Dead Island Infecting the Big Screen!

Lionsgate announced today that they have optioned the film rights from Deep Silver to develope a feature film inspired by the game Dead Island.  The trailer Deep Silver released for the game back in February 2011 was a viral success, it was beautiful and haunting.  Personally I wish it had more relevance to the game because it was truly one of the best trailers I have ever seen, but that didn't happen.  The trailer was named by G4 as the best trailer ever made.  Incase you missed it somehow check below!

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Defend that Dungeon With The Monk

New class trailer for the game Dungeon Defenders featuring the Monk has been released. The monk can use his aura abilities to heal or buff allies and attack enemies, making him more of a support class. Using a spear the monk can dish out damage from melee, while attacking from range with his magic, making him an all around class. Check out the trailer below to see the Monk in action. Dungeon Defenders will be out on October 19th for Xbox Arcade and PC, with Playstation Network at a later date.

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Code Veronica X HD Launches With Trailer

Out today for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is the rerelease of Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD. Remastered with HD visuals, Veronica takes place on Umbrella owned Rockfort Island. Protagonist Claire Redfield investigates an Umbrella facility in Paris, but is captured. She is then transported to Rockfort Island and awaits her death. Originally released for the SEGA Dreamcast, Resident Evil: Code Veronica X was the very first Resident Evil to feature a full 3D environment.

The HD remake adds trophies/achievements and goes back to the "classic survival horror" that made Resident Evil famous. You can pick it up now for $19.99 on the PlayStation Network or 1600 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live.

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GameCenter CX - Episode 28 - Super Mario 64 Part 2

GameCenter CX, a Japanese TV show, that stars Shinya Arino. He plays Japan's most popular games, usually being old retro games, and records his playtime under a time limit, usually under 24 hours. He is assisted by Staff for support and game play help.

Super Mario 64, the legendary 3D game by Nintendo, Arino's challenge will be to complete the game, can he do it in part 2?

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Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Adds Star Power

Bethesda revealed today that Elder Scroll V: Skyrim has cast award winning actors. The cast that Bethesda announced include:

• Christopher Plummer (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, “The Insider”)
• Max Von Sydow (“The Exorcist,” “Minority Report”)
• Joan Allen (“The Contender,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”)

Skyrim will also have other high profile actors doing voices for the game, Bethesda also took the opportunity to reveal some:

• Michael Hogan (“Battlestar Galactica”)
• Vladimir Kulich (“The 13th Warrior,” “Smoking Aces”
• Claudia Christian (“Babylon 5”)
• Diane Louise Salinger (“Carnivale”)
• Renee Victor (“Weeds”)
• George Coe (“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”)

Together the complete cast combined has over 70 different voice actors with over 60,000 lines of spoken dialogue. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be launching on November 11th for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC platforms.

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Dungeons - The Dark Lord Review

Playing the evil villain can be fun, creating dungeons, setting up your paths, letting heroes plunder your treasure, and then when the moment is ripe, strike the hero down. This is exactly what the game Dungeons did back in February 2011. Now here we are again, taking up the role as Dungeon Lord, with a full blown stand-alone expansion pack, Dungeons – The Dark Lord released by Kalypso Media. Building on the foundation of Dungeons, the add-on does many things right, fixing some flaws found its predecessor. Realmforge Studios went the extra mile for this expansion, adding in a new campaign, more gimmicks, multiplayer and new game modes.

Fellowship of the Other Ring

Previously in Dungeons, the Dark Lord was kicked from his throne and sets out to regain it, conquering everything in his path. Eventually getting the throne back, the Dark Lord begins going insane, wanting to construct the ultimate relic to control all the underworld inhabitants. The relic he creates turns out to be a ring, which his then sidekick, a little green goblin steals and proceeds to look for help in destroying said ring. He encounters Calypso, she agrees to help destroy the Other Ring. With her not wanting to become a slave to the Dark Lord, they both set out and encounter the other evil Lords from Dungeons. Together they form the Fellowship of the Other Ring.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Dungeons – The Dark Lord’s campaign is a spoof of a series of books about lords and rings. The games follow the rag tag group of Calypso (female demoness), Minos (A Minotaur), Sidekick (Green Goblin) and The Zombie King (King of The Zombies) on the quest to destroy the Other Ring.

Massive Battle

Dungeons – The Dark Lord campaign ran me about 8-10 hours, with taking my time building dungeons and increasing my Dungeon Lords power. Divided into chapters, each chapter is a very long level, spamming multiple types of dungeon from ice or fire to the basic dungeon, sometimes taking over an hour to complete. A big flaw in Dungeons was how repetitive the campaign could be. In Dark Lord the developers helped remedy this, by having players do different things to help keep it fresh. Usually at the start of a level, you guide your characters through a dungeon like maze, fighting monsters, making sure nobody dies, until you find a dungeon heart. You would then proceed to gather soul energy, gold or whatever task the objective wanted. Since you are with 3 other bosses most of the time, you can easily switch between them to fit your play style, but stats and skills do not transfer over, so you have to spend gold and soul energy for each one. Some of the more interesting levels split your group into two, as you manage two dungeons or combine the dungeon maze with dungeon building. It puts your multitasking skills to the test and provides different experiences. Some of the levels do repeat themselves, however it is not nearly as bad as Dungeons.

