Tim Schafer Asks For A Little, Gets A Lot

It all started when in an interview when asked about Psychonauts 2, Tim Schafer told Digital Spy, “I’d love to do that game, but I’d have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars, that’s all.”  Mr. Schafer has been trying for awhile now to get the game funded.  He pitched the game to developers using this fan made trailer/mash-up of the original Psychonauts and Inception.

As cool as this trailer was, he had no takers.  This was until Notch, The creator of Minecraft, heard about this.  He tweeted to Schafer a simple “Lets make Psychonauts 2 happen.”, followed by a “;D Also, I’m serious.”  Of course the two of them had to talk about it.  So far the official word is “Tim and Markus are talking. Who knows what might happen?”  A couple of days after Tim and Marcus’ tweets, a Kickstarter page from Double Fine popped up.

Now this page is to fund a project is for an unnamed game.  One can only hope it is a fund to help pay for the creation of Psychonauts 2.  Unfortunately for all of us, The original Psychonauts cost about 13 million, and this page only had a goal of 400k.   But as you can see from the picture above the donation period has 27 days left and they have already collected $1,387,750 more than they asked for.  Regardless of what they make, fans of Double Fine are willing to pay up to get a new game from this company.  All we can do is pledge our money, and hope for something amazing.  Again this might be a fund to pool Double Fine and Notches money.

With all Double Fines success with kickstarter, I wonder if other independent developers are going to start doing this to cut out publishers, and make the games they want.

First Throwback Thursday (2/9/12)

Starting today I’m creating a new weekly article where I suggest a classic game, song, or movie for you to enjoy and get reacquainted with(or play for the first time if you missed it).  So bust out your old consoles, dust off the VHS players and lets dive into the first Throwback Thursday.

First up is a classic game for the NES,

BATTLETOADS

For those of you who played this game as a kid knows how cool it is.  You may even remember how hard it was, i mean, can you remember anything past the first level.  The strange thing about this game, is how high the ratings for the game are, considering how extremely hard it was.  The game has even been included in tons of times among the hardest games ever made.  Now that you are grown up, or at least more skilled at video games, I challenge you to try this game again.  Just try not to get to frustrated with it.  If you do you can always leave it on in the background and listen to the funky music.  Personally, I love the music in this game.  In fact, it has one of the most recognizable pause music.  The AVGN even makes a reference to it in one of his videos (as seen in the GIF below).

You can play the game here: http://virtualnes.com/play/?id=NES-8T.  You could also get lucky and hit up your local Goodwill or flea market and pick it up for a buck. Just don’t call up your local GameStop and ask for it…It really pisses them off….Ya know what do it, call ‘um up it will be funny.

WE ARE BACK

Sorry folks for the long break in the posts, but it’s only me and the holiday season was crazy.  Honestly you can blame SWTOR for taking loads of my time.  Oddly enough, I am in the groove of this spring semester, and have more time to write (the best part is I can make posts during work).

Well, lets get down to business.  I was recently asked one of the hardest question you can ask a gamer.  In no particular order, what are your top ten favorite games?  Now you can see why this is a hard question.  We all have played a lot of great games over the years, and pumped countless hours in to our favorites.  But does play time constitute a coveted spot in your personal top ten?  I mean I’ve played a lot of NBA Jam (Xbox 360) with my friend frank and had a great time, but I wouldn’t call it one of my favorite games.  This list will change because I guarantee you that I overlooked games, but as of right now this is my list.

Again in no particular order:

1) Bioshock

Bioshock has one of the best stories ever written for a video game.  It is full suspenseful moments, action, and times where you question human nature and free will.  This game is honestly for everyone. If you are good at shooters great play this the guns and ammo are interesting and fun to play with, alternatively if you suck at shooter play it anyways because there is no penalty for dieing.  Honestly, if you die you instantly resurrect at a vita station and you can continue the story.  Most of all, I had my favorite scene in any game.  The moment you descend into the ocean and see Rapture (the underwater city where the game takes place) for the first time is breath taking.

2) Xenogears

There isn’t much to say about this game except that it changed my views on what a RPG could be.  It was a mature title from Squaresoft, that was unlike the well known Final Fantasy titles.  I had its own combat system that used combination button presses to activate a “Deathblow”, a move with a cinematic feel.  For all of you  mech fans, you didn’t just fight as a tiny human, but also in your own robot. Overall this game may not have had the best story, but it really left a mark on me because of how amazing the combat was and how cool the cut-scenes were.

