Yup, that’s pretty much the state Pixel Kill has been in for a while. In short, time and inclination have fled and continue to elude my grasp. The peak of five updates a day was just a huge time sink and eating into other more important endeavors. I started Pixel Kill to get back into writing, however it turned into just another re-blogging fest for the most part, with only the odd opinion/information piece like the Amiga music one. A bunch of you seemed to enjoy PK regardless, and I sincerely appreciate that.
I do, at some point, intend to do something new with Pixel Kill. I love the domain too much, plus it’s already risen from the ashes once, the first incarnation being a small reviews site. I won’t spoil the surprise but it won’t be a blog, or indeed text based, if I ever get round to PixelKill v3. Time will tell.

Many of us have been saying it all along but it took an analyst to say it before it became news. It’s coming a year after the 360 for an extortionate price with games that don’t look any prettier, the sole exception being the new MGS. There’s no doubting the PlayStation brand strength but it’s already feeling like the 360 is seen as the hot new thing that costs less, just like the PlayStation was next to the Saturn. If nothing else, despite being one of their flagship titles Warhawk looks dreadful, a horribly derivitive futuristic shooter that’s surely up there with Fantavision when it comes to appealing launch titles.

Maybe this is wishful thinking from a guy who has never been a big Sony fan, but for all their cockeyness it seems about time they were taken down a notch by a failure. Sega thought they had an automatic win on their hands with the expensive Saturn and look how that turned out.

It’s always interesting reading an interview with Warren Spector. Call me a fanboy if you will but I really prefer his game design philosophy over Valve’s. While Half Life 2 was a superbly crafted game it was very linear and more importantly if you got stuck you were screwed until you accidentally figured it out. When you’re stumped for so long you end up feeling stupid; in Deus Ex you could just try something else and it would often work out, thus making you feel smart instead. That’s a good thing.

Prey demo. Impressive. I don’t think I’ve played a single game that so successfully creates an alien environment, it feels so entirely otherworldy, so displaced from the familiarity of our world. It’s sort of a mix of a Tyranid hive ship interior and Quake 4’s Strogg base - metal mixed with slimy organic surfaces. Fairly involving story so far too and some neat gameplay mechanics like the messed up gravity and spirit walking. Plus the single player demo alone was extremely generous in length, not to mention the two multiplayer maps.

The utterly dull Titan Quest demo also convinced me that Hellgate: London will be the only true successor to Diablo 2. Like Throne of Darkness before it, Titan Quest seems to have totally missed what made Diablo 2 great, whereas Hellgate is set to offer a unique new setting with original classes, randomised fully 3D environments, ample customisation and plenty of great little touches. After so many disappointing Blizzard splinter studios I think Flagship will finally prove that leaving Blizzard doesn’t mean leaving brilliance behind.

Surprisingly, the Micro Machines v4 demo didn’t suck, well worth trying. It’s tricky to get used to initially but they’ve finally recaptured the feel of the earlier games. I didn’t even mind the weapons (which I hated on the PS1 version), though hopefully you can turn them off. Quick, chaotic, responsive, fun - finally another Micro Machines title worthy of the name. Between this and the splendid new Sensible Soccer, Codies seem to be doing a nice job resurrecting Britsoft classics for modern machines, not always an easy task. Can we have Speedball 2 next please?

Finally, congrats to my buddy Henric for both his new games design gig and for kicking me to update PK again. Going forward things will be less like news and more like opinion - sure, there’s lots of both things on the internet but at least opinions can be more unique. Hit up Blue, EG or the Shack for the latest industry news.

It’s Games Radar so who knows how accurate this is, but still, that would suck a lot. To some degree, I understand the games publisher’s line here - there is no other entertainment medium (DVD, books, music, whatever) that you can buy second hand, from the same place you buy it new, mere days after release. But at the same time stopping people selling second hand games at all is certainly a draconian step too far. It’s one thing for Valve to stop people selling on Half Life 2 using Steam, an entire platform holder doing it would surely cause a much bigger fuss and likely harm their reputation, something Sony is increasingly short on right now.

In related news, Famitsu readers in Japan are more hyped for the Wii than the PS3. News item half way down this page, translation here. They’ve got enough PlayStation brand strength to survive but week by week I’m increasingly convinced Nintendo and Microsoft are going to take major share from Sony. Aside from the lovely little truth that no one has dominated three generations in a row, they’re coming across as so complacent and cocky recently.

Admitedly many of those were mobile titles, but even so, Tose is probably the largest games developer you’ve never heard of. 27 years in business, 1000 staff, 9 studios and 1100 games, yet they almost always insist that their name not appear on the box. Gamasutra has an interview with this massive, secretive games company.

Sadly, we’ll have to wait a little bit longer to find out anything beyond the name of this new property from the makers of the uniquely excellent Farenheit. Given their strong focus on (mostly) quality stories I can’t wait to hear more about this one.

Supreme Commander gets better every time I see something about it. Here is some early shaky cam footage that shows off the astonishingly epic battles and the powerful zoom feature. GameSpot seem impressed by it too so far.

What was promised:

The final result:

Ya, I think that’s what you call bullshot, something Sony have long been rather too fond of doing. They should honestly be ashamed, it’s almost getting offensive how they hype the hell out of something with what basically amounts to lies. (Thanks Henric)

Well then, what a let down. A few surprises but nothing hugely shocking to be honest. Tilt sensing in the pad is nice, though it’s clearly a last minute (and inferior) response to the new Nintendo controller. They showed a pretty cool demo of a game with the new Eye Toy which senses real-world cards and places corresponding 3D characters on screen to fight it out. It’s like paying for a computer game and a Magic the Gathering addiction all at once.

The Eight Days trailer was Kill Zone all over again (blatantly pre-rendered) though the Naughty Dog game and Heavenly Sword looked fun. The quick demo of the PSP as a rear view mirror in an F1 game was neat too. Ish.

€499 just for the 20GB model though? €100 more for the 60GB one? Yeah, good luck with that Sony.

Update: More interesting controller news. It also senses acceleration in each direction which is neat (though still not as complete as the new Nintendo controller) and they have finally added analog triggers (welcome to 1999 Sony). They’ve dropped rumble though - apparently it interferes with the motion sensing, and is probably a battery drain too. Definitely nothing to do with the Immersion lawsuit then.

It’s also nice to hear that it’ll be as quiet as the slim line PS2 - the vent holes on practically every surface but the top one probably help though.

Despite the great reviews, despite the great community buzz, despite the great talk from one of the devs last year, I passed on Lego Star Wars, probably stupidly. Thankfully it’s getting a sequel, this time set in the superior Original Trilogy era. The new trailer looks utterly brilliant with a strong sense of sheer fun about it. Sign me up.

Remember when SGI were relevant? Their machines were synonymous with cutting edge computer graphics creation, rendering incredible CGI for the time. Sadly it seems their time may be at an end after years of irrelevance thanks to far cheaper solutions from elsewhere. Hardly surprising but still somewhat of a shame given their past glories. Plus as someone pointed out to me, they’re a cornerstone of OpenGL which could have implications.