Game Doctrine E3 Special

Game Doctrine is a little side project I have been working up with a friend and what better way to introduce our little wacky antics than I showing you our E3 special. If you don't understand some aspects of this episode you can look for previous ones so you can see what it is all about, hope you all enjoy it.

Game Doctrine is shaping up to be a channel that mixes up gaming discussion and criticism with a simple storyline and lots of extras that will be added as we go. I know we have a lot to improve, but we are working to make this a better channel and have lots of ideas that we will be implementing in the future. If you liked the video then help us out by liking, subscribing and sharing the video as it will be of great motivation to us.

E3 2015 - Keys to Victory

We are basically 15 days away from this year E3 event and the stakes couldn't be higher. Sony has a big lead in the console war, but the PS4 is running the risk of becoming slow in the sense that their biggest guns are not ready and demand for new games has become very intense. Microsoft has been on the losing side for the last couple of years, only managing to win some months in terms of sales, but the lack of powerful games in the past could lead them to give gamers a lot of good news that have been building up until now. On the other hand, Nintendo has been recovering little by little, relying on their solid fan base. Don't get me wrong, we all know that the Wii U is still struggling (even though it is a very good console with a good game library), but it has at least gathered enough power to survive.

Now let's see what needs to happen for any of the companies to win...

Pros:

• Expectations, having the chance to announce a lot of exclusives.
• The Xbox One fanbase is still strong.

Cons: 

• Out of the Xbox One fanbase, morale is low and people are clearly thinking that Microsoft only cares about certain genres. 
• Many gamers feel left out and have no strong reason that could justify buying the console.

Keys to Victory
In order to win the E3 battle, Microsoft must come up with an attractive offer, not only to their long time fans, but to other gamers too. For example, if all of their announcements are about shooters and sports, the possibilities for them to end up victorious are greatly diminished because neutral gamers (potential buyers at this point) will feel left out and because of this, Microsoft will find themselves in the same place they did last year.

Another thing that they should use to lift themselves over the others would be to take a lost franchise and revive it. The Silent Hill rumor was proven to be false, but it wouldn't surprise me if the higher ups at Microsoft have given Konami a couple calls after seen how gamers reacted on the web making this an opportunity that could make them win this year E3. Other options for them would be to give some love to their own flagship franchises like Gears of War and Alan Wake (which has a small chance of ending up on PS4) in order to use these fan favorites as reinforcements for their new projects (by keeping the platform relevant to their fans while trying to win new ones).

Bottom line
This year it is all about games with Microsoft and they need to have quite a bombing run in order to pull up the Xbox One from the fact that they are lagging behind by more than 10 million units. If they do this right, they can take the E3 event by storm, but if they don't then it will be just another year of them falling behind Sony in the console race.

Sony
Pros: 

• A great market advantage and popularity.
• Gamers still believe in Sony's promise of bringing a new PS2 era.

Cons:

• Their first party lineup for the rest of the year looks weak.
• Most of the previous big announcements are for games in 2016 or have no release date at all.
• Sony is still carrying the burden of past mishaps (the christmas DDOS attacks, Driveclub issues, The Order 1886 failing to meet the expectations of the mainstream crowd).

Keys to Victory

Sony needs to have some big announcements for this E3 event or else they will have a very hard time. For starters they should at least show some game play of Uncharted 4 in order to keep their fan base all hyped off and to prove that the game will be worth the wait. They should also prove that they will have a lot of third party games that the Xbox One doesn't have (mostly from Japanese studios) and that these games can cover up for the fact that the PS4 first party lineup looks kind of empty for 2015.

They also need for their conference to be fun and dynamic because last year it looked as if they could learn a thing or two from Nintendo who has changed their image from dull goobers back to the trolls they used to be in the 90's and this means less of the "boring politician" style and more of a radical feel to it. Another thing that they should also improve in their conference offering is to talk more about games and less about statistics.

Another thing that Sony needs to do is to unleash their speculated franchises unto their fans. Many PS4 users are eager to hear about the new Gravity Rush game as well as the rumored (and apparently fake) Medevil game that took the net by storm because of some picture, so there you have two possible heavyweights. Now last but not least if they really want to give their E3 conference the equivalent of a nuclear bomb, then they should show something about legendary non-existent (at least for now) games like The Last Guardian or maybe revive Crash Bandicoot or Legend of the Dragoon at least. Yeah I know that those last 3 games I mentioned are very unlikely to happen, but hey we can still hope.

Bottom line
For Sony to hold this year E3, they need to keep reassuring gamers that the "PS2 era" that they promised to unleash on the PS4 is still happening. If things are like Andrew House said and 2015 is more of a year of investment and planting seeds for the future, then they need to give us a glimpse of that future or else skepticism will hurt all that they have managed to achieve up to this point.

Pros:

• Fanbase is as solid as ever.
• The Wii U has gone from nothing, to now having the most interesting exclusive game lineup in the console wars.
• Nintendo has recovered from the slump they were into and now they are looking at profits again even though the Wii U console itself it still lagging behind.

Cons:

• Haven't been able to convince enough skeptics to give a chance to the Wii U.
• Legend of Zelda U was delayed and some key games still have no release date.

