Category: Random

Random Encounters III

Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag

Time for another edition of Random Encounters, where I share my thoughts on a variety of subjects that are currently on my mind:

1. I have no proof and only baseless Internet speculation, but I can’t help but wonder if Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag was originally a side-story like the Ezio trilogy and was rebranded as a numbered sequel in order to take people’s mind off the bitter disappointment that was Assassin’s Creed 3. It just seems odd that the AC 4 is in roughly the same time period and is a prequel, which means it might not even forward the Desmond story set in the future. We will have to wait and see, but if that is the case, it’s kind of disgusting, akin to Square Enix allegedly releasing Final Fantasy Versus XIII as Final Fantasy XV. Continue reading Random Encounters III

Video Games In Planet Form Will Make You Wistful

We gamers are a nostalgic lot. We love to be reminded of games from the past, even if that past is from a few months ago. Something about seeing our favorite games in a new way just triggers an ache, one we long to ease by dipping back into a world from our past.

Such emotions were what I felt when watching this cleverly animated video that shows the games we love in a new form: that of an ever shifting planet. Every few seconds, the planet morphs into a new setting, some of which are immediately obvious and others not so obvious. I won’t spoil it as part of the fun is trying to guess yourselves. Check out the video below and see how many you can identify!

[youtube width=”500″ height=”310″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWofgnLXTtk[/youtube]

Today’s WTF: Fans Tear Mass Effect Novel a New One

mass effect deception errors

Canonical consistency in video game universes is kind of a strange thing, given the loose nature of the story-telling and the tendency that most games have to go back and retcon plot points to better fit in with a new direction (Kojima says hello). Out of all the various franchises, Mass Effect has had a rock-solid fictional underpinning, thanks to the tireless work by the writing staff at BioWare. The in-game Codex has hundreds of entries that are incredibly detailed, giving you back story on everything from krogan reproduction to how spaceships prevent static electricity buildup while travelling at lightspeed.

Given the thorough nature of the Mass Effect universe, you might understand why the new novel, Mass Effect: Deception, is getting ripped to shreds for its heaps of inconsistencies. Written by series newcomer William C. Dietz, Deception picks up the story started by previous author and BioWare employee Drew Karpyshyn and manages to fumble even the most basic facts. There’s a Google Document detailing the many ways that Mass Effect: Deception drops the fictional ball, and it’s kind of hilarious to read.

There’s a whole smattering of errors here which makes me wonder who greenlit the novel considering that it glosses over some pretty important parts of Retribution, the previous book. Characters who previously knew each other have magically forgotten that they met, and one character’s neural disorder (a significant aspect of the last novel) is written off as an “adolescent phase”. I’m not typically one to be slavishly adherent to an established canon (except for when Lucas made Mandalorians a pacifist culture), but I have to think that you want to at least maintain some consistency. As you can imagine, there’s quite the poop storm over this book, with one angered fan going as far as to set it on fire.

What do you guys think? Are fans over-reacting? Should the author and the publisher have taken more care? Go!

Source – Errors in ME: Deception

Random Encounters II

Every now and then, I will sound off on a number of topics that are on my mind lately. As the Triple-A titles start rolling in this week, here are a few of the things occupying my grey matter this week:

1. Shadow of the Colossus is such a great, artistic game that makes you feel like a tiny ant next to these behemoths, while also making you feel like a bad-ass when you take them down. But then you feel terrible at seeing such majestic creatures tumble in agony and you question whether or not you are the hero in this game. Also, I love the simplicity of it. Find a Colossi, kill it. That’s it. No fetch quests, no nothing. Want more like this. Can’t wait for The Last Guardian

2. Final Fantasy XIII-2 comes out on the 31st and I am pretty excited. I don’t really care for much for the story of this game, but the time-travel aspect has me more intrigued than I should be. As long as the battle system is improved or unchanged, I know I will enjoy my time with this game. Having spent the extra twenty bucks for the Collector’s Edition, I can’t wait to hear the soundtrack that accompanies it.

