Tag Archive: video games


You need to be a jerk to experience everything in inFamous: Second Son

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January 16, 2014

Players are going to have to throw out their moral compasses if they want to experience everything the inFamous: Second Son has to offer, game director Nate Fox told VG247 in a recent interview.

The inFamous franchise has always contained player decisions that would ultimately push its protagonist \ down a certain path on the good/evil spectrum. These moral dilemmas remain as a focal point for the game’s narrative, but according to Fox, the team at Sucker Punch is trying to remove the gray that has become a staple in many games recently and make the player’s options more black and white because, as it Fox puts it, “it really sucks when it’s nebulous.”

Fox also mentioned that he paid close attention to how people played during testing. He noticed most folks tended toward being nice on their first go around, but then had fun stirring up trouble on their second run-through.

“We do our damnedest to make it fun in both directions, but in my opinion you’ve got to play the game twice to really experience infamous: Second Son,” Fox told VG247. “I know from watching people play the game, that most of them play first as a good guy because we’ve been conditioned by society not to speed and help old ladies cross the street.

“But then they play through again, and they’re the most evil sons-of-guns you’ve ever met. They enjoy being evil, but they’ve got to get the good guy experience out of their systems before they allow themselves to be the jerks they are in their heart.”

Another interesting point Fox brought up is the importance collective playthroughs will be to franchise’s overarching canon. Much like how Trophy data was analyzed for inFamous 2 to determine which ending would be canonical leading into Second Son, Fox mentioned that Sucker Punch plans on doing something similar for whatever the next chapter in the series might be.

So, being a jerk carries even more weight now, as it could have ramifications the world of inFamous will forever feel.

Infamous: Second Son launches worldwide March 21, 2014 exclusively on PlayStation 4.

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China temporarily lifts foreign console ban

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China has temporarily lifted their ban on foreign consoles, the BBC reports. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will now be able to build their consoles in a designated free trade zone in Shanghai, where Chinese government officials will then inspect the consoles before they are allowed to finally go on sale.

Back in September 2013, the Chinese government announced its intentions to lift the ban, but no one knows how long its current suspension will last. Many speculate that the announcement and subsequent lift are the byproduct of an economic slowdown in China after years of rapid growth.

Another theory is that this policy change—possibly serving not only as the next step in China’s globalization, falling in line with other, wider economic reforms and liberalization in recent years—could be a response to the illegal gaming trade.

The ban was first instituted in 2000, with Chinese officials growing concerned about the effects of games on young people. Since then, Chinese gamers have had to acquire consoles via black market exchanges, which remains active and thriving despite governmental attempts to hinder it. Even with a gaming black market, most people in China have simply turned to PC gaming, which reportedly comprises two-thirds of the estimated $13 billion dollar market that China represents.

No matter the reason behind it, the question now is how Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft will take advantage of this lift respectively, and what it means if and when China decides to re-institute it.

“We recognize that China is a promising market,” Sony told the BBC after the news broke. “We will continuously study the possibility, but there is no concrete plan at this stage.”

Carving out a decent slice of a $13 billion dollar market could easily offset any initial losses caused by setting up shop there. But if the ban were to come back down quickly, this potential new branch could prove to be a costly error, something The Big Three are surely considering.

Should one, or all of the big companies decide to make a play here, though, Sony and Nintendo’s proximity to China provides an obvious advantage. Others believe that Microsoft, based on its history outsourcing hardware, could be in the best position. In theory, they could quickly team up with a third-party electronics contractor to set up shop in Shanghai and start producing the consoles. Either way, this could mark a significant day in the gaming industry’s economic history if China decides to keep its shores open.

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EGM Review: Halo: Spartan Assault

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An assault on the senses

When I first got my hands on a Windows Surface demo featuring Halo: Spartan Assault at E3 last year, I knew I’d never review the game unless it had a controller. Playing a twin-stick shooter without, ya know, twin sticks made the entire experience utterly frustrating, and I just couldn’t get past the idea of the inferior controls.

So, when I heard the game was coming to consoles and PC, I figured I could just wait for that version, since Spartan Assault’s largest, most obvious problem would be solved. Oh, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Even though the input issues have been addressed with a traditional controller, there’s so much more disappointment lurking beneath the Surface.

Spartan Assault’s single-player campaign passes itself off as a training simulation where up-and-coming Spartans can relive and learn from historic battles—fought by Halo 4’s Sarah Palmer and a new Spartan named Edward Davis—that took place on Draetheus V and its moon. The game also features a separate online co-op campaign in which you and a friend can take on the Flood. In regards to enemies, locations, and general aesthetics, Spartan Assault looks and sounds very much like a Halo game, just from a different camera angle.

Single-player is broken down into 30 missions across six chapters, offering an intriguing slice of Palmer’s backstory in bite-sized chunks that shouldn’t take more than three to five hours (six to eight if you also do the co-op adventure) to get through. Unfortunately, beyond the superficial details and the possible appeal of learning more about Palmer, there’s really little else here to draw longtime Halo fans in. And while the game’s length may sound short, Spartan Assault still finds a way to feel like a drag.

Now, I understand that twin-stick shooters aren’t really known for their depth of gameplay, but in trying to impart a stronger Halo feel, Spartan Assault also removes any and all charm that usually comes with this genre. Typically in such offerings, you eventually come across opposition that you can’t overcome through brute force alone. You need to strategize, even if it just means running behind cover and letting your shields recover. I never had this feeling in any of the game’s 30 missions. I ran in guns a-blazin’ every time and walked away. In a traditional Halo title, this might make you feel like a badass. In Spartan Assault, it made me feel bored.

The game does try to make things a little difficult by giving you limited ammo on all your weapons, something you don’t normally see in twin-stick shooters. In most games of this genre, you always have one weapon, even if it’s a weak little pistol that has infinite ammo for the sake of aiming, since it’s not inherently the easiest thing with the three-quarters top-down view here. By not providing any traditional aim assists with a laser pointer or an infinite-ammo weapon, the developers want you to be careful about wasting ammo, since aiming remains an iffy prospect.

This point becomes moot, however, due to the fact that many of the weapons are overpowered, and there’s so much ammo littered about the battlefield that I couldn’t imagine ever running out. And the fact the game tries to create difficulty through the genre’s natural limitations—and does nothing to hide this—just comes across as lazy design.

But the frustration doesn’t stop there. You earn XP as you play to unlock weapons. But instead of fully unlocking the weapons, you’re only renting them for that particular task, meaning you have to buy the best weapons again and again and again.

Or, if you’re rich, you can spend real-world cash to rent the guns for each of the game’s 30 missions—because it’s not enough that Spartan Assault for consoles ($15) costs twice as much as its Surface and Windows Phone ($6.99) siblings. Even though you really don’t need to buy any of the weapons to beat the game, you can’t help but feel like you’re missing something without trying them all at least once. The game wants to charge you even further to have the best experience possible.

And therein lies the true issue with Halo: Spartan Assault. It’s still just a mobile game using the same tired nickel-and-dime tactics to squeeze a few more dollars out of you. It’s just been cheaply ported over so that you can use a controller—which, at least, does work much better than the touchscreen inputs ever did. Sarah Palmer’s story, as much as I like the character, isn’t enough to make this anywhere near a worthwhile purchase. The developers couldn’t even tack on local co-op, which I would’ve enjoyed when taking on the Flood (in what proved to be a slightly more interesting experience than the single player campaign, if only because I was playing with a friend).

Players won’t be missing anything by mercifically passing on this one–Halo: Spartan Assault is easily the worst experience to ever feature one of the most famous names in gaming.

Developer: 343 Industries/Vanguard Entertainment • Publisher: Microsoft Studios • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 12.23.13
3.5
A cheap port of a mobile game with glaring flaws at its very core that does a disservice to the Halo brand, Spartan Assault should be avoided like the Flood.
The Good Provides a bit more backstory to Spartan Sarah Palmer.
The Bad One of the worst twin-stick shooters I’ve ever played.
The Ugly The item rental/microtransaction system.
Halo: Spartan Assault is available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Windows 8-enabled devices (Windows Phone, SmartGlass). Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One.
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Pokémon composer leaves Game Freak to pursue personal ventures

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Shota Kageyama, composer for Pokémon X and Y and the man responsible for the music in Pokémon games since HeartGold and SoulSilver, has decided to step away from Game Freak, he announced on Twitter.

On New Year’s Day, Kageyama tweeted that after being with Game Freak for over six and a half years he was planning to pursue personal ventures and leaving to form a new band called Spica Musica.

Besides Pokémon, Kageyama has contributed music to Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Atlus’s Luminous Arc. He also scored the recent Pocket Monsters: The Origin anime special.

