PlayStation

I've learned a few things after reading about what's happened during the DICE Summit and Awards event that's taken place this past week. The industry seems to be crying out desperately for maturity. David Cage (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) says that games need to grow up. Warren Spector (Epic Mickey) says that games like Lollipop Chainsaw shouldn't be made. The industry wants more Journey and The Walking Dead experiences, as evidenced by these games winning 99.5% of the awards given out. The definition of "fun" is changing.

Thanks to an Xbox 360 port, Minecraft has finally gotten into the eager hands of creative console gamers. But as creative as they may be, they have a ways to go to match what PC gamers have been creating (and posting) since Minecraft was in beta. A perfect example of this is this recreation of the steampunk city of Midgar from Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII. Minecraft forums user CJ_Campbell has unveiled his labor of love (along with some of his other non-Final Fantasy VII works) for our admiration and envy.

In this episode, Mr. Jaffe shares with us his thoughts on God of War 4, the troubles of tumultuous development (including two cancelled games, Darkons and Heartland), the failures of Calling All Cars, and the reasons why he left God of War. Finally, we wrap up with thoughts on the process of creating the brand-new Twisted Metal.

Welcome to the first part our final interview for Season One of State of Play with Brandon Bales!

We're thrilled to share with you our talk with David Jaffe, director and creative lead for such classics as Twisted Metal and God of War. Join us as we discuss David's humble beginnings in Sony's testing department, his work on the original Twisted Metal games (I & II), and the prevalence of gaming sequels.

I decided to part with some older books, strategy guides, and DVDs at a place called Bookmans. They're like GameStop, except they deal with almost everything in a buy/sell/trade format. I'd heard about them before, but it took me nearly two years to go down there. It's kind of a good thing that I hadn't done so when I was working more steadily, because after what I saw for sale there, I know where my money would have gone.

Terry Garrett is completely blind. Although he lost his eyesight at an early age, he didn't lose his love for gaming. Garrett appreciates the usual gaming mainstays like Metal Gear, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario, but it is the Oddworld games that he gets the most out of.

It isn't difficult to see why. The Oddworld games were 2D and possessed very strong sound design. The game characters spoke (more or less) and just about everything (most on screen objects) in the game emitted a sound a player could differentiate. This combination creates a playing environment open to blind player. Even so, there is a process that Garrett must go through to play the game.

In honor of Brad's gaming brick wall blog post and the comments that followed, here is College Humor parody video. Would some of those classic games have been as revered without the legendarily tough stages? You be the judge.

It's been a tough week for Sony's handheld (at least in the States). NPD sales figures revealed that both the PlayStation Portable and Go variant have been sales busts as of late, and the highest-selling PSP title cracked only the top 150. Well, I'm here to offer some holiday cheer for PSP owners and Sony-philes in the form of an extensive Buyer's Guide. The PSP is a favorite platform of mine: I've purchased the console itself four times over, and have (sadly, depending on your perspective) played a majority of the games available for the system.

According to Joystiq.com, Orioto is a DeviantART power user. He has been creating videogame fan art for a while and has accumulated an impressive portfolio.

Adult Swim goes back to the original PlayStation and shows us why there was no sequel to PaRappa the Rapper 2.