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E3 2013 The Little Things That Matter (Pt 4): Quick Looks

Community Writer — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:04:34 +0000

Quick Look At: Skara – The Blade Remains

I was fortunate enough to speak with Jackson, a creative writer for the game, but came home to find out that not only was all the information I got from him available on their Kickstarter page, but a million times more, so I’m going to point you in the right direction.

The Kickstarter is ending pretty soon so give it a look! It’s a PvP focused game, it will have PvE. It looks really cool, reminds me of games like Forge, Archeblade, and Panzar and even God of War: Ascension‘s multiplayer (although of course the quality isn’t quite there yet.)

The game is meant to be a lot more “skill based” with its one-hit kills that are blockable. It’s going to have what they call “Fast Battles” that are basically quick matches you can jump into, and then “Faction Battles” which are more focused on guild type PvP in larger scale warfare. There’s also a “Horde” mode that is playable offline and online! There’s no leveling system but there will be unlockable weapons and features depending on your rank.

Your playstyle will be effected by not only your class, but the race you choose. Different races have their own abilities and actions for each class. For example, Kham Warriors are stronger than Shinse Warriors but are slower. And the whole idea is for each race to have their own animations for how they attack.

There is an incredible amount of details for their game on their Kickstarter page, check it out! They also have a multiplayer combat demonstration video!

Quick Look At: Time Glitch

I continued my stroll around the show and came across student project game. I stopped for a sec to have a look and see what this one was all about.

Time Glitch is a quick two-and-a-half to three-hour game, depending on how long it takes you to solve its puzzles, spanning over five levels. It was made by college students as part of a contest hosted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Kyle Reynolds (pictured below, right) and Laurencio Baland (below, left) were two of the students I spoke with. I asked them if they had heard about Nitronic Rush and was surprised that they answered “no”. How dare they? Just kidding.

The game was made using the C-sharp programming language and Photoshop. The team that made the game consisted of fifteen people; they made it in twelve weeks.

Kyle, one of the artists, was very pleased with the logo he came up with for the game. It’s pretty coool. He also drew up the main character Alexis.

Laurencio, Model Artist, came up with the robot T-rex. He said a lot of his personality was put into it. We had a good laugh because he described the T-rex as “super evil”.

Alexis’ gun can manipulate objects by freezing them in place, slowing them down, or even speeding them up which is used to solve the different puzzles you’ll come across.

Different levels consist of a Medieval Age, Ice Age, and Dinosaur Age. There are some entertaining traps throughout the little bit that I played. Spikes launch out of the wall and impale you if you step on the wrong pedestal, and ceilings smash down on you. All of this is counteracted by your very powerful gun that can freeze them in place. You also come across catapults that launch you different distances depending on which power you use to manipulate them with.

I like the voice acting; it sounds natural to me. I think this team definitely deserves some props. It’s a fun game. I wish them all the best in their future. I also love that they call themselves Bad.Asset.Games. You can play their game for free by downloading it from their site. They also have a Facebook page so stop by and say “hi”.

Quick Look At: The Crew

I was insanely excited about this game when I saw it during Ubisoft’s press conference. A racing game that you can play single-player but seamlessly move into multiplayer is amazing to me. I love to be able to play on my own when I feel like it, and then just jump right into making new friends, or playing with friends I already have in an instant.

At E3, there were two representatives of Ubisoft on top of a circular platform that was maybe three feet off of the ground, surrounded by a cushioned bench. They gave commentary for a gameplay demonstration. People were sitting around the stage and able to look in just about any direction at the monitor displays up in the ceiling. There was also a really cool arcade seat that looked like it was inside a buggy cage where you could sit in it and play the demo.

They didn’t explain how the seamless multiplayer works exactly. What I did learn is that you can be racing a single player mission and be teleported instantly into a multiplayer game. And you can join it while it’s arleady mid-race! I’m also looking forward to Need For Speed: Rivals for a similar experience.

On top of all that, because of cloud technology, you can travel the entirety of America with no loading screens! You can drive from California to New York without ever seeing a loading screen. And it’s open world so you can drive anywhere at all.

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Testing

Community Writer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:37:06 +0000

Testing

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Opening contract – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – A bumpy ride

Community Writer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:31:11 +0000

Everything you need to know about a game can be found in the opening scene. It is a contract with the player that communicates important information about the characters, setting, emotion, story, and gameplay. From the first 15 minutes of a game, you should be able to tell if this game is for you. Some games do this exceptionally well, while others drown you in boring tutorials or heavy dialogue scenes where nothing happens. Only the best hit a perfect balance that makes the player yearn for more. I can think of no better example to start off with than Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

“I did not tell half of what I saw for I knew I would not be believed…”

-Marco Polo

On his deathbed, 1324

Like the previous game, Uncharted 2 begins with a quote from a famous explorer. These quotes serve a dual purpose: they tell us whose travels we will be exploring, in this case Marco Polo, and foreshadow future events. The quote implies that Polo experienced things during his travels through Asia and China that no man would ever believe. Many of the things in Polo’s writing were fantastical to Europeans during the 13^th-14^th centuries anyways, so the fact that he left things out means he found something unfathomable, which is the exact kind of thing our protagonist Nathan Drake would be seeking.

As the black fades into the game we find Nathan in one hell of a bad situation. He is sitting in a train car, while disoriented and nursing a bullet wound to the gut. “What’s going on..? That’s my blood. That’s my blood. That’s a lot of my blood,” he says out loud. Debris then falls next to him, and slowly we realize the train is in a vertical position. “Well that is odd,” we think to ourselves. Nathan falls through the train car and out the back grabbing onto a pole at the last second. At this point we finally realize the gravity of the whole situation: Nathan is in a train car that is dangling off of a cliff. “Oh crap,” says Nathan and us. If only he were just bleeding. In just about one minute and thirty seconds Uncharted 2 has instilled a sense of urgency in the player that most games can’t for their entirety.

Guiding Nathan as he struggles on the outside and inside of the train wreck helps give us a sense of him as a character. Most people put in his position would just admit defeat. He’s bleeding profusely and one moment away from plummeting to a fiery, metal death, but Nathan keeps fighting. For him, this is just another day’s work. We begin to understand that he is a hardened survivor, and most of all, he perseveres. He fights through all of this while delivering snappy one-liners in an endearing smart- ass tone. It’s a charm that makes the player root for him from the start.

When Nathan reaches the top of the wreck and exerts one last desperate leap to safety, we are granted a flashback of the initial cause for his predicament. Some old friends by the name of Harry and Chloe found a job that needed his expertise. It involves stealing an old, Mongolian oil lamp that once belonged to Marco Polo. Nathan figures out that the lamp might lead to the thirteen lost ships of Polo’s fleet, all loaded down with untold riches, of course. The three of them agree that they will “dick” their client over, and take the treasure for themselves. “What could possibly go wrong?” Nathan says while laughing. Cut back to a huge ass train wreck with a half-dead Nathan. Obviously, a whole hell of a lot.

Once again, more information is revealed. Nathan is a treasure hunter and a smart one at that, since he was specifically sought out for this mission. It was supposed to be an easy smash and grab job, but something went awry. Cut back to the half-dead, frozen fool as we guide him through even more wreckage. By this point, it is pretty obvious that the story has dropped us in medias res (a Latin narrative technique meaning” into the middle of things”). We know that Nathan was going to steal an artifact and search for Marco Polo’s lost treasure, but how we got here is a mystery, a mystery that the player will pursue for about half of the game.

Dropping us in the middle of the game is a great move by Naughty Dog. It instantly makes us invested in the story (how the hell did he destroy an entire train in a mountain pass) and foreshadows bad things to come for Nathan. While plaything through the first half of the game, we actively wait for the moment where everything goes wrong. We are given pieces of a puzzle and the desire to fill in the rest.

One thing the opening does more fluidly than any game I can think of is put the player through the tutorial. While Nathan is being thrown around, we become acclimated with the controls. There’s no awkward pausing to explain anything, just some brief text to tell us what button to press in order to guide Nathan to safety. It’s a seamless transition from newb to veteran that every game wishes they could execute with the same amount of style as Naughty Dog.

The best trick that Uncharted 2’s intro pulls is making the player yearn for more. If the opening sequence features Nathan climbing out of a falling train, how on Earth could the rest of the game top this moment? The rest of the game has to feature something absolutely insane to top this moment, and it does. From being chased by a helicopter to fighting a tank through a Tibetan village, Uncharted 2 consistently tops itself while saying to the player, “Just wait for what’s in store next.”

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a perfect opening sequence. The first 15 minutes thrusts you into a precarious situation and yells, “CLIMB NOW!” It at once establishes Nathan as vulnerable and charming treasure hunter that will survive any situation, while giving us hints at greater moments in the story and leading us through a fluid tutorial. It creates a memorable sequence and hooks the player for what else could be waiting in the next chapter. It is a perfect opening sequence.

Any comments are welcome. Do you agree? Disagree? Think I’m stupid? Let me know below!

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The odd critical reception of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4

Community Writer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:27:16 +0000

It’s all so freakin’ political. E3 2013 was certainly interesting, and elements of it rightfully deserve to go down in gaming history. Every new console generation, particularly the uncertainty surrounding each impending launch, provides a new compilation of moments that intrigue critics, skeptics, analysts, and .gif creators alike.

Likewise, numerous individuals have voted on which candidate they think will win the race (or “war,” in this case). For those who just care about playing every good game they can, picking a side doesn’t make much sense, though it’s not anything particularly new. Gamers have always rooted for consoles much like constituents do presidents.

Still, the reception of both consoles was oddly lopsided. The Xbox One (AKA XBone, X1, Satan) was slammed for features that probably won’t so horribly affect most of whom were openly miffed, and the PlayStation 4 was worshiped for a showing that was arguably mediocre at best.

When you see it…

“The games are what really matter.”

Like a mantra, gamers repeat this without a stutter, though many seemed to treat it like an empty statement when it came to these next-gen consoles. People were considerably fond of this sentiment when it came to Microsoft’s reveal of the Xbox One during their conference in May. “Where are the games?” they asked vehemently. Well, E3 certainly provided a hefty lineup of games, though it all seemed to waft right over everyone’s heads. At that point, policy became the main source of ire.

Suddenly, E3 2013 solidified itself as an Electronics Entertainment Expo where games took a back seat. Instead of judging both consoles on the merits of their content, the focus was centered on virtually everything else. Ironically, more attention was paid toward non-gaming features and how they would distract us from gaming.

I say “judging both consoles” for a reason: Few seemed to extend the same skepticism toward the PS4 that they rightfully lobbed at the X1. Excusing personal preference, the number of announced titles has always been a key factor to the early reception of a next-gen console. Practically every system starts off slightly bare, so a variety of impending content gives us an idea of a system’s potential … or at least the illusion of it.

The Xbox One announced a total of 15 exclusive games, whereas the PlayStation 4 only provided a meager seven. What happened? Why did the X1 get hammered for the lack of games at its announcement, yet the PS4′s lackluster lineup went seemingly unnoticed? I have no doubt that the focus will rightfully shift onto content in due time, though I hope it’s sooner than later. This is what “really matters,” after all.

Oh boy … can’t wait to play Knack. Looks like a riot.

Someone please think of the … soldiers? What?

At first, I easily shouldered this off as forced bickering from the fringes, but it quickly grew into common criticism aimed at the Xbox One. After an article from the Navy Times, the gaming press was sure to let us know that the X1′s online check-ins would prevent overseas military servicemen and women from playing its games. Umm … OK?

I don’t mean to come off as inconsiderate, but why did we need to know this? How, as individual consumers, does this help us make an educated decision on whether or not to buy the X1? Corporations are self-interested. We get it. Plenty of us have stomached a Netflix documentary or two. But to push the tone of coverage into the direction of “Microsoft doesn’t care about the military” via pinpointing that specific group (which practically nobody in gaming cared about until that point) feels incredibly unnecessary and biased.

Sure, I’m not particularly fond of the direction that Microsoft is going, but coverage should have been kept to basic, pertinent facts. Knowing the X1′s price, that it requires broadband, doesn’t work in certain countries, and enforces a restriction on used games is enough. From that information, readers can easily figure out whether or not the Xbox One is something they should buy. And it wouldn’t take much for them to recognize that soldiers stationed in third-world countries wouldn’t be able to play it. Contrary to what some writers seem to believe, people are not so stupid and helpless.

By singling out the military, the press actively controlled the tone of the message, further pushing consumers into believing that the Xbox One wasn’t in their best interests. Many other specific groups have been alienated by the entire hobby, particularly those with certain medical problems and disabilities, yet nobody speaks about them because it wouldn’t apply to the necessary facts that journalism is supposed to relay.

Reporters, have more faith that your readers can digest info on their own, and please stop making every little thing in the industry as partisan as you can.

Note: I searched for any comment from Microsoft on the matter and found this. Apparently, they’re “experimenting with special exemption codes that could be given to select people in very particular, internet-free situations.” Good to know the rest of the gaming media considered that information important enough to share, yes? Credit (and kudos) goes to Polygon.

No offense, this doesn’t really come to mind when I play games. Well … not all games.

Becoming a giant only by comparison to a dwarf

Fact: The PlayStation 4 blew everyone away. Also fact: It only did so because it provided what was expected of it, nothing more or less. When one truly gets to the bottom of Sony’s conference, they featured what was arguably the bare-bones minimum: the console, exclusives games, third-party support, indie support, and multimedia baggage.

“But wait,” Sony said. “You know all that bullshit those other guys are doing? We’re totally not.” And so the crowd roared, and suddenly we all have found our new messiah to help us overcome some foreboding death to the medium. I’ll admit, even I was impressed at first, so much that I pre-ordered a PS4 as soon as I could. But with more thought, I quickly realized that we all had played into the same corporate trickery that many writers so proudly claim to have a keen eye for and contrary attitude toward.

Microsoft screwed up, and thanks to hyperbole from the press and public, it was more damaging than one would originally expect. And so Sony decided to capitalize on our frustration and dejection by actively comparing themselves to said screw-up. For a lot of gamers, particularly those who make their purchases based on principle, the PlayStation 4 looked like a godsend next to the Xbox One. This is understandable, though unfortunate, as such adrenalized moments can actively affect our ability to reasonably analyze and gauge the actual merits and faults of these products.

It’s important that we base our praise toward a console for the advantages it provides, not its mere lack of negative qualities. I am not a murderer, a thief, or a bigot, but comparing me to those who are does not and should not, by default, imply that I am an amazing individual. I am considerably average, as is the PlayStation 4 (so far).

Not exactly a tough choice, though both do result in you crapping sand.

Too soon, bro.

Shocker incoming: Gaming consoles are all about games. Everything else they could possibly do (and are already attempting) is better done by other devices. Content is king, and either system could reign over the other in that area. Granted, not much exists yet for us to judge the X1 or PS4 beyond their core features, but to solidify that judgment from this point on is just silly.

These are companies, so policy can change. These are digital devices, so features can change. And these are gaming systems, so the core experience can be incredible on either one of them. As a long-time PC gamer, I’m not the biggest fan of consoles, but I do understand their importance to the industry and gaming landscape. I pre-ordered a PS4 because I didn’t want to be left out, and, to be completely honest, I may buy the X1 if it has enough of what I desire.

Just wait and see how things play out, think about it, and make your own choice. If you’re not affected by its features, buy a damn Xbox One if you want. Not everything has to be a damn Chick-fil-A sandwich. Fun doesn’t always have to be so freakin’ political.

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Playing It Old School: Yippee ki-yay gamers

Community Writer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:53:17 +0000

After a long hiatus, Playing It Old School is back and happy to be on GameBeat for the first time. To honor this return I would like to talk about the video game history of one of the greatest action films of all time, Die Hard.

Hopefully you were lucky to skip that awful A Good Day to Die Hard and John Moore’s pathetic excuse of a film career has come to an end. Don’t even bother renting it on DVD or pirating it online, its not worth it.

Like the James Bond-series; Die Hard has been a significant part of cinema, electronic entertainment and literature (yes Die Hard is based on a novel). The film we all loved was originally based on the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp; which itself was a sequel to The Detective. However The Detective had already been adopted on screen staring Frank Sinatra in the main role (hence Frank Sinatra was the first John McClane).

Die Hard is the classic story of NYPD Detective John McClain coming to visit his estranged wife for Christmas in Los Angeles. However things don’t go according to plan when a group of criminals (pretending to be left-wing terrorists) take over the Nakatomi Plaza in an attempt to heist $640 million in bearer bonds.

The film became a hit upon its release while overtime it has been hailed as the greatest action film and a hallmark of modern American cinema. Die Hard is such an iconic film that the undershirt worn by Bruce Willies is preserved at the Smithsonian Institution.

However unlike the James Bond-series; Die Hard has had a mix history when it comes to video game adaptations. One would think that making a game based on the archetype of the modern action film would be easy but instead it has been a rocky journey.

Most gamers will have good memories of wasting quarters playing Die Hard Arcade during the 90′s. The game was beat ‘em up originally developed as Dynamite Deka in Japan and released later in North America with the film license.

A group of terrorists (lead by White Fang) have taken over Nakatomi Plaza and kidnapped the Presidents daughter. Players will take on the role of John McClane and Chris Thompsen as they fight waves of enemies in an attempt to rescue the Presidents daughter and foil White Fang’s evil plot.

Another classic game was Die Hard Trilogy, a retelling of the classic trilogy through three different gameplay settings. Die Hard-setting was a third person shooter that has the player battling terrorists and rescues hostages in the Nakatomi Plaza. Die Hard 2: Die Harder-setting was a rail-shooter that had the player fight waves of terrorists who have taken over Dulles Airport. Finally; Die Hard with a Vengeance-setting has the player go on a joyride driving a throughout New York City finding and defusing several explosives.

The success of the game was followed with the mediocre sequel, Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas, which used the same gameplay aspect but with an original story that is very forgettable. Sadly the next game that followed, Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, offered no real joy to gamers. It was a slow paced first person shooter that was less of a tribute and more of an insult to the films legacy.

Finally I come to the last Die Hard-game released, Die Hard: Vendetta for the GameCube in America and major consoles in Europe. Another first-person shooter; this time John McClain goes up against a terrorists army lead by Piet Gruber (Hans Gruber son) on the streets of LA. The game was meet with mediocre reviews but looking back one might have some appreciation for the game for its fast paced action in a Die Hard-setting.

Come 2013 and its disappointing that nobody has bothered to try and make another Die Hard-game. Any developer should try and make a game based on the original film using the combination of stealth action in a limited open world that retells the classic story while reuniting the original cast (a lot like 007 From Russia With Love).

Die Hard has been a significant part of pop culture and while the last movie failed to live up to its legacy hopefully gaming culture could give it another chance.

Yippie-Ki Ay, mother F***er!

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E3 2013 – The little things that matter (Part 3): Mysterious Chinese game

Community Writer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:46:51 +0000

I was continuing my walk through the outside of the show, looking for all the hidden treasures when I came across a game that looked pretty neat. The booth was long and had some pretty art representing the game. There was a small table with pamphlets of information on their different games. It mostly consisted of a rather large monitor display. None of the displays were in English, though. I was fine with that; the game looked cool. So I was looking around the little booth trying to find some info when a lady approached me and started telling me about the game. Her name is Rui Zhou. She was super nice. She started explaining a couple things to me and I asked her to wait a second so I could pull out my notepad and take some notes.

I think that basically made her latch on to me. As soon as she knew I wanted to write stuff down, she perked up and was ready to go. The funny thing I found out was that the game that stopped me at their booth wasn’t even the game they were there to represent. Also, come to find out, the game they were there representing is only available in China! She was so super nice though and I really was interested in the game. I asked what the English translation of the game’s title would be. She was very apologetic about only being able to answer that with the letter “F”. I told her it was okay; it was not the first game I’d heard of with a single letter as the title. I imagine they would come up with an actual name if it was brought to the states.

She explained to me that the game I was watching was a third-person MMORPG with a focus on PvP and available PvE content. You could do 1v1 duels, all the way up to 100 versus 100 players. There are six classes, each with two branches of playstyle. All the classes have similar styled combat and skills but certain skills are enhanced depending on the class. It should enter open beta testing in October for both China and Taiwan.

Every NPC in the game is attackable, and you can even duel them for rewards. There will be “shadow bots” that basically allow you to fight other players’ characters even when they’re offline. It’s not the actual character though, but a bot representing them. You can earn the same PvP ranking from these bots as you would if you fought the actual player. This probably sounds weird to some people and they might wonder about balance and how the AI will represent the player’s character, but it is definitely a cool concept.

The combat looked like it was twitch-action based but I couldn’t say for sure. I’ve seen gameplay videos for many MMORPG’s that make them look like they’re hack-and-slash style when they’re not. I am convinced it doesn’t use a tab-target system though, from what I saw. There is some cool-looking mounted combat. There’s some kind of ranking system involved with that too. The higher level you are, the better mounted combat you encounter.

Rui could switch between different videos for the different aspects of gameplay. When I asked to see the melee combat again she didn’t understand what I meant, but she understood “hand-to-hand”. I love finding out these differences in our language barriers. She was so sweet and super enthusiastic about the game.

At some point, an older Asian gentleman came by the booth. One of the other ladies there came over and tried to pull Rui away to talk to the older gentleman. I didn’t understand what they were saying but Rui seemed to be insisting that her partner deal with the older gentleman. I felt so bad! There I was, basically a nobody posting on a personal blog and she wanted to tell me all about her game so I could share it with a bunch of Americans that couldn’t even play it! I wanted to tell her that it was okay but she was so persistent in telling me about their game, I just didn’t want to turn her down, ya know? It was weird, but also very cool.

My sister reminded me that they are looking for American publishers so any word on it might be good. I’d love to help them get some attention. Their games look really neat. I spent a couple of years playing almost nothing but “free-to-play” games; there is an endless supply of them. So, I understand how hard it would be for them to get their games moved over to the states. So I really wish them the best.

So, if you happen to have any gamer friends in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Europe then please let them know about pixelgame.net, where they host free-to-play games. Other products by them are the Blade & Sword series, and one that I recognized but have not played: Zentia.

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E3 2013: A look at the Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony throwdown

Community Writer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:07:49 +0000

E3 is over, but the war has only just started. After Sony’s stunning PR victory at the event, Nintendo’s focus on their own games, and Microsoft’s dogged determination to demonstrate their vision for the living room and game distribution at large, what was left after the dust settled?

Microsoft – The future’s so bright, my Kinect wears shades

There’s little doubt that heading into E3, Microsoft was under a lot of pressure to explain its ideas.

In the days since it had rolled out its Pre-Order Product Information page at the official site, the reaction to its draconian requirements has been less-than-enthusiastic with commentators calling it everything from anti-consumer and pro-industry to creating a raft of memes that were more to the point.

Lost in the noise were a number of clever ideas such as utilizing the cloud in processing low latency instructions for games to being able to share your library with family members or friends without actually having to carry physical media. The digital-centric approach of the system, the integration of onboard tools to enable social sharing of game experiences and connecting with friends, and dev-friendly architecture have ticked off a lot of marks pushing Microsoft’s agenda of an interconnected ether of 1s and 0s.

Yet it’s also hard to shrug off the impression of the Xbox One as a kind of gated community where you will need to check in at the front gate order to be a part of that experience. In one of the more widely reported statements, Microsoft’s Don Mattrick (President of the Interactive Entertainment Business there) said to Geoff Keighley at Gametrailers that if you have trouble with getting online, there’s always the Xbox 360. This didn’t go over well in public, especially with those in the military looking for a little downtime overseas, though Phil Spencer (Microsoft VP of Microsoft Studios) was a bit less blunt when he spoke with Destructoid saying essentially the same thing.

The new requirements (broadband, Xbox Live, Kinect) that were once optional are now absolutely needed for the system. A little over half of those that have an Xbox 360 today (est. at 77.2 million units as of Microsoft’s third quarter for their 2013 fiscal year) are subscribed to Xbox Live as of Feburary this year (a little over 46 million members), though only a little less than half of that actually bought into a Kinect (24 million units).

Restrictions taken for granted with digital downloads were now broadly applied to physical media. Even if you never used your Xbox 360 online, cared about Kinect, or don’t even have broadband at home, the new Xbox One will require you to join the club and Microsoft hasn’t done a great job in explaining why — much like how they had pushed a touchpad interface to desktop PCs with Windows 8.

The new Kinect’s sophistication has also opened the floor to concerns over privacy and its requirement as a tied-in component of the Xbox One following its reveal. Fortunately, Microsoft says you can actually turn it off using the onboard settings.

Another elephant in the room was the question of bandwidth consumption. Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer who, in an interview in 2011 with Now Gamer, mentions how Uncharted 2 “barely made it to 25GB” with Uncharted 3 pushing 50GB. Even though that’s a PS3 game, the Xbox One will also be using Blu-ray. With AAA title development consistently pushing ahead with bigger and better presentation values, just imagine pulling something like Uncharted 3 down. And then there are bandwidth caps to consider. Mandatory installations and sharing games could fill up that 500GB quickly making budgeting an extra drive another potential cost to consider for a number of players.

But one of the biggest pluses with this feature is that up to 10 individuals can be a part of that “family” grouping that the Xbox One will use as a part of its shared games feature. So if you buy one game, everyone in your “family” (who aren’t necessarily blood relatives) can download it and play it – not at the same time, but when everyone can play it, it might not matter. People can set it to download the game, go off and do something else, and then be back in time to play it. It’s something that services such as Gamefly might actually have to worry about.

Microsoft haven’t made things easier with the short list of countries that will support the Xbox One on launch excluding territories such as Eastern Europe and nearly all of South America. Japan isn’t even on the list along with a number of other Asian countries, though support is promised in “late 2014”, though not too surprising considering that Japan has never warmed up to the Xbox 360 in a way that it has in North America.

Sorry rest of the world. It’s business, not personal.

The Xbox One’s services do mirror Steam’s to some extent, though with a few key differences. When Steam first started out, sure, it had issues. I was part of the crowd that was upset over Half-Life 2 being tied to the service.

But PC players still had options and their systems weren’t tied to a mandatory check in once every 24 hours – or to a hardware dongle requiring it to work. Even today, one of the most successful games of all time, Minecraft, runs perfectly well without DRM. My PC at home is nothing like the networked kiosks that may be found in an office environment with shared applications. And that’s what Microsoft seems to be finding inspiration from.

As gaffe-filled as Microsoft’s public efforts to explain their vision have been, it does have one very compelling reason why I don’t see them changing course too dramatically in the near-term: they could be taking the same kind of long view that they did with the very first Xbox.

Microsoft is convinced that their vision is the right one and if they can make their ecosystem work, they’ll be in the proverbial driver’s seat. Sony has essentially used its platforms to help leverage the adoption of technologies it heavily invested in such as Blu-ray which won over HD-DVD, a standard that Microsoft had backed and supported with a player peripheral for the Xbox 360.

They also might not have much of a choice. It might only take a small change on their end to disable the always online check-in, though pushing that change might involve backtracking a number of things that could already be built around it and other aspects of the service. As anyone that has worked in a large corporate environment before can attest to, change doesn’t always mean “right now”. But it’s still a possibility, though little solace to players put off by other aspects of Microsoft’s living room such as the publisher-friendly model for used games.

There were people that wrote off Microsoft’s Xbox in the face of Sony’s PS2. Two generations later, Microsoft is still in the fight having made their point to the tune of billions of dollars for their partners and the millions of fans they have around the world. Now they’re gunning for something much larger and if making a cannonball into the pool will take them there, they’ll take the same running leap that they did when they crashed the party in 2001.

Filed under: gbunfiltered
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Is survival horror dead?

Community Writer — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:58:05 +0000

Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan) was released in 1996 and presented an original blend of atmospheric storytelling, limited resources and complex puzzles. It’s wildly entertaining – albeit horrifying – content, defined a new genre of gaming, one which Capcom dubbed ’Survival Horror’.

Although Resident Evil was not the first game designed with horror in mind – Capcom has cited inspiration from earlier spooky titles such as Alone in the Dark and their own Sweet Home - it differentiated itself by forcing the player to strategically consider their survival. Remaining aware of available resources and the least dangerous routes of navigation were vital to success, creating a successful style that many developers have attempted to emulate.

Mystery is the key

Jump forward 13 years and it’s difficult to recognize the franchise that defined survival horror. Beyond some familiar faces, Resident Evil has undergone a bizarre mutation in both gameplay and narrative, and while it’s amusing to compare this transformation to one of the many flesh eating monsters that have appeared in the franchise since its inception, the change has occurred due to necessity.

The most important element in survival horror is mystery, whether present through unexplainable enemies which tirelessly clamber to devour you or an atmospheric environment which presents more questions than answers, it is the sense of discomfort from not knowing or understanding the dangers around you that creates the strongest fear. However, as fans clamber for sequels to the stories they love, each new entry chips away at the mystery which initially kept them awake at night. After all, returning to Racoon City or arriving in Silent Hill for the umpteenth time could never carry the same impact as the first time we crept through their decrepit isolated streets.

In the face of such a challenge it becomes close to impossible to maintain interest in a franchise without aggressively changing its formula, but such action comes at the risk of eradicating the core concepts which initially attracted fans to it.

Innovation beats regurgitation

Of course some franchises have found success through changing their formula, and few are less relevant than the Resident Evil franchise, which, 9 years after its initial title and under renewed direction by Shinji Mikami, experienced a ground-breaking shift in Resident Evil 4. By incorporating precise aiming and movement controls, and drastically reducing the sense of vulnerability, it fundamentally redefined the genre it initially established.

Since then other franchises have proven that originality in the genre is still one of the most important factors to popularity. In late 2005 the original F.E.A.R was released to high acclaim thanks to combining a tense and atmospheric setting with fast paced shooting gameplay, something unseen before in the genre. And, although later entries in the franchise did well, they failed to capture the same feeling of dread that hung over the original. A prime example of how regurgitating a successful concept will not always garner similar adoration.

It’s difficult to berate developers who shake up the survival horror status quo, as with all genres innovation is required to evolve, however, while triple-A studios chase the allure of maximum profits and re-direct horror franchises toward action – reports already indicate that Mikami’s new game Evil Within looks more like Resident Evil 4 than 1, 2 or 3 – it is the Indie Developers who are tackling the tough job of taking the survival horror genre down a path closer to its roots.

Who is brave enough to support horror?

Judging by some of the games released in the last 5 years, it’s clear that Indie Developers can successfully extract key elements of the Horror genre to craft truly terrifying experiences. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Slender: The Eight Pages, both gnawed at my psyche more than any game in years and did so while achieving impressive sales – Frictional Games reported sales in excess of one million units for Amensia.

Each title was designed to rob the player of confidence and control while forcing them to remain intellectually active to solve puzzles and progress. This combination means you can’t turn off your brain to regress and avoid fear. You must remain cognitively invested even though that makes it scarier, something which big budget horror titles have severely lacked in recent attempts.

Following the success of those games other studios are taking the vulnerability they established to new levels, such as Red Barrels’ Outlast, an upcoming stealth / horror title inspired by Amnesia, and Krillbite Studios’ Among the Sleep. Among the Sleep looks especially interesting to me due to its unusual take on the genre. This title, set for release in late 2013, is played through the eyes of a two-year-old child traversing dark and surreal environments created by their own imagination. Such a bold design attempts to tap into primal fears in the hope of attracting fans of horror, and considering the title exceeded its Kickstarter goal by nearly 25%, the choice appears incredibly effective.

Is it dead yet?

In conclusion we can see that survival horror isn’t dead, instead – much like a zombie meeting a chainsaw – it has split in-two. These two different styles are now heading in unique directions, where larger studios continue to push the genre toward action and adventure to attract greater audiences, while Indie Developers – who won’t sacrifice vision for sales figures – delve deeper into the core of fear.

If Indies maintain this stance, their bravery will provide fans with the scares they so desperately crave, ensuring that this particular brand of gaming horror continues to ‘survive’.

For this and other rambles, check out my blog or follow me on Twitter.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

E3 2013: The little things that matter (part 2): Mag II Gun

Community Writer — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:39:21 +0000

The Mag II Gun works on 95% of PS3, PC and Xbox 360 games, If I remember right, they plan to work an update into the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One consoles also. You can also remap the buttons. What? Yeah, I know! It’s a controller/gun hybrid. I seriously want one, it was the most fun I’ve ever had using a zapper gun and it gave me full control. Thanks to Angelo Golden (a sales rep) and Vincent NG (one of the developers) for explaining how it works to me. Really nice guys. The creator, Erik Wang, was there but he was in a meeting so I didn’t get to talk with him about it.

It boasts: update-able firmware, high precision, no sensor bar needed, and built in vibration. One of the coolest features that stood out to me was on-the-fly calibration. That’s right, you can be in game playing, notice your calibration is a little off, no enemies around at that moment (preferably), just hold the button in the front of the gun for a couple of seconds, then let go and you are re-calibrated just like that.

You have full controller functionality built right in. I was told a lot of people had a hard time getting used to it. When I tried it, I loved it instantly. It was a little weird to get used to but totally easy to pick up and go. The weight of the gun was pretty light, and super comfortable. It was easy to notice this because of how natural I felt holding it, and it’s not like I hold guns very often. The fact that it’s built for use with two hands made it feel perfect to me. Most of the time when I use a one-handed zapper gun I end up using both hands due to the weight of the gun and my arm getting tired.

With my left hand near the front of the gun I had my thumb over the joystick which controls the character’s movements. My right hand was back, index finger over the trigger and thumb over the control buttons like “jump”, “reload” and so on. It felt so natural, I wanted to take one home.

The gun uses a new technology for this type of peripheral, called “gyroscope”. It doesn’t use a laser. Someone can walk right in front of the screen and not interrupt the gameplay, except for visually of course. Angelo and Vincent demonstrated this for me. Vincent stood in front of the screen and the game still reacted to Angelo shooting at it. I don’t think this feature is that big of a deal but I still thought it was pretty cool. I don’t have people crossing in front of the television very often.

