Microsoft’s E3 press conference came and went and it was quite the Kinect fest. With Nintendo making an apperance tomorrow, Sony was primed to steal the show on the first day of E3. Let’s break down their presser and see if they made Microsoft look like a bunch of chumps.
Details are after the jump!
Continue reading Sony’s E3 2011 Briefing Round-Up
I know this is a topic we’ve talked about on the podcast some, but you guys always seem reluctant to leave your thoughts on those. Perhaps it is because we are such cunning linguists and our arguments tear yours to shreds. Yeah, that’s what I’m going with.
In case you somehow forgot with all the incessant reminders on all of the gaming websites and Twitter and yes, even here, E3 2011 is next week and we’ll be seeing a few new games and a couple that we’ve been hearing about for what seems like forever. While Metal Gear Solid: Rising and The Last Guardian probably won’t be making an appearance, Star Wars: The Old Republic and the Tomb Raider reboot (just confirmed for a fall 2012 release) will be there, and we’ve been hearing about those games for a while. Star Wars: The Old Republic is particularly guilty in this regard, showing up to two consecutive E3s with only a fancy trailer. I’d hesitate to say that anything BioWare is a one-trick pony, but it’s certainly starting to look that way.
I hate to sound like I’m ragging on BioWare, who are obviously working very hard on their MMO, but if this game had been announced maybe two years ago as opposed to four, I wouldn’t have the same “hype fatigue” I’m experiencing now. I’m also apparently hurting for a Star Wars MMO, so there’s that too.
So what about you guys? What games have been announced a little too early for your taste? Any games at E3 2011 that you just want to stop hearing about? How far in advance of their release should games be announced?
Just like we did with the Portal 2 podcast a few weeks back, we thought we’d have ourselves a spoiler-slathered episode all about L.A. Noire for this week. Basically, we talk about the game up until the end of homicide without worry of monitoring ourselves, and the result is some in-depth discussion about Team Bondi’s achievements and how we feel about the game itself.
After that, Nick brings us a game of percentages, where we rate the chances of purchasing Modern Warfare 3, the eventual production and release of the infamous Uncharted movie and the removal of DRM from more PC games. We also dip a bit into some absurd trailer-mongering, which I think you guys will get a kick out of. Or at the very least, we got a kick out of it. As long as someone is entertained, right?
Here we go, gents and ladies. Listen up. Rate. Chuckle. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 30: The Whites Are Coming
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One thing that can be a bit unnerving about the way the gaming media conducts itself is when it inadvertently (or purposefully, in some cases) acts as the extended reach of the PR team for a given publisher. In the attempt at being completely objective and unbiased, sometimes it’s easy for the marketing speak to climb into posts or previews of upcoming games, precisely because it’s the only information that’s being made available to the gaming media at the time that it’s covered. You don’t want to make any assumptions, so you go with the answers you’ve been given – which have been carefully constructed by some marketing copywriters.
Like I said, I haven’t been in this position myself, but that’s always seemed to be the struggle from an outside point of view. However, games writer Dennis Scimeca has been in that position, and writes about it over on his blog in a post titled Don’t Look at the Game Behind the Curtain. It’s actually a really interesting look at the trial-and-error process of a games journalist and how he handles different previews from E3. He mainly singles out both Brink and Homefront, two games that turned out to be, by many accounts, mediocre, but received a substantial amount of hype through cleverly designed preview events and trailers.
Personally, I would love to see the kind of “stripped” version of games reporting that he talks about here. Speaking from the experience of walking around on the PAX floor, it’s easy to let the smoke and mirrors cloud the real game that’s being shown. E3, as awesome as it is from a news perspective, has kind of become this huge circus that all the publishers and journalists are playing to. That being said, I still want to go to there.
What do you guys think of this kind of hype? Would you rather see more of it stripped out of games coverage? Or do you like getting whipped up into a fervor and judging for yourself what pulls its own weight? Does E3 excite you or irritate you for this exact reason?
