Hey everyone, I haven't been putting up much here in the last couple of days and that is because I've been settling in over at Beefjack, who recently hired me to do mostly the same kind of videogame related writing that I was doing here, except this time around there are editors and all of kinds of professionals around me. I've only written a few posts over there so far, but I'm going to be more involved in the coming weeks and that means I will be posting less and less here. From time to time I may post some gameplay videos here, like today I'm going to try to get up a Planetside 2 gameplay video since the NDA was just lifted, but I won't be able to get in many posts and I can't write anything here that might conflict with something I am writing at Beefjack. Thanks everyone who ever visited Violent Gamer from time to time and supported us over the last two years.

We started an ant sized website that got a thousand views a month and we have grown into something more substantial that has received thirty to forty thousand views a month. It is still small in the eyes of the internet, but it still felt like a huge accomplishment and a huge thanks to anyone who ever read one of our posts or watched one our videos. I hate to be stepping away from it all, but I am excited at the same time to work for something much bigger and be part of a more professional atmosphere. On a last note we are about to hit 300,000 total views, which is a huge milestone for us, and I would like to one last contest, but I haven't decided what exactly yet and I will work up something by next week. Once again, thank you everyone and if you still care to read my work head on over to my new workplace ever so often, but Adam and others may continue to post here if they can.

-Sean Cargle

Steam Greenlight came out in a full yesterday and now there are over 500 games that the community can vote on. If a game gets enough votes then it will likely be added to Steam, even if it is currently in alpha or beta. There are three games on there I wanted to highlight, for I have talked about them many times here.

Today 2K Greg and two developers from the XCOM team at Firaxis, Jake Solomon and Garth DeAngelis, have an hour long gameplay demo of XCOM: Enemy Unkown to show off and they have plenty of explanations for everything. It is a rare, informative and lengthy look at this turn based strategy game that hasn't shown a whole off a whole lot of gameplay yet. They did just announce that the game will feature multiplayer, but they haven't done an indepth look at that yet either. This video however shows a good chunk of singleplayer and gives you a real idea of how the game will play. The video doesn't actually start until about three minutes in, but they quickly load up an abduction singleplayer mission that is a 3rd of the way through the game. That first mission lasts until about thirty minutes in and it is pretty damn entertaining, especially since they have someone in their squad get permanently killed, but after that they show the world map, character sheets, mission details, salvage and the home base. I wish they had shown something like this at E3, it is a hell of a lot more interesting than the presentation they showed us that was entirely scripted. Take a look at the video below and check out the main website for more information on the game. It will be coming out on October 9th, 2012, for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Building better worlds, all of them, better worlds. That is with this new DLC for Elder Scrolls V: Skryim you can build your own home in an impressive manner that doesn't involve downloading a pre-made and non-customizable home online for free. You have to useresources to build your home and you can build a custom home, not just some cookie cutter cut out. There are areas all over where you will be able to build your home and eventually you may be able to build multiple homes across Skyrim. You can add additional buildings onto your property as well, like stables, docks, greenhouse, an alchemy tower and more. You will be able to take any follower and make them a steward of your property, plus you have intruders to deal with, like giants or bandits. You will also be able to hire a carriage driver, a bard and buy yourself some children! Well, that is you can adopt children now and move them to your home. If you have yourself a wife, or husband, you can also move her to a new home as well. Thankfully the children don't look bland and lifeless and you will be able to interact with them in unique ways. Take a look at the new trailer for Hearthfire.

The first DLC for Orcs Must Die! 2 is on the way and it is up to you to decide if it worth $5. Fire and Water is focused all around fire and water elementals, who both break down into smaller enemies like earth elementals, but not in the same ways. Fire elementals start huge and once you destroy their largest form they will turn into a bunch of exploding little hell raisers, while water elementals turn into puddles of waters, which don't do anything on their own, but if a waterling finds the puddles then they can use that to grow into a water elemental or water lord. These are the only two new enemies in this pack, but there are three new traps, three new endless levels and three new story levels, all of which can be played cooperatively or alone.

Gaslamp Games, creators of the enjoyable rogue-like Dungeons of Dredmor, have just revealed their new game to the world today and it is all about building steampunk cities in a dangerous world filled with monsters, elder gods, insane people and evil. Like Dungeons of Dredmor, this dynamic city-building game will make failure not the worst thing in the world and each city you create has many different routes for destruction. For instance, you can have scientists working in a lab and if you leave them unintended for too long they might start working on mad creations and end up summoning an Elder God, one of the giant world destroying monsters from H.P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu, to your city and bringing about the demise of everyone. Your city could also be destroyed by other players, the game can be played with up to four people cooperatively or competitively, or plenty of other lovely ways. When you lose you can earn medals, promotions and titles, so losing everything is all for naught. Clockwork Empires is what this creation is being called and it sounds rather interesting.


