Dead Space 2 Trailer Shows the Evolution of Isaac Clarke

Dead Space is kind of a cult hit amongst gamers along with Mirror’s Edge, the two sort of forming the spearhead of the “new EA” movement. While the games didn’t do gangbusters either commercially or critically, there are legions of fans knocking down doors demanding sequels, so I guess EA did something right. I myself enjoyed a bit of Dead Space, even though it stopped being scary for me about twenty minutes in. My other gripe was Isaac Clarke, the mute handyman that I took control of. His design was bad-ass, but the lack of a voice bugged me, especially during the later hours when he was still busting his ass to fix a broken ship crawling with scythe-limbed zombies with nary a complaint. One of the major changes for Dead Space 2 is to give old Isaac a voice, and his evolution as a character is detailed in this trailer:

Dead Space 2 is hitting shelves and download services January 25, 2011. It’s one of the two games I didn’t have a chance to get a peek at during PAX 2010, so I’m definitely intrigued. Is Dead Space 2 on your list?

GamerSushi Asks: Your Favorite Achievements/Trophies

dead rising zombie genocider

It’s no big secret that both Eddy and I are kind of Achievement hounds (although I never rented TMNT for a quick 1000 Gamerscore. Just saying.). Throughout my long and illustrious hunt for those precious e-peen points, I’ve come across a few that have stuck in my mind as either being particularly rewarding or memorable.

The original Dead Rising has, for me, pound for pound some of the best Achievements of any Xbox 360 game. I know that some of you will argue the point, but Zombie Genocider took me a good four hours to do and gave me the sweet, sweet reward of the Mega Blaster for my troubles. For time invested versus payout, that one ranks pretty high. Other good ones were the Monument to All Your Sins from Halo: Reach and Mile High Club from Call of Duty 4. I mean, that one was a total pain in the ass, but I count myself amongst a small, elite group of total sadists for getting that.

What about you guys? Any Achievements or Trophies out there that you’re proud of? Any that you’re not too thrilled about obtaining? Go! Oh by the way, commenting is an Achievement!

Classic Video Game Characters Race

Here’s a little Thanksgiving gift from us to you (via some dude named Eyspire on YouTube). It’s not a “scientific” race of which set of pixels would win, but it is a stroll down memory lane with a surprise ending.

Enjoy, and Happy Turkey Day to our American users.

[youtube width=”500″ height=”310″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_3Hyb6IfU[/youtube]

Husky and KurtHugo Parody “Baby” With “Banelings”

As a group of people with brain functions higher than that of your average chimpanzee, I think we can all agree that Justin Bieber is a blight upon the Earth equal to Jersey Shore or some other MTV reality show garbage. Adding insult to injury is the fact that he hails from my fair country of Canada, making yet another terrible music sensation we have to apologize for (Nickleback, Cher, Avril Levine and a few more being the others). On the other hand, such musical abortions are ripe for parody. Enter Husky of StarCraft 2 fame and KurtHugo who have cooked up a little ditty about the worst unit for the Zerg, the detestable Banelings. It features a sweet car, hot babes, and yes, plenty of StarCraft jargon. Take a look!

GamerSushi Top Six: Things to Be Thankful for in 2010

Ah, Thanksgiving time. The time of the year where we show our thanks by way of a gluttonous feast, with food fit for a king. Also, there’s that whole Black Friday thing, where we shove our money in our ears and buy everything that’s marked down in price. But that’s almost a different holiday altogether then, isn’t it? Greed Day, or somesuch.

However! We, the kind and wise overlords of GamerSushi, wanted to stop and take a quick look at the gaming year so far. In the spirit of the holidays, we had a hand-to-hand combat battle to determine the things that we are most thankful for in 2010, so that we could benevolently share them with all of you, our loyal fellow gamers and all around awesome dudes.