That's not an old wizard!

The campaign is full of humor and cheesy dialogue, like the first game, some of it feels forced but never cringe worthy. Since the story is a parody, it is very predictable, the light hearted story was enough to want to push forward, while still enjoyable, just did nothing new. The ending of the Dungeons – The Dark Lord was over abruptly and was very unfulfilling. Dungeons – The Dark Lord does not take itself seriously but it still offers an enjoyable experience, those hoping to be the evil villain bent on destroying the world, will be very disappointed.

Skill Trees are out

As an add-on, Dungeons – The Dark Lord expands on the base game, adding new features and tweaking others. One of the major changes, no longer will players deal with earning stats or skill points or even a skill tree. Instead Realmforge put all the piles of gold you would accumulate in your dungeon to better use; you will now buy stats, increasing the amount of gold or soul energy needed as you add buy more points. Each Dungeon Lord has its own unique skill set and when switching between them, I found it a hassle to manage each one’s ability set. Which I ended up just picking my favorite, sticking with that choice the whole game. Gimmicks also work slightly different, when a hero examines one, they will give a slight increase in prestige. They are now divided into two different groups, floor and wall. Floor gimmicks have less cost, less prestige given, but more bonuses when a hero examines them, with the wall gimmicks they cost more, give more prestige, but give fewer bonuses from heroes. A new type of special gimmick was introduced, specifically for certain rooms, these gimmicks can only have 1 of each type placed for that room and give special bonuses, the skulls gimmick makes gives a 50% bonus to soul energy drain in your jail room, making heroes give you soul energy 50% faster.

Heroes enter your dungeon quicker, often flooding your dungeon as you wait for them to become satisfied before you can harvest them. It is not uncommon to be chasing your happy hero and find 4 or 5 of his allies attacking you. This is a better change, as your dungeon feels livelier with parties of heroes wandering your evil domain, upgrading equipment and stealing treasure, but with the downside as you have to eliminate other heroes in the process to get just one. Also gone is heroes finding your dungeon boring, you were constantly left wondering what was wrong, with no explanation.

Hero traffic jam!

Goblin workers dig much faster, which is a great tweak to the gameplay, no longer must you stand around waiting for them to slowly dig, tapping your evil foot away, watching them slowly dig out your dungeon. Monsters also received a change, with three types, one for expanding your territory, the second for dishing out damage to heroes and the last as a glutton for punishment that can take a beating. Along with the monster change, which was much needed, was the ability to change the monster shelters. Once you capture a monster shelter, you can then change it to any of the other monster shelters at will, but lose the old replaced monsters in your dungeon.

New to Dungeons – The Dark Lord is multiplayer. Modes include King of the Hill, which you must hold an area of the dungeon as long as you can, Every Man for Himself has the Dungeon Lords duking it out until only one survives and Soul Survival makes players rush to gather as much soul energy as possible while it steadily drains from them. The Steam only mode Piñata which awards players prestige for slaying heroes and is the only way to gather prestige, jails and gimmicks are disabled. At the time of the review, the multiplayer servers were not up.

Guys? I could use some backup!

Dungeons – The Dark Lord’s core gameplay has largely remained the same, but with tweaks to elements that help make it more enjoyable. The basic gameplay of tending to heroes needs is at the core of the experience. Building monsters for them to fight or take damage from, treasure to plunder, equipment or knowledge to find and traps to disable. All of this is done to make them happy, so that you the Dungeon Lord can slay them, and drain their soul energy, helping you become more powerful. Unfortunately traps or monsters still take a huge penalty if they finish off the hero, so you must be a janitor running around the map, harvesting your heroes before they leave your lair. This hurts the game, as you cannot put your evil plans to fruition, making the heroes lives a living hell and instead must make them happy, then you must be the one to land the killing blow.

Graphics for Dark Lord are the same as Dungeons, except with a bigger variety, more monsters, spells, gimmicks and heroes. An all new dungeon theme, an ice cave was added. It features all ice themed monsters and gimmicks, which look great and are well animated, a much needed changed from the standard dungeon tile set. Heroes look better, with prettier equipment and designs, giving them a more heroic or seasoned look. A great new addition is that heroes have a variety of spells to choose from along with graphic effects for these. Rogues will now stealth and sneak around, mages can cast area of effect spells or heal and necromancers summon an undead pet. Each Dungeon Lord also has its own theme of pets, to help keep more variety between the Lords. One bug that was present, every so often heroes would have a jerky combat move animation.

