General gaming

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• The Essential 100, No. 91: Counter-Strike
• Battlefield 4's Underwhelming Reveal Exemplifies Announcing a Game Too Soon
• The Essential 100, No. 92: Secret of Mana
• The Essential 100, No. 93: Cave Story
• The Essential 100, No. 94: Rez
• Heroes of Ruin Review: Solid Multiplayer Salvages the Otherwise Uninspired
• The Essential 100, No. 95: Jet Grind Radio

The Essential 100, No. 91: Counter-Strike Posted: 17 Jul 2012 06:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 91: Counter-Strike Cover Story: This revolution in user-created game design helped define the modern shooter. B efore the ubiquity of high-speed Internet made today's online play and bevy of downloadable services a reality, Internet gaming of the late '90s was dominated by homebrew mods of the most popular FPS titles. Where Doom, Quake, and later the Unreal titles all inspired an eclectic and proliferate assortment of mods, the most famous and actively modded title still remains the first Half-Life. Most famous of these is undoubtedly the multi-player classic Counter-Strike, created by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe in the summer of 1999. Rather than offer the tried-and-true Team Deathmatch style of competitive first-person play, Counter-Strike was unique because the title focused on fast-paced team-centric tactical combat. Players joined one of two teams, Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists. The Counter-Terrorist team was charged with defusing a bomb the Terrorists had planted or saving a group of hostages the opposing force held captive. Counter-Strike was also unique because it afforded players the ability to purchase specific loadouts and customize their equipment as they saw fit. Success in matches earned players more money to improve their equipment and change their available weapons rather than what was previously common in finding map specific weapons and items in permanent locations -- something that remains prevalent in shooters like Halo.

Battlefield 4's Underwhelming Reveal Exemplifies Announcing a Game Too Soon Posted: 17 Jul 2012 04:03 PM PDT The plan for Battlefield 3 is to keep players occupied with new content through at least next spring, with the fifth expansion pack included in Battlefield Premium, End Game, scheduled for release in March 2013. In other words, Battlefield players are not hurting for content or anything to look forward to, provided they're willing to pay for it. Not satisfied with the money players may already be spending on Battlefield 3 and Premium (or the individual DLC releases), Electronic Arts is already trying to push its next big first-person shooter release by teasing the next Battlefield, a game which is still 15-plus months away. An advertisement for Medal of Honor: Warfighter showed up on Origin a few days ago before being removed. It revealed that those who pre-order the game will receive Battlefield 4 beta access, which is interesting because Battlefield 4 isn't yet a thing, officially speaking. It potentially seemed like a mistake; this doesn't seem like the ideal way -- or time -- to announce Battlefield 4. And whether that ad simply went out a bit earlier than expected or spoiled the surprise and forced EA's hand, a press release has gone out today making it official: those who pre-order the Limited Edition of Warfighter will get into the beta of Battlefield 4 coming in fall 2013. And now I, and many others, are wondering if it's too soon to be hearing about this.

The Essential 100, No. 92: Secret of Mana Posted: 17 Jul 2012 04:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 92: Secret of Mana Cover Story: An RPG whose audacity and ambition future-proof it against its technical failings. I  can't really say I expected Secret of Mana of all games to make the cut for this countdown; certainly no one among 1UP's staff or contributors voted for it. But enough readers cried out for its inclusion that it managed to squeak through and land in the outer echelons of the Essential 100. And, frankly, I couldn't be happier. I could make a list of all the things that Secret of Mana didn't do. It didn't offer radical, unheard-of gameplay innovations; it didn't revolutionize graphics; its story didn't change the direction of video game narrative; and it certainly isn't an impeccably polished masterpiece of programming. For many gamers, Secret of Mana's flaws hang above its legacy like a Damocle's Sword dangling from a frayed hair. Put its superficial flaws out of your mind, however, and you'll find a role-playing experience that remains disappointingly unique nearly 20 years later -- "disappointingly," because its best moments merit imitation.

