GamesBlog

There was no shortage of great games this month (except on PC), but August belonged to football. Even if you weren’t tossing the virtual pigskin around during the last couple weeks, you had plenty to get excited about. Well, on the last day of the month, at least…. Game of the Month on August 2010 is a coveted award, and it’s not given out lightly. That’s why you’ll see some gaps on the list below. There were some decent games for the blank platforms in August, but nothing blew our minds. We’re positive that next month will be a different story.

Continue reading »

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: game, games, Nintendo, PC, PS3, wii, XBOX360

We absolutely loved Dragon Age: Origins. And for that exact reason, we’re standing a good few feet away from Dragon Age 2 and gently prodding it with our trepidation stick. See, on one hand, it could turn out to be a prettier, more streamlined take on Origins’ sublime balance of strategic depth and chatty role-playing. On the other hand, however, BioWare seems bound and determined to shepherd it down the same path as Mass Effect 2 – which was a fantastic game, yeah, but not exactly the peanut butter to Dragon Age’s chocolate.

Fortunately, BioWare’s streamlining effort – despite an earlier report – won’t snip the edges off the features us PC gamers hold near and dear: namely, an isometric, mouse-friendly camera and mod support.

“I can confirm that we will not be doing a tactical view on consoles, though we are looking into some expanded party control that I think will make console players quite happy,” Dragon Age 2 lead designer Mike Laidlaw said. “On the PC, however, we are still working with the camera to keep the key elements of the tactical experience there.”

“While we likely won’t pull as far up as we did in DA:O, I have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing your camera from the character you’re controlling to issue precise orders, which is what we’re tuning now. So, this means you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins.”

So Laidlaw laid our fears to rest there, but mod support, as it turns out, is a bit of a stickier subject. Apparently, this stems from the fact that the creation tools for DA2 are more or less identical to the ones from Origins, so a new release won’t be necessary. Continue reading »

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: gamers, PC

Torchlight’s a fantastic game – no doubt – but it’s a bit formulaic. You go underground, bash monsters until they’re six more feet under, and then stuff whatever improbable pieces of loot they were ferrying around at the time into your magic, interdimensional pants pockets. Runic Games, though, makes up for its own game’s predictability in spades. Case in point: Torchlight 2 out of nowhere. After all, weren’t we talking about the Torchlight MMO, like, a few weeks ago?

But no, that’s on hold for now. Fortunately, we’re still definitely sticking our hands in the air for the next portion of Runic’s development rollercoaster ride, seeing as Torchlight 2’s packing just about every feature that was conspicuously absent from Torchlight. Let’s run down the list: Multiplayer? Check. Customizable characters? Yep! A world outside the literal cave your Torchlight 1 character basically lived in? You betcha. Five new character classes? But of course.

Which is all great, but the question remains: why Torchlight 2? Why now? Continue reading »

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: game, PC

It’s a simple concept of exponential growth: If you make one game with many different story paths depending on the choices a player makes, then make a sequel that continues those paths and adds even more, and then another sequel with even more paths, you end up with a hell of a lot of variables. How many? According to Mass Effect 2 project lead Casey Hudson, there’s potentially 1,000 total story variables for Mass Effect 3.

“Numerically, it’s over 1,000 variables that we’ll have access to for shaping the Mass Effect 3 experience for people who’ve played the previous games,” Hudson said to PC Zone magazine (via CVG). “We plan out the larger plot points of the story from one game to the next, but it would be impossible to plan it all in advance. More importantly, we’d never be able to plan as many creative opportunities if we’d do it all up front.

“Instead, we record what a player has done in a play-through, and then we have all of those choices available that writers can refer to as they build storylines,” Hudson explained. And if you were a fan of the more action-oriented refinements made to Mass Effect 2, be heartened, as Hudson said they’ll carry over into 2 as well. Continue reading »

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: game, PC

It turns out a lot of people were really excited about StarCraft 2. Blizzard has announced that the almost farcically high demand for the long-awaited sequel translated to global sales of 1 million units in the game’s first 24 hours of release, with the number swelling to 1.5 million units after the first 48 hours.

According to Blizzard, this makes StarCraft 2 the fastest-selling strategy game of all-time. “We’re pleased that so many people around the world have already picked up a copy of the game, and we look forward to welcoming even more players to Battle.net in the weeks and months ahead,” said Blizzard head Mike Morhaime in a statement.

GameStop was also highly pleased with the launch, as the retail chain’s VP, Bob McKenzie, said it was their fastest-selling PC game since (surprise) World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in 2008. Continue reading »

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: games, PC

We don’t typically report on the release of beta video card drivers, but ATI has slipped in an awesome new feature that is probably worth it if you’re playing Starcraft II. Catalyst 10.7a brings driver level Anti-Alliasing support that can be enabled through the Catalyst Control Center and helps to smooth out all the jagged edges for those who like to zoom in on the action.

Driver level forced AA support comes with a bit of a performance hit over a native implementation that could have been done by Blizzard, but if you’re rocking a relatively modern 5xxx series card you have more than enough spare horsepower to make this work.

Admittedly Nvidia has had support for this feature from day one, but ATI was curiously silent on the issue leading us to believe Radeon owners would have to do without. We are glad to hear this isn’t the case, and its certainly worth checking out if you have ATI hardware.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: ATI, PC

This month saw the release of a major sports title and one of the most anticipated PC games of all time. But if you’re not into football or strategy games, you’re still in luck, because the console download services delivered in a big way, too. Round that selection out with a hotly anticipated handheld RPG, and you’re in for a hot July. These are the games we couldn’t get enough of over the past 30 days. They are  Games of the Month July 2010 :

PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
NCAA Football 11

College pigskin is back, and it’s never looked better. Thanks to the new locomotion system, the players on your alma mater’s starting lineup are going to break tackles, take hits and lower the boom with a sense of realism you’ve never seen in a collegiate videogame. Need more? How about awesome on-the-field video replays as you pick your next play? An ESPN integration that makes it seem like you’re watching the network when you’re playing your game? An online dynasty where you can recruit and manage your team from your real life mobile phone? Yeah, NCAA Football 11 has all that, and it’s rather awesome.

PC
StarCraft II

We’re still working on getting the review together, but from what we’ve already seen there’s no doubt that Blizzard’s real-time strategy sequel is the best game on the platform this month. It’s been over a decade since the original was released, but the reworked campaign is among the best real-time strategy story modes in recent memory, and it’s complemented by one of the most robust multiplayer suites around. Even if your personal computer isn’t super powerful, this game should be on its hard drive. Continue reading »

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

written by cimaul \\ tags: game, Nintendo, PC, Playstation 3, wii, Xbox 360