The final votes have been tallied, and you all have spoken.  After 3 grueling rounds that saw impressive titles fall by the wayside, we have a champion to crown in the 2012 Fall Game Release Showdown.  Anyone that was following the voting might have seen this coming, because it wasn’t close at any point, but here you go:

The winner of the 2012 Fall Game Release Showdown is: Assassin’s Creed 3

Assassin’s Creed 3 beat out Halo 4, taking an impressive 82.1% of the vote (the most lopsided victory of any of the matchups).  Whoever said “never bring a knife to a gunfight” was clearly a Templar. Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote through the last 3 weeks, and feel free to flip back to the previous weeks to see how all the other votes shook out.

As I mentioned last week, this Showdown was the last ASQ for Platform Nation.  Sad to put an end to such a fun weekly, but that’s the way of life.  On a more personal note, today is also the last day for me as a writer and editor for Platform Nation.  With my second kid on the way, and an increasingly diminishing free-time pool, I needed to make a cut somewhere.  I won’t draw out the goodbyes, but I want to thank everyone behind the scenes at Platform Nation for being such a supportive gaming family. In particular, thanks to Scott diMonda and Steve Artlip, who put up with me, took me under their wing, gave me a shot, and gave me a voice for over 2 years to talk about the stuff I love.  I would like to think I made the most out of what I was given, and I hope I provided interesting opinions, quality reviews, and fun question for everyone to read and respond to. Which brings me to my most important thanks: thanks to you, the readers.  Without your comments, emails, tweets and votes, all of this is just words in cyberspace.  Thanks for engaging with me and keeping this fun.

I do have some results to give you from all of the outstanding polls, so read on for some interesting numbers on how everyone has voted over the last few months of ASQs.

Release Day Bugs [14 votes] (Should high profile games be delayed if there are known issues that would be left unresolved at launch?): 100% of you said Yes.

Skyrim [22 votes] (Do you plan on playing Skyrim straight through before going to another game?): 68.2% of you said Yes.

Xbox 360 Dashboard Update [25 votes] (What do you think of the proposed changes coming to your Xbox 360 Dashboard?): 72.0% of you said Love them!, 20% said Eh.. indifferent.., and 8% said Hate Them!

The Best Current Gen Console [24 votes] (If you had to do it again, knowing what you know now, what one console would you choose as your gaming platform of choice?): 50% said Xbox 360, 41.7% said PS3, and 8.3% said Wii.

The Next Next-Generation Console [169 votes] (Are you satisfied with the current generation of consoles (to the point that you’re not itching for the next generation just yet)?): 50.9% of you said No.

Holiday Console Sales [14 votes] (Which company will have the best sales numbers (units sold) for their consoles in December?): 57.1% said Microsoft, 28.6% said Nintendo, and 14.3% said Sony.

Entertainment Consoles [30 votes] (Do you prefer having your gaming console and media entertainment delivery separate?): 63.3% of you said Yes, I prefer them to be separate.

Physical Or Digital Game Copies [34 votes] (What do you think will be the method of delivery for games 10 years from now (physical copy vs. digital copy)?): 41.2% said All Digital, 29.4% said Mostly Digital, Some Physical, 20.6% said Mostly Physical, Some Digital, and 8.8% said Evenly Split.

Game Instruction Manuals [36 votes] (Do you care that games are moving their instruction manuals online?): 66.7% of you said Yes, I consider it part of the game experience.

Difficulty Settings [15 votes] (What difficulty setting do you usually play a game on for your first playthrough?): 73.3% said Normal, 20% said Hard, and 6.7% said Easy.

Staying Alive [12 votes] (If the developers of a game you were looking forward to buying had to cut features, would you rather have a more robust single player experience, or more multiplayer options?): 91.7% said Better Single Player.

Sequel Before Prequel [34 votes] (If previous games of a series that you haven’t had an interest in (until the latest version) are available on your current console, what do you play first?): 70.6% said The earliest game in the series – I don’t want to miss out on the backstory.

