Category: Adventure

Required Reading: Designing Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus is heralded as one of the greatest games of last generation, if not one of the greatest games of all time. That piece of information is of course nothing new to anybody here, or anybody that has played games, for that matter, but it’s still something that is understated due to the emotional impact that it had on so many. Part of what really made Shadow of the Colossus shine was its superior art design, which went above and beyond what many expected out of the PS2 hardware. It just goes to show that great art trumps a massive amount of polygons, and continues to be a stunning example of atmosphere and design to this day.

In some newly translated interviews with the creators found in the official guidebook to Shadow of the Colossus, Team Ico boss Fumito Ueda and the game’s artists discuss the creation of SotC’s world and the ideas behind its design. Both of these articles give a fascinating look into the minds of a truly remarkable video game, and what drove the decisions they made in development. Of particular note is a section where they talk about how the artists and the environmental guys had to work together to create the Colossi arenas, since the way the Colossi functioned hinged so tightly on the arenas themselves.

Anyway, it’s hard to do the damn things any kind of justice, but I know that so many of you are interested in game design. I’ve got a new kind of respect for Ueda after reading both of them. And this is also making me want to put in the Team Ico HD Collection in the worst possible way. So yeah, what are you guys waiting for? Go!

Source – Siliconera and Siliconera

The Elder Scrolls Online Revealed

TESO3

With Skyrim recently continuing the trend of giving Bethesda the Game of the Year award it makes sense to assume that The Elder Scrolls franchise really has what it takes to produce some truly amazing games. The single player RPG world has captivated players since Arena, taking you into a deeply immersive world of Tamriel. While The Elder Scrolls series is one that has been a smash hit as a single player game, the question always came up about how it would fare as an MMO, leaving some fans drooling over the prospects of exploring the lands with a party of their best friends. Well today it’s official, Game Informer has released an article teasing readers about the June cover article which features a first look at The Elder Scrolls Online.

The game is being produced by Zenimax Online Studios with MMO veterans such as Matt Firor, whose previous work included Dark Age of Camelot. The game is set a millennium before the events of Skyrim, and players will deal with the Daedric prince Molag Bal trying to bring Tamriel into his realm in Oblivion. Matt Frior told GameInformer:

“It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years, the entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

Tomorrow morning there will be a trailer from Zenimax and Bethesda Softworks, with screenshots coming later in the evening. All of the information going onward can be tracked at Game Informer’s own Elder Scrolls Online hub, which will be giving out exclusive content multiple times a week.

As a major fan of The Elder Scrolls series, I meet this news with an open mind, but a cautious approach. I have always wanted a way to play around the world of Skyrim or Cyrodiil with friends, but the full-blown status of an MMO is something I have debated before. This could spell great success for the series, but a different production studio and a new feel to a game that has made all of its success as a single player RPG could spell trouble. I’ll wait to see more information before I give final judgment, but this news has to have many gamers foaming at the mouth. So what do you guys think? Is it good that The Elder Scrolls is going online? What’s your opinion on the game being produced by Zenimax? Lets hear it!

Source – Game Informer

The Great GamerSushi Review Round-Up

Bastion

Ahoy, gents and lasses of GamerSushi! I’m writing to you from the ridiculous world of fatherhood, some bizarre alternate reality where the universe felt that I was somehow fit to be entrusted with the care of a little girl’s life. It’s just a bit of an adjustment, which is why I haven’t been posting at all this week. In the meantime, Mitch and Anthony (and Jeff!) have been rocking it out with some great content. I’ve found the tiniest bit of equilibrium over the last couple of days, and hope to be producing more of that myself shortly.

