The Wii U has one hell of a software drought ahead of the release of Zelda.

NX: Nintendo Should Hope That More People Buy Their Console Than Buy Their Lies

The Nintendo NX will be launching in March of 2017, missing the crucial holiday season which might have provided it something of a boost out of the gate. This will result in Nintendo’s new system hitting the market several months after the release of the Playstation Neo, meaning that the NX will not even present an appreciable leap in capabilities over what is already on the market. One is not overly supportive of Sony’s plans for a mid-generation refresh, yet one has to respect Sony’s play to handily cockblock the big N. It seems unlikely that Nintendo would deliberately plan to miss the 2016 holiday season, so there is even every possibility that they had to do so on account of Sony entering Neo production before they could, and monopolising Foxcon production bandwidth to such an extent that Nintendo had to push back their release plans in order to build up the requisite inventory. In any case, regardless of the reasoning behind the decision, it nonetheless amounts to Nintendo releasing their console at a time when there is little appetite among consumers for buying new consoles.

This also means that the NX will not be shown at E3, as ten months prior to release is apparently way too early for Nintendo to be showing off one of their new products. Because of this Nintendo will be focusing their E3 efforts on their new Legend of Zelda title, which has been pushed back to March of 2017 – a mere ten months after E3.

“The new Legend of #Zelda will be the focus of #E3 2016. It will launch simultaneously on both Wii U and NX in 2017.”

The reason for Nintendo’s new Legend of Zelda title being delayed to March of 2017 is in order for the team to give it some extra polish and iron out some bugs – it assuredly has nothing to do with the launch of the NX. @Cheesemeister3k confirmed this by translating a tweet from Nintendo of Japan which confirms:

“Zelda for #WiiU, planned for 2016, has been delayed to 2017 in order to improve quality. #WiiU and #NX versions release together.”

Well, that is a relief. One is glad that Nintendo can be upfront like this. Perhaps NX has been delayed to ‘improve quality’ too. At any rate, the launch of the NX promises to to be a historic event, as one can scarcely recall a console ever launching without first being shown off at either E3 or CES before it. Even the shambolic launch of the Sega Saturn occurred at E3, giving it some much needed exposure to general consumers. Nintendo, a company in deep decline, will be launching their NX without the benefit of this kind of exposure, in a period directly subsequent to the glut of luxury spending which comes with the holiday season. Well played, guys!

It has not been so terribly long since PSN was regarded as more of a liability.

PSN Now More Lucrative Than All of Nintendo

With Nintendo operating as a nonentity throughout the majority of the console generation, sales of Sony’s PS4 have soared. Moreover, Nintendo is understood to have pretty much nothing significant in store for Wii U owners until their new Zelda title releases almost a year from now, meaning that, much like Sega after the Saturn, Nintendo will go almost a full year without having any kind of home console presence at retail. Hell, by the time Zelda actually does release for the Wii U, owners will likely have to order it online, as the Wii U will have relinquished the scant retail space that still remains to it at present.

As Nintendo shrinks Sony expands, and nowhere is this more evident than in the hard numbers. This week both Sony and Nintendo have released their numbers for the 2015 financial year, revealing that PSN alone is now earning more revenue than Nintendo as a whole. This generation Sony has started charging money for Playstation owners to access online game features, and given that the PS4 has shipped over 40 million units as of the 31st of March, that means that Sony is bringing in a tidy chunk of revenue along with the digital sales of PS4 software:

“Sony’s PlayStation Network sales hit 529,000m yen which means that PSN generated more revenue than the whole of Nintendo (504,000m yen).

Yes, you’re reading that right. PSN generated more revenue than all Nintendo revenue in FY2015/16.”

To put this in US dollar terms, the revenue from PSN was 4.97 billion dollars, while the revenue of Nintendo as a whole was 4.74 billion. In broader terms the revenue from Sony’s gaming division as a whole was 13.7 billion dollars, and now accounts for nineteen percent of all Sony revenue. Because of this Sony as a whole has returned to profitability in 2015 after several years of posting losses. One hopes that they use this breathing room to get the rest of their house in order, so that when these stellar PS4 sales numbers diminish other divisions of the company will be able to hold their own.

As for Nintendo, they do have a large warchest left over from the Wii, so they are in no imminent danger of going out of business. That said, if the NX does poorly and Nintendo’s mindshare and marketshare continues to decrease, then it is difficult to see how Nintendo’s shareholders could allow the company to throw their hat into a subsequent console generation. It is not even as though Nintendo handhelds can take the slack anymore; the 3DS might look great in comparison to PS Vita, but it has still yet to reach 60 million units sold after five years on the market – a far cry from the 154 million units of DS hardware that Nintendo moved during the previous generation. Moreover, Nintendo’s financials could be looking even worse were it not for the runaway success of Amiibo, which went on to generate almost 500 million dollars for Nintendo in 2015, which is roughly half of the revenue accrued by 3DS software sales in the same period.

“Fun Fact: All 3DS software generated $1B for Nintendo over the last 12 months Clash of Clans generated ~$1.4B alone in the last 12 months

Nintendo have now sold in approximately 35.2 million amiibo figures (More than half in the US/Canada) and 28.9 million amiibo cards.”

Aspiring game developers will never get the chance to ask Journey’s director how he became so successful at such a young age.

SJW Professors Rob Students of Rare Learning Experience

File this one under pure blithering idiocy. What do Rob Pardo [former CEO of Blizzard], Jenova Chen [founder of thatgamecompany], Dave Stohl [president of Infinity Ward], Brandon Beck [CEO of Riot Games], Peter Levin [president of Lionsgate Interactive], Min Kim [former president of Nexon America], and Jeffrey Kaplan [former director of World of Warcraft] all have in common? Besides being massive industry heavyweights of course. What commonality do these individuals all share with one another aside from the fact that they are immensely important and influential gaming professionals, any one of which would be worth seeking an audience with? The answer to that is quite simple – all of these very important people had taken time out of their busy lives in order to fly to LA so that they could attend a USC panel titled ‘Legends of the Game Industry’. Not only had these industry titans made themselves available to answer the questions of USC game design students, but they were also prepared to take a look at the game design projects that the students had been working on. For most people this would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Sadly, it was not to be. Professor Anthony Borquez had organised the event, yet he was only granted the space on the provision that he would not assemble an all male panel. With this stipulation in mind Borquez assembled a panel which included an [as yet] unnamed female gaming professional, yet due to a scheduling conflict she had to pull out at the last minute. A mere four hours before the panel was due to get underway director of USC Games Tracy Fullerton cancelled the event because there was not going to be a female on the panel.

“Dear Students, Faculty and Invited Guests:

Thank you for your commitment to USC Games.”

This is profoundly sickening in terms of its sheer wastefulness – both regarding the unique opportunity lost to students and the faculty’s flagrant disregard for the time of the guest speakers who had flown out to be there. If the department is able to put together another panel then one imagines that it will look a lot less like ‘Legends of Gaming’ and a lot more like ‘Rejects of Tumblr’. Brianna Wu is a shoe-in to attend for the attention, and so too are the duo behind Tale of Tales [provided the University puts on a free lunch]. However, it is difficult to imagine an actual industry professional taking this joke university seriously enough going forward to waste their time on another such panel. These morons are supposed to be educators, yet they just ruin it all for everybody. Nobody who was actually serious about a career in gaming would have passed up this kind of opportunity in protest over something as silly as gender composition, and unintentional gender composition at that. Of course, the faculty in question likely could not appreciate this, on account of the fact that they were never themselves able to make it in the game industry, and so became career academics instead. Those who can do, do; those who cannot do, teach. Now one just hopes that Lusipurr will give this author a sporting head start before he looses the hounds!

[UPDATE]: Tracy Fullerton has attempted to explain why she decided to fuck over her students due to petty nonsense:

“There was no perfect choice here. There was only the choice to stand for one set of values or another. So, I chose the path I believe in. You all are free to disagree, but I think it is the right side of history.”

There is no right side of history for hysterical SJWs. Their day in the sun is rapidly setting.

Endride has your generic fantasy needs covered.

Anime Spotlight: Endride [2016]

Shun Asanaga is a fifteen year old Japanese kid who happens to be transported to another world on account of a mild case of kleptomania. Emilio is an Endran prince who is languishing in prison after attempting to avenge his father against the current king of the realm. The former enables the latter to escape, and they subsequently encounter Alicia who has her own pet dragon! In the series Endride the Earth is hollow and contains a second planet beneath its surface known as Endora. The show starts off with both boys attempting to evade the King’s soldiers as they make their getaway, and from there Shun needs to find a way to get home, while Emilio needs to find a way to avenge his father.

Endride is… retarded. The show is somewhat generic, Shun makes for an annoying protagonist, and the quality of animation is less than resplendent. The whole thing feels more than a little goofy. As far as mediocre anime is concerned, Endride is somewhat more interesting than is typical. It is reasonably watchable, yet with so much great anime around there is not really much of a compelling reason to settle for this. Endride is licensed with Funimation, and new episodes are simulcast on Saturdays at 3:00 pm Eastern.

Car, car take us away…

Final Fantasy XV Has Been Grounded

When Tetsuya Nomura was handed the Final Fantasy Versus XIII project in 2006 he described it as being a project in which he would bring together all the quintessential elements which he considered to be most important for a Final Fantasy title, and chief among these elements was the ability to traverse a seamless world map in an airship. Nomura had his priorities right – there are few [if any] Final Fantasy fans who would not be able to identify with the heady rush of excitement upon first gaining access to one’s very own airship in any given Final Fantasy title. It is a universal empowering thrill which has sadly been missing from the numbered Final Fantasy series since the last great entry of the Sakaguchi era, Final Fantasy IX. This week Final Fantasy XV‘s new director, Hajime Tabata, tore up Tetsuya Nomura’s longstanding commitment to fans during a Gamespot interview, saying that the team was still looking into the possibility but that it might be too technologically challenging to implement.

“To be completely honest, that’s still to be determined, but the development team does understand that this is something everyone is looking forward to. It is a huge technical challenge; as mentioned earlier, all areas are connected. We are trying to tackle that challenge. So at the moment we can’t say yes, they will be included, but we do want to and we’re ready to take on that challenge and see what can be done.”

Travel by car has been implemented, travel by train has been implemented, travel by Chocobo has been implemented, but travel by airship is just too damn hard. This week Tabata has also claimed that players will have the ability to jump to the elevation of birds in the sky, so one wonders whether airships really are too difficult for the team to implement, or whether Tabata simply did not want to overshadow that damn car!

In other news for the week, plans for Final Fantasy XV‘s demo have changed. The demo, which will be accessible to owners of first-run copies of Final Fantasy Type-0, was set to feature a stretch of gameplay involving Final Fantasy XV‘s iconic physics-challenged car – not any more. The team decided to change the region in which the demo takes place to a location where story events have rendered the car temporarily inaccessible, so as to acclimatise players to the feel of on-foot exploration. Given that demos are supposed to constitute a representative sample of the finished product, and given that car travel is such an inextricable part of the final product that it has been given clear priority over travel via airship, then one might have hoped that car travel would make an appearance in the demo so that fans will be able to get a sense of how car travel is set to change the series gameplay formula. No such luck.

Kickstarter seems kind of tapped out at present…

Holiday Season Sees Kickstarter Fortunes Firm, Yet Money Donated to Games Is Still Down

In October of last year Lusipurr.com ran a story which looked at Kickstarter’s fortunes over the first ten months of the year, and projected that by the end of 2014 twenty-seven million dollars would have been donated to game projects, and that three hundred and fifty projects would have been successfully funded – indicating a steep decline from Kickstarter’s 2013 earnings.

“the first half of 2014 has seen 13.5 million dollars donated to Kickstarter, with donations projected to reach roughly twenty-seven million dollars by the end of 2014 – less than half of the fifty-eight million dollars that was pledged in 2013. The number of successfully funded projects has declined, albeit by a smaller amount. The first half of 2014 has seen 175 projects successfully funded, with roughly 350 projects projected to be funded by the year’s end, which constitutes a decline of roughly twenty percent when compared to the 446 projects that were successfully funded in 2013.”

As it turns out these October projections were a little too pessimistic, though they were not off to anywhere close to the extent that Kickstarter would have one believe. Kickstarter wasted no time in hitting back at naysayers on the sixth of this month, declaring that 89.1 million dollars had been donated to successful game projects in 2014, representing a drop-off of about fifteen percent – this is nowhere close to being true, on account of the fact that Kickstarter has combined video game donations along with board game donations in order to make the total sound more impressive than it actually is. In reality twenty-nine million dollars was donated to video game projects in 2014, representing a year-on-year shortfall of about fifty percent. Surprisingly however, the year ended with more projects being funded than in 2013 – 465 to 2013’s 446, meaning that less money is being donated to Kickstarter, but it is being shared among more people, so we likely have many more failed Kickstarter projects to look forward to!

This year’s most successful game was also its most banal and disappointing one…

Playstation Announces the Biggest Sellers of 2014

This week Sony has announced the biggest sellers on the US PSN store, making for several lists that are interesting and disappointing by turns. On the PS4 front the most heartening aspect is that Lusipurr.com’s worst game of the year, Assassin’s Creed Unity, did not make the list, indicating that there is at least some hope for Assassin’s Creed‘s userbase. Other than that, it is an extremely orthodox list, with perhaps the biggest surprise being the extremely strong performance of a re-release from 2013, Grand Theft Auto V. The list in order of popularity is as follows: Destiny, Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Minecraft, The Last of Us Remastered, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Battlefield 4, Infamous Second Son, Watch Dogs, and Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. It is perhaps easy to see why the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity had Ubisoft shitting themselves enough to give away its DLC expansion for free, as the French publisher’s only berth in this list is Watch Dogs at the ninth position. This indicates that their big brands like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry lack the kind of dependable popularity of Activision’s Call of Duty, EA’s Battlefield, and Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto.

The Vita’s list of big sellers is perhaps a little more oddball than that of the PS4, and one is very happy to see a Final Fantasy make the cut in the form of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster [it is not really HD] in the fifth position. Alternately, one is bewildered to see the top position go to Sword Art Online -Hollow Fragment-, a game which sounds like every FTP game one has ever seen advertised on The Pirate Bay, and one about which this author has never even heard of until now. The list is as follows: Sword Art Online -Hollow Fragment-, Minecraft, Killzone: Mercenary, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, Terraria, Need for Speed Most Wanted, The Walking Dead, Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition, and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate. One possible thing to keep in mind is that EA was briefly giving away Need for Speed Most Wanted for free this year, so it might not actually warrant its berth at seventh place.

