E3 has come and the Big 3 have shown us what they have in store for us over the coming months. There has been so much news, updates, retractions, clarifications and denials that it is kind of hard to keep track of everything. Still, this has been an eventful E3, one where the details of two new consoles were revealed, where fanboys waged war and where Nintendo did whatever it is they do. Microsoft brought the games, Sony brought the Internet to its feet and Nintendo brought its beloved franchises.

So now that we have a clearer picture of what Microsoft and Sony are going to do with their next gen systems, it only makes sense to take a poll of our loyal readers and find out where your current desires lie. A lot can change between now and release but it seems reasonable to assume that some of you have made up your minds. So tell us in the poll below which system you plan on doing your gaming in the near future. Please leave the reasons for your vote in the comments!

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Now that Microsoft has sounded off this morning, it’s time for Sony to jump in with their own version of what the next generation of video gaming should look like. As these things tend to go, the conference had its share of highs, lows, hyperbole, hype and exciting moments. But most of all, some shots fired at Microsoft.

Many people said that this year was Sony’s to lose. So how did they do?

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E3 2013 is right around the corner (seriously, it’s on Monday!) so it’s time to bust out those E3 predictions! Gaming yearly extravaganza always seems to sneak up on us, even when we know exactly when it’s coming.

This year is going to be especially interesting considering that both Microsoft and Sony’s next generation consoles have been announced. With Microsoft’s recent info-dump about the Xbox One’s stance on used-game and its once-a-day mandatory Internet check in, I wonder whether they’ll concentrate mainly on games or try to do further damage control.

So! What do you think is going to happen at E3? What are you looking for out of the press conferences? Of the big two, since Nintendo is skipping E3 this year, who do you think will come out on top? Will EA announce SimCity 2? Go!

Man oh man, if there’s one game for the rest of this year that might be able to topple BioShock Infinite off of its lofty perch, it’s The Last of Us. Sure, everybody might have their own personal Game of the Year (come on, Battlefield 4), but I predict that those two giants will be slugging it out for that prestigious award come December.

What makes me say that, you ask? Well, in case you missed it yesterday, the review embargo for Naughty Dog’s fungal-fueled post-apocalyptic title lifted and there are some fantastic reviews out there. Here’s a round-up of what some outlets are saying about it:

• IGN 10/10
• Polygon 7.5/10
• Giant Bomb 5/5
• Destructoid 10/10

Pretty much unanimous across the board, except for Polygon’s review which highlights a few inconsistencies with the shooting mechanics. The multiplayer is of particular interest to me, especially considering I kind of forgot that The Last of Us even had this mode.

The game is out next Friday, so what do you guys think about these reviews? Are you getting excited?

Now that both Microsoft and Sony’s next generation consoles have been revealed, there’s been much hemming and hawing here at GamerSushi over what would make us buy one of the new devices. Sure, there are neat features between each one, like the Xbox One’s three operating systems so you can “alt+tab” your console now, or the PlayStation 4′s streaming services, but there’s nothing that’s really made one console stand out over the other.

That said, there might be something announced at E3 that would completely change my mind about one of the new consoles that would make it a “must have” for me. I’m not talking about games, because I already have a PC (although InFamous might sway me), and let’s face it, both of these consoles will have games at some point. No, I’m talking about something that makes you stand up and say “that is so awesome, I can’t believe nobody’s built that in yet”.

So, my question to you guys is: what’s the magic feature that would make you shell out your hard earned cash for either the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4? This can be something that Microsoft and Sony have already said “no” to, like backwards compatibility, or things like that.

I am done with Ni No Kuni.

No, I haven’t finished it. I’m just done with it. After stopping for a month to play Bioshock Infinite (twice) and Tomb Raider, the thought of going back to Ni No Kuni was enough to make my body recoil in revulsion. I wasn’t sure why, but I had a similar feeling when I stopped Ni No Kuni the first time in order to play Dead Space 3. But once I started playing again, I found it surprisingly easy to get back into the swing of things. I put 24 hours into it before I took my month-long break.

