I'm not talking about some unsubstantial piece of rubbish DLC that gives you some weapons or clothing, no this DLC will add a pirate themed adventure to the game with a whole new area with new enemies, new dungeons, new items and player housing. They are oddly very serious about the player housing, claiming it to be one of the most significant features of this DLC. It is called The Legend of Dead Kel and the new adventure is about a place called Gallows End, which will have side quests on top of the main quest. The area itself will be rather large and will precisely add 15% to the total land mass. It is going to be $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points, and it will be arriving on March 20th. Read on for some more detailed information on housing and the new content.

Have you ever played Minecraft and thought hey, I really wanna get some machine guns and explosives in here and engage in some first person shooter gameplay? Apparently the developers at Guncraft thought that was a wonderful idea because they've been making that game and it is already 60% complete. Everything is Voxel based and even though the game is going to be a FPS you still have a lot of options for creativity. You can play in custom made environments with various types of blocks and prefabs, pre-made buildings. There isn't much gameplay to show off, but they do have this video that makes fun of the popular Modern Warfare 3 ad, check that out below.

I haven't played a Hitman game in years, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what they achieve in terms of stealthy gameplay that rewards you for not playing the game like any other shooter or action game. Hitman: Absolution will be coming out very soon, next week in fact, on March 6th and they just put up a big chunk of gameplay over at Gamestar, a German gaming website. I hadn't seen any gameplay before this and I came away rather impressed, yet also confused. In previous Hitman games I do not recall innocents getting murdered by the player, by the Hitman, quite as often as you see in this video. It does show off some impressive graphics, smooth framerate, believe-able dialogue, great looking environments and a massive amount of non-player characters on the screen at once. Without further ado watch this video and let me know what you think. You can  take a look at information, videos and screenshots over at the main website for Hitman: Absolution if you want to see more. The game will be coming out on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

From the creators of Sins of a Solar Empire, Ironclad Games, comes a new game called Sins of a Dark Age. It is going to be a real time strategy and tactical command hybrid that is looking to do new things for the genre with it's Hero and Commander focused strategy. It is going to be faster paced than Sins of a Solar Empire and it will be fantasy based. The game will have an online focus that has two teams fight each other, two teams that each have one commander that leads a bunch of heroes, all of which will be controlled by players. The game's are designed to be short and each scenario will have a specific goal for each team. You can also play these scenarios cooperatively against A.I. opponents. You will be able to choose from different heroes, different commanders and different factions, all the while you will be able to rank up, earn rewards and unlock new heroes to play with. To me, this game sounds a lot like League of Legends or Defense of the Ancients so far and what I read about next made me think the game will be even more like those games. Your hero will be fighting on the front lines with A.I. controlled soldiers battling it out and your hero will earn experience, unique abilities and be able to equip powerful items. So while this does sound a like lot the aforementioned games it does hint that it will be something different and something more enjoyable. Read on for more information.

I was a big of fan of Risen, the open concept third person RPG that was rough around the edges, but had a lot of promise and was fairly challenging. Sure the game had technical problems, repetitive dungeons and a fairly simple combat system, but it was still a good rpg. Risen took place on an island and you had a little bit of story to do in the beginning and then you were basically unleashed upon the island to do whatever you wanted to do. In that game you had to choose warrior or mage, but in  Risen 2: Dark Waters Deep Silver has improved upon the class idea and many other aspects. Instead of choosing a class you merely choose skills to spend money and experience on. It isn't a revolutionary idea on how to handle rpg classes, but it does work much better than the stuck in stone class system of the first game. While the first Risen took place entirely on one island, Risen 2 looks to take you to many islands and still gives you fairly open environments to explore. It is a pirate game after all and it would only make sense that you have the option to travel the seas. Read on for some further impressions and a combat video.

Excited? I hope so. We recently traversed over the 100,000 mark for total hits on Violent Gamer, which is huge for us since I still remember the times when we got maybe a thousand hits a month. These days we are nearing twenty-five thousand hits per month and I'm sure that sounds tiny to most people out there, but to me it is massive. I wanted to thank you all for your support and I have decided to do so in the simplest way possible, a giveaway. I'm a poor college student, but I want to do something for those who have visited our website and supported our growth, so I'm going to give away three prizes to three people.
*Update 3/2/12!* This contest ended today about fifty minutes ago and if anyone stumbles upon it confidently I'm sorry you missed out. 

*The prizes will be: Three games of each winners choosing from Steam, each of which may not be more than $15. 

That limits you all to about 1500 games and I do apologize that I cannot giveaway more expensive games or more games in general, maybe someday. I also apologize if you are a console fan, but there is no easy way to gift games to people on either PSN or XBLA. Read the simple rules below to get into the giveaway.

Rules
1. To enter the giveaway you must comment about your favorite game, comment at the bottom of this post. 


2. You can embellish on why it's your favorite game or you can just say the game's name and nothing more.

3. I will pick three winners at random from among the entirety of the comments. 


4. You must include your Steam name in the post, in case you win, or you may use an account to comment that allows me to personally message you if you win. 


5. You must comment by Friday March 2nd and it will end on Friday at 12 Noon PST. 


Das ist alles!! or..That is all!! No more rules, just that. 
Also, I will be messaging the winners on Friday. 


Get on it people! I will be posting this around a couple places on the internet so I hope to see a lot of entries and no I don't have anyway to figure out if you are someone who actually visits Violent Gamer, but I'd like to hope the random winners are honest folk.  Thanks again everyone for your support! If you have any questions feel free to PM me or email me, but don't put it in the comments of this post.

*I sent three people, the three winners, friend requests on Steam, so I may send them their gifts. Should be seeing an invite from Lokai08.*

-Sean Cargle and Adam Borchert

Faster Than Light (FTL) is a rogue-like space game that gives you a nice mix exploration, ship management and strategic combat. Sounds fairly unique huh? Well it certainly looks unique and it has been around since November, meaning they have already worked on the game quite a bit. It is made by a two man team who are currently running a Kickstarter for the game.  If you don't know about Kickstarter it is a place were people back a game or idea financially. Most Kickstarter projects have various options for pledging and they generally have various rewards for each option. For FTL the minimum to receive a reward is $10 and for that you merely get the game when it is released. For $25 you get the game, beta access and a hope that you will provide valuable input through the aforementioned beta. Surprisingly enough the game actually already has a demo, but you can only play it through OnLive and I don't have account there so I haven't tried it yet, but if you want to check it out head over to the OnLive Facebook Page to see the game there. You can also go through the link on the Kickstarter page for FTL. They are going to make the game available for Mac, PC and Linux. Check out the trailer below for this very interesting game.

