Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates |
- Eternal Blade (KR)
- OP-ED: It’s Too Soon for a PlayStation Vita Price Cut
- 3DS Ambassador GBA Games Still on the Way in 2011
- The Five Things Silent Hill Downpour Got Right
- The Hysterical History of Portable Consoles
- Finding an Edge Against Steam
- Prototype 2 Review: Why So Serious?
- Republique and the Price of Bringing PlayStation’s Spirit to iOS
- God Slayer (CN)
- Blade & Soul (KR)
| Posted: 24 Apr 2012 07:10 AM PDT
Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2011/11/eternal-blade-kr-debut-trailer.html |
| OP-ED: It’s Too Soon for a PlayStation Vita Price Cut Posted: 24 Apr 2012 04:27 AM PDT PlayStation Vita has now been available for two months in North America and Europe, and twice as long in Japan. In that time it’s failed to make any sort of significant splash as far as sales go — in Japan, where we receive weekly updates courtesy of Media Create, the system sold less than 9,000 units in each of the first two weeks this month, and it wasn’t as if it was doing gangbusters prior to that. Software has done poorly as well, rarely making the top 50 sales charts in Japan; in the U.S., only MLB 12 has been seen in the NPD’s top 10, and that is with sales of the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions being combined. All of the Vita’s games are also available through the PlayStation Store, so it is unfair to judge the performance of software purely on sales charts that only account for retail. The amount of hardware that has been moved so far, however, does feel like cause for concern. Sony is in a less-than-desirable position right now, as outlined in a recent New York Times piece. Vita not exploding out of the gate is relatively low on the list of problems for the company, which hasn’t turned a profit in years. But with new president and CEO Kaz Hirai recently pronouncing gaming as one of the pillars upon which Sony will turn things around, bigger things have to be expected from Vita. A middling success (if it can be called that) is not enough. Gamasutra‘s Chris Morris has suggested the company consider dropping the system’s price — in the United States it retails for $249.99 and $299.99 for the Wi-Fi and 3G models, respectively. In examining the issue, he doesn’t see it as especially likely, and with good reason, in my opinion. It’s too soon for a price cut. The most immediate question is whether Sony could even afford to slash the price of the system. While many feel it and its games are overpriced, especially with the 3DS being available for $169.99, Vita is being sold at a loss. In other words, Sony loses money on each and every one it sells. This is nothing new for Sony, as it was also true of previous platforms, including the PlayStation 3. Increasing the hit Sony takes on every piece of hardware it moves, particularly at a time where its television business in particular is struggling mightily, may not be feasible. As Morris notes, the early days of Vita’s life seem to be mirroring what the 3DS went through last year. Sales were unnotable in the first half of 2011; it wasn’t until an $80 price cut happened and an influx of software was made available during the holiday shopping season that Nintendo turned things around. It’s difficult to say what deserves most of the credit for the shift. The system was lacking quality software, a situation which was largely resolved between the release of Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 (and Monster Hunter 3G in Japan). At $250, the price was likely too high, especially for a system with nothing that looked as good as a $7 iOS game (Infinity Blade II) playable on multiple platforms with one purchase. And the holiday shopping season is traditionally where videogame hardware sees a big boost. All three played some role in the turnaround; I don’t think anyone would try to argue it was the price cut alone that was responsible. Vita had the benefit of a much stronger launch lineup than 3DS. Whereas the best offerings for 3DS were Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars and Super Street Fighter IV (the eShop was unavailable until months after launch), Vita had Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Lumines: Electronic Symphony, Wipeout 2048, and Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack to offer gamers. Uncharted was clearly the headliner, and that largely remains true even today, which explains why the system hasn’t made it big in Japan. Since then there hasn’t been a great deal to speak of in terms of original games; Unit 13 is fun but deeply flawed, and it won’t be until the end of May and June that Resistance: Burning Skies and Gravity Rush hit in the United States. A constant flow of software is sure to help the Vita’s case, and in Japan a single Monster Hunter title could turn things around in a hurry. There is also the possibility that Vita’s lackluster start is due in part to the lull the entire industry is currently going through. Total industry sales in the U.S. in March were down 25 percent as compared with the same period last year; hardware was down 35 percent. That’s continued a recent trend of sales being down worldwide. If and when that comes to an end, Vita may benefit from that. Allowing time to pass will almost certainly help to boost Vita sales, both because more software will be available and because we’ll be approaching the holiday shopping season, the significance of which should not be underestimated. The impact of a price cut also goes beyond the sales of PlayStation Vita. If it comes too soon, early adopters may feel shafted. And while that’s a risk you