Category: GamerSushi News

Prey 2 Delayed, Devs Slammed by Bethesda

prey 2 delayed

Prey 2, the “sequel” to the 2006 sci-fi FPS (has it really been that long?) has been in hiding for a while, having not come up for air ever since the Bounty trailer dropped almost a year ago at E3. There were rumors floating around a couple of weeks ago that the title went gently into that good night, but a statement from Bethesda confirmed that the game is alive and well, and will be released next year.

That’s not all though, as the remarks from Bethesda lean a little heavy on blaming the developers flat out for the delay. These types of PR statements are usually pretty flowery and try to make the problem seem like it’s not a big deal, but Bethesda gets a little brutal. I may be reading into it a little bit, but you can judge for yourselves:

“Development of Prey 2 has not been cancelled but the game will not be released in 2012 as planned. The delay is due to the fact that game development has not progressed satisfactorily this past year, and the game does not currently meet our quality standards. Prey 2 has shown great promise and we regret disappointing our fans. We have made a substantial investment in game development to deliver the experience fans want. We are determined only to release the AAA game that fans rightfully expect, and are unwilling to compromise our quality standards to meet a release schedule.”

The part about game development not progressing satisfactorily is what makes the message sound a little hostile to me. Again, I may be off in my assumption, but it sounds like Bethesda isn’t too happy with Human Head Studios. What do you guys think of Prey 2’s delay? Does this delayed release date bode ill for the game? What do you think of Bethesda’s comments? Pray tell, dear reader.

Source – RPS

God of War: Ascension Trailer Goes Back to the Start

Strange how these trailers come in waves; first we had the Dishonored trailer and now God of War: Ascension (which was leaked early, to no big surprise) is making its landfall. Ascension apparently tells the story of Kratos before he became the Ghost of Sparta.

I’m not the biggest fan of God of War, but I know that it’s on the most widely-praised character action games of the last couple of generations so any news about a new title is a big deal. Are you guys excited about God of War: Ascension? How do you feel about it being a prequel?

GamerSushi Asks: Footing the Bill?

Trials Evolution

For some reason, an invisible price barrier lives somewhere inside of the part of my brain that processes money. This magical barrier keeps me from springing on downloadable titles, even when it makes a lot of sense to do so. Whereas Physical Goods Eddy is just fine paying upwards of $40-$60 for AAA titles, Digital Goods Eddy hesitates at the prospect of a $15 title like Journey. Or Trials Evolution, which is the game that I spent about fifteen seconds debating last night.

Trials Evolution, the follow-up to the hit Trials HD, released on XBLA last night to the squeals of ghost-beating track timers the world over. If you’re unaware of the mania that this game has inspired or what makes it so fun (as I was up until the last couple of weeks) — Trials Evolution is 2.5D platformer/physics racing game, wherein players control a motorcycle through ridiculously impossible tracks. The addictive part of the game isn’t just the sensation of negotiating through these Sonic-esque levels at the fastest speeds possible, but also from the way the game uses your friends’ times to taunt you. Glowing white dots that represent your friends race alongside of you, daring you to beat them even as you crash repeatedly.

The game is great fun, and the magical barrier in my head that keeps me from picking up digital titles was shattered more quickly than it normally is. It’s funny that even though I try to enter these things cautiously, there are certain factors that can make me foot the bill with almost no hesitation. For Trials, it was the almost limitless content (the game comes with a pro level editor, for instance, meaning that players will create their own ridiculous tracks), the replay factor that comes with competing against your friends’ times, and the number of unlockable races that come packed inside.

So what about you guys? What is it about games that convinces you to foot the bill? What games have recently made you ignore price completely and throw your wallets at the screen? Go!

Conan O’Brien Records Halo 4 Dialogue

Conan O’Brien is a pretty funny dude, if you like hilarious people. I suppose that’s why he gets to run his own late night show, and used to be a producer on The Simpsons. Being a famous comedian tends to land you big gigs like that. And apparently, a voice acting job on Halo 4.

I won’t waste too much time intro-ing this video, because Conan does that well enough himself. But let me just preface this clip with this: imagine Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter riffing in an audio booth as two grunts (don’t call them dockworkers) in the Halo 4 universe, and you’ll get a decent idea of the humor level here. I couldn’t help but laugh at Conan’s reception to his character, in particular.

So yeah, check it out.

In terms of new information about Halo 4, we did get the piece of news that Halo 4 releases on November 6, 2012, along with this spiffy Red Vs Blue announcement video. Care to discuss?

The GamerSushi Update: Don’t Worry, Your Eyes Are Fine

Welcome to a sort of new GamerSushi! And as the title says: don’t worry, your eyes are just fine. Things are, in fact, slightly different than they were before. This update is a bit more subtle than the last one, but it brings with it some section changes that we’re rather excited about.

Reviews

Yes, the reviews section has been up for quite some time, but we’ve changed the way we assess games, yet again. You’ll notice that many of our grades have been shifted to reflect our new Grade Chart. The new chart makes a much better attempt at using the entire grading scale, one that’s more suitable to the games that people actually play. We noticed our reviews kept skewing higher and higher, and we wanted to remedy it.

Beyond that, the most notable addition would be the “A/S Nomination” designation, wherein games are up for an “S” grade that will be decided on later in the year. If they don’t get the “S”, they still keep the nomination, so to speak. Kind of like how a movie is forever known as an Academy Award nominee.

Waiting for this update has been the primary reason we haven’t put up any new reviews in a few months. Over the next couple of weeks, you’ll see a slew of regular reviews that incorporate this new scale.

