Last night when I got home I received a pleasant surprise when my Facebook page had informed me that Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II went 50% off at Steam. When I was planning on buying my new laptop, one of the things I had in mind for it was to do some PC gaming. Dawn of War II caught my eye early on as an interesting starting point to delve into PC gaming, after all what is more PC than a Real Time Strategy game (RTS).
Read more »
Several months ago took a leap and picked up the collector's edition of the much maligned RPG, Two Worlds. I have enjoyed my recent forays into Western-style RPG's with such games as Bethesda's Fallout 3 and Oblivion as well as Fable II and Mass Effect. Two Worlds looked kind of like Oblivion, but word on the street was that the game was kind of a crap. Well I decided I would buy it for some rainy day play time. Really, how bad could it be?
Read more »
Like many of you, if you were a fan of video games, particularly in the early 1990s, you were probably either a Nintendo or a Sega fanboy. My path followed closely that which was laid out by Sega. I remember when I bought my first video game console with my own money, the Sega Genesis. Later, I became a fiercely loyal fan of the Sega Saturn. Finally, the Sega Dreamcast highlighted my dozen year or so love affair with Sega hardware. But all good things must come to an end. Sega, after a rocky decade of several bad descisions, could no longer support its hardware business and went on to exclusively be a third party publisher. Sega now began to support Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and others in their future hardware ventures by producing games from their vast array of proporties. As a Sega fan I have witnessed the fruits and failures of Sega's new direction. Honestly, I though I would have seen more fruit from their new position as a software publisher. I often daydreamed of what might have been had Sega reached deep into their back catalouge and pulled out some real gems. 
Read more »
An interesting bit of news surfaced this past week that caught my attention. IGN reported that Smith and Tinker and Piranha Games are rebooting the storied PC Mech franchise with an all new game on the PC and Xbox 360 entitled MechWarrior. Now you can read the article in its entirety and watch a teaser trailer for the upcoming title here, but what I want to write about today is what this announcement means to me by looking back on my Mech battling past.
Read more »
Back in December of 2007 Microsoft began delivery of ‘full length' titles over their Xbox LIVE service with Xbox Originals. Now, just a mere eighteen months later at E3 2009, Microsoft has announced that they are abandoning their Xbox Originals initiative in favour of a their new focus, Games on Demand. Games on Demand , like Xbox Originals, will focus on the download delivery of full length retail games. The difference this time around is that instead of Xbox titles being available, Xbox 360 games will be the order of the day. Microsoft has mentioned that one more Xbox title will be made available for purchase via Originals/Games on Demand. That game is widely believed to be Halo 2. After that final release that will be the final word on the Xbox backwards compatibility saga that has dogged the Xbox 360 since before its launch. But I am not going to belabour the discussion that is next-gen consoles and their backwards compatibility, rather I want to revisit the games that were...and the games that were not within the Xbox Originals family.
Read more »
Editor's Note: Patrick Bonk -- great gaming name, by the way -- explains why he feels Tony Hawk: Ride just might be the game that gets him back into the series he once loved so much. And actually, I'm hoping for a similar bounceback for this once-proud series. -Greg
It's funny. Out of all the things that could and did capture my imagination at E3, I did not think that Tony Hawk: Ride would have stuck with me the most. I remember when I first heard about a Tony Hawk reboot with a skateboard peripheral, I wasn't interested in the least. Now, after seeing the Microsoft press conference and Tony Hawk's all-too-brief presentation of the game and its unique peripheral, it is firmly on my radar, all $120 of it.
Read more »
Recently I returned to the Nintendo fold with the purchase of my brand new Nintendo DSi. In a nutshell the improved sleek design is in my opinion a dramatic overall improvement over the last DS iteration, not so much in its esthetic, but rather in its functionality. The DS has now caught up to its gaming counterparts, and surpassed them in some ways, with the addition of 2 cameras, SD card support, an online store, music player, and a streamlined interface. At the end of the day it still is a Nintendo DS (minus the GBA back-compat support), but it is the best DS you can buy.
Read more »
Recently I had the privilege of briefly owning Street Fighter IV on my Xbox 360. While I found it to be an excellent fighting game I just did not have the time needed to make it worth my while and learn the game proper. But my brief re-encounter with Street Fighter made me decide to dig into my personal archives and play one of Capcom's, and their 2D fighting game rival, SNK's finest fan-service titles, SNK vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium on my Neo Geo Pocket Colour. 
Read more »
Editor's Note: An interesting piece from Patrick that expresses his disappointment about this game's current situation. His guarantee that it'd be a financial success if released might be a little optimistic, but he's right on that there will be a lot of discussion surrounding it. -Greg
Several weeks ago I was getting ready to write a blog in regard to why it was a good thing that Konami was going to publish Atomic Games' first-person shooter Six Days in Fallujah. The game was to be based on the events of the second battle of Fallujah during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Unfortunately, as I was going to begin, word had dropped that Konami decided to no longer publish the title as a result of mounting criticism from veterans groups and others sensitive to Atomic's portrayal of the conflict. Now, I cannot defend freedom like the brave men and women in our armed forces do, day in and day out, but I can defend this game, and for better or for ill state why it is important we have the opportunity to decide for ourselves the fate of Six Days in Fallujah.
Read more »
What an inflammatory title, but around my house there is a ring of truth to it. I have been a vocal Chronicles of Riddick supporter since it was released 5 years ago on the original Xbox. Ever since the announcement of the remake/sequel was made for the Xbox 360, I have been chomping at the bit to get my hands on it. A couple of weeks ago I picked up the game and was enjoying it. Recently my gaming time has been diminished, so once I started along the point in the game where there are several 'fetch-n-fight' quests punctuated by load screen after load screen, my interest started to wane in the face diminished returns. I actually was feeling a little stressed at the prospect of completing the missions that I started as weird as that may sound. 
Read more »
|
|
