Daily Tech and Gadget

WWDC , App Store , iPad We’ve met up with the folks from Firemint before — back at GDC, they were kind enough to show us Real Racing on the iPhone and share their plans for the iPad. Just a few months later we’ve found them at WWDC with the extremely popular Flight Control HD and an Apple Design award for Real Racing HD . When we talked with Firemint’s community manager Alexandra Peters this week, she was quiet on their future plans.

Gaming , iPad The Electronics Entertainment Expo, known as E3, has joined the list of game conferences to set up tracks and areas specifically for mobile gaming, a market currently driven by Apple’s mobile devices. The high profile June conference, in which gaming companies and developers all show off what they’re releasing for the rest of the year, will have a special area set up specifically for mobile games. The Mobile Games Pavilion will give mobile developers (even relatively small developers — the fee is only around $3000) a chance to flaunt their wares in a place specifically for them. In the past, E3 has played host to a few iPhone games , but this will be the first time that they’ll have an area set off from the rest of the usually busy show

Gaming Fallen Earth is a pretty popular post-apocalyptic MMO, and as we announced at GDC , not only have they released a Mac client , but they’ve got a pretty impressive iPhone app to go along with it coming later this year. To celebrate, they sent us a special code for some virtual in-game Brass Goggles — we’re not sure exactly what they do, but we’re told that they’re a third level item with the stats of a seventh level item, and that they’ll provide some protection against piercing, fire, cold, and ballistic damage. So they’ve got that going for them. Which is nice.

iPad If there’s a breakout game for the iPad already, it’s probably Flight Control HD — the game was announced a while ago (we talked about it with Firemint back at GDC), but the title has stayed in the top 10 pretty consistently since the iPad’s App Store went live yesterday. Firemint has finally dropped the embargo on the title this morning, and you can see the game above — it’s basically the same game as the iPhone version, except bigger, clearer, and with a little more space for the plane-landing chaos. That allows for a few new gameplay variations, including co-op multiplayer on the same iPad, a split-screen versus mode, new bigger airfields (and a Snow airfield with variable wind direction), and one more interesting little feature: 3D. Yes, Flight Control HD has an anaglyphic image effect going on with one of the airfields.

When game designer Cliff Bleszinski revealed Gears of War 2, he did it by ripping through a barrier with a Lancer chainsaw weapon at the 2008 Game Developers Conference. How about when he debuts his new game on Jimmy Fallon? More »

Gaming Ngmoco CEO Neil Young tweeted on the official account that We Rule has reached a million app sessions in a 24 hour period , which means we can probably call their big freemium experiment an early success. We’ve seen quite a few people talking about We Rule and their accounts in our comments and on Twitter, so it’s definitely out there and being played. But of course we have no idea yet just how well it’s doing in terms of turning over in-app purchases and making money. Still, if his talk at GDC is any indication, Young doesn’t really care: their main goal is to get lots and lots of people using the app, and a million sessions in a day sounds like they’ve either got that or they’re well on their way.

Excerpts from the book Expressive Processing . Reprinted with express permission of the author. More »

I spoke to the men running the studio behind many of the world’s biggest role-playing games a couple of weeks ago, to discuss a variety of things. I left with a bonus: The BioWare Vision Statement. More »

What was everybody (on Twitter) talking about during this year’s GDC? Game researcher Jesper Juul offers his annual look at the most tweeted highlights from the week of GDC, during which “pocket protector” was a surprisingly hot topic. More »

For about fifteen bucks a month, you can play World of Warcraft or most other massively multiplayer online games. That’s the genre standard. Could the next big MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic shake that up? More »

During a press event at the Game Developers Conference, Sony finally showed its motion controller to the gaming press. Welcome to the world of the PlayStation Move. We were shown a number of videos and demos, and they all looked uncomfortably similar to what we’ve already played on the Nintendo Wii. Even the models, with a focus on females and families, made it look like we were in the realm of Nintendo.

Who doesn’t love a good co-op game? We were able to get a look at Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light at GDC, and we’re told the game will be over six hours with side-quests and collectibles… and it’s built around two-play co-op. With both characters on the screen at the same time, you’ll be able to play offline and online.

While Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto may not have played Shadow Complex , the XBLA darling ’s creators definitely played Metroid . During a panel titled “Designing Shadow Complex ,” Chair Entertainment Creative Director Donald Mustard encouraged the audience of prospective downloadable game makers to embrace genre limitations. “So, genre is one of your limitations because you aren’t just competing against other games that are released in the downloadable space,” Mustard said, pacing across the stage. “You really are competing against Gears of War , Mass Effect 2 , Uncharted 2 .

I was outclassed last week by the other games reporter watching a demonstration of EA Sports MMA. He knew the name of the game’s fighters, the name of the referee — and — he knew the ref’s shaving habits. More »

Last week, Realtime Worlds MMO APB featured prominently during an in-booth press conference held at GDC. The game was playable (though, sadly, not by me), and the audience was treated to a live demo lead by the developer’s founder, ex-DMA and Grand Theft Auto co-creator, David Jones. Using two separate PCs hooked up to their own projection setups, Jones and another Realtime Worlds staffer hopped onto one of the game’s servers and began by giving a tour of one of three main areas, the Social District. As its name implies, this area — which reminded me more than a little of PlayStation Home — is where players can meet up, trade or sell their items, build custom music in the game’s built-in sequencer and buy a new set of wheels (or upgrade their current rides).