The PS3 was apparently still a thing in 2014, and it was a little surprising to see 2013’s November release of Grand Theft Auto V beat this year’s installment of Call of Duty, given that most of a title’s sales occur within a couple of weeks of release. The list is as follows: Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Destiny, Battlefield 4, Tokyo Jungle, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Need for Speed Most Wanted, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Terraria.

Finally and most interestingly is the list of best selling PS1 and PS2 classics, and it would seem that the sales of JRPGs [which dominated prior years] have now reached saturation point, with the only JRPGs to make the list being Legend of Dragoon in the eighth position, and Final Fantasy VII in the ninth position. The list is as follows: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2, Crash Bandicoot 3, Bully, Spyro, CTR: Crash Team Racing, Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy VII, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

If I had this collection, I would not hesitate in selling it.

I have a rather huge collection of old games and the systems required to play them. In fact, I have never sold a single game in my life. I always believed that I would go back and play the better games in my collection during the summer months when there is typically a lull in new releases. Time have changed though. More games are released each year now than they ever have before, even if they vary in quality substantially, and as I have gotten older my free time has diminished somewhat as well. I am not sure it is worth setting aside enough space to store all my gaming paraphernalia. Today I will be looking at just how useful it is to have collections any more.

My first issue with games of the past is that they are all in a fairly low resolution. Nostalgia has often meant that pixellated graphics are smoothed out and generally look a whole lot better in my memory. This would not be much of an issue if I were still playing games on the old CRT televisions of yore, but on my huge high definition unit of today, those flaws come right to the fore. Even downloading a PlayStation 2 classic game from the PSN store, as I did with La Pucelle this week, does not prevent this from happening. Game produced for a different generation of consoles do not always look good on the current generation of machines.

Having games available digitally saves plenty of physical space.

Sticking with downloadable games, many companies are re-releasing their back catalogs nowadays. Square Enix has been doing this for years, but recently a whole lot of games are being released that are available digitally and sometimes with extra content. These games are often developed to run on modern hardware and, while not having the impossibly smooth graphics they had in my memory, they at least fit well on a HD screen. Having the games available through a digital service also reduces the need for me to store boxes in every spare crevice as I have to do right now.

The time constraints of being an adult with two children means I do not often have the time to sit down and invest a hundred or more hours into my favourite RPG. I particularly love the Disgaea franchise, but I find myself leaving the games alone for months on end, only to restart them the next time I feel the urge to play the one. This is why I enjoy picking up the games on a portable device. Not only can I put the game down whenever I need to (such as halfway through an item world run), but I get all the downloadable extras for each game along with new content. Portable is where it is at for me right now and it is probably the largest factor in my decision not to buy a PlayStation 4 so far.

HD remakes made for modern computers often come with significant graphical upgrades.

When I do get the chance to sit in front my computer, I am often surrounded by titles that I own, but have not yet had the chance to play. Various Steam and Humble Bundle sales have seen me buying games like a child buys sweets. I certainly do not have the time to play them all thoroughly, and games that I have already completed years ago rarely seem to get a look in. Sometimes though, an old game will get a HD upgrade so that its graphical style is preserved on modern machines. Owners of theses games on Steam (and perhaps other digital delivery services) usually get a free upgrade to the new version. This often sparks a few weeks of multiplayer games within my Warcraft guild. This means that if I own the physical game, I would have to buy it over again digitally to join in the fun.

Finally, the best part of selling off a collection and purchasing digital copies of the important games is not having to deal with early access. Most of the staff on this site have written about it, so I will not go into detail here, just to say that it is a blessing that I can pick up a game and not find it riddled full of bugs while I wait countless months for a patch to fix the game.

So, now I firmly believe that buying re-releases of old games is worthwhile, but what of the games I still have lying around? Very few of them are actually worth anything, and the ones that are generally are not yet available in any other fashion. Selling them could fund the purchase of many new games, and this is what I am wrestling with at the moment. Let me know what you think in the comments. Should I sell off my entire game collection, or should I just get rid of anything that is available digitally elsewhere? Do you think physical or digital copies of games are better? I am curious what our community thinks about this issue.

Will we be digging this little treasure from New Mexican landfill thirty years from now?

Bone Idle

There has been some good news this week for any Xbox fan looking to pick themselves up a day Bone edition of Microsoft’s newest console a mere five months after launch day, as brand new launch editions are back in stock over at Amazon! It must be stressed that Microsoft’s planning and production of their Xbone console has been something of an unmitigated success, so much so that their retail channels have been completely flooded with unsold consoles, far outstripping demand. Since its launch the Xbone has been produced in batches of about one million consoles per month, indicating that Microsoft anticipated Xbone sales to be roughly similar to current PS4 sales, and resulting in over seven million consoles being produced, of which only five million have been passed through to retail channels, and only four million have been sold through to consumers. In short, Microsoft has likely already produced all of the consoles that they will need for the remainder of 2014.

The launch of the Xbone console has been largely credited for Microsoft’s Devices and Consumer Hardware division’s year-on-year spike in revenue from $1.4 billion to $1.97 billion – a forty-one percent increase – yet the division’s cost of revenue also jumped by seventy percent, owing to the increased expense of manufacturing the Xbone console. It is due to this mounting cost of manufacture [as well as perhaps the imploring insistence of retailers] that Microsoft’s CFO, Amy Hood, has this week heavily implied that Microsoft will be looking to either slow or completely halt Xbone manufacture in order to sell existing stock. More specifically Hood signaled a “ channel inventory drawdown for Xbox consoles” and indicated that “ we do expect to work through some inventory in Q4”.

A temporary halt of production makes a certain kind of sense for Microsoft who are spending big money to produce consoles that consumers are not buying, and it certainly makes sense for beleaguered retailers who would now be free to sell their existing stock rather than being inundated with ever increasing shipments as warehouses grow overfull. A surfeit of stock is also a huge downward pressure on the retail pricing of a console which is already overly expensive at five hundred dollars. That said, altering hardware production lines ahead of schedule is said to be a task akin to turning around the Titanic, and breaking or altering any existing contract with the manufacturing plants in question could prove to be a very costly undertaking indeed. It is possible that Microsoft’s initial contract only ran for the console’s initial six month launch window, but infinitely more likely that it was intended to span the first year or more of the console’s life. This author notes that it seems particularly opportune that Microsoft have helped excavate the notorious E.T. landfill this week, seeing as Microsoft may soon require all the storage space it can get its hands on in order to house rapidly accrueing Xbone stock.

Zynga is a dog.

That Has Got to Stinga!

The fall of Zynga has been nothing if not as riveting as their games are not. For a very brief moment it was the toast of the investment community, and then the bubble burst and the company has been hemorrhaging value, revenue, and customers ever since. Lusipurr.com has been reporting on Zynga’s fall from grace for a while now, yet it would seem that the company’s worst days are not yet behind it – especially now that Microsoft alumni Don Mattrick has arrived on scene to bolster the ailing company with his bad ideas.

Since quarter one of 2013 Zynga has lost around half of its active users, plunging from 253 million active users per month to a mere 123 million users. Consequently earnings are down from a four million dollar profit for quarter one of 2013 to a loss of sixty-one million dollars for quarter one of 2014. Total revenue is also way down, dropping from $264 million dollars in quarter one of 2013 to $168 million dollars in quarter one of 2014. More concerning still is the fact that the proportion of Zynga’s revenues which are derived from Farmville and Farmville 2 have proportionally grown over the course of the year to the extent that Farmville revenues now equal the earnings of all other Zynga game titles – which obviously begs the question of where the company will be once the earning power of the Farmville franchise is spent.

Why? Fuck you, that’s why!

Games Were Temporarily Available For the Vita

There was much rejoicing this week when, following PSN server maintenance, all available PSN PSP and PS1 Classics were suddenly made available for purchase on Sony’s PS Vita. The games included many high profile titles that had been conspicuous in their absence, such as Gran Turismo, the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, the Spyro games, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and Valkyria Chronicles II. Jubilation was short-lived however, as Sony, realising that these games had been made available for purchase, promptly rescinded access to them – Queue sad faces all around.

In actuality this content was probably made available either through a bug in the software, or perhaps Sony had enabled a debug mode during the maintenance period and then had forgot to disable it again before going live – either way what occurred has served to raise a very important question: why do we not have access to this content? The Vita is currently hurting for new content, and these titles are among some of the most cherished to have ever been released, yet it seems that the Vita faithful are to be denied these gems through the arcane fuckery that is video game licensing agreements. Thanks, Obama!

Edges sharpened for ease of use.

Next Generation News: Microsoft

Earlier this year Lusipurr.com reported on a rumour which suggested that the APU powering Microsoft’s Xbone console had both yield and overheating problems. Rhetorically speaking, one certainly hopes that these rumours were false, as this week Microsoft have announced that the Xbone CPU has been overclocked by 150MHZ, a boost of 9.375 percent – this comes on top of their August announcement that the system’s GPU will also be overclocked by 53MHZ. If the system were already struggling with overheating issues, then this could easily see a return to the hardware mortality rate which has plagued the Xbox 360’s time at retail. This need not necessarily be the case however, owing to the Xbone featuring a fan that is abnormally large by console standards. The oversized fan was originally chosen for the fact that it was able to run much slower than the PS4’s fan, achieving whisper quiet operation. It is wholly possible that in recent weeks the Xbox division has simply said ‘fuck the noise’ and have ratcheted up fan-speed in order to facilitate performance gains in the hope of narrowing the performance gap between the Xbone and the PS4. It is anyone’s guess whether this CPU performance gain will prove to be more potent than the PS4’s GPGPU features that were facilitated by its support of hUMA technology, but this may be the Xbone’s first narrow technical victory over the PS4.

Should consumers happen to suffer from a burned-out Xbone at launch however, then they appear to be in luck according to Microsoft’s Phil Spencer, as there will allegedly be more than enough Xbone units available at launch for them to simply walk into a store and buy another one. Apparently good guy Microsoft is deliberately holding back preorders so that uninformed and unprepared consumers will be able to walk into their local retailer on day bone and find one sitting on a shelf:

“You want people to be able to walk in the store and buy one on day one, so you’re trying to manage the inventory that isn’t pre-sold. It’s not a yield problem, it’s us trying to manage the hardware side. I want parents who don’t think about pre-ordering electronics to be able to walk in and have a chance to find a box. There might be a line, but I don’t want it to be that if you didn’t pre-order in September, you can’t get one. That doesn’t feel like a great consumer experience.”

Of course what this really means is that the PS4 is currently outselling the Xbone by an estimated factor of between 3:1 and 4:1 throughout North America, so there is bound to be plenty of unclaimed Xbones on day one.

This week also saw the announcement of the Xbone’s launch date – the 22nd of November – releasing precisely one week after the PS4’s American release on the 15th, and precisely one week before the PS4’s European release on the 29th. In celebration of this happy Xbone news, Microsoft have released their first legitimate Xbone advert , and it will surprise precisely nobody to find that it did not feature anything even tangentially related to the pursuit of gaming – just a bunch of American football being consumed by an assortment of goblins hailing from every shade of the focus-tested PC rainbow. After the Xbone’s initial calamitous unveiling it pleased Microsoft to pretend [through a succession of flip-flops] that their high-handed dismissal of gamers was an aberration, and they were very nearly convincing, yet at their first major test of loyalty they have opted to return to form, and in so doing have made it clear that the Xbone is only intended for people who treat gaming as an afterthought.

It shares games, not spam.

Next Generation News: Sony

This week Raptr CEO, Dennis Fong, has come out and slammed Sony for being “closed, almost to the point of ignorance“, while praising Microsoft for being “progressive and open” with regard to the policies of their next generation consoles:

“It seems like it would be a no-brainer, but you just never know with big companies, especially big companies that are going through massive upheaval, which I think both PlayStation and Xbox to some extent are going through that right now.

PlayStation on the other hand, has been very, very closed, almost to the point of ignorance, in terms of trying to control every little thing that goes through PlayStation and what their users see, so getting them to release any kind of data, user profile data and such, has been a lot like pulling teeth.”

These cutting words might have been quite damning for Sony were they uttered by a party whose services were not entirely noxious. Raptr is a service which aggregates user data across XBL, PSN, and Steam – allowing users to pollute social media like Twitter and Facebook with their ‘achievement’ spam, along with creating gamer-score cards that they are able to embed in forum posts. If Sony sees fit to spare the internet from even a small portion of unnecessary and obnoxious epeen masturbation, then one is entirely amenable to their position.

In other news, Sony has this week announced two headline-grabbing ‘me too’ features set to make their way to the PS4. The first feature is the ability for the PS4 camera to process voice commands, essentially pilfering the Xbone Kinect gimmick that very few gamers seem to actually want. The second feature is Sony’s plans for the PS4 to support VR headsets. As of now Sony has their own functioning headset prototypes which they plan to produce for retail. It is currently unknown whether the console will also support Oculus Rift, and it is anyone’s guess as to whether Sony will be able to manufacture the headsets at a price deemed affordable by the mass consumer market. In order to come out ahead of the curve companies have to necessarily put their eggs in many baskets, yet one fully expects PS4 voice commands to be worse than useless, and for VR to catch on in the same way as 3D did for Nintendo [read: not at all].

In retrospect, not the best promotional picture given GROSS INCOMPETENCE!

Schafer Doubles Down on Poor Management

When Tim Schafer announced back in July that his Kickstarted adventure game Broken Age had run out of funds long ago, and that to remedy this misfortune Broken Age was set to become Broken Game by being snapped in half and sold piecemeal on Steam Early Access, one thought at the time that there was no further incompetence that Tim Schafer could visit upon the world of gaming that had the capacity to offer any further shock or surprise – how truly naive. This week Schafer has revealed that the reason that Double Fine blew through the 3.3 million dollars so quickly was because they hired Hollywood star, Jack Black, and Jennifer ‘FemShep’ Hale to provide the game with character voiceovers!

Let that sink in. This is the same jackass who had the gall to publicly shame a backer on Twitter for wanting to be reimbursed on the grounds of mismanagement of funds. To an insufferable Schafer such a move amounted to trolling, as the game was certainly entitled to Hollywood acting talent, and it was not his fault if the money ran out [backers should have been more generous]. To the real world however, such a move speaks to gross incompetence. Once again Double Fine blunders highlight the folly of launching a Kickstarter before even drafting the most rudimentary of design documents. If a budget had been prepared for Broken Game, then perhaps Schafer may have realised that 3.3 million dollars was not enough money for him to hire multimillion dollar Hollywood voice talent!