But first, I wanted to draw your attention to the newest batch of reviews. In the GamerSushi update post, I promised that we’d been awaiting the debut of our new grade chart to post a few outstanding reviews, and for once I wasn’t a dirty liar. Here are the reviews we’ve posted in the last week, with more coming all the time:

So far, I’m really liking the way the updated review system has translated into actual grades. It seems a bit more balanced to me, and doesn’t give us quite as many A and S scores. Other reviews coming soon: Journey, Twisted Metal, Portal 2 (that one is super late), Final Fantasy XIII-2 and more.

What are your guys thoughts on the new review system? Have we completely lost our minds? Go!

Reveal Your Shame: Games You Never Finished

games you never finished limbo

While it’s true that the majority of the video game playing masses don’t even come close to finishing games, I think it’s a point of pride among some sections of the population to finish every game we come across. Indeed, I’m kind of infamous around the GamerSushi offices for getting 100% completion in almost every game, so it shames me to say that there are some games I don’t manage to beat.

My most embarrassing failure is Limbo: that’s right, the amazing downloadable game from 2010 is on my list. I got to the tire puzzle in the industrial section of the game and got stuck there long enough to lose my flow and stop playing. Along my gaming career there have been plenty of other games but this is the most egregious.

What about you guys? Any games you didn’t finish? Go!

The Uncharted Series, Edited as Feature-Length Movies

So I’m posting this from the hospital, where my wife and I await the impending arrival of our daughter. Kind of crazy.

Fortunately, as this whole waiting process can stretch on for a day or so, I’ve had a bit of Uncharted to help pass the time tonight. And I don’t mean playing Uncharted in video game form — I mean watching it in movie form.

You see, Reddit user morphinapg did something that I’m surprised nobody has done up until now — he edited all three Uncharted games into feature-length films, with each one clocking in at about 2-3 hours. He did this by taking the games’ cut scenes and stringing them together with the minimal amount of gameplay necessary so as not to create plot holes. The result is a pretty entertaining trilogy.

More links after the jump. Continue reading The Uncharted Series, Edited as Feature-Length Movies

Review: Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection

Ico Review Cover

Team Ico is responsible for two of the most acclaimed games of all time. Now both those games are together in one affordable HD collection for the PS3. I played just a bit of Ico in the PS2 days and managed to miss out on Shadow of the Colossus entirely, but now that both have emerged in this new collection, I am eager to take the plunge and find out if these two games still live up to the hype that they have left in their wake. Continue reading Review: Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 45: Don’t Stop Believing

It’s been a couple weeks since our groundbreaking Mass Effect 3 spoiler cast, but we just wanted to give you guys some time to absorb the postmortem we gave the series and reflect on how right we all were. OK, that was a lie, but let’s just agree that that’s what happened.

It’s a three man show this week because Nick and Anthony had to sit it out but Eddy, Jeff and I kick off a series of fantastic conversations ranging from Mass Effect 3’s Extended Cut DLC to The Hunger Games to Journey. We also wrap it up with a game of Grades, which we know you love. There’s no overt technical issues this time, because everyone managed to sort out their microphone issues from last week.

So, the usual song and dance. Listen, bask in our gaming-related intellect, and give us a good rating. It’s for your health.

0:00 – 3:38 – Intro
3:38 – 24:16 – Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC
25:20 – 38:05 – PlayStation Orbis and the Amazon Instant App on PSN
40:16 – 1:03:33 – Journey
1:03:35 – 1:04:04 – GAME TIME
1:04:06 – 1:12:18 – Notch’s new game 0x10c
1:12:20 – 1:24:29 – The Influx of Kickstaters
1:24:30 – 1:30:38 – Rent a Server for Battlefield 3 on Consoles
1:30:39 – 1:31:25 – Outro

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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PC Version of Dark Souls Will Kill You in August

dark souls pc version

Good news everyone, the infamously hard follow up to Demon’s Souls will be making its PC debut this August according to a German game magazine as confirmed by the fine folks over on NeoGaf. The PC version of Dark Souls will pretty much be a 1:1 port of the consoles, except for the obvious keyboard/mouse stuff and the addition of two new bosses.

