Author: shane

Sup gamers, So, it’s come to this. No, we’re not lamenting the fact that we’re writing about Resident Evil reviews rather than posting one ourselves, but rather we’re melancholy over the latest installment in the once-beloved franchise. Resident Evil 6 plopped on shelves this week (or in your mailbox) and the reaction has been polarizing to say the absolute least. In fact, most critical reviews have blasted RE6 for being a lavishly produced, yet hot mess of a game. A glance at the Metacritic scores will do nothing to ease your pain if you looked forward to a new entry…

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Sup gamers, Proving the undeniable existence of God, footage has been released for Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, the next official title in the MGS franchise, hitting sometime next year for current-gen systems. Now, this isn’t Metal Gear Solid 5 or Revengeance or some PS Vita game but supposedly a prologue to MGS5. Check out 14 minutes of shaky cam cutscenes and very little gameplay for the next “actual” Metal Gear game, entitled Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. Yes, there is more than one Ground Zero. Apparently.

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Sup gamers, Just announced for the Xbox 360/PC and sometime for the PS3 we suspect, is the latest DLC for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, entitled Hearthfire. Hitting the digital-sphere (Xbox Live) September 4 for 400 MS Points, you won’t get any new quests or missions like Dawnguard, but perhaps you’ll have a richer experience. Read on for more.

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Sup gamers, Fresh from Treyarch and Activision’s conveyor belt comes the new Multiplayer trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which is the ninth game in COD’s main franchise. You would think we’d have franchise fatigue even mentioning the words “call” and “duty” in close proximity, but this new trailer is a bit… well, exciting. But more important, Black Ops II looks different. Take a look.

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Sup gamers, A while back I posted an article that wondered out loud “Who Cares About Final Fantasy Anymore?”. This was back in early February. The game sells new for about $20, a telling point for a game that doesn’t sell as well as Square Enix hoped it would. And with Final Fantasy XIV 2.0’s release on the horizon, Square Enix hopes to ring in Final Fantasy’s 25th anniversary event in Shibuya with an announcement that might not be the one true fans are hoping for.

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Sup gamers, I’m a grown-ass man who’s finally coming to the realization that horror games scare the living bejeesus out of me. It took a little while to come to grips with the fact that many scary games just aren’t fun to play. Think about it. During the last generation, Silent Hill 2 was the king of survival horror (Resident Evil 4 barely counts). During my playthrough with Silent Hill 2, I remember just feeling bad about things. The game got in my head. The feeling wasn’t a “I’m really scared to turn a corner” feeling. It was an all-encompassing…

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Sup gamers, In full disclosure: I have not played any of the demos of Resident Evil 6. I have not played the recently released demo if you purchased Dragon’s Dogma (because I’m not going to buy Dragon’s Dogma) and I have not played the newer demo from Comic-Con this past weekend. What I have done is watch all the gameplay footage from these demos, combed over the details, imagined how I would feel playing them and came to the conclusion that RE6 (with blowjob giraffe logo and all) does not look all that great. Here’s why.

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Sup gamers, Just as we thought the Kickstarter bubble was about to burst (you can’t imagine how many people we know are attempting to fund their thesis films through crowdsourcing Samaritans), the Ouya (“ooh-yah”) has proven us wrong. In short, the Ouya is a $99 Android-based console designed for free-to-play and other indie games. The appeal is to take indie developers from PCs to consoles (as well as devs burned out on drooling sequels aimed at a particular market without innovation). In this way, the creators of Ouya hope to circumvent the eye-stabbing madness of waiting for Microsoft, Sony and…

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Sup gamers, As the baiting headline suggests, we’re not sure where we stand on this whole “new Spider-Man game” issue. And it’s probably because we still haven’t made up our minds on where we stand with the Amazing Spider-Man film. The facts: Sam Raimi was set for a Spider-Man 4, but by all accounts it might’ve been bigger, wackier and more of a hot mess than Part 3. Sony scrapped it. However, Sony was at a crossroads: Spider-Man makes a ton of coin, but the threequel besmirched the movie franchise. REBOOT. Yes, ten years after Raimi’s first installment, we get…

