It wasn't until the Wii U launched that we found out accounts and information registered on that console would be staying on that console. Sounded bad at the time, but there might be a bright side to the whole mess.
There obviously haven't been too many people buying one of the machines pre-owned in its early days, but one person who claims to have done so is NeoGAF poster DSN2K. Who also says that, having bought the console, they were able to download, for free, games purchased by the machine's previous owner.
While the Wii U appeared to have been wiped clean, after visiting the Wii U eShop, DSN2K says that some games, once you clicked on their store entry, didn't have a price. They instead said "redownload". So far, they claim to have gotten Trine 2 and Nano Assault without paying a cent.
While it sounds crazy that something like this would slip through the cracks, remember, the internet is a bold new frontier for Nintendo. So there's always the chance this could go on the list marked "stuff we didn't think about but wish we had". We're checking with Nintendo PR for comment, and will update if we hear back.
So buying a used WiiU has its advantages [NeoGAF]
There's a short piece up on Wired about a new Star Wars comic book series. There's something new in it: Leia is a pilot. Like, an X-Wing pilot, in the orange jumpsuit and everything.
Series writer Brian Wood (of DMZ fame, and formerly of Rockstar Games) did a pretty good job of explaining how/why the hell this is in a recent interview with Newsarama:
Leia spends a LOT of time in an X-Wing here, as a pilot equal in stature to Wedge and Luke, and close in skill. If there's anything "controversial" in what people already know about my story, its this idea that Leia is a fighter pilot. That she ISN'T one, actually, since we've never seen her doing it. I simply applied logic to the situation: if we, here, learn to drive at age 16, why wouldn't someone in Star Wars learn how to fly as a coming of age thing? Luke did, as a farm boy. Wedge did, working his parent's gas station. Why not Leia, a daughter of privilege? She can handle firearms, she basically takes over her own escape from the Death Star. She survives torture. She BEATS torture, actually. Later we see her on speeder bikes, fixing the Falcon, shooting more dudes, and so on. It's almost insulting to suggest she can't fly an X-Wing, the Rebellion's fighter of choice.
Leia will be forming her own squadron, a stealth special ops team in X-Wings. Wood's explanation makes sense to me. A little jarring at first, if only because it's a new role for the character, but new things are what this franchise needs. Plus, you know, it's a comic book. About a fictional universe whose canon has been bent so many times it's a barely-armed and operational pretzel. So whatever.
There will be—and indeed already are—predictably hostile reactions to this, but The Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons is a tragic figure for a reason.
Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars #1 Puts Leia in the Pilot's Seat [Wired]
I played a lot of games this year, and sadly, most of them were forgettable. It's just been one of those years.
Luckily, not everything landed between the ranges of "awful" and "mediocre". Some games landed between "pretty good" and "fucking incredible".
Like these ten which, in no particular order, are my absolute favourite games of 2012.
It's a world whose hideous design is so thorough it's beautiful. And one in which the powers of stealth, so often something to be dreaded or thrown against a wall in frustration, were empowering.
This shouldn't have been the game it was. It should have been a disaster. But somehow, Firaxis did it. They not only brought the old girl back, they dressed her up in the latest fashion, and got the balance between old and new just right.
Very similar to Dishonored, in that it turned stealth into a weapon, not a means of escape. It's a simple game, but one so complete in its design that it's what I call a "perfect 8"; it may not aim to be a AAA blockbuster, but what it does aim for, it absolutely perfects.
Sure, there's war. But most strategy games have war. This one has people. People you can marry, murder, throw in jail and banish. There's sex, politics, betrayal and dwarfs. It's as complete a Game of Thrones simulator you can hope for (especially if you take things a little more literally).
Oh, the story. And the missions that propel it. Were it not for those horrors this game's sandbox battlefield would have made it one of the game's of the decade, let alone year. Why? Komodo dragons, that's why.
I want to hate it. I should. There are more than enough reasons to. But the things it does well, it does well. If I'd really hated the game, I wouldn't have spent 30 hours over a few days blazing through it. Maybe I'm so critical of it because I wanted so badly for it to be better.
