On your feet solider; this review is Oscar Mike! Does the game stay frosty, or does it all go FUBAR?
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Recently, we here at GamerSushi were having an intense email fistfight discussion and Final Fantasy X-2 came up. You might remember that one as the Girl Power edition, with three female protaganists who change their class by changing clothes in the middle of battle. The tone was also much more light-hearted and irreverent than its predecessor, Final Fantasy X.
Because of this, a lot of people judged a game by it’s cover and thought it was pure crap. I, having played the game, defended it, especially its fast-paced battle system, which paved the way for Final Fantasy XIII’s hyper fighting. Needless to say, no one believed me, chalking it up to my Final Fantasy fanboyishness. Thankfully, Eddy looked it up on Metacritic and discovered it had an average rating of 85. Ah, vindication, my old friend.
Which leads me to ask: what games have you heard or assumed were bad and then later found out they were pretty awesome? For me, I think that Saints Row was one of them. I mistook it for a cheap GTA-clone, but it surpassed it in terms of sheer fun for me. What about you guys?
Do you guys remember back in November of last year when the hype for Modern Warfare 2 was really reaching a fever pitch? Well, during that time, Infinity Ward released a less than acceptable viral video promoting their game. The video was titled Fight Against Grenade Spam, or F.A.G.S. when shortened into an acronym. Obviously, this didn’t go over well with the majority of its viewers, and ended up causing IW a lot more grief than they needed right before MW2 launched. DICE, not one to let the comparisons between their game and Infinity Ward’s go unnoticed, has taken another pass at making fun of IW’s missteps, this time by spoofing F.A.G.S with a video of their own: F.R.A.G.S. Take a look.
So, what do you think? A little too overt of a jest by DICE? Do you think it’s justified?
I just spent a whole weekend in Austin, Texas for South By Southwest Interactive, the glorious tech and social media festival. I got to experience a whole lot of awesome things like hanging with some folks from Revision3, Burnie Burns from RoosterTeeth, and fans of Web Zeroes.
However, one thing I didn’t get a lot of: video games. As much fun as I ended up having, whenever I’m separated from gaming for a few days or more I start to go a little nuts. All weekend long, I couldn’t stop thinking about Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s sweet multiplayer and Final Fantasy 13. Despite its opening story issues and inherent Japanese-ness, Final Fantasy 13 is still tickling at a bone that doesn’t get tickled too often these days. I’m not sure what it is, but even though I had some complaints about the opening chapters, I keep finding myself drawn back to it.
So, what games do you guys start to miss when you have to get away from gaming for too long? What are you playing right now?
Brink is a title I’ve had my eye on for quite a while, but there’s been surprisingly few trailers for the upcoming First Person Shooter/free-running game. It’s got all the things I love about current generation shooters: persistent stats, customizable characters, and co-op. The game features something called SMART, which stands for Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. Check out an example of that in the trailer:
It looks like pre-rendered stuff, but it’s a good example of the game’s art direction. Does this pique your interest? If you do pick it up, which platform will it be for?
Welcome to a new edition of GameCop vs LameCop vs PsychoCop. It’s about time, huh?
If you’re unfamiliar with this feature, we discuss gaming issues and we switch roles each time. The GameCop has your best interests as gamers at heart, while the LameCop is just what he sounds like: kind of a lamewad. Meanwhile, PsychoCop is a crazed, complete troll of a dude.
In this week’s edition, we have a fair and reasonable debate about Activision and Infinity Ward, Assassin’s Creed II DRM and the statute of limitations on video game spoilers.
Enjoy!
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While I’ve been known to bemoan the stripping down of traditional Real Time Strategy mechanics, there’s one game that goes about it the right way: Dawn of War II by Relic. You may know Relic for their previous excellent strategy games like the original Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. While you needed a PC of the most beefy variety to play CoH, there’s no denying that it had some of the most dynamic game-play I’ve ever seen in a strategy title. Dawn of War took that and refined it a little more, focusing completely on unit manipulation in the field. A lot of upcoming RTSes purport that they want you to feel “attached” to your cannon fodder, but DoW2 comes the closest. A new expansion came out recently, and it’s been getting some rave reviews. Check out the trailer, heretics.
Has anyone else tried this game yet? If so, what did you think of the original, and do you miss the battlefields covered in carpets of slain Orks? Are you going to pick this expansion up? Just for extra nerd cred, who here paints Warhammer figurines? I have a few painted myself.
As we all know, the Game Developer Conference is happening this week down in San Francisco, and there’s a lot of news coming out about Sony’s Move motion controller. While it’s got a few developers excited about the possibilities, one industry veteran doesn’t think too highly about the rush to embrace gaming’s new zeitgeist.
Warren Spector has been in the video game industry for a long time, starting off with Wing Commander in the 1990s, but he’s perhaps most renown for his work on Thief, Deus Ex, and System Shock. With such a history behind him, surely he’s one to listen to when it comes to debating the merits of motion control. As Gamasutra’s new interview states, Mr. Spector isn’t so hot on the idea of motion control, mostly because it’s essentially “throwing away our entire history”. During the “Lunch with Luminaries” event at GDC, something I would give my left arm to attend, Warren had this to say about motion control:
“I think it’s kind of weird…that we’ve sort of said, ‘We’ve go 20, 30 years of people learning how to do this — sitting on their couch and having a good time, and knowing where the buttons are — and we’re saying ‘You’ve got to stand up and wave around and gesture,’”
He goes on to quantify his statement: More »
Man, the more I see for Splinter Cell: Conviction, the more pumped I get about it. I’ve been trying to avoid getting media overload from the whole thing, but it’s hard to stay away from great new videos that tease me with what I’ve been wanting since the co-op mode of Chaos Theory.
Ubisoft isn’t letting up apparently, and have given us a brand new video featuring a co-op mode interview. It sheds some new light on the mode, and gives tons of glimpses into the gameplay and the strategy that’s going to have to go into it from two players. I seriously can’t wait to play this, and it’s hard to believe it comes out next month.
Anybody else pumped?
Ever since Nintendo dropped trou on the video game industry with its motion control system, and then consequently made a metric crapload of money, it was only a matter of time before the other boys followed suit. We all knew that Project Natal from Microsoft was worming its way into our homes sometime soon, but there had been little development from Sony’s side of the ring.
Well, the gloves are now off. It seems that Sony has officially announced PlayStation Move, its new motion control device that is totally not a Wii-mote, as indicated by that strange blue ball on the end. Anyway, VG247 has a list of all the PS Move news you could shake a stick at, so I’d recommend checking that out if you want in on all the dirty details. The more interesting pieces of information include the fact that 20 first party titles are going to support PS Move when it launches this holiday, and that the device will be bundled with the EyeToy for a measly $100 bones.
So, what do you guys think of the PS Move? Go!
Source- VG247