Mitch has written a total of 335,654 words on this site.

mitch@gamersushi.com Twitter: @mi7ch Gamertag: Lubeius PSN ID: Lubeius SteamID: Mister_L Origin/EA:Lube182 Currently Playing: PUBG, Rainbow 6: Siege, Assassin's Creed: Origins, Total War: Warhammer 2

In Minecraft Westeros, You Win or You Mine

I just recently wrapped up watching the first season of HBO’s Song of Ice and Fire adaption Game of Thrones and I have to say that it was fantastic. The producers clearly have a reverence for the source material and the small screen adaptions of the various locations looked spot on to me (except for King’s Landing which struck me as oddly tropical). Of course, with anything nerdy there comes the inevitable Minecraft interpretation of it, and a team of dedicated builders recreated the world of Game of Thrones in blocky form.

I’m always impressed with what people are able to do in Minecraft, and with the dedication they have to undertaking these massive projects. What do you guys think about Minecraft Westeros?

Do Multiplayer Games Make us Jerks?

jenova chen journey

Journey was a sublime experience for me, one that was helped along by the presence of a silent other; a compatriot that I could travel with but not share a single form of spoken or written communication with. Aside from musical chirps, player interaction in Journey is severely limited but this didn’t stop my partners from helping me find hidden items or guiding me through the world. Without the incentive to hinder or harm me, were they actively trying to help?

This is what Jenova Chen, designer at thatgamecompany, thinks. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, he posed the thought that the agressive nature of multiplayer games leads to people being dicks to one another. I’ll let him explain his point, though: Continue reading Do Multiplayer Games Make us Jerks?

2012 April Fools’ Roundup

april fools gaming 2012April Fools’ is an interesting time for any entertainment industry because you’re never quite sure if what you’re seeing is an obvious farce or something that could come true. Generally we’ve gotten pretty good at sussing these things out, but sometimes there’s a really good prank out there that trips us up.

This year saw some pretty good gags from Blizzard (like Blizzard Kidzz and Supply Depot 2, which takes a stab at Mass Effect 3’s ending) to Mojang and Notch’s very overt dig at Mass Effect, Mars Effect. The Old Republic team also had a pretty good one detailing the addition to play as your ship’s Protocol Droid. There were also a lot of great video April Fools’ gags, which I’ve put in after the jump. Continue reading 2012 April Fools’ Roundup

Breaking Bad in Games

breaking bad in games

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is AMC’s Breaking Bad, the story of how a mild-mannered chemistry teacher becomes a hard-core crystal meth dealer. In the opening few episodes, the central character is told by his junkie accomplice that you just can’t start “breaking bad”, implying that if you’re a kind person at heart, you just can’t start doing things that are incredibly out of the norm for you.

I feel this way about moral choices in video games. I’ve just started replaying the entire Mass Effect trilogy as a Renegade female Shepard and I’m finding it difficult to “break bad” as it were. I subconsciously find my conversation wheel hovering over the Paragon dialog choices before the option is even up, and when it comes time to make a Renegade decision I get a little sick in my stomach. Continue reading Breaking Bad in Games

The Incredible Travels in Journey

journey

With the video game market being so clogged with shooters and other sorts of violent games, it’s kind of hard to forget that the medium can pull off some really serene, beautiful moments. Thatgamecompany, famous for PSN titles like flOw and Flower, return with Journey, a game about, well, taking a walk through a desert to reach a mountain far off in the distance. There’s very little cutscenes and no dialog, but the bang for your buck offered by Journey makes the trip worth it, and then some.

Starting far away from your target as a mysterious, red-robed traveler, Journey chronicles your sojourn through the vast desert and down hills, into caves and across a snowy tundra. The controls for Journey are quite simple, you press X to jump (the longer your scarf the longer your jump) and Circle to do a little shout (hold down for longer shouts). You don’t even really need much else, as Journey is quite elegant in its minimalism. There’s some cool segments like surfing down a dune through a lost city and swimming through the air in a cavern, but these need to be experienced to really understand how moving they are. There are so many things in Journey I wish I could describe, but it would be unfair to spoil these moments for you guys.

