Category: Gaming Theory

Gamer Conversations: Mario

mario1Welcome to a new GamerSushi feature, Gamer Conversations, where Anthony and I attempt to actually have a civil conversation without the GameCop/LameCop or other personas. These are just casual talks about some of our favorite gaming icons, ideas or stories. Best of all, you guys get to join in when it’s all done.

Today’s topic: Mario. He’s everyone’s favorite plumber, and has been a thing of legend amongst gamers for decades now. The most interesting part of this Nintendo mascot is that he means something a little different to everyone.
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Dude, Where Are My Genres?

marioThe more I look at this generation of video games, the more I grow perplexed and a bit worried about what gaming is turning into. No, not that games are somehow becoming lame or less fun. But more in the sense of the quickly disappearing idea of video game genres.

Allow me to explain. When I first started playing video games in the mid 1980’s, there was really only one main genre: the 2D sidescrolling platformer. Super Mario Bros. defined this. While we always had things like Pac-Man and such, the image of Super Mario Bros. and what it stood for as a game was synonymous with the idea that people young and old alike had in mind when thinking of video games. Over time, this idea grew to encompass all kinds of different types of video games, including sports, shooting, puzzle and even fantasy role-playing games.
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Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil Coming to PSN

mgsOk, considering that I’ve been wanting to play these games for the last few months, this news is just awesome. For you PS3 and PSP owners, a recent ESRB ratings search shows that Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil are coming to the PSN Store for download! Yes, the original honest-to-goodness PlayStation titles.

I’ve been on a bit of a classic gaming kick recently and since I learned the other month that I misplaced my MGS disc, this is definitely a welcome surprise. The original Metal Gear Solid is still to this day one of my top five favorite games of all time, and playing it on my PSP while I travel over the summer is definitely going to be a bonus.

Is anybody else excited about this? Have you ever lost or misplaced an old game that you really wanted to play again?

Source- ESRB

Developer Talk

valveWe’ve all got our favorite developers when it comes to video game makers. Dudes that we really look up to, respect, or perhaps want to be in the world of our favorite pastime. Whether we’ve been following them for years, or gained newfound love of them due to a recent title, we hinge on nearly everything they do and say.

For me, two of those developers would be Bungie and Valve. Valve has yet again re-solidified that position after their recent bought of TF2 blog posts in the light of the leaked “Meet The Spy” video. Seriously, they’re hilarious. Anywho, it got me thinking: if you could ask your favorite developer one question, what would it be and why?

I would probably talk to either Valve or Bungie and get their thoughts on multiplayer balance, because both of them seem so darn good at it. What about you guys?

Modern Warfare 2 Details From Game Informer

modern-warfare2Got the newest issue of Game Informer in the mail today, and I was pleased to see that this issue’s cover story was a first look at Modern Warfare 2, from Infinity Ward. Considering we’ve had naught but two tiny teasers to go on so far for this game, I was instantly excited to tear it open and read away.

While there’s no real earth shattering news about the game, there are a few details that have been confirmed by the developers. For one, there doesn’t seem to be a co-op mode for the single player campaign, however, there will be a new co-op mode called Special Forces. This mode thrusts the player into crazy scenarios (a la Mile High Club from CoD4) built for co-operative play with some buddies.

In addition, Modern Warfare 2 continues the story of the first game, taking you to the snowy regions of Russia as well as the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan and will be about 8-10 hours long, about the same amount as CoD4. Enemies will carry modifiable weapons, much like foes might in multiplayer. Also, there will be lots of destructible props within the environment, many more than in previous entries.

All in all, while there’s nothing to really get pumped about, it’s cool to hear more about Modern Warfare 2. I’m really pumped about Special Forces mode, as it is full of the kinds of scenarios that Infinity Ward couldn’t fit in the story. The one in the magazine featured commandos storming a shower room, decked out with riot shields as enemies fired down from above. It looks awesome.

So, who else is pumped about this game?

A Gamer Growing Older

g_simpsonAs I get older and grumpier (which some people did not think that was possible, but I got skills) I find myself changing in the way I play and look at games. I love them, but I don’t feel the need to rush out and get something on the first day or to play it over and over trying to get 100% completion. I just don’t have the time anymore or the energy.
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Rumor: New Metal Gear Game?

kojimaAh, Hideo Kojima. You’re a little rascal. You like to make crazy cut scenes, pretentious dialogue, awesome action and things that tease your loyal followers. Take this new announcement Web site from Hideo Kojima, for instance. It appeared sometime last week and has a mysterious countdown, a field, some lightning, and what appears to be the number “5” (or the letter S) splashed across it.

