I recently had the pleasure of seeing Video Games Live and it simply ROCKED. For those of you not familiar, VGL is a concert that tours around the world performing classic numbers from the video game world. Here in Utah they grabbed the Utah Symphony and the Snow College Choir. So we got a great orchestra, a great choir, then add in some amazing individuals such as video game music god Tommy Tallarico hosting, a few numbers by internet sensation Flute Link (Laura Intravia), Emmanuel Fratianni to conduct, and the very talented Laurie Robinson as well.

The show was a smashing success. They make great use of the lights, lasers, and a screen in the background showing videos of the games themselves or even fan art that was submitted. They also added in a bit of comedy with plenty of jokes and video game bits like this game mashup:

The music was great. They have a huge amount of songs to pull from so there is a huge variety. They played all the classics from Castlevania, Mario, Sonic, and the hits just kept coming. We got to see a bit from Advent Rising which was created by Tommy Tallarico, Emmanuel Fratianni, and Laurie Robinson. It was a nice touch to have the original group there to play it. One intriguing item they did was a Tetris opera performed by Flute Li… I mean, Laura Intravia. She is as good with her voice as she was with the flute. The show was awesome. The only thing I wish I could have seen… is more. Luckily there is youtube to fill the void. Here’s a plethora of videos to get you sated til they come to your area. When they do, for the love of all that is holy buy tickets! You will not regret it!

Watch for my upcoming posts of the interviews with Tommy Tallarico and Laura “Flute Link” Intravia.

The post Video Games Live – Bonus Round appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I initially avoided this series due to some rumors and the personal idea that it was trying to be GTA. With how much I enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto series, I felt that there was no way this could compare to them. Even looking at the back of the cases made them seem less serious about the game since you could make your entire gang look like pimps, hookers, ninjas, and the like. Little did I realize that this game had some features that I would find even more enjoyable than GTA itself.

The Third follows the same feel of Saints Row 2 with an over the top gang feel interspersed with horrible comedy that goes beyond what Grand Theft Auto ever would. GTA tries to make a larger than life world but keeps their environment rooted, more or less, in reality. They take their missions to the extreme with explosions, crazy jumps, and the like, but technically they are still doable. In Saint’s Row, however, they take out the brakes and rules and implant pure insanity instead.

For example, one of my favorite side activities you can do for money and a little respect in the game is known as “Insurance Fraud”. It’s a cross between Burnout‘s Crash Mode and Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX‘s Wipout game. You find yourself a nice busy street or other injury prone area and proceed to jump in front of traffic. The more you get injured, the more money you rack up in medical expenses that you sue for. In Burnout “aftertouch” fashion you get to manipulate the direction of your body after being hit by a vehicle. So you can get combos for tons of money by deflecting from one car to another while getting thrown down the highway. Not realistic at all, but oh so very fun.

Many of the other things about the game follow this same concept such as futuristic VTOL jets that look like they come from a galaxy far far away, and another personal favorite, Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax. It’s a crazy Japanese style gameshow that’s just… well… it’s best you just watch it.

The gameplay is good and allows tons of customization from your looks, your cars, your weapons, even to your crew in your gang. Mine look like hookers. The customization really gives you something to put your money into unlike how in GTA where you really can only use it for guns and ammo. I’ve played a number of driving games and I really like cars that drive too realistically and therefore can be hard to control, but the cars in this game can be a little bothersome. Specifically I have issues with driving in reverse. They don’t seem to handle properly. I think a factor for this is that there is no handbrake button. Instead they have replaced it with a “drift” button. It makes it easier to slide around corners, but I’ve gotten so used to doing so in the realistic fashion from more realistic games that I find myself having issues using this method.

The radio stations are nice and varied and have plenty of songs to make you feel like a proper thug. I prefer to enjoy the whimsical notes of the classical station whilst “popping a cap” in some unscrupulous dolt or depraved brigand. They have a few other fun things on the radio such as Pat Benetar, The Black Keys, and even a whole station devoted to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.

The story is a little flimsy, but you really don’t need much when the concept is rise and domination of your gang.

Of the three games, I would definitely say this is my favorite so far.

The post Saint’s Row: The Third – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The menu system is still something all Kinect games need to work on. I still have yet to find one as smooth as Dance Central’s. This one is quite possibly the worst yet.

The major issue with all the menus in the Kinect are due to no method of actually selecting the button after you have it highlighted. So far only a few games have any method besides just holding your hand over it for a few seconds. This game attempted to copy Dance Central’s method where it has no cursor per se, but instead has an outline over the button that slides to the next options as you move your hand higher and lower, left to right. To select it, you then move your hand perpendicular to the menu like you are throwing the item to the side. It works in Dance Central very well.

This game however was too sensitive with the menu scroll and not sensitive enough with the throwing to the side. Over and over I would have to throw the item to the side with no reaction. Then when I finally got it to respond, it would accidentally scroll to another option and I’d have to back up because it had gone into the wrong area. Very aggravating. My wife was so perturbed by the system she gave up and used a controller to navigate through the menus.

"Keep it up! Proper pooping burns tons of calories."

The game does try to make a nice amalgam of a fitness game mixed with an actual video game. In The Biggest Loser “Game” it runs you ragged with actual exercise routines. It’s not fun. It’s just working out with a digital version of Jillian or Bob yelling at you to keep up. This game is not quite fun, but it’s more amusing than an actual workout. Jillian encourages you to run through a decrepit temple and gives you a some workouts that are loosely connected to the work you do. For example, I needed to sidestep by a bunch of spike traps and so it had me doing side lunges back and forth to avoid them. Some others had very little connection and therefore would really make you feel detached from the game. The game got my heart rate up and my body sweating though, so that I can call a success. If you are looking for connect games to get you active and in shape, this is probably the more “fun” of the workout based ones.

I get plenty sweaty just moving my thumbs let alone my entire body. I’ll just stick with Dance Central and Kinect Sports for my working out, thanks.

The post Jillian Michaels Fitness Adventure – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The Kremlin has been bombed, nuclear launch codes disappearing, and Russia is looking at America for blame. To make sure no one thinks it was the USA, the President initiates Ghost Protocol meaning all of the IMF has been disbanded. Now they are planning on taking Ethan and his team into custody to lay the blame for the attack. So now they must pull together to stop the bad guys whilst dodging the Russian authorities, assassins, and cronies galore.

I would have to say that this film had a very different feel than the previous three. MI3 being the closest in style, if any. I would almost liken the haphazard style and great action sequences to a James Bond flick. While watching this the majority of the audience would get so into the film that whenever something crazy happened like a character falling, gunshots whizzing by, narrowly getting hit by a flipping car, or the plethora of other great scenes, you’d see a good portion of them wince, gasp, or twitch. HIGH INTENSITY, NOT FOR THOSE WITH WEAK CONSTITUTIONS.

One thing that I found very different than the previous iterations of Impossible Missions was the level of comedy found in this one. The older ones had maybe a few one liners or a slightly amusing situation, but that was it. Maybe I’m remembering them incorrectly. This movie, however, had tons more comedy strewn about. Simon Pegg being the creator of the majority of it. You’d be sitting on the edge of your seat biting your nails, then immediately start busting up. Not something I would have thought to add, but it fit quite well. Tom Cruise’s acting was good as usual. Jeremy Renner was good. Enjoyed his character thoroughly. The only character I was not too fond of was Paula Patton. She wasn’t bad, but from time to time she seemed a little one dimensional and had only one facial expression of angry determination. When she goes undercover and acts like other people she got a little better though.

Still think Mission Impossible 1 is the best, but this is a worthy sequel that doesn’t rely solely on special effects and motorcycle jousting to get your attention.

The post Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I went into this movie with great expectations. I was enthralled by the first and couldn’t wait to see if they were capable of pulling the same off with the sequel. I’m happy to say, I was not disappointed.

Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as Sherlock Holmes with the same eccentric fervor mixed with his smooth intellect and general social abrasiveness. They’ve kept the flavor of him intact with his shenanigans, myriad of disguises (ranging from ingenious to just plain scary), and even down to his Bartitsu-style of self defense. Jude Law as well gave a bang-up performance of the gruff sidekick Dr. Watson. Moriarty, played by Jared Harris (Mad Men), was a great villain. Evil beyond belief, but still keeping his composure. He would threaten your life in the most calm tone that it would send shivers down your spine. They pulled back almost all the players from the first film for at least some role in the story. I was even delighted to see the one and only Stephen Fry playing Sherlock’s brother Mycroft. Let’s just say that I got to see a whole new side of Mr. Fry…

The storyline was one of intrigue and surprises the entire time. It was a delight to watch the two minds combating as they pulled apart their opponent’s machinations. It’s not often you get to see two players of such intellect going at it. The fight scenes were choreographed to the point they reminded me of a good kung fu movie with the classic Holmes predetermination of how they will play out. Some of my favorite cinematography is slow motion, and they gave me plenty to squee about. Watching gunfire and shrapnel in slow motion just makes me giddy.

The music was enchanting and really drove the spirit of the time home. Hans Zimmer was the composer/producer of most of the songs in the soundtrack. I found myself tapping my toe to a few of the tracks and getting pulled to the edge of my seat by others.

As a whole, very fun to watch. Will keep you on the edge of your seat til the last second.

The post Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Many of the writers here will rag on this game due it being very similar to the previous games. The problem is that there is a fine line that the developers must walk between making a reiteration of the previous game and giving you something entirely new. Like any band you listen to, if they change too much, you may not like it. If they stay too close to the same thing, you will complain that there isn’t anything new. I think Infinity Ward hit this pretty well. They have all the classic goodness that has come out before, but they’ve added in a number of new features that I personally love. So if you didn’t like the earlier titles, you’ll still probably hate this one. If you liked them, you’ll LOVE this one.

The campaign is fast paced and very intense. It keeps you moving at a brisk pace. The NPCs on your team make a good point to advance with you but not for you. So if you want to play a little more conservatively they won’t be leaving you in the dust, but if you decide to run and gun like Master Chief, they’ll be close behind. The actual story is a bit larger than life, but that makes for some truly epic scenes. That’s what the people want. Being in downtown NYC and watching rockets blowing up above you, sending debris everywhere, makes for some great ambiance.

Under Spec Ops they have the classic missions you can do alone or with a friend using xbox live or local split screen. I really enjoyed doing these mission on MW2 so I’m very glad they brought them back. A new concept they added that I have been playing quite a bit with some friends is Survival. It pits you in a locale with waves of enemies spawning and coming after you. It’s quite similar to the Nazi Zombie game from Black Ops, but the enemies are still alive and have guns themselves. They also get stronger and stronger with each wave. Early on they have little life and simple shotguns, while later on you have to fight against suicide bombers, attack dogs, and juggernauts (men in heavy blast suits that can take huge amounts of punishment). For each enemy you take out and each wave you live through, you get money that you can use to refill your ammo, buy better weapons, armor, and even support from predator missiles and bombing runs.

The multiplayer has the same frenzied pace as it always has with a variety of things to keep you playing. As you level up you unlock new weapons and upgrades that you can use. The perks you can choose have been changed a bit as well. You still have the classic kill streak rewards in the assault strike package, but if you find that you just aren’t good enough to get a high kill volume before dying and therefore never get them, you can change to another type. The support package allows for more support based perks than heavy weapons like bombers and turrets. The beautiful thing, however, is that the number of kills needed to unlock these perks doesn’t reset when you die. So you can have your best kill man working on an AC-130 for some heavy damage, while you can have another guy slowly adding up to get body armor and nice recon bonuses to help his team. It helps let every player feel like he is contributing.

In summation, I have to give MW3 a round of applause for fulfilling all the criteria needed for a rousing good FPS. Bravo.

The post Modern Warfare 3 – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

First I should commend Zombie Studios and 505 Games. I’ve been begging the world to make a shooting game for the Kinect for a while now and they were one of the first to step up to bat with a serious title. The problem is I’ve played other shooter games like Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and Halo: Reach recently which really makes this game pale in comparison. So credit for trying in a new medium, but I think the Kinect shooter genre has a few things it needs to learn.

Being able to aim on the screen with your hand is a cool feature that has been played with for decades starting back with the old light gun games for the NES and in the arcade. The NES Zapper, the Super Scope 6, the Menacer, the guncon, and many more came around with a handful of games for each to allow us to try our hand at aiming for real. Some of them even allowed for amazing accuracy. Now, however, we seem to have regressed. Instead of a gun that you wave around, you wave your hand around. You don’t even get to decide when to fire. You just put the cursor over a bad guy, and a second later, it fires a few rounds on its own. This doesn’t make you feel like you are part of the game. This makes you feel like the spotter for the sniper instead of the sniper himself. This disconnect immediately bothered me. The biggest reason I play games is to take the role of the character.

The gameplay does get a little better when you realize that you are capable of ducking and dodging with your actual body movement, but immediately goes back to feeling disconnected when you pop out to shoot. They do have a few other times that you feel connected when, for example, you kick in a door or jump out a window. The other annoying factor is lack of checkpoints within a level. Since you are having issues being able to trace and kill the enemies in an efficient manner, it starts getting very boring when you have to replay the level from the beginning after getting raped by terrorist bullets.

The animation was a bit shoddy and not very grabbing. The dialogue is entirely cringe-worthy. I’m sorry but, “I’m riding shotgun WITH a shotgun!” is just plain sad.

Here’s my suggestion to all Kinect developers out there. Start with a game like <a

Police 911. It’s a rail shooter so you don’t have to do weird stuff like running in place to move forward or swapping guns. All you need is a simple light gun with a trigger. Keep your movement style that you’ve got now (lean to get behind a corner, duck to hide below a table, etc.) because that’s golden. I spent upwards of $3 to $5 on that arcade game and I’d be willing to pay for a full game of the same.

I love you Kinect, but there are some things in life that require buttons.

Editors Note: You Experience may, or MAY NOT be like in the below trailer.

The post Blackwater – Game Review (Kinect) appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Ben Stiller plays as Josh Kovacs, building manager of one of the ritziest complexes in New York. After investing all the pensions of the building’s employees with one of their richest residents, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), they find that he has pulled a Madoff and has made off with all their money. Even though the government has intervened and is looking to prosecute, these poor employees look like they are going to slip through the cracks and get nothing. Now Kovacs must get a rag tag team together including an elevator jockey, a maid, a desk boy, an accountant, and a small time thief to get it back, Robin Hood style.

Ben Stiller is a good balanced character for the others to play off of. Many of the other characters start becoming endearing surprisingly quickly such as Lester (Stephen Henderson). Each character gets to have their own time in the spotlight to get you rolling on the floor. I think Eddie Murphy’s character, Slide, however takes the cake. It is one of his better parts I’ve seen in a while. I was getting a little sad seeing him in cheap roles for so long. It reminded me of his older days playing parts like Billy Ray Valentine from Trading Places.

Favorite quote: “I will blow your face CLEAN OFF your face!” – Slide

The post Tower Heist – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

We recently got the opportunity to speak with Straandlooper about their point and click adventure game trilogy, Hector: Badge of Carnage. The game follows Detective Inspector Hector through a twisting and turning game of puzzles, puns, and prostitutes. You can check out the reviews of them here, here, and here.

The gents have a great sense of humor and gave us a few tidbits about their game as well that may not have been known if not for our sleuthing.

What was the inspiration for creating the Hector: Badge of Carnage series?

Being an animation company, Hector was originally slated to be a TV series (there’s even a full length script for a pilot kicking around here somewhere). However, we were a bit sick of the traditional funding methods to get a TV show off the ground, and luckily for us, the wonderful, magical iPhone landed in our laps. Imagine that! All you need is an idea, and bingo, free money!

So, how to turn Hector into a game? We’re great at dialogue and had ideas for some wacky cop-based stories, and we all grew up loving the LucasArts classics, so the point & click was a perfect fit.

How much alcohol was imbibed during the creative process?

Alcohol? How dare you! The creation of Hector is not some sort of ridiculous party trick or locker room gag. It’s a refined technical process that requires acute mental focus! How else were we to achieve a game – nay, experience – so scientifically perfect that the Royal Academy uses it to calibrate their instruments? Shake your head, layman. You obviously know nothing of the creative process.