I said during our lightning round on the GamerSushi Show that if Dark Souls ever made the jump to PC I would give it a try and it looks like I’m going to have to live up to my statement. I think that the precise commands of a keyboard/mouse setup will be beneficial for the trying world of Dark Souls but I imagine I’ll give my Xbox controller a shot if the game comes with support for it (which it probably will).

Considering the new release lull that we’re getting in to this is a great boon for me and the many other PC gamers on this site who have been intrigued by the challenges of Dark Souls. So, veterans of this game in its console forms, do you have any tips? Should we start making obeisances to the gods of gaming right now? Are you guys excited for this game to make the jump to PC? Go!

Source – NeoGaf

Notch’s Space Epic: 0X10C

Notch

Our love (and the Internet’s at large) affair with Minecraft has been well documented in these parts. While I’m not a guy that actually plays a ton of Minecraft, I consider myself a fan – I’m fascinated by the experiment and totally enthralled by the things that communities produce when they have that kind of free license and creativity. So it should probably go without saying that Notch’s announcement of his new game, 0X10C, is something that I’ve been looking forward to.

If there’s anything to say about 0X10C (besides that bizarre name that I have no idea how to pronounce), it would be that it gives a whole new meaning to the word “ambitious.” As epic as it would be to describe it as Minecraft in space, even that synopsis is reductive. Here’s a quick bit about the plot:

“It’s now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.”

It gets even better than that. A list of some of the features… Continue reading Notch’s Space Epic: 0X10C

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?

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

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

Cabbage Trick Shots: Things to Do in Skyrim

One of the things I love about video games is when you manage to find a “game within the game”, to speak. This has become more and more of a thing in the past generation due to open-world sandbox games, and there’s a certain kind of joy there that’s hard to match. As a kid, I remember playing Mario 64 during the summer when I was bored, just playing the flying missions repeatedly to see how low I could swoop to the ground without touching it and losing the flight. Somehow, we always find new ways to entertain ourselves.

That’s exactly what the guys at Achievement Hunter have done in their newest video, Things to Do in Skyrim, which features them creating trick shots that involve throwing cabbage into buckets. It’s very reminiscent of this Michael Jordan/Larry Bird Super Bowl ad for McDonald’s – and that’s a good thing. Anyway, you should watch it, the reaction shots at the end are priceless.

When’s the last time you guys got sucked into doing this kind of thing in a video game? Did anyone else die laughing when they freaked out?

The Banner Saga: A New Kickstarter Challenger

Although it’s already starting to become cliche just how many people are using Kickstarter to fund any damn thing in the world (why do people need $30,000 to produce a podcast – seriously), every now and then a project will rise above all the noise and show us something very cool.

On the heels of Double Fine’s Adventure game, The Banner Saga, by Stoic, promises us a Strategy RPG title, made by industry veterans, which happens to feature a mature story and some truly breathtaking art. Seriously, just the visuals alone were enough to sell me on the project, before even reading any of the impressive facts about it. I’ll let you watch the trailer.

The game is scheduled for release in June 2012, and just $10 nets you Chapter 1 of the game. I have to say, the whole thing really has impressed me, and I’ll probably be throwing some support their way – plus, it’s based in Texas, which is awesome.

What are your guys’ thoughts on The Banner Saga? How do you feel about the new fad of putting everything on Kickstarter? Go!

Source – The Banner Saga on Kickstarter

Diablo III Has a Release Date

Diablo 3

Zounds! After a week of nothing but Mass Effect 3 ending talk, it seems that there’s finally some news worth posting about — Diablo III launches on May 15th. So two months from today, PC gamers everywhere will be enjoying the great tastes of hack-n-slash dungeon crawling that have been missing since Diablo II came out in June of 2000. Almost a dozen years, gents.