I do have a goofball story to tell about it. When I tried it out, I was having so much fun just being able to control my character and shoot with the gun by itself that I didn’t realize until after I got home that I wasn’t even using it right. My gun was nowhere near the screen. I was basically flailing it around while firing. Of course I started off by pointing the gun at the screen, but whenever I made a big turn, I was moving the gun away from the screen. I had to turn the gun super far past my body to turn in the game; I just didn’t realize it when playing because I was having so much fun. I imagine changing the sensitivity should fix that up. Now that I think back on it, I wonder if the last person using it just had the sensitivity too low.

It’s already available to buy online for $150 at multiple retail stores including Gamestop of course. Check out the official site if you want even more details. The official site states that it only works for PS3 and PC right now, but the website needs to be updated. I saw it being used with Gears of War. Also, a customer review at Gamestop mentioned the firmware update for the 360.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Game Therapy – PTSD

Community Writer — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:29:41 +0000

Game Therapy is a video series I’ve created to foster discussion about how we all use games to cope with the ups and downs we experience in life.

The theme for this edition of Game Therapy is PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ll admit this is a very heavy topic, so I want to be very respectful in how I handle this segment. Keep in mind that I’m in no way suggesting that gaming is a proper way for people to deal with PTSD, I’m merely giving you a glimpse of one of the many ways I’ve coped with the symptoms I deal with. I think it’s also worth mentioning that I have never been official diagnosed with PTSD. However, as you’ll see later in this piece, I have dealt with some of the identified PTSD symptoms following my experience fighting in combat.

I think with a topic this serious, it make sense to define the issue. For this segment, I’m going to post the definition I found on Wikipedia as I thought it pretty solid. However, if anyone out there more educated on this subject than I has more or better info, feel free to chime in.

PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is defined as – severe anxiety disorder with characteristic symptoms that can develop after the direct experience of an extremely traumatic stressor such as the threat of a violent death or serious injury.[note 2] To fit the criteria of PTSD, the individual must react with “intense fear, helplessness or horror”.[note 3] The characteristic symptoms include a “persistent reexperiencing of the traumatic event”, and a continuing avoidance of reminders of the precipitating stressor accompanied by a “numbing of general responsiveness” (Criterion C)

From that definition, I can relate to re-experiencing the event, avoidance of reminders and definitely a numbing of general responsiveness. To this day, I’ll occasionally have dreams about the war, however, I no longer attempt to avoid reminders. Unfortunately, in the past, that avoidance went as far as to cause me to lose touch with other fellow soldiers that I was really close to. Fortunately I’ve reconnected with these guys for the most part now.

With all this in mind, you may find it strange that my Game Therapy for PTSD is a game like Battlefield 3. You may have heard the quote, “War is a drug.” I believe that’s true. And while, a videogame could never really come close to the intensity of combat, it does give the player a taste of adrenaline.

But for me, my using Battlefield 3 to cope is really more about forming friendships and camaraderie. When you eat, sleep, live and bleed with a group of guys over the years, you become very close. I’ve had some really great experiences playing Battlefield 3 with some of the more organized teams out there. I also made a really good friend playing the co-op missions–especially the sniper mission at the end. Completing that mission flawlessly requires extremely precise teamwork to the point of counting down shots over the radio. He and I still stay in touch to this day asking about what games we can play together in the future.

So that’s how I cope. How about you?

Filed under: gbunfiltered

E3 2013 The Little Things That Matter (Pt 1): Randall

Community Writer — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:50:40 +0000

First Time At E3!

I decided to circle the outside area of the show, instead of trying to squeeze through the middle, looking for anything that stood out. The first thing I saw was a beautiful stage of Battlefield 4. There was an elevated stage with a single man on top in front of 8 large screens surrounding a huge one. It was glorious! I could see the line but I didn’t see how far back it went. Being Battlefield 4, I expected it to be pretty long so I moved on. I passed two or three booths that weren’t my kind of thing (something Disney, and World of Tanks or Planes), and came across an indie game called Randall.

The 3-D statue of this game is what pulled me to the booth. I was happily surprised that the first thing I came across and didn’t recognize was something really awesome looking. There was a monitor display with a cinematic and gameplay demonstration. I really loved the art style. The CGI still had a hand drawn look to it, and the in game graphics looked like a living, breathing comic book.

The first guy I ran into gave me a little info about the game. I asked if the creators of the game were there. He pointed them out and offered to introduce me to them! Inside, I was like “no way!” I wasn’t expecting to get an introduction so easily. I got to talk to three guys who made the game, Mario Siller, Miguel Reyes, and Anton Ortega. I also got to talk to Francisco Chavez, of We The Force Studios. I forgot to get clarification, I don’t know if this is a developer/publisher mash up. There was only one studio name at the booth.

I spoke briefly to Mario Siller, one of the game programmers. He said that his favorite part of the game was the combat. He likes fast-paced action. I can relate.

Miguel Reyes, the main artist, worked on his own comic books and other video games before creating Randall. “Was there anything of your personality that you put into the game,” I asked. Miguel doesn’t speak English, so Anton translated for us. “Everything,” he answered. We all chuckled. I thought it was a perfect answer.

Anton Ortega, game programmer, contributed greatly to the design of the levels and gameplay. I spent the most of my time at the booth with him. He saw that I was taking notes and wanted me to have as much info as he could give me.

Randall is a 2D side-scrolling platformer, and, as I mentioned, the graphics are beautiful, especially considering the game is still a little over a year away. The themes of the game represent war, governmental control, greedy corporations, and how power corrupts.

The main story is focused on a small town where there is a strange and powerful mineral that can give people powers. This reminded me of Smallville so I couldn’t help but laugh. I love Smallville. Randall is a kid who was born with special powers but he just wants to be normal. However, he ends up fighting against the evil corporation because they thrust themselves into his everyday life.

Randall has a couple of really awesome powers. Firstly, he is super fast to the point that it slows down time for his enemies. “So he basically slows time,” I asked. “No, no, he is super fast!” Anton insisted. I don’t really see the difference when it comes to actual gameplay mechanics, but I was glad he cared enough to make the distinction.

Even cooler, Randall can enter peoples’ minds. In some levels, he can fight their fears, but more commonly, he has the ability to increase the fears of his enemies. In the game, as you enter peoples’ minds, the level will change. (This reminds me of Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams and how the level backgrounds change in it as you switch between the two playable characters.) I love the whole concept of entering into peoples’ minds as a part of a 2D game mechanic.

Another cool aspect of the game is that you can choose to be good or evil: You can avoid your enemies or kill them. As you kill them, you may lean towards becoming corrupted.

I spoke with Francisco Sanchez from We The Force Studios last. I asked him how he met with the developers and what made them decide to publish the game. Turns out, he’s been friends with most of them for four to six years, and one since kindergarten! That’s a pretty dang nice relationship between the devs and the publisher. The whole team came from Mexico to be at E3 and show off their cool- looking game. It was really wonderful to talk to them and I definitely look forward to seeing more of this game.

The Swag: Cool poster, couple of really nice business cards, and a sticker. =)

You can signup for updates to their game at:
http://randallgame.com/

You can also check out their cool E3 trailer at:

Filed under: gbunfiltered

There’s something about The Evil Within’s font

Community Writer — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:57:32 +0000

I have a cousin who majored in Creative Advertising at Michigan State – and he’s told me that typography is how brands make their product distinguishable. And there’s something about The Evil Within’s choice of font that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Exhibit B

Now I’m no typographist, but the logos look eerily similar.

Shinji Mikami (the creator of the Resident Evil series) is releasing the much-hyped survival-horror game The Evil Within as his first game under new studio, Tango Gameworks. But it seems like ol’ Mikami over there is overseeing more than just game mechanics. Marketing is a huge deal in the video game industry. By using a throwback font to his debut-days, it feels like he’s promising a revelation in the survival-horror genre.

And Shinji Mikami, I’ve never been more excited. You haven’t made soiling my pants in the middle of the night sound appealing since the “magic mirror” interrogation room in Resident Evil 2.

The Evil Within has an anticipated release date of 2014 for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and (breathes out) and PC.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

The Best of BANHAMMERED! 2: In Defense of Xbox Support

Community Writer — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:53:35 +0000

Note: This article contains actual posts from Xbox Live users and the responses from official Microsoft employees. No names were changed to protect anybody. Also, misspellings and grammatical errors were preserved as they are because it’s funnier that way.

Oh, boy. Microsoft is under fire once again, isn’t it? First there was the news that Xbox One users won’t be able to borrow, rent or buy used games for their console; then there was that thing about the new Xbox needing to redeem its Internet connection every 24 hours, or it will stop working.

And while Microsoft is still busy not being completely clear about these dilemmas, a response from Xbox Support — regarding a possible banning of your Xbox One account — has gone viral, stating that “if your account gets banned, you also forfeit the licenses to any games that have licenses tied to it.”

The biggest concern about this issue seems to be the possibility that you get banned by mistake, mostly because there are a lot of people over Xbox Live false complaining about online players out of spite. And now that there’s the possibility that some jerks could completely ruin your game collection, the stakes are higher than ever.

This issue reminds me about an article I wrote almost two years ago, when I brought over actual posts from Xbox Forums in order to mock up about some punks being “falsely” banned out of Xbox Live, and praise how the XBLPET — the Xbox Live Policy Enforcement Team — decided to answer some of those inquiries…with extreme prejudice.

One of the responses from BXLPET Quebec should address that issue about, “what if a bunch of kids complain about me because I’m so good at [insert any game here]?”

XBLPET Quebec: “So…just to repeat myself for bajillionth time (that’s a real number)…it doesn’t matter how many people complain about you. It all turns into one complaint that we review. What matters is that your profile was just slightly less offensive than the inside of a toilet stall in a gas station on the 5. Suspension stands.”

So I went back to the Xbox forums — because there’s so much fun on seeing those game-ruining cretins getting what they deserve — but for whatever reason, the XBLPETs are not funny anymore; now they just copy/paste their responses and highlighting the offense that got these people into trouble, look how boring it is now!

That’s not the way to respond to a complaining customer; it now looks like an automated response from a computer. In fact, how can anyone even tell the difference? How can the complainers know their message was actually read by a human being? And more importantly, how can we feel that justice is being properly served?!

So I went back and dug up a little deeper into those days and found a few more gems to share with all of you. Let’s remember one more time some of the main reasons why your account can get suspended or premabanned from the service. If you’ve ever lost your nerve playing with idiots or cheaters through Xbox Live, you won’t feel any kind of remorse while laughing at these guys misfortune. Enjoy!

Nothing beats being told EXACTLY the reason why they have been banned.

BANNED UNTILL YEAR 9999?!?

Alchemist54csg: “gt:Alchemist54csg i have been banned till 12/31/9999. So this is what happend i was playing call of duty world at war and i got into a infection lobby in multiplayer and when i left i had all of this stuff like all wepons god mode. i said to myself crap how do i get this off and i couldent think of anything and next thing i know is that i have been banned. but it wasnt my fault i was just playing mulitplayer and it happend so why should i get banned when i couldnt do anything about it. this is outragus. please respond back i need some answers.”

XBLPET Quebec: “Alchemist54csg was witnessed turning (( Peter Pan Mode [on] off )) in a no fly zone on Call of Duty: World At War. Suspension Stands.
You were issued a cheating suspension for engaging in inappropriate gameplay, system tampering, or obtaining an unfair advantage through an in-game exploit in violation of the Terms of Use.”

Or whatever the hell you call it…

My Account Got suspended Till 9999?

IXI Wesley IXI: “Hi, my account (IXI Wesley IXI) recently got permanantly suspended till 9999 because a friend apparently was messing with my peofile information while i wasnt in the room and changed it to innapropriot stuff. The next day i was playing contra and i got disconnected and when i tryed to re-connect it said “Suspended till 9999″ So i quickly run to the phone sad as ever because i just renewed the subscription for 12 months of gold and reached about 27000 gamerscore. So on the phone they tell me to go on my hotmail and see what it says and after then post on the forums. So i pretty much covered what happend so heres what the email said on my hotmail. [...]

I know my account is MY response abillity but why do i get suspended for so long just for crap that was put in my profile info?? And as you can see most of it is censored. I’m really dissapointed about this and dont want to switch to ps3 so check this out. And by reading other formus i know you probably dont care about my problem and will say “suspention stands as is” but it is clearly a mistake and i love xbox live and my xbox live 12M subscription that i just bought about a month ago and i had the account for nearly 3 years so please take time into this and realize that im a big xbox fan and i dont want to switch consoles just for this mistake! Contact me at [edited by moderator]“

XBLPET Quebec: “IXI Wesley IXI was witnessed turning ((Mary Poppins Mode [on] off)) in a no fly zone on COD:World at War. Suspension Stands.”

Account banned

spidey1999′s mom or dad: “My son was banned on xboxlive spidey1999 he had a new friend over he met from school and now we were banned for some reason? His new friend is no longer aloud over to play games. If some could please help turn it back on we would kindly appreciate it. Thankyou! Kind Regards”

XBLPET Quebec: “Your son was banned for taking advantage of the “my skin is made of Kevlar” mod on CoD:WaW. While fun for him it is modding, and most importantly, it ruins the game for legitimate players. Sorry, but this is a permanent suspension.”

This is one of those long messages, right? (click on the link to read the complete post, or not)

My account has been suspended 2 times in 3 days.

GT iDriftSilvias: “Hi, My account ( GT iDriftSilvias ) has been suspended 2 times in 3 days. First one was for 2 days, second one is for 2 weeks.

I just put a year of live ona nd bought The Resurgence map pack for MW2, and Im not exactly rich so I cant afford the $60 in live and $20 in MSP.

I want to know why i was suspended. [...]

I know my Youtube channel has “Modz” in it, but come on, its just a youtube channel. yes it has modding stuff on there, and if you watch it even a video of a Jtagged 360, but heres the ting. the JTag is banned, and it was when i got it, it has never gone online (by me anyways) I dont use any kind of mods online at all. I mod BANNED xbox 360 cases and fans to cool them better, that is IT. And i never put them online. I dont mod the software or the Motherboard either. [...]

I am a Avid COD player and clan leader. I am a 10th prestige Level 70, and I cant afford to get my account or console banned anymore. Not that my console has ever been banned. I also am glad you guys got rid of all the Infections/ Modded lobbies on COD. I wont miss them at all, they were annoying as it gets.

Please and thanks, any help appretiated.”

XBLPET Juliet: “Your first suspension was for putting ‘Bitchz’ in your profile.

Your second was for posting a website to your profile that breaks the Code of Conduct.

Also, your your youtube profile contains the following:
About Me:
I mod consoles, controllers, gamerprofileds, gamwertags, gamerscores, gamer pictures, avatars, ETC”

I WANT A REPLY RIGHT NOW !!!

WHY BAN ME FFS: “You are banning all my accounts,

My gamertags are:

Untitled
Surreal o

Banning me for no reason this is a bloody joke sort your life out banning me for no reason i was in a party and you ban me i payed for membership aswell yesterday i want a refund today or i will take actions against this.”

XBLPET Juliet: “Well, considering both accounts were advertising this: “MTAF: JACKING ANY GAMERTAG FOR 1MONTH GOLD AND oG GAMERTAGS FOR A 3MONTH GOLD MESSAGE BACK IF YOU WANT IT”, it would seem we had a very valid reason to suspend these accounts.

These permanent suspensions will stand as issued. All content and licenses upon permanent suspension are forfeit.”

Please check banned gamer tag

sparks75′s mom: “My son says he joined a random game in COD World at War and was booted from the game and now its saying the gamer tag is banned.
The gamer tag is sparks75″

XBLPET Juliet: “He left out that he obtained infections (a kind of unauthorized modification or hack) and then proceeded to purposefully and actively exploit those infections in a game. He was permanently suspended for using hacks/cheats/mods.”

The only real victims here are those good Gamertags now lost forever…

Can I get my Xbox live banned GamerTag account back?

Winning Jesus: “The account that is banned, it’s Gamertag is Winning Jesus
The current Gamertag I have and want to change, my Gamertag is Winning G0D and I want to change it to Winning Jesus.
Thanks if I can!”

XBLPET Quebec: “You can’t. When an account is banned the Gamertag goes to Gamertag Heaven. Shouldn’t you know this being Winning G0D and all? Just another reason to not get permabanned for cheating.”

SUSPENDED 4 LIFE!

HighQualityHam: “hello my gamer tag is HighQualityHam and i was just recently banned. i joined a game lobby on World at War, and then my xbox froze. i turned it back on and as soon as i logged in it said i was banned for 12/31/9999. i was very upset with this because i had everything on that account. i really would like it if u unbanned me so i can continue in the live of xbox live. i really think you guys can work this out. Thanks”

XBLPET Quebec: “Sadly HighQualityHam was suspended for cheating, as they were witnessed LITERALLY… making pigs fly in COD:World at War. Another awesome gamertag bites the dust for a few thrills. G.J..”

ive beened suspended untill THE END OF EARTH

extra hard: “my gamertag is extra hard i didnt do anything why did you decide to ban me after i just reedeemed 1600 microsoft points”

XBLPET Quebec: “Huh… Well “extra hard” was banned for modding lobbies for 1600 points. It saddens me that a good gamertag was lost today…”

This is a strangely popular way to get banned: people tampering the available colors of their avatars.