Journey is also quite gorgeous, boasting better sand and lighting effects than Uncharted 3, which had the best use of those two elements to date. Journey has an incredible style and the sound design is superb. The sand crunches under your feet, your scarf snaps in the wind, and the distant call of a fellow traveler beckons you closer. The music is haunting and resonant, and only adds to the already surreal mood. Continue reading The Incredible Travels in Journey

The GamerSushi Show, Episode 44: Mass Cast

Hey dudes, we are back from outer space, here to bring you our thoughts on BioWare’s space opera trilogy ending Mass Effect 3. We’re unfortunately beardless this week, but Eddy, Anthony, Jeff and myself wax philosophic about everything from story beats to the multiplayer, the ending controversy and the ending itself.

There’s no Six Minutes with Resident Evil 6 or a game this week, so I hope that an hour and a half of straight up Mass Effect is good enough to tide you over. Eddy hadn’t finished the game when we recorded, so he dropped out for the ending talk. When you hear Harbinger for the second time, that’s when we launch into the discussion. There was also a technical issue with both Jeff and Eddy’s mics, and the way the cast is recorded means these sorts of problems are hard to rectify. Jeff fixed his junk for the ending talk, but for the first half of the show he is super quiet.

Technical problems aside, the cast is super sweet so I hope you enjoy. If you guys could also rate the cast that would be boss. Enjoy!

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50 Ways Assassin’s Creed 3 Will Amaze You

assassins-creed-3

Assassin’s Creed 3, the first game since the 2009 title to make an acutal numerical leap, looks to be making a lot of impressive changes to the formula. If you’ve been worried about AC3 and whether or not it will breath new life back into the franchise, take heart, because this list of 50 Assassin’s Creed 3 facts posted by Kotaku will give you the biggest of mind boners.

The article goes over all the different features being adding in to AC3 including how the game’s two towns, New York and Boston, will work, and it details the hunting that the player will be able to engage in. It also describes how you can assassinate a bear, and if that doesn’t sound like Game of the Year material to you, you need to get your brain checked.

In addition to these juicy details, there’s also some stuff that only hard-core developers or engine-fanatics would find interesting, like the amount of bones in the character’s faces and that fact that Assassin’s Creed 3 will have “twice the production capacity of the Ezio trilogy”. There’s also a lot of stuff about how new protagonist Connor will strike from the trees and how he will get involved with the Assassin Order, so even if you’re kind of “meh” on AC3 I still recommend checking this list out.

What do you guys think of the list? What are your favorite segments? Anything that worries you? What are you hoping to see in Assassin’s Creed 3?

Source – Kotaku

The Difference Between Hard and Annoying

gaming difficulty

Sorry about how slow it’s been around here lately guys, but other than Mass Effect 3 dominating our lives (and every news post on every other site), there’s hasn’t really been much else to report on. There’s a new Sim City, I suppose, but what do you need to know? You make buildings, lose them to tornadoes, c’est la vie.

Given the lack of news and new releases, I’ve been replaying Mass Effect 3 on Insanity, trying to make Mass Effect 3 the first game in the series that I get 100% of the achievements on. So far it’s been fine, but the thing about cover based shooters is that on the hardest difficulty, the game pulls some really cheap tricks to make things difficult for you.

Since being in cover essentially makes you invincible (as one would expect), stepping out in to the open means certain death via some BS means like stun locking. Getting caught out in the open in Mass Effect 3 is survivable on normal but on Insanity it’s an instant death sentence. This doesn’t make the combat encounters challenging, but more of a slog because it mainly comes down to finding the one corner where enemies can’t flank you and just wasting them with power and ammo until you win.

Games do a really poor job at being difficult (there are exceptions like Dark Souls and the like) and that’s what makes doing runs on Insanity or Legendary or whatever such a chore. Maybe it’s too hard to design higher difficulty levels because most people just play it on normal, but increasing the amount of damage done to you incrementally doesn’t actually count. Halo: Reach was one of the last games to make a fun, challenging experience on Legendary; there were actually more things done to change the way the enemies behaved, and the energy weapon projectiles were faster meaning that not getting out of the way of a plasma pistol volley could spell the death of your Noble Six.

What games have you guys played recently that have given you a run for your money? What games have really poor excuses for the highest difficulty level? Do game developers need to start making harder games overall? Go!

Borderlands 2 Promises Pimped-Out PC Version

borderlands 2 pc version

If you’re like me and you played the original Borderlands on the PC then you were probably disappointed by how much the game reeked of “console-itis”. The signs of a hasty port were everywhere and the game suffered for it. With a new Borderlands on the horizon, Gearbox decided to kick their PC support into overdrive and threw up a love-letter from everybody’s favorite (sarcasm) robot Claptrap, listing the features that will be in the PC version of Borderlands 2.

