Category: Gaming Theory

BioWare Announces Launch Date and Pricing for The Old Republic

the old republic release date

The day that we’ve all been waiting for has finally come to pass: after much hemming and hawing and three pre-rendered trailers, BioWare has seen fit to announce the release date for their highly anticipated Star Wars MMO. The Old Republic (TOR) will be brought into being on December 20, 2011 in North America and the 22 in Europe. People who have pre-ordered the game will also be given early access, but there’s no specific time-table for that yet.

In addition to the launch day, BioWare also dropped The Old Republic’s pricing structure. Every copy of the game will come with a 30 day subscription built in, but anything past that will be subjected to the typical MMO monthly fee. The breakdown goes thusly:

  • 1 Month Subcription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
  • 3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
  • 6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

So there it is, folks, laid bare for all to see. I’m kind of surprised that TOR is going with a traditional pricing scheme when every other MMO (even World of Warcraft to an extent) is going free to play. Indeed, there’s one MMO I’m looking forward to possibly more that TOR and that’s Firefall which is going to be supported by microtransactions.

I’ll still give TOR a shot anyways, just because I’ve been waiting so long for it, but the subscription might be a deal breaker in the long run. What do you guys think about this news? Excited for TOR? What are your thoughts on the pricing structure?

Source – The Old Republic

2011: The Year of Strong Female Characters

gears of war cartoon

Typically in gaming, female characters are either total write-offs or just re-writes of male characters but with ridiculous armor that barely covers anything except their privates. I’d all but given up on seeing believable female characters in video games, but this year actually marks the first where I was more impressed by the fairer sex in a game then I was by their masculine counterparts (no homo).

The year started off with Dead Space 2 and its introduction of Ellie Langford, a pilot for the Concordance Extraction Corporation and a survivor of the Necromorph outbreak on Titan Station. While Isaac Clarke was fighting to regain his sanity, Ellie battled the zombified remains of her co-workers (and implied boyfriend) and helped Isaac destroy the Marker and escape the station, all while losing an eye. Ellie didn’t need your help, didn’t need to be saved (again, the eye thing was a minor set-back) and she contributed way more to the story than just jump prancing around in a skimpy outfit. The same goes for Second Lieutenant Mira in this year’s destined to be over-looked Space Marine: she held the Imperial Guard together after the deaths of her superiors and kept them fighting even after the Ultramarines came in to steal the thunder. Continue reading 2011: The Year of Strong Female Characters

GamerSushi Asks: The Nature of Multiplayer?

A couple of decades ago, if you had asked me what the term “multiplayer” meant, I probably wouldn’t have had an answer. The most “multi” I could get for my gaming dollar was adding my brother into a game of Streets of Rage or the Captain America and the Avengers game for Sega Genesis. In a time where gaming knew a lot of limits, the shared experienced capped out at two players max.

Things were different at the arcade, of course. There, two to four players could race against one another, or four mutants could tackle the coin-op challenges of the classic X-Men arcade cabinet. That was an experience that was fancy, almost futuristic in appearance compared to the tethered wired controllers that got thrown around in frustration over hat tricks in NHL 94. Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: The Nature of Multiplayer?

On Videogame Cut Scenes and Filmmaking

Mass Effect 2

Over the years, the advancements in video game technology and the bigger budgets associated with AAA games have helped the games industry compete with movies in terms of their appeal and their business. The experiences are bigger, bolder and more akin to Hollywood blockbusters than ever. We expect more out of games these days – and a lot of that mindset is owed to the cut scenes that were introduced several generations ago. Cut scenes stretched our idea of what games could be. But do games still do cut scenes right?

That’s the question Wired asks in a new piece titled 5 Film-School Violations in Videogame Cut Scenes. In it, writer Jason Schreier takes a look at some of the things that modern cut scenes still get wrong, even after all these years. While I think the list is sort of ill aimed (it’s more about writing and editing than actual direction), Schreier raises some great issues. In terms of writing, many games just can’t seem to cut it compared to the movies they’re trying so desperately to be.

