By Tiny 777

My little guy is all grows up, he’s all growns up (sniff). Please enjoy this unbiased kick ass review of what looks to be a really cool game. And hey his spelling is a lot better too! -Ryker_XL

Bulletstorm is a first person shooter created by Epic Games (creators of Gears of War) and People Can Fly.  The game hit stores on February 22, 2011(Xbox 360, PS3, and PC), which resulted in Gears of War 3 being pushed back to winter 2011.  While most people felt let down that Bulletstorm was being released earlier than Gears of War, the awesome thing is that the multiplayer beta to Gears of War 3 is included.  This gives all the Gears fans the chance to get a glance at the upcoming multiplayer of Gears. This is included in the purchase of the “Epic Edition” of Bulletstorm (The Epic Edition is every copy of the game, no specialized pricing is on the Epic Edition).

Before this game came out, people were giving it crap for pushing Gears 3 back but when I looked at it, it looked to be a hell of a lot of fun. I asked my Mom if I could buy the game when it’s released and somehow she said yes. I was stoked for the release of the game but was too busy to go out and buy the game with baseball in the way of my Best Buy hunting for this game. My Mom was nice enough to buy it for me and give it to me when I returned from practice. When I came home she said, “It was the last one, we had to ask for help to find it.”  I was surprised and glad that I got the game. Once I got my hands on the case I ripped it open and put the disk in. It was time to play Bulletstorm.
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Believe it or not, FIFA isn’t just a video game series put out by EA. No, you ignorant sluts, FIFA actually stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association, and every four years, FIFA puts on the most important sporting event in the world: the World Cup.

“Most important?”, you ask? I know, it’s hard to believe that despite a complete lack of Budweiser and pickup truck commercials, football (soccer to us), is the most beloved, most watched, and most played sport in the world and not just a pastime reserved for suburban kids and their overbearing, minivan-driving moms.

But it’s not just the sport that makes World Cup great. It’s got that Olympic vibe of the world coming together, but distilled down into one sport and the passion surrounding it. So let’s take a moment from our inward-looking culture and see how the rest of the world plays. Moe and I have put together this list of resources for you to keep up with scores, news, and other World Cup info. If you have more, feel free to post them in the comments below.

On the Web

Official World Cup Site: This is the most obvious, isn’t it? FIFA.com has transformed into an “all World Cup, all the time” site, giving you match times, stats, video, history, and pretty much everything else you can ask for. In addition, they have a handy little PDF schedule for you to print out. Granted, you’ll have to do some time zone math, but if you want to know local times, just hit the Match page and click the icon to convert it to your local time. Nifty, eh?

ESPN: Most of the games will be shown on ESPN, though the games more relevant to the United States will be shown on ABC. Check this site for more news as well as airing times and stations. You’ll also find replays, news, and a lot of other cool information.

ESPN3.com: Not near a television? Stream the World Cup live over at ESPN3. It’s a bit laggy at times, but otherwise it works really, really well.

On the Go:

Twitter: Follow the World Cup on Twitter via @worldcup. Viewing this on your computer pulls up a fancy page allowing you to view Tweets by topic. It’s a very well done site and I highly recommend it.

ESPN 2010 World Cup iPhone App: Featuring live scoring, tournament stats, brackets, this handy – and FREE – app gives you nearly all the World Cup info you could ask for on your phone.

Many apps (like Sports Tap) have this feature, but if you’re not near a television or a radio, this app displays a field graphic showing positions, timelines, and more. It’s not quite as up-to-the-second as the football graphic in Sports Tap, but it’s a very nice feature if you’re out of the loop and want to keep track of a game.

For $8 you can get more customized information, but based on user reviews, you may just want to skip that.

For Fun

EA Sports FIFA World Cup 2010: In between games, why not sit down and create a World Cup of your own? EA’s FIFA has always been a decent series, and while there are video game football/soccer alternatives, this one is “official”. So if you’re looking to get an authentic experience, it’s your only way to go.

Adidas Jabulani Official Match Ball: Speaking of an “authentic experience”, why not get off your ass and play a bit of footy with the official ball of the World Cup. Of course, this will set you back about $150, but fuck it, right? Why puss out with some Target-bought ball when this is the biggest sporting event in the world!

From the site:

“JABULANI, meaning “to celebrate” is the 11th adidas World Cup ball featuring 11 different colors representing the 11 players in every team, the 11 official languages of South Africa, and the 11 South African communities. The colorful design brings together the tremendous diversity of the country in harmonious unity.”

And Just Because…

Major League Soccer: Hey, guess what? There’s probably a Major League Soccer club in your area and you don’t even know it. But you’d probably be even more surprised to find out that MLS fan attendance exceeds NHL and NBA combined. Okay, as Timberwolves fans that stat doesn’t really surprise us, but still. So if you wind up digging the World Cup action, hit the MLS club page and look for a team in your area. Who knows? Maybe someday the States will figure out what the rest of the world is up to.

In case you may have forgotten, Electronic Arts has and always will be pure evil. Sure, they may want you to think they turned over a new leaf by releasing and taking chances on new franchises like Mirrors Edge and Dead Space. Hell, I was even a huge fan or Army of Two and am greatly anticipating the sequel. While all the buzz was going on with these three new IPs EA launched in 2008 and giving EA props for taking bold new risks, in the background EA failed at one of their other bold risks by trying to make a hostile takeover of Take Two Interactive just a couple of months before their biggest game, GTAIV was set to release and more recently closing down Pandemic Studios only two years after purchasing them with Bioware.

