General gaming

General gaming

Will LittleBigPlanet Karting Fulfill Our Mario Kart Wish List?

Posted: 02 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Several moons ago, we at 1UP compiled a list of suggestions to improve the reliable-but-predictable course of Mario Kart, even if the series' continuing colossal sales would likely have our advice fall on deaf ears. That's okay, though; as Marty Sliva pointed out in his preview of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Mario might not hold the kart racing crown for long. While Nintendo's made a habit of sticking with their successful tried-and-true formula, former competitors have shown that kart racing can still surprise us -- like Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong Racing, to name a few. While these games didn't create a 20-year legacy, they managed to nip at the heels of their Mario Kart corollaries by taking a refreshingly different approach to the cartoonish motorsport.

United Front Games' upcoming LittleBigPlanet Karting doesn't divorce itself entirely from Mario Karting; the game still features drifting, boosting, and a collection of weapons remarkably similar to those wielded by members of The Mushroom Kingdom. But in applying the crowdsourced creativity of LittleBigPlanet to the karting genre, United Front Games might be able to defy expectations with a racer that promises to surprise, despite its very familiar trappings. Though Sony didn't show enough of the game for me to for a definitive opinion, I can at least reach back five months into the past to determine if LBP: Karting will fulfill our karting-based desires.

The Unfinished Swan Brings a New Angle to First-Person Puzzlers

Posted: 02 May 2012 05:59 AM PDT

Last week's Sony event didn't offer many surprises, creatively speaking. If I'm permitted to err on the side of glibness, seeing two clones of successful Nintendo series and yet another God of War didn't inspire the strongest feelings of inspiration in me as a gamer. I would have handled this sameness with the expected reluctant tolerance, but my first appointment landed me in a conference room with the folks from Giant Sparrow, an internal Sony developer nearly ready to release its first game, The Unfinished Swan. This first-person puzzler raised my standards for the remainder of the event, and with good reason: I definitely hadn't seen anything like it before. The other titles on display? Well... not so much. If anything, you can credit Giant Sparrow for giving me unrealistic expectations and a distaste for the familiar over the following 48 hours.

Okay, so maybe the idea isn't entirely new; a video showing off The Unfinished Swan's tech has been floating around for a little over three years, but somehow managed to escape my attention entirely. The main conceit of Swan involves navigation of a completely negative space via blobs of black paint, which can be launched into the white void to reveal the surrounding environment. But really, what good are words when a video can convey this concept much more effectively?

Is Black Ops 2 America's Metal Gear Solid?

Posted: 01 May 2012 11:32 PM PDT

For all intents and purposes, war has changed in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. For the first time in the series' history, developer Treyarch is taking the reins and steering the COD franchise into the near future: A time when the battlefield conflicts of 2025 are settled through a combination of military-grade robots, human infantry, and deadly advanced weaponry. If any of these ideas sound familiar (and they should), you've probably played a lot of games in the last ten years... but it's the specific, and unexpected, connection to Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series that strikes me as the most interesting aspect of Treyarch's latest addition to Call of Duty.

These connections are more likely coincidences than a blatant crib job, but as Call of Duty tries to free itself from the shackles of conventional sequels and continue its legacy as a premier blockbuster, you can't help but see the connections between it and Metal Gear. I see five distinct similarities between Black Ops 2 and Metal Gear (especially Metal Gear Solid 4), and to my mind these connections can only benefit the series.

Snarf that Scarf: Gaming's Coolest Scarves

Posted: 01 May 2012 02:24 PM PDT

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Snarf that Scarf: Gaming's Coolest Scarves

Because all video game characters really need is some comfortable neckwear.

By: Nicholas Gasse May 1, 2012

Hipsters. Fashionistas. Grandmothers. These folks come to mind when you think of scarves in the real world -- not exactly an enviable group, by any means. But in the land of video games, only the baddest of asses don these squirrely pieces of woven fabric. Sure, your average video game protagonist may be protected by high-powered armor, or equipped with latest in devastating weaponry, but it takes someone with real guts to save the world while rocking a swanky scarf as the centerpiece of their ensemble.

Neurotic ninjas, femme fatales, space gunslingers -- just a few of the hero archetypes that prove wearing a scarf in the world of video games is not only a fashion statement, it's a sign of awesomeness.

Black Ops II Takes Call of Duty Into the (Near) Future

Posted: 01 May 2012 02:05 PM PDT

Call of Duty Black Ops II

Ahead of the world reveal scheduled to take place tonight during the NBA Playoffs, Black Ops II has already been confirmed as the next game in the Call of Duty series. This was expected to be the case at least as far back as February, although we now have some firm details we could only guess at previously.

It has since been pulled, but for a brief period of time the U.K. website for Black Ops II was online. A November 13 release date was listed alongside a description that fills us in on the basic setup for the game: "Pushing the boundaries of what fans have come to expect from the record-setting entertainment franchise, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 propels players into a near future, 21st Century Cold War, where technology and weapons have converged to create a new generation of warfare." A few screenshots were leaked (via Kotaku) as a result of the site's premature launch giving us a look at the quadrotor seen in an FPS Russia video the official Call of Duty site has been linking to recently. The preview image for tonight's reveal trailer on YouTube, which was uploaded privately and could not be watched, shows skyscrapers burning in the background in a scene that would not have been out of place in Modern Warfare 3.

Quantum Conundrum: A Nerd Stereotype Turned Video Game

Posted: 01 May 2012 01:20 PM PDT

John De Lancie plays the role of an omnipresent disembodied guide voice in Airtight's Quantum Conundrum: The direct GLaDOS analog in this Portal-parallel puzzler. I forget the character's name -- Professor something-or-another -- but it doesn't really matter, because all I can hear when De Lancie speaks is Star Trek: The Next Generation's all-powerful trickster Q guiding me through a series of increasingly complex puzzles before dropping the other shoe and leaving me stranded in the Delta Quadrant, or sitting in a movie theatre sharing popcorn with the Borg Collective, or something. And I'm sure the developers were aiming for this precise effect with the actor's casting. Lots of video games have tried to make players feel like the Captain of the starship Enterprise, but none have ever taken this route to get there.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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