Indie gaming fests are the breeding ground for developers who are trying to break into top development firms. The Independent Games Festival Awards has managed to throw up talented people and games like Portal during its ten year history.

The submissions for the 11th Independent Games Festival Awards are open and the last date for submission of games is November 11. I haven’t heard of any major Indian, indie-game developer as yet, but I am sure there are lot of guys who are trying to make a mark in this field. So if you are one them this is your chance. If you have a game which you would like to submit jump here.

Console sales are healthy in India thanks to the oh-so-cheap PlayStation2 from Sony. And Sony knows pretty well that Indian gaming market is not next-gen ready thanks to 20k+ price tag. It may be because of this reason that Sony is bringing out a fourth version of PS2 by Diwali this year. The price will remain the same, however the looks won’t. The console is supposed to be slimer, sleeker and more suave in its looks.

It (PS2) has a 120-million installed base, worldwide, with 3,40,000 of these being in India alone. “We feel PS2 has the potential to penetrate further into the Indian and Russian markets. Console gaming is in its nascent stage in India. These are untapped markets and are new to the gaming world, hence we have no plans to phase out PS-2 anytime soon,” Sony country manager (playstation) Atindriya Bose added while in an interview with Economic Times.

Which brings me to another point. Did Microsoft shoot themselves in the foot by facing out the original Xbox. Should they have let be i the market as a competitor to PS2? Shouldnt they have pushed for Xbox in India rather than the costlier 360?

PS: And yes if you haven’t heard yet, Diablo III on consoles is theoretically possible… Now what does that mean??

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Gamers… you had your warmup at Vixture, now its time to take the heat to an international level. WCG India site was updated recently after a long gap and they have announced that WCG India will begin on Aug 23 and go on till Sept 16.

The grand final of this year’s tournament will be held in Cologne in Germany. It needs to be noted that this is the last year Microsoft will be sponsoring the tournament as per the contract. It needs to be seen if  they will extend the contract. Sony I am sure won’t mind tying up with such a huge tournament.

The games which will be featured in this year’s tournament

Warcraft III : Frozen Throne | Starcraft | Counter Strike 1.6 | FIFA 08 (new) |

NFS Pro Street (new) | Command & Conquor 3 | AOE II - Asian Dynasties (new) |

Carom 3D | RedStone

Xbox 360

Project Gotham Racing 4 (new)  | Halo 3 (new) | Guitar Hero 3(new) | Virtua Fighter 5

However only CS, Fifa, Warcraft, ProStreet and PGR 4 will be contested in India. Why? I am not sure! While in Asian championship DOTA, PGR4, ProStreet, FIFA and Virtua Fighter will be featured.

For oher details check WCG India or WCG international sites

Tournament rules |  WCG wallpapers

Event schedule

Image via Wikipedia

Spore creature creator has been released and is now available in India. Those interested can purchase the game directly from EA store. Spore Creature Creator enables you to create and evolve creatures which can be used in the game Spore when it releases later this year.
The game is the brain child of Will Wright who was behind the Sims series of games.
Developed by mais and published by EA, it also allows you to upload the creatures you created to Sporepedia — an online encyclopedia of creatures created within the game.
Spore Creature Creator costs Rs 200 and has around 228 drag-and-drop, flexible parts (Trial edition contains 25% of the Creature Creator parts)

Only two days back LucasArts was in news for laying off hundreds of employees(visit) and today there was another allegation of them halting all internal projects for a while. (The allegation was denied by LucasArts the same day) Their games however seems to be least affected by these developments. To understand what I am trying to say, one needs to look at the latest non-altered screens released by Voodoo Extreme 3D for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The screens are simply incredible err or rather stunning! It will be a feat if LucasArts can deliver that kind of graphics at stable frame rate.

The game is being made for almost all console barring PC will release in September. The game is part of a multimedia project. It consists of a tie-in novel, action figures, a comic book, a reference book and a role-playing game supplement, as well as a book on the making of the game.

Middle of May Zapak had started a contest called cash league which gave a chance for casual gamers to earn while they played. From the stats made available by Zapak, the tournament looks like a hit. The numbers are crazy as of June 4 around 36,000 people had participated in the contest and they won prizes worth Rs 67 lakhs. How much of this has been redeemed is a different question altogether.
The tournament managed to catch the eye balls with the “Cricket se aap ko kya mila” ad which popped up on TV quite often. When the tournament was announced, Rohit Sharma from Zapak had announced his intention to spend up to $1 million in gifts through the tournament which will last till June 22. Zapak seems to be on a mission to make gaming more popular in the country since they have already organised Zapak tournament, in their gameplexes around India to cater to hardcore gamers. Having generated 75 million page views and thus managing to increase the traffic to Zapak by 175 per cent already, the tournament seems to be a success.