So, without further ado, here’s our top six gaming things we’re thankful for in 2010. Continue reading GamerSushi Top Six: Things to Be Thankful for in 2010

The Generation’s Biggest Flops and Fails

Red Ring of Death

Every generation has its own ups and downs. Each console and PC era is like a little roller coaster ride full of great games and disappointing ones. Ideally, with each new generation we’d see the peaks get higher and higher, but it only makes sense, then, that the drops would be lower and perhaps more full of fail.

That’s why GamesRadar has put together a list of the Top 13 Failures of this Generation, and it is a sad but mostly true account of the more head-turning moments of the last few years. Obviously, it’s got to have the dreaded Red Ring of Death on it, as well as APB, the failed MMO. Of course, the list was also going to need to touch on the Wii’s horrid online play, and the lack of all the promised console MMOs, each one biting the dust in turn. I wouldn’t have included Alpha Protocol on the list, but then again, I didn’t realize it had been in development for 5 years.

What really surprised me actually is just how many of the fails on here come from the XBox 360 (faceplates, the hard drives with only half the space, Too Human, etc.), but really it shouldn’t have caught me off guard. Microsoft had a ridiculously rough start, and one only wonders if they’re repeating themselves with Kinect. One other addition I would make would be DRM attempts for PC games.

So what do you guys think? What would you consider to be the biggest failures of the last few years, on both console and PC? Do you agree/disagree with anything on the list in particular?

Source – GamesRadar

Poll: Favorite Time of Year for Gaming?

American Thanksgiving is upon us. By this time tomorrow, the smell of turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie will be wafting all across the fruited plains. Which is also a good time for some gaming. Tomorrow won’t give me too many chances for my favorite hobby, but the following days hopefully will. But even then, Thanksgiving can’t compare to Christmas break. When I was a kid, getting new games and playing the crap out of them before school started back was a tradition, one I sincerely miss.

I imagine these days, with great games coming out all year round, that summer vacation is also a good time for some gaming action, as long as the family doesn’t drag you on too many cross-country vacations. Back in my day, summer vacation was decent, but only if you had some games leftover from Christmas, as the new release pickings were slim.

Which leads us to our poll question. Hit it!

What is your favorite time of year for gaming?

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Pirate Witcher 2 and Pay a Fine

Witcher 2 anti-piracySo, Witcher 2 is coming out soon. If you’re thinking of pirating it to save a few pennies, think again, because CD Projekt, the developers of Witcher 2 and owners of GOG.com, have a nasty surprise for you. Apparently the European company is tired of people snatching their games off of torrents (an presumably through windows as well), so they’ve teamed up with some big law firms to bring the full might of the court against PC pirates.

The game, which is set to launch in March of 2011, will be DRM-free from the outset, allowing legitimate purchasers to install the game as many times as they want on any PC. For those out there who choose less-than-legal methods to obtain their game, they should expect a cease-and-desist letter from one of the firms that have teamed up with CD Projekt.

In case you are wondering, the way that a torrenter is tracked is by having the law firm send a request to the torrent sites to get a list of IP addresses that have used the site. From there it goes to the IP provider, who then needs to cough up the name of the end user. It’s a time consuming and imperfect process, as I’m sure we all remember the claims of fraud from the few who were persecuted by the music industry a while back for illegally downloading songs. Since there’s no actual way to prove that the IP owner was the one who downloaded the game, just that it was from their address, this has lead some to believe that this method of piracy protection is a violation of personal privacy.

While DRM methods are usually stringent and are a pain in the rear, this is the first time in my memory that a game company is standing ready to take legal action against pirates. What do you guys think of CD Projekt’s plan? Is it too heavy-handed, or is a trip to the district court just what the pirates deserve?

Source – Eurogamer

Rumor: Elder Scrolls V Is a Direct Sequel to Oblivion?

Elder Scrolls 4

Well, we’ve been waiting forever, and it seems that Bethesda’s addiction machine, I mean, Elder Scrolls, is gearing up for another entry into the long running franchise. That’s right, Eurogamer Denmark is reporting that Elder Scrolls V is well into production, and it’s so far along in fact that they’ll be doing voicework for the game over the next few weeks.

