Hasta La Gadget!

When I was growing up, the Atari 2600 was a staple in family rooms everywhere. But despite the countless hours of entertainment these gaming systems provided, there’s no question they had primitive graphics. Imagine though if the Atari 2600 could have had real-world backgrounds for its games. It might look something like this…

For his Atari World series, digital artist Carlos Pérez combined idyllic real-world scenes with the rudimentary pixel graphics from an Atari 2600. The end result is both surreal and beautiful.

It would be cool if somebody went back and remade classic Atari 2600 games with these backgrounds. While their gameplay still might lack depth, they’d certainly be a feast for they eyes.

[via it8bit]

After raking in over $3.3 million on Kickstarter for a new game from indie developing studio Double Fine, the company is coming back to its backers begging for more money to make an even-better game than originally pitched. The only problem is that the game is already late, so backers and gamers alike aren’t in the best mood to begin with.

Broken Age, which was originally titled Double Fine Adventures, is taking a new approach, with the developing studio deciding to break the game up into two parts that will release separately. Game developer Tim Schafer and company think that this will create a better experience for gamers, but they need for money from backers, as well as more time to develop the game.

In a Kickstarter update to backers, Schafer said that “even though we received much more money from our Kickstarter than we, or anybody anticipated, that didn’t stop me from getting excited and designing a game so big that it would need even more money.” Of course, at that point, we guarantee that anyone reading rolled their eyes until they got stuck in the back of their heads.

The new plan is that Double Fine will release a refined version of the first half of Broken Age through Steam’s Early Access service at some point in January of 2014. This is expected to generate enough income to continue working on the second half of the game series, while sales from other Double Fine games will also contribute to production costs.

It’s definitely an odd situation to be in, especially for a company who raised $3.3 million when they really only wanted a measly $400,000, and they’re still asking for money and time to complete the game. Hopefully a mutiny doesn’t form over the changed plans, but we know how sensitive gamers can be. What are your thoughts?

VIA: Engadget

SOURCE: Kickstarter

Double Fine requests more money from fans for already-late Broken Age is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yesterday, game publisher Ubisoft was hacked, leading to usernames and passwords on their ubi.com website being stolen. However, it seems that a lot of Ubisoft fans are wondering if it’s a serious situation or just a publicity stunt for a marketing campaign for Ubisoft’s upcoming game Watch Dogs, which is a game based on hacking into various computer systems.

When Ubisoft posted about the hack on their Facebook page, many fans commented on and questioned whether or not the hack was actually legitimate, or just propaganda for Watch Dogs. Users asked questions like, “Are you sure its not just a watch dogs promotional stunt?” and commenting, “this is probably a Watch Dogs stunt,” and “hacked by Aiden Pearce.”

It seems the questionable hack was brought up after the fact that users received an email from Ubisoft, but noted that the email looked like spam with some users saying that the email was in German and full of grammatical mistakes. Other users noted that there was no signature attached to the email, so they couldn’t tell who it was from. Even the email address seemed a bit weird: email_ubi@email.ubi.com.

However, Ubisoft clarified over and over that it was a real hack, giving users a link to change their passwords. While the game publisher says that passwords are encrypted, there’s still a chance that they could be cracked by the hackers, so they’re warning all users to change their passwords before the hackers end up cracking them to get access to further information.

Ubisoft also says that financial information is safe, as the publisher doesn’t host that information on their website or server, but rather through a third-party. Then again, if a hacker ended up logging into your account, they could eventually find their way to your financial information and other personal info. Hacked or not, it’s always a good idea to change your password every so often to prevent peeping eyes from gaining access to your info.

Ubisoft hack spawns Watch Dog promo conspiracy theories is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Halo series for the Xbox is seen as one of the most popular video game series on the planet, so it makes sense that a global championship tournament would be based entirely on the newest game in the lineup. 343 Industries and Virgin Gaming are partnering up to bring the tournament to gamers, and it’s said to be the “biggest Halo 4 tournament ever.”

There will be a total of $500,000 in prizes throughout the tournament, including a $200,000 grand prize for the gamers who can win it all. The tournament will span over five weeks with multiple live events over Xbox Live. It will all kick off this Friday, July 5, with Xbox Live head-to-heads starting on July 15.

The matches will be free-for-all and will consist of a series of qualifying rounds that will be based on average scores and elimination matches. Unlike a lot of the big competitions around the world, this tournament will take place over Xbox Live, and anyone can sign up for the chance to compete and win some big cash prizes.

Each week, gamers will be challenged to complete at least 20 matches against 7 random players, and the game type will be changed weekly. The top four players from each week of competitions will be flown in to compete in the finals in Seattle, Washington from August 31 to September 1.

26 gamers total will be picked to compete in the finals. Of course, there will most likely be millions of gamers competing for prizes in the tournament, but that shouldn’t stop you from joining in on the fun if you think you’re decent with a controller. There’s no word on when registration will close, but the tournament starts in just a couple of days, so be sure to get your name in the hat before time’s up.

Halo 4 Global Championships kick off as “biggest ever” is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s been a bit of awhile since we’ve heard about a large online service hack, but we should’ve knocked on wood when we had the chance. Ubisoft has confirmed that some of its “online systems” were hacked, with only usernames, email addresses, and passwords stolen. The game publisher says that financial information is safe, since that info isn’t kept by Ubisoft.

Obviously, Ubisoft is recommending that all account holders change their passwords on ubi.com, as well as on other websites where they use the same password. Of course, it’s good practice to not use the same password for everything, as that could start a chain reaction if your password gets stolen on one service.

However, Ubisoft says that the passwords are encrypted on their servers, so while the hackers didn’t have the passwords themselves at the time of the breach, Ubisoft says they “could be cracked, in particular if the password chosen is weak,” which is why the company is recommending that its users change their passwords as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, specifics about how the breach happened weren’t disclosed by Ubisoft “for security reasons,” but they said that the hack did not affect their Uplay gaming service. Currently, ubi.com is “under maintenance,” and isn’t accessible at this time because the publisher is working on solving the attack.

Ubisoft is just one of the multiple big game publishers that will be releasing games for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year. Watch Dogs seems to be one of the big games to hit the new consoles in the fall, and the publisher looks to go all-in on the next-generation of gaming.

SOURCE: Ubisoft Blog

Ubisoft hacked with usernames and passwords stolen, financial info safe is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.