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The best games of 2012 (GamesBeat staff picks)

Jason Wilson — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:00:40 +0000

It’s cliché to say that 2012 was “the best year ever for video games.” Some folk say this about every year. Yet it’s difficult for us not to look back at 2012 with such love and fondness.

If 2012 has shown us one thing, it’s that video game development is truly in the “crossover era.” GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year, The Walking Dead, was first available as a downloadable title, not a retail release. Other downloadables, such as indie-developed darlings Journey and Faster Than Light, garnered plenty of votes as well. And in our staff’s and contributor’s top games of the year lists, we even see mobile releases — like Fieldrunners 2.

Gaming has changed, and it’s nice to see that it’s more than just big-budget console and PC titles that have earned Game of the Year attention. Here are the top games as chosen by GamesBeat staffers and contributors. Let us know what you think about our picks in the comments — especially if you feel we’ve left something off our lists!

Editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu

XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Firaxis Games

Little green men — yesteryear’s poster boys for mysterious invaders from outer space — are about as menacing as Oompa Loompas armed with toy guns. XCOM’s little gray men, however, are scary as hell. It’s not the ashen skin, bulbous eyes, or creepy-crawly walk. It’s what these Sectoids represent: a greater threat that we are simply not equipped to handle.

In the strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, we mere humans bring dull knives to plasma gunfights. And just when we start to catch up in weapon technology, the bug-eyed bastards bring bigger guns and meaner friends. These jerks even cheat with mysterious mind-control powers. Meanwhile, we’re barely keeping the checkbook balanced between research, manufacturing, facility construction, aircraft, and an ever-decreasing budget due to world nations pulling out of the program if you can’t keep them safe (and you can never keep them all safe).

It all adds up to an incredibly exciting and stressful experience. Each decision — whether it’s which tree to hide your assault trooper behind or which whiny country gets your last airspace-monitoring satellite — feels monumental and permanent. Humanity’s existence is at stake, and we just want to make it to the next month, when a few more pennies come rolling in and a few more traumatized soldiers get out of sick bay.

It’s a desperate fight. And boy will we celebrate when those little gray men are dead.

Shoe’s other picks for best games of 2012: Fieldrunners 2, Dishonored, Journey, Fez

Lead writer Dean Takahasi

The Unfinished Swan
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Giant Sparrow

The Unfinished Swan is one of the most creative titles yet for the PlayStation Network. It’s an interactive fairy tale where you lob blobs of black paint at a white screen. As you do so, you uncover part of a 3D space hidden within the white scene. Uncovering each scene is a mind-bending task, as you have to navigate perplexing puzzles. You explore the unknown, and as you do so, you uncover a new segment in a fairy tale about a boy who loses his mother. It is a touching story that will remind of you of the zany Alice in Wonderland. Ian Dallas, the game creator, feels that a child who is abandoned is like an unfinished work of art. But just when you think that the game has become predictable, it changes. In some ways, the story seems unfinished. But the title is a wonderful first effort for Giant Sparrow, a new studio bankrolled by Sony.

Dean’s other picks for the best games of 2012: Halo 4, Far Cry 3, Journey, Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Culture editor Sebastian Haley

Hotline Miami
Platform: PC
Publisher: Developer Digital
Developer: Dennaton Games

Indie sensation Hotline Miami is best described as the film Drive, but in a retro, pixelated and somehow even more violent form, with subtle hints of Rockstar’s Manhunt sprinkled on top. The short-but-sickeningly sweet levels allow you to carefully orchestrate your symphony of murder and mayhem, filling the floors with maimed corpses and spraying the walls with crimson, all while its surreal, Miami Vice-inspired soundtrack beats in the back of your mind. Basically, if you own a Wii or like looking at livestreams of kittens, this is not your kind of game.

Sebastian’s other picks for best games of 2012: Trials Evolution, Far Cry 3, The Darkness II, Final Fantasy XIII-2

Staff writer Jeff Grubb

Mark of the Ninja
Platform: Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade), PC
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Developer: Klei Entertainment

For these Game of the Year summaries, we’re supposed to look above and beyond the individual parts of a game. We’re supposed to write about why it is important, but in the case of Mark of the Ninja, it’s those parts that make it so special. Developer Klei’s 2D stealth action game for Xbox Live Arcade and PC is a master class in well-executed gameplay mechanics. Whether it’s a soundwave that ripples off your ninja’s feet to indicate how much noise he’s making or a vision cone that indicates where an enemy is looking, Mark of the Ninja is constantly communicating with the player. It then provides the player with a great controlling character to poke and prod the world with.

It’s not rare that a game makes you feel like a badass, but with Klei’s game it’s not about how powerful you are — it’s about how in tune with the environment your character is. You have so much visual and aural information that every moment is an opportunity for experimentation. You can spend 10 minutes laying out a detailed plan that involves deadly traps, or you can play the entire game without a sword.

In video games, we don’t usually get a lot of new ideas, we just get different takes on old ideas. Stealth is an old idea at this point, but Mark of the Ninja distinguishes itself by executing the concept better than any other game before it.

