I don’t have a strong opinion about achievements, trophies, or whatever they are called. Unless they are particularly funny, they don’t tend to have any impact on my video gaming experience. I do find some of them a little bit silly when they “reward” players for merely playing the game or progressing through it just like everyone is expected to — it sort of takes the achievement out of the whole process. But I can understand the smug satisfaction one gets for completing a particularly difficult challenge and getting a intangible, completely meaningless reward out of it.

Microsoft has decided to take it to the next level, redefining the term “achievement” by applying for a patent for television achievements. It applied for the patent in November last year, reports Games Industry International, and it’s no doubt related to their magical TV and fantasy football platform, the Xbox One.

“Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content,” the application reads. “To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content.”

I’m not certain how engaging an achievement for watching every single episode of The Golden Girls could really be, and I’m not certain why it even needs to be interactive. Let’s not beat around the bush, everything from that excerpt is typical Microsoft nonsense and spin apart from the last sentence. The system merely exists to make people watch more of the crap MS wants them to watch. It has nothing to do with improving  the TV viewing experience.

“Additionally, by tying the awards and achievements to particular items of video or advertising content, viewers may be encouraged to increase their viewership of the content, thus increasing advertising opportunities,” the application goes on to state. Gross.

Microsoft envisions the Kinect playing a role, making this shameless promotion feature a bit interactive. The Skynet sensor might award viewers for just being in the room, watching TV, or it might demand that they hold up an object, which the Kinect will then scan and award the viewer appropriately. Probably with a pat on the head and double rations.

Leave it to Microsoft to make the simple act of watching television unnecessarily convoluted and invasive.

Via Games Industry International

I’ve come to acquire certain tastes and preferences about the games I play over a lifetime of gaming. The simple fact is that there are some things I favor over others — and perhaps always will. Many gamers are fiercely competitive and hone their skills playing online shooters; others might prefer more individual experiences and settle for a compelling story-driven game. Though it’s true what they say, variety is indeed the spice of life, I believe there’s something significant about our selective nature. And, as a recent epiphany I had playing a particular game has shown me, one of those supposedly minor predilections has a surprisingly vast amount of possibilities to explore. I’m talking about perspective.

Gears of War is in my eyes one of the best franchises to emerge during the current generation, and certainly the Gears trilogy stands proudly among its predecessors as a remarkable achievement in gaming. The aesthetic beauty of its crumbling architecture, the grim military setting that borders at times on sci-fi but remains very grounded, and a cast of memorable characters are just a few of the things that drew me into Gears. However, not all of these features — not even its brutal combat or tense, challenging multiplayer — are wholly the reason I enjoy the games so much. Comparing Gears with other popular shooters like Halo, Counter-Strike, or Call of Duty, I invariably lean towards Gears of War as my favorite for one simple reason: the third-person perspective.

I know this sounds strange. Why should the point of view of the game have such a large impact on my enjoyment of it? Do I prefer every single third-person game to a first-person game? The answer is both yes and no, and perhaps more subtle and nuanced than I can accurately describe. Suffice it to say, somewhere in my gaming DNA there is a gene that draws me to third-person games. I love being able to look at my character, seeing him or her walk, talk, move, shoot, and interact with the environment. Though I frequently play and enjoy many first-person games, I feel like I am better connected with characters and more invested in gameplay when I view things from third-person.

This love of the third-person point of view is perhaps best evidenced by my other love: MMOs. For about two years of my life, I more or less existed in World of Warcraft’s Azeroth, and raised up a blood elf paladin from infancy (both in terms of the character’s level and that of my own skill) to become a seasoned raider. Through the countless hours I spent playing — questing alone or grouping with friends in dungeons, raids, and PvP — I watched this character transform on nearly a daily basis. Gear was constantly swapped as he grew more powerful. His abilities changed as I gained experience, and his actions and movements were thus affected—what a typical enemy encounter might have looked like at level 30 had certainly changed by level 70, and 80, and so on. What was once a threadbare elf just starting his journey—alongside countless other novices—in the Eversong Woods eventually became a heavily armed, formidably geared paladin astride a fearsome steed, rubbing elbows with veteran players in similarly impressive garb. And, much like a proud parent, I was there to watch his growth and development the entire way.

Before I get too misty-eyed, let me try to get back on track: if World of Warcraft was, say, a first-person RPG, would I have had the same attachment? Suppose there was no way for me to view my character (other than some sort of inventory screen), and I never saw him in battle, never saw him die, never saw him defeat a raid boss or don a new piece of gear or mount his first steed. Would I have been as attached, as enmeshed in his successes and failures? As ridiculous as it may sound, I think not.

Seeing the constant evolution of a character is but one of the many things that a particular perspective allows for.  Speaking more broadly, this phenomenon of perspective does more than just create a connection between the player and the avatar; it can also have a specific role in a game’s narrative. Much like a book might be written on first, second, or third person, using perspectives to manipulate the way a story is told can have profound effects on both gameplay and player immersion.

