Perhaps one of the most relavent entries to my interest so far. Above you see the trail to  Marvels sequal to the Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Cleverly name "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2." I enjoyed the 1st game, it was a lot of fun, if not extremely simple. But this one has a PLOT. Yes my friends, a plot.

And not just any plot, oh no. We've got Civil War, my third favorite story line, the first being Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, which is interesting since my favorite hero is Iron Man. But I digress. Civil War, for you poor ungodly heathens out there, is based around the "Superhero Registration Act" the the skirmishes fought between those who favored the registration act, the figure head being Iron Man. And those against the Act, with Captain America as the figure head.

Anyway, I am excited for this game, simply because I love the story line in the comic so much and I love being conflicted, my favorite hero being Iron man but my moral support goes behind the Rebels.

Graphically speaking from the trailer the game has a cartoonish quality, not gaudy and out of proportion like Team Fortress 2, but enough to be reminiscent of comic book style. I am looking forward to this game.

Left 4 Dead is a zombie FPS in the same vein as the 48 Days series of movies. The zombies are fast and coordinated and will not shy away from surrounding you and dry humping your dying body. In this game their are 9 main characters. You have the survivors, various outcasts of society. A biker, a vet, some prissy girl, and your average joe. On the infected side there are the Zombies, the Smoker, the Tank, the Hunter, and the Boomer. (As well as a "witch" but she is not a playable character, so we shall ignore her.) In your ordinary campaign mode, you get to play as the Survivors with a fairly small selection of weapons. From here you travel through a fairly linear level, accousted by the living dead...who, of course, are trying to gorge themselves on your fleshy manbits. Let me just say this. This game is a multiplayer game, while there is the option to run through the campaign on single player, the bots AI are too shoddy to really do you any good. Something is lost when you aren't playing with three other compadres...namely the screams of "HOLY SHITITS THE SMOKERS GOT ME. GETIT OFF GETIT OOOOOOOFF!"

Ahem.

The real meat of this game lays in the Verse mode, you and 7 of your closets friends get together, half as infected, half as survivors, and you play a level. Then switch sides, the winner with the most points wins! Yee haw. This is the bread and butter of this game, this is the thing that makes it different from other zombie games. It's like played Dead Rising and Stubbs the zombie at the same time.

So, top three pros and cons.

Pros:

Decent graphics

Awesome multiplayer

Amazing musical score

Cons:

Shoddy single player

Bots with the intelligence and empathy of autistic 3 year olds

Too few people playing in one game (4-8)

8 destroyed brains out of 10

All of the Fatality moves. I had heard that this would be a very "Family Friendly" game, well...as family friendly as MK gets, but THIS...THIS is horrible, it'll be the anti-clamitic end to an anti-clamitic fight. I feel that this is very disingenuous to  the Mortal Kombat fans.

Releasing a version of this game that is trying to attract a "Younger crowd" is honest a poor business decision that almost complete puts their hardcore fans in the dark. The main age of gamers now is what...28? 30? The industry can't seem to get it out of their head that we aren't 13.

Just as Nintendo is doing with their entire business plan, it is cutting out a big part of the base audience to appeal to a larger, but less ingrained group of people. These fatalities, for the most part, are boring, I would rather uppercut someone into a river of acid or a pit of spikes than even ATTEMPT to learn how to perform these moves.

For shame Mortal Kombat for going against your audience and bowing to the wishes of DC completely.

This thought was thus "How many times have I purchased Diablo II and the expansion?" How many times have ANY of us purchased it. I know it must have been atleast three times. This game must grow legs and walk away. Or perhaps Douglas Adams was correct in the assumption that lost things are actually migrating toward their home planets. Out there in the vastness of space there is an entire world whose inhabitants are all ballpoint pens, or screwdrivers.

Out there, there must be a solar system of Diablo II disks and CD keys, frolicing in their own grey/black/red/green/brown world. Enjoying the company of Wirt and the Cows...maybe happily sipping champagne with Diablo and Baal as Mephisto plays a rousing game of Badmiton.

One day I shall find all my Diablo disks.

Fallout 3 is the continuation of the tremendously popular PC Fallout series (We shall ignore the console release by Interplay). I must begin by saying that I did not play Fallout 1 or 2. I know, I know...as sad as it is I have not. Please, do not break out the lynchin' rope yet.

As an outsider to the series I had an opportunity to evaluate the game based on it actual merits. I must say, I have enjoyed this game immensely. The story is interesting, the side quests entertaining. The random tidbits running throughout the game help to flesh out the story and the feel of the time excellently. I have been taking time with this game searching everything I find, not because there is a specific reason to, no quest I need to complete, but because I find myself WANTING too...but also needing to (God damn Bobby pins). But perhaps this is all because I have a vested interest in this game.
Living in the D.C. area I love finding small things that only someone from the area would know. A water tower with the faded lettering "Maclean" or driving past the Germantown Police building and thinking "Shit, I just killed ravenous bloodthirsty Super mutants there an hour ago."

Fallout 3, made by Bethesda, is based on their Oblivion engine (Another game I enjoyed) they are perfecting the formula every time the produce one of these open world games. With Morrowind, you felt like you were apart of the world, the only thing preventing total emersion in this world was the graphically flat look of everything...in Oblivion, I exited the Sewers and I was astounded by the vibrant world that surrounds me. I wanted to TOUCH everything (resulting in my frequent arrest and subsequent mastery of escaping prison)
But what prevented me from the emersion into Oblivion was the substandard voice acting. The basis of this was not that the voices were horrible, far from it; but rather, that it was very inconstant; to hear a beggar woman talk to me when I pass by her in a voice of a normal citizen, then clicking on her to actually talk to her and hearing the quavering voice of an old woman...it ruined the acting. In anything, whether it is food, technology, or a video game consistence of product is the key. I digress, Fall Out 3 covered up many of these problems, everything was more consistent; and therefore, more believable. I find myself wanting to help the people. I had originally set out to be the evilest sonuvabitch that ever walked the wasteland...but I couldn't...I didn't blow the Hell out of Megaton I didn't destroy the Family. I didn't WANT to enslave people and I NEEDED to punish the slavers for what they were doing to children.

Perhaps I allowed myself to be absorbed in the mindset of the person I was playing, I have found it to be the case more and more often after playing Bioshock and connecting with Jack too. But I have found, and I am finding, this game to be absolutely amazing, but maybe my sociopathic tendencies are waning, only time will tell.
But to the exciting news! According to certain websites, the idea of A Fallout MMO is being knocked around. I find this news to be particularly exciting. What would be better than travelling the wastelands of the United States, Killing mutants and Raiders, saving those who need to be and punishing those who deserve it and not only that BUT TO DO IT WITH YOUR BEST BUDDIES; boozing across the wasteland dispensing a Wild West type of justice. Of course, Interplay considered this idea, but cited cost and manpower to be a major concern. This will be a problem for Bethesda as well, but as a Game studio that could truly be an excellent direction for them to move into. Having the depth and complexity of Fallout combined with the social aspects of World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online. The prospect is very VERY exciting (in more than one sense of the word). Of course, I'm sure many of the detractors of the series will complain about a hit to the graph capabilities of such a game. But to retain that much information, some sacrifices have to be made...time will change that...and I hope that the world of Fallout will benefit greatly from those advances.

I think my next article will be on the preparation of some fallout dishes. Iguana on a Stick, anyone?

                                                                        

/end rant