run by purchasing any new piece of technology, that truth doesn’t mean gamers will be any less resentful. Nintendo dealt with this by offering 20 free games (10 NES, 10 GBA) to anyone who purchased a 3DS prior to the price cut going into effect in August. Regardless of whether that was enough to satiate early adopters’ frustrations, cutting a new system’s price so soon could cause consumers some hesitation when that company launches its next piece of hardware. Whatever the Wii U’s price ends up being, there will inevitably be those questioning whether or not a slow start will result in its price being slashed soon after. Sony is no doubt aware of this, just as Nintendo was when making its decision regarding the 3DS. “With regard to the influence on the Wii U, what we have to take most seriously is that the price markdown could damage the trust of the consumers who bought the Nintendo 3DS just after the launch. I feel greatly accountable for it,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said last summer. “Our decision of the price markdown this time has a side effect that, at the launch of the Wii U, people may feel that the price might drop in the near future if they wait. Nevertheless, we have decided to cut down the price of the Nintendo 3DS as we consider it as a necessary decision now. What we will be able to do to recover the consumers’ trust before the launch of the Wii U is very important to us.” Although it has yet to be announced, there are no shortage of rumors about the PlayStation 3′s successor. Just last month it was reported that the PlayStation 4 could be out toward the end of 2013. That would not be a long time for consumers to forget about how the Vita’s slow start led to a price cut. After the PS3 had trouble initially selling at its exorbitant price tag, Sony would rather not give people any reason to wait on a purchase. On the other hand, a Vita price cut might convince those who are waiting for its price to drop to buy one to go ahead and do just that, though I think the potential of this is not worth the possible benefits considering all of the negatives laid out above. The software will come in time; there’s little Sony can do to speed that along without sacrificing quality. That doesn’t mean there is absolutely nothing it can do to make a Vita purchase more attractive. Those pricey proprietary memory cards could use with a price cut of their own; as one is all but necessary with the purchase of a system, they automatically increase that $250 (or $300) price by somewhere between $20 and $100. And the recent launch of an open beta for the PlayStation Suite SDK is a good start in trying to convince independent developers to create software for the system; from here it would be wise to do all it can to support such development. For all of the praise heaped upon Lumines and Uncharted, it is Mutant Blobs Attack, a small downloadable game, that many feel is Vita’s best game to date. Encouraging developers to bring more projects of its size to the platform will be important to the Vita’s long-term health. In this age of digital distribution, not everything has to be a $40-plus retail title, and the combination of offering cheaper games and cheaper memory cards could make Vita more attractive to consumers without Sony having to touch the price of the system itself so soon after launch. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/playstation-vita-price-cut-too-soon Incoming search terms:
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| 3DS Ambassador GBA Games Still on the Way in 2011 Posted: 23 Apr 2012 07:11 PM PDT The price drop may have resulted in the 3DS’ much-improved sales in recent months — leading to it already surpassing first-year sales of the DS — but it also left early adopters feeling like they had made a mistake by choosing to pick up the 3DS so quickly. Luckily a gesture was made to keep them happy: a selection of 20 classic games would be given to them for free. Nintendo still plans to make good on that promise by the end of the year despite rumors to the contrary. Ten of those games were NES titles released at the end of August. They are (eventually) planned for public release on the eShop, complete with additional features. 3DS Ambassadors– the name assigned to anyone who bought a 3DS before the price drop and enrolled in the free program — will be able to upgrade to these enhanced versions for free once they are made available. The other ten are Game Boy Advance games which Nintendo says it will not sell on the eShop. A release date was never given for their release to Ambassadors; they were simply said to be coming later in 2011. We’re now approaching the year’s end and it was rumored this week that their release may have slipped into 2012. Not so, says Nintendo. Speaking with the Official Nintendo Magazine U.K., a company rep stated, “The forthcoming 10 GBA Virtual Console titles available for registrants of the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Programme, will be available before the end of December 2011. We will make further announcements in due course.” Similar to what was done with the NES titles, only five of the ten GBA games have been revealed at this point: Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong represent half of what early adopters will get for free. It’s difficult to complain about a freebie — particularly a freebie that can’t be had otherwise — but the GBA games will be somewhat gimped as compared with other downloadable 3DS titles. Upon release they will lack support for Restore Points, Sleep mode, or any of the system’s wireless functionality like StreetPass or SpotPass. Of the remaining five games, what are you hoping ends up on the list? Let us know in the comments below. Source: VG247 Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/3ds-ambassador-gba-games-still-coming-11 |
