Have you seen this yet?! Treyarch just raised the bar again for the shooter multiplayer community. The HUD looks great, all of the new tech looks really interesting to use and I’m sure that it will change up the entire experience and team strategy. The environment detail looks like it got a tune up as well with each map. I am thoroughly excited with only three months until launch. More footage and reveals to come as we get closer to that date.

Check out some of the wonderful sights to behold at San Diego Comic-Con 2012.

[Show as slideshow]

Hello everyone, knife throw guy here and I bring to you a little interview I did with two members of Dark Vale games. I got to do a Q & A with Ian Natzmer, VP of development, and Tim Alvis, CTO/COO. They gave me an idea of what their new game Forge is all about.

-What can you tell me about Dark Vales history, what led up to creating a full PVP game?

Tim and I have been building games together now for about 5 years. We’ve worked together on a variety of projects but always for someone else and someone else’s ideas. I believe we’ve done an amazing job executing on these projects – we strive hard to keep a high level of quality and meet our time lines by really pouring our hearts into these projects. It was at GDC in 2008 that Tim and I starting thinking about our own game ideas together and thought that someday we’d like to pour our hearts into our own projects. So, we’ve been planning towards that goal ever since and when we met Dave Domm on our previous project we realized we had the business partner we would need to make this project successful.

We have a lot of game ideas but the idea of a no grind PvP game came naturally from how we played together as friends. When the two of us wanted to play games like WoW or SWTOR we found that Tim always had high level characters and I was stuck grinding away at level 20 trying to catch up to play together. The only game that we found we could jump into and have a good time together was Team Fortress 2. However, with TF2 the skill seemed to come from mouse clicking reflexes. We were frustrated and found that others were frustrated as well. So, we decided that in order to play the quick FPS type game with MMO style abilities we wanted to play that we’d have to build it ourselves. And so here we are with our first title: Forge.

-  Ian Natzmer, VP of Development

-What is the story/plot behind Forge? Do you see it becoming a full MMO someday?

We plan to reveal the story in increments over the next several months, so I’ll stay quiet on that front other than a summary that was included in the press release. I don’t see it becoming a PvE MMO any time soon. The far off future, anything is possible, but it’s not something we want right now and definitely not something we’re planning. It will however expand into features you would typically expect with a traditional MMO that are wholly separate from a PvE experience; Guild functionality, character customization via items and abilities, persistent areas of the world where players have non-combat interactions.

-  Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-How does your PVP experience compare/differ to that of other MMOs on the market?

While right now, the majority of the comparisons are from the MMO side thanks to the types of abilities and classes that we’re using, I think people will be surprised to find how much it has in common with a game like Team Fortress 2. Our combat feels much different from what you get in a typical MMO, including TERA. Because of the way that abilities interact and the design of the classes, it also feels quite different from first and third person shooters. It sits somewhere in between the two in a place that right now doesn’t have any 1:1 comparisons.

The specific answer for combat itself is mainly through the way you target and move in the world, and all of the functionality that falls out of that as a result. Cool downs exist, but work differently than they do in a traditional MMO and are a bit shorter. The ability to actively block and roll out of the way to escape an attack. Projectiles that are not homing missiles.

Outside of combat, the biggest differentiate is that our matchmaking and process of finding games is set up far more similar to Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2 than to an MMO. There are servers that exist, you find one you like, join in, and start playing. Unless every server you want to play on is full, there are no queues or waiting.

-  Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-What is the range of playable classes and what sort of combat styles will we see?

We can’t discuss all of the classes yet. We’ve announced in vague detail two of them, and the names of five (or six? We may have let number six’s name slip as well, I’d have to check!), but we have designed twelve as it stands right now. Because, as a method of interacting with the world at least, we’re in third person shooter territory, it really expands the types of combat styles we can introduce to the game. We’re staying fairly conservative at first, sticking with archetypes people are familiar with, but that will change as we grow.

The Assassin has a fighting style based on Filipino Kali. You’ve seen it in movies like The Bourne Identity, the pen vs. knife fight. Very compact, strong movements. While it’s a stealth class, we deal with stealth a little differently. It’s not just an out of combat state, think of it more as a state of confusing your opponents, even during combat, rather than “I’m invisible and am running away”.

The Pathfinder is based much more loosely off of the dagger technique of firing a bow. Rapid shots. Definitely a kiting class.

- Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-What type of matches will take place? Is this more of a skirmish based combat or will there be different objectives?

We are launching with Team Deathmatch, though configured to make sense for the game type, and Capture the Relic (flag). We have other game types planned to go live soon after launch, but we want to make sure we have maps built specifically for them rather than just cramming them in.

- Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-Will you implement the traditional MMO Tank, DPS, Healer classes? If so will they be improved in anyway?

We aren’t necessarily sticking to a trinity setup, but those archetypes are represented. While we may go a little more traditional on a healing class for ability choice, we are going away from tradition in how you make use of those abilities. A tank class, whenever that may come, I wouldn’t call it traditional in any sense for PvP. Whether our ideas for these two classes are an improvement for every player we’ll let them decide, but we have had outside testing taking a look at what we’re up to, and so far, the response has been pleasant surprise. There is a way to have fun playing a tank in a PvP setting.

- Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-Do you have an estimated contingency for releasing new content; i.e. new maps, armor/weapons, etc?

We do, but it’s always tough to talk about the actual speed and then have it referenced later. I’d like to stick to the words “soon” and “frequent” for now. So much of what both of those words mean depend on the success of the game. While it’s not purely a question of budget, budget is the first and most potent limiting factor.

- Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-Have any particular PC games in the past inspired Forge based on their combat systems? Do any major titles stick out?

In pieces, certainly. There hasn’t been a game that has combat that we looked at and said, “OK, this is great, let’s start here.” Instead, it’s been more of a “I like this aspect of combat from this game” and “I like this aspect of combat from this game.” , and then putting those into a pile. We then start with what we want to build, and look where those pieces we like among several titles actually fit fairly well into the structure we have in mind. We modify where we have to, scrap the pieces we liked from other games that just don’t make sense for us, and invented new pieces were no good fits were found.

If I had to name one title, I couldn’t. If I had to name two, I would say Guild Wars 1 and Team Fortress 2. I’m sure people will see the similarities in some of the decisions we made there, like limiting the number of abilities you can have active at any one time. That’s not something that was invented there, as it’s a feature in nearly every action RPG that’s been released, but it was the first time I’d seen a mainstream MMO make use of it and pull it off very well. From an ability design perspective, there are a lot of abilities that are inspired from multiple MMOs, action games, action RPGS, and first person shooters.

In some interviews, we’ve stuck to the most popular titles when referencing what inspired us as they’re recognizable by a wide audience. This is the best list I can come up with without referencing any notes.

Recognizable games that have inspired us in some way or another:

Team Fortress 2

Counter-Strike

Half-Life

Unreal Tournament 2k4

U2XMP

Left4Dead

Gears of War

Rune

Dark Age of Camelot

Guild Wars 1

World of Warcraft

Warhammer: Online

EVE Online

We’ve noticed some believe we’re unaware of or haven’t considered games in the past like Fury, or recent overseas imports like Mabinogi (Vindictus) or TERA. We’re definitely aware, but the comparisons between what they did or are doing and what we’re about are all on the surface.

-Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

-What would you say is the most appealing aspect of Forge that will get players interested in the game and continue playing?

The most appealing, we’d like to think it’s gameplay. From the very beginning we’ve pulled in a lot of outside feedback on the game design to make sure that we don’t just drink the koolaid and release a game that doesn’t appeal to a wide variety of tastes. Few indies have the advantage of an extended beta period. Games are expensive to produce. We could have made the mistake of waiting for an open beta to get this feedback, but we didn’t. We pulled people in early, during the documentation phase. We kept them involved with prototypes. Longer term, it will be the frequent release of new content. New factions, gender choices for each class, new maps and new gameplay types.

-Tim Alvis, CTO/COO

The announcement of Forge does raise interest for PC gamers looking for a genuine PVP experience and you can be sure to hear more on what Dark Vale has in store as they get closer launch.

Today was the first look at the expo floor of PAX East. The amount of things to look at is just overwhelming. The floor is a crazy fast-paced arena of lines and lines for lines to wait in line. While I couldn’t dig too deeply into the party, I was able to sample a few layers of the cake, and I’m willing to share a piece with you. But only because you’re special.

Ubisoft went in an interesting direction for Assassin’s Creed 3′s booth. Instead of offering a game demo, or showing some new and/or interesting imagery from the game, they decided to opt into a “pre-order your game here!” option. I didn’t even know that was a choice. Along with signing up for the game, you get your choice of a free t-shirt or a special edition hardcover case. It’s definitely a unique choice, and while I’m not sure I agree with it, I will say that I did get suckered into it. That case is pretty damn agreeable…

Talk about extravagant. The booth for the highly anticipated sequel Borderlands 2 features a giant statue of the four main heroes posed in quite a legendary fashion. You can play a bit of Borderlands 2 as well – and man was I impressed. I gave Salvador the Gunzerker a shot (heh) and the few minutes with him were orgasmic. Everything about the game looks fantastic; the combat is smooth, the enemies are monstrous, and the weapons are just absolutely devastating. There were basically three types of enemies – a squishy but evasive flying bug, a crystalline rock creature, and a serpentine monster that burrowed through the ground. One thing I noticed – and practically squealed over – was that I didn’t have to manually pick up ammo or cash. Walking over it automagically put it in my inventory.  I was very impressed with the little bit I saw of Borderlands 2 and I really can’t wait for the final release.

Riot games has a few computers set up ready to play a match to try out the two new champions they’re about to release. I took the oppurtunity to try out Varrus, an archer stylized as a dark elf. He’s a ranged AD Carry that utilizes a blight mechanic to inflict a lot of damage. His damage output is insane – if he manages to land all of his skills, that is. His kit strongly emphasizes CC and damage together, making him a pretty dangerous combination. I can see him already getting called out for being overpowered, but there hasn’t been an AD Carry since Graves, so it’ll be a nice refresher. The thing that’s most exciting about him is his new mechanic. One of his abilities increases in range the longer you “hold” it. Varrus is definitely someone worth checking out and you can expect this league player to get his hands on release.

Well, that’s all the booth party cake I have to share today. Tune in tomorrow for a bit more PAX East party sexy time.

Well, I guess it’s that time of year again. The birds are singing, the trees are blooming, and the nerds are making that yearly pilgrimage to Boston, Massachusetts. That’s right; it’s the third annual run of PAX East! This weekend (April 6^th to April 8^th) is the greatest video game expo this side of the Mississippi. If you didn’t manage to get your tickets this year, don’t fret. The best podcast in town, the bEast Coast, will be on the scene scoping out all the hot info. With our expert crew of amateur reporters, we’ll make sure to bring you the best this expo has to offer.

Starting tomorrow, April 6^th, be sure to check out Golgotron.com for updates on PAX East straight from the exhibition floor!

The Beastly East Coast crew strikes again and makes it sound easy with what appears to be some kind of podcast-Gameshark. This devilish device will glitch your earholes into submission!

Join Joe along with Tara, Scott, Adam and Greg for a roller-coaster of food, nostalgia and bad-ass video game weapons!
TODAY ON THE bEAST Coast Podcast- The VIDEO GAME VARIETY HOUR!

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The first time I saw the trailer for NeverDead – the latest third person action game from Konami and Rebellion Development – I just knew I had to get my hands on it. It had such a uniqueness to it that’s quite difficult to describe, but between the outlandish characters and the premise of immortality, there was something there. It looked strange, it looked fun, and it looked explosive. What was particularly strange was that I usually don’t go for these types of games – hack ‘n’ slash games with a bit of gunplay, like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. Will NeverDead reign immortal among these titles, or will it die before its time?

NeverDead revolves around the life of Bryce Boltzmann – a demon hunter cursed with immortality. Five hundred years ago he fought a handful of demons, only to be defeated in the final battle. Fast forward to the present day, he now works for the government with Arcadia – whose beauty is only matched by her coldness. Together they hunt down demons who are invading the city while trying to protect civilians and stop literal hell on Earth. The story is kind of blah – but the characters, oh man, do they more than make up for it. Every single character you meet is a caricature and, while that would normally make me groan, the characters are almost aware of how ridiculous they are. When an ally turns on you at the end, he turns to you and says “how could you not see I was the bad guy?” I’m not sure if this is just a clever ploy used to make me ignore the terrible writing – but if it is, it worked.

The thing that drew me into NeverDead – and kept me going – was the unique way that they represented your life bar. Since you’re immortal and therefore cannot die the designers came up with something fantastic. When you get hurt body parts fly off in different directions. You can either wait for a moment for the parts to regrow, or you can try and pick up the pieces of you that have fallen off. You can get down to being just a head – and this is where the danger comes in. Little demons run around the battlefield eating your body parts, but if they get a hold of your head, you’ll be digested in their stomach for eternity. The immortality isn’t just used in combat – it’s also useful in solving different puzzles that would be quite difficult for a mortal. For instance – let’s say you have to get over a wall that’s impossible to scale. Well, just rip off your head and toss it over! Or maybe there’s a wire with a broken connection and nothing around to connect it. That’s no problem for you – just grab a hold of the wires and act as a connection yourself!

The combat was kind of a pain in the ass to use most of the time. You can either run in, guns blazing, or you can swing a sword around chopping foes in half. There are cons to both and not a lot of pros to either. I almost always ran into a fight with my sword over guns though, simply because it’s a superior weapons. The guns have really poor aim mechanics, do almost no damage (some enemies are immune to them), and you can’t really run out of sword bullets. The problem with using the sword all the time though is that you’re constantly getting your limbs chopped off. At least losing an arm with a sword doesn’t cut your power in half – you just can’t block anymore. Not that you were blocking anyways. Basically your options were to ineffectually shoot demons for hours or to try and cut them down only to be rolling around as a head most of the fight.

NeverDead is an inherently bad game. Every fiber of my being tells me this, only I can’t help but have insane amounts of fun with it. It’s an incredible blend of awkward controls, frustrating gameplay, predictable storylines, and stereotyped characters. And yet it works. At least, it works for me. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun with a game this technically imperfect. It’s the same kind of feeling I get from watching a Schwarzenegger film – not quite intellectually stimulating but full of “OH MAN THAT WAS AWESOME” moments. Despite all of its flaws, I highly recommend that everyone play NeverDead at least once in their life, even if it’s later when you can buy it used for less.

Today, Konami announced that The Simpsons Arcade Game is officially coming to Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network.  Coming soon, that is. In fact, it’s launching this very week for Xbox users. The game hits the Xbox Marketplace on Friday, February 3^rd for 800 Microsoft points. Sony players will have to wait until next Tuesday, February 7^th to buy it for $9.99 from PSN.

Sony Users, to pass the time, help yourself to some more stock.

Of course, Sony people aren’t exactly being left out in the cold.  According to the official Playstation Blog, Playstation Plus members can download The Simpsons Arcade for free in February, along with Final Fantasy V and Far Cry 2.

The Simpsons Arcade Game will feature all the classic four-player beat-em-up action of the original, with the signature team-up combos and that fantastic Simpsons art style. There are also new modes and a never-before-seen Japanese alternate version of the game.

Assuming Konami doesn’t mess this up, everybody say it with me: “We’re finally getting a legal home version of Simpsons Arcade.”

“How I have waited for this day.”

As games evolve and bring us different genres, the communities that surround them tend to evolve as well and bring new forms. League of Legends is arguably one of the best MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games out there, but certainly the most popular one today. That’s why it’s fitting for the first of a possible trending series – Neighborhood Watch – where we take a look at a different gaming community. This week we take a glimpse at League of Legends and try and figure out why one of the best games of its kind has one of the worst communities in gaming history.

With much exaggeration, this writer will claim that League of Legends has one of the most vile, hate-filled communities in a video game to date. It’s not that difficult to prove either – just join a game with random players and do something they don’t like. Many a time players will join a match and instantly be egged on by their own teammates just for playing a character the community considers weak. Opponents spend the entire game harassing you – calling you a noob for making a costly mistake, making several comments about your mother better left unsaid – or raging at your ability to positively hamper their game. Why is that? Well, let’s start by taking a look at the game as a whole.

The Problem

League of Legends has a simple goal – destroy the other team’s nexus before they can destroy yours. In your way are several turrets, relentless hordes of minions, and (obviously) the enemy team. There are dozens of champions to choose from, but you can only have five on your team – three if you’re playing on a different map. There are three lanes to “push” with five people to clear, which optimally means two to a lane with one lane occupied by a single player. Seems simple enough, right?

This is where the trouble really starts. The entry level is pretty low, but the learning curve can get pretty steep. There are several items you can purchase to enhance your character’s abilities in lanes – and you level up as you play a match, causing you to make decisions about what direction to build your character. Also, different characters work better in some areas rather than others. Some are really effective in the early game, but fall off towards the end. Some are really mediocre unless partnered up correctly – or unless their opponent is poorly matched against them. There are tons of micro-decisions that affect the game… some of which happen before you even start the match.

League of Legends is full of a lot of people with a lot of different play-styles. This means a game with a wide variety of entertainment, but it also means a game with a wide variety in decision making skills. The mechanics of LoL are fairly simple to grasp – some aspects a bit more complicated than others – but by and large the strength of the competitive play comes from having good decision making skills. Having a teammate with a poor grasp on decision making could mean an easy victory for their team. What a lot of players have a difficult time understanding is that a different approach to how you make decisions does not necessarily mean a bad approach. Teammates are quick to judge you on this quality immediately – and sometimes that means giving up on you before the game even started.

A match in League of Legends can last anywhere from 20 minutes to a full hour if you’re doing well. That’s a big time investment for a lot of people, and after being burned enough, players can spot “problem areas” in other teammates. Quite a lot of people don’t want to waste their time playing a losing match. However, nine times out of ten it seems like they never heard of the phrase “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” (which totally isn’t true, flies freaking love vinegar) and they’ll resort to insults and derision. Don’t forget – if your opponent’s catch you in a mistake, they may call you out on it as well. If your allies are willing to say nasty things about you, just wait until your enemies have a word to say.

The Solution

So how can you fix a problem like that? Well, the established meta-game is both a wondrous and terrible solution for this. By having a set of decisions already made for you before the game even starts, this gives others a guideline for your ability to make a good choice. The problem here is that if you stray from the meta, even in the slightest, it can be a quick judge on your character. You don’t have to do much either – purchase an item slightly out of build, forsake a summoner spell in favor of one you like – and your allies will start to get offensive. Sticking to the meta is a good almost solution as long as you are not only willing to stick to it, but know enough about it to fill any blank your team needs.

If you want to go outside the meta-game, make sure you communicate that to your team during champion selection. Most players will respond to your decisions – some less positively than others – but it should be fine if you can stick to your convictions. You may have to prove yourself early in the game in order to win favor, but from personal experience most players will be content with the fact that you spoke up in the beginning.

The best solution, though, is to find friends to play with. League of Legends is free to play so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince a group of friends to start up with you. If you are having trouble finding a group of friends to play with, strangers on the internet have the potential to be pretty awesome. Befriend a teammate who played as a good sport, even if they didn’t do the greatest. The most important thing is just finding a group of people that you can reliably play with and communicate honestly. Afterall, it is a team game. Having a group of people that you know the playstyles of back and forth – with a team composition that works for you – is a valuable thing a lot of players take for granted.

If I’ve made it seem like this happens every single game, don’t fret. It doesn’t. It happens  - more often than it should – but by and large people are generally decent people. You won’t have to actively prevent people from raging at you and virtually hockey punching you every single game. When it does happen – and it will – just give a sigh of disappointment and try your best to remedy the situation. As a last resort, you can always put them on ignore, although that means you lose that potential for communication. In a game where team communication can greatly assist you, this could be a cripple, but if all they want to talk about is the various things they’ve done to your mother, it probably isn’t assisting you that much, is it?

Let’s talk about Fez: the perpetually delayed indie game darling for XBLA. Guess what? Straight from the game’s designer, Phil Fish, we now know that Fez has finally been rated by the ESRB. He’s been posting about it on his Twitter:

“FEZ RECEIVES ESRB RATING: E for everyone, mild fantasy violence!”
“E FOR EVERYTHING IS REALLY HAPPENING!”

Granted, it’s now a day later and this rating still has not been posted on the official ESRB website, but this is still a great sign. The game was already rated in December by Europe’s PEGI board, so this is the next logical step. After years of delays and scattered screenshots, this is the most substantial “this might actually happen” news we’ve seen yet.

Oh, and if you aren’t excited, you haven’t seen Fez! For you latecomers, Fez is an amazing-looking platformer with a cool retro style, reminiscent of Super Meat Boy. Unlike Super Meat Boy, Fez isn’t a simple 2D platformer. In Fez, you can fully rotate the 2D world in glorious 3D. Here, this video will explain it:

http://youtu.be/FrVVIVyLx-Y

Looks incredible, right? Welcome to the “When The Hell Can I Play Fez?” Club.

Back on point, there’s still plenty of red tape to jump through, but it’s starting to sound like Fez might actually make it to Xbox 360 in 2012.

Until then… courage.

Welcome to another installment of Let’s Make a Game! Last time we made a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game that may have been a bit prophetic, but I haven’t found anyone working on our subject this time; SpongeBob SquarePants. Let’s dive in and see what we can put together.

Art Style

SpongeBob has a great art style already, but could benefit from the clean sharp look provided by the UbiArt Framework engine. Ubisoft did some amazing work in Rayman Origins turning Rayman and company into some lovable characters that just felt alive. Given that, the team I believe that could do the most justice to the SpongeBob universe is Ubisoft Montpellier.

SpongeBob has much much more interesting characters than Rayman Origins, but the starting four characters seem obvious as Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, and of course SpongeBob himself. Unlockable characters could include Mr. Krabs, Plankton, Pearl, Mrs. Puff, Larry the Lobster, and variant costumes and versions for the main characters.

Gameplay

We’ve seen SpongeBob and friends in a variety of games aimed at kids and therefore not given more than minimal attention when it comes to gameplay. Even though the breadth of stories in the SpongeBob show could easily fill an action or adventure game, I rarely find the transition from a 2D foundation to a 3D game works in favor of the source material.

The one exception that comes to mind is the new South Park RPG developed by Obsidian, but we have yet to see it in action. Something like Paper Mario could really be interesting, but I think we’ll save that for another project. For this game, let’s make a platformer, and again let’s see what Ubisoft can do for a follow-up to Rayman Origins. They did a great job with four-player simultaneous gameplay and as such, should have no problem implementing this for our SpongeBob game.

Mechanics

Being that we’ve chosen a platformer for our game, the mechanics are fairly simple. We need something to collect, gather, or rescue. Those could be gold coins, Krabby Patties, jellyfish, or just about anything featured on the show.

Since the characters are so varied, there’s no reason not to have a variety of different types of levels based on each character’s archetype. Plankton can play through levels with giant sized objects. Sandy can play through more combat intensive levels. Mr. Krabs can play a level similar to the Treasure Chest level from Rayman Origins shown above, collecting coins at breakneck speeds only achievable by his motivation for riches. Each character could have a specific type of level or perhaps the levels could simply be played differently based on the character you choose.

The music from SpongeBob SquarePants is enjoyable and inspired, and would fit perfectly in our game. Adapting it to the flow of the game would be handled masterfully by Christophe Heral, the composer for — you guessed it — Rayman Origins. You can clearly see where the inspiration for this game lies, and how can you blame me? Just take a listen and tell me the banjo, kazoo, and even didgeridoo, wouldn’t accommodate the whimsy and fun of the SpongeBob world.

Finished Product

(Please excuse my terrible design skills.)

Title: SpongeBob SquarePants
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: November 2012
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC, PS Vita
Players: 1-4 Xbox Live, PSN
MSRP: $59.99

Considering the existing assets and polish of the Rayman Origins engine, we should be able to get this one out by holiday 2012. It’s a full-fledged console release and deserves pricing as such, and I would buy this day one.

A mouse is a mouse is a mouse. They are all basically the same other than the physical shape and the number of buttons they have. It is just a basic piece of hardware that we all use in our day to day lives. I agree with my fellow Golgotron writer Mr. Pharisee’s assessment that a standard mouse “…serves all my functions, gaming and non-gaming alike, just fine”. Also, like Mr. Pharisee, I found out how wrong I was when I wrapped my right hand around the SteelSeries Diablo III mouse. A simple mouse, for a simple (to control) game, the SteelSeries Diablo III mouse will show you what you have been missing with the standard mouse that has been included with every PC you have ever bought.

So what is so different about this mouse over the standard mouse on your desk right now? The first thing you are going to notice is the beautiful eye candy. The mouse glows bright red on the wheel, which looks like a human spine, and on the back where you have the Diablo III logo. The next thing you will notice is that when you pick it up, its got some weight to it. The mouse feels solid and is silky smooth. I switch back and forth between my standard Dell mouse and this and there was a night and day difference. The buttons are equally as solid and are guaranteed for 10 million clicks. Thats a whole lot of Diablo III that before you have to think about replacing this bad boy. The other main physical difference between this mouse and every other mouse you have ever used is the cord. The standard SteelSeries braided fabric cord is present here. It doesn’t seem like it would be that big of a deal but it adds a level of professionalism to the package.

Now lets get down to business. How is this mouse going to hold up and help you out when you need it the most? Well since I don’t have a copy of Diablo III laying around at the time, I installed Diablo II and put it to the test. The seven button layout is done on purpose for two reasons here. First and foremost is that the mouse is designed to be used in either your left or right hand. It is a seven button mouse with two buttons and the scroll wheel on top and two more buttons on each side. This makes it the perfect mouse whether you use it in your right or left hand. I know seven buttons doesn’t seem like a whole lot when you look at other products in the SteelSeries mouse product line (such as the World of Warcraft MMO mouse) but Diablo is a simple game that doesn’t require a whole lot of extra buttons. After a quick download from SteelSeries.com, I was able to map the side buttons to my potions in Diablo II and it made for a much better experience as I could replenish my health and mana much faster.

Since this is a Blizzard licensed product, expect a fully integrated experience with this mouse and Diablo III when it launches later this year. So if you are going to play Diablo III, you need to pick this up. It is a solid piece of hardware that will improve your experience with the game. This is another solid piece of the SteelSeries product line that will work with your PC or Mac. The mouse is available for purchase now. Diablo III, will have to wait just a little bit longer.

Man, I can’t get enough of the lovable troll we know as Yoshinori Ono. First, he gives us a PS3/Vita exclusive “Bad American Fat Boxart” version of Mega Man for Street Fighter x Tekken, and then he tops it off by recreating one of the cheesiest scenes from Street Fighter: The Movie.

[youtube.com] via [1up.com]

Capcom-Unity just announced and confirmed that Pac-Man and Mega Man are coming to Street Fighter x Tekken as PS3 and Playstation Vita exclusive characters. I’m not sure what Capcom has against (or planned for) the Xbox 360 community, but so far they have not announced any exclusives for the system. Either way, check out the new trailer and screenshots after the jump.

Welcome to Let’s Make a Game! This is the first installment in a new feature where we explore how we would make the games we want to see. Today, we’re going to make a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game with a little help from Batman: Arkham City and Darksiders, so let’s get started.

Art Style

First, let’s talk art. There’s really no need for another cartoon-style TMNT game right now. The TMNT franchise has been incredibly hit-and-miss in the game department, and it seems to falter most when appealing to the newest generation of fans. There seems to be quite a strong following, or at least fond fanbase, among older fans of the original run and that is who we will focus on today.

I think our TMNT game would be best suited falling somewhere between Joe Madureira’s comic style and the supremely awesome “fan art” of Dave Rapoza.

Ultimately, it would fall into a blend between Batman: Arkham City and Darksiders. Dark with a hint of color, but maintaining a hint of that ominous feeling of danger and despair.

Gameplay

TMNT usually always takes place in a cityscape, and there hasn’t been a much better city built lately than Arkham City, so I see that as the perfect jumping-off point. You’ve got basically everything you need for a pseudo-open-world TMNT game; with everything from buildings to streets and alleys, and even a nice sewer system to explore. Ideally, I’d love to see a solid single-player campaign where you could switch characters at specific points (perhaps sewer grates or pizza parlors). I’d also like to see four-player co-op via Xbox Live and PSN. Imagine cleaning up the streets of thugs, Foot Clan soldiers, and the occasional Mouser, all with the help of your turtle brothers.

TMNT has a huge stable of characters that could easily foot the bill and give the Turtles a run for their money; Krang, Shredder, Lord Dregg, Baxter Stockman, Rat King and Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose, and of course a little friendly competition from Casey Jones wouldn’t hurt either. You could even have Slash and Venus DLC and a mysterious watcher in the form of Usagi Yojimbo.

Mechanics

Yes, it’s a recurring element, but it’s hard to think of a more engaging and rewarding combat system than that of Batman: Arkham City. Playing through the combat challenges as Robin and Nightwing is actually what prompted me to set Batman: Arkham City as the foundation for a TMNT game. Playing as Catwoman also made me realize you wouldn’t have to walk around as a brooding, face-smashing, bone-breaking, loner all the time, but you of course may want to when playing as Raphael. Play through the extreme combat challenges in Batman: Arkham City as the staff-toting Red Robin and tell me you don’t feel just a bit like Donatello. Give Nightwing a couple of sais and you’ve got one hell of a Raphael. Having said that, Rocksteady would be the absolute perfect developer for our game, and Bebop would agree.

The Turtles may not have the Dark Knight’s arsenal of gadgets, but they’re no slouches when it comes to maneuverability. They are ninjas after all. I would say they would have little to no problem traversing a city similar to that of Arkham City, and would probably be much less afraid of the water. The sewer system would probably need to be expansive and maybe serve as a quick-travel route depending on the size of the map. I would definitely forego the Turtle Van as a means of transportation, but a cameo would definitely be welcome.

As far as difficulty, I wouldn’t again place it right in between Darksiders and Batman: Arkham City; an area where it’s not impossible for kids 10 and up but still engaging enough for adults. After all, I can’t imagine a TMNT game would get licensed for anything above a T-Teen rating anyway.

Music might be a tricky area, but there would have to be an inclusion of some version of the original theme to really put a bow on it.

Finished Product

(Please excuse my terrible design skills.)

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Publisher: EA
Release Date: May 2013
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC, PS Vita
Players: 1-4 Xbox Live, PSN
MSRP: $59.99

So I think our game sounds pretty great. Yes, it borrows a lot from Arkham City, but no more than Ubisoft and Game Arts borrowed from Super Smash Bros Brawl when they made TMNT: Smash Up a few years back. Sometimes a good game engine should be utilized to the fullest!

One last CES video for the road.  Join Chase and I as we rattle off the most memorable exhibits of CES 2012, including an incredible console controller and 90s-riffic VR headset.

Of course, our “most memorable exhibits of CES” is debatable, considering our “Best in Show” was technically seen months before. Oh, and our “Worst in Show” is basically just me beating up on a proof-of-concept tech demo that was so clunky it was embarrassing. Look the point is, the Mad Catz MLG controller is pretty awesome and that virtual reality thing is pretty not so awesome.

Just watch the video.  You’ll see what I mean. Thanks for joining us for CES!

Oh and yes, Razer’s Project Fiona looked slick as hell, but I didn’t feel remotely confident calling a gaming tablet our “best in show.”

I spent the better part of a year traveling for work. I was on a plane twice a week and lived in hotels, and always in tow were my Xbox 360 and Mad Catz TE-S FightStick. Since the fantastic Mad Catz FightStick Carrier bag didn’t exist at the time, I used an Evo messenger bag which was unpadded but fit the stick — except for the protruding stick ball which gave the bag a definitive bag boner look and caused more than a couple issues with stick performance. While the FightStick Carrier bag is definitely well designed and provides ample protection for your TE stick, it’s large and somewhat proprietary so those looking to rock a Hori stick or to travel light would be out of luck. Enter The Link Quick-Release JLF Shaft replacement mod from PhreakMods.

The purpose of The Link is to replace the JLF shaft in your existing arcade stick with one that allows detachment of the ball top. When detached, the only protrusion comes from the buttons and allows for your arcade stick to pack for travel wherever you could fit a dictionary or a mid-90s laptop. Installation was very easy and went from unpacked to installed in less than ten minutes. The only tools required are a 3mm hex key (included), a slotted screw driver, and a Philips screw driver. The Philips screw driver is only needed if you wish to remove your joystick for installation, which I would recommend. The slotted screw driver is needed to remove the ball top. From there it was simply a matter of popping off an e-clip, removing a spring cover and spring, and swapping the JLF shaft. You will have to remove the bottom dust washer to use The Link.

After installation, I put my TE-S FightStick back together and tested it in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition v. 2012, and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. I went through about a dozen trials in each game and then played in arcade mode for approximately thirty minutes per game. I saw absolutely no difference in effectiveness or performance of the stick with The Link installed. The only thing I did notice, and I verified this with several other FightSticks, is that there is a noticeable amount of play in the stick with The Link in place. Again, I didn’t notice any false inputs or input lag, and I have seen no complaints about The Link among users at top level play.

Although I found The Link to be a very clever and useful product, using it does come with a caveat. When your stick and ball top are removed, there is a substantial opening that could allow lint and dust to get inside the stick base. PhreakMods suggests that a 24mm button plug will work if you remove the snaps. They also point out that the material can be magnetized to allow users to get creative with how they keep the opening covered. One important note is that you should never attempt to lift or carry your arcade stick by the ball or bat top with The Link installed. While it is guaranteed never to come loose during play, there are limits to the strength of the connector and it could come apart when supporting the full weight of the stick.

Aside from the minor inconveniences introduced by installing The Link, it is a very well made product and solves a rather annoying issue for anyone who travels with their arcade stick. I would highly recommend this for anyone looking to safely transport their stick without risking damage to the joystick itself. Hopefully the next version will include some sort of custom fit cap and possibly address the issue of the stick feeling loose after installation. [UPDATE: Clayton of PhreakMods has said he is aware of the slight looseness issue and is working on a fix in the next revision.]

The Link is designed and created by PhreakMods and is currently sold exclusively through FocusAttack for $32.95.

Once again, Capcom is being pushed in a direction they did not want to go due to pressure from “fans”. This is how we ended up with Street Fighter IV instead of an advancement from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. This is how we ended up with Final Fantasy IX instead of an advancement from Final Fantasy VIII. This is how we ended up with Final Fantasy XIII-2, and now this is where we are getting Resident Evil 6.

Don’t get me wrong, none of the games I’ve listed are bad games. Capcom and Square-Enix don’t make bad games very often. There was a time where these companies would make games and we would enjoy and play them. These were the days before the entitled children took over the comments sections of every entertainment related website. No, these companies don’t have a reputation for making bad games, but what they do have though are two of the more polarized and vocal fan-bases.

In a small way I feel bad for the developers, who must feel some sense of pride in their work, only to have it completed trashed by so-called fans because they tried to push a franchise forward. The worst part is that they aren’t hearing the immense praise the rest of the fan-base is giving them because positive feedback is often swept under the rug. Marketing teams look to fix problems usually, instead of reinforcing what works, and that is all too apparent in the return-to-our-roots, you-spoke-we-listened, Resident Evil 6.

I will buy, play, and enjoy this game, just as I did with RE5 and RE4, Street Fighter IV, and Final Fantasy IX; but I will know this is not a product of a proud team looking to evolve their franchise and work but rather an attempt to appease the bitching masses. They will ultimately fail in that effort because the whiny, spoiled children are undoubtedly going to complain when you, once again, can’t run and aim (like you can in real life).

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.

Now sit back and enjoy the rich cinematic quality of my “iPhone-duct-taped-to-a-hotel-chair” camera rig.

Stay tuned for Golgotron’s Best & Worst of CES video, coming soon.

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.

At first glance, Flight seems like a prettier, more modern Flight Simulator.  The dropping of “Simulator” from the title is key. There’s still a lot of simulating going on, but there’s also a lot more “game” than before. Instead of just picking a destination and flying there, there is a much heavier focus on tangible objectives.   The new progression system lets the player unlock new planes as they go.

Microsoft is also significantly dropping the difficulty.  The old games were purely hardcore experiences that would brutally punish your mistakes.  Flight is way more forgiving. I was able to get my plane off the ground, so I’m calling that a massive improvement.  If everything comes together, Flight could be the Forza Motorsports of flight sims.

The beta is starting this month. We’ll have a full review when Flight debuts this Spring.

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.

From speaking with the reps at the Microsoft booth, it seems like gamers are not the primary audience for this product.  Instead, Kinect for Windows is being aimed at developers who will try to create applications in the retail and healthcare industries. It sounds like the first step in Microsoft fully embracing the “Kinect Effect” they coined in this ad:

http://youtu.be/diy7rkWkDtU

Details are still limited, but right now we know that the Kinect for Windows will be $250, which is surprisingly pricey, considering that it’s Xbox counterpart can be found at retail for under $100. It is unclear whether this new Kinect will be backwards-compatible with the Xbox 360 model.

All we’ve ever wanted from the Kinect was that “Minority Report” experience. By offering a PC-native model, this cuts out at one of the major hurdles that was holding modders back.  We’ll have more news as the story develops.

The Street Fighter franchise turns 25 this year, which got me thinking about what didn’t exist when Street Fighter hit arcades in 1987.

Here’s a short list of just what emerged the year after Street Fighter was born:

• Crack Cocaine
• Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Big, Twins, Die Hard, and The Naked Gun
• The Simpsons, Baywatch, Married with Children
• Rihanna, Michael Cera, Emma Stone
• PC Viruses
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Stealth Bombers
• Prozac

Sounds like 1987 was a great year to be alive, which I was, because I’m a dinosaur.

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.

Minecraft takes a page right out from video gaming of yesteryear; when you start the game off you’re given no instructions about what needs to be done. There’s no true tutorial, no helpful guide, just trial and error. The achievements serve as a tutorial of sorts, giving you the barest amount of clues as to what you have to do to further the game. A good chunk of the joy in this game comes from discovering how the different cubes function in the world. Upgrading materials used for digging means you can mine deeper and faster, especially because certain materials are required for mining other materials from the ground. You’ll find the further you go down that all those wooden swords you made just aren’t going to cut it in the deep pit. When you finally die and you lose all your items, you’ll start realizing you need to create a place to keep your items when venturing near potential doom.

At night, Minecraft turns from a digging simulator into a horror survival game. Monsters – called Mobs – come out from the dark and start attacking you as you peacefully try to dig. The first night in Minecraft is always the most exciting – you have almost no resources, no protective shelter, and probably weak weapons with which to defend yourself. It’s all you can do to survive until morning when most of them burn up in the daylight. But with each night you survive, you progressively get stronger and stronger. Mobs don’t just exist on the surface. They lurk in the dark of caverns waiting for a poor adventurer to wander their way.  The existence of mobs in Minecraft makes the experience infinitely better. It would be one thing if all you had to do was dig and build unhindered. With the potential threat of the mobs ever looming, you always have to be on guard and dig with a sense of adventure.

One thing that makes Minecraft a gorgeous game is the random terrain generator. Even with simple blocks and cubes, the generator creates some fantastically amazing formations. There are several biomes in which you can find yourself in, each with different materials in abundance. Swamps have lily pads and vines, pine forests have taller trees and wolves, deserts have sand and cacti, and northern biomes have snow and ice. On top of generating mountains and oceans and ravines, the terrain generator also places man-made structures. From time to time you may find a village (with some suspicious looking villagers roaming about) but there really isn’t much you can do there. The major treasures of the world are in abandoned mineshafts and strongholds. There are items buried deep within them that can only be found there – and strongholds are the key to getting to the “End” of the game. Exploring the world rewards you not only in the bounty of treasure and resources you find, but in the spectacular environment you’ll encounter on the way.

While single player has some truly amazing experiences, I like to use it as a sort of testing ground for the true mode of the game. Multiplayer makes Minecraft one of the greatest experiences in gaming history. A group of my friends started up a server and we worked together to try and create the best world possible. It wasn’t long before we noticed that we all played the game differently. Some of us liked to explore, some preferred to create farms, and others still just liked to dig. Even in each of those activities, not a single one of us used the same methods. I prefer to make my structures symmetrical with mathematical patterns, while my friend just builds what’s convenient for creating what he needs in that space at that time. There is no single “wrong” way to play this game, although my friends and I don’t always agree on the same thing. Playing together with friends creates amazing moments that would be difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

At this point, I truly believe that everyone should try Minecraft just once. It’s a game that people of all ages and preferences can get excited about. This game was definitely tailor made for anyone who’s ever played with Legos and thought “man, if only I could fully experience this.” Minecraft is full of adventure, horror, survival, exploration, intrigue, farming, and most importantly, imagination. The possibilities of what you can do in this game are nearly endless – well, until you hit bedrock that is.

Pros:

• Incredibly complex world
• Surprisingly detailed physics
• One of the most engaging multiplayer experiences
• Your imagination is the only limit

Cons:

• Portions of the game can be repetitive when finding nothing useful
• Dying early can be a put off
• The music starts off great but gets repetitive quickly
• Memory intensive game can put strain on low RAM computers

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.

What exactly is a Revengeance? I know the definition of Vengeance:

venge·ance/?venj?ns/

Noun: Punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong.

Let’s see how adding ‘Re’ in front of it changes the meaning.

When you put the letters ‘Re’ in front of a word, it is typically used to define a repeat of whatever the word implies. So, does that mean that a Revengeance is another act of retribution for a wrong done (like doubling up on the angst)? Isn’t that just a part of the original intended act of vengeance? As long as one is continuing to take action against someone who has done them harm, isn’t it all part of the same revenge plot? (I now realize the word ‘revenge’ does not quite follow the ‘re’ rule. The English language can be a little retarded). Unless, a wrong is done once again, and now vengeance is being taken for that new action, that would just make it another act of vengeance. No matter how it is defined it is a recurring pattern that the same word defines. There is no need for a new word! Crazy Japanese and their Engrish.

Another example of Engrish.

Now, that isn’t the only thing odd about this new game in the Metal Gear Franchise. For anyone who has seen the trailer or read about the game, I’m sure you are aware of the changes to the standard MGS gameplay in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (grrrr…), what is different you might ask? Well, let me answer that question with a question.

You remember that one time you played a Metal Gear Solid game and thought to yourself “man, this stealth stuff sucks, I wish I could just shoot a bunch of things in some ridiculous arcade style game?”

No? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow Kojima and his crew have decided that it would be best to saddle up the audience with the new bad ass version of Raiden and send them off on a Ninja Gaiden style quest with a cyberpunk twist. If you haven’t seen the trailer, you are in luck, cause here it is:

Here we are in the beginning of 2012 just after an exciting end of 2011. Skyrim fever has begun to subside and many have jumped onto that new crack known as Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR for short).

However, many PS3 owners have had some trouble all their own with the multiple game of the year winning Elder Scrolls sequel. It has been reported since shortly after the games release that PS3 owners have experienced a hefty amount of lag due to large save files and some other issues (but mainly large save files). It has gotten so bad for many players that the game itself became unplayable due to the issue, even after old saves were deleted. There are many YouTube videos on the absurdness of this obviously game dooming bug, just type in “Skyrim lag ps3″ or something of its equivalent.

Bethesda has took their sweet time trying to fix this particular problem; a problem that I’ll continue to hammer on because it has broken the game for those unlucky not that few. Yet, they have announced that the 1.4 patch coming here soon will indeed address these issues. While the last patch in December didn’t do much to help players experiencing this, Bethesda does promise that this one will. As can be seen from their reassuring response to people complaining about it being January and the game not being fixed yet.

Bethesda twitter response: “we’re addressing that in the 1.4 update planned for this month.”

Awesome right? Now PS3 owners can finally feel like everyone else who has invested a 100+ hours into the Skyrim world, and maybe they too can really understand why the arrow to the knee thing has become the international meme of obnoxious douchery.

close to the knee, but a worthwhile reference none-the-less.

How is it perfectly acceptable to advertise Ivy’s ginormous hams for Soul Calibur V, but when Namco tries to diversify their offering with a little Voldo codpiece they get flooded with complaints and threats? Oh right, it’s because tits.

So to recap:

Wholesome family fun!

Oh no! Vote Romney!

To add the demo to your Xbox Live download queue now, click here. For anyone looking for a spoiler-free impression of what’s included in the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo that just went live on Xbox Live, look no further.

The demo showcases a couple new characters that were not playable in the original title. It also tells you right away that it takes place in Chapter 2 of what appears to be the main campaign. If you’re looking to get a fresh experience going into FFXIII-2 at the end of this month, you may want to skip this demo.

What’s shown is the updated fighting system, some of the new core features of the game, and interactive tutorials on how these new aspects fit into what you know from FFXIII. One thing I definitely was dreading was the return of random battles. What I’ve found through this demo is that they’re definitely in the game but mostly still avoidable. When you get “attacked”, a dome of sorts appears over your party and if you can run fast enough to get your dome free of enemies, you’ve successfully avoided that battle.

Another aspect of the game I saw at E3 last year and was not too pleased about is the addition of QTE (Quick-Time Events) to the battles. It appears now that these only occur during ‘epic’ fights (think boss fights) and are actually somewhat fun. I could still do without them, but at least now I see the point of them in FFXIII-2. If you succeed at all your QTEs, you can stagger your opponent which gives you a huge advantage for a brief time.

There is actually a lot more to the demo than what I’ve described, but most of it is not spoiler-free so you’ll have to check it out for yourself. I will say that this demo pushed me off the fence into the believer camp, and I can easily say it’s a game I’m completely excited to play at the end of this month.

I loved Bastion. I walk around narrating my own boring life now and it automatically seems more adventurous; not that eating week old pizza and Matrix-dodging STDs isn’t adventurous, mind you.

“Kid tells her he’s putting on a jimmy hat, but his pappy didn’t raise no fool.”

[Check out the full soundtrack here.]

Microsoft let slip a video on Xbox Live today announcing the line-up for the House Party 2012 promotion. I’m still not sure exactly what Xbox Live Arcade games have to do with a bunch of twenty-somethings having a high-school house party, but I appreciate the effort in putting together quality titles under a single bannerhead for the purpose of sheer hype. Ready to see what’s going to be taking your money in coming month?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRiZ3kZP3v4

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

The XBLA follow-up to one of our favorites, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare promises an updated combat system, new puzzles, and a new twist on the already strange tale of the fictional author. Is anyone else confused and a little concerned that this went straight to XBLA and not disc-release or DLC?

Warp

We saw Warp a few times last year and it looked great. The best way I can describe it is Portal meets Splosion Man meets Shadow Complex, and just saying that makes me excited to try out the completed game. Original slated for Summer of Arcade last year, it looks like the wait is finally over. I’m still hoping someone takes this idea and turns into a fast-paced platformer or map-crawler, but for now I’ll settle for puzzles and stealth.

Nexuiz

Nexuiz (pronounced “Nexus”) has been in development for what seems like a decade now. Originally it was based on the Quake engine, then Unreal, and now the Cryengine 3, but the core gameplay hasn’t changed a whole lot. It’s an arena-based FPS, plain and simple. A lot of work has gone into polishing the look and making it play fast and smoothly. It’ll be interesting to see if Nexuiz can succeed on XBLA. Maybe they should send out Eagle-Eye kits for all customers.

I Am Alive

Finally! Originally announced to be the big-budget follow up to the Jade Raymond helmed Assassin’s Creed project, I Am Alive just seemed to vanish. Last year it was re-announced as a slimmed-down XBLA exclusive. I’m not sure what made Ubisoft abort what was destined to be a hugely successful project, but I’m glad it got a second chance.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for word on pricing and release schedule, but considering this was most likely posted by mistake on their part, I’m guessing we’ll have to wait until it’s officially announced.

The Kinect is an interesting piece of tech. It shoots out lasers (over 9000!) to find the distance from your Dorito-crusted gut hair to the depths of your belly button. It makes your hands glow purple so you can give yourself a wizard-job on camera. It even allows you to post flattering poses of yourself playing stupid games to your favorite social network (MySpace foreva!!). It can’t do any of these things though, if you put a FUCKING SWEATBAND OVER THE LASER CASTING EYE. Jesus Microsoft, how much do you pay your ad firms to make you look like you don’t know how your products work?

[Xbox.com]

Pokémon. Many a video gamer has grown up on the series, whether the first Red and Blue games on the Game Boy back when Nintendo was king, or the contemporary fourth and fifth generation on the DS. And with the series still going, people will perhaps continue to do so into the future. Still, the classic Pokémon has a special place in our hearts.

Maybe that’s why we don’t think about the world of Pokémon that hard. It has a light-hearted atmosphere, an innocent charm that deflects concentrated attention from the fine details and encourages us to simply have fun playing through the games.

Let’s push aside the nostalgia and give it some scrutiny, shall we?

The Pokémon Themselves

First glance: Come on, everyone knows the basic concept of the series; people known as Pokémon Trainers capture powerful creatures known as Pokémon in devices known as Pokéballs. Trainers live up to their name by trying to build up a powerful team via capturing wild Pokémon, and then let them gain experience by sending them into competitions and battles against the Pokémon teams of other Trainers.

Closer look: Pokémon are dangerous. I mean, some of the most powerful ones are creatures out of myth like dragons. Then there’s the psychic Pokémon, and the ghost type Pokémon… Even at their worst, Pokémon come across as being able to severely harm human beings. Why are they being caught and used only for simple sport? And how moral is it to beat them up, capture them in Pokéballs, and then press them into service when they are seemingly intelligent and reasonable creatures?

The Towns

First glance: Isolated townships separated by large stretches of uninhabited territory and wild Pokémon-filled paths. Visit the small points of civilization amid a world of adventure and challenges to restock between ventures out into the great unknown as you travel around the world on the quest to defeat the 8 Pokémon Gym leaders.

Closer look: Sure, from the perspective of an outsider, a video gamer, it’s a pretty good deal. The towns let you stock up on items and heal your Pokémon team, and the routes between cities provide good challenges between the ‘boss fights’ of the gym leaders. But think about it from the viewpoint of a citizen within the world of Pokémon; where are the farms? Where does the food come from? Are there even any animals other than Pokémon? Heck, where’s the government, who leads these towns? Nearest thing to that would be the gym leaders. But why does everything seem to revolve around Pokémon and their Trainers?

Maybe it’s because the Trainers are the only people who can get from town to town? Think of all the wild Pokémon infesting the paths between villages that attack without warning. They’re probably cut off from each other like the medieval days. Of course, they aren’t the only obstacle…

The Pokémon Trainers

First glance: Along every route you’ll encounter other Trainers, who will challenge you to battles. Your Pokémon team faces off against theirs, with victory bringing you a prize; a reward from your defeated enemy.

Closer look: The assumption is that it’s a friendly match, but here’s the thing; you can’t refuse the offer to fight them. It’s totally involuntary, and it lasts until one team or the other is completely beaten. So, people that are dangerous in combat lurk around common paths between towns, ambushing any traveler they see. What does this sound like?

They’re bandits. They’re trying to mug you.  They want your money and your items, and they aren’t asking nicely for it. By this count, the paths are not only infested with dangerous animals but also vicious criminals. But at least they’re independent and unrelated, and not organized, right?

Team Rocket

First glance: Team Rocket is an organized crime syndicate whose main focus is to steal, capture, sell, and exploit powerful Pokémon for profit, with aspirations to take over the globe.

Closer look: Read that again. Now stop thinking of them as ‘the bad guys’ and another challenge to defeat and think of them as an actual organized crime syndicate who almost certainly acts like one. Blackmail. Extortion. Murder. They do it all, they are an organized gang like the mafia, the IRA, or the Yakuza at best, and a terrorist organization at worst.

Worse yet, not only are they seemingly one of the only large scale organizations in Kanto, there doesn’t even seem to be an organized police force opposing them, simply the loose-knit Pokémon league of gym leaders and a group known as the elite four. And Team Rocket is lead by one of said gym leaders.

Perhaps worst of all, through scientific experimentation on Pokémon, they artificially created Mewtwo, the most powerful Pokémon in the game. And they are almost certainly going to try to perfect the process further.

They are technologically advanced. They are spread over the entire region. They have resources. They have influence within what little government there is. And they have no morals whatsoever.

And there are similar organizations based in the other regions spread around the world.

The Pokémon League Competitions

Fight for glory!

First glance: Grand Pokémon tournaments are held and draw entrants from far and wide to vie for victory. Trainers and their teams compete against other in matches amid a coliseum full of spectators, as they fight for the right to be named the best; all in the spirit of sportsmanship of course.

Closer look: First off, supposedly nonlethal or not, considering the level of power that high-end Pokémon have, there is no way there’s no risk of death in these matches. So even if (at best) it is a rare occurrence, Pokémon die in these competitions while fighting for their Trainers.

These tournaments are important. It’s a mix of roman gladiatorial entertainment, a bloodsport that pits living creatures against each other to fight for fame and fortune, and a trial by fire for the trainers who want to rise to the top and become the most powerful entity within a world dominated by Pokémon Trainers. There really is no direct analogue to real life for them; dog fights and gladiatorial contests aside, there is no culture in our history that had a competition so vital to the inner workings within a society like that of the Pokémon world; a society that is built from the ground up to be utterly centered around the titular Pokémon.

The Player Character

First glance: Having just reached the necessary age to become a Pokémon trainer, the player character receives their license, starter Pokémon, Pokédex, and Pokéballs, they are ready to go into the wide world of Pokémon and face all comers. It’s time for a great adventure as you quest to become the Pokémon Master, the most powerful Pokémon Trainer in the region!

Closer look: Pokémon Trainers get their licenses at age 10.

Ten years old.

Becoming a Pokémon Trainer isn’t rare, or even hard. You literally just need to have had your tenth birthday and want to become one. That’s it. The majority of the population is Trainers. It’s just something you do as a part of growing up, like getting a driver’s license. Except what you’re being given access to is the technology to control powerful and dangerous creatures with which to fight other powerful, dangerous creatures.

And it is necessary, because that’s what humanity needs to do to survive.

Think about it; could a human being really take on a Pokémon of note with even a fair chance of winning? No. The only way to be able to take on Pokémon is with other Pokémon. Becoming a Trainer is the norm, because in this world, it’s a basic skill necessary to even travel between towns, defend oneself against violent wild Pokémon- and against other Trainers and their Pokémon.

It’s the Dark Ages all over again. Crime is rampant, bandits add to the threat of wild Pokémon to make travel dangerous and isolate communities. The loose system of government is based around who has the strongest Pokémon teams, with the greatest earning the title of Pokémon Master and ruling as king. Until they are beaten and the title is taken by another. Pokémon tournaments are organized as bloodsport, gladiatorial competitions for fame, money, and power. Well-funded, trained, far-reaching amoral organizations conspire to topple the current system and take control, with plans to eventually conquer the entire globe.

And like the Dark Ages, the immense danger means that most people don’t die of old age or natural causes. Like the Dark Ages, people are considered to be grown up and become elders earlier than they do in our contemporary time.

In the world of Pokémon, once you hit your tenth birthday, you’re considered an adult.

And it’s time to go out and face the world.

Audience Participation Round: How Does Humanity Even Fit Into The World of Pokémon?

First glance: Not even touched on.

Closer look: Think about it. How would humans evolve in a world like this? How would they survive before they had the advanced technology to capture Pokémon? They’re unlikely to have developed alongside them, as that would imply humans are a form of Pokémon themselves, which they’re clearly not. Even putting that aside, they would still almost certainly have been wiped out via natural selection before being able to become advanced enough to create the technology used in the series. Without a way to control them, humanity would have been unable to compete with the powerful Pokémon that inhabited the world before them. Not to mention, the crude society depicted by the games is wholly unsuited for scientific innovation and discovery.

So, perhaps the Pokémon came (Arrived? Were created?) after humanity had achieved an advanced civilization? One able to invent and produce the technology to control the Pokémon? One that has long since fallen and been forgotten?

Food for thought.

Author’s Note: I have to admit, it took a while to write this up. And as much fun as it was to make, I can’t say I don’t feel a little guilty about it all the same. Taking away innocence isn’t something you can go back on, and to be honest, I enjoy heroism more than villainy. I’ve always preferred being the good guy over the bad. I can do both certainly, but being evil is easy. It’s being good that’s a challenge. So, here’s my last little addition to this admittedly quite dark interpretation; think of the storyline of the first generation.

And consider; what does every 10 year old kid dream of doing?

Changing the world. For the better.

It has been ten years since Microsoft launched the mighty Xbox and set us down on a distant planet with one of the most iconic characters in gaming today, Master Chief. Halo set the bar for shooters on consoles, seeing as it was the launch title for a console that was designed for FPS gaming. The controls were solid, the story was interesting and the multiplayer brought us all together. If you’re thinking Halo Anniversary is just a nice way to commemorate the original game with an HD remake, be ready for much much more.
What you will know before picking up the game is that yes, this is a full high definition remake of the original game. They promised a heightened gaming experience with the free DLC Anniversary maps for Halo Reach multiplayer. Now once you pop in the game, if you follow your instincts and curiosity, there is something waiting just below the surface. When you played Halo ten years ago, did you ever look down a corridor or go the wrong way on purpose just because your gut feeling said “Somethings down there”? Most of the time you would find a dead soldier and some ammo or an over shield. Bungie knows the mind of their fans and decided to reward curiosity in Halo Anniversary. This time if you follow your gut, you will discover hidden terminals planted in each level. Some are just a flashing beacon, others are an “incoming message” on a computer screen, but if you access them you will get to see a short video following 343 guilty spark and his time on installation 04. The terminals give a lot of really cool plot info covering past present and future linking to the sequel. I won’t spoil the details so you’ll just have to check them out for yourself. Happy hunting!

If you don’t own a Kinect, you’re missing out on some sweet features in this game as well as bonus content. During solo campaign mode you have the ability to use a list of voice commands with the Kinect. You can say things like “Change weapon” or “Reload” i had the most fun with “Flashlight”. These may seem gimmicky but they added a scanning feature (guess what the command is). When you are in scan mode everything goes into batman vision a la Arkham Asylum/Arkham City, except for key items and characters which will show as bright orange. You can rest your reticle on these things and say “Analyze”, it will gather information on the object and store it in your library. This will give a complete description and background for you to browse through later. They also offer a nostalgia mode allowing you to switch back and forth from the classic look of halo to the HD version. This is one of the coolest features, just going to different areas and comparing the detail is amazing to look at. If you are using the Kinect just say “Classic” or “Remastered”, otherwise you can just hit select.

Let’s talk multiplayer and achievements. Seeing the old maps really warmed my heart. Playing the old maps with a jet pack sells the game by itself. Everything you remember is right where you left it. The weapons are in the same familiar spots as well as new weapons to accommodate Reach multiplayer. The maps are as follows: Beaver Creek/Battle Canyon/Battle Creek, Damnation/Penance, Timberland/Ridgeline, Prisone/Solitary Hang ‘Em High/High Noon, and Headlong/Breakneck. I hope these maps will inspire people to bring over their TV’s and Mountain Dew for a good old fashioned LAN Party. As far as achievements go, the list got a lot longer with a total of 44, a few being pretty crazy.

One of the more crazy, and nostalgic, is “I’ll be taking that”. This achievement takes place on “Assault on the Control Room” level. This was a little reward to all those hardcore fans doing little stunts or glitches back in the day, one being the attempt to safely knock down a banshee in order to fly it through the level. The banshee sits on top of a platform about mid way through the level and can only be knocked down by sniping or hitting the platform just right with a rocket. Do this and you’ll earn 25 gamer points. Possibly the craziest achievement is “How Pedestrian” in which you must complete the second level “Halo” without the use of any vehicles. This level is long and hard (that’s what she said), if you plan on walking this entire level you’re going to need patience and some serious fire power. The level is designed for the use of the warthogs 50cal, without it you can expect bigger than usual firefights with the Covenant. There are other crazy achievements like finishing “The Library” without dying and in 30 minutes or less. You can check out the full list of achievements once you pick up the game.

Being what it is, I would give this game a perfect score, but not everyone is a Halo fan, and when it first released most people gave an 8 out of 10 which is modest. I will say 9 out of 10 just so the 1% can occupy Modern Warfare.

Up until a week ago I was content with living my life with tiny little netbook mice. “I won’t need another mouse,” I told myself. “This mouse serves all my functions, gaming and non-gaming alike, just fine.” What an ignorant creature I once was. Once I got my hands on the SteelSeries Sensei Mouse my entire outlook changed. Now I can’t think of doing anything on my PC without this mouse by my side.

The first thing to note is just how freaking pretty this mouse is. The Sensei’s sleek silver body is simplicity in design, something I actively seek to find with some difficulty. Even rarer than the simplicity of it is the symmetry present here. I know that’s to allow it to be ambidextrous for all kinds of gamers, but it really sells the design of it well. The scroll wheel and logo light up with a range of vibrant colors that’s completely customizable to your liking. You can even control the brightness of the lights which is something I’m glad about – on the off chance I ever need to use it.

When I went to install the SteelSeries Engine program I ran into a little trouble. The mouse froze up on me while it was trying to update itself and for a good chunk of time it was completely unresponsive. On the SteelSeries website they had a FAQ that described my exact problem, but even after following the instructions the problem still persisted. Unable to find a contact number I continued to frustratingly troubleshoot a solution to this predicament. Eventually I figured it out, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it put a sour taste in my mouth. [Editor's Note: The solution was to reset the mouse to factory settings and reinstall the software. I originally had set the mouse up on another operating system which I believe is what confused the device.]

All the problems with setup could be forgiven if the performance of the mouse could shine – and boy did it ever. The SteelSeries Engine allows you to customize all aspects of the Sensei mouse that you would need to adjust. You can make it more sensitive, accelerate quicker, and be just a tad bit more accurate. You can even adjust what the buttons do on your PC – and switch them around if you use your mouse with your left hand. Playing around with the settings it was easy to see where the benefits off all these adjustments would show off. You can save individual settings as different profiles depending on what you plan on doing with your mouse. You can even modify the lift distance for different surfaces. There are a few profiles already programmed into the mouse for Starcraft 2, Counterstrike, and League of Legends – three of the big e-sports – with the settings similar to those used by big names in e-sporting. Since I use my PC for more than gaming, I set up a profile for the Adobe products as well, and the improvements there have definitely been noticeable.

One other thing that deserves mention is the LCD screen on the bottom side of the mouse. This mouse was built with input from professional teams like Fnatic and EG, and the top e-sports players in LoL, HoN, CS, SC2, and DotA. This mouse is seriously professional grade, and the LCD really drives that point. The SteelSeries Sensei customization program allows you to upload a BMP of your team logo or name and match the lit scroll wheel and SteelSeries logo to match your team colors. Seeing the mouse in Golgotron-pink with our friend and compatriot, Golgobit, emblazoned on a superior-quality mouse gave me a warm feeling inside.

Final Call: I think that’s the selling point here; there is a major noticeable improvement in my PC functionality performance since using the Sensei mouse. It’s not just good for gaming, it’s good for all the other functions you would use on your PC. The mouse design is incredibly gorgeous and ergonomic to boot. My hand used to cramp a little if I was on my computer for too long, but after using this mouse I don’t have the same issues. The installation process was a glaring problem, in my opinion, but it’s a one-time situation that not everyone is likely to encounter. Overall my experience with the Sensei was a definite positive and I’d gladly recommend it to everyone.

Pros:

• Sleek, gorgeous and ergonomic design
• Makes for a better gaming performance
• Improves all aspect of PC functions, even outside of gaming
• The LCD screen is a great touch

Cons:

• Some installation issues will cause frustration for a little bit
• The sleek design of the mouse gets dirtied easily

Can we all just come to terms on this? This is a war on the level of dumb only matched by dumb wars like Donald Trump vs Rosie O’ Donnell, Pokemon vs Digimon, Axel Rose vs his fans, Call of Duty vs the “cool kids,” and 360 vs PS3. In all cases, each had something to bring to the table and really the war was simply a tie up of preferences and poor choices with no real winner, but a bunch of losers. Donald Trump and Rosie are insane, Pokemon was kid friendly while Digimon tended to go in a darker direction, Axel Rose is… well, insane and the fans wanted him to not be, Xbox and PS3 are both gaming systems with their equal claims to success, and Call of Duty was being shoved down the general populaces throats by Activision and we were loving it like the whores we are. There may be a few detractors from the ranks who spam Meta Critic and every forum they can, clambering to speak out against the biggest giant in all of videogamedom. Yet with the release of MW3 and its record setting $775 million in sales during the first five days, the point of the few vocal has been beaten down by the wallets of the general market.

Activision’s biggest competitor in the world of gaming, EA, decided to be the voice for those vocal few with its ad campaign for Battlefield 3. Taking it right to the king with its slogan “Rise Above the Call,” that started a message board feud within the community that hasn’t seen this level of retardation since PSN went down and 360 fan boys stated the war was over (it is not, it is not even a war, it is dumb. Just stop it with the Playstation controller is for baby hands, or PSN is free, but PSN got hacked, or the Japanese don’t give a shit about Xbox, or my Momma use to beat me so screw Microsoft, or whatever. It’s dumb). The competitive ad campaign was an approach that I feel hurt Battlefield 3 by making a war that didn’t need to exist in the first place. Fan boys will protect what they are a fan of, and instead of bringing out a game that is different and fills the market with another option, it forced the stupid to make a choice between one great game and another great game with the only reason being because they were a fan or a hater.

The games, while both are first person shooters in a modern setting, couldn’t be any more different.

GamePlay:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3– MW 3, much like its predecessors; and even more so than last year’s Black Ops, is all about fast action and arcade style controls. The weight of realism is sacrificed in favor of over-the-top set-pieces and thrill-a-minute intensity. While the other game makes impacting the ground in prone have a weight to it, in Modern Warfare 3 it is not implausible to dive from a second story after a full sprint like Superman onto your belly without even an exhale of air. Hell, jumping off of a building and getting a headshot while performing a full 360 spin like a ballerina action hero became a thing. Everyone in CoD is a John Woo character (John Woo is the retro Michael Bay, he was Michael Bay before Michael Bay was Michael Bay. Note: Michael Bay to Call of Duty reference quota has been fulfilled).

Movements in MW3 are brisk and the controls are precise, allowing for crazy twitch reactions that count heavily on an individual’s reflexes and tend to make a player feel a tad badass. It is very possible to hold down the trigger and keep an even spread as if recoil was hardly a concern at all. Even at vast distances it is not implausible to keep a bead on an enemy without having to resort to a burst shot method. While this doesn’t play into the hand of realism, it does play into the hand of ridiculous fun without a concern for strategy. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is all about pacing, and it is a pace that never slows down. From Single-Player to Multi-Player it is mindless stupid action.

Battlefield 3 – BF 3 is all about scope and is the closest thing to a realistic shooter out at the moment. There is a weight to the controls that makes actions slower but more deliberate. The action takes place on a broader spectrum and rewards co-operation and patience, recoil is a big deal here, and the spread can easily get out of hand even at short distances. Learning to control bursts is a must, and while a player can sprint for miles without a break, the size of the playing field can often mean there will be a lot of sprinting.

Hitting the ground in prone gives a split second of re-adjustment as the gun and the character have to find their place. The environment explodes and chips away, trees fall from impact, and cover fire blurs the screen making shots more difficult. Entire buildings can collapse with the right amount of work and vehicles just keep coming to make life more stressful. Yet, with all of this, MW3 still moves quicker and is far more chaotic. Battlefield 3 is all about focus and strategy, working around obstacles rather than running head-first into every bit of danger that comes along. Battlefield 3 is the Saving Private Ryan to Modern Warfare 3’s Rambo.

Final Call – Modern Warfare 3 is all about how fast things can move and how big the explosions can be. While Battlefield 3 has environments that go boom, the booms in MW3 are just that much bigger. If you as a player feel like killing things without much thought, you pick up MW3. If you as a player feel like working with a team and developing strategies with friends to conquer a wide open map, you pick up BF3.

Winner!

Team Fortress 2: It is a strategy class based shooter that is about as arcadey as it can get. The design is simple and the animations are more recognizable than any other shooter on earth. Plus, it is free to play now. So… you should probably get on that.

Graphics:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Modern Warfare 3 is Modern Warfare 2 with maybe a slight upgrade. It is the same engine, it looks damn near identical and this could be said about everything from general control, to sound, to of course the topic of discussion now. This is to say, the game looks fantastic. Better than mostly everything out there today. Activision is playing it safe and that’s just fine. The lighting is good and the camera work during the single-player campaign is top-notch. It gives the cinematics a larger than life appeal that seamlessly transition into gameplay. The graphics are Call of Duty, millions of people recognize it in all of its Call of Dutiness.

Battlefield 3 -Battlefield 3 is a new game built on a new engine. It is tender love and care from the ground up and on a powerful PC it is one of the best damn looking games around. This isn’t opinion, this is fact. Battlefield 3 is incredible looking. With the new re-tooled Frostbite 2 engine, there is a sense of realism that Call of Duty just can’t match. Yet, that isn’t what Call of Duty is about is it?

Even on massive battlegrounds buildings will topple in real time, parts of it will chip away as shots are fired upon it. Potted plants burst in your face, and pieces of large rubble blown away from the side of buildings can crush someone standing in its trajectory. The amount of work the engine takes on in every single moment of the game is absolutely stunning. Everything works to add that realism to a game that focuses a lot on realism. Which Call of Duty does not.

Final Call - In terms of graphics, it really isn’t a debate. MW3 is based on an old engine that looked great when it was released and still looks good now. BF3 is a whole new engine and one of the best looking games to date. Yet, all of its graphical achievements are based on making it feel more real, something that Call of Duty doesn’t care to achieve. Because it doesn’t have to, it is not what the game is about. (And yes, MW3 runs at 60fps while BF3 runs at 30fps. It will hardly be a bother while playing BF3, and MW3 needs all its 60fps so it can be so damn unrealistically fast.)

Winner!

Skyrim: Seriously, the new Elder Scrolls game looks fantastic, especially on a PC. There’s nothing else quite as damn pretty, and in terms of scope. No competition. There was many a time I stood atop a mountain as I stared across the horizon and caught myself saying the words “holy crap, this is purty.” While this maybe could happen in MW3 or BF3, I think I was too damn busy saying “Where the f*$% did I get killed from!?” or “That’s right! You can’t beat m-F*&#!”

Sound:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – In terms of voice acting, MW3 wins. This in thanks to the big time talent behind the voices of the game. Sure the characters ooze a level of machismo that can only be compared to the Chuck Norris invented by Chuck Norris jokes. The acting is impeccable and the amount of banter in the main storyline is fun to listen to. Plus hell, it has a rock soundtrack. That’s awesome right? It is like a movie!

Battlefield 3 – In terms of in game sound effects, BF3 wins. The sound of guns in enclosed spaces echoes appropriately to its surroundings, the weapons have the right amount of explosive power behind them to sound real. Not to mention the sound of bullets hitting the rock above your head or a sniper bullet whizzing by your ear is enough to frighten anyone with the right headset or sound system. Vehicles can be heard from miles away as they roll over debris, crunching rock and whatever else below them. Helicopters and jets drown out the sound of bullets and when jumping out of one the wind lashes the ears just like it should. The game sounds just as fantastic as it looks.

Final Call – MW3 and BF3 sound like shooters. They have guns and they shoot stuff. Battlefield 3 sounds better thanks to its incredible new engine, and there is seriously nothing more intimidating than a sniper bullet in that game. Yet, the voice acting in Modern Warfare 3 is head and shoulders above most in the industry.

Winner!

BioShock: In terms of voice acting and cinematic appeal, this game is still on top. Has anyone seen; or in this case, heard the previews for Infinite? Holy crap. While it has an artistic look, the sound is impeccable, and the soundtrack is everything it needs to be. From the first moment a player enters Rapture the sound design is there to get its creep on. It never lets up and the sound is just as much a part of the experience as the level design and the story itself.

Single-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – If there was ever a time to go ahead and hand a winner medal to one of these two games in a category it is in this department (and sound). Modern Warfare 3’s story may be over the top, and it may feel a bit on the rails in terms of how it pushes the player to one exploding set-piece to another, but it is essentially everything anyone can expect from a game in this series. That is to say it is badass. It may be full of more plot holes than… something full of holes (a well irrigated garden or swiss cheese perhaps? I don’t know. Not incredible with analogies) but beyond anything it is fun. Sure there is a violent murdering of a dog that is glossed over like nothing happened, and there is nothing quite as WTF! as the airport terrorist sequence from MW2. In the end however, MW3 is a great short single player campaign that makes using it as training for the real game (multiplayer) a good time.

Battlefield 3 – For all of its posturing and “above the call” crap, Dice appeared to forget that a large number of CoD fans buy the game for its campaign. I know that sounds dumb, but it is true, some people want to play a shooter, but couldn’t give a damn about having a 10 year old shout in his ear about how much of a faggot they are. I know one of these people, they exist, I’ve witnessed it. (The person who didn’t like multiplayer, not a 10 year old shouting faggot into someone’s ear.)

BF3’s campaign wants to be Modern Warfare so bad that it is actually a little sad. They even dedicated a majority of its ad campaign to showing off the campaign. So, it isn’t like they weren’t aware that some people cared about the single player. The story is full of big set-pieces and it takes place in a world that feels more real (read: boring) but in the end it is just not that exciting. Levels are designed like linear corridors even when outdoors and the entire affair feels a whole lot more confined than Modern Warfare 3. The characters are even more forgettable than their MW3 counter-parts and I found myself wanting the Bad Company crew back. This is not to say that the BF3 campaign sucks, it’s okay, but as a training tool for the real game, it doesn’t even let you use the vehicles much. So, yeah… I guess it kinda sucks.

Final Call – In the single player category there is a clear winner, and that isn’t a single person’s opinion. This is a majority opinion in not only the community, but in the “professional” news world as well.

Winner!

Half Life 2: HA! GOTCHA! In terms of big time single player campaigns in a large shooter franchise, nothing tops HL2. Valve took its time making everyone care for its side characters and establishing the silent hero Gordon Freeman as the lab geek turned hero of the world who is also awesome. We love that nerd with a gun, we really do. Hell, it has been over 4 years since episode 2 concluded on a cliff hanger, and fans are still clamoring for an end to a story started in 2004. That’s a level of dedication that can only be compared to that of a Tool fan. Seriously, Maynard… I need a new album.

Multi-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – It’s crazy, it’s chaotic, it’s all about the kills, it’s Modern Warfare 3 baby! There isn’t much different within the core mechanics here, and that’s fine. While some things have been changed in the sake of balance and to favor some co-operative play, in the end, it is all about the K/D and playing to that sort of frantic kill, kill, die, respawn, kill, kill style of gameplay that the series has perfected over the years.

While new kill streaks called strike packages have been introduced and modes like Kill Confirmed works to try and get people to play together like a team. The game does not hurt anyone for being a lone gunman in their own one man army. Actually many still play that way and are perfectly fine for it if their scores have anything to say about it. Team work may make a group unstoppable if done correctly, but it is doubtful that the majority of the hivemind will give a damn.

MW3 has so many game modes that there will be something to do and people to shoot in so many variations that it can become difficult to become bored. While it isn’t quite Halo big in term of game modes, it is impressive. Also they brought back Spec-Ops which is as always, a great co-op experience. If you are into that sort of stuff.

Battlefield 3 – BF3 may not have as many game modes as MW3 but what it does have is incredibly well designed. Rush and Conquest modes take place on many maps that have multiple entry points to an objective and often span large distances that can be compared to playing on all the MW3 maps at once. The scope of the field of battle (see what I did there?) is ridicuhuge (new word) and the balance between vehicles, player classes, and weaponry only continues to force people to play together or be slaughtered by those who do.

Every class has been re-done to offer support to the team from reviving, to repairing vehicles, to re-supplying ammo. The co-op bases are covered. It is amazing what a strategically placed revive can do to turn the tide of battle at the last moment. Also when you throw in destructible landscape, that sniper in the second story window isn’t much of a problem anymore. Having trouble with the one point of entry to an objective? Whip out some C4 or rocket launcher and make a new one!

Battlefield 3 matches can take some work and often leave an exhausted feeling in players. It isn’t as quick and there is plenty of times that a badly timed spawn can mean having to run for what feels like –forever- back to battle, since all the vehicles are gone. The pacing of BF3 is slower and more deliberate, and the multiplayer rewards teamwork like no other shooter out there. It’s a different type of game, and that is what makes it special.

Final Call – The point here is as it has been from the get go in this article. Comparing these two games is just unfair; there is no need for a war when in essence MW3 and BF3 fulfill a different purpose. It is completely alright and actually worth it to go ahead and buy both if you can afford it. They both offer something the other doesn’t. BF3 may have more of that new game smell compared to the yearly recycle that is the CoD franchise, yet no one does arcade kill-fests quite like the call, and in the end BF3 doesn’t look to try to compete if the final product has anything to say about it.

Winner!

World of Warcraft: Beause… screw you. That’s why!

I have a theme going here if you haven’t noticed, and WoW is the biggest multiplayer game in the history of ever and has been the reason Blizzard is one of the most successful developers around, even though they’ve only released around two games in the time that CoD has been a franchise. I could have just said Halo and really pissed in them fanboy Cheerios.

Final Final Word!

It’s plain that my objective here has been to not pick a real winner between the two, but instead to poke fun at the whole fact that we even have to compare them. BF3 is a team class based semi-realistic modern day FPS with an emphasis on team-work, strategy, vehicles, and large open playing fields while MW3 is an action packed fast paced modern day FPS with an emphasis on quick chaotic matches and small confined maps to help keep the action centralized. With such a large sales gap between the two games, it is obvious that CoD isn’t going anywhere. BF3 did really well, but it is far from competing on that level, even Halo got swallowed by the Modern Warfare beast.

So what if in MW3 I entered my first match and had my first death ever be at the hands of a player named Cuminmyanus (which I believe Live confused for Cumin-Myan-us which doesn’t make a damned bit of a sense and is honestly retarded). That is just the general market! It is full of Dr Creamhorn’s and other dick or bodily excrement references. That is what all the BF3 fans can look forward to if the series ever reaches that level of success.

The Real Winner!

YOU!:That’s right. I know it may sound all after school special, but seriously. There are two awesome FPS games out there with a ton to offer, and they both do what the other doesn’t. So, do everyone a favor and get off the pedestal and go back to just enjoying the games you like and stop pissing on everyone’s parade.

It only took six months but Nintendo finally released their first original must-have 3DS game. Super Mario 3D Land is another solid entry into the Super Mario Bros. series. It fits into a space right between New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario 3D Land is the perfect mix between old and new to keep things familiar without feeling stale.

The balance between old and new starts with the suits and power ups that are available for Mario. You of course still get the standard mushrooms, flowers, stars, and green 1 ups.  The best news here is the Tanooki suit making its first appearance since Super Mario Bros 3. The game is built with the Tanooki suit right in your face as they are everywhere. The new addition here is the blue shell that lets you throw boomerangs. The Boomerang Bros have been in many games before but this is the first time Mario can use their powers.

The other new addition here, (being that this is a 3DS game) is the 3D in Super Mario 3D Land. The 3D feature definitely takes the front seat here and is more than just eye candy. Sure it makes the game look fantastic but there’s more the than that. There were several points in the game where I had to turn the 3D on to get through the level without rage quitting the 3DS against a wall. I mean that in the best way possible as it is a welcome challenge that brought a smile to my face. The use of different camera angles and platform layout make for a very enjoyable experience. The levels were designed with the 3D feature in mind so crank it up full blast and enjoy the ride.

Super Mario 3D Land is a wonderful combination of elements from the various Mario series. It takes different elements from New Super Mario Bros. and adds in the look and feel of Super Mario Galaxy. The levels are timed like in New Super Mario Bros but ditches the side scrolling game play for something a little bit closer to Galaxy. I thought the timer would be a distraction since the levels are larger than the New Super Mario Bros levels but it turned into a nice bonus for some levels as an added degree of difficulty. The difficulty curve is just about perfect throughout the entire game as it starts off super easy and goes all the way up to rage at the end. To unlock the later levels you must go out of your way to collect the 3 Golden Coins hidden throughout the levels.

My main complaint about Super Mario 3D Land is that there is just not enough content here. This is a very short game. There are 16 Worlds with only  6 levels each. I finished the first 8 Worlds in just over 4 hours and had every single coin for these levels in just over 6 hours. After finishing World 8, you do unlock 8 more special stages but while these worlds have some new elements, for the most part they are just remixes of the first 8 Worlds.  As I said before, the difficult ramps up significantly in the later levels with evil Mario chases and timers starting at 30 seconds to get you moving but everything still feels very familiar. Because of this familiarity, I was able to get through these last 8 worlds with all coins in just 6 hours despite the increased difficulty. Maybe I have been spoiled by other games but $40 for 12 hours of game play seems light these days. Luigi does make his obligatory appearance here but he doesn’t bring his purple coin levels with him from Galaxy. This would have been a nice touch that could have pushed the game over that 20 hour mark.

At the end of the day, Super Mario 3D Land delivers on everything that you would expect from a handheld Super Mario Bros. game. I just wish there were more here. With the significant advances in technology on handheld game systems with the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PlayStation Vita, gamers expectations are bound to rise. Dedicated handheld game systems are now competing with smartphone app markets for dollars and they days. Nintendo and Sony will need to make sure developers are producing titles that are more inline with their home console brothers in terms of game play if they intent to continue charging $40 per title. That being said, even though Super Mario 3D Land is a little light on content, its hard not to recommend such a good overall game. This title really does belong in every 3DS owners collection.

Pros

• Tanookis everywhere!
• Great implementation of 3D technology
• Solid mix of 2D and 3D platforming

Cons

• Light on content and length

I used to love PC gaming.  Unreal Tournament ’99? Counter-Strike?  Those were my jams, son. For years, I’d raged about how console controllers could never replicate the precision needed for PC shooters.  Then I traded my PC for a Mac and joined all my “regular people” friends on Xbox Live.

Nowadays, I’m much happier in my gated community. Still, part of me yearns for the lightning-quick madness of mouse-and-keyboard controls. I just want to spin on a dime and put a single sniper round through some fool’s eyeball one last time.

That’s where Penguin United’s Eagle Eye Converter 3.0 comes in. Basically, this device claims to let console players hook up their mouse and keyboards to their Xbox 360.

Sounds great in theory, but does it actually work?

The Big Idea:

The Eagle Eye claims to provide tighter, more accurate controls akin to what you’d experience on the PC. Granted, being the only person in a game that has this enhancement sure sounds like cheating to me, but I’m not opposed to a bit of good natured rule-bendin’. Ain’t like I’ve never “soft-Googled” a Scrabble word or two in my time, so let’s keep an open mind here.

What’s in the Box?

Inside the $60 package you’ll find the Eagle Eye Converter–a small control box that serves as a bridge between the Xbox and your mouse and keyboard.  You can preprogram up to two different button configurations at a time. So if you play Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, you can instantly swap between your two custom layouts with a flick of the switch.

There are a bunch of turbo switches, too, if you’re the sort of person that needs to have artificially enhanced super-rapid-fire pistols. Cheater. The turbo switches work just fine, so if you want to skip right past “rule bending” and straight-up ruin everyone else’s experience, here’s your chance.

A Very Questionable Definition of “Easy”

Unfortunately, using the Eagle Eye isn’t as dirt simple as its “Ownage Never Comes Easier” (Eww.) tagline makes it seem. The device needs to jump through quite a few hoops before it can trick your 360 into accepting a mouse and keyboard.

First, be aware that you need the official wired Microsoft controller. The Eagle Eye won’t work with the official Microsoft wireless pad or any third-party controller.

Second, you need a Windows PC to run the Eagle Edit key mapping software. The application isn’t compatible with Apple, so Mac users are out of luck—or they’ll just need to lug the thing to their workplace PC, like I did. For a device whose target consumer has potentially traded his or her gaming PC for a Macbook, and  is now taking extraordinary measures to replicate the PC gaming experience, this seems like a massive oversight.

One-Time Initial Set Up:

There’s no denying it: For the console crowd, this is a complicated device. And by “complicated,” I mean “prepare to sit with the instructional manual in your lap.”

Here is the first-time setup process from beginning to end:

• After you’ve installed the Eagle Edit software, plug the Eagle Eye box into your PC’s USB slot.
• Then, attach your intended mouse and keyboard to the Eagle Eye. So far, the device has worked with every mouse and keyboard combo I’ve had lying around, so it’s fairly versatile.
• Next, map your buttons to whatever keys you’d like. There are also a bunch of “axis dead zone” and “sensitivity” options.  These can be pretty tricky, so you’ll probably be better off downloading an existing configuration from Penguin United’s Calibration database.
• After you recheck your controls, you can save them right to the Eagle Eye box.

Congratulations, you are now done with the one-time-only initial set up. It’s smooth sailing from here, right? Nope! Get ready for a big sloppy bucket of tedium.

The following is what you need to do every single time you want to use this thing:

Step One:

Turn on your Xbox and connect the completely empty Eagle Eye device to your Xbox 360.

Step Two:

Plug your wired controller to the port in either the mouse or keyboard USB slots on the Eagle Eye box. Wait for the Xbox 360 to register the controller.

Step Three:

Now, remove the controller from the Eagle Eye and connect your mouse and keyboard.  You should now be able to navigate the dashboard.

We are not finished yet.

Step Four:

Start up a game. Your keyboard should be working perfectly, but chances are the mouse is jerking around and moving rather slowly… so reach for that instruction manual, because it’s time to adjust for your mouse’s individual dead zones and sensitivity!

Step Five:

Using the keyboard’s function keys and scroll wheel, slowly tweak your controls until you’re able to aim a bit smoother and faster. Just keep experimenting.  To help you pass the time, scream obscenities at the device.

Finally, once you make some progress, press the F6 key to save your settings to the Eagle Eye Converter.

Technically, saving that painstaking calibration should mean that you won’t need to do this again, but the odds of your mouse working perfectly are pretty slim. From my experience, after messing with these advanced controls, I was eventually able to get a modicum of smoothness, but it would still jerk and freeze up while I was turning, causing me to catch a lot of bullets with my face.

Ownage Never Comes

During my time with the Eagle Eye Converter 3.0, I gave it a go in Call of Duty and Brink. I was definitely able to line up some specific shots that normally wouldn’t be possible. In the center area of the screen, the mouse control certainly gives you an advantage.  Outside of that sweet spot though, it’s a different story. If you need to quickly spin to face an enemy, you’re already dead. I’m not an expert, but I don’t really think that’s an accurate definition of “ownage.”

Let’s not even get into the beating I took in Serious Sam.

Is This Thing Worth It?

Penguin United was nice enough to send us a review sample, but frankly this just isn’t a very good device.  Even if there is some aspect of set-up that I’m missing, that’s beside the point.  I’m reasonably tech-savvy. If I’m getting confused, chances are that other people will be confused too. The Eagle Eye is a good idea, but I wouldn’t buy one myself. It has all the warm user-friendliness of a Cinco product.

I’ll give Peguin United this, though: The keyboard component does work pretty well for Street Fighter IV.  So if you wanted a cost effective way to turn your keyboard into a homemade HitBox, well, here you go.

Real Talk: If you’re a console player looking for a little bit of a competitive edge, I recommend that you buy a set of KontrolFreeks. They’re only ten bucks and greatly increase your accuracy and control with a gamepad. After a week or two of use, I couldn’t imagine playing without them.  I still may not be an “OWNAGE” expert, but they have definitely helped me step up my game.

What is up friends of the internt!?! It’s the 2011 Drunken X-Mas special!

Join me (Joe) along with Corey (Pooh Bear), Greg, Mika, Adam and Ryan for what could possibly, maybe be, the greatest X-mas special of anything podcast related ever!… Perhaps.

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Sequence is an interesting game. It is the first outing for indie video game developer; Iridium Studious. In fact, the original release was not on any major service, but just on X-Box Live Indie games. This service is home to games generally made by extremely small groups, with minimal budget, and often just for practice. In addition, it is a combination of a rhythm based game and an RPG. With such an interesting marriage of genres, it begs the question; can a game with such a clash of styles be worth playing?

The first thing to discuss with this game is the sound. It is the key part of any rhythm game. And, in this case, it is brilliant. Iridium Studios hired two artists, DJ Plaeskool and Ronald Jenkees, to do the music for this game. It is actually, to an extent, better than many other music games. Most music games pick popular music and try to match the gameplay to it, not caring whether it is good music for the game. In this case, the music was designed solely to be for this game. And it works. These songs, despite the varying styles, are all fun to listen to, they are inoffensive, and really make the game more fun. Sequence is a game that uses sound to maximum effect, as can be expected from a rhythm game. In addition, this game has a plot. The plot is generally two characters interacting; the protagonist, and his handler who is pretty much a voice from an intercom.

The plot is relatively slow, only advancing once a level is completed. However what makes up for it is the constant stream of jokes. These aren’t jokes that demean the plot, either. They’re the kind of jokes made by people who are just witty. A constant stream of quotable one-liners flows from the characters. In addition, the stage bosses are a pleasure to fight.

Even if the plot is rather basic, described as a “guy trapped in a mysterious dungeon that must figure out what is going on” sort of event but the sheer execution makes the game a pleasure. It is the kind of game that the player will replay again and again, just to see their favorite one-liners. It’s the kind of game where a script FAQ would be printed out, so it can be read like a novel. In short, this game trades length of script, and makes the trade worth it.

The gameplay as well is important, and this is also a success. The main principle of the gameplay is that the player plays DDR. Arrows come down, player hits the arrows in time with the music. Good things happen when the player hits notes, bad things happen when the player misses. It seems simple, and should be…but the game adds some interesting complications.

First, this is not a DDR versus mode match. The computer does not play by the same rules as the player. Instead, there are three windows. The player must play DDR in all three windows at the same time. This seems impossible, except for the twist. One window, the mana window, can safely be ignored. There is no penalty for missing. Instead, whenever the player hits a note, they gain MP. MP maxes out, so the player really only needs to use it when restoring after casting a spell. The second window is the defensive window. Every so often, and not in a constant stream, the enemy attacks. This gives the player plenty of time to shift windows, or cast their own spells in between the attacks, but not enough that it gets boring. As for the third window, that’s where attack spells are cast. The player has to hit a small series of notes perfectly, or your attack fails. This would be frustrating, but the tolerance for hitting is pretty generous, a good few spells have VERY few notes, and the game allows the player to practice as much as they want.

In the end it creates an interesting and unique main battle system. The only flaw with the game is the progression. The player progresses by gathering items from enemies and these items randomly drop. In short, the only way to progress is by grinding. Fortunately, this grinding is not too extensive. Most items drop after five matches, maximum. In addition, the player gets to choose which enemies they face, and when. So, they have control over the spawn rates to an extent. In addition, the gameplay itself is so fun that the grinding is an actual pleasure, not a problem. The equipment system uses the same crafting as progression, since progression is simply crafting a key. There is one more unique element. To craft, the player bids experience points and can even level down. This, as can be guessed, means the player has even more reason to grind, adding a bit of longevity to the game, even if it’s artificial longevity. Again however, the actual fun of the game makes up for it.

The graphics are also surprisingly good, and never feel low budget. The game uses still CG portraits, like a visual novel, or dialogue in Chantelise or Recettear. The trick is, the game never uses anything else.

Enemy sprites are portraits, characters are portraits, and the backgrounds are still. Some graphics tricks are used with attacks, usually slashes across the screen and such, but all in all, it’s still portraits. This is a clever graphics saving measure, as the portraits are beautiful, and the game never feels ‘cheap’. Even though, in practice, there’s practically no animation.

Final Call: All in all, this game is perfect. There’s just only one real flaw, and that’s made moot by the gameplay. There are no ways the game can be improved, and it’s a genuine joy to play. It’s never a trudge, always fun, and can be played for minutes or hours.

Pros

• Fun gameplay, good scripting
• Cheap, but surprisingly good graphics
• Flawless, and dirt cheap.

Cons

• Grinding. Lots of grinding.

Do you have more Club Nintendo Rewards points than you know what to do with? Loaded up on posters, folders, and cards? Well then Club Nintendo has the cure. You can now download Virtual Console and eShop games for the Wii and 3DS.

The games available at this time are Super Mario Kart (Wii),  Fluidity (Wii),  Xevious (3DS), and Mario vs.  Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (3DS).  At 100-150 Club Nintendo coins each,  these games are a steal. Normally they sell for $5. 99 to $12 each so get them while you can.  They will be removed from Club Nintendo Rewards on January 10th.

https://club.nintendo.com

On October 21^st, 2011 a story was put onto the mass video game news site Kotaku that stated a meeting was held after the release of id Software’s Rage with Bethesda and parent company Zenimax. It was said that the publisher was disappointed in reviews and overall sales of the developer’s recent game, Rage, and that they would have to postpone the development of Doom 4 indefinitely.

This story was immediately responded to by Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing, Pete Hines, when he stated on his twitter account that the rumor was “complete bollocks.” Furthermore it has been stated in the past that id Software had plans on continuing production on Doom 4 after the release of Rage. While this may still be true, and honestly I hope it is, the story got me thinking about the current landscape of gaming.

Things have changed over the years since id Software released Doom 3 back in 2004 to decent sales. Let’s pause for a second and focus on that sentence. The third installment to the godfather of the shooter genre’s biggest franchise only did decent sales back in 2004! Let’s keep in mind that this was during the time when a little game known as Halo was making its rounds. The FPS genre has come a long way since that time, and id is going to have to go back to the drawing board to re-evaluate what Doom is known for in order to get the blockbuster that they sorely need. All of this begs the question:

Can they be helped?

How Would Doom 4 Fare in the Current Market?

Since 2004, gaming has become a dominant force in entertainment. In 2008 it was reported that approximately 38% of US homes had a gaming console and in the very year after, The State of Media Democracy report said that the number had surged to around 60%. In the UK that number is even higher; in 2009 a study stated that there were enough consoles sold in the country to give 8 out 10 homes in the country a video game system.

These are all impressive figures for the industry and to think, back in 2004 the medium was just building steam and console based online multiplayer was in its infancy. The FPS genre was far from the beast it is now, and in 2011 it is fair to say that the type of game id Software created with Wolfenstein 3D is the most popular genre out there. Franchises like Halo, Call of Duty, and Battlefield have taken the market by storm, and in the case of the first two, broken video game sales records with each new release. Modern Warfare 3 sold over 9 million copies alone in its first two days, which is over double that of Doom 3’s reported total sales. It might also be worth noting that Doom 3 is considered id’s most successful game to date and it wasn’t even on the top 10 bestselling games of the year list during the year of its release.

Rage sold a modest 550,000 units in its first month which, while still okay by market standards, is far behind that of others within its genre. Id Software had hoped to retake its place on the top of the food chain with Bungie, Dice, Valve, and Infinity Ward with the release of Rage, but it came far below its goal. Rage received modest reviews from the media outlets, but the PC version was plagued with bugs and most of the negative press it got had to do with its linear single player campaign and weak multiplayer. If all this information serves any purpose, it is to answer the question asked above.

How would Doom 4 fare in the current market? If history has anything to say about it, not well. However, I have to wonder what can id Software do to really take back its place within the kingdom it helped create.

What Could Doom 4 Do To Retake Its Throne?

This is a complicated question that I am not remotely qualified to answer. I can however, take a shot. By looking at what areas of a current generation FPS’ have made a property popular, and how id software can use some of them to their advantage when re-inventing the Doom franchise. There are a few areas to look at, but the most diverse of which is how can the single player experience be re-worked to fit what audiences connect to in their shooters these days?

The mythology behind the Doom series lends itself to something bigger than what it has explored in the past and makes me consider the likes of games like Bioshock, Half Life 2, and even Borderlands. The Doom storyline takes place in the far future where humanity has begun to spread out and study the neighboring planet of Mars. In a science facility on that planet, something goes horribly wrong and a portal to hell is opened. Most of the denizens within the facility turn into some form of zombie, and tons of demons make their way into this plane of existence. The main hero is a marine stationed on the facility who fights to survive and eventually squelches the threat before it has the chance to do any real damage by reaching earth.

While Doom 3 added a bit of storyline to the proceedings, introducing an Umbrella Corporation like enemy that develops weapons and various other nefarious things. It didn’t much address the closed in and linear style of the game, nor did it do anything to up the ante in terms of threat. While Mars and bases on Mars are all well and good, they do lead to some spooky environment and a sense of claustrophobia that lends itself to jump-scares, they also lead to tons of look-alike corridors, a far too linear design, and a story that never really explores any sense of depth. The Doom series has never capitalized on some of its bigger ideas, e.g. the fact that it is about hell breaching our reality.

By exploring what it could mean if hell finds its way from Mars to Earth in some twist that extends gameplay and takes the series were it hasn’t gone before, as well as exploring how a future world would react to the knowledge that hell is indeed real. Some things that Half Life 2 did extraordinarily well is open up the world to a barrage of different locations, introduce new characters who grow along with the story, and study how society had grown and attempted to adapt since the events of the first game. Doom 4 could do well to do the same. We are talking about religion here, and a literal hell being unleashed on a futuristic earth that has grown in its technology and changed in ways that only further scientific discovery and 100 years can provide. It is an interesting setting to explore.

I for one would be intrigued at following a story that branched from Mars to an Earth that is attacked in a way that seemingly throws a societies understanding of theology for a loop. I would also like to see a change to the main character. A bad-ass space marine with no personality may have worked back in the day, but these days, if id Software wants to get people interested in the story again, the main character has to have a personality. That can still be a marine, or even more interestingly, a common individual. It could also go the Half-Life route yet again, and introduce interesting side characters that help establish the importance of the main character.

I bring up Bioshock because that is a game that was driven by an enclosed underwater city that made its mystery and creepiness as much a part of the story as its Ayn Rand like philosophy inspired plot. If Doom 4 is going to stay on Mars, it is critical that it inspires to make that place as interesting and beautiful as the abandoned society of Rapture. I also brought up Borderlands to suggest the possibility of Doom 4 giving itself over to a more open experience.

While I don’t think open world would work for the series, giving players more areas to explore and a sense of freedom from time to time could be good for the franchise. Considering the horror factor of the game, it would be both fascinating and frightening to be given some open ended freedom to explore a world overtaken by hell and fraught with panic.

The Doom series cannot rely on its usual setting and vague plot, the mythology behind it has so many possibilities yet explored. I for one would like to see the series reach for bigger ideals and take some serious notes from the biggest names in single player FPS games. For its next release to hit huge sales, it can’t rest on its laurels, because if the overall lukewarm reception in 2004 is anything to go by, they’ve got old a long time ago.

What Really Makes a Game Sale Huge These Days? Multiplayer!

One can arguably say that the reason behind the huge numbers for Halo, Call of Duty, and Battlefield are solely on their addictive and well utilized multi-player system. The Doom franchise is credited for spawning what we now play in our crack-like addictions, it is also well documented that it was the game game that created the term “death match.” The series has done a lot to inspire what has become a vast growing genre in a booming market.

Note 1: Gotta be better than this

Many games have been released with multiplayer systems developers hoped would compete with the giants in question. Most have not succeeded however; it appears that it is an area more difficult to develop than anything else. We have to give credit to where credit is due. Halo and Call of Duty changed the multiplayer landscape forever, and it is a difficult area to take on for many developers. The system created by Doom can be re-invented and tooled to target an audience that is looking for a faster paced and more arcade like shooter experience. Think Halo in scope and Unreal Tournament in pace.

I believe the series could do well in that arena, given its gore and its propensity for really big sci-fi weaponry. With a large enough force behind it, it can keep some of the old stand-bys and give us old time gamers back our frag-fest filled death matches where weapons are littered in set places throughout the map, but also go large in feel by being creative with other game modes.

The Halo franchise is at its best when it gets creative with its multiplayer. Think back when SWAT was introduced, or the popularity of Infection and Grifball. These are wild and off-kilter multiplayer games that throw conventions out the window. I think a series like Doom could do the same and do real well by keeping some traditional style matches, but also throwing out a few “fuck it, why not?” game types as well.

A perfect example of a "fuck it, why not?" game type

If id Software really wants its blockbuster in the FPS genre, multiplayer is where the money is and more than ever, this will have to be a big area for them to focus on. They can’t do what they did with Rage and just give us one game type that was only a minor mechanic in the main game. The vehicle combat was all well and good, but people that played the game really wanted to battle each other on foot as well. Consider the possibilities of popular game types with Doom mechanics and weaponry: Team style domination like Battlefield, a killstreak system like Call of Duty (only way to implement the BFG in most game types), or hell beast vs marines in a take on Left 4 Dead.

The possibilities are there for Doom to really take it to the market and give us players something fresh and cool. Let some of us remember the old days of over-the-top frag fests, while also working to expand, rather than confine, what is possible with older conventions. Modern Warfare and Battlefield may have made modern military operations cool, but Doom 4 has the opportunity to make sci-fi and ridiculous weapons cool again.

Note 2: This is a game type for multiplayer, not multiplayer in its entirety.

In Closing: Here’s hoping Bethesda didn’t shelf Doom 4, and the lukewarm reception to Doom 3 and Rage lit a fire under id Software’s butt that will give us a return to awesome that fans of the franchise have been waiting for. Would anyone really care about Doom 4? I hope id makes us care.

The last two years has been a great time for the 2D platforming genre with indie releases such as ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy making their way to the Xbox Live market to huge sales. The classic genre has even seen a very important return to the big leagues thanks to Nintendo with titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

2011 has been pretty good to this once forgotten old school style of game and November alone saw the release of two games that proved to be a return to form for their respective properties. Sonic Generations and Rayman Origins both came out to outstanding reviews, but one is certainly much better than the other. Rayman, the charming character without limbs returns for the first time since Hoodlum Havoc back in 2003. How does his re-debut fair?

In a word: Perfectly. Rayman Origins, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of everything 2D platforming. It is what every modern day project like this has built up towards. It is a wonder why he ever had to disappear in the first place and be replaced for a time by those snow like substance abusing Rabbids. Rayman by all means should have been a mascot on the level of Mario and Sonic, he is charming and he exists within a world that is easily one of the most imaginative within gaming. His games have largely been solid and praised for their precise controls and impeccable level design and he is an easily recognizable character.

From the moment the game is powered on, it is obvious the boys and girls at Ubisoft Montpellier have a particular love for this character and the world he resides in. The game is full to the brim with whimsy and charm, so much so that it is difficult not to smile and feel joyful about the opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of it. Every character, enemy, item, and level is hand-drawn with some of the best animations I have ever seen in a 2D space. The animations are alive with so much color and personality that the fact that there isn’t much of a story to follow is hardly an issue.

The amount of care and time in the animations and art is not wasted in anyway as the games mechanics are perfectly handled. Gone is the all too familiar double jump, but as the game progresses, Rayman and his friends are given other powers that continue to increase the challenges they will face in each level. Players will start the game with nothing more than a standard jump and wall jump. Later they will unlock the ability to punch, hover, swim, and even run on walls. With each move learned, the game stacks on the difficulty, and oh man does it get hard.

Don’t let Rayman Origins’ beautiful hand-drawn images fool you. This is not something just for kids, even for long time gamers, this game will kick your word that rhymes with crass. This is a platformer that will challenge players on a similar level that ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy did, but what those games did well, Rayman Origins perfects. Just like with From Software’s Dark Souls, Rayman Origins’ difficulty is a big part of why this game is so good. Never does a death feel cheap, and never does a level or a challenge feel impossible. Every death, every misplaced jump, and every little slip is a chance to learn and get better.

Never is this more the case than with the secret levels unlocked by collecting a certain number of electoons. Just like the stars in Super Mario Galaxy, electoons are the goal to each level and can be collected by not only completing a stage, but by completing certain obstacles within that stage. There are hidden areas in each level whose location is given away by an audible cue, there are yellow floating looms which, if you take the time to collect a certain amount of, will unlock an electoon, and there is even a speed run that can be unlocked after completing the level the first time. Up to 5 electoons can be rewarded on each level, and it can easily become an obsession to get them all. For me, the time trials were often the most fun as each of them meant I had to rush forward as fast as I could, getting around each and every obstacle in the level without dying once in order to reach the goal. If you die during a time trial run, the level will restart from the beginning. That alone was a big part of the challenge, more so than hitting the goal in time.

Rayman can only be hit once before death, and the only thing that can protect him are hearts that will act as a shield, protecting our limbless hero and his friends from a single hit (only one heart can be collected at a time). If my warning of the difficulty wasn’t enough to go by, it is really easy to get hit in this game, and every time you do…it is your damn fault. I cannot stress enough how beautiful of a thing that is in a game like this, that the mechanics and the camera are so precise, that a death is never the games fault. One of the things that annoyed me the most about Sonic Generations was that often the camera or a screw up with the control would cost me a difficult challenge. Never is that the case here, its mechanics have been fine tuned to perfection.

Even though Rayman Origins level design is some of the best I have seen this side of Super Mario Galaxy’s, the game will sometimes throw you for a loop by introducing new level types. Most worlds will have a level that has Rayman or one of his pals flying around on the back of a mosquito (or in the case of his big blue pal Globox, a mosquito riding him) in a horizontal scrolling shooter like Gradius. These levels never cease to be just as fun as the platforming stages, and by the end of the game become nearly as difficult as Gradius itself. Be prepared to float around through a hail of fireballs and on-screen chaos.

If players become dedicated to collecting as many Electoons as they can, they will be rewarded with secret levels that will have Rayman chasing a treasure chest. The animation that begins these sequences, with the treasure chest seeing his foe and imagining what he will do to him if he catches him, is hilarious. What follows is a fast paced chase that is quite possibly one of the best parts of the game. Each of the ten chase levels in the game are designed to require quick and precise jumps. Later they will even call on the ability to lightly tap the jump button to clear certain obstacles, rather than hold the button down and correct in mid-air like mostly every other level in the game.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to remember this tip for these levels: Never use the hovering mechanic. It will slow you down and almost always guarantee failure. These chase levels are so well designed that every obstacle can be cleared with a perfectly timed regular jump. They are also so difficult that the smallest mistake will mean death. They have to be cleared just shy of perfectly.

Speaking of secret levels, if you are able to collect all ten jewels from these chests, they will unlock the Land of the Livid Dead hidden stage. This is by far the most difficult level in the game and will call on everything you’ve learned from playing through the game to this point. I had to take many smoke breaks during that level to clear my head and get back to it. It is seriously hard, but just like every level in this game, it is fun as hell.

Rayman Origins also has a multiplayer mechanic that can make life a little easier with two players, or chaotic with more than that. In Co-Op the other player can resurrect a fallen friend by popping a bubble they are stuck in. It makes some of the more difficult levels a tad bit easier. At least that is what I’ve heard, since I beat the entire game with all Electoons and the secret stages all by my little self. I never got the chance to play co-op, but I can say as a single player game. This is one of the best I’ve played. I will eventually sit one of my friends down (who are all too busy with Battlefield 3) to play some Rayman with me.

Final Call: Rayman Origins is one of the best games I have played this year, and in my opinion is the best 2D platformer I have ever played. I know I used the word “perfect” quite a few times in this review, yet it is a descriptive phrase with a lot of weight. A word that this game deserves, I truly can not find any flaws worth noting. It is everything I look for in this style of game. The art style is incredibly detailed, filled with charm, and one of the most beautiful things I have seen in execution. The soundtrack is whimsical and brimming with just as much personality as the rest of the game. The level design is impeccable from the first stage to the last, and the difficulty is one of the best things about it. As far as I’m concerned, Mario can have the 3D platformers, because Rayman has just taken the crown for the 2D kingdom.

Pros

• Beautifully hand drawn everything
• Perfect gameplay mechanics
• Great soundtrack
• Some of the best level design in the genre
• Plenty of replayability for those who need to complete every challenge

Cons

• May be a bit too difficult for casual gamers
• Might get confused for a kid’s game

Third-Person Isometric RPGs have been around for a long time. Some of the most famous are Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, and the well-loved Fallout series. They’ve fallen to the wayside lately however, replaced with different styles. Even Fallout 3 now uses the same first-person system as Morrowind. Independent games have been taking up the slack, especially Spiderweb software, which has two series of games, concentrating on scripting with incredibly detailed character customization. Will their newest game; Avadon, be as good as Avernum and Geneforge?

The first thing that stands out in this game is the graphics. They are about at the level of early SNES games. Make no mistake, they aren’t bad nor does it really interfere with the gameplay. It’s just abundantly clear that the game does not have a huge budget. The sprites are amateurish but don’t have any obvious problems. The different stages feel copy-pasted, though the developers at least give each stage a distinctive look. The game has a very set number of character sprites, and in fact your main character’s sprite is just an unchanged version of one of the four companions. Sprites only really have walking, and battle animations. Still, you at least can see all the items you can pick up, and can tell the difference between friend and foe. The graphics never interfere with immersion, or gameplay.

The sound for this game is… well, to sum it up in one word, terrible. There is no background music in the game. No well-designed tunes to interest you during battle. There are sound effects, but they don’t interest. They have the clang of swords, the growl of enemies, and the background hum of conversation. But, while these sounds are present, that’s all they are. They don’t have a fire, or a sense of majesty. There is no voice acting, either. All in all, when playing this game, it’s easy to just turn off the volume and listen to a favorite song.

The scripting of this game, meanwhile, is superb. While it doesn’t have the sheer emotional impact of the Final Fantasy series, it is still well-done. The player has four companions, who bicker and talk with each other, comment on the environment, and have interesting motives, and even keep secrets that are only revealed when they learn to trust the hero. The NPCs as well have interesting characteristics, and even random quest-givers have motives and personalities. This is only helped, by the fact that the game is filled with text. Not in the sense of having lots of dialog, though it does. When you click on characters, a full window pops up on screen, and explains not just what the NPC says, but how they say it and their emotions as they do it. It’s detailed, feeling like a mini-novella. Even nameless guards get an explanation on how they’re tired and bored. The text actually really helps make up for the graphics, as the things that would normally be shown using graphics, are explained in the text. Even next-gen graphics are working hard to display the kind of emotions this gives.

The world that’s created is quite interesting, a group of nations held together by an ancient Pact, and the power of the Black Fortress. Yet, while the Pact protects them, it also takes away rights, some of which are sacred. The Pact is not perfect and those imperfections are only growing. Then the player enters, and does what all players do. Poke at things, and change the situation. The scripting alone would be enough to grant this game a 10/10.

Unfortunately, this is a game, and as such the gameplay is important. At this, the game…well, it doesn’t fail, but it doesn’t reach the heights of the script, either. The first thing to go over is character creation. Each character has four stats, and it’s generally clear which stat needs to go up to fight better. Melee Fighters use strength, ranged fighters use dexterity, mages use intelligence, and vitality increases HP. Since enemy damage is so low, vitality never really comes up. Generally, the best plan is to take the main stat and pump it up to the maximum every level. Each character has a large selection of skills; each of the four classes gets 11 skills they can pick between. Unfortunately, these come in three rows of three, with the bottom skill needed before the top skill. And, while the character gets two skill points per level, enabling a new skill costs two points. To get as many skills as possible, it will take the player quite a bit of time, especially since there’s an interesting pattern of prerequisite skills. The player generally has to get skills from two rows, to get the next in one row. The set-up looks nice, but in practice tends to push people to over-generalize. A reasonable plan is to just buy up two rows, to get to the ultimate skill at the top.

Now, while character customization is important, especially for a Spiderweb Software game, the important part is the gameplay. And most of it is well done. It has a large variety of quests, multiple areas to explore, and quite a few items to pick up. A nice touch that Spiderweb Software games have is junk items. Not just items that are junk to sell, they have true, honest to goodness junk. Bones, skulls, clay pots, all of these can be picked up. Considering most heroes are well known for taking anything that isn’t locked down, it is nice, right up there with Morrowind. Items that are not yours are also clearly labeled, so it’s much easier to avoid accidentally touching someone’s fork, and getting arrested. In fact, many junk items do not count as stealing, period, even if they would logically belong to someone else. The areas are also fun to explore, with a lot of neat secrets, and easter eggs. NPCs have plenty of options to talk about, and there is another major complaint.

The combat is problematic. As I mentioned before, there is a reason that the player should select as many different skills as possible. Cooldown times are INSANELY high. Generally, cooldown will be longer then the entire battle lasts. Furthermore, while health regenerates in a matter of seconds outside of battle, the points used to cast spells do not regenerate at all. The only way to recover them is to rest back at Avadon, the home base. This generally requires exiting whatever area the player is currently exploring, going to the pylon in another area, clicking on it, healing, and leaving. The net effect is to encourage rationing skills as much as possible. Besides, basic attacks will take out most enemies in one hit, and group attacks are generally reserved for one of the higher-tier spells.  The characters even start out with one real attack skill and can have only four easy access skills. Most of the battles consist of a horde of enemies rushing towards the heroes, dying in one or two hits, and doing pathetic damage. Even on normal, the game is surprisingly easy. Enemies just don’t do enough damage to feel threatening. Bosses have surprisingly high HP, but once away from their minions, they’re quite vulnerable to surrounding them, and just spamming normal attacks. The overall effect makes the game rather like a trudge. Still, there are plenty of shining moments, such as an enemy mage, a three-on-three fight against boss-class enemies, a group of lizards that use a vanishing trick to jump up within range. It does not help that combat is nearly impossible to avoid, making up a significant focus of the gameplay time. Fortunately, there are no annoying random encounters, and once an enemy is dead, it stays dead. A cleared out level is safe.

Final Call: All in all, upon careful consideration, even the bad combat doesn’t make the game boring. The bad sound doesn’t even really matter either. Avadon is, ultimately, worth it, with an interesting story, good scripting, and a great atmosphere. This would be a perfect indie game if the combat was less of a trudge, and it felt less low-budget. It’s worth every penny, and is a game that should be played by anyone with the money to buy it.

Pros

• System that rewards exploration
• Plenty of side-quests
• High-quality script

Cons

• Lumbering combat system
• Bad Dated Graphics
• Boring sound

Happy Dashboard Day! The newest revision to the Xbox 360 UI is available now after a brief delay this morning. Sticking with Microsoft’s new Metro obsession, get ready for page after page of flattened tiles, complete with nestled ads and a wide array of various sized boxes. If you’ve got a Windows Phone or the Windows 8 beta, you should feel right at home in box country.

One of the biggest changes aside from the visual aesthetic is the full Kinect motion and voice integration. Now you can change panes with a wave of a hand nearly anywhere you are in the Xbox interface. Swipe through lists with the flick of your wrist, or just tell Bing what you want and let her do the work. If you’ve been using Windows 8 with a mouse, you’ll know how antiquated your controller will feel when not using gestures to navigate the new UI. It works, but Minority Report would have been much less impressive if they would have been sitting at desks researching crime patterns on Altavista, Dogpile, and Compuserve.

While all these changes are fine and integrating the look of Microsoft’s other platforms makes sense, the folks at Microsoft have a loftier goal. They want you to turn your Xbox 360 on every time you turn on your television. While that may be already a truth for some of us, expanding the Xbox 360 to a cable box, PPV hub, HBO/Cinemax portal, and Redbox alternative, all go to their goal to “change living room entertainment forever.”

I have avoided Sonic games for a good long time now. The last one I laid my hands on was Sonic Heroes, which was an overall broken experience. Since then I neglected to care about the blue hedgehog with attitude; the series had gone off the rails into being unimaginative and frustratingly flawed. I didn’t want my childhood memories to take any more hits, as I was one of the kids who held Sonic in high esteem and adopted the Genesis over the Super Nintendo. I still believe the four Sonics on the Genesis are some of the strongest platformers of that early generation. The years have not been kind to him however, and the third dimension has nearly destroyed the credibility of Sega’s mascot. The continued redevelopment of the franchise has only succeeded in hurting the franchise, and the new additions only proved to be a departure from what made it so damn fun in the first place. The Sonic franchise isn’t about riding around on skates and using guns, it isn’t about running around with a sword, it isn’t about turning into a werewolf, and it for damn sure isn’t about Sonic experiencing a blossoming social life with other random animals with attitude.

There was once a time when this mascot went head to head with Nintendo’s plumber and during its height was even considered better by quite a large group. As time went on though, Mario continued to get better and better and Sonic continued to become an embarrassment to itself with each release being reminiscent of all those 80’s hair bands trying to stay relevant by dropping a new shitty album well after their prime. It didn’t work for Mötley Crüe, it didn’t work for Guns N’ Roses, and it for damn sure didn’t work for Sonic. Unlike these bands though, Sonic has seen a couple of releases recently that were strong and further proof that it was possible to make a good Sonic game.

For Sonic’s 20^th birthday we see the release of Sonic Generations, and I have no shame in saying that it is yet another good game in the series and a return to form for the blue guy. Sonic Team has finally gone back to what made the series so much fun, fast gameplay mixed with twitch based platforming. There is a story here and while it is mostly dumb, it is exactly what it needs to be; an excuse to make this a Sonic only game. Thank god for that by the way. The game opens with Sonic throwing a birthday party with all of his friends, then suddenly a monster appears and tears away the fabric of time and space, kidnaps his friends, and throws Sonic into a sort of limbo. In this Limbo, new Sonic is introduced to his child self, and they both learn that by running at high speeds through areas of their life, they can return time to normal. Not exactly scientifically sound, but it is an excuse to run really fast and play as both a 3D sonic from the likes of Sonic Colors, and an improved 2D Sonic from the likes of Episode 4.

Each level in the game is a re-imagining of a stage from every game in the series, from the good games to the bad. Thankfully, the bad game’s stages have been re-imagined into being awesome and often times a tad bit challenging. It is really fun going back through levels from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (the only good 3D Sonics) in 2D, and overall the new sonic stages are more exciting with the way they move from 3D to 2D seamlessly. At times however, they are frustratingly bogged down by a wonky camera and the occasional action not performing the way it should. The homing missile move that sonic has adapted over the years adds to the fast jumps that rely heavily on quick reflexes that many of us have honed over the years, yet sometimes, it just doesn’t work out of nowhere resulting in a quick, unfair death. The camera will also tend to get stuck on a corner or refuse to function correctly, and these moments lead to a complete halt to the action as the player struggles to get things back on track.

2D Sonic, on the other hand, is solid in every single level, and some of the later stages are challenging and well designed. Making this all feel like a refreshing return to the status quo. The main game can go by just as fast as the action itself and if done doing the bare minimum, can easily be completed in less than 5 hours. What makes the experience last is the introduction of challenge stages that open up before boss battles after 3 levels have been completed by both Sonics. There are multiple challenge stages for each level and each of them can be played by both Sonics. The challenges range from more enemies in a redesigned version of the stage, to only 1 ring to get through an entire section, to racing against a doppleganger, to a ton more options. Most of these are a lot of fun and add a challenge to the game that otherwise is non-existent. There are some on the other hand that are incredibly dumb and ruin the fun, more often than not these bad stages are the ones that call on Sonics buddies to help out.

Seriously, screw all of Sonic’s friends, all they serve to do is hold him back from being great. Most of them commit the one cardinal sin of this franchise; slow the game down. These challenge stages are frustrating not because they are difficult, but because of how utterly bad they are. Luckily, these challenges don’t have to be completed to move on, but if you are a completionist, prepare to want to curse the day Sonic ever decided to have a social life.

Bosses do make a return to the franchise, with seven battles in total; they are all mostly well-built and sort of fun. I would have much rather had a boss to end each stage like they used to however, I didn’t much like the way things were laid out here. Each section of 3 levels is capped by a final boss in a random level designed only for that fight, which can only be unlocked by completing one challenge stage for each level. There is also the mid-boss type that is a fight with one of Sonic’s rivals, again in their own stage. Most of them are fun in their own way, but are definitely not a high-point in the game. The final boss is extra guilty for just plain being badly designed and the furthest thing away from fun.

Final Call: Sonic has returned to being a good game, and added with the apparently awesome Sonic Colors, Sega may have finally figured out what made these games good in the first place. I don’t think he will be at the level of greatness that Mario is at ever again, because while Mario continues to evolve with each release, Sonic has had to de-evolve in order to remember what made him awesome in the first place. Hopefully with time Sonic Generations can be looked back on as a step towards the greatness that one of my favorite mascots has always deserved. The game is very short and even with the additional challenge stages, it is only about a 10 hour experience. Sonic Generations as a whole is a good game. Not a great one, but a really good one worth a rental.

Pros:

• Fast and exciting gameplay
• Imaginative level design that is continuously exhilarating
• Most Challenge levels add a fair amount of difficulty to the game
• Beautiful graphics that add a layer of depth to each stage
• Remixed soundtrack is mostly great

Cons:

• Occasional camera bugs can lead to misjudging a jump or halting the action
• Fickle control scheme can sometimes break, leading to unfair deaths
• Challenge levels with Sonic’s friends are mostly atrocious
• Boss battles are either okay or bad

I kind of feel like I’ve become a missionary for Naughty Dog in regards to the Uncharted series.  With every person I approach, I whip out an Uncharted strategy guide and excitedly ask them “Do you have a moment to talk about the Church of Nathan Drake?” Some people may think I’m joking, but I can assure you, I’m very serious. In fact, I’ve already converted a couple of previous naysayers, and now they don’t know how they lived before accepting Drake into their lives.  I was starting to calm down a bit with my search for spiritual enlightenment through the Uncharted series, and then the third installment, Drake’s Deception came out.

And I have seen the face of God in this game.

In all seriousness, I’m not going to delve too deeply into the story of Drake’s Deception.  I feel that if I were to just focus on the story of the game, it would really ruin a good amount for anyone who hasn’t played it yet.  I will say that the game does take you to several exotic locations that haven’t been visited in Uncharted thus far, and every detail placed into each location is nothing less than astonishing.  There are so many intricate details in every location… the landscapes are remarkable, the characters look the most real they’ve ever looked, and interaction with inanimate objects and other surroundings have been worked into the gameplay flawlessly.

Aside from the graphical upgrade this sequel received, there were gameplay features that got some tweaking too.  Melee and brawl attacks were definitely a facet in combat in both Drake’s Fortune and Among Thieves, but it wasn’t until Drake’s Deception that they got the focus they’ve needed.  To be honest, I tried avoiding fist fights as often as possible in the previous Uncharted games, simply because it wasn’t perfected; landing a punch seemed difficult and often buggy at times.  However, in Uncharted 3, I’d have to say that brawling got the biggest overhaul.  There are big guys that are more difficult to fist-fight called Brutes that seem to deal more damage and take less overall.  These guys are probably the most fun to fight because of how Drake reacts.  Obviously, fighting a guy twice your size is going to be a bit difficult, and it’s entertaining to see Drake get increasingly fatigued as he lands each blow and entertains the player with his famous witty one-liners.

Other small improvements to gameplay overall include throwing back grenades (I can’t tell you how happy I was with this one), and shooting while swimming.  To throw back a grenade, you have to be relatively near it and time it just right by hitting the triangle button.  Drake will pick it up and make panicked sounds, and then usually throw it in the direction of whichever enemy threw it at you.  I say usually because there were many times that Drake’s arm didn’t extend out far enough, and once thrown, it ended up hitting a wall right in front of him and exploding, resulting in death and me screaming at my TV.  I played on Hard mode my first run-through, and a close grenade explosion equals instant death.  I couldn’t tell you if that’s different on Normal mode, but I’d assume you might catch a bit of a break.  As far as swimming goes, I honestly had no idea that you even COULD shoot and swim (I found out while browsing the Trophy list).  It’s something I’ve yet to try, but there are a couple parts of the game (especially before the big cruise ship area, as seen in the E3 2011 demo from Sony’s press conference) where this could’ve proved useful had I previously known about it.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

In regards to the characters, there is definitely a lot of development that occurs in this installment, especially between Drake and Sully.  Okay, little bit of spoiler alert: We get to see them meet and how their friendship/partnership began.  This was probably my favorite part of the game overall, because it finally answers some questions about Drake, but in the same regard, poses even more (that are unfortunately left unanswered).  Returning supporting characters include Chloe, who thankfully looks like a real person in this game – she looked super creepy and unrealistic in Among Thieves; and Elena, who is super awesome as always, and was also given a major story development in between 2 and 3 that’s vaguely hinted at throughout this sequel.  New characters include Charlie Cutter, who looks quite a bit like Jason Statham and is every bit as awesome, and the villains Marlowe, an old British lady; and Talbot, her much younger, dick-faced second-in-command, who seems to hang around Marlowe in hopes of gettin’ some Cougar action.  There are some new side protagonists and antagonists, but to be honest, their introductions and interactions with the other established characters were very weak; essentially, these new side characters were developed to be thrown away by the game’s end.

While I can readily admit that the Uncharted franchise has become a rival to Zelda in terms of my all-time favorite, I felt that Drake’s Deception wasn’t as strong as Among Thieves in regards to plot and new characters.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of amazing action sequences, and I like that they took a new direction for the “supernatural twist” in this game, but I don’t feel that this sequel lived up to its predecessor.  I’d probably give Drake’s Fortune a B or B-, depending on my mood, give Among Thieves a perfect A+ with about 20 extra credit points, and Drake’s Deception a A-.  I definitely loved the game, but it’s not as perfect as other review sites have claimed it to be.  The story was definitely the weakest point, and posed so many new questions while only answering a few that have been around since the series’ creation.  Not to mention that I ran through the entire story in less than 9 hours.  I would love to see a richer plot in the next game, and definitely a good three or four hours added to the campaign.  The Uncharted games are praised for being incredibly cinematic with their caliber being akin to that of a big-budget Hollywood movie, which is true… But a video game shouldn’t last as long as a typical blockbuster flick.

Final Call: All in all, I was pleased with Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.  It got me excited for Golden Abyss, which will launch alongside the PSVita in February, and makes me sad that I have to wait at least two years for Uncharted 4.  Until then, I will view each game as a Holy Scripture in the book of Nathan Drake, and with each installment that is released, I will get closer and closer to reaching video game nirvana.

Pros:

• One of the best looking games out there
• Revamped combat system that makes hand-to-hand combat fun this time
• Top-Notch voice acting as always

Cons:

• The occasional unfair death
• Plot weaker overall than previous two installments
• Extremely short

Dice is not playing around with its first DLC for its big hit Battlefield 3. The promised free expansion that was given to consumers who bought the Special Edition of the game is more than just a map pack. It will give fans of the game 4 new maps, three new vehicles, ten new weapons, five new dog tags, five new achievements/trophies, and lastly a whole new game mode. The game mode while not exactly new, is the return of Conquest Assault which for those not familiar is a hectic version of Conquest. Conquest Assault starts with one team fully in control of every spot immediately putting one team on offensive and the other tasked to defend their territory.

The four “new” maps included in the DLC are re-worked versions of the most popular classic Battlefield maps: Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Sharqui Peninsula, and Wake Island. Each map is re-designed with the new Frostbite 2.0 engine which will leave more buildings to be destroyed and a change up for even those familiar with these maps. Dice has gone back through each of the maps and re-made them to show the wear and tear of all the battles that had played out on them previously. These are war torn places and fans will be surprised to see how much has changed on their favorite battlefields.

“The launch of Battlefield 3 was only the beginning as we vow to keep the game alive with additional content and gameplay improvements in the months ahead. We’re excited to recreate and share some new Battlefield moments on these beloved maps that only Battlefield games can provide,” Says Executive Vice President of the EA Games Label, Patrick Soderlund, adding, “Back to Karkand is another way for us to say thanks to our fans and show our continued support for the game.”

As a fan of the game, Mr. Soderlund, I say “you’re welcome and thank you.” This is big news for anyone who got their hands on the Special Edition of Battlefield 3 and even for those who didn’t. If you aren’t one of the lucky ones, the DLC will only be $14.99 and for all the content provided, the price tag is worth it.

Back to Karkand will be available Tuesday December 6th for PS3 owners. Xbox and PC owners will have to wait a whole extra week when the DLC drops for them on December 13th.

Can't Wait

Ladies and gentlemen, stop modding your Wiis. If a forum post and screen shot found in the NeoGAF Forums turns out to be true, you could be playing a localized version of Xenoblade Chronicles as early as 4/3/2012. The screen shot from the post, apparently from GameStop’s computer system, says that the game will be a GameStop exclusive and will have a price tag of $49.99. I did a quick check of the other games featured in the screen shot and everything matches up pretty well.

This release date would make sense to help bridge the gap between the Wii and Wii U. Also, Nintendo of America already had a solid Holiday lineup with Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Mario Kart 7. An April release date for Xenoblade Chronicles would give these games plenty of time on store shelves to get the sales that they need. April is also traditionally the low point for game sales for the year.

Here’s to hoping that the rumors are true and that we can finally get an epic JRPG for the Wii here in the good ol’ US of A.

[UPDATE] CONFIRMED! http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/09LPao0thCWTobgndPH5UTuz4zsz63F4

Orcs Must Die is an indie title made by Robot Entertainment which is a recently founded company and a newcomer to the genre, leaving them with a clean slate. Regardless of their lack of pedigree however, there are expectations to live up to, particularly if you take into account the advertisements for the game. This game was advertised as a mixture of a Tower Defense game and an over-the-shoulder Diablo. The impressions from the ad campaign were that it was a brainless, silly game. The important question is, is Orcs Must Die worth the $15? And, is it any better than Sanctum, which came out first for a mere $10?

The first thing that interested me about Orcs Must Die is the scripting. I say scripting as opposed to story because the story itself is relatively light, but there is quite a bit more than expected from this type of game.  There are actual cut-scenes, even if they are simply still images with narration by the mentor character. As for the tone, it is quite funny; this game does not take itself seriously.  The main character is consistently snarky and makes silly comments to amuse the players alongside the chatter of the orcs. The steady stream of witty banter and the high number of enjoyable lines help keep the game moving. Unlike a similar game in the genre; Blood Bowl, spoken dialogue is rarely repeated in the middle of a wave. Even in the early waves dialogue is rarely repeated, which helps preserve realism and keep the game from getting boring. The sound design is also well-done, shifting as the player come closer to death as well as providing cues when they are in danger.

The graphics are smooth and free of pixilation, and there is a bevy of genuinely different Orc designs. While the special units are all the same, there are enough ‘standard’ orc models that you don’t see a sea of bland clones coming at you, which is a problem with quite a few tower defense games. The effect of the traps on the enemies also adds to the enjoyment. The orcs explode into bloody chunks if the player uses the right weapon, go flying if hit with a physics trap, and turn a putrid shade of light green if they are poisoned them. This really helps provide the player with incentive to try out numerous, creative traps, and adds to the cartoonish atmosphere.
The gameplay consists mostly of simple, standard, tower defense. The enemies follow a path, conveniently highlighted by a sparkling trail, though unlike many 2D tower defense games, the path is malleable, allowing the player to put a barricade in their way and force them into a specific route.

Now, while it is called tower defense, instead of using towers, the player uses ‘traps’. A giant wall full of arrows, a large pit of spikes, a giant masher… a single trap is likely to knock an orc to half health in one go, or kill it completely. The hero has a crossbow and a staff, but the staff will get you swarmed and killed, and the crossbow only nets you a kill if you get a headshot.  The staff is a melee weapon, but since the orcs come in waves of large groups at once, melee is generally a bad idea. Luckily, the crossbow is rapid-fire, but unluckily, the accuracy tanks if the player just cram down on the attack button. The player has to be careful to use short, controlled bursts, for maximum effectiveness.  Figuring out where to put the traps and the graphic design all work together to make the player think, plan, and then kill orcs. Unfortunately, it is easy to place the traps a little too well, and have the level run on auto-pilot, especially on later levels with more waves, but it doesn’t detract from the fun too much. Generally, the number of waves is short enough that it is not much of a bother.

Orcs Must Die also has a good difficulty range, and is never unfair. The game introduces new mechanics gradually, allowing you to replay old levels for better scores, and has three difficulty levels. There are 24 levels that last anywhere between 5 to 15 minutes each, but with multiple difficulty levels and the implantation of leaderboards (the only multi-player aspect to the game), help keep it interesting. If the game’s too hard to beat, it is because the player failed to learn what a previous level was teaching. Things I learned? Headshots are important, and barricades lure orcs to chokepoints.  On the other side of the fence, you face flying enemies, fast enemies, and Ogres that ignore physics traps. That is until the traps are upgraded, then the Ogres can get thrown right into a conveniently placed lava pit.

Even if the traps aren’t upgraded, headshots punch right through the Ogre’s armor. The only problem with this is that the kinds of traps used might not change. I found arrow traps as my main stand-by, doing great damage with good range, and generally being quite practical. On the downside, they are also a bit boring. But the other, less useful traps are still fun to watch. There is still a place for these neglected traps, and they do become less useful traps are still fun to watch. There is still a place for these neglected traps, and they do become more and more useful as you upgrade them.

Final Call: Orcs Must Die is genuinely fun, a major success at making a silly combination of tower defense and action. The script is entertaining, the story does more than just exist, the sound adds to everything, and you get to kill a bunch of orcs. What’s not to like? It may not be a must-get incredible hit, but it is definitely something you should check out if you are looking for a $20 or less game.

Pros

• Good action game with a fun atmosphere
• High replayability if competitive and want to climb up the leaderboard
• Variety of traps

Cons

• Easy to rely on the early traps a bit too much
• Good trap placement can render the player practically invincible

I have never really used gaming headsets before other than with PC, so i decided to check out the Tritton Detonators. The headset is developed by Tritton and Mad Catz for Xbox 360 and comes with all the necessary attachments for HDMI or component. There is a wireless version or entry level wired retailing for $79.99. There is a bit of wire clutter but after a quick and easy hook up you just need to plug in the detachable mic and you’ll be ready for an amazing gaming experience.

Let me start by breaking down the physical aesthetics. The top head rail  has a comfort fit padding to rest on your head for long gaming sessions. The ear pieces have a swivel design which allows you to bend in three separate ways. This comes in handy when you want to put one ear piece to the side to hear the person next to you while leaving your other ear covered DJ style. The headset never feels uncomfortable and maneuvers easily. The ear pieces have a pleather covering which blocks a out a lot of sound and fit snuggly around the ears.

The head set comes with a pretty nice controller with a Selective Voice Monitoring button that allows you to hear your own voice. This not only lets you know how loud you are talking but you feel like you’re radioing for storm trooper back up. There is also volume adjustment for in game and chat volume as well as a button to cut off either one. Having experienced some high end head phones in the past, I can say that for this price range, you are getting very impressive sound quality. It tones down major noises like explosions or bomb drops and balances out dialogue with environmental sounds.

You aren’t getting a real quality surround sound effect but it does make the gaming experience more personal and highly preferable. While playing through Modern Warfare 3, I was able to hear the usual foot steps and vehicle movement but was surprised to hear bullets whizzing by and mosquitoes near my ear. I also tried the Detonators out on my iPod, and the sound quality really is amazing. Most headsets going for under $100 right now don’t really match up to these. I was really impressed with how clear music sounded and well it handled different games like Modern Warfare  and Assassins Creed. If you’re looking to stay under $100 i highly justify picking these for the holidays, they will no doubt enhance any game you pick up this year.

Sound Quality: 8/10
Maneuverability: 7/10
Portability: 7/10
Accessibility: 8/10

I sat inside of an inn, basking in the warmth of the fireplace as I read over a few books that I had collected along my journey. The quaint establishment was full of chatter that ranged from talk of a thieves guild I had helped re-establish to a bard playing his lute while singing a song I had heard many times. Patrons interacted with each other independently of my influence, and even gathered around the singing bard, waving their cups in the air along with the song. It was a small moment, one of many, but one I couldn’t help but to seep myself into as I sat on my own couch in the real world eating a meal that would keep me going for a few more hours. I had barely delved into the main quest to rescue the world from the threat of the dragons that looked to end the world, but I had cleared my way through many dungeons and conquered what they had laid out before me. Uncovering many stories within that I might otherwise had missed. It was this sense of discovery in a world that never ceased to give me things to do that inspired me to impart so much of my free time into a game that rarely failed to immerse me in a way I had never been before in this medium of entertainment.

There are so many small moments within Skyrim that stuck in my memory and made me happy that I had a bit of a problem staying on target while playing. I had met old gods named Daedra Princes, that had me do their bidding against my better judgement, I had run into a man in another inn and joined him in a drinking contest that ended in something like The Hangover: Medieval Times. I had even stumbled into the mind of a long dead ruler that had been driven mad, and I had shared a feast with an old god in a moment that reminded me a bit of the tea party with the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. The world of Skyrim had made me feel regret for a few of my actions, it made me chuckle as I played a game of tag with a few kids in a city, and it always made me feel inspired to continue to discover what was hidden within the frozen mountainous land of the Nords (The Elder Scrolls version of the Vikings). Bethesda‘s magnum opus to the open world genre had me grinding away hours of my life picking flowers, hunting deer for their hides, and chasing after butterflies like a child with attention deficit disorder just because I could. It was essentially a gateway to a wonderful new place that made me realize that I possibly had a few mental disorders I wasn’t otherwise aware of.

Skyrim is an exquisitely crafted piece of a world that has been built upon over five different games, and it is thick with mythology and lore so finely detailed that it is absolutely mind-blowing to consider the amount of time put into each slice of the entire life sucking pie. A pie that can easily consume well over 100 hours of a gamer’s free time. Skyrim made me a feel like I had missed something when I had put away Oblivion, only playing it for maybe ten hours before I had forgotten to pick it up again. It made me regret that I had never tried to go back through Morrowind when it had glitched on me many hours in and made a main character disappear, ruining my chances to play through the main storyline. I had however played through Fallout 3 in a fashion that could only be described as religious, so I knew full well what Bethesda was capable of. Yet, no matter how much I loved the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout, Skyrim had introduced me to the harsh continent of Tamriel and I was enamored by the amount of detail woven into every bit of it.

Skyrim is a game defined by the small moments like the ones I described in the first two paragraphs. While the main quest has its moments, the freedom of the open world led to a path that I imagined looked more like a heart rate monitor than a straight cohesive line to an objective. There is very seldom a sense of urgency, and while a player is fully aware the world is under the threat of world ending dragons and that they are the chosen dragonborn with the destiny to defeat them, it is just far more fun to run up that mountain and see what’s over the ridge. It feels like a bit of a downfall, but one hardly worth being much of a complaint. Bethesda has done a wonderful job accumulating all they have learned from their previous games and streamlined much of the content that bogged down the experience of the previous installments. No longer is character creation about picking a class and having to stick to it, things are as simple as choosing a race with some benefits in one area or the other and then going on your adventure.

Skyrim has changed the way I feel about the way a character should level, the freedom given to players to do what they want to do in the case of character development is impeccably clever and I hope RPG’s in the future take a few hints from it. If you want to wield magic, you simply do it, and the more you use it, the more it levels. Want to become a sneak thief that can pickpocket a weapon and the clothes right off a guard’s back without being detected? Skulk around in stealth and pickpocket simple things until the skills level up to that point. The system of building a character based on what a player actually uses is an idea that should have been implemented long ago. The leveling itself has been streamlined, it as simple as placing a point in magic, health, or stamina and then picking a perk if you have leveled a particular skill high enough, it just makes sense. There is no need to wait for a level so you can increase the lock-picking skill to get into that treasure chest found a few dungeons back anymore. If a lock is set to a high difficulty level and the players skill is low, it simply means the puzzle is going to be more difficult and they will likely go through a lot more lock-picks. There is no longer a feeling of being punished when a choice of what class the player has chosen keeps them away from content within the game.

The combat system itself has been improved vastly over that of its predecessors with a simple tweak known as dual wielding. It may sound like a small attachment, but in practice it completely changes the way the game is played. You could wield two single handed weapons and tear apart foes with speed, or equip a shield spell in one hand and blast away with fireballs in the other. You can even do like I did and spend most of the game with one hand always ready with a healing spell as you slash away at foes with a weapon in the other to then switch off to dual wielded fireballs to lay waste to stronger foes from a distance. When two of the same spells are wielded together with the right perk, the results are spectacular. There was something downright fulfilling about blasting away with lightning in two hands as if I was Emperor Palpatine.

The combat in the Elder Scrolls series has always been known to be a bit airy, with impact sometimes feeling a smidgen off. While I noticed this in earlier games, it wasn’t much of an issue in Skyrim. Each hit felt visceral and impacted with the right amount of gory sound to be satisfying. The pull out cinematics from the Fallout series return here, and instead of limbs being blown off by a shot, we are instead treated to beheadings, quick cuts taking out the legs before another slices deep into the neck, and even the occasional impaling upon a large sword. These are a thankfully a well added addition, and while at times the animations can be sloppy and underwhelming, they feel good none the less. So what if a mace cleanly beheads a person as if it was a sword, or if you accidentally get treated to a scene of anal sword rape. It is a nice addition, and the glitches simply follow the knowledge that this is indeed a Bethesda game.

Glitches are bound to happen in a world this large with this much detail. NPC’s move about a city or around the paths on the terrain as if they are all actually going about their lives separate from a player’s involvement or manipulation, it is an impressive feat that should be filled with a lot more bugs then we see in the final product. Dead Island didn’t get away from game breaking bugs, and its world was far smaller and less detailed. This is a difficult game to tackle for developers and the occasional floating corpse or flying mammoth is well within the bounds of acceptable. I don’t hear much about game breaking glitches, there is the occasional lock-up that can be frustrating and it is made ever more so by the obtrusively long loading screens. Nothing however serves to break the experience, most of the time the glitches are simply funny.

Speaking of loading screens, this is one complaint I can lobby without remorse. They are a tad long on consoles, and make the latter part of the game a bit of a chore when fast traveling from place to place to get quests done or entering a new city and exploring to gather up quests. It isn’t much of an issue when delving into dungeons or traveling the vast world, but in cities every door that is opened prompts a loading screen that can take a minute or so, just to spend a few moments inside the shop before exiting to another loading screen. Fast traveling is a quicker way to get around, and while the designs of individual characters, dragons, doors, and tables are impressive. There are only so many times I can manipulate them on a loading screen before it all just becomes tedious and the immersion is dampened.

The main stories themselves are all well and good, but as with most Bethesda games they are slightly underwhelming when everything is said and done. The civil war comes off rushed, and the main story comes to a conclusion a bit too easily. The guild quests are at best engrossing and at worst uninteresting and uninspired. As I stated before, Skyrim stands tall on the small details, the side quests, and its sense of discovery. It is a more streamlined interface that makes exploring more rewarding and less laborious thanks to icons appearing on the compass when a player is in an area that has some points of interest. If the icon is black, it hasn’t been discovered, if white, it has. This makes going on a mission in a new area far more difficult since Timmy is likely going to have to wait to find out about his parents well-being in that one dungeon because there are far to many black areas on my compass along the way, and I have to see what is there. It is Bethesda’s fault for randomly placing interesting quests within these discoveries that makes me feel like I’d be cheating my experience by rushing through an objective. Oh, and one more complaint. The menus… they do suck quite a bit. Expect to spend more then enough time digging through them constantly to get to where you want to be.

Final Call: Skyrim is not a perfect game, but with such scope and imagination it is damn near impossible to really get everything right. Bethesda Softworks has created a title that is the new bar for what is possible in a video game and is their masterpiece to the open world genre. It may suffer from the occasional hiccup and glitch, or a story that has little sense of pacing and comes off as underwhelming by the end, but the real story of Skyrim is the one the player creates. The best moments lie in the scenery and the side quests, they lie in watching a giant mourn over the loss of his mammoth on the bank of a river, so struck with grief that it doesn’t lift a finger to attack when approached by the player. Skyrim is a fantastic place that continues to add to the mythos of the Elder Scrolls world, and I was more then happy to spend damn near 100 total hours in it.

Pros:

• Highly detailed world that is large and riddled with tons of content
• Visceral and pleasing combat mechanics
• Possible to spend a reported 300+ hours with the amount of side quests available
• Streamlined traveling and leveling system makes the game more accessible
• Beautiful graphics with an eye for the smallest of details
• Side quests so finely written, that they can often trump the main content

Cons:

• Incredibly long loading screens
• Main story is underwhelming and left feeling unimportant
• The occasional bug can freeze the game
• Clumsily designed menu system

If you’ve been playing Gears of War 3, you’ve probably noticed that Epic Games has been holding special “Gears Weekend” events for a few months now.  So far, these have been silly limited-time playlists for stuff like “sniper rifles + shotguns only” or “Diggers + shotguns only.” For the most part, they’ve been fun for a few rounds, but a bit too conservative to be worth more than a passing glance.

This changes right goddamn now.  Prepare to have your retinas blown off with sheer awesomeness, because the grown-ass adults who gave us chainsaw-machine guns just woke the hell up.

On Thursday November 24th, Gears of War 3 will introduce the “Thanksgibbing” event.  It’s a King of the Hill–the best mode–playlist where shotguns are replaced with the “Cluckshot”… a rocket launcher that shoots explosive chickens.  Logically.

You can play it by downloading the free “Versus Booster Map Pack.“  This pack features five multiplayer maps:

• Bullet Marsh
• Clocktower
• Azura
• Rustlung
• and Blood Drive

These maps were previously included in the paid “Horde Command Pack, but are now finally available for use in public versus multiplayer.  Don’t whine.  Just download them.  In fact, this is how your face should look as you read this:

So put down the Call of Duty and Battlefield for a bit and play some damn Gears with me.  See more details at Epic’s website.

Oops we did it again! – Episode 3 is hear to sex you up with Game Crush girls and Greg’s Hot or Not extravaganza. Adam Occupies his PS3 while Scott gives some hard honest advice for the Otakus of the world. It’s all somehow related to video games and food so you can’t go wrong listening to this weeks episode of The bEAST Coast Podcast: The Video Game Variety hour!

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Warhammer 40,000 has had a good run of things in the video game arena thus far. The famed Dawn of War RTS series has (with the unfortunate exception of Soulstorm) been expertly made and managed to bring Warhammer 40k into the mainstream. However, with the recent release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Relic Entertainment has tried to bring the player down from their position as commander right into the shoes of the titular superhuman defenders of the Imperium. How did Relic handle the transition to third-person shooter with hack-n-slash action, and more importantly does it live up to the quality of its forbearers?

Space Marine’s protagonist is Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, and is joined by his battle-brothers Sidonus and Leandros on their quest to defend the forge world Graia against all comers.  Their enemies are legion, ranging from barbaric ork invaders to the twisted servants of chaos. The Ultramarines are aided by Imperial Guard Lieutenant Mira and Inquisitor Dragon as they battle their way across the world and attempt to stem the tide of the Imperium’s countless foes. The story fits the grim spirit of Warhammer 40k, and there are a few twists and turns. The hidden servo-skull recordings do add some more viewpoints and flavor, but overall it’s not going to grab your attention. The characters can come across as flat, Mira in particular. I don’t think I ever saw or heard an ounce of emotion break through her stone-faced expression and calm monotone through the entire game.

But playing a game like Space Marine is like watching action movies; you don’t do it for the quality of the story. You do it for the gunfire and the explosions… Which leads to a very important question: Does Space Marine deliver in the adrenaline department?

The answer is an undisputed yes. From the very first minutes of the single-player campaign Titus is hurling himself into the jaws of death with near reckless abandon or well, it would be reckless were he not an armored superhuman powerhouse and perfectly capable of carving through the enemy ranks like a buzz saw. There is a palpable sense of weight and strength when controlling his movements and the unique combat system nails the bull’s-eye for the feel of Warhammer 40k combat. The player must learn to swap between ranged and melee combat at a moment’s notice with the turning tides of battle as they shift from ranged firefights, to visceral hand-to-hand brawls, and quite a bit of the time to hectic mixes of both.

One of Space Marine’s stronger assets is that it is built to encourage the player to throw themselves into the thick of things. While ranged combat is sometimes required for taking out enemies who are out of reach and is useful for softening up the enemy, the player will regularly draw their weapon of choice and slug it out up close. The health system is dual-layered, with a rechargeable shield bar as the player’s first line of defense with the second layer being Titus’s life bar. There is only one way your life bar can be refilled however, and that is by charging into melee combat and making use of the execution mechanic. One tap of a button near a stunned enemy will prompt a tense clash of blades and with some button smashing for powerful foes the animation will end with Titus slaying the hapless foe in a brutal, gory display that regains a measure of lost health with his foe’s death. It is a system that rewards aggressiveness instead of forcing the player to pause the action to hide behind cover when damage is taken. Space Marine allows you to wade into a horde of enemies and keeps the action hard hitting and fast paced while bringing the fury of the Emperor to your foes.

For this task, the player has at their disposal a multitude of weapons which constantly expands with the progress of the campaign. Weapons range from the (comparatively) humble bolter pistol to the mighty lascannon. There’s a lot of variety to be had, and the satisfaction gained with attaining a new weapon is something that rarely gets old. It is great when you can get your hands on a heavy bolter and blast foes to gibs with a righteous hail of gunfire, or incinerate an entire group of orks bunched up close with the meltagun. I personally fell in love with the Thunder Hammer within minutes of getting my hands on it; the feeling of power is singularly gratifying. I was able to go toe-to-toe with ork nobs, a move which would ordinarily result in a quick trip to the game over screen, and smack them around like bowling pins. Combine that with the jump pack, which gives the player a sense of vertical freedom with a burst of flight that can end with a shattering impact attack, you will feel invincible.

Hammer!

The single-player makes for a fun romp, and on the hard difficultly setting it can provide a challenging but not impossible contest for those who consider themselves skilled in a similar fashion to legendary mode of Halo fame. The jump pack sections and setpieces are well interspaced, and prove to spice things up while keeping the standard combat from getting stale. The soundtrack helps keep the blood pumping with its dramatic and inspiring overtures playing in the background to sharp gunfire and battle cries. The character design is also excellent but while the massive scale and destruction do make for a spectacle, the environments in which they take place are one of the weakest elements of the game. While the level design and surroundings shift through the campaign, the muted grays and browns can’t help but appear in stark contrast to the colorful characters.

The quality of the character design becomes even more apparent in multiplayer. With a level of customization that goes even further than the army painter of Dawn of War, the player can fine-tune his avatar’s appearance to their heart’s content. Loyalist space marines are pitted against chaos marines in team deathmatch and capture-and-hold modes, and with the recent Exterminatus DLC setting a team of players against wave after wave of NPC enemies there is a wealth of content to enjoy. Space Marine uses a class based system much like that of Call of Duty, with the equipment split between three classes. The first; assault/raptor, dual wields a set of pistols and has access to the jump pack. With the added melee weapon the assault/raptor favors aggressive rushes and ambushes. The next is the devastator/havoc, which lugs around the heavy weaponry, such as the heavy bolter or lascannon. The devastator/havoc is more defensive, and while he is vulnerable to surprise attacks and close range battles, he is more than capable of mowing down anyone in his sights. The last class is the tactical marine who has access to the rest of the game’s weaponry, and has the greatest range of available strategies, from close shootouts with the meltagun or storm bolter to longer-ranged firefights with the plasma gun or stalker bolter. Perks add extra abilities and bonuses, increasing the available range of play styles. All in all, there is a great deal of content to be found.

The downside is that it just takes an annoyingly long time to get to it all. One big flaw I see in the multiplayer is simply that it starts a new player with barely anything.  Leveling-up gives only one unlock with each level, and accordingly it takes a great deal of time and effort to gain access to all the weapons, equipment, and perks. Worse, higher-level players, with extra perks and perk slots unlocked, have an explicit advantage over newcomers. Even with the ability to copy the loadout of your killer on your next respawn when you fall, the balancing issues can be frustrating to deal with.

Overall, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is an enjoyable game. Relic Entertainment did well in transforming Warhammer 40,000 over to the action genre and has made it a fitting addition to their franchise. While the current news about the likelihood of a sequel is disheartening, I still hold out hope that Relic will refine what they have done even further and create another fine homage to Warhammer 40K.

Final Call: With solid mechanics, excellent character design, and fun content for both single and multiplayer, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is an action-game worthy of the Warhammer 40K license and despite a few wobbles, is a solid experience. For the Emperor!

Xbox live and PSN have proved to be a great place to delve into a different world within gaming. As mainstream titles looks to assault our senses with over the top action, large explosions, and worlds so large that traveling from one corner to the other could take hours. Mainstream games are in essence trying to consistently become bigger and badder than what has come before. The digital market however, has aimed to remind us of a simpler time in gaming. Many of the games on the digital market have innovated upon older gaming conventions and added a sense of artistic flair that continues to prove that gaming can be an art form. From the platformer puzzle games that entered into dark surrealism such as Braid and Limbo, to an action RPG title that introduced us to an ever evolving painted world in Bastion, and to now a beautiful serene landscape that gives us a Populous for our consoles with From Dust.

The point of this introduction is to talk about the last game mentioned here; From Dust, which recently saw release on the virtual consoles during this year’s Summer of Arcade. As the virtual console has become more mainstream many of the titles I mentioned above have become legends and have set the bar for what to expect from the market. How does From Dust stack up against the likes of Limbo, Braid, Bastion, and all the others that have helped bring the indie scene to a higher status amongst gamers?

From Dust is in essence a god game that in practice becomes one of the most beautiful and intriguing physics puzzles that I have ever played. The point of the game is simple; the player is presented a number of small locals with the goal of leading a nomadic tribe through dangerous terrain and assisting them in growing their civilization and discovering the history of their people. The player takes control of the breath of god, which is a large ball of power that is easily controlled with the analog sticks and has the power of picking up a certain amount of terrain and putting it down elsewhere within the landscape. The simple mechanic of moving around water, sand, and later lava to make bridges or clear an area of pooled water is where the physics shows its weight.

From Dust has some of the best water mechanics I have ever seen in a video game, and often the water itself acts as the big puzzle within the game. The small areas that act as the playing field of each puzzle are full of flowing waterfalls that continue to fill the world with a rushing stream of water, the flow of which the player must divert in order to properly reach the next totem or exit that eventually presents itself. The totems are large obelisks which, when reached with a certain number of villagers, will become the center of a village that they create. Watching the small nomadic tribesman dance around the obelisk and play their instruments to create their crude homes and the plant life which surrounds it from the ground is a wonder to behold. They literally pop into creation from the ground below, summoned into existence by a mysterious force. This act of creation is especially awe inspiring when you pull up close and watch these actions take place from the perspective of your villagers.

Reaching these totems and spreading plant and wild life around the terrain is the heart of each level. Beyond the act of diverting the flow of water from water falls or jet streams that randomly appear as you gather up sand, there are large obstacles of nature that continue to increase the difficulty of the game with each passing level. The jet streams mentioned above made for one of the more frustrating puzzles, but volcanoes, and tidal waves will also act to wipe out your tribe and present you with a game-over screen.

The difficulty does spike a bit quickly in From Dust, forcing the player to really focus on how everything works within the landscape. The level of physics which the player must deal with during these spikes is something that I doubt many players will be prepared to take into consideration at first. With some patience and toying around however, the player will soon discover how much has gone into the creation of the game. Lava flows from volcanoes in a way that simulates life to a tee, and watching lava move down an area and eventually hit water and dry into solid rock is impressive to behold. Creating rock paths is far more useful than sand paths, since sand can be eroded away by water and eventually break down to cause some damage to your progress.

A thing to keep in mind about using lava to create rock paths is something a player can easily forget, it is lava, and it lights things on fire. Lava can escape your grasp as you release it onto a sanded or rock area while trying to place it in water. This will cause small amounts of molten destruction to flow towards a village and destroy it without the player knowing it has happened until screams and a visual prompt lets them know. There were many times I would be in the midst of controlling the land and diverting the flow of a nearby waterfall so it will no longer interfere with my goals when I would hear screams and think to myself “what now?” only to discover my civilization going down in a blaze of shame and panic. This issue, by the way, rears its ugly head on the third level and things progressively get more difficult, for example… fire trees. Screw fire trees.

From Dust is art in motion, the game itself is beautiful to watch and even during the frantic events there is something wonderful and calming within the chaos of nature’s force. Tidal waves rise up in dramatic ways and shake the entire land you play in. This action will constantly cause the player to stop and scramble to figure out what to do. The power unlocked by the totems give you new tools to use to complete the level, one of which causes the rushing water from a tidal wave to wash around an invisible bubble protecting the village. Zooming in on the villagers during these moments creates a sense of godliness that is as epic as any action scene in the biggest of mainstream titles.

From Dust is a game that continues to validate the existence of the indie market and the digital platform. Just as Limbo, Braid, Bastion, and many others have before it, From Dust proves the legitimacy of simple mechanics in gaming. It doesn’t always have to be about multi-million dollar budgets and over the top cinematics. A game can be great simply on tight mechanics and interesting art choices. It is difficult to experiment with mainstream titles since artistic IPs will often be overlooked (Beyond Good & Evil for example) for games that have an established name.

Final Call: From Dust is simply the best physics puzzle game I have ever played and even without much of a story, the plights of the villagers is felt, and the rush of panic you feel when they are in danger is real. Ubisoft Montpellier has released a near flawless title that should be experienced by everyone. None the less, screw fire trees… screw them in their firey tree-y faces.

Pros:

• Tight and easy to learn controls
• Beautiful graphics
• Unmatched water physics
• Deep and rich puzzles
• A great value at only about $15

Cons:

• Difficulty spikes can often feel unfair
• No real story worth focusing on
• Very little replay value

I’ve caught up with life, time to catch up on some games. I am continuing with my computer science degree, upgraded from single room apartment to two story house, and I’m here to seal the lid with the Box of Many Things. The only way to conclude this amazing adventure is with Final Fantasy XIII. How does it stack up to the others? Did they add too many ingredients and spoil the soup? Let’s find out.

It’s not even rhetorical to ask if you’re familiar with Final Fantasy, so I’ll assume you know that Square Enix is up to thirteen installments, and this one has a lot of that down home Final Fantasy feel, introducing a group of people who are brought together by the threat of their world coming to an end in a cyber-punk fashion. We have the main protagonist, Lightning, who is a female Cloud Strife with a gunblade. She is arguably the coolest character, and in my opinion makes up for the lineup of FFX-2. She is teamed up with the winner of the black dynamite lookalike contest, and Chocobo enthusiast, Sazh Katzroy. After they attack a transport train they are grouped with the rest of the lovable bunch during what feels like an ethnic cleansing. The game focuses mainly on Lightning and the trench coat brawler, Snow. Snow was dating Lightning’s sister and pissed off a ton of people and now they can use mako (Shut Up! It’s always going to be called mako!). The game is visually stunning, to the point where I didn’t mind the high amount of cut scenes; it really helped you get an idea of the scale of your surroundings. The game does like to show you the scenic route with consistent strolls down what feels like endless corridor-style roads. You are offered to pass by enemies along the way and, believe me, they are not being coy; you will get your ass handed to you if you’re feeling too ballsy.

With the obvious squishy enemies, you can take the time to grind some XP by taking them out and even collecting some orb items to help customize your arsenal. A note on that; I felt that collecting/buying “junk” items to enhance your weapons was a bit of a letdown. You could stay with one weapon half the game, feeding it rare candies of sorts until it’s a happy little sword of destruction, but then why ever get a new weapon? The new ones look cool but you’re starting the process all over again and soon realize that you already used everything on your current weapon. Even if you scrap it for spare parts you’re stuck with the Buster 4s which doesn’t feel like much of an upgrade at all.

Onto the goofy group of misfits you get to journey with. Everyone has some quirky reason for being on this quest and granted, some of them are worth listening to, maybe even for relatable reasons. Given enough time people start opening up to one another and develop back stories. I enjoyed learning more about everyone, because it didn’t make any sense in the beginning, but I felt that the game teamed up the wrong people at the wrong times. Sazh is a father with no son to whom he can give advice and guide, and he reveals this to the weird Australian girl who just doesn’t really have anything relevant to say. Lightning gets stuck playing mom to this kid who just lost his mother during an attack back in the city, and is blaming Snow for it. What the game is doing here is relying on the stronger characters to justify the weaker ones, which just makes me question why the weaker ones are getting so much face time to begin with. I will admit that each character plays their role during combat even though you could mold them to be whatever you want from the first battle, but that’s probably left for a second run through.

During combat you get to assign healers, magic users, berserker attackers, etc. The newest introduction to Final Fantasy was the acquisition and use of summons. First, you have to defeat the summon in whatever form it takes. Near the end of the fight, you hit the awesome button and your summon is now a motorcycle. This is where you either turned off your console or spit coffee all over the T.V. You are now able to use that summon in battle either in the form in which you fought it, or as an epic mount. Both are effective, one is ridiculous. I don’t know if the summons become stronger later on, but the ones i used didn’t seem to stay as long as I needed them. While exploring their set of moves I kept hitting the “Dismiss” button accidentally and never saw them again for the rest of the fight.

As a game I would say this one was enjoyable. As an RPG, it fulfilled the criteria and satisfied on an automated or customizable level. There is definitely a lot you can do to tweak the group to meet your needs in combat. With any Final Fantasy game, you need to be patient and take the time to explore all of your options. Most people start the game liking the rail roading feel and having all these things which they are given, but once they are let out into the world with an airship and a captain’s badge, they huddle in the corner and cry. Like a lot of games these days, this one has a learning curve and most people just want to stay on track and avoid any extra reading and just play the game through. FFXIII was fun to play, annoying at some parts, but a good experience. It doesn’t rank with my favorite Final Fantasy games but i would give it to someone who hasn’t played one in a while to see just what Square Enix has been up to, and that they can still pump out a fun game. Final Fantasy didn’t have a good run at a sequel with X-2 but Square Enix announced a FFXIII sequel back in January. Check out the trailer and tell me what you think.

I want to thank you all for staying with me through the Box of Many Things. I especially want to thank Zach Noble from Michigan for sending me the Box of Many Things and invite anyone else interested to send me games you want to be played, just send all requests to my email and we’ll get in touch. I also have been inspired to finally get my first game related tattoo. I will be starting it soon and have pictures up along the way. To those in the community with game related tattoos I would love to see them. Please send all pictures to my email: Chase@Golgotron.com and we’ll get them all together in a gallery for the site.

Bastion. A strong supporter. A fortified place. A location of safety. The title of an excellent debut game by Supergiant Games, a recently founded independent developer. Similar to other recent indie developers like Mojang of Minecraft fame, Supergiant Games has put its best foot forward as it steps boldly out into the world with a superb solid action role-playing, single-player hack-n-slash game. But unlike some other indie games hitting the market, the brilliance lies not in the gameplay, but in the storytelling.

Bastion’s greatest triumph is the invention of the narrator; his voice is a constant companion to the player and lends to a singularly immersive experience with no breaks for long cut-scenes or text-block infodumps between player-controlled sequences. The narrator’s commentary manages to never grow tiring or repetitive and he gives a feeling of life to the game, his smooth drawl providing a steady stream of exposition on the world and commentary on the player character’s actions in-game. The often small, detailed touches of his narration provide the player with a feeling of truly being a part of the story and possessing a personal stake in what is occurring. This sentiment continues to grow right up until the tale’s end, the climax of which provides choices for the player that go beyond the simple decisions of good and evil that plague the branching endings of today’s modern games; when I reached them, I actually had to lean back in my seat to pause and think on what to do.

It’s difficult to talk about the story without spoiling the experience. It starts slowly and jumps directly into the protagonist’s shoes without introduction, leaving the player blind to the world and left to find their way through it with only the narrator’s company. The story comes out gradually, like a trail of breadcrumbs that draws the player’s interest and leads them along further and further in. Tidbits of information are constantly revealed to the player as they journey, leaving them to wonder what lies within the blanks and trying to piece the narrative together as the picture of the world is progressively painted for them from blank canvas before their very eyes.

And Bastion truly does appear to be painted, with the visual style providing gorgeous visuals that makes the very most of its isometric viewpoint. From the characters, to the enemies and the environments, the hand-painted style provides a treat for the eyes. As the player character constantly progresses through the game world, the art style works to provide new spectacle for the player and keeps the level design from growing tedious or dull.

The gameplay makes efforts towards the same, and while Bastion’s base hack-and-slash mechanics are regular fare for the action role-playing genre, Supergiant has still put forth due effort to provide variety within what remains a solidly built system. With set piece scenes, the occasional boss fight, and optional side-missions, the experience stays fresh rather than showing the sameness present in many games within the genre. New customization options are laid out in a constantly growing array for the player to choose from, furthering the sense of the personalized experience that the game imparts.

The player character has the choice of two weapons, a special attack, and passive abilities which are all fully alterable in the game’s hub between levels. The narrator will provide hints as to the strengths and nuances of each combination as it is chosen, and each weapon as it is discovered. The side mini-games give the opportunity to upgrade the capabilities of your weaponry by running the player through trials to prove their mastery of their equipment. There are yet more choices in this, as the upgrades will often modify and add effects to how the weapon operates rather than simply boosting damage, which all proves to increase the range of available play styles and combinations to still greater heights. Even the difficulty is modifiable to your heart’s content through an innovative structure, allowing the player to take on specific challenges to face in their battles. The developers even go as far as to give every single one of these mechanics a satisfying and interesting in-game explanation that provides a unity of game design elements and narrative.

Bastion’s music is no exception and provides flavor to each scene in which the player finds himself. As with everything else, the developers made sure to go the extra mile and have crafted a diverse soundtrack for Bastion’s shifting moods. The soundtrack ranges from a pounding and intense wild western adventure, to a haunting and melancholy drama that sweeps you into a remembrance of things past. Each song stands tall on its own merit and in-game they serve to emphasize the tone and events onscreen.

Bastion is an example of excellence in execution and another fine addition in the growing independent gaming scene. It is comparable to the wacky Castle Crashers in color and fun, and Limbo and Braid’s deep, evocative ambiance. All told, Bastion is greater than the sum of its parts, with nearly unparalleled flow between them. The narrator ties the entire thing together, allowing the story and mechanics to be introduced smoothly into the experience and provides a touch of life and polish to the package. Bastion introduces an element of replayability into it all, even after the first playthrough is all said and done; the desire to discover everything it has to offer makes Bastion an experience that will linger in your mind even after you walk away.

Final Call: While the gameplay in Bastion doesn’t break any new ground, it is still solid and varied, and provides the foundation for the rest of what Bastion has to offer, the mesmerizing aesthetics and masterful narrative imparts a lasting and immersive experience.

PROS:

• Great story and immersion.
• Beautiful hand-painted visuals and soundtrack.
• High replay value and new game plus mode.
• Gameplay is tight and responsive.
• $15 price tag, available for download on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade.

CONS:

• Doesn’t break any new ground with the hack n’ slash gameplay.
• Game only lasts 6-8 hours per playthrough.

In August of 2011 Eidos Montreal released Deus Ex: Human Revolution and sadly we are just getting around to reviewing a game that helped us get over the sluggish period in gaming that came shortly before the onset of the chaotic holiday season. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third game in a series that hasn’t seen a new release since Invisible War in 2003. Invisible War received good reviews during its time, but fans saw it as a dumbed down version of a game they loved. The original Deus Ex was a cult classic on the PC and later found release on the PS2. It has constantly been labeled as one of the best PC games of all time and won multiple game of the year awards in 2000. Its revolutionary approach to mature story-telling, player choice, and multiple narrative paths helped win it a dedicated following.

Eidos’ 2009 merger with Square Enix brought focus back to the series and work took off on a proper Deus Ex title which had originally been announced on May 17, 2007. With one of the largest publishers and developers of role playing games solely behind the project, life looked good for this beloved series. Deus Ex: Human Revolution left two important questions to the long time fans of the franchise. Is it as good as the first game? And is it better?

The simple answer is yes and no. DE:HR is, however, one of the best games released this year, giving players something palpable to sink their teeth into with one of the most intriguing stories I have seen play out in this medium in a very long time. The year is 2027 and the world is a much different place due to the continued growth of corporate control. Since the invention and implementation of human augmentation, society and the human species has seen a vast change in the way the world functions. Augmentation is used to enhance the lives of the people who go under the knife to receive them, and the possibilities are endless for what can be done with them to further the development of a person’s capabilities, both physically and mentally. The downside is that the human body often rejects the augmentations, making those who take them dependent on an anti-rejection drug.

Not only are the surgeries expensive, but the constant upkeep on the drugs themselves is a constant expense that makes it difficult for the lower and middle-class to grow along with those capable of receiving them legally. This class-separation causes a rise in crime as many have subjected themselves to scavenging for augmentations and receiving surgery and drug supplies through a growing black market. There are even those whose bodies can not take to the augmentations at all and those few often find out the hard way what can happen when their bodies reject them. The privatization of human evolution and the anti-rejection drugs that make them last leads to an outcry for change in the way things are done. It even leads to the inevitable formation of a movement called the Humanity Front that stands against the act of playing god all together, theorizing that this is a path that will lead to humanity’s destruction. Other groups have grown alongside the Humanity Front, preaching their own ideas on how these problems can be addressed, even going as far as to attack and terrorize people to get their point across.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in this world and all of these elements are fleshed out incredibly well. From the NPC’s that exist in this world’s version of Detroit and China to the main characters themselves. There is a constant struggle between deciding what is right as the game toys with the players ideology, morality, and political beliefs.  Eidos stated that the player will have control over how they play the game, and while this stands mostly true for the gameplay, it stands very true to how the story progresses.

You play as Adam Jensen, the head of security at the headquarters of Sarif Industries’ in Detroit. Sarif Industries’ is one of the leaders in augmentation technology and a powerful entity within American society. Adam works alongside his ex-girlfriend Megan Reed who is a researcher for the company that has recently come up with a huge breakthrough that will allow augmentations to be done without the dependence on anti-rejection drugs. Just before her press release on the recent discovery, the building is attacked by a group of heavily augmented soldiers. During the attack Jensen is beaten down by one of the attackers and left in critical condition while trying to save Megan and her research team. The entire research team is murdered and burned, leaving only charred remains of the bodies. In an act to save Adam’s life the C.E.O of Sarif industries; David Sarif, decides to put Jensen through some major augmentations. He implants Adam with experimental technology that he appears to take to exceedingly well. While augmentation for Adam was done out of necessity there is still the question as to if this is something he would have wanted. Before he can think on it too much, he is called back to work to continue the investigation on the attack and find out who was behind it. What follows is an ever evolving story that forces the player into scenarios that exceedingly presents them with moral choices that while never good or bad, often rely on the players perception of the situation.

The characters in Deus Ex:HR are all fascinating and evolve just as much as the story. Everyone except for the main character that is. Adam Jensen is sadly one of the few complaints I have with the game, his character design and voice acting are a low point. He might as well be a cyborg version of Neo from The Matrix, and his voice acting is even more stale than Keanu Reeves. Little range is shown with the character, and even though the choices he must make are huge for the world at large, he never seems to change. Jensen acts as the eyes in which the player sees the world through, and is consistently overshadowed by all the side characters he interacts with. While the main character may stay static throughout Human Revolution’s story, many of the other character’s do not. They instead progress and change with every large twist and turn, and in some cases turn out to be something completely different than what had originally been presented. These side-characters are wonderfully voice acted and animated, I learned to care about many of them much more than I ever did about Jensen. Jensen acted as nothing more then a catalyst to the experience. His back story was far more interesting than the character himself. Which is too bad, because the more I discovered about Adam the more interesting the idea of him became.

The world itself is rather large and even though it takes place in two cities that, while not big themselves, are cluttered with important places to go and people to talk to. Deus Ex: Human Revolution can easily take 30+ hours to experience in full, and while not long for an RPG, it is rather long for an action game. There is never a shortage on things to do and the side missions are rather varied, they can go from breaking into fellow co-worker’s offices and hacking into their personal computers to catch someone stealing the anti-rejection drug, to helping Megan’s mother expose the sloppy detective work done on the investigation of her daughters death, to even helping a call girl in China stop her boss from forcefully augmenting one of her fellow workers in a way that would make her easier to control. The side missions help flesh out the underbelly of the world and the corruption present within it and they are often complex and relevant to the overall story.

The small interactions themselves can help breathe life into the world. From the moment the game returns Adam to work after his surgery, he is bombarded by co-workers fearing for their safety, mourning over the loss of Megan Reed and her research team, and even showing concern for Adam returning so soon after the attack that nearly took his life. Even when you first walk out into Detroit there are many who talk down to Adam for being Augmented, showing the support the Humanity Front has with the common folk. Hell, after the first mission you get rewarded with being able to see the results of your actions in the dialog of people on the streets. It is these small touches that help bring an exciting feeling of realism to this grim and indecisive world in which Human Revolution takes place. The only complaint I have is that often the NPC’s will stay static in their designated areas that will eventually take away from the immersion. It is a small complaint, but if large games like Fallout and Oblivion can succeed in making a city seem alive, then Deus Ex should have had no trouble with it.

A game however is nothing without good gameplay, it can only survive so long with a strong story. Deus Ex: Human Revolution delivers with its promise of allowing the player to choose how the game is played in this area, at least for the most part. The ability to upgrade Adam’s augmentation using Praxis Points opens up a wide variety of gameplay choices. You can build a stealthy agent that can put the likes of Solid Snake and Sam Fisher to shame, or build a super soldier who can punch holes in walls, toss vending machines at his enemies, and take on a hail of gunfire. The upgrades can even turn you into a smooth talker that can follow the subtle hints of facial expressions and release a pheromone that can help turn people to your way of thinking. The dialog situations can be just as intense sometimes as a big firefight, with the right upgrades you can make these segments easier by being able to track the effects your replies have on the character you are talking to, as well as look at psychological reports that describe the personality type of the person you are trying to persuade. These add an interesting touch to the dialog trees often found in Bioware games, but even without these upgrades the facial animations are impressive enough to give hints on what effect your words are having. The options are plentiful, and I especially loved that the game awarded players who went a passive route and never killed a single soul in the game outside of the bosses.

Beyond that, the game plays as a mixture of many other great games. With the right stealth upgrades you can make the navigation HUD look like something out of Metal Gear Solid with line of sight, noise display, and a countdown timer that indicates when enemies will stop looking for you. They even mix in a bit of Splinter Cell with an upgrade that puts an indicator on screen of where you were last seen in almost the exact fashion seen in 2010′s Conviction. The shooting and cover system is almost identical to Rainbow Six: Vegas making it work and work well. I quite enjoyed lining up a perfect shot from behind cover and popping up for just a split second to score a precise headshot, and then following it up with another and another until the room was cleared. The fun of these situations is often in getting things done the way you want, by either taking out an entire room the quiet way or laying down hell upon your would be attackers with precisely aimed shots (I say this because ammo is a bit scarce and the inventory system is sort of clunky.)

The strategy behind taking out a room with stealth is, in and of itself, a puzzle that is fun to tackle. Finding a way to take people out quietly, dragging bodies into hidden places, taking air vents into optimal positions behind the enemies, and using the environment to attract the attention of guards towards a trap you laid out is incredibly enjoyable. It is moments like these when all goes well that never stopped giving me a great sense of accomplishment. The way the level design is laid out is also quite impressive, giving the player multiple points of entry and multiple options on how to get through the area. It is even possible to clear an entire objective by talking your way through it without ever having to take out a single individual. The freedom of how to get things done is so impressive that when Deus Ex throws a broken and ill-conceived boss battle at you it is incredibly disappointing.

The biggest complaint I can lobby against DE:HR is that the freedom is immediately sidelined in favor of arena style brawls with bosses that, if not prepared for, can lead to multiple frustrating reloads of your save file. Stealth is not an option during these moments, the game forces the player to take on these threats head on and it is as if you have been thrown into a completely different and less impressive game. The first boss battle comes when it isn’t expected, but after defeating this enemy, most players will build their characters appropriately in order to take care of these threats. This is too bad, since this means that all players will build similar characters in some aspects in order to trump these cheap fights. I even heard from a friend of mine that he was unwilling to continue playing the game because of these boss battles, they really do threaten to break what is an amazing experience with their poor design.

The rest of the game, however, warrants building your character around them so as to traverse and discover the real magic within the game. Human Revolution is one of the most rewarding and mature experiences a gamer can ask for even with all the flaws. The message the game conveys is a heavy one, and one I appreciated in its neutral approach to the issues. Never did I feel forced to take one side of the argument or the other, if I took one, it was because it felt right to me and many players will likely go a different route than I did. While many games give freedom to the player through an open world and the ability to complete the story how they wish, Deus Ex: Human Revolution gives players freedom by choosing how the game is played (for the most part) and the how the story progresses by pressing on some rather mature and potent issues.

With recent political movements as of late protesting against corporate power, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even more relevant right now than it was back in August. Plus, no matter what side you take, the story never tells you what side is right. It leaves it up to you to decide that. If anyone hasn’t given this game a shot, it comes highly recommended, it is a great game with few low points and a story that is stronger then most everything currently offered in this medium.

Sony Entertainment Online recently announced that their super hero MMO DC Universe is now free to play. Some people are wondering if this is just a trial run to entice you to pay the monthly subscriptions but in fact you do get full access to the game. So what are the draw backs? Mostly little annoying things but you can get the full gaming experience and enjoy it with no real restrictions to your character. For starters you can only have up to 2 free characters. Your inventory is limited to 28 slots, as well as bank slots if you end up using one. You can only have up to 1500 gold/credits/Monopoly money so if you were planing on being evil and robbing banks, the only thing standing between you and the vault is a bad economy. On top of all the minor set backs you can’t enjoy extracurriculars like guilds (Leagues) or talking to other players for very long because they limit texting and what you can share amongst players. For $15 a month it’s not much to cry over if you really like the game and have decided to dedicate your time to your character.

Anything free is worth trying out, so jump on the bandwagon and download today true believers! (Wait, that’s Marvel.)

In 2009, FromSoftware gave us Demon’s Souls, a notoriously difficult action-RPG that earned a massive cult following. For its fans, Demon’s Souls’ mix of punishing gameplay and bizarre multiplayer marked it as one of the most interesting titles ever made. Now, FromSoftware brings us that game’s spiritual successor, Dark Souls.

Aside from a new open-world structure and story, Dark Souls looks and feels almost identical to its forebearer.

Just like it’s father, Dark Souls is the Tim & Eric Awesome Show of video games.

Hear me out: Tim & Eric have a polarizing “love ’em or hate ‘em” sense of humor. To certain people, it’s sheer comedy genius. To most others, it seems like a bunch of stupid bullshit.

If you don’t believe me, watch this:

Unlike most nerd fights, there’s really no love lost between the sides. Most sensible Tim & Eric fans completely understand why the haters can’t stand them. They’re pretty intentionally weird. And no matter how you feel, it’s even harder to believe that somewhere someone in a business suit actually finances this lunacy.

That is precisely how I would describe the Souls series. If you love it, you can completely understand why someone else would loathe it.

The plot in Dark Souls is virtually non-existent. There is definitely a story going on, but it mostly happens in the background. Basically, you’re an immortal knight looking to rid the world of demons, dragons and general medieval crazy crap. There are warring deities and monsters, but you keep getting the distinct impression that you’re not exactly the “main” character in this tale. You’re just here to kill stuff until there is nothing left to kill, so get moving.

At first glance, it looks like any other medieval hack-and-slash.  It may even look a little sloppy, but only to the untrained eye.  If you’re running around in Dark Souls, slashing wildly at anything that moves, you’re not going to last long.

Dark Souls is a prime example of an uphill battle. Yes, you’re immortal, but you’re definitely not getting off easy. Be prepared to die. A lot. Fights are not to be taken lightly. You need to move slowly. Carefully. Methodically. You exist moment-to-moment. One false step spells doom. Even lesser enemies can slaughter you.

Each time you die, you are stripped of all your earnings and are transported back to your last checkpoint. All the enemies you vanquished on the way are resurrected right alongside you. You run the same route again and again… and again.

With each death, you get a little better. You learn to play smarter. At first it seems like you’re just memorizing patterns, but you’re not. You’re becoming a more cunning killer. Now you know their weaknesses, and damn it, this time they are going to pay.

That’s the appeal. In Dark Souls, you don’t just breeze past early parts just because you have better gear. You advance because you’re just too bad-ass to be stopped. You don’t “beat” Dark Souls, you conquer it. It’s the most rewarding, empowering feeling a video game can give.

The game is surprisingly light on hand-holding.  It drops you into the world with a broken sword and merely implies that you should walk forward. Even after you leave the “tutorial” area—which includes a gigantic boss—you’re simply released into a huge open world. This world is Dark Souls’ largest improvement over its predecessor. There are practically no loading screens as you seamlessly traverse the game’s massive expanse. You decide where to go based entirely on the idea that “the enemies here seem to kill me less efficiently than the enemies there.”

Everything about this feels like an old school video game. People still aren’t quite sure “what does what” and where to use certain items. Message boards, wikis and groups of like-minded friends are still trading tips and figuring it out as they go. It really feels like we’re all working together, exploring this vast world.

Speaking of playing with others, like Demon’s Souls, multiplayer is rather unorthodox. The Dark Souls world is always online, but there is no voice chat whatsoever. Players communicate by leaving text messages on the floor for each other. These could be helpful hints that tell you about secret doors, or they could be lies to lure you off a cliff.

You can summon other players to help you fight a boss, but its damn near impossible to track down your real-life friends. The competitive multiplayer consists of players forcing their way into your game and fighting you while you try to complete a level.  It’s a weird way to handle multiplayer, but it absolutely enhances the experience.  It makes the massive and terrifying world of Dark Souls all the more foreboding and lonely.

It’s not all perfect though. There are some glaring errors that falter when compared to Demon’s Souls. For one, Dark Souls seems to have a slightly jankier online set up than its predecessor. In Demon’s, if you were “undead” you could invade the game of any “living” player at any time. To avoid invasions, players could simply play the game as “undead” themselves, but this costs them half of their health bar. There was a definite reward element that forced you to risk invasion.

Conversely, when you are “undead” in Dark Souls, the only tangible penalty is that you cannot summon helpful players. So most people just stay undead to avoid being harassed. Also, being the invader now requires you to spend relatively hard-to-find items. This limits the multiplayer encounters even more. It’s a rather counter-intuitive misstep.

Really though, spotty online play is my only complaint about the game. For me, this is easily going to be my game of the year. Nothing is going to come close to this.  I will beat this over and over, with multiple characters. For my money, it’s the best gaming experience I have had in years. You may hate it though.

The Souls series has a bad reputation of being elitist, but it really isn’t. It’s just very particular. You either “get it” or you don’t. It doesn’t make you less of a gamer to hate it. It’s just not your thing.

The best advice I have for you is this:  if you like the idea of this and own a PlayStation 3, pick up Demon’s Souls for $15 or so.  It’s a wonderful game and will definitely let you know if you’re the type of person who will appreciate Dark Souls.

We are creeping up on November and have already seen the release of the first wave of big games released this holiday season with Rage, Dark Souls, and Batman Arkham City. As all gamers have been aware, the end of 2011 is going to be big. Really big. I have trouble remembering a year that had so many AAA titles being released all around the same time; it is going to be hell on our wallets. There are some other games creeping out during this time that deserve some attention, and attention I shall give them. Games that are going to be innocent bystanders in the FPS turf war between Call of Duty and Battlefield. Titles that may find themselves lost within the wilderness of Elder Scroll’s Tamriel and Zelda’s Hyrule. It’s interesting to me that there are so many smaller games that publishers are pushing out during a time when they are going to have to stand up against Batman’s rogues gallery and the witty action packed life of Nathan Drake. I feel that many of these titles would perform well on their own merit, but I fear that they will be overlooked standing aside these giants. It’s time to shed some light on these titles, and give them a small dose of the attention that they deserve.

SONIC GENERATIONS

Release Date: November 1st, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sonic Team

Releasing In The Same Week As: Uncharted 3

Sonic has had a rough couple of years since his career took a dive in the new generation. Sonic Team released dud after dud for Sega’s big blue mascot which made those who supported the genesis back in the day weep, at least a little. Recently, things have been kind for our hedgehog friend with the release of the solid Sonic Colors for the Wii in November of 2010. A game that reminded those who gave it a shot why the blue hedgehog with attitude was once competition for Nintendo’s galaxy traversing plumber. There was also the arcade hit Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – Episode 1 which, while not great, was good enough to feel promising in the hands of someone who wanted to relive a special time when Sonic wasn’t a joke.

Sonic Generations had a short playable demo available back in June that got a good amount of people to sit up and pay attention. Sega released a second demo in October that is currently available for download but will soon be gone. For anyone who missed their first chance I strongly recommend giving it a download. Allow me to assure you, this looks promising. Sonic might be back, and by back I mean fun again. If Sonic Generations fulfills the promise shown in the demos and if Sonic Team gets a third hit in a row, the hedgehog may just start to race his way back into our hearts. I hope it does, because I have missed that blue bastard. I really have.

GOLDENEYE 007: RELOADED

Release Date: November 1st, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Eurocom

Releasing In The Same Week As: Uncharted 3

A remake of a remake? While this may seem a bit odd and groan-worthy, let us all take a moment and look back on Rare’s original Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64…. okay, all done? Anybody who actually took a moment will remember how amazing it was. There is nostalgia here, and while owners of the Wii got a chance to play through this remake last year, those who don’t care about Nintendo’s system didn’t. The release was solid, receiving positive reviews for its recreation of all the classic levels and updating the old multiplayer that had at one time showed us that consoles could compete with PCs in the FPS genre.  Reloaded is going a bit further than just adding some HD flare to a year old Wii title. The graphics have been completely redone, and are very well done. While early reports indicate that the multiplayer is buggy, the possibilities on stage here are quite enticing.

This release will see a brand new campaign that acts as something of a challenge mode as well as some new multiplayer game modes. I have high hopes for this release, as I was a huge fan of the original and don’t much care for the Wii’s multiplayer layout. Goldeneye holds a special place in many a gamer’s hearts, and while Eurocom does not have the best of track records, last years remake was good and this one shows even more promise for us 360 and PS3 fans.

There really isn't much out there in the way of official advertisement for this game.

METAL GEAR SOLID: HD COLLECTION

Release Date: November 8th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Kojima Productions

Releasing In The Same Week As: Call of Duty: MW3 and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Recently we have seen a lot of classic games from the olden days come back with HD reboots, many have been the same games with updated graphics and maybe a few new additions thrown in to entice old players into reliving a game long since beaten. God of War, Sly Cooper, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Resident Evil 4, and Team ICO have ventured into that territory with some success. Others have completely overhauled the game and given us something fresh; Goldeneye, as mentioned before and Telltale’s Monkey Island games went that route. Metal Gear Solid HD disappointingly takes the former approach. However the collection includes Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Again leaving me a bit disappointed that the first MGS isn’t here, but I imagine it would take a lot more work to re-do than the other three, and since MGS HD Collection is a bit of a reskin, the budget must not have allowed for a complete overhaul of a PSx game.

Let us remember though, that not many MGS fans got a chance to play Peace Walker since it was a PSP only title. The game was a great entry into the confusing mythology of the world, and will now be playable for the mainstream audience. Any fan of the original series needs to give this a look, these are classics that I imagine will translate perfectly fine for modern gamers.

JURASSIC PARK: THE GAME

Release Date: November 15th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, iPad, PC

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Releasing In The Same Week As: Assassins Creed: Relevations, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third

Telltale Games is a company that many have come to trust with bringing back the classic adventure games that stay true to their source material. They have given life to Strongbad, re-introduced us to the awesomeness that is Sam & Max, made many look back on Lucasart’s classic Tales of Monkey Island, brought Back to the Future to the world of gaming the only way it could be done right, and will soon deliver upon us The Walking Dead game.

Jurassic Park is the next franchise they are tackling before The Walking Dead, and so far it looks rather promising. Telltale knows what they are doing, and bringing a Heavy Rain control scheme to the dangerous world created by Michael Crichton and brought to the big screen by Steven Spielberg makes for a game worthy of some attention. While some early reports out of July’s Comic-Con lead to some concerns with the slower mechanics during the dino attacks and the general character design, it appears the developers addressed these issues and fared better with its appearance at PAX in August.

Let us also mention that it will be released at a lower price point for a full title, and at $39.99 it may be worth a look.

RAYMAN ORIGINS

Release Date: November 15th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS,  PC (Vita in 2012)

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier

Releasing In The Same Week As: Assassins Creed: Relevations, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third

THIS GAME NEEDS SOME LOVE! Out of anything on this list, and over quite a few of the AAA titles, this game is on my personal must have list. Some gamers may remember that Rayman and Rayman 2 where some of the most solid and beautiful platforming games ever created. This is a series that made Ubisoft and made it possible for them to make games like Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed. The current market has been spoiled by some stellar 2D platformers on Live and PSN with games like Super Meatboy and ‘Splosion Man, but let’s also consider that the Wii has recently seen the release of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country that were both released as full retail 2D platformer titles that did rather well.

Everything I have seen of Rayman Origins points to a beautifully animated and difficult game that shows nothing short of a developers love for what they are doing. With new characters being introduced to the series that all look fun to play, a co-op element that is bound to be chaotic, and a beautiful world to explore, this is a game that deserves attention. It deserves to be a hit, and I have a feeling that this will be a critical darling that will sadly be overlooked by the general market. I personally am just as excited for this as I am for Skyrim.

SERIOUS SAM 3: BFE

Release Date: November 22nd, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, PC

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Croteam

Releasing In The Same Week As: WWE ’12

Serious Sam promises to be a return to the old school shooter style that Duke Nukem: Forever should have been. Anyone familiar with Serious Sam knows that it is a chaotic experience where enemies are thrown at you from every direction. It is a frag-fest full of some of the weirdest enemies ever imagined. (For example, a rhinoceros velociraptor skeleton.) Serious Sam 3 offers a bloody experience and some cool looking melee attacks. You can rip out a one-eyed crawly creatures eye and then throw it at another enemy or rip open a guys chest and remove his heart that you can then…. throw at another enemy.

Serious Sam 3 will offer 16 player co-op and a bevy of multiplayer modes that, at this stage, competes with the number of and creativity of the game modes offered in Halo: Reach. (For you haters out there, Halo has got one hell of multiplayer game mode line up that is untouched by any other series.)  Here’s hoping Serious Sam turns out as fun as its predecessors, and finds an audience within the mainstream. I’m hoping it is going to have that classic feel that Duke Nukem: Forever missed out on mixed with the fun insanity we saw from Bulletstorm earlier this year.

There we are, a spotlight has been put upon some games that will likely be overlooked this holiday season. I hope they all turn out as great as they are looking, and make a splash to compete with the behemoths they will be going up against. They will all need a lot of luck in order to survive, but I’ll be looking at them, and I hope many other gamers will be too.

I think it’s fair to say I’m a fan of Batman. Long Halloween and the Killing Joke are a couple of my favorite comics and I have the Dark Knight practically tattooed onto my brain. For some reason though, Arkham Asylum never quite clicked with me. Maybe I was a little hung up with the seemingly random x-ray vision that Batman had or maybe the nerd in me is still raging about Harley Quinn’s redesign. I recognized that Rocksteady created a fabulous game but it just wasn’t for me. I was hard pressed, however, to see if Arkham City would swing past me again or if this would be a Dark Knight to remember.

The story begins with Bruce Wayne protesting over the creation of Arkham City – a prison literally built into the center of Gotham City. He is promptly arrested by Hugo Strange, the man behind the prison social experiment, who reveals that he knows that Wayne is really the Batman. After getting harassed by the Penguin and some prisoners, Wayne contacts Alfred and changes suits into the Batman. Not wasting any time, Batman flies off to go and fight evil doers. After saving Catwoman from Two-face, Batman confronts the Joker, whom he finds out is dying from the Titan serum from the events of the previous game. The Joker poisons the Batman with his blood and reveals that he’s also been sneaking his infected blood into Gotham’s blood banks for months, knowing that this would force Batman to find a cure for his disease. Hugo Strange then starts a ten hour countdown to Protocol Ten – something that the Batman has to figure out what it is, and stop it before it can be enacted.

One thing that Arkham City does that surpasses over its predecessor is the ability to glide through Gotham City. Granted, it’s a limited portion of the city, but it’s definitely quite impressive. Gliding silently around town and listening in on criminals as they talk about your exploits makes it so sweet when you nab them from the shadows and frighten their buddies. The open world really gives a great feeling about what it’s like to be the Dark Knight, seeing the city from his eyes. I was kind of bothered by the false sense of urgency that the storyline pushes on you, however. Between trying to cure and incurable disease and stop an unknown protocol happening in the course of one evening, you’d think everything would move quicker. It took me longer than necessary to realize that it didn’t matter how long I took with each mission – the overall threat was plot related and would solve itself as I played more missions. I took this moment to play some side missions I was sorely neglecting, opening up the game to way more exploration than the main storyline.

Okay, normally I wouldn’t do this, but I’ve got to point it out for this game and stand on a soap box. I’m kind of fed up with the concept that female characters in comic books and video games need to be turned into sexual objects. The idea that women are sexual – yeah, I get that. But I find it embarrassing when the design of a character is such that it just screams “look at me! I’m a cheap attention ploy!” Poison Ivy doesn’t need to wear a shirt that doesn’t fit and panties made of leaves for guys to go “oh yeah, she’s hot.” Neither does the camera have to get an ass shot of Talia every chance it gets. Every male character gets some sort of personality with their uniform that displays their character without saying a word. The women? They get corsets and tight pants. It just seems really unnecessary to me and takes away some value from the game I might not otherwise have cared about.

I have a hard time explaining to people exactly why I enjoyed Arkham City. It’s not that it’s a bad game–far from it. I just don’t quite understand what it is I like about it. The plotline is kind of ridiculous-–even for something based off of comic books-–and gets unnecessarily complicated towards the end. The female character designs range from ridiculous to unnecessary, and Killer Croc just looks stupid. Plus, I was so overstimulated by “things to do” that at one point when I had to struggle to keep focused on the storyline, just so I wouldn’t lose track of where I was. Overall, though, I had a pretty great experience. The interactions between Batman and the Joker are always fantastic and reminiscent of the Killing Joke. Beating up bad guys with the kung fu ninja skills of the Batman is always satisfying. I guess even the biggest “WITF” moments were outshined by ten more “OMG” times.

I’ll do my best to summarize this game in question form; did you like Arkham Asylum and also Spiderman 2? Then this is the game for you. Do you like pretending to be the Batman and also sometimes Catwoman? Go and get yourself a copy. Are you the goddamned Batman? Then you probably don’t want to play this game as you are a fictional character. Basically it comes down to this; Arkham City isn’t a perfect game… but it’s fun. It’s ballsy, good, beat ‘em up and tie ‘em to a gargoyle fun. If nothing else, you’ll be going as the Batman for a long Halloween.

November is almost here and that means it’s time to get taken for a ride, all over again. Twelve new characters, eight new stages, and a multitude of salty mechanical changes are approaching fast in Capcom’s newest *ahem* edition into the fighting game fray. In the video above, our pal and fighting game aficionado Maximilian takes us uhh… for a ride through a visual breakdown of some of the important changes coming to Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, this November.

Don’t have a few minutes? Luckily, Capcom has lovingly broke down a few of the announced changes for us simpler folks, which you can go for a ride pour over after the break.

From Capcom:

1 – X-Factor can be activated in the air.

2 – The attack and speed increases for each character while in X-Factor have been adjusted. Additionally, the damage reduction minimum while in X-Factor has been decreased from 50% in MvC3 to 35% in UMvC3, and Hyper Combos performed during X-Factor will now be subject to damage scaling.

3 – A left/ right exchange during an Air Combo will take away 1 bar of your opponent’s HC Gauge.

4 – When you launch the enemy in the air with a Special Attack, hold the button down and your character will automatically super jump to follow the launched opponent. (This can be turned on or off in the Options menu.)

5 – The window for Aerial Exchange Counters has been adjusted, making it easier to land one.

6 – If you land a Snap Back attack on an assist character, similar to the landing it on the point character, the assist will become unavailable for a short period of time.

7 – It will no longer be possible to block during an air dash.

8 – The rate of HC Meter gain has been decreased by 10%, to 90% of what it was in MvC3.

9 – In MvC3, the amount of hit stun caused by assists was fixed, but in UMvC3 hit stun caused by assists will also be subject to hit stun deterioration during combos.

10 – For characters who have 8-way dashes, the speed on their down-back air dash has been slightly decreased.

Source: Capcom-Unity

Join myself along with the full bEASTly crew of Adam, Greg, Scott, Tara and Corey for what can only be described as “quite possibly, perhaps the best damn video game podcast series of all time- only not really!”

Hilarity and video games ensue with funk remixes, spooky encounters, and artsy snobs!

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Crimson Alliance was one of the games that we got a chance to preview at E3 2011 and it has been release for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Crimson Alliance was developed by Certain Affinity, the same folks who brought you the Halo: Reach Defiant Map Pack and the original Left 4 Dead. Certain Affinity is also pitching in on the new Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary. With such a strong track record with high profile first person shooters, how would they do with a top down dungeon crawler/beat’em up like Crimson Alliance?

Crimson Alliance follows the classic hero story with three main characters who are returning to the war torn lands of Byzan. The capital has been over taken by an evil force and it is your job to return order to this world of chaos. Nothing ground breaking here as I think we have all played through this story a time or two before. The three character types are stereotypical also with a warrior, mage, and assassin to choose from. The warrior smashes things, the wizard shoots fire balls, and the assassin has a quick attack. The problem here is that even though the three characters have different types of attacks, they all end up playing the same. Each one has a heavy and light attack, a stun move, and a dash move. The warrior is the only one that stands alone because he doesn’t have a projectile attack.

The game starts off feeling like a standard action RPG. You kill some enemies, collect some experience points and gold, find some items, and clear out the level. Each of the attack/defense controls has a level bar that you can fill up by getting new items only. It’s disappointing to find out all the experience points you racked up are not for leveling your character but just for getting a higher ranking on the leader boards. The other way that you earn points for moving up the leader boards is by finding not so secret areas that often consist of going the other direction on the rat trap. Which is exactly what this game feels like you are playing through by the time you get to the end. Sure there are some different path ways that you can take to move around but at the end of the day you are just looking for that damn piece of cheese.

The good stuff for Crimson Alliance is the online multiplayer and the visuals. For being a $10-$15 arcade title (depending on if you want to buy one character for $10 or all three for $15) I was pretty impressed with the visuals and art direction. There is a ton of detail in each level with tons of things going on outside of the actual game play. It’s just too bad you can’t get down into some of the other areas to participate or explore some more. The four player multiplayer is the most rewarding part of the game because you and three other players can run your way through level after level and just destroy enemies in the game. The multiplayer fell short though as there are only three character classes and it allows for four players to be in the game at a time. Maybe a white mage will be release later on to get the fourth character and complete the party.

To sum this up, if you need something to kill time while waiting for Diablo III, Crimson Alliance won’t cure the itch but it might tide you over for a couple of weeks. Gauntlet fans may want to check this one out also. At the end of the day, the three main characters are too similar to each other and the game itself is missing too many little things for me to make a mass recommendation for everyone. If you are looking for some mindless hack and slash game play to keep you busy while waiting for one of the major holiday releases, then Crimson Alliance is waiting for you on Xbox Arcade for 1200 Microsoft Points. I’ll be waiting for Certain Affinity’s contribution to the Halo Anniversary game.

If you like Guilty Gear/ BlazeBlue / Hokuto No Ken/ Sengoku Basara X/Arcana Heart 3 or pretty much anything Arc System Works and Daisuke Ishiwatari touch, then you should be interested in Persona 4 Arena. Shoryuken.com has 45 minutes of Persona 4 Arena footage taken at the recent Tokyo Game Show.

A great deal of over the shoulder footage capturing what looks very much like BlazBlue with angst ridden teens, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’esque “Stand” game play, and altogether too much air/ground dashing. So far I am really liking what I see both in terms of bringing something new to the Guilty Gear/BlazBlue formula, and the character dynamics and sexy looking interface. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and beat the hell out of Cory with characters he wishes he could smoke skinny cigarettes with, take out to sushi dinners, and accompany to local anime conventions.

Check out the 45 minutes of game play videos and start practicing long chains and instant air dashing shenanigans, Ideally on the GGPO supported BlazBlue Continuum Shift (Yeah, it’s that cheap, and yes you should be playing it, and yes I am a hypocrite because I don’t play it, and yes I’d still beat Cory.)

The PS3 versions of these links seem to not be working… Oh well…

Bonus Points: If you STILL haven’t had enough dashing/overdriven metal riffs/samurai girls in conical hats. Grab HardCorps Uprising. Yes that just happened.

I got an oppurtunity to check out the Mojang booth and talk to the creator of Minecraft - Notch. Good times were had by all. (Note: the audio this transcript was taken from was not the best quality so the wording may not be 100% accurate).

Golgotron: This is Mr. Pharisee, I’m here with Markus Persson AKA Notch of Mojang.

Notch: Hi.

G: So, there’ve been a lot of mods made for Minecraft. How do you feel about the modding community taking a hold of a game that hasn’t quite been finished yet?

N: I think for me personally it’s been difficult because I want to finish the game and I feel like there’s like some sort of competition or… yeah, kind of like a competition going almost. But I think for the game it’s very good. I mean, look at what happened to like Doom and other games that the modding really took off, like Half-life, and it was very good for the game. Personally I don’t even look at it because I just get stressed out.

G: This is the most sucessful “beta” that’s ever happened. Have you collected a ton of data that’s helped you “craft” Minecraft?

N: No, not really. We’re not very good at collecting data. We’re mostly just trying to check twitter and forums and try to analyze that, but there’s not really a lot of hard data.

G: What features can we expect from the “final” game?

N: From the final game? Oh… I don’t have the schedule in front of me for what we’re adding but we’re gonna have towns and the new larger biodomes and a goal for the game so you can “win” the game. Those are the major features you can expect, and we’re going to update on that.

G: Okay, cool, thank you for your time.

N: Thank you.

G: This is Mr. Pharisee, signing out.

That Notch, a very lovely fellow. I hope we see more good things come to Minecraft.

Another PAX, another chance to speak with Twisted Pixel about the Gunstringer. It’s almost here, so let’s not waste any time and read the transcript of this wonderful quick little interview.

Golgotron: This is Mr. Pharisee here again with Jay Stuckwisch of Twisted Pixel.

Jay Stuckwisch: Hey how you doing there everybody? Thanks for having me back.

G: So, a lot has changed with the Gunstringer since the last time we talked at PAX East – for instance, the inclusion of a second player. Could you elaborate how that works?

JS: Yeah, so it’s actually just two co-op together. It’s not online play or anything but multiplayer allows a second person to step in and control a second reticule and shoot at the same targets as the first player while the first player controls the movements of the Gunstringer.

G: At first it was going to be released on XBLA but now it’s coming to retail disc. Could you talk about the decision to change?

JS: Yeah! Actually the decision came from Microsoft. The game was actually taken to a retreat that Microsoft was having and some pretty high profile people from Microsoft were at that event. They got a chance to play the Gunstringer and when they found out it was going to XBLA they were curious as to why it wasn’t being pushed as a retail title. After those discussions happened they came to us and said “hey, are you thinking about going retail with the Gunstringer?” We thought it’s an awesome oppurtunity to take this game out in retail. It gave us a lot more time to actually put more into the game and polish it up and make it really more of what we initially hoped it to be. So yeah, we’re happy with that.

G: So when can we expect the Gunstringer to come to retail?

JS: Gunstringer will be hitting shelves on September 13th, so we’re only a few weeks away.

G: All right, cool. Well, thank you for your time.

JS: Yeah, thanks for having me, this was great.

G: This is Mr. Pharisee, signing out.

Well that was great. I can’t wait to get my hands on the full game when it comes out and really get into the world of the Gunstringer.

My fellow fellows on the bEast Coast attended PAX East earlier this year. Sadly, none of them could follow me to the land of the west as I went to PAX Prime to report on all the gaming goodness. In their spirit, I totally followed some girls around and took pictures of them against their better judgment! Unlike them however, the girls I pictured were totally into me. I could tell. I have that look that’s so charming I have to fight those ladies off with a stick. Although sometimes I have to be careful because some of them like that! Girls are weird; I should know. I’ve been on the internet.

Anyways, that brings me to my first lovely vixen.

This little foxlet caught my eye from across the expo hall. I chased her down for quite some time. She’s quite the runner! Eventually she grew tired of our little game and stopped playing hard to get, right about the same time that she nearly collapsed from exhaustion. That’s too bad, I kind of liked the chase. No matter, I took this picture with her to capture the moment that she captured my heart and I captured her.

These lovely ladies were cold as ice. And I don’t mean they were impersonal because they definitely warmed up to my touch. Rawr. No, no, don’t worry lads, these fine frozen females were just pretending to be cold. See, they were dressed as snowboarders. In reality it was quite warm in that expo hall, especially with these shining beauties. They can knock me out cold and chop me up into little pieces and stuff me in the freezer in the garage any day.

When I spotted this mad hatter across the room I simply had to introduce myself. At first she, too, ran from my sight, as well as her friend. What a strange game these cosplayers all like to play! I was kind of tired from the last runner so I decided to just go after her smaller friend – like a lion picking out the weakest gazelle. The mad hatter (a loyal one, always a plus) reluctantly agreed to take the picture in exchange for her friend, who opted to sort of cower behind me like a cute little mouse. So adorable.

After that last ordeal it seems I had some mysterious ketchup stains on my clothes, so I had to go change into a clean shirt. I decided to step out for a bit of fresh air when I ran into this minx. She was a feisty one. It seems she injured herself in the fall and had a difficult time actually walking away. I offered to give her directions to the nearest hospital in exchange for a photo. Luckily for her, I knew one of the best psychiatric hospitals in the country. I bet with one look at her they’ll be able to patch her up proper.

That was then I spotted these two creatures. At first I wasn’t sure if they were really into character so I played a little game with them to test it. It seems they weren’t that into character. Zombies can’t scream, much less identify a Colt .45 magnum with a bullet loaded in the chamber just in case. I mean, that would be some crazy kind of zombie that I wouldn’t want to deal with. Nobody likes crazy people. Nobody. Not even mother. And she said she’d always love me…

After a bit of rest and introspection, I realized that my adventure was nearly coming to an end. Little did I know, but I had just one more cosplayer to deal with before everything would be over.

Man, this guy was such a creeper. Doesn’t he know it’s rude to stare?

With September 8th rapidly approaching millions of Minecrafters are gearing up for what might be the biggest update so far. The “Adventure Update” will include the addition of new enemies, new combat mechanics, more game modes, and the long awaited “Eat to live/Food Meter” functionality, which I’m convinced is going to be twice as annoying as the Day to Night Mechanic but whatever people want it. You can actually get a full list of the updates here, as well as a look at what’s to come from future updates. Personally, I’m more excited about 1.9′s addition of Boss Mobs, but 1.8 is still going to be killer cool and will more than likely continue to keep me from using the hours of my life wisely. The trailer above gives us a look at some of the things we can expect with the release of this update. Now, the September 8th release date is to be considered a loose one, so I would get my hopes up too soon. That’s all for now…. Troll, out.

Welcome to the premiere episode of the bEAST Coast Podcast presented by Golgotron.com! Join Joe, Greg, Scott, Tara, and Adam, as they discuss games, food, and… thingies!

This isn’t your average podcast. Check it out!

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Thanks to AlexxShadenk777 and EventHubs for starting my morning off right with a little Dudley 3SO arcade run! News is a little slow this morning and frankly all I can think about is finishing Dead Island and not going to work, but I’m going to try and keep the posts/trollin’ flowin’ like wine. For now, if you’ve got 14 minutes, enjoy this video, and as always… Stay Classy!

Earlier today I posted about the Persona Fighting Game coming next summer, well the fine people over at NeoGaf got their hands on some of the screenshots from the upcoming Famitsu article… and let me just say, if it was possible to play this game now… and all I had to do was murder your family to do so… *knife sharpening sounds*. Regardless, after thoroughly examining the screens I have to agree with Mr. Hawkins’ assessment that the persona’s will play similar to the “Stands” in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure… I included the youtube video with the images after the jump to help clarify. If you would have told me this morning that I’d be more excited for a game than I am for Persona 5, I’d have cart-wheel-kicked you on principle! But after seeing these… I think I have a new “Number One” on my list of Most Wanted Games!

Imagine… this style gameplay:

With these sprites!:

If you’ve read my previous posts in the Atlusenomenon 2011 series, or you’ve met me, or ever have  heard me speak a single sentence allowed, then you’re probably accutely aware of my obsession with the Persona series. Now, I’ve know that the fifth game in the series had been in development since about a year ago, but ever since then Katsura Hashino, Director of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 and the man in charge of the series had been sitting on his hands with any other announcements. It was also during this time that Atlus started to heavily promote Catherine, which lead me to believe that my beloved Persona was might have been pushed to the wayside in favor of a more marketable series.

Luckily, I was wrong, and when my main man Katsura recently spoke to Famitsu he stated that preliminary development for Persona 5 is coming to a close. Awwwwwweeeee…. LOVE BUBBLES!!!! He also went on to state, that while Team Persona utilized a third party engine for Catherine, they developed a new internal engine for 5. According to Hashino, this would allow them to work at a streamlined pace, though that’s not to say the game will be out anytime soon. In fact, Hashino goes on to state the game won’t see the light of day for some time yet… I’m just happy its coming Kats… take your sweet time, and I’ll start making the necessary arrangements (quitting my job, severing all relationships, and stock piling soup) in preparation for its fated arrival. Go with God Team Persona, go with God… Unless you’re all Athesist, in which case, just eat a sandwich. You’re probably going to need your strength.

Next up in the list of games designed to make me single (yes, I lost two or more girlfriends due to Persona 3 and 4… no, I don’t regret it), Atlus has announced that next spring it will be releasing Persona 4 The Ultimate In Mayonaka Arena! A 2D fighter developed in a joint venture alongside BlazBlue developers Arc Systems Works. So, let’s just take a step back and analyze what I just wrote out there… IT’S A PERSONA FIGHTING GAME! ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!! I DON’T EVEN CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE IN LIFE ANYMORE!!!! ATLUS WANTS ME TO BE FOREVER ALONE THIS IS PROOF!

Ok.. calming down… I’m going to try to stop yelling and explaining how insanely excited I am… it’s cheapening this moment. The game will feature a roster both from Persona 3 and 4, and is tentatively slated for Xbox 360 and PS3 in the Summer 2012.

With all the Atlus news coming out in the last few hours I could have easily lumped all the announcements into one article, but frankly, where’s the fun in that. Instead, I’m going to treat this like Atlus just held their own convention exclusively for me, and my now ten foot erection, called Atlusenomenon 2011!!!

First up, the fine team over there ensures that not only I will in fact be purchasing a new PS Vita, something I strongly was opposed to, but also that I will do it glady thanks to a special rerelease of Persona 4 subtitled, “The Golden“.

Undoubtedly the Port will include a slew of new extra, much like the recent release of Persona 3 to PSP. Here are just a few that we know for sure:

• New events
• New Personas
• New character outfits
• New anime movie scenes, with new voices
• 1.5 times the voice of the PS2 original
• New song for the opening movie
• An unnamed element requested by fans

Other additions include a new female character named Marie, who is described a  mysterious girl who appears before the main characters, and a new message system that will allow other players to come save you when you’re about to die. Not sure how all the mechanics work on all that, but given how many time I died on dungeon 4, I’m all in.

Image Source:
Neogaf

If you love shmups, you’ll be eager to know that the Radiant Silvergun remake is finally hitting Xbox Live Arcade. On September 14, you’ll be able to pick up Treasure’s classic Sega Saturn top-down shooter for a mere 1200 Microsoft Points.  (Don’t whine about the price. That’s about 800% off what lunatics are paying for the original discs on eBay.)

This new version features 2-player co-op, multiple graphics modes, and both “Saturn” and “Arcade” game variants.

So enjoy.  It’s perfect for wise investors like myself. The kind of investor who gets caught up in nostalgia and spends the next year staring at the unfinished title collecting dust in his game library.

Ask me about the three versions of Ikaruga that I own…

I am a fool.

I’ve got a riddle for you, “What happens if you don’t buy the new Professor Layton and the Last Specter game this October 17th?”…. The answer? I will murder your Children! That’s right, bitch! Layton’s back, and this mutha fucka’s in 3D too–All up in yo’ eyes and shit! My game is gonna be off the chain with puzzles. Crazy shit! You all gonna be like, “Where’s this go?” IT GOES IN THE ROUND HOLE, WHORE! And I know this… I’m God-Damn Professor! So kids, you run off and tell your parents to buy this game. I don’t care if you have to cry, or steal, or break shit… cause you buyin’ this game.  Cause if you don’t, Grandma’s not waking up from her 5 o’ clock nap….

Also I’m givin’ you Brownie Brown developed bonus “Professor Layton’s London Life RPG“, cause I’m a nice Mutha Fucka… like Santa and shit… So buy it!

So in an effort to remind us that the Max Payne 3 Hype Train is still going, Rockstar Vancouver released two new screenshots a few minutes ago. I wish there was more to report, as this game seems to have been lost in development hell after failing to show up at the last few E3′s, but it doesn’t look like we’re getting much. Enjoy the shots, and I guess just keep holding your breath for MP3 to release this side of 2020. Pics after the jump…

I’m pretty sure the title sums this one up, but in case you’re just that thick, allow me to elaborate.  Nintendo announced today that the limited edition of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword would come bundled with a golden Wii MotionPlus, as well as include a CD of performances from the upcoming Zelda 25th anniversary concert. I suppose its not a bad idea considering Skyward Sword requires a Wii MotionPlus to play, and not everyone still has taken the time to pick one up.

Personally, I’m still not feeling the hype around this Zelda, but I’ll probably end up picking this package up cause I’ll still play it, and as I too am one of those people without a MotionPlus… WHAT?!?!?! DON’T JUDGE ME… I just haven’t turned my Wii on in over a year… you can go ahead and insert your cheap jokes at anytime. Look for it this on Launch day (November 20th) retailing at 69.99.

I have to hand it to Super Meat Boy‘s Co-Creator Edmund McMillen, he, and any member of Team Meat really, could have easily strayed away from their roots after the success of SMB. Ed’s new personal project , The Binding of Isaac, proves that he’s in no way shape or form interested in deviating from style. This latest trailer finally gives us a glimpse into the creepy world of Isaac. The game has been described as a “roguelike shooter” with heavy influence taken from 16-bit Action RPG era (think Zelda); personally I think it looks more more like a Smash TV-style game, but shrug.  The game follows the story of Isaac attempting to escape the clutches of his deranged mother who believes God is demanding her to sacrifice her son to prove her faith… Sounds charming

Look for it to launch via Steam for both Mac and PC this September.

Binding of Isaac

I dig Mad Catz FightSticks. I collect them. As I write this, I’m wearing one of my Team Mad Catz shirts. So when I heard Mad Catz was doing an MLG branded FightStick, I of course couldn’t wait to see what MarkMan and company had in store this time around. The result was a new take on the now classic TE stick, but is it an improvement or another wardrobe change?

The MLG TE FightStick arrived in a very nicely designed box, with attention to detail on every square inch. Upon freeing the little beauty from her cardboard cell, the first thing I noticed was that this appears to be the first Mad Catz full size TE stick with a full length panel. They tried this design with the first two editions of the smaller TE-S stick, switching back to the original panel-bezel combo with the Limited Edition Chun-Li model.  My experience has been that the panel edges are rough on your wrists and become slightly irritating after even a few minutes. Perhaps it’s just my tender wrist meat.

Aside from the full-size panel, the other obvious difference is the red and blue metallic paint on the sides. The paint looks like it could scratch pretty easily, so you’d definitely want to carry it in some proper gear. While the paint and design are nice, I have to wonder why they went back to the full-sized TE design instead of the more compact TE-S design, but I’m sure there was reasoning behind it.

In the above picture, you can see the brilliant reflectiveness of the metallic paint, but also the exposed edge of the printed panel. Over time, that panel could pull up or separate, so again I have to emphasize proper protection when transporting your stick.

It seems that is where the differences between this MLG FightStick and any previous TE FightStick end. With all the awesome modular design Mad Catz put into the new line of MLG controllers, it’s a shame they didn’t put in some sort of swappable end caps or the ability to quick swap from the Japanese-style ball top to an American “bat” top. Considering the beating these sticks take, it’s probably for the best that they’re as bolted down and kept as sturdy as possible.

Overall, unless you’re like me and collect these beautiful beasts or if you’re in the market for a very shiny new TE stick, you may wish to hold out for the new FightStick Pro models shipping next month.

The Mad Catz MLG Tournament Edition FightStick is available now at the Gameshark Store and retail for $159.99 US.

One of the problems a lot of booths at PAX have is trying to contend with other booths – especially for virtually unknown projects. Who wants to see your interesting game that nobody’s ever heard of when they can go get the latest news on Mass Effect 3? Citizen Skywatch solves this problem in SPADES.

An early contender for “easily the most interesting booth ever”, Citizen Skywatch doesn’t waste a single inch of their booth to show off the theme to their game. From the beginning, we’re prompted to sign up to be a part of the Citizen Skywatch – a group of free citizens who report on strange incidents that have happened around America. While we were in line a citizen walked up and down asking us questions about our relations to America. When he approached us and asked why Colin was taking pictures I decided to play with the role – I explained that we were a part of a free information network. He then chastised us for a couple minutes about the power of information and that we were naive to just throw it away for free. These actors REALLY got into their roles, which was pretty incredible. There was a man with a notebook who just silently “took notes” on the people in line and would occasionally whisper to his colleague.

We were fed into a medical room two at a time. While waiting our turn, Colin took more photos – which got the attention of the nurse. She pulled him out for keeping his hand in his pocket. When I tried to join my ally, she snapped at me and told me to wait my turn. While the nurse was interrogating him, the doctor was handing cards to another “citizen” and testing his psychic abilities. Soon after Colin and the other citizen were led behind a curtain. On my turn to go I was told to sit down and lift various limbs at the nurses command. She asked me a bunch of questions about if I had communist associations – of course I lied. I wasn’t going to let my red comrades down! When she asked for my name I told her “Greg Pharisee”, a clearly fake persona. She asked me if the name came from a passage in the bible and if I followed their tenants. Clever girl.

Then I was led past the curtain where comrade Colin disappeared. I didn’t see him but there was a man with a camera and a door. I could only assume they poisoned him and tossed his body behind the door – what else could they have done in such a short amount of time? I wasn’t going to go that way. They took my photo and invited me to a meeting of the Citizen Skywatch tonight – they even gave me the secret code “Citizen Zero”. Those rubes. I’ve successfully infiltrated their base, and they won’t even see it coming. I’ll avenge you, Comrade Colin! Your death will not go without meaning.

Okay, so, admittedly, I really got into their booth. It was really really cool. I’ve picked up that the game has something to do with the Cold War era and that there’s some sort of Citizen police force in Orwellian fashion. Their actors were really great and knew what they were doing. I was seriously impressed by the ad lib capabilities of the actors – especially so that the nurse knew where I grabbed the name Pharisee from. But… I don’t know ANYTHING about the game. It’s probably the best teaser trailer I’ve ever seen, but there’s nothing of video game related substance here. I’ll be going to the party tonight and I’ll see if I can find out more there.

It’s been a long time since I’ve dusted off Virtua Fighter 5, with all the other great fighting game franchises saturating the market these days. It’s hard to go back when we’ve seen new Guilty Gear, Smash Bros, Soul Calibur, BlazBlue, King of Fighters, Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, Mortal Kombat, and others all make their way to home consoles since Virtua Fighter 5‘s home release. Even before we see the release of this entry, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, we’ll see another Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Street Fighter IV update, Street Fighter x Tekken (scheduled for Q1 2012), King of Fighters XII, and a few other potential contenders all fighting for your dollar. Don’t count Sega out, because Virtual Fighter still remains the king of technical fighting games and a refreshing alternative to over-the-top arcade style fighters. Check out the announcement trailer after the jump.

Taken from the Sega press release:

For anyone looking to play with yours truly, expect lots of monkey scratches and cartwheels.

The last time I pre-ordered, lined up, or just plain old impulse bought a sports game on launch day was NFL 2k1 back in 2000. Last year I saw the hype for NBA 2k11 and after a few minutes with the game, realized that while my beloved NFL 2k series may have died off long ago, Visual Concepts is still cranking away on making the best baskethoops games in the world.

Let me just get one thing clear; I love sports games. Having said that, Madden and the other EA Sports franchises have managed to completely turn me away from buying sports games for more than $20. I can see how people who play them competitively online or have leagues they compete in would be lining up for the yearly dole, but beyond that why pay $60 for something you get for $20 six weeks later. Unfortunately, this apathy has also spread to 2k Sports and their games until now.

NBA 2k11 was fun, pretty, and impressively connected to reality with quick roster update and real-time scoring of games going on while you played them virtually. The biggest win for 2k last year was the restoration of Michael Jordan to video game relevance. They did exactly what they should have done with MJ and revolved the entire game around his inclusion. Seeing the classic Chicago Bulls intro done in the NBA 2k engine was enthralling and gave me goosebumps the first few times I saw it. This hunger to deliver great experiences is something EA Sports seems to have lost over the last ten years, and much of that probably stems from lack of competition. Rest assured, NBA 2k11 put them on notice and got their attention in a big way.

NBA 2k12 features the return of Jordan and a couple dozen of the other greatest players ever to set foot on the hardwood. This isn’t all that exciting to me personally, but it’s a logical (and classy) step forward in trying to follow up one of the best selling and arguably one of the most popular sports games of all time. Considering the polish and effort put into NBA 2k11, I feel it only right to support 2k Sports with a day one purchase of NBA 2k12, complete with the limited Michael Jordan cover.

NBA 2k11 is slated for an October 4, 2011, release on everything under the sun except the 3DS/DS.

It seems these days that forums are full of youngsters with a false sense of entitlement. Many are saying Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is overpriced, under delivers, and is a straight rip-off. I figure it’s time to sit down and look at the numbers and rationale behind the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and put some of these complaints to rest.

Most of the backlash I’ve seen on forums around the release of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 revolves around a few topics: the report that much of the announced content was originally intended as DLC for Marvel vs Capcom 3, the exclusion of MegaMan, and the price and disc format. Let’s look at these issues individually.

The Content Should Have Been Vanilla DLC

Capcom definitely threw me for a loop when they released the first costume pack for MvC3 but had no mention of a future DLC schedule or even plans to release another costume pack. Yoshinori Ono has spoiled the fighting game community with a thinly veiled, yet regular flow of information regarding Street Fighter projects. Although managed by a different team, Marvel vs Capcom is a staple franchise and should be treated in a similarfashion. When we heard nothing, I got the sense that they either wanted to see how it was received or truly had no sense of a roadmap for MvC3 DLC.

Given the events that transpired on and after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, again not even a month after the release of Marvel vs Capcom 3, it is understandable that there would be some disruption to the development cycle. That aside, one can speculate that had a catastrophic event not taken place, some of the characters announced for UMvC3 may have made it to DLC and the chain of content would have continued over the past six months. Unfortunately though, it did happen and this is most likely Capcom’s attempt to catch up with fan demand, while at the same timegiving us a bundle and saving us a lot of time and money.

The No-MegaMan

Capcom has always been one of the better companies at doing fan service, and over the last few years their attention to fans has grown tremendously. With the hiring of Seth Killian as “special consultant” and community liaison, and the full-time attention given to communication on Capcom-Unity and Twitter, Capcom has proven time and again their commitment to fans. Even the existence of current Street Fighter and Marvel vs Capcom sequels speaks to this fact, as both were written off as too expensive and time consuming to be profitable. Luckily for Capcom, their fans truly support their work and vote to support them with their dollars year after year.

Personally, I’m a roster whore. When MvC3 didn’t have more characters than MvC2, I was thoroughly disappointed and saw a product of laziness and complacency, despite claims they were attempting to go for balance and all viably playable characters. Over time, I really came to enjoy the system and the roster we were given, but really missed my old Capcom favorites like Jin Saotome, Captain Commando, and yes, MegaMan.

As much as it irked me to have to imagine how amazing Blodia Punch, Saotome Dynamite, and Captain’s Corridor would look in the MvC3 engine, I just had to come to accept that Capcom and Marvel wanted to move onto new characters and we all are not entitled to anything as consumers. You get what you buy and as an educated consumer, you should never buy something you do not wish to support. If the lack of MegaMan ruins the entire experience for you, you have the right to refuse support for it, or perhaps you should deal with not having your way and enjoy the game like the other two million people playing it. Look on the bright side, we’ve now got Frank West, Phoenix Wright, and everyone’s favorite, Strider, all of which came as the loudest cries from fans on the Capcom-Unity forums. Didn’t they say spectator mode was not feasible given the amount of craziness on-screen and data being transferred? Didn’t they also say Strider didn’t fit into the system? MegaMan is not dead, the franchise is not abandoned, and I have a sneaking suspicion that at some point it would not be out of the realm of possibility to see the blue bomber appear as DLC.

The Price and Disc Format

It just doesn’t make sense to release an update this large as DLC. Should UMvC3 be released for Games on Demand? Sure, but it should not be considered a basic add-on. The game plays similarly and is recycling many assets and game engine mechanics, but this much content truly warrants a proper release. Priced at $39.99, Capcom is already acknowledging that this isn’t a full sequel to MvC3, but rather an expansion much in the way Super Street Fighter IV was to the original “vanilla” version. Oh, and this is also assuming Capcom has no more surprises up their sleeves prior to the November launch date. Remember, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition started out announced as DLC only, but was eventually released on disc due to fan demand.

As far as price is concerned, Capcom currently has two major fighting game franchises they’re actively supporting, and given their popularity as both multi-platinum selling titles we can look at the two for comparison. The first Street Fighter IV update, Super Street Fighter IV, was available on disc only and priced at $39.99.  The game featured ten new characters, five new stages, a rebalance, new menus and HUD, and new online modes. This offering was widely accepted as a hefty update with a substantial amount of content being added to the original, and thus the backlash was minor for the update being released only a year after the first franchise entry in a decade.

Many fans claim Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a minor update and an attempt at gouging players on the part of Capcom. They argue UMvC3 should be made available as DLC. UMvC3 is bringing twelve new fighters, eight new stages, new menus and HUD, and new online modes including spectator mode. For MvC3, Jill and Shuma Gorath were the only available DLC fighters, priced at $5 each. Assuming Capcom gave away spectator mode and the other new online features, for twelve new fighters alone this DLC would run $60. (Just be glad they aren’t $8 each like they are for BlazBlue.) Now let’s talk about the eight new stages for UMvC3. The original had eight stages, plus training and the final stage. Adding eight new stages basically doubles the initial offering and would realistically be priced no less than $10 as DLC. Considering Soul Calibur IV had bonus songs for $15, I think this is a bargain. So all told, for twelve characters and eight stages, again assuming the spectator mode and updated interfaces are worth nothing, the DLC total is $70. Hell, maybe Capcom should release this as piecemeal DLC and really take you for a ride.

With the Nintendo Wii making its last gasps in the shadow of the Wii U, I felt that it would be appropriate to look back on the things that could have been. I came up with a list of 7 things that the Wii still needs to do before it rolls over and dies.

1. Wireless Nunchuck and Classic Controller

This should have been a no brainer. Here we are in 2011 with a 6 year old console and Nintendo is the only console that comes packaged with controller with a cord. The other consoles only use a cord if you want to play and charge the batteries for the controller at the same time; which brings up another question. Why didn’t Nintendo make their own proprietary batteries and charge station for all 3 of their controllers? Nintendo could have made a killing on another accessory rather than having me flush dollars down the drain for Duracells. And don’t give me the “we don’t have the technology” excuse. If the system can detect four Wiimotes at one time, there should be no issue with grabbing a Nunchuck or a Classic Controller.

2. That Blue Glowing Light

What a mistake not to leave this beautiful blue glow on all the time. Or even just when the system was powered on at the very least. I love going down to my pitch black living room and seeing that light surging on and off when Nintendo has pushed out an update or a message to the Wii. I imagine this is what it will look like during the alien invasion. And all it would take is a simple firmware update to make this happen. And it wouldn’t even need to be forced to stay on. How about another option in the Wii system settings and let players decide for themselves?

3. Forecast and News Channel

When I first fired up my Wii back in November of 2005, I felt like Sylvester Stalone waking up after being frozen for 30 years in Demolition Man. The capabilities of this new console seemed so foreign at the time coming off the Playstation 2 and GameCube which merely played video games. Now I can make a digital copy of myself, check the weather, read the news, and vote on whether I like rainy days better than sunny days. I thought that I would be turning on my Wii ever single day to have it read me the days headlines and weather predictions. That didn’t happen. There was so much potential for the Wii to be an every day appliance but it just didn’t work. I guess I’ll go back to trying to figure out these three shells.

4. Social Media Integration

So you want people to spend more time on the Wii? How about some Facebook/Twitter integration. I know that I would have been a lot more motivated to my ass on the Wii Fit if I new my results were going to be posted for the world to see. And while we are at it, how about some Mario Kart fastest lap times? Maybe some stats from Super Smash Bros? High scores and Leaderboards from Link’s Crossbow Training? Its all free advertising for the Big N; and talk about motivation to get existing players back in the game and new players playing so they can get their friends to shut up. Come on Nintendo, you put an app on the DSi to load pictures I took with a super crappy camera. Where is the connectivity for the Wii?

5. DS Connectivity

Speaking of the DS, what happened here? When the Wii launched, I had all kinds of hope for cool things to do by connecting my DS to the Wii. I was sure that at some point I would be able to use my DS as a controller or add on for a Wii game. I guess they are sort of making this happen with the Wii U touch screen tablet but why didn’t it happen with the Wii. You have to remember in 2005, we were coming off the GameCube with games like Four Sword Adventure and Wind Waker. These games damn near required you to have a Gameboy Advance and GameCube connection cable to play. All we ended up with was a DS download channel buried somewhere in the Nintendo Channel. Forgot it was there didn’t you? Nintendo had the biggest console and handheld for at least the last 6 years which would have almost guaranteed cross ownership of both the Wii and DS. And there is nothing to show for it. Here’s to hoping that the Wii U and 3DS can get something going here.

6. Wiimote Speaker

One of the first things I noticed when I put in Wii Sports and Twilight Princess was that there was sound coming from the Wiimote. This was an unexpected surprise for me and I immediately thought “I can’t wait to see what the developers do with this thing.” All I got was more disappointment though. It turns out the speaker was a cheap piece of junk that distorted on almost all volume levels. That volume level ended up on mute for the duration of my Wii ownership as it became more of an annoyance than an added bonus. This could have been cool if they would have spent 25 cents more per Wiimote to put a decent speaker in all the controllers.

7. Good Games

We all knew that Nintendo was going to make their own titles properly to make the Wii a success but what about 3rd party support? We were once again promised it would be there but it never happened. Besides a couple of Capcom PS2 ports (Resident Evil 4 and Okami), some good efforts from Sega (Conduit, Madworld), the Wii had nothing but de-tuned versions of Xbox360 and PS3 games (Call of Duty, Madden). Sure Nintendo is sending out the Wii the same way that it came in with a solid Zelda title Skyward Sword but thats not going to leave the Wii with the legacy it deserves. These games are collecting dust ready to be shipped to America. The fans are asking for them, but only time will tell if we ever see Xenoblade, The Last Story, or Pandora’s Tower here in the US of A.

Today, Valve confirmed rumors that there is a new Counter-Strike title coming in early 2012.  Valve is developing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive along with Hidden Path Entertainment, the team behind Counter-Strike: Source.  The game is planned for PS3, Xbox 360 and Steam (both PC and Mac).

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will feature brand new maps, weapons and game modes.  Valve also claimed there would be updated content from earlier versions of the game.  There haven’t been any screenshots released yet, but judging from Valve’s language in the press release, CS:GO is sounding like a major update to Source instead of a full sequel.

Philistines on the Internet are already making claims of “Oh great, more de_dust?” and “Are they just going to update de_dust again?” To those people, I say: “If Valve graces us with the ability to play a prettier version of de_dust for another decade, you will take it and you will shut your mouth.”

Stick together team.

Fruit Ninja is one of those simple, yet highly addictive iPhone games that people will play for hours on end and then deny even owning. For many people, myself included at times, it’s tough to admit when a casual game has its hooks in you. Halfbrick Studios wowed us with Raskulls during XBLA Games for the Holidays, but can Fruit Ninja Kinect, basically an iPhone port, hang with the likes of Bastion or Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet during the Summer of Arcade?

To put it simply, Fruit Ninja Kinect is the perfect addition to the Summer of Arcade mix. At 800 MSP, it’s the “bargain” title and the only break from lengthly campaigns you’ll get all summer on XBLA. I’ve played a majority of all the Kinect games since launch and this one takes the cake for simplicity and fun, but also accuracy in reading hand movements. There’s no story to be had here, but that’s for the best. You just stand in front of the Kinect, let the game calibrate your distance, and you’re chopping fruit in no time. The game gives you a silhouette of yourself to shame you into exercising at some point but more so to give you a sense of where it sees you. You know exactly where your hand will chop when you hold it out because you see it in relation to the fruit on the screen.

Fruit Ninja Kinect offers multiplayer co-op and competitive modes in addition to SOLO ROUND modes Classic, Arcade, and Zen. Classic mode has you ensuring all fruit is chopped, none drops off screen, and you avoid all bombs thrown into the mix. Arcade mode goes bananas (pun… intended) as game-modifying nanners are mixed in to allow you to get score multipliers, slow down time, or create an unmanageable orgy flow of fruit onscreen. The last and perhaps most difficult mode is Zen. Zen mode makes you wait for the precise moment when all the fruit align and you can get as many as possible in one swipe. Getting fruit combos adds bonus points which are required to get the best scores possible in Zen mode. Additionally there is a challenge mode where the game will present a simple score goal for you to attempt to attain. Completing challenges and other feats unlocks new blade effects and backgrounds called Sensei Swag, but the net result of any of those is a slightly different visual effect that you really don’t even notice when you’re engaged in fruit combat.

Multiplayer co-op is a blast if you have the living room space for it. You stand side by side trying to make sure no fruit goes un-ninja-ed while also trying not to chop the living hell out of your teammate. Competitive mode is basically the same, only the fruit is color coded to ensure compliance with the Equal Ninja Opportunity Act of 1963. Also, if you chop your opponent’s fruit, you lose points. Occasionally, neutral colored fruits fly swiftly across the screen providing a bonus to the quickest slice. The best part of the multiplayer experience is that there is about one full second of configuration needed to add another player, and when they drop out, their silhouette “poofs” as if they threw a smoke bomb and ran off into the night.

If you own a Kinect, you’d be a big fool not to pick up this game. Kinect is about simple fun, active movement, and casual gaming, and you will not find another game in the current library that exemplifies these principles more than Fruit Ninja Kinect. Halfbrick has turned me from dreadful to curious about the concept of porting touch-screen games to Kinect. It goes to show that in the right hands, something as simple as slicing fruit can be as rewarding as any big budget Kinect game you play.

Pros

- Dead simple configuration
- Surprising accuracy with hand motions
- Simple gameplay for kids and adults

Cons

- Sensei’s Swag menu is a nightmare
- Knuckle-busting is common without proper spacing
- I think I may have sprained my wrist chopping pomegranates

Fruit Ninja Kinect is a steal at 800 MSP, regardless of whether or not the iOS versions are a fraction of that. For those of you who just cannot be persuaded to entertain yourself for $10, it will also be made available for free bundled with the upcoming game, The Gunstringer. The amount of fun, accessibility, and accuracy you get with Fruit Ninja Kinect make it more of a killer app than a cash-in, and everyone who owns a Kinect owes it to themselves to pick this up during Summer of Arcade.

I’ll preface this by confessing I’m a pretty big fan of the Mad Catz FightSticks. I have over 20 Tournament Edition sticks, a few SE sticks, and even a dozen or so FightStick keychains. In the past, I’ve always made sure to have a small cache of quality arcade sticks for each console that’s come out since the days of SNES Street Fighter. One thing that has always been a challenge is transporting these heavy, awkwardly shaped beasts to tournaments or even a friend’s house without them getting knocked around or scuffed up in the trunk. Mad Catz aims to cure your woes with the new Arcade FightStick Carrier.

I spent much of the last twelve months traveling for work, always with an Xbox 360-S and my trusty TE-S FightStick in tow. Packed in my checked suitcase, carry-on, or even an Evo messenger bag (advertised as a stick carrier) loaded with shirts as padding, I always found it nearly impossible to transport an arcade stick while protecting the stick lever and buttons. At Evo 2011 last week, I got my hands on a Mad Catz Arcade FightStick Carrier (thanks Nate!) and transferred all my gear into it for the remainder of the weekend.

The bag has a durable feel (quality stitching, material, and zippers) that you would expect for the price tag (MSRP $49.99 – madcatz.com) and is obviously designed specifically to protect Mad Catz FightSticks. The main section of the bag has a 4-inch thick, dense foam padded top with a hole cut out for joystick support that fits TE and TE-S sticks like a glove. The bag also supports Mad Catz SE FightSticks and the upcoming FightStick Pro models. Obviously, any arcade stick similar in size and shape to the Mad Catz sticks would most likely fit, but your mileage may vary.

The Arcade FightStick Carrier features room for more than your treasured stick, with a dedicated pouch for a standard controller or miscellaneous gear, and another for up to four game cases. On the side is a mesh water bottle holder, and on the chest strap is a phone pocket with a rubber port to run your headphone cable through. The bag has an over the shoulder, cross-chest strap, so it is not a traditional backpack design. The strap is adjustable and features a quick-release connector so you don’t have to wrestle it over your head to take it off.

Fully loaded with an Xbox 360 controller and chatpad, Xbox 360 memory stick, full-size headphones, four games, a 1-liter bottle of water, a TE-S stick, and an iPhone, the bag weighed in at exactly 11.0 pounds. The padded shoulder strap definitely helps when lugging the bag around all day, and the top hand strap on the top of the bag comes in handy when you want to give your back a break.

This bag is truly something I’ve been waiting for since the first time I found myself trying to smuggle a FightStick through airport security. The extra compartments are nice so you don’t have to carry two bags around, and the peace of mind knowing your components are protected goes a long way to making this a must-have for anyone who transports their FightSticks from time to time. Check out some media shots from Mad Catz and head over to pre-order yours today!

Available Mid-August

Pre-Order $49.99 – madcatz.com

Today in “Why did this take them so long to say?” news: Twisted Metal’s release has been mercifully postponed until early 2012.

In a post on the official Playstation blog, developer Eat Sleep Play’s David Jaffe explained that the car-combat game was delayed to add more polish.  ”A lot of dedicated, supportive, passionate Twisted Metal fans have been waiting for the return of Calypso’s demented contest for a long time but the truth is: we’re just not ready yet,” Jaffe wrote.

That’s certainly sounds all well and good, but indulge me for a moment. This new Twisted Metal was originally intending to hit store shelves on October 4. Unfortunately for Twisted Metal, this is shaping up to be an incredible holiday season.  Lets look at exactly what these fools almost did:

October 4^th Releases:

• Dark Souls
• Rage
• Spider-Man: Edge of Time
• NBA 2K12

That’s just the release day line-up.  As part of the 2011 Holiday season, this multiplayer-focused game would have been in direct competition with heavily marketed titans like Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. With such a packed marketplace, some quality titles are going to get crushed. What monumentally bad timing.  Twisted Metal would have been sent out to die.

Good choice.

“Thing is, you gotta trust me when I tell you that — with this extra time for tuning and polish — the game is going to be so much better than it already is,” writes Jaffe.

He’s probably right.  Don’t get me wrong; this new Twisted Metal looks really fun.  I’ve personally loved every single major video game that Jaffe has had a hand in.

I trust you, David. Now take your time and give me my Twisted Metal, preferably when people will actually notice it.

Oh and hey RAGE… TAKE A HINT.

In a relatively unsurprising move, publisher Take-Two has confirmed the development of Borderlands 2 for PS3, Xbox, and PC today. Tentatively, the games looks at launching sometime next Summer during Take-Two’s new fiscal year.

So far details are few and far between, but we can confirm that the game will again indeed take place in Pandora, the setting of the first game. Many other details are sure to follow when the game is shown at both Gamescom and Pax Prime this August. After the jump is the first image from the upcoming September issue of Game Informer.

For more information, check out the Borderlands 2 site!

I have never considered myself to be much of an audiophile (well at least since I turned 19 and finally grew out of car audio equipment). I have never owned a set of floor speakers or receiver for my house as I always said that it was a waste of money. I mean, every TV has a set of speakers right? How much can you really be missing by not having a decent home theater setup? Oh how far from the truth was I. And all it took was a set of headphones from SteelSeries to prove me wrong.

The SteelSeries Spectrum 7xB wireless Headset for the Xbox360 showed me just how much I have been missing out on. I setup the system and immediately put in Halo Reach to get the full experience from this headset as it also has a microphone to use for online communication. The headset made a difference for me right away. I have easily put over 50 hours into Halo Reach’s online mode and I was hearing things that I didn’t even know where there. The floor boards were creaking on the Reflection map. The wind blows through the trees on Powerhouse and you can hear foot steps even when you are crouched down. I had no idea that a high quality headset could make this much of a difference not only for competitive online play but for your overall experience with the game itself.

Just for good measure, I threw in Darksiders to get an idea for how the headset would work for single player games and it was more of the same. Then I switched it up and started watching some movies on Netflix. Yep, you guessed it. More amazing sound quality from movies that I have been missing out on over the years. I really can’t say enough about the quality of the audio that these things put out. You really need to hear it for yourself to get the full experience.

The headset and connecting cable from the headset to the Xbox controller are very high quality items as well. The headset has soft, leather wrapped cushions that fit very nicely around your ears. I used them for 2 hours straight at one point and I never got uncomfortable or any signs of sweat around the cushions. It also appears that SteelSeries has resolved some complaints about the 5xB set with the connection plug to the actual controller. The new plug still fits very tight but it now sits flush with the rest of the controller. The 7xB also offers 4 different modes for the “Live Mix” feature over the 5xB which only has 2 settings. The Live Mix option allows you to pick the best mix for in game audio and voice chat with your teammates.

My complaints about the headset come with the new wireless functionality. It is a great upgrade to not have to be tied to your TV or Xbox but the range leaves something to be desired. The range is listed at 30 feet but I couldn’t get much farther than 20 feet away from the control unit (which gets its power and is connected to the Xbox via USB) before the audio started cutting out. This wasn’t much of a problem for me since my Xbox is in a small room but if you have it in a living room or man cave, you better be ready to cozy up nice and close to your TV.

The other issue that I had with the setup of the wireless control unit is for how it gets the audio from your TV. For those of you using component cables this will not be an issue as the kit includes an RCA splitter that allows you to plug right in through the left and right audio connections from the component cables. For the rest of you, who like me, are using an HDMI cable, things get a little more complicated. Since you cannot get just the audio from the HDMI cable, you have to remove the RCA splitter and plug directly in the headphone jack for your TV. Again, maybe not such a big deal unless you, like me, have your TV on a wall mount and your headphone jack is in the most inconvenient place ever thought of. Plugging into the TV headphone jack also means lots of plugging and unplugging so that you can hear the TV through any speakers other than the headset. The other option is to purchase an additional adapter from Microsoft to split the audio at the Xbox. For the $189.99 price tag on these, I shoudn’t have to purchase additional adapters though. I guess if you look on the bright side, this means you can also use the headset to watch TV late at night without having to worry about bothering your significant other.

Overall I have to say that I really liked this headset. Setup problems and all, this has worked out great for me. You get some great audio coming through a high quality set of headphones which allows for a better overall gaming experience. I have also been able to take advantage of some early morning and late night gaming without having to wake up the rest of my household to hear whats going on. Looking beyond the short comings with the wireless range and setup options, this is a very high quality unit that I do not have a problem recommending to anyone that wants to improve their overall gaming experience by adding some high quality audio equipment.

I’ve always been a fan of cross media entertainment just to see what might have been lost in the exchange. Finding and reading novels that have been turned into movies used to be a big past time of mine. Hell, I used to even read the Magic: the Gathering novels, no matter how god awful they were. Once I even tracked down Parasite Eve’s original novel just to figure out what the hell was going on there. So today’s news is a bit exciting for me.

Deep Silver’s Dead Island is getting a novelization treatment from British fantasy author Mark Morris. Not only is this a novel about zombies – one of my favorite subjects in any medium – but it’s being written by a fellow whose got some experience writing pretty decent novels for Doctor Who – one of my other favorite subjects in any medium. Seems like a good combo to me.

“For guests of the five-star Royal Palms Resort it was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime dream holiday; an escape to the stunning beaches of a tropical paradise unlike any other. But a mysterious zombie outbreak suddenly – and without warning – rips apart the pacific paradise island of Banoi, and four individuals with distinctive backgrounds and abilities seem to be unaffected by the zombie apocalypse.”

I’m pretty excited about this. Dead Island the novel is slated to release alongside Dead Island the game on September 8. I guess I’ll be making a stop to the book store that day as well.

I almost never become an early adopter of technology, especially technology that even I’ll admit is kind of tacky most of the time. That wasn’t the case with the 3DS – I bought that shit right away. Seems I’m the only one though, because Nintendo of America is announcing a price drop in the 3DS.

Starting on August 12th, the cost of the Nintendo 3DS is going to go from 250 clams to a measly $169 – a pretty big price drop! That’s an $80 difference. But what about those of us that purchased the 3DS early? Isn’t this kind of a punishment for supporting a company when nobody else did? This is where the deal REALLY shines. It seems Nintendo prepared for the potential backlash ahead of time – by giving us free things and calling us fancy names. Flattery will go a mile…

For the 830,000 of us that did purchase the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo of America is starting an Ambassador program in which they’ll give us 20 free downloadable games from the Nintendo eShop, starting September 1st and going onto the end of 2011. In order to opt into the Ambassador program all you have to do is sign onto the Nintendo eShop before 11:59PM on August 11th. The partial list of games to come includes:

• Super Mario Bros.™
• Donkey Kong Jr. ™
• Balloon Fight™
• Ice Climber™
• The Legend of Zelda™
• Yoshi’s Island™: Super Mario™ Advance 3
• Mario Kart™: Super Circuit
• Metroid™ Fusion
• WarioWare™ Inc.: Mega Microgame$
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong™

This is great news for everyone! Now the question is; are some of these games worth the $80 price difference? I say yes, but that’s because I like throwing money at Nintendo. Take my money, you devilish imps you!

Always one of my favorite games from back in the day, NBA Jam holds some fond memories for me. The recent installments have never quite captured that same charm, though. I always felt like something was a bit off. NBA Jam: On Fire on the other hand looks quite… hot.

Seems like this update is getting some unique new additions. Tag Mode lets you switch players on-the-fly. Team Fire turns your entire team into the human torch and the new Razzle Dazzle moves seem to be special taunts and gestures that add a bit more personality to the game. Right now, the freaky head size is a little awkward, but it seems to have its own charm. Seems like it’ll be worth giving a look. Coming out this Fall, NBA Jam: On Fire will be $14.99 on the PSN or 1400 points on XBLA.

Kudos to G4tv for doing something cool for once, by opening up their new project, G4 Films, with the new Mike Ross-based documentary FOCUS. The film, directed by Steve Hwang, chronologize the journey of Ross over the course of the year on his way to EVO 2010. I’ve been hyped for this for a while,  and being the uber fighting game geek that I am, I got up early to watch it before heading to work. Now while I don’t think it hits hard like Bang the Machine, it still provides an interesting look into our boy Ross’ life, and definitively answers that nagging question (see title).

You can find the stream at the link below, but I will say that if you’re going to stream it at work, be wary it does have a lot of NSFW language. With EVO a mere two days away I now feel successfully hyped, and can’t wait to get to Vegas to see how it all goes down. The only down side to the whole doc is that you have to suffer through  some of Adam Sessler’s commentary from last year’s top 8…  and a year hasn’t made it any better.

G4TV Films

Surprise, looks like there’s a new Humble Indie Bundle!

In case you missed the memo, the Humble Bundle is a special package deal on a group of independently-developed games. These are those “darlings of the Internet” widespread acclaim type of indie games. The titles in the Bundle are DRM-free and work on PC, Mac, and Linux.

Humble Bundle 3 includes five games that you will definitely want to own:

• Cogs
• And Yet It Moves
• VVVVVV
• Crayon Physics Deluxe
• Hammerfight

The price? Pay whatever you want! The Humble Bundles are always a great deal. Your purchase directly supports both the developers and charity. Before you checkout, you get to choose exactly where your money goes.

Oh and before we go, please don’t be a villainous jackass and pay the bare minimum. That money is going to fund the developers and Child’s Play, the famous charity that gives sick children a few moments of slight comfort. Please don’t rob the friggin’ sick kids.

Sorry to interrupt the “serious cartoon character fight analysis”, but I just got some Man-Grade news that your disappointed fathers would probably want you to hear:

Mortal Kombat has announced its newest downloadable character, and it’s God Damned Freddy Krueger.

Now that is what I’m talking about.  Freddy arrives on the 360 and PS3 marketplaces on August 9^th.  He’ll cost $4.99 or 400 Microsoft points. Mortal Kombat Season Pass members get Freddy free as part of their subscription. Want to see him in action?  Roll that beautiful bean footage:

Anyone who hasn’t torn their shirt in half and begun howling with joy at this news is not welcome in my home.  Obviously, this  leads me to the next burning question… “Where is Jason?”

Look at my references. I'm so witty.

Source: IGN