Things to Do While Waiting for Pokémon Shuffle Hearts to Recharge February 26, 2015

Pokémon Shuffle released on the Nintendo eShop earlier this week and it can be downloaded right now on any model 3DS or 2DS free of charge.

While a full review of the game is in the works, we don’t plan to publish it before we finish it and because of how the game is designed, that’s been taking a while. While we’re enjoying the game a lot, every puzzle in the game requires a single heart to play (win or lose) and unless extra hearts are purchased it only keeps a maximum of five hearts in memory. Since Pokémon Shuffle requires its players to wait a half hour in real-time to recharge a single heart without having to pay for it, players could find themselves with a lot of downtime as they try to complete the game.

So here are a couple of fun things you can do in between sessions of Pokémon Shuffle as you wait for your hearts to recharge.

• Check out the YouTube channel of TamashiiHiroka.  She has some of the best Pokémon review and analysis videos I’ve seen on the internet.
• Download the Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Demo from the Nintendo eShop and play through some missions. Even if you have the full version of either game, you can earn some goodies in the demo that you can bring to the full versions.
• If you have a Netflix account you can stream the first two seasons of Pokémon the Animated Series as well as a few of the Pokémon Animated Movies on the service.  Set it to Season 1, Episode 1 and just keep the episodes going.
• If you don’t have Netflix but have your own personal Android or iOS device you can still watch the Pokémon Animated series through the Pokémon TV app.  While not all of the episodes from each season are available, it does offer a smattering of episodes from each region and new episodes are added every week.   If you have an Apple TV, there is no native Pokémon TV app for it yet but if you have an iDevice with the app installed you can stream the episodes to your Apple TV using AirPlay.  You can also stream Pokémon TV episodes from your PC here.
• Read some Pokémon fanfiction on Fanfiction.net.  It is by far the most written about game franchise on the entire site.  If you don’t like any of the stories, you can always just write your own.
• Watch my Pokémon Memories video.
• Try to fill up your daily allotment of steps for the 3DS’s internal step counter and the Pokéwalker.
• Make plans to attend this year’s Pokémon World Championships. They’re taking place August 21-23, 2015 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.
• Play a Pokémon Generation title like Pokémon Diamond, Pokémon Black, or Pokémon X. The 3DS and 2DS can not only play all 3DS titles, it can also play any DS game which does not require use of a GBA slot. Play as much as you want, save your game and then boot up Pokémon Shuffle.  Once you run out of hearts you can go boot your generational title back up and resume your Pokémon journey.  Don’t worry if you plan to play a fourth or fifth generation title on your 3DS while also playing Pokémon Shuffle. Even though active DS games played on a 3DS will disable most of the 3DS’s background features while the DS game is running, this doesn’t seem to affect the Pokémon Shuffle’s heart recharge timer.

Pokémon Shuffle is out now on the Nintendo 3DS and 2DS through the Nintendo eShop.

I Miss the Nintendo Zone Viewer February 24, 2015

Nintendo has just released an entirely new 3DS model, called the New Nintendo 3DS XL, and it has been selling like crazy to both new and current 3DS owners. Since I got an original Nintendo 3DS XL over two years ago, my first Nintendo handheld device in twenty years, I have not only enjoyed the catalog of DS, DSiware and 3DS games I can play on it tremendously, I’m still using its included features, like StreetPass Plaza, on a daily basis.

Like with all modern electronic devices, the 3DS is designed to use wireless internet for not just web browsing, but also online distribution for games, applications and other downloadable content. Setting up wireless internet for a personal electornic device intended to just be used in one or two places is not much of a big deal, but it can be really inconvenient if you plan to use a device that’s always on the go. It’s an even bigger issue when you take into account that Nintendo makes handhelds for all ages, and not all of their customers are technically inclined. For example, I cannot tell you how many Nintendo Wii owners I’ve met which had no idea the Wii even had online capabilities, and as such were still using the firmware the system came installed with.  However, unless you plan to play your Wii games online or buy digital games like Virtual Console or Wiiware titles, you don’t have to worry about bringing your Wii online.  However, unlike the Wii, you want to be able to bring your 3DS online. The 3DS has some great online games and some fun digital exclusives, but having to set it up every time you visit a new access point can be quite irritating, especially since the handheld can only hold a few WiFi profiles in memory.

To remedy this, Nintendo set up a Nintendo Zone network across the world and installed them in many popular businesses like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Barnes & Noble. The beauty of a Nintendo Zone is that the 3DS will automatically connect to it as long as your WiFi is enabled without any need to set anything up, or take up any of the limited WiFi profiles in the 3DS. Some cell phone providers also offer a similar WiFi service for anyone who uses their phones but unlike 3DS owners who use the service, cell phone customers have to pay for their devices’ service every month and I’m sure the companies only do it to offset the stress on their cellular networks caused by heavy web surfing. The Nintendo Zone service on the other hand…is completely free. Heck I can use my 3DS almost anywhere when I’m on the go at no charge and I can use it to download game demos, browse miiverse, and play online multiplayer titles.

