Anyone who has been to this site and listened to our podcasts knows what one of our all-time favorite games is: Resident Evil 5. So it would follow that aside from being the game we always try to mention in every podcast, it is also the game we want to see a sequel to more than almost anything else. Our wish, it seems is coming true, much earlier than expected.
Capcom, rather than following the Square Enix model of announcing a game 6 years before release, has suddenly released a trailer announcing Resident Evil 6 will be hitting stores on November 20th on PS3, 360 and PC. Only 10 months before release. Yes, I’ve already started the countdown. In another in a series of shocks, the trailer shows off some actual gameplay. It has a very epic feel to it and the shooting style that debuted in RE 4 returns.
Dead Space has set the bar high lately in this genre, do you think Resident Evil 6 can clear it? ¡Mátalo!
It’s rare, but sometimes the games we love just don’t appeal to us anymore. Sure, things may start off great in the beginning, but eventually something sours and we turn against even our most cherished titles.
This phenomenon happened to me recently with Battlefield 3, something I talked about a bit on Episode 37 of the GamerSushi Show. Since then I’ve tried to get in a few games to see if I could get back into it, but the magic is gone. I don’t know if it’s a case of preferring the way that Bad Company 2 handled, or if the netcode is really bad on my end, or what, but Battlefield 3 has just dropped off my radar.
It’s kind of a shame considering how hyped I was for this game, something my fellow staff members and regular readers would know fairly well. I posted every trailer and every snippet of news about the game, but now I can’t even go fifteen minutes without turning it off.
I wish I knew what made me turn my back on the game, but it’s very hard to pin down. At first I was enjoying the beautiful environments and the destruction (toned down as it was), but then I noticed that I was getting killed behind cover a lot, or I was being killed by five or less shots when I’d already fired a whole magazine, or no one on my team was PTFOing. When Back to Karkand came out it helped revitalize my affection for the game, but after hours on Wake Island (which is somehow now a terrible map to play), I’m considering leaving BF3 behind for good.
I don’t lone wolf all that often, but I’ve been doing that more now that my normal squad mates have left. Maybe it’s a case of me trying to fit in to a team-based game, but even the most team oriented titles allow for a little solo play. Has anyone else experienced something similar with a game? Have you started off enjoying something and end up not standing the sight of it?
The final chapter in BioWare’s sci-fi trilogy Mass Effect will be releasing on March 6, but fans will have an opportunity to try out the various features of the game on February 14 when the demo launches.
The single-player portion of the demo will contain a couple snippets from Mass Effect 3, one taking place early in the game during the initial Reaper assault on Earth and the second will occur on an unspecified alien homeworld where Shepard travels to gain the support of the populace. All three of Mass Effect’s different single-player modifiers, Story, Action and Role-Playing, will be available and Xbox 360 users will be able to take advantage of the Kinect integration. The demo will have all classes available and you can customize and level up Shepard. Progress in the demo does not carry over to the main game, however.
The multiplayer component of the demo will be available to all on February 17, but owners of Battlefield 3 (with an activated Online Pass) will put their boots on the ground day one. A microsite will be up on February 7 where you can check and see if your EA account is eligible for early access, but as long as your account contains an active Battlefield 3 Online Pass, you’ll be good to go. There will also be an early access program for people who have not purchased BF3 or activated a Pass, so no worries there.
The multiplayer demo will contain two levels, Slum and Noveria, but beyond that BioWare isn’t saying. I’m happy for an opportunity to try out the multiplayer, even if I’ve already pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition (although it should be Reaper’s Edition in my opinion).
Are you guys excited for the Mass Effect 3 demo? What are your thoughts on the early access for multiplayer? Oh, one more thing: PC players will need to get the demo through Origin, EA’s much-maligned digital store.
After the long-awaited arrival of last week’s video podcast, many of you expressed your wishes that we not wait so long before the release of the next one. Well, for the first time in my life, I’m afraid I won’t be disappointing all of you – here’s a brand new podcast, fully of shiny gaming stories, GamerSushi memes and all kinds of other wonders.