A staple of first-person shooters is the silent protagonist. In Rage, you are an Ark survivor, a voiceless adventurer who survived a meteor’s collision with Earth, and your resulting journey through the post-apocalyptic world tasks you with discovering what happened to its inhabitants in the roughly 100 years since, as well as getting up to speed on the organization that is after your head. In Bioshock, you are Jack, a man visiting Rapture for an unknown purpose that slowly unravels as you travel through its derelict, splicer-infested environs. A crucial aspect of these games is creating the sense of immersion: you are not playing a character, you are the character. You are meant to experience the game as though you are actually there, and the decision to remove these characters’ voices is intended to aid in that immersion: their experience is yours, and you are meant to walk away from the game feeling like you have truly spent time in that world. If these games were changed to anything other than first-person, would staring at the mute figure of this character become an obstruction—jarring, even? Or, conversely, would having a garrulous, frequently expressive protagonist in these first-person games distract you from being involved in the world? Would that sense of immersion be as strong?

Indeed, it may seem like a minor facet of a game, but perspectives play a much larger role than we may think; changing something so simple often has great effects. Bethesda, masters of the first-person RPG, have had experience in dismantling a game’s established viewpoint in favor of a new one. The Fallout series was originally a third-person, isometric RPG where players navigated their avatar through a post-apocalyptic wasteland and battled enemies with turn-based combat. After Fallout 2, a series of spin-offs (such as Fallout: Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel) resulted in some changes in the gameplay formula, including the introduction of more action-oriented combat; yet, all of them maintained the isometric viewpoint.

When the IP changed hands from Interplay to Bethesda in 2007, a number of modifications took place. Not only did Bethesda further tweak the combat system, they axed the isometric perspective, opting for their more familiar first-person viewpoint. Coming on the heels of Bethesda’s other successful title, Oblivion, Fallout 3 also featured a sprawling, open-world environment and countless hours of side-content. No doubt thanks to Bethesda’s mastery of the first-person RPG, this seemingly dangerous and difficult transition was surprisingly smooth, and Fallout 3 was showered with gaming accolades. Though some fans might have been dismayed to see the isometric perspective removed, few can argue that Fallout 3 wasn’t an incredibly enjoyable, successful step forward for the franchise.

Gamers are justified in being protective about the typical perspectives of certain genres, however, as each one offers something unique. First-person points of view allow for deeper connection, making you feel as if you are the one experiencing the gameplay: the intermittent hallucinations in Amnesia: The Dark Descent are especially frightening from the first-person view. In contrast, third-person gives you the chance to watch and analyze the events of the game on a separate character. For example, games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Batman: Arkham Asylum utilize subtle details to show how characters are affected by combat: Batman’s suit slowly becomes ripped and tattered after major battles—becoming downright ragged by the game’s end—and the Prince loses much of his gear and clothing as the game progresses. Isometric viewpoints in RPGs like Baldur’s Gate engender a strong sense of control: you manipulate multiple characters through battle and exploration, swapping between them to cast abilities or perform tasks. Through it all, you have an unbroken view from above. RTS games take this a step further, allowing you to zoom all around the playing area as you command various armies and units. For something as simple as a camera angle, the various possibilities to significantly alter gameplay are astounding.

One of the most striking (and perhaps overlooked) examples of perspective and gameplay experimentation is the franchise Kingdom Under Fire. Though the first game in the series was a real-time strategy game, the second title in the series decided to take a more action-oriented approach. Blending third-person action combat with strategy elements and set in an intriguing fantasy setting, Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders allows people like me who don’t have the skill intelligence patience to play a traditional strategy game like Civilization or Company of Heroes to enjoy some of the elements of that genre, with all the visceral, punchy, and responsive combat elements of an action game.

In Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, you control a central character who can slice and hack his or her way through enemies on the battlefield with various abilities and combos. However, you also have at your disposal several units (archers, infantry, cavalry, etc.) that you can direct and move across different encounters. Each mission tasks you with performing specific objectives (sapping barricades or protecting artillery units), but unlike an RTS, you directly control a character with boots on the ground. This intimate point of view allows battles to have the chaotic, brutal feeling that is created by navigating a character directly through the melee—something that the bird’s-eye view of most strategy games cannot always convey. Though it’s not nearly as complex as a more typical strategy game, imbuing hack-and-slash combat with these strategic elements provides a refreshing new approach to two genres that are usually separate.

Thankfully, many new games are tinkering with perspectives and genres. Sanctum stirs the pot of the tower-defense genre by basing it around FPS gameplay. Smite removes the sweeping, isometric control of MOBA games and places you squarely in a third-person view of your champion. The upcoming The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, after previously being a first person shooter, has since switched to a third person shooter with strategy elements akin to Brothers in Arms. Even retro games are seeing new entries; Shovel Knight and Terraria are decidedly modern games that nonetheless feature 8 and 16-bit graphics with side-scrolling perspectives, recreating the aesthetics and ethos of classic 2D games of the past while maintaining certain contemporary gameplay amenities.

What I’m getting at with this whole treatise on perspective is its implications for creating new types of games. As more games are released and certain tropes are established, it becomes harder to innovate without becoming marginalized: gamers want something new, but at the same time something they can relate to. The problem is that some games try to reinvent the wheel while others are perfectly content to simply spin it. Experimenting with perspective, however, provides a nice middle ground: changing around the viewpoints of established genres can provide just enough novel gameplay to create something unique while maintaining familiar elements that will garner (and hopefully retain) the attention and interest of new players.