I tend not to do any web browsing in public, but I will use the Zones for doing 3DS specific tasks. When connected to a Nintendo Zone, the player could boot an app called the Nintendo Zone Viewer.  While the Nintendo Zone viewer worked in a lot of ways like a one stop shop for Wii U and 3DS game trailers, something that most players can already do through the Nintendo eShop, it had a lot of exclusive features that you could not do from home.  You could complete surveys, take part in a trivia contest, stream newer episodes of the Pokémon animated series, and more.  The app would only work at designated Nintendo Zone locations, and while I’m sure a lot of people would say most of those features should have been offered through any open online connection, I personally thought that giving 3DS owners an incentive to pilgrimage to designated Nintendo Zone locations strengthened the local community of 3DS players in my area by giving us a place to go to share of love of Nintendo products.  Nintendo upped the usefulness of the Nintendo Zone service even further by integrating a StreetPass relay into it, allowing users to collect the StreetPass data of the last six 3DS users who used the Nintendo Zone so they could be used in StreetPass compatible games.

Sadly, the last major system update for the 3DS discontinued access to the Nintendo Zone Viewer.  The 3DS can still seamlessly log into Nintendo Zone hotspots and use them for internet access and StreetPass relay, but the Nintendo Zone Viewer app no longer functions and that means that 3DS owners can no longer access its exclusive content.  Quite a shame really, as I liked answering trivia questions with my friends while having coffee, but the content hadn’t been updated in a while and was getting pretty outdated.

I really would like to see what Nintendo plans to do next with this service.  If they want, I would be happy to give them some ideas.

Is There a Point to Digital Preorders Anymore? February 20, 2015

In 2004, Valve Software capitalized on the success of a digital distribution system that they created called Steam.  At the same time Valve was perfecting the Steam service, Valve was also working on Half-Life 2, a sequel to one of the greatest PC games of all time. When the time came to release the game, Valve decided to give their service the best chance of success, and offered all of its users the chance to preload Half-Life 2 before it was officially released. By choosing to download a game after you preordered it, anyone who purchased the game through Steam would be able to play it the second it was released. For PC users who had become accustomed to lengthy installations and day one patches, having a game ready to play the second it came out was too much of a good idea to pass on, and many people chose to purchase Half-Life 2 online instead of at retail. The Steam service took off.

Ten years later, game consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are now offering online preloading for retail titles that have been digitally purchased. The capabilities of both consoles’ online marketplaces are really going to give traditional retail channels a run for their money.  Or, at least, it sounds like they will on paper. In reality there are three major problems with digitally preordering games and I’m going to talk about each one. Half-Life 2 went on to be considered one of the best games ever made, but there’s no guarantee the next game you’re going to buy is even going to be good, and a lot of games get released before reviews are allowed to be published. The second is that these online services are still in their infancy, and there are still serious technical problems that they need to work out before game publishers widely adopt them. Finally, the biggest issue, is unlike retail preorders, you have to pay them in full up front and can’t cancel them.

Now it seems like digital publishers, especially the ones on the consoles, are using the concept of the preorder to get potential players to buy unreleased games far longer in advance than I would have thought imaginable, and this may turn out to be terrible for consumers.  I don’t think I need to remind anyone of the absolute buggy travesties that were the Triple-A game lineup leading up to Christmas of last year.  Halo: The Master Chief Collection was basically unplayable online for at least a month after it was released, and some people are still having issues getting it to work four months later.  Assassin’s Creed: Unity had major problems, which were mentioned in several reviews of the game, however embargos prevented those reviews from helping anyone who happened to preorder it.  Now, I admit the risk of buying a buggy, rushed title can be a problem with retail preorders just as much as it can be a problem with digital ones, however, depending on the digital service you used to purchase your game, it is a lot more difficult to sell, refund or trade a digital game purchase than if you had purchased a retail game.

So the real incentive to preorder digital content is so you can preload your content before its release and have your game ready to unlock the second it goes on sale. Sony alone has made it clear that they simply cannot do this well. I can think of at least two games on the PlayStation 4 which were only released on the PlayStation Store, Grim Fandango Remastered and inFAMOUS: First Light and in both cases the preorder process was extremely painful. While gamers were able to successfully preload inFAMOUS: First Light and play it at launch without much issue, getting Grim Fandango Remastered to download properly on a PS4 was a nightmare for anyone who had preordered it. Apparently the preloaded version of that game was so broken it would not work even after it unlocked. While you might assume it was a simple case of having to delete and redownload the game to fix the issue, the PS4’s PlayStation Store is so badly designed it could not tell that a purchased game that had been preloaded and deleted from a PS4’s hard drive was in fact deleted and this bad design prevented users who purchased the game from downloading a working version of it. Thankfully many users online found that by they could trick their PS4s into redownloading the game by forcing it to download through the iPhone’s PlayStation App, which was absolutely rediculous. It was without a doubt the most incompetent digital launch I have ever seen in my life.  If you had not preordered Grim Fandango Remastered, you would have been able to play it sooner. To postscript that story, the exclusive digital goodies that were promised to anyone who preordered either game also corrupted and had to be redownloaded or re-verified to run properly.  Given the fact that consoles are targeted hardware and the companies who made them are the ones hosting the online marketplaces that are selling these games, there is no excuse for these kinds of issues to happen. I mean, file corruption on a console is nearly unheard of. I’d have expected these kinds of technical issues on the PC.  On a side note, I don’t want people to assume this article was just a whipping boy for the PS4. There have been plenty of recent games have been released digitally through the PlayStation Store without incident, like the multiplatform adventure game Life is Strange.  It seems like Sony just can’t get their act together for games they are offering for prepurchase.  However, instead of giving these policies a second look, many digital publishers are doubling down on them, even though their services are clearly not ready.

