A screenshot such as this may be all that a developer needs to get a good number of gamers excited. This one in particular comes from Firefall, Red 5 Studios’ persistent world shooter MMO set to release late next year. A sophisticated look at this shot reveals the artful line of attention drawn by the gun sight pointed at the giant Titan looming in the distance. The excitement, however, may come just from the fact that there are guns and monsters in the game.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a billion, or a gazillion. Red 5 didn’t disappoint in this department. The initial trailer, even with its almost generic monsters and over-the-top artillery, wowed droves gamers at 2010′s Penny Arcade Expo. The subsequent gameplay video solidified Firefall as one of the highly anticipated titles of 2011. Which video do you think we posted after the jump?

How about both? First, here’s the gameplay. It’s a lengthy video, but it does hit on all the game’s key points. Here’s a breakdown if you’re pressed for time:

• 1:10 – a resource gathering mission
• 3:15 – fighting the mission ‘boss’
• 4:45 – demonstration of the persistent open world
• 8:20 – demonstration of battle frame customization
• 8:40 – battle with The Chosen
• 9:30 – battle with the Titan

If my vote for game of the year, Red Dead Redemption, serves as sign of the times, beyond screenshots and gameplay video, story is arguably just as important to get gamers hooked. The hype is firing on all cylinders now that Red5Studios has gotten into the holiday spirit with Twelve Days of FIREFALL. This is a story event on the game’s blog site where for twelve days Red5 will deliver bite sized stories situated around the event that is the Firefall. Gamers will get a sense of what earth was like just before the event, its achievements and its perils. More so, this will serve as the background to the game.

Here’s a little snippet from Day 2: Our crew remains trapped on the Deep Horizon, helpless to do anything but watch the destruction and chaos on the planet below. As you can imagine, much of our crew has fallen into a deep depression. Dr. Neal Profok, a personal friend and a valued member of our crew, flushed himself out of an airlock earlier this week. It wasn’t unexpected as his family had lived in Boston.

If you’re a story buff like I am, several questions just swirled into your head, like, if his suicide was expected, why didn’t they do anything to prevent Dr. Profok from killing himself? Oh, the intrigue, the milieu!

Fine, fine, here’s the trailer:

Giving gamers a grander sense of story before the game’s release isn’t new. By far, Firefall is not a trailblazer on the promotions front despite the stunning visuals and entertaining blog posts. Better promotions come when developers add interaction in the mix. Gaming is an interactive culture after all.

In previous news installments, we examined how developers are creating interactive mini-games to promote their titles, the likes of Dragon Age II, Back To The Future The Game and Bulletstorm. It seems developers can hit a home run in the promotions department when they create an event that brings story and mini-game together. The most stand out example of this is the hype that surrounded Heavy Rain.

You’re looking at the Twitter page of @perfectfolds, the supposed killer in the innovative and suspenseful title from Quantic Dream. More than just a page with creepy comments, it served as a stop along the Four Days Challenge. The challenge had gamers treasure hunting on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook trying to figure out who the killer was before the game’s release. There was even a moment when an in-game character contacted you via email.

The challenge was well thought out. Notice for instance on the Twitter page the key to room 152 and the photo negatives. These were critical clues you held onto throughout the four days (which in actuality lasted about four weeks if you didn’t hit the forums for cheats). It seems you can still register and play the challenge if you dare. Check it out if you’re at all curious.

Was there any memorable promotions that really got you hooked by how innovative or how kick ass it was? A simple commercial or poster? A video? A full blown campaign? Let us know and why by posting a comment below.

Not much is known about the upcoming swan song to Gaijin Games’ Bit.Trip series - Bit.Trip FLUX. However, some images of the title have surfaced. These screens were unlocked by completing the Bit.Trip level of  Mission in Snowdriftland. Now this is all wild speculation but from the looks of things, FLUX may be something akin to Bit.Trip BEAT in reverse.

While details on this title may be scarce, excitement for it definitely is not. Why not whittle away the time until FLUX‘s release by checking out the Wii-Ware demos for Bit.Trip FATE and lilt line, the full games, the four other Bit.Trip titles on Wii-Ware, or Bit.Trip Beat for Steam/the iDevices.

Also, why not hit the jump and check out the rest of these sexy Bit.Trip FLUX screens.

Enjoy!

Good news, everyone! The chiptune-inspired electronic music of the Bit.Trip games is easily one of the biggest draws to Gaijin Games’ outstanding Wii-Ware series. The soundtrack for Bit.Trip RUNNER is available now over at CDBaby.com and it is excellent. Whether you are already in love with the games or are just a fan of the chiptune scene, I can wholeheartedly recommend checking this out.

More good news after the jump.

