Category: Video

The Game That Won’t Die: Battlefront 3 Footage Surfaces

At this point, Star Wars: Battlefront 3 is the Highlander of video games. Or the Dracula, if you think the franchise is a soul-sucking waste of pixelated space. Rumored to have been canceled in 2008, the specter of Battlefront 3 continues to haunt the Internet, with concept art and dark tales springing up from the most random of places.

Personally, I was a rabid fan of Battlefront 2, so every time one of these stories surfaces, I feel a mix of both pain and excitement. Excitement at the idea that maybe the game isn’t dead, just in hiding like Yoda, waiting to be released by some secretive developer. I feel pain because I know the world isn’t always that perfect and likes to crush my dreams.

So, it’s with a mix of those feelings that I post some supposedly uncovered footage of Battlefront 3 alpha gameplay, shot off-screen from an early PC build in 2008. Man, this brings back memories of some epic space battles, and heroic moments that involved mowing opponents down with a lightsaber.

The coolest part of the footage was leaving a base on the surface of a planet and flying all the way to a spaceship in orbit. Seriously, if anyone out there is a part of making this game a reality I will kiss you on the mouth. Any other Sushi-ans as big of a fan of this franchise as I was?

Cabbage Trick Shots: Things to Do in Skyrim

One of the things I love about video games is when you manage to find a “game within the game”, to speak. This has become more and more of a thing in the past generation due to open-world sandbox games, and there’s a certain kind of joy there that’s hard to match. As a kid, I remember playing Mario 64 during the summer when I was bored, just playing the flying missions repeatedly to see how low I could swoop to the ground without touching it and losing the flight. Somehow, we always find new ways to entertain ourselves.

That’s exactly what the guys at Achievement Hunter have done in their newest video, Things to Do in Skyrim, which features them creating trick shots that involve throwing cabbage into buckets. It’s very reminiscent of this Michael Jordan/Larry Bird Super Bowl ad for McDonald’s – and that’s a good thing. Anyway, you should watch it, the reaction shots at the end are priceless.

When’s the last time you guys got sucked into doing this kind of thing in a video game? Did anyone else die laughing when they freaked out?

The Banner Saga: A New Kickstarter Challenger

Although it’s already starting to become cliche just how many people are using Kickstarter to fund any damn thing in the world (why do people need $30,000 to produce a podcast – seriously), every now and then a project will rise above all the noise and show us something very cool.

On the heels of Double Fine’s Adventure game, The Banner Saga, by Stoic, promises us a Strategy RPG title, made by industry veterans, which happens to feature a mature story and some truly breathtaking art. Seriously, just the visuals alone were enough to sell me on the project, before even reading any of the impressive facts about it. I’ll let you watch the trailer.

The game is scheduled for release in June 2012, and just $10 nets you Chapter 1 of the game. I have to say, the whole thing really has impressed me, and I’ll probably be throwing some support their way – plus, it’s based in Texas, which is awesome.

What are your guys’ thoughts on The Banner Saga? How do you feel about the new fad of putting everything on Kickstarter? Go!

Source – The Banner Saga on Kickstarter

Project KARA Demo Shows Off the Uncanny Valley

Have we reached the Uncanny Valley yet, gentlemen? The place where robots or animation start to get creepy, because of the way they mimic life but happen to be just off? Who knows, but some of the results on the way there are interesting to watch.

Quantic Dream, creators of Heavy Rain, just debuted a new tech demo at GDC this week known as Project KARA, the story of a robot/AI that accidentally becomes self aware during production. Unlike their last project, KARA was created by use of full performance motion capture, rather than separate body/facial animation capture. The quality of the performance is rather impressive (even if the writing always isn’t) in this piece – and what’s more impressive is that all of this is being handled in real time through the PS3.

Cage has noted that this isn’t tied to a specific project at all, but rather a demonstration of where they’d like to go with their next project. What do you guys think of this short? Uncanny Valley territory? Impressive? Lame? Go!

Borderlands 2 Trailer is 96.5 Percent More WUBWUB

Borderlands was a really interesting game when it came out, a hybrid of RPG, FPS and open-world game with a good bit of loot-craziness thrown in. Even with bajillions of guns, there were a few issues with the game, most notably the somewhat stale environments (would you like desert, garbage dump, or garbage dump in the desert?) and the most nonsensical ending in the history of video games. Secret robot assassins aside, Borderlands did well enough to warrant a sequel and the release date trailer dropped today, revealing the four main characters and adding a bit of the old dubstep.

Borderlands 2 is looking really fun, and if you put WUB WUB over anything there’s a good chance I’ll buy it. The new characters look pretty neat, and the enemy variety looks like it has expanded beyond skags and bandits. Color me excited, which I believe in loot parlance is purple. What say you? Does this trailer catch your fancy? Borderlands 2 launches September 18 in the US and the 21 in the rest of the world.

GamerSushi Asks: Jamming with Skyrim?

