Blog Archives
It’s Not Free-to-Play but Mobile Gaming That Is Broken
The big story in the games news world right now is EA’s mobile release of Dungeon Keeper. The original Dungeon Keeper was released in 1997 and was an instant cult hit. Gamers loved it and game designers were influenced by it. Even today, Dungeon Keeper is often among the top sellers on GOG.com.
The mobile version of Dungeon Keeper pretends to pay homage to the cult classic and instead bastardizes it with the worst free-to-play microtransactions system that many people have seen. While we’re used to free-to-play cash grabs, this might be the most blatant attempt to stop gameplay at every possible turn to squeeze the player for more money.
I don’t think, however, that the problems with Dungeon Keeper Mobile aren’t a result of the free-to-play model. If you go looking for free-to-play games, not all of them are blatant cash grabs. However, when you look at it more closely, you find that so-called games designed to print are really a mobile gaming problem.
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PlayStation Now is Gaming’s Next Disruptive Technology
When Nintendo announced the Wii, many cynics wrote off the console’s motion controls as a gimmick that wouldn’t add much anything to gameplay. After the console’s massive popularity and sales upon launch, both Microsoft and Sony followed Nintendo into the world of motion controls to gain back market share.
The Wii and its motion controls are a perfect example of a disruptive technology. The games industry was completely overtaken by the motion control fad as millions of dollars were spent to keep pace with Nintendo. They set a new direction for gaming and the other two console manufacturers followed.
PlayStation Now may not be out yet but Sony’s cloud gaming service is, if implemented correctly by Sony Computer Entertainment, destined to be one of the biggest and most disruptive technologies that the gaming industry has ever seen.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: The Honourable Mentions
Having given you my list of the seven best games of the last generation of consoles, I thought that I should give you a brief look at some of the games that were on the shortlist but didn’t quite make the cut.
Over the course of eight years and thousands of games, cutting a list of the best of the best down to only seven game leaves many deserving games on the sidelines. So to close out our series looking at the best games of the last generation of consoles, here’s a look at some of the games that were under serious consideration for the list.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: The Orange Box
After seven weeks, our list of the seven best games of the seventh generation of video game consoles comes to a close. While many, many great games aren’t making such a short list of great games, I think that this game won’t get too much of an argument for making it over other deserving
When a game picks up scads of awards, everyone takes notice. But how good is a company that can make multiple games, ship them in a bundle and garner accolades and win awards for each of them? That’s exactly what Valve did when they put Half-Life 2, HL2: Episodes 1 & 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal into one award-winning package called The Orange Box.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Grand Theft Auto V
I don’t think that I could do a list of the seven best games of the seventh console generation without including one game from this year. While a lot of our attention this year has been on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, 2013 has been a spectacular year for games. Any one of a few games are more than worthy of inclusion on this list.
From the class of 2013, the best swansong for the now last generation of consoles has to be Grand Theft Auto V.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Super Mario Galaxy
There are few series in gaming that are as iconic and as loved as Nintendo’s Super Mario series. Despite the fact that Mario has been around for over 30 years, Nintendo has this way of reinventing Mario and the Super Mario series with each new console generation. The result is games that bring new gamers into Nintendo and Mario while still giving fans who have played Mario games for their whole lives something to love.
For the industry shaking Wii console, Nintendo took Mario to the one place he’d never been before: The final frontier. Not only did Mario’s first adventure in outer space prove to be a smash hit, at release, it was considered one of the best Wii and platformer games of all-time.
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Upcoming YouTube Changes Could Hurt Your Favourite Channels
Very quietly, YouTube is making some behind-the-scenes changes with their monetization changes for channels affiliated with networks. Currently, the big advantage of being a YouTuber signed with a multi-channel network (MCN) is that you can upload your videos and monetize it instantly without having to go through any checks, or audits as they’re known to YouTubers, for unauthorized copyrighted content while getting more revenue through network sold ads. The trade-off is that those channels give up a portion of their add revenue to the network for that benefit.
YouTube has quietly announced that they are changing the current monetization rules for MCNs come January. Now, MCNs have to add a designation to channels to determine whether they will get the instant monetization or whether they’ll have to go through the auditing process just like every other unaffiliated channel on YouTube.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Mass Effect Trilogy
Last week, when talking about Skyrim, I mentioned that a number of games outside the RPG genre incorporated elements of RPGs into their games. These included things like skill points, customization, inventory systems, questing, deep stories, dialogue tree and more of the classic RPG tricks.
This week’s entry into the 7 Best may have started life as being a bit more of an RPG than a third-person shooter but evolved into a third-person shooter that retained the strong influence of RPGs. Of course, if I boiled down the Mass Effect Trilogy to a series of gameplay mechanics and the evolution of the mechanics, I’d be missing the whole point of the franchise. Mass Effect’s strong suit and its claim to fame is the story.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
If there’s one genre of games that seemed to take of the last generation of consoles, it was the role-playing game. The RPG genre has been around for almost as long as video games thanks to the popularity of the pen-and-paper RPGs, like Dungeons and Dragons. It was really this generation that saw the proliferation of RPGs and the incorporation of RPG elements into a number of games in other genres.
At the top of the class in this generation is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The fifth entry into Bethesda’s hit action RPG series re-set the bar for Western RPGs thanks to gorgeous graphics, a spectacular soundtrack and seemingly limitless gameplay throughout the open world of Skyrim.
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Rock Band
When people think up games for lists such as out 7 best games of the 7th generation (or 7 For 7 for short), they think of game of the year winners or critically acclaimed blockbusters. But how many of these lists include games that were just wildly popular and genre redefining?
Rock Band was probably never really in contention for a major game of the year award but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a big game for the current console generation. The mark of a game being among the best isn’t just what the critics think but what the gamers think. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone who didn’t love playing Rock Band.
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