But, all things aside I finished in the top 20 (tied 17th) which is not bad at all. My other two highest finishes were when I placed 4th at NJIT, and 3rd at an admittedly low-turnout King of the Couch in Morristown. I can confidently say that my play has improved from last year. I don’t wake up unsafely as much I used to. I still have my issues with defense (I get grabbed easily and my blocking isn’t fully solid yet) however I have gotten better at avoiding some situations. On the other side of the coin, my offense has experienced the same growth. I am trying to make the transition from being a brawler to a more refined fighter. Yes, it’s a slow one with no real metric in which to measure your success, but I’ve noticed I have been winning a bit more in ranked matches online.

I finally made a return to Next Level for the big Two tournament series. I get there, I’m excited to play, but then, just my luck, I get to play a Spam ‘Rog and his cheap El Fuerte on stream . Overall, I didn’t do too bad, but I see that the potential here. I looked way better here than I did at Apex, but I’m still too inconsistent. I missed a few key punishes but I reacted well in some situations. If you’re wondering how I did in the overall tournament, I was blown up I haven’t gone 0-2 in a while so it was refreshing to be put down for once. That means I still have work to do, but just where do I get started?

Fortunately for me, Shoryuken has many posts on how to level up your game. I have been following them when I am in the lab, however I’ve just been playing online more to see what people are doing and get a feel of what I should be doing with my character. I just don’t feel that I have enough experience versus some characters or situations. Top players have been in some fight situations over and over again, and they just know what to do without wasting time to think about it. Me? I have to think. I’m also not able to accurately manage my meters without looking constantly. I still find myself peeking when I’m mid fight. I feel that if I can get better, more intuitive with my H.U.D. management then I can do things like make better reads on my opponent by looking at his life bar, super meter or even time with ease. I’ll also be able to mentally access my situations a bit better. I think the only cure for that is experience, so I have resolved to try and make it out to more local tournaments.

I think with more practice, I’ll build up the muscle memory required to not drop combos too often. I’ve made some progress, I just need to work out the kinks. I do not easily spook under pressure, it doesn’t affect me much, so I know that isn’t the problem. I however need to be able to take my comfortable, casual state of high-level play to tournaments. The transition seems to be giving me a hard time and I think that leads to my erratic play sometimes. I’ll keep working at it!

In any case, like always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on getting better. Tweet to me guys!

Role Optional Alerts and the Team Buff

Two of the exciting features we’re rolling out for Game Update 9 are Role Optional Alerts and the Team Buff. We have metrics that show us who is queuing for what, how long they’re waiting, and a number of other really useful things. As I’m sure you know when you queue for a Duo, you tend to get in and are able to start playing right away. Alerts are a different story, especially for those of you queuing for the damage role.

It has nothing to do with Duos only requiring two people. It’s that they require any two people. As is common in a lot of MMOs, there is a population disparity between the different roles. There are as many players queuing for Damage as there are all the other roles combined. Healers are the least common, followed by Tanks, and finally Controllers. So the end result is Healers don’t wait long at all, but Damage tends to wait much longer.

All Alerts are now role optional. Generally it shouldn’t take much more than a few minutes for an Alert queue to pop regardless of your role, assuming there are enough people willing to play that Alert. When the matchmaking system tries to form a group out of the pool of queued players it tries to form a balanced group first. As minutes pass, the system becomes increasingly less picky about finding a specific role for a given group slot.

The Role Optional Alert feature is made possible by the Team Buff. Any time three or more players are grouped together, within range, and in line of sight of one another, they gain a bonus to compensate for roles missing from their group.

If your group is missing a Tank, every group member gains additional damage mitigation.
If you’re missing a Healer, group members gain a small amount of Health regeneration when they begin to take damage and gain a further health regeneration boost while holding the block button when health is at critical levels.
If your group is missing a Controller you will gain a small amount of additional power regeneration when your power begins dipping low.

The buffs are by no means a replacement for having the actual role in your group. But with some self reliance, it will provide you with enough of a boost to allow you to complete the Alert successfully. The Team Buff is not applied in PvP arenas, during Legends matches, nor will it function during Duels.

The end result of this is that wait times to get into an Alert should be dramatically decreased. Provided players are queued, you should be able to get into an instance in a matter of minutes, no matter your role.

Novice Raids

In an effort to let more players experience more of the game, we’re launching Novice Raid modes for Game Update 9. Novice Raids are far less demanding than the Expert Raids. They are intended to allow more casual players and random pickup groups a chance to experience some of our best content they might not otherwise be able to experience.