Apparently this is the week where all of our wildest gaming dreams come true. OK, that might be stretching it a bit, but at least a few of our gaming wishes seem to be coming to light. Between Battlefield 3 rumors, Double Fine’s Kickstarter Adventure and Notch talking Psychonauts 2, we’ve got kind of a lot of things worth salivating over. But that’s not all!

You see, DICE 2012 is underway right now, featuring a number of sessions from well known people in the field of interactive entertainment, including none other than Skyrim boss Todd Howard himself. Last night, Todd Howard gave Skyrim fans the world over a bit of a tease, something to get their heads spinning as we look forward to future DLC.

The Skyrim Game Jam is a week-long project where developers at Bethesda were challenged to come up with and implement one feature that they’d love to see in the enormous open-world RPG. While Howard cautioned that some of these things are just tests and might not ever see an actual release, the possibilities are enough to keep people excited about where the game could possibly go. Howard showed a reel which boasted all the things that the developers came up with in just one week’s time, ranging from mounted dragons (!) to seasonally changing foliage. Go ahead, see for yourself.

Although this power gets abused quite a bit, it’s still pretty cool that we live in a time where developers can retroactively incorporate fresh new additions to gameplay that might need some polishing. So my question to you guys is this: which of these features would you actually want to see in the final game? Also, if you could add a reel of features like this to any other game, what would you do? Go!

Double Fine Wants to Change the Game

I love when you see something so simple yet so brilliant that it kind of blows your mind. Tim Schafer has been in the spotlight quite a bit this week, what with his Psychonauts 2 shenanigans with Notch and all. But this actually goes a step further:

Tim Schafer is letting you (meaning us) finance Double Fine’s next game, a classic point-and-click adventure. Normally, a game like this would have little chance of being put into production by a publisher, so he’s taking the game straight to fans on Kickstarter. Rather than blather on about it, I’ll let Tim tell you about it himself.

And there you have it. For $400,000, Double Fine will make an old school adventure game, and the fans get to be a part of the process. Meanwhile, all of it will be documented by 2 Player Productions, the dudes behind the Minecraft/Mojang documentary.

It’s hard for me to express just how excited I am about this. While I don’t think it’ll necessarily change gaming as we know it, it certainly opens the door to start developers down that path. They would answer to fans and cut out the middle man completely. At the same time, what we’re seeing of the game isn’t being dictated by marketing, but rather an in-depth documentary crew. It’s just a little bit rad.

So what do you guys think of this? I’ve already donated some money. The numbers are already past 100k in the first day of the campaign, so I don’t think they’ll have any problems hitting it. Do any of you think you’ll join?

Edit: At the time I published this, the Kickstarter was at 122k, up from 90k when I started writing/donating.

Source – Kickstarter

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?

Fan-Made “Legend of Zelda: The Lost Oracle” Trailer Kills It

As a site, we here at GamerSushi aren’t real big fans of “fan-made” productions, normally because they follow the same formula: they take a notable game (probably made by Valve) and pair it up with terrible acting/writing and moderately impressive CG. Not to be too negative, but these kind of get ho-hum after a while. If you really want to gain notoriety, try something different, like Joel Furtado did with this Legend of Zelda: The Lost Oracle short.

What do you guys think? Were you impressed? Would you like to see another Zelda game in this style?

Mass Effect 3: Special Forces Trailer

One of the biggest pieces of news to come out in the last few months has been that of the inclusion of a multiplayer mode in Mass Effect 3. Specifically, a co-op horde mode of sorts that has an actual bearing on the single player game. As is typically the case with the Internet, this news was met with all kinds of hyperbolic reactions – from those complaining that it was going to ruin the main game to others celebrating it without even seeing anything.

Well, now we can expect even more outrageous reactions: Bioware’s released a trailer for Special Forces mode in all its glory, teasing the game’s final release in March and the demo that’s scheduled to drop next month. I have to say, the footage looks a bit more fun than I anticipated – I definitely think the different races/classes are going to mix up the gameplay.

Thoughts, Sushians?

Speed Runs and My Siglemic Obsession

Super Mario 64I’ve never been a guy that gets all that into competitive gaming. Sure, it’s fun to watch some skilled players go at it from time to time, but I’d rather just sit down and play the thing myself. Up until the recent bouts of watching pro StarCraft 2 players, I’ve never understood why someone could sit and watch someone else play a game for hours. I just assumed StarCraft 2 was different because of the level of the players.

All that changed over Christmas break, when I discovered Siglemic on Twitch TV. You see, Siglemic is a Super Mario 64 player. And not just any Super Mario 64 player – he’s the recent world record holder for a 120-star speed run. I watched in awe over most of the break to see him capture this record, and sat there for a number of failed attempts as he dodged, dove and ran impressively through the game’s many challenges in just under 2 hours.

I’m not sure if it’s just the joy of seeing Super Mario 64 in motion again that had me so enthralled, the skill of Siglemic, or both. But needless to say, I’m fascinated with watching people stream themselves playing through old games right now. I think part of the fun of this is just experiencing some nostalgia with thousands of people (Siglemic had up to 7000 people at a time watching him try to beat the record) all at the same time. Ever since then, I’ve been checking out people playing through Final Fantasy VII, IX, X and even Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4. And somehow it’s riveting.