While this is a very nice gesture on behalf of Gearbox (and I hope they carry all this over to their other release this year, Aliens: Colonial Marines) it just strikes me as how odd it is that features that should be included on the PC SKUs of games like FOV sliders and offline LAN support are now considered to be extras by the developers. If anything demonstrates how far down the chain PC gaming is in terms of priority these days, it’s this.

Sure, a lot of the items on the list are things that PC gamers take for granted, but we just don’t get that kind of support these days. Usually these things are added in by mods, so at least Gearbox is taking the time to add that to the game.

What do you guys think of Borderland 2’s promised PC version? Does it get your engine running? What do you think of these features now being considered “bonuses” of a kind? Go!

Source – Borderlands 2 website

Game Design Gets Taken to Court

game design lawsuits

In the wake of the recent Mass Effect controversy and all of the other game-design related outcries, I sometimes wonder if gamers would take games to court if they could. 1up recently put up a feature about six game design choices that should be punishable by law, and it’s a pretty good read.

Sure, it’s humorous in nature, but there’s no denying that I feel like I need compensation for the pain and suffering caused by some of their examples. The slow-moving text in Skyward Sword is a great one, and it’s something that a lot of Nintendo games, from Pokemon to Mario, are guilty of. Sure, you can hold down the A button or whatever to speed up the text, but it still crawls pretty slowly. Ninty seems set on doing this and a lawsuit just might be the only way to get them to change their ways.

Personally, I’d like to sue someone over the Journal design in Mass Effect 3. I can get around bad quest logs, but the one in ME3 is just plain unhelpful. Main quests, side-quests and fetch-quests are all lumped together and the damn thing doesn’t even update when you’ve gathered one of the items necessary for your eavesdropping side-business on the Citadel.

I could probably also make a case against some of the things in Battlefield 3, and maybe for the extreme time-loss caused by Skyrim, but I’m pretty sure I have Stockholm Syndrome where that game is concerned. What did you guys think about the article? Are these choices worth going to court over? What games would you get litigious against?

Source – 1up

Today’s WTF: The Petition to Change Mass Effect 3’s Ending

mass effect 3 endingWell, here it is people. The point where I begin my slow descent into quitting video games. I’ve moaned about the entitled attitudes of gamers before, but this absolutely takes the cake. Mass Effect 3 hasn’t even been out a damned week and there’s already a petition to get BioWare to change the ending of the game.

I haven’t beat the game yet (I’m holding out until my Galactic Readiness is 100% in every sector) but I have heard some grumblings about the less than satisfactory way the Mass Effect trilogy wraps up. Sure, not every trilogy has a perfect ending, but demanding that the developers change their vision is a new one.

So far I’m really enjoying Mass Effect 3, even if I have problems with it. The game doesn’t exactly put its best foot forward but the further you get into the game the better it gets and some of the missions are really fun. True, some of the side missions are pretty boring “horde” scenarios but it’s not that big a deal.

I’m trying really hard to avoid spoilers which is why I’m linking to the Kotaku post instead of the actual poll on BioWare’s social site. I looked at the poll and almost spoiled myself, so I’m mad at these Gandalfs for more than one reason. I mean, how would BioWare change the ending? It wouldn’t be in a free patch, that’s for sure. What do you guys think about this? Do you have a (spoiler-free) opinion on the ending?

Source – Kotaku

Assassin’s Creed 3 Reveal Trailer Shows Tree Running

Get it, because it’s called “free-running” but it’s in trees? Ah, never mind. UbiSoft just released the official reveal trailer for Assassin’s Creed 3 showing our new hero Connor (nee Ratohnhaké:ton) tearing apart a British patrol then watching a battle between the Redcoats and the Continental Army. This trailer is supposedly all in-engine, making it even more impressive. The fluidity of motion promised for the hand-to-hand combat also comes through in this video with Conner recreating the forest scene from The Patriot to some extent.

Well, I’m sold. It’s kind of funny how life works in regards to what I write on this site and what things happen in the games industry. At any rate, what do you guys think about the Assassin’s Creed 3 trailer? Does it give you more hope for the newest entry? Any secrets that you noticed?

