WcS Anjo the roaring side of gaming…

The Swedish game developer Ludosity Interactive has released their latest installment “Bob came in Pieces”. Another edition to the casual gaming market.

Ludosity Interactive believe in making serious games that will last a bit longer. It’s not about using the latest tech, that will look old within a year. It’s not about making “me-too games” that want to be like its bigger brother. We make games with lasting appeal, based on fun core mechanics, fueled by the creativity of the You, the gamer. – Ludosity interactive

Bob works at a call center. Like any intergalactic being that possesses superior technology, he needs to pester people while they eat dinner to sell them some crappy subscription.
(I am glad to see that some things never change in the not so far distant future). Either way, you are on your way to work in your little inexpensive spaceship. He tries this new route that is supposedly going to cut traveling time. Alas he finds himself in peril when entering an asteroid field, loosing control over his heavily damaged ship and crashing on this little convenient planet.

Surviving the ordeal, he finds his ship utterly useless and the important space travel parts scattered all over the place. Now Bob has a new objective. Knowing very well that he will be late for work, he has to focus on getting of this stinking rock. To succeed he needs to piece his ship back together again.

It doesn’t get simpler then this.

That is where you come in, the gamer, our hero!
The controls are simple that even a space chimp can figure it out, (up) (down) (left) and (right). What you do is maneuver your little ship around various obstacles. Evidently this planet is like a giant ant farm. Your first mission is to land on one of these (!).

No little ship! Stranger danger! Run for it!

Other then that the first chapter helps you get used to the control, scenes and kill some very valuable time. Music is decent and the graphics are as expected by a simple recreational game. It’s not annoying in any way and actually quite pleasing. The functionality reminds me very much of Pixel and Axel, during a mini game (in a mini game) where you flew a balloon like thing through caves.

That’ll do pig, that’ll do

Chapter 2 teachers you how to fly through crates. For some reason this uninhabited planet learned how to build boxes. There is no health bar so you don’t have to worry about crashing all over the place. Evidently you can slam right into a mountain wall and not break your little ship, but asteroids are a different story all together. So far all this game is telling me is to move things around and overcome obstacles. So now we can assume that this is a Casual Puzzle game.

As I enter chapter 3, you get the possibility to use the parts you found to expand your ship in a way that will help you overcome other obstacles. It’s simple enough, you grab a piece, twist it around till it fits and off you go towards more large boxes.

No function to put in super mega destroy the planet mega ray? 

It’s a charming little installment and one thing that I actually respect about Ludosity is that they released new maps for this game, for free!! So you get the game for $10 and they release more maps for it…for FREE!!! Do you hear that Xbox ? For FREE! You don’t buy half a game and alter have to buy MS points to be able to buy the rest of the game online. These people have some human decency!

Don’t worry baby, i’ll be gentle..

Minimum Specification PC
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: 2.4 Ghz or equivalent processor
Memory: 1GB System RAM (2GB recommended with Vista/7)
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
Graphics: 128mb video RAM and Shader Model 2.0
Hard Drive: 500mb or more free space
Sound: Windows compatible sound card
Input: Keyboard and mouse
Note: The GPU need to be at-least as powerful as Geforce 6600. Please try out the Demo first to make sure the game starts.

Link to the Demo:

http://www.ludosity.com/downloads/BobInstallDemo1.4.exe

Arr mateys!

Let me tell you about the game East India Companies directors cut!

I was expecting high seas giant battles rare trading and exotic ports, and what did i get? I got great boredom, giant headaches, rare revulsion and exotic angry. Yes a game actually made me angry, a rare feat indeed.

I tried to like it, I hopped into the game with high expectations and really really wanted to play the game. Always enjoyed pirate movies and played a couple of games in that genre I thought i could get into this.

Already in the tutorial I was thrown off.

Graphics are mediocre, game play is confusing, boring and I could not really get into the game. Maybe it was that in the tutorial I had to take down a Swedish ship, coming from Sweden myself I felt like hey, why the swedes? What have they ever done to you Englishmen (tutorial chose Englishmen as company to try out), bully the Danes instead.

They were the ones that attacked you and occupied you during the viking age.I still killed the swedes after I figured out how to get my men to fire, didn’t see that default setting when attacking was to not attack. so while it took 15 min to get to the ship in full speed and full sails, as I got in position and I was ready to fire. Finally, I was thinking to myself Cool kill kill kill!!

