If you answered yes to any of those questions, stop reading this and pick up Singularity.  Raven Software are the developers of this game and you may recognize them from Wolfenstein or X-Men Origins: Wolverine amongst other great games.  They do a great job creating a world that you can really get involved in as well as destroy or rebuild.

The shooting is pretty tight, the guns definitely feel real and the graphics are slightly above average.  A’la Bioshock, the game is a little creepy with it’s atmosphere and it’s story telling but that makes it fun and interesting for me.  The premise is this, Russia has created a substance called E99 that they plan to use to make themselves a stronger world power than the USA.  While developing E99 something goes really wrong and causes mutations in people and destruction of things.  Years later 2 American soldiers are investigating something (I forget what) and they end up on this island when their helo crashes.  1 of the soldiers ends up discovering this device called the TMD that allows him to manipulate time and space.

There is a bit of language as it’s an M rated game and when you are dealing with mutants and Russians you are gonna see some violent content.  Kids, stay away.

That’s it!  There’s a ton of fun to be had with this game, for me because I liked Time Shift and Wolfenstein this game was right up my alley.  Check it out.

The premise of the game is team on team battle or objective based gameplay.  You choose your class (only 2 to choose from in demo) and you hunt down and destroy the opposing team.  The gameplay is tight, aiming and such is spot on unlike some 3rd person games and the arsenal of weapons to use is vast.  You can melee with a sword or giant hammer, transform your character to a vehicle (each has their own unique abilities) and basically rock the house.

There is nothing to not like about this game and it has the potential to be overlooked considering the first 2 Transformers games were terrible.  You owe it to yourself to try this game out if you have an Xbox 360, sorry PS3 guys you have to wait until the game is released to try the demo.

With most games that take eons to come out though they were promised years before, I had my reservations about Alan Wake a’la Too Human.  The concept seemed interesting enough, but in our waiting process a few copy cats had arrived to try and steal Alan’s thunder.  Alone in the Dark and Deadly Premonition are games that are almost identical in theory to Alan Wake, yet failed to deliver any type of gaming enjoyment.  Not so with A. Wake.

From the very beginning you are immersed into one of Alan’s Nightmares and introduced to one of the games enemies “the Taken”.  These dark shadowy figures are human-like and desire to kill you for unknown reasons. Some of the lower level Taken may sling knives at you while others wield axes and will lunge at you to cut you into pieces.  Their laughs are maniacal and disturbing and their growling and gutteral sounds leave you feeling uneasy.  In order to do away with these enemies you must shine your flashlight onto them until the darkness is dissolved and then shoot them with your guns leaving them to dissipate into thin air once defeated.

Throughout the entire game Alan narrates everything that happens audibly as opposed to reading the thoughts on screen a’la Resident Evil and “The staircase is darkly lit and leaves you feeling disturbed”.  As the player you truly feel like you are experiencing the story with Alan.  There are moments where it feels like the game is just having you walk from one cut scene to another however each cut scene tells an important part of the story and further digs you in to it’s hole and the action can be so intense at times that it will make you forget that the last part of the game you played you didn’t do anything exciting.

Each level plays out like an episode of a TV show complete with a “previously on” made famous by Lost.  On the second to highest difficulty each episode has taken over an hour to complete.  Depending on how much exploring you choose to do to find manuscript pages or coffee mugs will significantly shorten your episode time.  I would recommend turning the lights out, turning up the surround sound and taking your sweet time to play through because no other game has provided an experience thus far like Alan Wake has for me.

With only a T rating and a slight bit of language, the only negative connotations so far is the darkness, but in a sense you are fighting it off and in a nice little allusion it takes the “light” of a flashlight to destroy the darkness.

In the demo you get 30 minutes to explore the game and it’s content.  If you cause enough chaos you get time extensions and I was able to play almost 40 something minutes.  Just Cause 2 seems to me like a complete overhaul of the original game.  The concepts are the same but the graphics, control and fun factor are all upgraded and well received.

