General gaming

General gaming

OverClocked ReMix's Top Ten Tracks

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 07:44 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 27 | COMMUNITY IN GAMES

OverClocked ReMix's Top Ten Tracks

Cover Story: The best selections from the Internet's largest and most prolific fan remix group.

I

t's possible that you haven't heard of OverClocked ReMix, but not very likely; since 1999, this consortium of fan remixers has been producing their own amazing takes on original video game music, with 2300 tracks and 35 complete albums to show for their efforts thus far -- that's six-and-a-half days' worth of solid music, if you need to catch up. Since we've already told the full story about this gaming community a few years back, we decided to invite OC ReMix community manager and submissions judge Larry "Liontamer" Oji to scratch the surface of his site's monumental library by giving us some insight on the tracks he thinks best represent the creative superpowers behind OC ReMix.

Intro by Bob Mackey and track commentaries by Larry Oji     

Final Fantasy VI 'Death on the Snowfield' by AmIEviL

Originally "Terra" by Nobuo Uematsu

Smogon: Deep in the Heart of Pokemon Battling

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 05:34 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 27 | COMMUNITY IN GAMES

Smogon: Deep in the Heart of Pokemon Battling

Cover Story: We take a look at one of Pokemon's most influential (and controversial) communities.

I

t's Saturday morning, and more than a thousand people are online playing Pokemon. They aren't using Pokemon Black and White's online battling network. Actually, they aren't playing Pokemon Black and White at all. They're playing their own brand of Pokemon, which is largely divorced from the cartoon and the "gotta catch 'em all" mentality of the franchise at large. On Pokemon Online, one of the web's most popular battling services, the mentality is "gotta win 'em all."

Pokemon Online represents the part of the Pokemon community that rarely gets mentioned when talking about Nintendo's immensely RPGs. It's a community that is, at times, as fanatically dedicated as the famously intense fighting game community. The face of that community is Smogon, which has attracted more than 120,000 registered users since opening in 2004.

Will Gaymercon Help or Hurt Gaming's Gay Community?

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 03:37 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 27 | COMMUNITY IN GAMES

Will Gaymercon Help or Hurt Gaming's Gay Community?

Cover Story: Will next year's convention create a safe atmosphere for gay gamers, or will it simply push them further outside the medium's mainstream?

A

 few weeks ago, I received an announcement about a new game event set for launch in 2013. Called "Gaymercon," the event will take place in August 2013 in San Francisco. It promoters describe it as, "the first gaming and tech convention with a focus on LGBT geek culture." My initial reaction upon reading this was, "Cool!" Yet after considering it for a moment, I began to wonder, "Is this really a good idea?"

My ambivalence stemmed from several reasons. I favored the idea because I find the notion of gay gamers -- admittedly a subset of the mainstream gaming population -- standing up to what for them is often a hostile majority, and creating a gaming space of their own, to be quite appealing. I also very much like the idea of people who don't fit the mold of white heterosexual male, age 18-34 asserting their right to enjoy games and video game culture. Without question, gay gamers comprise an under-represented group, and I applaud the organizers of Gaymercon for being ambitious enough to want to create a safe gaming environment for the LGBT community. On the other hand, I find myself a little uneasy about the whole thing because of the danger of it becoming the game industry's version of "separate but equal."

Ground Zeroes Presents What Could Be an Exciting New Direction For Metal Gear

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 01:33 PM PDT

Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes

As part of an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of Metal Gear in Japan last night -- the original MSX2 title came out in 1987 -- Hideo Kojima and company had a big surprise to share along with a look back at the history of the franchise. A brand-new Metal Gear Solid game made its debut, and while those in attendance were not allowed to film the 20-minute demo that ensued, accounts of what took place have come out and should pique the curiosity of even those who have grown tired of the series' formula.

We know very little in the way of hard details concerning the curiously titled Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. The reportedly impressive-looking gameplay demonstration was powered by Kojima Productions' Fox Engine, first revealed last year, which was running on a PC with current-gen hardware. Following a scene with a young boy and an older man who was accompanied by soldiers and guard dogs in which we see an "XOF" emblem, the phrase "From FOX, two phantoms were born" appears on-screen. Next we see a man with an eyepatch and facial hair who appears to be identical to Big Boss and is only referred to as "Snake." A patch on his shoulder seems to support that this is Big Boss and the game will take place in or around the 1970s, a theory that isn't disproved based on the level of technology seen in the video. Of course, given what Kojima has done in the past, it's impossible to know if Big Boss (or a Big Boss look-alike) will be the game's protagonist or if he is merely a placeholder.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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