Early impressions of Batman: Arkham City - Batting for a home run?

Being one of my top 5 games for Q4 2011, I was extremely excited to finally get a chance to play the Xbox 360 version of Batman: Arkham City.
So far I've only had time to scrape the grimy surface of Arkham City, but I have gotten enough dirt under my fingernails to bring you some initial observations and impressions.

It's a strange time when one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year is a comic book franchise one

Like Gears of War 3, which I reviewed earlier this week, Batman: Arkham City is a pretty looking game that feels like it is really doing its best to wring out every last drop of graphical juice that can be found in the current generation of consoles.
However, it is also clear that the graphical juices are limited, and I feel that some of the animations, and particularly the facial work, is a bit lacking.

The big question that you're all waiting to be answered is of course; did Rocksteady Studios pull off another stunning Batman game?
Since I'm only a few hours into the game I'm not prepared to give a final answer on that, but I do think that I can already answer this question with a firm yes... and no.

Exclusive Preview of City of Steam - Your chance to play a mechanical Dwarf!

There are only so many traditional fantasy based MMO's that one man can stomach. When you're walking through a magical Eleven forest for the 24th time, you can start to suffer from some real Tolkien related fatigue.
Enter "City of Steam".
This free to play browser based MMO is going to take your Elves, your Dwarves and your medieval themed fantasy world, and process them in a giant, hissing piece of brass decorated machinery, spitting out a distinct steampunk setting, where the world is one giant machine and one of the base elements is rust (earth is so quaint).

Trains and airships. This isn't your average Lord of the Rings fantasy world

City of Steam is being developed by the China based "Mechanist Games" and has been in development for a couple of years.
I've had a chance to interview lead designer David Lindsay and Ian Morgenheim, who has been part of the process of creating the RPG books that the game is based on.

Q: First off, can you tell us about how you came up with the background for City of Steam?

A: City of Steam is actually the third iteration of the a setting that began as simply "Industrial Age Fantasy". That first version was a... bloated unwieldy beast of a thing! It had horns, tentacles and a monstrous index, I tell you! Imagine the Necronomicon from Army of Darkness: Painful to open, terrible to behold, but definitely a force to be reckoned with. But as a first product, and a solo writer/developer, it was a massive learning curve and a great experience.
I keep it in a locked trunk so it will never see the light of day, but without making any of those mistakes, today's game would never have been possible at all.

Gears of War 3 Review - Duck and cover FTW!

The "Gears of War" series is one of the console defining games of the Xbox 360. Combining great visuals with satisfying cover based 3rd person shooting, it provides a thrilling action packed experience, whether you play alone or with friends.

The third game in the series promises to provide us with a satisfying conclusion to the games story line, as well as giving the multiplayer modes a new coat of paint and ensure that you'll have fun killing Lambet and Locust for months to come.

I think these guys work out

I have personally never really been all that into Gears of War. I played through the first game and found it to be enjoyable enough, but it did not set my world on fire and make me yearn for the sequel. So when Gears of War 2 came around I actually ended up giving it a pass.
It was therefore with some shoulder shrugging that I greeted the announcement of Gears of War 3. I had no doubt that it was going to be a competent shooter, but I did not think it would really be for me.

But as more footage of the game was shown, I was really blown away by how gorgeous the game looked, and how fun the gameplay appeared to be. I realized that in the years since the first Gears of War, I had not really played any 3rd person shooter that presented such a smooth and polished experience as the original Gears did.

This lead me to ultimately decide to pick up Gears of War 3 and give it an honest try.
And I'm glad I did.

Guardian Cub hits World of Warcraft auction houses

I've previously written about the new Guardian Cub vanity pet for World of Warcraft.
My initial post detailed how this pet will allow you to indirectly buy WoW gold for real cash, while my follow up post focused on Blizzards justification for this move.

Does this look like a 10k gold pieces pet to you?

Now the Guardian Cub has been released into the wild and has made its way onto the auction houses of WoW servers everywhere, giving you a chance to lay down some Blizzard coin for a pet bought with Real Coins (tm).

Of course, the really interesting question is, how much are these pets selling for?
What is the price of a Blizzard sanctioned gold buying service?

Warhammer 40k: The Necrons march again

In the world of Warhammer 40k tabletop, Games Workshop is announcing a big push for the Necron faction.
These soulless servants of ancient star munching gods of ages past will be spruced up with the addition of several new models to bolster their ranks.

