ScrewAttack’s Top 10 Online Multiplayer Console Games

Alright fanboys, it’s time to polish off your sticks. I know that we all just love to argue until we’re blue in the face about the lists that other game sites come up with, so I thought I’d bring a new one to your screaming attention.

You see, ScrewAttack just recently released a video that goes through what it considers to be the top 10 online multiplayer console games. They cover everything from Call of Duty to Phantasy Star Online, and manage to have a few other surprises on there as well. One only imagines how much different this would have looked if they had included PC titles on here as well. In fact, I think only a couple of these titles would have made the cut if they opened up the criteria in such a fashion.

So what do you guys think of the list? What other games would you include on there if PC games were added? Go!

Rumor: Metal Gear Rising to Strike in 2012?

metal gear rising 2012

Our podcasts are becoming strangely prescient, it seems. Only on our last show did we despair about the early announcement of games versus when they actually come out. While the target of our woe at that time was Gran Turismo 5, it can easily be applied to Konami’s up-coming Metal Gear themed hack and slasher Metal Gear Rising, which is apparently set for a 2012 release.

Metal Gear Rising, announced in the summer of 2009 as a multiplatform title, apparently won’t be making an appearance for a couple of years if Kotaku is to be believed. While they don’t cite a source, they do say that they have been “told” that the game won’t be out until 2012. I’d chalk this up to rumor for now, but as Kotaku did point out, there are usually long waits between the announcement of an MGS game and its actual appearance on store shelves. Metal Gear Solid 4, as the given example, was announced in 2005 and didn’t come out until 2008.

While Metal Gear Rising never had a firm release date, many expected that the game would be out in 2011. However, given the lack of information on the game, this change in date isn’t exactly surprising. What do you guys think of Metal Gear Rising’s delay? Does this affect your perception of the title at all? Should game companies wait to announce games until they have a release date set in stone?

Source: Kotaku

Kinect Impressions

kinect impressions

I got to try out Kinect over the weekend, and I had enough hands on time with Microsoft’s full-body motion controller to get a decent impression. This isn’t a review, per se, but it’s still going to be a decent summary of my thoughts on it.

Kinect, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid the copious amount of information about it over the last year, is a sensor bar that hooks up to your Xbox 360 and uses an infrared scan of your body as input in specific games as opposed to the remote-wand set up used by the Wii and the PlayStation Move. The major hook of Kinect is the lack of any extraneous methods of control: it’s just the game and your body. There are no complicated button combos to remember, no dual analog sticks to fumble around with. By making the game an extension of yourself, Microsoft hopes to tap into the casual market by removing arguably the largest obstruction for new gamers: controllers. Does Kinect work in this regard, or was Kevin Butler right about the need for buttons?

Continue reading Kinect Impressions

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You Playing?

NBA 2K11

Video games, how I miss thee. Over the last several months, I’ve been swarmed by all kinds of things that have been taking away my gaming time. Some of these distractions fall into the realm of that general nagging living life thing (working, broken down vehicles, etc), and others are chosen (Krav Maga, personal writing).

Needless to say, I’ve been itching to play some games. When I’m not overwhelmed by these non-gaming nuisances, my time is being thrown into the following: Angry Birds and NBA 2K11. A basketball game may seem like an odd choice, but NBA 2K11 has already given me hours of sporty goodness. My brother and I have played countless games against one another, talking trash and throwing down sick jams all the meanwhile. If you’re into sports games at all, I’d suggest picking it up. On my radar are Fallout: New Vegas, Black Ops and Dead Rising 2 in the near future.

What about you guys? What are you playing this weekend and this week? Go!

GameStop’s November Trade-In Deals: Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and Call of Duty: Black Ops

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer

Whenever we’re feeling magnanimous or simply not lazy, we like to try and keep you guys posted about gaming deals that can help you save a buck or two. Especially during the fall downpour, it’s nice to be able to get as many games for as little money as possible.

Right now, GameStop has a few special trade-in offers towards upcoming titles Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (November 16) and Call of Duty: Black Ops (November 9). They also have some ongoing deals that extend to Kinect as well as Donkey Kong Country Returns. Check them out, unless your name is Scrooge McDuck and have money spraying from your ears and have no need of these kinds of things. In which case, I hate you. Not really.

Here are the GameStop trade-in offers for November 2010. Continue reading GameStop’s November Trade-In Deals: Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and Call of Duty: Black Ops

A Portrait of the Decade’s Best Video Game Characters

Video game portrait - Game Informer

Wow. What you see above is just a small piece of a huge portrait that Game Informer revealed today, which will make up three distinct covers of the December 2010 issue, shipping soon to subscribers. The subject of this portrait? Thirty Characters Who Defined a Decade.

