So, after over a decade long wait, Diablo III was finally released yesterday, and pretty much everyone who has ever cared about video games is talking about it. Never have my Facebook and Twitter feeds been overtaken by the release of a game to the extent that I’ve seen with Diablo III; the long awaited action-RPG sequel that has even retired ex-gamers dusting off their old gaming PCs, or in some cases, asking for advice on how to upgrade their PCs/laptops/Macbooks to play the game.
Minecraft is entirely what you make of it. Quite literally, I mean. Me, I made a lot of holes. Then I had a friend come over and join me, and together, we made more holes. It’s not that there was really any good reason to make the holes, but that’s what I wanted to do. This is probably the most important thing anybody should know about Minecraft – it’s not what it is, but what you do with it – whether it’s making holes or a big heap of rocks that’s supposed to look like balls or the words “TECHNICALLY, I GOT PAID TO BUILD THIS” in 100-metre letters of solid gold.
While in London the other week we had a chance to speak to Pete Murray, associate producer at Firaxis Games, about their upcoming XCOM game (yes, the old-school remake one). You can pick up a copy of the April 2012 issue of NAG magazine (www.zinio.com or on newsstands) if you want more detailed information on the game itself – this interview was a bit too long to fit in that issue. Anyway, XCOM is a turn-based strategy game that tasks players with saving the world from an impending alien invasion by putting them in charge of the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. Around about now someone should say, “Hoorah!”
A journey, spanning four years, hundreds of hours and a plethora of decisions has culminated in what can only be described as the greatest game in the franchise’s history. Mass Effect 3 takes all the selling points of each respective game before, polishes and presents them in one of the most compelling gaming experiences I have ever witnessed. It isn’t a perfect game, far from it (more on this later), but as a narrative there are few titles that are as fascinating.
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably not into sports in real life. For this reason, I thought that videogames based on sports wouldn’t grab me either, and I was right for the most part – until a friend forced me to play Cool Boarders 3 back in ’97 and I realised that, as long as it involves a character with their feet planted on some kind of board, I’d generally like it.
That might be because boarding games, be it skateboarding, snowboarding… wakeboarding… whatever – well, they generally have a lot in common with fighting games, requiring a similar amount of concentration, timing and co-ordination to excel at. I don’t play them all, but I generally pick up one or two in each generation to satisfy the occasional craving.
Once again, Sony enters the hand-held arena from the vantage of technological prowess and aesthetic desirability. Powerful and sleek, the PlayStation Vita represents a modern look at where Sony thinks portable gaming is headed.
Their first entry into the handheld gaming sector, the PlayStation Portable, was also a technological powerhouse. But a combination of factors (disc-based media, pricy low-quality movies, battery life, 3rd-party developers abandoning the system in favour of the Nintendo DS) all led to its early abandonment by Sony.
Have Sony learned their lesson, or are they doomed to repeat it? We unboxed the Vita last week but lacked games or a memory card. Those two problems, now solved, lead to this hands-on.
I’m not even sure where to start on this one, so I’ll just start with my opinion – I love this game. I love it to bits. It’s like someone took the best bits of Fable and the Elder Scrolls, threw them into a blender with a sprinkle of action game elements and whipped up a delicious role-playing smoothie. That’s not to say there aren’t some things about it that could be improved, but we’ll get to that.
This game takes place, as the title suggests, in the world of Amalur. The premise is actually quite multi-faceted, but to make a long story short: The mortal races, including humans, elves and gnomes, are at war with the immortal race, the Fae. To turn the tide of this clearly one-sided battle, the gnomes found a way to create an immortal of their own – and no prizes to anyone who guesses that you are that immortal.
The release of each new Soul Calibur game is usually something of an event in the worldwide gaming community, but there doesn’t seem to have been too much excitement surrounding the release of Soul Calibur V – unless I just wasn’t paying enough attention, which is possible. But whether the whole world was looking forward to it or not, the one thing I can see is that fighting fans are going to butt heads over this one, a lot.
Dear Claudia,
I’ve arrived in Constantinople, and have decided to write you this letter as a clever means of narrative exposition without all the drag of pre-rendered cinematics because we kind of blew the whole budget on the intro sequence. I think it looked pretty magnifico, though.
Anyway, I am here to find a bunch of keys to open Altaïr’s secret library in the castle at Masyaf because all the answers are there (I’m sure!), but this might be a bit harder than I’d first thought. I mean, it doesn’t look like they’re anywhere on the docks, so I guess I’m going to have to get off this ship and actually go into the city and look for them.
As the Wii enters its closing few months, Nintendo’s Zelda Team have finally given the wee white console its very first Zelda entry made from scratch for the system, something we (ahem) fans have been salivating over for years.
From the moment the game launches you will notice the more cinematic approach Skyward Sword takes and it certainly breathes some fresh air into the highly traditional series. Sweeping camera tracks and purposeful framing help bring the franchise to the present level of production values.
