Multiplayer based achievements…

Now that next gen is upon us developers and publishers begin focus on much larger and more social experiences that means we’ll start seeing multiplayer games with a tacked on single player (I’m looking at you Call of Duty and Battlefield).  Games like Titanfall decide to go in a different direction with multiplayer where they simply weave a narrative through multiplayer without hitting you over the head with a story, much like we’ve seen in the last few installments of Assassin’s Creed games.  In Assassin’s Creed we’ve seen you play as an Abstergo employee climbing through the ranks of Abstergo Industries, not to be confused with Abstergo Entertainment crafting your single player experiences in the AC games.   What’s the one thing we see tying these games together?  They all have multiplayer achievements.

Apple’s WWDC is here!

It’ll be starting in just under an hour (10:30am PST)! Watch the live-blog on Engadget!

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/

On a separate note: E3 thoughts and updates coming soon…I swear!

E3 2012 is underway!!

I figured it’d be time to break my long silence!  I hope that you’ve been keeping up to date on the gaming news during my absence from fellow blogger Anthony Jorge over at Give Me My Games!  I was working in Japan for a week and then I went on vacation and even though there’s been some big news I’m back in time for some of the biggest news week in the gaming industry.

I’ll be posting a fairly large update later today and tomorrow regarding Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Sony’s press conferences today.  If EA has big things to say other than the more info on Medal of Honor and the next Need for Speed then I’ll be posting about that as well.

Stay tuned for today’s update!
Thanks!

Assassin’s Creed Gameplay Footage…Soon

Don’t have time to write a whole lot, but Ubisoft is pushing a new campaign to have people tweet, Facebook share, and Facebook invite others to do the same.  Once the shares and tweets reach 1,776,000 then Ubisoft will release new footage (read: not leaked) showing off actual gameplay footage.  Not sure why the states didn’t get this trailer, but you the UK got a cool short trailer showing off some new footage.  The most important thing to take out of this video is that it looks like the small knife Connor carries is not just an ordinary knife, it looks as though the hidden blade detaches allowing you him to wield it as a normal short blade.  Very interesting…

If you want to get in on the action go to AssassinsCreed.com/Unite

The trials and tribulations of our game heroes!

Cruising Kotaku, when I probably should’ve been working, I stumbled across this video that they posted in an article entitled “YouTube Just Made My Childhood Gaming Memories Feel Super Dramatic.”  In the article, which is brief, they simply mention the video, titled “Go Right,” and how it evokes an emotional response from you even though the video was made simply by holding a camera close to a monitor or display.

YouTube user RockyPlanetesimal chose the perfect song for what they were going for.  It really provokes the drama that you feel from the video.  The hero simply trudges on and on going right.  Suddenly you see the heroes die or lose their way by going left, but through true grit and determination the hero picks themselves up off the ground and continues on the right direction.

This makes me almost feel bad for the hero when they initially start losing their way, but then it got me thinking.  How often do games get a little tough and we throw down the controller never allowing the hero to reach their full potential or save their homeland or save their princess? Too often, but for some reason this just makes me feel good watching this and thinking about all the games I have finished.  It makes me want to pick the games back up that I haven’t finished so the hero on-screen can complete their saga.

So what do you think?  Does this compel you to finish your games that are in progress and allow your hero to rest, if even for a little bit, before their next big adventure?

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Beta is LIVE

Last Thursday Ubisoft released the hounds and opened the Ghost Recon: Future Solider Multiplayer Beta to the public as long as you: purchased Splinter Cell: Conviction or pre-ordered the game.  If you’ve been reading my blog you know that I’m a big fan of Ubisoft AND that all of my 360 games were stolen from me back in the February so I kind of lost hope that I wasn’t going to gain access to the beta.  I pre-ordered it but didn’t see the code anywhere, however a small ray of light glimmered in my inbox last week.  Ubisoft had sent me three codes to give to friends so they can get in on the action.  I know that Ubi has been hard at work since they opened the beta and have been tweaking/rebooting the servers constantly.  I know when I tried to play on Saturday that the servers were unavailable.  I haven’t lost hope, however, and I hope you haven’t either!  Because I’m such a nice guy I’m going to give you all a chance to score these.  Beneath the multiplayer tutorial there’ll be an image with two codes (since I used one of them) for use on the Xbox 360.  First two people to use them are getting in on the action 🙂  So enjoy and feel free to hit me up on XBL if you get them, my gamertag is: GraveSpy720.  Leave a comment below as well so I know that they’ve been grabbed!!  Also check out Mitch Dyer, of IGN fame, and his preview for the upcoming blockbuster entitled: Three Reasons to Love Future Solider’s Multiplayer!  Mitch can be found on twitter: @MitchyD

And now…the free codes!

**Please leave a comment to let the readers know you’ve grabbed a code**

God of War: Ascension Revealed!!

It seems as though the new hotness in the gaming industry is leaking info related to games.  Ubisoft has been the “victim” of it time and time again so far with AC3 (have we had their official release come first yet?).  Sony seems to be suffering from the same problem with the game that they teased us about last week, which most purported (and were correct) was the next God of War game.  Last week they posted this image on their Facebook page:

Well turns out because of the trend Amazon kind of pulled the trigger a little too early… Shacknews.com reported that the online retailer had posted images, a description, and teaser trailer yesterday.  Now ShackNews posted their article at 8:06pm PST indicating that this probably happened way earlier than when the article was posted.  Unfortunately, you could tell how disappointed Sony was with this early break when Sony’s Worldwide Studios President, Shuhei Yoshida, simply tweeted, “sigh.” from his Twitter account.  Now if, like me, you’re a big fan of all things GoW (yes, both Gears of War and God of War), then you’re going to get at least a wee bit excited about the teaser! So without any more delay, here it is:

News hounds Greg Miller and Colin Moriarty of IGN.com posted a great video breaking down and analyzing the teaser trailer in their latest Playstation Conversation.  It won’t let me embed it here so (apologies) you’ll need to follow the link:  http://go.ign.com/Jj5Ml8

My big question, throughout all of this, is who is making this?  There was no studio attached to the trailer, so it could be anymore.  More than likely, it’s being developed by Sony Santa Monica, however until we know for sure it’s all up in the air.  Regardless I’m still kind of excited for this.  Are you?  Let me know in the comments below.

