Batman: Arkham City’s Obligatory ‘Fall Through The Map’ Glitch

We’ve seen our fair share of glitches that take you under the game world’s map, and Batman: Arkham City is no exception!
Using some clever parkour, Batman can manoeuvre himself under Arkham City’s buildings, looking up from below.
What makes this particular instance of this glitch entertaining is that you can seemingly glide forever!
The creator of the video explains how this is done in the information section, and also points out a practical use in using the infinite space to attain the “dive for 50 meters” achievement/trophy.
Fun and productive!

Let’s See Your Nerd Weddings, Kotaku

A few days back, I did a story on this not-a-wedding picture whose title riffed on the iconic special move from Street Fighter. That got me thinking about geek wedding, geek proposals and geek romance. And, as if the internet were reading my mind, messages and pictures about all of the above have been floating in.
Here’s a few of what we’ve gotten so far:
A flash mob proposal at New York Comic-Con:

In Real Life

New York Comic-Con In 3 Minutes

By Chris Carolan on October 20, 2011 at 8:00 AM

New York Comic-Con is a wrap, but only after delivering four days packed with movies, video games, comics and cosplay.
Comic-Con for me this year was a lot of running around. If I wasn’t filming something, I was trying working the Frankenstylin booth. If I wasn’t working the booth? I was eating all of the food that was in the booth’s cooler.
The video above is from my experiences running around on Saturday from beginning to finish, all set to some Beethoven.

Buy Your Very Own Official, 1:1 Mass Effect Assault Rifle

Good news, Mass Effect fans. You can stop building your own replica weapons based on the series, because starting today, you’ll be able to buy your own from EA’s online store.

This replica M8 Avenger Assault Rifle is 1:1 in scale, meaning it’s exactly the same size it’s designed to be in the game universe. That translates to a fake gun that’s 86cm long and weighs around 9kg.

It’s that heavy because it’s cast in polystone (like expensive statues). The gun has also been hand-painted, and will be limited to just 500 units worldwide, which goes some of the way to explaining why it costs $US650.

Also, a word of warning if you’re buying from outside the US: “Due to the nature of this item, international shipments could be confiscated by your Customs Agency and cannot be refunded. Please use caution before ordering.”

So check if your country is cool with you importing fake guns. Specifically, fake space guns from the future.

Why Turn-Based RPGs Should Never Die

You've grown up with Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Grandia and countless other traditional JPRGs which make use of that tried and tested you hit, I hit turn based combat mechanic. You've wandered the vast expanse of numerous identikit dungeons wincing ever so slightly each time your screen swirls or explodes into yet another random battle. You've become irritable, nay, irate as your party is wiped by a boss who seems so powerful you think it must be one of those 'this boss is meant to kill me' moments, at least until the screen goes black, melancholy music kicks in and before it's even had the chance to fade in, you know the screen's going to read: 'GAME OVER'.

Yet, you load from your last save point.

You slog through the dungeon all over again, you whizz through the random battles, you find the super boss repellant item which makes that uber-boss a total doddle, you rejoice in your perseverance and you rinse, wash and repeat for 60 hours until the game is finished.

Sound familiar? If so, you are a true JRPG fan and you're part of dying breed. Search enthusiast forums and you're bound to find plenty of fans who are calling time on turn-based combat as a pre-historic gaming convention comparable to men-only voting or slavery in terms of it having no place in modern society. But I really don't understand why. Turn-based combat to me has had as much innovation over the years as shooting things in the face has, you just have to know where to look.

Rewind to 1997. On November 17th, European gamers were falling over themselves to buy a game called Final Fantasy VII. To date, according to VGchartz, FFVII has shifted 2.7 million units in Europe and a staggering 9.37 million worldwide making it the most successful turn-based JRPG of all time.

I remember I was still at school when FFVII launched and going over to a friends house to watch him play it. I was blown away by the graphics and what I pieced together of the story. Immediately afterwards, a Playstation went on my Christmas list along with this game. It literally couldn't come soon enough. A lot of my friends also bought into the hype, shelling out £44.99 in order to be a part of what was being lauded by some critics as 'one of the most important games of all time.'

It was amongst these friends I encountered my first turn-based combat naysayers and retrospectively it makes me think FFVII may also have been one of the most traded in/returned games of all time (though I can't really back that up)!

"It's boring innit? You hit them, they hit you, there's no skill. I took it back to the shop" - This was back in the days of Game's 10-day no quibble money back guarantee...

"Why do I have to randomly fight shit? It doesn't make any sense and all you do is press X to win"

"Why has Cloud got stupid hair?"

"Tifa has massive tits."

I'd try to reassure them that it was about the story, that the turn-based combat was deep and tactical if they'd just give it the chance and that the anatomically unlikely appearance of Tifa was keeping in line with the Japanese aesthetic (it's possible at 16, I worded this slightly differently). For the most part though, kids in my year weren't interested. They would rather shoot things in the face and how could I argue with that. I however, fell hard and fast for the JRPG and never looked back.