Jeff’s other picks for best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Trials Evolution, FTL: Faster Than Light

Copy editor Jason Wilson

FTL: Faster Than Light
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Publisher: Subset Games
Developer: Subset Games

I’m low on fuel. My crew raced around my starship like a colony of ants, hastily putting out fires as doors opened to the cold vacuum of space. The Rebels are closing in on me. Do I take a chance and see if I can gain more fuel in the next nebular cloud, or do I make a mad dash for the next sector and hope to find friendly forces instead of angry adversaries? These are just some of the choices the player faces in FTL: Faster Than Light, the indie roguelike that’s swept upon a number of Game of the Year lists in 2012 (including ours!). What makes FTL so compelling to players is that a take on Civilization’s “one more turn” addictive nature — but instead of furthering your game, you’re driven to see if your next attempt takes you closer to escaping the pursuing Rebel forces. And it’s this that makes FTL one of the most interesting, fascinating, and, yes, best games of 2012.

Jason’s other picks for best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Crusader Kings II, Torchlight II, Dragon’s Dogma

Contributor Rus McLaughlin

Far Cry 3
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Something visceral. Something primal. Most shooters don’t have these. They settle you into a safe, comfortable role. Veteran soldier. Seasoned cop. Career criminal. A hero … or an antihero. But Far Cry 3 makes you run blind through the jungle while murderous pirates hunt you like a piece of prey. You’re just a terrified kid. Never held a gun before. Never seen anyone die before. Now you’re covered in your own brother’s blood and getting high off the giddy thrill of mere survival. Then you’re turned lose to roam two amazingly rich, open-world islands where you can really start enjoying yourself, slowly and cautiously picking your tormentors apart. Before you know it, the elation you get from destroying a criminal empire hardens into a different kind of drug: revenge.

That’s when Far Cry 3 surpasses the standard shooter fare. An aimless twentysomething becomes a killer of killers, as feared as the insane warlords he wants dead. Between coolly tense stealth play and straight-up gunfights, you become the predator, stalking intruders in your jungle and murdering them at will. It all culminates in a moment where you must decide just how much you enjoy that particular power fantasy. Enough to abandon your humanity? Maybe.

Far Cry 3 goes there. Solid gameplay — minus a weak-tea multiplayer — and incredibly detailed environments lift it far enough, but its secret weapon lies in how it takes you into that dark, primal place. And then it dares you to ignore your basic animal instincts.

Rus’s other picks for best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Fez, Halo 4, Journey

Contributing editor Rob Savillo

Lone Survivor
Platform: PS3, PlayStation Vita, PC, Mac, Linux
Publisher: Superflat Games
Developer: Superflat Games, Curve Studios

Jasper Byrne’s psychological thriller clearly owes a debt to the Silent Hill series’ mysterious and surrealist approach to narrative, among other things. Lone Survivor weaves a tale of intrigue, always making you second guess your choices while silently tracking your every decision. The latter shows an appreciation for an Eastern European take on storytelling (as seen in The Witcher 2 and Metro 2033) that flows more naturally than Western developers’ tendencies to employ contrived morality systems.

Lone Survivor also smartly reinvents the survival-horror genre by undermining the common trope of item scarcity, which games such as Resident Evil and the aforementioned Silent Hill have used in the past to create tension. Instead, Lone Survivor relies on its narrative sleight-of-hand to keep you on the edge of your seat.

For these reasons, Lone Survivor moves storytelling forward in the medium without falling back on “gamey” concepts such as light/dark paths. At once affecting and engaging, the narrative blends almost seamlessly (aside from an archaic death mechanic) with the interactive elements of the work, elevating the game above its peers in the big-budget, triple-A space.

Rob’s other picks for best games of 2012: XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Tokyo Jungle, Armored Core V, Dragon’s Dogma

Contributor Rob LeFebvre

Gravity Rush
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Studio

Gravity Rush is the superhero game I’ve always wanted to play. Even without the traditional Western comic book tropes like spandex and capes, Kat functions like any other neophyte comic-book character, only gradually coming into her full power as the story progresses. Her ability to control gravity is disorienting in the best way, as it echoes resonantly with the thematic elements of the story. Kat is as off balance as we are, as we move her about from place to place, finding ever odder, more unlikely spots to land on.

The world breathes with delightfully artistic colors; the environments are a treat to look at while playing. Gravity Rush encourages exploration of every gorgeous spot, with hidden power gems located all around, on top of buildings, under bridges, and the like. Characters pop off the screen with cel-shaded goodness, and fairly glow within the expository comicbook-style sections.

Touch and motion controls are subtle and make sense within the world, but what really makes Gravity Rush sing is the power of flight. Soaring across the various city sections, landing on floating urban debris, flinging objects and even Kat’s own body at the odd-looking creatures during fights is just thrilling, and never once loses its charm.

For me, Gravity Rush is the best title for the PlayStation Vita, showcasing the power and tech of the handheld gaming device to the highest degree I’ve seen yet.

Rob’s other best games of 2012: Guild Wars 2, Dishonored, Journey, Borderlands 2

Contributor Stefanie Fogel

Mass Effect 3
Platforms: Xbox 360, PC
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare

So much sound and fury was made over Mass Effect 3’s controversial ending that it’s easy to forget the final installment of BioWare’s space opera really is a damn fine game. It told a grim tale of galactic war, yet found time in between the dire exposition and bombastic action set pieces to bid fond farewell to characters Mass Effect fans have come to know and love over the last five years. It’s those quieter moments — the shooting match with Garrus, Mordin humming the Major-General’s song as he sacrifices himself, your final conversation with Captain Anderson — that stick with you months after putting down the controller. Mass Effect 3 also (mostly) fulfilled the series’ promise that in-game decisions would matter, paving the way for other morality-based titles like Spec Ops: The Line and our Game of the Year, The Walking Dead. By the time the credits rolled, I had completed every side mission I possibly could during my playthrough because I hated the thought of leaving that world behind, which I believe is one of the highest compliments you can pay to a game developer.

