General gaming |
- Why Gamecock Failed
- Mario Kart 7 is Safe at Any Speed
- Mario 3D Land's Tanooki Suit Revival isn't OK with PETA
- Resistance's Website Taken Offline Following Hacking
- Review: Assassin's Creed Revelations is a Solid Sequel That Shows The Flaw of Annual Installments
- Arkham City Dev Needs Help Resolving 360 Missing Save Issue
- Review: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is Great For Tournament Players, But Not Quite For Casuals
| Posted: 14 Nov 2011 03:31 PM PST
Feature Mike Wilson. Harry Miller, and Rick Stults had done this before. Wilson came from stints at id Software and Ion Storm, while Miller had served as CEO of Ritual Entertainment, and all three were founders of Gathering of Developers, a.k.a. God Games, publisher of a host of primarily PC titles in the '90s, ranging from Max Payne and Mafia to Serious Sam and Stronghold. Between them they had amassed an impressive track record, green-lighting and funding eight original PC games that sold over a million units each, in the span of two years. In 2000, God Games sold to Take-Two for $30 million in stock, and subsequently folded into the 2K Games label. |
| Mario Kart 7 is Safe at Any Speed Posted: 14 Nov 2011 02:45 PM PST Let's face facts: regardless of what I say about Mario Kart 7, it'll end up being one of the best-selling games on its platform, just like the past two installments. Though the presence of an actual challenge in Mario Kart DS didn't detract from its popularity, Mario Kart Wii marked a new movement for the series, and one that essentially turned Mario Kart into a party game. Not that there's anything wrong with party games, of course; it's just that Mario Kart Wii made any display of skill a losing prospect, as it perpetually sabotaged success in an attempt to level the playing field. Some would view this approach as a masterstroke on Nintendo's part, as it allows a group of people with differing skill sets to complete on equal ground without nasty things like "experience" getting in the way. As expected, Mario Kart 7 takes this same tack, and its regressive nature promises to annoy karting fans looking for the series to hop back on the highway to the danger zone. Before this ends up reading as a total condemnation of Mario Kart 7, it should be noted that the game features a few interesting additions. Instead of choosing from an array of vehicles -- which has been the case since Double Dash -- MK7 allows the player to individually choose the wheels, chassis, and glider for their kart, with each part affecting its stats in some way. Coins collected during a race can be cashed in for further parts; these coins also boost your kart's acceleration (only during the race where you grabbed them, of course), and spice up things up a bit by hinting at prime power sliding arcs and possible shortcuts. If you're looking for other interesting mechanics of twists on this staid series, you might want to look elsewhere; even the promise of land, sea, and air travel is little more than lip service, as indicated by Jeremy's E3 preview. |
| Mario 3D Land's Tanooki Suit Revival isn't OK with PETA Posted: 14 Nov 2011 11:17 AM PST The Tanooki suit's comeback in Super Mario 3D Land was exciting news for fans of the old Super Mario Bros. 3 power-up, of which there are many. Not everyone is pleased with its return, and it's not due to it being less powerful in 3D Land. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is concerned the Tanooki suit is encouraging the wearing of furs, something the group obviously isn't too pleased about. "When on a mission to rescue the princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his enemy -- even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers," reads a message on a new PETA website (via Kotaku) launched to bring awareness to that cold-hearted Mario. |
| Resistance's Website Taken Offline Following Hacking Posted: 14 Nov 2011 09:55 AM PST Not even a week after the official Steam forums were taken offline following their defacement, Sony has been forced to do the same with the official website and forums for the Resistance franchise. MyResistance.net and the accompanying free-to-play Global Resistance game are currently inaccessible. According to Kotaku, Sony took them offline following reports of the site distributing malware, presumably at the behest of hackers. |
| Review: Assassin's Creed Revelations is a Solid Sequel That Shows The Flaw of Annual Installments Posted: 14 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PST The first time I saw Assassin's Creed, it was about stabbing a man from behind. Then, Ubisoft showed off how they layered parkour and stealth mechanics onto that core premise. Then the game comes out, and on top of an innovative take on assassination, navigation, and stealth, the game revealed its labyrinthine story: About a man named Desmond in 2012 caught in a struggle between the descendents of the original Templar and Assassin orders, and how he uses a machine to access his genetic memories of his 12th-century ancestor, Altair ibn-La'Ahad. Things get even crazier when Assassin's Creed II switches perspectives from Desmond reliving Altair's memories to instead reliving the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze -- a minor Italian noble who undergoes his own personal version of the Batman origin story and matures into an Assassin whose ultimate target becomes the Pope himself. While AC2 came out two years after the original, and addressed practically every one of its predecessor's flaw to become an significant and innovative leap forward (and an example of a great sequel), Ubisoft has since adopted the annualized sequel method popularized by sports games and Call of Duty. So just one year later, rather than Assassin's Creed III, we saw Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. That title layered on mechanics such as the management of the guild, tweaks to combat and navigation, and on top of those: the bold addition of multiplayer. For what was assumed to be a quick cash-in, Brotherhood ended up being a pretty hefty game. And now we have Assassin's Creed: Revelations. |
| Arkham City Dev Needs Help Resolving 360 Missing Save Issue Posted: 14 Nov 2011 08:50 AM PST Playing through Batman: Arkham City from the start after you've already done so doesn't sound all that bad. Having to do so because your save game suddenly disappeared, however, could be downright infuriating. It's one thing if it was a more linear game, but with all the side missions, countless Riddler trophies, and so on for players to complete and collect, this isn't the type of game you'd want to lose a save game for. Yet that's a scenario being faced by a number of people playing the Xbox 360 version of the game. A lengthy thread on the official forums has been growing over the course of several weeks. Save files apparently aren't deleted from the system, but the game doesn't detect a file is there to be loaded. And this isn't just happening early in the game -- players with huge chunks of the overall game completed are suddenly finding themselves unable to access their save. |
| Review: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is Great For Tournament Players, But Not Quite For Casuals Posted: 14 Nov 2011 08:00 AM PST In this new age of fighting games, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was easily the most anticipated fighter to be released next to Street Fighter 4 -- though most will agree that it felt like an unfinished product. For everything that it did right -- silky smooth gameplay, amazing graphics, and endless team combinations -- over the course of a few months it became quickly apparent that there was much that needed to be fixed and adjusted. Plagued with sub-par online modes and netcode; extremely overpowered characters such as Phoenix, Wolverine, and Akuma ; and not to mention glitches that allowed players to kill their opponent's character in a single combo -- most couldn't help but feel a bit cheated when they learned an Ultimate version of the game was right around the corner. I think I'm not alone in saying that after 10 years of waiting for a new entry into the series after Marvel vs. Capcom 2, having to wait an extra six to nine months for a "complete" version of the game would be totally bearable for most. |
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