Keys to Victory

Nintendo is in a very good position for this year E3 even though the fact that they delayed the Legend of Zelda for the Wii U may push you to think otherwise. The first thing that Nintendo needs to do in their E3 Nintendo Direct is to be as straight forward as they can and show the games they have been teasing us about for a long time. We need to see more about games like the Shin Megami Tensei / Fire Emblem crossover, the new Star Fox game for the Wii U, See a little bit more about Mario Maker and of course, finally get release dates for Xenoblade Chronicles X and the new Fatal Frame localization to the west. 

For Nintendo to be able to get a hold of this year E3 (which would be a back to back win, considering that they "won" last year) they need to make their presentation to be both informative and exciting at the same time. So they should once again start with a bit on the wacky side as they did last year and follow through with updates on their games, coupled with some new announcements in order to keep the fan base interested and well seated on the hype train. 

As for the Nintendo World Championships, they need to be as impressive as the one in the 90's or better. We need to see the Nintendo of old still living and breathing in this modern era and I think that the Championships are a good way to show it. If the championship ends up been an over the top event, then it will add up to their whole E3 efforts in a very good way.

Botom line

Nintendo has a real chance here to continue their climb up to the minds of Skeptics that up to this point still believe that Nintendo is only for kids. For Nintendo, this year E3 has to be all about placing themselves in front of the competition and displaying their might for all of us to see, which means showing the games that their platform has and the others don't. If they go around it passively, they will not defend their past year win, so they need to come as strong as possible while giving it that hilarious Nintendo twist that they had accustomed us to in their previous recent offerings. 

So in the end... Who will win?

Like in a sporting event, the game isn't over until its over so predicting a winner is not a wise move. I personally expect Microsoft to come up swinging, Sony keeping a well hidden surprise to us and Nintendo doing their thing without any problems at all. In the end it all comes down to who can shock us or at least give us more enjoyment with their announcements so that #1 spot is still up for grabs.

5 Retro Characters That Could Had Been In The New Smash Bros Game.

The new Super Smash Bros is already out there (3DS version) and it has proven to be another great addition to the series. This franchise is basically the most famous one that Nintendo has and it causes quite a stir when we talk about what characters should be in it. Nintendo has always stated that characters that appear on Smash Bros have to be ones that have appeared in a Nintendo platform at any point in time so the list is endless. We all know that from the nostalgic point of view retro characters have precedence over current ones, so today we are going to see 5 retro characters that would had been cool to have on this new Smash Bros game.

1) The Boy (from A Boy and his Blob on NES and Wii)

The original "A Boy and his Blob" game is considered a great classic and its main character duo would had made for a very versatile fighter in Smash Bros. This is because the boy can use his blob for pretty much anything, making him a more interesting character than Rosalina who has her Luma as her sidekick. Think about it for a second, using the blob to attack, guard and do special moves by morphing it into various objects is something that would had made this character to be very fun to use. Many things come to mind when we think of potential moves. For example if you were to be falling down, you turn the blob into a ladder and climb back to safety or if you needed a quick weapon then you could turn the blob into a sword, shield or projectile. Possibilities are endless with this one.

Speed: Med - Defense: Low - Power: High

Final Smash: Turning the blob into a giant bowling ball, rolling it in the direction he is facing and decimating anything it touches.

2) Billy Lee (Double Dragon)

We already have a hand to hand specialist in the form of Little Mac, but it wouldn't had hurt to have the most famous of the Lee brothers joining the fight. This one would had been similar to Little Mac, but a lot more controllable as Little Mac tends to fall out of the stage a lot if you get carried away with the special moves. Billy Lee would not only be able to use his martial art moves, but also have special moves that include the use of various weapons that appear on the original game like the nunchaku, whip or bat. Billy trademark grapple would had to make an appearance too as many players loved using it in the original game. It would also be very cool if Billy had his whirlwind kick as a risky move to clear the area (sort of like Kirby's block attack). 

Speed: Low - Defense: Med - Power: Med

Final Smash: Two big Abobo enemies appear on stage, following enemies and punching them into oblivion.

3) Ryu Hayabusa (from the classic NES games)

One of the coolest things about the classic Ninja Gaiden games were the anime cutscenes they featured which was something that wasn't common in games at the time. In Smash Bros, we could have the anime styled Ryu Hayabusa that appeared on those cutscenes using the whole assortment of powers and weapons that he had in the classic games, but with a little less speed than Greninja. Other than the moves and weapons, one cool feature that Ryu could have is to be able to climb the wall if he's falling and somehow can get to it in time, the downside been that you could be knocked down if hit while climbing and haven't gotten to the ledge yet.

Speed: Med - Defense: Low - Power: High

Final Smash: The Jaquio appears and starts throwing big lighting spheres across the stage, severely damaging your enemies.

4) Bill Rizer (Contra)

By seen Bill Rizer in the list you may be thinking that it would be kind of unfair to have a character that has a machine gun all time, but it is not. Bill would be a slower but more powerful version of Snake (Super Smash Brothers Brawl), only using his equipment at some occasions and with a limited range. He would also be able to change his weapon into some of the special ones he finds in the original games and use small grenades like Snake does. He would also be able to double jump and prone (shoot while lying on the ground) to compensate for his lack of speed. His gun attacks will also had to be be very strong to keep up in the fight against faster opponents.  

