http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 25 Dec 2013 06:20:57 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-and-ps4-revealed-the-start-of-the-next-gen-war/1100-6416475/ <p dir="ltr" style="">In this, the first of four articles, we look back at highs and lows of 2013, beginning with the unveiling of Sony and Microsofts' consoles and our collective reactions prior to E3.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2380944-0251286210-plays.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2380944" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2380944-0251286210-plays.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2380944"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1534/15343359/2380944-0251286210-plays.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style="">2013 has been on the most hectic, exciting years in gaming in a long time. The launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may have taken the spotlight, but we also had a <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ouya-available-today/1100-6410676/">portable offering from Ouya</a>, a<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-2ds-launching-october-12/1100-6413747/"> redesigned portable from Nintendo (the 2DS)</a>, plus the unveiling of <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-reveals-steam-machines/1100-6414959/">Valve's Steam Machine</a>. Gaming itself may not have changed all too much in 2013, but the ways available to experience games were constantly evolving.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">But although the industry is looking up now, the start of the year still felt uncertain and tumulutuous. The fate of any of these consoles was (and in some ways is still) uncertain, and there was far too regular news of layoffs and studio closures. One of the larger developers to leave the industry in 2013 was LucasArts. Disney acquired the developer along with LucasFilm, and early in the year Disney <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/lucasarts-closed/1100-6406363/">shifted the game studio to a licensing model,</a> thus canceling (or at least putting on hold) anticipated games such as <a href="/phoenix-cms/articles/form?id=6404659/" data-ref-id="false">Star Wars 1313</a> and the <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-first-assault-is-downloadable-multiplayer-shooter-report/1100-6405119/" data-ref-id="1100-6405119">Battlfefront sequel First Assault </a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Given the state of the industry, it was easy to imagine an imminent collapse or some other disaster just around the corner. But all that just made it even harder to predict the circular route that Microsoft and Sony would take in their console reveals. We knew that the <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps4-xbox-720-announcements-in-march/1100-6402358/">announcements would come soon in 2013,</a> and that the new consoles would<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/what-xbox-720-and-playstation-4-will-take-from-pcs/1100-6402954/"> bear more in common with the PC than the 360 and PS3</a>, but anything beyond that was pure conjecture. Both Sony and Microsoft were able to keep the design of their consoles tightly under wraps.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="small" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2408472-8349404948-leagu.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2408472" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2408472-8349404948-leagu.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2408472"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_small/1534/15343359/2408472-8349404948-leagu.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">At the beginning of 2013, Gamespot <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-next-gen-consoles-and-the-importance-of-a-good-story-predictions-for-2013/1100-6402044/">made a number of predictions</a> about what the future might hold. Some were right: Sony going with the simple PlayStation 4 title for their new console, the exploding popularity of MOBAs and <a href="/league-of-legends/" data-ref-id="false">League of Legends</a>, and the rise of eSports to greater prominence in the gaming world.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">However, some predictions were completely wrong. The reveal of Half-Life 3 and Source 2 from Valve, the Xbox tablet, and anything new with <a href="/final-fantasy-vii/" data-ref-id="false">Final Fantasy VII</a> were guesses that never materialized.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Early in the year, Microsoft suffered from a multitude of problems communicating the virtues of what was then still <a style="line-height:1.625;" href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-hardware-detailed-report/1100-6402692/">widely referred to as the Xbox 720</a>. Gamers were outraged when it leaked that the system would <a style="line-height:1.625;" href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-requires-internet-connection-to-load-games/1100-6406433/">require either a constant connection to the Internet (or at the least would need to check-in every 24 hours)</a>. And matters weren't helped when a creative director at one of Microsoft's studios <a style="line-height:1.625;" href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-creative-director-doesnt-get-the-drama-around-an-always-online-xbox/1100-6406464/">responded to the outcry with the hashtag #dealwithit.</a></p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2386475-6348592573-micro.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386475" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2386475-6348592573-micro.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386475"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1534/15343359/2386475-6348592573-micro.