Tag Archive for ‘PlayStation 3’

Tag Archive for 'PlayStation 3'

Can the ‘Mirror’s Edge’ Experiment Go Mainstream?

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on November 8, 2008

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Mirror’s Edge is proof that publisher Electronic Arts can still innovate, but will the unique take on FPS gameplay pay off?

“Executing an unbroken flow from A to B is what Mirror’s Edge is all about,” says Edge Magazine in a staff preview of the new game. “Stringing together a few moves increases your speed, and there’s a purity and zing to bouncing between surfaces and popping over a low handrail in one smooth motion.”

The gameplay, especially the focus on weapon-less combat, that has drawn so much critical praise could turn away casual FPS gamers used to running and gunning tactics that won’t work in Mirror’s Edge. Instead the game asks players to sprint past enemies and over obstacles and to leap without looking.

This style immerses you in the world and the adrenaline-rush of its main character, but it runs contrary to a generation of FPS instinct. “Overcoming inclinations toward caution and inertia in first-person should perhaps have been one of the tutorial’s priorities,” the Edge article comments.

It’s a self-perpetuating cycle — gameplay conventions become instincts among gamers and hard to break. A steep learning curve accompanies any deviation from the old ways, and experimental games often seem unpolished by comparison to the tried-and-true.

This makes Mirror’s Edge confusing initially. “Your first steps are bewildering, but they soon become bewitching and even oddly familiar,” says the Edge preview. “It isn’t an FPS, not as we think of them. It’s a Full-on Platformer, Stupid.”

Mirror’s Edge comes out next Tuesday on Windows, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

Sleep With Everyone In Obsidian’s ‘Alpha Protocol’

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on July 29, 2008

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Obsidian Entertainment has always been in BioWare’s coattails. They followed BioWare releases with sequels for Knights of the Old Republic in 2004 and Neverwinter Nights in 2006.

Their upcoming action-based CIA yarn Alpha Protocol is the companies first new intellectual property, marking a break from BioWare and outdoing the RPG behemoth in an unusual respect: sex scenes.

Alpha Protocol promises explicit sexual relations with not just two, but all of the game’s female characters. MTV Multiplayer’s Tracey John talked with Senior Producer Ryan Rucinski about Alpha Protocol’s explicit intimacy.

There are several factions in the game that you can ally with or fight against, so the women Thorton meets can become collaborators or enemies. As a government operative, the player can acquire missions and assistance from the ladies Thorton’s wooed. But piss them off — by dating other girls, for instance — and there’s hell to pay.

‘It all depends on how you treat them,’ Rucinski said. If you have a strong relationship with female characters, they may help with missions. However, he told me that some of them are ‘bats–t insane’ and can get you into trouble. ‘One may ask you to assassinate a high-level person,’ he added. ‘Maybe that’s not something you want to do, but she’s really hot. But there are obvious repercussions.’

[Thorton] can ‘get’ all of the game’s women if he wanted to. Rucinski told me it was possible to have sex with all the females, and that the sex scenes were similar to how Mass Effect treated its intimate moments. But he was quick to assure me that, ‘It’s a mature game, it’s not [adults only].’

Alpha Protocol, which comes out next February, has achievements for being a ladies man, and for avoiding relationships altogether.

Like a good Hollywood flick, relationships in Mass Effect were well told and treated respectfully before things got dirty. Alpha Effect has a lot to live up to if it wants to avoid being written off as unnecessary smut as BioWare’s space opera almost was.

‘Fallout 3′ A Modern Flavor For the Cult Classic

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on July 27, 2008

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The upcoming Fallout 3 can’t be just like the decade old originals, so get over it. But Bethesda, who got rights to the game from worn-down original studio Interplay, looks like they’re doing a good job of adopting everything that made the originals so unforgettable and putting it in a next-generation title.

Some have made a rabble-rousing hubbub over changes to the design. A shift in perspective from isometric to first person or behind the head, unkillable children, and a reduction in party size from four to two have all drawn venomous ire from the franchise’s cult followers.

Fallout 3 definitely looks different than its predecessors, which were rendered in 2D sprites and came out about a decade ago. Even as a big fan of Fallout, I don’t mind the changes and am happy with the new game’s presentation so far.

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‘Chrono Trigger,’ ‘Final Fantasy,’ And More At E3

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on July 17, 2008

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SquareEnix spilled some juicy news at this week’s E3 with heavy implications for the console front. Their game line-up indicates a shift away from Sony and the Playstation consoles. AgtFox at Evil Avatar has the press release.

