Sonic The Hedgehog is one of the most recognizable characters in gaming and despite it being years since his last hit video game, Sonic is still excited to celebrate his years of gaming fun.
Sonic Generations tries to bridge the early 2D Sega Genesis version of Sonic and the new 3D Sonic by bringing the two versions face to face thanks to a time-ripping monster.  The Sonics will explore several famous worlds from past Sonic games, taking on each stage from a side scrolling point of view as the original Sonic and in 3D with the new Sonic.  Each stage has some of the best fast paced excitement that Sonic games have been known for.  The set-pieces of each stage, like a race to outrun a monster semi-truck, make each level epic and unique.  If that wasn’t enough, Sonic Generations has one of the best soundtracks in video games to date.
Gamers who have been playing since Sega’s birth have been waiting for another truly good Sonic game and it’s finally here, with someone for old and new gamers to enjoy.
Sonic Generations is on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

The story of Cole McGrath was just beginning when a simple package delivery gave him the ability to control and use electricity. Now that he knows his destiny is to stop the monster known as The Beast, he flees Empire City looking for a way to stop the creature.

You begin the game with all the powers you acquired in the original Infamous, as well as the ability to carry your decisions in from you previous game. Cole’s decisions have more weight in this game, as which of your female allies you side with grant you new powers and your good or evil karma will decide how the game ultimately ends. Infamous 2 really pumps up the action with huge fire fights between the different factions occupying New Marais and the characters that felt flat in Infamous now have a real personality that you truly care about.

It doesn’t matter if you missed the original, Infamous 2 is lot of fun and one of the best games for PS3.

Infamous 2 is available exclusively for Playstation 3.

Trenched is a mix of wacky, serious, strategy, fun, and unholstered manliness.  It’s a game that can be as much about having big guns as it can be about strategic defense placement.

Trenched mixes elements of Mech games, where you battle using customizable battle robots, and tower defence games, centered around strategically placing turrets on the battlefield, and makes a whole and beautiful game. Each mission has the players defending certain objects with waves of incoming monsters, called Tubes, attacking them.  Based on the player’s Mech, he can tackle the enemies hands-on by firing at them with his own weapons or by setting up turrets using the scrap of the fallen enemies.  The weapons and turrets a player can carry are fully customizable and are unlocked by completing missions and completing special challenges.  While the game is fun on your own, it really shines when using the four player online co-op so that you and your friends can fight side by side.

Trenched is one of the greatest examples of downloadable games done right.  It’s fun, simple, and provides hours of fun for little cost.

Trenched is available for download on the Xbox 360.

Brutal Legend: Awesome game and a necessity for every metal-head. Lots of appearances by rock legends such as Ozzy and Lemmy, it’s a very good game by Tim Schaffer and it’s only about $20.

Oblivion: The fourth installment of the elder scrolls series is a great buy for any RPG fan. It’s very classic Bethesda game stuffed full of things to do, note it is not the game of the year edition so it doesn’t come with any of the DLC but the game alone is going to keep you entertained for weeks, another great game for only $20 that will not disappoint.

Fallout 3: Did I really say that? Yes… Yes I did… take it all in. Fallout 3 is Bethesda’s take on the classic fallout series for PC. An amazing game that has received amazing reviews and has earned it’s place in every gamers collection. This post-apocalyptic RPG that features voice work from Liam Neeson as Dad and Malcom McDowel (clockwork orange woot) as president Eden. This blockbuster game will keep you sucked in for a LONG time so say goodbye to your friends and family as you burn up your vacation time. Standard edition with no DLC but still only $20.

Bioshock 2: The sequel to the original thriller FPS that had gamers running around the underwater city of Rapture smacking splicers with wrenches and lighting up big daddies with plasmids. Great buy for $30 especially with leaks of the next installment sending gamers a buzz.

Tales From Liberty City: Both of the DLCs for GTA4, both are more or less games in-and-of themselves so for $30 its a great buy for anyone trying to stretch their Liberty City adventures just that little bit further.

Undead Nightmare: DLC for Red Dead Redemption which changes the gameplay from shoot-em’ up spaghetti western to a new unheard-of form of zombie apocalypse (cowboy vs. Zombie?! Hell Yeah!) and introduces new elements of gameplay while also nullifying other ones. Great buy only $30 ($10 if you buy it on your console or $30 on a disc)  and sure to entertain.

With so many great buys at a reasonable price why not give that geek in your life something they will truly love.

Years after Fable 2, the Hero of Bowerstone is dead and his children now rule over Albion.  The oldest son, Logan, has become a tyrannical leader whose earned the hatred of every citizen of the country.  It is time for the new hero of Albion, Logan’s sibling, to rise up and take the throne.  You will need to go on a journey to find allies to help you fight your brother, but will you keep the promises that made you King?

