Once again, it’s time to get some all-in-one analysis with our second-hand panel of experts!

Surprise! Microsoft’s launching a new hardware console … who knew? And inside a giant circus tent full of magic and dreams, we got our first look at the best fee-charging-for-used-games, not-backwards-compatible, Internet-mandatory, groovy-retro-design game console ever made: the Xbox One!

It won’t be long before this hardware masterpiece matches up against Sony’s PlayStation 4, but why wait to make crucial judgments? A 60-minute event with no Q&A session is plenty of time! What say you, panel of experts? The Xbox One: bringer of world peace or red ring of death?

Launch the gallery below to learn the language of love!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The year is 2018, and a disrupted war economy has plunged the world into financial instability. But money hungry arms dealers and corrupt politicians scheme to rejuvenate their cash flow through child-cyborg experimentation and a staged terrorist attack. This dark glimpse of our possible future is the backdrop of Platinum Games’ “lightning fast” action game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

As outlandish as the Rising’s depictions of 2018 are, Kojima Productions is a master of making the outlandish seem totally plausible. But of all the wild predictions made by Rising, the most plausible is also the most underplayed: the militarization and subsequent privatization of America’s police forces.

Rising only explicitly shows the Denver City Police Department as a privatized force owned and run by World Marshall Inc., America’s largest private military company and one half of the game’s antagonists; however, in protagonist Raiden’s codec conversations with Maverick military strategist Kevin, it’s revealed that an unspecified number of other cities also have privatized their police forces. While Kevin is quick to note that the majority of Denver’s police are unmodified humans, the city’s highly militarized SWAT unit is entirely comprised of cyborgs and weaponized robots. But will such heavily armed units really have a place in the future of America’s law enforcement?

The idea of a police unit dedicated to tackling high-risk operations was originally conceived in 1967 by Daryl Gates and further developed by John Nelson of the Los Angeles Police Department. Comprised of specially trained and equipped LAPD officers, the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit found early success in their 1969 raid on the Black Panther head quarters and 1974 siege on a Symbionese Liberation Army stronghold. Since that time, SWAT units have been established in every major police force across the U.S., neutralizing immediate and deadly threats deemed too risky for uniformed police officers.

Following the terror attack on 9/11 in America and the subsequent War on Terror, however, the noticeable increase in usage of SWAT teams to carry out non-life threatening tasks — and the increased militarization of both SWAT and members of uniformed police — has been questioned.

The beginning of March saw the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announce their nationwide investigation into the increased presence of militarized police units in American towns and cities. The organization’s concerns are laid out on its website and backed up by ten “chilling” news stories of botched drugs raids, inappropriate handling of protesters, and the shooting and death of those mistaken as combatants.

While one of the ACLU’s main goals is to curb what it sees as a growing trend in “overly aggressive policing,” their focus also falls on the extent to which federal funding is fueling police militarization.

In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, World Marshall is not only providing the entirety of the Denver City Police Department’s personnel but also their weapons and vehicles and the SWAT teams’ cyborgs and robots. Real-world police forces, on the other hand, currently receive a significant amount of equipment from the Department of Defense’s Excess Property Program.

Also known as the 1033 program, the Excess Property Program sees the Defense Logistics Agency hand out free army surplus weapons and armor as well as land, air, and sea vehicles. Government statistics show that the demand for this service has increased dramatically over recent years with police forces acquiring $2.12 million worth of military equipment in 2010, $4.98 million in 2011, and a staggering $5.46 million in 2012.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also awards grants to local police departments that, according to a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting, have totaled over $34 billion since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. These hefty grants are used, among other things, to pay for military-grade equipment and training from defense contractors.

Radley Balko, policy analyst for think-tank Cato Institute and author of several white papers on civil liberties and paramilitary policing, believes that the large DHS grants have cemented defense contractor-police relationships across America. In an interview with Motherboard, Balko voiced his concerns over where these growing trends may lead to in the near future.

DHS grants are lucrative enough that many defense contractors are now turning their attention to police agencies — and some companies have sprung up solely to sell military-grade weaponry to police agencies who get those grants.

That means we’re now building a new industry whose sole function is to militarize domestic police departments. Which means it won’t be long before we see pro-militarization lobbying and pressure groups with lots of (taxpayer) money to spend to fight reform. That’s a corner it will be difficult to un-turn. We’re probably there already. Say hello to the police-industrial complex.

Unnervingly enough, Balko’s argument reads as though it has come straight from the script of an unreleased section of the Metal Gear saga. In fact, to take his Metal Gear-esque prediction of a police-focused arms industry a few steps further would see it fall in line with the same predictions made in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. After all, defense-contractor-owned, privatized police forces and the rejuvenation of Metal Gear Solid 4′s “war economy” within American borders was precisely the dream of Senator and Rising boss Steven Armstrong.