Stefanie’s other best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Persona 4 Golden, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dishonored

Contributor Kat Bailey

Halo 4
Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: Microsoft Studios

Developer: 343 Industries

Even compared to the normally high stakes world of triple-A publishing, Microsoft and 343 Industries had plenty on the line with Halo 4. If it ended up being mediocre — or worse, an outright flop — the brand as a whole would have a hard time recovering. With that in mind, the sighs of relief throughout Redmond, Wash. must have been deafening when the top scores started coming in, with even diehard Halo fans giving their emphatic thumbs up.

Halo may not be the be-all, end-all shooter anymore, but it remains quite relevant in the world of online gaming. A lot of that has to do with the distinctive blend of action the series brings to the table — shield management, tagging foes with grenades, and properly using the small but multidimensional maps. 343 Industries seems to have a keen understanding of this action, and it’s perfectly replicated it for Halo 4, throwing in a few of their own twists along the way (the Starhawk-like Dominion Mode is a favorite).

That 343 Industries understands the “recipe” for a good Halo game is only part of the story though. With new modes like Spartan Ops — a series of free downloadable microcontent — they are putting their own stamp on the beloved series. For that reason, the air of skepticism surrounding 343 Industries has largely been replaced with one of legitimacy. Now we’ll see if they have the wherewithal to use that currency to make something truly special.

Kat’s other best games of 2012: Xenoblade Chronicles, The Walking Dead, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Persona 4 Golden

Intern Mike Minotti

Guild Wars 2
Platform: PC, Mac
Publisher: NCSoft
Developer: ArenaNet

World of Warcraft is king of the massively multiplayer role-playing game. It’s probably going to sit comfortably on that throne for years to come. But 2012 brought us Guild Wars 2, the first MMO I played since 2004 that I actually preferred to Blizzard’s take on questing on adventuring.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t reinvent online adventuring, but it’s littered with smart design choices that make you smack your head and yell, “Duh! Why hasn’t it always been like this?” Turning in quests? The hell with that! Guild War 2′s adventures happen organically and painlessly, without having to talk to multiple townspeople with exclamation marks hovering over their heads. Want to visit an unexplored zone that’s designed for players at a lower level than your own? Guild Wars 2 scales your character down so that you can still have a challenging time tackling each area’s trials.

It doesn’t hurt that its world, Tyria, is a beautiful land that’s fun and rewarding to explore. Oh, and the lack of a subscription fee? Yeah, I like that, too.

Guild Wars 2 is not only more accessible than a lot of its competitors, but it’s frankly a lot more fun than just about any other MMO out there.

Mike’s other best games of 2012: Gravity Rush, Borderlands 2, Assassin’s Creed III, PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale.

Intern Evan Killham

Slender: The Eight Pages
Platform: PC, Mac
Publisher: Parsec Productions
Developer: Parsec Productions

Technically, I’ve never lost a game of Slender … because I’ve never actually finished one. I’ve always quit when the cold sweat broke out.

Developer Parsec Productions’ free horror game is one of this year’s most surprising titles (in every sense of the word). Starting with a simple premise — collect the eight manuscript pages hidden in these spooky woods before eponymous monster Slender Man catches you — Slender uses its too-long arms to yank players into a hell of panic attacks and abject terror.

This game is relentless. Everything you see and hear is designed specifically to unnerve you, and it gets worse with every page you pick up. Even more spectacular is the disconnect between playing this beast and watching someone play it. If you do a YouTube search for “Let’s play Slender,” you risk losing an entire evening in the grips of sweet, sweet, schadenfreude. Boot it up yourself and you will regret ever laughing at those videos.

In a year that gave us two Silent Hill titles and three additions to the Resident Evil series, gaming’s horror genre was desperately in need of some new ideas. And then Slender showed up and made us afraid of the dark again.

Evan’s other best games of 2012: Max Payne 3, The Walking Dead, Borderlands 2, Silent Hill: Downpour

Intern Jason Lomberg

Dishonored
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Arkane Studios

Stealth games have never been my cup of tea. Metal Gear Solid 2’s brain-dead guards annoyed the piss out of me, and I usually ended up going “Rambo” in Metal Gear Solid 3, running through danger rather than sneaking stealthily past it. But Dishonored nails it – the sense of danger, the thrill of the hunt, and the exhilaration that comes from successfully pulling off one of Corvo’s many gruesome kills.

As GamesBeat writer Rus McLaughlin points out, Dishonored plays exactly the way you want to play it. You can tear through the City Watch like a Steampunk version of Chuck Norris (minus the roundhouse kicks); you can destroy every living thing in your path with merciless impunity. Of course being a one-man army with a thirst for cold steel and magical spells of destruction makes the game that much harder. But it’s one option.

You can also play the pacifist and refuse to take a life. Or you can utilize the cover system and take out the guards like a silent assassin. Near the beginning, a pack of man-eating rats block your path, and the solution involves drawing them away with a dead body — that’s about the time I realized I was playing something unique and special. The ways to get from point A to point B are endless and never less than thrilling.

Jason’s other best games of 2012: Sleeping Dogs, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Journey, Mass Effect 3

Intern Giancarlo Valdes

Journey
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: thatgamecompany

Journey is a game that doesn’t feel like it’s made out of textures, wireframes, or lines of code. The glistening sand dunes, the subterranean fortress, and the snow-covered mountaintops feel like real places, inspiring a magical sense of wonder and fear as you explore the unknown. That’s why the bond you form with your anonymous online companion is so powerful: It’s the two of you against the world, a nonverbal pact that is implicitly forged the moment you meet each other.

