5th January 2010

Minh Le’s New Project Announced

FIX KoreaMany fans of the classic FPS and LAN tournament favourite have often wondered where Minh “Gooseman” Le has gone. Well, it turns out that since leaving Valve Software a few years ago, the former Vancouverite and SFU student joined Korean software developer FIX Korea in 2008, and they have just announced Minh Le’s current project – Tactical Intervention, will have a beta release in the first part of 2010.

Mihn Lee worked on various games including Counter-Strike for HL2, CS:Condition Zero, Tactical InterventionCS:Source, and Day of Defeat at Valve. Lee left Value because he wanted to create his own FPS. Lee started working on Tactical Intervention since 2006 and then joined FIX Korea two years ago as vice president.

Tactical Intervention takes aim at maximizing strategic team play. The game is being developed with the Source Engine and is set in the modern battle between terrorists and counter terrorism teams. Tactical Intervention is guaranteed to deliver real-like weapon and character design as well as K9 units and hostage NPCs with impeccable AI.

“The Counter-Strike-type of game is proven to be a success throughout regions such as Asia, Europe, and North America. It is quite challenging to balance between bringing out familiarity and new system at the same time. But I can guarantee you will have fun playing it,” said Mihn Lee.

Tactical Intervention is already licensed in North America and Europe and the developers are currently looking for publishing partners in other countries including Korea, Japan, China and in Southeast Asia.

Fuel IndustriesOttawaFuel Industries has released a new web application which is designed to make the following of topics on Twitter much easier. TweetYouThere is Tweet You Therecurrently in beta, and is showing the current tweets relating to this month’s CES in Las Vegas. TweetYouThere makes it simple to follow each company’s Twitter feed updates, and you can choose to view results either alphabetically or by popularity. Each company’s feed shows up in a sidebar window when you click on their respective names. I couldn’t find much in the way of information about this web app on the Fuel Industries’ site, but I would certainly be interested in learning more about TweetYouThere and finding what is in store for it in the future.

Independent Games FestivalCongratulations are due to Klei Entertainment, whose upcoming title Shank has been nominated to the IGF Awards, which take place at GDC San Francisco. Shank has been nominated in the Excellence in Visual Art category. Another Vancouver-made title in the running at IGF is Enviro-Bear, an iPhone-iTouch game designed and developed by Justin Smith. Enviro-Bear has been nominated for a Nuovo Award. Shank and Enviro-Bear are the only two Canadian titles which have been nominated for this year’s IGF. Good luck to both studios!

Sony EricssonToronto – Canadians will be among the first in the world to experience open and integrated social media, communication and entertainment with the launch of the Sony Ericsson Xperia ™ X10 phone, which will make its North American debut first in Canada , exclusively from Rogers . The Xperia ™ X10 is expected to be available in the second quarter 2010.

“At Rogers , we have built our legacy on innovation, bringing the most exciting and exclusive Xperia™ X10 phone handsets first to customers in Canada ,” said John Boynton , Executive Vice President, Marketing, Rogers Communications. “We are thrilled to be the exclusive Canadian carrier to offer this phenomenal mobile entertainment device.”

“Building on our entertainment heritage, the Xperia ™ X10 underpins our commitment to an open and multi-platform strategy that maximizes choice for the consumer and delivers the best possible entertainment experience,” said Andrea Gaal, General Manager, Sony Ericsson Canada . “This handset makes communications more fun and more playful while multiplying and enriching opportunities to connect.”

Introducing signature applications like Sony Ericsson Mediascape and Timescape™, the Xperia™ X10 lets consumers organize everything in their phone and in an intuitive way:

• The Sony Ericsson Timescape™ application manages all your communication with one person in one place. Browse through your conversations and check out your Facebook™, Twitter™ and MySpace™ accounts 1 , photos, emails 1 , and texts 1 all in one seamless, easy to use interface

• Sony Ericsson Mediascape application is the smart way to get all the music, photos and videos you want from your favourite friends and artists. It accesses this content from just about everywhere – your phone or YouTube™ and Facebook™ services 1 and presents Xperia™ X10 phone everything for you in an integrated way

Intelligence capabilities, integrated into Sony Ericsson Mediascape and Timescape™ applications, automatically recognizes connections between contacts, content and media. By recommending alternative ways to communicate or guiding to new media experiences, consumers can discover more in a truly open way. For example:

• Pressing the new “infinite button” guides you through the connected world, aggregating all your interactions with one person into one view

• Intelligent face recognition features recognize up to five faces in any picture, automatically connecting them with your social phonebook and all other related communications with that person. The X10 also features an 8.1 megapixel camera including 16X digital zoom.

The UX platform builds on top of the Open OS (Android) and creates a unique Sony Ericsson user experience by combining best-in-class entertainment features with signature applications, unrivaled integration of social media services and a rich graphical user interface. The Xperia™ X10 phone is the first mobile phone to truly humanize the way people interact with their phones. Developers can check out product dev information here.

Sony Ericsson’s open approach gives consumers maximum choice. Xperia X10 users can download any application they want directly from Android Market, creating an experience that is entirely unique to them.

AIGWMeanwhile, the London UK-based Association of Independent Game Websites, which seeks to improve the standard of volunteer-run videogame websites, has launched today.

The AIGW’s goal is to support non-commercial videogame websites, provide their owners with a place to exchange ideas and promote best practises. AIGW members offer a refreshing alternative to the mainstream press.

The Association has been co-founded by ThunderboltGames.com, DarkZero.co.uk and Gamestyle.net. These websites share the same core values:

• Independent — They’re not owned by a third-party.
• Volunteer-run — Website staff do not typically receive pay for their work.
• Non-commercial — To adapt a famous Walt Disney quote, they don?t publish articles to make money; they make money so we can publish more articles.
• Design-focused — They value the principles of good design and embrace best practices such as web standards.
• Established — They’ve been around long enough to be trusted as reliable sources for videogames opinion.

Traditionally, the owners and managers of volunteer-run websites rarely meet each other or communicate, if at all. They’re all doing basically the same job, but few know each other.

The AIGW would like to change that. It aims to provide somewhere to share ideas, discuss common problems and generally compare notes. It believe that by interacting more, its members can improve the quality of all volunteer-run websites.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 11:39 am and is filed under Associations, Awards, Business News, Digital Products, Game Dev, National News, Peripherals, Rating Pending, Shooters, Social Media, Software, Studios, Upcoming Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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