Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at
5:24 am
Welcome to Replay’s second season! While it may seem arbitrary to end a season after two years and over 100 episodes, we’ve never been sticklers for making sense or following rules.
I came up with the idea of a second season over a year ago, but wanted to bat around ideas with the Replay crew regarding new elements to make sure Season 2 wasn’t just a logo change. While this is still the same Replay you know and love, we’re going to have more fun with the second segment. We enjoyed taking shorter looks at our Roulette games, but we wanted more creative freedom for the second segment. Dan, Tim and I have thrown around dozens of new ideas – ranging from the informative to the insane – and we like the idea of our viewers not knowing what the second segment will be. We’ll still do Roulette on occasion, but as you’ll see in the weeks ahead, you’ll frequently be met with surprises.
After viewing our lengthy look at GoldenEye 007, a highly requested title from our viewers and Replay cast, you’ll get the first taste of the type of things we can do with this second segment. It’s one of our wackier ideas, and there’s a chance it won’t return, but we’d like to create an air of unpredictability with each episode as we move forward.
The Replay crew extends big thanks to Game Informer alumni Thomas Blustin for his tireless work on creating Replay’s new logo, and Joe Kane of Joe Kane Design for the new animated intro. As always, this show wouldn’t be anything special without the video and audio expertise of Ben Hanson and Jason Oestreicher.
Enjoy the episode and please let us know what you think of our new direction in the comments section below!
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Before you venture off to do something meaningful today, feel free to check out our back catalog of two years of Replay.
www.GameInformer.com – The Feed
Friday, January 27th, 2012 at
2:28 pm
As part of its fiscal third quarter results, Nintendo announced plans to release a side-scrolling Super Mario title for 3DS in its next fiscal year.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata offered no other details about the game during his presentation, which can be viewed on the company's website. Iwata did say it would be "totally new," however. Nintendo's next fiscal year begins April 1, 2012 and ends March 31, 2013.
"With the fulfillment of software, we are confident that we will be able to make the Nintendo 3DS active for the full year as the mainstream platform in the video game market," he said.
[Source: Nintendo]
www.GameInformer.com – The Feed
Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at
8:35 am
Unlike previous years, EA Sports and developer EA Tiburon aren't going to talk about upcoming title Madden NFL 13 during the Super Bowl. But that's not going to stop us from unveiling our wishlist for the game.
Apart from the usual baseline of bug fixes and improvement tweakings, Madden 13 has a long way to go to improve upon Madden 12. We don't know what EA Tiburon's focus is going to be this year, but we hope that as a whole the spotlight is on getting this series back on track instead of adding new features nobody asked for.
This year the Madden franchise faces a particular challenge in trying to move on after the departure of long-time development veterans like Ian Cummings, Phil Frazier, and a host of other personnel that have left. There's no way to know how this will effect the series, so here's hoping that the new blood will be good for the franchise.
Feel free to post your own ideas in the comments section – we know you've got plenty.
THE MADDEN NFL 13 WISHLIST
+Items italicized where also specifically mentioned in last year's list and have yet to be implemented or fixed!
General
- No more fan voting for the cover athlete. We don't need another Peyton Hillis debacle
- A better menu system. The current system obscures info onscreen, buries other menus, and is confusing in general
- Better crowds and sideline players
- Create-A-Play feature
- Fix numerous bugs
Gameplay
- AI that can accurately throw short passes to the flats and sidelines
- QBs take too many sacks instead of either getting the ball off or throwing a wobbly pass
- More information on the GameFlow plays so you know when you're choosing a 4-3 Cover 2 formation vs. a 3-4 one, for instance. Could we get a thumbnail of the play art?
- An improved kicking game taking more variables into account and which is more challenging overall
- The ability to create offensive and defensive player packages outside of a game situation
- A better range of penalties called and fixes to the challenge system. Challenges aren't available when they should be, and the final calls can be baffling (like real life, we guess!)
+ New blocking logic for the second level so fullbacks and pulling guards put their hats on the immediate threat
+ True gang tackles
+ New passing trajectories to cut down on linebacker interceptions over the middle and scaling down of jumping linebackers
+ More ball awareness by players in the passing game, including better head tracking
+ Receivers come back for the ball and more jostling between the DBs and WRs – including the importance of the pass interference penalty
+ Make the fumble animations, minigame, and outcome match each other. Too many times what you see and who comes up with the ball is completely different
+ Defensive ends aren't effective in rushing the passer: A far cry from their importance in real life
+ Too many gimme INTs dropped
+ Better special teams blocking
+ Fewer canned animations and more real physics-based movement
Read on for more of our opinions on how to improve the series.
www.GameInformer.com – The Feed
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at
5:39 pm
[Update] : A new report from Kotaku this morning says industry sources claim the next Xbox will play Blu-ray discs, may not play used games, and will ship with the next iteration of Kinect. Kotaku said Microsoft may implement some sort of anti-used games system for its next console, which could include linking a copy of a game to your Xbox Live account. The reports says right now it's completely hypothetical and is not clear how it may be included, if at all.
One source familiar with Microsoft's plans for the new Xbox said
Microsoft plans to ship their new Xbox with a new version of its red-hot
Kinect hands-free sensor system. The new Kinect would contain an
on-board processor, a feature originally intended for the first Kinect.
That processor would enable a new Kinect to more effectively detect
users' motions.
[Original post] The Internet is swirling with rumors today about the graphics capability of Microsoft's next console.
According to a report from Fudzilla published today, the power behind the next Xbox will be a PowerPC CPU married to a modified ATI Southern Islands 7000 series GPU. The code name for the 32nm chip is Oban, and the report says it's currently in production. The first run of these chips are being made for development kits only.
Fudzilla's report suggests chips for consumer consoles will go into production by the end of the year, suggesting we won't see Microsoft's new console until 2013 at the earliest. Meanwhile, IGN says the GPU will be based on the 6000 series instead, akin to the Radeon HD 6670.
So far, Microsoft isn't commenting on any of the rumors.
[Source: Fudzilla, IGN]
www.GameInformer.com – The Feed
