Silent Hill Downpour Review

On March 13, Silent Hill Downpour, the eight installment of the popular survival horror series, is being released.  Downpour is being developed by Vatra games and published by Konami digital entertainment.  Anyone who has played Silent Hill knows what the series is about.  For a quick recap, it is a rural American town near Lake Toluca (Silent Hill).  The town holds a dark secret of a satanic cult that is trying to rebirth a God (among other dark things.)  The town is mysteriously abandoned and covered in fog, the protagonist must find clues to what is going on while the town around him switches between “normal,” and “nightmare,” a hellish version of the town where everything is dark and decayed.  The protagonist often wonders if everything around them is even real (the game is deeply psychological) Puzzles are challenging and grotesque monsters stalk the player.  There are all sorts of controversial and mature themes (Burning crosses, immolation, psychosis, etc) and an overwhelming sense of fear of the unknown.

Murphy Pendleton the games protagonist 

Downpour follows Murphy Pendleton, a prisoner who becomes stranded in the mysterious town of Silent hill after his prison bus crashes nearby.  Like previous installments, players will have to explore the town while finding clues and solving puzzles, all while fending off against malevolent monsters that lurk in the fog.  This game is rumoured to focus less on firearms (players will only be able to carry a single gun) and more on melee weapons to give the player a real sense of survival horror.  Fighting however is only going to be a small part of the game, as most the terror comes from exploring the desolate town whilst finding clues and the suspense of the horrors that lie within.  Like Silent Hill 2, this game will break from the Silent Hill Mythos story (The cult) and focus on the main characters personal struggle and inner demons.

            The release of Silent Hill Downpour crept up on me, and when I saw the trailer I was instantly reminded of the first time I played a demo of the original Silent Hill for Playstation back when I was nine or ten, I remember it so clearly.  It was a December night and thick snow covered the ground.  I had just gotten the new issue of “The Official Playstation Magazine” (remember, the one that came with the demo disk?)  I put the disk in and played a few demos until I came across Silent Hill and I started to play.  I controlled the protagonist Harry Mason, who is looking for his missing daughter Cheryl in the seemingly abandoned town after they crash their car near Silent Hill.  In town, a Cheryl is seen disappearing around a street corner, into the fog, so I followed.  The town is quiet, a veil of fog covers allowed me to only see a few feet down the street, and my heart started pounding because I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.  I walked into a side street, then into an ally, my hands shook as I walked by a pool of blood near a doghouse, then further into an ally that twists and turns like a maze, more blood, more fog, then everything went dark and Harry pulls out a lighter.  Something is seriously wrong with the town and I want to stop playing because I am horrified, but I continued.  I come to a small clearing surrounded by fences; dead bodies hang on the fences (but are they even human?) and they come to life and attack. Harry is defenceless and falls to the ground only to wake up in a diner in Silent Hill.  It was just a dream, but I’ve seen more than enough so I shut off the game.  I am horrified and I have trouble sleeping at night, but there is something that keeps me interested in Silent Hill and its mystery, and over the years I continue to read all about it from the safety of gaming magazines as they release Silent hill two and three.  As I grow older, and my love for horror grows, I buy the first three games.  They are still terrifying but also challenging, I lose patience with the fact that I can never figure out what to do next.  It was not until last winter, over ten years from the night I played that demo, I sit down and play through the first game.  Even though the graphics are outdated and the controls somewhat clunky, this game is still horrifying and deciphering the complex story makes it all a satisfying experience.

"The town is quiet, a veil of fog covers allowed me to only see a few feet down the street, and my heart started pounding because I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right."

This game will have you running scared .. don't turn the lights off

            The fear Silent Hill invokes comes not from cheap tricks such as monsters popping around corners and tons of gore like we are used to in western horror.  The fear comes all from the atmosphere created as the player explores the town, searching the streets, elementary schools, hospitals, sewers, and more while finding mysterious notes and newspaper clippings describing murders, escaped mental patients, and other mysterious regarding the town.  Most times, the player relies on a lighter or flashlight to light the darkness, and line of sight is limited. There is little actual music, bit instead discordant atonal clashing of what sounds like metal smashing against metal, and there is never an explanation of the hellish sounds.  The whole time the player has a feeling that something horrible has happened here, something horrible is still going on, or something horrible will happen again very soon.  The most terrifying scenes in a movie or game I’ve witnessed come from this series.  One example would be in the first game, when Harry is searching the elementary school and a phone rings in the classroom. On the other end he hears his daughter screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” then silence.  In Silent Hill Three, you walk past a mannequin in a shopping mall, a few seconds later there is a clunking sound.  When investigating, you find the mannequin has been beheaded and there is a pool of blood around it!  The series is full of horrific moments like this, and to make it worse, they usually go about unexplained, leaving it up to our imagination.  I have seen horror movies from all over the world and played many survival horror games, and this is the only game I will not play in the dark, I even hate playing it alone in my room!