First Halo 4 ViDoc Shows the New Chief and Multiplayer

Microsoft’s internal Halo studio, 343 Industries, just released the first developer documentary for this fall’s Halo 4. I know that just yesterday I posted about avoiding the gaming hype cycle, but this is our first full look at the new Master Chief and the visual direction of Halo 4 as well as a peek at multiplayer. While I expect that we’ll be seeing one of these a month until launch (at least), getting our eyes on the Chief’s new suit is worth it.

Halo 4 definitely has its own style going for it and the Chief seems to have undergone a major revision since we last saw him in Halo 3. One of 343’s talking points is that they wanted the Mjolnir armor to feel like part tank and part fighter jet, sleek yet imposing. I’m also really digging the design of the Spartan IVs that we’ll be controlling in multiplayer. The whole new look also comes off as very “Mass Effect” to me with the segmented armor plates and carbon fiber patterns. What do you guys think of our first look at Halo 4? Feeling the stirrings of desire? Can 343 actually pull this off?

The GamerSushi Show, Episode 43: Shut Up and Take My Money

Sup fools and lady fools. It is I, your friendly Canadian taking over the podcast posting duties for our esteemed Editor who is indisposed with lots of “real life stuff”. It’s kind of sad how busy Eddy is; he’s only played four hours of Mass Effect 3.

Anyways, on this, the 43 episode of the GamerSushi Show, the crew (minus Eddy) chats about a variety of topics, including the then-new Assassin’s Creed 3 reveal. We went into that discussion blind but we managed to nail a lot of the game’s features and mechanics just through some fancy guesswork (like the Frontier being a location for the game and the ability to climb trees). We’re kind of awesome like that.

We also talk about Twisted Metal, Anthony getting an iPhone, mech games and a whole bunch of other stuff. We even find time to fit in a game of Percentages between all of our nerdy ramblings.

You know the deal, guys. Listen, rate a thing, and enjoy. Just a head’s up, we’re on a one week break due to Mass Effect 3, but we’ll be back soon. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Episode 43: Shut Up and Take My Money

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GamerSushi Asks: Resisting the Hype

resisting the hype battlefield 3

Sometime last year I made the promise to myself that I would stop trying to consume every piece of promotional material put out by the publishers. This included trailers, developer diaries, screenshots and anything else that came out of the hideous maw of the PR beast. It’s been a tough endeavor so far but I think it’s been worth it.

One of the main reasons I stopped partaking in this circus is that most trailers and screenshots for video games actually contain some pretty significant spoilers. You don’t realize it at the time because they’re out of context (and just a bunch of clips cut together), but you could be watching a really cool moment or a crucial plot twist. Movies are the same way, but games are so much more of a time investment. Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: Resisting the Hype

Assassin’s Creed 3 Will Revolutionize America

assassins creed 3 box art

The video game industry is as sound as a sinking ship, it seems, as every big title gets broken before its official announcement date. We’ve known about the existence of Assassin’s Creed 3 for a long time, but now we’ve got the official image of the new Assassin and a time period.

Assassin’s Creed 3, coming out this fall, will take place during the American Revolution UbiSoft revealed today on the heels of various websites leaking art assets for the upcoming threequel. While our new protagonist doesn’t have a name, the rumor is that he is Native American, a theory that is supported by his chosen weapons of bow and arrows and a tomahawk. The box art shows the Assassin wearing a time-period white military jacket pinning a British soldier to the ground, so we can make a pretty good guess as to what his allegiance will be.

The current release date for Assassin’s Creed 3 is October 30, 2012 with more information about the title coming March 5. What do you guys think of this announcement? Are you down for a new time period? Are you a little pissed that Desmond will spend yet another game spinning his wheels?

Source – Game Informer

Mass Effect 3: From Ashes and Why We’re To Blame for DLC

mass effect 3 from ashesI was on the fence about posting an article about the whole Mass Effect 3: From Ashes brouhaha, but an article I read over on Forbes’ website changed my mind. The article is called “Why the Exploitation of Gamers is Our Own Damn Fault” and in it author Paul Tassi examines the recent trend in DLC which, instead of being an expansion pack model, seems more like content cut from the complete game and dolled out piecemeal after launch.

While he makes a couple of statements I don’t particularly agree with, he is right in saying that we’re to blame for current DLC. As he points out, everything that’s happening with post-launch content is an economic experiment. As much as we complain about being “exploited” people are still buying products, so once again money is trumping our outcry.

