How Much Does Game Length Matter to You?

dishonored game length

One of the big “news” topics today is the fact that Bethesda’s upcoming steam-punk game Dishonored can be completed in around 12 hours, according to the developer. This takes into consideration that the player is trying to do the game as quickly as possible, and more considered playstyles will naturally lengthen the hours.

For me, 12 hours is a pretty good length for a single-player campaign. I don’t really have the time to invest in multiple 100+ hour games, and like the Bard says, “brevity is the soul of wit”. Of course, whenever this type of news comes out, people crawl out of the woodwork and complain that the game is too short. Games shouldn’t really have an hour formula that covers all of them; each genre is better suited to its own style. Why else would all current FPS games be under six hours long? There are a lot of reasons, but I imagine one of them is that it’s hard to make that style of play interesting for more than a half-day at best (there are exceptions, of course).

The Mass Effect games have taken me around 40 hours each to complete, which is perfect for those games. You get out as much as you put in, and it sounds like Dishonored will be the same. I don’t get the impression that the game is an entierly linear experience, so it sounds like the ability to put in a fair chunk of time is there. Just because a game can be beaten in 12 hours doesn’t mean that it has to go down that way.

I know a lot of this sentiment comes from a game’s price tag and people want a good investment for $60. I can understand that, but at a certain point this griping gets a little out of hand. So what say you? Is 12 hours too short? Does game length matter that much to you?

Source – VG247

Battlefield 3 Close Quarters DLC Impressions

My relationship with Battlefield 3 has been rather tumultuous ever since the game’s release in October of last year. More than once before the first big patch I declared that I was done with the game, but BF3 has been changed in so many ways from its original inception that it’s not really the same game anymore. There are a lot of similarities, but DICE continues to tweak it, something that I wish they had been given more time for before launch.

If Battlefield 3 still played like the game it was a few months ago, I wouldn’t have even considered picking up Battlefield Premium and getting early access to all the DLC. Now that the game is much more playable, I’ve been dumping a lot of time into it, and the new expansion, Close Quarters, has been occupying my time ever since it dropped early for Premium members last week.

A common sentiment about the DLC is it’s “better at Modern Warfare than Modern Warfare” and I’d say that this statement is pretty accurate. The maps in Close Quarters bare a strong resemblance to Call of Duty’s multiplayer arenas except that you can tear them apart with your weapons; like all Battlefield 3 maps, it’s great fun to see how much a map can change from the beginning to the end of a match. Continue reading Battlefield 3 Close Quarters DLC Impressions

Review: Xenoblade Chronicles

Xenoblade Bionis vs. Mechonis

Hardcore games on the Wii have been few and far between lately. Despite Nintendo’s proclamations that their next system will focus on hardcore games before casual, it still took a massive online campaign to get the Big N to release Monolith’s epic JRPG, Xenoblade Chronicles, in the United States. Now that they have, was it worth the wait? Continue reading Review: Xenoblade Chronicles

GamerSushi Asks: What Do You Miss About Games?

Fez

Guys, I feel like I’m drowning here. As much as I enjoy being a brand new dad, it goes without saying that my free time doesn’t look quite the same as it did before. While I still am taking plenty of time to do some personal writing, not every hobby is created equal, and gaming has suffered a big hit. In the last few weeks, I think I’ve played maybe just an hour or two of video games. This is probably going to be my situation until our newborn starts sleeping through the night a little more, which I hear should start happening in a month or two. Fingers crossed.

The thing is, I don’t really mind not playing video games all that much for the reasons you might think. Sure, they’re fun and I love hopping into games of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer with the GS guys, or catching up on some Diablo III with my one of my brothers. I love wrapping my mind around Fez’s twisted puzzles and aiming for new times on Trials: Evolution. But the thing I’m finding out I miss the most? The way gaming calms me down.