This podcast brought us the monumental task of trying to recap an entire season’s worth of games, ranging from Bastion all the way to Skyrim. We used this as an excuse to try out a new game, Lightning Round, and I think all of you are going to be happy with the results. It was a nice way to run down a staggering list of games in a way that didn’t take 87 podcasts and two years of our blabbering to cover.
In addition, we played a game of Buy or Sell with a number of industry topics. Like we do. Listen up and enjoy, friends.
Whenever people talk about JRPGs being obsolete in relation to the success of the modern Western RPG, the one thing I can never escape is that the Western RPG’s freedom tends to work against its story. As great a game as Skyrim happens to be, its narrative takes a backseat to whatever impulse it is that drives us to pick locks or hunt foxes outside of Whiterun. I think this is one of the reasons that the Mass Effect series appeals to me – it still manages to have a tight, exciting narrative while allowing the player a certain amount of freedom. Somehow, the series has straddled a pretty nice sweet spot that brings the best of both of those worlds.
In the latest release of Bioware Pulse, the company’s video series highlighting its projects, lead writer Marc Walters discusses their desire for Shepard to be a much deeper character this time around than ever before:
“One of the things we wanted to do in Mass Effect 3 was deepen Shepard as a character, so you really get to express what your Shepard is feeling and going through, throughout the war… We wanted to take that next step with the story telling. Yeah, it’s a war, yeah it’s got giant robots we get to shoot in the face, but there is a human side to the story. You are role-playing, and you are role-playing as a human. Why shouldn’t that human have an emotional component throughout the game?”
Here’s my question, and one I think the Western RPG is going to keep running into as long as it does business this way: can a lead character in a game based on player choice ever really have depth? Sure, Bioware has come up with some memorable, incredibly well-written characters in the past – but all of these completely outshine the main characters, who are just conduits for your own one-dimensional choices. I’m not sure if those things can ever co-exist, and I think developers could be kidding themselves if they think they can.
How do you guys feel about this issue? Can lead characters in games based on player choice actually have depth? Is it OK for them not to?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, or worse, terribly cliche – I want to take a moment and gripe about sequel-itis in video games. No, I’m not against sequels. And yes, I understand that in a time where AAA games cost big bucks to develop, publishers want to go with surefire hits instead of taking chances on new IPs. All of that’s fine. But what I can’t forgive is when this sequel-itis starts affecting stories negatively.
Take Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, for instance. I’m sure all of you will think I hate this game after posting a couple of negative critiques about it, but it’s more that Revelations’ negatives shine so outrageously because the game itself plays so well – and in some ways is a perfection of the Assassin’s Creed formula. I’m going to have to be as spoiler careful as possible here, but AC: Brotherhood ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. OK, that’s an understatement – it ended on a double scoop of cliffhanger with a major sprinkle of WTF. Part of the lure of Revelations is that it was supposed to give you some of the answers about both Desmond and Ezio that were left hanging at the end of Brotherhood.
The problem is, Revelations ends in much the same way. The cliffhanger isn’t so bad compared to Brotherhood, but the “answers” they finally give you only lead to a dizzying array of questions. No explanation is given for some of the really bizarre things you see in the climax of this game, after the entire narrative kept assuring you that the time for answers was coming soon.
Valve, you wily devils. Not only do you make critically acclaimed video games, you also happened to pioneer iTunes for video games on the PC. Over the holidays, you wow-ed everyone with some ridiculous giveaways, absurd gaming deals and hit the whole Steam community with a shot of adrenaline that gave college kids the world over something to do during the Winter break.