Did exactly what was needed to spice up the whole sandbox criminal GTA-like genre. I'm glad Square Enix had the courage to release a game like this set somewhere other than the USA, and that the developers made the smart move to ditch guns in favour of some good old-fashioned fisticuffs.
Most people have forgotten that before the game ended—the 29 hours you spend before the last one—it was a great game. Maybe not hitting Mass Effect 2's highs (probably because it copied that game's "loyalty mission" scheme), but still a great game.
I haven't forgotten.
It's too hard. But damn it, it's so stylish. I've never been a globe-trotting drug addict, struggling through a bullet-riddled mid-life crisis, but if this is what it's like, sign me up.
Seeing as I hated Telltale's previous games with the heat of 1000 burning suns, the fact I enjoyed The Walking Dead so much was quite the shock. But then, it's hard to hate a game that puts human interaction, and not violence, as its core focus.
It's okay to get a little bit sloppy on New Year's Eve, but this goes above and beyond. At the end of 2012, the Los Angeles station KDOC aired the special above, featuring Jamie Kennedy, Shannon Elizabeth, a totally lit Macy Gray, and a list of additional stars so scattered that it feels like parody.
That's all well and good, I suppose. But the moment the show started, the wheels just completely came off the bus—there's cursing on-air, weird fades and off-mike talking, bizarre interviews, and more. Above is a highlight reel originally uploaded by YouTuber Shaun Broyls, who promises he'll post an uncut version this weekend. It's a shitshow like no other, the kind of thing that, before the internet, would have been the stuff of urban legend and hastily copied VHS tapes. So, thanks, internet!
Update: It looks like this video is getting pulled from YouTube left and right, but if you look you can still find copies around, at least for the time being. It probably won't be up for long, so watch it while you can!
I trust that even if some of you had too much to drink on Monday night, you didn't screw anything up this badly. And if you did… well, hope it's not immortalized on YouTube.
It's almost the weekend already, somehow. Guess that happens when holidays land on a Tuesday. Talk TV, New Year's resolutions, or whatever else you like, here or over in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum. Have good chatting, and watch out for Jamie Kennedy.
(Via Nels Anderson)
Zombie survival rip-off The WarZ which, outside of a bizarrely fanatical fanbase hasn't exactly endeared itself to the wider community, has for the past few days been the subject of attacks on the game's servers.
That's according to the game's community manager Kwerk, who wrote earlier in the week "First we were hit with an attack that would rest our DNS IP so that you could not connect", which was followed yesterday by "This morning we are being hit, again, with a DDOS attack on our login server. We are implementing additional DDoS protection and hope to have this resolved asap. Unfortunately with these types of attacks it is very difficult to give a good time frame of when it will be resolved."
It's now back up and running, but for portions of that time, while the servers were down, the game was inaccessible. You could wonder why anyone would go out of their way to attack the servers of a video game, but then, this happens to games at the best of times. And The WarZ hasn't exactly had the best of times.
Server status 1/3/13 and the past few days. [The WarZ]
I played more games in 2012 than any other year of my life. It was a weird—but thoroughly wonderful—year, and one that upset a lot of my expectations. Games I'd assumed would be amazing fell short of the mark, while others came out of nowhere to become fast favorites.
This being a time well-suited for retrospection, I thought it'd be a good idea to write down my ten eleven favorite games of the year. (I tried to keep it to ten, I really did.)
Here they are, in no particular order.