Mass Effect 3 – Creating Your Shephard

What is your Shepard’s pre-service history? [93 votes]: Spacer 44.1%, Earthborn 34.4%, Colonist 21.5%
What is your Shepard’s Psychological profile? [92 votes]: War Hero 60.9%, Sole Survivor 32.6%, Ruthless 6.5%
How has your Shepard handled loss? [94 votes]: Saved Ashley Williams, lost Kaidan Alenko 59.6%, Saved Kaidan Alenko, lost Ashley Williams 34%, Numerous: Many losses suffered that are impacting Shepard 6.4%
What class will your Shepard be? [93 votes]: Soldier 37.6%, Vanguard 28%, Infiltrator 11.8%, Adept 10.8%, Sentinel 7.5%, Engineer 4.3%

PlayStation Vita [20 votes] (Will you be buying a PlayStation Vita this year?): 60% said No.

Review Scores [9 votes] (If a publication does not explicitly state their review score policy, what do you assume a final review score means?): 44.4% said Quality of the game relative to all other games, 33.3% said A purchase indicator, and 22.2% said Quality of the game relative to other games in the genre.

 Multiplayer Invades Single Player [71 votes] (Should games use multiplayer progress to influence the single player experience?): 85.9% said No.

Psychonauts 2 [41 votes] (Did you ever play Psychonauts, and would you want to play a sequel?): 80.5% said Yes, I played Psychonauts, and yes I would want to play a sequel., 12.2% said No, I never played Psychonauts, and have no interest in a sequel., 7.3% said No, I never played Psychonauts, but yes I would want to play a sequel., and 0% said Yes, I played Psychonauts, but no, I wouldn’t want to play a sequel.

Hamonix’s New Game [23 votes] (What do you think the new Harmonix game is going to be?): 52.2% said A new Rock Band offering, 30.4% said Something else completely, 8.7% said A new Dance Central offering, and 8.7% said A new mobile/tablet (app) offering.

PAX East 2012 [8 votes] (What are (or would be) your 2 favorite things about PAX?): 87.5% picked The expo floor – playing new or not yet released games, 37.5% said both The atmosphere and The swag!!, and 12.5% said both The panels and The freeplay areas (console, tabletop, etc).

Rock Band Blitz [20 votes] (Will you be buying Rock Band Blitz?): 75% of you said Yes.

Portable Gaming [17 votes] (What mobile device are you giving most of your portable gaming time to?): 47.1% said Phone (iPhone, Android, WP7, etc), 35.3% said Dedicated Game System (3DS, Vita, etc), 17.6% said Other portable device (iPod Touch, etc), and 0% said Tablet.

And that wraps it up for Platform Nation’s ASQ.  Thanks again for everyone’s participation over the years! Of course, you know I can’t end it without at least one or two questions for you to comment on, so…. what was your favorite ASQ that you answered?  What question would you have liked to ask everyone? Drop a comment below – I’ll be reading them.

Farewell, everyone.

View previous ASQ: Fall 2012 Game Release Showdown – Finals

It’s obvious to speculate that this new title will be Dead Space 3, but there have been several small stories lately to suggest this. In April, South African retailer BT Games started taking preorders for Dead Space 3. While this may sound like misinformation or a desperate plea for preorders, BT Games has taken preorders for games prior to their announcement before (which were revealed shortly after). E3 is right around the corner…

Suppose this new Dead Space game is NOT the third installment, but instead a spin-off like Dead Space: Extraction. Between animated films, novels, and comics, Dead Space has been constantly trying to expand as a ‘franchise’, so a deviation from the main series would fit in nicely. But what could it be? A team based survival game? A sequel to Extraction? Dead Space: Party?

All questions about this new Dead Space game should be answered at E3 2012; in particular, “What is it?”

Source: Joystiq

Luckily, all hope is not lost. Although you’re going to miss out on what’s happening on the show floor, many of the press conferences are usually streamed over the internet. On top of that, last year, Sony streamed their press conference over the PS3′s Home. This year Microsoft is going to hop on the bandwagon and stream their conference over Xbox LIVE.

If you’re interested in seeing what announcements Microsoft will have, tune in on Monday, June 4th at 10:00 a.m. PST. Sony will be live at 6:00 p.m. that evening.

