EA Sports has revealed that current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones will be on the cover of their first UFC game due sometime next year.
Now that they have gotten one half of the cover right it is up to us, the fans, to make the other half just as good. EA is letting fans vote on the other fighter that will share the cover with Jones through a tournament of 16 gladiators of the Octagon.
The 16 fighters are: Demetrious Johnson, Dominick Cruz, Urijah Faber, Jose Aldo, Benson Henderson, Georges St-Pierre, Johny Hendricks, Chris Weidman, Junior dos Santos, Chael Sonnen, Michael Bisping, Anthony Pettis, Daniel Cormier, Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate and Alexander Gustafsson.
As of last week, the original Wii is no longer in production. The absolute madness of the system’s launch – and the holiday seasons for five years afterward – has become part of gaming history, even amongst waves of criticism that the system was a “gimmick,” its overall dismissal by “hardcore” gamers, and Nintendo’s famous inability to attract third-party development. Now Nintendo’s entire home gaming hope rests on the Wii U, a system that has failed to deliver sales within its first year, due to a combination of the same issues as before, and a price point that many see as grossly inflated. At this juncture, I thought it might be worthwhile to briefly examine the difficulties facing “The Company Mario Built” and discuss possible solutions.
Nintendo has a first-party line up that would make any other company envious. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokémon are franchises embedded not just in gaming consciousness, but in global popular culture. I personally know people who have purchased Nintendo consoles – and handhelds – specifically because an exclusive was coming out. Nintendo isn’t clueless on this front, either. When I worked at GameStop, our Nintendo rep was great, but Miyamoto save you if the Wii demo unit wasn’t playing the most recent first-party title. The company also has a habit of keeping the prices on those titles high, new and used, months and years after their launch.
As lucrative as that cap-wearing plumber and his pals are, though, they can only fill so much space on a calendar. That would be fine, except that Nintendo has a notoriously awful history with third-party titles. This creates massive gaps in the line-up for any customers looking to make a Nintendo console their primary system. I rarely played my PlayStation 3 outside of exclusives; Resistance, Uncharted, Infamous, and Ratchet & Clank populate my shelf. That was a personal choice, however, made because I prefer my 360. There were other games, great and small, available during regular release windows.
That’s simply wasn’t the case with the Wii, and things actually appear to be worse for the Wii U, if such a thing is possible. When Nintendo’s “HD” console launched last year, there were a plethora of third-party titles that jumped on board, some with exclusive content: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed 3, Mass Effect 3, etc. Yet only a year down the road on the system, Arkham Origins won’t support multiplayer, Assassin’s Creed IV won’t get any new content, and EA has been back and forth on whether they even have any current titles in development for the Wii U. Battlefield 4 didn’t see a Wii U release, for example.
I can’t really blame any of those companies, because those initial launch games didn’t see a huge return on investment, and supporting a console so far removed in hardware from its contemporaries can’t be easy. Probably the biggest third-party success so far has been Zombie U, which I would love to play, but only on my 360 or PC. Probably my PC. Zombie U is a great example of another of Nintendo’s tactics, which is to almost force developers to utilize whatever their latest gimmick is.
Now, let me quickly differentiate a “mechanic” from a “gimmick.” In Zombie U, you check your inventory by looking into you backpack via the Gamepad while the game continues to run on the main screen. It creates a sense of urgency, as you can easily be ambushed while rifling through you belongings. The system of keeping the game running while the inventory is open is a mechanic, and one that games have utilized to effect before. The gimmick is having the inventory appear on the Gamepad screen, something which only the Wii U currently has, although Microsoft is apparently looking to marry the Surface tablets to the Xbox One in a similar way.
While I have heard that this gimmick adds a bit of style to the game, the truth is most developers do not seek out this functionality. Nintendo certainly isn’t alone in this field; Sony and Microsoft have both been known to require inclusion of functionality for the Move, Sixaxis, Kinect, or what-have-you. The Wii is certainly the worst offender in recent years, though, and companies like EA were quite vocal about discontinuing support for that system based on Nintendo’s insistence that every game include some amount of arm-waving.
