Computer Games

Beyond Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper

2010-05-25T16:47:00.001-07:00

Played Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper and want to know more about the crimes — or just see other interpretations pitting the World's Greatest Detective against the legendary killer? Here's a helpful guide.

Ripper Books
Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden
If you want to know everything about the Ripper murders, Sugden’s Complete History of Jack the Ripper is the book for you. While most Ripper books put forward their author’s prime suspect, Sugden focuses on the details of the crimes and their investigation (drawing heavily on primary sources) making this the go-to for factual history. Sugden does evaluate suspects in the back of the book and finds most of them wanting.

Jack the Ripper: The Casebook by Richard Jones
If you aren’t looking for a detailed study of the crimes, Jones’s Casebook is an interactive overview complete with facsimiles of police reports, newspaper articles and the infamous Ripper letters. A great layout and compelling visuals will pull you into the worst parts of 19th Century London

Ripper Website
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
Casebook is an utterly amazing repository of information, combining the best aspects of the two books mentioned above (primary sources and facsimiles) with the internet’s predilection for minutia. Truly the ultimate who’s who to anyone tangentially associated with the Ripper crimes, including unlikely suspects like Lewis Carroll, Casebook is also a great survey of all things Ripper and home to the Rippercast: The Whitechapel Murders Podcast.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper Books
Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye
One of the most recent Holmes versus Ripper novels and one of the most successful, Dust and Shadow plays with the fact that if Holmes and Watson were skulking around the East End trying to ferret out the Ripper, locals might wonder how involved in the killings they really were. Faye introduces Mary Ann Monk to the mix, a streetwalker hired by Holmes to investigate where he can’t and gets a lot of mileage out of the power of the press.

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin
Easily the most controversial tale, Dibdin’s take is a relatively straightforward investigation until Holmes realizes that – plotted on a map – the sites of the murders would form a giant M over the East End of the London. But that detail alone won’t prepare you for the truly shocking conclusion.

The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna
Originally published in 1993 at a hefty 395 pages, the upcoming reprint is a slimmer 208 pages so caveat emptor. Hanna’s heavily researched mystery (complete with endnotes!) takes a more conventional and conspiratorial approach to the murders, placing Holmes on untenable ground in his pursuit for justice.

Chapel Noir and Castle Rouge by Carole Nelson Douglas
I’m not a fan of Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler novels, recasting the Scandal in Bohemia character as detective in her own right. In Chapel Noir, Adler investigates Ripper-like murders in a Parisian brothel. Castle Rogue, the follow-up, moves the hunt to Transylvania.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper: A Study in Terror by Ellery Queen
Hard to find novelization of the movie, which — according to Wikipedia — adds a framing device inserting Ellery Queen into the story and changes the identity of the murderer.

The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls by J. Robert King
This is cheat, but the entire book is kind of a cheat. Still Holmes does face off against Jack the Ripper in this supernaturally-charged adventure.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper Movies
A Study in Terror (1965)
I know I saw this on VHS years ago, but remember very little about it. Amazon has it listed for pre-order, but without a cover or release date. Reviews online paint this as a low budget exploitative entry, but with a decent cast and thrilling conclusion.

Murder by Decree (1979)
And this would be the high budget take with an all-star cast. As the title suggests this Ripper has ties to the royal family, complicating things for Holmes and Watson who must decipher secret Masonic rituals to crack the case.

American Scary

2010-05-19T16:44:00.001-07:00

American Scary
Directed by John E. Hudgens
DVD released: Feb. 17, 2009
After watching American Scary, I want to be a horror host – which is probably the ultimate metric for judging a documentary.

King Kong (1933) aired on television in 1956 and demonstrated the viability of televised horror films. This led to a flood of TV releases, but gems like the classic Universal horror films came were packaged with B-movies or worse. You had to air the bad if you wanted the good, and horror hosts made even the worst films palatable.

Skipping ahead to the early 1980s and I was a young kid who hurried home from Palm Springs Elementary everyday to catch the 2:00 horror show aired on a pre-Fox WFLX. The Bat People (1974), Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), The Fly (1958), and Dracula (1979) are the only titles which come to mind – more memorable was the horror host.

Our horror host was a mad scientist and his sidekick, who spent the movie slowly simmering in a cauldron. Thinking back now, it seems likely that the sidekick was probably a prop, not a person. Introduced with Napoleon XIV’s “They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!,” the horror host was the right mixture of cheese and creepiness whose intros, outros, sketches and asides both set the tone for movie and took its edge off.

Penny Dreadful
Let me explain how I watched horror movies. I sat an arm’s length away from my small, black and white TV with my hand on the volume. The secret to watching horror movies – especially ones late at night – was to have the sound just loud enough for me to hear and the ability to silence any screams which might draw my mother’s attention.

So this became a ritual – but one that faded as we got cable and a VCR – events happening on a larger scale across America.

American Scary is a documentary about this phenomenon starting with “Lights Out” on the radio and reaching to the Internet horror hosts of today. It’s a talking heads documentary about talking heads, but the heads who talk, know what they’re saying. Vampira, Zacherley, Ghoulardi, Svengoolie and many other horror hosts are covered – and you get a great sense of the role they played as local celebrities (sadly, Barb Billens Program Director for WFLX tells me ours was syndicated).

Sir Graves Ghastly
Providing context are the likes of Leonard Maltin, Joe Bob Briggs, and Neil Gaiman (who talks about his horror hosting of FX’s 13 Nights of Fright). American Scary also connects horror hosts to MST3K, so Joel Hodgson appears leading to fun moments like Tom Savini gushing over the show.

So I asked Barb if WFLX was interested in restarting this and was told that “with all the cable channels and other movie services, we air very few movies on our schedule” which is the case all over. However, if another local station is interested, I’m ready to be your horror host.

Pitfall

2010-05-08T16:39:00.001-07:00

I picked up Pitfall for Game Room on Tuesday and have been swearing at my TV ever since. Seriously, it has to be one of the hardest games ever, dating back to an era where people had pixel-perfect accuracy and cocaine-fueled reflexes.

Anyway, looking for information online I came across this commercial featuring a pre-Crisis Jack Black.

If anyone's still doing something with their Game Room, send me a Challenge!

Yard Sale

2010-05-08T04:39:00.001-07:00

Updated: May 5, 2010

Game Couch is having a yard sale! Please bookmark this page as new games/swag will be added from time to time.

How this works
Below are a list of games and their selling prices ($US). If you see something you want, email me. Shipping is free for the US and I am willing to ship internationally at the going rate.

After confirming your order, I'll ask for payment through Game Couch's PayPal link.

The Bold Print
These are all games I know to be in working order. If you have trouble running the game, you may need to consult one of the many retro gaming sites out there. In extreme cases, I may be willing to accept returns, but you shouldn't count on it for general purchases.