First on the list is a re-release of the RPG classic Chrono Trigger for the Nintendo DS, with a new dungeon and wireless play. That game never gets old, and I look forward to playing it when its released towards the end of the year. SquareEnix is also porting Dragon Quest IV to the DS in September.

The release also provides more information on the strangely titled Infinite Undiscovery, an Xbox 360 exclusive tailored to more Western RPG sensibilities. The game, to be released in September, boasts a medieval setting and real time combat, as well as a dynamic world and situational battles that change depending on player choice, an unusual feature for SquareEnix.

The Last Remnant also differs from the classic RPG formula and centers around large-scale battles. This game will come out on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, although the PS3 release date has yet to be announced.

Two Star Ocean games appeared in the missive with 2009 release dates: Second Evolution for the PSP and The Last Hope, a prequel that sticks to the franchise’s traditional mechanics and is exclusive to the Xbox 360.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Final Fantasy XIII will be released on the Xbox 360, and on the same day as the Playstation 3 release. There has been no other news about the upcoming game so far. The loss of exclusivity is a severe blow for Sony, for whom Final Fantasy has been a core franchise since the birth of the Playstation.

With major releases scheduled for the DS, PSP, and especially the Xbox 360 and an absence of Playstation 3 news, other than the loss of exclusivity, SquareEnix appears to be moving away from their classic ally, or at least going multiplatform. This is good news for anyone who wants to enjoy J-RPGs without a Playstation.

“Metal Gear Solid 4″ Boasts 90 Minute Cut-Scenes

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on June 2, 2008

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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has more than one cut-scene approaching 90 minutes in length, reports CVG.

The series is known for the complexity of its plot, but, according to MTV’s Multiplayer blog, Konami is trying to cover this exorbitant feature up as the game approaches its June 12 release.

“I’ve been told by two gaming media sources who asked to remain anonymous that Konami representatives had been asking print reviewers to keep some technical details out of their reviews, namely the length of the game’s cut-scenes and the size of the game’s installation on the PlayStation 3,” said Stephen Totilo in his post last week.

The MGS4 box lists a 4.6 GB installation, which is smaller than Devil May Cry 4‘ s 5 GB install.

Some reviews mention cut-scene length as an issue. “If you found previous games’ story exposition laborious,” said PSW, “then you’d better find yourself a nice cushion and plenty of teabags in readiness for MGS4’s.”

Whether the cover-up rumors are true or not, 90 minutes is excessive for a cut scene. There’s no reason to have movie-length scenes in a video game, where interactivity allows for much more engrossing storytelling.

Those scenes should either be playable or broken up by playable bits, especially big cinematic combat sequences like the Raiden fight from the first MGS4 trailer.

‘GTA4′ Star Dissatisfied With Pay

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on May 31, 2008

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Even though Grand Theft Auto 4 shattered records by netting over $500 million in its first week, the voice of protagonist Niko Bellic, actor Michael Hollick, is not happy.

A New York Times article on Hollick looks at just how little the aspiring actor made for his voice acting work in the profitable game. According to the article, Hollick was paid about $100,000 over the 15 months of voice acting and motion-capture work, and his contract allows for no royalties or residuals.

Actors in most other fields, including television, movies, commercials, receive residual payments depending on the success of their work after the initial payment, as per the Screen Actors Guild. Video game actors lack this protection.

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REVIEW: ‘GTA4′ Initial Impressions

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on May 11, 2008

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I picked up Grand Theft Auto 4 last week and was immediately struck by how fantastic its storytelling is.

To tell it’s gangster-themed plot of Serbian immigrant Niko Bellic’s arrival in Liberty City, GTA4 uses excellent cut scenes with great characters and writing. Niko and friends often continue the conversations while driving to mission objectives, adding more to the story and cutting down on boring grind time.

Gameplay contributes to the narrative development in GTA4, adding to the player’s immersion in Niko’s world by keeping him there. Trains, taxis and helpful paths to show you where to go on the radar make getting around the massive Liberty City easy, without the need to frequently pause the game and check the map or have a convoluted interface.

Niko’s cell phone is cleverly used to manage plots, chose which missions to do, ask Niko’s friends to hang out or help out, and to talk to characters while on a mission. It also plays other roles in the game, such as sending and receiving pictures. It’s a very good device for managing a complicated game without breaking the immersion with convoluted and show-stopping menus.

The plot for GTA4 is fairly linear, and the missions are as well. Some missions are unique, but most have Niko either hunting down a target in a scripted chase scene or fighting through a building full of enemies, and there’s really only one way to do either of those.