While I’d have to disagree with him on Mass Effect 2 (one of my friends was a cinematic designer on that game and knows his crap), I’ve long maintained that many game cut scenes don’t really know what they’re doing in terms of the actual craft of film – shots are set up all wrong, and are more about flash and spectacle than about the story itself. To me, one of the most grievous recent examples is Final Fantasy XIII. For all the flack that the game takes, I felt like very little of it was directed at its cut scenes, which were often a jumbled mess. During action sequences, I often found it hard to follow what exactly was going on in the scene, to the point where I had to re-watch them several times.

So how do you guys feel about this list? How do you feel about cut scenes in gaming? Which games do it right and which ones do it wrong?

Source – Wired

Raging Past Cheap Bosses

Sephiroth Kingdom Hearts 2

One game that’s recently received a lot of flack about poorly designed boss battles is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. While I commend the dudes at Eidos for trying to give the game that old school flavor, I think most people would prefer to have no boss fights at all over lame bosses.

As bad as a repetitive or boring enemy is, he is at his most heinous when he is cheap, or virtually unbeatable. I think we’ve all seen our fair share of these. In case you haven’t, or you need your memory refreshed, Dorkly has put together a list of the 7 cheapest boss fights in all of gaming.

I can’t say I’ve actually dealt with all of these antagonists first hand, but I know that Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts was one ridiculous mofo, dishing out death with a flash of his blade and that iconic silver hair. Also, I remember Death Egg being a total bastard in Sonic 2.

Were any of these familiar to you guys? Were there any cheap bosses that you think should have been on the list? What are some of the best boss encounters you can remember in recent years?

Source – Dorkly

Review: Resistance 3

resistance 3 review

The Resistance series has always flown under the radar for me; I had heard about the quality of the games from a few different sources, but I never could get into Insomniac’s alternate time-line sci-fi shooter. The first two games went by me without so much as a raised eyebrow, but with the third game pulling in such great reviews, I decided that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to check it out.

As a newcomer to the Resistance series, did the third game strike a chord with me, or was my earlier impression of the series justified?
Continue reading Review: Resistance 3

Canceled Avengers Game Could Have Been the Greatest Superhero Title Ever (Updated)

It really puzzles me as to what game companies think is acceptable for product tie-in games. For every Batman: Arkham Asylum and Spider-Man 2 we get, there’s such turd piles as Thor, Iron Man 1 and 2 and that Hulk game where you could sneak around as Bruce Banner. With so many bad superhero games flooding the market, you’d think that Marvel would gravitate towards a product that does Earth’s Mightiest Heroes justice, but apparently this promising-looking Avengers game was canned. Watch for yourself and bemoan its loss with me. Also, this might spoil the main enemy of the Avengers movie (maybe), so you know, don’t watch if you’re worried about that. Looks like the original video has been pulled, so I’ll try to add new ones as they come.

I never thought that controlling the Hulk or Iron Man from a first-person perspective would work, but this looks totally awesome. Imagine this game in co-op? One of your friends leaps into the fray as the Hulk while you fly around and blast fools with repulsor beams? I guess some things are too good to be true.

Nintendo Versus Smartphone Gaming

Iwata 3DS

Nintendo’s been in a bit of a pickle lately. If it’s not the drastically falling sales of the Wii, it’s the unfortunately handled launch of the Nintendo 3DS. In addition to cutting the launch price by almost half, Nintendo has also been forced to announce a peripheral that appears to complete the hardware functionality of the handheld. As can be expected, their investors haven’t taken too kindly to this, and stocks are falling.

There could be any number of reasons cited for the 3DS woes. One might easily point to the system’s price and the marginal upgrade of the DS hardware, the lackluster lineup of launch games or an interest in 3D gaming. However, as we’ve talked about before, some are citing the competition from smartphone gaming as one of the direct causes. While I don’t think that tells the entire story, it does raise a good point: people expect more from handhelds these days and Nintendo could stand to change their formula on either the hardware or software side.

