Video Games

Halo Reach Defiant Map Pack Review

Well it is official; the Defiant Map Pack is the last hurrah
for Bungie’s involvement in the Halo series. They officially have moved on to
Activision and have fulfilled all of their contractual obligations of
supporting Reach. That being said Bungie’s involvement in this map pack is
minimal with the majority of the work being done by Certain Affinity under the
supervision of 343 Studios, the internal Microsoft studio that will now steer
the Halo franchise. The results are surprising and offer perhaps some of the
best maps available thus far for the shooter.

Interview with Michal Marcinkowski – Part 1

I recently had the chance to ask Michal Marcinkowski, the
creator of Soldat and currently the developer of Link-Dead a few questions over
the web. This was quite an honour for me, as Soldat is one of my favourite
games of all time, and I am fervently awaiting the full release of Link-Dead.  Link-Dead is a 2D side-scrolling team multiplayer tactical shooter set in a post-nuclear War setting.

Weekend Sales Thursday March 17th

Steampowered.com is selling Darksiders for 75% off and that brings it down to ten dollars from now until Monday.  Steam also has numerous other games marked down, the highlights of which include all of the Oddworld games for half off, everything in the Victoria franchise, and all four episodes of Winter Voices for $2.49 per episode.  

Under the Radar: Games You Might Have Missed

I am a known supporter of smaller indie games and developers. Now, lately, a lot of games have hit it big on the market (comparatively at least), such as Super Meat Boy, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the big one: Minecraft.  Despite all of these “blockbuster indie” titles, there are still plenty of great smaller, lesser-known titles that you probably have never even heard of, each of which deserving every bit as much praise as the former games. I’m going to recommend a handful of fun, quirky, and cheap titles that will help you fill that time between the blockbuster titles you get every major season.

Activision Announces New Wipeout Game For Kinect

Activision announces new Wipeout game exclusive for the Xbox Kinect. Activision is in partnership with ABC Entertainment to bring Wipeout In The Zone to Xbox Kinect players this summer. This is the first Wipeout game to come to the Xbox; the first Wipeout game was a Wii exclusive. Wipeout In The Zone
will feature all of the obstacles you enjoy from the TV show. Of course
the big red balls are back along with the Smack Wall Sweeper. 

Wipeout In The Zone
will also feature commentary by John Anderson, John Henson, and Jill
Wagner. This time the whole family will be able to take on obstacles,
unlike the Wii game that only had 2 player co-op. The press release also
says that the game will have you running, ducking, and dodging. The
game has over thirty different obstacles to race through while trying to
complete each challenge without wiping out.

First Arkham City Gameplay Trailer

The
latest trailer for Batman:
Arkham City features
the first footage of actual in-game action and shows off a few of the
Dark Knight’s new moves. The trailer also reveals a few new faces in
the game franchise, as they appear in the story, and includes a few
recycled ones as well.

Total War Retrospective

The
Creative Assembly was founded in 1987 and was known for many years
among gamers for its sports games. But in 1999 it began work on a new
kind of game that would mix genres in an experimental way and allow
gamers to explore an exciting historical setting. This game became Shogun: Total War. In the decade since then, The Creative Assembly has received numerous accolades for the Total War series and with the release of Total War: Shogun 2 this week, it seems suitable that we take a look back at the franchise’s humble origins.

Shogun: Total War was first announced in 1999 and then released in June the following year. It combined real-time
tactics and turn-based grand strategy to give gamers a unique breed of
strategy gaming that they hadn’t encountered before. The game was set
during the Sengoku period of Japanese history and received a strong
positive response. The game was also successful enough to warrant the
development of an expansion pack by the name of “The Mongol Invasion,”
and both this expansion and the original game were published by
Electronic Arts.