When I first started playing multiplayer games, the realm of online gaming felt like a vast, unexplored world — one that needed conquering by my mighty hands. As the intrepid explorer, I imagined I would venture out into the far reaches of that vast pasture of frags and k/d ratios, seeing everything there was to see. It didn’t matter if I was alone, I could do this for hours on end, slaying the multitudes of faceless, anonymous players that populated each server.

Somewhere along the way, things changed. At some point, I began to need a buddy to help me tackle the vile denizens of multiplayer. This became especially apparent to me over the last week, as I played through the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer demo and Battlefield 3 (for the first time) with fellow GamerSushi writer, Mitch. You see, with early access to the Mass Effect 3 demo, I could have very well jumped into a multiplayer match with total strangers, fighting alongside them against waves of Cerberus bots. But that prospect just didn’t excite me. The same thing was the case with Battlefield 3, a game I’ve owned for over a month but didn’t want to play until I had someone to enjoy it with.

Honestly, I can’t even say why or when this change took place. I’m not sure if it’s because this whole “life” thing forced my gaming time to be more precious or because there are more social gaming options now than ever before, but at some point my tastes shifted. The main point of this was to ask you guys whether or not you tackle multiplayer games by yourself, or if you need a friend with you to truly enjoy it? Maybe you guys can help illuminate some of the reasons why we game the way we do in that regard. Go!

I’ve got mixed feelings on demos these days. On the one hand, the impatient, spoiler-hunting, flip-to-the-end-of-the-book part of me (I’ve done that a couple of times, yes) loves getting a glimpse at a game that I’ve been anticipating. It’s like getting just a bit of cool refreshment in the middle of a ridiculous Texas summer. And if you know what that feels like, it is damn heavenly – at least until the oppressive heat crushes and suffocates you again. On the other hand, the more sensible part of me knows that demos only rile me up and leave me wanting more. And then there’s the mutant third hand, which likes trying out games that I’m on the fence about – but we’re going to ignore him for now.

While tomorrow might be Valentine’s Day for many lucky gamers out there, it’s a monumental day for yet another reason — the Mass Effect 3 demo hits. Now, while I normally try to avoid demos for games that I’ve already pre-ordered and am sure to enjoy, I just stinking love Mass Effect and have been dying to experience 3. Even though the game comes out in just a short month, I still want to get my hands on it as much as possible right now, particularly to experience some of the multiplayer. I also happened to receive a demo code to download it early, so it might be queued up on XBox Live, even as I type this…

My question to you dudes, is this: how do you feel about demos for games you’ve already pre-ordered? Do you not wish to spoil the experience at all, waiting until the moment the game is out to truly play it for the first time? Or do you want a taste as soon as possible? Go!

And by the way, if you haven’t seen the incredible FemShep trailer yet – go do that, too. I’ll wait.

We sift through tons of news stories for you kids, always trying to find the gems that are Sushi-Worthy. When a mainstream media site like Yahoo gives us a list of Stale Franchises that need to take a break, my job becomes a whole lot easier. Especially since one of the games on the list is super popular and still critically acclaimed: Assassin’s Creed.

The other games on the list are expected, such as Sonic and Tony Hawk, but the idea that Assassin’s Creed needs a break is one that is starting to gain some steam. I was against turning that franchise into an annual release, but Ubisoft has done a great job at churning out high-quality games. It’s only this year that fatigue is starting to set in. I think they should take a break as well, but after the expected release of Assassin’s Creed 3 in November.

What other franchises could you use a break from? Hit the comments now!

Source: Yahoo Games

Apparently this is the week where all of our wildest gaming dreams come true. OK, that might be stretching it a bit, but at least a few of our gaming wishes seem to be coming to light. Between Battlefield 3 rumors, Double Fine’s Kickstarter Adventure and Notch talking Psychonauts 2, we’ve got kind of a lot of things worth salivating over. But that’s not all!

You see, DICE 2012 is underway right now, featuring a number of sessions from well known people in the field of interactive entertainment, including none other than Skyrim boss Todd Howard himself. Last night, Todd Howard gave Skyrim fans the world over a bit of a tease, something to get their heads spinning as we look forward to future DLC.

