Eddy has written a total of 422,116 words on this site.

I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

Mass Effect 3: To Demo or not to Demo?

ME 3 Demo

I’ve got mixed feelings on demos these days. On the one hand, the impatient, spoiler-hunting, flip-to-the-end-of-the-book part of me (I’ve done that a couple of times, yes) loves getting a glimpse at a game that I’ve been anticipating. It’s like getting just a bit of cool refreshment in the middle of a ridiculous Texas summer. And if you know what that feels like, it is damn heavenly – at least until the oppressive heat crushes and suffocates you again. On the other hand, the more sensible part of me knows that demos only rile me up and leave me wanting more. And then there’s the mutant third hand, which likes trying out games that I’m on the fence about – but we’re going to ignore him for now.

While tomorrow might be Valentine’s Day for many lucky gamers out there, it’s a monumental day for yet another reason — the Mass Effect 3 demo hits. Now, while I normally try to avoid demos for games that I’ve already pre-ordered and am sure to enjoy, I just stinking love Mass Effect and have been dying to experience 3. Even though the game comes out in just a short month, I still want to get my hands on it as much as possible right now, particularly to experience some of the multiplayer. I also happened to receive a demo code to download it early, so it might be queued up on XBox Live, even as I type this…

My question to you dudes, is this: how do you feel about demos for games you’ve already pre-ordered? Do you not wish to spoil the experience at all, waiting until the moment the game is out to truly play it for the first time? Or do you want a taste as soon as possible? Go!

And by the way, if you haven’t seen the incredible FemShep trailer yet – go do that, too. I’ll wait.

Brainstorming the Future of Game Design

Halo 4 Concept Art

Everyone’s got some kind of idea about where the future of videogames is heading. But beyond the kind of hardware we’re looking at or what kind of input players are using to interact with their screens, what really matters are the actual design trends set forth by developers. Whether it’s cover-based shooting, leveling up in multiplayer or a rush of side-scrolling platformers, every generation sees a number of these defining trends.

So where do the actual developers of today think they’ll be tomorrow? PopSci took a stab at finding out by interviewing some notable talent in the video game industry. In a cool piece that covers Epic’s Cliffy B, Super Giant’s, Greg Kasavin, 343’s Scott Warner and others, these developers talk about the innovations that they’re the most excited about exploring. This includes everything from the wacky — playing trackpad-based games with your nose — to making sure that everyone is connected via the Internet. Regardless of the methods, there are definitely some thought-provoking answers in the bunch.

It’s always cool to see what’s bouncing around in the heads of some of the creative leaders in the industry. I’m sure that a few years back, none of these same guys could have predicted where we’d be today, and what kinds of games we would be playing. Where do you guys think the future of game design is going? Do you agree/disagree with any of these developers? Go!

Source – PopSci

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 40: A Pile of Lies and Shadows

This podcast is just a tad late this week, but I figured we’re doing good if we managed to get it up early in the weekend. Hey, at least it’s better than leaving you guys podcast-less for almost half a year, right? That’s what I thought. Also, Mitch and Anthony start things off with an extra special intro they worked up for all of you. It’s fairly entertaining.

In this edition of the GamerSushi Show, we chat about the Mass Effect 3 Co-op trailer, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Saint’s Row 3. On top of that we play a game of Fill in the Blank, where we grade a variety of topics like Miyamoto taking a backseat at Nintendo, no next gen consoles in the near future and Zynga’s supposed shady dealings (on which this podcast derives its name). All in all, it’s a pretty decent show, and hey, we even fit in 6 more minutes of Resident Evil 6 talk – because why the heck not?

In next week’s podcast (which we recorded last night), I drink through most of a bottle of wine while we talk even more about Final Fantasy XIII-2, Double Fine and Kingdoms of Amalur. Stay tuned, gents and ladies.

Listen. Rate. Enjoy. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 40: A Pile of Lies and Shadows

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GamerSushi Asks: Jamming with Skyrim?

Apparently this is the week where all of our wildest gaming dreams come true. OK, that might be stretching it a bit, but at least a few of our gaming wishes seem to be coming to light. Between Battlefield 3 rumors, Double Fine’s Kickstarter Adventure and Notch talking Psychonauts 2, we’ve got kind of a lot of things worth salivating over. But that’s not all!

You see, DICE 2012 is underway right now, featuring a number of sessions from well known people in the field of interactive entertainment, including none other than Skyrim boss Todd Howard himself. Last night, Todd Howard gave Skyrim fans the world over a bit of a tease, something to get their heads spinning as we look forward to future DLC.