My one guarantee is that if I'm selling something as “Disc only” and I find the manual later on, I will send it at no extra cost.

The Games

Adventure

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Bad Mojo: Redux (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Black Dahlia (Win 95)
Description
All eight discs in newspaper foldout sleeve and manual, $10

CSI (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

King's Quest V (DOS)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

King's Quest: Mask of Eternity (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Lighthouse: The Dark Being (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Omikron: The Nomad Soul
Description
Discs only, $10

Robot City (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (DOS)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Shivers 2 (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

S.P.Q.R.
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Torin's Passage (Win 95)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Action

Conan (Win)
Description
Disc and manual in original keep case (UK import), $15

Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures (Win)
Description
3.5″ floppy only, $6

Shooter

Deus Ex: Invisible War (Win)
Description
Discs and manual in original keep case, $10

Strategy/Simulation

Bad Day LA (Win)
Description
Mint in Box, $8

Evil Genius (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Gangsters: Organized Crime (Win)
Description
Disc only, $6

The Godfather: The Game (PC DVD-ROM)
Description
Disc, manual, map in original keep case, $6

Mob Rule (Win 95/98)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Shogun: Total War (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

SOA: Soldiers of Anarchy (Win)
Description
Disc (jewel case) and manual in original box, $10

Tropico: Mucho Macho Edition (Win)
Description
Discs only, $6

Star Trek

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Trek: Armada (Win 95/98)
Description
Game and manual, $6

Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force (Win 95/98/NT/2000)
Description
Game and manual, $15

Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force II (Win 98/ME/2000 XP)
Description
Game and manual, $15

Star Wars

Star Wars: Republic Commando (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D (Win 95/98)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Wars: Monopoly (Win 95)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Wars: Dark Forces (DOS)
Description
Disc only, $6

Stand Up To Cancer

2010-04-24T04:31:00.001-07:00

Stand Up To Cancer

Stand Up to Cancer and Microsoft Join Together with “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons

American Scary

2010-04-23T16:30:00.001-07:00

American Scary
Directed by John E. Hudgens
DVD released: Feb. 17, 2009
After watching American Scary, I want to be a horror host – which is probably the ultimate metric for judging a documentary.

So this became a ritual – but one that faded as we got cable and a VCR – events happening on a larger scale across America.

Stand Up To Cancer

2010-04-04T15:28:00.001-07:00

Stand Up To Cancer

Stand Up to Cancer and Microsoft Join Together with “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons

Stand Up To Cancer

2010-03-24T03:26:00.001-07:00

Stand Up To Cancer

Stand Up to Cancer and Microsoft Join Together with “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons

Golden Retrevo Awards

2010-03-09T15:20:00.001-08:00

Stand Up To Cancer

2010-03-08T15:20:00.001-08:00

Stand Up To Cancer

Stand Up to Cancer and Microsoft Join Together with “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons

Game Couch: 2009 in Review

2010-02-24T15:16:00.001-08:00

Blogging in a Twitter World
Overall my blogging was down, but my tweeting (@GameCouch) was up. I think this is part of a larger trend. If I’m looking for thoughtful conversation about games, I go to Twitter. It’s also my source for news and a great way to see a quick snapshot of the gaming world’s psyche. If you’re looking for community, Twitter’s the place to go. Some quick recommendations not found on my outdated People to follow on Twitter: bsangel, 8bithack, trixie360, and CorvusE.

The Biggest Story
The Rape Game, my take on the RapeLay/Amazon controversy, drew the most views, thanks largely to Leigh Alexander including it in RapeLay: The Response.

The Second Biggest Story
I understand why unique content gets a lot of traffic, but I was surprised that so many people came here looking for information about The Force Unleashed: Jedi Temple DLC. Doesn't IGN cover stuff like this?

The Story I Wish Had Been Bigger
When a friend spotted Game Couch in a psychology newsletter, I was hoping for another flood of traffic to my interview with Grand Theft Childhood co-author Dr. Cheryl K. Olson. Instead it was just an aftershock from the 2008 piece.

Cool People
Rebecca Mayes, Audio Gamer
Video game reviews in song? I was intrigued. Since then Rebecca has exploded and now Rebecca Mayes Muses is a major part of The Escapist.

Howard Sherman, Interactive Fiction Author
What do ebook readers mean for gaming? I asked Howard Sherman, the madman behind Malinche about Interactive Fiction on the Kindle.

Beth Gallaway, Information Goddess
Beth exists in the intersection between gaming and libraries. Buy her book: Game On!

We Are They
This lead came via Jamie Sanders (VNES). They’re a cool band and I still love the pirate song. Don’t know how the Wii contest ever turned out.

Golden Retrevo Awards

2010-02-20T03:13:00.001-08:00

The Only Thing I Know

2010-02-18T03:11:00.001-08:00

I found this video over at Hawty McBloggy and it's worth watching even though I disagree with Brian Schmoyer's assertion that video games, as entertainment, have no lasting value. The short version is that after 30 years of gaming, the Schmoyer found himself “alone, overweight and divorced,” and he blames this on the time he spent playing video games.

Coming off of two Dragon Age playthroughs and one run through Mass Effect 2, I'm probably more sympathetic towards Schmoyer's POV than a gaming blogger should be. I've basically minored in BioWare RPGs. However, I don't think I could have made better use of that time so much as I would have made other use of that time — at the very least, I should have done more laundry.

Still, in between my tours of Ferelden and Masseffectium, I've managed to keep my approval rating high among my friends and family. Likewise, I continue to have a strong romance with my wife, which I attribute to the diversity of conversation options we have available. Finally, though my quest log is never empty, I remain a kickass Collection Development Librarian (it's all about the graphic novels).

Stand Up To Cancer

2010-02-07T15:07:00.001-08:00

Stand Up To Cancer

Stand Up to Cancer and Microsoft Join Together with “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons

Golden Retrevo Awards

2010-02-01T03:04:00.001-08:00

Far Cry movie review

2010-01-23T03:03:00.001-08:00

Far Cry
Directed by Uwe Boll
Starring Til Schweiger, Emmanuelle Vaugier, and Michael Paré
Movie released: October 2, 2008
DVD released: Nov 24, 2009A Canadian lumber mill takes the place of a South Pacific island, zombie mercenaries stand-in for hulking mutants and Jack Carver has a German accent, but enough connects the movie to the game to call Far Cry a fairly faithful videogame adaptation. Fans won’t be pleased, though, since notorious director Uwe Boll is at the helm.

Charter boat captain Jack Carver (Til Schweiger) takes journalist Valerie Cardinal (Emmanuelle Vaugier) to an assignment on a remote island. Of course the island hides a secret lab where an evil scientist is creating an unstoppable army (X-Men comics warned us about Canada’s scientific villainy). Valerie is captured and Jack’s boat is blown up so Jack enters reluctant hero mode.

