‘LittleBigPlanet’ wins big at game developers awards
‘LittleBigPlanet’ wins big at game developers awards
“LittleBigPlanet” sacked the competition to win four trophies at the Game Developers Choice Awards.
Developed by Media Molecule, the cutesy PlayStation 3 adventure game which allows players to create and share their own levels was honored for best game design, debut, technology and innovation at the Game Developers Conference ceremony Wednesday evening.
Bethesda Softworks’ “Fallout 3” seized the evening’s top prize. The post-apocalyptic shooter, which is set in the ruins of Washington, D.C., blasted fellow nominees “LittleBigPlanet,” Valve Software’s “Left 4 Dead,” Lionhead Studios’ “Fable II” and Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto IV” to win game of the year. “Fallout 3” was also awarded the best writing trophy.
Selected by a jury of game creators, the Game Developers Choice Awards honor the best games of the past year. The lively ninth annual ceremony was hosted by “Psychonauts “ and “Brutal Legend” developer Tim Schafer.
Other winners at the ceremony at the Moscone Convention Center were Ubisoft Montreal’s “Prince of Persia” for best visual art, Ready at Dawn Studios’ “God of War: Chains of Olympus” for best handheld game, EA Redwood Shores’ “Dead Space” for best audio and 2D Boy’s “World of Goo” for best downloadable game.
photos on the web
There are so many online photo-printing services available on the Internet, they all seem to blend together. One service, Shutterfly (shutterfly.com), is betting that personalization and social networking tools can help separate it from the pack.
Shutterfly offers its members the opportunity to create their own photo-sharing Web sites. In addition to uploading your favorite pictures, you can post journal entries, embed a planning calendar, create your own polls and more, all with tools provided by Shutterfly.
Setting up a customized site is so easy even computer novices should be able to do it. To begin, Shutterfly lets you select from a wide range of basic, but attractive site templates. You can rearrange elements on the templates by simply dragging-and-dropping it to the area you like. Child’s play!
You can also control the level of privacy on your site, restricting who has viewing access, upload/download permissions as well as who can leave comments.
And because the site is hosted by a photo-printing service, visitors to your site can create and purchase any number of products that Shutterfly offers such as photo books, cards, posters and more.
old titles find audience
The audience for video games has changed a lot in the last few years, with more women and older players picking up joysticks. That’s created a demand for more games that families can enjoy together, like “Wii Sports” and “Rock Band,” and publishers have had a hard time adjusting to a more lighthearted, casual style of play.
One way to attract those new gamers is with familiar titles — names like Scrabble, Yahtzee, Boggle and Trivial Pursuit. All those brands belong to Hasbro, and Electronic Arts has the electronic publishing rights to all of Hasbro’s board games.
“It’s the perfect time to have these products,” says Chip Lange, general manager of EA’s Hasbro division. “Everyone realizes this is a new form of family entertainment.”
EA had some success last year with the compilation “Hasbro Family Game Night” on the Nintendo Wii, and it’s now introducing some of those games on Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Lange says the EA versions of games like Scrabble and Monopoly are more than just simple translations. “We’ve invested some creativity in the brands,” he says.