PlayStation 4 games like Uncharted 4 and Until Dawn don’t even have a solid release date and yet you can preorder them right now on the Playstation Store at a full retail price of $59.99 US each. Why? Is there any concern Sony might run out of stock of either of those titles months before they even have a release date? Some of these games have been offered for preorder on the PlayStation Store since last year’s E3. That means anyone who purchased them when they were first offered for preorder may find themselves waiting over a year before their games finally unlock. And on top of that, Sony clearly states on their store that they are not going to issue refunds for digitally preordered content unless they are required to by law. That doesn’t sound very consumer friendly to me. Had you preordered your content at retail you would be eligible for a refund if you don’t pick up your game, or at the very least you would be able to transfer your preorder to buy a different game.

One last postscript to this story. As I was writing this editorial the highly anticipated PS4 title The Order: 1886 was released. Sony delayed the digital release of the game by three hours on the East Coast to launch the game at the same time across the US, 12 Midnight PST. However, retail copies of the game went on sale at 12 Midnight EST (three hours earlier), and they worked just fine. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the first time I can think of in gaming history that a simultaneous digital and retail launch actually ensured that retail customers would play their games first.  I appreciate companies giving consumers a choice in preordering their games digitally, but it has more often then not turned out to be a bad choice.  Hopefully these issues will be worked out over time.  Consumers, myself included, are already wary of the digital marketplace that has kept screwing up.  In the near future I plan to keep spending my money at retail.

The Next Generation of Sports is Electronic January 7, 2015

When I was growing up I had several opportunities during my schooling to participate in extra curricular sports. Basketball, Football, and Baseball were just some of the sport programs the schools I attended offered their students to participate in. Like many students, I participated in these activities when I was in High School. No joke, I was on my High School’s Golf team my freshmen year. I played for a year, discovered I sucked at the game and was not getting any better at it despite how long I had been playing, and decided to pursue other interests in subsequent years.  I ended up doing something that wasn’t offered by the school, I played video games.  I have no regrets about that decision, as my experiences playing video games inspired me to peruse a career in discovering new media, as well as write countless fictional works I hope to publish one day.  Sadly, my schooling did little to encourage any of those accomplishments.  In fact, I don’t remember any experiences I had when I was in public school which assisted me in my electronic interests.  When the time came for me to decide what I wanted to do with my life I chose to forge my own path.  It turns out I was not alone.

Two major things have been happening over the past generation that few have taken a serious notice of.  Parents are not allowing their children to participate in physical activities due to the risk of injury, and because of that their children are preferring to spend their time indoors playing video games against each other instead.  For the most part, parents are afraid as hell about their children playing sports, especially sports which involve physical contact.  Let’s face it, the sports we play are dangerous.  Our bodies alone are not built to play them the way they need to be played.  We have to wear helmets and heavy padding just to practice football.  Baseball players constantly run the risk of being hit in the head with a projectile that can exceed speeds of 100 miles per hour.  Tennis players run the risk of elbow injuries due to their elbows bearing the brunt of a tennis ball’s impact hundreds of times in just a single match.  It just doesn’t make sense to play these barbaric games, for all we know they’re only still taught to young people out of some sense of tradition.  Let’s be honest, they were created at a time where there were few resources available for leisure activities and little to no alternatives, meanwhile studies have shown that video games improve hand-eye coordination, and have no discriminatory physical requirements.  Since the wide adoption of Personal Computers and the World Wide Web in the late 90s, our options have exponentially increased, and many, especially the younger generation that grew up being spurned by physical sports, are choosing to do other things with their time.  What this has meant is that the interest in traditional sports is dying, and an interest in electronic competitions (eSports) is growing.  Websites like Twitch.TV, which allows gamers to broadcast all kinds of video games, saw so much popularity they ended up getting bought by the enormous online retailer Amazon.com.  Meanwhile, Golf courses are shutting down all over due to a lack of interest by younger people just as golf’s regular players are literally dying of old age.  Interest in the Olympics is also dying out, as few countries are willing to foot the bill for a short-term event that has costs quickly spiraling out of control in exchange for very little payoff and heavy upkeep.