Walking tanks and full body cyborgs aside, Kojima Productions’ vision of privatized police forces may just be its most accurate.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With the Wii U out on the market and Sony’s recent reveal of the PlayStation 4, there is no doubt that the next generation of consoles is already here. Along with that is all the talk about technology and specs that will (hopefully) open up new avenues of interactivity and gameplay. Early adopters pick up a console with the promise of fantastic games down the line, but most consumers have to be convinced to purchase a new system. With many gamers satisfied with their current consoles, the major players are going to have to convince them to break away from their outdated boxes.

Since all three systems (the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3) have a robust library of games, the only way these companies are going to attract new customers is with fresh offerings — not just the latest Call of Duty or the best-looking game in existence, but ones that present completely new experiences that people cannot get anywhere else.

It is uncertain what each of the new systems’ must-have games will be, but the titles below are what made me buy each of the current-generation consoles. Today, I look back on the three games that sold me on the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3, in the order that I bought them.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I will admit that I was one of those people who cried when I saw the reveal of Twilight Princess (LoZ:TP) at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2004, weeping in happiness in front of a 20-inch television screen as Link strode across the Hyrulean landscape in what appeared to be the darkest Zelda game to date. It was slated to came out on both the Wii and GameCube, and while I owned the latter, I was blown away by the thought of playing a Zelda title with motion controls — swinging my arm like a sword to cut down enemies and shooting arrows just by pointing at the screen. Even the fishing minigame looked to fun with the Wiimote as a rod. There were also rumors that the Wii version would be the superior version not only control-wise but also graphically. (It’s true. The Twilight Realm in the Wii version looks significantly better.) I grew up a fan of Nintendo, so I knew I would get the Wii one day. Twilight Princess convinced me that I had to have it day one.

It’s the reason why I was outside Costco at 5:00 in the morning, waiting with my friends and other fans, playing Mario Kart DS, and chatting about what games we were all going to play first. My friends and I ended up playing Wii Sports and Excite Truck together the first couple days — so caught up in the excitement of beating each other up in boxing or crashing into each other’s cars. I was also scared to play LoZ:TP. What if, after the excruciating wait and all the hype, it was bad? I did not think I could bear having my spirits crushed.

When I popped in the disc on the third day, my worries were unfounded. Playing LoZ:TP with the Wiimote, swinging it around, and becoming engrossed with the characters and the dark tone of the story is still one of my favorite memories as a gamer. It showed me just what the Wii was capable of — an experience I couldn’t get on any other console. It is debatable whether or not the Wii was successful in that regard, but it still is a console I had immense fun with.  LoZ:TP ranks as one of my favorite Zelda games of all time as well as one of the best launch titles I have ever played.

Dead Rising

I was not sold on the Xbox 360 at first. In middle school, I was a part of a small club of podcasters for a while. We had a segment dedicated to video game discussion, and one day, the topic was about the recently released Xbox 360 and whether it was worth buying or not. I clearly remember saying, “Yeah, it’s good if you want to pay a lot of money to play the same games you can on the Xbox with shinier graphics.” At the time, it was a good observation. Most of the games that launched with it were just prettier versions of the same games you could get on current consoles, and the rest were not very good. Even when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out, I could play it on my PC, so what use was a 360 to me?

My mind was changed a year after the 360’s launch with the release of Dead Rising. I have been a zombie fan since the day my father sat me down with him to watch Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, so when I played Dead Rising at my friend’s house, I was floored. It was exactly how I imagined a video game based off that movie would be like. You could fight hordes of zombies with anything you could find (everything was a weapon), explore an enormous mall, save survivors (or kill them), be a hero (or not), snap photos (sacrificing survivors was perfect for those achievements), and unravel a conspiracy.

I don’t remember how I convinced my parents to buy me a 360 — it must have had something to do with how good my grades were — but under the Christmas tree in 2007 was a box with a copy of Dead Rising in it. It still remains one of my favorite games to this day. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record for the PC is a go-to-game for me when I am feeling down, but if Microsoft were to rerelease the original for the PC, I would snatch it up again in a heartbeat.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

I never owned a PlayStation 2, but I had played through the entire Metal Gear Solid series with a friend. Despite not owning the three main games, I adored the franchise. There were so many rumors that MGS4 would eventually come out on the Xbox 360 because of the slow sales of the PS3, but my heart sank when Konami squashed the possibility of that ever happening. If I wanted to play MGS4, I was going to have to buy a PS3 or else I would never get to experience the end of Solid Snake’s story.

Thankfully, I was working a job when Sony announced that it was discontinuing the 80GB model of the console. It was the one I wanted because it had backward compatibility for the PS2, something that the future models were not going to have. I did not have nearly enough to pay the $600 price tag of the MGS4 bundle at Fry’s, so I convinced my mom to pay for half because it was a Blu-ray player we could all enjoy.

We rarely used it for Blu-rays because they were so expensive, though. What it was used for was games. I was finally able to experience all the PS2 games I missed out on, like Kingdom Hearts, Shadow of the Colossus, and the Devil May Cry series. For a while, I had more PS2 games than PS3 games, but it all started with MGS4.

Arguments aside about the length of the cutscenes, the game is a technical marvel and, in my opinion, flawless. The gameplay was perfectly balanced between sneaking and gun fights, and you could play any way you wanted. The story tied up everything wonderfully. The presentation was beyond stellar, from the set pieces to the cutscenes and the boss battles. Very few games have satisfied my needs like MGS4 has, which is why I am afraid to play it again in fear of ruining all the amazing moments I had with it. But I know I have to again one day.

Was it worth it, and what’s next?

For one or two games, buying a whole system is never worth it. You always have to look at the complete package and think about what you are investing in. However, there will always be that one game that makes you need the console, and that will open up the door to a plethora of experiences you could not get anywhere else.

I have not regretted owning all three consoles. The Wii has provided me with excellent titles and unique games that took advantage of the hardware, like MadWorld and No More Heroes. The Xbox 360 introduced me to the world of online gaming with the Halo series. Although I no longer pay for Xbox Live, I have to thank Halo for showing me how much fun it is to play with friends and strangers online. I don’t use the PlayStation 3 for online play but rather its amazing single-player titles like Heavy Rain, Uncharted, and HD collections of games I missed in the last generation — not to mention the backward compatibility that I am grateful for every day.

I bought a Wii U on launch day and have already gotten a taste of what the future holds with ZombiU, which was what sold me on the console largely because of the GamePad. I have also had a load of fun with Ninja Gaiden: Razor’s Edge, which proves that traditional titles work wonderfully on the system. I am not fully sold on the PlayStation 4, nor do I think I will fall in love with the next Xbox at first sight. It will take a good game to do that — one that shows me that yes, the next generation of gaming is here. I look forward to it.

What have been some games that have made you want to buy a console and why? Leave comments, criticisms, and concerns down below. Thank you for reading.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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During the first few hours of Konami’s adrenaline-soaked adventure Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, you’ll use missiles as platforms to jump toward a helicopter so you can slice it in half with your overpowered sword. You’ll body slam a multistory-tall metal gear, one of the franchise’s eponymous giant walking tanks, like a hulking pro wrestler. And you’ll duel against a flamboyant Spanish cyborg atop a train speeding through a pitch-black tunnel.

Revengeance, releasing today on PlayStation 3 (reviewed here) and Xbox 360, is a video game in all the hyperbolic, make-believe, stupid-fun sense of the term. And in an era of brown-and-boring shooters clogging charts and disc drives, that’s a good thing. After all, what would you expect from a partnership between the equally eccentric Kojima Productions and Platinum Games?

Unfortunately, as much as Revengeance lives by its electrifying virtual sword, it also dies by the dated conventions of that blade.

What you’ll like

You are the demigod of destruction
Playing as Metal Gear mainstay Raiden — the doe-eyed rookie operative turned ruthless engineered assassin — you can pretty much slice and kill anything in your path. Revengeance gives you an arsenal of upgradeable weapons and moves to ramp up your badass quotient. And the combo-friendly gameplay makes things easy enough to dive into. If you’ve played God of War or the newer Ninja Gaiden offerings, you’ll pick it up quickly.

But Blade Mode is what really makes everything exciting. With the pull of a trigger and some careful analog-stick flicking, you can pretty much cut anything in any direction you want. This feature is at the center of Revengeance. You’ll need to master it if you plan on having any success staying alive or defeating many of the game’s bosses.

MGR introduces the concept of “zan-datsu,” which is Japanese for “cut and take.” As you encounter the title’s numerous synthetic enemies, you can chop at specially marked hotspots, exposing the glowing battery packs within their heavily modified bodies. These batteries contain essential elements that keep Raiden’s cybernetic enhancements functional (read: they replenish your Blade Mode and health meters). Zan-datsu attacks even trigger short cut-scenes where Raiden rips the shiny, slimy prizes out, showing off his samurai swagger.

When you’re able to bring Revengeance’s multiple gameplay mechanics together, the action becomes pretty damn fun — and fluid. You’ll feel unstoppable.

Revengeance passes the Metal Gear test with convoluted colors
Message boards and comment threads went ablaze shortly after Konami announced MGR as franchise purists mobilized against a non-stealth entry in the franchise. Thankfully, Revengeance has the feel of a Metal Gear title, even though it focuses on slashing rather than stealth. The alert-ring sound is present. Codec conversations, too. You can even hide in a cardboard box, just like Solid Snake.

More important, the complex, conspiracy-laden storytelling approach that serves as series visionary Hideo Kojima’s trademark is here as well — granted, with a slightly more streamlined feel. Character designs fall in line with previous releases. MGR’s Winds of Destruction and Desperados feature gimmicky, yet charming, antagonists that can compete with previous bad-guy battalions like Foxhound and the Beauty and the Beast Corps. And your mission handlers all follow Metal Gear tropes, including the young, attractive female who can manually save your progress.

What you won’t like

The camera is your toughest enemy
Raiden can defeat anything … well, almost. Revengeance’s camera stands as its most frustrating and unbeatable obstacle. You would think that action superstars like Platinum Games could have perfected such a feature, and if you did, you’d be wrong. The title’s camera is archaic and in constant need of your attention. I had to frequently adjust it with the right stick as I carved up countless mechanical hordes. Sometimes things got so chaotic that I had to direct my julienning efforts offscreen, hoping to blindly strike the hostile forces because I wasn’t able to play cinematographer. This phenomenon repeated itself constantly in the boss fights, where I’d see myself instead of my target.

Blade Mode is a tricky foe, too
Like I said earlier, you won’t get the most out of Revengeance without a solid grasp of its precise sword-swinging element. While Blade Mode is innovative, it is often infuriating. And it sometimes feels just plain unintuitive.

The difficulty lies in the mode’s multiple-step approach. One, you pull the trigger. Two, you line up the cut. Three, you angle the slash. Sounds simple in theory, but when you have to deal with all the x- and y-axis shenanigans in a short window of time, it’s easy to panic and miss the bullseye. I lost out on many sweet, sweet zan-datsus because of Blade Mode’s finicky nature. Plus, it broke my ripping rhythm, which is never good.

Thankfully, with enough practice, I got more comfortable. But I can see plenty of players throwing their controllers in pure frustration … or slashing at them with real-life blades themselves — which I strongly advise against.

A Platinum-developed Metal Gear release can lead to some side effects
OK, I like that Revengeance relishes its game-ness and that Platinum doesn’t mind breaking the fourth wall. And I appreciate the mostly endearing wackiness that the developers brought to the project. But, on occasion, it can feel like too much.

I could have gone without the cheesy vocals accompanying some of the screeching hard-rock numbers on the soundtrack. And why did the game employ God of War-style invisible barriers, boxing me into specific rooms with no way out until I took down every enemy in sight? And … quick-time events. Blade mode is different and interesting. Quick-time events are dated and irritating.

While we’re at it, how did Raiden have codec conversations with boss characters after cubing them into a bloody, yet orderly, mise en place? Was I talking to their souls as they drifted into the ether?

But hey, this is a Metal Gear game. Anything is possible.

Conclusion

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a successful action title, and it’s a successful Metal Gear title. Think about that for a second. Such a proposal could have resulted in colossal failure and utter humiliation for Konami. Instead, Platinum Games delivered a frenetically fun, albeit flawed, experience set in a beloved universe — a sexy, slash-soaked side story worth playing for franchise fans and newcomers alike.

Score: 80/100

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance released on Feb. 19, 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a PS3 copy of the game for the purpose of this review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Whether or not you care about your total Xbox 360 Gamerscore or that weird “levels” thing that PlayStation 3 Trophies add up to, it’s nice to know that some developers take a little extra time to try to make their virtual awards for performing in-game tasks entertaining. This week, we’re showcasing some of the funniest imaginary prizes in video games.

Today, I’m looking at some rewards that may not technically be rewards by any reasonable definition. These Achievements and Trophies feature failure, whether on your part or someone else’s.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai — “The Peter Moore Achievement”
Value: 8G
“Pay homage to one of our generation’s greatest rock performances ever.”

The press briefings at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show always generate some genuinely awkward moments. When Microsoft’s then-vice president of Interactive Entertainment Business strapped on a plastic guitar to help developer Harmonix reveal its music game Rock Band at E3 2007, he continued the time-honored tradition of people in suits embarrassing themselves onstage.

The relevant incident comes at the 2:30 mark in the above video, when Moore brings the demo to an abrupt stop by accidentally pausing the game. Two years later, developer Ska Studios commemorated this moment in its Xbox Live Arcade beat ‘em up The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. The title includes a guitar-solo rhythm minigame in which you must push buttons in time to score points. Pressing the Guide button on your controller during one of these sequences will pause the game, unlock the Achievement, and ruin that whole “ending in zero or five” thing your Gamerscore had going on.

NBA Jam — “Too Late”
Value: 20G/Silver Trophy
“Go up for a game winning dunk, only to have time expire while in mid-air.”

Achievements and Trophies often serve to reward excellent timing and impressive feats. NBA Jam’s “Too Late” celebrates both, but in an “Opposite Day” kind of way. As if it wasn’t enough to require you to lose to get your 20 points or Silver Trophy, this “award” also demands that you spend the entire game setting yourself up so that you’re behind by exactly one point, getting into a position to even attempt the game-winning dunk, and then timing it accordingly. It’s probably easier if you play in multiplayer, but that’s still a ridiculous amount of prep work just to lose.

Akai Katana Shin — “UUUURRRRGGGH”
Value: 5G
“Died immediately after starting the game.”

The nature of the bullet-hell genre demands that you will die a lot. Developer CAVE takes this premise to ridiculous levels for this Achievement for the Xbox Live Arcade port of its arcade shootsploder. You know you’re going to die, anyway, so why not get it out of the way at the start? Your Gamerscore will thank you a little. “UUUURRRRGGGH” also makes this list for having one of the funniest, most on-the-nose names of any Achievement I’ve ever seen.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 — “Afraid of the Dark”
Value: 10G
“Get the ball within a few inches from the hole without sinking it.”