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style="">In addition, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/next-xbox-to-play-blu-rays-block-used-games-report/1100-6349165/">rumors were circulating that the next Xbox would be unable to play used games</a>, and that users would be <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-requires-kinect/1100-6403731/">unable to unplug the Kinect</a>. Microsoft said the Kinect would be able to be turned off at least (in an attempt to allay concerns of constant in-home monitoring), but by then it seemed too little too late.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Prior to E3, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/videos/xbox-one-revealed/2300-6408678/">Microsoft revealed their console</a>, but only managed to upset their fan base more by focusing on the system's social and media capabilities rather than on gaming. Some developers argued that getting the mainstream and television-focused information out of the way early would<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/avalanche-boss-defends-xbox-one-reveal/1100-6409116/"> free up more time for games at E3</a>. </p><p dir="ltr" style=""><a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-meeting-2013-ps4-announcement/1100-6403818/">Sony's press conference reveal</a> took place before Microsoft's media briefing and did not include a hardware reveal, but Sony was willing to directly address some of their competition's biggest criticisms. The PS4, for example, would <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-4-will-play-used-games/1100-6404263/">definitely be able to play used games</a>. However, Sony remained suspiciously silent on <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-always-online-isnt-consumer-friendly/1100-6370099/">whether or not their system would require the same 24-hour online check-in</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6404254" data-width="854" data-height="480"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6404254/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Still, Sony received praise for showing of their system's share features (which lets you record game footage or stream online at any time) and a first look at the PS4's games well ahead of E3. We got to see Sony exclusives like <a href="/infamous-second-son/" data-ref-id="false">Infamous: Second Son</a>, <a href="/phoenix-cms/reviews/form?id=6415536/" data-ref-id="false">Killzone: Shadow Fall</a>, and <a href="/knack/" data-ref-id="false">Knack</a>, as well as confirmation that several highly anticipated games, such as <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-unveiled-what-bungies-next-game-is-and-isnt-all-about/1100-6404016/">Destiny (from Halo studio Bungie)</a> and <a href="/the-witness/" data-ref-id="false">The Witness</a> would be coming to next-gen. More game details and pricing would have to wait until E3, but Sony was already capitalizing on Microsoft's perceived problems...a trend that would continue in E3.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The problems around "always online" were especially prominent in the months before E3 because of a pair of games from Blizzard and EA that had non-negotiable internet requirements in order to play. A game-breaking bug in Blizzard's <a href="/diablo-iii/" data-ref-id="false">Diablo III</a> was <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/diablo-iii-game-breaking-bug-found/1100-6376781/">booting players from their servers</a>. Meanwhile EA's reboot of <a href="/simcity/" data-ref-id="false">SimCity</a> hit <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/simcity-shows-the-dark-side-of-online-gaming/1100-6405058/">serious launch problems in supporting the player base</a> and just providing online server stability. The problems persisted for months and they were only exacerbated by the fact that <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/simcity-servers-arent-required-offline-mode-possible-report/1100-6405218/">the online component was not actually necessary to play the game.</a></p><p dir="ltr" style="">Announcing a console that would potentially include those same problems with few obvious benefits was causing serious perception problems for Microsoft. Especially once Sony revealed that, due to the relative lack of high-speed Internet worldwide, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-rules-out-always-online-for-ps4-report/1100-6408071/">their console would not have that prerequisite.</a> But for better or worse, Microsoft stayed the course.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">And in the background was the growing dominance of one of gaming's biggest phenomenons: League of Legends and the MOBA. It was a genre that was already wildly popular with a devotedly dedicated fanbase, but 2013 is when the MOBA came into its own in an even more mainstream way. League of Legends players were <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/league-of-legends-pro-hits-largest-ever-personal-stream-on-twitchtv/1100-6407147/">breaking audience records on their Twitch streams</a>. And even in beta, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dota-2-and-counter-strike-go-get-major-esl-tournament-backing/1100-6402998/">Dota 2 from Valve was playing host to major league gaming tournaments.</a></p><p dir="ltr" style="">There was a lot of excitement building up in the gaming world prior to E3, and fortunately, the rest of the year did not disappoint.</p> Wed, 25 Dec 2013 00:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-and-ps4-revealed-the-start-of-the-next-gen-war/1100-6416475/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-waiting-game-best-games-for-christmas/2300-6416684/ Christmas is a great time of year, but choosing the right game to keep everyone happy can be tricky. Johnny wades in to see if he can help. Tue, 24 Dec 2013 12:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-waiting-game-best-games-for-christmas/2300-6416684/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/x-rebirth-review/1900-6415614/ <p style="">Einstein taught us that space is both homogeneous and isotropic--that is, on a large scale, the universe is smooth and uniform in all directions. It's empty out there. Like many space games before it, X Rebirth depicts an unrealistically vibrant universe bursting with color and texture, and that's as it should be. A near-vacuum makes a dreary backdrop for a video game, at least for a human observer.