There’s just something about playing video games that relaxes me after a day of stress at work. Even if it’s just 30 minutes, taking that time to apply my brain to something that isn’t seafood menus or billboards unwinds me in a way that almost nothing else can. That’s what I start to miss when I’m not gaming.

So what about you guys? What do you miss about games when you’re not playing them? Go!

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 51: The Hangover 2

the gamersushi show episode 51 e3 2012

The timing worked out pretty well this year with Episode 50 being both the Drunk Cast and our E3 predictions show and Episode 51 as the book-end for both of those events. Sadly, a lot of our guesses about E3 2012 were off the mark, but that’s all right, I’m sure our next-gen console predictions will come true some day.

We start this cast of with a nice game of Grades, bringing back Anthony’s famous “GAME TIME” clip for the first time in a few shows. We talk about the Big Three conferences and then dip into the various games that we saw and what intrigued us. We fit in a little industry news at the end too, just as a special treat.

I’m sure that you know the drill by now, but listen, rate and enjoy the podcast. Don’t be dicks to each other and we’ll see you soon.

0:00 – 3:10 Intro
3:11 GAME TIME (grades)
3:12 – 15:30 Microsoft
15: 31 – 26:11 Sony
26: 12 – 38:48 Nintendo
38:49 – 43:47 Watch Dogs
43:48 – 47: 22 Star Wars 1313
47:23 – 52:35 Tomb Raider
52:36 – 56:03 Dead Space 3
56:04 – 56:39 Assassin’s Creed 3
56:40 – 57:00 Gearbox Studios
57:01 – 57:20 Need for Speed
57:22 – 57:53 EA are jerks
57:54 – 58:25 New old-school Final Fantasy
58:26 – 1:00:42 Jason Rubin trash-talks Saint’s Row
1:00:43 – 1:02:36 Outo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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The Pain and Suffering of a Ten-Year Long Civilization II Game

ten year civilization 2 game

Civilization games are famous for taking a long time to complete, but even your most hardcore marathon doesn’t compare to Reddit user Lycerius’s ten year slugging match between his communist Celtics and the Vikings and Americans.

In the year 3991 A.D., the remaining super-powers have weathered over 1700 years of war and are huddled in dilapitated cities surrounded by infertile marshes and radioactive wastelands.

The stalemate comes from the fact that Civ 2’s late game is perfectly balanced and the Vikings attack every round regardless of cease-fires. Every nation is 100% comitted to war manufacturing as any attempt at peaceful rebuilding means that your nation will be crushed by the other armies. Late-game building units are used only to build roads that take units to the front lines and then rebuild them when the infrastructure is destroyed.

While it’s cool that this guy managed to keep a save file for ten years, The Eternal War is also an awesome post-apocalytpic tale. Commie Celts? Spies slipping nukes into cities? Ice caps melting and reforming 20 times? Sounds like a recipe for a good novel.

A whole fandom has sprung up around this man’s tale and there’s a subreddit dedicated to finding a way to end the war. What do you guys think of this?

Source – Reddit

Today’s WTF: Assassin’s Creed 10?

Assassin's Creed 3

Franchise fatigue? Ubisoft’s never heard of that, apparently. With Assassin’s Creed 3 on the way, Gamasutra sat down for an interview with Ubisoft North America executive director Laurent Detoc, in which he insisted that the idea that there can be too many sequels simply isn’t true. So does that mean we’ll see Assassin’s Creed 8, 9 and 10?

“I hope we will,” says Detoc. He goes on:

“I also hope we’ll be able to branch out from within the franchise. It’s very simple to me: There’s no such thing as not being able to annualize a franchise. If it’s good, people will come.”

I get that this guy is talking from a business standpoint. Obviously, a game studio head wants to crank out yearly sequels for a profit – but surely, everyone remembers what happened to some of Activision’s franchises recently, yes? People do get fatigued and move on from franchises. We’ve seen it time and time again.

