It’s the end of the first season and Matt Ryan is joined by August Lusch as they discuss Neverwinter in 2011, Call of Duty: Black Ops dedicated servers, the necromancer profession in Guild Wars 2, Hyperballoid HD, and more.

For more information about Guild Wars 2 necromancers:
http://www.dailypwn.com/2010/08/26/guild-wars-2-necromancer-revealed/

For more information about Hyperballoid HD:
http://www.dailypwn.com/2010/05/22/hyperballoid-hd-for-the-ps3/

For more information about Call of Duty Black Ops:
http://www.dailypwn.com/2010/08/24/call-of-duty-black-ops-to-be-dedicate…

For more information about Neverwinter in 2011:
http://www.dailypwn.com/2010/08/26/guild-wars-2-necromancer-revealed/

These days, you don’t have to worry about misleading box art, thanks to sophisticated video game graphics. In the 70s and 80s, though, companies tried to grab a consumer’s attention with fancy artwork that bore no resemblance to the actual game. Atari, in particular, was one of the biggest offenders, particularly with its 2600 console.

We already covered a handful of the system’s box art, and now it’s time for the second round. We pulled some classic Atari efforts from Microsoft’s Game Room to show you what old school players had to deal with.

The Misleading World of Atari Box Art: Part One

The Misleading World of Atari Box Art: Part Three

Read Entire Article

Modern Warfare 2 made waves for everything from controversial scenes to lack of dedicated servers. One particular feature missing from the release was the ability to be modded. In this sense, many proclaimed that Infinity Ward dropped the ball when they could have been that much bigger if they just allowed dedicated servers and game mods. Thankfully, Call of Duty: Black Ops has done an about-face on this policy stating that they will, in fact, include these features on the new release.

A Treyarch employee confirmed this development on the official forums:

We plan to open the game up for modding sometime post-launch. We do not know yet to what extent you will be able to mod the game. There are some purely technical issues related to engine and internal tool enhancements that do not easily fit the modtools paradigm. We have looked at it close enough to see that it is non-trivial and we will have to pick it up again post-launch. Right now we are completely focused on finishing the game.

And, dev console: confirmed.

-pcdev-

While these features may not be immediately available upon release, they are a promising change to some of the more frustrating features of Modern Warfare 2.

Little Big Planet 2:
http://www.littlebigplanet.com/en-gb/2/

StarCraft 2:
http://us.starcraft2.com/

Beat Hazard:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/49600/

The Daily PWN is not an impartial body. It is a site and show dedicated to giving a different take on games and hardware that is of interest to the gaming world. This point of view is given as the writer sees it and it may be negative or positive depending on their own unique experience. We don’t blanket companies with bad reviews because we disagree with things their company does or has done in other projects, but we will not hesitate to write about these actions in a separate article.

One matter in which a stance is being taken is the trend of the anti-hero in relation to games featuring soldiers. Call of Duty has been riddled with controversy for years, as we have written, and part of that controversy is their portrayal of a heroic soldier being a torturer, murderer and false flag operator. In each release over the past few years, Call of Duty has put ethics out the window and given the player no ethical right or wrong choice. Why is this?

The video below was put together from my original source and additional material by Infowars.com.

In the videos you see above, we show how closely the games match events that have happened in the real world featuring soldiers doing unethical things. Most soldiers are good people, and it is upsetting to think the heroes of popular video games can’t reflect the moral compas the majority of our fighting forces holds on to even in the chaos of war. Why must they promote the cruel few?

Please encourage video game developers to make better choices when considering the actions the good guys take in their story lines. The Daily PWN does not take the stance that video games create violence, though we do believe that they have the power to set a precedent of expectations when faced with real-world situations.

Everyone else? You’ve got a rocket launcher. Kill the guy with the shiny thing. He’s hard to miss. He’s the one with the shiny glowing thing.

The result, as you’d expect, is pure explosive chaos. Even with only eight players in the match–half of the game‘s maximum–there were rockets everywhere. Getting close to the shiny was nearly as dangerous as holding the shiny itself.

Read the Full Article at Shacknews.

