Large-scale UK study says there’s no causation between game playing and behavioral problems
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
The following details are from a study conducted in the United Kingdom of 11,000 kids as young as five years old by the University of Glasgow:
– Exposure to video games had no effect on behavior, attention or emotional issues.
– Watching 3 or more hours of television at age 5 did lead to a small increase in behavioral problems in youngsters between 5 and 7.
– Neither television nor video games lead to attentional or emotional problems.
– There was no difference between boys and girls in the survey results.
Ubisoft says they have Watch_Dogs on the way to Wii U in response to question about future support for the console
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 5 Comments
“Ubisoft has a long-standing relationship with Nintendo. Most recently this has been reinforced by our varied and high-quality line-up for Wii U, with big titles including Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag, Just Dance 2014, Rayman Legends, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist already released and Watch Dogs on the way.”
– Ubisoft representative
The above doesn’t seem indicative of either a lack of support or a plethora of it coming forward– it’s just a standard PR response with very little going on under the hood.
More: Ubisoft, Watch_Dogs
[Feature] Stop with the cat-suits and spin moves: The dramatic presentation of non-difficulty and how it relates to modern Mario
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Gaming, General Nintendo | 41 Comments
Austin note: This thing is not meant to be viewed as a criticism of a game that is not out yet (SM3DW) that I have only played twice before. It is also not meant to be a criticism solely of the Mario franchise. It is, as I hope is clear, a discussion and analysis of gameplay motifs and design philosophies for many kinds of games.
Kenta Motokura is co-director of the upcoming game-that-you’ve-all-heard-of, Super Mario 3D World. In a recent IGN article he said the following regarding the development of the game:
“Going off of our monitor tests, we wanted to see what beginners thought was difficult about the game, and also what was fun about the game. We learned from those tests is that if you were a beginning player, when you come to a cliff, you might stop, think about jumping, then jump and maybe not make it and drop. But what if we added this element of sticking to the wall so you could prevent yourself from dropping down?”
So he brings up this simple question: What if you added an element that prevented less experienced players from falling down?
‘Assassin’s Creed: Rising Phoenix’ art found within Assassin’s Creed: IV
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 2 Comments
Earlier this year, an image with the branding “Assassin’s Creed: Rising Phoenix” was found online (probably via a leak), and people began speculating that perhaps Ubisoft had accidentally let out a secret Vita project– or even a movie. To peoples’ dismay, Ubisoft promptly denied that they had any involvement with that logo, but today someone found a similar image– with the same logo– hidden within their latest game, Assassin’s Creed IV.
Maybe it was some sort of internal joke, but now that the image is directly tied with the company, it’ll be hard for them to deny some involvement! We’ll see what comes of it.
iGoGaming via Destructoid
Monster Hunter series director says he wants to bring energy back to the Japanese market
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
The following comes from an interview with Japanese gaming weekly ‘Famitsu’:
“To be honest, I don’t feel the current Japanese game market has a lot of energy to it, and I want to get that energy back. I think the only way to do that is to keep making fun games and keep energizing and exciting the gamers.
“Lately I’ve been running into overseas gamers at MH4 events and stuff, people with these MH t-shirts who go all the way to Japan for these things. I love seeing that, and I wonder if we can expand on that. It’s hard enough to launch a game in Japan alone, but for games like Pokemon that become worldwide hits, that energizes Japanese games across the board. I think there are qualities to Japanese games that only Japanese people can come up with, and I think it’d be great if we could expand on how we bring those strengths to the international arena.”
– Director of the Monster Hunter series, Kaname Fujioka
Fujioka talked about much more in the interview, as transcribed by Polygon. Check it out here.
More: Japan, Monster Hunter, top
Activision’s Eric Hirshberg says he ‘doesn’t share the desire’ to make games more like movies
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments
The following comes from Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg:
However, I think there’s something to do with allowing different media to do what each media does well. When I think of games as an art form, they start with being transportive. Because they’re interactive, because you are more involved in the experience than in any other form of entertainment, it all starts with being transported. And obviously a natural place to want to transport people is into an experience they can’t have in their everyday lives. Sometimes that’s driving a fast car, sometimes that’s being a professional athlete, sometimes that’s being a rock star, sometimes that’s being a hero or going into a fantastical future
“I think this is inherently what games do best and so I’d expect that to be the basis of games for a long time to come. I don’t know if romantic comedy fits that model. I think that’s something that movies and TV do well. There’s this strange desire to morph games into movies or have them behave more like movies; I don’t share that desire. Games are wonderful as they are and do different things better than other forms of media.”
More: Activision
Mark Rolston (Shawshank Redemption, Halo 4) is voicing Deathstroke in Batman: Arkham Origins
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Platforms, Wii U | 0 comments
Revealed during an AMA on reddit earlier this week, actor Mark Rolston– who played roles in films like The Shawshank Redemption, and games like Halo 4 and Injustice: Gods Among Us— will be voicing the antagonist ‘Deathstroke’ the Terminator’. “”Wow, there have been so many people chasing that one,” mused the game’s creative director Eric Holmes during the chat with fans.
More: top
GAME issues statement breaking street dates, says it “undermines the work” of game creators
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Platforms | 3 Comments
“We are seeing street date breaches occur on a frequent basis and this undermines the work which goes in to creating exceptional launches. We’ve worked very closely with Nintendo in the run-up to launch in order to make them as successful as possible. We have worked with them on every decision taken.”
– GAME category director Charlotte Knight
This comes in response to multiple retailers allowing folks to purchase Pokémon X/Y early, which greatly upset Nintendo and may have caused fines to be issued in certain cases. GAME has been guilty of breaking street dates before, however– just not with such colossal franchises.
Ubisoft expects Assassin’s Creed IV to sell 10 million units across all platforms
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Platforms, Wii U | 3 Comments
Their figures for Watch_Dogs are (a bit) more conservative, but with Assassin’s Creed IV Ubisoft is expecting sales figures to hit the double-digit millions. 10 million would put the game ahead of most this holiday season, but it’s worth noting (thanks, VideoGamer!) that Assassin’s Creed III actually sold even more than that, clocking in at 12.5 million.
Assassin’s Creed IV will be out on October 29th for Wii U.
Ubisoft share price falls up to 32% amidst game delays
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Platforms, Wii U | 2 Comments
Understandably, Ubisoft’s stock took a hit this week after they announced the delay of two of their biggest titles this holiday season: Watch_Dogs and The Crew. Both games were pushed into 2014, and shortly thereafter the company’s shares fell by the biggest margin they’ve seen since they debuted on the stock exchange all the way back in 1996. On top of that, we recently reported that the company said Rayman Legends and Splinter Cell: Blacklist sold below expectations, which probably contributed to their troubles.