I've been playing Wargame: European Escalation a lot over the last week and it is a rare real time strategy game. It has a deep strategy that you do not often see. Many RTS games with this same kind of style are  often very messy and hard to enjoy, I'm referring to games like Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy. Everything you do in the game is geared towards unlocking new units and making customizable decks. There are two sides in the game, each of which have units available from three different countries and in total there are nearly three hundred units that you can unlock. It does a lot right strategically by having a focus on supply and recon. Without supply your units can run out of ammo, fuel and cannot be repaired, while recon gives you the insight to plan your attacks or anticipate the assaults of your enemy. The game mixes singleplayer and multiplayer together very well, rewarded you in multiplayer for playing singleplayer and vice versa, since both provide you with means unlock new units. There is a lot to like in Wargame: European Escalation, but there is also quite a bit that could be improved. I also have a video review which you may find right after the What I like section.

Last month I did some reviews for the free multiplayer turn based tactics game Hero Academy, the stylish and well made tower defense game Jelly Defense and the very addictive match-up game Triple Town. All recent iPhone games and you may check out all those reviews here. However this month I will be reviewing some older iPhone games, but they are still interesting games and are still being supported. This time we have Ticket to Ride,Trenches II and Kairosoft's Edo Towns. Like last month's game these games are compatible with the iPhone 3G or newer.

Starfarer is a little tough to lump into a single category, it has a strategy and tactics side to it, but it also gives you direct control of ships in the midst of epic space battles. You have to manage your shields, weapons and energy yet you also must try to direct your fleet. You don't have direct control of the ships under your command, merely you tell them where to assault, where to gather and when to run. This a darker space strategy full of floating husks of old battleships, a universe full of pirates and factions that are always looking for engagements and terrible mistakes that will cost you everything. My mistake came in the form of a earlier battle, when all I had was my ship and one other.

It seems like everyday another MMO is going F2P, well Aion just joined that club yesterday. Aion has been around since 2009 and it garnered some pretty favorable reviews back when it came out. It is an Asian MMO, meaning there is a lot of grinding, but the game also has many unique features like flight combat and a good mix of PVP/PVE content that encourages you to participate in both. Unlike SWTOR it had very little end game content when it was released, but now it should have fixed that problem. It was also by far one of the most gorgeous MMO's back in 2009. Read on for all the information on the new account types and what limitations come with each.

I don't know about anyone out there, but I haven't played anything for Half Life for many years. Cry of Fear is a a total conversion co-op horror mod that has been in the making for four years. It has finally be released and I'm not entirely sure it's worth your time. I would like to support the endeavor this mod team has made by sticking it out over such a long period of time, but other than the well made atmosphere I can't say the game looks all the fun. Of course by writing about it here and telling you all about it I am indeed supporting them. The graphics are interesting and well done, same with animations, but menu's and shooting looks a bit problematic, although it is all made with the HL1 engine and it is very impressive result for such an old game. So far twenty to thirty thousand people have downloaded the game so far, so presumably there will be a ton of people to play it with, and it definitely has potential to be fun. Check out this video to get an idea of how the game plays and download it over at the links below.

This is the first Indie Royale pack that I seriously have considered, actually, I just bought it. There has been many packs before but never have they contained alpha versions of games. If you purchase these alpha versions through this bundle you will also get full access to all future versions of these games, as if it you had pre-ordered the game. Read on to check out all the games and some videos, but feel free to head straight onto the Indie Royale website. Right now the current minimum price is $5.02.

3079 (PC, Mac and Linux) 
In this pack we have: 3079, a sci-fi multiplayer Minecraft looking game that I've seen many times on MoDDB and IndieDB. It looks to be very odd and unique. The game has quests, giant enemies in the sky, guns, randomly generated terrain and some very chunky looking monsters. It's not the enticing one on the list and might not to be fun by yourself, but it should provide some fun coop.
Main Website: https://sites.google.com/site/3079game/

Oddly enough I was just complaining about EA, but hey here is an EA game that I like. SSX just came out with a demo on Xbox Live yesterday and a PS3 demo will be coming today, which you may glance at on their demo page. The demo features three tracks, one tutorial level, one racing event and one trick (point focused) event. It gives you several options for controls, some of which are familiar for anyone who used to play the classic games, one that uses the main buttons for tricks (A,Y,X,B on the Xbox) and their is a new option that has you do tricks with a combination of the right joystick and back buttons. Nevertheless you have several options for doing tricks and enough options to make old school SSX fans happy. The controls feel a bit jumpy, less solid than I remember from the old games and every trick feels like it fluidly moves from one trick to another. As a fan of the original games I wish the snowboard felt a little more grounded, but the series has never been the slightest bit realistic and despite this it still feel's pretty good to be back in the snow. The demo also shows off the basic design of the online system and the point system.

It has started today and this boycott is one of the most reasonable boycotts in gaming history. Totalbiscuit, the British fellow that does those "WTF is ..." videos all over Youtube, take a look at his channel if you don't know who I am referring to, has unleashed a new video today explaining how Bioware has gone too far with day 1 DLC for Mass Effect 3. It is the most sound reasoning I've ever heard for boycotting a game and it is also infuriating. Bioware announced today that, which you can see over at VG24/7, that there will be a day one DLC for Mass Effect 3, that's not big news right? They've been doing that for nearly every game since  the first Dragon Age, but they were often free or merely cosmetic, not this time though. The DLC in question brings a new crew member to the game, much like the one from Mass Effect 2, except this crew member is significant day one DLC that isn't free. Unlike Zaesz in Mass Effect 2 this new character is Prothean, a god damn Prothean! They could not have picked a race that would be more important to the storyline and lore of Mass Effect and this character is going to cost $10, on release day, for anyone that doesn't own the hefty $70-$80 Digital Deluxe Edition or N7 Collectors Edition. So if you get the normal game, which is still $60, you will have to pay another $10 to get this important and substantial DLC. This is absolutely crap. Bioware, more likely EA, has decided to stoop this low with their DLC and are pushing gamers to the limit. With most of their previous games, this isn't the first time they've done this kind of thing, all day one DLC that cost anything was purely cosmetic and never affected the actual game or story, but this seems important enough that if you don't shell out an extra $10 on top of $60 then you are missing out on a chunk of gameplay. Read on for more.