Usually when people talk about Blendo's Thirty Flights of Loving, they talk about its brevity. What's most striking about this game's brief run-time isn't just that it's short, it's how much it manages to do in such a short time. By cleverly using hints, allusion, tropes and subverted clichés, Thirty Flights packs more drama and intrigue into 15 minutes than many games manage in 15 hours. It was one of the most memorable things I played all year, and something I'll be recommending to friends for years to come. (PC only)
For some reason, I feel this underlying sense of disappointment whenever people talk about Max Payne 3. And yet all these months later, I still find myself playing it, and I have to say: This game was baller. It wasn't just that it had better graphics than anything else that came out this year (on PC, anyway). It wasn't just the ridiculously good soundtrack. It was the way it played, the overwhelming sense of kinetic, chaotic danger. A sequence set in a cubicle-filled office was the most brutal and exhilarating action sequence I played all year. It has its share of problems, sure: Some difficulty-spikes made me want to throw my TV out a window, and at times it felt like more of a movie than a game. Considering how gritty and self-serious it all was, it sure could be ridiculous. But even if it lacked the charm of past Max Payne games, Max Payne 3 more than made up for it with satisfying, stylish, bloody-minded action. (Xbox, PS3, PC)
For a time, somewhere immediately after I completed the devastating, masterful third episode of Telltale's The Walking Dead, I was convinced it was the best thing I played all year. After completing the game and taking some time to really look it over, I have to say that there were enough technical niggles, rough edges, bugs and reported save-game errors that I came away a bit frustrated with it. All the same, seeing a mainstream game this well-written, a game that treats its characters with this level of care, felt like a watershed occurrence. Sure, there have been other great adventure games in the past, but never one that felt so confidently of-the-moment. With every accolade, game critics and players are making a statement: We want good stories in our games, thank you very much. May The Walking Dead pave the way for countless more games like it. (Xbox, PS3, PC, iOS)
Violent, crazed, self-aware and painfully cool, Hotline Miami was one of the most maddening, involving games I played this fall. The soundtrack was so good it hurt. The story was as disgusting and uncomfortable as anything I've ever played. The action was peerless. I can't remember where I first saw this, but Hotline Miami is best described as a series of rehearsals before a final performance—again and again you die, until you choreograph your own perfect ballet of death. By the time you leave each blood-soaked floor, you'll be intimately familiar with every nook and cranny. An exacting, meticulous, brilliantly brutal game. (PC only, coming soon to Mac)
I didn't know what to expect going in to Gravity Rush. I'd heard good things, liked what little I'd seen of in trailers, but really had no deeper notion of it. It didn't take me long to fall for it, and when I fell, I fell hard. Appropriate, since this superhero game isn't about flying; it's about falling. And it's a superhero game in the best sense: It showed me a world that was as mysterious as it was fantastical, loaded with unanswered questions and improbable vistas, and let me explore it as an instantly likable character. Best of all, the gravity-manipulation controls actually took me a while to get used to; they felt genuinely, at times startlingly new. The game had its problems—notably, the combat was frustrating and several sections from the halfway point onward could be a real slog—but when it was firing on all cylinders, Gravity Rush was a dizzy joy. (PS Vita)
Every year, it seems there's one game that hits me right in my gaming sweet-spot. Last year it was Deus Ex: Human Revolution and this year it was XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I fell entirely under this game's spell, regularly finding myself up at 3 or 4 in the morning, heading out on one more mission before finally going to bed. Here's a story: the early PC press build of the game caused a strange error with my save game, and I lost about ten hours of progress. I had to start over fresh, but I found myself doing so without a complaint. And I wasn't even reviewing the game! I relished the opportunity to play the opening acts again, to use what I'd learned and get everything right. I anticipate I'll be playing it well into the future. It doesn't just belong in my top ten eleven—XCOM: Enemy Unknown was one of my two or three favorite games of the year. (Xbox, PS3, PC)
Just today, I put forth the argument for why this game should be Kotaku's overall game of the year. I also reviewed it back when it came out. I don't have much more to add, so I'll just say that it's a beautiful, remarkably assured game that does what it does so well it's easy to forget just how difficult it must have been to make. It's ThatGameComany's masterpiece. (PS3 only)
I showed up to Far Cry 3 with a lot of baggage: See, Far Cry 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and everything I'd seen of Far Cry 3 made me think it would be a less serious, less focused, move video-gamey take on its predecessor. And it was that. It was also awesome. At some point, maybe around the eight- or nine-hour mark, I realized that I didn't want to stop playing. I wanted to keep going, and going, growing my abilities, learning the island, exploring, conquering, and hang-gliding. Sure, the story fell apart for me a bit after the halfway point. And yeah, my adventures wound up making the islands far too safe, devoid of enemies to fight. But as a feat of game design and technical artistry, Far Cry 3 deserves recognition. (For more, see my full review.) It's not just that it does so many things so well—it's that it does them well in the service of being a really fun video game. (Xbox, PS3, PC)
