Strategy Informer: Magrunner: Dark Pulse

I have never struggled with a review so much as Magrunner. I've played worse games (Marvel Heroes), but Magrunner just left me feeling completely uninterested. If I hadn't had to play it I doubt I'd have last five minutes. Anyway, for a full explanation as to why it's rubbish:

Magrunner: Dark Pulse review

BeefJack: Deadpool Review

Another review, this time it's Deadpool. A character I loved up until Marvel realised that he was suddenly super popular and flooded the market. I got a bit of Deadpool fatigue, and Daniel Way's bit too wacky interpretation of the Merc with a Mouth was the final straw. Recently I've started looking back, and having read the first issue of Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn's new run it seems the comic might be back on the right track too.

Anyway,

Deadpool Review

Despite the score, I really did enjoy my time with Deadpool. It's not without its faults (which the review explains) but I'm enough of a Wade Wilson fan to not care. I enjoyed it. Just when it comes to recommending it to other people it becomes a bit harder, and really that's my job.

Strategy Informer: Tengami Preview

Finally there's another Rezzed article out. This time it's my quick playthrough of Tengami. It's hard to explain just what type of game Tengami is. Basically put you control a samurai walking through a pop up book... yeah that's not very clear at all, is it. Just go read my preview!

Tengami Preview

State of Decay thoughts

Zombies and videogames have always gone together well, partly it's because their AI is pretty simple to program (swarm the player) and enemies models don't need to be as distinctive as other enemy types. Another is that they are an unquestionable evil. In a medium where story telling isn't always the best, you need something the player will fight without question. Just like Nazis.

However, videogame zombies and zombie lore have always been very different beasts. Body shots count. You can usually get bitten and not really worry about it. That is until recently. Last year gave us The Walking Dead and Zombi U. My love of The Walking Dead has already been covered, but it was more a story in a zombie world then surviving in one. Zombi U on the other hand sounds a bit more like it. There, if you get bitten, you die and lose everything. Then take control of another survivor and you might just bump into your old guy, now the living dead. Kill him and claim your stuff back. Unfortunately it was on Wii U so not many have played it.

Meanwhile, three separate projects aim to give a real Zombie horror survival experience this year. Dead State, Project Zomboid and State of Decay. While Project Zomboid has released an alpha and is available to play in a early state, State of Decay is the first 'finished' one out.  Despite the name, it's more like you have an entire county to cover, with one large town and two smaller ones with various croppings of humanity scattered about. Here you are dumped with the most unlikeliest of survivors and told to survive. You can trade with other groups, head into any building in the entire county to scavenge, all while trying to keep you and your group alive.

It's brilliant.

Strategy Informer: Ethan: Meteor Hunter preview

The last two updates I've had here are just links to elsewhere. Well, rather nicely, I've been getting a lot of work, but also over last week I went to Rezzed and had a bloody great time. Not only did that take me away from my (self promised) Friday updates I try and do, but it gave me plenty to write about for the games industry. So this blog might not be much more than "Hey! Go read this!" for awhile.

Anyway, here is the first.

Ethan: Meteor Hunter preview

A nice little platformer that didn't seem to live up to its potential.

Strategy Informer: Marvel Heroes

I wanted to like Marvel Heroes. I really did. I've spent countless hours with Drew and some others playing through the Marvel ARPG games all the way from X-Men Legends to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. They were our games. Now I'm living 300 odd miles away Marvel Heroes looked like a way of recapturing that magic.

It doesn't. What's more, Gazillion and Marvel try to rob you at the same time of giving you a poor gameplay experience.