I didn’t realize this until I saw my partner collapse from the harsh winds during Journey’s climax. I desperately tried to nurse them back to life, but it was no use. I felt a slight pang of sadness as their body perished seamlessly with the natural elements, timidly coming to terms with the fact that I had to face the rest of the game alone. I only lingered on this for perhaps a minute or two, but just the idea of a game making me feel and think this way is a testament to how expertly crafted Journey really is.

By the end, I had experienced an entire range of emotions in a medium where most games have a hard time just trying to invoke one.

Giancarlo’s other best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Tokyo Jungle, DayZ, Spec Ops: The Line

Intern Jasmine Rea

Persona 4 Golden
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Publisher: Atlus
Developer: Atlus

Few Japanese role-playing games in the last few years have made me want to replay them quite like Persona 4. When developer Atlus announced Persona 4 Golden for the Vita, I knew not buying Sony’s new handheld was completely out of the question.

While it is by far my favorite Vita release this year (and arguably the best game on the platform), Persona 4 Golden is a shining example of how much Japanese RPGs have evolved in the last 10 years. It mixes an intense, emotional story about a group of high school friends with an ongoing murder mystery so well that you sometimes forget about all the supernatural happenings.

Persona 4 Golden’s most powerful element is that shows how everyone has a part of themselves they don’t want to admit exists, and the only way to live freely is to accept that fact. Even though you can’t summon your “true self” to fight for you in the real world, we can all learn a thing or two about accepting ourselves. Persona 4’s relatable characters will show you how.

Jasmine’s other best games of 2012: Resident Evil: Revelations, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Tales of Graces F, Lollipop Chainsaw

Intern Sam Barsanti

Borderlands 2
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software

It would be easy to explain the appeal of Borderlands 2 by describing it as a cheap way to satiate your hunger for constant rewards. It may be obvious, but the best part of every firefight in the game isn’t the moment-to-moment excitement of rampaging through a horde of bandits, it’s the few seconds after when you get to pick over the loot. The combat is just a means to an end. What really drives you to do anything in Borderlands 2 is the hope that with the next enemy you take down you’ll find a new weapon that is more interesting than your current one. I mean, who can resist an experience that treats every five minutes like a combination of Christmas, your birthday, and a Steam sale all in one?

Of course, to only talk about loot would be too reductive and dismissive of everything else that Borderlands 2 does well. The combat and millions of guns make it a good game, but the cleverness of the world and all of the things in it are what make it one of the best of the year. I won’t remember every bad guy I killed, but I won’t forget being openly mocked by the antagonist or helping one of the characters think of stupid names for local creatures, because those moments were unique (and well written). See, the appeal of Borderlands 2 isn’t the combat or the loot — it’s the gleeful, wacky fun of the whole package.

Sam’s other best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Max Payne 3, Mass Effect 3

Filed under: Games

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Report: The most-played games of 2012

Rus McLaughlin — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:36:59 +0000

Game networking service Raptr released its annual Raptr Report detailing the most played games of 2012, and it carries a few surprises about how gamers spent their time in the last 12 months. The data is based on Raptr’s gameplay tracking feature and a user base in the 15 million range. Games on the Wii U and PlayStation 3 didn’t factor into these numbers due to data-capture restrictions.

The overall most played new intellectual property? That goes to Dishonored. Developer Arkane Studios’ stealthy, steampunk actioner narrowly edged out Sleeping Dogs’ kung-fu treachery by a slender 6 percent. But split the numbers out to total playtime per player, and massively multiplayer games still led the charge. Korean heroic fantasy The Exiled Realm of Arborea (aka TERA) commanded a strong 14 percent lead over its nearest competitor, Dragon’s Dogma, with the average player logging 40 hours in the first month alone.

Meanwhile, Xbox Live Arcade’s biggest hit turned out to be a PC game. Minecraft drew 350 percent more playtime than the second-place finisher, Trials: Evolution. According to Raptr, XBLA games tend to max out at roughly 10 hours of use in the first month. Minecraft players averaged just over 20 hours.

Raptr also notes that 27 percent of Minecraft players have tried to ride a flying pig.

The most played game of 2012, however, won’t come as any shock. It’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II with a comfortable 11-point margin, followed by Borderlands 2, Halo 4, and Minecraft.

But it turns out gamers are far more devoted to something other than Black Ops II.

Breaking the data into individual playtimes handily negates Black Ops II’s vast sales advantage. More people bought the latest Call of Duty, but on a person-by-person basis, gamers spent far more time trolling through Borderlands 2′s Wasteland. A lot more.

The average player spent 49 hours in the Wasteland … nearly 50 more than the average Black Ops II player in their respective opening months.

Possibly, the 11 percent of players who completed every side quest added to those numbers. Raptr also reports that players spent an average 80 hours to reach the level 50 cap. Borderlands 2 also topped the list of nonannualized game sequels with double the overall time that was spent on Diablo III. In that same category, Guild Wars 2 took honors for the most individual playtime.

On the MMO front, switching to a free-to-play model worked out well for a pair of high-profile titles. Star Wars: The Old Republic saw a 136 percent increase in overall playtime in just two weeks while Star Trek Online bumped its population a whopping 266 percent in playtime per day.

And the numbers clearly solve the age-old argument between those hardcore followings. Star Wars beats out Star Trek’s playtime numbers by 168 percent. The top three The Old Republic players have shown serious devotion, each logging over 250 hours in the game.

