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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Video games are full of colorful characters from speedy blue hedgehogs to scientists who know their way around a rocket launcher. That doesn’t mean games are without their stereotypes though, and I’m not talking about the fact that every gritty shooter needs at least one black soldier ready to blast some hip-hop music at any given opportunity. No, I’m talking about the overweight individuals who packed on a few pounds and then decided that was reason enough to get in everyone’s way somehow. When it comes to those portly video game characters that aren’t plumbers sporting red overalls, most of them just tend to be plain old bastards. Here are six of the biggest fat bastards in gaming that I could think of.

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EA has sent out an all points bulletin that Need for Speed Undercover will feature and new cooperative mode, Cops and Robbers. The mode supports two teams of four playing against each other. The criminals pick up a package they must get to their safe house while the cops try to thwart them at every turn.

Cops and Robbers play is meant to showcase the game’s new Heroic Driving Engine. Players will be able to experience high speed chases through the city streets at up to 180 MPH. Given the destructibility of the setting and the espionage theme, Undercover seems like it can deliver on the promised adrenaline rush.

Codemasters has announced the EU release of Book 14: The Ring Forges, the latest free content update for LotRO Shadows of Angmar.

Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion brings a wide array of changes to LotRO, including the addition of Eregion, the continuation of the epic questline, and preparations for Moria.  Codematsers has also been hard at work adding even more player-requested features to the game.

Highlights:

• Eregion: Journey to where the Elven Rings were forged
• Epic Quest: The epic quest continues with world events that open up the adventure to every player across all servers
• Moria Prelude Quests: Aid the Fellowship of the Ring as they prepare to leave Rivendell and make their way toward Mordor.
• Dungeons: The loot dropped in all instances and raids is being upgraded, and bosses and mobs are being adjusted to make for even better play experiences! Now is the time to prepare for the dangers that dwell in Moria
• Animation Improvements: LOTRO continues to polish the experience
• Animations and sounds for each Minstrel skill using their equipped instrument (no longer just the Lute!)
• Monster play emote animations for Orc, Uruk, Spider and Warg
• New animations for 12 emotes – plus three new animated emotes

You can get the EU Patch by hitting the badge below. Full release notes are listed after the jump.

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You may have heard of the Novint Falcon controller already. It’s the bizarre-looking gaming controller that users reported could mimic the actual feel of unique textures and objects. The strange device made quite an impression on almost anyone that tried it, but it still seemed like a gimmicky piece of technology that wouldn’t appeal to the gaming community at large. Well, Novint still isn’t giving up on the Falcon, as they’ve reported that they will be licensing several EA titles to make them work with the touch support controller. According to the agreement, Novint will license the games and then develop patches so they work with the controller. Those games will include Madden NFL 08, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, Need For Speed ProStreet, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, and possibly the next Need For Speed game. To recoup the cost of developing the patches, Novint will also be charging $9.99 for each of them.

To me, this doesn’t change much. The Novint Falcon still seems like a device that is really, really cool, but not something I’d actually buy; $10 fee for patches or not. It’s something I’d want to play around with for a short while, but I couldn’t actually see myself throwing down a lot of money for it. If arcade’s were still thriving, I’d say Novint should probably focus more on getting an arcade game out there with the Falcon built in; but since they’re not, I have no idea what they should do with their incredibly awesome-but-useless technology.

Via Level Up

Samsung’s Spinpoint M6 is the world’s first 2.5-inch, 500GB HDD. Standing in at 9.5mm tall, the M6 will easily fit most existing laptop hard drive bays. For those of you worried about sloth like performance, the Spinpoint M6 has a 5400rpm spindle speed, an 8MB cache, as well as a 3.0Gbps SATA interface. A Free-Fall Sensor can be added as an optional extra. Not content with breaking the world record for the HDD with the smallest size / biggest capacity, Samsung are also introducing the industry’s fastest DVD burner.

It looks like Samsung continues to drop great products on the PC world. With the announcement of this and the fastest DVD burner, it’s safe to say that it has been a great week for Samsung. This is certainly exciting news and a viable option for anyone who needs a high-performance drive but doesn’t have that much space for one. Word on the street is that this drive can easily work in a PS3 as well.

Via Gizmodo

Winter seems to just be settling in and with it comes the doldrums of a season with little sunshine, cold winds, and the obligatory ice and snow. While we are cooped up in our houses in a state of semi-hibernation it would be nice to have something new to try out while we wait for GTA IV and Condemned 2 to hit stores. Thankfully, this week we received more demos than last week and the usual barrage of patches came through. Whatever happened to the good ole days of games with zero issues? Or did they even every exist? I can’t remember anymore.

Along with The Sims 2: Bon Voyage and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, here are some other patches you may be in need of that hit FileFront this week:

• Loki: Cyanide Studios has released a patch updating Loki to v1.0.8.2.
• World in Conflict: This v1.006 patch fixes balancing issues, additions to the various communications tools in the game, adds new features, including enhanced server filters, improved “Play Now” functions and measures against clan smurfing.
• GRAW 2: Ubisoft has released a patch updating Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 from v1.0 to v1.05.

Besides Shadowgrounds Survivor, and Sam and Max: Night of the Raving Dead, FileFront also received the following demos:

• Need for Speed: ProStreet Porche: EA has released a second demo- this one 2 Porsche cars (911 GT2 / 911 GT3RS) drivable on the Porsche Leipzig testing track.
• Half-Life: Day One: This was the first official demo of Half-Life, including “The first day” playing time.
• The Club: SEGA has released a multilanguage demo for The Club, a 3rd person action shooter focused on addictive and rewarding gameplay. You must go through an age gate for this one.
• Tomb Raider Anniversary for Mac Users: A new playable Mac demo of Tomb Raider: Anniversary has been released, this time giving you the chance to try out one level from Peru

For the full list of demos and patches click on the respective links.

Sometimes it seems like we live in a world that expects video games to be nothing but toys that cater exclusively to children and avoid controversy at all costs. In times like these, it’s actually a little refreshing to have a game like The Club coming out soon. In this game, the focus is less on story and more on killing tons of enemies as quickly and stylishly as possible. By now, most of us have played the demo for the game, but we’ll still have to wait until next week to see the full product. To get some more insight on what went into creating The Club, we decided to go to Bizarre Creations’ Community and Web Lead, Ben Ward, for some insider info. Full interview after the break. Read the full article

Sometimes, I find some really interesting lots for sale on eBay. Doing a little searching today, I came across a lot of 400 video games for $3,199.99 + Shipping (US $250, Canada $400). That works out to about $8.62 per game if you have it shipped to the United States. Keep in mind that a majority of the games are for the PS2 and original Xbox. I’m not sure what a collection like this would cost you at a store like GameStop for example, but I think the price would actually be pretty close. I wouldn’t classify this as a great deal, but it would be sweet to have all these games in your collection. If the price were closer to say $2,000 for all 400, I’d consider buying it myself.

Auction Link

The exact games included follow the break:
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Nice update this week on the PlayStation Store as we get a demo of Super Stardust HD to accompany the game’s update (yay), a demo of Kane & Lynch (meh), the PS one Classic Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (not bad), new Rock Band tracks (hoorah), Need for Speed ProStreet premium cheats (sigh), and more.

Not a bad week, but still no sign of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Gimme something more than a trailer, Sony! You’re killing me here!

Hit the jump for the full list of content.

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