Opinion

Let's admit it, this whole "zombie" thing in pop culture has pretty much run its limits. Not only do we have tons of zombie based games come out, but movies, TV shows and novels seem to be in love with the undead. However, the phenomenon doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

With that in mind, playing Valve's zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead 2 feels a lot of the like a retread of the original game that came out a year ago. Like before, the is designed for four players to come together and shoot fast moving "Dawn of the Dead remake/28 Days Later" infected humans alongside special infected sporting extra abilities. However, even though it's generally a well-made game, it's hard to not think of Left 4 Dead 2 as a glorified expansion pack.

Video games are definitely maturing as the medium grows older. What once might have been a simple diversion has become a massive industry, rivaling Hollywood in scope and budget. Though the mainstream media -- and therefore much of America -- might still see the very concept of playing games as juvenilia, it's clear that games are able to willing to broach nearly any subject matter, including some that might be controversial.

Is there any topic that is beyond the scope of a video game? What's taboo these days?

All right. It's time to separate the men from the geeks. You may have read a bunch of reviews of how great Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is but we bet that most of them have concentrated on the console versions. After all of the hubbub about no dedicated servers, no mod tools and only 18 players allowed online, can Infinity Ward's latest first-person shooter be any good on the PC?

Actually, there's quite a bit to like about the game as it turns out... but many of our concerns regarding the PC port of Modern Warfare 2 also proved to be true.

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The newest opus from famed developer BioWare is the dark fantasy role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins. This massive game features a story filled with blood, violence and sex topped with BioWare's signature morality system, where players have the option to become saints or ruthless tyrants. Players take the role a newly recruited Grey Warden, an elite group of individuals charged with the responsibility of protecting the world from a catastrophic event called the Blight, which is when evil darkspawn creatures gather together into a massive army under the direction of an arch-demon to ravage the world. Similar to the Spectres from Mass Effect, BioWare's sci-fi role-playing counterpart, Grey Wardens are highly respected and their jurisdiction stretches across all the lands. Their sole purpose is to recruit from all walks of life and do whatever it takes to stop the Blight.

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In 1979, Moonraker was first shown in movie theaters. It's perhaps the dumbest premise ever for a James Bond movie: A super rich psycho with a Hitler complex decides to kill everyone on Earth via a bio-weapon in favor of his own specially picked humans. In order to kill everyone on the planet all at once he decides to build a space station to fire pods that would disperse the weapon from orbit.

The final battle takes place in and around this space station as a fleet of US Space Marines (yep, that's what they are called) head up in a space shuttle. The Marines and the villainous minions, all wearing bulky space suits, fire at each other with lasers in Earth's orbit. Again, it's really dumb for a James Bond movie but in another context, this kind of space battle had not really been seen before. In fact since Moonraker we have yet to see this kind of space combat duplicated for any other movie or TV show.

If you're itching for an action hack-and-slash role-playing game to hold you over until Diablo III releases, then you can't do much better than Torchlight. Developed by Runic Games, with a team comprised largely of people that worked on the original Diablo and Diablo II, this is probably as close as one can get to a Diablo-esque experience without actually summoning the Lord of Terror. Even the music is reminiscent of Diablo. That's not to say that Torchlight is any kind of rehash. The game generally carries a light tone, thanks largely to its cartoonish art style and bright colors. Even in the deepest depths of the mines that run underneath the town of Torchlight, with the blood setting turned on, you won't find a creature that can be characterized as horrific or scary, so the game does a good job of standing out on its own.

Download the Torchlight Demo (418 MB)
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It's said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it is a completely subjective experience, dependent upon the taste of each particular viewer. This is palpably evident in the video game industry, where one man's trash is another man's treasure. One need only review the relatively recent controversy over Diablo 3's color palette to realize the truth of this.

Have we evolved a different set of standards for the concept of beauty in a video game? Is there ever one prevailing standard, apparent and provable to all? Why is beauty so hard to define?

If you combine the wasteland ambience and role-playing aspects of Fallout 3 and combine them with the four-player cooperative features from games like Left 4 Dead, then add in some giant creatures and a good dose of splatter humor, you end up with Borderlands. The player travels to the world of Pandora, where there isn't much to survive on, but the promise of vast riches in an ancient vault built by a long lost alien species. There are plenty of obstacles in the way, but luckily, they can all be overcome with a little skill and superior firepower.

