Saints Row: The Third stars Lara Croft, Christina Hendricks, and Zack from Dead or Alive. At least my playthrough did. The game, like its predecessor, lets players change their appearance any time for any reason. As the leader of the street gang turned international celebrities (The Saints), you can duck into a plastic surgeon’s office at any time and change from an Elvira look-alike to a 300-pound blue-skinned cross-dresser with a beehive hairdo and a pink Snidely Whiplash mustache; and your fellow gang members won’t bat an eye. It’s also worth noting that this is probably the least absurd thing about the game and its story.
The Third doubles down on what made Saints Row 2 a notable game in a post-Grand Theft Auto IV world. It opens on your gang robbing a bank in order to give a ride-along actor inspiration for his upcoming role in a Saints Row movie. The mission begins with your gang barging in disguised as giant bobble-headed versions of Saints superstar Johnny Gat. The heist gets foiled not by the cops, but by an international crime syndicate that would feel more at home on The Venture Brothers than in Grand Theft Auto. The Saints are told that they can either pony up the majority of their profits to “the Syndicate,” or die. The leader chooses the former option and guns down armed goons, jumps out of the plane, kills enemies in mid-air, pulls the parachute only to crash through the windshield of the same plane, free-falls through the entire cabin (killing enemies the entire way through), falls back out of the plane, catches a parachute-free Saint on the way down, and lands safely. That’s just the tutorial. Then it’s time to raid an army base for supplies.
Four reasons you might not want to cite the Assassin’s series in your next term paper.
By: Scott Sharkey November 9, 2011
Assassin’s Creed has a knack for weaving scientific and historical facts in and out of a fantastical tale of ancient conspiracies and hilarious ultra-violence. Meanwhile, for all the time we spend marveling at accurately presented old world architecture and associated historical factoids, we spend almost as much time twitching one eye at ludicrous oversights and inaccuracy. Sure, it’s a rollicking James Bond-esque tale where reality sometimes takes a back seat to spectacle and action. We’re prepared to accept stuff like ol’ Leo DaVinci’s prototype parachute actually accomplishing anything besides turning your assassin ass into piazza pizza, but sometimes the game goes beyond Hudson Hawk levels of crazy and takes our suspension of disbelief out behind the barn and shoots it in the back of the head with an unerringly accurate 16th century automatic handgun.
Unerringly Accurate 16th Century Automatic Handguns
Four reasons you might not want to cite the Assassin’s series in your next term paper.
By: Scott Sharkey November 9, 2011
Assassin’s Creed has a knack for weaving scientific and historical facts in and out of a fantastical tale of ancient conspiracies and hilarious ultra-violence. Meanwhile, for all the time we spend marveling at accurately presented old world architecture and associated historical factoids, we spend almost as much time twitching one eye at ludicrous oversights and inaccuracy. Sure, it’s a rollicking James Bond-esque tale where reality sometimes takes a back seat to spectacle and action. We’re prepared to accept stuff like ol’ Leo DaVinci’s prototype parachute actually accomplishing anything besides turning your assassin ass into piazza pizza, but sometimes the game goes beyond Hudson Hawk levels of crazy and takes our suspension of disbelief out behind the barn and shoots it in the back of the head with an unerringly accurate 16th century automatic handgun.
Unerringly Accurate 16th Century Automatic Handguns
Following the 3D remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for 3DS, Majora’s Mask seems like the natural choice for Nintendo’s next remake project. The company is instead working on an original Zelda game for 3DS because it didn’t want to release back-to-back remakes. While Majora’s Mask 3D may end up happening — fans asking for it will only help its chances — it’s not the only Zelda game that may end up with a 3D remake.
Earlier this year, Shigeru Miyamoto talked about how more game remakes on 3DS are a lock. When it comes to Zelda, it’s A Link to the Past he’d like to see next.
Even as our consumer rights are slowly whittled away by binding arbitration clauses, draconian DRM, and “online passes,” we gamers still remain an awfully spoiled lot. And if you don’t believe me, here’s a stunning example: the asking price of the original NES Metal Gear in 1988? 50 American dollars. The cost of a fully remastered bundle containing Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (not to mention bonus remakes of the original MSX Metal Gears 1 and 2), purchased in 2011? 50 American dollars. As a pure value proposition, that’s nearly impossible to beat; and, given the amount of finely crafted video game content contained in this little package, it’s unlikely that you’ll find a better disc to grace the system of your choice — though it helps to be on board with the polarizing quirks of the Metal Gear series.