</p><p style="">It isn't X Rebirth's inauthentic view of space that should anger you; it's that this sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed. Just as the observable universe has no center, neither does space exploration game X Rebirth find a foundation from which to grow outward, and I am unsure how to begin describing its failures. I can only begin at the quantum level, pulling out each particle and analyzing its deficiencies. And so I start in the cockpit, where most galactic adventures begin.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6416370" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6416370/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style="">The Albion Skunk is the aptly named vessel that carries you on this journey. Unless you're peering out of a space port's window or piloting one of the game's different drones, you always see space through the Skunk's front window, and overlooking the aesthetically dull control panel that tells you the ship's condition. In fact, you look at most of X Rebirth's menus in the cockpit, each list pulling up on a digital display viewable by both you the player and protagonist pilot Ren Otani.</p><p style="">This menu integration might have been a sensible way to draw you further into this universe, but no amount of immersion would have been enough to veil the system's grave deficiencies. Pulling up so much as a simple galactic map requires a ridiculous number of keystrokes, with each submenu buffered by just enough input lag and unnecessary animation to cause impatience. Furthermore, the menu doesn't always take up a sensible portion of the screen, making it hard to read intricate mission objectives--and even harder to read them when a particularly garish spacescape shines from behind the Skunk's menu screen.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406835-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406835" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406835-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406835"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2406835-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>For a near-vacuum, it sure is busy in space!</figcaption></figure><p style="">Garish spacescapes are common in X Rebirth, though there are sights of real beauty. Ships feature a remarkable amount of detail, and space stations and capital ships catch the eye with their intricate industrial designs. Rushing between systems via the game's space highways can be a visual delight, particularly as you watch ships and structures approach and then race by. When the color scheme embraces tranquil blues and developer Egosoft exercises visual restraint, the hazy background nebulae and tumbling asteroids are a treat. All too often, however, the view erupts with harsh orange and turquoise hues, making you wonder if you shouldn't stock the Albion Skunk with sunscreen. A vibrant vision of space is typically pleasing enough, but X Rebirth's depiction occasionally surpasses "meticulous" and surges straight into "gaudy."</p><p style="">Buy low and sell high. It's a solid economic policy, and it forms the backbone of X Rebirth's explore-fight-collect-build gameplay loop. It's an inviting loop, and I found myself pushing onward to collect enough funds, hiring enough ships to join my squad, and building enough structures in the hope of calling the result a true empire.</p><p style="">Sometimes, doing so means shooting spacecraft piloted by members of the slave-trading Plutarch Mining Corporation. Combat is functional, but ship controls are loose, though I never felt as though I wasn't properly directing the action. Regardless, the Skunk is your only ride for the duration, so get used to the way it looks and feels, though you can improve its performance with enhanced weaponry, shields, and so forth. Fortunately, you will build up an entire squad of vessels that perform various vital actions on your behalf, assisting you in combat, erecting structures, and ferrying goods about the sector. Massive battles are visually explosive, momentarily interrupting the slow-paced trading with fiery combat.</p><blockquote data-align="center" data-size="large"><p style="">This sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed.</p></blockquote><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406836-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406836" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406836-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406836"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2406836-0002.jpg"></a><figcaption>Oh God. Just... Oh God. </figcaption></figure><p style="">And boy is trading slow-paced. Buying and selling goods isn't an immediate process, or even an efficient one. Instead, you must wait for many minutes on end as your sluggish trading ship edges ever closer to the trade port, giving you an opportunity to poke around the sector, or more likely, to go grab a glass of wine and peruse the latest issue of <em>Science Magazine</em> from cover to cover. You also must maintain fuel reserves, which can come as a shock the first time a hired pilot informs you of his fuel shortage over the comm and has you scrambling to figure out how to rectify the situation, given how ordering your ship to fuel up is not an option you can find in the game's menus.