The combat rating requirement is just a little bit lower for Novice Raids so you can hit them a little sooner than you can the Expert version. The content, play flow, and boss fights are identical but the fights themselves are much more forgiving. That’s not to say they will be a complete cake walk! You’ll still need to learn and execute properly on the mechanics of the boss fights if you want to succeed. Some may find Novice Raids are a great way to get some practice in while they are gearing up for the Expert versions.

Novice Raids do drop loot, however the loot will be of a lower item level. They also award the same badges, but you earn fewer of them. Novice Raids share the same lockout timer as Expert Raids, so you can’t earn loot and badges in both during the same week.

Some existing feats can be completed in either the Novice or Expert version of a Raid. However others such as the speed feats can only be completed in Expert mode. Finally we’ve also added new feats for completing the Expert version of a raid.

New Soder Colas plans available!

Plans for Soder Cola Prime and Soder Cola Max are now available for purchase from Research and Development vendors. These recover more Health and Power than a Soder Cola Extreme but provide no additional buff effect and require no Exobytes to make.

“The Bandwagon Effect is a well documented form of groupthink in behavioral science and has many applications. The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads and trends clearly do, with “the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have already done so”.As more people come to believe in something, others also “hop on the bandwagon” regardless of the underlying evidence. The tendency to follow the actions or beliefs of others can occur because individuals directly prefer to conform, or because individuals derive information from others. Both explanations have been used for evidence of conformity in psychological experiments. For example, social pressure has been used to explain Asch’s conformity experiments, and information has been used to explain Sherif’s autokinetic experiment.

When individuals make rational choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that information cascades can quickly form in which people decide to ignore their personal information signals and follow the behavior of others. Cascades explain why behavior is fragile—people understand that they are based on very limited information. As a result, fads form easily but are also easily dislodged. Such informational effects have been used to explain political bandwagons.”

Thanks Wikipedia <3

Note the first sign.

We’ve all seen this in action so many times before. When a team catches a hot streak at the right time everyone suddenly a fan of said team. Stadiums are full and once cheap tickets are now super expensive. If you want to see it in everyday life look at all the ‘new’ Yankees or Giants fans (sorry, I’ve never been a big football guy, but I did like the Chargers in the Junior Seau days) that pop up whenever the team is competing for the c’hip (or championship). For the purposes of this article, I’ll use three really good examples: The Miami Heat once they signed Chris Bosh and Lebron, The L.A. Clippers once they got Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups and the Golden State Warriors when they made that incredible play off run that produced highlights such as this.

After that dunk, Warriors tickets became the new thing for everyone. The Clippers are currently going through the same thing. This phenomenon is not just limited to sports, or politics, it also extends into the gaming world. Allow me to give you some background before I rage the hell out.

In fighting games picking a character is a much like picking a tool box. There are different tools in each of them for different situations, but they all serve the purpose of winning the match for your character. In most competitive games (especially fighters) people tend to pick their characters, teams, weapons, etc in usually one of three ways.

The first type of player picks by character loyalty. This means they simply like the character design so much that they play as that fighter/race/whatever for that reason alone. These people will usually use the same character over the course of multiple installments of a game. It’s like those die hard sports fans who like their team even if they’re horrible or someone who likes a band that everyone thinks is terrible. The second type of people pick their character based on whether the character-in-question’s play style fits in with their current skill level. For example, in my early Street Fighter IV days, starting off with a complex character like C.Viper wasn’t a good idea because at the time I didn’t have the execution required to play her effectively. This skill-based approach to choosing also leads them to experiment with other characters after they get to a certain level of proficiency with their main character. The third and final type are the people who pick characters because they are easier to win with, or ‘high tier’ ones, meaning they have attributes that outrank a considerable number of characters in the roster. While this may seem shameless, it is in fact a valid strategy. In the end, the game is about winning, so you pick whoever gives you the best chance of winning.

Teaching them early, huh pal?

With that said, you’d think things would be pretty cut and dry, right? No, they aren’t. In fact, there is a fourth shadow group no one wants to admit they are a part of. The assholes are called the bandwagoners. These are the people who I despise the most. “But Phire”, you ask, “Why all the hate towards the bandwagon?” Simply put, for the fact that these are the same people who, to use a fighter as an example, will talk about how bad your character is, how weak/low-tier they are and how you need to switch them. However, if something changes or new tech is found, they’ll jump on that character too and talk about how good they are with everyone else. Of course, if you confront them, they will deny they ever said anything negative about them and claim that they had “played them before”. Come on. It’s like they just saw the ugly girl from High School hit her stride, become hot and they’re the first in line, claiming they always had a crush on her.

No one was there for these days in Vanilla 4 or Super Turbo.

Why am I bringing this up now? Well since I started playing the SFIV series I’ve watched my Cammy develop from an ’0-2 and out’ champion to something actually kind of dangerous. With the new 2012 patch, Cammy is no longer nerfed to hell. I remember in the original Arcade Edition when they took her dive kick I was about to commit seppuku and find a new main (had my mind set on Yun at the time) but I decided to stick it out with her, and my patience paid off becuase now, I like the way she plays. But now I’m seeing Cammy players popping up EVERYWHERE claiming to have a good one, which 90% of the time they really don’t. They lose to characters that they should be beating, and when fighting against Cammy they lose horribly. Playing online, I tend to win the mirror matches because 80% of the time I know what I’m looking for, what to watch out for, I’m not doing anything stupid, because I know how she works. This is the main problem with bandwagoners, because they really don’t understand the character they’re choosing. They will see videos, or watch some matches and say “Oh man that’s so cheap, I want to do that too!”. So they practice that set of moves, go out to try, then lose to high level players who know their bandwagon character is fraudulent or they lose via being counter-picked because they have NO match up experience.

Even he wasn't safe from Bandwagon fans after death.

Having beaten several ‘Cammy’ players far worse than I should have, in situations that wouldn’t have happened (like misjudging her drill distance) if these people actually knew her well enough to call their play style ‘unique’(which most bandwagoners do by default) we wouldn’t have this problem. I personally feel that people should just pick either what they like, or what they are most comfortable with and just play the game. I think it would make for a better game overall because we’d have more diversity rather than cookie cutter clones of a particular character and play style. Newsflash: This ultimately serves you and the community no purpose, because you aren’t choosing a character you’re invested in, you’re just trending. However, this may be part of a larger problem as a whole with players who aren’t willing to do any work to win popping up in large numbers. I’ll examine that next time.

"The time has come for Nintendo to stop playing it safe."

Super Mario 3D Land was supposed to be the one “killer app” that the Nintendo 3DS needed to help spur sales. With many already questioning the systems longevity and use in the homes of gamers (with their short term memory spans neglecting the fact that the Nintendo DS suffered from a paltry line up for its first year), it seemed like the first exclusive title that would usher in a longer line of not only new purchases, but new titles to go alongside it within the coming months and years. I mean, what’s not to love about a new Mario game? Not much really, though somehow that “not much” seems like a bit “too much” this time around.

Now let me say this straight out of the gate: by no means is Super Mario 3D Land a despicable or even a poor release. What Nintendo managed to do well, was done to the typical standards that we’ve all come to love. This new 3D world that Mario inhabits works on a number of levels, most notably the 3D effect. Not once does anything feel obnoxiously overdone. Actually, it seems somewhat downplayed on most occasions. There are instances in which there’s a depth perception utilized in terms of floating down slowly to platforms that are moving below Mario, or even some pipe sequences in which he can duck around and behind some blocks that pop out in 3D. It’s not a grand spectacle, but they are little bits added into the gameplay that feel not only natural, but almost as if it’s supposed to have been this way since the beginning of time. The music is serviceable, though the homages to older tunes, and the newer ones featured are nothing groundbreaking, nor memorable in the least.

It’s everything else that manages to feel either too familiar, too safe, to clumsy or too easy. The one longstanding issue that has plagued all Mario games in general is its ease in difficulty and ease in acquiring extra lives. Not even past the first world, I had nearly thirty lives and only lost one of those lives. On World 7 and died maybe eight times and have over eighty lives and counting. The challenges thrown out by 3D Land are laughable, even with the overly abused gimmicks, such as small platforms above instant death pits. The bosses make the sub castle mini-bosses in Super Mario Bros. 3 seem unstoppable. There’s really nothing holding even the most novice players back from running through 3D Land virtually unscathed….

….and running through players will. This might be the shortest traditional Mario title I have played since Super Mario Land. Each world almost ends as soon as it begins, and with just eight worlds in total, there’s little content provided. Defeating the game opens up a sorta remixed batch of “Special” stages, which add next to nothing in terms of legitimate content. Many of the stages available are near blatant retreads of what has been conquered already. Even the advent of Luigi doesn’t help refresh the notion that there’s a lack of fully fleshed content.

