Ever since Microsoft ingeniously infused their games with achievements that arbitrarily add points to an arbitrarily important gamerscore, gamers around the world have feverishly played games long after they had found a powerful item and defeated the final boss. While a big gamerscore can be fun to show off to your friends, are you really enjoying the process? Or are you a metaphorical marionette, manipulated to play your game in a way that feels unnatural, boring, even wrong?
Nick Simberg at VGChartz seems to think the latter:
“…I’m not playing the game how I want to play. I’m playing the game how I’m being told to play.
You know how some revelations are incredibly empowering, the kind that make you feel like you can take on the world, conquer any task before you, save the day, and win the girl? This revelation is the opposite of that. I usually sit on chairs. This time, Chair sat on me.”
Achievements can be a fantastic way for a developer to put a carrot out in front of gamers to lead them to novel, niche, and most importantly enjoyable ways to play their game. Whether it be something ridiculous like putting a garden gnome in a rocket and sending him to space in Half-Life or an indication of your skill progression like getting an Overkill in a ranked free-for-all match of Halo.
Of all the different types of sports and games, billiards seems to be one of the most difficult to translate to a game console. Pool is a very tactile game, and making that work with a traditional game controller is something that many developers have struggled with for years. Virtual Pool came close, but was always missing something. UK based developer VooFoo think they’ve cracked it with Hustle Kings, and for the most part, they have.
Street Fighter IV put fighting games back on the map when it was released on current-gen consoles early last year. The game allowed for veterans to once again relive the glory days while it was also accessible to newer players. As soon as that game came out, it seemed that every other fighting franchise released pure quality. Now Capcom has jumped the gun by unleashing Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, a game that nobody thought would leave the Land of the Rising Sun.
The premise of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is not unlike any other all-star game Capcom has released over the last decade. Capcom vs. SNK pit two of the most robust labels against each other, while Marvel vs. Capcom allowed known Capcom characters to duke it out against the well-known heroes and villains from Marvel Comics. Read the rest of this entry »
The Ace Attorney series has been a welcome third party mainstay on the DS. Players stepped in the shoes of the prominent defensive attorney Phoenix Wright in three games, while the fourth game put players in the head of Apollo Justice—a new defense attorney. Now in its fifth entry, Capcom is turning the tables by playing the role of Miles Edgeworth, the prosecutor that has given Phoenix Wright all sorts of hell. Read the rest of this entry »
The Fallout series returns back toward the West coast this fall with Fallout: New Vegas, just announced minutes ago by Bethesda Softworks. It is the first official follow-up to 2008’s Fallout 3, which has received tons of DLC content including Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta.
There isn’t much to be known about the game at this point. Bethesda’s head of marketing and communications, Pete Hines, told several publications that Fallout: New Vegas would be a role-playing game experience in line with the expertise of developer Obsidian Entertainment, best known for their work on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II.
What details can be gleamed from the trailer are few and far between. There is a soldier standing on a cliff overlooking the destroyed Vegas strip, holding a California flag. Presumably, war has broken out along the West coast between the states, and that’s about all we can take away from it.
I’m sure we’ll hear more in coming months, and we’ll be sure to bring it to you. For now, check out the teaser trailer on our YouTube channel.
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is the first console return of Konami’s Vandal Hearts franchise since the 2nd game for the original Sony PlayStation. For fans of the first two games this is an opportunity for Konami to rekindle the spark that made those two games so enjoyable. Sadly though, Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment falls short on a lot of levels.
BioWare’s promise of an epic, sci-fi trilogy began back in 2007, where players saw Commander Shepard skirting across the galaxy to save organic life in Mass Effect. While the game featured superlative dialogue and a top-notch story, Mass Effect also had plenty of irritating gameplay features that gamers to this day still create commotion over. Thankfully BioWare has taken these fans’ ramblings and turned them into something positive, an all-around more polished and enjoyable game. With even better writing, a refined combat system and some of the most enjoyable characters we have seen in one game in a long time, Mass Effect 2 delivers the most complete package that any fan would be absolutely crazy not to try.
Since Mass Effect 2 focuses heavily on a story that revolves around the decisions you make, we will do our best as to not spoil anything that relates to any major plot points or spoilers. As such, Mass Effect 2 begins with Shepard and his team still fighting the Reapers who are hell bent on killing all organic life in the galaxy. After an accident befalls Shepard and his team, he soon finds himself working for the Cerberus Corporation, a group that will use all measures necessary to preserve life in the galaxy. Cerberus is led by a mysterious figure known as The Illusive Man, who informs Shepard that a mysterious race of aliens known as The Collectors is capturing all humans for the Reapers. Since Shepard is no stranger to saving humanity, The Illusive Man soon puts Shepard in charge of a new crew set out to stop the Collectors and Reaper invasions.
That’s about all I can remember from last Wednesday. I said it right after walking out of Johnny Rockets, leaving a shift at the 1950’s themed diner which, when combined with a couple of internships, served as the tail-end of what had become the routine 19-hour days I had endured from August 2009 until then.
I said what I said because it was my last shift at that job ever. Not because I was fired, but because I could finally afford to quit. In June 2009, I was laid off from my full-time job because the company, which had just hired me the month before, neared bankruptcy and cut my entire department. Read the rest of this entry »
Following quite a few other remakes of PS1 RPGs, XSeed Games has taken on the task of bringing Lunar: Silver Star Story to the PSP with redone voice acting, music, and visuals. Lunar: Silver Star Harmony attempts to combat the intense nostalgia that many players had for the original version while also offering a chance for new players to experience one of the more popular RPGs from the PlayStation generation. We got our hands on the recent demo to see if Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is an RPG that PSP owners should keep an eye on when it is released in a few weeks.
Lunar: Silver Star Harmony starts with a young boy named Alex hanging out by a memorial for the legendary Dragonmaster Dyne. His friend Ramus comes running up to him with word of a Dragon Diamond that is supposed to be located in the nearby Dragon’s Cave and that they should get over there quickly to reap the financial benefits of finding such a gem. They run into Luna in the preparation for the trip, who insists on coming with them since she has to make sure they stay safe for the upcoming festival. They come upon a dragon named Quark who senses some potential in Alex to become a Dragonmaster like his hero and gives them a quest to complete before he gives them the Dragon Diamond they seek. It doesn’t seem like this will go far beyond the cliché story that you’d expect from a Japanese RPG, but that doesn’t mean the story still can’t be entertaining once it gets going. Read the rest of this entry »
