General gaming

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• Battlefield 3's Unlockable 'Shortcuts' a Divisive Subject
• Notorious Food-Based Games of the '90s
• The '90s Console Release Charticle
• President Clinton's Top 6 Video Game Cameos
• Underdog Consoles of the '90s
• Gallery: The Most X-Treme Game Ads of the '90s
• The '90s Revisited
• Why the '90s Rocked
• Max Payne 3 Weaves Narrative and Multiplayer Together

Battlefield 3's Unlockable 'Shortcuts' a Divisive Subject Posted: 29 Mar 2012 06:08 PM PDT The latest update for Battlefield 3 is now here, bringing with it numerous improvements, changes, and features, one of which is not sitting well with some players. Many of the improvements to the PC version do appear to be good things. The commo rose now handles better and has new options, most notably the ability to call out for ammo, health, or repairs at any time. Gone are the days of desperately looking around for a medic when badly in need of health, which I can't say I will miss. Other additions: jeeps now have horns to help alert teammates you're trying to pick up; helicopter pilots are now better rewarded for flying well; the SOFLAM is effective even when you're not controlling it; suppression bonuses are easier to earn; all players have IR flares from the start to help them succeed as pilots; and the minimap has been improved. That still leaves a number of issues unaddressed, but these all strike me as changes for the better.

Notorious Food-Based Games of the '90s Posted: 29 Mar 2012 05:00 PM PDT Back in the halcyon days of the early '90s, food extended far beyond the hot plate by frequently making its way into our video games. Companies across the entire edible spectrum saw this new fan-dangled medium of interactivity and thought it would be a great idea to allow gamers to violate the cardinal rule of the dinner table and actually play with their food. Sadly, most of these efforts resulted in less-than stellar results, as indicated by the following examples of product placement games. Keep in mind that a lot of these were full priced releases -- this was long before the time when Sneak King came alongside a BK Veggie with cheese. Seth Macy wrote a great feature about Corporate Schlock a while back, but this time around the focus is going to be strictly on the Decade That Clinton Built. Aside from the monetary joys that stem from product placement, the question still remains: Why the '90s were such a humid breeding ground for licensed games based on food, the places that serve food, and the mascots who champion food? Yo! Noid - NES '90 There's going to be a very distinct generational divide with this one, so prepare yourselves. The Noid was a mid-'80s creation by Domino's Pizza that used each of the seven deadly sins in order to ruin your pizza experience. Delivery guy got a flat tire? Noid. Cheese is burnt? Noid. Immediately regret that you're filling your body with the physical manifestation of shame? Well, the Noid's only partly responsible for that. Like all great mascots of the era, the Noid got his fair share of video game titles, but the one I want to focus on is the 1990 NES classic Yo! Noid. Without a comma between the two words, one can only assume that the title is yelling in order to get your attention. Misused punctuation aside, Yo! Noid is actually a revolutionary entry into the pantheon of gaming. Instead of being a delivery boy trying to avoid the Noid, the game shook the very foundations of storytelling by placing us in control of the trickster god; in many ways, Yo! Noid is the Paradise Lost of video games. Sadly, the game commits the cardinal sin of platformers by switching the functions of the A and B buttons. Could this have been the Noid's plan all along? M.C. Kids - NES '92

The '90s Console Release Charticle Posted: 29 Mar 2012 04:59 PM PDT You love charticles! We love charticles! Wait, what's a charticle, you ask? As part of our coverage for The '90s Revisited, we decided nothing tells a story better than visual aids. In this case, the '90s Console Release Charticle -- it's a chart, and an article! -- displays the lifespan of consoles in the '90s and highlights a few important games from that era. Just don't call it an infographic; that term is so... '80s.

President Clinton's Top 6 Video Game Cameos Posted: 29 Mar 2012 04:57 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet President Clinton's Top 6 Video Game Cameos The nineties-est world leader of them all popped up in the weirdest of places. By: Bob Mackey March 28, 2012 For eight years of the 1990s, William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton reigned supreme over a country that still had a few jobs and dollars to rub together, and, like all world leaders, found himself directly under the lens of public scrutiny during every second of his waking life. Our ruddiest POTUS to date had a penchant for antics, and delighted/angered the world with everything from televised saxophone performances to serious investigations into the meaning of the English language's most reliable verb. Due to this rich vein of comedy gold, Clinton made for an easy target, especially for lazy late-night comedians looking to unload a surplus of outdated fat Southerner jokes on an unsuspecting audience -- and he even became the subject of video game lampoonery as well. Even though gaming's a notoriously apolitical medium, Slick Willie managed to pull off a few memorable appearances that made us all appreciate our First Amendment right to poke fun at a guy who could easily blow up the world ten times over.

