Sal’s Blog: Now Playing and the VGAs
I haven’t done one of these in a while. Super sorry! Especially considering some people have been asking for one. I’ve just been a bit in the busy seat, lately. I figured tonight would be a good night to do one, what with the Video Game Awards just passed and all. So here it is – a blog.
What I’ve Been Playing
I’m still playing Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. I’ve beaten it once on Hard and am still working through it on Crushing. I believe I’m on either Chapter 10 or 11 right now (the first chapter in Syria), and have about 70 percent of the trophies completed. I’m going for the Platinum, just as I did with Uncharted 2 (these games are too good not to!). Hoping to finish it soon so I can jump into Batman: Arkham City, then Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, then the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection… I have a list, man. Hoping to get in some insane game time before the end of the year. I’d like to finish at least the three titles I mentioned. But those games alone probably add up to over 60 hours of playtime.
The Video Game Awards
I don’t like the Video Game Awards. It doesn’t really feel like an awards show, at all. I mean, what did they give out, like five awards? How much time did the developers get to speak when they did? Like one minute in a two hour show? It needs less celebrities (sorry Jason Biggs and Sean William Scott, but as much as I liked your misadventures in American Pie, you’re irrelevant here), less “humor” (if that’s what you want to call it), less terrible scripting, and less unenjoyable skits (I understand it was for charity, Felicia Day, but you could’ve at least made it entertaining to watch – and less corny).
Team Ninja ‘considering’ Ninja Gaiden Sigma 3
If you were planning on picking up Ninja Gaiden 3 next year, you may want to hold back a bit. During an interview with the PlayStation Blog, Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hayashi said the studio may consider releasing a Sigma version of the threequel following release.
“Sigma is kind of a sister game to the Ninja Gaiden series, and after releasing NG3, we may consider releasing a Sigma game for it,” said Hayashi.
Thanks, NeoGAF.
MLB 12: The Show to Feature Revamped Commentary and Broadcast Presentation
Outside of its consistently poor online play and slow load times the MLB: The Show series has taken the most criticism as of late over its somewhat stale commentary and uninspired presentation. According to a new blog posting from SCEA both of those areas will be seeing significant improvements in MLB 12: The Show.
Other areas touched on include more use for PlayStation Move, brand new ball physics, and a new online mode. Really the problem with online isn’t the absence of modes – it’s the lack of options within those modes, lag, and its effect on results – so touting new modes isn’t going to be successful in eliciting much excitement until the base experience improves.
The trend towards more authentic television broadcast presentation, which this year really accelerated with NBA 2K12 and Madden NFL 12 in particular, will continue with an attempt being made to deliver a more true-to-life viewing perspective. The commentary sounds as though the company is going for the style found in the NBA 2K and MLB 2K series where announcers will reference and provide better perspective on events at a given time which should in effect provide a dynamic feel.
What do you think of these first details that have been described for MLB 12: The Show? As always leave any thoughts in the comments!
Fridays in the Key of Geek: Shank 2 Soundtrack Theme
I’ll be straight with you. The Shank OST is one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time. So when I saw the theme for Shank 2 pop up on the Shank 2 blog today, I knew it had to be today’s Key of Geek. It is Friday after all. Once again, Jason Garner and Vince DeVera are providing the soundtrack to Shanks bloody carnage, and it doesn’t sound like they’ve lost their touch. If this theme is an indication of what’s to come, well then I’m excited. You can check out the track below and download it from the Shank 2 blog.
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Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock Coming To PS3 And PS Vita
Okay, so, here we go… the first blog post on Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock. I’m looking forward to writing more of these blog posts over the next couple of months as we move towards launch.
Developing anything for Doctor Who has to be done right. The show has such a following that we need to be certain that everything the game does fits with the expectations of the fans. So far, we’ve said very, very little about the game. This trailer just has the barest hints about the core of this story. What is The Eternity Clock? How is it related to the Doctor? How is River involved in this?
I’m afraid this post isn’t going to answer any of these questions; we’ll leave that to future posts and the game itself.
We’re very excited to be working with Supermassive Games as they’ve already delivered some great titles for PlayStation, such as Tumble, Start The Party and Start The Party: Save the World. The team are huge fans of the show and they’ve been great at bringing the key essence of Doctor Who into the game.
The Audio of NFL Blitz
EA Sports has released the latest blog and accompanying video for the upcoming reboot of NFL Blitz. This time around the focus centers on audio – that includes the commentary by Tim Kitzrow (best known as the voice of NBA Jam) and comedian Brian Haley along with details on music and sound effects.
Bethesda: Patching Their Patches
So the Skyrim patch…that’s a thing. It came out last week and, as anticipated, it fixed a few things (sorry ladies, I’m officially betrothed). It also broke a few.
As we reported last week, the new patch’s release wasn’t without a few wrinkles (detailed here), including dragons-in-reverse. Bethesda, via their blog, reassured fans that they’re fervently working on a patch to fix the, well…patch.
[...] we’ll be releasing an incremental update next week. We anticipate it will be up on PC first, and then hit PS3 and Xbox 360 later in the week. Among other things, the update will fix issues like magic resistance not calculating properly and the rare, amazing backwards flying dragon. Once the update is released, we’ll share the full release notes.