.. but nothing happened. I searched feverishly to find the fire button, all in vain mind you! I was more like, what the hell. A while later it finally revealed itself! A Glorious shoot at will toggle, that was a tiny button that only come up when you have your main ship highlighted.

Anyway, I finished the tutorial and started my campaign. Let’s trade I thought, I got one ship and headed for India… and I was the first player there too, [B]happy times[!!/B] Now what can I buy?

There was a lot of spices so let’s click on buy… lets click on buy… LETS CLICK ON BUY!!!

I got the money and I got an empty ship but for some reason I can’t buy wares to take back to the home port. Maybe I need to conquer the place. I arranged an attack with my other ship, it took many in game months to get there but as it arrived, I went loose and continued till the place was mine! Yay!
I have an Indian town, now to buy my wares.

I clicked to buy… I CLICKED TO BUY!!! I can’t even buy from my own people.
OK, since I lost my fighting fleet to the city in order to keep it I built a new one and some more trading ships.

They all look the same  And I do not mean that in a racist way!

Checked out my warehouse and bought everything to later sell to other country’s. How do I put it on my new ships? It seemed that if you buy it, it doesn’t go to a place to put it on your ships, no it just sits there. When I finally got some wares on a ship, I took the ship to the nearest port that trades and tried to sell… and if you read this far you probably know were this is going, nowhere was there a way for me to sell my stuff.
At this point I said bonker this and shut down the game.
Maybe I don’t have patience with this type of games or maybe it just doesn’t deliver on it’s category, but I will not play it anymore. If you’re in to real time strategy and time consuming trading games, this might be something for you, rest of you out there… don’t bother.

The game is made by Finnish company Nitro Games and Paradox Interactive is the publisher. It was released the 31 June 2009 so it has been out a wile. The game probably will be gone and never heard of in a not to far future and according to me it will not be missed.

Now were is my old Pirates game for Amiga…

Other opinions:

As a fan of naval wargames, historical strategy and economic management games, Paradox Interactive’s recent East India Company seems custom made for my enjoyment. – IGN

The game itself can sometimes be pretty confusing to people, especially to new players, and even more so to people who are new at real time strategy games. This game would be almost impossible to learn without the tutorials.

The graphics in East India Company did not impress me at all. They were ok at times, peaking during cutscenes. The port views of the game were better than the look of the main view. – joystickradio.com

New York, – June 7, 2010 – Yesterday 66 years ago, Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy on their way to victory and the end of World War II. In 2010, Paradox Interactive leads a figurative attack on the strategy-game world with the release of Hearts of Iron 3: Semper Fi, the first expansion to its acclaimed World War II strategy game. – Paradox Plaza

I start to think that I like to put myself through pain simply because yet again I took time to try out another strategy game, Hearts of iron 3.
Unlike many strategy based games, they give you “total control” over any nation. Now what is this “sarcasm” I sense in that statement you might say, so let me tell you why.
First things first. I have come to dislike, with a passion, strategy games. I guess I am one of the few that really doesn’t them.

Graphics are the way you expect them to be in a strategy game

There are probably many people out there that can play them with ease and for hours just looking at data/numbers not needing any other distraction like moving troops or anything motion for that matter. While I’m writing I am actually having the game on in the back ground not needing to do anything since nothing actually happens, let me take a look…. nope nothing new and this has been going for an hour now.

There is plenty of buttons in the game but rarely anything that you can push so anything happens and I even went through the tutorial.
The tutorial is more of a explanation on were everything is, not how to use it. When they say something like “this is very important to take care of immediately when you see it” I expect to be shown how to “take care” of this important task layer before me. Some of us do rely on the game explaining to us how things are done, hence a tutorial that covers everything. The whole tutorial only takes you on a tour without explaining how to use anything. tisk tisk.

OOhh look a truck! This is as interesting as it gets!

After the tutorial I started playing as Good ‘ol Germany. Everything was on AI control and good thing that it was since i didn’t know what to do, Germany had just started their war with the rest of their world, invaded Poland and so on. Although, going through every panel in the game and the only thing available to me was giving people a higher rank. Not very impressive. Maybe I hit an “play this game for me” button somewhere. Rest to say I was already frustrated and confused. Maybe when you create something to the magnitude of covering to many scenarios of WWII, it will get cluttered and simply to overwhelming to understand what is going on for a casual player.