Not a whole lot has been revealed about the game yet, just a few screenshots, some info and a feature list that I'm going to copy and paste for you shortly, but it does sound pretty ambitious. I'm a little concerned since their previous game wasn't like this at all, but Gaslamp Games has always been a solid developer that doesn't hate their community. All of the screenshots and a bit of the information on this game is from a PC Gamer article that was exclusively done for the press release of Clockwork Empires. The game will have a story of some sort and the back story is that you are a Junior Bureaucrat that is sent out to get fame and fortune as you build glorious steampunk cities on the frontier. You will be able to explore the world by land, sea and air and each will present their own challenges. For now, let us take a look at the list of features:

Yesterday Sang-Froid was brought to my attention and I thought it was going to be another incredibly rough indie game that had promise, one that probably wasn't ever going to come out, instead I found myself pleasantly surprised and intrigued. Sang-Froid is a game that mixes strategy and action in some very familiar ways that are some-what reminiscent of tower defense hybrids like Orcs Must Die! or Sanctum, but it is a different sort of game. You do set out elaborate plans to deal with waves of enemies, but unlike both of the previously games this one lets you see all upcoming waves and you have to plan for all of them right from the start. Once you have your traps set you get pulled into the game as you run around as a big lumberjack who can take a decent number of hits and deal out a lot of damage with his axe or his slow but powerful musket. The traps in this are very non-typical and it is one of the many ways Sang-Froid makes itself different from every other game. For instance, you can place use bait to pull your enemies towards you, or you can set up towers that let you quickly slide from one tower to another across a large map, or you can set up fires that terrify enemies. It all makes sense once you realize that many of the enemies are wolves and werewolves, which naturally would fear fire, but just because they fire it doesn't mean it will hold them away forever, eventually they will gather up courage and move closer.


On each map you have to defend specific buildings and their is plenty of information available to help you do that. At the beginning of each game you can see all of the waves for a map and you have to ration out your money so you may have enough traps for each set of threats. Each wave can have different enemies coming from different directions and each group of enemies can be attacking different buildings. There are traps you can set up to instantly kill small enemies like wolves, but anything as strong as a werewolf is going to take a lot more and there are many different ways you can tackle each situation. There are fire walls you can use, wolf traps, hanging nets, spiritual totems, bait, bonfires, towers, ballistas and more. You also have tow characters to choose from and each of them can be leveled up with various skills that look to be similar to an RPG skill system. The game is definitely a bit rough and they originally had a release date of Summer 2012, which obviously isn't accurate at this point, but it does look like it could be a lot of fun and be different than everything else. Check out their newest gameplay video, with commentary from one of the developers from Artifice Studios, and get a good look at Sang-Froid.
Main Website: http://www.sangfroidgame.com/

-Written by Sean Cargle

Sleeping Dogs is a game by United Front Games and Square Enix that drops you into modern Hong Kong and shows you a violent world where everything isn't as simple as black and white. It is the third game in the True Crime series, the last of which came out in 2005, and it focuses on giving you the perspective of law enforcement. The games used to have highly accurate open world locations, but Sleeping Dogs stepped away from that and made a more stylized and less accurate Hong Kong. The world is still open and full of side missions, collectibles and life, but it is similar to Grand Theft Auto IV in the way that the world opens up as you go through the story and the games main focus is the story. The story is also what sets this game apart from many other games of the genre, for it has some very serious tones and some meaningful sections of the story, however it still has plenty of trivial and action orientated sections. The game is about 20-30 hours long, depending on if you try to complete 100% of the side missions and find all of the collectibles, but there is a whole lot to dissect and discuss here so lets start going through it. Also, we have a video review if you would like to do that sort of thing instead.

Taking in the sights. It is always a temptation to stop and look.

The story is the main attraction in Sleeping Dogs, for most people, and it left me with some very mixed feelings. You play an undercover cop in Hong Kong named Wei Shen. He grew up in Hong Kong and has just returned to perform his undercover role, but he has spent most of his life living in California. They approach the situation in an intelligent way. Being an undercover cop in a gang full of people you used to know isn't easy and they make certain that you know how difficult it is on Wei Shen. If you have seen movies like The Departed or Infernal Affairs then you can easily understand what they are trying to get at in the story. The story starts out fairly typical with you infiltrating a small time gang that is a small part of a criminal organization called the Sun On Yee. You start out with petty tasks, like collecting protection money or edging out competitors, but the tasks get a lot more upscale after a few hours and you find yourself doing a wide variety of tasks.

Here is our video review of Sleeping Dogs for PC. I am currently working on a written version and will hopefully have that up tonight. If you want some additional written information about the game then check out my preview of the game from last week. Have a good night everyone and thanks for watching.

EA recently announced that Command & Conquer 2 Generals is cancelled and the new Command & Conquer will be free to play. If that wasn't troubling enough on its own there is now more to crush the soul of any die-hard fan of the long running real time strategy series that goes all the way back to 1995, which was back when the beloved Westwood Studios was still around. A few days ago PC Gamer did an article on the new Command & Conquer and revealed more information. They were told by Bioware Victory's general manager, John Van Caneghem, that this new Command & Conquer will have no singleplayer and will be largely focused on E-sports. It will be entirely multiplayer at launch and will seemingly contain little that people love the series for. Cangehem's also said how the studio, "really wants to get back to the roots of what made Command & Conquer great." As a fan of the original Command & Conquers, everything up to Generals, that is almost offensive. Singleplayer is what many people loved about the original games, especially with the real actors and actresses playing out their often ridiculous roles as GDI or NOD.