This disdain for turn-based combat has reared it's ugly head many times over the past 13 years with criticisms levelled at this tried and tested JRPG convention that I've never been able to understand. I don't like FPSs (in truth, I'm just not very good at them!) but I can understand why millions of people rushed out to buy Black Ops and would never pour scorn on that game for not only being incredibly similar to Modern Warfare 2, but to my inexperienced FPS eyes, being incredibly similar to every other military shooter. I'm sure Battlefield: Bad Company and the new Medal of Honor do slightly different things to Black Ops but ultimately they're all about shooting the enemy and arguing with 13-year-olds online. Right? No. People undoubtedly enjoy these games because of the way a tried a tested formula has been tweaked and implemented to produce an enjoyable gaming experience. It's the same for JRPGs and turn based combat, you just have to know where to look.

There's a post on Destructoid ( http://www.destructoid.com/... - actually one of the more well-rounded criticisms of turn-based combat from a self-confessed JRPG fan) where the author cites the unrealistic nature of turn-based combat as his main reason for hating it. He talks about it being unrealistic to stand there and wait for someone to hit you only for your attacker to stand idly and wait for you to hit him back. He's got a point I guess, but I don't play games for the realism. I definitely don't play JRPGs for the realism.

Turn-based combat is about strategy and devising and perfecting different strategies for me, is a lot of fun.

For example - and staying with FFVII for the time being - you equip your characters with the most suitable materia, items and weapons for the job ahead. If you're going to be fighting robots for a large part of a dungeon, Junon for example, you ensure you have Lightning materia equipped. You always try to stay one step ahead of your foe, anticipating it's attack pattern (this is particularly true of bosses) and ensuring your party are properly prepared for any heavy hits that might be doled out.

In comparison with some more recent JRPGs, the FFVII system, while still excellent, has become a little bit dated. Fans who called for more innovation in the genre after being hit with raft of games attempting to capitalise on the success of FFVII, eventually got it, while people who criticised JRPGs for becoming stale and repetetive in their approach to combat missed out on some wonderful tweaks to a classic system.

Shadow Hearts launched for Playstation 2 on March 29th 2002. While it never achieved critical or commercial success, largely due to poor marketing and the looming release of Final Fantasy X, it did add a couple of particularly important improvements to the system. Firstly, the introduction of Sanity Points (SP) which upon reaching zero would see your character go beserk and start tearing up everything in sight. It provided an extra element to take into consideration when planning your next move. Secondly, there was the Judgement Ring system, which for me was a revolutionary step in evolving the turn based system and countering criticisms that all you had to do in JRPGs was press X to win.

Simply put, the Judgement Ring is a circle containing a number of highlighted areas which you have to hit X on as the dial spins round to register hits with your character. The ring can be affected in a number of different ways altering the dynamic of a fight drastically. It can be slowed to make combat more precise, it can be sped up which can make it harder to hit as a negative status effect or enable you to hit twice as hard as a trade off of power and accuracy as a postive effect. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/v/UV...

This innovation was further expanded on in Shadow Hearts: Covenant, where a combo system was introduced allowing you to chain your characters' moves together. This would result in accessing an extremely powerful spell or ability at the end of a successful chain and made better use of the battle order mechanic which I first saw in Final Fantasy X.

Many of the same development team from the Shadow Hearts series became part of the Mistwalker/Feelplus combo responsible for the awesome, Lost Odyssey, which is easily one of the best current-gen JRPGs in my opinion. The team refined the Judgement Ring idea making each basic attack an elaborate QTE where you were required to hold the trigger down as your character ran towards the enemy, releasing it at precisely the right moment for optimum damage. This took time to master but was a fantastic way of keeping players concentrating on battles from start to finish.

Corporate Capcom Conundrum!

Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? No. That was my train of thought upon discovering that Capcom was blatantly plagiarising indie gem ‘Splosion Man. Released in 2009 exclusively for XBLA, the development company Twisted Pixel took their game to Capcom initially, but it was rejected. The similarities between the original title and Capcom’s iOS game (cleverly titled maXplosion) are startling and you’d be hard-pressed to truly believe that this was all spooky coincidence. Now, of course, the App store is ridden with copycat games- but the fact that this title was such a small one makes the whole situation feel a lot more…below the belt. Also the irony is not lost on me that, in 1993, Capcom sued Japanese company Data East for copyright infringement after claiming their fighting games were just too
similar to Street Fighter II.

Obviously the crying shame is that Twisted Pixel is a small company that just doesn’t have the resources to challenge a company as big as Capcom. Co-founder and CEO Michael Wilford highlighted this in a series of recent Tweets; “Just sucks because we're too small to do anything about it, and I bet Capcom's counting on that” he said.

