As someone who likes to put on his imaginary pretend writer cap from time to time, I’m always interested in the subject of writing when it comes to video games. On the whole, the practice seems so different than what I’m used to that I find it fascinating. In a recent article on Polygon, author Austin Grossman talks about what video games taught him about writing — lessons that he took to pen the bestselling supervillain novel Soon I Will Be Invincible.

Grossman has some interesting things to say about the writing process for video games, which he witnessed firsthand when working on titles like System Shock, Deus Ex and most recently, Dishonored. The biggest lessons that video game writing taught were that stories don’t have to go in a straight line, nobody necessarily wants to read your prose and that people won’t respect what you do. One of my favorite bits:

You learn to be inventive. After all, players are using everything on the screen to form an idea of what they’re doing and why. You learn to sneak story in at the margins. Leave it lying in dusty corners and layered into other parts of the world, embedded into combat mechanics and level geometry and audio cues, or leave half-cues for players to fill in. To this day, I can’t tell a story straight through — Soon I Will Be Invincible and You zoom back and forth from the past and the present.

If you’re interested at all in how video game writing works, or if you just like reading smart things by good writers in general, I’d suggest checking it out.

Source – Polygon

Image – Shodan by Jim Hatama

Nintendo’s been hit with a bit of the Legend of Zelda bug as of late, it seems — and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. In addition to the HD Wind Waker remake due out this fall, Nintendo has also announced Link to the Past 2, releasing for the 3DS this year.

The sequel to the much loved SNES game debuted during yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, introduced by the big Reggie himself. It takes place in the same world as Link to the Past, features some 3D dungeons and even allows link to become a wall drawing in order to solve some puzzles. While I never played Link to the Past (I didn’t own an SNES), I did watch a friend play quite a bit of it. I have no doubt that there are certain GamerSushi fans (and a few of its staff) that are freaking out about this news.

But what say you?

One of the many complaints I have with video game journalism is there is no follow-through. A game is announced, followed by rumors, speculation, then a hands-on preview and finally, the long-awaited review. Maybe, just maybe, there will be an interview with the developers or some type of feature written after the game has been released, but rarely does anyone delve deeply into the inner workings of the actual game.

However, there are a few who do and one of them is Jeremy Parish, sole survivor of the many layoffs and closings at 1Up. Jeremy, like many of us, keeps his own blog, Telebunny (http://telebunny.net/toastyblog/) formerly known as Gamespite. In addition to a hefty archive of great game writings, there is a section that I want to shine our spotlight on today: Anatomy of a Game. Anatomy of a game is a careful look at game mechanics and how they relate to the player as given by the designer. I will let Jeremy explain himself:

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I love this story.

In the midst of some of the crazy “controversies” (and I use that term loosely) that discuss the role of sexism in gaming culture and the industry at large — including the frothing attacks that were leveled against Anita Sarkeesian for daring to study the role of women in video games (the first video is fantastic, by the way), the bumbled PR about Tomb Raider, and the “Bros Before Hos” trophy in God of War — it’s nice to get a more touching story about why all of this stuff actually matters.

Mike Mika, a former video game designer for Atari, recently took up a “father of the year” level quest to please his 3 year old daughter when he realized how sad she was that she couldn’t play as Pauline, the princess in Donkey Kong, in order to save Mario. Mike, being a knowledgeable sort of dude, set to some pretty impressive work.

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You guys are pretty fun to play games with. Over the last month or so, we’ve tackled both Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 as an army of Sushians. Now, we want to kick things a bit old school with Goldeneye: Source.

The best thing about Goldeneye: Source is that it’s free, so that gives more people the opportunity the chance to join in on the N64-ish mayhem on the GS server. First, be sure to download the game, which will require a download of Source SDKBase2007 in order to work correctly. Don’t worry, the game will ask you to install it when you try to run it.

We’ll be playing next weekend. To sign up, simply leave a comment below about whether or not you’d be down to game with us, and what day would be best for you. We’ll do our best to accommodate. You can also hit up our GS Steam Group and keep an eye on the event, once the night/time is determined.

So, who’s in?