Few would deny that people also enjoy Command & Conquer for its multiplayer components, but it was never had a massive multiplayer community like Starcraft or Warcraft. Thankfully Cangehem did say that game will have cooperative missions at launch, so at least there will be some kind of singleplayer-ish missions in there, but they really seem to want to turn the series into something that doesn't befit the Command & Conquer name. Is their free to play scenario turns out to be pay to win, meaning you can purchase with real money items or units that give you an in-game advantage, then it will likely be the death of this series. There is a bit it over at the PC Gamer article, so do check out that, but it seems I will just have to hold out hope for Planetary Annihilation and Company of Heroes 2. Thanks for reading and as pessimistic as I am about this game don't think hope is entirely lost just yet, no one can be certain of that until they try the finished product.
Main Website: http://www.commandandconquer.com/



Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/20/C&CGenerals
-Written by Sean Cargle

There are a great many tower defense games in the world, especially on PC, and SuperVillian Studios is looking to break the mold with their interesting take on tower defense. Others have done this before, but few have done it well, and Tower Wars makes tower defense about more than just defense. With this game you must balance defense and attack, as you send waves of units at your enemies castle. There are many different types of units and you have a tech tree that lets you research bonuses for all units, like more health, more defense, faster movement and many other improvements. All of your units, and their upgrades, don't only use money, you also have to use battle points and those are only earned by sending attack waves. On the defensive side of things you have quite a few different towers to crush your enemies with, which is pretty much what you would normally expect from a TD game, but you also have mines around the map that you must upgrade and fill with miners in order to increase your income. On top of that your castle can be upgraded to have stronger guns, it has machine guns on it, or more health. If you play tower defenses regularly then you have likely played this type of game before, but this game is polished, multiplayer focused, strategic, steampunk styled, and it has some very colorful and attractive graphics.


You can argue that there are plenty of free games or mods for Warcraft or Starcraft that essentially do the same thing as Tower Wars, but they don't have the same level of polish, animations, graphics and balance. I was initially worried when I saw that this game was largely multiplayer, especially since it uses a matchmaking system instead of a server browser, but I've found that games are quickly found and started. However, there is still the problem of people dropping out, but if you are lucky they won't drop out until they are about to be defeated. The game does have a few singleplayer options, like a classic tower defense mode that pits you against one AI that is continually attacking and you only have to deal with defense. There is also a short tutorial, but the main reason to play the game is for multiplayer. You can make parties with friends, up to three players, and join games that way and it seems to work just as quickly as going in by yourself.

Back in July Arktos Entertainment and Hammerpoint Interactive announced War Z, a survival based MMOFPS zombie, and then earlier this month Day Z was announced as a standalone release aiming for a Fall release. Now State of Decay, previously known as Class3, has been announced by Undead Labs as another survival based open world zombie game, except this one isn't first person and it isn't multiplayer like the War Z or Day Z. This game will give you a big dynamic open world full of zombies to fight and survivors to find. You can capture buildings and turn them into outposts or homes, which will keep the zombies away from that area and allow you to research new technology and provide a community for the survivors you find throughout the world. The game is pretty ambitious, just like the other two open world zombie survival games I mentioned, but they have already been working on the game for two years and have a lot of information available, plus there is quite a few screenshots and a first gameplay video. First up, take a look the game in action. It certainly looks a little rough and it doesn't have a release date yet, but they are going to release the game on PC and Xbox 360.

If you watched the video then you will likely share the same opinion that shooting looks terrible, but melee looks a bit more promising. With melee weapons you can chop off the limbs or heads of zombies and it doesn't sound all that easy to do, especially if you are facing multiple zombies. All of the weapons in the game will be craft-able and based on real world weapons, so there won't be anything crazy like basketball bombs or electric baseball bats. They may be adding durability to the game, but either way you will be able to find common melee weapons in buildings. However, you won't be able to use any random thing as a weapon and guns can only be found, not crafted. Different areas will have unique weapons and items, like military bases, plus you can find vehicles scattered around the world, vehicles that will need fuel. Fuel will also be used for many other things in the game, like crafting and generators.

In the last couple of days there has been a lot of talk of PopCap, the developers behind the massively popular Plants versus Zombies and Peggle, letting go a large portion of their staff. This seemed immensely odd since they had just announced Plants vs Zombies 2 yesterday. Today the co-founder of PopCap, John Vechey, addressed everyone in a letter that is incredibly sympathetic to all of those losing their jobs and devoid of marketing terms, it is very human. It is sadly rare for a company to be this open about everything that is going and to address the situation so thoroughly. John explains that PopCap is indeed letting many people go, mostly in their US studio, but they are still pushing forward into the gaming world and trying to deal with the new challenges put forth by the free to play and social gaming market. Here is two of my favorite paragraphs from the post, 

"But this morning we informed our employees about a reorganization in our studios that will include a “Reduction In Force” in our North American operation – mostly in our headquarters here in Seattle – and an “exploratory consultation” to evaluate the future of our PopCap office in Dublin, Ireland.