Source: GiantBomb

Motocross videogames are far and in between and I’m glad to see that Black Bean Games has taking on the genre with their newly released MUD FIM Motocross World Championship game for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Without a doubt the game looks absolutely gorgeous and provides the a great mix of racing and unique Unique trick battles.

Milan, 4th May 2012 – Youthstream, Milestone and Black Bean Games are pleased to announce that MUD FIM Motocross World Championship is now available in stores for PlayStation®3, Xbox360® and entertainment systems for Microsoft and Windows PC.

MUD FIM Motocross World Championship is the only videogame that exclusively features the FIM MX1 and MX2 World Championships, as well as the amazing Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations, which is a massive and internationally recognised worldwide motocross annual event, in which the top riders of the world race for their country to obtain the highly prestigious Chamberlain Trophy. With teams made up of the top three riders from each country, this is a season ending challenge that features only the very best stars of the motocross world.

To help tempt you into grabbing MUD FIM Motocross World Championship, check out the video below featuring the new trick battle feature.

Game Review:

Toy Soldiers: Cold War was launched onto XBLA and PSN in August 2011 and quickly garnered both critical acclaim and praise from gamers. TS:CW took the formula from the original WWII themed Toy Soldiers and updated it by infusing the presentation, mechanics, and scenarios with an 80′s flare that gave  the game some much needed levity and personality. With the new Napalm and Evil Empire DLC packs, Signal Studios looks to give fans of the game some new scenarios to play through and enjoy. Each pack comes with three brand new maps that play and look a lot different than any of the original maps that were released with Toy Soldiers: Cold War.

The first DLC Pack that I played through was the Evil Empire one which focused on the Soviet Union and it’s campaign to rid the world of the capitalist pig threat. Rather than slowly coax you into the game play, Evil Empire starts the player off with a full-on invasion that will force you to quickly dispose of the initial wave before setting up your defenses. To help you along with your ruskie campaign you’re given a full arsenal of emplacements and a couple new vehicles to use as you eliminate the Yankee threat from Mother Russia. Over the three maps you’ll be faced with a mixture of troops that will constantly have you selling off useless turrets to change up your strategy to better defend against the enemy. The trio of maps ends with a heated battle against droves of increasingly difficult American troops that culminates with an all out battle against a huge tank that utilizes advanced weapons and spits out infantry and armored units along the way.

Next up we have the Napalm map that focuses on backdrop of the Vietnam War and utilizes the guerilla tactics and weaponry that were used during that time. Just like with the Evil Empire maps the Napalm map does not pull any punches and will have you immediately thrown into the fray as soon as you begin the first map. Of the two, I found Napalm to be the more difficult as it has the play multi-tasking between multiple targets and even has you at one point defending a triple entrance base that will have you juggling your defenses  throughout the relentless attack by Vietnamese troops. Throughout this campaign I found myself utilizing the vehicles more often than not as the onslaught of enemies proved to be more than my defenses could handle. The maps ended with what seemed like an easy to defend choke point that quickly turned into an all out battle to defend against heavily armored tanks outfitted with high-powered lasers and an eventual standoff against a flying death machine.

All six of the maps had me restarting on more than one occasion but rather than being overly frustrated I took this as a challenge to better tune my defenses to the waves of enemies rather than utilizing my default “catch all” set-ups. I really enjoyed the challenge that these maps provided and I commend Signal Studios for choosing to put a lil effort into providing new scenarios rather than just maps to extend the experience.  Both DLC packs provide experiences that expand on the tight gameplay found in Toy Soldiers: Cold War as well as provide some new backdrops to enjoy as you fend over the evil horde of enemies.

There’s very little that I would change about the Napalm experience, other than perhaps more maps to enjoy. Without a doubt I had a lot of fun getting through the waves of enemies as I made my way through the maps. As for the Evil Empire maps, I’d have to say that I found them to be lacking in originality and that they offered very little to the formula found in the original game. While I enjoyed playing through Evil Empire, I’d say that Napalm was the real must-have of the two packs as it is a  unique experience that expands the universe created by the original game.

