You know the storyline.  You know the tricks.  But how is it still so fun?  New Super Mario Bros. Wii is another smash hit in a long line of Mushroom Kingdom mayhem courtesy of Nintendo.  Staying with their desire for accessibility, Nintendo took all the ideas and concepts that made the original Super Mario Bros. 2D platforming franchise a success and used that as the base for New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Read More...

With the lack of backwards compatibility on the current age PS3 units, it was starting to look like there was no way for new users to play their classic games as the technology became more economically available. This being the case, it looked like some great classic games would get purged from households to make way for the new technology. But you can't keep a great classic down, and it was decided to produce a version of one to make it through to the modern tech. Much like the great Greek Tales, God of War and God of War II do just the same with the God of War Collection. Read More...

As I was about to board my flight for the trip, I thought I might pick up something to help the trip go by faster. I understood that buying inside the airport usually meant higher prices, but I managed to find a reasonably priced PSP Assassin's Creed Bloodlines bundle, which came with the game, a Silver PSP-3000, a code redeemable for a DLC version of Angels and Demons, and a 2gb memory stick. Sure, I already had the PSP-1000 and I did know that the 3000's screens were crap at best, but I decided to get one anyhow seeing as that my launch unit's screen was fairly beaten up, scratched, and the fact that the audio only worked through the headphones as the speakers had found a way to stop working about 2 weeks before. Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed isn't new to the handheld world, Altair's Chronicles was released to the Nintendo DS and iPhone earlier, however this was the first time that they would try putting the full free-roam style gameplay on a handheld. Read More...

The LEGO® brand is known the world over. Beloved by kids and cherished by adults, “playing LEGOs” has been a part of our culture for over 50 years*. So, when the LEGO brand hit store shelves as a series of video games, consumers were elated. With tie-ins to licensed products, the games took on a life of their own – becoming immensely popular with the young and old. Something else popular with multiple demographics is the rhythm game genre. Enter LEGO Rock Band – a melding of the two products in a marketing dream scenario. Read More...

Assassin's Creed had very few pitfalls: a repetitive story mode, inability to swim, and repetitive animations. AC2 fixes all these issues, and more. When Ubisoft came out with AC, it was the only gun-free, action oriented, free roam game, and up until AC2, it stayed that way. It was a risky move on their part in a predominately FPS dominated world. It paid off and did more than justify a sequel. In a world of gun oriented, short single player mode, multiplayer based games, AC2 isn't, and it is just as awesome as any other game out there. Read More...

Left 4 Dead 2, at its core, is the same game as it's predecessor: a zombie shooting game. But when you scratch the surface and look deeper, it's a much different game. Left 4 Dead was a fairly linear game, with 1 main path to take and while the guns and zombies may spawn in different places, it's pretty much the same the first few run throughs as the next few run throughs. Left 4 Dead 2 is different, it's a much more open experience, and while there still is one main path, there are several routes alongside it, making it so that you can get to the next safe room two or three different ways. More difficult paths, or longer ones, net you better equipment such as better weaponry or ammunition. Read More...

Dragon Age: Origins is the latest RPG to come from the well respected developer, Bioware. They have long been known for their deep stories, engrossing characters, and way of involving the player in the game by forcing one to make difficult decisions that affect everything around them. So anyone picking up Dragon Age knows what to expect for the most part, and will not be disappointed. Dragon Age: Origins is a dark fantasy game set in a land, known as Ferelden, where the Blight is at hand, and Darkspawn are quickly taking over. You begin the game as your choice of race and class, and set on your own origin quest. Read More...

As I looked at the massive amount of people at my local GameStop that were in line to pickup MW2, it dawned on me, this is the biggest, most anticipated, and what could be the best selling action game of all time. Over 300 people were standing in the cold for some four hours waiting for the same thing. Many of them planned on calling in sick the next day or skipping out on school just to get some playtime in. Many people were reminiscing about COD4 or saying how they played a bunch of COD4 to get psyched up about MW2. Read More...

There are times in any gamer’s life when you find yourself blearily looking for a clock, attempting to adjust your eyes to read the time. You find yourself trying to comprehend how the time reported is much later than the internal clock in your head. How much time have you lost? Minutes? Hours? If Runic Games is using that time as a measure of success of their recently released Action-RPG Torchlight, there must be a party in Washington every night! The story begins in the small mining village of Torchlight. Ember, a mineral of extraordinary power (and possible corruption) was found in a nearby mine. Read More...

Imagine that you are a character from your favorite fairytale. The main character, if you will. Now imagine that some one has gone through your story and removed the part where you were the important and significant. Everyone shunned and ignored you in your own story. What would you do? Go bat nuts crazy and slaughter all of the cute inhabitants to show that you really are the star again? It's what I would do. Well that is the very basic version of what is going on in Play Logic's Fairytale Fights. Read More...

Ratchet and Clank has enjoyed a really good run these past 7 years, and A Crack in Time is a great cap to the "future" series. In what may be the final game in the series, Ratchet must rescue Clank from Dr. Nefarious (the villain from Up Your Arsenal, the third game in the series). Before we get in to deep, let's get a quick glance back at the Future trilogy thus far. In Tools of Destruction, an evil tyrant named Tachyon set out to revenge against the Lombax's for destroying his race. This is the first hint we get that Ratchet isn't the last Lombax in the galaxy. Read More...

Disclaimer: This is not an official review of Aion, but will be from the perspective of a casual MMO player, and serves more as an impressions of my first month with the game. As of writing this, I have reached level 16 with Asmodyian Assassin and around level 10 with each of my 3 other characters. Aion is the latest MMORPG from Korean developer NCSoft, and was quick to break pre-order records amongst MMO tiles with over 400,000 pre-ordered. Aion utilizes the Crytek engine and produces beautiful results. Aion takes place in the world of Atreia, and you choose one of two opposing races of humans. Read More...

Reinventing the Vinyl WheelYour palms sweat heavily as you approach the stage. There's a twitch, a solitary twinge of excitement racing through your veins and ready to explode from the tips of your fingers onto the vinyl that awaits you. The lights flicker and flash and the crowd roars as you make your entrance. You deftly weave between songs and paradoxical rhythmic patterns, cross-fading between sultry sirens and heard edged break beats. You match the intensity of the crowd with every pull of the record, every scratch rivaled by their increased volume. Read More...

It's time to transport yourself back to the time of Metal and Rock. Back when the ancient gods of Metal ruled the universe and gave birth to everything we now know as Metal music and Hard Rock. A time where Eddie Riggs ends up and needs to help the humans and their allies bring down the horrors of Gloom Metal and Emo-itude. Oh and take down some big, ugly demons along the way to bring down The Lord of Darkness. Err I mean, Pennywise. Read More...

Since the Wii has come to market and the need for keeping those WiiMotes charged and useable has been a concern for hardcore gamers. So then the rechargeable AA batteries got pulled back out and WiiMote specific chargers began to get pumped onto the scene. Some were good. Some just horrid. But they all kept things working as long as it was just the WiiMote you had and nothing else. Not even the gel jacket to protect TV's around the world. These chargers were workable as long as you didn't care taking the extra time to slide out and disassemble everything to charge the batteries or swap in new ones. Read More...