12 years ago
Weekend Rant: The seven (or so) deadly sins of cooperative play
Weekend Rant is a non-regularly occurring weekend mini-editorial. In layman’s terms that basically means that if a staff member has something they want to rant about they can do so on any given weekend.
There’s a list of disturbing trends that have developed within the gaming industry this generation, and they revolve around cooperative play. Co-op is nothing new to gaming. It has existed since the earliest days of coin-op arcade machines going back decades. This generation however, co-op has evolved. No longer do we just get to tread through a game’s campaign with a friend, sometimes we get an entire stand alone co-op campaign. In other instances, we get completely unique cooperative modes with their own setup and rules like the highly successful Horde mode in Gears of War, or Zombie mode in Call of Duty. More than ever, developers are taking advantage of the fact that its just plain fun to play games with your friends. The evolution of co-op has also unfortunately created problems. And its about time we start talking about them.
12 years ago
What we are playing: December 18
What we are playing is a weekly column that appears each weekend. Various staff members let the world know what games had them hooked the past week and which ones …
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12 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 38 – Jet Set …Radio
It’s a pretty slow time for XBLA games and XBLA news at the moment, so there’s not a lot of XBLA discussion on this weeks show. That doesn’t stop us though, as the regular crew of myself, Perry and Todd are joined by John Carson to talk for around an hour.
Subjects include Fusion: Genesis, Skyrim, Dragons, Modern Warfare 3, Jet Set Radio and Dragons. It’s a fairly offbeat show (with some cursing, apologies) but we think it made for a fun one. So give it a listen and let us know what you think!
Please subscribe, comment, review the podcast on iTunes and tell your friends! We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question.
Big thanks again to Chris Green for the awesome theme music, be sure to check out his site BlurredEdge and why not follow him on twitter too @BlurredEdge.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp38.mp3[/podcast]
13 years ago
The ever changing definition of “gamer”
A theme within the gaming industry this generation has been the expansion of who plays video games. Console makers have been looking to draw in a new audience by making games easier to approach and simpler to play. Motion sensors and touch screens are just two of the things we’ve seen this generation that are making it easier for your mom, dad, and little sister to pick up and play video games. But look a bit deeper and you’ll see a trend when it comes to the games themselves as well, and Xbox Live Arcade has something to do with it.
13 years ago
5th Cell: Hybrid More Than Just a Budget Call of Duty
Gameinformer has a wonderful interview in their December Issue with 5th Cell Co-Founder Jeremiah Slaczka. Unfortunately, he was largely mum on details about their new game, Hybrid. For the uninitiated, Hybrid will be a high-res shooter that utilizes the source engine (check out the Hybrid teaser trailer here).