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Looking to the Future: The MIT GAMBIT Lab

Posted by admin On April - 5 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Boston is no doubt a true metropolitan city; the historic architecture and contemporary skyscrapers provide the backdrop for some of the most influential and high caliber video game development studios in the nation.  Boston’s Irrational Games has been a city staple since 1997 with the now defunct Looking Glass Studios coming 7 years prior in 1990. Harmonix, the studio that started the industry’s 5-year obsession with plastic instruments, also calls Boston home. I hate to use the phrase ‘game-changer’ to describe a game’s effect on the industry and it’s contemporaries, but there is no doubt of the far reaching influences that both Harmonix and Irrational have had on the industry. Unfortunately these studios, no matter how influential, have to rely on the sales of a product to further development, leaving a space for unhindered exploration vacant – or so one would think.

Situated in Cambridge, above the oh so tasty Legal Sea Food (Which I had my way with a lobster…a very tasty lobster), is the MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. Created as joint-venture between MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the government of Singapore, the GAMBIT lab represents the first step in filling the largely ignored academic space of the games industry by specifically focusing on the creation of new gameplay experiences and research as it directly pertains to video games. Over my Spring Break holiday I was given the opportunity to talk and get a tour of the studio from the director of US Operations (The GAMBIT lab is split between facilities in Boston and Singapore), Phillip Tan.

Tan started my visit with a quick tour of the lab itself, which I would describe as an office made up of equal parts work space and game room, with a definite focus on keeping the floor plan open and accessible. While walking through the corridors of the studio, I was informed that the floor layout was specifically designed like a first person shooter level, and is utilized in routine battles throughout the year. Not to miss out on a teaching opportunity, Tan explained an instance of showing how easily a game can become broken through a simple rule change, illustrated by making deaths only count if a player was shot in the back. The rule change predictably resulted in a stalemate as the students shuffled through the ‘level’ with their backs turned square against the walls.

After seeing the design rooms, which were littered with concept art and whiteboards crammed with seemingly incomprehensible development schedules, we headed back to Tan’s office where we discussed the design philosophies and goals that the GAMBIT lab commits itself to. The GAMBIT lab grew out of the Education Arcade program (A part of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT) when Tan, and the other founding members of the lab, realized that summer was an ideal time for student game design projects; It gave enough time to see a project come to fruition without having to compete with a student’s already loaded academic schedule during the school year.

Although MIT is probably best known for being one of the top technical colleges in the world, and thus it stands to reason that the GAMBIT lab would be filled with genius coders, the first requirement for working at the lab has nothing to do with a student’s ability to work with Python or Flash, and everything to do with “Not Being a Jerk” as Tan eloquently stated. Teamwork seems to be the key at the GAMBIT lab which allows everyone to fulfill certain roles during the development cycle of a game while trying to co-opt everyone’s ideas into the final product. With a diverse array of jobs encompassing the development of a game, there is no prerequisite for coding experience at GAMBIT, although Tan stated that many who work at the lab have some baseline knowledge to start from. As well as pulling from the expansive pool of talent that MIT represents, students from other academic establishments including RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design), Berklee, and countless others help handle art design as well as musical composition (which are fields not specifically catered to at MIT).

Despite the lack of any official degrees pertaining directly to games or their design, and to the confusion of it’s members, the GAMBIT lab was recently named the ninth best undergraduate video game design program by the Princeton Review, and one only needs to play their games to understand why. Representing a diverse range of genres, GAMBIT’s games, although not always the most polished, all manage to feel unique in their efforts to create new and different mechanics and gameplay experiences. To check out the games for yourself you just need to head to the GAMBIT lab’s official website which hosts the extent of their history with playable builds of almost all of their past development projects. In talking with Tan I learned of quite a few interesting aspects about both the ideas behind certain games and some of the difficulties that were accompanied their developments.

