THIS MONTH ON EDGE
A rhapsody of trinkets that distracted us during the production of E265
BOOK
Ocean: The History
www.kck.st/1jxirVW
With its licensed games and arcade ports, Ocean grew to become Europe’s biggest game publisher and developer in the ’80s, until the transition to consoles threw it into conflict with Japanese and American publishing giants. Ocean: The History, created by Chris Wilkins and writer Roger Kean, catalogues the company’s games, music and art, and tells its story in the words of close to 40 former Ocean staffers. For the most part, they’re stories of little consequence, but that’s rather the point: the rise and fall of Ocean is a dry tale, but the half-remembered anecdotes of drunken fistfights and canned games from the publisher’s programmers, marketers, artists and warehouse managers all paint a fond and vivid picture of simpler days.
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Left Behind DLC Can any other studio match Naughty Dog for
characters nowadays? Titanfall’s burn cards look to redefine the
multiplayer perk
Price is right
Xbox One + game for £400 is a much better match for PS4’s £350
Card revolution
PS4 VR
Sony’s imminent entry makes the virtual reality
wave unstoppable
quit
Original sin New DLC for Arkham Origins. Shame the game still isn’t fixed
Price is wrong
Xbox One early adopters suffer, but when do they not?
Dungeon Keeper
EA squanders Bullfrog’s legacy with in-app purchases. How evil
More layoffs
Good luck to all affected at Sony Santa Monica, Turbine and Irrational
TWEETS
It’s 2014. Can we admit that companion apps and second screen gaming are dumb and give dev teams that time back to use elsewhere? George Broussard @georgeb3dr
Co-founder,3DRealms
Played FlappyBird. Learned two things: (1) I know nothing about games, (2) I suck at FlappyBird. Mark Nelson @BlueDev
Freelance designer and writer
Wall running is the new cover. Cliff Bleszinski @therealcliffyb
Independent developer
In 1999, I visited Hans Zimmer’s studio in Santa Monica, Media Ventures, to ask Harry for MGS2 music. The studio was like spaceship bridge. Hideo Kojima @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN
Director,Kojima Productions