The Walking Dead Season 2 Announcement

   

Title Cover

     While I seldom post announcements, this is a special case.  Episode 1 of the Walking Dead Season 2 was released on Monday, December 16 of 2013.  I have been awaiting this with high anticipation since the conclusion of season 1, and the release of 400 Days.  Telltale has been working a few projects since the concluding of Season 1 including a game that I reviewed at a earlier date called the Wolf Among Us which takes place in the setting of the comics series Fables, but with their own little twist, but you may consult by review of that at a later time.  Lets play catch-up with the events of season 2.  ALERT SPOILERS: For those who have not played Episode 5, DO NOT READ THIS.  Unless you don't intend to play the game.  To read the blacked out text, highlight it and will be readable:

In episode 5 of season 1, after Lee was bitten by a zombie.  The player has two options, either cut off Lee's bitten arm or leave it be.  Regardless of what the player chooses, Lee WILL die.  This made me very sad.  Throughout episode 5, you are charged with rescuing Clementine from the Stranger who has captured her.  In the fast pace of turning events, Kenny (Lee's best buddy who's been through so much shit with Lee, including Kenny losing his son due to being bitten by a zombie, then Lee has to shoot him so Kenny didn't have to) sacrifices himself to save Ben, another guy in the group.  But it turns out that Ben impaled himself on a balcony that broke and fell as he tried to jump from it to a near-by rooftop to join the others.  Being surrounded on both sides of the alley by zombies, Kenny tells Lee to get out of there and save Clementine.  Lee tells Kenny he's not leaving him, but Lee is locked out of the ally and can only hopelessly watch as Kenny is surrounded by walkers.  Kenny stayed behind to shoot Ben to make sure he didn't suffer.  Eventually after fighting through large hordes of zombies to the hotel where Clementine is being held by the strange man.  After Lee finds the room where Clementine is being held, he talks to the stranger, fights the stranger, and then kills the stranger.  Lee opens the doors that exit the room, Lee comes face to face with a walker, who doesn't attack him, but walks by him towards Clementine.  Lee kills the zombie and then makes the relation that the walker didn't attack him because he had walker blood all over him.  Lee smears this on Clementine so the walkers outside do not attack her.  After doing this, they take to the streets, walking among the dead, unnoticed by the zombies.  Clementine sees her parents, now zombies, she freezes, Lee tries to get her to look away, but passes out from his infectious bite, which is killing him.  Clementine somehow drags a full grown man through a bunch of zombies into a jewelry shop where there safe.  Lee tells her that he was bitten and that she has to leave.  After a fight with a walker for his gun and keys, Clementine has to kill Lee.  I cried, tears were running down my face, the sad music playing, and then she shoots him.  The epilogue shows Clementine outside of Savannah by herself, she stops to rest for awhile and sees in the distance two figures walking on a hill.  They stop and look at her.  The season ends there. 

So in season 2, the story of Clementine will continue, for better or worse.  Also the choices you made in season 1 and 400 Days will cross over to this, so I hope you choose wisely.  I hope you all have enjoyed this announcement and I will be back next year with more reviews.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off with good cheer.

Awesome Trailer

Doom Review

Cover Art for Doom

     Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, today I'm going to be reviewing one of the first FPS games to grace the earth, and its still good today, maybe not by graphics, but by gameplay.  That epic game is Doom.  First released on December 10, 1993 by id Software.  For all the FPS fans out there, you basically have this game to thank for the rise in popularity of the shooting genre.  This game sparked a revolution for its kind, greater titans like Half Life and Halo: Combat Evolved, but the big push came from DOOM.  Now then, lets set the scene for this ground breaking adventure.  While the protagonist is never named, he is simply called "Doomguy" by the community.  Though there is no cinematic opening or cut-scenes to direct the plot, there is instead a interactive system similar to Half Life, where the player lives the game.
     Anyway the game starts in the distant future a company known as the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) is the military's biggest contractor, also conducted top secret experiments in its waste disposal plants on Mars. Interdementional technology has given man the technology to stretch across the galaxy. This has yielded incredible results for the UAC, allow portals to connect Mar's two moons, Fobos and Demos.  While objects can pass through the portals without being harmed, the same cannot be said for humans, who become hostile after being sent through the portal, following that they explode.  Now talking about you, you are a marine who assaulted his superior officer for being ordered to fire on civilians.  As punishment, Doomguy has been stationed on Mars with absolutely nothing to do. But then suddenly the station receives a urgent distress call from Fobos saying the something hostile has come out of the portal and that Demos has disappeared from Mar's orbit altogether.  Being the only combat-ready team for millions of miles, it fall to your squad to investigate this distress beacon on Fobos.  After arriving at the station, you are put on lookout duty in the hanger in which you arrived.  Then suddenly you hear your squad mates being slaughtered over the radio by demons, yes, demons from hell.  It seems that the portal technology that UAC was using has opened a gateway to Hell.  Now it falls to you, to fight your way through demons to find out whats going on and to eliminate every enemy that stands in your way.  Also your squad took all the guns and left you with only a pistol, brilliant, eh?
     You will also be riding alone for this adventure. However, you will be armed with a large arsenal of weapons including the pistol, shotgun, mini-gun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, chainsaw and energy cannon.  While there are even more weapons Doomguy has at his disposal,it would take to long to name them all.  The games combat system revolves around fast movement and a faster trigger finger.  While encounter the often possibility of encountering many enemies at once, you will have to move fast around them while shooting at them, fun!  Throughout the world the player will find pickups including guns, ammo, armor, temporary power-ups, and most importantly, KEYS!  These red, blue, and yellow cards will allow the player to unlock certain colored doors, this is a huge concept displayed throughout the game and finding these cards is your only hope of unlocking these doors, without them you will not be able to progress throughout the level and overall game, so look harder.  Doom was a huge milestone when it came to the FPS genre, and even today we must thank it for making action gaming what it is today.  I hope you have enjoyed this post and I will be back next week.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

While Doom never had its own trailer, this 

community made one was the only one I 

could find, you only need to watch the first 

two minutes to get the idea.

Also note that this has been slightly modernized

and is not the classic doom

Just Cause 2: Multiplayer Mod

  Today I don't have a game to review, but something more to add to a game.  What I'm trying to say is this is more of a announcement than a review.  So many months back a dedicated team of moders got together, took a awesome open world game that originally was a single player game and make it compatible for multiple people to play together.  May sound easy but this takes weeks or even months of converting to allow servers to run off the game's engine.  The modification has been under development since July of 2012, undergoing seventeen beta tests since its release.  Scattered throughout the this year and the last, the tests started out small, hidden and reserved for the teams IRC channel and twitter followers.  It slowly became more well known to the gaming community as it became public and after many beta tests it was a highly anticipated release with every beta test released until the community screamed for the completion of the mod.  Until finally a few days ago they announced the seventeenth and final beta test before the official release.  In preparation the creators are
giving out beta keys to download and play the mod on Steam as you would any Steam game, but you do need to have the actual game to play the mod, but don't worry, its worth it.  So the final beta test is taking place between December 7 to the 14th before they announce when the mod will officially be released for a permanent stay.  So great mod, really fun, and their are moments when I just go gut busting laughing at things in this mod.  I hope you leave here more informed than you came, take care and I will be back next Wednesday with a real post.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

good times