@zerohournow @iandizion713 you mean like them HIGHLY rated Next Gen games on that list. Critics and fans agree, those games are not that great. Critics and Game Enthusiast agree, Super Smash Bros, probably best Smash Bros ever made. And with only so many people having a Wii U, yeah, Nintendo killed it baby! Opps, forgot Minecraft and GTA5 were on the list.
Early in the Kingdom Hearts 2.5 storyline, Sora, an idealistic boy rocketing out of childhood and into adolescence, says goodbye to a group of potential new friends as he waits to board a train that will shoot him off to the stars and into a grand new adventure. And although he's just met these ragtag teens who are dreading the end of their summer vacation and trying to score their next batch of sea salt ice cream, a single tear rolls down Sora's cheek as he waves farewell.
The moment shouldn't work. Its power rests on delving into the depths of a comically complex conspiracy tale involving metaphysical doppelgangers, simulated realities, and hyperbolic teen angst. But, the moment does work. In fact, the romantic, sincere innocence of Kingdom Hearts still carries an emotional punch, powerful on its own merits and just as affecting today as it was at its genesis.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix is a relic of childhood and early teenage blossoming for the many of us who came of age in the early- to mid-2000s. With a disc that contains Kingdom Hearts II (a 2005 PS2 game) and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (a 2010 PSP game) as well as Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded (a collection of the cutscenes from the 2008 mobile game), Remix is a nostalgic mix of storytelling and personality that stands tall nearly a decade after the oldest game's release. Built on the back of versatile combat, endearing characters, and enchanting forays into the Disney films, it's a shame that competent and enthralling plotting is so far out of reach for the main stories of any of the games.
After defeating the Heartless with the help of his friends Donald and Goofy at the end of Kingdom Hearts, Sora embarks on a quest to return home to his beloved Destiny Islands with his best friends Kairi and Riku. At the same time, he is dealing with the emergent threat of new soulless abominations known as Nobodies, who are doing the work of the mysterious cabal called Organization XIII. Sora and his friends travel from one Disney-themed world to the next (including Agrabah, the jungles of The Lion King, Halloween Town, and even the world of Pirates of the Caribbean) as he investigates the destruction wreaked by the Nobodies and tries to find his friends. Along the way, Sora learns a lesson or two about friendship, sacrifice, and growing up.
The romantic, sincere innocence of the Kingdom Hearts franchise still carries an emotional punch, powerful on its own merits.
Unlike the first game, where the Disney elements existed primarily to serve the overarching story, Kingdom Hearts II falters by doing the reverse. The trips to Disney-themed worlds--which are the raison d'etre for the whole series--are mostly highly compressed, theme park versions of Disney films without the space for characters to breathe and grow as they do in the movies. And, more often than not, these levels have only the slightest bearing on the intentions or nature of Organization XIII, its relationship to Roxas, the boy whom you spend the first three hours of the game playing as, or the identity of the cowled DiZ. And while the strength of the source material (the emotional heft of Beauty and the Beast or the subversive strangeness of The Nightmare Before Christmas) carries you through most of these worlds, many feel like fun padding, particularly in the "return to everywhere you've already been" back half. Throw in a story that is too byzantine for children to follow and too impersonal for adults to invest themselves in, and Kingdom Hearts II lacks the guilty-pleasure fun narrative of the first game.
And that's a pity, because despite itself, Kingdom Hearts II delivers enough moments of simple but piercing emotion to fill any game of its length. Towards the end of his adventure, Sora returns to the Hundred Acre Woods to say goodbye to the corpulent, half-dressed bear, Winnie the Pooh. Winnie had forgotten their friendship as well as his friendships with the nervous Piglet, hyperactive Tigger, and neurotic Rabbit. But through the bonds of caring and friendship, Pooh's memories return and as Sora prepares to leave, Pooh wishes for a way to make Sora stay and remain his friend. Sora promises the disappointed bear that he'll return, but Sora will always remain in his heart and memories.
