House of Horrors: Alan Wake

I don't really see the difference between horror or thriller actually. When selecting movies, if I want my adrenaline to pump, I'll frequently choose either horror, thriller, or suspense. The hero can get really badly effed up even if he/she can't die. In all three genres of movie there are times when there can be a character that you were fooled into thinking was the main character, but it turns up to be someone else. Action movies the hero always prevails, it's just a matter of time. All video games share that in common with horror movies. They've tried to have the hero sacrifice himself several times in video games, but that doesn't really count and it has never worked once.

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Surgeon Simulator 2013 Review

"Perform a heart transplant." These are the words that greet you at the beginning of Surgeon Simulator 2013. Beyond that, there are no instructions to speak of: it's just you, a table full of surgical instruments, and a patient whose life you hold in your woefully unprepared hands. While that may sound like a recipe for disaster, it's also what makes Surgeon Simulator so wonderful. This is an absurdist parody of one of the world's most skillful occupations, a game that has you fumbling your way through one operation after the other as you drop your watch inside a patient's abdominal cavity, lose entire organs out of the back of a moving ambulance, and giggle with delight over your own surgical incompetence.

Why yes, hammers are a perfectly reasonable way to open the human skull.

In Surgeon Simulator, you exist as an arm hovering above an operating table. Dragging the mouse moves your hand about the screen, and from there you can control the grip of each finger through five keys on the keyboard. Clicking the right mouse button as you drag left and right lets you rotate your hand side to side, while dragging up and down lets you adjust the angle of your wrist. If all this sounds a bit confusing, that's because it absolutely is. Surgeon Simulator makes it incredibly complicated to so much as pick up a scalpel. Performing a successful operation, meanwhile, is like juggling and riding a bicycle at the same time.

And yet, that ungainly control scheme is one of the biggest reasons Surgeon Simulator is such dumb fun. This is surgery as a slapstick vaudeville routine, an eccentric comedy of errors where everything can and will go wrong. Whether you're causing massive blood loss by dropping an electric drill inside a patient's abdominal cavity or seeing hallucinations after accidentally pricking yourself with a syringe, this game is littered with hazards meant to make you giggle with morbid delight. Surgeon Simulator has all the potential to be frustrating, but the sense of humor is so pervasive (the game-over screen reads "Brutal murder achieved") and the gore is so whimsically over the top (performing a brain transplant is like cracking a hard-boiled egg) that you can't help but cackle with glee even as you're fumbling a patient's life away. It's a game that's acutely aware of its own ridiculousness and wants you to join in on the fun.

That fun is spread across three basic types of operations: a heart transplant, a double kidney transplant, and a brain transplant. No matter the procedure, your goal is always to complete the operation before your patient runs out of blood. The challenge lies in removing any ribs and extraneous organs in your way without causing too much collateral damage. When you're done, the game assigns you a grade based on how quickly and carefully you completed the job. It's too bad there aren't more types of procedures, because in addition to some occasionally wonky physics issues, that relatively limited selection of surgeries is one of the game's only flaws.

Fortunately, Surgeon Simulator gives you plenty of reasons to keep coming back. For one thing, each of those three surgeries can be performed in a ridiculously difficult alternate scenario that has you operating during a very bumpy ambulance ride. Your utensils and replacement organs go bouncing all over the place, and the back doors randomly swing open--it's pure chaos. On top of this, there are a number of Easter eggs to discover (like a top secret heart transplant performed in zero-gravity space) as well as some truly inventive achievements, such as completing an operation with less than 10 milliliters of blood remaining, or dressing your patient in a scarf made from his own large intestine.

Throughout all this, Surgeon Simulator strikes a terrific balance between realism--or at least relative realism--and all-out absurdity. Hack away at your patient's ribs with a bone saw, and you might put the whole operation at risk by slicing open a lung; but the only way to get at the heart is to remove the lungs entirely, at which point you can toss them to the floor without the slightest concern. If your patient starts losing too much blood, you need to slow the bleeding with a hemostasis shot; but you can use that very syringe to haphazardly stab your patient in the face as many times as you like, and he'll be right as rain. It all adds up to a wonderful contrast between the grounded and the ridiculous. The result is a game that's both challenging and lighthearted, clumsy and clever.

Surgeon Simulator is a game that defies logic. Even the oddly dance-worthy synth soundtrack has no business working as well as it does. And yet, it all comes together beautifully in one great big symphony of eccentricity. This is a game that makes it an absolute joy to not only fail, but fail spectacularly. And the best part is, you don't even have to worry about malpractice suits.

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Nordic Games gets Darksiders, Red Faction

The auction results for bankrupt publisher THQ's remaining assets have been published, with Nordic Games taking the Darksiders, Red Faction, and MX vs. ATV franchises for $4.9 million. The publisher also scored the Destroy all Humans!, Summoner, and Supreme Commander rights.

"First and foremost, we are very happy about this deal which also turns over a new leaf for the entire Nordic Games Group. In the long term, we either want to cooperate with the original creators or best possible developers in order to work on sequels or additional content for these titles," said owner and CEO of Nordic Games Group AB, Lars Wingefors, in a statement. "A very important point for us is not to dash into several self-financed multimillion dollar projects right away, but rather to continue our in-depth analysis of all titles and carefully selecting different financing models for developing new installments of acquired IPs."

Crytek USA, staffed by numerous ex-Vigil Games developers, had expressed interest in buying the Darksiders IP.

505 Games (Sniper Elite V2, Naughty Bear) also took home a new franchise today. The publisher purchased the rights to Drawn to Life and Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter for $300,000.

The auction results also revealed the price Gearbox Software paid for the Homeworld IP: $1.35 million. The Plano, Texas developer will create new games in the series that will preserve the "purest form" of the franchise for digital platforms.

