Everything is better together, especially video games. What if we could turn one of the most nostalgia-inducing single-player experiences into a two-player adventure?
A hack released Wednesday allows two players to explore the massive world of Super Mario 64 together. The hack was released by a gamer named Skelux, and allows players to control two different versions of Mario.
The hack is only playable on ROM versions of Super Mario 64, so you’ll need a Nintendo 64 emulator to run them. YouTube comments on the above video indicate some players have already been able to run the game successfully.
Skelux's website mentions other hack projects he's worked on, including a new version… Continue reading…
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NEW YORK – A packed crowd of over 200 film fans filled the SVA Theater in New York City during the recent Tribeca Film Festival to watch LAPD Homicide Detectives Cole Phelps and partner Rusty Galloway track down “the red lipstick killer” in LA Noire.
But the action on the big screen, set during 1947 Los Angeles, wasn’t a movie. LA Noire is the latest video game from publisher Rockstar Games. And in contrast to many video games that have forever claimed to be “movie-like,” LA Noire really is movie-like (see video here), from its captivating story to its use of an outstanding new facial animation technology that brings video game characters to life, as if they were actors in a movie.
Rockstar, a division of Take-Two Interactive, is the maker of bestselling genre-defining titles like the modern-day crime drama Grand Theft Auto IV and the western Red Dead Redemption. And the red lipstick murder was an actual case involving the murder of nurse Jeanne French, which remains unsolved to this day.
In the game, players will find the culprit, although the names and persons involved in the real case were changed for the sake of interactive entertainment. A total of 20 cases are featured in the new crime game.
Over the past five years, Brendan McNamara and his Team Bondi development studio have been immersed in 1940s Hollywood. Considering the distance between Brisbane, Australia and Los Angeles is 7,178 miles, that’s quite an achievement. Rockstar Games built a studio in Culver City to house the new Motion Scan performance capture and facial capture equipment that was designed for this game.
What separates LA Noire, which ships for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 17, from anything else on the market – besides its homage to film noir – is the technology that was created to allow a cast of 400 actors bring virtual characters to life in a believable way. McNamara was a pioneer in pushing motion capture performance in video games back on the PlayStation 2 with The Getaway games, when he ran Sony Computer Entertainment’s Team Soho studio in London. With the added processing power of today’s consoles, McNamara was able to get authentic performances from his cast of actors.
LA Noire is the first game to employ Motion Scan (although new Rockstar Games currently in development are also using the technology). This technology utilizes 32 HD cameras that are set up in a room to record the facial movements, voice, and acting of each actor. The technology allows the actors to emote freely, as they would in film or television work. All of that emotion, along with the lines of dialogue, appears in the game. The Motion Scan work is added to the performance capture work, which required each actor to work on crude multi-story sets with other actors to bring the 2,200 page-script to life. All of this data was used to construct accurate 3D versions of the actor as the character in the game.
“We captured the actors’ performances the same way that James Cameron did in Avatar, basically,” said Rob Nelson, art director for LA Noire at Rockstar Games. “We had quite a few actors realize when they got to this cavernous space that it’s real acting and they have to bring it. In a lot of ways, it’s like theater because sometimes we had to shoot long scenes.”
Up to 14 actors were able to work together on set to bring complex scenes to life using props and crude sets. The game company worked with “Mad Men” casting directors Carrie Audino and Laura Schiff to cast the game, which features 400 actors including Aaron Staton (“Mad Men”), Michael McGrady (“Southland”), Ned Vaughn (“The Event”), Adam Harrington (“Dexter”), and Alexa Alemanni (“Mad Men”).
McGrady, who plays LAPD Homicide Desk Detective Rusty Galloway in the new game, has done voice work on games like Activision’s Prototype in the past. He’s watched as video games have progressed from working in a recording booth to literally transforming an actor into a virtual character.
“With L.A. Noire, it’s a huge leap forward because they’re actually putting the actor’s face on the screen,” said McGrady. “Face recognition in fan bases has always been a vital component of any actor’s career success. Any chance you have to get in front of a camera, whether it be film, TV or a video game, is an opportunity for people to see you and get familiar with you. One of the major reasons why so many actors jumped on board this game is because we are featured characters in this game.”
McNamara said the actors worked in the Culver City studio over the course of a few months. Staton, who plays lead character Detective Cole Phelps, had the most grueling task. He spent 45 days doing performance capture work and then did 70 straight days of Motion Scan. The game focuses on his character’s journey from the patrolman’s beat to a detective who’s seen the underbelly of LA.
McNamara didn’t employ this new technology just for the sake of advancing virtual characters. A key gameplay component players will have to master is interrogating suspects and reading their faces. Every movement and nuance, from looking away to a sweaty brow, provides clues that the player needs to tell when to believe what’s being said. The emotions and facial ticks that the actors bring to life are crucial to successfully navigating the game world, which spans eight square miles of faithfully-recreated 1940s Los Angeles.
With LA Noire complete, McNamara is already looking to the future. Within a few years, he said actors will be able to wear costumes while they perform on sets for games. McGrady said that will help more actors feel comfortable performing in video games.
“If you took one logical step from this game, there’s no reason we couldn’t use this exact same process to make a game and a TV show from exactly the same material and the same performances,” said McNamara. “I think that’s pretty interesting.”
