Sometimes good games go bad. No, not in a Will Smith “bad means good” kind of way. We mean they suck. In this week’s podcast the GNSU Crew has a round table discussion about some pretty awful entries in popular franchises. Three words: Mario’s Time Machine. Need we say more?
We also give our thoughts on the new TF2 update and Crackdown 2′s multiplayer components.
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Videos relating to the podcast after the jump.
He is probably confusing "cake" with "cocaine" again...
Today marks Sonic The Hedgehog’s 19th birthday and for what it’s worth there are some Sonic related sales going on. For those somehow not in the know, Sonic was the star of a series of pretty badass highspeed sidescrolling platform games now comfortably retired to a world of 3D bullshit. [More after the jump]
When animals attack
Take a look at this shit and read below for my thoughts on the whole shebang as it were…
Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo came and gave it their all but there was only one true standout winner…
E3 2010 is over and we’re here to offer our thoughts on what went down this year from the good to the bad to the ugly – there is also a fair amount of discussion regarding Shaun White’s hair but that’s besides the point.
Give it a listen! or you can subscribe on iTunes!
And tell us what YOU think! E-mail us or comment below!
Let’s take a brief break from E3 – shall we? I came into work today and sat down to go about my day with my iPod on shuffle to keep me from bludgeoning myself with a stapler when this gem came on:
…a song from the SMASH 90′s hit family sitcom “Dinosaurs” it was none other than Baby Sinclair singing “I’m the baby, gotta love me…” etc.
How would something like this happen you ask? Simple.
It’s all Arien’s fault…
This is it, guys – the big gaming event of the year running from the 15th to the 17th. While E3 is always an exciting event I feel like this year is going to be a big one. There’s a lot of new technology being shown off between Microsoft and Sony’s motion control devices and Nintendo’s next DS incarnation. There will be some big name games on display like the new Zelda title and Portal 2, and much more.
Things are actually already under way in some respects. Nintendo has revealed details on their upcoming Zelda game simply titled “The Legend of Zelda” – set long before The Ocarina of Time. Microsoft has announced a change in name for their controller-less motion gimmick from “Natal” to “Kinect” – a name which makes sense in theory but in practice kind of sucks. Though, given the way it is looking it’s probably suitable. See and judge for yourself:
I’m personally excited for more footage from the upcoming Scott Pilgrim title. Footage was recently released of the 4 player co-op sides crolling beat ‘em up extravaganza. The visuals are amazing, the music is fantastic, so my fingers are crossed on the game playing living up to the rest of what we’ve seen.
And speaking of multiplayer goodness I am also hoping for a good showing from Behemoth on their next multiplayer title. Previously titled “Game #3″ the anticipated “BattleBlock Theater” will most likely be shown off in more polished form this year.
Aside from all of these titles there is so much more to come in the next week – it’s going to be a killer show with a ton of surprises including an announced surprise from Valve which many are speculating to be Source Engine 2.
Stay tuned to GNSU and our Twitter page (http://www.twitter.com/gnsucrew) to keep up to date on the happenings and check out our Podcast this week for an E3 centric episode!
DC Universe Online is due out in November according to recent statements by Sony.
Apparently the gaming world can’t get enough of super heroes.
2004 saw the release of Cryptic Studios’s “City of Heroes” – an interesting twist on the MMO world that let us play as super heroes. With an absolutely fantastic character creation engine you could create virtually any kind of hero you wanted with a myriad of powers to choose from. The series continued on long after that with the additional expansions including “City of Villains” as well.
Then came Champions Online, also from Cryptic, which was yet another super hero driven game with a twist on the game play, but ultimately another CoH-like game. (I will give it bonus points for its visuals, I’m a sucker anything with a sort of cel shaded look to it).
It doesn’t stop there, however, because Sony announced that DC Universe Online will make its way into the world in November. While players won’t be able to control any of the famous DC characters they will possibly be able to interact with the on missions. The idea is that like the aforementioned games you will be able to create your own character. While I am not a big comics guy, the idea of playing as “The Tromboner” alongside Batman is pretty damn entertaining.