You’d have to be a big fan of the original Toy Soldiers: Cold War to purchase the Napalm and Evil Empire DLC Packs, but if you do, you’ll be treated to a suite of maps that are sure to challenge the skills you acquired while playing the main game. For five dollars a piece, you’ll get a group of maps that are sure to satisfy your devious penchant for toy-based destruction.

+Napalm DLC provides a variety of new challenges to overcome
+Sure to challenge veterans and new players a like
+Revels in the 80′s aesthetic through music and scenery
-Evil Empire feels like more of the same
-3 maps per pack leaves you wanting more

Final Scores: Napalm DLC – 8 Out Of 10

Evil Empire DLC – 7 Out Of 10

The Walking Dead, long before it became known as a TV series on AMC, was a comic book series by Robert Kirkman.  I mention this because the game is based on said comic book series, so those people who go into this game thinking they’re getting some sort of continuation of the TV series will be in for a shock, but fortunately no prior understanding of either the show or the comic is necessary to play the game.  This review will be spoiler free, because a game like this needs to be experienced by the player first, not read in some review.  The first episode in this 5 chapter season sets the stage wonderfully, as you take part in the early stages of the zombie infestation that has begun to plague Atlanta and the outlying suburbs.  You’ll meet up with all sorts of characters, all of whom have their own motives and methods of surviving (with various degrees of success).  Your goal through this episode is to establish what’s going on, find help, try to locate your family, and, of course, survive.

How you go about accomplishing those goals is what this game is all about.  Telltale Games has done an excellent job with how you interact with the world.  Rather than having just point and click environments, or just having you move the character around exploring, The Walking Dead mixes them both in.  At times, you’ll be free to explore an area (often a fairly limited space) using either the control pad or WASD keys, depending on your input method.  Other times, you may be crawling along the ground using those same controls, scrambling to get away from a zombie.  And there are instances where it is point and click: you can’t move at all, and must look around at what is nearby to determine what you must do next, such as escaping a vehicle, or distracting a zombie horde.  It’s the fusion of these different types of interfaces that help keep The Walking Dead from feeling repetitive while serving a specific purpose; for example, most point and click scenes are used in claustrophobic environments where you need to act quickly.

And acting quickly is a common theme in this game.  Almost from the start, you’re on a timer any time an interaction is required of you.  Everything from conversation responses to actions to chases are timed, and your reaction will dictate life or death, be it yours or someone else’s.  Conversations in particular require constant attention, as your input is often needed to steer things in one direction or another.  Silence (either no response, or selecting the “…” response) is an option, and sometimes can be the prudent move, but more often than not, you’ll want to say something.  Building relationships in this game is critical, and you will often need to decide between telling people the truth, and telling them what they want to hear.  You’ll have to remember all the stories you tell, too, because characters will either test you on what you previously said, or be listening when you tell your story to others, and if things don’t mesh up, you’ll damage your credibility.  This might not seem like a big deal, until you try to convince them to help you and they blow you off.  Every choice you make will change the story you experience, and in fairly drastic ways.  Telltale Games has stated that the episodes will build off of the choices you make (and this is made evident in the closing preview to the next chapter, in which cutscenes are tailored to the choices you made in the game), so choose wisely (but quickly!).

The Walking Dead does a great job of immersing you in its world quickly, and you learn about your character from the interactions you have with other characters (including the lies you tell). This character interaction is one of the real strengths of the game, and is driven by excellent dialog and voice acting.  The emotions that people feel are real, and with the cel-shaded cartoon style of graphical representation, solid dialog was critical in order to keep the game’s fairly serious tone plausible.  The game does not shy away from forcing tough decisions on your character with real ramifications, and you will quickly learn that slow response time or poor decision making will cost people their lives.  The game takes this all in stride and moves on, but you may find yourself dwelling on whether you could have handled a situation better.  Fortunately, there are 3 save slots, so if you want to try it again on another playthrough, you can do so without overwriting anything.  Another strength is the frantic feeling you get in close combat situations, in which you must quickly find the spot on an attacking zombie to hit before it makes you its lunch.  It’s also worth noting that once you do beat the episode, you’ll want to go back through and just spend time dying at various points.  I played through the episode the first time without dying (though I can’t say the same for my companions), and realized there were some pretty insane (and humorous) death scenes I was missing.  The episode is short enough (~2 hours) that you can play through it a few times to see everything the game has to offer, as it will be impossible to do so in a single run.

