It can play 3DS, but without the 3D. It's still got WiFi and whatnot, but again no 3D. Nintendo said that it's more focused towards younger kids who can't play games with 3D on, so basically kids younger than 7. Honestly it does look like some toddler toy laptop thing, but the design still confuses me. Why the wedge? There's so much dead space that there would be about 4 inches just hanging out of your hands if you played it. It also has no form of grip on the back like the WiiU gamepad so I can imagine it being very awkward. Oh well. Nintendo... Just do what you want.
Go on any other site, and you'll see 10/10 scores. I'm here to tell you it ain't that great. First of all, the game is boring. This isn't really a hang up if you're patient enough, but the game is literally you walking through an empty house, picking up scraps of paper, and reading them. If you don't have the fortitude for that kind of thing, I get that, so steer clear. Second of all, the story is incredibly cliche. Anybody who says that the story is original hasn't read a book or seen a movie. *Spoiler* It's about a lesbian college-age girl who falls in love with a lady and it tells a nice little sappy love story. The only hangup is that her parents are Christian. It's interestingly told and the voice acting is decent. The ending is complete shit. The couple throw every aspect of their lives away, a 75% scholarship and an army career that she had wanted since a child, just because their parents were a little disapproving, and drive away until they can't drive any more. She abandons her sister and family just at the thought of her parents giving her any kind of shit. The gameplay is solid enough, but one thing I couldn't understand is why they developers chose to make the atmosphere creepy. They have small bits of supernatural literature scattered throughout the house and it doesn't really make since aside from just using it as a plot device to get you to explore secret pathways. I feel that it trivializes the real story line by throwing this paranormal thing in with it. The visuals are kind of meh. The way objects look and how you walk around make me think of the Slenderman games and really only looks like a tech demo for something like the Oculus rift. But it does it's job of putting you in the world. In short, the game in engaging and an interesting...thing, but not really game. More like an interactive story. I'm fine with some developers taking narratives in this sort of way, but I don't think that this is enough to hold my attention for more than one playthrough, and the price tags are a little steep. I think I'll stick with my traditional games for now. 6.5/10
Just recently the Sims 4 reveal trailer was released, and it caused quite a stir within the community. Many people are happy and excited (me), but A LOT of people are pretty angry. From what I've derived this anger is directed mainly at the graphics. People are complaining that the graphics are, "too cartoony" and, "less realistic than Sims 3." Some of the community is trying to calm these people by telling them that it will, "help the game run easier on your computer." I am scoffing vivaciously at this idea. Now first off, let's compare graphics here. The first image is from Sims 2, the second from 3, and the last from the gameplay trailer of 4. Now, from my perspective, four seems like the most "realistic" looking character here. The eye's aren't bulging and anime-like, the face structure could actually...you know...EXIST, and the shading is something that you might actually see on a person, you know? Yes, it looks more vector-oriented, but it adds a crazy-ness to it. It's unique. It's not some realistic shooter game or a new Laura Croft or something like that. This style keeps with the Sims' goofy yet beautiful art style that it's kept through its entire life span. I think the proper word for this is "artistic." This is a very fresh and artistic style. (And when you look at this it's obvious that it will be harder to run than 3 and people are just silly.) I'm also very curious as to why THIS is considered more realistic. The expressions aren't realistic, the pixelation of the hair/trees...yeah we don't have that in real life. The shading? Textures? Nope.....And let us not forget.... This image from Sims 3 Supernatural leads me to my final point. The Sims games were never really meant to be that realistic. Sure, at the beginning of the games...like Sims 1, it tried a bit more to capture a regular person's life. Let me remind you, however, that TS1 was kinda just a goofy "let's mess with something" game. It didn't have any creativity with it or any interesting qualities. I tried to play TS1 recently and was bored with how hard it tried to be realistic. The preceding games, however, added....a style. Each game continued to add new ways you could live your Sim's life. New jobs, relationships, cars, items, skills. But they also added goofy things like aliens and random demotions/spur of the moment decisions because someone at work got set on fire or you farted on a very important client. All the book store books have ridiculous titles, you can literally grow burger patty plants, and you can become supernatural. That being said, I feel that the quirky art style that Sims games continue to use fantastically represents the heart of the game. It's beautiful, and kind of realistic....but it's also really silly and just.....fun. It's just fun, goofy, quirky, unique, and very, very addictive. This would be less so, I feel, if the graphics were FPS tier. This style just makes it more interesting. And I can say that I am very, very excited for this game and the continuation of the series.
(Except the constant expansions they put out for ludicrous prices. STAHP) Have you ever had a friend that just won't shut up about a particular show or game? They always find some way to loop a conversation back to it or they always quote something peculiar from the show and when you don't get it they say something like, "Oh my god, you don't watch this show? YOU SHOULD TOTALLY LIKE WATCH IT OR WHATEVER!" The internet has a bad habit of doing this. Ever heard of Breaking Bad? Sure you have. I just recently started watching it, but for the longest time I refused to because of how many people sucked it's cock. The constant talk and appraisal of this show made me hate it. Every website I went to there were people chanting and having a circle jerk. I couldn't escape it. The show isn't bad or anything, but it isn't anywhere near as good as people make it out to be. People do this with any semi-decent show now. Walking Dead, My Little Pony, Game of Thrones, Arrested Development; you never hear the end of it from the fans of these shows. When I was a kid in middle school Naruto was the big shit. Everyone watched the show and read the manga, some kids even had headbands and ninja weapons and shit. One day sitting in class I saw kids practicing the hand signs. During recess they would run with their hands behind the backs. Every time I see people drool over shows, my brain immediately thinks of those kids in middle school. They are the kids with the headbands. I think of it in the kind of way that people view Call of Duty. People don't necessarily hate the game, they just hate the people who play the game. I think the biggest case where you can see this is with League of Legends. It's fucking massive and nobody shuts up about it. Is it good? It's okay, yeah, but if you bring up another MOBA people will instantly say that League is better. I'm not saying that any game is better than another, it would be nice to have a conversation, but because League is such a big power house people will just bring up numbers as an excuse as to why it's better. I don't even want to tell people that I play League because the people associated with it are terrible.