Given LA Noire packs two TV seasons worth of crime stories into one huge game, there’s plenty of material to go around.
As diligent as we are about keeping you abreast of absolutely every awesome new gadget that hits the market, every once in a while even we miss a real gem. Case in point: Arcade Forge’s SLG 3000 scanline generator, which gives your seemingly flawless HD display a throwback makeover. As the name suggests, the rather diminutive board acts as a middle man between your VGA compatible device and your TV, bringing back the sweet imperfections that marked early console gaming. The thing enlists a series of DIP switches and a potentiometer for setting scanlines and resolution to your specifications. You can land one of your own at the source link for €50. In the meantime, though, we suggest you check out the video after the break to see why we couldn't bear to let this one get away — even if it is a few months old.
Tomer Tishgarten is vice president of technology at Engauge, one of the nation’s largest independent advertising agencies. Follow him @tomerific.
If you’re among the many marketers trying to grasp the game-changing impact of Xbox’s motion-controlled add-on Kinect, you’re not alone. Even Microsoft didn’t realize what it had on its hands. When launching in November, Microsoft predicted sales of 3 million units by the end of 2010. Instead, the company sold 8 million in two months and recently entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest-selling consumer electronics product in history. For brands, the excitement is just beginning — and so are the challenges.
In addition to sensing motion, Microsoft’s newest periphery for the Xbox 360 recognizes voices, captures facial expressions in real time, and can even tell players apart. It’s arguably the biggest advance in mainstream digital interface design since the widespread adoption of the computer mouse in the ’80s.
Kinect and its underlying PrimeSense technology promise to open new doors and could explode our conceptions of what’s possible online. Today’s online world remains governed by the conventions of preset hyperlinks and point-and-click devices, but over time, those constraints will be shattered. The popularity of touchscreens on smartphones and tablets suggest we were already headed in this direction. Marketers may play an important role in determining how quickly Kinect technology crosses the chasm from hardcore gamers to mainstream adoption.
The Engagement Potential for Brands
Big brands, including Burger King and Samsung, jumped in first with Kinect gaming promotions. But the marketing potential of Kinect extends far beyond video games. In the near term, marketers could leverage Kinect technology to create eye-opening trade show displays and in-store promotions. Freed from the gaming console, the technology can draw people into an immersive, interactive experience.
Innovative web-based applications will also be worth considering as the technology reaches a critical mass of 15% of households or users, a point at which adoption rates tend to accelerate.
With Avatar Kinect, Microsoft will soon move into augmented social media. Microsoft’s plans for the new technology clearly go beyond gaming. And Kinect’s controller-free environment should appeal to casual gamers, not just the hardcore console jocks, which will heighten appeal for mass marketers. Indeed, the pitch to advertisers from Microsoft is that women, younger children and tweens are “joining in the fun” with Kinect. Most importantly, perhaps, the price is relatively inexpensive; approximately $150.
In the future, it’s conceivable that consumers scanned into the system could theoretically interact with three-dimensional models of products. Why couldn’t Ford, which recently launched an exclusive Xbox campaign for its C-MAX, put consumers behind the wheel and let them take the newest model for a spin?
For catalog clothing brands, the ecommerce implications are immense. Why couldn’t Eddie Bauer let consumers try on clothes virtually? In the travel industry, the applications are even more numerous — a walking tour of the cabanas at Club Med, anyone? And with the capacity to scan an entire room, why couldn’t The Home Depot let customers design the layout of new kitchen cabinets or Ikea showcase sofas within digital models of consumers’ living rooms?
Peak Expectations Meet Practical Challenges
Marketers have tremendous opportunities to differentiate themselves from their competitors in this new environment. Yet they also face the challenge of developing those experiences without instructions or precedents.
Before agencies and developers can create the architecture of this new world — and customized applications for brands — they must first study what makes the new technology tick, which is why developers have been so busy “hacking” Kinect.
The development tools for Kinect are still fairly immature at this stage, but they do provide enough capabilities to build some interesting applications. As more work is done to support these tools by Microsoft and the larger development community, the possibilities for Kinect will grow exponentially.
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Everything is better together, especially video games. What if we could turn one of the most nostalgia-inducing single-player experiences into a two-player adventure?
NEW YORK – A packed crowd of over 200 film fans filled the SVA Theater in New York City during the recent Tribeca Film Festival to watch LAPD Homicide Detectives Cole Phelps and partner Rusty Galloway track down “the red lipstick killer” in 
In the game, players will find the culprit, although the names and persons involved in the real case were changed for the sake of interactive entertainment. A total of 20 cases are featured in the new crime game.
LA Noire is the first game to employ Motion Scan (although new Rockstar Games currently in development are also using the technology). This technology utilizes 32 HD cameras that are set up in a room to record the facial movements, voice, and acting of each actor. The technology allows the actors to emote freely, as they would in film or television work. All of that emotion, along with the lines of dialogue, appears in the game. The Motion Scan work is added to the performance capture work, which required each actor to work on crude multi-story sets with other actors to bring the 2,200 page-script to life. All of this data was used to construct accurate 3D versions of the actor as the character in the game.
Interested in more Business resources? Check out