The Essential 100, No. 93: Cave Story Posted: 17 Jul 2012 01:47 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 93: Cave Story Cover Story: A lighthearted adventure that inadvertently set the tone for countless indie titles to follow. D aisuke Amaya does not possess the look of a revolutionary. His frame -- medium height, slender build -- defines "unassuming." He peeks shyly at the world through shaggy bangs, a faint smile perpetually tugging at the corners of his mouth. When he speaks, he does so with the quiet thoughtfulness of a graduate student, not a firebrand out to change the system. And yet, Daisuke Amaya helped transform the shape of gaming. That's a tall order to place on one man's shoulders, and by no means do we mean to suggest that Amaya (who operates under the name Studio Pixel) did this work alone. Yet his magnum opus, a free-to-play PC game called Cave Story, became a flashpoint for the independent development boom that's revitalized video games in recent years. Cave Story may not have sparked the revolution -- independent development has existed for as long as people have been creating games, after all -- but like a pixellated Joan of Arc, it became both a standard-bearer and a symbol.

The Essential 100, No. 94: Rez Posted: 17 Jul 2012 12:07 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 94: Rez Cover Story: A video game with a creative approach like no other. T he core of what makes Rez so incredible lies in its creative approach. Ostensibly I recognized it as another rail-style shooter like Panzer Dragoon, but Rez still managed to present a distinct style that felt so different from anything I'd played before. At least, I can remember what struck me when I first laid eyes on the game back in 2001. In the years before I experienced the game through a high definition display and audio surround speakers, there was something charismatic about the way the main avatar pulsed in-time to the beat of the music, and the whole wireframe aesthetic looked incredible. But, perhaps more importantly, how could I gloss over Rez's unforgettable approach to sound. The more I played Rez that night, the more unique discoveries I made.

Heroes of Ruin Review: Solid Multiplayer Salvages the Otherwise Uninspired Posted: 17 Jul 2012 10:26 AM PDT You ever heard about those guys who get dumped because they spend too much time playing Diablo? I understand them; after all, how can you stop playing when there's a world to save, precious item drops to find, powerful magic artifacts to strengthen your weak little avatar and make it grow enough to face crazy powerful enemies as you descend in the depths of intricate, terrifying dungeons? This kind of stuff is what you should expect from any hack'n'slash worthy of the genre, right? Sadly, Heroes of Ruin is definitely not one of those: the items you get kind of suck, and the game is permanently set on "walk in the park" difficulty. From the beginning to the end of the campaign I never remotely felt endangered thanks to the generous amount of potions the game kept throwing at me, the excessively frequent health-filling level-ups, and a couple of handy low-level passive abilities that let my valiant Vindicator, a brawny anthropomorphic white lion called Snowball, refill his HP with every other enemy kill. Developer n-Space has misunderstood, underestimated, or ignored what makes the hack'n'slash genre addictive in the first place, and instead decided to create an extremely accessible title that does a great job at mimicking mechanics from other successful games. You can play as four completely different classes that were carefully designed to give their best when fighting alongside other players and customize your character by spending points on skill trees full of combinable passive, buff, and attack abilities. Of course it's possible to tweak your stats and change your avatar appearance with a ton of pieces of equipment, then embark on a huge number of optional fetch quests. And when you pick coins from broken barrels or defeated enemies, you even get that familiar "ka-ching" sound as a reward.

The Essential 100, No. 95: Jet Grind Radio Posted: 17 Jul 2012 10:09 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 95: Jet Grind Radio Cover Story: This Dreamcast gem branded itself with a style that alternately attracted and alienated. O ne look at the borderline-racist commercial for Jet Grind Radio, and you can tell Sega had absolutely no idea how to sell this game to an American audience. Anxious to grab onto something -- anything -- the company sunk its advertising claws directly into the game's Japanese-ness, which didn't really stand as its most recognizable quality. After all, Jet Grind Radio's crew looks more like they jumped out of a street mural than your average anime, but Sega clearly didn't know what to do with this odd duck of a game. Though, to the company's credit, my experience in retail proved the difficulty of selling a game that's trying something incredibly new. Roughly 10 years ago, I mistakenly suggested Jet Grind Radio's sequel to a customer looking for a Tony Hawk-like experience for his new Xbox. He returned one day later, slammed the plastic case down on the counter, and griped, "This game sucks!"

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