After a long week spent scouring the CES 2012 convention, Chase and I sat down to weigh in on the fantastical things we had seen.  As it turns out, there actually wasn’t much that was truly surprising on the video game front. But hey, we’d traveled all the way to Vegas, so why not film ourselves talking it out? Here’s the coolest stuff we saw at the Sony and Microsoft booths, including Twisted Metal, Flight, and Nexiuz—a game that I apparently cannot bring myself to properly pronounce.

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The rumor going around about THQ looking to sell to a Chinese investment company and canceling their 2014 lineup is probably true. I mean, how many years can you get by with WWE and Warhammer games being your flagship franchises? It’s a shame really, as I only came to respect THQ in the last year after finally getting around to Darksiders, and thoroughly enjoying WWE All-Stars and Saints Row: The Third. They’re also publishing the Obsidian-developed South Park game which looks fantastic, so hopefully they hold out as long as they can. I really think if they just focused more on what people like and less on collecting IPs to publish and lose money on, THQ could complete the turnaround they started early last year.

For now, revel is the wonder that is the CheapyD homie in Saints Row: The Third.

It’s been quite a while since Microsoft gave us a new Flight Simulator game.  Those original titles were famous as the most realistic flying experience you could have without dropping by an airfield.  As legend goes, many real-life pilots used the games as “at-home practice.” Microsoft’s new free-to-play title, Flight, is the next step for the series.  It’s trying to find the common ground between hardcore sim-freaks and the casual enthusiast.

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At CES 2012, Microsoft finally announced that it was bringing the Kinect to Windows. The Xbox 360 version of the Kinect has reportedly shipped over 18 million units to date. That’s not surprising. The silent-but-massive casual player fanbase is absolutely in love with the device.

What makes the creation of a Windows-centric device interesting is how much attention Microsoft is paying to the ever-growing Kinect modding community.  These dedicated fans have been hard at work, tweaking the existing Kinect hardware to function far beyond its official capabilities. Modders have found ways to use it to play non-supported titles, such as Skyrim. Fashion designers have used it as part of their shows. Microsoft even has a campaign that shows the Kinect helping stroke and brain injury patients in rehabilitation centers. Basically, modders have made the Xbox 360’s Kinect a far more functional device.

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The Street Fighter franchise turns 25 this year, which got me thinking about what didn’t exist when Street Fighter hit arcades in 1987.
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The long anticipated game from Mojang has finally released. Minecraft is a survival creation game in which the end goal isn’t always quite the same for everyone. If you had asked me a year ago if I wanted to play a game where the majority of it involved digging in a hole, I would have avoided you because surely you’re diseased. Before I start gushing into how much this game has changed my perspectives, let’s dig into what makes Minecraft such a spectacular success.

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First, a little background. The closure of Clover Studio by Capcom a few years back was seen as a bad idea in the view of many video game enthusiasts. Having only scratched the surface of their potential, they developed the fantastic Viewtiful Joe, God Hand, and Okami, before getting the boot from Capcom. Put simply, the team splintered off and ultimately Platinum Games came from that closure, and has since given us some of the more memorable and unique gameplay experiences with Bayonetta, Vanquish, Mad World, and Infinite Space. They’ve even been tapped to work with Kojima on the next Metal Gear Solid game.

So why bring this up now? Go play the Asura’s Wrath demo and tell me Capcom isn’t missing Clover Studio right about now.