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Shining examples of storytelling.

Seminal shooters BioShock and Portal are shining examples of great videogame storytelling and character design, Lionhead audio producer Georg Backer told an audience at the Develop Conference in Brighton this afternoon.

“The big thing that good story experiencing does is it’s coherent,” Backer, who’s currently putting the final touches to upcoming Xbox 360 and PC RPG Fable III, said.

“One of the games I love with that is BioShock. BioShock is completely coherent, in the art style, the audio, the setting. It’s even so coherent that the game mechanics are part of the core story.

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Plus five new minis, special offers.

DeathSpank is the highlight of this week’s PlayStation Store update, which also sees the Sony shops updated with a free demo of Activision racer Blur.

Hothead Games’ DeathSpank, reviewed on Eurogamer last night, costs £9.99 / €12.99.

Fans of PSP/PS3 minis, which we just learned have now been downloaded one million times in total, get a choice of five additions today, including a port of PS3 puzzler Piyotama.

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Over 85 titles across the range.

Sony has announced that over one million units of games in its “minis” range for PSP and PS3 have been downloaded since it launched in October last year.

There are now more than 85 minis from over 50 developers, and the current top seller is Age of Zombies by Halfbrick Studis.

AOZ is followed by Monopoly, Fieldrunners, Zombie Tycoon, Bloons, Spot the Differences!, Pinball Fantasies, Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2, Yetisports Pengu Throw and Breakquest in the top 10.

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Will keep them in mind for future.

Namco Bandai has tweeted its Japanese followers asking for suggestions about which PSone and PC Engine games it should consider bringing to PSN.

The tweet, posted on Monday and spotted by Joystiq, notes that it’s not guaranteeing any of them will ever pitch up but says suggestions will provide useful future reference for the publisher.

Namco already has two PSone games on PSN – Mr Driller and Tekken 2 were both released in Japan in late 2006, with the latter hitting US the same year.

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Plus: tanks, solitaire and French for DSi.

Nintendo has revealed the new arrivals who will be appearing in the Wii Shop and Nintendo DSi shop this week.

First up is Pearl Harbor Trilogy – 1941: Red Sun Rising, priced at 700 Wii Points (around a fiver in the old money). It’s a trilogy of air combat games and it features two campaigns from the early years of the Pacific War. Play as the US or Japan and practice your skills with the Avenging Ace and Survival dogfight modes.

Or how about Kung Fu Funk – Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting!, also a … Continue Reading

Plastic fantastic?

Time makes liars of us all, and I knew I was tempting fate when I wrote that LEGO Harry Potter would likely be the best kids game of the year. Playing Toy Story 3, there were times I worried I’d have to retract my rash prediction after only a couple of weeks.

That’s because in its best moments, Toy Story 3 perfectly captures the innocent imaginative appeal of play. Not play as in gaming, just play: tipping the toybox on the carpet and making up an adventure without caring about things like plot or scale or common sense. In those … Continue Reading

Burton: “There are so many possibilities.”

Rare’s Nick Burton has hinted that fuller, more traditional games may be developed at the studio for Kinect.

Rare is hard at work on Kinect Sports, but Burton offered a glimmer of hope to a Brighton Develop audience this morning when asked if we would ever see a GoldenEye-like game for Microsoft’s new device.

“For us, until you start on that product, it’s difficult to say what we’re going to do,” he tentatively began.

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Watch Tory MP’s address to Develop inside.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey this morning told the UK games industry it would “need to make the case again” if it wanted tax breaks for development.

But the Tory MP, delivering the keynote address at the Develop Conference, insisted the sector wouldn’t “fall over” without them, and announced Government-backed initiatives he said would help aid small developers and tackle the skills crisis.

In his first speech to the games industry since joining Government – and since Chancellor George Osborne scrapped Labour’s plans for tax relief in his Budget – Vaizey insisted he remained “a committed … Continue Reading

“You’ll see some stuff within the year.”

Mass Effect creator BioWare is working on a “small scale MMO”.

BioWare is also exploring Flash, browser and iPhone games, although these may never see the light of day.

“On a big basis, what’s working in business?” BioWare co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk asked during his keynote presentation at the Develop Conference this morning.

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