In a series of set pieces, Jack dodges explosions and kills mercenaries, while escaping capture and rescuing the girl. If you’ve seen Inglourious Basterds, you’ll remember Schweiger as the badass Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz. Schweiger is a credible action hero making Far Cry a credible action movie. Uwe Boll seems to be aiming for a 1980s action movie vibe – elevating Valerie to love interest and pairing Carver with a comedy relief providing sidekick (Boll regular Chris Coppola as the tagalong “Food-guy”).

While Boll is usually reviled for his directorial choices, most of Far Cry’s flaws stem from what looks like a Syfy level budget. The game was lauded for its stunning visuals; the movie, not so much. Jack Carver’s trademark Hawaiian shirt looks sorely out of place in Vancouver and it’s hard to be menaced by a villain that whose secret lair is a sawmill.

Golden Retrevo Awards

2010-01-13T02:55:00.001-08:00

Game Couch: 2009 in Review

2010-01-09T02:52:00.001-08:00

The Biggest Story
The Rape Game, my take on the RapeLay/Amazon controversy, drew the most views, thanks largely to Leigh Alexander including it in RapeLay: The Response.

Cool People
Rebecca Mayes, Audio Gamer
Video game reviews in song? I was intrigued. Since then Rebecca has exploded and now Rebecca Mayes Muses is a major part of The Escapist.

Howard Sherman, Interactive Fiction Author
What do ebook readers mean for gaming? I asked Howard Sherman, the madman behind Malinche about Interactive Fiction on the Kindle.

Beth Gallaway, Information Goddess
Beth exists in the intersection between gaming and libraries. Buy her book: Game On!

We Are They
This lead came via Jamie Sanders (VNES). They’re a cool band and I still love the pirate song. Don’t know how the Wii contest ever turned out.

Far Cry movie review

2010-01-08T14:53:00.001-08:00

Game Couch: 2009 in Review

2009-12-28T02:47:00.001-08:00

The Biggest Story
The Rape Game, my take on the RapeLay/Amazon controversy, drew the most views, thanks largely to Leigh Alexander including it in RapeLay: The Response.

Cool People
Rebecca Mayes, Audio Gamer
Video game reviews in song? I was intrigued. Since then Rebecca has exploded and now Rebecca Mayes Muses is a major part of The Escapist.

Howard Sherman, Interactive Fiction Author
What do ebook readers mean for gaming? I asked Howard Sherman, the madman behind Malinche about Interactive Fiction on the Kindle.

Beth Gallaway, Information Goddess
Beth exists in the intersection between gaming and libraries. Buy her book: Game On!

We Are They
This lead came via Jamie Sanders (VNES). They’re a cool band and I still love the pirate song. Don’t know how the Wii contest ever turned out.

Far Cry movie review

2009-12-17T02:40:00.001-08:00

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-12-15T02:39:00.001-08:00

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Developer: Ascaron
Publisher: cdv Software Entertainment
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Released: May 12, 2009
Test Freaks' Freak Score: 6.3/10Let me start with a disclaimer: I’ve made it through less than 30% of Sacred 2’s main quest and I’ve seen less than 20% of Sacred 2’s world. After over 30 hours of play, though, I feel justified in posting a review.

Sacred 2 is an action-RPG loaded with hundreds of quests, thousands of items and a menagerie of monsters. Gameplay is combat-driven so don’t expect to sneak around like a thief and you pick the good or evil path before launching the game so there are no moral quandaries to get in your way. If you need to feel immersed in a fantasy world, then Sacred 2 isn’t for you – but if you’re looking for a game that offers Diablo-style action and WoW-level of addiction, I highly recommend Sacred 2.

In the fraction of the game I've seen, I've learned that there's some problem with elves and I'm guessing a Fallen Angel comes into play at some point, but I really don't care. Not that I'm not interested in being the hero who brings salvation to Ancaria, but I'm having enough fun investigating crop circles, attending rock concerts, and collecting troll hearts. Sure there's a plot to follow, but the flavor of the game comes from the multitude of side quests available. I eagerly scour cities looking for people with ? floating above their heads, never knowing if I'm going to be asked to wipe out a skeleton army or merely tell guests that the wedding's off.

Just one more quest, I tell myself and then I get sucked into a mini-campaign or find a class-specific quest I'm compelled to do because I'm a good little Dryad. Yes, I am your typical wood nymph who longs to pepper enemies with arrows and cast her voodoo. She's one of six preset characters available. Avoiding Gauntlet-style archetypes, Sacred 2 opts for classes like an angelic warrior (Seraphim), a resurrected soldier (Shadow Warrior) and an automaton resembling the Egyptian god Anubis (Temple Guardian).

Each character has different combat skills and magic available to them (called Combat Arts and grouped under three Aspects). Using my voodoo, I can envelop enemies in thorns and use shrunken heads to summon ghosts. With 15 Combat Arts to choose from, in addition to Offensive, Defensive and General Skills to hone, Sacred 2 has a pretty deep RPG system. Combine this with the variety of armor and weapons available and, even though I can't change my character's gender or make her ears pointier, I still feel like I've shaped her creation.

There's always a concern that porting from the PC to a console involves a dumbing down of the interface, but the controller works great and allows for intuitive button mapping. You can assign potions to the D-pad and attacks to the face buttons and you can even use the trigger buttons as “shift” buttons letting you easily access up to twelve different attacks, spells, or combinations — in no way is the absence of a keyboard limiting. I have noticed that the controls could be tighter — the game doesn't always recognize that I want to shift from my longbow to sword. Also, targeting isn't precise — many times I've launched a flurry of poisoned bolts at a rat instead of the horrible monster next to it.

Sacred 2 favors open-world exploration over traditional dungeon crawling. This isn’t to say that you won’t spend a fair amount of time in cellars, caves and sewers fighting subterranean fauna, but Ascaron has built a huge fantasy world and – by Lumen! – they want you to see it. Grassland, desert, mountain, jungle – name an ecosystem and you’ll find it somewhere in the world of Ancaria. This is an incredibly detailed world. There are remnants of battlefields, strange machines, ancient graveyards and other wonders which you just happen upon if you stray from Ancaria's network of roads.

Sadly, much of Ancaria's beauty is lost to me because I'm either running like mad or hightailing it on horseback. Sacred 2 doesn't have random encounters — it just has encounters. There's no patch of wilderness which isn't crawling with monsters who have the sense to travel in packs. It's cool happening upon goblins fighting spiders, but it doesn't take long for them to join forces against you. Once I barely stayed ahead of a pack of skeletons, bears, minotaurs, goblins, boars, and goblins riding boars.

