Dead Space 2 picks up story three years later,
multiplayer confirmed

Space engineer turned monster slayer Isaac Clarke will have had plenty of time to improve his...[...]

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http://countgameula.com/post/278969193

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EA hoping to make a Dante's Inferno sequel

Literary bookworms who are offended by the fact that just one sacrilege against The Divine Comedy exists will be horrified to learn that a second one might happen in the future. Electronic Arts has expressed interest in doing a Dante's Inferno sequel, with producer Johnathan Knight hoping to "earn" the right to a follow-up. 

"That is a problem I hope to have to solve by earning the right to do a follow up," says Knight when asked about the possibility of games based on the other parts of Dante Alighieri's epic poem, Purgatorio and Paradiso. "This [completing development on Dante's Inferno] is just totally what our focus is and then we're gonna [finish] around the holidays and then everybody's gonna take a long break and we're gonna see if people respond well to it in February -- which I think they will."

Knight added that if Inferno does indeed do well, EA will definitely want a sequel: "That's a problem I'd like to have and if we're lucky enough to solve it, we'll go about solving it."

The idea of creating a sequel based on Dante's Inferno seems ludicrous, but considering the first game is already taking such huge liberties, it shouldn't be a big deal to drum something up. People who just care about gameplay won't really give a stuff where the source material comes from -- if you're a book-friendly student who can't abide poetic license, however, you're likely destined to get even angrier.

