Top 5 Arcade Games (As Of Yet)

Lindsay Belle Chambers

While we all wait for such epic titles as Mass Effect 3, Silent Hill: Downpour and Bioshock Infinite to be released, any gamer can find themselves almost overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the games in one’s own library. As one gamer to another, I highly suggest taking a ten dollar splurge and buying one of these stylistic and surprisingly entertaining arcade games.

Top 10 Developers

10. Mojang- Minecraft

A group of Swedish developers creating an unexpected online gaming sensation sounds farfetched, but when Minecraft was released as an alpha in the spring of 2009 it caught the attention of gamers by the thousands. Minecraft 1.0 was released in November 2011 and by February 13th 2012 over 5 million units had been sold. Not bad when you mention that Mojang is made up of 17 people.

Mass Effect 3: Better with Kinect?

The third title from developers BioWare and the final chapter in the trilogy, but this time with an added twist. The final installment of this epic series will have integrated Kinect usability, now while many gamers may find this a turn off, EA and BioWare are promising that the game will actually be better with the usage of Kinect. The role Kinect plays is that players can control the action via voice commands, such as ‘Bypass’ for doors or ‘Cover Me’ for a team mate as well as powers and switching between weapons, limiting the amount of button pressing and in game circling through wheels. Sounds promising but for those without Kinect or PS3 users will not be able to access this feature, but all the regular menus and features still carry on through from the previous titles, so this shouldn’t detract too much from the overall experience.

Carrying on from where Mass Effect 2’s DLC left off, players are once again cast as Commander John Shepard and thrown back into the fight against the Reapers.

BioWare have stated their desire for the ending of Mass Effect 3 to be memorable and have devoted many man hours to doing so, making sure the players get just reward for all their hard work and no doubt countless hours of playing. However they have not completely closed the door on continuing the series, many believe that Mass Effect 3 is simply the end of the Shepard trilogy and that BioWare will continue on with the universe. Casey Hudson, Creative Director on Mass Effect 3, had this to say: “We want to do more stuff with Mass Effect, of course, and I’m sure we will. But we’re not really thinking about that right now. We want to make sure we give people the best ending to Mass Effect 3 that we can.” It certainly would be a prudent move for BioWare to continue with the title that has brought them the most success, especially with a movie in the pipeline, but this remains to be seen and it depends on whether the writing staff can compose a new story that justifies continuing the title.

Mass Effect 3 is due to be released on March 6th, with prices scheduled to be $59.99 for the standard editions on all consoles and $79.99 for the collector’s editions, roughly £39.99 and £59.99 respectively in the UK. There are also bonuses for pre-ordering the game such as exclusive weapons and armor. BioWare has also announced that a demo will be available to download from the 14th of February, giving Kinect users a chance to hone their commands before the full release. We look forward to seeing how the Kinect works and how this epic trilogy concludes.

2011’s Top 5 Most Offensive Games

Lindsay Belle Chambers

 

With 2011 a not so distant past (I’m still accidentally writing 2011 on everything) it might be a good time to look back and examine some of the gaming industries more…controversial…games of the 2011. After all, the best way to move forward is to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, figure out the lesson, and learn from the mistake. So without any further ado, I give you: