Category: Sandbox

Notch’s Space Epic: 0X10C

Notch

Our love (and the Internet’s at large) affair with Minecraft has been well documented in these parts. While I’m not a guy that actually plays a ton of Minecraft, I consider myself a fan – I’m fascinated by the experiment and totally enthralled by the things that communities produce when they have that kind of free license and creativity. So it should probably go without saying that Notch’s announcement of his new game, 0X10C, is something that I’ve been looking forward to.

If there’s anything to say about 0X10C (besides that bizarre name that I have no idea how to pronounce), it would be that it gives a whole new meaning to the word “ambitious.” As epic as it would be to describe it as Minecraft in space, even that synopsis is reductive. Here’s a quick bit about the plot:

“It’s now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.”

It gets even better than that. A list of some of the features… Continue reading Notch’s Space Epic: 0X10C

Do Multiplayer Games Make us Jerks?

jenova chen journey

Journey was a sublime experience for me, one that was helped along by the presence of a silent other; a compatriot that I could travel with but not share a single form of spoken or written communication with. Aside from musical chirps, player interaction in Journey is severely limited but this didn’t stop my partners from helping me find hidden items or guiding me through the world. Without the incentive to hinder or harm me, were they actively trying to help?

This is what Jenova Chen, designer at thatgamecompany, thinks. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, he posed the thought that the agressive nature of multiplayer games leads to people being dicks to one another. I’ll let him explain his point, though: Continue reading Do Multiplayer Games Make us Jerks?

The Incredible Travels in Journey

journey

With the video game market being so clogged with shooters and other sorts of violent games, it’s kind of hard to forget that the medium can pull off some really serene, beautiful moments. Thatgamecompany, famous for PSN titles like flOw and Flower, return with Journey, a game about, well, taking a walk through a desert to reach a mountain far off in the distance. There’s very little cutscenes and no dialog, but the bang for your buck offered by Journey makes the trip worth it, and then some.

Starting far away from your target as a mysterious, red-robed traveler, Journey chronicles your sojourn through the vast desert and down hills, into caves and across a snowy tundra. The controls for Journey are quite simple, you press X to jump (the longer your scarf the longer your jump) and Circle to do a little shout (hold down for longer shouts). You don’t even really need much else, as Journey is quite elegant in its minimalism. There’s some cool segments like surfing down a dune through a lost city and swimming through the air in a cavern, but these need to be experienced to really understand how moving they are. There are so many things in Journey I wish I could describe, but it would be unfair to spoil these moments for you guys.

Journey is also quite gorgeous, boasting better sand and lighting effects than Uncharted 3, which had the best use of those two elements to date. Journey has an incredible style and the sound design is superb. The sand crunches under your feet, your scarf snaps in the wind, and the distant call of a fellow traveler beckons you closer. The music is haunting and resonant, and only adds to the already surreal mood. Continue reading The Incredible Travels in Journey

50 Ways Assassin’s Creed 3 Will Amaze You

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Assassin’s Creed 3, the first game since the 2009 title to make an acutal numerical leap, looks to be making a lot of impressive changes to the formula. If you’ve been worried about AC3 and whether or not it will breath new life back into the franchise, take heart, because this list of 50 Assassin’s Creed 3 facts posted by Kotaku will give you the biggest of mind boners.

The article goes over all the different features being adding in to AC3 including how the game’s two towns, New York and Boston, will work, and it details the hunting that the player will be able to engage in. It also describes how you can assassinate a bear, and if that doesn’t sound like Game of the Year material to you, you need to get your brain checked.

In addition to these juicy details, there’s also some stuff that only hard-core developers or engine-fanatics would find interesting, like the amount of bones in the character’s faces and that fact that Assassin’s Creed 3 will have “twice the production capacity of the Ezio trilogy”. There’s also a lot of stuff about how new protagonist Connor will strike from the trees and how he will get involved with the Assassin Order, so even if you’re kind of “meh” on AC3 I still recommend checking this list out.

What do you guys think of the list? What are your favorite segments? Anything that worries you? What are you hoping to see in Assassin’s Creed 3?

