General gaming |
- Review: Mario Kart 7 Comfortably Settles For Silver
- Vita's Proprietary Memory Cards Won't be Cheap
- The Man Behind Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian
- Zelda: Skyward Sword and Mario 3D Land Each Surpass 500k Units Sold
- If a Final Fantasy VII Remake Ever Happens, Changes Could be Made
- Skyrim Patch Now Out on PS3; 360 and PC Following Soon
- Tony Hawk Ride's Developer Wants You to Fund its Next Game
- Latest Xbox Successor Rumors Include a Lip-Reading Kinect
- I Am Alive Dev Didn't Mean to Say a PC Version Won't Happen
- Rainbow 6 Patriots Unsettles by Having You Play as a Suicide Bomber
| Review: Mario Kart 7 Comfortably Settles For Silver Posted: 29 Nov 2011 12:01 AM PST Jeremy Parish, Editor-in-Chief: Stop me if you've heard this one before: Nintendo releases a sequel to a big-name franchise for the 2011 holiday season. It's very well made, and it's a lot of fun, but you just can't shake the feeling that you've seen it all before -- that Nintendo, the company that has made its swimming pools of money in recent years with terms like "blue ocean" and "disruptive design" is playing it uncharacteristically safe. First was Super Mario 3D Land, then The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword; now we have Mario Kart 7, which seems to have its eyes set on the been-there-done-that prize. Familiar is not the same thing as bad, of course. On the contrary, MK7 is leagues better than its predecessor, the deeply disappointing Mario Kart Wii. Nintendo has dialed back all the design flaws that made MKWii such a bracing letdown: The hyperactive party-game feel has been toned down, and even on the upper-level 150cc courses you're much less likely to have victory snatched away at the last second by yet another Blue Shell. MK7 feels far better balanced in favor of fairness (rewarding skill) rather than "fun" (based on random luck and chaos). |
| Vita's Proprietary Memory Cards Won't be Cheap Posted: 28 Nov 2011 04:26 PM PST For whatever reason -- many would likely guess "money" -- Sony has decided to go with a new, proprietary format for the memory cards used by PlayStation Vita. Whereas a dirt-cheap SD card can be picked up for use with 3DS, Vita will use specific cards that will cost quite a bit in Japan. If you were hoping the pricing situation wouldn't be the same in the United States, well... you had better get saving. GameStop has posted listings for four different sizes of official Vita memory cards, revealing a ballpark figure for how they will be priced. (I say "ballpark" because GameStop sells the Wii Motion Plus attachment for $5 more than other retailers, so perhaps these will be a few bucks more than elsewhere.) The picture isn't pretty -- a 4GB card's price is set at $29.99, 8GB at $44.99, 16GB at $69.99, and 32GB at $119.99. The same size SD cards would cost roughly $6, $10, $20, and $32, respectively, and that's going by the first result on Amazon for each (so there may be cheaper options out there). |
| The Man Behind Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian Posted: 28 Nov 2011 03:34 PM PST
Feature This story began with a bet two years ago. In late 2009, I told a coworker about an appointment with Team Ico director Fumito Ueda at the Tokyo Game Show. We joked about Ueda's short interview replies, and how it'd be an accomplishment to get him to vent or ramble. In my head, I was building an easy narrative about how Ueda speaks in interviews the same way he designs games, given his minimalist stories and "design by subtraction" philosophy. |
| Zelda: Skyward Sword and Mario 3D Land Each Surpass 500k Units Sold Posted: 28 Nov 2011 03:16 PM PST The biggest Wii game launch of the year and the first big original game release on 3DS are each off to a strong start in the United States with both titles having already sold over 500,000 units. According to Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime, who spoke with USA Today, Super Mario 3D Land has sold in excess of 500,000 units since it launched on November 13. That's a strong enough start to make it the fastest-selling portable Mario game ever. It's not as impressive a figure as it would be if it included console titles, where the majority of Mario's success has been experienced, but it's good news for Nintendo nonetheless. |
| If a Final Fantasy VII Remake Ever Happens, Changes Could be Made Posted: 28 Nov 2011 02:10 PM PST Final Fantasy VII is one of the most oft-requested remakes whether you're talking about Final Fantasy or games in general, but be careful what you wish for: should it ever happen, the game may not end up being just like fans remember it. Square Enix's Yoshinori Kitase, who is currently serving as a producer on the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII-2 and was the director of Final Fantasy VII, recently spoke about how he would personally like to approach a remake of VII, should it ever happen. He's not keen on leaving things just as they are, a stance that could upset diehard fans. |