Jolan tru, people of Earth. Cryptic’s Star Trek Online has grown into quite the splendid MMO after its extremely shaky start three years ago.  It’s a content-rich title that draws from decades of Star Trek lore, offering players the ability to captain a Starfleet or Klingon vessel and embark on missions filled with classic Star Trek tropes from time travel to prime directive quandaries. As a free-to-play experience, it’s one of the best, giving free players hundreds of hours of content.

On Tuesday, Cryptic launched the MMO’s first ever proper expansion — for free — finally allowing players to command a Romulan vessel and fight for the newly created Romulan Republic. Legacy of Romulus begins two weeks before the events of the attack on Vega Colony, the original tutorial for Star Trek Online‘s Starfleet faction. Players have a pivotal role in the founding of the democratic Romulan Republic before the expansion properly opens up, joining the Romulan players with their Starfleet and Klingon chums.

I’ve had a couple of days to flit around space in my warbird, and once again Star Trek Online has gripped me by the balls and refuses to let go.

Even with Cryptic’s excellent handling of the F2P model in Star Trek Online, I was rather cynical about when it came to Legacy of Romulus. There must be a caveat, I thought; how else were Cryptic going to make their money back? Well, as it turns out, they are just doing the same thing that they’ve been doing since Star Trek Online made the move to F2P. Legacy of Romulus is filled to the brim with free content, yet offers some nice incentives to premium players in the form of new ships, costumes, bridge officers and the Reman race being added to the Zen Store.

Conveniently, silver players (those who bought the game but no longer subscribe) even get a free extra character slot, so there’s no need to delete an existing character to experience the new Romulan content. Right from character creation, the changes to Star Trek Online start to appear. The creation screen has been reworked, making it cleaner, easier to read, and it comes with tons of premade uniforms if you can’t be arsed to fiddle.

Upon creating a Romulan character, players begin on one of the independent colonies that cropped up after the devastation of Romulus, the Romulan homeworld, referenced in the Star Trek movie reboot. A leisurely tutorial teaches newcomers how to get to grips with the ground systems while giving an excellent sense of place. But before long, the Tal Shiar, the oppressive military branch of the Romulan Empire, attacks, and players join the resistance movement, attempting to create a new home for the Romulan diaspora.

The initial storyline not only serves as an excellent introduction to the game, both mechanically and narratively, it’s a genuinely interesting tale that should be even more eye-opening to returning players, as they will meet enemies and allies that their Klingon and Starfleet captains have run into before, but this is their origins.

The first series of missions will take captains up to their tenth “level”, promoting them to Lieutenant Commander (known as Centurians) and giving them a brand new ship once they are done. At that point, players can choose to join either Starfleet or the Klingon Defence Force. Despite their new allegiance, this just means that in the greater war between these two factions, the Romulan players will be able to pick a side. The Romulan Republic faction doesn’t suddenly disappear, and players will continue to experience new Romulan storylines and content.

 Much of Legacy of Romulus is taken up by story and character development, and offers less of the free-form exploration and smaller missions experienced by Starfleet and KDF players. It’s a welcome change, however, as it doesn’t tread the same ground as the core game, offering up new experiences and a more cohesive narrative.

Bridge Officers, the crew members who will give captains extra abilities during combat and accompany them on away missions, are now fully fledged characters rather than blank canvases. Through the story missions, new Bridge Officers will join your Romulan crew, and they all have their own personalities and histories, making them less like a bunch of red shirts. One can still recruit vanilla Bridge Officers, however, which is especially helpful if you’re not a fan of the new Romulan Bridge Officer’s combat abilities.

The green blood captains will be able to acquire Starfleet and KDF vessels, depending on their allegiance, but there are also iconic Romulan ships up for grabs. There aren’t as many, lamentably, with only one free option per promotion, so if you really care about having a strong build, it’s sometimes better to select one of the older ships from the other factions. The first warbird offered when players are promoted to Lieutenant Commander, for instance, is based on the escort class of ships, and that class is more tailored for Tactical Officers (though strangely it has two science officer stations rather than two tactical officer ones).

The new ships are certainly worth taking for a spin, though. Warbirds use singularity cores instead of warp cores (which dictates a ships top speed and power levels), and this gives them a unique ability in combat. There’s a singularity gauge on the fancy new UI, and when it’s charged from a captain’s damage dealing shenanigans, it can be unleashed to cause a devastating AoE reaction, messing up enemies ships or turning damage into health. It’s an extremely nifty new device that somewhat makes up for the lack of Romulan ship diversity.

Legacy of Romulus is a wonderful addition to Cryptic’s constantly improving MMO. The low, low price of free makes it impossible not to recommend, and it makes the developer’s F2P contemporaries like Star Wars: The Old Republic, with its Hutt update, look awful for offering less content with a not insignificant price.

He-said-she-said is a tough game, especially when you’re the one who’s stuck in the middle trying to figure out what’s really going on. Right now, Precursor Games’ Chief Creative Officer Denis Dyack and Kotaku are the “He” and the “She,” and what they’ve each said is that the other side is full of crap. Each side has a valid argument; neither side, it would seem, has much proof. A Kickstarter campaign may hang in the balance. Like most anything associated with Silicon Knights, this story is a long time in the making. This particular tale began about seven months ago.

