Friday, April 1, 2011 at 2:47PM 
Hey y'all, don't miss out on a chance to win a bunch of awesome stuff from PAX East. The swag bag overfloweth with awesomeness. With multiple chances to win, your slots are straight turnips, son. Act fast; the music is speeding up, which means you don't have much time left to get in!
Friday, April 1, 2011 at 11:32AM ;)
FUCK YOU I'M A TROLLbethesda game studios, bethesda softworks, pc, ps3, the elder scrolls: skyrim, xbox360 | in previews Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 12:58PM 
Been a while since we visited Raccoon City, hasn't it? As the Resident Evil series has transitioned more from survival horror to the action genre, so has the scene shifted from Ground Zero to more exotic locations such as Europe and Africa. These locales have provided an interesting and perhaps equally creepy backdrop for a tale of zombies and virii, though honestly, there's no place like home.
Though the action returns to the familiar, apocalypse-torn home of the Umbrella Corporation, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is veering off the beaten path to take the Resident Evil franchise in a new direction. For this, Capcom has teamed up with Slant Six Games -- veteran developers of some of the more recent SOCOM series off-shoots -- infusing the current Resident Evil formula with a tactical twist and touch of multiplayer.
Operation Raccoon City has you -- and possibly three of your friends -- take control of an elite Umbrella Corporation squad tasked to infiltrate the city circa 1998, destroy any evidence of the T-Virus, and eliminate all survivors. As if slaughtering zombies and unwilling survivors wasn't enough, your crew will also have to deal with the unfriendly advances of United States Government special agents and their public funded weaponry.
The third-person, team based shooting action of Operation Raccoon City looks like a mix of SOCOM and Left 4 Dead. No complaints from me! Aside from the cooperative multiplayer campaign, Operation Raccoon City will also feature a number of competitive online multiplayer modes. With so many different sides involved in the battle within Raccoon City, online play could be really fun if done right. Hunk versus Licker versus psychotic armed citizen versus Leon Kennedy's wafting bangs. Let's dance!
Resident evil: Operation raccoon city, capcom, ps3, xbox360 | in news Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 12:12PM 
Goodbye Mega Man Universe, we hardly knew ye! Always a fan of classic Mega Man action, I was looking forward to this one. Not to say I was salivating and fighting back bouts of the shakes though. When I played Mega Man Universe at New York Comic Con 2010, it seemed like a flawed product, but it had promise. The create your own Mega Man angle seemed like a pretty neat idea, especially taking into account the broad range of characters across Capcom's library that could have been added in.
The official Mega Man Universe site states "various reasons" for cancellation. I wonder if this has anything to do with Capcom's serious lack of Keiji Inafune these days? Mega Man Universe was scheduled for release in Spring 2011 for PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Arcade. I guess Mega Fans will just have to keep their fingers crossed that the demise of Universe opens the door for Mega Man 11.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 1:47PM When Valve Software announced J.K. Simmons as Cave Johnson, the CEO and voice of Aperture Science in Portal 2, I thought "Oh, cool." That's it, just cool. But the more I hear Cave speak, the more I'm absolutely enamored by the voice and the choice. Simmons' unique sound and excellent delivery not only lends some B-star credibility to Portal 2, but he also plays the the role perfectly.
In this, the second of Aperture Science's hilarious "investment opportunity" video series, Cave Johnson details the ways robots are more trusting than humans. Well, he's definitely convinced me. Now, not only am I going to layer my house in lovely panels, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to ditch all my friends and replace them with robots. Thank you Aperture Science!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 12:51PM 
The world needs more four-player cooperative futuristic ninja games, dammit. Thankfully Square Enix has answered the call with Moon Diver, the multiplayer ninja platformer created by the man who may have pioneered the genre, Kouichi Yotsui, designer of the arcade classic, Strider.
Ninjas are an easy sell for me, as is four-player co-op. Pairing the two means I'd buy four copies of the game, which I may consider for my tight-pocketed friends. I understand some may not be sold on what to me seems like a complete no-brainer. For those of you on the fence, there are three items to sway you into a purchase: a demo which is currently available on PSN, a launch trailer which is considerately attached to at the end of this post, and a katana to the neck!
Moon Diver is out today on PSN for $14.99, with an unspecified XBLA release sometime in April.
moon diver, ps3, psn, square enix, xbla, xbox360 | in news Monday, March 28, 2011 at 4:42PM 
A few years ago, QWOP set the internet ablaze with Chariots of Fire, and an atrophied Olympian who faceplanted his way to what was perhaps one of the funniest free Flash games I have ever played. Everyone is a winner! Now the makers of the original keyboard-controlled hilarity has returned with more of that good stuff.
GIRP is the spiritual successor to QWOP, where instead of controlling an Olympian with involuntary leg muscle spasms, you control a ragdolling ginger whose carpet matches the drapes. Yes, orange pants and orange hair. Where QWOP strugged to run even half a meter down an Olympic track, GIRP is a real man. He toplessly climbs the mountain side with the elegance of Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, while fending off a territorial bird and the rising tide. Go GIRP, go!