The first thing you will learn is that your grappling hook is a completely integral part of your arsenal.  You can grapple onto almost anything and not only that but you can hook your grappling hook to something and then attach it to something else and let the physics take over.  For example, you can grapple an enemy and then grapple an oncoming car and watch as the enemy is dragged away.  You can also attach your grapple to a helicopter and then to a building and the chopper gets stuck.  There are an unending amount of things to do with just the grapple. My own personal experience involved me shooting at a propane tank and as it propelled into the air I grappled myself to it and was shot like a rocket into the sky.  I then opened my parachute and floated around the world.  It was an awesome experience and it’s things like that that will make this game a playground for anyone who is playing it.

The shooting has also been improved and the hit detection seems pretty spot on.  You can shoot someone in the leg and they react to the shot which I personally find to be important.  There are numerous vehicles to ride in and tons of environments to destroy.  The game is a cross between, GTA/Mercenaries/Crackdown and Bionic Commando (except fun).  I can’t recommend this game enough just based on the demo and it will be a day 1 purchase for me.

Can I just be a little school girl for a second?  Oh my gosh Killzone 2 multiplayer is sooooo freakin awesome!

Ok, now I’m done.  I picked up Killzone 2 last night at Walmart.  I was the only person waiting for it, felt pretty dumb being “that guy” in my pajamas standing in an invisible line.  After learning that my local Game Stop wasn’t having a midnight launch due to no reservations.  No reservations?  Seriously?  Not a really good start for the game that will save the world and put Sony back on top.  I guess I live in an Xbox and Wii town.

So I popped in Killzone 2 as soon as I got home, instead of starting the single player missions I decided I wanted to try out the multiplayer first.  Guess what?  No game install!  Can this be true?  What has happened to my PS3?  Did it change over night?  I set up my region settings and got right into a game.

I played all night with 31 other people online, that’s a lot of people to kill.  Thankfully due to Killzone 2′s unique experience I didn’t have to focus on killing everyone all the time.  As each game progresses you have different objective to overcome.  Just as we explained in episode 98 of the Hardcore Christian Gamer Cast, you can start off killing as many of the opposing team that you can.  Then you move to escorting a propaganda speaker from one location to another.  Next you may have to find the target and assassinate him.  It keeps changing throughout the rounds keeping things chaotic and fun.

You start off as only 1 class with 2 different weapon choices.  As you progress in rank and earn medals you will be able to choose from other weapons and classes.  The ranking system is straight forward, earn points to rank up, but the medal system adds a great addition to the ranking idea.  As you earn more medals you get bonuses too.

There are clans, and squads.  You can participate in tournaments online!  This game has everything!

Let me just say, that the graphics are by far the most realistic and beautiful visuals I have ever seen on ANY online multiplayer game.  Sony, you have me sold on your title.  This game has loads of promise and potential to be great and may truly be a reason to stay Sony.  This is of course if you are into first person shooters.

My only complaint, and it’s slight, is that the control sensitivity is very frustrating, I have not found the ideal setting for myself yet though I am sure that this will be nothing but a learning curve for me.

This game, based on multiplayer alone is absolutely worth a buy in my opinion.  I have never been so impressed with a game before, and I truly believed that this game was going to be just another shooter.

When I say adults, please know that I am specific when I say that only adults should be playing this game. Although House of the Dead Overkill is a rail-shooter with arcade aspects, the language alone is enough to take the genre to a different level. The amount of mature language in this game would make Samuel L. Jackson blush, it’s completely unnecessary and gratuitous.

Language aside, the game introduces a whole new element to the HOTD series. If you are a fan of the recent Tarantino Grind House films you will definitely see where the developers drew their inspiration from. The game does a great job evoking the sense of watching an old Grind House movie including fantastic voice over acting and narrative.

There are some redeeming qualities of the game, it has zombies! A ton of zombies! I never get tired of re-killing the undead. The graphics are on-par for the Wii, I recommend purchasing a component cable to bring the brightness of the game out to where you can see what is going on. Otherwise the game is dark and somewhat confusing.

There is a challenging combo system with the game, where you continue to gain combo points with each registered shot on an enemy. One missed shot will restart your hit counter. You can also earn money with each mission which then allows you to purchase new weapons as well as upgrade your current weapons. This encourages players to play to their utmost ability during each stage of play.

Each episode of the game plays out like a movie, including cut scenes which tell the story of Agent G and Isaac Washington. Both men are on a mission to track down and arrest Papa Caesar, a Burt Reynolds want-to-be villain. During their escapades they bump into Varla Guns, an over compensated woman whom they must look after and partner with. Every episode ends with a boss battle, some more complicated than others where you must determine the bosses weakness in order to advance to past the episode.

Language aside, this game is a decent yet gory rail shooter which could be enjoyed by all audiences. The language will really throw a ratchet into the game for younger audiences and their parents. I understand the desire to appeal to a wider audience than the Wii is used to, however I am concerned that since the majority of Wii gamers are younger, their parents may not suspect a Wii game to have this level of mature content. Again, all parents are responsible for filtering content for their children, but this may put a bad taste in their mouths for Sega.

I enjoyed the F.E.A.R 2 demo on the marketplace immensely and even the demo scared me but it was only a slight tease compared to what I experianced in the first few hours of gameplay with the final version.

F.E.A.R 2 starts off approximately 30 minutes before the ending of the first game.  You play as Michael Beckett, part of a team of special ops personnel who are dispatched to rescue Dr. Genevieve Aristide from a facility that has been breached by black ops operatives.

Instantaneously I was immersed in the atmosphere of the game.  The game is so well done in environments and graphics.  I even noticed a little AI at the very first part of the game.  As I was exploring the outside of the building we were getting ready to enter, I walked into a giant water fountain and my partner said “What you want to take a bath?” and then upon entering and our platoon leader asking what took us so long my partner said “Becket decided he wanted to take a bath in the fountain”.  It’s the little things like that-that set the game apart from the first version of F.E.A.R.

There were numerous occasions where the game caused my heart to race from fear.  (pun intended)  The game makes you feel claustrophobic, never know what is going on behind you.  The imagery is just plain creepy.

There is a bit of language in the dialogue of the team members and the violence and gore is off the charts.  So for those weak of heart you definitely want to stay away from this game.  Overall this game is going to scare the pants off of you (if you are like me) and is extremely well told. 

Highly recommended for those with experiance with games like this.  Convictions not included.

I don’t know much about the Killzone franchise, so please don’t butcher me with my knowledge of past games.  From what I understand is that the first Killzone was a rather mediocre game on the PS2 scoring a 70 on Metacritic.  So why all the hype about Killzone 2?  Apparently a video surfaced before the release of the PS3 and had people going crazy over the graphics and fluidity of the game.  The video turned out to be a CG experience however the developers promised that the game would look as good upon release.

So, as we are close to release the Killzone 2 demo became available for pre-orderers and the European market.  I want Killzone to be an awesome experience giving me a reason to love my PS3.  In fact Sony seems to believe that Killzone 2 is going to be the game to make the PS3 a household name.

So to my impressions.  First off the graphics are pretty amazing.  Even for me not having a 1080p television the visuals were incredible.  My favorite animations had to be the reload of your weapon and the fluidity of the environments while you were reloading.  Your squad-mates and Helghast enemies all looked terrific and moved with human mobility.  I was also very impressed with the hit detection on your enemies.  They reacted very realistically to your bullets and that was satisfying.  The explosions were visceral and awe-inspiring.