</p><p style="">Building up a fleet takes time and money, and you don't find capable crew members free-floating in space, but rather within space stations, which you explore on foot after docking. First-person exploration could have been a grand addition, taking the X series that much closer to the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink games developer Derek Smart wanted his <a href="/battlecruiser-millennium/" data-ref-id="false">Battlecruiser</a> series to be, but never was. It soon becomes obvious, however, that traversing cookie-cutter stations sucks the mystery out of space travel, leaving behind horrifying human visages that spout absolute drivel in the most excruciating tone of voice imaginable. You see the same grotesquely scarred faces over and over again, and engaging one of these unblinking ghouls results in absolute nonsense. Any given conversation is utterly devoid of logic. Characters are routinely rude when you approach them, then become delighted, and then lapse into obnoxiousness again. In the meanwhile, female characters frequently whine "Ew! Slimy green lizard things are everywhere!" in the shrillest possible manner, as if they are 1950s housewives from classic cartoons, crying atop the kitchen table and swatting at pesky mice.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406838-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406838" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406838-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406838"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2406838-0004.jpg"></a><figcaption>Colorful is one thing, but X Rebirth's artists really should have turned things down a notch.</figcaption></figure><p style="">That line is shrieked in regard to the reptilian Teladi race, whose existence in the X universe is well established. Perhaps Egosoft wanted to use first-person exploration to further develop the game's tone and deepen its lore. Sadly, a universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.</p><p style="">Instead, having to dock at a station and walk around looking for the right merchants becomes a chore. My first foray into a station delighted me; I could loot lockers and crates for marketable items, leading me to believe that X Rebirth might spill into role-playing territory. Alas, clicking on lockers becomes monotonous busywork, as does roaming the cut-and-paste hallways looking for vendors and crew members for hire. These places are as lifeless as a white dwarf, even in their underpopulated lounges, each living statue stiffly waiting for you to click on it. Characters speak of their own accord only when prompting you to take part in a ridiculous-beyond-measure minigame in which you engage in surreal small talk to earn a few discounts. It wasn't long before I avoided this minigame altogether, however: no matter how deep the discount, I couldn't stomach the stupid dialogue, which made me question how such imbeciles could have devised any form of space travel.</p><p style="">It isn't just in the space stations where you go hunting for discounts. Out in the black beyond, you glimpse icons that urge you to investigate the objects they identify; examine enough of them, and you unlock discounts and side missions. Little lowercase i's are splattered all over the place, but you have to be close enough to see them, and you must have line of sight. And thus your adventure turns into a vapid Easter egg hunt in which you float around satellite arrays seeking icons, and then soar close enough to them to interact with them. It isn't uncommon to briefly see an icon identifying a side mission only to have it flicker away in a flash, forcing you to maneuver carefully around the starbase hoping to catch another glimpse.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406842-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406842" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406842-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406842"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2406842-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>According to the theory of special relativity, X Rebirth stinks. </figcaption></figure><p style="">Don't expect those missions to work properly once you graciously accept them from your sneering contacts, however. Each X game has suffered from a certain number of rough edges at launch, and you could be forgiven for assuming that like those games, X Rebirth would be superficially glitchy but eminently playable. Yet no matter how low your expectations might be for the newest X's stability, the game still manages to sink lower. Only a few hours in, and a mission proved impossible to complete, leading me to commiserate with other players suffering from the same game-ending bug in Internet forums. After downloading a saved game file from a helpful comrade, I continued my journey, only to have a side mission task me with destroying a story-critical capital ship, leaving me to wander for hours wondering why I couldn't find my mission objective.</p><blockquote data-align="left"><p style="">A universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.</p></blockquote><p style="">Listing all of the bugs I encountered would take up inordinate amounts of space, and so I offer here a random array. Crashes too numerous to count. Poor frame rates that had me wondering why I'd spent so much money on modern computer hardware. Suddenly unresponsive dialogue that left me stuck mid-conversation. Enemy ships flying around in the middle of space station geometry, keeping me from completing missions. Trading ships that simply wouldn't conduct the assigned transaction. That last one was particularly aggravating, considering how much time you must wait for functional transactions to complete. All too often, X Rebirth had me asking the age-old question: "Is it a bug or a feature?"</p><p style="">The fact that it's too difficult to tell the difference tells you all you must know about X Rebirth. You might assume a bright future for the game, given Egosoft's solid history of supporting its games after release--and given the community's dedication to crafting fixes and modifications that further improve these starry treks. X Rebirth's failings are rooted too deeply to simply be patched away, however. No matter what your level of enthusiasm for the X series is, do your best to escape the pull of Rebirth's gravity. It's only bound to cause a fatal crash.</p> Fri, 20 Dec 2013 18:12:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/x-rebirth-review/1900-6415614/
