General gaming

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• The Essential 100, No. 31: Ultima IV
• The Essential 100, No. 32: StarCraft
• The Essential 100, No. 33: The Sims
• Tokyo Jungle Review: When Pomeranians Ruled the Earth
• The Essential 100, No. 34: Baldur's Gate
• The Essential 100, No. 35: Sonic the Hedgehog
• Joe Danger 2: The Movie Review: Unstoppable Joe-mentum
• Wii U's Price May Prove to Be Too High As It Focuses On Casuals, Not the Core

The Essential 100, No. 31: Ultima IV Posted: 13 Sep 2012 09:54 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 10 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART THREE The Essential 100, No. 31: Ultima IV Cover Story: One game said, "Be excellent unto each other," and changed RPGs forever. O ne the greatest strengths of video games comes from their sheer mutability. Games can take on myriad forms with endless objectives. Whether serving up simple high-score challenges or taking players an interactive journey to Hollywood by way of the Uncanny Valley, a video game can provide practically any kind of escapist diversion you desire: So concentration-intensive you slip into a trance of adrenaline, or such repetitive clicking and grinding your delta waves start to peak. Even within a genre, you can find an enormous gamut of styles, approaches, and objectives.

The Essential 100, No. 32: StarCraft Posted: 13 Sep 2012 07:18 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 10 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART THREE The Essential 100, No. 32: StarCraft Cover Story: South Korea's national sport helped defined pro gaming in our time. A t PAX 2012, one of the largest rooms at the convention was devoted entirely to the League of Legends region championships. Actually, "room" isn't quite the right word. It was like walking into gaming's equivalent of Thunderdome: Flashing lights, huge crowds, massive flat screens, and row upon row of competitors. For this spectacle, fans can in large part thank StarCraft. StarCraft didn't bring about the pro scene -- it's been around since people started chasing high scores in games like Donkey Kong. But StarCraft, along with Quake and Street Fighter, was one of the three pillars that helped set eSports on the path to where it is today.

The Essential 100, No. 33: The Sims Posted: 13 Sep 2012 04:34 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 10 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART THREE The Essential 100, No. 33: The Sims Cover Story: Playing house in the 21st century. I 'd be willing to bet that a lot of you found yourself in a similar situation that I did back in 2000. The Sims caused me to become fused to my monitor as I developed a sort of digital OCD for my virtual family. I had to make sure that their house was spotless, their lives were perfect, and their futures were bright. I spent hours upon hours pecking away at my mouse to meet this goal, until suddenly it hit me: Why was I cleaning up a virtual room when my actual room needed cleaning? Why did I place more importance on my character getting to work on time than I did on myself getting to school on time? For the love of god Will Wright, what did you do to me? Well, it turns out that SimCity creator/video game icon wasn't some sort of malevolent conjurer focused on ruining productivity, but rather just one hell of a game designer.

Tokyo Jungle Review: When Pomeranians Ruled the Earth Posted: 13 Sep 2012 03:18 PM PDT If Tokyo Jungle asked me to insert a quarter every time my critter got chomped, I'd gladly empty my pockets. It's strange that a PS3 game in 2012 is able to deliver the closest thing I've had to a pure arcade experience in well over a decade. The PSN survival story presents a surprisingly dense world with a series of interesting mechanics that encourage you to learn from your mistakes and rewards you for your willingness to adapt and evolve. I have a feeling that Tokyo Jungle is going to be remembered as "that weird game where you play as a Pomeranian," which is a bit of a shame. What it should be remembered as is, "that fantastic weird game where you play as a Pomeranian." The world is in ruin. Unknown forces have caused humanity to become extinct, leaving the urban sprawl of Tokyo to be populated by all manner of wild beasts. That's where you come in -- your job is to assume the role of increasingly larger animals, and simply survive for as long as you can before succumbing to the dangers of hunger, predators, and old age. Like those classic arcade games of yore, Tokyo Jungle is really all about playing until you die, learning from your mistakes, and making a bit more progress the next time you play. At the start of any survival mode round, you'll choose your character from an ever-increasing roster of animals that range from beagles and chicks to lions and dinosaurs. Each animal is either a carnivore or herbivore, forcing you to adapt your play style to whichever creature you choose. Meat eaters can go on the offensive and attack weaker animals, while more docile herbivores will need to take a stealthy approach to survival. As time passes, you'll need to find a mate, reproduce, and eventually take control of the next generation. This natural, organic approach to the concept of extra lives really demonstrates the game's smart design that takes a strange concept and runs with it.

