Sequence now available on Steam

Unique and vastly underrated indie XBLIG game, Sequence, has hit the e-shelves on Steam. You can pick up this Iridium Studios gem for 10% off at $4.49, or $4.99 normally which is a total steal.

Sequence is by far my favorite indie game of the year. Imagine DDR but with a delightful RPG twist - you defeat enemies by casting spells set to some pretty awesome beats by Ronald Jenkees and Michael Wade Hamilton. Enemies produce certain drops based on rarity which can be combined to make new spells, items, and even a hidden level. It's all topped with complete voice acting and over 10 hours of gameplay - although if you're a completionist freak like me, it could be many more.

So if you have an urge to satisfy your inner rhythm/RPG nerd, I'd highly recommend picking this one up!

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Freddie Wong totally leaked the Battlefield 4
trailer!

I hope you nancy boys aren't getting your panties all wet over that Modern Warfare 3 trailer. That sh*t be weaksauce! Battlefield is where it's all at, and I'm not talking about Battlefield 3, which has now been made obsolete before its official release. Give it up for Battlefield 4, baby!

Check the graphics on this leaked trailer! It's the most realistic videogame ever designed! EA DICE makes Crytek look like poo-flinging monkeys! I don't know how we can stomach today's disgusting filth -- we might as well be watching stop-motion Lite-Brite. Throw that garbage away and pre-order the last game you'll ever need to play. Ever.

_{Alternate title: Freddie Wong is such a troll}

Battlefield 4 Trailer [YouTube]

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Sequence Now Available on Steam

Unique and vastly underrated indie XBLIG game, Sequence, has hit the e-shelves on Steam. You can pick up this Iridium Studios gem for 10% off at $4.49, or $4.99 normally which is a total steal.

Sequence is by far my favorite indie game of the year. Imagine DDR but with a delightful RPG twist - you defeat enemies by casting spells set to some pretty awesome beats by Ronald Jenkees and Michael Wade Hamilton. Enemies produce certain drops based on rarity which can be combined to make new spells, items, and even a hidden level. It's all topped with complete voice acting and over 10 hours of gameplay - although if you're a completionist freak like me, it could be many more.

So if you have an urge to satisfy your inner rhythm/RPG nerd, I'd highly recommend picking this one up!

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BlizzCon11: Diablo III headed to consoles, no
public beta

As soon as I found out that I'd be talking to a couple of the guys from Diablo III at BlizzCon this year, I was determined to find out whether or not the highly-anticipated RPG would, in fact, ever make it to consoles, as previous rumors have suggested. Fortunately, my question answered itself when I learned I'd be interviewing Josh Mosquiera, the game's Lead Console Designer.

When asked if his title was a harbinger of things to come, Mosquiera responded, "We're not announcing anything because, literally, there's three of us on the team right now ... but that's what we're trying to do... We're trying to build the best console team at Blizzard. Blizzard is really serious about going back to the console." No general timeline was given, but it seems likely that development has either begun or will do so very soon.

I also got a chance to speak with Kevin Martens, Diablo III's Lead Content Developer, who confirmed that Blizzard will not be doing a public beta for the game prior to launch.

"We're doing it in waves, so we'll keep adding people. The beta will be going for some time; we're going to be patching it, supporting it, and adding new stuff to it, as well."

Other topics of conversation include the emphasis on "action storytelling" this time around, which class is the best class, and what the final year of development is like for a 7-year game.

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A Dtoider made this Game Boy 'wise fwom its
gwave'

Dtoider ekoala2002, also known as Kodykoala, is no stranger to wild custom figurines. As you can see on his community page as well as his home page, his creations include zombified versions of Mario and the gang, cross sections of Mega Man and Guts Man, and even a Mr. Destructoid LEGO minifig.

Kodykoala recently came across an original gray brick Game Boy and was reminded of Game Boy from Captain N. Using that character and the machine's rather poor physical condition as inspiration, he crafted a hell beast straight from our nightmares -- a zombified Game Boy with a thirst for oil and and hunger for circuit boards. I would say that he brought new life to an aging handheld, but... ya know... zombie!