I've avoided posting this all day because I was hoping for some more details to pop up, but they haven't come and we are left with little. PopCap Games announced today that Plants vs Zombies 2 is in production and it will be coming out in Spring of 2013. They have yet to announce the platform, or platforms, that it will be available on and all they have said is that there will be new settings, new features and new situations to deal with. Nevertheless it is exciting news, especially if you fell into the Plants vs Zombies trap and ended up spending many hours playing the first game, like I did. I hope they bring back their multiplayer mode from the Xbox 360 version of the game and make it fully online multiplayer. Here is the last of what they officially had to say about the announcement, "Spring is crullest curlie ungood time, and plantz grow dull roots,” noted an unidentified spokesperson. “So, we are meating you for brainz at yore house. No worry to skedule schedlue plan… we're freee anytime. We'll find you.”

“There was a time we relished a bracing, hearty blend of zombies, in the morning,” said Sonny F. Lower, a representative of the Flora Forever Foundation. “But first, a brisk shower and some strategic pruning are required. Tomorrow is near!"

Far Cry 2 was one of those games that sounded great and seemed exciting until you got past the first five hours of the game. There were a great many things holding that game back from being top-tier and it looked like Far Cry 3 was going to suffer a similar fate, especially when I saw it at E3 and it looked like Call of Duty gameplay thrown into a jungle setting, but I will admit that I was wrong and there is are some really interesting aspects of the game. It is a first person shooter with very familiar and non-innovate mechanics, but the games co-op and open world both are promising.


At Gamescom Dan Hay, a producer for Far Cry 3, revealed a lot of information about the open world and how it is going to work in Far Cry 3. There will be outposts in the world and these are locations that you can take over and make into a little base of operations. Once you take it over you will be able to do quests out of these locations and buy weapons. Each Outpost is unique and aren't just cookie cutter copies placed all over the map. It does sound a little less genuine than I would like, meaning it could just be hype, but I'm definitely intrigued by their open world and how much better it sounds than the open world in Far Cry 2. Take a look at the video for VG 24/7 and see what the open world is all about.

This turn based strategy game by Robot Entertainment came to PC, exclusively on Steam, earlier this month and it nearly deserves the same treatment as the original version of the game which was on iOS (iPhone and iPad). They are both the same great strategy game that rewards players for knowing their team, knowing what upgrades do and how to best use them, and most importantly knowing how to best manage their action points each turn. Hero Academy pits two players against each other in fierce combat with five different teams that each have their own strengths and weaknesses. The PC version is mostly just a port with few changes, but it does have some improvements. I highly recommended the iOS version when I reviewed it back in January and there is a lot to like about this version as well, but let us look at in depth to see what is good about the PC version of Hero Academy.

One more edition of the Playlist for you all. This week we are looking at the Firefall beta, Sleeping Dogs and the rogue-like adventure game Delver. I will continue posting a few things throughout the weekend, but this is it for today and I hope everyone has an awesome weekend. I should have a Hero Academy review up this weekend and I'm also working on one for Tower Wars, expect those Monday sometime.

It is always a bit of surprise when I'm thoroughly following a game for months only to see them throw up a big surprise like this. Torn Banner Studios just put up a Kickstarter for their multiplayer objective based first person medieval PC game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. They are asking for a relatively small amount, $50,000, and unlike many Kickstarters for video games this one is pretty far along in development already. Specifically they are already in beta and this money is likely just to help them finish the game. Last time I wrote about the game they had just released a developer video that showed off some new content and explained how the objective system is going to work. If you've ever played Age of Chivalry, the source mod, you may recognize the general idea of the game and that it is because it is by the same team that made that popular mod. In Chivalry: Medieval Warfare you will be battering down castle gates, burning villages, throwing siege ladders upon the walls of a great castle and similar objectives on gorgeous maps that will have a succession of objectives. Generally one team is defending and the other is attacking, but if they take some of the ideas from the mod then there will be a few maps where both teams can do a bit of attacking.


The first person combat in Chivalry relies on stamina, blocking, timing and skill. There will be no people jumping around and doing ridiculous moves, more likely you may run into a single enemy soldier and engage in a duel of blades. Of course you can be playing an archer and get surprised by an enemy knight who promptly lops off your head, but every class will have their own unique qualities. They are currently using their Kickstarter as a pre-order option and the game is set to come out this Fall, but I'm sure they will have normal pre-orders after it ends in September. I've always been excited about it, even after watching all of the clunky alpha videos and even after seeing how combat still looks a little jerky, but Chivalry is after an untapped market and no one has yet to create a multiplayer based medieval game that has grand objectives with complicated combat. The Kickstarter has been up for a day or two and they are up to $8,000 already.$25 is the lowest pledge and that will get you the game and some goodies, while $50 will get you early access, beta, among many other things. Check out the Kickstarter video and if you want to see more head on over to the Kickstarter page for Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. They also have a new website with some plenty of information and forums.

Thanks for checking this out and I cannot wait to see this game out in the world.
-Written by Sean Cargle

I gave up on World of Warcraft years ago, but Blizzard sure can make some mighty impressive cinematics. Mists of Pandaria is the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft and it is going to be focusing on exploration and adventure on the new continent of Pandaria. They revealed the opening cinematic for it today, as part of Gamescom, and it almost makes me want to play, except then I remember it's World of Warcraft and I've already handed over enough of my time and money to that world. The expansion will be bringing the new content, a new monk class, upping the level cap to 90, and a new story focused on defending Pandaria from an ancient evil. Find out more about it here, but for now just take a look at the new cinematic.