My gripes are minor: the animations, particularly with a character’s eyes, can be a little off.  Characters can do scowls, glares and other facial expressions that involve eye squints very well, but when a character is surprised, shocked or using an expression that involves their eyes going wide, it looks awful, and pulls you out of the experience a bit.  Controls on the keyboard for movement feel very awkward; if you can use a gamepad, do so.  There are points in the conversations where there is an out of place silence, or characters will say things that don’t seem in line with how the conversation was going, almost as if the game was choosing the wrong dialog response to the previous statement.  The game is also very linear, with fairly obvious solutions to the various puzzles.  The only real challenge is trying to balance everyone’s emotions towards you, until you realize that you can’t please everyone.  Then it just turns into focusing your efforts on the characters you care about, and letting the others fend for themselves.

Tym’s Take: The Walking Dead is an excellent start to this 5 episode game series.  You quickly become invested both in your character and the characters you meet, and for a game that’s as short as this is, that’s an impressive feat.  You will have genuine moments of terror as you watch companions die while you’re trying to save them, and the mature tone of the game is appreciated.  I truly got the feeling that the way characters behaved in this game is pretty much how real people would behave, and what shocked me most was realizing that how I was interacting with the game is probably a fair representation of how I’d handle myself in that situation in life.  The Walking Dead is as much litmus test of your real-life handling of pressure situations as it is a horror game, and is probably why this game does such a good job of pulling you in, and keeping you engaged.  I strongly recommend this game to anyone.

+ Excellent dialog and voice acting
+ Decisions have real consequences
+ Decisions must be made quickly
- Animations and certain dialog sequences are a little off
- Game is pretty much on rails, relying on character interactions to provide the variety of outcomes

Final Score: 9/10

I’ve been playing with Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite, and it’s time I tell you what I think. Is it a dud or a must have for any tablet or smartphone user?

For those of you that don’t know what’s so special about the GoFlex Satellite, it’s a Wi-Fi portable hard drive. One that has 500GBs worth a space. With any iOS or Android device, you are able to pretty much stream any of your media library over the Wi-Fi from the GoFlex Satellite to whatever you’re using. You can also access files that are on the GoFlex Satellite and copy them from the Satellite to whatever you are using.

The Seagate GoFlex Satellite is a pretty simple device. It’s just a tad bigger then your standard USB powered HDD; this is to store a battery that’s reported good for up to 7 hours. It, of course, also has Wi-Fi hardware inside of it that allows you to connect to it through Seagate’s GoFlex Media app. To keep internet access to your device, you can connect your GoFlex Satellite to another network and then piggyback its connection to your device. This is a nice and very important feature to have because without it, if you were connected to the GoFlex Satellite, you wouldn’t have any internet on your device. Also packed in with the GoFlex Satellite were the cables necessary to connect it to your computer via USB 2 or USB 3. A USB power cord (so you can charge it without having to connect it to your Mac or PC), and an car charger adapter (for those long drives) are also included.

So how well does is work? Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite almost hit a homerun with this HDD. The only flaws I could find happen to be with the GoFlex Media app and not the HDD itself. Yes you can stream videos, but ONLY iOS friendly videos. This means no .avi’s or .mkv’s, two well known and widely used formats in the video media world. You can, of course, convert your media to .mp4′s or .m4v’s, but who really wants to do that? Certainly I don’t, nor would I want to when I can play just about any type of file already on my iPad with apps. Another really big flaw for me was how I can’t move files from my iPad to the GoFlex Satellite. Their file transfer system only works one way. I think it would be great to be able to move some of my documents from Pages, or photos that are on my device to the GoFlex Satellite. The fact you can not do it only baffles me; it seems like such a common sense type of thing. The only reason that I could see as a legit reason not to include this option is if Apple won’t allow it, but as other apps have allowed me to do similar things, I’m not sure if this is the reason. These two issues are the only two problems I have with the GoFlex Satellite, both of which seem that they could be fixed through an update of their app.