            Like most Asian horror, the Silent Hill series could get extremely vague in terms of giving away elements of story, especially the first game.  Many questions were left unanswered, but this was not because of sloppy writing.  The games are full of minute clues and details that give the player pieces to the mystery that is Silent Hill. (most of the streets names in the town are references to horror culture!)  The games require multiple play throughs to understand the whole experiences and achieve the multiple endings some of the games have.  Personally, I researched online to figure out a lot of the questions I had about the town/story and found a lot of great explanations for the game.  I could go on for pages about the series intelligent story, but I will let you explore the town on your own and experience the horror and wonder that is Silent Hill.  The past releases of Silent Hill have all differed in game play, characters, and story aspects (for both better and worse,) but the series has always keep me intrigued.  I have high hopes for Silent Hill Downpour.  Look for it next week and give it a try, you will never look at a foggy day with out getting the chills again.

Written by Michael Easton 

Xbox Being Used More For Media Than Gaming

It has recently been reported that official figures show that many Xbox 360 owners are using their Xboxs for other things beside gaming. In the last year Microsoft have raidcally changed the design and layout of their dashboard and now it features many popular apps inlcuding, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and recently BBC iPlayer, along side older functionalities such as video and music player. The new additions seem to have accomplished what they were designed to for Microsoft who are still experiencing high hardware sales compared to that off the PS3 and Wii. Official figures state that on average Xbox users spend 80 hours on the Xbox per month.

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Interactive Entertainment Division SVP Yusuf Mehdi commented on the situation,

What we're seeing is that people are turning on the Xbox to play games and then keeping it on afterwards to get other types of entertainment.

It is thought that the recent dashboard updates along with the one which is rumoured to currently be in internal beta and the new focus on apps is all part of Microsoft's Trojan Horse plan to get an Xbox into every living room in preparation for the next hardware update.

New Walking Dead Trailer

Brand new details of The Walking Dead , check out the brand new trailer

iPlayer Comes to Xbox Live

Microsoft has teamed up with the BBC to bring the BBC's popular video on demand service to all Xbox live users, including silver members. This new cooperation between the two institutions now means that the iPlayer service is now available across all major gaming platforms. The service will also be completely compatible with Kinect, you will be able to control the interface with both hand gestures and voice recognition. 

Of this new partnership Danial Danker, BBC General Manager said, 

Xbox is hugely successful in the UK. Given the BBC’s goal to reach its entire audience, I’m particularly excited that the BBC will be bringing iPlayer to all Xbox users at no extra cost as part of Xbox LIVE’s free membership.”

“As we continue our work to make BBC iPlayer as simple as possible, we’re also excited to experiment with natural user interfaces made possible with Kinect, including voice and gesture control. We believe it’s early days for these experiences, but see a great future working with partners such as Microsoft on innovations like these.

The director of Xbox and Entertainment for Microsoft also commented on the new partnership, 

We are delighted that BBC iPlayer is now available on Xbox LIVE. Xbox 360 was the best-selling console in the UK and globally last year, while Xbox LIVE is one of the UK’s leading comprehensive VOD entertainment services on TVs. The addition of BBC iPlayer takes the service to the next level. We offer a formidable line-up of the best TV and entertainment – both live and on-demand - from providers such as Sky, Channel 4, Channel 5, Netflix, LOVEFiLM, Blinkbox, MSN, YouTube and many others.

“The way people interact with entertainment content is changing. Xbox LIVE is the only service in the world where you can search, discover and control TV, movies, video and music using voice and gesture via the power and magic of Kinect.

