I think we’re going to spoil you guys. Yes, that is now 3 podcasts in a row. And this one is more meme-tastic than most, if you can believe it.

That’s right, much of the beginning of this podcast is about the release of our game of games here at GamerSushi, Resident Evil 6. This is the celebration of all things good and proper, and the end of our time of mourning now that Resident Evil 5 has passed into the annals of gaming yesteryear. So yes, there is much rejoicing. And hopefully you’ll join us as we pave the way for the Game of Our Time.

Besides us going fanboy-tastic on RE6, we also talk about RPGs and choices, Bioshock Infinite and Modern Warfare 3. After all of that, we play a game of Over/Under, where project review scores for the next few months of releases, including Mass Effect 3, Twisted Metal and Final Fantasy XIII-2. As always, I’m right again and win at everything. This should be no surprise by now.

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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.

In a post on BioWare’s social site, Chris Priestly laid out the details of the newly announced Mass Effect 3 demo and what we can expect from it come release day. The demo will feature both single and multiplayer content and will be launched simultaneously on all three platforms.

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.

Source – BioWare Social Network

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?

Source – VG247

RAAM’s Shadow, the second piece of DLC for Gears of War 3, dropped on December 13 featuring a single-player/co-op campaign set just after Emergence Day. Starring Zeta Squad, composed of Lieutenant Kim from Gears 1 and Tai Kaliso from Gears 2 with two newcomers, RAAM’s Shadow offers a three-ish hour adventure with the opportunity to play as the titular Locust general, complete with Kryll shield and giant machete. Purchasers of the Season Pass may have gotten it as part of the deal, but what about those of us who didn’t go for the package offering?

It’s been a while since the DLC has dropped, so you’ll have to forgive me for that, but the experience I’ve had with it has made me realize that I wasn’t really missing much. Since the DLC is set years before Gears of War 1, you play on a Sera that has yet to be destroyed by the Hammer of Dawn and seeing a city in this world complete and intact is something unique, but the outdoor environments feel very sterile and “fake”, for lack of a better word. Gears of War has always nailed the “Destroyed Beauty” motif, so simply cleaning up all the rubble in the decor doesn’t make the world believable, it does the exact opposite. There are a few cool areas to fight through, like the bank vault which has stacks of money that catch fire and the school that really does look like a deserted evacuation center, but that’s about the extent of it.

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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?

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Seems that the GamerSushi staff is on something of a Metal Gear Solid kick lately, but what other video game series can inspire people to randomly bust into a musical number? (Inside joke, don’t worry.) While Anthony was adventuring through the depths of Shadow Moses, I found a video of a guy absolutely breaking Metal Gear Solid 3 and it’s pretty amusing (and maybe a little frightening).

That’s the end result of hours of hours of practice, ladies and gents. I’m impressed by this showing, and I’m always fascinated by the ways people can find to creatively bypass the “game” aspect of most titles and create something new. Do you guys have any examples of this?

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?

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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!

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Every year there are many standout moments in gaming that redefine my hobby and help me appreciate it in new ways. Last year it was riding into Mexico to the tune of “Far Away” in Red Dead Redemption, managing my own guild of assassins in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood or riding down a river in a patrol boat with the Rolling Stones in the background in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

2011, being the landmark year that it was, was not deficient in great gaming moments and I’ve pared my memories down to six selections of moments that have helped shape this year for me. Come along as I try to sift through all the great games this year had to offer and try to nail down which small selections changed my perception of gaming in 2011.

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I’ve been trying to save some of my opinions about Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (or Decepticons if you’re feeling especially nerdy) for our upcoming review of the game, but I couldn’t help myself on this one. As fun as the game can be, I had major problems with it’s shooting mechanics, which felt a bit spastic and dare I say broken in comparison to Uncharted 2′s excellent gunplay. When I first started playing the game, I couldn’t tell if my skills had diminished, or if I was just a crazy person, but something felt… off. This became even more apparent when Anthony tried a run of some multiplayer, where the shooting mechanics felt much better, and vastly different from their singleplayer counterpart.

Apparently I’m not the only one. It seems that quite a few Uncharted fans, both on Naughty Dog’s website and NeoGAF, have taken to drafting charts, filming comparison videos and dissecting the difference between Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3′s gunplay. The main offender is a strange bit of input lag, plus a snap-to grid for diagonal aiming that isn’t present in Uncharted 2.

While all of that is typical for the Internet, the interesting part of the story is that Naughty Dog listened and tried to figure out the difference themselves… but couldn’t. So they then asked several of the outspoken NeoGAF posters to come into the studio to present their case firsthand. As a result, Naughty Dog is working on a patch that allows players to choose between the mechanics of each game for the singleplayer campaign.