There are eight slots in each world, which one would think would mean that there are eight stages per world. Not the case here, as most of these worlds only have five playable stages, including the castle at the very end. Sometimes players will come across a Toad house that will provide them a meager power up, which usually isn’t the most viable choice for the stage coming up. Then there are a few question mark box stages that are opened up via star coins collected. Some worlds will open a new stage up, while others will provide some flimsy minigame like stage that ends almost as soon as it begins.

To be honest, these stages are not as creative as one would expect from such an illustrious franchise. Even the power ups are nothing special. The Tanooki Mario powerup lacks a statue transformation until the game is completed once and the special stage opens up. There’s still a lack of flight ability granted, but then again, with how embarrassingly easy the game turned out to be, the point seems moot. Star Mario seems like it’s designated mostly for the bonus areas found in certain stages, where hopping onto a rainbow musical note block sends Mario into the clouds. The Fire Mario poweup remains the unchanged, immaculate ability that it always has been. Then there’s Boomerang Mario, which is a take on my all-time favorite powerup, Hammer Bros. Mario from the third installment. The boomerangs move quite slow, and they seem to be as rare as the Hammer Bros. suit.

I wouldn’t mind so much if the stages were a bit longer, but they are mostly brief, with zero incentive to return, unless a star coin was not obtained previously. If these were all bit sized levels, but doubled in  terms of the number available to the game, then that oversight could be forgiven, however these are all miniscule, not entirely creative stages that don’t really challenge anyone that comes through them.

Then there’s that one aspect to a Mario game that never seems to falter – the controls. I really can’t chalk this up as a discomfort of using the circle pad to manipulate Mario as opposed to a traditional analog stick, but the controls do not feel as tight as they should feel. There are more awkward acceleration and deceleration moments, and just an overall feeling of disconnection between my commands and Mario’s actions. They still work, but they are not as refined as any other 2D or 3D Mario release.

By no means is Super Mario 3D Land a flop – the Mario charm is still there, as well as the colorful world that he inhabits. It’s just that the rest seems phoned in. Nintendo did manage to have the 3D effects as an augmentation to the visual design and gameplay as a whole, however the controls are not as refined as they should have been, the content is way too paltry, the difficulty is non existent and there’s little reason to replay any stage. While Super Mario 3D Land did provide an experience that does show off what 3D can add to a game, it seems like that took away from further fleshing out all of the aspects to the game. If you’re really jonesing for some Mario gameplay on the 3DS, I say stick to New Super Mario Bros. for the time being, and once 3D Land drops in price, then take that leap into the third dimension.

Rating: 7.0

Diego (left) stands solemnly as I (right) take notes

Diego, 19, was someone that I could relate to: his first rpg was Final Fantasy VI. (Ok, I’m 27 and my first RPG was Final Fantasy IV, but that’s sort-of close…) He currently is playing Etrian Odyssey on his DS, but his favourite series is the Shin Megami Tensai series. I asked him, “If you could be any FFVI character, who would you be? “… and he picked Cid ! I was taken aback by his answer. Why would anyone pick Cid? I mean, sure, he was Celes’s father figure and he ate fish like it was nobody’s business…but …there were so many other people he could have picked from that game…Cyan, Leo, Relm, Siegfried…

I asked him if he was sure that he meant Cid from FFVI and not Cid from FFVII. He was adamant: he meant Cid from FFVI because he “had a good reason to fight.” … and Cyan didn’t? They poisoned his family and rolled up in his back yard with machines! Ohhh well… I asked what he thought about Kefka and he was shocked by my question.  He settled on “Kefka is the best Final Fantasy villain…better than Sephiorth.“ Fair enough, fair enough. I asked Diego if he had any Chilean games that he liked, and of course he did: his own games.  He makes action and puzzle games for mobile platforms. Neat!

Carolina (left) and some of her adorable wares (pictured at right)

My final interview was with Carolina, 24, who is a self-described “retro gamer”; she makes her own (adorable) retro game-themed jewelry and accessories. She still actively plays her N64, NES, and SNES but she does not play any of the portable Nintendo systems.  Additionally, she is a huge fan of Plants vs Zombies on the PC. She has been playing games since she was 14, and like the Carlos’, her first game was Super Mario Brothers on the NES.  The Kirby series is her favourite, though, and the NES game Kirby’s Adventure was her first Kirby. I asked her what made her decide to start designing game jewelry, and she said that it’s simply a matter of “making what she likes.” Megaman is her next jewelry muse.  I told her that I noticed that there were not a lot of women at the game stores, and asked if she had any female friends that played games. She does: her cousin, but she shrugged and said that the vast majority of her gamer friends are guys.