On October 26th Kotaku ran an article titled What Went Wrong With Silicon Knights’ X-men: Destiny (note the non-existence of a question mark at the end of that headline – they aren’t asking, they’re telling). The article, written by Andrew McMillen, calls into question the leadership skills, business practices, and character of Silicon Knights’ management staff – specifically naming the studio’s founder, Denis Dyack. Among other things, anonymous sources interviewed for the article alleged that Silicon Knights diverted resources which had been ostensibly promised to Activision for the development of X-Men: Destiny in order to subsidize the production of a demo for their own IP — a follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2002 Gamecube release Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. When Kotaku asked to speak to Silicon Knights before the article was published, the developer declined.

On May 19th, six days after the Kickstarter campaign for Denis Dyack’s new game went live, and at the behest of Precursor Games’ CEO Paul Caporicci, Dyack finally spoke out.

In his rebuttal video — which you can watch for yourself above — Dyack mainly takes issue with McMillen’s reliance on interviews conducted with anonymous sources who claim to have worked under Dyack during the production of X-Men: Destiny, as well as the lack of any actual proof of misconduct, and he does make a good point. The nameless ex-employees make a fair number of rather severe accusations, not the least of which being that Silicon Knights pulled staff members off of the X-Men project which was being funded by publishing-gargantuan Activision. Though McMillen never actually uses the word “embezzled” in the article, quotes from the anonymous sources certainly imply that Silicon Knights is guilty of something very similar by reallocating resources that had, in good faith, been devoted to Activision’s project.

Dyack does use the word “embezzle” when he denies that any such conduct occurred, submitting that numerous audits were performed, not only by Silicon Knights and Activision but also third-parties, during the entire production process of X-Men. Kotaku Editor-in-Chief Stephen Totilo was quick to pick up on Dyack’s use of the word, however, and on May 20th published another article in which he wrote:

“McMillen’s report includes no mention of embezzling money, but multiple mentions, by former employees, that people who were supposed to be working on X-Men Destiny were at times pulled away to work on other company projects. It is just one detail of many describing Silicon Knights’ development priorities. The embezzlement charge is more severe, of course, and was something McMillen had heard rumored during his reporting. Reporters hear many rumors and try to deduce whether they’re true. This rumor doesn’t appear in the article, which should show how much credibility McMillen and Kotaku were ultimately able to give it.”

Incidentally, Kotaku recently published another article concerning Dyack’s current project, in which they advise skepticism to those who are thinking of funding the game.

Personally, I think the truth likely rests somewhere in the middle. Though the original exposé may not have been able to provide any actual evidence of wrong-doing on Dyack’s part, the sub-par product which X-Men: Destiny turned out to be certainly suggests that the development process was dysfunctional. I do, however, have a hard time believing that a company like Activision would take as lackadaisical an approach as is implied in McMillen’s article. Then again, it was a crappy licensed game, and Silicon Knights was already embroiled in an ugly lawsuit – Activision may have just wanted to cut their losses. I also find it hard to believe that Kotaku wouldn’t vet their sources rather thoroughly, lest they be slapped with a libel suit. At times, both Dyack and McMillen’s sources come off as confrontational, and each has a motive to lie, to boot. It’s a real mess, to be sure.

Ultimately, however, Dyack’s goal was to tell his side of the story in order to drum up donations, and on that front he seems to have succeeded – at least in part. With the amount of press this story has gotten over the last few days, numerous gamers who may never have even heard of Shadow of the Eternals have been exposed to it and have become potential investors; now they just have to decide if the project is worth supporting. As of the time of this writing Shadow of the Eternals has managed to raise $89,785 out of a goal of $1.35 million, with 27 days left to go, in addition to the $243,896 raised through direct donation on the game’s website.

I always feel a mild panic when I present identification papers at the airport. The skeptical look from the tired employee, the line of people impatiently waiting behind me, the questions they inevitably ask about my birth date all blend together in a miasma of claustrophobia and pressure that’s only assuaged with the loud thud of an approval stamp on a passport. It’s a cold, mechanical process; it’s also a fascinating game mechanic.

Papers, Please, a game designed by Lucas Pope, puts the player in the seat of a border bureaucrat–someone with a dull job, a dismal home life, and a surprising amount of power. As the border guardian of the fictional Arstotzka, you will scrutinize details and documents of a vast number of immigrants seeking entry to the Communist nation for whatever reason, be it work, transit, or terrorism. But their entry all comes down to you: a person with a digital stamp.

Here’s the description of the game from Pope’s website:

The communist state of Arstotzka has ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin.

Your job as immigration inspector is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from Kolechia. Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists. Using only the documents provided by travelers and the Ministry of Admission’s primitive inspect, search, and fingerprint systems you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested.

Pope bills the game as a “A Dystopian Document Thriller,” and based on the time I spent with the beta, the description seems apt. The world is drab and gray. Muted colors of hazy blues and ashen blacks are only briefly punctuated by a dull, lifeless red that highlights the important areas of a document. Every dead-eyed hopeful steps up to the desk is drawn in ugly lifelessness. The music, too, is loud and authoritarian in Orwellian  tones and oppressive beats. It’s an art style that elicits empathy from misery, and it’s disturbingly effective.