But what does Nintendo think about the idea of developing for smartphones? Here’s what president Iwata says:

This is absolutely not under consideration. If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.

While I agree that this would be a fundamental change for Nintendo, it seems like Iwata might be a bit too resistant to change. It’s odd that after the company touted the Wii as a change in the way we play games, they’re so hesitant to embrace the idea of smartphone applications. Wouldn’t a Pokemon or Zelda app perform really well?

What do you guys think about their stance? Would it ruin them or would it serve them? Go!

Source – IndustryGamers

GamerSushi Asks: Sound Off, Almost-Fall Edition

Deus Ex

We keep saying it over and over, but gaming news is mostly out of commission right now. Well, unless you think that the 3DS thumb peripheral is news. Or… well, that’s about it, this week.

When we’re normally dealing with this kind of drought, the tactic I usually take is to talk about something going on in the specific game I’m playing. However, I’m standing on the cusp of a lot of games coming out, and I’m currently playing nothing. So instead of talking about nothing, I thought I’d ask you guys what’s been on your mind lately in relation to games and the gaming industry.

For me, I’ve mostly been thinking about game design in relation to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I finished last week. For everything wrong with the game, it was designed in such a way that it didn’t matter. Just something bouncing around in my head that I might expand on in a future feature.

So what about you guys? What’s been rattling around in those noggins of yours in relation to gaming? Go!

Twenty Minute Skyrim Walkthrough is All Kinds of Amazing

Where do these games companies get off, making awesome things and then teasing me for a year before I can actually get my hands on their games. If it wasn’t enough making Skyrim look like the RPG to end all RPGs, Bethesda just released a twenty-minute walkthrough of the game, narrated by Game Director Todd Howard. This was the behind closed doors demo shown to games press at E3 and fans at PAX, and now the general public finally gets a look at it. Part one is here, and parts two and three are after the jump.

Continue reading Twenty Minute Skyrim Walkthrough is All Kinds of Amazing

Review: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

If you’re unfamiliar with the Warhammer franchise (and given how many times in the last week I’ve had to explain the universe, I’m going to assume that most of you are), this is the granddaddy of fantasy and sci-fi tabletop games. While Warhammer is by no means the first in that field, its sci-fi offshoot, Warhammer 40,000 has inspired dozens of games from StarCraft to Gears of War. If anyone says to you that Space Marine is ripping off Gears, you can firmly say that there were Space Marines swinging chainswords long before Marcus Fenix was a twinkle in Cliffy B.’s eyes.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can get down into the nitty-gritty about Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, a third-person hack-and-slash/shooter hybrid developed by Relic Entertainment, perhaps best known for their Dawn of War (set in the same universe) and Company of Heroes RTS games. As Ultramarines Captain Titus, you’re tasked with securing a valuable strategic asset known as a Titan during an Ork invasion of the Forge World Graia. If you’re already raising a skeptical eyebrow, don’t worry; there are much more obtuse terms that will be in this review.

It’s taken this long to get a proper game from the perspective of an individual soldier, but how does it hold up against other similar titles? Does Relic’s skill with strategy games cross over into shooters? Continue reading Review: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Would You Rather: Fall 2011 Edition

Well, it’s not quite fall, but nobody’s told that to the video games industry yet. Already, we’ve seen Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Resistance 3, Dead Island, Space Marine and soon, Gears of War 3. And that’s just for the month of September. Yes, the Fall of 2011 has been documented far too many times on our site, but seriously, can you blame us?

As such, we thought it was time to drop in with a brand new edition of Would You Rather. This time, we wanted to give you some tough decisions regarding the fall, and all its video game goodness. 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. Jeff just got a new pair of glasses that can spy people that give sucky answers and then annihilate them with crazy lasers. Seriously. I’m totally not making that up. OK go!

