Duke Nukem Forever Has Gone Gold!

I never thought this day would come.  It has been announced that Duke Nukem Forever is done and gone to print.  Now it is only a matter of weeks until we can play the game that has been over a decade in the making.  There is no way it can live up to the hype monster it has become, but hopefully it's a blast regardless.  I can't wait to receive my Balls of Steel edition in the mail.

On a separate note, I was in a location in which I had no internet for a week (with work as an exception).   Apologies for the complete lack of updates.  I'll be looking to update at least once a week.  Thanks.

Zombie Week Redux: Wednesday - Plants Vs. Zombies

Many of you have probably already played Pop Cap's puzzle/defense game Plants vs. Zombies, but in case you haven't I'm here to let you know a bit more about it.  PvZ is a delightful game available for the iPhone, iPad, and PC/Mac.  The objective is to prevent the hilarious zombie horde from entering your home and eating your brains.  Your faithful friends, plants, are here to protect you.  You acquire sun power to help generate more plants to keep your home (and brains) safe.  The zombie characters are very well done, and the plants abilities and names are well thought out.  This is a game that I thought I would never enjoy, but became addicted to it like crack.  If you don't own it already, pick it up for any platform.  You do, however, get more content in the PC/Mac version of the game.  There are various mini games that you do not have access to in the iOS version.  Though no matter what you play it on, you'll have a blast.

Zombie Week: Tuesday - Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising 2 puts you into a world where the zombie apocalypse has already happened once.  You assume the role of Chuck Greene, a man who only has his daughter to live for.  Chuck lost his wife when the zombies came, and lives with the feeling that he could have done more.

The game takes place in Fortune City (a little Las Vegas), and you start off on a zombie killing game show.  The undead have become a part of normal life, but they are contained..... err, were contained.  The game begins with another zombie outbreak (a la 28 Weeks Later).  Chuck is desperate to find his daughter.

The name of the game is very much the same.  If you have played Dead Rising, the sequel will make you feel very at home.  You fight your way though the strip and through casinos to find medication for your daughter, save survivors, and complete missions.  Dead Rising 2 allows you to combine weapons on a workbench to create more durable and powerful weapons.  It doesn't seem to get old slaughtering zombies with a baseball bat with nails driven through it.

You can beat, smash, slice, and chainsaw your way though your foes.  The goal of the game is to keep your daughter alive, and survive 3 days until the military arrives for support.  You can do this all by yourself, or with a friend.  The co-op aspect of the game helps to bring a lot more replayability to the game.  There is also a mode to play the zombie reality show "Terror is Reality".  In this mode you must complete various objectives throughout, and achieve the highest score.

All in all, Dead Rising 2 is a great zombie game.  Since it is no longer brand new you can pick it up on the cheap.  Dead Rising 2 is available for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Zombie Week: Monday - Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2 is a phenomenal zombie game.  It puts you and three of your closest friends against a world full of the infected.  You fight your way through the American south using shotguns, rifles, sub-machine guns, and an assortment of melee weapons.  You must stick with your friends, or face certain death if you choose to go it alone.  Whether you play the game solo, or online, you have three other players at your side.  Playing the game in single player mode has your friends controlled by the AI, where as online you can play with other living, breathing human beings.  This is where the fun starts.  The game has the ability to make your experience vary each time you play it.  I'll get into that more in a bit.

There are a few different ways to play L4D2.  You can play solo with computer pals, online with friends, and competitively playing the Versus game mode.  No matter which mode you choose, you'll be playing through the same campaigns.  There are swamps, cities, and neighborhoods to fight your way through the zombie horde.  You have between three and five chapters to make it through in each campaign.  The goal of each chapter is to make it to the next safe house.  Within the safe houses are weapons, ammo, and health packs.  Once in the safe house you can not be attacked.  Nick, Ellis, Coach, and Rochelle are the personalities you'll be playing as in L4D2.  Each have their own distinct personality which you'll come to know as you're being overwhelmed by the living dead.

Left 4 Dead 2 has more than just your standard, run of the mill, zombies.  There are "Special Infected" in L4D2. These are zombies that appear to have mutated in some way or another.  These mutations act as unique traits and abilities for the Special Infected.  They consist of the Smoker, Spitter, Charger, Boomer, Jockey, Hunter, Witch, and Tank.  The Smoker has a long tongue that it can use to constrict the Survivors from long distances.  The Charger will pick you up and ram you away from your friends, and pulverize your squishy pink body into the ground.  Oh, and you'll know the Tank when you see him.  While playing the Versus game mode, one team plays as the Survivors, and the other as the Special Infected.  The goal of the Survivors is to make it to the safe house, and the goal of the Special Infected is, you guessed it, killing the Survivors.  Just as the Survivors need to stick together to survive, the Special Infected must attack as a team to succeed.  No one Jockey can take on four survivors alone.