Terraria has been a splendid game to play over the past year and a half. Between Terraria and Minecraft PC gamers had been options to create, explore, dig and do it all with friends. Yesterday at the Terraria forums, pretty much out of nowhere, the Terraria developers announced that they are moving on from the game and will no longer be adding anymore content or patches. This may have been a little more expected if they had talked about this idea, but instead they were often discussing ideas for possible new content. One of the developers has already moved onto a new game called Starbound, which looks like Terraria in space, and the other main developer is taking some time off because he will be having a son soon. Check out the full statement.

"The future of Terraria has been highly debated as of late, not just with the community, but for us as well. The last year has been a crazy ride! When I started on this game, I just had a few ideas of what I thought would make a fun game. I had no idea that it would receive so much attention. I want to thank all of you for supporting us and making this game's success possible. 

After a lot of internal debate, we have decided that it is time to move on. My wife and I are due to have another boy soon, and I want to spend some time getting to know him. I also want to spend the time recharging and bettering myself as both a programmer and game designer. I have learned a lot from working on Terraria and plan on using what I've learned, building upon it, and moving forward with another, even better project. However, we are still planning at least one more bug fix for Terraria.

For those that haven't already heard, Finn "Tiy" Brice has moved on to form Chucklefish and is heavily at work on an exciting new game called “Starbound”. It's looking to be a lot of fun, so make sure to check it out if you haven't already!

Thanks again for all your support, and I am very much looking forward to providing you with something much better than Terraria in the future!"


I am excited to see what new games might be coming from these develoeprs in the future, Starbound already sounds a bit exciting, but Terraria is still a great game with the massive amount of content it already has. If you have some friends that like a Castlevania style of combat and love creating, then do check out Terraria sometime, it is often on sale. Thanks for reading and I will be checking out these projects in the future and bringing updates. 
Original Post: http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/my-fellow-terrarians.81455/

Thanks to RPS and Reddit for the heads up on this.
-Written by Sean Cargle

I've been playing Wargame: European Escalation over the last week, specifically since I last posted about it when I wrote a lightly detailed and uninformed overview, which you can check here out for some general info. I have yet to experience singleplayer in Wargame, but there is a multiplayer beta that has been running on Steam for pre-orders. It contains two maps and a few modes, but all of the units are available to unlock. If the game looks a little like Ruse that's because it is made by the same developers, Eugen Systems, and it does also use a card based system, but this system is very different. In Ruse you used cards to play out abilities in that large scale RTS, Wargame on the other hand has you use decks and the cards you use are unit cards. There is an armory that contains all the units in the game, which is about three hundred units, and every time you level up online you get command stars, you then use those command stars to unlock new units. Many units also have varies different variants that you can unlock and variants allow you to continually unlock better types of one specific unit, assuming that the unit has variants. Some units has have one or two variants, while others have up to seven. Through this system you can create new decks, which cap your unit amount at twenty five or so, and let you create custom decks that can be geared towards particular strategies. I've played the game about six hours and I still don't have enough units unlocked to even fill up one deck.

I bet your hoping that I mean the Winter that is nearing it's final exit, well unfortunately I mean next Winter. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is already out in Japan and it is lucky thing that the game is getting translated and released in Europe and North America. This game is a JRPG with a lot of style, just take a look at it's gameplay or graphics. It is being developed by the very well known Level-5, the makers of Dragon Quest VIII, Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy. I am quite fond of all of their games and if there is anyone who can make JRPG's interesting again it is these guys. There isn't an English website or anything like that to gleam information from, but there are a bunch of new videos to show off the game. The story itself doesn't sound like anything particularly unique or special, but that doesn't mean it won't be. I cannot wait to get my hands on this game, too bad it won't be for another ten months or so. Take a look at those and I will be back tomorrow with more, but unfortunately not until the evening. All of these videos are fairly short, so do not despair. Onto the videos!

It's been six days since the last Dungeon Defender's content came out, take a look at that here, and now they have a tiny bit of new content for President's Day. It is called President's Day Battle Royale and it is absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, watch this video. I must say that it doesn't look to be very fun, but you do get two new weapons, two new pets and four new character skins that you can unlock, all for free.

This is a mini mmo that has a splendid 8 bit art style and it is devilishly addicting. I wrote about it last July and I don't have any new impressions or anything like that, but one of my biggest complaints about the game originally was how it used your browser's cache to save all of your data, now it uses Steam and that is far more reliable. The whole pull of this game is unlocking classes, earning rare loot and defeating the Mad God. It's an odd game, it's a chaotic game, but it's a fun game that has some interesting ideas. You can read about it thoroughly here on my previous post. I encourage anyone who likes rogue-like games and rpg's in general to try it, especially since it's free and very easy to play now that it's on Steam. Take a look at the Steam page for more info. You can still of course head to there main website below and play it there as well. Thanks for reading.
Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/200210/
Main Website: http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/



-Written by Sean Cargle

I'm a bit late on this review, but I plan to catch up with The Walking Dead by the time tonight's episode, episode 9, airs. Pretty Much Dead Already left us with a lot to contemplate while we all waited until February when season two returned from it's mid season break. The episode originally aired at the end of last November. For some this episode was a rejuvenation of the series and a promise that the second half of the season will be faster paced, but for others it was too little to late. The Walking Dead airs on AMC every Sunday at 9/8c. Let's delve into the episode at hand. *Spoilers Ahead* 

Journey has been in development for nearly three years and it finally has a set release date of March 13th, 2012. It is development by Thatgamecompany (TGC) who previously made the beautiful Flower and the peaceful Flow. Flower is likely one of my favorite games of all time, mainly because it revolves around bringing color back to dark mechanical world, but also because it was one of the first games that I ever played that used motion control in an enjoyable way. Journey looks to be just as impressive with it's ambitious designs and innovative ideas. Journey is a singleplayer game with multiplayer elements. You roam the land as a mute humanoid being of some kind, walking through deserts, hills and ruins, solving puzzles along the way and making your way to the giant mountain in the distance. The hole point of the game is to reach that giant mountain and along the way you may or may not run into other players, who are also on the way to the mountain. You cannot directly talk to them, but you can make gestures, kind of like Dark Souls/Demon Souls, although I don't believe you can leave warnings or messages. Once you find someone you can join togehter and travel to the mountain together, or merely continue on your way by yourself, either way you will reach that mountain eventually.