This aesthetic carries through in the gameplay and story. You work at the desk to earn money for your destitute family, and each mistake you make means less money at the end of the day. The game begins with simple criteria to fulfill in order to allow admittance, but as tensions between nations rise, the screening process becomes more intense. You will make mistakes because you didn’t notice a visa expired or the names on the four different documents didn’t match. You will let people in who offer you money, or you will keep a mother from seeing her dying son because you can’t afford to receive another demerit for incompetence.

In my time with the game,  I was captivated by the rhythmic process of scrutiny as each character seeking entrance became a really satisfying puzzle to solve as the line of hopeful travelers inched forward. I liked finding out the illegal intruder and sending him to be jailed. It’s satisfying to help those who go through proper channels and turn away those that look for an easy way in. The game rewards your vigilance, though with meager funds and an ailing, unseen digital family. As I earned little money, I began to resent anyone who wanted to enter Arstotzka under false identities.

Then, the game made bolder moves. Bribes had me measuring my missteps to see if I could suffer a notice from my employers to let someone slip by. I took the money and was quite pleased with myself until I split up a couple seeking admittance when one of them didn’t have the correct papers. I believed the character when she said she just misplaced her documents, but I had already let someone in who shouldn’t have been. I mistakenly strip-searched a man when I mistook his country of origin for the one responsible for a recent bombing at the border. My higher ups were not happy. I became bored and just admitted and denied people just to see what would happen. Turns out, I let in a man who killed numerous people the next day. I stopped playing for a while.

Papers, Please attempts to create empathy through mundane gameplay, and it’s pretty damn successful. When a migrant worker tells you that a murderer is behind her, and you arrest him even though he has the proper papers, resulting in a notice from your employers, you start to wonder whether the normal reward systems we expect from games are really all that rewarding. As I played, I lost track of an hour or so to the bureaucratic, hypnotic thump of an approved/denied stamp. When I took stock of my time with it, I wasn’t sure why I was still playing this miserable game; I didn’t know if the intelligent system of checks and balances puzzle gaming was worth the moral and aesthetic coldness of the system. Distraught, I paused the game and walked away from the computer to pull a copy of Orwell’s 1984 from the shelf in order to find connections to write about in an article. Then, I sat back down and called the next person to the desk. The line never seemed to shrink.

Microsoft’s got a new toy, the Xbox One. I was pretty confident in that whole “Xbox Infinity” idea, but whatever, Microsoft. I give you gold and this is how you repay me? With a console that will be awkward to talk about orally. “Hey, which ‘next gen’ systems is Watch Dogs coming out for?” “PC, PS4, and One.” Ugh. Fine.

Watch Dogs! Games!

Microsoft did talk a little about games, though it claims to be keeping the major software discussion for E3. Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag were expectedly confirmed by Ubisoft for One release. I’m pretty sure Assassin’s Creed IV Is coming to Leapster Learning devices at this point. Ubisoft announced it would have “at least six” Xbox One titles during the console’s first year, the company clearly hedging its bets with the Xbox One in the same way it did with the Wii U. Square Enix confirmed a release of Thief,

EA confirmed Battlefield 4 for One release after it hits PC, PS3, and 360. Slightly more interesting, EA Sports has announced a “very special relationship” with the Xbox One, which appears to consist of expectedly bringing over all their sports franchises, and also offering some exclusive content in FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode. My finger is spinning in faux excitement.

From Microsoft, we can expect a new Forza, while Alan Wake developer Remedy has a mildly interesting, but vague trailer for Quantum Break, which definitely sounds like a videogame. Of course, the pièce de résistance was Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty: Ghosts (boo!), which is a Call of Duty game. Wait, wait. I can try to feign enthusiasm for it, really. See, look, my mouth is almost contorted into a smile.

Also on the games front, the system is not backwards compatible. Don’t you dare think about playing your Xbox 360 or XBLA games on the One, cretin. Its slogan may be “all in one,” but that doesn’t include giving 360 legacy titles a free ride. According to a Wired preview: “Neither of their new machines are backward compatible with their current ones. That means your seven years’ worth of digital game purchases made over the Xbox Live Marketplace won’t function on the new machine.”

More icky news!

So, not backwards compatible. Maybe not the worst thing. Not like you’re getting much for an Xbox 360 trade-in at this point, right? Just nestle it into the least used corner of your entertainment center for when you get an urge to play Lost Odyssey or Battleblock Theatre. Fine.

Remember those “always online” fears, though? According to the same Wired piece, Xbox One discs will need to be installed to the console (at which point you can play the game without the disc), possibly trying that disc to a particular Xbox Live account. The next person who tries to use the disc will be graciously offered the chance to pay a fee to unlock the disc for their console. Lovely.

The system also has new, built in Kinect tech, which will hopefully make it easier to order a pizza with the Pizza Hut app for Xbox. The tidbit that the Kinect can now recognize controller and player body could be neat, though, letting the Kinect (smartly) work as a subtle, second layer of control instead of trying to get everything to work with it.

Specs! Techs! Mechs!

Man, mechs would have made this conference infinitely better. Then again, the list of things that could’ve made this conference better is miles long.

I’m already fatigued. Just look at the picture.

Great news!

The d-pad looks like it’s not a piece of garbage anymore.