Speed: Low - Defense: Med - Power: High

Final Smash: Bill makes a call and in a second, a flurry of big missiles (like the ones on stage 4 in Contra III: The Alien Wars) blowing away any opponent they touch.

5) Simon Belmont (Castlevania)

Almost everybody agrees that Simon Belmont should be in Smash Bros and it is not a hard thing to justify considering that the franchise made its console debut with the NES and also that Super Castlevania IV is considered by many to be the best of the classic series. Simon would be a very interesting character to play with, as the whip gives him a good mid range attack and his assortment of sub-weapons can make for pretty good strategies to use against opponents. He would have limited jumping skills but would be able to cling and make an extra jump by whipping the edge of a wall or platform at the right time.

Speed: Med - Defense: Low - Power: Med

Final Smash: The Belmont's super attack of choice, the Grand Cross.

Wrapping it up:

It was once stated by Nintendo that Super Smash Bros would never become a fan service fest, but considering how the franchise roster has been evolving since Brawl we can see that the purist notion that they had is slowly vanishing and that we may see a lot of interesting character appearances in the future. Let's just hope that they keep up the good work of bringing some of our childhood video game heroes back to life. Who knows? Maybe the Wii U version has some nice surprises in store for us.

The West Fall From Grace With Japanese Imports

At some point in the past, we at the west were having a blast with Japanese imports. Most games had their version for the west be it with subs, dubs or even the all powerful multi-language feature that has become basically extinct in these days and the only games that were kept in Japan where the ones that were extremely strange in nature and had no market over here. It was an era where censors and marketing people were a little looser they are now. At the time, the market was more open in terms of risk taking and companies were all into been the most "bad-ass" rather than the extra profits and austerity that they show at our present time. At that point in gaming history we used to be showered with cool Japanese games that complemented our own locally made games.

So...What Happened?
Well, if you grew up with the previous scenario you may have noticed that we have become kind of secluded in terms of imported video games. Yeah, we have a local video game market that is quite strong, but that doesn't mean that we are not going to support games from the other side of the world. On this day and age, any Japanese publisher thinks about it like 1,000.000.000 times before making a simple localization that on the past would had been a no brainer. Just to give you an example, approximately 10 years ago, we got 3 Fatal Frame games, while today as of October 2014, people at Koei Tecmo said that they think that the new Fatal Frame game (Wii U) will be a Japan only release. All of this while survival horror is making a big comeback into the west market which makes this all to be painfully ironic.

If we talk about Japanese franchises that vanished from the west, Yakuza is a big one.

The problem with all this situation is that we are been starved of a lot of awesome games and nice things because of some really dumb misconceptions like:

1) Japanese games wont sell well in the west.
Answer to that: Nonsense! Just because one game of the series flopped in the past (for a plethora of other reasons) it doesn't mean that all of them will do so too. Most of the time some imports fail in the west because of bad marketing and the lack of advertising efforts. That notion that the west generally see Japanese games as weird is a dumb generalization that must stop. The really weird aspect of this misconception is that some Japanese games have a great chance of success because they resemble games that are popular on our side of the planet, but many publishers still refuse to localize them.

2) Japanese cultural references will not fit with the west.
Answer to that: Are you kidding me? I think that Japanese marketers need to take a look on how popular anime has become in the west, especially within North American and Latin American Audiences. Many series are huge in the west and many aspects of the Japanese/Korean cultures are revered on this side of the world, not only as video games, but television series, music and movies. You don't need to "predict" how are we going to react. If the game is fun or at least interesting then we will be able to handle it.

3) Their business models don't fit with the west.
Answer to that: This one looks as if it is enough reason to keep a game out of our turf, but if you see it from a deeper point of view you will notice that the whole gaming market presents different types of opportunities that are not limited to one type of consumer. There are several business practices available including platform exclusivity, extra deals favorable to the players or even the creation of extra content and/or game elements. It is understandable that their business model may differ with the popular ones on our side, but they can re-shape their current ones into something that can help them profit from releasing the game overseas instead of succumbing to their lack of faith in the occidental gamer.

So you want to play PS VITA games on your TV set? Nope, only in Japan.

O.k, but who's to blame then?
If we are going to point fingers the first ones to blame would be Japanese publishers themselves. In the last 10 years, many Japanese gaming companies began to radically change their games instead of evolving them into modern versions of their winning formula. This gave the false impression that we were just not interested in Japanese games anymore while the truth was that those erratic experiments they made were the ones that pushed the fans off some franchises that used to be quite popular. All of this just because they wanted their games to have an American feeling which is a complete betrayal of their original style and the wrong thing to do, as imitation meets failure more often that you may think.

Other ones that are to blame are the marketing people for these Japanese companies that have the mistaken notion that the west hate their games and the third and final piece of the blame game belongs to us, the western gamers. Why? because when one of the few Japanese imports actually reaches our shores, we cheer and all but still ignore it or just wait too much time to get it. Its like we like the game, but don't want to put our money where our mouths are and then we complain when they don't want to release games over here anymore.

This is one of the currently missing imports that saddens me the most.

