Defiance: Brave New World With Some Familiar Themes (Take Two!)

OOPS. I actually accidentally “wallpapered” this post (as in posted OVER it!) by accident when I got booted offline with a couple of posts in progress open in separate windows, then mixed up when restoring and fixing things. So, here we go again – but completely rewritten, as nothing got saved and I HATE redoing articles because I can’t recapture the same tone – yaaaah!)

SO, Defiance seems to have survived not only its first episode with the biggest audience ever for syfy, it also survived an assault by a rather large enemy force thanks to a bit of Deus ex machina that was for me, a rather humorous homage to the first Star Wars movie. That or it was some fine lazy writing by the team that needed to wrap things up and had to fall back on their big action scene to satisfy the fans who wanted their big battle. Still, it was a fine pilot overall, even with way too many characters to keep track of. This of course, will settle out as more episodes air and we get to know who’s who and where their alliances lie. OK, OK, fo those of you who didn’t get it, I’ll get into the Star Wars moment(s) below the jump… Continue reading

Telltale Game’s Poker Night At The Inventory 2: The Joke(r)’s On Me…

Yeah, yeah – I was SO wrong about this one and yes, I did go break out that last crow pie from the freezer. Eh, no big deal though, as I don’t play poker at all and will probably not buy this one even at the measly five bucks it’s going to cost. Hey, but don’t let me stop you from tossing that digital fin into Telltale’s coffers. It sure looks like fun and yes, those pop cultchah characters from certain games and movies are making the fans drool and moon like teenage boys peeking over the fence at their hot next door neighbor’s sunbathing routine. Ewww… this post went south quicker than usual, huh? OK, but if you’re THAT hardcore a poker player, you’ve probably seen a few boobs from all those years playing. And some of them even had the nerve to try and bluff when you knew they weren’t holding anything close to a good hand. See what I did there? SAVE! OK, I’m outta here… well, for THIS post…

GRID 2 Multiplayer Redefined Trailer: Yes, Indeed It Is…

It was actually really funny to be the first and only person at the early appointment to see the innovative multiplayer mode in GRID 2 and get some great hands-on time, as I could tell the assembled team was itching to let people coming in play the game and see what was what. Still, I had to go through the entire team’s rehearsed presentation before my hands-on time, which was cool to hear, but I’m that sort of guy who “gets” stuff without the boxcar pitch games get. Of course, I’m not complaining one bit, folks – once you play this one, it’s going to keep you busy for some time, especially if you go full-on into the RaceNet functionality. May 28 is rushing up really quickly and for once, I’m not so ticked off at time zipping by…

Microsoft Gets (Yet Another) Lesson In The Reality Of Online Only Hiccups…

RROFI don’t use Xbox Live anymore, but some folks who do had a little issue over the weekend… Hmmm. And according to Microsoft, this was “only” due to “routine maintenance”… Uh Huh. Well, that next console is rumored to require an always online connection even for single player offline games and of course, Microsoft isn’t doing the right nor smart thing by totally or even partially denying this. Despite the fact that squashing the rumblings on the internet EARLY goes a long way in assuring they get more people interested in the new system because it will work when THEY want it to… (the plot thickens)Continue reading

More Defiance Character Profiles? Sure, Why Not?

Meet Kenya, Irisa, Nolan, Datak, Stahma Tarr and a few more guys and gals you’ll want to see more of once this new show gets its hooks into you. I’ll check out the entire first season to see if I like what’s going on, but based on all the pre-production videos, teasers, clips and yes, all those gameplay videos, a play session and a few other things, I’ll say this is one worth checking out.

That and hell, it sure beats the crap out of another Sharktopus movie, that’s for damn sure… Continue reading

Defiance Ark Hunter Chronicles “Director’s Cut”: Turning The Pages Before A New Chapter Begins…

Of course, with two days to go, the Defiance YouTube page is absolutely *exploding!* with all sorts of neat character profiles from the show and more, which I’ll run in a bit. But I wanted to finish up this digital comic mini-series by running the “Director’s Cut” version. I’m usually not much of a fan of this style of animation (hey, I grew up watching those awful Marvel cartoons from the 60’s, so seeing not much has changed other than the talent is a lot better is kind of grimly depressing. Or really funny – I can’t decide). Anyway, Defiance premieres on Monday, April 15 at 9PM EST of syfy.

Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen Enemies Video: Eight Million (More) Ways To Die…

Gran Soren just got a whole lot more dangerous. Seriously. Granted, it already WAS pretty deadly as it was teeming with all creatures great and small wanting to grind your party’s bones to make their bread (or a tasty filling for that bread), but the mad wizards at Capcom have worked in plenty of new not so wee beasties guaranteed to send you into a frenzy of running away if you’re too weak a character to handle it. On the other hand, if you’ve got the buff stuff and no bluff, you can tough it to those creatures rough until they’d had more than enough. Yeah, I liked Basil Wolverton’s bizarre comics as a kid, so sue me. Or go track down some of his freaky funnies.

Anyway, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 23, 2013) brings you the COMPLETE original game, ALL the DLC packs AND an entirely new adventure all for a measly $40. This means your friends who missed out can hop in and start off and see what’s what, while YOU, dear reader (well, if you played the original) can upload your save files and beat up on those bruisers with relish. Well, the relish they were going to slather all over that bread they were going to get to baking…

The Women Of Defiance: All The Ladies In The House Say (Whatever The Hell They Want To)…

Not just eyeball candy for the guys, these special ladies are a going to be a big part of what makes the upcoming show guaranteed to reel in viewers of both sexes who like strong female characters who get to go toe to toe on a few levels with the men in their brave new world. It should be quite intriguing to see how well this cast does over time across the viewership, as there are a lot of interesting personalities the cast has to work with and I’m sure the writing team will have a hard time if they need to get rid of any of these characters in an upcoming storyline. As always, we shall see…

GRID 2 Multiplayer Hands-On: It’s Like Lightning (But With Better Handling)…

The single player in GRID 2 was quite thrilling in that demo from a few months back, but Codemasters knows that many will be snapping up this one first and foremost for the multiplayer modes and fortunately, the game shines even more here. A few members from the dev team rolled into NYC with a new demo that just so happened to be on the same day and in the same hotel as Namco Bandai’s Global Gamer’s Day, so it made for an exciting start to a long day packed full of great upcoming titles. The Xbox 360 version was set up (and looking fantastic, by the way), but being the only writer to pop up at this first session meant playing against the people working on the game and only having the slimmest of chances of beating any of them during the bunch of races about to take place… Continue reading

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon: Not A Joke After All, But Full Of Laughs Nonetheless…

OK, other than clicking on the page on April 1 and entering the Konami Code on my keyboard to blow up all the stuff on the site with clicks, I ignored this “game” because it was pretty obvious that it was an April Fool’s gag gone viral. Hell, NO ONE would make a game like that after Duke Nukem Forever, Bulletstorm and a few other humor-centric shooters didn’t exactly set the world on fire. That and hell, Crytek was too busy working on stuff like Warface, Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3 DLC plus whatever else they’re cooking up, so this HAD to be a big, fat joke. Welllll, to quote Ah-nuld in that gun shop scene from The Terminator… WRONG.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is not only real, it’s a standalone game that doesn’t require owning the original version of Far Cry 3 to play, looks completely nuts and sorry to say, isn’t going COMPLETELY old school because it’s a DIGITAL-ONLY release. Hell, if Ubisoft were smarter about this retro thing, they’d get this out in a LIMITED edition for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and sell it on that fake online shop they’ve set up on the Blood Dragon site. Do one run and that’s it for physical copies. They’d certainly get the attention of core gamers, collectors and those who just want more options in how they play their games, that’s for sure.

Hopefully Ubisoft and their PR will pay attention to my non-negotiable demands and make this happen as a retail product – I can see a bunch of people snapping this up if it’s packing the heat they expect.