With Starbreeze’s Syndicate hitting shelves this week, many gamers will be fantasizing about how cool it would be to become a cyborg. But if there’s anything we can learn from cyberpunk stories it’s that augmenting the human body with machinery can cause more harm than good. With that in mind, here are some video game cyborgernetic augmentations that players are better off not getting if they ever become real.
Back in the early 90’s, the first person shooter was just getting started with games like Wolfenstein 3D, and DOOM. If you made a game about a team of gun-toting cyborgs it wasn’t going to be anything like a modern FPS. The original Syndicate from 1993 was about heavily-armed cyberpunk troops, but it was a tactical, real-time strategy game shown from an isometric view. Gaming technology has finally caught up with the ideas behind the series and the new Syndicate game out this year is, in fact, a first person shooter.
Adventure Games have a tough time in the modern market. With their emphasis on story-telling, intellectual challenge and tried & true mechanics, the genre is a hard sell for audiences that continually seek better graphics, online multiplayer and “The same, but MORE” gameplay. Still, there are several prominent developers who specialize in this genre, among them is Pendulo Studios . With series like Runaway, and last year’s The Next BIG Thing to their credits, they are known for light-hearted projects, but their upcoming game Yesterday is taking the series in a new direction. A creepy direction. Player Affinity got the chance to try out a few chapters of the new project and explored the beginning of this dark storyline.
“Felicia Day in Dragon Age blah blah blah blah”. That’s what many people will see when they look at the cover of this DVD. The cute redhead from The Guild? In a live-action Dragon Age movie? That’s enough to sell this DVD to plenty of consumers. But what about all the other people who might enjoy this compilation of the swords & sorcery webseries? Is there enough justification on the disk to warrant the purchase of something that can be seen on the internet for free?
It’s Valentine’s Day again, but this year we all know what we’re really excited about…The release of Bioware’s Mass Effect 3 demo! Who needs crummy love songs and romantic meals for two when you can sit in, get your geek on and sample one of the most anticipated games of 2012. So in light of this, here are some of the many loves of Commander Shepard.
It’s Valentine’s Day, and if you don’t have special someone in your life, you can at least experience some virtual romance by living vicariously through video game characters. While most games focus on killing bad guys and gathering loot, a few take time to add in romantic subplots. Whether it’s rescuing a princess, or earning the love of your cute-yet-tough sidekick, here’s my list of the best video game romances.
Bethesda’s latest video release has left Skyrim players across the globe ecstatic. In the video, Todd Howard, creative director of Bethesda, shows us footage from their Skyrim game jam; a week of fun in which developers get together and experiment with new ideas for Skyrim. They were given just one task: “Do what you want, and put it in the game”. You can see what they got up to in the video below.
Video game journalism is having a bad week in terms of ethics. Days ago it was announced that G4 and IGN host Jessica Chobot was secretly in the cast ofMass Effect 3 even while she was reporting on the game. Last night Harold Goldberg the founder of the NY Video Game Critics Circle was presented with an award from his own organization for Best Video Game Book, beating out authors like Neal Stephenson and Jane McGonigal.
It’s been 13 years since the release of Jagged Alliance 2 for PC, and if you were a big fan of the game, Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is a recreation of the popular sequel. JA puts you in control of a group of mercenaries with real-time action replacing the turn-based system of the original game. Death is permanent. If your mercenary dies, you will never be able to access the character or the equipment again unless you reload the mission.
You’re going to hear a lot about Dear Esther this year, if you haven’t heard of it already. You will probably hear about it as the object of scrutiny in a renewed debate about what makes something a piece of interactive art rather than simply a video game. Although I cannot solely decide what makes something art, what I can say is that this game is beautifully created, and perfectly remade.
