There’s a show on TV right now called Pushing Daisies in which the main character talks to dead people to help solve the mysteries surrounding their deaths. Folklore follows a similar premise by having you visit the netherworld to unravel a mystery in the village of Doolin. In Folklore you follow the story and play as two different characters with intertwining paths. Ellen is a distressed young woman drawn to the Village of Doolin by a mysterious letter from her dead mother.

Keats is a reporter at a sci-fi magazine who receives a frantic phone call from a woman at the Village of Doolin. Both arrive to find a woman dead on the cliffs of the town, and murder is in the air. It’s their job to get to the bottom of the crime as well as discover what exactly happened in the village 17 years ago in the Village’s past.

The game itself is broken up into two parts. The first has your character walking around town, talking to townsfolk and looking for clues. The second has your character transported to the land of the dead to talk to a character from village who has since been deceased to fill in a piece of the puzzle. Each one of these sections make up a chapter of the game, and each chapter is played by each character. Cut scenes are played out in a pseudo comic book style look with a mix of frames and real rendered 3d graphics with popup text. This was sort of a disappointment to me as there are a few cut scenes that are actually rendered really well with complete voice overs, while the graphic novel style cut scenes seemed more low budget. With all the touts of Blu-Ray and the space it provides, not having the voice overs in these other cut scenes seems sort of silly. Especially when a huge epic RPG like Mass Effect or even Oblivion has every line of dialog voiced.
Read the rest of this entry »

What would have happened if during the height of the Cold War in the 80’s the Russians had decided to invade America. With our forces spread thin around the globe fighting other battles, would we have been able to protect our own soil? That question is asked and answered in World in Conflict, the latest RTS game from Massive Entertainment, the creators of the Ground Control series.

From the first mission of WiC you can tell this game is going to have A LOT of explosions in it. With the Russians choosing Seattle as their landing zone, and all hell breaking loose in the city, it’s your job to try to salvage what you can. Before you know it highways are collapsing and the Seattle Dome is being turned into rubble. You’re character, Lieutenant Parker, is set in charge of small units of infantry, tanks, artillery and air craft. What sets WiC apart from other RTS titles is there is the way you add units to your army. You gain the ability to airdrop units in and call in fire support by killing other units and surviving. Amass enough resource points, choose your drop location, and units and bring in the reinforcements. Amass enough Victory Points and you’ll be able to call in air strikes, artillery and even laser guided missiles. There’s no resource gathering, no base building, no worrying about unit upgrades. This lets you concentrate on one thing: blowing up Russians.
Read the rest of this entry »

With Lair somewhat of a disappointment, and Warhawk a multi player only title, PlayStation 3 owners have been hungry for a solid AAA single player experience. Hopes and expectations have been high for Heavenly Sword, and some are hoping it will help justify there $600 investment. While I don’t think any one title is capable of that kind of justification, Heavenly Sword isdefinitely a piece of that puzzle.

Heavenly Sword is the tale of an ancient sword sent from the skies to help conquer evil in the world. Ironically, those who wield the sword are corrupted by it’s power becoming evil themselves, and killing all those in its path. Heavenly Sword puts you in the shoes (or sandals) of Nariko, a fiery red head who needs to wield the Heavenly Sword to protect her clan on the brink of destruction from an evil king.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well this will end my E3 coverage here on the Blog. I had a really great time, met some really awesome people and played a ton of incredible games.

To help ease the pain of wading through all the coverage I’ve compiled a huge list of all the games I played as well as a sentence or two of impressions with a final recommendation for the game.

The full list is available after the break.

Also, I wanted to point out this link to all the audio recordings I did during E3. There are lots of goodies there including an interview with Peter Moore and a demo of Mass Effect.

You can also hear my radio interviews Post-E3 with In-Game Chat as well as Evil Avatar Radio Episode 65 (once it’s posted).
Next up on the ol’ ba-schedule is PAX in Seattle at the end of August. I’m not sure how much I’m going to “work the show” but I’ll still be posting stuff about it. I mean, how much can a game change in 6 weeks?

Read the rest of this entry »

Look ma, no popins!