Here’s what I didn’t like.  Firstly, the language is going to be an issue.  A lot of cursing in just the small bit of dialogue that I heard.  For some it’s probably not a big deal but for others this could be a drawback.  In addition to the cursing the movement of your character was slow and tank-like.  I felt like I was controlling a mech of some sorts.  I increased my sensitivity for the controller and I still felt sluggish and strange.  It’s possible that I am used to the fast-paced action of a game like Left4Dead but the slow movement and almost delayed reaction of my character was a real turn-off.  If they could have adapted the movement of a character on Call of Duty than I think it would have been more appreciated.  Yes, I do understand that your player is wearing armor and that it is probably very heavy but it just was not enjoyable.

I did enjoy the destructible environments, I liked how things were chaotic around me and that certain things could be destroyed with my grenade or gun. The absolute most favorite thing for me about the demo was destroying the stantioned fans in the second half of the demo.  If you shoot at the fans not only do you destroy the blades but you also can cause the fan to bend and go limp.  This was pretty neat, I know it’s corny but it was fun taking out the stupid fan!

All in all the game looks promising but it didn’t make me say “Wow I’ve never seen that before”.  I also don’t think that the PS3 was built for FPS’ but I will attribute that to the fact that I am used to using the 360 controller and I can forgive that.  The only way I can see Killzone 2 become “the” game I play for the PS3 is if the the multiplayer offers something unique compared to other online games. 

The Rest is to be seen.

So I played the F.E.A.R. 2 demo with high expectations, thinking that they would capitalize on what worked with the original and fix the things that didn’t.  The end result?  It worked!  The F.E.A.R. 2 demo is amazing and it truly looks like it will be head and shoulders above the original game.

The first things I noticed was the graphic upgrade.  Everything in this game looks better.  The backgrounds look real, the enemies are smooth and seemless, Alma (the creepy little girl) looks like an actual little girl-and creepy.  The shooting is spot on, the hit detection actually registered when you hit an enemy and the bullet time was stellar!

I am not completely sure on the plot line for this game aside from the fact that Alma is back and she is causing havok.  There were some very noticeably creepy parts in the demo, even one where I jumped from fright!  My kinda game.  Monolith does a great job making you feel like you are all alone in your environment, there are crazy things going on around you-lighting effects add such a scary mood.

I am very impressed with this demo and even more excited for the release of the game.  If you have not checked this game out yet you need to.  Be aware however that it is an M rated title.  There are lots of bloody moments and it can be pretty disturbing.

The demo does a good job capturing the essence of what Left4Dead is all about, but what it totally leaves out is maddening difficulty of the end levels for each episode.  I played on No Mercy with two friends on the advanced difficulty and it was hard enough save the lack of a fourth person.  We worked well together as a team, going from this point to the other but our fourth man controlled by AI was not on the same program as we were.  The beauty of Left4Dead is the necessity of team work.  Each player MUST communicate with one another in order to flow like a well oiled machine.  You need to know when to have each others backs as well as when to heal whom.  The AI has a hard time just picking up a pipe bomb or molitov cocktail (which they wouldn’t do).

On the final level of No Mercy we were left to defend against a few waves of zombies as we awaited a helicopters arrival to pick us up and bring us to safety.  We had a plan, huddle in a small room where there was only one entrance and destroy all the zombies that ended up in front of the door.  Again, the three of us were on the same page but Mr. AI himself decided to be on his own program and leave the safe room to fight against the zombie hordes alone.  We basically made our computer friend bait as we continued against the onslaught but when the Tanks (giant Hulk like zombies) decided to show up we had to leave the safe room and work a new strategy. 

After at least 15 tries on this one particular point in the game we were finally victorious and the sighs of relief were heard all around our head sets.  We finally completed the mission, the episode was over only, there are 4 more episodes to complete.

Left4Dead is such a phenomenal game especially with 4 players cooperating accordingly.  If you even remotely like zombies, correction, if you like video games you absolutely owe it to yourself to pick this game up and play it with your friends.  You will not in any way be disappointed with what you experience in this game.