Update: This is happening tonight, 3/16, at 10PM CST! Be sure to download the game and join us then!

Update 2: We’re about to start! IP is: 173.62.11.99:27015

Welcome to the monthly Power Rankings, gents. If you’ll recall, we’ve changed the Power Ranking format in 2013 to reflect our current “What’s Hot” list, regardless of the year the game was released. These are the games we keep coming back to collectively, salivating as we play… OK, that last part might have been an exaggeration, although I hear Mitch does get very excited about necromorphs.

Speaking of necromorphs, 2013 is already rolling with a handful of new games that have made their appearance on this month’s Power Rankings, including Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3. Next month’s list will be even wackier in terms of shake-ups, if Anthony’s recent Pixel Count is any indication. We’ve also been dipping our toes into some older ponds, including the zany urban warfare depicted in Saint’s Row 3, as well as the magepunky slums of Midgar in Final Fantasy 7.

Here are GamerSushi’s top 10 most played games right now. Feel free to tell us we’re the crazy ones, and tell us what would be on your list.

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Hola, Sushians. For Did You See This Wednesday, I bring great gaming gifts, like a spice trader who’s wandered across the internet’s vast desert on camelback.

OK actually, I just found some cool stuff I thought you guys might like to see. We’ve got two videos here. The first is an original piece by Tim Hijikema, who, if you’ll remember, made the excellent Video Game Planets piece almost a year ago.

In his new video, Video Game Locations, Tim re-creates classic video game locales, from Hyrule to Vice City. Set to excellent music, this thing is a crazy nostalgia tour. Can you name them all?

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Over the weekend, I finally jumped into the world of Ni No Kuni, Level 5 and Studio Ghibli’s collaborative take on JRPGs. As has been reported from pretty much the whole world, the game is charming as all hell, from the story down to the monster design. With a great big world to explore and tons of sidequests, the experience is certainly reminiscent of the RPGs I used to play during my summers off of school.

But one of the more surprising reasons for my nostalgia happens to be the game’s cut scenes. Back in the day, one of my favorite parts of a new game was getting to a CG cut scene. These fully animated sequences served as a bit of a reward after a particularly harrowing part of the game, and always kept me on the edge of my seat. The fact that they looked so much better than the game made it all the more rewarding.

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For today’s GamerSushi Asks Friday, we’re going to take a look at the long, hard farewell. I feel like there’s a “that’s what she said” in there somewhere.

After finishing Far Cry 3 recently, something happened to me that I’ve really only experienced a few times in gaming. After the main game was completed, the pirates were vanquished from the island, outposts liberated, animals hunted and huge portions of secret items located, I realized there was nothing left for me to do in the game. Because of said pirate vanquishment, I couldn’t even run around and kill a few bad guys. I was done with the game, almost completely.

And when it came time to sign off, I found myself coming up with excuses to hop around the world a little longer. I was kind of sad to say goodbye. This has happened before, and will hopefully happen again.

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For Did You See This Wednesday, we’re taking a look at a classic piece of writing on games.

Over at Gamasutra, writer Laralyn McWilliams resurrected an old essay by Graham Nelson, who, if you’re not aware (and I wasn’t), did a lot of legwork for the interactive fiction medium. These adventure games essentially formed the basis of video games as we know them.

Perhaps Nelson’s most famous essay about game design is known as the Craft of Adventure, in which he meticulously outlines what he titles the Players’ Bill of Rights. These rules are a set of standards that game creators must honor when dealing with players. And oddly enough, it’s still just as meaningful almost 3 decades later.

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Man, Nintendo sure does have a bullseye right on our nostalgia bone, doesn’t it? In a totally unsurprising move, Nintendo revealed this morning (via Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma) that an HD version of Wind Waker will be releasing this fall.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Reborn is meant to tide maniacal Zelda fans over while the real Wii U game is in development, but this doesn’t just look like a straight port. Based on some of the game’s gorgeous screenshots, I think it’s safe to say that Nintendo is updating this classic game in an even more beautiful way, in addition to all these new-fangled definitions.