The Necrons make for a pretty cool race in Warhammer 40k, I think.
They are a slow plodding force of grim determination and make a nice contrast to the elegance and speed of the Eldar, or the unbridled war loving savagery of the Orks.

Grand Prix Story Review - Could have used some more time in the pit

After my extremely positive experience with Game Dev Story, that I reviewed a little while back, I decided to revisit the world of phone gaming by picking up another of Kairosoft's "Story" games.
This time I bought "Grand Prix Story", which should be right up my alley, as I am both a fan of racing games and also enjoy watching races on TV.

Grand Prix Story puts you into the shoes of a racing team owner, letting you build cars, hire mechanics and racers, and generally lets you go about living out your Frank Williams fantasies (sans the tragic spine injuries).

Initially your choices will be limited. You'll only be able to build one type of car, a roadster, and select between two different drive train configurations, front wheel drive or rear wheel drive.
But in good "Story" game fashion, you will soon be presented with more options, getting to research new parts or vehicle types, or upgrading your existing vehicles or parts.
This means that you will soon be tweaking and tuning your cars so they perform optimally for the various races that you participate in.

Sci-Fi Do Want: The Imperial Star Destroyer

Welcome to the first post in my new series "Sci-Fi Do Want", where I will be writing about my favorite gadgets, vehicles and technology from the realm of science fiction.
These articles will contain no useful information whatsoever, but will let us all nerd out to the awesomeness of the coolest pieces of tech from books, movies, games or any other medium that science fiction is present in.

For the first "Sci-Fi Do Want" I present to you: The Imperial Star Destroyer

The pagoda like superstructure of the Star Destroyer makes for even more hard angles
on the already aggressive looking design

The Imperial Star Destroyer has always been a very special spaceship for me, ever since I saw the Star Wars movie.
The awe inspiring intro that the Star Destroyer makes in Episode IV establishes it right off the gate as a giant bird of prey that will mercilessly hunt down any ship that is unfortunate enough to be labelled as an enemy of the Empire.

New Syndicate trailer shows off 4 player co-op gameplay

A new Syndicate trailer has just been released.
This time we're treated to some high quality murder entertainment courtesy of the games 4 player mode:

I continue to be cautiously optimistic for this game.

Also, I really dig that remix of the old Syndicate soundtrack!



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Mechwarrior stomping onto our screens summer 2012

Yesterday it was revealed through a tweet from developer Piranha Games that the next game in the MechWarrior series is heading to PC's next summer.

Mechs! Shooting rockets!

The next chapter of this bipedal vehicular warfare games has been a long time coming, and many feared that the game had been lost in development limbo.
But now it looks like we won't have to wait terribly much longer before we can get back into the cockpit of our Timberwolf and let loose with deadly hails of rockets against our similarly mechanized enemies.

Online and for free.

What?

Is it time to jack back into "The Matrix"?

The other day I was overcome by a sudden wave of nostalgia and urge to revisit the wonderful world of "The Matrix". So I blew the dust of my DVD case (physical media, how delightfully old school), and popped the disc into my PS3, diving into the 1999 science fiction classic.

It's hard to believe this is already a 12 year old movie

After watching the movie, I was once again reminded of just how cool a movie it is, and how sad I am that the Wachowski brothers managed to completely bury the universe with the confusing piece of over worked misshapen lump that was Matrix Reloaded and the complete abortion that was the steaming pile of cow manure AKA Matrix Revolutions.

I don't think I remember a popular science fiction franchise ever rising so fast, full of so much promise, only to explode in mid air and pepper the dazzled onlookers with its CGI entrails.
And this was done by the Matrix's own creators, no less. At least if the franchise had been taken over by a soulless company that had no idea what The Matrix was really about, then I could have understood.

Coming up next week on Light Speed Gaming

It's been a blast of week for me this week!

I finally got my dirty mittens on Battlefield 3, I got my ass handed to me by 17 year old X-COM, and I got down and serious with a post on the place of gaming in modern society.

But as always, there is even better stuff coming up for you all next week!

"Holy stacks of games, Batman!"

It's Q4 and the top quality games won't stop coming.
Already I've played two of my Top 5 games for Q4 2011, namely Forza 4 and Battlefield 3.
I've also already got Batman: Arkham City just lying on my desk, begging to be played (disturbing images of Christian Bale whispering in a husky Batman voice "play me. Play me now..").