I’m not ashamed to say that I played Bloodrayne when it was out. Ok, maybe I’m a little ashamed. It wasn’t the worst action game I’ve ever played and it did have two different breast related cheat codes which should make it unique in at least one regard. I never sunk so low as to watch the movies, so at least there’s that. This trailer for the upcoming XBLA / PSN side scrolling slash ‘em up is enough to kindle my interest in everyone’s favorite half-human, half-vampire redhead. Between the art style, the scoring and the slaughter, consider me officially interested.

The NCAA Football ’12 blog has been updated a couple more times this week. There’s a post on custom playbooks here, but I’m not paticularly interested in commenting on that one. No, it’s their post on the game’s “Web Improvements,” that has my eye given that I found last year’s initial attempt at running Dynasty mode through a browser the most intriguing new feature any sports game has offered in years.

It’s well established that I hate, hate, hate trying to manage the ins and outs of a sports franchise or dynasty using a game controller and console UI. It’s an abysmal experience that makes playing a Call of Duty deathmatch with a bunch of drunk, anonymous teens sound like a good time. NCAA Football ’11 offered something of a solution to this issue with its Online Dynasty mode, that let you run some aspects of a single or multi-player online dynasty through your web browser. You couldn’t really interact with your roster in any meaningful way or sim games, but you could recruit (when the service worked), and although it wasn’t perfect it was promising…

As you’ve probably guessed, these online features are coming back and being expanded this time around, but not without controversy. As I speculated a couple months ago when talking about EA Sports: The Subscription, using your web browser to interact with your Dynasty is no longer a complete part of the retail package. I’m moderately relieved to know that the core features -recruiting, writing up wire stories, email alerts, and stat access- are all part of the package so long as you just want to roll with an online dynasty.

Predictably, however, everything they’ve added for this year, will cost you a little extra. Not a lot extra, but extra. For one, you can still only have one online dynasty. If you want to be a part of more, that’ll run you extra, though the amount wasn’t specified in the linked post. Last year I believe it was in the neighborhood of $10. The other new feature will run you an extra $2.99. What will that extra scratch buy you? In short:

- Advance Week: This is a big one for me. The ability to actually sim out a week of the season via your browser can save you a lot of headaches if you’re not as interested in actually playing games as you are doing weekly recruiting and building a program. If I decide to pony up -not a given- my lunch breaks just got a whole lot busier.

- Super Sim: This feature, which I find of dubious value, lets you sim one of your team’s games on a play-by-play basis. You don’t get to see plays unfold, but you do get to call the plays, adjust your roster mid-game, etc. Basically everything you’d do in Coach mode without actually being able to see anything. I’m really not sure of the value here since seeing the game play out is really sort of the point of buying this game for your console. If that doesn’t interest you, wouldn’t you be better of with a text sim? Oh yeah. There aren’t any. (Well, there is Front Office Football: The College Years, which I don’t think has been updated since 2004.)

There are a few things not addressed, which I would have thought were no-brainer additions to the game’s web integration. The blog post goes on in detail about adjusting your roster during Super Sim. It never says if you can do any of that outside of the Super Sim engine, which is where you’d think most people would be most eager to play around with their roster, change depth charts to compensate for injuries, etc. Hopefully that’s just an oversight in the blog post, but I’m not holding my breath. If the extent of the interaction this year is the same recruiting engine (which could use some UI updates itself) and the ability to advance the week, I’ll be disappointed, especially since they’re charging extra for the latter.

Look, I said this in the EA Subscription post, this is a slippery slope EA Sports is treading on. They already use codes in the box to access most core online features, charging people who get the game used a good chunk of change to get a new code to restore those features. If you want more than one online dynasty, which is not at all unusual if you want to use the web integration stuff for a single player dynasty and want to be in a genuine online dynasty, that’s another extra chunk of change. Now they’re expanding on the web integration feature set and saying that’s not a part of the $60 package either? Don’t tell me how hard it was to put these features in the game. A good defensive back AI is hard to do too, but you don’t get to charge extra for it.

You can spin, justify, and obfuscate all you like, but it’s bunk. Pure bunk.