However, Sacred 2's deadliest feature is that you can't pause the game. While the single-player setup is perfectly fine for misanthropes like myself, Ascaron really wants you to enjoy the multiplayer experience (2 player offline or 4 players online) and has created a pseudo-perpetual world MMO type experience. The end result is that if you stop to look at a map, level up, or muck about with your equipment, it won't take long before something comes up and starts chewing on you. It's much safer to do any charactery thing in cities, where you're mostly safe. Luckily, the world of Ancaria is filled with transporters and respawny stones, so you can warp around to cities you've already visited and run to the blacksmith to have a magic necklace dropped by a diseased sheep welded to your quarterstaff to make it fiery.

I think Ascaron has a low opinion of my social life, because should I ever complete this massive game, I'll need to replay it to see where the evil path leads me. And then there's the other characters for me to try out and they each have their own quests. And I heard there's an expansion on the way, which is like hearing that Slartibartfast is adding a new continent when I haven't even seen Paris yet.

Terminator Salvation

2009-12-14T14:39:00.001-08:00

Terminator Salvation
Developer: GRIN
Publisher: Evolved Games
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Released: May 19, 2009
Test Freaks' Freak Score: 5.4/10Wikipedia tells me that Terminator Salvation is an interquel, which is a good term for a movie tie-in which takes place two years before the actual movie. The game follows John Connor (not Christian Bale), a foot soldier in the war against machines. Terminator fans know that Connor has a destiny, but it's one that seems more remote every day. Skynet has inexhaustible resources and each battle takes irreplaceable human lives. In the ruins of Los Angeles, is there still a future worth fighting for?

Re-reading the above paragraph, I realize that I've described a compelling story. I'm sorry to say that it isn't present in this game. Sure there is an introductory voiceover which introduces us to the pathos of the Terminator universe and there are scattered cutscenes which extol humanity, but this doesn't come across in the gameplay. Compared with Terminator Salvation, Gears of War seems like a meditation on violence, which is too bad since the beginning of Salvation promises a Gears of War-like experience.

After all, Terminator Salvation is a third-person shooter set in urban decay. John Connor is accompanied by Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood), the Dom to his Marcus, and together they fight against an enemy which overwhelms. Combat is largely cover-based and you even press Y to focus in on points of interest.

Armed with an assault rifle, Connor is immediately up against swarms of flying Aerostats and, soon after, Spiders — heavily shielded crab-like machines. You won't survive out in the open, but the game has a deep cover system. Almost every structure on the battlefield offers some form of protection from which Connor can pop up and take out enemies or lay down some blind fire. Once you've clung to a wall or overturned car, you can use the thumbstick to open a radial menu and dive to another location. Using this method to move around the battlefield, you can flank enemies and fire on their unshielded areas.

Countering the cover system is a strong enemy AI. Spiders won't let you fire on their backs for too long before swiveling and counter-attacking. Later, the menacing T600 endoskeletons will be unleashed and they seem designed for the sole purpose of hunting you down. Fortunately Connor's weapon choices grow to include shotguns, grenade launchers and devastating pipe bombs.

Get a few chapters into the game and you'll realize that Salvation has a typical war movie setup — our men are trapped behind enemy lines and it would be suicidal to rescue them, but isn't this what makes us better than the enemy?

Connor assembles a group of like-minded troops who have heeded his “come with me if you want to die” call, and plunges in. It would make sense for them to occasionally do some flanking of their own, but they are engaged in battle theater — shooting without aiming and dying dramatically.

If there’s anything you want in a movie tie-in, it’s the feeling that you’re the star of an action movie. There are no wow moments in Terminator Salvation. No great set pieces. No thrills or chills. Just a steady march through post-apocalyptic L.A.

Terminator Salvation is actually a good looking game, but level design is linear and repetitious. Skynet keeps throwing the same three models against you, no matter how deep into enemy territory you creep. Any half hour of Salvation resembles any other half hour – save for a few rail shooter sequences which break up the monotony if nothing else.

Looking at everything I said above, I would still probably recommend this game if it didn’t clock in at under four hours. It is utterly reprehensible that shovelware like this is being presented as a triple-A title. While Salvation does have offline two-player co-op, there is no online multiplayer component. There are no secret areas, easter eggs, collectibles, or unlocks. In short, Terminator Salvation has no replay value whatsoever.

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-12-13T02:38:00.001-08:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

2009-12-12T02:37:00.001-08:00

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne
Author: David Gaider
Publisher: Tor Books
Released: March 2009The Rebel Queen Moira is slain by Ferelden nobility seeking to curry favor with the Orlesian usurper Meghren. Her son Maric escapes the ambush and falls in with a band of outlaws. It’s a short respite as the traitorous forces track him to the camp. Recognizing the prince for who he is, outlaw leader Gareth Mac Tir directs his son Loghain to escort the prince to safety while the outlaws engage the assassins.

The Stolen Throne is a prequel to Dragon Age: Origins taking place thirty years before the events of the game. It follows the adventures of Maric and Loghain as they rebuild the rebel army and defy the Orlesian oppressors and their Ferelden lackeys. Joined by fearsome warrior Rowan Guerrein, daughter of the Arl of Redcliffe, an inevitable love triangle develops and is further complicated after the trio rescue Katriel, an elven bard.

There’s an aura of inevitability surrounding the story, but while the character arcs feel predetermined, I was emotionally invested in their struggles. Loghain remains one of the game’s most interesting characters and his characterization here only adds to his complexity. Fans of the game will appreciate spending yet more time in BioWare’s IP, especially since the novel explores areas unseen in the game.

Readers simply looking for a new high fantasy series may come away disappointed. It’s hard to describe the first half of the book as anything more than a series of battles. The narrative is driven by combat and its aftermath, while the novel’s main antagonist Severan, advisor to the usurper, stays largely off page. The Stolen Throne picks up in the second half and – if battle fatigue hasn’t set in – readers will find the novel comes to a satisfying conclusion.

9 the Poster

2009-12-08T14:36:00.001-08:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

King of Fighters XII

2009-12-08T02:36:00.001-08:00

King of Fighters XII
Developer: SNK Playmore
Publisher: SNK Playmore, Ignition Entertainment
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3)
Released: July 28, 2009
Test Freaks' Freak Score: 5.3/10It might be the King of Fighters, but uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Unlike most fighting games which track the progress of a single fighter against increasingly challenging opponents, King of Fighters XII is team-based. The 22 character roster covers the spectrum of martial arts from Muay Thai to Drunken Boxing and features members of the expanded KoF family like the Bogard brothers, Joe Higashi and Goro Daimon. Players pick three fighters and either face an opposing team in an online or offline versus mode, or go up against five waves of teams in the single player Arcade mode’s time trial.

King of Fighters XII has the typical array of heavy and light kicks and punches which can be stringed into combos and special moves. New features include a critical counter system – which can quickly turn the tide of a battle, guard attacks – quick counters – and blow back attacks which occur when two attacks cancel each other out.

With the “time trial” arcade mode being the whole of the single player experience it's hard not to feel underwhelmed by King of Fighters XII. Twenty-two characters would be sufficient for many games, but since you’re going through it three characters at a time, it doesn’t take long before you’ve seen everyone.