How about that for listening to your community? I really have to commend Naughty Dog for hearing the complaints and addressing them, although I don’t understand how they couldn’t figure out the difference between two of their own games. Have any of you played Uncharted 3? Any issues with the aiming? And what do you think of this move by Naughty Dog? Go!

Source – GiantBomb

The release of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary yesterday also saw the passing of the franchises’ tenth year in existence. Yes that’s right, good old Halo is 10 years old, if you can believe it. It seems only yesterday that I was waiting for Reach to fall or finishing the fight, but there you have it. Halo has been such a fixture in my gaming life that I can’t really let this occasion pass by unnoticed.

I played Halo: Combat Evolved more than any other game, even Knights of the Old Republic 2, which absorbed a large part of my life. I played through the campaign on solo and co-op on every difficulty except for Easy, and I had dozens of LAN parties with friends, trying to to see who could out-pistol each other. It’s kind of amusing to me that the most iconic weapon in Halo’s history is reportedly a tweak that was put in by accident by a developer that more than doubled the pistol’s damage right before ship.

Halo 2 had almost as much of an impact on me; it was the first game I lined up at midnight for, and it also showed me that multiplayer could be done well on consoles. While I was still very much a PC player then, the fact that I could have a great experience on my TV was kind of revolutionary. Halo 2′s campaign was also pretty decent, story blunders and the fact that I would have to wait four more years to get a Halo game set entirely on Earth.

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As sure as the Fall brings cold weather, it also brings us a new Call of Duty game, this time from the all-star collaboration of Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 finally released today and as you might expect the reviews are generally favorable, although the Metacritic User Reviews currently sit at a hilarious 2.8.

I’m not able to pick up the game today, but that hasn’t stopped me from wanting it, which is kind of an odd phenomenon with Call of Duty. Every year since Modern Warfare 2 I’ve told myself that I’m not buying this version, but I always buckle under. This time around it’s more to see if Infinity Ward can repair the story after what happened in MW2, but I’m also interested in trying out the multiplayer and Spec Ops modes.

So what about you guys? Did any of you pick up Modern Warfare 3? What are your thoughts so far?

Whoops.

So it seems that the other day, an error by Microsoft resulted in the testers of the new XBox 360 dashboard update being able to get their hands on an early build of Mass Effect 3. This accidental leak (which was meant for private internal testing) included portions of both the single player and multiplayer, some of which were missing sound and textures.

While this is certainly a bit of a goof, the more interesting part of the story is the menu that showed up for these players, which revealed something that we didn’t know about the game. Basically, it gave players the option for the single player game to choose to highlight certain components for their playthrough, each with an emphasis on different aspects. Here are the three choices:

• Action Mode: For those who want to emphasize action and combat and minimize story management. Action mode will set automatic replies in conversation and a normal difficulty.
• Story Mode: For those who want to emphasize story immersion and minimize combat pressure. Story mode will set manually-selectable replies in conversation and a minimal combat difficulty.
• RPG Mode: For those who want to explore both realms of story and combat. RPG mode will set manually-selectable replies in conversation and a normal combat difficulty.

This seems like a direct response to the complaints that Bioware received about Mass Effect 2 being “dumbed down.” While none of this is final, it’s certainly an interesting way to tackle the problem – too many games these days try to be all things to all people, and it’s something that doesn’t always work. Bioware has responded to the leak, saying that these options will give players an even greater degree of control over their personal experience with the campaign.

What do you guys think of the idea of splitting the campaign into these different modes? At first glance, it appears to be a creative way to let each player get the Mass Effect 3 that they want. Give us your thoughts, though. Go!

Source – VG247

Here we are, folks: after months of waiting and watching trailers, Battlefield 3 has finally dropped, bringing DICE’s no-hold-barred attempt to kick Call of Duty square in its Modern Warnads to a head.

I haven’t really attempted to keep my excitement for the game a secret and I’m sure many of you have read the reviews on other sites and played the game, but now we get to have the official GamerSushi verdict. Having tucked into all three of Battlefield’s modes, I’m going to review them in a similar manner to Eddy’s Modern Warfare 2 review from two years ago, tackling the campaign and co-op first and hitting the multiplayer last. I’ll average the two scores as best I can, and that will be the final grade for Battlefield 3. All clear? Move out, solider!

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Ah, modern gaming. How often you’re lambasted these days for your simplistic ways.

This is always a tricky subject for me. We generally try to keep the discourse around here less cynical, but sometimes we do talk about the things we miss about gaming. Let’s face it: games have changed, and there’s no point beating around the bush about it.

I guess that means there’s no bush-beating in this video. It asks the question: what if Quake was made today? And agree or disagree with its conclusions, it’s hard to deny that it makes at least a few points, and hilariously at that.