So it has come to a head that colleges would begin to offer scholarships for some of the best video game players in the world.  College students competing in online games is nothing new, I can remember during my freshman year at college that all my dorm mates wanted to play were games of StarCraft and Counter Strike, and I was pretty good at playing a newer title, Unreal Tournament 2003. The same computer network that college students use to look up information or type papers is perfectly designed to play multiplayer video games.  One of the first video games that offered the chance to connect to other players on other computers was Doom.  In the early 90s, Doom‘s shareware version was released and had a higher installation rate than Microsoft’s Windows 95 operating system.  College students living together in the same dorms discovered that they shared a Local Access Network (LAN) amongst their computers. While this is great if they need to share documents or other files amongst themselves, it has the side effect of offering amazing connection speeds if they wanted to play video games against each other, and they used their networks to play Doom, bringing a lot of college networks to their knees. Some people have also theorized this factor contributed to the success of Halo: Combat Evolved‘s multiplayer.  While not a PC title, the Xbox shipped with LAN capabilities (which Microsoft called System Link) and many college dorms were equipped with LANs that worked perfectly with Halo‘s System Link based multiplayer. With that, the floodgates opened and college students all over the world found themselves with tons of options for playing video games that they could not have at home.  A year later, Microsoft launched the Xbox Live service, and by the time Halo 2 was released, the players who had so much fun playing against their friends were now ready to bring their games online to play against the whole world.  The Xbox became a must-own item for college students, and Halo grew to be one of the biggest franchises in the history of gaming.  Now, the same generation that played Doom in college are parents, and they’re sharing their love of video games with their children, and now their children are playing.  Games like League of Legends and DOTA 2 have seen huge popularity in modern times.  They’re free to download by anyone with a computer, are fun to play, test strategy, and require skill you can only earn through experience to win.

Is it a sport?  This is something I’ve heard brought up by the older generation who grew up watching traditional contact sports, and pundits like Bryant Gumbel have made their opinions clear.  Their argument is they simply cannot fathom a competition without physical risk being considered a sport.  To that I ask what would they call chess competitions?  Chess is played in almost every country in the world and requires no physical exertion beyond the stamina needed to sustain yourself through a particularly long game.  Video games are very much like chess competitions as they require skill, strategy, and experience to win.  Also like chess, video games are developed and played all over the world.  In many cases it can take years to become fully familiar with just a single game, just as chess requires time and practice to master.  I’m sure Mr. Kazparov would be quite upset to hear that because Deep Blue was not hitting him repeatedly as he was playing chess against it, his contribution to chess in the form of his match against IBM’s computer Deep Blue is not to be championed.  Nearly twenty years since that event, Electronic Sports (eSports) have become a multimillion dollar industry.  The people who enjoy playing Golf, Football, Hockey, Baseball, or Basketball can watch the NHL, MLB, NFL, and NBA where they can witness the best in the world compete in a sport they enjoy. The people who are playing video games want to see the best among us compete as well, the only difference is these gamers have no interest in traditional contact sports, they want to see the games they enjoy have the spotlight and because of that they have flocked to eSports events in droves.   Huge events have been held with enormous attendance for many popular game titles ranging from StarCraft 2 to Pokémon.  I’m not kidding, a major Pokémon tournament, featuring players from across the entire world, was held in my nation’s capital last year.

More colleges are planning to offer scholarships to gamers as they plan to form their own video game teams.  We may be seeing the beginning of our entire industry being accepted by the mainstream.  I only have one thing to say about that.  What took you so long?

What Makes Good Atmosphere in a Video Game Part 3: Console Placement January 5, 2015

For this article series, I’m going to continue going against expectations and continue talking about what I think makes for good atmosphere in a video game.  Now, when I say atmosphere I want to make it clear that I’m not going to be talking about the “atmosphere” in a game as created by having high quality graphics or surround sound effects, In my opinion, a game creates “atmosphere” by adding little details here and there. Previously I’ve brought up the fact that fake radio shows and fake advertising have contributed to my immersion in some games, today I’m going to bring up something new.

Nothing can immerse me more than seeing something from our world, in this case, the very console I’m playing the game on, in the game’s environment.  Typically you will see this kind of thing happen in console exclusive games or first-party titles. It is done either as an inside joke to make the player laugh at the irony of seeing the console they’re using to play a game in the very game they’re playing, or if you are less optimistic you can consider it blatant product placement. I happen to think that this adds a bit of charm to the game and further immersed me into the game’s atmosphere, but I’ll let you be the judge of how you feel about it.

So I got to thinking, just how many games are there that feature the game consoles that the player may be using to play the game in the game itself?  Here’s a short list of games I could find where that happened.

Throughout the entire history of the Pokémon franchise, Nintendo has put a lot of product placement into their Pokémon games.  In Pokémon, the trainer you control will typically have a Nintendo console in their bedroom, making it one of the first easter eggs you’ll find in the game.  In the third generation Pokémon games, like Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, your trainer have a GameCube with a Game Boy Advance as a controller in their bedroom.  Nintendo had been promoting GameCube/Game Boy Advance interconnection at the time, and this was a big for promotion for it, as Pokémon titles had a habit of being the biggest selling games on the handheld platforms.   Several games took advantage of this interconnectivity, including the Pokémon titles for games like Pokémon Box and Pokémon XD/Gale of Darkness.  In the first generation remakes, FireRed and LeafGreen, the trainer has a NES in their bedroom instead, heavily implying that this game was supposed to take place in the past, prior to the third generation titles.  This tradition of putting Nintendo consoles in the Pokémon games continued even to the sixth generation, as the opening scene of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, shows that your character keeps both a 3DS and a Wii U in their bedroom.  Although the Wii U is currently lagging behind in this console generation, its placement in the game could be the free advertising the Wii U needs to promote sales.

Anyone who played the incredible Xbox 360/PC title Alan Wake might have noticed the Xbox 360 in Hartman’s lodge.  One of the residents at the clinic is a game designer and if you go through his room you’ll find lots of gaming equipment, including the Xbox 360 console on a desk.  Alan Wake was exclusively on the Xbox 360 at its launch and I’m sure the game’s developer didn’t see any harm in having the console on display in the game’s world.   Next to the console is a single game, which at first sight might look like the Alan Wake game box, but is actually labeled Night Springs, a reference to a fictional TV series in the game.  While the game is a fake, the game’s case is the exact shade of green to normal Xbox 360 game cases, clearly signifying that the game is for the Xbox 360.  This isn’t the last time we will see this game and case in Alan Wake, Night Springs Xbox 360 game boxes were also a collectible item in one of the downloadable episodes.  I don’t know why Alan would have them strewn all over his mind’s environment, but Barry mentioned in the game that Alan did write at least one episode of Night Springs, so the series has a strong significance in his life.

My favorite title on the original Wii was the cult title No More Heroes.  In it, you play as Travis Touchdown, an Otaku who wins a beam saber in an online auction and tries to become the best assassin in the world.  Players who played the Wii version of the game might have noticed a Nintendo 64 in Travis Touchdown’s living room. You’ll probably notice it is sitting on one of his shelves when navigating the game menus while in his apartment.  This is a perfect addition to the set dressing as I can’t think of any real-world Otaku I’ve met who doesn’t own a Nintendo 64.

I can’t talk about any product placement in Halo Reach without addressing possible spoilers, so anyone who doesn’t want to get that game spoiled should probably skip this paragraph.  Towards the end of the game there is a cinematic where Noble Team is talking to Dr. Catherine Halsey, the creator of the SPARTAN-II program, in her secret lab, located deep below the surface of the planet.  While the scene takes place in a non interactive form, the location of the lab is actually fully modeled and accessible in the game’s environment. Because of that, players can get in and check it out for themselves if they know how to get in.  This is an easter egg, I admit, but if you happen to be able to get into Dr. Catherine Halsey’s lab, you’ll find her entire lab is actually run on an array of Xbox 360s networked together. While this is an awesome easter egg it isn’t an unreasonable or unheard of occurrence to find in the real world. My own country’s military will frequently reappropriate civilian technology for their own purposes to save money. In fact, there is a large array of networked Playstation 3 systems doing military applications as I speak, although if you ask me it should be used to host a kick ass LAN party. I guess Microsoft was able to persuade the Office of Naval Intelligence to go with their hardware instead of Sony’s.

Finally I want to take you on a big blast from the past and talk about one of the earliest 3D console games I can remember playing. The Metal Gear Solid franchise has a long standing history on the Playstation platform and some various easter eggs in the games reflect that.  In the first Metal Gear Solid, you’ll find Otacon has a Playstation 1 in his lab, although if you play the GameCube version, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, this was changed to a GameCube with a WaveBird controller.  In Metal Gear Solid 4, there are a ton of references to the Playstation brand throughout the entire game, the most blatant of which is a codec call between Snake and Otacon during Act 4.  As for actual console placement in that game, you can find a PS3 somewhere on Otacon’s transport plane, and Sunny can occasionally be seen playing on a PSP.

These small details give me a deeper connection to the game I’m playing, and succeed in further immersing me in the game’s environment. By bringing in elements from the real world, these games give the player a sense of reality and makes the atmosphere that much more powerful.

Top Six Christmas Video Games December 5, 2014

With Christmas just around the corner and the season’s spirit out in the air, I strongly believe that this time of year is so ubiquitous that it can find itself in almost every single medium.  I’m sure that many of you could spend hours reading out all the books, films, and television shows that featured this holiday front and center, but how many of you can name the video games that show off the spirit of the season in a way that only video games can?

Well, I’ve been following video games for plenty of Christmases and I’m sure going to try.  The important criteria for this list has entirely to do with the game’s use of Christmas, either in the game’s story, visuals, or gameplay.  However, a game can still make this list even if it doesn’t specifically reference Christmas itself, as long as it includes images or story elements generally associated with Christmas, like snow.  So without further ado, let’s count down the Top Six Christmas Video Games!

6. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire – You can’t get more iconic than the Star Wars franchise.  I know we’ve got the start of an entirely new trilogy coming next year, but back in the mid 90s all Star Wars fans had in canon were three beloved films, some novels, and an expanding comic universe.  Before the prequel trilogy was even spoken of in hushed tomes by fans hanging on George Lucas’s every word, gamers got the biggest canonical expansion to the Star Wars universe in the mid-90s in the form of the game Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.  Set during the events between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the game puts you in control of Dash Rendar and his ship the Outrider as we got to explore the Star Wars universe in glorious 3D.  While the game itself has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, or as its known as in Star Wars, Life Day, what better way for a Star Wars fan to spend Christmas than fighting in the Battle of Hoth?  I’m sure that many early N64 adopters fondly remember receiving this game alongside their brand new Nintendo 64 on Christmas morning, making it a great addition to this list.