I know that a fair number of us at GamerSushi have played through the depths of Dragon Age II, exploring the streets of Kirkwall and siding with Mages, Templars or both. I also know that a few of us (including myself) have had some discussions about the shortcomings of Dragon Age II, places where it might have been lacking in comparison to the epic original.
These gripes are well-documented around da Webz, and it seems that Bioware has been listening to people’s issues and complaints. After some flack received about different comments made about Dragon Age II’s design choices, here’s what lead designer Mike Laidlaw had to say on a recent forum post, addressing the swell of criticisms that have been leveled against the sequel:
I am absolutely aware of the concerns voiced here. Issues like level re-use, the implementation of wave combat, concerns about the narrative and significance of choice and so on have all been not only noted, but examined, inspected and even aided me (and many, many others on the team) in formulating future plans. Further, I’m not only aware of the concerns, but I agree that there are aspects of DA II that not only can but must be improved in future installments. And that is precisely our intent.
I’m not really posting this to alert everyone of its existence, but rather use this as a spoiler-filled forum for us to talk about how we feel about Dragon Age II, looking back. We don’t do that often enough on GamerSushi, so I want to start making it a point to revisit these games and talk about them in a more open way. Continue reading Hindsight: Looking Back at Dragon Age II
It’s a very rare game that allows the player to step into the shoes of a police officer; rarer still is the game that treats the player as an adult and faces them with the horrors of real-life crime. L.A. Noire, developed over an eight-year time period by Sydney, Australia based Team Bondi with assistance from Rockstar, follows the life of Cole Phelps, a Pacific Theater war hero turned star Police detective in the year 1947. One of the major features of L.A. Noire is the detective aspect and the use of sophisticated facial mapping technology in order to properly convey subtle (and not so subtle) emotions on your suspect’s faces when you’re putting the spotlight on them.
While L.A. Noire can dismissively be described as “1940s GTA”, nothing could be further from the truth. Much like Rockstar’s last marquee game, L.A. Noire steps out of GTA’s shadow by establishing its own identity by giving gamers something new and different in an increasingly crowded market. Come inside the GamerSushi interview room and see if we can sweat the facts out of this flatfoot.
Continue reading Review: L.A. Noire
With all of the free time on my hands recently, I’ve found that I’m more willing to dive into the minutia of gaming, picking over stuff that I would have previously forgone had I been more engaged during the day with other activities (like working). Given GamerSushi’s recent obsession with a certain post-WW2 detective game, most of the article will center around that, but we can delve into other games that do this sort of thing as well.
While random collectibles are more endemic to sandbox games, it’s not unusual to see any manner of game in any genre throw in bits of random junk for you to accrue to either flesh out the story or just to have you hang on to your games a little longer instead of trading them in. Call of Duty has its Intel, which unlocks cheats, and Crysis 2 has dog tags, landmarks and emails which gave you more insight into what exactly was going on when you weren’t killing mechanical squids.
Now that I’ve finished L.A. Noire, I’m driving around in free roam trying to find all the golden film canisters and the street crimes. Rockstar has done this pretty well in their last couple of games, which is good after the horrible showing in GTAIV; it was kind of weird for them to stumble in this regard, Rockstar is typically great about extending the life of a game after the main story is done.
I’ve always been partial to completing games 100%, especially after the introduction of Achievements (not that the lack of them has held me back in PC and PS3 games…), but I’m wondering how you guys feel about them. Do you go for them, or pick up any that you come across? Do you like finding them, or are they the bane of your existence?
We here at GamerSushi have spent the last few episodes of our podcast, The GamerSushi Show, pontificating on the E3 2011 showings of the ‘Big Three’, mostly concerning Sony’s recent troubles and Nintendo’s Project Cafe. While Microsoft is reportedly bringing a bunch of hardcore themed games for Kinect, they’ve been rather quiet on this front so they’ll either slip into a respectable second place or bring the thunder and steal first.
There’s also a slim chance that all the major contenders might flop this year, leaving the playing field wide open for the publishers. EA is certainly coming to E3 2011 with a lot of big name titles that we’re all looking forward to such as Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic
Since we’ve shared our thoughts on this before, I cooked up a nice little poll for you guys to give your input on. Who’s going to come out ahead at E3 2011? Will it be the manufacturers, or the publishers? If you have any thoughts in the comments, please let us know!
