Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game you need to play and the one you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week? Dragon Age: Origins? Band Hero? Five Minutes to Kill Yourself? Read more…

Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game you need to play and the one you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week?  Grand Theft Auto, DJ Hero, Forza 3? Click to find out! Read more…

Wedding Dash tries to capture all the stress, creative thinking and excitement of being a wedding planner, which is, if the game is an indicator, a challenging and rewarding job. Read more…

Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game you need to play and the one you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week? Kingdom Hearts, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge? Read more…

By now you’ve probably heard of Scribblenauts, but if you haven’t you should know that it’s being hailed as the Savior of All Organic Life, a.k.a. one spot lower in a gamer’s mind than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Scribblenauts allows you to write any noun on the DS screen and that word will appear in the game. Ridiculous, I know. Click to listen to me drop the awesome bomb on 3 unsuspecting radio show hosts in my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week segment. Were they as impressed as gamers are? Read more…

Gamer unseats The Happening as the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disgusting, abrasive movie made by someone who doesn’t understand or appreciate games and can only see the negative in the youth and culture that surround them. Read more…

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Sumo Sultan at first. It’s a monstrously large luxury “bean bag chair” that has a removable, washable micro suede cover, and claims to be the ultimate gaming throne. But it’s actually filled with a super sculptable furniture foam, not beans of any sort, and so right off the bat, I felt the Sumo Sultan had lied to me about its true nature, and I could see my other furniture was intimidated by its Brock Lesnarian size.

However, I began to notice how my guests reacted to the Sumo Sultan as opposed to my other furniture pieces. Where I saw apathy to my rustic leather couch and awkwardness and fear to my seven foot wooden Indian carving, I saw enthusiasm to the Sumo Sultan. Read more…

UFC Undisputed’s authenticity in portraying the sport of mixed martial arts is both its greatest strength and weakness. Read more…

Deadliest Warrior is one of Spike’s top new shows, with ratings averaging 1.7 million viewers per episode, and one of the most downloaded TV shows on Xbox Live. And how could it not be? Each show answers the questions that burn deep within the heart of every man, such as, “who would win in a fight, a ninja or a Spartan?”

Max Geiger is part of the team that determines who wins the title of deadliest warrior for each show by collecting data from tests done on the warriors weapons and inserting it into a program which simulates the fight between the two combatants and determines a winner. Max took some time to tell us about some of his most exhilarating and horrifying moments while filming the show and gave us some clues on how the program chooses its winner. Read more…

Fight Night Round 4 is the first game in over 21 years to feature Mike Tyson, and let me answer your first question right now: No, you can’t bite someone’s ear off.  EA goes to great lengths to capture the devastating power of the late 80’s-early 90’s Tyson rather than the hot mess that was ear-biting, post-prison Tyson.  The roster of over 40 boxers is also the first in 17 years to feature “Big” George Foreman, again, not the smiley grill salesman but the cinderblock-fisted monster who almost ended Joe Frazier’s career in the 70’s. I recently got my hands on the newest entry in EA’s successful franchise to see exactly how the skull busting will be going down.  Read more…

Warrior Epic is the first RPG to reward players for letting their created characters die.  Having your created character bite the dust brings one of two benefits: you can either infuse the dead character’s soul into a weapon or one of your living characters can carry their spirit and use it as a powerful spell.  You don’t have to find your body and you don’t lose experience or progress.  It’s Warrior Epic’s way to turn a negative into a positive.   Read more…

Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao and Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton are set to clash tonight on pay per view, but Fight Night Round 4 already knows who’s going to win.  EA’s hyper-realistic boxing franchise predicts Ring Magazine’s 2 time Fighter of Year Manny Pacquiao to knock out the tough as nails Englishman in the 11th round.

Here’s how its going down:

According to the simulation, an aggressive attempt by Hatton to limit Pacquiao’s movement early on was unsuccessful. Pacquiao’s used his speed and control of the ring to take advantage of Hatton’s aggression, picking his punches and keeping out of range. The tide turned in Hatton’s favor in Round 4 when he found some success trapping Pacquiao in the corner. With little room to work with, Pacquiao was forced to trade blows on Hatton’s terms. This relentless exchange proved to be too much for Pacquiao who went down to a powerful left hook at the end of Round 6.  The later rounds saw the revival of the quick moving Pacquiao, who outpaced and out boxed Hatton yet again. Lightning fast left jabs wreaked havoc on Hatton through Rounds 7, 8 and 9 before a commanding right hand brought him to the mat in Round 10. Badly hurt and looking sluggish, Hatton was unable to beat the count after falling to another deadly right hook from Pacquiao in Round 11.

