The story follows four main characters, developing their background stories, whilst investigating a series of serial murders committed by the “Origami Killer”. The story sees you following the four in overlapping stories, investigating crime scenes and questioning suspects. There are fights, love scenes, car chases and more unusual trials to complete, before uncovering the identity of the “Origami Killer”.

The main characters throughout the story are:

Scott Shelby: A forty five year old retired cop turned private investigator. Investigating the killings on behalf of the victim’s families, searching for the truth and justice.

Madison Paige: Sexy strong willed photographer who becomes embroiled in the investigation through a chance meeting.

Ethan Mars: Architect and dedicated father, who is suffering after the death of his eldest son. Looking for redemption Ethan soon becomes an integral part of the “Origami Killers” proceedings.

Norman Jayden: FBI profiler sent to investigate the murders, dedicated and thorough Jayden has the benefit of using a new technology called ARI. ARI stands for “Added Reality Interface”. Comprising a pair of glasses and a special glove, this new technology allows Jayden to investigate crime scenes more thoroughly, picking up evidence normally missed by normal human eyes, including blood trails and pollen trails. This technology however does come at a price.

All four characters look great; the facial expressions are amazing to watch with the voice acting being the icing on the cake. Throughout the game you get to know each character intimately, which buttons push them, the background story of each character evolves along with the story. This all adds and helps propel the story along, getting you more involved, wanting to uncover more about them. The only weak link is Jayden, who in comparison to the others doesn’t quite grab as much attention from you as the other players in this fine story.
The locations are wonderfully drawn and brought to life, shadows, shades; it’s a graphical behemoth wanting to suck you in. The atmosphere created is wonderful and Quantic Dreams have managed to capture the whole “Noir” setting wonderfully.
All of the characters be you encounter through out the game ooze personality, thanks to the wonderful rendering and voice acting. You can see the whole thing has been created with great effort and a love for the whole package. As they talk and emotions become apparent the facial expressions are out of this world. You end up believing in these characters and questioning their motives just as you would a live film.

The atmospheric soundtrack complements the game well, helping to build the tension as you try to talk yourself, or fight your way out of a situation. At other times it helps tug on your emotions with a nice sad tune playing as characters cry or something even more dramatic takes place.
The controls are very different to other games and at first can get some getting used to. To walk the character you hold down the R2 button, using the left analogue stick to change direction. A bit like driving on the opposite side of the road this soon becomes second nature. When looking around icons will appear showing actions you can make, the icons will indicate either the button to be pressed or the motion needed on the right analogue stick. For instance to open the fridge an icon will appear showing the right stick being moved in a quarter of a circle. Do this movement and the the character will open the fridge door, you can also control the speed of the animation by making the gesture on the pad slower or faster. This is critical to get used to as in parts of the game you are required to make the movements very gently and slowly. You can also learn more about the characters by listening to their inner thoughts by pressing the L1 button. A very nice touches and really allows you get to know the characters.

Pressing the L2 button can change the camera angles. This is the second and final bug, in an otherwise perfect scenario. The camera angles at times can feel disjointed, placing you behind items unable to see everything clearly.
With combat situations or action segments the controls will appear as above but you will have a set time to complete the movement. Missing it means the character gets hit, or if climbing loses their grip. You then have to start again. With other parts of the game there will be a sequence, which you have to follow, holding the desired buttons at the same time as beginning to press others. This can sometimes feel like playing twister, as you already have one finger on the X, L2, R2 and then it asks you to begin holding down the O button.
However once you have gotten used to these controls it does become second nature and feels a lot more natural than originally thought. It does however leave you sometimes wondering how much control you actually have over the character and whether or not you can actually change the story. Thankfully these moments prove very few and between, so don’t end up spoiling the game as much as it could have.

The main focus here though is the story, it’s the story that drag you in, keeps moving you forward. It’s a story filled with twists, shocks and awe, you will sit there and think, “What the hell just happened? I can’t believe it”. It’s this and the little moments such as tucking the kids in and preparing dinner that makes this an experience to enjoy, an emotional roller coaster. The whole package comes together to make a remarkable playing experience; a new genre has been created. I’d rather call it an “Interactive noir thriller” rather than a drama. With a more mature theme than normal games, the story delves into us and you do begin to ask whether you would do the same as the characters, bringing moral choices I never thought I’d ask myself to the forefront begging to be questioned.
The whole package comes together, creating a wonderful original gaming experience worthy of your attention. Sure some people wont like it, they will see this as a big cut scene, however it is something that needs to be played at least once, to see what Quantic have attempted and for the most part achieved. A joy to behold.

However is it another Dragons Lair? I know a lot of people have compared the general game play style to this game, people who worried whether it would look and sound great but play terrible. The answer is a very simple no. Quantic Dreams have managed to make the game a lot more interactive than Dragons Lair ever was, and taken everything that tried to be and improved it tenfold.
Will you play it more than once? I think the answer is yes, there are several different endings to enjoy, parts of the game you do sit up and wonder whether you did the right thing, should I have gone with option A rather than B. You will want to see which path the story takes by going through the other routes.
Quantic dreams have come up with an original, novel new way of telling a story through gaming, bringing the barriers between movies and gaming down a little more. Now all we have to do is wait and see whether other developers sit up and take note finding their own, new ways of bringing an “Interactive Drama” to our consoles.

[review pros="Amazing story, good soundtrack." cons="A sometimes dodgy camera angle." score="94"]

This review was by Paul Everitt. Check out more of this stuff here.

Perfect Dark is a great game,but NOT one of those games. One of the first console FPSes to have really big douchebaggedry (Poison Knives in a corpse = fun!), Perfect Dark was Rare’s big effort to improve upon the Goldeneye N64 engine, and they do improve upon it in so many ways. Well, the remake is coming to Xbox Live. Weeks and weeks we have waited for the release date, and here it is – March 17th.

Fire up your Farsights, and get ready to gank some bitches with no FPS jumping – old school style. This game will be a definite purchase for me, so expect some Twitter-based bitching.

Remember those early previews, how 256 players would battle it out, and they’d take orders from the team leaders, making strategic plans to outperform the other team? Having a rock solid game plan to ruffle the opposing players? How organised matches would be one of the best experiences known to gaming? Well if you manage to get a game like that, count yourself lucky.