3. The SOPA blackout was a success as the legislative momentum has died out, but I would like to see more alternatives to combating piracy from the groups opposed to the bill. The solutions I see most are getting more content in an easier place for people to access, but most things are already plenty easy to obtain. The most pirated movie of the year in 2011 was Fast Five, which clearly shows we are dealing with a species unfamiliar with quality. Fast Five was still successful, but also making the list was Source Code, I Am Number 4 and Sucker Punch, all of which had lackluster revenues. I can’t help but think piracy had something to do with this and I would like to see the brilliant minds of the Internet devise a workable solution to limiting piracy.

4. I drive myself crazy trying to decide whether to trade in a game or keep it. Some are easy: Dead Space 2 and Killzone 3 were fun, but I don’t see myself ever going back to either of them. But Uncharted 3 and Batman: Arkham City are so fun and there are moments I want to go back and relive or in Batman’s case, collect all those Riddler trophies. I always tell myself that I will do it when I have the time and have no other games to play, but will that ever happen again? I have less time every day and more games coming out every week to play. I honestly don’t know what to do.

5. I hear talk about people Occupying E3 for some reason that I have not bothered to pay attention to and all I have to say is: No. Stop it. As ardent a liberal as I am, the Occupy Movement had its place and it raised awareness for the issue of income equality so much that it is being used to damage certain candidates in the Republican Primaries. It was a success. To leverage it into a protest at E3 is just annoying and unimaginative. It’s become a trend and it should be stop before it becomes the political version of a flashmob.

6. Finally, I plan on getting Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii, which releases on April 2nd. It’s only being sold through Nintendo’s website and GameStop. Trying to avoid ever setting foot inside a GameStop again, I went to Nintendo’s site and there is a disclaimer that they will begin shipping at the end of April. The game comes out on the 2nd! WTF! Sorry, Big N, but you just drove me right to GameStop. Why would they make it such a terrible deal to get the game from them? This is Nintendo! Surely they can pull some strings and get better shipping times for people! My only hope is that enough people buy this game that Nintendo decides to bring The Last Story to the U.S. as well.

Well, that’s my take on these topics. What’s your view on any of these? And what else is on your mind? Pull up a chair, pour yourself a nice cup of coffee and let’s just talk.

GamerSushi Asks: Gaming Humble Pie?

Flawless VictoryI’ve got plenty of gaming-related secrets. A few of them I’ve shared before, but some are so embarrassing that I dare not ever let them see the light of day. These include times that I spent hours going about a task the wrong way in an RPG, re-rolling characters and bumping certain games down to easier difficulties because there were no achievements associated with finishing it on Normal. Yup.

And while I won’t speak directly about some of those things, the guys over at Wiki Game Guides have put together a rather humorous (and sadly familiar) collection of the 10 Most Humbling Experiences that a gamer can go through. This list might make you laugh and cry all at once, because it includes getting “perfected” in a fighting game, being asked to switch to Bass in Rock Band and running into the first Goomba in Mario 1-1. Each of those may have happened to me at some point. In a past life. I don’t like to talk about it.

So what about you guys? How many of these things have you experienced? What are some of your biggest gaming shames?

Source – Wiki Game Guides

Eight Video Game Glitches That Will Give You Nightmares

video game glitches

Glitches are part and parcel of any software experience, but there are a few that stand above the rest. The comedy alchemists over at Cracked have put together a list of eight horrifying video game glitches that are sure to terrify the wits out of you. Red Dead Redemption and the notoriously buggy Fallout: New Vegas are on the list but there are a couple on here from games that I never even knew about that are pretty freaky.

The “manimals” from Red Dead Redemption received a lot of attention after the games release and I’ve seen plenty of glitches in Fallout: New Vegas besides the one listed, but the creepy Watson glitch really caught me off guard. The talking bodies from Call of Duty was something I hadn’t seen before either.

Have you guys seen these specific glitches before? Got any other disturbing ones you one to share?

Source – Cracked

GamerSushi Asks: Tackling Life with a New Game Plus

Mass Effect 3

The kinds of features that become commonplace in video games can take on a life of their own over the course of each generation. Things that we couldn’t have imagined a decade ago are now a staple, it seems. Cover-based shooting. RPG elements attached to everything, the list goes on. One of the more recent trends in games would have to be the idea of the New Game Plus.