A Bankruptcy Court will hear the sales motions--totaling $6.55 million--on May 13, with the transactions expected to be finalized thereafter. Runner-up bids were not divulged.

The first THQ auction took place in January, during which franchises like Saints Row, Metro, Homefront, and Company of Heroes found new homes. Check out the full results of that auction for more.

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BioShock Infinite: Baptism of the Human Heart

Youth pastor Ashley Dusenbery offers his personal perspective on the use of baptism in BioShock Infinite.

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't finished BioShock Infinite and don't want to know what happens, don't read this article. Nothing in BioShock Infinite is off limits in what follows.

One of the toughest questions people ask me is the question, why? Why did my daughter die? Why do I have cancer? Why can't I find a job? Why are people sometimes so nasty to one another? I work in a church. And a church is supposed to be a safe place. It's supposed to be a place where those genuinely longing for meaningful answers can go to sincerely struggle. So, naturally, as the caretaker of a local church, much of that struggling happens right in front of me, and I consider it a privilege to sit with people in the trenches of their inner wars. It is a war indeed, for the question that needs an answer, that persistent question, why, often has no answer accessible to finite human beings. And so in the absence of any kind of peace with God over his sometimes inscrutable, often painful plan, people of faith struggle. That's not always a bad thing, I think.

So what does that have to do with a video game? I finished Irrational's excellent BioShock Infinite recently, and I've had a little time since then for my mind to process the intense intertwining of story, character, setting, and atmosphere. My mind has gone to the places it is prone to wander to, the theological. Religion is a huge theme in Infinite. Religion touches almost every aspect of the game's narrative. The antagonist, Comstock, is a self-styled prophet and leader of a pseudo-Christian, religious cult-city, Columbia, suspended twenty thousand feet in the sky by a mysterious, quantum, science-fiction-y force. Booker DeWitt, the protagonist, seems at first to be motivated by a desire to wipe away a financial debt by rescuing a young lady from a tower in Columbia, but the game wastes no time at all in indicating that DeWitt has a deeper, moral debt that is not so easily erased. Images and language of water, baptism, washing, and rebirth all build upon one another in the telling of this story. There is even a baby who turns out to be the lamb of Comstock's prophecy.

Let me stop here and say that as a Christian and an ordained pastor, I was not in the least bit offended by the use of these decidedly Christian themes. For the most part, things like Christian baptism were used to move the story as well as I have ever seen them used in secular media. Levine appropriately tied rebirth to baptism. Part of what baptism represents in Christianity is dying as an old self and being raised to a new life. In Infinite, baptism is explicitly used three times as far as I can remember. The first time is when DeWitt is admitted into the city of Columbia. The second time is at the end of the game when DeWitt is offered baptism, which he rejects. The third and final time is when it is revealed that DeWitt and Comstock are really the same person, Comstock being the seemingly inevitable product of Booker's religious rebirth through baptism. Baptism in that instance is the means by which DeWitt dies for the sake of undoing all the evil that he and Comstock will bring about.

In each instance, baptism is used as an appropriate symbolic plot device for the point at which the players find themselves in the story. It's the initiation of a new and profound mission, a rebirth of DeWitt towards an ultimate destiny. It's the rejection of a salvation that DeWitt finds cheap and inadequate, preferring to seek the accomplishment of his mission in order to wipe away his debt, an ultimately futile effort. It takes Elizabeth bringing him back to the baptismal pool for him to fully grasp the profundity of his true debt and what that debt has earned him as a result. Even though there is death but no new life in the final baptism that ends DeWitt's and Comstock's lives, it functions quite well as a plot device given the kind of setting that these characters and their story inhabit. Levine wasn't aiming to speak theologically about the true meaning and use of Christian baptism. Therefore, I have no problem with him taking baptism and using it to tell a story separate from the Christian story.

These Christian themes and the religious tone of Infinite serve a story that seeks, I think, to answer a fundamental question about human existence: What effect does my free will have on reality? One of the huge revelations of Infinite was that the setting of this BioShock game and previous BioShock games exist in the same universe. In an instant, the players find themselves transported from Columbia, the city in the clouds, to Rapture, the city from the original BioShock at the bottom of the sea. These two dystopian cities exist in this multiverse in which the will of man has created an infinite number of branching universes. There is no road untraveled by the choices of humankind. Each road and each fork is itself a separate reality, a distinct universe of existence.

In case you are thoroughly confused, welcome to the club. Let me try to explain. The premise behind Infinite is that every choice each person makes leads to a new reality, much like in the reboot of the Star Trek movies. Spock traveling back in time started the new cast and crew of the Enterprise on an entirely new timeline and new set of adventures, a new Star Trek universe, if you will. Similarly, in Infinite, the reality of Comstock's Columbia and all the evils that flow out of that city in the clouds exist in a universe created along one branch of one choice made by one man, Booker DeWitt. Interestingly, baptism is the vehicle by which this choice is made. If DeWitt accepts baptism, he will rise from the water having taken a new name and new life. He is no longer Booker DeWitt, but he comes out of the water Zachary Hale Comstock, the Prophet of Columbia. And so reality branches for the millionth time in a nanosecond, and another new universe of existence is born, this one not so pleasant as the game's opening hour would lead you to believe.

So what does this game have to do with the person in the pastor's office asking the hard questions of life? What does it have to do with you as you try to be a good friend to someone who is hurting? Or what does it have to do with your own struggles? Why is my life like this and not the way I want it to be? I think this game is an attempt, in a purely secular way (I don't mean that disparagingly), to offer hope and comfort when our lives branch in a way that we don't expect or in a way that brings suffering. It offers hope for us to think that there is a reality in which a version of us exists that isn't suffering in whatever crisis we find ourselves. At any moment and with every choice, we are creating universes of possibilities of happiness, misery, or something in between. What we do has meaning outside of ourselves.

As I experienced BioShock Infinite, I found hidden within the story it was telling a narrative of human choosing apart from the existence of God. It was a moment both precious and profoundly sad. It is precious because I believe that behind the searching questions this story has explored through the medium of video games is an impulse that comes directly from our creator. It is the impulse to search, explore, and pierce to the marrow of the mystery of our existence as human beings and seek an answer to the question, why are things not the way they are supposed to be? This game has left me thankful for Ken Levine and his team at Irrational Games for so beautifully telling this story. It is sad to me because the multiverse their exploration has led them to is hellish. Just below the luminescent, idealized surface of Comstock's Columbia is a nightmare of racism, oppression, greed, and violence that the player must survive to reach the end, only to find out that the whole time, Booker was doing battle with the products of his own heart.

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ShootMania Storm Review

Accuracy. Speed. The ability to act on pure instinct. These are the qualities needed by gladiators in the bloodless arena games of ShootMania Storm. In this multiplayer-only competitive shooter, you move very quickly, and every hit counts. Its movement is reminiscent of competitive shooters from the era of Quake, but in this modern market cluttered with shooters in which characters move deliberately, absorb bullets, and regenerate health, the speed of the action and the stakes associated with every shot you take make ShootMania a refreshing departure from the current norm.

In Royal mode, a tornado closes in, forcing remaining players into an increasingly small space.

In ShootMania Storm, you move and you shoot. You don't swap between weapons or chuck grenades. There are only three types of weapons in the game at present, and which type you're equipped with is generally determined by the game mode you're playing, and sometimes by where you're standing on the map. Most of the time, you're equipped with rockets, which you can shoot four of in rapid succession, but since you must then wait for them to recharge, you constantly have to decide between firing off all of them when a promising opportunity to land a hit presents itself, or using them sparingly and keeping one or two in the chamber for emergencies.

You might also have a lightning blast (frequently referred to as a railgun) that, unlike the rockets, hits anyone in your crosshairs the instant you pull the trigger, but which needs a few seconds to recharge after every shot. And in certain tunnels on certain maps, your weapon changes to a grenade launcher of sorts. You never pause to pick up a weapon; you just know your weapon has changed because your reticle changes. (Unlike in most shooters, you don't visibly hold a weapon in front of you.) This keeps you focused on moving, shooting, and trying to stay aware of other players' positions, rather than on scavenging for ammo or racing to grab the most powerful weapon on the map before another player does.

It's a very pure, skill-based shooting experience. You and your opponents might each take one, two, or three hits, depending on the game mode and your ranking; there's no health regeneration, so each hit you score and each hit your opponents score on you is significant. Because each individual shot is visible and each weapon takes off a clearly delineated amount of armor with each hit, there's never the sense here, as in so many shooters, that you were shooting your opponent and that maybe you went down first only because he had a better weapon. There are also no perks to augment any competitor's abilities. It really is a level playing field, a pure test of skill, and that is a rare and welcome thing in a shooter today.

The skills that are tested go beyond just your ability to accurately target your enemy; you also need to move well. Movement in ShootMania is brisk and precise; it's exhilarating to zip across maps, perhaps spending some of your stamina to leap and run, moving along surfaces that automatically speed you up or letting a launcher send you soaring skyward to land on a higher surface. The need to stay evasive while also trying to hit your enemies gives ShootMania's action a dancelike quality as you and your opponents run and caper about, sending brightly colored energy blasts at each other and dashing out from behind objects to squeeze off a few shots before returning to cover. The speed and smoothness of ShootMania make you feel skillful when you score a hit on a moving enemy, and in the game's Elite mode, in which you're informed when you miss an opponent by just centimeters, you feel the sting of coming oh-so-close to hitting your target.

Elite is one of a few game modes getting a lot of play currently. It's an unusual team-based mode in which two teams of three compete, with just one attacker from the assaulting team going up against all three members of the defending team in each round. It's a great mode for testing the skills of each individual player. Royal is a less high-pressure mode, a free-for-all in which players race to capture a pole in the center of the map. Once this is done, a tornado starts closing in, drawing all combatants into an increasingly smaller and smaller space. Rounds often end with the last two remaining players dancing frantically around the pole, trying to use it for cover while dashing out from behind it frequently to take shots at each other. Battle is a pretty standard mode in which teams take turns defending their own poles and attempting to capture those of the opposing team.

There are other modes, and if you take the time to learn the ManiaScript language, you can design your own. Much easier than grappling with code to design your own mode is designing your own maps, a process made about as straightforward and accessible as you can expect it to be with the built-in tools. The potential is certainly there for players to make ShootMania thrive with a constant influx of exciting new modes and maps, but whether or not that will happen remains to be seen. Even as it stands right now, though, ShootMania is well worth the $20 price. It's more of a return to the past of competitive shooters than a step into the genre's future. But in a market crowded with shooters that involve classes and weapons and perks, ShootMania Storm's laserlike focus on quick movement and skillful shooting almost feels new again.

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NPD: BioShock Infinite soars to top spot in March US sales

BioShock Infinite was March 2013's top-selling title in the United States, according to data from the NPD Group published today. Overall industry sales slid 10 percent during the month to $992.5 million.

Rounding out the month's top five titles were Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Judgment, God of War: Ascension, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Of note, all top ten titles for March were sequels.

NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan explained in a statement that the $992.5 million in total sales equals only about half of the true market spend for the month.

"When you consider our preliminary estimate for other physical format sales in March such as used and rentals at $190 million, and our estimate for digital format sales including full game and add-on content downloads including microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps, and the consumer spend on social network games at $670 million, we would estimate the total consumer spend in March to be just under $1.9 billion," Callahan said.

Hardware suffered in March, with "deep declines" of 32 percent in dollar spend, with stronger downturns for portable hardware than for traditional consoles. The Nintendo 3DS was an anomaly, with sales for the platform growing 9 percent year-over-year.

The NPD Group does not disclose specific console sales data, but Microsoft announced today that the Xbox 360 sold 261,000 units during March and was the top-performer for the period. Sony and Nintendo have not made any sales data available.

Software sales in March 2013 across consoles, portables, and PC were up 2 percent, the first month of positive growth since November 2011.

"The performance of new launches was a major driver of the overall software growth for this month, with games launching in March 2013 selling over 40 percent more units than new launches in March 2012. There were positive trends for new launches that were seen across consoles, portables, and PC."

Callahan explained that March 2013 saw 20 percent fewer new releases, but these games generated nearly 70 percent more dollar sales per SKU than last year.

"With solid performances of new games like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, and Monster Hunter Ultimate 3, 3DS software sales increased over 50 percent from last March."

March was a positive month for publisher Take-Two, as the strength of BioShock Infinite combined with continued sales of NBA 2K13 helped the publisher achieve the highest sales for an individual company since the NPD Group began tracking retail sales in 1995.

"Two strong launches for the month included Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite, which were the highest first month sales for games in these franchises," Callahan said.

Switching to accessories, this sector was flat in dollar sales during March 2013, coming in at $216.1 million.

"While accessory spending was flat in dollar sales, continued strength of Skylanders, point cards, and headsets/ headphones resulted in a 15 percent growth in unit sales for March 2013 over March 2012," Callahan said.

MARCH US GAME SALES (March 3-April 6, 2013)
OVERALL DOLLAR SALES

Total retail sales: $992.5 million (-10%)
Non-PC hardware: $221.6 million (-32%)
Non-PC software: $554.8 (-1%)
Accessories: $216.1 (0%)
Total software: $602.4 million (2%)

TOP 10 GAMES FOR MARCH 2013
Title (Platforms) - Publisher

1. BioShock Infinite (X360, PS3, PC) - Take-Two Interactive
2. Tomb Raider (X360, PS3) - Square Enix
3. Gears of War: Judgment (X360) - Microsoft
4. God of War: Ascension (PS3) Sony
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (X360, PS3, PC, Wii U) - Activision Blizzard
6. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS) - Nintendo
7. MLB13: The Show (PS3, PS Vita) - Sony
8. NBA 2K13 (X360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP, PC) - Take-Two Interactive
9. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (X360, PS3, Wii U) - Activision Blizzard
10. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 (X360, PS3) - Namco Bandai Games

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Defiance Review

Defiance is a difficult game to wrap your head around. That's not because it's all that complicated, but rather because it's just so much fun, even though none of the elements are done particularly well. Defiance is a massively multiplayer shooter in which every aspect is merely decent at best, yet it somehow pieces the jagged elements together into an entertaining picture as you pursue one challenge after another across its postapocalyptic landscape. What a shame that the trek is interrupted not just by the squishy kinds of bugs that you like to kill with guns and grenades, but the technical kinds of bugs that have you cursing and rolling your eyes.

Some people come together for the sake of love. Others come together for the sake of shooting hulking mutants.

Look beyond the hitches and the glitches, and you discover a game with a scrappy attitude and a tight handle on what a massively multiplayer world needs to keep you coming back in spite of the frustrations. What is this world? Well, it's Earth, as it happens--more specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area. An alien war has ended, and an uncertain peace between exhausted factions remains. The decrepit remnants of an annihilated fleet of spaceships orbit the planet, occasionally plummeting to the land beneath, and drawing in treasure hunters eager to scour the remaining debris for valuable commodities. Terrestrial and extraterrestrial plant life have merged, causing bizarre purple flowers to grow from the gnarled branches that corkscrew above crumbling highways and rusting copied-and-pasted factories.

You shouldn't come to Defiance to be immersed in the world, which looks too monotone to be all that compelling. Ruinous environments can have their own kind of disastrous beauty, but this vision of Earth lacks the tense atmosphere and visual variety of gaming's best ravaged lands. You might become invested in this world in spite of its mundane looks, however, depending on your level of interest in the SyFy television show of the same name. Story-based missions feature the vague likenesses of characters from the show, and future story missions are promised, but stiff facial animations and inconsistent voice acting--not to mention a lot of cheesy (in the bad way) dialogue--make it hard to whip up any excitement over the narrative in spite of an abundance of cutscenes.

Massively multiplayer online games have trod in alien territory before, though while sci-fi games like Tabula Rasa and Anarchy Online involved guns, they weren't shooters. And unlike PlanetSide and its sequel, which focused purely on player-versus-player combat, Defiance embraces many elements of traditional online role-playing games. You move from mission to mission, clearing meadows of giant hellbug swarms, freeing captured prisoners from their bonds, collecting data from computer terminals, and the like. You perform most of these tasks in the open world, though key missions might send you into instanced areas. If you've played any MMOG before, you'll be familiar with the basic structure.

How you interact with your enemies in Defiance, however, is different from in a typical online RPG. This is a shooter, so you can ignore what other games have taught you about ability hotbars, and concentrate on aiming at your target and pulling the trigger. That isn't to say you don't have special skills to mess with or that there is no character progression. You initially choose one of four powers so that you can run really fast, go invisible, create a ghostly decoy, or enhance weapon damage. From there, the power grid expands, allowing you to earn and improve lots of passive perks, though you can equip only as many perks as your loadout allows, and eventually you can unlock the other powers to play around with.