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Here’s a new podcast that’s not exactly new, seeing as how we recorded it a couple of weeks ago. That being said, it’s still a hoot. Is that what the kids are saying these days?
We talk about a variety of topics once the cast kicks off, from PSN to Brink and even a bit of the Gears of War 3 Beta, and just how much I want to have its babies. True story. After that, we kick things up a non-Minecraft notch with a game of Either/Or. For real, it’s good times. I only wish you all could join us during these games, because Nick does a great job of picking topics.
Oh, that’s right. You can. In the comments. Join in, dudes.
Alright, time to listen up. And when you’re done, go rate. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 29: Colluders
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We knew it was coming, guys, but here it is, the giant reveal trailer for the upcoming third installment of the Modern Warfare series. After the hullabaloo around the whole Kotaku debacle, something like this feels a bit neutered but I thought I’d throw it up here for you anyways to pick apart and give us your thoughts.
So there it is, the reveal trailer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. There’s definitely a more global feel to the game this time as opposed to the American-centric feel of the last one. Now that we’ve seen the game in motion, what do you think? Do want? Do not want?
E3 2011 is fast approaching, and there are a lot of big name titles that we’re expecting more information on: Saint’s Row 3, Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3 and Skyrim, just to name a few. But for every giant game that steals the show, there’s a few titles that we haven’t seen hide nor hair of, games that were announced to much fan fare and have quietly faded into either obscurity or development hell.
Some of these games have a made a big splash in the past like XCOM or Metal Gear Solid: Rising, but there are a few ones that have flown under the radar that I’m keeping an eye out for this year like Max Payne 3 (which repeatedly reappears for a moment before disappearing again) or Spec Ops: The Line, a Nolan North vehicle adapted from the novella Heart of Darkness. Another Rockstar helmed production that’s also noticeably MIA is Agent, a Cold War themed game that was trumpeted as a Sony exclusive before vanishing.
E3 is a great time to announce new, exciting games and bang the drums about the popular upcoming ones, but which of these titles do you want to hear about? Granted, we’ve gotten a trailer for MGS: Rising but not much else, and Max Payne 3 is continually rumored to be making an appearance, but what about Spec Ops, or XCOM? Is there another game that you want to hear about? What games in the past have made a grand entrance at E3 but then vanished?
Not to overload everyone with impressions on L.A. Noire before a proper review goes up, but I’ve had a few thoughts about games as a whole while I’ve been busting through it the last few nights. You see, as much as I love the game (it’s already one of my frontrunners for GotY, even halfway through), it’s got quite a few bugs and glitches that I’ve run into.
In one case, I was told to immediately return to the Coroner for urgent news, so I went there instead of the next place on my list of locations. When I arrived, the cutscene that played essentially pretended like I had been to the previous location, and actually spoiled some of the case for me by assuming I’d already done those things. Later in the game, I had the choice to charge one of two suspects for murder. However, the game wouldn’t allow me to pick the suspect I really wanted to nail for the crime. I had to pick the other one by default, and yet, all the cut scenes since then have acted like I picked the suspect I couldn’t pick to begin with.
Needless to say, these outcomes are a little annoying, for as much work as the cases are, particularly when you’re as meticulous about finding the clues and exploring every avenue of the interrogation as I am. The interesting thing is, these issues don’t keep me from loving the game, even though they tend to be frustrating. I remember feeling the same way about Mass Effect, a wonderful game with lots of glitches. One particularly keen review I read of that game had the reviewer seeing those bugs as the sweat on an Olympic athlete. I feel the same way here with L.A. Noire.
So my question is this: at what point do we stop forgiving a game all of its faults and bugs? For other games, I probably would have been fed up after some of those story issues happened, but L.A. Noire has me so enthralled I just kept playing. When do you guys get too fed up with games to continue? What bugs and issues would you consider game breaking? Go!
Alright friends, it’s been a few months since we’ve done a GamerSushi Pop Quiz, so I figured it was time to drop one in the bucket for you piranhas to devour.
