video games

In Third Person’s Reader Trends: May 2011 Edition

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It’s usually that time of the month when I’d write about In Third Person’s top 5 posts for the month. I don’t want to do that anymore, because I don’t think it told that interesting of a story. I don’t think it benefits anyone when I write about the same 5 or 6 top posts every month that just so happen to be Google aggregate favourites (I’m looking at you, Gaming’s Definitive Moustaches).

Instead, I thought I’d do something more interesting with the numbers. Let me know if you enjoy this format better!

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Pick-Up Post: Blockbuster Liquidation Madness

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Across Canada, 146 Blockbuster locations are preparing to close their doors, which accounts for about 1/3 of all Blockbuster locations across the country. It’s a sad day for over a thousand people who will be losing their jobs and many of its customers who still want their movies and games on physical media. Canada will still have Blockbuster locations after this, but the future for those left is foggy at best.

The short-term good news is, all of these stores affected are liquidating their products at deep discounts. On the first day of the sales, my girlfriend and I went to her local Blockbuster that was shutting down and bought a ton of stuff. She bought Epic Mickey and a bunch of movies. I had upwards of 15 games in my hands during that trip, but I narrowed it down to 7 by the time I hit the register. Check out what I bought by clicking through to the rest of this post!

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The 2012 Goal for In Third Person

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In Third Person has come a long way from its humble roots as my pet project that was lucky to get 10 hits a day. While it’s still very much a pet project, the site is fortunate enough to reach an audience of thousands of visitors a month. Ever since the WordPress front page promo, thousands of visitors every month manage to find their way to my little slice of the internet. To say that this was all part of the plan would be a lie. I’m still surprised to see the number of views my posts get and the number of great conversations I have with readers in the comments.

Instead of simply riding the tides to wherever it takes me, I’d like to set a 2012 goal for In Third Person.

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Impressions of Mortal Kombat’s Story Mode

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Historically, fighting games have done a poor job of providing a good single-player experience and a horrible job at telling a story. Even 20 years after the release of Street Fighter II, the majority of fighting games simply boil down to fighting opponent after opponent, until you’ve beaten everyone in your path and receive your character’s ending. This does not make for an interesting one-player experience, or add any context to why you’re fighting opponent after opponent. To be fair, the BlazBlue series has tried to expand its single-player experience with a story mode, but that game’s story is so poorly written and presented that only the hardest of hardcore anime fans would find any redeeming value in it.

With that said, Mortal Kombat’s story mode is a breath of fresh air. It’s presented in a way that makes perfect sense to the mythology of the series and to the player in control. What makes it so great? And what could have been done better?

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Let’s Talk About Duke Nukem Forever

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I remember first reading about Duke Nukem Forever in EGM magazine back in 1997. That feels like it was a lifetime ago for me. While this game was going through development hell, I hit puberty, graduated college on two separate occasions and have worked six different jobs before settling into a stable position in the digital advertising industry. It’s crazy to me to think that 14 years later, this game has officially gone gold and is supposedly coming out in a matter of days.

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Early Impressions: Mortal Kombat’s Fighting Game Mechanics

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When you think about Mortal Kombat as a series, you think about blood and fatalities. Do you think about it’s rich and deep fighting game engines? Probably not. Mortal Kombat has traditionally, been a fighting game series built primarily on style over substance. For Midway/Warner Brothers, this lead to consistently good sales throughout the series history among more casual fighting game fans, but the hardcore have pretty much shunned it. Case in point: Super Street Fighter II Turbo is still being played at major fighting game tournaments this year, while the entire Mortal Kombat scene has virtually never had any sort of tournament scene to speak of.

I loved Mortal Kombat I-III, but having grown into a hardcore fighting game player these last few years has really coloured my perspective on those games in hindsight. I can still have a ton of fun playing the Street Fighter II series games of the same era, but those early Mortal Kombat games just don’t have the depth of gameplay to hold my attention nowadays. With that said, Ed Boon, the creator of Mortal Kombat, said this new one was aiming to cater to the hardcore crowd. I’ve only spent a few hours with it playing the story mode, tutorial and some versus matches with my coworkers, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to pass final judgment about the game now. But what I can tell you about are my experiences with the game so far, is that from a gameplay systems perspective, this is probably the deepest Mortal Kombat ever.

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Rapture Special: Pro-Tips from Video Games on How to Survive the May 21, 2011 Apocalypse

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If you’re reading this, then the supposed Rapture scheduled for May 21, 2011, has not ended the world as we know it. That, or it’s happening as you read this and you really should be doing something other than reading this post, like trying to live or accepting your fate.

The apocalypse has been subject matter in video games for about as long as video games has existed as a medium. I bet you can’t count the number of times you’ve saved the world, tried to save the world, or tried to survive in a world that has already been ravaged by the apocalypse. Let’s take a look at some of those games and see if these games can prepare us for the real-life Rapture…if it isn’t already too late.

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In Third Person Quick Hits: May 17 2011 Edition

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Hello, friends!

There’s a lot of gaming-related stuff I want to talk about, but not enough time to write it all down into well thought-out and extended posts. Instead of falling behind the times, I thought I’d try and tackle the stuff I wanted to talk about in small, concise chunks.

If this format works out and is something you’d like to see more of, I’ll try it again. Hope you enjoy!

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Hands-On: Hori Real Arcade Pro V3-SA

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One of the coolest aspects about the office culture at my work is that we’re really big into fighting games. We have an XBOX 360 in the lunch room, where many of us play Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 during lunch breaks. On special days, we even do double-elimination tournaments, where I’ll bring in my PS3 (office platform of choice) and everyone will bring in their own controllers and fightsticks so that we can battle it out.

At our most recent tournament, one of my coworkers brought in his Hori Real Arcade Pro V3-SA, which I’ve been anxious to get my hands on. Though my Hori experiences have been mixed at best, I have yet to try any of their high-end models. Having spent about 45 minutes putting it through its paces in Super Street Fighter IV matches and training mode, I thought it’d be worth sharing my experiences with anyone who is considering picking this particular fightstick up.

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Eyes and Ears-On: Video Games Live 2011

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My first experience with Video Games Live was magical. At the time, the concert series had just started its first tour, and the idea of having an orchestra perform video game music was quite new. I’ll never forget all of the awesome moments from that first show, from the amazing renditions of video game music I grew up with, to the energy of the fully-engaged crowd, to the fun my brother and I had playing Mario Kart DS with dozens of audience members during the intermission. I told myself that I would always come back for more when the show was in town.

Though I’ve missed at least one show in my area since, I made sure to carve out time in my calendar for Video Games Live this year, which was just a few days ago. There to enjoy it with me were my brother, who was anxious to experience Video Games Live again, and my girlfriend Steff, who had never been to a Video Games Live show before. Was Video Games Live 2011 able to replicate (or improve on) the magic that brought all of us there on this particular evening?

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