| The Five Things Silent Hill Downpour Got Right Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:21 PM PDT March 2012 became known as Konami’s “Month of Horror”, with three major Silent Hill entires set to spook series fans and newcomers alike: Silent Hill HD Collection and Silent Hill: Downpour on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and Silent Hill: Book of Memories for the recently released Playstation Vita. Unfortunately, March turned into a “Month of Disappointment” for many fans with Book of Memories’ release pushed back to a vague “Spring 2012″ while the much anticipated HD Collection turned out to be a technical downgrade instead of the high-definition upgrade fans were promised. But some would say that being disappointed by a release isn’t anything new for Silent Hill fans; for many, it’s even expected. These fans believe that the quality of the Silent Hill series has been in steep decline ever since development moved out of the hands of Konami’s in-house, Japanese “Team Silent” and into the hands of American and European developers after Silent Hill 4: The Room. Many claim that the new developers don’t “understand” what really makes a good Silent Hill title, pointing out that Silent Hill: Homecoming‘s horror was less cerebral and more “typical Hollywood,” suggesting that the developers took too many cues from the 2006 Silent Hill movie. Couple that with the recent re-imagining of the original game in the series, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which many felt failed to provide even the most basic scares, and you begin to see many fans now feel the series has become a mockery of its former glory. With so much negativity in the air, it really didn’t help matters that the third game in Konami’s “Month of Horror”, Silent Hill: Downpour released last month to mixed reviews. A number of critics faulted the game for its cumbersome combat and technical issues (e.g., frame rate drops, glitches and texture popping). Despite this criticism, however, I truly see and rank Downpour as the best post-Team Silent game to date, because it brings the series back to its roots. Before I continue, a warning is in order: For those who haven’t completed the game, please note that while I don’t reveal any major elements of the plot, there are some minor game spoilers below. That being said, here are the five ways I think Downpour succeeded as a Silent Hill game:  1) It’s an original stand-alone story anyone can play.Downpour tells a well-crafted tale that doesn’t rely on continuity with the previous Silent Hill games. Anyone can pick it up and play the game without having to know the full mythos of the series to appreciate the story. More importantly, it’s not a simple rehash of the tropes we’ve seen used in previous Silent Hill titles. This was one of my bigger gripes with Silent Hill: Homecoming — the series’ first foray into next-generation consoles — which basically just copied the plot structure of Silent Hill 2, in which the protagonist suffers from amnesia about a violent act he committed in the past. That’s not to say that retreading is always a bad thing. One of the other Western-developed offerings, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, rehashes the original Silent Hill but presents it as a reimagining of the same plot and plays on fans’ expectations from the original story to present familiar characters with new agendas. But as fun as surprise twists can be, they still rely on familiarity for their impact. In contrast, Murphy Pendleton (the protagonist in Downpour) isn’t like the protagonists we’ve seen before as he deals with his own issues and unique reasons for being called to the town. I don’t want to give away the plot, but I will say this much: I was very surprised when I learned the true reason Murphy had been called to Silent Hill — and it goes beyond the simple “inner demons” justification we’ve seen before. I’ve seen discussion in online discussions where other players were able to guess where the story was going from a mile away. Personally, I was gripped by the story right up through the end, and my engagement had a lot to do with the storytelling mechanics used in the game. Murphy’s story doesn’t just unfold in cut-scenes; it unfolds bit-by-bit through flashbacks, character interactions, and even in the notes you pick up throughout the game. Even better, Murphy’s character arc isn’t rushed or crammed into the climax of the game, either. Instead, we learn his back story and discover his motivations all throughout Downpour. I appreciated the fact that many of the details explaining Murphy’s actions weren’t revealed in cut-scenes (as is the case with previous games in the series). If you want to know the full story of what’s going on, you have to take the time to piece together the snippets of information you’ve gleamed from notes scattered throughout town, keep a keen eye on the environments you explore, and pay attention to some of the side quests you complete. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/features/five-silent-hill-downpour-right |