Were you excited about Far Cry 3? Well I'm sorry, you likely won't be anymore after watching this. Five minutes of singleplayer gameplay surfaced today and the combat looks a bit mediocre, that's being maybe a bit generous too. Maybe if you were expecting the gameplay to be like Call of Duty then you might be excited by this gameplay, but if you were a fan of the original first two games then you are likely to be a bit let down. The world itself looks to be very impressive, graphically, but I was hoping they would use a similar open world environment like the second game had, which could still be the case but the video doesn't show that off at all. Anyways, check it out and let me know what you think.

You read that right..what could that mean? Minecraft or Cobalt in a Humble Bundle? Nope, not at all. This is entirely something new for The Humble Bundle and it looks to be an interesting experiment. For this Bundle the developers over at Mojang are making a game live in sixty hours, basically this weekend, and by Monday they will be done. You can watch them make it and if you decide to purchase it all the proceeds are going to Childs Play, American Red Cross, Charity: Water and Electronic Frontier Foundation. There are still forty six hours remaining and so far they have already raised $156,826. Of course like all Humble Bundles this is a pay-what-you-want deal. The game Mojang is making is a real-time strategy shooter with an Egyptian steam punk theme. Last I looked they were making some kind of Anubis machination, you can check out the the feed naytime you want over at the Humble Bundle Page or over at Twitch Tv.   Check it out, it looks to be an interesting idea and I wonder if it will lead to more Humble Bundles of this kind.
Main Page: http://www.humblebundle.com/?mojam

The Mass Effect 3 demo has been out for a little while for European gamers, but for those of us in North America the demo become openly available yesterday on the 16th, check out info on that at Biowares ME3 Demo Page. The demo comes with an hour or so of single player and a limited multiplayer mode. Mass Effect 3 does feel a bit different than it's predecessor, but I mean that merely in good ways. They seem to have found a balance between the RPG loot of Mass Effect 1 and the action orientated gameplay of Mass Effect 2. There is now armor you can find, pieces of equipment, weapon upgrades and various kinds of items that you can find throughout the world. Unfortunately the demo doesn't actually let you customize Shephard, other than powers, but it does still have these items littered throughout it's two levels. Combat feels smooth, responsive, but still very much like the previous games. The cover system continues to work quite well and combat in general is very fun, but it does feel a little more action orientated then it did in Mass Effect 2. Read on for some impressions on Singleplayer and Multiplayer, plus video of multiplayer in action.

Civilization V has been out for nearly two years and they have finally announced a proper expansion for the game. Sure there has been plenty of DLC packs and such that are essentially mini-expansions, but now they have the expansion Gods & Kings set to come out this coming Spring. Not only will it bring new content but it will also change gameplay by adding in religion, a reworked combat system, new diplomacy options, and new city-states. They will also be adding in three new scenarios: one will be about the fall of Rome, one focus on the medieval era and the third will have a Victorian science-fiction setting. To detail some of the new content there will be twenty-seven new units, thirteen new buildings, nine new wonders and nine new playable civilizations.

Yes Wargame: European Escalation isn't a name that makes you think that this RTS will be any different from most, but it is. By Eugen Systems, the creators of Ruse, Wargame gives you control of hundreds of units in massive cold war battles that uses a card based system to customize your armies. The game is set during the period of 1975-1985 in a what if scenario of NATO and Western European powers against Russia and Eastern European countries. You will lead huge customizable armies on massive maps against other players or in the single player campaign. One of the games most interesting features is it's army customization. There are three hundred and sixty-one units in the game, all of which you can collect in multiplayer and use to build customize army decks. In any single battle you can bring over a hundred units into the fight and all of these units are persistent. They will gain experience, rank up, become stronger, which of course means you will have to protect your units from being wiped out and losing all that experience. Multiplayer will allow games as large as four versus four or you may even technically do seven versus one. Of course on top of the multiplayer there will be a hefty single player campaign that will focus on story. Honestly the game looks pretty exciting and I am currently working on some impressions of it. For now, check out the main website for more information or watch this very extensive recent video that shows off many of the game's features. I will be back as soon as I can to give some hands on impressions and I will also be working on a full review of the game. The game comes out on February 23rd on Steam or through their website. If you pre-order the game you immediately get into the multiplayer beta on Steam. Thanks for reading and be back soon.
Main Website: http://wargame-ee.com/index.php?rub=home

Are you a fan of flight or space simulators? Lunar Flight could very well bring you a lot of enjoyment. It is a small indie game made in Unity that puts you in control of a Lunar Lander in various types of gameplay modes. You are able to do missions focused on transporting cargo, acquiring data and locating lost cargo. Sounds exciting huh? Yeah not really, but this isn't the type of game that wins you over with adrenaline filled action, this is the type of game that wins you over with it's atmosphere, controls and attention to detail. Through completing missions you will earn money and use that money to upgrade your lander in various ways.   It also contains some time trial challenges with online leaderboards, plus you can earn various achievements throughout the game. The game just came out yesterday on Desura and is currently awaiting approval from Steam. It costs $10 and is pretty high quality. People speak and rate the game favorably everywhere I've seen, unfortunately it doesn't have a demo but you can check out the launch trailer to get an idea about how this sim handles. It certainly won't appeal to a broad amount of gamers, but for those who are interested in this genre this looks to be a very nice addition. Take a look at the website for more.
Main Website: http://www.shovsoft.com/lunarflight/