However, it seems some Metal Gear Solid fans have done some digging around, and the source code for the site shows that the timer runs out on June 1, the day of the Microsoft E3 press event (Sony’s is on June 2). A Microsoft Metal Gear game, perchance? Also, looking at the meta keywords reveals the words “next” “metal gear” and “mgs”, though nothing that says “mgs5”.

So, what does this all mean? While Metal Gear Solid 4 was the last entry into the Solid Snake story, I wouldn’t put it past Kojima to keep the series going, only with a new and rebooted storyline with some different characters. What do you guys think?

Source- Kotaku

Today’s WTF: Nintendo Likes to Tease

nintendo-skirtI know, harping on Nintendo for not making many hardcore games lately is a little old hat, but they just make it so darn easy to pick on them sometimes. Especially when they say ludicrous things. Take these recent comments from an interview with Denise Kaigler, Nintendo’s VP of Corporate Affairs, which insinuate that Nintendo is totally fine with the teasing relationship they’ve created with their disgruntled fanbase.

But absolutely, I will give you that hardcore gamers have an insatiable appetite for everything Nintendo, and we love that! We love that. When we get to a point where core gamers say, “OK, Nintendo, enough! We don’t need any more games from you guys….” None of us wants to be put in that position, right?

Oh, certainly not Nintendo. I know I hate being bombarded with lots of great gaming options to choose from. Hit the jump for the rest of the ridiculousness.
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Gaming Obsessions

warcraft3I think I need an intervention. I have this problem, you see. Sometimes, I get stuck playing a game for months on end, not because it’s ridiculously fun or anything, but because I become obsessed with getting good at it. I don’t know why, but I have this fixation with certain games where I need to become better at them, even after the game isn’t nearly as fun as it once was when I started playing.

I suppose this is an obsession. Right now for me, I’ve been doing this with Halo Wars. It’s a good game, and I still have fun, but I spend more energy on trying to come up with the right build order than really enjoying what’s there. I think this happened for me with Halo 2 as well, and Warcraft 3 before that. Games like Halo 3 and Counter-Strike have never been bogged down like that, but for some reason, those other titles were.

So what about you guys? Has a game’s fun ever been obscured by a want to be better at it? Or have you been obsessed with a game in general?

The Boldest Series Of All Time: Final Fantasy

final-fantasyVideo game sequels are so different from movie sequels. Video games have the advantage of trying new things out, listening to what worked and what didn’t and then forging ahead with that knowledge in mind. Movies could do that, but clearly, they choose not to. The point of this is that some game sequels are way out there compared to the originals.

The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a prime example, as is Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. Both were sequels to very successful games and both were met with a tepid response. Oh, sure, you will find someone who will try to tell you that both games were the actual pinnacle of each respective series, but that same person probably thinks they understand David Lynch’s movies…and they don’t. Trust me.
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GameCop Vs LameCop #6

GameCop vs. LameCop is a feature where Anthony and I argue about video game issues, playing the role of either the GameCop or the LameCop as we do so. We switch roles each time. The GameCop has your best interests as gamers at heart, while the LameCop is just what he sounds like: a total loser.

This week, we tackle several issues including multiplayer in single player games, Nintendo’s lackluster GTA: Chinatown Wars sales and E3 predictions.

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Bioshock 2 Multiplayer Details

bioshock2Once again, a case of a game having multiplayer that doesn’t exactly need it in the first place. When Bioshock came out, there was a group of people that, as great as the game was, wanted multiplayer for some reason. I’m not sure what exactly they expected, but I for one love playing great single player games and thought that Bioshock was a perfect example of that golden age of gaming done right.

Well, it seems that the 2K Games dudes are going to deliver a multiplayer experience for the sequel, but luckily, it sounds like they’re going through a lot of work to do it, rather than just throwing everybody in Big Daddy suits. Apparently, each player is going to play a plasmid test subject during the Fall of Rapture. So, basically, the multiplayer helps add to the lore and mythos of the game series as a whole.

