Halo Reach Discussion/Info Topic

what do you think of it?

We want to know if your getting it, why your getting it, or if you are not getting it why not.

What do you look forward too?

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.

As you guys might have noticed all my reviews have been really good, 9 or 10. That’s because I usually review things I like. Here’s another review for you guys!

Aparently Christopher Nolan has been working on this script for 10 years, and it really shows. You can’t go into Inception ready for a big action movie, and not bring your brain. This movie requires you to think, and if you aren’t thinking, this movie will leave you behind. Inception is about dreams, and how they feel real when you are in them. This movie has kind of an effect on you. I just woke up from a dream, that felt really real, but then I thought about it, and it wasn’t real at all, but it felt really really real in the dream, and this is what inception is about.

There are people that specialize in dreams, where their work is to go into a dream, to get information out of somebody. Leonardo Dicaprio plays Cobb, the best at this form of work. He is not allowed to see his family, but im not going to say why due to spoilers. A high class business man comes to him with a job, that could get him a ticket home. But this job is different. This job, is Inception. I was talking about inception earlier, but when I was saying it I meant the movie. Inception is the act of placing an idea into someone else’s mind. The opposite of what he specializes in. He accepts the job, because he has done it once before. (Once again, not saying anything about that due to spoilers) The plan is to go into the mind of a young executive, and plant the idea for him not to take the reins of the company his dying father. The person hiring them is the CEO of a rival company. Inception is not an easy task, and Leonardo Dicaprio needs an insane amount of help from some of the best out there that take ideas from dreams. Leonardo Dicaprio also is having a personal struggle of his own, and the 2 intervene and collide into one crazy roller coaster.

The acting in Inception is amazing. Im going to go over the characters, or the crew that Cobb is leading. There’s Cobb, the leader of the group. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the Point Man, Cobb’s right hand man. Tom Hardy is the Forger, who can basically change himself to anyone he wants when inside a dream. Ellen Page plays a student at a university in Paris. Cobb’s dad is her professor and he recommends her to Cobb for the job. She is studying Architecture and is the best student Cobb’s dad has. Her job as the architect, is the create the dream, the world they’ll be in. She has to make sure it’s simple and complicated at the time. To explain this better im going to backtrack this a little bit, as it’s a bit complicated. There is the dream that people are going into, and then the dreamer, the one who is sort of… sorry but this is hard to explain and im going to try to do my best. There is the dreamer, and then the one whose Subconscious is in the dream, taking up space in the dream basically, so that in the act of inception, or taking things out of the dream, they can control the world. This is still dangerous, as the more you change the world, the more the subconscious notices that it’s changing (even if the subconscious is Cobb’s, their leader) and they will start to attack the Architect, changing the Dream. (Ellen Page) Yes I know it’s complicated but I tried my best. Cillian Murphy, The Scarecrow from the Batman Begins, plays The mark, The one they are trying to plant the seed in. Now im going to go over the acting. If anyone remembers Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 3^rd rock from the sun, you would have never guessed where he would be now. He’s amazing in Inception, and it’s so weird remembering him from that tv show to now. If he keeps acting like he did in Inception he could be one of the next big stars. Leonardo Dicaprio, unsurprisingly, is the best actor in the movie by far. He’s incredible. His performance only cements him deeper into the list of Top actors of all time, and his performance is defiantly Oscar-worthy. He’s combining his personal struggle with his job and it’s an amazing performance that leaves you lost for words. But he is outshined in Inception. It’s Ellen Page that steals the show. Not so much because she does a better job than Leonardo Dicaprio, she doesn’t, but not by far, it’s that you aren’t expecting her to be so good. She overshadows Leonardo Dicaprio because of this, and she is just excellent. Most people only know her from Juno, so her stepping up into this mature role is suprising, and she does it perfectly. The acting in Inception is excellent, only backing up the brilliant plot.

The directing in inception is great, and Christopher Nolan creates a masterpiece of a movie. The movie is fun and it turns into an action movie. It’s a perfect mix of a Thriller and an Action Movie. Leonardo Dicaprio’s performance is amazing as he tries to complete the job while his personal struggle is coming in to delay it and the intertwine making Inception a high paced thriller that turns into an Action movie.

Inception is a Must see.

Well, my plane’s flight was cancelled so I am a little mad. The bright side is I managed to catch the live coverage of the press conference on Engadget. Pretty much everything I expected yesterday was correct. I am glad to see Apple decided to give out free bumpers. However, they still haven’t done a recall or placed the consumer reports threads back on their site which leads me to believe that you still wont be able to get your antennae repaired in the near future. Job’s response to the iPhone, issue, “you can bring your iPhone back within 30 days for a full refund if you don’t like what you got.” Glad to see their world class customer service is working out for them.

All things aside, going down to your local Apple Store and asking them to take a  look at your phone may help. Several people have reported getting real fixes after leaving the retail chain.

So, they found a boat deep under the World Trade Center site likely from the 1800s, who knew that New York city was built on top of old sunken ships, maybe some of our members live ontop of an old pirate ship full of treasure we can always hope right?…..But for those of us who don’t, its time for some weekend deals.

First up, EA is having the first week of the Summer Weekend sales they’ll be having, this weekend brings us Crysis and Crysis Warhead for both 50% off EA also has a few more deals going on from BF:BC2, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age Origins so check them out.

Next we have Gamestop with a buy 2 get 1 free sale this weekend- in-store and online

and Lastly we have GoGamer with a 48 Hour Madness sale.

Also for Hardware we have Amazon’s Gold Box Deal with a Iomega 500 GB Portable Hard drive for $69.99 [41% off (-$35.00)]

Thats all for this weekend, check back for more deals!

As you all may have heard many people are angry over the whole “not being able to place calls while holding the iPhone a certain way” fiasco. Even Consumer Reports has reported that there is an antennae issue on the iPhone. After that report, Apple proceeded to delete every single consumer reports related article on their support forum. In light of the antennae issues and several other faults in the design, many people have asked Apple to recall the device. While recalling the iPhone would make a lot of people happy, it doesn’t seem like it will happen. Research analysts have said that a recall on the iPhone would cost Apple 1.5 billion dollars. A recall would also cost Apple a very valuable reputation. Steve Jobs still denies that there is even a problem with the iPhone antennae so don’t expect a recall or a fix of any sort coming from Apple.

So the question in turn is this, is what I have to look forward to above, worth the cost of the system, Xbox Live, and likely $150 in games atleast.

Please answer in the comments below i’d really like to get some feedback on this, Thanks!

Valve released Day of Defeat Source today, while I was surprised to see DoD ported I was hoping for Left 4 Dead 2 its good to see they didn’t forget about porting these for us tho!

In any case a little bit about the game.

Day of Defeat: Source features multiplayer, team-based gameplay set in the WWII European theatre of operations. Players choose a role and tackle goal-oriented missions based on historical operations.

Day of Defeat: Source takes the classic gameplay of the original Day of Defeat and improves the experience with Source, the advanced engine technology Valve created for Half-Life 2. With this technology, DoD: Source offers state of the art graphics (including support for HDR lighting) in optimized versions of popular maps, plus redesigned sound and all new player, weapon, and world models. – Day of Defeat Website

http://store.steampowered.com/app/300/

Its currently priced at $9.99 and thats about all there is to say, i’ve not tried this game myself but i’m told it has some charm so if you like the look of it, try it out.