But for Raptr’s coveted No Bathroom Break award, which honors the longest average play sessions, a few new fighters entered the ring. Mass Effect 3 just barely missed toppling Borderlands 2, with XCOM: Enemy Unknown following not far behind. Halo 4, Black Ops II, and Dragon’s Dogma rounded out the list.

Raptr’s methodology uses a proprietary formula based on key statistics that include total hours, average session length, and average playtime per person. To create equal footing for comparison, all games are compared based on the same time frames, typically defined as the first month after release.

Filed under: Games

Minecraft digs upwards and becomes most-played Xbox Live Arcade title

Omri Petitte — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:33:39 +0000

Microsoft’s Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb posted his regular activity roundup for the Xbox 360’s online network, and the Minecraft mania flows strong on the lists.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition nabbed the top position for bestsellers as well as sliding in behind long-standing champions Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops for unique-user counts. Other titans felt the squeeze: Battlefield 3, Halo: Reach, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Gears of War 3 trailed by significant margins.

Here’s the punchline: All of this happened in Minecraft’s first week of release.

Creativity spawns popularity, or so the legions of Minecraft’s stalwart community believes. Originally released for the PC on November 18, 2011, the open-world tinkering title arms players with pick, axe, sword, and other tools while throwing open the floodgates of crowdsourced content, resulting in masterful works such as a recreated Westeros from Game of Thrones and Portal’s test chambers.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition launched on May 9, promptly fashioned a golden sword, and smashed digital-sales records on its first day in the wilds. Its 1,600 Microsoft Points ($20) cost, unusually large for an XBLA title, and its lack of a modding infrastructure didn’t prevent the acclaim rolling in.

Check out Major Nelson’s activity lists below. If you’re playing Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, what have you created so far? Let us know in the comments!

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on unique users)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
FIFA 12
Battlefield 3
Halo: Reach
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
NBA 2K12
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Gears of War 3
Grand Theft Auto IV
Trials Evolution
Forza Motorsport 4
Mass Effect 3
NHL 12
Madden NFL 12
Halo 3
Red Dead Redemption
Saints Row: The Third
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
Trials Evolution
The Walking Dead
Fable Heroes
Fez
Pinball FX2
Awesomenauts
I Am Alive
Castle Crashers
Family Game Night
Fruit Ninja Kinect
Bloodforge
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Gotham City Impostors
Toy Soldiers
Trials HD
Dungeon Defenders
Full House Poker
Peggle
Magic: The Gathering — Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

Top Indie Games (Full Versions purchased)

CastleMiner Z
CastleMiner
Total Miner: Forge
The $1 Zombie Game
FortressCraft: Chapter 1
The Impossible Game
Avatar Paintball
Avatar Deathmatch
Fortress Wars
FLIRT
End of Days: Infected vs. Mercs
Avatar Legends
Flight Adventure 2
Toy Stunt Bike 2
Solar 2
Firing Range 2
Miner4Ever
Avatar Air Wars
Don’t Die Dateless, Dummy!
Attack of the Zombie Horde

Games for Windows Top Live Titles (based on unique users)

Grand Theft Auto IV
Age of Empires Online
Batman: Arkham City
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition
Microsoft Flight
Batman: Arkham Asylum
DiRT 3
Gotham City Impostors
F1 2011
Resident Evil 5
Fallout 3
Street Fighter X Tekken
Toy Soldiers
Fable III
BioShock 2
Colin McRae: Dirt 2
Bulletstorm
F1 2010
Street Fighter IV
Section 8: Prejudice

Filed under: Games

Journey designer: PlayStation Network players “more likely to be interested in artistic games” than 360 or Wii

Jeffrey Grubb — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:00:55 +0000

UPDATE: Jenova Chen’s original comments below were in reference to the PlayStation Network, not to the PS3 platform as a whole. We left out that context and apologize for the oversight.

Jenova Chen, Thatgamecompany‘s lead designer for PlayStation 3′s Journey, sees a striking difference between the PS3 and its competitors. “Sony has a more artistic and adult-focused taste,” Chen said in an email conversation with GamesBeat, in reference to the PlayStation Network’s portfolio of digital software when compared to Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare. “They care about how grown-ups feel toward their games.”

The top sellers on the respective platforms may support his claim. While plenty of adults surely enjoy Castle Crashers and Trials Evolution (two best-selling Xbox Live Arcade games), the cerebral crowd hasn’t rallied around those like they have with Journey (PlayStation Network’s fastest selling title).

GamesBeat contacted Microsoft and Nintendo to see if either company wished to respond, but both declined. Sony, however, was very willing to agree with Chen’s assessment.

“Our primary PSN audience is indeed more adult, and many of our best-selling titles appeal to this demographic,” senior director of PlayStation digital platforms Jack Buser told GamesBeat. “Many PlayStation and PSN games have themes that require a user to think and feel about a deep, immersive gameplay experience, and we see that exemplified in the success of titles like Flower, Journey, and Heavy Rain. Titles like these can only be found on PlayStation, and our users enjoy the emotional and thematic sophistication of their games, especially with our digital offerings.”

Chen takes it one step further. “The player who owns a PlayStation 3 [and is playing PSN titles] is more likely to be interested in artistic games compared to Wii and Xbox 360,” the designer wrote.

Sony won’t release its PSN sales numbers, so it’s difficult to verify Chen and Buser’s claims. The success of the digital service’s more cultured products could be coincidence. The most artistic offerings may simultaneously be the most well-made, and consumers are drawn to the quality rather than any perceived artiness.