Wrapping it up
We can once again be what we used to be for Japanese developers, but in order for that to happen we have to show our love for the games, rather than just speak about it and moan when the games fail to be released. It sounds harsh, but it is the truth because many of us old school gamers and Japanese game fans have become too complacent and haven't realized that we are not in the 90's anymore and that in the world we live in today, if there is no solid demand for a product, it wont happen. So we need to sober up from all the good times reminiscing and keep up with what is happening today if we want some good imports to come our way.

A Videogame Generation Without Consoles, A Curious but Unlikely Scenario.

Videogame generations have always been characterized by the existence of game consoles. The PC has always been there as a gaming platform, but what really brought the games closer to the common household were and still are stand alone gaming machines. Nowadays, some analysts have predicted that consoles will cease to exist very soon, some of them stating that the current home console generation will most likely be the last. Arguments supporting their point of view include the advent of mobile gaming and increasing production costs in a fragile economy. Most gamers just take those analysis as doom and gloom nonsense, but let's make a small analysis of our own and see what would it take for a console-less generation to happen and see how feasible or unfeasible it really is.

There are lots of gaming companies, but the focus is on the big 3 of the console market.

A Matter of Competition.

First of all, for a console-less generation to sucessfully happen companies will need to beef up competition to very intense levels because they would no longer have any hardware to support them. One way to do this is to increase the rate of platform exclusive games up to a point in which we receive no less than 5-8 exclusives per year. If this is not done, then we will have different first party cloud based game services featuring the same games. Another option they have is to get creative and give their cloud platform an edge by giving the players some out of the ordinary incentives to play their games. One example of this would be to feature special points with each unlocked achievement or trophy and let the player use those points to buy more games. Another good idea would be to have monthly competitions with real prizes, encouraging games to play on their platform, polish their skills and compete, be it directly (fighting games, first person shooters) or indirectly (game records, score, speed runs, etc). 

These are just two ideas that could make an interesting first party cloud gaming market and while it sounds like tons of fun for us as consumers, it is a nightmare for gaming companies if we see it from a financial point of view. In reality, exclusive game development is getting slower while multi-platforms are thriving and getting faster. On the other hand giving real and direct incentives to the players is something that is almost non-existent as companies are looking to spend less and earn more in a market that is not custom tailored for us players anymore. 

A pro-player environment is something they have been running from for a long time.

Features We Love, But Nightmares They Fear. 

Let's imagine for a while that consoles have already vanished and that every first party company has its own cloud gaming service. Would they implement pro-player features that would make their networks a lot friendlier or will they go the dictator's path and keep player convenience out of the loop? If everything is cloud based we as players will need things like an offline mode, game sharing, game trading and lending between users, remote play, etc. Some of these features are to be implemented in consoles (with offline play currently existing on Steam) but if we were talking about a completely cloud based environment then companies would get nervous about what freedoms they give us. Will they go ahead and implement compulsory DRM even though everybody hates it? Will they fear people tricking the system so much that they will force countless limitations on us? Even if they go the opposite way and give us a gaming paradise, will the publishers be o.k with this?

If these feared features are something that has been very controversial on consoles, imagine how would it be if everything were to be cloud based. The probabilities of a giant backlash/fiasco are enormous, especially if you take into account what happened to Microsoft at the beginning of the current generation. Remember this?  

Console-less Markets And Their Customer Friendly Ways

This one is all about game prices. Console-less markets like Steam, Origin, Humble Bundle thrive of the idea of low prices or even give whatever you want type of systems. On some occasions we see new games getting price cuts that would seem barbaric for the console market investors. Steam is a great example of this as on Valve's little gold mine, sometimes we can find gaming deals on big name games that are quite recent, especially on seasonal sales. This is because on a console-less market, the price of games is a little more tied to demand than on the traditional game selling environment. 

Many publishers would cringe on the idea of everybody getting their game for cheap so it is either this or (once again) give the players a strong incentive to buy your game at full price (something that doesn't involve X set of armor, a "special" vehicle or an extra weapon). They need to make people really want the game quick or else they will wait for a price drop and that would hurt their profits more than the Red Wedding (spoiler alert!) episode did to Game of Thrones viewers. 

Wrapping it up:

A console-less generation of games can happen and that is a truth that can't be denied, but just because something can be done it doesn't mean that it is a good idea for everybody. From the point of view of us the consumers, it can be quite nice and convenient, but from a business stand point it is a quite difficult task to do. Gamers are getting smarter in deciding how will they spend their money, so one little mistake can spell disaster and first party companies/publishers know this very well. So, to wrap things up let's say that a console-less gaming generation is NOT feasible unless we (the players) are the ones who dominate the market. If the men in business suits are good with that, then we could be having this as soon as the next generation comes, but if not, then we are not ready for this and will have to wait at least another 20 years to get it. 

