Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

From the dregs of (personal) obscurity, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, an open-world RPG from EA, reared its head to say hi.

Well hello there. Downloading (3GB) demo now! Will post impressions soon-ish.

Diablo 3 Soon?

A Best Buy store supposedly has this fantastic poster up:

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

That's February 1, 2012, by the way. Joystiq has the news.

Hmm. I'm actually not sure whether to buy it immediately or not. *ducks from chairs being thrown in my direction*

Steam's Steely Stranglehold 2011

Valve is involved in a conspiracy with 2K Games and Game Informer. How else could you explain the X-COM pack going on sale in Steam for $5 on the same day that the best thing to happen ever happened?

Discombobulated by nostalgia, I finally have a legit copy of my most favoritest game ever.

And since I was already in Steam, here's how I fared after the last epic Steam Holiday sale:

Wallet am cry

Bought most of those for the achievement, but I actually really enjoyed some of them. From that list, there's only one that I would never, EVER play again. This image doesn't even include the stuff I bought for other peeps. Well att least I have some new fodder for blog posts ;)

Til the next Steam sale!

WelXCOM back!

Were you as excited as I was when an XCOM game was announced a few months back?

Were you also as disappointed as I was after I read the announcement some more and found out it was gonna be a first-person shooter?

Well, prepare to re-excite and un-disappoint yourself!

SECTOID!

Game Informer magazine has formally revealed another XCOM PC/360/PS3 game being made for release Fall 2012. The kicker: it's staying true to the original game's roots, a hybrid resource management game with turn-based strategy tactical combat against aliens near felled UFOs and Terror sites. The double kicker: Firaxis, one of the less than handful of companies you could trust when it comes to strategy games, is the game's developer.

Here's the blurb/tease for their next month's edition from the site:

This is the announcement you've been waiting for: One of the most beloved strategy titles of all time re-imagined by one of the best strategy studios in the world. Firaxis Games' XCOM: Enemy Unknown introduces a wider console audience to what made the storied franchise great in the first place.

Unlike 2K Marin's previously announced XCOM shooter, which sparked tempers among longtime fans for turning its back on the series' cerebral roots, this title is a full-on strategy game that puts players in command of a global anti-alien defense force. XCOM's leader needs a worldwide perspective where threats are identified, populations reassured, and national leaders mollified – but a tactical mind is just as critical considering every shot XCOM's soldiers fire on the battlefield is under the player's turn-based control.

"It’s been a dream of ours to recreate X-COM with our unique creative vision. We’re huge fans of the original game and it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-envision a game that is as beloved as X-COM," said Steve Martin, president of Firaxis Games. "We were careful to keep XCOM: Enemy Unknown true to the elements that made X-COM such a revered game while delivering an entirely new story and gameplay experience for both die-hard X-COM fans and newcomers to the franchise."

If you're lost, you can find out what all the fuss over the original XCOM is in the in-depth Classic GI feature we printed a few months ago (now available online for the first time), which includes rare insight from series creator Julian Gollop.

The huge feature in February's Game Informer goes into all the gory details of XCOM's destructible tactical environments, the interaction between the real-time strategic view and the turn-based combat, how the XCOM organization improves its capabilities as the war rages on, and much more.

While I'm a bit cautious about the game's multiplatform release, I'm sorry if I could not help but be really excited ecstatic about the prospect of getting to play a modern version of one of my most favorite games of all time. Seriously. This is officially my 2012 Day-1-bought game.

Me, when I read the news.

Now all we need is Firaxis making a new Master of Orion and Master of Magic and we'll have the golden years of PC strategy gaming back.

Blasphemy!

To stave off my increasing console gaming itch, I bought a decent PC game controller. I was looking for the wired version, but SM Southmall, with its many PC shops, only has a solitary shop with a solitary model for sale.



The Logitech Wireless Gamepad F710 is supposedly one of the best ones out. I guess I'll find out for myself.

Now to finally play my ginormous PC game backlog. Hmm. WoW kaya?

Phone Story - Apple Cannot Handle The Truth?

Phone Story is a collection of mini games for the iOS platform approved and released for sale just a few days ago. It was removed almost immediately afterwards by Apple from the AppStore for violating a number of their rules.

Well, just see for yourself:
Phone Story Game Play Video

The truth is still out there, at least in the Android Marketplace.

Out Of Topic: Contagion - More Like Contage-Yawn

Out Of Topic delves into the non-gaming side of life. Yes, I do have a life outside of gaming, thank you very much.

Don't talk to anyone about this movie.

A monster of a virus spreads like crazy, killing millions, before the US government finds the cure. It's the 1995 blockbuster hit Outbreak done in a more documentary-like setting. And with a ton more huge Hollywood names.

The movie builds up the outbreak nicely in the first half of the movie. Unfortunately, I felt that they just did not know when to stop building up the pace of the story that my exhilaration became exhaustion during the second half.

The story is completely unfocused: plot threads going nowhere, characters disappearing abruptly, and a half-assed ending. And by half-assed I mean really, really horrible. I feel the movie could have been better without that ending.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Elliott Gould. That's like 3-4 movies worth of huge Hollywood names. Watching the movie also makes you feel like you watched 3 to 4 movies. All at the same time. Such a waste of their talent. And what's up with Jude Law's teeth? Seriously.

Watch it if you like "disaster" movies, but leave your high expectations outside the cinema.