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‘Grand Theft Auto 4′ More Realistic Than Predecessors

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on February 28, 2008

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A preview of April’s “Grand Theft Auto 4″ at VideoGamer.com shows a departure from the almost cartoony gameplay of the past few iterations in the series.

Damage to cars affects their performance: get in a head-on collision and your car will slowly grind to a halt. Tanks, airplanes and bicycles are cut in the interest of realism. Niko, the game’s protagonist, gets text messages when he fails a mission. The world itself is more realistic, with destructible environments and animated crowds of pedestrians who do more than walk up and down the street.

A lot of what made the previous GTA games so fun and engaging were devices like the star count that could be called unrealistic, but the article is quick to point out that these aren’t being left out.

Still though, GTA 4 is no Holodeck. During my few hours of hands-on time I experienced plenty “oh yeah, this is still a game” moments that reminded me that, despite Rockstar North’s efforts, Liberty City still plays by virtual rules.

Pull a gun on a random bystander, perhaps someone casually walking down a street, or withdrawing money from a cash machine, or sitting on a bench reading a newspaper, and they’ll either run away or cower - and that’s it. Cause death-filled carnage in an area, drive the cops absolutely crazy, escape their line of sight and search radius (visible in the mini-map in the bottom left hand corner of the screen) and then return to that area, and everything will be returned to normal. Fail a mission and you’ll be sent a text message offering you the chance to reset and retry. I’m not criticising the game here. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t expect a virtual world simulation. Liberty City is quick to react, but it has a hard time remembering.

Liberty City is still a world open to experimentation. The violence is over-the-top, and satire and humor are ever-present.

It remains to be seen how much of the game will be influenced by this struggle for realism. Hopefully we’ll see a good modern crime story instead of a retelling of “Scarface” or a rap-infused gangbanger mess. Either way, I think the added realism will make what has already proven to be an incredibly immersive series even more so.

Also, Rockstar will be careful to not include a scrapped sex game in “GTA4.”

REVIEW: ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Has Immersive World, Bad Story

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on February 21, 2008

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“Assassin’s Creed” is more than meets the eye. Behind the roof-jumping, sword-swinging medieval gameplay is a bizarrely science fiction explanation. The modern day setting — where bartending assassin Desmond Miles is kidnapped by a mysterious corporation bent on tapping his genetic memories of medieval assassin Altair (got that?) — not only explains the Holy Land gameplay but also more conventional aspects of the game, aspects normally taken for granted.

[Spoiler Warning: This review covers many aspects of the game's plot, but does not reveal the ending or anything really significant.]

For example, when you die in “Assassin’s Creed,” you revert back to a checkpoint. Sounds normal, but it’s not. Rather than dying, the game says that Miles becomes desynchronized with his genetic memory of Altair. What appears to be a health bar is explained as a synchronization count, and going back to a checkpoint is explained as going back to a previous memory to ensure proper synchronization.

All this seems semantic, but it has the effect of turning player death, which should be a jarring aspect of a storyline, into a fully rational occurrence. (Imagine it in a book: All the main characters just died because you read the chapter wrong, and now you have to read it all over again.)

“Assassin’s Creed” draws from the storytelling technique of its predecessor, “Prince of Persia.” Both games were developed by Ubisoft Montreal, and “Assassin’s Creed” takes the platforming model of “Prince of Persia” and plunks it in an open world with a very much expanded fighting mechanic. When you die in “Prince of Persia,” the Prince tells the story speaks up and says, “That’s not how it happened.” If the Prince plummets to his death during the game, it’s a failure on the player’s part to stick to his plot, just as dying in “Assassin’s Creed” is a failure to adhere to the memories of Miles/Altair.

This “memory” theme of “Assassin’s Creed” lends itself to other aspects of gameplay. Selecting from old assassination missions to replay, while essentially just a level selector, is disguised as a menu of genetic memories. Teleporting from one town to another instantly is fast-forwarding through the memory of Altair’s travels.

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Final Fantasy XIII Extended Trailer Released

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on December 15, 2007

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Gametrailers has extended versions of the trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and the tie-in Final Fantasy XIII Versus.

The trailers come from a promotional DVD included with “CLOUD,” Square Enix’s book of concept artwork.

The Final Fantasy XIII trailer includes some more CGI action, a better look at the game’s world and a clearer shot of a second main character in addition to “Lightning” from the first trailer.

I still haven’t played Final Fantasy XII, but this looks really good. The art decoration is incredible, as can be expected from Square. And it’s nice seeing a feminine protagonist who is actually a woman.

Thanks Joystiq.