The Skyrim Game Jam is a week-long project where developers at Bethesda were challenged to come up with and implement one feature that they’d love to see in the enormous open-world RPG. While Howard cautioned that some of these things are just tests and might not ever see an actual release, the possibilities are enough to keep people excited about where the game could possibly go. Howard showed a reel which boasted all the things that the developers came up with in just one week’s time, ranging from mounted dragons (!) to seasonally changing foliage. Go ahead, see for yourself.

Although this power gets abused quite a bit, it’s still pretty cool that we live in a time where developers can retroactively incorporate fresh new additions to gameplay that might need some polishing. So my question to you guys is this: which of these features would you actually want to see in the final game? Also, if you could add a reel of features like this to any other game, what would you do? Go!

Double Fine Wants to Change the Game

I love when you see something so simple yet so brilliant that it kind of blows your mind. Tim Schafer has been in the spotlight quite a bit this week, what with his Psychonauts 2 shenanigans with Notch and all. But this actually goes a step further:

Tim Schafer is letting you (meaning us) finance Double Fine’s next game, a classic point-and-click adventure. Normally, a game like this would have little chance of being put into production by a publisher, so he’s taking the game straight to fans on Kickstarter. Rather than blather on about it, I’ll let Tim tell you about it himself.

And there you have it. For $400,000, Double Fine will make an old school adventure game, and the fans get to be a part of the process. Meanwhile, all of it will be documented by 2 Player Productions, the dudes behind the Minecraft/Mojang documentary.

It’s hard for me to express just how excited I am about this. While I don’t think it’ll necessarily change gaming as we know it, it certainly opens the door to start developers down that path. They would answer to fans and cut out the middle man completely. At the same time, what we’re seeing of the game isn’t being dictated by marketing, but rather an in-depth documentary crew. It’s just a little bit rad.

So what do you guys think of this? I’ve already donated some money. The numbers are already past 100k in the first day of the campaign, so I don’t think they’ll have any problems hitting it. Do any of you think you’ll join?

Edit: At the time I published this, the Kickstarter was at 122k, up from 90k when I started writing/donating.

Source – Kickstarter

Would You Rather: 2012 Edition

Man, even though we’re already over a full month into the year 2012, it still weirds me out to see the number written up there. Scandalous, almost. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old and full of rage when things change, or if that nerdy part of me feels like I should be in the future and my brain can’t reconcile the differences. Either way, 2012 is already shaping up to be a pretty fantastic year for games.

As such, we thought we would kick off the first Would You Rather for the year, one that will hopefully leave you all begging for mercy because of the difficult choices that await you. For the Would You Rather newbies out there, the game is easy: we ask and you dish out your response. Give as much or as little explanation as you want for your choices, but we all know that we like to see the reasoning behind the madness.

Don’t let your answers suck, though. I will personally come to your house and unleash a devastating Krav Maga attack on you. For real. OK go!

Continue reading Would You Rather: 2012 Edition

Apology Hunting and Final Fantasy XIII-2

Lightning Final Fantasy XIII-2

People have been mocking Final Fantasy XIII-2, the newest installment in Square’s as-of-late troubled ongoing franchise, as “the great apology”. In an attempt to make up for the many grievances that fans had with Final Fantasy XIII, Square-Enix brought a new tale to Lightning and company, one that supposedly addresses all the complaints leveled against it.

With all that’s being written about this game, it was hard for me to get a bearing on just how excited I should be about more from Final Fantasy XIII’s universe. Even though I (eventually) enjoyed the game despite its many missteps, I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to revisit Gran Pulse and Cocoon. But now that I’m in the middle of playing FFXIII-2, I have to say that my response to the game has taken me totally by surprise: I love it. Continue reading Apology Hunting and Final Fantasy XIII-2

Miyamoto: Searching for Nintendo’s Next Big Hit

Miyamoto

Nintendo has been in a bit of a bind lately, compared to the massive successes they’ve seen in the last few years. Wii sales are dropping off, the Wii U hasn’t generated the buzz that they wanted (they’re even considering a re-brand of the whole system), the 3DS was a certifiable flop in its early months and they are sustaining significant losses with each new quarter. There are a number of theories circulating about how Nintendo can right their massive misguided ship, but Nintendo has its own: Shigeru Miyamoto.

Several months back, there was a bit of miscommunication that made the Internet rounds about the famed developer retiring. However, it turned out that Miyamoto was actually going to be taking a step back from overseeing development teams to train younger staff. His other job? Idea-ating Nintendo’s next big hit. Here’s what he had to say on the matter in a recent Q and A session:

“I am acting with the understanding that one big hit title can change multiple phases of a situation in the entertainment business, and I feel that finding such one big hit is my basic job.”