So why aren’t we suing Zipper and Sony for this blatant slander? Because quite frankly, it isn’t slander. On the other hand, the chances of finding your way into a game such as this is simply ludicrous, trying to get 256 players all playing together in a tactical form to create an intense match is like trying to get 256 children to go to school on Saturday – it isn’t going to happen.

So, is that the one and only positive depleted? The whole “strength in numbers” game has been thwarted, to leave a not-so-good shooter behind? No, there is some amazingly distinctive positives about the game, but unfortunately it’s overshadowed by the, as much as I have to use the word again, negatives.
It takes everything your household FPS does, and does it badly. The shooting is bad and irritating, the grenade system is like a lottery and the respawn locations are way too far from the action. Yeah, that’s a snippet of the negatives. You can read more about them later on, but let’s look at the positives! Don’t worry; you won’t be waiting that long, this’ll only take a second.

We’ll take graphics to start. The lighting in this game is amazing, and it executed it so well in battles that you fail to not notice it on every game you’ll play. Texturally beautiful would describe everything from the terrain to the bullet battered walls best.
The thing this game does best is taking the basics of the first person shooter genre, utilises them, and then adds new elements to expand the series. The camera is very good and works excellently, the gametypes are well paced and the weapons are top notch and well suited.

One thing that I adore in this game is the bleedout system. Every developer of an FPS game should release an update to include this, as it’s so useful and effective. For those of you who don’t know what this bleedout system is, it is basically a feature where when you are shot down, you’re not dead – but severely injured for a short period of time. During this time, you have the option to press X, give up and respawn or else you can wait, and one of your teammates are able to revive you, and you continue where you left off, and it doesn’t count as a death. It’s perfectly executed as your teammates will also be busy killing and it makes the revive/die balance perfect.

In reality, Zipper has a great idea with MAG, and in a perfect world it would be a perfect game but unfortunately it isn’t. It’s like Call of Duty in the lobby. There are lots of kids shouting their ass off about how great they are. I even heard a squeaky voice shout, “Whoo got a kill. Haha Noob!” – on launch day. Chances are the guy who was killed was caught off guard and has been playing FPS games while the squeaky voice was in nappies. Yeah, these things to annoy me and one thing I was hoping for was a mature experience which would indirectly lead to a game that is valuable due to a close battle.
If these are the opinions of the general gaming community, then how will this game survive? This game has absolutely no offline mode to back it up if the community diminish. Zipper says it’s all down to the factions. By factions, I mean three classes that a gamer must choose from. Each have their own different pros and cons, and each will participate in a leaderboard – this leaderboard is the tool to keeping an active community.

Once you choose your faction, there’s no going back. Unless you create a new character, so you should choose wisely. These three factions will be competing against each other all the time, which means you’ll never be fighting someone within your faction. Each time a faction wins a battle, it adds to the factions score, and the faction with the most score is top of the leaderboard, and so on.

Zipper say that players will be fighting for their faction and if they check their PS3 and see their faction has fallen into second place, then they’re want to play to help their faction regain glory. But again, this is where MAG is too ambitious. The chances of the factions being neck-in-neck is very slim, and at the time of writing S.V.E.R have ran away with first place and there’s a lot of reports of players losing heart already. So is this doing the opposite? Players in second and third and no way of rising to first losing heart and leaving MAG, and then our beloved S.V.E.R bored of having no competition and also leaving the game to return to something else?

By no means am I purposely hating this game, I actually really wanted to like it, and maybe I fell into the trap of believing what was being said, but it’s only now that I realize how silly I was into thinking we’d all be organised armies fighting it out in a tightly fought battle, trying desperately to help our faction raise in the ranks.
This game has unlimited potential to be amazing, it really does. If and when Call of Duty fanboys disperse and leave the small minority of sensible and mature gamers that are left alone, this game can multiply in quality tenfold. That’s a big if though. I won’t pretend I’m disappointed, but it does the basics so well, and has some superb features such as the bleedout system but it when Zipper warranted both 256 player matches and organised, communication battles they shot themselves in the foot.

7.4/10

Due to the nature of this game and the feedback in the comments section, the reviewer has written and published a delayed opinion entitled MAG: One Week Later. To get the full opinion of the reviewer, we highly recommend you read this article too.

With LBP having seen releases on PS3 and PSP, Sony were sure they were onto a winner. And so they decided they’d warrant a LBP type racer, known as ModNation Racers.

This was announced at E3, all the way back in June, where not only did we hear about the game first, but we also got a live demo by the games publishers. Like LittleBigPlanet, the game showed off its great creative abilities and how your creations can be executed in-race.

These cars look like they're going fast. But they're not.

The thing is though, developers are notorious for practicing a certain part of the game so their live demos pimp the game amazingly. I wasn’t fooled by the sugar coated video and the excessive feature-dropping speech at E3, so I was very excited to get a hands on of the game in action by way of the private beta.

I downloaded and jumped right in. I was hyped about the creation aspect, but decided to try out the racing side of things, so I’ll ramble on about that first.

To enter a race you make your way through the ModZone – this is actually the menu. Sort of like a racing version of Home, with some cool obstacles. I suppose it could be described as a portal in a way. There’s no doubt that some people will get annoyed at having to drive all the way to the other side of the zone to get to the race. Anyway, here I am rambling on about menus when I should be talking about the actual game.

The creation process is gloriously simple, yet so effective.

The racing isn’t amazing. It really laminates the simple fact that this game is focused on creation. The cars are slow, the controls are simple and the overall experience is boring. That’s it in a nutshell. I may be being a teeny bit harsh here. Kids ten and under will find some valuable enjoyment out of the racing aspect but the Mario Kart clone isn’t a head turner.

That’s all I’ll say on the racing side as that’s all it warrants. The creation side is the standout feature of the game on paper – but is it standout? Sort of; It’s no LittleBigPlanet. It’s quite easy to make tracks do, and it’s damn effective though.

You basically mould your tracks; add twists, turns, and straights – whatever. Once the track is build and finished, add in scenery, mountains, cliffs add hills in your track and make it your own.

Like in-game perks? You'll like this I suppose.

