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.

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.

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.

No longer do gamers have to get up and put a disc in when they want movies! No longer do we have to put up with the Xbox 360′s fan! No longer do we have to worry about our PS3 discs stop working after a few uses!

The Wii and PS3 have received downloadable versions of the Netflix Instant Stream application. The PS3′s download features HD streaming, surround sound, and possibly the best looking Netflix interface.  With all these perks and the quiet fan of PS3, it makes it the best console to watch your movies on. The PS3′s can be accessed through the XMB and Wii’s on the Shop Channel.

Here is a side by side comparison on how players look playing the skiing game on Kinect vs how they look in game. You can see the game detecting his changes in posture and footing.

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)