VGTribune Videogame News

Although we too were shocked when we heard there were prototypes of Spore, as we thought Will Wright does not make games, he births them, we wondered why Maxis decided to release them.

 Play with our Prototypes

 Spore has been a huge undertaking. Along the way we ended up exploring countless design directions in gameplay, simulation and user interface.

One of the ways in which we explore possible design directions is by building simple, playable prototypes that we can play around with to get a sense for a particular system.

Usually these prototypes are never seen by the public, but we thought some of the more intrepid players out there might enjoy playing around with a few of our early Spore prototypes. Keep in mind these are not tested, supported or even easily explained.

You can check out Spore's "Play With Our Prototypes" page to download and play the early test versions of Spore. Even though Maxis is showing some love for Macs with the final version of Spore, apparently they weren't so loving of the platform when designing it's prototypes. Sorry folks, the prototypes PC only.

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Quake playable in your browser. Free to play. Sweet, sweet video footage leaked from Quake Con 2008. What more do we need to say? Actually, there is just one more thing, as Columbo would say. If you'd like to join in on the Quake Live beta test, you can sign up using your email on Quake Live's official site.

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Game Informer will have the full wrap on the game in their new issue when it goes on sale August 18. Heres what we know so far:

"Batman: Arkham Asylum from Rocksteady Studios and Eidos. This completely original title explores Gotham City’s darkest location, the infamous Arkham Asylum. But as a routine prison transfer goes wrong, the Joker sets his demented plan into action and Batman comes face to face with an army of his worst enemies. In a dark and gritty setting reminiscent of Bioshock (with a story co-written by Paul Dini), Arkham Asylum is setting the stage for a true-to-character Batman game."

Heres to hoping that the rumored Pandemic developed Batman is indeed in the works as well. The more the merrier right? Well, as long as it isn't a repeat of Superman 64 (which doesn't look to be the case), because 2 doses of Superman 64 is enough to kill a man.

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Despite looking like a small air conditioning unit, if a poster on the GameTrailers forums is right, this may just be an external Wii hard drive. Write us down as highly skeptical for this one. We'll update this post with a confirmation or denial as soon as we find out more.

UPDATE: As our hunch led us to believe, it's just a portable air conditioning unit. A gamer can dream...a gamer can dream... 

Although Bungie missed it's chance to reveal their new Halo related project at this years E3, it seems like they're adamant about missing any chances to tease us. Luke Smith, former Kotaku and 1up writer who now works at Bungie Public Relations, teases us with a new project above in Bungie's video response to winning Edge's Innovation Award for Halo 3. 

"Even though in Halo 3 you finished the fight, that doesn't necessarily mean the fight is over. Wait a second...there is no way we're showing this yet! Thanks again Edge, I'm sure we'll be talking to you guys soon. And don't show this to the internet."

Ah, well...I'm sorry blue spartan with Luke Smith's voice. They did show it to the internet. And now we know that you know that we know because you wanted us to know about about another Halo related project, that's not Halo, that's currently being worked on.

What do you guys think the mystery project is? Sound off in the comments!

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The above video comes to you from circa 2002-03. Although some of the self referencing humor is lost on those who haven't played the game, we think it is/was pretty good marketing. Good  on you Nintendo of 2002-03. Our favorite line? "Nice outfit. Where'd you get it? A garbage dump?" Response, "Uhhh, yeah." Well, it's technically two lines, but you get the point.

You can find 3 more laugh out loud Animal Crossing commercials after the break. 

[Via Infendo] 

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Image courtesy of Destructoid. 

Love for puzzles turns into Brain Training. Love for dogs turns into Nintendogs. Passion for music turns into Wii Music. Getting into exercise births Wii Fit. Since Shigeru Miyamoto has a knack for turning his hobbies into games, it seems that Nintendo wants to keep his hobbies secret by restricting him from talking about his hobbies to the general public. As Destructoid points out, "...don't expect Shigeru to be revealing his fondness for stamp collecting anytime soon. The Big N has no intention of letting that potential goldmine slip." Personally, we can't wait for WiiGarden or WiiPaint to come out. We just love to watch grass grow and paint dry.

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