Confession: I bought the Watchmen comics as they came out. I remember my jaw dropping as I finished issue 11, and the interminable wait for issue 12 to come out. That, along with Dark Knight Returns informed a lot of my early thinking about deconstruction, dialog, and dramatic endings (yes, back then the actually considered and built to endings!). I’m a huge fan of writer Alan Moore (Wikipedia link) in general (Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, and too much more to name.) And while the derivatives of those works, including the movie adaptions thus far, are the palest of imitations, and while Moore himself has begged, pleaded, and finally insisted his name be removed from any and all adaptions, the geek in me is still mind-blown to see the video above (and that’s as close to a Harry Knowles intro I’ll ever write).
By using its patent-pending CloudMMO technology running on Amazon’s Cloud, Last Legion were able to create a persistent world for the iPhone in the Watchmen universe. Players can roam the city streets, chat with total strangers, battle with people on the other side of the country, and ride the subway to another part of the city to continue their crusade against crime, all in real-time. Watch what happened when developers from Last Legion Games brought Watchmen: Justice is Coming to our office recently, and hit the Read More link for the full press release.
So, who’s interested in not only Watching the Watchmen — but living in their world?
The verdict is also out on whether Apple has a concrete grasp of gaming, the id co-founder said. The company’s reception to criticism has also been counterintuitive, which has led to its relationship with id being something akin to a roller-coaster ride.
Apple essentially kisses his ass when they need him to show up for one of Steve Jobs’ keynotes, but then throws him the cold shoulder the second he passes judgement, Carmack said.
Ouch. Here’s one way to get Apple to sit up and take notice, Carmack: deliver that ‘graphical tour-de-force’ for the iPhone you’ve been chatting up post haste. It’s a lot easier to get a company to kiss your ass when they can wipe it with $100 bills you’ve helped them earn. Just saying.
Meanwhile, the gaming potential of the iPhone is hitting the mainstream media, as Time Magazine profiles the various happenings on the gaming front. Coming soon: a genuine multiplayer-over-WiFi game (Asphalt 4) and, Spore Origins (SQUEEE!), featuring “18 levels of game play and an ‘Arena’ mode for competing with others around the globe.” We’ve all been waiting for Spore for so long now that we’re pretty sure that when it’s finally playable on the iPhone, we’ll be so enmeshed in the game for so long that actual evolution will likely occur on a massive scale without us noticing it.