SUSPENDED TILL 12/31/9999??

ant 8693: “My account ant 8693 got suspended & i wasn’t even online for the last 3 to 5 days”

XBLPET Golf: “Apologies, but you needn’t be connected to LIVE to see that your avatar has been modified to be bright red.”

why did I get band?

supererazzer: “all my achievements are real”

XBLPET Golf: “And your avatar is real purple.”

suspended for ever

x MagicEy3z x: “I really want to know why my account was suspended for life. I never modded or anything like my old gamer tag is ” x MagicEy3z x ”. So please reply to why i was suspended”

XBLPET Golf: “For an account that has never been modified, the avatar is rather magenta.”

banned for gamerscore

Pcruzl: “banned gor gamerscore i have had this for a while really stupid they should just remove my gamerscore and call me a cheater”

XBLPET Quebec: “I don’t know what you’re asking. But either way, why would I hit you for modded Gamerscore when I can Permaban you for having a modded avatar?
So yeah… you were, just now, hit for a modded avatar.”

And you would think that Xbox Support doesn’t have any personal reasons to ban some people, but then…

why me

x3P1C 5C0P35x: “i was playing xbox and it said i was banned and i dont mod i didnt break any rules and if u can lift it my gamertag is x3P1C 5C0P35x”

XBLPET Quebec: “XboxLive doesn’t have the Smurfs blue skin color license yet as far as I know, so I’m going to say you were hit for a modded avatar.”

Account Ban

Applaudd: “Can you please tell me the reason for banning Applaudd, i’m unsure”

XBLPET Quebec: “Oompa Loompa’s are NOT allowed on Xbox Live. Call me a racist if you want… but they’re just like Smurfs… once you get them, you can’t get rid of them. Do you know much this costs us per week in mousetraps and Smurfberries?! They’re out of Season!
…
Account Tampering”

Your kind is not welcome here.

In the end, while there are still some serious concerns about the new Microsoft console (which remains to be seen if there’s a huge flop or bussiness strategy), being falsely banned shouldn’t be a thing to be concerned about; there’s record about accounts being falsely banned in the past, but Microsoft had also accurately responded to those and even compensate them for the trouble.

So, if you’re not thinking about tampering with your console, trying to smart out Xbox’s policies, or failing as a human being while playing online games: don’t buy the Xbox One, it is definitely not the console for you.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Mayor’s Log, Part 1

Community Writer — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:47:06 +0000

I’ve never played an Animal Crossing game before, but a series of extremely enthusiastic New Leaf fans on Twitter pushed me over the edge. Last night I started my quest, knowing only that I’d encounter a clutch of achingly cute animals along the way. Join me as I get to know the citizens of Geebung.

June 15th, 7:30pm: I’m met on the train by an adorable cat (?) named Rover. He asks me where I’m going, and because of a very small character limit, my destination will be Geebung (the suburb where I grew up) instead of New Holland. After a few minutes of general chit chat he tells what I assume to be an inside joke (been riding this train since 2002 apparently) and it dawns on me that I haven’t been asked to customize an avatar. So, do I get to use my Mii, or is there a standard character that everyone has to play?

June 15th, 7:35pm: Hey, I’m a small, brown haired, white boy. Hooray for diversity, I guess.

June 15th, 7:37pm: I’m introduced to the townsfolk, a charming array of anthropomorphised animals and am proclaimed mayor of Geebung. I challenge this assertion, because as far as I know, I was just visiting. No, it appears that it is I who is mistaken, and I will be the new mayor of Geebung.

June 15th, 7:40pm: I’m informed that I will need a place of residence before I can officially be sworn in as mayor. I am asked to meet with a real estate agent immediately. All the other businesses in Geebung are closed and I notice there’s only a handful of houses here, so it stands to reason that if your livelihood is selling property, you’d best be on call.

June 15th, 7:43pm: I settle on a lakeside site next to some trees. There’s been no mention of cost at this point. Do they give away waterfront properties in Geebung?

June 15th, 7:44pm: My real estate agent, Tom Nook sets up a tent for me to use while the house is being built. He gives me a lantern and shows me how to set it up and use it. “This is a set up,” I think to myself, afflicted with mild paranoia. He tells me to see him tomorrow to get the bill. I knew this was too good to be true!

June 15th, 7:46pm: Isabelle, my colleague in the mayor’s office confirms my birthday and gives me a Town Pass Card. She then leads me to my inauguration ceremony in the town square. I plant a tree and bask in the insincerity of my new people. I am now the mayor.

June 15th, 7:50pm: I put the console to sleep so I can watch the Waratahs get thumped by the British and Irish Lions. Throughout the game I think back to the one piece in this puzzle that doesn’t fit: Rover. Was he supposed to be Geebung’s incoming mayor? What did he have to gain from me being installed as leader? Was I thinking into this a little too much? Only time would tell.

June 15th, 9:45pm: I attend the Bug-Off trophy ceremony. I am the mayor after all and this is a prime chance to be seen with my constituents. The judge appears to have eaten each of the winning entries; looks like a trophy is the most that any contestant can hope to walk away with. With each trophy conferral, we clap — that is to say that we try to, our hands never quite meet but a thunderous sound is being made anyway. I’m tired and a little drunk. I need to leave before I make a scene.

June 15th, 9:55pm: I stumble from tree to tree, shaking them in the hope of finding treasure or some clue as to why I’m in this post. I acquire fruit and money. I shake one last tree, my view of the ensuing melee is obscured by another tree. I emerge with one eye swollen, stung by a swarm of angry bees!

June 15th, 10:00pm: What a night. I retire for fear of being further brutalised by the wildlife of Geebung.

June 16th: 7:30am: I awaken and exit my tent to find myself greeted by my postman, a pelican. He explains the mail system and warns me to check for incoming letters regularly or else my box will overflow and I’ll then miss out on any additional mail. I have one letter from an anonymous sender, he indicates that it was he who was supposed to be thrust into the role or mayor, but insists I’ll be fine. I swear at this point that I will hunt this villain down and bring him to justice for the grievous fraud he has committed!

June 16th, 7:31am: ROVER, YOU SON OF A BITCH, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN!!!

June 16th, 7:38am: Isabelle briefs me on the mechanics of mayorhood and drops the bombshell that my approval rating is a whopping thirteen percent. I’ve just moved here, been thrust into a leadership role and I’m living in a fucking tent. Give me a break!

June 16th, 7:39am: Pacing with murderous intent following my shocking poll results, I run into a boar who tries to sell me some turnips. She explains that people don’t eat them much anymore, but I can buy and sell them to various people to turn a profit. Can these turnips be used to manufacture drugs, I wonder; why else would the market be so volatile? I mean, if you’re not going to eat the fucking things, then why are you buying them? I can now see through Geebung’s smiling veneer and behold the festering shithole of addiction and greed that lies beneath. I want to die.

June 16th, 8:38am: Riddled with anxiety, I visit the real estate agent to see just how far I’ve submerged myself in debt. To my surprise, his office is closed and he didn’t leave me with any other means to contact him.

June 16th, 8:39am: I visit the post office. Apparently Nintendo had left something for me: a rainbow screen. I wonder if I can sell it off to scrounge for a house payment.

June 16th, 8:40am: I visit Nookling Junction and find myself greeted by Tommy, who appears to be a cute, brown raccoon thing. He likes to give some subtext to everything he says, whispering sweet nothings after each of his utterances. Bells, the town’s currency are “So shiny,” and he wants me to come back because he’d “Love to see me.” I sell some cherries for roughly one thousand bells. I wonder whether feeding myself will become problematic if I can score a grand for some common fruit. It comes to mind that I’ve played this game for roughly ninety minutes and still haven’t murdered anything. I buy a shovel: not only because it should be a deadly weapon, but it should help me to dispose of any evidence that could incriminate while I sit in Geebung’s throne. I also buy a bug net, because I’ll show those shitheads how to win a Bug Off.

June 16th, 8:47am: To my horror, it doesn’t look as though I can do much damage with this shovel. I do, however, unearth three fossils while digging around the town. I wonder how much money I can get for these things? What ancient creatures lived beneath this city’s tiny houses?

June 16th, 11:55am: I visit Tom Nook’s office again. Ten thousand dollars, for a lakeside property in this economy. Things could be worse. Tom tells me to go fishing and catch bugs to make the down payment. My first instinct is to tell him to go to hell. As if you could afford a house by pawning sea shells, but then I remembered that puzzling formula from this morning: 8 bunches of cherries = approximately $1000.

June 16th, 12:07pm: I speak with Blathers, the owl curator of Geebung’s museum. At first he seems shitty at me for waking him up, but he’s cooled off. He assesses the fossils I’ve found to reveal that I’ve been lugging dinosaur skulls across my city. What the fuck, these bones are probably worth millions and he wants me to donate them FOR SCIENCE? Knowing my luck, I’ve probably got kids to feed somewhere in this dungeon of a town.

June 16th, 12:18pm: I need ten large. If I want a solid roof over my head, I’m going to have to meet that end. I started shaking cherry trees, but they weren’t fetching as much at Re-Tail. I collected shells and bells. I hunted butterflies and for as long as I’d been in Geebung, I found the closest thing to pure joy.

June 16th, 12:30pm: Nook has his fucking money now and tomorrow I’ll have a house. What will I need to endure to survive my tenure as mayor of Geebung? Will I exact sweet revenge on Rover? Tune in next week to find out!

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Why “Gamers” should support the Xbox One, I know I will

Community Writer — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:43:25 +0000

OK first let me say this, this is my first posting and yes it’s a dissenting one and long. Maybe should have broken it into several but I didn’t because many, many words have been written in a negative light in regards to the Xbox One I felt some healthy debate was needed.

Console gaming has evolved over the years into 4 main components that are equally crucial to a good experience.

1. Hardware
2. Games
3. Culture (this includes used games, online play etc.)
4. extras

I will attempt to outline here why in each category I believe Microsoft has made the right decisions (mostly.)

First up Hardware. By now most people are fully aware of the specs of both systems, if you’re not then you just woke from a coma and should probably be learning how to walk and eat again. Both systems are near enough alike that at least for the near future the games will remain indistinguishable from one another. (Hey even the consoles themselves look very much alike.) That will change in time, in fact when Titanfall releases I believe we’ll get our first glimpse at what the addition of a 300,000 server cloud can bring to the table. That’s THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND servers working for the benefit of Xbox One and Xbox Live. I cannot stress enough how much of a game changer this may be, Respawn has said they will utilize them as dedicated servers as well as for computing power as well. Forza 5 will also utilize the cloud for various tasks. Once developers become more familiar with and start offloading work to the cloud the potential is astounding.

The biggest differences in hardware are 2 items, the controller and Kinect. For me the controller is a BIG deal, I have been guilty of many marathon sessions of gaming with friends and because of this the Xbox 360 controller has always been superior in my opinion. The reviews of the new controller are all unanimous in their acclaim of the controller for the Xbox One. One thing I would add that seems to not get much mention is the the new controller uses 802.11 to communicate with the console, not bluetooth which only makes it easier (I assume) for higher bandwidth thus leading to TRUE wireless surround sound headsets NOT simulated.

The Kinect, yes I said it. This is a benefit. Resist all you want but they have finally made this thing useful by all accounts. Personally I will be using mine. Why? Simple, while not fat, I AM lazy. While lying on the couch one evening I have no success finding anything on 480 channels of reality programming that won’t make me vomit. I decide to switch to Netflix so I can stream through the entire season of “House of Cards” Now I will be able to just say it and it will happen. (Godlike powers for a hundred bucks, I’m thinking the ladies are gonna love that one) Even better, since the Kinect can recognize people how about if it just automatically switches and starts streaming “Twilight” or “The Notebook” when a certain person into the room with me… HEY MICROSOFT! Be a pal and make that happen. Seriously though we have seen at E3 some very limited albeit handy uses in “Ryse.” I also remember reading somewhere that if you happen to be sneaking around in “Dead Rising 3″ and you begin talking your Kinect will hear you and so will the Zombies which will cause them to find you. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but it is a new thing.

One more thing on hardware, the buzzterm out there now is “second screen”, one console comes with one another will sell you one. But the better solution I believe is the one MS has come up with, SMARTGLASS. I dunno how many of you noticed in those demos of BF4 and The Division there were players using Smartglass via tablets. I already have one as do MANY other people. You can even use Smartglass with your phone. I am unclear if the phone version will be as functional as the tablet version. I LOVE this idea. SMART move!

Culture. OK this is a big one. First off let me say that all the furor over the new policies that are being put in place by Xbox regarding DRM are going to end up being the industry standard eventually. Why? The simple answer is money. It always comes down to this and the fact of the matter is there are too many devs going out of business or having mass layoffs for things to continue the way they are, it’s just not sustainable.

As far as the check in once per 24 hours goes I’m OK with this as well. It’s high time someone stepped up and put something in place that will at least slow one of the biggest problems facing the industry. THEFT. I am speaking from personal experience on this one, I have had my house robbed 3 times in the past 3 years. twice they have taken TV’s and a few other things. But in ALL 3 cases they have stolen my console and all of the titles (except for Wolverine X Men Origins dunno why) Before you say it, I don’t live in an especially bad Neighborhood, alarms don’t work. The simple fact is I’m just gone from home for too long too often. Now stealing a console is bad enough, but when you consider I’ve had more than 30 titles stolen believe me it adds up fast. So now comes Xbox One with it’s new policies. I look at it this way, if the day one digital downloads work as planned I’ll never buy another disc again, let’s see ya steal that Douchey McStickyfiingers. If a console is stolen it’s only going to be useful if it checks in once per day, at which time Microsoft can BRICK it, the way things are now thieves can easily resell or pawn any hot items they may have. Once the new system is in place a while word will get around fast that a stolen Xbox and its games are unusable. So for me, this is a great thing. As far as theft goes there is another kind, piracy. It’s a fact that the day a game goes on sale (in some cases before) there are thousands of illegal downloads of said game. Right now there is no check in place to prevent people running these titles on a console that is modified and offline. Yes eventually people will crack the new system to get around it as well but at least for a while things will be brought to a halt.

In short if you are a “gamer” and love the games and love playing them as I do, then the really smart thing to do is embrace the new policies. Seriously, in the end it will only benefit us as gamers. Think about it, you can still share your games with your friends and family. In fact, unless I’m mistaken you can now share your games library with friends or family without being signed in or even on the same box. So if I buy Minecraft and my daughter who is away at college (yep I’m that old) wishes to give it a try all she has to do is log in and have at it. As far as I know that’s unique for ANY system including pc. As far as selling and buying used games goes, that is up to the publisher. Believe me this will be the same on both systems. If not, then in the end I believe the advantage goes to the system that offers the best chance for a publisher to profit. Whichever system prevents profit loss will in the end be more attractive to devs and publishers and that is where you will see the better exclusive third party games. Renting games is a touchy one, one thing that renting games does that needs to be curtailed is prop up poorly made games and game devs. Yes I believe that. Like movies there are good ones and bad ones. Right now you can pay full price for those titles you KNOW you want but you can rent the ones you are iffy on. This creates a niche market of low budget poorly made games that probably should never have been made, much like the SYFY channel movie on my TV right now. What we have right now is an environment that allows mediocrity, actually it encourages it. What we need is an environment that gets the really great games makers PAID and the mediocre to die off.

Extras. OK here we go, this is where i think MS went awry with the way they announced the reveal and then hit E3 with everything else. (I think they know it now too) They should have led their reveal with GAMES, GAMES and more GAMES. Then people would have been wowed with what they saw and been blown away with all of the other things they would have learned at E3 such as SKYPE, multi window functioning, HDMI passthrough. Instead it was like biting into scrambled eggs and getting a mouthful of shell. From that point on either you just don’t want anymore or you every single bite after is faced with trepidation and negativity. No matter what anyone in marketing thinks it REALLY IS THE GAMES that are going to sell this thing, at first. THE BEST ADVERTISING IS WORD OF MOUTH always has been always will be. First you have to get a foothold out there and that will only be done by gamers…

Filed under: gbunfiltered

How Sony won the battle of E3

Community Writer — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 08:54:30 +0000

When Jack Tretton addressed the issue of used games and online authentication at Sony’s E3 Media Briefing, to rapturous applause, he was only taking jabs at the Xbox One, the knockout blow was still to come. When Sony unveiled that the PS4 would be $100 less than the Xbox One, Sony had won the battle of E3 and Microsoft’s hard work was undone.