With all of the crazy antics within the series, there are bound to be parts that end up on the cutting room floor. Do you have any examples that you’d like to share?

Remember the wig in episode 1? Well, get this… it was originally going to be a hat! LOL! Okay, hold on, I’m sure I’ve got some better stuff than that. Lemme pull up the Document of Lost Ideas and give you the top three…

1. In Episode 2, the original means of escape was going to be a Mentos & Coke bomb – get Mentos from the clubber’s purse, find 50p for an ancient Coke machine inside the building, then toss the Mentos in the toilet bowl and the Coke in the cistern, flush to mix, and kaboom! (But it was questionable whether the explosive nature of the M&C combo was common enough knowledge, so we went with the laSplode hairspray instead. Later, in the restaurant, however, Doreen orders a Mentos & Coke.)
2. Most people like to end a climax with their most spectacular visuals. We, on the other hand, really wanted the end of Episode 2 to roll back to a proper Zork-era text adventure during a pitch black escapade through the Clappers Wreake Sewers. I’m talking zero visuals. How would they get through? By the lucky arrival of Blind Ali just before plunging in. (Had some great stuff planned for this, but ditched because it would have required a complete change of game design.)
3. Had to cut some good bits out of Clapfest in Episode 3: Hector was going to have to stop a heist of a Ride Token Booth, a Dodgem Car jacking and low-speed chase, and strap a post-thrill-ride souvenir photo onto a squirrel to win a pet lookalike contest. We also had plans to pay homage to Insult Swordfighting from Monkey Island with some sort of Cockney Rhyming Slang Challenge, but after talking to Dave Grossman about the difficulties of writing the original, opted out of that one.

Bonus: We briefly toyed with the idea of the final final final Episode 3 climax featuring Her Majesty the Queen.

Are you planning on any more adventures for Hector after the third episode comes to a close? Have you had any thoughts or plans to incorporate Hector into any other types of games besides point and click adventures?

Hector’s pretty versatile, but I’d have to say anything short of a point and click wouldn’t do Hector justice. The story-centric style and player-driven pace of the point and click was a perfect fit for Hector’s world, and anything else – first person shooter, time-based arcade puzzler, MMORPG – while funny to imagine, probably wouldn’t work as anything more than a parody spin-off.

Certainly wouldn’t say no to a late night TV series or feature film though, if there are any commissioning editors listening out there…

The voice acting for Hector is delightful. Is the voice actor that plays him anywhere near as condescending, lewd, or rough around the edges?

Yeah, Richard’s a nasty piece of work, but he’s a necessary evil. You should see him when we go over schedule.

What other games do you have in the works?

You’re talking about us like we’ve got more than one room in our studio. Everybody’s been elbow deep in Hector for the past eight months that all anyone wants to do for the next couple of weeks is Sweet Fanny Horse Apples (which is an endearing way of saying “nothing”, and is not the name of our next game (although perhaps it should be)).

On the bright side, our What Now meeting is coming up, so at least then I’ll at least know for whoever interviews us next. Little did you know how close you came to a world exclusive.

What are the people in your office playing right now?

One of the perks of working with Telltale is that they’ve given everyone on the Straandlooper team their entire backlog of adventure games, everything from Bone to Back to the Future. We’re not really getting anything done otherwise.

In true Hector fashion, if you were stuck in a locked car slowly sinking into the lake and all you had about you was a half empty bottle of beer, a coat hanger, and a condom of unknown origin, how would you escape?

Does the cigarette lighter work? If so, I’d prime the lighter, then place it inside my mouth to heat up my breath as I inflate the condom to the size of a beach ball. I’d then peel off the label of the beer bottle and scratch a detailed note with the coat hanger onto the back of it with my precise location. Once done, I’d place the note inside the bottle and place the still inflated condom over the neck. Then I’d straighten the coat hanger and use it to pop the back seat off. I’d release the bottle-balloon into the boot of the car, kick the seat back into place, then use one of the buttons on the dash to pop the boot from the outside. The boot would flood with water, the bottle-balloon would rise to the surface of the lake, and due to the superheated air, it would float right up out of the water and the wind would blow it straight to Lambert at the station. Then I’d take a nap until he showed up with a crane.

If the cigarette lighter didn’t work I’d just finish the beer, then break the window with my head.

Thanks for speaking with us Straandlooper! Hopefully we’ll get to see more of Hector in the future, perhaps even on television. We look forward to seeing what hilarity will ensue in your next project.

The post WPR talks with Straandlooper, what could go wrong? appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Oh, come ON! How are we supposed to shoot zombies without real guns?!

Perhaps they decided to go with real zombies as well to make for a realistic zombie apocalypse? Regular ammo would be cheaper than blanks or simunition probably and would get you some nice realistic reactions when getting shot. Heck, even crappy actors become professionals when they react to getting bit by a real zombie. It’s a great idea that is likely to take off in other films as time goes on. A new era is emerging, where snuff films and good cinema finally mix!

Or maybe not. Better luck next time Marc Forster.

The post World War Z movie going a little too real? appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Dead Pixels from CANTSTRAFERIGHT is one that I was surprised about. The game is set up to emulate the 8 bit days of yore mixed with a couple Grindhouse type effects thrown in. The story starts with you needing to run your way through 20 city blocks to get to the evacuation choppers. You can move slowly through the streets and search random buildings as you go for ammo, guns, and other random items that can be sold for money to buy worthwhile things like MORE AMMO. If you are like me, you have problems with some zombie games cause you try to kill every single guy on the screen. However, like Dead Rising and some of the older Resident Evils, you will quickly find that you have to make each shot count or you may find yourself poking zombies to death and running for your life looking for anything to protect yourself.

The visuals are charmingly simple with pixelated graphics and the old timey scratches throughout. The backdrops don’t change much however and you start to feel like you are just running down the same rotating backdrop repeatedly. The music goes from old sounding 8 bit music during the intro to some more modern hard rock to get you in the mood for blasting heads. It wasn’t a bad choice, but I personally would have loved to keep the whole old school style and stick with older 8 bit music tracks.

The controls aren’t initially as smooth as you’d expect solely due to one choice that allows you to shoot left with one button and to shoot right with another. It sounds kind of silly at first, but if you remember Smash TV, it’s a great functionality to have in a horde environment because it allows you to shoot one way while running the opposite. So early on you’ll find yourself shooting the wrong way or wasting a grenade by lobbing it the opposite direction, but you’ll quickly learn how to utilize it. Their are a wide variety of guns that you can collect in the game that have names drawn from the Resident Evil world such as the Chambers shotgun or Valentine rifle. The game also has an RPG style element to it where you can use the cash you collect to upgrade certain stats like running speed, weapons proficiency, and carrying capacity. The ramping of power behind these upgrades is quite steep however and you’ll find yourself having the worst time trying to kill zombies, run around them, to having enough life, speed, power, etc, that you are untouchable for quite a bit of the game. The levels themselves

ramp in quite the same way as well. One level will have you against a couple zombies while the next will suddenly have wave after wave rushing after you.

So the game has it’s drawbacks, but the best part is that it is only 80 Microsoft Points. That’s $1. As in, you’ve spent more on a game for your phone that you only play on the toilet. And since you can only buy MSP in bulk and end up with a small amount left over no matter the purchase, you’ll easily find yourself with enough to get this game.

The post Dead Pixels – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Apple released this statement.

“Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

I myself can’t say I was too fond of the Apple tech pioneer. I Found myself pushing back against the iPods, iPhones, and other technological advancements. However, without Apple’s pushing of the new devices though, other companies would not have had much reason to compete and advance. So in a sense, we can thank them for Android coming into existence, for PCs to up their game and become high quality machines, and the recent tablet craze. Thanks, Steve. You will be sorely missed.

Here’s a video of him in his younger days getting ready for one of his first TV interviews back in 1978.