| Skyrim Patch Now Out on PS3; 360 and PC Following Soon Posted: 28 Nov 2011 12:49 PM PST It is an unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless, that Bethesda games are almost always invariably plagued with some sort of bugs following release. Many gamers are willing to accept that because of the nature of the open-world experiences the company's games provide, but they nonetheless expect those bugs to be taken care of before long. Skyrim is no exception to this; PlayStation 3 gamers have been dealing with a particularly annoying issue that should hopefully be resolved with the release of a patch today. Bethesda has announced the version 1.2 update for Skyrim on PS3 has been released, and those in North America and Europe should both be able to download it as of this writing. Xbox 360 and PC gamers will have to wait another two days or so -- Wednesday, November 30 is the current estimate for when the patch will hit. |
| Tony Hawk Ride's Developer Wants You to Fund its Next Game Posted: 28 Nov 2011 11:45 AM PST Launched in 2009, Kickstarter.com allows anyone to generate crowd-funding campaigns, which appeal to the public to amass funds for whatever project is on the page. Since then, more than $100 million has been successfully raised for a wide array of projects, including tech gadgets, records, films, and more; last winter, a design firm raised more than $940,000 to create wristband holders for the iPod nano, while 2 Player Productions' documentary film on Minecraft topped $210,000 this past spring. When it comes to indie game development, the sums haven't been quite as high, but they're growing, with recent success stories including the nearly $37,000 generated by iOS/Android game Star Command, as well as $24,000+ pulled in by Octodad 2, a PC game about an octopus secretly posing as a suburban dad. Prior to today, Kickstarter had yet to host a funding campaign for a game explicitly designed for a console system. That's no longer the case, but the studio behind the project may surprise you. |
| Latest Xbox Successor Rumors Include a Lip-Reading Kinect Posted: 28 Nov 2011 11:41 AM PST As we continue the march towards the inevitable release of the Xbox 360's successor -- whether it be coming in a year or three or whenever else -- more rumors and reports are rolling in. The latest batch includes supposed details on an improved Kinect that may be bundled with the system and two radically different models that will be made available. Eurogamer is reporting, per a development source, that an improved version of Kinect is being developed that will have the ability to read lips. That would be an impressive feature and would presumably mean it wouldn't be restricted in the same way as the current Kinect is. Of course, we heard about how Kinect would be capable of understanding sign language, a feature it didn't turn out to be equipped with, so early promises (let alone rumors) shouldn't be taken as gospel. |
| I Am Alive Dev Didn't Mean to Say a PC Version Won't Happen Posted: 28 Nov 2011 09:40 AM PST Last week we heard what appeared to be the reasoning for why I Am Alive was headed only to consoles and not PC as it had previously been slated to: piracy. This explanation was accompanied by some poorly-chosen words that upset PC gamers, a group that feels it has already been treated less-than-ideally by I Am Alive publisher Ubisoft. Creative director Stanislas Mettra, who referred to PC gamers as "bitching about there being no version for them," has now clarified his stance and softened his words on the subject. "I would really love to see a PC build of the game," he told IncGamers last week, "and I don't think I meant to say 'the game won't happen on PC.' [I]t's probably an English language miscommunication," noting that English is not his first language. |
| Rainbow 6 Patriots Unsettles by Having You Play as a Suicide Bomber Posted: 28 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PST There you are -- sitting at home watching the news or browsing your iPad. Your negligee-wearing wife presents both herself and a little cupcake to commemorate your birthday; moments after blowing the candle yet before you can get intimate with her, the doorbell rings. And that's when everything goes wrong -- serious men storm in; they restrain your wife; and they knock you out despite your attempt to defend your family and home. When you come to, they mock you for making money off of home foreclosures while strapping a bomb vest to your body, and tell you that if you don't go with them to Times Square, they will kill your wife and child. Fast forward a bit and you're trapped in a van on the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything that can go wrong is in the midst of going wrong. You're under fire, the men who kidnapped you are busy shouting or dying, and one of them reiterates the "get to Times Square or they die" threat. The doors open and the Brooklyn Bridge lies under siege. Everyone around you is either shooting or screaming or dying. Men in black body armor assault you from multiple angles as you race your way down the bridge. Then, the perspective shifts, and you make a realization: the armor-clad foes who have been raining down assault rifle fire -- the terrorizing enemy -- turn out to be Rainbow Six operatives. That is, from your perspective of a civilian-forced-into-suicide-bomber, the heroes of Rainbow 6 Patriots have become the enemy. And now in Rainbow's perspective, the innocent civilian is now the primary target. This perspective shift (which occurs rarely in the game, so don't mistake this for multi-perspective action a la Call of Duty) reinforces one of the primary points of Patriots: anyone can be the enemy. |
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