Now, some twisted internet japester has reinvented Bowser in a similar fashion. Gone is the happy-go-lucky Bowser, the ultimately lovable, pantomime-esque villain with an addiction to kidnapping royalty. And in his place? Teeth. Scales. Leathery flesh. Claws that could rip through a plumber’s torso like a warm knife through butter. Please, won’t somebody think of the childrenus?
Creep apprehensively past the break for the full image.
Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, the world’s best selling PC gaming franchise with more than 90 million units sold, will shortly join an exclusive number of household names from TV and Film as he becomes the first recipient of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Fellowship from the video games industry at the British Academy Video Games Awards 2007. The Fellowship is the highest accolade the Academy can bestow on an individual for their creative work.
Until now, the much lauded Fellowship has remained an exclusive part of BAFTA’s more established pillars, TV and Film. But today’s British Academy recognizes the massive impact of video games on popular culture and their huge contribution to the whole art form of the moving image.
Hilary Bevan Jones, Chairman of the Academy said: “Will’s immense, creative body of work and his continued contribution to the industry make him a most worthy recipient of the Fellowship and being such a pioneer, we are thrilled that he will be the first person to receive this honour”.
Mr. Wright, who is widely accepted as one of the world’s leading visionaries in the field of video game design, has been passionately creating games for more than twenty years. Although he has worked on a number of hugely successful games, among them Raid On Bungling Bay (1984), SimCity (1989), SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1989) and SimCity 4 (2003), he is best known for bringing to fruition one of the best-loved games franchises in history, The Sims -– a game whose inspiration sprang from a combination of the aforementioned titles.
Another ‘first’ at this year’s awards is the PC World Gamers’ Award, the only publicly-voted award of the night. This year’s Awards will be held at London’s Battersea Evolution on October 23rd. The show will be broadcast in the UK on E4 on November 4 at 11pm and repeated the following weekend on Channel 4. Congrats Will!
Empire Earth III is the latest game in the Empire Earth series. It releases on November 6th in the US and November 9th in Europe & Australia for the PC. There are three civilizations in this Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game to pick from: Far Eastern, Middle-Eastern and Western, and the game features five epochs: Ancient, Medieval, Colonial, Modern and Future.
Empire Earth III will not only introduce several new units and weapons (including Nuclear weapons like the Nuclear Cannon), the game also has a new “freeform campaign structure” which means that instead of being limited to one time period, you can play across the entirety of history. There’s also the World Domination mode which allows players to battle across a virtual earth with specific quests that give you tasks you must accomplish while you go about your world-conquering business.
Check out this video with Empire Earth III’s Lead Concept Artist, who takes us through the process of developing the unique units, civilizations and styles that we will see in the upcoming game. He talks about where they got their influences from and how they mixed cultures to create unique units without going too far from what is plausible. Even though Empire Earth III focuses less on realism and historical accuracy, and more on fantasy and fiction.
As you can see above (well, we hope you know what they are), the homage to Miyamoto-designed Pikmin characters Captain Olimar and the bunch plucks all of our heart strings. Would we ever like to see a third entry in the series for the Wii?
We all have heard and read about Burning Life. Even, if you are new you will know about it because an announcement or message about it is plastered on your screen everytime you log in to Second Life.
Today I visited 1 of Burning Life’s 22 sims and the sim’s name is Burning Life (Skylar) or just Skylar. I am not sure if this is the most active sim but I can say that it’s pretty full. The other Burning Life sims besides it were a little empty and open.
As I understand it, Burning Life is all about “collaborative art and self expression”. My guess is, we will be seeing many Second Life Artists, Talents and Celebrities in this week long event. If you are bored and got nothing important to do then why not visit any of Burning Life’s 22 sims. As for me, I started my exploration at Skylar and I’ve seen some pretty weird and wild stuff already. Here is the first part of my Exploration of Burning Life (Skylar).
I divided it into two to make the file smaller and easier to upload to YouTube. Enjoy the first part and look out for the second part later today!
Back in March, this realistic depiction of Mario made us hide beneath our beds, though that was nothing compared with the horrors of what followed.
Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, the world’s best selling PC gaming franchise with more than 90 million units sold, will shortly join an exclusive number of household names from TV and Film as he becomes the first recipient of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (
