Posted 02/11/10 at 10:47:36 PM by Nathan Grayson

I’m a few loose ends away from wrapping up Mass Effect 2, and that terrifies me.

I know, I know. I shouldn’t be so frightened. I’ve turned the galaxy upside-down, shaking loose its roughest, toughest customers and sweeping them right onto my ship. My crew and I have fought back-to-back time and time again, leaving robots, aliens, and entire mercenary organizations battered and bloody in our wakes. But it’s not my crew I’m worried about. It’s me.

I mean, let’s be honest here: the term “suicide mission” doesn’t inspire much optimism. And here we are, betting the whole space farm on those abysmal odds anyway. But whatever, right? Mass Effect 3’s already been announced. Unless the game’s actually a bouquet of colorful Game Over screens, I’m pretty sure we’ve got this one in the bag. We may as well be running a victory lap at this point.

However, we’ve got one more major factor working against us – one that not even the great, no-longer-late Shepard has taken into account: I, the player, am not reloading a previous save if things go awry.

Click past the break for the rest!

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Posted 06/24/09 at 01:00:00 PM by Nathan Grayson

“Never bring a knife to a gunfight” – a wise saying that’s kept Cowboy duels the world over interesting for years. That cardinal rule doesn’t say anything about stone-shattering mining hammers, though, and there’s a very good reason for that. To quote an enemy from Red Faction: Guerrilla: “Snap! Crack! Sounds of brain splattering like wet spaghetti against a wall.” Hey, I never said I was quoting something that came from the poor guy’s mouth.

Battering EDF goons into Mars-flavored space-paste isn’t the only thing my hulking steel hammer does, either. It can render years of architectural progress futile in a few powerful blows, taking chunk after chunk out of buildings until all that remains is splintered scrap. As you can imagine, the practical applications for this futuristic form of Building Neutralization are endless. Wall in my way? Knock it down. Gun emplacement in my way? Knock it down. EDF fortress in my way? Well, you get the idea. But aside from the novelty of being able to run through walls screaming, “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch,” the ability to homerun-swing the entire environment around me into chalky dust – to never be impeded or have to take “the long way around” – is incredibly liberating. In fact, other shooters now feel limited and strange to me because they lack that feature.
 
Clearly, Red Faction developer Volition is onto something here. Completely destroyable structures give me all kinds of new options, keeping missions endlessly fresh. What Volition created, then, is a good, well-implemented game mechanic. It brings me endless amounts of joy and – even more importantly – I can’t imagine playing other games of its variety without it. As much as the game’s destructible environments have been pushed and marketed, they aren’t some big gimmick. In fact, interestingly enough, Red Faction: Guerrilla’s also a perfect example of how to both define and avoid cheap gimmicks – lessons that, if cranky, keyboard-bound gamers are to be believed, are quite important.

 Insert disc titled "Read More" to continue.

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Posted 12/03/08 at 09:42:13 PM by Nathan Grayson

Ken Levine's latest dive 'n' demolish may have sold a gajillion of its umpteen-rapscillion units on consoles, but the brainy developer's true colors show right through his newfound wall of green. So, though it may be irrational, Levine is a PC man through and through.

"I wish the industry could find a way to make PC gaming more broadly successful. There are so many challenges for PC gaming--the complications from systems specifications to the drivers--most people look at PC games and say, 'What are you talking about?'" Levine replied when asked about his opinion on the industry's "biggest mistake."

"It's a shame because as a gamer, I am never more comfortable than I am sitting with a mouse and keyboard two inches away from my monitor."

Seems like a bunch of developers echo that sentiment -- which is great -- but can anyone other than Valve and Blizzard actually do something about it? What's your take?

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Posted 10/16/08 at 08:31:27 PM by Nathan Grayson

EA has certainly taken a turn for the less-reviled as of late -- a sudden change that can be attributed to risk-taking, trouble-making CEO John Riccitiello. However, even creative greats like Picasso, De Vinci, and Batman were only human, and all humans have breaking points. For Riccitiello, that point was seemingly first-person run 'n' rebel Mirror's Edge.

"I was totally convinced that game needed to be third-person and not first-person, because I wanted to see Faith," Riccitiello said.

“I was really wrong about the third-person thing,” he continued, citing the highly anticipated title's finished form.

But even with titles like Mirror's Edge under his belt, Riccitiello's heart is clad in a business suit, and some "creative risks" -- like Tim Schafer-Jack Black collaboration Brutal Legend -- give him palpitations (the bad kind; not the blood-pumping, required-to-survive kind).

"I have seen it," Riccitiello replied when asked if EA has considered publishing Brutal Legend. "I am well aware of what the game is. It’s a very significant creative risk."
     
"Sometimes significant creative risks end up being some of the world’s best products. Spore was also a significant creative risk. So was The Sims. Portal, BioShock. But so was [the relatively poor-selling, high quality Tim Schafer title] Grim Fandango."

That's, uh, pretty hard to mistake for a "Yes."

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Posted 09/25/08 at 11:00:00 AM by The Maximum PC Staff

I downloaded BioShock through Steam a couple weeks ago and have had trouble getting it to run. Sometimes it will randomly crash and send me back to the desktop with a message that tells me the display driver stopped working and has recovered successfully. I have to restart the program through Task Manager to get it to run again, but I can only play 5 to 10 minutes at a time. I have an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT in a MacBook Pro running Vista 32-bit.

Steaming-hot solutions, after the jump!

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Posted 07/17/08 at 04:24:27 PM by Norman Chan

Back when the PlayStation 3 launched in November of 2006, PC Gamer magazine tempted the gamers waiting in front of the Sony Metreon in San Francisco (the official PS3 North American launch headquarters) with a Faustian bargain (look it up). Our sister publication offered to give away a $7,500 Falcon Northwest gaming PC to one of the campers if they willingly relinquished their place in line. The catch: the unfaithful console fanboy who accepted the PC would also have to sign a legally binding contract preventing him from owning a PlayStation 3 for three years – an eternity in game industry time.

The (in our opinion) lucky gamer who volunteered to defect to PC gaming was one Neal Chung-Lee, a local student had at that point been waiting in line for several days to be the one of the first people to own a PS3. But after selling his console-loving soul to PC gaming (and making the front page of Digg), Neal fell off of our radar. That is, until we bumped into him this past week. And you’ll never guess where.

Read on to find out where we found Neal playing a PlayStation 3.

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Posted 12/20/07 at 07:06:51 PM by Will Smith

I’ve played thousands of games since I stomped my first Koopa in Super Mario Brothers—way back in 1986. Since then, I’ve played text games, 2D adventures, first-person shooters, simulations of every sort, strategy games, and role-playing games. I even played a “cyberpunk thriller” once. Of all the games I’ve played in the last 21 years, none has evoked such powerful emotions as BioShock.

Click Read More for more. 

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Posted 12/15/07 at 02:36:27 PM by Tom Edwards

This week, the gang talks about their favorite PC games and announces the winner of our Apple ad mashup contest. Check out the winning videos at the bottom of the show notes. For your chance to win a SanDisk Sansa Connect MP3 player, enter our final contest: Create outro music for the No BS podcast. Make some new music to play at the end of our show!

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337

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