Fast forward to the end of 2009, now EA is the number two third party publisher behind Activision. Now Activision is taking its hard earned criticism lately for over saturating retail stores with an abundance of big box peripheral games, and milking the Guitar Hero license for every penny it is worth. Even with Activision taking all this attention, EA is still going out there and proving why they were the original antagonist of videogame enthusiasts everywhere.

What is EA’s latest dastardly deed? I have a bone to pick with EA’s big cash cow game, Madden NFL 10. Why several months after its release? Blame EA’s advertising department. In game ads, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are here to stay. Sometimes they add to the authenticity and seem perfectly justified to a game like in most sports games for example, other times the “dynamic advertising” may be forced upon the gamer and wind up intrusive on gameplay, as was the case with patched in ads in Wipeout HD on PS3 earlier this year.

On a recent episode of giantbomb.com’s podcast this year, they made reference to a certain type of online advertising, the self explanatory “Eye Blasters.” Apparently EA Sports saw Eye Blasters as an ad revenue opportunity and was not content with the buckets of money they were raking in already with in-game sponsorships from Snickers, Weather Channel and the countless other advertisers that rear their face on every menu and overlay throughout a game of Madden.
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In the most recent DGR podcast, John uttered something as close to blasphemy as I have ever heard: “Screw Bioware.”  Bioware, the maker of such great games as Mass Effect and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic? Say it ain’t so, John!  Little did I know that John’s utterance might be closer to the actual truth than I dared to imagine…

I need to take you back about seven years ago, when my roommate and soon-to-be best man bought a little game for my PS2 called Baldurs Gate.  It was Christmas vacation, and we had no work commitments, plenty of beer, and wireless controllers.  My roommate and I spent five days straight – and I mean 24/7 – playing through that game cooperatively, and it was a blast.  We never slept, just plodded along through the dungeon crawler beauty that was this game.  When I finally introduced my wife to gaming, it was Baldurs Gate that she and I gleefully played together on the couch.  It was one of the first games I ever played through twice.  We eventually graduated to Baldurs Gate II, Gauntlet, and a lesser known title Dungeons and Dragons Heroes (a game my whole family played together)!  

So when Bioware announced they were working on a sequel to Baldurs Gate I was immediately excited.  Dragon Age Origins was its name and it promised amazing graphics and stellar storytelling.  I watched for clips from E3 to see what appeared to be 4 characters in mortal combat with a fire breathing dragon.  It looked awesome and so I pre-ordered it right away.  I should have done more homework, for despite how good this game looks, it is hardly the cooperative experience that I was looking for.  In fact, there is NO COOPERATIVE PLAY at all in this game, not even online.  And for a game that touted itself as the next Baldurs Gate, that’s blasphemous!  That’s like releasing a single person Left 4 Dead; no matter how good it is, they have ruined it by sheer comparison of design.   

Dragon Age does have some groundbreaking features that the single player will find compelling, I am sure.  First, no character’s story is the same. In fact, there are several different opening tutorials and story lines are chosen for you based on character creation.  You may be a rich aristocrat whose family was betrayed or a hapless slave fleeing from your captors.  From that point forward the quests you get and how people react to you are completely different based on your own unique origin.  This will encourage multiple play-throughs from those wishing to experience the game in a whole new way. 

Bioware revolutionized the story arc with KOTOR and again in Mass Effect with expansive dialogue trees.  What you choose to say has extensive effect on how characters react and the direction of your story.  I especially loved Mass Effect as I would pick a line and watch how Sheppard would say it and the reaction from the NPCs.  There are dialog trees in Dragon Age, but they are more like KOTOR as you never hear your character say anything.  The line is chosen and your NPC reacts.  I am sorry, but after Mass Effect, I kinda expected more from BioWare here and I found the interactions to be a burdensome and not as immersive.   

The graphics are good, but not great.  One thing I did find interesting is after each battle your character model is pictured covered with the blood spatter of your defeated enemies.  The more enemies you kill, the bloodier you become.  While this is kinda cool, I do ask myself…why?  Seriously, why is this necessary?  Don’t get me wrong, I dig blood, but this seemed glorifying it to me which made no sense.  Maybe the devs should have spent a little less time on the blood and spent, oh maybe an hour or so working on some co-op.  But I digress…

The controls and the camera are very solid, and overall I found the gameplay to be quite fun.  However, there are skill trees and at first there was a lot of trial and error in picking which skills I should increase.  Again, Bioware seems to be counting on multiple play throughs, the first being my guinea pig play through.  I’m about 6 hours into the game and I know there is a ton of gameplay and story to be told here.  Story that, despite it’s flawed approach, is done quite well in Dragon Age.  There is a moment early on in the game where you are part of this massive army that is being besieged by hoards of evil creatures.  It’s very Two Towers like and it felt…epic!  That and what happened to characters I just got introduced to left my mouth agape for more than a few moments.  So there is goodness in this game, that is certain.  I’m just having a hard time accepting that they removed part of Baldurs Gate from its sequel.  I’m sure I will play it through, but I have to wait for my wife to get over her disappointment. 

Ahh what could have been …Screw You Bioware!

One of the nice things about working at the headquarters for a major corporation is that every now and then a game publisher will stop by, set up shop, and allow me to play some of their new titles. For example, before the Wii was released, Nintendo stopped by and gave us a crack at Excite Truck, Wii Sports, and other launch games. Today, EA stopped by and displayed a few of their big fall titles, so I decided to grab a few shots and post them here.

First up is NASCAR 09. I’m no fan of the “sport”, but I loves me a good racing game. And while the NASCAR format doesn’t really compare to more varied games like Forza, Gran Turismo, or Project Gotham, it manages to be a good time.

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