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TITLE: BIOSHOCK 2
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER/ PLATFORMS: 2K Marin/Irrational Games/Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Microsoft Windows
FUN FACT: The man behind the eerie soundtrack, award-winning composer Garry Schyman, also scored today’s other big release, EA’s Dante’s Inferno.
WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: You mean besides the fact that this is the sequel to 2007’s biggest surprise hit? Well, instead of running off with an even more complicated storyline, the folks behind BS2 reigned it in and refined the gameplay to make it appealing both to outsiders and those devoted to the original. That’s not to say the folks at 2K have sold out—for those willing to take the time, this sequel is way more rewarding, giving you a reason to spend more time than we would like in one of the creepiest environments we’ve set foot in. Yeah, if you were iffy on playing the first one with the lights off, don’t even think of flicking the switch with this one.
STORY: Compared to the original BioShock, BS2’s story is fairly simple. It’s set 10 years later in the failed dystopia we know as Rapture; the city has been taken over by some crazy broad named Sofia Lamb who for some reason is obsessed with butterflies—oh, and she tried to make you kill yourself in front of your Little Sister. Speaking of which, you’re playing as a Big Daddy, complete with hunkering metal suit and big-ass drill, with no recollection of the past 10 years. All you know is that you have to find your Little Sister and get the hell out of Rapture without dying. Sounds simple enough, right?
Keep reading for the full review…
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The splicers are coming, the splicers are coming…
As you know—or as some of you might not know but should—Bioshock 2 drops tomorrow. And there may or may not be a couple of us at Complex HQ with reservations about playing it alone in a dark house. That first one? Splicers everywhere, creepy little girls with yellow eyes, a leaky decrepit underwater city, and a dentist who doesn’t know the first thing about personal space? Real talk, there could have even been a couple of spots when we had to pause it until our lady came home. Not that Bioshock is the first title (let alone the scariest) to give us the creeps. Nope, we’re not afraid to admit that we’re certified soft-batch when it comes to horror games. That doesn’t mean we don’t still play them, though.
From Resident Evil to F.E.A.R. there have been plenty of titles that had us on the verge of a self-soiling. So the night before you head back to Rapture, take a trip down memory lane with some of these games. Just remember to turn down the volume, turn on the lights, and have your mommy ready on speed dial…
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It’s hard work being a fucking cool guy. You download your Waka Flocka mixtapes, you work on your winter beard, you hit up your connects for Hyperstrikes before they come out. It’s all just such a grind. That’s why you need to play Gluey. Part Tetris, part cuddling with anthromorphized blobs of love, part screwed-and-chopped bluegrass zone-out, 100% perfect free Flashy Friday afternoon goodness. Click on, tune out, and tell your boss she’ll have that report on Monday, because IT’S GLUEY TIME.
[HEAD OVER TO KONGREGATE TO PLAY GLUEY!]
2008 was Fallout 3. 2009 was the DLC (and the recession-friendly Game of the Year Edition, which made our Holiday GIft Guide). 2010, as we’d been hoping, will be Fallout: New Vegas. Now that the franchise has seen a successful move from PCs to consoles (and pissed off PC snobs in the process), this new one, dropping sometime this fall, looks to be as ridiculously addicting as the first—and we’re not even going off gameplay, we’re going off a two-minute teaser trailer. Peep game and tell us we’re wrong.
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We know, like you should, that mobile everything is the future. And yes, that goes for games as well. Here are some numbers: By 2014, the mobile phone gaming industry will reach $11.7 billion. Wait, here’s some more: out of all the mobile phone users in America, 54% of them play games on their mobiles, and 45% of them paid cash money for them. It’s big business! Word to Swizzy. That’s why the market has completely exploded. All the major phone platforms—iPhone, Android, WebOS, Symbian—boast a large number of games with more on the way. To help you wade through all of this, we present to you Mobile Check-In, a new feature where we bring you the hottest new mobile games for a certain plaform. First up: iPhone (and iPod Touch, for the people who like completing their phone calls). Keep reading to see our five picks, gameplay footage, and Buy it Now info.
