GamerSushi Asks: What Genres Do You Suck At?

sucking at marvel vs capcom 3

How’s your holiday weekend going, GamerSushi-ites? Me, I’ve been tucking into the Gears of War 3 beta again after doing a marathon Portal 2 session where I polished off the whole game, both single and co-op. I’m pretty sure that we’re going to do a “What Are You Playing” sometime this weekend, so we’ll table that discussion for later. Segueing from that, I am planning on checking out Mortal Kombat soon, which frightens me mostly because fighting games are one of the genres that I totally suck at.

To be totally honest, in a multiplayer standpoint, I’m really only good at first person shooters. Even though I’m loving the Gears 3 gameplay, I’ll admit that my Kill/Death ratio is pretty terrible, with one often outpacing the other (guess which one). The same thing goes for real time strategy games, where I can maybe hold my own in a campaign or a comp stomp scenario, but once I get out into the wild, everything just goes right down the tubes.

All that pales in comparison to how badly I perform at fighting games like Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Tekken and the like. I’ll maybe win the odd round, but more often than not I’m getting Hadoukened back to last week.

It’s rare that anyone admits that they’re bad at games, but we’re all friends here, so go ahead and let us know what genres you aren’t that great with. Fighting, racing, shooting? Drop them comment bombs, yo.

The Joy of Rediscovering Games

Halo: Combat Evolved PC Version

I was combing through one of the boxes I had been dragging around with me in my various moves in the past year and was pleasantly surprised when I found my copy of Halo: Combat Evolved for the PC. I have Halo for the Xbox, true, but this version of it is a little more rare, almost to the point of mythical status. I put that sucker in my laptop and found out that I can run it, so I’ve been playing through that the last couple of days and having a blast.

Previously, a similar thing happened when I found a GameBoy Color and a copy of Pokemon Red which rekindled my Pokemon obsession, so I was wondering if anything similar has happened to you guys. I know that in the day and age of digital distribution, where publishers pimp out older games to prey on our nostalgia, finding older games is easier than it has been, but happening upon a treasured game from your youth and the proper system to play it on is nothing short of a miracle.

So what about you? Have you stumbled onto a game that you thought was lost? What was it? Go!

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 26: Nintendo Power

Another week, another podcast. This week’s cast covers the big happenings from last week: namely, the rumors of Nintendo’s new console, as well as the massive-but-actually-less-massive-than-everyone-first-though Portal 2 ARG. We actually kick things off a little differently in this episode, starting first with the game of percentages.

After all of that riveting discussion (and my consequent victory), we dive into a lengthy conversation about our video game level bucket lists, and the levels we think everyone should play before they keel over. I’m curious to see if you guys like the format of the game first, or if you like it the way it’s been. Let us know!

No podcast will be out next week, since it’s a holiday weekend and all. Which saddens me, as it means we’ll have to wait that much longer before giving our Portal 2 impressions.

So, listen. Then rate. And of course, enjoy. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 26: Nintendo Power

Alleged Console Port Causes Portal 2 Backlash

Portal 2 hug

File this under “This is why we can’t have nice things”. Apparently, the Alternate Reality Game that Eddy posted about earlier, along with DLC already available on the day of the game’s launch and rumors of the game being a console port has prompted some raging Metacritic users to emancipate Portal 2 from any true Metacritic User Rating by lowering it’s score. Currently, the game sits at a 6.9, which is far lower than expected from such a hotly anticipated game.

So what exactly is the cause? As 1UP is reporting, the disappointment that the aforementioned ARG was a ploy to get people to buy/play Steam games, along with the alleged short length of the game (I guess they aren’t counting the co-op in this) and the -WAIT FOR IT- “obvious console port clues” was just too much for these monsters to bear. A cursory scan of the comments reveals much hatred for Valve, the likes of which not seen since the days of Left 4 Dead 2.

