Here we are with another community feature from Gamer9er with a review of Alien Swarm for PC.

Alien Swarm is a new action game released by Valve on July 19 2010.  The best part about the game is that it is Free!  Alien Swarm was first developed as a mod for UT4.  Valve eventually hired those guys and then went on to making the Left 4 Dead series.  On there spare time they decided to remake Alien Swarm, but instead run it on the Source Engine.

First off I have only played the game on Crossover Games which runs absolutely phenomenal, but not as good as a PC would.  So I won’t be talking about the performance of the game just the campaign and features.  The game is free.  Just saying that makes you want to download it and try it out.  Who doesn’t want to try out a free game made by Valve?  Anyways, there are four options at the main menu.  Play Online, Achievements, Options, and Offline Practice.  Pretty simple menus and easy to work your way around.

Landing Bay is the first mission.  Objectives are 1) Access the Inner perimeter. 2)  Download the flight data. 3)  Activate the cargo elevator and descend.  4)  Access the facility exterior.  Not much story to that.  I have no idea what going on and how these alien things came alive.  You just jump right in and start clicking away.  It does take some skill though for playing on harder difficulties.  You have to know where your teammates are,  when to deploy specials, and you doing what your class is supposed to like medics heal and techs hack.  The game is very team oriented.

As you move along in the so called campaign with no story, you level up and unlock new weapons/accessories.  Double barreled shotguns, plasma guns, miniguns, sentries, and the list goes on forever.  Alien Swarm is also one of the most user friendly games iv’e seen since Team Fortress 2.  When downloading, they give you a free SDK to build new campaigns and mods.  I haven’t spent much time messing around with the SDK, but Iv’e played some amazing mods in the past couple of days.

Overall, I’m going to give this game a 3/5.  Alien Swarm only includes one campaign and will last mind blowing 45 minutes.  The game is also free which makes up for it.  Also no storyline or support for Mac which is a huge let down.  The game can get a little corny as sometimes like slowmotion.  The missions are very short but also fun at the same time.  So if you get the chance to get Crossover or play on a PC, try it out you won’t be wasting your money on this game.

We’re here with another community feature from Gamer9er on Torchlight enjoy!

Torchlight is a well-known RPG for all you steam users out there. On day 7 of Perils of Summer, I picked up torchlight off the shelves. Now I’m not really an RPG kinda guy, I’ve loved first person shooters my whole life. This was a whole new experience for me. So I’m going to do a quick and easy review on Torchlight.

First time launching the game the menus look descent. “Create Character, Load Character, Settings, Credits”. Pretty easy, not to complicated. So now I chose Create Character. There are only three different characters you can choose from? Don’t get me wrong, but thats like choosing between chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream. What if I want cookie dough or avocado flavors? I would rather walk into a Baskin Robins than a store who only carries three flavors. So I chose a character that I didn’t like and started the game.

Wow, simply amazing. The gameplay is phenomenal! You can walk anywhere you want, customize your character from shoulder plates to duel wielding weapons with thousands of combinations, and epic battles all through the campaign. The gameplay really showed up the character selection! As for graphics, there the basic kinda RPG graphics I would call it. Lots of detail, RPG like, and not to scattered or overdone in any fashion.

The storyline is very action packed and is adventurous as can be. From mines to forest to ember filled ruins this singleplayer has it all. The storyline is a bit bland at points, but for the most part its a bit on the creative side. I still havn’t completed it yet, but so far it’s getting interesting… Don’t want to go to far into explaining the story .

I highly recommend getting this game if you are either new or veteran in RPGs and are looking for a new and exciting game that will last a while. (WARNING: Do not buy Torchlight if you get addicted to things easily. Any actions you make, I am not responsible for them.) Anyways… have a great rest of the summer to all!

All Your Base Radio is back with Episode 2 of the new MPCGamers.com podcast! All Your Base Radio is a podcast made by members of the MPCGamers community and hosted by us. The podcast deals with video games, gaming news, computer and technology affairs, and even more. The podcast will record every Friday at 6 CST, and we will be accepting guest anchors soon.

This episode was hosted by Zorba, Jedikiller, and Russell. It covered the Mass Effect movie, de Blob and 2D video games, Call of Duty: Black Ops Communist Zombies, console exclusivity, and more. The episode is about 21 minutes long (a bit short) and can be streamed right here using the below player. If you want to download the episode directly, please feel free to grab it using the below download link or whatever site you are using to view the podcast.

