Review: Sonic Generations

Sonic

Let’s not be coy about it: the Sonic franchise has seen better days. What once stood as the speedy bastion of an entire console experience and a worthy rival to Nintendo’s Mario has limped along for many years, a hedgehog much past his prime. Over the years, Sega seems to have lost its way with the spiky blue wonder, unsure of how to transition him properly to 3D while still honoring the tried and true flavor from generations past.

With Sonic Generations, they tried their hand at something new — rather than try to reinvent both wheels, why not package both 2D and 3D Sonics together into one comprehensive experience? Continue reading Review: Sonic Generations

Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Modern Warfare 3

After the well-publicized falling out of Infinity Ward and Activision, the Modern Warfare franchise returns with (presumably) the final chapter in the world-devastating saga. There is no question that this game would sell a ton of copies, but the real question is can the remnants of Infinity Ward, along with a little help from their friends at Sledgehammer, maintain the quality that the fans demand? Continue reading Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Review: Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection

Ico Review Cover

Team Ico is responsible for two of the most acclaimed games of all time. Now both those games are together in one affordable HD collection for the PS3. I played just a bit of Ico in the PS2 days and managed to miss out on Shadow of the Colossus entirely, but now that both have emerged in this new collection, I am eager to take the plunge and find out if these two games still live up to the hype that they have left in their wake. Continue reading Review: Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection

Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

the elder scrolls 5 skyrim review

The coming of an Elder Scrolls game is always a monumental occasion in the world of video games and the release of Skyrim was no different. Hype for this game was incredibly high and it even knocked Counter-Strike: Source off the top-played list on Steam for a short while. It seemed like the entire world was waiting on baited breath for Skyrim, but does it keep up the legacy of the Elder Scrolls or take an arrow to the knee? Continue reading Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Groovy Horror of Kinect Star Wars

star wars kinect galactic dance off

Even in a site where everyone can easily be considered a nerd, Anthony and I have another badge to pin on the sash of our geekiness: we are both huge Star Wars fans. We read the books, play the games and watched the Phantom Menace in 3D (or at least I did). Since neither of us have a Kinect, we won’t be playing the recently released Star Wars title, but the game’s Galactic Dance Off mode seemed like good fodder so we decided to watch a few videos and give you our thoughts on them. Be warned, the songs featured in the videos are terrible to the extreme.

See our breakdown after the jump! Continue reading The Groovy Horror of Kinect Star Wars

Crysis 3 Welcomes You to the Jungle in 2013

crysis 3

We may have seen it leaked last week but Crytek and EA officially announced it today: Crysis 3 is coming in 2013 to all of your favorite consoles and the PC. Taking place some 20 years after the previous game, Crysis 3 takes players back to New York City which has been sealed off with a Nanodome, placed by the Cell Corporation (one of the bad guys from Crysis 2). The Nanodome divides New York City into seven different districts, each of which poses its own challenge for players.

Not much has been confirmed about Crysis 3 yet except that Prophet is back, he’s packing a bow, and we’ll be going up against human and Ceph enemies once again. You can pre-order the game right now on Origin and get the Hunter Edition which will net you a multiplayer XP bonus (jumping you up to level five), early access to the bow and some other goodies. EA is already calling Crysis 3 the “first blockbuster shooter” of next year.

What do you guys think about this? Is it coming too soon after Crysis 2? What changes do you hope to see? Personally I liked Crysis 2’s single-player quite a bit, but the multiplayer didn’t quite grab me like it did in the first game. Hopefully the design changes back from being a straight-up Call of Duty knockoff to something resembling its original form, but with a short turn-around between games, I don’t think that’s likely. Since the main character now uses a bow, expect me to be calling him “Prophet Hood” every chance I get.

Source – Kotaku

Gaming Pop Quiz: Spring 2012 Edition

Pop Quiz

Did you know we haven’t done one of these pop quizzes since October? That’s half a year. My, how time flies. Things seemed so much simpler back then. There was no Mass Effect 3 debate to keep us up at night. We hadn’t yet played the likes of Arkham City, Skyrim or Uncharted 3. Final Fantasy XIII-2’s ending hadn’t shocked us. And Assassin’s Creed III hadn’t turned on the hype machine to its full effect.