Overall, it seems as though Nintendo’s game consoles are quite dominant here in Chile. There is a mainstream media frenzy over the 3DS at a much greater level than I have observed in the United States.  Then again, when I was here in September there was also a massive Sony Move media blitz. Perhaps the news media in Chile is just more enamoured with gaming gadgets than those old talking heads that we have in the United States. Or, maybe it’s some cross cultural difference in product placement fees. I’m cynical: it’s probably the latter.

(A special thanks to Rene Moncayo for providing translation and photographic assistance when it was necessary.)

In January of 2012 I found a game on Steam called Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon by Vicious Cycle Software. One of my friends previously owned the game on console and was raving about it nonstop, so I thought I would give it a try. Well, after trying it out for myself, let me say that I am both surprised and disappointed. What surprised me the most was how good the combat actually was. Honestly, I was really expecting nothing more than another rehashed modern day arcade shooter. Instead, what I received was a 3rd-person shooter that allowed me the unexpected freedom to navigate and shoot in a limited open-world environment. Another great thing about the game is the way the story was presented. In terms of atmosphere, one of the best things about this game was the fact that It made me feel like I was in the middle of a Science Fiction B-movie from the 60′s.

Another thing I definitely I liked about the game was the fact that it wasn’t a hallway shooter filled with 5 minutes of game play broken up by cutscenes after each objective. Each level in EDF:IA is huge, fully destructible, and open ended enough that I was able to change and go through different routes to accomplish the same goal. These three factors add more to the game in terms of tactics than any other modern shooter, making this game more than just a ‘simple’ arcade shooter.Customization with each of the classes was another thing I enjoyed. There are 4 classes to choose from: Jet Armor, Tactical Armor, Trooper Armor, and Battle Armor. Each class has their own upgrade system and weapons that can be used, with a ton of weapons for each that you can unlock by two methods: Playing the game and leveling up, or by earning credits that can be spent to unlock more weapons. Like any game with classes, each has pros and cons, so choosing the right weapon for the job is not only crucial, but the differences between them adds replay value. That plus the endless amount of color pallets and weapon combinations add so much variety that each time you play through the game, you can without looking the same way twice.

But, for each good thing the game does, there are a few equally bad things that take away from it.

As much as I enjoyed it, one thing I found disappointing was the overall length of the game. At 3 chapters long, I was done with the entire game in 5 hours and it left me wanting more, especially since the game is a bit light on the story. To the average player, 5 hours might not seem long enough, but one play through of a level takes about 10-20 minutes depending on how good you are at the game and the difficulty chosen. These missions have no checkpoints to speak of and rely on your lives, so as long as at least one partner is alive you can revive each other endlessly. If all team members are dead, that is Game Over and you have to start from the beginning of the mission. On top of that, reload times tend to take a bit longer (even with the fast reload option) so if a weapon you are using has only 5 shots, then you need to make sure you can find some cover or dodge long enough to reload and start firing again.

Some people may consider the AI of the enemies to be too easy, but it’s the sheer amount of them (numbering in hundreds) that makes them a daunting enemy. Another disappointment from the game is the online play, and while you can read what ExpertPenguin thought about the console version, I am not sure how populated it is at this moment. I do know that right now, it is difficult to find a game online, and with some games having cross platform play, it makes you wonder why the creators didn’t consider it an option. Starting a co-op game from scratch, I was able to make it through the entire first chapter without running into anyone else. Perhaps having the option to search for other players on the 360/PS3 can make its way into the sequel?

All in all, Earth Defense Force : Insect Armageddon is a fun fast paced 3rd person shooter that brings a bunch of new ideas to the table in the shooter genre. It has a ton of action, high replay value, and is one of those games you can play with several friends in local or online multiplayer, as long as you have a spare pad laying around, or were lucky enough to bump into a few soldiers online. Happy gaming!

Rating: 7.0

I played the first EDF and I lamented at how weak the mulitplayer was in that version. It supported no online play of any kind, but as a local split-screen game, it was just the type of simple, arcade fun that you would need between days of grinding out combos in Street Fighter, or just from dealing with any other similarly complex titles. My first look at this game was during PAX East and I was instantly excited for its release. I instantly fell in love with the new Heavy armor class, as large machine guns and explosives are a fast way to win my undying love, and the new online multiplayer, supporting not just two, but up to four players at the same time Most of the details about the game have been covered in the previous review, so with no further ado we’ll jump right into my thoughts on the multiplayer experience!