It’s interesting to think that Nintendo is putting so much stock in finding that one big idea. It smacks of the way Hollywood thinks in a lot of ways, where studios will sink all their energy into finding that one box office smash year in and year out. The problem is, lightning doesn’t always strike like that, especially in a time where Nintendo might be finding themselves at a disadvantage when relating to core gamers.

We talked about this very topic for the upcoming podcast release, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on it, too. What do you think it means for Nintendo to use Miyamoto in such a way? Will it make a difference? Do you think the man that built Mario, Zelda, Nintendogs and Pikmin has one final swan song left within him? Go!

Source – SiliconEra

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 39: Ameri-Cast

Episode 39 of the GamerSushi Show happens to be Canadian-less, so I’m sure that’s going to make it a lot better for you guys to listen to. I kid, I kid. Mitch had a fancy radio show to take care of, so the rest of us tackled the week in gaming all by our lonesome selves. I will suggest that it’s merely coincidence that it’s one of the more fluid casts we’ve ever recorded.

As always, we cover a variety of topics. One of these happened accidentally and might become a regular feature that is sure to make you guys rage quit our site and go find your gaming entertainment elsewhere – Six Minutes with RE 6. It’s just what it sounds like. And it’s awesome by association with the greatest gaming franchise of all time.

Beyond that, we tackle Uncharted 3 and Arkham City. And then we play a game of Percentages, where we rank the chances of a number of pending news items and if they’re likely to go down. I’m pretty sure you all know the drill by this point: Eddy wins and makes some fantastic points while the others talk nonsense.

Listen up, rate the podcast and enjoy, everyone. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 39: Ameri-Cast

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Skyrim Creation Kit Trailer Is Good News for Mod Community

I think this is what Skyrim players have been waiting for. Or at least, the PC Skyrim players have been waiting for this. That’s right, it seems the mod community has a huge reason to celebrate with the release of a new video from Bethesda which details the Skyrim Creation Kit. Like the tool set from Fallout and Oblivion before it, the Creation Kit gives modders all the same features that the developers had at their own disposal, which will allow them to create anything from crazy swords to whole campaigns.

What’s really interesting is the integration with Steam, with the ability to subscribe or follow projects that you’re interested in, along with some easy ways to browse and find new content. I could be ignorant of some other games that make good use of this, but I’m a huge fan of the way Valve is making that accessible.

No word on an official release date, although Bethesda says the Creation Kit will be out soon.

Personally, even though I don’t own Skyrim on the PC (although I imagine I’ll grab it at some point just to have it), I’m super excited about this. Even without this kind of huge tool kit, we’ve already seen a number of creative things from the community. Part of that comes because the game just has so much content, but also because the community itself has such a great passion for the game and everything about it.

Any modders out there? Any of you excited about this?

The Problem with Trailers

Bioware

I’ve got a bit of a thing against video game trailers. Do I get hyped over them? Sure. Do I love watching announcements of titles that I’ve been dying to see just a glimpse of? Totally guilty. But all the same, I sometimes find it hard to forgive the game industry for the way it treats trailers, the video game press for how it feeds into the mania and all of us gamers for how we do the same.

The fact of the matter is, trailers are mostly the product of PR and marketing departments. Often time, they’re created by people in the company that had little to do with the game itself, or worse yet, by an outside firm altogether. Yes, we’re all looking at you now, Bioware. The goal of these trailer makers isn’t necessarily making the most accurate representation of the game – it’s generating hype and moving copies.

This is why we see all kinds of game trailers that really don’t reflect the game that we see while holding our controllers, and it really bugs me these days. But I know I’m not the only person that notices that kind of thing. Over at Ars Technica, writer Kyle Orland breaks down the number of ways that game trailers make for terrible gameplay experiences. It’s a really nice look at the ways that game trailers differ from the games we play, and should hopefully point readers to measuring their responses a bit more in the future.

Personally, this is why I try to refrain as much as possible from posting every single trailer that comes out, especially pre-rendered ones. What do you guys think of this topic? Let’s talk about trailers.

Source – Ars Technica

The GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2011

Back at the end of 2010, a glance at 2011’s calendar either sent gamers into a fit of excited trembling or utter despair. How were we going to play all of these games? What surprises were in store for us? Which ones were going to be worth the money? Could the long-awaited sequels live up to the years of promise? At the beginning of 2012, we now have all of those answers and then some. And thus, the GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2011 list is born.

