It really pays to subscribe to newsletters sometimes. You’ll never know what bit of fantastic news might just leap out at you when you least expect it.

I just opened my e-mail inbox recently when I came across an Atlus announcement: a new medical sim (a genre made popular by the Trauma Center series) will be coming to the Nintendo Wii sometime spring of next year. Dubbed Hospital slash Trauma Team, this new game passes the torch to six new doctors ready to continue the legacy of Drs. Styles, Weaver, Vaughn and Blaylock.

Of course, I’m assuming that those three veterans aren’t in the game to begin with. Three of the doctors look like younger and stylishly redrawn versions of the veteran surgeons. A fourth doctor in the series gives us a glimpse of what Dr. Styles may look like sans glasses, darker hair, vampiric bloodlust and an androgynous charm borrowed from a certain Persona 4 sleuth.

The prospect of having six specialists this time around instead of two miracle doctors who do all the work (with a hot nurse nagging them all throughout the process) sounds like an interesting concept. This way, you can have one doctor stitch up all the wounds  while another glues back broken pieces of bone with mystical antibiotic gel. A third surgeon can focus on removing tumors with impunity while the other two are preoccupied.

Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if all of them will actually be working together during the operation itself, or if they’ll be taking turns during the entire process of testing, diagnosis, surgery and post-op. The latter case may be likely, as one of the doctors is supposed to be a diagnostician.

Also, a quick glance at the initial screenshots will tell you that the classic syringe, forceps, gel et al are still in there. Some gameplay elements may also involve timing bits reminiscent of the defibrillator and “massage” scenarios of past games. There’s appears to be a part where you have to hammer some bones into place as well.

It’s most unfortunate that the official website contains very little info as of this time. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled on this one, though. Anything that gives me a good excuse to probe a woman’s bare midriff is A-okay in my book.

Presenting…

…The Top Five Signs That a DLC Should Have Just Been Free

Brought to you by Fedora Man

Well it finally April and you have to love how easy it is to open an article with the lines “so it’s finally whatever month we’re in right now”. It’s time for the next step in my great journey to earn money through a video game blog. Now I know you might be wondering “I thought you had billions! Were you lying to me?” The answer is of course, no. Stupid. Why would I make something like that up? But the difference between that money and the money I’ll earn on this site is I actually had to do work to earn it, unlike my corporation where I really don’t do any work at all. I can show all my friend “yeah this is the ten dollars I earned THROUGH WORK!” and if they say that they also have a job and have made more money, I’ll pull out my emergency one million dollars that I always keep stashed in my pants and laugh at them, probably while rubbing the money all over myself. (continue reading…)

Let me begin this article with an introduction not to the game, but to myself. I’ve never played a FE game before. Ever. I’ve played SRPG’s before such as Disgaea, FFTA (and the even more awesome FFTA2) and so on, but I’ve never actually played a Fire Emblem game. This is mainly because I jumped out of the Ninty camp after my Wii collected dust. I have also only completed one mission in this entire game so far, and I have been playing it for 24 hours hit the jump to find out why.

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To all the Pokémon fans out there, Toys R Us will be giving out a level 100 Regigigas via wifi. This will last from March 8th to March 21st so you folks out there got two weeks to go out and get it. This is to go along with the Pokémon Platinum release that is coming out on March 22nd. As with Pokémon Pearl and Diamond, there is a chance to get Regigigas if you have obtain Regice, Regirock, and Registeel but with Platinum coming out, if you trade Regigigas into Platinum, apparently it reverses and you are able to catch the three Regi-Pokémon and get the platinum version of Regigigas as well.

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Gentlemen, the king of the tactical warfare genre (sue me, I made it up. And yes this is the only game in the genre.) has returned. The Total War series from Shogun to Medieval has laid dormant for some time. And now, with an all new fresh lick of paint and many many gameplay additions and changes, Empire Total War is here. With the full release just around the corner (March 3rd, nevar forget etc)  get your tactics on up in the demo.

Packing heat at a whopping 2GB (this is a demo after all..) the two missions included are guaranteed to be beefy with corpses littered atop what was once a perfectly good corn field I’m sure you can’t wait.

For those of you fuddy duddies who are still sitting at home, tin-foil hats firmly upon their heads– the demo only comes in STEAM choo choo flavour, so don’t bother looking because unfortunately gentlemen, you cannot find it.

Look forward to some demo impressions within a couple of days once I’ve had time to explore every nook and cranny and stick my head into every orafice.

A link for the lazy

Gentlemen. I have been to the mountaintop. And upon that same mountaintop I was spoken to- nay, TOUCHED! By the hand of hand of gaming. I crossed my chest from the W, to the S to the A and D and a voice told me that digital distribution is truly the future, and to put faith in those who deliver me from the tyranny of evil shovelware. That voice comes back to me today as I gladly inform you of the Steam Sale this weekend.

Get this fellows. I-Fluid, Multiwinia, Trials 2, Gravitron 2, and Eets all in ONE pack. For the price of £6.95.  80% off. EIGHTY PERCENT.