http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 25 Dec 2013 06:20:57 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-and-ps4-revealed-the-start-of-the-next-gen-war/1100-6416475/ <p dir="ltr" style="">In this, the first of four articles, we look back at highs and lows of 2013, beginning with the unveiling of Sony and Microsofts' consoles and our collective reactions prior to E3.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2380944-0251286210-plays.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2380944" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2380944-0251286210-plays.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2380944"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1534/15343359/2380944-0251286210-plays.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style="">2013 has been on the most hectic, exciting years in gaming in a long time. The launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may have taken the spotlight, but we also had a <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ouya-available-today/1100-6410676/">portable offering from Ouya</a>, a<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-2ds-launching-october-12/1100-6413747/"> redesigned portable from Nintendo (the 2DS)</a>, plus the unveiling of <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-reveals-steam-machines/1100-6414959/">Valve's Steam Machine</a>. Gaming itself may not have changed all too much in 2013, but the ways available to experience games were constantly evolving.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">But although the industry is looking up now, the start of the year still felt uncertain and tumulutuous. The fate of any of these consoles was (and in some ways is still) uncertain, and there was far too regular news of layoffs and studio closures. One of the larger developers to leave the industry in 2013 was LucasArts. Disney acquired the developer along with LucasFilm, and early in the year Disney <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/lucasarts-closed/1100-6406363/">shifted the game studio to a licensing model,</a> thus canceling (or at least putting on hold) anticipated games such as <a href="/phoenix-cms/articles/form?id=6404659/" data-ref-id="false">Star Wars 1313</a> and the <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-first-assault-is-downloadable-multiplayer-shooter-report/1100-6405119/" data-ref-id="1100-6405119">Battlfefront sequel First Assault </a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Given the state of the industry, it was easy to imagine an imminent collapse or some other disaster just around the corner. But all that just made it even harder to predict the circular route that Microsoft and Sony would take in their console reveals. We knew that the <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps4-xbox-720-announcements-in-march/1100-6402358/">announcements would come soon in 2013,</a> and that the new consoles would<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/what-xbox-720-and-playstation-4-will-take-from-pcs/1100-6402954/"> bear more in common with the PC than the 360 and PS3</a>, but anything beyond that was pure conjecture. Both Sony and Microsoft were able to keep the design of their consoles tightly under wraps.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="small" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2408472-8349404948-leagu.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2408472" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2408472-8349404948-leagu.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2408472"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_small/1534/15343359/2408472-8349404948-leagu.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">At the beginning of 2013, Gamespot <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-next-gen-consoles-and-the-importance-of-a-good-story-predictions-for-2013/1100-6402044/">made a number of predictions</a> about what the future might hold. Some were right: Sony going with the simple PlayStation 4 title for their new console, the exploding popularity of MOBAs and <a href="/league-of-legends/" data-ref-id="false">League of Legends</a>, and the rise of eSports to greater prominence in the gaming world.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">However, some predictions were completely wrong. The reveal of Half-Life 3 and Source 2 from Valve, the Xbox tablet, and anything new with <a href="/final-fantasy-vii/" data-ref-id="false">Final Fantasy VII</a> were guesses that never materialized.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Early in the year, Microsoft suffered from a multitude of problems communicating the virtues of what was then still <a style="line-height:1.625;" href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-hardware-detailed-report/1100-6402692/">widely referred to as the Xbox 720</a>. Gamers were outraged when it leaked that the system would <a style="line-height:1.625;" href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-requires-internet-connection-to-load-games/1100-6406433/">require either a constant connection to the Internet (or at the least would need to check-in every 24 hours)</a>. And matters weren't helped when a creative director at one of Microsoft's studios <a style="line-height:1.625;" href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-creative-director-doesnt-get-the-drama-around-an-always-online-xbox/1100-6406464/">responded to the outcry with the hashtag #dealwithit.</a></p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2386475-6348592573-micro.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386475" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15343359/2386475-6348592573-micro.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386475"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1534/15343359/2386475-6348592573-micro.