While “Too Late” awards you for setting yourself up for a very specific kind of failure, Tiger Woods 09′s “Afraid of the Dark” Achievement throws some pity points at you for almost succeeding. You might have seen one of these scenarios play out in real life: The golfer makes a few dozen phantom putts before taking his shot for real, the ball rolls toward the hole, and it’s a special event indeed when a guy is standing there to lift out the flag to clear up all the space that the ball is surely going to need. And then … nothing. The ball stops short, and that poor fellow is just standing there holding the flag and exchanging looks with the crestfallen golfer that say, “We did not anticipate this at all.” It’s a strangely satisfying moment, provided it’s not happening to you, and you’re kind of an asshole.

This Achievement wins bonus points for trying to play it off all cool, like it’s the ball’s fault it didn’t go in.

Hybrid — “Cool Story Bro”
Value: 10G
“Get executed by an enemy Preyon while using Taunt.”

The Taunt feature is one of those weird things that pop up in a lot of games and make no sense. Presumably, it’s designed for players for whom yelling at polygons from their couch is not enough; they also have to know that those polygons realize that someone is mocking them. With a finite amount of controller buttons available to developers, it’s interesting that anyone would decide to dedicate an input to something that serves no tactical purpose and actually does not hurt your enemy’s feelings because they’re only so much data and do not understand our human emotions.

Developer 5th Cell’s (maker of Scribblenauts) Hybrid is a multiplayer shooter, which is one of the few genres in which a Taunt function makes sense — although that doesn’t necessarily make it any less sad to imagine in practice. Even more puzzling: Taunting in Hybrid is an ability that takes up space in your loadout that you might use for something else that could, perhaps, actually help your team win. To earn these 10 points, you have to fall victim to a Preyon while Taunting. Preyons are A.I.-controlled robotic ninjas that automatically seek out and kill the closest enemy player — basically, this game’s version of the Mario Kart series’ Blue Shell, only more ninja-like and stabbier. Like “Too Late,” this Achievement requires a Perfect Storm of fail.

Hasbro Family Game Night — “Enough Already!”
Value: 10G
“Shook the Boggle box for longer than 10 seconds.”

Say what you will about video games based on board games; sometimes they just get it. Take “Enough Already!” in developer Electronic Arts’ Family Game Night, which, like the Yahtzee Cup Slam or the “This is why we never play Monopoly” fist fight, celebrates a universally known part of playing these games. This Achievement simulates playing with the interminable box shaker, a Boggle player so earnest and determined that they rattle those little dice around like they will be able to force them into cooperation through sheer violent will. But the game is on to you, box shaker, and neither it nor the people around you will stand for it.

Portal 2 — “Pit Boss”
Value: 30G/Bronze Trophy
“Show that pit who’s boss.”

At one point in Portal 2, semi-villain Wheatley incites players to jump down a pit after failing to kill them in a more direct way. Doing so unlocks a 30-point Achievement/Bronze Trophy and kills you so you can respawn and listen to that dialogue all over again.

Secret Service — “Expert Marksman”
Value: 0G
“Fired an entire magazine without hitting anyone.”

You’ve really got to hand it to this one. Not only does it require you to blatantly and purposefully fail at one of the shooter genre’s most basic actions, but doing so will not even raise your Gamerscore. “Expert Marksman” is apparently for people who crave completion and feel no shame in going out of their way to suck in the name of checking an item off of a list.

Metal Gear Solid 4 — “Handle with Caution”
Value: Bronze Trophy
“Broke off the most important part of a statue.”

The grabbing of crotches is one of the Metal Gear Solid franchise’s most venerable traditions. It is not my purpose here to try to figure out why that is — I would be likely to run out of Internet long before getting to the bottom of it — but a Trophy in the series’ fourth installment puts a disconcerting twist on the motif.

The game’s hero, Old Snake, has an OctoCamo suit that changes color to allow him to blend in with his environment like some kind of Land Octopus. Early in the game, he can use it to hide among some statues. And apparently, if you really want to escape detection, you have to grab a handful of metal wang and keep your head down. Do it three times for some alarming results.

This Trophy may not really belong on this list, since its completion does not in itself involve failure, but let’s face it: Once the hunt for virtual rewards leads to players clutching an in-game statue’s penis enough times to snap it off, someone might have made a mistake or two somewhere.

If you can’t get enough metagaming humor, be sure to check out the other articles in this series:

• Part Two: Murder is fun(?)
• Part Three: That’s so meta
• Part Four: I see what you did there
• Part Five: And the rest

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Video games give players the ability to do anything they want with just a few simple taps on a controller. Would you like to do a backflip? We have a button for that. Are you looking for Jason? Games have you covered. How about clearing a room of enemies via a series of increasingly complex fighting moves, including this really cool one that involves a lemon wedge and a stuffed duck? OK, that’ll be at least six or seven presses, but it will happen, and you’re gonna love it.

But sometimes, the interface fails, and we find ourselves wanting to do something that developers never really took into consideration. Here are eight button prompts we would have loved to see in some recent games — even if they wouldn’t all be particularly useful.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I could never get into collecting toys. Except for my one-time splurge on a really awesome 12-inch figurine of Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4, I’m too cheap to buy them. But when I saw artist Shaun Nakasone’s custom pair of vinyl toys based on Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead adventure-horror game, I had to physically stop myself from reaching for my credit card.