Remember Remember 10 Games in September

September is already here and there are a ton of things that gamers around the world should be happy about. Today I'm just going to give you people a small list of 10 games that will release this month. It is a long way from this day to the release of games that are scheduled for a 2015 release, but we are ready to begin the gaming spree that this 4th quarter 2014 will be. We have been waiting a long time for a streak of expected games to come our way so this is some of what we will have this month:

September 2: The Sims 4 (PC)
For all of those Sims fans, comes the official 4th game in the franchise and it comes with a lot of improvements. Some of these are a completely new set of Sims to play with, each with its own personality and traits, the "create a sim" and "build mode" features were completely redesigned, neighborhoods now have a bigger variety of people and last but not least the addition of "The Gallery" which is a place where players will be able to get new sims and homes with the chance of sharing their own. All of these improvements and new things imply that this new Sims game will be a great one, especially if you are long time fan.

September 9: Destiny (multiplatform)
Releasing on the same month and day that the Dreamcast did 15 years ago, comes one of the most expected games this year. Destiny is a sci-fi styled first person shooter with online rpg elements. Those who play it, will embark on a epic journey as one of the warriors called "Guardians" in an effort to drive out the dark forces that linger on our solar system and threaten our existence. In this game you will have the chance to explore different planets while doing story missions, quests or just roaming around the place looking for treasure, all of this making the PVE (player vs environment) part of the game. As for the PVP (player vs player) players will have the "Crucible" where they can go toe to toe with other players in different maps based on each planet. The interesting thing about PVP in Destiny is that you can also win some loot or unlock various items such as weapons and armor by doing certain things while playing against others. So in both PVE and PVP, Destiny promises to be a really fun game.

September 16: Fairy Fencer F (PS3)
The PS3 has been receiving a steady flow of jrpg games and this pattern goes on in September with Fairy Fencer F. Nis America and Compile Heart come with the western version of this jrpg, featuring Yoshitaka Amano as the concept artist and Nobuo Uematsu as the music composer. The story on this game is about a set of legendary weapons called "furies" that were created by the good and evil gods of the past for their soldiers to use in their conflict. Now on moderns times, warriors that can use that sort of weapons are called "fencers" and as warriors go around the world looking for those legendary weapons, the conflict between the gods starts again. From what we can see about this game, it looks like your classic jrpg experience, but considering that part of the Hyperdimension Neptunia team was involved in the development of the game, expect to see a lot of wacky skills and over the top special moves.


September 23:

Natural Doctrine (PS4)
This one is the first jrpg experience the PS4 owners will get and up until now it looks pretty good. Natural Doctine is a very challenging tactic rpg game that tries out tactic mechanics mixed with an exploration approach. The game hasn't sold that well in Japan, but this may had been because of the fierce competition that the game has on the PS3 and PSVITA, coupled with the poor sales that the PS4 has been having in the land of the rising son. In the west it may be another story, because the game is basically running alone in the PS4 library as no other big Japanese rpg games have been released for the platform on this part of the globe. Some people have called this game the Dark Souls of tactic rpgs, so if you like to have some challenge, try this one up.

Gauntlet (PC)
This game can be basically called a remake of the original 1985 Gauntlet. It will feature updated graphics and the same exciting horde style action game play that many gamers have grown to love on this game. The game will feature all the classic character classes and the big randomly generated dungeons. As we have been able to see from the pictures and video that have been shown, it is notable that the new Gauntlet will sort of feel like a simpler version of Diablo 3, with the only purpose been to survive the onslaught and dangers to be found in the dungeons. If you are fan of the original game, or you like to spend some time hacking and slashing your way through, this is your game.

Ar Nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star (PS3)
The PS3 jrpg love continues with this game coming to the PS3 this month. Ar Nosurge is a prequel to the Ar tonelico series that put you in control of one of two pairs of characters at a time, each with their own point of view in the story. The pairs are characters called Cas and Delta and later on Earthes and Ion. The story of this game goes around some evil outer space lifeform called the "Sharl" who were able to defeat space travelling humans with the use of "song magic". Thousands of years later, some ancient humans appear and they seem to have learned to use song magic so life for humanity changes and a new struggle begins. This game features some classic rpg elements like field exploration and the recruitment of new characters by following their own stories, so it is a quite interesting option for any jrpg fan that wants something closer to the classics of the 90's.  

September 24: Dark Souls II: Crown of the Ivory King (DLC)
This Dark Souls II DLC promises to be even more challenging that the game itself, although not much has been shown about it. Most of the information that has been shown by the media include a winter-like place with a bonfire in it and the words Episode 3: Crown of the Ivory King. Players have been speculating this to be based on the Shrine of Winter, but nothing official has been said about it so if you are a Dark Souls II player, you definitely have to check this one out.

September 26: Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)
This had been a game that has been advertised a lot lately, so now we will be finally able to see if it will deliver. This cross between Dinasty Warriors and Legend of Zelda has been enjoying quite a lot of hype since they started announcing the characters that will be playable in the game. We have gone from Link and Queen Zelda to Impa and even Garuna and Ganondoft himself so the roster is quite big. Based on what has been shown, the adventure mode looks really fun, although it would had been perfect if it would had featured online cooperative play. Dinasty Warriors fans are preparing to play the heck out of this one, while the Legend of Zelda fans are holding their breaths and hoping for the game to live up to their expectations. Will the game pass the ultimate fan test? We will see when it releases.