If you want to see more shots of the undead portable, hit on up Kodykoala's Flickr page. If you want to show the man even more love, you can buy the figure for a cool $100.

Kodykoala makes me rethink zombies yet again with a Game Boy of all things [Tomopop]

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ClickDEATH - Graveyard

Click DEATH: Graveyard is another Halloween themed point and click stickman game. When stickmen decide to take a shortcut through the haunted cemetery, it's your task to make sure they don't make it out alive! Raise undead stickmen and stick mummys to help you kill the passer byers! Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/escapegames24/~3/EI7JF2N7fms/clickdeath-graveyard-
walkthrough.html

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Preview: Ruin (working title)

Hey there boys and girls! You know about all that talk of Diablo III coming to consoles, right? Well I'm here to tell you to not get your hopes up because hopes and dreams are stupid. And also because Sony is about to give us the next best thing with Ruin, the working title of Sony's next big RPG on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.

Ruin (Working title) (PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita [Previewed])
Developer: Idol Minds
Publisher: SCE
Release: TBA 2012

Ruin, a top-down, loot heavy, dungeon crawler RPG, has drawn its fair share of comparisons to Diablo. That's not to say that this game is some sort of console knock-off of the PC giant. Ruin has a number of defining features that make it stand apart from any other RPG and it all starts with the lair. In Ruin, lairs are a sort of personal hub area where players can customize weapons and armor, decorate with items gained on quest, and equip minions among other things. Lairs breakdown into three section: the sanctum, the forge, and the minion den.

The sanctum makes up the biggest portion of your lair, acting as a house are that you can decorate. The cool thing about decoration in Ruin is that obtaining them is all based on your accomplishments and serve as bragging rights. Have you defeated that high level boss? Reforged the legendary lost blade? Defeated a certain amount of high level enemies? For every prestigious act you accomplish you get a new decoration to put in your sanctum.

You can bring friends into your sanctum or visit others to quite literally see a players progression translated as fully rendered items. The sanctum also carries all of the items and features that affect your characters stats. Its all very reminiscent of the menu system (or lack thereof) of Fable III. Decorations themselves can get more elaborate as you go along too. So, for example, if you defeat 10 high level sub-bosses you may get a statue to place in your sanctum. Defeat 30 and that statue may become more and more elaborate with jewel, ornaments and other decor. Lairs also get bigger as you level up, increasing the size of you sanctum and the amount of items you can place.

The second section of the lair is the forge, where you (surprise!) forge items. Using ingredients and recipes found during quests, the forge allows you to craft stat altering items for your sanctum, armor and weapons for your minions as well as for yourself. Weapons in Ruin are pretty different though from what we have come to expect in RPGs.

You don't gain powerful weapons as you go along. Rather, you gain weapons that have the potential to be powerful. Confused? Its actually a pretty simple, yet clever system. When you go on a quest you might find a sword that, for example, can be taken to the forge and beefed up to do 200 points of ice damage. Or you might take it to the forge and construct it so that it does 170 wind damage and 10% chance at a critical hit. The whole point of this is to have players more attached and invested in the weapons and loot they craft, beyond simple number crunching. Rather than discard a weapon for one that does 30 more point of damage or something, Ruin's crafting system is meant to make you think twice before tossing away a weapon as you just spent quite some time adjusting it to your liking.

The final piece to Ruin's lair system is the minion den where players customize a small army of henchmen. Remember how I said that you can show off your sanctum and look at other peoples cool stuff? Well Ruin allows you to attack other peoples sanctum for quick XP. Before players can get to your lair though, they must get through your private army that you can customize from a range creatures such as grunts, heavies, lieutenants, sub-bosses and bosses.

The minion den is essentially where you micromanage your team's lineup as well as their weapons and armor. Having your lair attacked isn't the worst thing ever, though. While attackers gain XP for their aggressiveness, in an odd twist, you to gain a little XP for being attacked. If you or your minions manage to kill your aggressors, you gain a greater amount of XP. Of course, if you don't survive an attack, the aggressor gains that bigger batch of XP. Basically, once the dust settles the point is that everyone walks away with something to show for their efforts. There are no winners and losers so much as there is the guy that did good and the guy that did better. It's an interesting deviation from the tradition system of  rewards and punishment, but honestly if someone cuts through all my hard earned defenses I would want something to show for it.