Granted, this has been around for some time (Chrono Cross had it on the Playstation, for instance), but it’s only been in this generation that we’ve seen it become a fixture. The appeal behind New Game Plus is certainly appealing. Combined with the advent of RPG mechanics, this mode allows players in games like Batman: Arkham City and Mass Effect to take their skills with them into an entirely new adventure, making exciting strides and seeing things from a more powerful perspective than before.

In keeping with this idea, Kotaku writer Lisa Foiles tackles the rather philosophical question of if life had a New Game Plus, how would you replay it? The concept itself is very Groundhog Day, but it’s a fun idea that I’ve thought about from time to time. I know that many of us are still young, but I just thought I’d throw the same question at you guys: how would you handle a New Life Plus feature? Any differently?

Go!

Source – Kotaku

Today’s WTF: Early Versions of Classic Games

Ocarina of Time

While it can be maddening to wait for word on an anticipated game release, it’s probably a good thing that more developers don’t tip their hands too early. Very often in creative processes, the seeds of an original idea morph into something that the creators don’t quite anticipate, both for good and ill.

It seems the same is true with gaming. You see, Cracked has put out a hilarious (and somewhat frightening) list of 6 Baffling Early Prototypes of Your Favorite Video Games. Although you’ve no doubt heard some of the highlights of this list (Super Mario Bros 2 and Halo come to mind), there are others that are downright shocking. Ocarina of Time as an FPS? The original Super Mario involved a gun-slinging plumber? This is the stuff that rocks world views, my friends. And perhaps even socks.

Personally, while I can tend to be an information hound, I have to say that I’m glad that sometimes we don’t know every little detail of development as it’s going down. Think of all the fan overreactions we’d hear about on a daily basis if we saw extremely early iterations of games that more than likely changed over the development cycle.

What do you guys think of this list? Are you glad that developers hold back on what they have to show until closer to release? Or do you wish that they would show us sooner?

Source – Cracked

Today’s WTF: Call of Mountain Dewty Double XP

CoDSome of you may have heard about the new Mountain Dew Call of Duty promotion giving away in-game Double XP time for buying their products. Stuffing your face with bags of Doritos and washing it down with a can of the green can give you up to 90-plus minuets of in-game double XP. Codes on the products can be entered to give you a rank-up edge in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.

Now I don’t know how many of you feel about companies giving in-game goodies for pre-orders or buying the more expensive edition of a game, but this one really takes the cake. Check out the official rules at the link from the top to view the official rules and a table of the time-to-drink ratio.

While 15 minutes of double experience for drinking a 20 oz bottle of Mountain Dew isn’t going to skyrocket you to 15th Prestige, the concept of this promotion is still a giant facepalm to me. With companies like Best Buy and GameStop already doing absurd promotions this new concept seems to be pushing that idea too far. What do you guys think? Is Mountain Dew hitting on a goldmine? Or is this a joke of a promotion? Give me your thoughts!

Source – PC Gamer

GamerSushi Asks: Survival Skills?

JP3

Since gaming news has once again ground to a halt in the wake of PAX, there hasn’t been much to talk about in the gaming sphere. Besides the usual talking points, of course: Skyrim is going to be awesome, is Nintendo ever going to fix the 3DS, etc.

We’ve talked about those things enough, so I thought I’d bring over a fun thread I saw on Reddit, featuring the ultra-hardcore Survival Game. Basically, you just pick which of these three equipment sets you’d like to start with if you were marooned on an island full of hostile dinosaurs a la Jurassic Park. It’s funny, because as much as I’ve played lots of survival games, none of those really asks you to survive in a realistic situation. Many video games don’t simulate that kind of thing very well, and even when they sort of do (like Minecraft), they don’t really require you to do everything the human actually needs to stay alive. Like eat, for instance.

Personally I’d take Option C, if only for the awesome survival book, since I’d be absolutely helpless on my own in the wilderness. It’s funny, because Option A seems the most “video game” to me, but is probably not all that practical. Unless you’re Turok, I guess. What about you guys? Which would you take? Go!

Source – Reddit

Random Encounters

Dragon Age II

When playing video games, all manner of thoughts usually pop into my head. Some are far too graphic to share here and are off-topic besides, but I’ve decided to post my thoughts in a quick-thought format about a variety of topics. Sometimes things don’t warrant a full post by themselves, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still talk about them right? Continue reading Random Encounters

Why I Love Emergent Gameplay

starcraft 2 emergent gameplay

One of the best parts of gaming is finding new ways to make an old favorite fresh and new again. While it’s always easy to play the game that the developers packed into the box, it can sometimes be a rewarding challenge to make new types of games out of an existing framework.