An interesting thing happens when reviewing a two and a half-year old game. The first thing you realize is two and a half years isn’t quite long enough for that game to fall into the retro category. The second thing you realize is that two and a half years is a long time in terms of gaming and graphics.

Halo 2 for Windows Vista is such a game. Microsoft’s 10 million copy seller makes it’s way to the PC, or more specifically makes it’s way to Windows Vista almost 30 months after the XBox release.

Read the rest of this entry »

The History
May 16th, 2005, Los Angeles California. Sony’s PlayStation 3 console was unveiled to the public, or rather a trailer for a game named Killzone 2 was shown. Within days, claims of pre-rendered footage were abound. After confirmation that the trailer was indeed only a target, Sony received quite a bit of negative press. And that was only the beginning.

Kaz Hirai @ E3 2006

The PS3 was originally announced with two HDMI ports, 3 Ethernet ports, 7 USB ports and numerous other abilities. The system was going to have a world wide release in the spring of 2006. This did not happen. In fact, Sony denied a delay up until a few months before the supposed release. So after officially delaying the PS3 till Fall of 06 (Spring of 07 in Europe), the system itself was unveiled at E3 2006. Unfortunately for gamers so was the price. $599. And that’s the only number gamers saw.

Yes Sony’s PlayStation 3 had a difficult beginning. Marred by bad press, massive damage jokes and 4 dimensions it seemed to be all doom and gloom for Sony. But on November 17th (11th in Japan) Sony released the console in North America. And it didn’t suck.
Read the rest of this entry »

So what have I been playing? Well I’m about halfway through Bulletwitch, which I did a review of for Evil Avatar. It’s very average, but does have some redeeming qualities. Be sure to check out the review if you are interested.

Of course I’m still playing Crackdown. I’m only progressing through the story when I get to play Co-Op with a buddy, and even then half the time is spent screwing around the city. I just obtained the Firefly (heat seaking rocket launcher) and it’s added a whole new element to the game. I managed to body jugle a corpse in the air for a full 30 seconds.

I’m renting The History Channel Presents: The Civil War from GamezNFlix. It’s a pretty average shooter, but it’s in a fresh setting. On top of that I played the Battle of Little Roundtop (Gettysburg) last night. Living only an hour and a half from Gettysburg I’ve been there a handful of a times and the developers did a great job with the level design. It looks very authentic, and in a sense it matches exactly how I envisioned some of the skirmishes playing out.

Finally I’ve been playing the Command and Conquer 3 demo on the PC. The game feels like a return to the C&C roots the franchise deserves complete with cheesey FMVs (BILLY DEE!) and great one liners. The ion cannon effect is particularly impressive. I’m really looking forward to this title now.

I’ve written up my review of the Gametap service over at Evil Avatar. Be sure to check it out, I was pleasantly surprised by it, especially the large quantities of games offered.

The service as it stands today consists of over 700 game titles. A large collection of these titles are from retro systems like Atari, Genesis, Neo-Geo and more. There is also a substantial collection of modern games for Windows. These range from games like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 to Splinter Cell. On top of that Gametap is now offering (time) exclusive gaming content like the new Sam and Max episodic series.

Evil Avatar - [PC] - Gametap

technorati tags:gametap, reviews, samandmax, teh, hotness

I’ve posted up a review of the Saitek Eclipse II gaming keyboard over at Evil Avatar. Be sure to check it out!

Evil Avatar - [ACCESSORIES] - Saitek Eclipse II

technorati tags:saitek, eclipse2, eclipse, II, gaming, keyboard

I posted up a review of the Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard over at Evil Avatar.

The first thing you’ll notice when you unwrap the magic keyboard is thesheer size of it. It’s HUGE. In fact the keyboard takes up my entirekeyboard tray on my computer desk. There’s almost no room for my mouse!The ironic thing about this is they central part of the keyboard, thekeys themselves are pretty tightly packed together, and for someonewith big hands it’s almost a bit uncomfortable to use.

Evil Avatar - [ACCESSORIES] - Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard

technorati tags:logitech, g15, gaming, keyboard