The Totally Wrong History of the Future According to Video Games

The best thing about mankind's constant quest to envision our own future is how totally and utterly wrong we constantly are. The Jetsons had suitcases that turned into cars. Back to the Future II had flying skateboards and a town built around a clean pond. Barb Wire thought it was a good idea to let Pamela Anderson hold a firearm. Not to be left out of the nonsense, video game developers spent the better part of the 80's, 90's and 2000's predicting a totally wrong future that would never actually happen. How can we prove that? Because in most cases, we've already passed the eras where these ridiculous visions where supposed to take place. For example...

Remember how good you felt after watching Spider-Man 2? Like the world was a bright and friendly place? Or when the rover Opportunity discovered that water had once been on Mars? That was such a great moment! Humanity was watching “LOST” and preparing for that trip to the Statue of Liberty, which had finally reopened after years of security concerns. Times were good, right?

FNW > TMZ.

Wrong, said Splinter Cell. Shut that Statue of Liberty back down! Because in 2004, the world is in constant turmoil, with assassination after assassination leading to a crisis in which terrorists are hiding a secret nuclear bomb in the United States. Thankfully, Splinter Cell also predicts that night vision goggles will boast infinite batteries and sneaking suits will works perfectly in any environment (read: in the shadows). So while Splinter Cell believed hackers would fight over secret information that could lead to World War III, you can rest easy knowing the biggest threat to humanity in 2004 was Shrek 2.

In all seriousness, 2005 was a terrifying year. Hurricane Katrina nearly decimated one of America’s greatest cities. The Senate and House of Representatives were shocked by corruption scandals. And the deaths of cultural icons such as Rosa Parks and John Paul II left many people feeling lost and scared.

I mean, sure, why not.

So it’s kind of a relief that 2005 didn’t also go the way Konami predicted in Metal Gear Solid. There weren’t any nuclear mechs capable of killing all human life. No cybernetic ninjas to massacre armies. No super soldier clones designed to conquer the world. Even Solid Snake’s mullet was way, way out of style by 2005. And, worst case scenario, even if 2005’s President was a paramilitary sleeper agent as the game implied, George W. Bush kind of left office in 2009 anyway.

Street Fighter 2010 stars Ken, a martial artist who retires from the sport to focus on being a scientist, so right out the gate we're presented with probably the most ridiculous elevator pitch in video game history, and that's saying a lot.That's like if Evander Holyfield hung up his boxing gloves to work for NASA. Or if Stephen Hawking gave up being a theoretical physicist in order to become a Jamaican bobsled racer. Sorry, this is just a really confusing premise and we're having a hard time getting over it.

Strip clubs of the future look nicer than 

New Jersey strip clubs of the present.

Anyway, in Street Fighter 2010 (which was supposed to take place two actual real years ago) people can easily adapt to cybernetic robot appendages and travel to different solar systems via interplanetary pan-dimensional warp portals, none of which stopped them from having to wear sunglasses indoors constantly. You have no idea how much no-sense this makes. Actually, the most unbelievable part of this entire story is that Capcom would ever retire anything Street Fighter related, because that would never happen ever. See: every year when 47 different Street Fighter games are still released.

How did you celebrate New Year's Eve in 2009? Did you get together with some friends, pour a few glasses of Champagne and watch a then-still-mumbling Dick Clark ring in the new decade as an amplified, televised image of New York City squealed in the background?

A totally plausible glimpse of the future as decided by quirky programmers in the 80's.

Well that's cool, because in 1987, Capcom predicted that by the end of 2009 (or 200X, so any year in the early 2000's, really) every single tool, appliance, concept, or general noun in existence would be in a perpetual robotic war at the whim of two senile, old white guys with varying degrees of bad hair. Everything from box fans to Zippo lighters to magnets (how do they work?) would spring to life amidst a cybernetic dystopia riddled with mechanized wildlife and weird doors that you could float through. In reality, 2009 brought us the hit single "Right Round" by rapper Flo Rida, so you can go ahead and flip a coin to decide which version of our world turned out better.

How did you party like it was 1999? Did you spend it getting burned to death by molten rock as Lavos emerged from the depths of the Earth? Remember when you ran away from all those white-hot spines that destroyed all of human civilization except for a few underground holdouts? And you know you were born in the ‘90s if you had to program a robot with all of human knowledge so all progress made over the millennium wasn’t lost in a wave of death.

Yes, this is JUST like that Prince song about 1999.

Oh wait, none of that happened. Instead, the worst thing that happened in 1999 was Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. And while everyone was terrified of Y2K, the worst to come of it was a few confused digital clocks. Maybe Lavos was just distracted by all his Napster downloads and new episodes of The Sopranos. Unless he was more of an Analyze This fan.



Source : ign[dot]com

Play the Wreck-It Ralph Game Fix-It Felix

We’re already super-psyched for Wreck-It Ralph, Disney’s eagerly anticipated animated feature about a videogame villain who tires of being a baddie and so sets off on a game-hopping adventure to find his inner hero.

We’ve already examined the below trailer with a fine tooth comb to identify the Famous Faces of Wreck-It Ralph.

And now the filmmakers have released an online version of Fix-It Felix, the Donkey Kong-style game from which Ralph escapes.

Simply head to the Wreck-It Ralph website to play.

Source : ign[dot]com

Why Dishonored Was My Game of E3 2012

Arkane Studios treated show-goers to a meaty look at Dishonored during E3 2012. The game was playable at Bethesda’s stand, giving players access to a fully tooled up Corvo Atano (the lead protagonist) and letting them cut loose, mixing and matching powers and more traditional weapons to create some serious mayhem.

More revealing, however, was the behind closed doors demo component. A full half hour long, Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio, the co-creative directors on the game, used their time wisely, running attendees through two play-throughs of the same area to highlight how players can approach the same mission in radically different ways.

The mission? To infiltrate a bath house/brothel complex known as the Golden Cat and assassinate two targets: the Pendleton brothers, corrupt members of parliament.

Three soon to be dead guards.

The first run was all about stealth. There are apparently eight to ten ways to get into the Golden Cat in the first place, but for this play-through Corvo possessed a fish swimming in the water on the dockside of the complex and swam in through a vent. According to Smith, in the final game the brothers’ locations within the Cat will be randomised each time, and Corvo was able to glean their whereabouts by listening in on the staff’s chit chat. These were then marked within the game's HUD.

In both the demo and our hands-on, the ease with which stealth movement is handled is impressive. This is a game where measured players can have a real awareness of what’s around them, and stay in control. Crouched movement keeps the player silent, while the ability to lean out from behind corners without being seen is key to keeping tabs on the movements of guards. It’s immediately obvious whether a guard is blissfully unaware of the knife about to be plunged into his neck or not, because as soon as he’s alerted, graphic novel-style lightning bolt icons flash red above his head.

Corvo moved about the complex with style, either avoiding or knocking out guards, and using rooftops and windows ledges to his advantage. Of course, his many powers came in handy too. The key ones for the stealth run were Blink – which is essentially a short range teleport move, and invaluable for moving from cover to cover and crossing gaps; Dark Vision, which allows the player to see where guards and other people are through walls; and Possess, the aforementioned ability to merge your body with another, from fish and rats to humans. Powers are upgraded with runes, and these are found using a device called The Heart – a steampunk heart that players can hold in hand: it beats faster the closer Corvo is to a rune.

The kills themselves again highlighted how many options are at the player’s fingertips. One brother was in the steam room, so Corvo simply made his way to the heat controls next door and turned them up, cooking him alive. The other brother was entertaining a scantily clad, masked woman in an opulent bedroom. Corvo snuck in, possessed him and walked him out onto the balcony, locking the door behind him. He then hopped out and used Windblast to send him flying to his death.

Be gone!

The second run-through was pure carnage. Blinking right behind guards and straight into stabbing them through the neck, laying down traps that tear enemy soldiers apart, freezing time to fire crossbow bolts at guards for a simultaneous triple kill, setting rats on enemies, you name it. The hand-to-hand combat is fast-paced and smooth too, with a counter system that lets Corvo block then kill in one smooth motion if timed correctly. The action is incredibly visceral: Corvo is deadly with a knife, while attacks like Windblast can cleave enemies in two as they’re knocked back.

The key here, however, is that the wealth of moves and weapons mean the player can get insanely creative. With a weapon in one hand and a power assigned to the other, blinking into a kill, freezing time then setting a Spring Razor trap at the feet of guards, summoning rats then blasting guards in the face as they freak out, it’s all simple. Players can switch by bringing up a wheel of powers, but they can also assign four to hotkeys for menu-free switching.

One of the reasons Dishonored stood out so much is its gameplay is both rich and emergent. On several occasions, Harvey Smith (who was talking us through the action) pointed out moves that playtesters had simply invented, which the game design now actively supports. Players can survive falls from incredible heights, for instance, by targeting someone on ground level as they fall, and possessing them at the last second. Another cool move allows Corvo to cross large gaps – simply run and jump into space, then Blink in mid-air. Blink, incidentally, is the only power that can be used as often as the player likes – it has no resource cost.