Loved:

Keeping It Simple: Fable 3 has concentrated what Fable is.  There is no health or mana bar and actions that would require multiple buttons or menus are handle by single buttons. If you wanted to introduce a non-gamer to hardcore gaming, Fable 3 features the smallest learning curve I’ve seen this console generation.

Custom Weapons: You start the game with four unique Hero weapons.  As you play the game, these weapons change based how you use them.  By the end of the game, my sword glowed red from my love of the fireball spell and had a Sabre look. My co-op partner’s sword featured a Hobbe’s head on the hilt and looked more like a Rapier.  It is a great way to show your friends how you’ve been playing and talk about the differences.

Improvements: There are a lot of improvements over the second game beyond the obvious graphics and size.  The job mechanic has been greatly improved, making it more of a game than a chore. The co-op offers more freedom (but not quite what we’ve been promised). There are some pretty awesome flourish kills through the game that will give you a “did you just see that?” moment and the story featured two awesome sections that I would hold up in a “games as art” argument. In age where sequels play like the original, Fable 3 is noticeably better than Fable 2.

Disliked:

The Glitches: I’m getting really tired of the release a broken game and patch it later mentality that many developers have recently. Fable 3 features every variation of bug from lag while just running around to game breaking glitches.  I had to reload atleast 5 times cause of these glitches and they were a lot worse during co-op.

Menu/Sanctuary: Fable 3 removes the tradition menu system from previous games.  When you press start, it takes you to your sanctuary. Weapons, Clothes, Stats, and Online Interactions are seperate rooms inside the Sanctuary. It is more immersive, but the novelty wears off pretty soon.  There are certain aspects of the sanctuary that aren’t even explained or are unlocked later.  I spent 20 minutes wandering trying to figure out how to save my game and change my quests (which was unlocked a few missions in).

The Ending: The majority of your moral choices take place at the end of the game and are based on money.  You would be required to choose between keeping your promises or saving your people, except you can just use the money you’ve collected from rent and jobs to make everyone happy.  What could have been an great moral dilemma is just a matter of accounting.

Broken Promises: This is really only a problem for hardcore gamers who have been following the game, but I figure it should be mentioned in case anyone was really interested one of the promises.  We were told you could import your character from Fable 2, but it really just pulls the sex of your hero in when the NPCs mention your character’s parent.  The “touch” mechanic we’ve heard so much about is just the follow mechanic where you hold their hand, which can be a bit odd at times when you an escort a random stranger by holding their hand as you run through the forest. Your co-op partner can not travel everywhere in your world.  He can go anywhere inside the area you are in but if both people try to do different actions at the same time, there are a strong chance of major glitches. If you think of any other broken promises, leave it the comments.

Conclusion:

Fable 3 took a lot of chances trying to make something unique.  Some of these paid off (like customizable weapons) and some of them just made the game unnecessarily difficult (Sanctuary).  There were parts of the game that made me scream, but I enjoyed playing the game so much that I kept playing despite the problems.  I have a simple rule for telling if a game is great and that is by telling if I got addicted to it.  I played Fable 3 for 2 days all day long almost forgetting one of them was a holiday; I would say Fable 3 is pretty good.  There is plenty of dislike about Fable 3, but there is a lot more to love about it.

Alien Breed 2: Assault is top down shooter set on a flying death trap known as the spaceship Leopold. The engineer and apparent badass Conrad needs to fight his way through the ship infested with bug like alien creatures to get it operational again.

Liked

Surviving: The best part of Alien Breed is just surviving.  You will often find yourself with your back against the wall, little health and ammo, and several large bugs coming at you. Figuring out how to deal with these situations and surviving them is most of the fun of the game.  One of my most memorable parts of the game is running down a corridor trying to force the bugs into a choke poke because all I had was my pistol left and I knew I wouldn’t survive a few seconds if they got close.

Exploring: The Leopold has many off the beaten paths to explore from nearby rooms with ammo to hidden paths.  Finding these rooms is just as important as getting to the objective because you will need the ammo and health if you expect to survive.

Disliked:

The Story: The cutscenes were done in an ugly comic book style with god-awful voice acting.  The story might have made sense to people who had played the older games, but it just came off as nonsense to give an excuse for Conrad to run around killing bugs.

The Controls: The real problem with top down shooters is trying to be accurate with the analog sticks.  The game tries to compensate by giving you a red dot sight so you know where you are pointing but when the bugs are right in front of you, you don’t have time to check your aim.  Weapon and item selection is mapped to your direction pad and doesn’t handle well. It is best to have the weapons and items you plan to use ready before you enter an unsafe area because changing them on the fly is next to impossible.