Once you complete it, it will automatically scenery-ise it (my word, don’t use it) by adding trees and stuff around. Help yourself to add windmills and such, but if you put it on a cliff, it makes it even more childish as it looks terrible.

Definitely has potential, but the racing is way too basic for my liking, and there isn’t much satisfaction or complexity by way of creation but it will keep the kids quite and will take up at least some of your time. It isn’t a LittleBigPlanet quality-wise but its menu is a big plus and the overall game is great for on-the-go gaming. And of course the inevitable thing is this is a beta, so there’s a ton of room to improve, right?

You get on a plane, train, or an automobile that you’re hopefully not operating. Reading a book just doesn’t feel right, listening to music isn’t stimulating enough, and you’re not tired enough to sleep right now. What to do? Whip out your portable gaming console and start tweaking away on the portable gaming smack! But now here comes the big issue. What system, what game, and what is appropriate for when? Here’s some lovely tips, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s 8^th using poorly-tuned instruments.

DS, iPhone/iTouch, PSP, or a laptop?

Well, this depends on what you’ve got. If you have a means to charge your laptop/iPhone/iTouch, then go for whatever on there. Bringing a laptop kind of defeats the purpose of this entire article, so if you’re reading this on a plane and on a laptop, I spit in your general direction. But power is infinitely more important for a iPhone/iTouch. Especially if this is your music medium as well as your gaming platform. iWhatevers can die notoriously fast with no recharge around and in game mode, so beware.

Now the question remains: DS or PSP? This depends on brand preference, game preference, and certain qualities. If you’re already decided on brand or game, great. If you’re not, here’s a couple questions:

Do you like action games or RPGs? FPS or strategy? Original licenses or remake/sequels?

If you find yourself genuinely enjoying moments of intuition, solving puzzles, or simply just playing Tetris, then the DS is for you, as it carries a lot more puzzle games or brain-related games that don’t require a lot of attention.

If you like full-fledged, plot filled action games, with characters you already know and love — those games are available for DS, but the PSP provides a better presentation that might be perfect for your needs.

Be prepared to get bored quickly, even if it’s a game you’re drawn into normally.

Travelling long distances makes you feel stagnant, and easily distracted. Sitting still for all that time, any sort of event or action that goes on in or around you can distract you away, and you might get tired of doing the same game you know you’ll be playing for a certain amount of hours. A good idea would be to bring one game that exemplifies each genre you enjoy – a Final Fantasy Tactics, Super Mario Bros, and Professor Layton, for example, if you like strategy, platforming, and puzzling.

Don’t play games with lots of funky camera motion, unless you want to get car sick.

Believe it or not, this happens to more people than you know. Some people just get sick sitting on the seats that face the opposite way of the train! But be smart, if you know this game has a lot of forward first-person motion, it might not be a good idea to play it. Also if you cannot focus fully on the game, say someone keeps going to the bathroom and you have to keep getting up, then don’t play that game. Play a Bejeweled or Peggle until you have peace and quiet.

I hope these last four weeks were informing and somewhat interesting for you. It was a great joy digging into the working gamers world, and hopefully giving a bit of advice that was necessary. I’m always available to contact through Twitter or by commenting. Thanks a lot for reading and keeping gaming, you busy person you.

There’s a very large line of demarcation between today’s gamers: online gamers and those who are most assuredly offline players. As a busy, young go-getter gamer, it may be hard to determine your allegiance between the two factions. Yes, in terms of online play, practice makes perfect, but some of us haven’t the mental or physical fortitude for the high-level douchebaggedry that is perpetrated online.

On the other hand, some of us haven’t the Zen-like patience that is required to be a single-player completionist, at least not willingly. Some require the constant competitive nature of online games to get the same feeling of fufillment that single-player gamers acquire from a particularly difficult level or achievement. Then there’s a third side to this battle – the gamer that can take one or the other and maintain a low blood pressure on either side. Unfortunately, not all of us are this gifted, and struggle to remain sane in this ever-changing world of gaming, no matter which faction you side up with.

Personally, I’m not much of a competitive player. The non-stop douchey name calling, coupled with the accusations and buck-passing in online play infuriate me to no end. The occasional match of TF2 or PvP match in a random MMO suffice; but that’s because I have a role to play in the matches, and that can make a world of difference to frustrated gamers. Here’s a couple qualities you have if you’re a single player game:

• You find that owning more than one controller/Wiimote is pointless. This can also mean you have no friends.
• A lot of time is spent not learning new combo moves or multi-kill rewards; it’s spent collecting in-game items long after the game’s story mode is completed.
• You may enjoy an MMO, but you prefer end-game raiding to PvP.

If you disagree with these qualities, then look at the multiplayer perceptions to gaming, handily listed below:

• Single-player modes in your games are rarely touched, if only for achievements/trophies/in-game items.
  
• You may own more sports games than the above single-player gamer.
• If you’re an MMO fan, you believe that PvP is the only way to play the game, and you may have been quoted as saying so once or twice.

Then again, you might just be that guy who never decided his major in college; the woman who couldn’t decide which person to date in a sitcom, or whatever. A good way of telling if you’re in the middle ground:

• You’re an RTS fan. An RTS is a great single-player experience that can translate to online/LAN play.
• You own a couple FPS games, but are not in a clan or anything. A “Left 4 Dead” title is a must.
• You may be an MMO player, but you prefer neither gameplay experience, and might occasionally switch MMOs.

The sooner you decide what you like, the more effective your game scheduling becomes. For example. instead of boiling your blood in a TF2 night with your buddies, you might find it more soothing to have a single-player night in Civilization 4 or even to play Dead Rising as a group, taking turns at each 100 zombie kills or mission completion, for example. Or if a singular experience is really important, it might be time to catch up on your Zelda or your Bayonetta save. If you figure your tastes out, then it’s less time on bad games and more time on satisfaction.

Just remember that there’s no shame in being undecided, though. Some peoples’ tastes change a lot over time. But, people will hate you if you don’t pick a side, you evil flip-flopper you.

Week 4: Roads? Where we game, there are no roads. Or electrical outlets. (Gaming on the go.)