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To: The Modern Warfare 2 Team at Infinity Ward

There's been a massive amount of buzz about the upcoming release of Modern Warfare 2. Unfortunately, as you know, not all of it has been good, especially from the PC community. It started out slow but about 12 days ago it reached its peak when your community manager Robert Bowling dropped a bombshell that the PC version would no longer have a dedicated server system for multiplayer. Instead, you guys are creating your own peer-to-peer matchmaking system called IWNet.

Some folks have read a lot into this decision but believe it or not in some respects we think your decisions are good for the PC community. While some hardcore PC gamers may not wish to admit it there are "average" PC gamers, we understand that some people don't want to deal with the hassle of browsing for a low ping server. They just want to jump in a game for some quick multiplayer matches.

I well remember the days of the early 80's, spending a lot of my free time in the local arcade. My excitement over playing the latest and greatest machines was tempered by my limited finances. Getting to a certain level of proficiency in those days was often a costly endeavor. Fortunately, a high school friend of mine would soon purchase his first home computer, an Apple IIe. I ended up transferring my arcade time to time spent at his house, playing some of the greatest games I've ever had the privilege to encounter.

Thinking back to those games, one phenomenon stands out: their inherent difficulty, compared with that of today's games. It seems as though games in general were just more challenging then -- but surely that's just due to my poor recollection? Could games really have been getting easier since their humble origins? Have we lowered the barrier of entry to the point of making things too easy?

Players with a knack for micromanagement and looking for a big power trip may be interested in Tropico 3. In this third installment, like its predecessors, players take the role of a national leader, El Presidente, of a tropical island. Under your direction, the tiny nation needs build up an economic infrastructure from practically nothing, tend to the needs of its citizens, and get out from under the shadow of influence of superpowers like the United States and the USSR. However, being a national leader takes more than tending the peoples' every whim. In order to get a high score, players will need to skim a little here and there to put away for a retirement fund. Balancing power between what's good for your nation and what's good for you will be a constant act as the game progresses.

Download the Tropico 3 Demo
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This past Thursday, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, Windows 7, was finally made available to the public via upgrades or new PC's pre-loaded with the OS. We've already talked about what PC gamers should know about Windows 7 and given you a history of Windows PC gaming. We've asked if you should even upgrade to Windows 7 and even given you the opinions of many game developers if they think Windows 7 will boost PC gaming. Now we want to do some speculation and maybe give Microsoft some advice on how they could take the opportunity to improve PC gaming now that they have a fresh new OS to play with.

Check out our ideas for Microsoft after the jump:

No matter how many times it's been reiterated, we just can't seem to leave the fantasy genre behind. It seems to be the default setting of both RPGs and MMOs, as witnessed by the fact that it's always a surprise when a new one of those comes out and it's not set in the fantasy milieu.

For my money, very few developers have used the fantasy setting to tell truly fascinating stories -- or, rather, stories that could only have been told in a fantasy setting. There are so many limitations inherent in the genre that don't offer a concomitant benefit that I don't know why we haven't moved on to doing more games in the modern urban setting instead. But let's take a look at what that genre offers us.

Crysis. The name just means photorealism in graphics these days. It's what people expect from Crytek now, and there's no going back for that company. They've built their brand around the latest and greatest rendering technology, so full of buzzwords that it virtually takes a degree in advanced mathematics just to understand how amazing the tech is.

But is all of that realism worth the effort? Does it really matter if you can see individual grass stems waving in the wind? Sure, the ability to see individual pores on your opponent's face is kind of cool, but does it make for a better game?

Those that have been keeping up with the development of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising know that the emphasis of the game is on intense realism. The island of Skira, where all the action takes place, is based on satellite footage of a real-world island located near Japan. Its 220km^2 is completely open, so players can use almost any approach when handling a mission. Everything from the sounds of the weapons and vehicles to the animations are meticulously represented in this modern day shooter. With all this attention to realism, one could probably guess that it's not meant for fast paced run-and-gun shooter fans. A single bullet can potentially incapacitate or kill your character. At the same time, the single player experience is held back by the unreliable artificial intelligence, so the best way to experience this game is alongside other players, preferably ones that are really good at realistic shooters.

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