Syndicate Demo Impressions

My brother and I spent the better part of last night being impressed with the newly-released Syndicate demo, enjoying ourselves fully in its rather full-featured co-op gameplay.

Truths, Damned Truths and Statistics

This generation of consoles has been the herald of a great many changes to our beloved past time. New concepts such as downloadable content, subscriptions, “new game” passes come alongside pre-order bonuses as a near standard, online play perfected and expected, and game development costs that have risen from around 1-4 million for a PS2 game, to 5 million for a first generation 360 or PS3 game, to today where a “next gen” title costs between 20-30 million (with big triple-A titles going for twice that).

But perhaps most startling is the shift in power and importance. A decade ago, the best games and consoles came from Japan; the idea of a gaming market without Japan was unthinkable.  Today, the United States dominates a gaming market where Japanese publishers just can’t compete with “western” games. This is a world where Japan needs the US much more than the US needs Japan. Let’s look at some statistics from our good friends at VG Chartz!

You Can Go Home Again: Thoughts on Skyrim

I wasn’t originally going to buy Skyrim. At least, not right away; with no pre-order bonuses to trap myself with, and with the dull pain of not just Oblivion, but a year’s worth of buggy letdowns to contend with, not to mention a myriad of other games to play, I had no immediate plans on investing in Skyrim. Wait for the patches and mods, I’d told myself. A few quick “Let’s Play!” videos on youtube later and my brother’s quizzical remark of, “By what insanity am I playing and loving a TES game you don’t even own?” and I’d dropped the sixty bucks on steam to load it up.

(My brother never liked The Elder Scrolls, burning out on their vast open worlds in a matter of hours; yet he was more than twenty hours into Skyrim when he made the recommendation).

And let me just say: Skyrim is the most organic, immersive RPG I’ve played to date, and worth the leap of faith.