September 30:

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Multiplatform)
This new entry on the Hobbit/LOTR series of games is an action rpg game developed by Monolith studios. On this one you will play as a ranger that has some strange wraith powers, living through the events that happen between The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings storylines. The players will find themselves in an open world where they will have the freedom of advancing at their own pace through the many missions and quests in the game. Shadow of Mordor also features character customization and the "Nemesis System" which is basically a system that "remembers" how you have interacted with different types of characters in the game so they can react to you accordingly when you find them around the world. The game really looks like it is a nice addition not only to fans, but to action rpg players in general.

Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox 360 / Xbox One)
Continuing the Forza series is Horizon 2. This one takes place during the fictional Horizon festival (held all across Europe) where players will explore the region and enter various racing events in order to advance through the ranks, get better rides and above all, earn some respect. This time around, the game will feature day and night mechanics which will make the experience to be a lot more real that on previous titles and it will include over 200 cars to use or race against. There will also be a group of challenges called the "bucket list" and several types of racer to racer online interactions that will make it feel as if you were really part of the racing scene. Up until now if you are racing game fan, this is your best bet yet.

Wrapping it up

There is more from what that came from, but I limited my list to 10 noteworthy games that are coming on this month, so keep with the Gamertologist Zone as new game details are released and get to know a little more about what our wallets should fear.

Source:
Game Informer: 2014 Game Release Schedule

Survival Horror Reawakens and Still No New Silent Hill.

For the delight of fans of this genre, the survival horror hiatus is no more. With games like Outlast, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation and upcoming ones like The Order 1886 and Resident Evil Remake Remastered, it seems like we are going to see a lot of horror coming to this generation. Most of the big hitters are going to have an appearance including a new Fatal Frame game for the Wii U (if it makes it to our shores), but up until now there is one that has been missing in action and hasn't shown any concrete signs of it making a come back. It was the Resident Evil direct competition back in the day and a very good survival horror game, Silent Hill.

The HD version of Silent Hill 2 had some classic cutscenes removed because they were seen as "inappropriate".

The reasons why this game franchise hasn't made an appearance on this generation can only be a matter of speculation right now and even though we are not completely in the dark about it, details about the future of the franchise have been a little thin. One of them is that Hideo Kojima has set his eyes on the franchise since 2012 because he thought and commented about how good it would look on the Fox Engine. These comments were only based on Kojima's experience watching the latest Silent Hill movie at the time, so it only lifts a small speck of hope at best. Even in the best case scenario, if Kojima decided to work on the franchise it would be something that would be releasing at 2016 or something because he has been too busy finishing and promoting Metal Gear Solid V. It is most likely that even if he has any real interest on Silent Hill, the ideas must still be on paper and not even funded yet.

Robbie the rabbit is a staple of the series and he became really popular after Silent Hill 3.

Another piece of information is related to Climax, which are the developers that made Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The studio CEO said in 2013 that they are working on 3 new titles, 2 for the PS4 and one for the Xbox One and even boasted about how they were the most "next-gen" experienced studio to ever work with that type of technology. The thing is that rumors state that they are working on a Prince of Persia type of game and a new horror IP. This leaves a 1 out of 3 possibility of having a new Silent Hill game coming from them and if we take into account that one of the rumored games in development is a NEW horror IP, the possibilities get even smaller. Besides, their take on the Silent Hill series was more of a strange reboot in which you did not fought any enemies at all and that wasn't so hot with fans of the franchise.

Did you know that Silent Hill 4 was not going to be a Silent Hill game at all?

Some of the oldest Silent Hill fans say that the best thing to do with the franchise is to go ahead and reunite the original Team Silent. We have to admit that at the time when they were still together, they were the survival horror "dream team" with a group entirely composed of horror-oriented developers and artists. Now back to the reality, we have to accept that reuniting this once powerful team is too difficult right now as many of their former members are scattered all around and even if some of them are still working for Konami, important members of the team like Keishiro Toyama (Silent Hill director), Akira Yamaoka (Sound director for the series) and Takayoshi Sato (creator of the first 2 Silent Hill games) are too difficult to reach because they are either working for another company or on personal projects, so making a Team Silent reunion has become something a little too complicated to do right now.

Silent Hill Downpour was an good game, it's only real fault was having bad battle controls.

Wrapping it up

A new Silent Hill game is not an impossible thing as the fans want it and it has been 4 years since we last played a real one and no, the HD Collection and Book of Memories doesn't count. Up until now all we have are rumors and wishful thinking, but a new entry on the franchise can happen as long as this horror trend keeps up. The best thing we can do is to vote with out wallets and support the genre so that the higher ups at Konami see that they can give the franchise another chance and decide to give it a go and make a new full scale Silent Hill project. Once again as I have said before, it is up to us.

Update (8/13/2014): Its funny how 3 days after this blog entry, we get the surprise of Silent Hills through the P.T teaser demo. I'm like super hyped about it as the demo itself was pretty neat.

Sources:
GamesRadar: Hideo Kojima Expresses Interest in Silent Hill (2012).
VideoGamer: Silent Hill Shattered Memories Dev working on 2 ps4 games and 1 Xbox One game (2013).
GiantBomb: Team Silent

  

Nintendo on mobile? They should, but not as you may be thinking.