Photo courtesy polygon.com
Nintendo also loves to shove their own creations in everyone’s face, at the expense of other titles that they supposedly wanted on their console. Going back to my ‘Stop days and our Nintendo rep, the closest I’ve ever seen him to upset was when we had Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars in the demo system instead of a first-party title. According to him, the whole reason Nintendo provided demo units was to showcase their own games, and failure to do so could result in us losing our Wii. The game at that time was supposed to be New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which had been out for months, and had already come down from its holiday sales.
Our Wii had a tendency to freak out and lock on the title screen of a game if it had been in too long, and our copy of Mario literally wouldn’t boot without freezing. We tried to explain that showcasing the fighting game – a Wii exclusive, to this day – had led to increased sales of the game, accessories, and even a few systems. Most people didn’t seem to have any idea the title existed, and watching others play it seemed to draw customers to that corner of the store. Apparently that didn’t matter, though, and our rep was all smiles as he bought a new copy of Mario with his company card, opened it, and popped it back into the system.
In the months since launch, the flagging Wii U has not been able to rake in the sales of its predecessor, let alone keep up with the competition. Many have pointed to the system’s retail price as the issue; the Wii U can run anywhere from $300-$400 dollars, depending on what bundles are on offer. There has also been confusion about what exactly constitutes a “Wii U.” My friends still in retail report almost daily instances of customers thinking all they need is the Gamepad accessory, and that linking it to their existing Wii will do the trick. People also seem to be having a harder time than usual differentiating between titles for the new console and the old one, leading to lots of frustrated returns.
The end result this year is a console with limited promise, selling at a high price point, up against two brand-new systems, in a market where the potential buyers aren’t even sure what they are buying. I feel like the executives at Nintendo got together and said “Ok, folks, the Wii was a bit too successful and accessible; we need to get back to being the scrappy under-dogs with controllers designed by modern art majors.” That may sound a bit harsh, and to a point, it’s almost the exact opposite of what I think is really going on.
Here’s my two cents: Nintendo is currently struggling precisely because of the success of the Wii and their focus on first-party titles.
Everyone bought a Wii. Seriously. I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find many people within the available markets who haven’t spent at least a few hours waving their arms about in front of that little sensor bar. Nintendo seized upon this, and ran very successful ad campaigns featuring grandparents and toddlers alike. Careful management of production led to a feeding frenzy on the console every holiday for five years running. People with no real interest in gaming as a whole were seized with the need for this little box and its wavy-arm sticks.
The inclusion of Wii Sports was a gold mine, as were Wii Fit and Wii Sports Resort; anecdotal evidence suggests that many households purchased a system, four Wii remotes and nunchuks, a Wii Fit kit, and almost nothing else. When I say “nothing else,” I am genuinely talking about Wii owners who didn’t even purchase a Mario title, because they were not gamers in any true sense. The Wii provided them with entertainment in a raw form generally only found in arcades.
These were Nintendo’s prime targets for the Wii, and while they kept the company in the black for years, this strategy began to alienate the core fans. People who wanted to play more expansive games – first-party and third-party alike – had to either deal with motion controls, or shell out more money for traditional controllers. In the case of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the GameCube version was actually considered the better choice because of these issues. In addition, the third-party situation wasn’t any better than before; the titles consisted of either older games re-worked with motion controls, or newer ones forced to deal with the motion controls and limited processor capabilities.
Over the course of this generation, the industry also became hooked on the idea of “HD” re-launches of classic titles, and just releasing older games as downloads at a reduced price point. Nintendo didn’t miss their chance, with quite a few HD remakes and the creation of the Wii Virtual Console and Nintendo Store. Hell, people had been accusing them of just releasing the same five games on a cycle for years anyway. This allowed them to enjoy the success of every Mario and Zelda game ad-infinitum.
Now, fast-forward to late 2012. Nintendo has been trying since E3 to get people interested in the Wii U. It’s got everything the Wii had, but now it also has the Gamepad, which has a touch screen, and lets you play games on it instead of you TV. It can still play Wii games, still has the Virtual Console, and uses other controllers and accessories that are essentially identical to the ones for the Wii.