Not only is it fascinating artwork, it’s also an interesting way to recap 10 years of worth of gaming, all at one thought-provoking glance. In total, the portrait shows thirty characters, each original to this generation. While it leans a bit heavy to some newer games, and leaves out some fan favorites like Solid Snake or Leon from Resident Evil 4 (since they first appeared in the 90s), it for the most part encapsulates a decade of remarkable video games, and produces some instant nostalgia.

Seriously, go look at it. Full list of characters after the jump. Continue reading A Portrait of the Decade’s Best Video Game Characters

Call of Duty: Black Ops Ad Proves There’s a Soldier in All of Us

Call of Duty: Black Ops is fast approaching (it comes out next Tuesday, November 9) and the marketing machine is ramping into over-drive. If you weren’t sick of being bombarded by Reach and Kinect ads, then you can certainly withstand this latest barrage. This new trailer/commercial is pretty clever, so you’re missing our a little if you don’t watch it. If you’ve ever wanted to see Kobe Bryant in a shoot-out with Jimmy Kimmel and a couple office workers, I’m about to make your day:

This was a really great commercial, I feel, but as Eddy pointed out to me in gmail chat there’s a distinct lack of 12 year olds running around shouting out racial epithets. I probably watched this a couple of times just to see all the little touches the film company added like the custom insignias on the guns and the writing on Jimmy Kimmel’s RPG. Since Black Ops comes out next week, we want to know: is there a soldier in you?

GamerSushi Asks: Gaming Difficulty?

Castlevania Lords of Shadow

The subject of difficulty in video games is a tricky one. On the one hand, video games in general seem to be too easy in a lot of ways, holding players’ hands from step 1 all the way until the final boss. On the other hand, it seems like many developers don’t know how to ramp the difficulty up in a way that is fair and organic, instead opting to throw completely ridiculous situations at you to frustrate you. It’s actually an odd trade off. The more I find myself grumbling about an easy game, there are just as many games that make me want to rage quit with unfair deaths, impossible sections, etc. This is one of the reasons I loved Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, because it kept ratcheting up the difficulty level without completely infuriating me.

Over at Gamasutra, Tim Keenan has posted a blog about this very subject called The Difficulty I Want. In it, he talks about how it’s often hard to know what you want in a game until you’ve had a chance to play the game yourself. He makes some great points about how many games just make you pick a difficulty and force you to stay with it to see the game through, rather than being able to switch down after dying multiple times or up after not dying enough. He also praises the difficulty sliders of Oblivion, which is one of my favorite games in this regard. It really is interesting to note that difficulty options haven’t changed much since the beginning of gaming. We still have the same generic options without much evolution.

So what do you guys think about gaming difficulty? Are games too easy? Is this an area where games can improve, and offer more dynamic ways to play that would make them more enjoyable? What games were unfair/too easy to you in recent memory? Go!

Source – Gamasutra

GamerSushi Poll: How Many Hours a Week Do You Spend Playing Video Games?

It seems like forever ago, but a discussion happened on our podcast that covered the topic of how many hours a week a “hardcore” gamers spends on playing games (the answer was something ridiculous like 45+). We decided that this survey was a bit skewed, and it only occurred to me just now that we never conducted a census of our own.

I’m here to remedy this situation with a new poll, which you shall cast your votes on. It’s rather simple, we just want to know how many hours a week you spend glued to your TV or PC monitor. Personally, I’d say about 10-15 because anymore than that interferes with “real life”, that bothersome thing that keeps making me go to work and pay rent. That’s just me though. What about you?

How Many Hours a Week Do You Play Games?

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The Marvel of Great Gaming Worlds

Red Dead Redemption

There’s nothing more immersive or impacting about a video game than a fully realized world, one that you love to be in and help shape by your actions or general goofing around. One of the reasons Red Dead Redemption enthralled me so fully was that its world was something that totally sucked me in, grabbing me in its noose and refusing to let go. Even after I finished the game, I didn’t want to leave, and kept coming back for more.

CVG recently posted a feature about 9 Game Worlds You’ll Never Want to Leave, and just looking at it makes me want to go through and pick up Assassin’s Creed 2 again, a long with a few others. Interestingly enough, they also include Mirror’s Edge, which, while very linear, still had a cool and bleached look about it. The thought of the sequel being an open world game is more than tantalizing. In addition, Rapture, Azeroth and San Andreas all make an appearance. Honestly, I would throw Mass Effect’s universe in here as well, as it’s one of my favorite gaming creations to date. Sometimes I find myself itching for more space adventuring with the Normandy.