If Bioshock 2 has to have multiplayer, it’s probably better that they do something like this that builds more layers onto the story. Hopefully though, the mode doesn’t turn out to be stupid or take away from development of the single player. What do you guys think?

Source- Kotaku

GamerSushi Asks: Best Games You’ve Never Played?

ff6We all know what some of the greatest games of all time are. We’ve seen the list, we’ve heard the arguments. Heck, we may have even seen friends playing them, so we’ve at least experienced the greatness. But there’s no way we’ve played all of them.

For one reason or another, I’ve missed out on a few of the “greatest games ever” throughout my life. I say that I always want to go back and play them some day, but as I get older and have less free time, this seems highly unlikely. I think for me, the greatest games I’ve never played are Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario World, and the original Half-Life (I know, I know).

I hope that someday I’ll finish all of these great games, but we’ll see what happens. What about you guys? What are the best games you’ve never played?

The Video Game Level Hall of Fame

Levels are the staples of most video games, new and old. Throughout my life, there are video game levels that are so iconic that they have left a permanent imprint on who I am as a gamer. Whether it’s the challenge, the design, the music or the sheer fun factor, the best video game levels manage to be both memorable and entertaining, thrilling gamers for hours on end.

In this new regular feature, The Video Game Level Hall of Fame, we induct a few of our favorite video game levels of all time to an ongoing list. Since there are too many awesome levels from video games past to include, we thought that would be a good way to handle it.

So, here are the first five video game level inductees into our Hall of Fame, in no particular order.
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Today’s Do Want: Awesome Movie Games

fifthelement1-smallAwesome video games based on movies are in rather short supply on the whole. You figure that these two great visual mediums wouldn’t be all that hard to combine, but for some reason the translations across both sides of the line have been rather awkward to say the least, and rather awful for the most part.

That’s why these new screenshots will make you drool and long for game movies that could have been. It seems that over at the Game Artist forums, a friendly competition is underway for users to create video game screenshots based on famous movies. Some of the submissions include Aliens, Hellboy, Harry Potter, Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, and then some. And they’re incredible.

The screenshots are mostly created in Unreal or the CryEngine, and are pretty face melting. Seriously, you’ll wish that these really existed. Hit the jump to see the screenshots.
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Rumor: XBox 360 Full Body Motion Control?

360motionFor the love of Pete, somebody please just make this stop. After some recent rumors that Sony will be introducing motion control at E3 (didn’t they already try and fail at motion control?), it sounds like Microsoft is going to be joining the party and hoping for free money the likes of which Nintendo has enjoyed this generation. That’s right, the rumor is that Microsoft is developing full body motion control for future 360 games.

Supposedly, this will be superior to dongle-waggling in that it translates full body movement. For instance, in fighting games you kick, dodge, duck, and punch and watch it happen on the screen. It is also rumored to have video conference via a webcam, and will even have the ability for people to grab and manipulate things on their screen, a la Minority Report.

So what do you guys think? Are you sick of the motion control yet? Personally, I just want to push some buttons, but I don’t blame these guys for thinking they can make more money this way.

Source- Engadget

GamerSushi Asks: Quick and Sucky?

corThere are rare moments in gaming life that make me stop and say “wow”. I pick up the controller, and I know that I’m playing gaming gold, that what I am experiencing is something new and fresh and fascinating, and I know it within a couple of minutes of gameplay. Then, there are times when the exact opposite happens. When I know that what I am playing is complete and utter crap. And it barely took me long to figure it out.

For me this weekend, that was Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. While I’ve been excited to play this game for months, I was pretty horrified early on when I discovered how shoddy the gameplay mechanics felt, how boring the whole thing was, and how glitchy it was to boot. I mean, hell, they literally use the same exact tutorial from the XBox game (Escape from Butcher Bay) as the intro to this one, shocking you with its outdated graphics. I was really disappointed at how boring the game is, because I really wanted to like it.

So what about you guys? What’s the last game that you played where you knew almost instantly that you didn’t want to play it anymore?

Seething In SimCity

simcity-winceAs newly elected mayor of SimCity (thanks to my Virtual Console) I pledged to finally do what I had never been able to when I originally played this as a kid: create a town with a population of 500,000 citizens. As I write this, I have 460,000 people and things have been running very smoothly…until now.