Seeing how I received this game pretty late in its cycle, a couple of my CL teammates already had the game and were up for blasting some bugs with me. This is great, as the game seems to come alive when you’re not dealing with some AI drones. When you can instead coordinate attacks and focus your combined firepower on the same target things become a million times easier. The only thing I don’t like is having multiple players use the same suit in battle. I feel having two battle suits walking around detracts a little bit from the overall experience because the armors share a similar control scheme, but have different play styles that can be useful on their own. It creates a situation where you’ll have two players playing the same way, with the same weapons, and with no real new techniques being shown off. The weapon balance is spread between the classes like this on purpose to encourage variety, and sharing the same weaknesses makes some stages a bit harder to complete than others. If there’s any problem I really had with this system, it’s like Geekboi mentioned earlier, that the checkpointing system is a bit unforgiving. Most of these levels take 20-30 minutes to finish, and if all players are dead, it requires a start to the very beginning of the stage. If anyone on your team is ill equipped, it can make the levels feel tedious at best and an endless grind at worst.

The net code seems solid for the job as well. As my team and I ran through the campaign, we weren’t thrown off by any slow down, and there were no hiccups to speak of. Survival mode is where we started to encounter problems though, and with 3 players in the room, things became a little bit dicey as the screen filled with enemies. we experienced some slowdown as things got hectic, but other than that? They hammered themselves out just fine.I also experienced a strange bug regarding how the game saves itself. I have backed out to the loadout screen from the pause menu more than only to have all my progress lost. It happened even when I quit to the main menu as well. I don’t know if this was a glitch they’re planning to patch or what, but going solo through 5 levels in this game tough enough. To lose it and start all over again is needlessly frustrating.

Overall, I give this game an 8 out of 10. The save hiccups were annoying and there were some slowdown issues, but it wasn’t enough to make the game unplayable, or any less fun. This is definitely worth a playthrough.

Rating:8.0

Fans of the popular Legends franchise, Pocket Legends and Star Legends, will discover a gameplay evolution in Dark Legends that draws them even deeper into the experience. The combat system delivers fast paced, action oriented gameplay that includes new mechanics such as charge attacks and the ability to drain enemies. A wide breadth of solo and multiplayer content will also be available.

The most significant change is a much deeper focus on narrative. In addition to story communicated during the 3D multiplayer missions, players will periodically be given the option to complete quick action missions with a single tap. These missions use brief cut scenes to create an interactive storybook, where players experience the life of a vampire up-close and personal.

The company’s goal for Dark Legends is to combine casual, strategic advancement content with their award winning real-time 3D multiplayer system to create a blend of gameplay never before seen.

“With each entry to the Legends franchise we raise the bar for the pick-up-and-play MMO space,” said Gary Gattis, CEO, Spacetime Studios. “The changes between Pocket Legends and Star Legends were significant, but Dark Legends is a quantum leap forward in interactive storytelling. Live the dark fantasy and play anywhere, anytime, anyone!”

Dark Legends opens with the player recently raised and under the direction of the vampire that sired them. The secret existence of vampires has been exposed and angry, misguided humans are uniting to exterminate the undead plague by any means necessary. Players must work with their clan to survive this brutal new world.

The previous Legends titles, fantasy Pocket Legends and sci-fi Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles have been downloaded more than seven million times, making it the world’s largest mobile MMO franchise.

Dark Legends with be shown for the first time publicly at GDC 2012

I am intrigued because now that I’m playing iPhone games I actually appreciate this platform a bit more. We’ll have more details available as we get them. Check out the Facebook group here.

Racing

Twisted Metal (PS3)

Release date – February 14, 2012

Alright, so I know this game isn’t exactly part of the typical racer genre but this is my list, I do what I want and I doubt anyone is going to argue anyway. Besides lets face it, what other category can you really put it in? In actuality the beauty and lore of Twisted Metal lies within the fact that you aren’t just simply racing from point A to B in tricked out vehicles! Your participating in a survival race for your life in crazy cars,buses, motorcycles and even ice cream trucks armed to the teeth with some of the nastiest weaponry known to man. Include that with some highly unique and rather insane characters as the drivers, let them do battle across the globe and you have a recipe for timeless fun.

