Over the weekend, I spent approximately three hours farming the materials and the 150,000 gold required to enter the secret level in Diablo III. It was kind of a pain, but it was completely worth it to be able to send three of my friends in utterly free of charge, and enjoy it with them before most of it was sufficiently spoiled.

Because most of the guides I’ve found aren’t particularly concise in their directions, and provide spoilers to boot, I’m going to make a completely spoiler-free guide on how to access the secret level itself. Read more… »

Diablo III is finally here, and if you can get past the initial shock of playing a game with single player always-on DRM, you can experience it yourself. With five classes ranging from the Wizard, Monk, Barbarian, Demon Hunter, and Witch Doctor, there’s pretty much something for everyone here to experience — personally, I couldn’t resist the demonic gaze of the Demon Hunter.

For the purposes of this impressions piece, I have a level 30 Demon Hunter that just finished Act 4 (the final episode), but I have dabbled in every other class, and found them all fairly exciting in their own way. Join me as I muse on various aspects of Diablo III from levels 1-30, which encompasses all of the game’s Normal level difficulty.

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Another year, another humongous list of MMOs to sift through. Right on the heels of Blizzard’s own Diablo III, worldwide Korean MMO TERA is on a mission: to tear you away from whatever MMO you’re playing now, and earn the right to collect your subscription fee at the end of every month.

At first glance, TERA‘s main selling points are beautiful landscapes, controller support, and action oriented gameplay that forces you to manually aim your attacks, as well as block and dodge enemy assaults. But how well does it work? Is action-adventure gameplay viable for an open world MMO? Read more… »

Guild Wars 2 hasn’t had a beta of this magnitude since the inception of the project — in fact, this is the first massive beta that didn’t largely involve the press. Thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of gamers are going to flood ArenaNet’s servers with sugary beta-testing goodness, and there is absolutely no NDA involved, meaning anyone and everyone can screencap and dump video to their heart’s content.

While I did encounter some technical issues with the beta thus far, I was able to capture some video of the event to show off some of the game’s content – new videos will be added as they are recorded. Without further ado, here are a bunch of videos of Guild Wars 2‘s beta event. Read more… »

At the recent Guild Wars 2 preview event, we were able to test out a number of general mechanics, but what about the professions? At launch, the game will ship with the Guardian, Warrior, Engineer, Ranger, Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer and Necromancer classes.

Although I did try out quite a few professions, the Necromancer is the one I spent most of my time with. So without further ado, onto the my discussion about the paranormal, undead, and various other terrifying creatures that go bump in the digital night. Read more… »

Guild Wars 2 carries a lot of expectations in the gaming community. Considering Guild Wars 1 was basically a dungeon crawler and not an MMO, many gamers are skeptical whether or not ArenaNet will be able to pull off a truly persistent world. On top of that immediate concern, there other claims ArenaNet has made, that if true, will chance the face of MMOs as we know it– enhanced grouping; event driven quests; truly competitive even-ground PVP.

Even with all of my skepticism intact, after previewing the game at ArenaNet’s recent press event, it looks like the famed developer is poised to succeed with Guild Wars 2. Read more… »

The “trap” genre isn’t all that popular these days. Other than the Deception series, Trap Gunner, and the more recent Orcs Must Die!, there really aren’t a whole lot of venues to placate your inner sadistic torturous voice.

As a result, I’ve resurrected the Retro Reunion series to share what I feel is one of the best games in the niche sub-genre of trap-dom . Strap in and prepare to relive moments from the PS1 classic, Kagero: Deception II. Read more… »

While Ninja Gaiden III is not really up to par with the rest of the series, at times it is still a serviceable action game. Also, at least one of you out there will be playing it at some point in your life, so an achievement/trophy guide is probably going to be requested by someone, and I haven’t seen any yet.

So, without further ado, read on for help on the game’s achievements/trophies. Read more… »

For the next installment of my “Quick Tips” line, I bring you a Mass Effect 3 multiplayer guide, earned through my blood, sweat, and tears after earning a 100% Galactic Readiness Rating for the purposes of my review.

Even on Insanity, ME3‘s campaign is easy enough, but multiplayer, especially on the “Gold” rank setting, can get pretty tough. Read on to find out how to have an easier time raising your Galactic Readiness rating. Read more… »

After looking everywhere, I couldn’t find a complete achievement guide for Mass Effect 3 – so I decided to make one.

Mass Effect 3 has some pretty cryptic achievements. Nearly every achievement can be obtained through single player, but some can be unlocked in tandem with multiplayer play. Read on to figure out how to earn that Platinum/1000GS.

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I’m going to put this on record: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is my least favorite Zelda game of all time. But I’m not stopping there; not only is it a poor Zelda game, it’s also a poor videogame in general.

Without even touching upon the love ‘em or hate ‘em motion controls, there’s more than enough evidence to show that Nintendo should’ve taken a step back, looked at Skyward Sword’s innovations, and asked themselves, “Are we sure these ideas are good?”

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[Achievements that require no explanation will be branded as such]

A lot of people out there have been having issues obtaining a number of SoulCalibur V’s cryptic achievements, so I decided to share some tips.

There are a number of unlocks that can be obtained simply through completing the game’s single player modes and ranking up online, but a number of them are unlocked through in-game options and through your combat prowess — as well as your general knowledge of SoulCalibur V’s new mechanics.

Hit the jump to figure out how to get every achievement or trophy — if you’re new to the game, you might learn a few things too. Read more… »