That was confusing to get through, and I’m the one writing this shit.
The bottom line is that millions of consumers who already own a Wii – or, to be more precise, owned a Wii at some point – looked at the Wii U and collectively shrugged. Nintendo then turned to their fans, but for once in two decades looked at the promise of new adventures with Samus and Link didn’t do the trick. The first-party titles had been rarer than usual as the Wii wound down, and it didn’t look like that trend was changing anytime soon. Even an HD remake of LoZ: Windwaker couldn’t hide the fact that the Wii U’s schedule was a barren place, with only hints of promise months, even years down the line. With the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launching alongside existing franchises and big exclusives within the next six months, things certainly look grim.
Oddly enough, none of these issues seems to affect the company’s handheld market, which has seen one massive success after another. The most recent hiccough was the 3DS launch, but Nintendo fixed that quickly: They dropped the price. Quite a bit. I’m not going to lie, I may pick up a 2DS; stupid name aside, the price point is appealing, and I care not a lick for the 3D function. I’m interested in buying one because – gasp! – the system offers titles I’m interested in, both from Nintendo and third-parties. Even more than that, titles like Resident Evil: Revelations have proven so lucrative that they have been ported to home consoles with positive results.
And therein, for my money, lies the best shot Nintendo has outside of the handheld market. Brace yourselves, because this will sound a little crazy: For the living room crowd, Nintendo needs to consider opening up their exclusives to the other companies. Especially with regards to some of their “classic” titles, this could mean massive sales via Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Store.
I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you have sixty dollars. Now, imagine that you log into you system of choice to see that Super Mario 64, Goldeneye 64, and LoZ: Ocarina of Time are available for $20. As you open your eyes, can you honestly say that you would still have all $60? Because I’d be down to $20 and triple-jumping Mario’s happy ass all over my 360 while I stuffed my face with pizza and pretended Star Wars: Episode I could still turn out to be good. The N64 is hardly the limit, either, as the current consoles could handle everything Nintendo has ever released or currently has in development.
The Wii U isn’t a failure yet, but without a price drop and some genuinely compelling titles – or even the ok titles that fill out other systems – Nintendo will be shutting down production of the console by the end of 2016 at the latest. By that point, I cannot honestly say whether or not mobile gaming will have finally eliminated the desire for a dedicated handheld, as has been the prediction for several years running now. That could have Nintendo going the way of Sega, only without the rapport that Sega had built up within the industry over the years. They can either come to grips with that now, and try and shift their focus, or it will hit them in the face within the next five years.
I love Nintendo. My grandparents on one side had a NES with Mario and Duck Hunt for all of us to play; my first consoles, ever, were a Game Boy and then a Super NES; I experienced the renaissance of the N64 in full joy; I even defended the GameCube, though my love for it was born of mature, third-party titles like Eternal Darkness, MGS: The Twin Snakes, and Resident Evil 4. My family owned a Wii like everyone else, though I can honestly say we never had more than five games for it, and I have never beaten a game to completion by waving my arms around.
Beth and I have talked more than once about splitting the cost of a Wii U, but the end result is always that the total cost of the system could easily pay for six or more titles on consoles we already own. We’ve both got Xbox Ones pre-ordered, and then announcement of a potentially solid release date for Metal Gear Solid V means I’ll own a PlayStation 4 by my birthday in July at the latest. I finally created a next-gen list on Amazon, and it hit a dozen games through 2014 without me even trying.
I’m sorry, Mario, but my interest is in another castle.
Another year, another Call of Duty game which means another live action trailer. Over the past few years Jonah Hill, Kobe Bryant and Robert Downey, Jr. have starred in the ads for the biggest game on the planet (I don’t like saying it but it is true).
This year’s commercial for [amazon_link id=”B003O6CBIG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Call of Duty: Ghosts[/amazon_link] is brought to us by The Wolverine director James Mangold and stars Megan Fox who continually makes herself relevant despite doing nothing.