In the single-player mode, there's no strategic advantage to picking a balanced team or even spending time on determining the order of your fighters. Although it’s technically 3-on-3 combat, battles are fought one fighter at a time with fallen fighters being replaced by the remaining teammates. There’s no tag system, buffs or assists.

The single player mode is so lacking, it feels incomplete. There’s no narrative, no boss battles, no challenges, no triumphant ending and no unlockables other than artwork. But! – skeptics will say – this is a game that’s meant to be played online.

Even after patching, I can’t recommend playing King of Fighters online. The lobby system will have you staring at a menu screen for at least five minutes and then you’re thrust into an appalling level of lag. There’s nothing more frustrating than launching a ranged attack only to watch it stutter across the screen. I have no doubts that this is a problem which can be solved, but there are too many competent fighting games available to advise waiting for this one to get better.

King of Fighters XII is a 2D fighting game and has a long legacy – both factors point to this game having a built in audience. I don’t believe there’s anything here which will draw a wider appeal, which is a shame because when everything is working, it’s a competent fighter.

A final note about the graphics: King of Fighters XII features handdrawn graphics which gives the game a distinct look. Animations are amazingly fluid and there’s good detail, but the sprite-based graphics result in heavy pixilation. This may be intentionally retro, but it comes off as a misstep for a franchise making its first HD appearance.

And you will get tired of seeing the same six stages. Even if you don’t read ethnic stereotypes into them, stages like China and Egypt manage to be simultaneously over-animated and uninspired. France in particular freaks me out.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-12-03T02:35:00.001-08:00

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

2009-11-29T02:34:00.001-08:00

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
Developer: Team 17
Publisher: Codemasters
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Released: March 27, 2009
Test Freaks' Freak Score: N/AThe original Leisure Suit Larry now owns a movie studio and he’s hired his nephew Larry (you) to uncover a mole who’s undermining Laffer Studios’ efforts to churn out quality T&A films. The first Leisure Suit Larry games were Sierra Adventures written by Al Lowe. Box Office Bust takes a GTA approach to gameplay. This says a lot about the history of gaming.

With Laffer Studios acting as the world map, Larry runs around doing missions for actors and executives, delivering packages, completing races and playing minigames. It’s GTA down to being able to carjack the golf carts driven around the studio lot. It’s just not fun. Controls are sluggish, the camera is wonky and the game chugs along from one sexual innuendo to another.

The best part of Box Office Bust is a minigame involving filming a scene with you picking the best camera angles. This is done realtime, so it requires quick decisions and fast reflexes while paying attention to the complete picture. It was smart and original and actually made good use of the game’s setting.

Out of some awareness that the studio missions vary between dull and frustrating, Box Office Bust has lengthy segues into dreamscapes based on western, horror, and other genre clichés. I played the game up through the first dreamscape and, after spending too much time in an ill-conceived stealth mission, decided that trying to maneuver a video game character disguised as a cactus through a field of fart clouds was poor use of my free time.

Allegedly the game is powered by the Unreal 3 Engine, but the graphics don’t reflect it. Animations are choppy and collision detection is questionable. And I’m not sure how you can use Unreal to make lousy shooting levels, but it happens here.

Audio is much better, with a solid vocal cast featuring the likes of Artie Lange, Patrick Warburton, and Shannon Elizabeth. Sadly they’re given lines about people named Boo Khaki and mistake thespian for lesbian, but that’s the approach to sexuality Box Office Bust takes. For a game loaded with characters spilling over their tops and bragging about what’s in their jeans, there’s no nudity and no real sex. Just lots of innuendo and things shaped like penises.

I think I would have loved Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust when I was 12. Not that the game would have been any better, but in playing it I would have the sense that I was getting away with something — much like sneaking a look at my grandfather’s Playboys or laughing at the jokes my best friend brought home from his parent’s bar.

Daemon

2009-11-25T14:33:00.001-08:00

Daemon
Author: Daniel Suarez
Publisher: Dutton
Released: Jan. 2009After two CyberStorm Entertainment employees die suspiciously, Detective Peter Sebeck discovers their deaths were caused by elaborate death traps set by revered game designer and CyberStorm CEO Matthew Sobol. Officers storming Sobol’s mansion find themselves in a standoff against more tech-powered traps, but the greater challenge is that the deceased Sobol is doing all this from beyond the grave.

A daemon, a hidden computer program, is part of Sobol’s postmortem plot not to hack computers, but to hack society. Recruiting disaffected individuals and channeling billions of dollars, Sobol’s Daemon organizes a global cabal capable of bringing down corporations and threatening governments.

Lending equal weight to online and offline action, Suarez has some scenes set in CyberStorm’s computer games, which the Daemon is using for recruitment. Beating a mod for the WWII-themed, Over the Rhine, wins the approval of the game’s baddie SS Obesrtleutnant Heinrich Boerner. Later The Gate (CyberStorm’s fantasy MMO) is the setting for a stakeout.

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

9 the Poster

2009-11-23T02:32:00.001-08:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

2009-11-16T14:29:00.001-08:00

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-11-06T02:26:00.001-08:00

Daemon

2009-11-05T14:25:00.001-08:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

Nintendo’s E3 Briefing

2009-11-04T02:25:00.001-08:00

E3 continued today, with Nintendo's Media Briefing at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is the video game industry's annual trade show where major players gather to reveal anticipated games and new technology. While Nintendo's presentation wasn't as well received as yesterday's Microsoft briefing, here are three things for Nintendo fans to get excited about (and I should note that I love the DS and Nintendo has some cool things planned for the DSi, but the Wii was the star of the show).

New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii
Can there be anything new about Mario? After all, the last New Super Mario Bros. was a 2006 DS title and the venerable plumber has been hanging around since 1981's Donkey Kong. With that said, Nintendo has something interesting here — they've taken the core 2D platform design and turned it into a 4-player co-op game. Or at least co-op in spirit — I'm thinking this game will be the new Gauntlet, where screwing over fellow players is almost as much fun as working together.

Wii Sports Resort combined with Wii MotionPlus
Nintendo's Wii captured people's imagination with a motion-sensitve controller which made you feel like you were actually swinging a baseball bat or throwing a punch instead of pulling the strings on a computer-generated puppet. MotionPlus (a new attachment for the Wiimote) ups the realism by allowing faster and more sensitive motion-tracking. As shown in the Wii Sports Resort trailer, this means archery, golf, water skiing and a host of other sports have now reached the next level of immersion. Can the ultimate lightsaber game be too far behind?

Metroid: Other M for the Wii
There was major fail at this year's briefings, with the consoles attempting to reach out to hardcore gamers and girls not realizing that hardcore gaming knows no gender restrictions. With delicious irony, Nintendo's best received title was the hardcore Metroid: Other M featuring the badass (and female) Samus. Nintendo plus Team Ninja equals stunning 3D environments, awesome boss battles and fast and furious (and edgy) gameplay.

