I got to play a lot of Left 4 Dead over this past thanksgiving day weekend, so it is safe to say I have a fresh addiction to all things Valve again. Little did I know I would be teased this morning with a trailer to a Half-Life 1 remake titled Black Mesa. The remake is not an official Valve title, but rather a Half-Life 2 mod that only requires you to have one source engine game installed from Valve’s content delivery system, STEAM.

Check out the trailer.

Check out Black Mesa’s website to read up on the development blog and check out high resolution screens of the game. The address is blackmesasource.com

Oh and also, since it is not an official Valve title, that means it is free to everyone. Woot!

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

So lately, there’s been talk of a new MMO coming out based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The new game from developer Bioware, takes place about three hundred years after the KOTOR I and II games. The game will feature a different kind of art style which won’t be totally realistic but at the same time won’t be very cartoonish either.

As shown here:

The idea behind this type of art work is that they want a type of artwork that sets this game apart from other MMO’s. Also, the theory is that this way they will be able to run the game on many different machines without sacrificing graphics.

Another thing that I found interesting in Kotaku’s article on this was that the game is going to be very story oriented. Unlike other games which just have missions for the sake of missions, this game is going to have stories set by classes. Every class will have its own unique story that can be played out in various ways. No two people will have the same story this way, at least in theory.

You also get a companion character or a few of them throughout the game and you the way you make your choices influences the way the characters around you react. They’ll either encourage your behavior or flip out when you do something like if you were to say, Force Lightning a character to death.

Also the game will tie up some loose ends from the first two games, if you’re looking for it. Bioware doesn’t want to rub that in people’s faces if they’ve never played them before.

As per the true KOTOR way, you’re neither good or evil in the beginning. You choose a faction off the bat: Republic or Sith. And from there your choices throughout the game will ultimately influence your path to the light or the dark sides.

I’m really looking forward to this game coming out and I hope you are too. As always faithful readers, keep it here for more information on The Old Republic. Same Nerd Fellowship time, same Nerd Fellowship channel.

Good news fellow portal fans! “Portal Prelude”, the official prequel to Valve’s highly popular game Portal has been released.

Now the game is not an official Valve release, but rather a fan mod that adds content to the original game. So you will need Portal and Steam installed on your computer.

The great thing about the game not being an official Valve game is that the creators have to give it away for free.

So you can download it now by navigating to the URL below

http://portalprelude.com/download.php

Portal Prequel is a PC ONLY based mod. Xbox 360 Portal owners will just have to live vicariously through youtube videos.

As most of you know, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed came out yesterday on all the consoles (and hand held gaming devices), and from what I have seen across the web, it has been getting mixed reviews. A lot are saying the story is great but the game play lacks reply value. I just wanted to get the community’s thoughts. So answer the poll below and discuss the game in our forums by clicking here.

*Note* I am talking specifically about the console versions PS3 / Xbox 360

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Star Trek Online, also known in the near future as “STO” has finally been revealed in the October issue of Game Informer magazine with 10 pages of exclusive coverage. YAY FOR GAME INFORMER!

Check out the awesome new flying fryin pan you will be socializing in. Now complete with orange glowing strips.

I am a little curious as to how adventuring will be done. I assume not all of the gameplay is spaceshiped based and that you will be able to journey off to planets and raid giant borg rubbix cubes.

Check out Game Informer to get the details on STO, and girls…prepare to have more time to contemplate why you stay with him.

[via kotaku]

I remember back in the day when I was tripping on the idea of making my very own RPG with the RPG Maker software. I made full landscapes and established all the characters I wanted. Then I stopped bored, and never finished it. But maybe my creative desires will be sparked again with this upcoming game creator called Atmosphir, or rather Atmospheerrrr if your a southern rapper.

Atmosphir allows you to create platforming based 3d worlds. Kind of like other map editors, but much more in depth. Check out the videos below.

It reminds me of a cookie cutter PS1/N64 platforming game, but with polished edges. I am not sure if you can change your character or not, but everything else in the games seems to be changeable.

The game will be free to download for Mac or PC by the end of 2008, but you can sign up now for the closed beta and you might just be lucky enough to try it out. Click the URL below to check out more videos and sign up for the closed beta.

http://atmosphir.com

[via kotaku]

So I had a chance to play Spore this week and SecuRom aside, it’s not a bad game at all. You start off as a tiny one celled organism and as you devour other cells and pieces of other cells your creature grows by filling up a progress bar. Also as you eat them and find meteor pieces you manage to acquire new parts to add to your cell at the cost of DNA points. You do this by mating your organism with another organism and then you add new parts to the next generation of cell until you have filled your progress bar up and you get to move on to the creature phase.

In the creature phase, you give your creature legs and move up on to dry land where you build nests and lay eggs. A few of your adaptations from cell phase don’t work here so you’re forced to start killing off weaker animals to gather up new parts to adapt your creature, giving it a better chance at surviving (Or in my case, turning it into a killing machine to rule the land). From there, after you fill your progress bar, your brain grows, leading your creature closer to sentience. When your brain is big enough, you move on to the tribal phase of the game.