Underdog Consoles of the '90s Posted: 29 Mar 2012 04:32 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet Underdog Consoles of the 90s 1UP editors talk about the unsung heroes of the 90s console war. By: 1UP Staff March 29, 2012 The 90s ushered in some great video game consoles. But we still have fond memories of plenty of products that didn't strike commercial success. The 1UP staff was asked to share their favorite underdog console of that fateful decade. J. Kartje, Atari Jaguar $250 To this day, the Atari Jaguar symbolizes something hopefully amazing, yet unattainable for me. I was just a kid when I was gifted with a Sega Genesis from my parents. They were good parents, so they obviously were wary of me spending too much time playing video games. They also didn't want me begging them to spend money on the next best thing, which at the time was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. So, like any thwarted child, I would read about the cool stuff that I couldn't have. I remember flipping through an issue of EGM, when I saw an ad for a new console that had just launched. It was a 64-bit system. 64 BITS! (At the time I had no idea what that meant, but the numbers were higher, so that was good enough for me) That impossibly cool new system was the Atari Jaguar. I had been saving up money to buy a new console and now I had my sights set on the Jaguar. But the fact that there weren't any Jaguars available at the local Target and my parents pointing out that there were very few games available, led to my purchasing of the SNES. A decision that, in retrospect, was very wise.

Gallery: The Most X-Treme Game Ads of the '90s Posted: 29 Mar 2012 04:23 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet Gallery: The Most X-Treme Game Ads of the '90s Feast your eyes upon some of the raddest magazine ads of the 1990s. By: Scott Sharkey March 28, 2012 The 90s: when men were men, women were made entirely out of boobs, and everything else was exploding and/or screaming. It was a decade that represented the rebellious teenage years of both gaming and the generation that grew up with it. "YOU ARE NOT READY," "PLAY IT LOUD," and "SUCK IT DOWN" were the boastful and occasionally kind-of-rapey slogans of an era that resembled nothing so much as a ten year long Powerthirst commercial. Here are a few of the most extreme, in-your-face, shit-wrecking ads of that long, embarrassing adolescence. Is your shit unwrecked? Then you're DOING IT WRONG. Like maybe you're some kind of GIRL, or a SMALL, PATHETIC ANIMAL whose SHIT IS NOT WORTH WRECKING. Get on the stick and BUY NEW SHIT.

The '90s Revisited Posted: 29 Mar 2012 04:23 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet The '90s Revisited 1UP looks back to gaming's most x-treme decade of all! By: 1UP Staff March 29, 2012 You know, we miss the '90s. We miss that illusion of peace in the world, the downtime between the Cold War and the War on Terrorism, where conflicts seemed so localized and remote. We miss having a stable economy. We miss the days when the Internet seemed new and interesting rather than a bloated mess of ads and memes. But most of all, gosh darn it, we miss the games. Video games may well have been at their best in the '90s. Not to downplay current games by any means, but the industry of the '90s just seemed more... well, diverse. Wild ideas were treated equally to sure-fire hits rather than being forced to eke out an existence as budget-priced indie releases.

Why the '90s Rocked Posted: 29 Mar 2012 04:22 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet Why the '90s Rocked Four reasons gamers should love that bygone decade of grunge music and Clinton scandals. By: Jeremy Parish March 29, 2012 The theme of our '90s Revisited feature is that the '90s were awesome. But why they so great for gamers? We've pin-pointed a few key reasons.

Max Payne 3 Weaves Narrative and Multiplayer Together Posted: 29 Mar 2012 10:43 AM PDT Max Payne and I go way back. Throughout the series' first two installments, I was wholly immersed in its stark shadows, smoky atmosphere, and hard-boiled dialogue. I brandished my pistols and dove sideways more times than I could count. I cherished the horror and violence of his revenge as if it were written by Raymond Chandler himself, and yet, a place that I'd never experience Max Payne's world was online. That void was quickly remedied when I got my hands on a small slice of the multiplayer portion of Rockstar's next effort, Max Payne 3. MP3 is attempting to destroy the barriers between single and multiplayer in a wide variety of ways. We've written about the solo portion before, but this time we got to spend some time in the online Gang Wars. The story in Gang Wars, the most fleshed out mode of multiplayer, runs alongside that of the solo campaign. The skirmishes you take part in online will oftentimes be set moments before Max's arrival to a location during the story, or sometimes in the charred remains of where his whirlwind tour of revenge previously swept through. While third-person works fine offline, the perspective can oftentimes lead to ineligent combat that feels more like a frantic crapshoot than a strategic faceoff; even phenomenal titles like Red Dead Redemption suffer in moments of intense action. While I was a bit worried that MP3's multiplayer would stall under the same stress, I'm happy to report that the impeccable energy from the series' singleplayer campaigns transfers over quite well into the online arena. Yes, there were still a handful of moments where it seemed like my opponent and I both cracked under pressure, especially once combat became an up close affair, but the game remained a controlled experience for the most part. Rockstar showed off a slew of game matches, most of which were slight variations on genre classics like team deathmatch and king of the hill. One unique mode is called Payne Killer, which starts off as a free-for-all until someone scores the first kill. After this occurs, the killer becomes Max Payne, while the victim transforms into his singleplayer sidekick Passos. These two characters come equipped with special weapons, higher health, and unique abilities. It then becomes the task of the remaining players to work together in taking down these two protagonists. Whoever scores the kill against Max or Passos earns the right to play as the powerful hero. This mode encouraged players to work together in short spurts to take down the two powerhouses, but those alliances you make will quickly be severed once one member gets the kill and joins the other side.

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