General gaming

General gaming

Japan Review Check: Child of Eden, PES 2012

Posted: 28 Sep 2011 06:18 AM PDT

A quick look at the highlights among the games coming out in Japan this coming week, courtesy the review pages of Famitsu magazine:

- Child of Eden (10/9/8/8 360; 10/9/8/9 PS3): It's extremely rare for Famitsu editors to give different scores to separate ports of the same console game -- I can count the number of times I can remember it on my fingers. The difference, according to the one reviewer that gave the 360 version an extra point, all lies in Kinect. "With this game, the real attraction comes out when you control it with Kinect," he wrote. "Moving your arms around without holding anything, you get the feeling that you're touching the sound itself. I don't think you can get this unique immersion without Kinect. There aren't many games that stimulate the player's senses this much."

Review: FIFA 12 Audaciously Beautifies an Already Beautiful Game

Posted: 28 Sep 2011 06:09 AM PDT

I had an unhealthy obsession with FIFA 11. I put in the kind of hours that a Fox News report on WOW addicts might mention. How could I not? It was the latest in a recent emergence of stellar EA titles that would've fulfilled any diehard soccer/football fan's gaming fantasy. But, for all of its glitz and glamour, fun, and replay value, it felt slightly shallow beneath the surface. Enter FIFA 12; without reinventing the wheel, it brings a sense of gravitas that now elevates the series as a whole.

When I sat down to chat with the game's producer a few months ago, the developers at EA Canada had already been championing FIFA 12's "revolution" for months. They claimed that three new substantial gameplay tweaks -- a visceral physics engine for collisions, an overhauled defending system, and more precise dribbling -- were going to completely change the way you played the game. How right they were.

Dynasty Warriors Team Speaks Out on One Piece Pirate Warriors

Posted: 28 Sep 2011 05:26 AM PDT

One Piece, Eiichiro Oda's manga about a ragtag gang of pirates going on adventures and beating the crap out of people, is a social phenomenon, it's safe to say. Over 200 million volumes of the comic have been sold, the anime version's been on the air for 13 years, and Japanese game developers have put out approximately eight squillion adaptations on every system from the Game Boy Color forward. The latest -- One Piece: Pirate Warriors on the PS3 -- is a bit more ambitious than previous games, though: it's a tie-up between Namco Bandai's Koji Nakajima and Koei's Hisashi Koinuma to produce a Dynasty Warriors-ish title that lives up to the story's epic scale.

"The idea sprung out from both sides," Nakajima told Famitsu magazine in an interview published this week. "There are lots of One Piece games, but none of them have hit the HD consoles yet, and we figured that sooner or later we had to make the leap. We realized that having this action game where Luffy was beating up lots and lots of sailors at once would be a lot of fun. When Koinuma and I met for the first time, it was amazing how quickly we connected. I read One Piece and played lots of Dynasty Warriors when I was in school, but I never thought I'd wind up working on both franchises at the same time!"

Microsoft Outlines Future Plans in Japan

Posted: 28 Sep 2011 04:38 AM PDT

Microsoft's presence at E3 is huge. They've got a massive press conference stage (pictured above), an equally enormous booth, and enough free swag on offer to fill up a Camry. The company's presence at the Tokyo Game Show, on the other hand? Not quite as much. MS's booth at TGS was maybe half the size it usually is, getting dwarfed by the presentations put on by Sony, Capcom, and even Japanese social-game giant Gree.

"We would like to have as large a space as possible in order to have lots of people play our products," said Takashi Sensui, head of Xbox operations in Asia, in an interview with Famitsu magazine published this week. "To be honest, though, given the scope of our Japan business, it's just difficult to produce such a huge booth. Our intention here was to use the space we had as best we could to get the most gamers trying out the best titles we had. We didn't have as many titles as usual, but I believe we had an extremely nice lineup, something I think anyone who was there could see. We'll be trying to have a bigger presence than ever next year -- I feel it's our mission, something we have to do."

Shank 2 Announced for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 03:59 PM PDT

Shank 2

At the Electronic Arts Vegas Game Show today, a sequel to Shank was announced -- and it won't be long before it's in our hands.

Shank 2 is being built from the ground-up and features online co-op support in what's described as an arcade-style survivor mode. Judging by the screens and the first, short trailer, it looks to be just as gorgeous as the first game.

"Creatively, Shank still has a lot to give," said developer Klei Entertainment's founder, Jamie Cheng. "We took the feedback from the community and ran with it, putting our own flavor on every change. For Shank 2, we literally took apart the game and put it back together to push the envelope in combat mechanics, visuals, and 2D animation in games."

Sony Offers a New Way to Browse TV Shows and Movies on PS3

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 02:15 PM PDT


The library of video content you can rent and buy from the PlayStation Store continues to expand. In order to make it as easy as possible to find what you're looking for, Sony is releasing a new PS3 app called "Video Unlimited - preview" which should, if nothing else, allow you to discover related content more easily.