Give me action, give me fights, shooting face-stab, give me something but boredom… please!
I do know this however. One person that would love this game would be my Fiancées stepfather. He is a guru when it comes to games like these and would most likely appreciate it on a different level them myself.

One of the five billion sheets/menus. Yes I am embellishing it. But that was how I felt.

I am a firm believer that a strategy based game doesn’t need to be boring. I have played StarCraft, that wasn’t boring. .Sure it is might not be the same scale as this game but at least you could start playing and understand what happened since the learning curve is not from 10 to 10 but from 1 then gradually to 10. Maybe I am just a simpleton that doesn’t understand the grateness that the creators tried to show me.
This is more a game for people that is all in to strategy football games and doesn’t need visual stimulation to play a game, but I need it so give me Super Mario any day instead of this.
Let me check how the game is progressing again… Poland won a battle that happened in the background that I had no controll over, and im glad, Poland needs to win a war sometimes even though it was only in a game. (polish wife beats me up insert here)
Buy it if you like games like this, you might find some strategic nirvana by playing it. Me, I will leave and maybe one day pick this game up again when I can comprehend the whatever dept or mental level this game is designed for.

Features

Play as any nation from 1936 to 1948, more than 150 countries to choose from.
Control the oceans with aircraft carriers, submarines and battleships and use your air force to defend your skies, support your naval and ground forces, and to bomb your enemies
Thousands of historically accurate real-world military commanders and politicians.
Realistic military command AI with unprecedented levels of interaction
In-depth diplomatic and political system.
Historical accuracy combined with an unparalleled level of freedom of choice
Customize your divisions in detail with more than 20 types of brigades
Government-in-exile makes it possible to continue to struggle from abroad with underground movements and uprisings against the oppressing power.
Strategic warfare system makes it more important to defend the skies and oceans against foreign attacks; leaving cities open to enemy bombing will now be devastating.
A completely new intelligence system, with several types of intelligence sources, makes it possible to get information about enemy reserves and troop movements.
Assign troops to “theatres” on the map to fight two-front wars more successfully.
The new AI system and more detailed map will allow for more strategic decisions.
Flexible technology system with hundreds of categories, and unlimited research.
Highly realistic historical order of battles.
The first realistic logistic system ever in a strategy game.

About Hearts of Iron 3
The Hearts of Iron series has become renowned for being the biggest, most detailed and complete strategic game series on World War II ever made. Hearts of Iron 3 will follow that tradition closely while focusing on satisfying veteran players through a multitude of brand new features and systems, including a huge map with more than 14,000 land and sea provinces. Recent recognition includes Readers Choice for “Best PC Strategy game” at E3 and nominations in the same category at IGN and Gaming Excellence. Join the Hearts of Iron community on the forum or on Facebook. – Paradox Media

Is there a trend starting? The boys are coming back and not just any boys… but cowboys.

I guess most people knows about Red Dead Redemption (RDR) by now, but even though this game was released before RDR it is not as known.
But let’s pull out the old cowboy hat, the boots and some old spaghetti western staring Lee Van Cleef and a young Clint Eastwood. (The good, the bad and the ugly soundtrack playing in the background)
At first I thought it to be a normal third person shooter game, but found out pretty quickly that it didn’t have a story line game mode, just a team-based third-person shooter multi-player game mode.

Personally I believe that a game should be able to offer a single player mode. This game is made for online play and online play only. This means that the very unreliable service that PlayStation network offers have to perform better then it has in the past. To my experience, being dropped out of online gaming sessions is something that my PS3 is very familiar with. The logic escapes me to create an all online based game when PlayStation has a very unreliable online service.
That being said. On to the good part!

The game has 3 settings, quick fight, multi-player and practice.Let’s practice and see what it is all about.