While the reporters that supposedly saw the game are sworn to secrecy through blood pacts (also called NDAs), there are a few things we know about the game. Namely, that it’s a direct sequel to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, rather than a standalone tale set in the same universe. I know this should really excite fans of the last game, and I’m sure the idea of jumping right back into those events is going to encumber people with happiness like so many extra pieces of armor. Maybe I can try and actually finish this one instead of robbing houses for 35 hours.

I probably don’t even have to ask this, but is anyone else excited about this? What do you guys think a direct sequel to Oblivion could entail? Anything in particular you want to see in Elder Scrolls V?

Source – Eurogamer Denmark via Google Translate

GamerSushi Asks: What Is the New PS3 Exclusive?

Save the date

The Spike Video Game Awards are a time for the industry to come together and accept accolades while hardcore gamers at home scream, “WTF does the Jersey Shore have to do with video games?” at their televisions. It’s also a time for new games to be announced, as we have seen with great fanfare in the past.

But Sony, ever out of step with the rest of gaming world, has decided to announce a reveal of some new PS3 exclusive the day after the awards at 2 PM Pacific time on Sunday, December 12th. The question on everyone’s mind is, of course, what will this exclusive be? Some new Move game? Uncharted 3? Gran Turismo 6? Let us know in the comments!

Source: Joystiq

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Flying Glitch Shows the Sights

My, Ezio, what a big city you have. I knew the world of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was huge, but dang, this is actually pretty impressive. It seems that some folks getting ready for an AC: Brotherhood review ran across a glitch that sent their player flying high into the night sky, where he could then look down upon the game’s enormous sprawling world.

This is one of those rare occasions where a bug/glitch shows off something far more astounding, especially when you look down at all the buildings and city streets and realize that you can actually run and climb throughout all of those. Honestly, it seems like flying around in some kind of sandbox mode after the game was over would not be a bad feature at all, after seeing this.

Has anyone had a chance to play this yet? Got any thoughts on it?

Today’s WTF: Virtual MMO Real Estate SOLD for $335,000

Club Neverdie Entropia

Some people may have too much time on their hands. Some may have too much money. Some guys, like Jon Jacobs, have a little bit of both; or at least now he does. Jon Jacobs sold his in-game property for a whopping $335,000 dollars. The property was in the Swedish-made MMORPG Entropia Universe3, a game which looks like a clash of Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies where avatars can go around and do pretty much anything.

The property is one which Jacobs had been managing for over 5 years. Jacobs bought Club Neverdie in 2005, taking out a $100,000 mortgage on his home. The club sits on an asteroid around Entropia’s first planet, Planet Calypso. Club Neverdie hosts in-game shopping, clubbing with live DJs, hunting, real cash prizes and more. The thing about Entropia Universe is that it runs off a real cash economy, where players can buy in-game currency (PED – Project Entropia Dollars) with real money and then redeem it back into real world funds at a fixed exchange rate. Jacobs’ business brought him an annual income of around $200,000 a year, allowing him to live comfortably with his family. Pretty sweet set up – he even has his own theme song.

The sale of the property netted him just over half a million in cash, with the largest chunk being sold to an avatar named John Foma Kalun, who paid $335,000 for it. This tops the previous largest virtual transaction, which was the sale of the Crystal Palace Space Station for $330,000 back in 2009.

So who’s the guy who deals out $335,000 big ones for fake real estate? A man named Yan Panasjuk, who had this to say for himself… Continue reading Today’s WTF: Virtual MMO Real Estate SOLD for $335,000

Halo Wars Says “GG”, Shuts Down Forum and Stat Tracking

Halo WarsHalo Wars, the Real Time Strategy spin-off of the popular shooter series, is getting a little downgrade to better integrate itself into Microsoft’s future plans for the franchise. In a recent post on the Halo Wars forum, moderator Cocopjojo announced that, after Title Update 5, the game will lose its forums and the online stat tracking on the dedicated site so it can be merged with the Halo Waypoint site.