As the video above demonstrates, opening the app lays out new release content along with what's on sale. Selecting an individual show or movie allows you to see a description and the pricing for SD and HD versions of it, as well as find related content. What seems to be handy about the related content function is that it isn't all lumped together -- each show and movie has been tagged with specific things (like history, blockbuster, locations that are central to the movie, actors) and allows you to find other content that has that element in common.

PlayStation Plus subscribers will get first access to the app beginning today; as soon as the weekly PlayStation Store update goes live this afternoon, Plus members will find it on PSN for download from the Media & Apps section. (It will then be accessible from the Video section of the XMB.) Non-Plus members will have to wait "a few weeks" before getting access.

Uncharted Dramatization to Air on TV Tokyo

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 02:00 PM PDT

Uncharted

According to TV Tokyo's online programming guide, the network will be airing a dramatization of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception next Monday at 11:53 PM. At only seven minutes, it's not clear what exactly this program is, but the copy on TV Tokyo's site reads, "The dramatization of the complete, action-packed story of the newest Uncharted game, Drake's Deception."

Since it's being listed as an information/variety show, we're guessing this is just a quick look at the characters and plot of Uncharted 3. Most Japanese marketing campaigns focus more on characters than gameplay, so such a move wouldn't be surprising. Whatever it is, the Japanese fans are also in the dark as most tweets about the show how they'll fit the entire story into seven minutes.

Review: Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 is About Conquest, Not Compassion

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 01:45 PM PDT

If you've spent much time in the corporate, work-a-day world, you know that one of the big differences between a great employer and a lesser one is how they approach the concept of "human resources." A good employer takes the term to mean they should provide resources for humans; a bad one takes it as carte blanche to treat humans as resources. As it happens, this is also the biggest fundamental difference between a Pokémon game and the latest Dragon Quest Monsters release, Joker 2. Both revolve around capturing creatures to send into battle, but where Pokémon is all about bonding with your team, Joker treats those monsters as disposable means to an end.

Joker's ultimate goal isn't entirely alien to Pokémon fanatics -- it's all about having the biggest, baddest group of monsters on the battlefield -- but the difference is in how you accomplish that objective. In Pokémon, you bond with your team, raise them up, evolve them, and make them stronger through the power of friendship. Here, your captive creatures are commodities to be exploited. Monsters don't evolve on their own; rather, you fuse them together into new forms, destroying the original creatures in the process. It's almost exactly like demon fusion in a Shin Megami Tensei game, and just as in MegaTen, Joker doesn't even pretend to treat your battle minion as anything but tools to be used and discarded. It's not insignificant that while Pokémon gives you enough PC box slots to keep one of every monster type, Joker offers only 100 slots total in your monster pen -- less than a third of the overall bestiary. You're supposed to use up your creatures in the process of making better ones. They're forgettable. Disposable.

Bethesda's "Scrolls" Lawsuit Against Minecraft Dev Going to Court

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 01:18 PM PDT

Elder Scrolls Skyrim

Bethesda is serious about its lawsuit to get the name of Mojang's upcoming Scrolls changed. The lawsuit it filed against the Minecraft developer this summer is now headed to court.

Little is known about Scrolls, which was first revealed back in March as a collectible card/board game hybrid -- a far cry from the action/adventure RPG that the Elder Scrolls games could be described as. But it's the game's name that Bethesda has taken issue with, feeling it is confusingly similar with its Elder Scrolls trademark. Before filing the lawsuit, it had gotten in touch with Mojang to inquire about its filing for a trademark on "Scrolls."

"I agree that the word 'Scrolls' is part of that trademark, but as a gamer, I have never ever considered that series of (very good) role playing games to be about scrolls in any way, nor was that ever the focal point of neither their marketing nor the public image," Mojang's Markus Persson stated last month. "The implication that you could own the right to all individual words within a trademark is also a bit scary. We looked things up and realized they didn't have much of a case, but we still took it seriously. Nothing about Scrolls is meant to in any way derive from or allude to their games."

Dark Souls is Secretly the True Modern Castlevania

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 12:45 PM PDT

There's a moment in a select handful of games where things just... click. There's really no other word to describe it. Sometimes it happens early on within the first few minutes. Running around the front lawn of the castle in Super Mario 64 brought this moment to the forefront almost immediately. Other times you have to put in a solid day of playtime to reach this moment. Many RPGs don't click until you've leveled your characters and gained the freedom to explore the world as you see fit.

This moment, "the click", recently occurred to me during my play through of Dark Souls. I can safely say that I did not enjoy my initial time with the game. During the first few hours I viewed it as an oblique, unorganized slew of ideas shoved under a sadistic rug. If it weren't for the fact that I was playing it for work, I honestly can't be certain that I would've kept going. But then at about the five hour mark, something happened. It was a simple elevator ride from a parish to a shrine. It couldn't have lasted more than 10 seconds. But when the doors to the lift opened and I realized what had just happened, I could all but hear the crisp click in my gaming portion of my brain.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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