The battle for E3 was always going to fought between Microsoft and Sony as they showcased their next generation platforms. With both Xbox One and PS4 sharing similar hardware specifications (they don’t look to different either) the difference was always going to be the games. Well, at least Microsoft thought so. Bouncing back from the negative feedback from their Xbox One reveal last month, Microsoft decided to focus on games. With Metal Gear Solid, Battlefield, Watch Dogs and exclusives Ryse, Killer Instinct, Forza 5, Quantum Break, Dead Rising 3, Sunset Overdrive, Titanfall and of course Halo, things were looking good for Microsoft. They intentionally avoided talking about DRM and online authentication, issues that would detract attention from what was a great showcase. There was one issue they couldn’t avoid talking about and that was the price of the system. Going first up with their presentation, Microsoft needed to be pretty confident in the price they were going to reveal, surely they had some insight that Sony would be releasing their console at around the same price. The bar was set high with Microsoft’s presentation and at $499 so was the price, at least more than many had anticipated. The challenge was set, how would Sony respond?

As the day progressed speculation that Sony would undercut the price of the Xbox One grew to the point that the question was not if, but by how much. $50 less would be great, but if the PS4 was $100 less, that would really make an impact. That it did, Sony had won the battle for E3 and a lot of what came before it was forgotten. Some things were even overlooked such as Sony now charging for online play or that their announced DRM policy only applied to games they published. It was really Microsoft that set things up for Sony, who as a result scored a huge PR victory, they were standing up for the gamers and was now their champion. Microsoft on the other hand was down for the count.

It’s hard to say where Microsoft will go from here, their near silence after the Sony press conference hasn’t helped. With Don Mattrick’s interview with GameTrailers where he said “we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360” spreading like wildfire on the web, Microsoft need to speak up soon as it’s hard to tell if it’s confidence in their product or in fact arrogance that’s driving their decisions. While it’s unlikely we will see an Xbox One price drop before launch, it’s not impossible, back in 2002 Microsoft reduced the price of the original Xbox by £100, just a month after release, in anticipation of the release of the Gamecube. Of course, the Xbox brand is not what it was then, being the leader of the home console market, in North America at least, can change the way you think. Just ask Sony, we only have to go back 8 years ago when Ken Kutaragi suggested consumers would work more hours just to get a PS3. Like the Xbox One, the PS3 promised to be a a future-proof system, it didn’t do too badly either, maybe it’s a good example for Microsoft to follow. Maybe not, the PS3 did big numbers outside of North America, something the Xbox One might have a tough time doing. Europeans will have to cough up around $666 to get their hands on Microsoft’s next home console, while it’s not even known when it will see the light of day in Asia. No doubt we will be hearing about the added value the Kinect offers to the Xbox One, but a $349 PS4 with PlaysStation Eye bundle could take away some of that attractiveness. Whatever Microsoft does to try claw things back, they need to do it soon.

The console war has only just begun, a lot will change from now up until we enter the next-generation in November and in the years to follow. However, with this first battle victory Sony has put themselves in pole position. Can they take this momentum forward> or will Microsoft turn things around? We’ll find out soon enough.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Thanks but no thanks, Microsoft and Sony

Community Writer — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 08:47:41 +0000

I love technology, electronics and gaming. It’s in my DNA… if it has a circuit board, chances are I like it! I’ve watched all the major keynotes (Apple, Microsoft, and Sony) and as it stands, I’m not going to purchase a console at or around launch. Granted this could all change in the months to come, at this point Microsoft and Sony have a hard sell ahead of them if they want my money this holiday season!

As a disclaimer, I make a living as a mobile games consultant on the NativeX Games Task Force. We collaborate with mobile game developers to increase the engagement, retention, and monetization of their freemium games. With that said, I am not biased towards mobile games, I’m simply not interested in the next generation consoles. Here’s why:

Xbox One

I really like my Xbox 360. I wouldn’t say I’m a fanboy, but I did initially buy an Xbox 360 over a PS3 because it was cheaper and out first. Sure I’ve owned 6-8 Xboxes since I had a first gen that broke, BUT we’ve had a great run together. Here are some reasons why this savvy consumer isn’t buying an Xbox One at launch…

Price: Sure it’s $100 more than the PS4, and I’d be willing to pay the extra amount IF it had features or games that I deemed worthy. The sad reality is that it does not.

Not Interested in Exclusives: I won’t buy a console for an exclusive title. I think that’s ridiculous. Maybe I’m just too practical, or maybe I’m not alone and more gamers/consumers are thinking like this?

Online Connection: While the internet is up 98% of the time at my house, I do feel a little anxious that it “requires” a connection at least once every 24 hours. What happens if I have an outage and want to play? I feel it’s unacceptable that Microsoft might dictate when I can play… or where since I want the option to take my Xbox somewhere that might not have an internet connect. Come on Microsoft! Really?

Kinect: Maybe kids enjoy playing it? Honestly I haven’t met someone who really, REALLY liked the Kinect. The most positive responses I get sound like “yeah it’s ok” or “it’s kind of cool.” I’ll spare you the slew of negative reactions. It has the same gimmicky feel that the Wii did, but without stellar and/or nostalgic IPs.

Hardware: It’s early but I think benchmarks will be similar between the Xbox One and PS4. I certainly don’t think I would tell a difference between the two if I played them side by side. This would be acceptable IF I weren’t paying $100 more.

Skepticism of Microsoft First Gens: I got burned with my Xbox 360. I literally spent more time without an Xbox in the first year because of the dreaded red ring of death. And what did I get for compensation? Nothing. Sure they sent me “new” (more accurately “other”) Xboxes, but those broke too. I had 7 or 8 Xboxes before eventually buying a new one when the slimmer model came out, but only because my 8th Xbox broke again, I was outside of my “warranty” and I wanted to play with my brother in Japan.

After what I’ve been through I have every right to be bitter. I’m over it now, but in the heat of the moment I might’ve yelled at phone representatives or lost my cool. Fool me once Microsoft? Shame on you. Fool me twice? Not a chance in hell.

PS4

I own a PS3 slim model as well as an Xbox 360. I play my 360 much more than my PS3 mostly due to Halo and the fact that my friends have Xboxes. If I had to buy a console today I would choose the PS4 over the Xbox One because what Sony is saying is appealing more to me, it’s $100 less and will more likely support used game sales. However, there’s one really big reason why I won’t be buying a PS4 and that’s the lack of need. Let me explain in the following areas…

No Hardware Upgrade Needed: Obviously this is personal, but the major reason why I won’t buy a PS4 at launch. I don’t “need” a new console. There’s a reason why my TV isn’t smart, 3D or 4k. I don’t need those features. I’m also not buying a low end piece of crap from Wal-Mart, but I do my research, wait for the right deal and pull the trigger when it comes along. Sure the features mentioned might be nice to have, but as a consumer I don’t buy nice to have features. I’m happy with my current generation consoles, their performance and will continue to play on them until there are games only for this generation and not my current 360/PS3.

No Vita: I, like most of you, don’t have a Vita so the streaming functionalities doesn’t matter to me. I also won’t be buying another handheld gaming device because of the iPad and phones. In this day in age, with all our technological enhancements, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to play any game I like on the platform of my choice. I know exclusives will never go away, but I wish they would. Call me crazy, but I just want to play what I want, where I want.

Here’s an idea around streaming. Make an iOS & Android app that could stream content from my PS4 to my tablet. Join that with the ability to connect a PlayStation to Android devices and that iOS7 will have third party controller APIs. Console gaming + mobile capabilities = mind-blown!

Not Interested in Exclusives: Again, I won’t buy a console for an exclusive title.

The Evolving World

I feel like these consoles aren’t really listening to what’s been happening in the technological world. It’s a little old school to just “improve graphics” with a new generation of consoles. Sure they might’ve added TV/online capabilities, but I already have solutions in place to serve those needs so why would I need what they’re selling?

It’s true that my profession is within the mobile industry so you might be thinking he’s just biased, but I assure you, there are reports how consoles and software sales are declining. Before you send me hate mail, or begin trolling with negative comments let me clarify something… I’m not saying consoles are doomed or dying! The NPD is primarily retail sales so it’s possible that online sales are making up for the decline but there’s no way to prove it since there’s no insight on digital sales. I’m just saying that we live in a more innovative and immersive world. Our games and how we digest them need to be too. Sony won’t top PS2 sales until they realize and embrace this.

These keynotes have left me a little depressed as a gamer. I’ve had launch consoles with every system since the SNES (minus the Dreamcast, which I owned, but not at launch). I want to be excited about the next generation of gaming, I want to be excited about buying a new piece of technology but as it stands now I can’t get excited. Perhaps I’m the minority? Have I changed that much? Perhaps it’s not you Microsoft/Sony… it’s me? Things could change within the upcoming months, but I certainly need some crazy good reasons why I should even consider buying.

In the meantime I’ll be right here Microsoft/Sony. Contently playing on my current generation of consoles… and of course on my iPad and iPhone…

If you’d like to talk about this or any other games you can find me here at my blog, the NativeX blog or on Twitter.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Xbox One made me feel Micro – and really soft.

Community Writer — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 02:11:25 +0000

In essence, Microsoft’s E3 showing was impressive. I came in with the mindset of “all else equal.” Forget the DRM and the consumer restrictions for just a moment. No, I’m not an Xbox fanboy – I’m just a consumer trying to gauge which system to purchase within a reasonable budget. For a short while, it seemed like everyone was in awe. Like I said in one of my past posts – it’s all about the games.

Respawn’s Titanfall looks like an impressive first-person shooter reminiscent of Blacklight: Retribution.

Seeing Master Chief and promises of “blistering” speeds of (Wut?) 60 FPS had me squealing in glee.

Ryse seemed to showcase the processing power and graphic engine that’s unique to the Xbox One – with parry-attack-block QTE gameplay.

Insomniac Studios (Ratchet and Clank) Sunset Overdrive shows an interesting concept of an open-world shooter – with what appears to be littered with the same humanoid enemy…

Killer Instinct slapped me so hard with nostalgia I had to hold my face in agony – until I found out that the game will have a few different versions. A F2P version with Jago as the only “free” character, and many other versions not yet announced…

Out of all the exclusives shown during Microsoft’s conference, Killer Instinct was what kept me on-board.

That is, until the Sony conference.

It’s hard to argue the sheer one-sidedness that Sony provided. The last 3 minutes were the finishing blows. Splash-screens and YouTube videos examining their “policies” on used games were clear shots at Microsoft. When Microsoft puts the Xbox One into a position where they’re the black sheep of the next-generation, then that almost seems like assisted suicide. Sure, they provided 2 free games (à la PlayStation+) and did away with those dreaded Microsoft Points – but I can’t help but feel like Microsoft backed themselves into a corner.

It’s like your mom finding your stash of pot in your pants pocket while doing laundry and the only thing you can do is place the blame on Johnny from next door.

Look, I understand that Microsoft is looking out for the publishers and developers. Used games saturated the market and in turn, those aforementioned publishers and developers got jack-squat.

But isn’t that rectangular black behemoth supposed to be sold to us – the consumers? It’s hard not to feel a little betrayed when Microsoft is still shoving these restrictions like they’re little bonuses. Their claims of “always online” help benefit us by keeping our games updated seems like they didn’t care about us at all. I’m sure their PR department was working really hard to try and counter all the angry fans. Covering a turd in chocolate still makes it a turd.

It’s to the point where I’m exhausted trying to figure out the reason to renew my Xbox Live subscription. Why should I divvy up an extra 100 dollars? Searching through my Facebook newsfeed and Twitter timeline, it seems to me like all deck-hands have jumped-ship to Sony and left Microsoft stranded at sea. And when all my friends are chanting Sony, it’s hard to warrant a purchase of the Xbox One.

If that doesn’t sound like I’m “bandwagoning” – there’s good reason. I’m not going to be the only one out of my friends to own an Xbox One.

It just makes me feel like buying a Zune over an iPod.

And I did that – I regret it to this day.

Until Microsoft figures out what to do, I’ll be over at Sony’s – text me when Master Chief comes over. For now, I’m going to scour Imgur for s’mo gifs.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Game therapy: Using games to cope with life’s struggles

Community Writer — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:50:24 +0000

Everyone has different ways to cope with the bad times in life. Me? I primarily use video games. Games are definitely an escape from reality, and when I’m going through a really rough time, I use them to forget about all of my problems…at least for a little while. Here are a few of my favorite games I like to play when life gets hard.

FEZ

FEZ is a brilliant puzzle platformer available on the Xbox Live Arcade and PC. If there was ever a game to make you smile, this is it. It’s nearly impossible to get mad at FEZ; there are no lives, enemies, or anything to make you angry. When you die, you respawn right where you left off. I bet that you can’t play this game without cracking a smile. Go ahead, try it!

Heavy Rain (spoilers ahead)

Now, some people are going to disagree with me on this one, considering how Heavy Rain has a very depressing story. But, I think it’s a great game to play when you’re upset because it kind of makes your life seem not so bad. All of the characters have so many problems that it makes your problems seem petty. I mean, really—look at Ethan Mars; one of his sons died because he let his eyes off of him for too long, his wife left him, and he is doing a bunch of horrendous things in order to find his other son who was kidnapped. I’m pretty sure your problems aren’t THAT bad (if so, I’m very sorry).

Journey

From the music, to the graphics, to the sheer enjoyment of seeing how long you can get your scarf, thatgamecompany’s Journey is fun, distinctive, and just plain pretty. It has a special way of making all of your problems disappear. Journey is one of those games that you just can’t get angry at.

Any sandbox or open-world game (Grand Theft Auto, Sleeping Dogs, etc.)

Sandbox games are excellent to get your mind off of your problems because there is so much for you to do. You kind of get sucked into the world of the game. Lately, I’ve been playing Sleeping Dogs a lot; stealing cars, dating lots of women, and arresting drug dealers is bound to get your mind off of your problems.

If you’re feeling down, try out one of these games. I guarantee you will feel better after playing your heart out. And, remember: everything happens for a reason.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Disproving the common belief: Five myths about gaming

Community Writer — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:40:34 +0000

I have been playing video games since I was a kid, and in that large frame of time I have heard some ridiculous myths about the world of gaming. The general population views gaming much differently than gamers do. This piece is an effort to challenge the many myths about games and gamers alike.

Myth #1: Only kids play video games.

A 2011 study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reveals that the average gamer age is 37. Yes, you read that correctly. The study also shows that kids actually make up the smallest percentage of the gaming population; only 18 percent of gamers are ages 18 and under. Another surprising statistic is that 29 percent of gamers are over the age of 50. This study disproves the belief that adults don’t play video games.

It only makes sense that the average gamer age has been consistently rising for years, as games have really matured in the last couple of decades. Popular game series like Yakuza and Silent Hill and games like Heavy Rain appeal to adults more so than children.

Since video games have always been my favorite hobby, I’ve always surrounded myself with people that share that same interest. I have dozens of gamer friends, and not one of them is like the other. Boys, girls, kids, teenagers, adults…they all play video games. There is a common misconception that only little kids or losers living in their mother’s basements play video games. This is simply not true. There are video games for every type of person. “There are games now for pretty much every age, every demographic,” said Jesse Schell, professor of entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University.

The ESA study also shows that 58 percent of gamers are male, while a whopping 42 percent are female, proving that, while most people refuse to believe it, girls really do play video games.

Myth #2: Video games are pointless.

Everyone has something they love, whether it is sports, movies, music, video games, writing, etc. Something that is loved by one person may not necessarily be loved by another. Everyone has different interests and different things that they feel are important.

Video games mean much more to me than most people can understand. Video games are my escape from reality. Video games have kept me out of trouble, and, quite frankly, have made me the person I am today. Most, if not all, of my friends that are core gamers have stayed out of trouble and have become better people because of video games.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (D-Fla), said “The U.S. entertainment software industry is at the forefront of innovation and education, turning what we have thought about video games on its head.”

Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of ESA, says that the video game industry is one that creates jobs, develops innovative technologies, and keeps America competitive in the global marketplace. Video games don’t sound very pointless to me.

Myth #3: Violent video games are making children aggressive.

People are blaming video games, music, television, and movies for the rise in teen violence, when, in reality, the cause of teen violence is usually bad parenting. However, in some cases, even the greatest parents can end up with bad kids. We can’t really be certain as to what the cause(s) of teen violence are, but we can be certain that we know what they aren’t, and that is video games.

While many video games showcase violence, mindless destruction, and theft in an entertaining way, these games are not affecting people’s behavior when they put the controller down. According to Patrick Kierkegaard, researcher at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen, games may actually be decreasing the crime rate. “Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s, while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use,” he writes.

If people are letting out their aggression via a creative outlet, they are probably going to be less likely to commit crimes in real life. I enjoy shooting the bad guys, running over innocent civilians, and stealing cars in video games…does that mean I would ever even fathom doing those things in real life? Of course not. A person who says a video game inspired them to kill someone is obviously someone who needs to check in to a mental hospital. No evidence suggests that video games or any other form of media could turn an ordinary person into a criminal.

Myth #4: Video games rot the brain.