Probably the most interesting tidbit of information I gleaned from my visit was Tan’s explanation of a first person shooter that was developed by the GAMBIT lab and the problems associated with creating the experience it’s team envisioned. Instead of being a traditional first person shooter, GAMBIT’s version took a more juvenile approach by removing guns and replacing them with a players hand in a gun position (Think to your days on the playground playing Cops and Robbers) and replacing ammo and health with a breathe and self esteem meter respectively. The breath meter is pretty self-explanatory, as players would fire their ‘hand guns’ through the use of literal shooting noises, but the true genius came at the implementation of the self-esteem meter which gave the player, much like in the aforementioned games of our youth, the ability to contest another players killing blow with the equivalent of a ‘Nu-uh, you didn’t hit me.’

Despite the genius premise, Tan stated that development was anything but smooth as the team had to adapt Valve’s Source engine for their unique set of circumstances. The Source engine has long been a staple of the mod community for it’s vast toolset and adaptability, but because their uses included modifying the 3D character models to swap guns for a players hands, the Source engine itself became a major development hurdle to overcome. As the engine handles a player’s gun as a part of their body, instead of a separate piece of geometry, the void left by the removal of the gun had to be accounted for.  The unexpected amount of time associated with fixing this problem significantly delayed the development schedule leading to a final product that ultimately could have benefited from more time.

The goal of GAMBIT has always been focused on exploring new ideas and how they can best be implemented into a functional gamer experience. Tan remarked that the lab wants to have a developer look at the games that they create and think to themselves ‘I could do that better.’ Unlike the vast majority of the industry’s development studios, which are often incredibly proactive in the protection of their intellectual property, GAMBIT actually hopes that developers take notice and steal their ideas, because that’s the point.

The space that the GAMBIT lab occupies is a rather new one, and something that acts as an important bridge between academia and industry. The lab takes the constraints, which both inherently possess, and uses them in an advantageous way by focusing on something that neither a purely academic or business focused studio could achieve. There is no doubt in my mind of the significant progress that the GAMBIT lab represents for the industry – Both in it’s exploration of new territories of game design, as well as educating a new breed of designer that isn’t afraid of bucking established genre trends. Will the next big idea come out of the lab? Only time will tell, but if two graduates from the MIT Media Lab have taught us anything, the students at MIT have some great ideas just waiting to be shared with the world.

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5 Reasons why Xbox Live’s Game Room sucks

Posted by admin On March - 25 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

The Game Room has launched but has been greeted with disappointment.

1) Free game packs don’t offer free games.

2) Too pricey

3) No lobbies, or wandering around the arcade

4) The game’s don’t cut it

5) Some poor ports

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Game Room Finally Arrives – First Look – Xbox Evolved

Posted by admin On March - 24 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Xbox Evolved writes:

"I know we all have been waiting anxiously for the BIG arrival of Game Room as part of the Block Party. Some insanely awesome games were released this month, and to top it off we now have even more reasons to love the Xbox 360 – the GAME ROOM. "

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Stay for the entire XBLA Block Party and receive parting gifts

Posted by admin On February - 23 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Microsoft has announced more details about its Xbox Live Arcade "Block Party," which is … right around the corner. Next month’s lead-up to the launch of the Xbox Game Room will see a promotion similar to the one offered during last year’s Summer of Arcade, and then some.

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Perfect Dark, Game Room & Other Xbox LIVE Arcade March Releases Exact Dates Announced

Posted by admin On February - 16 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Perfect Dark originally launched for the Nintendo 64 in 2000, and now, ten years later, it’s set to return on the current-generation through the Xbox 360’s Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Developed by 4J Studios – the team behind the conversions of RARE’s Banjo-Kazooie titles – Perfect Dark is easily the most anticipated Xbox LIVE Arcade release of the year, perhaps even since the digital distribution channel launched back in 2005. Priced at 800 Microsoft Points, Perfect Dark will be available from March 17th 2010, and is bound to become one of the most popular games played on the Xbox LIVE online service.

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10 Things you need to know from X10

Posted by admin On February - 11 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

* The Halo Reach multiplayer beta will kick off on May 3. You will be able to access the beta via the Halo 3: ODST game disc.