The title of the article is more than a little sensationalist, but the message underneath it is sound. EA only cares about money and they’re testing us to see how far they can go. For every person who buys From Ashes on day one, that’s another chink in the armor of the old-school method of selling games.

For those of you who are interested, Total Biscuit offers an opposing viewpoint to Mr. Tassi in a video where he explains why he thinks BioWare has gone too far with Mass Effect 3.

I think pinning the blame on BioWare is unfair, but there you have it. Two different opinions regarding this whole debacle. Personally, I don’t see what the big fuss is about From Ashes. It’s extra content for people who have paid an extra 30 dollars to get the Collector’s Edition of Mass Effect 3, and it’s available for people who didn’t, or couldn’t given the rarity of the CE, pick one up.

So what do you guys think about From Ashes? Who’s right, Paul Tassi or Total Biscut? Are you boycotting Mass Effect 3, or is this whole thing being blown out of proportion?

Source – Forbes Online, Total Biscuit

Borderlands 2 Trailer is 96.5 Percent More WUBWUB

Borderlands was a really interesting game when it came out, a hybrid of RPG, FPS and open-world game with a good bit of loot-craziness thrown in. Even with bajillions of guns, there were a few issues with the game, most notably the somewhat stale environments (would you like desert, garbage dump, or garbage dump in the desert?) and the most nonsensical ending in the history of video games. Secret robot assassins aside, Borderlands did well enough to warrant a sequel and the release date trailer dropped today, revealing the four main characters and adding a bit of the old dubstep.

Borderlands 2 is looking really fun, and if you put WUB WUB over anything there’s a good chance I’ll buy it. The new characters look pretty neat, and the enemy variety looks like it has expanded beyond skags and bandits. Color me excited, which I believe in loot parlance is purple. What say you? Does this trailer catch your fancy? Borderlands 2 launches September 18 in the US and the 21 in the rest of the world.

Poll: What’s Your Preferred Class?

Look, guys, I’m really sorry, but this is going to be another Mass Effect 3 inspired post. If you read this and rolled your eyes, turn around now. If you’re still reading, I thank you for your patience, and yes, I do know the difference between “best” and “important”.

Last night during the GamerSushi crew’s routine dip into the ME3 multiplayer demo, I did something outside the norm and tried out the Engineer, one of the more “support” oriented classes. My main character is a Vanguard so going from damage-dealer to backup felt a little odd at first but once I made the transition in styles it felt really good. Overload is an essential addition to any party, so if you’re lacking an Engineer in your squad, get one ASAP (the drone is also really useful for taking out shield-weilding Cerberus troopers).

Normally I go for the “DPS” (or deeps as the kids say) build and never touch support, but Mass Effect 3 changed that for me, so much so that Engineer will be my primary in the final product. So what about you guys? What class do you roll?

What's Your Preferred Class?

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Giving Games a Fair Shake

giving games a fair shake

I’ll admit that I’m pretty quick to judge a book by its cover, especially when that book happens to cost 60 dollars and might take up hours of my life. More often than not I’m prone to judge a multiplayer portion of a formerly single-player game because in the day and age of Internet connected consoles, everyone and their dog are throwing on a multiplayer mode for the heck of it.

Assassins’s Creed: Brotherhood, BioShock 2 and now Mass Effect 3 have all proved that just because a game’s wheelhouse is the single-player narrative, it doesn’t mean that you can’t also dip your toes into the online arena. When AC:B and BioShock 2 were about to launch, there was a lot of noise made about how their online modes would probably suck, but they proved us wrong.

Mass Effect 3 is much the same way. I didn’t want to lead in with it, but Eddy, Anthony and I all played the co-op for a couple of hours last night and we had a blast. I finally unlocked the Nova for my Vanguard and Eddy and Anthony’s classes (Soldier and Sentinel respectively) clicked for them so we were operating in concert as a deadly, efficient team of sci-fi bad-asses.

Given that people (me included) were so ready to write of ME3’s co-op, I’m surprised by how quickly it got its hooks into me. The booster pack unlock system really adds to the longevity; it’s kind of like buying a pack of Pokemon cards and hoping you get a shiny Charizard. Most of the time you get like, a Chancey or something, but it’s the hope you might get something cool that keeps you going.

My whole point with the article, aside from pumping up the ME3 co-op jam, was to ask you guys if you ever decided to give a game a fair shake and chastised yourself for hating on it unfairly. What games did this happen with? What are your thoughts on ME3’s multiplayer?