Just a small bit of news coming in for fans of Ender’s Game.

The Game
Anyone who is familiar with the work of Orson Scott Card should know of his book Ender’s Game. Now I have read almost everything dealing with the Enderverse, yeah that’s what he calls it, so a while ago Chair Entertainment announced that they again are working with Mr. Card, but this time they are working together to make a game that is based off of Ender’s Game. So far there aren’t that many details about the game but it will be developed using the Unreal 3 Engine, and it will be centered on the Battle Room.

The Movie

As above, whoever is familiar with the Enderverse may or may not know that they are currently working on a script for a movie that is based on Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. According to IMDB the movie is currently “In Production.”

That’s all the info we have now, but check back here periodically for more developing news.

Unfortunately at the time when 50 Cent’s first game came out (50 Cent: Bulletproof), I was unable to obtain it due to lack of funds. Not that I was in desprate need of it, I just wanted it for the “LOL WTF” value.

It seems god has given me a another chance with 50 Cent’s second venture into gaming: “50 Cent: Blood on the Sand”.

And what is the plot to this delicious mix of rap, gangsters, terrorist stereotypes, bullets, rockets, and more rap? This is what gamespot.com has listed under the game’s synopsis.

“50 Cent and G-Unit are hunting down the gangsters who stole their diamond-encrusted skull.” Yeah…that’s it.

Now watch the preview.

That’s how gangster 50 Cent is. You steel from him, and he will come to your country and take on your whole terrorist cell. Solid Snake ain’t got nothin on Fiddy.

The “NEW XBOX EXPERIENCE” as everyone is calling, will be coming in just a few days.  The NEW XBOX EXPERIENCE will bring a completely new dashboard and the ability to create personalized avatars. Some what like Miis from Nintendo Wii, but….with more than 5 polygons. For those of you who have been anxious to see how avatar creation works with the NEW XBOX EXPERIENCE, simply check out the video below to get your answer.

PS3 owners will have to wait until Duke Nukem Forever is released to access PlayStation Home.

[via kotaku]

So, before we begin, I assure you this article is 100% genuine. An inmate in South Carolina by the name of Jonathan Lee Riches, infamous for his long, handwritten, rambling and scornful cries of injustice against the famous, the wealthy, and even structures, has really outdone himself. Filing a Third-Party motion in the federal court of Arizona in the MDY VS. Blizzard botting case, he claimed that he had actually become addicted to the game, becoming unable to remove himself from it. He blamed Blizzard for his choosing World of Warcraft over the World of sunshine and healthy air. Now, this wouldn’t have been an issue, had he not committed fraud in order to afford his living expenses and the purchase of the ‘defendants’ games. All i have to say is, w.t.f….

^Photo of super nub^

It’s been two years to the day since the release of the quintessential xbox 360 action shooter, Gears of War. With it’s gritty style, it’s tactical ’stop and pop’ game play, and it’s brutally violent kills, the game quickly became a cornerstone of the current gaming generation. Now, with the release of Gears of War 2, questions will be answered. What happened to land Marcus in prison? What has happened to Dom’s family? But most importantly, how does this game stack up to the original. Well, I can answer that last one no problem. “Nice!”

Opening with a quick training sequence, the player will meet up with some familiar faces, along with a few new allies. The game wastes no time jumping into the thick of it, plunging you into a crumbling hospital infested with hordes of locusts and a few nifty new ways to take out half a dozen of them in one shot (you’ll be looking at fuel tanks in a whole new way). It barely takes forty-five minutes before you find yourself aiming your fire arm at multiple brumaks and more than a few reavers. Enough of the story though, wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite.

The game looks great, there’s just no other way to put it. While the first installment was no slouch when it came to graphics, the sequel packed on some pounds in the texture department. The city streets look even more run down and deserted than ever thanks to the amp’ed up textures of dirt, cracks, vines and what have you. The imulsion glows brighter and more vibrantly than ever, and the explosion of a body is twice as visceral as ever before. Up graded particle effects and destructible environments create an even more hectic feel as you catch a glimpse of the red, glowing tip of your enemies barrel. The new shading and blur effects also help to convey the rapid play style.

As for the controls? Well, simply put, Gears is Gears. Thankfully though, there have been improvements. The movement is a bit speedier, getting rid of those ‘oh come on’ moments that we all had in the first game. The cover system feels tighter and much more reliable (those ’sniped while under cover’ moments are all but gone). Oh, and as for mobile cover? Well you’ve got rock worms, cars, tables, giant metal shields, and oh yeah; other people. After downing an opponent, should you reach them in time, a simple press of the A button will take them from helpless victim, to helpful and very mobile cover. Grabbing an opponent is no longer all that easy though, those little buggers can crawl pretty darn fast (and leave an awesome trail of blood) by simply mashing the A button. Should you feel that you’d much rather simply end their suffering, well now you can do it in style. Every face button is now a different kill style. A grabs them up and creates a handy shield, B is just a good old fashion weapon dependent melee, X nets you a bloody curb stomp, and Y engages you in an MMA style bare knuckle beat down.  As far as I can tell, the Bull Shit, or BS, is pretty much gone from the online. No more shots with a shotty just to get melee’d a second later. The game just feels tighter over all, a much welcome improvement.

Speaking of the online, multiplayer is down right fun. There are new game variants to be played. These include Guardian (an altered version of ‘assassination’ where team members will respawn until the team leader is killed, in which case it turns into warzone.) Wingman (essentially a warzone style game with teams of two.) And last but not least, my personal new favorite, and the most hilariously frustrating game type, meat flag. This is essentially CTF with one little hitch, the flag is pissed and has a shotty. Using the new ‘meat shield’ feature, you (or a team mate) must down and drag the individual that has been deemed the ‘flag’ to the designated zone. In-case you were wondering, yes this game type is as ludicrous as it sounds. But the biggest and probably most bad ass new mode has to be horde. This mode is exactly what it sounds like. You and up to four friends will be going face to face with wave after wave of increasingly powerful locusts, good luck my friend, good luck.

There are, of course a few other new features added to the game this time around. New weapons are as follows. You’ve got the ’scorcher’, a flame thrower with a ridiculous range. The ‘Gorgon Pistol’, a new locust pistol that is essentially a mid range shot gun of sorts. And the new and improved ‘hammerburst burst’ rifle, which has traded in the three shot burst firing style for a meatier ak-47 style shot. The chain saw duels have also been tweaked. Now you’ve got a fighting chance, mashing B may very well turn the tides of battle. Some of the maps are also interactive, from avalanches that change the very terrain, to razor sharp ice storms that spill death from above, the new multiplayer maps will be throwing you for a loop from time to time.

The game is great, fast paced and epic as hell, I loved playing it and the ten hour career mode is pretty evenly paced, BUT, I do have a couple of complaints. The controls in the vehicle portions of the game are clunky and unresponsive, leaving you saying ‘thank god it’s over’ as apposed to ‘aww is that really it?’. There is STILL that damn lag with the textures more than occasionally and while not a game-play problem itself, it’s a bother in such a graphically intense title. A few frame rate issues just add to that last thing. The match making can be a little slow at times.

The good: Pretty much everything, Epic as hell

The bad: nothing a few firm ware updates can’t fix, for the most part

Graphics: 9

Sound:9

Game-play:10

Multiplayer:8

Replay Value:9

Overall:9.7

Close to perfect, but not quite. Go buy it, you won’t regret it

I’m sure by now all you PlayStation 3 owners have already ran to the store, beat threw a couple people and picked up your copy of Little Big Planet. This adorable little game has been making shock waves in the game industry and its pretty obvious why. The game carries a great story, concept and most importantly, great user-created content. The reason I bring this up is because while surfing the web, I found this cute little video!

While I admit its clever, cant we all get along? Whats with this big console war? PS3 has Sackboy, the 360 has Master Chief and the Wii…well..I don’t know. Mario?

So I was spending some quality time with a few friends earlier, and while keeping tabs on the election, one of them decided to put a DVD into the Xbox called ‘Dokuro Chan’. At first it appeared to simply be another kawaii stylized harem anime based on nothing save the sexual embarrassment of an easily victimized young boy with a seemingly absent sex drive, and I am thrilled to say I was very, very wrong. From the first five minutes, this show makes little to no sense, and does it extremely well. While not usually a fan of the simple, bishoujo animation style the show uses, it does work well with the atmosphere.

The plot follows a young man in junior high who is oddly named Sakura (yeah it confused the hell out of me too), who is endlessly and mercilessly stalked by an angel sent from the future to kill him, this is where it gets good. The sole reason that his death has been deemed necessary by whatever forces that may be is utterly enjoyable. While creating a form of immortality he somehow stunts the aging of every female in the world at the ripe year of twelve, subsequently creating a world rampant with pedophiles.

Of course the story wouldn’t be complete if the angel sent to kill him weren’t an emotionally attached, and rather unhinged, post pubescent twelve year old with homicidal tenancies. I would explain more but I really think you all should simply experience it for yourselves. It’s different, it’s weird as hell, it’s worth at least checking out. On a scale from one to ten, I would have to give it a solid nine simply due to the extreme WTF factor. It’s got plenty of fan service and more than enough hillarity to last the entire series.’Dokuro Chan’ officially gets an OK from me.

Animation: 7

Story:8

Voice Acting:8

Fun Factor:10

Overall: 9

This Smooth Nylon Shrimp must be a descendant from Ryu.

Who knew such a tiny creature could release such awesome Hado!

“HEY VEGTA, WHAT DOES THE SCANNER SAY ABOUT THE SHRIMP’S POWER LEVELS?!”
“ITS OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Ok, sorry for the lame post…but wasn’t that video awesome?!

[via albotas]

Listen, I’m a huge Call of Duty fan, hands down, but I’m an even bigger zombie fan. So when I found out that the new Call of Duty: World of War would include a co-op zombie slaughter-mode, I nearly wet myself…seriously. Over the weekend it was released to the public that after players completed the games campaign mode a co-op zombie slaughter-mode, similar to that of Gears of War 2’s “horde” mode, would be unlocked.

Four players will be faced with an unlimited onslaught of zombies in a dark, extremely creepy building. Players will have access to a variety of weapons and will be able to board up open windows in order to avoid their impending doom. Most excitingly for some of you hardcore COD4 fans is the return of the infamous Last Stand mode. When knocked down by a zombie, you will enter last stand mode and fight the zombie invaders from your back. Friends can revive you, but depending on how far your in, that could prove to be  extremely difficult. Well, I’m gonna go start prepping for the zombie apocalypse . Resistance is futile. Peace.

So I picked up a copy of Far Cry 2 this week and boy am I glad I invested in this game. Aside from being an excellent game from a game-play standpoint, it looks spectacular when you turn up the graphics on the PC (and looks amazing on the XBOX, though the PC settings can go higher than that of the console if you have the processing power). Only issue I had with the game thus far was the day I bought it. When you go to start the game for the first time you need to register the game with your cdkey. Problem was that the validation servers, on the day of the release mind you, weren’t up and running yet. So I actually couldn’t play the game for a short while. Solution? Serial Bypass from a very special someone. Made me quite mad that I had to use a crack for a game I bought though.

Anywho, Far Cry 2 changes things up for those who have played the first game. This time the game takes place in an Africa without the mutants and Government research of the first game. Instead, realism was the goal. This includes the real time weather and time-of-day systems, zero loading times between areas (everything is loaded as you travel so no area loading times, even between indoors and outdoors), realistic damage to vehicles you’re driving (they don’t just blow up anymore), and realistic damage dealt to NPC’s (Non player characters to those of you unfamiliar with the term) and yourself, which means you’ll find yourself digging bullets out of your arms and legs pretty often as well as trying to put out that fire you lit and accidentally burned yourself with!

