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!

Batman: Arkham City Reviews Arrive with a Pow

Arkham City

Bam! Pow! Zhom! Those are the sounds that Arkham City is making amongst the circle of reviewers as it enters the scene with one heck of a flourish. The sequel to Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum certainly sounds promising, and many are praising it as the greatest superhero game ever made. Granted, that’s not saying a lot, but it’s still a lofty and impressive claim.

Overall, Arkham City is garnering loads of positive reviews on the high end of the spectrum. It seems like it improves on Arkham City in every way, and adds the open world play style in a way that doesn’t take away from what made the previous game so much fun. Here’s one of my favorite quotes, from the Wired review:

In fact, it avoids the curse of sequelitis by making a major change to the formula — instead of a Metroid-esque series of interconnected rooms, it’s an open-world city that you can fly across, going from point to point in a matter of seconds. You can play only the missions that are required to advance the storyline, but you’re also constantly tempted with a wide variety of side missions, collectibles and challenges scattered everywhere. It doesn’t feel anything like Metroid anymore, but it sure feels a lot like Crackdown.

So yeah. Call me excited. Here are some other reviews for you to peruse:

Mass Effect 3’s Galaxy at War Co-Op Missions

Mass Effect 3

Yikes. Yesterday, the Internet was absolutely exploding about the news that Mass Effect 3 has a multiplayer mode. Shocker of all shockers, the instant reaction to this was utter panic, as the Internet is an entirely sensible bunch and not prone to hyperbole.

As a result, Chris Priestly, Bioware’s Community Coordinator, stepped into the Bioware forums to deliver some clarification about just what the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer would look like. It turns out that the game will actually support 4 player co-op missions that are separate from the main campaign. This mode, called Galaxy at War, will put players in control of 4 squad mates (not including Shepard) who can be made up of a variety of powers and races.

The cool thing about Galaxy at War is that it sounds like the progress you make in these co-op missions will affect the single player, in the sense that you’re helping the overall war effort against the Reapers. Whereas in Mass Effect 2, you were grooming 12 people for a suicide mission, in Mass Effect 3, you’re getting the entire galaxy ready for an all-out war. The co-op missions can boost your overall Galactic Readiness level.

So, that’s just a few of the details for what actually sounds like a promising mode that doesn’t step on the toes of the Mass Effect universe. I think the big debate moving forward is going to be if this hurts single player in any way, or if this mode is even necessary for what’s already been a great experience. You can certainly read the rest of the FAQ for yourself here.

How do you guys feel about this? Are you freaking out? Excited? Upset? Ready to swear loyalty to Bioware forever? Go!

Source – Bioware Forums

Gaming Pop Quiz: Fall 2011 Edition

Somehow, these new editions of Pop Quiz keep sneaking up on us. It feels like it wasn’t so long ago that we were talking about the dog days of gaming summer, looking forward to the Fall like seagulls swarming around a family having a potato chip fight. I don’t really know what the deal is with that analogy, but I think it sort of works.

Anyway, it’s officially Fall now, and the releases are rolling in. We’ve had Gears of War 3, Dark Souls, the Battlefield 3 Beta and soon Arkham City, Skyrim, Uncharted 3 and then some. It’s an exciting time to be a gamer, and one that I’m sure will produce a number of thought provoking responses from you all, our lovely Sushi-ans. This pop quiz is full of questions about the games we’ve already seen, candy and peril. Tread carefully.

As always with our getting-to-know-you type games, feel free to answer with as much or as little as you like. Answer to the best of your ability. Go! Continue reading Gaming Pop Quiz: Fall 2011 Edition

Today’s WTF: Early Versions of Classic Games

Ocarina of Time

While it can be maddening to wait for word on an anticipated game release, it’s probably a good thing that more developers don’t tip their hands too early. Very often in creative processes, the seeds of an original idea morph into something that the creators don’t quite anticipate, both for good and ill.

It seems the same is true with gaming. You see, Cracked has put out a hilarious (and somewhat frightening) list of 6 Baffling Early Prototypes of Your Favorite Video Games. Although you’ve no doubt heard some of the highlights of this list (Super Mario Bros 2 and Halo come to mind), there are others that are downright shocking. Ocarina of Time as an FPS? The original Super Mario involved a gun-slinging plumber? This is the stuff that rocks world views, my friends. And perhaps even socks.

Personally, while I can tend to be an information hound, I have to say that I’m glad that sometimes we don’t know every little detail of development as it’s going down. Think of all the fan overreactions we’d hear about on a daily basis if we saw extremely early iterations of games that more than likely changed over the development cycle.

What do you guys think of this list? Are you glad that developers hold back on what they have to show until closer to release? Or do you wish that they would show us sooner?

Source – Cracked

GamerSushi Asks: Last LAN Experience?

Gears 3 Horde

If there’s something that I’ve really missed over the years in my life as a gamer, it would be the LAN experience. Whether it was with consoles or PCs, my friends and I would constantly get together for crazy nights of shooting, trash talking, Diablo-ing and Warcraft-ing. The spread of online gaming in the console realm has sort of put the LAN experience in the backseat, but it doesn’t make it any less fun.

I found this out firsthand this weekend as several of us got together the night before my brother’s wedding. To celebrate his last night of sweet, sweet freedom, we pulled several XBox 360s out with monitors and TVs and played Gear of War 3 until late in the evening. As fun as Horde mode can be online, it kicks up a notch when all of you are in the same room, freaking out at one another during the boss waves and screaming for your life. Good times.

The whole night was a great reminder of those times of old. Even though we play together constantly online, being in the same room was such an awesome experience, and one that I want to have again soon. In a lot of ways, the LAN extravaganza is so representative of what gaming can be in terms of community and creating stories together. There’s nothing quite like it.

So what about you guys? When’s the last time you had an awesome LAN experience? What games did you play? What games are on your wishlist for a fun LAN party? Go!

GamerSushi Asks: Do We Need Better Graphics?

Epic Samaritan

At first glance, the easiest way to note the changes in gaming from the 80s to now would be in the quality of the visuals. We’ve moved from the jagged mazes of Pac-Man to the jaw-dropping realism of Battlefield 3. And while I’m not one to call myself a graphics dude, this certainly makes me happy in a variety of ways. I remember playing games on the PS1, seeing the cut scenes, and thinking that some day games will look like this. The crazy thing is, we blew that point out of the water as early as last generation in some cases.

But have we hit our graphical peak? And where else can gaming go? CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney has some ideas about that:

I really see two major milestones coming up for games in the very long-term future. Number one is achieving movie quality graphics and movie quality pixels on the screen, which mean no flicker in the visuals, no popping artifacts, no bulky character outlines on the screen at all. I see that actually occurring over the next ten years. I expect I’ll be actively programming at the time we’ve achieved full movie-quality graphics because that’s really just a matter of brute force computing power and clever algorithm. We know exactly how to do that.

He goes on to talk about the second major milestone being the human aspects of the game such as AI and other simulations. Perhaps I’m nitpicking a bit here, but it seems interesting that game makers are still so devoted to graphics. Granted, this is Epic we’re talking about, makers of one of the most gorgeous engines in gaming, but it still gives me pause. Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: Do We Need Better Graphics?

Ni No Kuni Gameplay Video Paints a Pretty Picture

Ni No Kuni, the Level-5 RPG that’s being co-created with Studio Ghibli (the wonderful people behind classics like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away), is due for release in Japan later this year and in America early next year. While I’ve only seen a trailer and some art for the game, I was happy to learn that Level-5 brought it to TGS. And as expected, it’s gorgeous.

I know that sometimes we gamers throw around terms like “stunning” and “gorgeous” until they lose all meaning, but I really am impressed by the art and the style of Ni No Kuni. It looks to be one of the PS3’s best-looking games, and that’s certainly saying alot.

Looks like I’ll have one more game to add to the list for 2012. What are your thoughts?

EDIT: You might have to watch two ads to get it to play, but it works. Check it!

Source – GamingEverything

GamerSushi Asks: The Nature of Multiplayer?

A couple of decades ago, if you had asked me what the term “multiplayer” meant, I probably wouldn’t have had an answer. The most “multi” I could get for my gaming dollar was adding my brother into a game of Streets of Rage or the Captain America and the Avengers game for Sega Genesis. In a time where gaming knew a lot of limits, the shared experienced capped out at two players max.