You got four choices of characters to play, the gunslinger, the trapper, the deputy and the blaster. Being the gunslinger that I am (pew pew) I naturally choose the said type. They all have their own unique weapons, abilities and “synergies” to boost them.
Now, it could only be my controller even though it doesn’t do it on other games but the guy started walking by himself, very annoying, Maybe it is just a personal preference. Some people don’t mind the random motion but me, no. I like to be able to fully control my guy’s motion and actions.The game panned out to be a sort of capture the flag session, but instead of a flag you got to pick up gold sacks and carry them to your start point and then back for more. Fairly easy game. You can tell that the programmers didn’t have to put much thought into it since the concept is taken from so many other games, just another setting and instead of a flag some gold.

The graphics are good, not eye popping but it passes my standards of decent graphics. How come PlayStation only give you 780p when I know it can perform in 1080p, I first asked myself that question when I saw that Batman Archam Asylum came in 780p for PlayStation and 1080p for Xbox. Get it together Sony, I know you can do better! The surroundings look authentic, as good as I know, not growing up at that time period but watching a lot of westerns. (yea-haw)
Is it fun? I would say it is but I don’t play this kind of games on a console so it is just a fair guess, when it comes down to fps I need a keyboard and mouse to be an ace killer.

I know many people is just interested to just going online and quickly join up to an established gaming lobby and shoot off a few rounds, pawn some opponents and call it a day without bothering going through a while storyline to get access to decent gear. If that is you, then this game is more tailored to your needs. Me however, I enjoy a good story. Where cowboy stops robbers, smacks a few barstools over some peoples heads, befriends an Indian, gets chased by the saloon girl and ending with him being in love with the Indian as they ride into the sunset.

At the end, it is what it is, Led and gold.

I don’t know which genre to place this one, so I will just call it ” creative interactive puzzle game”.

Let me tell you about a game called Max & the magic Marker, also known as Rakugaki Hero in Japan, is a game for WiiWare, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows.

“The protagonist is a boy named Max, who draws a monster with a special magic marker. The monster then comes to life, and Max must then get rid of the monster, with the help of the magic marker.”- Wikipedia.

I had the opportunity to play the PC release of this game.

It starts with a charming scenery where a little boy that looks an awful lot like Calvin (in Calvin and Hobbes) lays on the ground drawing half crappy drawings that his parents will have to shamefully display on their fridge. He receives an envelope through the mail with his name on it. He opens it of course and behold, in there is a marker! So he stats to doodle with it.
Strangely to say he is a somewhat of a twisted child since the first thing he draws is a monster that resembles mr Potato head, with a vicious looking mustache and a purple like body tone.

His name is Mustacho (obvious alert) and somehow Max ends up in his sinister twisted drawing (probably this makes him regret that he didn’t draw a lot of unicorns pooping candy). OK, well it isn’t all that sinister, it is actually very cute and picturesque. The objective of this game is to go through obstacles by drawing a way out/around/through them. Now if you have Parkinsons and do not have a steady hand, this might be a troublesome game for you.

Here is my first ladder. I know it’s not much to look at but as we all know, drawing using the mouse is hard. I can see how this game would be much easier on the Wii. If you find yourself puzzled and would like to pause the game to draw, you can do that. The image becomes a very hideous looking child doodle that you can make to look worse with your awful drawing skills.

In the picture above, I had to draw a platform in which to jump up on and use the water to hoist me up. So what I did was jump with my character, switched to “Stepping out of time” mode, drew the platform and went back to real time.

If you think you have unlimited marker ink, think again. The evil Mustacho keeps showing up at certain checkpoints and steal all your hard earned ink.

After finishing the first level I realized that this was actually quite entertaining. The controls are simple enough, the graphics doesn’t require much from any machine and very soothing. It’s challenging without being an ass about it. There are no difficult settings that I was aware off and if I was to label it, I would call the difficulty “recreational challenge”

Eventually you will succeed in drawing a handsome ladder like mine.

Yes, I am boasting. This thing took me 10 tries to draw!

I have so far encountered 3 in game characters. The green blogs that help you with tips and trix. the Mustache guy that steals all your fricken ink, and the mini pourple blobs with safety helmets. they wear them on and off because drawing a falling log that lands on their heads are the only way to eliminate them!!

This is a good game for anyone who has a few hours to kill or have kids. I can’t actually find anything wrong with it. Everything it was created for works perfectly and there isn’t anything that interrupts the flow of the game. I will continue on venturing and keep exploring other levels of this game.