The game now has eight different campaigns to play through.  Each campaign varies in the time it takes to complete.  They last between 30 and 60 minutes depending on the difficulty, and the number of chapters.  The way that the game stays interesting is because of our friend the "Director".  The Director pays attention to how you're playing the game and how well you're doing.  If you're breezing through the game, the Director will throw some more zombies your way.  If you're having a hard time of it, it might back off a bit.  This helps keep the game fresh, and ensure that you never play a level the same way twice.

Did I mention this game has zombies?  Oh, it has 'em alright.  Loads of them.  Zombies as far as the eye can see, and it never seems to get old fighting your way through them.  I highly recommend this game if you enjoy playing with others.  This game is best served with one or more friends, but recommended with a full team of four.  Though you do have the option of finding other zombie slayers, like yourself, randomly online.  If this remotely sounds like fun, pick up Left 4 Dead 2 on the PC, Mac, and Xbox 360.  Check back tomorrow for the next featured game of Zombie Week.  Happy zombie killing.

Talking Plush Portal Turret

Picture is capture from original video source.

Two Portal fans by the names of Jonathan Guberman, and Leigh Nunan, created an amazing plush Portal turret.  It also needs to be said that this squeezable gadget is interactive.  It will respond to you picking it up, toppling it over, or moving within its view.  Check out the video link and see for yourself.  Now if only these went into production.  I'm sure people like me would be throwing their money at it.

Gears of War 3 Beta Access For Pre-Orders

For all of those who have pre-ordered Gears of War 3 at GameStop, beta access begins today.  This begins a full week after beta access was given to those who purchased Bulletstorm.  Correction.  For those who purchased Bulletstorm on the Xbox 360.  There is a webpage put together by GameStop that details all the information about the beta.

Gears of War 3 looks to be heaps of fun.  I'll have to stop by a friend's house to check out the beta, and chainsaw someone in half.

Gearbox Helps a Fan Propose

A video recently surfaced online that depicted a character from the game Borderlands, helping a fan propose to his girlfriend.  It is a minute and a half long, and is rather entertaining.  It is awesome to see a game developer do something very nice for a fan.  There are links to the video itself, and to the response from the bride to be.  Kotaku has details on the back story.  Ahh, love and video games.  Here's to Gearbox, and to the happy couple, Ben and Tora.

The Making of Portal 2. There's an App For That

Recently on the iTunes App Store for the iPad, there was an app released called "The Final Hours of Portal 2".  This app is an interactive book, if you will, for the iPad.  It provides you with back story on the developers, and the processes behind the making of Portal 2.  

You get a pretty good look into the backgrounds of the developers of Portal and Portal 2.  It also delivers a great interactive experience.  There are polls, photos, and videos.  There is so much jam-packed into this app.  Some may argue that content like this should ship with the game, but for $1.99 you won't find any complaints from this gamer.  

To pick up your own copy of this app, click here and enjoy.

How I Fell Back In Love With PC Gaming

One night in December of 2006, I cruised around the local Best Buy with money to burn.  I was 22, had a new credit card, and was looking to put it to work.  I decided to spend $399 plus tax, on an Xbox 360.  What led me to my purchase, was a recent history of my gaming pc having problem after problem.  I was sick and tired of troubleshooting driver issues, re-installing games, and reformatting and doing a fresh install of Windows XP.  I was doing what I swore I would never do.  I was giving up my mouse and keyboard to be a console gamer.  I knew that at least with a console, I wouldn't have to worry about anything.  You put the game in the console, you play the game.  Done.  I simply wanted to spend more time playing the game than troubleshooting it.  I got my wish.  The experience was simple.

The coming months were bliss. I played hours and hours of games on my new Xbox, and I cared about my Gamerscore. It seemed that my new love affair would never end. I was playing Crackdown when disaster struck.  There was artifacting on my screen, and a loud beep came from my TVs speakers.  I then was witness to the "three red rings of death".  I was sad, yet simultaneously happy.  I was sad because my new console was broken, but happy because I knew that Microsoft would foot the bill to fix my new companion.  I filed my claim with Microsoft on the same day, and they sent me a box to send back my defective Xbox 360.  The turn around time was somewhere around two weeks, and I was back to playing all my new games.  I was back to my console gaming lifestyle.

Months later Rock Band entered my life.  My time spent playing my Xbox 360 skyrocketed.  I was obsessed with the game.  I played so much that I had made it up to playing expert drums within a few months.  If I'm not mistaken, I also did not have a girlfriend during this period of time.  It was also during this period of time that my Xbox 360 broke yet again.  I had the same speedy, and friendly service from Microsoft.  Another box.  Another two weeks.  Back in business.

This cycle would go on to repeat itself three more times.  They kept replacing it with the same generation Xbox that was known to fail.  I have had six Xbox 360s since 2006.  My last one broke a bit over a year ago, and has been broken ever since.  The last one was not the red ring issue that was covered under Microsoft's warranty.  My particular issue is that it simply will not read discs.  It tells me to place my Xbox 360 games into an Xbox 360.  It is rather infuriating.  I refuse to pay Microsoft $120+ to fix my sixth broken unit.   This was no longer the simple experience I was looking for.

