GamingCrap

As a huge fan of anything Alien or Predator, this game is not worth playing. Even if you just want the "atmosphere" of Aliens, you won't find it here. The graphics are horrible at the highest settings (roughly 2003-4 era graphics), the acting and story is worse than a MST3K movie, and the Aliens are a joke. I tried, really tried, to give this a go since I got it for basically free and *supposedly* recent patches have improved it.... Don't be fooled, it is still a buggy crapfest. In just 40 minutes of playtime, I encountered five instances where aliens just got stuck and stood still as I blasted them. The aliens, when working, had two modes of attack - climb around the walls like a spaz and never attack me, and run up to me and stand in front of me for (what feels like an eternity) me to shoot in the face. To artificially add difficulty, the aliens basically instantly kill you if you do not have armor (even on the "Soldier" difficulty) and the M41A pulse ...

(Guest poster, ChrisA) I'm a long time Bloodbowl fan, and the fan created Dungeonbowl rules were quite fun, and eventually considered a standard in the Bloodbowl. So when Cyanide came out with a digital version of Bloodbowl, I was all over it. And despite its many flaws, I do really like ... mostly because it lets me play Bloodbowl without trying to gather the 3 people in my area (MAYBE 3) that still actually like to play. If you're not sure what Bloodbowl is, it's a mix between American football and rugby, played by the races of the Warhammer universe (Humans, elves, chaos, dwarves, undead, etc). The best part is, killing the opposing players is perfectly legal ... and the major way of getting star player points (experience) besides scoring touchdowns. Dungeonbowl is essentially a tournament within the game. Just like football has its "bowl games" like the Superbowl, Rose Bowl, ProBowl, etc., Bloodbowl has bowl games as well. The namesake Bloodbowl, the Chaos...

(Guest poster, SteveH) Yesterday I promised I'd write a shorter article on the classes I played while roaming around Guild Wars 2. It might have been a bad play for me to promise it would be a shorter talk but I am keeping my promise about the second article! So, without any further typing, here it is! The classes for Guild Wars 2 are as follows: thief, ranger, necromancer, mesmer, elementalist, warrior, guardian, and engineer. I played all of them briefly and the elementalist and guardian the most. Before I get into that, this might be the best time to explain how Guild Wars 2 handles skills. In most MMOs a character gains a skill every other level or so and ends up with more skills than any sane person can keep track of. In my experience it's best to find 5 - 10 skills that you commonly use, put those in a position easily accessed, and then putting the rest around the extended skill bars and almost never use them. Guild Wars 2 changes that in a few key ways but the ma...

(Guest poster, SteveH) I'm no wizard, sorcerer, or any other conjuror of magic, I just happen to get into a few betas! Anyway, here in lies my thoughts of the weekend I spent in the Guild Wars 2 beta. It was sort of open so there's no NDA I have to fear. Guild Wars 2 has been the MMO I've been waiting for both in terms of me hearing about it and thinking to myself "yeah!" and in terms of my feelings after I played it and thought to myself "yeah!" Why for? The biggest reason, for me, is just how fluid it all is. You know the general MMO formula, quests you can do alone, quests you need a small group for, and then quests you need massive amounts of people for. Yeah, that was fun a while ago, but now I just don't have the time or patience to sit around and "LFG" for hours on end. This is what killed Star Wars the Old Republic for me, "DPS LFG" (2 HOURS LATER!!!) "DPS LFG.... please?" I just can't stand that anym...

"Why would I spend $60 on Old Republic? I have Skyrim to play!" I said. "Ugh, this beta is pretty bad - how could Bioware have released such a half-baked product?" You may have heard. Well, now you're seeing me eat my own shoe. I broke down and bought The Old Republic for its launch and have been playing it daily for an hour or two (or many more on select weekends) pretty consistently. I only partially feel bad about spending the money on it. What it gets right Warzones  - like battlegrounds in World of Warcraft, Warzones are your quick two-team PvP affairs. The maps are all based on objectives: Voidstar = Assault a thing, Huttball = Capture the flag named "Huttball," Civil War = Control things. As simple and fast as these warzones are, they actually promote playing the game and not just farming kills. You get more rewards for winning and you get rewarded for performing or assisting the objectives of the game (kind of), which is a nice switch from...

(Guest poster, SteveH) Oh come on, its only been, what, 3 or 4 months since I last wrote an article! Yeah, I know. But I've got a good one today! Late last week I got a bet invite to Diablo 3! After beating the Skeleton King (the end boss of act 1 and the end boss of the beta) with all but one class I'm ready to type up my experience with it. First we must explore the "getting there" portion, pre-Saturday patch, then we can get to the good stuff. So lets begin at the beginning (an odd choice). The download and install was as easy as one would imagine, I started it on its path when I came home briefly for lunch and it was done by the time I got home from work for the day. After dinner and some homework I was ready, willing and... not able. This brings me to problem 1 with the game, always online. When I tried to log in I would get an error message telling me that my request timed out and I should try again later. I tried again and again for a few minutes and th...

I tested Star Wars: The Old Republic this last Friday as a republic Jedi Knight (how edgy is that?). What you'll see here is from just about 4 hours of game-play, which, yes, is not enough time to truly test everything in the game. I'm going to be quite candid, and while this may seem very negative, my overall rating for the game (well, RTM candidate beta) would be a B-, 74%, 3.7 out of 5, whatever. I'll just go straight down the list of the focus areas I generally care about. Graphics : Sub-par. It's somewhat cartoon-like, but not as cohesive or stylistic as World of Warcraft. It's kind of in-between, and doesn't really pull it off well. I was suspicious of Bioware since Dragon Age 2, and it seems that their art team is functioning at about 80% capacity. It's not horrible, it's not bad, it's blah. Animations are decent, and at first glance seem a lot more "matched" than WoW (when you hit a guy, they parry or have a hit animation) but it ...

