Word on the virtual street is that gaming celebrity (one of a handful to makes that phrase not an oxymoron) and space traveler Richard Garriott is in talks with EA about making a sequel to Ultima Online. Honestly, Garriott’s skills are wasted with his new social game development firm, Portaltarium. …
No matter how high-minded he tries to make that endeavor sound it still feels like Picasso painting a desktop background for my computer. I can only hope that rumor is true.
SXSW’s gaming arm, Screenburn Arcade, is not only moving to its new digs at the Palmer Events Center but will bring the Sundance-approved and helpfully named documentary Indie Game: The Movie to Austin. Pre-release buzz for the film is almost exclusively positive. Then again, it’s the only movie about indie games, so indie gamers might be a bit biased. Whatever about it, any movie that makes Fez developer and co-star of the film, Phil Fish, cry has our stamp of approval. Nothing personal, I just like to watch people cry; it makes me cry.
While the rumors of Nintendo jefe Shigeru Miyamoto retirement were swirling, some Austin news got lost in the kerfuffle. From the sounds of the Wired interview, Miyamoto was so pleased with local Nintendo developers Retro Studios’ work on games like Metroid Prime and Mario Kart 7 that he’d even be willing to let them work on an installment of the Zelda franchise. Yeah, we guess that would be cool (I’m squealing on the inside, as usual).
This isn’t really local but still important. For the many times that I’ve tried to describe to gaming neophytes how unethical certain games can be, The Daily Show does it in about 4 minutes and with aplomb. You should watch it.
Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard, Nathan Fillion plays local dev Semi Secret Software’s iPhone game Wurdle. Obviously you should too.
This article appears in December 9 • 2011.