But just like last time, I decided to throw it back into the old PS3 and see if my sudden aversion to the game would dissipate once I got going again. It didn’t. The moment I started playing I wanted to stop. The first battle I got into was literally the last battle I ever wanted to play in this game, which I think is the crux of the problem. I love the characters, the world and the story, but the battle system, while tolerable for the first 20 or so hours, just suddenly hit a wall for me. I love everything else about this game except for the battle system. I thought back to some of the tedious boss battles I had been through and I knew I didn’t want any part of that again. In the end, they were more of a chore than enjoyable.

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Is it already close to that time of year again? The time when all the gaming news outlets start revving their engines in preparation for E3? Seems like it.

The big show is still a few months away, but we’re already getting little bits of information about what to expect from some of the big three console developers. While we’ve already gotten Sony’s rundown of the PlayStation 4, we can expect a few more details in terms of launch date and price, along with a few more morsels of actual gameplay.

But what about the other two? As for Microsoft, some of the recent rumors have proven to be true — the next XBox reveal is set for May 21, which means that E3 will be all about Microsoft showing off a “full line-up of blockbuster gaming experiences”. So yeah, lots of Kinect stuff, probably.

As for Nintendo’s big E3 news? Well, there won’t be any. That’s right, Nintendo is ducking out of its E3 press conference, opting instead for their smaller Nintendo Direct presentations. One wonders if the really awful Wii U sales, as well as Nintendo’s inability to properly convey what the Wii U experience actually is at the last couple of E3 shows are to blame for this.

So that’s the round-up from this week. What are you guys expecting from these guys at E3? Which one are you most excited to learn more about? Sound off!

Welcome, welcome, one and all, to the 67 episode of The GamerSushi Show. On this three man cast, we finally delve into spoiler-talk about BioShock Infinite, so be warned if you’ve yet to complete the game.

Not that Eddy doesn’t try and spoil it a couple times in advance of the actual discussion, but I, your fastidious editor, made sure that his attempts at trolling were for naught. Sorry in advance to you headphone users, though. In addition to BioShock, we talk about Disney closing LucasArts, EA winning the Worst Company in America award for the second time in a row (they’ll annualize anything, won’t they?) and the out-of-control rumor mill surrounding the next Xbox.

Listen, rate, and we’ll catch you on the flip side! Of the coin. Get it? BioShock reference.

0:00 – 3:47 Intro
3:48 – 10:55 Disney closes LucasArts
10:56 – 17:24 Ea is the Worst Company in America (Again)
17:25 – 33:50 Next Xbox is a Cable Box and Always On
33:51 – 1:20:00 BioShock Infinite Spoilercast
1:21:41 – 1:23:50 Outro

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We talk a lot about backlogs here at GamerSushi, as some of us (mainly me) have an annoying tendency to buy games and then let them sit on the shelf for weeks and months at a time as we get distracted by something fresh and shiny. It’s funny because gamers complained for years about the Fall Onslaught of games, but now instead of a sudden rush, we have a year-long trickle that makes finishing a game before the next one you want comes out tough, not to mention making a dent on the backlog.

This is something I’ve been confronted with since I received Ni No Kuni on my birthday back in February. My goal was to put a dent in it until Simcity came out and then play Simcity until Bioshock Infinite was released. From there, I had no real idea what I was going to do after I beat Bioshock Infinite; likely go back to Ni No Kuni and split time with that and Simcity until Ni No Kuni was completed and I was sick of Simcity.

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There was one topic of conversation that dominated this episode of The GamerSushi Show, and you can probably guess what that is. Sony’s reveal of the PlayStation 4 has the gaming world turned on its head and a three man team consisting of myself, Jeff and Nick dissect the press conference.

Seeing as how the reveal was so dominating, we don’t talk about much else during the show, but we’d love to hear your thoughts on the PlayStation 4! Listen, rate, and come at us, bros!

0:00 – 2:14 Intro
2:15 – 1:08:38 PlayStation 4

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

It’s Stop the Presses Thursday, and boy do we have something for you!

Last night at a press event in Manhattan, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4, officially ushering in the next generation of consoles. The press conference showcased the system’s architecture, which is designed to be simple in response to the criticisms of the PlayStation 3 being too complex to develop on, the controller, the new social aspect of the PS4, and of course, the games.

The PlayStation 4 is running on an x86-64 8-core CPU, just like our wise Bearded One hypothesized two weeks ago during the podcast. It has a next-gen Radeon GPU along with 8gb of GDDR5 RAM and all of the other bells and whistles you’d expect: Blu-ray, an internal hard-drive of an unspecified size, USB 3.0, all that kind of stuff.