This is how Nintendo view ALL of their customers.

Nintendo of Europe Restricts Access to Mature Content

Unbelievably, Nintendo has insisted on making the news for yet another week through the rolling disaster that is the Wii U. Nintendo of Europe has clearly identified their Wii U console as the laughably child-oriented Fisher Price play-centre that it so resembles, by locking eshop access to any and all mature rated content, be it game, demo, or trailer. Such material is only available between the hours of 11pm and 3am, effectively meaning that the majority of content supplied by Nintendo’s biggest third-party backers is inaccessible for all but four hours of the day. Then again, the cynic may suggest that such a dick-move makes perfect sense for a profit-driven company such as Nintendo, whose wares consist exclusively of all-ages appropriate software. For twenty hours of the day there is literally no competition for New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land. Any attempt to buy Electronic Bioturd’s Mass Effect 3, download a demo for Ubisoft’s Zombi U, or stream a trailer for THQ’s Darksiders II will result in the error message: “You cannot view this content. The times during which this content can be viewed have been restricted.” The best thing about it is that the error message does not even inform would-be customers as to the hours whereat their desired content will become available for purchase.

While it may have pleased Nintendo to lie about returning their focus to core gamers, the truth is that bone-headed measures like this put paid to that notion. Mature content restrictions are just another hassle in a long line of Nintendo’s Wii U cock-ups, which unambiguously mark it as a kiddie console – not fit for serious gaming. Unambitious hardware, three hour battery life, lack of dedicated voice chat functionality, lack of [useless] achievements; the evidence of Nintendo’s deceit only seems to be gathering pace in these weeks following the launch of the Wii U. Meanwhile, Nintendo of Europe for their part have only provided the watery response: “Dear customer, we would like to let you know that Nintendo has always aimed to offer gameplay experiences suited to all age groups, observing carefully all the relevant regulations regarding content access that are present in the various European countries. We have thus decided to restrict the access to content which is unsuitable to minors (PEGI) to the 11pm – 3am time window.”

Note how Nintendo cite European regulations as the reason for restricting adults from accessing entertainment: even now in their personal missives with customers Nintendo cannot keep from telling blatant falsehoods. There is no regulation restricting the hours of the day that digital adult content is available for purchase, as evidenced by the fact that PSN and XBL face no such restrictions anywhere in the world. There is no legitimate reason for Nintendo to paternalistically control the content that is available to their adult customers, and there is no logical reason for them to do this at all, other than in an attempt to drive up the sale of Nintendo’s own first party titles – but then Nintendo titles have never had a problem with outselling the competition ten-to-one. It is utterly inconceivable to imagine that the absentee parents of Europe actually have a legitimate claim to restricting the hours of availability for content simply to compensate for their own laziness, and it is also completely bonkers to think that an 11:00pm curfew will be sufficient to block access to youngsters who have the unfettered run of their parent’s credit card. Moreover, this should be absolutely redundant, given the fact that Nintendo has been compelling Wii U owners to pay a fifty cent fee in order to prove their age bona fides. At any rate, one hopes to see a brick-and-mortar storefront analog to Nintendo’s digital policy, requiring mature titles to be kept behind the counter in nondescript paper bags, just so that adult customers can know that what they are doing is properly unclean and shameful before they slink away, shame-faced, like pornographers into the night.

One cannot envision a future wherein this screen does not play a large part in the next Dark Souls game.

Dark Souls Receives Sequel

Dark Souls, like Demon’s Souls before it, was a robust game. Complex and sprawling with catacombs and hidden byways, yet intricate in level design and gameplay systems. The world was well developed and immersive, while the gameplay itself was finely balanced, and renowned for its difficulty. It is fair to say that Dark Souls was a very ambitious title for a modest studio like From Software, which is why, when it barely sold over one million copies, the franchise was doomed to obscurity, and had to be mothballed seeing as everyone knows that AAA console games need to sell at least five million copies in order to be profitable – or rather, that is what would be said if that myopic industry sob-story were actually true.

Dark Souls is set to receive a sequel due to the reality that selling over one million copies of a well-made game is in fact a respectable and eminently sustainable figure to achieve. Electronic churn-mills like EA may wish to refute this claim, owing to the fact that their perverse mutilation of Dead Space was ostensibly done in service to the requirement of selling five million units just to break even, but this is either an admission of gross incompetence or an outright lie to cover for their obscene and ham-fisted greed.

The announcement of Dark Souls 2 has been the cause of much in the way of celebration among gamers, yet it has also occasioned some disquiet within certain quarters of the fanbase. This is because series director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has been relegated to a supervisory role, while Tomohiro Shibuya will be filling his directorial shoes. Shibuya has previously worked on the Monster Hunter and Resident Evil Outbreak series, which has provoked fan concerns that he either will not be capable of delivering such a finely balanced hardcore experience as Miyazaki, or worse, will attempt to broaden the game’s appeal, and in so doing will flush the qualities that made the series unique down the crapper. Shibuya himself does not look to have done the project any favours when he stated: “I personally am the sort of person who likes to be more direct than subtle. [Dark Souls II] will be more straightforward and more understandable.”, but then talk of greater accessibility was had when From Software first announced Dark Souls, and that certainly did not appear to have any ill effect upon the quality of the game. Dark Souls 2 will be available on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

One can always tell which archival screenshots were uploaded by former staff-member, Jenifer Biggs.

Rumour: Epic To Be Bought by Microsoft?

It is beginning to look as though Epic Games is about to be purchased by Microsoft or some other large corporate entity. This story comes not by way of an inside scoop from an industry deep-throat, but rather by putting two and two together, so it must be taken with appropriate amounts of salt. This week Mike Capps has stepped down from his ten year stint as president of Epic Games. This event would not be overly remarkable if viewed in isolation, yet it comes hot on the heels of the departure of Gears of War senior gameplay designer, Lee Perry, back in July, the resignation of Gears of War producer, Rod Fergusson, back in August, and the resignation of company mascot and Gears of War lead designer, Cliffy B., back in October – representing a fairly significant purge of senior Epic personnel. Similarly, Epic owned studio, People Can Fly, has lost Bulletstorm producer and designer, Adrian Chmielarz, along with Andzej Poznanski and Michal Kosieradzki in recent months.

It is theoretically possible that all of these very important figures within the company simultaneously came to the decision to move on within months of one another. It is also entirely possible that Cliffy B. suddenly discovered humility, and thus sought to flee the spotlight. It does however seem most likely that push factors have played a large part in their decision to step aside, with the most likely push factor being the knowledge that Epic is about to be bought out by a larger entity, and will subsequently be afforded less latitude in the game projects that it is able to pursue.

The situation resembles nothing so much as the mass exodus of talent back when Microsoft purchased Rareware. Moreover, Microsoft would be the predictable suitor for Epic Games due to their historically beneficial relationship, which has resulted in Epic Games developing one of the Xbox 360’s pillar franchises in the form of Gears of War. Taking ownership of the fourth iteration of the Unreal Engine would also allow for the Nextbox to get the jump on brand Playstation, though this factor may prove to be something of a double-edged sword, as failure to kill Playstation outright would result in Epic Games losing a tremendous amount of value if their engine can no longer be used for multiplatform games. Nonetheless, Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot due to their anti-competitive overreach is entirely in keeping with their corporate character. At any rate, this could all very easily be coincidence.

Time for a hard reset.

The prophet Mohammed (may piss be upon him) has been very upset with infidels this week, on account of the name of his lord, Angry Allah, being used to adorn a rest-room wall in the popular FPS game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The offending articles in question were two paintings which featured the phrase “Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty” – a sentence which is offensive to Muslims everywhere owing to the fact that Allah is ugly and hates beauty, and thus insists that it be covered up or stoned to death.

If Modern Warfare 2 is anything like other games, then the use of the Allah paintings was probably incidental, as in-game posters tend to be duplicated and then repeated with little thought as to their placement.Yet, despite the eminently reasonable use of the word ‘Allah’, Activision is the latest publisher to give in to the unreasonable demands of quiver-lipped Muslim cry babies, by pulling the level until such a time as they can strip out the offending pictures. This of course follows on from Sony having to recall millions of copies of Little Big Planet when Muslims became angry that one of the game’s tracks featured two lines from the Quoran, and CD Project RED having to remove carpets from a brothel in The Witcher 2 when Muslims became angry that their designs looked like Muslim patterns – whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.

What is perhaps most disheartening about all this is that we have yet to see any developer or publisher actually standing behind their art against the graceless braying of the Muslims hoards. It is fine for Activision to include deliberately tasteless material such as participating in a massacre of civilians at an airport, yet as soon as the suggestion of Islamist offence raises its veiled head they fall over backwards in their attempts to acquiesce to Muslim demands. Now all that remains is for Barrak ‘Neville Chamberlain’ Obama to denounce Activision as providing a fair and reasonable basis for Muslims to do murder, and we will have a fun little redeux of the whole Libya debacle… Call of Duty: Tribal Warfare.

Joyless Wretches of PETA Attack Pokemon Black & White 2

The sum totality of PETA’s contribution to animal protection.

As proof that the benighted hordes of Islam do not have a monopoly on lunacy, the universally loathed bestiality lobby group known as PETA has this week made a mockery of animal rights by slamming Pokemon Black & White 2 as promoting animal cruelty. The group have launched a tersely worded spiel against the iniquities of the Pokemon franchise, accompanied by a poorly balanced Pokemon knock-off game, wherein Pokemon are depicted savaging their owners – because that is somehow supposed to make them more sympathetic.

“Much like animals in the real world, Pokemon are treated as unfeeling objects and used for such things as human entertainment and as subjects in experiments. The way that Pokemon are stuffed into pokeballs is similar to how circuses chain elephants inside railroad cars and let them out only to perform confusing and often painful tricks that were taught using sharp steel-tipped bullhooks and electric shock prods… if PETA existed in Unova, our motto would be: Pokemon are not ours to use or abuse. They exist for their own reasons. We believe that this is the message that should be sent to children.”

If PETA existed in Unova they would be Team Plasma. They have gone about winning hearts and minds by attempting to convince children that they do not in fact adore Pokemon – a task no more or less plausible than any of the other nonsense endeavours they have put their names to. That is of course assuming that PETA are not actually a faux animal rights group established and coordinated by the meat industry, in a bid to utterly discredit the concept of animal rights.

Square Enix Attempts to Defend the Indefensible

A high price for mediocrity.

Square Enix has this week attempted to stage a somewhat novel defence of their unacceptably expensive iOS titles, which can be priced as highly as $30 USD for games that are old (Chrono Trigger), poor (Final Fantasy: Dimensions), or both (Secret of Mana). The tenuous basis for this claim appears to rest with Square Enix’s blindness toward their product’s legacy status and the economic reality thereof, along with the categorical failure to recognise that phones and tables simply do not have the tactile input to offer an experience which comes close to the quality of the console gaming experience.

“Each game is priced individually and evaluated based on the type of game, depth and overall experience it provides for players. Some of our higher priced titles offer more than 60 plus hours of game time with rich storylines, high quality graphics and challenging, diverse combat. We’ve reconfigured and optimised [the games] for the mobile platform, releasing them at a lower price than their original console or handheld versions.”

The Square Enix rationale sounds reasonable enough until one considers that many or their games are between ten and twenty years old. These are titles that made their production costs back on the original run of the games in question, and so claims as to the density of content and graphical quality are quite beyond the point. Moreover, the bulk of Square Enix’s most cherished titles are available in far cheaper and more agreeable form on PSN.

Nigel Smartbottom thinks that too much has been made over Microsoft’s $40,000 patching policy.

The Playstation 3 patch to last year’s much maligned HD port of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 has arrived, promising irate owners a very much belated fix to myriad bugs, framerate drops, audio syncing issues, and a completely borked fog density. While it would be a brave gamer indeed who takes this as confirmation that the PS3 version of the Silent Hill HD Collection is fit for purchase, it is nevertheless progress (after a fashion) for the hapless fools who already own the game, and is sure to be well received among that unhappy community – but not so the Xbox 360 owners of the game.

The Silent Hill HD Collection is the latest piece of highly flawed software to fall victim to Microsoft’s patch pricing policy. The policy dictates that developers must pay Microsoft the hefty sum of $40,000 for the release of all patches after the first, which can be hard to justify for lower-tier software. This has seen the abrupt cessation of support for games like Brutal Legend and more recently Fez, the later of which is particularly noteworthy as the game featured a savefile deleting bug which was unable to be addressed. Thus, in the same breath that Konami triumphantly announced a laundry list of game fixes for Playstation owners, they also poured cold water over Xbox 360 owners on account of a patch for them being economically prohibitive.

“Plans for an Xbox 360 title update have been cancelled due to technical issues and resources. Understanding the issues some users are experiencing, Konami issued a title update for Silent Hill HD Collection (PS3), which fixed frame rate issues as well as audio-synching and other reported issues. Konami apologises to any players who are continuing to experience these issues on the Xbox 360 sku. Silent Hill HD Collection is available at retail stores nationwide.”

While it is difficult to feel much in the way of sympathy toward Konami, a publisher who elected to release a manifestly unfinished game; one must nevertheless conclude that Microsoft is primarily to blame for Xbox users missing out on a patch that may have fixed the game that they purchased. The approval process for game patching costs money to be sure, but then so do Xbox Live subscriptions, which are notionally collected for the ongoing support of digital services for XBL users (in reality: just profit). Of course Microsoft is free to run their Xbox Live ‘service’ as they see fit, but when their greed is the only thing standing between their users receiving a much needed patch, then that is just very sad for everyone.

Dragon Quest X Tanks at Retail

Why the fuck would this even come up when searching for Dragon Quest pictures?!

Dragon Quest games are/were big business in Japan, selling to their domestic audience in quantities best reserved for AAA worldwide figures. The release of a new Dragon Quest title was the one thing (short of a Nuclear disaster) that was guaranteed to bring the nation of Japan to a grinding halt as millions of mad, yellow bastards queued for sometimes days at a time in order to be among the first to slake their thirst for ultra grindy generic JRPGS. But alas, sadly it would seem for Square Enix that Dragon Quest fans want a console style JRPG (whether it be on home console or handheld), and certainly do not want a faux MMO, which requires a subscription and was made for a dead system which is famously incapable of utilising the internet.