Twenty times the amount of dedicated servers should make multiplayer smoother, too. if you’re, you know, into that sort of thing.

I’m done writing about this!

The largest (although not necessarily the most interesting) gaming trade show of the year, E3, is only a few weeks away. The be-all and end-all of announcement locations. Nevertheless, Nintendo Direct rolls ever onward, and this Friday’s video presentation was again filled with magic from the Japanese giant. I didn’t expect much, personally; some new details about already existing games, and maybe some new eShop games. Instead, Nintendo announced a surprising partnership to go with a few games andsome information that pretty much sold me on the Wii U.

Sonic games have had a partial resurgence of late. The daytime levels of Sonic Unleashed were the first sign that Sonic Team finally figured out how to make a fun 3D Sonic game again. Sonic Colors took that foundation and added power ups. Sonic Generations then completely refined things while adding a better sense of speed and great level design. This is why the announcement of Sonic: Lost World for the Wii U has me all hot and bothered. Of course, all we have to go on is a piece of gorgeous concept art — shown below — but I’m happy to assume that it will be some form of 3D Sonic game and that Tails will have a bigger impact on the gameplay. The lack of Tails in recent Sonic games has been something of a concern, since he is a very agile, technical character to play as when done correctly.

The news that Sega and Nintendo partnered up to bring three Sonic games exclusively to Nintendo platforms certainly surprised me, though one could have spotted the signs. Sonic has seen a few of his games appear exclusively on the Wii and DS already, and Sonic games tend to sell better on Nintendo platforms due to their platformer-friendly environment. Sonic games on the Wii U and 3DS makes perfect sense from a business perspective, and we can only hope the quality matches the expectations.

All the new details for upcoming games on the Wii U have helped me confirm my decision to buy one at the end of the year. The New Super Luigi U DLC for New Super Mario Bros U will be getting its own standalone retail release on August 25th, about a month after the release of the digital version. Those copies will no doubt become collector’s items thanks to a limited copy run. Nintendo also showcased more details on Pikmin 3 and the extensive use of the GamePad on it. It also has a new release date of August 4th. Hideki Kamiya and Platinum’s latest title, The Wonderful 101 — in which many tiny people band together to save the world from monsters — will be releasing on September 15th. Kamiya recently tweeted about the game, stating that it isn’t very long because he was so focused on making it fun. We’ll see about that, Mr. Kamiya!

This last bit of news doesn’t seem all that big on the surface. Nintendo have announced a partnership with Best Buy to bring demos usually only shown on the trade show floor to select Best Buy locations. This is great for people like me who have no access to E3, either through a lack of tickets or simply bing in an inconvenient location. It’s definitely an encouraging bit of news that I hope Sony and Microsoft copies.

So this Nintendo Direct wasn’t a huge, heavy-hitting event, but Nintendo will be holding another Direct right before E3. That’s where we can expect they’ll unload all their huge announcements. A new Kirby game, please?

I don’t like horror games. Most other folks don’t like them either, I suspect. There is no enjoyment for me in creeping slowly along the corridors of a forgotten castle with nothing but a dying lantern; no joy in the slow shuffle through the fog of a town that seeks to reflect all my darkest secrets and fears back at me. Being hunted by a faceless man in a forest is not fun.

But I still play them, because not everything is about fun. This breed of game, at its best, is about mental challenge. Pushing yourself to overcome. Horror is discomfiting, invasive and dangerous; it is everything you hate coming to get you in the dark. This is, perhaps, what separates a truly horrific video game from those that simply pitch their tent in horrible places. When I play Dead Space or Resident Evil there is horror all around me, but I’m there to enjoy myself. I’ve been given the tools not just to survive, but to dominate the terror. Conversely, I actively avoid playing Amnesia because it’s in control. I need to work simply to exist in its world. For this reason an element of survival is always present in true horror, even if the only thing fighting to survive is the player’s state of mind.

Acid Wizard Studio seem to agree with my perspective, as they’ve created their own piece of survival horror in Darkwood. The game — which is looking for funds on Indigogo this month — has players wake up in a mysterious forest filled with all manner of unknown unspeakables and tasks them with surviving long enough to discover what might be going on. All of this from a seemingly innocuous top-down perspective.

The project in their own words:

Darkwood is a top-down, oldschool, sandbox survival horror set in a procedurally generated, open world. It features RPG and roguelike elements, with intense combat and a eerie atmosphere. Gameplay wise, it has features in common with games like Project Zomboid, Don’t Starve and Teleglitch.

Darkwood certainly wears its influences on its sleeve. The trailer, replete with spooky forests and randomly generated landscapes filled with the tools to live and the means to die, immediately invites comparison to Don’t Starve — although it is an altogether less whimsical take on being trapped in a nightmarish wilderness. Similarly, visions of the lonely player boarding up windows and doors to keep out who-knows-what recollect the frantic and doomed evenings spent protecting a home in Project Zomboid.

Acid Wizard have stated a desire to keep an appropriate balance between horror and survival in Darkwood, with permanent death an ever-present cloud hanging over the player as they attempt to craft whatever they might need from bits and pieces gathered in the environment. There are also plans for character improvement through abilities and perks.