Source – Kotaku

Assassin’s Creed 3 Reveal Trailer Shows Tree Running

Get it, because it’s called “free-running” but it’s in trees? Ah, never mind. UbiSoft just released the official reveal trailer for Assassin’s Creed 3 showing our new hero Connor (nee Ratohnhaké:ton) tearing apart a British patrol then watching a battle between the Redcoats and the Continental Army. This trailer is supposedly all in-engine, making it even more impressive. The fluidity of motion promised for the hand-to-hand combat also comes through in this video with Conner recreating the forest scene from The Patriot to some extent.

Well, I’m sold. It’s kind of funny how life works in regards to what I write on this site and what things happen in the games industry. At any rate, what do you guys think about the Assassin’s Creed 3 trailer? Does it give you more hope for the newest entry? Any secrets that you noticed?

Assassin’s Creed 3 Will Revolutionize America

assassins creed 3 box art

The video game industry is as sound as a sinking ship, it seems, as every big title gets broken before its official announcement date. We’ve known about the existence of Assassin’s Creed 3 for a long time, but now we’ve got the official image of the new Assassin and a time period.

Assassin’s Creed 3, coming out this fall, will take place during the American Revolution UbiSoft revealed today on the heels of various websites leaking art assets for the upcoming threequel. While our new protagonist doesn’t have a name, the rumor is that he is Native American, a theory that is supported by his chosen weapons of bow and arrows and a tomahawk. The box art shows the Assassin wearing a time-period white military jacket pinning a British soldier to the ground, so we can make a pretty good guess as to what his allegiance will be.

The current release date for Assassin’s Creed 3 is October 30, 2012 with more information about the title coming March 5. What do you guys think of this announcement? Are you down for a new time period? Are you a little pissed that Desmond will spend yet another game spinning his wheels?

Source – Game Informer

Assassin’s Creed: The Fall is a Comic Adaption Done Right

assassins creed the fallComics book tie-ins to video games usually disappoint me, but I keep holding out for the one that breaks convention and is actually enjoyable to read. The Halo books were by and large pretty mediocre and the Mass Effect comics failed to catch my interest.

As staunch a supporter as I am of the Assassin’s Creed series, it might not surprise you to learn that I tracked down the deluxe edition of Assassin’s Creed: The Fall, a three-part comic series detailing the purge of the Assassin Order that occured in November of 2000. The comics follow Daniel Cross in 1998 and 2000 and his ancestor Nikolai Orelov in the late 1800s and the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Putting the historical sections of the books in the turn of the century was a really good idea, and the writers dip into some of the mysteries of that time like Rasputin and the Tunguska Event and work them into Assassin’s Creed mythology.

The story is actually quite good, and this probably stems from the fact that the creators were not forced into shoe-horning in an Ezio Auditore story like they had originally planned. Free from the canonical shackles of the game series, The Fall fills in some of the backstory that has been alluded to in the video games; namely how the globe-spanning Assassin Brotherhood has been reduced to three people operating out of a van and a handful of intelligence gathering cells.

There are some weird parts to the story as it is a fairly complicated tale compressed into three issues. Daniel Cross’ transformation from an asshole junkie to an almost messianic figure happens between issues two and three so seeing him as a clean-cut figure preaching to the Assassins is a little confusing until someone addresses him as Daniel. If his speech at the beginning of issue three had been over some pictures of him fixing his life and showing his progress it might have helped to lesson the shock. It’s nothing major, but it is a slight speedbump in an otherwise well crafted story.

Assassin’s Creed: The Chain is the follow up to The Fall, and I’m now eagerly awaiting the next installment of the lives of Daniel Cross and Nikolai Orelov. Has anyone else read The Fall, and what did you think? Do you want to track down a copy having read this? What are some of your favorite comic book tie-ins? Do transmedia efforts like these help breath new life into series that might be getting stale, like Anthony’s post talked about?

Skyrim Creation Kit Trailer Is Good News for Mod Community

I think this is what Skyrim players have been waiting for. Or at least, the PC Skyrim players have been waiting for this. That’s right, it seems the mod community has a huge reason to celebrate with the release of a new video from Bethesda which details the Skyrim Creation Kit. Like the tool set from Fallout and Oblivion before it, the Creation Kit gives modders all the same features that the developers had at their own disposal, which will allow them to create anything from crazy swords to whole campaigns.

What’s really interesting is the integration with Steam, with the ability to subscribe or follow projects that you’re interested in, along with some easy ways to browse and find new content. I could be ignorant of some other games that make good use of this, but I’m a huge fan of the way Valve is making that accessible.

No word on an official release date, although Bethesda says the Creation Kit will be out soon.

Personally, even though I don’t own Skyrim on the PC (although I imagine I’ll grab it at some point just to have it), I’m super excited about this. Even without this kind of huge tool kit, we’ve already seen a number of creative things from the community. Part of that comes because the game just has so much content, but also because the community itself has such a great passion for the game and everything about it.

Any modders out there? Any of you excited about this?

The GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2011

Back at the end of 2010, a glance at 2011’s calendar either sent gamers into a fit of excited trembling or utter despair. How were we going to play all of these games? What surprises were in store for us? Which ones were going to be worth the money? Could the long-awaited sequels live up to the years of promise? At the beginning of 2012, we now have all of those answers and then some. And thus, the GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2011 list is born.

It sounds like we’re using hyperbole, but we truly feel like 2011 was one of the greatest years of gaming we’ve seen in quite some time. That much is evidenced by each staff member’s ballot – the submissions we used to determine our final top 10 (and yes, your votes for Game of the Year counted as one of our submissions, as well) were wildly different and full of an astounding variety of games. One thing was certain – gamers had a wealth of choices last year, and everyone benefited from it.

So, without further ado, here is our list of the top 10 games of 2011. Enjoy, dudes.

Continue reading The GamerSushi Top 10 Games of 2011

Saint’s Row 3 and the Out of Date Escort Mission

Saint's Row 3

I’d like to consider myself a fairly patient gamer. I don’t have too many deal breakers or things that make me want to lambast a particular game in general. I’m very much able to greatly enjoy a number of titles despite small (and sometimes even massive) failures. That being said, there are occasional stumbling blocks I hit when playing a game that throw me for a loop.

Take Saint’s Row 3 for instance, a game that I love dearly at the moment. For all of its zany mayhem, hilarious writing and occasional forward-thinking (such as the GPS arrows on your HUD), the game has the occasional bothersome design hiccup. The biggest offender? Escort missions.

Like the top of some ancient relic poking through an otherwise serene landscape, these out of date mission prompts completely disrupt the flow of the game for me. What’s worse than that is the fact that for the first few hours, nearly every other mission you’re performing is an escort mission of some kind. Sure, they take on different shapes – you could be escorting someone below you while raining down rocket launcher fire or protecting a pimp while he goes to make girl/drug deals, but in the end it’s all the same.

As much as I should be used to these things appearing so frequently in games, it kind of seems like we should be past them now as a medium. I’m not saying that they should never appear again, but I do have to say that I’m surprised by their frequency, considering the fact that they have almost never been in the entire history of the people of Earth. I mean really, shouldn’t we have left these things behind last gen? I’m surprised that we still see these at all. You can add exploding red barrels to that list, as well. But I could be the only one that feels that way.

What do you guys think? Are escort missions out of date? Are there any other random gameplay tropes that still surprise you with how often they appear in modern games? Go!

Revelations: When Story Suffers at the Hands of Sequel-itis

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, or worse, terribly cliche – I want to take a moment and gripe about sequel-itis in video games. No, I’m not against sequels. And yes, I understand that in a time where AAA games cost big bucks to develop, publishers want to go with surefire hits instead of taking chances on new IPs. All of that’s fine. But what I can’t forgive is when this sequel-itis starts affecting stories negatively.

Take Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, for instance. I’m sure all of you will think I hate this game after posting a couple of negative critiques about it, but it’s more that Revelations’ negatives shine so outrageously because the game itself plays so well – and in some ways is a perfection of the Assassin’s Creed formula. I’m going to have to be as spoiler careful as possible here, but AC: Brotherhood ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. OK, that’s an understatement – it ended on a double scoop of cliffhanger with a major sprinkle of WTF. Part of the lure of Revelations is that it was supposed to give you some of the answers about both Desmond and Ezio that were left hanging at the end of Brotherhood.

The problem is, Revelations ends in much the same way. The cliffhanger isn’t so bad compared to Brotherhood, but the “answers” they finally give you only lead to a dizzying array of questions. No explanation is given for some of the really bizarre things you see in the climax of this game, after the entire narrative kept assuring you that the time for answers was coming soon. Continue reading Revelations: When Story Suffers at the Hands of Sequel-itis

GamerSushi Votes 2011: Game of the Year

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We’re at the end of the road for the inaugural edition of GamerSushi Votes and I think it’s gone rather well. We’ve talked the highs and the lows, but now it’s time to put all of our chips on the table and declare once and for all what our favorite game of 2011 is.