The post RIP Steve Jobs: Former Apple CEO got his iWings today appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

After surviving being held at gunpoint, blowing up the building he was in, and then finally finding the true identity of the terrorist, the scene fades to black with Hector being clubbed in the back of the head. Whatever will he do now? Drink til he goes blind? Fart hard enough to need a change of underwear? Start snapping necks til he gets answers? Well, before that we’re going to need to find some pants cause now you are waking up wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Worse than that, the terrorist has devised the most diabolical torture device a twisted, horrible mind could dream up. A treadmill. That alone should be grounds for shooting this terrorist, but he took it a step further and hooked up the treadmill to the sewage system. If Hector stops running, the room starts filling with the most foul mixture imaginable. To make matters worse, your sidekick Lambert is handcuffed inside a bathtub with a toaster dangling above. Without some quick thinking, we could end up with two cops electrocuted and drowned in feces.

This episode does feel a bit more on the climactic side since you now know the identity of the terrorist and are hot on his heels to stop his diabolical plan. It keeps you clicking trying to find the next path to take. Due to the feel of urgency, his casual walking speed, the time wasted speaking with the locals, and some of the combinations of the most mundane items makes you feel like you are wasting time and makes the game feel slow at those points. The dialogue and predicaments are, as always, very humorous and are the meat and potatoes of the entire story. Hector’s antics and haphazard attitude kept me laughing throughout the plot. They give you a small amount of time that you have to play as Lambert, which as I said in my last review, isn’t the most fun, but luckily you switch back and forth often enough to keep you happy.

Due to the pacing of the game, it gives you a few instances of thinking the game is

over, just to have more puzzles to continue on with. It was nice to have a bit more afterward to keep you playing. A fun game for a try through. Great to have on your mobile phone to play as you go, but sadly, not much replay value since you’ll know all the connections and dialogue options.

Cheers, Straandlooper!

The post Hector: Episode 3 – Beyond Reasonable Doom Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

It may make for a bit of overzealous advertising as Sports Illustrated tries to get embedded in your subconscious as you fly by billboards and the like due to this joint venture, but look at it this way, if you are going to be looking at ads in game or at the polygons of the other drivers, it may as well be supermodels right?

Let’s just hope that their acting is as good as their looks so we don’t end up with some flat dialogue from their characters.

Besides the addition of some eye candy, the rest of the game seems quite interesting. A Cannonball Run style race across the US from LA to New York with the Need for Speed appeal of cops chasing your character for some reason. They’ve also claimed this will have the most track

Release date: 11-15-2011

The post Sports Illustrated swimsuit models to appear in Need for Speed: The Run appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

"Good thing I brought my bulletproof pizza."

Of course, the game can’t end there right? We now jump in with Hector having to outwit a remote controlled gun aimed right at his face. Pretty high intensity stuff compared to the first game. Sadly after that, it tones down a bit and you go back to the classic point and click work necessary to find the culprit. Unfortunately you have to relinquish control of Hector for periods of time to control his sidekick Lambert. This ends up feeling like the latter Pirates of the Caribbean movies where you came to see Jack Sparrow but get stuck watching Will Turner and Ms. Swan. Luckily, it doesn’t last too long if you can get through the puzzles and continues on with the haphazard combining of COMPLETELY unconnected items to solve the puzzles.

Like you + these ladies = gonasyphaherpalaids. Who could have guessed that?!

I find that the novelty of the main character’s gruff, demeaning dialogue carried me through the first episode, but seems to have lost it’s potency now. I’ll chuckle here and there, but it doesn’t keep me wanting to click here and there hoping for a random connection that will let me continue through. Maybe this is due to the letdown of the high intensity situation of being held at gun point has now been led into a slow paced, mind numbing, experience.

In Telltale’s Puzzle Agent they had a feature that allowed you to click on any point of the screen and a ripple would permeate from there showing you any

points of interest. It didn’t show everything right off so it still required searching, but it didn’t require such insane levels of frantic OCD clicking to find every clue and tool within the building. I can’t help but think this title would be helped by such an item.

Perhaps the third title will speed up the pace and keep the energy levels up a little better.

The post Hector: Episode 2 – Senseless Acts of Justice review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Here’s a first look at the first few pages of the new Mega Man comic from Archie Comics. You’ll get to see the blue bomber dive into the final lair of the maniacal Dr. Wily in what looks like the very first installment of the game. You’ll see him using Guts man’s super arm on page 4 and even the yellow devil that made you cry as a kid on page 5. (Archie Comics not liable for any bouts of PTSD).

click for larger image

MEGA MAN – VOLUME ONE “LET THE GAMES BEGIN“

MEGA MAN is the hit new action-adventure series from Archie Comics! Dr. Light wanted to build a better tomorrow with his new Robot Masters, but the evil Dr. Wily reprogrammed them to take over the world! Now it’s up to one little robot to save us all – MEGA MAN! Don’t miss the first heroic adventures of Rock, a simple helper robot who takes up the fight for the greater good! This volume contains Rock’s transformation into Mega Man, his first battles with the famous Robot Masters, and his titanic clash with Dr. Wily!

MEGA MAN VOL. 1 collects MEGA MAN #1-4 plus variant covers, exclusive sketches and special features!

SCRIPT: Ian Flynn

ARTIST: Patrick “SPAZ” Spaziante, Chad Thomas, Ben Bates, Jamal Peppers, Rick Bryant, Gary Martin, John Workman and Matt Herms

COVER: Patrick “SPAZ” Spaziante

Direct Market On-sale: 9/7/2011

978-1-8797-9485-6

5 x 7 3/8” Trade Paperback 112 pgs

$11.95 US

To find a comic shop near you, call 1-888-comicbook or visit ComicShopLocator.com

Don’t forget to read some of your favorite Archie comics digitally – download the Archie app!

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All time period problems aside, this PAX trailer has some good looking stuff coming from our friends over at Telltale Games. I appreciate that they are going into some details about all the other crap that happened instead of just saying, “Hey, let’s just throw some new guys in there and try and make Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) the cool guy even though he was the genius who nearly got eaten the first time.”

The post Jurassic Park Action Montage! appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The game will take place during the first film and thereafter so it will be able to take care of a number of the things that we all wondered about afterwards like the Barbasol can filled with embryos that got dropped in the mud. Which brings us to our first friend the Dilophosaurus.

Looks like this guy is about to go the same way as old Ned. Next is the star of any Jurassic Park movie or game, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Looks like I’m going to have to go back to my shrink to go over my PTSD from the first film. Thanks Telltale, thanks.

The game is slated for November 2011 for PC, Xbox 360, PS3, and the iOS.

The post Jurrasic Park: The Game – New Screenshots appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

In your quest for manliness you must know who you are attempting to emulate. Take heed while you read within so you may avoid following these charlatans (although many are good for a laugh).

He-Man – (Cartoon)

Rumor has it that Mattel was given a bunch of info about Conan so they could make a toy line about him. Later the offer was retracted. Shortly thereafter, He-Man came into being. They were of course sued but won in the end claiming that the idea for He-man was entirely original. Whether or not this is true, he does follow the barbarian role quite well.

Thundarr the Barbarian – (cartoon)

Heavily based off of the comic book.

Dave the Barbarian – (cartoon)

A pathetic excuse of a barbarian. Thought a barbarian was a librarian that also cut hair.

Cohen the Barbarian – (discworld novels)

Although being elderly, Cohen is a perfect example of a good barbarian; plundering, brawling, ravishing women… He’s just not quite what we are looking for.

Conan the Librarian – (UHF)

From a commercial in the Weird Al film UHF we see how much better a library would run with a proper barbarian at the helm.

Cerebus the Aardvark – (comic)

The early comics followed a very Conan-esque parody.

Thrud the Barbarian – (comic)

A major parody of the Conan story with characters specifically created to parody Ahhnold’s version like Croneman the Cimpletan.

Korgoth of Barbaria – (cartoon)

A series that got dropped after only one episode. Too bad. It looks like it could have been quite good. Now airs as a one shot on Cartoon Network.

Groo The Wanderer – (comic)

A slow-witted warrior who lives for the battle itself. Often finds himself accidentally fighting indiscriminately against both sides of the battle.

Thongor of Lemuria – (novel)

A book series that came before the Conan movies but after the original Conan books.

Conan the Adventurer – (cartoon)

Many similarities to the movie but toned WAY down. His family is only turned to stone instead of killed. He ends up with a ragtag group of adventurers including a circus performer, a wizard, a viking, a tribal prince, a pheonix, and a… flying dude?

Conan the Adventurer – (tv)

Large guy with Germanic accent, scantily clad vixens, and even Danny Woodburn. You’d think this would have been received better, but click a few links on the youtube and you’ll see it was pretty lame action and crappy acting by many of the characters.

Ator, The Fighting Eagle – (mockbuster)

Trying to bask in the barbarian storm that would come from Conan was this movie of Stephanie Meyers’ crappiness. You’ll do much better to watch Cave Dwellers on MST3K.

Brak the Barbarian – (novel)

Barbarian novel from the late 60′s.

Conan the O’Brien – (celebrity)

Not much of a barbarian… but he’ll slay you with his wit just as easily.

Conan Edogawa – (manga/anime)

…not even close.

Admiral Conan Antonio Motti – (star wars)

More likely to get force choked then hacked to pieces by Conan than to be Conan.

And finally, the coup de grace. A musical number performed by Conan himself. Enjoy.

Conan the Barbarian: The Musical

The post Imitation Conan appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

In Asteroyds you take control of one of the top six pilots in the universe. The stakes are high as they race through an erratic asteroid field known as the Lost Swarm. This game has a very different style than I’m used to.

The main game consists of racing across a hex map to pass through four gates. To incorporate the erratic asteroid field and to add some challenge, all the asteroids change locations on each round. You roll a six sided die for each of the three colors of asteroids and move them accordingly. Each type moves in a slightly different manner. After rolling for their trajectories, but before the asteroids move, the players have to plan out their moves across the board. You’ll quickly learn that the board will have changed drastically when your trajectory takes you into a straight on collision with a flying rock. A smart individual can plan out his strategy according to where they will be going, but this is where the game gets tricky. As if you were really out there flying yourself, you only get a limited amount of time to set up your movements. The timer is set at 50 seconds if you are a beginner or all the way down to only 20 seconds at expert level. I left it at 30 seconds and found that to be quite a challenge. Every time I felt I had chosen a perfect path, the asteroids would bounce around in an unexpected manner and you’d find yourself getting smashed up real good. Your ship can take only so many blows and then it’s game over for you.

Another style it sets up is target shooting which has you attempting to shoot one of each type of drone before the other pilots. This can be even more hectic because there are only 4 drones out at each time (1 of each) and if they shoot the one you want before you, you have to rush back to the spawner to catch the next one that comes out before somebody else does.

I appreciate and hate the facet of a time limit on planning your actions. It is beautiful because it rewards quick thinking and fits in with the feel of flying through space at high velocity. It also is handy when you have a speedbump player. A speedbump player will slow the game down every time it comes to them because they either didn’t think ahead to plan their move or they have to plan out their strategy to the letter to make sure they are taking full advantage of every item. With the timer, you get neither of those. They will quickly find that they will either be throwing down their markers and crashing face first into asteroids or that they will be only making a couple minor movements each turn to prevent damage.

Some of the game pieces were a little simplistic in some ways such as the markers for your actions card being basically cheap plastic tiddlywinks discs. The stopwatch doesn’t seem to have a countdown feature so you basically have to have someone watching it to make sure they stop the timer at the correct time. A countdown timer would have been a little better. I just used the app on my phone in place of it. The ships and the planet drawings were good however and had much more flavor to them.

I do have to make a comment on the manual because if a game manual isn’t clear or

easy to read, you will find yourself delaying play for a while to figure out what they mean. I had this issue due to the manual not necessarily being in the most ergonomic and efficient order. I found I had a question early on but had to continue reading a few pages later to find the answer. It didn’t leave anything out, thank goodness, but I felt that it wasn’t in the best order.

Overall, a nice addition to your game closet for a different style of game besides war game #17 and card game #36.

The post Asteroyds – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

DARPA has always been my personal heaven with all the cool toys they work on. With them you don’t have silly questions like, “Why do we need this, again?” You just get pertinent ones like, “How should we weaponize this humping robot?”

Uh... I think it may already be weaponized.

A recent item they have been working on and recently tested was the second flight of their Hypersonic Test Vehicle 2. A simple wedge-shaped glider that goes sub-orbital then comes back into the atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour. It is being created for the global strike weapons program. Now let’s take a moment here to soak this all in. With the circumference of the earth being about 25000 miles around, that means this thing could be raining death upon any given person on the planet within an hour. At that speed, you wouldn’t even need bombs or other artillery methods. You could just be dropping pennies like that punk kid on the top of a skyscraper.

"Mission control, ready to initiate braking. Uh... control? Where's the brakes? Guys?"

Unfortunately for DARPA and Lockheed Martin (the creators), the first two flights have been met with some unfortunate problems. The first flight back in April of last year had the team losing contact with it shortly after the launching rocket detached. This second flight lost contact shortly into the glide phase after reentry. So if you see a big black wing-looking thing flying towards you at 20 times the speed of sound? You may want to look out… and maybe tell DARPA where it is.

SOURCE

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The gameplay is great and you can tell it had a lot of input from Shinji Mikami because the controller moves and feels just like Resident Evil. Thankfully there is a little more ammo. Just like Resident Evil 4 you can upgrade your guns with some sort of currency to hold more ammo, do more damage, and reload faster. Music is good, controls are adequate. All in all, a worthwhile game to play. Maybe wait a little for the price to drop, but worth it eventually.

The post Shadows of the Damned – Mini Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The sequel to the comic book based game about Jackie Estacado and his warpath of revenge after the mafia took his girlfriend’s life has been delayed from Fall 2011 to early 2012. The game will be showing up in North America on February 7th and opening everywhere else on February 10th. The new game has Jackie being assaulted by mysterious figures who wish to take the darkness for themselves. These attacks reawaken his powers after two years of keeping them under control.

Here’s the trailer for the game to sate your appetites until then. It shows a lot of the gameplay itself and shows off the newer stylings that look more Borderlands-esque and the “quad wielding” where you have a gun in each hand as well as his demonic darkness powers.

The post The Darkness 2 delayed til February 2012 appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Bungie and Microsoft have made a pre-order bonus reminiscent of the early Halo 2 Grunt Birthday Party skull that causes grunts to explode like plasma grenades. Later the birthday party skull was changed to have actual confetti and a chorus of children screaming, “YAY!” This one differs by having them explode even if they die in some matter besides a headshot which can cause some serious chain reactions from one explosion setting off others with nearby grunts.

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To make sure no part of your childhood goes unturned, Cartoon Network has signed with Angry Filmworks to develop Captain Planet and the Planeteers… in live action. The producers Don Murphy and partner Susan Montford from Angry Filmworks may come as familiar names from the Transformers movies as well as Shoot Em Up, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the upcoming robot boxing movie Real Steel.

“The messages of Captain Planet are even more relevant today. We feel this team can bring the world’s first eco-hero to life in a powerful motion picture that is not only pertinent but entertaining.” – Stuart Snyder

“We are extremely excited about bringing the good Captain back to life. His adventures are known worldwide and he is recognized across generations. We expect to make a spectacular series of films with the amazing team at Cartoon Network.” – Don Murphy

“With the earthquakes, tornadoes, melting icebergs and all the other problems threatening the world right now, Earth really needs her greatest defender.” – Susan Montford

With the environment being such a large issue, there is definitely some star power that could be hired to be part of this movie. The original cast had tons of celebrities that were either consistent parts or sometimes just passing characters; Levar Burton, Whoopi Goldberg, Ed Asner, Tim Curry, John Ratzenberger, Margot Kidder, James Coburn, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Jeff Goldblum, and many more.

Considering the connection to Cartoon Network, I’m hoping it will be more like this Captain Planet skit from Robot Chicken where Ted Turner takes protecting the environment into his own hands…

The post Cartoon Network and Angry Filmworks to create Captain Planet live action movie appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Puzzle Agent 2 takes over where its predecessor takes off after solving the case of an eraser shortage from a mysterious shutdown of a factory in Scoggins, Minnesota. The factory began production again, but the foreman, Isaac Davner, has gone missing. The last time he was seen is when Agent Tethers saw a pack of gnomes or “hidden people” dragging him away. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Are there really pointy hatted garden gnomes abducting people in Scoggins? Either way the case has been closed and his superiors say that his disappearance is a matter for the local authorities and he should drop it. So he decides to take some vacation time to head back to Scoggins to do some personal research and find out once and for all what’s really going on.

The story of this game is a little shaky and wasn’t too exciting for me, but it kept a modicum of linearity to the story to keep it cohesive. The animation is fun but similarly lacking with simple hand drawn characters and backgrounds. It adds some cartoony flavor to it, but can be a little too simplified sometimes.

The gameplay itself is where the game shines. It’s a simple point and click interface with no inventory to try and keep track of. When you click on an area, it has a quick ring that expands from the cursor that searches the area for clues, interactive objects, puzzles, persons of interest, gum, etc. This is a little nicer than some point and click game interfaces because you may find yourself clicking each part of the screen to see if it is part of the story or just a part of the background. When you talk with individuals it will cross off dialogue options you have completely delved into preventing you from clicking repeatedly on the same question hoping to pry just a little extra info out of them.

The puzzles are the main reason for this game. They vary quite a bit to make you use different parts of your brain. Some are simple puzzles requiring only a few seconds, while a couple had me stroking my chin for a good 30 minutes. One feature that was added that is a benefit and detraction to the puzzles is the hint system. You collect gum while running around town and can use it to get a hint on a puzzle. You can have a total of 3 hints on each puzzle with each taking up one piece of gum. It’s nice because there were a few puzzles that I had to take a hint because I was over-thinking them and had no clue which direction I was even supposed to look. So instead of sitting and getting pissed off that I had no clue or cheating and finding the strategy guide or walkthrough you can just get a hint or two to coax you along. The first is very subtle, the second is a bit more

directing, and the final hint nearly gives it to you. Which brings me to the detriment. They give you TONS of gum if you keep your eyes open. This basically gives you the ability to fly through every puzzle you come across. The only thing that attempts to sway you from this course of action is the grade they give you after you solve each one which incorporates the number of tries you took, the hints, etc. Taking one extra guess or hint drops it down to a B grade.

As a whole, a fun game to play if you are into puzzles. Don’t buy it looking for the next video game epic in your life.

The post Puzzle Agent 2 – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Within it you will get the classic game as well as the two expansions that you previously had to purchase separately; Knights of the Nine, and The Shivering Isles. They are going for $20-30 on Amazon individually so getting the whole shebang for the suggested retail price of $30 is a steal. The package also comes with a behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of the game, a big ol’ map of Cyrodiil and the Shivering Isles, a $10 mail-in rebate on Skyrim and a strategy guide. The entire package comes in a collectible metal case embossed with Daedric symbols. I suggest getting it soon cause you can spend 100′s of hours playing the game and you’ll want to finish it before the next one comes out.

The post The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition now in stores appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The story of Child of Eden is of a girl being born into the world of the internet. Her personality, memories, everything, was all saved as data and is being put together in Project Lumi. Now there is a virus attack right before the project was finished. Your goal is to run through the different sections like a rail shooter and destroy all the viruses and purify all the code you can by shooting them. You have two weapons at your disposal, a lock on laser for the right and a machine gun style gun for the left. As you lock on and shoot enemies they become purified to a nice blue color or they are completely obliterated into sound, music, and light. It’s surprisingly engrossing. The visuals are all bright and crisp. Very surreal.

The music and action pull you in much more than the story can. I found myself bobbing my head or tapping a foot along with the beat the entire time. The controls are surprisingly smooth for a Kinect title with only a few annoyances I’d like to see fixed. To pause the game you have to hold your left arm downward at a 45 degree angle and wait for the game to realize what you want, then wait for the circle timer to finish. During this time you are getting hit repeatedly by the enemies and missing out

entirely. This is a Kinect problem across the board, however, and therefore can’t really be blamed on this title. The swapping of hands, sliding movement of aiming, and flicking of the wrist to fire the laser are all quite smooth. The select functions in the menus still require a moment of hovering over it to select them, but it is much faster than many other titles such as Kinect Adventures. Overall, I’d say this is currently the number one title for the Kinect. Number two if you are still in love with Dance Central.

The post Child of Eden – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The wait is almost over! The season premiere will be airing on Friday, July 29th, 8/7 central on Cartoon Network. Like many premieres it will be a good hour long episode to get it kicked off right. Then it will change to its regular half hour time slot at 8:30/7:30 central the next week. For those of you lucky enough to be going to Comic-Con in San Diego you’ll get to see it in Room 6A at 3:30pm on Friday the 22nd.

If you happened to miss all this build up from us or any of the other sites that have been talking about it for a while, here’s a trailer to get you going.

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I read once that Risk is the gateway drug of boardgames. When you play it you either decide then that it’s too harsh and you would rather not play anything like it or you go deeper into the world of strategy board games. This is one of those games. Battle Cry, however, isn’t the most complicated game you can find. I find it is a happy medium between Risk (simpler) and Axis and Allies (takes an hour to explain it to people).

The game has many of the biggest battles in the Civil War all set up so you can reenact specific clashes. They even give a quick synopsis of what really happened. It makes an interesting facet of play since you can try things that they didn’t to see if it could have tipped the scales. The board is all set up in advance with specific locations for each unit and terrain feature. They have the rivers, fields, and even fields and orchards that can be set down in their historical locations with the tiles. The actual play consists of units such as infantry, cavalry, and, my personal favorite, artillery. They also have the generals of each battle like “Stonewall” Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant. The winner has to collect a number of flags from their opponent by defeating their units or sometimes, for specific win conditions such as taking over special map locations. The different units have particular ranges of attack and movement as well as different percentage chances of getting hit in a battle.

One particular part of the game that is a great feature and an annoying detriment is the card system. You

don’t get to move all your pieces during your turn. You instead have to play a card from your hand that issues orders to a particular section of the battlefield; left flank, center, or right flank. It can be nice because you never can tell whether the enemy is capable of retaliating against your assault. Then there are the times that you really can’t retaliate because you haven’t drawn a worthwhile card for half the battle. Adds some random chance to the battle overall instead of just your dice rolls for the attacks themselves. You can also use this to your advantage as well by saving up certain cards for a time when you think they’ve exhausted their capabilities in one area.

The Anniversary Edition also comes with the setup and synopsis for 13 additional battles.

The total time to play is somewhere between half an hour to a couple hours. Time to learn is about 15 minutes (more if they are slow learners). Thankfully the manual is pretty easy to understand. That’s a factor that is really important with more complicated games.

The post Battle Cry – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Still no connection has been confirmed, but Gamespot recently had a talk with some sources that claim that it is already “well under way” and in the finishing stages. The source claimed that it is likely that it could be released in 2012. It has been said that it is quite vast and was quoted as “the big one.”

I’m a huge fan of the series and can’t wait to see what we have in store. If it does end up being in their mock-up of Los Angeles I’ll be a little disappointed. I would have liked to see a new location but I’ll admit that San Andreas was a fun game. Having the three sprawling cities with tons of free roaming land between them made for some great chases. Most of which ended in a Thelma & Louise style cliff jump. I guess we’ll have to wait for VI for something a little more different perhaps GTA VI: New New York?

The post GTA V by 2012? appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Now to join the ranks of its 4 predecessors on the elite list of Wii Virtual Console games comes Rockman 5 Blues no Wana?!, otherwise known to us American gamers as Mega Man 5. Protoman has gone rogue and taken Dr. Light hostage and sent 8 robot masters to cause destruction. You now must go and put a stop to your robot bro who trained and tested you back in Mega Man 3. The game will be available for 500 Wii points ($5.00).

The post Mega Man 5 entering the world of Virtual Console games appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Now the version I have been playing is 3.5 so if you have some info from older and newer versions that affect these, please leave a note below.