Download the episode here.

Be sure to comment on the Community Question using the comments below or send them to podcast AT mpcgamers DOT com. We would very much like to have your input on the topic!

Have suggestions or comments on the podcast? Feel free to leave them here on the comments section or send them by email to podcast AT mpcgamers DOT com. Make sure to sign up at our community, located at MPCGamers.com. We’d love to have you there! Also, be sure to check us out on all the various podcast sites- iTunes, Podcast Alley, and Podcast.com. Let us know if you see it on another site or want to submit the cast to another site.

Thank you for listening and we hope you will continue doing so!

All Your Base Radio has begun, and we have just finished with our first episode ever! All Your Base Radio is a podcast made by members of the MPCGamers community and hosted by us. The podcast deals with video games, gaming news, computer and technology affairs, and even more. The podcast will record every Friday at 7 CST, and we will likely be accepting guest anchors in the near future.

This episode was hosted by Zorba, Russell, Khyler, and Jedikiller. It covered Call of Duty: Black Ops and its mappacks, the Humble Indie Bundle, Project Natal, the Halo: Reach beta, and more. The episode is about 45 minutes long, and can be streamed using the below player. If you want to take it with you, then use the download link under the player to download the MP3 file.

Download the file here.

Have suggestions or comments on the podcast? Feel free to leave them here on the comments section or send them by email to podcast AT mpcgamers DOT com. Make sure to sign up at our community, located at MPCGamers.com. We’d love to have you there!

Khy is back with our latest Community Feature: a review of Skate 3, a new skating game recently published by EA!

I’m going to come straight out at you. This is NOT an unbiased review. I am a skater, and I enjoyed the first two skates, so yes, this is a biased review. To start it off I just wanna say this game gets +100000 review points for taking out your incredibly annoying camera man, Reda, and replacing him with Shingo, who’s actually one of your buddies from the first 2 games. I’m kidding, but it really is a good thing… Now lets start the review.

For this review I’m gonna break it up into 3 categories. Story, Location, Graphics/Sound.
Let’s start with Story.

To be honest, I wasn’t too interested with the storyline when I got this game. I really just wanted to skate around, haha. But unlike the first two games, I’ve found myself barely free-skating, and wrapped in the story. In the first 2 games, you made a name for yourself. Now, you’re famous, and you’re going to start your own skate company. With this comes sponsoring amateurs. These amateurs can be made, chosen out of preset skaters, or even friends that have Skate 3’s custom skaters. They become your teammates, and you can do contests, races, and other things normally done solo, as a team. For example, I signed up for a T-Mobile Grind contest. Instead of it being 4 solo people it was me and a teammate of my choice for team Octo (my brand name) against Team Baker (an actual skate company) and the two people on Team Baker were actual pros, actually sponsored by Baker in real life. I thought that was really cool. The mission of the game is to sell boards, one million to be exact. To sell boards you have to complete challenges like photos, contests, races, etc. The more boards you sell, the more teammates you can have. (up to 4 teammates eventually) I’ve found myself really wrapped up in selling boards. Another thing I’ve found cool is skating with your teammates. You can spawn your teammates nearby you and I’ve skated past dots on my mini-map that were my teammates. One time, all 3 of my teammates were in one mini-skate park together, and I joined them. I actually found myself skating around with them, and treating them like actually amateurs that I really sponsored, which was really cool. Your brand and teammates are actually really fun, and sometimes even save you in races or contests, score wise. Another cool part of the game is the new hall of meat. Most of them are you have to hit certain spots way down below you, usually starting from the top of a building. It’s really fun, and bones are highlighted in red showing which ones you broke on that particular bail. It’s really fun. Also, there was one where I had to (literally, this was the description) judo kick a citizen. Nonetheless, this was hilarious, as were all the hall of meat challenges.  The story line is very fun, and I like the idea , and they executed it very well.