3) Monster Rancher 2

Monster Rancher 2 was one of my favorite games on the Play Station.  It was a really simple game in which you worked with a single monster, you trained them, and would fight them in tournaments with the goal to be the S-class champion.  Now this sounds like Pokemon, I know, but it’s more interesting than that.  Unlike Pokemon, your monster has a lifespan.  This means that you can’t max out its stats by training all day.  If you did that your monster would die before he even entered a tournament.  As a kid I remember getting to a C-class tournament was big, and winning was a huge achievement.  The best part of this game was its most interesting part too.  The way you got monster was you generated them from your music CDs laying around the house.  I remember it was an event for me and my friends to get all of our CDs together to see what monsters were living inside them.  The challenge was getting the right CD to make a really good monster, and train it.  After in game years more monster became active and would be available to get.

4) Minecraft

Minecraft is one of the best indie games ever.  Did you enjoy Legos as a kid, then you are going to love Minecraft.  you want to explore, go to it.  You want to build a replica of your house, no ones stopping you.  You want to build a giant underwater glass castle with an automated mine cart transportation system, start reading forums on red stone.  The only limit with Minecraft is yourself.  When creating by yourself gets boring, you can easily create a server and host a world where you and your friends can create what ever you want.  The best parts of this game is its low price and the fact that Mojang is constantly updating it.

5) League of Legends

League of Legends is a action RTS tower defense PC game.  This game is addicting and extremely fun.  You and four other friends can choose from 92 (as of 1/31/2012) champions to try and defeat 5 other player in an online battle.  The more you play you level up which unlocks skill points to add to your skill tree to get stronger, and in game currency to unlock more champions to play.  When you unlock a champion the are available forever.  You have the option to buy a skin to make your love for a champion known, and to make them look cool.   This game is constantly updated with new champions and skins for the champions…. Oh did I mention its FREE!

6) Gears of War

Gears of Was was, for me, was the game that defined the Xbox360.  It was the sole reason I saved up money to get one as soon as I could.  This game was the first in this fantastic trilogy, and was my absolute favorite.  This game not only had fantastic game play, I had a fantastic story.  Besides Gears, I cant name a shooter that made you care about the characters.  Having a great multilayer experience doesn’t hurt either.

7) Alan Wake

When my Xbox360 red ringed for the second time I was pissed.  This meant I was going to have to go out and buy a another console, and being a broke college student, It took a lot out of me.  When I finally got around to buying a new one I was one of the sleek new black consoles that came with two games.  The games I get were Forza 3 and Alan Wake.  To save room in the box and to cut cost, I guess, Alan Wake was a download code.  Because of this I didn’t download it and play it immediately.  When I finally got around to playing it I was extremely surprised on how good it was.  The visuals are stunning.  The controls were smooth. The writing kept me entertained and wanting to know more.  For me this game had my attention.  It is so good one of my friends wanted to be around to watch me play it because of how interesting it was.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love the survival horrors of the past like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, but there is something about fighting your imagination and writings with light that appeals to me.  If you haven’t played it try it, you’ll love it.

8) Metal Gear Solid 2

Metal Gear Solid is my favorite out of the series.  A lot of people don’t like it for the reason that it is almost the retelling of the original game, just without Solid Snake as the playable character.  Of course of you play the game they explain why this is but regardless, it is great.  This then new addition to the series made it possible to look down the sites in a first person view.  This brought a whole new level to the game, where not you could be more precise with where you shot a guard with a tranquilizer dart.  This game also introduced a new character, Raiden, who people hated at first but later became cooler as the series progressed.  This game was my first introduction to the series and to this day is extremely enjoyable.

9) Portal 2

I chose Portal 2 over the original Portal for many reasons.  First being that Portal 2 is a stand alone game, not an add-on to resell Half-Life 2.  Now again I’m not saying Portal was rushed or bad, it was just short.  Portal 2 actually felt like a complete game.  Like the original it was challenging and funny, even more funny than the first with the addition of Stephen Merchant as Wheatley.  not to give any away but the best part of the game is when they added the orange and blue paint…oh and Cave Johnson.  This game also included a two player co-op experience that didn’t feel tacked on at the last minute.

