Have you ever really felt bad about the way you feel after playing a game you were looking forward to?

Of course you have, I think it might be one of the few constants of the gamer experience - disappointment when a game fails to live up to its potential and promise. Well, Prototype is one of those experiences for me.

It has all the ingredients of a smashing good time - a super powered hero, a sandbox city, even a conspiracy relating to the military industrial complex manipulating people for their own nefarious ends only to have it go wrong somehow.

Well, despite the mix of interesting pieces, the sum of Prototype just ends up coming out as a fairly bland experience. Maybe my expectation was improperly set by the history of the developer. These same talented folks turned out one of the best super hero games ever developed - Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction. That title featured a super powered hero running around in a sandbox New York city setting solving missions and running side missions just like Prototype but somehow the fun factor seemed to be higher in that title.

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The Sims 3 is the next generation of the original Maxis hit god game, The Sims. The game is definitely a technical evolution as I described in my impressions on Sims 3 Creation, Buy, and Build mode design mechanics, but how does it actually play after you’ve spent hours designing your Sims and their new homes.

Sims 3 breaks the sims out of the confines of their beautifully constructed prisons and allows them to freely roam the world around them. You can follow your sim to work at the theater or the military base or watch as they jog, bike, or drive to the beach for a sunny afternoon. You can walk around town collecting little treasures like unpolished gems and mystery seeds or go introduce yourself to your neighbors. Just walk up and ring the bell.
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InFamous is an action packed trip into a familiar genre with an interesting twist. You start out as Cole McGrath, a poor schmuck who has a mysterious delivery package blow up in his face, leaving him with burgeoning electrical based powers and everyone else in a six block radius with a slight case of death. You emerge from your baptism by fire, crawl out of the blast zone and run for your life guided by your buddy Zeke as the police force hunts you down.

Once you reach the relative safety of your roof top penthouse, the game truly begins throwing you into a grand conspiracy masterminded by a clandestine mystical organization. As you unravel the mystery, you can either fight your reputation as the bringer of the apocalypse or revel in the new coolness that is you and start building your own evil empire.

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The Sims series has taken the next big leap forward with the latest full game, The Sims 3. Fans of the sims will find a lot to love about the game as long as they can keep in mind that Sims 3 is a new base game. Gamers who own every expansion and stuff pack for Sims 2 should find the new game mechanics fixes much of what wasn’t fun about the previous titles, but they’ll have to be patient as many of the luxuries they’ve come to take for granted will have to wait for expansion. Read on for the scoop on the Sims 3.

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Next week, True Games Interactive will be releasing its free MMO-action title, Warrior Epic. In an effort to bring you a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming title, I took some time to participate in the recent closed beta test.

I have to admit, it isn’t what I expected going in. Warrior Epic isn’t your typical MMO. You won’t spend hours running around obtaining quests and crafting. Instead, it follows in the footsteps of games like Diablo and Dungeon Siege. Players can play for free, with the option of purchasing things like double XP potions, exclusive clothes, and other things. However, True Games says that only convenience items will be available for purchase, and that, “anything along the lines of “broadsword of one-hit kills” would never be available for purchase through micro-transactions.”

You’ll start with control of one warrior, who has a few abilities. Obviously, those powers vary depending on the type of hero you select. After you finish the tutorial level, you gain access to your warrior hall. From this central hub, you can recruit new types of heroes, browse and equip new items, and find new quests to take on. You can also see the spirits of fallen warriors, who can be called back to life under certain circumstances.

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Yesterday, Eva told you that Star Trek D-A-C was headed to XBox Live Arcade. As a self-admitted Star Trek junkie, I got so excited that I spent a few hours last night playing through it. So, now I ask myself the question: Would I recommend it to you, gentle readers?

At its core, Star Trek D-A-C is a top-down, space combat game set in the timeline of the new Star Trek movie. It’s a game that is primarily focused on multiplayer, so if you don’t have a Live Gold account, you may not get your money’s worth out of this title.

As a Trek fan, it’s kind of neat to be able to fly around in a Constitution-class flagship and attempt to take on the evil Romulan Empire. D-A-C fulfills this need with three game modes: Assault, Conquest, and Team Deathmatch.

Assault is basically attack & defend. Each team attempts to capture four points within a time limit, while the other teams defends. The winner is the team that captures the most points and has the best time. Conquest is a Battlefield-style, take-and-hold game where teams must capture two points to unlock their opponent’s base for capture. Team Deathmatch is, well, if you don’t know what TDM is by now, you probably aren’t actually reading this.

So far, so good, right? Now for the big questions: is there cooperative play, and just which starships do I get my grubby paws on?

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So Thursday has come and gone and the next part of the Star Wars video game saga arrived on home consoles yesterday - even though its but a teaser Demo for the game due next month.

It may be clear from some of my earlier coverage that I’m a bit of a Star Wars fanboy. I admit that not everything Star Wars = Good but the premise of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a story where the secret apprentice of Darth Vader is aiding him during the dark times to hunt down and destroy the remaining Jedi, actually made a lot of sense to me.

Did we actually expect that Vader had been doing nothing for 30 years but flying about the universe hunting down errant Jedi? Of course he had help! The Apprentice is the focus of the game and its rather short demo.

The demo is fairly short and linear. You’ll hop into character after a quick chat with your master and then it’s all slice and fling until you reach the end. There was a slight hint at puzzle based gameplay using the force with the hanger doors but not a lot more than run, slice up or throw enemy, pick up liberally scattered explosive barrels and destroy enemies. What will help this game stand out will be its story and from a lot of the previews is that I expect there to be a much deeper Star Wars tale in the making here that can’t easily be gleaned in a 20 minute demonstration.

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N+
Developer: Silverbirch Studios
Publisher: Atari
Price: $19.99
Platform: PSP, DS
Category: Puzzle/Platformer
ESRB: “E” for Everyone
Release Date: August 26, 2008

I had never really played N+ before in either its Xbox Live Arcade or PC iterations (it was simply known as N on PCs), save for a very brief session on PC where I had to close my browser almost immediately because I have a very obsessive personality — and this is the type of game that absolutely thrives on that type of person.

The premise is simple enough: get through a stage as quickly as possible using controls that are nothing more than left, right, and jump. There are little gold along the way to collect that add to your score (which is constantly decreasing as time passes), but your only real goal is to get to a certain spot, which usually won’t be open until you hit a switch. While initially it seems simple and fun enough, you get the impression that the ensuing levels (of which there are hundreds) will become nothing more than a cavalcade of mediocrity. With such basic gameplay, it’s not an unreasonable assumption, but play the game for a solid 20 minutes and you’ll begin to see what’s possible by introducing even a single new enemy.

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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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XBLA Hors D’oeurvres are a weekly feature where I play the latest Xbox Live Arcade game – in trial form – for no more than 10 minutes, and then summarize my impressions of the game based upon only that.

I cheated with this week’s new Xbox Live Arcade game. Typically for these pieces, I download the trial and play that for about ten minutes. But this morning, I bought Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 without a moment’s hesitation. In order to still write about this game XBLA Hors D’oeuvres-style, I’ve restrained myself to playing for only about 15-20 minutes — just enough time to unlock and try all six of the game’s modes.

As I made pretty clear earlier, I’m absolutely digging the game and every single one of its game modes. This is truly the sequel Geometry Wars fans have been wanting.

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