Kageyama added that he still plans on working in game music even though he’s going independent. According to the composer, his Game Freak colleagues were supportive of the decision and he would not say this was a farewell to everyone there, since he thinks it’d be great if they could work together again in the future.

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2K Confirms No MLB 2K Entry for 2014, Erases Connections to Franchise on Web

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2K Games’ MLB 2K series had been on life support the past couple of years, and today the publisher officially decided to pull the plug.

Earlier today, sports-centric outlet PastaPadre reported that 2K had erased all connections to the franchise, expunging it from their main site, eradicating their Facebook page, removing the 2K10, 11, and 12 editions from Steam and the Xbox Games Store, and deleting the 2K13 website from the Internet.

After this development, Polygon reached out to 2K and received confirmation there will be no MLB 2K14 this year on any system, and pointing to what many suspect is the end of the series.

This decision more than likely came about for several reasons. MLB 2K13 was the tenth edition of the annual franchise, but was universally panned, with many criticizing that, overall, the game was nothing more than a roster update over 2K12.

Franchise developer Visual Concepts, also responsible for the NBA 2K franchise, has recently taken on some of the duties involved with the WWE series acquired after THQ closed down. Asking one studio to do three games each year could’ve proved taxing enough for MLB to get the axe in lieu of the studio expanding as the employees charged with MLB can now be moved to either one of those other games.

This move has sent a ripple effect across the industry, leaving Sony with the only systems (Vita, PS3, PS4) to carry baseball with MLB 14: The Show. While sports games aren’t typically known for making or breaking a system, this is surely an unexpected chink in the armor of the Xbox One—for at least this year, baseball fans will have to buy Sony to get their fix.

It also leaves many to speculate that EA could get back into the business of baseball. EA’s MVP Baseball series ran from 2003-2005 and was hugely successful by most accounts, but when EA signed an exclusivity deal with the NFL following the 2005 season, Take-Two countered with their exclusivity deal with MLB. The end of the MLB 2K franchise also likely marks the end of the exclusivity deal and this means someone else could step in to provide a third-party alternative to The Show and corner the currently vacant Xbox One baseball market.

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Dragon Age: Inquisition Keep System Adds Additional Management, Unlocks Quests

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According to a preview from Playstation Official Magazine, Dragon Age: Inquisition will introduce a new metagame system to the series revolving around castle keeps.

Keeps serve as focal points in each of Orlais’ many varied regions. Each one the player captures unlocks new quests for their character.

With players serving as the Inquisitor, keeps also allow you to assign varying amounts of Inquisition agents to maintain it and its surrounding region once in your control. The more agents you assign to a keep, the more you can put it to work for your hero.

For example, you can have agents build a mine to bring in more cash.  Or you can make your agents rebuild a colossus to improve keep morale incase it finds itself in conflict with invading forces at some point. This leads me to believe that keep defense will also play some role in this new metagame.

The OPM preview also draws a parallel to Assassin’s Creed in some ways with this new feature, and I have to agree as it sounds a lot like the Kenway Fleet or Brotherhood building aspects from the more recent games. Either way, it looks to add some much needed gameplay depth and variety to this third chapter in Bioware’s epic medieval fantasy.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is slated for a Q3 2014 release on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

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EGM’s Best of 2013: Editor’s Awards: Ray Carsillo

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December 23, 2013

Introduction

There were a lot of good games in 2013. For me, however, there weren’t a lot of great games, ones that were clearly head and shoulders above the pack and got me excited every time I talked about them.Aside from some Nintendo titles, the end of the year was surprisingly dull, due to the less-than-stellar launch lineups of the PS4 and Xbox One. Because of that, half my list is comprised of games that surprisingly came from the first six months of 2013. But when I look back, these are the five games I’d sit down and play again more than any others. Enjoy!

Ray’s Top Five Games for 2013

#05: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Publisher: Nintendo
 Developer: Intelligent Systems
Platforms: 3DS

Ray’s Take

Until Marth and Roy made their appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee, I’d never heard of Fire Emblem, since it had only been released in Japan at that point. I personally didn’t get into the series until Path of Radiance a few years later, but since then, I’ve been hooked. The story and strategy is everything I could ever want from a game, and Awakening miraculously finds a way to raise what was already a high bar. Elements like character customization are also introduced to the States for the first time here, and pairing units adds another nuance that can’t be ignored when playing.