While I genuinely think that in some ways, games are better than ever, I’ll admit that the things in this video are pretty spot on. I don’t know if I buy into all the negativity that I hear from the gaming community about this issue, but it’s still worth noting.

So what do you guys think about the ideas this video raises? Do you like/dislike the direction of modern games? Is it a more complicated issue than the video lays out? Go!

So this just happened. It’s kind of big news, I guess.

There’s not much to say about the Grand Theft Auto V trailer that you haven’t heard already. It’s been several years since GTA IV came out, and Rockstar definitely has a lot to live up to in terms of expectations. Do they rise to the occasion? I guess you can watch and find out.

So what are your reactions to the trailer? As much as I’m not a graphics guy, I have to say that the detail and the quality of the animations shown in the trailer are really impressive. It also seems to me that we’re back in Los Santos, though it’s hard to tell if it’s going to include the same amount of real estate that we saw in San Andreas.

While I’m curious to see more of this game, we all know that I wasn’t a huge fan of Grand Theft Auto IV, so they’ll have to show me something new and interesting to get me more pumped for this than I am for Saint’s Row 3. That’s just my opinion, though. Let’s hear yours. Go!

Ever since Battlefield 3 came out last week (I bet you thought I would stop writing about it, eh?) I’ve been kind of obsessed with the multiplayer portion. Seriously, you guys, it’s quite good and I’d say it’s going to end up as the best of the year. One thing I’m lamenting about the multiplayer, though is that defibrillators can no longer be used to kill your enemies. I’d say this is a serious oversight on DICE’s part, because killing people with defibs kind of feels like this:

I’m kind of a huge fan of Corridor Digital’s work, so expect to see more of their gaming related stuff on here. What did you guys think of the video? Any thoughts on BF3′s multiplayer?

My insider sources tell me: pretty good. Actually, I don’t have any insider sources, I just go by wild reports I read on the Internet. And we all know how trustworthy those things can be.

The much ballyhooed sequel to the critically acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (our first S review, if you’ll recall) drops into eager PS3 disc drives next week after months of hype regarding both the single player and multiplayer outings. After such a successful release, Uncharted 3 represents a huge challenge for Naughty Dog, especially in a day and age where everyone expects to be wowed with each new title.

As far as the reviews go, it seems that Naughty Dog has certainly risen to the occasion. You can obviously judge that for yourselves from the following reviews, but so far it sounds to me that while Uncharted 3 is more of the same, what it offers is a really great experience with tons of content.

• IGN
• Joystiq
• GiantBomb
• 1UP
• GamePro
• CVG
• GameTrailers
• Eurogamer

It’s worth noting that the last link to Eurogamer is to a more “controversial” (I use that in scare quotes facetiously) review, where the writer blasphemed against all things holy by giving Uncharted 3 the dreaded 8 (or hate) out of 10. His reasoning: The game is great fun, but takes away too much control from the player. Definitely a criticism worth noting as that’s not some people’s cup of tea, but I don’t mind the occasional experience that does that, especially when they do it so darn well. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

So, who else is ready to do some deceiving of their own with Nathan Drake next week? Go!

Categories: Adventure, GamerSushi News, Industry News, Platformer, Playstation 3, Shooter
Tags: drakes deception, eurogamer uncharted 3, uncharted 3 review

Ten-hut soliders, Battlefield 3 has finally hit and we need to know who here has donned their war faces and are hunting for dog tags. I played a bit of co-op and multiplayer last night and I’ve got to say, every concern I had with the Beta has been addressed and then some. While the co-op is a little bland in its design (still fun, though), multiplayer brings the game back to the feel that Battlefield 2 had, and that’s giant 64-player battles, tanks, helicopters and jets all mingling with infantry warfare. More than once I said that a few maps felt like Strike at Karkand, and this is a very good thing.

I didn’t have any problems with Battlelog or any in-game stuff either, so I’m pretty impressed with how DICE managed to iron that all out. There was a bit of lag on the servers, but that’s to be expected of a launch-day game (and it was actually working, unlike Bad Company 2 at launch). Joining a game with a party is now pretty effortless and if you happen to get separated there’s an actual in-game Squad browser now. There’s a “Command Rose” too, but I don’t think it’s entirely functional right now as you can’t call for ammo or health and your character doesn’t shout out the message you select.

So, is anyone else playing Battlefield 3? What system are you on? What are your thoughts on the three different modes? Go go go!

I can’t think of a bigger rivalry in FPS gaming right now than the one brewing between Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, each game vying for the crown of “shooter king”. Call of Duty seems confident that people will want it more because it’s Call of Duty, but Battlefield has been making a strong case for itself. Both games recently dropped their respective campaign-focused launch trailers, so we’re going to have a poll to see which one comes out on top. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′s launch trailer first, then Battlefield after the jump.

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