Just for fun, here’s a quick sampling of some of the comments:
Continue reading Alleged Console Port Causes Portal 2 Backlash

How I Ruined RPGs with the Internet

Gamers come in all sorts of different flavors, and I’m not just talking about casual and hardcore. There are some who don’t play single player, some who only play single player, and then there are the kinds that give game designers of any type nightmares. I think I’m probably in the last category, specifically when it comes to Western RPGs. Given that games in those genres these days have branching stories, multiple conversation outcomes and more hidden bonuses than you can shake a stick it, it tends to drive OCD completionists with a lot of time on their hands (e.g. me) crazy.

That’s when I turn to the most forbidden of texts, the horrible tome know as the “FAQ”. Deep within the dark recesses of the Internet, I find my brethren, people who restart dungeons because they missed one chest after defeating whatever horrible creature inhabits that cave. These are the people who don’t play RPGs for the story or the characters or the experience, but rather to accrue every possible trinket and stat bonus the game has to offer. We can leave no stone unturned, no party companion un-romanced, and we do so by exploiting the game to its maximum. Not through exploration or discovery though, but by distilling it down to the most bare bones, no frills, maximum return type of experience. This is how I’ve come to destroy any Western RPG I’ve played.
Continue reading How I Ruined RPGs with the Internet

GamerSushi Asks: Portal 2 Roll Call?

Portal 2

Gentlemen and gentleladies, the day is upon us. The day we’ve all been waiting for. The game that we’ve been thinking about for the last two years. SOCOM 4. Wait, nevermind. Mortal Kombat 9, maybe?

Oh. Right. Portal 2. That one. Yeah, I guess that’s on shelves now too, eh?

Kidding aside, I have just returned home with my copy of Portal 2 on the PS3, which, as we all know, comes with a handy dandy Steam key to unlock it on the PC as well. This coincides perfectly with the new PC I’m building this weekend. Right now, the plan is to play the Portal 2 singleplayer component on the PS3, and then switch over to co-op on my new PC once I’m done, since I prefer the headset to the PS3 headset by leaps and bounds. Also, it’s going to be very pretty, I’m sure.

So, I figure it was time for a roll call. Portal 2 is out now on multiple platforms. Do you have it? What platform did you purchase it for? Want to play some co-op? Let’s have some fun.

Gaming Press Gets Firsthand Look at Skyrim

Skyrim Dragon

Skyrim, oh Skyrim. Why you got to look so fantastic?

It seems that the gaming press got an awesome firsthand look at one of this year’s most anticipated releases, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, over the weekend. Multiple outlets are talking about how awesome the game looked in motion, how impressive the new engine was, and the overall improvement of the game’s interface and even NPC interactions. Let it be known that I hate these people for getting to see this game so early.

My favorite preview of the lot would have to be the write-up that Joystiq did. Inside, you’ll find information about how alive the towns looked with NPC activity and the way that combat works (each hand is mapped to a different trigger). However, I think the most curious part of the previews would have to be the description of the dragon attack, which Bethesda swears is completely unscripted.

From the VG247 preview:

Howard made a point by saying that the game’s dragon fights are real-time.

“The dragons, I promise you, are unscripted. I don’t know what he’s going to do, I don’t know where he’s going to go. They are our big boss fights,” he says.

OK, so imagine the cougar from Red Dead Redemption… except it’s a mother effing dragon. Yeah.

Anyway, these previews got me even more jazzed up to get a taste of Skyrim this fall. What are your thoughts?

Source – Joystiq and VG247

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 25: Inspiring Gaming

Here’s Episode 25 of the podcast. Sadly, it was recorded a week ago, which means it doesn’t have any of the juicy discussion about Nintendo’s rumored new console or Valve’s ARG. But do not fret! Those issues are in next week’s podcast.

However, we do cover a host of wonderful topics in this week’s edition of the GamerSushi Show, including our most inspirational games, Sony versus Anonymous and sex in video games. Steamy.

Also, we tried to get through this podcast without making a “nice” joke – so I hope that makes SOME OF YOU happy.

So yeah. Listen up. Rate it. Like it. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 25: Inspiring Gaming

Battlefield 3 Full Length Fault Line Trailer is the Best B-Day Gift

How sweet of DICE and EA to drop the full length Battlefield 3 Fault Line trailer a few days early so it coincides with my Birthday. I know this is just a small coincidence, but let me have this, damn it. Following up on the previous three trailers I posted for BF3, this twelve minute numbers shows the action in its entirety with the cuts being reserved for getting you to the action quicker as opposed to just teasing the juicy bits. Enjoy.