What really seems exciting — in that awful, difficult, gut-churning way — is that the horror aspects are genuinely disconcerting. While surviving in a game like Don’t Starve is a matter of calculating risks and managing time, this title heaps genuine psychological terror onto the pile of worries. The sound design in particular seems like it will be rather off-putting, with rapid heartbeats, strange forest rustlings and the skin-scraping heebie-jeebies brought on by someone playing piano in a dark house at night. When that child offers the player a crude drawing of the monster they saw I had a very strong urge to simply turn off the video and pretend Darkwood never existed.

But it does. I can see it creeping into the corners of my eyes right now. I can hear them outside now, scratching. Darkwood is $18,560 of the way to its modest $40,000 goal as I write this, and hopefully on track to get all the cash it needs. Or not so hopefully, perhaps. I’m very confused and it’s so dark in here. At least I have my duct tape. Precious duct tape.

On the 28th April 2013, yours truly paid for an apple tree on mobile game, The Simpsons: Tapped Out. As soon as this transaction was concluded, a feeling of regret emerged similar to that moment when you realise buying several batches of Lynx: Africa doesn’t actually produce some strange pheromone, whereby you’re inundated with bikini-clad beauties. In fact, were I not in a Starbucks at that moment, I may have indeed stood up and exclaimed with much gusto something like “bloody hell” or “balls”. You see, against my quite cynical nature I had embraced the idea of downloading a free game, only to be duped quite unceremoniously by the snake-like antics of these companies using “freemium” models, trapping their consumers into the mindset of paying to progress.

It’s akin to being given free cocaine or heroin with the promise that it’s not harmful or debilitating, then once you’re hooked being offered up an even more delicious and delectable grade of the drug for a minor fee. This, of course, builds and builds, progressing to a situation one can only describe as addiction. It’s a horrific business model, one that guarantees financial viability for the companies and assures financial instability for the consumer.

The term freemium describes the drab process of combining the words free and premium. In essence, the product is developed with the intention of rolling out consumer enslavement, the eventual aim being to force your customer into spending enough time with a product that they feel obligated to spend money to improve the overall experience. In recent times it has indeed become a prevalent term in the entertainment industry. It has to be stated, though, that it’s been particularly egregious in the gaming sphere. There are arguments for products such as Skype and Spotify being validated as freemium products because they actually add a substantial amount when paid for. There is a slight difference even between the aforementioned and mobile and Android games, in that Spotify, for example, offers the premium service for around £10 per month, meaning that you’re never inclined to spend more than that, as you get everything you need at that price: offline playlists, mobile usage, and so forth.

This is where the gaming companies have begun to unravel the delicate balance of respect between consumer and developer. It will come as no surprise to learn that effectively every freemium title is used to utterly enthrall and eventually trap the user into spending enough time that they continue to play for enough time to become addicted. Freemium products are extremely dangerous in that respect. Where the typical business model has a safety net for customers, allowing them to know they’ve spent money for property, this new path doesn’t protect the user. There are always people who will have trouble being able to restrict themselves because they feel vindicated through self-promotion, and that’s what’s possible with the implementation of this contraption.

Nick Earl, mobile boss at EA, once said that the numbers demonstrate that people support the freemium model. His point was superficial, pointing towards the fact that their products were highly rated on the iTunes store. The opposition to EA’s new way of mobile life is deemed a “vocal minority”. This is a skewed perspective. You can’t take statistics seriously when they adhere to people who have already been brainwashed by the seedy tactics being questioned. This supposed vocal minority is the basis, the very foundation upon which this particular company was born: the “hardcore” demographic. Casual gamers will almost unanimously approve of these games, because they’ve not been exposed to the gaming world and as such won’t necessarily understand that they’re being sucked in, slowly but surely. It’s quietly deceptive, exploiting the masses by offering the first hit for free and then gradually injecting the needle until one is entirely doped up and willing to pay for any old thing. Such is the reason EA deserve their horrific customer relations rating.

At the end of the day, if companies make a good game we’ll play it. Our issue shouldn’t be with the game — although if the quality is lacking then by all means go for it — but by taking advantage of human weakness simply to make revenue and financial gain you’ve moved away from the simplicity of a game and into severe psychological trickery. By using such gigantic franchises as The Simpsons and The Hobbit, companies have such an easy route to making money. That’s fine, of course, but when it’s at the expense of the customer it becomes more like profiteering. That’s inherently disgusting in a medium that was originally defined by its community and relationships between developer and consumer.

Regardless of dubious tactics however, there’s also the matter of where the future lies for the industry through the introduction of freemium as a means of profit. These games bulldoze their way to making extraordinary amounts of money for the organisations involved. It paints a bleak picture going forward, but generally economics dictates that if something is working then everybody will copy the concept, offering half-assed interpretations in order to blossom. The consumer will be left with a whole host of incomplete titles that misrepresent the very essence and beauty of the medium. Perhaps we’ll continue to lap them up willy-nilly, but just maybe we’ll lose all confidence in the mobile market. Nobody wants to experience such a tragic time, especially those heavily involved in the gaming world and those who dearly love this medium.

The mediocrity these games bring to the table is borne from not needing to innovate to make money. This leads to stagnation, which is something that the industry struggles enough with as it is. It’s a wholly creative medium, with enough diversity to make developers quiver with excitement. Monotonous games brought about by cheap, exploitative tricks harboring false pretenses doesn’t do anyone any good, particularly those actually trying to carve out something immensely powerful.