*****WARNING, POTENTIAL SPOILERS*****

You start the game, as with most games, selecting your character. Yes, I do mean “selecting” as there is no character creation process for single player, but you can select from a group of 9 playable characters. Every selectable character will be found in game (minus the one you select of course). All of them can be befriended, or killed, all based on decisions you make, but I suggest saving them if you can. Once you select the character you want, it will cut to a semi cut-scene after you’ve stepped off a plane and get in a “African taxi” (AKA Jeep). You can look around while you’re driver is talking to you and taking you to your destination (hence semi cut-scene). He explains the situation in the country and how much of a mess it really is, and at some points while driving you can see how much of a mess things are with all the mercenaries and soldiers there. As you arrive into town your vision begins to blur and you slump over in the cab. When you wake up again, you still feel sick (and you can see that visually as a blurring with cells shaded in at the edge’s of the screen, which is a pretty neat effect) but you’re in your hotel room, don’t expect a Hilton either folks :P, as someones going through your briefcase and throwing papers everywhere. He grab a particular paper and begins walking over to you reciting its contents. Long story short, he is the guy you’re there to kill, but you’ve caught malaria. He figures you for dead, makes a point of the fact that your going to die, and he leaves. Meanwhile you pass out again from the sickness. When you awake again, it sounds like a war zone outside with gunfire everywhere. An explosion rocks the hotel outside your door as you try and get up to grab your gun in hopes of escaping whatever is outside.

Now you can survive outside and escape the town, but I kind of died outside and even if you do escape, you pass out outside of town and get picked up. I personally don’t like using the front door in any possible instance so I happened to jump out a second story window onto some rooftops to escape. Yeah….that failed a little bit. Six or Seven men with assault rifles vs you with your little pistol are pretty good odds, but not with malaria constantly blurring your vision over. Needless to say, I “died” but was rescued by some folks on the “good side” of the war.

So, once your rescued and all that junk, you find yourself owing some favors to an army officer for one of the two factions at war. Completing these missions will earn you some daimond’s (the currency in this country as paper monies useless) and your freedom from him. Meanwhile, your still sick and need to find some medication somewhere.

*****YOUR CLEAR OF THE OPENING STORY NOW, YOU CAN READ THE REST :3*****

Now that your done with that guy, your free to explore the rest of the game and do mission for various people and such (theres a little more to the intro missions but thats going into too much detail to be honest. All you need to know is that your stable at this point). At first you might be a little lost as the game doesnt tell you specifically where to go, but as you find agents and buddies and such to help you out and run missions for, the game progressively gets faster paced (as you choose, you can take as much time as you want between missions and who you do them for as well as how slowly you do missions, so the game could potentially be a bit slower for some folks).

The games pretty fun. You can play however you wish, either stealthily killing your enemies with a machete, silenced pistol or a sniper rifle (though you need to change positions a lot when sniping, else they find you), or simply getting on a jeep with a mounted machine gun and parking somewhere advantageous and gunning down the inhabitants of an outpost, choice is really yours. If your playing on Infamous (thats the stupid hard setting btw), I suggest stealth, as you go down only taking 2 direct hits to the torso or head. The games pretty huge to boot. Takes probably 10 minutes to drive across the map in a straight line in a dune buggy, though thats nearly impossible to do cause some one somewheres gonna be on a patrol and your gonna be in a car chase at some point. I’m not saying it *might* happen, I’m saying it will happen! Each faction has guard posts and checkpoints that send out routine patrols via jeeps or cars. They are going to attack anyone that isn’t aligned with their faction (and at the start you really aren’t aligned with any faction). So it makes for a hectic car drive at the very least!

Getting around is pretty simple. Either walk, take a vehicle from one of your safe houses, or (my favorite) stealing someones vehicle at an outpost. Cars are much faster, but attract attention of people around you as you travel, so sometimes its better to walk that 4 kilometers then it is to try and drive it. Movement controls (on the pc) are easy enough and pretty straight forward controls on the XBox version (explains everything in the beginning). There are a system of buses that you can take to travel around the edges of the game world and to the very middle of the game world, so they don’t get overused by the player. Basically they go to the four corners and each runs to all the other bus stations as well as the neutral zone/town in the middle of the game world. Aside from that, there isn’t any other way of getting around. Its all getting yourself from point A to point B which makes for a fun time in Far Cry 2.

Controls are very easy to learn on the Xbox, and on the PC they are simply customizable, though I used all default controls. The game teaches you everything you need to know at the start of the game as you progress, so there really shouldn’t be any problems learning how to play. Only control the game doesn’t teach you is the running slide, which is probably my favorite way of avoiding bullets! While running forward, hit the crouch button and hold it. Your character will slide across the ground for 10 or 15 feet before getting to a crouch and keeps running again. REALLY useful for getting past corners while taking fire! Accidentally found out that one while trying my damnedest to get behind a rock and avoid AK fire!