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The game starts with a story of you joining the TV show Top Chef. You are a newly graduated chef of some cooking school, and in spite of being the top student of your graduating class, you still have no experience in running a restaurant or even getting challenged about your skills. However, all of that is about to change, because now, you are one of the many vying for the ultimate title of being the best chef, and you must survive all the challenges to remain one of the top contenders of the game.

The objective of each level is for you to survive the week and earn the right to keep contending for the Top Chef position. Just like the TV show, you are given a theme to start with on each level, mostly concerning the food’s flavors, texture and visual presentation. Your character in the game will summarize what ingredients will best satisfy the level’s theme and what ingredients go nicely with each other. Afterwards, you’re off to the actual time management game where it is a race against time to cook all of your theme-specific culinary creations.

In the actual game, you prepare ingredients in your preparation table depending on what their themes ask for. An example would be to prepare a white vegetable, a red meat and a spicy add-on to put on your dish. What’s important here is that you’ll need to know what each ingredient’s properties are, and pick the correct ingredient from the counter choices to collect stars for your ending meal.

Top Chef is one of the many games featured and reviewed at Casualicious. Please visit our site to read more about Top Chef and get to play hundreds of other games worth your time and enjoyment.

Author: Ruff Bismonte
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker

Both of the playable characters in the game have separate objectives. Ellen goes to Doolin in search of her mother because she has supposedly sent a letter to Ellen (sounds eerily similar to the dead wife letter that was sent to Harry from Silent Hill 2). On the other end of the spectrum, Keats is a journalist who travels to Doolin to learn about the strange occurrences that are taking place. I found the plot to be enjoyable, but the game has a storyline that can take some time to develop. The gameplay in the game has two different settings.

A location known as The Netherworld is where the combat occurs, and the normal world is where gamers will be achieving typical role playing game tasks. When gamers are in the normal world, they will be collecting items and having conversations with various people. The normal world provides a nice change of pace from the combat. Each character’s gameplay is broken down into chapters. To eliminate confusion, it is best to complete one chapter with one character and go replay that chapter again with the other character. For instance, finishing Keats’ chapter first and replaying the same chapter with Ellen. I felt like the game progressed in a much more cohesive manner when I took this approach. You can mix and match chapters by playing multiple chapters from Ellen’s perspective, but doing this would make the plot completely garbled. The gameplay predominately consists of acquiring souls. All of the adversaries have souls that can be absorbed and used for later use. Since each soul you gain varies, the abilities you gain is also different.

For example, one soul can perform an ice elemental damage and another can utilize electricity. Once you take in a soul, you can map if to the four face buttons on the PlayStation 3 controller. Not all souls are proficient in eradicating every foes; furthermore, you cannot expect to beat the entire game with only one sul. There are strengths and weaknesses for each opponent in the game. This makes the game somewhat balanced, but gratuitously time consuming. Personally, I found the guess and check system of finding the correct soul to kill opponents to be rather convoluted. The method needed to capture a soul is unique on its own right. This is where the six axis controller is at its best. The six axis controller is amazing for getting a soul under control, and the controls itself are intuitive. The game developers of the disaster known as Lair should meticulously take notes from the game developers that worked on Folklore. Do you hear me Lair game creators? You guys can learn so much about the six axis controller from the team that worked on Folklore. If anyone who worked on Lair is reading this, then he or she needs to give the game designers of Folklore a phone call and have a long chat about how to make the six axis controller responsive. Look at me going off on one of my tangents again. Alright, back to the review of Folklore. The frame rates appears to be smooth, but I had a problem with the prolonged load times.

Regrettably, the audio in the game is utterly ridiculous. A majority of the dialogue is shown via a comic book style. If this comic book style of story telling is tastefully done, then it works to perfection (ala Max Payne and Max Payne 2). The most egregious aspect of the dialogue is that there is absolutely no voice acting during these absurd comic book style segments. I thought the lack of voice acting was an enormous blunder in the game. There should always be voice acting in a next generation console video game (especially considering the fact that this is a PlayStation 3 video game). During the major cut scenes, there is voice acting.

