Our own Matthew Petras had a recent chat with Jesus Fabre, the Social Media Manager and PR for Aquiris. Here’s what he had to say: 1. Why did you opt for a premium model without any micro-transactions? “Our studio has a previous history of successful premium games, also that monetization model was the one we …
Bloodborne is almost certainly going to remain the best video game release of this year whenever the final days of December roll around. Complete with its always challenging, rewarding combat, its gorgeous, arresting, unrelenting gothic horror atmosphere, its expertly designed environments that cohesively form a single, breathing world, Bloodborne is exceptional. Only now, around five …
As I write this piece in my college dorm, my favorite Smash Bros.-themed Amiibos from my vast collection are to my right, and a playlist of competitive Smash for Wii U matches is playing on my iPad to my left. I didn’t think to put this playlist on to get me in the mood to …
A comic artist with experience at DC Comics is writing and drawing his first original story, a new comic called AXCEND tackling heavy concepts flavored with video games for Image Comics, out on Oct. 7.
Home to the Oscars, Bethesda held its first ever E3 press conference at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles Sunday night. COO and vice-president of Bethesda Softworks, Pete Hines was the designated host of the evening. Unfortunately, there was little surprise on the games announced. Fallout 4 was revealed a week ago, Doom got a …
The premise seems familiar enough: it’s the not-too-distant future and Earth is under attack by aliens. The “Mimics” arrived by an errant asteroid and now they have taken over half of continental Europe. To help combat these hyper-intelligent aliens, humans wear armored combat suits fitted with rocket launchers and side-guns. One might even confuse the …
In 2013, The Rock was named the highest grossing actor of the year with his films pulling in a combined $1.3 billion. Things were not always this great for The Rock though. When he first started out his initial run of action movies in search of action stardom, he didn’t have much luck. The Rundown and Walking Tall, while perfectly fine action films on their own, both underperformed at the box office. Then came Doom, which was either going to be his third strike or his home run. It ended up being the former, causing two things to happen – The Rock’s action career disintegrated for 6 more years, and the belief that video game adaptations are unsuccessful was bolstered.
Now that the shine of E3 has worn off, we can finally look back on all of the conferences with a level head. Who am I kidding? I’m way too excited about Mario Maker to analyze the gameplay for Nintendo’s conference fairly. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m actually prepared to buy a Nintendo Wii U now.
It’s interesting to consider how for many of us, games have been growing up with us. Atlus’ Catherine serves as a prime example of this phenomenon. Having been developed by a team who grew and matured as games themselves did the same, it simultaneously reaches much of the gaming audience as they confront the very issues addressed within it.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m a sucker for westerns. The lone cowboy and his trusty horse roaming the open and untamed land is admittedly romantic, but I also find it incredibly thrilling. A time filled with endless possibilities and complex stories that go beyond the good guy/bad guy dynamic. After all, the good guys don’t always have to wear white.
The past week saw two rather interesting pieces of news. The first was the financial report of publishing giant Square Enix for the fiscal year ending March 31 2014. Happily, they posted profits to the tune of $65 million; a huge step up from last year’s disastrous $134 million net loss. Crediting the turnaround to …
Rarely, if ever, is a game so exceedingly great it warrants a remake only a year after release. This is, however, the case with The Last of Us, the late PS3 entry from Naughty Dog (the Uncharted series) that is coming to the PS4 in the way of The Last of Us: Remastered. Perhaps this is merely an effort …
For fans of the show, South Park: Stick of Truth is a necessary addition to their gaming library. Plenty of video games attempt to capture the spirit of a television show or movie, but none has been as successful as Stick of Truth.
Okami is one of the most beautiful games to watch come to life on screen. Some might find the computer generated voices and large amounts of reading off putting. However, as someone who has practically grown up inside a book, Okami is simply an animated novel that I am able to interact with.
The first Silent Hill game introduced us to a very different version of the survival horror genre we had come to know. Before its release, it was only the jump scares and twitch action of the Resident Evil series that most players were really familiar with. Silent Hill would come to shake up that formula dramatically.
Stealth as a video game genre was a pretty hard sell in the 90’s. In a time period when the medium was barely outgrowing its infancy, the idea of giving the player less action instead of more seemed ludicrous.
There are an almost infinite number of issues that can come into play when choosing to critique something that has been created by someone else. Examples include everything from personal bias to life experience to cultural fatigue to rampant fanboyism. These issues are further compounded in the gaming medium. A place of constant competition, not …
Fear. It seems to me that when it comes to Dark Souls II, fear is the name of the game. However, as time goes on, that fear is gradually replaced with daring, a daring that slowly becomes bravery until finally the game is mastered, and you’re filled with a feeling of great satisfaction, even confidence.
Something has quietly occurred over this soon-to-pass gaming generation, something that has never been seen before in the previous five or so eras of our favorite past time. For some reason people are continuing to sink hour after hour into games that they’ve already beaten. What is this strange phenomena that has allowed for the …
As a teenager, I felt I would never age. Yet I also knew I would, and more than that, I could anticipate that when I did, everything would change. So I stood then, with confused ideas about time. The future would never arrive, yet it was also imminent. Now, my teenage years were horribly boring and sexless, so I was certainly looking forward to some sort of revolution. It was only a matter of emerging out the far side of high school, into the end of the world as I knew it. Life is a succession of points of no return, and if we find apocalyptic stories about crashing asteroids and alien invasions so absorbing, it might be because they exaggerate this fact. Popular fiction brims with characters who undergo processes of self-discovery while everything around them burns, from The Lord of the Rings to Akira. Watershed moments can be as monumental as they can be personal and private, and though graduating high school or parting with your family are not exactly comparable to a tidal wave, such commonplace events can inspire fear and trembling regardless.
It is something of a crime that the Metroid series has long been akin to the forgotten middle child of Nintendo’s family, the one that is oft ignored in favor of its too more prolific and popular siblings: Mario and Zelda. With several top tier games under its belt, and the many iconic moments it’s contributed to the gaming world, the Metroid series is more than deserving of its due among the Nintendo Big 3.
You know, there was a time, about 15 years ago, when this whole Resident Evil idea was pretty damn exciting. Sure, Alone in the Dark had already pioneered the survival horror thing, but it was Resident Evil that had ironed out its kinks and presented it to the mainstream in a package which they would hopelessly devour like the ravenous creatures that they were.
For backers of the crowd-funded, game project titled, The Banner Saga, the release of the game a couple of weeks ago was a welcome sight. The game was originally funded via Kickstarter on April 20th, 2012 and raised over $700,000 USD — seven time the amount Stoic was seeking. The additional funds went into the overall quality of the game and helped the creators of the game expand upon the story they wanted to tell. Described as a “mature, story-driven, turn-based strategy game steeped in viking culture”, Stoic sought to offer a gaming experience that isn’t offered as much anymore. Now that the game has been release, or at least the first Act of it, fans and backers can now try their hand and take in a compelling story.