Online (and wireless) multiplayer gameplay was accepted well enough for Dragon Quest IX, yet that was largely because it was not required, and fit well within the traditional structure of the Dragon Quest series. Dragon Quest X on the other hand constitutes a very rude shake-up to the Dragon Quest formula, and the sales figures would appear to reflect the disquiet of the fandom. Initial figures for the four days that Dragon Quest X was on sale sit at 420,311 units sold, a figure which looks impressive until contrasted against the fact that both Dragon Quest VIII and Dragon Quest IX sold over two million copies in their first two days on sale.

People have been quick to point out that Square Enix will make up the revenue shortfall from sales lost with their subscription fee, but that all depends on the game’s longevity. It is currently unknown whether the game’s current userbase are serious MMO gamers who intend to stick around for the long haul (which would not seem to be much of a natural fit for the property), or whether they simply picked up the title to see what the latest Dragon Quest was all about before moving on, much like the multitude of gamers who bought The Old Republic for its storyline and promptly dumped it once its main arc was finished. What is clear however, is the fact that sales currently sit well bellow The Old Republic‘s current userbase, which was itself the cause of much alarm for Bioware’s evil EA overlords, prompting them to make the title free to play. Square Enix will definitely be looking for Dragon Quest X to shift some more copies this week if it is to sustain the viability of its paid service. It is well likely that this will still be a very profitable venture for them, but one cannot escape the notion that this is just the latest release in a long line of renowned JRPG franchises who’s currency Square Enix has permanently debased.

Late Breaking News: Konami Updates Their Stance on the Silent Hill HD Collection Patch

Releasing this in the first place was completely inexcusable…

Silent Hill HD Collection owning Xbox users may not be getting a patch for their game, but they will be eligible to receive a free game from Konami, or at least they will be if they live in the Americas. This offer appears to be very generous on the face of it, yet is becomes absolutely laughable when one realises that owners of the game will have had to have kept the game receipt in order to be a beneficiary of Konami’s largesse – one does not fancy that their software inventory will be overly taxed.

The offer as stated on the official Silent Hill Facebook page reads: “Please send your receipts to Konami Customer Service for verification and further details on how to exchange your product. This offer is only valid for Silent Hill HD Collection (Xbox 360 version) games purchased on or before 08.08.2012. All requests must be made in writing and submitted on or before 10.07.2012. and is subject to availability. Any inquiries received after this date will not fall under this exchange program. This offer valid for purchases made in North and South America”.

Essentially this is Konami betting that the amount of people who avail themselves of this service will cost less in terms of software givaways than $40,000. While this is no doubt a cynical exercise in reputation maintenance, it is nevertheless bound to prove a nice silverlining for the several people diligent enough to keep their receipts for all this time. For all those who have not, well, let them eat Microsoft!

This will never happen in HD. brb weeping

Square Enix Confirm That a Final Fantasy VII Remake Will Never Happen

Square Enix’s bait and switch Final Fantasy VII remake routine is one of the oldest dances in the world of gaming. An awkward PR shuffle whereby one of the senior Final Fantasy staff will offer just enough of a taste to get fanboys wildly salivating, before withdrawing at the last minute, leaving everyone blue. In recent years it has been a rather common occurrence to have Yoshinori Kitase claim to be looking into the project, only to have Motomu Toriyama proclaim several weeks later that rendering a town in HD would take at least a hundred years to achieve – well, it would seem that such hijinks may have finally come to an end this week, with Yoichi Wada stating in front of a room full of investors that Square Enix will never produce a Final Fantasy VII remake.

Yoichi Wada declared an end to Final Fantasy VII remake speculation in no uncertain terms, stating: “we’ll make a Final Fantasy VII remake once we’ve made a Final Fantasy game that exceeds the quality of FFVII.” Not only is this a tacit acknowledgement of how far the Final Fantasy brand has fallen (an admission that is as shocking as it is obvious), but it is also confirmation that fanboys can pack up their tents and go home, because Final Fantasy VII will never get a HD remake. Wada did not stop there however, as he went on to explicitly state that Square Enix at present is not producing games to the standard of Final Fantasy VII, and that if they were to release a remake of Final Fantasy VII right now, then the Final Fantasy series would be finished thereafter.

It is really quite difficult to understand how Square Enix could get to this point; haunted by the success of a fifteen-year-old game which the publisher seemingly views as both their solitary lifeline as well as their eventual destroyer. This is a company that has been allowed to capitalise on their successes for far longer than they should have, and thus are tormented by a legacy of prestige that they cannot possibly hope to live up to. At any rate, one is well pleased that Yoichi Wada has taken the potential butchering of Final Fantasy VII off the table – it can remain on PSN where it belongs, pristine, as a memento of better times in the studio’s history.

Lusipurr.

Nintendo to Release a 3DS XL Just for Lusipurr

Nintendo have this week announced the July/August release of a 3DS XL system, only a fortnight too late to save their dreadful E3 conference. The larger handheld system will feature a modest increase to battery life, up from the original 3 hours to a whopping 3.5 hours. The system will also feature enhanced chunky start, select, and home buttons, remedying a terrible design flaw of the original model. Meanwhile, the size of both screens has been increased by around ninety percent, from 3.53 and 3.02 inches to 4.88 and 4.18 inches, making the top screen almost as large as that of the PS Vita.

It must be stated however, that the composition of the new system is not without its criticisms. While it has been confirmed that the system will ship with a charger in America, Australia, and New Zealand, Nintendo has come to the incomprehensible decision to sell the 3DS XL without an A/C charger in both Japan and Europe – because goodness knows that the ability to actually use the system is an optional extra. One imagines that a penny pinching Nintendo is pursuing this policy within any market that they legally can; Capitalism ho!

Another point of criticism for the new handheld is the fact that everyone had assumed that the 3DS’ first hardware revision would see the addition of a second circle pad, alleviating the need for Nintendo’s frankly hideous Circle Pad Pro ashtray attachment. The fact that Nintendo have refused to accommodate market expectations is all the more baffling given the surfeit of additional surface area available to the 3DS XL. Nintendo’s failure to include a second circle pad may in fact indicate that Nintendo’s ashtray will be the next in a long line of peripherals that Nintendo has abandoned. Some people may chalk this conspicuous absence up to a frugal Nintendo pinching pennies yet again, but one is utterly convinced that this is an omission of pure contempt towards a market which deigns tell Nintendo what to do with Nintendo consoles.

How does I handle criticism?

Reggie Blasts His Critics

If gamers do have complaints regarding Nintendo’s handling of the 3DS XL, then perhaps Reggie Fils-Aime is not the best person to broach them with – or at least that was the take away message from the spray that he levelled at gamers this week for not getting excited at the prospect of more Wii Fit. Reggie went so far as to suggest that gamers are incapable of telling the difference between amazing software and mediocre drivel on the basis that they ignore ‘amazing’ multi-million selling software like Wii Fit. Reggie does not seem to understand that the Wii Fit audience all bought an iPad. They do not reside in these parts anymore, and they certainly do not comment on game blogs.

Reggie shrilly chastised potential consumers thusly: “One of the things that, on one hand, I love and, on the other hand, that troubles tremendously about not only our fanbase but the gaming community at large is that, whenever you show information, the perspective is: ‘thank you, but give me more’. I mean it is insatiable.

For years this community has been asking, ‘Where’s Pikmin? Where’s Pikmin? We give them Pikmin. And then they say: ‘What else?’ For years this community has said: ‘Dammit Reggie, when you launch, you better launch with a Mario game’. So we launch with a Mario game, and they say, ‘So, what’s more?’

I have heard people say, ‘You know, you’ve got these fantastic franchises, beyond what you’re doing in Smash Bros, isn’t there a way to leverage all those franchises?’ So we create Nintendo Land and they say: ‘Ho-hum. Give me more.’ It’s an interesting challenge.

When we show a game like Brain Age or when we show a game like Nintendogs, what’s the fan-based community reaction? ‘Ho-hum.’ Until it sells millions of copies. When we showed Wii Fit on stage.. go back and read your blogs, what was the reaction?

It’s the question of, as a gamer, ‘Is this for me and something I can get excited about?’ And Wii Fit did not get that reaction. And yet 43-million copies around the world, it’s a phenomenon. And so I would argue that the gaming community actually is unable to differentiate between a phenomenon and something that is ‘ho-hum’.”

There Reggie goes equating units sold with quality, and assuming that what is popular among post-menopausal Women should also be a sure fire hit within the gaming community at large. As far as Nintendo franchises go, the revival of Pikmin was only ever really going to satisfy a large niche – though there are certainly worse things Nintendo could have done to launch a new system. New Super Mario Bros. U for its part looks to replicate an experience that will be available to 3DS owners later this year in the form of New Super Mario Bros. 2. Meanwhile, Nintendo Land is an assortment of mini-games, and all the titles mentioned thereafter are dire bilge. It really goes to show just how out of touch Fils-Aime is that he has to wonder why consumers keep asking him what else there is to sell them on Nintendo’s positively arcane Wii U.

Farewell old friend!

Hiromichi Tanaka Leaves Square Enix

This inevitability has been a long time in coming. The producer overseeing the ill-fated original incarnation of Final Fantasy XIV, Hiromichi Tanaka, has this week left the company that he has called home for well over two decades. The long-time Square producer cites ill-health for his departure, yet it does not take much in the way of imagination to picture him sitting in an empty office for the past year twiddling his thumbs as he waits for the non-compete clause in his contract to lapse – much like Hironobu Sakaguchi’s final days at the company.

While his post-millennial tenure under Square Enix did not bring him much in the way of distinction, it is perhaps better that we remember his contributions to gaming during the halcyon days of Squaresoft. Tanaka pulled game design duties on the first three Final Fantasy games, before moving to distinguish himself by designing the concept and scenario for Secret of Mana, which he then produced – Tanaka would go on to direct 1995’s ambitious sequel, Seiken Densetsu 3. It is for 1998’s Xenogears and 1999’s love-it-or-hate-it epic Chrono Cross that Tanaka is perhaps most likely to be remembered by contemporary gamers, as he acted as producer for both titles, and as battle planner and battle system designer respectively. Hiromichi Tanaka has cited his return to game design as being one of the motivating factors for his split with Square Enix, one can only hope that, like Hironobu Sackaguchi before him, he is able to rise from the ashes.

Microsoft! Or something!

E3 kicked off this year with the surprise news that the show was looking to relocate elsewhere for next year, on account of construction developments potentially rendering one wing of the venue unusable. This would mark the first year that the E3 has not been held in Los Angeles, and may not even be held in California at all.

Of the two console conferences held today, Sony’s was easily the better – not because it was anything special, but because it was a conservative orthodox presentation on gaming, which is more than can be said of Microsoft’s efforts. Sony wowed crowds with footage from Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, which looks to be heavily reminiscent of the Uncharted series in terms of fidelity, if not so in terms of brutality, which looks to be stark and shocking in its gritty realism. Sony’s conference also served as the venue for the official ‘announcements’ of God of War: Ascension and Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls; two games that have been confirmed in all but words for a number of weeks now. It was also confirmed that hipster actress, Ellen Page, has been cast as the dramatic lead for Beyond: Two Souls, lending the game the Hollywood cred that David Cage so earnestly courts.

High definition = look sweaty at all times.

The Sony conference also saw the announcement of Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, an Activision shooter looking to cash-in on the dearth of credible competitive FPS experiences available on the PS Vita. Finally, Sony made a couple of announcements with respect to upcoming PSN services; stating that PSOne Classics will be available to download for the PS Vita sometime this Summer, and that Sony is currently working to implement PS Vita functionality into two PS3 games, Playstation All Stars Battle Royale and Little Big Planet 2. The games will have the PSVita serving as an enhanced controller of sorts, making use of the enhanced functionality of its colourful and responsive touch screen in a bid to undercut Nintendo on their Wii U gimmick. While excitement is high about the PS Vita possessing this kind of functionality, it is easy to doubt just how much of a positive boon it will prove to be for the two games announced as being compatible.

Microsoft were also looking to negate the Wii U’s gimmick, announcing Smart Glass – a service which will allow smartphones and tablet PCs to interact with Xbox content; both game content and entertainment media. Microsoft also announced that Internet Explorer will be coming to the Xbox 360, for owners who are keen to use their gaming console as a shitty PC. This service is not without a catch however, as an Xbox Live Gold Account will be required for it to function – adding yet another service to the list of the things that Microsoft feels entitled to charge for when other console holders give them away gratis.

Also yesterday, Will.I.Am and Stevie Wonder idiotically wished Happy Birthday to the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. Americans.

Other than that, the Microsoft conference proved to be a yawn inducing douchefest for the most part, which placed a heavy premium on style over substance, with celebrities like Usher taking to the stage to endorse Dance Central 3, Flo Rida being trotted out to promote Just Dance 4, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone presenting a commercial for their upcoming title: South Park: The Stick of Truth – a game whose relevance to Microsoft extends to the fact that it will launch with an Xbox 360 exclusive costume pack; ah, but it is good to see Microsoft’s marketing dollars at work, no?

That is not to say that Microsoft’s conference was entirely without noteworthy announcements. The Microsoft conference was used to announce (presumed) Xbox exclusives Gears of War: Judgement and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, the latter of which is of particular note given that Michael Ironside, the long-time voice of Sam Fisher, will not be returning to voice the high-tech protagonist. The Microsoft conference was also used to announce Ascend: New Gods, a drab little game which looks to be of no importance whatsoever.

Today was also host to the conferences of EA and Ubisoft. EA kicked off their conference with the news that they had acquired the rights to UFC from THQ, as THQ made the announcement that they were closing down their San Diego studio responsible for producing UFC titles. EA also announced Dead Space 3, the screenshots of which began to leak onto the internet about a week ago. It would appear that the Dead Space series has lost much in the way of identity in the intervening years since Dead Space 2‘s release – long gone is the lonely corridor crawler, replaced with what looks to be a banal Lost Planet knock-off, replete with mandatory co-op, much like every other EA title. EA also used their conference to make two announcements: firstly, that they are indeed launching a premium subscription service for their terrible game, Battlefield 3, in an effort to have players pay twice for the use of servers; and secondly, that Electronic BioArts’ ailing MMORPG, The Old Republic, will be free to play up to level 15 starting in July.

Also appears to have The Matrix cues as well.

