GameFan-Mag

Across all the video game platforms there are hundreds if not thousands of games released any given year. With game prices ranging from a dollar for some smart phones to the standard sixty dollars for most home consoles there is plenty of room for buyer’s remorse. Video game reviews are a great way to minimize the chances of paying for a game that is poorly made. While some companies have a flexible return policy that can cover this most do not consider it a reason for a refund or a credit.The first step in best utilizing reviews are to look at reviews of games you already own. See what the reviewers wrote, and find those that most agree with your opinion. Just because a game isn’t a critical success doesn’t mean it won’t be a good fit for your tastes. Once you find a few people whose opinion you agree with it greatly reduces the chances of you buying a game you dislike.If you have a phone or laptop with wireless internet then you have reviews at your disposal if you randomly drop by a store to pick up a game. Even with all the choices you can pick a winner each time.

Video games have been a part of our culture going back over 35 years now. Today lets take a look at the top twenty that stick out over the years.

20. Pac-Man – Nobody can say that a game of Pac-Man can’t be addicting. It’s still a thrill to see the old arcade machine.
19. Super Mario Brothers 3
18. Duck Tales- Who Didn’t Enjoy bashing enemies with Scrooge’s cane?
17. Street Fighter 2 – Do I Need to Say More?
16. Mega Man 2
15. Contra – Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, B,A, Read the rest of this entry »

We all know that games like Call of Duty: Black Ops has reined sales over the last year. With every brilliant release like this and Halo: Reach this year there were others that didn’t quiet live up to sales expectations. While many will believe this is because the games were just not that good. The harsh reality has to do with the business aspect of games themselves.

Activision spent a lot of money promoting Call of Duty: Black Ops and it led to the best sales figures of all time. The problem Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-ordering games is the best way to ensure that your copy will be waiting for you when the release date arrives; but, what are some of the hottest titles to pre-order?

-Battlefield 3 – The newest installment in the legendary multi-player first person shooter series promises to be the best one yet. The new Frostbite engine will allow unprecedented interaction with the environment as gamers will be able to destroy every part of the battlefield during the intense team-based multi-player battles. Battlefield 3 will include the deadliest of modern weaponry and a wide array of vehicles for players to jump Read the rest of this entry »

In 1994, Panasonic’s 3DO Interactive Multiplayer system was Time Magazine’s Product of the Year. The system featured popular franchises like Alone in the Dark, Gex, and Samurai Shodown, and was one of the first to use CD-ROMs instead of cartridges. If the darn thing hadn’t been 700, the video game industry might be a very different beast today. Panasonic is hoping to recapture some of that lost potential, recently announcing their first handheld console, the Jungle. Read the rest of this entry »

Several popular video game properties have been showing up on comic book shelves in recent months. This represents yet another intermingling of media, with comics and movies previously enjoying a two-way relationship. God of War is one of the latest to come out, with issue 3 of 6 hitting shops on July 21. This series is written by veteran writer Marv Wolfman, who was responsible for the ’80s comic epic Crisis on Infinite Earths. Art is by Andrea Sorrentino. The series serves as a prequel to the games, although it does reveal some more adventures during Kratos’s time as God of War.Modern Warfare 2: Ghost, a tie-in to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, wraps up this July with the release of its 6^th issue. This series takes somewhat of a different tack, and brings readers into the world of a non-playable character from the game, Simon “Ghost” Riley. Over the course of the last five issues, readers have witnessed Ghost’s origins in a war against terrorist drug lords up to a modern hostage situation in an elementary school. This dark series is written by David Lapham, author of the critically acclaimed Stray Bullets, with art by Kevin West. Read the rest of this entry »

For July 4 this year Gamespot posted its list of the top 9 most patriotic heroes. Here they are, in no particular order, along with their respective games and my own humble commentary.

• Mike Haggar (Final Fight): Mike Haggar is a pro-wrestler-turned-Mayor from way back in 1989, when Arnold’s governorship was just a twinkle in his eye. Haggar returns to the streets to put the kibosh on the evil gang which has kidnapped his daughter and perverted the American dream.
• Tom Brady (Madden NFL Football): Star of the New England Patriots, Tom Brady epitomizes a sport which everybody else uses to mean “soccer.” In contradiction to that sport’s hands-off rule, Brady and his crew tackle, rush, and maul on their way to the endzone.
• Guile (Street Fighter II): In the tournament of hard men that is the Street Fighter tournament, Guile is one of the greatest. A soldier with a flag tattoo on each shoulder, Guile also represents the American values of justice and loyalty, as he tracks down M. Bison, killer of his best friend Charlie.
• Captain America (Marvel Ultimate Alliance): Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) multimedia star of comics, games, animated films, and soon of his own live-action film. His outfit is a stylized red, white, and blue, and his primary antagonists are the Nazis. Seems like a shoe-in.

Read the rest of this entry »

At this year’s E3 games festival, RPG fans of yesteryear learned the official title of the newest entry in the popular Golden Sun series. The game is titled Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and follows the children of the series’ earlier main characters. These children are responsible for ending the new phenomenon of Psynergy vortexes which have been appearing and sucking away magic.Earlier games in the series were critically acclaimed as some of the best Game Boy Advance games ever released. As a fan myself, I could cite a number of reasons for this popularity, from the gorgeous graphics which squeezed all they could of that little processor, to the ingenious gameplay mechanics which combined elements of Pokemon and Final Fantasy. Creatures called Djinn are located throughout the game, and once collected can be used both in battle and on the field to solve a variety of puzzles. Read the rest of this entry »

Just last week, Take Two Games admitted that Bioshock 2, the sequel to their original smash-hit, had not moved as many units as they had hoped. Now, developer 2K has announced a new set of downloadable content called Protector Trials available August 3. Downloadable content is available over XBOX Live and the Playstation Network and requires the original game to play. However, it adds an entirely new experience.In Protector Trials, players once again take on the role of a Big Daddy, the scuba-suited, artillery-wielding protagonist of Bioshock 2. The DLC adds six new levels based on the original game, along with new unlockable bonuses like game art and videos. In addition, the pack adds seven new achievements or trophies, depending on the systemthese test players’ skills and patience in accomplishing voluntary challenges. Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo did not disappoint, revealing new titles in both established series and entirely new properties. Here is a look at some of the ones to keep your eye on over the next year.

• GoldenEye 007: If you owned an N64 back in the day, GoldenEye 007 was the one game you had to have. Eurocom is hoping to carry that success into their remake, which also updates the game to encapsulate the new Daniel Craig bond persona. If the game can capture the original’s sense of fun while updating it with modern graphics, this could be a winner.
• Rage: Games like Grand Theft Auto have incorporated both action and driving, but id Software’s new post-apocalyptic title Rage looks to go even further. In the dune-buggy driving sequences, you earn items and upgrades, but the game continues once you get of the driver’s seat and keeps going as a first-person shooter. There’s also an inventory system reminiscent of RPGs.

Read the rest of this entry »