Video Games

PSN and Retail Releases for the Week of 8/8/10

Playstation PLUS content returns this week with free versions of the PSone classic Syphon Filter, an hour long trial of Red Faction: Guerilla and the latest episode of Qore. Syphon Filter dealt with themes like bioterrorism and clandestine government agencies and was one of the better stealth third-person shooters available when it was released back in 1999. Red Faction: Guerilla effectively reboots the Red Faction franchise into an open-world action game. A free hour is more than enough time to experience the game’s most impressive feature— fully destructible environments. Episode 27 of Qore continues to keep you updated on all things Sony and even includes a demo of Ter-Rover.

Paragon Studios Giving Away Tickets to PAX Prime

Big things are afoot in the City of Heroes.  Their new expansion pack Going Rogue is just around the corner.  It will feature the obvious graphical upgrades (i.e. Paragon City is shinier and more shadowy), and also has four new power sets. The Dual Pistol and Demon Summoning power sets have been available for months to people who pre-order, but there are two others: Kinetic Melee and Electric  Control which will become available on launch day.

Claptrap’s Are Taking Over Your DLC

“Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution invites single-player and co-op fans back to try to suppress a deadly Claptrap revolution using one of four infamous vault hunters. The foursome find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a deadly civil war between the Hyperion Corporation’s well-armed armadas and the ever-amassing army of homicidal Claptraps led by one of the most eagerly awaited characters in the franchise’s history – the cunning Ninja Assassin. As vault hunters, players must put aside their past differences with the Hyperion Corporation, namely the organization’s repeated attempts to wipe them from existence. For a hefty payday, they will join forces to help beat down the mechanical uprising and thwart the dastardly kung-fu expert, the Claptrap known only as Ninja Assassin.”

Yet more DLC for Dragon Age

The good folks at Bioware are making games faster than I can play them.  My Steam account tells me that I played Dragon Age for an embarrassingly long period of time, and that was just with the stuff that was available when it first came out.  Even with the enormous amount of time I spent fighting the Darkspawn and avoiding bisexual elf sex, I did not do anywhere near everything that could be done in the game.

StarCraft 2: Expansion Speculation

Just in case you’ve been away for a while (as in very, very far away, away from any kind of communications device), StarCraft fever has been sweeping the gaming community. StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty was released two weeks ago after over a decade of eager anticipation to critical and commercial success. Wings of Liberty is only part of the story, though: one third to be precise. The StarCraft universe contains three races: the Terrans, Zerg and Protoss, and Wings of Liberty only covers the Terran front, campaign-wise. The StarCraft 2 model is thus: Wings of Liberty, as the first release, contains the Terran campaign and full multiplayer suite, and two expansions will be released to add Zerg and Protoss campaigns. Very little is known at this point about the two expansions, but there are small nuggets of information plus a lot of speculation – so here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting.

Mafia II Demo Released

2K games have released a demo for the upcoming action-adventure-shooter, Mafia II. The demo is available through all appropriate channels, carrying a surprisingly small filesize of 940MB. Mafia 2 is the long-awaited sequel to 2002’s Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It will be set in the fictional American City of Empire Bay, a mixture of New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Set between 1945 and 1955, Mafia 2 will follow the story of WWII veteran Vito Scaletta (no doubt a reference to Vito Corleone, Marlon Brando’s character in the Godfather), as he joins a gang in order to pay off debts left by his father. The game will feature authentic weaponry, clothing, cars and music, all in a ten square mile, fully explorable, area.

Respawn: Bully Scholarship Edition

Hello and welcome to Player Affinity’s new Video Game feature, Respawn, where we will take a game released around two years ago, and give it a short write up. Describing how well it holds up, deliver it a short review, and finally say if we recommend playing through it again or not.

It doesn’t really matter your age, gender, or race; we’ve all been picked on at one time or another. Bully is a game that puts you in “that guy’s” position. That guy, the guy you always wanted to be, being kind to the Nerds, kicking the Jocks’ asses, getting all the ladies, and managing to egg a few cars along the way. The entire actual concept of Bully is an excellent one, but it’s the execution that isn’t always the most impressive thing.