While Halo Wars wasn’t exactly the most celebrated of the Halo games, it was still relatively well received and had a dedicated fan base to back it up. Most of the forum goers are naturally butt-hurt about the proceedings, and the very first comment after Cocopjojo pretty much sums up the sense of entitlement the Internet bestows upon people in one short snippet.

While this may not seem like a big deal since most of us probably don’t play Halo Wars anymore, online stats tracking has been a huge deal for Halo ever since Halo 2. For a series to get rid of one of the most successful community tools in the history of gaming, even if it’s a spin-off, is a pretty big blow. While Halo Wars will continue getting support for things like patches, it will be a bit more neutered going forward.

Any opinion on Microsoft dumping Halo Wars’ community on their collective butts? Even if Halo Wars gets rolled into Waypoint, it is a little bit of a slap in the face for the fans. Since Halo Wars lost its stat tracking, will future Halo games under the Microsoft umbrella even feature this?

Source – Halo Wars Forum

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 11: Reducto

Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsThe GamerSushi Show is back, and this time in a newer, more awesome format. You see, while we enjoyed all the podcasts of old, they were starting to become large and scary monsters. At 2 hours plus, it gets harder and harder to find the time to not only record, but also edit and get them ready for release. On top of that, we felt that every 2 weeks was not as fun for you guys. Ideally, weekly content is better.

So as a result, we decided to shorten the podcast down to 1 hour, and attempt to release it for you guys each and every week. This is much more manageable, and I think the product will be much better for it. It forces us to move from topic to topic, and doesn’t allow us to get too bogged down in one particular discussion.

In honor of this new format, and the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in theaters, I’ve titled this week’s edition “Reducto”. In it, you’ll find discussion about Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Fable III, a new game from Nick where we grade industry events (such as Diablo III heading to consoles) and a bit more. What stinks is there won’t actually be a follow-up next week because of the holidays, but you can expect one the week after.

Since I always ask, please go rate this cast on iTunes and subscribe with the handy links to the right. Enjoy! Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 11: Reducto

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When a Game Grabs You

Limbo

For movies, it’s said that there is a “10 minute rule” of sorts, which dictates that a film has just that amount of time to convince you of whether or not it’s worth your attention. Usually in that first 10 minutes, you’re kind of like “OK, I’m not sure if I’m feeling this talking dog”, or “those lovable sidekicks better solve that alien mystery”. You know, normal movie stuff. The interesting question though, is: how does the 10 minute rule apply to video games? This is the very idea that a new feature on Gamasutra discusses, titled History, Mystery and Story. It’s a cool look at how games tend to try and capitalize on this concept, and that it has to differ from story games to games in other genres.

It seems to me that while the time in minutes would have to be different, the general idea behind the 10 minute rule would be largely the same. Whereas a movie is just a 90 to 120 minute experience, games typically range anywhere from 5 to 50 hours, depending on what you’re playing. So does the 10 minute rule scale up because of the longer nature of games? Or is it about the same? When you think about the way modern games work, the first 10 minutes places you right in the middle of a boring tutorial. It’s interesting to think about the idea that maybe the majority of people lose patience and make up their mind that early on. Honestly, the only game that had me convinced within 10 minutes in recent years would have to be Limbo, which grabbed me right from the get-go and still hasn’t let go, months later.

So what is your guys’ opinion on this issue? How long does it usually take a game to grab you? Are you typically more or less patient? How long will you give a game before you throw away interest?

Source – Gamasutra

Be Warned: Gran Turismo 5 Takes 50 Minutes to Install

GT5 50 min install

Gran Turismo 5 is finally coming next week, and I’m seriously considering picking it up. On the podcast we recorded this past week (which will hopefully be up this weekend) I mention that my PS3 hasn’t seen use since Heavy Rain. I didn’t get around to playing Heavy Rain until April, but even so, that’s still a large amount of time.

Imagine my surprise when I get around to checking the Internet this morning and see that GT5 will take a whopping 50 minutes to install on my poor launch-day PS3. Not only that, but the game will take up 10 GB in your hard drive; 6.4 GB at first, and the remainder unpacks as you play.

