Masters of Reality: By Pierst178
Why Tomb Raider Failed as a Reboot: By biggest_looser
If the rumors are true: 5 reasons the next Xbox will fail: By -Saigo-
BioShock Infinite: Baptism of the Human Heart: By adusenbery
and  The Zone of Influence: How Paratext can change our experiences with games: By tom_cat_01

These are features that are picked no by community members, but by GameSpot staff, myself, and Carolyn Petit. 

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ZENO CLASH - For PC - Review by Bamul

The human minds creative imagination and the work of a talented team of developers can create something truly special.

Difficulty: Just Right
Time Spent: 10 Hours or Less
The Bottom Line: "Surprisingly good"

INTRODUCTION:
How many first-person fighting games have you played? No, Im not talking about the Elder Scrolls series or Mirrors Edge. Sure, those games allow you to punch and kick from a first-person camera perspective, but that isnt their main point. Personally I dont think Ive ever played a first-person fighting game before, so you can imagine how intrigued I was when I saw Zeno Clash for the first time. What is this? A first-person fighting game? Well, thats unusual. I had never gotten around to buying it until the Steam Christmas Sale of 2012. After finishing it, I decided that I should share my opinion of the game with you.

REVIEW:
The first thing that makes Zeno Clash stand out is the unique artistic style of its visuals. I dont know what ACE Team (the developers of the game) were smoking when they made this, but the game sure does look really trippy. Remember the Shivering Isles expansion for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? Giant yellow mushrooms, rooms turning into butterflies - that sort of stuff. Well, if you took that and multiplied it by crazy times five then youd get Zeno Clash, and this is one of its strongest points.

Everything from the creature design to NPCs, weapons and environments looks fantastical. Most of the enemies you will fight are hybrids of different animals, like chickens, pigs, fish, elephants and so on, but with human features applied to their appearance. Its a really interesting world that they made for this game, full of vibrant colours, funky shapes and imaginative designs. These great visuals are used to create moments of baffling folly or enchanting beauty, and neither of these ever disappoints.

Zeno Clashs plot is just as strange as its graphics. The story is set in a fantasy realm called Zenozoik. As the player, you take on the role of Ghat - a man who wakes up after triggering an explosion that kills Father-Mother, a seemingly hermaphroditic being and Ghats supposed parent. Ghat belonged to Father-Mothers large and powerful family of offspring until discovering a dark secret and attacking his parent in result. Consequently, Ghat is banished from the family and forced to flee from his numerous revengeful siblings. On this journey he is accompanied by Deadra, a female companion who attempts to save him from apathetic madness and I wont spoil any more than that.

This story, as well as the world that it takes place in, might not and most probably will not make any sense to you when you start playing the game. The basics of the plot are simple enough, but all the little details beyond the outline seem nonsensical. However, this is all part of the games abstract themes, and the best forms of abstract art dont explain everything, thus leaving much to be explained by the viewers imagination and their own interpretation of whats what. If you look deeper into some of this narratives aspects - such as: the names of various characters, their appearance, the dialogue between them, the atmosphere of each environment and so on - then you might find some profound meanings and messages behind it all. If not, then at least the characters are likeable and fascinating.

As I mentioned earlier, Zeno Clash is one of the very few games out there that are considered first-person fighting games. Its been tried before, but it rarely worked because melee combat usually looks and feels very clumsy from this perspective. Zeno Clash actually manages to create something fairly original, innovative and most importantly it works! It does get a bit clunky at times, as the camera occasionally turns in an uncomfortable direction when punching a targeted enemy.

At first, the gameplay itself consists of mostly hand-to-hand combat. A diverse array of punch, kick, elbow and knee attacks (with various levels of speed and power) can be used to knock out hostiles. The lock-on option can be used to ensure that all of your strikes land on the chosen opponent. Later on in the game, a selection of weapons appears - some very creative designs of ranged armaments and a few simpler, bludgeoning tools can be used to defeat heavier foes. Its not perfect, but still highly entertaining with engaging action, challenging enemies and brutally satisfying combat. The level progression is linear, with some cutscenes in between segments of gameplay - which is a shame since it would have been a blast to explore Zenozoik in an open world environment.

The satisfaction in combat is achieved through not only well-animated characters, but also outstanding sound effects that make each punch feel impactful. The quality of the audio is equally awesome in the music, with strange tunes of many different types to match Zenozoiks oddness. The voice acting of each character is good, but nothing exceptional and there are no standout performances. The lines could have been spoken with more emotion, but instead many of the actors sound a bit confused. This is unexpected and unusual, which suits the rest of the games tone. Other less-humanoid creatures make bizarrely beastly sounds.

Now lets summarize what Zeno Clash is like:

GAMEPLAY - 8.5/10 (Great)
Its an interesting mix of melee and ranged combat, as well as being one of the very few first-person fighting games to work so well.

STABILITY - 8/10 (Impressive)
Apart from occasional freezes in menus with music glitches and other bugs present in most Source engine games, Zeno Clash is very playable.

STORY - 7.5/10 (Good)
Its well-written and makes enough sense to be understandable, but a lot has to be interpreted and sometimes perhaps its a bit too much.

GRAPHICS - 10/10 (Marvellous)
Technologically decent graphics, the human minds creative imagination and the work of a talented team of developers form something truly extraordinary.

SOUND - 8.5/10 (Great)
Sound effects add satisfying impact to combat, voice acting suits the narrative and the soundtrack is packed full of fittingly strange music.

