Reviews & Articles

Fever Frenzy is a task-management game for the medically inclined. (OK, so no real medicine is involved.) Charlie and Hannah have just graduated from medical school. You get to pick which one you want to play. At their graduation party, there is a wild outbreak of a mysterious virus. The world is in danger, and you must save the day.

As an avid gamer and dabbler in the development arts, I usually consider myself a pretty good and fair judge of videogames. However, Global Agenda leaves me in a state of dumbfounded bliss, which totally contradicts everything I would normally judge a game on. At first glance, I am tempted to say this game is one of the infamous “love it or hate it” breed, but after a month of playing, I still do not know for sure which I fall into.

The return of the turn based space strategy game (for me)! Oh no!! Save me! I remember playing these games in the 90s, and oddly, they have all been pretty much the same game with just new branding/gimmicks, or shiny graphics since. This genre essentially hasn't changed over time, at least to me. Maybe I have been burned out on strategy games, so now I tend to get bored quickly with them. I love strategy games most times, but this genre here.. well it can bore me with its plain un-originality. So I am here, trying to hope for the best, and hide that maybe I am a little.. biased.

King’s Bounty has been a fixture for a long time in the computer gaming world. Unfortunately, I’ve never played any of the series. I don’t know why I’ve never shelled out greenbacks for what is considered a very popular title. But I’ve jumped right in to see what the hoopla was all about. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised at what I had missed all these years.

I love Minecraft. And the crazy thing is, for a game that has been “complete” at its core for well over a year. The down part is that it fell off my radar due to school and other pressing games to review. So when I recently logged into my account into the full-blown 1.0 version, nothing was truly surprising. However, it still sucks me into its world and makes the world melt away.

Every other year is special time for Call of Duty fans as the giant known as Infinity Ward struts its proverbial stuff. Activision/Infinity Ward’s latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise is proof that they are not losing their firm grasp on the game’s success.

Revenge is one of the oldest reasons in the book to respond to anything. Don’t believe me? Watch a bunch of children and see how long it takes for them not to hit each other over some misdemeanor. It also makes for a great plot. Also, I am aware of the Kill Bill movie series. However, I never really got into the films whenever I saw them on TV as it was just too grisly for me. So why in the world do I enjoy Shank so much?

The weekend of Thanksgiving, I had something fun to give thanks for — namely the chance to participate in the beta test of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is probably the most simultaneously amazing and annoying MMO I’ve ever played. It excels to new levels and sinks to new lows for the same reason: first and last, this game is about the story.

The storyline in Afterall: InSanity makes this game great and keeps you wondering what will happen next. It’s very believable, because something like this could happen. It would seem logical since everywhere in the world, we deal with toxic chemicals that could plague us.

I had the privilege of getting an invitation to the Dead Space 2 multiplayer beta in October (it has taken me this long to put it into words), and I was excited. I was excited for EA and for Visceral Games, because this is a great attribute to an already fantastic franchise. I am going to make an insanely bold (yet true) claim and say the Dead Space franchise is scary as hell.

A few years ago it seems like all my friends were playing a game called “Morrowind” – actually it was The Elder Scrolls III – Morrowind. They’d go on and on about it, how wide open it was, blah blah blah, and my eyes would glaze over and I’d go back to something more interesting (usually the beer in my hand or the thought of beer soon to be in my hand).

I’m a big fan of survival horror. I like testing my survival instincts against all sorts of hideous enemies. It can, however, get fairly repetitive as a genre. Zombies are always the No. 1 enemy, and everybody knows that against zombies, headshots are the best way to go. It’s exciting, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve done it plenty of times before. Dead Space manages to give me all the horror I can handle in a brand new way.

Silent Hill ... the mere mention of the forbidden hamlet is enough to send shivers down most horror gamers’ spines. The creepily thick fog, the empty yet rundown streets and the well-done music create an atmosphere thick enough to get lost in. Over the years, the horrific hamlet has had two different sides: a place that calls out for people to purge their souls and a town that is perverted by its inhabitants vile violations. One of the more recent additions to the series is Silent Hill: Homecoming.

If you have played videogames within the past 10 years, chances are you have at least heard about the Resident Evil series. This is the series that essentially put survival horror games on the map. Although not the originator of the genre, it certainly perfected it. The Resident Evil series made you afraid to see what was on the other side of doors or what was lurking just beyond a hallway. Original Resident Evil zombies were similar to those in George Romero zombie movies; they were slow and just lumber place to place. A couple years ago, Capcom decided to change its long-loved series; no longer did you have slow-moving zombies, but smart intelligent enemies. Resident Evil 5 continues that new trend in the series, but does it still hold the same freshness Resident Evil 4 once held?

Thirteenth century warfare was a constant ongoing affair. Nations, fiefdoms, city states and warlords who wanted power, riches, religious reasons and personal vendettas would raise armies and go hacking and slashing their way to either victory or defeat.

In no other game will you find such a variety of utter nonsense as that in DeathSpank. One moment you are provoking unicorns to poop as you’re attacked by evil gingerbread men, and the next second you could be getting “felt by Freen.” The minds behind DeathSpank have brought more than a bountiful supply of humor through outstanding writing. It is a classic hack-’n’-slash adventure that mishmashes the action with a role-playing game twist.

