General gaming

General gaming

Valve Improves Its Security Blanket by Bringing Non-Gaming Software to Steam

Posted: 08 Aug 2012 03:52 PM PDT

Steam

Over the past decade, Steam has gone from an optional piece of software used to deliver updates to Valve's games to an annoying hindrance which prevented many from playing Half-Life 2 at launch to the one and only place to purchase PC games for many gamers. It's been a remarkable transformation, particularly when considering just how significant of a portion of the digital PC games market it commands -- Stardock, which operated competing digital distribution service Impulse, estimated Steam's market share as being 70 percent in 2009. Steam has only grown in size since then, and while it now faces more competition from Origin, Amazon, and others, it remains the preeminent source of digital PC games. Beginning very soon, it will expand into a new market that will help to ensure its future growth even if Origin and company continue to become bigger players in the games space.

Valve announced today that the first pieces of non-gaming software will be released on Steam on September 5. No names were revealed; the closest we got to any degree of specificity was a line in the press release which reads, "The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity." That's still awfully vague, so it looks as if we'll be waiting a bit longer before finding out exactly what kind of programs you'll be able to download alongside your copies of Audiosurf and Portal 2.

South Park: The Stick of Truth Indulges Your RPG Nostalgia

Posted: 08 Aug 2012 02:50 PM PDT

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For the past 15 years, the South Park license has been shoehorned into a lot of ill-fitting genres. Whether it was a foggy Nintendo 64 FPS, an uninspired kart racer, or a just plain terrible collection of minigames, the Comedy Central staple has yet to find a suitable home in the video game world. So if you told me that the perfect fit for the smart, raunchy cartoon was in the shell of an Obsidian-built RPG, I would've chalked that up to yet another failed genre in the licensee's sordid history. But seeing the game in action at Comic-Con made me a believer, and as strange as it sounds, South Park: The Stick of Truth might just be my most anticipated RPG on the horizon.

It's immediately clear that this South Park game is built to appeal to fans of the show. Matt Stone and Trey Parker brought the idea to Obsidian Entertainment, the talented team behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Fallout: New Vegas, and have remained on the project as lead writers. Their presence gives the game the same tone and voice as the series, which is something that earlier video game entries failed to capture. They've also promised this to be the first fully-realized version of the town itself, meaning you can finally get a good night's sleep after finding out just where the hell that bus stop is in relation to everything else.

More than a Copycat: PlayStation All-Stars Shows Small Signs of Progress

Posted: 08 Aug 2012 12:55 PM PDT

You'd have to live in seclusion at this point to have not heard about Sony's PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, or how much inspiration the game draws from the Smash Bros. series. Indeed, many defining aspects of Nintendo's charming arena-style fighting game make an appearance in All-Stars, from the easy to execute character move set to the familiar countdowns at the end of a timed match. A lot of it traces back to the director Masahiro Sakurai's innovative fighting game brand and, for some people, that's reason enough to ignore everything else about All-Stars.

Despite some negative reactions to the mere existence of a Smash Brothers clone, let's take a moment to face a few facts: First, we live in a world where some shameful game clones can exist and, in some cases, quickly build successful ideas within the framework of their predecessors. Granted, the quality bar for these type of projects go by a case-by-case basis, but not every clone takes as cynical an approach as the Mortal Kombat-inspired ripoffs Tattoo Assassins or Kasumi Ninjas.

Persona 4 Arena Review: A Beautiful Mix of Accessibility and Depth

Posted: 08 Aug 2012 12:32 PM PDT

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Earlier this year I traveled to Japan to stream a major fighting game tournament called KVO: The Ultimate Battle that featured Persona 4: Arena. While I knew beforehand that the game was very popular in arcades there, I had no idea that people from all walks of life were playing it. Each game center I went to had players ranging from your typical arcade rat in their late teens, to suitcase carrying business men on lunch break. Schoolgirls whom I would just assume were skipping classes to get a few matches in and of course my friends and I -- a few "gaijin" simply curious about the game. Compared to, say, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 or Super Street Fighter 4 -- which still were getting a lot of play -- the attention Persona 4: Arena was receiving was far more diverse.

I couldn't help but wonder why this was the case at virtually every arcade I popped my head into. The Persona series in Japan is very popular, I know that, but what was it about this game opposed to other fighters that made everyone want to give it a shot? After swiping my NESiCA card (Japan's "digital token" system) across the arcade cabinet and getting a few rounds under my belt, I quickly started to understand how anyone could easily hop into the game and have a fighting chance.

Vanilla Sky: The Beautiful Worlds of George Kamitani

Posted: 08 Aug 2012 11:35 AM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 6 | DARING GAMES AND DESIGNERS

Vanilla Sky: The Beautiful Worlds of George Kamitani

Cover Story: Vanillaware's founder and the fight to keep games the way he likes them: in 2D.

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o dynamic better encapsulated the sea change the games industry saw in the late 90s than the clashing philosophies behind the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. While the PlayStation was instrumental in cementing the popularity of 3D games, the Saturn strove to be the ultimate 2D machine. This decision would prove to be one of the albatrosses that weighed down the system, ultimately dooming it to third place and heralding the eventual end of Sega as we knew it. But retail death had no bearing on the quality of the games that appeared on the system, which stood as some of the most beautiful, inventive 2D experiences ever made. Sadly, the Saturn proved to be a last gasp for the 2D era as 3D games rose to prominence; and even though 2D games made a comeback in recent years with the rise of digital marketplaces, few truly embody the spirit of artistry that Saturn games exhibited.

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Posted by Shri Krishna

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