General gaming |
- Dissecting the Horror: The Mysteries of Spec Ops The Line
- Call of Duty Elite Simplifies Itself By Going Free For All
- The Unfinished Swan Review: Abstract Art
- Cover Story: Gaming's Greatest Mysteries
- Among the Missing: Notable Games Lost to Time
- All the World's a Stage in Sony's The Puppeteer
| Dissecting the Horror: The Mysteries of Spec Ops The Line Posted: 15 Oct 2012 05:31 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 15 | GAMING'S GREATEST MYSTERIES Dissecting the Horror: The Mysteries of Spec Ops The LineCover Story: Writer Walt Williams discusses the enigmatic beats of this year's biggest surprise.W hen we look back on 2012 decades from now, I have no doubt that one of the defining titles will be Spec Ops: The Line. 2K Games managed to use the framework of a third-person shooter to create a horrific tale of what war does to man. Spec Ops tackled topics and utilized a lens our medium has rarely dared to dabble in. Its depictions of PTSD, justified murder, and moral ambiguity contributed countless emotional beats that lingered with the player long after the credits rolled. 1UP had a chance to sit down with writer Walt Williams and discuss his story's inspirations, ramifications, and ultimate goals in the continuing maturation of our medium. 1UP: So just kicking things off... At the start, I'm wondering how the story came to be. Was it the setting first? Did you always know this was going to be Dubai? Or did you start writing the story and all of a sudden the setting... We need to have this place with such a stark juxtaposition between the lavish and the impoverished... |
| Call of Duty Elite Simplifies Itself By Going Free For All Posted: 15 Oct 2012 03:46 PM PDT The way Call of Duty Elite -- the subscription service for the massively popular FPS series -- worked never really seemed like the most sensible way to go. By having free and premium tiers, there was always a great deal of confusion among gamers, and this led to some unfair criticisms about how the money-hungry Activision was charging for stat-tracking services other games offered for free when, in reality, that was not the case. As Elite approaches the beginning of its second year in existence with the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops II next month, Activision is doing the sensible thing: it's making Elite (sans downloadable content) free for everyone to access. When it was originally launched last year, the $50-per-year version of Elite offered a year's worth of downloadable content, extra storage for replay videos, the ability for clans to level up, tournaments with real-world prizes, and Elite TV. The DLC was obviously the big attraction, as on its own that same content would cost $60. But the manner in which DLC was handled was not immediately apparent: If I purchase an Elite membership this past June, do I get all of the previously released content? Do I get Black Ops II DLC released prior to next June? It was needlessly confusing. |
| The Unfinished Swan Review: Abstract Art Posted: 15 Oct 2012 02:50 PM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 15 | GAMING'S GREATEST MYSTERIES G iant Sparrow had me at hello, although their greeting was a bit on the untraditional side. Upon entering the world of The Unfinished Swan, the very first thing a player can do is toss a ball of black paint onto the stark-white canvas of a three-dimensional world. The entire game is built upon variations of this wildly simple action, but the sheer joy that comes from filling in the geography of Swan's environments immediately demanded my attention. After playing through the brief, but lovely title multiple times over the course of a single day, it became clear to me that Giant Sparrow has created a PSN title that embraces the pleasures of exploration, all through the guise of a Golden Book come to life. You play as Monroe, an inquisitive boy stuck in a world comprised of questions. At the birth of his adventure, he finds himself amidst the infinity of a featureless landscape, and armed only with a supply of paintballs. Every ball of paint that you hurl answers countless riddles about the environment around you, and in such, Monroe's journey through this magical kingdom is inherently tied to the core act of uncovering the secrets of the world. Each area of The Unfinished Swan is uniquely gorgeous in a way that ties in with the core mechanics of that given moment. When you're painting in the world around you, the final artistic result stems directly from the type of player that you are. Those who go trigger happy and flood the world with color will find themselves in an environment that looks wildly different from someone who plays the game with an eye for conservative minimalism. |
| Cover Story: Gaming's Greatest Mysteries Posted: 15 Oct 2012 01:02 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 15 | GAMING'S GREATEST MYSTERIES Cover Story: Gaming's Greatest MysteriesJoin us all this week for a thorough exploration of digital enigmas.It's no coincidence that some of the most popular games of all time contain their share of secrets; both Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda kept people talking long after they defeated the final boss, if only to share intel on hidden items, warps, and Easter eggs. The answer to some mysteries, like Samus Aran's gender, became common knowledge after hitting the pages of Nintendo Power, but these early examples taught us all that poking and prodding at a game's exterior could eventually yield a beautiful bounty. And though modern games tend to overexplain themselves for the benefit of a wider audience, contemporary developers have learned from these classics of the 8-bit era, causing most new releases to include at least a handful of squirreled-away secrets for the most diligent of players. The advancement of narrative in gaming would eventually present many opportunities for mystery, as games that show rather than tell fill our minds with questions and leave us wanting more. Stories that don't end with a definitive conclusion keep us wrapped in discussion years after their original release, as we've seen with titles like Ico, Silent Hill 2, and Portal. (Though fans of Mass Effect don't seem to appreciate this approach.) And these mysteries aren't just limited to the games themselves; the fickle, unpredictable nature of the industry brings forth even more head-scratching opportunities, as projects and people fade from relevance, never to be seen again. Needless to say, with so many of its elements shrouded in mystery, our little hobby does an excellent job of appealing to the natural curiosity of the human brain. |
| Among the Missing: Notable Games Lost to Time Posted: 15 Oct 2012 01:01 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 15 | GAMING'S GREATEST MYSTERIES Among the Missing: Notable Games Lost to TimeCover Story: Why we can't play some intriguing pieces of game history.I n a perfect game industry, nothing would be lost. Developers would back up every project assiduously. Companies would archive every scrap of data. And every commercially released game would be perfectly stored by anyone who bought it. Yet ours is not a perfect game industry, and even today's technology allows a few games to slip into oblivion. A look back into earlier eras reveals that some games were rescued by pure luck, while other endangered titles have never bobbed to the surface. We discuss canceled games in another feature this week, and here we explore those lost games that were apparently complete. Some vanished just before hitting stores, and a few even disappeared after they were available to the public. All of them share one unfortunate trait: they haven't yet been rediscovered in an age where the great majority of older games are preserved and disseminated for anyone to enjoy. |
| All the World's a Stage in Sony's The Puppeteer Posted: 15 Oct 2012 09:12 AM PDT The framing device of a video game can often have a profound effect on a its presentation, especially if used creatively. Games like Viewtiful Joe, LittleBigPlanet, and Kirby's Epic Yarn each present their own unique devices and closely tie them into game play. Just think of those cardboard cutouts, the strips of duct tape on the sets, and the adorable hand-stitched nature of LittleBigPlanet's world, and you'll realize how perfectly it represented the idea of a canvass for virtual do-it-yourself ideas. Revealed this past August for the PS3, Puppeteer takes a similarly inspired approach -- one where the game takes place on a theatrical stage and resembles a 3D animated puppet show of sorts. Surprisingly, the title comes from a diverse set of talent that include Sony's Japan Studio, Gavin Moore as game director (formerly the lead animator on The Getaway), lead game planning by Kazunobu Sato (formerly a lead character designer on Siren and Siren 2), and producer Takashi Mizutani -- who previously served as a lead artist for three installments of the Metal Gear Solid series. |
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