5. Faherenheit (Indigo Prophecy) – This is probably one of my last favorite PC titles, even though it is available on the PS2 and Xbox.  Taking us back to NYC, or as the game calls it, the Capital of the Universe, you play as several characters investigating the strange, almost ritualistic killings happening as the city gets blanketed in one of the coldest winters it has seen in years.   It had been years since I played an adventure game on the PC, but after reading the guys at Penny Arcade had recommended it I decided to check out the game’s demo and I immediately was hooked.  The story is fantastic, the motion captured animation was fluid, the soundtrack rocked, and the quick time events, while difficult for some, was a lot of fun for me. This game laid the groundwork for games like Heavy Rain and BEYOND: Two Souls.  Do you want the heroes to overcome evil, or do you want evil to win out and for humanity to be blanketed in never ending winter?  The choice is yours. What happens is left to you.  If you don’t have an original Xbox don’t worry, the game will play just fine on the Xbox 360.

4. Max Payne – This game is without a doubt one of the greatest third person shooters in gaming history, and not only featured some of the best graphics of its time, but entirely new gameplay that is still being replicated to this day.  While the game does not officially take place during Christmas (we never find out exactly what days of the year the first Max Payne game took place), the majority of the game takes place during one of New York City’s worst blizzards.  As we can see immediately following the game’s prologue, NYC is a winter wonderland covered in snow, and if your PC is powerful enough, that snow will fall non stop.   As you look at the images of the snow covered city during the game’s graphic novel segments, you can see that the snow itself is almost like another character in the game.  In this game, Max isn’t going to be checking out the city’s great landmarks, we’re going to be fighting our way through some pretty seedy areas that even the game’s developer admits probably don’t exist anymore.  You will find yourself traveling to some pretty dangerous places in the Big Apple, like Subways infested with gangs of mercenaries, or gothic nightclubs serving as the headquarters for some of the most dangerous drug lords in the city.

3.  Batman: Arkham Origins – Batman had long standing issues in the video game space, but that all changed when Rocksteady released Batman: Arkham Asylum a few years ago.  Last year WB Games Montreal released this prequel title to show the…*ahem* origins of the Arkham franchise.  It is Christmas Eve and Batman has just started his war against crime.  The city’s villains aren’t very happy they have to deal with a giant flying bat and someone places a bounty on the head of Gotham City’s vigilante.  This brings out some of most dangerous super criminals in Batman’s rogues gallery including Bane, Deathstroke, Killer Croc, and Copperhead.  With almost all of Gotham now gunning for Batman, The Dark Knight must defeat his new foes and make it back to Wayne Manor in time for Christmas ham.  I really don’t want to say anything more as it might spoil the game’s story, but needless to say it is a great way to ring in the Holiday season.  Just make sure to save Mr. Freeze’s DLC, Cold, Cold Night, for New Year’s!

2. Parasite Eve – Having grown up on the East Coast of the US, I have to admit I have a romantic fondness for New York City.  While the city can be quite cold during the Holidays, it can also be so charming seeing it covered in snow when all the lights go on, and that feeling is captured quite nicely in Square’s PS1 classic, Parasite Eve.  As the game opens we see snow fall all around the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center’s ice rink is covered in a white blanket of snow, and our game’s hero, Aya, is having a date to the opera on Christmas Eve.  Immediately the city becomes an important staple of the game, and the signs of Christmas are around you.  Sadly, your date goes badly.  So badly in fact that almost everyone at the opera who didn’t flee immediately is presumed dead when one of the stars of the show unleashes an incredible power upon seeing you.  The game takes place over the course of the next six days as you try to determine just what the heck happened at the Opera, and what was so special about you that your life was spared.  If you want to check the game out for yourselves and don’t have an original copy of the game on PlayStation, you can always buy it digitally off the PlayStation Store.

1. Infected – As far as I’m concerned, this game is the definitive Christmas title, and I do my best to try and spend some time playing it every holiday season. One of the most prominent early titles in the PSP’s back catalog, Infected sadly never got the attention I believed it deserved.  The game starts during the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center just as a zombie pandemic hits New York City.  Okay, seriously, at this point even I’m shocked by how many Christmas games on this list happen to also take place in New York City.  In fact, you could say it’s sadly comical, as developer Planet Moon Studios did a lot to inject their humor into what would otherwise have been a depressing, generic title.  You are one of the few officers found to be immune to the zombie virus, and you have to spend the days leading up to Christmas eradicating the city of all traces of the outbreak.  As the credits roll, the player is treated to an all new version of “They Don’t Even Know its Christmas” but this one is written on behalf of the zombies.  Sadly, this game has not gotten a digital release on the PlayStation Store, so you’ll have to track down a physical UMD copy if you want to play it, but trust me, it is my favorite game on the PSP system.

Things to Know Before Holiday Shopping for Electronics and Video Games November 25, 2014

With Thanksgiving upon us, the Holiday shopping season is at hand.  Undoubtedly video games and other electronic items are going to be at the top of most people’s wish lists, as three new gaming consoles have been gaining a lot of ground and releasing some amazing new games over the past year.