I’m gonna come straight out with it. This town of Port Carverton is beautiful. It’s the ultimate skater’s paradise. I would live there, not just to skate, but to actually live. Every single area is a place to skate, and a very attractive place to skate. The city is broken up into 3 separate parts. Downtown consists of a much more polished area then the first two. It has more than just big buildings and plazas, but other things you would see in cities. University is a very cool area. Other than the college there’s hills, suburbs, and skate parks. Finally industrial is an awesome area, sort of like the factory area of town. There’s also some piers, and even a mini quarry. All three of these areas are awesome, and have so much to see. One thing I’ve found really cool, for some reason, is that unlike the first 2 games, skate 3 has actual stores. Skate 2 and 1 just consisted of unnamed buildings, while this one has actual stores with names, making it feel more like a city, which I really love.
You unlock skate parks also with your board sales; one indoor, one ramp park, one in downtown, like a plaza, and finally a mega park. To be honest, I wasn’t very interested in this before I got the game, as it seemed to tedious and I couldn’t see myself actually building any. I was wrong. Skate parks are incredibly fun to build, and skate in. You can have your teammates in them too, and it creates a fun hangout , and feel. Overall the city and what you can do with it makes an amazing experience.

IGN put out a review that I watched before I got this game. When they got to the graphics section, they said that the graphics aren’t much of a change from Skate 2. I still don’t understand where they got that from. The graphics received a huge upgrade, and the game looks totally different. The character models are less chunky, and every thing is very well polished. It’s also a lot lighter feel, and just overall the graphics are much better. One cool thing I noticed was after you fall a lot of do hall of meat, your clothes become really dirty. Then I looked closer, and I noticed that there was even blood on my arms… I even had a black eye a few times! It was really cool, and this was something I had hoped to be in the first two installments. The sound isn’t a big issue. While during contests, the announcers repeat a few things, it’s no biggie. The people’s words and things are also very cool and add to the city mood. Another BIG thing I like about the sound is the fact that my camera man does not make corny jokes. . Also, the music is extremely well done. All of the songs are enjoyable, and very fun to skate to. Overall the skate graphics and sound fit perfectly together.

I told you at the beginning of this review that this was a biased opinion. I’m basing off of what I expected in this game, and it gave me even more. The city is awesome, the game looks beautiful, and it’s just extremely fun.
I give this game:

10/10

Khy is back to give us a review of the Bioshock Demo

Before I start this review, I want to warn the readers- This game is rated M for Mature for a reason. It is not for the faint hearted, and there are lots of graphic images. If you don’t like scary things, I suggest you don’t try this demo out. But for whoever’s left after that, who’s ready for one hell of a ride?

*Insert Catchy Theme Song Music*

Now, this review is a little different, because this demo can be played by anyone on MPC! Well… only if you have an intel mac that is. (PC’s still included!)
Bioshock has been out for well over 2 years, but it has just recently came out for the mac. So I looked at Apple, and found there was a demo! These past 2 weeks I have been exstatic about Bioshock 2. So when I found this demo I thought, what better way to prepare myself for my fixed xbox360?
A big thing about Bioshock is the music. The scenery creates a great 1950’s feel, and the music only makes it perfect. There are some great tunes that add to the mood, and it seems like the sound goes perfect to your adventure. The voice acting is very well done also, as your “guide” is very well played, and the splicers voices make them only more scary. The graphics for this game are determined by your computer and your settings. If your computer can handle it and you put the settings high, this underwater world will look  beautiful. If you put them low, it wont look as beautiful, but it wont be ugly.
Now to the gameplay.

Click here for some of the gameplay in action!

The gameplay is incredibly addicting. I found myself exiting the demo wanting so much more. Your character has a combination of Weapons and Plasmids. Plasmids give you special abilities, like shooting fire or lightning or ice from your hand. Combine a plasmid, then use your weapon on the hurt splicer, makes a perfect, addicting, one two punch.
In this demo you don’t get to face the Big Daddy, but you see him and the Little Sister, and they sure are scary. The gameplay is solid, scary, and fun.

This demo is a good rounded out adventure. You enter rapture, and are immedietly instructed by a mysterious voice, guiding you to weapons and safety. There are even a few twists. This demo was short, but sweet.
Im going to give it a
9/10
only because of how short it was.
Hope to see you guys try this one out!

Khy is back to give us a review of the Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Beta!

When I turned on my 360, I was pretty excited, as I was playing the demo of  a game I was waiting to play for a long time. I mean well, it seemed like a good place holder while I was lending Modern Warfare 2 to my friend.

Click here to see the game in action!