These skills are called EGO powers, named after the Environmental Guardian Online artificial intelligence fused with your body. This AI is Defiance's version of Halo's Cortana, though EGO makes a far more annoying companion than Cortana, what with the sharp treble of her voice and the repetitious line readings that don't necessarily make sense in every context. (Do hellbugs really call in reinforcements, as if they have tiny radios strapped to their heads?) But you'll be glad of the abilities she grants you, which aren't very thrilling to activate or watch, but are nonetheless useful in battle. Need to shake off a flame-spewing munchkin? Distract him with your decoy, and shoot the fuel supply strapped to his back. In over your head? Turn invisible and make a quick getaway.

It isn't the powers that make for rewarding progression in Defiance, however; it's the weapons. There is a cornucopia of choices, and once you get a taste of each gun type, you'll be pleased that your inventory is constantly filling with so many deadly possibilities. Simple pistols and machine guns are soon upgraded with modifications you purchase and earn, or are replaced with similar weapons infused with effects like fire and poison. Launchers come in all sorts of varieties. You might be able to lock on to your target, or perhaps your payload explodes in midair and spews fire onto your enemies beneath. Infectors cause bugs to spawn within your victims and eat away at their flesh; biomagnetic guns allow you to siphon health from foes and grant it to friends.

And so your drive to continue playing is fueled by the ever-present possibility of a new gun, a new variant, or a modification that enhances the bond to your current weapon of choice. That bond is then broken when a shiny new toy makes the old, newly obsolete weapon a relic of the past, though weapons remain surprisingly effective for some time. In fact, the gap in weapon effectiveness that you usually feel in a persistent-world game as you level up isn't so pronounced in Defiance, due in part to how well enemies scale based on how many players are in the vicinity.

The gentle progression curve allows developer Trion Worlds to take you on a tour of its world without dividing it into territories that cater to players of specific levels. Reaching one end of the county doesn't mean having to fight your way to some arbitrary level limit, which makes Defiance feel more freeing than other online worlds, even though it doesn't cover the exhaustive amounts of real estate other games do. That isn't to say that Defiance doesn't feel appropriately large, or doesn't give you a lot to do; the world map is dotted with orange waypoints that lure you to vehicular speed challenges and side missions, and white waypoints that indicate vendors promising special guns for sale.

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The B-List - Vanquish

@EvilShabazz It's a lot faster, it keeps you low to the ground, you can enter slo-mo mode when sliding, you can boost kick out of slide and then enter slo-mo while you fall, you can throw grenades like nothing coming out of slide, and you can roll out of the slide really quickly.

I've never had a problem with the roadie-run, but the slide in Vanquish gives you more options in combat.

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If the Rumors Are True: 5 Reasons the Next Xbox Will Fail

Is the writing on the wall for the next generation's Xbox? Here are five rumors that could spell doom should they prove true.

The battle has begun. As developers begin to squeeze the dying pixels from a fading era of consoles, the inevitable cold war known as the next generation lingers on the horizon. Here, reputations are at stake, fan loyalties wax and wane, and precious consumer dollars dangle from the wallets of the undecided. Make no mistake: This is war.

As Nintendo's Wii U sales continue to hobble, Sony has eased swiftly into its play for the throne with the masterfully hyped announcement of the PlayStation 4. Will the esteemed designers and programmers of Microsoft answer the call with a deafening retort in order to silence the industry with a console destined to rule them all?

Not if the rumors are true.

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I'm not writing this with insider information or as a time traveler from the near future. Yet, as rumors buzz like caffeinated bees from one website to the next, a few of these whispers are worthy of our attention, at least until something more substantial is released. So why will the next Xbox fail? Let's break it down, rumor by rumor.

The Rumor: The Next Xbox Won't Play Used Games. This is the big, fat, glaring, nasty rumor that has diehard Microsoft fanboys and GameStop employees alike praying to the gaming gods like sinners on Judgment Day. So what's the big deal? For one, people like the option of keeping or selling a game once they've played it, and since keeping up with the latest and greatest has never been a poor man's pastime, many gamers turn to trading in old games to subsidize their habit. In fact, the importance of this freedom was assessed when used-game supergiant GameStop conducted an in-house survey on the likelihood of customers buying a console based on its ability to ban used games. The survey found (surprise, surprise) that three out of every five GameStop customers would avoid purchasing such a console. Now, I don't put much faith in such a survey for obvious reasons (GameStop surveying customers regarding used games is the equivalent of surveying cows on the merits of eating beef), but if you were to look at this as a statistical representation of the market, Microsoft is essentially eliminating 60 percent of its consumers right out of the gate. Would you be willing to sacrifice your freedoms as a consumer to guarantee the success of your favorite developers and publishers?

Why It Could Succeed: I could see this working if all the major console developers were on board (they're not), and if Microsoft could manage to persuade major developers to develop exclusively for the next Xbox. Think about it. The used-game industry is a multibillion-dollar industry. Sure, the publishers and developers of games both get paid on the initial sale of a new game, but who makes the money when a game is resold (especially when it's bought for pennies and sold again for dollars)? Game developers aren't earning a red cent off of used-game purchases, and if GameStop is making billions, that's billions the rightful creators are missing out on. If Microsoft can convince developers that it's better to develop solely for a console that prevents this kind of third-party loss, it could provide enough incentive for many brands to hop aboard. More developers generating exclusive content makes the console more appealing, which translates into an increase in sales, resulting in more incentive for developers to develop strictly for it. But are developers willing to turn to a console that has their best interests in mind at the cost of limiting the freedoms of their fans? Or will tradition prevail as developers seek the greatest audience while continually innovating new ways to gain their hard-earned money back from the middleman vultures of the used-game industry?