It's a tired trope of children's storytelling, but its delivery feels authentic, evoking memories of being a child and saying goodbye to friends who move away. And, unlike the bombastic main plot, it doesn't wave its arms around, drawing attention to itself. There are games being released today with aesthetics or mechanics meant to appeal to children, but other than Ni No Kuni, it's rare for a game to evoke what it feels like to be a child. But in the moment with Pooh, the goodbye in the train station, long-awaited reunions, and shocking farewells, Kingdom Hearts radiates the purity and heart that is its redemption.
It's a shame that competent and enthralling plotting is so far out of reach for the main stories.
A sizeable improvement over the first game, Kingdom Heart II's combat is elegant while also offering a suite of ways for you to customize your style. Real-time combat sees you attacking, blocking, jumping, and activating special reaction commands. But with a host of equippable spells and a socketed ability system akin to Final Fantasy IX, you can outfit Sora with ways to boost his speed, magic, and strength to your liking and equip Donald, Goofy, and Disney heroes including Mulan, Hercules, Simba, and the Beast to complement your style of play. Combat may boil down to mashing the attack button while occasionally blocking or dodging, but the screen explodes with flashy effects to make every strike of the keyblade carry weight and pop. And although it clearly reaches out to the kid in all of us, Kingdom Hearts II can be unforgivingly difficult; on a handful of occasions, the game reaches a brutal Dark Souls level of difficulty.
Beyond the transition to HD, Square Enix has touched up many of the visual elements of the game. And in the worlds/areas that are the most stylized, abstract, and exaggerated, Kingdom Hearts II manages to look as good as many games on the current market. Whether it's the gothic interiors of the Beast's castle, the clean geometric cyberpunk lines of the world of Tron, or a free running course on the pages of the Winnie the Pooh book itself, the game shows off a vibrant art design whose expert use of color and cartoon style invites the imagination to lose itself in this world. On the other hand, areas that weren't touched up or draw attention to their low polygon count and muddy textures look even uglier in comparison.
The game also supplies hours and hours of extra content for you to dive into. The first game's Olympus Coliseum arena battles return with a dark, Hades-themed spin. Emblems are scattered on nearly every world, inviting you to tackle extra-difficult versions of Organization XIII foes. Hidden puzzle pieces can be found in the hard-to-reach corners of the worlds, leading into a simple but rewarding jigsaw puzzle mini-game. It's fun to watch your pictures slowly come into focus with each trip to each new world. And Gummi Ship battles have been completely revamped as gorgeous and difficult to master on-rails shooter sections, another major improvement over the first game.
The screen explodes with flashy effects to make every strike of the keyblade carry weight and pop.
Birth by Sleep is the more consistently fun game on the disc, although it lacks any of those moments of unexpected emotional power that Kingdom Hearts II is able to achieve. A prequel to the first game, Birth by Sleep follows three young students of a Keyblade master as they investigate invasions by beings called the Unversed into worlds that have yet to experience Heartless or Nobodies. Each character has an individual story which is played to completion, at which point you can choose to finish the journey of one of the others.
Lead characters Terra, Aqua, and Ventus lack the charms of Sora, Donald, and Goofy, although Ventus comes the closest of any of them to bringing back that playful joy. Terra becomes a painfully cliche troubled, navel-gazing teenage JRPG protagonist and Aqua's arc is purely reactive to the actions of Terra and Ventus. Ventus, at least, smiles and acts like he's actually his character's age. And the story itself is focused, with only a few trivial excursions just for Disney's sake, although by the end it mostly serves to set up the events of the first two main games.
What makes Birth by Sleep stand out is its combat system. Without sacrificing the simple controls of Kingdom Hearts II's combat, Birth by Sleep ups the number of ways you can control your character. By removing a hotbar for spells and locking every ability to a single button, it makes it easy to switch equipped abilities on the fly rather than struggling through menus in real time. The abilities that are equipped can be leveled up and fused with other leveled up abilities to create new powers. Equipped abilities can be employed in general orders to activate powerful finish command styles;between deciding which abilities to equip/make and choosing which command styles to deploy, you never feel forced into one specific style of play.