Ubisoft used their conference to announce three new titles. The horrendously titled ZombiU is to be a Wii U exclusive, and is almost certainly the game that was being teased in Nintendo’s equally horrid hipster-infused Wii U promotion video, which made the rounds a couple of days ago. The second game announced was a competitive shooter going by the inspired title of ShootMania Storm. Finally, Ubisoft announced Watch Dogs, a Deus Ex cum Hitman fusion by way of Grand Theft Auto. Regardless of how derivative it sounds, this game looks to have some serious potential, and sports a futuristic and extremely attractive dystopian setting.

Moe moe force choke!

EA Tightens its Belt as Electronic Bioarts Stares into the Abyss

Bioware this week denied that there has been a drop-off in player participation in their struggling MMORPG The Old Republic, even as they indicated an imminent merging of servers and moved to provide players with an additional free month of game subscription. Many are suggesting that The Old Republic‘s population has probably peaked at 1.7 million payers, and is set to decline from here on out. Bioware contends that The Old Republic has been a success for EA, and that a stagnating player-base is merely the result of players gaming exclusively during off-peak times; what speaks louder however, is talk of EA laying off anywhere between five hundred and a thousand employees due to the disappointing sales performance of The Old Republic and Battlefield 3.

If this turn of events was not dramatic enough South Korean MMO publisher Nexon, the publisher of Maple Story, is allegedly looking at launching a takeover bid against EA, an unlikely albeit delicious prospect. News of a possible takeover caused EA’s stock, which had been languishing at a fifty-two week low, to shoot up by 8.1% to $16.23 per share. While things may be looking a tad grim for EA, they will no doubt be looking to turn things around today with the launch of their flagship MMORPG, The Old Republic, into thirty-eight additional countries, including the lucrative markets of Afghanistan and Yemen. Somewhere right now Bobby Kotick is wearing a smile that would not look out of place on a cat.

Pictured: two seconds before death and yelling.

Another Headless Moral Panic For the Sheep of Gaming

“In an article published by the Atlantic earlier this month, writer Taylor Clark posited that ‘video games, with very few exceptions, are dumb’ “, writes Jason Schreier with the bristling faux outrage which lends itself to the witless rabble rousing that Kotaku readers have come to prefer. To wit the latest carcass to be swarmed by the Gawker owned tabloid gaming rag, Kotaku, is the latest moral panic engendered in the gaming public due to the fact that some journalist somewhere said some mean things about gaming. This savage blow to the integrity of gaming has been enough to compel the ironically named Brainy Gamer site to collate a large database of “smart” games, the purpose of which is to refute the harsh insinuations of one Mr. Taylor Clark. To elicit such a hysterical response the article penned by Clark must have been very harsh indeed one would have to figure – well, as it turns out that is simply not the case.

Taylor Clark’s article The Most Dangerous Gamer may be rife with hyperbole, but a slander piece it is not. Rather it is an article chronicling the rise of auteur game designer par arrogance Jonathan blow, even as it looks to the potential of the interactive medium while bemoaning the toilet that is commercial gaming. In fact much of the article reads like Jonathan Blow speaking through the tips of Clark’s fingers, whilst having his message garbled somewhat by being filtered through the generalisations and exaggerations of a journalist who is ignorant of the subject about which he speaks. Much of the criticism levelled by the Clark’s article toward the gaming industry appears to closely mirror Blow’s own art-centric gaming prejudices, making him a much more likely candidate for gamer ire – but then that would spoil the ‘us versus them’ narrative of the story.

All of this is irrelevant however, as what does it really matter that a non-gamer should see artistic merit in the medium? Watching gamers start petitions and build databases in order to refute the slings and barbs of an indifferent media is rather like seeing a grown man tackle a toddler after being called a big poopy head – this more than anything else reflects very poorly on the video gaming industry and culture. It is futile, as reams of evidence can be gathered and presented without the naysayers ever possessing the faculties sufficient to weigh it on its merits and concede the point to butthurt gamers. More importantly it indicates an extreme lack of confidence on the part of gamers toward their recreation of choice, which really serves to cast doubt on their contention that gaming is a serious pursuit; so perhaps Jonathan Blow makes a good point afterall.

I'm helping! I'm helping!

XBox Live Receives a Substantial Update in the Form of More Advertisements

Experts recommend that gamers should spend fifteen minutes of every hour taking a break, and so keen is Microsoft to enact this recommendation that they have become the envy of hyperbolic health professionals everywhere by moving to impose even more advertising upon the users of their paid online service, to ensure that they are given adequate time to take a break from their gaming. For gamer’s $60 annual subscription they can expect to gain access to adverts running between fifteen and thirty seconds a piece embedded in many popular XBox 360 applications.

In an interview with Gamasutra Microsoft’s Ross Honey stated “With the growth of XBox Live, advertisers no longer have to choose between digital and TV advertising – we’re offering the impact of TV and the interactivity and addressability of digital in one platform. As more and more industry leaders like ESPN work with us to help monetize their content on XBox Live, TV media buyers win with the ability to extend their standard TV spots to this highly engaged consumer audience.” Microsoft wins, advertiser wins, everybody wins!

It is genuinely heartening to see that Microsoft are so in tune with their users, by which one means advertisers. All one can say is that with all this great high quality content on offer it is good to see that Sony have managed to remain somewhat competitive by offering their comparatively meagre online services completely free of charge.

Uncharted Drake's Fortune Box Art

Released in the year 2007, PlayStation 3 exclusive Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune brought developer Naughty Dog into the most recent generation of console gaming. Published by Sony Computer Entertainment of America, the first Uncharted is a mix of third-person shooter and 3D platformer. Players take on the persona of Nathan Drake who is the descendant of one Francis Drake. Francis Drake is rumored to have found a long lost treasure that could possibly lead to the finding of the lost city of gold, El Dorado. The game opens with Nate and the main female protagonist, journalist Elena Fisher, recovering the coffin of Francis Drake from the ocean floor. Quickly, things turn sour as the two are ambushed by a group of pirates who are on the hunt for Nate. A shoot-out ensues, but the pair are quickly saved by Nate’s mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. After the trio are safely away, Nate reveals to Sully that there was no body in Francis’ coffin. There was only a journal Francis left behind, which Nate believes could lead to “Drake’s Fortune”. Sully and Nate quickly ditch Elena, and the adventure takes off from there.

Uncharted Gameplay

As previously mentioned, the gameplay of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a combination of action-adventure elements and 3D platforming in a third-person perspective. Platforming elements allow Nate to jump, swim, grab, and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and perform other acrobatic actions so that players can make their way along the ruins in the various areas that Drake explores. When facing enemies, the player can either use melee and combo attacks at close range to take out foes, or can opt to use weapons. Melee attacks comprise a variety of single punches, while combo attacks are activated through specific sequences of button presses that, when timed correctly, offer much greater damage. The most damaging of these is the specific “brutal combo”, which forces enemies to drop twice the ammunition they would normally leave. Nate can only carry one pistol and one rifle at a time, and there is a limited amount of ammunition per gun. Picking up a different firearm switches that weapon for the new one. Grenades are also available at certain points, and the height of the aiming arc is adjusted by tilting the Sixaxis controller up or down. Uncharted lacks an actual on-screen health bar; instead, when the player takes damage, the graphics begin to lose color. While resting or taking cover for a brief period, Drake’s health level, indicated by the screen color, returns to normal. The game also includes vehicle sections, where Drake must protect his jeep by using a mounted turret, and where Drake and Elena ride a jet ski along water-filled routes while avoiding enemy fire and explosive barrels. While players control Drake in driving the jet ski, they may also switch to Elena by aiming the gun in order to use her weapon–either the grenade launcher or the Beretta, depending on the chapter–in defense, or to clear the barrels from their path. The game also includes sixty treasures for gamers to collect, and one “mysterious relic” which, as in other games in the Uncharted series, is an Easter egg related to Jak and Daxter. The difficulty level of Uncharted is player-set, but even on the normal setting players may find the latter sections of the game increase in difficulty where the player is expected to defeat massive groups of enemies that can kill Nate in one or two shots. In terms of graphics, the game is still able to hold up, but within the next few years will look very dated with textures that do not fully load until after a few moments of looking at them.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was an acknowledged success, receiving high praise from many notable game review establishments, in addition to many game of the year nods. It began one of Sony’s most successful franchises of the current generation and spawned three highly regarded sequels, with the possibility of a movie in the works. The first two games are currently available in a dual Greatest Hits pack, which should serve for gamers who are looking for a cheap deal on two games beloved by Eastern and Western gamers alike. Naughty Dog is currently working on their second franchise of the current generation, entitled The Last of Us. The Last of Us promises to be a third-person, survival horror game set in a post-zombie apocalypse with mechanics similar to the third Uncharted. Players can expect The Last of Us in late 2012 or early 2013.

So much for that gold-plated shark tank bar... damn...

THQ Adrift on Stormy Seas

This past week has not been a kind one for THQ, between the NASDAQ’s threat to delist THQ stock and the company’s announcement yesterday that they would be letting go of 240 employees, the publisher would be well within its rights to feel a little under the weather.

For the past month THQ stock has failed to break the dollar mark even fleetingly, and is currently languishing at $0.72 per share. Subsequently, the publisher has been given a deadline of 180 days in order to right their ship and get the stock back trading above $0.99 for ten consecutive days in order to regain compliance. If THQ fails to correct their share price by July 23 this year, then they risk being delisted from the NASDAQ, though there do exist further avenues for appeal should this transpire.

Following on from that bombshell, THQ yesterday announced that they would be letting go of 240 employees at an estimated cost of $8.5 million in severance packages and other sundry debiting of fixed assets. The bulk of redundancies will be implemented before the end of the 2012 financial year on the 31st of March. The majority of terminations appear to consist of administrative staff rather than game designers, and it is not just mid level employees who are set to feel the pain, with THQ CEO, Brian Farrell, along with the board of directors set to absorb a 50% pay cut.

While it remains unclear what is to blame for THQ’s soft financials, one is nevertheless tempted to assume that they have not been working their Online Pass technology hard enough – perhaps if they were to quarantine all rather than some of their title’s content behind a one-shot pass code, then that would be enough make their software profitable?

Capcom’s Dogma Proves Partisan

Capcom stirred up some buzz this week with the announcement that a demo for their hotly anticipated action-horror title, Resident Evil 6, would be shipping with their imitation WRPG, Dragon’s Dogma; well it turns out that Resident Evil fans might want to temper their expectations some, because this offer comes with several caveats.

When bid to think on the practice of using the inclusion of an anticipated demo to bolster sales of a lesser known property, most would bring to mind Square Enix and their demos for Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XIII, which were used to sweeten the pot for Dragon Quest VIII and Advent Children Complete respectively. Capcom’s Resident Evil 6 demo differs from this model in one significant respect, and that is that when Dragon’s Dogma sees its release in May, it will not be accompanied by a disc containing the demo but instead by a redeemable PSN/XBL code, a code without any immediate use because the demo will not be available until months after the game’s release. How many months must Dragon’s Dogma owners wait to access their demo? That is a question contingent upon whether an individual owns an Xbox 360 or a PS3, as, citing strategic reasons, Capcom have decided to sit on the PS3 version for an additional two months.

Xbox owners will have had to wait slightly over a month when their demo launches on the 3rd of July, yet their unfortunate PS3 brethren will not have such access until September 4, a whopping two months later. When asked, Capcom described this move simply as “a strategic business decision”, one is inclined to interpret this as meaning that their strategy does not require doing business with PS3 owners.

DRM

Ubisoft Presents a Dubious First in Gaming

Server disruption is an intimately familiar pain to online gamers, for when it occurs it means that their title of choice is not worth so much as a damn until server access is restored. Next week offline gamers will be in a position to sympathise with their online counterparts, or at least they will if they are valued customers of Ubisoft products.

Ubisoft are on the cusp of setting a dubious gaming precedent next week, when over the course of the week hundreds of thousands of their customers are set to lose access to their single player games, as Ubisoft moves servers. Ubisoft’s always on DRM makes it so that if the server is not there to authenticate games, then the games will remain inoperable. The games set to be affected include: HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7 for PC, along with Splinter Cell: Conviction, Assassin’s Creed and The Settlers 7 for Mac.

While Ubisoft customers may be inclined to view a week’s disruption as small beer in the grand scheme of things, they would nevertheless do well to view next week as a dry run for when their games are switched off permanently.

Can't Resist the Shine

No, this is not the promised and not-much-anticipated review of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. I have yet to finish the game. If I had finished the game, I fear I would have simply regurgitated the disappointment expressed in my previous editorial on the subject. No, as we plough into 2012, a new year that is yet young, untarnished, and filled with hope, I want to take a moment to look back at 2011. At a time when friends-lists everywhere are filled with end-of-the year memes and resolutions, I cannot help but relate it to the games I played in the last year. So, here are five games that shaped my experiences in 2011.

1. Audiosurf

Audiosurf is a racing game. Well, it is a puzzle-racer that changes based on user-picked tracks of music. It will take any music file and turn it into a track where players then collect various combinations of colored blocks for points. As a result, players have a near-endless supply of tracks and various characters that collect points in different ways. For example, Mono’s goal is to collect only colored blocks and avoid all gray blocks. This is a simple game, a great way to unwind after a long day’s work, and another avenue to explore and appreciate music.

This game is also the first game I bought on Steam and opened up the way for a year where 90% of the games I purchased and completed were downloadable titles. Whether through Steam or PSN, 2011 was a year filled with platformers a gamer could spend an afternoon with, indie titles that could be bought for a fraction of the price, and a newfound appreciation of the growing world of digital media. Before Audiosurf, I was wary of spending my hard-earned cash on games that “did not come in a box.” A year later, my computer and PS3 are both filled with new games but my shelves are bare.

I loved having conversations while covered in blood.

2. Dragon Age II

Dragon Age II, despite its many shortcomings, was the only RPG I completed in 2011. I might even go so far to say that with the exception of World of Warcraft, it was the only game I spent more than 30 or 40 hours on. In a bygone era, where a young Thea believed that all the best things came from the mystical and far-away land of Japan, she would not touch a piece of media if it did not have a “J” in front of it. JRPGs were her weapon of choice. JRock was playing through her speakers. I am quite glad I am not that Thea anymore.

Now, the majority of my gaming experience is had through casual puzzlers and various platformers, and the very thought of an RPG makes me shiver with dread. Dragon Age II was a small triumph. It taught me that yes, I can complete games that take more than an afternoon. And yes, the world of western RPGs just might be worth revisiting. So, I picked up Skyrim, spent several hours trying to figure out alchemy, accidentally selling all of my armor and weapons except for a helmet, and punching wolves to death. After that, I decided Skyrim might be something to try and tackle in the new year.