LONGEVITY - 4/10 (Unsatisfactory)
Consider the facts: this game normally costs  6.99, but the singleplayer is under 4 hours long and there is no multiplayer some games are meant to be short, but considering the price, this is unfair. You could wait until another sale and buy it for  0.69 like I did (then its more than worth it), but that doesnt change the fact that the original price is off-putting.

When small and new developers from different places around the world come up with fresh, new and ingenious ideas like Zeno Clash, I grow more & more interested in the indie scene. Not bound by an oppressive publisher, ACE Team has managed to create something great. Not everyone may like this game, but its certainly something different and, for me, Zeno Clash is something special now if only it cost a bit less or was a bit longer. With news of a sequel coming sometime in 2013, lets hope this promising series gets the bigger budget that it deserves and reaches an even higher standard of quality.

OVERALL RATING 7.5/10 (Good)

If you liked this review, please give it a thumbs-up at: http://uk.gamespot.com/zeno-clash/user-reviews/811635/

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When I played the Halo 4 campaign I had that feeling. Halo 4 has changed drastically from the Halo I grew up with. The campaign is eerily reminiscent of Call of Duty. The first in game breaks in which Master Chief pushes a button seem out of place. In a way its glorifying a lackluster action that can be overlooked. The sole purpose of the first person actions is to make it more cinematic and Call of Duty-like.

The Call of Duty theme comes up time and time again. Halo 4 sports the same interactive gameplay elements that Call of Duty made popular. Remember climbing the glacier in Modern Warfare 2? Youll see those elements here. While its not bad, it just doesnt feel like Halo. I feel like Im playing a Call of Duty spinoff. This feeling is worsened by a change in the Needler inflicts damage. Every time a needle hits you, there is virtually no damage inflicted. The damage is only inflicted after the needles explode. While this seems trivial, it drastically impacts gameplay. I dont always realize when Im getting shot with a Needler and die seemingly randomly.

The story behind Halo 4 would have had me in tears had my roommate not been breaking my immersion every three seconds. I think it might very well be the most emotional game Ive ever played, at least the most emotional Halo game. Cortana has gone rampant, and the interaction between Master Chief and Cortana is incredibly well done. My only gripe is that it was too short. I miss Halo 2s long campaign. I completed Halo 4 in only about six hours. There was so much missed potential between Chief and Cortana due to the campaigns brevity. I would have loved to see their interactions play out for a longer period of time before the credits role. 

The story also ties in perfectly to the Forward Unto Dawn short films. The new characters have unique personalities, although Master Chief doesnt have long lasting relationships akin to his relationship with the Arbiter or Johnson. The new faces fade as soon as they come. One of the most interesting characters is a female O.D.S.T. although she only appears in two or three scenes. Shes the perfect candidate for a series long partner. The story however is a solemn tale of the struggles between two close friends, so I can understand why they didnt introduce that many new characters. The narrative focuses beautifully on Cortana and Chief.

While it feels a lot more like Call of Duty than Halo, Halo 4 is still not to be missed for its narrative alone.

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            Kinect remains overall unappealing.  The ability to turn your Xbox One on and off via a voice command is a nifty feat, but the 1080 camera, improved motion capture, etc., are all wasted on me.  Its like theyre milking a one-trick pony.  In all fairness, I feel the same way about Sonys Move.  I cant help that Im an old-fart gamer!

            Microsofts Xbox luster is gone from my eyes.  They seemed to focus more on what products to show via their new system than they were of the games one could play.  They mentioned a number in the teens of exclusive titles, apparently within the next year, but instead showed two of the games and spent the rest of the game trailers on multi-platform releases.  Granted, they did look very nice.

            On paper, the PS4 and XBO (XB1?) are identical.  The major differences between the two lay in the companies differing focus which gives Sony an advantage on the gaming side, and thats the point of the systems.  Sonys presentation showed us more of what gamers can do with the powerful system.  Microsofts every-man appeal has its draws, and Steven Spielberg, but I was turned off by the fact that it seemed like they were trying to say the gamer is not their main target.

            Forza looks awesome.  The controller looks cool, and theres no denying that the number of exclusives coming in the next year is impressive.  A lot of the new bells and whistles seem to over complicate the system and could threaten to ruin the entire experience.  But dont take an old gamers word for it.  Im just looking forward to spooning the PS4 controller.

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The Xbox One. Here's what I've learned:

1. It's Always Watching You

Oh Kinect. Why would I ever want to turn you off? You're my best friend. You're my only friend -- after you sent that one guy adrift into the voids of space. I trust you are keeping me safe and watching over my oxygen supply while I sleep.

2. Using Bing to find pictures of "Xbox One" gives you pictures of Xbox (2001)

Really I couldn't think of a more perfect name for the console. It harkens back to older days when Microsoft was in their prime. When men mention the name Xbox One it will cause resentment to fester in the hearts of those who were not able to play the original. Microsoft is using psychological warfare here. It's a great name and typing it into Bing gives you images of a console that you could have had at sometime in the past if only you weren't so foolish. Don't make the same mistake twice.

3. XOne has a lot of TV and Sports

As a college student TV is a must. If I'm not up to date on my series knowledge well I'm just a plain loser. How is Breaking Bad going to end? How different will Game of Thrones be from the books -- which everyone started the series on the second one because why bother reading the first one after watching the first season, am I right? -- this season. How will Twin Peaks end? Is Lucy going to appear on BoardWalk Empire again? How will I know this if I don't have cable, netflix, or a internet connection?

What about my favorite Sports game pastimes? What will I do if I don't find out if the Miami Heat went to the World Series? How do I know where Wimbledon takes place this year? Did my favorite NHL team make it to the Superbowl this year?

I now have all the answers I need thanks to Xbox One. 

