The Shattering

As everyone should now know, Blizzard's new World of Warcraft expansion "Cataclysm" will be hitting store shelves on December 7. However, Deathwing has come early to reshape the world of Azeroth in the newest content patch. Much of the Cataclysm content is in this patch, including class changes, entirely new zones, and the new race/class combos.

I could go on, but most of this information is known to you if you're a World of Warcraft player. If not, I recommend you read this post over at MMO Champion detailing the contents of the new patch. The importance of such a game changing patch should not be lost upon you, even if you've never played WoW. "Old World" Azeroth is being reshaped with new quests and updated areas for the first time since the game came out back in 2004. It'll be fun to go around seeing all of the new changes once the servers come back up in a few hours.

I realize that we never really posted anything about our trip to Blizzcon this year. Well, as expected, Cataclysm was playable and we all played it multiple times. How was it? Well, I've never been this excited for a WoW expansion. One of my least favorite things about the game (leveling) is one of the main points of this expansion, but with new quests and changes to all classes that streamline the experience, it'll actually be fun. (That's the idea, at least.) From the first second I logged into the beta server at Blizzcon, I could tell that things were different. The new Troll starting zone and developments in their lore are especially cool. I have been waiting for Trolls to get their own city since Vanilla, and while they certainly have one now, I'm a little disappointed. It looks like a larger version of Sen'jin Village. Oh well, I suppose beggars can't be choosers. Developments in lore between the new Warchief Garrosh Hellscream and the Darkspear leader Vol'jin make up for the lameness of the Troll city. Vol'jin actually has some worth now as opposed to being just the guy who taps the Brewfest keg. Other highlights include the new look for Orgrimmar and the Worgen starting zone.

I felt a twinge of jealousy when Worgen were announced for Alliance, I'll be honest. Goblins are pretty neat, I suppose, but I don't think they're as cool as werewolves. Especially now that I've played as a Worgen, I just feel like Alliance are walking away with the better deal. Their starting zone and story are super cool, and everything in Gilneas just oozes awesomeness. Gilneas draws heavily from classic werewolf movies, taking architecture, clothing, and even accents from old school Europe. Everyone who gets Cataclysm, even if they're a hardcore Horde player, needs to make a Worgen.

I didn't have much interest in the Goblins, to be honest, and that interest was further reduced by everyone else from the Boss VG crew telling me how lame their starting zone was. Everyone I talked to kept telling me that they didn't feel like there was a point to doing any of the Goblin quests. I don't know since I didn't personally do them, but that doesn't sound like good news to me. Maybe the Lost Isles and Azshara make the Goblins cooler.

If you've never tried World of Warcraft, and even if you have but disliked it, I would recommend trying Cataclysm (when a trial version is available of course). After all, the changes to Azeroth will be applied even if you only have the original WoW with no expansions. Now I get to wait a few more hours before I can see the world anew and hopefully love the changes.

APB: Reloaded

I know, there's obviously something terribly wrong with me if I have any interest in Realtime Worlds' failed "Action MMO" All Points Bulletin anymore. Especially since it has been called the "worst failure in MMO history" by the gaming journalism world. I'll agree with that. Any game that causes the bankruptcy of the developer is probably bad. However, I can't help but be a little interested when I hear the rights to APB have been purchased by GamersFirst, a creator of free to play MMOs.

The CTO of GamersFirst, Bjorn Book-Larsson said "We think of it as an opportunity. It's worth our effort to take it and combine it with all of the user data we have and let the game take its time to reach its full potential." Making the game free to play is a great idea, I think. Listening to the feedback provided by the players? That is an amazing idea.

When it was functioning correctly, I enjoyed the living hell out of APB. There were certainly great ideas involved with the game, but they were buried underneath horrible matchmaking, balance issues, bad customer service, a lack of in-game support, lag, memory issues, and a lack of anti-cheating software. There were more things wrong with the game than there were right, which is certainly why it failed, but if GamersFirst is willing to listen to feedback from beta testers, maybe the game can be saved. Like Joe once said, "I might play this game again when it's out of beta."