But it doesn’t stop there. Valve recently reported its 2011 end-of-year statistics, and they’re staggering. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the highlights:
Steam offers over 1800 games to 40 million account holders
Year-over-year sales have doubled from 2010 to 2011, marking 100 percent growth for the 7th straight year
14.5 million copies of Steam registered in 2011, a 67 percent increase over 2010
Steam doubled the amount of content it served in 2011 – over 780 Petabytes
Firstly, I didn’t even know a Petabyte was a thing. It just sounds made up. Literally, my brain can not fathom the numbers that go into that, even though I looked it up. This might just be because I’m a stupid person, though. The other shocking statistic is the fact that Steam’s sales have doubled each year for the last 7 years. I knew that they had a corner on the market, but it’s nuts to me that keeps soaring upward. And when you think about it, there’s really no other place for those sales numbers to go, considering that more content keeps coming out and there are so few legitimate competitors.
So what do you guys think of these Steam statistics? Come sing Steam’s praises if you wish.
This post was actually written by Eddy, posted by Nick. Just to clear up any confusion.
Wow. Uh, hi dudes. I know it hasn’t been a long time since we’ve chatted, but it’s certainly been a long time since we’ve chatted in this format – you know, the format where I’m bringing you a brand new podcast. So that’s pretty cool, right? Especially considering the fact that this isn’t a normal podcast, but a special video podcast!
Yes, this is the long-rumored video podcast from GamerSushi Weekend, AKA PAX South, where the GamerSushi dudes convened for a weekend of hanging out, video gaming, drinking and yes, podcasting. I know it’s pretty ridiculous that it’s just now coming out almost six months later, but sometimes life happens and bearded dudes have to go to California to work. And yeah, that gets in the way every now and then.
I should be over the annual Assassin’s Creed formula that Ubisoft has set into motion this generation. Sure, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Brotherhood both happened to be great games, but there’s no way that lightning can strike three times, right? That’s the gamble that we take by playing yearly re-hashes, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is no different.
So far, I’m actually enjoying the game quite a bit. It’s kind of a rinse and repeat job, but the promise of learning Desmond’s fate and seeing the close of the Ezio storyline certainly has me hooked, and I like to see Ezio as a bit of a grim, grizzled old man, complete with salt-and-pepper beard and all. To Ubisoft’s credit, they’ve done what they could to mix the gameplay up, but unfortunately, some of these additions are where the game’s cracks are most evident.
Of all the things to mod into Skyrim, I’m not sure that Randy Savage was at the top of the list, but here we are in 2012 and someone has found a way to put the Macho Man into the game. The video detailing the mod is three minutes of pure terror and hilarity.
Originally I thought the mod would just replace the voices of the dragons with soundbites of Randy Savage, but when I saw what had become of their appearance, well, that’s a whole other story. I just couldn’t stop laughing when the guards heard the cry of at the beginning of the video and started acting scared. Good stuff! Here’s the link if you want to try out the Skyrim Macho Man mod for yourself.
We’re at the end of the road for the inaugural edition of GamerSushi Votes and I think it’s gone rather well. We’ve talked the highs and the lows, but now it’s time to put all of our chips on the table and declare once and for all what our favorite game of 2011 is.
There’s no cheating here by saying 2011 didn’t have a Game of the Year, no sir. Each individual vote shall be inscribed upon the great Tablet of GamerSushi with chisel and hammer by Anthony, borne up the Mountain of Souls by Eddy, passed through the Cauldron of the Blaze by myself, given to Jeff and his eagle mount to soar high into the clouds to the Sky Palace of the Beard for Nick’s final approval. Yeah. It’s that important.
Now that you know what fate rests upon your mortal souls, vote! What was your Game of the Year for 2011?
While 2011 was a year of serious highs, there were more than a few lows, too. Even when you’re as plugged into the industry as we are, sometimes you just can’t avoid the stinkers.
Some of the entries on this poll are fairly obvious, but I’m going to try really hard to not insert my own bias into this list. True, I’ve learned fairly heavily on my own opinions for the previous polls, but when you start slagging popular titles, that’s when the mud gets flung. Without further ado, here we go!