Paradox interactive brings us the Turn based strategy chess game called Legio. No, it’s not a typo. I am sure you are thinking that it’s called Legion. Yes and no. Legio is Legion in Latin. Drop the N and things will be more fancy.

Now that we have the name sorted out, let me start with putting down my computer specs.
Since this is a PC game I think it is important to display what type of machine I am running it on. It could explain certain issues as they occur.

Manufacturer: Gateway
Model: p-6860FX
Processor: Intel(R) Core (TM)2 Duo CPU T5550 1.83 GHzX2

Ram: 4 GB
System type: 64-bit

OP: Windows vista Home premium
Graphic Card: GeForce 8800M GTS

My Sound card isn’t even worth to mention, it is that bad.

Great, Now that we got that over with, let’s start with the install procedure.
First issue I encountered was after installing the game the first time. Even tough the install part went flawlessly, as soon as I tried launching the game, it immediately gave me an error message. That the game refused to start. I figured it happens, so I reinstalled it and it worked without any further issues.

During the short intro screen, my computer started lagging somewhat fierce. The first thing I did when I got into the menu was change my resolution to low. That removed the lagging graphic issue.

You might be asking why I am not playing these types of games on a better machine. First off, I don’t have a stationary, not as of yet anyway. Secondly, I figured that people usually do not upgrade their machines that often and that most likely their machines are either like or worse. Not everyone have the latest and greatest hardware out there. This way I can give a fair review that can include most machines out there.

Either way, once the resolution was switched to low, everything started running smoothly.
You have 10 different theme musics to switch between which I find original. Original in a matter since I haven’t seen a function like that personally.

The menu offers:

Single player: My main focus, a game needs to be able to stand alone.
Online: Oh lord.
Two player split: This, I approve.

I select single player of course and get thrown into an army factory. I didn’t know what to make of this because I really did want a tutorial and explanation, what goes where, what does what etc. Choosing blindly I figured I’ll start by picking a heavy infantry type attack.

Having 25 points to spend, I bought 2X Warriors 1X Captain 1X Archer and 1X Kermit looking frog creature. That was all I could afford and so I continued onward! After selecting a board (again without being explained to what the different boards contain) I was ready for some fierce combat! I selected the board called “Run for Cover”, because I may talk big, I am actually a very lovable coward.

So the battle itself starts, I am team red fighting the forces of evil (blue). There it hit me. this looks like chess. I like chess. Yes, call me a nerd, I like chess!

I start with moving my little guys around the board, having a blast at their animations and sounds that they make. Warriors make a soldier like HOHAA while slapping their shields. I was surprised to the amount of detail that came into this type of game. The blue team is now starting their attacks. Their archers home in on me and snicker like a pervert on a miniskirt convention. The blue team magician starts damaging several of my minions! Then I realized that my opponent is entirely long range based, by the time I get to him, my forces will be dead. My only chance rests with the little snickering Archer that I have. When I use him for an attack, I get a target to hit enemy vitals. This made the battle more interesting and interactive.

While I was taking notes I heard my men Yawning, this caught me by surprise and make me laugh. My joy vanished quickly as the blue bastards killed my Kermit looking frog monster.
My minions tried holding their spirits high as they were killed of one by one. First few deaths got my army to sing tauntingly “nanananana na”, Like a little child. Then, when only 1 soldier let, the red leader started to cry.

So the inevitable happened, I died. While the blue team celebrated with a heartfelt YAY, I already had predicted this ending. So, Round two!

I select a heavy long ranged team! Magicians, a troll and archers!
So here we are, round two! DING DING DING!

I look at my opponents army and again realize that I am royally F@CKED!
My team super army long range battle trolls are nothing towards an army to big to kill of by the time they get to me! The dude had more guys then me! What the hell?! I tried holding my grounds and tried to kill them off but they got to me to quick. Eventually they surrounded my troll, killed him off, then one archer after the other fell.

Then I get a giant set up breast laughing at me.

This is actually very predicable as a game. Any person who has some knowledge of chess will understand that fact. twice I was just able to look at my opponent and realize that i am royally screwed. A Good chess player can usually predict demise within 6-10 moves.

Even though I really wished they explained the game through a in game tutorial. I actually had fun with this. I can see how this can be a lot of fun playing with another player. The entire Turn based strategy game has “:in your face” written all over it. Where two players can taunt each other and have fun.