#04: Remember Me

Publisher: Capcom
 Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Ray’s Take

Some games take you by surprise so much that you can’t help but fall in love with them. Remember Me is one of those games for me. From futuristic high rises that pierce the clouds to the seedy sewers comprising Neo-Paris’ underbelly, Nilin’s world pulled me in, with no small effort from our dear protagonist herself. The unique memory remixes and combo-creation gameplay elements stoked my fire as I spent way too much time exploring every second of people’s pasts or playing with my Pressens in the Combo Lab.

#03: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Publisher: Ubisoft
 Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Ray’s Take

Few games were able to just straight up impress me more than Assassin’s Creed IV did this year. The amount of freedom I felt on the open sea was unparalleled, and I’d lose hours on end just boarding enemy ships or diving beneath the waves to unearth some long-sunken treasure. I’m genuinely amazed at the progress made between this and Assassin’s Creed III, and I’m of the opinion that Black Flag is the best Assassin’s Creed since we first met Ezio back in Assassin’s Creed II.

#02: Injustice: Gods Among Us

Publisher:Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
 Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Platforms: PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita, PC

Ray’s Take

I have to play a lot of games over the course of a given year. I’m not complaining, but the only bad thing about this is that I rarely can find the time to go back to the games I truly enjoy. The one game I constantly found myself coming back to when I did find the time, however, was Injustice. I loved the story, I loved the mechanics, and I even loved playing online with other people—an activity that usually has me smashing controllers and living-room furniture left and right.

#01: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Publisher: Nintendo
 Developer: Nintendo
Platforms: 3DS

Ray’s Take

A Link Between Worlds is simply the best handheld Zelda game ever. Sorry, Link’s Awakening, but your 20-year title reign is at an end. The subtle changes to the classic Zelda formula, like having all the items at the beginning of the game, admittedly took some getting used to. But in the end, none of those changes stopped me from enjoying the game—and I couldn’t put my 3DS down until the adventure was over. In regards to the greatest Zelda games ever conversation, I wouldn’t put A Link Between Worlds past A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time, but it’s not far off either.

Ray’s Off-Topic Awards for 2013

The Razor Ramon Award for Best Bad Guy
Jacob Danik
A lot of games this year tried to offer up some shades of gray to the black-and-white conflicts we normally expect. And while plot twists and grandiose questions about morality are fun, sometimes you just want someone you can hate. A bad guy you love because he’s bad. This year had a few candidates, but in the end, I chose Jacob Danik from Dead Space 3. He was a religious zealot willing to sacrifice the entire human race for what he believed to be salvation, and Simon Templeman played him brilliantly, projecting a cold ruthlessness akin to space itself.
Popsicle’s “The Colors, Duke! The Colors!” Award for Most Colorful Game
 Super Mario 3D World
This one’s become sort of a tradition, so I figured I should continue it. It was a close call between several games this year, but I had to go with Super Mario 3D World. This particular Mario outing may have been a bit too easy and a bit too short for my tastes, but there’s no denying how gorgeous it was because of the variety of levels Mario was able to traverse for the first time in full HD. From purple ponds of poison and snowcapped summits down to the shine on the buttons of Mario’s overalls, a Mario game has never looked so good.
The Best Co-Op Gaming with Your Girlfriend Award
BattleBlock Theater
I play a fair amount of games with my girlfriend, but she only ends up happy that she joined in on a few of them. So, I figured I’d give a little recognition to the game she had the most fun co-op marathoning this year: BattleBlock Theater. She still talks about that game to this day, and it remains the only game where it’s OK to tell your significant other to go kill themselves, as we’d often sacrifice one another on floor spikes to serve as makeshift platforms to get across gaps.
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Developer Chat: The Walking Dead Writer Pierre Shorette, Designer Sean Ainsworth

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I am Clementine

With the new season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead now underway, I was able to pick the brains of Game Designer Sean Ainsworth and Writer Pierre Shorette about the changes this season brings to the series and some specific elements we saw in Episode One: “All That Remains.”

EGM: Clementine isn’t your typical video game protagonist and she’s a drastic shift from when you play as Lee. How do you strike a balance between making her a character all kinds of players would want to play, yet still maintain the vulnerability she naturally has being a little girl?

