#gamespot

[retrocgads]

USA 1997

#USA1997 #GAMESPOT #NETWORK #IBM #MACINTOSH #N64 #PS1 #SEGA SATURN #GAMEBOY #VIDEOGAMESPOT

[lady-griffin]

I highly recommend reading Jessie Earl’s article about JK Rowling’s Anti-Transgender stance; because even though I was aware of several of the things she brings up here - I also learned a whole lot. 

I also highly recommend you check out her YouTube Channel - Jessie Gender.

I really do recommend it, especially if you’re into nerdy things, LGBTQ Discussions, and a lot of Star Trek. I think her videos are well-made, well thought out, and definitely worth a watch. 

She also came out with a video today, which I haven’t seen myself yet - so I can’t speak on it - but knowing her previous works and videos - I definitely think it’ll be worth checking out.

Don’t Stream The Wizard Game

#i support trans people #Jessie Gender #Hogwarts Legacy #jk rowling #Harry Potter #Anti Jk Rowling #Gamespot #trans rights are human rights

[nintendumpster]

#gamespot.com #gamespot #old web

[seeanimation]

😜

#seeanimation #social media algorithms #trending #viral #animation #see #cartoon #comedy #scififantasy #science #seeanimation productions #seeanimationstudios #comics #funny post #lol #funny shit #funny stuff #funny #funny memes #hilarious #gamespot #gamer

[folansstuff]

wild watching games criticism, real actual games crit without the shit of influencers and Geoff Keighley and sponsorships and the sort just like

Die

And its just because it doesn't make money in the billions, as if the cultural benefit is meaningless

#folansstuff rambling #games criticism #games crit #waypoint #giant bomb #gamespot

[finalfantasyx]

"Because he's Leon S. Kennedy and the S stands for STOP USING BIOWEAPONS."

#cleon #If y'all haven't watched the RE timeline video from GameSpot you are MISSING OUT #this is A+ gold content #Leon Kennedy #Leon S. Kennedy #Resident Evil #Funny #GameSpot

[hotsalein1995]

Gamespot banners from the mid-2000s

#old web #gamespot

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

#helldivers #helldivers 2 #jonathan ferguson #the Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries museum in the UK #which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history #gamespot #Youtube

[hwd405]

Spyro 3 - The GameSpot Build and Lost Media

I've been actively researching and documenting early builds of Spyro 3 for something like 7 or 8 years now, and while I feel like I've made a significant impact, there's always going to be people that have never seen any the content that I've helped to document - so, every now and then, I get the urge to infodump about one piece of my research to a new group of people, to help make sure that the documentation I've done isn't only known to a very small group of people... that'd defeat the purpose of documentation, to an extent, I think.

Sometimes, outreach ends up being extremely important to the research and preservation of prerelease content - and this is no better exemplified than with Spyro 3's "GameSpot build".

On June 23rd, 2000, several websites and publications revealed early previews of Spyro: Year of the Dragon - this date was probably some sort of online embargo date.

The "April preview", an early build which seems to match the one used at E3 2000, was used by most of these publications. A few of them, according to accounts from those that wrote the previews, received exclusive gameplay sessions from the likes of Mark Cerny - these previews apparently took place quite close to the embargo date and certainly would have used a later build than the April one. We know that IGN received one of these sessions (but, according to the author of the preview article, was allegedly unable to record gameplay during this session, which resulted in IGN having to use the same build everyone else did in their preview articles), and it's a pretty safe bet that GameSpot did, too. In GameSpot's case, we actually got to see what this build looked like:

As expected, it's a later build than the April prototype - this one seems to be from around the same point in development as the earliest demo disc version, though we're not sure if it's an earlier build or a later one. Three main characteristics stick out in these screenshots:

We don't ever see what the eggs looked like in this build, but the fragments use this bizarre ornate gold texture.

The HUD uses a green egg sprite similar to some of the eggs seen in the April build; the earliest demo disc version also uses this sprite.

For some reason, transparent polygons are a solid black colour, making some screenshots look sort of ominous and weird.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about this build is that the gold egg fragments it uses, which to most players would be completely unrecognisable and unlike anything they've ever seen before, actually do appear in the final game. And they hatch from every egg in the entire game. In most cases, the fragment flies off screen before the player can spot it.

