Bioshock, now infamous amongst gamers of all seasoning, shook the industry by proving singleplayer gaming was NOT dead. It proved Co-op was not necessary to be interesting, that multiplayer modes were not mandatory in an FPS, and that stupid plot lines and outrageous characters would not feel out of place in a serious tone. For lots of reasons, Bioshock was a great game, but for one, it killed the experience for me. Right now, I’m going to warn you, if you have not played the game, I cannot assure you I won’t spoil it. I’m going to talk as if you have finished it, so spoilers potentially start HERE.====================== (continue reading…)

Halo Killer. WoW killer. If you have a First Person Shooter, you want to be a Halo Killer. If you have an MMORPG, you want to be a World of Warcraft Killer. Overtaking these games becomes an end unto itself, but not for the reasons of simple sales. Of course, the games that usually must be “killed” are often not the objectively best games, but are often games that have defined themselves as the standard that all games must measure up to.
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While Goldanas has already posted a thread about the onset of age and how it affects the vidya, I would like to throw in a little parallel to his personal feelings.

One thing I am beginning to get bent out of shape over is the kind of legacy I will leave. My entire childhood and most of what I would now call my adulthood has been spent with the vidya. For better or worse, my past is tied to the vidya. One of the big apprehensions I have about one day not playing video games is the fact that I will, in essence, be killing off what has been a large part of both my history and identity.

At the same time however, because our childhoods were electronic, they can be effectively captured in our various forms of modern media storage. With the advent of emulators, all of the games of your childhood, regardless of when you were born, become available. While this is very comforting, it is also very frightening. It seems scary to me that the exact experience can be immediately transferred to someone else. Perhaps this is why I have been putting more emphasis on the tactile aspect of my childhood.

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CPL, CAL, MLG, WGS, TWL, ED, i38.. stop me if you’re getting bored already. Here, I will attempt to provide you all a little insight into what ‘Pro’ gaming actually is, the people– the money (or lack thereof), the fame and the failures.

2009 is the year, and we’ve got teams all over the bloody shop. MeetYourMakers, Fnatic, Complexity 20ID, Salvo, Dignitas, 4K, Reason and the list trails off into the ether with some successful.. and some less successful pro gaming teams. What does this mean? Does this mean professional gaming is now viable as a career? Can you earn money for headshots in todays world? Will I ever stop name dropping? How many commas can I write before you close this tab? Hit the jump to find out. (continue reading…)

Alundra 2 is a great action/adventure game with some RPG elements. Alundra 2 can and will disappoint fans of the first game because it doesn’t follow the first game. It’s just another sequel that uses the name of a famous franchise to sell more.

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With the recent release of Street Fighter IV, and with The King of Fighters XII and BlazBlue on the horizon, the next year is looking bright for gaming’s purest form of one on one competition.  The 2D fighting genre doesn’t garner the same respect as it’s 3D counterpart, but with the resurgence in popularity it’s sure to receive from the release of a new Street Fighter game, now’s as good a time as any to familiarize yourself with the high points in the genre’s history.  And they are, in no particular order:

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Street Fighter II is the classic that truly kicked off the entire genre.  HD Remix is a gorgeous update to the best version of said game.  As most gamers are aware, this game captured the arcade scene of the early nineties, devoured millions upon millions of quarters, and nearly made “shoryuken” a household term.  While the gameplay feels understandably dated (relying too heavily on a game of meaty attacks and reversals), it’s still the best fighter of its era and remains surprisingly playable to this day.  Whether you’re a SFII virgin or a seasoned vet, it’s certainly worth revisiting to see where it all began (in glorious HD, no less).

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My apologies for not laying down any more beats just now:  I’ve been having some problems which make it difficult for me to write music.  I can still type though (Albeit slowly), so I may as well write something.

Inspired by Goldanas talking about naked ladies, I would like to talk about sex.  Video games are still a relatively new medium, especially when it comes to games with a narrative.  We’ve come a long way since ‘Save the princess’ was our only goal, our only reason for existing as a pixelated avatar.  Of course, along with narrative comes an increase in fanservice, which, considering that the market is aimed mainly toward teenage and young adult males, tends to come in the form of, well, naked ladies.

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In my opinion Need for Speed games have always been about fun. The thrill of a cop chase or a final NOS boost across the finish line rarely fails to deliver a hardy amount of satisfaction and enjoyment. Perhaps it’s the rubber-band AI that keeps me on the edge of my seat, or the customization that can occupy me for hours. Although one thing is for sure, NFS seems to have aged a whole lot recently, and developed a nasty case of arthritis and schizophrenia.  

In 2002 I welcomed the shiny new NFS: Hot pursuit 2 into my life, although delivering a somewhat satisfactory experience I certainly wasn’t complaining. That same year saw the release of the hit street racing, car tuning popular movie The Fast and the Furious. EA having just released their sixth NFS game possibly made the greatest decision ever. They put 1 and 1 together by applying the popular elements of the movie and shoving them straight into their next game, NFS: The Fast and the Furious Underground. This wise move ascended the NFS franchise into what I like to refer to as the Golden Age of modern NFS gaming (2003 – 2005). 

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I never wanted to write an article about fanboys, but after a bit of work and a lot of painful nights on 4chan, a couple of different insights have sprung on me and i feel it necessary to share them both as a means to hopefully prevent fanboy rage but also as a means of showing how it will continue to get worse and worse as time goes on.

For those of you who weren’t around back in the day, I can assure you that there were console wars back in the day of SNES and Sega. In some ways they are similar, in regards to the blatant smearing and misinformation that corporations like to engage in, on the micro-level however, the war wasn’t nearly as bad.

The internet has been around for a long time, but back in the day, even if you had the internet, you probably didn’t use it to look up video gaming websites. Chances are however, that if you had the internet, it was as slow as the morning after your 18th birthday. The internet was slow, intolerable, and most people didn’t even have it. Simply put, the rapid improvement of the internet has now only allowed a higher rate of transmission for fanboy antics, but also allowed more people to become embroiled in the war in the first place.
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Part 1 – What Have Wii Become?

I had been aiming to write something like this but found some of the key points I’d touch on already addressed in Alex’s “A Second Video Game Crash?” I suppose I’ve got enough to say that makes it worthy of its own article so without further ado; here is my take on what’s happening in the game industry…TODAY.

While I may not be some sort of untouchable, game industry guru, I, like many of you, carry within me a passion for video games that burns so strongly we believe it can guide us through the stagnant and uncertain time our hobby faces.

The Wii is plagued with shovelware so abundant that some would try and use it to define the system. Microsoft and Sony have been practically offering the same thing they have been for the past few years and while this may not sound like a bad thing to some people, those that have developed the insight to think ahead will see the problem with this sort of planning.

I’m going to focus on matter of the Wii before I address the potential folly of Microsoft and Sony. The Wii has been a ridiculous success. With the least amount of graphical prowess it has become the best selling console, like the PS2 was last generation, and sold so well that Nintendo can even boast that Wii Sports has sold even more than the original Super Mario Bros. On this silver cloud of new exciting things is a dark lining of reluctant publishers and confused developers that are not only unsure how to approach the Wii but don’t seem to understand the audience that have carried it to victory.

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