It sounds like we’re using hyperbole, but we truly feel like 2011 was one of the greatest years of gaming we’ve seen in quite some time. That much is evidenced by each staff member’s ballot – the submissions we used to determine our final top 10 (and yes, your votes for Game of the Year counted as one of our submissions, as well) were wildly different and full of an astounding variety of games. One thing was certain – gamers had a wealth of choices last year, and everyone benefited from it.

So, without further ado, here is our list of the top 10 games of 2011. Enjoy, dudes.

Continue reading The GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2011

Rumor: Anti-Used Game Component in Next XBox

Used GamesWell, this is quite a whale of a rumor. It seems that Kotaku recently heard some supposed details of the next generation XBox (we refuse to call it the 720) from an inside source. While these things tend to happen quite a bit and only have a small chance of actually being true, this rumor goes beyond traditional hardware specs.

On top of a rumored Blu-ray disc drive in the next XBox, DVR capabilities and the launch of Kinect 2, Microsoft is supposedly including some sort of anti-used game component into its next system. Yes, you read that correctly. According to this source, there will be some kind of system in place to keep the next XBox from playing used games.

If this is true, it would make a pretty big splash on nearly every side of the gaming industry. Continue reading Rumor: Anti-Used Game Component in Next XBox

Mass Effect 3: Special Forces Trailer

One of the biggest pieces of news to come out in the last few months has been that of the inclusion of a multiplayer mode in Mass Effect 3. Specifically, a co-op horde mode of sorts that has an actual bearing on the single player game. As is typically the case with the Internet, this news was met with all kinds of hyperbolic reactions – from those complaining that it was going to ruin the main game to others celebrating it without even seeing anything.

Well, now we can expect even more outrageous reactions: Bioware’s released a trailer for Special Forces mode in all its glory, teasing the game’s final release in March and the demo that’s scheduled to drop next month. I have to say, the footage looks a bit more fun than I anticipated – I definitely think the different races/classes are going to mix up the gameplay.

Thoughts, Sushians?

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 38: Managing Your Assassins in Space

I think we’re going to spoil you guys. Yes, that is now 3 podcasts in a row. And this one is more meme-tastic than most, if you can believe it.

That’s right, much of the beginning of this podcast is about the release of our game of games here at GamerSushi, Resident Evil 6. This is the celebration of all things good and proper, and the end of our time of mourning now that Resident Evil 5 has passed into the annals of gaming yesteryear. So yes, there is much rejoicing. And hopefully you’ll join us as we pave the way for the Game of Our Time.

Besides us going fanboy-tastic on RE6, we also talk about RPGs and choices, Bioshock Infinite and Modern Warfare 3. After all of that, we play a game of Over/Under, where project review scores for the next few months of releases, including Mass Effect 3, Twisted Metal and Final Fantasy XIII-2. As always, I’m right again and win at everything. This should be no surprise by now. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 38: Managing Your Assassins in Space

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Saint’s Row 3 and the Out of Date Escort Mission

Saint's Row 3

I’d like to consider myself a fairly patient gamer. I don’t have too many deal breakers or things that make me want to lambast a particular game in general. I’m very much able to greatly enjoy a number of titles despite small (and sometimes even massive) failures. That being said, there are occasional stumbling blocks I hit when playing a game that throw me for a loop.

Take Saint’s Row 3 for instance, a game that I love dearly at the moment. For all of its zany mayhem, hilarious writing and occasional forward-thinking (such as the GPS arrows on your HUD), the game has the occasional bothersome design hiccup. The biggest offender? Escort missions.

Like the top of some ancient relic poking through an otherwise serene landscape, these out of date mission prompts completely disrupt the flow of the game for me. What’s worse than that is the fact that for the first few hours, nearly every other mission you’re performing is an escort mission of some kind. Sure, they take on different shapes – you could be escorting someone below you while raining down rocket launcher fire or protecting a pimp while he goes to make girl/drug deals, but in the end it’s all the same.

As much as I should be used to these things appearing so frequently in games, it kind of seems like we should be past them now as a medium. I’m not saying that they should never appear again, but I do have to say that I’m surprised by their frequency, considering the fact that they have almost never been in the entire history of the people of Earth. I mean really, shouldn’t we have left these things behind last gen? I’m surprised that we still see these at all. You can add exploding red barrels to that list, as well. But I could be the only one that feels that way.

What do you guys think? Are escort missions out of date? Are there any other random gameplay tropes that still surprise you with how often they appear in modern games? Go!