Terminator Salvation

2009-11-02T02:23:00.001-08:00

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

2009-11-01T14:23:00.001-08:00

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-10-26T14:23:00.001-07:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

Nintendo’s E3 Briefing

2009-10-20T14:23:00.001-07:00

Terminator Salvation

2009-10-20T02:23:00.001-07:00

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-10-16T02:22:00.001-07:00

Sony’s E3 Briefing

2009-10-11T02:18:00.001-07:00

Wrapping up the major platform briefings, Sony hit E3 today with their presentation showing what's in-store for their console and handheld system. Cutting through the marketing, here are the three things Sony fans should be saving up for.

PS3 Motion Controller
Nintendo has the Wiimote. Microsoft has Project Natal. Sony has a prototype. Looking like a small baton with a ping pong ball attached to the end, PS3's motion controller works in conjunction with the PlayStation Eye to track the movement of the controller which could be a stand-in for a tennis racket, pistol or flashlight. A motion controller in each hand lets the user dual-wield. Imagine a Zelda game where you're Link, blocking attacks with a shield while striking with your sword. Still at the tech demo stage, this has a lot of promise and I'm hoping Sony can stick to their Spring 2010 launch date.

PSP Go
Showing that Nintendo isn't the only company that can make their portable device more portable, Sony showed off the PSP Go. Half the size of the PSP, this sleek and sexy handheld slides open like a cell phone. With built-in wifi and Bluetooth capabilities, the PSP Go goes beyond games allowing for better access to and storage of videos, music and pictures. Full PSP games can even be downloaded to the Go, bypassing physical media. The only question is will the $249 entry price be too high, especially since Nintendo's DSi is only $169.

The Last Guardian
When the “games as art” argument rears its head, two games come to the forefront: Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. It's no wonder that the company behind them, Team Ico, would have created the beautiful and mysterious The Last Guardian revealed today. The trailer shows a young boy hunted by knights in an eerie ruin who is befriended by a giant griffin. Haunting and poignant, this game is set for a 2010 release.

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-10-08T02:16:00.001-07:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

King of Fighters XII

2009-10-06T14:15:00.001-07:00

Daemon

2009-09-30T14:13:00.001-07:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

Terminator Salvation

2009-09-30T02:13:00.001-07:00

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-09-23T14:12:00.001-07:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

Sony’s E3 Briefing

2009-09-23T02:12:00.001-07:00

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-09-17T02:07:00.001-07:00

Daemon

2009-09-14T02:05:00.001-07:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

2009-09-11T02:04:00.001-07:00

Sony’s E3 Briefing

2009-09-10T02:04:00.001-07:00

9 the Poster

2009-09-09T14:04:00.001-07:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

King of Fighters XII

2009-09-08T14:02:00.001-07:00

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-09-05T14:01:00.001-07:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-09-03T02:00:00.001-07:00

Daemon

2009-08-30T01:59:00.001-07:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

9 the Poster

2009-08-22T23:51:00.001-07:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

Microsoft’s E3 Briefing

2009-08-17T11:48:00.001-07:00

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) 2009 is underway and the major players are grabbing their share of the media cycle by revealing hot games and new technologies. Once the major industry show, E3's relevance has been questioned in recent years, especially since it has served more to confirm rumors than offer surprises.

It's refreshing that Microsoft has kicked off the show with an impressive E3 Briefing. Here are the three biggest announcements Microsoft revealed today for their Xbox 360.

The Beatles: Rock Band
We knew this was coming on 9.09.09 (number nine, number nine, number nine) and we could have guessed at the track list, but did anyone see vocal harmonies coming? Support for up to three vocalists shows that unlike recent Guitar Hero releases, this isn't just Rock Band with a Beatles skin. This is a multiplatform release, but the biggest surprise Microsoft pulled off was putting the two surviving Beatles onstage during the announcement. Paul and Ringo may have had an awkward two minutes in the E3 spotlight, but unless Nintendo or Sony have Elvis waiting in the wings, it would be hard to surpass this level of star power.

Social Notworking
I hope you like your couch, because Microsoft is planning to keep you on it. Announced today was integration for social networking giants Facebook and Twitter. Redesigned for your television, it will be easier to keep track of friends, share pictures and highlight your gaming excellence all through your Xbox. As if that isn't enough, Microsoft is bringing Last.FM to Xbox Live subscribers letting them create and share playlists.

Project Natal
This morning people were talking about Xbox Fluid which morphed into Project Natal during the briefing. I can only assume the pregnant Trixie 360 created this natal fluid confusion. Anyway, Project Natal is Microsoft's answer to the Wiimote. Bypassing controllers completely, Microsoft showed off the Project Natal concept which uses a camera for facial recognition and body movement tracking while a microphone picks up your voice. Examples shown included miming steering a car to play a racing game, unleashing a martial arts barrage to defeat an on-screen opponent and shouting trivia answers at the screen to win a multiplayer game. Potentially the biggest game-changer, Project Natal also faces the potential of being another gimmick like the EyeToy — or worse — the new Power Glove.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-08-16T11:48:00.001-07:00

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-08-14T11:48:00.001-07:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

Daemon

2009-08-13T11:48:00.001-07:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

Nintendo’s E3 Briefing

2009-08-11T23:48:00.001-07:00

9 the Poster

2009-08-09T11:47:00.001-07:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

Sony’s E3 Briefing

2009-08-08T23:47:00.001-07:00

The King of Fighters XII

2009-07-31T23:43:00.001-07:00

Try fighting against “GameCouch”

Terminator Salvation

2009-07-27T23:43:00.001-07:00

Microsoft’s E3 Briefing

2009-07-21T10:42:00.001-07:00

It's refreshing that Microsoft has kicked off the show with an impressive E3 Briefing. Here are the three biggest announcements Microsoft revealed today for their Xbox 360.

Daemon

2009-07-18T22:41:00.001-07:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

The King of Fighters XII

2009-07-18T10:41:00.001-07:00

Try fighting against “GameCouch”

Nintendo’s E3 Briefing

2009-07-16T22:40:00.001-07:00

9 the Poster

2009-07-15T22:40:00.001-07:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

Terminator Salvation

2009-07-07T10:36:00.001-07:00

Terminator Salvation
Developer: GRIN
Publisher: Evolved Games
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Released: May 19, 2009
Test Geeks' Freak Score: 5.4/10Wikipedia tells me that Terminator Salvation is an interquel, which is a good term for a movie tie-in which takes place two years before the actual movie. The game follows John Connor (not Christian Bale), a foot soldier in the war against machines. Terminator fans know that Connor has a destiny, but it's one that seems more remote every day. Skynet has inexhaustible resources and each battle takes irreplaceable human lives. In the ruins of Los Angeles, is there still a future worth fighting for?