The Skyrim Game Jam is a week-long project where developers at Bethesda were challenged to come up with and implement one feature that they’d love to see in the enormous open-world RPG. While Howard cautioned that some of these things are just tests and might not ever see an actual release, the possibilities are enough to keep people excited about where the game could possibly go. Howard showed a reel which boasted all the things that the developers came up with in just one week’s time, ranging from mounted dragons (!) to seasonally changing foliage. Go ahead, see for yourself.

Although this power gets abused quite a bit, it’s still pretty cool that we live in a time where developers can retroactively incorporate fresh new additions to gameplay that might need some polishing. So my question to you guys is this: which of these features would you actually want to see in the final game? Also, if you could add a reel of features like this to any other game, what would you do? Go!

Man, even though we’re already over a full month into the year 2012, it still weirds me out to see the number written up there. Scandalous, almost. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old and full of rage when things change, or if that nerdy part of me feels like I should be in the future and my brain can’t reconcile the differences. Either way, 2012 is already shaping up to be a pretty fantastic year for games.

As such, we thought we would kick off the first Would You Rather for the year, one that will hopefully leave you all begging for mercy because of the difficult choices that await you. For the Would You Rather newbies out there, the game is easy: we ask and you dish out your response. 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.

Don’t let your answers suck, though. I will personally come to your house and unleash a devastating Krav Maga attack on you. For real. OK go!

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I’d like to consider myself a fairly patient gamer. I don’t have too many deal breakers or things that make me want to lambast a particular game in general. I’m very much able to greatly enjoy a number of titles despite small (and sometimes even massive) failures. That being said, there are occasional stumbling blocks I hit when playing a game that throw me for a loop.

Take Saint’s Row 3 for instance, a game that I love dearly at the moment. For all of its zany mayhem, hilarious writing and occasional forward-thinking (such as the GPS arrows on your HUD), the game has the occasional bothersome design hiccup. The biggest offender? Escort missions.

Like the top of some ancient relic poking through an otherwise serene landscape, these out of date mission prompts completely disrupt the flow of the game for me. What’s worse than that is the fact that for the first few hours, nearly every other mission you’re performing is an escort mission of some kind. Sure, they take on different shapes – you could be escorting someone below you while raining down rocket launcher fire or protecting a pimp while he goes to make girl/drug deals, but in the end it’s all the same.

As much as I should be used to these things appearing so frequently in games, it kind of seems like we should be past them now as a medium. I’m not saying that they should never appear again, but I do have to say that I’m surprised by their frequency, considering the fact that they have almost never been in the entire history of the people of Earth. I mean really, shouldn’t we have left these things behind last gen? I’m surprised that we still see these at all. You can add exploding red barrels to that list, as well. But I could be the only one that feels that way.

What do you guys think? Are escort missions out of date? Are there any other random gameplay tropes that still surprise you with how often they appear in modern games? Go!

It’s rare, but sometimes the games we love just don’t appeal to us anymore. Sure, things may start off great in the beginning, but eventually something sours and we turn against even our most cherished titles.

This phenomenon happened to me recently with Battlefield 3, something I talked about a bit on Episode 37 of the GamerSushi Show. Since then I’ve tried to get in a few games to see if I could get back into it, but the magic is gone. I don’t know if it’s a case of preferring the way that Bad Company 2 handled, or if the netcode is really bad on my end, or what, but Battlefield 3 has just dropped off my radar.

It’s kind of a shame considering how hyped I was for this game, something my fellow staff members and regular readers would know fairly well. I posted every trailer and every snippet of news about the game, but now I can’t even go fifteen minutes without turning it off.

I wish I knew what made me turn my back on the game, but it’s very hard to pin down. At first I was enjoying the beautiful environments and the destruction (toned down as it was), but then I noticed that I was getting killed behind cover a lot, or I was being killed by five or less shots when I’d already fired a whole magazine, or no one on my team was PTFOing. When Back to Karkand came out it helped revitalize my affection for the game, but after hours on Wake Island (which is somehow now a terrible map to play), I’m considering leaving BF3 behind for good.

I don’t lone wolf all that often, but I’ve been doing that more now that my normal squad mates have left. Maybe it’s a case of me trying to fit in to a team-based game, but even the most team oriented titles allow for a little solo play. Has anyone else experienced something similar with a game? Have you started off enjoying something and end up not standing the sight of it?