It seems like some of these studios should worry more about how to offer something new and less about how to crank out the same thing every year. The reason some are excited about Assassin’s Creed 3 isn’t because they’re dying to see what happens to Desmond — it’s because the game finally represents a shot in the arm for the franchise, after several years of re-hashing some of the same ground.

What do you guys think? Is this WTF worthy? Or am I just overreacting? Call me crazy. Do it. Go!

Source – Gamasutra

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You Playing?

what are you playing max payne 3

It’s already June, Sushians, and you know what that means: another installment of What Are You Playing, the recurring post where you get to tell us what currently occupies your PC or console and what you think of it.

May saw a couple big releases, namely Max Payne 3 and Diablo 3, but given that we’re also in somewhat of a draught from now unti September, this is also a good time to catch up on your backlog.

Personally, I’ve been getting back into Battlefield 3 a whole bunch, especially since it’s just had another huge patch which has fixed some of the glitches that the last patch brought on and has tweaked some things that needed it, like suppression and a number of weapons. It’s nice that DICE is committed to upkeep on their game, but this just shows how unprepared Battlefield 3 was when it launched in October of last year. The game has changed in a lot of fundamental ways and I expect it will continue to do so with all the DLC coming out over the next year.

Enough about me though, what are you guys playing? Something new, or maybe catching up on the backlog?

The History of Video Games Is Surprisingly Catchy

Video games have come a long way since the days of Pong and sometimes it’s tough to appreciate just how far our beloved hobby has come since that first, simple game came into our lives. This rather brilliant video sums up the history of games from Pong all the way to current-gen classics such as Uncharted 3. The best part? It uses only the clips and sound effects from the games themselves in order to create a rather catchy song.

Take a look for yourself. The games shown are not all-inclusive and several games are shown more than once, but you can garner a decent idea of the long trek that games have made in such a short period of time:

[youtube width=”500″ height=”310″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcMm6TJoYL0[/youtube]

Pretty snazzy, huh? The creativity (And time involved!) that videos such as this exhibit are staggering. Kudos to the people behind this. What do you think? Impressed by the journey games have taken? Anything you would have liked to see make an appearance? Comment below!

The GamerSushi Power Rankings: June 2012

Diablo 3 banner

Welcome to the June Power Rankings page update. If you’re new to this feature, it’s our running list of the top 10 games of 2012, pitted against each other in brutal fashion. Think Wizard Chess, only not as cool. Really, that’s not a fair comparison, since nothing is cooler than Wizard Chess, but the point still stands — these games are fighting for their lives.

Just like the last update, we see some more moving and shaking as new contenders arrive, and old games fade away. Continue reading The GamerSushi Power Rankings: June 2012

Unreal Engine 4 Walkthrough and Demo

The next generation is a notion we’ve been chasing for a while now, but after an absences from this year’s E3, it’s starting to look like it’s further off than previously thought. Even though we won’t be getting out hands on next gen consoles for at least another year, developers are certainly tooling around with the development kits of tomorrow. One of the biggest names in dev tools is Epic Game’s Unreal Engine, and GT.TV had a beefy look at its fourth iteration.

The Unreal Engine is really versatile and many games we play are powered by it so I’m really looking forward to seeing what it will back when the next generation hits. What do you guys think about the Unreal Engine 4?

New Old School Final Fantasy Coming in July

I am the resident Final Fantasy fanboy here at the GamerSushi offices and while I enjoy the newer, fancier entries in the series, I always look back more fondly on the games from the good old days, when 2D was the standard and people were okay with random battles. Those days seemed like they had gone the way of the dodo, never to return.

But Square Enix, in a rare attempt to please its fans rather than disappoint them in a way that seems to induce terrible fan-fic, has announced Final Fantasy Dimensions, for the iOS and Android. Bringing us back to SNES days, with Active Time Battle and yes, even random battles. Take a look at this small snippet of gameplay:

[youtube width=”500″ height=”310″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWmw6mdVU4[/youtube]

What do you think? Does the old girl still have her charm? Am I the only that is going to buy this? Comment, dear friends!