The Rumor: The Next Xbox Will Require a Constant Internet Connection to Play. The Internet seas must be rampant with piracy if punishing honest gamers with a forced online connection seems like a viable solution to anyone. Sadly, I can just imagine some bigwig stopping a board meeting at Microsoft to say, "You know what? Gamers love it when they need an Internet connection to play games because servers shutting down for reaching capacity is epic, and having to queue for a single-player experience is a blast!"

If the rumors are true, then say goodbye to the simple days when all you needed was a console and somewhere to plug it in, and roll out the red carpet for an online experience handicapped by connectivity issues with a life span limited to a company's commitment to its servers. Forget the inconveniences of not having the Internet or the embarrassment of having a connection suitable only for email--once the servers go down on an online-only game, all you have left is a useless disc and a broken heart full of memories.

Why It Could Succeed: It can't. Constantly connected games are a trend that needed to die yesterday. If you can legitimately defend always-online DRM (digital rights management), I'd love to hear your thoughts, because after the Diablo III launch and the SimCity fiasco, the always-online idea seems like the digital start of the Black Death. Maybe if companies sold heavily chained DRM titles at half price, or even offered incentives for playing online (while still offering the option of an offline single-player experience), it could work, but you're still going to have to sell me on the idea before getting me aboard that Titanic. No sir, no ma'am, no thanks!

The future of gaming?

The Rumor: The Next Xbox Will Require an Enabled Kinect 2.0. The Kinect is little more than a decent idea that has been poorly executed. Could it succeed? Absolutely, if you can forget about the airline-hangar-for-a-living-room that's required to enjoy it, and the fact that not everyone wants a workout when they sit down to play. Sure, it's innovative, and voice commands are fun (until someone walks through the room while you're playing Madden and calls for a spike on 3rd and 1), but the Kinect generally serves as little more than an entertaining party trick that just isn't necessary in most games. So why make it mandatory?

Why It Could Succeed: The Kinect has always had the potential to be something special, though it has traditionally been hindered by the limitations of its own capabilities and design. Microsoft has undoubtedly made significant improvements since its conception, and rumors of the new Kinect being capable of detecting movements from inches away are promising, but the Kinect 2.0 still has miles to go before venturing out from beneath the shadow of its less-than-perfect predecessor. Still, the possibilities are undoubtedly there, and the results could be spectacular if Microsoft manages to implement them properly. Imagine a fighting game that legitimately tracked your movements and speed against another combatant, or a fantasy game that accurately tracked sword-wielding reflexes or spellcasting prowess against single-player foes or online adversaries. If the rumors are true and Microsoft intends to force the Kinect down our throats, it had better bring a perfected product to the table. No exceptions. If you're going to force gamers to incorporate something new into their traditional habits, you'd better do it as smoothly and as gently as possible. Sugarcoat that medicine, Microsoft! Or don't feed us a problem we would have happily lived without.

The Rumor: Games for the Next Xbox Will Cost $70. Video games are already pricey, and the average consumer has to be wise with his or her purchases, so a 10-dollar increase could very well be the breaking point for many. Is now the time to stop our ranting on GameSpot and Facebook and finally let our wallets do the talking? Or does the new $70 become the old $60 as we line up like sheep for Call of Duty 25, Madden 82, and Assassin's Creed 14?

Why It Could Succeed: If gamers are willing to throw cash at day-one downloadable content, microtransactions, and digital advantages, why wouldn't they be willing to part with a little more money for the games they love? If the rumors are true, I'm willing to bet Microsoft is banking on the horrible spending habits of gamers and society's need to have the latest and greatest. If Apple can manage to sell overpriced phones and computers like hotcakes, I'm willing to bet that raising the cost of a game by a measly 10 dollars won't impact consumers' decisions any more than a speed bump in a parking lot stops shoppers from frequenting their favorite stores. If gamers keep inhaling their beloved games like spoiled children eating candy, I'd say a price increase isn't just a good business move; it's an obvious opportunity only a fool would hesitate to seize. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentlemen: We reap what we sow.

The Rumor: The Next Xbox Will Be Less Powerful Than the PlayStation 4. With the Kinect, a full lineup of multimedia distractions, and a large library of Xbox Live Arcade games, the current Xbox has mitigated its technical disadvantages relative to the PlayStation 3 and remained a successful force in the market. But what happens when you strip away these selling points, add limitations, and throw graphical disparity into the mix? You're left with an inferior system that won't sell unless it's at a dramatically reduced price or marketed to an incredibly susceptible audience. Either way, it's another potential strike in a fierce game that Microsoft won't want to lose.

Why It Could Succeed: Any credible gamer can tell you that graphics aren't everything. The current generation showcases a perfect example with the Wii, which is graphically inferior to both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but managed to outsell both systems worldwide. By lowering the graphical output of its next-generation contender, Microsoft would decrease the cost of the system, increase its profit margins, and essentially make its console friendlier to fans and holiday shopping parents alike. Besides, if the difference in visuals is minimal, while the difference in price is enough to allow purchasers to buy a few more games, many gamers would spring for the less-expensive option.

So, what are your thoughts? If any of the rumors are true, are they enough to keep you away from the next Xbox? What is your breaking point, and when is enough enough?

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Top 5 Skyrim Mods of the Week - Zombie Nicolas Cage Attack

Skyrim meets Westeros in this special episode of Top 5 Skyrim Mods of the Week. Robert Baratheon teams up with Benjen Stark to kill Lannisters, before adventuring with Tyrion and direwolf chum Shaggy Dog. Naturally it all ends in chickens.

Posted Apr 6, 2013 | 15:28 | 22,974 Views

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Top Five Skyrim Mods of the Week - Zombies vs. Nicolas Cage

April 13, 2013 9:00AM PDT

In this weeks Top 5 Skyrim Mods, Cam and Seb run into good buddy Nicolas Cage. Hilarity ensues. Also, there are zombies.