Dr. Allen S. Weiss, president and CEO of NCH Healthcare System, said, “Being immersed in a video game, and having your brain stimulated, can encourage creative solutions and adaptations.” In simpler terms, video games do not dumb you down; it’s just the opposite. Games such as Plants Vs. Zombies, Final Fantasy Tactics, and other strategy games require the player to really think about what they are doing; mashing buttons simply won’t work in these types of games. Games like Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution require the player to have fast reaction times. When I was in middle school, I played Donkey Konga, which is basically Guitar Hero with bongos. I was learning how to read music on the clarinet at the time, and playing Donkey Konga made that much easier. I now play Dance Dance Revolution and it requires me to use my eyes to read the notes and my feet to step on the right arrows at the correct time…I’m really amazed that my brain can handle all of that at once. I truly believe that video games can have a positive impact on the human brain and how it carries out functions in normal day-to-day life.

Myth #5: Games only have negative themes, such as violence and sex.

While some games may, at the surface, appear to be nothing but mindless violence, they sometimes tend to have a deeper underlying message. Gears of War 3 is a great example of this. While only blood, guts, and action on the surface, Gears of War 3 is a “father and son story” at its core, according to Chris Wynn, lead producer for Gears of War.

While a lot of game franchises such as Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row are all about promoting adult themes, a lot of video games evoke a very positive message. The game that comes to the forefront of my brain is a game I mentioned earlier, Heavy Rain for the PS3. In the game, you take the role of a father named Ethan Mars, and the objective is to save your son. Heavy Rain asks the player: “How far will you go to save someone you love?” The game had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, forcing me to make difficult decisions that could completely alter the ending. It made me think: What would I do if someone I loved was kidnapped? Would I risk my own life to save theirs? While Heavy Rain is rated M for Mature and is only suitable for adults, it has a very positive message. Not all video games are filled with mindless violence and destruction (even though those are still great).

I truly hope that this piece cleared up any misconceptions about the video game industry. Video games are a huge part of my life, and I want other people to realize that they can have a very positive impact on those who choose to play them.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Retro review: Mario Party 2

Community Writer — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:40:33 +0000

Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Party
Number of Players: 1-4
ESRB: E for Everyone
Available on: Nintendo 64
Release date: Jan. 24, 2000

As a child, my friends and I spent countless hours playing Mario Party 2. As I got older, I played every Mario Party title; nothing came close to Mario Party 2. In my opinion, it is the best Mario Party title ever released.

What makes it so great, you say? For one, the mini-games in Mario Party 2 are the absolute best. Hot Rope Jump, Hexagon Heat, Honeycomb Havoc, Toad in the Box…I don’t think there is one mini-game in Mario Party 2 that I don’t enjoy.

Another thing that makes Mario Party 2 stand out from the other entries in the series is its great selection of boards. There are six: Pirate Land, Western Land, Space Land, Mystery Land, Horror Land, and Bowser Land. For each board, excluding the final board, Bowser Land, the characters are dressed in costumes that correspond to the board they are on. For example, in Western Land, players are dressed as Cowboys.

For those who don’t know much about the Mario Party series, it’s a simple party game where the objective is to collect as many Stars as possible. Each game takes place on a board, much like a board game, and each player rolls the dice to determine how many spaces they can move for that turn. After every player has a turn, they all compete in a mini-game, and repeat it until the number of turns (chosen by player 1 at the beginning of the game) is up. Whoever ends up with the most Stars wins, and whoever loses feels like absolute crap.

As with any other Mario Party game, it is most enjoyable to play Mario Party 2 with friends. Playing with computer players is fun as well, but sitting around with a few friends and yelling at them when they steal your stars is the best way to play this game.

Final thoughts

Gameplay: Pure, simple fun. A party game at its finest.

Appearance: Menu presentation is fun. Graphics were great, at the time. Still fun to look at.

Sound: The music in this entry of the series is particularly enjoyable.

Replay value: Extremely high. I’ve been playing this game for over 10 years, and it’s still just as fun as it was the first time I played it.

Overall score: 9/10

Filed under: gbunfiltered

E3 2013: Sony’s Scipio Africanus

Community Writer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:48:09 +0000

During the Second Punic War, Rome was threatened by the relentless attacks by Carthage’s Hannibal who led a brilliant campaign, far from his home of Carthage in North Africa, across the Iberian Peninsula to bleed the young empire dry over several years. Hoping to destroy his lines of supply, a young general by the name of Scipio Africanus led a force into what is now present-day Spain, leading a successful series of battles behind his lines to sever the arteries feeding his armies. In the Battle of Ilipa, in 206 BC, Scipio was confronted by Carthaginian forces mustered together to reclaim what he had taken from them. According to certain figures, his army of 48,000 faced down an army made up of 54,500 which included a number of fearsome war elephants. In their first few confrontations, Scipio placed his best soldiers at the center of his formation with his allies on the flanks, convincing the Carthaginians to focus their best strength in the center with their weaker forces along their own flanks.

When the day of the ‘real’ battle came, Scipio ensured that his men ate well in the morning and then reversed his formation — his best would now be along his flanks while his Spanish allies would hold the center. Attacking and surprising the Carthaginians (who didn’t have time for breakfast), they reacted as Scipio expected them to by placing their elites in the center with their war elephants and leaving their flanks to their allies. When they realized that Scipio had changed his game plan, it was too late.

As the two forces clashed, Scipio withdrew his Spanish forces, pulling them back creating a ‘bowl’ like formation that enveloped the Carthaginians. Scipio’s strongest flanks now pushed against the sides of the Carthaginian army, squeezing their elites in a vice surrounded on two sides by their own allies pressing them and a Spanish force still out of reach in front just waiting for the right moment to strike. Scipio had lured the Carthaginians into a trap that they couldn’t escape.

By picking his strategy and outsmarting the enemy, Scipio not only defeated the Carthaginians at Ilipa — he utterly annihilated their army leaving only six thousand left alive to flee the battlefield.

And that’s essentially what Sony had done at their conference last night in one of the craziest PR moments in gaming history placing itself in the same league as when the Saturn was suddenly announced to the crowds months in advance in 1995′s E3. Unlike Sega’s short-lived surprise, however, Sony will be launching at $100 USD less than the Xbox One, won’t alienate other retailers, and will actually have a decent lineup to start with.

In some ways, Sony’s situation almost demanded that they go to extremes in the same way that Rome entrusted a part of their future to Scipio. The company has been struggling with a declining market share as its products, such as its once-lucrative television division, found themselves battered by rivals who have also moved into the mobile market. Mounting losses have also led to dramatic shakeups within its corporate hierarchy in an attempt to revitalize the ailing giant. This year, Sony was finally able to post its first profitable quarter since 2008.

It’s eerie looking back at what Sony DIDN’T do and how it played into last night. After announcing the PS4 in February, it was easy to see it as a mistake. “They had revealed their hand too early”, “Microsoft can plan ahead and knock them back”, and so on, much like how Scipio had seemingly left his strategy open for the Carthaginians to interpret. And when Microsoft finally brought out the Xbox One, trumping Sony’s hardware no-show, it only fueled even more speculation especially after affirming the Xbox One’s need to connect to the internet.

All through the self-imposed silence in the past several months since February, Sony quietly played their own game of PR, flanking the debate with cryptic, short answers, skirting the growing frustration being felt by the online community over the Xbox One’s draconian requirements for used games and rights management. Rumors began circulating that Sony would be following Microsoft’s lead — just that they weren’t coming out and saying it just yet so as to better measure their own, seemingly inevitable, response, pulling the debate deeper into a formation that seemed to be the only play they could make.

Microsoft isn’t stupid. They’re not where they are for doing dumb things on a regular basis. But their record isn’t one of perfection, either, as a number of examples from Microsoft Bob to Zune illustrate. This is also why Sony’s PR maneuvering — it’s celebration of indies, knocking down the bullet points on the Xbox One’s online sheet — had struck with as much power as it did. The cheers didn’t seem to only celebrate Sony’s support for gamers, but were also a repudiation of what Microsoft and its publishing partners wanted to decide for the living room with the Xbox One.

That’s not to say that Sony is the “winner” — it’s way too early to call a victor in a battle that hasn’t even really started yet. But it is an amazing time to be a gamer.

The Xbox One is still a powerful device and Microsoft’s long history has always shown that if they can’t simply win outright, they’ll adapt, make it work, and push forward. Microsoft’s deep pockets, fueled by its other businesses, has proven that it has the war chest to go in for the long haul with how many billions are needed. Judging from how quickly pre-orders had almost sold out last night on Amazon, the Xbox One will be home to celebrate the holidays with many eager gamers — along with the PS4.

There are also still questions over how important it is to actually have a PS4 or an Xbox One — at least for players like me who still enjoy what they already have as a platform from PCs to Wii’s. Or how Sony’s cloud gaming network will come together, how reliable the hardware will be, or the concerns over having to use ‘real names’ in signing onto their network leading to another degree of lost privacy.

But for last night, at least, Sony had fought and won their Battle of Ilipa. In the end, the bigger question may be whether they can take that all the way to Carthage.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

The gates before freemium: Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol

Community Writer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:43:32 +0000

I respect the hell out of Sid Meier and what he’s done for the industry. I’ve been a long time Civilization, Pirates and Railroad sim fan. Not only am I a Firaxis fan, but as you’d guess, I’m also a champion for the freemium/F2P business model (as well as gaming as a whole) so when I saw Firaxis and F2P combine I was excited to give them a whirl. Let’s take a look at Air Patrol (AP) from Firaxis!

What it does right

Game genre and accessibility

Firaxis and Sid Meier arguably make the best strategy video games (to the point where I basically expect it) so it’s no shock that Ace Patrol is another great and fun strategy game. AP is not only great, but it’s also accessible for new or experienced strategy gamers alike. It starts out with limited moves (maneuvers), pilots earn upgrades/maneuvers after battles and the battles increase with difficulty at an easy pace to bring most players along. This seems like a classic, or perhaps even simple, list of ingredients to a great strategy game but the moves and options make battles a little more challenging over time.

Subject matter

World War games make for some of the best subjects to be accepted worldwide. Most countries have knowledge of their history and in my experience, if localized, work well in many different countries with varying cultural differences. Most other game subjects need to be localized not only in language but also graphics to match the cultural differences in gaming so having a game with a context that doesn’t require as much localization helps keep costs lower.

Upgradable planes and pilots

I have a lot of options in this game. I can select pilots, upgrades and customize my planes and I can learn new maneuvers as my pilot levels. All these options give the player thousands of configurations but at the same time I’m not overwhelmed. I might not fully understand which maneuver best fits my playing style, but players learn over time.

Here’s one of the IAP menus. There are campaigns, special plane skins and improvements.

Here’s a screenshot of the customization options from the multiplayer menu. It’s difficult to see all the plane options and upgrades because there are several sub-menus.

Choice in missions

As a player I love choice so naturally I love the ability to chose my the mission of my choice. I can cater the mission to the way I like to play (e.g. defensive or offensive based missions for my defensive or offensive preference in play style) but it also makes me feel like I’m doing something meaningful towards the overall battle.

Can’t force quit restart

If something isn’t working out in a game that I’m playing I can usually force quit the game, restart it and retry a level without paying money/virtual currency for retries if the game is monetizating on that mechanic. I screwed up a move in a level I was play in AP, force quit the game and returned to find out that the game saves after a completed turn so I was stuck with the game that I had started.

Multiplayer

I love the asynchronous and also synchronous approach. If I can’t play a long session time then I can let my opponent take their turn and I’ll come back to it later. If I want to play a longer session with a friend we can both sit down and play a full match. There’s even head to head on the same device though I rarely use that functionality.

However, if I want to play a complete session with a stranger then it’s the luck of the draw with whether or not they can play a complete game with me but there’s not much Firaxis could do to prevent that from happening.

What could be improved

Multiplayer

I know I just listed this as something that worked well, but I have some complaints/concerns with how it currently works:

I wish I could chose the game type that I was playing. I want different plane configurations for the various game objectives, but I don’t know what type of game I’m about to play when selecting my loadouts. I love elements of chance in games, but not an element of chance with the objective when I’m setting my planes up.
It’s not always clear or obvious what type of game you’re about to play. There’s just a small banner at the bottom with the objective but I’ve played against players who have missed this and thought the game was just deathmatch or skirmish.

3. Randomly generated maps can create unfair disadvantages. As you can see from the screenshot below my enemies base is protected by land bases with anti-air artillery. If I fly over them I run the risk of them damaging or shooting down my planes. On the other hand, my base only has one base next to it and has clouds. I can’t target enemies in the clouds so my opponent only needs to get close enough to enter the clouds and he’ll win because I won’t be able to shoot him down in the clouds.

Business model

I’m preparing for a backlash of F2P hating comments, but Firaxis could’ve made more money with a true F2P business model. This is basically a premium/lite game meaning players need to purchase the a majority of the content through an IAP (premium), but players can get a taste/demo for free (lite). It looks like the game is charting OK right now but they’re also being featured by Apple. We’ll see if the game can hold a steady position. I’m predicting it won’t because players who want the content are likely going to purchase and then those who don’t feel compelled won’t. F2P models can generate much more revenue because they allow players to become repeat spenders, but in order to do so you really should have a virtual currency. Which brings me to my next point.

No virtual currency

All purchases in game are done through IAPs. Want to purchase the campaign to continue playing? You need to go through Apple’s IAP process which includes entering your password which is a hassle. Want a plane skin? Apple IAP process. Want to heal your pilots? Apple IAP process. If they could have a virtual currency then I could buy enough currency to purchase a magnitude of things. I could buy plane/pilot upgrades, maneuvers, different planes, different pilots, plane skins, campaigns, weapons, heal/rescue units and the list can go on and on. There are literally thousands of combinations of virtual items that could think of. However, making players complete an IAP is a point of friction. Take away the friction or make it happen less then your players will spend more money.

If they created virtual currencies then it would be great to also check out my article on boosting virtual economies.

Gated campaigns

Gating content means players can’t access some portion of the game’s content until they pass through a “gate.” Examples of gates could be registration forms, require players to connect to social networks or in this game it’s purchase the content via IAP. This is also known as a paywall. A paywall is a point in a game where you ask players to purchase something to continue progressing/playing or leave. It’s better to implement a virtual currency system and allow players to earn currency through grinding or IAP to unlock content.

Opt not to purchase and lose save

I played through the first 6 missions on my initial play through and when the system prompted me to purchase the British campaign for $0.99. I declined. I then found out that the game will reset your progress and you’ll need to start over. I understand that there wasn’t any more missions for me to play but a warning that all my progress was going to be erased would’ve been nice.

The UI in game is a little difficult to press sometimes, but I don’t have a better solution I think that just comes with the nature of the strategy games on a touch device. However, the 2D buttons and text on the menus could certainly improve. They look fuzzy, and lower definition. Menus and the like can look so crisp on a retina display, and most games don’t have problems with blurry text.

Gating before Freemium

Sid Meier has been designing and developing games for decades and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down. However, F2P is fairly new for everyone (experienced or n00bs) and it takes a bit of time to master or refine for studios. It’s easy for developers to look at F2P and say “I could just sell packs of content via IAPs.” It’s a logical step between Premium and full blown Freemium, but it’s also not putting your best foot forward. I haven’t seen a knockout F2P title (from a monetization level) from Firaxis, but they certainly haven’t been bad either. They’re learning a thing or two from games like Ace Patrol, and I think one of their future F2P is going to do pretty well.

If you’d like to talk about this or any other games you can find me here at my blog, the NativeX blog or on Twitter.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

The voice change: Snake’s downfall

Community Writer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:04:22 +0000

During Konami’s pre-e3 stream, it was revealed that Big Boss would indeed have a new voice actor with Kiefer Sutherland replacing David Hayter as the voice of the iconic hero of the Metal Gear Solid series and fans have been up in arms. Die-hard Hayter fans took to Twitter and various message boards in protest: How could Kojima Productions replace Snake’s signature grumbly voice after over 15 years of devotion to the series? How could Hideo Kojima forsake the man that sacrificed a portion of his paycheck to ensure that the original voice cast could be hired once again for the remake to Metal Gear Solid. Kojima stated that Kiefer Sutherland was chosen to give Big Boss a more subdued demeanor in order to compliment Metal Gear Solid V’s much more darker themes such as race and revenge. Revealing a top notch actor along with a valid reason for the replacement still hasn’t calmed the masses raving on the internet who have even threatened to boycott the game if Hayter is not cast. As much as Hayter deserves this love from fans and a role in the latest MGS installment, the decision to recast Big Boss is an absolute necessity not only for the character to grow but for the series to expand further into unexplored territory.

This article isn’t meant to compare either actor’s performing abilities: both men are amazing actors in their own right. This article is meant to provide an argument why the voice of Big Boss must change in order for the entire series to progress.

The main reason why Big Boss should not be voiced by David Hayter is because of the fact that Big Boss is no longer a Snake. Hayter is credited for voicing two characters in the entire series; Solid Snake and Naked Snake (aka Big Boss). He voiced Solid Snake in MGS 1, 2 and 4 and Big Boss in 3, Portable Ops and Peace Walker. Like father like son, these two Snakes share very similar characteristics and very similar character arcs throughout their lives.

