Praise for Mutant Warzone

The Wizard of Vestron reviews Mutant Warzone, stating:

"Now THIS is what gaming is all about."

"Put Mutant Warzone on fast mode and see if your not shitting your pants within 30 seconds as you become surrounded by the mutated living dead."

Go read the full review now!

Also, download Mutant Warzone!

Great review Wiz!

Read The Full Article:
http://8bitcity.blogspot.com/2011/02/praise-for-mutant-warzone_14.html

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Spanish hacker threatens Nintendo with stolen
info

Nintendo's Spanish division, Nintendo Ibérica, was approached by a hacker who says he had managed to acquire a database of personal information on about 4,000 of Nintendo's customers. This guy was looking to blackmail Nintendo with this database, threatening to post the personal info on an Internet forum and lodge a complaint with Spain's Data Protection Agency if his demands were not met. 

His demands were not met.

Hacker guy decided to start posting some of the information on the Web after Nintendo declined, and soon afterward, Spanish authorities swooped in and arrested him. His demands were never announced, but we do know that he was arrested in the province of Malaga, says PC World.

I'm guessing the dude demanded a 3DS on launch day. Nintendo probably ignored him because they knew his demands were impossible to meet.

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PlayStation Plus members can get Flying Hamster
for free

Okay, now this is an honest-to-goodness nice use of Valentine's Day for marketing purposes. Today, PlayStation Plus subscribers can grab The Game Atelier's PS3/PSP Minis title Flying Hamster for free.

Granted, it's only a $2.99 download regularly. But these "little reasons" to have a Plus account add up rather quickly. And heck, the cute-'em-up vibe is certainly a good match for this decidedly artificial day. Might make for a good surprise if your significant other enjoys flying hamsters. (Who doesn't?)

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"Games Cause Rape" Psychiatrist Defends Her
Position

Carole Lieberman, the "media psychiatrist" who claimed on Fox News that videogames are responsible for turning people into rapists, has finally issued a statement defending her claim.

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Next Assassin's Creed to be detailed in May

With Ubisoft announcing today that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has cleared 6.5 million units shipped, it's become evident that we cannot seem to get enough of the series. And, as long as they continue to be well-made games, there's not a whole lot to complain about.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot gave us an update on that front as well. "We will have an Assassin's Creed this year," as he put it simply. "We are going to give you more details in May."

I suppose this is as good of opportunity as any for you lot to voice your suggestions, concerns, and everything in between. Where do you want this next AC installment to go?

New Assassin's Creed to be announced in May [CVG]

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Drunk vision: Marvel Vs Capcom 3 launch event

video details and more

Destructoid went to the Marvel Vs Capcom 3 launch party last week and I'm not going to lie to you guys. I got pretty damn drunk. So we thought it would be a good idea to interview Capcom's Seth Killian, Marvel's Agent M and pro cosplayer Vampy. We also talked to Ghost Face Killa from Wu-Tang Clan. Word, son.

The party was pretty damn awesome. Nice balance of stations for people to play the fighting mash-up and they even had Super Street Fighter IV 3DS for fans to play all while DJ QBert and other musicians performed on stage.

... I honestly don't remember half of the night.

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NBA finally coming to Facebook with NBA Legend
(Facebook)

The NFL and FIFA have already made their presence known in the world of Facebook gaming, and now the NBA is set to join that list. Professional basketball will soon be coming to the social network in the form of the upcoming NBA Legend.

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NFL extends EA's exclusive Madden contract
through 2013

If you're an ESPN NFL 2K5 fan who happens to be single today, then this news isn't going to make your Valentine's Day any better.

According to a SportsBusiness Journal report, the NFL is doing Electronic Arts a big favor: the league has reduced the fees for its exclusive contract with EA Sports for the publisher's Madden NFL videogames, and in addition, has extended the deal by a year -- through 2013. The ominous prospect of an NFL lockout (and accordingly, the possibility that there will be no football season this fall) is leaving in the lurch companies who have similar licensing contracts with the NFL, but then, there's nothing quite like Madden.