Wow, good fight. I hope the real thing’s just as good. The simulation was done with Fight Night Round 4’s new AI, dubbed R.E.A.L. (Record, Evaluate, Adapt, Learn) which determines that each fighter will fight as their real life counterpart but may switch tactics mid-fight based on their success or failure. That means that fighters like Mike Tyson are going to close the distance and throw big hooks and uppercuts and Muhammad Ali’s going to keep his distance and snap that jab, but if their strategies aren’t working they’ll try to think up some other way to beat you. Look for the demo in late May, the game in late June and the Pacquiao v. Hatton fight tonight!

We just previewed Madden 10 and it seems like the team has been hard at work scrapping elements that haven’t worked for the series and creating new features in order to produce the most realistic feeling hard-nosed Sunday football game to date.  Let’s blitz through the top ten changes Madden 10 makes to famed Madden formula.

1.  Madden 10 lets players “Feel The Pressure” in the pocket and avoid It.  Since the beginning of time, Madden players have played passing offense the same way:  Running 20 yards or more into the backfield, away from the pocket, and firing a huge bomb to a downfield receiver.  They either complete that miracle pass or they’re sacked for an absurd loss.  Real NFL quarterbacks don’t do this, by the way, they stay protected in the pocket created by the offensive line.  The developers of Madden 10 found that when players were looking downfield for a receiver, the pocket didn’t feel safe because they couldn’t sense when the defense was rushing them, hence the running into the backfield.

One of Madden 10’s goals is to make the pocket feel safe again.  When looking downfield for a receiver to pass to, the controller will rumble when the quarterback is under pressure.  A quick flick of the right stick lets the quarterback execute an avoidance move to shrug away a potential sack and give the player an extra moment to complete a pass.  The avoidance moves will work better with elusive quaterbacks, like Big Ben, but even then they won’t work all the time.

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They’re not calling themselves a “Halo Killer” but it seems that many of the main features in Section 8 were created in response to what annoyed them, and probably annoy you, about established FPS franchises like Halo and Battlefield.

Let’s go through 3 problems even the best first person shooters have and the ways Section 8 provides a solution. Read more…

Hey, my ugly mug is back and ready to tell you about why Dragon Age: Origins is looking better than ever. All the videos are (almost) under two minutes and I brought a basket full of screenshots this time! Yowza!
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Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk

Emily Balistrieri and I had the rare opportunity to interview the founders of BioWare, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, the minds behind Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire and Mass Effect about BioWare’s upcoming titles, as well as experience the almost tangible passion and curiosity that they have for making games, discussing the future of narrative and even their opinions on characters that break the fourth wall such as Psycho Manits.  It’s a unique look into the thought process of two visionaries, so if you’re into BioWare or ever want to create a game yourself, please read and enjoy.

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Ok, do you see this picture? You see how I’m holding this print out in front of my webcam? Do the same on the Assassin’s Creed 2 Teaser website and something pretty sweet will happen. After the video, get the print out by clicking on the symbol in the center of the page and get to the video section by clicking on the triangle icon on the left of the screen.

Do it! It’s a pretty neat Easter egg.

Every week, on CD 101 Columbus, Ohio’s premier Alternative Rock station, I pick which new game release people should buy, and which one they should stay the heck away from.

Guitar Hero Metallica is on the show today, but is it the Winner of the Week or the Loser? Click the link to find out if Metal heads will be eternally pissed off at me

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Black20 is known for making great movie trailer spoofs for games like Tetris and Contra by pointing out film cliche’s that we all know and love. Their newest romantic comedy based on Killzone 2 is hilarious and oddly…heartwarming?

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Chuck Liddell makes an appearance on Spike TV’s newest show, Deadliest Warrior, which uses a scientific approach to determine who the deadliest warriors of all time were. Each Show pits one warrior type against another and ends with CGI simulated fight with match ups including:

Pirate vs. Knight, Taliban vs. IRA, Yakuza vs. Mafia, Viking vs. Samurai, Green Beret vs. Spetznaz, Maori vs. Shaolin Monks, William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu and Ninja vs. Spartan.

In this clip, the show tries to find modern day equivalents of ancient warriors in order to collect data on how each would fight. Former UFC champ Chuck Liddell drops by to represent modern day gladiators and there’s an especially cool trash talking bit between him and the Apache Warrior’s representative at the end of the clip. Click to enjoy, fighters.

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