Category: GamerSushi News

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 31: E3 2011 Edition

The most epic week of the gaming year has passed us by, and there’s certainly enough news to keep everyone buzzing for the rest of 2011. That’s why we fast tracked this week’s podcast, in order to get it out the day after E3 ended. The result is a super-sized podcast that’s fit for one of Skyrim’s mammoth-herding giants.

In it, you’ll hear our thoughts on everything from the ridiculously confusing Wii U announcements to fighting dragons, buildings forts and rips in space-time. After all of that, we embark on a hilarious rendition of Grades, where we evaluate each of the “Big 3” conferences in turn.

Alright, you know what comes next, fools. Listen + Rate + Enjoy. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 31: E3 2011 Edition

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Has an Amazing Opening Cinematic

I know that I’ve been quite vocal in my condemnation of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s hype train and its constant parade of pre-rendered trailers and no solid release date. After three consecutive E3s of all show and no tell, I was starting to get a little ticked off at the constant stringing along that TOR is pulling. Of course, being a gamer, I am a fickle creature and the recently released opening cinematic for The Old Republic is nothing short of mind-blowing. It’s seriously everything I love about Star Wars, condensed into six minutes.

I’m looking forward to watching this video again when I boot up the game, whenever that is. Lucas Licensing should just contract Blur to make a Star Wars movie with BioWare as the writing staff, because every trailer they’ve made have been better than the games they’ve been associated with (case in point: Force Unleashed 2). What do you guys think of the opening cinematic for The Old Republic? Was this sick, or what?

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim E3 Gameplay Demo

I’m not really going to preface this video with too many words, other than these: this Skyrim gameplay demonstration from GameTrailers TV sort of blew my mind when I watched it. You all know that we do our best to stay away from hyperbole on this site (although sometimes we fail at this), but there were pieces of this video that surpassed my imagination for what a video game could accomplish. While the visuals are nothing to scoff at and the combat looks like it’s seen a decent upgrade, it’s the unscripted dragon encounters that left me in awe.

Go ahead, drool over it, and check back in when you’re done.

Thoughts?

Nintendo E3 2011 Presser Breakdown

nintendoNintendo came late to the party this year, holding their press conference this morning as opposed to following tradition and doing it on Monday. With rumors abound about Project Cafe and lots of buzz around the 3DS, Nintendo was poised this year to once again steal the E3 crown. Did they succeed?

Details about their presser are after the jump!
Continue reading Nintendo E3 2011 Presser Breakdown

Sony’s E3 2011 Briefing Round-Up

playstationMicrosoft’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

Battlefield 3 Campaign Gameplay Brings the Thunder

I’m of the opinion that EA really brought the heardcore games at their press conference today whether you’re a fan of sports, shooters or sci-fi RPGs. Sure, the foot-based gameplay in Need for Speed: The Run looked a little wonky, but Mass Effect 3 is shaping up nicely and Battlefield 3 is coming hard, aiming its sights square at Modern Warfare 3. After MW3’s showing at the Xbox briefing, DICE showed off a campaign demo called ‘Thunder Run’.

Those are some of the best looking explosions I’ve seen in a game. From top to bottom this game is looking really tight, and I can’t wait. What do you guys think of ‘Thunder Run’? Does this look like a serious Modern Warfare 3 competitor?

Microsoft E3 2011 Press Conference Highlights

x360Microsoft’s big shindig just went down, and it was kind of crazy. Despite the early leaks, they still manage to pull off a few tricks and bring a lot of Kinect.

Hit the jump to see the round-up!
Continue reading Microsoft E3 2011 Press Conference Highlights

GamerSushi Asks: The Pre-E3 Check-In?

MGS 3Alright, gents. E3 is finally here. And as we’ve discussed most recently, the hype machine is going to be in full effect. As much as it can be a bit grating, it’s still a fine week to be a gamer, and one of my favorite of the year.

I wanted to get a pre-E3 post up, just to let you know some of the things going on during the week. Even though we’re not at E3 (sigh), we’re still probably going to do a fair bit of updating around these parts. During the Sony press conference you can expect a liveblog of the events, so come here if you want to comment and enjoy some fun minute-by-minute updating of the opening press event. We’ll also be posting some recaps of the Nintendo/Microsoft press conferences once they’ve happened. In addition, there will probably be a daily recap post to discuss the cool news that didn’t make individual posts.

Personally, I’m most interested to see Project Cafe from Nintendo’s press event on June 7th. Rumors are swirling like crazy still, but it seems fairly certain from reports that it’s going to sport a touch screen controller. Other rumors speculate that the system itself will be portable, and could feature a screen as well… which is interesting, to say the least. Other cool confirmed stuff includes the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which is going to include Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 and Peace Walker. Konami is also going to release Zone of Enders 1 and 2 in HD – and all of these are going to see both PSN and XBLA releases. Pretty cool, huh?