The Buddy idea is pretty neat too. In the game are all the other characters you could have chosen to play as at the start of the game. Most of them have to be saved from various things around the map (randomized, they aren’t always in the same situation each time you play. One guy I found was laying near a downed airplane, had to go over and revive him with a med kit I happened to have on me), and they become your friends (or enemies) when you help them out (or work against them). You can, alternatively, simply kill them, though that doesn’t get you too far in the game. It’s still possible to complete the game but you miss out on lots of missions and side quests or (as your best buddy does) the mission alternatives for each factions. Your “Best” buddy will give you alternate ways of completing storyline missions, giving you the option of simply doing the mission the way you were assigned it, or changing things up a little to make it easier to complete (or harder as I found out a couple times).

Your second best buddy is basically your guardian angel. He follows you around on occasion and saves your ass when you go down from serious wounds and such (he/she is basically the occasional extra life in a way). To be Honest there was a lot of times that my buddy was available for missions where he can come and save you that I died on purpose just to watch him come in cut-scene-esque and basically ooze awesome. My Buddy is the big russian guy in his late 40’s. That man radiates awesome in my own opinion! When you do go down and your buddy can save you, you’ll awaken in a fuzzy discolored haze while he’s attempting to help you stand up, you watch him fire his AK at near-by enemies with one arm, then he continues to pick you up to move you away from the fighting so you can heal yourself. Best thing is, the scene you see in the semi-cutscene is almost always different and is based on the situation your in.

Hell, first time it happened, I woke up to him picking me up, killing a baddy with his AK one handed, dragging me a little ways away. The enemies followed him while he attempted to move me, so he drops me in the second section of the semi-cutscene, only to pull out his desert eagle and start dumping the clip firing as fast as he can at them! He empties his clip and hastily picks me up again moving me YET AGAIN to a safer place behind some rocks. He is STILL firing at some bad guys that followed us even there, this time with a shotgun while I can now fully control myself (and need to pull some bullets out of my left leg). He sticks around until the areas clear to boot. Second time that happened was totally different and had about 6 or 7 of those mini cutscenes. Now I just abuse that and use him every time I have a mission!

Now, there are TONS of weapons to pickup and buy in this game. I mean LOTS! Hell you can get to a point where your special weapon is a mortar, so that should give you an idea of the variety. You can shell an outpost or enemy patrol before they even know where you are. The currency in this country is rough daimonds, since paper money is pretty much worthless (you know, there being a war and all). Gun dealers can be found every here and there where purchases can be made to upgrade weapons and buy new ones. All the weapons you buy are kept in an armory located next to each weapon dealer (once a weapon is bought its stored at every armory you visit). Once bought, you never need to pay for the weapon again. If you lose it or your weapon degrades to the point of rusting (which makes it more prone to jamming and such), simply visit the armory and grab a new one off the wall.

OverView: Far Cry 2 is story based game as I have come to realize. There isn’t really much worth doing aside from missions (unless you simply want to rampage, but even rampaging’s a bit slow). Driving around and raiding guard posts can be fun for a while, but gets old after a couple days and exploring is about on the same par. Missions on the other hand, are quite fun as they give you a purpose as your out there fighting through checkpoints and car chases. The large variety of weapons guarantee’s some destructive fun and working up the money and missions to get them all takes some time as well. Storyline missions are awesome fun. Anywhere from breaking out of jails to being kidnapped, the storyline is great. Improving reputation with different characters and your buddies adds some more playability to it all as well.

Good

- Lots of missions, nearly endless

- Gorgeous game, amazing environments

- Aggressive AI that can actually think

- Engrossing Stroyline

- Great Game Mechanics

Bad

- Roaming around gets old quick

- A number of High Ground area’s are not accessible, shrinking the actual map size

- Had to crack the game when it came out AFTER I BOUGHT IT (I hate validation servers)

SCORE: 8  /  10

I’d give Far Cry 2 an 8/10 for amazing graphics, decent gameplay, and an engrossing story.

Far Cry 2 is out for the PC, XBOX 360, and PS3