See, my citizens have developed a case of the dreaded, “We So Stupid” Syndrome. For those of you that don’t know, WSSS is a horrible disease that affects people all over the world, not just in video game simulations. I have used all the land in my city. I have been a decent leader, who built all industrial zones around the edge of town, minimizing pollution. Of course, that didn’t stop the little artificial bastards from bitching about it!

I built all their houses far away, so the only time they would ever enter an area with anything less than pristine air would be…IF THEY WORKED THERE! And if you work in a place that pollutes the air, but rather than get a job at the mall (I built lots of those, too!), you would prefer to blame the mayor for the desecration of the air, which you in fact cause by working there… kill yourself.

No, wait. I need you for the population count. Which brings me to next point: if I build a residential zone, I want houses built there, not schools or hospitals! All I want is to cram enough of these little morons into the limited space I have available to me (apparently, invading the neighboring towns is out of the questions) in order to get to the half million mark to get that damn Mario statue I have always longed for. And these fools decide to build 14 hospitals and 12 schools, including 2 hospitals right next to each other!

Well, I certainly hope there weren’t that many sick or enfeebled people in 13 of those hospitals because I got a little trigger happy with my bulldozer and kinda demolished them all. Course, my little resiliant Sim-tards decided to rebuild one of them right in the same spot. I felt like the Joker in The Dark Knight, walking out of Gotham County General, tapping that detonator. Eventually the mooks learned their lesson. And as for those schools, well…that was just fun. Don’t worry, I left one of them standing. Too bad it’s all the way on the other side of the river! Good luck with that commute everyday!

sim3-winceSpeaking of commutes, when you to a certain point, the Sim-jerks start getting uppity and demanding things. “Residents Demand A Stadium” started flashing on the bottom of the screen. Well, sure they do. But that’s going to raise the tax rate and if it dares hover anywhere over 3%, they start tea bagging each other! I mean, throwing tea parties. Or something. Then they wanted an airport. Now, I am not a cruel leader. I like to think of myself as a benevolent dictator. So I granted them their airport. Hell, can’t be bad for growth and business right?

Wrong. Literally 2 minutes later, a plane crashed. So either I built my airport just before happy hour ended or I have terrorists running around my city, which is a giant problem since I didn’t build any fire departments. And we all know fire departments is how you fight terrorism. So I had to lock the city down for a bit, demolish the nuclear power plants in order to prevent any yellow cake from getting stolen and then I realized I had better destroy any bakeries as well, because I am pretty sure they have yellow cake, too.

Crisis averted, I think. I saw one of our planes take off and fly over the city, so I am going to assume that was my personal army on its way to Borat’s country to deliver giant cans of whip-ass to anyone who speaks a different language. With any luck, I will manage to sardine some more Sim-fools into my city and get that Mario statue and finally achieve a boyhood dream. Wow…games sure do make you feel like a loser sometimes, but God, is it worth it.

Anyhow, what’s the hardest you’ve ever worked for an in-game secret?

GamerSushi Asks: Would You Rather?

Summer is almost here and it’s time to bust out all the games that you haven’t finished yet. I figured that means it’s time for another Would You Rather.

In Would You Rather, I simply ask a series of questions, and you follow up with your answers. 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.

However, if your answers suck, there will be zombies marching upon your abode. Zombies spitting swine flu. So yeah, you’d better make it good.

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GamerSushi Asks: Longest Favorite?

csMy favorite game seems to always be switching. I’m not talking about favorite of all time, but rather, my current favorite. A few months ago, it was Left 4 Dead, and right now, it’s Team Fortress 2. For a time it was Halo Wars, and for another time, it was even Valkyria Chronicles. I cycled through each of these relatively quickly, considering my normal habits.

Whenever I get into a game, I really sink into it for months at a time, unable to let go of its pixely goodness. I tend to become obsessed with it, playing it several nights a week with room for nothing else. And then suddenly, I get completely sick of it out of the blue and I don’t even want to play it anymore. However, the game that was able to shy away from this the longest had to have been Counter-Strike or Halo 3. To this day, I could still pick either of those games up.

What about you guys? Which favorite game of yours has lasted the longest as your favorite, and which games did you grow quickly sick of? Go!