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…)

I mentioned in another article that World of Goo was my personal game of the year. Now I’m not the only one that has that point of view because World of Goo truley is an amazing experience. This physics-based building game was created by 2D-Boy, which is made up of two people, and as an indie game, it’s one of the best out there right now.

When I first bought World of Goo on the Wii Shop (after hearing about it from some friends), I thought it wouldn’t be that spectacular. I mean how much fun can you have if all you’re doing is building towers to get goo balls into pipes? The answer: a whole lot. The game progresses in such a way that even if you get frustrated with one of the levels, you’ll keep trying and trying out of sheer satisfaction. One of the great things about World of Goo that as you start the game doesn’t give you any instructions, it just starts you out and says “here are some balls, get to it” , and because you have only your intuition and brains to go on, victory is that much sweeter.
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Even if you’ve never played one of them, the Battlefront series of Star Wars games have always been good fun. They weren’t RPG’s or space flight sims, only simple 3rd person shooters that revolved around zone capturing in what was considered an addictive formula.

With Free Radical (who is...Ahem, was behind the Battlefront series,) being in trouble, who knows when, or even if Battlefront 3 will come into fruition.

However, if you’re looking for a similar kind of experience in the mean time, Pandemic Studios has been working on Lord of the Rings: Conquest. With unit classes, “Hero” units, and zone capturing galore, it seems to be shaping up as a fun package.
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*Don't try and read the text, its in another language for some reason.

Ok so I was talking to a buddy of mine and he started talking about how easy and unimpressive twilight princess was. Ok, that’s the opinion of most long-term Zelda fans. Then I said “You know we need more games like Ocarina of Time” (and I might have mentioned Majora’s Mask but most people dislike that game, huh). So of course he then proceeded to ask the question that is the core of this article

“Wait, what’s so great about Ocarina of Time?”

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Microsoft Sam loves video games, especially old ones. Join him each week as he reviews his favorite classic games. This week he reviews Wheel of Fortune for the NES.

What is Gears of War? Is Cliff Bleszinski really all that talented? Gears of War is a welcome change of pace. Cliffy B. is talented, his writers aren’t, and I’m probably going to get flak for saying this, but neither are his artists. The Gears setting is gross and putrid and ugly and unsightly; a blight on this Earth. However, the gameplay hidden beneath is gold. Say what you will about its shotgun and chainsaw dominance, but the game is a mystical piece of work. I don’t like Cliffy, I think he’s a douche, I think he’s stupid, I think he’s a cliche typical fratboy out to please them as far as the context of Gears goes; but when it comes to gameplay and content, he shines. I respect his choices with GoW, the first and the second. He designed a game that was no longer about skill and dexterity with the analog sticks, and it’s not about holding down the trigger. It’s about timing. To be a bit speculative, it’s the future of turn based gaming.
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Some of the biggest news floating around is about the new World of Warcraft expansion: Wrath of the Lich King. The expansion sold a whopping 2,800,000 copies on it’s first 24 hours, making it one of the fastest expansion packs ever, breaking the first expansion’s record (The Burning Crusade, 2.4 Million) by a whole 400,000 copies. One of the major points of the expansion pack is the raising of the level cap – while in the original WoW the level cap was only 60, Burning Crusade raised it to 70, and now Wrath of the Lich King is bumping it up to 80. As expected, there was a huge rush as everyone watched and waited to see who could do it first – hit level 80 before anyone else.

Originally, Bilzzard had titles prepared for those who hit 80 first with each player class. This would be extremely unique titles – only one person per server could have each. The community went completely up in arms about this, as almost every player complained about the repercussions of such an attempt. By giving a reward for being first, Blizzard was promoting the fact that people were cutting class and calling in sick to work to play the new expansion. That people would be getting physically sick by not sleeping for days to get these titles. Or so, this is what players complained about. The complaining worked, and Blizzard pulled the titles, making them unavailable to everyone. They left in the “Feats of Strength”, or so they’re called – these are achievements that reward nothing. Nothing. At all. You get bragging rights – that’s it. Most players would be completely turned off from these. They’d think “well, what’s the point?” and move on to something else.

But not all players thought this way. These two players are Athene, a human female paladin, and Nymh, a human female warlock. There has been a rather big debate over who is the first level 80.
Nymh’s plan was rather simple: She joined up with a healer friend of his, Pavelomm, who stayed out of the group and got no XP for anything, sacrificing his time for his friend, so she could be the first 80. Then, they camped the crypt in Drakil’ji Ruins for 27 hours. For over a full day, they sat and killed enemies over. And over. And over for 27 straight hours. Officially, she was the first level 80.

However, some players consider Athene as the first level 80. He hit level 79 in 13 and a half hours. So, how did he lose? After all, it couldn’t have taken another 13.5 to get from 79 to 80, right? Well, I’m glad you asked! It’s simple, really.

He was banned for cheating, and had his character reset to 70. His tactic was a bit shadier. His tactic was to join a group with four of his guild mates. He would enter an instance with them, then leave the group. He would then have 60 seconds to attack enemies, or the game would remove him from the instance. This would “tag” them to his group – but since he left the group, only he was considered to “own” that enemy. He would then rejoin his group to reset the removal timer, then kill the enemies. Since he was out of the group when they were first hit, his group members had no claim to the enemies, meaning Athene earned ALL of the experience instead of having to share it with his group mates. Using this idea, he was able to sky rocket to 79 within just 13.5 hours. To the right is a screen shot that Athene claims was from a GM, who confirmed that it would be okay for them to do this, that there was no chance of getting banned. However, on the left is a screen shot of a different GM banning them.

Is this an exploit, or is it just clever? Either way, one thing is certain: Nymh is the first level 80. Some argue that Athene should have claims to the “world first” level 80, because he got to 79 the fastest and would have been the first 80 by literally hours was he not banned – but others counterargue that it doesn’t matter if he would have, because he wasn’t.