Video Games Archives

July 28, 2015July 28, 2015

‘Rise of the Tomb Raider’ Hitting PS4 and Other Formats Next Year

The next installment of the Tomb Raider franchise, Rise of the Tomb Raider, will be available only on Xbox 360 and Xbox One when it is released in November. However, in a July 23 announcement, the gaming publisher Square Enix has revealed that the game will be available to PC users, Steam and the PlayStation 4 in 2016.

“Renowned developer Crystal Dynamics, a Square Enix studio, is leading development in the latest entry in the iconic series for additional platforms,” according to the released statement.

The game begins where the 2013 Tomb Raider game left off. Lara Croft is now in Siberia searching for the ancient city Kitezh in order to find the secrets behind immortality. As she navigates through the wilderness, she will be facing off with Trinity and the forces of nature as well.

Here is a snippet of the gameplay released during E3:

Source: YouTube/Game Spot

June 24, 2015June 24, 2015

Game Time: The Top 5 Announcements from E3 2015

Nintendo

This year’s E3 was not very good for the mega gaming company. There were some lukewarm reaction to its releases and to their presentations. However, there was a gem or two that emerged from the filth. Some of the big moments included the announcement of Platinum Games co-developing Star Fox Zero with Shigeru Miyamoto and Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Fans have been awaiting these two games but Metroid Prime: Federation Force for the 3DS has not been received well. The trailer has been destroyed since its release.

Source: Nintendo/Youtube

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December 22, 2014December 22, 2014

5 Unexpected Ways Gaming Can Enhance Real-Life Skills

There’s an invariable amount of knowledge to be had when you amass the thousands upon thousands of hours of gaming in a gamer’s life. For years, there have been a number of attempts, both successful and not, to brand forms of gaming as particularly educational and market them to kids, particularly those who have parents who are more stringent about the way their children spend their time in front of a computer or console. Here’s my short list of five skills that have been ingrained in me through gaming — mostly through indirect subsidiary parts of major franchise titles.

This list is presented by Ian Khadan at Black Nerd Problems.

How to Read a Map

Maps are a basic part of games across countless genres. Maps are used in games to relay landscape, resource, quest, story line and territorial claims among countless other variations that cater to what a game designer may feel necessary to convey to the gamer. Though there’s precedent for reading maps, particularly in urban areas, via Google Maps or something of the like, there aren’t many people I’ve met who can truly read a topographical map. Just consider you’re dropped into the middle of nowhere and you’re given nothing but a map of the immediate 10-mile radius around you. I don’t imagine there are many folks in both urban and suburban areas who can even locate where they are on that map given the context of the landscape, topography and direction they’re placed in. Through gaming, I’ve honed this skill solely because that’s exactly what many games do, they drop you in the middle of nowhere and you have to figure out the best route to loot, food or shelter. Many games even incorporate nature as a compass in that you can use the sun in game (because in-game time and the passage of it is synchronized with real-world time) to determine what direction you’re heading. Now I’m not saying that I’ve been transformed into some sort of survivor-man because of what I’ve learned about map reading via gaming, as I certainly am not about swallowing any bugs for small amounts of protein, but I can confidently say that if I’m dropped in the wild and I’ve got an accurate map of the area, I’m most certainly capable of finding the nearest Chinese food buffet.

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December 16, 2014December 16, 2014

BioWare Continues to Make Great Games With ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’

Dear BioWare: I was skeptical about all of the hype surrounding the characters in your new RPG, “Dragon Age: Inquisition.” But really, you outdid yourselves. You brought all the best parts of “Mass Effect” — the organizational meta-game; the choice system; the interesting, complicated NPCs — into a high fantasy genre that’s really been suffering. Thanks for that. While I’d like to be able to give my player character kinky hair (work on that for next time), the customization options are truly staggering. Thanks for that, too. Thanks for letting me turn off the gore and take off the helmets, because some things are just distracting. Thanks for giving me a Black female NPC who is so fabulous, people are writing articles about her fashion choices. Thanks for treating me, Black female gamer me, like part of your core audience. I’ll see you when the DLC comes out, debit card in one hand and controller in the other.

I’m about 35 hours into BioWare’s latest video game, “Dragon Age: Inquisition,” and I’m loving every minute of it. I’ve made it through three TPKs. I’ve outrun four very angry bears, lit five tower beacons, built like a hundred camps, traveled back and forth across a gigantic board, and I’ve almost decided who I’m going to romance (something about Blackwall’s beard calls to me, but the Iron Bull….mmmm). Sure, the game has some glitches – quite a few team members have half-disappeared into table tops, and there’s that audio bug that ruins occasional conversations – but overall, I’ll be damn happy to spend my winter being the Dalish Herald of Andraste and saving Ferelden from threats foreign, domestic and Fade-borne.