No other game this year made me smile as widely or as often as Botanicula. The Michel Gondry-esque art, the wonderful physical comedy, the amazing, handcrafted music and sound effects, and fantastical story won me over completely. So many games concern themselves with mastery and competition; far too few concern themselves with joy. Botanicula was easily the most joyful game of 2012. (PC, Mac)
Sleeping Dogs was one of the very best surprises of 2012, a fine open-world game that proved how oftentimes, GTA-style games can be even more fun without guns. It didn't quite have Rockstar's lavish production values, but United Front's take on the city of Hong Kong sparkled at every turn, and the PC version in particular looked lovely. It conveyed such a remarkable sense of place, perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that you had to drive on the left side of the road. The story was strong too, a surprisingly mature tale that borrowed heavily from Hong Kong cinema. Anyone familiar with undercover cop-stories likely saw every twist and turn coming, but I still enjoyed it all, thanks largely to the top-rate performances. Sleeping Dogs felt like a game that knew its own boundaries: It didn't come with any shoehorned-in multiplayer, and it didn't become overstuffed or fall apart in the third act. It was good all the way to the end, and even beyond: I'm still playing the DLC. Here's hoping Sleeping Dogs merits a sequel. Sleeping Dogs 2: Waking Dogs? I'd play it. (Xbox, PS3, PC)
And now we come to the end, where I'd put the number one game, if these were in order. And while they're not in order, still, Persona 4 Golden kind of deserves to be mentioned last. XCOM may have hit me square in the game-nerve, but I fell even more profoundly into Persona 4 Golden. I ache for this game, you guys. Earlier this year, I had played 60-odd hours of Persona 3, and every time I'd tell someone how much I dug that game, they'd say, "Wait until you play Persona 4." They were right.
Jason and I have already gone into great detail about why we love Persona 4, and if I couldn't capture my feelings in that many thousands of words, I probably should just give up. The town of Inaba and its residents have left an indelible mark on me; I'll never forget this game. (PS Vita, original game is also on PS2)
And that's that. Oh, hmm. There were a few games I didn't get to list here, so honorable mentions go to FTL, Mark of the Ninja, Dyad, Torchlight II, Dishonored, Papo & Yo, Super Hexagon and Sound Shapes.
2012 was a great, often surprising year for games. Here's hoping 2013 is even better.
I hate feeling like a cog in the machine—like my actions don't matter, like I'm wading through tedium before I can get to the 'meaningful' part. Tedium exasperates me, makes me start thinking about depressing things like not reaching my true potential. This is true in both real life as well as in games. So it should come as no surprise that I hate grinding in games, even though just about every title—from popular games like Call of Duty to the smallest, esoteric RPGs, force me to do it. There must be a reason for the constant inclusion of the grind—either people can enjoy it, or it provides something worthwhile for game designers.
A couple of months ago I was asked to write a pitch for a show on a broadcasting network about video games. Without delving into the specifics of that, I ended up consulting a friend about Pokemon: Black and White 2 and the new badge and achievement system. I bemoaned that much of the game followed the common paradigm of leveling up, putting enough time in, and grinding enough to attain success and then on top of that gamified it all to try to make it more desirable and 'fun.' Gross.
I remarked that it reminded me of how people put up with awful jobs in real life instead of following their dreams. And then he suggested something that makes complete sense, but that I still found surprising: one can find fulfillment in 'menial' jobs, as well as humble jobs that don't aspire to be a grand thing. That, perhaps, one can learn to live with where they are in life, regardless of whether or not it matches expectations. And naturally: that there's nothing wrong with not being hyper ambitious. It all comes down to choice and perception.
I'd seen a similar response to my piece earlier in the year about Skyrim and the sickeningly neat lives games have us uphold, but only recently did I start to actively think about the merits of the grind. It gets such a bad rap, right? I mean, the word itself has a negative connotation. But if people can enjoy or appreciate a lifetime of grind, then naturally it should follow we can enjoy grinding in games.
First off, thinking about what they abstract, it's all about payoff. You're working hard for something, and then when you get it—the level, the item, the win—you feel like you've earned it. My resentment stems from feeling as if it's always required that you put in an arbitrary amount of time into something before you're allowed to have something in real life. But that doesn't mean I don't feel accomplished after spending hours in Borderlands 2 and getting a new, exciting skill.