This is my stylish Necromancer tier armor

On max settings, textures looked nice, character models although small are well detailed when zoomed as close as possible and the UI was clean, easy to navigate. Except when switching between Lords, the skill bar does not change when switched to a different one, making skill management a pain. The skill bar also reset every chapter, except for the default spells, which created a hassle as you can forget that you didn’t have the skill learned again when you need it in the thick of battle or taking time out at the start of every chapter just to organize your spells on the UI.

Your agonizing screams please me...

Dark Lord’s main theme remains unchanged from Dungeons, which is a shame, since the first theme was enjoyable, it would have been nice to hear something new. The voice acting improved a little, but due to the writing, still sounds off, especially Zombie King, who still takes forever to finish a bit of dialogue or Minos who snorts between every other word. When these two characters speak, the cut scenes just drag on and on. During play, you will hear Sidekick constantly say something is happening off screen, which can get rather annoying as he repeats the same bit. In game music helps set the dungeon theme and while it isn't memorable, it's not terrible either. When heroes attack they let out a battle cry, which is campy and cliché, something you would expect from a MMORPG.  Old sound effects are all recycled from Dungeons, except the new ice dungeon, they don’t sound particular amazing, but they are fitting to the monsters or traps. To fit the new dungeon, heroes should have had new voice overs and new sayings, they get rather tiring after you see “Taste My +1 Dagger” for the 10^th time.

Fans of Dungeons and newcomers will be pleased with the expansion; it offers a better dungeon building experience. Improving on aspects in Dungeons, with a better campaign, tweaked gameplay, more gameplay modes and variety. Even with many tweaks and additions, being a Dungeon Janitor is what keeps Dungeons – The Dark Lord from truly becoming great.

GamingCX gives Dungeons - The Dark Lord 7 out of 10

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Playing The Pixels - Driver SF and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

In this episode, my co-host is still away in LA so his spot is filled in by my friend Kevin. Our reviews include Driver San Francisco and Deus Ex Human Revolution. I know I mentioned my ideas about Deus Ex a couple episodes ago, but this is a review for the FULL game, I only played it partially. Our catch-up reviews include Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, and Mass Effect 2.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

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PSN Getting Chrono Trigger Later This Week

 Andriasang  has been keeping pace with Square Enix's Shinji Hashimoto's twitter account and has caught word that Chrono Trigger is finally getting a release for the 28th of this month on PSN. The game is priced at ¥1,200 in Japan.

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Modern Warfare 3 Achieves Leak Out

The latest Call of Duty's achievements were revealed today. If you played past games in the series, you know what to expect here. It does reveal some plot details, so be wary to look if you do not want anything spoiled prior to the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 3.  Head on over to Xbox360Achievements for those of you that don't mind having minor spoilers, check them out.

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F-Zero (SNES)

F-Zero is a series of futuristic racing video games originally created by Nintendo EAD with multiple games developed by outside companies. The first game was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990 and prompted Nintendo to create multiple sequels on succeeding gaming consoles.





TheRagnarokSeeker

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Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, is a 2.5D remake of Rondo of Blood for the PlayStation Portable. It includes the original game and a port of its sequel, Symphony of the Night, as unlockable content. Symphony of the Night included the option to play as Maria, and redone scripts and voice acting. Gameplay in The Dracula X Chronicles remains largely unchanged from Rondo of Blood. However, a Boss Rush mode was added and completion of it three times unlocks the mini-game Peke. It was released in North America on October 23, 2007, in Japan on November 8, 2007, in Europe on February 15, 2008 and in Australia & New Zealand on April 9, 2008.



Gameplay provided by TheRagnarokSeeker

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GameCenter CX - Episode 27 - Super Mario 64

GameCenter CX, a Japanese TV show, that stars Shinya Arino. He plays Japan's most popular games, usually being old retro games, and records his playtime under a time limit, usually under 24 hours. He is assisted by Staff for support and game play help.

Super Mario 64, the legendary 3D game by Nintendo, Arino's challenge will be to complete the game, can he do it?

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Battlefield 3 - 99 Problems Video

Is this game really going to be "above and beyond the call"? I guess we will see come this holiday season, but until then, sink your ears into this little piece....




Battlefield 3 is set to be released on October 25th for the PS3, 360 and PC.

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Dominion's a League of Legend!

Riot Games launched a new game mode for League of Legends today.  This new mode will be called Dominion, it will be a capture-and-hold style of play for the hit multiplayer online battle arena.  Summoners will battle it out for control of five key points on the new map "The Crystal Scar".  The new mode is said to be an accelerated style of pvp for the game and victory is always in question as late game comebacks are always a possibility.