Microsoft’s E3 Briefing

2009-07-06T10:36:00.001-07:00

It's refreshing that Microsoft has kicked off the show with an impressive E3 Briefing. Here are the three biggest announcements Microsoft revealed today for their Xbox 360.

The King of Fighters XII

2009-07-03T22:36:00.001-07:00

Try fighting against “GameCouch”

Nintendo’s E3 Briefing

2009-07-03T10:36:00.001-07:00

Army of Two: The 40th Day Contest

2009-06-30T10:34:00.001-07:00

Like weapons? Want to design one for EA? Check out this contest:

Today, EA Montreal announced the return of the weapon design contest for ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY. From June 23, 2009 to July 12 2009, participants can submit their ultimate weapon at the game's official website for a chance to have it included in a future EA Game. To enter the contest, gamers will need to submit an image of their weapon and a brief 200-word description. Please click on the game's official website to view the contest rules. Once gamers submit their designs, the images will be posted to the site for the community to vote on. Starting on July 20, 2009 the top weapons will be reviewed by the development team who will then pick the two best designs.

A “future EA Game” sounds kinda nebulous — personally I hope the winning design will wind up in Madden 2011.

Daemon

2009-06-21T22:34:00.001-07:00

More than a techno-thriller, Daniel Suarez has created a plausible scenario about what a determined individual can accomplish in a wired world.

9 the Poster

2009-06-17T22:34:00.001-07:00

Allegedly this is an exclusive, but I'm thinking other sites may have been sent this too.

Want more? Catch up on the backstory at 9 Scientist's Facebook.

Gain size today!

2009-06-11T22:34:00.001-07:00

There’s an alternate dimension. One where everything is determined by your gamerscore. Have a low gamerscore and you can forget about that car, that job, and that brunette at the end of the bar. Have a monster gamerscore and the world is yours.

I know this dimension exists because I’ve found an artifact from it: The Easy 360 Achievement Guide written by someone called Ski. If you’re willing to spend $39.95, this guide will enlarge your gamerscore.

Judging from the ad copy, this guide tells you which games to play – so you won’t waste time playing games with a low rate of return. You’ll save time and money, playing only the games which engorge your gamerscore.

“It was taking me three days to get through Burnout Revenge and by the end I'd only unlocked 4 of its 36 achievements. My gamerscore was creeping up while my friend played all day and widened the gap.”

Yeah, why would you want to slog through good games, when you can fly through crappy ones? Why bother playing any game which doesn’t endow your meaty, throbbing online presence?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition

2009-06-07T22:33:00.001-07:00

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Released: May 1, 2009In the Xbox 360 version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine you earn an achievement for killing 2000 enemies. And I do mean killing. With his foot-long adamantium claws, Wolverine dismembers, decapitates, and disembowels his way through some of the best standalone superhero gaming since 2004’s Spider-Man 2.

The “video game of the movie” is typically a tired, obligatory exercise. Based on Wolverine’s last movie tie-in, X-Men 2: Wolverine's Revenge (TestFreaks’ FreakScore 3.2/10), gamers would be right to be skeptical of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is more than the typical summer blockbuster throwaway title. Taking cues from God of War, Wolverine is an epic brawler set comfortably between the X-Men movie franchise and the Marvel Universe.

Following the movie's lead, Origins starts with a pre-admantium Logan engaged in a black ops mission in Africa. Logan is part of a mutant team which includes his brother Victor Creed whose mutation parallels Logan's. Even without unbreakable bones, Logan is still a killing machine. By alternating weak and strong claw attacks, players can chain combos unleashing savage attacks against machete and machine gun wielding mercenaries.

While it seems like button mashing at first, Origins has a robust combat system which allows Logan to throw enemies to their death, impale them on spikes, and — most satisfying — lunge at them from a distance. As the game progresses, Wolverine levels up increasing his health and opening up rage-powered area of effect attacks. Speaking of health, Wolverine's healing factor is in place, but it's more of a nice bonus instead of a game changer — think of it as a replacement for the ubiquitous health kits which litter most games.

Origins bounces between a present day adamantium-laced Wolverine, who's dealing with severe fraternal issues by killing everyone standing between him and Creed, and the Africa mission where everything went south. The game resembles the movie's storyline, but has interesting deviations and many welcome additions. In addition to an expanded Weapon X facility, Wolverine also tears through a secret robotics lab in the Southwest and the duel with Gambit has been stretched into a multistage battle.

The game pulls from the movie's dialogue, with some original voice work from major cast members including Hugh Jackman (Logan) and Liev Schrieber (Creed). I imagine the audio sessions which captured the various grunts must have been hilarious. Aside from solid voice work (including audio logs ala BioShock), sound is largely unmemorable save for some nice ambient effects.

In addition to the expected boss battles and waves of mercenaries, including specially engineered foot soldiers and jungle mutants, Origins throws a few minibosses against Wolverine and it's here that repetition sets in. The first time you figure out how to take down a giant lava monster, it's satisfying. But by lava monster number three, the satisfaction is gone. Later Origins introduces another oversized baddie and you'll realize that you have to use the same strategy. And then another oversized baddie is introduced.

Games based on movies have a narrow launch window, often giving them an unfinished feeling. Origins is more solid than most, but there are a few nagging issues with the graphics including some slowdowns during larger battles and some aggravating clipping issues. Mostly the levels are well designed — and props to Raven for throwing in some hilarious and timely easter eggs — but there's definitely pressure to stay on the path. And it's a little head scratching that so many environmental puzzles are based on Wolverine trying to open doors, since his claws could easily slice through most of them.

However, these issues pale to the experience of forcing a commando to blow off his head with a shotgun or launching an aerial assault against a fleet of helicopters. The visceral design of X-Men Origins: Wolverine makes gameplay a compelling (and M for Mature) experience.

Nintendo’s E3 Briefing

2009-06-06T10:33:00.001-07:00

Educational Opportunities in Computer Games

2009-06-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Who would have ever thought that computer games - a form of entertainment - could improve the minds of those that play them! The truth is that amid all the cool graphics, the fantastic music, and the intriguing plots, educational opportunities are abound - and to find them, one only needs to look at them a little closer.

1. Computer games improve strategic thinking. Rare is the computer game that doesn't require its player to make a decision two or three steps ahead of a current situation. With constant play, players quickly learn the advantage of strategic thinking and they start to apply it to actual world opportunities.

2. Computer games improve problem solving. Although the same could be said about any game, computer games have proven in study after study to improve problem-solving skills. This is because most (if not all) games are centered around a problem and then challenge the player to solve it. In just one game, a player may solve anywhere from three to a hundred or more different problems.

3. Computer games improve hand and eye coordination. If you find this hard to believe, pick up a game controller and try to maneuver around the game. Manipulating a game controller demands the same skills that it takes to maneuver a mouse around a computer screen.

