Review: Fable 3

fable 3 review

If any game series in the history of our pastime has a penchant for over-promising and under-delivering, it’s definitely Peter Molyneux’s prized creation Fable. From its first inception, Fable promised to bring us a fully realized world that would change according to our actions, where trees would grow from tiny acorns to mighty oaks in real time. Of course, since the original game debuted on the Xbox, the console’s processing power couldn’t harness the time-warping ambition of Molyneux’s design so the final product was somewhat neutered. It was still a fun, addictive game, but nevertheless far from what we were promised.

Thus the stage was set for the series where a new game would be accompanied by Peter Molyneux leading the hype train making all sorts of wild boasts that we knew would never, ever come true no matter how badly we wanted to believe. Fable 2 has come and gone and now we’re on the third title. As the old saying goes, is the third time really the charm?

Continue reading Review: Fable 3

Heavy Rain Deleted Scenes Show “The Secrets of the Scenario”

I actually liked Heavy Rain quite a bit. I thought it was a very fresh take on both game mechanics and narrative, even if the story did become really uneven in the second half. There was something strangely compelling about this game, even if I was just deciding whether my son would eat pizza or have a healthy meal. That said, there were certain parts of the game that left me with nagging doubts, like Ethan Mars’ unexplained blackouts. Fortunately, a new video expunging the deleted scenes of Heavy Rain shows the explanation for this and many more mysteries besides. I’ve embedded the video for your viewing pleasure. Obviously, this thing is chock-full of spoilers, so beware!

This is a pretty rare glimpse into the game design process, and it filled in a lot of the blanks in Heavy Rain. Personally, I feel that most of the stuff they cut was well deserving of it, but the missing parts of Madison’s story would have been cool to play. What do you guys think of Heavy Rain’s deleted scenes?

Valve Chats Multiplayer, Crafting Sequels and Portal 2

Portal 2

Remember in the first Batman movie when Joker is watching Batman do his superhero thing, and Jack Nicholson famously quipped, “Where does he get all those wonderful toys?” I kind of feel like that every time I read interviews with Valve, who are just so good at what they do that it astounds me. Whether you like their games or not, you have to admit that they’re at the very least smart, and good at talking about games.

To me, the most respectable thing about Valve is the drive to always one up themselves, and to continue delivering experiences that will give the most value to their customer base and build up community around games. Take their recent interview with Game Developer Magazine, where project manager Erik Johnson talked primarily about Portal 2 and what it means to create a sequel for a much anticipated title.

Reading over the article, it seems like Valve really understands what made the first Portal click so well for such a huge audience. Check out some awesome quotes after the jump. Continue reading Valve Chats Multiplayer, Crafting Sequels and Portal 2

Call of Duty Remembered

Call of Duty

Only in this fast-paced, Internet-savvy world in which we live could a series that is only 7 years old warrant a retrospective, but in all honesty, it’s probably a good thing that GamePro has created one. Personally, I didn’t pay attention to Call of Duty until the first Modern Warfare, mainly because I had been a Medal of Honor fan and after I soured on that franchise, I wasn’t looking to get into another World War II FPS. But after borrowing Call of Duty 4 from a friend, it only took an hour of multiplayer and I was hooked. It also helped that I tried the game out on a Double Experience Point Weekend.

After that, I rented World At War and was pleasantly surprised and I own and still play Modern Warfare 2, although I know many of you are still upset with that one. Now I am looking forward to playing Black Ops when I get it for Christmas. So that’s my personal Call of Duty dossier. What about yours? After reading the retrospective, I realize I missed out on quite a bit. When did you enter the series? What was your favorite entry? Answer now, that’s an order!

Source: GamePro

Super Mario Gets His Own Street in Spain

super mario bros

It’s taken a while, but Nintendo’s famous turtle-stomping plumber is finally getting his due. Although Lara Croft already beat Mario to the punch in this regard, the iconic video game character is finding a way to one-up her by having the inaugural road of a new suburb in Spain named in his honor as opposed to re-naming an existing road.

Avenida de Super Mario Bros was just christened in Zaragoza in Northern Spain this past weekend, marking the first in a series of streets named after famous video game franchises and characters. Expected to follow after Mario are roads named after Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Invaders and The Legend of Zelda, to name a few.

Arcosur, the housing zone inside the Zaragoza suburb (confusing, no?), is a project aimed at first time home buyers. The video game themed names came from an online poll where the future residents could pick the names of their streets. Besides having awesome road names, Arcosur residents hope that the media attention this is garnering will push the Spanish government to finish the project by June of 2012, its current projected completion date.