Ruin also features a class system for its character creation. Players will have the option to choose from a mage, assassin (the rouge/thief class), and a warrior. The warriors combat is pretty standard stuff with light and heavy attacks, a block button, as well as some basic combos that you can string together with your light and heavy attacks. Warriors also have special attacks that require mana, such as a charge and a room-clearing stomp.

Combat with the assassin is a completely ranged affair and uses and evade rather than a block button. Your main light attack is throwing knives while your secondary heavy attack has you throwing bombs. Bombs do more damage than knives, but your effectiveness with them is directly proportional to you ability to build up combos with your throwing knives. Normally you can only throw one bomb at a time, but build up a three hit combo and you can throw two bombs at once. Three bombs with a six hit combo and so forth. The assassin also has some special mana-burning abilities, like a back stab that teleports you behind every onscreen enemy and stabs them in the back. The mage was not part of our demo. Overall, combat has a very basic, button-mashing feel to it.

Being a Vita title, Ruin makes use of some of the new features, and perhaps has the best use of the Vita's Cross-play. At any point in the game, whether you're in your lair or in the middle of a quest, you can transfer your game to and from your PS3 or Vita, picking up right where you left off when you were transferring your game. When I mean right where you left off, I do mean right where you left off. Not back at a your last checkpoint, but right where your character was standing when you paused to transfer.

Though it's sadly not a launch title, Ruin is the Vita game that has me most intrigued. Of course since it is also coming to the PlayStation 3 (a system I already own), and so far does nothing unique with the Vita version, my excitement is considerably quelled. If the loot and forging system is as deep as it appears though, me and every other RPG nut has something to look out for in 2012.

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BlizzCon11: Tara talks Mists of Pandaria with Tom
Merritt

In between fighting the crowds and dousing myself in hand sanitizer at BlizzCon, I had time for a quick stop-and-chat with Tom Merritt, host of Tech News Today and Revision3's Tom's Top 5. We talked all about the new World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria, to which annual WoW subscribers will get early access.

Be sure to check out Chris Morris's hands-on preview of the new expansion for a more detailed look at the Pandaren race and Monk class.

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Review: Dragon Age II: Mark of the Assassin

To play the first, oh, ten minutes of Dragon Age II: Mark of the Assassin is to gaze into the abyss, to confront everything weird about videogames and the culture that surrounds them.

The scene: protagonist Hawke is enlisted to help an exiled assassin, Tallis, break into the estate of an Orlesian nobleman to pilfer some jewels. Playing Hawke as an intrepid dagger-for-hire made sense when he/she was a hardscrabble immigrant; it's less convincing now that (my female) Hawke lives in a mansion and wields considerable social capital, having saved Kirkwall from imminent destruction and all.

Hawke is eventually convinced to follow a complete stranger to a foreign country to steal from a powerful oligarch when Tallis, voiced by Felicia Day, coos, "That's just what you do, isn't it?" The corollary goes unsaid, but here it is: "It is when you're the hero in a videogame."

That Day -- perhaps the most well-known ambassador of nerd culture -- is involved is equally distracting, serving as an umbilical link to real world and reinforcing how arbitrary and contrived the endeavor of videogaming can be.

Dragon Age II: Mark of the Assassin (Mac, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [reviewed])
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: October 11, 2011
MSRP: 800 BioWare Points (Mac, PC) / $9.99 (PS3) / 800 Microsoft Points (Xbox 360)

Despite its artifice, Mark of the Assassin fares better than Legacy's otherworldly premise. Instead of being fodder for some hokey blood ritual, Hawke is once again cast as a political actor, a doer of great deeds. To have Hawke's accomplishments reflected back to the player is one of the strengths born from designing Kirkwall as a consistent (albeit relatively static) city.