Unfortunately, the voice acting is horribly done. Folklore pales in comparison in the voice acting department to other exquisite video games such as Heavenly Sword, Halo 3, God of War, and God of War 2. What the hell Sony? How could the audio in Folklore be this poorly executed? The only saving grace with the audio is the music and sound effects. Luckily, the visuals in the game are incredible. Everything that is seen in Folklore makes it seem like a fantasy. The vibrant colors looks like an extravagant piece of artwork. Environments, flora, and fauna are well designed. Folklore will take gamers approximately nineteen hours from beginning to end. Overall, Folklore is a solid role playing game. It is not as brilliant as Oblivion on the PlayStation 3, but Folklore has just enough to give gamers a reason to play.

final verdict 8 out of 10

http://wwwfunnyman.blogspot.com

Author: Sayed Islam
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Pressure cooker

Graphics in this game are unusually limiting. There really isn’t a way to set a resolution beyond switching from full screen to windowed mode. The game looks great though the graphics are what you would expect from a typical flash game on any number of websites out there.

In fact, Elf Bowling is available on many of the flash websites out there either in download form or a limited play form. A free demo is even available that lets you play the game for one hour in order to give it a try. We found this title for a couple dollars on Steam.

What makes this bowling game especially different from all the others is their system of advantages and disadvantages you can use to help you. By rolling your ball over coin-shaped pieces on the alley, you can gain advantages during your next turn such as a bigger ball, a rocket that guarantees a strike if you aim it correctly, a rock ball that splits and makes you immune to oil slicks and others. You can also sabotage your opponent using oil slicks, gravel that grinds their ball down in size, barricades that block the ball and knock it in the gutter and many others. These extras make for a wacky kind of bowling that breaks the traditional bowling game monotony.

The elves constantly shout phrases that directly reference annoying Internet memes such as “Chocolate Rain”. They do this to intimidate and annoy you and it works, especially when they pass gas at you as you get ready to take your turn. Their voices remind me of Foamy cartoons which is another Internet sensation.

Controls are simple. You move your cursor left or right to set up your stance, hold down and push your mouse to set your speed and power and continue aiming as the ball makes its way down the isle. You have control of your ball from start to finish which comes in handy when your opponent uses dirty tricks like setting up a giant magnet.

Overall, the experience is exceptional for the price. I intended to play the game for about an hour and three hours later decided that this one will be in rotation at our house for some time to come.

Geo-Defense has amazing sounds and big explosions. It’s simple and easy to understand. The game reminds me of Tron and not in a bad way. One very positive aspect is once you leave the game using the home button, your place is saved and picked up when you load it back up. This makes Geo-Defense a solid app for use when you just need to kill a few minutes.

As we enter Inventor Mode, or single-player, we are greeted with a list of puzzles to tackle. They get increasingly difficult and unlock as you gain star points. The basic function of each puzzle is to connect one object to another through using pipes, gears and other mechanical tools. The goal can range from ringing a bell to blowing up a baloon or turning a giant wheel on at the end of the puzzle. Further down the line, you can even make rockets blast off.

This game closely reminded me of the hacking puzzles in Bioshock or that boring little picture puzzle on the Windows Vista Sidebar. They’re simple displacement puzzles some on a two dimensional plane and others span across a multi-surface cube requiring you to keep the link going across all sides. This game is indeed challenging and would make for a great experience for children and adults alike.

The sound track is soothing to the point of being sleep inducing so unless you’re playing right before bed you may want to opt to exchange the game music with your own. Speaking of music, a version of Cogs is set for release on the iPhone and iPod Touch in January of 2010.

Overall, Cogs is playable by just about anyone from any age group. It is a worthy challenge to even the most clever of minds and a great tool for working out your logic skills. It is both fun and educational which is a rare combination to find in widely distributed game titles.

Aion Online features an ongoing battle between three major factions (two playable) vying for control of the Abyss and areas connected through rifts that open between spaces. A more detailed look at this world and how it is shaped by events and regions will come later in this series including an article dedicated entirely to the NPC race known as the Balaur.

The Elyos, often referred to as the good guys and compared to as the Alliance featured in World of Warcraft, defend their lands and their holdings in the Abyss against invasion by the Asmodian and Balaur forces. They are the privileged faction allowed to bask in light. Their primary foes are the Asmodian whom they hold responsible for destroying the Tower of Eternity which has held a hostile race known as Balaur in another dimension until its destruction.

