In 2004, Starbreeze Studios made a name for itself with the original Xbox hit, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. After successfully launching into a sea of critical praise, Starbreeze shifted gears to the next generation of consoles. In 2005 they announced their next game, a first-person-shooter based on the comic book series, The Darkness. A FPS starring a mobster possessed by demons? It was a risky move, to say the least, but Starbreeze managed to pull it off. Continue reading to find out what makes The Darkness one of the first hidden gems of this generation.

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1942: Joint Strike is a wonderful reiteration of the revolutionary top-down shoot ‘em up that originally graced the NES so many years ago. However, this time, instead of featuring mandated screen-flicker, Joint Strike delivers a monotone array of greys and browns and blues that define the war game atmosphere. Coupled with a vast enemy system with decent AI, the result is a dreary, sometimes confusing pandemonium that lasts until the final shot is fired.

Can 1942: Joint Strike stand up to the success of it’s predecessor? Hit the jump to find out!

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Let me begin this review of one of this past week’s new Xbox Live Arcade releases with a quick disclaimer. Sea Life Safari, developed by WildTangent Game Studios, is less of a game and more of an experience. The game pits you as an underseas photographer bent on shooting animals with film instead of bullets to provide research material for a crotchety old professor, who then rates your photographs based on different criteria. These three major criteria are as follows: whether or not the animal is in the middle of the picture, the relative size of the animal in the picture (I guess he doesn’t like negative space) and whether or not the animal is doing its special movement, which can be elicited by heaving a glowstick or flare at the animal by hitting the B button. The professor then ranks these pictures on a basis of zero to three stars (three being the best) which are then needed to move on to the next level. This type of system seems natural for the type of game that it is, and the professor’s continual dissidence with you will have you hunting for three star photos for quite a while.

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According to Kotaku, rumor has it that a new system is in the works to allow PC gamers to emulate console games on their computers.

The system, named “Trioxide,” may, as you may have well guessed, represent the three major consoles (360, PS3 and Wii) and the ability of the system to play all three consoles’ games. The only other tidbit of information that comes with this leak is the strange price range of $49 and $299, which nobody seems to be able to make anything of.

If this rumor rings true, which I highly doubt it will, it could put a major damper on console sales. Honestly, I don’t think Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo (or their respective lawyers) would ever let such a thing happen. Will this actually happen? Only time will tell.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipe of Darkness is the first installment of what developer Hothead Games promises to be a four-part series surrounding the world of the popular webcomic, Penny Arcade. The creators of Penny Arcade, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, took a major risk in jumping their strip from relative cult success to mainstream Xbox Live Arcade media. Has the risk payed off for us gamers? Hit the jump to find out!

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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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Left 4 Dead, a Valve-owned Turtle Rock Studios zombie action/adventure game, was recently announced by OXM to be a PC and Xbox 360 exclusive title. Yes, that’s correct, the game will not be coming to the Playstation 3 or, for that matter, the Wii. The game is set to hit the PC first, and then be ported to the Xbox 360 afterwards.

OXM had a chance to play around in two levels, nicknamed “The Hospital” and “Cornfield,” on the PC version but had not yet had a chance to play the 360 version. Why? Well…

Valve didn’t let us play the 360 edition of Left 4 Dead because it was too early and unbalanced - apparently, the zombies were so overpowered that humans stood no chance.

Yikes, that sounds rough. Thus far, Left 4 Dead is looking very nice, regardless of the fact that it uses a number in place of a preposition in the title, so don’t let it fall off your radar.

[Left4Dead411.com via X3F]

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.

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Ubisoft has announced today that Far Cry 2 is becoming multiplatform, and heading to the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The sequel to the original 2004 PC game will release on the PC at the end of the first quarter of 2008, while the console versions will be releasing sometime in the very broad timeline of 2008-2009. Ubisoft Montreal is now in charge of the Far Cry sequel, instead of Crytek, and will be sure to do a bang up job of dealing with the game by impressing up with the bright graphics the original game gave us.

Microsoft isn’t a stranger to the Far Cry series, as Far Cry: Instincts and its other games has appeared on both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox. It’s just too bad that Far Cry 2 cannot appear on the Wii, as Far Cry: Vengeance did…

To: All writers, new and old
From: backflip
Subject: Moving home, Nor’easters and holiday shopping

As you may or may not know, my finals concluded this past week and, as a result, I’ve been moving home to live with the ‘rents for a few weeks. On the car ride home, I had daydreams consisting of hours upon hours of uninterrupted gaming both on my 360 and Wii. Unfortunately, over the past couple of days, this has not been the case.

The night that I returned home, a giant Nor’easter hit the Tri-State area, and subsequently continued to ruin my weekend. I spent hours outside with a shovel in my hand and frown on my face, shoveling the driveway free from the wintry mix. Then, I was decidely swept up in Christmas shopping for the rest of the weekend, leaving approximately oh, 3 hours for me to game. Thus far I’ve gotten around 6 or so stars in Super Mario Galaxy, played through Halo 3’s new downloadable maps a few times (expect an impressions post soon) and beaten a few worlds in New Super Mario Bros on my brother’s DS.

Hopefully your weekends have been better.