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!

Pixel Count: The Next Hurdle

It’s Pixel Count Tuesday, Sushians. Let’s cast us some ballots.

Every generation represents a new set of hurdles for the medium (or art, if you’re feeling fancy) of video gaming. In the current generation — and yes, I do include PC games in this — I think the most obvious hurdles we’ve cleared have to do with graphics, the ease of connectivity and huge, immersive universes. Within the last few years, it’s easier to play with friends than ever before, or even talk to them across games. I can share games with them on Steam or track their progress through PSN or XBL. Games like Skyrim, Borderlands 2 and Arkham City have given us amazing, huge worlds that we can interact with, and feel like we’re a part of. The Uncharted series and Red Dead Redemption have given us high-caliber storytelling and some memorable vocal performances.

But do I think all of these things are perfect? Not by any stretch. The medium still has plenty of growing up to do in terms of what it can achieve, in any number of arenas. Today’s Pixel Count poll is a big one, representing what I think are the biggest hurdles that gaming still has in front of it.

So, if we’re entering the next generation soon, which of these do you think is the most important issue, from a player’s perspective? Vote and tell us what you think in the comments!

What do games need to accomplish in the next generation?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

FarCry3: Stealth with Style

FarCry 3 Stealth

I love stealth games, but they tend to stress me out. The idea of sneaking around without getting caught always tends to add a pile of burdens on top of me, like the game is judging me if I fail, and will punish me with extra waves of enemies should I find a way of royally fracking things up.

And while most stealth games do a poor job at making stealth just as fun as the shooting counterpart (or throw out a poor attempt at both), FarCry 3 makes sneaking around exciting, challenging and maybe even more fun than mowing down bands of pirates with an assault rifle or rocket launcher. This is mostly accomplished through an excellent skill system that rewards you for stealth kills and chaining takedowns together for some brutal, silent mayhem. It adds a dash of style to a mechanic that is normally slow and methodic, even in a (mostly traditional) first person shooter.

It’s always refreshing to play a new twist on a familiar game mechanic, and FarCry 3 does this in a number of ways. Because of this empowerment, FarCry 3 doesn’t make me nearly as nervous to play in a stealthy manner, and it’s making the game all the more fun for me. I’m not fretting about getting spotted, but rather, given just the right tools to adapt — and have a blast doing it.

How do you guys normally feel about stealthy gameplay mechanics? Do you tend to sneak around or come into a situation guns playing? What are some of your favorite stealth games? Go!

GamerSushi on Twitch.Tv!

Twitch_Logo_Black

Sushians! As part of our new content spree of 2013 (which we’ve honorably dubbed as “Year of the Sushi” around these parts), we’ve started up our very own GamerSushi Twitch TV channel.

Last night I streamed the second half of Hotline Miami as a bit of a test, and a few of you joined and hung out for a little bit. And right now, Nick and I are streaming some Borderlands 2. Obviously if you see this a bit later, you’ll have missed out on the fun, but we’re working on some kind of loose schedule when we’ll be streaming some different games.

So yeah, join in on the fun. Year of the Sushi!

Update: All done playing now, but you can find the play session after the jump! Continue reading GamerSushi on Twitch.Tv!

GamerSushi Asks: Pre-Game Rituals?

Far Cry 3

Welcome to “GamerSushi Asks” Friday!

This week, I finally jumped into Far Cry 3’s sprawling green and blue playground of predators and pirates, and like many other gamers, have found myself enthralled by not only the emergent gameplay, but the sidequests that know just how to entice me off the beaten path. But before I started off-roading, gaining experience through stealth kills and skinning komodo dragons, I did what I do for every game — I tweaked the settings.

Starting a new game is equal parts excitement and ritual for me. I’ve got a bit of a ceremony whenever I pop in a new title. First, I turn on subtitles, since I’m usually trying to keep volume low so as not to wake up a sleeping baby (or worse yet, a sleeping wife). Then, I lower the overall master volume of the game. Next, I check controller settings to make sure that the y-axis isn’t inverted, and after that I lower the sensitvity to the point where it feels like the gun is dragging through molasses. No matter how engaging the beginning of a game, if these things aren’t set, I don’t feel like I’m in control of the experience.