 

[ Watch Video ]

4. It's not Always On-line

Why were you people worrying so much? Jeeze. Conformation right here: XOne isn't Always Online. It's just a requirement to use the console. Duh! #DealWithIt.

5. Call of Duty has advance fish physics

So the new engine now allows for fish to swim away as you come near them among other improvements including and possibly limited to:

• Dogs with Tattoos and Scars
• Sliding
• Leaning out from cover
• Jumping over walls

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When the PS4 was announced I couldn't have been more underwhelmed.

Today's Xbox One reveal, however, was the epitome of disappointing.

Seriously, what the heck?

I'm not interested in next gen for TELEVISION. Good god, I don't even pay for TV to begin with. I buy a gaming console for GAMES Microsoft. GAMES. Not live TV, voice control and freaking Skype.

Not to mention this bullcrap requiring installs and a preowned fee. Yeah, way to shoot yourself in the foot you greedy fools. Meanwhile I'll sit here and watch Sony's stock skyrocket and mourn the loss of what was once a good thing.

If somone can convince me that this isn't complete and utter folley, then please do.

So disappointed. You know what they say, 4 is better than One.

#xboxdone

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Microsoft needed a new console. The 360 may have been selling well, but not because of Microsoft. Third-party devs were the ones keeping people glued to their 360's. It was games like Dishonored, Far Cry 3, and Borderlands 2 that made the 360 a continued success throughout 2012. First-party titles were few in number, and while Halo 4 was a big success, it was the only major release from Microsoft last year that couldn't be found on another platform.

Microsoft needed to one-up Sony by offering a steady stream of games that you simply couldn't find on Playstation. This morning, Microsoft dropped the curtain on their 360 successor. It was a revelation not only of the hardware, but of Microsoft's vision for the gaming future...

...or should I say, lack thereof.

The Xbox One reveal was saturated with meaningless and culturally exploitative information catering to the most mainstream of mainstream video game player. It was bad.

Promoted as the unifier between TV, music, movies, social media and games, the Xbox One was Microsoft's way to capitalize on every entertainment format available right now, all condensing it into a package that fits perfectly in the living room. It remains resonant, a grandiose defragmentation of media that can deliver content from multiple fronts while simplifying the interface into a box reminiscent of a modern DVR. It's nothing too sensational and from that perspective, it works. But this wasn't a showing for those who watch Star Trek or The Price is Right religiously. Xbox is a name synonymous with video games, but Microsoft swept that concept far under the rug.

One problem that I discovered early on is that the interface looks as clumsy as Kinect did years ago. Microsoft wants people to like Kinect, going so far as to bundling the Kinect 2.0 with the Xbox One console. It's a standard feature now, but that doesn't mean it works. With the motion control fad dying, it's concerning seeing Microsoft continue to push Kinect. Even switching channels looks wonky and unappealing; why not just use the remote control like we've been doing for decades now? It's something out a sci-fi movie like Minority Report, only mixed with interpretive dance.

But Microsoft's presentation's biggest blunder was the sheer alienation of the gamer culture. Aside from three major game announcements (excluding the EA Sports lineup), the entire presentation was about the console's place as an entertainment system instead of a gaming system. Yes, being able to instantly go from live TV to a game is an interesting technological approach, but it's a novelty and I highly doubt that it'll become as front-and-center as a future game industry standard. Smartglass and Kinect navigation (auxiliary features that very few consumers truly consider to be essential) were promoted far more than they should have.

Even worse was that the games announced were in no way a decision maker. Call of Duty: Ghosts, for all its hair textures and dynamic fish AI, is a Call of Duty game. It's a multi-platform franchise that might see increased sales on an Xbox platform, but it doesn't serve the Xbox market in such a huge way as, say, Halo would. You can get Call of Duty on PS4, and even with the title of "exclusive first on Xbox One", it's not something to get people to buy your console for it specifically.

Yes, you do get Forza and you do get your EA Sports garbage, but the only game that I could say I'm really interested in is Quantum Break, a game developed by Alan Wake dev Remedy. It looks cool, yeah, but with only a brief and cryptic trailer, I couldn't get too excited over it.

Once I heard them start wrapping things up, I couldn't believe what I had heard, or more appropriately, what I didn't hear. For a console line so enamored with promoting deep and expansive video game content, Microsoft demonstrated a vision that only alienated the gaming crowd that praised them so much last generation. I know that we'll see more at E3, but right now, I'm not even excited about Microsoft's showing at E3 this year

But the news trickled out steadily, revealing even more questionable announcements. Mandatory installs, fees to play used games and no way to play 360 or 360 XBLA titles added even more facepalms to an already groan-worthy showing. While other games have been formally announced for the console, many of these are multi-platform like Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Destiny. These aren't the ways to gather consumer confidence. Microsoft may think it's innovating, but with each innovation, they're stepping away from the video game world. If anything, the Xbox One is a "bro" or "Chad" console, a stereotypical game console that you'll see in movies and TV ads with generic shooters and online play without a trace of dev creativity.

At this point, Microsoft hasn't done anything to promote the Xbox One in the right ways. Fears of Microsoft's Draconian restrictions on second-hand games have been realized, their neglect for the smaller development houses has been shown without any doubt, and every negative opinion that I've heard the game journalism crowd say has been met with some form of truth. I do think it will sell, but to the people who don't value those true gaming experiences.

All I can say now is bring on E3. I'm gonna need something to wash this terrible taste out of my mouth.

