General gaming |
- Wing Commander Creator Returns With the Dream Space Game
- In (Attempted) Defense of Difficulty Spikes
- Far Cry 3 and Gaming's Next Great Villain
| Wing Commander Creator Returns With the Dream Space Game Posted: 10 Oct 2012 04:52 PM PDT When Chris Roberts left the games industry a decade ago, the type of space games he was famous for making -- Wing Commander, StarLancer -- largely went with him. It's just not the sort of game we see from anyone but small, independent developers these days, and those developers often don't have the resources to create something that is wow-worthy from a technical standpoint. Now Roberts is back and he's bringing with him a game which, if it fulfills its potential, should more than make up for his decade-long absence. After a tease last month that Roberts would be coming back with a space game of some sort, his new project was revealed today. Star Citizen, despite its uninspiring name, appears to be the game fans many of us have always dreamed of. Though it may lack the license of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, or any other popular franchise, it's difficult not to look at Star Citizen and become overwhelmed with excitement. |
| In (Attempted) Defense of Difficulty Spikes Posted: 10 Oct 2012 03:49 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 8 | DEATHMATCH! GAMES AND COMPETITION In (Attempted) Defense of Difficulty SpikesCover Story: The uneven nature of video games can be a good thing...right?D ifficulty spikes get a bad rap. You'll be playing a game, enjoying yourself, totally immersed in the match or the quest or the role-play or whatever, when suddenly the fun comes to a brake-pad-burning halt. When that happens, who's to blame? Aside from your wife/husband/mother/boss butting in and insisting you eat dinner/go to bed/show up at work once in a while, it's likely a difficulty spike. You're all familiar with these -- the sudden time limits, treacherous platform configurations and over-powered bosses who come out of nowhere. At first they seem like momentary setbacks, but after five, eight or a hundred attempts at beating them, you realize that your game just might be over. Yup, difficulty spikes, otherwise known as "game-ruining pains in the ass." I've been putting up with them all my gaming life but recently I was thinking; they can't be all bad. Can they? Difficulty spikes are generally about as welcome as finding half a roach in your Boca burger, but I think they deserve some consideration. For one thing, their history dates back to game development's earliest days. It's important to remember that before games went mainstream, they were made by and for a specific kind of tech enthusiast with the patience and tenacity to spend long hours beating his or her head against a pixilated brick wall. Back then, there was a certain satisfaction associated with overcoming a challenge most gamers couldn't and a certain stature allotted to those who managed it. No one whined about how hard games were, and game designers never troubled themselves with things like (snort) "accessibility." We all agreed that the game designer's job was to create mechanics so obscure, so insidiously cruel that only the most persistent gamers could ever overcome them. |
| Far Cry 3 and Gaming's Next Great Villain Posted: 10 Oct 2012 12:54 PM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 8 | DEATHMATCH! GAMES AND COMPETITION F or the sake of brevity, let's get the obvious things out of the way. Far Cry 3, this fall's latest installment in the open-world FPS franchise, is everything fans of the series hope and expect. The landscape is massive, gorgeous, an absolutely screaming to be explored. From seaside villages and lush jungles to wrecked ships and mountain-top plantations, Ubisoft has created a playground filled with more than enough interesting nooks to peruse. Whether on foot, behind the wheel of a jeep, or soaring under the wings of a hang glider, traversal through the environment is an absolute treat littered with constant surprises. Hunting, crafting, and ample side quests help break up the main goal of guiding Jason Brody, an American tourist caught in the midst of a vacation from hell, on his quest to find find his kidnapped friends. |
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