Understanding the fun behind Mario Galaxy

Up on the premier Game Developer's website Gamasutra this morning is an article from Game Designer David Sirlin (Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix), analyzing the fun behind last year's mega-hit, Mario Galaxy. Want to know why this game is rated by developers and gamers alike as the best platform game ever? Head over to Gamasutra to find out.

"I've only said "Wow!" a few times in the last couple decades of playing games. One of those times was for the breakthrough Super Mario 64, a game that took action/platforming into a 3D world and made it work. It's fitting that I said it again over its (true) sequel, Super Mario Galaxy, a game that took action/platforming even more into 3D and made that work, too."

New Playstation Home screenshots

Some new screenshots of Playstation Home have surfaced on the official Japanese site. It's definitely looking very nice, lets hope Sony can get this thing out the door and into the hands of PS3 gamers soon.

Grand Theft Auto 4: Police Boat Montage

Up at Gametrailers this morning is this new TV spot for the upcoming metatitle, GTA4. Although it looks to be cut together from the first 2 preview trailers released by Rockstar, it's still worth a look. Any chance of seeing some actual gameplay soon Rockstar? I can't take too much more of this teasing! Trailer embedded below:

UPDATE: looks like trailer has been taken down by Gametrailers.

Breaking: Microsoft bids for Yahoo

While not strictly directly relevant to the Games Industry, in yet another attempt to claw back a bigger piece of the lucrative online search pie, Microsoft has apparently just submitted a bid to purchase Yahoo for $31/share, or a cool $44.6 billion. How this will impact upon their various Gaming divisions is unclear, more on this in the morning once the dust has settled

Edit: opinion piece available here