General gaming

General gaming

What Happens When Microsoft Opts Not to Focus on Core Games at E3 Again?

Posted: 07 May 2012 07:07 PM PDT

Xbox E3

E3 is now less than a month away, and Microsoft is scheduled to kick things off with its annual press conference on the morning of Monday, June 4. With E3 being a gaming-focused event and Microsoft having already made it clear there will be no talk of a new platform during it, one might expect there to be a big focus on games for the Xbox 360. As the company has shown previously -- last year especially -- it's more than happy to spend its time in the spotlight talking up the kinds of games and features hardcore gamers do not want to hear about at the expensive of core games. Unfortunately for those people, this year's show is not looking like it will be much different.

The big news during last year's media briefing was the announcement of Halo 4 and, by extension, a new Halo trilogy. Other gaming highlights included Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Minecraft as a 360 exclusive, Kinect voice controls for Mass Effect 3, and Kinect Disneyland Adventures. We also got a look at the new Call of Duty (which would be having its DLC come to 360 first, though this was nothing new), Tomb Raider, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (and its Kinect functionality, along with a promise of Kinect support in all future Tom Clancy games), and a few other things.

Datura Review: A Strange Trip Through a Motion Control Wonderland

Posted: 07 May 2012 06:07 PM PDT

I feel compelled to start this by telling you to ignore the score that you see above this text. Games like Datura are the reason that most critics hate assigning a qualitative value to their reviews. This PSN exclusive offers a flawed experience that is far too nuanced to be shoehorned into a rigid scoring system of numbers, letters, thumbs, or passionate adjectives.

On a rudimentary level, Datura can be crudely described as a Myst-like exploration title with a heavy emphasis placed on motion controls. But this terrible Hollywood elevator pitch can't possibly do the game's successes and flaws justice -- Datura is a strange, wild beast. It often buckles under the reach of its mechanics while simultaneously delivering immersive moments like no other game has ever done. It's a binary, frustrating experience, yet despite this, the game manages to provide enough enthralling moments to keep you powering through to the end.

datura

The Current State of Ace Attorney

Posted: 07 May 2012 05:15 PM PDT

After seven years and five games, we haven't heard much from Ace Attorney lately. The series that helped introduce Americans to visual novels hasn't seen an English release since 2010's Miles Edgeworth, which may have suffered sales-wise thanks to the absence of the series' central character -- this would explain the lack of an Apollo Justice sequel, anyway. Though Ace Attorney appears D.O.A. in America, Capcom's underappreciated IP seems slightly healthier in Japan, where various projects rife with anime courtroom melodrama are currently under production. Phoenix hasn't been completely forgotten in the West -- the excitement surrounding his appearance in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will attest to that -- but for now, we can only speculate as to which of the following creations will make the slow-but-steady transition into the English language. Fingers pointed, then crossed.

For Better or Worse, SimCity Brings a Classic Into the Present

Posted: 07 May 2012 03:21 PM PDT

About a month ago, Electronics Arts offered the press a look at Maxis' upcoming SimCity franchise sequel-slash-reboot titled, simply, SimCity. In the weeks since then, I've been tumbling a single remark by one of the game's creative leads around in my head, trying to nail down exactly what I think of it: "It doesn't make sense for this game not to always be online."

SimCity belongs to a growing set of PC games designed to be connected to the Internet in order to launch. While SimCity incorporates some exceptionally interesting and ambitious networked play mechanics, it is not a multiplayer game per se. You don't race friends to build the coolest city or have tiny Sim deathmatches. Rather, your city interacts with those built by others as part of a larger economy and environment: Cities connected within a region affect one another in terms of both pollution and trade. It's a brilliant and engrossing concept, but it's also entirely optional; should you choose to play solo, you have that freedom. Functionally, I see no reason SimCIty couldn't work as well offline for a single player as it would connected to a group of friends.

Bethesda Finally Takes The Elder Scrolls Online with New MMO Teaser

Posted: 07 May 2012 10:43 AM PDT

Fans have been clamoring for a multiplayer Elder Scrolls title as far back as anyone can remember. The thought gathering a group of friends and taking on Tamriel's dwemer, trolls and whatever else may spawn out of Oblivion has been the subject of many a fan's fantasies. With rumblings of an announcement inbound for some time now, Elder Scrolls aficionados can finally rest easy.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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