While it’s easy to sour on HD remakes as nothing more than the often-brandished money grab, I still stand by the position that playing a timeless game in a more future proof fashion is a good thing for video games. It’s a way to preserve some of the medium’s history, and really, I can’t think of a more excellent game for Nintendo to have done it with. Wind Waker had such a lovely style to it, I can’t wait to see it on current hardware. Once I get a Wii U, that is.

So what do you guys think? Are you yay or nay on a Wind Waker HD? And seriously, check out the Wii U Facebook page for more awesome screenshots.

Welcome to Did You See This Wednesday! As part of the GamerSushi Schedule, it is my duty to bring you cool stuff that you might have missed while you were looking at pictures of Grumpy Cat. And if you have any new ones, send them to me.

Today, we aren’t bringing you an article, we are showcasing an entire website, one that I have spent way too many hours on: Hardcore Gaming 101. HG101, as we like to call it, is a site devoted to educating people about retro games and also maybe getting them interested in something they might not even know about. The site is exhaustively well-researched, with tons of screenshots, artwork and information. I have described it as “The Wikipedia of Retro Games” and I think that is an accurate description. On top of that, it’s pretty hilarious to read as well. Just take a look at this description of why Edward from Final Fantasy IV would never work in a modern FF game:

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Peace of mind is hard to come by in the gaming landscape these days. It’s bad enough we have online trolls spewing all manner of filth at us, but in the age of voice acting, we also have to contend with certain characters that just won’t shut the hell up. It can be enough to drive even a straight-edger to drink and the calmest gamer to fling his controller across the room.

In keeping with our newly implemented schedule and using only the latest in high-tech research equipment, we here at the GamerSushi Labs are trying to determine which character should be fitted with a digital muzzle. Will Slippy’s constant need for help be enough to help him win? What about Kenny, who seems to take great pleasure in being an antagonistic hypocrite? Or Kratos, who only has one volume setting and really needs to take a chill pill. And of course, the ever-present Claptrap and the irksome Tiny Tina are prone to make someone scramble for the mute button. Except Jeff. He loves Tiny Tina.

So vote now and hit the comments to let us know who you think should enjoy a nice cup of Shut The Hell Up!

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Well, that was certainly an experience.

In the last year, I have played all the numbered Metal Gear Solid games (MGS, MGS2, MGS3), ostensibly to see what the big deal was. After finishing Metal Gear Solid 4, my feelings on the game itself are largely ambivalent, but my feelings on the entire franchise are generally positive. (spoilers follow)

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Sometimes I’m really confused when it comes to Capcom. They seem like they’re struggling for relevance and have made some very confusing public relation moves in the last few months (not to mention the whole “on-disc DLC” debale) but they still manage to pull off the occasional moment of brilliance.

A prime example of this is Street Fighter X Mega Man, where the Blue Bomber will be taking on the cast of Street Fighter in a free PC download coming on December 18 (Mega Man’s 25 birthday) to Capcom Unity. Check out the trailer below!

“Wow.”

That was my reaction immediately after defeating The End, the wizened sniper of legend in Metal Gear Solid 3. It took two hours to end The End. Two breathless hours, filled with tension, frustration and exhilaration. As I continued on Snake’s trek through the jungle, I kept thinking back to The End and how I would like to play that section of the game again. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a save, so I would have to play about seven hours to get there again. And that is just not appealing to me.

But what if there were a service on PSN, XBLA and even Steam, that sold you snippets of game? What if you could buy the most memorable moments of classic games (classic being anything other than current gen) for a small price? Wouldn’t you pay $.99 or even $2.99 just to skip right to The End? Or perhaps play the entire level of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s infamous Ghillies in the Mist mission? What if Square Enix sold just the Midgar section of Final Fantasy VII? Or even the Gold Saucer section, if you have a hankering for mini-games? How has this idea not been exploited yet? If there are two things we know, it’s publishers enjoy our money and we enjoy giving it to them. This is a win-win and it might even spur sales of those classic games. Maybe someone enjoys The End battle so much that they run out and purchase the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.

What say you? Would this be something you would like to see? What memorable moments would you be willing to pay for? GO!