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About That Article

I want to talk about this.
Before I do, though, I'd like to preface with a bit of fair business reality. The economics of online journalism and blogging are enormously challenging. Every site faces the challenge of balancing the desire to produce fair and valuable content with the need to drive ad revenue via web traffic. Writing provocative headlines that we online writers hope will entice you to click is part of the job. We aim for the luster of buzzworthiness without compromising our facts and our ethics. Games journalism may have a bit of work to do before it reaches parity with coverage of more established media, and because of that our audiences tend to be very demanding of our quality levels and ethics -- but this is one reality not unique to us.
We all want to publish work we can feel proud of and that you can feel proud to enjoy, but sometimes we have to compromise with, to be frank, the need to earn money. This means sites that would rather offer you something a little richer than litanies of picture-heavy Top 10 lists will offer you the lists because lists get traffic reliably. This means business sites will run sponsored content, where all we can do is ensure it's clearly marked as such and try to keep the company concerned from being unfairly self-laudatory.
This means websites like Kotaku have to publish articles about boobs.
All online websites try to balance the need to make money with the desire to offer audiences content they will enjoy. And often these are managerial decisions; you can blame the writers as much as you want, but these are things they have to do. If you want to blame anyone, blame the legions who click whenever they're promised anime panties after the jump.
Have a little sympathy. Since all of this "business reality" talk is preface to talk about Kotaku, let's just stick with Kotaku: I worked with that team for several months last year and to this day I've never seen folks work harder. The amount of knowledge and passion the entire staff has about video games was constantly intimidating to me. After a year of all their hard work, imagine how it must feel for Brian and his team to realize some of their most "successful" pieces of 2008, in business terms, were about Playboy models and cosplay cleavage shots?
I don't need to imagine. I've written many things at Kotaku I am proud of -- my coverage of EA's bid for Take-Two, or my interviews with the Blizzard team following the Diablo III announcement and ahead of Lich King come to mind. I worked my tail off at E3 as part of their team (and they proved to have far more stamina than I did). I still love the reception my monthly columns get there. Nonetheless, my most-read piece of work for the site remains my interview with Playboy "Cyber Girl of the Year" Jo Garcia.
Just wanted to remind everyone of how things work before people start roasting Kotaku all over the place because of this. As of the moment I hit publish on this blog post, it has over 43,000 views and 777 comments after just a few hours live, better than most of my features perform over their lifetimes.
Hokay. That being said, this article is abysmal to the point of cringing -- but let's focus on the article itself for a while. Lest you think I'm about to pull out the girl card and decry the sexy pics and the porn industry, I'll get right to the point -- this article is more insulting to men than it is to women. Further, it's not even a gender issue in the end; it's insulting because it's a massive backward stride in the evolution of games as a healthy, valuable adult culture.
Is Kotaku actually read by a "healthy, valuable adult culture?" If not, should it aim to be? Good question. But I don't see how promoting destructive stereotypes of gamers playing Unreal Tournament "for 48 hours straight" with pizza and energy drinks within arm's reach is useful to anyone. Many of Kotaku's readers are boys who aren't even men yet -- is it fair to tell them that they ought to resign to the fact they're awkward shut-ins on a Bawls drip who can't talk to girls? Worse, to suggest they embrace it as an identity inextricable from their enjoyment of video games?
It does not necessarily matter that the writer of this article is a porn actress. It may seem very egalitarian to act unsurprised that an attractive woman who has sex on camera for a living is a self-described "huge sci-fi gadget and gaming fan" who spends hours "leveling her World of Warcraft characters", but get real -- it is surprising. I'd even go so far as to say it's interesting.
Or it could be, if she didn't employ her unusual status to condescend to the very gaming culture to which she claims to belong.
In games as anywhere else, a woman can succeed in a male-dominated field with one of two strategies: 1. Prove she's an equal or 2. Use her sex appeal. It's evident what Raven Alexis has chosen. That's an insult to gamers of either gender. And the latent disgust she feels for the "nerds" who buy into it is evident: "Remember your manners, and use a napkin, please," she advises primly, beneath a picture of herself somewhat suggestively cupping a Red Bull can. And if her tips don't help you meet girls, she says coyly, you can always go peruse her body of work and entertain yourself.
Misogyny continues to be an enormous, embarrassing stain on a culture I'm otherwise proud to serve as a writer. I have been able to understand, somewhat, the hostility that young male gamers have had toward women based on the fact that in the past, media messages about "nerds" have taught them that girls are an enemy who will either reject them or try to employ their sexuality to manipulate them.
We are growing out of this. There is more equality and respect in gamer culture with every passing year, and we are passionate about refusing to permit prejudices of race, gender and sexual orientation where we see them. We are coming to understand that for games to thrive and evolve, their audiences and their creators must be diverse.
But the only way to sweep out our lingering dark corners is to lead by example and stop drawing gender lines. That's one of the reasons I have desperately wanted to avoid taking the "GRRL GAMER" tack in my work, even though I know I'm an oddity, even though many women email me with criticism that I won't stand up and "represent" more forcefully. I am a woman; I can't have any other than a woman's perspective, and that's valuable to people sometimes. But more importantly, I'm a person. You're a person. We both like video games, and that's usually all that matters.
Alexis' fifth and most reasonable tip -- just go talk to a girl and try to find some common interests -- is delivered with a sincerity that marks a tonal shift from the rest of her piece. This is what leads me to hope, at least, that the entire thing is intended as a little bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.
If that's indeed the case, I'd be perfectly willing to admit that it's me who's condescending to Kotaku's audience by assuming they won't get the joke. But enough of you guys who follow me on Twitter -- many of whom are game developers and other quite sharp folk -- had a negative reaction that I'm sure I can't be alone in misinterpreting.
Humor or not, based on everything I've worked for and believe in, it still stings me to see such an antiquated representation of gamer culture and the dynamics of male and female gamers represented on a site that I write for, that my friends write for.
I know I sound stodgy, maybe even self-superior. Maybe not everything on a gaming blog has to be top shelf, sincere content all the time. Maybe we shouldn't take things so seriously. Maybe sometimes we do need to confront the fact that a huge portion of the readership is actually comprised of overweight geeks who never go outside and have no real relationships off the computer; maybe we need to make concessions for that, maybe we need to join them on their level sometimes. Maybe we should write not for what we want people to be, but for what they are.
It's just that that's not what I believe in, and the people who lead Kotaku, among others I am lucky to have called mentors, have played integral roles in shaping my beliefs.
I prefaced this post with a reminder of the business realities major blog networks face because I find it hard to believe that Brian, who taught me quite a great deal about going the extra mile on news reporting -- because our audience deserves the whole truth -- would thumbs-up a porn star's "celebrity" advice column unless it were part of a larger and necessary Gawker initiative (I wonder what sister site Jezebel thinks of it). I find it hard to believe that Stephen Totilo, who never settles for anything less than my best work on my monthly features even when "good enough" would be good enough, would not strenuously object.
Their content decisions are their business, and I have no inside knowledge of them nor do I feel I have the right to ask. But I have to assume that these odd celebrity columns lately are not necessarily what they would have chosen for Kotaku.
Either way, rather than get up in arms complaining about blogs, game journalism, Kotaku or anything else, I hope those angered or offended can focus on what we don't like about this article and react simply by continuing to be the best examples we can of the culture we want to have.

Read The Full Article:
http://sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com/2009/12/about-that-article.html

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Get accelerated 3D Blu-Ray on NVIDIA systems

by: John Yan
NEWS - I recently reviewed the pretty cool GeForce 3D Vision and while it's great for some games, I think it will be a real boom with movies. Well, NVIDIA will be at the forefront with their setup and those with GeForce cards can get AVC-MVC encoded movies decoded in real time by taking advantage of the video card.