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style="">In addition, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/next-xbox-to-play-blu-rays-block-used-games-report/1100-6349165/">rumors were circulating that the next Xbox would be unable to play used games</a>, and that users would be <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-requires-kinect/1100-6403731/">unable to unplug the Kinect</a>. Microsoft said the Kinect would be able to be turned off at least (in an attempt to allay concerns of constant in-home monitoring), but by then it seemed too little too late.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Prior to E3, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/videos/xbox-one-revealed/2300-6408678/">Microsoft revealed their console</a>, but only managed to upset their fan base more by focusing on the system's social and media capabilities rather than on gaming. Some developers argued that getting the mainstream and television-focused information out of the way early would<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/avalanche-boss-defends-xbox-one-reveal/1100-6409116/"> free up more time for games at E3</a>. </p><p dir="ltr" style=""><a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-meeting-2013-ps4-announcement/1100-6403818/">Sony's press conference reveal</a> took place before Microsoft's media briefing and did not include a hardware reveal, but Sony was willing to directly address some of their competition's biggest criticisms. The PS4, for example, would <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-4-will-play-used-games/1100-6404263/">definitely be able to play used games</a>. However, Sony remained suspiciously silent on <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-always-online-isnt-consumer-friendly/1100-6370099/">whether or not their system would require the same 24-hour online check-in</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6404254" data-width="854" data-height="480"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6404254/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Still, Sony received praise for showing of their system's share features (which lets you record game footage or stream online at any time) and a first look at the PS4's games well ahead of E3. We got to see Sony exclusives like <a href="/infamous-second-son/" data-ref-id="false">Infamous: Second Son</a>, <a href="/phoenix-cms/reviews/form?id=6415536/" data-ref-id="false">Killzone: Shadow Fall</a>, and <a href="/knack/" data-ref-id="false">Knack</a>, as well as confirmation that several highly anticipated games, such as <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-unveiled-what-bungies-next-game-is-and-isnt-all-about/1100-6404016/">Destiny (from Halo studio Bungie)</a> and <a href="/the-witness/" data-ref-id="false">The Witness</a> would be coming to next-gen. More game details and pricing would have to wait until E3, but Sony was already capitalizing on Microsoft's perceived problems...a trend that would continue in E3.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The problems around "always online" were especially prominent in the months before E3 because of a pair of games from Blizzard and EA that had non-negotiable internet requirements in order to play. A game-breaking bug in Blizzard's <a href="/diablo-iii/" data-ref-id="false">Diablo III</a> was <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/diablo-iii-game-breaking-bug-found/1100-6376781/">booting players from their servers</a>. Meanwhile EA's reboot of <a href="/simcity/" data-ref-id="false">SimCity</a> hit <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/simcity-shows-the-dark-side-of-online-gaming/1100-6405058/">serious launch problems in supporting the player base</a> and just providing online server stability. The problems persisted for months and they were only exacerbated by the fact that <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/simcity-servers-arent-required-offline-mode-possible-report/1100-6405218/">the online component was not actually necessary to play the game.</a></p><p dir="ltr" style="">Announcing a console that would potentially include those same problems with few obvious benefits was causing serious perception problems for Microsoft. Especially once Sony revealed that, due to the relative lack of high-speed Internet worldwide, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-rules-out-always-online-for-ps4-report/1100-6408071/">their console would not have that prerequisite.</a> But for better or worse, Microsoft stayed the course.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">And in the background was the growing dominance of one of gaming's biggest phenomenons: League of Legends and the MOBA. It was a genre that was already wildly popular with a devotedly dedicated fanbase, but 2013 is when the MOBA came into its own in an even more mainstream way. League of Legends players were <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/league-of-legends-pro-hits-largest-ever-personal-stream-on-twitchtv/1100-6407147/">breaking audience records on their Twitch streams</a>. And even in beta, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dota-2-and-counter-strike-go-get-major-esl-tournament-backing/1100-6402998/">Dota 2 from Valve was playing host to major league gaming tournaments.</a></p><p dir="ltr" style="">There was a lot of excitement building up in the gaming world prior to E3, and fortunately, the rest of the year did not disappoint.</p> Wed, 25 Dec 2013 00:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-and-ps4-revealed-the-start-of-the-next-gen-war/1100-6416475/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-waiting-game-best-games-for-christmas/2300-6416684/ Christmas is a great time of year, but choosing the right game to keep everyone happy can be tricky. Johnny wades in to see if he can help. Tue, 24 Dec 2013 12:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-waiting-game-best-games-for-christmas/2300-6416684/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/x-rebirth-review/1900-6415614/ <p style="">Einstein taught us that space is both homogeneous and isotropic--that is, on a large scale, the universe is smooth and uniform in all directions. It's empty out there. Like many space games before it, X Rebirth depicts an unrealistically vibrant universe bursting with color and texture, and that's as it should be. A near-vacuum makes a dreary backdrop for a video game, at least for a human observer.