Need For Speed Undercover is like a greatest hits album from a band you used to love. They put together all the stuff you remember listening to for hours, and they meld it with the best of the newer stuff that originally turned you off but finally starts to grow on you — you know what I mean. Need For Speed Undercover has the customization of Underground, the gameplay of Most Wanted, and that traditional Need For Speed middle ground that combines simulation and exaggerated physics.

“You’re not good. And you’re not bad.” That simple, even sublime phrase, one that you’ll see over and over (and over and over and over) during loading screens, is really telling of what you’ll come to see during your stay. Read more…

The original announcement trailer for Halo 3: Recon left a lot of unanswered questions and, even worse, projected the release to be a full year away. Thankfully, Game Informer has pulled through and gained exclusivity for the first bit of concrete details about Bungie’s next project. Read more…

It seems right that Sony would give Capcom a dedicated storefront on their network. After all, Capcom has been doing the most creative things with the downloadable market with ventures like Bionic Commando Rearmed and Mega Man 9. And Sony has been the most expiremental with downloadable distribution by virtue of having PSN play home to WipEout HD, Burnout Paradise, and more.

The marriage will be official come November 13, 2008. Read more…

Okay, so my overzealous pursuit for clever headlines may cause more damage than usual this time. Sue me. Although Ubisoft did actually publish No More Heroes, they’ve recently announced that they’ll be dropping the game Heroes based on the TV series. Read more…

Exactly one week ago a demo of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Soon after there was a rash of SDTV owners complaining about unclear, and even downright unreadable, text. Initially Rare said that they were looking for ways to combat the issue, but their community manager, George Kellion, reveals that chances of a fix are slim to none. For his full quotation, hit the jump. Read more…

I guess it just depends on whether you’re a pessimist or an optimistic pessimist. Speaking with CVG, Microsoft’s Jerry Johnson said “Half the things we wanted to do [in NXE] we cut out of the service.” Although consumers may not have to wait an exorbitant amount of time to see them come to fruition. Read more…

The creative force behind the, how can I put this nicely — uhh, the clusterfuck that is Hellgate: London, Bill Roper, has joined Cryptic Studios as a Design Director for their upcoming superhero MMO, Champions Online. Following the unfortunate downward spiral of his development shop, Flagship Studios, he needed somewhere to go and Cryptic Studios’ CEO, John Needham embraced him with open arms:

“Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,”.

To his credit, Roper has also worked on a fair share of what are widely accepted successes. Most notably his work on Blizzard’s Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo games that have been loved by many and hated by masochists. What remains to be seen is which Bill Roper Cryptic Studios has inherited — the Blizzard or Flagship-era.

Either way, I wish him the best at his new position and look forward to his work. If you’re really interested as to how his influence will affect Champions’ development, you should see about being a part of this Closed Beta I keep hearing about.

Source: 1UP

YouTube user “TheRealPfhreak” has a girlfriend he loves with all his heart. Naturally, he decided he wanted to make her a keeper. When he decided he’d like to seal the deal, his girlfriend was in the process of a good ol’  Chrono Trigger playthrough. It all made sense. In an effort to create a unique proposal, he decided to meld his innate nerdery with what he’s learned from his Computer Science degree. Read more…

From the dark recesses of my mailbox surfaced a copy of the recently released EA game, Dead Space. Readily equipped with poo-retardant pants, I prepared myself to be survivally-horrified. Read on to find out just how many turds I dropped. Read more…

Fall is fast approaching, and your bank balance will soon be dropping faster than the leaves on the tree outside your window. Naturally, you may not be able to decide for yourself which of the plethora of games to splurge your life’s savings on, and that’s where I come in.

Think of me as your personal assistant — ready to passively (and aggressively) project my thoughts and opinions onto you. Thank me later. Read more…

I’m not the creative type. LittleBigPlanet should have no appeal to me, but for some reason I’m consistently drawn to it.

After dwelling on this notion for hours (literally) I decided it’s the game’s combination of approachability (in both visuals and gameplay), and the platform it creates.

Media Molecule presents users with a tool set expansive enough to recreate Shadow of the Colossus in a condensed form, and in this specific case, revive the emotion previously evoked by the original.