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     Over the last few decades, the human species have done some incredible things. We reached the moon, we created the modern computer, and one of the most prominent forms of entertainment today: the video game. We have evolved over the years and created such a glorious entertainment. As well as evolve technologically, we have evolved away from horrid gender stereotypes. Women used to be viewed as the housekeeper, while the men were the breadwinners. Likewise in video games, gender stereotypes and roles in the industry such as protagonists and even jobs or appealing games have changed. Women are becoming accepted to be in higher job roles and even taking on more masculine characteristics. With video games, women are usually found being the damsel in distress, the voice-over sidekick, or the sex object. Throughout the past four decades, gender stereotypes as well as the cultural norms have changed through video games, and there is also a parallel trend from how our culture has come to accept the overall different types of people, in which as time goes by, we have culturally gone away from gender stereotypes and sexism.

      Women in video games overall were uncommon in any strong position pre-21st century. One of the first time the lead character of a video game was a woman, but the catch was that it was revealed upon completing, and that was only if the game was completed in under five hours. That game was called Metroid. In the game, the playable character was a space bounty hunter named Samus Aron who fought against the Mother Brain and a bunch of space pirates, her weapon was, and still is, a gun. Back when this was made, in 1986, there wasnt another female protagonist, and if there was, they certainly wouldnt be shooting anyone. But at the end of the game, Samus took of her suit and revealed her true sex. The response to this revelation was complete shock in the audience. But the audience came to accept her through the entire game, thinking that she was a guy, even though she wasnt. There are mixed conclusions one could make, as the developing team didnt even think to include this until after the game was finished, but the series creator Sakamoto, even stated in 2004 that they didnt want the bounty hunter to become nothing more than a sexual object. (Sorice) Back then, women were only viewed as sex objects, and intentional or not, Samus was wearing a bikini. So as the start of women in video games were emerging, there were still problems, but at least Samus was not intended to be a sex object. Most other women who were in video games, were damsels in distress. One of the first and most famous video games was Donkey Kong. The hero is jump-man which we know today as Mario. Mario traverses the traps that Donkey Kong set up to try and save the damsel in distress, which in this case, is Princess Peach. She is completely helpless as she waves her arms around like a fish out of water, and outbursts cries of help because she needs a man to save her. Once you complete the third level, Donkey Kong falls to his dismay and there is a heart that appears between the two. Later on in the industry, when they began to star females in games, one female lead stood out from the rest: Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. She was in countless games where she is a treasure hunter. She gets dirty and kills anyone that stands in her way. The one problem with having a female doing this, was that she was highly sexualized. The industry still wasnt used to having a strong female lead, and many men wouldnt want to play this game unless they could look at her butt the entire game. Most images that you see of her from her first games, are her abnormally large breasts, her tight tank-tops, and her extremely short shorts. A writer at IGN says about the men who played Tomb Raider, But for others, as the series declined prior to Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider: Legend, Lara Croft became symbolic of the video games prevailing failure to offer up real characters rather than cardboard cut-outs with huge guns/muscles/breasts. (MacDonald). The women she says viewed her as an iconic heroine, but the factor of how she was sexualized outweighs the factor of that she is a woman. So with the sexualization of women, and the damsel in distress helplessly flailing her arms away, women didnt have an easy time in the industry. Men in videogames had a lot easier time in the industry, with no one even questioning their position.

     Men had much more of a common and easier time in the industry, such as being the lead role without any big fuss, but also were described as the one in power, with hyper masculine traits. The male in general was typically the guy who provided for the women and got dirty when he had to. Margaret Fuller describes in her essay The Great Lawsuit, The wife praises her husband as good provider, the husband in return compliments her as a capital housekeeper, (Fuller 22). The women in our society accept the men in charge. In games such as Max Payne, Halo: Combat Evolved, and the original Resident Evil, the male protagonists each had a female sidekick. The job of the female would be not to kill the people that stand in their way, but to give them information behind a desk, or just run around helplessly. In a game like Mario, it would be the males job to save the princess, similar to that in the Legend of Zelda. In most games pre 21st century, the male would save the female. The men in video games were typically described as muscular and overly strong. If you look at a game like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, the men in that game have their shirts off to the point where you can see the over-the-top muscles. Take Ryu for example, the most well-known street fighter. Every picture of him is him with a tough looking face, with a karate suit on, and either flexing or in a fighting stance. Every guy in that game on the character select screen has a tough looking face. Similar to what expert and educator Jackson Katz says in the documentary, Tough Guise. Jackson Katz says in his argument The front that many men put up thats based on an extreme notion of masculinity that emphasizes toughness and physical strength and gaining the respect and admiration of others through violence or the implicit threat of it, (Katz). That accurately represents how all of the male Street Fighters and Kombat warriors are portrayed. Although the street fighters are still disguised as this masculine pose, and women are still sometimes the sidekick, there has been several positive changes since the new millenium hit.