DO prepare with the proper materials. Get yourself a Player’s Handbook (PHB), some character sheets, and a notebook for scratch paper. The PHB is your Bible. It tells you almost everything you need to know about creating your character, leveling up, fighting, abilities, spells, EVERYTHING. The notebook is very valuable for keeping track of the details that aren’t listed or are too numerous for your character sheet. You will be writing down everything from loot you find, to people and city names, to how many arrows you have left on your person.

DON’T jump into the game without reading it! There is a treasure trove of information in there and you will quickly annoy your compatriots when every few seconds you ask, “How do I roll a save?” or “How far does this spell shoot?” or “Uhm… How I mine for fish?” You don’t necessarily need to memorize it (but if you can, awesome!) but you will want to know enough to quickly find a section to check details. One of the individuals in my group used small sticky tabs to create easily locatable sections for all the major concepts.

DO get some of your own dice. Your buddy may have tons and will let you borrow his, but it can be nice to not have to constantly ask for a couple more D4 to calculate damage. Also amongst some players you may get superstitious people that will say that borrowing dice has a tendency to give you bad karma in your rolls.

DON’T go spending all your coin on fancy shmancy dice. There are plenty of places (especially online) that you can order dice made from all sorts of materials in all sorts of sizes. I’ve seen them even made from brushed steel, ivory, even mammoth bone. Although this may get you a few gawking jealous friends, there are tons of places to get cheap plastic dice that will work just fine. If you don’t want to spend money on weird dice that you rarely will use outside of D&D but happen to have a smart phone there are a few free apps that emulate all sorts of dice rolls. The one I personally enjoy is called Dice Bag. It has all the various dice programmed in (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20, D100) as well as the capability to roll multiple dice, change them to exploding dice, and add in your bonuses for you. All of which can be saved for easy access later.

DO bring a laptop. They can be handy to have for creating notes and writing down important things like your spells and gear. You can even get digital copies of manuals and handbooks for easy searching. Also you can use the internet for explanation of rules that confuse you, tips to assist you, and guides that have compiled many sections into one convenient area (many times you will need to have access to multiple diagrams and sections of the books at the same time). Also if you get completely wasted in a battle and need to spend the rest of the fight in the background hiding or get separated from the main group and therefore are not participating in this current part of the story, the laptop can give you something to do in the meantime. Play some Minecraft, peruse your webcomics, etc.

DON’T bring a laptop. Yes, I just contradicted myself. With as many good things a laptop can bring to the table, there are just as many bad things. Without proper space in your playing area or table, you will quickly find that everyone is looking at their laptops and there is no space for a map or even space to roll your dice. If you are not separated from the group and start spending your time between turns on the computer, you will find your group having to explain what just happened and quickly getting pissed. You can easily find some other things to do that are beneficial to the game like reorganizing your equipment or spells on a neat list, planning out your next level up for a quick seamless transition, familiarizing yourself with the book, or even just listen to what your buddies do.

DO take time to flesh out a character. Do the necessities like class and race, but also give them a solid background, give them quirks, fears, experiences, etc. It changes the game from character X to a story about the actual character and the world in which he resides. It can also help prevent metagaming to an extent because you can react to a situation as your character instead of as an overly cautious person playing a tabletop game. It can help you decide on feats, skills, and spells to learn as well because you can think what your character would be learning and not what is most likely going to swing the game to your favor.

DON’T jump into a certain class without doing some research first. I had randomly decided to take my first jump into the game as a wizard instead of copying what I usually choose in RPG video games as a nimble thief/rogue. Only problem is that the group I joined hadn’t really learned much about wizards due to them being possibly one of the more complicated choices. So when I jumped in I had a large learning curve with little help from my buddies. If I had chosen a more simplistic class such as a fighter I’d have only to learn a few basic premises such as fighting and a few special moves. I’m glad I chose it and I’ve learned a lot, but I had to do it the long/hard way of reading it instead of being able to ask for quick information.

The post The Do’s and Don’ts of D&D appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I initially didn’t go near these games due to me hearing that they were lame knockoffs of GTA. I heard that they had a lot more things that were not very realistic. Well that was pretty true. I promptly made my gang dress in ninja outfits while I ran nude into traffic. The game allows much more versatility with changing your mannerisms, voice, looks, gang, everything! One of my favorite side games is throwing myself in front of cars for insurance fraud. As you get hit and bounce from car to car, you collect immense amounts of insurance claims of which you’ll get a pretty smooth cut. Hilariously fun. So hearing that they are making a 3rd was music to my ears.

Due out late 2011

The post Saints Row: The Third – Trailer appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Do you suffer from anxiety? Nausea? PTSD? Come down to Dead Island. We’ve got rappers, machetes, and enough zombies to choke a camel!

I was impressed with their first trailer with the little girl, but still wasn’t sure about the gameplay and such. I’m slowly getting more excited to see what comes of this title though. I’ve been reading on how they may have a skill tree system with XP so you can start learning some new moves and such to facilitate your zombie soiree. Another piece of info that I’ve heard talks about stamina. Apparently you will not be able to swing willy-nilly all day long and will have to stop and recover from time to time to keep at peak physical condition. Good for realism, not necessarily a good choice for a video game.

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Game is currently still in development by Digital Extremes, Bad Robot, K/O Paper Products and Damon Lindelof with a projected release of summer, 2012. It will be a co-op game where you can take control of either Kirk or Spock in a race to stop a legendary enemy race from conquering the galaxy. Pretty standard fare for these two. It will be released onto the Xbox 360, PS3, as well as Windows for the PC.

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We apparently have a reprieve for a little while at least. Although he’s filmed a little over 50 hours of it, he is looking to lower production costs to keep them rolling out. Heaven forbid that he cough up a little of that pile of money from his personal stash to make it a memorable show. In the meantime, go check out this clip from Robot Chicken’s Star Wars.

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One major reason I stopped watching live TV is that I want to watch what I want to watch. News may go over current events, but only if they deem it entertaining enough to make them some money. Many times this kind of crap happens and you get to watch them take something completely out of the microwave of context and slather it with a big stick of paranoia butter. I’m happy to see video games finally starting to be considered by many as art but now come the knuckledraggers who won’t accept it until they get forced to.

In this instance we have Fox News spreading the worry about the government deciding to give grants to some video game companies. The idea is to put money into the groups that help with education, art, and the like to bolster them into some greater depth. The gentlemen over at Fox instead start screaming bloody murder about how your tax dollars are going to help pay for the next Call of Duty. They even brought in an individual in the geek culture to speak on the topic. To be “fair” they brought in a talk show host to speak on the alternate side. The former immediately tries to give proper information and steer the conversation towards a worthwhile debate, but they quickly shut him down and continue ranting about how our government spends too much money and games are bad!

Video games have a unique way to teach that could possibly be utilized in the future. Children with “ADD” can somehow have amazing problem solving skills and be able to focus on a task in a game for hours on end. With the art aspect it makes the same amount of sense as giving grants to movies for being artistic. Art is a very important thing in this society and can move people to do some amazing things. They’ve found correlations between the tone of media present in a country and how well the country does.

COMIC SOURCE

FOX SOURCE

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Coming this summer to the XBLA and PSN is a title very reminiscent of Rock N’ Roll Racing and Vigilante 8. In racing, sadly you can barely get away with a bit of grinding… but not here. You can use machine guns, rockets, sonic booms, and many more options to help you to victory. Perhaps if they allowed that I’d actually watch NASCAR.

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One of the original S.T.A.R.S. members is making his way into this 3DS title. You may remember him from his fat revolver and having horrible dialogue which have been jokes across the internet ever since. He’ll be joining the current ranks of Chris and Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, Jack Krauser, Albert Wesker, and Hunk.

The game itself is a mashup of many of the characters from across the Resident Evil universe that you take control of in survival/attack based mini-games such as in the extra features in RE 4 and 5. Now you too can be a “master of unlocking” some extra characters.

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F@NBOY$

GO THERE! READ THEM! He’s actually been up and posting new ones again for a bit now which is nice.

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A problem I’ve come into with really good games is that I sometimes find myself purchasing multiple copies of them. Plants vs. Zombies for example. I already had it on my computer, but when they released it in the Xbox Live Arcade I bought it there too for the added benefit of the co-op stuff. The only reason I hadn’t bought it for my phone is that it hadn’t come out for Android… yet.