The leaked controller from a few weeks back turned out to be completely legitimate. As you can see in the image above, it features a touchscreen similar to the one of the back of PS Vita along with a giant blue bar that performs a Move-type function. The controller also has upgraded Sixaxis and rumble and, thankfully, the shoulder buttons and the analog sticks have been modified. It now has a headphone jack and the all-important, brand spanking new Share button.

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Time for Did You See This Wednesday!

Never one to stray from a controversial comment, David Cage, creator of Heavy Rain and the upcoming Beyond: Two Souls for the PS3, caused quite a stir at the DICE summit with some of his remarks regarding the direction he feels the game industry needs to go if it wants to evolve as an art form. Calling it a “Peter Pan-complex”, Cage pointed out that the vast majority of games are made for teens and children and the industry should strive to tackle more mature themes and not just a mature shooter, but expand mechanics beyond jumping, punching and shooting. Basically: maturity doesn’t equal violence.

Cage sat down with Chris Kohler of Wired.com for an extensive follow-up interview. The interview is worth reading Getting to the crux of the matter, Kohler asks Cage what are the consequences of the game industry not growing up and his answer is surprising in its reasonableness:

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It’s GamerSushi Asks Friday!

It’s almost here and the excitement surrounding it is palpable: on Wednesday, February 20th at 3PM PST/ 6PM EST, Sony will unveil “The Future of Playstation” and the masses are teeming with anticipation. Although I was initially expecting this press conference to be a huge letdown by having it turn out to be a new model of the PS Vita or something regarding Playstation Plus, all signs seemingly point to the PS4.

From suddenly leaked specs to a prototype PS4 controller to publishing executives becoming far less cagey than normal about next-gen, the future is upon us. So with the announcement just a few short days away, I thought I would ask you Sushians what you expect Sony to announce and what you want them to announce with regards to PS4 features. Personally, I expect a focus on connectivity with social networks, streaming or recording gameplay on youtube and showing off the features of the new controller.

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It’s “Stop the Presses” Thursday, coming at ya!

Hot on the heels of Sony’s announcement of a press conference on the 20 of February said to be a PlayStation 4 reveal, more rumored specifications about the Xbox 360 successor leaked out thanks to Edge.

The next Xbox will be always online, won’t play second hand games, will have games that ship on 50GB Blu-Ray discs and will utilize an upgraded Kinect. The always-online, no second-hand rumors have been floating around for a while, and it looks like games will be packaged with an activation code that renders the disc useless beyond the purchaser.

As for hardware, the system specs of the next Xbox look like this: AMD eight-core x64 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics solution and 8GB of DDR3 RAM. The system architecture of the next generation consoles, PS4 included, are apparently really close to the inner workings of a PC.

In contrast, the rumored specifications of Sony’s PS4 are a bit more beefy on paper, with developers apparently saying that the PS4 is easier to work on, as well as featuring an operating system that’s less stringent than Microsoft’s next console.

This “no used games” thing keeps popping up, so what do you guys think? Does the next Xbox actually have all this stuff? Will Sony reveal the PlayStation 4 on the 20? Go!

Xbox Source – Edge
PS4 Source – Edge

It’s a sad fact that when you have the highs of a year, there will unfortunately be lows. With so many big name titles getting their next iteration last year (and in some cases, wrapping up a planned trilogy) it was inevitable that gamers at large would be let down by some of them. Not saying that these games were bad across the board, but when you wait fifteen plus years for something, well, expectations tend to be a little inflated.

So, here’s a list of games I’ve put together that generated the most stink during 2012. This isn’t me saying that I think these games are awful, but rather these are the games that critics and players won’t stop bashing. Let’s put it to rest once and for all. What was the biggest disappointment in gaming for 2012?

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Heavy Rain creator David Cage has sometimes over-promised and under delivered. Of course, he’s nowhere near the level of Molyneux in that regard. In fact, he doesn’t even want to say too much about Beyond: Two Souls because he wants people to experience the game with no preconceptions or ideas about what the game is going to be like.

Here’s a bit from Cage’s recent interview with Playstation EU:

I think there should be no preparation for Beyond. You must go into the game trying to learn as little as possible!

