Tomb Raided!
Games evolve quickly. Despite a trilogy of quality releases ending only five years ago, Tomb Raider was already starting to get left behind by the genre it helped to create in 1996. Now the industry’s best-known heroine is back and reinventing action-adventure once again.
A leaked screenshot adds fuel to the fire.
Despite the quick rise of the Prince of Persia series after the initial release of The Sands of Time, it has remained dormant for the past few years. 2010 was the last time anyone heard from Ubisoft on the middle-eastern series with the release of the Forgotten Sands, but it seems that there might be something in store for the “almost forgotten” franchise.
Vita and 3DS reboots seemingly come out of nowhere.
The Spy Hunter franchise holds a special place in many an old-fogie-gamer’s heart. The car/motorcycle/boat combat arcade game was known for being incredibly difficult and incredibly fun. With a modern reboot happening in 2001 and a feature film that at one point had Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson slotted to star going nowhere, no one would blame you if you figured you’d seen the last of the iconic franchise.
Fantastic co-op saves what is otherwise a forgettable journey to the near future.
In a world without Deus Ex: Human Revolution I might be more kind to Syndicate. In that world Syndicate’s central concepts and general aesthetic presentation may appear more original - less derivative of a previously released game that did a far better job of creating a plausible, near future setting where the lines separating humanity and artificiality aren’t quite as clear as they are today. In that world Syndicate would be far more enjoyable, if only due to the lack of any real competition. It is good that we do not live in that world; it is not so good for Syndicate.
Syndicate stays true to its roots while adapting to the future.
When EA outed Syndicate early this year it was met with a fair amount of criticism. Critics specifically belabored the fact that the reboot was taking the beloved isometric action-adventure-strategy game and molding it into a “visceral first person shooter.” In a video game landscape where the FPS is king the move makes sense, but that doesn’t mean that longstanding fans are going to be understanding of the change. So it is perhaps with an olive branch extended that publisher EA has revealed that the new Syndicate will contain a robust four-player cooperative campaign to go along with the single-player experience.
Unlike any generation prior, this generation seems to have two very distinct phases, the second of which is starting now.
According to Wikipedia, we are in the seventh generation of the console cycle. As we all know, this generation is home of Nintendo's Wii, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Microsoft's Xbox 360. Additionally, though not a part of the seventh home console generation, this is still currently the era of the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS.