Under his Sciurus Customs label, Nakasone enjoys sculpting these figures for people partly because they were originally meant as gifts for his friends. “A few of them urged me to post [the figures] online and it pretty much went from there,” he said in an email interview with GamesBeat. “Some are based off commission requests but most are just characters I have an attachment to and I guess others like them, too. The characters I sculpt usually don’t have many figures based on them, and I think people appreciate the fact that there are some [like them] out there.”

Whether he’s re-creating comic book superheroes or video game characters (more pictured in the gallery below), Nakasone always starts off with a blank canvas. He uses collectible vinyl figurines as a base for the characters: Hasbro’s Mighty Muggs line and Kidrobot’s Munny toys.

“By poring over reference materials, painting, and sculpting, you really get a good idea of the design that made the character: What makes them work, and what makes them distinct,” he said. “It’s a pretty meditative process and its interesting to discover small details that you [didn't see before]. I also enjoy the sense of progress after each figure, learning from my past mistakes and improving on ideas and methods.”

For The Walking Dead, Nakasone had the added challenge of adapting the game’s comic book-inspired graphics. “I sketched out the designs of the figures on the computer, getting as much references from books or the Internet as possible,” he said. “It’s really important to study the references, seeing what aspects of the design that make the characters and dissecting what makes the art style the way it is. That is most of the work for me: staying true to the character no matter the change in media or proportion.”

“Lee and Clementine have a different style to most of the custom figures I make,” he continued. “There’s a really sketchy, grungy quality to the [way] characters are rendered in the game: lots of lines of varied weight and smudged color caked on top of each other. I wanted to make sure that aspect of the art style translated to the final pieces, since it really informed who the characters were.”

Nakasone wanted to send both pieces as a donation to Tested.com’s second annual Octoberkast, a 24-hour live podcast that raises money for Child’s Play, a nonprofit organization that donates games and toys to hospitals for sick children to play with. Among this year’s Oktobercast participants were a number of staff members from Telltale Games, including The Walking Dead story consultant Gary Whitta, creative lead Sean Vanaman, and lead designer Jake Rodkin.

Unfortunately, Nakasone wasn’t able to finish Lee and Clementine in time. So he set up his own auction on eBay, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Child’s Play.

“I ended up doing Lee and Clementine from the Walking Dead on one part because of Telltale Games’ link with Octoberkast, but mostly because of my emotional attachment to the game and its characters,” he said. “Telltale Games really did a fantastic job getting me to really care for [them]. Everyone I know who played the game really empathize with Lee and has a protective/paternal feeling for Clementine, which I’ve really never seen a game do to this degree. That pretty much made them the perfect choice for characters I wanted to make for the charity auction.”

Like his earlier work, Lee and Clementine will mostly likely end up being one-of-a-kind. He doesn’t have any plans to make other characters from The Walking Dead. But even if he does, don’t expect him to include Kenny. “He ended up pretty dislikable in my playthrough,” he said.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It turns out that real soldiers don’t regenerate and machine guns don’t have unlimited ammo. Who knew?

It’s no secret that first-person shooters — in all their Hollywood-inspired clamor and spectacle — don’t simulate the realities of war very well. From basic rules of engagement, to gun safety (such as “don’t flag your buddies”), and the dynamics of combat, first-person shooters are more akin to interactive action flicks than a proper re-creation of armed conflict.

Of course, no one wants to play a hyper-realistic military simulator, as this hilarious Onion sketch illustrates.

No one wants to fill out endless paperwork, take mandatory sexual harassment training, write NCOERs (noncommissioned officer evaluation reports), sit through Powerpoint presentations with the potency of 10 Valiums, or stand 12-hour watches. No one wants to experience “hurry up and wait.”

Because that would be boring. Too realistic.

People want an escape from the mundane. But surely we can find a happy medium between silly action flicks and boring reality.

With the recent release of what will probably be the best-selling video game of the year, Call of Duty Black Ops II (for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC), I thought it instructive to get the low-down from a real soldier, a veteran who deployed in support of the Global War on Terror. Sergeant Dave Mull deployed to Iraq in support of the Global War on Terror three separate times: ’04-’05, early ’07-late ’07, and ’08. His Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) is Cavalry Scount (19D), which essentially means that his job is enemy, area, and route reconnaissance. Altogether, he served 12 years.

Our conversation yielded some fascinating insights, and some of it may surprise you.

GamesBeat: What are some of the most basic details that your average military shooter gets wrong?

The author firing the M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). The barrels get really hot and have a tendency to overheat.

GamesBeat: What inaccuracies seem the most jarring? Is there anything that would prevent you from playing such a game?

Dave Mull: Hmm … they seem to be trying far too hard to make everything “epic” in campaign mode. It can sometimes be a chore trying to figure out which enemies actually count and which ones are the infinitely respawning cannon-fodder bots.

It won’t stop me from playing it, but you’d think they could remember that sometimes nothing happening can be just as, if not much more, suspenseful.