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Sup gamers, Revealed by premiere Japanese gaming mag Famitsu and confirmed by both Sony and Capcom, Okami returns in all its cell-shaded glory this Autumn with an HD re-release, a $20 price tag, (cough) Move support and no more excuses for you to stay away from it. See, this PS2 cult hit got a bit of a raw deal deal upon its original release in Autumn 2006, going up against the releases of the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3. Okami was buried under a torrent of hype for the new systems, and the only people to laud the game…

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Sup gamers, We blame the internet. Let’s back up. Every year at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, the big three (Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, but also EA and Ubisoft) hold a press conference to go over mind-destroying facts about fiscal quarters, units sold and other nonsense. On the flip side, they give us a peek into all the cool, new fungadgets we’ll be ponying up for in the next year. If we’re lucky, we get our first glimpses at new consoles (with hard-to-swallow names) and sizzle reels for newly announced games. You know what the worst part of…

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Sup gamers, After impatiently waiting over a decade for a threequel to a beloved franchise, Max Payne 3 is finally here. Oh and so is Diablo III (nyuk nyuk!). Hard-boiled wash-ups aside, the new Diablo graced Battle.net servers the other midnight and well, things weren’t pretty. As evidenced by only the most popular and highly anticipated games that require internet connections, Diablo III’s launch was met with (surprise) server issues. Even though Activision Blizzard doesn’t see how a required internet connection is a form of DRM, we know that’s a bunch of PR bull. Let us be your Virgil and…

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Sup gamers, So… a huge movie came out last weekend – one which finally payed off four years of buildup with ridiculous plants, Easter eggs and almost infuriating scenes with Agent Coulson and Nick Fury (come on, they were cute at first… stay out of Iron Man 2’s second act, SHIELD!). Yes, we’re talking about MARVEL’S The Avengers. Well, the movie was AWESOME, no matter how you feel about Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man 2… really any movie that isn’t Iron Man Part 1. Cynicism aside, Joss Whedon gets nerd props through the end…

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Sup gamers, Last week at an event in LA, Sony demoed the worst-kept secret in gaming: a Super Smash Bros for the PlayStation 3 dubbed PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. That name is terrible. And collectively, we all let out a sigh. Just think about it: there’s no reason why any of these characters should be in a game. At least Nintendo has enough crossover titles, compilations and sports games to have it make sense that Ness fights Wario. And Nintendo’s whole deal is making light-hearted, yet extremely addictive fare. BUT… think about it again. Even if Sly Cooper shouldn’t be…

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Sup gamers, Protoype II came out this week. In it, you’re a soldier with powers that turn you into a diabolical wrecking ball of monsterism. You murder soldiers with the greatest of ease, kill helicopters by ripping them in twain with your tendrils and hurl a slew of curse words. But does anyone care? A few years ago, there was a hot debate over which was better: Sony-exclusive Infamous and Prototype. You would find gamers taking up sides, selling out the opponent as more soulless and boring. If both games were in an action movie, you’d half expect the other…

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Sup gamers, Crysis 3 was announced this week by EA and Crytek and well… it looks a lot like someone smushed parts 1 and 2 together. You’re still in New York (from the last game), but the premise now is that a giant forcefield dubbed the Liberty Dome has encased New York and transformed it into a swampy, jungle (essentially the first game). Besides that ridiculous premise, all we know is that EA and Origin are taking pre-orders and they’ve already detailed pre-order incentives for retail, which basically give you more XP and a flashier gun at launch. For more…

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Sup gamers, As we barrel down on Bioshock Infinite’s release date of October 16, Irrational Games and 2K are drip-feeding us with pre-packaged video docs on the more terrifying enemies of Ken Levine’s latest. If you thought the random denizens of Rapture gave you the willies, or the Big Daddies and Big Sisters haunted your nightmares, then check out this grab bag of bosses for Infinite dubbed the Heavy Hitters. Honestly, for as creepy and bizarre as they are, we’re more interested to see how the foes fit into Infinite’s overall game structure. The more we learn, the more confounding…

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Sup gamers, Video games don’t translate well into movies. Sometimes the opposite is true, but we’re invariably left with garbage that’s rushed onto shelves to meet the movie’s release date. Looking at you THQ and Sega! And for all the bitching and moaning about what we think should make a great game movie, we don’t seem to realize that the feature film adaptation of your beloved game franchise will never match your wildest dreams. Because as we know, Hollywood creates homogenized brands of entertainment meant to appeal to the broadest possible audience and not just you, you lazy d-bag. You…

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Sup gamers, Okay, we get it. Halo 4 looks cool. Mass Effect 3 and Street Fighter CROSS Tekken are out and apparently amaze-balls. But have you seen any of this stuff on the Assassin’s Creed 3 reveal? Some character art was leaked, then Ubisoft was like “you got us” and released the box art. Then Game Informer had a whole cover story, which was quickly followed by a trailer. All in like a week. And it looks pretty awesome. We get if you’re a little Creed-ed out, but join our excitement after the break.