Man. We are straight up milking this 2011 thing, huh? You’d think that we had nothing better to talk about for 2012 with the way we’re going back to that well. Don’t worry, we realize that we can only get a little bit more mileage out of last year, and probably only another week or two at that. That being said, the following question is one that I legitimately want to ask you guys, because I like hearing what you say about games.

The title for this post is extremely self explanatory. I want to see a list of all the games you played in 2011. This will be cool for two reasons: 1) It gives us an idea of what kinds of stories to target/write and 2) you guys are pretty cool yourselves.

What follows is a list of games that I played in 2011:

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, or worse, terribly cliche – I want to take a moment and gripe about sequel-itis in video games. No, I’m not against sequels. And yes, I understand that in a time where AAA games cost big bucks to develop, publishers want to go with surefire hits instead of taking chances on new IPs. All of that’s fine. But what I can’t forgive is when this sequel-itis starts affecting stories negatively.

Take Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, for instance. I’m sure all of you will think I hate this game after posting a couple of negative critiques about it, but it’s more that Revelations’ negatives shine so outrageously because the game itself plays so well – and in some ways is a perfection of the Assassin’s Creed formula. I’m going to have to be as spoiler careful as possible here, but AC: Brotherhood ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. OK, that’s an understatement – it ended on a double scoop of cliffhanger with a major sprinkle of WTF. Part of the lure of Revelations is that it was supposed to give you some of the answers about both Desmond and Ezio that were left hanging at the end of Brotherhood.

The problem is, Revelations ends in much the same way. The cliffhanger isn’t so bad compared to Brotherhood, but the “answers” they finally give you only lead to a dizzying array of questions. No explanation is given for some of the really bizarre things you see in the climax of this game, after the entire narrative kept assuring you that the time for answers was coming soon.

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Kind of hard to believe that it’s the last stinking day of 2011. It’s a year that we all couldn’t wait to see at the end of 2010, particularly because we knew that there were tons of games and even more surprises waiting for us in the wings. We knew that it could stand to be one of the best years of gaming we’ve ever seen, and in hindsight, it truly might have been.

But in addition to the games, 2011 brought with it a variety of other gaming news items. We saw the announcement of the Nintendo WiiU and the 3DS. It also brought us word of the Playstation Vita, the calamitous PSN hack and the Modern Warfare 3 leak. More recently, it even brought us the dramatic Penny-Arcade/Ocean Marketing snafu. And finally, the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic and Duke Nukem Forever.

So, in a year full of twists, turns, announcements, debacles, wild successes and major fails, what would you rank as your favorite bit of news that you heard in 2011? It doesn’t have to be something we posted here on the ol’ Sushi, but if you love us that much, feel free to tell us. Go!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, fine ladies and gents of GamerSushi. Another year has come and gone, which brings us back to our annual tradition of posting all of our loot on Christmas Day. Like RPG adventurers, many of us have braved the dungeons of relatives’ homes, slayed the boss monsters of awkward family dinners and plumbed the depths of bow-topped expert chests in order to get our prizes, so I think it’s appropriate that everyone flaunts it.

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One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comics has to do with the idea that every man has a price. Calvin says that his price is two bucks cold cash up front, to which Hobbes muses aloud that he’s not sure what’s worse: that everyone has his price, or that the price is sometimes so low. What’s funny is that the more I think about it, the more this is actually true in gaming, too. Everyone’s got a price in terms of what they want from a game. And while the Bill Watterson comic touched on this in a more sinister way with morality, I think it’s what actually helps us enjoy games overall.

These thoughts started brewing in my head after an excellent piece over on Unwinnable, titled, Bullshit Vs. The Thing You’re After. In it, the author touches on every gamer’s price and what it is that makes gamers tick. And I think I totally agree.

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I’ve got plenty of gaming-related secrets. A few of them I’ve shared before, but some are so embarrassing that I dare not ever let them see the light of day. These include times that I spent hours going about a task the wrong way in an RPG, re-rolling characters and bumping certain games down to easier difficulties because there were no achievements associated with finishing it on Normal. Yup.

And while I won’t speak directly about some of those things, the guys over at Wiki Game Guides have put together a rather humorous (and sadly familiar) collection of the 10 Most Humbling Experiences that a gamer can go through. This list might make you laugh and cry all at once, because it includes getting “perfected” in a fighting game, being asked to switch to Bass in Rock Band and running into the first Goomba in Mario 1-1. Each of those may have happened to me at some point. In a past life. I don’t like to talk about it.

