Original Crew Aims to Kickstart "Shadowgate" Remake
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/31/12 at 11:03 PM CT
While there have been a number of spiritual successors and soulless sequels to old point-and-click games recently, the original crew behind the classic graphical adventure, "Shadowgate" wants to remake their game with new puzzles, enhanced gameplay, and an expanded mythos. While I loved "Shadowgate" back in the day, the horrors of "Shadowgate 64" and "Beyond Shadowgate" have me leery of this. I want it to be good, but I'm afraid to get my hopes up!
Controller Retrospective
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/27/12 at 07:17 PM CT
The ways in which we interact with the virtual worlds of videogaming are incredibly important, despite the fact that a proper player:game interface recedes into the background. The best controller is one you can forget about because it fits perfectly into your grip and has ergonomically-placed and responsive buttons. With the WiiU just around the corner and its promise to revolutionize the player:game interface with its tablety Gamepad, it seems like a good time to take a walk down memory lane and remember the controllers of the past, both the great and the awful. Of course, there have been an incredible plethora of terrible third-party controllers, and few good ones, so this list is confined to first-party offerings. Here are my favorites and least favorites.
Top 5:
1. Xbox 360 Controller
My choice for best controller may seem surprising, considering I don’t own an Xbox 360 and never have anything nice to say about it. Well, I’m saying something nice about it now: The …
PlayStation 3 Hacked Again - LV0 Master Keys
Nick - wrote on 10/24/12 at 01:58 PM CT
Looks like Sony will need to put more effort into the PlayStation 4, cause the PlayStation 3 has seen its final blow by hackers. Information has been leaked, forcing the group responsible for the hack to publish their findings publicly, to avoid profits being made off of their efforts. The LV0 master keys, that are manufactured directly in the PS3 itself, have been discovered. These keys are the only thing that kept PS3 firmware secure, allowing Sony to patch other hacking issues. With these keys, anyone can decrypt any new firmware updates from Sony, and know exactly what they do, as well as get their hands on any new PSN authentication keys put into the firmware update. It won't be long, and jail-broke PS3s will be common, and you'll see countless articles on how to do it. Is this a bad thing for Sony? I actually don't think so, the PS3 is near its end of life, and people are anticipating the PlayStation 4. This will only motivate Sony to get the PS4 out to market sooner. …
Wii U Commercials Starting Up
Nick - wrote on 10/22/12 at 01:51 PM CT
We are about a month away from the official release of the Wii U, and we are just now starting to see some commercials popping up. Seems one of the first TV commercials debuted in the UK. I don't know if this kind of cheesy type of commercial is normal for ads in the UK, but it is almost humorous to watch. We get a big taste of someone using the new gamepad controller with screen. It also shows how you can apparently play any game without a TV entirely, solely using the screen on the controller, so your hot Russian girlfriend with heavy accent can watch her favorite soap opera. It also appears the controller has some Wiimote like motion controls utilizing the screen. This is a clear sign that Nintendo is focusing on the new controller as its selling point. Too bad you can only use up to two of these controllers on a system.
So what else do you get that the commercial doesn't tell you? Well, the system finally has a muti-core chip, however we don't know exact details. This …
True D&D as a Videogame
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/21/12 at 04:42 PM CT
Way back in 1999, I got my first real taste of what Dungeons & Dragons was supposed to be like. Despite the fact that I had been playing the tabletop RPG (or some conglomeration of D&D mythology slapped onto another game, like HeroQuest) since 1991, the overwhelming rules system and library of rulebooks involved always bogged things down. Back in the AD&D 2nd Edition era, despite all the rules, there was no codified set of rules relating to character balance, which lead every game run by an inexperienced Dungeon Master for inexperienced players down the path of Munchkinism or Monty Haul. It was only by pushing all of the rules into the background and forcing the story campaign into a solid framework with balanced distribution of experience and treasure that the game was really able to come to life. And while there had been myriad D&D-based videogames prior to 1999, like the horrendous Gold Box Series, none of them were able to successfully bridge the gulf between videogame RPGs and …
Horrible Pokemon Art Brings Back School Memories
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/19/12 at 01:44 PM CT
Back in Junior High, Chris and I used to draw disturbing representations of our favorite DragonLance characters all over our English class folders. Had "Pokemon" existed at the time, we might have instead drawn something similar to this: The Pokeymans Project.