As a disclaimer, I feel it necessary to admit I’m a fan of most things Metal Gear, though it’s equally important to inform you that I haven’t let fanboyism shield me from its many flaws. Regardless of its various missteps, though, Metal Gear remains one of the few gaming franchises that exists solely as an auteurist expression, something that’s becoming increasingly rare in these design-by-committee days of game development. That said, either you jive with Hideo Kojima’s unique brand of lunacy, or you don’t; and no amount of high-def polish is going to change your mind. While the Peace Walker portion of this collection has been granted a much-needed overhaul to controls and online play, parts 2 and 3 are simply prettier — and these were very pretty games to begin with. Many would argue this collection provides the perfect opportunity to revamp the odd controls of Solids 2 and 3 (which were idiosyncratic at the time), but you only have to look at how Silicon Knights’ attempt to do just this in The Twin Snakes resulted in a horribly broken game — and besides, it’s highly unlikely that Hideo Kojima would allow Bluepoint Games to alter even a byte of his legacy.
Peter Moore wears his career on his sleeve…or, more exactly, his arms. Sources differ on whether the Halo 2 tattoo he famously brandished at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo is still there or not, but regardless of its current status, it reflects the brash personality he’s brought to Sega, Microsoft and Electronic Arts during his time at each outfit. In August he was promoted to COO at EA, the position he used to have at Sega of America, making him once again one of the most powerful men in the game business.
He sat down with Japan’s Famitsu magazine for a long interview this week, and — despite the original Xbox’s Asian struggles during his time at Microsoft — Moore sounded remarkably upbeat about the Japanese market in general. “Japan is a very active market,” he said, “and I think it’s really got this spirit of always trying something new. The Japan game industry, in particular, is really unique in its passion and its cutting-edge technology — those two things, combined, I think lets it run with anyone else in the world. I remember during my time at Sega, when Tetsuya Mizuguchi created Sega Rally; watching people have lots of fun playing it on dial-up. I really had to respect the drive among Japanese creators to always pursue new things.”
Rather than playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 today (and struggling to register for Elite like many others), an 18-year-old man is spending time in jail after attempting to rob another man of the game at gunpoint.
Last night, a 27-year-old man (neither individual was identified by name) was followed home from a GameStop store following a midnight launch for Modern Warfare 3. After he parked, the suspect pulled his car up, blocking the victim in. After pulling out a gun and demanding the game be handed over, the victim reportedly shouted an expletive before the two began to wrestle for control of the gun.
Battlefield doesn’t do “map packs.” At least, that’s the key talking point EA wanted writers to walk away with after sinking a few hours into the first “expansion pack” for Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand. It seems that DICE and EA want to conjure up images of shooter expansion packs of old, rather than the IV drip of DLC that modern games offer players. Back to Karkand will include four new maps, but it also offers three new vehicles (including a sweet looking VTOL F-35B), five new dog tags, ten new weapons, and five new Achievements/Trophies. A hefty package to be sure, especially by today’s standards. However, the phrase “expansion pack” seems a bit forced — Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII this is not.
I’d love to tell you about all the new weapons and vehicles, but we don’t actually get a chance to touch them in our three hours playing the game on PS3 at EA’s offices. We start out with level one soldiers — denying us the opportunity to check out the new weapons — and the versions of the maps we play lacked the fancy new vehicles. We do however get to spend those three hours exploring two of the new maps available.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 — whether you like it or not, and whether you support it or not — will be acknowledged by gamers in one way or another. Because of this, we wanted to offer you, the reader, multiple perspectives on this attention-grabbing game. We asked Jose Otero (the FPS-but-not-COD-guy), and Tina Palacios (the in-house COD-veteran), to offer their thoughts on arguably the biggest game of the year.
Tina Palacios: When gamers think of a new Call of Duty being released, there’re plenty of constants they can depend on: There’s a new one each year; it’ll have a five to seven hour (action-packed) campaign; a heavily played multiplayer mode; and some sort of co-op mode. So when we went to see everything Modern Warfare 3 has to offer, we went in with plenty of expectations.
Set for release in Japan in February next year, the Ace Attorney movie is gearing up for a three month marketing blitz. Directed by Takashi Miike (Dead or Alive; Ichi the Killer) Gyakuten Saiban as it’s called in Japan is, according to the trailer, set in a dystopian near-future Japan where a stressed criminal justice system has limited trials to three days with a presumption of guilt unless proven otherwise.
The trailer is filled with scenery and words that fans of the series will instantly recognize. It features multiple screams of igi ari (objection) and kurae (Take that!) as well as what looks like most of the cast and clients from the first Ace Attorney game. It’s clear that in typical Miike fashion, the movie is leaving reality behind with clairvoyance, ghosts, and all the other trappings of the series.