    When the 21st century hit, there have been numerous changes to the bias that video games had in regards to gender and sex. Females are more common to be the lead characters and getting more dirty. Games like Uncharted, Final Fantasy, Gravity Rush, Assassins Creed: Liberation, all star females who arent afraid to get dirty and do things that are described as masculine, except the opposite sex is taking on these roles. Take Gravity Rush for example, the main character, Kat, has to defend the city from the Nevi, an unknown terror that rose up from the ground. Typically you would see a man saving the world from an alien attack, but in this case, its a women taking on the attack. She uses her gravity shifting powers to kill the Nevi. She kills, fights, and saves people. Countless times, she saves the rookie cop from trouble. Another lead female is one I have already talked about, that is Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. Square Enix is rebooting the series with a whole new look at Lara Croft, she is no longer a sex object that has men drooling over her when people cosplay. The first images released of the new Lara Croft were of a dirty female in jeans and a shirt. Ron Rosenberg, the executive producer was in an interview talking about the changes, where he said, Gone are her ridiculous proportions and skimpy clothing. This Lara feels more human, more real, thats intentional, (Schreier). This is a sign that people are changing. If some company who intentionally made Lara Croft into a sexy protagonist, into an actual and realistic human, there is so much other companies and we as a society can accomplish, and we can change. The change in who plays video games is a surprise. Typically the ones who would play the NES, or Genesis, would be the brother in the family. But starting in the mid 1990s, games were having more appeal. The Sims was a huge success among women and men. Kristina Benson says, even studies from the early and mid 1990s suggest that a large percentage of females play computer games for approximately 1-2 hours a week, (Benson). The console that were released in 1995 was the original Gameboy. Due to the complete lack of solid graphics, the blood and gore were merely pixel dust. Nintendo was releasing games that could attract both genders, like the Game and Watch Gallery. Today, women are seeing a lot more play time than 1-2 hours a week. The Electronic Software Association explores the growth of women gaming, as they say based on studies and statistics, Forty-seven percent of all players are women, and women over the age of 18 are the industrys fastest growing demographics, (ESA). While this might not have to do with the roles of women being the lead character, it does have to do with the variety of games. Mario has shifted away from just saving the damsel in distress, to games like Mario Party, Super Paper Mario, the sports games, and Mario Kart, all are games that you can play as Princess Peach and are genres that attract everyone. Not only are those games fun and violence free, but they are also games that encourage you to find a partner to join in. The guy in the relationship can now play a nice, friendly game with his partner. The changes in the industry have had a positive influence, as there is less controversy like in Custers Revenge, where the goal is to rape a Native American girl, and we are shifting more towards a less offensive and family game. Culturally, we are making huge steps in the right direction.

         Gender problems through video games and through culture are growing out of pathetic stereotypes. Our culture has been shifting around a little bit, and there is a parallel trend from how video games are changing and how gender stereotypes are changing. For video games, when the games go from women being the helpless, screaming hostage, to a female described masculine hero, it provides hope that stereotypes dont need to exist anymore. When women are becoming the dominant sex in education, as more women are graduating, we can stop viewing them as just a sex object who lives under the stove. The industry is making games also more appealing to feminine characteristics, which leads for more opportunities for them to play, similar to how in the job world there are opportunities for both sexes. If we would take these trends and put them on a graph, the x-axis would be time, and the y-axis would be progress towards eliminating gender stereotypes, both lines would have the same slope going positive. For the future, this could mean a lot of things. We may see new series with female protagonists, we could see men being the sidekick, we could even see more women saving men as they are in the damsel in distress position. There is a vast open-world that we can take anywhere, and in a few years, the changes may even double.

Works Cited

Benson, Kristina. "Five Myths about Female Gamers Debunked." LA Weekly. LA Weekly, n.d. Web. 1 Feb.

   2013.

"Game Player Data." The ESA. Electronic Software Association, n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013.

MacDonald, Keza. "Rewriting Lara Croft." IGN. IGN Entertainment, n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013.

Shrieier, Jason. "You'll Want to Protect the New, Less Curvy Lara Croft." Kotaku. Kotaku, n.d. Web.

   1 Feb. 2013.

Sorice, Adam. "Samus Aaron, the Woman Within." Nintendo Dojo. Nintendo Dojo, n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013.

Tough Guise. Screenplay by Jackson Katz. Media Education Foundation. Film.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/11/rewriting-lara-croft

http://www.nintendojo.com/features/editorials/samus-aran-the-woman-within

http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft

http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2011/03/five_myths_about_female_gamers.php

http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

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"The 4A Engine is a graphics middleware engine developed by 4A Games for use in their video game Metro 2033, published by THQ. It supports Direct3D APIs 9, 10, and 11, along with NVidia's PhysX, and also NVidia's 3D Vision."

"The engine was developed in Ukraine by a set of people who split off from GSC Game World a year before the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, notably Oles Shishkovtsov and Aleksandr Maksimchuk, the programmers who worked on the development of X-Ray engine used in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series."

"The game is multi-threaded in such that only PhysX had a dedicated thread,and uses a task-model without any pre-conditioning or pre/post-synchronising, allowing tasks to be done in parallel. When the Xbox 360 iteration had been measured during development, they were running it at "approximately 3,000 tasks per 30ms frame on Xbox 360 on CPU-intensive scenes with all hardware threads at 100 per cent load". Shishkovtsov also said that the NV40 architecture of the RSX in the PlayStation 3 proved to be very useful during development noted that there were many "wasted cycles". The engine can utilise a deferred shading pipeline, and uses tesselation for greater performance, and also has HDR (complete with blue shift), real-time reflections, colour correction, film grain and noise, and the engine also supports multi-core rendering."

"The 4A Engine implementation of Metro 2033 features volumetric fog, double PhysX precision, object blur, sub-surface scattering for skin shaders, parallax mapping on all surfaces and greater geometric detail with a less aggressive LOD(s)."