But we do have to take issue with the claim that Sony somehow cares more about adults than the other hardware manufacturers. Titles like I Am Alive and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare are recent releases that serve a mature audience on the Xbox 360. They may not fit Jenova Chen’s definition of “artistic,” but not everything will.

Besides, some of us prefer the beautiful audio art that opens up each game of Trials Evolution.

Filed under: Games

3 of gaming’s most elaborate inside jokes

Evan Killham — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:54:21 +0000

Reddit user Blizzlock discovered something interesting in the beta of developer ArenaNet’s upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game Guild Wars 2 last weekend. The description of the in-game ability “Crippling Shot” reads, in part, “Shatter your foe’s dreams of becoming an adventurer with a single arrow to the knee.” This will sound familiar to players of last fall’s epic RPG Skyrim, in which non-player guard characters would often lament the losses of their own adventuring careers.

While developers referencing other companies’ games is nothing new (think of all the cake references since Portal’s release in 2007), a few game makers have gone all-out with their nods to other titles. For example:

Grand Theft Auto III kills the Wheelman

Developer Rockstar Games’ open-world crimefest includes a mission called “Two-Faced Tanner,” which tasks players with tracking down and killing a “strangely animated undercover cop” who is “more or less useless out of his car.” Savvy players would recognize the target as Tanner, the protagonist of Ubisoft Reflections’ (then Reflections Interactive) Driver series. In Driver 2 (which hit stores a year before GTA3), Tanner can leave his car and steal other vehicles on the road; Rockstar apparently did not approve of other people intruding on its turf. The GTA3 developer even goes so far as to match Tanner’s car to the one he drives in his own games and recreate his bizarre running animation.

Trials Evolution shows how low it can go

What do dirt bikes have to do with children wandering through dark and frightening woods? Nothing whatsoever (I hope), but that didn’t stop developer RedLynx from including a level based on Danish studio PlayDead’s spooky puzzle-platformer Limbo in Trials Evolution. If that seems like an odd match for an Xbox Live Arcade racer, you’re right, but the stage (shown in the video below) is undeniably cool in action. Not only does the environment look and sound like Limbo, right down to its gloomy silhouette aesthetic, chirping crickets, and a cameo from its trademarked giant spider, but RedLynx also drops Trials’ traditional rear three-quarter camera in favor of Limbo’s wide-angle profile perspective.

Valve vs. Capcom: Whoever wins, zombies lose

I saved the strangest one for last: a game of literal one-upmanship.

One of the Xbox 360 Achievements for Capcom’s 2006 zombie-basher Dead Rising was called “Zombie Genocider.” To unlock it, players had to kill 53,594 undead enemies (the population of its setting of Willamette, Colorado). Two years later, when Valve released its own apocalypse-action game, Left 4 Dead, it included an Achievement called “Zombie Genocidest,” which demanded the murder of 53,595 brain munchers. See, that’s fun with suffixes.

Capcom fired back in 2010′s Dead Rising 2 by including an Achievement with the funny-in-a-different-way name of “Z-Genocider 2: Genocide Harder,” which raised the required body count to 53,596. Valve has yet to raise the bar again.

This story has an interesting side note: Radical Entertainment’s horrible-person simulator Prototype, released in 2009, awards an Achievement/PlayStation 3 Trophy called “Trail of Corpses” for dispatching 53,596 enemies. Radical beat Capcom to the punch, but failed to stick the joke-name landing. It’s a little awkward, really, like a guy who barges into the middle of a conversation, laughs at a joke someone just made, and then tells the same joke and forgets the punchline.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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Trials Evolution breaks XBLA record with highest day-one sales

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:31:13 +0000

Microsoft’s four-week Arcade Next promotion is off to an amazing start. Trials Evolution, the first title in the promotion, just broke the Xbox Live Arcade record for highest-grossing day-one sales. Microsoft has not released how much money Trials made, but developer RedLynx stated the motocross-platformer hybrid game sold over 100,000 copies its first day in an interview with Eurogamer.

Shortly after launch this past Wednesday, Trials Evolution experienced server overload as tons of players descended on the network. RedLynx and Microsoft quickly addressed the problem and have deployed new hardware to keep up with the demand. With news that the game is already breaking sales records, Trials is likely in for a very good weekend.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat Weekly Roundup

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:59:49 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week in news: Polytron admits to bugs found in Fez, Kickstarter is on track to triple their earnings this year, and THQ reports its revenue is slightly higher than expected.

You will also find reviews of Trials: Evolution and Skullgirls.

Trials Evolution hits the throttle and never lets up (review)

Sebastian Haley — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:50:37 +0000

The formula is simple: You control a dude on a motorbike and must use careful timing and acceleration to traverse 2-dimensional obstacle courses. But so much can go wrong with simple ideas, and yet Trials Evolution doesn’t fall victim to a single one of them.

2009′s best-selling Trials HD kicked off the series with developer RedLynx’s patented physics-based gameplay, and while the award-winning title was undeniably awesome, it felt a bit claustrophobic. You always played in a warehouse, and you always played alone. Trials Evolution changes all of that in a big way.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

Expanded visuals

Although a lot more is going on under the hood, the most immediately striking new trait of Trials Evolution is the wide-open environments. RedLynx has blown the doors way off the warehouse, introducing outdoor environments as large as two-by-four kilometers. That’s massive!

Beyond just looking and being bigger, RedLynx has provided a variety of visual templates, including war-torn beachfronts, nighttime castles, and beautiful aerial archipelagos. Although the Trials engine may not be as powerful as Unreal or anything like that, RedLynx has managed to squeeze plenty of aesthetic magnificence out of it nonetheless.