So now here we stand, Spring 2012, and we’ve got a few months of quiet to look forward to while we catch up on gaming backlogs (The Witcher II and Kingdoms of Amalur for me), or enjoy some quality time with the games that currently tickle our fancy (Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3). All while we wait for Diablo 3, Borderlands 2 and then the eventual tidal wave that hits us at the end of the year. It’s an age-old cycle, but one that I sort of love.

In light of that, it’s time for a pop quiz. We wanted to ask you guys some questions that take more of a sit-back-and-reflect stance this time around. As always with our getting-to-know-you type games, feel free to answer with as much or as little as you like. Answer to the best of your ability. Go! Continue reading Gaming Pop Quiz: Spring 2012 Edition

Spartan Ops Brings the Episodic Co-Op Flavor to Halo 4

Halo 4

With 343 having officially taken the reins of the Halo universe from the old masters at Bungie, it seems that we’re finally starting to get little trickles of information about the upcoming sequel, Halo 4. On top of the recent news that Massive Attack producer Neil Davidge will be scoring the game, 343 has also given some juicy ammunition to Game Informer over the last week.

While there are new screenshots and other bits to take away from the reports of the Game Informer story, the most curious bit is what lies in store for Halo 4’s co-op. Yes, the campaign will still have 4 player co-op. However, it seems that Firefight is getting the axe – or the gravity hammer, perhaps. That’s right, Firefight is history, but in its place, 343 is providing Spartan Ops, an episodic 4 player co-op campaign with its own story. The most interesting part of all of this, though, is that 343 plans on releasing regular free updates to Spartan Ops, allowing players to devour its content in a weekly format almost like that of a TV show, with new gameplay to experience with each one.

I have to say, this is some interesting news. While I think that booting a (now) series staple like Firefight is probably the wrong move, Spartan Ops will provide a welcome new flavor into the franchise. I love the idea of regular episodic content, as it’s something that nobody has done just yet. Which is odd, considering that this generation is finally ready for something like that.

What do you guys think of the idea of Spartan Ops for the Halo 4? Would you like to see more games experiment with regular episodic content like this? Go!

Source – CVG

Video Games In Planet Form Will Make You Wistful

We gamers are a nostalgic lot. We love to be reminded of games from the past, even if that past is from a few months ago. Something about seeing our favorite games in a new way just triggers an ache, one we long to ease by dipping back into a world from our past.

Such emotions were what I felt when watching this cleverly animated video that shows the games we love in a new form: that of an ever shifting planet. Every few seconds, the planet morphs into a new setting, some of which are immediately obvious and others not so obvious. I won’t spoil it as part of the fun is trying to guess yourselves. Check out the video below and see how many you can identify!

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

9 Year Old Makes Cardboard Arcade, Happiness Ensues

This is just one of those things that tugs on the heartstrings. Caine is a 9 year old boy who loves arcades so much that he decided to build one himself in his father’s used auto parts store – out of cardboard boxes. Not only does Caine maintain and operate the “machines” himself, he actually devised a series of passes, tickets, rewards/prizes and even a security system to confirm that customers are legit.

Caine’s problem? He can’t get any visitors. So a bunch of people decide to give him one of the greatest days of his life in the way of a flash mob. The results are pretty heartwarming.

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

Needless to say, the whole thing is absurdly adorable and harkens back to those days when we were kids, and our imaginations ran wild. It’s also pretty cool that, in a world where the arcade is fading away, there are still kids that are as addicted to them as I used to be back in the day. I spent far too many (or not enough, depending on your point of view) summer days and dollars at the pizza buffet behind my house, slamming my palms on driving games, the Simpsons arcade game and whatever shooters I could find.

What did you guys think of this? Favorite arcade memories? Go!

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 45: Don’t Stop Believing

It’s been a couple weeks since our groundbreaking Mass Effect 3 spoiler cast, but we just wanted to give you guys some time to absorb the postmortem we gave the series and reflect on how right we all were. OK, that was a lie, but let’s just agree that that’s what happened.

