Our live radio broadcasts are currently on hiatus while we work on improvements to Sanitarium.FM's core services. For further information, visit our Discord.
A company in China has come under fire in the last few days when details were revealed of an ‘internship’ that saw students from the nearby Xi’an Institute of Technology working at a plant assembling one of the next-gen consoles, the PS4.
Foxconn’s Yantai plant is reportedly being staffed with a number of students from the Institute’s IT Engineering course, working for long hours. Students have also been told that if they refuse to participate in the scheme, they will lose six course credits which is enough to ensure they cannot graduate. Students have also complained of being put to work doing jobs that bear no relation at all to what they are studying, including the grunt work of shipping and distribution. There are paid workers there too, but unlike the students they are there by their own choice.
Foxconn told the Oriental Daily that it had no interest in stopping the students from leaving the scheme if they wished to, but the Xi’an Institute had no comment when asked if they had received an agent’s fee for the internship and didn’t directly answer the question about whether the program was forced. They did insist though that it was all legal and was “mainly about making students learn about society and experience life.”
This isn’t the first time Foxconn and the Xi’an Institute have been found to be involved in schemes that involved compulsory and slightly iffy student internships. Last year it was the iPhone 5 being built by student labour, with the Institute reportedly receiving 100 RMB/about $16 per student provided.
The last day of the Eurogamer Expo was rounded off with a live version of the Eurogamer’s podcast, featuring a number of indie game developers as well as some Eurogamer staff.
The main topic was, as to be expected with the guests, indie gaming. Smaller sub-topics were discussed such as what indie meant to the developers sitting up on stage, that the only real difference between AAA studios and indie developers was the need for indies to be ‘out there’ more, how new media and social networks could be a double-edged sword at times, allowing for that important word-of-mouth marketing while leaving themselves open to anonymous backlash and how indie gaming has risen from being practically nothing to carving out a sizeable niche in the gaming community.
Though really, it’s impossible for me to write an article that does this podcast justice. Just watch the video below.
Guests were:
(@vics_viper) Martin Robinson – Features Editor for Eurogamer
(@edstern) Ed Stern – Splash Damage
(@vlambeer)Ramil Ismail – Vlambeer
(@mikebithell)Mike Bithell – Thomas Was Alone
(@roll_7)John Ribbens – Roll7
(@wyp100)Wesley Yin-Pool – Eurogamer News Editor
Another indie game that’s coming out for one of Sony’s consoles was shown on stage today at Eurogamer Expo: a top-down roguelike advertised as Wasteland Kings but now renamed to Nuclear Throne.
In a talk that also covered how the developing studio Vlambeer had come to be and gotten to where they currently were, Rami Ismail revealed that Nuclear Throne was a rebuild of a game the studio had previously been working on and that the new concept had been developed during the Mojam charity event earlier in the year. Various different builds of the game at different stages of completion were showed off, some made purely to test out later-game concepts such as higher-level monsters. The game itself is set in a post-apocalypic world populated by mutants of many various appearances and abilities. The aim of the game is to fight your way through levels, using many different weapons (from guns to grenade launchers) to defeat the bosses and eventually find a fabled throne that would make you the ‘ruler’ of the wasteland you live in.
There are a number of playable mutant characters to be chosen from (including one who is a throwback to a boss from this game’s previous form as Gun Godz) and all of them have a different useful ability such as being able to make special high-powered shots with weapons that consume 2x the ammo to turning into a crystal that reflects enemy shots. There are also tiny green ‘nuclear’ pick-ups that allow you to upgrade your character through ‘mutations’ once you’ve gathered enough of them, after which you’ll be given a choice of 4 random upgrades to choose from. Vlambeer said that they didn’t want to have the traditional ‘cool-down’ on abilities either, instead choosing to make each ability have a positive and negative to them. No two games will be the same thanks to the random mutations offered each time and the randomly generated levels of the game.
Nuclear Throne already has had a release in its Wasteland Kings Mojam version through Humble and versions are coming soon for the PC, Mac Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita.
Another indie game coming to the Playstation 4 was shown off today in a developer’s session at Eurogamer Expo. Resogun, an exclusive to Sony’s new-gen console, is the latest game from studio Housemarque, previously known for titles such as Super Stardust HD and Super Stardust Delta. Indeed some have called this Resogun the spiritual successor to those earlier games.
Set in a futuristic space setting, Resogun sets the gameplay in cylindrical levels where you as a small spaceship blast away from the left and right directions at oncoming enemy vehicles and eventually at the end of the stage, boss characters. Wonderfully colourful and very light-filled, it looks to be a game that will be very fast paced and shall require great reflexes on the part of the player. Power-ups are available in the game (for things such as upgrading weapons and a shield) and there are special weapons too besides the generic laser weapon that just shoots. Boost can be used to flee tighter situations or to ram through lines of enemies, Bomb can be used to clear the entire stage and Overdrive triggers a massive laser light show that seems to incinerate anything unlucky enough to get caught in its path. The weapon upgrade can also be applied to that third one by the way. There will be a choice of ships available for playing the game with and different levels of difficulties so those experienced with shooters can be happy as well as those who are less experienced. Each ship will have different strengths and weaknesses that will suit different playstyles.
There was also a little discussion about future plans for the game after the release and we were told there was a list of things Housemarque wanted to do with the game, with 3D and potential DLC being mentioned.
Resogun is released for Playstation 4 on November 29th as a launch title and is also being included free in the Instant Game Collection for Playstation Plus.
