General gaming

General gaming

Survival and Hunting Add a New Dimension to Tomb Raider

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 04:37 PM PDT

At an off-site venue free from the roaring crowds of New York Comic Con, I had an opportunity to finally(!) go hands on with the upcoming Tomb Raider. Sadly, the experience would be my briefest demo of the show, but even a short experience can't mask a genuine effort to add layers of complexity to the series' typically one-dimensional world.

In previous installments of of the series, an adult Lara Croft navigated dangerous terrain and solved tricky puzzles in order to uncover larger mysteries happening behind the scenes. Even the villains in the old Tomb Raiders had one-dimensional motivations, typically to bring about the end of the world as we know it. Understandably, the new game ditches all of that. The villain (so far, anyway) appears to be the terrain and the harsh conditions in which Lara must struggle to survive. Yet, interestingly enough, before players navigate their first tomb as the younger Lara, first they must develop hunting skills and use them to ensure her survival.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter Channels Its Inner French Connection

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 03:05 PM PDT

Warfighter

As strange as it sounds, the most impressive element of Medal of Honor: Warfighter seems to be a first-person driving level...take a moment to process that information. As someone who usually hates when an off-genre element like tower defense is crammed down my throat during an action game (I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed: Revelations), I entered the demo for EA's FPS preparing to loathe my time behind the wheel. But suddenly, in the opening moments of a tense car chase through the streets of Karachi, Pakistan, I was overwhelmed with a strange sensation that I simply was not expecting: real enjoyment.

The setup was fairly simple -- a drop-off goes awry, leaving one man dead and your character tasked with hopping into your vehicle and following the culprit through the streets of Karachi. The reason this driving sequence worked so well is due in part to EA's impeccable job of creating and maintaining the illusion of choice. Like any great con artist, the designers made me, the mark, feel like I was in complete control of the situation. It felt like I was making the decisions on where to go during the chase, even though following the predetermined path of the car in front of me led me down the streets that Warfighter wanted me to head down. When I reached a point in the city bogged down by gridlock, I made a hard left and began driving up on the sidewalk. Although it felt like I had single-handedly made that decision, there really was no choice in the matter at all. And yet, the illusion held together.

From Japan: Will Dragon Quest X Fly or Flop?

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 02:12 PM PDT

Feature

From Japan: Will Dragon Quest X Fly or Flop?

Overseas: Making sense of die-hard fans' reaction to the online shift for Japan's most consistently popular RPG.

Fame, accolades, respect -- having a legacy is all gravy until you fail to live up to it in the public's eyes, and no series in Japan has a bigger throne to fill than Dragon Quest. Its most recent iteration moved a mere half-million units during its opening week, a distressing step down from the multi-million sales expected from mainline titles. This comparatively poor performance has the media abuzz with grim speculation: By reinventing itself as an MMO, has the franchise abdicated its position as Japan's so-called national game?
Posted by Shri Krishna

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