It’s a three man show this week because Nick and Anthony had to sit it out but Eddy, Jeff and I kick off a series of fantastic conversations ranging from Mass Effect 3’s Extended Cut DLC to The Hunger Games to Journey. We also wrap it up with a game of Grades, which we know you love. There’s no overt technical issues this time, because everyone managed to sort out their microphone issues from last week.

So, the usual song and dance. Listen, bask in our gaming-related intellect, and give us a good rating. It’s for your health.

0:00 – 3:38 – Intro
3:38 – 24:16 – Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC
25:20 – 38:05 – PlayStation Orbis and the Amazon Instant App on PSN
40:16 – 1:03:33 – Journey
1:03:35 – 1:04:04 – GAME TIME
1:04:06 – 1:12:18 – Notch’s new game 0x10c
1:12:20 – 1:24:29 – The Influx of Kickstaters
1:24:30 – 1:30:38 – Rent a Server for Battlefield 3 on Consoles
1:30:39 – 1:31:25 – Outro

PC Version of Dark Souls Will Kill You in August

dark souls pc version

Good news everyone, the infamously hard follow up to Demon’s Souls will be making its PC debut this August according to a German game magazine as confirmed by the fine folks over on NeoGaf. The PC version of Dark Souls will pretty much be a 1:1 port of the consoles, except for the obvious keyboard/mouse stuff and the addition of two new bosses.

I said during our lightning round on the GamerSushi Show that if Dark Souls ever made the jump to PC I would give it a try and it looks like I’m going to have to live up to my statement. I think that the precise commands of a keyboard/mouse setup will be beneficial for the trying world of Dark Souls but I imagine I’ll give my Xbox controller a shot if the game comes with support for it (which it probably will).

Considering the new release lull that we’re getting in to this is a great boon for me and the many other PC gamers on this site who have been intrigued by the challenges of Dark Souls. So, veterans of this game in its console forms, do you have any tips? Should we start making obeisances to the gods of gaming right now? Are you guys excited for this game to make the jump to PC? Go!

Source – NeoGaf

Mass Effect 3 Resurgence DLC Adds Krogan Vanguard, Other Stuff

It’s been kind of a Mass Effect-dominated week here at GamerSushi, and originally I wasn’t even going to post the trailer for the Resurgence multiplayer DLC, but the awesome playable characters being added changed my mind. You can now play as the geth and the batarians, and the krogan become even more awesome with the addition of the Vanguard class to their ranks. Personally I’m excited about the geth Engineer as that was my favorite class in ME3, but if I unlocked the krogan Vanguard instead, I wouldn’t complain. The DLC also adds new weapons and arenas, so check out the trailer below to geth the full scoop (pun intended).

Even if the GS crew hasn’t been able to assemble in a ME3 multi game in a while, I still kind of enjoy joining up in public games. Most people are around the level cap and the powers are kind of unbalanced in the players favor anyways. Mass Effect 3’s Resurgence DLC hits for free on April 10. What do you guys think about it? Which of the new classes would you want to play as?

BioWare Announces “Extended Cut” Mass Effect 3 DLC

mass effect 3 extended cut dlc

In a move to placate fans after the uproar about the ending, BioWare has announced that it will be releasing a free “Extended Cut” DLC for Mass Effect 3 this summer. No specific date beyond the season has been announced, but the DLC will offer additional scenes that the developer hopes will help clarify the end of Shepard’s journey.

The Extended Cut DLC will not change the ending to the game but rather will contain “additional cinematics and epilogue scenes” which will be tacked on to the existing ending, according to a post on the BioWare Blog. The author of this post for BioWare was very cut and dry about the motivations behind the Extended Cut DLC as well:

So there you have it. Are we proud of the game we made and the team that made it? Hell yes. Are we going to change the ending of the game? No. Do we appreciate the passion and listen to the feedback delivered to us by our fans? Very much so and we are responding.

This DLC has apparently been re-prioritized by the staff at BioWare to help address the problems people have with the ending of the game. Will this satisfy the “Retake Mass Effect” people? What do you guys think about the Extended Cut? Is BioWare making the right move?

Source – BioWare Blog

In Minecraft Westeros, You Win or You Mine

I just recently wrapped up watching the first season of HBO’s Song of Ice and Fire adaption Game of Thrones and I have to say that it was fantastic. The producers clearly have a reverence for the source material and the small screen adaptions of the various locations looked spot on to me (except for King’s Landing which struck me as oddly tropical). Of course, with anything nerdy there comes the inevitable Minecraft interpretation of it, and a team of dedicated builders recreated the world of Game of Thrones in blocky form.