Here's a list of all the new features available with League of Legends: Dominion and check out the spotlight video below!

·         Capture-and-hold gameplay: Summoners battle it out for control of five unique strategic targets, capturing points from the opposing team and defending them against enemy intrusion.
·         An all-new map: The action in League of Legends: Dominion takes place in the Crystal Scar, a highly contested, war-torn mining village featuring stunning new art crafted specifically for the new map.
·         Fast-paced action: League of Legends: Dominion is an accelerated version of classic League of Legends gameplay – matches last around 20 minutes, so gamers can enjoy a rapid-fire alternative to the more strategic, measured pace of Summoner’s Rift.
·         Non-stop combat: From beginning to end, players will enjoy unrelenting skirmishes as they vie for control over the map – in League of Legends: Dominion, Summoners can expect an onslaught of one-on-one and small team fights.
·         Down-to-the-wire victories: Matches of League of Legends: Dominion are competitive until the very end – late-game comebacks are possible and the outcome is always in question.
·         Completely free: Like classic League of Legends, Dominion is completely free-to-play for new and veteran Summoners alike.  Players will be able to use all their existing masteries, runes, champions and skins on Dominion.

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Guild Wars 2 Blue Ribbon Winner

Guild Wars 2 was named "Best of Show" at Eurogamer Expo 2011.  It beat out nine other titles including Battlefield 3 and Super Mario 3D for the coveted prize.  The Eurogamer's Best of Show Award was chosen the Eurogamer.net editorial staff.  Eurogamer is Europe's leading independent gaming media specialist, making the award quite a accomplishment.  All of the ten nominees where playable at the expo for the thirty thousand attendees over four days at the Earls Court.  Guild War 2 won for its incredible depth and intelligent new mmo design.

Here's a list of all the nominees.

Guild Wars 2 (NCsoft/ArenaNet)

At a Distance (Terry Cavanagh)
Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros./Rocksteady)
Battlefield 3 (EA/DICE)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision/Infinity Ward)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve/Hidden Path)
Dark Souls (Namco Bandai/From Software)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks/Bethesda Game Studios)
Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Sony/Naughty Dog)

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Final Fantasy XIII-2 Soundtrack Details

The Final Fantasy XIII-2 soundtrack is being released one day prior to the game's actual release in Japan on 12/14. It is coming in two different editions: a 4CD+DVD limited edition for ￥4,800 and a standard 4 CD offering for ￥3,990.

There is no track listing offered at this time but you can head to their official site to listen to a sample.

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$1,000,000 Video Game For Sale

I was just floating around on Ebay and found an interesting listing for the ultra-rare Tetris that was released for the Japanese Mega-Drive some time ago. This game was pulled off shelves due to the copywrite mess that Tetris has been involved in since its inception meaning this title is somewhere in the single digits when it comes to remaining copies. This one in particular has been signed by the creator of the game, Alekséi Pázhitnov, making it a desirable piece of gaming history for any collector. But I think $1,000,000 is asking close to a million dollars too much for any game.

This guy has actually been holding onto this game for sometime as I first read of this particular cartridge about a year ago at ASSEMblergames and it's nice to see the thread lives on. So I think at least to the sellers knowledge this is a legit cart, though I can't make any judgements whether it actually is or isn't.

I think it's interesting to note though that this prized title is being shipped by freight. You think he would atleast fly in the winning bidder and hand it over in person.

Ebay

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Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Walkthrough

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier was the first video game in the Valis series. Telenet Japan originally developed and published Valis in 1986 for the MSX and PC-88 home computers. Tokuma Shoten would later release a version for the Famicom in 1987. In 1991, additional publishers Riot (Japan) and Renovation (US) released versions for the Sega Mega Drive (also called Sega Genesis in North America).



TheRagnarokSeeker

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GameCenter CX - Episode 26 - Doraemon

GameCenter CX, a Japanese TV show, that stars Shinya Arino. He plays Japan's most popular games, usually being old retro games, and records his playtime under a time limit, usually under 24 hours. He is assisted by Staff for support and game play help.

In Episode 26, Arino plays Doraemon, will he be able to complete this challenge?

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Chrono Trigger Walkthrough

Chrono Trigger is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Trigger's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a freelance designer and creator of Enix's popular Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, a freelance manga artist famed for his work with Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball. Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, Masato Kato wrote most of the plot, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored most of the game before falling ill and deferring remaining tracks to Final Fantasy composerNobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.

Chrono Trigger takes place in an original world similar to Earth, with eras such as the prehistoric age, where early humans and dinosaurs share the earth; the Middle Ages, replete with knights, monsters, and magic; and the post-apocalyptic future, where humans and sentient robots struggle to survive.



(This is CartridgeBased's favorite game of all time.)

TheRagnarokSeeker

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