Alright folks, here’s part two of GamerSushi Votes 2011, and this time we’re tackling the solo aspect of gaming. While this might have a bigger overlap with the typical “Game of the Year” criteria, you can have an awesome single-player experience with pretty crappy multiplayer, like Dead Space 2, for example.
I’m going to put what I think are the most popular and well-recieved single-player games of 2011 in the poll below, but if you have any other suggestions, please tell us in the comments! While the GamerSushi crew (and me in particular) do try to give every game a fair shake, sometimes we miss stuff, so if there’s a game that your want to represent, go ahead. I know we have a few supporters of The Witcher 2, but what other games caught your fancy?
One thing we’re missing from gaming is a list of “commandments” for developers to follow when making games. We’ve kind of a reached a point where a lot of this kind of stuff is standardized but there are still little missteps that occur that makes you question the sanity of the person who insisted that this thing make it into their game.
The chaps over at Rock Paper Shotgun put together what they call The Complete Rules for Games a humorous look at some of the guidelines for making games. As RPS is a PC-oriented site some of the stuff includes some PC things that might seem obvious but are still overlooked by most developers. The cause of this is that a lot of PC titles are console ports, but still, there are some great points in here. The ability to skip opening cut-scenes is essential, but there are still games that insist on making you watch the opening video. Why?!
So, what do you think about the list? Any essential additions you want to make?
What up friends and gamers and welcome to a new yearly feature here at GamerSushi. We’re going to be trying something different this year by letting you, the community, weigh in on the always fun “best of the year” lists via some voting. We all love practicing our democratic rights (while we still have them, anyways) and these sorts of topics always make for great discussions.
To kick it off, we’re going to be talking the best multiplayer of the year, also known as the “Battle of the Threes”. There are a lot of great candidates and I can’t wait to see which way this leans. Get your vote on!
Happy Holidays, GamerSushi-ans! I hope your break (should you be on one) is going well. The GamerSushi crew will be ramping down for the Holidays, so this might be the last post you see out of us for the next few days. It’s been kind of a quiet Fall around here, but can you really blame us? Between all the games and our personal lives, we’ve kind of been slacking on the posts, so we apologize. There will however, be some treats coming from a certain jolly, bearded man sometime soon, so stay tuned for that.
Now that we have a little free time, what are your Christmas gaming plans? Personally, I’m finishing off Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and tucking into the multiplayer on that while going through my backlog and finishing off some left-over Achivements from games like Sonic Generations and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. I may even tuck back into Saint’s Row the Third, but after my 30 hour cheevo didn’t pop (along with a bunch of campaign ones, but that’s a known issue) I’ve kind of soured on that experience.
So what are you up to? Polishing off the backlog? Awaiting a windfall of Christmas gifts? Let us know!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, but 2011 was a monumental year for video games. The last four months alone have given us some of the finest gaming experiences of the last few years. Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City are still vying for my personal Game of the Year slot, but even with these two juggernauts on my mind it’s hard to forget the games that were smaller but still managed to pack a big punch.
My biggest surprise of 2011 was Sonic Generations, the return to form for the Blue Blur that we’ve been waiting for ever since Sonic Adventure 2. There are no Werehogs (which I love to point out smugly is a misnomer, as “were” means “male human”, so “Wolfhog” would have been more appropriate), no goofy side-kick levels and no swordplay. It’s just straight up speed in classic or modern flavors and I kind of love it for that. If you’ve been hesitant about Generations, it gets my personal seal of approval. It’s not Game of the Year contender material, but it’s a solid title that earns its praise.
Another game that caught me off guard this year was Magicka, the isometric magic-casting game that took the PC world by storm. This game took co-op and turned it on its head by making your friends not only your greatest allies but your biggest threat as well. Four out of the five GS crew members played a night of Magicka and it was a howling good time, even if it did turn me into a raging asshole.
Rayman Origins also gets a nod from me as a sleeper hit, but what about you guys? What were your big 2011 games that no one’s talking about?