While neither game will win awards for its narrative, playing both and adjusting your play style to whichever task you have at hand is always a blast. Re:Coded is the only true bust on the disc, a collection of re-tooled cutscenes, and for two of the three hours that you sit through the game, it's difficult to name a reason to justify its existence. It begins as a glitched out sci-fi simulation of the events of the first game, and although it does evolve past that, sitting through it is a chore even for those most dedicated to the Kingdom Hearts lore. Still, with dozens of hours of either of the other two games, it's hard to be too upset.
The last ten years have taken a toll on this franchise, and it's easy to fear that Kingdom Hearts III will fall prey to the unnecessary mental gymnastics Kingdom Hearts II required, but those last ten years have also made it easier to appreciate how warm and inviting these games are. You don't shoot assault rifles. You don't hack people's phones. You don't cause destruction and mayhem. You yearn for ice cream. You push yourself to the ends of the Earth to find your friends. You learn and grow and mature. And, to paraphrase Alan Menken and Tim Rice, you see whole new worlds before you're done.
[UPDATE 4] Bidding for Stadium Events has finished, with the final bid sitting at $35,100.
[UPDATE 3] The high bid for Stadium Events has dropped to $32,252, suggesting the earlier bids of close to $100,000 were fraudulent. In addition, bidding is now only open to pre-approved buyers.
[UPDATE 2] Now, after more than 80 individual bids from collectors, the eBay price has reached $100,000.
[UPDATE 1] After 19 bids from 14 different bidders, the eBay auction for ultra-rare NES game Stadium Events has now reached $40,300. We also spoke with the seller, who answered some of our questions.
You've had Stadium Events since the '90s, so why sell now?
"Felt it was the right time to sell this item."
Did you consider donating it to Nintendo for their archival purposes?
"I worked for Nintendo for 22 years and do not believe they have any interest in having this game.....they are welcome to bid on it if they do want it!"
How did you come to own this copy of Stadium Events?
"While working at Nintendo games are often available to employees at end of life cycles.
I did not realize the value until 2011, when a story came out about this game being sold on eBay for $44,000. I told my wife 'I know I have that game.' I collect a lot of different items, so after looking through several boxes I found it! Since I was still working for Nintendo I could not sell this item for profit, which is a smart company policy. When I left in 2012, it was possible for me to sell this game."
The original story is below.
Just days after it came online, an eBay auction for ultra-rare NES game Stadium Events has reached about the price of a new car. Bidding opened on January 5 at $5,000 and quickly rose to where it sits today at $22,100. A total of nine people have submitted bids so far.
The game, which saw a very limited release in 1987 and was paired with the short-lived Family Fun Fitness pad, is considered one of the first exercise games. It's incredibly rare on its own, but adding to the appeal of this auction is the fact that the copy remains factory sealed.
On top of that, the seller says the game--which is in excellent condition--has been verified by the Video Game Authority, a group that grades and authenticates older games. It's also housed in an "archival" case that protects it from UV rays, ensuring its preservation for years to come.
Writing on the auction page, the seller says they used to work at Nintendo and have had the game since the 1990s. We've reached out to the seller, asking for more details about the auction, which officially ends January 15.
This isn't the first time Stadium Events has showed up on eBay. In 2010, a factory sealed copy of the game sold for an incredible $41,300, according to a report from Kotaku. It's also not the only Stadium Events game now on eBay, though it appears to be the only factory sealed copy.
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@twisted_outlaw @WolfgarTheQuiet @nissanmaxima The best. Its not officially released yet, its finished but still in early access faze.
Guys who made Assetto Corsa are actual simulation company rather than a game developer.
Im interested in Project Cars on my PS4 along DriveClub, im in love with that game haha, back to classic style. I'll skip open world racers until new gen of consoles. Got over it after playing Most Wanted for 4 years haha
One other thing i want is a proper Rally simulator, otherwise i'll keep playing Richard Burns Rally, its scary that for a 2006 game, its still the best rally game out there :)
Telltale Games has confirmed that it is working on a new original IP. The news was revealed alongside an announcement that president and co-founder Kevin Pruner would be transitioning into a new role at the studio as CEO. Former CEO and co-founder Dan Connors will remain with Telltale Games as an executive advisor.