This isn’t really a huge story news wise, but I thought it was a pretty cool one to share. Most of the home owners in this neighborhood are around 20-35, so I’m not really surprised that they snuck a few video game references in there. Just for fun, what franchises would you name a street after?

Source and image – CNN

GamerSushi Roll Call: Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops is finally out my friends, and it’s getting good reviews across the board. From what I’ve seen, the praise is ranging from “best Call of Duty yet” to “It’s OK, but it’s Treyarch so it’s better than I expected”. Honestly, I think by this point that Treyarch have proven themselves to be a competent studio. Sure, Call of Duty 3 was a little rough, but for a franchise off-team, they’ve managed to turn things around pretty significantly (I mean, they’re no Obsidian).

In honor of this monumental release, I thought I’d get a little roll call going. Who has Black Ops, and what do you think of it? Have you tried the campaign, multiplayer or zombie mode? What do you think of all the new additions that Treyarch has made, and what about the omissions? I was a little disappointed to hear that Spec Ops mode isn’t making a return. Lastly, what platform are you gaming on? Personally, I’m going PC, but I’m tempted to pick up a 360 copy just for the achievements. I know, I know, I’m terrible. Alright, hit me!

Fanmade Half-Life 3 Test Footage Is a Little Neat

If you listen to me at all in the many avenues for my ranting and raving, you know that “fanmade” anything is one of the least favorite words in my dictionary. I’m a firm believer that it’s more valuable for people to spend their time making their own creations rather than piggybacking on the creations of others. However, I accept that in these modern Intertubes, there’s just a culture that doesn’t always appreciate that.

Anyway, I’m about to be a bit of a hypocrite, because I think this fanmade Half-Life 3 test footage is kind of neat. It features Gordon Freeman doing some animations we haven’t seen him do before, and seems to take a bit of inspiration from the big scripted events of some more recent FPS games like Call of Duty. Obviously, nothing quite compares to the day that we finally see something out of Valve regarding Half-Life 3 or (Episode 3 or whatever they end up calling it), but a boy can dream, yes?

What do you guys think? Not Half-Life enough?

GamerSushi Asks: Favorite Franchises of This Gen?

Retrogaming is a lifestyle for some us, which is why outlets like the Virtual Console, PSN and Steam come in so handy. But 20 or so years from now, when we are all plugged into our own personal holodecks (and after testing out the Megan Fox app), what games from our current generation are you going to want to download to your mindchip? There have been quite a few stellar entries, I think we can all agree.

Personally, Uncharted and Mass Effect get my votes as two of the finest franchises of all time, let alone this gen. And those only have 2 entries so far! Imagine when we are on Mass Effect 7: Shepard’s Pie Party and Uncharted 10: What’s Left to Chart? In case you want some other choices, GamesRadar compiled a Top 7 list of Best New Franchises of the Current Generation and there might be one or two on there that would surprise you. I think we are in a nice era of gaming and this list reflects that.

So, having seen my choices and the list, what franchises from this gen do you like the most? Which ones do you think have the most potential longevity? Are there any new franchises that you consider epic fails? Go!

Source: GamesRadar

ScrewAttack’s Top 10 Online Multiplayer Console Games

Alright fanboys, it’s time to polish off your sticks. I know that we all just love to argue until we’re blue in the face about the lists that other game sites come up with, so I thought I’d bring a new one to your screaming attention.

You see, ScrewAttack just recently released a video that goes through what it considers to be the top 10 online multiplayer console games. They cover everything from Call of Duty to Phantasy Star Online, and manage to have a few other surprises on there as well. One only imagines how much different this would have looked if they had included PC titles on here as well. In fact, I think only a couple of these titles would have made the cut if they opened up the criteria in such a fashion.

So what do you guys think of the list? What other games would you include on there if PC games were added? Go!

Where You Thought Gaming Would Be

Back to the Future 2Over the last few weeks, I’ve been on something of a Back to the Future kick. I suppose this may have something to do with the classic trilogy’s recent release on Blu-ray, or simply because I am a science fiction nut that loves awesome movies. Regardless, there is something about the movies that always strikes me when I watch them, especially when dealing with Back to the Future II’s projections about the future.

If for some reason you’re not remember correctly, or a large rock fell on your head and deleted megabytes from your brain, Back to the Future II has some fairly outlandish predictions about where humanity’s technology and sense of style was supposed to be in the year 2015. The notable (and laughable) examples would be that of shoes that tie themselves, flying cars, and home fusion reactors.

