone watch their keynote and get started before I break the silence.

If, like me, you're particularly interested in the idea of a computer-aided drinking game, you should probably know that their team lead is walking around IN A PANDA MASK. Does this bode well for development? We'll be the first ones to tell you, here on the ground at #GGJ11.

More pics on the Facebook gallery. Until six, enjoy!

Saturday 29/01/2011, 6:16pm:

Exactly 5:45pm, and all the lab machines shut down. No warning, no chance to abort. Sorry, y'all, hope you saved your work.

Cheers to Dell for lending me an Alienware M15x, so I was unaffected by the mass power-down. Would've been nice if it had been set up with video drivers so I could use the lovely GeForce GTX 260M GPU -- I can't download executables from via the Media Design School's Wi-Fi, so I'm stuck with a machine that thinks it has no graphics capabilities. Fortunately I learned this _after_ I decided to make a text-based game. Pro tip: don't trust anyone else to set up a mission-critical machine for you: let alone the last random reviewer to use it.

Anyway, if you've been waiting to hear... the theme for this year's Global Game Jam, around which all games must be designed is...

EXTINCTION

I'd expect to see lots of dinosaurs, asteroids striking earth, people polluting themselves out of existence... the usual fare. We seem to have some more... creative efforts on deck here, so I trust tomorrow afternoon's game roundup shall be an interesting one.

Drunken pandas? Now that's how you make an extinction-themed game without diving face-first into a steaming bucket of cliche.

Saturday 29/01/2011, 8:10pm:

So I'm a journalist. A fair portion of the carbohydrates I require to be alive enter my body in the form of alcoholic beverages. This means I've been giving the drinking game a lot of coverage.

To indulge those of you with more traditional tastes in video gaming, I took a wander around the building and picked up a few more screenshots. The retro title "Dead Pixels" (or is it "DeadPixels") is looking particularly good... if only their collision detection worked for right movements as well as left ones. Ah well, surely they'll have that fixed by the time I post this.

Just under four hours left tonight. My own game, now titled "0++" (Zero-Plus-Plus), is in a totally playable stage... I just need to add the scoring system, menus and some on-screen instructions. I hope to get most of that done tonight; which I should be able to do, if I can stop eating my own dogfood and get down to work.

Saturday 29/01/2011, 10:21pm:

Well, an hour and a half left for me. I have difficulty levels, but still no in-game menus or scoring. Partially because I'm still playing my own game, and partially because walking around and taking photos of the real games on other teams' screens is so much fun.

Once again, more pics on the Facebook gallery.

Saturday 29/01/2011, 11:45pm:

In fifteen minutes it'll be Sunday, and we'll be closing down for the day. Got to get some sleep, after all.

All of the teams seem to have something functional, and pretty well polished by my standards. I'm hoping that by 3:00pm on Sunday when we start uploading games, everyone will have something finished [enough] to put their name to. We're definitely going to have some awesome indie games on April's PC World DVD. I'll have to get Siobhan to write the reviews this time; as a Game Jam participant, I really can't. Besides, it might ruin the whole "spirit of collaboration" thing if everyone thought I was going to review their games. Naw, definitely a Siobhan thing.

Final pics for Saturday are now in the Facebook gallery, including some awesome in-game screenshots of retro platformer Dead Pixels.

Sunday 30/01/2011, 11:50am:

So, lack of sleep caught up with me and I failed thoroughly at an 8:00am start. Well damn. It's now twelve hours since my last post and - perhaps more importantly - since I made any progress on my own game.

With the odds stacked against me, it's time to don the MacGyver jacket...
+10 improvisation
+5 mullet

...excellent. That should even the odds a bit.

I met the drinking game team downstairs as I arrived... well, two of 'em. No clue where their panda-masked leader is, but apparently everyone is still alive and of sound liver-function.

Sunday 30/01/2011, 12:35pm:

Made my way around the floor and took another bunch of screen shots - you'll find those on the Facebook gallery.

Just learned that the shiny-looking planetary sim is a web game, currently running in Chrome (never paid attention to the title bar when I was snapping pics - I should have). It looked visually impressive before, but they've added a fair bit more polish and action since last night: now I can't wait to try my hand at it.

Still not sure what's being made out in the Apple Corridor... all I've seen to date are a lot of high-res models, and nothing approximating a playable game. Hmmmmm... apparently they do have a programmer on their team, so they must have something in the works.

Sunday 30/01/2011, 2:00pm:

We're all back from a brief lunch in one of Auckland CBD's numerous food courts. Game Jammers need to eat, even on Sunday just two hours before the deadline.

That's right, we're submitting our games to the Global Game Jam site at 4:00pm NZ time. Originally that was going to be 3:00pm, but we've been granted an hour's extension to finish up, polish and test. I'm glad we were... I've got a working menu now, but 0++ still lacks a scoring mechanism, a way to change the difficulty level that doesn't involve editing the code, and some kind of friendly message when you eventually lose the game (there's no way to win, you see).

Sunday 30/01/2011, 5:22pm:

And, 48 hours later, we're done. I'm going to pack up my things, go home, pour myself a drink and start uploading video. Want to see the games demo'd, followed by our local awards ceremony? Get your browser back here at seven sharp, when I'll be wrapping up our exclusive on-site coverage of the Global Game Jam's Auckland event.

Sunday 30/01/2011, 7:01pm:

Check out the awards ceremony. It's not quite the Oscars, but at least you can tell it's not rigged.

Here's a little rundown of the titles to come out of this year's Auckland event:

• Catastrophe - Fly around a 3D city, saving people from rooftops before some kind of pink sky-beam blows the hell out of the building they're standing on. Some very nice building-destruction physics, with everything disintegrating into a shower of cubes.
• Chicken Egg - Kinda like Conway's Game of Life, but with chickens.
• ExDrinction - Computer Aided Drinking. Enough said.
• Tree Chugger - A two-player, single-screen game. One player plants trees, the other player bulldozes them. Neat graphics and awesome voiceover sound effects.
• 0++ - My little entry - a text-based game where you either stop ones from fading into zeroes, or hasten their extinction. Open-ended gameplay makes it your choice.
• Noah More Heroes - A split-screen multiplayer title where you collect wood, build boats, save and/or eat animals, all the while... fighting pirates?. A tonne of gameplay for 48 hours.
• Dead Pixels - An uber-retro platformer with a difficulty curve that might as well be vertical. Pixels "die" on the game screen as you try to finish the level - stop to get your bearings or line up a jump, and they die even faster. This makes it harder to see what you're doing, and will eventually kill you. Fun fact: None of the game's own developers have completed a playthrough without cheating.
• Planet Buster - Save the earth from approaching asteroids, using the Moon's gravitational pull. Awesome graphics, interesting gameplay, and written in Javascript using WebGL (runs in a browser, with no plugins required for the latest version of Google Chrome). Take that, Flash supporters!
• Purge - This network multiplayer game relies on extremely novel use of lighting to provide captivating and challenging gameplay. It's effectively hide-and-seek, in a world of darkness. Each player has a light source that only they can see, with which to locate their prey... or their predator.
• Ladders - A second-entry by a couple of developers with some extra time, Ladders is a computer-aided boardgame based on its namesake, Snakes and....

Posted by Harley Ogier at 3:40 PM | Comments ( 2 )