So, to clarify, this is a mini review for a mini game. Or the professional name, a demo. There isn’t much to review, so don’t expect this to determine whether you buy this game or not, but it sure as hell will help.
The Battlefield Bad Company 2 demo is multiplayer only… barely. There is only one map and only around 1/3rd of the weapons in the full game to choose from… but you still get a taste of what the game will be like.
Bad Company 2’s multiplayer is set up into 4 classes:
There’s Assault, which is your basic Assault rifle with your grenade launcher.
Specialist, basically like an engineer, equipped with a silenced SMG, and an RPG.
Medic, an LMG, with the ability to bring dead teammates back to live instantly.
Recon, a Sniper.
These classes all have unique abilities, and put together it creates a full scale battle.
A really cool thing about this game is, everything is destructible.
I played many matches, and I remember joining one where a forest that I like to snipe in, was completely cut down, I assume from battling going on in that little forest. It was really cool to see how everything turned into a real battlefield- and stayed that way the whole round.
The weapons, however, I weren’t too impressed with. It could be I only enjoyed 2 of the weapons I was using… the ones I expected to enjoy, and that many weren’t unlocked.
It takes a lot of bullets to kill somebody, and snipers are not one hit kills, which is very frustrating. The tanks rule the game, but it feels like real battle. Also, it is fun and rewarding to take one out with an RPG. The Air Vehicles (UAV, Helicopter) are very underpowered, and sort of weird to control and understand.
The map is huge and fun, but sometimes it feels pretty bland.

With all of this, I have to give this demo a 7.5/10.
It is a fun game, but not near a MW2 killer.
Remember though, this is the demo.

After having not updated for a while, we have here a new review from one of our community members- AG!

What we have here is a new Fighting Game for the Wii that is essentially the successor of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. What was originally a game released only in Japan is now updated and released to the US and European market. Tatsunoko is an animation studio in Japan and is very popular as it has convinced Capcom to produce a crossover game. It was named Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes, which was released for the Wii and Arcade Systems.

The success of the game and the continuous fan support was enough for Capcom and Tatsunoko to take the huge risk and localize the game in English for a worldwide release. What we have now is a new name, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars. I am a huge fan of fighting games so I knew I had to get this game. Hearing about the US release made me very happy and now the game is finally here. From what I have experienced, the risk they took was worth it as this game is fantastic. You won’t know about half of the roster but you’ll enjoy this game regardless of the background history. The Wii’s 2010 line-up is starting out strong as this is an excellent addition to its library.

I’d like to start off by saying the game is designed for both the newcomers and the hardcore veterans. The controls are simplified for new players to truly enjoy the experience however the game provides so much depth that the hardcore ones can discover the combos and strengths of the many unique characters. Instead of the traditional 6 button control scheme, we now have a 3 button control scheme and a 4^th button to switch characters/perform assists. The game proves itself to perform better with less buttons as it becomes more fun to play. The combos are very fun to experiment when game is as fast paced as this one. Overall, this is a game that does have something for everyone to enjoy, very rare for the Wii’s lineup of games.

On the Capcom roster we have the very well known characters here in the US. The characters you’ll probably know are Ryu, Chun-Li, MegaMan Volnutt, and Frank West (remember him from the xb360 game Dead Rising?). If you’re a fan of Capcom there’s a good chance you’ll know the others. On the Tatsunoko side the only one that you’ll probably know is Karas if you are a huge anime fan. Other than that, this is a brand new roster for you to learn about.

You can tell it is a Japanese game with over the top moves and special effects. It’s not as serious as the Street Figher series, it’s a game of nonstop action. The cel-shaded graphics look great and it really works for the Wii’s limited hardware. This truly was a game designed for the Wii. The sfx sounds are creative and the music in this game is without a doubt INCREDIBLE. The gameplay is also huge step-up from the already excellent Marvel vs. Capcom. Online play is a nice addition and it works fine over here with a 30mb dl and a .49 ul speed. There’s occasional lag but for the most part it works fine. Each character as I stated before is very unique and they’ve done an excellent job balancing them out. The unlockables are almost endless with high replayability and trust me; you’ll want to play it over and over to unlock the characters and minigames. Speaking of minigames, they are incredibly addicting to a point where they are enough to be considered as WiiWare releases so be sure to check them out whenever you want a break from the action.