Marvel Heroes Review

BeefJack: Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness 4 review

I've been a fan of Penny Arcade for quite a while now, even with all their Kickstarter shenanigans. When On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness started way back in 2008 I jumped on it, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Now it has come to an end. And I reviewed it. Just like I did the third one.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness 4 review

Gather around the Captain's Table

The jumping of the time frames is a constant of the Captain's Table series, but it's taken to a new level here as Kirk tells a story set during the 60s series, Sulu (and later Kirk) during the movies, all while the framing story takes place post-movies. For the most part it works well, but I get the feeling L.A. Graf shoe-horned the framing story in. Considering this is meant to be Kirk and Sulu tell their stories to a captive audience, there are times when you'd expect the other to throw in a sly comment, obviously not all the time, but at the end of a chapters when the storyteller shifts. At the end, as their tales finish and we switch back to the framing, nobody seems to care any more everyone having drifted off as the two Starfleet captains finish their story. Jerry Oltion (the only other one I've read so far) handled it much better with a bit of bar-type camaraderie going on throughout.

E3 2013: Picking sides in the next-gen

For somebody who writes about videogames for a living, I've not written a great deal about the next generation consoles, partly because I say a lot on the BeefJack podcast. Now we're at E3, now seems like the perfect time to address that.

When Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 I was there laughing at how bad of a job they did. It's hard to remember why now, but it felt lacklustre. When Microsoft announced the Xbox One, suddenly Sony didn't look like they'd done that bad of a job after all. Microsoft completely flunked it, a stupid name that someone in marketing was probably extremely pleased with themselves with, one hour of talking about TV and barely anything on games themselves. The few they did mention are the ones that will come to everything anyway, Fifa and Call of Duty. So meh. Except Quantum Break, but that was so vague it was hard to get excited.

My return to the PC

When I was a kid I always wanted a console. A Mega Drive or a SNES, I wasn't particularly fussy. However, my dad insisted on something I could use educationally as well, so instead I got an Amstrad, closely followed by an Amiga (which thanks to rampant piracy at the time probably made me more of a gamer than Sega or Nintendo ever could). Then of course it evolved into a PC, and my status as a computer gamer was cemented.

That was me for my teenage years. I was PC through and through, all the way to University. There, sharing a flat with a bunch of other gamers - especially Andrew Smith who was die-hard console gamer - I started investigating just how much consoles had to offer. The final nail in the coffin was winning my first Xbox. Yes, I won it. My first console was totally free. I know, I'm a dick.

BeefJack: Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded Preview

Despite being a big Point and Click fan, I never really got Leisure Suit Larry. Sure as a teenager it was something to giggle at, and play off your over-active hormones. It always fell into the same category as Lula, except the Germans would go way further than Sierra ever would. So how did it come to be regarded as one of the Point and Click big franchises? Either way, it managed its Kickstarter funding, and I got to preview it.

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded Preview

Writing this as a preview was a bit odd. I was given a full copy of the game, though admittedly with a few bugs still running around. That said, looking at the Kickstarter, creator Al Lowe was ready to release this version, but others decided to squish those bugs first. None of them really got in the way, there were some weird graphical glitches here and there, but only one was really distracting. Either way, we're told Preview, so this is a preview, even if I really approached it as a review.

BeefJack: Resident Evil Revelations review

This was a bit of a quick turn around for a review. I got the game last last week, and the embargo was first thing this morning, so a draft had to be in last night. Unfortunately that's resulted in some last minute edits without my say so. Some work, some don't so much. But that's the nature of a quick turn around.

Either way though, Resident Evil Revelations seriously impressed me. I was a bit hesitant about about Capcom saying the sales of this would dictate the future of the franchise - I mean how much can a port of a 3DS game really do? Turns out quite a lot.

Resident Evil Revelations review

If you want Resi to return to something more like 4 and those that came before it, I urge you to give Revelations a try. You won't be disappointed.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Out of Lens Flare

It's hardly a secret that since Christmas I've dived back into Star Trek, mostly the 24th Century adventures of The Next Generation, New Frontier and Voyager. But like a lot of lapsed fans my return to this franchise was mostly down to JJ Abrams and his reboot in 2009. Now his sequel is out.

Like many a Star Trek before me, and no doubt countless afterwards, I'll say that Into Darkness is a great science fiction action film that just happens to be Star Trek. From this point forward Spoilers Ahoy!