12th Annual Warlock Convention

3. World of Warcraft

It is Christmas 2010; I am starting a new job and swearing off the world of MMOs for good and for all. Yeah, right. Blizzard dangled a sparkly new Pegasus mount and a promise of Diablo III and there was no turning back.

But how did this game define my experiences in 2011? Well, aside from eating up the majority of my free-time, World of Warcraft offered me a sense of accomplishment that the rest of my life was sorely lacking. I finally managed to reach level 85. I finished a series of quests to obtain my Singing Sunflower pet (and am now thoroughly obsessed with Plants vs. Zombies). World of Warcraft allowed me to set small goals that I was able to meet and exceed. Yes, a part of me pales when I realize that in a year or so all my gear-grabbing will be for naught. However, this time around I am less looking for gear and more looking at collecting mounts, pets, reputations, and that will always instill a little sense of accomplishment.

Blizzard’s constant turn towards making their world-encompassing MMO more accessible has created a much more enjoyable experience for someone like me. Someone who hardly wants to spend 6 hours a day playing a game and instead can spend 30 minutes and still come away with a sense of satisfaction.

Killing Time

4. Assassin’s Creed II

I played this game early on in 2011 and this was the game that made me fall in love with this franchise. Assassin’s Creed was an interesting concept with an interesting character that fell in-line with my love of a certain desert-dwelling assassin from a certain series of R.A. Salvatore books. So I bit. I played through the first game and did not come away thinking “Wow, this is a game I will love forever.” Then, I picked up Assassin’s Creed II and within the first fifteen minutes of play I was in love.

So, for me, 2011 in games boiled down to a lot of Assassin’s Creed and some other indie games. I followed Ezio’s story from start to finish (though I did not quite ‘finish’) in the span of a few months and it was quite the ride. I love games with good stories. I like stories that include dashing assassins and characters with questionable morals. So, really, what reason was there for me not to love this series? It only saddens me that Ubisoft has taken into their heads that more is more, when really, less is more.

Still, with Ezio’s story complete, I cannot help but wonder what the next installment will bring. Will our new assassin find himself in the trenches of The Great War? Hmm, I wonder. I guess I can really thank this series for getting me interested in games again because before Assassin’s Creed found its way into my PS3 it really was little more than a glorified DVD player.

A Vibrant Post-Apocalyptic World

5. Bastion

Bastion, without a doubt, is the best game I played this year. Bastion combines visual artistry, top-notch voice acting, and a killer soundtrack to create a game that really should be a part of every gamer’s library. Not only is this game pretty, but its hack-and-slash gameplay and the ability to fluctuate the difficulty with the use of items makes this game highly accessible to any level of gamer. Whether a player is looking for a challenge or just looking to spend an afternoon immersed a beautiful, post-apocalyptic world, there is something here for everyone.

Bastion taught me two things: video games really can be works of art and my PC can be used for more than puzzlers and MMOs. I always saw a certain degree of artistry in the world of video games, but for the most part my eyes were compartmentalized to character design or environment designs. Bastion’s various elements, from gameplay, to voice acting, to graphics, all work together to form a whole and true work of art. Interestingly, I now own more games for my PC than I do for all my other gaming consoles combined. Before 2011, the only games that found their way onto my computer were Blizzard RTS titles and MMOs.

In summary, 2011 was the year that thrust me back into gaming. I did not play a lot of games, or, I started a lot of games but never finished them. Still, it was a year that taught me to venture out of my comfort zone. I learned not to be afraid of games that do not come with boxes. I learned that western RPGs are pretty awesome. I learned that Artemis Entreri is not the only ass-kicking fictional assassin. But, most of all, I learned that I need to play more games.

Goodbye 2011! Hello 2012! I look forward to a year of more games and more adventures. So, readers, I cannot help but ask what games defined your 2011 experience?

Duality is a theme in both the narrative and gameplay of Two Thrones.

It should be no surprise by now that when the third Prince of Persia game was announced, fans of the series (this writer included) were sufficiently cautious of it. The previous title in the series had been quite polarizing for fans of the series, and people were hesitant to see the Prince’s story become even more unnecessarily dark and gruesome. But when the game was proclaimed to have the best features of the both The Sands of Time and Warrior Within, gamers became intrigued, but still skeptical. And that skepticism is addressed in this week’s edition of Emmori’s Prince of Persia Spectaculariffic Game Reviewing Time for Great Justice, which features the third installment of the classic Sands of Time trilogy.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, released by Ubisoft in late 2005, is the final chapter in the adventures of the titular Prince of Persia. Upon his return from the Island of Time with his new love interest Kaileena, the Prince finds that someone has invaded his kingdom and is ransacking his home city of Babylon. He learns quickly that this has been the work of the Vizier–the villain of the first game–who has been brought back to life thanks to the Prince’s manipulation of the timeline in Warrior Within. The Vizier proceeds to sacrifice Kaileena and remake the Sands of Time, which begins to infect the populace of the city, including the Prince himself. His infection results in the creation of a darker side of him called the Dark Prince, whose voice guides and berates the Prince, and occasionally transforms him into a shadowy, menacing sand monster. Returning to the game (also as a result of the Prince’s meddling of the timeline) is Farah of the first game, who once again aids the Prince in his adventures. While it is a vast improvement over Warrior Within, the narrative of The Two Thrones suffers from some of the same problems as its predecessor: the story progression is well-paced and the Prince’s narration is once again pertinent, but the character interactions are still clunky. The Prince’s and Farah’s relationship isn’t nearly as fun or intricate as it was in the Sands of Time, and the Dark Prince’s inner dialogue with the Prince is usually interesting, but also often uninteresting and usually unneeded.

The gameplay of The Two Thrones is, however, undoubtedly the best in the series after two years of development. The fluid platforming once again is the central focus of the game, incorporating all of the games’ previous pitfalls, traps, and obstacles, as well as new features: The Two Thrones gives the Prince the ability to brace himself between narrow walls and climb up and down, as well as use the dagger to grab onto points of a wall during a wall run or jump. The Prince’s dark form also utilizes the ability to swing from fixed points, as well as extend a wall run. These new features have allowed the developers to create new dimensions of platforming and strategies to play with, and they are indeed a blast to play through.

Sneaking up on and quickly assassinating people is one of my favorite features in the game.

Combat in Two Thrones deserves special note, since it has once again been changed and expanded since the previous games. In addition to the Prince’s standard form of agility-based fighting that utilizes the environment and a multitude of combos and weapons, the Prince’s Dark transformation allows him to utilize the Daggertail, a new weapon the Prince finds himself bonded to after being infected by the sands. The Dark Prince’s fighting style is far more aggressive and powerful than his standard form, but often feels too easy, since nearly every enemy in the game is unable to block most attacks from the daggertail, which means the player can generally just press the Secondary Attack button until victory is achieved. The third method of dispatching enemies is via a new stealth mechanic that allows a player to quickly dispatch enemies with a speed kill–a small interactive cutscene, with success based on timed button presses. Skilled players can even dispatch several enemies at a time, or dispatch multiple enemies, one after the other. Boss fights also make a return, each of them being reminiscent of previous fights from the series, but all relying somewhat heavily on speed kills to end each fight. After years of practice, Ubisoft has finally created the perfect formula for how a Prince of Persia game’s combat should be handled.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, while still suffering from a lag in characterization the series has never fully recovered from, is still a strong title and a worthy final page in the Sands of Time trilogy. Its design offers a very back-to-basics approach to narrative, while still improving and innovating the action of the game above that of its predecessors. This reviewer recommends it highly, especially to those already invested in the series. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones was originally released for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, and can also be found over Steam, PSN, and on the Wii and PSP under the name of Prince of Persia: Rival Swords.

Zoya: She's like an assassin, only a thief

When I first heard that Trine 2 would soon be arriving to the world of video games, I was skeptical. Part of the charm of Trine lay in the fact that the game was so self-contained. It presented a clear beginning, middle, and an end. So, my questions was, how would Frozenbyte bring us back into the world when our three heroes had clearly had their happy ends? I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with the Trine 2 beta and I was not disappointed.

The kingdom is in peril, as kingdoms always are, and the mystical trine collects the souls of our three heroes to combat this newest threat. Amadeus, our witty wizard, protests that he has little time for world saving as he has children waiting at home. Pontius, our pot-bellied knight, oozes with enthusiasm at the prospect of impending heroism. Zoya, our shadow-dwelling thief, well, she just wants all the treasure– she is an entrepreneur, after all.

Before I even made it past the title screen, the game’s visuals had already caught my attention. The first game’s vivid and lush fantasy settings are back and are packed with so much detail my eyes hardly knew where to start. So, I’ll start with the character models. Trine’s character models were not very detailed compared to the environments they travelled in. The first thing that struck me was the level of detail to both our heroes and the goblins they fought. The characters take up more of the screen. Amadeus’ robes are filled with golden runic embellishments that glimmer and glow. Zoya is no longer composed of white blocks and long legs, but instead is a mysterious woman wrapped within white robes. The goblins were a treat; I had been expecting another endless parade of unvaried skeletons and instead found myself assaulted by armored goblins toting spears and arrows. Finally, the environments are also endowed with new levels of detail. I stumbled across rainbow-colored leaves, sparkling waters, and massive snails.

Looking forward to squishing some spiders!

The basic mechanics of switching between the thief, wizard, and knight to traverse 2D environments and solve puzzles remains the same. Players collect experience in the form of little crystal containers and use this experience to buy abilities. The abilities in Trine 2 have been upgraded. Zoya is able to buy an ability that will make her invisible to enemies. I was able to buy an ability that allowed Amadeus to pick up enemies, an ability that was not available until the final stages of the original Trine. The puzzles have also become much more dynamic and challenging. Where in the first game I could use the wizard to get me through most obstacles, here I was forced to make use of all three characters to progress through the level. The puzzles were engaging; in one, I needed to divert the flow of water to make a plant grow. In another, I found myself twisting pieces of pipes to change the direction of the wind.

The biggest new development in Trine 2 is the online gameplay. Players can now grab their friends (or enemies) to traverse the game’s many puzzles. For the most part, online gameplay seems to be solid. It is easy to connect to and host games. The only drawback being that once players are in a game two individuals are not able to control the same character. There can only be one thief, one wizard, and one knight. So, if only two players are in a game there is a lot of “Let me be the thief so I can get through this part” and “let me be the knight so I can fight these”. Still, Trine 2 is a great game for online play. There are plenty of puzzles that are made easier by the addition of another player rather than having to switch between the three characters alone.

Punkins, great for jumping!

Overall, my experience with Trine 2 has left me even more excited for the full release of the game this coming December. The addition of co-operative play also increased the replayability of the game by adding a little more variety to the gameplay. I am looking forward to spending more time with Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius over the Christmas holiday.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Sideway: New York Box Art

Before this review gets started, a few short things need to be said. First, let us all thank Fable Week for pushing this review back on my schedule, and next, seriously, thank Fable for pushing this review back. Until just recently, Sideway: New York had a very nasty save bug that would randomly wipe files completely or simply forget to activate the auto-save feature, but this issue seems to be resolved now. While the bug seems to be have been patched out, anyone playing an older version of the game for whatever reason, and possibly owners of the newest version may still experience this bug, so proceed with caution, and avoid any emotional attachment to Sideway‘s save data. Now then, on with the review.

Sideway: New York is a two-dimensional platformer that, as the title suggests, takes place in New York city. The three-dimensional city of New York serves as the backdrop for all of the levels, while the player, enemies, and other platforming elements are shown as flat graffiti art on building walls. Sideway also features an entirely original soundtrack full of nothing but rap tracks, which was likely included to add to the game’s ghetto atmosphere, but may not sit well with certain gamers. Sideway is not nearly as easy as, say, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, but it is no Super Meat Boy either; large portions of some levels are completely danger-free walks through the park, and when the game actually does decide to kill the player, it is the result of an instant death trap or a streak of bad luck on the player’s part. Sideway wont bring anything new or exciting to the hardcore platforming fans, but for casual platform fans or as an “every now and then” game, Sideway will definitely prove entertaining.

'Help! I don't want to go!'

The biggest problem with Sideway is its atmosphere. The game paints itself up to appeal to rap culture loving dude-bros, yet tries to play like a classic platformer. Anyone who does not actually like this kind of music will immediately run to the options to turn the game’s soundtrack down or completely off, yet the game can feel empty without any kind of soundtrack in the background, even if it is rap music that hardly compliments the gameplay. The graffiti enemies and cartoon-like 2D visuals all look very nice, but there is hardly any variation in the appearance of things; enemies and platforms in Chinatown look just like the enemies and platforms in the first few levels of the game, for example. The paint theme and cartoon visuals give off the impression that Sideway should be taking place in a much more lighthearted environment rather than the ghetto streets of gangster New York, but it is very easy to look beyond the run down streets of New York and its unending rap soundtrack in order to enjoy this game.

As for its gameplay, Sideway: New York puts a lot of stress on collecting all of the score tags, secret tags, and paint power-ups throughout the level rather than running fast, saving the princess, or jumping on turtles and mushrooms. The score tags are scattered throughout the level like coins in a Mario game or rings in Sonic, and are usually out in the open and players can very easily collect all of them on the first or second time through the level. The secret tags and various power-up abilities, however, are usually very well hidden; some hidden tags require the player to return to a level once a certain power-up ability is learned, while others are cleverly hidden behind 3D objects in New York or past very tricky platforming sections. It can be very difficult to hunt down all of the secret tags in a level, even after five or six runs, but players simply looking to reach the end of each level will not find things that difficult. Many of the spike pits and other traps can easily be avoided if the player simply ignores the score tags in that specific area, and many of the game’s enemies are laughably easy to defeat. It usually only takes a few punches to knock anything down, but some enemies are able to damage the player even while they flinch back from an attack, and later on in the game enemies begin to explode upon death. The game does feature boss fights every few levels, which may cause players to die a few times, but each boss has one weakness that becomes very easy to exploit once learned. Rather than punching players in the face or trying to drown us in Super Mario-inspired levels, Sideway provides rather easy levels in the hopes that players will replay old levels to unlock the various hidden tags.

Like all the cool new platformers, Sideway includes multiplayer, too!