As a result of the looming lockout, EA made conservative forecasts for its revenue this year, since Madden is such a perennial big seller -- in a recent investors' call, EA CFO Eric Brown explained that the publisher's financial expectations take into account the assumption that a lockout will occur, and that it will wipe out the 2011 NFL season. In addition, the publisher reportedly requested in October that its scheduled payments to the NFL for 2011 be reduced by $30 million.

The new terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Wayne Weaver -- owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and chairman of the league's Business Ventures Committee -- noted that the restructured contract is an acknowledgment of the "difficult environment" that the potential lockout has created. It's a mutually beneficial agreement between the NFL and one of its "core partners," said Weaver:

Maybe it makes some sense to extend something out longer and give our partner some relief in the short term but gain something on the back end.

So the deal, which was originally signed in 2005 for three years and renewed for another five years in 2008, has now been extended for one more year. That means that the next NFL-licensed football videogame that could possibly have direct competition is Madden NFL 15.

Don't hold your breath, though. The exclusive contract is simply too lucrative for both sides -- the five-year agreement that was signed in 2008 is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in guarantees and royalties -- so it would be silly to let the deal ever run out as long as it remains profitable.

We contacted EA Sports for this story, but the publisher had no comment.

NFL gives EA a break [SportsBusiness Journal via Pasta Padre]

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Groundhog Day: Final Fantasy Tactics

_{[For February, our Monthly Musing asks you to tell us about a specific game you just keep coming back to and replaying over and over again. meteorscrap brings you today's promoted Musing -- a look at why he loves Final Fantasy Tactics so much, and some new ways to play the game to extend the replayability even further. (I once tried the Straight Character Challenge with a group of Dancers. It didn't go well.) Want to participate in the Musing yourself? Head over to the CBlogs and write one now! -- JRo]}

I've mentioned in comments before that I find Final Fantasy Tactics to be nearly the perfect game. There are many reasons for this: From the timeless graphics which hold up to this day, to the complex story, to the in-depth battle system which allows disgustingly precise amounts of customization for each of your characters. It is not exaggeration to say that this is literally a game I have played through at least twenty-four times to date.

And to be honest, I'm perfectly happy knowing that before I die I'll probably play through it another thirty.

And no matter how much I might say I like the story, the truth of the matter is that it's the gameplay which does it for me.

For those of you who are unaware, Final Fantasy Tactics is a strategy-RPG like Shining Force II, Disgaea, Tactics Ogre, Vandal Hearts, Fire Emblem, Kartia, or Hoshigami. The player directs a team of four to five units across a gridded map, with the AI directing as much as eleven units against you. Typically there are only two objectives in a fight: Kill everything, kill a specific unit, or do one or the other while making sure the AI doesn't kill a unit on your side first. Bonus missions in the Deep Dungeon aside, the only exception is one stage, where you have to kill two units and then press the switches at their feet. To be honest, Final Fantasy Tactics suffers regarding objective variety when compared to some.

The devil here, however, is in the details. Final Fantasy Tactics has a job system very similar to the one seen in Final Fantasy V, but Tactics takes one look at that and says "Yeah, you didn't go far enough." A character has a primary job, which affects multipliers given to their basic attributes (like Physical Attack, Magic Attack, HP, MP, etc.) and also grants them a list of job-specific abilities like spells, special attacks, and the like. You can choose to have the commands of a second job as well, so you can have Knights with White Magic, White Mages with Black Magic, or any other combination you can think of. Given that the game has twenty job classes, this makes for quite the variety, even early on in the game. In as little as four or five battles, your core group of characters can be wildly different from one another.

However, Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't feel the need to stop there. Every class also allows the character to learn Reaction abilities, which are triggered whenever the character is targeted in a specific manner. This can range from gaining Regeneration, to Auto-Life, to stopping the attack cold. This can be selected from any Reaction ability you know, regardless of your primary job or the secondary ability you have. Likewise a Support ability (which grant bonuses like extra Physical Attack power, dual-wielding, increased evasion, etc) can be selected from any ability you know independent of the others. Building on this, you also have a Movement ability. Increased vertical or horizontal range, the ability to find items or walk on hazardous or impassable terrain, and again ... independent from the other four choices.

