Black Mesa: Source

Black Mesa: Source is a third-party total conversion modification for Valve Corporation's Source engine. The stated goal of the project is to recreate Valve's critically acclaimed 1998 video game Half-Life using the more advanced capabilities of the Source engine. The 40-person volunteer development team says they hope to create a more engrossing in-game world with more varied, complex environments and more challenging, realistic gameplay.

During its eight years in development, Black Mesa has been featured in several video game publications and received direct attention from Valve. Due to its long development time the modification became notable for its delays, and dwindling updates on the status of its completion.


The first part of Black Mesa, featuring remakes of all Half-Life's chapters except those set on the alien world "Xen", was released as a standalone download on September 14, 2012. Public voting through Valve's Greenlight program saw the game approved for distribution on Steam.

Welcome to Summoner's Rift

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena video game. Players are formed into 2 even teams of Champions, 3v3 or 5v5. As of 13 September 2012 there are 104 different champions from which to choose. Each player begins at opposing sides of a map in an area called the Spawning Pool, near what is called a Nexus. A match is won when either team's nexus is destroyed. To destroy a Nexus, each team must work through a series of Turrets placed along a path to each base referred to as a Lane. Along the way, each player gains levels from killing the opposing team's champions and Minions (NPCs that constantly spawn and attack the other team) and defeating neutral monsters. Completing objectives rewards players with gold which is used to purchase items.

League of Legends is a session-based game. The game can currently be played in five different modes: Tutorial, Custom, Co-Op vs. AI, Normal and Ranked. Custom mode allows players to manually create custom game sessions that other players can find on a game list and join. Co-op vs. AI is a mode where players are matched either alone or as part of a group against a team of bots.
The Ranked mode originally became available to players of level 20 and higher, but was later changed to only be available to players of level 30 (players can still queue for Ranked games if they are over level 20, but only if they are in an arranged team). Ranked uses Draft Mode where each team can ban up to 3 champions from the game, and the two teams cannot play the same champion. In addition, opponent Champions picks are visible before the loading of the actual game. Second, an exclusive, visible rating is calculated based on the player's performance in Ranked games. The player is placed on the ladder according to their rating, and top teams on the ladder have a chance to compete in the "$100,000 Global Finals" at the end of the season.


Dominion is the latest game mode released by Riot Games. Dominion brings faster action and tactical gameplay played on a new map, The Crystal Scar, and features a new Capture-and-Hold playstyle. The Inhibitors and Turrets have been removed - instead, the map has five Capture Points. Capturing one of these points will turn it into a Turret and allow it to start spawning minions. Item availability is also different in Dominion. Two new summoner spells, called Garrison and Promote were released with the new game mode, with the latter also being available in Summoner's Rift. The summoner spell Teleport is the only summoner spell that is not available in this mode. The new game type is aimed to be much shorter than conventional 30-45-minute classic games: most Dominion games average about 15-25 minutes in duration^.

Pandora has Changed

Borderlands 2 builds upon the gameplay elements introduced in its predecessor. It is a first-person shooter that includes character-building elements found in role-playing games, leading Gearbox to call the game a "role-playing shooter." At the start of the game, players select one of four new characters, each with a unique special skill and with proficiencies with certain weapons. From then on, players take on quests assigned through non-player characters or bounty boards, each typically rewarding the player with experience points, money, and sometimes a reward item. Players earn experience by killing foes and completing in-game challenges (such as getting a certain number of kills using a specific type of weapon). As they gain levels from experience growth, players can then allocate skill points into a skill tree that features three distinct specializations of the base character. As with the first game, Borderlands 2 features a procedural-generated loot system, whereby weapons and other equipment dropped by foes, found in chests, or offered as quest items have numerous statistics that are generated randomly, affecting factors such as weapon damage, accuracy, magazine size, and added effects like elemental damage.