Now, you're going to have to spend some cash on a monitor, TV, or projector capable of utilizing the GeForce 3D Vision but for those that do it's a real cool experience. I'm really excited to see some movies this way so I'm anxious for my appointment with NVIDIA at CES in a few weeks. The titles are going to ship in 2010 and seeing as Acer has a brand new 1080p display that will work with the glasses, I'm looking forward in the next coming year to see how well this is going to take off.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.gamingnexus.com/FullNews/Get-accelerated-3D-Blu-Ray-on-NVIDIA-systems/
Item15384.aspx

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Stolen Pixels #150: +2 Shoes of Floppiness

Just once, it'd be nice to play through an RPG looking like an adventurer, and not a dumpster-diver.

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Review: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)

No weapons? Wii waggle? And a "re-imagining" of the first Silent Hill game is what they're calling this? The combination sounds like Silent Hill: My Worst Nightmare, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Boy, was I ever wrong. Instead of some Silent Hill one-off rehash, we get a lovingly crafted story set in a world so deep and involving that it actually does the series name proud. The Wii waggle? More like Wii mastery. The control is a new hallmark for Wii games, let alone Silent Hill titles. And the no weapons part? Absolutely brilliant, and it works out to be a chillingly beautiful thing when you finally understand what the story is about.

Again, I was totally wrong.

Read on for our review of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (reviewed on Wii, also on PSP, PS2)
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Climax
Released: December 8, 2009
MSRP: $49.99

In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories you play as Harry Mason, loving father and husband and crap driver in inclement weather. The game starts out with Harry running off a snowy road and into a fence. He crawls out of his car and notices that his daughter, Cheryl, is missing from the passenger's seat. He sets off to look around the crash site to find her. Unfortunately, he crashed on the outskirts of the worst town ever to crash in, Silent Hill. To make matters worse, it's snowing like crazy, and the town has gone mostly...well, silent.

I wouldn't call Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a survival horror as much as I would call it a psychological thriller. First off, there's no combat in Memories. That's right: instead of slowly turning and slowly swinging some found implement at some otherworldly monster, you're running. You're running for your life from creatures that are just as creepy as the ones from the previous Silent Hills, but for a different reason. (We'll touch on that later.) And when they catch up with you, they tackle you, grope you, and bring you down. Your only defense is the powers of push and nudge. You can't kill them, and that makes for a pretty terrifying experience when more than one is on your trail.

Memories is so focused on the inner workings of the player's head that it actually opens with a "psychology warning," which informs that the game will play the player. They're not kidding around, either. When you're not wandering around Silent Hill, you're a patient in a therapist's office, taking tests and answering questions to reveal your character. The game opens with a psychology profile that asks some pretty private questions on your love life and morals. The game can change drastically depending on your choices. A second play-through revealed new areas, new characters, and even a new attitude for Harry himself. Existing characters can look completely different, depending on your profile. For example, one character looked like a normal policewoman on my first play-through. On my second one, with my profile slanted more toward the perverted, this same cop was a busty blonde. That said, I recommend being true to yourself your first time through.

Wii motion controls are beautifully utilized in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. To date, this is the best and most elegant use I've seen for the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, and I'd go as far as to say that the Wii version is the ultimate version, and should be chosen above the PlayStation 2 version. Harry is armed only with a flashlight, which comes in handy often, as Silent Hill rarely sees sunlight. Moving the Wii Remote moves your flashlight beam on what seems to be a one-to-one scale. You're free to shine it at anything, and right away you'll notice how smooth and realistic the cast beam is. The realism of how the light moves from your control goes a long way towards enveloping you into this snowy world. The nunchuck's analog stick controls movement, and turning is controlled by pulling your flashlight to the far left and right edges of your field of view. While this type of turning has been used in other games to varying successes, it works solidly in Memories.

Away from exploration and into panicky sessions of being chased, which the game calls "nightmares," you'll use the Wii Remote to make movements in place of real-world hands. Attackers can tackle you from any direction, and you're to use the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to repel them. If they attack from the front, you'll need to motion both controllers forward, as if to push them off. You'll flick them off your back, elbow them in your face, all the while holding in Z to run. One thing to note here is that the controls do not need large gestures to repel enemies. Those flailing their arms in a panic to shake off attackers will likely become frustrated, as the controls seem less responsive. Firm but controlled pushes and shoves are the key, and done right, will begin to feel like second nature as you continue on deeper into the game.

Puzzle solving and exploration involves manipulating items with virtual hands, using the Wii controls. Pinch, turn, pick up, etc. We've seen this in other games, but here it feels tactile and responsive. Probably the best example of Wii controls in Shattered Memories cannot be revealed in this review, as they would likely spoil parts of the story. I will say that the uses are creative, surprising, and some truly memorable. There were a couple of instances so amazingly effective that, even now, thinking about them gives me chills.