In the tribal phase of the game, your creatures use their new found sentience to establish a stone age civilization with crude tools like stone axes for example, which are sharp rocks tied to sticks. Your creatures stem from a central hut which lays eggs at the cost of ten food a piece and you now hunt and gather, bringing your food back to the village instead of ripping pieces off to bring your health back up like you did in the creature phase. In this phase, the progress bar is filled by either making friends with neighboring tribes, or destroying neighboring tribes. Which ever floats your boat, it’s a great time to be had.

In the civilization phase you get to choose one of three methods of managing your city: Military, religious or economic. The game is pretty straight forward at this point. You create your city and basically try to conquer other cities through one of the three ways to use. Religion converts the city, Military conquers it, and Economic allows you to establish trade routes until you can eventually buy the cities. It was pretty cool. I got to send out some mechs and make a gun boat archetype to patrol the ocean of the planet.

In the space age phase, you pretty much control your planet through which ever means you chose. Your mission is to expand throughout the stars and meet new races and colonize new worlds. It was thrilling for me because when I took the second set of creatures out into the galaxy to meet people, the first race I came upon was my first race that I had created. You can establish trade routes to gain more money, form alliances with other races and even go as far as to terraform planets into habitable worlds. I actually had the chance to terraform a world myself and it was pretty neat. You create an atmosphere and then bring plants and animals from your world to that world and do what needs to be done until the colony lowers it’s shield and the people can survive without the shield.

One of the neat things about most of the phases is that you cannot die. Your cell is replaced by another one as you go on and your creature is replaced by hatching another one as well. This is great because it lets you get used to the game without having to worry about game over. It’s hard to die in the third stage too because you can only die if your hut is destroyed. If your whole tribe gets wiped out, you get to make a new set of tribal people from eggs at the cost of 10 food a piece. In the space age, if your ship gets destroyed you end up getting cloned and they rebuild your ship for you.

It has its draw backs as well. Like SecuRom, as was mentioned in the article written by Matsuke. And a few flaws here and there like the fact that four legged creatures aren’t faster than two legged creatures for example. But really those flaws I found in it don’t take away from the game that much. Over all the positive outweighs the negative aspects of the game.

I really enjoyed playing this game in the couple of days I’ve had it and frankly, I give this game a Gold Cylon.

To continue the latest and greatest news from Apple’s Let’s Rock event in San Fransisco, here is the rest of our summary. Click here to read Part 1.

• 4th Gen iPod Nano:  Looks like the checker-shaped Nanos did not fly with everyone. So Jobs and Co have decided to revert back to the domino-shaped iPod Nanos, but now with some extra bells and whistles. The new Nano does in fact go back to it’s predecessor shape but now has a nice slick oval shape to it, making it feel much slimmer in your hands.

The new Nano also includes a 2 inch widescreen display that uses the Nano’s accelerometer to flip your viewing angle depending on how you hold your Nano. The widescreen will offer better viewing for movies, videos, and album cover flow (shown below).

The Nano will also include game support and a shuffle feature that allows you to physically shake your Nano when you want to skip around to a random track.

• 2nd Gen iPod Touch: Not all that much has changed with the latest iPod Touch model.  Aside from the physical features like volume controls and built in speakers, the iPod Touch has included the Genius feature (see previous article to read up on Genius) and Nike Sensor support. The latest model also has a slight change in design with a new curved stainless steel back, much like the 3G iPhone (but with steel instead of plastic).

That is basically it to sum up the highlights of the Let’s Rock event. Steve Jobs brought out musician Jack Johnson to sing a couple of songs and the event ended. Word is that Apple stocks have dropped a few points as investors were disappointed that no new products were introduced, but rather new models of already low selling products.

Thanks for holding out for Pt. 2, guys.

*NOTE* OMG MOTHER FLIPPER! My internet died while saving this article so everything past iTunes 8  was lost. Let’s call this part one, I will update you with part two tomorrow morning.*

It was another huge day for Apple, as the electronics giant threw another event called “Let’s Rock” in San Francisco. Lets go over what the event highlights.

1. Steve Jobs is not dead, and he wants you to know that.

Ok, that is all.

What?

No seriously, that is the only highlight of the show. Sure they talked about music and stuff, and some sufer guy did a couple of live songs…but nothing really worth talking about.

Fine! I will talk about the small details since you are on your knees begging.

• iTunes 8: The latest in iTunes software offers up some unique features. The biggest being a new feature simply called “Genius”. Genius allows iTunes to create playlist off your music library based on other iTunes user playlist across the world. Basically iTunes recognizes trends in user playlist and if you have a similar library as John Smith over in New York, it will recommend his “Best of Elton” playlist to you. iTunes 8 also includes a new library layout view called “grid”. It is an alternative to the list, grouped, and cover flow layouts. Grid view lays out your library by album cover only.

Along with Genius and Grid View, iTunes 8 will include new HD TV shows and “Enhanced Accessibility” (or as I call it “Handicap Features”), as well as a new and improved Visualizer with 3D scapes.

Hopefully the video above will let you forgive me for this excuse of an article.