General gaming

General gaming

Portal 2 Makes Designing Test Chambers Satisfying and Easy

Posted: 02 May 2012 07:20 PM PDT

When Valve first announced an in-game level editor would be coming to Portal 2, I was excited. Not because I am the type to ever mess around with such a feature -- outside of TimeSplitters 2 I can't think of an example of a map editor I have ever spent any extended period of time with -- but because I'm intrigued to see what sort of test chambers others create. That functionality was already in place for those who are more technologically inclined, but the new in-game editor promised it would be "easy-to-use" and allow for levels to be shared with other players. Based on the few hours I've spent with the new Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC, both of those promises have been met and, much to my surprise, I now find myself more excited to see what others think of my level than I am to try out others' creations.

Valve hasn't included any new test chambers of its own in this release. It has provided more than a simple level editor, though: New Cave Johnson story content is wrapped around the levels players create. Following up on what's laid out in the trailer above, the beginning of each test chamber features a new clip of the J.K. Simmons-voiced Aperture Science founder talking about alternate dimensions and passing along knowledge his new assistant has shared with him. Just as within Portal 2 proper, nearly everything he says is hilarious, and in GLaDOS' absence his comments provide a welcome feeling of cohesion as you make your way through test chambers which otherwise lack any connection with each other.

Cheap Xbox 360 Contract Deal May Herald a Cell Phone-Like Future for Games

Posted: 02 May 2012 12:04 PM PDT

Xbox 360

Every videogame console manufacturer wants its system in the hands of as many people as possible. A larger install base means more people to sell games to, making it more attractive to publishers as a platform to bring games to, and both of those things equate to making more money. And with there now being many new ways of generating revenue -- Xbox Live subscriptions, downloadable content sales, dashboard advertisements -- it's easy to see why Microsoft in particular would be keen on making the Xbox 360 as desirable of a purchase as possible.

A price cut is one way to open up the system to a new market, although there are limits to the extent the price can be dropped -- not to mention a limit to how low Microsoft wants to take the price, given that it's selling better than the competition at its current price point. The company seems to have found a way to have its cake and eat it too, so to speak. The Verge reports Microsoft will make a 4GB Xbox 360 Kinect bundle available for only $99, albeit with a catch: It carries a two-year contract with a monthly fee of $15. Included with that fee would be a two-year warranty, a two-year Xbox Live Gold membership, "and possibly some additional streaming content from cable providers or sports package providers."

Pokemon Conquest Externalizes the Poke-Complexity

Posted: 02 May 2012 10:09 AM PDT

The Pokémon series, for all that people write it off as a bunch of kids' games, harbors a frankly impressive mechanical depth that just might help us crank out a generation of intelligent young Americans despite our education system's shambling collapse. Even without getting into all those terrifying invisible traits -- natures and IVs and EVs and what have you -- the Pokémon games reward spur-of-the-moment tactical thinking, long-term planning, and asset management alike. The series' complex web of relative strengths and weaknesses and vast pool of moves and powers gains an extra layer of trade-offs and balances when you factor in the fact that you can only travel with six of more than 600 monsters, each of which can only hold four skills at a time.

Pokémon Conquest, a Koei-developed strategy game co-starring a hand-picked selection of 200 of Game Freak's marketable little critters, may well be every bit as mentally demanding as the core Pokémon games. It might not seem it at first, though; not only does it contain far fewer pokémon than the upcoming Black & White Version 2, each creature carries only a single battle command into combat. On top of that, each skill is set per species from the start; if (hypothetically speaking) it turns out one pikachu wades into the fray with nothing but the Thunderbolt command at hand, that's the skill every single pikachu will know. And you can forget all about those invisible traits; Pokémon Conquest knows nothing of IVs and EVs or even natures.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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