So what do you guys think? What are your favorite gaming worlds?

Source – CVG

Microsoft Expects Great Kinect Sales Even if Reviews are Poor

Microsoft Kinect

After all the months of speculation, ridicule and “is that actually what I’m going to look like playing that thing”, the launch week of Microsoft’s Kinect has finally arrived. The hands-free motion control system will be out tomorrow in North America, prompting all of its purchasers to get their Wavy McJiggleArms swinging. I jest, but I am actually interested to see what this thing does, especially considering that it is Microsoft’s big horse, on which it is pinning many of its gaming dreams.

So how do they feel about it? If you ask Aaron Greenberg, head of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, he thinks it will do just swimmingly. He feels so strongly about this, he believes it will sell units even in the face of negative game reviews for Kinect’s launch titles.

Why is that? Because Kinect is different. Continue reading Microsoft Expects Great Kinect Sales Even if Reviews are Poor

Review: The Force Unleashed 2

Aside from a few misgivings, I actually enjoyed 2008’s The Force Unleashed. Despite the sometimes buggy way that all of its different engines would work together, it still managed to be a good game with a great Star Wars story that filled in an important part of the canon. Taking on the role of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, you guided Galen Marek, nee Starkiller, through various worlds until you reached the final confrontation on the first Death Star.

The game was filled with great moments and definitely seemed to have some promise of better things to come lurking around. We’ve seen a few games this generation that used the first game in their series as sort of a tech demo, a jumping off point for bigger and better things. The Force Unleashed seemed poised to make this leap when it was announced last year at Spike’s Video Game Awards, so how does it do now that it’s on the second iteration? Is this game any good, or has Star Wars disappointed us for the last time?
Continue reading Review: The Force Unleashed 2

GamerSushi Asks: Unnecessary Sequels?

rainbow_six_vegas_2

There’s been a specific game I’ve been playing over the last couple of days that got me thinking about the necessity of sequels in the gaming world. Obviously, publishers want more money, and if a game does well enough the first time, they’re going to try and make the lighting strike as many times as possible. What I’m talking about are sequels from our perspective.

While it doesn’t happen often, there are usually a couple games that get sequels pumped out in a short time frame with little to no improvements aside from maybe a sprint button or the addition of an experience system, just to capitalize on the good will of the first. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (hereby known as “double Rainbow”), is the first example that comes to mind, as that game just stinks of a quick cash in, made to take advantage of the overwhelming surprise success of the first game. Aside from the addition of the aforementioned sprint, the game was exactly the same, so it was panned critically and didn’t fare as well as the first did commercially.

I can think of a couple more examples, but I want to know if you guys were ever disappointed by a sequel. Are there any games out there that just broke your heart when they came out because they didn’t do justice to the legacy of the first? Maybe it was a third game in a trilogy that fell flat? Let us know!

PS3 Narrows The Xbox 360’s Lead To 3 Million

After Eddy’s initial foray at starting a console war earlier this week, this bit of news has come to light that might really get some panties in a twist, although why this would bother anybody escapes me. Turns out that the PS3 has, according to VGChartz, pulled to within 3 million or so consoles worldwide of the Xbox 360. Of course, the Wii is so far ahead of them both that Nintendo likely wouldn’t even click on this article if they came across it on the Internet.

What’s interesting about this is that the PS3 still lags in the United States and Canada by a wide margin, but is much more popular in Japan and especially Europe. Another aspect worth mentioning is the 360’s year head start, which has basically been nullified, although I have a feeling that Kinect will widen the gap once again for Microsoft.

After the expensive price tag and tons of bad press, it appears the PS3 has the Eye of the Tiger and is not going down without a fight. Is this surprising to you? Have you taken the plunge? Do you think the PS3 will ever surpass the 360? Flame on!

Source: VGChartz

From Dust is Like Minecraft on Steroids

If you haven’t heard of Ubisoft’s From Dust, which drops sometime next year on PC, PSN and XBLA, it’s a sandbox god-style simulation game that lets you shape the world as you see fit. Create mountains and forests, form new rivers and protect the inhabitants of the island, and do it all with the aid of truly gorgeous visuals.

While this is a bit old, yesterday I caught this From Dust tech demo and found myself thoroughly blown away. It looks like the drunken lovechild of Minecraft and Sim City, and I mean that in the absolute best way it can possibly be taken. Just watching this video brings back memories of letting natural disasters destroy my complaining taxpayers. Does that mean I’m evil?