And from my time playing STO, I can say one thing – this game has the potential to compete with WoW. The quests are episodic, like the show, so you have a quest chain all relating to one issue. My first non-tutorial quest: my Vulcan Science Officer, Virot, saw myself traveling with my crew to a disabled cruiser attacked and overrun by Orion thugs. After dispatching the raiders’ fleet around the ship, I beamed aboard with my Tactical Officer and some redshirts to clear out the Orion boarding party.

After clearing out the boarding party, it was revealed that the warp core on the ship was close to overloading, so I quickly beamed the surviving crewmen aboard my ship, the USS Divergence, and defended the dangerous ship from more Orions, to give the captain time to get things together onboard. Just as the ship reached critical mass, I beamed the captain onboard the Divergence and cleared the blast area. Were you excited reading that? Because I was writing it. The quest chain took an hour, but it’s so fast-paced and exciting that it felt like ten minutes.

Ship combat looks to be tons of fun, too, flying about enemy ships and tactfully phasering down shields and torpedoing their hulls is exciting, and sets the tone of the quests perfectly. It also requires a little strategy, turning the ship different directions to avoid the hull being torpedoed. It’s fun and interesting.

Strategy also comes into play in ground combat – you can set your individual NPC Officers to different spots to create flanking and ambushes and things.

Let’s just say that in February, there might be a sizable buzz from the Star Trek and gamer community, because this game can hit all the right spots for so many. Check it out when it launches, I promise you that it will rock, and Star Trek knowledge is not required. See you in sector space!

Bear Grylls (a.k.a. the Camper)

It used to be that campers were relegated to sniper roles; however, with the growing appreciation of ACOG scopes everyone can join in on the fun! This player plops himself in the corner/building/humvee/whatever and then sits there until someone passes his view. It doesn’t matter what game type it is – Domination, Capture the Flag, Sabotage, etc. – he’ll just sit. Defusing the bomb? No way! It’ll give away my sweet camping spot!

God forbid you unknowingly place yourself in “his” spot at the beginning of the match despite the fact that he doesn’t have a microphone to at least give you a heads up. If you decide to place yourself in his area, or anywhere near it, for even a few seconds, prepare to hear the *kish* of his swiping knife as he attempts to move you with the powers of the Force through the TV.

Crash Override (a.k.a. the Glitcher)

These players are identified mostly by their mating call – “It’s working as intended” or “It’s not a glitch, if it was a glitch, they would have fixed it by now”. Previously seen wearing a javelin missile on their back, the most prevalent type today wields a Care Package and knife. These people insist that what they are doing isn’t technically breaking the game or using some functionality that was given to them to exploit a bug, such as running around like the Guyver and Flash had a baby stabbing people while running in a stupid looking crouch. Most often they are of a higher Prestige than everyone else and insist that their ownage is due to “pure sk1llz” and not that they are glitching douchebags.

The goods news is that most of these people will rack up a 25 kill streak fairly quickly and end the game with a Nuke while screaming into the mic like a Wookie getting raped about how much everyone around him sucks.  Which leads me to the next player…

The Zookeeper (a.k.a. “Captain I-Don’t-Know-How-To-Mute-My-Mic”)

The mic is a wonderful addition to online gaming when it’s used properly. Tactics are useful in many types of games and a well organized attack will win you almost any team tactical game mode. More often than not, the microphone is abused more than a woman in a Lifetime Original. More often than not you’ll get people who think that, despite your constant pleading to STFU, you want to hear their latest music they’ve downloaded from LimeWire blasting away in the background. Most of the time they won’t even say a single word yet they feel the obligation to turn on the mic and play the music in the background to set the mood.

On top of the DJs, you also have people who cannot control the volume of their voice.

This usually ends up being someone who is pre-pubescent, the shrill shrieking of a 13 year old telling you that you suck, are terrible at the game, and they they’ve spent the last 15+ hours “pwning n00bs”. Or some guy yelling into the mic about how baked he is, when I’m pretty sure the only narcotic he’s even taken was when he got his wisdom teeth pulled.

The Diva (a.k.a. the Constant Complainer)

There is one thing you need to know about this player: it’s NEVER his fault that he stinks at the game. He’s in the top 100 of (insert some game you’ve never heard of but he insists is super popular) and that’s how he knows it’s not him, it’s you. He’ll constantly complain about how terrible the team is and how the Bad News Bears are bringing him down – even if the rest of the team is above .500 in kill/death ratio. This players typical game plays out like this:

“Come ON, fucking get to the flag” *death*

“What the fuck is wrong with you guy you’re all terrible!” *death*

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING COVER ME!!” *death*

In the end, he’ll usually end up with a 2 kills/30 deaths record and yell some obscenities and racial slurs into the microphone before rage quitting and going to go play some Hello Kitty Online.

It is  the age of instant news, an age where on enters his/her kitchen, takes a pill, and is fed. An age of flying cars; internet-capable toaster ovens; even the ability to curse out people in far-off lands from the comfort of your own home. Back in the old days, gaming news was easy to follow and even easier to come by, having only few sources. Something usually didn’t happen very often, and when it did happen, it was some big, earth-shattering news. If this happened today, it would seem as though game development was impossibly slow moving. Game development actually is slow moving, but the amount of time it takes to generate substantial hype can take longer than the game’s creation.

These days, as we are bombarded with news about the newest curvatures added to a female character’s assets (see Dead or Alive for more about “jiggle” physics) or the gameplay changes in a sequel to a game that just shipped. Sometimes we also get the random “real-world relevant” news, where someone hurts/kills another with video game involvement, or video game legislature from a Jack Thompson/Tipper Gore/Dave Grossman, fighting a quixotic war against the industry. Hilarity ensues in the case of the latter and we all grow a little wiser reading it.

But the biggest issue – sometimes it’s so damn hard to keep track of the blur of news today. It’s difficult to even find a news site that actually follows what you want to read enough. That’s where an RSS feed comes in. It’s a handy little button that can be placed on your browser, or in a widget on your desktop. RSS (or Really Simple Syndication, or as I call it Running Stuff Smartly) lists all of the posts a blog or news site would have available for a certain period of time. This is all done without you actually having to connect to the website at all – just the internet connection. This is a great tool that can also be annoying and detrimental to your time, you busy gamer you.