Returning gameplay features from the first game will include the 3-branch skill trees, class-mods, and four-player online cooperative modes. New features include a more expansive and customizable weapons system, reworked four-seat drift-able vehicles and vehicle physics elements, and dynamic mission systems. For example, taking too much time to save a friend in a mission may result in their death and the failure of the mission, which will affect the story as the player progresses. In addition, the artificial intelligence (AI) system has been reworked for the game. Non-enemies will populate the game world more often and will travel around different locations depending on the time. Shooting enemies will stun or cripple them depending on where they are shot, such as shooting a Hyperion robot's arms will cause the arms to fall off, impairing its damage-dealing capabilities. For a change, enemies will be intelligent enough to climb and traverse difficult terrain to pursue the player. Enemies will also be able to interact with each other. For example, certain enemies can heal their teammates, boost their shields for defense, or use them as shields to protect themselves.

Blur Review

Blur is a racing game that features stylish racing in realistic locations and 50 real-world cars fighting it out using power-ups and speed boosts. It also features realistic car damage modeling, and is frequently described as a combination of Mario Kart  and an arcade racer. Unlike many of the games that currently feature power-ups, Blur relies strongly on it's realistic physics model.

The game moves away from the clinical and precise nature of sim-like racers that force the player to work within strict time limits and perform inch-perfect turns. It moves towards a more arcade experience that will reward experimentation. Progress through the game is influenced by 'Fan Points', awarded after each race for good racing and use of powerups. You can also get mid-race challenges from your fans to complete for bonus fans.  There are also car specific challenges that can be completed to attain upgrades for that car.  The idea is that the more skilled you are, the more fans you attain and the more money they donate to you, allowing you can upgrade your car further and move onto other circuits.

Blur is designed to tie closely with the game's website, and integrates with popular social networking sites Facebook, and Twitter to allow you to post race results as soon as they are completed.  The website also has a stats page integrated within the site to allow players to link their accounts. A leaderboards are available for the website as well.  It's menu and hub system is a fictional social networking site, where players and NPC drivers communicate with each other to organize the street races and progress the story.

A review of a little ol' game called Bastion

So there's this little ol' game floating around under the name of Bastion, a highly underrated indie game that has stolen my heart. At first I didn't want anything to do with this game until I managed to get my hands on it and let me tell you... THIS. THIS IS THE BEST GAME. EVER MADE.

Bastion is an action role-playing game with a level structure. The player, "the Kid", moves through floating, fantasy-themed environments that form paths as the player approaches the edge. Levels consist of a single plane, and are viewed isometrically. They are filled with enemies of various types, which attempt to harm the Kid. The Kid carries two weapons, which may be selected from the choices available to the player at specific locations called arsenals. The Kid also has the ability to perform a special attack. Weapons and special attacks must be acquired before they can be used. There are a limited number of special attacks that the player can perform at any time, represented by "black tonics" that can be found in the levels or dropped from enemies. The Kid's health is represented by a health bar, which can be replenished with "health tonics". Like black tonics, the Kid can only carry a certain number of health potions at a time, and can replenish them by finding more in the levels.

The game takes place in the aftermath of the Calamity, a catastrophic event that suddenly fractured the city of Caelondia as well as the surrounding areas of the game's world into many floating pieces, disrupting its ecology and turning most of its people into fragile statues. Players take control of the Kid, a silent protagonist who awakens on one of the few remaining pieces of the old world and sets off for the titular Bastion, where everyone was supposed to go in troubled times. The only survivor he meets there is an elderly man named Rucks, the game's narrator, who instructs him to collect the Cores that once powered Caelondia. A device in the Bastion can use the power of the crystalline Cores to create landmasses and structures, as well as enable the Kid to travel farther afield via "skyways" that propel him through the air.

This game's story line is near borderline PERFECT and the narration will be engraved into your head for the rest of your days.

SMNC Character Bio - Assault

Whether he's taking a riveted audience on an emotional storytelling journey in front of a roaring fire at a Paparazzi-filled ski chalet in Courchevel, France, or he's taking the ingredients of a familiar dish and cooking them separately in unfamiliar ways to create a meal that is both similar but utterly unique for his supermodel girlfriend, the Assault is usually the one at the center of activity, driving the action.