The last time I wrote of the voxel-based exploration RPG Cube World Wollay, the original developer (there are two now), had just shown off architecture for building houses, jungles and caves. Check that out here, but it has been half a year since then and Cube World has progressed quite a bit. Since it has been so long here is a short overview of what makes Cube World intriguing. Simply it is a mix between Minecraft and Zelda. The world is huge and procedurally generated with different biomes like jungles, valleys, deserts, like Minecraft, but there isn't any mining. This game is instead focused on the rpg elements and adventuring. You level up, craft weapons and armor, build your own house, explore, take on quests and do it all alone or with friends. There are also pets you can find in the world, like adorable little slimes, and massive enemies like yetis or cyclops. It does haven't have a release date yet and it is currently only being developed for PC, but he would like do a Mac release as well. Unlike many indie games there isn't a pre-order option nor is there anyway to get immediate access. Now onto recent news.






Wollay doesn't update the Cube World blog all that often and the last update was from July, but in it he explained what is currently going on with the game instead of just introducing a new feature or progress like normal. First off, he has addressed the questions about release and it seems Cube World is nearing a release of some kind. Before the release they still want to add more content, menu's, character creation, an in-game server browser and save slots. That definitely means that we won't be seeing Cube World released in the next month or two, but hopefully we will be seeing it before 2012 ends. With all of this information they also did an update on multiplayer and showed three person multiplayer for the first time. Here is a few of my favorite screenshots from that update, but head on to the bottom to find more information on everything related to Cube World.

Yesterday Electronic Arts (EA) announced that Command & Conquer Generals 2 was dead and that the newly renamed Command & Conquer was going to be free to play. On that same day Planetary Annihilation was announced for PC and it something that should be able to ease the pain. This is a real time strategy game that was inspired by the classic Total Annihilation from 1997, one of the first strategy games I've ever played. If you don't know Total Annihilation you probably know its successor, Supreme Commander, but Planetary Annihilation is doing something huge and different than everything else.


If you've ever wanted to drop an asteroid or moon out of orbit and make it crash into the enemies planet then good news for you, because in this game you can do that and much more. They want to take the limit off real time strategy games and let you do absolutely ridiculous things on a huge scale, like invading planets, conquering galaxies and fighting battles close-up planet to planet. They want to give you the option to play with a friend or just against AI, or against forty or more people in huge online matches. Every planet will be procedurally created and you can extort planetary resources in order to build mega projects. This game is being made by Uber Entertainment and they have started a Kickstarter with the hefty goal of $900,000. The development team is made up of industry veterans who have worked on Monday Night Combat, Demigod, Morrowind, Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander and more, so do not worry about them being not up to the task. In the first twenty four hours this Kickstarter has earned $200,000 out of the $900,000 goal and I would absolutely love to see this game succeed. Take a look at the Kickstarter video and if you want to know anymore check out their Kickstarter Page or their Main Website.

-Written by Sean Cargle

And strategy fans everywhere die a little inside. What has happened to Command & Conquer? Their last real game was pretty mediocre, you know, the one with space ships, and since then EA has just been throwing around the name merely for its popularity. Free to play doesn't necessarily make a game bad, but few games have done F2P in a way that doesn't frustrate and sever the community. There is hope for F2P RTSs with the upcoming End of Nations, but I can only imagine the horrors that await us with the next Command & Conquer. I don't want to be biased just because it is EA, but look at what they did with Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances. Do strategy fans want Facebook in their strategy games? No, no they do not. This was just announced today and it is following the announcement about Sim City turning into a social game, not so much a deep city building sim. Check out their newest trailer for that here.

Command & Conquer does have a great engine with destructible environments, The Frostbite 2 engine, and it looks impressive visually as a result, but they really need to show off some gameplay so we can see how they are going to handle that. Are there going to be tanks or jets that are far superior that we have to buy with real money? Or will we have to share things with friends in order to receive energy that we use to build new units? I hope neither and I hope it is great, but my hope is fleeting and I'm still glad there are games like Company of Heroes 2 in the world. If you would like more information on the game or if you would like to sign up for the beta head on over to their main website.

-Written by Sean Cargle

Sleeping Dogs was not a game I payed much attention to until the last month or so, even after we played it at E3 and were moderately impressed by it, but I decided to take the plunge when I saw it on sale for a very reasonable $36 on Green Man Gaming, which you can still get on sale for that price if you use the code PCGMR-GREEN-SUMMR, and it has been a great pleasure so far. The world is like Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row, where it is open, full of AI civilians doing their own thing, packed with side missions, and full of collectibles, but this world is far more like Grand Theft Auto than Saints Row. The story, so far, has been very much like a good Hong Kong crime movie, like Exiled or Infernal Affairs. What that means is the combat has a lot of style, every aspect of combat, cities are huge and gritty, characters are complicated individuals, fighting is violent and everything is a bit dark. Everything is fairly unrealistic, but it does not feel a bad thing in this case. Before I start going into the game take a look at the first of the five gameplay videos I put up yesterday and see how the game looks, plays and sounds on PC.