Miyamoto Reveals New Zelda for Wii U

Depending on who you ask, Nintendo’s presentation of the Wii U at E3 on Tuesday went over like a blue shell in Mario Kart: either it made your day or it made you wish for a quick death. Regardless of that, one of the big titles missing from the presentation was The Legend of Zelda. While Zelda doesn’t sell as well as the 2D Mario games do, it is (or was) a franchise that gets the hardcore gamers, who Nintendo claims to be courting, frothing at their collective mouths.

Thankfully, Entertainment Weekly had the clout to get an answer out of the legendary game creator himself, Shigeru Miyamoto. Unfortunately, the news isn’t all good. Miyamoto told EW that the next Zelda is currently in the R & D stage, but added:

But really what we continue to ask ourselves as we have over the years is, “What is the most important element of Zelda if we were to try to make a Zelda game that a lot of people can play?” So we have a number of different experiments going on, and [when] we decide that we’ve found the right one of those to really help bring Zelda to a very big audience, then we’ll be happy to announce it.

Sigh. I really don’t know what’s going on over there at Nintendo. The last Zelda, Skyward Sword, still sits on my shelf, its once gleaming golden cover now slowly being buried by a layer of dust. The reason? Too much hand-holding, the kind that caters to someone who has never touched a video game before in their lives. So what’s Nintendo’s answer to that? Try to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, which actually goes against the very thing they are claiming to try to do with the Wii U.

These mixed messages, such as the fact that the Wii was made to simplify controls, but now the Wii U has all them there buttons that complicated it again (And don’t forget the Wii U Pro, which does away with that revolutionary screen altogether) are really starting to make me think that Nintendo is flailing about. The Zelda that everyone always holds up as the standard is Ocarina of Time, which sold over 7 million copies worldwide. I don’t have other figures on hand, but I would be shocked if that wasn’t the best-selling Zelda of all time.

So what is Nintendo thinking? Do you think Zelda should broaden its appeal to attract more fans? Or should it evolve, but stick to the core mechanics that get the pulses of gamers pounding, like Ocarina of Time did? Or should Zelda just throw in the towel?

Source: EW

Poll: Game of the Show for E3 2012

With all of the big presentations over, the time has come for us gamers to sort through the R&B performances, the awkward jokes and the motion controls and get to what really matters to us: the games.

Now that we’ve had a chance to watch the trailers and read the stories coming out of E3 2012, it’s time to ask: what was you game of show?

What was your Game of the Show for E3 2012?

View Results

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GamerSushi Asks: Franchises That Fool You

amazing spider-man game

While I like to think that I am a savvy consumer, the truth is that I don’t always make the best purchases when it comes to games. Sometimes there’s that one franchise that, even when I know the game will most likely be a steaming pile of crap, I still need to pick it up just in case.

Time and time again that franchise has been Spider-Man, which hasn’t had a really good game since Spider-Man 2 (Shattered Dimensions was pretty decent, but nowhere near that level). I’ve tried them all, from Spider-Man 3 to Web of Shadows, to the aforementioned Shattered Dimensions and the horrible Edge of Time. With the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man movie tie-in game, I might just get fooled again. The new Web Rush mechanic sounds really cool, and the Batman: Arkham City inspired fighting might just spruce up the sections of Spider-Man games that have traditionally been the weakest link.

Before you get to judging me, think back and see if there are any gaming series that draw you in every time, even if history says you should save your money. What are they, and why do you keep going back?

Gears of War: Judgement Will Change as You Play

gears of war judgement declassified system

If there’s any game that’s more unnecessary than a Gears of War prequel, I’d like to see it (already seen God of War: Ascension) but it sounds like Epic subsidiary studio People Can Fly are doing their best to make the next trip back to the Gears-verse worth your time.