If you’ve subscribed to several RSS feeds, you may find that you’re reading the same news over and over again, and that can get very tiresome. Other times, you could be syndicated to news posts that are irrelevant, biased, or just plain incompatible with your personal politics. This can lead to potential troll-flamery and even a headache. In other words, it might be bad — really bad. Here’s a couple tips for ensuring that your browser and time are not swallowed up by RSS feeds:

Follow specific sites.
If you want Nintendo and MMO news only, then it might not be a good idea to subscribe to an FPS blog or SkullF**kers.com. On the other side of the coin, if you don’t want to read a lot about Nintendo or MMOs, then it might be a good idea to subscribe to a blog that has hardc0r3 l33t cred.

The more diverse your selection of news sites, the better.
For example, news sites like Joystiq and Kotaku, while different in certain news coverage (Kotaku tends to talk more about the Japanese market), have many overlapping stories. Try RSSing just one, and casually reading the other. But RSSing Joystiq/Kotaku and GamePolitics might be a perfect, neither would overlap too much. Your time is saved, take 50xp.

Follow an Earth news site.
This is entirely optional, but it might be a good idea to follow an Earth news site, such your local news affilates or NPR or something. This way you can find relevant info (such as video game-related incidents or relevant legislation) as well as follow some of the issues that come up in our games everyday. It will deepen your understanding of more realistic games as well as make you popular in the social circuit because of how current you stay.

The final tip: Social networking is your friend.
If you use Twitter, Facebook, or some sort of random social networking site on the Internet, follow/friend a known game blogger (like @whitemidget, for example </shameless>). They will usually post game-related news, their own posts, and other interesting bits of knowledge. Also, it’s a good way to know if someone you don’t know is taking a dump or drinking a latte. But such is the price to be paid for keeping current on game news.

Keeping up on your gaming news is important, especially if you like know anything about titles on the way or the next generation of consoles. But remember that there are tons of useless news out there, and follow the above tips. They might save you some time reading through the same Zelda article, or a biased piece about the terrorism segments in Modern Warfare 2.

Week 3: Online Games and Why You May Have High Blood Pressure.

About Fiesta Online

Fiesta is a classic, action packed MMORPG set in the colorful and dangerous world of Isya. Battle ferocious monsters and join your allies on a quest for fame and fortune to save Isya from the forces of evil.

Features of Fiesta Online

- Choose between four awesome classes, including the deadly Warrior, the divine Cleric, the nimble Archer, and the powerful Mage.
- Complete hundreds of quests, defeat challenging monsters, and explore a huge game world.
- Participate in challenging & exciting weekly in-game events with Outspark’s GMs.
- Delve into instanced dungeons and quests where skill and close teamwork is required to survive.

This Item Pack Contains

- 30 day Robo Machine dance. Do the robot!
- 7-day T-Pain Set. Dress like T-Pain, and get a 15% critical hit chance bonus.

How to Redeem

Follow these easy steps to get started with your Item Pack:

1) Click here to make a free Outspark account.
2) After registering you will be directed to the download page. Download Fiesta for free.
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How will STO be different from the current players in the genre, in terms of gameplay?

STO offers a lot of unique features for gamers looking for something different. Our episodic missions are truly unique and it feels as if you are watching a Star Trek episode. You play in space and on the ground, as well. You command your own starship in space and you command your away team on the ground. The back and forth between the two really wipes away the grinding feeling that you have in other MMOs. Also we have Tribbles. Every game should have Tribbles.

Have there been any balance issues regarding the two styles of combat?

Since this is an MMO we will always be tweaking balancing to make sure something is not too easy or too hard. Also just the pace and style of the two are different. In space it’s a little slower and measured. You want to knock your opponent’s shields down, then maneuver to that exposed side and fire your torpedoes where they can do maximum damage. On the ground, it’s a little more fast-paced. You’re giving your away team orders all while ducking and dodging on coming fire. The difference between the two really makes for fun and unique gameplay.

Why no Denobulans? They’re awesome, never need sleep, and they have long tongues!

Star Trek has a deep history so it’s impossible to put everything in at launch. The cool thing about MMOs is that it’s never done. So if the community really wants Denobulans then it’s something we’ll look at adding after launch. But I do agree. They are awesome.

Will there be any references to last summer’s movie? The disappearance of Spock, for example?

We don’t make references to the disappearance of Spock as our game is set in the prime timeline and in that timeline Spock doesn’t go back in time (he’s presumed dead) and Vulcan is not destroyed. Time travel can be a little confusing so we explain what year STO takes place and where the JJ Abrams universe fits in here.

Will you need to become hostile in order for PvP combat?

We’ve designed PvP to be consensual at all times. You opt to enter maps in the Neutral Zone that automatically flag you for PvP, so you don’t have to worry about getting killed randomly.

Are the bridge crew members passive AI or can you control them individually to your needs?

You can give each one commands. They each have their set of orders. So you can tell one to do one thing and tell another to do something different. For example, you may tell one member to hold their position and another to move to a flanking position. It gives the game a more tactical feel.

The quests are taking an episodic format – but will this mean that players coming into the game later will miss out on older episodes? Will these quests be always available for play?

New players will not miss out on older episodes. They would play the missions and episodes just like everyone before them did. The Episode Missions are built into player progression, so if you wind up starting later than others, you’ll still have that content available to you.

Have any of the Star Trek cast or writers commented upon this game? I know JJ Abrams has…

Not that I know of. Hopefully they will get a chance to check it out and play the game. I think since we’ve announced that Zachary Quinto will be the voiceover for the tutorial that he may have gotten some hands on. But I haven’t received his feedback of the game yet.

How about the look of the non-Earth worlds? Are they based from the films and shows as well as creative speculation?

We have many familiar worlds, bases, and systems that Star Trek fans will recognize as well as new worlds that our art team has created. The non-Earth worlds are very different and unique worlds as well. Just as you would expect, some are very exotic looking with lush forests, some are desert or ice planets. Some have been Borgified. That’s right, I said Borgified.

Last question: ship transport will be awesome, right? Will going at Warp 7 to Vulcan be awesome?

We wanted to make sure you knew what was going on while you were in warp. So you see the animation of warping in and out of a system but then we put you in sector space. Sector space is where you move all around the Star Trek universe. You can see different star systems and move to them as well as different sectors. We didn’t want you to hit warp and then all of a sudden everything around you is flashing in your face and you have no idea where you’re going.

10. Free Realms

Yes, in general, Free Realms is catered towards kids. The cartoony artstyle, the emphasis on minigames and the completely optional combat all make that point the more clearer. However, there is one thing that many of the subscription based models miss out on the Free Realms nails right on the head: accessibility. The ability to hop in and out of the game, play for 15-30 minutes and feel like you’ve actually accomplished something is extremely hard to achieve and Free Realms does it to a certain point. Since almost anything you do contributes experience to leveling up. If your looking for something different than the usual level grind and for a more social experience, Free Realms is where you should go.

9. Runes of Magic

Runes of Magic is your standard fare Fantasy MMORPG in the same mold of World of Warcraft. Everything from the general art direction to the UI layout screams WoW, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you can’t afford to play WoW anymore and need to move to something free. Not everything in Runes of Magic are the same as WoW – a dual class system, player housing, and the ability to specialize in multiple crafting systems without penalty to another are some of the features that many players wish would be implemented in WoW.

8. Perfect World

Perfect World is another MMORPG that is modeled after WoW with a few key differences. The two main different include a heavy influence of Chinese Mythology and an extensive PvP system that is up there with the big boys. Large clan and territory battles, PvP instances and PvP arenas are some of the highlights of this game that also features flight – something introduced prior to the Aion launch.

7. Dragonica

Dragonica is a arcade style, 3D side scrolling MMORPG. The game features a unique keyboard control scheme and a combo system that rewards players for learning to intricacies of their characters skills and abilities separates this game from the rest of the free to play games out there. A fun, anime art style and an injection of humor also make this game a bit different from the rest.

6. Fiesta Online

The first thing you’ll notice about Fiesta Online is it’s extremely bright and colorful palette and art style. Whereas most games tend to feature a lot of earth tones, Fiesta is as bright as the Vegas Strip at the night. Fiesta is very party centric and features some additions such as a marriage system and Kingdom Quests which are group quests for 10-15 people at a time.

Update: We’ve gotten some free in-game item giveaway codes available for Fiesta Online. Check out this post for details!

5. Atlantica

I’ll come out and say this right now: Atlantica is definitely NOT for everyone. Even with the localization, there are grammar and spelling errors, there is almost no tutorial to get you into the intricacies of the game, and it all feels very foreign. If your looking for a tactical turn-based MMORPG, Atlantica is where you should look. Once you push past the overwhelming first few levels, the unique party system and turn based combat will suck you in and grab hold.

4. RF Online

RF Online separates itself from the rest of the MMORPG group by offering a sci-fi universe to play in rather than a fantasy setting. The game offers 3 unique races to play as, one of which happens to be a race of robots. As we’ve all learned from Transformers and Gundam, robots are awesome. The game also features a progression system for guns as well as a decent PvP offering.

3. Requiem

Requiem labels itself as a “horror MMORPG” that is catered to a mature audience. The combat is visceral and gory with no lack of blood from each battle. Beast possession powers and a wide variety of weapon types and specialization accent the dark, gloomy setting of the game. If your looking for a game that has taken a new approach at the MMO genre, give Requiem a try.

2. Mabinogi

Mabinogi labels itself a second generation MMO and the approach the developers took is definitely a change from what many of us are used to. The NPCs remember the players and build relationships based on the type of conversations that were held earlier, offers true-to-life experience with your character because of an extensive control system and a unique aging system, where your character grows 1 year older every week definitely make this game something you have to try at least once.

1. Dungeons and Dragons Online

Formerly a subscription based game, Dungeon and Dragons Online has moved into the free genre recently (and with much anticipation, as the servers could barely hold all of the players when the switch was made). DDO has all of the features you would expect from a subscription based game for none of the price and was labeled as the best free to play MMORPG on a multitude of sites. The amount of polish, along with a fantastic combat system and large userbase, makes it hard for other MMOs to compete.

Despite this, I always give special attention to strategy games that try to do things a bit differently (and yes I recognize Dawn of War II isn’t exactly a traditional RTS, but the mechanics are similar enough for me to not enjoy it). The Unholy War, a fairly middle-of-the-road PlayStation strategy game, held my attention for far longer than it should have. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics, though not groundbreaking by today’s standards, forever changed my expectations. And so it is with great pleasure that I introduce King’s Bounty: Armored Princess – a very special game.

Well, for the most part.

Armored Princess is the standalone expansion to King’s Bounty, a game that, for the most part, is the longer, slightly less refined version of this product. You take on the role of Princess Amelie just in time to witness the near destruction of your father’s kingdom. Obviously, the only way to rectify the situation is to use a magical doohickey to travel to another dimension in search of some guy who can make everything all right. And of course you weren’t supposed to be the one backpacking through portals, but hey, who wants to play as the senile wizard instead of the buxom warrior princess, who must be casting her own breed of spells to keep that chest piece on? You’ll meet colorful characters and walls of text as you set out on your very original journey.

To be fair, the writing is actually quite good. The game takes itself just seriously enough and does a decent job of incorporating humorous dialogue in what would be just another kingdom-on-the-brink fantasy yarn. Which is good, because you’ll be doing a lot of reading. There is no voice-over work and all quests are presented in that just-show-me-the-accept-button style we’ve all come to know and love in MMOs. Are the sound effects and music any good? Fairly, though the overly epic score does lose its luster rather quickly. The noticeable sound track restarts will likely become annoying to anyone with a musical ear as well. The sound is, in two words, quite average.

But honestly, you’re not here for the sound effects and music anyway. No one would blame you for playing this game with your headphones off and the latest Seinfeld rerun blaring in the background (you haven’t been to payroll yet?) And you’re definitely not here for the graphics either, which aren’t anything special. If you’re anything like me, you’ll think your World of WarCraft suddenly became plain old WarCraft with a very tiny splash of Diablo, and then you’ll end up confused as to why that actually makes sense. Indeed, this isn’t a game that’s going to floor you with any sort of visual tour-de-force. Animations are a bit stiff and textures aren’t anything special, but the style is pleasing, even if it is fairly standard fantasy. There’s not a lot of screen tearing or other graphical oddities, but there is occasional slowdown. Again, very average.