(Sorce: Wikipedia - engl. version)

Rendering:

• The gamma-correct, linear colour space renderer
• High dynamic range rendering (HDR) Using floating-point buffers, allowing for tone mapping, exposure adaption, and blue shift, for camera/eye perceptual rendering
• Advanced deferred shading - allows hundreds of lights in frame, in huge, complex scenes
• All lighting is fully dynamic (including sun and skies), ability to use light-shaders, with dozens of special effects
• Umbra and penumbra - Correct soft shadows, including shadows correctly curved on bumped surface. Shadows from semi-transparent objects like particles.
• Weather and day/night model, including light scattering model and god-rays
• Volumetric fogging and lighting, even in animated, non-constant density media
• Global illumination effects and real-time reflective lights
• Parallax occlusion maps and real (geometric) displacement mapping
• Hierarchical per-pixel occlusion culling
• Real-time colour correction, film grain and noise, correct depth of field
• Velocity preserving motion-blur on a scene with millions of polygons and complex shading detail (including object blur)
• Deferred reflections - allows a lot of planar real time reflections in a single frame, like water, glass, etc.
• Ambient occlusion calculated on both the global scale (pre-calculated) and in real-time in screen space (SSAO)
• In addition to standard MSAA, the engine features analytical anti-aliasing (AAA) and "deferred super-sampling" modes which have much lower impact on frame-rate, while correctly ant-ialiasing all surfaces and not just edges
• Renderer is highly multi-threaded for multiple CPU cores.
• Plus: per-pixel lighting, bumpy reflections and refractions, animated and detail textures, shiny surfaces, cosmetic damage using albedo and bump blending, soft particles, etc.

Physics System
Powered by nVidia PhysX technology, can utilise multiple CPU cores, AGEIA PhysX hardware, or nVidia GPU hardware.

• Tightly integrated into the content pipeline and the game itself, including physical materials on all surfaces, physically driven sound, physically driven animations
• Rigid body and multi-jointed constructions. Breakable fences, walls , sheds and other objects. Thousands of different physical entities simulated per frame.
• Cloth simulation, water physics (including cross-interactions)
• Destruction and fracturing, physically based puzzles
• Soft body physics on selected special game entities
• On hardware-accelerated PhysX platforms engine implements full physically correct behaviour of particles such as smoke, debris, etc.

Audio
Multi-threaded high dynamic range Audio system with constant memory usage and data-driven design

• 3D sound positioning, spatialisation and attenuation
• Sound path tracing and transfer approximation for correct occlusion and obstruction perceiving.
• Reverb, low-pass/high-pass filtering, pitch shifting - all auto-calculated based on sound-path and adjustable by multi-layer environment zones, scripting or programmatically
• Dynamically reconstructing audio graphs
• OGG-vorbis compressed with adjustable quality, multi-threaded decompression

(Source: Eurogamer.net article)

I would say, the 4A Games Engine can hold its own against DICE's Frostbite 2 Engine or the Crytek Engine, in its state. Wouldn't you agree?

The Metro 2033 game is still used around the world by video game and tech-magazines for benchmarking graphic cards. The latest version of their renderer, featured in Metro: Last Light feels more polished (I can only speak to the DirectX 11 version) and it already proved how their engine can run in parallel and concurrency, utilizing the most out of your CPUs and GPUs. Running at nearly 100% on all cores. The emphasis is on "ALL" cores. Unlike in the past, when a game engine - especially rendering frames - ate up all your CPU/GPU cycles was a bad thing, because it almost froze your Personal Computer (sound stuttering, not responsive input/controls, etc), the modern day, multicore world, is one, in which the problem is upside down: "how can we make the game run on every core available, balancing the load?"

Only in the recent few years the game developers made the jump from "somewhat" parallel to truly parallel programming. Something that is especially hard to accomplish, if you are making video games and video game engines. Developers had to adopt to the "new ways" and avoiding the "old tricks" from the past, which often included shortcuts and optimizations, based on someone's genius, having to juggle dozens of "game systems" and "spaghetti code" and other forms of highly delicate code pasta, which could break at any moment, if somebody in the office caughed, or looked at it in a funny way.

Their state-of-the-art engine does a fine job in Metro: Last Light. Deferred Shading, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, Sub Surface Scattering can compete with Battlefield 3 or Crysis 3. If you have quadcores, the engine will use them all. If you have 6-cores, it will adjust and scale. The engine in the game still has some room for optimization, though. If you switch from Analytical-AA ("Very High" Settings) to 4x SSAA (Supersampling Anti-Aliasing), you can see a significant performance hit, reducing the framerate. Even on high-end GPU's.

Though, this is a minor point. In comparison Crysis 3, still does a lot of CPU (geometry) computation, that could have been shovelled over to the GPU. Every game engine has its ups and downs. It's weak and strong points.

As always, a game or just rendering engine has to serve their pragmatic purposes - it has to provide a robust system, to run all (games) systems. Most of all, it has to scale, it has to be flexible, turning features on and off without creating blue-screens or red-rings-of-death. I personally do not see the importance, nor do I know anyone, being able to see the difference between 3x or 4x SSAA. But, depending on your hardware and TV/Monitors (the latter, mostly size, but not only), you can see at least minor differences, while you are playing. It is a curse for people, who professionally have to deal with these things, since once you start paying attention to those tiny details, you cannot turn your eyes off. You start actively looking for certain "effects" and starting to read the tea-leaves. Terms like "ugly" enter your vocabulary more often, yet there really is nothing "ugly" - it is just not optimized beyond a certain, pragmatic(!) degree. Especially consistency between platforms (Consoles/PC) becomes a factor. On PC, 4x SSAA is not automatically "better" than MSAA vs TXAA or FXAA - it is different.

Further reading:

4A Engine (engl. Wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4A_Engine

Older article (from 2010) on the orig. Engine & Metro 2033

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/metro-2033-4a-engine-impresses-blog-entry

Performance comparison btw 360, PS3 and PC on Eurogamer.net (incl. some technical analysis)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-metro-last-light-face-off

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I haven't gotten very far in, I'm trying to understand the map and have resorted to stealing cars for the car challenge while I try to figure out whats going on.  I've also stumbled across a few collectibles too, you know the ones.