So here is the big question, would I spend money on it?
I am not a turn based strategy game person, but you know what? If it’s affordable and comes off as a great deal.I probably would, just to spend a good evening beating the poop out of my fiance.

Ubisoft Montreal looses it’s creative director Clint Hockings after nine years with the company. Actually, call me an idiot, because I had too look up what a creative director does. When someone tells me that they are a creative director of a project I imagine someone sitting in the backroom, eating mushrooms and being “creative”.

Straight from Wikipedia:

In other industries, such as videogames, a creative director is responsible for the design, vision and direction of the product, which is a different role to that of a producer or project manager. Creative directors are sometimes also called lead designer or chief creative officers depending on the specific company in question.
A creative director is ultimately responsible for the quality of the final creative work. For this reason, they get the lion’s share of acclaim when their team’s efforts win awards, but conversely, the creative director shoulders the negativity (and the blame) when a project goes wrong, response falls short of expectations, or an important individual on the client’s side dislikes or vetos an idea.

Mr Clint has been involved with 3 big titles for the oh so well known publisher.

Splinter Cell
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Far cry 2 (why wasn’t he fired right then and there if he is to take the blame for negativity?)

He claims that his reasons for leaving Ubisoft is the fact that the fragdolls get more attention them him and he feels left out.
That was a joke, his REAL reason is to avoid falling into bad habits and complacency.

“For me, habits begin to form when I am comfortable and content, and over time those habits settle,” wrote Hocking on his personal blog. “Their weight begins to rest heavily on the foundations of contentedness on which they were built. All the courage and hard work required to overcome my bad habits and forge myself a place where I can be happy, leads me back, inevitably to a place where I am once again comfortable and content.

“In the 451 weeks that I have been here, I have adopted many new habits.”

“The way forward lies in my having the courage that I did not know I had a decade ago to bid farewell to those tragically comforting habits. I need to walk on hot coals and sleep on a bed of nails. I need to chew on broken glass. I need to drink paint,” he wrote.

Self destructive much?
While you are at it, can you take the fragdolls with you? They need to get thrown on hot coal, sleep on nails, chew on broken glass and drink a butt load of paint.

I wish Mr Clint the best however, I’ve enjoyed his Splinter cell involvement and hopefully he will find something that is a bit more challenging.

As the impending doom looming over earth where Stephen Hawkins states that its the best not to reach other alien worlds, rather, leave them be, because ye will be the end of human race as we know it. Others remain the dreamers and hope for our alien encounter will become more pleasant then that, in most mens mind, six breasted pleasant one.

Now that I set the mood, StarCraft II will be released July 27th according to it’s developer Blizzard.

Blizzard that has the last few years been known mostly for their successful MMORPG Word of Warcraft are expecting the game to sell 5 million the first year.

“We’ve been looking forward to revisiting the StarCraft universe for many years, and we’re excited that the time for that is almost here,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard.

“Thanks to our beta testers, we’re making great progress on the final stages of development, and we’ll be ready to welcome players all over the world to StarCraft II and the new Battle.net in just a few months.”

The first StarCraft released in 1988 was greatly appreciated for their multiple player aspect. They have however mentioned that the single player part of the game is the main focus and the race HOOOMINS! (humans).

No LAN capability will be offered that I am sure will upset many of the fan base which have their roots and great memories playing during dating free times. The online will be the compensation through Blizzards battle.net service.

What has me bit weary is the fact that humanity is the main focus. I have enough humanity on daily basis, i rather see the aliens perspective enhance, with their 6 eyes, 4 legs and all their other extra limbs.

When Julius Caesar conquered Europe, he gave us roads and aqueducts. Imagine if aliens were to conquer us, we’d get more limbs and holodecks!

Bungie, the dudes that brought you the gaming worlds equivalence to Swine-flue has announced a decade long unsatisfying relationship with Activision.

Bungie, who’s cooties were safely contained within a single console will now be published for multiple platforms.

Quote:
“We chose to partner with Activision on our next IP because of their global reach, multi-platform experience and marketing expertise,” said Harold Ryan, president of Bungie. “From working together over the past nine months on this agreement, it is clear that Activision supports our commitment to giving our fans the best possible gaming experiences.”

