This one is about why Ars Technica (and everyone else) should avoid metacritic.

This is one about review embargoes (which is time delayed information suppression).

I particularly like the second link due to the fact it’s touting transparency. No favoritism, once news is known you broadcast it and it keeps game publishers honest.

::end transmission::

Relevant Information: http://is.gd/cPq3I

Goddamn! Those titles get confusing to type if there’s a numeral instead of a word. This blog is in opposition to Raul’s blog here. Anygay, let’s break it down.Valve loves to drop us little hints. Raul’s mention of The Midnight Riders’ bus in “The Passing” is similar to the “barely there” style of teases they like to do. I’ll give him that.

However, Valve doesn’t really seem to be the sort of developer/publisher to push out a release every year. While L4D2 followed almost exactly a year later from L4D1, keeping up this pace will tire out a company already stretched thin.

More like "Stretched 4 Dead" amirite?

Remember all of that L4D1 DLC we were supposed to get? Or the Engineer update that’s due any day now (based on the 6 month period in between the last three updates)? And then there’s Half Life 2: Episode 3 which remains shrouded in mystery as to when it’ll be released. Portal 2 was just pushed back until 2011, and the Steam for Apple release has also taken up their time and energy as well.

As of this writing, Valve had already dropped out of debuting anything at E3. They canceled their main show, despite promising a surprise. This means that L4D3 is not on the menu, especially this far away November. Remember, they showed L4D2 at the E3 preceding it’s release date (November 17, 2009). Since E3 is going on right now, that’s exactly a year ago.

So what is this Midnight Riders bus doing anyway? As one of the few examples of living humanity in the L4D universe that’s not rescue personnel, I think it’s a back door. If they have the time and resources, they’ll possibly do DLC like “The Passing” to sate us for the long wait until Portal 2 and beyond. Raul is guessing that it’d be two Midnight Riders, their blogger/replacement bassist (seen here) and a groupie. I don’t think this group would be diverse enough, though if it’s DLC that deviates from the main characters, they may go with that tact for a single campaign.

If they can barely get the DLC for l4d2 and l4d1 out the back door, l4d3 would be an even bigger strain. Theoretically, Half Life 2: Episode 3 or Half Life 3 is on its way. And we all know who’s good at theories:

From http://www.direman.com

And maybe because of Michael Cera. Maybe.

Full disclosure: I am a huge Scott Pilgrim fan.

The footage in the game doesn’t have to worry about “true-to-the-book” hangups. The book is about a guy who lives in a world where if you beat someone up hard enough, they’ll give you coins once they’re done. And fight through several mini-bosses before you get to your goal. And gain XP.

Check it out here and then get back to me:

One key win is that there are no actors to break the immersion for you. The art in-game is so close to the books that I bet some people will start to recall scenes from the game as party of the story canon. No one will whine about Mary Elizabeth Winstead or Kieran Culkin not living up to their imaginations of how Ramona or Wallace Wells seems in real life.

And who could truly live up to Wallace anyway?

Another win is capturing the tone of the book. The way Kimberly Pine stands while not fighting fits her semi-sassy, better-than-you demeanor. When one of the mini-bosses (Todd) powers up, his hair and eyes light up like I’d expect. An added bonus- one of his powerful attacks is a direct reference to Tetsuo from Akira (my god a game based on that would be amazing). I’m not a fighting game player, but I will be for this game.

Like sitting underneath a meat grinder.

The game is being developed by Ubisoft Montreal and is coming out in August to coincide with the release of the book.

Fun sized for your mouth.

So in the segment mini review Juniors I try and sum up a game in around 3 sentences then apply a score that is not only meaningless to you, but you’ll just ignore anyway.

Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360): The biggest dudes possible, driving the biggest truck possible, into the biggest worm possible, then creating the biggest explosion possible. While the game is utterly ridiculous, completely over the top, and the most fun co-op I’ve experienced in recent memory , if this game had a few more fist bumps it would be the ultimate bro beat off action fantasy. 16 out of 20 Keg Stands.

DJ Hero (PS3): For me this was the most disappointing game of ’09. Getting another game from Activision, with another plastic instrument that doesn’t feel intuitive, I can’t just scratch like a mad man, and there is nothing but mash ups, which are ridiculously hit or miss. Feeling ridged and forced, the flow of the screen commands and controller movements feel as smooth as herpes. 3 Dumbs out of 11 Derfs.