The final example was actually after the main demo, in a separate area called the Flooded District. It's basically a neighbourhood that was once well-to-do but is now flooded and ruined. People with the plague in other districts get dumped over the wall to live out their last days here. Grim, eh? Anyway, the guards patrolling this area are on Tallboys – mechanical stilts that are very reminiscent in design of Half-Life 2 and City 17. Players are able to use Windblast to blow their incendiary arrows back at them. “This was not something we planned for,” said Smith, “but something we supported once we discovered it.” Awesome. Players can also possess Tallboys to walk through to restricted areas without triggering an alarm.

While the entire game is set within one city, this isn't an open-world title; it's a linear set of missions, but each mission is a very deliberately crafted sandbox, with numerous paths for the player and almost unlimited options. It's a great approach, as it emphasises player freedom, while ensuring the world design can be succinct. That said, the way you play will have an impact across the wider game; if you simply kill everyone that stands in your way you'll wind up with a much darker end-game than if you opted for stealth. And yes, players can get through the entire game without killing anyone (presumably other than assassination targets).

Dishonored’s main strength is definitely its gameplay, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that it’s also very easy on the eyes. The art direction takes inspiration from 1850s American whaling towns and Victorian England, but through the lens of a graphic novel. It’s like a painting in motion, and makes the often brutal violence - decapitating guards, people getting ripped to shreds or devoured by rats – a little more comic in tone than it might otherwise have been. There are shades of City 17 and steampunk in there too.

In a show dominated by bombastic, action affairs that seem to take more inspiration from Hollywood than Half-Life, Dishonored is a breath of fresh air, and with less than four months until release, it’s not going to be long until we find out whether it truly can make the most of its wealth of gameplay potential.



Source : ign[dot]com

E3 2012: Brave hands-on

Movie-based video games aren’t always that great, especially when they’re based on an animated film. Disney Interactive Studios has been breaking that trend, especially when it comes to Disney-PIXAR movies. Both Cars 2 and Toy Story 3 were really good games. Now, they’re trying to continue their success with their upcoming release of Brave, based on the Disney-PIXAR film. I got some hands-on time with Brave at E3 this past week.

Brave is going to be released on all major platforms, but when I tried it out it was on Xbox 360. Brave is a third-person action game that puts you in the role of Merida. It’s your standard fare of melee and ranged attacks, with melee assigned to the face buttons and ranged attacks handled by the right analog stick—giving it a twin-stick shooter feel. With all off your attacks, you can scroll through four different elements to use with your attacks, such as fire, wind, and earth. These elements will help you against certain enemies. For instance, an enemy that is made of ice will be susceptible to fire.

The other element of the game, besides action, is puzzles. As Merida or the little, cute bear cubs, you solve puzzle segments based on logic or the elements you can equip. The ones I encountered were easy, but seeing as this game is geared toward a younger audience, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

As you progress through the game, you will be able to unlock new attack combinations, swords, bows, and outfits. You will also be able to upgrade the effectiveness or your abilities and elements. However, I didn’t see a difference in the weapons besides the obvious visual difference.

Co-op is available with a friend. The first player will play as Merida and the friend as a Will O’ the Wisp. It’s pretty much a wisp—a mystical blue cloud that can do attacks and cycle through elements just like the first player. The unfortunate part is that the camera only follows the first player, so sometimes your friends won’t be able to see where they are.

While the platforming is solid, the game doesn’t quite have the visual flair that Toy Story 3 and Cars 2 had. By no means is it bad, but it doesn’t live up to movie trailer or other Disney Interactive Studios games. As vibrant as Merida’s hair is in every piece of advertisement you see with the movie, the video game just doesn’t have that same vibrance.

Brave the Video Game also comes with Kinect of PlayStation Move functionality with an archery mini-game.

If you’re looking for a kid-friendly third-person action game, Brave is more than capable of filling need. It has fun platforming segments, puzzles, action, multiplayer, and the charm of the movie. Brave is scheduled to release on June 19, 2012 on all major platforms.

Source : gamezone[dot]com

PS Vita Firmware Update 1.69 Available Now

New firmware is available for PlayStation Vita. Update 1.69 is entirely optional to download, and according to Sony’s Eric Lempel, it’s designed to “[improve] software stability.”

Update 1.69 is 97 MB in size and should download fairly quickly. Remember: if the update is going slowly, you can always attach your Vita to your PlayStation 3, which should let it download faster.

Other than improving “software stability,” does Update 1.69 also open the door for new additions promised soon, such as YouTube and PSone Classic support? Only time will tell!



Source : ign[dot]com