Combat and world exploration are the meat and potatoes of this experience, and whether or not this game’s approach to both gels with you will determine whether you drop 40 bones or uninstall the demo in disgust. As a warrior princess, you have the ability to gather a whole mess of troops and lead them on the battlefield. You have a set amount of leadership to disperse, which you can increase as you level up or through skills (more on those later). If you have a loyalty of 100 and a particular troop costs 10 loyalty per unit, you can have 10 of those units with you. If another unit costs five per, you can have 20 of them. Rinse and repeat until you have a maximum of five groups (plus two in reserve). The power of each squad is determined by their base stats and the number of units composing each grouping. Think of it as an expanded game of Risk: If you have a troop with 10 units against a troop with nine, the troop of 10 is likely to win, although you’ll lose units, and power, in the process.

You’ll explore the world from an isometric angle with all enemies viewable on the map, meaning you can pick when and where to fight. The world is composed of various islands, each filled with merchants, pirates, priests, kings, and lord knows what else, all willing to sell you units, items, spells, and give you quests. The object is to explore an island until you find a navigation chart (usually guarded by a very difficult group of enemies) that allows access to another island, where you begin your search anew until you reach the end of the game. Defeated enemies do not respawn, which creates an interesting dynamic as far as experience points and gold are concerned. Because your income is limited, each troop lost is just that much more painful. Spending 15,000 gold on a Black Dragon is a very big deal, and the loss of said dragon will send you into a quick-loading frenzy.

In order to lose your precious troops you’ll need to engage in combat, which is turn-based and takes place on a hexagonal grid. Every unit has a speed that determines the order of attack, and after everyone takes a swing the turn is over and another begins. Each turn you’re able to cast one spell, which vary from direct attacks to status ailments, and initiate one dragon attack. Yes, that’s right, early in the game you get your very own pet baby dragon, complete with his or her own set of special attacks and experience gain. Smack or get smacked by an enemy to build up your rage meter, which always you to call your dragon forth to do some truly devastating damage. In fact, the dragon is your most powerful asset, which is both a blessing and a curse. While early only he’ll jump in to drop a lightning orb or simply kick someone in the face, his later area-of-effect attack, Dragon Dive, is absolutely essential.

Besides your good buddy, you’ll need solid diversity amongst your troops’ ranks in order to stay competitive. Thankfully, there are plenty of troops to choose from. On the first island alone there are at least a dozen different units to choose from, with each progressive island introducing more. Move your troops across the field, bonk the other guys on the head and move on to the next fight. Considering the array of spells and skills at your disposal, combat is as deep an experience as you want it to be. Prefer to have a line of meatheads charging blindly into battle? There’s enough variety amongst the goblin and pirate hordes to make it happen. Want to throw in a few archers and healers? I’m certainly not going to stop you.

This, unfortunately, introduces one of the reasons why this game doesn’t come with a “guaranteed fresh” seal of approval. Let’s say you have 10 units, all of whom you take into battle. After celebrating your victory, you come to realize you only have two left. Two, unfortunately, is too few for the next battle, so you decide to buy more. Trouble is, this particular unit is only available on another island. So, back to the boat you go. Open up your map, click on the desired island, find the store and travel back. After. Every. Single. Battle. Obviously, this gets a bit old.

At the beginning of the game, you select to play as either a mage, warrior or paladin. Every class has access to the same skill trees, but each class gains a different amount of runes upon leveling up. A particular mage skill might take 7 blue runes to level up, but, as a warrior, you might only receive one blue rune per level. Sure, you’ll find a few scattered about the world, but nothing to make the grind any less painful. And, since enemies don’t respawn, grinding in the purest sense of the word just isn’t possible. This creates a balance issue between classes, as warriors and paladins get easier access to loyalty and power upgrades. The most obvious problem of them all is that your dragon’s rage meter is tied to the warrior tree. Why is this a big problem? Because at some point it becomes possible to upgrade your dragon skills too far. When your dragon levels up, you are presented with the choice to level up one of three skills; some might be brand skill while some might be upgrades to a current skill. Let’s assume your rage meter has a maximum level of 15 and your Dragon Dive skill uses 13 points to execute. Upon leveling up, you accidentally choose to raise Dragon Dive, increasing its usage requirement to 16. Oops. Until you increase your rage capacity, you won’t be using that skill anymore, and that might make any progress next to impossible.

That’s not even mentioning the fact that you can recruit a companion to hold extra items and train your troops, or that you can outfit yourself with a plethora of items, some of which you can do battle with to upgrade – a mechanic you should recognize from the Disgaea series. This, the troop buying and the potential to screw up your character make this a surprisingly hardcore experience, and you can’t fully developers for adopting this approach. So, while I can’t say this is a game everyone will love and adore, I can say with certainty that those looking for a hybrid strategy game that features a surprising amount of depth and a lengthy story could do much, much worse. If you’re more of an RTS player, there’s nothing special here. If turn-based games are more your speed, this is one you should certainly take a look at. Is it a classic? No. Is it decent fun for 20 to 30 hours? Absolutely.

Note: It should be noted that I did experience occasional computer-locking crashes during the course of playing. Due to the game’s fairly frequent auto saving and my usual quick-saving ways, I lost only a few minutes of playtime at most. Still, crashes are crashes and they are certainly annoying. I don’t know if this is a problem with the game as a whole or if it’s due to some reaction to my computer’s configuration, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this potential problem.

[review pros="Well-written dialogue, solid presentation, deep customization, engaging combat" cons="Graphics and sounds aren't anything special, constantly restocking troops gets old, story is a bit linear, possibility of borking your character if you're not careful is higher than it should be" score="70"]

Each week in January, I (Tim) will cover a topic that is close to the working gamers’ heart. Yes, some of us are busy with work, school, and other non-game endeavors, heck, even social encounters! But gaming is who we are deep inside still, and I’m here to console, advise, and to help keep you abreast of gaming nerdery.

Have you ever been invited to the bar to watch the Superbowl/World Series/Stanley Cup/World Cup/World Poker Tournament/Flipadelphia? Did you pick up your Xbox controller the next day, and notice a thin layer of dust covering the controller, clogging up your responses as you attempt to take down that Big Daddy – again? Has that darn social life of yours interrupted your gaming to the point that you are now very behind?