What was a man to do?  I plugged in my old PC, installed Windows 7 and Steam, and caught up on some of my older games.  I came to realize that some newer games would still play fine on my aging machine.  It seemed that my whole time playing console games, PC games hadn't become that much more demanding on computers.  I was up and killing zombies with Left 4 Dead.  I was building sentries and capturing intelligence in Team Fortress 2, and questing in World of Warcraft.  I was also re-connecting with my PC gaming friends.  As time passed, I became decreasingly upset about my broken Xbox.

Since then I have added a few upgrades to my machine so that it could be my Hackint0sh/Gaming PC.  My experience has been much the same on my PC as it was on my console.  I now can just install, and play.  I don't seem to have the same issues I used to.  Maybe it is because Windows 7 isn't a steaming pile of crap.  Many games even support an Xbox 360 controller, which is great for my casual games, or for times that I want to sit back in my chair and put my feet up.  The PC gaming experience has become much more streamlined, and accessible to the average user.  PC gaming is also a cheaper hobby than its console counterpart. During my adult, console gaming years, I also began to see that you are charged for everything.  Any download content that would be free to the PC community, was between $5 and $20 for console gamers.  At the time I thought it was an ok price to pay for the simplicity of everything.  I dumped a lot of money into Rock Band DLC, and other various upgrades and expansion packs for my other games.  Now none of this was accessible. Games are also cheaper at launch for the PC/Mac platform.  There are new sales on Steam every week.  Overall it is a more wallet friendly platform.

The lure of console gaming still exists.  In fact I still want to purchase one of the new Xbox 360s so that I can play Rock Band 3.  I still have friends on Xbox Live to earn achievements with.  That day will come soon enough.  In a way I do feel fortunate that my Xbox broke when it did.  I have enjoyed a lot of games with friends and strangers that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to otherwise.  I appreciate how far PC gaming has come.  It is not dying like many claim.  It is in fact thriving, so please speak up if you are with me.  I raise my mouse and keyboard to you.

Moving Science Forward

Since the First of this month there has been a lot of a buzz within the gaming community.  Gaming websites and forums everywhere have been littered with posts, or advertisements for Portal 2.  This is a game, that for many, needs no introduction or explanation.  If you don't fall into that group, it's ok, I'll catch you up.

On April 1, 2011, The Potato Sack bundle of games went on sale on Steam (a digital method of distribution for computer games).  This began the ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that was created by Valve Software to promote the release of Portal 2. (more about the ARG here)

Now, the good stuff.  Portal 2 is a fantastic game.  The characters, environments, and dialogue are incredible.  If you enjoyed the first game, you may find yourself grinning quite a bit throughout the sequel.  For fans of the first Portal, Portal 2 does not disappoint.  The new elements added to the puzzles are a very welcome addition.  In the first game you had your portal gun to get you from point A to point B.  Now you must use your environment and Gels that are hiding deep within the Aperture Science Laboratories.  Portal 2 adds a propulsion gel, and repulsion gel.  One helps you take flight by bouncing you into the air, and the other assists you in speeding along the ground to build momentum.  The learning curve isn't too steep if you're familiar with the first game, but it might offer a bit more of a challenge to someone who is completely new to the series.

Level design in Portal 2 is done rather well.  It truly feels as if you are in an abandoned research facility.  Windows are shattered, panels are falling from the walls, and vegetation is overtaking the facility.  Computers, turrets, companion cubes, and rubble are strewn about.  There are even hidden rooms to find with cryptic writings and drawings on the walls; all of them trying to give hints as to what used to be, and what is now.  The puzzles are clever, and at times you'll think they're impossible.  You do experience a few different environments, and the pacing for the levels feels pretty good.

Dialogue in Portal 2 will keep you engaged throughout the entire single player game.  It's great to have GlaDOS back wishing death upon you, and to have Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant) bumbling along, helping you through the facility.  Cave Johnson (voiced by J.K. Simmons) is the founder of Aperture Science, and you hear recordings of his voice periodically throughout the game.  He tells you about past test subjects, and the need for danger in scientific research.  "We do our science from scratch."

The gameplay of Portal 2 can be summed up into one word: Fun.  This game will definitely warrant more than one play-through.  You'll want to go back and look for things you may have missed the first time around.  There is so much to look at, that if you beat the game in less than 8 hours on your first go-around, you surely have not seen it all.  The completion time varies for lots of people, but it would be fair to say the game is between 6 and 10 hours long for the single player campaign.  Portal 2 also offers a co-op experience.  In the co-op campaign you play as either Peabody or Atlas.  You have to work with a friend to complete the puzzles.  You can't just leave it to your friend to do all the work; it actually takes real cooperation.

Portal 2 will continue to steal my time in the coming months.  Hopefully it will do the same for you.  The videos below showcase some of the game elements, and the voice actors as well.  Go play the game, or buy it.... for science of course.