While this movie is obviously a comedy, it’s still something that I think that people tend to do in general when we talk about the future: in some ways we wildly over project, and in others we are floored by things we never thought of. The same is true for video games. Continue reading Where You Thought Gaming Would Be

Rumor: Metal Gear Rising to Strike in 2012?

metal gear rising 2012

Our podcasts are becoming strangely prescient, it seems. Only on our last show did we despair about the early announcement of games versus when they actually come out. While the target of our woe at that time was Gran Turismo 5, it can easily be applied to Konami’s up-coming Metal Gear themed hack and slasher Metal Gear Rising, which is apparently set for a 2012 release.

Metal Gear Rising, announced in the summer of 2009 as a multiplatform title, apparently won’t be making an appearance for a couple of years if Kotaku is to be believed. While they don’t cite a source, they do say that they have been “told” that the game won’t be out until 2012. I’d chalk this up to rumor for now, but as Kotaku did point out, there are usually long waits between the announcement of an MGS game and its actual appearance on store shelves. Metal Gear Solid 4, as the given example, was announced in 2005 and didn’t come out until 2008.

While Metal Gear Rising never had a firm release date, many expected that the game would be out in 2011. However, given the lack of information on the game, this change in date isn’t exactly surprising. What do you guys think of Metal Gear Rising’s delay? Does this affect your perception of the title at all? Should game companies wait to announce games until they have a release date set in stone?

Source: Kotaku

Kinect Impressions

kinect impressions

I got to try out Kinect over the weekend, and I had enough hands on time with Microsoft’s full-body motion controller to get a decent impression. This isn’t a review, per se, but it’s still going to be a decent summary of my thoughts on it.

Kinect, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid the copious amount of information about it over the last year, is a sensor bar that hooks up to your Xbox 360 and uses an infrared scan of your body as input in specific games as opposed to the remote-wand set up used by the Wii and the PlayStation Move. The major hook of Kinect is the lack of any extraneous methods of control: it’s just the game and your body. There are no complicated button combos to remember, no dual analog sticks to fumble around with. By making the game an extension of yourself, Microsoft hopes to tap into the casual market by removing arguably the largest obstruction for new gamers: controllers. Does Kinect work in this regard, or was Kevin Butler right about the need for buttons?

Continue reading Kinect Impressions

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You Playing?

NBA 2K11

Video games, how I miss thee. Over the last several months, I’ve been swarmed by all kinds of things that have been taking away my gaming time. Some of these distractions fall into the realm of that general nagging living life thing (working, broken down vehicles, etc), and others are chosen (Krav Maga, personal writing).

Needless to say, I’ve been itching to play some games. When I’m not overwhelmed by these non-gaming nuisances, my time is being thrown into the following: Angry Birds and NBA 2K11. A basketball game may seem like an odd choice, but NBA 2K11 has already given me hours of sporty goodness. My brother and I have played countless games against one another, talking trash and throwing down sick jams all the meanwhile. If you’re into sports games at all, I’d suggest picking it up. On my radar are Fallout: New Vegas, Black Ops and Dead Rising 2 in the near future.

What about you guys? What are you playing this weekend and this week? Go!

GameStop’s November Trade-In Deals: Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and Call of Duty: Black Ops

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer

Whenever we’re feeling magnanimous or simply not lazy, we like to try and keep you guys posted about gaming deals that can help you save a buck or two. Especially during the fall downpour, it’s nice to be able to get as many games for as little money as possible.

Right now, GameStop has a few special trade-in offers towards upcoming titles Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (November 16) and Call of Duty: Black Ops (November 9). They also have some ongoing deals that extend to Kinect as well as Donkey Kong Country Returns. Check them out, unless your name is Scrooge McDuck and have money spraying from your ears and have no need of these kinds of things. In which case, I hate you. Not really.

Here are the GameStop trade-in offers for November 2010. Continue reading GameStop’s November Trade-In Deals: Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and Call of Duty: Black Ops

Sidetracked: The Danger of Side Stories

Super Street Fighter IIHaving recently downloaded the beta for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, I was startled to realize that I had forgotten all about it for a few days. Then I thought about it for a moment and came to the conclusion that the newest entry in Ubisoft’s historical/sci-fi series is suffering from a distinct lack of buzz, especially compared to the frenetic levels of hype that Assassin’s Creed 2 received, all of which were deserved in my opinion. So I started to wonder why people were taking such a lackadaisical approach to this game and it didn’t take long for the answer to sneak up on my and stab my brain: It’s a side story and not a sequel.

These are nothing new to gaming, but with the rise of importance in stories, it’s easy to see how many gamers, myself included, sometimes become frustrated by what seems to be a developer running down the clock until they are ready to finally release a sequel. Doing so can sometimes be dangerous and set a franchise back in terms of popularity, as we will examine now. Even a series without an epic story can suffer a backlash. Continue reading Sidetracked: The Danger of Side Stories

A Portrait of the Decade’s Best Video Game Characters

Video game portrait - Game Informer

Wow. What you see above is just a small piece of a huge portrait that Game Informer revealed today, which will make up three distinct covers of the December 2010 issue, shipping soon to subscribers. The subject of this portrait? Thirty Characters Who Defined a Decade.