GS Rankings

The Rankings page, while still in its early stage, will see lots of shifts over the course of the year. The basic idea is the same concept of a Sports power ranking, where every few weeks we re-rate the top 10 games of the year so you can see what’s in the running for the best of 2012. What’s nice is that over time, sometimes games fade away or haunt you, and this list will capture that. I think it’ll be a nice addition to the site, and will make for some good discussion.

There are some other subtle cosmetic things that Nick did, but that about sums it up for the big shifts. Praise the Beard for his good work. If you like it, that is. And I’m sure you will.

Working at Valve: a Glimpse Behind the Curtain

Valve Offices

If I know anything about our Sushi-ans, it’s two things: you guys love Valve, and many of you are interested in landing a job in the video game industry. And though jobs in the video game industry are sometimes defined by long hours, menial tasks and not always working on that dream game, it does seem that Valve marches to the beat of a different drummer on multiple fronts.

In a new blog entry by Michael Abrash, currently working in the R&D department at Valve, we’re given a pretty candid look at just how different things operate at the house that built Half Life. On top of having an incredibly unique long term view of how they see the company moving forward, it sounds like Valve has mostly abandoned the corporate structure. To me, this was one of the coolest excerpts:

Hierarchical management doesn’t help with that, because it bottlenecks innovation through the people at the top of the hierarchy, and there’s no reason to expect that those people would be particularly creative about coming up with new products that are dramatically different from existing ones – quite the opposite, in fact. So Valve was designed as a company that would attract the sort of people capable of taking the initial creative step, leave them free to do creative work, and make them want to stay. Consequently, Valve has no formal management or hierarchy at all.

Now, I can tell you that, deep down, you don’t really believe that last sentence. I certainly didn’t when I first heard it. How could a 300-person company not have any formal management? My observation is that it takes new hires about six months before they fully accept that no one is going to tell them what to do, that no manager is going to give them a review, that there is no such thing as a promotion or a job title or even a fixed role (although there are generous raises and bonuses based on value to the company, as assessed by peers). That it is their responsibility, and theirs alone, to allocate the most valuable resource in the company – their time – by figuring out what it is that they can do that is most valuable for the company, and then to go do it.

I could sit here and comment on that, but I think it speaks for itself. It says a lot about the quality of Valve’s products, why Steam is so innovative, and why their games have such a degree of polish. I highly suggest you go read the rest of the post yourself. Not only does Michael talk about what he’s currently working on at Valve (wearable computers – yes, seriously), he also ends the post with a call for people that want to work at Valve.

Out of curiosity, who are the folks at GamerSushi shooting for something in the industry? What are your thoughts on Abash’s post about Valve? Go!

Source – Valve Blog

GamesRadar Lists Characters that Stole Our Hearts

games characters we fell in love with garrus vakarian

Gaming is filled with a variety of characters, some which have graduated to something a little bit more than just pixels on a screen. These collections of 1s and 0s, be they human, alien, or something in between, have gained such notoriety that they’ve become icons of our hobby.

GamesRadar took a humorous look at the top seven video games characters that have stolen our hearts, and I have to say it’s a pretty good list. I might be extremely biased towards the number one choice, but most of the picks on this list are right on the money. Sure, it’s lighthearted and a bit goofy, but we’ve had some really good characters come out of gaming in the last few years. Whether it’s the writing, the voice acting, or the situations we’re put in with these characters, something about them has made them just click with us.

What do you guys think about the list? Who would you move up or down or replace outright? What characters got ashamedly passed over?

Source – GamesRadar

Review: Saint’s Row: The Third

Saint's Row 3

When ranking the great surprises of this past generation, I would have to stick both Saint’s Row 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV somewhere near the top, for completely opposite reasons. GTA IV was heralded as the savior of all fun things ever, but turned out to be a game that I found soulless and dull. On the other hand, Saint’s Row 2 was dismissed as nothing more than a Grand Theft Auto clone — yet it found a way to make its sandbox a true chaotic playground in nearly every sense, offering up scores of hilarious rabbit holes, lots of customization and a decent story to boot.

Enter Saint’s Row: The Third, Volition’s follow-up to the mayhem manager and one of my most anticipated games for 2011. This entry into the bombastic franchise promised even larger scales of destruction, more violence, greater levels of absurdity (there’s a dildo bat, for goodness’ sake) and an all around hilarious time. But does it deliver the goods? One thing’s for certain, Steelport and the Saints will never be the same. Continue reading Review: Saint’s Row: The Third

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

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

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!

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?

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!

April Fools: Valve Signs Console-Exclusivity Deal With Nintendo

In what might be the most game-changing agreement to ever hit the industry, Valve and Nintendo have announced an deal that will make the Wii U the only place to play console ports of Valve games, including the upcoming Dota 2, Counterstrike: Global Offensive and “any future Half-Life or Portal episodes”. No word on how much Nintendo paid for this deal but it signals that they are serious about reaching out to the hardcore gamer demographic that critics maintain have largely been abandoned by the Japanese superpower.

Valve head Gabe Newell said in a statement, “Nintendo is always pushing the industry to new and exciting places and we at Valve like to think we do the same. By pushing together, perhaps we can usher in a new era of quality gaming on both PCs and consoles.” Mr. Newell also went on to say that, “Nintendo doesn’t care about high-powered graphics and neither do we. It’s a perfect fit for us and we look forward to blowing everyone’s minds with what we have to show at E3.”

Valve made waves last year with Portal 2’s feature that allowed Playstation 3 owners to play the game’s co-op mode with PC gamers, but this news far surpasses that innovative feature. There were rumors that Valve itself was looking to get into the console business, but it appears they are happy to enter into a marriage with Nintendo rather than go to the party stag. I’m pretty stunned and as a console-only gamer, it puts the Wii U at the top of my list of consoles to buy. What say you?