You’re not alone, friend. Funnily enough to other readers, scoffing in amusement, look at the statistics. The average video game player is 35 years old. These aren’t Tamagotchi years, these are real, solid, 100% true years. (Special thanks to 1999 for the extremely dated reference!) Over 65% of Americans have played a computer/console game in 2008. This is most likely almost a direct result of the popularity of that Nintendo Wii thing.

Anyway, let’s get to the point – life always interferes with hobbies, that’s why you need to take time out to hobby, then jump back into your life. If you’re lucky, then your hobby is your job. But for the rest of us people out there on this planet, our time is always going somewhere.

Here’s some tips for keeping your gaming hobby up while still maintaining a grasp on real life stuff: (note: this may sound stupid, but sometime the most obvious thing is in front of you. Look at Solid Snake!)

Schedule a time to play a game each week, or more if desired. I actually do this myself, unless I’m reviewing something. Mondays are MW2 days, for example, Wednesday is my Xbox RPG day, if possible, and Thursday is my WoW/PC night. Now, you don’t need to set this much time, it’s a suggestion, but whatever works for you.

Invite your significant other to join you on these nights, ESPECIALLY if they don’t play games! It’s said that the best way to propose to your girl/boyfriend is by killstealing them in your favorite FPS. The rage in their faces is suddenly calmed by the +2 Commitment Bomb dropped upon their faces. Seriously, though, if they don’t play games and you guys alternate activities, this might be perfect. Have a gaming night with them playing something non-frightening, like Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. Then move up to more hardcore titles and adjust as desired. Might give you two something in common, or a reason to hate your partner. Either way.

Gaming doesn’t end at the LCD screens. Think about a tabletop game, like D&D, Warhammer, or even a more structured physical board game. There are some unique ones available at your local hobby shop, no doubt. Don’t be afraid of the social stigma that surrounds this format of gaming. These games are actually a great way to develop a close-knit group of friends without the awkwardness. It’s akin to playing an arcade game with someone, but cheaper in the long run because the tabletop game is (usually) a one-time investment. This could also be scammed off as a gaming day with your partner/mate/alternate persona, while disguised thinly as a social outing.

So try some of these out, and more importantly, post comments! Suggest ideas, ask questions, and curse me out!

Next week: RSS Feeds and how they can  help/hurt your gaming news.

The answer to that question? Sort of. Certainly, if you’ve played a Diablo game, you’ll be right at home as soon as you start up Torchlight. Click enemies to begin the head bashing process, gather loot, complete quest (sometime by accident), level up and start the cycle all over again. For people who have never played a true dungeon crawler this may seem like a repetitive formula; however, the hours will soon melt away as you continue to mutter “Alright, just one more level, and I’m done” to yourself over and over.

It’s not to say that this is the standard Diablo formula through and through. A few changes have been made to the gameplay to make it different from its older brother and to bring it up with the times. A pet has been added, giving you a companion to play alongside with. Your pet serves multiple purposes – pack mule, attack companion, and broker. Your pet (you can choose from either a dog or cat) isn’t a powerhouse by any means; some of the more difficult enemies will barely link an eye when Scruffy or Mittens goes to take a bite out of them. The real value of the pet appears when it comes to inventory management. Your pack will quickly fill with goodies, some of which you’ll want to keep and most of which you’ll want to sell off. We all know that trips back to the city are a pain when you’re in a groove and Torchlight makes it easy to get rid of your trash loot. Simply throw the items into your pet’s inventory, click the button to send it to town and in 30 seconds it will return with gold in hand (paw?) for all the items.

The dynamic between your character and your pet is also expanded by a fishing/feeding system. As you traverse through the layers of the dungeon, you’ll often find small rippling bodies of water. Click on it and your character will begin to fish, similar in fashion to World of Warcraft. Once the fish is in your inventory you have the option of feeding it to your pet. You won’t feed it to make it happy – the fish have effects that alter the molecular structure (ok, I made that part up, but how else would you explain it?) of the animal to turn it into something else. Give it a Web Fish and it turns into a spider. Give it a Murkfish and it turns into a Goblinhound. Give it a Firefish and it turns into a Fire Elemental, you get the gist.

The artwork and graphics in the game, although not Diablo 3 quality, have a lightness to it that lends well to the game, especially with your pet turning into all sorts of crazy creatures after you’ve fed it a fish you’ve caught. Most of the environments are fairly detailed and have nice touches that differentiate each level from the others but it would have been nice for a few outdoor maps, as almost all of the game takes place in the underground (because that’s where scary things live). Anyone with a fairly modern PC should be able to play this game to its fullest potential – something that it accented by the fact that the game comes with a “netbook mode” for those 9AM Philosophy classes.

Character models are fairly similar to each other, and while the game does try to differentiate your three choices with a pseudo “class” system, each of the characters basically can specialize in either branch of combat (magic, melee, and range). Basically your choice is to pick which one you’d rather look at for hours on end since they all tend to meld together into a single hybrid class a few levels deep.

The one area that really hurts the value of the game is the glaring omission of multiplayer. Dungeon crawlers, in their barest essence, are basically built for cooperative play. Including a pet system to have someone to take along with you on the trip fixes the issue of running through a dungeon by your lonesome, it’s still more fun to play with another person. The feeling of showing off an epic piece of loot is something all gearwhores cherish and it just doesn’t have the same effect when you’re mailing a screenshot over.

While not everything is perfect in the game – you’ll often run into a few graphical glitches, the pathing for enemies and NPCs is downright idiotic at times, and lack of any true story – it’s still a game that is worth a try for anyone who longs for a dungeon crawler or would like a primer before Diablo 3 is released. For the retail price of $20 it’s hard not to recommend to anyone, even if it is a single-player only affair. The game isn’t ridiculously hard by any means and the accessibility of being able to play even on a netbook, perfect for plane rides or long car trips, paired with exceptional artwork and gameplay make this a title that is placed in the upper echelon of action RPGs.

[review pros="Great graphics, sound, and gameplay" cons="Lack of multiplayer, no real classes" score="85"]