The wait for your next Metal Gear experience won’t be as long as you may think. Konami has announced that Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, the prequel to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, will release Spring 2014 for 360, PS3, Xbox One and PS4. It will be available by digital download and disc. Digital download will be $19.99 on 360 and PS3 and $29.99 on Xbox One and PS4. Disc copies will cost $29.99.
Get ready for the beautiful action and “plot” next year.
Here is a piece of Konami’s statement:
“The METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES storyline follows the series’ hero, Big Boss, as he infiltrates a remote Cuban prison camp on a rescue mission, all while trying to remain undetected. Explosive plot lines develop quickly as he finds himself on behind enemy lines with little options for help.
“The advanced capabilities of the FOX Engine are allowing me to express the story of METAL GEAR SOLID in a new way,” explained Hideo Kojima, Creator of the METAL GEAR SOLID series, and head of Kojima Productions. “There will be a significant difference in what METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN brings to the series, so we want to ease players into the new open world environment and its potential, allowing them to fully benefit from all that the new game offers. As such, METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES has been designed to introduce key elements, while setting up the events of METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN.”
Batman: Arkham Origins has had its share of problems since its release on October 25th, including save data losses which is why I will not be reviewing the game. Now WB Games has issued a statement resolving to fix the multiple issues that have plagued the title.
Here is the official statement explaining the glitches found so far:
“Some players have been stuck in an endless loop of falling, making it impossible to complete certain missions and progress through the single-player campaign. We believe we have identified the issue and are currently testing the software update, which will push most players back to their previous save so that they will not be stuck in an infinite loop.”
“Some players can see their story progress in the main menu, but once they choose the story slot they don’t see an option to ‘Continue’ and only ‘New Game’ shows up. This issue should be resolved and the ‘Continue’ option will once again be available.”
“FreeFlow Focus mode not unlocking upon reaching Shadow Vigilante rank 3.”
“Players have reported recurring crashing and freezing while playing the game. We have been working hard to track down and resolve the problem as quickly as possible. We believe we know what is causing these issues and need a few more days to validate before pushing this patch through. In the meantime, some players have managed to avoid the freezing by disconnecting their console from the Internet while playing.”
And the biggest of the bunch it the data on 360 versions of the game being corrupted (like mine).
“Players have reported losing their saved game to data corruption. Specifically, when you try to choose a story slot to continue, it says ‘Corrupted’ and if you select it, an error message appears which says, ‘The save is corrupt. Please delete it.’ We believe we know what is causing this and need a few more days to validate before pushing a patch through.”
When you see just how many problems have been found with this game it is amazing that it got through QA testing. It screams of a studio that had to make a release date no matter what even if that meant shipping a game that was not ready. I feel bad for Rocksteady who has built the Arkham franchise into a gaming giant and entrusted it to another studio just to have this happen.
If you are looking to pick up an Xbox 360 for yourself or a Christmas present I would suggest doing it early. As in today. Best Buy is offering the Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Bundle that comes with Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports Season Two and Forza Horizon for only $244.99. That is a whopping 40% off the retail of $399.99.
Also, they have Playstation Vita’s for only $179.99 today only.
First off, don’t expect any Spartacus levels of blood here. It is a television ad but it does do a good job of showing off the ferocity of battle. The transition to in-game footage near the end is almost seamless and it took me a second or two to realize it had switched over.
Pretty game is pretty.
[amazon_link id=”B00CMQTU74″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Ryse: Son of Rome[/amazon_link] releases on November 22nd.
As an added bonus take a look at the video below which shows the crafting of the real armor and weapons based on the game.
In honor of Halloween, I thought I’d take the opportunity to weigh in on the state of horror in the gaming industry.