GIRP is not NEARLY as difficult as QWOP (thankfully), but its accessibility, if you can call it that, makes it more addicting. I wanted to write this article hours ago, but I was stymied by the desire to see how far I could get GIRP. The screenshot above is my high score after an hour or so of practice. Of course, I promptly fell 64.3 meters to my untimely death immediately afterward. Come get some!
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 3:55PM 
I've got a massive cache of swag from PAX East that I have unsuccessfully tried to sell on the black market. Unfortunately, the demand for swag is low, but I was able to finance another year of OBG by selling a kidney. Having two is redundant anyway, isn't it?
I've got two or three for you to win, with included items such as posters, tee shirts, keychains, masks, postcards, stickers, you name it! If you want to get in on some swag loving, leave a comment below letting us know which game or device you're looking most forward to this year. Or, just say I want free shit. I won't hold it against you because honestly, who doesn't want free shit, right?
Winners will be chosen next Monday, April 4. Please remember to leave your email address as well, because what good is a winner without a way to contact them?
Good luck, snitches!
UPDATE: I got love for my international readers. Fair is fair, if you win, even if you're located on Planet Zebes, I will ship!
free, giveaway, pax east 2011, swag | in giveaway Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 3:04PM 
The title logo looks like a last minute add in. Foreshadowing?
After some initial hesitance, my romp through Castlevania: Lords of Shadow ended up being a relieving bit of fun. Sure the game had its flaws, but it was an enjoyable addition to the hallowed Castlevania series. When Konami announced two downloadable content packs for Lords of Shadow, I was happy to have reason to brandish the combat cross through some new content. The first of the DLC, Reverie, was released a week earlier than I expected, with no warning other than 'it's here!' That was all I needed to buy it, but was it a justified purchase?
castlevania, dlc, lords of shadow, ps3, reverie, xbox360 | in reviews Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:09PM 
On the first day of PAX East 2011, iam8bit said "Let there be a not-so-secret Brink secret event!" And there was Brink. And it was good. Convention goers may have been greeted sometime during their Friday romp around the Boston waterfront with a poster similar to the one shown above. Those lucky enough to find the location were greeted by over 40 stations running the sweet looking team-based shooter, as well as free pizza and drinks.
This was actually my first hands-on time with the game that might be tops on my list of can't-wait-to-play 2011 titles, and I was not disappointed. We were seated in groups and allotted around 30 minutes to go absolutely wild against our opposing team, which consisted of both human players and bots. Customization -- a huge part of Brink's allure -- was in full effect, however in my impatient eagerness to get on the battlefield, I completely missed customizing my avatar at all. I blame this on the fact that the group which played before mine didn't quit out to the menu after their game ended, the bastards. This may have been for the best though, as the options are so plentiful, I could have spent the entirety of my time allowed tweaking my characters appearance.
Thankfully, it was only my appearance that was a residual of the player before me. Once the match started up, I was able to freely switch between any of the game's four classes -- medic, operative, engineer, and soldier -- as well as change my two-weapon loadout. I'm sure what was available to us wasn't even all of Brink's unique weapons, yet the options were still staggering. I'd say close to 30 choices of primary and secondary firearms. At the outset, my modus operandi was to frag, efficiently and viciously. This worked well, I racked up the highest kill total of anyone in my game, however taking this route caused me to miss out on what Brink is really about; teamwork.
A quick selection wheel with a layout of all objectives is available at all times during play, allowing you to keep track of tasks, as well as marking one of them for a waypoint. Classes come into play for teamwork as well, with each providing a unique set of skills necessary for a squad to emerge victorious. The medic can heal and revive teammates, operatives can interrogate downed enemies to reveal the opposition on radar, engineers can buff weapons and create turrets, and soldiers can dispense ammo. Of the above, I spent the most time with the soldier because ammo seems to go fast unless you have a steady and controlled trigger finger, which I did not. Spray and pray, baby! The ability to replenish my own ammo, as well as my teammates' was invaluable. For any action which benefitted my group, be it a frag, a class-specific assist, or helping to complete a map objective, the team was awarded points, and I was awarded experience, used to further pimp out my avatar's clothing and weapons.
Look, you can listen to me talk about Brink all day and not be swayed, but let me share a story with you. My producer (responsible for the fine video you will find at the end of this post) hasn't been about a first person shooter since Halo 2. That's a long time ago, and it was the last time I saw him emotionally invested in the genre. He sat down alongside me to play some Brink, because why not, right? Well ten minutes later, he was screaming enemy locations into his headset and ranting about protecting our VIP escort from an accosting squad of opposing players. Brink awoke a beast I thought I'd never see again. How's that for results?
Have a look at some of what we saw at the secret event below. When you're done, you may want to preorder Brink before it's too late. May 17 is right around the corner, and when you're navigating with S.M.A.R.T., that corner comes quickly.
Produced and Edited by Mario Gonzalez
bethesda softworks, brink, pax east 2011, splash damage | in previews