General gaming

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• The Age of Peripheral-Based Games is Fading
• Guild Wars 2 Breaks from MMO Standards
• The Worst Video Game Glitches
• Can Final Fantasy XIV's Next Update Resuscitate the Struggling MMO?
• Five Things Thief IV Needs to Get Right
• Crysis 3 Probably Won't Let You Toss Turtles At Bad Guys

The Age of Peripheral-Based Games is Fading Posted: 25 Apr 2012 04:31 PM PDT Majesco has announced a new basketball game for Xbox 360 today that doesn't have to worry about competing with the latest NBA 2K game, and not because it uses Kinect. NBA Baller Beats is a sort of hybrid rhythm/basketball training game that has you bouncing a real-life basketball in front of your television set. It sounds very gimmicky, and in this day and age there may not be much of a place for that sort of thing anymore. Such a premise automatically limits the potential market for a game. Kinect games require more than just the hardware itself: Players also need a clear playing area for them to dance, jump, mime, and whatever other actions are required by the game in question. That can be problematic for some people, as not everyone has a wide-open living room like those seen in trailers for Kinect games; I had to delay getting one myself until I moved because there was not enough room in my apartment.

Guild Wars 2 Breaks from MMO Standards Posted: 25 Apr 2012 03:36 PM PDT Whenever a new MMO comes up in conversation, a standard litany of negative, pre-programmed phrases soon follows. "I hate paying that monthly fee," for example, or "The tank/healer/DPS roles get boring." Developer ArenaNet has taken each one of those complaints and attempted to address them directly in Guild Wars 2. GW2 is an MMO, but its aim is to feature only the best things about the big titles that currently dominate the genre. The game takes place 250 years after the original Guild Wars, when the world sees a threat so immense that all the races are forced to band together to survive -- even the Charr, who were the enemies in the original title. No Monthly Subscriptions

The Worst Video Game Glitches Posted: 25 Apr 2012 02:09 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet The Worst Video Game Glitches A collection of the most game breaking-est bugs in recent memory. By: Steve Watts April 25, 2012 We've already talked about how video game glitches can be fun distractions, game-changers, and even influence future installments in a series. But these are the exception rather than the rule; more often than not, glitches act as annoying disruptions. At their worst, they can utterly devastate your enjoyment of the game, or break your progress and require a painful and time-consuming restart. Luckily, the more malicious glitches can be patched these days, but it's still frustrating to find yourself the victim of bugs like these.

Can Final Fantasy XIV's Next Update Resuscitate the Struggling MMO? Posted: 25 Apr 2012 01:03 PM PDT Despite Square Enix's fumbling of Final Fantasy XIV's launch, new glimmers of hope are shining on the game. Arriving a little late after what was arguably the biggest MMO debut of the year -- Star Wars: The Old Republic -- FFXIV's total overhaul seems pleasantly promising. Besides offering completely revamped interface, servers, and one-on-one player-versus-player combat, one of the most notable changes is the game's updated graphics engine.

Five Things Thief IV Needs to Get Right Posted: 25 Apr 2012 12:16 PM PDT Way back in the misty days of 1998, the late, lamented Looking Glass Studios turned out the first Thief and accomplished nothing less than birthing an entirely new genre. Metal Gear and Tenchu each threw their stealthy genes into the mix that same year, but Thief remains probably the purest incarnation of a stealth game where patience, observation, and intelligence count for more than reflexes. After the release of two sequels, the series has been left fallow for nearly a decade while games like Hitman, Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed took the basic idea and ran with it. Since then, gaming as a whole has gone on to incorporate much of what made Thief so unique, from the sneaking elements of Skyrim to the ubiquitous and universally despised "stealth level," which has since joined the "slippery ice stage" on the list of things everybody hates but always seem to end up in our videogames anyway. Later this year (or perhaps next) we'll be witness to a revival of the cult favorite, but Eidos Montreal will have a lot to balance if they're to satisfy long-time fans while incorporating the modern conventions we've come to take for granted. Thief IV won't just have to live up to its own legacy, but will need to catch up with the pace set by its own bastard offspring as well. Garrett's like, just this guy, you know?

Crysis 3 Probably Won't Let You Toss Turtles At Bad Guys Posted: 25 Apr 2012 10:45 AM PDT Besides looking beautiful, the original Crysis stood out for including an absolutely lovely and bizarre gameplay feature involving the local fauna at the fictional Lingshan Islands: You could use them as weapons. As part of the sandbox-driven design of the early parts of Crysis' campaign, the player could pick up and throw practically anything -- crates, corpses, and even wildlife -- and chuck them with lethal force. A thrifty player could, theoretically, sneak around and sling crabs instead of bullets. As visually impressive as Crysis 3 looks so far, with its swampy streets of Chinatown and verdant takeovers of skyscrapers, it's the presence of ambient wildlife that brings this little feature to mind. During a hands-off demo, director of creative development Rasmus Hojengaard points out that frogs now hop about in New York's newest plumbing development, but the player doesn't do anything besides look at them. When I had a brief chance to ask about whether Prophet (a recurring character throughout the franchise, and now the protagonist due to events in both the ending of Crysis 2 and whatever has happened in the 20-plus years between Crysis 2's 2023 time frame and Crysis 3's setting of 2047 New York) can use frogs with lethal force, Hojengaard became a bit more evasive. He answered, "We want to give the sensation of a living and breathing environment, but we don't want to arbitrarily have you pick up a turtle and throw it at someone as a gameplay mechanic, unless we can execute it more elegantly." Later on, he added, "We don't want stuff like being able to throw frogs just for the heck of it, as that's too much development time," and that causes me some concern. I'm hoping he changes his mind.

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