 10) Spider-man 2 

If you were Spider-man, what would be the most fun thing to do?  Thats right, web sling.  Spider-man 2 for the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox was the first Spider-man game to have this mechanic in their game.  When you created a new file for the game, before you started, you were given the option of easy or precision web slinging.  This meant that if you chose precision web slinging you had total control of Spider-man from where he shot the web, the angle and speed of your swing.  Not only did they get the web slinging physics correct, they also gave you an amazing version of Manhattan to play in.  At this point you don’t care if the story is good or what the missions are because you have lost track of time and have been swinging, and running/climbing on buildings for hours.

Like I said, this list is going to change but as of right now I’m happy with it.  Leave a comment either here or on our twitter page with your list of top ten. —————-> (Follow button on the side bar) 

I Feel Like I Was A Little Harsh

I feel like I was a little harsh yesterday, and I don’t want to be this negative.  Let me start by telling you about my experiences with WoW and then you might see where I’m coming from.  I haven’t been playing since vanilla, I started when Burning Crusade came out.  I was instantly hooked.  In fact, I tried it on a friends computer and went out and bought the game the same day.  That was only the beginning.  After I started playing, I got all of my other friends to play it (If they weren’t already playing).  We ended up playing all the time.  The game was extremely fun and became even more enjoyable at level 70 when the game became more challenging.  At level 70 I focused on PVP.  I remember rocking a full merciless set on my bloodelf warlock.  I worked extremely hard on getting that gear.  I was proud of it too, because back then when you was a player with a full set of gear you knew that they were skilled and knew what they were doing.  The same was true with PVP, if you was an opposing player with the Warglaives of Azzinoth you ran.  Now with PVE, you had to have friends or work hard to get a pickup group to raid.  With the game being challenging, the people who focused on PVE were a more focused player who understood the game type.  For example I was entirely possible to log on, find a group, raid, wipe between seven and thirteen times, to then finally down a boss (not always the case).  after all of that you might not even win a roll for gear, but after all of that you would call that a good raid because there was progress made.  Any progress for you and your guild was a big step. In the early days of wow being a hardcore player was the only way to see end game content.  Blizzard realized this and wanted to include the casual player.  In vanilla and BC there was no pug queue system, so it took longer to get gear because you had to go out and find people who wanted to do that instance on your server.  It was a similar problem with PVP.  If you wanted to win an Alterac Valley, and not have it take three hours, you were going to have to join as a group.  Now because there was no place for casuals , Blizzard changed some mechanics around and added features to be more accommodating in the later expansions.  Unfortunately for Blizzard, once they started making these changes, the started the downfall of their community.

In each expansion following Burning Crusade, Blizzard created features to make end game more accessible to the masses.  On of the major features, that at low levels is helpful but later in the game gets extremely annoying, was their PUG (pick up group) System.  This feature would queue you based on your group roll, to then create a group the the proper composition.  With this feature Blizzard made it possible to be grouped with players from different servers.  This system on papers sounded good, everyone was happy at first because there would be shorter queue times and you would get geared faster.  In reality, this system caused more problems by creating a new type of player, the loot ninja.  Because you were grouped with players from other servers it was entirely possible to down a boss and have someone need roll of a piece of gear just for the gold and instantly leave group.  Now because they are from another server there is no way you can stop this person.  Even if a player didn’t steal a piece of gear, there is still the problem of players leaving for no reason.  Because a player no longer needs actively search for a group they feel no consequence for dropping group if they don’t receive the gear they wanted.  As the game progressed ninja looting became more prevalent.  It continued to get worse when Blizzard set gear restrictions to enter some of the instances.

Now these are just some of the reasons why the community has taken a turn for the worse.  Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of good and decent players who play WoW.  Unfortunately the bad egocentric players over shadow the team players.  I can tell you I will not be buying the newest expansion because, I cancelled my account over a year ago.  Like I said, I loved playing WoW, but after Blizzard turned on “easy mode”, and unintentionally ruined their community, I can’t justify making that $15 payment every month.