It's been two years since Alan Wake originally came out for Xbox 360 and now it will finally be hitting PC tomorrow on February 16th. Alan Wake is a game about a famous writer who takes a trip to the small town of Bright Falls in order to try to break free of his writers block. Immediately upon entering town weird occurrences take place and darkness starts to take over everything. You spend the game with your trusty flashlight, flares and various firearms fighting against the forces of darkness as you try to rescue your wife. The game has a similar feel to Silent Hill's nightmare mode, where you walk around a seemingly normal, yet dark and creepy, world and all of a sudden darkness will cover the area with a thick fog that means you are imminent danger. Alan Wake is entirely single player and is fairly long. I played it entirely through on the Xbox a while back and while it isn't the best game ever it is unique and very enjoyable. It will be hitting Steam tomorrow while the Xbox Live Alan Wake's American Nightmare will be coming out later this month. Check out this Alan Wake PC Trailer and get excited for this story driven nightmare filled action game. It is unclear whether the game will be coming out with a demo or not
Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/

Normally an update for a game isn't anything worth noting, but it's been about eleven months since the last update for the beloved Dwarf Fortress and now comes a substantial update. The one man show that develops Dwarf Fortress doesn't answer to anyone, so don't expect anything exciting like improved UI or updated controls, but there are still exciting things in this update. If you don't know anything of Dwarf Fortress and want to hear about it, skip this paragraph entirely and head to the next. If you've played Dwarf Fortress in the last couple of years you would know about the adventure mode that looks to create an open world rpg that revolves around one character exploring it, instead of the typical fortress mode that has you controlling large numbers of Dwarves in an effort to build the best and most efficient home possible. One of the first new things for adventure mode is the inclusion of vampires and werewolves, which can now be hunted and can hunt you. Both of which are also part of fortress mode and can infest your forces. The second thing to note with relevance to the undead is the new armies of dead that can assault your fortress. You can also find undead tombs in adventurer mode, which contain secrets, or you may run into evil regions that contain many undead and evil mists/rain. To make adventure mode friendlier there is now a site travel map that promises to make navigating towns not so tricky. You can also run into historical figures that may be leading an army of bandits, historical figures will also immigrant more commonly to your fort in fortress mode. There is quite a bit more than this in the new update, which you may check out here, but it looks to be enough to satiate the wants of those who haven't played in a while like myself.

Unfortunately I will not make another pass into the world of Dwarf Fortress until there is some kind of option for improved UI and controls. Every time I play Dwarf Fortress again I have to spend a week learning before I can derive any enjoyment from the game and I'm just not willing to do that every single time I pick up the game again. Dwarf Fortress is of course free and it does use the ASCII tileset with the base download, but if you do intend to play it I strongly recommend one of the many other tilesets out there, like Ironhand's Graphic Set (seen above) or one of the other's that litter the Dwarf Fortress modding forums. If you've never played Dwarf Fortress you absolutely should use a more colorful tileset, that is unless you are familiar and loving with the harsh ASCII tileset that uses crude symbols to display everything.

Dwarf Fortress is one of the best games out there, it always has been, especially for anyone who enjoys randomly generated open worlds. These open worlds are truly massive, unlike anything you have ever seen before, and damn near anything can happen. Stories of Dwarf Fortress have populated the web throughout the games existence and they display why this game is fantastic. If you can get past the harsh learning curve, extremely dated controls/UI and very confusing graphics then you can find so much to enjoy about Dwarf Fortress. There are few other games that can create a story like this one that I saw on Reddit too. Anything can truly happen, whether it's mining too deep and awakening ancient evils, getting invaded by goblin armies, accidently flooding your fortress, watching your Dwarves go crazy and kill each other, having vampires infest your populace or wandering out in the world as a lone adventurer, Dwarf Fortress has so much to offer. If you have the time and the imagination this game can provide the rest.
Main Website: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/index.html

*If you do start playing Dwarf Fortress then this Wiki is your best friend.

-Written by Sean Cargle

It has only been thirteen days since I last wrote about Cubemen, giving a general overview of this tower defense/real time strategy hybrid, but they have already reached beta on the game and with that comes an impressive amount of new content. If you had pre-ordered the game you would already have access to the alpha version of the game, which contained quite a few levels, but now it has a whole lot more. Take a look at this list..

• 20 Defense Levels
• 10 Skimish Levels (AI & Online Multiplayer)
• 5 Defense Gameplay modes
• 5 Cubemen colour choices
• Individual score ladders for all Defense levels
• Comprehensive game and rank tracking for Skirmish levels
• 27 Achievements to earn in game

It's been a couple months since this standalone expansion for Shogun 2: Total War was announced. It focuses on the century when the technology of the western world made it's violent way into Japanese culture, modernizing their armies and forcing the Samurai of old to surrender or fight. If you have played the base game then you will understand all the basic concepts of the new expansion, but there is a plentiful amount of new content that changes everything from the original game. You can expect to see trains moving throughout the campaign map, ships bombarding cities, modern infantry regiments facing off against armor clad Samurai and machine gun's mowing down infantry like they are insignificant. Of course, all of those is old information to anyone who read the original announcement with all the details that entailed, check that out here, but now we have a developer diary of sorts that is the first part in a series of videos that will show off the expansion and explain why it is significantly different from the original game. Take a look at that.

Writing my way through numerous situations of varying difficulty in order get my hands on those beautiful stars; that is indeed the goal of Scribblenauts. There have been many Scribblenauts for several different platforms, but Scribblenauts Remix is one of the newest and for iPhone and iPad. If you've never played any other Scribblenauts, like I hadn't before playing this one, then you should know that these games are all about creativity. You get a notebook and anything you write in it you can create, but the list isn't exhaustive, it's merely very large and each word can be combined with adjectives to make it more complex. You create words to solve puzzles on a level by level basis and trying to figure out how to solve each level is so very satisfying, as is seeing your creations come to life. Creating Zeus and giving him a machine gun to fight off Cthulu with is an interesting experiment to say the least.

So very violent you are Shank 2. Although, after having recently played The Darkness II you doesn't feel overly violent. The violence of Shank 2 feel's about right for a game that has you mutilating enemies with a chain saw. You also have many options for your violence, like throwing knives, machete's, grenades, frying pans, cleavers, baseball bats and plenty more. Not only do you get to customize your character, a little, when you first start a level but you also can pick up any weapon an enemy drops. Shank 2 has something of a rambo feel to it, with you taking on numerous soldiers, small and large, all by yourself. There is also a lot of explosions, impaling's, brutal counter attacks and a constant flow of action. If you like bloody action games then this is a game for you, but it isn't perfect.