I just wish I didn't have to do it all the time, for everything, for no other reason than to stretch out how much time I'm spending with a game. Most online shooters, which force me to unlock everything from cosmetics to necessary equipment, are guilty of this and I abhor it.
Grinding can also be a calming thing. You can just tune out and play, right? That can be useful after a long day at work, or wanting to get your mind off stuff. While I've definitely picked up games to shut everything out, I know that I have a preference for games that don't let my mind go blank.
Grinding can also help with pacing. I'm a fan of games that cut out all the downtime and focus on the meat, like in The Walking Dead. With longer games, you have more stuff to juggle, more stuff to digest. The sheer amount of content in Persona 4 is staggering, and I'd probably feel like I was drowning if it let me talk to everyone, all the time, without inserting some quality dungeon crawling in there to help mull over my (digital) life.
It really depends on framing. Let's consider battle music, which has an intimate tie with grinding. Battle music is crucial to a successful grindy game, often helping us get into a state of flow, into the zone. That's a good feeling. Or: battle music can remind me of muzak—the music we hear while in spaces that want us to forget that we are there, waiting, languishing or sometimes consuming. Malls. Waiting on the phone. In the elevator. Working at the cash register. Ugh, no.
When I asked Jason Schreier what he thought about grinding, the framing thing became obvious.
It's easy to hate the idea of grinding. It's easy to step back and say "Jesus christ, why did I just spend four hours walking around in a circle and mashing the attack button to take down random monsters? What am I doing with my life?"
It's also easy to love the idea of grinding. It's easy to love a world where improvement is guaranteed, where life follows a set of rules that allow you to level up and get better at your job not because of talent or luck, but because you worked at it. Effort guarantees results.
I don't think level-grinding is good, nor do I think it's bad. It's a rhythm. A flow. Sometimes it feels right, when you're pumping up levels and feeling the euphoria of achievement. And sometimes it's just boring.
Despite the negative connotation of the word, as Jason says, grinding is not inherently negative or positive. Perhaps I have been unfair to grinding, after all. What I do know is that I have an easier time appreciating a game when it gives me a reason—a strong, compelling reason—to wade through repetitive or boring game segments. If, say, I'm trying to get strong enough to rescue my best friend beloved cousin from a shadow-monster, like in Persona 4? I'm in.
Make me care, and I'll grind through just about anything.
Back in May, we caught wind of Dreadline, a game in which famous monsters travel through time to equally famous tragedies and kill everyone before they would've died anyway.
It's an enjoyably goofy premise, and given that the game is headed up by former Harmonix and Irrational developers Bryn Bennett and Steve Kimura, it's got a lot of promise. We hadn't heard anything else on the game since then, but they've still been working it, recently turning to Kickstarter to raise the money they need to finish it.
It's the rare Kickstarter project that isn't a rehash of an old idea or a nostalgia-play, but Dreadline is a new idea, and a cool one. In the video above, Bennett and Kimura (or animated versions of them) give you their best pitch. Hey, a game where I behead Titanic victims, save babies and hang out with the Wolfman? I'd play it.
Dreadline [Kickstarter]
Operation Sports's community has gone dissecting it frame-by-frame; here are some of their readers' guesses:
• "So RttS and HRD now both have some "personal lock on ball" view with a ball trail."
• "Uniform editor possibly outside of [Diamond Dynasty]"
• A ton of speculation around "The Show Live" a new feature that's gone largely undescribed to now.
• Andrew McCutcheon (a cover candidate) picking grass and floating it in the air opened a few guesses. "Why? Is it because of a pre game player analysis? 3D grass?"
• This one is confirmed by Russell himself: "In season modes, when a player is traded or joins a new team in the offseason, if they have a real photo it will be replaced with the cap screen shot. So basically if you do a fantasy draft franchise every player on your team will be wearing the correct hats and jerseys."
MLB 13 The Show's voting for its cover star will open next week, look for more details on the game then. The game arrives on shelves the first Tuesday of March.
MLB 13 The Show Trailer - First Look [Operation Sports]
You'd think the horse stealing the car would be the funniest bit. But no. I like the dude's obvious disappointment at the overall outcome at the very end.