If you plan to pick up any of these new gaming consoles there are a few things you might need to know before purchasing them.  At the simplest, this information will inform you in advance of some minor inconveniences you may have with your new equipment, but there are some major issues that can prevent you from using your new purchases if you’re not aware of them.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

• You must own an HDMI equipped HDTV to use the PS4 or Xbox One.  Neither console will work on SDTVs or HDTVs without HDMI ports.
• The Wii U will work on older SD and EDTVs, but you will need to use a custom cable that isn’t included with the Wii U to connect it to legacy TVs.  You can get analog cables from Nintendo’s Parts and Supplies website, or use your Wii’s video cables instead if you already own one.
• You must have a home with high speed internet to activate the Xbox One and install the latest system software.  The Xbox One will not function unless activated.
• The Xbox One and PS4 can only play any games designed specifically for them to play, and there are no plans to bring legacy support for retail titles to either console.
• The Wii U can play Wii games, and if you already have a Wii, you can transfer all of the save files and downloaded content from your Nintendo Wii to a brand new Wii U.  However, you will need a home network with a high-speed internet connection and a digital camera’s SD card with at least 512MB of storage to do a transfer.
• All the modern gaming consoles come with HDMI cables, you will not need to buy extra cables if you just plan to plug your HDTV.  In fact, I recommend using the included cables as they are guaranteed to work well with the console.  Some third party cables can bring audible pops or temporary blank screens during gameplay.
• You must pay for a PlayStation Plus membership to play online PS4 multiplayer titles. The price is $50US for one year.
• You must pay for an Xbox Live Gold membership to play online Xbox One and Xbox 360 multiplayer games. The price is $60US for one year.
• Destiny requires an online connection to play.
• If you want to buy a PlayStation TV and don’t have a PlayStation Vita, there are a lot of PlayStation Vita games, including several killer apps for the system, which are still incompatible with the PlayStation TV.  Do not pick up a PlayStation TV if you plan to play a game like Uncharted: Golden Abyss or Silent Hill: Book of Memories on it.  Right now only the PlayStation Vita handheld can play those games.  Here’s a link to the official list of compatible games.
• If you plan to play Blu-Ray Discs or CDs on an Xbox One, you need to download the apps that allow you to do so from the Xbox Store.  Don’t worry, they don’t cost anything to download, but they will need to be downloaded.
• You must update the PS4’s Firmware to play Blu-Ray Discs, but a high speed internet connection is not required.  You can download the firmware to a USB drive and update the PS4 that way.  You can download the latest firmware update here.
• If you have an older legacy surround sound amplifier (like a 5.1 system that does not have HDMI inputs), you still can use the PS4, Apple TV, and Xbox One on it to get full surround sound, but you must buy an optical cable and use your amp’s optical port.
• A lot of new consoles, in particular the Xbox One and Wii U will actually come bundled with full versions of new games.  However, in some cases, these free bundled games will need to be downloaded from the internet, which will require a high-speed internet connection to redeem your game.
• If you plan to pick up a Wii U or any Nintendo product, check out Club Nintendo to earn awesome rewards for your purchases.
• Wii U consoles typically do not come with Nintendo Wiimotes or Nunchucks unless otherwise marked that they do.  You will need those controllers if you plan to play legacy Wii titles on your Wii U.

The Best Movies For LAN Parties September 10, 2014

In high school I was fortunate to be able to attend some incredible Local Area Network (LAN) Parties. At regular times during the year, we would take over the offices of a local Open Source Group to play Unreal Tournament CTF and Starcraft.

The room they kept all their gaming computers in was also equipped with a (then) top of the line projector and 5.1 surround system. The system was pretty flexible and could run content from a variety of different sources including DVD-Video and PC. On the nights they held LANs, the group would run a DVD movie of whatever film they wanted to watch that week.  At one point I remember asking them why choose to play a movie on that system.  They could have run a spectator server on the projector so non players could see what was going on in the game, but they said for some reason having a spectator feed on a screen that big made some of the people watching it nauseous.  With that in mind, they decided to show some amazing movies that in a lot of cases I was ashamed to admit I had never seen before. It added to the atmosphere of the event and was a fun distraction during the levels’ load times.

Even in a fully manned LAN Party, not everyone is going to want to play every second they are at the event and some non gamers may be in attendance too, so it’s a good idea to have something running in the background for those people to watch on their downtime. If you plan to do this, I recommend showing movies that fit three major criteria. First, show a movie that has been universally considered good, unless you’re planning to be ironic in a “so bad it’s good kind of way.” You want people to enjoy their time at the event, so bad stuff is going to be frowned upon.  I’m not saying people will leave if you choose to play something bad, but having something good on might convince them to stay longer.  Second is you’re going to want to show something which can be easily understood in passing, or something that you’re sure your guests are already familiar with. That includes anything popular or straight up action movies. Serious dramas, crime mysteries or twist films are kind of hard to understand unless you’re able to pay attention to every single second of it, and let’s face it, this is going to be a film that’s glanced at infrequently.  I think an argument could be made for The Usual Suspects, since I don’t know a single person who hasn’t already seen that movie, but I’m not going to include it on this list.  Finally I would recommend movies on a darker lighting tone. By that I don’t mean depressing movies I mean films shot mostly at night. Aside from vampires, nobody hates light more than gamers and nothing can kill a gaming mood more than the bright glare from ambient lighting.  Heavy brightness from a film playing in the background can be a distraction or irritation, so brightly lit films are out.