There has been a lot of comments going on about the Nintendo executives and investors throwing tantrums over if the company should enter the mobile market or not. First of all let me get this out of the way. No, Nintendo should never let their franchises to go mobile because that would be the equivalent of creating a black hole in the middle of the company and it will consume it from the inside bringing a slow and painful death. As they are right now Nintendo is one of the few companies that is still (almost) pristine in their ways and unsullied from any business dirt that comes from selling out... Well, maybe except for the Mercedes-Benz thing in Mario Kart 8, but that's just one separate incident as Nintendo runs most of their business by themselves most of the time and this uniqueness is what keeps them afloat, even on tough times.

A mock picture of how a Nintendo "master app" could look like.

The thing is that Nintendo could make cool stuff for mobile without selling out their souls to mobile platforms just for a couple of extra bucks. Something like this should be no problem for the big N because mobile app development doesn't require big development teams or high budgets as it would only take a handful of resources and a relatively small development cycle. The best thing about this is that with content creators are brilliant as the ones they have, a great deal of interesting mobile applications can be created and unleashed to the public, giving Nintendo products some extra value without losing themselves in the process.

So a fan had to come and do what Nintendon't.

There are many possibilities about the mobile software they could make in order to support their consoles instead of attempting to replace them. For example, they could develop a support app for Mario Kart 8, sort of like the one someone actually made and was featured in Kotaku a couple days ago. They could also make official apps that give help in some games with mini guides and/or tips or even some sort of Nintendo World App (or something like that) that syncs with the Wii U and lets the user do all sorts of things like buying games, enter the Miiverse, add friends and that kind of stuff while on the go.

Imagine yourself using a smart phone to help a friend in the upcoming Star Fox game for the Wii U.

Other way of seen this is to go a little farther than plain game support apps. Good imaginative things like apps that lets you help or attack somebody within a game (sort of like the Watchdogs app) could make up for really fun situations if they do it with the right games. They could also make an app that features augmented reality games for the Amiibos that can generate coins or some kind of reward to be used on games or even the e-shop itself. The possibilities are endless if they take mobile approach from the sidelines and come up with interesting and fun materials that add up to the overall experience.

If they are planning to go "pay to win", they better reconsider before they spoil the whole thing.

Even though all this mobile approach looks interesting, there are many ways it can backfire if they do the wrong things. For example if they get too greedy with their services it will not work. If they turn their mobile environment into a "pay to win" they also run the risk of botching the whole operation. They would have to be quite sensible about the users because this is something they had never tried before so it can go bad if they give the wrong impression. This is especially true on this day and age, where the simplest of complaints spreads like wildfire through the net and can have devastating consequences for a product (ask Microsoft).

Relax Mario, you don't have to jump to mobile devices to be good.

Wrapping it up

Nintendo can definitely go mobile, but they have to do it in a way that adds up to what they already have without having to replace anything. What they have been doing in these past months have been great and there should be no reason to make any drastic decisions, so all they need to do is to keep on building up until they reach a point where they can convince the non-believers and become an industry powerhouse once again. If that is what their higher ups are thinking then the mobile environment is a great untapped place for them to continue their efforts.

Fatal Frame 4 - The one that got away

Fatal Frame is often considered one of the best survival horror franchises of all time, mostly because it is one of the few that dared to stay true to its roots and not succumb to the practice of change for the sake of change. The first game began as a "based on true events" kind of thing that ended spawning its own story. The second one expanded the horror atmosphere with bigger places to explore and a deeper sense of horror and the third one had a story that connected the happenings of the first two games. After that, it was obvious to expect a fourth installment in the series and with the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii already there, it was just a matter of how good it would be, either with advanced graphics (for the time) or with motion controls.

Two years after that generation was up and running, the game was made. it was Zero: Tsukihami No Kamen, Project Zero 4 in Europe or just Fatal Frame 4 (informal name in America). The game was developed by Tecmo LTD/Grasshopper Manufacture and Published by Nintendo and all seemed good and dandy except for the fact that the game never made it to our shores.

The art for this game was so hype inducing, but in the end we got nothing.

Why wasn't the game released in America?

There has never been a clear answer about the reasons why this game was only released on Japan and Europe. Most probably it was a weird business decision coming from Nintendo that even caused frustration on Tecmo because they did not expected "the big N" to do that. Curiously enough, the game became the best selling Fatal Frame in the franchise with 75,000 copies sold in Japan alone (I know this doesn't seem much, but for a genre that was starting to become niche, it is a good number).

What was the story of the game about?

The story on this Fatal Frame title is about a group of five girls that were kidnapped by a apparent serial killer called Yu Haibara. The girls were taken hostage in an abandoned sanatorium located in Rougetsu Island, located south of Honshu and went through an unexplained ordeal, but were rescued by a clever detective who had been following Haibara for some time. Even though all of the girls survived, they all lost their memories and could not remember anything about the time in which they were held hostage, so they just continued their lives as if nothing ever happened.

Ten years later, 2 of the girls die in mysterious circumstances and the three remaining ones (which are 17 years old by now) decide to go back to the island not only because they were afraid of ending up like the other two, but to find the truth by recovering their lost memories of the events that transpired on that island ten years ago.

Some would accuse this  "powerful flashlight" mechanic of making the game easier on purpose.

Is the game play identical to the other titles?

