Gaming can make a better world – blimey.

As if I needed even more reason to play videogames, an intellectual woman goes and does a heap of research about it and provides the most convincing argument for why we should all play more games that I’ve ever heard. Below is a video of Jane McGonigal, a games designer and all-round awesome person who believes that “Reality is broken and we need to make it work more like a game.” It’s a 20 minute presentation, recorded in February 2010, and it’s one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve seen all year.

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No Gold, No Games…

I have a habit. It’s a fun habit, but it’s also a very, very bad habit. It’s buying almost every new game that comes out for the 360, regardless of whether it has a review or not, good or bad. This has cost me dearly in situations where I’ve bought numerous games before knowing anything about how good they may or may not be, only to be left massively disappointed (i.e. Lost Planet 2, Naughty Bear).

This is a habit (addiction?) I’ve been forced to give up, and not because somebody said I should, or because I had some kind of epiphany about how life could be so much more without games. It’s because I have no money…

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Review – Alien Swarm: Two can play that game!

With the free release of Valve’s Alien Swarm over a week ago, and after many hours spent playing online, BcR bring you a joint discussion about our time with the game and a review of just what makes this game so great.  Apart from the fact that it’s free, of course!

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Review – Limbo: If at first you don’t succeed, die, die again…

Limbo

What if you woke up in a strange place with no friends, no colour, a whole lot of nasty stuff that might (definitely) try and kill you in vicious ways, and the ability to only move left or right on a 2D plane? Well, according to the imaginations of the folks at games company Playdead, you’d most likely be in Limbo trying to save your sister, though you won’t have known this unless you actually read the description for the game.

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Currently playing… Limbo, Wolfenstein, Demon’s Souls

I have a terrible habit of playing too many games at once. The result is I have a huge backlog of games which I’ve bought and simply haven’t had time to look at yet. I got Bad Company 2 the day it came out, and it’s still sitting here on my desk in its cellophane wrapping. I bought Final Fantasy XIII ages ago too and thats still sealed. And I even did install and play the first few hours of Bioshock 2, but then my PC decided to die on me, and I lost my savefiles…must get back to that soon. However, right now I have 3 games I’m focusing on, and aside from the fact they’re all dark and depressing, they couldn’t be any more different – one is a creepy 2D indie platformer, one is an old school FPS, and one is the most unforgiving RPG I’ve ever played.

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StarCraft 2 – It’s very nearly here…

I never actually played the original StarCraft, and so I’m not that excited about the ridiculously-long-awaited-and-hyped-to-shit sequel, but any follow-up to the game that became a national sport in South Korea is worthy of attention, especially since it’s out on Tuesday. That, and I’m a sucker for Blizzard’s truly masterful CGI animation, of which the newest trailer is mostly made up of.

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Movie Review – Inception

Last night for the first time this year at the cinema, my mind was blown. Inception is fantastic. Be warned, I may not be able to review this movie without some minor spoilers.

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Syndicate – Retro Tactical PC Goodness

Syndicate (1993)

You may or may not be aware of this old tactical PC title by the name of Syndicate (1993), created by the legendary Bullfrog Productions. It was one of my favourite games back in my hay day of PC gaming. Playing as a squad of genetically and cybernetically altered, upgradeable cyborgs enslaved by a multi-national corporation, your sole goal is to take over the entire planet, wiping out all competition in your path. What a superb concept; no heroes, just raw carnage with a totally selfish goal in a dystopian, Blade Runner Esc future setting.

With the possibility of a new Syndicate game on the horizon, I wanted to try and enlighten any retro game fans about all of the supreme gaming qualities this game combined to make something I found incredibly fun, even only a few months ago when I downloaded and played it again for the first time in over ten years.

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Trine 2 – More giant toads and rainbows

Trine was a 2D yet 3D platform puzzler, in which you controlled 3 different characters each with unique skills, as they fight/swing/levitate their way across a traditional fantasy world. It was really charming, had simply gorgeous visuals and had some really clever little physics-based puzzles. I was sold on it from the demo, but I went and bought it from Steam as soon as it was out and played through it both by myself, and with my 10 year old cousin in the local co-op feature (I was on the keyboard, while she used a 360 gamepad). The only thing it was lacking was online co-op, which the game would have benefited hugely from. Apparently, Trine 2 will have such a feature, and its going to be great.

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Minecraft – How to Build a World

This is Minecraft. Paul and I, along with a few other mates have been playing this deceivingly simple-looking indie game for a few months now. It’s been made in Java, and is currently in pre-alpha, yet has gathered so much interest the maker has all but turned his full attention to the game, even quitting his day job so he can focus on adding more features to his game, which has the potential to be massive upon its release. In its current state, the best feature is the multiplayer creative mode. It’s all about building stuff out of square shaped bricks – think virtual Lego, only everything is made of differently textured cubes. We have been slowly building up our own little world, and I thought it could be fun to take you on a tour of our weird creations. Welcome to the Realm of Bal’dock. Be warned, this post contains a ton of pictures.

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Valve to release new Alien Swarm for free!

Wow, this is a nice surprise! Valve just announced that on Monday we’ll be getting a new game – for free! Alien Swarm was originally a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, and it was bloody fantastic. Featuring 4 player co-op, it was a top-down 3rd person shooter, in which teamwork was the only way to survive through the campaign. As the title suggests, the meat of the game was in fending off waves of nasty beasties with sharp claws, but there were also objectives to complete and a story to fight your way through. I have fond memories of being scared shitless trying to hack through a door while my friends shouted “they’re coming! oh god theres THOUSANDS!” down their mic’s. Trailer below.

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Fallout – How I stumbled into the Wasteland

It’s only a few months now until Fallout New Vegas is released, and personally I just can’t wait!  In great anticipation and as a huge fan of everything Fallout, I thought it could be fun to revisit my own story of how I found Fallout, and the path it has taken since the very first game by Black Isle Studios in 1997, right up to the brightly-lit release due out this Autumn.

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