The new game will be called APB:Reloaded and will launch sometime during 1st Quarter 2011. It will be Free to Play, but with a cash shop. If GamersFirst can iron out some wrinkles and doesn't give too much of an advantage to people that purchase items from the cash shop, I'll be checking this game out again. I never got my hockey mask, after all. I can't be blamed for wanting it still, can I?

Kirby's Epic Yarn Review

A new Boss VG Review is up, featuring Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Nintendo Wii! This review was recorded and narrated by Xenodyne and edited by yours truly. Behold.

Kinect Day 1 (or 10 Minutes with Kinect)

Yeah, call me a sellout, call me a hypocrite, but for the sake of being (relatively) unbiased I decided to trade in a bunch of the games I've gotten through recently and finally bite the bullet by buying a Kinect.

Aaaaaanyways, that aside, I spent about 45 minutes getting ready to play the Kinect. Why? Because of the tremendous amount of space it requires to play. I can understand why it needs 8 feet of space, but it really doesn't work well even in what Kinect considers to be it's "Good Range" (about 5-6ft.). My problem is that I'm tall. Like 6'5 tall. I kind of had to jimmy-rig it with my existing systems so that it could pick up my full body within the 6 ft of space. You definitely will benefit with even one player by having a full living room to play it in.

As for the setup, other than the whole "Shifting 80% of my room around" it went fairly smoothly. It did a lot of tests, and revealed it's motor function--which sometimes is a bit creepy, because the camera will size up the room by looking down, then looking up, then finally centering itself.

But how does it work? That's the question on everyone's mind.


Having played Wii, having played Move, and having played Kinect (under the current space restriction), I still have to say that the Move works the best. The Kinect wasn't picking up a lot of my foot movements, and it overall feels a little laggy (on the gameplay side of things). Sometimes it doesn't pick up your gestures right, or you get a little bit of delay, which is odd when it's something like browsing the dashboard. Also, I don't like how I have to access a special menu to use all of the Kinect features. What happened to being able to scroll through the dashboard with your hands? As of time of writing this, I was only able to use the voice feature of the Kinect to access the Kinect menu (as the tutorial seems to prompt you as the only way to access it).

On the gameplay side? With Kinect Adventures, although I didn't play it too much, it still felt a little laggy. This is the game where I was unable to get it to pick up my leg movements while playing the game where you bounce your ball against a wall. Mainly this resulted in standing in the same place, just waving my arms to bounce the balls. I still haven't tried the other games.

On to Dance Central.

This is the game which is lauded for it's status of "Killer App" of the Kinect. I spent the majority of my time tonight (about 5 minutes to be honest) of playing it. I'll admit, I felt a little gay putting the game in and starting up with trying to dance to Lady Gaga's Poker Face (one of the easiest songs). While learning the dance moves I learned that the game actually requires the sound from you clapping as part of the dance move, and that it wouldn't accept a soft clap. The microphone actually has to pick up the clap. The fact that I was playing it in a household of sleeping people at about midnight was what finally made me quit it. More on it tomorrow, and there should be a video review sometime soon.

Nail'd Preview

Last week, George and I were on the guest list to attend the press event for a game coming out in November called Nail'd. Nail'd is an insane off-road ATV/motor cross racing game being developed by Techland and produced by Deep Silver. Going into the night I really wasn’t sure what to expect, since I hate racing games, and the last ATV game I played was a PS2 game that I didn’t even like that much. But I was excited to get drunk, enjoy, myself and hang out with George, which I haven’t done in the three something years I’ve known him.

I took a seat next to Jon Schutts, a Sr. producer over at Deep Silver. He took it upon himself to kick my ass at the game while also being extremely nice and talking to me about the game and what he does at Deep Silver.