So what about you guys? What pre-game rituals do you have before you start a new game? Do you mess with the audio? Is there a particular set of headphones you prefer to use? A particular time of day or a specific position you need to be in on the couch? Show us your OCD side in the comments.

The GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2012

2012 was a surprisingly robust year for gaming. While we didn’t quite get the bombardment of sequels to huge franchises that we’ve come to expect, we got a year filled with unique titles. 2012 was filled with strategy games, stealth games, new IPs and a new bar for emotional engagement in our favorite medium. Even the sequels found a way to change the game.

Suddenly, the industry gave us something we’ve been clambering for what has felt like years — some variety. And what a nice change of pace it’s been. So, without further ado, here is our list of the top 10 games of 2012. Enjoy, dudes.

Continue reading The GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2012

Sick Tunes: The Soundtrack of Hotline Miami

In keeping with “What We’re Playing” Monday, I thought I’d throw up some examples of Hotline Miami’s phenomenal soundtrack. Part of what makes the 2D shooter so much like crack is the fact that the music so infectious and hypnotic, evoking that iconic 1980s synth sound of a bright but dark Miami. In some ways, the violence of the game coupled with a kicking soundtrack almost makes it feel like Drive: The Game — which isn’t a bad thing at all.

This first track, Miami, by Jasper Byrne, can be found at the end of our most recent podcast.

Continue reading Sick Tunes: The Soundtrack of Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami: The Drug of Rinse and Repeat

Hotline Miami

Sushians, welcome to our first ever “What We’re Playing” Monday post. I know. You can probably barely contain your excitement.

This weekend, I spent pretty much the entirety of Saturday afternoon obsessively picking my way through Hotline Miami, a top-down 2D stealth/challenge room shooter by Dennaton games, gifted to me during the most recent Steam Sale.

For those of you unaware (which means you haven’t listened to the newest podcast), Hotline Miami is a violent game about busting into rooms full of bad guys and taking them out in the most brutal, daring way possible — all while maintaining twitch-quick reflexes.

The thing about this game is that it is old school, throw your controller across the room hard. You bust into a room full of mobsters, and you have to rehearse how you’re going to eliminate them quickly and methodically, one by one. If you’re not perfect, you get your brains blown out. As such, it requires a certain amount of rinsing and repeating, as you attempt to clear the same rooms over and over, racking up an absurd amount of deaths.

There’s something strangely addicting about this kind of gameplay. I’m not sure if it taps into that old part of us that was used to trial-and-error gameplay, the kind that required you to get a level absolutely perfect, step-by-step, if you ever wanted any hope of progressing. All I know is that on Saturday, I was a slave to Hotline Miami’s drug, trudging through half of its levels all in one sitting, sometimes shouting in triumph, sometimes cursing and swearing the game off forever.

All that to say — if you haven’t played Hotline Miami, you should certainly give it a try. It’s probably one of the more addictive games I’ve played in the last year. Have any of you guys played it? What are some other games you’ve played recently that relied on this kind of rinse and repeat drug? Go!

Introducing: The GamerSushi Schedule

calender

So we’ve been doing this GamerSushi thing for over 4 years now, which means you guys have been reading a crazy amount of our goofy musings, rants, observations and editorials. We’ll of course be continuing all of these things in 2013, but with a bit more structure.

The GamerSushi Schedule is our new posting schedule — every weekday (Monday through Friday), we’ll have a designated theme that will be the focus of that day’s posts. This helps us post better content, and helps you know what will be on the site and when.

Why the change? There are a couple of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is the nature of the video game news cycle. When we started GamerSushi all those years ago, the content on video game websites was a different animal — news was regular and content was more substantive. These days, twice as many posts are written about half as much actual news (due to a fractured relationship between PR and journalists, as well as the growing competition), and it’s honestly more difficult to find quality content to point our readers to. Which sometimes means long stretches where we’re trying to find newsworthy articles.

For that reason, we want to shift the gears here, where we’re the engine behind the content that we post. You’ll find less pointing towards other sites, and more just… Sushi stuff, that hopefully you guys are just as interested in as us. Continue reading Introducing: The GamerSushi Schedule

The 2012 Sushis: A Year of Highs and Lows

The 2012 Sushis

If you’ll do us the kindness of remembering, you’ll recall that GamerSushi does the annual recap a bit differently than most places. Sure, we’ll do our Top 10 Games of 2012 list within the next week, but before that we bring you the Sushis, our roast, celebration and general send-up of the previous year’s highs and lows.

