PlanetSide 2, Walking Dead, Hitman: Absolution

PlanetSide 2 Launches, Promises To Add Guns "As Soon As We Have The Time"

At last, the long-awaited followup to the groundbreaking first person shooter MMO has arrived. PlanetSide 2 has launched as a free to play game, featuring a persistent battlefield that shifts as player factions take control of sectors. As of launch, it does not include weapons. The developers are confident that players will enjoy the wide open environments, unique class systems, and the many vehicles - which are also missing weapons. A spokesperson for Sony Online Entertainment explained. "We are very excited to get this tremendous game out there in the hands of the public. We've been working for years to craft a very special FPS with large scale battles in a humongous and beautiful world, and we feel confident that we have achieved that. Of course, we would have preferred to launch the game with weapons, but there are always features that don't quite make it to launch. We will work very hard to put guns into the game as soon as we have the time. First, we want to make sure that the team vehicles are balanced, that the skills are where we want them, and that the feedback animations and sound effects for earning achievements is satisfying. With any luck fans should be able to use guns by the end of 2013."

If You Play Third Person PC Games With A Keyboard And Mouse, You're Broken And Wrong

Get a controller, you doofus. Seriously, I'm primarily a PC gamer so I understand the reluctance, but get over it. Analog sticks provide far more accuracy and natural control when it comes to movement speed and turning your character. If you're playing a third person shooter where you're just aiming a crosshair, then fine, use a mouse. But something like Dark Souls or Assassin's Creed, where you're maneuvering a character in melee fights and platforming? Come on. Technically you can play those games with the keyboard, and technically you can write a novel with your toes. Don't be the modern version of the guy who played Street Fighter 2 with a keyboard and claimed that there was nothing wrong with it, even as he gave himself carpal tunnel syndrome by throwing a fireball. Don't be the guy that refused to use a mouse with Quake 2 because the arrow keys and spacebar were all he needed in Doom.

Why The Wii U Doesn't Allow Game Installs From Retail Discs

When most people first hear that the Wii U's internal storage is either 8 or 32 GB, they balk. That's not a lot of space, for sure, but that reduced size comes in the form of an extremely fast SSD. If you buy the digital download version of a game it will load incredibly quickly. So why doesn't Nintendo allow us to install games from retail discs? It's pretty much a standard feature nowadays. Installing a game on the relatively slow platter drives of the Xbox 360 and PS3 results in a remarkable performance boost. Doing the same on a Wii U seems like a no-brainer, something that would really show off one of the system's most impressive pieces of hardware. There are only two explanations that I can think of: 1. Mr. Iwata does not want to embarrass the competition. 2. Nintendo is a weird company that tends to do a lot of things right, then inexplicably whiff on a few obvious details that would have put them over the top.

Sincerity Corner: The Walking Dead Is The Best Game Of The Year

Xcom was everything I hoped it would be. It was an utterly fantastic, complex, and rewarding strategy game - a rare entry in a genre that I love. The fact that an episodic game with vague similarities to Heavy Rain (a.k.a. that badly written game) left a greater impression is sort of amazing.

Where any other game would attempt to blow your mind with spectacle, The Walking Dead takes a grounded approach. It knows its scope and sticks to it, lovingly revealing more about its characters without taking shortcuts. And somehow, incredibly, it genuinely makes you feel like you're part of a situation that's just beyond your control. That never happens. For a long time I have felt that a game with an explicit narrative rarely works as well as one that tells its story primarily through the environment. As it turns out, a game can be well written and that writing can matter, but only when it trusts the audience to care about its relatively small moments.

Hitman: Absolution
The game seems a little too enamored with its terrible story and your options are more directed than they were in Blood Money, but what's left is a decent (if straightforward) Hitman-lite. 7/10

The Walking Dead Episode 5
This episode might have been a bit on the short side, but it was a satisfying conclusion to the most inventive, well-written game in recent memory. 9/10

New Super Mario Bros. U
The New Super Mario Bros. series takes a slight turn toward Super Mario World, becomes better, and (hopefully) decides to take a break for a few years. 8/10

ZombiU
Most people seem to think that this game's negative reviews stem from a misunderstanding about what sort of game it is, but it might have something to do with the fact that a majority of your interactions involve whacking enemies with the exact same attack using the exact same weapon. 6/10

Nintendo Land
This is a remarkably fun set of games, but I think Luigi's Mansion would be better if we had a longer explanation of its mechanics. 8/10

Tank! Tank! Tank!
A shallow $5 arcade game presented in a full price box, with annoying AI avatars which are basically stock photos of models pretending to enjoy video games. 3/10

Lego Lord Of The Rings
It's a well-executed version of the Lego formula, if you're one of the weirdos that still gets anything out of that. 7/10

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2
Still mindless trash, and the addition of CHOICES is a ridiculous thing to latch on to when the outcome is always horribly written and accompanied by shallow gameplay. 5/10

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
An uninspired mess, with baffling decisions that turn every potentially fun idea into a sterile bore. 4/10

– Corin Tucker's Stalker (@DennisFarrell)