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(06/09/12 10:13pm)
On day two of E3 2012, I walked over to the Square Enix booth to check out the Tomb Raider reboot demonstration. After about 20 minutes of an incredible demo that showcased Lara Croft’s first human kill and the tension building up to it, I was impressed with the game despite my opinions about the Microsoft Press Conference demo.
(06/07/12 12:08am)
At the 2012 E3 gaming convention I was able to sit in for a behind the doors demo presentation of the upcoming Microsoft game, Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
(06/06/12 11:51pm)
I ran all around the Los Angeles Convention Center to provide the most in-depth coverage one man could possibly provide. My first booth of the day was Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. I had the opportunity to play as the fan-favorite character, Grimlock. He was a brawler and a brute character as he walked through the Insecticon enemies. Once he gathered enough rage, which was dropped by each enemy that he killed, he transformed into a fire-breathing robot dinosaur. Needless to say, it was all kinds of awesome. I managed to talk with one of the developers, who was at the booth, to confirm post-launch downloadable content for Fall of Cybertron. But then what else is new?
(06/03/12 11:33pm)
Dedicated gamers have waited all year for the Entertainment Electronic Expo, or E3, event to take place. E3 will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 5.
(04/24/12 4:01am)
It’s that time again, true believers. It’s been a wild ride for the second semester in a row that I’ve been writing for the State Press Magazine as the video game blogger. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my blogs as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. As a going-away present, I’m going to keep my readers in the know of the three games that should be on your radars in 2012. This list is not in order of most anticipated but rather release date.
(04/23/12 4:01am)
Back when Mortal Kombat came out in 1992, the infamous head-rip with the spine dangling caused quite the stir for legislators across the country and they demanded a rating system for video games to inform potential buyers of its content. The Electronic Software Ratings Board, or the ESRB, has a rating system similar to that of films where they rate the games based on content and for what age they are appropriate. EC for Early Childhood, E for Everyone, T for Teen, M for Mature and AO for Adults Only are the ESRB’s ratings for some of our favorite games to have come out. But as the gaming industry goes on and societal standards change, the game’s content hasn’t. It remains a time capsule for the standards that were kept back when the game released.
(04/21/12 4:01am)
Video game publishers and developers do everything they can to keep their game spinning in your disk drive. They’ll throw in a high quantity of modes and content and post-launch DLC to keep their games fresh in the gamer’s mind . But sometimes that isn’t enough. Some of the most successful games and franchises to come out have integrated a networking tool to allow you to measure your progress throughout the game. Games like Halo, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty are a few. Is that the key to a successful franchise? And do you go the free route like Halo? Or do you charge for a premium service like with Call of Duty?
(04/16/12 1:59pm)
Those who are familiar with my previous blogs should know that I am not the biggest fan of Capcom and Electronic Arts. Capcom’s downloadable content shenanigans and Electronic Art’s online passes and hoops to jump through make these two companies stand out amongst the shuffle. But is either of them the worst companies to ever exist? In gaming, there is strong evidence to say that they are. But outside the gaming industry, there are companies that have completely abused people and put people out of their homes over misplaced paperwork or have terrible customer service that only serves to irritate the customer, which puts things in perspective.
(04/14/12 4:01am)
Back during the advent of the Sony PlayStation 2, it was a revolutionary concept to include a DVD player in a gaming machine. For the first time, consumers were buying two machines for the price of one. It, among other factors, led to the PlayStation 2 becoming one of the highest-selling game consoles in the gaming industry, even when the next generation of consoles came around. Nowadays, a DVD player is expected with the current-generation consoles offering services that change a platform that was once exclusive to playing video games. It is surprising to hear that people will use gaming consoles more for watching movies, checking Facebook, listening to music and more than for gaming.
(04/09/12 4:34am)
That’s the question some publishers ask their customers and it’s a question that should not be asked in the first place. Call me old fashioned, only being a 21-year-old gamer, but I remember the days when I bought a game and that was it. It had a beginning, middle and end but with the gaming industry being as lucrative as it is, publishers want to maximize their profits. And why shouldn’t they? It is a dollar-driven industry and companies have to put food on the table for their families, and I can see eye-to-eye in that respect. However, there has to be some line drawn in the proverbial sand where gamers have to put their foot down and say that enough is enough, and selling the conclusion of a game is where I put my foot down.