(Guest poster, SteveH) Hurrah! Yesterday I reported a release date push back, today I'm announcing a release date release! Star Wars: The Old Republic now has a release date of 12/20/2011 ! Warm up those blasters and prepare to jump to light speed!

(Guest poster, SteveH) If you hoped to see Diablo 3 by the end of this year, as was previously stated, well, hope is lost! Word on the Diablo 3 main site tells us that Blizzard is officially pushing the game back to early 2012 in hopes of using that time to open up the beta a little more and ironing out issues found in said beta. /sigh I still hold to hope that we will see Diablo 3 before the end of the world. Though, now that I think of it, is there any major religion that sites the games release as one of the signs of the apocalypse? I think maybe... If you don't believe me, here's my proof!

The short version: Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a great action/stealth game that is worth the money if you like the first Deus Ex or other action/stealth games (Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, etc). The long version Deus Ex: Human Revolution (DX:HR) is a great action/stealth game that has some minor design decisions/flaws that keep it from legendary status. The game play, visuals, world design and sound design are all top notch. The story and voice acting have some issues. The inclusion of boss fights is abysmal and soul crushing. Since this will be a non-spoiler review, I'll just give you a basic rundown of what DX:HR is: you are a cybernetically altered super-agent that is trying to unravel a mediocre conspiracy after your employer is attacked. The world is a decade or so ahead of present day, where cybernetic augmentation of the human body is a common occurrence. Unfortunately though, those who choose (or are forced!) to get augmented are dependent on anti-rejection medication...

(Guest poster, SteveH) If you're the type that doesn't like to read too far into a review to hear the reviewer opinion here's mine, Space Marine is one of the best action games I've ever played, if not the best. Big claim, right? Let me explain the why-for's and whatnots. I think a disclaimer I have to get in here is this, I love the Warhammer 40K universe which, if you don't know, is where this takes place. Warhammer 40k started as a tabletop mini game that has been slowly making its way into computer and console games. Lately the fine people at THQ and Relic have been really kicking ass with it, the fantastic strategy game of the Dawn of War caliber, then the insanely fun Dawn of War 2, now Space Marine. For those of you who are not familiar with the Warhammer universe, here's a quick run-down (for those of you who are, skip on to the next paragraph). Fast forward to the 41st millenium, the Emperor sits deathless on the Golden Throne on holy Terra,...

Patch number two for Deus Ex came out today, and guess what? It fixed the control issues and shortened load times significantly. Yay! After playing through only the first "level" I've come to realize that minor issues aside, this is going to be a pretty good Deus Ex game. I had a crash or two before I turned FX Anti-aliasing on (GeForce GTX 570), but since then it's been pretty stable. Runs great, looks good too. I've also learned that Detroit police are pretty hardcore in 2020+ After being flown in on a sleek corporate chopper, I decided to explore the reactions of NPCs to distractions like...boxes being thrown at their head. Oh hey, here's a tiny little box - I'll just toss it at one of these SWAT guys and they'll yell at me!   Hilarious! Tee hee hee... OH SWEET MERCIFUL LORD! Needless to say, Detroit SWAT certainly does NOT take shit from a former-co-worker-turned-corporate-fixit-guy.

Why. Why. Why. Why do developers, that port games from consoles, keep the damn X / Y axis ratio set to a controller? Moving my Logitech G500 up three feet equates to a slight nudge in vertical look. Twitching a hair shoots me around 720 degrees horizontally. Okay - maybe I'm exaggerating a *bit* but come on! Why do I have to set the Y-Axis to near max just to match a near minimum X-Axis? Sloppy. Thank the FSM that you can actually change this though, otherwise I'd just ask for a refund and get the PS3 version and play from the couch. Game looks pretty though, now time to play!

Terraria's massive 1.0.6 patch came out on the 9th, and of course it made me drain a dozen hours into new world generation, building, and exploring new mechanics/items. Some of the changes and additions/subtractions are fairly minor: dungeons won't spawn underwater anymore, some interface colors were changed, flying creature AI was improved a bit, etc. Others were pretty game changing: you can no longer create blocks in lava, chests on floating islands, in dungeons and in the underground now require keys...and so on. The full change log is at TerrariaOnline.com But, I'll stop boring you with the individual changes and bore you with the actual impact. The game is significantly more difficult now and has a lot more decorative depth. With health potions only being usable once a minute, and healing for half as much, avoiding damage is crucial now - even in Molten armor. This is a good thing, as a good bow and golden armor could get you through the entirety of the game in...

(From guest poster, SteveH) What can I say?  I'm something of a sucker for different looking games, the kind that aren't the usual "Oh no, nazi's!  Shoot 'em!" or "Oh no, a guy that's a fascist much like a nazi but isn't since we're clearly in the future (look at my cool future gun for reference)!  Shoot 'em!"  So when I saw the screenshots for E.Y.E., the Divine Cybermancy, I couldn't help myself.  Steam got more of my money off of my love for new games and things that look an awful lot like Space Marine (Warhammer 40k Space Marines) power armor. I'm no where near beating it right now, probably only a few hours in, so this isn't a full review, but I feel like I should say a few things about it while its on my mind. The real draw for me to this game is its atmosphere, I really love the sort of shadow war that I'm getting hints to by my Mentor (with a capitol M since I'm guessing that's his name?) and the ...