New Witcher 2 Trailer

Brand new trailer for The Witcher 2 that launches April 17

Rocksmith UK Release Date Announced

After a long wait Ubisoft have finally announced the UK release date for their much anticipated Rocksmith.  The game will allow users to effectively learn how to play a real guitar, but will more excitingly allow for the first time ever real electric guitars to be plugged in to your Xbox, PS3 or PC. Rocksmith aims to offer a genuine guitar playing experience and Ubisoft say that it can be used to teach someone who has never picked up a guitar the fundamental basics of guitar playing, the game does this by automatically adjusting its difficulty to the skill level of the player, so in theory it should be as useful to first time players as seasoned players. 

The game will launch on the 14th of September 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 (PC date not yet announced) and will feature additional content to that of the game currently released in Northern America.

What Ever Happened to Onimusha?

Does anyone remember playing Capcom’s successful series Onimusha?  It was a gruesome action/adventure game that took place in ancient Japan and incorporated elements of the supernatural and survival horror.  The series did remarkably well, five games were released on the PlayStation 2 (one was a fighting game that used the characters from the series.) The games have often been compared to the Devil May Cry series and Resident Evil, as they combine brutal action with exploration and puzzle solving. 

            The first instalment of the series was released in 2001, right around the time the PlayStation 2 launched.  Even for an early PS2 game, the graphics were superb and made full use of the systems capabilities. The game takes place in Japan in 1560 where a civil war is in full swing. The player controls Samonosuke, a warrior whose cousin is Princess Yuki of the Saito Clan. The game begins with Samonosuke receiving a letter from Princess Yuki, telling him the maids have been disappearing from the castle.  She suspects monsters with supernatural powers that the opposing army is using.  Samonosuke goes to investigate and finds that Princess Yuki has been kidnapped and he must now explore the castle while fighting demonic monsters called the Genma.

The series is often compared to the Devil May Cry series

            Players start the game with a Katana, but find other blade styles and long-range weapons as the game progresses.  Weapons with elemental attributes can also be found.  When enemies are slain, the player collects different coloured orbs from the fallen foes (Devil May Cry anyone?).  Red souls are used to buy weapons upgrades, yellow souls recover health, and blue souls restore the magic power used to execute magical attacks with the elemental weapons.  Something I really enjoyed about the game was the use of fixed camera angles; no different then those used in survival horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.  A lot of people do not enjoy fixed camera angles in games as they find them clunky,  I however, feel that they are creative and add a very artistic touch to the game.  They also help along the little bit of atmosphere that gives the game a slight survival horror feel.  In Onimusha, the fixed camera angles never felt clunky or out of place.  Complete control over the camera is a necessity in some games, but in this game, I feel the fixed camera angles gave each new area a unique feel, especially since you spend a lot of time in the same castle.

"A lot of people do not enjoy fixed camera angles in games as they find them clunky,  I however, feel that they are creative and add a very artistic touch"

            Onimusha received positive ratings when it was released.  The following instalments of the game stayed true to the original formula, adding a few touch ups here and there.  In the third game, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, the player controlled one character in Feudal Japan and another in modern day Paris.  This came as a well-received surprise to players of the genre.  The last game that was released was in 2006, it was called Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams.  The game got rid of the fixed camera angles and used a third person over the shoulder approach.  To me this was extremely disappointing, but the game was well received in Japan and America as it still stayed true to the quality formula of the series.  Since Dawn of Dreams, there have been no further releases in the Onimusha series, which is unfortunate because it did remarkably well when it was around and was a unique game that borrowed certain generic conventions from other successful Capcom games.  I am more than sure that an instalment for this generation of consoles would have the potential of being a masterpiece, and I really hope Capcom does not let this series fade out.  

Written by Michael Easton 

Possible Dark Souls Sequel In The Working

Executive producer Eiichi Nakajima and Masanori Takeuchi head of R&D at From Software have spoken out about a sequel to the 2011 cult hit Dark Souls.

Speaking during the Games Developers Conference (GDC) this week they confirmed that they would like to see the series go forward. 

"Of course, it's not over yet," Takeuchi said. "You have to go back to our roots, which is King's Field. We've made many games in that series. We've always been enamored by dark fantasy action RPGs. That's just been our core DNA and I think we'll continue to utilize that." 

The pair then commented on the possibility of expanding the series to different platforms, on this matter Takeuchi said, 

"We know what butters our bread, obviously it's consumer games," Takeuchi said. "That's where we see some of our key strengths. That being said, as developers, we like to do new things and new challenges will help us mature and grow as a developer. Smart phones and tablets are an interesting challenge for us." 