Just look at this Bidoof:
Look at it and despair!
Halo 4 Scanned Trailer by David Fincher
Nick - wrote on 10/19/12 at 01:32 PM CT
Halo 4 is just around the corner, and XBox has released a new longer trailer to entice you to buy the game on the November 6th release date. But it isn't any normal trailer, it is more like a movie trailer. And in fact, was produced by David Fincher, known for countless movies like Fight Club, Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and many more. This trailer is pretty amazing, using real people for actors, and lots of CGI just like any sci-fi film. In fact, this should be a movie and not a video game, too bad Halo is an XBox exclusive game. Either way, I expect Halo 4 will be a big hit not just on November 6th, but for the Holiday season.
10 Sequels to Older Games that Should Have been Made in the 7th Generation, but Weren’t
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/13/12 at 03:50 PM CT
While the 7th Generation isn’t quite over, I feel pretty confident that there will be no huge surprise announcements of sequels to games from older generations. As the new ‘XCOM’ game has shown us, there is still interest in old intellectual properties, both from publishers (who know they can sell product based on name recognition alone) and from fans (who expect at least something resembling consistency from new games in their favorite franchises. Yet, surprisingly in an era of sequel-milking, there are numerous franchises from past generations that have been effectively orphaned. Here’s a list of the most egregious oversights, in no particular order:
Final Fantasy 15
If Square Enix wasn’t so busy rehashing the horrible world and characters of “Final Fantasy 13,” we would have this game by now. Of course, “Final Fantasy 14” would have been sufficient, had it not been another MMO, wasting a slot in the main-numbered series. Of course, Square Enix has been …
Ohio State Marching Band Plays Video Game Tribute; Jaws Drop
Chris Kavan - wrote on 10/12/12 at 08:17 PM CT
Okay, let's just gloss over the final score of this particular game and focus on what's important: the freaking amazing half-time show the marching band put on. For many people it may have been a revelations that "Huh, video games have music - and it's pretty good."
For people who have grown up with video games (myself included) it was just pure fun. You get everything from Tetris to Mario to Zelda to Halo - and, aside from the music, the formations are stunning. The highlight has to be Epona (aka that horse running during the Zelda portion) - although the Pac-Man at the end was quite well done. I would have liked one Final Fantasy tribute, but, hey, I'm just glad video games got some recognition.
All told, if you add up all the various views across the many YouTube videos, it easily tops 10 million views - and it deserves every one. The "official" OSUMB video is below - for anyone who has enjoyed video games, it's quite the treat.
Backlog: The Embiggening - October, 2012
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/06/12 at 03:51 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. October is traditionally the month that game publishers start ramping up their release schedules in order to completely glut the market by the time the Christmas shopping season comes around. By starting two months ahead of time, it’s possible to get so many new games on the shelves as to form a completely impenetrable wall of confusion for parents and grandparents who have been asked to buy videogames for Christmas gifts. Will they have the good sense to ask the giftee for specific titles? No! They will simply buy something they recognize: This is why licensed games exist and how they are sold.
And, damn, are the licensed games out in full force! There are plenty of traditional releases, in which the publisher uses the shotgun approach of making their games available on every platform capable of running them: “LEGO Lord of the Rings,” “Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2013,” Remington’s “Outdoors Unlimited,” “Transformers …
Resident Evil 6 Logo - Giraffe?
Nick - wrote on 10/04/12 at 01:28 PM CT
Resident Evil 6 just released this week, and once again, an outbreak of the dreaded virus is turning humans into parasitic zombie-like creatures. But this time, it appears these zombies have a new flesh-eating fetish, and it happens to be on a giraffe. The virus outbreaks in North America, Eastern Europe and China. None of which is native to the giraffe as far as I know. So apparently there will be a zoo you'll come across in the game where you stumble upon the unthinkable, a female zombie doing something... shudder... to a giraffe. The logo says it all. Unfortunately, once you see it, you can't un-see it. Did Capcom do this intentionally to draw more publicity for their game, or did an intern create the logo and decide to make a practical joke? You decide.
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