Conclusion

I’ve never played the Alien Breed games and its been awhile since I played a top down shooter, but I was surprised by how much I liked the game.  It gave me a simple joy from finding more ammo for my favorite gun or surviving a wave of bugs that I haven’t gotten since the arcade days.  There are a few areas where Assault’s difficulty can be a bit straining, but it’s still a pretty good game. Its one of the best downloadable games you’ve never heard of.

Alien Breed 2: Assault is available on XBLA and Steam.

Everyone thought paying a girl to play video games was a ridiculous idea but shortly after GameCrush initially launched, the GameCrush servers overloaded from all the traffic.  It took GameCrush a long time to get running again but they have relaunched the site in a limited beta.  At any given time, a girl can be found playing one of their simple java games for money.  Even in their beta, it looks like GameCrush has proven itself to be a successful business model.  The question is how does GameCrush do it?

The Basics

The premise is as old as time itself.  Guys want to have a little fun with a beautiful girl and lacking the skill to whoo one, they pay.  There are thousands of sites similar to GameCrush, that allow you to privately talk to a girl on camera for money; yet the addition of Java and Xbox games changes the game.  Guys, aka Players, buy credits in 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 packs. The players can then trade 400 credits for either a 10 minute Xbox game without webcam or a 6 minute casual game including checkers, battleship, pool, connect four, and tic-tac-toe.  If you play a casual for over 6 minute, you will be charged 60 credits every minute after.

The GameCrush Girl

GameCrush Girls are independent contractors, so anyone can sign up to be one.  They are given a profile and are in charge of earning their own money, which GameCrush takes a portion of.  The reason GameCrush girls are on the site are about as diverse as what they are willing to do.  There are girls who are just interested in finding people to play games with, some looking for friends, and some just seeking some easy cash.  There are even a few girls who will give you their gamertag if you simply ask, no money needed.

Flirty vs Dirty

The difference between Flirty and Dirty Game Mood is as simple as clothes or no clothes.  Dirty girls will remove clothes or do “mature” things, but most girls will make you work for it requiring you to win a game. Flirty is just about everything else and includes everyone from librarians (yes, actual librarians) to party girls.

Why They The Do It

I spent a lot of time asking every girl I could find on GameCrush why they joined the site.  I was surprised at all the variety of answers I got.  Sukiie was there because she needed extra money since her family wasn’t doing well, ColdFairy24 needed something to do since moved to a new town and didn’t have many friends, and of course there were several girls who simply said “I like playing games and liked the idea of getting paid to do it.”  It was the few who seemed to be genuinely interested in just finding people to play games with instead of the money that stood out. They are few and far between, so if you find a girl willing to offer her gamertag without the promise of cash, count yourself lucky.

Tools of the Trade

GameCrush Girls have a few tricks up their sleeve to help earn them cash.  GameCrush doesn’t openly announce this information and is only aware to the GameCrush Girls themselves.  If a guy views a girl’s profile, she can view the player’s username and amount of credits in the chatroom.  She can use this decide which guys to encourage to play with her.  GameCrush Girls have access to a private forum that allows them to discuss their experiences with the site, talk about improvements, and even discuss specific players.  If a player is creating a disturbance or otherwise creating problems, the girls can mark them as disrespect or report them to get banned.

The Downside

On a good week, a girl could earn enough money to pay her rent by playing video games but it isn’t all sunshine and lollipops.  The girls give up 40% of the money they earn to GameCrush so they only earn $4.50 off a $6 game.  If they want to play Xbox games on GameCrush, they need to provide their own account.  This means if you a girl plays a single game with a guy, they will have their gamertag from then on.  It is a small price to pay for an overall great gig.

The Guys

The Good

After asking the GC Girls why they joined, I asked them how they have enjoyed the site.  I received overall happy responses, a few dissapointed at the limited selection of games, but most enjoyed talking to the many guys who visited the site.  I saw girl’s have long conversations with random patrons about everything from their World of Warcraft characters to memories of old school video games.  It seemed some of the people interested in GameCrush, a site with such a bad reputation, turned out to be pretty decent geeks.

The Bad

GameCrush is like a party where everyone is welcome.  You get geeks, jocks, party animals, and the jerks.  Especially when they know the “dirty” girls will be there.  It doesn’t take long before jerks try and get a flirty girl to get a little dirty.  It was a common occurrence for a guy to wander into a “flirty” girls room and try and get them to play some strip battleship.  The ones who tried offering a big tip for some skin made me realize why GameCrush is viewed as nothing better than common webcam porn to some people.

The Ugly

I am all for equal rights and stuff but I there are a few things both sexes can’t do.  It didn’t stop some guys signing up for GameCrush trying to cash in just like all the gamer girls.  GameCrush has no objection to their presence and even allows you to search for male or female users.  I’ll still be surprised if a guy can earn enough to be a candy bar, little alone rent.