Yes and no. The original survival horror atmosphere is there, but some reviewers have stated that the development of the story and game lore was a little slower, taking the player a longer time to really understand what was really happening. As far as game mechanics go, it seems that the game developers did not used the wiimote at a horizontal position for the Camera Oscura, but used a wiimote + nunchuck combination that still had motion control, but was not even near to what some of us had expected. There is also the implementation of "waggle" controls for mundane things like turning a door knob or some other simple tasks.

One new thing on this game was that you could use a flash light that had the same powers the Camera Oscura had. It was weaker than the camera, but it gave the player a little more flexibility when fighting ghosts as you could use motion controls to point to the enemy without the need of a first person view. This was probably mostly use to fend the ghost off a little in order to gain some time to position yourself and finish them off with the camera.

Any real noticeable flaws on this game?

If the game were to be released today as it was back in 2008, it would had been heavily criticized because of frame rate issues and sluggish movement (compared to the previous games). Also the waggle controls would had been seen as unnecessary, but all the other good stuff was there.

Wrapping it up

Fatal Frame 4 is not the best of the franchise (even if it is the one that sold more copies). Based on how some reviewers describe it, it was an experimental attempt to take the franchise to the Wii that was not horrible, but it wasn't ground breaking either. In summary, it was a good game made for the fans of the series and an American version would had been quite appreciated if they had taken the risk and released it. Who knows, maybe with the current trend of releasing older games on current generation consoles we may still get the chance of comfortably playing the game at last.

This is just a mock up pic I made just to show how awesome a Fatal Frame on Wii U could be.

Bonus Stage!

We did not had Fatal Frame 4, but it has been recently announced that there is a new Fatal Frame game in the works for the Wii U! Once again the chances of this game been awesome are there, as the Wii U Pad fits perfectly with the camera mechanics and if they once again hold their ground and keep loyal to the franchise roots (and release the game in America) it will be one survival horror gem for Wii U in a time where the console needs these types of games the most.

Update:
 A Japanese teaser video was released and the game looks beautiful, check it out.

Hyrule Warriors - Meet the heroes

The Hyrule Warriors game has been receiving a lot of press since it was first mentioned and it has been little by little making its name known with all sorts of details. One important thing about this title (since it is a Dynasty Warriors inspired game), would be who are the characters that we will be able to use. This is a big deal because character variety is the spice of Dynasty Warriors and with a setting such as the one in Legend of Zelda one would assume that there will be a lot to choose from. Now let's see some of those characters that have been confirmed until this moment.

Link  

The long time hero of the Legend of Zelda franchise and the all around type character in the game, Link will feature all his classic moves like sword slashes, swing attack and the use of various items to help him in battle. Because of the appearance of Midna in the game, it is speculated that this version of Link comes from some time directly after Twilight Princess, but nothing is cast in stone yet, as this could be just a crossover of characters and nothing "canon".


Queen Zelda

The royal highness is back and this time she is not longer a princess, but a queen. She appears to be a quick-type character with fast sword attacks and the use of a bow and arrow (light arrows). Not many details have been mentioned about why is she already a queen and how will this affect the storyline, but if one thing is certain is that this time she looks a lot more reliable than the last time we were able to have her as a playable character (on a certain CD-i Legend of Zelda game that many preferred to forget)

Impa

Impa is a warrior-type character that looks like a ninja, but carries a big sword. She is Princess (now queen) Zelda's royal maid and bodyguard who interacts with Link at some occasions in order to share her wisdom with him. She seems to have very devastating area attacks with her sword as well as good blocking abilities, but also gives the impression that she will be a little quicker than the average warrior-type character which will make for some nice maneuvers and stylish game play.

Lana

Lana is the playable wizard-type character in the game. She (a.k.a The Little White Witch) seems to be somehow related to one of the main villains called Cia who happens to be "The Black Witch". This energetic magic user has a lot of spells on her disposal that she can use to destroy her enemies with relative ease by mixing them with various physical moves. We will know how good of a character Lana is when we see how well she does when taking damage as wizards can be easily nerfed.

Midna

The lovable Midna will also be a Hyrule Warrior after making her first appearance on the Twilight Princess game. She seems to be the grappler-type of character and by grappler it means grappling giant enemies and smashing them into the ground kind of grappler. It has been told that the first time we see her it will be as an enemy so who knows what her agenda is in the story and why she chooses to join the good side in the war.

Agitha

Agitha is a young girl who lives in Hyrule Castle Town and believes to be the queen of bugs (which meant a bug seeking side quest for link in Twilight Princess). Her role in the game is as a beastmaster/support-type of character because of the use of different kind of bugs (big and small) for her various attacks which go from summoning a giant beetle, to riding on a giant butterfly or even calling her own set of wings. She seems a little slow, but interesting character to use.

Remember the "black witch" mentioned before? Yep, this is Cia.

Wrapping it up

There you go folks. Up until now these are the usable characters in the game, but there is a pretty good chance that more of them will be announced as we get near to the release date of this game (Fourth Quarter: A wallet smashing list of release dates), but for now we can just sit back and imagine what other kinds of warriors could also be on the game as playable characters because in the Legend of Zelda universe there are lots of good candidates that can make for pretty awesome heroes.