Sean Ainsworth: It was really difficult for us to figure out what that balance is. You don’t want people running over her with a bunch of adults telling her what to do, but you also can’t have her speak up and take charge of things because she’s 11 and that just wouldn’t happen. It’d be ridiculous. So, coming up with ways for her to have agency in the world and to feel like you have things to do with her is quite a challenge. But it feels like it’s worth that effort. It’s so different from being a big, burly, black guy now. You just can’t intimidate somebody and I think it factors more now into the group dynamics. We had to figure out ways around that and that was really cool.

Pierre Shorette: I think in Season One that you’re so enamored with protecting Clementine that it’s an interesting approach now where you have to go through a season where you’re protecting her literally, but then you’re also trying to role-play. I think it’s almost like striking a balance that’s realistic, but also allowing players to express themselves and get out of each situation what they really want. The last thing we’d want is for this to feel like some 90s kid-friendly movie and they’re running around, taking charge, driving cars around, and handling every situation. But it’s the first stumbling block we have to overcome in every scene, trying to figure out how to make her important in it.

EGM: You mentioned that Clem can’t really intimidate people, but through her dialogue choices, she can have a bit of an attitude to her depending on how you wish to play her. She can be antagonistic. She can rile the group up. She can make enemies. Is this just the natural evolution of Clem after everything she’s been through?

SA: Yeah, I think so. Living in this zombie-infested world, she’s had to grow up a little quickly to survive. That’s definitely part of it. Part of making her a little older now is that she’s had some experiences since last season. She’s still speaking straight from her heart, though.

PS: Of course, you don’t have to say anything at all. You can often choose to remain silent.

SA: Right, but she at least knows enough now to know what to say because she’s talking from experience.  And depending on how you’re playing, you can extrapolate that there may be repercussions for what you say.

PS: I think it’s interesting because depending on the scenario, I’m sure some people would be like “Clementine would never say that”, but sometimes when you’re in the moment and you’re role-playing as the character, some of those one liners are just too shiny a nugget to pass up and not see what happens next. They want to see what happens and the drama of the moment is what’s so compelling. People just want to know how it would play out. If you’re that into the role, then it can take you in a different direction and then it’s the decision you live with and it becomes the reality you’ve chosen.

SA: Yeah, it’s weird because you’re now playing as someone who was an NPC in Season One. So it’s interesting what direction you can take this NPC now as the player-character. We were a little worried actually when we started talking about making Clementine the main character, if there would be a disconnect, but when you’re playing it you just get into it and really, that’s our goal. That you get into it enough that you forget all of that.

PS: Can we ask you, now that you’ve beaten it, how did you play it? Did you go in with the goal of just protecting Clementine? Were your decisions affected by that? Or did you role play?

EGM: I went into wanting to make the best decisions possible to continue protecting Clem all I could. That was my main goal. But after the first couple of sequences and seeing what choices I had to make, I really started to play as if I was Clem and not some ethereal protector. The best way for me to protect Clem was to be Clem.

PS: Right. You began to identify yourself as her. That’s cool. I’m glad that happened with you because like Sean said, there was a fear people would be removed from the story and make everything black and white in their minds and just play god and control Clem’s existence but be detached from it. But I’m glad that you got into it.

EGM: In the group of people Clem meets, there’s a father/daughter dynamic there that reminded me a lot of Clem/Lee from Season One. The girl is a bit naïve and the father is protective of her, and its interesting that Clem is now on the outside looking in on a relationship like that. Was that parallel an intentional addition on your part?

PS: I think it just sort of emerged naturally. The opportunity to see almost a more naïve version of the girl Clem used to be is unique because now she can have an opinion on how the father is raising his daughter. I mean that’s crazy that an 11-year-old would have a valid opinion on his parenting skills and how he may be doing some things wrong or what he should be doing more of and that’s actually an example of giving her a level of agency that, from the outside looking in, might not click with the group. But we know from being in the background that Clementine has valid opinions to share on how to grow up in this world and stay safe and survive. And that’s the kind of stuff we’re seeking out all the time to make sure this is a compelling experience.

EGM: Talking a little bit more about this first episode of Season Two, it ended on even more of a cliffhanger than usual. Why did you guys decide to end the episode where you did?

SA: We obviously can’t go into a lot of detail without giving too much away, but I think we ended it here because all the ramifications that stem from your last decision in the episode will trickle out and affect the rest of the season. So, to dig into even the beginnings of that, and dig into those ramifications would require a lot more time than we had at that point in the episode.