As the unofficial leader of the pack he is most comfortable driving the attack while dazzling the crowd with his acrobatic plays and daring-do. He is by far Super MNC's most celebrated athlete; though the Assault takes his success in stride. Neither overly arrogant nor falsely humble, he enjoys the fruits of success with vigor, having earned every one.

Pro Career

• Enters the current season as the all-time Super MNC kill leader with 3,287 (2,078 unassisted).
• Has missed a game due to being knighted by a monarch of a world superpower only three times.
• Has been the leading vote getter in each of his past fourteen seasons when elected to the Monday Night Combat All-Star game in Honolulu, Japan.

Notable DNA:

David Beckham, George Plimpton, famed hurricane forecaster William Gray, Bill Cosby, Julia Child

Personal

• Established "Brief Relief", a non-profit that auctions off lady's undergarments sent to the Assault in the mail for charity.
• During the off-season he is the co-host of "Assault on the Ordinary" a game show in which he travels the globe to visit the playgrounds of the rich and famous while contestants try to guess how much he is (or isn't) enjoying himself.
• Hosts an annual Holiday Giving Parade in which disadvantaged families from colder climates are flown to his ranch in Bermuda, given a winter coat, and flown back home.

Likes:

Victory parades, literary journals, making fine cuisine accessible

Dislikes:

Losing, men who cry like babies

SMNC Character Bio - Megabeth

Maruta Corp. Saitama Megabeth, or "Megabeth" for short, is the greatest combatant in the history of Indo-China's "Kawgashi Fumijiru Meriodashu" (loosely translated to mean "Most Pleasing and Melodious Crushing of Windpipes Like Reeds Underfoot in a Soft, Snowy Riverbank Federation") and the lead singer of the Maeter Motor Tokyo-based grind-core band, Hacksaw Circumcision.

With the rediscovery of flight by hot air balloon, it once again became cost-effective for Indo-China's gladiators to tour the states for Monday Night Combat to host matches in the Orient. Though the team from Saitama was outplayed in almost every match when Monday Night Combat came to visit, Megabeth became an international sensation overnight after scoring kills against the Sniper, Assault, Assassin, Gunslinger, and The Veteran in the same match, without being killed once. Shortly after, she became the first Indo-Chinese clone to sign on with Monday Night Combat where she became an instant star thanks to her intensity, fearlessness and rumored make out sessions with Combat Girl.

Pro Career

• Led the Hyogo Prefecture to the Sparrow Cup twice while in the Amateur Most Pleasing and Melodious Crushing of Windpipes Like Reeds Underfoot in a Soft, Snowy Riverbank Federation.
• Is a three-time inter-league MVP (Happened in a single season thanks to a computer error)
• Holds the current Indo-China record for having the closest actual win rate to their potential win rate as predicted by the Pythagorean winning percentage.

Notable DNA:

Grindcore pioneers Yoshimi P-We and Yasuko Onuki, Team Japan Roller Derby Captain Kaori Ike, Sun Tzu

Personal

• Lead singer of the feminist tribal-acid-grindcore band, Hacksaw Circumcision.
• Had her tear ducts surgically altered so she could cry blood read tears as a tribute to er former lover, Weeping Dahlias lead singer Broken Oath, who self-immolated in protest of the banality of life (note: life still banal as of this writing).
• Manufactures her own line of roller skates under her "Wheels of Death" brand of combat accessories.

Likes:

Manhwa webtunes, the impalement arts, My Little Pony

Dislikes:

Social/ political injustice, conformity, sausage fingers

SMNC Character Bio - Sniper

All who take the field of Monday Night Combat fear the Sniper. Even other Snipers fear them. Some even fear themselves.

Snipers in Super MNC have been designed to be the world's foremost long distance killing machines, taking their DNA from some of the greatest snipers in video game history.

