WoW Armory Now on Iphone

For those of you WoW players who haven’t heard yet, WoW Armory is now made available for the iPhone. Just log in to itunes and search for the free downloadable app.

Quoted from Blizzard:

Ever wanted to check your raid schedule, look up a piece of PvP gear, or concoct a new talent spec while on the go? The World of Warcraft Mobile Armory app for iPhone™ and iPod touch® lets you access the official Armory database from anywhere you have a mobile connection, and features much of the same functionality as the Armory website, including:

• Search for and view any character, item, guild, or Arena team in World of Warcraft.
• Access your in-game calendar of events.
• View achievement-point leaderboards.
• Plan out talent specs using the fully functional talent calculator.
• And much more!

You can check out the app from the WoW Armory website.

Here’s a video of the app:

Modern Warfare 2 Prestige edition unboxed

Rejoice Modern Warfare 2 fans. The time has come for the unveiling of the prestige edition for the Xbox 360 version. Before i say anything about it, please watch the video and look at all what you’re getting for a rumored price of $80.

Click on the link and marvel at the goodies. I like the working NVG (Night Vision Goggles) that they will throw in. Hope this comes out on the PC too.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will hit store shelves on November 10, 2009 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Battlefield Heroes is Now Live and Online

After months of months of testing and closed beta, it has finally arrived. What am i talking about?  It’s Battlefield Heroes, the free online FPS game from EA Games.

All you have to do is sign up and create your own account by clicking here

Be warned though that after signing up, you will be required to download the game on to your browser (it’s a whopping 4 gig in size so i’d recommend you to download the client and leave the computer on)

See you guys in the battlefield!

Bioshock 2: Impressions

I am a huge fan of the first Bioshock game. To prove this point, I must have played the game at least four times over in the attempt to unlock all the achievements. (I missed just two… damn!) When news of the second installment in the series reached me, I was understandably giddy and excited.

Big Sister

From what I’ve gathered so far, the mechanics, graphics, sound and all-around technology surrounding the sequel is not all that different from the first game. In fact if somebody unfamiliar with the franchise were to look at screens from the first game and second game, side by side, I would expect that he’d think they were from the same game. That said, Bioshock really is not your typical FPS. If advancements in speeds, gameplay, graphics and such really made a game like Call of Duty 4 that much better than other previous CODs, it’s the story and atmosphere that really makes Bioshock a cut above the rest.

Gimme That!

Jordan Thomas, the Creative Director of Bioshock 2, described the game’s genre best – narrative FPS. I personally would never have expected a great narrative to be covered in the skin of an FPS. I’d expect this from RPGs or adventure games. But I guess that’s one of the things that really makes Bioshock such an evolution in gaming. Great atmosphere and gameplay combined with amazing game mechanics. Other games would have settled to do either one, but the developers at 2K really upped the ante and polished both aspects almost to perfection.

While 2K has gone on record and said that the gameplay will remain pretty much the same with some new additions here and there, what we know little about is the story of the game. All that’s been revealed is that Bioshock 2 takes place ten years after the events of the first game and that the player takes on the role of the very first Big Daddy. This new perspective that the player takes, in itself, gives the story of the game so many possibilities. From where I stand, the story of Bioshock 2, while still connected to the first game, will be refreshingly different from the first game’s. Enough of these episodic stories that leave you hanging after every episode. I applaud 2K for taking the game into a completely different direction, story wise. They could so easily continued the story of Jack from the first game, but thankfully they didn’t.

As a narrative FPS, the story of Bioshock 2 is really the meat of the game. I’m so glad we know next to nothing about it. That’ll make playing the game, when it comes out fall of this year, so much more satisfying.

Thief 4 Rumored

There are rumors of a new Thief game in the works in Eidos Montreal, and this is very exciting news. I am a fan, a big fan of the Thief franchise. I loved playing through the dark streets of a medieval town or creeping inside a castle unseen in the shadows and unheard while walking through carpeted areas… ahhh yeah, reminiscing the days I locked myself inside my room, trying to perfect the no kills and loot all mission requirements. Yes, those were the days.

OnLive: The Future of Gaming

This year’s GDC has just announced, what I believe to be, the biggest news in gaming since, I don’t know, the control pad. It’s a little something called OnLive.

Onlive is essentially going to change gaming the way YouTube changed everybody’s TV viewing habits. With OnLive gamers have entered the world of video game streaming. Potentially, what this means is, gamers can play any game they want on demand, anywhere they are in the world for as long as they have a computer – any computer at that – and an Internet connection to access the OnLive service. Yes, you heard that right, any computer would do. In fact, you don’t even need a computer, per se. You could opt to play games straight through your television set provided it is equipped with the OnLive hub, which essentially feeds your TV video and audio from the Internet.

One of the most exciting things about OnLive is the fact that it virtually makes the need for consoles or high-end PCs obsolete. The game is played in a remote server, and the output – essentially the video and audio of the game – is streamed to you, the end-user. So for good or for bad, if the service truly does take off, then the hardware side of the video game business will disappear in the next decade or so.

OnLive will of course charge gamers a fee to access the service. On top of that, the games will need to be “purchased” in some fashion. Gamers will have a few option when playing games. They could of course play free demos of the game. Alternatively, they can rent the full version of the game and own it for a fixed number of days. Of course they can also buy the game all together, and play it using the OnLive service indefinitely. While I do enjoy the novelty of owning something tactile with my games (ie. the packaging) there is a lot of charm in having all your games accessible right at your finger tips. No more swapping discs, and no more worrying about reaching the right specs.

OnLive

Utilizing this service should really be a no-brainer for publishers. Not only does the service improve distribution of product by making games available on-demand, it also expands the market considerably, making games available to anybody who has an Internet connection. Moreover, since users will need to log into the service, it makes the possibility of piracy almost negligible (provided that OnLive does a good job securing their site).

So that’s OnLive in a nutshell. I didn’t want to get into too much detail about the service as other sites and blogs have already dissected the hell out of it. With OnLive the arena of video games is truly changing and evolving into something more accessible and something more integrated into people’s lives. Long have I hoped for the day that video games would be as accepted as comic books, television shows and movies. I’m sick of games always being ostracized and ridiculed for loving what we love. That day has finally come… Well, actually it’ll come winter of 2009, but I can wait a little longer.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say, provided that OnLive doesn’t screw itself over by providing poor service, this is truly the future of gaming. Only a mass conspiracy amongst hardware developers (and others who would be at a disadvantage if this service does succeed), can stop this juggernaut of an idea. It’s truly an exciting time to be a gamer.