"If we do go down that path, it's not going to be what you see on the market today, [which are] more watered down, less 'core' experiences," he added. "We like to make games for core gamers, so if we take that approach, it's going to be a core experience on a tablet, something that gamers are going to love. If you look at the install base of the two different types — 3DS and PS Vita versus smart phone and tablets — they're incredibly different. For us, trying to find a way to appeal our content, the sort of games that we're good at, to a new audience is going to be a challenge."

It has been rumoured off the back off this that a Dark Souls sequel is already in production.

Silent Hill Downpour Preview

            On March 13, Silent Hill Downpour, the eighth instalment of the popular survival horror series, will be released.  Downpour is being developed by Vatra games and published by Konami digital entertainment.  Anyone who has played Silent Hill knows what the series is about.  For a quick recap, it is a rural American town near Lake Toluca (Silent Hill).  The town holds a dark secret of a satanic cult that is trying to rebirth a God (among other dark things.)  The town is mysteriously abandoned and covered in fog, the protagonist must find clues to what is going on while the town around him switches between “normal,” and “nightmare,” a hellish version of the town where everything is dark and decayed.  The protagonist often wonders if everything around them is even real (the game is deeply psychological) Puzzles are challenging and grotesque monsters stalk the player.

Enemy in the Silent Hill series

Downpour follows Murphy Pendleton, a prisoner who becomes stranded in the mysterious town of Silent Hill after his prison bus crashes nearby.  Like previous instalments, players will have to explore the town while finding clues and solving puzzles, all the while fending off against malevolent monsters that lurk in the fog.  This game is rumoured to focus less on firearms (players will only be able to carry a single gun) and more on melee weapons to give the player a real sense of survival horror.  Fighting however is only going to be a small part of the game, as most the terror comes from exploring the desolate town whilst finding clues and the suspense of the horrors that lie within.  Like Silent Hill 2, this game will break from the Silent Hill Mythos story (The cult) and focus on the main characters personal struggle and inner demons.

The release of Silent Hill Downpour crept up on me, and when I saw the trailer I was instantly reminded of the first time I played  a demo of the original Silent Hill for Playstation back when I was nine or ten, I remember it so clearly.  It was a December night and thick snow covered the ground.  I had just gotten the new issue of “The Official Playstation Magazine” (remember, the one that came with the demo disk?)  I put the disk in and played a few demos until I came across Silent Hill and I started to play.    I controlled the protagonist Harry Mason, who is looking for his missing daughter Cheryl in the seemingly abandoned town after they crash their car near Silent Hill.  In town, a Cheryl is seen disappearing around a street corner, into the fog, so I followed.  The town is quiet, a veil of fog covers allowed me to only see a few feet down the street, and my heart started pounding because I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.  I walked into a side street, then into an ally, my hands shook as I walked by a pool of blood near a doghouse, then further into an ally that twists and turns like a maze, more blood, more fog, then everything went dark and Harry pulls out a lighter.  Something is seriously wrong with the town and I want to stop playing because I am horrified, but I continued.  I come to a small clearing surrounded by fences; dead bodies hang on the fences (but are they even human?) and they come to life and attack. Harry is defenceless and falls to the ground only to wake up in a diner in Silent Hill.  It was just a dream, but I’ve seen more than enough so I shut off the game.  I am horrified and I have trouble sleeping at night, but there is something that keeps me interested in Silent Hill and its mystery, and over the years I continue to read all about it from the safety of gaming magazines as they release Silent hill two and three.  As I grow older, my love for horror grows, it was not until last winter, over ten years from the night I played that demo, I sit down and play through the first game.  Even though the graphics are outdated and the controls somewhat clunky, this game is still horrifying and deciphering the complex story makes it all a satisfying experience.