The Sniper is by far the most enthusiastic combatant on the team. He stays up late at night drawing plays. He watches hour after hour of video, practices relentlessly and does nothing that might jeopardize his performance on game day. During game time he often acts like the coach or quarterback, calling out plays that only he's familiar with (his teammates ignore the playbooks he gives them) and getting extremely frustrated with the rest of his squad.

His genetic make up combined with his solitary profession and intense focus have left little room for people skills. While he means well, the Sniper is brusque and short-tempered, especially when he feels teammates aren't listening to him during combat.

The Sniper loves Super MNC and everything about it. He is a huge stickler for the rules and sees the world as being very black and white.

Pro Career

• Holds the record for the longest acceptance speech for an MVP recipient for both the regular season and playoffs
• Was the only player in Super MNC history to receive 0 fan votes for an all-star game.
• Earned Super MNC offensive player of the month in April, XXXX for scoring ten consecutive critical hits without missing a target.

Notable DNA

Hardcore gamer champions from MLG, WCG and WSVG

Personal

• Was a co-founder of "Monday Night Chicken" a wildly unpopular chain of fried chicken franchises that closed their doors just three days after opening
• Has a database of over 6000 different Super MNC tactical plays that no one besides himself has ever bothered to look at.
• Owns his own regulation-size combat dome in which he lives in the off-season in order to cut down travel time between workouts

Likes:

Playing Super MNC, practicing for Super MNC, talking about Super MNC, drawing up plays for Super MNC

Dislikes:
Just about everything else

SMNC Character Bio - Karl

Karl was one of twelve special reconnaissance cyborgs built by the governing over class in order to infiltrate Outlander society. Its directive was to transmit valuable information back to its creators as to the Outlander's survival tactics, whereabouts and leadership structure, as well as photos of Outlander women skinny-dipping.

To escape detection by his hosts, Karl was given the ability to collapse itself into human skeletal-like form and was given a bio medically engineered epidermis, synthetic blood and a room-filling orange afro.

Unfortunately, while Karl's physical characteristics raised little suspicion, it's AI-driven personality was another story. As a creation of the isolated upper classes of Monday Night Combat's autocratic society, these reconnaissance cyborgs did a terrible job of "fitting in" with the outlaw culture of those living in the "Gravelands", the untamed spaces between sanctioned cities and towns.

Of the twelve cyborgs released into the wild, all but one was immediately discovered thanks to their penchant for yacht races, noon cocktails, clumsy attempts at asserting their humanity and their over-compensating hatred for other robots.

After decades of being given false information by his Outlander companions meant to confuse and obstruct, along with almost no topless photos of Outlander women under the age of seventy, Karl was sent back to his creators where he was sold at a military tent sale, where he fell into the hands of Monday Night Combat officials.

Following Karl wherever he goes is his "handler" XC-22-7 whose job it is to keep Karl on task and to ensure it doesn't succumb to the fate spies often come to: switching allegiances after falling for the charms of the enemy.

Pro Career

• Despite several public denials to the validity of the distinction, is the first known cyborg combatant in Monday Night Combat history
• Currently third on the all-time bots kill list behind Ezra "Circuit Breaker" Snyder and "'Bot Hatin'" Brian McPheeters.
• Often points to his recent "Most Improved Combatant" award as evidence of humanity, as 97.4% of social learning theorists agree that cyborgs perform their duties at a constant rate of perfection rather than with degrees of learned competence versus physical ability.

Notable DNA

N/A

Personal

• "Emotional outbursts" in the locker room just a little too perfect
• Divorced from former model Jazelle Pivovarova, who cited "fraud" and "irreconcilable anatomical differences" as reasons for the split
• Played himself in the Meet the Meatsacks episode "Mail Order Mercenary", in which Waldo, during a fit of rage over having his chocolate milk taken away during lunch period, writes an ultimately successful letter to the sports hero begging him to kill Principal McSneakers.