The Asmodian faction is another playable faction in game that is forced to live in the northern regions of a world known as Atreia which is without significant light and growth. These characters are often more demonic in appearance though still obviously from the same human-like ancestry the Elyos hold. Their appearance is no-doubt an adaption to their rugged environment. Like the Elyos, they too hold their enemies responsible for the destruction of the Tower of Eternity.

This long-running blood feud is one of the central points of Aion allowing for vigorious PvP. In the clip above, a group of Asmodians have entered Elyos lands through a rift or portal that temporarily connects the two lands together making it possible for them to come over. On either side, invasions are typically met with a strong and swift response by the lands natives.

Aion Online has come with a splash and we here at DailyPWN.com would like to give you a thorough review of the new MMORPG by dedicating 30 days to reviewing each aspect of the game. We’re kicking this month off with a very simple and somewhat silly premise, base jumping.

Base jumping is one of the interesting sports made possible by the unique ability of flight that Aion is built on. This ability isn’t available in all towns but gliding to avoid falling to your demise is available in almost all areas of the game. The above video demonstrates the gliding ability including some basic flight to a landing. It’s important to note here that lag can be detrimental to your ability to survive the jump as deploying your wings before you actually touch down on the bottom is essential to your survival. One clip shows damage taken from releasing the wings before you have made it close enough to the ground. You can die by simply falling for too long as the air apparently has the ability to kill you before you come close to the ground.

Aion is full of areas that are elevated well above ground level and some are so far away from any ground source that you never see what’s below.

Zombies are hotter than ever in the gaming world and almost every day it seems another zombie game finds its way on the shelves and available for direct download. Nation Red is no exception though it certainly brings a new twist that other recent zombie titles lack.

Left 4 Dead is a cooperative game where you team up with your three best friends to take on countless hordes of undead minions as they claw and shuffle their way towards you. It is a first person shooter and has become a sleeping giant in the gaming world spawning a sudden revival in the world of zombie gaming. I mention Left 4 Dead because many similar titles have sprouted up from independent and major developers alike. They share qualities such as being first person shooters, cooperative, realistic, quasi role-playing, physics driven or all of the above.

Nation Red throws a twist on the popular genre by bringing 3rd person play to the table along with a very unrealistic amount and consistency of weapon and armor drops. It also removes the role-playing aspect that some games have brought to the table in an effort to introduce characters that add humor and entertainment to the gaming experience. Everything in this game aside from the zombies is the opposite of what you imagine when someone brings it up as a zombie shooter.

Graphics in Nation Red are highly adjustable though not ground breaking. It’s a good looking game with a ton of leg room for a variety of gaming pcs of various budgets and capabilities. The focus of Nation Red isn’t on the awe factor of amazing graphics but rather on the fun of taking out as many zombies as you can before they swarm you and take you out.

Overall, Nation Red is a great experience for the price and worth picking up if you really love zombie games and might be searching for something other than a first person shooter.

It happens from time to time that the best game is also the most casual. Some serious gamers frowned on Spore in its simplicity and overall appeal to non-gamers more than hardcore gamers while others may have jumped at the chance to enjoy something less intense and more laid back than normal. Spore is a good starting point when it comes to discussing Osmos.

Osmos as a whole is pretty much like taking the single-cell organism stage of spore and removing all of the evolution while leaving in the growth effect that comes after devouring smaller cells. The controls and propulsion system reminds me of a cross between lunar lander and the old asteroids arcade game. Your fuel is limited by your own sheer mass as you eject tiny portions of yourself in order to propel in your desired direction. As you use your “fuel” your mass shrinks. You absorb smaller orbs as you contact them to regain your mass and fall victim to larger ones as well. It is possible in this game to lose enough of your mass propelling towards another orb to turn your would-be snack in to a dangerous threat.

Even though this may sound fairly challenging it really isn’t. This is a perfect game to play right before bed as you are winding down for the evening. Osmos might well be a great stress reliever as well thanks to a brilliant musical score and very laid back game mechanics.