The graphics don't hold up but the tension created does 

            The fear Silent Hill invokes comes not from cheap tricks such as monsters popping around corners and tons of gore like we are used to in western horror.  The fear comes from the atmosphere created as the player explores the town, searching the streets, elementary schools, hospitals, sewers, and this is exasperated when finding mysterious notes and newspaper clippings describing murders, escaped mental patients, and other mysterious things regarding the town.  Most times, the player relies on a lighter or flashlight to light the darkness, and line of sight is limited. There is little actual music, bit instead discordant atonal clashing of what sounds like metal smashing against metal, and there is never an explanation of the hellish sounds.  The whole time the player has a feeling that something horrible has happened here, something horrible is still going on, or something horrible is about to happen.  The most terrifying scenes in a movie or game I’ve witnessed come from this series.  One example would be in the first game, when Harry is searching the elementary school and a phone rings in the classroom. On the other end he hears his daughter screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” then silence.  In silent Hill Three, you walk past a mannequin in a shopping mall, a few seconds later there is a clunking sound.  When investigating, you find the mannequin has been beheaded and there is a pool of blood around it!  The series is full of horrific moments like this, and to make it worse, they usually go about unexplained, leaving it up to our imagination.  I have seen horror movies from all over the world and played many survival horror games, and this is the only game I will not play in the dark, I even hate playing it alone in my room!
"The most terrifying scenes in a movie or game I’ve witnessed come from this series"

            Like most Asian horror, the Silent Hill series could get extremely vague in terms of giving away elements of story, especially the first game.  Many questions were left unanswered, but this was not because of sloppy writing.  The games are full of minute clues and details that give the player pieces to the mystery that is Silent Hill. (most of the streets names in the town are references to horror culture)  The games requires multiple play throughs to understand the whole experiences and achieve the multiple endings some of the games have.  Personally, I researched online to figure out a lot of the questions I had about the town/story and found a lot of great explanations for the game.  I could go on forever about the series' intelligent story, but I will let you explore the town on your own and experience the horror and wonder that is Silent Hill.  The past releases of Silent Hill have all differed in gameplay, characters, and story aspects (for both better and worse,) but the series has always kept me intrigued.  I have high hopes for Silent Hill Downpour.  Look for it next week and give it a try, you will never look at a foggy day with out getting the chills again.

Written by Michael Easton

Assassins Creed 3 Screenshots Leaked

Reddit have leaked what looks to be four new screenshots from Assassins Creed 3, although not confirmed they look damn convincing.

Video Games as Something Beyond Fun

On my ninth birthday, my parents bought me the original Sony Playstation game system.  In the months before, I had spent nearly every day going over to my friends house and watching his older sister play games like Final Fantasy VII and Breath of Fire III while we waited to play Tekken 3 and Need for Speed.  Being as young as I was, RPG’s seemed boring considering I just wanted to play racing and action games, but within a few weeks, I came to love watching her play, the graphics of Final Fantasy VII were breathtaking and the characters memorable, it was almost like watching a movie or reading a book and I fell in love with the game.  Naturally, I eventually bought Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Xenogears, and other RPG’s I had watched her play.  They all entertained me, but as I was so young, I never fully grasped how to play them correctly, didn’t pay much attention to the text, and usually got stuck a few hours into the game.  That was over ten years ago, and in the past two years I have now became obsessed with going through my collection of PS1 RPG's and playing them through. 

Final Fantasy Vii is now considered one of the best games of all time

 This obsession has paid off greatly, I realise I would be missing out on a great experience if I let these games simply collect dust.  But the point of this article is not to talk about how I much enjoy all these older games, but to state my opinion that over the last decade or two, many video games have become more than simple entertainment.  They have become immersive experiences with intelligent stories that demand players to use their brains in similar fashion as when reading great literature or watching mind-bending films.  Instead of feeling brain dead like after shooting Zombies in Call of Duty for hours (This is still a ton of fun, don’t get me wrong), there are games out there that make me feel like my brain has had a real work out; whether from strategizing in a challenging boss battle or trying to wrap my head around immense plotlines and philosophy’s that are present in many of the games.