Have you guys ever checked out streaming games on Twitch TV? What game would it take to get you hooked on speed runs? Go!

The Last of Us: Debut Trailer

As we all know, the Spike VGAs hit last night, with a spattering of announcements and trailers, many of which we’ll have the time to get excited about over the next week. However, the post-show buzz seems to hover directly around one game: The Last of Us.

While The Last of Us was teased just a bit over the last few days, nobody had any idea what it was, save for the fact that it was a PS3 exclusive. All that changed last night when gamers were treated to the world premiere trailer, which happens to be all stunning in-engine footage.

I do have to say, I’m a fan. Seems to be a cross between I Am Legend and Enslaved, although we’ll see how the gameplay shakes out eventually. Many props to Naughty Dog for keeping development of this title secret for so long. Yet another reason why I’m glad to be a PS3 owner.

What did you guys think? Go!

Half-Life: Origins Takes You Back to Black Mesa

I’ve often been a pretty vocal opponent to the idea of fan films. Sure, they’re flashy and a nice little pipe dream for the communities of the games they represent, but in the end they’re typically low on content. Most of them follow the same formula, and are entirely predictable.

Such is the case with this new entry, Half-Life: Origins. Why am I posting it, then? Because as miserly as I can be about fan videos on the Internet, I can’t help but admire this stylish recreation of one of the most iconic video game intros ever made. So, yeah. Enjoy.

Thoughts?

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.

A Look at the Modern Quake

Ah, modern gaming. How often you’re lambasted these days for your simplistic ways.

This is always a tricky subject for me. We generally try to keep the discourse around here less cynical, but sometimes we do talk about the things we miss about gaming. Let’s face it: games have changed, and there’s no point beating around the bush about it.

I guess that means there’s no bush-beating in this video. It asks the question: what if Quake was made today? And agree or disagree with its conclusions, it’s hard to deny that it makes at least a few points, and hilariously at that.

While I genuinely think that in some ways, games are better than ever, I’ll admit that the things in this video are pretty spot on. I don’t know if I buy into all the negativity that I hear from the gaming community about this issue, but it’s still worth noting.

So what do you guys think about the ideas this video raises? Do you like/dislike the direction of modern games? Is it a more complicated issue than the video lays out? 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!

Corridor Digital Gives Battlefield 3 a Jolt with Shock Troopers

Ever since Battlefield 3 came out last week (I bet you thought I would stop writing about it, eh?) I’ve been kind of obsessed with the multiplayer portion. Seriously, you guys, it’s quite good and I’d say it’s going to end up as the best of the year. One thing I’m lamenting about the multiplayer, though is that defibrillators can no longer be used to kill your enemies. I’d say this is a serious oversight on DICE’s part, because killing people with defibs kind of feels like this:

I’m kind of a huge fan of Corridor Digital’s work, so expect to see more of their gaming related stuff on here. What did you guys think of the video? Any thoughts on BF3’s multiplayer?

Poll: Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 Fight for Your Affection With Launch Trailers

I can’t think of a bigger rivalry in FPS gaming right now than the one brewing between Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, each game vying for the crown of “shooter king”. Call of Duty seems confident that people will want it more because it’s Call of Duty, but Battlefield has been making a strong case for itself. Both games recently dropped their respective campaign-focused launch trailers, so we’re going to have a poll to see which one comes out on top. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s launch trailer first, then Battlefield after the jump.

Continue reading Poll: Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 Fight for Your Affection With Launch Trailers

Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Trailer has BASE jumping

The more I think about the Battlefield 3 Beta, the more I come to realize how much I was soured on the game because of it. True, I’ve done more than enough complaining about the Beta, but a lot of my problems with the game proper boiled down to the choice of map. Operation Metro (or “Mehtro” as Eddy coined it) was so bland and Call of Duty like that it didn’t give the “Battlefield feel”, the nebulous experience that I’ve been clamoring for. This new trailer showcasing the multiplayer maps just might make me eat my words, however. There’s BASE jumping, guys. BASE jumping.

The thing about trailers, though, is that they’re designed to make anything look good. Heck, Operation Metro looked awesome in this video. Still, I can’t get over the shot of the soldiers jumping off the cliff as helicopters roar overhead. So, what say you? Are you back on the bandwagon?

Saint’s Row: The Third Attacks BF3 and MW3

It’s the battle of the three-quels.

Everyone knows about the recent and heated feud between the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises, as kicked into high gear by EA. With both of these juggernauts bearing down on each other this Fall season, it’s looked something like Godzilla versus Mothra, the two beasts lumbering into our collective view and ready to do battle.

However, there’s another number three hitting this season, and it doesn’t want to be forgotten: Saint’s Row: The Third. The newest installment of the open world gangster playground from THQ is now on the scene, trolling on both Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 with this brand new trailer, which also happens to be packed full of win.

Every new bit of media I see about this game ensures that it’s going to be a day one pick up. What about you guys?