What is being done to set this game apart from the other super hero ventures? Sony hopes to create a different MMO gameplay experience citing The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction as a source of inspiration. The Hulk title was also an inspiration for Radical’s “Prototype” which had some exciting gameplay mechanics for a mediocre title. If SOE can take the gameplay mechanics from these games and make it exciting this might be a unique MMO despite the overly saturated superhero (and MMO) environment. At the very least, the comic industry’s foray into the video game world is far more entertaining to me than the movie world – but judging by enthusiasts reaction to the upcoming Avengers movie I am probably way off base with this.
In the end the comic book audience is fairly large (no pun intended) and is a pretty big market for a title like this, especially considering the amount of super hero clones running around in games like CoH and CO. It’s questionable whether or not DCO will be able to hold its own however. Wannabe super heroes will get a bigger look at this title come E3.
Until then, I leave you with this quote from The Bat:
“MY PARENTS ARE DEEEEEEEAD”
James, signing off.
Big words from a big man [Kotaku] – or so a lot of people seem to think.
The comparison is certainly one that will turn heads in the gaming community when you hear it – immediate reactions ranging from “Gabe Newell is fat and dumb!” to people deriding the PS3 and triumphantly raising their Apple products gloriously. A polarizing statement indeed – but what is the real context?
In Dan Benjamin’s “The Conversation” Gabe Newell discusses the reasons they decided to open themselves to releasing Steam/Valve Games on Macs. Kotaku’s posting, titled “Valve: PS3 is like a Gamecube” caused quite a stir as seen in the comments on the matter, but did everyone miss the point? Kotaku’s article addresses that the heart of the conversation is Valve’s decision and why they feel that releasing their products for the PS3 doesn’t make sense to them.
Whether or not Gabe is correct in his assessment on investing in consoles like the PS3, the whole thing raises some good points about consoles vs. pc/mac gaming and how ridiculous the fan community can be based on the simplest of situations. Kotaku did, however, make the excellent point of addressing that this goes to show how much weight (no pun intended… okay, maybe a little) Valve carries in the industry by making a comment like that toward Sony without much worry.
It is worth mentioning that our own Brian Frobel, who alerted me to the Kotaku piece, is a big PS3 guy and not a huge fan of Apple and therefore his comments fell in line with what most of the fans thought of the comparison. He seemed to retract his statements however when he got the bigger picture about things. He’s still a jerk, but that’s besides the point. His idealistic solution for this is that all games should be on one console. After discussing that this is flat out unrealistic Brian told me “reality is for suckers, that’s why I live in Second life” and then promptly flew away on a giant penis. [NSFW!]
It’s that time again, E3 is less than a month away and all us gaming nerds are excited! But that’s only half the story.
For a few months now there have been rumours of a PSN premium service [SonyInsider] that would enhance the overall usability of the PSN. Premium features could include premium customer service, extended warranty, access to beta games, cross-game voice chat, a token wagering system which can be used to purchase free content, discounts on all store purchases, cloud storage, online music service, 1 hour trials on full games, *deep breath* and a whole crap load more. Sounds pretty good right? The price? $70 a year.
That’s quite a bit of content there for that price. Now as a non-360 user, I’m not sure how this stacks up to the Live premium services but it sounds like a fantastic deal to me. More recent rumours [engadget] have shown that the service may be announced at Sony’sE3 conference. Could this be a bad move for Sony that has stated over and over that their online services would always be free? They’re not taking anything away from the current PSN services, just adding more bonus content onto it. Even more important, what regions would get these services? Up here in Canada, we still don’t have the video network yet. Australia got it before us…AUSTRALIA! But I guess they should get something if they can’t get a violent video game. What I’m saying is that Sony needs to release it everywhere at the same time or not at all.
The Good News Shut Up Podcast