It’s been years since Calypso and the Twisted Metal participants last wrecked our living rooms with heavy napalms and guided missiles. The same idea still applies, fight to the death for the grant of any wish you could possibly imagine. Hopefully our contestants have learned to choose their words a lot more carefully than numerous prior blunders which have resulted in non canon deaths and misfortune. Although the roster is taking a sizable cut in the eighth title, players will have the choice of now playing under 1 of the 4 factions lead by a respective leader which include The Preachers (Preacher), The Dolls (Dollface), The Clowns (Sweet Tooth) and The Skulls (Mr.Grimm).

With a heavy focus on the multiplayer component, Twisted Metal PS3 looks to not only make a powerful return from it’s past success but to also make said impact to last with staying power. 16 players will battle online in various modes including the classic death match, all new Nuke Mode and more. With destructible environments, modern day high def visuals, over the top weaponry and power ups in which include the ability to transform your vehicle into robotic killing machines, Twisted Metal is definitely the most fun your going to have behind the wheel in 2012.

RPG (Role Playing Game)

Mass Effect 3 (PC,XBOX360,PS3)

Release Date – March 6, 2012

Each year there are a handful of RPG’s that seek out to captivate the role playing audience with new game play elements enriched with a powerful storyline which feature unforgettable characters that pull us into their worlds each time we pick up the controller. But really only one game ever emerges in every console generation that truly succeeds in doing so in unique fashion.

The Mass Effect series is not only that stand out RPG of the current generation but unlike many other role playing series, it manages to raise the bar through each sequel rather than struggling to maintain the lore of it’s previous installments. Mass Effect 3 shows no signs of breaking the trend of improvements, promising extended long hours of game play, further depth in dialogue which made the series so popular, an insanely impressive cast of characters you can’t help but invest yourself in and further expansion on a fully interactive and massive world which plays sandbox to it all.

The conclusion to the battle with the Reapers will be nothing short of epic and will of course lead to multiple endings which all will be determined by all player actions leading up from the first game up until the final moments of the third. An all new 4 player co-op mode which enables players to assist others in their own campaign to prep for the final battle makes Mass Effect 3 the first and only RPG experience of it’s time to really bring it’s community together for what promises to be it’s most memorable moments.

Shooter

Bioshock: Infinite (PC,XB360,PS3)

Release Date: TBA

The shooters genre has become the victim of inflation over the last couple of years. Yearly releases and multiple clone competitors have made the shooter experience to feel like a mainstream cash cow that comes a dime a dozen. Bioshock Infinite is seemingly the only shooter in development with those stigmas in mind. Breaking free of the typical run and gun experience because another section of the world is in conflict yet again, actual adventure awaits players here in Infinite. Former private detective Booker DeWitt is on a mission in the fictional floating city of Columbia to find a young woman named Elizabeth. Problem is, the city is rumored to have vanished into the clouds with no trace but tales of an unruly and deranged population.

Telekinetic combat in combination with traditional gun play return with all new powers and elemental abilities that require players to use more brain than brawn against the many enemy types in the Bioshock world which hold unique strengths and weaknesses. Visuals are treated with a much more colorful and vivid breathing world in comparison to the underwater based previous games and more stylish cinematics to better push the action along this thrilling ride. No doubt, given this formula looks to not only be one of the most anticipated games of 2012 but also an easy candidate for Game of The Year, provided it delivers in the manner expected.

Fighting

Street Fighter X Tekken (PC, XB360,PS3)

Release Date: March 6, 2012

There is only one name that goes almost instantly synonymous with the fighting game genre and that is the Street Fighter series hands down. While there are seemingly tons of fighters up on the horizon during the recent boom of the genre over the last couple of years, along with the success of Marvel Vs Capcom 3, it comes to no surprise the that Capcom flagship cast of Street Fighter would see another cross series of their own. The most well known fighters of both brands will join the melee in Street Fighters traditional 2d plane, as well as a handful of iconic characters from past generations making their return.

The popularity of Tekken and it’s diverse roster makes so much sense for the sake of a current generation rivalry. Art style, game mechanics and engine will favor the Street Fighter play style with slight nods towards Tekken such as the ability to juggle combos and their famed tag system. A new element in the guise of ‘Gems’ have been incorporated which grant each character unique fighting abilities towards their offense, defense or supportive arsenal and all require a certain criteria to be met in game to be activated.