We talk an awful lot, as gamers, about the stories we play. We make fun of the terrible ones, praise the good ones, argue about whether story matters at all, fight about semantics (is it really “story” or is it just “worldbuilding”), reappropriate images and characters and make internet memes, and even argue about whether events “really happened” or happened in any kind of coherent sequence in fictional universes. Not all games are – or need to be – rich narrative experiences (Tetris and other abstract titles spring immediately to mind), but many of them are – and the fact that we spend so much damned time talking about them should show just how important they really are…

Right now, I’m teaching Fundamentals of Digital Storytelling at Northeastern, and while it’s no LittleBigClass, we spend a great deal of time talking about, playing, and designing games. Tuesday night, especially so.

It’s a fairly unique course, spanning a wide variety of storytelling methods before settling, in the final month, on interactive narratives. We start out with the Hero’s Journey and Aristotle’s poetics, and before long we’re whipping through cinematography, screenwriting, storyboarding and basic animation. After that two-month whirlwind tour, we made the transition through the looking glass into the much weirder, infinitely more complicated world of interactive storytelling, wherein the audience goes from passive recipient to active participant in the goings-on.

In teaching about these concepts, I find myself going to some of the trusty stand-bys. I play clips from BioShock to show how story and character details are conveyed through audio logs and details in the scenery. I give my students a look at Heavy Rain and how its episodic nature and ability to hear a character’s “thoughts” help to bridge the gulf among games, novels and film. I even show them this clip on interactive storytelling from the Mass Effect series. Shocking, I know.

But this time around, I threw in a few surprises, like youtube game Bboy Joker and an examination of Sleep is Death, indie darling Jason Rohrer’s fascinating two-player collaborative storytelling game.

Herein lies something genuinely new: a game that makes use of improvisational storytelling techniques, but in a digital world, and within the rules of a “game”. Although it looks like an 8-bit version of Photoshop or something, it’s actually one of the most sophisticated examples of the idea of interactive storytelling being a conversation or dialogue as opposed to a story told to a passive, non-participative audience.

To simplify, I believe the power of interactive story is that the narrative is told with – as opposed to told to – to audience/reader/player, and Sleep is Death is completely centered on that idea of telling with. I should say “creating with”, since there’s no inherent story that comes with the game – you’ll tell your own.

In this particular course, since all concentrations in the Digital Media program take it, I’ll inevitably have a few excited gamers who nod excitedly through the “mainstream” section and ooh and ah over the weirder stuff, and a few non-gamers who have no idea what they’re looking at when I begin the section. That’s half of the fun, of course – by being able to turn them on to the possibilities that exist in the interactive space, I get to show a whole group of smart, motivated, artistic folks what this “gaming stuff” is all about.

OK look, I am still in the camp of people who want to see this game. I can’t help it — I think it could be a fun co-op romp with a lot of action, some puzzle solving, and some gruesome looking monsters. That’s my hope, anyway. I’ll find out soon enough when and if Bethesda sends me a copy. I asked for two copies so we could properly test co-op but that’s like asking for seconds in a Dickens story. I’ll just tell Brandon to buy it or I’ll fire him. I wield that sort of power.

But whoever picked the music for this trailer needs publicly flogged.

Seriously.

So about that update that we were supposed to get today… and by “we” I mean everyone who is playing The Witcher 2, which sadly still does not include me.

CD Projekt has released the following statement on its website:

The good news is that the patch is ready. The bad news is that we have encountered some problems with the server infrastructure, making downloading DLCs impossible. We want to apologize to our fans for not meeting our target of delivering the patch last night. We will update you when we know more.

The patch is supposed to improve framerates so the sooner the better.

Some Diablo III news today as Blizzard has released some nifty videos as well as dropped info on the new Runestone mechanic. It sounds like this will augment the socketed gems that you place in items, only with the stones they enhance your base skills. The video above is the Acid Cloud Witch Doctor skill in its various Runestone forms.

It works like this:

Extensive character customization is one of the primary design goals for Diablo III. Players will have many ways to customize and build each of the five character classes, including charms, traits, enhancements, gems, armor, weapons, dyes, skills, and the feature we’re highlighting in this article: runestones.