Capcom delivered something unexpected today, a new IP that is a big step away from all of their previous titles. There is very little information on the game so far, but here is what has been released, "In Remember Me, players assume the role of Nilin, an elite memory hunter who is not only incredibly athletic and trained in martial arts, but also has the special ability to break into people’s minds and steal or even change their memories. When her own memory is erased, Nilin begins her journey to reclaim her identity and discover how she can change the world." It isn't actually being made by Capcom, merely published, and a french developer, DONTNOD Entertainment, is taking the lead on this one. Here is the first trailer for the game, which seems to be all gameplay, and it does certainly look like a different type of game. It does seem a little too simple for my tastes, but this could turn out to be something unique and impressive. Take a look.

It is back for PC once again and it now supports modern computers! It now has high resolution and a whole bunch of modern features, like cloud saving, achievements and PC optimizations. Square Enix just re-released it at a digital download on their online store for $9.99. It does seem to be exactly the same game, despite the features above, so you may not care if you already own it on PSN or even an original PS2 copy, but if you have been looking for a way to play without spending $30 plus then good news. Here are some screenshots of the new version, which doesn't look all that much different than the original version. Take a look at the official release over at the Square Enix Online Store.

The first time Arcen Games revealed the Ancient Shadows expansion it was accompanied by an inexplicably small amount of details, but now we have some solid ones and boy does it look interesting. A.I. War is one of my favorite strategy games for PC and it is all about building up massive fleets of ships in a huge randomly generated universe full of pirates and dangerous A.I. that must be destroyed. It is definitely one of the harder games I've ever played, especially when you have your enemies throwing hundreds of ships at you every ten minutes, but it has a lot of depth and multiplayer is a great deal of fun. The Ancient Shadows expansion is changing up the already complicated gameplay by adding a Champion role. The role can be given to one person and instead of having the normal starting ships, home base and everything, they will now have one massive ship. It starts as a very strong starship and grows throughout the game as it gains experience and learns new modules. This ship is also able to travel to places that no one else can get to in order to interact with splinter factions, like the Zenith or Humans. You can help these factions and earn rewards that will help your ship grow stronger, like getting a new hull type.


On top of the new Champion role the expansion will also be adding:
*A whole new kind of human player! A Champion player controls a single modular, upgradeable unit of one of the four races (only the human champions are implemented so far). Let your friends control these in multiplayer or add directly-controlled champions into the other player slots in your singleplayer game!

Cooperative play is coming to Team Fortress 2 on August 15th! I haven't played the game in a very long time, but I may have to reinstall it just to try this out. They are calling this cooperative mode Mann Vs. Machine and it will let you and five friends battle against murderous robots. It is not going to be endless and if you end up surviving you will earn some impressive new loot. You will be defending a level against robots and mainly trying to not let them blow it up. There is a whole slew of robots for you to fight and they are:

Steel Gauntlet - A durable robot that will beat you to death with its fists.
Demoknight - He is quick and has a sword.
Bowman - The sniper-ish robot, but with a bow.
Minor League Scout - Pretty much just a robot scout, but he can stun you.
Quick Fix Medic - Just heals, no uberring.
Heavyweight Champ - Huge, strong and attacks in groups.
Uber Medic - Opposite of Quick Fix Medic.
Sydney Sniper - Shoots darts at long range.
Bomb Carrier Robots - The longer they carry the bomb the stronger they get.
Giants! - Massive robots with massive weapons, but they are slow.

There are also Sentry Busters, which run at an engineers sentry and then detonate. Sounds fun and reminds me of sappers from Orcs Must Die!, but Sentry Busters need time to arm once they to a sentry. There is also an undisclosed enemy of some kind that apparently feasts on the blood of the living and is rather large. This all looks pretty great and I love that Valve is trying add something new TF2. This all comes out on August 15th, Wednesday, and you can find plenty of extra information on it below. Lastly, watch the wonderful new video they made for Mann Vs. Machine in Source Filmmaker.
Main Website: http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/

-Written by Sean Cargle

Months ago I came across a small little booth in the middle of the Microsoft section of E3 and I got my first look at the platforming zombie survival game Deadlight. The demo there didn't have the narrative in it yet, but the art style was very enticing and so was the gameplay that focused on continually moving instead of killing every zombie in sight. Deadlight throws you into a 1980s war torn Seattle, Washington, that has a few survivors still milling about, but it is mostly overrun by the undead and it is very dangerous place to be. You control a man named Randall, who is stereo-typically looking for his family, but there are a great many obstacles in his way. You are taken through a two hour long story through the streets, sewers, rooftops and docks of Seattle. The game does a good job making survival a priority, not combat. You can easily be overrun by hordes of zombies, or even just a few few, and they are thankfully still a threat when you have firearms at your disposal. Deadlight does some interesting things for the genre and it does triumphantly conquer some aspects of gameplay, but let's find out if this short adventure is worth your time and money.

This is the fourth entry of the Playlist and this week we are covering RaiderZ, Towns, MineZ and Hero Academy. I will be covering most of these games throughout the next week, especially RaiderZ and Hero Academy. Hero Academy just came out today for PC and it was one of my favorite games on iOS, so expect a review that for next week. I will also be working on reviews for Deadlight and a few other games over the weekend. Thanks for reading everyone! Almost to 300,000 and when we hit that I may have something in store for you all.