But I’m not here to tell you about how much I like the game, or to recommend that you buy it. You’ve read that article, it has been circulating around the Internet for months. If you wanted the game, you’d have already bought it, unless you’re waiting for it to hit the used shelf at GameStop. Folks gotta economize. I get that.

What I am here to talk about however, is the hype machine around BioWare, this game, and the “diversity of the characters.” I’ve been linked to a number of articles in the last two months about how diverse the NPCs are in “Dragon Age,” and how that’s a major breakthrough in a AAA title. Excellent.

Read more from L.E.H. Light at blacknerdproblems.com

December 10, 2014December 10, 2014

Could This Be the ‘Final Fantasy 7’ Remake All the Fans Want?

Oh Square Enix, what have you done?

For years and years, Final Fantasy fans have been hoping and praying for a full-fleshed, updated, super high-end Final Fantasy 7 game for the next gen systems. It didn’t happen on the PS3, so like with Kingdom Hearts 3 expectations arose for it to finally happen on the PS4.

Whether you like Final Fantasy 7 or think it’s the most overrated of all the Final Fantasies, there’s one thing you can’t deny, it’s popularity. Final Fantasy 7 has transcended its original single-game format and has had movies and a prequel game expanding on its lore.

So here we are in 2014 with Square Enix hyped up about a Final Fantasy 7 announcement for the PS4! Could it be what fans have been clamoring for all these years? No, the answer is no. Instead of an HD remake with new everything, what fans get is a port of the game for the PS4. If you don’t know what that means, I’ll explain. Instead of HD graphics and high-definition they’re instead re-releasing the original game on the PS4, which they’ve already done for PC and for the PS3 on the Playstation Network.

There’s already been a lot of backlash for this, so instead of adding to it, I’m going to go a different route with this.

The fact of the matter is that Square Enix fans want to feel like they are appreciated and loved. A remake of Final Fantasy 7 would have solidified that fact. Giving the fans something they’ve asked for would put Square Enix back on that pedestal they used to be on. The recent Final Fantasy games haven’t been able to capture the magic that the old ones used to bring. That sense of “Wow this game is the best game of all time!” hasn’t been said for the recent Final Fantasies, and I think fans are trying to relive the Square Enix of old.

Maybe I’m wrong in my assumptions, but I’m speaking from my personal point of view on the whole situation. Final Fantasy 7 isn’t my favorite Final Fantasy but would I throw my money at Square Enix for a full-on HD remake? I’ll answer my question with another question. Is Rock Lee the realest ninja out there?

Someday, we might get that remake that other fans and I have asked for, but, sadly, today is not that day.

Source: William Young at blacknerdproblems.com

December 9, 2014December 9, 2014

How the Gaming Community Can Provide an Outlet to an ‘Outsider’

Here’s the truth: I’m scared. This fear is borne from a lack of cultural and individual identity, a haze of uncertainty within which my poetry is immersed. I often concede this fear to that of a common human need; that is, to belong. I was born in Georgetown, Guyana, and raised in Plaisance, Guyana, right in front of the Atlantic Ocean until the age of 9. I then moved to East Orange, New Jersey, of the United States. Guyana, for most who aren’t aware, is just about 50 percent Black and 50 percent Indian. I fell somewhere in between as a small percentage of the Indian population include a mix of Portuguese blood. This mix obviously left me with a bit of a culturally ambiguous look on my face at most parties. East Orange was a tremendous culture shock for me; my introduction to the United States was in an Abbott school district that was predominantly Black and below the poverty line. All this is to say, I’ve had to learn things on the fly about cultures that I borrowed from throughout my life and retained little to none of what cultural identity I can call my own. Enter gaming.

One of the major keystones in my life is being introduced to the modern computer (I use this term loosely) when I arrived in the United States. While I gamed at the arcade in Guyana wasting untold amounts of money playing Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Battletoads, I was christened as a gamer when I donned that Windows 3.11 PC that my uncle gave to me and my brother. This, however, was just the building block to an addiction that would wholly evolve throughout my formative years. Being a migrant with migrant parents, I obviously was not allowed to leave the house in this “strange land” that was my hood, so I ultimately withdrew into Destruction Derby and learning how to emulate GameBoy titles on my computer so that I could play Pokemon (both Red and Blue titles) on my computer while all of my friends traded Pokemon via their handhelds by day and I watched from the shadows with great envy.

What many would consider a secluded, sheltered and possibly unhealthy upbringing in gaming, I saw as both liberating and safe. Safe, in that I could ask the questions and work toward the answers for myself for the first time under the guise of gaming’s myopic lens.

Read more from Ian Khadan at blacknerdproblems.com