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Every industry has its public-relations wing: the people who think of ways to get press attention for the product their employers are selling. Sometimes those ways are awesome, and sometimes they are not. And sometimes, like today, we receive something that’s so amazingly not awesome—or at least is awesome in a way that we are totally unfamiliar with—that we have to share it with you.
To promote the Wii game Muscle March (now available for download through WiiWare!), in which gamers get “the opportunity to step into form-fitting briefs as one of seven bodybuilding personas from around the world,” Namco Bandai sent us a fake tub of protein emblazoned with a drawing of an enormous shirtless bald man wearing what we can only describe as ’50s sci-fi-movie glasses. But that’s not all! Read on to see how they managed to one-up it…
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It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here! And by “it,” we mean the final season of Lost, and by “here,” we mean “finally escaping from our feverish conspiracy-theory-addled fantasies and onto our Tivos.” After a long and question-filled break, Season 5 begins tonight with a two-part epsiode—and what better way to whet your appetite (ayo!) than with a totally gratuitous countdown from Hurley?
Yeah, we caught up with the big homie Jorge Garcia before the show kicked off, and since we know he’s an avid gamer (he’s currently balling out on PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies [click here to buy it now]), we tipped back some Dharma merlot and chopped it up about what’s in his queue and his favorites from his yoof. Uh, his youth. Sorry, that’s the merlot talking. That shit is musty.
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The 2010 release calendar had to sag sometime: after last week’s Mass Effect 2 drop but before next week’s showdown between Bioshock 2 and Dante’s Inferno, this week’s looking a little sparse. The only thing for the consoles is White Knight Chronicles for the PS3, and—wait, what? Maybe we’re still a little hypersensitive after last week’s 50 Most Racist Movies countdown, but it sounds like maybe the ol’ naming department over at Level-5 could have used a Take-2. Not being the biggest JRPG fans, we don’t exactly want to sink 100 hours into verifying that’s not a Klan recruitment game, so we’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt—but some of you other games aren’t so lucky!
Over the years, plenty of you have gotten our dander up (just-in-case ayo!), intentionally or not, so we’d like to take this occasion to air you out. And if someone wants to let us know about WKC, please do. We’ll be over here getting the last few achievements for Stomp That Ofay.
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TITLE: MASS EFFECT 2
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER/ PLATFORMS: Bioware/Electronic Arts/360, PC
FUN FACT: Videos of the game’s possible sex scenes (assuming you played the male version of Commander Shepard) exploded onto the web two days before release. WARNING: Don’t click that link if you’re afraid of 1) spoilers, or 2) aggressive sex with lethal-ass tattooed women.
WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: Surriously? Because as great as the first one was, this manages what is somehow a simultaneous total overhaul and a minor troubleshooting. That is, the good folks at Bioware made the game’s mechanics more rewarding and compelling—everything from combat to behavioral choices have been tweaked for a fully different experience—without straying from the underlying depth and storytelling that made the original such an achievement.
STORY: Commander Shepard may have toppled Saren and the Reaper threat the first time around, but you know those assholes wouldn’t let such a thing go. Now, after a catastrophic run-in with hostile fire in the game’s intro, a new and improved Shepard has to assemble a new crew to find out why humans are disappearing from colonies (HINT: REAPERS REAPERS REAPERS). The thing is, after your original ME adventure, you’re a known quantity throughout the galaxy, meaning that just about everyone you come across has issues with you in one way or another. It’s up to you to cultivate the relationships you need in order to foster loyalty for what may ultimately prove to be a final suicide mission.
Keep reading for the full review…
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After all the waiting, tomorrow we’ll be able to play the one of the first most anticipated games of the year, Mass Effect 2. While equal-opportunity gamers have been amped about the title since the original came out in late ’07, there’s a weird rift: casual gamers and the Shooters-Only Horde that snapped up Modern Warfare 2 by the kajillions look at the RPG label and yawn, while hardcore RPG fans sniff that the game’s just a shooter with RPG tendencies As far as we’re concerned, both sides of the naysayer divide need to take a flyer off the Presidium Ring of the Citadel, because ME2 is a jaw-dropper (we’ll have an in-detail review up tomorrow).