The Halo series are full of some great examples, with things like Zombies, Grifball and many others besides, but this phenomenon is by no means limited to Halo (although the wealth of tools built into the game by Bungie do make it easy to invent your own ways of playing). For example, during a gaming session today, my friends and I cooked up a StarCraft 2-themed drinking game by adding in a bunch of handicaps (like only attacking someone who attacked you first, or not being able to upgrade your units) and game-long missions (using the dance command in everyones base or making someone rage quit). We then dolled out drinks based on whether or not you stuck to your handicaps and if you completed your mission or not. While StarCraft 2 is still a blast for us to play normally, we spent most of the afternoon and a good part of the night playing this game and having a great time.

Over the course of our games, we started talking about how making up your own game within a game is a very old tradition for gamers and can lead to either hours lost trying to make up new things or playing a game you haven’t thought about in months. I know this is kind of a random topic, but have any of you done something similar? Any custom-made gametypes that you want to share?

GamerSushi Asks: Call of Duty and Videogame Vampires?

Game Vampires

While reading Game Informer issue 220, I ran across a section called “Feedback.” In here they list responses from readers and one in particular caught my eye. The response was entitled “Call of Duty: Time Vampire.” What follows is the entry and Game Informer’s response.

“This letter is coming from a previously avid Call of Duty online player. Recently, I’ve begun to actually think about what I’m wasting all these hours of my life on. I decided to pop back in my copy of CoD: WaW, and after getting shot up quite a bit, I quit in frustration. Then I moved back into my comfort zone with my usual gaming selection: Black Ops. I played for a little while and suffered more than my share of frustrating deaths. Then I rage quit and walked outside, thinking about what I had just endured. I asked myself, “Aren’t video games supposed to be fun? Why am I wasting hours upon hours of my life on such a meaningless and even disturbing experience? Why does my kill/death ratio even matter?” I then stepped back and realized that Call of Duty is just a massive waste of time. I went into the barracks option and looked at the amount of time played. It read 10 days, 18 hours, and 34 minuets. Call of Duty, you were like a leech, sucking away at me and my time. I’m glad to be rid of you.”

Matt Bernsdorf
via email

Then GI responded with this:

“So we’re guessing you don’t plan on subscribing to Activision’s new monthly Call of Duty: Elite service?”

So the article hit me in a way that may surprise some people. I felt like this letter was totally worthless, as was the response from GI. I talked about it with my girlfriend and she agreed that the article seemed pointless. Games within themselves are just that, ways to waste time. They are for entertainment, like a movie or a book. They are for you to spend your free time and have fun, two things that the author seems to be re-thinking.

I have spent 8 days 2 hours and 31 minuets playing Black Ops alone. I have had horrible games and been frustrated, but I never consider it an absolute waste of time. I play with my friends and I have fun. To me it seems the author of the letter is not having fun, which leads him to believe that said games are a waste of his time. What I find interesting is that this can be taken to more than just the Call of Duty series and FPS games. I guess MMOs and RPGs are all wastes of time, too. What’s the point? Why should I go for the best weapon or armor? Why should I level up?

I find that it defeats the whole purpose of gaming all together. Perhaps he has grown out of videogames, but I feel he is just being a bad sport. So what do you guys think? Is Call of Duty a total waste of time? Are videogames in general worthless vampires that suck away at us? Give me your thoughts!

Source – GameInformer

GamerSushi Asks: Gaming Shame?

game shameToday, while talking with several co-workers, I mentioned that I enjoy playing video games. This turned out to be a mistake. I was basically the butt of every joke for the next several minutes, and even subjected to statements such as “ugh, you’re a gamer?” and “your poor wife!” In the year 2011, I’m actually surprised this still happens, but it does.