EGM: At the beginning of Season One you guys had Glenn as part of the group, and made your way to Hershel Greene’s farm. Have you guys ever entertained the notion of intersecting again with the comics?

SA: We have an ongoing discussion about it. We’ve never ruled it out. It just has to make sense. It can’t be something that we’re shoehorning in.

PS: What’s nice is this addition, with the game existing on its own and what we did with it, shows that The Walking Dead is just a really big universe. That this is unique for the IP and not just a story that’s somewhere in a pocket in Georgia. It’s something that’s shaking up the entire world and I like that it makes the universe feel large.

SA: Also, it’s really hard to tie in dead people. [Laughs]

PS: Yeah, we were just talking about this the other day where if you go to The Walking Dead’s wikia page and under the comic book section for the characters, everyone just has a big red “X” on their faces. It’s just what they do. It’s what happens. If you stay with the main gang long enough, you’re going to get killed. So, that’s part of it, too, for sure.

EGM: Alright, last question. Telltale has worked on a lot of licensed properties over the years (Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, etc., etc.) and you just announced two more with Borderlands and Game of Thrones. If you could add another new license to the list, what would it be and why?

SA: There are so many I would love to do, but it would have to make sense for us to spend the time on it. And it’s hard to even say because we never know what we may be working on in the future. It’s just so hard to say.

PS: And even that, everyone is so excited for what we have coming up, like with Game of Thrones. It just fits what we do so well. I will say, though, that before I even worked here I was a fan. I played the first three episodes [of The Walking Dead] before coming on, but I always thought that in terms of what Telltale does, even before I was an employee, that Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets would be a cool adaptation because of its nature. I mean, it would be a game where the bullets matter a lot. It’s not just a number up in the corner of the UI. When a gun gets shot, it means something, when a person gets shot, it really means something. So how precious that is, or how devastating that is was something I always thought was interesting.

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Alexander Gustafsson to Join Jon Jones on EA Sports UFC Cover

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Swedish MMA fighter Alexander Gustafsson will be paired with New York’s Jon Jones as co-cover athlete for EA Sports UFC, publisher EA Sports announced.

While it had already been set in stone that Jon “Bones” Jones would be one of the cover athletes for EA Sports UFC, to maintain what has become tradition for EA Sports games, a tournament was held for the fans to determine what fighter would join Jones on the cover.

After 11 million votes were cast over a four-week period, Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson emerged from a field of 16 candidates as the winner. Gustafsson beat out longtime UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre in the finals to claim the honor. This was due in large part to the huge amount of votes that came in from Gustafsson’s native Sweden and the rest of Europe.

What makes the cover fitting, though, is the history shared between Jones and Gustafsson. Jones narrowly beat Gustaffsson to retain his UFC Light Heavyweight Championship back in September at UFC 165, but the win did not come without controversy.

Gustaffsson cut Jones’ eye open in the first round of their bout and is the first man on record to take Jones down in the Octagon. Despite ringside doctors wanting to end the fight due to Jones’ cut, Jones implored them to let it continue. The fight went the full five rounds and narrowly, although unanimously, Jones edged out Gustafsson on the judges’ scorecards.

Experts believe the judges scored in favor of Jones because he landed a great deal more “significant strikes” over the course of the bout than Gustafsson. The title defense was Jones’ sixth, a record in the Light Heavyweight division of UFC. Many can see a rematch between the two happening sometime next year.

EA Sports UFC is due out spring 2014 for Xbox One and PS4.

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EGM Review: The Walking Dead: Season 2: Episode 1 – All That Remains

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Oh my darling, Clementine

EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS REVIEW MAY MAKE REFERENCE TO EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE DURING SEASON ONE OF TELLTALE’S THE WALKING DEAD. IF YOU DON’T WANT IT SPOILED, I IMPLORE YOU TO GO PLAY IT AND THEN COME BACK. ALSO, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG? IT’S BEEN OUT FOR A YEAR ALREADY. WELL, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! GO! THEN COME BACK.

Last year, Telltale captivated gamers everywhere by capturing the essence of what makes The Walking Dead comics great: human drama that just happens to take place during the zombie apocalypse. In the process, we got to know—and fall in love with—protagonists Lee and Clementine. Their unique dynamic is what kept many players going to the very end, when Lee finally succumbed to his infection. Clementine’s story was far from over, though, and now in Season Two, instead of serving as her protector, we get to play as Clem herself and see just how the world around her begins to take its toll during some of her formative years.