I am 31. I am an old school gamer. Atari. Intellivision. Nintendo. Sega. Sony. Microsoft. Apple. I’ve been here since Day 1 and I’m still gaming.

It’s pretty amazing and quite fortunate if you think about it. I got to witness the birth of all that we now love and take for granted. I’m not special in this: anyone my age who was playing games around 1985 or so is in the same boat as myself. But they aren’t writing this, so screw them.

I’m not on the cutting edge anymore. I’m a late adopter. I don’t understand some of the things headed our way. But I had an NES. I had Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda and I played them right when they first came out. Allow me to take you on a trip down memory lane of the some of the console games that I was there to see born.

Think about this for a moment: the astonishment when Mario walked to the left and the screen kept scrolling with him, showing new areas and not just a pasted version of the previous screen with only a few subtle changes. Think about the joy and sense of discovery that came with finding the warp zones and bragging to your friends about it. Or the awe when someone showed you the infinite lives glitch. This was a special time. And I was there for it.

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Having returned to Shadow Moses (for the first time) some months back, I decided to take advantage of the summer lull and jump into Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and all that entails. Now, MGS 2 was the first MGS game I played, way back when it was a Greatest Hits for the PS2. I had heard so much hype before the game’s release and then so much disappointment afterwards that I simply had to see what the big hairy deal was.

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In an age where anybody with a keyboard feels that they have a megaphone full of gold the world is just dying to hear, the fan seems to play a different role than before. With social media, forum feedback, community manager and whatever else is available, people just want to be heard more than ever. And what’s more, they feel like their opinions should carry just as much weight as any creative director’s.

Well, Ron Gilbert, one of the creators of the PC adventure genre and one of the geniuses at Double Fine behind the upcoming The Cave, has some words for that person. In a recent interview with Gameological in which he discussed humor in games, writing and the industry, Gilbert talks about meeting fan expectations, with great insight.

The answer that anybody creating anything will give is that you should have no responsibility to them. You have to do what you want to do, and you have to do what you think is the right thing to do and what you think is the best thing to do…

Creative things, no matter what they are—books, video games, whatever—if they’re really good, they have lots of pointy little edges, and that’s what makes them interesting. It’s all these pointy little spikes and all these little things you can cut yourself and prick yourself on, that’s what makes creative work interesting. If you get into self-censorship mode, you start to pound all those pointy edges away because you’re very afraid of offending somebody or worried what somebody will think of it. And then what you’re left with is kind of blah, just not interesting. I think you just need to do what you think is the right thing to do, and hopefully people like it.

Personally, I’m really glad that Gilbert said these things. As I said before, we live in a time where everyone wants to blast their voice at everything, all the time, and I’m not sure we’re all better off for it in creative instances. From my very limited experience with this, the best thing you can do is make what you want to make, and if people like it, they’ll come along and follow you for the ride. Obviously, games are a business, so many people are afraid to trust that notion. But I think we see better creative work as a result.

What about you? What do you think? Is Gilbert off his rocker? Should fans have more say about what goes on in video games or creative endeavors in general? Go!

Source – Gameological

What’s this twenty-five year anniversary post doing here? Yes, this past Saturday, July 7, one of the longest-running franchises in gaming, Metal Gear Solid, turned the big two-five, celebrating a quarter-century of extended monologues and exclamation marks.

Debuting way back in 1987, Hideo Kojima’s tale of a cloned super-spy spans multiple console generations and has a legacy that has left an impact on a generation of gamers world-wide. Every Metal Gear game redefines the series and adds new gameplay conventions that make for some of the most unique gaming experiences available.

My first brush with Metal Gear Solid came back when the Snake Eater rerelease Subsistence dropped, allowing me to use a 3D camera, a la Splinter Cell. While this isn’t the way MGS had been played traditionally, it gave me a way to try out the series and that game quickly found a solid place in my top-ten games of all time.

While the MGS games can sometimes border on goofy and outright ridiculous, I still love them all the same and wouldn’t change a thing. What about you guys? How has Metal Gear affected you gaming history? What was your favorite title or moment from the series?