Review: Fallout: New Vegas

fallout new vegas review

Fallout 3 was probably the best game of 2008, its massive, interactive world allowing players to explore the ruins of an alternate reality Washington DC destroyed by nuclear war. I personally must have spent at least 100 hours roaming the Capital Wasteland, and I’m pretty sure that I still haven’t done everything in the game. The DLC added a lot more to do, but eventually the font of encounters was going to run dry. As good as Fallout 3 was, gamers wanted more.

Bethesda tapped the infamous sequel team Obsidian (known for Knight of the Old Republic 2 and Alpha Protocol) to deliver on a follow up. Their answer is Fallout: New Vegas, which hearkens back to the original games by way of having several members of Fallout 2’s team on staff at Obsidian. Making the trip back to the American West, New Vegas puts players in the boots of the Courier, shot and left for dead in the Mojave by Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry, for those of us who never watched Friends). Was putting Obsidian in charge of the sequel a good gamble considering their previous offerings?
Continue reading Review: Fallout: New Vegas

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Trailer Welcomes You to Rome

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (or AC:ODST if you aren’t sick of that joke) just went gold, and to celebrate Ubisoft has dropped a new trailer on us showing a bit more of Rome and the various characters. Also included is some footage of the city being renovated and Ezio’s hired hands kicking ass. If you’re so inclined, we’ve embedded the trailer below for your viewing pleasure.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the second last big title dropping for me this year, and that’s especially welcome considering how much my wallet is hurting. 2010 has been quite the year, and I’m probably going to be in serious debt for a while. We’ve posted a few trailers on Brotherhood before, but as always we’d like to read your opinions if you feel like giving them. Now that we’re almost out of the holiday blitz, are you revising your spending plans?

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood drops November 16 on the Xbox 360 and PS3 with a PC release following next year.

User Interfaces: Which Games do Them Right?

Dead Rising 2 UI
The user interface is incredibly important to a person’s gaming experience, yet it often seems that this particular facet of design is either over looked or included as a last-minute thought. Even games with amazing visuals elsewhere have generic menus and head’s up displays, marring their otherwise perfect visages.

As a group, I think that gamers have gotten used to average looking UIs and we usually block them out. However, there are some that stand head and shoulders above the rest. Fable 3 is one of those, the few and the proud. This is a game that eschews the idea of traditional menus entirely and replaces the pause screen with your Sanctuary, essentially a magical bat-cave. There’s no long, arduous trek, or even loading, just a simple press of the “start” button brings you back to your John Cleese-staffed retreat. To me, this is a masterful solution to the multitude of clothing, weapon, spell, and quest menus that cluttered up previous games of the series and similar titles in the genre. I spent a good ten to fifteen minutes looking around seeing what it offered, and I’m anticipating the options that will come along to pimp it out as the game progresses.
Continue reading User Interfaces: Which Games do Them Right?

Dragon Age II: Rise to Power Trailer Shows the Game’s New Art Style in Motion

As we know, Dragon Age II is being “upgraded” with a new art style, one that takes the game in a slightly different direction. If I’m being honest, and I am the most truthful person that ever lived on this planet anywhere (not the truth), then I would admit that I have not been too keen some of the screenshots I’ve seen up to date.

While some of the initial concept art Bioware showed off was certainly gorgeous, some of the first screenshots just looked bland and lifeless to me. I haven’t necessarily been worried about the game, but that did temper my enthusiasm to some degree.

However, a new all in-engine Dragon Age II trailer is out, and boy does it assuage some of my concerns. The game actually looks much better to me in motion than the first game, which was great but just a bit dated. I know some will disagree with me, though. Give it a watch and share your thoughts and excitement level for the sequel. Come on, you know you want to.

GamerSushi Top Six: Gaming’s Greatest Inventions

As we move along from one generation to the next, it is becoming more rare to see brand new gameplay inventions in the wild. Some of this is simply logical: as games progress, new gameplay is more likely adapted from an old system or refined over time with small tweaks rather than birthed anew.

However, on the flip side, one could make the argument that developers have just gotten lazier over time. Part of this is because of deadlines and sticking with what’s easy, and part of this is put on them by their bosses, who steal their princesses (Bowser style), and force them to put out whatever clone happens to be selling.

Issues like this are never completely cut and dry, but one thing that we can say for certain is that when you experience great gameplay inventions, it crushes your face like a Mike Tyson uppercut, announcing that it has arrived in a way that you can’t miss. Either because it truly defines a title or is simply copied by everyone else, good gameplay is a bit infectious, and tends to have some staying power. Because it’s, well, good.

So, in thinking about great gameplay, I thought I’d come up with a list of gaming’s greatest inventions. Continue reading GamerSushi Top Six: Gaming’s Greatest Inventions