I haven't played RIFT since last Summer, but Trion Worlds sure seems dedicated to supporting their MMORPG with consistent updates, events and periodic new content releases. There is a reason that RIFT is one of the few MMORPG's that started as a subscription based game, still is one, and seems to be doing just fine. The game definitely had some typical MMORPG gameplay elements, but there was so much to like about it. Now RIFT has an expansion coming and it looks to be substantial. They are going to be adding two new continents, an advanced class system, the level cap will be increased to 60, house type places that you can own called dimensions, capes, seven new dungeons, three new raids, grandmaster crafting a just a whole mess of new content. There is also going to be a colossus that roams an area of the world and is supposed to interact uniquely with the environment. They have a teaser trailer for Storm Legion, but thankfully Gamespot has a much more useful, and in-game, video for the expansion.

We haven't written much about Wargaming.net's huge free to play player versus player world war II tank game, but we have both played it quite a bit and their newer game, World of Warplanes. World of Tanks is coming out with a huge new update soon and it is worthy of writing about. The first thing the 8.0 update is bringing to the game is an updated graphical engine, which looks pretty damn nice. They are also adding in realistic tank movement physics, adaptive camouflage, mini-map functions, new tanks, emblem and inscription customization and an enhanced tech tree. They don't have a release date or anything for the update yet, but they did just release this teaser. Take a look at that and keep your eyes out for the release. World of Tanks is free, so if you want to give it a try just head on over to their website and get playing.

It may or may not be serious, but Blizzard did a post today saying that they have indeed been hacked and much of your information might be in jeopardy. Blizzard claims that your credit card information and personal information should be safe, but they have admitted that email addresses have likely been compromised. Furthermore, if you live in North America your personal security question and mobile/dial-in authenticator information are also compromised. If you've read this far you probably want to go change your password immediately, but Blizzard doesn't believe anyone's passwords have been stolen nor do they believe that information stolen is enough to get access to your account. They are going to be emailing people over the next couple of days to let you know what you should be changing, like authenticator passwords and security questions. The funny thing about this is the authenticator passwords were stolen and the authenticator is something that is supposed to make your account even more secure, not more vulnerable. We will see how far this goes over the next couple of days, but read the official post by Blizzard yourself to see all of the information and to easily reset your password, which would be a good idea. Fun times everyone, fun times.

-Written by Sean Cargle

20 ways to die in Spelunky:

This open world GTA style game set in Hong Kong is due out next week, on the 14th, but I have seen surprisingly little coverage from the gaming websites I frequent. The game has a pretty impressive melee system with counters, blocking and environmental attacks (like slamming a gangsters head into a nearby dumpster). We played it at E3 and it was hard to tell how it was, especially since the section we played was very linear, but this game could turn out to be the next big open world game, at least until Assassin's Creed 3 comes out in Fall. The gaming website Joystiq did a video with the senior producer of the game, Jeff O'Connel, and it shows off an immense amount of gameplay. The game is going to be coming out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on August 14th in North America and the 17th in Europe. Check out the video and let me know what you think. Skip the first five minutes if you want to get straight to gameplay.

Explore, build, survive and get home. Under the Ocean throws you on a deserted island after you have been shipwrecked. You have to find the means to make a home, build weapons and survive the night. This PC/Mac game is the sequel to 2010's Under the Garden, which also has building elements and a similar sandbox gameplay, but they are both also platformers at their core. They have been doing developer logs for Under the Ocean for a good long time, but up until now they didn't have anything for people to try themselves. They just reached their first playable alpha, but it is only available to those who have pre-ordered the game in some capacity. Before I talk anymore about it, just take a look at the new video showing off the alpha. As you will see, this isn't a simple crafting game.

It is new, it is unofficial and it is interesting. Valvetime, a website/forum for everything Valve related, had gameplay submitted to them for Black Mesa Source by an anonymous user. They claim the footage is legitimate and it certainly looks to be legitimate, but it is also supposed to somewhat old footage. Black Mesa Source is a Half Life 1 remake that has been in development for years. If you played Half Life one then you will likely recognize the part of the game they are trying to redo here. There are some new changes, like sprinting, that are bothering plenty of hardcore half life fans, but I still think it looks like a lot of fun and it should be a wonderful nostalgia filled trip back through the world of Black Mesa. Since the interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, the developers have been slowly revealing more and more about the game. I hope that this is another intentional release by them and they are continuing to ramp people up for an eventual release, unlike the last time they hyped up the community and disappeared. On a random note, I've been out of town again and should be back to posting quite a lot more by Wednesday of this week. Thanks for reading and check out the video.
Main Website: http://www.blackmesasource.com/

Hey everyone, the weekend has started and I'm about to head out of here, but here is our third addition of The Playlist, which I will continue to do every Friday. This week's video is a bit short, but I am showing off Deadlight, Minecraft and Tribes Ascend. I will be working on a review for Deadlight, hopefully by tomorrow, so watch out for that as well. Thanks for reading and have an awesome weekend.