People ruin everything. One winter morning I walked into the kitchen and spotted an opened package on the table. Opening it I saw another box. One of those old massive PC game boxes that you could judge the amount of content the game had by how heavy the box was, and this one was fucking heavy. Across the top of the box I read the words "World of Warcraft." I couldn't contain my excitement. I had learned to type by punching in Warcraft cheats. Staring at the back of the box I was mesmerized. Flying on gryphons, fighting mookins, exploring snowy landscapes; dear lord sign me up. The only catch was that my grandparents were staying over for a week, so I couldn't play it because it would suck away all the time I was supposed to spending with my grandparents. On top of that my father said to me, "There's no way that you are going to play that before I am." I read the manual and stared at the pictures for days, grating my teeth waiting for my grandparents to leave. Eventually my time came and I was quivering with excitement. I'll never forget that feeling staring at the log-in screen for the first time. The portal beckoning me to have the best gaming experience that I will ever have; I put in my info and smack the enter key. I took me at least an hour to decide what I wanted to make. My first choice was a gnome, which I quickly learned to hate and deleted him before even clicking the play button. My second, and most played character, would be a dwarven hunter...named Snowy. The cold ambiance that Dun Morogh graced me with is what struck me the most. The crisp wind sounds, the perfect sound of crunching snow underneath my boots, the subtle music playing in the back foreboding the harsh environment that I would be exploring. I was hooked from the start. I carry so many memories from World of Warcraft, more so than any other game I've played. The first time climbing up the massive hill to Iron Forge and being greeted by the massive gates, only to be impressed by the city within more. Grouping up for my first instance and the feeling of community I got conversing with people whilst exploring awe inspiring environments like The Deadmines. Running through Ashenvale with friends trying to find the queue for Warsong Gulch when it first launched. World PvP at Southshore. Running to SM. Doing MC, ZG, and later BT and Sunwell. I played this game for years and loved every second of it. I stopped playing it a little bit after Cataclysm came out and I don't really know why. Maybe it wasn't the same game that I had played before, maybe I just grew out of it, or maybe it was because all my friends had stopped playing. Even though I haven't played it in years, I can't help but think about it from time to time. I think about all the fun I had and I sometimes even renew my subscription trying to get that same feel of discovery and fun, but it just isn't there any more. So I've shopped around trying to find something that will capture that feeling again, or at least hold my attention for longer than an hour, but I just can't find it. I used to love the MMO genre, Everquest being my first, and being in loads of others before WoW, I loved the feeling of being able to explore massive worlds and play with interesting mechanics. The fault with WoW being so popular is that ever other MMO that has been released since has tried to capitalize off it's success by becoming a carbon copy. I've played Warhammer, Rift, Lotro, Guild Wars, The Old Republic, and a few others, but none of them had any merit to them. The quests were boring, the ambiances don't bring you into the world, the environments are flat, and none of them strive to feel different from MMOs of the past. Most of them had loads of hype, claiming to be WoW killers, and turned out to be flops which go free-to-play after a month. Now I don't want to get invested into MMOs because they offer nothing different from each other and I don't want to spend the money and time it takes to start up, especially if the game dies before I can even get to the end game. I wish that they still had the mentality of huge worlds with massive amounts of things to do. I mean if you look at Star Wars Galaxies, even if the game wasn't too great, it still had way more innovation than any MMO since. You could make an entire town, hire mayors and make your own laws...all in game...not instanced. How crazy is that? Now all we have is "phasing" to make us feel as if we have an impact on the world. With Wildstar and the new Everquest in the works I hope that the MMO genre will return to it's roots of being engrossing with massive worlds driven by players and environmental exploration, not the classic theme park MMO that has been pumped out for the past 10 years. Guacamelee! Gold Edition comes out on Steam August 8th, according to IGN. It'll cost $14.99 and comes with two DLC packs. If you buy it in the first week, you get the game Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack. Pretty cool beans.
Phil Fish can't handle a bit of criticism from Gametrailer's Annoyed Gamer. Recently Marcus Beer got onto Phil Fish and Jon Blow about being hateful towards some journalists asking them what they thought about the Xbox One having self-publishing. They reacted in a rather childish manner, and Marcus Beer told them how it is. At least Jon Blow can show some form of restraint. Phil Fish has since locked his Twitter account and announced that Fez 2 has been cancelled. Oh no, now we'll never see another generic retro 2deep4me indie platformer game The newest trailer for Splinter Cell Blacklist features 3 play styles that the developers encourage while playing the game, Ghost, Panther, and Assault. Just hearing the names you probably already know what each of them represent. Assault encourages players to "leave no witnesses behind". The first 30 seconds of the trailer say "Do you think you know Splinter Cell? Think again". Yet, it seems the developers themselves don't know Splinter Cell. Splinter Cell used to be king of the stealth genre, with incredible stealth mechanics like the visibility and sound meter, intelligent AI, and having to actually be stealthy. I remember a lot of missions just outright failing if I ever popped off a shot. Now Splinter Cell is a shining example of what not to do with a good franchise. By making the AI into ass, simplifying the stealth, and even give players an auto aim feature, I've lost all hope for a good Splinter Cell game any time soon.
So far there are no English subs or dubs, but you can still appreciate the visuals. There is more information over at http://www.p3m.jp/. Unfortunately it's all in Japanese and my desu skills aren't good enough to translate. |