Many gamers will not want to spend all day playing Sideway: New York, and will likely only play through a level or two when their more hardcore games, like Call of Battlefield: Pretzel War Zombie 3, grow tiring. This is not because Sideway is a bad game, but because it simply is not very engaging over long periods of time. The rap music is very repetitive, especially when one’s preferred genre of music is something other than rap-hop-hommie-yo, and the background and level elements change very little throughout the various areas, making every level seem just like the previous. For gamers who find themselves wishing more games were more about finding all the coins in a level rather than challenging combat, or find themselves saying “Gee, I really wish Kirby’s Epic Yarn actually had a death function!” Sideway will definitely fit the bill, but anyone looking for the next big Mario challenger should probably look elsewhere.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Extreme!

Welcome to the second installment of this LusipurrCom Prince of Persia review-a-thon, readers! Since it seems that some of our staff writers are doing these sorts of specials, it’s time for Ol’ Emmori to hop on the proverbial bandwagon!

In the last installment of Emmori’s Prince of Persia Spectaculariffic Game Reviewing Time for Great Justice (Working Title), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was the subject of analysis. Ubisoft’s 2003 platformer set a standard for action games and platformers that adventure titles of today live by; with high-flying, fast-paced acrobatics and fluid, graceful combat matched with powers that compliment its unique style of play. So why then is Prince of Persia: Warrior Within widely considered to be an inferior game compared to its original, when Warrior Within executes these mechanics on a level equal to its predecessor, if not better?

Originally released in late 2004, Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: Warrior Within once again follows the trials of the titular Prince of Persia, seven years after successfully preventing the disaster of the first game. It is revealed in the introductory sequence of the game that after the Prince saved Azad from the Sands of Time and prevented the Maharajah’s betrayal, a beastly creature know as the Dahaka began to pursue him. According to a mysterious old man the prince meets in his travels, The Dahaka is a guardian of the timeline; since the Prince had used the Sands to prevent his own death, the Dahaka seeks to kill him and ‘balance’ the timeline. In an attempt to save his own life, he decides to make his way to the Island of Time to prevent the Empress of Time from creating the Sands of Time in the distant past, utilizing Time Portals that were said to be in the Fortress of Time, on the fabled Island of Time.

EXTREEEME!

This is the point in the game at which the narrative begins to pale in comparison to the original. In addition to being horrible at making creative or original names, the narrative of Warrior Within is executed in a way that is considerably inferior to The Sands of Time in many ways. Unlike the sarcastic, yet tragically arrogant Prince of Sands of Time, this Prince is now simply a darker, brooding generic version of his former self. Instead of commenting on the wondrous, yet deadly architecture of the fortress or how weary he is from his years being hunted by the dark monster that runs from, he instead merely yells cookie-cutter battle cries and remarks on what he must do next to get to the next area. At some points in the game does the Prince actually get to talk other characters and discuss what topics such as fate, death, and knowing one’s place in history, but these moments are short and quickly forgotten. The needlessly dark characterization of the Prince in this game is a severe hindrance on the quality of the narrative for the entirety of the story.

While not nearly as problematic as the characterization of the Prince and the unnecessarily dark mood, the environment of the game is another minor issue. Much like the Prince himself, the game’s levels have a dark and dirty visual motif that, while stylish, is a somewhat boring sight to look at for most of the game. The entire world is seen through some sort of ugly gray filter during the portions of it that take place in the Present, while in the Past the colors are more vivid, but still contain mostly shades of brown. While this may be a choice on the designer’s part to create a suitably darker version of Sands of Time‘s visual style, this design decision reeks of the industry trends of the time, in which game developers were beginning to add darker, more mature elements to video games in order to pander to a more ‘adult’ demographic–a trend that continues to plague the industry to this day. Another nagging problem with the game’s style is its soundtrack; instead of the authentic Arabian-sounding music blended with modern electric instruments of the previous game, Warrior Within opts instead to use heavy metal riffs for nearly all of its soundtrack, which again detracts from the strength of the audio element of the game and adds to the suspicion that this was simply done to pander to the ‘hardcore’ gamers of the era.

EXRRRREEEEEEEMMME!!

On a more positive note, the game’s level composition is one of the better features of the game. As opposed to the strictly linear map of the the previous game, Warrior Within features an open world, with parts of the map unlocked through player upgrades and using the Time Portals scattered around the Fortress. There are rarely areas in the game that are inaccessible once passed through, giving players the advantage of backtracking to find additional upgrades when they have achieved the necessary level of power. In addition, the game’s platforming and combat are as good as, if not better than, Sands of Time. The implementation of the game’s Free-Form Fighting System is a welcome addition to the already stellar combat of the series, allowing players to utilize not only different weapon styles and strategies, but also use the environment against enemies. Warrior Within also includes bosses and huge enemies to fight, giving players a break from the generic hordes of enemies. Enemy AI has improved as well; foes no longer simply watch as you twirl over their compatriots and stab them, and take attacks of opportunity when the player is cornered, outnumbered, or surrounded. As in Sands of Time, different enemies require different strategies, so care must be taken to fight intelligently when confronting them.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is a strange game to talk about. It suffers from much, but not enough that it could be called a bad game. The platforming is better than ever, the combat is visceral and engaging, yet the overly-dark mood and characterization of the Prince is notably off-putting. But despite its flaws, this reviewer recommends it. It is an excellent buy on Steam for only $9.99 USD, in addition to having an HD remake available on PSN for $14.99 USD. If you enjoyed The Sands of Time, there really is no reason not to give Warrior Within a try.

PlayStation Vita

Sony has been a most vocal ambassador of the fact that their Playstation Vita game cards were designed to reserve a small amount of memory for the purpose of storing game save data, which is why it came as something of a surprise this week when it was revealed that a selection of key Vita titles would be requiring the use of one of Sony’s expensive proprietary memory cards in order to save game progress.

When Sony released the pricing of their Vita memory cards the news was greeted without much in the way of enthusiasm owing to the fact that they were priced at a premium above traditional digital storage standards. Despite this, the news was not met with an excess of acrimony because of a seeming assurance that memory cards were not required in order to save progress in physical copies of games, but rather for the storage of PSN download content – now however, it would seem that purchasing a Vita has suddenly become a more expensive proposition for gamers wishing to have access to the full catalogue of titles at launch.

In all there are currently seven Vita titles known to require the use of one of Sony’s Vita memory cards, including: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Disgaea 3 and Ridge Racer. Vita owners wishing to play one of these titles can look forward to spending between $29 for a 4GB card to $124 for a 32GB card at launch (please note that this is a direct conversion of the Japanese pricing, and may not reflect the final pricing of US cards).

PAYDAY The Heist Logo

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced that the squad-based first person shooter PAYDAY The Heist is now available for digital download and on the PlayStation Network store. Priced at twenty dollars, players who are looking to get a deal should log onto Steam and pre-order it for ten percent off. Additionally a four pack is available for twenty-five percent off.

Published by SOE and developed by OVERKILL Software, PAYDAY The Heist is an online co-op shooter game that features six heists based in a variety of urban settings. Each heist will present the players with different challenges, with a need for quick thinking, strategy and an emphasis on teamwork. Each heist will be different, from extracting a safe from a helicopter to making a withdrawal from the “First World Bank”. With many different challenges and opportunities for things to go awry, each heist will keep players on edge.

“For a group of developers that love the FPS genre and have an affinity for blockbuster heist movies, PAYDAY is truly a game after our own hearts,” said Bo Andersson, CEO of OVERKILL Software. “Each PAYDAY scenario makes FPS fans prove their worth as players while co-op teams are pushed to collaborate and accomplish strategic tasks that only an action hero could dream of surviving. And, there will be much more exciting content to enjoy with upcoming DLC and a motion picture based on the game currently in production.”

OVERKILL Software is a privately owned software development company that was founded in September 2009 and is based in Stockholm, Sweden. PAYDAY The Heist is the first game they have developed to be released in North America.

PixelJunk 4am

This week at Tokyo Game Show (TGS), Q-Games released a trailer for PixelJunk 4am. Formerly known as PixelJunk lifelike, the game is meant to be a way to create music. The game will be available over PlayStation Network (PSN) and will implement the PlayStation Move functionality. A trailer of the game being played is available on YouTube here. Made with the corroboration of the Kyoto musical artist Baiyon, PixelJunk 4am will allow players to create music with a feel similar to late night clubs. The combination of the Move functionality and the night club feel is expected by the developers to help the player truly get enveloped. Q-Games and Baiyon want players to have a new experience with the game, allowing people to stream music live over PSN.

When PixelJunk lifelike was originally conceived, the designers intended it to be an extension of PixelJunk Eden. The plan was to use Eden’s visuals as a backdrop for the music generation mechanics of lifelike. When Q-Games changed their musical direction, they also decided to change the game’s name to PixelJunk 4am. As Baiyon explained it, 4am is “the deep night hour” at clubs, which is precisely the mood they wanted for the game.

The PixelJunk series has already seen games from several different genres, although PixelJunk 4am is their first PlayStation Move music generation game. While their games tend to have a distinct artistic style, Q-Games experiments with various gameplay genres. The aforementioned Eden was their third game, a platformer using music and graphics designed by Baiyon. Their first, PixelJunk Racers, was (as its name suggests) a racing game, while their second, PixelJunk Monsters, was a tower defense game. Both games featured a top-down view and offline multiplayer. They’ve also released PixelJunk Shooter, in which the player controls a small craft as it flies around, gathers collectibles, avoids obstacles, and shoots enemies. Shooter has a sequel, released this year. Q-Games also expects to release another PixelJunk game this year, entitled PixelJunk Sidescroller. The company is also responsible for the upcoming Star Fox 64 3D.

PixelJunk 4am is expected to release by the end of 2011 for the PlayStation 3.

From Dust Box Art

From screen shots and trailers, From Dust appears to be a unique strategy game where the player commands a tribal god who reshapes the very face of the Earth in order to preform life saving miracles for his ungrateful little servants. What those previews do not show the world is that Ubisoft’s ideas of being an all-powerful god are dreadfully boring, and that their main sources of inspiration likely come from playing a game of Lemmings while sitting in a hole on the beach during high tide. Another great part of playing a god is just how many restrictions the powers that be, Ubisoft, place on the player, calling it DRM, and justifying the Hell it gives players by claiming it wards off pirates. The fact that any company would expect someone to even want this game, legally or otherwise, is amazing. Yet surprisingly, From Dust has two things going in its favor: The game does look rather good, with nice fluid physics, and the post-game challenge mode does have some fun moments. But, neither of the two warrant the price tag or time wasted on completing the game.

If Lemmings removed every part of the gameplay except for bridge building, the resulting game would be From Dust. The player’s only goal in the game is to move a tribe of men from point A to point B, over and over again. The only enemy or hazard in the game is water. If one were to reenact the previously mentioned hole-in-the-beach scenario, their first course of action upon having their hole filled with water would be to build a dam out of sand, and when that fails, they would likely just move away from the tide’s reach. Not the lovable little From Dust Men; they actually move further towards the water, until the final levels are almost nothing but water.

Once all of the bridges have been built out of piles of sand, the player can tell their eager little tribesmen to move out to a new potential village location, this exciting key mechanic of the game, second only to playing a god, involves mousing over the predetermined village location, hitting a key, and then waiting. Of the five villagers it takes to build a new village, it is almost guaranteed that one of them will take the longest possible path through lava and water to reach the village, but assuming the moronic fifth villager does in fact follow the rest of the group to safety, the player is treated to even more waiting as the villagers slowly approach the village and slowly begin their village creation ritual, which is signaled by screams that sound exactly like the screams of a burning tribesman.

Man, water, and ground, the stars of From Dust.

While the Men are forced to survive in the increasingly wet new world without the ability to swim, the player must battle with another force, similar to the god he controls. The DRM randomly crashes the game, much like playing Russian Roulette. With an unstable internet connection, a player could be kicked from the game, losing progress, at any minute, while other gamers fond of minimizing out of games to multitask, or hosting long Skype calls could face similar disconnection issues, albeit less frequently. Many fervent gamers can usually rely on their internet connection in this day and age, but that does not remove the other technical difficulties. The game is prone to crashing at launch for no reason, players may even boot the game up to find the interface did not load at all, and during game play the Men can get stuck permanently during levels.

Surprisingly, From Dust does have a few good points about it, but none of them actually affect the gameplay. Any gamer unlucky enough to preorder the game was presented with a special From Dust themed mask for use in Team Fortress 2, which, admittedly, is not a very good looking hat, but at the very least can be used to help craft other hats and weapons. For a cheap casual game, the graphics are very pretty, and it appears that a lot of effort was put into making the Men similar to real-world African tribes. The water, lava, and sand move and flow like one would expect them to in the real world. The miracles players can perform are all very cool the first few times, but after parting water like Moses for the tenth time, it starts to lose its novelty.

From Dust's promotional TF2 hat

As the player progresses through the game, various challenge maps are unlocked. Despite being called “challenges,” the maps still are not very difficult, but require more clever usage of the matter moving mechanics. The challenge maps still involve the basic moving man from point A to point B followed by the waiting, but is a huge step above, say, staring idly at a blank computer screen.

At the time of this article’s posting, Ubisoft is planning to release a patch to fix the DRM issues, and Steam is offering refunds for those not wishing to wait for such a patch. But even considering this, fifteen dollars is far too expensive for the messy second-hand console scraps Ubisoft has given gamers in the PC port of From Dust. Anyone with massive interests in moving sand and water from place to place should definitely pick up a copy of From Dust, but for anyone else, it is hard to even call From Dust a game.

Welcome to Hell.

It is a proven fact that LusipurrCom loves indie games. They are cheap, they are innovative, and their developers take risks. One would think that with a shorter game would come a shorter review, but many indie games nowadays are on par with the industry’s biggest titles in terms of presentation and as such require an equal amount of consideration when it comes to their critique. As such, this week’s review of Limbo is no exception

Developed and published by Danish studio Playdead, Limbo is a adventurous platforming puzzle game that revolves around an unnamed young boy, searching the strange and dark titular world of Limbo for his lost sister. This is the part of the review that would normally focus on providing a short synopsis of the plot and criticizing the depth of the game’s character development. However, this game has neither of those; the only story to be found is in the description through whichever platform it is purchased from.