Powerful new editor

Fans were able to make some intricate and utterly impressive custom creations with Trials HD’s track editor, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg with what’s possible in Evolution. The addition of outdoor environments, roughly 1,000 items to utilize, power-ups, and the ability to twist and turn the track rather than always drive in a straight line open the door to countless possibilities.

Like LittleBigPlanet 2, however, the Trials Evolution editor is not restricted to signature Trials gameplay as many different genres, including first-person shooters and Marble Blast Ultra-style platformers, can now be created. Theoretically, your imagination, skill, and time is the only limitation to what is possible.

Sharing is also much, much easier now than it was in Trials HD, which only allowed you to share custom tracks with people on your friends list. Now you can browse and search tracks from any user, or even find, play, and rate the most-downloaded or RedLynx’s daily recommended picks.

By not being restricted to how you access new tracks, Trials Evolutions’ replay value is immediately and infinitely extended.

Multiplayer!

Fans asked for it, now Trials has it. Up to four players can race against each other on multiplayer-specific courses. The game takes on a sort of Excitebike-esque format in this mode, and that can be a lot of fun. I don’t really much more to say than that (it’s Trials with friends), but it is a major feature and one that deeply increases the game’s value.

If online or local versus isn’t your cup of tea, you can at least race your friends’ best times on any given track. Their names will appear and race alongside you in the single-player levels, allowing you to race their “ghosts” if you so choose.

WHAT YOU WON’T LIKE

Generic soundtrack

I’m not sure anyone even cares about music in a game like this, but when the soundtrack cycles between pedestrian electronica and obnoxious, low-quality heavy metal, it’s hard not to be disappointed. No music at all would have been better than this.

Customization options

The tracks and game world may have been greatly expanded, but the actual rider doesn’t get much love in the way of customization. A few unlockable shirts and gloves await, but they all essentially look the same. It’d be nice to get some more outlandish costumes or accessories for both the rider and the bike, but until then, this is the game’s only unpolished area.

And as we discovered in our interview with creative director Antti Ilvessuo, female riders won’t be making an appearance at all. Sorry, ladies!

Click to view slideshow.

CONCLUSION

Trials Evolution is the quintessential pick-up-and-play party game, especially now that multiplayer has been added. Anyone can “get it” within seconds of grabbing the controller, and the difficulty ramps up much more smoothly than in the original. While the custom tracks will undoubtedly be the primary source of Evolution’s replayability, the single-player offering is a robust, well-made package with plenty of gold medals to earn and second-to-second victories to claim.

Score: 90/100

Trials Evolution was released on April 18, 2012 for Xbox Live Arcade. The publisher provided a code for the final game for the purpose of this review.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat Review Vault

GamesBeat Staff — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:20:17 +0000

Below you’ll find a listing of every GamesBeat game review to date. They are listed in reverse chronological order with the latest review appearing at the top. Note that the dates listed are for when the review was posted, not necessarily the actual release date for the game. That information, along with platform tested and more, can be found in the actual review.

2013

5/20

Resident Evil: Revelations

5/13

Metro: Last Light

5/6

Star Trek

4/24

Monaco

4/22

Dead Island Riptide

4/19

Defiance

4/18

Cut the Rope: Time Travel

4/13

Shootmania Storm

3/25

BioShock: Infinite

3/22

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

3/21

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

3/18

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

3/14

Lego City: Undercover

3/8

MLB 13 The Show

3/7

God of War: Ascension

3/6

Dollar Dash

3/5

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate

3/4

SimCity

2/26

Star Wars Pinball

2/25

Tomb Raider

2/19

2/18

Serious Sam Double D XXL

2/12

Aliens: Colonial Marines

2/5

2/4

Ni No Kuni: The Wrath of the White Witch

1/31

Omerta: City of Gangsters

1/30

01/22

The Cave

01/18

01/15

Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable

01/10

01/07

Seduce Me

Filed under: Games

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Trials Evolution creative director discusses going bigger, multiplayer, and female riders (interview)

Sebastian Haley — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:00:47 +0000

Trials HD is one of the best-selling Xbox Live Arcade games to date, and for good reason. Released in 2009, the creative, side-scrolling physics-based platformer takes place entirely on two wheels. Coupled with user-created tracks, the game has near-endless value, and is surprisingly entertaining. Needless to say, its upcoming successor, Trials Evolution, has some lofty shoes to fill.

Very rarely do I look at a game and have nothing to complain about. It is my job, after all, and I do it more ferociously than most. From the moment I picked up the controller and started playing Trials Evolution, I knew this game would make fans happy, and even convert plenty of non-believers and holdouts. Evolution blows the doors wide off the warehouse and takes the action into some seriously stunning outdoor areas. The draw distance truly gives off a magnificent scope to the new levels, many of which take place high above the ground on platforms that twist and turn, providing a much greater rollercoaster experience than before for up to four players.

Developer RedLynx (owned by Ubisoft) could have easily slapped an extra coat of paint on the Trials HD formula, added in a Modern Warfare-esque XP system, and sold plenty of units on hype alone. They certainly wouldn’t be the first to do so. GamesBeat sat down with Creative Director Antti Ilvessuo to see just how much of an evolution Trials has undergone.

GamesBeat: How long has Trials Evolution been in development?

Antti Ilvessuo: We have been in development about 18 months.

GB: Was there anything that didn’t make the original Trials that you and the team included in the sequel?