Every once in a while a game comes along that may not have the latest and greatest graphics or the most in-depth storyline yet it brings you back to a time when simplicity inspired imagination. Defcon is one of those games in its delivery of wire frame graphics that immediately bring you back to the first time you watched “Wargames” in your youth. The interface is almost an exact replica of the ui made famous by Hollywood two decades ago.

Game play is very relaxed unless you set the game speed to its highest settings which may be a bit much for anyone no matter how fast you believe you are at placing and controlling units. The traditional speed sets the game up to last about an hour, much of which is spent waiting for your missiles and fleet to slowly make its way to their destination in what isn’t exactly but feels like real time.

Radar and other tools are available to you and are extremely limited which makes for a very tactical environment that may feel more like a game of Battleship than anything. You have to guess where your opponent may be lacking in general defenses and when they are launching their weapons or you may find yourself watching your continent die off with no way to fight back.

The music of Defcon is ominous and relaxing at the same time. It reminded me of the music that plays on Left 4 Dead when a witch is nearby intended to scare you and make you feel uneasy without being overly dramatic. A soundtrack is available on iTunes.

Defcon is sold on Steam as well as other online retailers for around ten dollars USD and may be well worth the purchase price if you have a friend or two willing to join in the game with you. The CPU AI is a capable opponent with no glitches or issues that we noticed during testing. This game has been out for two years and is still fairly popular.

Here is where simple graphics make all the difference in the world. As you jostle your iPhone about and turn it upside down hoping for more of the soothing sound the background moves with you simulating an actual environment using the screen of the iphone as your eyes in to this tropical jungle. It isn’t pinpoint accurate with your motions but it is a surprisingly smooth addition to this very simple application.

In addition to the background, the name of the program so prominently displayed on the UI rotates with the device. This may not be the best aspect of the program but it does show the creator has a mind for branding. If you are looking over the shoulder of someone playing with Rain Stick you can’t miss the name of the program.

Flood-It! was developed by LabPixies and is available on the iPhone and iPod touch as an app as well as several other platforms including iGoogle and as a browser toolbar among a few others. I’m giving it full marks for platform support.

Flood-It! has a very simple overall concept. Your objective is to fill the screen with one solid color. In order to achieve this, you need to select from the color options at the bottom of the screen which change your captured spaces to the given color. Any adjoining spaces that share the color you selected become part of your captured mass. You have a limited number of steps depending on difficulty and field size and often capturing the entire field in the given steps can be difficult. This is a puzzle game at its core and one that can be played from start to finish in a minute or two making it perfect for those occasions where you might find yourself with a couple minutes to kill.

Flood-It! is ad supported and the ads appear at the top of the screen. They do not detract from the gaming experience and thankfully they don’t force you to spend valuable seconds between games stuck on an annoying advertisement screen.

Overall, this is a fun little game without a lot of pros or cons to speak about. It does its job of occupying you for a few minutes or your kids during a long car ride. This app fits very well with other puzzle games on the platform.

This video features a battle between Matt Cooper and David Kim playing Zerg and Terran respectively. Commentary is given allowing for some understanding of exactly what kind of tactics are available in the new game.

Based on this footage it would appear that they have added a lot of new units which could have a double-edged benefit of more options with a bit more of a learning curve. Blizzard has decided to keep the classic look and feel of Starcraft which allows die-hard classic fans to enjoy an environment they are used to. Starcraft 2 is nostalgia driven but does it have the chops to take the RTS world by storm yet again? Time will tell.

Can’t it be both? The new game Flower, released just days ago for a low price of $10 USD and made available to users of the PlayStation 3 Network, has decided to break out of the typical gaming box and create an experience that has every intention to invoke emotion rather than strategy or blood lust. Where most games give you objectives and goals that must be fulfilled through either strategic placement of combat units or advanced hand-eye coordination, Flower is about visual and emotional stimuli.

There are goals to this game including gathering pedals from flowering plants around the given zones that your little flower petal protagonist needs to be steered over in order to accomplish. After a while, your petal is no longer lonely, as its gathered petals form something of a moving cloud following your lead like a giant swarm of colorful butterflies with a purpose.