In the 2012 Sushis, we mock the disappointments, high five the best multiplayer experiences and give solos to the unsung heroes of one of the generation’s most interesting years yet.

Enoy!

Continue reading The 2012 Sushis: A Year of Highs and Lows

Gabe Newell’s Steam Box Dream

Gabe Steam Box

PC gamers and Steam lovers can rejoice, because the cat’s finally out of the bag: a Valve’s “Steam Box” is official, Gabe Newell confirmed in a recent interview with The Verge.

While we can mostly guess at what a Steam Box means for games — namely a “Big Picture Mode” console designed for your TV — Newell did talk about some of the box’s other early features. For instance, rather than just the living room, they want the Steam experience to be sharable from screen to screen, and between different rooms with ease. But beyond that, Valve’s main emphasis will be open platforms with different manufacturers, open content and a way for gamers to publish and create their own content through the Steam store or possibly even personal stores. The goal is to make things easy for publishers and developers, and ideally that trickles down to gamers as well.

It’s certainly too early to tell anything about the Steam Box, but it basically sounds like my dream console. I’m pretty pumped on Steam at the moment, mostly due to the most recent Steam sale (sorry, but you’ll hear me mention it a million times over the next, I dunno, year, so I love the idea of an affordable console that runs what I think is currently best platform for games. I love that Valve will be removing the normal restrictions we see from consoles, and can’t wait to hear more about this. I definitely recommend checking out the rest of the interview, there’s even a bit about how they have been researching biometric feedback and new controller inputs.

What do you guys think of the Steam Box? Go!

Source – The Verge

GamerSushi Asks: Your Gaming Outlook in 2013?

Bioshock Infinite

Happy New Year, GamerSushians!

Pretty hard to believe that we’re in the year 2013, eh? I’ll avoid the typical jokes about flying cars and Kardashian-related apocalypses, and instead say that we’re glad you’re all here with us to keep talking about video games.

Since there’s not much in the arena of gaming news besides the stuff we’re all no doubt sinking our teeth into after the holidays (guess who beat XCOM today?), I wanted to ask a couple of questions about 2013, and the number of possibilities it holds for our beloved hobby. With games like Bioshock: Infinite, The Last of Us and the probably launch of new consoles, there’s a lot of potential for this new year.

So, here are your questions… Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: Your Gaming Outlook in 2013?

Changing the Game with Steam’s Big Picture

Steam Big Picture Mode

Hola, Sushians. If you can’t tell, we’ve been on a bit of a break due to the holidays and the fact that most gaming news has ground to a halt. On top of that, we’re actually busy playing tons of games for a change (XCOM, you have my heart), so that we can vote on our Top 10 Games of 2012 list and also because games are amazing.

On top of clearing out a backlog (which has been made impossible due to the Steam sale), one of my goals over the holiday season was to finally purchase an adapter of some sort so I could play certain PC games with a 360 controller. While I enjoy a keyboard and mouse for shooters and RTS style games, there are a number of gametypes I’d prefer to use my 360 controller for — to the point where I wasn’t purchasing some great deals on games because I didn’t want to play with a keyboard and mouse.

Well, I’ve finally hooked up the adapter and tried out Big Picture Mode, Steam’s new UI built for a controller and a TV, and wow, guys — I’m a total believer in a Steam box. Continue reading Changing the Game with Steam’s Big Picture

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You Playing this Christmas?

far cry 3

Merry Christmas Eve, GamerSushi friends, or any other holiday that you fine folks might be or have been celebrating. I’d insert a joke here about diversity, but I think we’re all a bit grown up for that by this point.

One of my favorite things about having some time off for Christmas every year is all the free time I suddenly get to catch up on games. In addition to the mouthwatering deals of the Steam Sale, I’ve also been playing a bit of Halo 4, and I’m dying to get my hands on Far Cry 3, Spec Ops: The Line and Sleeping Dogs. I’m sure there will be many other things added to that list in the next few days.

So what about you guys? What are you playing while on break? Hit us up with your comments! Go!

How 7 Games Affected the Industry in 2012

journey

Every year, the video game industry is rocked by a handful of events. Or more specifically, a handful of games that become events in and of themselves. No, I don’t mean blockbuster game releases (although the Modern Warfare 3 drama was something to behold in 2011), but rather games that become a story themselves, the release of which affects the trends and discussions of the entire industry as a whole.

In a new feature, MCV takes a look at 7 Games that Shaped 2012, where study the games that most affected the marketplace. The focus of this list is pretty interesting: Borderlands 2 proving that retail is still a powerful force, Double Fine and Kickstarter changing the way a number of indie games (and a few AA titles) are produced and released, and the quality tipping point of small, downloadable games with titles like Journey and Walking Dead. Each of these things has played a huge role in 2012 in terms of shaping the industry, and I’m curious to see what it means in the future.

Although some of the stuff on the list doesn’t quite apply to those of us in the States — like Mass Effect 3 and the collapse of GAME — Mass Effect 3 is still just as notable this year because of how it affected the discussion of art and the consumer. It’s one of the more memorable times we’ve seen a creator change a product after its release in order to cater to what consumers wanted from it.

So, what do you guys think the biggest game stories of 2012 were? What other games affected the industry this year? Go!

Source – MCV UK

GamerSushi Asks: Biggest Recent Disappointment?

assassins creed 3

If you’ve listened to the most recent podcast, then you’ll know that Assassin’s Creed 3 left one of the worst tastes in my mouth in recent gaming history. Not only did the game fall short of previous titles — it was flat out bad, something I rarely even say about a game I played all the way through.

From the controls to the story to the overall bugginess of the title, Assassin’s Creed 3 was a failure on multiple levels, and I pretty much have no qualms about saying that. It was an active step back from the excellence of Brotherhood, and even the good-but-problematic Revelations. The one redeeming spot in the game’s 10 hours or so that I spent with it would have to be the naval battles, which were an absolute joy — even more so when you consider how frustrating everything around them happened to be.

But enough of my ranting about Assassin’s Creed 3. I think one of the reasons I was so thoroughly disgusted by the game, aside from it being kind of crappy, is because of the wasted potential. We were given a new setting, a new character, a chance for resolution with a number of story threads and an actual revolution (pardon the pun) in terms of setting, gameplay elements and the like. And it was all a mess. After Revelations came out last year, I was ready to be done with the AC franchise for awhile, but the promise of AC3 lured me back. I don’t know if I’ll make that mistake again, after seeing all the wasted potential that this game lived up to.

So what about you guys? What’s the biggest recent gaming disappointment you’ve experienced? What’s the biggest disappointment of 2012? What made the game disappointing? Go!

Calling the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards

Spike VGAs 2012

It’s that time again — Spike’s annual VGAs are happening tomorrow night, and gamers can expect lots of new trailers, winning upsets, celebrities pretending to enjoy video games, lots of cheesy humor and whatever else they decide to stick into the show. While the show isn’t exactly high entertainment value, it’s a nice little landmark in the gaming year because it’s the one time besides E3 that developers load us up with game announcements and trailers. We already know we’ll be seeing world premiere trailers of Gears of War: Judgment, Bioshock: Infinite, The Last of Us and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2.

But of course, the supposedly more interesting part of all of this is the award presentations themselves, as voted on by gamers. Naturally, this tends to cause a few head scratchers out of the bunch, but that’s half the fun, right? The full list of nominees is way too lengthy to post here in full, but the GOTY contenders are: Assassin’s Creed III, Mass Effect 3, Journey, Walking Dead and Dishonored. If you want to vote, you can get the full run down of the VGA 2012 nominees here.

So do you guys have any predictions about how the evening will go down? Best Developer? Best PC Game? Best Multiplayer? And do you have any other predictions for any surprises we might see tomorrow night? Go!

Ubisoft CEO: Lack of Innovation Due to Long Console Cycle

Assassin's Creed 3

As much as some of us rail against the impending onslaught that the games industry collectively refers to as “the next generation”, there’s not much we can do to stop it. It’s coming, whether we like it or not.

But according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, the next generation should have already been here. In fact, if it was here, we wouldn’t see the industry in quite the state that it is, lacking innovation and in need of a shot in the arm. Here’s what Guillemot said in a recent interview with Polygon.