There are five runestone types: Crimson, Indigo, Obsidian, Golden, and Alabaster. Each runestone affects skills differently. For example, adding a Crimson Runestone to a skill may enhance its damage, while adding an Alabaster Runestone might add a stun effect. You’ll be able to place a runestone in each of your seven skills by opening the Skills screen. A rune’s specific effect on a skill is explained through a tooltip. In addition to their color, runestones also come in different ranks of power; the higher a runestone’s rank, the more dramatic its effect on the skill. Experiment, and discover which skill and runestone combination best suits your personal playstyle.

You can view more videos at the Diablo III official page:

Here’s a nice little pick me up for a Thursday morning.

The Guardian has a fascinating story today about Chinese prisoners being forced to work chain gang type labor during the day and gold farm in MMOs at night. This puts an entirely new spin on getting ganked in an MMO.

“If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things…”

Read the entire piece at the Guardian.

As part of their mea culpa for the PSN attacks, Sony promised that PSN users would get a complimentary year of identity theft protection via the AllClear ID Plus system. Those of you that were worried about the safety of your identity can worry no longer as you can now sign up for the service, provided you can remember the email address associated with your PSN or Qriocity ID. Truthfully, this is the thing I’ve been waiting for the most out of this whole debacle. Sony can keep their games. I’d rather have a little piece of mind.

I know I’ve posted this Trenched trailer before, but it’s awesome and the game looks awesome and these dudes have some seriously epic soup strainers. The wait for Trenched isn’t much longer as it’s coming out on June 22 for 1200 Microsoft Space Bucks. Unfortunately, if you’re a PS3 owner the wait may be a wee bit longer as Trenched is an XBLA exclusive. I still wouldn’t rule it out entirely though as these exclusives always seem to make themselves to other platforms at one point or another. I’d love to review this one, but alas, I’ll be on vacation when it drops, so instead I’ll have to play the game for nothing but the sheer joy of riding mechs into fields of explosive destruction.

First off, nice box art.

THQ is at it this time with the pre-order hoo-hah. The Collector’s Edition is 100 bones. The PC edition $80…because we’re either a cheap lot or are less inclined to buy these. Not sure which.

PR time — and yes there there are Gamestop, Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart only deals. Amazon shoppers get a CHAINSWORD!? Seriously there are more pre-order deals for this game than you can shake a snotling at.

The Emperor is not pleased.

THQ Inc. today announced that it will be releasing a limited run Collector’s Edition for its upcoming 3rd Person Action/Shooter, Warhammer 40,000®: Space Marine as well as a robust* collection of retail specific pre-order items to choose from.

The Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Collector’s Edition features a 10” replica Purity Seal, a glossy hardback art book, the official Space Marine soundtrack, a premium pack of 25 foiled character information cards and a copy of the game, packaged together in a premium box set. The Space Marine Collector’s Edition is available exclusively from the THQ.com Store in limited quantities. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions are available for a suggested retail price of $99.99 and the PC edition for $79.99

Other exclusive pre-order offers include unique multiplayer weapon and armor skins which will allow Space Marine fans to distinguish themselves further on the battlefield.

The Emperor’s Elite Pack, only available at Gamestop, includes the unique Space Wolves and Black Templar chapter armor skins

For players who prefer the nefarious forces of Chaos, The Traitor Legion Pack includes the complete armor sets for the Iron Warriors and Emperor’s Children and is only available at Best Buy.

The Golden Relic Chainsword, the primary close combat weapon for Space Marines, is only available at Amazon.com

The Golden Relic Bolter, a powerful ranged combat weapon, is only available at Walmart.

PC Gamers can celebrate their love of the Dawn of War series by donning themselves in the iconic red and bone colored armor of the Blood Ravens Chapter as well as receiving a FREE copy of Darksiders on PC when they pre-order the PC game through Steam.

PC Gamers also have the choice of pre-ordering their copy of Space Marine through THQ’s E-Store to get an exclusive PowerSword weapon for multiplayer.

Finally PC Gamers who choose to buy a digital copy of Space Marine through select digital retailers will be offered a FREE copy of Darksiders on PC.

Set in the rich Warhammer 40,000 universe created by Games Workshop®, Space Marine is scheduled to be released worldwide for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC on September 6, 2011.

For more information visit www.SpaceMarine.com

*That’s one word for it.