There’s no cheating here by saying 2011 didn’t have a Game of the Year, no sir. Each individual vote shall be inscribed upon the great Tablet of GamerSushi with chisel and hammer by Anthony, borne up the Mountain of Souls by Eddy, passed through the Cauldron of the Blaze by myself, given to Jeff and his eagle mount to soar high into the clouds to the Sky Palace of the Beard for Nick’s final approval. Yeah. It’s that important.

Now that you know what fate rests upon your mortal souls, vote! What was your Game of the Year for 2011?

GamerSushi Votes 2011: Game of the Year

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Top Six: Mitch’s Gaming Moments of 2011

Every year there are many standout moments in gaming that redefine my hobby and help me appreciate it in new ways. Last year it was riding into Mexico to the tune of “Far Away” in Red Dead Redemption, managing my own guild of assassins in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood or riding down a river in a patrol boat with the Rolling Stones in the background in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

2011, being the landmark year that it was, was not deficient in great gaming moments and I’ve pared my memories down to six selections of moments that have helped shape this year for me. Come along as I try to sift through all the great games this year had to offer and try to nail down which small selections changed my perception of gaming in 2011. Continue reading Top Six: Mitch’s Gaming Moments of 2011

The Case Against Annualization

modern warfare 3As the end of this generation draws near we’re seeing an increase in the amount of franchises that are taking a stab at faster release cycles. Call of Duty has been pulling this trick for a while but even titles with a bigger scope like Assassin’s Creed and Dead Rising are trying to give us a new game every year.

The term “new game” may be a bit of a stretch because in the rush to meet the deadlines a lot of these titles are getting flak for not adding enough to previous iterations. While waiting years for a game may be painful, is it preferable to basically buying what equates to an expansion pack? Continue reading The Case Against Annualization

20 Skyrim Mods That are Worth Your Time

20 skyrim mods

Skyrim has been out for just over two weeks, even though it might feel like you’ve already put a lifetime into that game. For those of us playing on the PC, we have the added benefit of modding our expereience and the kind folks over at PC Gamer put together a list of the 20 best Skyrim mods as of right now. If you’re playing on consoles you had best look away, lest you get all jealous like.

Modding is nothing new to Bethesda games as Oblivion and the two Fallout titles have seen a slew of great user-created enhancements, and Skyrim is shaping up to top all of them. Included in PC Gamer’s list are things like a fully 3D map, a crafting enhancement where you can melt down pots and pans into usable ore and several custom tweaks that improve the faces of NPCs right down to their lips (seriously). There’s even a couple goofy ones in here like the one that replaces the spiders with other creatures like bears but keeps the animation model so you have a giant bear scuttling towards you like a spider.

This is just the beginning, though, as I’m sure that there are plenty more of these in the works. You may think that my image for this post is a joke, but oh no, someone is actually working on a dragon riding mod. So, Skyrim PC gamers, what do you think? Any of these mods catch your fancy? Anything that blew your mind? I didn’t think that the water in this game could get any nicer looking, but I learned a thing or two from these mods.

Source – PC Gamer

More Skyrim Content

Like this post? Check out more GamerSushi Skyrim content, including our review, a podcast, Skyrim secrets and more!

Gorgeous Skyrim Time Lapse Video

You guys, Skyrim. Skyrim, guys.

I’m sorry that there are so many mentions of Skyrim happening on the ol’ Sushi, but it can’t be helped. I’m fully vested in this game and its world, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away from it any time soon. It’s just one of those games that hits me in the right way (or the wrong way depending on how you look at it).

For anyone that has experienced it, you’ll understand when I say that Skyrim is a truly engaging world. In fact, I’d venture to say it’s one of video games most real-feeling worlds that I’ve ever played.

To prove it, I’m posting this gorgeous Skyrim time lapse video. Watch. And be amazed and stuff.

Saint’s Row the Third and My Growing Appreciation of Maturity in Games

saints row the third

One of the many games I bought last Tuesday was Saint’s Row the Third, Volition’s newest entry in the kill-crazy crime series. I’ve put a fair number of hours into it (not as much as Skyrim or even Sonic Generations), and I think I’ve come to a shocking conclusion based on how some of the game is making me feel: I’m growing up.