No mention of a release date or platforms for the new IP was made. The studio is working on several other games at the moment, including the third season of The Walking Dead series, Minecraft: Story Mode, and the Game of Thrones series.
Last year marked ten years since Telltale Games was founded. The studio's most recent release, Game of Thrones: Episode One - Iron from Ice, was well-received in GameSpot's review, praisedfor its depiction of characters from the Game of Thrones universe and anxiety-inducing gameplay.
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Turn 10 Studios and Microsoft today announced Forza Motorsport 6 at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). The game will launch exclusively on the Xbox One with the new Ford GT featured as the cover car, thanks to a partnership between Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios with Ford Motor Company.
Ford's performance cars will also appear in the upcoming Forza Motorsport 6, including the GT, Shelby GT350 Mustang, and F-150 Raptor. Turn 10 Studios creative director Dan Greenawalt confirmed that gameplay footage will be revealed at E3 this June. This year marks the ten-year anniversary of the Forza Motorsport series, which debuted on Xbox in May, 2005.
The most recent entry in the series, Forza Motorsport 5, was released in 2013 for the Xbox One. Forza Horizon 2, which focuses more on open-road driving, was released last year for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.
What features would you like to see in Forza Motorsport 6? Let us know in the comments below.
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Microsoft Games Studios has a new team called Decisive Games that is working on "the next installment in a beloved strategy game franchise," according to a job posting on the company's career site and Linkedin.
According to the job description, which was originally posted back in November 2014, the Decisive Games team is focused on world class strategy game development, and is looking for a Senior Software Engineer familiar with DirectX 11 or Xbox 360 and Xbox One rendering APIs.
Last year, another job posting indicated that Microsoft was seeking someone "to help build and lead the team for a new AAA title within an established and well-loved strategy game franchise." We don't know if Decisive Games is that team, but it certainly fits the description.
Back in May, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer also said that he thinks real-time strategy games will see a resurgence on this generation of consoles.
Some real-time strategy game franchises that Microsoft owns the rights to and could potentially revive include Age of Empires II, which got an HD remake on PC last year, Rise of Nations, and Halo Wars.
Which Microsoft RTS franchise would you like to see make a comeback? Let us know in the comments below.
Multiplayer online battle arena game Smite launched in March this year after a two year-long beta period. Highly competitive in nature, the game pits two teams of players against each other in a bid to destroy the opposing team's base. Each player controls a chosen god, goddess, or deity from a particular pantheon that possesses unique skills to help achieve this goal. Unlike other games in the MOBA genre, Smite is played from a third-person perspective, with players using WASD to move their character around.
Since launch, Smite has amassed a dedicated player base that has supported a competitive multiplayer scene, the likes of which has led to the creation of the Smite World Championship event which takes place this weekend. Hosted at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, the competitive event currently sports a prize pool of $2.5 million, making it one of only three game franchises to breach the $2 million prize pool figure in esports--the other two are Dota 2 and League of Legends. I sat down with Hi-Rez Studios co-founder and chief operations officer Todd Harris to talk about the growth of Smite, how the studio tackles religious themes, and the game's future as a competitive title.
Smite wasn't built with the intention of becoming an esport. According to Harris, it was only after initial test runs proved successful that the studio was convinced to run competitive events for the game.
"Early on we started running tournaments every Saturday and every Sunday in beta to see if there was an appetite for competitive play, and we were pleased to see that players showed up and teams showed up. Then sponsors started to get involved, and at this point we've got many of the names that are known to compete in various esports participating. For example, Dignitas, Team Solo Mid, SK Gaming."
The Smite World Championship marks the first event of its kind for Hi-Rez studio. At present, the total prize pool sits at $2,596,143. Half of that will go to the team who takes first place, with second and third place awarded twenty and fifteen percent of the total prize pool respectively. Teams placing fourth to eight each earn smaller cuts of the pool.
Harris described the milestone as "super encouraging" given how young the game is.
"We hope to build on that, and as we head into season two, add even more regions over the world because we think that the gameplay and the theme of mythology really makes Smite interesting to a worldwide audience," he said.