Sum It Up

GameCrush is still working out the kinks in their beta and their future will be decide within the next year.  If they create presence for themselves in the gamer community similar to the Fragdolls, it might turn their simple idea into something powerful.  Their first step is going to prove that they are more than simple flash games and webcam porn, but before all of that they need to get their site running again.  Until then you can head over to GameCrush and sign up for a chance to enter the beta and check out the site for yourself.

This is the reveal trailer for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 4 game originally titled “Project Needlemouse.” It returns to classic Sonic game play from the Sega Genesis. The game is said to be a direct sequel from Sonic 3. It will be available to download on Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 and a rumored 4th platform in July.

(via Geekologie)

A hero’s journey can begin in unexpected places taking you from a quiet existence playing with your friends and exploring your small piece of paradise to another world putting you face to face with people you never expected to meet. Some will take this journey with the wide eye innocence but some may allow the world outside their front door to corrupt them. The corrupt become the villains, but the heroes will stay pure and innocent when they are surrounded by the darkness.

Kingdom Hearts is an action roleplaying game for the Playstation 2 video game console. The game puts you in the shoes of Sora and sends you on a journey from your idyllic island paradise to many worlds of the Disney universe. After your home is mysteriously destroyed by the dark heartless creatures, you become separated from your best friends and find Mickey Mouse’s loveable sidekicks, Donald and Goofy instead. After Sora shows his skills with the powerful keyblade weapon, they decide to join you on your mutual goal to defeat the Heartless. Along your quest, you will fight along side well known characters like Jack Skellington, Squall from Final Fantasy, and the mighty half-god Hercules. You will enter different worlds, focusing on a major Disney film, and bring order back to chaos returning the innocent characters to their normal stories.

Most people may be put off by the idea of playing a game with Disney characters, known for the childish appeal but the Kingdom Hearts defiantly puts a more mature spin on these old stories. This game appeals to everyone, fans of Disney and those who have never seen a Mickey Mouse cartoon in their life. The simplified gameplay makes it easily accessible to new players but the engaging storyline, complex strategies, and puzzles will draw in skilled players as well. You will find yourself fighting not to defeat the enemy or finish the game, but to help Sora, Donald, and Goofy find their friends and defeat the Heartless. Your attachment to the characters and you desire to see them succeed will far outweigh your own desire to succeed.
I’ve always loved video games, but I had no idea I would find as much enjoyment from Kingdom Hearts as I did. Most Disney games are aimed at the younger generation; but since Square Enix, the creators of the Final Fantasy games, developed this title I found the game to be as deep as engaging as the Final Fantasy games. The Disney characters and enduring storyline has even attracted women and non-gamers to Kingdom Hearts. I’ve found every minute of the game to be fulfilling and the incorporation of the Disney themes made me want to watch the classic cartoons again since the video game had made me even more attached to this characters I already knew. On occasion, I will find myself longing to play Kingdom Hearts like an urge to see an old friend you haven’t talked to in awhile. Kingdom Hearts will make a fan of anyone who picks up the game.

(Written as an essay for my English 101 Class)

The Metal Gear Solid Level Pack for LittleBigPlanet introduces a new costume, 5 new story levels, a new challenge level, along with tons of new stickers and gadgets to enjoy.

The story levels bring a totally new feel to LittleBigPlanet with a the help of the Paintinator. Instead of the usual jump, drag, swing, and hope not to die, the gun allows you to shoot switches and enemies you would normally have to jump on to defeat. The Metal Gear Solid levels rely more on paintinator and cover to provide action shooters rather then the standard platform levels.

Though I finished all the levels pretty quickly, I had a lot of fun playing them. From the first level, which played more like a LBP cutscene then an actual level, to the final boss I couldn’t get enough. These levels produced my first adrenaline filled moments in LittleBigPlanet. “The Mission” was my favorite level of all 5. It felt more like playing the first contra game then MGS, so much so that I couldn’t resist taking on the elevator with a friend.

While the levels are fun, the goodies are best reason to invest in this DLC. The new gadgets will provide creators with a lot more possibilities far beyond the platform genre. I’ve already seen several well designed levels within the first hours of release and am expecting to see many more once people have a chance to build their masterpieces.

The question is the Metal Gear Solid Level Pack worth the $6 price tag?

The new tools, stickers, and music will defiantly please any LBP creators. For those of us who are too lazy to build our own levels, the costume and levels bring enough new gameplay and replay value that won’t leave you regretting the christmas present to yourself. Overall, with all the new content, the level pack is well worth its $6 price tag. Though if you still aren’t sold and want to check things out before you buy, remember you can still join a game hosted by someone who has the level pack to play any of the story levels and can play any level published that uses the new tools on your own.

For more information on the Level Pack, check out the Playstation Blog.