So what about you guys? How many of these things have you experienced? What are some of your biggest gaming shames?

Source – Wiki Game Guides

I’ve got a problem. It’s been well documented on this site and in our podcasts, but I should reiterate: I’m an RPG completionist. I’m OCD in a way that is truly tough to convey to people who can’t open up my head and take a peek inside. From the largest weapon to the smallest task, I’m trying to do everything, see every nook and cranny of even the hugest open RPG world until its boundaries feel like shackles and I’ve got nowhere left to go.

Such is the case with Skyrim. You see, I’ve put about 50 hours into the game so far, and I’m sitting pretty at about Level 43. And I’ve only recently just gone to High Hrothgar for the first time. If you’ve been playing the game, you know that most people go do this just south of Level 10, but not me. I’m an overpowered badass that’s been running all over the place doing the bidding of every peasant and lowlife that needed ferrying or dungeoneering.

It’s really hard to pinpoint the root cause of this obsession, and even harder to curtail it once it sets in. Something about the way my personality works just causes me to get lost in side quests.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to ask how you guys handle side quests versus main quests. While side quests are really meant to help you level between the main or perhaps give you something to do once you’ve beaten the game, I tend to use them to make the main ludicrously easy for myself. How do you guys approach them? Go!

If there’s anything we can say about 2011 – in addition to the fact that it’s been one of the best years for gaming that we can remember – it’s that it has been the year of the HD remake. In the fall season alone, we’ve seen Halo CE: Anniversary, Ico/Shadow of the Colossus and Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection all release to rave reviews from fanboys that have longed to see their old favorites restored with loving detail. Naturally, this opens up the conversation to other classics, and there are none more sought after than the dreaded Final Fantasy VII remake.

In a recent interview with Official XBox Magazine, Final Fantasy XIII-2 producer Yoshinori Kitase gave some of his thoughts about how he’d tackle a remake of one of the most famed entries in the beloved series:

“If I may speak as a game creator, if we were to produce a remake of VII, for example, I would be really tempted to delete things and add new elements, new systems or whatever because if we were to make exactly the same thing now, it’d be like a repeat… But if we did that, the fans might be disappointed or ‘this is not what I was expecting’ so in that sense maybe some might say that it’s better to let memory be memory.”

I have to say that I understand the impulse to want to approach the remake creatively. I mean, where would the appeal be to just slap a new coat of paint on something if you’re part of the team involved? But on the other hand, a part of me would also want the game that I loved exactly as it was. It would be interesting if developers could find a way to include both things in the final product, although I understand it’s not entirely feasible.

So what do you guys think? What kind of remakes do you prefer? Fresh new takes on old favorites, or a new coat of paint on the classics? What would you change in HD remakes of your favorite games? Go!

Source – OXM

This year is swiftly coming to a close and we’ve seen almost all of the major releases come and go with the exception of Star Wars: The Old Republic which drops on December 20. As this year was more jam packed than others, I thought I’d do a quick survey and see which giant games of 2011 you might have missed.

I’m not really one to talk here because I seem to be swimming in games (some still un-played like The Witcher 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations), but I did manage to miss Forza 4, Killzone 3 and Skyward Sword, although I might make time for that last one. Rayman Origin is another game that might get overlooked this year, but I’m going to make an effort to try it out. It’s a gorgeous looking 2D platformer with couch co-op and it’s being reviewed pretty well right now.

In terms of games that I could have passed up, given hindsight, I’d say Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. Modern Warfare 3 is pretty much the same old Call of Duty we’ve come to expect and I haven’t even touched Battlefield 3 since Skyrim hit, which is kind of surprising given the nerd boner I was rocking for that game.

What about you guys? Any big games that you missed this year just because you didn’t have enough time? Any smaller, indie titles that grabbed your attention that may go unnoticed by others? Sound off!

Oh man. As cliche as it is to make a post on Thanksgiving about how much food you’ve eaten, I can’t help but do just that. I feel like I’m at least partially absolved of this crime because I ran a 10K this morning, but even then, I know I’ll still have to beg your forgiveness just a little bit.

All that to say: Happy Thanksgiving, dudes. I know not all of you are from our fat states, but I want to wish you all a good one either way. Maybe it’s because I’m food drunk, but I do want to say that I’m thankful for this community and for all of you. Shucks and stuff.