| The Hysterical History of Portable Consoles Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:21 PM PDT Not to sound like an old fogey, but — oh, what the hell: kids these days are spoiled, what with their Nintendo 3DSes and their iPads. The best portable games are now only a notch or two below the quality of console and PC games, to the point where the average person probably couldn’t tell them apart. In the ’80s and ’90s, though, handheld gaming was a luxurious novelty, on par with staying up late on weekends and birthday parties at Discovery Zone. While Nintendo’s Game Boy was a somewhat affordable system that had plenty of good games and eventually dominated the market, some kids had to wrest them from their parents’ hands. Many just didn’t have one at all, and had no choice but to settle for cheap, dinky LCD games from Tiger Electronics and its contemporaries. But those early days of portable gaming were also when a grand fantasy started to become real. Gamers with wild imaginations dreamt of portable systems that could play their console games — NES, Super NES, Genesis, and whatever else — and instantly leapfrog the Game Boy. Wild as it was, some manufacturers decided to give it a try, shrinking home consoles down into handheld units with color LCD screens that would, ostensibly, provide the same quality of entertainment, only on the go. Though they all failed in their own ways, the idea (and the technology) slowly advanced through to the present day, when games of the ’90s are now “retro,” and carry the same sense of novelty as portable-only games once did. This is the story of the utterly weird evolution of the so-called portable console. Pardon the ‘Express’ionIn 1990, the first commercial portable console was NEC’s TurboExpress (PC Engine GT in Japan), a handheld version of their TurboGrafx-16 system in a Game Boy-like form, but with an almost-three-inch color screen and, like the Game Gear, supported a TV tuner accessory for catching local broadcasts. The screen itself was an “active matrix” LCD, which at the time provided a reduction in screen blurring that made the Game Boy look almost unplayable in comparison. The compromise was that the screen didn’t display every line of resolution that the TG16 did, meaning that games looked literally rough around the edges. And like seemingly every handheld that wasn’t the Game Boy, it required six AA batteries to run. Top that with the system’s overall round, rubberized look, and the TurboExpress resembled a piece of game-playing diving equipment.  On paper, the TurboExpress made perfect sense just by virtue of the TG16 game cards, which truly were plastic wafers that could hold some good-looking games and easily fit in a wallet (though actually sticking them in your back pocket wasn’t advisable). And the original PC Engine was tiny to begin with, so it would have been silly not to try to shrink it down further and slap an LCD screen on it. NEC seemed to have a knack for coming up with hardware that was at least a few years ahead of its time, and producing and selling it, too. The TG16 was the first console to get a CD-ROM drive (unusable with the TurboExpress, naturally), a five-player adapter, and a few additional system models at least in Japan that all padded out the product line. The TurboExpress was probably the most appealing of all of them, but being ahead of its time also meant a price from the future: it debuted at $299, the same number for a 3G-enabled PlayStation Vita from 2012, but technically more, considering inflation. NEC not only priced the Express out of the market, but cemented it as the handheld system of choice for discerning adult gamers who were probably already madly in love with the TurboGrafx to begin with, or rich kids who wanted to attract friends the easy way. (A price drop to $199 did little to relieve that.) Some years later, NEC gave the idea another go, and made the Japan-only PC Engine LT, a bulkier, flip-top unit that still played the same game cards and could get TV signals, but now had a bigger, comparatively better screen, plus the ability to connect to a PC Engine CD-ROM drive. But it, too, was a couple of years too early, and NEC made a relative handful of units. Now it’s one of the holy grails of TurboGrafx fans, but those with their heads on their shoulders will probably just stick with the Express.  But what about Nintendo? Sure, the Game Boy was cute and inexpensive and introduced millions of people to Tetris, but the prospect of taking your existing NES or Super NES games on the go would, on the surface, be more appealing than spending extra money on a Game Boy and its own games. The problem is that Nintendo game cartridges were the biggest of all, particularly the NES ones, so any portable-ization of their systems would have to compensate for the relatively huge carts. Nevertheless, some companies tried to do just that in the early ’90s, to varying (yet still low) degrees of success. For a brief moment, there was Biederman Design Labs, a tiny industrial design business — quite possibly just one guy in a garage — who developed a prototype portable NES called the “Express” (no relation to NEC’s). The Express was shown to Electronic Gaming Monthly in 1991, but even calling it a “prototype” would be too generous, because the Express looked like nothing but the guts of an NES stuffed into a wooden box and fitted with a screen and two controller ports (because plugging in the pads was more practical than trying to wrap your hands around the thing). That’s fine if you’re doing it for fun like well-known console modder Ben Heckendorn; not so much if you’re trying to take the thing national. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/features/hysterical-history-portable-consoles |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:21 PM PDT Steam is top dog when it comes to the digital distribution of PC games, and for many people it’s the one and only way to purchase PC games. Although it was maligned by most everyone when it was first released and made playing Half-Life 2 at its launch a real hassle, Valve was smart to enter the market when it did: it’s had the better part of a decade to figure out what does and doesn’t work. And being as early as it was, it’s become the definitive example of how digital computer games should be distributed. That puts everyone else at a fairly significant disadvantage. Because it’s not as if Steam was merely the first; it is, in many ways, the best option available as far as these sorts of services go — as long as you can look past the inherent DRM of using something like Steam. As other companies launch competitors, they have to worry about getting the fundamentals right. While they’re doing that, Valve is free to spend its time developing things like the Steam Workshop that make the competition look bush league by comparison. While playing catch-up — cloud saves, mod databases, and other Steam features are not likely to be included by any competitor right out of the gate — it becomes necessary to find some sort of feature or reason to compel people to use a Steam alternative. Good Old Games, now known as GOG, made its name by selling classic games without any DRM and with bonus features such as soundtracks, wallpapers, and artbooks. After finding success with that, it’s now expanding into the realm of selling new games, hoping the combination of its devoted userbase, strong customer support, and lack of DRM will help it to compete. EA’s Origin is still fairly new and so far does not offer any unique features — if you use it, there’s a good chance you’re only doing so because EA requires you to in order to play its games. Beyond that, it’s not doing much of interest, save for its integration in a limited number of mobile games. Even Valve’s Gabe Newell openly shares the opinion that Origin has yet to stand out in any way. “I don’t think they’re doing anything super-well yet,” he said on podcast Seven Day Cooldown (as transcribed by Gamasutra). “They have a bunch of smart people working on it but I think they’re still playing catch up to a lot of people who have been working in the space for a while. I think they’re recognizing what the challenges are with building and scaling out this kind of system.” He did say Origin may end up doing something “that is useful to software developers or to gamers but they haven’t done that yet.” And it’s true — years from now Origin may do something of some value you can’t get elsewhere. For the time being that is not the case, and with the exception of those who have a particular issue with Steam or Valve, it’s hard to imagine someone opting to use Origin over Steam if everything else is equal. GameStop is also a player in this space as the owner of Impulse. The company today announced it now has a catalog of more than 1,500 downloadable PC games available online and, more importantly, through its stores. We first heard about its plans to offer digital games in its stores last summer, something it planned to start doing with the launch of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Impulse, which the company acquired early last year, has been around for years now but, like Origin, doesn’t really stand out in any way. The ability to buy its games from a retail store is, however, an interesting feature, and one neither Steam nor Origin can match currently. The thought of buying digital items in a store may sound unappealing or pointless to those with credit cards, but for those without a credit card, PayPal, or some equivalent, it does open the door for a new group of consumers to begin purchasing digital PC games. And if those people begin to amass a collection of games on Impulse without running into any issues, they may be encouraged to continue buying their games through it even when there is no longer a barrier to buying games on Steam or Origin. And just as intriguing for frugal shoppers is the ability to purchase digital PC games with credit earned by trading in used console and handheld games. While those PC games can’t be used to continue the cycle of buying games and then trading them in, GameStop is undoubtedly happy to have new ways of encouraging its customers to trade in their old games, as it’s the sale of these titles that is more profitable than anything else it is involved in. I don’t expect that offering digital games at retail will suddenly have Impulse overtaking Steam by luring away its customers; instead, it’s more likely to expand the audience of people who purchase computer games digitally. In fact, it may result in Steam attracting new users as Impulse could act as an introduction to digital games. Bringing new people over to Steam is not what GameStop is hoping to accomplish here, but without coming up with some sort of unique features Steam doesn’t offer — and even that may not lead to Steam users flocking to Impulse, as many of them are now invested in their Steam friends lists/Achievements/libraries — this should serve as a way of generating sales on Impulse it would otherwise not be seeing. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/finding-edge-against-steam |
