Digital Chumps

I had a great time with two friends last year as we played through our NBA 2K8 season over the course of several months. We've been looking forward to NBA 2K9 since, and now it's finally here, and our new season has begun. The best game for NBA simulation continues to improve upon itself and this year is no exception.  

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.

Jetpacks.  Finally.

It's a spoof to be certain, but of what?  War films?  The ails of the movie industry?  Or both?

Order of War is a game that takes place during later WW2 in the European theater that allows you to command the American, Russian and oddly enough the German forces . Square Enix is known throughout the gaming community for churning out formulaic Japanese RPGs following adolescent protagonists out to save the world from some menacing super villain. So, it's refreshing to see a company breaking away from their bread and butter to try something new with western developers.

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.

The first time I saw a trailer for District 9 it was unique and the possibilities it could establish were endless. Why would an alien race land on earth and stay? Who was keeping them? Why were they being kept? Is there a sinister reason? This movie could literally go anywhere. Let me tell you where it went exactly.

As a gamer and a sports fan, I love this time of year. The holiday gaming season is in full swing, football is everywhere, the NHL is back, and the NBA is nearly underway. In fact, I just watch some preseason NBA earlier tonight. As a fan of NBA hoops and games, each year at this time I'm taking in the newest versions of the three annual NBA titles that include NBA 2K from 2K Sports, NBA Live from EA Sports, and NBA from the San Diego Studios of SCEA. Up first this year for me is NBA 10: The Inside from Sony. Unlike recent years, NBA 10 is only available on the PSP this year as opposed to also including the PS2 and PS3. However like previous years, NBA 10 is much more than just an NBA sim. It's chock full of great alternate modes that are very likely to capture more of your time than the actual NBA sim itself.

Third person action gaming goes to hell this month with the release of Dante's Inferno. Developed by Visceral Games (creators of Dead Space and Dead Space: Extraction), and published by EA, Dante's Inferno takes players through hell based on the events in The Divine Comedy. This game has looked solid ever since I first saw it in person at E3, and now having completed it, I'm still under that impression.

With Iron Man setting the trend for summer films, you would hope that movies like Speed Racer and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull could follow the success. Well, it is already been proven that Speed Racer couldn't handle it, so that leaves us Dr. Jones and his newest adventure. Could it live up to the previous films?