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to the good stuff. Naturally, holidays means video games for many of us. As for me, I’ve been playing lots of Skyrim (of course), but now that the holidays are underway, I’ve been struck by the nostalgia bug, as I knew I would be. This means I’ve got a sudden and intense hankering to play not only Ico and Shadow of the Colossus HD, but also Halo: CE Anniversary and the MGS HD Collection. Christmas really can’t come soon enough.

So what about you guys? What are you playing this fine holiday weekend? Go!

Wow. I think out of all the days that could have decked us in the Fall, it was today that I was most worried about. As Mitch has lovingly dubbed it, Doomsday Tuesday happened today, and with it came a veritable salvo of gaming entertainment. Or horrors, if you’re concerned about what this means for your wallet.

While I’m no doubt going to leave somebody out, the big games that dropped today include Saint’s Row: The Third, Halo: CE Anniversary and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. So, yeah. Lots of stuff to play, I guess.

Rather than doing a slew of posts roll call-ing for each of these gems, I thought I’d put it all together in one post and just ask you straight up: which of these are you getting today? Are you getting any of them at all? As for me, I received Halo: CE Anniversary in the mail, and hope to add Saint’s Row: The Third and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations over time. But for now, Skyrim rules all.

So what about you dudes? Time to weight in on the roll call. Go!

At 10 hours into Skyrim, you’d think that I would be a walking bad ass by now. Townspeople would weep or cry out in joy at my passing. Animals would steer clear of my manly musk. Dragons would swoop down to bow before me in reverent awe. My weapons would sing with the crackle of lightning and the sharp hiss of steel and silver. In short, you would think that I’ve already started bending the world of Skyrim to my digital will.

Actually, I’m picking flowers just outside of Whiterun. You see, I’m trying to learn some new recipes and the properties of various ingredients for alchemy, just so I can sell some potions and make enough money on the side to buy a house. You know the type: a starter home, with a nice view of the Jarl’s place up on the hill. It’s quaint, but it’ll get me by long enough to stow all of my stolen items until I can contact someone in the Thieves’ Guild to purchase them for me. I might get around to that once I’ve searched the nearby brewery or taken a few more Smithing lessons up at the Skyforge. That’s just how I roll.

While none of those things sounds particularly exciting, they’ve somehow gotten me totally snared by Elder Scrolls V’s dark and fantastical clutches. Every preview of the game showed spellcasting, shield bashing, dragon shouting and dragon fighting. Yet all I’m doing is the mundane, the ordinary, the stuff that nobody in their right mind would do.

And I love it.

You see, I’ve got certain triggers when it comes to video games. Certain things that scratch just the right spot or catch me at just the right moment. This happens from time to time, and even though it shouldn’t surprise me, it still totally does. I wrote just a few weeks back about how Batman: Arkham City made me feel like a kid again. Skyrim is sort of similar, but there’s something more to it: it just has my attention.

I can’t really describe what it means when I say that a game has gotten my attention. The only mental image I have is of a small child, with a street performer snapping in front of him to hold his gaze while he does a sleight of hand routine. And I guess that’s what video games do to us. The best ones leave us transfixed, totally beholden to whatever spectacles are playing themselves out on the screen. I won’t declare Skyrim game of the year or say that it’s one of my favorites. But I will say that it’s already put me under its spell.

So my question to you guys is this: what does a game have to do to get your attention? What kinds of things tend to really suck you into a game and keep you from doing anything else? Does it have to have a good intro? A great story? Great mechanics? A combination of those things? What types of games tend to leave you obsessed? Go!

Goodbye, cruel world.

I am leaving you for better, greener pastures. Well, sometimes they’re greener. Sometimes they’re frozen tundras swarming with dragons. Other times they’re cavernous holds for bandits. It doesn’t really matter what they look like, all I know is that I’m going to the world of The Elder Scrolls, and I don’t know if I’ll ever return from those fair peaks and dark dungeons.

This could last awhile.

As you know, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is out tomorrow (or in just a few moments on the East Coast), and the world will never be the same. I for one plan on playing this game through the end of the year, forsaking all other suitors that plead for my time. With a ton of great, mostly perfect reviews out for the game, along with the reports that it will have never-ending sidequests, it almost seems like a no-brainer to pick this one up.

So I guess my question to you guys is this: who’s getting Skyrim? Roll call! Go!