| Prototype 2 Review: Why So Serious? Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:21 PM PDT See the child. Hear her beckon forth, surrounded by the carcasses of men harboring murderous intent. Men you ended. Their last breath whispering about the sweetness of a child, or the satisfaction of killing the interloper that you are. Save the child, who you thought was yourn, but she reveals herself to be Mei lost in the world of dust, not the daughter you left behind twelve months ago. The voice in your pocket sputters forth. The man named Henry asks, take her, take the lost child Mei, take her to the mall. Give her medicine left behind by those who never set foot in Haventown, those who drop foodstuffs and medicines from above and never look back. Not since The Event. The Event that scraped the loam off the earth and turned it into the dust that hugs and holds and kills all who wander within. The dust that chips and gnaws at your very stamina. The Event that dominates I Am Alive. So you go, ever pressing on to find wife and child. Gone a year, but now you return, to climb and cobble and carry on. You cannot ignore Mei’s bleat for aid, but other survivors of the Event not so much as settle but subsist their meager existences in the dust covered Haventown. A man yearns cigarettes to pass on. Another man in an amusement park needs medicine to heal the leg that’s been crushed by another uncivilized man. Haventown also starves for supplies. Bottles of water, cans of fruit cocktail, a single inhaler, a handful of painkillers, these all turn into precious manna from heaven through scarcity. Give the emergency kit to the woman with the ankle sprain? What these bemoaning folk have to give, besides gratitude and perhaps a precious shotgun, is the Retry. Haventown harbors death by trial, not saves. It does not yield to the checkpoint that others call for. It takes away a Retry from your knapsack for every fall, stab, or shot you suffer. Deplete your store of Retries, and your journey resumes at the beginning of your current episode. A practice that leeches away minutes of your life. A practice that mocks you by depleting Retries and then flings you back to 45 minutes ago. What is worth more, the rat meat that can heal you, or the Retry that you get for giving rat meat to the gurgling man below? Every survivor, like the woman bound by handcuff to a bench, pleads for help while you mind debates. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/reviews?cId=3187021 Incoming search terms: |
| Republique and the Price of Bringing PlayStation’s Spirit to iOS Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:21 PM PDT What’s so terrible about DmC? People sure were angry when Capcom revealed this Devil May Cry prequel/reboot last year. Not having particularly followed the series myself, I found the outcry a little baffling. Sure, it was being outsourced rather than being developed internally by Capcom, but the studio responsible for it is Ninja Theory, who have yet to make a poor game; on the contrary, their work — particularly the recent sleeper Enslaved: Journey to the West — have been quite nicely received by critics. In the end, the complaints mainly seem to boil down to the fact that protagonist Dante suddenly has dark hair and a coif that look an awful lot like that of Ninja Theory’s boss, Tameem Antoniades. OK, so maybe it’s a little self-gratifying. But still, I have to ask: What’s so terrible about DmC? Now that I’ve had the opportunity to play DmC for myself, I have a hard time imagining that any fan of Devil May Cry fan wouldn’t enjoy Ninja Theory’s take on the franchise. Yeah, Dante has become something of a self-insertion character, and he’s a cocky twerp; but his brashness is offset by a delirious combination of over-the-top silliness and over-the-top action game excess. One moment, Dante is answering the door of his trailer home in the nude; the next, a massive demon is attacking and the hero dresses himself in slow-motion by free-falling through the air into his clothes. (Conveniently placed hovering free-fall objects such as slices of pizza manage to preserve his modesty to the viewer through an increasingly improbable sequence of events.) There’s a real sense of tongue-in-cheek absurdity to it all; were these events to simply flash past in a moment, they’d seem frivolous. Instead, they drag on just a little too long and become just a little too ridiculous, and that clearly deliberate excess amounts to a knowing wink at the audience. It works. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187023 |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:21 PM PDT
Various oriental myths and legends will be brought to live in God Slayer, boosted by the game engine’s potent power. But the lore just doesn’t stop in the East, as the main lore is mixed with elements from the West as well. Live weather system, day and time cycles, interactive environment are just some of the eye candies available.
Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/god-slayer-cn-chinas-first-ce3-action.html |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:20 PM PDT
NCsoft really has got balls, and titanium-clad ones if I may describe. If you are NCsoft’s CEO, would you have dared to teased the Summoner class calling forth awesome ink demons, only to reveal they are summoning kitty cats instead? Normally, I would have been a detractor, but NCsoft actually has got the full package in place, including the skill system for the kitty cat summons, the various gliding, swimming and moving actions, and even a music video! This is not a half-baked system just to score some points with the ladies, but a full working feature. My point is, if you want to pull off such a “stunt”, you must be prepared with the content to showcase and convince gamers it will work. This kitty cat mania is definitely a stroke of genius in my books. I am convinced, and totally in awe at the same time. Even my normally strict brother is hooked to the music video! Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/blade-soul-kr-my-thoughts-on-kitty-cat.html |
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