There’s a certain thrill of the hunt that takes hold when searching for the best user-made levels in LittleBigPlanet 2. Finding something amazing to enjoy later with friends and family is like returning back to the cave with a week’s worth of wild boar — or so I imagine.
But sometimes, you don’t have time to go digging. Your party is restless, and they demand entertainment. Never fear. Although LittleBigPlanet 2 has only been available for a week, I’ve scrounged up nine great custom levels that’ll keep you and your friends occupied for hours.
A couple weeks ago, Tanner Sandlin of Austin, Texas, dug up a boxed copy of Air Raid for Atari 2600, and sold it on eBay for $31,600. Inevitably, people are digging through their closets to see if they’ve got easy money collecting dust. Now, two more Air Raid cartridges are on sale, though they lack the original box that made the first auction so successful. The first auction is for a cartridge in good condition, and the seller is the second owner, having purchased the game from the original owner in April 2009. Current bids are over $1,600, with five days left in the auction.
Yahoo Answers is a massive, sometimes embarrassing snapshot of the human psyche, where anyone can ask any question to an anonymous peanut gallery of non-experts. So for no reason whatsoever, I decided to see what the site’s users were saying about video games. After digging through hundreds of queries — many of them about video game violence and addiction — I amassed a solid list of topics that really matter. Here are some of the most maddening, mystifying and terrifying questions about video games, as posted on Yahoo Answers.
CALL OF CUTY BLACK OP TIPS: Call of Duty: Black Ops is just a couple days old, but that doesn’t mean you need to head into virtual battle unprepared. You need tips for gathering XP and CoD Points, both essential for beefing up your arsenal with new weapons, killstreaks and attachments. Don’t think less of yourself for seeking out strategies for a military shooter — the U.S. armed forces impart the nugget of wisdom “Aim Towards Enemy” in rocket launcher instruction manuals — so think of this how-to guide for leveling up quickly and raking in CoD points as the gaming equivalent of friendly advice on how not to blow yourself up.
The Colorado Rocky Mountains are going to get more game-like this ski season, with a new program that rewards skiers with achievements and other metrics as they ride. Epic Mix, which debuts Colorado ski resorts in November, uses radio frequency identification, or RFID. With an RF tag built into every lift ticket, the mountain knows where you ride, the lifts you take and the distance you ski, and Epic Mix doles out achievements based on your accomplishments.
Halo: Reach just launched and we’re already obsessed with leveling up and scoring credits. Thanks to daily and weekly challenges, various multi-tiered commendations, constantly evolving user-made content, dozens of ranks and a store to spend the credits you earn from doing virtually anything in-game, Halo: Reach is far-and-away Bungie’s most complete (and addicting) addition to the Halo series. We’ve decided to put together a handy guide for leveling up your unique super soldier quickly. Keep the following tips in mind to get more credits (cR) and raise your rank faster.
Publishers don’t want you to buy used games, and neither do game developers. That’s no surprise, but I was taken aback this week to see some game writers arguing in opposition to the used game market, one that is dominated by Gamestop and, according to the logic of those opposed, doesn’t benefit publishers and developers at all.
Hogwash. Used video games may not result in direct profits for publishers, but the argument that they’re derailing the games industry relies on several falsehoods. Here are the arguments you’re likely to hear against used games, and why they’re bogus:
Over at Kilted Moose, Scott Munro put together a short list of his favorite video game music. They don’t align with my favorites at all, but the thing about game music, and music in general, is that we’re drawn to different songs and styles for different reasons. So here are some of my most cherished video game songs. I won’t say they’re the greatest compositions of all time — many are just deep cuts from well-known games — but they deserve to be appreciated.
Sub-Zero’s corpse torn asunder on the screen in front of me, I’m standing next to Eddie Ferrier, associate designer of the new Mortal Kombat. I had to ask: How did you guys come up these nasty Fatalities?
Ferrier can’t quite articulate the process. And how could he? Moments ago, he commanded Kung Lao to set his bladed hat on the ground, spinning in perpetuity. Kung Lao reached over the blade to grab Sub-Zero’s ankles on the opposite side, pulling the fallen fighter through, groin first. He lifts both halves of the body, remarkably intact but dripping blood. Ferrier, fumbling through a vague explanation about brainstorming with his colleagues, cracks a subtle smile. He’s been working on Mortal Kombat games since the beginning. I can tell he loves the job.