Continue reading Would You Rather: Fall 2011 Edition

How Are You Liking Dead Island?

Dead Island

This post is more out of curiosity than anything, but it’s not like there’s been any noteworthy news this week. (Or maybe there has, I’ve been pretty busy with the first week of school.) Out of the seven million games that dropped on Tuesday, I only picked up Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, mostly because my money is very tight and I wanted to support a developer I respect (Relic Entertainment out of Vancouver). Other than Resistance 3, the other big ticket item from Tuesday’s buffet was Dead Island and I’ve been seeing all sorts of interesting tidbits regarding the game and its post-launch state.

You may have heard about the craziness with the PC version, which was released into the wild as the developer build instead of one suitable for public consumption and all the funny videos that went along with that. I’ve been watching some walkthroughs of the game and while it does look very rough in some parts, it appears to be a sort of Borderlands/Left 4 Dead crossover. The fact that this sort of game has co-op makes it a very appealing prospect, so I’m wondering if any of you guys picked it up.

So, if you’re playing Dead Island, I have a couple questions for you: is the game any fun? What system did you get it on? What are some things you love and some things you hate? Buy it, rent it, or wait for a Steam sale?

Deus Ex Made More Like Deus Ex: Human Revolution

We’ve been going a bit Deus Ex: Human Revolution crazy around these parts. Judging by your responses to Mitch’s review, I’m sure you all are doing the same. For my part, the game might be at my list for favorite game of the year at the moment, but that could easily change once I finish it and some other games start landing in my lap over the next few months.

While many people enjoy the game, there are a few having some fun at its expense in relation to the original Deus Ex. Take Deus Ex Unreal Revolution, for instance, where the original game is mashed up with cues from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It’s a little bit too on the nose with the whole “new games suck and old games are the best ever” train, but it still managed to have some pretty funny bits in it.

It’s interesting. As aware as I am of all of DXHR’s faults, I can totally get past them. As one review I read mentioned, that’s the difference in a game that’s well designed as opposed to well made. It’s also what happens when a developer takes risks and chances during development.

So what did you guys think about this? For the lulz?

GamerSushi Asks: Fall Plans?

Arkham City

When you’ve got a fall that’s going to be as epic as 2011, it becomes necessary to dig into the furthest reaches of your brain to properly forumlate the best approach. If you look at the Fall of games like a mine field, which steps can you take to avoid getting blown to smithereens? At least, that’s the way I look at it, but I’m kind of weird.

Hyperbole aside, I really do have a game plan of sorts when it comes to this Fall’s releases. It seems like you almost have to in order to avoid dropping $500 in just a few months. Off the top of my head, here are just a few of the games we’re going to see: Deus Ex, Gears of War 3, Batman: Arkham City, Shadow of the Colossus/Ico, MGS HD, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Torchlight 2, etc. And that’s not mentioning Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3.

As of now, I’ve got Gears of War 3 and Batman pre-ordered, with plans to use Batman’s credit to get closer to Skyrim. Beyond that, I have no idea what I’m going to do, but I know for sure that I’m going to buy Battlefield 3 and Uncharted 3, even if I have to sell my body.

So what about you guys? What’s your game plan for the Fall? What games are you for sure buying? What have you already pre-ordered? What’s your strategy? Go!

Review: Deus Ex: Human Revoltuion

deus ex human revolution review

The original Deus Ex came out at a time when every PC game seemed destined to raise the bar, informing the design decisions for the decade of titles that would follow. Between that and Half-Life, you’d be hard pressed to say which game has the bigger legacy. Of course, if the question was “which game actually followed up on that legacy”, the answer would be Half-Life.

After the less-than-stellar reception of the sequel, Invisible War, in 2003, the Deus Ex series went into a prolonged hibernation and for a while the likelihood of a new title in the franchise seemed doubtful. In 2007, however, Eidos announced that their Montreal studio would be developing the third game and in 2009 Square Enix was brought on as the publisher. Would this mishmash of an unproven developer and a Japanese studio prove to be a fruitful endeavor? Continue reading Review: Deus Ex: Human Revoltuion

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 35: Buy, Sell!