While there was originally a lot of clamor about the art style of Diablo III and some bickering about whether or not it would see the console light of day, all that seems to have died down in recent months. I’ve had a chance to play literally just a few minutes of the beta, but plan on playing a little more now that the game has a proper date. Needless to say, I’ve been missing this type of game for years now – it’s strange that nobody’s really done it as well as Diablo II has all those years ago.

So now, the big question: is anyone else as pumped about this as I am? Who’s going to be grabbing this on day one? Go!

Source – VG247

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

GamerSushi Asks: Are 100 Hour Games Necessary?

Dark Souls

With the price of games on the rise, so too have a series of complaints risen around the idea that longer games generally mean better games. In particular, RPGs are expected to be bloated to colossal lengths, from the Elder Scroll series to Mass Effect and even Fallout 3. Gamers want more game for their money, more world to explore, more weapons to collect, more foes to conquer and more time to invest. But is this always a good thing?

In a rather interesting (if somewhat controversial) review of the game Dark Souls, Slate writer Michael Thomsen wonders if 100 hour games are a waste of time for gamers instead of a boon to their hobby. Even though I haven’t played the game, and always hear the opposite of his assessment of it, I do have to say that I find his prodding question to be thought-provoking. Honestly, there’s so much that people can accomplish in the amount of time it would take someone to clamber through all of Skyrim – but does that mean that it’s pointless for the person that enjoys it?

It seems that Thomsen would argue that yes, it is. In his view, it’s never necessary for a game to take 100 hours to tell its tale, and that many games have done better with far less time. When put that way, I do have to agree: some of my most favorite games have accomplished what they did in around 20 hours or so, without ever overstaying their welcome.

So, while I’m not sure I’m on board with everything this article states, I did want to kick the question to you guys: are 100 hour games just a waste of time? Go!

Slate

Does The Legend of Zelda Need to be Fixed?

legend of zelda

If there’s any game series crying out for a fresh interpretation, it’s the Legend of Zelda. While this belief is a little incendiary, many people feel that the series hit its zenith with Ocarina of Time and has been in steady decline every since. That’s not to say that the games are bad, necessarily, but they are formulaic and in need of a shot in the arm.

During my travels on the dusty roads of the World Wide Web, I stumbled across an essay entitled “Saving Zelda” by one Tevis Thompson. In his piece he runs down what he sees as the problems with the current version of Zelda and where the series went wrong. His comments on how the game world is just a series of locks (and how the items you collect can be equated to a jangling keyring) struck a particular cord with me, and this is by no means the only point he makes. He examines everything from the games’ visual styles to the design of the over-world to the re-treading of the same story over and over.

His article is a bit lengthy, but it’s well worth the read, especially if Skyward Sword left you wanting. The comments about how modern Zelda games do not respect the player is in step with how I felt about Skyward Sword, and the analogy of game designers being helicopter parents was almost too perfect.

I really urge everybody to take a break from their day and read this; you may not agree with every point but it’s a great argument against the staleness of modern Zeldas. What did you guys think of the article? Did the author make some good points? Where do you agree and disagree?

Source – Tevis Thompson

Renegade/Paragon

Renegade and Paragon

In preparation for the glorious release of Mass Effect 3, gamers everywhere are enjoying a taste of the game’s demo tonight and throughout the rest of the week. With an offering of both single player and multiplayer, it’s giving everyone a chance to see what all the hype (and in some cases, the fuss) is about. To join the Shepard spirit, we thought we’d debut a new feature, a brainchild of the good sir Anthony Taylor. Because he’s cool like that.

This feature, titled Renegade/Paragon, is a look at the video games industry through the brutal cut-and-dry scope of the Mass Effect universe. Here, we grade certain entities and rate them as either Paragons — bastions of light and purveyors of all that is good and true — or Renegades — bringers of gloom, doom and every corridor of evil in between those two. Afterwards, you get to make your own calls on the situations.

Let’s get started. Who are the current Paragons and Renegades in the industry? Continue reading Renegade/Paragon

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