Now that some of the huge titles of 2011 have been released (Portal 2, Little Big Planet 2, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2, L.A. Noire, Brink and The Witcher 2), I had some questions on my mind about the nature of hype and how games live up to it. The year is already halfway over, and we’ve had some major surprises and major letdowns to boot. I’m curious how you guys feel about how 2011 is shaping up. At the end, you’ll even have a soapbox opportunity to talk about whatever gaming issue is on your mind.
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. Have at it, gents and ladies. Continue reading Gaming Pop Quiz: Soapbox Edition
Hello, GamerSushi faithful, did you miss me? I know that you guys probably didn’t even notice I was gone for a couple of days, but I was off in Vancouver watching a hockey game (pause for Canada jokes). Unfortunately, this little getaway clashed with the release of L.A. Noire, and I only got to try that out last night. While I’m finding the controls a little too clunky for my liking, the interrogations are super awesome and the facial animations continue to astound me.
Besides L.A. Noire, we’ve also seen the release of the Witcher 2 on PC, and I’ve been hearing rave reviews about it both here and other places. It’s definitely on my list of “must haves”, so I’ll hopefully be able to pick that up soon. Based on the screenshot I used for this article, the game should be titillating in all the right ways.
So what are you guys playing? I know we already have a whole thing about L.A. Noire, but if you’ve got any Witcher 2 thoughts, this is the place to put them. Hit me up with those comments, son!
It’s the temptation all gamers know, deep in their hearts: the desire to ditch all responsibilities and do nothing but revel in the glow of a great game. I think we’ve all been there from time to time (some of us more so than others). In reality, sometimes it’s just easier to sink a whole day into a title, rather than just knocking out little bits of it at a time, even if it’s at the expense of “real life”.
I got to thinking about this topic after our most recent podcast, where we posed the same question in regards to gaming binges and this fall’s releases. I’m actually fairly happy about the Mass Effect 3 delay, because that was a day I was probably going to request off from work. Now that that’s not happening, I’m thinking of taking a vacation day for either Uncharted 3 or Skyrim. Luckily, I’ve still got time to make my decision.
What about you guys? What games have made you take a day off from responsibilities before? What games would you consider doing the same for this fall? Go!
We’ve talked an awful lot on GamerSushi about our gaming preferences before, but I don’t know if we’ve ever asked you guys why you continue to play games, and what got you started on this beloved hobby of ours. I started thinking about this over the weekend while playing through the Mass Effect 2 Arrival DLC, and finding myself missing the Mass Effect universe all over again. It’s like putting on a favorite sweater once winter starts up again. It’s comfortable, warm and familiar all at once.
I’m at the point now where playing video games is as natural as the process of taking off my shoes and khakis after being in the office all day. Just as normal as getting up and preparing breakfast. It’s a part of my routine, inseparable from who I am as a person. If I didn’t have games, I simply wouldn’t be me.
When I consider why it is that I game, it ultimately comes down to escape. Not that I have anything about my life that I’m particularly disdainful of, mind you. I think I just love that feeling of total absorption, where I forget I’m sitting on the couch and playing Metal Gear Solid 3 for several hours straight. I enjoy the momentary flight to some place far away, whether it be a sci-fi world where I shoot aliens or something closer to home where I chase outlaws down on horseback. There’s something about that transportation that sinks its hooks into me and has never let go since I was a kid.
So what about you guys? What is it about games that you love, and that keeps you gaming? When did you first start? Go!
Without a doubt, the biggest story of the past week has been the extensive leaking of highly spoiler-ish and relevant story and level details from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 by the popular gaming site Kotaku. Modern Warfare 3 is easily the most anticipated game of the year, in terms of popularity and, of course, financially, so a story like this would naturally attract tons of attention. It’s easy to see why: Modern Warfare 2 was the biggest game of all time at its launch, now surpassed only by Call of Duty: Black Ops and likely to be surpassed again by Modern Warfare 3. It’s not exactly a mystery why this leak generated such a huge response.