The following LBP level, designed by PSN user Kirathian, recreates the theme song from Final Fantasy X, “To Zanarkand.” Yes, you heard me correctly — he recreates the song using the LBP level editor.

Hit the jump for the utterly awesome video filled with awesome. Read more…

Fable 2 is done. No, really, it’s for real this time. As we speak, it’s already being pressed to discs, manufactured, and otherwise tarted up for it’s release on October 21, 2008 for North America and Asia, and October 24, 2008 for Europe. But that’s not the story, the real story is you see that package of awesome above?

Do you have any irrational impulse to own it? Have you even already gone as far as pre-ordering it? Tough. Because you see all that? Almost all of it’s gone. But not all is lost, the price has been dropped from a $79.99 to a more conventional $69.99 (both figures are in USD, so convert accordingly). Read more…

After a month of hard work behind-the-scenes we’re proud to present you the inaugural episode of the Ripcast, this is the start of a very wild ride.

Join John Kershaw, Roly Reyes, Beau Rosser, and Jonathan Zungre as they tell you about their Playlist’s for the week, which include: Crysis: Warhead, Mercenaries 2, Pure, Rock Band (both of them, Rock Bands?), Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Followed by philosophical waxing with Soulja Boy about the merits of Braid, Mass Effect and BioShock films, Spawnpoint Studios job listings, and the mish-mash of Halo games that may or may not be in development.

Due to technical difficulties, this was posted a little late, looking forward you should expect them earlier in the week provided there are no screwups. We’re still working on the logistics of everything, and I’ll keep you posted when I’ve wrangled this group of assholes into a steady schedule.

All music has been provided by the unbearably awesome Anamanaguchi. Have their babies. Seriously. Hit the jump for Episode 1. Read more…

Ever since I started playing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning with the intent of reviewing it in mind, I struggled with how I’d tackle it, since MMOs (as well as episodic games) are far different beasts than your average gaming fare.

This is largely because they’re the very definition of moving targets-– constantly evolving and morphing to correct missteps as best as they can. Take a gander at any review from World of Warcraft at release, and tell me how applicable it is for the World of Warcraft that we have now. Read more…

You know, I think I was wrong about you, Soulja Boy. When I first heard your music, I thought you were a talentless punk who got rich from a dance that my two year old cousin could perfect. But, now I see the real you. You’re a thoughtful gamer who’s passionate about the medium. I now know that you can, at a moment’s notice, coherently gather your thoughts to defend it. Why didn’t you tell me you loved Braid, and gaming, so much? Read more…

I may be reaching a bit, but I think this Fall may be the battle of the genres. Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2 are heading for a shooter showdown, while Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and World of Warcraft will fight for the MMORPG of the year mantle. The Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be released on 11/13/08, just about two months after Warhammer. Read more…

In an age where we’re being nickled-and-dimed for content that should’ve been on the disc to begin with, Criterion and EA are going above and beyond the call of duty to keep supporting Burnout: Paradise. They’re distributing DLC to the widest possible audience by making it available for the unbeatable price of free. On September 18th, these kind souls are adding motorcycles into the mix. Read more…

And here I thought the best of what I was going to get from PAX had passed. Ken Levine, the man largely credited for the success of last year’s BioShock hosted a panel about adolescent nerdery, Hollywood screenwriting exploits, and finding himself as a game designer. Read more…

Patience, Mr. Zebra, soon we’ll be available in stores.

We now have confirmation: October 23rd, 2008 is the date you’ll find all platform releases of Far Cry 2 on your local game retailer’s shelf.

Initially brushing it off as an Activision-like cash in sequel to an established franchise, I didn’t see much reason to follow Far Cry 2’s development. But, having just seen a few gameplay videos, I’m convinced. They actually dug down, and if nothing else, put their best foot forward and attempted to do something new with an established name.

Source: Far Cry Dev Blog

Classic PC games on the cheap? If you deem that statement worth your while, it would be prudent of you to take a look at GOG.com (Good Old Games). What started as a side-project from the guys that made PC RPG, The Witcher, managed to take it as far as making it an entity of its own. Although not yet live, we do know that Codemasters and Interplay are in with GOG.com as well as the existence of an early access beta.
Read more…