The tricky thing about E3 is that there’s going to be way too much stuff to post about. And as we’re not really a gaming news site and more of a gaming conversation site, I think it’d be cool for you guys to let us know what games you’re most excited to talk about. As updates/trailers, news and such come flying in, we can be sure to post about those games so all of us can come back here and wag our tails about them a bit. Yes, in this analogy we have somehow become dogs.

So yeah, tell us what you’d most like to discuss once the news goes up, and we’ll do our best to placate you gents and gals.

Uncharted 3 Co-Op Trailer Takes the Fight to New Heights

It goes without saying that Uncharted 3 is one of this year’s most anticipated titles, but I’m going to say it like a dork anyway because that’s what I do, and it makes for a decent introductory sentence. While Naughty Dog has dutifully shown us glimpses of both single player and multiplayer, one aspect of Uncharted 3 that has been fairly under wraps has been the co-op aspect.

Luckily for all of us slobbering Drake fans, they released some brand new footage for co-op on Spike TV last night, in the form of this entertaining Uncharted 3 co-op trailer. I’ll let you watch it for yourselves, but I will say this: vertical shootouts. Yup.

So, thoughts? Can’t this game just come out already?

Do Games get Announced too Early?

the old republic announced too early

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?

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 30: The Whites Are Coming

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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E3: Stripping out the Hype

Brink

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?

Punching Snakes

Today’s WTF: Call of Duty Elite Will Add A Monthly Subscription

Call of Duty Elite

In a move that’s sure to raise eyebrows, Activision Blizzard (via the Wall Street Journal) have announced that they will finally try to add the long-rumored monthly subscription to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 when the game launches this fall. While the exact services and price are still being discussed some portions are suspected to be things like in-depth stats-tracking and a Facebook-like webpage.

Call of Duty Elite will not be mandatory, at least not at this juncture, as Activision confirmed that non-subscribers will still be able to play online, but the company is being very hush-hush about what capabilities the hold-outs will have. Call of Duty Elite purchasers will get access to post-launch map packs as part of their subscription.

Call of Duty is one of the only video game franchises that can pull this off, having an enormous player base that seems content to drop sixty plus dollars on the titles every year. Call of Duty Elite is said to be an enormous investment for Activision, despite the fact that similar services are provided by Bungie for the Halo franchise for free.
Continue reading Today’s WTF: Call of Duty Elite Will Add A Monthly Subscription

EA’s Pwned Takes a Look at Battlefield 3

Despite my earlier reservations with the overuse of the military theme in modern first person shooters, I just can’t deny that Battlefield 3 is looking pretty dang awesome, with the Back to Karkand expansion pack forming the icing on that cake. EA’s online series Pwned went out to DICE in Sweden to interview a few of the staff members about their work on the game and take a look back on the Battlefield games of the past. It’s crazy to compare Battlefield 2 to 3 and how much of a graphical difference there is.

Since this video comes from EA, it’s kind of a “how awesome is your game, so awesome” type of thing but it does give us a nice behind-the-scenes look at Battlefield 3. I thought I would share this with you guys because I know a few of you are looking forward to this game, though perhaps not as much as I am. How do you think Battlefield 3 is shaping up?

Hindsight: Looking Back at Dragon Age II

Dragon Age 2

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

Who’s Going to Come Out Ahead at E3 2011?

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!

Who is going to come out on top at E3 2011?

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Filling out the Party: Friends that Game?

KOTOR Party

One of the inevitable consequences of doing something as a career is that it will eventually worm its way into your personal life as well. I suppose this is all fine and dandy if you do something like play video games or landed a role being professionally awesome somewhere, but that’s not always the case. A good chunk of my job pertains to social media and how to use it. In monitoring online conversations, I’ve found that I tend to treat my own Facebook and Twitter accounts the same way at times, separating things out into their proper places.

Something odd I’ve found is that over time, I’ve come to view Twitter as the place where I post about video games, and Facebook is for most of the other stuff. I realized that the reason I do this is simply because not that many of my real life friends are gamers. Sure, there are those that would classify themselves as gamers, but that means that while they may play games like Red Dead Redemption on a whim because it’s $20 at GameStop, most of the rest of their gaming is tied up in sports games or the occasional bout of Call of Duty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disparaging their tastes in gaming. But I simply don’t connect with that kind of gamer, as it’s only a fairly casual interest on their part. For as much as gaming has grown over the years, I still find that I’m a closet gamer around many of my real life friends. It’s not so much that there’s a stigma associated with it (although sometimes that is the case with a few individuals), but just that I know it won’t really help us connect. I can really only name a handful of people I see on a regular basis that get why KOTOR changed my life or why I went to GameStop at midnight to go pick up L.A. Noire, or Portal 2, or what have you.

So, I guess I wanted to ask you guys: do your friends game? Are they just as into video games as you are? If not, how does it tend to affect your real life relationships? Go!

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 29: Colluders

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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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Reveal Trailer Drops the Bombs

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?

The Missing Games of E3s Past

Spec Ops: The Line

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?