Last week, I finished Chrono Cross, a JRPG made by Square Soft that came out for Play Station in 1999.  I am still blown away by the experience and trying to fully grasp just what went on during this game. The game starts out innocently enough, you control a young boy named Serge, and your first goal is to meet your crush on the beach and bring her a gift.  Once you make it to the beach, Serge blacks out and then wakes up, thinking he just fell asleep and missed his date.  He heads back into town and is surprised to find that nobody knows who he is.  When he says he is Serge, people act surprised, because apparently Serge is the name of a boy from the town who drown ten years ago!  Naturally no one believes that Serge is really Serge.  The game had me hooked when Serge finds his own grave at the edge of the ocean, with his name, date of birth, and date of his death engraved on it.  Serge meets a thief named Kid, and they infiltrate a government mansion to find information.  We learn that ten years ago when Serge died, the universe split into two dimensions because of a powerful storm (still trying to understand this).  In one world Serge stayed alive, in the other he died.  Kid has an item called the astral amulet that allows you to travel between the two dimensions using a wormhole on the beach.  The game is spent travelling in typical JRPG fashion, with Serge trying to figure out how to bring the two worlds together while travelling between both.  The player can choose many different paths, recruit over 30 party members through side-quests, and experience multiple endings based on the paths they choose.  Things only get more crazy as the near forty-hour game unfolds; there is the philosophy of the parallel universes, a vast darkness beyond the universes where even time does not exist, the frozen flame; a relic from a God named Lavos that lived in the earth billions of years ago, powerful entities that are disguised as great dragon gods, and a super computer in a futuristic city that essentially controls the world without their knowledge.  Wow, the poor boy just wanted to give his crush a necklace! I have had a much easier time picking through Chaucer in English class then this. 

Chrono Cross had a unique art stlye

Luckily, this is only the beginning of games like this.  The gaming industry has many intelligent and deep games like Chrono Cross.  For example, Xenosaga, a JRPG for the PS2 was full of Freudian Philosophy in regards to the universe and life.  Not to mention the powerful entities, the Gnosis, monsters that exist beyond tangible space, are influenced by horror fiction writer H.P Lovecraft and his idea that the universe is full of horrible entities that exist outside our own realms.  It is a shame that so many people miss out on these games; they are very time consuming and require a lot of dedication to fully enjoy.  But if there is anything we can take from my wild (and much belated) ride through Chrono Cross, is that many games deserves to be called more than fun, but artistic masterpieces with serious intelligent value.  Gaming has come a long way since simple side-scrollers and shoot em ups, and with games around like the Mass Effect series, Bioshock series, and many more modern titles that offer truly immersive and thought provoking experiences, people should begin to see games as something more then mindless entertainment.  

Written by Michael Easton

Will GAME Survive?

It is common knowledge now that the “GAME” group are losing business and losing it quickly, with recent reports of massive losses coupled with disputes with retailers it’s not looking good for Game, but will they survive?, well its inevitable that all games will eventually become digital but there should still be room for places like game selling digital copies, at least for a few more years.

Game cannot compare with online retailers

Before you look at what game can do to survive you have to look at its main problems, and biggest issues, and the first one that comes to mind is the price of games. To buy a game day one you’re looking at paying £40-45 at game, which to be fair is the price that games have been sold for some years now but the problem is they are being undercut constantly, you only have to do a bit of digging and you will find an offer that prices a new game at £30-35, or simply wait 2-3 weeks and you can find a game half price, don’t believe me? Have a quick look right now how much Final Fantasy XIII-2 is selling for online whilst in game it’s still close to its original price. So you’re probably asking yourself, why would anyone buy from Game then? And the simple answer is they don’t, you still have a dwindling group of old fashioned gamers who will buy over the counter but the vast majority simply are not paying £45 for a new game, they are getting online deals or waiting for the price to be lowered.

So we’ve established that people are no longer buying their games from GAME but that’s not the only problem they face, the shopping experience in a Game store is terrible, I do still go in from time to time to have a quick browse and I do occasionally pick a game up, but from walking in the door to walking out it’s just a nightmare. I must clarify that I’m speaking from experience in this piece so the game store near you may be different. The main problem is that the staff just aren’t qualified to have conversations with any gamers let alone gamers who know their stuff like me, you will ask them a simple question like “is this game made by the same developer as the previous one?” and they will just look at you like you’ve just come in the store naked. Then you get to the counter to pay for your item, I normally ask something such as “Is game X selling well?” and again they just look at you and utter some excuse as to why they don’t know, I’m sorry but being in that position you should be able to answer questions from an aspiring video game journalist. Finally they have to cheek to ask “would you like a guide with that?” now I know that they are forced to ask this by the powers that be at Game so I’m not annoyed with the people working in the shop itself, but no one needs a guide, if we did we would ask for it

.

