Posted 08/05/09 at 02:34:24 PM by Nathan Grayson

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta’s opening scenes were absolutely out of this world. Within a span of ten minutes, I was torn from the Wasteland, poked and prodded with 100 haystacks’ worth of needles, stripped of the near-impregnable safety blanket I call “Power Armor,” and unceremoniously tossed into a prison cell. Upon awakening, my ragged, desperate human cellmate cowered in fear as some unknown force approached our cell, only to change course at the last second and perform its unspeakable act on some other hapless sap. The poor guy emitted a blood-curdling howl as his frail flesh clunked around in what sounded like a super-powered dryer.    

I was absolutely thrilled. Fear, curiosity, and vulnerability hooked me. Adrenaline reeled me in. “Who are these unseen, all-powerful beings?” I wondered. “Why are they doing this?” My interest piqued when my cellmate mentioned our captors’ penchant for tampering with people’s brains. Then I actually saw them. Tiny, green, big heads, round eyes. Beaten and beamed up by God after only two strikes from my pithy 23 unarmed skill. Thrill and intrigue, it was nice knowing you.
 
What followed was roughly four hours of good old fashioned alien-blasting. Fun, but nothing special. No mind-blowing ulterior motives, no unsettlingly foreign alien culture; the mean, green abducting machines were just a new skin for everyday Fallout 3 enemies. Really, there was nothing "alien" about these aliens. After such a promising opening, I felt more than a little let down.  

Click the read more link for the rest!

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Posted 01/08/09 at 01:23:46 AM by Nathan Grayson

Microsoft’s CES keynote was, as expected, light on megaton gaming news, but a somewhat small – though undeniably interesting -- gem did manage to escape from Microsoft’s warchest. Titled Kodu, this easy-to-use game-creation tool is operated with only the Xbox 360 controller. However, based on a demonstration given during the keynote, Kodu could very well relegate games like LittleBigPlanet to the musty back corner of the toy box. Said MPC’s own Will Smith upon viewing the demo:

“The kid doing the Kodu demo (Sparrow) is hardcore with the radial menus. I forget how awesome they are if they're fast enough that you can actually use them. She was using the radial menus to adjust items in her game world. These are incredibly deep radial menus, compared to other apps. This is a pretty impressive tool, and she's controlling it entirely using the Xbox controller. There are lots of little games in the world.”

According to a Microsoft press release, Kodu’s colorful vistas are “expressed in physical action-reaction terms, using basic concepts like vision, hearing and time to control your character’s behavior.” Sounds pretty wicked.

Kodu launches this spring on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel.

See the rest of Microsoft’s game-related announcements after the break.

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Posted 01/05/09 at 05:00:49 PM by Nathan Grayson

Research group The Nielsen Company recently released a list of 2008’s 10 most played PC games, but seeing as how you’re probably still scraping bolded numbers off your monitor after you last careened into our list sanctum, we nearly skipped it. However, as it turns out, Nielsen’s runway strut contained a pretty interesting anomaly, so we want you to look at it.

Top 10 PC Game Titles in the U.S.

1. World of Warcraft (2004) / Blizzard Entertainment 671 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.723% AU*
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007) / Infinity Ward 403 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.163% AU*
3. Halo: Combat Evolved (2003) / Gearbox, Bungie 295 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.092% AU*
4. The Sims (2000) / EA Maxis 213 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.09% AU*
5. The Sims 2 (2004) / EA Maxis 291 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.086% AU*
6. RuneScape (2001) / Jagex Ltd. 451 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.084% AU*
7. Diablo II (2000) / Blizzard Entertainment 313 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.065% AU*
8. Team Fortress 2 (2007) / Valve 371 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.063% AU*
9. Counter-Strike (2000) / Valve 282 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.062% AU*
10. Counter-Strike: Source (2004) / Valve 426 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.061% AU*

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Posted 10/10/07 at 04:44:53 PM by Will Smith

I played a lot of Halo 2 on the Xbox. Every night for most of a year, I’d fire up the game with some buddies, lead off with a couple of swords-only rounds on Lockout, then jump into Coagulation or Zanzibar for some CTF or team deathmatch action. For that reason, I was looking forward to playing Halo 2 with the superior mouse/keyboard combination when it finally came to the PC.

Click Read More for more. 

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Posted 06/11/07 at 05:24:16 PM by Will Smith

Common VPN software can keep you from logging into your Live account from your PC. Will Smith tells you how to remove it

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Posted 12/01/03 at 12:00:00 AM by The Maximum PC Staff

In the PDF archive of the December 2003 issue, you can find:

• Gear of the Year 2003
• Case Mod Contest Winner
• CPU Slugfest
• Holiday Gift Guide
• And Lots of Awesome Reviews including Halo and the ATI Radeon 9800 XT!
• Ask the Doctor
• Rig of the Month
• The Watchdog
• And a whole lot more!

Click the mondo huge cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!

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