Digital Chumps

Black Water has again begun to fall upon the great forest, under control of the evil Don Hedron.  The Eau, a group of mysterious creatures who depend on the tree, have seen this before—but this time, it’s the worst it’s ever been.  The only hope for the distressed inhabitants is Dewy, a small drop of water from the Tree of Seven Colors.  Dewy must vanquish the evil Don Hedron and his minions in order to save the world.

Back in the late 90's, before the rise of broadband internet, Sony's preferred method of interactive promotional media arrived via their quarterly, cd-magazine, Playstation Underground.  Each "issue" offered a host of playable demos, developers interviews, loaded save files, and other assorted PSX knickknacks.  While it happened to showcase a lot of crap, PSU was also the first time a lot of us got to sample titles like Final Fantasy VIII, Disrupter, and...PaRappa the Rapper.

How do you say no to a man who can straight one-arm lift your product over his head 26 times? Bruce Pechman, The Muscleman of Technology, Scores First Alienware M17x All Powerful Notebook! The Alienware M17x “All Powerful” Notebook Unboxing and First ImpressionsBy guest writer Bruce Pechman, a.k.a. Mr. Bicep - www.mrbicep.com! For those of us fortunate enough to attend this year’s E3 and partake in the annual ritual of “The Mecca of Gaming” in Los Angeles, where the sights, sounds, and smells of games and related garnishments never cease, there always lies one segment of the show for me that never disappoints—the hardware. Well, maybe that and the Bayonetta chick—I still can’t believe she let me goose her! We’ll talk more about my security confrontation in another article. There really was only one major computer builder at this year’s show, and I’m pleased to let you know it was Alienware. The main reason for their larger than life presence on the show floor was for the unveiling and debut of their new M17x laptop—not just any 17” gaming laptop, but “The Most Powerful Laptop in the Universe”…per the glossy brochure. I got abducted into the Alienware booth complete with...

Dating sims are to American gamers as Xbox is to Japanese gamers; niche market doesn't quite begin to describe the simultaneous incomprehension with these respective genres. A fundamental difference exists within our two increasingly diverging cultures, for whatever reason the Japanese cannot produce a significant reason to own an Xbox just as my fellow Americans are similarly apathetic to dating sims.  Oh, we can certainly enjoy dating elements in our mainstream titles (hello Sims, San Andreas, and Persona 3), but focusing an entire game toward trying to score with the opposite sex is relatively untested in our market.  Everyone needs a guinea pig and, whether it was intended to be or not, Brooktown High is here to try and crack the genre open.              

A Brief History If you know anything about strategy PC games you may have heard of a series called Heroes of Might & Magic. This not only happens to be a great series of turn based, strategy videogames but it also happens to be one of my favorite series of videogames to date. Still around today and in its fifth rendition, Heroes of Might & Magic has gone through many phases. Beginning with a highly simplistic first title, it was improved upon in its second rendition by adding an excellent multiplayer experience and more options in terms of character classes and creatures.

This deal should be passed up...

Say it ain’t so, Nintendo…

Paradox Interactive was cool enough to provide us with three games for review lately, and having enjoyed space combat with Dark Horizon and the conclusion to an eerie adventure in Penumbra: Requiem, it was time to mount up and ride into an open world single player RPG adventure with Mount & Blade. An ambitious title, Mount & Blade offers players a chance to visit the land of Calradia circa 1250 and do everything from buy and trade goods to taking hostile action on a town. While some ideas work, Mount & Blade overall has several glaring issues.

One game that always looked appealing to me was Neverwinter Nights. Made available for mac, the original seemed to shine from out of the gates (special thanks to mysterious reader who corrected us on this, kudos -- Editor).  In late 2006, the sequel was released, only for PC. I had given up all hope of seeing a version that I could play, so I allowed the game to drop off my radar. Imagine my surprise, then, when a copy of Neverwinter Nights 2 (for Mac!) fell into my lap for review.

I recently got the chance to review Turtle Beach's P21 headset, which I thought was a great USB headphone and microphone headset for use on the PS3 or PC. I've recently been spending time with another new Turtle Beach headset, this time it's the X-31 that is made specifically for the Xbox 360. The X-31 is a digital RF headphone + microphone headset that allows gamers to wirelessly capture the stereo sound from their Xbox 360 while simultaneously being able to replace their Xbox Live headset. Let's take a closer look at Turtle Beach's X-31. Oh, and for the official product page, check here.