Fake box art Steam has recently added several free-to-play games to their store that use in-game purchases to make money. Since my primary computer has been my Macbook, I was happy to see one of the initial five released ran on both PC and Mac and decided to give it a run with fellow Bitpuncher Rich Matney. Spiral Knights was a fun but confusing and flawed experience that gamers that might be s...
The first Puzzle Agent was released around this time last year and combined Professor Layton -esque puzzles with a dark and twisted story of the unimaginable place of Scoggins Minnesota. Nelson Tethers, a Puzzle Agent working with the FBI, was sent to Scoggins to investigate the strange locals and why the Eraser Factory has mysteriously stopped production. Telltale Games reeled me in with the f...
With E3 kicking off in a couple of hours, I wanted to go ahead and get my weekly post out of the way before I start yammering on about the same things that literally every other gaming blog will be covering. Konami has actually kicked off the show early announcing a new IP but what people mostly took away from the show was the fact that Konami wants you to buy their old stuff. That and the fact...
My favorite picture taken on my Chicago trip So this week will be a very short update. I spent the weekend in Chicago, photo blog incoming, but did manage to play one game on my travels. Super Stickman Golf is currently my go-to game on my iPhone. SSG is simply a great golf game that has been creating a lot of buzz on twitter. I downloaded it when it was available for free but is now .99 which...
Squaresoft was a major part of my childhood growing up. Knowing for Christmas or my birthday I had a 40+ hour RPG present waiting for me to divulge into was all I wanted. Every month, my excitement grew more and more for each game they developed as I flipped to the RPG section of my GamePro magazine and drooled over the two or three new screenshots they provided. Their games helped me become a...
Assassins Creed Brotherhood More AC:B this week. Just finished memory 7 of I think 10 so will hopefully finish this up soon. The story is continuing to be great and really has me excited for Revelations . I had the motivation to collect everything but now I’m ready to just finish the game and be done with it; my backlog is growing and I need to move on. Also need to try out the multiplayer in t...
So not much of an update this week, except for Assassins Creed Brotherhood ; a game I’ve been meaning to play for quite some time and am just now getting around to playing. In short, the game has exceeded AC2 in every way so far. The inclusion of having assassins fight with you is easily the coolest thing about the series, and I’m hoping they keep it in for Revelations . Rome is huge with lots...
A rumor about an Alan Wake sequel was thrown around a couple days ago after an employer put the title on his resume. Now Joystiq has reported that Remedy released a statement promising details in the coming weeks (E3 I’d imagine) but would not call it Alan Wake , nor is it downloadable episodes for the first Alan Wake . “Fans of the franchise will be excited to learn that, yes, more Wake is com...
So here I sit reading the latest on this whole PSN debunk that it “should” be up before the end of May. Now the latest shows Sony disputing this rumor not offering any clarification in the slightest. Sony is in a world of trouble currently and not knowing any details on what is going on is hurting my judgment even more. This isn’t a post to bag on Sony for not handling this situation well at al...
I’ve recently gotten some hands on time with Crysis 2 ; a game I knew nothing about but wanted to check it out for the suit mechanic and graphics. I am a fan of FPS games and shooters in general and was much looking forward to playing this but after a couple hours I’ve lost all interest I’ve had with Crysis 2 . I have been playing a ton of shooters lately, mostly because those are what are comi...
Various sites were running articles yesterday about leaked Mortal Kombat DLC characters. Yes, these are characters that will not be available for the game that is still a month away but will be available sometime at a later date for a small price. We all know how companies are looking at DLC as a way to keep making money once gamers have initially paid the $60 price but it’s still irritating to...
Monster Tale (Nintendo DS) I’ve been excited to get my hands on this game for quite a while once I learned it was like a Metroid style game from the creators of Henry Hatsworth . Hell, I really liked Henry Hatsworth for a while until the difficulty got a bit too much for me then decided to put it down. I feel like Monster Tale will be the same way but for a completely different reason. The game...
Before I begin, I must state my experience with the MMO genre. I’ve seen older titles like Everquest played for several hours. I’ve logged a couple hours into WoW , but the style of play just wasn’t for me. I spent a day updating Final Fantasy XIV, but was never able to join a server. I’ve never deeply invested myself into an MMO, but I do have an idea of what they exactly are. Being an old sch...
Homefront (Xbox 360) This was the main game of focus this week in which I plan on writing up a review of it soon so I’ll keep this short. The campaign was fine but only around five hours and I didn’t care much for the characters. The multiplayer seems fun but i didnt get much into it due to server issues and it being a hassle to deal with. I’ll give a more thorough explanation in my writeup lat...
I figured I would ask a larger community this question. I see their are many community podcasts but was interested if anybody else would be interested in doing a podcast. If so send me a message or reply to this blog post and ill send you details. This is not me trying to promote an external site (although it will be hosted externally) but just more of a way to see if people would be interested...
2010 has been a hell of a year, but although we have had a slew of great content, there are still though things that come up a bit short. Here are my top five disappointments of 2010. 5) Medal of Honor Hey everybody, let’s make a game that will put Call of Duty to shame and force them to innovate their game and help drive the industry forward. How are we going to do that? First, let’s make a si...
