When Capcom finally announced a new Devil May Cry title most of us refreshed our computer pages waiting for the trailer to drop, well at least I did. When the trailer finally released a horde of DMC fans crawled from beneath their hermit caves and began throwing anything they could at Capcom for giving us what looked like a meth head...

Minecraft is an indie dev’s biggest dream: make a game they hope gets noticed, it gets noticed by a lot of people, and they make money. (more…)

After a friend started playing Wii Fit, I remembered my family had bought it as well. I in all honesty forget that we have a Wii all together. It’s always in the lounge and never gets played. My family are basically the typical Wii owners, they buy the Wii with several games and never play and buy products for it again. The last time they used Wii Fit was 209 days ago. Disgraceful.

Recently I’ve started to seriously try and lose weight. (lost 2.5lb’s in my first week baby!) My plan was to hit the gym today but I had to wait at home for the people from the garage to pick up my car. So I picked the next best alternative (If you’re only option is at home) Wii Fit. (more…)

Instead of going on and on… and on… and on like a fanboy and start raving about how the Genesis was ‘teh bestest system evur’ or how Shenmue is the ‘kewlest RPG evar madez,’ I attack the cynics by listing SEGA’s accomplishments these past five years. Though to effectively set the mood: I bought a DreamCast last year. Let’s continue. (more…)

Note: I may (or may not) add pictures to accentuate this editorial at a later date. – pjs.

With Final Fantasy XIII finally hitting the Western world, early criticisms from numerous video game websites all point toward a clear and concise outcome. While the reception of the Japanese release had already foreshadowed the following to be true this past holiday season, now that the rest of the world has seen and spoken their thoughts about the game, I feel it is now appropriate to dissect Square-Enix’s debut Final Fantasy title of the HD generation.

In the words of Christian Nutt, it is clear that Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most polarizing games of 2010. To fully understand this statement, we must first unpack several important questions. Why Final Fantasy XIII? Or possibly more important: Why Final Fantasy? Trends have shown that while the game received mixed reception both within its home soil as well as international soil, the biggest polarization of the game’s reception comes between Japan and North America. For those who may already be clueing in to part of where I’m getting at, the rest may sound like self-indulgent rhetoric, but Square-Enix–who has been struggling for almost a decade to create the universal RPG–must know that their most essential design choices for Final Fantasy XIII, and how those choices were received by the masses, have hit (if not blindly unaware of it) the core of the problem regarding true international success. A polarization so significant, more than any title that came before it, has to have made Square-Enix aware that they’ve inadvertently experimented with an infrastructure (unforeseen or not) that has greatly defined the success of their video games. (more…)

September 17th, CTA Digital released the first ever Wii Bowling Ball. Fashioned after an authentic bowling ball, it feels just like a regular bowling ball but only weighs a little over one-pound. The ball is easy to use with an innovative inner system that allows you to easily access all of the buttons from outside the ball.  (more…)

The following editorial was produced by Marco Fiori, a Freelance Contributor. To see more of his work, check out his website here.

It has never been better to be a RPG fan. Not only are Bioware, considered by many to be the best in the business, looking to deliver on their Baldur’s Gate ‘spiritual successor,’ Dragon Age: Origins. We are pleased by the announcement and cannot wait to find out more details on the game.

So what do we already know? Well, it has the unimaginative title of Mass Effect 2; a QA man at Bioware indicates that Mass Effect saves will have a purpose; and the game might reach the PS3. Finally we have the proclamation from Bioware’s CEO, Ray Muzyka that Mass Effect 2 will:

“have consequences that are emotionally compelled; choices have to have consequences that are emotionally impactful [...] it’s part of the emotional investment.”

Good one Ray, tell us another.

Call us sceptical, but we have played far too many games where the player is promised that everything they do will have an effect. In reality, it is blindingly obvious when the ‘choice-moment’ occurs. It usually involves killing someone or letting them live. The Witcher is the only modern RPG that has genuinely delivered on that old chestnut. There used to be a time where RPG’s were about an enriching story, logical character development and believable setting. That was done without the need of HD-graphics or self absorbent marketing pap like “300 different endings,” or “a spider web of possibility.”

Half Life 2 (and Episode 2 in particular) did not need to boast about its emotional involvement. Valve created the game and it became apparent by playing it. We do not remember anyone coming to us during Baldur’s Gate II’s build up and preparing us to ‘feel.’ The characters and writing did it without intentionally searching for emotion.

Video games will always struggle to connect to our emotional needs. After all, they are about enjoyment and lack the same depth / intention that literature / cinema possesses. Mass Effect 2 may shock us with a twist or two (which is usually the only ‘emotion’ that developers can tap into), but it will not cause us to cry or rethink our lives.

The PR department would be better off telling us how they are improving the vehicle sections or introducing unseen gameplay elements rather than dictating to us how our brains should work.

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