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Why Boss Battles Matter
So I’m fighting this giant eyeball. I don’t know why it’s an eyeball—I guess it’s a demon or something, but I don’t know why it takes the shape of a giant eyeball—or why it’s surrounded by colored tiles, or why it keeps emitting clouds of fog. All I know is that it’s in front of…
By Jason Schreier Published January 4, 2013 -
The Steam Holiday Sale Is Getting An Encore This Weekend
Miss any big deals during the Steam holiday sale that’s been going on for the past couple of weeks? No worries. Valve’s got you covered. This weekend, you’ll get a second shot at some of the bigger deals that have gone down this December/January. Here’s Valve: Gamers will have a final opportunity to get their…
By Jason Schreier Published January 4, 2013 -
American McGee’s Studio Is Out Of Money To Finish Their Game, Wants Your $200,000 [UPDATE]
The studio of game designer American McGee—best known for designing the horror game Alice and its sequel, Alice: Madness Returns—has run out of money to finish their next game. McGee and his studio Spicy Horse have been working on a game called Akaneiro for the past year-and-a-half. It’s a free-to-play action-role-playing game set in ancient…
By Jason Schreier Published January 4, 2013 -
Jason’s Top Ten Games Of 2012
You don’t realize just how good a gaming year it’s been until you look back at all of the games you actually played. From physics puzzlers to ninja simulators, 2012’s library was full of interesting, creative, unique experiences. I played a lot of games last year. A few were bad. Most were good. Some were…
By Jason Schreier Published January 3, 2013 -
This Fan Game Might Be The Closest We Ever Get To Mega Man Legends 3
By now we’ve all lost hope of ever seeing Mega Man Legends 3, a game mistreated and ultimately cancelled by publisher Capcom almost two years ago. So this fan-made browser game—in which you can drive around as Barrett, a character that would have been playable in Mega Man Legends 3 (RIP)—might be the closest we…
By Jason Schreier Published January 3, 2013 -
BioWare: Putting Same-Sex Romance Into The Old Republic ‘Will Take A Lot More Work Than We Realized’
In September, 2011, the folks behind online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic promised to add same-sex romance after the game had launched Today, in January of 2013, same-sex romance still isn’t in the game. This has made quite a few The Old Republic players angry. They’ve been petitioning and writing angry posts on…
By Jason Schreier Published January 2, 2013 -
It Took A Complete Stranger To Make Me Fall In Love With Journey
Spoilers for Journey follow. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I’d heard about Journey‘s innovative multiplayer feature, of course; it was impossible to follow video game news in 2012 without reading about how your Journey journey can be peppered with silent, anonymous companions who are pursuing the same quest as you.…
By Jason Schreier Published January 2, 2013 -
Why Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward Should Be Game Of The Year
To describe why Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward was my favorite game of 2012 is to describe why I fell in love with games in the first place. I fell in love with games not when I first played the Nintendo Entertainment System, on which I mastered Super Mario Bros. 3 and Bionic Commando and…
By Jason Schreier Published January 2, 2013 -
This Indie Puzzler Looks Pretty Damn Cool
It’s called Full Bore, and it’s an interesting-looking indie puzzler that’s slated for release on PC next year. Also it’s adorable. A-boar-able? No? Okay. The tiny team behind Full Bore says they’ve completed about a third of it—and there’s a demo available on their website—and they’ve started a Kickstarter to finish it off. They’re hoping…
By Jason Schreier Published January 1, 2013 -
Call of Duty‘s Biggest Problem? Penis Swastikas.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II, like the last few Call of Duty games, allows players to create and personalize emblems—little icons that appear on their weapons and next to their names when they’re online. Naturally, being mature and respectable members of society, Call of Duty players are using these emblems to draw swastikas made…
By Jason Schreier Published December 31, 2012 -
If Your Xbox Cloud Saving Had Issues Last Week, You Get A Free Month Of Gold Membership
Maybe you were playing a game on Xbox Live last week and you tried to save online. Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe you are cursing at the skies, wondering why you ever relied on this newfangled “cloud” technology when back in your day all you needed was a pen, paper, and a string of meaningless…
By Jason Schreier Published December 31, 2012 -
Ten Crazy JRPG Predictions For 2013
This is the last new Random Encounters you will ever read in 2012. Shed a tear. Okay. Now that you’re done crying, let’s talk new years. I imagine that 2013 will be an interesting year for JRPG fans in both good and bad ways. So I’ve drawn up ten JRPG-related predictions—some ridiculous, others not-so-ridiculous—for the…
By Jason Schreier Published December 28, 2012 -
The Game Savers: How A Tiny Company Gives Neglected Japanese Games New Life In America
Every Friday afternoon, the staff of Xseed Games have a meeting. They sit in a conference room, break out the booze, and talk about video games. They talk about what games might be fun to make, what games might be fun to play, and what sort of strange Japanese titles they should work on next.…
By Jason Schreier Published December 28, 2012 -
Born And Raised A Game Developer
You might know the name Victor Ireland—the outspoken ex-head of Working Designs was responsible for translating and publishing a number of beloved Japanese games, like the Lunar series and Alundra But you might not know his son, Broderick Ireland. Broderick, an 18-year-old designer who just released his first game on the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace,…
By Jason Schreier Published December 27, 2012 -
War Z Creator Apologizes: ‘I Became Arrogant And Blinded By The Early Success And Quick Growth’
The man behind The War Z has apologized to his fans for some of the controversies that have entangled the much-maligned survival horror game over the past couple of weeks. In an extensive letter that tackles some of the game’s well-publicized issues—like misleading Steam descriptions and community mismanagement—War Z boss Sergey Titov says he’ll be…
By Jason Schreier Published December 27, 2012 -
Blizzard Axes Diablo III‘s ‘Team Deathmatch’ PVP Mode
Diablo III‘s Team Deathmatch mode—shown off at a number of conventions and promised for the months following the game’s launch earlier this year—has been axed, Blizzard says. The player vs. player feature just wasn’t good enough, Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson writes on Battle.net today: So, our core problem is that our Team Deathmatch…
By Jason Schreier Published December 27, 2012 -
A Glimpse At One Of The Dungeons In The New Final Fantasy XIV
This one is called the Tam-Tara Deepcroft, an instanced dungeon from Final Fantasy XIV. The above video footage shows what this dungeon will look like in version 2.0 of the game, A Realm Reborn, which will launch next year for PC and PS3. Cool music. Reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics Square plans to start…
By Jason Schreier Published December 27, 2012 -
My Favorite Thing About Far Cry 3
“So what is this game?” Seems like a simple question, right? Usually there’s a simple answer: “It’s a platformer where you save the princess by jumping through deserts and oceans.” “It’s a sci-fi shooter. You blast away aliens.” “High-school simulator meets dungeon-crawler.” Far Cry 3 is a little bit harder to define. Maybe that’s why…
By Jason Schreier Published December 25, 2012 -
War Z Creator Says His Game’s Trademark Wasn’t Suspended
Over the past few days, I’ve received tons of tips and e-mails about the trademark for controversial zombie game The War Z, which seems to have been suspended in November after a claim from Paramount, the studio behind World War Z Depending what the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office does next, the people behind The…
By Jason Schreier Published December 24, 2012 -
Uncharted Craft Maker Is Taking Online Donations To Battle His Cancer
David Vigil has stomach cancer. He’s been fighting it for a while now, but without health insurance, the 24-year-old is having a hard time paying for the medical procedures he needs to battle his disease. So he’s turning to the Internet. Vigil, who runs a company called Vigilante Leather (and whose Uncharted-themed work has been…
By Jason Schreier Published December 24, 2012
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