A new podcast appears? Yup. It’s been a couple of weeks since we recorded this, but I thought you’d like to have it anyway. We’re talking about some old news at this point, but there’s some entertaining bits in there about Counter-Strike: GO, Bethesda Versus Notch and Diablo 3 on consoles.

The super exciting news is that next week’s podcast release will be extra awesome, as it was done over GamerSushi weekend last weekend. Yes, all of us in the same room, acting the fool. It’s entertaining stuff, and by no means should keep you from enjoying this episode as well.

Nick tried editing this one in a different format than normal. It should play mostly the same, but if you open it in Quicktime, you can advance through chapters with the arrows, which is kind of cool. Have fun, gents and ladies.

And don’t forget to rate! Continue reading The GamerSushi Show, Ep 35: Buy, Sell!

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer Trailer is all Slow-Mo

Infinity Ward’s Creative Strategist Robert Bowling just dropped the trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer mode to coincide with the Call of Duty Experience this weekend. While the trailer isn’t exactly revealing the changes to the UI that are coming with the three-quel, it does include a lot of shots of the weapons, perks and all the other little gadgets you’ll be using to kill people.

So did you get anything from the repeated slow-motion shots of people getting brassed up? Modern Warfare 3 is actually looking pretty cool, and I think we all have a good idea of what the multiplayer portion is going to be like anyways. What did you guys think of the trailer?

Did You Catch the Action at MLG Raleigh?

mlg raleighGamerSushi weekend may have come and gone (and with it the knowledge that Canada will never has as good a fare as the Tex-Mex I had in Houston), but in addition to this meeting of the minds, and PAX, MLG Raleigh was also going down, right in the middle of Hurricane Irene.

Despite Mother Nature’s wrath bearing down on the Eastern Seaboard, the good folks at MLG sacked up and brought three straight days of gaming goodness featuring Halo: Reach, League of Legends, Gears of War 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops and of course, the current GamerSushi game-crush StarCraft 2.

While I did miss most of the event, I did manage to catch some StarCraft 2 last night and today when I was waiting for my flight at the Seattle airport. The fact that I could watch a decent quality video on my phone was super cool to me, and it really speaks about the lengths that the folk at MLG are going to to get these games to the people. It was also kind of surprising to see Gears of War 3 at MLG, even though I know that Epic Games had been touting their product’s appearance at the show for a couple of weeks. Given how good the Beta was for Gears 3, the fact that it’s being used for competitive play makes me want the full version even more.

So what about you guys? Did you tune in to MLG Raleigh? Did you watch it on the streams or go to one of the BarCraft nights that happened this past weekend? Any thoughts on how big MLG is getting? If you don’t comment, you’re killing esports!

GamerSushi Asks: Teamwork Triumphs?

Starcraft 2

Last night, in the spirit of true camaraderie, Nick, Mitch and I teamed up for some 3 v 3 matches of StarCraft 2. Big surprise, right? If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’ll know that these outings have increased in their frequency, and I’m starting to experience something while gaming that I haven’t in a long time – defining a good team strategy.

Basically, we hit a point in the game where we had to change what we were doing, and really zero in on a particular plan. Our new builds last night really opened up some new possibilities for us, and we were able to defend our platinum rank in 3 v 3 with gusto.

Weirdly enough, the last time I remember obsessing this much over strategy has been with previous Halo games. I did the same kind of tactical research for Halo Wars, and before that, lots of practice flag runs on Halo 2. The practice/teamwork dynamic is something that I don’t experience too often in games, so it’s always interesting when it strikes again.

What’s your last big experience with teamwork triumphs in a multiplayer game? What games in recent past have forced you and a team to really work together? Go!