As Gears of War: Judgement is being told from the perspective of Baird and Cole defending themselves at a treason hearing, certain elements of the game will change each time you play it because, like any memory, things are going to be forgotten, replaced, or just plain made up. For example, the first time you play through a level, you might have access to sniper rifles, but the next time you play, Baird might say something like “we didn’t have access to snipers rifles” and poof: where you were once popping fools with snipers, you now have to get down and dirty with them.

As you play the missions you’ll eventually get to go through “declassified” versions of the levels, which is the actual series of events. Gears of War: Judgement also comes with a smart-spawn system similar to Left 4 Dead’s director: if you’re doing well the game will throw more enemies in different locations and you, and if you’re struggling to progress, things will get a bit easier.

Mixing things up like is what helps make a prequel a bit more palatable. I’m interested to see how this system will preform when the game drops, but for now it sounds like an interesting concept. What do you guys think? Is Gears of War: Judgement sounding a bit better to you now? What do you think of the declassification system?

Source – Kotaku

Halo 4 War Games Trailer is Fast and Furious

After playing Bungie-crafted Halo games for over ten years, how will 343 Industries fare when they take a stab at the mode the revolutionized multiplayer on consoles? If the new War Games trailer out of E3 is any indication, Halo 4’s multiplayer will be fast, brutal and more than a little bit flashy. Bungie’s Halo was always a more considered shooter, the slower pace leading to careful skirmishes rather than balls-to-the-wall gunfights. It worked well with the old games, but can 343 kick Halo into overdrive?

Overall the multiplayer of Halo 4 seems very similar to Halo: Reach: there are assassinations and armor abilities, but the new Spartans IVs are moving a lot faster than their Spartan III counterparts. I’m liking the look of Halo 4 a lot, but the sound design needs a little tuning. The melee attacks sound to squishy for a bunch of dudes in one ton suits of armor. What do you guys think? Does this trailer carry on the Halo legacy, or is Halo 4 turning into its own game?

Dead Space 3’s Co-op Gets a Chilly Reception

There are no secrets in the video game industry, which is why we knew about Dead Space 3’s co-op mode almost a week before its official debut at the E3 press conference. Even though we knew it was coming, we didn’t know what it would look like, so the six-minute on stage demo was enough to get a good idea. Here’s that demo so you can watch for yourself:

So what do you guys think? Is it a little too action packed for your taste? How will Visceral Games maintain the horror with two people running and gunning? How does new character John Carver compare to Isaac Clarke? Speak up!

Nintendo E3 2012 Press Conference Round-Up

Wii U

Nintendo’s press conference this year was so big they had to split it into 3. Not only did they have their Wii U conference the other night, but they also had a 3DS conference as well. But today is the big day, when they unleashed all of the games they’re working on to get the Nintendo fans excited. So the big question, as always, is: did they deliver? Does Nintendo’s immediate future look promising for gamers? Did Nintendo save the best for last?

Let’s find out. Continue reading Nintendo E3 2012 Press Conference Round-Up

Star Wars 1313 Hits E3 with Gameplay Footage

So dang, guys. Even if the big dogs have shown up to E3 without a single announcement for next gen plans (phew), that hasn’t stopped developers from hitting us with games that could be running on next generation hardware. See yesterday’s Watch Dogs, if you’re uncertain. Or just take a gander at Star Wars 1313.

In the clip, we get a sneak peek at some in-engine cinematics, featuring a couple of bounty hunters in what’s being billed as a grittier, more mature Star Wars universe. Sure, those are some awful big buzzwords, but combine them with Star Wars and you’ve got a pretty nice hook. In addition, we also see shots of gameplay. The best way to describe this game so far looks to be Uncharted in spcae, and I mean that in a good way. And yeah, it’s kind of gorgeous, to boot.

What are your thoughts on Star Wars 1313? Do you think this is running on next gen tech? Go!