Even for series veterans there are some surprises in store as the album features previously unreleased bonus material.  Also available are the soundtracks for the rest of the series, and while I don’t mean to play favourites or anything, my favourite soundtrack of the bunch is Bit.Trip CORE. So if you feel like giving your ears a treat, have a  listen.

You can preview and download the sweet music here or wait until Bit.Trip RUNNER’s soundtrack joins the other Bit.Trip games’ phat beats on i-Tunes and Amazon.

The idea of games as art has been a discussion point within the industry for a while now. We’ve had researchers claim that games are as valuable as books in terms of literary value, while Tale of Tales, developer of The Path, has outright stated that they believe that “games are not art”, and are “largely a waste of time”.

This last sentiment was expressed at the Art History Of Games conference last week. On the face of it, this is a remarkably bold statement for the developer of a number of games considered as close to literal translations of art. In fact, it seems to fly in the face of statements they have made in past interviews, where they claimed that The Path was created as a work of art. It would seem, then, that they’ve had a bit of a change of heart. So are games art? More importantly, what exactly do we mean by ‘art’?

First of all, it’s very hard to exactly define ‘art’ in the way that Tale of Tales means it. Is it simply “the expression of creative skill through a visual medium,” as the Oxford English Dictionary would have it put, or something more? If the whole argument for games being classified as art is using this definition, then surely there is little contest. Can it really be claimed that video games are not creative, or that they do not take exceptional skill to be put together? As a result, it would appear that they are adhering to another definition of art.

The obvious place to look, considering all the brouhaha about the classification, is at ‘High Art’. Enough classical art is debated about joining the ranks of high art already, so a whole new platform to consider would certainly be controversial. Given the high culture which surrounds high art, one can see why video games might not make a very welcome addition. It is seen as the culture of the elite, to be contrasted with the more base pleasures of those with a lower intelligence. Compare that with the current standing of video games, where the stereotypical gamer nerd image is only now fading from view, and one can see where the trouble may lie.

But do these people really have any reason to deny games a place in this category of art? After all, high art encompasses forms as diverse as literature, music, and cinema. It seems a tad far-fetched that gaming is in such a sorry state that our best efforts are beneath even the lowest piece of art stemming from any of these accepted mediums.

On the other hand, it might not be so far-fetched. Given the birthing that video games were given, one might be able to see why people are having trouble convincing others that the industry contains examples worthy of the title art. Gaming came about, not through any high-minded wish for a new form of communication, but rather as something as simple as an amusing distraction. This image has stayed with the medium for the entirety of its duration, and we find it is still with us today (as can be seen on the BBC’s Newsnight Review, which looked at the Nintendo Wii with contempt more than anything).

This view is unfair, though; video games have developed far beyond the early examples that spawned such feelings, and can now be held up favourably against the efforts of television and film. The recently released Mass Effect 2 is a great example of how video games can capture a range of emotions, and leave us feeling more exhilarated than if we’d just watched a big-budget Hollywood movie. However, despite all this evolution on the part of video games, have they gone far enough to be considered art?

Obviously it is impossible to say either yes or no to that question. We cannot look at the medium as a whole and decide whether it is art, just as we cannot look at all music or literature and decide the same thing. There are pieces of literature that even the most hardened supporter of the medium’s status as art could not defend, and likewise video games contain their fair share of these.

I think the real point behind this is that no one person has the right to decide whether a medium be accepted as a place from which art may spring forth. However, the art world is filled with people who believe that they do have this power, and it is these same people who will ultimately win. They will win because they have tradition on their side, and because people are becoming used to being told what to revere and what to disdain. What is more important is not how the art community feels about a specific video game, but rather how you feel about it when playing it.

As a result, having me weigh in either side of the original “are games art” argument would be pointless and hypocritical of me. What I will say is that video games have come a long way from their humble beginnings, and I can’t help but feel that were they to be considered without their baggage, they would come off more favourably. Games have made us laugh and cry. They have told us wonderful stories, and shown us worlds full of imagination. While they may never be considered as true art, as long as they keep giving us new experiences, they can hardly be considered as “largely a waste of time”.

About six years ago, a massive project was undertaken by single ultra fan — to arrange the entire Ocarina of Time soundtrack into a giant orchestrated production. This Christmas, Santa dropped a big gift on our laps when it was announced that Zelda Reorchestrated was ready for Jesus’s birthday!

I would have posted this news up yesterday but it wouldn’t have made a difference. It seems that the poor guy’s site has been hammered into oblivion. I’ve provided the link above for whenever the page returns, but there are probably a few torrents of the 82-track behemoth floating about already.

From others’ impressions, it’s marvelous. I can’t wait to download it myself!

“Pacific City, to be completely frank, is in a bit of a mess. Ten years have passed since the tumultuous events of Crackdown and during that time the forces of chaos have claimed the streets for their own.

