There comes a time in every gamer’s life when you need to swallow your pride and accept the fact that a series can in fact redeem itself with a single title. I’ve been smashing Splinter Cell: Conviction for the past couple of days and never thought I’d be as impressed with a SC title as I am with Jack Bauer’s Sam Fisher’s new escapades.

Head on inside to let us know what you’ve been playing this week, and what games you’re looking forward to in the near future.

Read more… »

Hot off the presses and fresh to tease your mind about the upcoming release of The Passing, Valve have just released the details of the new achievements associated with the game on the Left 4 Dead blog. While the mandatory golfing achievement makes an appearance to celebrate the new melee weapon, there are a few new details that should have you drooling.

While we do know The Passing takes place between Dead Center and Dark Carnival and our new lovable cast of characters gets to meet with the old cast, one of the achievements mentions a foot locker that must be opened. This sounds to me like it will be very much like the weapons caches in Borderlands, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Read more… »

I should preface this review with the stipulation that I absolutely adore the original Mount & Blade. It provided a unique hands-off style of story telling not seen in modern games. Rather than handing the player a narrative to follow, M&B gave gamers the tools to make their own narratives. The only other game I’ve seen do this is Sid Meier’s Pirates!. That being said, let me say that I love Mount & Blade: Warband.

For those of you who missed out on the first game, allow me to explain the basic premise. The M&B games are medieval action/adventure titles mixed with RPG elements and a dash of real-time strategy. You start off as a lone soldier, equipped with basic armor, weapons and a horse. From here you are free to do anything you want. You can go to local villages and raise a militia, fight off bandits and brigands, or go to a city and fight in tournaments. Read more… »

Today Ubisoft announced that, in an effort to promote environmental awareness, the company will no longer feature printed manuals in boxed copies of its games. Instead there will be digital in-game manuals for its Xbox 360 and PS3 releases.

The first console game to get the new digital manual treatment will be Shaun White Skateboarding, due out this fall.  Read more… »

World of Warcraft has undoubtedly been one of the – if not the – most successful games of all time.  With a market of over 10 million players and generating hundreds of millions of dollars each year, the famed company is turning heads with a new ploy.

Instead of resorting to grinding, bargaining, and auctioning to earn your mounts, players can now buy the Celestial Steed for $25.  Similarly, for $10 more players can buy the Lil’ XT robotic pet.  While the extras seem excessive, Blizzard is netting a few extra million as we speak. Read more… »

Yeah, welcome to the recap, I guess. Sorry If I seem a little down this week, but it just hit me that I’m the only GL staff member with a beard right now, and so my wonderful abundance of facial hair and I are just feeling a bit down. Why does that make me sad!? Because facial hair makes the world go ’round. That’s a fact, proven by science over and over again. Just look at all the awesome people that had facial hair: Jesus, Einstein, Freddie Mercury (before he died of gaids).

I don’t know how many examples you need… but the point is, you should stop shaving. And you should also read the recap. Cause I have a beard, so it’s definitely worth your time.

Read more… »

Hey everybody!  Just wanted to remind you that the Limitcast will be recording live today at 7:30 P.M. EST. Unfortunately, Josh has figured out how to make the show porn free. Trust me, I didn’t support this; but, we will find a way to fill today’s show with awesome discussion about the video games universe.

Do you need a little taste to whet your pallet? We will be touching on Splinter Cell: Conviction, the fact that Paul didn’t like the book I recommended, James Pinnell’s article on 3-D gaming, and whatever else we feel tickles our fancy. Speaking of tickled fancies, I have a video that will do just that – after the break. When you are done with that, make sure you leave comments on topics you want to hear about, or thoughts on today’s topics.

Read more… »

Silly Konami – thinking we wouldn’t figure out that the paradoxically titled “Harmony of Despair” is probably going to be a new Castlevania game. Well, it’s not 100% confirmed yet, but you and I both know it has to be a portable Castlevania title in line with the fancifully titled Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia.

My money is on yet another DS iteration that I will most likely never play in favor of another Symphony of the Night completion. Read more… »

When it comes to music, I’m a very open-minded individual. I’m willing to experience any genre and give each song a shot on its own merits. For example, I despise country for the most part, but I still very much enjoy Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

In the same vein, casual games really aren’t my bag. That doesn’t mean I won’t give them a fair shake. Over the past year I’ve definitely fallen in love with a number of casual games, such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bookworm Adventures (1&2). I try very hard not to judge a game before I’ve played it.

Now that I’ve spent some quality time with Royal Envoy on my PC, I’m ready to render judgment. There’s a marked difference between a game that’s weak because it’s casual, and a weak casual game.

Read more… »

When Avatar figuratively exploded onto the scene, many of us were taken aback by the re-introduction of decent 3-D effects in film. The exquisitely developed depth, glossy holograms, and delicious visuals quenched our appetites for a new form of visceral experience.

But in the usual, ridiculous overreaction by almost everybody in the media and general populace to what can almost definitely be defined as a fad, 3-D has re-emerged as the buzzword for the early part of this decade. Once again, content producers and hardware makers alike begin to rub their hands together with glee, as rabid tech nerds and people with too much money begin buying TVs in the hope that will will get to play Modern Warfare 2 with slightly more cohesion.

Read more… »

Sick and tired of waiting for The Passing to come to pass? Well wait no more, my friend. Valve updated the official L4D.com blog yesterday to announce The DLC that brings Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2 surviviors together for the first time will be available next week. Whew, that’s a lot of numbers.

For those of you who own the 360 version of the game, you can expect to plunk down 560 MS points for the download, or $7. For the clearly superior PC users, the DLC will be free.

Read more… »

I have terrible news everybody. After a long month, I have decided to give up on finishing Final Fantasy XIII. Our relationship hasn’t been going well, and it’s time that we both admit it isn’t going to work, and move on.

However, I wasn’t able to tell FFXIII to her face. Instead, I took the high road many of us have traveled before; I left a note. Now that she knows, and we both have started the healing process, I decided it was time to share the news with everyone here on the site; by posting the letter I slipped into her case only two nights ago.

Enjoy. Read more… »