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Sup gamers, The new Sonic 4 Episode 2 trailer has hit the web and it being in glorious 2D HD, our eyes tell us that it looks rather fun. Worlds seem to include an amusement park (with some snowy goodness), a fortress of sorts and some quality time to spend underwater. So why the trepidation? Well, every time there’s a new Sonic game out, we poop our pampers and get super excited that something we loved at its prime in the nineties was back! But why do we keep clamoring for a new Sonic regardless of its quality?

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Sup gamers, As we are sure you’re aware, Tim Schafer – creative genius behind old LucasArts adventure games Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle, as well as such newer gems under his Double Fine banner Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Stacked, Costume Quest and more – recently began a Kickstarter campaign. His goal? To raise $400,000 for a new adventure game divided into funding the project and funding a documentary from 2 Player Productions. Instead, Schafer made over a million dollars on Day 1 of the campaign. With about 28 days to go left as of this post, he’s got just…

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Sup gamers, Several days ago, the gaming community (and the world at large) sadly lost Chen Rong-yu, a 23-year-old Taiwanese gamer with a pre-exisitng heart condition, when he keeled over playing League of Legends in a Taipei game cafe. There’s no lighthearted snark to the last sentence (that comes later), because this is a sad and unfortunate story. According to reports, Rong-yu was dead for up to NINE hours and surrounded by thirty people before anyone noticed. Early police details may link his death to low temperatures that might have triggered a cardiac arrest. It’s difficult to spin a joke…

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Sup gamers, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is hitting this week and reviews run the gauntlet of “meh” to “this makes up for Final Fantasy XIII!” No, it doesn’t. See, Final Fantasy XIII-2 doesn’t make up for the original – released two years ago – the game’s meant to replace it. Reviews report – and the demo confirms – a laundry list of improvements over the original: speedier battles, more sidequests, monster raising, towns, dialogue choices, quicktime events, DLC, replayable sections, etc. With so many added elements, this sequel feels like a rushed apology. Hell, there are barely any FMVs this time…

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Sup gamers, About a week ago, the bizarre ARG campaign at nohopeleft.com finished its countdown and revealed the long-anticipated Resident Evil 6 (and its late 2012 release date). With photos of graffiti-marked structures and one downright creepy found footage film found on the marketing blog, RE6 revealed itself in spectacular fashion with a pretty sweet trailer laden with gameplay footage. We don’t know what the hell it’s about, but have several reasons why we’re excited as holy hell to be scared once again.

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Sup gamers, We’re deeply saddened to report that Rockstar’s opus, Max Payne 3, will not see the light of day in March. Unfortunately, you’ll be popping pain killers, bullet-timing and John Woo-diving at least two months later in either late May/early June.

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Wassup gamers, With the annual CES convention in full-swing in Vegas this week and a ton of tech innovations being unveiled, we have a startling fear that the next offerings from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are already behind the times. Yes, we know close to jack shit about what the Nintendo Wii U, Sony PS4 and Xbox 720 (that’s two full circles) will be capable of. But if this generation of systems are anything to go on and Sony/Nintendo’s insistence that people actually want to play the Vita/3DS despite a gigantic sea change in portable gaming, we’re closing in on…

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I think we can all agree that the new Batman VG franchise (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City) from Rocksteady may be the freshest and best use of the Batman license since director Christopher Nolan took up the mantle in 2005 with Batman Begins. However, after playing a substantial amount of Arkham City and falling deeply in love with every moment, I’m now confused as to how I feel towards my anticipation for Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. And of course I’m comparing apples to oranges because the game is a completed product, while TDKR is a work-in-progress. But with the recent…

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