It’s in a right two and eight and no mistake. Deranged freaks roam the landscape, buildings have been wrecked beyond recognition, burnt out husks of cars litter the highways, there’s dog mess and graffiti everywhere.

Well, not quite graffiti everywhere yet as we haven’t quite got round to drawing it yet. And that’s where you guys come in.

Lazy swine that we are we thought we’d ask you to do our work for us. That’s right send us your graffiti masterpieces and if we think they’re ace then we’ll put them in Crackdown 2 AND put your name up in lights in the game’s credits.

Sound good? We hope so.

So get drawing and send your entries by email to compo@gazaxian.com. We need them Wednesday the 9th of December and will announce winners in the following week.

Some Dull Stuff

That despite being dull you really need to read

• Get your submissions to us in time, we need them by Wednesday the 9th of December
• Do not submit someone else’s pictures without permission. We don’t want to be tied up in a legal battles with spotty teenagers claiming we ripped off their work because you copied your entry from underneath the Staines underpass (the one near the chippy, not the one by the roundabout).
• Keep it clean. However tastefully or lovingly rendered goatse or tubgirl pics aren’t going to end up in the game
• Submission format: 1024 x 1024 images please. Format doesn’t matter that much. PNG is nice”

[Make sure you check in every Saturday, as Gamer Limit will always have an interesting editorial for you to read. Feel free to also check out our full schedule right here!]

In an ideal Ayn Rand-ian world, the good guys are pretty, and the bad guys are ugly.  The internal beauty of virtue and wholesomeness manifests itself on a perfectly flawless external visage.

Conversely, the baddies have scarred, twisted features.  The rare smile of a villain is not a product of happiness but malice.  Games used to be this clear-cut.  Games used to be this black-and-white.

Now, however, game developers have the technology to make their characters actually look human, as opposed to being mere embodiments of ideals.  This helps gamers empathize with their increasingly realistic in-game avatars; but this shift away from a black-and-white game development ideology did not happen overnight.

The increase in character detail is a direct parallel to the increase in graphical technology.  Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, we didn’t have photorealism; we didn’t have epic, larger-than-life enemies.  Sometimes, we didn’t even have sprites that looked human.  We barely had physics.

In Space Invaders, the protagonist was a laser-toting spaceship – the glorious pinnacle of humankind’s technological prowess – while the aliens were about as far from “human” as late-70s graphical technology could muster.  The goal was simple: destroy all that were different.  The aliens’ goal was mankind’s destruction, and they looked evil.  There were no shades of morality – you had to kill the bad guys before they killed you.

Fast forward to Mario.  He was a typical guy with a typical blue-collar job: plumber.  He was fat.  He had a mustache.  He was relatable.  A regular guy in an irregular scenario, Mario had to save his princess from the evil Lord Bowser.  You could tell Bowser was evil, because he was scaly and blew flames from his mouth.

“Scaly” wasn’t an adjective associated with heroism until the days of Spyro the Dragon, and even Spyro killed to survive.  Perhaps the relationship between scales, snakes, Medusa, and heroism just doesn’t mesh historically and mythologically.

The 8-bit generation of video games was the first to allow characters to have actual features.  Just like an author injects their own personality into their stories, game designers gave their characters traits that appealed to them.  Still, technology held games back from a full realization of the human condition.

Mario had a mustache because it was easier than animating a mouth.  He wore a hat because hair was difficult to detail on the primitive NES architecture.  Mario was as real as technology would allow.

As gaming grew, however, Mario retained his same basic charm.  He didn’t evolve as time went by like Sonic the Hedgehog did (to disastrous results).  Mario has been a short, fat, Italian plumber stereotype for over twenty-five years, and that’s okay.  His games have retained the same basic formula, as well, with the only major upgrade being the shift from 2D to 3D with the debut of the Nintendo 64 in 1996.  Mario is Mario, and he will always be Mario.

Sitting at the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Solid Snake.  He’s from the NES/MSX days as well, but his latest games continue to stun with their originality and powerful storytelling.  Unlike many protagonists, Snake has aged.  Snake has scarred.  Snake has grown old, weary, tired, and battle-worn.  But Snake has grown.  He has become older, almost in real-time, from one game to the next since the original Metal Gear.

Snake is a shining example of a human character.  In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, he is one of the only non-stereotypical “get off my lawn”-types of senior citizens in all of gaming.  He is old.  He is wrinkly.  He is almost disabled.  But we root for him.  Solid Snake, despite his incredible stealth skills, could very well be a real person.  Mario… not so much.

A lot of the suspension of disbelief comes, not only from Kojima’s oft-convoluted, yet still riveting, storyline, but also by the way Snake looks, acts, and talks.  This is entirely superficial, but it adds validity to his character as a whole.  He looks and acts like a person – flaws, wrinkles, cynicism, and all.