Not only is it fascinating artwork, it’s also an interesting way to recap 10 years of worth of gaming, all at one thought-provoking glance. In total, the portrait shows thirty characters, each original to this generation. While it leans a bit heavy to some newer games, and leaves out some fan favorites like Solid Snake or Leon from Resident Evil 4 (since they first appeared in the 90s), it for the most part encapsulates a decade of remarkable video games, and produces some instant nostalgia.

Seriously, go look at it. Full list of characters after the jump. Continue reading A Portrait of the Decade’s Best Video Game Characters

Call of Duty: Black Ops Ad Proves There’s a Soldier in All of Us

Call of Duty: Black Ops is fast approaching (it comes out next Tuesday, November 9) and the marketing machine is ramping into over-drive. If you weren’t sick of being bombarded by Reach and Kinect ads, then you can certainly withstand this latest barrage. This new trailer/commercial is pretty clever, so you’re missing our a little if you don’t watch it. If you’ve ever wanted to see Kobe Bryant in a shoot-out with Jimmy Kimmel and a couple office workers, I’m about to make your day:

This was a really great commercial, I feel, but as Eddy pointed out to me in gmail chat there’s a distinct lack of 12 year olds running around shouting out racial epithets. I probably watched this a couple of times just to see all the little touches the film company added like the custom insignias on the guns and the writing on Jimmy Kimmel’s RPG. Since Black Ops comes out next week, we want to know: is there a soldier in you?

GamerSushi Asks: Gaming Difficulty?

Castlevania Lords of Shadow

The subject of difficulty in video games is a tricky one. On the one hand, video games in general seem to be too easy in a lot of ways, holding players’ hands from step 1 all the way until the final boss. On the other hand, it seems like many developers don’t know how to ramp the difficulty up in a way that is fair and organic, instead opting to throw completely ridiculous situations at you to frustrate you. It’s actually an odd trade off. The more I find myself grumbling about an easy game, there are just as many games that make me want to rage quit with unfair deaths, impossible sections, etc. This is one of the reasons I loved Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, because it kept ratcheting up the difficulty level without completely infuriating me.

Over at Gamasutra, Tim Keenan has posted a blog about this very subject called The Difficulty I Want. In it, he talks about how it’s often hard to know what you want in a game until you’ve had a chance to play the game yourself. He makes some great points about how many games just make you pick a difficulty and force you to stay with it to see the game through, rather than being able to switch down after dying multiple times or up after not dying enough. He also praises the difficulty sliders of Oblivion, which is one of my favorite games in this regard. It really is interesting to note that difficulty options haven’t changed much since the beginning of gaming. We still have the same generic options without much evolution.

So what do you guys think about gaming difficulty? Are games too easy? Is this an area where games can improve, and offer more dynamic ways to play that would make them more enjoyable? What games were unfair/too easy to you in recent memory? Go!

Source – Gamasutra

Battlefield Goes Free to Play, Brings Back Best Map Ever

Strike at Karkand. If you didn’t start immediately salivating when you read those words, then you must have never played the greatest multiplayer map in the history of PC First Person Shooters (except de_dust of course). For everyone still trying to wipe drool from their desk, this news is for you. Battlefield is adding another notch on its free-to-play belt with the addition of Battlefield Play4Free, a new game combining the maps of Battlefield 2 with some measure of the Frostbite engine that powered the Bad Company games and 1943. Check out the trailer below:

No word on how “free” this game will remain once you want to start equipping your character with different weapons and skins, but I can’t pass up another opportunity to play on Karkand. If you go and sign up at the Battlefield Play4Free website, you have a chance to get into the closed Beta. See you on the battlefield, soldier! Also, jets.

GamerSushi Asks: Franchise Redemption?

Devil May Cry 4

Gamers can be an unforgiving group of people. Everyone has that one series that released one too many sequels or spin-offs and destroyed our enthusiasm and love for it forever. The Tony Hawk series comes to mind, but my own personal disappointment was the Devil May Cry series. The first game was almost flawless, but the second was too easy and the third too hard. I was devastated by Capcom’s destruction of what I thought was going to be a stellar franchise.

But, hope (and my wallet) sprang eternal, as Devil May Cry 4 put the series back on track and made me remember how much I enjoyed killing demons with Dante. Which leads me to my question: what series did you write off, but a subsequent sequel made you love it again? Do you tend to give up after one bad entry or does it take a few for your trust to be lost? Go!