The earliest demo build, which seems to be from around May 25th, 2000, does not include this texture at all, which has called into question the timeline placement of the GameSpot build. On one hand, they might've used the final egg texture momentarily, switched to the gold one, and switched back, accidentally leaving one of the textures intact. On the other hand, there have been cases in many Spyro builds of random early assets weeding their way back into the game via means that we don't really understand. Look no further than the August 27th, 1998 localisation prototype of Spyro the Dragon, a post-final build which inexplicably re-uses an early Gnasty Gnorc model, textures, and animations, from around 2 months earlier in development:

The info we have on this build doesn't just stop at screenshots, though! GameSpot kindly uploaded 5 videos of the build - labelled "Movie 2" through "Movie 6" (thanks GameSpot. that's not confusing at all) - to their website. Most of these videos were later temporarily put behind a paywall, and in 2014, 4 of these videos were deleted during a server move, with only Movie 2 (the one never put behind a paywall) remaining. The one movie that remained didn't even play properly in GameSpot's video player for years, so I had to download the video from the API to view it at all:

While the video is an important piece of history, and did reveal to us that the early Sgt. Byrd theme heard in some old IGN videos of the April preview had a previously unheard guitar section (this was prior to the public release of the April preview), it doesn't tell us very much new about the build. If we really wanted to more precisely date the build, we'd need to know what the eggs looked or sounded like - but the egg collection section was entirely cut from the video. As of yet, we just don't have this information.

As for Movies 3 - 6? These are now lost media. They were up on the site for 14 years, we know that people saw them, and I suspect there were people that downloaded them. However, since they were deleted nearly 10 years ago, nobody has come forward to say that they have one of the videos and to show what was in it. Anyone that does come forward with this info should be met with some scepticism, of course, but I think the only way we'll ever see more of this build is with a greater outreach and more widespread knowledge of the missing videos - the videos were readily downloadable from the website, and so someone still has the videos, I'm sure.

And before anyone asks, yes, the WayBack Machine has been very extensively searched for these videos - we can't find them, there's just no trace of them on there.

Judging by the video descriptions, Movie 3 would have focused on Bentley, Movie 4 on either Sheila or Agent 9, and Movies 5 and 6 on Spyro gameplay.

I've only ever encountered one person who claims to have seen these videos, and whether they're to be believed or not, they claimed that one of the videos showed Sunny Villa using Fireworks Factory's theme (levels using the wrong themes was very common in early builds of these games! Additionally, Fireworks Factory's theme is very likely to have been present around this point in development), and another showed Agent 9 gameplay using a track that didn't sound very Spyro-like, but more like "something from James Bond".

When the April preview released later on, it was discovered that early Spyro 3 builds actually do have a number of entirely non-Spyro themes, all by µ-Ziq and Propellerheads, left unused in their soundtrack data. The tracks in these builds seem to line up with the levels present in an earlier build of the game, and by this metric, it seems that "Spybreak!", a theme from the Matrix soundtrack, would have (fittingly?) lined up with Agent 9's Lab, and possibly would have been used in that level in internal development builds. Sure enough, my contact agreed that this was the theme they heard, when I sent them the track - if this is indeed the case, then this build is very very weird indeed.

It remains to be seen whether we'll ever learn anything new about this build, but we can only hope. I've linked to an archived 7z file containing all the screenshots uploaded to GameSpot below, as well as a link to a TCRF article detailing some of the known differences spotted in this build:

Archive.org

TCRF

#spyro 3 #spyro #spyro the dragon #spyro year of the dragon #spyro: year of the dragon #spyro prototype #prerelease materials #press materials #press screenshots #gamespot build #gamespot #playstation #sony ps1 #lost media #lost videos #prototypes

[l-1-z-a]

The Sims 2 Nightlife Q&A - Exploring and Living Downtown

Senior producer Tim LeTourneau is back once again to fill us in on the latest details of the expansion pack.

By Gamespot Staff on September 1, 2005 at 5:43PM PDT

EA announced earlier this week that The Sims 2 Nightlife, the second expansion pack for last year's hit game, has gone gold. This means that development on Nightlife has finished, and it's now on its way through manufacturing before arriving at a store near you later this month. Nightlife promises to be a huge expansion for The Sims 2, because it adds a gigantic new downtown area to explore, not to mention lots of new content, ranging from objects, fashions, character interactions, and more. There are even cars and vampires added to the core game. So in our final Nightlife Q&A, we once again turned to Tim LeTourneau, the longtime producer of The Sims and The Sims 2.

It's not really a party unless it's a karaoke party.

GameSpot: How are the downtown areas delineated in Nightlife? Are they integrated into the existing neighborhoods, or are they all set on a separate screen, much like the college campuses in The Sims 2 University?

Tim LeTourneau: Downtown is a whole new neighborhood (just like the campuses in The Sims 2 University). What's really cool is we have added the ability to set neighborhoods to nighttime, which kind of goes with the whole theme of the pack. So when you see our downtown you see searchlights combing the sky in a dramatic cityscape. I think players are really going to be surprised when they see it.

GS: Will the current neighborhoods in The Sims 2 (Strangetown, Veronaville, and so on) have their own custom downtown areas? Will you be able to "share" a downtown area with different cities?

TL: Each neighborhood has its own downtown. Now the players can either create a downtown using the template we provide, or if they prefer, they can build one from scratch. Sims can also move to the downtown as well, so if you prefer to tell the story of your sims living a more metropolitan life, you can.