The last Indie Royale bundle came out at the end of January and now we have one to commemorate Valentine's day with. Oddly enough this Bundle doesn't seem to have anything to do with valentines day other than it coming out close to it. This bundle contains Zeno Clash, Hoard (with two DLC), Lume and Soulcaster 1 & 2. This bundle will be running for four days and it currently has a minimum of $4.27. In two weeks there will be a new pack called the Alpha Fund Pack. Now onto the games and what they are each about. Here is the Indie Royale website if you want to head straight on over.

Zeno Clash by ACE Team (Steam/PC Only)
This is a first person fighter that takes place in a dark and violent world that is fueled by the Source engine. It is full of oddly formed animalistic humanoids that you have to confront with your fists and various weapons. It is strictly single player, but they also have an ultimate edition that is out that contains cooperative modes and much more. This version, for the Bundle, doesn't clarify which version it is though. It does have a demo out on Steam and it came out in April of 2009. It looked to be an interesting game, few games use first person combat that doesn't involve guns or ranged combat of some kind nor do they do it in a fluid manner that looks engaging. Check out this trailer and take a look at their website for more information.
Main Website: http://www.zenoclash.com/

Today Bioware decided to throw out a multitude of new Mass Effect 3 gameplay trailers. There is one for equipment customization, one for co-op multiplayer (this one is the same as the previous co-op multiplayer trailer), one for the enemies of Mass Effect, one for combat and one storytelling. All of these are actually entirely new, except for the co-op one, but they are unfortunately fairly short. They could have easily thrown these all into one five minute video, although that would have ruined the theme's they are trying to show off. For those unaware of Mass Effect 3's impending release and demo, there will be a demo coming out on February 17th and the actual game is being released on March 2nd for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Now enough rambling and writing from me, get onto to watch these fine new trailers.

I've mentioned before that the well known and loved Project Reality modification for Battlefield 2 had started its working on a version for ARMA 2. It came out with it's very first version, 0.1 beta, five months ago and since then not much has been surfacing from the team till today. The PR ARMA 2 0.15 update will be coming "imminently" and will host a large number of fixes and new features. If you have played the first version you know that is a pretty barebones, which is to be expected, but the mod is building up into something unique. If they can take any of the tactical gameplay from the BF2 PR and put that into this ARMA 2 mod we will have something quite exciting. Some of the new content this new version will bring is various new missions, the US forces, new weapons, new menu's, new repair options and much more. You need to have ARMA 2 and Operation Arrowhead in order to run the mod, which is part of the Combined Operation pack. Check out this trailer below to get an idea for it, but basically Project Reality looks to bring realism, new units and new modes to the game as it did for Battlefield 2. Read more about it on the MODDB page and keep your eyes out for the upcoming release.
Main Website: http://www.realitymod.com/


-Written by Sean Cargle

It feels like every week or two Trendy Entertainment releases new content for Dungeon Defenders. Fans of the console version often feel neglected as a result of all this new content, especially since most of it hasn't come to the console versions and likely won't ever do so, something they discussed in the last Dungeon Defender Digest (their newsletter for the game). This week they are talking about a new class, console events and a Valentines Day event. Last time I wrote about Dungeon Defenders they had just released the Barbarian Class and the Assault Map Pack. Now we have a couple vague updates coming, read on to check those out.

I remember getting home today around 2pm and seeing that Double Fine's Kickstarter Project for Double Fine Adventure, a mysterious adventure game to be created by Tim Schafer and rest of the splendid Double Fine crew, was at around $33,000 of it's lofty $400,000 goal. The first thing I thought was that is the largest monetary goal I have ever seen on Kickstarter and it has a very long way to go. Well it's been about twelve hours since then and not only did they just reach their $400,000 goal but they have surpassed it. This project had thirty three days left on it and it already reached it's huge goal, so very impressive. It's probably partially thanks to Minecraft's Notch and all the support he has given to Double Fine, even going so far as Tweeting the other day that he would be inclined to help fund a sequel to the cult hit Psychonauts. This is all a result of that and even though it's not going to be Psychonauts 2 it is going to be something interesting, why? Well Double Fine always creates something interesting, whether it's Stacked, Iron Brigade (formerly known as Trenched) or Costume Quest. This Kickstarter project has about 10,000 backers so far, 7,000 of which put up $15-$30 for the game. There are various bonuses and special deals you can get from backing the game for a certain amount of money and feel free to check that all out at the Kickstarter Page for it. You can still donate the to the project if you wish and it will still be taking donations/backers until March 13th. For now, congrats to Double Fine and check out this video that they put up for the project. Will gladly update on this project as more news about it surfaces.
*Update* In 24 hours this game has earned one million dollars in donations!

Sometime ago I was discussing this complete overhaul for Oblivion, while likely bringing up other great Lord of the Rings based mods like The Last Days and Third Age Total War, but back then the Middle-Earth Roleplaying Project had not yet released a lot of their work to the world. Now is not that time, now we have what is to likely be the last release of MERP for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. They are now focusing on porting their work to Skyrim, now that the creation kit is out (since yesterday), but today 0.2.6 came out and with that they have promised that a large majority of their landscapes for Middle Earth have been completed. Sure the world isn't populated by NPC's, except for the town of Bree, nor are there any quests, but the world is there to explore, whether that means your off to the Mines of Moria or Minas Tirith. They have been working on this modification since 2005, originally it was for Morrowind, and now that the Skyrim creation kit is out hopefully that means we will be seeing a more complete version of it for Skyrim. They already have many quests done and some npcs, but they didn't want to include anything in a half assed manner and wanted to wait until they could put it all in. If you still have Oblivion installed this is a great reason to revisit it again, it still looks gorgeous and these landscapes are some of the best I've seen. Take a look at their creation of the Misty Mountains that they have created in preparation for Skyrim.

Quite a few games came out today, and yesterday, for PC in North America. So I figured I would do some overviews for each game and show what they are released for. Technically all of these games came out on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, but don't bother with that. First off we have Shank 2.

