I realize its been awhile since the last installment of The Analog Gamer and there have been a few big changes in the tabletop gaming market – Wiz Kids, one time golden goat of the plastic collectible miniature market has been shuttered by its parent company Topps, Wizards of the Coast announced it was making substantial changes to the D&D miniature product line and miniature company Rackham SA (producer of sci-fi battler AT-43) disappeared into the dust.

Things are tough all over but there is some hope on the horizon. Wizkids, the owners of the Shadowrun and Battletech intellectual properties recently signed a two year deal with Catalyst games to continue producing pen-and-paper titles in both series and apparently that will continue even after the death of Wizkids. Also there is a lot of interest from other miniature makers to acquire the HeroClix line and to continue the property at another corporation.

The refocusing of Wizards of the Coast on semi-random miniatures aimed at role playing gamers is a compromise tactic that will hopefully please both the hard core players/collectors of the miniature game and people like myself who are dedicated to the pen-and-paper RPG and prefer the ability to buy the minis we need for our campaigns rather than roll the dice and pray we don’t get too many random packs containing the Farmer and Pig mini or its equivalent.

Amongst all this doom and gloom however I find some respite in my love of the undead (I know that was an odd segue but stay with me…). The recent PC release of Valve’s Left4Dead has my gaming time filled with
hordes of the rampaging undead and with grim news impacting the tabletop hobby its hard not to feel a sense of dread. Read the full article »

I’ll be honest: the name “Red Faction” brings up more memories of “meh” gameplay to me than most other series that have survived past one sequel. So nothing could have been a bigger surprise for me than when I was given a chance to play the new Red Faction Guerrilla at E3 and found myself completely blown away by it. Granted, my impression of it was probably helped along by the fact that the developers put me in a giant mech suit to trash the fully destructible environments with, but I was still left wanting more. Thankfully, now I’ve been given that chance with the multiplayer beta that launched on Monday. So does the multiplayer make as much of an impression as the single-player? In a word…er, “sweetjebusyesyesyes.”

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If you cannot get enough of the LEGO games, and feel that Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the upcoming LEGO Batman are just not enough to tame your cravings – take heart! Traveller’s Tales are working on more LEGO games to pacify your future cravings for plastic blocks.

During an interview with Variety, Traveller’s Tales president Jon Burton stated that the UK-based company is working on future LEGO titles which will be derived from intellectual properties owned by its parent company, Warner Bros.

You may recall that late last year Warner Bros. purchased Traveller’s Tales for $200 million, and it is due to this new relationship that Brurton feels compelled to work on other personal projects other than games.

“For me personally, I think further in the future we’re making a kids’ TV show…using some of the tech we’ve developed for games. In the mid-distance, personally, to be able to dabble around in CG and film would be interesting, and Warner allows me to push in those directions without ‘quitting the day job,’ so to speak.

So for me, to look to the future and think, ‘I wouldn’t mind [doing a film]…’ And Warner allows me to take a step in that direction, and if I suck? Great, I’ll make games.”

Burton did not go into detail on which Warner Bros. IP he was currently working on, but with such a vast library of titles it could be just about anything.  Because of this, I have come up with some of my own ideas of what I believe would be interesting LEGO titles.

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I’ve been saying it for over a year now: “The day Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out is the day I buy a PS3.” So on Thursday, June 12th, that’s exactly what I did. I even drove an hour to a Wal-Mart in a small town at 6 AM to make sure I could secure the special system bundle. Being a huge fan of the series, I wanted to savor the experience, so I waited until the weekend to start playing, when I could really devote my time to the game. In the meantime, I perused reviews praising the game for its brilliant gameplay and for fixing problems that had plagued the series from the beginning. Naturally, I was even more excited to begin playing. So imagine my dissapointment when I actually popped in the disc and found it to be more movie than game.

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All the talk lately about Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, and Rock Revolution has got me thinking pretty hard about what I would like to see in the next installment of these games. Granted, Rock Revolution is new to the music simulation genre, so I cannot really count them just yet – plus, from what we have heard about the game so far, they are mostly covers and that is just kind of lame.

I have always been a music nerd since I can remember, and I love all different kinds, which means I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoy a little Kraftwerk now and then. If you were to look through my collection of 8-tracks (yes, 8-tracks), cassettes, albums, .45s, and Mp3s you would find plenty of mainstream radio/MTV friendly tunes as well as some of the most obscure recordings ever made. I have everything from Patsy Cline to Godsmack, Nightwish to Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams SR to NWA, Robert Johnson to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Depeche Mode to Fleetwood Mac, Loreena McKennitt to Luke Kelly and tons of what could be considered trance, blues, new age, traditional, bluegrass or world music. I just love music. The only past time of mine that can compete with my love of all things musical is my love of gaming. Therefore, when the first Guitar Hero game came out, I felt like Whitney Huston would feel getting a diamond encrusted crack pipe for Christmas.

All that said, you would think that it would be very hard to please me when it comes to content for a music simulation game like the ones mentioned above. No, not really, because while I do indeed love all types of music, I prefer anything loud, heavy, and something that would cause a little blue haired lady on the street to wet herself out of fear. Therefore, I usually like the offerings that have come our way via the discs or from downloadable content. However, I think that more could be done to even the playing field a bit so to speak, and how they could do this, is with the much rumored and hard to create keyboard peripheral.

Imagine if you will, the game screen for Rock Band. Picture in your mind what you see when you are playing. If you think that there would not be enough room on the screen with the addition of keyboards, that is not so. The notes for it could go right underneath the vocals, and they really would not have to be that big either. Apparently though, that is not the problem they are having with keyboards, it is the peripheral itself.