AnvilNext is the engine Assassin's Creed 3 is using and today Ubisoft has decided to make a trailer just to show that off. The trailer is entirely gameplay and has some interesting tidbits in there, but it is also a bit showy and seems like a just a big marketing video, instead of a video that gives us a deeper look at the game. Regardless, I am hoping AC3 is absolutely wonderful, especially after playing the disappointment that is Revelations. Personally, I'm mostly excited to see if the naval battle system is as exciting as it looks and if the wilderness areas are as open and interesting as they claim to be. Take a look at the trailer and let let me know what you think.
Main Website: http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/ac3/en-US/index.aspx

Quakecon 2012 is in full swing over in Dallas, Texas, right now and for the first time in what seems like forever there is some news about the DOOM series. First off, we have the DOOM 3 BFG Edition, which was previously announced in May, but is now detailed. This edition will contain: DOOM 1, DOOM 2, DOOM 3, The DOOM 3 expansion, and a new DLC called The Lost Mission. The whole thing will cost $30 on PC and $40 on PS3 and Xbox 360, and it is due out on October 16th in North America and October 19th in Europe. The Lost Mission is a set of seven new missions and the graphics are certainly a bit dated at this point, but it might be exciting for those who really love the DOOM series. Personally I would just wait for DOOM 4, which has just been announced, but more on that in a moment. Take a look at the DOOM 3 BFG Edition trailer.

The title pretty much says it all, but here I am to say a whole lot anyways. One thing we can look forward in this version of Dawnguard is that it should be far less buggy than the Xbox 360 version, which has been out for over a month. Since they have had more time to work on the PC release and it doesn't involve Kinect, it should be far less troublesome. Dawnguard hasn't received the best reviews, but it gives you a chance to jump back into a vampire filled Skyrim that gives you a decently long story to indulge in. You will have to choose between joining the vampires or joining the Dawnguard, who are basically vampire hunters, but from everything I hear it seems joining the vampires is a lot more enjoyable. So what is stopping you from jumping in to this new chunk of content? well, probably the hefty price of $20. If Dawnguard was awesome and unique as the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion then $20 would be no big deal, but it certainly isn't to the scale and quality of that expansion. Anyways, take a look at this gameplay from the first mission of Dawnguard.

There is always the debate of quantity versus quality, something that often comes up when you see a game like Rainbow Moon that delivers 50-100 hours worth of content, but doesn't have the most engaging world or gameplay. Rainbow Moon manages to deliver an impressive amount of content with a pretty decent amount of quality. This is a turn based RPG/tactics game, like Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics, but unlike both of those games this world is rather open. You start the game alone, on the world Rainbow Moon, and only one island is open to you. Once you eventually work through that island and conquer it you get access to the mainland, which starts to open up rather quickly. The story in Rainbow Moon isn't as strong as either of the previously mentioned games, nor are the characters as lively or interesting, but this $15 downloadable still does quite a bit right.



You start out the game with just one character, Baldren (who can be renamed if you want), a warrior who was thrown into a portal that brought him to Rainbow Moon. You spend most of the game trying to get off of Rainbow Moon and back to where you came from, but as you go along you pick up plenty of other party members, and explore a great many dungeons, cellars, towns and wilderness areas. You also will eventually earn yourself a boat, which opens up everything to you. The world seems a bit small at first, but once you hit the main continent you start to see just how much content this game has. Check out this great introduction developer video for an overview.

It has indeed finally hit alpha, but what does that mean for those of us who haven't preordered the game to receive immediate access? Well, now anyone can play the new public demo that takes you through one mission of the game. Miners War 2081 brings you into space and give you control of a space ship in first person as you fight your way through a gorgeous and mostly destructible universe. It is currently only on PC and gameplay feels a bit like Descent, or other first person space shooters, but it does have its own unique feel. One of the most interesting things I've experienced, so far, has been the destructible environments. If you see a large asteroid in front of you and decide that you want to go through it, instead of around it, you can happily use rockets or the mining tools to make your own tunnels. Take a look at this new video to see how you can interact with the environment.

I've reported once before on Miners Wars when I did a general overview, and I'm happy to say that it is quite a bit more interesting, fun and stable than it was last time I tried it. Then again, last time I tried it all they had was a tech demo, while this is a fully voiced mission.The mission is fairly long, and difficult, which is made more difficult by the lack of a save option or checkpoint system, so if you do die you have to start all the way over at the beginning of the mission. I must say that the similarity to Descent is accentuated in this mission, mainly because of how easy it is to get discombobulated and lose your way. Despite that, and the lack of a real tutorial, the mission is a bit of fun and it is impressive to see their homegrown VRAGE Engine coming together. Head on over to their website to try the demo yourself and thanks for checking it out.
Main Website: http://www.minerwars.com/index.aspx

-Written by Sean Cargle

I wrote about this not too long ago, but if you own Minecraft now it is a good time to head on back and check out some of the new changes. They don't significantly patch Minecraft all that often, the last one was in April of 2012, so every time they do it comes with quite a few changes and new content. With this patch they have updated the demo, so people can play up to five days in-game, and they have also made singleplayer use multiplayer servers to decrease world saving intervals. Hopefully that doesn't mean you can't play without an internet connection, but that is kind of the case already since you have to login into their launcher. Content wise, this patch adds new blocks, new materials, monster changes, temples, adventure mode, trading, writing and more. Check out the full list here. They also have a new block type coming with adventure mode that lets the server admin set objectives or goals for players, which could be quite interesting, but it is not clear what version that is being released with. Rock Paper Shotgun has more on that. Thanks for reading.

New inventory system

-Written by Sean Cargle