Videogames Archives - Page 7 of 178

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

RPadholic N8R and I are heading down to Long Beach later today to ~~sip some gin and juice with Snoop Dogg~~ cover Vapetoberfest. We had a great time at last month’s Electronic Cigarette Convention in Anaheim and snagged 18 video interviews. Hopefully Vapetoberfest will be similarly fun and productive.

While I’m at the show, I’ll be playing one of the secret games that I was consulting on. There are a few aspects of secret game that annoy the hell out of me, but I’m very much addicted. My excellent friend Paul (please read his web site!) gave me his copy of Beyond: Two Souls and I’m really looking forward to giving that game a whirl when I get back. Of course if Nate and I get some solid content from Vapetoberfest then I’ll be editing videos for at least a week, so I’ll just have to be content with staring at Beyond’s box. Ha!

How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?

PETA Still Hates Nintendo: Pokemon Red, White, & Blue

The morons at PETA have released another Pokemon parody to take advantage of the hype surrounding Pokemon X and Pokemon Y. The latest misguided attempt to raise awareness to the organization’s cause is Pokemon Red, White, & Blue. This time around, the group is challenging people to evolve (get it?!?) by urging them to become vegetarian or vegan. Here’s an excerpt from the campaign:

For generations, humans have loved Pokémon, but if Pokémon came to our world and saw how we treated animals, would they love us back? Be a hero for real-life animals by pledging to try vegan.

With the huge selection of delicious vegan meats and alternatives to dairy foods and eggs available, there’s no excuse not to give a vegan diet a try. We’ll send you delicious recipes and tips for living cruelty-free to help you along the way.

Some of you will recall that PETA has a history of picking on wholesome and harmless Nintendo games. In the past, it went after Super Mario Bros. 3D Land with Super Tanooki Skin 2D and attacked Pokemon with Pokemon Black & Blue.

While there are certainly several great reasons to become vegan or vegetarian — both for personal health and the good of the environment — it’s hard to take PETA seriously given its history with Nintendo. When you see mainstream media go after Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty, you can see how a violent videogame can be taken out of context to blame social disorders and further an agenda. Exploiting a Super Mario Bros. game or a Pokemon game is just dumb. At worse, those games aren’t the least bit offensive. At best, they’re quite positive. Twisting them in a negative way in order to push your message is pathetic.

Personally, I would love to be vegan or vegetarian. After thinking about PETA’s use of Pokemon to push a meat-free agenda, I want to devour a Smith & Wollensky ribeye.

Anyway, what do you think of PETA’s latest use of Nintendo characters to promote its agenda? Do you agree that it’s a bad way to push a good message? Would any of you like to join me for some all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ in PETA’s honor?

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What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I recently finished two fairly involved consulting gigs, but I’m still playing both of the games for said gigs. Part of it is that I want to make sure that I didn’t miss anything and part of it is addiction. I’ve been playing both of those mystery titles hardcore and it would feel weird to quit them cold turkey. Hopefully my buddy Paul will let me borrow his copy of Beyond: Two Souls. I’d love to start that game. The reviews indicate that it has many of the elements that I loved in previous Quantic Dream titles. Aside from that, I have a ton of vaping reviews to catch up on…before I fall behind again due to the upcoming Vapetoberfest con.

So how about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?

This Week’s Videogame Releases

It is a marvelous week to be a gamer! Millions of people will be picking up Pokemon X and Pokemon Y this week. As someone that spent 700+ hours on Pokemon Pearl and a former writer of a weekly Pokemon column, I’m completely psyched for this game. Another one that’s high on my personal wish list is Beyond: Two Souls. Most of my videogame-journalist friends love it, but a few of them aren’t into it. It really depends how much of a Quantic Dream mark you are. As many of you know, I’m a big-time mark for Quantic Dream games. Fans of awesomely quirky and wickedly deep tactical RPGs should definitely pick up Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness. I absolutely love that series. Honestly, between the three games I just mentioned, I could be a happy gamer for the rest of the year (and more). Lastly, two game-of-the-year editions are hitting store shelves, for those of you that have missed them: Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition and Dishonored: Game of the Year Edition.

So, any of you picking up new games this week?

Plastic Piranha Jason Brice Talks Rekoil

Watch Plastic Piranha president & CEO Jason Brice talk about his upcoming game Rekoil. This first-person shooter for Windows PC and Xbox 360 emphasizes skill and balanced gameplay. In the interview, Brice talks about Rekoil’s various modes and different weapons, as well as what makes the game stand out from the competition. While I enjoyed several deathmatch rounds of the game, one of the things that charmed me about Rekoil was the little details. For example, it has a capture-the-briefcase mode instead of a capture-the-flag mode and it has black barrels that explode instead of those deadly red ones we all fear. Those flourishes aside, a lot of hardcore shooter fans have been high on Rekoil. While Brice agrees that it’s a “pure shooter,” he also explains why it’s great for casual fans of first-person shooters.

For more information on Rekoil be sure to check out this excellent preview on PaulSemel.com.