This is a 2D side scrolling action adventure game that is full of fast paced and bloody combat. It has a combat system that gives you many different weapons to use to tear your enemies apart. You have counter moves and weapon combos, plus a ton of different enemies to fight. The big changes from the first game are improved graphics and a more in-depth combat system that looks to be a lot of fun, but it is also challenging. It is $9.99 and it came out on PC and PSN today, plus it will be coming out on XBLA tomorrow. It looks to be fairly lengthy with it's main story mode and survival mode, Check out this gamespot preview video to get an idea of how it plays.
Main Page: http://www.shankgame.com/
Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/102840/

Like many people had guessed the surprise that was coming with the Creation Kit was indeed a HD resolution texture pack for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. They both came out earlier today and the HD resolution texture pack is free and fairly large in size. I've played the game a little bit since I installed that pack and I haven't noticed any significant graphical differences, yet, but based on the size of the file it must have done quite a bit. Take a look and see if the game looks any different to you. Zoom in on the screenshot by clicking on it to see a more detailed look.



Skyrim was already a great game but with the release of the creation kit they have fortified one of greatest features of most Bethesda Softworks games, modding. With Morrowind and Oblivion Bethesda had also released modding tools and the modding community for both of those games is still significantly large, even so many years after the releases of those games. This is the best modding feature I have ever seen, specifically for one reason; Because of the Steam Workshop and how easy it makes it to use mods. Using modifications on games has always been kind of a hassle, if not a huge a hassle for some games, but many newer games have implemented built in tools to make it easier, like Civilization V's download, rate and play mod browser. The Steam Workshop is so very easy to use and displays mods in very useful ways. You can view it in a browser, or on Steam, and when you find a mod that you want to use you simply press subscribe. Once you subscribe the game will automatically install the mod next time you start the game and it will already be ready to go. I imagine there will still be compatibility problems and such, or mods not working for no apparent reason, but the ease at which you can browse and install mods is wonderful. Take a look at the front page of the workshop.

Reverb Publishing announced today, via email, that they have signed on Coffee Stain Studios to make Sanctum 2 for PC, PSN and XBLA. The FPS Tower Defense hybrid has sold about 300,000 copies since it came out on Steam last year. It even just recently had a daily sale on Steam a day or two ago. They have announced no information regarding the release other than the extra addition of console versions. They merely say that it will build upon the gameplay that the first game introduced. I wish there was more to say, but I hope it's exciting to fans of the original game that they plan to build a bigger and better sequel. Will update this post with any new information when it surfaces. Personally I didn't like Sanctum that much, but there is a lot they can do to make it a more interesting experience, hopefully they at the very least add some more variety to levels.  Thanks for reading, be back in a moment with a bit on all the  Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim news from today.

-Written by Sean Cargle

The Twisted Metal Multiplayer demo is almost at it's end, it technically ends tomorrow sometime, at least the multiplayer portion of it. The demo does have some offline challenges and training modes, but they aren't very length or nearly as interesting as the multiplayer modes. If you haven't followed this game at all, ever, it is a remake of the classic Twisted Metal series that was on Playstation. The original games focuses on car versus car combat with unique vehicles, and drivers, destruction filled maps and tons of different abilities. There was nothing else like it at the time and two Playstation consoles later we finally have a new addition to the series. The game will be coming out on Valentine's Day, February 14th, but for now you can try the demo available on PSN. It offers two multiplayer modes, a classic free for all death match mode and a nuke mode. The nuke mode is team based and sort of a capture of the flag type of mode, except it has to do with stealing leaders from the enemy team and launching nukes. You can read about the demo on the Twisted Metal Blog that revealed all the demo information. The demo is 1.5 gigs and is exclusive to PS3. Read on for my impressions from my multiplayer and offline experiences with the demo.

There are a lot of rogue-like rpgs out there for PC, many of which are visually impaired but offer a lot of depth and quality. Lately many of these games have followed overly typical set ups and brought nothing new to the table for those of who have played dozens of rogue-likes. Pitman is not typical a rogue-like rpg, it may seem so at first but it's got some heavy board game style qualities that make it feel fresh. How long these fresh ideas will last throughout the game, I'm not sure, but the demo left me seriously considering the $2.99 price tag. Pitman starts you off in a single square of a mine and you can choose to unveil a new connecting square in any of four directions. Imagine a board game that starts off with a square and each new square is randomly picked from a box, but it will contain random enemies, random items and random objects. You have a specific number of tiles that you can place per dungeon level, but you can obtain more tiles by finding journals that will randomly be around the dungeon. You can also find scrolls that allow you to destroy tiles or rotate them, which is a nice little feature that keeps up the idea of a boardgame. On top of that there are many rpg features like leveling, random loot, inventory, spells, various types of weaponry, many different monsters to kill and a hunger system. Watch this trailer to get an idea for how the game plays out.

 Paradox Interactive recently put out a Crusader Kings II demo to the public. It is a grand strategy game, which should be familiar to anyone who has played any other Paradox game, and it has a big emphasis on Medieval politics, religion and war. Much like many of their other games this one has a lot of depth in regards to almost every aspect of the game. If you have played their previous game, Sengoku, which I talked about briefly before here when that first came out last September. The Crusader Kings II demo is decently long and also contains an extensive tutorial system that let's learn about every aspect of the game. On top of that tutorial system there is a ingame hint system that pops up every time you open up any menu and provides a ton of additional information. Just like many other Paradox Interactive games this one has a hefty learning curve that may make you feel smothered by information until you are drowning in instructions, menu's and descriptions, but if you get past that you can find a game that is filled with depth and quality. If you don't want to read any of my impressions or contemplation then feel free to check out the demo yourself here.

It has been a long time since we have done a classic corner review, but as I was contemplating some of my favorite games from the age old era of the Playstation 2 I of course came to Final Fantasy 7. I then remembered one of my other all time favorite games ever, Suikoden 2. It is an rpg like Final Fantasy but it is so much more and it is such an undervalued game, and series. Almost every game in the series has been great, except for Suikoden 4, but now you cannot really get them anymore for less than several hundred dollars. I lost my copy of Suikoden 2 when my brother left home and headed off to school, but my memories remain and my memories still shine so very fondly on this splendid mix of rpg, tactics and base management. It was beyond its years and I must share this treasure from 1999 with you all.

