I’m hearing a lot of “we’re going to revolutionise television with the Xbox One” coming from Microsoft after yesterday’s announcement.
Over the past few years, we’ve been hearing rumours of this so-called Apple TV that’s going to “change the TV landscape”, just as Apple did for the MP3 player, phone and tablet markets.
I’m not sure how others feel about this, but what has me more annoyed than the blocking of used games or the zero support for backwards compatibility, is the idea of the not being able to transfer over my Xbox Live Arcade Games to the Xbox One.
I, like many others have invested deeply in the Xbox ecosystem over the last eight years. In fact, I’ve bought close to 50 Arcade games, a digital collection I’m proud of. The idea of this digital locker I’ve built up over time being washed away when new consoles arrive makes me sick.
To celebrate the new edition of Bit Thirsty, I wanted to create a post that put together a series of adjectives for each game I found great in 2012. However, Raph persuaded me otherwise. Maybe I’ll turn this into an annualised contribution. We’ll see.
I don’t play video games often and I desperately try my best to avoid them. Why? Well if I do get into a game, I very rarely know how to stop. Seriously, it’s extremely difficult to tear myself away and unplug, and this usually results in me playing for hours on end (Skyrim, Mass Effect… The Sims). Raph gets worried. I get worried. It’s unhealthy.
Due to my strange tendencies I’ve kept gaming light this year, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t stumbled upon some interesting titles along the way. So without further ado here’s my Top 5 for 2012.
It’s been a good year for gaming. Really, it has. But looking back on what I’ve played, and what I actually consider Game of the Year material; I can’t help but be somewhat disappointed with the lack of new IPs. My list for Bit Thirsty’s GOTY 2012 reflects this sentiment. Consequently, (and partially due to having a busy year and not being able to play everything I wanted) my list has been shortened from ten games to five. Don’t worry though, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some great games released this year worthy of the GOTY title.
Big box releases for 2012 have been chock full of mediocrity, IP fatigue and sequels. So there’s no surprise that half the games on this list were delivered directly to my console, continuing to blur the line between the quality of retail versus the downloadable variety. If this trend continues, by 2013 I won’t own a box to any of my Top 10, and instead they will live on a digital shelf up in the cloud. Until then, here’s my Top 10 for 2012.
Coming back to Red Dead Redemption after many months confirms something I’ve known for some time now. The problem I have, and have had with open world Rockstar games for a while is the repetitive and uninspired mission design.
Now I don’t mean to single out Rockstar, but myself and many others think of them as the pioneers of the open world game (see Grand Theft Auto), and I feel it’s time for them to step up and repave down the groundwork once again, if only to revive this dated and ageing genre.
Ten years ago, a collaboration between the Barbican Arts Centre, Conrad Bodman and Andy Welburn birthed the Game On exhibition: an exploration of the history, culture and future of video games that today has toured the world attracting millions of gamers in the process since its inception way back in 2002.
I was there ten years ago, and only 13 at the time. A couple of friends and I had decided to bike ride it down to the center of London from our East London homes after seeing it advertised in the latest Games Master magazine. Having only dreamed of going to E3 one day, it had to be one of the first public showings involving video games I’d ever seen advertised here in the UK, and it was only a few miles away from home – I had to be there.
I wrote to Konami shortly after the release of the Silent Hill HD Collection in March and explained my concerns about the numerous bugs that were floating around the PlayStation 3 version of the game at launch. Konami seem to be addressing the problems with an update as soon as tomorrow. Head inside for full details on the patch.
Microsoft kicked off the E3 festivities on Monday with their Xbox Entertainment Evolved media briefing. Unfortunately, if you were following the events leading up to E3, there wasn’t anything in the form of new reveals when Microsoft finally took the stage on Monday morning, since everything seemed to leak out ahead of the conference.
Hybrid, Deadlight, Wreckateer, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD and Dust: An Elysian Tail make up this year’s XBLA Summer of Arcade lineup.