Gamers in India will finally be able to grab a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV without having to import one, as the game will launch here on Friday. (finally phew!)

Rockstar had earlier sited shortage of game copies world over for the delay in launch. Rockstar on its behalf appeared to be quite rude in its reply to a query on reason for the delay.

The game will be released accordingly to the government. It is not our choice to create release dates,” Rockstar had said.

The game launch has been confirmed by sources in Microsoft India who also confirmed that extra downloads for the game will be available only by the end of this year.

So will you be waiting in queue tomorrow?

Image via Wikipedia

Gaming surely is getting bigger in the country; why else would somebody give up figures like Rs 50 lakh to winners in gaming tournament? I am referring to Vixture, a tournament being organised across India starting May 26.

Games like NFS Pro Street, Crysis, Fifa 08, Cricket 07 and Fight Night Round 3 will feature in the competition. Now if you are puzzled by the abscense of Counter Strike and D.O.T.A, don’t be as only EA games are featured in the tournament! From EA’s point of view — a good way to create some publiciy for their games and with amounts like 20 lakh being offered to winners of team events.. people are definitely going to flock in.. at least thats the plan.
The national level finals will be held in Mumbai from June 13-15 at World Trade centre. The event is being organised by zfriction who organised Hong Kong Super Sixes in 2007.
For tournament updates check event blog.

Prize money
Crysis (winners) - Rs 20 lakh
Crysis (runners up) - Rs 10 lakh
Need for Speed Pro Street - Rs 4 lakh
Fight Night Round 3 - Rs 4 lakh
Fifa 08 - Rs 4 lakh
Cricket 07 - Rs 4 lakh

Elimination rounds dates
May 26 — Delhi
May 28 — Kolkotta
May 30 — Hyderabad
Jun 1 — Bangalore
Jun 3 — Pune
Jun 5 — Mumbai

What aspects of a game make it a classic? Is it the graphics, the gameplay or simply the storyline? It is the combination of all the three, with the element of controversy added in certain cases.
Mortal Kombat is one such classic, for it boasts of all the criteria. It did not have graphics ahead of its time, but it sure had some interesting characters, each with an individual storyline and special set of moves. It also ran into trouble with courts of law around the world for excessive display of blood and violence.
The game inspired a series of copycat magic-action fighter games.
The developers, Midway, did not sit idle and, instead, churned out 7 different versions of the game in 17 years of its existence. The latest installment, which is under creation, will be nothing like its past versions.
In the upcoming title, the characters get in touch with those from DC comics like Batman and Superman and well, all hell will break loose. The game will see Rayden pitted against Batman and Superman against Sub-Zero. So, will Superman’s weakness against magic destroy him or will his strength conquer all?
We cannot say for sure. But what we know for sure is that the game will be exciting, thanks to its multi-dimensional storyline. The gamer can select from whose perspective the story will be narrated.

Teen rating

I am not referring to the lighting or beauty of the players here, but to the heavy graphics — excess blood and excess muscle twisting that made Mortal Kombat so famous. According to Midway, the game will try to avoid an M (mature) rating and try for a T (teen) rating instead. Well, Mortal Kombat without excessive
violence is unlikely to be the same game, considering that it’s a fighting game. Many gamers have already threatened to give this game a pass, if developers decide to tone down violence for a T rating.

Characters not released

Midway has not yet revealed the roster of characters for the new title. The sole teaser wallpaper released till now shows Batman face-to-face with Sub-Zero. Gamers are demanding at least 10 characters from DC comics to be included in the game, apart from 10 Mortal Kombat characters.

Some are even vouching for a few special characters that can be unlocked as the game progresses. Fans of DC comics are the most active participants in the official forum of Mortal Kombat. Till date, there has not been a single high quality game featuring any of the DC comics characters, barring Spiderman. With sky-high demands, it remains to be seen how the game will look like when it is unveiled by the end of next
year. Being developed using the Unreal 3 Engine, this title will also have an improved combat system.

I had mentioned earlier about the upcoming sequel to Mafia.

2K, the developers of the game seems to be working at a break-neck speed on the game. A new screenshot and wallpaper of the game found its way into the Mafia II community website.

Like all screens released earlier, this one too has what makes Mafia, what it is now. Guns, cars, and a world right out of the 50’s.

Mafia II wallpaper can be found at the bottom of this page