Lessons learnt are intrinsically vital to our progression as a species. Let’s hope that we gradually come to terms with the freemium model and how it works. Only then can we ask ourselves questions about personality and addictive tendencies. Next time a game asks whether you want to purchase a golden ticket to success, just remember that it’s stating that you need to pay to win. I don’t believe that’s what gaming is about; when we complete a title, the overriding feeling should be that we’ve achieved something through skill and dexterity as opposed to money. That’s a mug’s game, so think carefully before you hand over your cash to those domineering fat cats.

[Part One is here, if you're not keeping up]

You finally make it back to camp, outrunning whatever foul creature was causing that awful racket. Sitting down near your tent, you become increasingly aware of the unpleasant odour emanating from your backpack. The datapad you rescued from a pile of monster faeces is nestled between your survival kit and some other “important” junk.

Safe again, with food cooking slowly over the fire, you decide to turn the device on once more. The last entry you read was not a hopeful one; in fact, it was decidedly bleak, and knowing where the datapad ended up, you don’t hold out much hope for the author’s ability to turn his situation around. 

Day Two — A pre-dawn rescue

It was still dark when I finally pulled myself out of my stupor, though it was a new day. Thick storm clouds obscured the stars, but it was not the time for stargazing. I had lives to rescue. Well, more like dead to raise. The turrets had either killed or scared off any of the beasties that might have eaten the lifeless corpses of my comrades, so one by one I brought them back with our medical equipment that would have impressed Lazarus.

I didn’t even get a thank you. Bastards.

One of our number was unaccounted for, however, and then I remembered: The doctor had been carried away into the night by one of those horrific pterodactyl-like monstrosities. I didn’t like his chances for survival, but searching for him certainly seemed like more fun than hanging around camp being unappreciated.

Still armed with nothing but a sword and shield, I set off into the wilderness with no real expectations. Not being a tracker of any kind (and besides, pterodactyls fly) I just travelled in the direction I last saw it heading. Maybe an hour or so had passed when I saw a light shining in the distance. It was the wrong direction to be the sun, and the clouds were still thick, so it must have been a torch.

There he was, curled up in a little ball, a few monster corpses nearby — Doctor Allen Carter. How he survived, I do not know, but he seemed physically fine. Psychologically, he was undoubtedly broken. I didn’t have time to question him, though, as the moment I reached him one of the crazy chicken demons leaped out of the darkness and assaulted me. I managed to kill it, though not without a lot of hassle.

Day Two – Whistle while you work

The clouds parted as I made my way back to the camp. I’d saved everyone, but nobody seemed to notice. I should have left them all to die, but then who would I eat when we inevitably ran out of food?

After talking to my arsehole companions, I discovered that there were two other survivors not in the camp. They’d been sent to scout the surrounding area, but had yet to report in. I reluctantly volunteered to go looking for them, looking for any excuse not to hang around these insufferable incompetents

One of the adventurers had gone to search a meteor site not too far away, so I opted to hunt him down first. It took longer than I would have liked, as some very nasty looking aliens barred the more direct route, and I didn’t feel like tussling with them after the previous night’s misadventures.

I discovered the explorer just west of a large crater, dawdling pointlessly. No introductions were made, instead he demanded that I start mining, as he believed there was some useful ore left by the fallen celestial body. He seemed perfectly capable of mining, himself, but had decided to wait for a slave. What a splendid plan!

I mined not because I was told to, but because I needed ore to craft more turrets are better weapons. It was a self-serving act. I made this perfectly clear when I grabbed my pickaxe and went to work. So much fucking work. Scouring the surface rocks for potential veins, it was all down to luck. Hours and hours went by, with me toiling absent rest.

When I finally gathered enough ore, it was almost evening. The horrors of  the previous night were still fresh in my mind, and I admit to being quite timid. I still had one more survivor to look for, however, and so I picked up some new turret schematics and wandered off into unexplored territory.

Day Two — Looking for a man at sundown 

The directions were vague. The fellow I was looking for wandered off to check out a giant tree, because that’s what people do on hostile alien worlds: they bugger off on their own to look at nature. At least the weather was perfect for an evening stroll, with bright blue skies and the slightly waning sun making it easy to see the many dangers ahead of me.

Dangers like this fellow:

And him:

This guy, too:

And also that:

I’m going to die here.

Eventually I found the tree, though it really wasn’t a tree. Mind you, nothing is normal in this god-forsaken place. I found my quarry, and I was not at all surprised to find that he’d been torn apart by animals. I did find his backpack intact, however. Victory!

Darkness had fallen, as it is wont to do, and I only had the shredded remains of a man I never knew for company. Sure, he at least let me tell my favourite bawdy jokes, and he declined my offer to share my dwindling food supply, so I could have had a worse companion. I didn’t quite feel brave enough to venture back to camp, not with the hidden threats lurking in the black unknown.

For peace of mind, I surrounded the tree-like spire with cannon turrets, and not a moment to soon, as my corpse chum and I were soon beset by gigantic spiders. Of course there are spiders — what hellscape would be complete without everyone’s favourite furry arachnids? I don’t expect to survive the night.