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Impressions on Limbo

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There seems to be a lot of artsy/high-concept games hitting  of late. Games like Braid, Flower, Echochrome and P.B. Winterbottom have really pushed the boundaries of what a game can look and play like. I have nothing but respect for those developers who are actively trying to move the medium forward. However, none of these games have personally appealed to me. I’d much rather watch these games for a few minutes than actually play them, mostly because the gameplay elements don’t appeal to me.

Limbo was just released on XBOX Live Arcade and is the latest in artsy-high concept games. The black-and-white aesthetic is amazing and is matched by equally awesome atmospheric sound. But will it turn me away with gameplay that doesn’t appeal to me? I tried the demo and I’m here to relay my thoughts to you.

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Hitting the Road with PGR 4

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For the last few months, PGR 4 has been my go-to “bored game”. When I don’t feel like playing any other video game in my collection, I pop PGR 4 into my 360. Not to say that PGR 4 is a bad game, but racing games aren’t really my scene. I get bored quickly of any arcade racing game that isn’t Mario Kart and realistic racing games such as Gran Turismo and Forza frustrate me to no end due to their demand of precision driving control skills that I just don’t have. The only reason I even have this game is because it came free, along with a chat pad and headset when I bought last year’s subscription to XBOX Live.

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The Top 5 Most Viewed In Third Person Posts of All-Time

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Because I write In Third Person solely as a personal outlet of gaming nerdiness, I don’t pay much attention to my analytics. Even if no one in the world were to ever see this blog, I would continue writing in it anyway, just to get these gaming-related thoughts out of my head and onto something a bit more tangible. Well, as tangible as the Internet can be. If you or anyone else decides they want to read my musings, power to you.

And read my musings you have. Sure, my traffic may not rival the Craigslist posting your mom put up to promote your family garage sale, but there are a consistent number of people that frequent my site, according to my numbers. Thank you to everyone that has ever read my blog and a special thanks to everyone who checks in regularly.

Whether you’re a regular reader or just found my blog on a whim, I’m going to present to you the five most popular posts on my site. I was actually kind of surprised by the results. Click through to find out what the hottest content is on In Third Person.

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Capcom vs. Namco and Namco vs. Capcom Rumors and Speculation

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According to a number of hints dropped by Street Fighter creator Yoshinori Ono, Tekken creator Katsuhiro Harada and a report from Game Informer indicate that the game Yoshinori Ono will announce is not just one game, but two. According to Game Informer sources, Capcom is making a Capcom vs. Namco game with the Street Fighter IV engine while Namco is making a Namco vs. Capcom game based on the Tekken 6 engine.

While this sounds exactly like what Capcom and SNK did, the element of 2D vs. 3D makes this a whole new beast.
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Street Fight Concepts That Made Me a Better Basketball Player – Part 2: Punishing Mistakes

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This is an on-going series where I discuss the thinking involved in Street Fighter that I’ve applied to basketball. If you want to see earlier entries in the series, hit the link: Part 1: Spacing

PUNISHING MISTAKES

One of the most common mistakes in Street Fighter is a poorly-timed projectile attack. For instance, if I’m Ryu, and you properly react to my fireball, you can jump over the fireball and kick me in the face before I can do anything to defend myself. In Street Fighter, when your opponent makes a mistake, you want to punish them for their mistakes by hitting them with the most powerful attacks as possible.

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Excited for Rock Band 3?

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When it comes to my level of excitement for the release of a game, not many games in my life matched the hype I felt the original Rock Band. I was in the apex of my Guitar Hero love around the time when rumblings of a full-band music game from the developers of Guitar Hero II appeared on the Internet. When the rumblings finally turned up this initial video for the Rock Band proof of concept, I was sold. So sold, that I was the first person to pre-order the full Rock Band kit at my local EB Games and was even the first to pick up my kit because I showed up at the same time as the guy who was delivering the Rock Band kits to the store.

Three years, four Rock Band branded games, hundreds of hours played and hundreds of downloadable songs bought later, I’m kind of burned out on the plastic instrument formula. I forced my way through Lego Rock Band for the achievements and can’t find the motivation to even begin the career mode in Green Day: Rock Band. Rock Band 3 looks to revive the genre with new features, new songs, and for those who want it, a pro mode that takes the genre into realistic new heights. Are these changes enough to bring me back in?
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The Death of 1 vs. 100 on XBOX Live

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Nine months after 1 vs. 100 launched on XBOX Live, Microsoft announced earlier this week that the game would not return for a third season. While I did not play the game that often myself (which sort of makes me part of the problem), I thought that the game was very forward-thinking in its execution and quite fun to play. I’m sad to see it go.

Why did this happen? I don’t have any insider information on the situation, so anything I’m about to say is strictly speculation. But based on the information that’s publicly available and my understanding of games and business, I’m going to try and write my way through what I think happened.

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Street Fighter Concepts That Made Me a Better Basketball Player – Part 1: Spacing

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For many years, I’ve been an avid basketball player. I’ve played in a few leagues, on a few school teams and participated in a few basketball camps. I am by no means the next LeBron James, but I had the skills to make some noise on almost any given local court. Over the last few years though, finding the time to hit the court has been extremely difficult. During my basketball downtime though, I got really into Street Fighter IV on a serious level. I began to really pay attention to the concepts behind the game and how to use them to my advantage.

This year, my life has really settled down and I now regularly play basketball again. While I’ve had to work hard to get back into game shape (I lost 20 lbs and counting since I started playing again in April), and I’ll never have the raw physical talent that I did in my prime, I do have something now that I didn’t have before: Street Fighter knowledge.

Oddly, I’ve been able to apply much of the thinking involved in playing Street Fighter into my thinking of basketball. Has it made me a better player? I think it has. I’m not saying that Kobe Bryant should dust off his E. Honda to get better, but having that parallel helps me see basketball in a different way, allowing me to play the game smarter. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to apply these concepts in a one-on-one basketball situation, because adding in more players will make this more difficult to explain than it should be. I have at least four parts to this series ready to go, with more possibly in the future.

I don’t need to set this up any more. Here is part one of Street Fighter concepts that made me a better basketball player.
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Get Hype! EVO 2010 Starts Today!

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Last year was a monumental one for everyone involved in the Evolution fighting game tournament. Besides it being the debut of the massively-popular Street Fighter IV, it broke records for participants, attendance and for the first time ever, it was all viewable live to anyone with an Internet connection. EVO was no longer just the one YouTube clip of Daigo parrying all of Justin Wong’s super combo hits. Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in throughout the weekend to watch Daigo and company play out the fighting game magic. I was glued to my computer that entire weekend; watching arguably the best fighting game action I’d ever seen in my life. That tournament even went as far as inspiring me to level up my own skills.
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Canada’s Contribution to Video Games

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Today is a special day in my home and native land. While I should be enjoying my day off by playing hockey and tending to my igloo, I’ve decided to do a little bit of research and put together a not-that-serious piece on Canada’s contributions to video games. Find out if your favourite Canadian contributions made my list (and don’t be mad if they didn’t).

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