That said, you'll want to make sure you're gentle and not over exaggerating with the controls. Again, large, fast movements seem to throw the sensors off. Likewise, you'll also want to be careful to not let your IR beam wander out of the Wii sensor's view, as you'll be stuck retracking for a few seconds, leaving you vulnerable. Being mindful of these points goes a long way towards the game's enjoyment.

As Harry looks for his daughter in snowy Silent Hill, he uncovers dark, buried memories of both his life and his daughter's. Some are surprising, others are disturbing. And the ones that are sexual? They'll make more sense later. Most of this is found through exploration of the town,  and all the while Harry is struggling with his own memory, which seems to have been damaged during his car accident. This exploration sometimes leads to deeper truths and memories, and this triggers a nightmare sequence where Silent Hill turns dark and freezes over, everyone else disappears, and monsters come out of the woodwork. You'll run through the transformed, hellish version of the town, doing your best to find the nightmare's resolution, working to fend off monsters that seem to want to hold you back from that resolution. You'll likely become disoriented and panicked, running around in the dark, trying to find an exit. Some may become frustrated with these scenes, but I think that was the developer's intent. Once the lost panic sets in, it sticks with you well after it's over. When you do finally reach the end of the nightmare, the town becomes somewhat normal again, and you resume exploration. Waking up from the nightmare, so to speak.

Being chased and held back by monsters in your nightmares is a beautiful parallel to the story the game is trying to tell. To reveal why these things happen would definitely ruin the story, but when you do finally find out, its the type of resolution that has you sitting alone, pondering, remembering all the scenes from the game. The game play will make sense. A second play-through is incredibly rewarding because of this, and is highly recommended. And as the game profiles everything you do and say and tailors the experience toward your mind, going "opposite" in your responses and actions the second time through is also recommended. I don't want to ruin anything, but know that the game even keeps track of what you stare at. Eyes up here!

The dark and gritty town of Silent Hill has never looked better, and by "better" we mean worse. Darker, more desolate. Everything is that much more eerie when cast in your flashlight's beam. The graphics dazzle on the Wii, and I found myself surprised at the graphical performance more than once while exploring. Characters manage to both remind players of the old games and bring some originality at the same time. They're expertly animated and are voiced with what is likely the best work I've heard in the series. You can definitely see the loving care developer Climax put into the game. To top it all off, series composer Akira Yamaoka is back with a haunting score. This time around it's more subdued, but it fits the sleepy, snowy atmosphere perfectly.

Perhaps you're wondering if a Wii Silent Hill game is scary. I can say without hesitation that it is. Much of this is due to the superlative pacing and storytelling. As expected, there are plenty of jump-out scary moments, but the panic that the game's situations causes go even farther toward scaring you senseless. When the story ends and you begin thinking about the game's story, the tons of symbolism, and the overall message, you'll likely be creeped out. And amazed.

While Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a total departure in every way from what Konami proper had started, it manages to reinvigorate the series. This "re-imagining" could have been a story rehash, instead we get a brilliantly deep game with subtle subtext and surprising symbolism. It's deep enough that some may glaze over the reasons behind the game play decisions and story elements, which were, again, brilliant. It focuses on the horrors of the human mind and gets away from the tired ghost story, making for a story much more involving and disturbing than recent Silent Hill titles. A lovingly crafted story draws you in and then wows you with a surprise ending that leaves a lingering fascination. And chills. I'm still thinking about it. From one die-hard Silent Hill fan to another, this is a true Silent Hill game. A better Silent Hill game. Do not miss this game.

Score: 9.5 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)

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New Killter Xeno drivers offers up smoother
online performance

by: John Yan
NEWS - Those with Killer Xeno cards can now download release drivers for their cards offering up better online performance. Bigfoot did a test with Team Fortress 2 and in their testing, they had an average of 16% improvement in amount of frames displayed over a course of the game. There was also a 17% improvement in minimum frame rate. They also stated an improvement of 25% in average max frame rate as well. Now, you might not see these improvements on your system but that is one that Bigfoot has seen if you read their analysis.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.gamingnexus.com/FullNews/New-Killter-Xeno-drivers-offers-up-smoother-o
nline-performance/Item15383.aspx

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New Killer Xeno drivers offers up smoother online
performance

by: John Yan
NEWS - Those with Killer Xeno cards can now download release drivers for their cards offering up better online performance. Bigfoot did a test with Team Fortress 2 and in their testing, they had an average of 16% improvement in amount of frames displayed over a course of the game. There was also a 17% improvement in minimum frame rate. They also stated an improvement of 25% in average max frame rate as well. Now, you might not see these improvements on your system but that is one that Bigfoot has seen if you read their analysis.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.gamingnexus.com/FullNews/New-Killer-Xeno-drivers-offers-up-smoother-on
line-performance/Item15383.aspx

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