During the events of MGS1, Solid Snake accepted a mission that proved to be more than what it seemed to be. The U.S. army black ops group turned rogue, Foxhound, took control of Shadow Moses Island and made a threat to launch a nuke if their demands were not met. It turned out that this group of terrorists consisted of disciples of the legendary soldier, Big Boss, and was led by none other than Solid Snake’s biological brother, Liquid Snake, who wished to carry out a plan bigger than the United States government itself. Snake realized that the motives of a higher power was bigger than even himself. This is mirrored in his father’s epiphany during the events of MGS3 where a mission of Soviet espionage turned into a tale of betrayal that made him questioned his allegiance to his own country.

Another parallel between the two is that they were both betrayed and used by their own mentors which led to both establishing their own view of the world and their own ethics. Big Boss was betrayed by his mentor, The Boss, and was forced to end her life. This drove him on the war-torn path that would ultimately create the world and lore of Metal Gear. Solid Snake, during the events of Metal Gear (NES/MSX), would be led by his commander Big Boss throughout his entire mission in Outer Heaven. It would be revealed that Big Boss was actually the leader of Outer Heaven and intentionally led Solid Snake into traps and gave him false intel. In the end, Solid Snake would end the life of his mentor and father whose philosophies of the world could not co-exist with his own.

With such similarities, it is no doubt why both men shared the iconic voice for 15 years. Both men have been portrayed as the persevering warrior that would only wage war for the good of the world, however, Big Boss’s path leads to a much more tragic end than that of his son’s. Solid Snake would live to be the hero that would free the world of the Patriot’s grasp while Big Boss would live to become the evil war monger who used child soldiers and an entire war state to bring the world to the brink of Apocalypse. With Kojima’s need to give the series more darker themes and with the franchise’s chronology creeping closer to Big Boss’s own climax, the need to bring a new voice actor to emphasize this tragic shift becomes tragically apparent.

The trailer for Metal Gear Solid V, which takes place in 1984 (11 years before the events of Metal Gear) foreshadows Big Boss’s downfall in the last few moments where he rides off on a black motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket, with a black piece of shrapnel embedded in the right side of his skull. The piece of shrapnel is symbolic of a demon’s horn sprouting through his head yet only on the right side. This may mean that he is slowly traveling down the evil path that he will end up during the events of Metal Gear. With MGSV being the start of a new chapter in the series and for Big Boss, it would be inappropriate for David Hayter to voice a man who will commit such heinous acts of war and death. Hayter’s voice is reserved for the hero who puts the needs of his comrades and the world first before anything. He is only reserved to voice a Snake.

There have been four characters that bear the name Snake throughout the game series; Naked Snake aka Big Boss, his perfect clone, Solidus Snake, and his twin sons, Solid Snake and Liquid Snake. Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake have different voice actors; Cam Clarke and John Cygan respectively. Both the main villains of their respective games, neither is referred to as Snake. Liquid Snake is simply referred to as Liquid and Solidus Snake (after being mistaken for Solid Snake) was referred to as either George, The President, or King. The only characters repeatedly referred to as Snake are Solid Snake and Big Boss who are both voiced by David Hayter.

At the end of MGS3, after Big Boss proved his loyalty to the mission and his country by killing The Boss, he was awarded by President Johnson the title of Big Boss. However, during the events of Portable Ops (6 years after MGS3) he refused the title, preferring his old codename, Snake. This whole time he refused the call to carry on the torch of The Boss, the woman he most respected, believing he was tricked into killing her. During the events of Peace Walker (4 years later), his respect and devotion for The Boss would be put to the test when he is forced to face a Metal Gear like machine that contained an A.I. designed to resemble the mind of The Boss. After preventing a nuclear launch and killing his mentor for a second time, Big Boss would toss away the head band that he took from The Boss in MGS3; a head band that not only represented The Boss but a signature piece of attire closely associated with Solid Snake as well. He would then announce to his devoted soldiers at Mother Base of his plans to create Outer Heaven, the same soldier-controlled state that would nearly bring the world to an end. Finally, 10 years after being awarded the title, Snake would abandon his codename and accept the title of Big Boss and, incidentally, the fate of becoming a monster. “Monster” was what his former comrade and close friend during Peace Walker, Kazuhira Miller, would call Big Boss when he would speak to his son, Solid Snake, almost 20 years later.

A monster is certainly not someone that Hideo Kojima wants to be associated with David Hayter’s Snake, a character loved by many gamers with the most distinct voice in all of gaming. He instead opted to give Big Boss a more subdued and serious actor like Kiefer Sutherland to guide the character on his dark new journey. People might still complain about the voice change but it’s evident that Kojima planned everything with pure intentions and with great respect and love to the fans of his series and to David Hayter who had just as much responsibility in bringing to life such a powerful character. Let us not bicker over the artist’s direction but allow him to take us for another wild, cinematic and emotional ride.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

My Impressions of the Call of Duty Ghosts All Access

Community Writer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:25:03 +0000

I was a couple of minutes late to the live stream. The reason I watched it is because this is a game I simply don’t mind spoilers for. I hate spoilers! Even the small ones, for most games that is. Shooters? I’m usually ok with spoilers, especially when it’s one that’s part of a very long series of familiar games.

Shooting Underwater!

So I jump into the live stream and what’s the first thing I see? Swimming underwater. Even I was like “How many times are we going to see this opening?” They’re really cool but I mean come on.
But then bullets started flying! Or swimming? Ok, it’s not super unique or anything but that was damn cool! Definitely better than just watching your character in a scuba suit start underwater and come out of it as an opening scene.
Actual interaction while under water? Nice! Thank you! A lot of the underwater scenes were so incredibly gorgeous that I can’t help but think a lot of them were cinematics but the in game graphics that were shown were beautiful. =p

Riley, The Dog

I don’t really care about the dog too much but I do think it’ll be a cool element. I’m not quite sure if you actually take control of the dog but that’s what it looked like. I do think it’s silly to take control of the dog, cool gameplay aspect, but then he might as well just be a drone. I did think it was cool that the dogs barks will pull enemies out of hiding to investigate or distract them. The dogs name is now confirmed to be Riley. Congrats to the winner of that contest! What was really cool was to see Riley bursting through a door with his jaw locked onto to his enemy.

The City At Night

I loved the skyscraper scenes, just gorgeous. Nothing new with the whole bursting through window action but it was definitely pretty and still badass. I loved the part where the building is tearing apart and falling over and the Ghosts (I assume) are sliding down the inside of it and then out! Super cool. I wish I was able to snag more screenshots of the scenes.

Falling through the skyscrapers

It Looks Pretty Cool

I’m not a super major fan and follower of the series or anything but I enjoy all video games. I really liked the campaign for Black Ops, and Modern Warfare 3 had some pretty epic scenes but the story wasn’t as good as Black Ops to me. The multiplayer is of course fantastic. The graphics in Ghost are looking pretty impressive. I really love the lighting effects. I think it looks pretty cool so far.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Video Games: Why Graphics Matter To Me

Community Writer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:20:00 +0000

I’m An Artist

I am a “graphics whore.” I think that may be partly due to the fact that I spent many years as an artist. I loved to draw, rarely still do, but for years now I spend more time playing video games than I do drawing. And when I did draw, I would copy stuff, not trace, but copy. So I don’t have enough motivation to draw my own stuff because my own stuff is quite horrible. I notice the finer details, I love them, I appreciate them, and I want more finer details. It’s like the first time I ever finally learned how to add shadows to my drawings, that small extra detail made such a vast improvement.

A problem I run into because of my love for the finer details is that I simply cannot afford a PC to get the best out of it, dangit! But I will push my PC to get everything I can out of it even if I have to run at lower frame-rates, which is actually pretty normal for me. =p

If you’re curious about why I’m talking about PC and not consoles, it’s simply due to playing more often on my PC lately than my consoles, that is all. A huge reason for that is the price of games. If you want, you can read more on what I think about the price of games and my buying habits here: http://germaximusgameworld.blogspot.com/2013/05/being-cheap-gamer-new-game-sales-not.html Graphics still matter to me even on consoles. =p

Why I’m A Graphics Whore

The main reason to being a graphics whore, I believe, is just simply due to the evolution of video games. I started with Atari, moved to nintendo, genesis, super nintendo, sega cd, skipped over a few consoles that my mom couldn’t afford to keep up with. I did play every single system, if I didn’t have it, my friends did, and being the little greedy gamer that I am, I played everything I could get my hands on. I had played the Turbo GFX16? I think that’s what the name was. Out of all my friends and all the people I ever heard about, one single kid had the Neo Geo. lol Man that thing was expensive. Who remembers the CD-I? I wanted that just for the Zelda game! Never did play it tho. I think that was probably the one system I never actually touched.

I Agree, Graphics Do Not “Make A Game”

So, back to the whole “graphics whore” thing. Since I’ve played all these old games and been through all the advancements of video games through the years, I care about graphics. Do I think graphics “make a game?” Of course not, but that’s far from the same thing as if they matter or not. They do matter. They might not matter to someone who’s just started gaming and doesn’t actually see the difference because they haven’t spent the time going through all the stages of video games evolution. But to someone like me, they very well matter.

I enjoy games like Hotline Miami and They Bleed Pixels and those graphics look old to me, I do consider them “bad” compared to today’s standards of course, I think it’s silly not to. It’s like going back to the Nintendo. Some people are into that, I am not, I’ve already been there. If I’m in the mood to “go retro” and play some of my favorite classic games, then I’m going to play my favorite classic games. I’m not going to look at a game made in the 2000′s that looks like something I played twenty-plus years ago and be like “oh wow!” That does not mean I don’t enjoy them. However, they certainly won’t be at the top of my play list. This does not mean I think it’s a bad game, I cannot re-iterate that enough.

I’ll use Renegade Ops as an example. This is a top down view where you drive a car and blow stuff up. Real simple, this is a classic style game, this is stuff we played on our Nintendo’s and Genesis’s. The graphics are today’s though, they are absolutely gorgeous. If I’m going to have a choice between a beautiful game of today and a game that looks like something I played twenty years ago, there’s simply no competition. I’ll likely ignore the game with graphics like that. Not because it’s bad, but simply because I have hundreds of better looking games I’ll enjoy just as much and probably more-so.

“Graphics Don’t Matter”

When gamers say “graphics don’t matter,” not only can I not help and think to myself “a real gamer would not say that” (while I know some people think the opposite) but it’s also an insult to the game designers and artists. These people are artists, they whip up these incredible gorgeous looking games and then you want to say “graphics don’t matter?” lol I’ll be honest here, every single time I see anybody with an opinion of that, they’re opinion is meaningless to me and I simply don’t care what else they have to say.

I don’t mean to be rude tho. It’s along the same lines if someone doesn’t like a game that I really, truly enjoy, then their opinion means nothing to me. Am I going to listen to someone’s recommendation of a game right after they just completely trashed a game I love and called me an idiot for loving it? lol No. But that’s where I seem to be different from so many gamers. I just love almost every game I play. So that seems to be a problem when I’m dealing with the gaming community.

Impressive Indie Games That Stand Out

Here’s a list of Indie games that show me these designers and developers really put their heart and soul into the games and obviously far more time and effort than someone that put together a game that looks like it belongs on the Atari. Or they simply have more experience and it shows. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to say that games with “bad” graphics are made by people that don’t care. To me, those are people that are testing themselves and getting into the line of work. Keep it up guys, you freakin rock! This is my opinion, I’m not offering it up as fact.

In alphabetical order, these all stand out to me:

Afterfall
Alan Wake
Anomaly 1 & 2
Bastion
Deadlight
Dear Esther
Dreadout
Dreamkiller
Forge
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise
Mark of the Ninja
Orcs Must Die 1 & 2
Sanctum 1 & 2
Shad’O
Shank 1 & 2
Sine Mora
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing
The Showdown Effect
The Swapper
Whispered World (not my kind of game but beautiful graphics and art)
Zeno Clash

That’s not counting the one’s I probably forgot (these are off the top of my head) or haven’t discovered, and also ignoring Free2Play games.

Graphic’s Options?

I don’t know any technical specifics. When I talk about graphics for video games I’m not talking about SA, AA, PhysX or whatever that stuff is… I don’t even know what any of that means. I just hope my computer will pull it off. I am interested in learning the technical stuff but then when I try to it’s just so boring!

Basically good graphics to me is this, “ooh shiny!” But I definitely notice the details, the small intricate details that show off the beauty of these illusions and dreams, these creations. The way sunlight beams down through tree’s, glimmering deep colors that splash… I see it all. I often talk to other gamers that continue to insist that they don’t need those extra details and this is why “graphics don’t matter.” Not for me. They do matter and I truly appreciate the work that the designers and artists put into these games.

Immersion

As I’ve said, I don’t know the technical stuff. I don’t study the science of games, I just love playing them. Another argument for “graphics matter” is one I do come across from other gamers. They seem to be in the vocal minority, makes me laugh. The argument is immersion. You are dang right, my friends. Of course, you don’t need high end graphics to be immersed into a game. You certainly won’t be immersed into a game on graphics alone. Story is a huge deal, but not only that, music and sound effects.

Battlefield 3: I’m not a huge fan of shooting games, I love them just like I love others but they’re not on the top of my list of favorites as far as genres go. Some of them stand out, and this is one of them. The graphics and music of Battlefield 3 had me fully immersed, and I give a lot of credit to that musical score. It was beautiful, soft yet hard, and put me in the freakin mood! And the graphics are gorgeous! The story wasn’t super great, but I did like it enough.

I completed this game around at least four months ago if not longer and I can still picture my first time on the aircraft carrier in the game. I didn’t realize I was on one cuz I think I was distracted by something else in real life at that point in the game. Walking along talking to my superior or whoever, getting my orders, getting to the door and it opening into the top deck of the carrier. The sunlight, the surrounding battleships, jets taking off and flying by. The wind, the epic music along with that wind. Climbing into my jet, checking my flaps, taking off. I was freakin nervous man. I seriously got nervous. I don’t know if I’ll ever forget that experience, it was incredible. Would I have been immersed just as much in an older looking game? Maybe, as long as the music and sound effects were just as good and the way the game took me through all these actions still happened, but the graphics sure do help make it an even more incredible experience.

And as I’ve said before, if I have a choice between a game that has worse graphics or better graphics but offers the same experience, there’s no competition, graphics win. I’ll still play them both tho. =)

If Graphics Didn’t Matter…

Even the developers wouldn’t bother improving them. I mean come on now. Over all these years of playing video games if graphics didn’t matter they wouldn’t have gone through this amazing evolution over time. This is art, and its beautiful. I wish you would appreciate it more.

Game on! =)

Filed under: gbunfiltered

‘Metal Gear Solid V’: Will gamers be playing as Snake or Jack Bauer?

Community Writer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:13:23 +0000

Konami shocked the gaming community when it unveiled that actor Kiefer Sutherland will play Snake (aka Big Boss) in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The news comes after months of speculation when its was learned that David Hayter, the actor who has provided the iconic voice of Snake since Metal Gear Solid, will not return.

Obviously fans were shocked by the change up and have been sharing their mixed reactions. Some have welcomed the change as a new perspective on the character while others are furious that the game has rejected the spirit of Snake. Its common to find gamers having some doubt that Sutherland could bring the same character motif as Hayter. The fans do have a valid point.

When gamers get the chance to play Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; will it feel like they are taking the role of Snake (aka Big Boss) or the role of Jack Bauer?

Despite his reputation as an respected screenwriter; Hayter’s performance as Snake has been engraved into his legacy (like Sean Connery as James Bond). Meanwhile Sutherland is iconic for his role as Jack Bauer in the acclaimed series, 24, an espionage-themed drama that focus on the 24-hours time period of Agent Bauer and members of the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU).

The linguistic dialect and its personal traits of a character have always been driven by the actors who have portrayed them. Yet the problem presented is the actor who has been synonyms with Snake is being replaced by an actor who is synonyms with another iconic character. While they may be iconic heroes admired by action buffs; Jack Bauer and Snake are two different characters.

On the surface; Snake was influenced by the character Snake Plissken (played by Kurt Russell) from the classic John Carpenter film, Escape From New York. After the events of Snake Eater, Snake (aka Big Boss) has become a character driven by resentment who at first is trying to find a purpose to fight. By the start of Peace Walker; Snake has established his own private army to provide needed service regardless of nations or ideologies. Meanwhile he seeks to fight for a cause that he believes in which brings him into conflict with his former colleagues. Hayter’s performance gave Snake the same kind of tone projected by Kurt Russell but with a more dramatic respectability.

Unfortunately Bauer as a character is nothing like Big Boss.

Jack Bauer is the personification of a hero America needed to look up to in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He is a loyal government agent who has to do what is necessary to protect American citizens from terrorist threats. Like Snake; Bauer shares a similar military background with his involvement in clandestine operations as a member of Delta Force. During the series, he has made so many personal sacrifices while his loyalty has been tested at the hands of incompetent bureaucrats, trusted colleagues and crooked men of power. Sutherland’s performance as Bauer has developed a character that is guilt ridden and trying to overcome past regrets.