I’m Really Sorry

No I have not stopped posting, don’t worry.  But for those of you who don’t know there was a storm in CT that knocked out most of the states power.  So that is why I haven’t posted in over a week.  Things are getting back to normal, I will post my second half of my WoW thoughts soon.

Blizzard, I’m not sure what you are doing

Blizzcon happened last week, and Blizzard has announced a lot of videos and info regarding their IPs.  Now I wasn’t there, and I don’t know everything they are planning, but from what I have seen it seems that Blizzard is changing.  They don’t feel like the same company that I loved years ago.  I used to get excited when they would release new videos on WoW.  Now with the most recent expansion video “Mists of Pandaria” I feel like they aren’t trying anymore.  Back in the day when Blizzard released a trailer for a new expansion, you watched the video and leaned where you were going to go, and the evils you were going to face.  For example in this tailer for” Burning Crusade”, the new area looks incomplete and not  rendered yet, but Blizz was still was able to show you what you were going to be fighting and and where.

Even more recently, when the patch for “Wrath of the Lich King” came out you knew what was up (even if the expansion title game it away).  I remember when this trailer came out, and how excited my friends and I were.  We would be able to down Arthas.

But now Blizzard puts out this trailer…..

This shows me nothing.  This looks like World of Warcraft ” Kung Fu Panda”.  From what I gathered in this trailer is the level cap is now 90, but there is no way to get there because there is nothing to fight in this new panda infested area.  What am I going to be killing, what is my ultimate goal, and who is the final boss standing in my way.  It’s funny really, they showed all of the other endgame bosses to then show you NOTHING.  I looked even further and I found another trailer on Blizzards youtube channel about one of the instances that you can take on.  Everyone is commenting on how the music is really pretty, but no one seems to notice that the dungeon is EMPTY.  There is no boss preview, not even trash mobs roaming around.

But enough with the new expansions, let’s talk about how it seems like this once confident company is scared of other MMOs.  Blizzard announced a deal.   If you sign up for 12-months of World of Warcraft via the WoW “season pass” you will get Diablo 3 for free….really?  You can still be billed monthly too. so you don’t need to shell out all the money all at once.  Not only will you get instant, free access to Diablo 3, but you’ll also be guaranteed access to the next World of Warcraft expansion’s beta.  Blizzard will also be giving an exclusive mount, Tyrael’s Charger.  Now is Blizz hurting that bad that they are going to give you a brand new game, a mount, and a beta key for “panda paradise” to continuing to play their MMO that you were planning on doing anyways.

What happened to you Blizzard?

Oh and I’m not done here, there is more to come on Wednesday.

New York Comic Con Pictures Are Here!

As you all know I was at NYCC last weekend, and I have brought back pictures for all of you. The first are really boring because they are just me traveling but here we go.

First up is a picture from Friday as I arrived at union station in New Haven CT.

On the train for 2 hours every day twice a day this is what I saw.

This is the VIP room.  Now this may not look like much but this room is a life saver and is worth the money.  Because we were VIP we could check anything we wanted in the room so we didn’t have to carry it around all day.  There was also an ATM that we could use so we didn’t have to wait in line.  Lastly there were water coolers by every door.  Now again you might think that this isn’t worth it but with this room I can bring anything I want in here and leave it without any worry, I don’t have to fight the general public to find a seat for lunch, and lastly I don’t have to buy five dollar waters/sodas because I can just hip up the water cooler.

My first stop of the con was the Star Wars The Old Republic booth.  If you look closely enough you will see a giant sith in the background…..don’t worry its a statue not a cosplayer.

While you waited in line you would watch people playing via TV screens outside the booth.  This is a smuggler taking cover.

I was fortunate enough to choose what time I’d like to come back and try the game out.

Next, I went to the CAPCOM booth to try out Street Fighter X Tekken

While I was there I met Ono (producer of the Street Fighter games and more)

He signed my copy of Super Street Fighter 4

This was the Marvel.  As you can see they were promoting their upcoming movie. (Later in the con some of the actors were up there signing autographs)

Cap costume from the movie very cool.

Closer view, less glare.

Cap wasn’t the only one there with a costume.

Phreak on the LOL stream.

International players for the League tournament.

I met a person from Riot and they gave me a code for Riot Nasus.

I didn’t have time to take a lot of pics on it but I did get to try out the multiplayer for Assassins Creed Revelations.

