Magic and Mayhem From a Video Game
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Like actors in an amateur stage play, the large, mostly all-star â or has-been star â cast of âIn the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Taleâ look, rather dazedly, to be playing dress-up.
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Itâs not much of an exaggeration to say Halo did to videogames what The Lord of the Rings did to feature films. Epic in scale and addictive in entertainment, the first Halo, like The Fellowship of the Ring
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Fans of classic computer games won't give up their habit without a fight. Some even faithfully remake their favorite games. The legality of the new versions remains murky, but some game creators are awed by the players' dedication. By Jacob Ogles.
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Gabe: I don"t read game reviews. I honestly don"t see any reason to. It"s not hard to rent a game and see for yourself if it"s any good. I don"t know why I should care what number someone I don"t know and will never meet has attached to the latest game. I picked up Enchanted Arms the day it came out because I"m a fan of classic turn based RPG"s. Now there are a lot of bad games in this genre but there are also some real gems. Series like Shadow Hearts and Shin Megami Tensei are proof that the genre has grown beyond just Final Fantasy. I"m happy to say that Enchanted Arms is another of the good ones. I"ve been hooked on it since I dropped it into my 360. Robert also grabbed a copy and we have little chat sessions every morning about how awesome the game continues to be. Tycho happened to hear one of these Enchanted Arms lovefests and was actually surprised. He told us that for the most part all the reviews of the game said it"s pretty bad or at the very best only okay. I was really surprised that reviewers could have gotten this one so wrong so I hit gamerankings to see for myself. I found the Games Radar review especially bad.
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The first video game to mimic a presidential election
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From blasting aliens and playing bizarro soccer to making an imitation trip to a fair's game-riddled midway, a crafty crop of titles delivers a wide range of amusements to Wiimote-whipping fans.
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Matt Ringel knows there's a certain image that comes to mind when you start talking about hardcore video gamers: think teenage boys with messy hair and dark circles under their eyes from staying up all night, their eyes glued to a screen and their fingers frantically flitting about a keyboard or a controller.
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Electronic Arts is back in the game it never left.
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The legend of Conan the barbarian, the many-muscled pulp novel creation of Robert E. Howard, has been delivered in full gory glory with "Conan" the video game, a fantastic release thick with violence and gorgeous graphics.
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This season&#39;s blockbuster video games give players the opportunity to hijack cars, mow down the walking undead with heavy artillery, shoot police officers and ogle topless women.
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Tycho:  Having played collectible card games since the original printing of Magic - taking my dishwasher's tips across the street to Dragon Tails to secure boosters for the coveted Arabian Nights - seeing Gabriel take up the pastime has warmed (but not thawed) my black heart.  It's always a portion of myself I've bridled in his presence, kept hidden, suppressed may be the word.  To have him take it up so freely makes me wonder which perversion of mine he'll take up next.    When he started talking about his "Firestarter" deck, whose dancing fires were stoked by a mysterious device known as "The Holon Engine," I began to worry.  The dangers of Netdecking are fairly substantial when it comes to friendly play, a corrosive force that turns friendly pick-up games into ostentatious displays of wealth on par with rap videos.  If you're playing in a competitive venue, building on prior art and making loads of precision purchases is probably your only recourse.  But if you're just playing at lunch, let me be clear:  you are consorting with devils.    I took time over the weekend to hit the level cap in Call of Duty 4, and then just to be sure that I understood what was going on I played for several more hours.  I'm not the most skilled player you will encounter, with a roughly equal number of kills and deaths, but I prefer to think of my work in an assassinative context - the removal of key players at key moments.  Please let me have this.  In the absence of the game's deeply integrated progression scheme, Infinity Ward would merely have created one of the best shooters available today.  It would have staunch proponents, and they would be right to praise it.  Is there a substance within cream that can rise to the top of itself?  This substance has been discovered.  As a distillation of the Infantry FPS, this is right down to it.  This is brutal, unrepentant, bathtub fucking hooch.  It is tight and smooth, it is lethal.  Unrelenting in its intensity, your first rounds - indeed, your first few levels - will be spent without the succor of CoD4's rich rewards for continued play.  But you'll see them on the killcam, every time you go down:  this one has increased health, of course that would help.  This one does more damage.  This one, after he's killed, pulls his sidearm and takes a few final shots.  This one's shots retain more of their damage after they pass through a wall.        You earn these for leveling up, with the experience you gain for every kill, for every round.  You also earn experience for Challenges, which are (collectively) "awesome things that you did."  I completed X-Ray challenges last night for killing people behind walls, which dished up bonus XP - this is displayed with exultant audio and video cues at the very moment of success.  Killing while crouched, killing while prone, taking down an enemy helicopter, this is all gravy.  There are challenges specific to your weapon, as well:  for kills and headshots with that firearm, you travel down an upgrade path unique to that weapon that reveals sights, camouflage patterns, and other tools to customize your equipment.    Watching videos of multiplayer play online, you'll get the impression that it looks better than it does.  It looks fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it's not completely photorealistic.  What it does have is an extremely reliable framerate and excellent level design, so that during the experience of play these fantastic visuals are transmuted into something sublime.  Here's what I mean:  if a friend is over, and they are watching you play, they'll be able to detect flaws here and there.  Level geometry isn't especially fanciful, and blown paper or leaves look a little strange.  But for the player, movement is just right, player models are just right, and the environments are right so that moment to moment everything gels.      As I said on Friday, to bring this thing into the house of Halo is pretty ballsy - but it'll carve out its proper due.  On the Playstation 3, what force could stand against it?  I have a high opinion of Haze, but I've never played it - that's based mostly on my gut.  Call of Duty 4 will fall hard on that system, like shrieking artillery.
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Video game makers are straying from virtual blood-and-guts battles to letting people play at being rock music stars.
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Okami is a visually dazzling, imaginative action-adventure game that stands apart from the crowd.
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By Dorsey Griffith, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.  Jun. 22--Everyone knows someone like this: The guy who sits for hours, playing video games, his heart racing as he pummels animated bad guys with controller-driven automatic weapons.
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Electronic Arts is embarking on a project that entails trying to redefine video games for a new audience.
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Shut off the lights and prepare for an entertaining blend of Mafioso-meets-macabre in the new video game "The Darkness" for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
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Take the Sims to the big city, let them mix with punkers, ravers and slackers, and The Urbz delivers an amusing, yet frustrating experience. By Lore SjÃ¶berg.