But what does all this mean? I don’t want to be sensationalist and claim it’s one giant symbol for the way in which big corporations are running the gaming industry. Certainly with the astronomic success of indie games in 2009/2010; this year, Limbo and Minecraft are the obvious staggering examples. It seems silly, for want of a better word, to claim that small companies are being pushed out by large publishers. However, for a moment direct your gaze to May 23 of this year- the date of the show trial. The above speculation may prove prophetic, or not, depending on the outcome of that trial; as big, scary Activision (lead, of course, by the 8th horseman Bobby Kotic) take on poor, defenceless Infinity Ward.

What exactly is "fun?"

If you are anything like me, one of the only few reasons one can contemplate as to why one would click an article titled as such is maybe because of the possible, eluding irony of the question and one may wish to find that aforementioned irony within the article itself. EIther that or, the article’s title has sparked a genuine interest that you find yourself asking yourself more and more often as this video game generation continues down its timeline. Whatever the reason, this site (or the general gaming attitude of the gaming population today) has forced me, and now you to seek the right answer. At first glance this article kind of answers itself, in as far as what fun isn’t….which will be what this article is. I mean, reading is boring right?? For some perhaps. Also, when asked, the obvious answer comes right to us. What is fun to you can range through a myriad of things such as: Riding a bike, skating, playing sports, dating, exercising or playing video games. I ask you to focus your attention on the last selection. Playing, Video Games.

Obviously, playing video games is tremendously fun, otherwise I doubt any of us would be on this site. What we play, how we play, who we play with and when we play all vary between us with some starking differences and striking similarities. Some of us like split-screen, some of us like Online Multiplayer, some like long, single campaigns, others like 1 on 1 matches. Whatever your preferences, you enjoy what you do because of your individuality. Something a “professional” reviewer nor a friend can ever take away from you. What is fun to you and who you are, are directly related to one another. Obvious article is obvious right? Yet more and more today, I’m finding gamers around the world surrendering their individual tastes to these “reviewers.” Month after month they allow reviewers from all sorts of mediums to inject what goes into a gamers veins as respected opinion and transform it into a volatile solution which is then extracted or spewed out by that gamer as irrefutable fact or irreparable coercion. Needless to say, this isn’t the case with everybody, I just wish to address it and ultimately try to avoid a possible epidemic.

Before we can find the right answer, we must both find the right question and then make sure we understand what we are asking. According to Dictionary.com, fun can be defined as a noun: something that provides mirth or amusement. A verb: to joke or kid, or an adjective: of or pertaining to fun, esp. to social fun. The part of speech which wish to use this word in today is fun used as a noun or adjective. Now I personally like fighting, racing, TPS’s, FPS’s and RPG’s games usually in that order. Thousands of variables can be drawn to help define how fun these games are to me. Another thousand can show how fun they are not to someone else. All of these possible outcomes only should tell us one very important thing. Why are we letting something as arbitrary and absolute such as a review, help centralized what is constituted as fun? Even more so, why are we so adamant about throwing around what we judge as fun, (something that is unique to us as individuals) and passing it off as fact? Using a system as absolute as one mediums (man, magazine, website, etc.) opinion, no matter how well-respected, and using it to try to define something as capricious and dynamic as our own personal “fun factor systems” is mind-boggling in itself. As you can see, the entire thought process behind it is essentially flawed. It is equivalent to trying to use mathematics to explain social interactions.

Initially, I first conceptualized this article to be focused around the understanding of how and more importantly, why do gamers in this age more so than any other, allow other gamers (because thats all a reviewer is) to contort the notion of what is to be enjoyed on a console beyond their own personal, unmistakable preference? However, I believed the prospect of trying to first understand what compels a person to enjoy a game seem much more profound, essential and relevant to all of us. When I ask the question “What exactly is fun?”, Im doing so in an informal, ironic attempt at using reverse psychology to illicit a particular response from you. The response is one that shouldn’t have to be voiced, just realized and punctuated with a mental “oooooh, i see what he’s doing.” This simple, yet ambiguous question interestingly enough, doesn’t have any one answer and that’s the point of this article. Too many gamers today subject their sense of what’s fun into an arbitrary, numeric value system, designed to delegate what is fun or how fun something is, into how fun is something supposed to be or should be in accordance with a guy’s opinion or the general consensus. If needed be, the concepts, semantics and debates of such a question can go on forever, touching bases on points not brought up, and ones that may not need to be. More so than anything, my words today were just meant as a slither of enlightenment in an effort to awaken that individualism that resides inside all of us and lost within too many. What compelled us to favor sports games more than fighting, or MMO’s over Puzzles, what essentially defines us as a gamer should never be decided by an outside source. We, who enjoy what we do not because we were told to, but because we want to, cannot let the sudden insurrections of these console wars and armchair gaming journalists rob us of the gift that comes with being an individual. Help rekindle and transform that gaming spirit back into your heads then into your hearts, where only you and your unique gaming prowess can define what exactly is the definition of fun.*