By Sarah Lynch, Associate Producer

When not busy curating her novelty t-shirt collection, Sarah can be found shouting endless streams of nonsense into the great void of the internets. Greatest life achievement: finally having her very own crocheted Link hat.

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Resident Evil 6 - Jake Throws His Weight Around Gameplay Movie

This week we check out LEGO City Undercover, Gears of War: Judgment, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Assassin's Creed III - The Betrayal, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and Trials Evolution: Gold Edition.

Posted Mar 15, 2013 | 2:25 | 21,168 Views

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GS News: Skyrim, Gears of War: Judgment updated

Skyrim meets Westeros in this special episode of Top 5 Skyrim Mods of the Week. Robert Baratheon teams up with Benjen Stark to kill Lannisters, before adventuring with Tyrion and direwolf chum Shaggy Dog. Naturally it all ends in chickens.

Posted Apr 6, 2013 | 15:28 | 17,397 Views

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Subscription-based Xbox 720 priced at $300, with $500 standard model?

Noted Windows blogger Paul Thurrott has claimed during the latest What The Tech episode (via NeoGAF) that the Xbox 720 will launch in November beginning at $300 for a subscription-based model. A standard model will sell for around $500, he said.

He described the platform overall as "expensive."

The Xbox 720 won't be the only new Xbox on shelves this season, Thurrott claimed. The writer said Microsoft is planning a $99 "Stingray" Xbox 360. He did not provide any further information about this platform.

Thurrott also shared information about the Xbox 720's reported always-online requirement. He said this a confirmed feature for the platform, claiming the system's notes specifically state that the Xbox 720 "must be Internet-connected to use."

The Xbox 720 reportedly stops functioning if an Internet connection drops for three minutes.

As for when the Xbox 720 could be announced, Thurrott said Microsoft is planning a reveal event on May 21. This matches up with an recent analyst report suggesting Microsoft was readying a reveal next month.

The blogger added that Microsoft will share further information about the Xbox 720 during two June events: the Electronic Entertainment Expo and the Build 2013 developer conference.

Thurrott further claimed that Microsoft was working on an entertainment-focused Xbox that would not play games. He said this device was called "Yumo," and speculated that Microsoft decided not to pursue this so as not to confuse the market.

A Microsoft representative was not immediately available to comment.

Thurrott is a noted Microsoft insider and runs Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows.

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BioShock Infinite - Gun Show

Lol, so damn funny. I agree about Elizabeth having one hell of an arm- one time she tossed me a Carbine from like fifty feet away. And other times I press the button to turn and she's standing right behind or next to me and gives me a hell of a shock. o_O

Anyways, one of my favorite vigor combos is using Shock Jockey or Devil's Kiss on an enemy, and then using Charge to create an explosion- when combined with a piece of Gear that chains the effects of vigors from enemy to enemy, it can wipe out an entire room. Then near the end I got into the habit of using Undertow to push enemies into oblivion- near the end, some of the enemies are just so heavily armoured that you can't just stand there and shoot at them- you have to either kill them quick or keep them busy somehow. 

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Call of Duty Championship 2013: Day 1 Wrap Up

On the eve of the Call of Duty Championships, we speak to Call of Duty captains from Australia's Team Immunity, Mindfreak eSports and Avant Garde about their style of play, the Australian eSports scene and more!

Posted Apr 4, 2013 | 7:34 | 1,368 Views

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Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity Review

The genre of game known as "roguelike" has traditionally been something of a tough sell to the mass market. Typical elements of these games, such as procedurally generated areas and the loss of valuable items and experience upon (often quite common) death, tend to turn off players who view them as too punishing. The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series has been an anomaly in the genre: it retains a few key genre features, does away with a lot of the usual stress and penalties, and is all dressed up in a cute and cuddly Pokemon theme. However, as demonstrated by the newest installment, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, toning down what makes a genre distinct can rob it of its appeal.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity begins with you, the player, having awoken from a nightmare. That's not the only shock: you've been mysteriously transformed into a Pokemon and sent to a world where humans don't exist. When you meet another Pokemon companion (you select both your own Pokemon type and your companion's from five different options), you make fast friends and agree to help them achieve their goal of building a paradise for Pokemon. But that lofty goal is even tougher than it seems: the peaceful Pokemon societies have become corrupted by greed and violence. You and your pal can help restore order, however, by acting as freelance do-gooders: exploring strange mystery dungeons and completing requests to earn respect and rewards from your fellow Pokemon.

It's quite charming to see the Pokemon interact and speak directly with each other, which doesn't happen in the main games. But for such a simplistic premise and story, it is exceptionally wordy, and because there's no way to skip dialogue or increase the text speed, the story sequences transform from cute diversions to annoying barriers keeping you away from the rest of the game.

Not that the rest of the game is particularly great. When you aren't listening to various Pokemon woes, you're exploring randomly generated mystery dungeons to accomplish various missions, both mandatory and optional. By completing these dungeons, you're rewarded with items and the loot you collected. Some of these items can be used as material to clear land and build new facilities for your Pokemon paradise. The upgrading and expansion of your commune is the high point of the game: it's satisfying to watch your town grow from a wasteland to a bustling hub of Pokemon activity. The problem is that this is a small portion of the game compared to the story scenes and dungeon exploration.

