General gaming |
- 1UP's Best of E3 2012
- Star Wars 1313 Offers a Glimpse Into the Future
- FFXIV Interview: Phoenix Down For a Fallen MMO
- Project Happiness Brings Some Much-Needed Warmth to E3
- Despite What You May Have Heard, E3 Featured More Than Just Shooters
- Nintendo Offers Two Different Takes on Mario
| Posted: 08 Jun 2012 10:08 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 4 | E3 2012 1UP's Best of E3 2012Cover Story: We played a whole lot of games this week. Here's what we loved.T his year's E3 has come to an end, though we still have plenty to say about the games we've seen over the past week -- both good and bad. For the moment, though, let's celebrate the good. We've singled out more than 30 different games across 10 categories as the best of the show, after which we voted for the final picks over the course of several lengthy sessions (which we've recorded for posterity in the form of our latest Games, Dammit! episode). The titles below therefore represent some of the finest games of the coming year. 1UP took a slightly different tack to categories this year, though. Most publications' E3 voting (including our own in years past) observes standard formats such as "best of platform" or "best of genre," but it's occurred to us that those categories don't mean as much as they used to. Most of today's best games appear on multiple platforms, and genre boundaries have grown so fuzzy as to be practically immaterial. Instead, we've chosen to adopt what we consider to be more meaningful awards based around categories that reflect the "future of games" angle from which we tackled this year's show. |
| Star Wars 1313 Offers a Glimpse Into the Future Posted: 08 Jun 2012 06:01 PM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 4 | E3 2012 M icrosoft and Sony may be holding on to their next generation hardware announcements until E3 2013, but that doesn't mean this year's show didn't offer a hint of things to come. LucasArts held a behind closed doors demo of Star Wars 1313, the companies first mature foray into the iconic universe. The ambitious project is being worked on by all facets of George Lucas' creative empire, including Skywalker Sound, Industrial Light & Magic, and Lucasfilm Animation. This internal super group of talent really proves themselves immediately upon viewing the and realizing how absolutely gorgeous it is. The demo itself highlighted a brief scene featuring a pair of space scoundrels descending into Coruscant's 1313, the capital planet's notorious den of scum and villainy. Things inevitably go awry, and the pair are forced to battle through the halls of a ship as it's slowly blasted apart. The action exudes various shades of Uncharted as your character hops between cover points, blind fires his blaster around corners, and even pulls an enemy over a low barrier for a very Drake-esque melee kill. The final moments of the demo had the protagonist shimmying across the outside of the ship and performing impossible leaps to avoid going down with the vessel. This may all seem like pretty standard stuff, but it was the presentation of George Lucas' world that really put this game over the top. |
| FFXIV Interview: Phoenix Down For a Fallen MMO Posted: 08 Jun 2012 05:49 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 4 | E3 2012 FFXIV Interview: Phoenix Down For a Fallen MMOCover Story: We interview FFXIV's new producer, Naoki Yoshida, about reviving a dead MMO and the game's ambitious plans for version 2.0.N early two years ago, Final Fantasy XIV got off to a rocky start. Shortly after the disastrous launch, Naoki Yoshida, affectionately known as "Yoshi-P," took over the project, and did something amazing: actually tried to fix the game. Even more shocking? It seems to be working. Final Fantasy XIV is pretty enjoyable now, and it took a lot to get it there. Since Yoshida took over, Square Enix has...
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| Project Happiness Brings Some Much-Needed Warmth to E3 Posted: 08 Jun 2012 04:13 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 4 | E3 2012 Project Happiness Brings Some Much-Needed Warmth to E3Cover Story: Three powerful words from the creator of Harvest Moon: "Violence is boring."I f you judged E3 by the non-Nintendo conferences alone, it wouldn't be hard to imagine the show floor as an increasingly violent gauntlet of simulated murder and brutality, with each successive publisher promising the latest in accurately rendered exit wound technology. But, as we attendees quickly learned, games with a far different approach existed within the halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center -- you just had to track them down. And, lucky for me, the most atypical E3 showing could be found adjacent to a giant, inflatable cow towering over Natsume's booth; this monument to all things Harvest Moon served as a fitting tribute to the series' 15th anniversary, even if this occasion brings with it a change in management. Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada has recently decided to take a hands-off approach to his famed farming series, but on his own terms. Not much Is known about his new IP, Project Wonderful, but Wada's focus is clear; much like how the original SNES Harvest Moon defied the expectations of gamers in the 16-bit era, Project Happiness (the game's working title) stands in direct opposition to the gritty, dark, and ultraviolent titles receiving the most mainstream attention this generation. Admittedly, it's tough to ask developers their opinion on the industry in general without tacitly implying that they should criticize their competition, but, without naming names, Wada told me that selling a game based on graphics alone makes for the easiest way to impress players, then gave me a single quote that spoke volumes about the rowdy, chest-thumping bro culture spreading like a virus throughout the industry: "Violence is boring." |
| Despite What You May Have Heard, E3 Featured More Than Just Shooters Posted: 08 Jun 2012 03:38 PM PDT This year's E3 has come and gone, and in its wake it has left many gamers feeling negative over the number of games which revolve around shooting. Particularly when you look at the big press briefings, shooting was all over the place -- without naming them all, Microsoft had Halo 4, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2; Sony had The Last of Us and Far Cry 3; Electronic Arts had Crysis 3 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter; Ubisoft had ShootMania Storm; and even Nintendo had some shooters with brief appearances by Mass Effect 3, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and ZombiU. That is inarguably a lot of shooters, and they ended up coming across as the show's main attractions due to their positioning in the briefings. The response to this from many gamers and a number members of the press has been to bemoan the lack of originality on display. However, before succumbing to this pessimistic point of view, it's worth noting that this was really only true of the press briefings themselves. And there's a reason for that -- these showcases are not geared toward fans of Lumines, nor is the intended audience the type looking for platform holders to convince them with graphs, charts, and sales numbers that they are doing great, thank you very much. |
| Nintendo Offers Two Different Takes on Mario Posted: 08 Jun 2012 12:59 PM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 4 | E3 2012 N intendo will publish two Mario platformers this fall, and both fall squarely into the New Super Mario Bros. style. This won't be like having Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros. in quick succession; we're talking about two side-scrolling platforms built around common mechanics and boasting an identical graphical style. Sure, New Super Mario Bros. U benefits from Wii U's high-definition visuals, while New Super Mario Bros. 2 offers lower resolution in return for the benefits of portability. Overkill? Mario overload? Possibly not. Even within this very similar design ethos, NSMBU and NSMB2 manage to distinguish themselves with distinct mechanics and objectives. You can already see the New Super Mario franchise performing a sort of mitosis, dividing into the two distinct branches of console and portable. |
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