</p><p style="">It isn't X Rebirth's inauthentic view of space that should anger you; it's that this sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed. Just as the observable universe has no center, neither does space exploration game X Rebirth find a foundation from which to grow outward, and I am unsure how to begin describing its failures. I can only begin at the quantum level, pulling out each particle and analyzing its deficiencies. And so I start in the cockpit, where most galactic adventures begin.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6416370" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6416370/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style="">The Albion Skunk is the aptly named vessel that carries you on this journey. Unless you're peering out of a space port's window or piloting one of the game's different drones, you always see space through the Skunk's front window, and overlooking the aesthetically dull control panel that tells you the ship's condition. In fact, you look at most of X Rebirth's menus in the cockpit, each list pulling up on a digital display viewable by both you the player and protagonist pilot Ren Otani.</p><p style="">This menu integration might have been a sensible way to draw you further into this universe, but no amount of immersion would have been enough to veil the system's grave deficiencies. Pulling up so much as a simple galactic map requires a ridiculous number of keystrokes, with each submenu buffered by just enough input lag and unnecessary animation to cause impatience. Furthermore, the menu doesn't always take up a sensible portion of the screen, making it hard to read intricate mission objectives--and even harder to read them when a particularly garish spacescape shines from behind the Skunk's menu screen.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406835-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406835" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406835-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406835"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2406835-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>For a near-vacuum, it sure is busy in space!</figcaption></figure><p style="">Garish spacescapes are common in X Rebirth, though there are sights of real beauty. Ships feature a remarkable amount of detail, and space stations and capital ships catch the eye with their intricate industrial designs. Rushing between systems via the game's space highways can be a visual delight, particularly as you watch ships and structures approach and then race by. When the color scheme embraces tranquil blues and developer Egosoft exercises visual restraint, the hazy background nebulae and tumbling asteroids are a treat. All too often, however, the view erupts with harsh orange and turquoise hues, making you wonder if you shouldn't stock the Albion Skunk with sunscreen. A vibrant vision of space is typically pleasing enough, but X Rebirth's depiction occasionally surpasses "meticulous" and surges straight into "gaudy."</p><p style="">Buy low and sell high. It's a solid economic policy, and it forms the backbone of X Rebirth's explore-fight-collect-build gameplay loop. It's an inviting loop, and I found myself pushing onward to collect enough funds, hiring enough ships to join my squad, and building enough structures in the hope of calling the result a true empire.</p><p style="">Sometimes, doing so means shooting spacecraft piloted by members of the slave-trading Plutarch Mining Corporation. Combat is functional, but ship controls are loose, though I never felt as though I wasn't properly directing the action. Regardless, the Skunk is your only ride for the duration, so get used to the way it looks and feels, though you can improve its performance with enhanced weaponry, shields, and so forth. Fortunately, you will build up an entire squad of vessels that perform various vital actions on your behalf, assisting you in combat, erecting structures, and ferrying goods about the sector. Massive battles are visually explosive, momentarily interrupting the slow-paced trading with fiery combat.</p><blockquote data-align="center" data-size="large"><p style="">This sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed.</p></blockquote><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406836-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406836" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406836-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406836"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2406836-0002.jpg"></a><figcaption>Oh God. Just... Oh God. </figcaption></figure><p style="">And boy is trading slow-paced. Buying and selling goods isn't an immediate process, or even an efficient one. Instead, you must wait for many minutes on end as your sluggish trading ship edges ever closer to the trade port, giving you an opportunity to poke around the sector, or more likely, to go grab a glass of wine and peruse the latest issue of <em>Science Magazine</em> from cover to cover. You also must maintain fuel reserves, which can come as a shock the first time a hired pilot informs you of his fuel shortage over the comm and has you scrambling to figure out how to rectify the situation, given how ordering your ship to fuel up is not an option you can find in the game's menus.