General gaming

General gaming

How Can We Fix Skyrim?

Posted: 08 Feb 2012 07:00 AM PST

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How Can We Fix Skyrim?

Five suggestions for refining a messy masterpiece.

By: Jeremy Parish February 8, 2012

Love it or hate it, the latest Elder Scrolls epic, Skyrim, continues to hold gamers' attention. Almost three months after its release, people are still trading tips; sharing their confessions of how they love Lydia (even though she doesn't quite grasp the importance of moving out of the way of massive swinging doors covered with spikes); and creating viral videos featuring startlingly accurate sports predictions and lamentations of knee-embedded arrows.

We can all agree that Skyrim is hardly perfect. In fact, it could use a lot of improvements. The Skyrim lovers may never convince the game's detractors of its greatness, but at the very least we'd have an easier time selling others on the game's greatness if Bethesda would take the time to fix the following issues -- and we'd welcome your input, too.

Notch Wants to Help Tim Schafer Make Psychonauts 2

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 05:25 PM PST

"Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen," tweeted Minecraft creator Markus Persson (AKA Notch) yesterday to Double Fine CEO, and designer of the original game, Tim Schafer.

Notch's Tweet alone would pique the interest of Double Fine fans. Pychonauts' retail performance was so poor that mentioning it at this point, after Double Fine has produced so many other excellent titles, seems kind of cliché, meaning that all hope for a Psychonauts sequel died years ago. However, Notch didn't just tweet, Tim Schafer responded, "Oh wait. Hm. This is interesting."

Psychonauts

Respawn's First Game Reportedly a Year Away, Represents a Big Risk

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 05:17 PM PST

Respawn game

Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts alike have been very quiet regarding the former's debut title. We're now almost two years removed from the founding of Respawn and we still know almost nothing about the game aside from the fact that it will be a sci-fi shooter of some sort. With EA likely to release a new Medal of Honor later this year, it would make sense for Respawn's game to come no sooner than 2013. That's precisely what's suggested in an alleged EA marketing calendar that points to a March 2013 release. Whether it comes then or sometime later, such a large project is very risky given the current state of the industry.

Heading up Respawn are Jason West and Vince Zampella, the former bosses of Infinity Ward. The two played a significant role in turning Call of Duty into the massive success it is today, but their involvement in a new game -- even if we assume they won't make a bad one -- does not guarantee a commercial success. Games are not sold on the names of their creative leads, and the vast majority of Call of Duty fans are unlikely to know the names of either West or Zampella or the fact that they are no longer employed by Activision. The inevitable campaign pointing out how Respawn's new game comes from many of the key people behind Call of Duty isn't about to cause those fans to drop CoD in favor of the new title, particularly when post-West/Zampella CoD games have continued to deliver the experience they want.

How Katamari Damacy is My Solitaire

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 03:15 PM PST

I've recently come to terms with the fact that Katamari Damacy and its subsequent sequels are my Solitaire. I guess a bit of context is needed: my girlfriend is a habitual Solitaire fiend. She plays it on her netbook for hours on end -- although it never really seems like she's paying any attention to it. She's more than capable of watching a movie or holding a conversation as she maneuvers the cards from stack-to-stack. It's something that I never really understood, so I finally just asked her why she finds so much enjoyment in playing the same game over and over. She told me that there's something about the familiar hand gestures and the subtle, almost non-thought process of engagement with the game that makes it so soothing. This is how Katamari becomes my Solitaire.

To me, Katamari is a game without friction. Sure, each level may contain an objective, a ticking timer, and an ultimate judgment based on your performance, but none of that matters to me. I couldn't care less how big my Katamari is when the clock runs out. I hardly notice whether the King of All Cosmos praises or berates me during the post-level rundown. Katamari has become less a video game to me, and more of an interactive calming exercise. Despite the chaotic action and cacophony of strangely wonderful tunes, I find the whole thing to be rather soothing. Much like regular Solitaire, it's less about the outcome and more about the comfortable repetition of motions that keeps me coming back some eight years later. I don't play Katamari to overcome a challenge; I play it when I want to mentally unwind after a long day. It's what I play on mute when I want to listen to a podcast or catch up with a friend from college. Hell, I'll even play Katamari while deciding what game I actually want to play.

Vita's PSP UMD Conversion Program Scrapped Ahead of Launch

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 12:56 PM PST

Vita

Sony has a very nice piece of hardware in the Vita it will be launching in just over two weeks. It has a strong launch lineup and a lot going in its favor, but for seemingly every positive, there is some negative to go along with it: pricey memory cards, a confusing requirement for memory cards in some retail games, a limit of one PSN (SEN) account per system, an insubstantial discount on digital games. Now we can add to the list the inability to transfer PlayStation Portable UMD games to Vita.

With the Vita's launch so near -- it will be out on February 22 -- it was starting to look like the conversion program might not make it out of Japan. When I contacted Sony recently regarding the subject it had nothing to say, although it has now come out and revealed the unpleasant truth: North American gamers will not see any form of the UMD Passport program those in Japan did. The news was confirmed with Kotaku today and means Vita's backwards compatibility with PSP is limited only to digital games.

'Ransom' of New Game Boy Resident Evil Raises Ethical Questions

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 11:38 AM PST

When I need to shut off my brain, I turn to reality TV, specifically any show that revolves around finding hidden treasures in piles of junk -- basically everything on A&E at this point. The producers of these shows coach their casts into childish conflicts for the sake of drama, but the merchandise is the real star. Every now and then someone discovers something incredible -- a first edition of The Old Man and the Sea, original sketches by Picasso, ancient artifacts -- items of real historical value. The men and women of these shows take their newly found treasure and sell it to the highest bidder, and no one objects, but what would happen if they found a historically valuable game -- like an unreleased Resident Evil title for the Game Boy Color.

Video game fans long ago reconciled themselves to the fact that they would never be able to play hundreds of different historically significant games on their original systems -- especially those that came close but never saw retail shelves. Over time, a small community grew around tracking down prototypes and unreleased titles. These lost games would otherwise sit in storage until magnetic and optical data degradation rendered them unplayable, destroying a piece of video game history in the process. There are only so many Stadium Events cartridges out there, and original Akalabeth floppies probably died long ago, effectively making emulation the only way to play these and many other classic titles. This emulation can be legitimate and endorsed by rights holders -- think of the virtual console and countless retro collections released on modern console -- or done through third party emulators and illegally downloaded files and ROMs. Since many of these important games never received a proper release and publishers are often selective about what titles they make available, the latter option won out amongst the small lost games community, which needed to cooperate and focus their efforts in order to uncover new finds.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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