There's very little to say about the bulk of Mark of the Assassin -- its Dragon Age II with an overblown and crudely drawn French accent. There are new enemies called ghasts, but they aren't particularly interesting. Like Legacy before it, Assassin's strength lies in the way it expands the world of Thedas, with changes to mechanics and quest structure being largely secondary.

There are a few exceptions, though. First, there are extended stealth and puzzle sections that range from passable to unoffensive. While nothing special in their own right, these setpieces provide a nice break from stabbing people in the neck until they explode. (Incidentally, the new gear and stat boosts aren't doing much to make Hawke's neck stabbing qualitatively better or worse, just stabbier. She's pretty much built to perfection and this point, her telos being destruction.)

Second, the boss fight in this DLC is pretty good, not to mention remarkable for the way it marries Dragon Age II's action-genre affections to its stat-crunching, role-playing roots. If BioWare insists on adding environmental and spatial elements to its boss fights, Assassin's action-lite overlay is the way to go. Think the Rock Wraith fight from Act I of DAII, instead of the awful Corypheus debacle from Legacy.

(Pro tip: turn all subtitles on for this fight. Your teammates bark useful information during the course of the fight, but it often gets lost in the din and explosions. Taking their advice improves the end of the game dramatically, especially on higher difficulty levels.)

Finally, BioWare has apparently dropped out of the "from the rafters" school of enemy design. The only enemies in Assassin who pop into existence are magicked there by an Arcane Horror.

It is also balanced pretty well -- I can only think of one difficulty spike -- and branches in a few typically BioWare-ian ways, plus a few subtler ways that take a second playthrough to notice.

Still, the crux of Mark of the Assassin is that it's, y'know, more Dragon Age II.

Even Tallis -- who joins your party complete with her own skill trees and algebraic tactics -- is more important as a catalyst for the story than for her role in combat. She's basically an Isabella clone with a less pornographic bust, and Assassin isn't long or varied enough to really explore her mage-smashing specialties. From that perspective, it's tempting to wish Hawke could whisk Tallis back to Kirkwall as though she were another Seb Vael or Shale.

However, considering her position as an outsider -- she's an elf who makes her living as an assassin and holds, as you'll discover, some pretty out-there beliefs -- I'm glad that BioWare chose to keep her activity limited to this particular quest. Keeping her around any longer would ruin the mystique. Of course, it's almost surely the result of technical considerations, but it serves the story too.

This is where BioWare's casting of Felicia Day morphs from a vaguely disconcerting boondoggle to a legitimate design choice. Tallis is voiced with an American accent, which immediately sets her apart from the rest of the British Roman cast. This reinforces her status as a cultural "other" while adding characterization that has nothing to do with the writing or plot of the game.

In the service of the bare-bones heist plot, Mark of the Assassin explores different cultural territory than the mage-templar dialectic that dominates so much of the first two games. There's a hitch, though -- Tallis is a cipher for a hitherto under-explored subset of Thedans, but players don't have a baseline of understanding of her background and culture. The result is that Tallis is written to be subtle and nuanced, but -- Dragon Age II's dialogue wheel may be partly to blame -- she comes off as vague and obtuse. This represents a fundamental problem for BioWare -- the strength of Dragon Age DLC in general is that it expands on a rich, expansive world, but if players don't understand the world they're being thrust into, the entire enterprise is undermined.

Nevertheless, Mark of the Assassin is a lighthearted and straightforward game that does most things right and nothing truly wrong. BioWare DLC has long been the purview of that company's tinkerers and iterators, its refiners and experimenters, and it's nice to be able to track the team's progress. Fans might be better served by longer, more fully-realized content, but the fact remains that I'm always looking forward to any excuse to dive back into Thedas.

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HAWP: Papa Burch in drag

All Ashly wanted to do was have a family fun night, but Anthony had to be a prissy little b*tch. Look at Papa Burch! He's totally a team player, not to mention "sassy and fierce." Oh, Papa Burch...

Heads up: beware the Tank!

HAWP: Left 4 Dead: The Sacrifice [GameTrailers]

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