Xbox 360 Features

The Top 5 Unintentionally Scary Video Game Characters

It is an undisputed fact that there
are some pretty horrific monsters in video games. These monsters were created
by developers with a specific goal in mind: Scare the hell out of the player.
Check out our feature on the most horrific
video game monsters to see this in action.

But sometimes, developers have no
intention of scaring the poor player, yet this is exactly what happens. The
original intentions of these unfortunately designed characters are lost on
players, as they are too creeped out to even comprehend the true nature of the
character. With this in mind, here are the top five Unintentionally Scary Video
Game Characters:

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet – Shadow Hunters DLC Review

We enjoyed Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet here at Player Affinity; its visual style, familiar-but-challenging gameplay and clever puzzles made it worthy of being one of the games featured in Xbox’s Summer of Arcade.  It’s primarily focused on a single-player, but came with a simple co-op multiplayer mode called Lantern Run that had players working to drag a fragile “Lantern” away from an unstoppable wall of death.  The new DLC, Shadow Hunters tries to combine elements of both game types into one experience.

Shooters You Should Play Instead of Battlefield 3: Bulletstorm

Sure, Battlefield 3: Near-Future Warfare has breathtaking graphics, great sound design and a host of gameplay improvements that make it possibly the most realistic shooting experience this side of actually joining the army and killing real insurgents.  But why would you play Battlefield 3, one of the dourest video games in existence, when you could hurl an energy leash thing at a bad guy, yank him off his feet into your boot, kicking him up into the air where you can riddle him with automatic fire before switching weapons and shooting a rocket up his backside?  Why indeed?

Shooters You Should Play Instead of Battlefield 3: Part 2

Why play Battlefield 3 when you can play Halo Reach? Why kill innocent human beings who happen to be shooting back at you when you can teabag kill bloodthirsty and ruthless aliens and save the planet…all while looking badass…IN THE FUTURE!

Play As Catwoman Now

Are you excited about Catwoman being playable in Batman: Arkham City?  What if I told you that you won’t have to wait until the Fall to play as Catwoman?  It’s true!  She’s already a playable character in several, mostly terrible games.  The feline fatale has a rocky history as a playable character, so before we all go into heat over Batman: Arkham City, let’s take a look at the Princess of Plunder’s cat-a-clysmic history in gaming.

Remember a few years ago when Ed Brubaker re-vamped the monthly Catwoman comic book into a film noir-inspired setting where Selina teamed up with hard-boiled detective Slam Bradley?  Yeah, that was cool.  You know what wasn’t cool?  Pretty much every other attempt to give Catwoman a solo series.  The worst of them all was the embarrassingly long-lived series from the 90’s. That book hired, then fired a different writer every year.  With the exception of Devin Grayson’s turn at the helm, almost every issue was garbage that sold only because of the sexy cover art.

Why Mass Effect 3 Doesn’t Need Multiplayer

It’s official that Mass Effect 3 will have a four-player cooperative multiplayer mode called “Galaxy At War”.  Details aren’t in yet, but many gamers are quite excited by the prospect of fighting the Reavers alongside other players, or engaging in the as-yet-unconfirmed possibility of head-to-head combat against their friends.  While this is enticing, it’s probably not the best use of Bioware’s resources, and even if the developer had as much time and money as they like, Mass Effect 3 still doesn’t actually need multiplayer.

Electronic Arts describes the multiplayer mode as putting “Players in the role of a team of elite Special Forces soldiers”. This sounds like shorthand for “A team of Generic Space Commandos”.  They’ll inevitably be described as“Highly-trained, Heavily-armed”, and poorly-written.

Batman: The Many Faces of Gotham’s Dark Knight

Batman’s first ever appearance in a comic book encapsulated perfectly the
essence of his character.  A dark,
mysterious vigilante, who dressed in a scary costume in order to terrify
criminals.  However, as the 20th century
moved on, later portrayals of The Batman diverged from this premise- sometimes
wildly, sometimes for the better.  There
are a number of different Batmen in different types of media, and the Batman
portrayed in Arkham Asylum (and its upcoming sequel, Arkham City) strikes his
own distinct note.

September Xbox Review Round-up

If you’ll turn Gears of War off for just a few minutes and pay attention, we’d like to tell you about some of the other games you could be playing now.  While you were out slaughtering locusts with your chainsaw, you probably failed to notice all the other great Xbox games that came out last month, so here’s our September Xbox Review Round-up.

Is the RAGE iOS Game an Accurate Preview of the Real RAGE?

In case you didn’t already know, RAGE, the first-person shooter/racing hybrid developed by iD Software and published by Bethesda, will be released tomorrow.  If you’re a hardcore iD fan, then you probably already know that the RAGE universe has already been established.  A little less than a year ago in November 2010, iD published an early preview of the post-apocalyptic environment with RAGE HD for iOS devices.  Not owning an iOS device at the time, I didn’t discover this gem until last week.  For $1.99, what does this iOS preview tell us about the imminent “real” RAGE?

Let me start by saying that RAGE HD is, in many ways, not comparable to what will hit consoles and the PC tomorrow.  As an iOS game, it’s designed to run for much less sophisticated hardware, so those of you expecting to see console-quality graphics and effects will be disappointed (although it does look fantastic for its platform).  However, RAGE HD provides us with plenty of hints as to how the universe will feel, look, and operate.

Caught in Spider-Man’s Web: A Look at the Developers Responsible for Spidey’s Success

Web-slinging superhero Spider-Man is
certainly no stranger in the realm of video games, as Peter Parker’s alter-ego
has starred in at least thirty games, from nothing but a red block in his video
game debut on the Atari 2600, to the soon-to-be-released Spider-Man: Edge of Time. As expected, the early Spider-Man games were developed by a
variety of developers, such as Sega and Capcom, along with a multitude of
lesser-known developers.