I’ll also take a second to weigh in on Halloween: It’s the best. Period. Do not, under any circumstances, try and overrun my day with your Christmas bullshit. I like Christmas, a lot, as a reason to give gifts, a wonderful time to be with loved ones, and a celebration of my personal belief system. All Hallow’s Eve kicks its ass, though, and don’t you forget it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpvdAJYvofI
Last night, I was thrilled to open up Steam – like I do every night – and see that they are celebrating this best of times with a sale on “spooky” games, which is Valve-speak for “almost all of the games, really.” I perused the selection, and came out of the process with Outlast, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Condemned: Criminal Origins. The first two are relatively new, but have been highly praised, while Condemned is one of the few big horror titles I’ve ever missed out on.
I’ve never been what most people would call a “scaredy-cat” when it comes to life… Unless there’s heights, deep water, or darkness involved. Or horses. So long as I’m not being dropped into a horse-filled lake at night, though, I can keep my shit together fairly well. My mom loves all things horror, so being a wuss about Nightmare on Elm Street wasn’t an option. I saw Aliens at a very young, very impressionable age, and repeated viewings of the chestburster scene taught me that fear can be controlled.
I’m not talking about “controlled” in some grand sense, or even in a way that works in a situation that involves a genuine threat to my well-being; the Kwisatz Haderach I am most assuredly not. The Bene Gesserit mantra – “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.” – still rings in my mind at times, though. While I certainly lack the qualifications to discuss why people in general seek out thrills-and-chills, I know my own reasons: I like conquering those moments.
I don’t play scary games or watch scary movies during the day; I’ve tried, and it just doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work is because fear generated by media is something disingenuous by nature, and is best when you provide it as much fuel as possible; it helps the process when you can open yourself to the possibility that you might be in danger, no matter how safe you actually are. I can’t tell you the number of times I have shifted plans toward enjoying something scary just because a storm has blown up outside. My copy of Alan Wake was purchased under precisely such conditions, and I literally raced home so I could play it as much as possible while the weather was bad.
Horror movies are experiencing a spike in popularity that started with the first Scream, and has been fueled by franchises like Final Destination, Saw, and Paranormal Activity. I’m a bit pickier when it comes to crawling over the back of an auditorium seat; I love a good slasher flick, don’t mind some psychological horror, need to see everyone get theirs in the end, and rarely bother with anything PG-13. The Strangers, Funny Games, and Cabin in the Woods all fit the bill in recent years, and I’ll probably see Insidious at some point.
Saw and Paranormal Activity took Hollywood by storm because the ratio of expenditures to profit was mind-boggling, and such was the case with a little game called Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Amnesia isn’t the prettiest game in the world, and the mechanics leave room for improvement, but the overall experience is perfectly targeted to one goal: Goddamn nightmares. I’ve tried to really dive into it, but I’m lucky to get through a half hour each time before going “Nope” and shutting it down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M627-obxNzg
The horror renaissance has come to gaming in this way, with the apparent death of the big publisher old-guard giving way to indie titles, some of which begin their development cycles as free browser games. While I certainly enjoyed Dead Space 3, and still find necromorphs terrifying, I would never go so far as to suggest that it’s anywhere near as scary as the original. While careful inventory management was essential in Dead Space, my careful hoarding in DS 3 was merely force of habit, resulting in literally hundreds of health packs and thousand of rounds of ammo.
If we’re going to talk about massive failures of pedigreed horror franchises, the rotten core has to be Resident Evil 6. I’ve owned all five previous numbered entries; I loved RE 4, and felt that the new control scheme was less a “travesty” and more “not broken and terrible.” Resident Evil 5 got me in with co-op, but the core gameplay was starting to show signs of mutation. I’ve only played a few chapters of Resident Evil 6, but they might as well have come straight out of a Michael Bay film that happens to involve zombies.
If I’m being honest, the most harrowing game I’ve played to completion so far this year is The Swapper. An indie puzzle / platformer set on an abandoned space station, it perfectly captures the feeling of being afraid precisely because you are completely alone. In space. On a facility that used to be filled with people. Each new piece of information you receive only makes the situation worse, and the end of the game is as chilling as anything I’ve ever experienced.