GS: How many different "plots" are there in a typical downtown that you can develop? Is there enough room to create a diverse downtown, with clubs, bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, and more?

TL: Well the downtown that we provide has over 20 different lots that sims can visit, with all the variety you can think of--restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, diners, poker clubs, etc. Players will definitely find their favorite hangouts, or make their own and add them to the list.

Deep down, every sim is a party animal.

GS: Speaking of bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys, what other sorts of downtown locales are possible?

TL: There are karaoke lounges, nightclubs, card rooms, and, my personal favorite, there is even a cemetery--a great place for dates with vampires. And as I said, you can combine any of the different locales, so the possibilities are only limited by the player's imagination.

Dating Dracula

GS: How much will a car cost? Does owning a car actually save a lot of time, or is it more a prestige thing for your sim?

You must be one with the bowling ball.

TL: They range in price from the introductory hatchback all the way to the sports car. Having played a lot now, I can honestly say that a car has become an essential purchase with my starting funds. They save so much time in a career, because they give you an extra hour to get to work. But they are also so convenient for going out, as there's no need to waste time waiting for the cab. The prestige part is just a bonus.

GS: How many different car models do you expect in Nightlife? And will mod makers be able to create custom car designs, like they create custom objects?

TL: There are five cars that are shipping with the pack (with a great variety of design modes). We also have another one available for download if you preorder. I'm sure the modders will figure out how to expand that number greatly.

GS: Let's go back in time a bit. When did the development of Nightlife begin? Were the first initial expansion packs plotted out before The Sims 2 shipped?

TL: We have talked about a lot of different expansion pack ideas. Probably any pack we would ever do has crossed our mind at some point by now. About halfway through The Sims 2 University, we thought about what we'd like to see The Sims do next. The community experience wasn't everything we thought it should be in the base game and we wanted to add more of a reason for sims to get out of the house. That's really how The Sims 2 Nightlife took shape. Of course, our memories of The Sims Hot Date also had some influence on this decision, too.

GS: Is there a list of potential expansion ideas floating around somewhere at Maxis, and how does an idea move to the top of the list?

TL: There's definitely a list, but that doesn't mean that any of the things on there will gel into an actual pack. As I said, a lot of ideas are floating around in our heads. We really rely on what the community of players is asking to be able to do as well--they are our greatest influence. We couple their requests with our own creative juices and ultimately settle on a pack concept that we think will be the right thing to do next. You'd think after all these years it would be more scientific, but the reality is that The Sims is a game that is made from the heart. We can feel it when we've made the right choice when the whole team embraces the concept and makes it their own.

They aren't kidding when they say poker is everywhere nowadays.

GS: And finally, any hints as to what's next for The Sims 2? There are the console and handheld versions coming out, but what about future expansions for the PC version?

TL: Players will know what the next expansion pack is soon enough. For now, you'll just have to wait!

GS: Thanks, Tim.

TL: You're welcome. I'm always happy to tell people what's up with The Sims.

#sims 2 #ts2 #sims2 #the sims 2 #ts2 nightlife #nightlife ep #the sims 2 nightlife #interview #Tim LeTourneau #gamespot

[retrocgads]

USA 1997

#USA1997 #GAMESPOT #NETWORK #IBM #N64 #SEGA SATURN #PS1 #VIDEOGAMESPOT

[cold-fire-yo]

@chase-omega

Do you agree?

#chaomix #sonic the hedgehog #sonic #mario #super mario bros #sega #sonic team #nintendo #game journalism #game reviewers #ign #gamespot #metacritic #mario vs sonic #90s #console wars #Youtube

[arconinternet]

GameSpot (Website, 1996-onward)

You can browse its history on the Wayback Machine here.

#internet archive #wayback machine #gamespot #web history #internet history #old web #old internet #webcore #early web #early internet #90s web #90s internet #00s web #00s internet #1996 #1990s #90s #2000s #00s #2010s #10s

[waybackwanderer]

GameCube - All Games - GameSpot Feb 2005 Archived Web Page

#gamespot #2005

[saturniandragon]

british gun museum curator man :)

#gamespot #jonathan ferguson

[phantomyre]

WARNING: REBIRTH SPOILERS via GAMESPOT REVIEW (YouTube)

For those trying to avoid spoilers but want to see reviews of the game-- please be aware of spoilers, particularly in GameSpot review on YouTube. The lack of respect for the community is very unfortunate. Hopefully Square addresses this and doesn't allow GameSpot into their review sessions again. Rumor has it that IGN also has a spoiler-ish review but this I have not found.

#final fantasy 7 #ff7 rebirth #ffvii rebirth spoilers #ffvii rebirth #square enix #final fantasy #ffvii #gamespot