Despite having a ton to do this weekend, such as job hunting, selling stuff on eBay, writing, and wedding planning, I found time to play Battlefield: Bad Company. I got one of the early demo codes for PS3, and after a quick download I was in.

Single player plays much like the other Battlefield games I’ve played on PC. You’re part of a squad, you go here, and do that. You get to pick your class (assault, medic, demolition, etc.) and each class gets a weapon and some sort of explosive, grenades, rocket launcher, charges… the list goes on. Graphics are impressive, with well detailed landscapes and character models. Bits of buildings and trees explode under tank fire causing the air to choke with smoke and debris, and when you take damage the screen’s edges start to blur and dim to red.

Gameplay in the single player campaign was easy. I felt at times my companion AI was dumber than it needed to be, providing little support or cover in heavy firefights or mission objectives. But despite the hiccups I breezed through the single player in a few hours.

Read more

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!

Read more

While most of the games featured at EIEIO this year were not playable, Hail to the Chimp was one of the few that were, and thank goodness for that. In the past I had heard the title described in several ways, sometimes as a party game, then as a fighting game, with never a clear explanation. Let me tell you exactly what Hail to the Chimp is. It’s Power Stone, with a boatload of game modes, animal combatants, highly interactive environments, being broadcast on the animal kingdom version of the Daily Show. Now, let me expand on that.

Read more

Velvet Assassin, formerly known as Sabotage, loosely follows the real life story of Violette Szabo. Szabo was a World War II spy for the Allies, completing two major saboteur missions before she was captured and subsequently tortured and killed. So what will it be like to step into Violette’s shoes? Some details I learned about the game, though essential to the premise of the game, could be considered spoilers, so they will be placed after the jump.

Read more

Yesterday, I told you guys I would be buying LOST: Via Domus no matter how horrible it turned out being.

After an annoying experience at Best Buy and sixty dollars emptied from my wallet, I’ve kept true to that promise and the game is sitting on the title screen as I type this.

Now, I won’t be reviewing it … so how will you know how bad (or good, but that is really less likely) it is? Well, in what I hope turns out to be a regular feature by our various editors, I am going to liveblog my journey (followed by a brief summary) through LOST: Via Domus right here and right now for you guys. As I play through the game, this post will be updated as frequently as humanly possible. Lets begin, shall we?

Updates will start flowing in a few minutes.

*WARNING: SPOILERS*
Read more

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!

Read more

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.

Read more

For those of you that might have missed it, I posted a general impressions article on my hands-on time with Brawl yesterday and left with the promise of more in-depth descriptions of certain characters. My plan is to update with three or so characters per day until I’ve covered all of them, so be sure to check back here as often as possible for more info.

Hit the jump for today’s characters, Mario, Luigi and Snake!

Read more

Being a part of the gaming industry is all about connections. Luckily, a good buddy of mine from home is a mod enthusiast and (apparently) quite handy with a soldering gun. The basic upshot of all that is that I found out that I had access to a Wii capable of playing an imported version of the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl, slated to be released here in the states on March 9th. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity and hauled my butt back to the city to play. Hit the jump for my story.

Read more

From all that I’ve heard about this game, I would have thought that it was the second coming of Christ … or, more appropriately, something like Geometry Wars, a simple Xbox Live Arcade game that took Microsoft’s online community by storm. However, after playing through the demo a number of times I have realized that this is not the case. Rez HD, unfortunate as it may seem, is nothing special, and is not worthy of your $10 investment.

… and here’s why.

Read more

The Turok franchise has stumbled over the past few years. A series that showed so much promise on the Nintendo 64 seemed to have squandered it with lackluster showings on the consoles of the previous generation. Electronic Gaming Monthly even names their Worst of the Year Awards in memoriam of Tobias Bruckner, the racist, half-cyborg U.S Cavalry Captain from Turok: Evolution.

Despite Turok’s missteps, developer Propaganda Games is taking a new look at the dinosaur-focused series with its first installment on the newest generation of systems. Simply titled Turok, it implies a return to the franchise’s roots. Acquiring the demo took a five dollar preorder investment at Best Buy, but the preorder came with a beanie, so that’s what justifies the purchase.

Is the game solid? Does the hat fit snugly? You’ll have to hit the jump to find out.
Read more

…and it’s about dang time! I was beginning to think that we weren’t going to get any more news of new characters until the Japanese release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl in about two weeks. So, how is this character going to work? Well, Sakurai has only given us a small hint of what we should expect…

Read more

Before I begin this little rant, I’d just like to point out that I haven’t actually gotten to play this game yet and these impressions are entirely based on the media I’ve seen thus far. Now that that’s out of the way, I have to say that this game looks like it’s going to be a big, enormous, gigantuan, Snorlax-sized letdown. As a huge (and I mean HUGE) fan of the original NiGHTS on Saturn, my hopes were pretty high when I first heard that a sequel was being made. After all, they have a solid base and proven game play to work with, right? Well, after watching several videos and looking at as many screenshots as I can get my fanboyish little hands on, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not only going to be a disappointing game in general, but might end up jading my memories of the Saturn version, NiGHTS Into Dreams. So, without further ado, here are my biggest pet peeves with what I’ve seen so far:
Read more

I was having a really hard week about two weeks ago. The constant schedule of a day job mixed with the yearning to be somewhere else and a dash of missing the significant other all culminated into a black cloud hanging over my head. All of the collective “blehs” ended the moment I got home from work and found that my beautiful and awesome wife had picked up the game that I had been longing for all week long, Mass Effect.

I could hardly contain myself; I couldn’t wait to rip open the packaging and take a whiff of that new-game-smell (you know the one). I finally had the game in my hands, the one game that I had been waiting impatiently for months until its release. I had the bare minimum pre-order from my local GameStore branch since September, but I was unable to pick it up because of the staggering cost of the Rock Band box set.

I put the game into my Xbox 360 and proceeded to lose the next week of my life to the sheer addictiveness of this game. I couldn’t be bothered to customize my character. I wanted to get right in on the action. I took the reigns as Commander John Shepherd (the sole surviving member of Alliance mission that had gone horribly awry early on in his service) and started my grand adventures across the mysterious regions of the Milky Way galaxy.

Read more