I might not be a fan of bungie, but didn’t they promise that after Halo 3 was released, that they would try “new things”, expand their views. Basically going to college. I was awaiting something different beyond the Halo hysteria which has plagued the gaming/movie/book market long enough.

Evidently they didn’t hold their end of the bargain. They went to college, smoked some pot, slept with their sorority mascot and after being expelled, they realize that they will never achieve the craze that they did with the Halo series.

So what do they do? Spread their products to other platforms. Which to me is a sign of defeat.

Why work on something original and creative for your fans? Best possible gaming experience? Give me something new! Something fresh. Not just simple release the same crap over and over on other systems. That is not what I expect from people who want to give me the best gaming experience.

I guess that Activision has gotten terribly desperate considering that they have lost many senior figures from the Call of Duty team. Being the big publisher that they are, their pride just doesn’t allow bad breakups, so they find the cheapest most desperate drunk girl out there and hope that the relationship will bring unexpected pleasures.

Activision, rebounds never work out.
Halo had their big moment and I doubt they will reach anything beyond that if they release the same bs over and over. The xbox audience is very different from the other console players.

If they truly enjoy playing halo, they would’ve had an xbox already or played it on their PC.

I would say move on, find someone who truly inspires you, or you will end up with some unwanted herpes.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

It is expected to be released during the 2010 holiday season for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Xbox 360 platforms!

Great Joy all around

I am a big fan of the first one and hopefully this sequel will be as original+ intriguing+challenging+mindfucking= as the last game!

I know I am supposed to restrain my enthusiasm because we all know that sequels to already great games can only go one way….down that is. How can I not be exited thou? There aren’t many things to be exited about anymore! It’s called old age!

You who have yet to play the original portal game. Let me give you the ass whooping of a lifetime.

How dare you?!

I have played many games in my life and the sad part about it is that it’s a rarity that something so “original” and “entertaining” gets released amongst all the crap that exists out there. So make yourself a big favor! Get it, play it and enjoy it!

Don’t be the only one that doesn’t understand the term of “the cake is a lie!”

Basic gameplay info:

Portal 2 will continue to challenge the player by solving puzzles in test chambers within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the “portal gun” (the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device), a device that can create two portals connecting two surfaces across space. Players solve puzzles by using these portals to move unconventionally between rooms or to use the ability to “fling” objects or themselves across a distance. The functionality of the gun has not changed between the games, but within Portal 2, players can take advantage of the “bleeding” of other physical effects through the portals. Game Informer identified two examples of this: one was the ability to use air currents created by a series of transport pneumatic tubes through a set of portal openings to push a turret over or to draw objects into the suction. The second example was to use the power of tractor beams through portals to bring Chell or other objects to otherwise inaccessible areas. The game also introduces special “paint” that can be used to impart certain physical effects to a surface (for example, one identified by Game Informer is an orange paint that when stepped on will impart high speed to the player). The player will be required to determine how to transport that paint to appropriate surfaces using portals in order to progress. This paint can also be applied to objects, such as the Weighted Storage Cube crates that affect their own physical nature. Skeptics have also discovered that there will also be concentrated gravity fields that affect the specific direction that a Weighted Storage Cube is attached to in a certain area. In addition to the Storage Cube, there are new types of portable objects that assist the player, including Redirection Cubes with mirrored surfaces, Aerial Faith Plates, and Weighted Storage Balls, which made a brief appearance in the original game, in one of the advanced chambers.

While most of the single-player game will take place in the test chambers created by GLaDOS or her personality cores, there will be times where the player will need to move “behind the scenes” in areas beyond the test chambers as they are reconfigured, leaving the player free of GLaDOS’s observation and control.

The game will include a two-player co-operative mode in addition to the single player mode. Both players control separate portal guns and can use the other player’s portals as necessary. Because of the number of possible portal combinations, the test chambers that the players proceed through are much more difficult than the single-player campaign, encouraging the two players to work together. This includes complicated laser redirections using both series of portals, or working in two separate chambers, performing actions in their side of the chamber to allow the other player to progress in theirs. The game includes voice communication between players for this mode as well as split-screen for players playing locally. Players have the ability to place icons on the game’s levels as a means of informing the other player what they need to do.- Wikipedia