Even though we’ve seen most of this before, it still looks amazing. Sure, the dialogue and voice acting are a little ho-hum and the AI of the enemies seems pretty basic, but for an Alpha build DICE really have the destruction mechanics and the graphics nailed down. Are you guys still pumped for BF3?

Player Investment in Multiplayer: A Necessary Evil?

gears of war 3 beta unlocks

The Gears of War 3 beta is coming out next Tuesday, and I get to partake in it thanks to my holding onto the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm. As I was checking out the Gears of War 3 Beta Featurette that Eddy posted a few days ago, I noticed that Epic Games has taken a cue from their fellow developers and added a bit of player customization into the game, namely the ability to paint your weapons with a variety of colors (and a few other treats as well, I’m sure).

In an age where the game trade in business cleans up and publishers are trying to get people to hang onto their games, player investment in multiplayer has become a predictable addition to any big budget title. While Battlefield 2 was the first game I can think of that pioneered this (and I’m holding to that), Call of Duty 4 brought this out in a huge way. Even Halo has had a bit of that with the different armor pieces in Halo 3, and went whole hog with it in Reach.
Continue reading Player Investment in Multiplayer: A Necessary Evil?

GamerSushi Asks: Can You Attach a Number to Art?

Homefront

Ouch. Someone might be sore from a few reviews.

While this post is not going to be another in the inexorably long discussion of whether or not games are art, it does apply to the discussion about how we view art in general. You see, THQ EVP Danny Bilson recently shared some thoughts with IGN about Homefront’s review scores. When asked what he thought of them, Bilson had this to say:

If we were universally panned, I would say “Yeah I guess it didn’t work.” I think the idea of 50 reviews that are so radically spread says that we made a game that has a point of view and that you might even argue is controversial…

Do I prefer that it’s controversial? No, I’d prefer if everybody in the world loved it. But there are 20+ reviews that are over 80, there are some haters, and there are some mid-range ones. Do I read them all to see what we can do better next time and have every review be 100? Of course, our goal is always that. What I will say pretty clearly is the game is not a “71.” You can’t apply math to art.

I haven’t played Homefront, so I’m not going to comment on whether or not Homefront is in fact art, or not. However, this does bring an issue up about how video games are reviewed and scored. Do you guys think that in an artistic medium, it’s alright to attach hard numbers to these games? I mean, Shadow of the Colossus has a 91 attached to it on Metacritic, which to me just seems silly for something that I actually do consider art.

So what do you guys think? Go!

Source – IGN

Valve’s Impressive Portal 2 PotatoFools ARG

Portal 2 ARG

Wow. I’ve seen some impressive Alternative Reality Games before (namely, ILoveBees by Bungie leading up to Halo 2), but Valve’s new endeavor, PotatoFools, has certainly taken the cake… no pun intended.

If you’re unaware, Valve launched the Potato Sack pack of indie games on April 1st. It includes 13 games, features a few Portal 2 themed levels for those games and even some Portal 2 content for Team Fortress 2. However, a few users started noticing something weird about the updates for each of the indie games. A little bit of digging turned up a lofty and epic ARG straight from Valve.

I can’t even begin to describe how everything has gone down, so you should check out the PotatoFools ARG thread over on the Steam Forums for the full break down of all the events since April 1st. Needless to say, it’s absurdly impressive. We’re talking cross game clues, passwords, messages from Gabe Newell himself, anonymous e-mails from employees, a special clue hidden on the side of a building in the Netherlands, a surveillance camera watching the forum user that found the clue, secret frames referencing top ARG players in the newest Portal 2 trailers… and that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface.

The point of all of this? Nobody really knows, although speculation right now is that it’s pointing towards an early release of Portal 2 on Steam for this Friday. Who knows if that’s the case, though.