Ilvessuo: Well, we definitely needed to go outside the warehouse. We needed to create a bigger outdoor environment. The curving driving lines for example. We needed also multiplayer, and it ended up that we needed online and local multiplayer. And then we knew that we needed the level sharing to be totally open and we needed a new editor. So there was huge, multiple steps, but we knew it would be good, and that’s why it’s Trials Evolution, not just Trials HD 2.

GB: What are some of the things that fans have requested that you’ve included in the game?

Ilvessuo: Well, I think… When we look up the list of what people have got and what they would want to have, I think we have pretty much everything there. Okay, there’s a small leap there, someone could say, but pretty much… People have the opportunity to go outside, and public sharing. In the broader level I think we bring everything that people hoped for. And maybe something more even.

GB: LittleBigPlanet 2 allows you to carry over your custom levels from the previous game. Is that true of Evolution?

Ilvessuo: You can create levels that are the same as Trials HD, but our level format has changed so much because we went out of in-house… Our engine is so much upgraded, so we didn’t have a proper chance to do that. But you can create pretty much similar levels in Trials Evolution…

GB: There’s no import tool to help facilitate that?

Ilvessuo: No, it’s just so different at the base that it has to be changed.

GB: I played a level with a boost ramp and a few others things I hadn’t seen before. What are some of the new gameplay elements that are included?

Ilvessuo: Well, I think with the editor you can create pretty much as [many different kinds of boosts] as you want. We have, for example, afterburner there, but we don’t overuse it. But with the editor you can activate a trigger that gives you double speed or something like that. You can create pretty much anything that modifies the bike physics, the speed, all physics, by triggers. So if you wanted to create a new kind of power-up that’s also possible.

GB: What about the backgrounds, the environments? What kinds of things can you do in the editor now?

Ilvessuo: It’s a bit different from just the background. The whole world is two kilometers wide, four kilometers long, and you can place the track anywhere in that world that you wish. So it’s not just the background, it’s the game world where you can put the track. We have massive environments, we have floating tracks that are 500 meters in the air, we have a D-Day track, we have tracks that are like old castles, underground levels, you name it, everything is there.

GB: Just out of curiosity, could you create a living creature, so that maybe you’re driving around a dinosaur or something? I had a friend that loved to put dolphins and whales in her original custom tracks, so can you create more dynamic obstacles now?

Ilvessuo: Yeah, you can move and modify the physics in a way, so that you could create huge… [gestures with his arms to create a dinosaur with a long neck] Let’s say, I don’t know, like a bridge that raises when you’re driving. You can do that kind of stuff.

GB: Have you guys looked at other games that also do a lot of user-created content, such as LittleBigPlanet, Minecraft, and ModNation Racers? If you did, what did you see about what they do right and what they do wrong? From your perspective.

Ilvessuo: I think generally, thinking from past evolutions… We don’t force players to learn the creator tools. We don’t have game mechanics that force you to learn the editor. We have the editor there, we’ve souped up the editor in every way, so if you want to learn the editor just fire it up and start learning. But we don’t have, by comparison, we don’t have a meta-game around the editor. It’s a tool, feel free to use it. And also, what comes from sharing, we have looked at what would be good solutions for sharing, and our sharing system is a bit different. It’s kind of… We have feeds, one page where you have feeds, and then you check different feeds. One feed would be the RedLynx Picks, which would be the feed that we support, but also you have a feed, for example, that’s the best-rated tracks of this week. But also you have obviously a search, you can search for a certain track creator and so on. We have looked at different games, but our editor is a tool for you to use, and the sharing functions are really good.

GB: I have to ask because there’s actually… It’s one of the best-selling games on Xbox Live Arcade ever, there’s actually a lot of female players that like Trials HD. Have you added a female rider?

Ilvessuo: We have discussed that, but I think it’s… People like it, they laugh when the guy gets hit on the head, a saw blade cuts off his head, something drops… But somehow it’s more fun if he’s male. If it happens to a female rider, somehow it’s not so much fun anymore?

GB: Well, I guess it depends on who’s playing.

Ilvessuo: Yeah… [chuckles]

GB: I know that RedLynx did a somewhat similar monster truck game for the iPhone a while back. Have you looked at bringing Trials to the iPhone or iPad?

Ilvessuo: Well, the team that’s developing Trials Evolution is 25 people. We really wanted to make the best game available on Xbox Live. But also, our company history is very long, so we’ve created games for PC, N-Gage, NDS, PSP, you name it, we’ve been everywhere. So I don’t know what the future brings, but we’ve always been a multiplatform house. Not just an Xbox house. Now that the game is really huge, 18 months, new engine and everything, you name it, we had to focus on making this game the best that’s possible.

GB: As a smaller developer, do you feel the need to kind of hedge your bets by taking a game and doing multiple versions? Or do you feel comfortable betting it all on Xbox Live Arcade?

Ilvessuo: I think mainly the focus is on making the best game available. If we did that, we would have maybe lost focus. And also, it’s very technical, making a game that has to run at 60 frames per second. We would have lost focus if we would have tried to make PC and PS3 and Xbox…

GB: Any last thoughts or messages you’d like to share with your fans?

Ilvessuo: Generally I think the game is just really huge. It’s bigger than we expected, even when we have just the main features there. When you see what the environments are like and what you can do… And one thing to add, maybe, in Trials HD, we knew the limitations of the editor. But people exceeded our expectations. Now, in Trials Evolution, we don’t know what the limits are. We don’t know. So what people create will be totally mad.

Trials Evolution is set for release on Xbox Live Arcade “soon.”

Click to view slideshow.
Filed under: Games