Comic Book stores are social experiences 

What could save Game? Well the obvious thing you would think would be lower the prices, although that is an option that won’t happen because whatever price Game lower their products to supermarkets and online retailers will always be able to undercut them so in essence a dramatic price drop is out of the question. My suggestion would be to make Game a better social experience, think of places like Games Workshop and Comic Book Stores, when you go in there you go for the people as well as the products, yeah you buy your comics but then you spend half an hour discussing the latest issue with the people who work there along with other members of the public who happen to be in the store, so why can’t this be the same for Game? Well it can, all Game need to do is hire people who have a passion about video games, and that doesn’t have to be someone in the industry, any gamer can tell you a lot more about the games they play than the people who currently work in Game. Imagine this, you walk into game with £40 from your pay check, you walk up to whichever area applies to you, for me it would be the Xbox section, and there’s a game employee there to ask if there’s anything you’re interested in, you pick up a game ready to buy it but before you do the employee tells you to wait a second and he then tells you some of the games details you may not have known such as does it have an online pass, he then tells you about alternative to this game, etc. This approach to create a social feel about the store would give gamers a place to go to both buy games and express their opinions to other like-minded people, although online retail is cheaper it is completely anonymous, Game could tap into a large market if they just had more knowledge of what their selling.

We return to the initial question, will Game survive? And my answer to that is no, but my answer to the question can Game survive would be yes. I just don’t see it happening, I think the change the company would have to go through is too big and they wouldn’t be willing to do it, so that being the case I can see 2012 being the demise of the Game group as we know it, there are other avenues they can take, such as becoming an online only store, but I believe Game as we know it is dying. 

SSX Rides to the Top Spot

After a five years hiatus the snowboarding giant has returned and reclaimed the top spot in the gaming charts according to "Chart-Track", its last outing was SSX "Blur" on the Wii and before that "On Tour" for the PS2 so this is the first big step up to current gen for the dwindling franchise.

That being said it is a massive achievement for any game to debut number one in the charts let alone one of this genre. Quickly running through the top five there's obviously SSX at one then you have Fifa 12 still hanging in there at two, Mario Party 9 debuting at three, Uncharted Golden Abyss bringing the Vita's contribution at number four and sadly Mario and Sonic London 2012 Olympics at number five

On a personal level I'm slightly surprised by the success SSX seems to be having, I had no doubt that it would sell but not to this extreme, the high sales figures this game has gained can only be a positive for fans of the series who will likely not have to wait another five years for the next instalment.

The Last of Us Preview

Over the years, the survival horror genre has spawned a unique experience in gaming for the dedicated (and brave) gamer.  Think of games like the first instalments of Silent Hill and Resident Evil.  These games all steered from constant action and fighting, and took us for a suspenseful ride through the lurking darkness, where the main goal was simple, get out alive!

Players explored everywhere from abandoned mansions to hellish elementary schools, picked up clues, solved puzzles, and used whatever weapons available to fend off zombies or demonic spawns that could be waiting just around the corner.  These games were created for the mature audience, not only because of the blood, gore, and controversial themes (Cults burning a little girl in Silent Hill anyone?), but the plain fact that in order to get through these games, a lot of thought and strategy was needed.  Ammo was sparse, puzzles were more than simply finding a key, and many times running away from an enemy was the best option (God forbid you don’t shoot something in a game!)

Resident Evil 4 has become iconic in the horror genre

Today we have horror games like Dead Island, Left for Dead, and Dead Space.  All of these games are great but they seem to have lost the tooth and nail challenge of exploring whilst trying to survive that was in the older games amongst the genre.  I feel like this genre has really been dumbed down to make it accessible for more gamers.  Even Dead Space (though challenging at times) was extremely straightforward (you simply hit R3 and it showed you which way to go.)  Does anyone remember running from Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 or being hunted by the T-rex in Dino Crisis back in the day, one wrong move and you could be dead in a second.
"Today we have horror games like Dead Island, Left for Dead,
 and Dead Space.  All of these games are great but they 
seem to have lost the tooth and nail challenge"

The trailer for The Last of Us brings me hope.  This survival horror game being created by Naughty Dog (Crash Bandicoot, Jack and Daxter) is set in a post apocalyptic America where a type of fungus has infected the brains of humans.  A teenage girl and a man are alone in this wasteland and must fend themselves against what has become of humanity.  The game focuses on surviving day by day through the uncertainties and horrors of the new world, and the emotional aspect of what the two characters are going through as they encounter all sorts of terror.  The game is Ps3 exclusive and the graphics in the trailer look terrific.  Unfortunately, not much else has been released about the game.  But hopefully it brings back the challenge and intensity of the survival horror genre.  Look for it in late 2012

Written by Michael Easton