General gaming |
- Halo 4: The Community Preview Debate, Part Two
- If SimCity's Always-Online Requirement is Worth It, Why Not Let Gamers Decide?
- Skyrim Kinect Excels Through Subtlety
| Halo 4: The Community Preview Debate, Part Two Posted: 20 Apr 2012 12:57 PM PDT 1UP community member Ben Tate and I both love the Halo series enough that we thought it a good idea to double-team the recent Halo 4 information explosion that recently hit the Internet courtesy of Game informer. Today, Ben and I follow up on the first part of our discussion by breaking down multiplayer, the new cooperative mode called Spartan Ops, and Halo 4's impressive visual style. Ben: The desire to intertwine single player and multiplayer seems to be popular in games these days. I just don't think most players care if their multiplayer has a backstory or not, and that makes 343 Industries' goal of contextualizing Halo 4's multiplayer admirable but not essential. |
| If SimCity's Always-Online Requirement is Worth It, Why Not Let Gamers Decide? Posted: 20 Apr 2012 11:09 AM PDT Those without a stable Internet connection needn't even bother read about the new SimCity. As announced last month, the game requires an Internet connection to play. And not just to launch; to play the game, even on your own, you'll need to be constantly connected to the Internet. This was said to be due to an emphasis on multiplayer and passive interactions with other players that happen as you play. We haven't heard a whole lot more about the specifics of how that will all work, though one of the game's developers has tried to justify the decision to make being online a precondition for playing. "From the ground up it's been a multiplayer game," said Maxis producer Jason Haber in an interview with Eurogamer. "I'm not surprised we're getting some reaction like this. But I think once people see it in action -- and at E3 we're really looking forward to showing people multiplayer and how it works -- hopefully that will show them why it's such a great feature and it's totally worth having. |
| Skyrim Kinect Excels Through Subtlety Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:05 AM PDT If you're anything like me, hearing the word "Kinect" immediately brings to mind images of people embarrassing themselves as they foolishly pantomime various actions in the middle of their living rooms. Honestly, using theatrical gestures to control a video game has very little appeal to me. There are some obvious examples of experiences that benefited from the use of motion controls, including The Gunstringer and Fruit Ninja Kinect. These games succeeded on a design level by providing simple and immersive pleasures that quite frankly could not be replicated via a controller. Sadly, most Kinect titles end up transforming into frustration simulators (yes, we're looking at you, Kinect Star Wars). With the news that Bethesda was preparing to release a patch for Skyrim that weaves Kinect functionality into the game, many of us worried that we'd end up looking like jackasses as we played through one of 2011's finest titles. Thankfully, these fears were quickly squashed when we saw how refined and subtle the new non-traditional method of control is in Skyrim. Bethesda was wise to forgo the obvious route of having players flail their arms like a Dovahkiin in a slap fight. You won't find yourself using your Kinect to swing a battle ax or target specific enemies in the the middle of a fracas. In fact, Skyrim doesn't even make use of the technology's camera function whatsoever, instead focusing on the use of voice commands to streamline the experience and help maintain a steady tempo to the game. You can assign specific arms to every class of weapon, allowing you to pull out out your favorite sword when you say, "sword," and equip your favorite bow when you say, "bow." This simple shortcut does an amazing job of maintaining the tempo and rhythm of the game in the middle of combat by not forcing you to navigate a series of menus as soon as you spot a tough enemy on the horizon. |
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