The Swapper wasn’t a horror game at heart, though, at least not in the traditional sense of building tension and sending dangerous enemies to hound you. In games like Amnesia or Outlast, the entire design is geared toward getting you wound-up, and then sending you screaming for safety. They achieve maximum impact by stripping you of any means to defend yourself, turning them from standard “survival horror” to “hide under something and cry silently” horror. Even when Isaac Clarke was completely out of ammo, you could fall back on desperate melee attacks.
Weapons aren’t the only things you’ll be without, though, as the days of never-ending light from ephemeral sources are no more. Outlast, for example, puts you in the shoes of a reporter investigating a metal asylum. Your only means of illumination is the night-vision mode on your handheld camcorder, and it eats batteries like a Sega Game Gear. Amnesia employs a similar mechanic via a lantern with limited oil and environmental lighting sources that must be ignited via tinderboxes. The Dark Descent took things one step further by employing an Eternal Darkness style sanity system; stay in the dark too long, and your perception of things warps, hindering your ability to move, interact, and escape.
You’re probably asking yourself why I would pick up other games of this ilk if this one already stymies me so badly? The answer is simple: I like conquering those moments. I’ve mostly reached the point where I have to consciously allow myself to be scared by a film, but games can still take hold. The main difference I can come up with is interactivity; a game asks you to invest in the idea that the line between you and your character is blurred. If they’re in danger, you’re in danger, essentially. In order for that to work, a good horror game has to walk the line between fear and frustration; keeping the character / player in a constant state of danger and near-death, without actually killing them so many times that dying loses its bite.
Using this formula, the titles mentioned above have raked in impressive numbers – impressive, that is, considering that they’re indie horror games. Even the big-name titles like the upcoming The Evil Within from Bethesda won’t have the numbers of something like Skyrim, Call of Duty, or Madden. Video games are already less accessible than going to see the movies, and while watching Amnesia reaction videos on YouTube is entertaining, it still doesn’t approach the social connection achieved by watching a scary flick in an auditorium full of other people.
At their core, horror games have to succeed on the existence of a very specific group: Individuals with a semi-disposable income, the desire to play games by themselves, and the skill necessary for the generally steep difficulty involved. Even within my group of friends, there are only a handful of us that fit this criteria; even I haven’t ever purchased these kind of games at their standard $20 price point. When you consider what a horror game would have to offer to get me to shell out $60, I begin to have a little more sympathy for publishers and developers to be more cautious about investing in them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc-jvqJV4SI
Unfortunately, this can lead to wasted potential on certain titles, such as the recently announced Alien: Isolation. Sega has a lot riding on this title, as further mishandling of the franchise after Colonial Marines could destroy what profitability is left. The report is that you will be playing as Ellen Ripley’s daughter in an environment that contains a single xenomorph, in homage to the first film. Sounds fantastic, right? Except that the report also talks about “clone soldiers” and other nonsense that makes it clear the bulk of gameplay will probably consist of generic sci-fi shooting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypHORmiLe3I
I feel this paradox – the seeming inability of games in traditional horror franchises to stay focused on horror – highlights the challenges facing the industry that have led to the current state of affairs. The more popular a franchise becomes, the more likely the call will be made to tweak it into something more marketable. I haven’t played A Machine for Pigs yet, but word on the web seems to be that it isn’t the terrifying tour-de-force delivered by its predecessor. Have we really reached the point were a new IP can’t even make it to the second entry without having to worry about “accessibility?”
For the answer to that question, you only have to look as far as the second paragraph on this post: Whatever sells, wins. Halloween isn’t much more than cheap candy and Instagram pics of girls in costume as “slutty sluts.” Christmas gets people spending money, and so has been allowed outside the confines of December. Hell, there are department stores opening up at 8 PM on November 28th, right in the middle of what should be post-dinner Thanksgiving naps and football.
In two months or so, there will be millions of people unwrapping copies of sports titles, action platformers and shooters, with some racing titles and JRPGs thrown in for good measure. These are the kind of games that show off new consoles with flash, or keep kids huddled around the TV, or let older gamers chat with friends while enjoying a round or two. You won’t find a whole of people whose first hope Christmas morning is “Oh man, I hope I get a hyper-terrifying game that will keep me alone in the dark of my room!”