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This is a great time to be a gamer. With all of the different developers, publishers, genres, consoles, PC and handheld options we have, it is no wonder that videogames are a billion dollar industry. If you take into consideration that at least 6 out of 10 games created are going to be enjoyed by you or your household thus becoming a commercial success, those really are not bad odds. Granted, not all games are going to pull in the numbers that a Halo or GTA title will, but a good solid title can garner just as much respect and provide just as much enjoyment as a mega game such as those.

Another reason it is a great time to be a gamer, is because of the wonderful games created by Activision and Harmonix by the way of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. This is also a great time for people who love music, because while there are some who can play a musical instrument, not everyone can and these games help us live out our fantasies of being musical icons in our very own living room.

With Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, and Konami’s Rock Revolution all looming just over the horizon, it is indeed a great opportunity for us all. If you like the music simulation games, you basically have a nice variety now to choose from. Before, you really only had Guitar Hero I & II until Rock Band came out – now, Activison seems to make a new announcement every week regarding SOMETHING pertaining to either Guitar Hero III or and upcoming game destined to rock your socks off. Rock Band has promised us a new album every month for download, and while they have been really slow getting there, at least they are starting to make good on their promise. How “The Cars” and “The Pixies” will fare, is anyone’s guess really, but at least they are indeed releasing something.

Now comes news that Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Revolution will be following the footsteps of Rock Band with extra peripherals to round out your jam sessions in front of your favorite console. Many people are judging both Activison and Konami a little to harshly in my opinion, because the truth is, you have to evolve or die. Plain and simple, and that is the case with every form of entertainment. So are these games really such a bad thing? Really?

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The Bourne Conspiracy
Developer: High Moon Studios
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Price: $59.99
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360
Category: Action/Adventure
ESRB: “T” for Teen
Release Date: June 3, 2008

Really, I was surprised they didn’t make a Bourne game at some point while the movies were still coming out. A trilogy of action movies that makes millions at the box office seems like the sort of thing ripe for a shoddy video game tie-in. Thankfully though, the powers that be staved off such an adaptation until a video game company finally just secured the rights to the Bourne books themselves. Well now the wait is over, since High Moon Studios and Sierra have now released The Bourne Conspiracy for the Xbox 360 and PS3. So is this game — though Matt Damon-less — worthy to carry the Bourne name? Read on past the break to hear my impressions.

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Right now, the DS is pretty much on top of the console heap, outselling every other gaming device out there. But wait, could there be another device on the horizon ready to de-throne Nintendo’s handheld? And could that device come from Apple? My answer to both these questions would be a flat “No,” followed by some uproarious laughter. Apparently though, Forbes doesn’t quite share my opinion. A recent article on the magazine’s website makes a thorough argument for why the iPhone and the iPod Touch could make its way to the front of the pack. Monday marks the day when the “App Store,” is set to open its online doors for third-party developers to to pump their software — games included — onto Apple’s gadgets. For this reason, some people believe that Apple stands a chance to overtake the DS

I have to say, this is one of the strangest comparisons I’ve read in recent memory. To me, comparing the iPhone to the DS is like comparing an orange to a pencil: you kind of have to dig for similarities, and in the end, who cares? I can see where the author of the article, Brian Caulfield, is coming from, but he seems to be conveniently forgetting a few points (listed after the break in a handy point format). Read the full article »

Action heroes never die – they just get old, bald and fat or any combination of the three. When most actors in their fifties and sixties start to take meatier acting roles or give in to the age demographic and play fatherly figures in a family drama or family comedy; some actors who previously wowed us in the past with death-defying leaps from exploding buildings or single-handedly rescuing a group of POWs from a torture camp somewhere in Asia just can’t or won’t give up the ghost.

Despite the run on sentence above, you all know which ones I am talking about. Harrison Ford is just a bit old to be the dashing adventurer all the little girls fell in love with in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He is no longer the Indy or Han that we knew, and he is most definitely not Jack Ryan any more – I am not suggesting that he do another movie with Anne Heche or one with his lady love Ally McBeal Calista Flockhart- I just think that he should play something more akin to his age group instead of a lothario or an action hero. Same with Sylvester Stallone. Look at the latest “Rambo” flick. Why in the world are these guys trying to bring back a youthful nostalgia to our existence with these characters? That would be like Clint Eastwood doing another Dirty Harry movie -all it does is not only show their age along with ours and do we really want to be reminded daily how old we really are?

Now comes Bruce Willis. Granted, he is not reprising his role as John McClane in another “Die Hard” flick, but he is supposedly on board to play Kane in the movie adaptation of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. According to Variety, Bruce Willis is negotiating to star in Lionsgate’s transfer of the Eidos game and it is to be directed by Simon Crane (second unit director and stunt coordinator for “Hancock,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Troy” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”). The movie is expected to start shooting sometime in November and movie honchos are still looking for a actor to play Kane’s other-half Lynch.

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Well, we’ve had Age of Conan at retail for a little over a week now, and so far, it’s doing pretty well in stores. I mean, 400,000 copies in its first week is a solid start for any title. Additionally, the retail launch was pretty smooth, although some bugs were still present. All in all though, I agree with what seems to be (from my reading) the prevailing opinion that the AoC launch was arguably the best MMO launch ever.

The success of Age of Conan is a boon not only for the MMO market, but for MMO gamers everywhere. For the first time in recent memory, there are now two quality MMO titles competing for subscription dollars. With the release of Warhammer Online looming, it looks like that count will soon rise to three.

This means that there is now healthy competition in that market space, and that means that all 3 of the companies behind these MMO’s will be working hard to earn those dollars. That’s great for us as gamers, as it means we’ll get to see all sorts of new and exciting stuff in our MMO of choice.

Now, since all of this is true, it gets me to thinking about a question that is (I am sure) being debated in more than one venue, and that is this: What effect will the early success of Age of Conan have on World of Warcraft?

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