Things were different at the arcade, of course. There, two to four players could race against one another, or four mutants could tackle the coin-op challenges of the classic X-Men arcade cabinet. That was an experience that was fancy, almost futuristic in appearance compared to the tethered wired controllers that got thrown around in frustration over hat tricks in NHL 94. Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: The Nature of Multiplayer?

On Videogame Cut Scenes and Filmmaking

Mass Effect 2

Over the years, the advancements in video game technology and the bigger budgets associated with AAA games have helped the games industry compete with movies in terms of their appeal and their business. The experiences are bigger, bolder and more akin to Hollywood blockbusters than ever. We expect more out of games these days – and a lot of that mindset is owed to the cut scenes that were introduced several generations ago. Cut scenes stretched our idea of what games could be. But do games still do cut scenes right?

That’s the question Wired asks in a new piece titled 5 Film-School Violations in Videogame Cut Scenes. In it, writer Jason Schreier takes a look at some of the things that modern cut scenes still get wrong, even after all these years. While I think the list is sort of ill aimed (it’s more about writing and editing than actual direction), Schreier raises some great issues. In terms of writing, many games just can’t seem to cut it compared to the movies they’re trying so desperately to be.

While I’d have to disagree with him on Mass Effect 2 (one of my friends was a cinematic designer on that game and knows his crap), I’ve long maintained that many game cut scenes don’t really know what they’re doing in terms of the actual craft of film – shots are set up all wrong, and are more about flash and spectacle than about the story itself. To me, one of the most grievous recent examples is Final Fantasy XIII. For all the flack that the game takes, I felt like very little of it was directed at its cut scenes, which were often a jumbled mess. During action sequences, I often found it hard to follow what exactly was going on in the scene, to the point where I had to re-watch them several times.

So how do you guys feel about this list? How do you feel about cut scenes in gaming? Which games do it right and which ones do it wrong?

Source – Wired

Battlefield 3 Beta and System Specs

BF3 Multiplayer

Gears of War 3 launches today, which means it’s finally upon us. The Gaming Season That Must Not Be Named. I bid all of you my best wishes as you meet the challenges of the next few months headlong. As for me, I’m already looking forward into October. At the risk of sounding like the world’s biggest Battlefield 3 fan site, I thought I’d post a couple of updates I saw floating around the Web this morning.

First: a multiplayer beta for the game starts next week across XBox 360, PS3 and PC. Looks like it’s going to cover the Operation Metro map.

Second: DICE released the minimum and recommended PC specs in order to play their graphically stunning behemoth. Check those out after the jump! Continue reading Battlefield 3 Beta and System Specs

Raging Past Cheap Bosses

Sephiroth Kingdom Hearts 2

One game that’s recently received a lot of flack about poorly designed boss battles is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. While I commend the dudes at Eidos for trying to give the game that old school flavor, I think most people would prefer to have no boss fights at all over lame bosses.

As bad as a repetitive or boring enemy is, he is at his most heinous when he is cheap, or virtually unbeatable. I think we’ve all seen our fair share of these. In case you haven’t, or you need your memory refreshed, Dorkly has put together a list of the 7 cheapest boss fights in all of gaming.

I can’t say I’ve actually dealt with all of these antagonists first hand, but I know that Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts was one ridiculous mofo, dishing out death with a flash of his blade and that iconic silver hair. Also, I remember Death Egg being a total bastard in Sonic 2.

Were any of these familiar to you guys? Were there any cheap bosses that you think should have been on the list? What are some of the best boss encounters you can remember in recent years?

Source – Dorkly

Nintendo Versus Smartphone Gaming

Iwata 3DS

Nintendo’s been in a bit of a pickle lately. If it’s not the drastically falling sales of the Wii, it’s the unfortunately handled launch of the Nintendo 3DS. In addition to cutting the launch price by almost half, Nintendo has also been forced to announce a peripheral that appears to complete the hardware functionality of the handheld. As can be expected, their investors haven’t taken too kindly to this, and stocks are falling.