This post isn’t a knock against Saint’s Row’s content; I know it’s full of juvenile humor, diving nut punches and mind-controlling octopus cannons and it does that all very well and even manages to pull off some insane gameplay without it being contrived. Besides, I’d have to be a pretty big troll to call out Saint’s Row for being immature. No, I’m just finding that some of the ancillary quests feel kind of silly and I’m started to get repulsed by the idea of shooting cops and civilians.

Yes, the old tried-and-true stand-by of the GTA-style sandbox game, descending into unbridled mayhem, no longer holds the appeal for me that it once did. I was showing the game off to my roommate and after shooting a mascot dressed as an energy drink and doing the same to a couple cops, I got a funny feeling in my stomach. I know these cops are just pixles and animated rigs moving on my screen, but busting a cap in them doesn’t hold the same thrill it once used to.

Saint’s Row the Third is still fun and I heartily recommend it to anyone who played the second one and loved it, but I’m kind of moving past the “see how long you can kill cops for” type of sandbox play and coming to appreciate structure more. What about you guys? Do you sort of feel the same, or do you think I’m just an old man yelling at Saint’s Row from his porch? Has any other game made you feel this way?

GamerSushi Asks: Doomsday Tuesday Roll Call?

Assassin's Creed Revelations

Wow. I think out of all the days that could have decked us in the Fall, it was today that I was most worried about. As Mitch has lovingly dubbed it, Doomsday Tuesday happened today, and with it came a veritable salvo of gaming entertainment. Or horrors, if you’re concerned about what this means for your wallet.

While I’m no doubt going to leave somebody out, the big games that dropped today include Saint’s Row: The Third, Halo: CE Anniversary and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. So, yeah. Lots of stuff to play, I guess.

Rather than doing a slew of posts roll call-ing for each of these gems, I thought I’d put it all together in one post and just ask you straight up: which of these are you getting today? Are you getting any of them at all? As for me, I received Halo: CE Anniversary in the mail, and hope to add Saint’s Row: The Third and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations over time. But for now, Skyrim rules all.

So what about you dudes? Time to weight in on the roll call. Go!

Grand Theft Auto V Debut Trailer

So this just happened. It’s kind of big news, I guess.

There’s not much to say about the Grand Theft Auto V trailer that you haven’t heard already. It’s been several years since GTA IV came out, and Rockstar definitely has a lot to live up to in terms of expectations. Do they rise to the occasion? I guess you can watch and find out.

So what are your reactions to the trailer? As much as I’m not a graphics guy, I have to say that the detail and the quality of the animations shown in the trailer are really impressive. It also seems to me that we’re back in Los Santos, though it’s hard to tell if it’s going to include the same amount of real estate that we saw in San Andreas.

While I’m curious to see more of this game, we all know that I wasn’t a huge fan of Grand Theft Auto IV, so they’ll have to show me something new and interesting to get me more pumped for this than I am for Saint’s Row 3. That’s just my opinion, though. Let’s hear yours. Go!

When do Video Games Have too Much Content?

riddler-arkham-city

Between bouts of Battlefield 3 multiplayer, I’ve been going back into Arkham City to try and collect all the Riddler trophies and challenges into order to finish off his sidequest and save those poor doctors. Now, if you’re not familiar with this particular aspect of the game, the Riddler has captured five doctors and hidden them all over Arkham City and the only way he’ll allow you to save them is by collecting 400 plus trophies and riddles and combat challenges. It also doesn’t help that he’s kind of a dick and taunts you the entire way through.

Now, I’m not one to shy from completing any game to 100% (that’s become a bit of a running joke around here) but even I think 400 something collectibles is a little much. I mean, they’re not incredibly well hidden, but just the sheer volume of the things makes this a daunting task. This is a problem endemic to open world games where I imagine the developer is kind of tempted to hide these things all over to justify the massive game worlds (although Call of Duty has hidden collectibles as well).

So here’s the thing: while I don’t blame Rocksteady for having Riddler challenges in the game, I just think there’s too damn many. No offense to the guys who went in and designed and placed all of these things, but didn’t they break 200 and start thinking “wow, we’ve sure put in a lot of these things. Maybe we should stop?”. Have you guys run into a similar sort of fatigue with collectibles, or just games with a lot of content? Which game was it? How are you getting along with the Riddler challenges?