As you can see, I highly praise this game because they practically did everything right in this title. My only complaints are the lack of a story (it’s a fighting game so it doesn’t matter), the weak ending sequences (what happened to the awesome anime ones in Cross Generation of Heroes?) and perhaps the missing characters from the original TvC due to licensing issues in the US and Europe. The new characters did increase the roster rather than decrease it so you won’t be disappointed. Regardless of these drawbacks, I’d like to give a huge thank you Eighting, Capcom, and Tatsunoko for creating perhaps one of the greatest fighting games of all time. Whether you play Fighting Games or not, this is something you’ll need to play if you’re a Wii owner.

–ag

Here’s our first ever Community Feature, and this is a review of the game Saboteur, by our very own ag

As many of us at MPCGamers are aware, developer Pandemic Studios has shut down. Our fellow members of MPCGamers most commonly recognizes Pandemic as the developer for Star Wars Battlefront I and II, both of which we still play and create custom content for today. Pandemic was a company that truly had potential to go bigger. Due to unforeseen consequences, all that we have left is their final game to play, The Saboteur.

In this game, you play as, Sean Devlin, a rough, trash-talking mechanic who resides in Nazi-Occupied France during the 1940s. You are to avenge your friend, Jules, whom you have witnessed being held hostage, tortured and killed because both of you jacked up some Nazi’s car (literally). It becomes your excuse to join the resistance and kill all of Nazis that are patrolling Paris. For the most part, that’s the story and it is as ridiculous as it sounds. Your objective is to plant Dynamite on all the Nazi equipment you can find and to blow them up.There are a few things that changes to keep things fresh but there’s nothing that really gives you the “whoa” moment. Despite the poor story, the game itself is a different matter and for the most part, I found it quite enjoyable.

This game borrows a good amount of elements from the Grand Theft Auto series. You can explore the wonderful world of Paris. For the most part, the world feels very realistic and there has been much emphasis on its presentation. Everything was taken into consideration here to make Paris to look, sound, and feel believable and it works. The game also uses Black and White visuals in certain parts of Paris. Certain parts (most notably lights, Nazi swastikas and blood) are still colored in these black and white settings. It’s a unique style of presentation and it’s very nicely done.

Throughout the game, you’ll be busy talking to people to activate missions in where you need to kill certain people, steal certain items, or just piss of some Nazis for quick cash. You can choose to use Stealth, allowing you to take out enemies quietly and disguising yourself as one to get into places, or you can use my preferred method, go Rambo and just rush your way through the Nazis. You’ll take in A LOT of bullets and your health regenerates quickly so there really isn’t any sense of realism in this game. Gunplay could have been improved and so could have been the driving sequences. The AI is  also quite dumb, and it’s somewhat a tradition in Pandemic games. These are the only notable drawbacks of the game.

Missions are varied so for the most part it doesn’t get repetitive. While the main storyline is fairly short, the side missions will take most of your time (maybe even doubling your time to finish the game).The Saboteur comes with the standard features for Sandbox games. You can unlock perks, upgrade vehicles, buy new weaponry, etc. Not all of these features are necessary however it’s there when you need it. For the most part, they did these mechanics well. Other critics may think differently however I gave it deep consideration and l believe they’ve done a good job.

This game’s graphics are a tad outdated. There are some 2D textures that make parts of the environment look unrealistic, weak animations on player models (it plagues the conversations with people), and other minor problems that you’ll probably oversee. Brawling with enemies look a bit weak and they don’t seem to take cover very well. It’s passable by any means; however there are games that do look and play better. Sound on the other hand was one thing they’ve done very well, perhaps the strongest part of this game. Weapon sounds were engineered very nicely and they’ve done a decent job on the voice acting. The music in this game was also fantastic. It really immerses you into the world and it always fits the setting. When you’re taking a cruise around the city you’ll hear some nice soothing music that are circa 1940s. If you are in an intense action scene fighting Nazis, the orchestra plays something more intense. In total, the music always fits the setting and it was a very pleasing aspect of the game.

For the most part the game was done very well. It’s a shame to see Pandemic go and from this game, we realized how much work was put into it. While some parts weren’t executed properly, it still is a very fun Sandbox-style game and I’d recommend you to at least try it out.

Score:

Story: 6

Gameplay: 8

Graphics & Sound: 7

Overall: 7.5 (Not Bad)