There was a company there who were taking pre-orders on game replicas.  FYI that snub nose pistol from gears is around $599.  Regardless the price these were amazing.

They were also selling lancers.

And an assault rifle from Mass Effect. (I over hears they were also working on a pistol from ME too) 

Here are some shots of some Disney figures.

For all of you Who fans

My girlfriend bought this lunch box for work.

There were also some excellent Metal Gear Figures.

Closer look at snake in a box.

There was a G4 booth there.

I met Blair Herter there.

He was nice enough to sign some things for me.

I also got my Carlos Ferro (voice of Dom) collection completed when he signed my cope of Gears 3.

I picked up a “Black Issue”.

I picked up the first book and comic (second printing to save me some money) of Chew.  This is an amazing comic, check it out if you are a fan of quirky independent comics.

I rounded out my Cable&Deadpool issue 1-10.

I took a chance on this one.  I picked up this four comic run called The Last Mortal.  I got it signed by the writers. Now I haven’t read it yet, so if it’s good I will write a review on it.

Now that is all I have for now but there are more pics.  So later in the week I’ll try and post the rest of them.

I’m Going To Be Busy

As you all know, if you have been reading my posts, New York Comic Con starts Thursday.  Because I am a good college student who won’t skip his classes I am only going to be there from Friday to Sunday.  Regardless I’m going to busy.  I have been updating my calender with all of the panel info and all of the autograph times.  It has been going a little rough thought because the autograph page on NYCC’s website is really vague.  But for all of you who are wondering this is what i have planed out so far.

Friday

Checking out CAPCOM booth for autograph times, check out Street Fighter x Tekken, and MvC3 updates.

2:30 SWOTOR Main panel

5:15 SFxTK panel

and possibly hitting up the Comedy Central panel at 6:15

Saturday

At noon there is a big event going on for Street Fighter x Tekken that I really want to see (Ono and Harada are going to be there)

Sunday

This is my day to haggle comic prices and go shopping.

Lastly I’m going to try and get everyone who’s going from G4 to sign my red ringed Xbox360 (Chris Hardwick, Blair Butler, Blair Herter).  Im going to try and turn a piece of junk into something ill actually want to keep.

I’m going to be posting pics and using the info I get to write more posts (Ex. Assassins Creed: Revelations is going to be play testing there).  If there is anything you all would like me to get info on or to check out let me know in the comment section below.

“Thank You For Playing”

The Battlefield 3 beta is officially over, and I had fun.  I hope all of you did as well.  Now that it’s over let’s hope they take that data and crate a game that is going to take Modern Warfare down a couple of notches.  Also, on another note, now that the beta is over you will see posts on other games.  Wooo! other games.  So check back often, and remember NYCC is this week so keep an eye out for pics and tweets from the show floor.  Follow me @SPS_usdates

They Did One Thing Excellent Through

On Monday (if you didn’t read it go back and check it out) I posted a rather long review on the Battlefield 3 beta.  In that review I only looked at what they did wrong and what they need to fix.  This is the second half where I talk about what they did correctly, or rather what is already complete for the release.

The fist thing that stood out at me was the sounds in the game.  They are phenomenal.  Everything sounds crisp and clear.  The guns sound like the actual guns the player is firing.  The game balances the the sounds properly, for example gun shorts aren’t the only thing you hear.  If you’re a sniper, camping out on the little island in the pond, between head shots you can hear wild life like bugs crawling around and birds.  There is also the occasional breeze.  Maybe I find all of this amazing because I’m using really good headphones, but I’d like to think they took the time to get all of this right.  My absolute favorite part of the intricate sound is when another player spots an enemy, you hear chatter between NPC soldiers.  This also happens when you move from one MCOM group to another.  For example, when you destroy the first two stations in the park you hear a jet pilot radio in  ” Be advised I just blew a big f*cking hole in the ground, we should be able to enter the subway system through there.”  Lastly, something I find cool, if you are defending and you are about to deplete all of the attackers re-spawns the song from the trailer starts to play and get louder.

I’m posting this late, because I saw an article on another website quoting EA/DICE claiming that “the sound in BF3 is going to be better than it was in the beta.”  Now this may be only for the console visions, but in my opinion its flawless.