I can't say my impressions are too detailed at this point.  The controls for driving are more intuitive than I expected and the shooting mechanics are good as well.  The story hasn't drawn me in just yet, so I may go for the main story mission and try to understand what I'm seeing on the map.  I'm treating this like a GTA game and I probably shouldn't.  I've always found collecting all the extras first gets you started better.  I haven't figured out how to clear the shields and I'm not sure what the pink stars are.  Considering I have the guide, this is just me not bothering to flip through it at this point.  I do like the customisation for the character, but I might change it already.

I also added another review, in case anyone saw the free app of the week last week at Starbucks, it was Where's Perry.  A fun game, and since it was free, that much more enjoyable.  My sister leaves for Bosnia today (she works for the State department).  I can't say I'll miss her as much as I'll miss my neice, who invites her 2 yr old self into my room and claims all things in it are 'mine.'  It is adorable as all get out, until she touches the charmander.  I bought her a charmander and flew it out to AZ when they lived there.  They stuffed him in a box and sent him to Bosnia.  Anyway, /ramble.

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http://m.gamerevolution.com/features/5-ways-microsoft-could-screw-up-the-xbox-reveal

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Remember when I said the only thing I didn't have to do with Valkyria Chronicles 2 was that I hadn't read the Aliasse's Blue Flame manga?

No, of course you don't.

But anyway... every once in a while I search Valkyria Chronicles 2 on Google. Partly to find new fan art, and partly to flip the middle finger to anyone b****ing about my lovely game.

And I found that the Aliasse's Blue Flame manga has been translated.

I'm exceedingly happy.

So this is good news for any Valkyria Chronicles fan.

The real ones anyway, not those pesky stuck up bass tards who are still whining desperately that Valkyria Chronicles 2 should have been on the PS3, or that its story is not good, or that its graphics aren't, or this, or that... To me, people like that are honestly the lowest forms of life. Lower than prokaryotes.

So a few fan arts of Aliasse to redeem an otherwise utter failure of a blog...

I guess that's it.

Goodbye.

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It's been a while since Insomniac games released their last big game , it was Resistance 3 back in 2011. Finally they released the demo for Fuse , on Playstaion Network and Xbox Live. Its around 2gb, which is fairly large for a demo, it includes 4 player coop , and many other network features which explains its size.

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Well, that is all. Thanks for reading this and understanding that we all need a break from things. Feel free to leave a comment below and I'll see you all later.

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Now if you guys are fans of the series then you'd know that KOTOR 3  doesn't really have much potential.  If they continued where KOTOR 2  left off, it'd be a short game.  Though it'd still be a great storyline it wouldn't feel like the past games because there would be very little team play seeing how its only 4 guys and T3M4.  Bioware was smart to just make the huge The Old Republic mmorpg because its set a long time after a sequel would've been and has a lot of differnet storylines.  

Though a lot of people (including myself) don't usually cross the line between console single player gaming and pc mmo's.  The old republic is a great game where it doesn't feel like an mmo unless i really need help on a group mission and I can enjoy an inceredibly long storyline where a possiblity of 16 different ways to play the game.  

Going back to KOTOR 3, the storyline is that the exile (after the events of KOTOR 2) leaves malachor V, drops off Atton and the other group members to restore the jedi order, then proceeds to follow revan in the ebon hawk with t3m4.  When they find eachother i forget all the details but i remember one of the final battles between Revan and one of the true "sith" masters that Revan with all of his power is outmatched by the old master, before he is killed T3M4 uses his flamethrower to distract the master long enough so revan can finish him, but dies in the process.  If they made this storyline it wouldn't feel like the classic RPG unless they made up a lot of characters to be team mates and it wouldn't follow the storyline.  If they used this story It would be a good dlc for an actual rpg or make this an action game.  And I can't even guess who the hero(ine) would be, either Revan or the exile.  

Now I think what would be a great KOTOR 3  is a new storyline set 700 years before episode I and I don't have a good storyline but it would be awesome if a young padawan Yoda was one of your group mates.  So in the comments please lets just have fun with this and think of a great storyline for a kotor 3.  I love the story so much and I'm excited that there's a possiblity for it.  

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Stating opinions will get you chastised
There's this guy -- Phil Fish -- who is very vocal about his opinion on the game industry. You probably know him; he's pretty notorious. Some say he's overly opinionated. Some say he's arrogant and a d-head. I personally have nothing against him. I feel like he's often misunderstood or misquoted. He may make some unconventional or seemingly rude comments here and there, but that's him. He doesn't mean to tick you off, he's just blunt with his honesty. But I digress. He said once, regarding modern Japanese games, that they "just suck." He's referring to recent games. I can't say he's completely wrong, but whether or not I agree or disagree, that is his opinion.

Now, for being honest and stating his opinion, he was labeled 'racist' (RACIST! Really?), he was said to hate Japan from this, he was said to have hated ALL Japanese games, he was harassed by hordes of angry gamers on Twitter and via email. He said MODERN Japanese games "just sucked". He's not racist, he's not dissing Japan. Stating his opinion caused a huge backlash of gamers to hate and harass him. Death threats were issued, names were called. His game Fez is suffering because people refuse to give him money. While that's okay in your own right, he's not the only one that worked on this game; his team needs to eat, too. He left Twitter once due to the people harassing him, and he is about to leave yet again. This shouldn't happen. 

