split/screen co-op

Hallowe'en Pumpkins by *Spider-Shadowz on deviantART

Our autumn issue is coming in time for Halloween and accordingly its theme is horror. We delve deep into the dark world of fear & phobia and meet some impressive people during our journey. The creator of Deadly Premonition, SWERY, was kind enough to answer our questions about the game and share some information about his future projects. We were very happy to be able to ask the master himself what was his masterpiece meant to be and were very pleased with the answer. Anyone who is a die-hard Deadly Premonition fan like us would appreciate the opportunity to read SWERY’s take on the game.

Another great interview we did for this issue was with game developer Chris Pruett, who I think is fair to be called a specialist when it comes to horror games. Chris is on a mission to play every horror game ever and has been blogging about his progress for years. In issue Three he shares his experience and tells us what he thinks is the creme de la creme of the genre.

Me and Dilyan are very happy today, because we published the second issue of our magazine for games and gamers, called Ctrl+Alt+Defeat.

We try to centre each issue around one main theme — for the first it was war and for the second we chose heroes. We got in touch with a number of game critics, journalists and developers and asked them about their favourite game heroes. We got a lot of great opinions and inputs from Gameranx.com news editor Ian Miles Cheong, Jeff Vogel from Spiderweb Software, Leigh Alexander from Gamasutra, Brad Gallaway from GameCritics.com & PNWJournos.com, Mathew Kumar, publisher of  exp. Magazine, Kirk Hamilton, San Francisco features editor at Kotaku, Chris Dahlen, Editor-in-chief of Kill Screen Magazine, Game designer Nels Anderson and Denis Farr, Editor of GayGamer.

Commander Sheppard by ~Hunter198 on deviantArt

I am currently addicted to BioWare games (Mass Effect 1, 2; Dragon Age) and almost every time I mention how much do I like them, Dilyan says they are using the same engine and it is basically like playing the same game over and over again. His argument — a little has changed since Neverwinter Nights in terms of gameplay. My question – how much does that matter? Is a game less appealing just because the gameplay is the same as in another game before it?

Soldiers by ~dariozo on deviantART

Our world is divided by wars, our destiny depends on their outcome. Millions of lives are lost in an effort to save billions of others. Wars unite nations and divide with equal strength. Wars are fought to keep people save, to deliver them from evil, to give the oppressed a chance to be free. Wars need strong, good and just men and women to wage them and complete them, to bring peace and happiness in lands where those things have long been forgotten, buried under the dust of bones and overflown by rivers of tears.

Wars are won by patriots, people who love their countries and trust their leadership, people who believe the world should be purged from evil.

Sounds wonderful, and I get a really warm feeling writing those words. I’d like to believe they are true but I can’t. The reason: recent history.

Elvis Presley by ~dancingonthemoon on deviantART

I feel compelled to quote that verse from an Elvis Presley song when it comes to Japanese games.

I am currently playing Last Window: The Secret of Cape West and am once again amazed by the slow pace of the action and the endless dialogues. The characters say something, which could fit in two sentences, in ten. The explanation of very simple actions or emotions is discussed and analyzed in lengthy conversations that are truthfully boring.

Massively Multiplayer Epic by *Kirbopher15 on deviantART

I am wondering why people think it is easier to build teams in a few minutes online when it cannot happen in real life.

My husband Dilyan has become a World of Warcraft player and is a Hunter nearing level 79 now. Every evening when I grab the Xbox 360 controller to start up yet another Mass Effect 2 session, he sits on the PC for yet another WoW game . What I most often hear him say while playing is : “Why is nobody doing what they should do?” or “Why is that guy just standing there, not defending himself?” or “Why is there no order in this raid? Everyone is doing just what they want, nobody is in charge!” ect.

The Normandy by ~gungho95 on deviantART

I recently joined a social media network for gamers, called gamerztech,  and frankly was not sure exactly what to do there. The creators of the website say it is meant to be like Facebook for gamers and they are right — it is. So I was wondering why I did need another Facebook-like account (God knows I’ve got too many of those). I got my answer soon after I joined — gamer buddies.

Almost all of my friends are active gamers and I can share much of my gaming experiences with them. However, one can never have enough people to share a passion with, or at least I think so.

When I first started spotting articles about the PSN failure I was not exactly worried, because it was not part of my PS3 game life. Furthermore, where I live PSN purchases are allowed only via points and not through direct credit card transfers. I used to get angry at Sony for not covering smaller markets and allowing customers there to take advantage of all PSN services, but now this seems more like a blessing.

Instead of a pic here I link to an article on Cracked.com called Videogame Controls. The pics there I hilarious!!!

I’ve recently discovered controls can be so annoying that they could actually put off a game.

The game in question was Too Human. My reason to stop playing were not only the controls, of course, but they were part of the problem. In Too Human melee attacks are made with the R stick, which in most games is used for camera control. Using the R stick for attack was so uncomfortable that even though I played for several hours I did not manage to get used to it and usually it takes me very little time to adjust to the controls of a new game. The problem is that in the last few years all games I’ve played had camera control on the R stick. I cannot imagine why someone at Silicon Knights would decide to put melee attacks where the camera control should be.

Anyway, I was annoyed enough to not forget it for a couple of days and the more I though about it, the more I wondered why should controls defer from game to game. I do understand that sometimes it is necessary to change them due to the different genres, but why should you have different controls in two games from the same franchise?! Example: God of War and God of War II, why was it necessary to change the key you open chests with from R1 to R2?! Makes no sense to me. And with GoW it is just a little thing that you get used to, but with games such as Too Human, where gameplay is very similar to a whole series of action games, the radical shift in controls just annoys and seems unnecessary.  I my opinion game controls should be as similar as possible, because the point is to get into the game quickly and enjoy. I admit there could be some pleasure in getting familiar with a different set of controls, but I think the real challenges should be focused on game strategy and combat tactics and on uncomfortable controls.