Like other game creators, I wish I could say nothing and show nothing, and put a plain black cover on the shelves so that players start the game completely blank, with no information from trailers. This is something that is obviously not possible, unfortunately!

It’s interesting to me how many game creators really desire this pure kind of experience — and how impossible of a dream it is in a day when video game marketing machines dictate everything in the industry. The funny thing is, as much as gamers want that same kind of secrecy, that same ability to play a game with no idea what they’re getting into, we also demand previews, trailers and details galore, in order to make sure our money is being well spent.

So what do you guys think about this issue? Do you wish more creators could release games with less information about them? I mean, sure, there’s always the argument that you could avoid trailers, stay away from previews, etc — but at a certain point it’s hard to avoid everything, particularly when so much information is available, and so much of it not even indicative of the final product. Give us your opinions in the comments. Go!

Source – Playstation EU

You have to give it to Sony. They’ve been working hard at making things right since the infamous (get it?) PSN Hack. From rolling out tons of perks on Playstation Plus to making Triple A titles available digitally on Day 1, the Big S has really made some strides. So it should come as no surprise that they have something special in store for us for October: The Caravan of the Dead.

It sounds slightly ominous, but it’s actually a good thing: great deals on horror-related video games, with even better deals if you are a PSN Plus subscriber. The deals include Dead Space 2 for $13.99 ($9.79 for PSN+ members), Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Dead Nation and the must-buy game of the collection: inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood for only $4.99 ($2.50 for PSN+). I have heard really good things about the stand-alone expansion and for that price, I intend to find out. The sale runs from now until October 30th. Hit the link for the full list of games and DLC, which is an unlucky number 13.

See anything you fancy? Tell us in the comments!

Source: PSN Blog

With the Wii U getting a lot of buzz lately and all this talk of what Microsoft and Sony could have in store for us in the future, it occurred to me ask you, our beloved and wise readers: what would you want in a next-gen console? I don’t mean specs or anything like that, although do let me know if you want something slightly more powerful and less expensive or if you want a graphics powerhouse and have to pay more money.

I am more curious about what features you would be interested in, such as Nintendo TVii (UGH), multimedia applications, controller support, DRM for used games, online support and so forth. Consoles have come a long way since I was a kid. Now they are the (allegedly) the centerpiece of the living room and people expect more out of them than they used to. So hit the comments because this is your chance to let your voice be heard. Maybe the gods will hear our cries and actually deliver. GO!

Alright guys, we are finally releasing Episode 52, which gives a couple hints as to just how obsessed some of us are with Gurren Lagann. Like the teaser for this post says, this cast wraps up season 2 of The GamerSushi Show so we can take the dead news season off and come back swinging in September.

In this finale we talk about Sony nabbing Gaikai and what that could mean for gaming. We also discuss the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut and how we feel about it and then we talk about good old Peter Molyneux and his thoughts on the never-ending dev cycle. Listen up, rate the podcast, and remember: don’t believe in yourself, believe in the me who believes in you!

0:00 – 5:40 Intro
5:41 – 21:50 Sony acquires Gaikai
21:51 – 34:29 Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut
34:30 – 42:23 Molyneux and the Never Ending Dev Cycle
42:24 – 47:36 Outro

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Just before E3, rumors swirled something fierce about Sony acquiring a video game streaming service. The two big names, Gaikai and OnLive were both on the table, although most sources seemed to point towards Gaikai as the expo neared. But then, E3 came and went, without any kind of announcement.

That announcement hit today. Sony has purchased cloud gaming service Gaikai to the tune of $380 million. In a time where Sony is reporting some of its worst financials in its history, this is a bold move, and one that gives some kind of hint at where Sony thinks the industry is moving.

So what does this all mean? The leading theory at the moment is that Sony is going to forgo traditional backwards compatibility for the PS4 in favor of making the entirety of the Playstation catalogues accessible in the form of a cloud gaming service. This means that 1) Sony can save some hardware costs on the PS4 without feeling the need to make it compatible with PS3 games and 2) every game from the Playstation 1, 2 and 3 could be playable via streaming. The implications behind that idea are pretty huge, and is incredibly forward thinking on Sony’s part.

What do you guys think of this purchase? Do you agree with the prevalent rumor about Sony’s future plans? Go!

Source – CVG