</p><p style="">Building up a fleet takes time and money, and you don't find capable crew members free-floating in space, but rather within space stations, which you explore on foot after docking. First-person exploration could have been a grand addition, taking the X series that much closer to the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink games developer Derek Smart wanted his <a href="/battlecruiser-millennium/" data-ref-id="false">Battlecruiser</a> series to be, but never was. It soon becomes obvious, however, that traversing cookie-cutter stations sucks the mystery out of space travel, leaving behind horrifying human visages that spout absolute drivel in the most excruciating tone of voice imaginable. You see the same grotesquely scarred faces over and over again, and engaging one of these unblinking ghouls results in absolute nonsense. Any given conversation is utterly devoid of logic. Characters are routinely rude when you approach them, then become delighted, and then lapse into obnoxiousness again. In the meanwhile, female characters frequently whine "Ew! Slimy green lizard things are everywhere!" in the shrillest possible manner, as if they are 1950s housewives from classic cartoons, crying atop the kitchen table and swatting at pesky mice.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406838-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406838" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406838-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406838"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2406838-0004.jpg"></a><figcaption>Colorful is one thing, but X Rebirth's artists really should have turned things down a notch.</figcaption></figure><p style="">That line is shrieked in regard to the reptilian Teladi race, whose existence in the X universe is well established. Perhaps Egosoft wanted to use first-person exploration to further develop the game's tone and deepen its lore. Sadly, a universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.</p><p style="">Instead, having to dock at a station and walk around looking for the right merchants becomes a chore. My first foray into a station delighted me; I could loot lockers and crates for marketable items, leading me to believe that X Rebirth might spill into role-playing territory. Alas, clicking on lockers becomes monotonous busywork, as does roaming the cut-and-paste hallways looking for vendors and crew members for hire. These places are as lifeless as a white dwarf, even in their underpopulated lounges, each living statue stiffly waiting for you to click on it. Characters speak of their own accord only when prompting you to take part in a ridiculous-beyond-measure minigame in which you engage in surreal small talk to earn a few discounts. It wasn't long before I avoided this minigame altogether, however: no matter how deep the discount, I couldn't stomach the stupid dialogue, which made me question how such imbeciles could have devised any form of space travel.</p><p style="">It isn't just in the space stations where you go hunting for discounts. Out in the black beyond, you glimpse icons that urge you to investigate the objects they identify; examine enough of them, and you unlock discounts and side missions. Little lowercase i's are splattered all over the place, but you have to be close enough to see them, and you must have line of sight. And thus your adventure turns into a vapid Easter egg hunt in which you float around satellite arrays seeking icons, and then soar close enough to them to interact with them. It isn't uncommon to briefly see an icon identifying a side mission only to have it flicker away in a flash, forcing you to maneuver carefully around the starbase hoping to catch another glimpse.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406842-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406842" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2406842-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2406842"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2406842-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>According to the theory of special relativity, X Rebirth stinks. </figcaption></figure><p style="">Don't expect those missions to work properly once you graciously accept them from your sneering contacts, however. Each X game has suffered from a certain number of rough edges at launch, and you could be forgiven for assuming that like those games, X Rebirth would be superficially glitchy but eminently playable. Yet no matter how low your expectations might be for the newest X's stability, the game still manages to sink lower. Only a few hours in, and a mission proved impossible to complete, leading me to commiserate with other players suffering from the same game-ending bug in Internet forums. After downloading a saved game file from a helpful comrade, I continued my journey, only to have a side mission task me with destroying a story-critical capital ship, leaving me to wander for hours wondering why I couldn't find my mission objective.</p><blockquote data-align="left"><p style="">A universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.</p></blockquote><p style="">Listing all of the bugs I encountered would take up inordinate amounts of space, and so I offer here a random array. Crashes too numerous to count. Poor frame rates that had me wondering why I'd spent so much money on modern computer hardware. Suddenly unresponsive dialogue that left me stuck mid-conversation. Enemy ships flying around in the middle of space station geometry, keeping me from completing missions. Trading ships that simply wouldn't conduct the assigned transaction. That last one was particularly aggravating, considering how much time you must wait for functional transactions to complete. All too often, X Rebirth had me asking the age-old question: "Is it a bug or a feature?"</p><p style="">The fact that it's too difficult to tell the difference tells you all you must know about X Rebirth. You might assume a bright future for the game, given Egosoft's solid history of supporting its games after release--and given the community's dedication to crafting fixes and modifications that further improve these starry treks. X Rebirth's failings are rooted too deeply to simply be patched away, however. No matter what your level of enthusiasm for the X series is, do your best to escape the pull of Rebirth's gravity. It's only bound to cause a fatal crash.</p> Fri, 20 Dec 2013 18:12:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/x-rebirth-review/1900-6415614/
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