For this weekend, though, I’m going to allow myself to become absorbed in the darker side of things; let my imagination run rampant, to the point where I triple-check the locks and keep my flashlight under my pillow. Come Monday morning, I want to exult in the rising of the sun, clawing my way up from a place of fear. I want to conquer those moments. Plus, it looks like Dead Rising 3 will probably be my holiday launch title that gets played while we gather around the tree, and at least it has zombies. My mom loves zombies.
More bad news for South Park fans as Ubisoft has delayed South Park: The Stick of Truth again. The game will now release on March 4, 2014.
Trey Stone and Matt Parker have been closely involved with the project to ensure that it is like playing an actual episode of South Park.
Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc was surprisingly honest about the delay:
“Within three weeks after acquiring the game, we sadly realized we had to turn this thing upside down if we hoped to deliver the experience everybody wanted. It’s been such a major overhaul to get to the point where we are that we couldn’t let it go, even if that meant missing December.”
While this certainly does suck worse than a bowl of chili made of Scott Tenorman’s parents, if it means the game will be a more polished and quality game I am all for it.
Ubisoft also released this seven minute gameplay trailer today as the boys hunt down The Bard on their quest for The Stick of Truth.
Long story short; there won’t be a Batman: Arkham Origins review. At least not anytime soon. This is due to the fact that I was twelve hours into the latest game in the series when I got a corrupted data message. The only solution? Delete my save and start anew.
I went online and read story after story of 360 owners who had experienced the same issue. Some had restarted the game two, three and even four times and at certain points their data became corrupted again. As of this writing the 360 version is the only one that seems to have this problem although the PS3 version is having frame rate issues. It looks like the Wii U and PC versions are the best of the bunch.
The only news from WB Montreal is that they are “investigating the issue” which is company speak for “oh shit, we missed something. Find it and patch it”. Now if you know me personally you know how much this hurts me. As the tattoos on my body and shelves of Batman action figures (not toys dammit) and statues can attest I am a bit of a Dark Knight freak. So the fact that this happened stings worse.
Why not just start over and play through the game? I can hear some of you saying. This is a multi-part answer. It will lead into my early impressions of the game which were…meh. The game looked beautiful and the voice acting was top notch. Roger Craig Smith was a good place holder for Kevin Conroy and Troy Baker sounds so much like Mark Hamill it is uncanny. There was something just a bit off about it. While keeping the same combat and control scheme of the previous two Arkham games, the timing seemed different and led to a lot of frustrating fights.
I have played through Asylum five time and City three. I even played through both of them before Origins came out to make sure I had my timing down correctly and to acclimate myself with the controls again. In both previous games, I had no problem with big groups of thugs even while playing on hard. Playing Origins on normal difficulty (for the sake of review) I regularly found myself almost dying in groups of six or seven guys. The counter system, while technically the same as Rocksteady’s games was not reading all the counters I was doing. With a game that requires multiple counters in a row to keep combat flowing you need the game to be able to react to them. I was regularly getting annoyed at the combat in a series where combat is the best thing.
Also, while this is our first opportunity in the series to play in an actual open version of Gotham City, it feels decidedly vacant. I understand the story permits this with it being Christmas Eve and people are asked to stay in there homes because of the danger. So it is just you and thugs galore to occupy the city. I know Gotham City is a dangerous place but damn. If my apartment building had two snipers, two knife-wielding psychos and a guy with a baseball bat I would be calling Two Men and Truck…now. I am still looking for that first true Gotham City experience. I want Spider-Man 2 except with Batman. Bustling streets and patrons. Random robberies to stop. Driving the Batmobile around Gotham.
The second part of my reasoning for not starting the game again is I do not have the time to. Besides this site I have a full-time job and, despite what some people think, do not want to spend every waking moment in front of a television or computer screen. Maybe one day I will give Arkham Origins another chance or I may just wait for Rocksteady’s next installment that will be free of these problems. For now I have to get ready for the next-gen launches and even though I juuust said I can’t spend all my time with video games…I have to review WWE 2K14.