I’m always impressed with what people are able to do in Minecraft, and with the dedication they have to undertaking these massive projects. What do you guys think about Minecraft Westeros?

Notch’s Space Epic: 0X10C

Notch

Our love (and the Internet’s at large) affair with Minecraft has been well documented in these parts. While I’m not a guy that actually plays a ton of Minecraft, I consider myself a fan – I’m fascinated by the experiment and totally enthralled by the things that communities produce when they have that kind of free license and creativity. So it should probably go without saying that Notch’s announcement of his new game, 0X10C, is something that I’ve been looking forward to.

If there’s anything to say about 0X10C (besides that bizarre name that I have no idea how to pronounce), it would be that it gives a whole new meaning to the word “ambitious.” As epic as it would be to describe it as Minecraft in space, even that synopsis is reductive. Here’s a quick bit about the plot:

“It’s now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.”

It gets even better than that. A list of some of the features… Continue reading Notch’s Space Epic: 0X10C

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?

Poll: Most Anticipated April Release?

So March is over and with it goes Mass Effect 3. Hopefully all the controversy will be left in the dust, as well. All I know is if a game in April has a crappy ending, I don’t want to know about it. Keep it to yourself, please.

It’s a varied and interesting line-up this month. HD collections, long-awaited Japanese imports and PC ports, oh my! For myself, it’s another month of RPGs, as Xenoblade Chronicles and The Witcher 2 for Xbox 360 are already pre-ordered. I’m just waiting for the release dates to plop my money down and start grinding. Which reminds me that this has been a strong year for RPGs so far. We’ve already had Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Mass Effect 3 (It is an RPG, despite the claims of the haters) and now these two gems are hitting the shelves. I’m in heaven.

What games of April are you most looking forward to? One of the RPGs? Or the under-the-radar Prototype 2? Vote below and tell us why in the comments! If I left a game out that you are craving, please let me know below, as well. VOTE NOW!

Most Anticipated April Release

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Do Multiplayer Games Make us Jerks?

jenova chen journey

Journey was a sublime experience for me, one that was helped along by the presence of a silent other; a compatriot that I could travel with but not share a single form of spoken or written communication with. Aside from musical chirps, player interaction in Journey is severely limited but this didn’t stop my partners from helping me find hidden items or guiding me through the world. Without the incentive to hinder or harm me, were they actively trying to help?

This is what Jenova Chen, designer at thatgamecompany, thinks. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, he posed the thought that the agressive nature of multiplayer games leads to people being dicks to one another. I’ll let him explain his point, though: Continue reading Do Multiplayer Games Make us Jerks?

GamerSushi Asks: Designing Your Hero?

Commander Shepard

Sometimes, nothing paralyzes me more than a wealth of options. Sure, having to choose between one or two extremely difficult questions can tie me up the same as any other man, but the thing that really makes me stop dead in my tracks is when I have more options than I even know what to do with. Rather than being happy about all the tantalizing options that are available to me, I stare at all of them in some kind of mute trance.

This is usually the problem I run into whenever I get put face-to-face with a character creation tool (pun entirely intended). A tool that is now more prominent than ever due to the rise of customizable RPGs, the character creation tool allows you to design an avatar in any way, form and – quite literally – shape. My problem with this kind of robust feature set is that I often have no clue what to do with it.

For the most part, I tend to stick with the default character, which is what I did for the Mass Effect series. In fact, I’m so used to the generic Shepard that when I see other Shepards in clips on YouTube talking with my Commander Shepard’s voice, I get kind of weirded out. In other games, I tend to make my characters look like Cortez Cardinale, from Leet World. This is a bit silly, yes, but it helps me make the character my own without having to go too crazy. I very rarely break from this trend, although I recently designed my Saint’s Row 3 character to look like Walter White from Breaking Bad.

All of this thinking about character creation got me wondering how other people make their own characters? Do you design them to look like you? Do you make them look like somebody famous? Do you stick with the vanilla presets? Share your heroes!