What's the point of us gamers talking to one another about our feelings onthis video game or that console if the only thing we'll get out of it is hate? If we can't say anything bad about a company or, in Phil's case, a whole country's lack of fun without our lives threatened or being labeled racist, than why speak up about video games at all? I don't want everyone agreeing with me that this game or that game is amazing or crappy! I want to hear multiple opinions so I can possibly take into consideration other gamer's points and possibly learn a thing or two.

The War of the Consoles
 Console/System Wars, great stuff, right? "You're a worthless turd for playing Xbox, but I'm a god for having a PS3." "Just go die in a corner for playing PlayStation, there's only enough room for us superior Xbox gamers." "Lems and cows are the most stupid people on Earth; PC gaming is the way to go, and if you game any other way, you're stupid, stupid." You can only like one. This is a serious subject, and whether you game on Xbox, PS3 or PC shows how awesome/crappy of a person you are, right? There's absolutely no way you have only a set amount of money and can only afford one console. There's also definitely no way all your friends play one console and you want to be able to play with them by buying their chosen console.

If your parents get you an Xbox because they only had enough money for an Xbox, you should just thank them right there, because you're now an idiot; a kid with "no games to play". Haha, YOU'RE A FAILURE! Or say they got you a PS3 so you could play online for free. Guess what: enjoy not having Halo or Gears, and having to wait a month to get CoD maps! Haha, loser! Or maybe you heard your friends talking about a game called "Call of Duty". They're all playing it, and you really want to join them. They all have Xbox 360s, so that's what you'll buy. But wait! Haha, you idiot! now you have to pay 60 dollars a year for LIVE! Have fun not getting free games over PSN! Or let's flip that scenario; they all have PS3s now. Guess what? You should have done your research, because now you have an inferior online service! Have fun getting hacked and lagging with your cool friends, stupid idiot! Haha! Want a PC but they're too much money or too complicated for you to keep up on? Then you might as well enjoy not modding your games and get a Wii, momma's boy! Good luck trying to play Civilization with a PlayStation controller, or just TRY enjoying The Witcher 2 on Xbox's crappy graphics!


People are so focused on which console is "superior" that they never realize they are hindering themself from great experiences. We're gamers. We need to stick together. Why can't we get along? I don't have a PS3, and I won't be buying one, EVER! There's no point for me to buy one. It would be a waste of my money. How does that make you feel about me? What if I told you the reason for me not buying one is because I AM planning on getting a PS4, and from there I will be -- hopefully, I believe I read this will be a possibility even without backwards compatibility built in -- buying PS3 games over PSN. All the money I get is spent necessities . I can't afford a PS3 even though I really want one right now. Plus I'd hate to put down 300 dollars for something will be essentially obselete in not even six months. Does that make us friends?      

What if I said I don't like Microsoft's direction with the Xbox as of late, and that I am worried with what I will be hearing come the 21st? I think the next Xbox may be a family/kid thing. They're trying to get everyone of all demographics to buy their console, and in doing so, they are isolating gamers. They care more about their online features and Kinect than actually games. I think there's a chance it will fail us gamers so it can get more women, children and celebs involved in it. Me saying what I did about PS and Xbox would get me hate mail by people if I were famous or popular in the industry. It would make me a hated person for saying, AFTER it was misquoted, of course, "PLAYSTATION IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!"

Game Tastes

Some people love Tomb Raider, some don't care for it. Some hail Bioshock Infinite as the masterpiece of this generation, some say it's nothing more than a generic FPS. People are all different, therefore our likes and dislikes vary. I LOVED Darksiders (1, haven't played 2 yet. Dying to, though. It's next after AC3). Absolutely loved this game, but I was alone amongst my friends. They didn't care for it. The public didn't pay much attention to it. I saw a lot of gamers declaring it a Zelda/God of War ripoff. Speaking of the Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time was amazing. One of my all-time favorites. The Legend of Zelda (NES game) was also terrific, but I was young when I played it and cannot fully remember it. Other than those two LoZs, I do not much care for the series. Majora's Mask was alright. I enjoyed Twilight Princess as much as I enjoy scrapping bird poop off my car window. That's just me. Zelda is an amazing series to a lot of dedicated fans. This is just an example of differed opinions.

If you come up to me saying, "Skyward Sword is the best game of all time!" I would let you have that. I understand that's your opinion. In my head, I'd be thinking, "You must have never played Metal Gear Solid," but again, that's just me. Maybe you have played it, but did not enjoy it. I get that. The problem with our industry is we tend to humiliate and attack people for dissing our favored games. No I will not slap you in the face for saying Alpha Protocol didn't deserve a sequel -- which it did! 

I like that your opinion may vary from my own. We're different people. Yes, of course we'll have different thoughts on things. It's like how I think (don't leave) Half-Life 2 is overrated. It's my opinion.We all are very different, and that's a beautiful thing. Be different. You don't have to rate a game well because it's popular. You don't have to rate a game poorly because it's on the PS3 or 360. You don't have to rate a game poorly because of other reviews or trailers. Only rate games that you have played through and have an honest opinion of the game. Don't hate someone for their opinions. Don't chastise people for having a different opinion than your own.

Poor Phil meant nothing by it. He was being honest and I appreciate that. He will probably be leaving Twitter soon because of inconsiderate and sensitive jerks always harassing him. Good job! I really enjoy his rants, but thanks to your whining I will have to do without (you whiners know who you are). Don't hate a fellow gamer for their console of choice. If they like the plethora of PlayStation exclusives, the feel of an Xbox controller, the controls of the WiiU, or the keyboard-and-mouse combination of the PC, then let them enjoy that! When someone's opinion or preference doesn't affect you why be upset by it? We as gamers need to stick together and have one another's back. Just try to hear people out. That's all I'm saying.

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