If any of you are like me and visit Bungie.net or check your Halo 3 achievements on a regular basis you would have noticed a lot of changes have been afoot. In addition to increasing the achievements by another 750 points, Bungie has been counting down to something big. Well this morning they released a teaser giving little in terms of any revelations but causing us geeks to wipe the drool from our mouths at the same time.

The interweb is fairly scarce on detail at the moment so this is the most info I could find: “High action and deep mystery await players in this new Halo 3 campaign experience. Prepare to drop.”

Wow. finally back in Canada after a whirlwind weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. A little tired today (read: hungover like a motherbitch), so I’m just going to share some photos from and will write in more detail later in the week. I’ll just say it’s a fantastic event and fun for geeks and normies alike. Don’t miss it next year!

Booth Babes!

Event Photos

 

 Portal - Still Alive: Play Now

In our quest to cover all things geeky, your humble West Coast correspondent will be attending this year’s Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle for a much needed video game fix. For any of you hardcore gamers, stay tuned for as much gaming news I can cram between playing Gears of War 2 and drooling over Halo figurines, for everyone else, keep checking the Gallery section for pics of me drooling over booth babes.

Toronto - Being a gamer, I was quite excited to get an invitation to Microsoft’s X’08 event here in Toronto on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Nothing like neglecting the summer light and immersing myself in the darkness that is known as Circa. I was also excited that the invitation said free drinks and a delicious dinner. The promise of new games to try out, free food and free booze was more then enough for me to haul ass over to the nightclub after work. Here is my report.

First of all, the free food was essentially burgers, however, these burgers weren’t bbqed, rather served in those steam trays you see at a lot of buffets. Pass. Burgers should only be eaten off a bbq. Most avid gamers probably don’t have a healthy diet as it is, providing them with burgers - not the best idea. What about the free booze? Well, here were my beer options - Bud, Bud Light and Labatt Blue. Am I at a Nascar event? Shite beers. Still I can’t complain, it’s free.

Let’s take a look at the games, because that is what we are here for.

Gears of War 2 - The big one. I played this for 10-15 minutes, and yeah, it has all the makings of a classic. The graphics are crisp, the controls are the same and the new features (hostage taking, chainsaw battle) are all welcomed features. We played some new gametype too, it was called Wingmen or something. I don’t know, I just shoot everything I see on the screen. You were going to buy this game anyway.

Fable II - I played this for about 10 minutes, it has a lot of the same controls as the last game, which is good. The level I played, I had a dog with me and a GUN. I had no clue you can have a gun in Fable. THUG LIFE. The fighting on it seems to be more refined and although I didn’t get to do any of the RPG elements, the game looks slick and well, you have a pet.

Too Human - This game felt like a button masher, and I am not a big fan of that. The menu system looked horrible, and the graphics were okay. I am not really a fan of this style of game, so I can’t say much about it.

NHL 09 - This game looked f’n nice, unfortunately, there were some douchebags in line who decided to play an entire game and thus creating a massive lineup that I avoided. It looked nice though.

Rock Band 2 - Poor Guitar Hero, sure they had a setup, but everyone was about the rock band 2. Check out the drums:

The formula is tried and true, and it’ll sell.

Some EA Sports Cartoony Boxing match - Ridiculous. After the awesomeness known as Fight Night, they come out with this bullshit boxing game that is clearly not Fight Night. I can’t see how this game will supplant Fight Night as the go to boxing game.

NBA Live and Fifa 2009 - Both these games looked very pretty, but I am biased towards NBA 2K9 and Winning Eleven, so I didn’t really give these a chance. I just can’t see these two series supplanting the other two. Case in point, I couldn’t even find the hop step button on NBA Live when I was driving with Jose Calderon. Calderon then made a racial gesture at the screen.

Golden Axe - There was a 3d version of Golden Axe now. It was not that good, basically you run around killing stuff in a gory fashion. Not my style of game.

Call of Duty 5 - If Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty 4 had sex, and then one of them had a baby, this would be it. Nothing special, just same old, same old.

Spiderman game - Mid Air fights looked pretty awesome, and the graphics look fantastic. You will probably spend hours just swinging around Manhattan.

That’s about all the games I had time for (and my free beer tickets ran out).

Anytime I come across a video game trailer set to some good music I have to share it. Here’s the latest trailer for Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2 set to the tune of ‘Angel’ by Massive Attack. Although Angel is a perfect track for a badass shoot and blow ‘em up video game, it doesn’t seem to fit with Far Cry 2. I would have expected something along the lines of this.

Regardless, Far Cry 2 is fixin’ to be a great game. Check out the trailer below. If you have a decent connection I suggest you click the HD version, it looks amazing.

Well it’s that time of year fanboys and girls, when the worlds biggest video game console makers, developers and soft drink makers converge at a deserted airport hanger somewhere in the Los Angeles area to pimp their wares and make gamers start saving their money for the Fall splurge.

This morning Microsoft was the first to show off a few of their highly anticipated titles, namely Fallout 3, Fable 2, Resident Evil 5 and of course, Gears of War 2.

While watching the keynote I decided to, in true geek fashion, take screenshots of gameplay footage. It was alot easier than I expected so I took as many as I could and posted it on our gallery page. Be sure to check it out. In the meantime, here are my brief impressions of what Microsoft showcased:

Fallout 3 - One word: Fatman. Described as a ‘mini-nuclear bomb catapult’.

Resident Evil 5 - Kicking African Zombie ass with a friend online. Finally!

Fable 2 - Kicking mythical creatures ass with a friend online. Booyah! Lionhead has created an innovative way with how you can play with your friends online. Instead of doing the usual ‘Invite friend to game’ function through your Xbox dashboard, Fable actually shows where your mates are in-game in the form of ‘Ambient Orbs’. All you need to do is walk over to the orbs, press a button, invite them to play and if they accept, they instantly pop up on your screen.

Gears of War 2 - Brand new gameplay footage. Fight through the pain!

Xbox 360 Dashboard - They’ve totally revamped it for the Fall update. Looks pretty sleek and yes, you can create your own Mi..er ‘Avatars’.