General gaming

General gaming

OP-ED: Why Ignoring Achievements Was the Smartest Thing I Ever Did

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 05:24 PM PST

PSN Trophies

Like many others, I have both loved and hated Achievements and Trophies at different points in time. I now sit at a point where I care about them far less than I have in the past, and I could not be more thankful for that.

The PlayStation Blog today published a list of the most Platinum'd games on PlayStation 3. Platinum Trophies, contained within many but not all games, are handed out for earning every Trophy a game has to offer. The difficulty and amount of time required to earn a Platinum varies from game to game; generally speaking it's a fairly significant accomplishment to earn one. I've never managed to pick one up myself, though that is due in part to playing most multiplatform games on Xbox 360 and PC.

Pokemon Black & White 2 Predictions: What's in Store For The First Numbered Pokemon Sequel?

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 04:30 PM PST

When Nintendo officially took the wraps off of Pokemon Black & White 2 last weekend, 1UP alum Ray Barnholt joked on Twitter that Nintendo had officially run out of colors. He may be closer to the truth than he realizes.

As the first numbered Pokemon sequel to ever be released, Game Freak and Nintendo seem to be moving away from the typical "Crystal/Emerald/Platinum" approach and trying something entirely new, but what could it be? Here are a few things I'm expecting to see in Pokemon Black & White 2.

OP-ED: Staying Shepard: Character Consistency Within Mass Effect

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 11:27 AM PST

Though it's not advertised as such, Mass Effect may be the most successful episodic series ever made. Since we saw the last Half-Life episode, BioWare's entire space trilogy has played out over three successful installments, each one refining the flaws of the past. Of course, Mass Effect is a bit different than Half-Life in that you play a character wholly defined by your own choices; Shepard's status as a no-nonsense renegade or a peaceful paragon hinges on countless player decisions both critical and trivial throughout the games.

Assassin's Creed III: Our Hopes And Fears

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 11:20 AM PST

It's safe to say that the Assassin's Creed III floodgates have officially opened. Aside from Ubisoft officially releasing the game's cover image, additional art assets and screenshots have leaked onto the internet. As we previously speculated, ACIII places you in the role of a Native American during the Revolutionary War. While we wait for the first official trailer to hit on March 5, we combed the images and began to hypothesize on how this new setting and character may change one of gaming's biggest franchises.

Marty Sliva: If you read what I said a few weeks ago, it's obvious that I'm stoked about the new setting for AC3. From the various pieces of art that have been released over the past few hours, it's clear that the game takes place during the Revolutionary War, features some form of interaction with George Washington, and has you playing as a protagonist who is at least some part Native American. An exact year is still uncertain, but the flag that makes an appearance in each piece of art is the Betsy Ross, which didn't become prominent until 1777. Take that as you will, but this would place it at least two years into the war itself. Aside from parsing this tidbit, I've spent a lot of time analyzing the images and have come up with a few theories.

The Calculus of Death in Mass Effect 2

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 10:43 AM PST

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The Calculus of Death in Mass Effect 2

How one man beat the odds and survived Mass Effect 2's suicide mission through lore, character building, role-playing, and happenstance.

By: Thierry Nguyen March 2, 2012

"It's a suicide mission -- everyone can die. We tell you that from the beginning. You better make good decisions." That was Mass Effect series executive producer Casey Hudson's warning to me when I started playing Mass Effect 2. He elaborated that every one of my squad mates would live or die based on how I playd through the entire game. Such a statement inspired me to play something besides my usual "critical path only and just move on" approach and instead appealed to the min-max player hidden deep within me. If I'm assembling an intergalactic Dirty Dozen, then I want all of them to live, dammit.

As a refresher, the Omega 4 Relay serves as ME2's Rubicon -- once you fly through the Relay, a hidden formula begins tracking specific decisions you've made, derives some numbers, and then crunches said numbers to determine who lives, who dies, and when and how they go. After I finished the game and asked Hudson in a later interview about who on the development team can break down the formula and how it works, he told me that was impossible. "You can't just talk to one guy about how the endgame works," he said. "You'd have to sit down with the five or six people spread across different teams and disciplines to get the full picture of how it works."

Posted by Shri Krishna

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