But something bothers me a great deal about this. I think this is a huge story, but not for the reasons that most others do. I think Kotaku erred in leaking these details. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Kotaku commited a very great wrong, one that not only damages Activision and the Call of Duty brand, but also the entire video game industry and its myriad partners, including the world of video game journalism. And the fact that only a select few have even noticed this bothers me even more.
You see, maybe I’m old fashioned, but I truly believe that journalism, even video game and entertainment journalism, is a noble profession with a set of ethics that all who practice it should adhere to. Journalism is there to protect people by exposing lies and keeping the powers that be honest. Reporters take the time to check the facts because we the people don’t have the time and resources to do so ourselves. They are a vital part of this world and one that should be embraced instead of marginalized. Continue reading Why Kotaku Did A Bad Thing
GamerSushi shot first!
I’m a little late in posting this, so my apologies to Nick, who edited it, and all of you that are no doubt going into the shakes from desperation. Like you do. I know that’s how much you like hearing us chat about games and acting the fool.
We recorded this episode back in Star Wars week, so the big portion of the beginning is all about that fair series, and what games we loved that came out of the beloved Star Wars universe. We have a pretty lively discussion about it, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the nerdery.
Other topics of the podcast include the Mass Effect 3 delay, Assassin’s Creed 3 and more. Nick drops in with a game of grades, where we rate some of the goings-on around the industry. So yeah. Typical podcast stuff.
Go on, dudes. Listen, rate and enjoy. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 28: R2-Cast2
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I’m going to forgo my traditional jokes about Portal 2 and instead go right into the meat of this thing because it’s just too damn cool. We all know that Valve are a tricksy bunch, so the fact that Portal 2 has some crazy Easter Eggs shouldn’t surprise you; what should surprise you is how nuanced and intricate all of these are. Games Radar put together a list of 30 Portal 2 Easter Eggs that you may or may not have known about. It should be fairly obvious, but there are spoilers abound in this list.
Some of these secrets I already knew about thanks to the game’s achievements, but a few were new to me, and they’re really indicative of how much Valve wants to reward the diligent player. It’s true that you can play the game and enjoy it without searching for Rat Man’s dens or finding a secret berth, but all of these things really add a nice layer of complexity to what many people probably brushed off as a “puzzle game”.
While most of the fun with Easter Eggs is finding them yourself, sometimes it’s just as interesting to read the collected info all in one place. Have you guys found any of the Easter Eggs, and which ones were they? Are you going to go hunting for some more of them? What’s the craziest Easter Egg (Valve-related or not) that you’ve found in a game? Go! Feel free to get spoilery in the comments if you want to, but be warned if you have not beaten Portal 2.
Source – Games Radar
The Achilles’s Heel of gaming, at least from the perspective of a serious contender as an artistic medium, has always been the lack of decent storytelling. While there are a few great examples here and there that highlight exactly what video games can accomplish if they have ample development time and a strong writer in the design team, gaming has sort of let this facet slip away.
In a recent article on The Escapist, Jonathan Davis digs a little deeper into this issue and points out a few games that have successful narrative structures, mostly through their adherence to Joseph Campbell’s concept of the “monomyth”, or Christopher Vogler’s famous “The Hero’s Journey”. Mr. Davis makes a strong argument that the reason games lack narrative punch is because most gaming protagonists don’t have an internal conflict that needs to be resolved, cutting out the all important step of “Resurrection” where the hero overcomes their personal demons and solves the external conflict.
Since most of the characters we control only confront external obstacles, there’s very little room for development, leaving even the coolest action scenes feeling hollow and uninvolved. Games like Ocarina of Time, BioShock and Braid are all singled out for having stories that actually matter to the player, mostly because they have a satisfying resolution to the hero’s issues.
The whole article is really well thought out and examines video games through the lens of a very tried and true structure that most developers ignore. While we’ve taken a look at the issues games face from a similar standpoint, this gives us a new way of thinking about things. If only game designers would consider this in the future, then we might get some titles with a better focus on what matters story wise. What do you guys think about this? What games do you enjoy that follow “The Hero’s Journey” and are stronger because of it? Go!
Source – The Escapist, Link picture by Justin Cherry