It’s been a little over 12 months since we played the end of Season One (the first time, anyway) and six since 400 Days, so in order to get players back into the groove of surviving the end of modern civilization, the episode starts off by punching you in the gut several times with some sequences you will not see coming. If you thought you might coast for a while and get your bearings playing as Clem, you’d best think again.

This sink-or-swim approach is a brilliant move by the gang at Telltale, as it serves two purposes. Not only does it prepare you for what’s to come over the rest of the episode—both in terms of point-and-click gameplay and dramatic tone—but it also forces you into Clem’s shoes faster, preventing you from “meta-gaming” scenarios as though you were still protecting Clem (a possible side effect of your role in Season One). This habit would be harder to break later on if you became used to that idea, and the game would be less immersive as a result.

I admit that, going into this first episode, I was afraid I’d fall into that mindset myself—and that there’d be a disconnect between me and playing as Clem because of it. Due to the nature of the first few scenarios in the episode, however, I quickly found myself playing out conversations as though I were actually Clem. I was still “protecting” her, but mostly because I was protecting a part of myself. I didn’t have the time to think on a meta-scale. Thus, when things finally did slow down, I was already in the mindset of thinking as Clem and continued on that route.

I also thoroughly enjoyed many of Clem’s conversation choices. If I wanted to maintain her innocence—since she still isn’t even a teenager—the game offered options for that path. If I wanted to wear some of Clem’s emotional scars on her sleeve a bit more, I could do that, too. Other times, Clem displayed more adultlike logic, showing off her accelerated maturity due to her past experiences. I personally chose this path, and was pleasantly rewarded when it led to a particularly entertaining conversation between Clem and a sassy older woman. My Clem doesn’t take s*** from anybody!

For all the good Telltale does in this opening episode’s story, they did make a couple of questionable design choices. The most notable—and disappointing—is the lack of ramifications from the decisions you made in Season One and 400 Days. While the “next episode” teaser at the end of All That Remains does seem to hint at this situation being rectified, I would’ve loved something more than a couple of dialogue choices reflecting back on what happened down in Savannah.

Part of this could be the idea that new players may be coming on board, much like how some people start watching the second season of a TV series after hearing how popular it is. The problem is that by trying to cater to a new audience, Telltale might be ostracizing their returning fanbase with this more generic entry point for the series.

If anything, making a lot of references to prior events could compel people to go back and buy and play Season One. Even if players don’t have a Season One save, this episode has a scenario generator at the beginning that plays out the major choices so that players can experience Season Two without fear of punishment or missing out on content. So, why not reward your loyalists a bit more and throw them a bigger bone?

I also felt like the episode ended at an odd point. In Season One, every episode had a very natural conclusion. All That Remains’ end comes out of nowhere, and it’s incredibly jarring. While it works as a cliffhanger—and I understand that the next episode will begin with some major conflict—there was an earlier sequence that would’ve made much more sense as a “natural” ending. But ending there would’ve made this experience a bit too short, and as it stands now, the episode’s only 90 minutes long, so it seems that Telltale wants to make sure players are still getting their money’s worth.

Despite these couple of questionable choices by Telltale, their Walking Dead series continues to be a narrative powerhouse. Even though there’s only an hour and a half of content here, there were several instances that I had to pause the game, walk away, get a drink, and then come back. I simply couldn’t power through and ignore the events of this episode, and I found myself frantically worrying about Clem now—just as much as when I was protecting her as Lee.  Fans of Season One have no excuse not to go out on and get this first episode of Season Two, and while I think newcomers should still play Season One first, they’ll be OK using this as a jumping-off point as well.

Developer: Telltale Games • Publisher: Telltale Games • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 12.17.13
8.0
All That Remains is a fine way to kick off the second season of The Walking Dead. Telltale made some interesting design decisions putting players in the role of Clementine, and most of their choices—but not all—work out nicely.
The Good The story immerses players from the get-go.
The Bad Lack of ramifications from previous episodes.
The Ugly How easy I found it to play as a little girl.
The Walking Dead: Season 2: Episode 1 – All That Remains is available on Steam (PC/Mac), XBLA (Xbox 360), PSN (PS3), and iOS. Primary version reviewed was for Steam (PC).
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