The funny thing is, I happen to be pals with Matt “LordNed” Hoffman, one of the main driving forces behind collecting information for the ARG (you’ll see him referenced in the thread quite a bit). I asked him what the current status is, and he had this to report:

Several ARG administrators are gone. A couple are acting strange, giving cryptic hints that translate about to “Please help she’s killing me”, a POTATO logo was updated to show a figure inside a portal. A whiteboard states that two people are dead, GLADOS took over the wiki and has control over it.

Yikes. So what do you guys think of all this craziness? Has anyone been following it?

Source – Portal 2 ARG thread on the Steam Forums

Magicka: Vietnam DLC Hoists Me By My Own Petard

magicka vietnam dlc review

Fresh off my little essay on how war gaming needs a break, I decided to flex my hypocrisy muscles and try out Magicka: Vietnam, the new war flavored expansion for the co-op monster slaying fest. The neat thing about Magicka: Vietnam is that only one person needs to have the DLC; everyone else can join on them and play through the levels, although they don’t get access to the fatigue and helmet wearing wizard skin. Kitted out with an American flag staff and my trusty M16A1, I hopped into a Huey and prepared to face the hordes of Goblin-Cong that no doubt awaited me in the jungle ahead.

Magicka: Vietnam takes the crazy spell-casting insanity of the main game and plants it firmly in a battlefield setting, giving all your enemies firearms and having you fight alongside infantrymen. You can use a gun, much like the M60 in the main game, and you can duck behind cover, a replacement for the block move that was rarely used. If you’ve played Magicka proper, you can pretty much guess how the expansion plays, but add a rocking 60’s soundtrack and some summonable napalm strikes and you’ve got a great recipe for a few awesome hours doing co-op. The expansion includes one scenario based mission and one survival map, but they can be replayed for quite a while as you try out the new guns, and it’s always fun to see how many goblins you can nail in one napalm hit.
Continue reading Magicka: Vietnam DLC Hoists Me By My Own Petard

Gears of War 3 Beta Featurette

The Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta kicks off to full effect in just two weeks, so that means it’s time for Epic to start a bit of a pre-roll on the hype train.

That train kicks off with a new beta featurette titled Dedicated Execution. As much as I sometimes ignore these kinds of things, this one actually shows off lots of brand new multiplayer footage. Interestingly enough, there seems to be an emphasis on melee combat, which is a cool enhancement for the Gears series, especially given the penchant for curb-stomping that it’s known for.

While I’ve enjoyed Horde mode more than anything else about Gears of War’s multiplayer, this looks pretty fun. The game drops in September, which will probably be here before we know it.

Thoughts?

Why War Gaming Needs a Break

war gaming needs a breakAt this point in my gaming career, I think I’ve taken back the city of Stalingrad more times than I can count. I’ve fought bad guys in Europe, in space, and saved the world as we know it, all from the view of a lowly grunt in the military. Playing a video game from the perspective of the military is old hat, yet it’s a well that the industry keeps going back to. It’s easy to find an enemy and give your players a reason to go around the globe using all the latest weaponry (or period specific weaponry, depending on the setting), but the thrill is starting to wear out.

I’m ready for developers to move on from the fascination with the armed forces, but the gaming public needs to be on the same page. As long as Call of Duty is the top seller every year, we’re going to keep seeing the arms race between the big publishers as they try to put out their “CoD killer” by emulating it in every way possible. While I don’t think that Call of Duty is exactly killing the industry, it certainly isn’t helping it. Even Battlefield 3, a game that I’ve made my infatuation with clear several times, is hoping to outdo Call of Duty by making a game that’s scripted beyond belief. What can the games industry do to buck this trend?
Continue reading Why War Gaming Needs a Break

The Video Game Level Bucket List

Psychonauts

Is it just me, or do they just not make video game levels the way they used to? A big part of this comes from the fact that most modern video games work in very compact missions. While it makes for a mostly great experience, at times it’s hard to separate key levels that really stand out.