In a bit of damage control, Sony came out and said that the big original install will not be mandatory, and that the game will handle it on the back end, should you choose that method. Basically, you can either load it all up front or have the game do some maintenance as you play.

This isn’t a Today’s WTF per se, rather more of a warning so you don’t freak out come Wednesday when you get the disc in your hot little hands. Now that you know about this, how are you feeling about GT5? Still excited?

Source – CVG and Eurogamer

GamerSushi Asks: What’s Your Ideal Game Length?

Oblivion

There are as many different types of gamers as there are stars in the skies, it seems. Some hoard games and consoles, never trading them in. Others buy a new game, beat it as soon as possible and then trade it back in for something else, repeating the cycle over and over. But all gamers want decent value out of their purchases (or trade-ins) and for many people, that comes down to length.

How long should a game be? It’s a question that is asked on every message board when a new game comes out. The answer varies from person to person. Some people want a decent 8 hours, while others want something in the 15-20 hour range. In middle school and high school, hearing about a game that was 60 hours in length made me drool with excitement.

GamePro has an interesting article arguing for shorter, tighter games that don’t lose the narrative while trying to artificially lengthen the game. Personally, I think it depends on the genre, but the author is right in his assessment. Red Dead Redemption lost its strong story somewhere in Mexico and didn’t get it back until the end. At the same time, I enjoy the myriad tasks and I don’t want to see games lose those features just for story purposes.

What do you think? What’s a good length of time for you when it comes to games?

Source: GamePro

Poll: What Would it Take For You to Play an MMO?

With The Old Republic on the horizon and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm just around the bend, it seems that the MMO train will keep rolling forward for years to come. Since WoW has established its dominance in that arena, there are many, many contenders trying to vie for your attention. At first, they tried to “out-WoW WoW” but that backfired.

Now publishers are realizing that you have to strike Warcraft where it’s weak, not by going toe-to-toe with it in its own domain. A lot of gimmicks have been thrown around to try and tap into this vast, lucrative market, although this site does seem to be a bastion against MMOs. I know that we do have a couple players here, and I’m a recovering WoW player myself, but what about the rest of you? What would it take for you to tuck into an MMO?

To save you the trouble of typing a bothersome reply, I’ve created a handy dandy poll which you can click on to answer. If I’ve neglected something, though, feel free to comment. Vote away!

What Would it Take to Get You to Play an MMO?

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Gran Turismo 5: Kevin Butler Steals a Car

There’s really not much left to say about the Kevin Butler persona, the man who acts as Sony’s VP of everything awesome and hilarious. It’s a brilliant marketing touch by Sony, and to me, shows that they really do understand gamers in this leg of the console generation cycle.

In this newest Kevin Butler spot, the executive is pumping up Gran Turismo 5, and stealing a car in the process. Does this mean that the game is real, finally? Really real? The promised release date at the moment is November 24th, which is less than a week from today. Perhaps we can finally hope.

The more I think about this game, the more excited I am by its release. I’ve loved every single GT game, and I think the thought of this one’s delays actually delayed my enthusiasm as well. But now that we’re on the verge of another one, I can’t stop thinking about it. Anybody else considering picking it up?

GamerSushi Asks: Would You Rather?

Apparently we’ve been leaving the Would You Rather game off to the side of the road, flopping like a fish out of water. So, being the kind gents we are, we decided to resuscitate it and bring it back to life for your enjoyment. Not that I’d do mouth-to-mouth with a fish. Well, maybe I would.

For the uninitiated, in Would You Rather, I simply ask a series of questions, and you follow up with your answers. 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.

But beware, lest your answers be terrible and full of fail. For if they are, Jeff will use his vast eyebrow powers to blink you straight out of existence. Either that or he will call you names that hurt your feelings. He’s good at both, but it really depends on his mood that day. Anyway, have at it, folks.

Would you rather… Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: Would You Rather?