It is worth noting, however, that just because Limbo does not have a narrative does not mean it cannot convey a deep and meaningful story. Rather, Limbo conveys its story almost entirely through its setting: The player must guide their avatar through a landscape that is lifeless and unforgiving. The game is surprisingly gruesome, as it shows a proclivity for having traps and hazards that kill the Boy in numerous ways, starting very early in the game with a seemingly-innocent object that players will quickly learn is a bear trap with a penchant for decapitation. The choice to have the game routinely show the Boy being killed in such violent ways in-game is malevolent, but integral to conveying the cold and uncaring nature of the world. During the game there is little music; it only appears at times of danger and will often put the player on edge, making the soundtrack itself a sort of bizarre adversary.

Some of our readers may not be entirely comfortable with certain portions of this game.

Limbo‘s controls are adequate enough for its content, utilizing only a directional control, a jumping button, and a grabbing button used to pull switches and push and pull objects. While the art of the setting is undoubtedly the central focus of the game, the platforming and puzzles are still very fun. The levels are well-designed and interesting, with surprising twists and fake-outs mixed in with classic tropes of platforming levels. Puzzles are similarly well-designed, ranging from standard manipulation of items to make platforms and weights, puzzles involving buoyancy and water transfer, timing problems, gravity manipulation, and everything in-between. And while the first half of the game focuses primarily on platforming and timed jumps, the game subtly increases the density of puzzles until the player is left primarily with real mind-benders. The game’s only problem with regards to gameplay is the length: most players will be able to complete the game within four to five hours, leaving players with little else to do once finished save hunting for achievements, or just taking in the scenery once more.

No. That is wrong.

The game is top-notch in terms of aesthetics and immersion. The colorless environment and grisly content are reminiscent of German Expressionism films of the 1920’s such as Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with some elements of film noir in certain levels. The game uses shadows and silence to its advantage, with each of the levels having at least one part in which the player must guide the Boy through complete darkness, using only the light of his eyes. The levels are varied, taking the Boy seamlessly between haunted forests, savage villages, rainy cities, and nightmarish twisting factories and ruins. Hell has never looked simultaneously more chilling and stylish than in Limbo.

Limbo is a fantastic game, plain and simple. Play it. The aesthetics of the game tell just as much as a narrative could in this case, and the platforming and puzzles are complex enough to keep players immersed. Limbo is available on Steam, XBLA, and PSN, and is well worth the fifteen American dollars you will pay for it!

PAX 2011

It is that time of the year again already, Lusipundits. No, it is not time for Lusipurr.com’s Oliver Motok to take his annual bath in the creek outback, but rather for gamers to once again descend on the Washington State Convention & Trade Center for 2011’s Penny Arcade Expo! PAX 2011 sees intriguing offerings on the part of Lusipurr.com’s oft featured Japanese publishers, albeit with a surprising lack of Japanese software on their books.

Square Enix

The Eidos side of the Square Enix business is leading from the front this year with the largely well received Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which launched in North America this week. The theme of Western developed sandbox RPG goodness continues strongly with the first person zombie masher, Dead Island, which is fast approaching its impending release on the sixth of September. Square Enix’s high profile line-up is then further augmented by the inclusion of their own promising shot at redemption for the Final Fantasy XIII project, with Final Fantasy XIII-2 to see a Western release in the new year, whereupon players may enjoy such luxuries as towns, shops, and NPCs.

Wakfu Characters

Square Enix will also be looking to showcase some of their lesser known titles with the presence of French developer Ankama’s MMORPG for PC and Mac, Wakfu, which is currently undergoing Beta testing. Wakfu will then be joined by American studio n-Space’s multiplayer-centric 3DS RPG, Heroes of Ruin, which will see release in the first quarter of 2012. Finally, Square Enix have indicated that PAX 2011 will see the announcement of a new title being developed in partnership with Airtight Games, during their exclusive panel on the 27th of August. The project is being headed by Creative Director Kim Swift, who has previously worked on Portal and both Left 4 Dead games. The new project is described by Square Enix as “quirky“.

There will also be plenty of Square Enix swag available at PAX 2011, with a release party of sorts being thrown for Deus Ex: Human Revolution in the Diller Room, where gamers may indulge in food and drink, win exclusive swag and prizes, and sample the game via Eyefinity stations set up in partnership with AMD. Additionally, Square Enix’s “Word to Your Moogle” tour is set to stop over at PAX for its duration. Gamers will be able to sample Final Fantasy XIII-2, and will subsequently receive an envelope containing an alphabetic letter which they will be able to combine with fellow attendees in order to win fabulous prizes including: “Word to Your Moogle” Tshirts, discounted merchandise at the Square Enix shop, and signed copies of Final Fantasy XIII-2!

Trine 2

Atlus

If Square Enix’s internally developed content was scant, then Atlus’ output can best be described as nonexistent – unsurprising given the recent release of Catherine by the Persona team. Happily Atlus’ showing will be little weakened by this absence, given the publisher’s strong showing of niche titles, among which is ACE Team’s follow up to Zeno Clash, Rock of Ages. The game is described as a tower defense game with additional ball rolling mechanics (along the lines of Monkey Ball), and is fast approaching its August release date over PSN, XBLA, and Steam. Rock of Ages will be joined by Trine 2, the sequel to Frozenbyte’s well received platformer, which was recently enjoyed by Lusipurr.com’s own Ashley ‘Thea’ Polio, who gave it a glowing review. Finally, Atlus will be showcasing the latest entry in SNK’s venerable fighting series, King of Fighters XIII, a staple series of the ailing arcade scene for the last decade, and a title which looks set to release during October of this year on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

House of the Dead Overkill

Sega

Speaking of relics from the arcade era, Sega is to be out in force for PAX 2011, showcasing a robust line-up of franchises both new and old! The biggest game on Sega’s floor this year is undoubtedly Gearbox’s sci-fi themed FPS,Aliens: Colonial Marines, which is set to launch in calendar year 2012 on virtually every system known to man. Fans of Sega’s Japanese development efforts are also to receive the sci-fi shooter treatment with the Yakuza Team’s forthcoming squad-shooter, Binary Domain, which is to be released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in February 2012. Sega fans looking to mark Sonic’s 20th anniversary are also in luck with Sonic Team’s Sonic Generations, a game which will allow players to tackle stages using either ‘classic’ (2D) or ‘modern’ (3D) mechanics – the game is to see release on the PS3, Xbox 360, and 3DS in October of this year.

Fans of arcade style on-rails zombie shooters are to be well catered for with AM1’s Kinect exclusive, Rise of Nightmares – the title made by the same people responsible for House of the Dead 1-3 looks set to release in September. Not to be outdone, PS3 owners are also set to receive exclusive on-rails zombie goodness of their own with Headstrong Game’s House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut, a HD port of the well received Wii title, featuring exclusive levels and Move support – it is to be released this October. Griptonite Games’ newest sequel to Sega’s long dormant Shinobi series is to make an appearance, providing some much needed action-adventure to Nintendo’s beleaguered 3DS handheld in November. Finally, rounding out the list is Avalanche Studios’ topdown vehicle shooter, Renegade Ops, which will see release over PSN, XBLA, and Steam in September.

Elder Scrolls Skyrim

Bethesda

For fans of Bethesda’s seminal Elder Scrolls series (not to be confused with Minecraft developer Mojang’s new game titled Scrolls) there is little question of what is going to be one’s personal highlight of the Penny Arcade Expo. Director Todd Howard will be taking to the stage of the Unicorn Theater in order to speak at length on his newest title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which is to release in November 2011 – in time for the busy holiday period. Howard’s demonstration is to kick off at 3:30pm on Saturday the 27th of August, and attendees are to receive a horned plushie helmet, as featured on the large hulking brute seen in Skyrim’s public relations media. Also on show at Bethesda’s PAX booth will be id Software’s post-apocalyptic FPS with RPG and racing elements, Rage. The game will herald the long awaited debut of the id Tech 5 engine when it releases in October. Finally, Bethesda will be hosting a video demo of Human Head Studios’ interesting looking cyberpunk FPS, Prey 2 – the title will be releasing in March of next year.

Kid Icarus Uprising

Nintendo

Nintendo are making their way to PAX 2011 with their 3DS heavy-hitting holiday titles in tow! First on the menu is Super Mario 3D Land, a game which many Nintendo fans are tipping to reverse the fortunes of the ailing 3DS when it launches in November. Completing the one-two-punch is the ninth entry in Nintendo’s hallowed Mario Kart series, the illogically titled Mario Kart 7, which will be released in December. This line-up is bolstered by the classic N64 remake, Star Fox 64 3D, which is to be releasing in September. Also making an appearance will be Nintendo’s airborne TPS, Kid Icarus: Uprising, which has been given a vague holiday 2011 release date. Rounding off Nintendo’s 3DS showing will be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and Pokedex 3D (both of which were released back in June) – along with the aforementioned Shinobi and Sonic Generations, both of which will also be present at Sega’s booth.

With Nintendo’s 3DS taking centre stage, things are beginning to slow a little on the DS front, with naught to show at PAX but Square Enix’s monster capture RPG, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2, along with Nintendo’s own sinister sounding stylus based franchise outing, Kirby Mass Attack. Both games are due out in September.

Kirby's Return to Dreamland

Finally, on the Wii front Nintendo will obviously be leading with the highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which will finally be seeing release in November. They will also be featuring their follow-up to the well-received Kirby’s Epic Yarn, known simply as Kirby’s Return to Dream Land, due out in the Autumn of 2011. Nintendo will be showcasing the long-running Japanese electronic board-game/game-mascot crossover series, Fortune Street, which will be making its Western debut during the fourth quarter of the gaming calendar. Finally, the last ‘game’ on Nintendo’s PAX list is an unnamed entry in their Rhythm Heaven series, so look forward to that making a big impact at the expo! Beyond this there is no mention of the Operation Rainfall titles which began making their European debut during this past week. While PAX would no doubt make for a perfect venue wherein to stage a surprise announcement of Monolith Soft’s popular Xenoblade Chronicles or even Mistwalker’s The Last Story, one would nevertheless be ill-advised to hold one’s breath while waiting for Nintendo of America to listen to their fans.

The first boss encounter.

Outland has a story behind it, but it is largely inconsequential to the game as a whole. Something about wars of a distant age, sisters who created the world, and an ancient hero now reincarnated. The story is minimally related through very short narrated sequences. In truth, they are not terribly interesting, but the plot accomplishes its task of providing a backdrop for the world, gameplay, and atmosphere – and these are what sell the show.

At its core, Outland is a side-scrolling action platformer that draws similarities to classic franchises such as Metroid and Castlevania. There are plenty of jumps to make, enemies to slash, traps to avoid, and puzzles to solve. Everything controls incredibly well; the Hero (as he will henceforth be named, since he is in fact nameless) is very responsive both in combat and platforming sequences. Jumping and fighting are given almost equal attention; enemies are scattered liberally throughout the game’s stages, but they rarely feel intrusive or slow down the gameplay. Most foes the Hero encounters are dispatched fairly quickly, and they can often be avoided – though the player may find that it is less troublesome to simply kill them off, to allow for less bothersome platforming.

Similar to Metroid, Outland frequently gifts the player with new abilities that grant access to new areas. Finding the way around the world is quite a bit easier than it was in, say, Super Metroid thanks to frequent markers that indicate where the player should be going – but, regardless of this, it is still a rewarding and well-balanced system. The pace at which the Hero finds these new abilities is perfectly paced, and keeps the gameplay fresh and engaging. The game takes place in closed stages which must be completed in a certain order, but it is possible to re-visit cleared stages with new abilities and collect hidden goodies, such as health upgrades, energy upgrades, and tokens that unlock concept art.

Mind the glowing orbs.

As engaging as the running, jumping, and fighting is, the true genius of Outland is realized in its Polarity mechanic, which essentially defines the gameplay on the whole. Early in the game, the Hero is given the ability to switch between a Red and Blue energy. The switch is indicated by the body of the Hero himself; that is to say, his skin is either Red or Blue for the majority of the game. On the surface, this mechanic is quite simple. To defeat red-colored enemies, the Hero must be blue, and to defeat blue-colored enemies, he must be red. While red, the Hero can absorb red-colored energy orbs (as opposed to being damaged by them) and while blue… well, surely the picture is clear by now. Again, seemingly very simple.

However, it does not take long for Outland to deliver some clever, challenging, and occasionally downright devious puzzles based around this mechanic. In certain areas, energy orbs of both colors shoot, fan, and intersect in massive blanket areas – and these areas are often populated by several enemies of differing colors as well. To attempt explaining exactly how the puzzles of Outland play out would only do it a disservice, but suffice to say, they require extensive thought in addition to fast reflexes. It is worth saying that Outland absolutely does not shy away from challenging players; but while some of the more devious puzzles will likely result in multiple deaths, but it will never feel unfair.

The boss battles of Outland might be its most brilliant feature. They are simultaneously challenging, epic, beautiful, and decidedly cerebral in nature. There is no mindless hack-and-slash to be found here – in fact, several boss battles do not even require the swipe of a sword. And the ones that do cleverly combine the slashing with ample platforming, as well as the ever-present Polarity system. One battle in particular has the Hero falling down a massive chasm nearly the entire time, forcing the player to quickly platform on falling blocks while attempting to get close enough to his foe to strike. It is absolutely thrilling, delightfully challenging, and when the killing blow is finally landed it is very, very rewarding.

The game's main hub.

There is a small complaint to be voiced, however, concerning said boss battles. Challenging and puzzle-like as they are, it is more or less a definite that players will die several times while attempting to figure out what makes these multi-stage bosses “tick” as it were; and that in itself is perfectly fine. What is not fine, though, is the ridiculous amount of time players end up wasting simply reaching the bloody bosses. Upon death the Hero respawns at the beginning of the boss stage, yes, but for some odd reason a few bosses require extensive platforming or walking just to reach them. The final boss, for example, requires the Hero to climb up an absurdly long ladder every single time. It may sound like a minor annoyance, but when scaling that ladder for the fifteenth time, it is anything but.

The graphics of Outland need no reviewing. Just take a look at any of the screenshots provided in this review. Beautiful as they are, though, the game is even more breathtaking in motion. What is most impressive is the way the game’s environments are distinctly varied, yet maintain an overarching and unique sense of style that really works to create an immersive world. The gorgeous and somber musical score also deserves some credit for that, though. It might not be Limbo, but Outland is assuredly an atmospheric experience – sometimes almost surprisingly so.

Outland is an easy recommendation for anyone who can appreciate 2D platformers. It looks great, it controls fantastically, and it is very fun to play. It is hard to find any problems with it, honestly, aside from the aforementioned annoying treks to reach bosses. Do not miss this game, available through XBLA and PSN – it truly is a beautiful experience, with substance to match.