Mark of the Ninja

I've been meaning to play a Klei Entertainment game for a while. I played the demo of the original Shank and was blown away by the animation and art, and the side scrolling beat-em up was pretty damn fun. But I revisited it to show a friend how awesome it was a few days later and was incredibly disappointed by how little fun had retained for a second playthrough.

Every time the Shanks came up for sale on XBLA I've thought about slapping down the Points for them, but just never enough to actually get them. Then Mark of the Ninja came along. I'll admit I didn't even realise it was Klei for a very long time, well after release. It intrigued me, especially with its art style (which the fact I didn't realise it was Klei makes me look even more stupid). But it was BeefJack's own Anthony Shelton that really got me to pay attention.

While the rest of us were harping on about how good The Walking Dead and XCOM: Enemy Unknown were, Ant declared Mark of the Ninja his 2012 Game of the Year, and he's not far off the mark.

Supernatural - Life after Death

Supernatural should have finished at the end of its fifth season. It end with a hell of a lot of finality, and wrapped up everything that had happened, hinted at or ever talked about. You can't get much bigger than the end of the world. Not just your every day thermo-nuclear war apocalypse either, but End of Days, Heaven vs. Hell. Judgement Day without Arnie.

But Supernatural's ratings were too good, so CW commission a sixth season. But the show's creator, Eric Kripke was done, his five year story was told. So we got a new showrunner and everyone said Supernatural should have finished at the end of its fifth season. Until now that is.

BeefJack: Injustice: Gods Among Us review

Last week I said I doubted I would get a blog post up and did. Today I definitely won't. However, once again I have a review. Back at BeefJack for this one

Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Seriously got to indulge my comic book fanboy here. Despite being very cautious about it when the game was first announced I ended up absolutely loving it. As to why? Well go read the review.

Red Dwarf X - Back in the Black!

Red Dwarf and I go way back. Though if I'm honest I was late to the party. I got into the boys from the Dwarf when Season 5 was showing, but immediately ate up the videos from previous series. However, when Dave announced they were reviving the series I was more than a little hesitant. I remembered Seasons 7 and 8 both being quite bad, and quite a lot of time had moved along.

Back to Earth was pretty pants, but apparently it did well enough for the show to get a full season commissioned. Season X came out last year on Dave, but I only just got it for my birthday last week. Why the wait? Partly because I was very worried after Back to Earth, and partly because I forgot.

I'd heard good things about X. Facebook and Twitter had filled with people saying it was return to good old fashioned Red Dwarf. Also post-Back to Earth I'd revisited Season 8 and discovered it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered it. In fact it was pretty decent. I was ready to take the chance. When I finally sat down with Red Dwarf X I was in for a surprise.

Strategy Informer: Motocross Madness Review

I'm not sure I'm going to manage a proper blog post today, my brain's decided to take the week off, which is really annoying because I'm pretty sure I didn't authorise any holidays for it.

However, I did manage to write up another review for Strategy Informer.

Motocross Madness Review

Hopefully I'll manage a proper post later, I've got one half written. We'll just have to see if my brain comes in  to work later.

Tron: Uprising deserves more of a legacy

Been a bit busy this week, so instead of Supernatural or something new I'm going to post one of the blogs I wrote but never put up. Fun Fact: This was originally written as the first half that would later become the Young Justice post. Though it was written in the run up to YJ finishing, and when that finally stopped I felt it deserved its own. Anyway, enough prattling. Tron: Uprising.

Over the weekend I went looking for more episodes of Tron: Uprising. The animated spin-off of the Tron films set between the original movie, and 2010's Tron: Legacy. I was in for a shock. The last episode I watched ended on some what of a massive cliffhanger, but apparently there wasn't any new ones. In fact that was to be that last episode ever. Disney had cancelled it.

Strategy Informer: Pressure Review

Now I'm writing reviews for other sites. There's no stopping me now!

Pressure was an odd one, as I played it, it really did nothing to greatly offend me. But as I got writing the review I realised I mostly had negative stuff to say. It was only then how much of a chore I'd realised I'd had playing it.

Pressure review