Everyone’s got their own list of favorite video game levels, and GamesRadar has pitched in with one of their old re-posts, 59 Levels to Play Before You Die. It represents a video game level bucket list, of sorts, and I have to say it’s a pretty good one. They cover everything from Assassin’s Creed’s Acre Cathedral to Chrono Cross, Symphony of the Night, Crackdown, Psychonauts and Twisted Metal 2. They’ve even got videos if you’re too lazy or unable to go play them.

We’ve talked before about some excellent video game levels on this site, but if you had a bucket list of levels to play before someone died, what would the top 5 or 10 be? Make your lists! Go!

Source – GamesRadar

Image Source – Ayem

Would You Rather: Developer Edition

It’s time for another edition of your favorite game, Would You Rather. We know how much you like talking about yourselves and all, and that’s cool, because we like it, too.

Our last Would You Rather covered the beginning of 2011, looking forward to the year’s major releases. This edition is going to be the “developer dream job” version, tackling questions about the video game makers we know and love. Since many of you are aspiring video game developers, we thought it would be appropriate to see where your tendencies lie as potential future leaders in the industry.

For the Would You Rather newbies out there, the game is easy: we ask and you dish out your response. 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.

Don’t let your answers suck, though. There’s a special blacklist going around on our site for sucky comments. Let’s just say those people get fed to the Sarlacc Nick keeps in his closet. And that thing is hungry. So yeah. Answer well. Go!

Continue reading Would You Rather: Developer Edition

Consoles: Killing PC Gaming Softly?

ConsolesOnce again, get your flame suits on, and make sure to seal them up extra tight. I’m predicting a lot of heat in these comments.

In the ongoing super-friendly and always well-mannered debate of PC enthusiasts versus console lovers, both sides constantly engage one another in only the finest of rebuttals and, yes, even buttals. However, Maximum PC has just launched a new salvo against the console in a new article titled 12 Ways Consoles Are Hurting PC Gaming. Not to editorialize too much, but I’m surprised the author didn’t pull a muscle from all the stretching he did in the piece.

While he raises quite a few issues that gaming in general is facing, I think it’s kind of hard to peg all of these on the rise of consoles. Dumbed down sequels? In some cases, perhaps, but that’s going to happen as developers try to make their games have a wider appeal, on PCs and consoles alike. See: Counter-Strike: Source. He also makes some noise about auto saving and bad control schemes, as well.

Anyway, check it out and see if you agree. My question is this: have consoles made gaming better on the whole, or deteriorated it? I don’t mean just from your perspective, but as a whole? I think there are interesting arguments to make on both sides. Go!

Source – Maximum PC

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 24: Vestchewbacca

Gamers! Listeners! Friends!

Hey.

We’re back this week with Episode 24 of the podcast, which takes place entirely in real time. Sort of. We actually had a lot of technical difficulties with this one, but I think Nick did a great job of lessening the horrors that we faced.

Technical gremlins aside, this week we participate in the same tomfoolery that you’ve experienced from us every week, only this time we talk about Quantic Dream versus Rockstar, Square Enix’s fall into irrelevance, the most annoying fanboys in the world and Mass Effect 2’s Arrival DLC. After that, Nick drops a new game of Either/Or on us, and we hit up the PS3’s sales, Nintendo versus Angry Birds and the new trailers we got last week.

So, there you have it. Check it out. Rate it. Enjoy. Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 24: Vestchewbacca

Project Legacy and the Mystery of Social Integration

Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy

I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood again because of the recent release of the single player centric ‘The Da Vinci Disappearance’ DLC. The content itself is quite fun, and a darn sight better than the expansions released for Assassin’s Creed 2. As I’m once again firmly ensconced in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, I decided to look around at the various other properties that UbiSoft has put out for the series, namely Project Legacy, the Facebook game connected to UPlay, and through that, the Assassin’s Creed games.

I can hear you groaning already about the fact that I’m playing a Facebook game, but Project Legacy isn’t Farmville. While the interface is really simple (you spend Action Points on a given sequence to achieve 100% synchronization) it really feels like an Assassin’s Creed game, boasting an Animus-like interface and featuring some shady dealings on behalf of the Abstergo Corporation, who’re putting you through the Project.
Continue reading Project Legacy and the Mystery of Social Integration