This game is beautiful, and with a recommended age of 3+ is great for gamers of all ages. It might even make a great addition to a romantic evening at home. Hand your date the controller and distract her while you prepare dinner. The original score is a perfect fit for this game, leading the player on an emotional journey that is both relaxing and thought provoking. This genre has been dubbed “Zen-gaming” by Sony.

Rating: 98 out of 100

Other Reviews of this Game:
Game philosophy and narrative behind Flower | A+E Interactive
Flower video game review – Telegraph
globeandmail.com: Forget shoot-’em-ups. In this game, feeling is first
Games Are Not Art, Are They? – washingtonpost.com

Technorati Tags: Flower, Game, Zen, Sony, PlayStation

My earliest memories are of sitting in front of a 13 inch TV flipping through a black-and-white copy of the booklet to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and endless exploration in Dragon Warrior. The annoying whooshing sound followed by what looked like a blue Hershey’s Kiss throwing text attacks at me and flickering as I attempted to kill it with my cheap sword were part of my day as a kid. This is what Retro Game Challenge is all about.

The premise of the game leaves a little to be desired, but you quickly get over it. A game master is sick and tired of current games and decides to go back to his roots. He turns himself in to a digital boy and takes you with him. You could say the game mostly takes place in the 80′s. This is where things get fun. Your job is to play games with him, and everything about your interactions are exactly what you would remember. Fighting for controllers, blowing on carts, hearing your mother scream, and even the old magazines are exactly what you might remember from days long since past.

You old 8-bit favorites aren’t directly present here, but the games are designed to bring back memories of playing RC Pro Am, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and more. If you look back fondly on your old playing experience and miss sitting in front of a TV with a friend trying to get past that difficult level in Contra, then Retro Game Challenge is worth checking out.

Other Reviews of Retro Game Challenge:
IGN: Retro Game Challenge for the Nintendo DS Ships to Retailers
N-Sider.com: Retro Game Challenge
Retro Game Challenge – BusinessWeek
DS Retro Game Challenge is a wistful reminder of your youth – Ars Technica
Retro Game Challenge for DS Review – GameSpot

Technorati Tags: Retro, Review, Game, DS

Rebellion developed the PC version of the 1999 release of AvP which allowed you to pick your race between a predator, an alien, and even a marine. At the time, the game featured innovative and optimized graphics not commonly found in a FPS. Combat was almost as much a matter of strategy and tactics as speed and precision.

Information is scarce, though you can certainly expect more to come as development is under way.

Other News Sites Covering this Story:
New Alien vs Predator game coming via Rebellion – Ars Technica
Gaming – News – New ‘Alien Vs. Predator’ game announced – Digital Spy
PS3 News: Sega Teams With Rebellion For New Aliens vs. Predator Title
News: Sega unveils Alien vs. Predator – ComputerAndVideoGames.com

Technorati Tags: AvP, Aliens, Predator, Marine, FPS, New

iBowl

If you’re a fan of Wii Bowling and you’re looking for a way to take that experience with you on the go there is a solution out there for you and you might be surprised to find out that it is absolutely free. I know, I didn’t believe it myself when I first downloaded this handy iPhone and iPod Touch app but it’s true.

iBowl

The concept of the game couldn’t be simpler. You hold the button in the middle of the screen much like you would on the Wii while going through the motions of rolling an actual bowling ball down the isle. How you position your hand, tilt on the upswing, and how quickly you do your throw is all measured by the internal accelerometer inside the iPod.

iBowl

The graphics are pretty clunky but for that matter so are the graphics on the Wii version this game appears to be based on. Game play is smooth and addicting. I found that once I started playing I really couldn’t put this one down until I had beaten my previous high score.

There is a method to SGN (Social Gaming Network) sending out apps like this including iGolf and iBaseball. They have launched a new platform called iFun that allows you to use your iPhone or iPod Touch like a controller. This essentially turns your iPhone or iPod Touch in to sort of a Wiimote. Their games are very much like the ones you find on the Wii so it begs the comparison.

For this particular application, the overall experience is addicting and very entertaining. There is no real learning curve since controls are as simple as push button and swing. Graphics could be better on the platform and there are many examples where they are but here they fall in to the function over form category. With a price tag of free, this becomes a frugal geek’s favorite.

iBowl

Rating: 90 out of 100