However, Snake’s development from soldier to mere man over the course of two decades is unique in the industry.  New characters in the current generation are released into an entirely different atmosphere than the 1980s gaming environment.  Today, we have Marcus Fenix, Faith, Altair, and Eddie Riggs.  They have their flaws, and they have their good points. They are people.

Now that gamers have discovered that they are not just playing as characters, but as themselves, they will hopefully become more forgiving of little shortcomings.  Maybe we’ll be able to see other flawed individuals as unique, instead of repulsive.  Instead of faults, we’ll see character traits.  Instead of ugliness, we’ll see beauty.

The next generation of video games may look as good as real life.  How will we take advantage of that power?  Will we use the technology for good or evil?

Is there even a difference anymore?

Back in December 2008, Gamasutra reported that Warren Spector’s Junction Point Studios could be working on a new game staring the most famous mouse in the world, Mickey Mouse.  This top secret project, referred to as “Epic Mickey”, is supposedly a collaboration between the Austin-based game studio, Disney Features Animation, and Pixar.

While plenty of games starring the iconic mouse have been made in the past, this new one stands out from the crowd due to its rumored steampunk look and style.  Kotaku has apparently done some digging and discovered a large collection of concept art, which they believe to be from the game.  To check out this incredible looking art, and to find out more about this rumored game,  hit the jump.

If this concept art is real, it appears that last year’s report from Gamasutra could be completely true.  Not only does the artwork look very detailed and professional, it also matches the description of the concept art shown to Gamasutra employees last year.  According to their report, the concept stills showed “pencil sketches of cities constructed from junk.”  They also described a sketch they saw of “a surreal seashore invasion scene, in which machines wearing the faces of the Seven Dwarfs deposit old-fashioned renditions of Disney characters onto the beach with mechanical hands.”  One of the images found, shown above,  appears to match that exact description.

Now this could all be a coincidence, or it could be an elaborate hoax, but at this point too much information is flowing in to dismiss any of it.  According to a quote from EGM magazine columnist Philip Kollar, “Spector’s new Disney project will be a platformer looking to compete with a certain pesky plumber. And who’s big enough to take on Nintendo’s star? Only the mouse himself!”  This quote was released back in March of 2008, and now, more then a year later, Kotaku believes it has found evidence that the title in question will be a Wii exclusive platformer.  Coincidence?

Unfortunately, until something is officially announced by Disney or Junction Point Studios, this is all just speculation and rumor.  For now you can take a gander at these incredible concept artwork images, which are sure to pique your interest.

Photographer Greg De Stefano, has put together quite possibly the most awesomely twisted collection of Smash Bros’ Brawl cosplays. Check out my favorite ones below.

Awesome hey? And there is a lot more available on his site, be sure to check em out. Also if anyone has any information on the mysterious photographer, or even just the photo shoot, we’d love to hear about it.

Source: Greg De Stefano

Thanks Christopher for the heads up.

Mario and Luigi are two of gaming’s biggest icons. Show a picture of Mario to anyone who doesn’t play games and you can safely guess that 7 out of 10 people will recognise him. Over at thedesigninspiration they have gathered a collection of the top 45 stylish Mario and Luigi pictures. Hit the jump for the highlights.

Theres a few nice wallpapers in the mix (Last one in particular). I’ve always loved these takes on classic games. Makes you think, if Sonic were real, what would he look like?

Today I’d like to share with you a bit of artwork from a budding artist named Chris Sweeney. Sweeney goes by the online alias SuitcoatAvenger, and frequents the Destructoid.com community blogs. Personally, I’d refer to his art as “Samurai Jack on crack”, but he has some more professional, artsy sounding terms for us.

Sweeney himself describes his style as “an art deco mosh pit. It’s grounded on the basic foundations of the graphic arts that were popular throughout the 60′s, but lends itself to being much more random and free. Realism takes a back seat to conveying a basic idea, and the linework tends to find its way to where it needs to go largely on its own.”

Check out some of his samples below!

Bill gets in a little over his head: but at least he has tons of pills!

Sweeney’s take on Prototype’s titular character, Alex. He’s too cool to look at his victim.

Yoga-Flame!

This picture was done by request, and features a character from the PC Series Penumbra. Oddly enough, which we just reviewed.

Little Mac shows Von Kaiser who’s boss!

Chris did this one for me by request: thanks a ton! It’s of Zero Beat, from Jet Set Radio Future.

This is a bigger version of the header image. It’s of Max Payne, and has some interesting dialogue to boot.

There could be a million interpretations for this. Personally, I think that this gentleman was cursed, and has until midnight to earn his heart back.

So what did you think? Bookmark his blogspot if you enjoyed his work!

Also, be sure to register a free account, so you can voice your opinion and enter our latest contests.