In fact, it's the dungeon exploration that drags the game down more than anything else. While the dungeons are rooted in genre traditions of the roguelike--multi-floor structures of mostly randomly generated layouts, enemies, and loot--they strip away much of the danger, challenge, and thrill that make that sort of game compelling, leaving Gates to Infinity feeling like a dreadfully dull husk of a much better title. Dungeons are pretty but samey-looking, with nondescript backgrounds and floors often devoid of treasures that compel you to explore and put yourself at risk, but with plenty of generally easy enemies to impede your progress. Traps and hazards are also sparse, taking away the thrill of exploration and the strategy of using them against your foes. A hallmark of the roguelike is the danger and risk inherent in every step and action you take, as is using limited resources cleverly for survival. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon doesn't entirely remove these elements, but deemphasizes them to the point where the game becomes simplistic and boring. Some dungeons try to spice things up by implementing incredibly basic puzzles, but these do little to break up the monotony.

Combat, at least, is a bit more involved. As in the core Pokemon games, each creature has four different commands to use when fighting foes. Skills have limited usage, so you can't expect to repeatedly use effective techniques without eventually running short and needing to use restoration items. Each skill levels up independently, meaning that more frequently used techniques grow more powerful over time. Levels of Pokemon and skills carry over between dungeons, instead of resetting as they often do in other roguelikes.

After defeating them, you can also recruit new Pokemon to join your party, and take up to three CPU-controlled helpers with you in each dungeon. This makes the already diluted gameplay even simpler, because you can use a companion as an easy shield if you wind up in even the slightest bit of danger. This mechanic introduces its own set of annoyances, however: CPU companions set to attack tend to spam the most limited techniques like they're going out of style, wasting valuable uses on otherwise easy foes. You can also give basic generalized commands to your CPU companions that enable them to split up and explore on their own, which they also occasionally manage to do independently. If any one of them gets defeated (and they often do, typically by otherwise ridiculously weak, unseen foes), it counts as a defeat for everyone; it's either give up or set a StreetPass signal and hope somebody you walk by rescues you. If you give up, you lose some, but not all, of the items and funds you're carrying. It's frustrating to have an otherwise easy dungeon trek ruined by a Pokemon pal who wanders off and gets into trouble.

One of the better features of the game isn't even in the main game itself. The extraneous Magnagate AR feature lets you randomly generate a completely original dungeon using a picture of a circular object snapped with the 3DS's built-in camera. These dungeons tend to be more complex and challenging than those in the main game, featuring better (and more frequent) loot, tougher enemies, and more interesting Pokemon companions (along with the elimination of the "one falls and everyone fails" rule). These dungeons give high-quality items that can be transferred to the main game or stored for later re-exploration. But despite their relative improvement in quality, these dungeons are still pretty dull overall.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity sits firmly in mediocrity: it's not poorly made and designed, but it fails to deliver much excitement or fun. It's also not clear just who this game's target audience is: the controls and mechanics are a bit too complex and confusing for younger players, but they're far too stripped and simplistic for older genre fans. What results is a game that ultimately isn't quite right for anyone.

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Shattered Haven Review

Shattered Haven is a well-meaning game with crippling communication issues. At times, it underestimates you, offering blatant written solutions to its environmental puzzles. These moments leave your brain tightly wound and ready to solve problems if only it were given the chance. Other times, this top-down adventure expects you to perform specific actions while giving no direct indication that such actions are even possible. Yet there are times when the hints, level design, enemy placement, and provided equipment all work in conjunction to deliver a challenging and rewarding experience. These welcome scenarios reveal the kind of experience that Shattered Haven could have offered throughout.

The game's story does not stretch the limits of imagination, though Arcen Games deserves credit for engineering its own unique twists on popular zombie lore. The undead--called "grays" in this world--have roamed the planet for nine long years, forcing the battered pockets of humanity into seclusion. One couple, Darrell and Mary Williams, was fortunate enough to fortify a farm and have a daughter amid the chaos. Years pass, and Darrell encounters a young boy whose mother was killed by grays. He takes in the newcomer, even though their water reserves are dwindling. Later, you have the option to select from branching story paths, which influences the game's characters and outcome. The story is told primarily through dialogue boxes, but you're occasionally presented with illustrated, voice-acted panels. The acting is flat and unconvincing, though it would admittedly be difficult to make lines like "They're like miniature adults instead of truly being children" sound authentic in this context.

The tutorial puts you in control of the kids, who are beckoned to the farm's gate when a survivor begs for sanctuary. You're taught to fight back against encroaching grays, not with headshots, but with iron (which is poisonous to zombies), water, and fire. The game is played from an overhead perspective, and you navigate its maps in real time. Items like iron spikes, lanterns, hammers, and bear traps can be picked up and thrown, dropped, or swung using hotkeys. Most levels include shrubbery, some of which can be chopped down using the appropriate items, and water, which is navigable with a raft or a canoe, for example. Offensive items are usually limited, so proper deployment is crucial.

Not long into the tutorial, the game introduces you to a giant squid. This creature exemplifies Shattered Haven's biggest problem. You're just getting a handle on the mechanics when the squid shamelessly bumps you out from under the limelight. It kills every gray in sight and continues to kill any incoming enemies for quite some time. As a new player, you need this time to familiarize yourself with the game's systems, but Shattered Haven doesn't have the restraint to let that understanding arise naturally.

The game eventually opens into an overworld containing several standard challenge maps and the trickier bonus levels. Once you've completed every standard map in the overworld, the story progresses and you move on to another overworld. Each map has a series of objectives to complete, most of which are optional. Typically, the goal is to kill the grays and escape, though you often earn more cash for not taking damage, for killing enemies in a certain order, or for not using certain equipment. Because money is a precious commodity--used to purchase health upgrades, weapons, and more--there's a strong incentive to replay the more fun levels with an altered style of play.

Shattered Haven's visuals are charmingly simplistic, looking like something out of RPG Maker. However, the character sprites are too small, and you often struggle to find yourself on the screen. Because the action--and the danger--begins once you take your first step, it's frustrating to lose valuable time or health just because you were hunting for your character.

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