I’m Back!

Hey everyone!  Sorry it’s been soooo long since I’ve last updated this.  If you read my last post at the end I was going to talk about something that could re-shape the gaming industry permanently.  I was going to talk about the Mass Effect 3 controversy where Bioware was actually thinking about updating or changing the ending so that they could please the fans…Well I’m not going to write about that!  For a couple of reasons…

1. I’ve never played any of the Mass Effect games so I wouldn’t be able to really talk much about them.
2. If you’re into games, you’ve read what I would’ve written 1,000 times over on other sites, like IGN.com and Joystiq.com
3. It’s old news if I were to write about it now so….whatever, right?

Next updates will be quickly following this one so stayed tuned!
-Chris

Assassin’s Creed 3 Screens Leaked

In case some people haven’t realized yet I’m a BIG Assassin’s Creed fan and have been from the very beginning.  I’ve played too many hours wandering through Acre, Masyaf, Roma, Firenze, and Constantinople.  These images give us a better idea of what the landscape and environments will be.  I’m very excited that, once again, there’s been screens that have been leaked regarding AC3.  It does make me wonder if this is Ubisoft’s way of doing “viral” marketing that has become so popular these days (ie: MarkOfTheSpiderMan.com).  I’m not complaining if it is, but I think Ubi has enough clout around them that it would still be a big deal if they officially released images of the game.

Well without further adieu, feast your eyes on the ASSASSIN CANOE! 😛

Apple iPad 3 Launch Event (Updated: the New iPad Launch Event)

The Apple iPad 3 launch event will be kicking off any minute now…

What do you think we’ll be seeing?

• iPad 3 with Retina Display?
• Apple HDTV?
• Macbook Pro update?

Only time will tell so I’ll update after the event!

[Update]

Well it’s been a week or so since Apple’s big announcement.  I have to admit I’m a little underwhelmed by the whole thing.  It was an iPad, but it wasn’t the iPad 3.  The formal name for the new iPad is just that, the New iPad.  Now I know what you’re thinking, okay tell me what the name is…Let’s not get into the whole “Who’s on first?” gag, k?  That’s the name of it, the New iPad.  So, I didn’t take marketing in college and I don’t claim to be great at marketing, however I do think this is a terrible name.  This makes me wonder what the name of the next iPad will be.  Will it be the iPad 3?  Or better yet, it’ll be called “the Newer iPad,” the one after that will be “the Newest iPad,” and finally the one after that will be “the New New Girlfriend iPad.”  Okay, so enough criticism.  Beyond the silly name there’s something to be a little excited about.  Let’s start with the stats.  Rather than listing them all out myself I’m providing a screen shot from Engadget that they’ve already done:

Now if none of that makes sense to you let me sum it up for you… It’s 4G/LTE-ready and sporting a higher resolution Retina display that Apple iDevices have become known for.  To compliment the high resolution screen is the upgraded rear-facing camera, so now it matches up with the iPhone 4/4S rear camera. Alternatively, other updates are its processor, which is now sporting Apple’s A5X chip.  I will admit I was a little bummed that it wasn’t the A6 chip that Apple is already using in their Mac laptops and towers, but it’s still a step up and it’s definitely not something to sneeze at.  The great thing is even with the extra horsepower under the screen it’s still toting the 9-10 hour battery life as its predecessor.  There’s one downside to this digital wizardry, though, the New iPad actually weighs a little bit more, but still not that heavy (ie: you still can’t lay down in bad and watch something without the risk of the new meme I just coined “FacePadding.”

The other thing the Cupertino team skimmed over (and I mean skimmed) was the newly updated Apple TV.  Not to do the same as Apple, but here’s a quick overview.  Basically it’s the same great Apple TV except with some UI updates and the introduction of iCloud’s Photo Stream.  It’s still only $99 which is a great deal since it’s now supporting 1080p video output.  It’s still has the A5 chip inside so there’s really nothing else that’s new with the Apple TV.  I could get into the nitty gritty, but that’s really it.

Now it wouldn’t be an iDevice release with an update to their mobile operating system, iOS.  It, too, received an update on the day of the conference.  It was upgraded from iOS v5.0 to v5.1.

It was mostly bug fixes, however AT&T users can now claim that they’re on a 4G network when that’s not exactly true.  It did, however, introduce two great features that will help the “every person” in their everyday use.  The lock screen permanently displays the camera icon and can now be accessed by swiping the lock screen upward.  This opens the camera and unlocks the phone simultaneously.

When iOS 5.0 came out I turned Photo Stream on in iCloud and suddenly all the photos I had taken were uploaded and I had no ability to delete them…until now.  Now iOS 5.1 fixes that problem and grants you the ability to delete photos from your Photo Stream in iCloud.  You can either select the photo and click the trashcan icon, just as you would a picture in your camera roll.  You can also click the little “share” icon in the bottom left, select however many photos you’d like, click “Delete,” and *POOF* they’re gone forever from your Photo Stream.  Note, however, that if you didn’t delete the image from your Camera Roll then it will still be on your phone.

So that’s basically it for the Apple Conference…until the fall when they release the New iPhone (j/k).  Stayed tuned for my next article coming up.  Let’s just say the game industry and game canon may never be the same again…