The game prides itself in being extreme and fast, and it definitely is. The tracks are huge, not just in length but in height, and the design is insane. Imagine jumping over dams and landing on roller coasters that are going through volcanoes. The game is also very arcade-like, letting you ride along the side of dams and able to change direction while falling 100ft in the air. If you’re into those realistic simulation racers this game is not for you, but if you just want to ride on some of the most ridiculously big tracks I have ever seen and just have a good time, this game is definitely worth checking out.

It’s really too bad that this game isn’t being talked about more, because I had more fun with it than some of the shit games I have bought recently. So make sure to be on the lookout November 30th when it hits store shelves.

Super Meat Boy: Postmortem

Super Meat Boy is among my all-time favorite XBLA titles. There's something endearing about the demonic level design that makes me, as a long-time gamer, want more. In a world which is becoming increasingly more casual-catering, this game stands out like a beacon of light against the dark. I still have not got 100% on the game, which seems a near-impossible task for me. If I ever finally fight my way through my stack of backlogged titles, I will be going for the 100% achievement, but until then, this is definitely a must-have title. There's a reason why it only sold a few less copies than Kirby's Epic Yarn. That's because it's not a Nintendo title, yet it still held its ground.

I did make a bit of a slip-up in my review. What I meant to say was that it was 8-bit inspired, instead I said that the whole soundtrack was 8-bit. While there are a few levels (usually through Warp Zones) where they are straight up 8-bit, most of it is 8-bit with traditional instruments. Mad props to YouTube user DitoCoaf for pointing that out :)

Well what are you waiting for? GO BUY IT NOW.

Super meat boy Review

New Boss Review.  "Super Meat Boy" Xbox live arcade hit and platforming treasure.

Dance Central Recalled?

Not to be confused with the earlier recall that MS did because of a misprint in the game manual a few weeks ago, the "Killer App" as everyone is calling it, Harmonix's Dance Central, may be recalled from retail stores. Via twitter, @gamingangel , who was going to buy a copy of Dance Central and a Kinect, noted that Best Buy is informing people that Dance Central has been recalled, and that they are pushing Konami's Dance Masters.


Will follow up more later as the story develops.

Dead Space 2 Trailer

Sorry for the odd movie size. It's being a little weird.


Anyways, this is the newest trailer for Dead Space 2. Man it's so fucking creepy. It's odd, I hate scary movies, but I like horror games. Maybe it's the medium? I don't know, but I can say that they were pretty smart with the "ring around the rosey" lyrics.

CoD: Black Ops Commercial

So while I admit the trailer is a little clever. It's got Jimmy Kimmel and Kobe Bryant, as well as a few other starts.


I'm still not excited for this game. I'm not really into super-realistic shooters where you get shot once or twice and you're dead (y'know, because I like to run around instead of camping behind corners that people walk around).

And the game will sell, probably more than MW2, despite being so similar to last year's CoD. I wonder what will happen when Treyarch doesn't get paid the royalties that Activision promises them?

LMNO

Recently there's been a lot of buzz surrounding EA's cancellation of the game LMNO. 1UP has done a very in-depth investigation into this game and they found the trailer above. It's pretty amazing, makes me a little angry the game got cancelled. The game was about a dude who for some reason is the only person drawn to Area 51 by a telepathic alien, and you bust her out, and spend the game evading the FBI. It was designed to have multiple endings and also the companion AI would learn based on the way you treated her.

Makes me very angry that it got cancelled, as I'm a sucker for multiple endings that make sense with the overarching storyline.

Shaco Ownage

If you've been following our Twitter, like you should be doing, you'd know that George has been hinting at a special League of Legends flavored video for the past week or so. I'm glad to announce that it has been edited and uploaded, after technical issue after technical issue. I'd say that it was well worth the wait and trouble. So, same as always, watch it, favorite it, like it, comment on it, and share it. We appreciate the views and support.

Also, be on the lookout for more videos soon. We've got more things planned that I'm sure you'll like. Expect more content and more regular updates from us in the near future. After a small bit of restructuring, Boss VG will be better than ever.

Once again, thanks for all of the support.



I also plan to put together a short "Making Of" video for the Shaco project. I'm sure some people will find that interesting. :3