* Dead Rising 2 will release in North America on Aug. 31, Japan on Sept. 2 and Europe on Sept. 3.

* Dead Rising: CASE ZERO an exclusive download only on Xbox LIVE, will launch prior to the full game and provide a playable prologue that bridges the story between the two titles.

* Alan Wake will launch May 18 in North America and May 21 in Europe. Players can pre-order the title to receive the Bright Falls Bonus Pack, which includes exclusive content like Avatar gear, an Xbox LIVE theme, and a "making of" video.

* The Xbox 360 Final Fantasy XIII Special Edition Bundle will release starting March 9 for $399, and include a 250GB Hard Drive, two Wireless Controllers, exclusive downloadable content and a Standard Edition copy of the game.

* Toy Soldiers will kick off the Xbox LIVE Arcade Block Party on March 3

* Perfect Dark, Scrap Metal and Game Room will launch this March as a part of the Xbox LIVE Arcade Block Party.

* Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction will release at retailers starting April 13 in North America, April 16 in the United Kingdom, and April 28 in Japan.

* Lost Planet 2 will launch in North America and Europe on May 18.

* Fable III will be available this holiday.

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Game Room Won’t Feature Teen, Mature Rated Games

Posted by admin On February - 1 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Game Room

If your fondest arcade memories are of playing gratuitously violent games without your parents knowing, then Microsoft’s Game Room probably won’t give you the sense of nostalgia you’re looking for. According to a Microsoft representative, there are no plans to carry Mature or even Teen rated titles in the feature.

“Games available for download within ‘Game Room’ will carry either E or E10+ ratings,” this representative said to GamerBytes (via Kotaku). “We currently have no plans to feature titles of those [higher Teen and Mature] ratings.”

The reasoning behind this is where things get a little tricky, though. Originally, GamerBytes reported that Microsoft elected to get an ESRB rating for the Game Room feature itself, rather than have to rate every title that will launch within it. As such, they limited themselves to E and E10+ games only, and will have to continue to do so for every new game released for Game Room. The logic here is this will save Microsoft tons of money in ESRB rating fees since they supposedly wouldn’t have to rate future games for the service.

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Microsoft Re-Charging For Game Room Arcade Games

Posted by admin On January - 27 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Matthew Kato: "At this year’s CES convention, Microsoft unveiled its plan to create an Xbox Live Game Room where you can go and play arcade classics. Through the years we’ve had ample opportunities to play cherished titles like Tempest – perhaps you’ve already bought some of those games via Xbox Live Arcade. Now, the 360’s Game Room is going to make you pay for them again."

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Classic Game Room: Grand Turismo psp Review

Posted by admin On October - 10 - 2009 ADD COMMENTS

"Classic Game Room HD reviews GRAN TURISMO PSP for Sony PSP, the ultimate Playstation Portable driving game. Have you wasted weeks of your life collecting Nissan Skylines in previous Gran Turismo games? If so then you’ll enjoy this one, loads of tracks and around 800 cars, Gran Turismo PSP delivers the goods and then some."-Classic Game Room

Part 2 is here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx3LChjHhMM

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Online Survey Hints at Xbox 360 version of Home – with Avatars

Posted by admin On October - 7 - 2009 ADD COMMENTS

A survey has been sent to Xbox 360 owners that provides some interesting insights to Microsoft’s ventures into the casual gaming space.

The first part of the survey is the most standard, asking people about their favorite game shows and board games, including Balderdash and Taboo, as well as what they like best about 1 Vs. 100. One interesting aspect of that section is that there may be a paid version of 1 Vs. 100 that will offer better prizes.

The latter part of the survey, however, is extremely intriguing, and an indication that Microsoft may be venturing into a PlayStation Home-like space in which Avatars can congregate and play retro games on classic coin-op cabinets. They queried applicants what name would fit the space best – "Game Room", "RetroCade", "AvatArcade", "RetroGame", "Classics LIVE", and so forth.

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