GamesBeat: It does seem like the goal of many shooters — Call of Duty especially — is bigger setpieces, bigger explosions, and bigger bodycounts. Which naturally makes them more like a Michael Bay movie than anything resembling reality.

Dave Mull: Remember in the Metal Gear Solid games, it’s intended that you don’t kill anyone. Of course, you can, but it’s not the way [series creator Hideo] Kojima envisioned it.

GamesBeat: Indeed. And a reader on Bitmob, GamesBeat’s sister site, pointed out that MGS4 is one of the few games to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. In many ways, it’s a more realistic depiction of war than any first-person shooter.

Dave Mull: Very much so — specifically toward the end with Adam’s adoption of Liquid Snake’s personality and with the four gals of the Beauty and the Beast unit.

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It’s a feat worthy of Solid Snake that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance should be so wildly inventive and yet so wildly conventional. It brings to mind Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which features a tremendously powerful physics engine but was ultimately let down by an overall lack of good ideas and terrible scenario design (like the battle with the Star Destroyer).

You can distill both to fairly simple conceit. In The Force Unleashed, the goal was to make it fun to fling around Stormtroopers with the Force. In Metal Gear Rising, according to Kojima Productions producer Yuji Korekado, the core concept is that “when you cut something, it feels good.”

The concept stems from a scene from Metal Gear Solid 4. Once vilified for as a puerile Solid Snake-wannabe, Metal Gear Solid 2′s Raiden officially graduated into the Metal Gear universe as a member in full standing when he massacred a host of Geckkos — biomechanical infantry assault vehicles — with a katana.

“For Raiden, we wanted to move forward because of that action scene he had,” Korekado says. “We feel he can step up and become [as important as Solid Snake]. Snake is a wonderful character for the franchise, and we want Raiden to be that for us as well.”

Being a cyborg, Raiden brings a few special qualities into any action role. He’s incredibly fast, so much so that he can enter a bullet time-like mode in which he can slice foes at his leisure. As with the first time you lifted a Stormtrooper with the Force and watched him grapple for dear life with his buddy, it’s these moments that stand out most in the Metal Gear Rising demo. Enter sword mode and the game automatically draws a line like a butcher’s diagram down the center of an enemy. One flick of the right stick and you slice the hapless opponent in two. Then into quarters. Then into eighths.

Raiden’s primary foes in the demo are regular soldiers and Gekkos. A typical sequence sees Raiden entering a large open area full of patrolling foes, none of whom are aware of his presence. Such moments are reminiscent of the classic Metal Gear games that Rising is based on, but with one important difference. Where Snake sneaks to avoid unnecessary fights, Raiden is only really interested in avoiding crowds of enemies. As a ninja cyborg, the only way he will ever be overwhelmed is if the soldiers and Gekkos can gang up on him.

If the purpose of the demo is to communicate the joy of slicing up enemies, it succeeds admirably. The action has the fingerprints of Platinum, the action studio that jumped in to save Metal Gear Rising when the project was all but dead, all over it. And being a demo, we’re probably not seeing the full extent of what Platinum’s work. Korekado hints as much when he says, “Something I learned working with Platinum is the potential of the Metal Gear world. One thing about Platinum is that their unique specialties have allowed them to come up with many scenarios that Kojima Productions cannot.”

The hope is that Platinum will indeed make good on some of the game’s franchise, because as solid as it is right now, Metal Gear Rising feels like it’s in danger of being a single-note action game. Nowhere is that more evident than in the demo’s final encounter–a strangely conventional battle with a panther-like cyborg.

In the early going, it’s easy for the beast’s speed to overwhelm and terrify you. Sword mode isn’t helpful, and simply attacking it only gets Raiden hurt. Instead, the main strategy is simply to be patient and block. Eventually, this stuns the pantherbot, and Raiden can get his licks in. After taking some damage, the panther leaps away and summons some minions. It’s the kind of fight that brings back the good old days of the NES — not exactly the image one would associate with a cutting-edge action game like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

One wonders if Raiden’s abilities are actually a hindrance in this instance. Being a supercyborg, is he actually so strong that boss battles have to neuter his all-powerful sword mode in some way? Korekado dismisses such concerns: “Of course, Raiden being a cyborg, he has many superpowers and is incredibly strong. In the end, this is a battle between cyborgs and a battle between superpowers. That has allowed us to kind of go wild with our brainstorm. It’s funny because each stage and boss provides something different. The stages, the battles, the bosses … they all have something you won’t expect. For that reason, [Raiden's abilities] have never been a restriction for us.”

The demo gives some reasons to be optimistic when Korekado refers to the team’s capability to “go wild.” With games like Bayonetta in its catalog, Platinum has established itself as one of the best action studios in the business. The Metal Gear franchise is known for having some of the best boss battles in the history of the medium. With so much talent on the job, one imagines that Metal Gear Rising will be anything but conventional.

But Metal Gear Rising has had a troubled development to this point, and Platinum has had to work hard to get the project to a point where it can actually be released. With so many issues, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Metal Gear’s creativity suffer. One would hope that the panther battle an exception to the franchise’s past quality.