The Essential 100, No. 34: Baldur's Gate Posted: 13 Sep 2012 02:57 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 10 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART THREE The Essential 100, No. 34: Baldur's Gate Cover Story: The standard by which PC role-playing games are still judged. C onjure up a mental image of a computer RPG. What do you see? An enormous adventure packed with nearly eighty hours of content? A fantasy setting that feels lived in and chock full of character? Pauseable party-based combat featuring layers of complexity and rewards for careful planning and creativity? Tons of genuinely interesting side quests driven by memorable characters, from shady liars to sickeningly virtuous rubes? You would be hard-pressed to name anything more representative of PC role-playing than the Baldur's Gate saga. Arriving in 1998 and concluding in 2001 after two core games and a pair of lengthy expansions, the series put BioWare on the map. It transcended its Dungeons & Dragons license, massaging the 2nd Edition ruleset and high fantasy Forgotten Realms setting into a sprawling epic that could have been appreciated by someone who had never rolled a D20 or scrawled the name Carlos on their dwarf fighter's character sheet. To this day the collective journey is a touchstone for PC gamers, a point of reference in any discussion of substantial RPGs.

The Essential 100, No. 35: Sonic the Hedgehog Posted: 13 Sep 2012 01:34 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 10 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART THREE The Essential 100, No. 35: Sonic the Hedgehog Cover Story: Sega's speedster played an important role in evolving the platformer. S onic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka may have read The Tortoise and the Hare, but he sure as hell didn't pay any attention to it. Naka and his team at Sega shrugged off the lessons of Aesop's parable, electing instead to view the rabbit as a source of inspiration. What if slow and steady didn't win the race? Perhaps the fable had it wrong; what if the race to the top of the platform mascot mountain could be won through raw, unadulterated speed? Well, that theory was certainly put to the test when Sega pushed all of their chips towards a blue hedgehog named Sonic.

Joe Danger 2: The Movie Review: Unstoppable Joe-mentum Posted: 13 Sep 2012 01:18 PM PDT Though the original Joe Danger saw its share of healthy sales and glowing reviews back in the summer of 2010, I don't think Hello Games' debut received the following it deserved. Falling in line with other popular downloadable titles like Geometry Wars and Super Meat Boy, the original Danger offered bite-sized levels with multiple goals that required a delicate mix of patience and skill to complete. Where Danger differed from these twitch-style games, though, could be found in its complex controls, which gave players a remarkable amount of management over Joe's aerial acrobatics at the risk of overloading their brains with the demands of six different buttons. With the sequel, Hello Games could have broadened the appeal of Joe Danger by simplifying their control setup into something a little less touchy and technical, but thankfully, they've held fast to Joe's original game play by requiring the same amount of meticulous multi-tasking from players, all in settings wildly different than the racing-related backdrops of the original.

Wii U's Price May Prove to Be Too High As It Focuses On Casuals, Not the Core Posted: 13 Sep 2012 11:40 AM PDT As expected, Nintendo finally revealed the details on Wii U we've been anticipating for months: a price and release date. The new system launches on November 18 in the United States in two distinct versions. The Basic set includes a white system and will be priced at $300, while the Deluxe set containing a black system will come in at $350. We also now have a clear impression of what to expect in terms of software in the console's first few months of availability. With that knowledge in hand, it seems as if Nintendo is gearing the system to a more casual audience, but if that's the case, it could be that these prices are a bit too high. Part of the Wii's resounding success was its $250 price and the free copy of Wii Sports all systems came with. The cost of tax and an extra controller aside, you were getting a complete experience for only $250, a price that gave it an edge over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to go along with its more approachable nature. It was improbable Nintendo (or any game console manufacturer) would be able to recreate the degree of success the Wii enjoyed; this price only makes it more difficult to begin to approach those heights with Wii U.

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