Just a quick summary for those who have no idea what the hell these are and why they need them. First up, Multiwinia is the fantastic sequel to the wonderous Darwinia, something of an RTS lite. I-Fluid is a lovely little casual game wherein you control a drop of water trying to get to the end of various fun levels attempting to avoid absorption from various substances, such as the dreaded meat. Trials 2 Second Edition is just that, a trials motorbike game. Racing and flipping has never been so fun. Gravitron 2 is the game designed to make you mutilate your keyboard with your face, you know those games where you control a spaceship.. in a cavern and across planetary surfaces (I wonder why these retro games use a goddamn spaceship to explore planets.. on the inside.). Annoying it may be, but it’s really- really fun and wondrously rewarding when a level is done. Eets is a cute little casual game that can only really be described as Lemmings meets The Incredible Machine.

Buy them, get them, play them.

The first Mass Effect was a great game, it had an amazing back story, suitable combat mechanics, and an great choice system. This was the first game I’ve played that I felt that my choices actually altered the game (sorry Fable). The only flaws in the game were poor conversational paths, extremely repetative side missions, graphical glitches, and an extremely ineffective inventory system. Although overal I had an extremely enjoyable time when playing Mass Effect. Enough fun that I felt it necessary to beat the game four times. It’s a bit obvious that I’m a big fan of immersive RPGs, so hearing news about Mass Effect 2 naturally gets me all wet and excited, and what better to get me moist than small teaser that Bioware has released for the game on their Mass Effect 2 website.

Watch over the trailer, it doesn’t take that long. If you’ve played the first Mass Effect you may be a bit concerned about the “Status: Killed in Action” that flashes on the screen. Does this suggest that Shepard (the main character from Mass Effect), is dead? I hope not. Shepard is one bad ass dude, at least the Shepard I created is. Still, Well we can see a Geth creature in his suit, which could mean perhaps he’s been captured by the Geth and has been reconstructed as one. That’s just wishful thinking though. One this is for sure though,  if Mass Effect 2 is anything like the first, I’ll be a happy customer.

On a side note, what the hell is up with the whole trend of adding boxes to your logos, I mean first Mirror’s Edge and now Mass Effect 2? Boxes are pretty trendy.

If you don’t use Windows, you can stop reading here.

Over the past couple of weeks a virus known as the Conficker, Downadup or Kido worm has been multiplying at an alarming rate. A recent headcount shows it at around 9.5 million infected computers. A botnet that size could probably bring an end to the internet.

No, I’m exaggerating.

However, it’s not all terribly bad. Just as with all epidemics, virtual or real, all that is necessary are precautions. If a friend comes over and wants to plug his key into your machine (No, that was not a euphemism), ask him how his internet’s been recently, and if it’s been acting slower than usual. This a symptom of the worm abusing his internet connection for it’s own ends — See: infecting more people.

Now, I’m sure you’re tired of my rambling and you want me to make the pain go away, right? Well – for those of you that have Windows Automatic Updates turned off, turn them on. The main update you’re looking for (If you want to prioritise.. or just to turn the darn thing off ASAP) is KB958644. Find it, install it – and you’re safe. For the most part. If someone comes and plugs in their USB Key you are still susceptible to it.

For those of you that have got it or fear you may have it, it’s nearly invisible. It only leaves one or two trademarks and those being

• A slower internet connection and/or consistently using bandwidth. If you suspect something, close all unnecessary processes and download a bandwidth monitoring program.
• Automatic Updates suddenly being turned off and disabled.

If you suspect you are infected and are experiencing the symptoms, try this first.

If you are infected, a logical course of action would be reformat. Back up onto a external hard drive (but absolutely NO autorunning files.), and reinstall Windows anew on a formatted hard drive. Once everything is kosher, you can try taking your data from the external hard drive. If you notice the symptoms appearing again then you’ll have to start over. This time, with no backup.

Now I don’t usually like to report news, because let’s face it, you can get that from just about anywhere. However, when it comes down to StarCraft 2? I’m down. The first StarCraft was amazing, I mean the game was an instant classic, and sure times have passed and there have been better RTS’s released, but I still find myself going back to StarCraft because of the level of depth it through the story, and how well it plays. If StarCraft 2 (now SC2 because typing it out is a bitch), is anything similar to the original SC, then we could see another instant classic.

I know that open betas doesn’t signify the game will be released any time soon, but what it does signify is that people like myself are going to be able to get into it and start playing the project that many people have dreamed about for years. You can still find maps on the original SC that are named StarCraft 2, because at that time it seemed Blizzard had given up to pursue other interests in the Warcraft Universe. Earlier this week, there was news that Blizzard had an all-star title coming up sometime this year. With the open betas in the months range, I think SC2 is a good guess as to Blizzard’s 2009 title. Man I hope Battle.net is still free, spliting the game up into three parts was bad enough.

Moving at the speed of the internet, a video leaked to youtube with a trailer for Dead Rising 2 has prompted Capcom to confirm that there is a second Dead Rising game in the works and that it will be on the XBox 360, PS3 and the PC! You can see the aforementioned video here

This time around it looks like the protagonist is clearly not Frank West, but some similarly strong chinned man that fancies matching his hair with his sporty bike jacket. The zombie infested mall sandbox has been given a theme swap and now puts the player in some sort of luxury resort casino called Fortune City.

Dead Rising was developed and distributed by Capcom, Dead Rising 2 will still be distributed by Capcom but developed by Blue Castle Games, a developer that until now has only made a few sports games. As with all fast breaking news, details are still scarce but when it’s considered that the first Dead Rising has established a fan base and Dead Rising 2 will be multi-platform there’s little reason, other than Blue Castle Games’ repertoire, that it won’t play or sell well.