I had the chance to hop on the Diablo III open Beta this past weekend. Unlike many of the posts I've seen around the web, my entry was pretty painless with only one "server problem" error that prevented me from playing. However, an abundance of "boring problems" made up for the lack of technical ones. Be warned Blizzard fans, this article was written by a guy who never played the original Diablo games.
Following my previous review of Dear Esther, I continue to recklessly invest money into artsy, abstract games in hopes of having my socks knocked off in amazement. I'm starting to realize I should stop doing this and accept that these games aren't for me.
Right before PAX, Ubisoft released multiplayer videos of Farcry 3 and the world was shook to its very core from every living gamer making dismissive jerk off gestures.
I was having a chat with some new interns at work, i.e. people born after the year 1990 and I was appalled that they didn't appreciate some of the classic games I grew up with. Doom, Desert Strike, Eternal Champions, Killer Instinct... these are all monumental achievements in the history of video games that some of them don't even recognize for fucks sake! It disheartens me to know these games are fading into obscurity.
I think my generation runs the entertainment industry now and I blame our obsession with trying to revive and reboot everything and failing, effectively killing the name and destroying all relevance. But the past 10 or so years have brought about some truly great franchises that you know will never die. They will live on and become synonymous with gaming like Spielberg is to movies. Like Hulk Hogan is to wrestling. Like Magic Johnson is to Aids. These are 10 of those franchises.
Max Payne 3 is officially my most anticipated game of the year. At least of games that have a definite release date in 2012. Every nugget of hype that Rockstar releases just keeps building the excitement and as a long standing fan of the franchise, it's a pre-order/day one buy for me.
Sorry guys, slow news day at the greatest investigative video game journalism site on the web. We're kind of in that part of the year I call the gaming drought, where there aren't a whole lot of releases or news stories to cover and I find myself playing games I missed last year. As much as I'd love to write about Mass Effect 3 and how not into it I am, I'll leave those articles for Almasy, our resident ME fan.
Instead I'll take the time to blog about one of my favorite subjects: bashing the Army of Two franchise. Thankfully, it's semi relevant as rumors and tweets have all but confirmed a part 3: Army of Four.
Not pictured: The fourth guy because the guy on the right ate him apparently.
We haven't done a review for a while since we've been hung up on games of yesteryear like Battlefield 3, Saints Row: The Third, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. After seeing the scrolling ads over and over again on Steam, I decided to take a risk with indie title Dear Esther. It was a risk that yielded very little reward.
This week marks my return to Battlefield 3. I quit cold turkey, fed up with non stop losses and embarrassing kill to death ratios. I figured I wasn't cut out for the game and after dealing with the frustrating Beta's lack of configurable options, the official launch's lack of voice and squad support, and finally the game's merciless learning curve, I decided it wasn't worth the stress. Then Murdernator and I figured out the problem, my caveman computer (or more specifically the caveman graphics card) was holding me back. Now that's all changed.
I finally got around to playing Saints Row 3 and I'm having a pretty good time committing insurance fraud and tornado DDT'ing gimps with my DDD cups and my zombie voice. After playing the first couple of story missions I ran into my biggest gripe not only with this game, but a common problem in so much of entertainment's marketing over these past 2 years.
The prayers of no one have been heard and answered! New Alan Wake media is flooding the internet to hype up the release of the most unanticipated sequel of the year. I wasn't going to bother writing about this game because I think I bashed its predecessor enough in my review but the franchise represents a trend in movies which I hope isn't growing in gaming - the pretentious "I don't get it so it must be good" critique.
If you could go back in time to visit your adolescent self and show them any 3 games of the future, what would they be? I've pondered this more often than necessary and had numerous debates with friends over this issue. It's fun and stupid at the same time considering what seems amazing now would seem terrible in a few years but let's go ahead and do this anyway.
Excuse me while I shamelessly support Onlive in yet another article but I can't stress enough how awesome this service is. I just bought Amnesia: The Dark Descent on one of their holiday deals and I so regret not trying this game that's over a year old sooner. If you haven't tried either Onlive or Amnesia, I can't recommend them more. And there's more to it than just me liking them individually, the two actually work together to make an experience I haven't had before. Read on for more.
I saw the trailer for "The Last of Us" after the Spike Video Game awards and like so many others, I wrote it off as another shitty zombie game. Until I did a little research and found out there may be a lot more to it than that. I invite you to click on and hear me out before you continue with the same assumption.
2012 is here and so are we. No apocalypse yet so long as you didn't consider 2 weeks without a NODJ post the end of the world and dropped your console in the bathtub in preparation for a rapey-cannibalistic future a la "The Road".
So to kick things off with our 3rd year on the blogosphere, I've come up with my 2012 gaming resolutions.
Welcome back to part 2 of your old pal Abortion Fist's game awards of 2011. This week we conclude the ceremony by honoring all of the industries travesties this year.