So with all that said, here are some of my recommendations for the best movies to play during a LAN Party.

Blade –  The very first successful movie based on a Marvel property will also be the very first film to make this list.  A vampire-human hybrid gifted with supernatural strength and agility uses his powers to fight the creatures of the night.  When he discovers a plan by one of the outcast members of vampire society to trigger an apocalypse, he must stop them before its too late.  While the film has tons of great action beats culminating with an epic final battle between the two main characters, it is an extremely well written and acted film.  Since it’s a vampire movie, you can be sure most of the movie’s plot takes place at night, and the color palate will not distract from gameplay.  Trust me, the first time I ever saw this movie was at a LAN Party, and I’m grateful for it.

The Matrix – Regardless of how you may feel about its sequels, the original Matrix film is one of the best movies ever made.  When a LAN center briefly opened in my area, I recommended the owners buy a DVD player and keep this film running on loop.  They took my advice, and this film became a staple of the center’s lounge area.  The themes of this movie become quite ironic given the setting.  Here is a future where the world could be interpreted as one big MMO, with players given the ability to cheat if they are skilled enough.  While I admit not much of this movie actually takes place at night, that isn’t much of an issue when you think about the film’s cinematography and colorization.  The directors chose to color tint most of the scenes and intentionally avoided showing the world’s sky, giving even daytime shots a darker tone.  Without spoiling anything, look really closely at the color filters used throughout most of the movie and you’ll notice a specific hue saturating it depending on the location.  While it may be a more complicated film to follow than some of the others on the list, it isn’t as difficult to follow as some would have you believe, and even as just a visual spectacle the movie still holds up.

TRON –   This is without a doubt a generationally defining movie which pushed the limits on what was possible with animation.  The movie’s plot is perfect for the setting.  A game programmer is sucked inside the computer and forced to battle his creations for real.  Once that happens, the movie continues from setpiece to setpiece until the final battle.  Another thing going for it is the entire movie is dark.  The animation effects were achieved by having live action actors filmed in front of a black background on 70mm black and white film.  The director insisted the computer world would not have a sun, instead everything in the world would have its own independent glow, showing they were made of energy.  The first time I ever saw this film was at a LAN Party and I have to give great props for the organizers choosing to show this film.

Blade Runner – This is a film that defies every description but I’m going to try to define it for you guys.  Well, it’s a futuristic film noir starring Harrison Ford, where a formerly retired cop is charged with tracking down and retiring four robots illegally operating in a futuristic Los Angeles.  While some people will have a hard time following the film in passing if they’re not previously familiar with it, the spectacle of the film’s world should be more than enough to impress passing viewers.  The director, having looked at his facilities, decided very early that night, rain and smoke were his three best friends let me tell you those three elements add a magical look to the movie.  Try to get the Blu-Ray Disc release on this one, you won’t regret it.

Batman Begins – The movie that brought DC films back into the public image, Batman Begins is one of the best superhero origin films ever made.  Finally, after years of waiting for someone to tell the story about how exactly Bruce Wayne became Batman, we got one hell of a well acted, well directed and well paced first story in what looked to be a promising new film franchise, and that eventually paid off when Warner Bros released the best film of 2008, The Dark Knight, a few years later.  The reason why I chose this film instead of The Dark Knight is basically because of my lighting rule.  The Dark Knight was shot partially in IMAX and uses more daytime sequences than Batman Begins which could distract players.  Since Batman operates mostly at night (because a guy in a Bat costume isn’t very scary in broad daylight) most of the film takes place at night, making it perfect for a LAN showing.

Iron Man – The movie responsible for ensuring the continued future of Marvel Studios and with it the Avengers movie, Iron Man was the right film released at the right time.  A brilliant billionaire playboy is captured by terrorists while trying to sell weapons to the military.  Instead of making weapons for the terrorists as he was forced to do, he builds himself a suit of armor armed to the teeth and fought his way out.  When his companion is killed in the breakout, he decides to use his knowledge and resources to help make the world a better place.  This becomes the foundation for an entire superhero universe, culminating in one of the best movies ever made, and certainly the best film of 2012, The Avengers.  While some of the movie isn’t shot at night, a pretty good portion of the daytime scenes take place in dark environments, so it shouldn’t be much of an issue.

Terminator 2 – A being made entirely of a metallic alloy able to change its shape to mimic any person of equal size is sent back in time to kill the future leader of the human resistance.  The only thing that can stop him is a fully reprogrammed cyborg made from a hardware line that failed to kill his mother years earlier. It is without a doubt one of the greatest action movies of all time. While it is beyond likely that every person you know probably knows the film by heart, the movie is just so good they’re not going to care. As for the lighting, while not everything in the film is shot at night, a wide majority of it is, including all of the final act.

I hope you all enjoyed the list and if you have any recommendations you would like to add, just post a comment!