My week of gaming will be more scattered than most weeks where I have a consistancy to what I’m playing. Despite my thoughts on Splatterhouse, I really need to power through the game and get my opinions up of my thoughts. Sadly though, the load times after death plus how brutal the game can be in spots makes for a rather uneventful experience. Couple that with a protagonist that I care nothing...
The Spike VGAs were last night which if you are not in the loop of things is an attempt to mainstream video games by making an award show. While this sounds like a great idea to help bring more people aware of the culture behind the largest entertainment market around, its execution is so horrible and makes me cringe every year. The only good thing to come out of these events are the exclusive...
What i'm currently working on With the end of the year coming up, I’ve decided to get my ass back into school. I’ll be attending IUS for a computer science degree in which I haven’t worked toward in over a year; no studying up on Java, assembly language, or anything else I might need. This puts me in a bind especially since my next class will need me to know Java or C++ in and out as well as wo...
Call of Duty Black Ops is upon us, most of us , and we are already trying to decipher where the next entry is heading and who will be holding up the project. Will it be headed up by Infinity Ward and be Modern Warfare 3? Will it be handed off to Sledgehammer and be put during another war that has yet to be captured? Or will we end up with space fighting alongside Master Chief and Marcus Fenix h...
Created by the developers of Fruit Ninja, Monster Dash is another iPhone game I never see myself deleting from my Phone. This simplistic yet hardcore game has you barreling through rooftops, jungles, and other scenarios while avoiding obstacles like mummies, spikes, and the dreaded walls of death, which is what I like to call them. Halfbrick knows what gamers want to do with their iPhone, easil...
I couldn't find a proper pic so here is a random one for you to enjoy Last week, a discussion was brought up on Twitter about embargoes and if they are good or bad for the gaming industry. You might not like the thought of developers and publishers making journalists either promise or sign papers stating they won’t let their audience know about their product until the date specified but it stil...
This happened to me yesterday as I was lost in the vast world of Mass Effect. It appears one of the creatures I was shooting at glitched into my vehicle thus creating it to spin on an axis uncontrollably. It went on for a while before i grabbed my phone and captured it. Anybody else have any freakouts like this happen in Mass Effect?
The latest multiplayer trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops was released yesterday; what a bummer that trailer was. I have a lot of respect for Treyarch and think they do a hell of a job at making video games. Some gamers write them off as a weak developer since they aren’t Infinity Ward but I still believe they are a solid company that has their hands on some amazing tech and can go far with it...
I’ve had an extraordinary thought while playing Deathspank… Not really but I do want to say that humor in games have never cut it for me. I’m currently playing through Deathspank which I’m quite enjoying but the “funny” parts of the game I’m feeling are a major distraction to what’s actually good about it. Deathspank’s voice is nerve wracking and is strikingly similar to Captain Qwark of Ratche...
Hello, I think I would like to start a little week in gaming segment where I discuss what I’ve played and also talk about what else I’ve been up to. The week really started out with me buying my first one month of WOW. I really wanted to try it and figured now that my PC is decently running I would give it a shot. I can easily see why people would get addicted to this game as it is not only mas...
I catch myself more and more scoping out the app store seeing whats all for sale finding the new hotness of the week. It’s becoming quite a problem actually and my bank statements are always filled with $.99 and $1.99 transactions. I have around five games I never see myself deleting from my phone because I keep coming back to them; my bathroom buddies so to speak. If you haven’t played one of...
Out of all the consoles and download services they offer, my favorite will definitely be going to XBLA. Sure, I like some of the different types of games on PSN but hardly ever surf what the Wii offers; XBLA is something I watch week after week. This service makes a killing in profit according to the Research & Analysis division FADE (forecasting & analyzing digital entertainment.) FADE reports...
I recently blogged about wanting to try my first MMO and I’ve decided I really want it to be on a PC. The rig I got is decent but it needed a graphics card and a fresh install on Vista (don’t want to pay for Windows 7.) Everything seemed to go well with the fresh install but I noticed a very major problem; it won’t connect to the Internet. After messing around with it all night I decided to tak...
Here is a little list I wrote up of things that really annoy me about gaming. 5. Games that claim to be real Think about this, how often have you played a game and thought “this really does feel like I shot somebody.” I understand games have car physics down and whatnot, but it never replicates “that real feel” they all claim to have. Just stop it already, I play games to escape reality, not fi...
Their is a debate I’m having with myself on the Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2. The first Mario Galaxy game was simply amazing; I basically ran a marathon in that game and got all 120 stars in about a week. The Wii I had that save file on along with 35+ hours of Twilight Princess is gone, not getting into how it’s gone but it’s gone. I can tell people like I just did above that I got it but I hav...
This movie is absolutely not for the lazy thinker, as Christopher Nolan forces the watcher to keep track of multiple variables at once. Inception’s concept is so diverse, they literally explain what is going on almost through it’s entirety. In it’s two hour twenty minute run through, they squeeze in so much info and explain everything in great detail it’s almost too much to remember, almost. Wi...
Final Fantasy XIV Online Logo I have never experienced an actual MMO before and I plan on starting with the newest entry in the Final Fantasy universe. I understand people still play stuff like WOW and FFXI but I want to try and catch on with the “new thing.” I have some concerns about it though that I need some advice on. For starters, the time factor comes to play. I game a ton of different g...