Perhaps lost in the hooplah of E3 and the long-anticipated re-release of Final Fantasy 7 is the fact that the multiplayer beta for Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves went live this evening. If you bought inFAMOUS, you, too, can join in, using the code that came with the copy of your game. There’s two halves to the beta: a competitive mode which includes Team Deathmatch and Plunder (basically one-flag CTF) modes and two maps to play them on, as well as a co-operative mode. Since I don’t have a mic, I haven’t yet tried out the co-op mode. Hit the jump for my impressions! Read more

We may be poor college students/unemployed college graduates and thus unable to go to E3, but through the magic of the internet we can see the big press conferences IN REAL TIME! Thus, like every other gaming site on the internet, we will be live-blogging the big press conferences. Why watch our liveblog instead of a so-called “professional” site’s? Because we’ve got Nate Gamer, dammit.

Here’s our liveblog schedule:

Monday, June 1st:
Microsoft’s Press Conference: 10:30 am PST (1:30 PM EST)
EA’s Press Conference: 2 pm PST (5 pm EST)

Tuesday, June 2nd:
Nintendo’s press conference: 9 am PST (12 pm EST)
Sony’s Press Conference: 11 am PST (2 pm EST)

Hello again, dearest internet.

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, a new DS Zelda title was announced during Iwata’s keynote speech at the GDC yesterday. It is tentatively subtitled “Spirit Tracks.” There are going to be trains. Because, you know, Hyrule is so widely known for its intricate mesh of railroads that sprawl across Hyrule Field.
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I made sure to pre-order Player’s Handbook 2 so that I could review it for MEGATONik as soon as I came back from spring break.  Today, I had plenty of time to peruse the information in its pages, and I now think that Wizards was justified in producing this second volume.  If Wizards of the Coast had instead packed all of the content in the Player’s Handbook 2 into the original Player’s Handbook, the authors and designers would have had to ship sub-standard content in a terrible rush, and the titanic tome would have been daunting to new players–a result totally not in keeping with the mission of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Instead, we have two books filled with well thought out and interesting material, some of which you have likely heard about.  Perhaps the biggest reasons to shell out twenty-some dollars for the Player’s Handbook 2 are the return of fan-favorite races and classes not present in the 4th Edition Player’s Handbook, like the gnome race and sorcerer, bard, and barbarian classes.

These are excellent reasons to purchase the book.  However, I would like to highlight some of my personal favorite content that hasn’t received much publicity, but will nonetheless be high on my priority list for incorporation into my character designs.  In this way, this article is not so much a review as an examination of several elements found inside the cover.

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Virtually everyone who has access to Xbox Live or a DS has had a chance to lose hours, and in most cases their soul, to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. The gem-shifting puzzle game is returning in the form of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, albeit taking a turn from fantasy to sci-fi and trading in their old columns-and-rows system for hexagonal gem-based challenges.
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Rumors of the demise of EGM and the sale of 1UP.com to various suitors have floated around the interwebs for awhile, but now, unfortunately, it has come to pass: 1UP.com has been officially bought out by UGO, resulting in a enormous rash of firings. Many other blogs have covered this event well, so instead of just copy-pasting their hard work for the sake of site-hits or content, I’ll merely link to three stories that I feel are most pertinent. Said links and my personal feelings on the 1UP “fallout” after the jump. Just a warning: it’s pretty long.
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tl;dr Viral marketing is a tricky business, and these guys aren’t good at it. If it weren’t for IGN and its claims, we’d never guess that this obscure video is supposed to advertise or relate to an upcoming Wii exclusive.

Should I be excited or shouldn’t I? I can’t tell from this film clip, which IGN says is supposed to advertise or at least relate to an upcoming exclusive Nintendo Wii title. Apparently, they got an anonymous e-Mail that made these claims, but if it weren’t for IGN’s hinting, we’d never guess.

If we take IGN’s word and assume that the clip does have some significance, then we can try and analyze it for any clue as to what kind of title’s coming out. There’s a brief but noticeable glimpse of a retro-style gaming screen in the art style of Geometry Wars, perhaps suggesting another casual title along the lines of Boom Blox or Wii Play. IGN did indeed say that one of the frames from the clip contains a glimpse of “the Wii title itself”.

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When lawl first clued me into the fact that a new Battlefield beta would be arriving on the 360, I was immediately skeptical. I had never before played a Battlefield game, and from what I had heard, there was nothing special about the series. Regardless, I applied for a beta and was accepted. How does the Battlefield: Bad Company compare to other war shooter games out there? Hit the jump to find out!

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After a bit of a hiatus, I’m bringing back some Rock Band ‘Band Practice‘, not just because I love this section, but because of the fact that my favorite band, Nine Inch Nails, is the featured content this week! Do they rock as much as I hoped they would? If you’re not a fan of the band, will you still like it? Is March of the Pigs censored? Find out after the jump!

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The awesome train just keeps on a-rollin’! My in-depth impressions of Brawl continues today with three more character profiles. For those of you that missed it, my general impressions are here and part one of the characters is here. This installment’s guests hail from Lylat, the Mushroom Kingdom, and Dreamland.

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