Recently I reviewed a downloadable PS3 game called Girl Fight. It’s a 3-D fighting game with an all-women cast. Usually in fighting games, the female characters are more interesting than the guy characters. So it makes sense to make a whole fighting game with them. Unfortunately, while the fighting gameplay mechanics in Girl Fight are at least somewhat decent, the characters in the game are not very interesting at all. But that’s not going to stop me from writing about them anyway! Yep, this is a filler blog. You know I like to write about fighting game characters, even if I don’t know anything about them!
Get ready to ride a time machine back to the ‘90s. A time when we thought the Internet was something completely different than the cesspool we know today; a time when JNCOs and flannel were acceptable clothing choices; a time when we raised the roof and exclaimed everything was “the bomb, yo!”; a time when Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers was intended to be released in America. For whatever reason, Sony rejected the title from release on the PlayStation and in Japan it remained. Until now, that is, when Atlus finally dusted it off and brought it into the future on the 3DS. The fact of the matter is that if Soul Hackers would’ve been released when intended, it would’ve been better than tight, it would’ve been straight phat, dawg.
Programming Note: To date, I am halfway through Final Fantasy IX on my Quest. Next up is Final Fantasy X (PS2), then Final Fantasy II (GBA), Final Fantasy XII (PS2), Final Fantasy III (DS), and finally, Final Fantasy XIII (PS3). If you're just joining us, I have played all these games many times before, but I'm going in order of US release date for the quest, hence the number jumping.
Are you ready for virtual reality gaming in 3D? It's coming,perhaps next year in fact. The Oculus Rift headset is being developed by Oculus VR Inc. right now in hopes of a launch of consumer products in 2014. They received nearly 2.5 million in funds from a Kickstarter campaign. The device was demonstrated back in June of 2012 at E3. Developer kits are ready to go. The device has an effective resolution of 640x800 in stereoscopic 3D. It employs an Adjacent Reality Tracker,which uses a combination of 3-axis gyros,accelerometers,and magnetometers. This allows the image to refresh instantly upon head movement. Uses a USB interface to send the tracking data to the host machine.The images shown here are of prototypes. the finished product will be much more streamlined and easy to wear. Much like a pair of those protective goggles you wear in the workshop.
The most sought after demo at this year’s QuakeCon that didn’t require a virtual reality headset was Bethesda’s upcoming stealthy first person shooter: Dishonored. Really, sticking the game in the FPS pigeon hole is a bit constricting since during the short demo, I possessed several people, summoned swarms of rats, and slowed time to a crawl. The single level I got to play showed a ton of promise for a game set in a refreshingly unsettling world with a myriad of different methods available to reach your objectives.
We'll lead you through our two days spent at QuakeCon 2012, where the biggest draw is the huge LAN party that attracted over 3,500 participants this year. We'll show you the trek to the hotel in 107 degree Texas heat, panels with videogame luminaries, and everything in between.
It’s hard not to get swept up by the excitement exuding from the four people on stage for a panel about virtual reality at QuakeCon. It’s the Oculus Rift VR headset (with a kickstarter that recently broke the million dollar funding level) that has gotten panel members thinking that virtual reality gaming is feasible. John Carmack and Todd Hollenshead of id, Michael Abrash of Valve, and Palmer Luckey from Oculus talked about the problems with virtual reality headsets through history, where things are now, and where they are headed. Id has solidified their interest in the Oculus Rift headset by agreeing to provide a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition with every headset sold in the future. For now, that’s the only software confirmed to be playable with the product intended primarily for developers. When Abrash was asked if Valve had plans to make their products playable with Rift, he could only confirm his desire to do so but not any concrete plans.
John Carmack gave his QuakeCon keynote this year which focused on his efforts and thoughts about virtual reality. Following the release of Rage, Carmack allowed himself to let loose, buy some VR headsets and get his engineering mind locked in on a new technology. Carmack spoke for over three hours, wandering away and then back time after time to the virtual reality theme. His sleuthing and coding has led to the creation of a playable VR demo of Doom 3 (which he tried to temper expectations for). Virtual reality has been portrayed by the media to be a realistic life simulator, but Carmack assures us that there is still plenty of work to be done. These warnings led into musings on the state of display technology, cloud gaming, Ouya, and many other topics during a three hour one-man show that most audience members couldn’t endure ‘til the end.
I just finished almost everything I could do in Saints Row: The Third. I had never played a Saints Row game before, and I definitely didn't realize how off the wall crazy that game would be. The game had such a great variety of gameplay, from helicopter missions, tron-like racing missions, a morbid reality game show, or just simply blowing things up. I was really surprised not only at the variety, but at how well it worked. The racing portions felt like a pretty good racing game, the shooter parts felt like a good shooter, flying was easy, driving was easy. Even better, almost everything was accessible from early on in the game.
This Playstation Store Update brings with it something new this week, as SONY unveils their Seasons Greeting collection, which features "seasonal titles and content to winterize your gaming experience!"