(04/07/12 4:01am)
Let’s be real here: A lot of games today involve the player shooting someone or something until it stops moving and then you move on to the next scenario and the process repeats. While repetitive by its very nature, many people, including myself, got into gaming through games like Halo, Counter-Strike or Call of Duty. In fact, the first person shooter genre has become the most lucrative genre to develop games for in this generation of games, with Call of Duty on the tip of the spear selling millions upon millions of copies each year. Games that were once top-down style role-playing games usually see an FPS release to revive the franchise, but does that make the FPS genre the easiest genre to develop games for?
(04/02/12 4:01am)
It’s no surprise that games cost a lot of money to make, and oftentimes they rival films with regards to their budgets. The video game industry, however, has an alternative option, which involves developers who want to make games but publishers never saw it as lucrative in today’s market. So developers who can’t find a publisher to fund their game go to the heart of any entertainment medium, the fans. Kickstarter.com is a website that allows anyone to view a project, see who’s involved and when the final product is to be released. Anyone can donate any amount they see fit to give to the product, and the larger amount you give, the larger the rewards. For example $15 may get you the game when released but $30 will give you the game, concept art and a soundtrack.
(03/31/12 4:01am)
Disclaimer: I have not yet completed Mass Effect 3 but I will comment to the best of my ability from what I have heard from other players who have finished it. Needless to say, spoilers will follow for both Mass Effect 3 and Fallout 3.
(03/26/12 4:01am)
Where exactly does your money go when you buy a game? Publishers make money when you purchase a game new, which in turn supports the game developer, but the used-game dollars goes to the site or retail store you purchased it from. It’s a system that has been in place for years and it has worked just fine. However, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment and THQ have implemented codes that, if not inputted via some in-game menu, lock the player out of the online multiplayer. Worse, some codes can even lock the player out of singleplayer content such as Batman: Arkham City’s Catwoman character and the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning side-quests. You can buy these passes for $10, which goes to the publisher and ergo the developer if you purchase a game used or rent it, which brings me to my point: I feel as if these online codes are having a more negative effect on the rental market than the used market, especially with regards to locking the player out of any multiplayer mode.
(03/12/12 4:01am)
It’s beating a dead horse when I say that ideas are derivative of other ideas that came before them. Films, television shows and even video games are guilty of this. So why, then, do some game developers get accused of plagiarism and not others? Is it right to accuse game developers of riding the success of a popular game so that they too can be as equally or less successful than the original product?
(03/10/12 5:01am)
“Defy Reality - Own the Planet, ” is the appropriate tagline for SSX, developed by EA Canada and published by EA Sports. SSX, which stands for Snowboard Super Cross, is the return of one of the most widely known and popular snowboarding games ever conceived. The SSX franchise has been missing in action for the past six years and while other snowboarding franchises have tried to fill the hole left by the zany antics of SSX, there can only be one.
(03/05/12 5:01am)
Alan Wake, developed by Remedy Entertainment and released in 2010 on the Xbox 360, told the story of a blocked writer who goes to the Pacific Northwest to re-acquire his creative muse. In turn, an unexplainable force called The Darkness corrupts the residents of Bright Falls, and his wife goes missing. It was met with medium to high reception from critics, and gamers really dug the Stephen King feeling that the game was trying to convey. With more than 145,000 games sold after the first two weeks, Alan Wake was not a high commercial success and was reportedly pirated 1.1 million times in 2010.
(03/03/12 5:01am)
I’ve never been one to advocate the presence of sports games. Annual iterations of football, soccer, golf and basketball video games have been, to me, somewhat innocuous in their releases but have never truly appealed to me. It’s been hard for me to spend money on a game and then have it become obsolete 365 days later. In addition to that, it seems that the games in annual franchises do not change enough from previous games. I’ve stopped spending money on the Call of Duty and the Assassin’s Creed franchises for that same reason.
(02/27/12 5:01am)
A few months ago, I wrote about how high-profile games have had certain celebrity voice actors such as Liam Neeson and Burt Reynolds in Fallout 3 and Saint’s Row: The Third, respectively. Some celebrities and athletes will go so far as to develop or publish video games. And some celebrities will even sit down and play the video game as some sort of promotion for the game’s release.
(02/26/12 6:48pm)
Superman has been in five films, a cartoon series, comic books and a live-action TV series and is set to be remade in 2013 by director Zach Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan. As a metaphor for immigration, Superman exists as a timeless classic hero, always doing the right thing and always at the right time. He is an empowering character with his laser vision, super strength, super speed, ice breath and more. So it begs the question, why is he such an impossible character to translate into video games.