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.
It’s too easy to give video games bad press these days. Society often finds itself passing the blame for a lot of today’s problems onto the media, and in particular, video games. Enter delicious irony. A recent experiment has found that first person shooter video games can improve the sight of adults afflicted by cataracts, so keep counting up those kills in online FPS games!
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?
Surprise! As if you probably didn’t figure this out already, Activision plans on releasing yet another entry into their Call of Duty franchise in 2012. But really, this comes as no surprise, as seemingly each new incarnation of the popular FPS breaks sales records annually, and usually the very records that the previous game set. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has reportedly made the gaming giant more than a billion (yes, the “b” word) dollars already. It shows no signs of slowing down either, and many are speculating that this year’s entry will be a sequel to Call of Duty: Black Ops.
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.
