Reviews:
The Last of Us - 10
Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 9
Remember Me - 8
Dust 514 - 4
Game & Wario - 6
Grid 2 - 9
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - 7
Impossible Road - 9
Surgeon Simulator 2013 - 7
Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move - 7
Aonuma on Zelda:
It's an interview and he says that he understands people want change but they also want it to still be a Zelda game so they are focusing on expanding the ways to play whatever that means. He asked Miyamoto and Tezuka for advice on making a sequel to LttP and apparently they can't remember a lot, he uses the example that when faced with the question of why Link went from being left to right handed, Miyamoto replies "I forget." There is nothing in the game that will force the use of 3D and the gyros will not be used either because of destabilising the 3D effect. The game runs at 60fps in 3D. As he is getting older, Aonuma eventually wants to work on other new ideas not related to Zelda. Though he admits whatever he makes would probably be similar to a Zelda game anyway.
The Last of Us:
ND have broken free from the few constraints that held Uncharted back from masterpiece status. You're playing an average joe and the gameplay reflects that. There is none of the ludonarrative dissonance of Drake who piles up hundreds of bodies. There is a greater sense of exploration that is rewarded aptly with loot, journal entries, recorders etc. Great sense of character and geographical progression.
"The Last of Us strips away the geek-centric fan service so commonplace in contemporary games." "Naughty Dog has delivered the most riveting, emotionally resonant story-driven epic of this console generation."
The Witcher 3:
Bear in mind I didn't read previous previews so I may be regurgitating information.
- There will be no overt tutorial instead mechanics will gradually be introduced.
- Combat system now has dodge in order to be closer to the pirouettes found in the books.
- Geralt can choose to execute or spare bandits, though he can loot them either way.
- They are targeting 30fps on console.
- Geralt will change his stance according to the task he is faced with e.g. wary if surrounded by a pack of monsters.
- They added Witcher sense similar to Batman's Detective mode so you can see weak points on monsters like The Fiend's lungs, or outside of battle to re create events like tracking a murderer.
- Main storyline is 40-50hrs, and another 40-50 in the open world.
- No "Fedex Quests."
- Choice and consequence will ripple across the world.
- Don't want to build a sandbox experience, storytelling is still the main goal.
- Some locations: Skellige: Nordic-style archipelago, Slavic-like No Mans Land and city of Novigrad.
- Geralt can jump. In-house motion capturing, though the horse was done somewhere else.
There are screenshots with monsters in them though I have no idea if they are new or not. For example there is a screen of the monster (The Fiend) on the cover (you can see its head on the bottom right) fighting Geralt. The other screens are a burning village (DX11), Geralt surrounded by wolves and fighting flying witch like creatures. Though the demo shown was using DX9 some of the screens in the magazine are using shots from the DX11 tech demo.