Tag Archives: Game
Video game puts coach on road to World Cup glory
WINDHOEK |
WINDHOEK (Reuters) – A coach whose enthusiasm for the trade was forged by the ‘Football Manager’ video game will be thrown into the deep end on Wednesday when Nambia host African champions Nigeria in a World Cup qualifier.
Ricardo Mannetti, 38, won more than 60 caps for his country, played at the African Nations Cup finals and was a professional in the league in neighboring South Africa but had no desire to coach.
It was only after hours of playing the video game with his brother-in-law that his interested was fired.
Seven years later he takes charge of Namibia for the first time hoping for an upset victory that will keep alive their remote hopes of qualifying for next year’s finals in Brazil.
“I wasn’t into video games before that, I never had any interest in playing them, but Football Manager captured my imagination,” Mannetti told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
“I was always winning and everyone said it proved I would make a good coach.”
Shortly after retiring from playing, Mannetti accepted an offer to coach his boyhood club in Windhoek after they were almost relegated.
“I thought ‘let me give a shot’ and that’s how I got into the job,” he said.
He won the Namibian Cup in his first season, finished second in the league and soon after moved on to the country’s biggest club, Black Africa.
In 2010 the Namibia Football Association brought Mannetti in to work with their junior teams.
He was then serving as an assistant to national coach Roger Palmgren when the Swede suddenly resigned on Monday after a month in the job, citing fears for his safety after an alleged altercation with a drunken fan.
“I’ve seen managers come and go but I didn’t see that one coming,” said Mannetti. “I’m a little bit nervous if I’m honest.
“It’s a big challenge for me and I just want the nation to shift the focus now from Roger on to the game.”
Mannetti said he had to move quickly to plot his strategy against Group F leaders Nigeria who have four points more than third-placed Namibia after four of their six matches.
One downside, he added, was that it meant there was no more time for video games.
(Editing by Tony Jimenez)
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Harmonix revealing new game tomorrow
Harmonix will announce a new game tomorrow, but it’s probably not what you think:
The rhythm game developer is expanding its wheelhouse, but it’s kept quiet about its new efforts so far. The only clue we have is an August job listing for a combat designer from the company, who would “design and tune combat skills and abilities; overseeing creation of robust combat AI systems for minor and major combat encounters.”
That position may or may not be for the game in question, but fighting with fists/guns/lasers instead of plastic instruments or jaunty dance moves would be a change of pace for the studio (if not the industry).
Telltale Game teases more Walking Dead with Vine
Telltale Games pulled the curtain back just a tiny bit on The Walking Dead today, posting a Vine of what lies beyond Season One: it looks like some guy named Vince has gone missing.
“Missing” isn’t a good way to be in a zombie-plagued Georgia–assuming the next chapter sticks to TWD’s favored region. Telltale’s caption reads “Day 2,” likely of the widespread outbreak, and Vince’s picture is surrounded by other missing persons and evacuation notices.
Season 2 of The Walking Dead is set to begin this fall, but writer Gary Whitta teased in February that we’ll see more of the world before then. Good luck out there, Vince.
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Visceral Star Wars game in ‘earliest concepting phase’
Visceral is starting work on its Star Wars game, according to a job listing dug up by Superannuation. The position calls for “an experienced Senior Game Designer to help lead the design and guide a pre-vis team currently in concept phase on a Next-Gen Star Wars title. “
The designer will join a new team within the studio which is at the “earliest concepting phase of game development.” EA previously made it clear that none of the games arising from its exclusive deal with Disney will release this year.
The posting reveals little else about the game (it sounds like there isn’t much to discuss yet), but it does ask for an “excellent grasp of level design: scripting, laying out combat spaces, combining core mechanics into fun sequences.”
So Visceral’s Star Wars game will for sure feature levels. And fighting. So much for Sabacc Night at the Inventory…
EA has said it wants to ride some of the new Star Wars films’ momentum by releasing around the same time (via GameSpot), so expect to see Visceral’s efforts surface sometime in 2015.