Therein lies the problem; Sutherland’s performance as Snake may not be the character gamers want but instead a projection of Bauer. For gamers who have been playing the series from the beginning we have grown accustomed to having Hayter as the voice of Snake. But by using Sutherland; gamers are going to have a radically different mental projection of Snake. At best gamers could play a Snake that has become more battle harden in a way that only Sutherland could depict. Or gamers may have a mental projection of two characters morphed into one.

In the end all speculation games have will be put to rest upon the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

Console Wars: Why can’t we be friends?

Community Writer — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 07:49:41 +0000

Aaah. Smell that folks? It’s the sweet, sweet smell of fresh consoles and games galore. E3 is usually a great showcase, but this year is monumental.

With Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all prepping and respective game developers ready to unveil what they can do with new hardware, it makes me all warm and fuzzy. Not the kind of warm and fuzzy a nice wool blanket provides, but the kind where I know I’m going to be giddy with chills.

I’ve been awfully quiet about the PS4 and Xbox One unveils. Sure, we’ve heard about the “always online” Xbox One and the restrictions on used games. Though Microsoft followed up with another press release – we, the consumers felt sold short…and confused. Strange policies and rules flew at me like a barrage of hailstones.

The PS4 on the other-hand was met with warm reception. I don’t know. Color me puzzled but I think it’s because I actually saw some games. Sure, Microsoft showed a few games…after all the hubbub of watching The Price is Right on the thing. But they weren’t anything spectacular. They were just games we were expecting.

And that’s why I’ve been holding my tongue.

We as gamers sometimes forget those hunky boxes of hardware were meant for, well, games. Duh. Analyists have said that the console generation of gaming may soon be dead. They as console developers want to ensure that that skewed vision is nothing but mere speculation – and instead ensure that their consoles are their own definition of “next-generation” gaming. After all, it’s easy enough to say “PC GAM1nG 4EVR,” right?

Keep in mind guys that this is the longest time in a while between console generations (a 7-8 year gap for each respective console) There was a recession that caused the industry to go a little stagnant. If these console developers aren’t going to be making big steps during E3, then I wouldn’t know what to make of life anymore.

But in all seriousness, put down the torches and pitchforks – let’s wait a few more days.

So let’s agree to disagree for the greater good. Any particular games you guys are interested seeing at E3?

Filed under: gbunfiltered

The Big 3 at E3: What should they do vs. What they may do

Community Writer — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 07:46:27 +0000

As E3 quickly approaches it’s the perfect time to discuss what the three console manufacturers must bring to this celebration of all things electronically entertaining so as to take a solid first step into the next-generation.

Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have each experienced successes and failures in this generation, meaning they all enter the E3 arena with something to prove. As such I’m going to cover what the big three should bring to Los Angeles next week, as well as taking some wild stabs at what could happen, albeit unlikely.

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Microsoft

Despite the Xbox 360 performing consistently well through its lifespan the announcement of the Xbox One has left many gamers feeling abandoned and confused. Now is the chance Microsoft needs to reassure fans that they’re the right choice for gaming.

What Microsoft should do

On Monday, June 10th at 9:30AM P.T. Microsoft has to hit the ground running. The Xbox One reveal left many severely underwhelmed, and while the technology shown looked impressive, few gamers will buy a new and expensive console because it makes watching TV easier. What Microsoft must show at E3 is how and why the next Xbox is going to improve gaming for those lucky enough to own one.

The brief glimpses and whispers we’ve heard linked to the potential of Cloud gaming suggest an immensely powerful and impressive tool and now is the time to flaunt how this technology can enhance gaming for Xbox One owners. Given recent leaks, a great example for the benefits of Cloud gaming could be Respawn Entertainments upcoming title, Titanfall. This title will supposedly be exclusive to Xbox and PC and will make use of the Cloud. How exactly? I don’t know, but I want to, because it could sell the console to me and many others.

However, although it may sound counter-intuitive Microsoft should not spend the entire hour discussing games alone. They must discuss the reasons for their choices behind the functionality of the Xbox One. Specifically how Microsoft’s next console will treat used games and handle internet requirements. Miss-matching information from interviews and the recent press release detailing the abrasive rules for trading and selling pre-owned content has only hurting the reputation of Xbox One.

Now is the time, when every gamer is watching, to lay their cards on the table.

If the reality of used games and DRM is as bad as we fear Microsoft should at least be honest and explain their reasoning behind it. Although many fans may not like it can’t get worse and anything is better than sweeping the issue under the rug again.

What Microsoft may do…

In a bizarre attempt to appear more family friendly, Microsoft will hire children to run the entire press conference. Each child will be dressed to look like adolescent versions of Don Mattrick, Marc Whitten and Phil Spencer.

Kinect 2.0 will be revealed as the dark overlord of all your “entertainment experiences”. It’s explained that any time a new person enters your living room the Kinect 2.0 will demand that they complete a lengthy oral exam so as to ascertain how to provide them with optimal entertainment.

Questions will include, what is your favorite sport? (Note: None, is not accepted) As well as, do you want to use voice commands only while using the Xbox One? (Note: Turning off voice commands will block all games, not just used games) Failure to comply with this exam will cause the Xbox One to self-destruct.

Nintendo

In recent years Nintendo has experienced an unfortunate fall from grace. They now step on to the battlefield following the incredibly meager launch of the Wii U and must prove they can still harness that classic magic which has attracted so many gamers to their consoles in the past.

What Nintendo should do

The originality and simplicity of the Wii introduced consumers to gaming in a way never witnessed before or since. Unfortunately, this boom in popularity descended into a whimper and while Nintendo clearly thought they could strike gold again through the Wii U, a lack of killer apps and poor marketing meant it has has tripped and stumbled through the months since its inception. During the Nintendo Direct broadcast on Tuesday, June 11^that 7:00 P.T. Nintendo must pick the Wii U up, dust it off and say, “Hey, you know all those great games you begged us for? Well here they are!”

Despite the exclusives their rivals are touting, Nintendo stands in a very unique position. Many big titles will be revealed during the E3 Nintendo Direct, and depending on the information that comes with it Nintendo has the potential to strike hard this fall with an incredible release schedule packed with exclusives.

We know Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101 and Wind Waker HD will arrive this year, but if Nintendo can combine this ‘triforce’ of highly desirable content with other major titles – i.e. a new 3D Mario, Mario Kart and Smash Bros. - it will attract massive attention from the gaming public. Add to this more information on upcoming cult titles such as Bayonetta 2 and Game & Wario, as well as eagerly anticipated 3DS titles, such as Pokemon X/Y, and Nintendo have an awesome recipe for success.

Beyond the games though, Nintendo must explain how they will continue to support and expand uses for the Wii U and its unique gamepad. As an example, TVii is a very cool and original feature which highlights the multimedia potential of the console. Developing and accurately marketing similar features will expand its appeal to wider audiences, a crucial element to the success of the Wii. Highlighting the convenience of video-calls between Wii U gamepads and expanding the library of games on the Virtual Console could pique the interest of both casual and core audiences, giving additional incentive for apprehensive buyers or consumers who still believe the Wii U is an add-on for the original Wii.

What Nintendo may do…

Satoru Iwata will emerge wearing an amusing hat or holding a piece of fruit. He will gesture toward the screen stating he is once again pleased to speak to us, “directly.”

Shigeru Miyamoto will appear shortly after in a Varia suit while wearing a blonde wig. He will hint the announcement of a new game; this will turn out to be a sequel to Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

Although Reggie-fils Aime will not appear during the Nintendo Direct broadcast he will be revealed as a playable character in the new Smash Bros. It’s confirmed that a consecutive play time of 600 hours is required to unlock him.

Sony

Finally, Sony jump into fray, arguably doing so from the third position of this generation. Current reports suggest they’re learning from the mistakes made with the Playstation3, but will E3 convince us that they really are the console for gaming?

What Sony should do

During the Playstation4 reveal event in February – as well as in subsequent interviews – Sony has repeatedly assured fans that the PS4 is first and foremost a games console, and at 6:00PM P.T. just hours after Microsoft’s conference, it’s time for them to put their money where their mouth is.

While the reveal event in New York wasn’t terrible, it did leave a lot to be desired in terms of solid content, Deep Down, Killzone Shadow Fall and Knack all looked great (ok, maybe not Knack just yet) but beyond those titles we didn’t see much but teaser footage and developers marching on stage just to say, “Hey we’re making a game for PS4 …. So check it out at some point.” An E3 press conference is not the place to waste time, as such Sony should not bring anyone on stage unless they have something exciting to reveal, including recognizable gameplay footage.

It goes without saying that Sony should provide more information on exclusive games coming to the PS4 and this should include their continued desire to support Indie Developers as well as any new partnerships for exclusive downloadable titles. The cheap and cheerful games developed by these groups can only bolster the PS4’s position as a console for gamers, improving its desirability as the industry continues to step toward micro-transactions and shorter but sweeter experiences.

However, there is still crucial information Sony should provide to secure any form of victory this E3, including the cost and release date of the PS4, as well as y’know, revealing what the console actually looks like.

Sony would also be wise to re-iterate and solidify their stance on DRM and used games. While it may seem silly to mention it, confusion still remains over how Sony will treat the used game market as well as any other requirements the system may have. With the all eyes on them, Sony should use their press-conference to put the rumors to bed while hopefully putting a smile on the face of those “#PS4NoDRM” tweeters.

What Sony may do…

Kaz Hirai will drive onto the stage in what appears to be a tank, it will initially appear to be a “console war” joke but after a brief explanation it is revealed that this tank is actually the Playstation4.

As journalists, shareholders and fans-alike all look at each other bemused Kaz stands confident a-top his sleek new console and shouts, “Ridge Racer!”

A glimpse of sanity will break through as Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto steps onto the stage. Through a crooked smile he will explain that when he asked fans to, “be excited for E3,” it was so he could reveal that, “We will be showing the new Final Fantasy at Tokyo Gameshow, please check it out then.” The audience will proceed to pelt the stage with hundreds of plush Moogle toys.

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So there you have it, my thoughts on what should / may happen during E3. I hope Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all have a great show, but what do you think? Could I be right about any of it? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading. For this and other rambles, please check out my blog or follow me on Twitter.

Filed under: gbunfiltered

My deep passion for video games

Community Writer — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 04:37:15 +0000

“That Game Sucks”

I often end up in arguments with people over video games. Mostly over whether or not they “suck.” This is something I find myself getting into more often than I’d like. I didn’t realize what was happening, I never understood why I kept finding myself in this predicament, why everyone wanted to argue with me or of course vice versa.

I know I’m a stubborn person, or can be anyways, but I was still very confused. After years and years of this kind of interaction with fellow gamers I think I’ve finally come to a small understanding, I hope so anyways.

Self Discovery?

My problem is I love video games. lol It’s silly but that’s what it is. I don’t just play a game and immediately hate it. And if I do, that is an incredibly rare occasion. Of course there are things I might not like about a game. Maybe the controls are bad, maybe the graphics aren’t as impressive as I think they should be, maybe a level was tedious and boring, maybe the story is bland. There are many things I might not like about a game, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying it for the good things it has and loving it for it.

Fanboy

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been accused of being a “fanboy” just for saying how much I enjoy a game, a console, or a service. What makes me laugh every time is that often it’s coming from the same people who know that I say “I love this game” to almost every game they mention. Yet the only time they insist on calling me a “fanboy” is when it’s about something they don’t like in particular.

Yes, I am indeed a fanboy. I’m a fan of everything involving the video game world. Some things I like less than others, that’s usually all it is. Some games I have absolutely no interest in, not because it sucks, I just simply have no interest in it at the time. My preferred game tastes do change from time to time. That doesn’t mean I always refrain from saying “that sucks.” lol It does happen sometimes. Usually if I say “that sucks,” I’ll tend to follow it up with “compared to…”

I enjoy puzzle games and social games but those are the last types of games I will ever play, and I mean dead last. I won’t play those unless I’m incredibly bored, have absolutely no way to access a different type of games or possibly see one that looks a little bit more interesting and I’ll give it a chance. Or maybe on another rare occasion if a good friend I haven’t seen or talked to in a long time wants to play. And possibly an even rarer occasion of actually being in the mood. =p

The Casual Gamer

That said, I do not consider puzzle games and social games “real” games. These are casual pastimes. People seem to get offended when I or other gamers make this kind of reference. I’m not attempting to insult you if casual games are your thing. That is wonderful! That doesn’t make you a “gamer” in my eyes. A gamer isn’t somebody that only plays Farmville or Angry Birds, I’m sorry. Now, if you play games like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and then Farmville, I will consider you a gamer. =p I do not mean this as an insult. Of course, that is just how I see it.

Already Done Before: So What?

This is something that never bothers me. People are always insisting on “innovation” which is practically impossible. They complain about sequels being “more of the same.” I do not understand this. Of course its more of the same, it’s what we loved about it in the first place. It’s a sequel, do people really expect a hack and slash game to turn into a first-person shooter or something? There’s nothing wrong with hybrids of course.

Every time I see gamers making ridiculous demands, they almost never offer up suggestions and if they do, they’re usually absolutely terrible and the developer might as well make a completely different game. I’m often shocked when I see a public suggestion that’s actually decent.

I don’t mind that sequels are similar to the previous games. That’s why I like them, new story, almost always improved graphics, some new elements, upgraded UI’s and controls, I mean that’s what it’s all about. It’s not the same game. I can’t tell you how mad I get when people say “it’s more of the same.” Gameplay yes, but the story is completely new and usually offers more insight into the characters, a continued story that we wanted anyways because we didn’t want the game to end. I mean it completely confuses me how weird gamers can be. Demanding things that make no sense and crying if they do get exactly what they asked for.

I am not saying I don’t like innovation. I also don’t blame gamers for wanting it. I just think they are often unrealistic in their demands.
Multiple games in the same genre too similar? I can understand that complaint. I just enjoy them for the new characters and different takes on the story and of course different or better graphics style.

It’s Time To Try And Turn My Hobby Into My Dream Life

After finally deciding to follow many of my friends advice over many years, I’ve already started writing what I think about my experiences while having played particular video games. It’s way more fun than I had expected. I’m a “noob” but I can already tell I’ve gotten better. Thanks to some game sites (like GameSkinny) editors and my sister I’ve gotten tons of advice and help on how to write better. I look forward to learning more and getting better. Now that I’ve started I have absolutely no intention of stopping. Video games have been my life, and I can finally try and give a little bit back even if it’s only in the form of more detailed feedback than “this game rocks!” =)

I read an article that made me realize me how bias I am. It’s not on purpose ok? lol I promise when and if I give a score rating I will try to be more impartial to a fair score. That may take me awhile though, and many more practice runs before I finally have a better idea on how to score a game more reasonably. That being said, I like saying how I feel about a game. I don’t care if others won’t give a game a 10 when I will, it’s my 10, not theirs. =p

I hope you enjoy my “reviews” and if you find the time please comment! Please give me feedback!

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VentureBeat » gbunfiltered

E3 2013 The Little Things That Matter (Pt 4): Quick Looks

Quick Look At: Skara – The Blade Remains

Quick Look At: Time Glitch

Quick Look At: The Crew

Testing

Opening contract – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – A bumpy ride

The odd critical reception of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4

Playing It Old School: Yippee ki-yay gamers

E3 2013 – The little things that matter (Part 3): Mysterious Chinese game

E3 2013: A look at the Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony throwdown

Microsoft – The future’s so bright, my Kinect wears shades

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Is survival horror dead?

E3 2013: The little things that matter (part 2): Mag II Gun

Game Therapy – PTSD

E3 2013 The Little Things That Matter (Pt 1): Randall

There’s something about The Evil Within’s font

The Best of BANHAMMERED! 2: In Defense of Xbox Support

Nothing beats being told EXACTLY the reason why they have been banned.

Or whatever the hell you call it…

This is one of those long messages, right? (click on the link to read the complete post, or not)

The only real victims here are those good Gamertags now lost forever…

This is a strangely popular way to get banned: people tampering the available colors of their avatars.

And you would think that Xbox Support doesn’t have any personal reasons to ban some people, but then…

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Mayor’s Log, Part 1

Why “Gamers” should support the Xbox One, I know I will

How Sony won the battle of E3

Thanks but no thanks, Microsoft and Sony

Xbox One

PS4

The Evolving World

Xbox One made me feel Micro – and really soft.

Game therapy: Using games to cope with life’s struggles

Disproving the common belief: Five myths about gaming

Retro review: Mario Party 2

E3 2013: Sony’s Scipio Africanus

The gates before freemium: Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol

What it does right

What could be improved

Gating before Freemium

The voice change: Snake’s downfall

My Impressions of the Call of Duty Ghosts All Access

Video Games: Why Graphics Matter To Me

‘Metal Gear Solid V’: Will gamers be playing as Snake or Jack Bauer?

Console Wars: Why can’t we be friends?

The Big 3 at E3: What should they do vs. What they may do

My deep passion for video games

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