Back in my senior year of high school, I was obsessed with a few games. Two of the big ones were Diablo II and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The former I loved for its loot and heroic plot; the latter I loved for its open world. Almost every single place is open to you from the get-go. Both games allowed for highly customizable characters, though Morrowind takes the cake on that topic. So let’s fast-forward several years later and take a look at Morrowind’s successor: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition.

The Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, and a myriad of other names call forth images of Batman, a pop-culture icon that’s existed since May 1939, and his battle against crime, corruption and evil is well-showcased in the game Batman: Arkham Asylum. With the current release date of the fall set for the sequel Batman: Arkham City, I felt it worth looking into Arkham City’s predecessor to see how it measured up. I have to say that Batman: Arkham Asylum floored me. It’s a fantastic game; there’s a lot to it that’s enjoyable, fun and just great.

Ever wonder what it would have been like to grow up in the 1940s and ’50s? Ever thought you would have made a great addition to large Italian family making offers people can’t refuse, or wondered what it would be like to live the life of a true Original Gangster? 2K Czech has tried to answer these questions with the release of its latest development efforts.

Dragonica Online is a game by THQ and ICE Entertainment that is their first attempt to bring casual massively multiplayer online games to American audiences. Dragonica Online — is known as Dream Dragon in China. Currently under localization and in closed beta, Dragonica Online is a fantasy action, free-to-play game targeted at 13- to 17-year-olds. It is a 3-D side-scrolling game that makes use of jump-pads to travel between islands in the foreground and background in a 3-D map. Everything you can see, you can get to; you just have to find the way.

I remember the first time I played Age of Wonders. I had read reviews in the various gaming mags, spouting how great it was, giving it high marks, five stars, best game of it’s genre, and in general wanting you to rush out to the store to purchase it all costs. The game interface was complicated at the time, but wasn’t a project in learning. On the strategic end it was quite dazzling. You could play on the surface or move to underground entrances bypassing opposing armies. One problem though, your armies could only benefit from the wizard's spells if he was with the army. He could occupy a wizard's tower, but the troops needed to be within the controlling range of the tower to receive any benefit. In a sense he became a field commander with the majority of the army clustered around him. Woe on to you if he died in combat, since that would end the game right there.

When it was brought to my attention that a preview of History Channel's: Great Battles of Rome was available for review, I just had to get it. I had seen the documentary that History Channel televised awhile ago. They made reference that the battle scenes were computerized, which intrigued me. I had wondered if this was some sophisticated computer program or if it would be a PC version that others could play.

Ancient and modern warfare has always been fascinating for historians, military tacticians and armchair generals who want to redo the famous and infamous battles over the centuries. Some want to replay the mistakes made by famous generals, which cost them not only the battle, but a war as well. Others just want to satisfy a curiosity or better understand the reasoning behind a particular decision that won the day.

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a recent release by Akella, a well-known Russian publisher and studio that has created and published more than 800 videogames in the last 15 years. Akella has not only developed naval games — including Age of Sail and Sea Dogs — but has localized numerous high-profile games into Russian, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Prince of Persia, Sacred and Painkiller. The company has even translated and presently manages the Russian gameservers for EverQuest II.

The following are my impressions of Namaste Entertainment’s Storybricks toolset, being designed to allow players to build their own stories inside of games.

I don’t follow the news of engines and mechanics of games very closely, but when my husband (Harmakhet) was shown a demo of Storybricks this weekend, I was paying attention a bit more ...

BioShock 2 has a lot to live up to, and understandably so. BioShock, originally released in 2007, was widely hailed as the best game of the year, if not the decade. So crafting any kind of follow-up was probably doomed to feel like diminishing returns. Nevertheless, BioShock 2 has a lot to offer, even if a lot of it feels like familiar territory.

I loved Legos growing up. Heck, I still do. There’s something special about connecting random blocks together and creating structures. I probably make the same old ones over and over again, mainly with the use of a boat (it is the largest Lego I own). As much as I love building, my hands do not naturally function in that manner. Fixing things, building actual furniture, modifying the house and understanding body movements are all well above this writer’s understanding. So be prepared to be baffled by my love of Minecraft.

QuantZ is a puzzle game with extremely shiny menus and additionally shiny gameplay, but that’s only part of what kept me enjoying it and its different game modes. When I first started playing QuantZ I made the mistake of thinking it’d be an easy write up since it’s a puzzle game, and I initially thought it similar to others I’d played. That, I can assure you, was not the case.

This year was another great showing of TERA ...

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimis the fifth installment of the very popular RPG series ...

Top Gun: Hard Lock will take place 25 years after the movie ...

The Backbreaker Football series found a huge success with a mode called “Tackle Alley” in its iPhone game ...

Wikipedia tells me that John Henry “Doc” Holliday died Nov. 8, 1887. Doc Holliday was involved in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But if the developers of Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West have anything to say about it, 123 years later, the Wild West is still alive and kickin’ with gunfights, fur trappers and good ol’ boys having a dynamite-chuckin’ good time. Set in the era of the Wild West, this strictly multiplayer third-person shooter captures the feel and theme of Doc’s day so well, you can almost smell the gunpowder. If games received soundtracks like movies, then I’d say pop in some Garth Brooks or George Strait while you take out some dirtbag desperado — heck, do that now when you’re just starting to read.