For the first season, Hi-Rez had put together a tournament structure that allowed regions with official server coverage able to put forward qualifying teams. But how does the developer decide which regions get local server coverage, and which don't?
"We generally look at it at a market-by-market approach. We want to make sure we've got servers as well as the right amount of community support in that area." He referred to the launch of Oceanic servers in October last year as an example where a "really vocal and passionate community in Australia" convinced the studio that there was a demand for local Smite servers.
Hi-Rez Studios has encountered controversy in the past resulting from the game's depiction of Hindu figures in combat. Their appearances prompted the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism to request their removal from the game, as he said putting the deities under player control trivialised them.
When asked about how Hi-Rez approaches the sensitivity surrounding depicting religious figures in-game, Harris said, "The teams are always balancing trying to be representative and authentic with the depiction of the god while also realising we're not really a game about religion, we are an entertainment product."
"It is a careful balance. In the case of Hinduism, that's the one pantheon we have that has over a billion people actively worshipping it and of course it's a very diverse group of people, so there's all sorts of viewpoints around what the right representation of a deity might be. In Smite we just take the position that we're representing the deities that make sense within the Smite universe… in that particular case, we actually worked with some Hindu groups to look at it from a lore perspective, because we do present text lore within the game, and get their feedback so that it is in the right neighbourhood of at least their interpretation of Hinduism."
At last year's Gamescom Microsoft showcased a Smite trailer for the Xbox One, the platform where the game will make its console debut. Traditionally, the MOBA genre has found little success outside of PC releases. Despite this, Harris is confident that Smite's transition to console will be a smooth one because of the nature of the game.
"When Microsoft made the statement, 'Finally, here is a MOBA that wants to be played on console' they were referring to Smite and the fact that the camera angle and controls are different to the traditional MOBA. Many of the 2D isometric MOBAs have a more challenging time translating the control scheme to a controller. With Smite it is very natural. In fact, right now with the PC version we do support plugin of a controller, and we have quite a few players who prefer that and already find it a comfortable experience," he explained.
I noticed that Harris let slip the plural of console providers--did that mean we could see Smite on PS4 sometime soon?
"So at this point we've announced that Smite is coming first to Xbox One, but certainly after that we'll be considering other consoles," Harris answered. I asked whether this would include the Wii U, which he replied "most likely not."
The Smite World Championship takes place this weekend, with the first match starting on Friday January 9 at 11am EST. The event will culminate with a final on January 11 to determine which winning team will walk away with over a million dollars.
Upcoming fighting game Dragon Ball Xenoverse has had its launch date pushed back much like how Gohan's kamehameha pushed back Cell's one during the Cell saga. Originally scheduled for release on February 17, the game will now launch a week later.
Publisher Bandai Namco announced the delay, saying that it was necessary in order to "ensure the highest possible gameplay experience" for players. Dragon Ball Xenoverse will be released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 24. A PC release on Steam will follow on February 27.
The game is developed by Dimps, who also worked on the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series and co-developed Street Fighter IV. Xenoverse will feature a character creator, and players will be able to choose from a variety of races including Saiyans, Namekians, Earthlings, and Majins. For more about the game, check out GameSpot's preview from E3.
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Remember Me developer Dontnod Entertainment previously said that it's not trying to make a statement by putting female characters in lead roles, but that doesn't mean doing so is easy.
According to a recently released developer diary for the game, Dontnod encountered some resistance to the idea from publishers.
"Square is basically the only publisher who didn't want to change anything about the game," Dontnod Creative Director Jean-Maxime Moris said. "We had other publishers telling us to make it a male lead character, and Square didn't even question that once."
The nine-minute developer diary also explains the origins of the game and describe the story, themes and characters you will encounter as you play through it. The game's story follows Max, a young woman with time-bending powers, her friend Chloe, and a missing woman named Rachel Amber.
Dontnod also revealed what kind of PC you'll need to run the game.
Minimum:
Recommended:
Life is Strange--which is coming to Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2015--will be released digitally using an episodic model beginning with episode one on January 30. Each episode will cost $5.