4. Computer games facilitate quick decision-making. One quality of computer games that lends to quick decision making is its impromptu situations. The element of surprise is always around the corner and it's what makes games exciting to play. To win however, players must be able to make smart decisions within a very short amount of time.

5. Computer games feed the imagination. We don't really understand the argument against things like television, videos, and gaming where people use the lack of imagination to support their part of the debate. Some people claim that computer games take away from the imagination because games supply the mind with things instead of encouraging the mind to come up with these things on their own. Bear in mind that these are the same people who say a stack of blocks is sufficient to grow a child's imagination. Of course we couldn't disagree more. The imagery in video games only fuels the imagination and gives it a spring board to form new possibilities that might not have occurred otherwise.

6. Computer games encourage exploration. In role-playing games, players must venture off the beaten path and explore the unknown. They have to open doors without knowing what's behind them. They have to enter areas of the game without knowing the consequence. And they have to interact with characters that they've never met before. Inside these particular kinds of games, the opportunity to gather up the courage to explorer unknown territory isn't just available, it's required.

7. Computer games enforce memorization. Another feature of computer games is its strong influence on memorization. The terrain portrayed inside some of these games is huge, yet accessing the maps can be cumbersome and disruptive to the game. To compensate, gamers will not only memorize a large portion of the terrain, they'll remember the tasks required to get to specific areas.

8. Computer games teach consequence. All computer games operate off of an "action - reaction" principle. Do something, and the game will react. This is a great opportunity to learn about consequence - whether this opportunity is experienced from a gamer's point of view or a programmer's point of view.

9. Computer games teach patience, dedication, and endurance. No great game can be conquered in a day. In fact, some of the best and most popular games take weeks or months to finish.

These are just some of the educational opportunities hidden inside computer games. After closer investigation, we're sure you can find more in addition to hours of fun and amazement.

Nintendo Power censorship

2009-06-05T10:16:00.001-07:00

The short story is that when Roxboro Middle School principal Brian Sharosky saw the cover of the November 2008 issue of Nintendo Power he yanked it from the school library. Said cover featured a Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars character loading a gun.

It should be noted that the school librarian objected to the yanking because it bypassed the standard procedure for dealing with complaints about library materials.

Now the ACLU is involved because Principal Sharosky has violated the students’ constitutional right to cheat codes.

As a librarian and a gamer, I have the required level of outrage mixed with moderate surprise that Nintendo Power is still in print – have they heard of the Internet? But overriding all that, I can only say, “What the hell?”

Their middle school has Nintendo Power?

You know what my middle school had? Pilgrim’s freaking Progress. That’s all.

I’m always annoyed when I read about sexy, racy, slutty books being pulled from school libraries – and it’s not that I care about Intellectual Freedom – it’s that these kids are reading about rainbow parties and vampires playing baseball while I was reading:

As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man cloathed with Raggs, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own House, a Book in his hand, and a great burden upon his Back. I looked and saw him open the Book, and Read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled: and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry; saying, what shall I do?

Pilgrim’s Progress is so long and boring the author John “You’re thinking of my brother Paul” Bunyan apologizes for it before it even starts: as so I penned It down, until at last it came to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.

That's all we had — and if someone else had checked it out, then all we could hope for is that they might kindly recite passages from it that we might be humbled and edified.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

2009-06-05T10:14:00.001-07:00

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
Developer: Starbreeze Studios, Tigon Studios
Publisher: Atari
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Released: April 7, 2009
Test Geeks' Freak Score: 8.6/10I'm crouched down in a dark corner of my house, but my dog is still able to see me. This is disappointing because according to The Chronicles of Riddick, I should be completely hidden. But shadows in The Chronicles of Riddick work differently from real world shadows — they are pools of absolute darkness from which Riddick springs forth for the kill.

Riddick was the standout character in 2000’s Pitch Black who became a franchise in 2004’s Chronicles movie. He’s an antihero – a badass who’s willing to kill, yet he also seems to have a moral code. He’s called a villain, but in a future without heroes that label means little.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is two games in one: a remake of the 2004 Xbox/PC game Escape from Butcher Bay and the new Assault on Dark Athena, which picks up where the first game ends. Whether Riddick is escaping or assaulting he faces overwhelming odds, but Vin Diesel's voice and likeness ain't going to be no punk.

Of the two games, Escape from Butcher Bay is the superior one. Butcher Bay, half supermax prison and half mining colony, is a massive facility populated with distinctive characters, each with their own motivations. Within minutes of being tossed in a cell, Riddick must learn the rules of the prison while earning respect and — more importantly — favors.

Some inmates want Riddick to solve their problems with a shiv and others want him to gather information. But whether you're beating down inmates or provoking guards, you're also learning the layout of the facility and how to access restricted areas.

With escape as the goal, Riddick will have to move between prison towers and the mining facility to find a way off planet. This will not only draw the ire of lowly inmates and basic prison guards, but will eventually put Riddick up against trained mercenaries and heavily armored guards.

While it's fair to say that gameplay is stealth-based (the games are first-person-sneakers), it's also combat-friendly. If you're in a hallway patrolled by guards, you can move from shadow to shadow and stay unseen, maneuver behind guards and execute quick kills, or open up with an assault rifle.

The plus side is that you can find a style of play that works best for you. And failing to be stealthy doesn’t necessarily bring instant death. Some stealth games end abruptly when you're spotted, but Riddick can make the best of a bad situation by upping the violence. The downside is that Riddick can't take that many bullets before flopping over — and the game could desperately use a cover system a step beyond ducking behind crates.

Butcher Bay is one of those things where everything went right. Even before the game was brought up to today’s graphical standards, it had excellent voice acting, interesting missions and great level design. The thing that impressed me most about Butcher Bay is the pacing of the game. It plays like a well edited movie, rising to an epic conclusion.

In contrast, Dark Athena’s pacing drags the game down. Much of what worked in Butcher Bay has simply been transplanted here, with the setting shifting from a prison colony to a prison ship. What’s strange is that the boss battle and thrilling finale come at the game’s midpoint. Then the game continues on an island which looks like it’s been pulled from Myst and is patrolled by the Borg and creatures which have escaped from Prey.

By no means is Dark Athena a bad game, it just pales in comparison to the excellent Butcher Bay. Both games are ten hour experiences – longer if you’re seeking out every collectable or completing every side quest – and there’s several multiplayer modes too. Atari is to be commended for releasing the game with the most value since Valve’s Orange Box.

Riddick: Dark Athena

2009-06-05T10:13:00.001-07:00

The Riddick franchise is all over the place, but I'm looking forward to this. And I'm glad this includes The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which I think I bought for my PC but never played. Sorry, PC :(.

Computer Games blog started

2009-06-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

I just started my new blog about computer games. I will post articles, tips, cheats and reviews of hot computer games.