The thing is, we can understand that some people have a preconceived notion about the RPG genre. Even the word “RPG” gives you the image of a dude who holds stock in Cheetos and only responds to his online name from the LARP message boards (which, if you must know, is “Eldred The Lothslayer” or “n00br4pist”). But no matter how many World of Warcrafts and EverQuests and Dragon Ages and Kingdom Hearts and Elvish Hymens there are out there scratching the swords-and-sorcery itch, there are still RPG games for people who prefer their potions 80-proof. Games like Mass Effect 2 have given a RPGs a broader (and more acne-free) audience. It’s not the first of its kind (and with games like Alpha Protocol coming up, certainly not the last), but the Mass Effect series can certainly take credit in keeping RPGs alive. We rounded up 10 of our favorite games from the genre, all while guaranteeing 100% freedom from wizards and tree gnomes. Now leave us be, we’ve got avatars to customize!
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If you’re looking for an epic new adventure to entertain you during the inevitable January hibernation, look no further than Darksiders, an Armageddon-based action game that was released last week for Xbox and PS3. The game, which has been getting pretty solid reviews across the board, was co-created by Joe Madureira (a.k.a. Joe Mad), a longtime vet of the comic book industry best known for his art work on The Uncanny X-Men in the ’90s. We interviewed Joe in our December/January 2010 issue about Darksiders, but we also wanted to find out more about his personal gaming influences. Read on to learn about Joe Madureira’s 5 Favorite Video Games of All Time…
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“I’m about to break your back, fool.”
We here at Complex love a good video game almost as much as we love a funny pause-worthy moment. That’s why it was truly worlds colliding when we came across (uh, yeah) the just-dropped trailer for 505 Games’ upcoming football title for…wait for it…Backbreaker. Yes, we’ve been known to pause rappers, MLB stars, and even Archie, but pause-worthy video games are really right up our alley (yep!). So without further ado, we present to you, in chronological order, The Most Pause-Worthy Video Game Titles of All Time…
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In 2009, we spent so much time putting together our retrospective of the last decade (click here for our “Best of the 2000s” series) that we almost forgot about all the memorable things that happened this year. Well, 2010 ain’t here yet, so we’re spending the last week looking back at all our favorite stuff, including albums, movies, girls, video games, sports moments, books, style trends, and websites. In the gaming world, ’09 was the year of the sequel, with blockbuster titles like Uncharted 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 topping everyone’s lists. But we’ve got much more in store, from the illest iPhone game to a “mature” Wii action game that actually doesn’t suck. Look back on all our favorites with the Top 25 Video Games of 2009 countdown…
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(Left to right) ‘Splosion Man, Flower, Osmos, Trials HD
OK, so the Spike Video Game Awards, which air this Saturday at 8 p.m. on Spike, don’t exactly constitute “appointment TV,” but this year the ceremony might actually be worth watching. For one, they will be airing a bunch of world-premiere trailers, including one for the much-anticipated new Medal of Honor. Two, Snoop Dogg is performing, so that should at least be mildly entertaining. And finally, it’s been a pretty great year for video games, as evidenced by the top-notch nominees for Game of the Year—Assassin’s Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves.
But if there’s one thing you might notice from the titles above, it’s that they’re all sequels or licensed franchises. Not that they’re not great games, but where’s the originality? Where’s the risk-taking? The answer lies in the Best Independent Games category, which features four off-the-beaten-path titles that you may not yet be familiar with. See below for a quick primer on the best indie video games (as chosen by Spike) as well as a link to vote on your favorite…
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Nintendo has two juggernaut franchises, and they manage to squeeze out a new title every year or so. Mario got his 2009 Wii shine mere weeks ago with The New Super Mario Bros., but Hyrule fans were forced to wait until next year to see a Princess of Zelda joint for the Wii. Instead, Link makes his annualish appearance in a new DS title dropping today, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
Not surprisingly, it’s garnering the same critical affection most other Zelda titles have (currently at 88 on Metaritic and 89 on Gamerankings), but we’re not going to add our voices to the fray by reviewing it for you or telling you why you should cop it. Instead, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite non-Zelda appearances that Link has made over the years. Sure, you know about Super Smash Bros., but what about the first Final Fantasy? What about Mario and Link shacking up? What about—ah, screw it, just read on…
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