Overall I was very surprised by how well the Seagate GoFlex Satellite worked and performed. I plugged it to my Mac, threw some videos on it, and then it was ready to go. I’ve tried it around the house, and on a trip down to Boulder. Actually to be honest, my daughter tried it on the trip down to Boulder and it worked great. The Seagate app connected right to the HDD and it showed me all the videos that I threw on it. Each one played pretty much instantly and without any issue. I could easily see myself using this on any type of commutes, vacations, or even just around the office. The fact that I can connect up to 3 devices up to the GoFlex Satellite just makes it even more appealing. All of a sudden, I’m watching a movie, my daughter is watching one of her Disney shows and my wife can still watch whatever she wants to. That would be so awesome for any of our vacations when we have our downtime.

Steve’s Final Say: If you have kids, and they have any iOS or Android device, this is really a must have. Just think of all the quiet time you’ll get on any trip as they have access to their movies or tv shows. If you go on trips yourself, or commutes where you watch tv shows or movies, this again, is really a must have. Free up your iOS or Android device and keep your media on this, and then just connect it to whenever you want to watch your media. The GoFlex Satellite really does work great and it’s so simple to use.

Edit: There has been a firmware update that now allows up to 8 people to connect wirelessly to to GoFlex Satellite.

8 games have entered.  2 remain.  After 2 round of matchups, we have our final pairing for you to vote on for the game you’re looking forward to most this fall.  For those just joining, here is how things played out thus far, going into the Semi-Finals:

After a week of voting, your choice for the final matchup broke down as follows:

#1 Halo 4 took care of the upstart #5 Grand Theft Auto 5 with 55.4% of the vote (92 votes).

#2 Assassin’s Creed 3 destroyed #3 Borderlands 2, taking in an impressive 75% of the vote (92 votes).

So that leaves us with the final match-up for the Fall 2012 Game Release Showdown – #1 Halo 4 vs. #2 Assassin’s Creed 3:

What game are you looking forward to more? Do you want to see what life after Bungie is like for the Halo franchise?  Or are you ready to see what role you will play in the revolutionary war in Assassin’s Creed 3?  Do battle in the future, or engage in the past (from the future)?  Stick a grunt with a plasma grenade, or stick a tomahawk into a grunting templar?  Vote for your preference now!

(You may need to refresh the page to see the poll)

While I’m very excited to be able to continue to play in the Halo universe, I will have to say that I’m personally looking forward to Assassin’s Creed 3 more.  I just love the gameplay of the AC games, and think that Ubisoft really nailed it with the era they decided to place this game in.  That’s not to say I won’t be picking both of these games up – I will, but AC3 is my preference this time around.

On a more personal note, this will be the last ASQ I write for Platform Nation.  Fear not: I will be putting together one final post next week giving the results of this showdown, as well as providing stats for all of the other currently open ASQs from the last couple of months, to tie a nice ribbon around this feature.  Thanks to everyone who has participated in the ASQs over the years, and helped to make this fun for me (and hopefully for you!).  I’ll save getting all mushy for next week’s final post, but I wanted to give everyone the heads up now!

Anyway, enough with all that.  Vote for your champion above, and drop a comment below letting us know what you picked and why!

View previous ASQ: Fall 2012 Game Release Showdown – Semi-Finals - View next ASQ: Final Results And Farewell

It’s been difficult to predict what to expect from Nintendo with so many rumors floating around. Nintendo wants to surprise us, but maybe we know more than we think we do.

Recent footage of the sequel to Rayman: Origins shows the Wii U functioning similar to the Portal of Power peripheral device from Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. The inclusion of this technology in the Wii U was mentioned before, but the new footage shows Rayman figures (and an Assassin’s Creed figure!) being used exactly like Skylanders - drop them in and watch them appear on-screen.

Digital download games have also been announced as a major feature for Wii U and 3DS as mentioned here on Platform Nation, cementing Nintendo’s position that it’s not afraid to adopt a modern online system like Xbox Live and PSN. Mario and Pikmin games have also been announced for E3 2012, which could possibly be sold as downloads as well as physical copies.

All questions (well, mostly) about Wii U will be answered on June 5th at 9:00 am PT. I’m ready.

Source: IGN