A couple days ago Starbreeze Studios and EA released their co-op demo of Syndicate onto the Xbox Live Marketplace and PSN Store. Unfortunately they don't plan on releasing a demo for PC because they wanted to focus their resources on releasing a solid PC version instead of using that time for a demo, that does seem to indicate that the game is console based, not PC, and that the PC version may just be a port, but that doesn't mean the PC version is guaranteed to be poor quality. The co-op demo is one level and let's you play with up to three other players. Much like many shooters these days you have profile that lets you unlock skills as you level up, customize weapons with blueprints and several other options. The demo lets you go up to level 10 and the full game will contain ten levels instead of one. If you are familiar with the original Syndicate game then try not to make associations with the new one, because it has very little to do with the original game, except for the sci-fi theme and focus on war between syndicates. This one is a FPS shooter that gives you a lot of options during combat, like hacking turrets, lowering enemy shields, raising your shields, healing your companions and many other abilities. It's easy to hate Syndicate, especially if you were a fan of the original ,but the demo was pretty entertaining.

I've been playing Oil Rush for a little more than week now and it's been doing a great job of making me feel like I'm playing a new version of an old school RTS, complete with cheesy dialogue, exciting visuals, challenging gameplay, vast tech trees and massive armies. This game has plenty to offer seasoned RTS gamers, but it does not exclude less experienced gamers. The game has a fairly lengthy campaign with four difficulties that lasts 6-10 hours, plus there is an easy to use multiplayer system (assuming you have the game on Steam) and plenty of maps to play offline skirmishes against the computer opponents, on top of all that there is forty one achievement to unlock on Steam as well. One of the first things you would notice about Oil Rush is that it has some tower defense elements mixed with real time strategy, something which I will be over heavily along with what works and what doesn't in terms of gameplay, sound, presentation and more, all for the PC version of Oil Rush on Steam. It is available on Mac and Linux as well, plus the digital distributor Desura. Onwards my readers and let me show the world of Oil Rush.

Normally something like this wouldn't be very important news, but it is the first time that Unknown Worlds Entertainment has ever hinted at a release date, let alone fully stated one for their RTS/FPS Natural Selection 2. I loved the first game and found a lot to enjoy in it, but Natural Selection 2 has been in development for such a long time that I fear that it may go the way of Nuclear Dawn, garnering some sales but not being the success that it could have been. Especially since it's been five years since the first game was officially released back in 2007. Natural Selection 2 will also be coming out on Steam and we now know that they are aiming for this Summer of 2012. The game still does look to have a lot of the unique qualities that made the first one such a big success, but we will see how that goes this summer. For now watch the new trailer that shows off a whole lot of action, the commander mode, a never shown before map called Mineshaft, Marine Jetpacks and the Onos (one of the large aliens). Check it out and check out the main website for more on the game, there is a lot of information there and many gameplay videos if you care to indulge yourself. People are already playing the game in the beta, which you can get into still if you pre-order the game and you can find more information about here.
Main Website: http://www.naturalselection2.com/

Rise of the Martian Bear is it's name and it came out today for 400 Microsoft Points, which is pretty low on the scale of the average DLC. Even though it's only 400 Microsoft Points it still packs a punch and seems to be full of content. Many people may have no idea what Iron Brigade is, specifically because it used to be called Trenched but when they released the game in Europe they changed the name to Iron Brigade for some reason. Trenched came out last June and I gave it a 8.5 out of 10. I really enjoyed it's hands on tower defense style of gameplay that was also filled with some rpg elements like loot, weapon stats and mech customization. It definitely isn't for everyone but it was easily one of the best XBLA games of 2011. Feel free to check out my full review of that here. Rise of the Martian Bear takes you and your mech carrier to the Mars to battle Vlad's newest creations. There will be eighty pieces of new loot to collect, four new defense missions, two survival missions and one new boss mission. The game and DLC are both made by the wonderful Double Fine Studios, creators of Psychonauts and many other fine games. I have two wonderful videos below to showcase the DLC and I do recommend the game to anyone who likes a good mix up of the Tower Defense formula with some mech action.

I've done a couple posts about the Skyrim Creation Kit, which is another name for Skyrim's modding tools, but now we have some recently released video to show how it's going to work in Steam. Before I talked about how the modding tools will be integrated into Steam, check that out here. They also go over many of those same points in the blog post that Bethesda put up today, the post that also introduced the video. The creation kit should be coming out very soon and I cannot wait until it does, should reinvigorate my desire to play Skyrim for many hours more. Check out the video and for the rest of the night I will be working on my Oil Rush review, which will be up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Thanks for coming to Violent Gamer.

I didn't even know RIFT was planning to have a Lite version of the game released, ever, but it's about time they had something of the sort. I played RIFT for four of five months and enjoyed it quite a bit. It is a MMORPG  that focuses on creative dungeons, challenging puzzles, exploration and planar invasions that can erupt in any of the major outside areas of the game. Underneath that all is some typical MMORPG features, but all of it is done very well and has new elements to make any stale old feature feel unique. You could be a bit put off by the high fantasy world of RIFT and the story is negligible compared to something like The Old Republic, but it does have a lot offer, especially for those who really like working with others all the time. RIFT has done pretty well for itself with some hefty sales and subscription numbers, but now you can play it for free up to level twenty with no restrictions. All you have to do is create an account and download the client to start playing. If you want to learn more about the game and some of my impressions from last March check out that post. Trion Worlds is doing something that many others have done, much like many of the ideas in the game itself, but they are adding their own touch to it by making this Lite version one of the friendliest "trial modes" out there. Check it out below.
RIFT Lite Info: http://www.riftgame.com/en/lite/



Also, take a look at this video. It shows off some of the basic features of RIFT, like the whole Rift system, and some character creation. Thanks for reading.

I am a big fan of Jagged Alliance 2, but I played it originally long after it's prime and didn't play it as much as I would have liked. That could have been because it was buggy, very difficult or just because I found the mechanics dated at the time, but I was looking forward to the upcoming Jagged Alliance: Back In Action. From early previews and interviews Kalypso Media has shown that they care greatly about the original games and want to build from the great ideas that they presented. After seeing actual impressions of gameplay from various websites, like Rock Paper Shotgun, I lost much of my enthusiasm for the remake and thought that it would be lost in a sea of mediocrity. The lack of destructible environments, fog of war and the move to real time, instead of turn based, has made many worried. I had all but given up on the game until I tried the small demo that came out today. It contained a tutorial and a single level, a difficult level that pits your four mercenaries against twenty plus enemies. You can find the demo here, don't worry if the download website is in German the installer is the same and has options for both English and German. Also, they warn that the demo is very hard, harder than the game regularly will be. Read on for my demo impressions.