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 37: Don’t Call it a Come Back

After the long-awaited arrival of last week’s video podcast, many of you expressed your wishes that we not wait so long before the release of the next one. Well, for the first time in my life, I’m afraid I won’t be disappointing all of you – here’s a brand new podcast, fully of shiny gaming stories, GamerSushi memes and all kinds of other wonders.

This podcast brought us the monumental task of trying to recap an entire season’s worth of games, ranging from Bastion all the way to Skyrim. We used this as an excuse to try out a new game, Lightning Round, and I think all of you are going to be happy with the results. It was a nice way to run down a staggering list of games in a way that didn’t take 87 podcasts and two years of our blabbering to cover.

In addition, we played a game of Buy or Sell with a number of industry topics. Like we do. Listen up and enjoy, friends. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 37: Don’t Call it a Come Back

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Mass Effect 3: Does Choice Allow for Character Depth?

Mass Effect 3 Shepard

Whenever people talk about JRPGs being obsolete in relation to the success of the modern Western RPG, the one thing I can never escape is that the Western RPG’s freedom tends to work against its story. As great a game as Skyrim happens to be, its narrative takes a backseat to whatever impulse it is that drives us to pick locks or hunt foxes outside of Whiterun. I think this is one of the reasons that the Mass Effect series appeals to me – it still manages to have a tight, exciting narrative while allowing the player a certain amount of freedom. Somehow, the series has straddled a pretty nice sweet spot that brings the best of both of those worlds.

In the latest release of Bioware Pulse, the company’s video series highlighting its projects, lead writer Marc Walters discusses their desire for Shepard to be a much deeper character this time around than ever before:

“One of the things we wanted to do in Mass Effect 3 was deepen Shepard as a character, so you really get to express what your Shepard is feeling and going through, throughout the war… We wanted to take that next step with the story telling. Yeah, it’s a war, yeah it’s got giant robots we get to shoot in the face, but there is a human side to the story. You are role-playing, and you are role-playing as a human. Why shouldn’t that human have an emotional component throughout the game?”

Here’s my question, and one I think the Western RPG is going to keep running into as long as it does business this way: can a lead character in a game based on player choice ever really have depth? Sure, Bioware has come up with some memorable, incredibly well-written characters in the past – but all of these completely outshine the main characters, who are just conduits for your own one-dimensional choices. I’m not sure if those things can ever co-exist, and I think developers could be kidding themselves if they think they can.

How do you guys feel about this issue? Can lead characters in games based on player choice actually have depth? Is it OK for them not to?

Source – VG247

GamerSushi Asks: Games You Played in 2011?

Man. We are straight up milking this 2011 thing, huh? You’d think that we had nothing better to talk about for 2012 with the way we’re going back to that well. Don’t worry, we realize that we can only get a little bit more mileage out of last year, and probably only another week or two at that. That being said, the following question is one that I legitimately want to ask you guys, because I like hearing what you say about games.

The title for this post is extremely self explanatory. I want to see a list of all the games you played in 2011. This will be cool for two reasons: 1) It gives us an idea of what kinds of stories to target/write and 2) you guys are pretty cool yourselves.

What follows is a list of games that I played in 2011: Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: Games You Played in 2011?

Revelations: When Story Suffers at the Hands of Sequel-itis

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, or worse, terribly cliche – I want to take a moment and gripe about sequel-itis in video games. No, I’m not against sequels. And yes, I understand that in a time where AAA games cost big bucks to develop, publishers want to go with surefire hits instead of taking chances on new IPs. All of that’s fine. But what I can’t forgive is when this sequel-itis starts affecting stories negatively.

Take Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, for instance. I’m sure all of you will think I hate this game after posting a couple of negative critiques about it, but it’s more that Revelations’ negatives shine so outrageously because the game itself plays so well – and in some ways is a perfection of the Assassin’s Creed formula. I’m going to have to be as spoiler careful as possible here, but AC: Brotherhood ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. OK, that’s an understatement – it ended on a double scoop of cliffhanger with a major sprinkle of WTF. Part of the lure of Revelations is that it was supposed to give you some of the answers about both Desmond and Ezio that were left hanging at the end of Brotherhood.

The problem is, Revelations ends in much the same way. The cliffhanger isn’t so bad compared to Brotherhood, but the “answers” they finally give you only lead to a dizzying array of questions. No explanation is given for some of the really bizarre things you see in the climax of this game, after the entire narrative kept assuring you that the time for answers was coming soon. Continue reading Revelations: When Story Suffers at the Hands of Sequel-itis