February 18th, 2010

Sarah ShepardI played the original Mass Effect on Xbox 360 in 2007 as a male Infiltrator who followed the Paragon path. This was characteristic of me because I rarely play females and almost always play “good” characters. I think the only time I’ve defected to the dark side was on my third time playing of Knights of The Old Republic. But for the next two years I’d hear praise for female Shepard’s voice performance, and arguments in favor of the Renegade path.

I resolved that, when I played Mass Effect on PC, I would play as female Shepard, and I’d also play as a Renegade. So I created Sarah Shepard; I expected playing her to be fun, but not superior fun. I also expected to hate her. I didn’t like myself as a Dark Jedi in KoTOR. Force Lightning was fun, but I was a selfish asshole. I didn’t save the galaxy, I took it. My choices on Mass Effect’s Renegade path didn’t all result in such extremes, though; I could save the galaxy without having to mollycoddle everyone. I’d do it efficiently, and by my own rules. Playing Paragon or Renegade is analogous to playing as Superman or Batman would — that is, if either approved of killing.
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September 26th, 2009

Bummer.

Another bummer.

This is not a bummer. Reinstated backwards compatibility coupled with its new $299 price would prompt me to buy a Playstation 3. I’m not just saying that; I missed most of the PS2′s golden age, and although I’ve gone back and played Final Fantasy XII, some Ratchet and Clank games, and the odd RPG, I still have a lot of games that I would love to play anti-aliased and upscaled.

June 25th, 2009

This is what the box looked like. But who needs boxes?FlatOut 2 is an arcade-style racing game developed by Finnish studio Bugbear Entertainment and published by Empire Interactive. It was released in the US in August of 2006 for PC, Xbox, Playstation 2, and again in October of 2008 for Mac OS X.

FlatOut 2 is a racing game that offers something for everybody. Single race, stunt or derby modes will best suit the dabbler. Just pick a mode, a track, a vehicle, and get to racing, death-defying, and destroying your way to victory. There is nothing to unlock, to buy, to sell or to upgrade. Some prefer to earn their keep, though, so for the arcade-racing purist there is a full career mode complete with the aforementioned unlocking and shopping as well as classes, cups, tournaments and special events. FlatOut 2’s modes can also be taken to multiplayer games via party-play (local), Internet (where a healthy group of people can still be found playing), or LAN. No matter your poison, FlatOut 2 is always all about the mayhem with its destructible environments, brutal crashes, tons of debris, and AI-controlled drivers that are not afraid to get their hands dirty.
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May 28th, 2009

Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon PC coverBroken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon is the third entry in Revolution Software’s adventure game series. The Sleeping Dragon was released for the PC, Xbox and Playstation 2 (EU/JP) in 2003 and it marked the franchise’s first venture into 3D as opposed to using 2D sprites.

Though the same whimsical spirit familiar to players of the previous entries of the Broken Sword series is present in The Sleeping Dragon, certain gameplay aspects differ greatly when played on PC, mostly due to the fact that it was designed with gamepads in mind. This is not a 2D point-and-click game as the previously-featured Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror is. Rather, players control the 3D incarnations of George Stobbart and Nico Collard using arrow keys for movement and WASD to interact with other characters and the environment; the mouse doesn’t even come into play. Regardless of this deviation from convention, Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon has just as much of what fans have come to love from the series in the way of interesting puzzles, quirky characters, humorous dialogue and a great cast of voice actors. Except Beatrice; she’s fired.
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March 27th, 2009

Check the source link on the BigDownload post, there is a PDF of the PC Gaming Alliance’s 2008 report. It’s clear that the PC as a gaming platform is expanding (not shifting) to reach new people with the casual games market and MMOs. Knowing that the platform brings in more revenue anually than any other single gaming platform from Sony, Microsoft or even Nintendo ($11 billion world-wide – $6 billion in the USA and Western Europe) is some comforting information.

Though Joystiq neglected to mention it (despite the information being in the press release they link to), Max Payne 3 isn’t being made by Remedy (the developers of the original game and its sequel), but by Rockstar Vancouver instead. Max Payne 3 will be their first new game since shipping Bully for the Playstation 2 in 2006 (they’re credited with Scholarship Edition for 360 & PC, but I think those were outsourced to other Rockstar developers, for the most part).

I think this may be the first gameplay footage we’ve gotten. While most games press seems pretty excited for this game, I’ve remained skeptical. I’ve been burned so many times in the past by Batman games. Although I can’t figure out why there’s so many gargoyles hanging off the walls inside the Asylum, the gameplay does look fun and, dare I say, unique.

Classy.