http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zqtFxuEnLg

In 1988, Nintendo distributed a first-party magazine called Nintendo Power full of reviews, previews, strategies, and tips and tricks. With the eShop channel, and programs like The Cat Mario Show, Nintendo seems to have found a great alternative to the magazine.

I’m very happy to see a focus put back on tips and tricks. Bolting to drug store magazine aisles to read GamePro, Nintendo Power, and EGM while on errands with my family remains one of my fondest memories. I remember flipping directly to the tips and tricks sections to see if any of the games I owned were being featured. In the event I found on, I’d scribble down the code or attempt to embed the button combinations into my muscle memory. In all honesty, clever tips and tricks were enough to sell me on a games I did not own; more so than actual previews and reviews.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pMhIn-nRcM

This game looks fun, gorgeous and powerful. Coming to Steam on July 21st. Eventually being released on iOS and Android.

Pretty huge news via The Verge.

Some of my thoughts on Dota 2’s Newcomer’s Boardcasts and sports education.

Colin Moriarty, IGN:

Indeed, players have to do very little in Valiant Hearts other than get through its short campaign, and even if you opt to do only that, it seems impossible not to get caught up in its passion and emotion. Valiant Hearts really resonates not only as a game, but as a wonderful teaching tool, one that makes history interesting and fun, just like it was when we played The Oregon Trail as young kids.

Hopefully, Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a sign of more good things to come not only for those of us who love video games, but for those of us that understand the amazing power of history, too. History doesn’t have to be boring or dry. In fact, it never is, if it’s presented right. Valiant Hearts: The Great War is all the proof you need.

Interesting read after yesterday’s Assassin’s Creed Unity piece by Chris Plante.

My high school summers were spent taking history classes. This was in an attempt to get ahead in my curriculum and to condense my history lessons into shorter timeframes. Needless to say, I hated history until playing in the fictional world of Assassin’s Creed… even Uncharted for that matter.

If there is one educational avenue games and simulations have succeeded in, something I too learned from Oregon Trail, it is their ability to immerse us in and teach us about the past. Even the most stripped down gameplay or overly embellished fictions can be successful in delivering historically accurate lessons and stories that stick. Like Plante, history is the reason I am drawn to the Assassin’s Creed games. Not neck stabbing.

Chris Plante, Polygon:

The trailer is misleading. I know when Assassin’s Creed Unity is released, this isn’t the game I’ll get. It will be about movement and daring escapes and history and spectacular set pieces and drama. That’s the game I want to play.

But marketing plays a role in game development, especially at the level of multi-million dollar AAA games. And if the studio gets the sense that non-stop-bloodshed is what the audience wants, they will ensure that’s what it receives. Only if we speak up, will the studio look at its audience differently. Until then, they will act off the rapturous applause they receive at E3 when a someone’s head explodes like a watermelon thrown off a 7-story building.

If you’d like an example of a trailer that conveys a different marketing method, look no further than the history-focused vignette Ubisoft ran yesterday in Europe. It hints at fictional conspiracy theory near the end, but overall it’s a fine primer on the history of the French Revolution. Maybe Ubisoft has divided their marketing, targeting different audiences with different trailers. Maybe this is them having their cake and eating it, too. Marie Antoinette would be proud, even if she never said anything about cake and that idiom is English.

Fantastic piece by Plante.

The two trailers mentioned, in respective order:

Revolution Gameplay Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBNfenWTCXg

Inside The Revoltion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W0sijMCEEI