Torchlight II Website Relaunched (Diablo III Feels A Slight Chill)…

Posted on February 9, 2012 by geelw

Nice new look? Check! Awesome new screens and wallpapers? Check! Updates about some pretty cool happenings in the busy community? Check! All I need now is a copy of the game and I’m all set to not be heard from for a while as I delve into those dungeons. Hopefully, we’ll see a console release at some point as well, as a ton of gamers got to play the first game when it appeared on consoles and got hooked in. I still go back to the first game from time to time, but I need to set an alarm so I can be jolted into getting away from those dungeons. After an hour or so, it’s impossible to stop playing!

It’s Going To Be A Mass Effect 3 Kind Of Year (Unless You’re An Android)…

Posted on February 9, 2012 by geelw

It was actually pretty funny (to me, at least) that EA had plenty of Android plushies to hand out at their Spotlight event on Tuesday, but one of the bigger games announced, Mass Effect: Infiltrator is currently ONLY going to be an iOS release. Yes, I know they’re going for the most successful platform in the world for this fantastic-looking third-person touchscreen action shooter, but I know some non-iOS device owners who are going to be (or already are) pretty irate about their devices NOT getting this game.

The rest of the Mass assault at the event was incredibly impressive, what with an amazing new CG trailer revealed (“Take Back Earth”) that’s going to blow fans away. All EA needs to do is get this into theaters and posted online (I think the latter will happen sometime next week) and I’d bet pre-orders for the game get a big bump. As for the Datapad app that lets you receive messages from your squad mates and other info, well… it’s not really necessary to play the game, but like Infiltrator, I can see a ton of downloads from core ME fans who want every single bit of content about the upcoming finale.

As for the latest build of Mass Effect 3 on display? Magnificent. BioWare has done its best work to date here and unless you’ve got that oddball genetic disposition to dump all over the hard hard work the team has put into this, you’ll find that both the single player campaign and multiplayer modes are rock solid. So solid in fact, that I’d rather spend time beefing up interest in Syndicate and SSX, two other titles shown at the event that deserve just as much love. More on those two later – I’m going to sleep, as it was a long day. for me…

YOU Can Help Fund Double Fine’s Next Game! Say YES To Adventure!

Posted on February 9, 2012 by geelw

Well, now! This is really cool and I feel vindicated having predicted last year this whole “gamers getting to fund games they like” thing would happen at some point and take off big time. Anyway, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert and the fine folks over at Double Fine Studios are making a point & click adventure game (yay!) for PC (so far) and they’re funding the project through Kickstarter! Check out the donation page HERE and take a look at the Double Fine website if you’re some high-roller big shot gamer (or even a non-gamer) with money to spare who wants something REALLY awesome for a bigger donation. The project has 33 days to go and is ALREADY half funded as of this posting. Go, Double Fine!

Why is I Am Alive NOT On A Retail Disc?*

Posted on February 8, 2012 by geelw

*Or: Hey, Ubisoft, Here’s How To Market A Game To EVERYONE Who Wants To Play It…

Sure, I Am Alive looks amazing and yes, the idea of a realistic survival adventure set in a destroyed city has garnered tons of praise everywhere anyone has seen or played it. But Ubisoft is doing themselves no favors by only releasing this on Xbox Live Arcade in March and perhaps later on PSN,… oops SEN (sorry, Sony! Give me another week or so to get used to that change). Memo from the front: despite your current successful digital business model, there are STILL a large amount of gamers who can’t get that content dying for something different that’s NOT another FPS, zombie game, franchise update or yes, I’ll say it, ANOTHER damn digital-ONLY release that should have been disc-based.

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Ridge Racer Unbounded Update: Behind the Game #1: “Deal With It!”

Posted on February 8, 2012 by geelw

Namco Bandai rolls out the first in a series of “making of” videos about their upcoming racer set for a March release on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Hey, I didn’t name the trailer, although that’s exactly what I’d call it as there are still a bunch of overly vocal folks out there who’ve been ticked off about this one ever since it was announced. Anyway, It’s been pretty quiet on the RRU front since I played the very promising demo last year, so it’s great to see what’s been going on since. Check out what the hard-working team at Bugbear has been up to and if you’re one of those die-hard classic RR fans still frothing at the mouth over the new game, you’ll also see that it’s not replacing your nostalgically sideways sliding fantasies at all…

Another Reason The Industry Needs To Stop The War On Used Game Sales: Think Of The Children!

Posted on February 7, 2012 by geelw

Crap. I can’t sleep (I never can before big press events), so you get another boring, opinionated article to pore over. With all the overly dramatic (and highly annoying to folks like me with large game libraries) fuss over used games and how developers and publishers aren’t making a dime off sales of pre-owned games (or consoles, for that matter), I figure I may as well add some opinions about a few things here. First of all, it’s the industry itself to blame for NOT capitalizing on the used market sooner, which helped breed the concept of used game retail in the first place. Had the big publishers figured out (say, back in the 90’s) that buying into a retail chain or setting up an online shop where their games could be fed back into profit, we probably wouldn’t be seeing this narrow-minded view of all used sales as the crime of the century (next to the piracy issue that the industry is even more toothless against despite some recent “victories”)…

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The Amazing Spider-Man (3D) Trailer: A Sticky Reboot, Indeed…

Posted on February 7, 2012 by geelw

OK, despite some interesting performances and casting, I despised Spider-Man 3, and despite the bank-breaking box office tallies, so did a lot of you out there (from what I’ve read). Apparently, so did a good chunk of the cast who worked on the trilogy, as they’ve been replaced with new blood for this 3D reboot. Well, all that cast tweaking (and a new director) seems to have paid off, as this spectacular-looking trailer someone actually woke me up about so I could post it (grrrr!) shows. Enjoy – I’m going the heck back to bed now, zzzzzzzz….

ModNation Racers: Road Trip How-To Tutorial Twofer

Posted on February 7, 2012 by geelw

Just about to come screaming around the corner on launch day, ModNation Racers: Road Trip is sure to be a go-to game for PS Vita gamers all over the globe. Sony’s not taking any chances with you newbies getting hung up on the possibility of creating endless amounts of tracks and sharing them over SEN (formerly PSN), so here’s a look at two videos that offer a bit of assistance for this crazy kart racer. Enjoy!

Hanging Out With Adrianne Curry Will Make You Smarter, Smell Better And More Attractive To Others…

Posted on February 6, 2012 by geelw

How so, you ask? Well, besides being easy on the eyeballs, incredibly friendly and a great conversationalist about all things gaming related, she’ll make even the most fervent non-believer in science WISH human cloning were possible (and legal). I’ll let you think about that for a minute (tick-tock, tick-tock)… ahem. She’s also the spokesmodel for Erox, a new pheromone-based unisex body spray that’s now available online. I got to meet the lady herself last evening at the Eventi Hotel in NYC but actually spent more time chatting with and listening to Sanjay Sabnani, CEO of Crowdgather, who’s behind the development, marketing and launch of Erox.

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Random Film(s) Of The Week: Psychological Edition (Part 1)

Posted on February 6, 2012 by geelw

OK, I went over my usual one title by a few as you’ll soon read, but I actually started this as a very different article revolving around Konami’s Silent Hill HD Collection (before it slipped into delay mode). Still, what with Valentine’s Day coming up along with my usual visceral reaction to the holiday (Yuck!), I may as well be nice for a change and share some really strange candy with you.

Don’t say you weren’t warned, though…

Konami’s hugely popular horror game franchise, Silent Hill, has been a personal favorite of mine ever since I got a demo from their PR department not too long after E3 1998. At that time, I was working in an independent game shop that also was expanding into publishing reviews, articles and features on the site (and later in a magazine published by the store). When the game was finally released in January 1999, I had to review it overnight for the web site. After about 11 or so hours of playing and taking copious notes on everything from the major differences from the demo to pointing out the assorted cinematic and literary influences I saw, I wrote an exceedingly lengthy (and a wee bit too cerebral) review. All of that hard word ended up being brutally chopped down to a mere three or four paragraphs, but a few years later after leaving the shop (and in between jobs), I reworked my original draft and posted it on GameFaqs.

While horror-themed games have been around for a while, pure psychological horror as a thematic element was somewhat new to console games at that time while movies have been using it for decades prior. As I’ve gone back to the Silent Hill series numerous times, I’ve seen a number of parallels between imagery in the series and the films on this list. Below the jump, I’m going to introduce (or reintroduce) you to some of these unsettling films with the hope that you seek them out and experience a bit of sheer fright for yourselves before or after you play (or replay) any of the games in the series…

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