Action Adventure

Tomb Raider

Release Date: QT3

The upcoming Tomb Raider is an original take on the origins of the ever famed Laura Croft and lets face it, we’re already sold. The backdrop is a much more dark, gritty and mature setting than we’ve ever seen in the entire series with the youngest character model of Laura in history. While details aren’t currently anything to sink our teeth to deep into, released screenshots and videos have gamers across the world already questioning if this title might just be the next coming of Uncharted. The story promises to be a well fleshed telling of how Ms. Croft matured from a rather innocent and thimble young woman to a hardened survivalist expert.

The Internet will be buzzing with every leaked drop of info about this major well into it’s release and no doubt, well all be clinging on to each and every minor detail!

Darksiders II sets aim at putting the Action Adventure genre in a rather refreshing light. However, no matter what the intentions, no adventure feels quite as awesome unless there is a stand out character for the player to enjoy and care about during the ride. The idea is to lost yourself within an immersive world and take on the persona of the avatar on screen. Looking at this teaser, it is clear that Darksiders 2, if nothing else, surely possesses that unique character that players would love to be!

Death, fellow Horseman and brother of Horseman War from the first game, will be the main character in Darksiders 2. Should this teaser be any indication as to what that exactly means for the player as well as his enemies, both sides are in for a rather brutal treat to say the least.  In addition to the reveal of the main character, massive improvements have also been noted in terms of the world Death will combat in. These additions include but are not limited to a much larger and expansive levels, some even doubling that of the first and cities which will act as hubs between various dungeons for the player to progress in the story, level up and find numerous collectables scattered in the game. Cities will also contain a lively population of NPC’s among the town, in classic RPG fashion, complete with dialogue to be exchanged as well as offering the player the option to participate in side missions for rewards justifying said mission.

“Death Lives”, knowing the play style and mechanics of Darksiders, is not simply just a catchy themed phrase but an ominous omen which could heavily indicate what we can expect in terms of all out action, combat and rapid beat em up style game play the game has done a pretty good job of executing thus far. More than likely Death will feature an unlockable combat arsenal themed around “death” in some pretty creative ways that hopefully encourage gamers to wonder what else can be done when comboing special moves together with his attack strings.

Here we have a look at Death (saying things like that will never get old to me) and some of his over the top weaponry along with some scenery and backdrops during some intense staredowns.

In the coming weeks we will delve deeper into the further game play details of Darksiders 2 which is set for release in June of 2012. (ps3,xbox360,wiiU)

All rumors and speculation have been put to rest with the recent release of the Resident Evil 6 trailer. Set for release November 20th, Capcom’s famous survival horror series has the Internet abuzz yet again with this intense showing of it’s ever revolving storyline and easily the best visuals the series has ever seen.

One thing for sure is this, aside from amazing visuals that don’t seem to suffer in actual game play, the fact that we are seemingly dealing with ACTUAL zombies once again is a huge relief. Current generation Resident Evil games (4-5), while good and I take nothing away from them as an enjoyable experience, have seemed to suffer from some serious identity loss issues over the years and forgetting the true zombie atmosphere origins. Shifting from Survival Horror, in a strong fashion which made the series so popular in the 90′s, each installment has slowly curved towards that of an action series featuring the RE cast more than anything else. Looking at this reveal, Capcom seems to have quite possibly found the perfect mix of the two and one can only hope that the initial scare factor of the series will also make it’s return alongside the zombie hordes in scattered areas of the game.

Leon has been faced with some rather harsh decisions to be made, including shooting the infected president in the head, while Chris is seen dealing with similar viral problems over seas and doing battle in China. With Wesker out of the picture, (or not) his dream of global saturation doesn’t seem to far off considering the massive scale of infection that the RE universe has never experienced before until now. A new layer of melee combat is displayed heavily in a majority of the scenes along with an expansion on gun play similar to what we’ve been seeing in Operation Raccoon City. The two teams could quite possibly be taking notes from one another to create a Resident Evil experience that’s enjoyable to all audiences of series, old or new.

We will have to wait no doubt until E3 to sink our teeth into anything more awesome than the reveal. One of the main questions being, who else will make their return into this intertwined story. Ashley can be seen roughly around the last 60 seconds along side of a new character who seem to have a blood type that agrees with one of Umbrella’s past or current virus strands and seemingly grant him heightened combat abilities similar to how it effected Wesker. Maybe Sherri will find her way back into the story as well, considering she holds immunity to the G-Virus strand. Chocolate Lemon will be sure to keep you up to date with any and all questions, theories and rumors surrounding whats sure to be one of this Fall’s biggest  blockbuster gaming titles.