We need new consoles and at the end of the cycle generally the market goes down because there are less new IPs, new properties, so that damaged the industry a little bit. I hope next time they will come more often… Everybody who is taking risks and innovating is welcome because there are lots of hardcore gamers and those guys want new things, where the mass market will be more interested in having the same experience.

Call me crazy, but I’m just not clicking with this comment. Don’t we see some of the generation’s worst games early on in a console cycle? It’s not until developers get their feet under them in regards to the hardware that the industry really starts hitting its collective strive, all around the same time. It’s weird that Guillemot feels this way — nobody’s stopping Ubisoft from creating new IPs in the middle or latter end of a console cycle… so why wait?

What do you guys think of this? Is Guillemot crazy? Am I the crazy one? Does lack of innovation stem from lack of prettier graphics? Go!

Source – Polygon

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You Playing, Thanksgiving 2012

Walking Dead

Greetings, Sushians. I hope this fattiest of holiday weeks finds you well. I’m assuming here that our American Thanksgiving holiday is so important that the rest of the world celebrates it, too. Or at the very least, it should. You can take that as official word from the US that it’s OK for you to celebrate Thanksgiving wherever you are tomorrow. It’s simple, really: eat all the things. And then eat them again.

Anyway, I’ll be celebrating the holiday this week by hanging out with family and playing some games. I’m between jobs right now, so I have a small stretch here where I’m getting to finally play some things that have been on my radar lately. Namely, Halo 4, Assassin’s Creed 3, picking XCOM back up and today, Walking Dead Episode 5. I am super excited about that last one.

So what about you guys? What are you playing this week? What are you eating? Go!

David Cage Talks Beyond: Two Souls and Release Hype

Beyond Two Souls

Heavy Rain creator David Cage has sometimes over-promised and under delivered. Of course, he’s nowhere near the level of Molyneux in that regard. In fact, he doesn’t even want to say too much about Beyond: Two Souls because he wants people to experience the game with no preconceptions or ideas about what the game is going to be like.

Here’s a bit from Cage’s recent interview with Playstation EU:

I think there should be no preparation for Beyond. You must go into the game trying to learn as little as possible!

Like other game creators, I wish I could say nothing and show nothing, and put a plain black cover on the shelves so that players start the game completely blank, with no information from trailers. This is something that is obviously not possible, unfortunately!

It’s interesting to me how many game creators really desire this pure kind of experience — and how impossible of a dream it is in a day when video game marketing machines dictate everything in the industry. The funny thing is, as much as gamers want that same kind of secrecy, that same ability to play a game with no idea what they’re getting into, we also demand previews, trailers and details galore, in order to make sure our money is being well spent.

So what do you guys think about this issue? Do you wish more creators could release games with less information about them? I mean, sure, there’s always the argument that you could avoid trailers, stay away from previews, etc — but at a certain point it’s hard to avoid everything, particularly when so much information is available, and so much of it not even indicative of the final product. Give us your opinions in the comments. Go!

Source – Playstation EU

Dust: An Indie Programmer’s Tale

Dust

The world of making indie games is something that’s become a recent fascination for gamers. With wide open platforms and fewer barriers between a game creator and the consumer than ever, it’s certainly appealing for would be game-makers to take a stab at producing their own content.

This summer, one of XBox Live Arcade’s blockbuster releases was a game known as Dust: An Elysian Tail. Dust is a Metroidvania (or Castleroid if you’re nasty) style game with a bit of a cartoony flair, with a really interesting art direction and a wonderful setting. I’ve heard nothing but good things, and the gameplay videos are promising as well.

But the most interesting thing about Dust? It was created, essentially, by just one man, Dean Dodrill. In a fascinating Postmortem feature at Gamasutra, Dean walks through his solo development cycle for Dust, in which he quit his day job, taught himself how to code, built the game’s systems from scratch and struggled to get it out on time. He goes through the ups, the downs, the woes, the prayers, the deadlines and everything else, in what’s probably one of my favorite game articles I’ve ever read.

Seriously, if you’re interested in ever taking a stab at your own game or just admire the people who do, I highly recommend checking out this article. Has anybody played Dust? Anyone out there already dabbling in constructing your own video games? When do we get to play them? Go!

Source – Gamasutra