As a nerd, I’m generally used to people teasing me a bit about my hobbies (heck, I’m making fun of myself for it more often than not), but I was pretty confused by the lengths that the conversation went in terms of putting down gaming as a whole. It makes sense to me that there’s a certain stigma attached to the guy that plays nothing but Call of Duty (or any game, not just singling out that series) for 30 hours a week, but I figured gaming is widespread enough these days that it’s just accepted.

For the most part, I let these comments slide off my back, but it did stir me to start a few conversations about it over the course of the day. I was curious if you guys ever still run into this kind of thing in your lives? Do people ever give you a hard time about playing video games?

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You…Reading?

a dance with dragons released

Today is July 12, GamerSushians, and if you’ve been keeping up with the world of fantasy literature for the past six years, this is the day that George R. R. Martin’s long-awaited fifth tome in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance with Dragons, hits shelves. After A Feast for Crows came out in 2005, fans have been waiting on baited breath to find out what has been happening in the world of Westeros and beyond the Narrow Sea.

I just picked up a copy of the book myself; alas, the book is only being released in hardcover right now (at least in Canada) and the cover design doesn’t match that of the preceding books, something that will surely drive me mad until I can get my hands on the paperback copy. I’m a completionist, you see.

With my TV in a less than perfect state (the lamp has either burned out or it’s a more sinister issue), this is the perfect time for me to tuck into the new, massive work of GRRM. Since I’m so enthralled with the written word, I thought I would ask you guys what you’re reading. Are you also devouring A Dance with Dragons? Got some other books that you’re reading at the moment? Anything you consider essential reading that you want to recommend? Go!

GamerSushi Asks: How Are You Celebrating the 4th?

independence dayI know that not everyone here is a good and proper American (Murican), so I know this post isn’t entirely applicable, but I still thought I’d put it out there anyway. After all, our Canadian friends just had Canada Day this weekend, and our friends across the pond probably celebrate distancing themselves from the U.S. 235 years ago.

As of now, my only plans today are to eat a lot of ribs. Seriously, I’m going to two separate parties in which the purpose is to eat ribs. Besides that, I plan on playing a bit of Half-Life 2, Starcraft 2 and watching some Modern Family, which I’ve just recently gotten into. Good times.

So, yeah. On this great day of fireworks (unless you’re in Texas, that is, where the drought is stopping all that), hot dogs and general lazing around, what are you guys doing? What are you playing? How do you normally celebrate on holidays like this? Go!

Would You Rather: Summer 2011 Edition

Oh summer, you have unleashed the full fury of your fireballs upon us. Or at least, that’s the case in Texas. The constant 100+ temperatures are a reminder that yes, we are now fully in the grips of summer’s suffocating heat, which usually means a healthy summer drought of gaming. Or does it?

As such, we thought it was time to drop in with a brand new edition of Would You Rather. This time around, we ask you all kinds of summery questions, just to see how you take the heat. There are a couple of good Sophie’s Choices in there, so try not to hate us too much for the decision-torture.

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 is a special bat that Anthony lugs around in his trunk for people that don’t give good responses. Let’s just say that it is dented and has seen a fair share of action. So yeah, he will hurt you if you don’t answer well. Go!

Continue reading Would You Rather: Summer 2011 Edition

GamerSushi Asks: Summer Movies?

Super 8

There’s not a lot of gaming news going on this week – but who says we have to talk about games all the time?

In the past, one of the (many) things I always loved about summer was going to the movies. These days, my grumpy old penny pincher tends to come out when it comes to seeing blockbusters on the silver screen, but this year seems to have more movies worth seeing than the last few years combined. While I missed both Thor and X-Men: First Class (both of which I’ve heard great things about), I did happen to see Pirates 4 a few weeks back as well as Super 8 this past weekend. The latter of those two really impressed me.

While it’s by no means a perfect movie, Super 8 is a rarity among adventure movies in this day and age for one simple reason – it’s got a lot of heart. Helmed by Steven Spielberg and J. J. Abrams, it reminds me of all those old school classics like The Goonies, E.T., Jaws and a bit of Jurassic Park thrown in for good measure. It’s seriously a ton of fun, but also delivered with great care.

Over the next few months, I hope to see the final Harry Potter film as well as Captain America. So what about you guys, what movies are you looking forward to this summer? Did anyone happen to see Super 8? Go!

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!

GamerSushi Asks: Why Do You Game?

MGS 3 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!