Saints Row 2 (Xbox 360): One of the most addictive games I’ve played in a while and for all the right reasons. Some of the most fun I’ve had with an open world sandbox game, and at 20 dollars a must own for anyone who enjoys them. Too much to do! 72 Shotgun blasts out of 84 Nut Shots.

Mad World (Wii): The most violent game on the Wii to date, and with your bare hands you tear enemies apart or dissect them with your chainsaw fist of justice. Ridiculous mini games, and over the top action sequences this is one of the few reasons to own a Wii. Gets a little boring towards the last 4/5′s of the game however.  6 Blood Splatters out of 7 Noir Tough Guys.

Viva Pinata (Xbox 360): In one of the most depressingly addictive games that turns any man into a gardening pinata collecting fruit cakes, or the other way around. 7 awkward confessions to Dad out of 13 Mom’s going to be disappointed.

Oh Horstachio, I wish I could quit you.

Culdcept Saga (Xbox 360): An amazing, yet frustrating at times fusion of Magic:The Gathering and Monopoly. It’s like combining Peanut Butter and Chocolate, then having some dick named Reese steal it and put his name on it. 33 Blue Mana out of 40 Trap Cards.

Rocket Knight Adventures Remake (Xbox 360): Rocket Knight Adventures? More like Rocket Boners Downhill Jamboree. This game had most of the spirit of the original, but alas it felt cheap, and phoned in. Here’s hoping they do it better next time. 56 Grunts out of 82 Whistles.

The Midnight Riders

Rumors, rumors, rumors. Everyone loves a good rumor and with the release of “The Passing”, the first downloadable campaign for Left 4 Dead 2, Valve has unleashed a good’un so if you hate spoilers read no further.

In “The Passing”, while venturing and smacking zombies you see the Midnight Riders van drive past you and hit a zombie, keeps going of course, and while this could be nothing, the midnight riders now have a blog up as well, and there are a few singles from them posted on youtube. My favorite being “All I want For Christmas Is To Kick Your Ass”.

So now there’s word being whispered around that Left 4 Dead 3 will feature the Midnight Riders, and I for one wouldn’t complain about it. It sounds like it would be similar to “Diamond Dead”, the failed zombie/glam rock picture from George Romero that never got made.

In the blog, they say, “We’ll stop touring when they stop breathing,” and if you look at the tour dates there are four after Griffin, Georgia (which is where Dark Carnival takes place in L4D2). If we toss in Griffin we have five shows at the end of their tour. 5 shows, 5 campaigns. Part of the reason many see this as a hint from Valve, is how they subtly hint at sequels. With Portal, they went back in, updated some drones and some cryptic messages then a sequel was announced.

Let's Keep Our Fingers Crossed.

Holy nuts, they made a toy inspired by a game vehicle that's not nearly as famous as it's parent property.

I was trawling Digg and saw this link about PC Gaming Manuals and it took me back…

http://game-central.org/2010/editorials/a-brief-review-of-pc-gaming-manuals/

I had Tie Fighter and the manual was thick enough to warrant a spine. As I cracked it open, the pages concerning how to install the game and control were short and to the point. 90% of the manual was dedicated to detailing the specs of various Imperial star fighters and the story of Maarek Stele, some guy from some planet who got caught up in a plot of military intrigue, pirates, shooting with lasers and seat-of-the-pants flying (what story does that sound like?).

There were actual gameplay elements sprinkled into the dialogue and character progression, like when the flight instructor tries to stump the rookie TIE pilot by asking, “What is the most efficient way to lower your speed?” When Maarek hits F9 twice to charge his lasers, but re-directing power from his engines, the instructor glows with a special pride usually reserved for fathers who wanted songs but ended up with daughters.

What gaming manuals did you love? Which ones did you hate? Tell me about them.

Right off the bat I get dropped into an interface that gave me no idea what I was doing when I chose Predator. The over-all feeling that I got from this and the ensuing gameplay was that this was made for consoles, and I was playing on the PC.

As the Predator all I could do was engage in fisticuffs; left hook, right hook, no hadoken. No spear, no killer Frisbees, not even the laser beam was in my possession and I start getting killed by Aliens and Marines. More aliens than the marines (more on that later). The demo felt ill-thought out from the start, not just because the only mode to play online was death match, but because there is no mock up of the controls, and in this game there are some ridiculous combinations to learn and master.

Next round I was the alien. The loading screen immediately mentions how darkness is your friend and you should try and knock out lights. This was the first thing I attempted to do, but my efforts were thwarted as I missed the same lights 2 or 3, even 4 times. As an Alien you can pinch and roll seamlessly around the arena trying to knock out lights and jabbing your tail into unsuspecting players.

And the Marine? Well he’s easily the most intense to play as, seeing how you’re just a mere human you can’t jump or roll around or even duck. You shoot guy. You shoot alien, or you at least try to. But the motion detector radar is where the game shines. You sit and wait, and when the beeping gets furious you run from it.

The main gripes I have is that the game doesn’t feel like there will be any tournament style play. Everyone just runs in circles raping each other from behind trying to land the instant kills. You earn experience points, which only let you unlock skins, and the way to get the most XP is by doing instant kill moves which leave you vulnerable for far too long. I’ve talked to people about this game and they talk about it being “perfectly balanced.” There’s three classes- having perfect balance should be a given. That’s like bragging that rock, paper, scissors is perfectly balanced and fine tuned.

This is bullshit, everyone knows "rock" is OP.

All in all, this game has promise. It’s a first person fighting game, but I’ll be curious to see if there is any lasting appeal, however, it seems Rebellion is already planning for the sequel as this game has sold enough copies to warrant one.

I think this tagline hit the nail on the head.

Gaming has never really mattered to Apple. Halo was once slated to be an Apple game, but ended up being a prime piece of Microsoft’s profit plan. In the decade since, several iterations of high-powered Macintosh computers have been sold and none were aimed at gaming, instead marketed towards simple computer users, artists, designers and students.

So when I see this article on Kotaku I wonder, “What happened?”

The iPhone happened. A significant amount of money being spent in the App Store is on games. Most of the apps downloaded from Apple are either listed under the categories games or entertainment.

There’s anecdotal proof from the head guy at Valve that Apple never really used to care:

“Well, we tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to… well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go “wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming”. And then we’ll say, “OK, here are three things you could do to make that better,” and then they say “OK,” and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow though on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there’s never any follow through on any of the things they say they’re going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms.”

It’s good to see that the smell of money has gotten Apple’s musty privates oily and slick with primal juices when it comes to games. Maybe this means in a year or two I won’t have to wonder if buying Boot Camp is a good idea or not.

Brace yourself for an ego-shattering pee-hole invasion. This is the sort game style that releases urethra weasels upon the casual gamer. The learning curve is more than steep; it’s the slippery curve of an erect penis looming over you, mocking your impotent attempts to mount it. And if you manage to get on top? Well, if you didn’t play DOTA and you don’t have a friend to show you how to play League of Legends get ready for a thing or twelve (inches).

You are going to die. You are going to die a lot. Your team is going to be upset and call you a “feeder” and tell you how terrible you are at this game and how they think you are a useless piece of shit. Then the other team will take time out of their game to tell you that you should stick a toothpick under your toenail and go kick a brick wall.

Your character isn’t the commitment you might have come to expect from other games. You select a Champion from a list and you gain levels and purchase items with gold you get from kills or slaying minion to improve you character. The longer you spend looking at items, the longer you are not on the field stopping the opposing team from mowing down your defenses and destroying your base. How are you supposed to learn this pivotal aspect of the game? You don’t. I recommend looking at other people’s items at the end of rounds. This gives you the opportunity to see how these items come together in play and see what stat increases are on the items.

While respawning, the already better player is gaining experience and gaining more gold so he can kill you even more easily when you come running back to feed him another sum of gold for your death. It can become lopsided extremely quickly.

As you learn the finer points of this game, you can begin to actually be a ‘player’. You will jump suddenly from a gold hemorhagging slit to a completely average cockbite. The more time you take to learn from the people on your team and the other team who are tearing assholes open, the more badass you become. Once you become a god, smiling down on all the mere mortals with fear in their eyes, clenching their ass cheeks as you raise your hand; remember the shit you had to put up with while climbing the online power structure. What that means to you as a gamer, is really up to you. This is your chance to give it all back or act in a manner you would want the rest of these worn out whores to act in.

When it comes down to it, this is a team game; you are going to deal with people for better or worse. Find some friends and avoid pick up games as much as possible. Riot Games has been true to their words in providing a steady stream of new content and keeping the game free. They pay attention to the forums and it is reflected in the game’s development. If you can tolerate the game long enough to start enjoying, it is only going to get better. This being said, they should add some new fucking levels. I’m bored of the twisted tree line in a World of Warcraft engine ripoff.

By Jeff “Dick-Ears” McGhee