Luckily, there are deals like this that make the burden a little lighter. Currently the 48 hour deal is Plants vs. Zombies for the iPhone or iPod Touch. These deals sound like they may be focused on the Apple crowd, but they did leave a cryptic remark about the deals possibly spanning to PC as well as Mac. Here’s hoping Peggle comes next!

Crazy Dave’s Deal Days link

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Now if you have yet to play the awesomeness that is Portal 2, you may or may not want to watch. It only shows pictures of Cave Johnson that can be found in the game and the audio only gives you trace amounts of data about the levels you may encounter. Spoiler level is around 2%. You probably drink milk that’s that bad. You probably saw more spoilers in the trailers! So quit your whining and let us science you up, dang it!

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In the Last Night on Earth boardgame the name of the game is survival. You play as one of many classic zombie horror story characters; the local sheriff, the football star, the girl next door, the priest, the nurse, the cowgirl, the sheriff’s son, and the crazy stranger. Each has slightly different skills that can serve them and help the other survivors. Some are faster, some are luckier, some just pack a fat revolver. Now the characters are going to need to work together to stay alive, because the zombies are only so stupid. They are actually controlled by another player and therefore can be quite conniving. The zombie player receives cards each turn that he can use to buff their hordes. Some speed up the zombies, make them hit harder, spawn sporadically nearby, or can even cause problems like creating discontent between the live people.

One of the great things about the game is that each time you play is different. Not just the basic choices and locations, but they also have completely different scenarios. There are basic survival versions, ones that require burning out the zombies’ spawning pits, and my favorite, “Escape in the Truck”. The last one consists of searching the homes in town for keys and gasoline for the truck. You then have to get all the survivors to the truck and protect them as they fill the tank and get away. Normally this takes a bit of searching because there only a few sets of keys and gasoline within the stack of item cards that the heroes go through.

In one particularly interesting match two of the characters had no starting space on the randomly generated board so they started in the center with the truck. Not too helpful since they need to still get to the buildings and start searching. But wait, since they didn’t start in a building with which to start searching immediately, the game was nice enough to give both of them a single hero card to help keep them alive til you reach safety. If you are lucky, it’ll be an axe or gun. In this case however, the two characters got AMAZINGLY lucky and started with keys and gasoline! So now they just needed to take the actions to fill up the truck, wait for the others to book it there, and leave. Game over. Or at least… almost.

The zombie player happened to have a few cards that were just as lucky and played all of them as fast as possible. The first being to spawn more zombies and boost their speed to catch up to the ones in the truck and cut off the others before they could join them. The next was to make the human with the gasoline lose a turn. The humans played their turns and by the end of it 3 of the 4 players had made it to the truck. Then the zombies played their turn slowly shambling even closer and playing a card with the same namesake as the game, “This could be our last night on earth”. The picture shows a pair of the younger and more attractive characters underneath a tent smiling at each other… The effect it causes is that a male and female player lose their turns if they are in the same square because they are busy doing other things. So now we have two players banging in the back of the truck with the priest sitting right next to them reprimanding them for their wicked ways, and zombies moving in for the kill. Just like the game of Left 4 Dead, the round

ended with 3 players in the truck flailing madly and 1 guy who dies in the fray.

Love the game. Only problem I have with it is that the instruction manual could be a little more concise in some places and more detailed in others. I’ve had to look up some of the FAQ’s and discussions online to see what happens in specific situations. Some complain about not being able to stomp through the zombie hordes like they do in zombie video games, but I say this game is about survival, not about playing as Master Chief. And hey, you can do that plenty once you find the chainsaw or boomstick.

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If you’ve never read Dynamo 5, let me give you a thirty-second primer. Captain Dynamo, the hero of Tower City for over four decades, was found dead from poison and naked in a hotel room…which isn’t quite the way for any superhero to go. In the wake of his death, his wife (Maddie Warner, a former government agent who monitored superhuman activities) finds out that her husband of many years was quite the cheater.

It turns out that through all of his extramarital affairs, he had at least five illegitimate children who all genetically gained one of the many powers that Captain Dynamo had. We’re talking Superman type of abilities like: laser vision, flight, superhuman strength, telepathy, and shape shifting. Up to this volume of the trade they were all pretty static in their abilities and superhero names…until yet another sibling comes along and causes them grief by switching their abilities around…huff…puff…ok, consider yourself caught up.

The beginning of this trade finds us observing the Dynamo 5 team fighting a robot horde of unknown origin. After taking them apart in clean superhero fashion, we find out that they had been sent by an enemy from Captain Dynamo’s past that nearly destroyed the Earth. The only thing that kept the planet safe last time was the combined efforts of many of the best superheroes of that age fighting back and even then they barely defeated him and sent him packing. Now three of his progeny have returned and aim to reclaim their honor. Will our fledgling heroes be able to live up to their father’s legacy?

This is my kind of comic. I’ve always been a sucker for superhero books, I grew up reading series like X-Men, The Avengers, and many other team books.

The writing for the series was handled by Jay Faerber who did excellent work on Marvel’s Generation X and his own series on Image called Noble Causes, which this series is a spin-off from. The pacing is absolutely perfect and has some of the most intense action scenes I’ve ever read in a comic, without ever feeling forced.

The storyline is fairly simple, yet the amount of history you get for each character and the interactions between each other as a team that really fills in the panels between all of the glorious action that makes me love every facet of the story. The fact that he managed to write a Kojima-esque love blossoming on one end of the battlefield while you have another character fighting for revenge really hammered the home that this is top notch solid writing.

The art for this trade is a bit different than the other trades that have been released mainly because they went from having Mahmud A. Asrar (artist for the first 25 issues) to using Julio Brilha, who proves he’s just as good, if not slightly better than Mr. Asrar. I really enjoyed how he chose to illustrate this five issue series with an art style that seems much more traditional than most modern comics…meaning that there are sooo many different ways one can choose to draw the issue, whether it be fuzzy, blurred lines, to darkness for dark’s sake (you all know what I mean I’m sure).

Too many times do comic artists decide to distance themselves from clean lines for the sake of what I assume they think is art. This on the other hand, is perfect. The art is exctremely clean in its lines, the shading is just as great and the coloring combines with the other two to make it seem like the pages are really popping from the paper. In my opinion, this is THE example of what a superhero comic should be.

I’m just sad that the series ended after this trade. I would have loved to keep following it monthly. I guess I still have the other trades I’m missing out on. Then again, I can always re-read this one too! PICK THIS ONE UP!

[Editors Note: Our scoring system is based on the Authors opinions of the product they reviewed, we know a 100% isn't something that gets tossed around easily, but everyone has their own opinion of what is perfection.]

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With Brink coming out tomorrow (May 10th), they’ve released the official launch trailer that illustrates the backstory of the Ark. The Ark was made as a utopian society, but with time and neglect it became a slum. There are some who would escape the Ark, and some that would save it. To bring it back to it’s former glory. Choose your side and see which will succeed.

I’m really interested to try this out. They seem like they know what people like about these types of games and have implemented a good smattering of them. If that turns out as well as is planned we’ll have to see tomorrow, but it looks like it may just work out for them.

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You get off the bus. Walk down the street. Pop into the local gas station. Pick up a slurpee. You sip away on your way to the theater. Over that course of time you could be on dozens of cameras placed throughout the businesses, the roads, the public areas… As of now, not all of those cameras are recording. Of those, not all keep their records for very long. Even if they have the time, they still have to be monitored by hand to find something in particular amongst the crazy levels of data.

Well no more. The Video Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool (VIRAT) is a program that DARPA has been developing that can go trawl through all that video and find all sorts of specific things with the cold efficiency of a computer. Guy walks into a place with a backpack and leaves without it? It sees it. Hit and run accident? It sees it. You pick your nose in a back alley? It not only sees it, but posts it on youtube. Well… maybe.

It reminds me of the sonar phones of the Dark Knight. Plus sides – increased security. Down side – decreased privacy. Let the 1984 freakouts commence!

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