Leave it to Valve to organize a holiday sale that puts Black Fridays, Cyber Mondays, Koala Tuesdays and ever other kind of wacky sale days to shame. I’m not sure if someone pumped some kind of happy gas all throughout the Valve offices, or if Gabe Newell finally cracked under all the Half-Life 3 pressure, but nonetheless, things are looking good for the rest of us.
So what’s on sale? The better question is: what isn’t on sale? Here is a glimpse of just a few of the daily deals going on:
Fable series: 75% off
Entire 2K games pack: 86% off. This comes out to $75 for everything 2K has on Steam, including Borderlands, Civ V plus expansions, DNF, the Mafia series, NBA 2K series and MLB 2k series
Entire Id games pack: 83% off. That’s 24 items for $45
Portal 2: 75% off
Just Cause 2: 75% off
And that’s just for starters. On top of that, for every challenge you complete between now and the New Year, you will receive either a gift (to be used however you want) or a lump of coal. Don’t worry, though, lumps of coal can be horded like Pokemon and used for gifts as well. Better yet? You can trade all of these things with friends on Steam. Best yet? If you save all of your lumps of coal, each one earns you one entry into the big sweepstakes at the beginning of 2012 – where the grand prize is every game on Steam.
So, yeah. I don’t even know what to do with all of this information. Valve seriously just threw a wrench in all my Christmas gaming plans. I’ve always wanted to play games like Just Cause 2, and taking a stab at them for just $5 isn’t a bad entry point.
Are any of you guys buying stuff on Steam? Who else thinks this is madness? Go!
It goes without saying that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is tremendous. And I don’t even mean that in terms of quality. I’m talking about sheer size. The game is enormous in every sense of the word. From the amount of quests to the cities to the NPCs and the depths of dungeons, it could take one years to mine all of the game’s secrets on their own.
That’s one of the reasons I love the Internet: we don’t have to do this kind of stuff all by ourselves. The kind folks over at the Official Playstation Magazine have put together a list of 9 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do in Skyrim. While I’ve made good use of a few of the items on the list, such as free archery training and the re-fillable soul gem, a few things certainly surprised me. Lists like this are usually a bad thing for me, as now I want to go get the dog that never dies, the staff that turns enemies into bunnies and the legendary horse as well.
As it stands, I’ve had some strange occurrences in Skyrim myself. Why, just a couple of weeks ago, I had to square off against an invisible dragon. On another night of exploring, I came across a lying character that tells you meta secrets about Bethesda and its development of the game.
So what about you guys? Have you stumbled across any of these undiscovered secrets? What are some of the strangest things you’ve seen for yourself in the game? Go!
We’re finally here, friends, at the end of four years of waiting and watching and over-sized lightsabers. BioWare’s first foray into MMO territory, Star Wars: The Old Republic, begins its pre-order roll out today in advance of its actual release on the 20 of December. If you pre-ordered the game and entered the code on the TOR website you can get in early between now and the 20 depending on how far in advance you completed the process (confusing, I know).
I pre-ordered the game, but I didn’t do it until November, so I probably won’t be playing until the weekend or even the 19, but I’ve had a few opportunities to try out the Beta, so that’s OK (pretty sure the NDA on those things have expired). My guild and I are deploying as heartless Imperials and I’m taking on the Bounty Hunter class for my first outing. I avoided this build during the Beta, so I’m ready for a fresh experience when I jump in. My guild will be on the Lord Praven server, if anybody wants to play with the only GS staff member who will be giving TOR a shot on release.
The Old Republic hasn’t exactly been a hot topic around here, but I still thought I’d put up a Roll Call as this is the last big release of 2012 (except for the Back to Karkand DLC which also comes out today). Anybody else playing TOR? Which class are you playing as? Any interest on trying the game in the future? Also, what are you thoughts on me keeping a journal of sorts for the first month of the game as a kind of review?
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