At this point, Metal Gear Rising has a lot of potential as an action game. The talent behind it is considerable. But Platinum and Kojima Productions may want to look to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed as a warning that great graphics and great intentions mean little in a game with bad design.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The video game industry is littered with great characters, but they’re often a bit … well, one-dimensional. They usually show up in adventure after adventure doing the same exact things, acting the same exact way, even saying the same exact lines. So it’s fun to see some of the biggest icons in virtual entertainment act out of character, even if just for the sake of crude, not-safe-for-work entertainment.

“50 Shades of Grey” is an erotic novel known for explicit scenes of bondage and sadism. Duke Nukem is a game character known for saying macho one liners and the word “balls.” So what happens if Duke Nukem narrates “50 Shades of Grey?” Hilarity, my friends. Absolute hilarity.

The action-adventure series Uncharted has made a name for itself with its likable and well-acted hero, Nathan Drake. But does he become a bit less endearing when he’s shilling for Subway? Yes. Yes he does. Let’s never speak of this again.

The Mario Bros. are arguably the most popular duo in all of gaming, but they’re not the only famous pair of brothers in history. I mean, the Wright Bros. have some claim to fame themselves, having invented the airplane and all that. Well, how do we decide the superior team? With a rap battle, of course!

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Before you can say “nanomachines,” Solid Snake could headline the next Metal Gear Solid.

In an interview with French gaming magazine IG, Hideo Kojima, chief executive of MGS developer Kojima Productions, dropped a few hints about the secretive development of Metal Gear Solid 5, the upcoming entry in the stealth-action franchise popular for its convoluted plotlines and lengthy cinematics.

One particular info nugget dealt with the possible return of recurring protagonist Solid Snake despite the culminating events of 2008′s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

“About Metal Gear Solid 5 — there will be a return to a focus on espionage and infiltration,” Kojima said. “We have not yet finished with Solid Snake despite [MGS4's] ending.”

Kojima also expressed admiration for Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s social interactions and hoped a similar system appears in MGS5.

Kojima Productions all but confirmed MGS5′s existence via an unsubtle recruitment poster spotted during February’s Game Developers Conference. The studio showcased the latest version of its proprietary Fox Engine last year, but Kojima pointed out that the demonstration didn’t feature any MGS5 footage, saying, “It was only a demo we developed internally and released because the lighting and environment interactions had fooled everyone.”

From its humble beginnings in 1998 on the PlayStation system, the Metal Gear Solid franchise has flourished across multiple platforms — including the PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox 360 — and sold millions as gamers raved about its lasting legacy of memorable characters and stealth-based gameplay.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is all about the blade. The game features the most comprehensive and precise sword control I’ve ever experienced. Using the title’s Blade mode, you can cut your enemies and environment into fine pieces. Want to turn an abandoned car into scrap metal? Go for it. How about giving that bad guy a new hairstyle? No problem. What if you want to chop up some conveniently placed watermelons into a delectable summer treat? You can do that too.

Revengeance isn’t a typical entry in the Metal Gear series. Don’t expect to do a lot of sneaking this time around. This is a pure, third-person, action-adventure effort. As the demigod-like Raiden, you have a series of devastating moves at your disposal. Your goal is to effortlessly glide through the battlefield, slashing and stabbing every enemy that stands in your path.

From what Konami has shown, Revengeance is a Raiden-only escapade. That means no Solid Snake or Big Boss. But to be honest, I didn’t miss the series’ trademark protagonists or stealthy gameplay as I hacked through a private demo of the title during the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

The demo itself acted as a tutorial for Revengeance’s sword-centric control system. I started out in a training area littered with multiple targets ripe for mincing. Here, I learned about the intricacies of Blade mode. By holding the left trigger on the controller, Raiden would enter a focused state where I could accurately line up specific slashes. Entering the mode, however, took up energy, so Raiden needed to stay powered to stay effective. That’s where one of the game’s main attacks, the zan-datsu, came into play. Literally meaning “cut and take” in Japanese, zan-datsu assaults keep Raiden at full power, allowing his katana to eviscerate those who challenge him.

As I left the initial zone, I was able to execute zan-datsu attacks on some cyborg soldiers. Slashing a specified target on one of the hostiles triggered a seamless animation where Raiden chopped down the enemy and removed its battery pack, absorbing energy.

This sequence led to an encounter against one of the gekko walkers introduced in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The gekko fight took place in a derelict park — complete with a rusted-out Ferris wheel. Instead of fighting the organic-and-synthetic monstrosity head on, I ran over to the wheel and cut down its metal support struts, causing it to collapse on top of the mech. Revengeance employs a sophisticated physics engine allowing for such possibilities. These touches, along with the cut-anything-and-everything sword dynamics, really open up the gameplay.

The demo ended with a multi-part battle against a hammerhead helicopter, which featured an extensive quick-time event where Raiden used the chopper’s fired missiles as platforms, jumping within striking distance of the machine. Of course, Raiden delivered the final blow, destroying the flying beast.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance made me feel unstoppable, and the fluid, katana-focused controls left me wanting to play more. Look for the title to hit store shelves in 2013.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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