Plastic Piranha Jason Brice Interview

Here’s a short interview with Plastic Piranha president and CEO Jason Brice. For those of you not familiar with the company, it’s the developer of the upcoming first-person shooter Rekoil. Going from movie marketing to creating a hardcore first-person shooter sounds like an odd career path, but that’s the one Jason Brice has followed. Listen to him talk about his coworkers recreating a Call of Duty level in the office to creating CoD maps to creating Battlefield 2142 maps to starting his own development studio. Due to his atypical and unique background, Jason Brice is particularly passionate about giving gamers powerful and robust mod tools for Rekoil.

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been playing a secret game for a secret job for a secret company. There have been some aspects of it that I’ve greatly enjoyed, but also some aspects that annoy the hell out of me. Based on the gameplay alone, I don’t think it’s something I’d keep playing. However, the license it uses holds my attention and there are definitely some addictive aspects to the game (at least for RPG nerds). All that aside, I’m enjoying the job a great deal. It’s certainly better than coal mining. With the biggest game of 2013 already released and several hot titles hitting this month, I’m curious to see what everyone is playing.

So how about it? What’s on your weekend playlist?

This Week’s Videogame Releases

With the Yankees 2013 season ending in failure, I’m ditching baseball and getting psyched for the 2013-2014 NBA season. NBA 2K14 should be a great help. I have no idea how this season will end, but when I play, the Miami Heat will not win another title. I know that many of you regular RPadholics aren’t big on the Nintendo 3DS platform, but there are a pair of lovely JRPGs hitting the Nintendo handheld this week: Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl and Rune Factory 4. Lastly, Ubi Soft has a pair of trilogy bundles for those looking to maximize their gaming dollars: Assassin’s Creed Ezio Trilogy Edition and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Trilogy Edition.

So, any of you picking up new games this week?

Need For Speed Movie Trailer

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming Need For Speed movie starring Aaron Paul. The vibe I’m getting is…not so good. Need For Speed looks like a dumber version of Fast & Furious. The charming thing with the Fast & Furious franchise is that it didn’t take itself too seriously; there was a certain amount of cleverness in its stupidity. By comparison, Need For Speed appears to take itself seriously and looks completely vapid. Plus, Aaron Paul doesn’t have the cute learning disability that makes Paul Walker so mesmerizing.

Speaking of which, I had to look up Aaron Paul on IMDB. His credentials aren’t that impressive. To be fair, it’s tough competing with Walker, Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, etc. In addition to having a flaccid leading man, Need For Speed doesn’t have the babe concentration that made the Fast & Furious movies so appealing to men (fast cars and hot women are a winning formula).

On the plus side, the movie doesn’t look budget. I was totally expecting Need For Speed to be a ghetto version of Fast & Furious. The production values in the trailer are very high and the action sequences look expensive to make. At the very least, the movie will have a few thrilling minutes.

One possible savior is Michael Keaton. The man is an incredible actor that’s equally adept at comedy and drama. It’s possible that Keaton could have a few scene-stealers that make Need For Speed entertaining. Yeah, it’s probably wishful thinking on my part, but I’m hoping that 10 minutes of excellent action and a handful of Michael Keaton showstoppers will make Need For Speed tolerable at worst and surprisingly fun at best.

Anyway, check out the clip below and let me know what you think of the Need For Speed movie trailer (please!). Is it something you’d see in theaters, wait to see on Blu-ray, or accidentally watch it when it’s on cable/satellite?

Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns Opening Cinematic

Embedded below is the opening cinematic for Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 3. The five-minute clip is a typical Square Enix cinematic, which is to say that it has some of the most gorgeous visuals you’ll see on a console. Keep in mind that some of the details are lost due to YouTube compression, but I assure you that the Lightning Returns video is quite dazzling. The clip shows several familiar faces and some new ones. As you’ve probably figured out, Lightning isn’t dead, which kind of makes her the Jean Grey of the Final Fantasy universe — she’s alive, she’s dead, no wait she’s alive again, lather and repeat as needed.

Many longtime fans have blasted the Final Fantasy XIII series, but I’ve enjoyed it. Yes, it’s quite different from the older games and the exploration aspects are either non-existent or minimal, but the games’ others aspects have entertained me. With that in mind, I’m really looking forward to Lightning Returns. I’m curious to learn about how she came back and to see how her conflict with Snow is resolved. That said, I’m sure there will be plenty of other details that will confuse the hell out of me.

While I’m certain that the graphics, gameplay, and music will be strong, I’m only mildly hopeful about Lightning Returns‘ story. It’s true that several Square Enix stories make more sense with iteration (it took more than a decade, a PSP prequel, and an animated feature for Final Fantasy VII to make sense), but many gamers still find several Square Enix tales confounding. I love me some Kingdom Hearts, for example, but I need to keep the Wikipedia page handy to keep up with the plot and characters.

Anyway, check out the Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns opening cinematic below and let me know what you think of it (please!). Are you excited for the game? Is it a day-one purchase for you?