By the end of the game, you typically have a very different set of characters from your friend. Or anyone else, really. The farther from the beginning of the game you get, the more unique your playthrough becomes.


Final Fantasy Tactics in two speech bubbles.

However, this is not why I keep coming back. I probably would have moved on except for two factors. The first is that the Final Fantasy Tactics discussion board at GameFAQs formulated a couple of simple, yet thoroughly interesting playthrough challenges which reinvigorated the game for me.

The first is the Straight Character Challenge. Essentially, you pick one of the 20 jobs available. For the entire duration of the game, you only fight using characters in that class. The main character, Ramza, plus four generic characters. Well-rounded classes with both healing and offensive abilities (like Chemist, White Mage, or Monk) are a little bit of a challenge, but nothing too difficult to manage. However it does up the difficulty and force you to approach your battles with far more caution. Other classes prove to be nightmares, running the razor's edge between victory and defeat.

The Straight Character Challenge relies on the player using their superior intelligence to outwit the AI using a very limited skill set. I've beaten the game using a party of only one class fourteen times now, and I'm working on my fifteenth as I write this. Should this interest any owners of the game, it's recommended you start with Monk, Chemist, Priest, or Ninja, since they stand to suffer the least through such a challenge. Have fun with Weigraf the second time if you're a Chemist, though. If you're emulating, you can even take this farther... A party of all-Heaven Knights is a challenge in its own right.

The other challenge is the Tactics Double Dare (Skip to [1.6]). Essentially this is the polar opposite of the above challenge. Instead of having a full party of characters using the same class, you only have two characters with two classes apiece, which you can switch and use abilities from freely, but otherwise must stick to. Much like the Straight Character Challenge, this one requires you to use your brains and change your strategies, but ultimately is also very rewarding to play. I've beaten the game nine times using this challenge.


Believe me, the Engrish grows on you after a while. (Dycedarg IS Ramza's eldest brother, meaning he's his own, too)

The other thing which will keep my interest in this game is the recently-released fan-made patch Final Fantasy Tactics v1.3. This is a complete, from the ground-up remake of the game. Every class has their abilities changed. Every in-game battle is filled with tougher enemies better equipped to ruin your day. Everything about the game is changed in a way which somehow manages to make things different and more difficult, but does so in a way that challenges a veteran player of Final Fantasy Tactics instead of alienating them.


Lancers in my Zirekile Falls battle? It's more likely than you think.

And that screenshot is really only the beginning. In his second appearance, Balk shows up with multiple Workers on his side, which by itself proves to be a monstrous challenge. By itself, Final Fantasy Tactics v1.3 demands a playthrough just so that you can see for yourself how difficult the game would have been if the designers had been sadistic.

And I'm planning on applying the challenges which kept the original game so fresh to my future playthroughs of it. I've begun with a Tactics Double Dare. It's almost more than I can handle already, and I'm gaming the system as much as possible. The idea of using only a single job class to get through this thing is giving me nightmares.

Awesome nightmares.

To Conclude...

One of the reasons I feel Final Fantasy Tactics has maintained my interest is that, unlike other games with similar challenges in the Final Fantasy series, this one's gameplay (and thus, the area where the challenge applies) is such a large portion of the total time spent playing that you're not faced with hours upon hours of repetition. The cutscenes in the game are short, and hammering the O button will blitz through them very quickly if you've gotten bored with the story. However, storming Bethla Garrison with nothing but a crowd of Ninja is so completely different from doing so with a crowd of Knights that really, it could be a different game.

Even without the patch, Final Fantasy Tactics possesses more replayability on one disc than some entire series have to offer, and I can give it no greater compliment than this: Of all the thousands of games I've played, of all the thousands I will play in the future, there is no doubt in my mind that Final Fantasy Tactics is my favourite of all time already.

If I were forced to only play one game the rest of my life, I'd have this in hand before the question was finished.

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PC Gamers Launch Crysis 2 Petition

A group of unhappy PC gamers has launched an online petition pledging to purchase Crysis 2, while Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli says that despite the recent trouble with piracy the company remains committed to PC gaming.

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