There could be any number of reasons cited for the 3DS woes. One might easily point to the system’s price and the marginal upgrade of the DS hardware, the lackluster lineup of launch games or an interest in 3D gaming. However, as we’ve talked about before, some are citing the competition from smartphone gaming as one of the direct causes. While I don’t think that tells the entire story, it does raise a good point: people expect more from handhelds these days and Nintendo could stand to change their formula on either the hardware or software side.

But what does Nintendo think about the idea of developing for smartphones? Here’s what president Iwata says:

This is absolutely not under consideration. If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.

While I agree that this would be a fundamental change for Nintendo, it seems like Iwata might be a bit too resistant to change. It’s odd that after the company touted the Wii as a change in the way we play games, they’re so hesitant to embrace the idea of smartphone applications. Wouldn’t a Pokemon or Zelda app perform really well?

What do you guys think about their stance? Would it ruin them or would it serve them? Go!

Source – IndustryGamers

GamerSushi Asks: Gears of War 3 Roll Call?

Gears of War 3

Oh my, September. What’s happened to you? It seems like just yesterday you were so far away, and now we’re already halfway through your thirty day lifespan. But I guess that means you’ve got a few treats for us.

If you (not September, but you kind GamerSushi folk… I know, it’s confusing) have been keeping up with the video game calendar at all, then you know that Gears of War 3 is out next Tuesday, in all of its neck-hiding, locust-killing and cover-taking brown beauty. Reviews of the game are dropping left and right, and so far the reports are stellar: this is probably the best of Cliffy B’s bunch.

It’s only appropriate, then, that I ask you guys if you’re getting it. And you tell me that you are. For great justice. So: who’s getting Gears of War 3 on Tuesday? Go!

GamerSushi Asks: Sound Off, Almost-Fall Edition

Deus Ex

We keep saying it over and over, but gaming news is mostly out of commission right now. Well, unless you think that the 3DS thumb peripheral is news. Or… well, that’s about it, this week.

When we’re normally dealing with this kind of drought, the tactic I usually take is to talk about something going on in the specific game I’m playing. However, I’m standing on the cusp of a lot of games coming out, and I’m currently playing nothing. So instead of talking about nothing, I thought I’d ask you guys what’s been on your mind lately in relation to games and the gaming industry.

For me, I’ve mostly been thinking about game design in relation to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I finished last week. For everything wrong with the game, it was designed in such a way that it didn’t matter. Just something bouncing around in my head that I might expand on in a future feature.

So what about you guys? What’s been rattling around in those noggins of yours in relation to gaming? Go!

Would You Rather: Fall 2011 Edition

Well, it’s not quite fall, but nobody’s told that to the video games industry yet. Already, we’ve seen Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Resistance 3, Dead Island, Space Marine and soon, Gears of War 3. And that’s just for the month of September. Yes, the Fall of 2011 has been documented far too many times on our site, but seriously, can you blame us?

As such, we thought it was time to drop in with a brand new edition of Would You Rather. This time, we wanted to give you some tough decisions regarding the fall, and all its video game goodness. 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. Jeff just got a new pair of glasses that can spy people that give sucky answers and then annihilate them with crazy lasers. Seriously. I’m totally not making that up. OK go!

Continue reading Would You Rather: Fall 2011 Edition

Deus Ex Made More Like Deus Ex: Human Revolution

We’ve been going a bit Deus Ex: Human Revolution crazy around these parts. Judging by your responses to Mitch’s review, I’m sure you all are doing the same. For my part, the game might be at my list for favorite game of the year at the moment, but that could easily change once I finish it and some other games start landing in my lap over the next few months.

While many people enjoy the game, there are a few having some fun at its expense in relation to the original Deus Ex. Take Deus Ex Unreal Revolution, for instance, where the original game is mashed up with cues from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It’s a little bit too on the nose with the whole “new games suck and old games are the best ever” train, but it still managed to have some pretty funny bits in it.

It’s interesting. As aware as I am of all of DXHR’s faults, I can totally get past them. As one review I read mentioned, that’s the difference in a game that’s well designed as opposed to well made. It’s also what happens when a developer takes risks and chances during development.

So what did you guys think about this? For the lulz?

GamerSushi Asks: Fall Plans?

Arkham City

When you’ve got a fall that’s going to be as epic as 2011, it becomes necessary to dig into the furthest reaches of your brain to properly forumlate the best approach. If you look at the Fall of games like a mine field, which steps can you take to avoid getting blown to smithereens? At least, that’s the way I look at it, but I’m kind of weird.

Hyperbole aside, I really do have a game plan of sorts when it comes to this Fall’s releases. It seems like you almost have to in order to avoid dropping $500 in just a few months. Off the top of my head, here are just a few of the games we’re going to see: Deus Ex, Gears of War 3, Batman: Arkham City, Shadow of the Colossus/Ico, MGS HD, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Torchlight 2, etc. And that’s not mentioning Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3.

As of now, I’ve got Gears of War 3 and Batman pre-ordered, with plans to use Batman’s credit to get closer to Skyrim. Beyond that, I have no idea what I’m going to do, but I know for sure that I’m going to buy Battlefield 3 and Uncharted 3, even if I have to sell my body.

So what about you guys? What’s your game plan for the Fall? What games are you for sure buying? What have you already pre-ordered? What’s your strategy? Go!

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 35: Buy, Sell!

A new podcast appears? Yup. It’s been a couple of weeks since we recorded this, but I thought you’d like to have it anyway. We’re talking about some old news at this point, but there’s some entertaining bits in there about Counter-Strike: GO, Bethesda Versus Notch and Diablo 3 on consoles.

The super exciting news is that next week’s podcast release will be extra awesome, as it was done over GamerSushi weekend last weekend. Yes, all of us in the same room, acting the fool. It’s entertaining stuff, and by no means should keep you from enjoying this episode as well.

Nick tried editing this one in a different format than normal. It should play mostly the same, but if you open it in Quicktime, you can advance through chapters with the arrows, which is kind of cool. Have fun, gents and ladies.

And don’t forget to rate! Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 35: Buy, Sell!

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Is Gameplay More Important than Art?

David Jaffe

One of the big things that we all hear game developers talking about these days is an emphasis on narrative and story. They’re looking for better ways to convey emotion, bigger ways to connect with an audience and new avenues to tell their grand tales. But has this come at the price of gameplay? David Jaffe, creator of God of War, thinks so.

In his PAX keynote last weekend, Jaffe spoke at length about the idea that many AAA games these days have sacrificed gameplay and mechanics for the sake of trying to tell a story/act like a movie. He argued that it’s the games like Pac-Man, Tetris and the like that will really stick with us in 50 years’ time, more so than the titles that just play like interactive cut scenes.

Jaffe definitely raises some thoughtful points here. As much as I love a story, I’ve long been unhappy with the way that games handle their stories. And really, even the best story can be undone by boring or rote gameplay. The games with great stories that I remember are the ones that were coupled with great mechanics and a style of play I enjoyed.

What do you guys think of this? Do you agree with Jaffe? Are stories getting in the way of gameplay? Does it need to be an either/or discussion? Go!

Source – Gamasutra

GamerSushi Asks: Survival Skills?

JP3

Since gaming news has once again ground to a halt in the wake of PAX, there hasn’t been much to talk about in the gaming sphere. Besides the usual talking points, of course: Skyrim is going to be awesome, is Nintendo ever going to fix the 3DS, etc.

We’ve talked about those things enough, so I thought I’d bring over a fun thread I saw on Reddit, featuring the ultra-hardcore Survival Game. Basically, you just pick which of these three equipment sets you’d like to start with if you were marooned on an island full of hostile dinosaurs a la Jurassic Park. It’s funny, because as much as I’ve played lots of survival games, none of those really asks you to survive in a realistic situation. Many video games don’t simulate that kind of thing very well, and even when they sort of do (like Minecraft), they don’t really require you to do everything the human actually needs to stay alive. Like eat, for instance.

Personally I’d take Option C, if only for the awesome survival book, since I’d be absolutely helpless on my own in the wilderness. It’s funny, because Option A seems the most “video game” to me, but is probably not all that practical. Unless you’re Turok, I guess. What about you guys? Which would you take? Go!

Source – Reddit