Likes:

Being human, engaging in a wide range of activities typical to humans, having a broad emotional range

Dislikes:

Robots, cyborgs, waiters that disappear before they bring you your check

SMNC Character Bio - Captain Spark

According to his official biography, Captain Spark was raised from the age of six inside the pressurized oxygen bubble of an undersea volcano by hyper-intelligent electric mer-eels, after his parents, both scientists, crashed into the floor of the ocean while exploring in their submersible.

Captain Spark was taught to channel the body's natural electric flow and to become a skilled martial artist by Eel-Kazara-Hazee, Praetor and liaison between the eel folk and Sinister 9, the freewill computer brain that ran all of modern civilization for the "gas breathers" on Earth's surface. When Sinister 9 used robotic sharks to invade the eel people's homelands during the sacred funeral games of King-Eel-Abi-Arrot, Captain Spark's mentor was killed and Captain Spark was bequeathed the diplomat's battle armor and weapons so he could avenge his adopted home.

On the surface world, Captain Spark forged a secret identity with which to keep himself hidden, that of Formula One test driver Shock Johnson, who must constantly hold his own driving skills in check lest he promoted to competitive driver where he would undoubtedly come under scrutiny by Sinister 9 and it's robot alien police force. He is also forced to "ride the brakes" on his relationship with Zena Foster, a Minoan snake goddess and lingerie model, in order to focus on his sworn mission.

Shock Johnson by day, Captain Spark by night, our hero harnesses the power of electricity to fight the totalitarian rule imposed by the forces of automation and imparts critical safety know-how regarding downed power lines to elementary school-aged children the world over.

Pro Career

• Holds the record for the longest consecutive streak of not having to take a bathroom break during a game
• Won a gold medal with Team IndoChina at the 3043 Battlelympics
• Oldest player to win the Super MNC freestyle Bullseye kill competition at the All-Star game (57 years, 123 days)

Notable DNA

Doctors Carol and Laszlo Murray, several knife fish from class "Electrophorus".

Personal

• Can "talk" to things like electrical transformers, car batteries and small electrical appliances
• Away from the field of combat: is constantly escaping from supposedly inescapable situations or defeating seemingly invincible villains by opening an "ion channel"
• Is quite possibly just the imagination of Karl Lutz, retired autoworker from Pritchford, Alabama who was reportedly placed on psychiatric leave after showing up dressed as his "alter-ego", Captain Spark, in order to fight crime at the auto plant where he worked for twenty-seven years

Likes:

Under-sea domes, man's free will, insulated footwear

Dislikes:

Humankind's reliance on artificial intelligence, unagi, hot air balloon festivals

SMNC Character Bios - Cheston

A descendant of the renowned Kampanga gorilla acting troop, Sir Cheston rose to become one of the leading gorilla actors of the modern age, leaving his mark on stage, television and film in a career that lasted five decades.

Sir Cheston began acting as an infant, when he appeared alongside his father in The Wandering Heir of Mumsbury at the Olympic Theater in London. As a juvenile blackback Cheston became interested in dance and was for a time a member of the Royal Danish Ballet before returning to the theater in order to play Hamlet, which he did over 1000 times across eight productions. While Sir Cheston won international acclaim and broke box office records with his Shakespearean roles he had other successes in the theater as well. His youthful, emotionally expressive portrayal of Treplev in the Seagull and his later work in The Cherry Orchard successfully established Anton Chekhov's viability on the gorilla-speaking stage.

With the collapse of Europe however, Sir Cheston was forced to pursue his craft in North America. He earned an Academy Award for best Gorilla in a Leading Role for the film adaption of Garfield, The Musical and is perhaps best known to mass audiences for his side-splitting role as the flatulent gorilla gangster Bananas Monihan in The Mob Goes Bananas (a role he reprised in three subsequent sequels).

Later, as a silver-back, Sir Cheston crowded his mantle further with an Emmy for his turn as Ardmore, the sardonic butler on "Meet the Meatsacks", a role first intended to be only a guest appearance but which was written into the series for the first five of it's impressive thirty-two season run (and counting).

Sir Cheston died of depression at his country estate at Smithylle Place, near Trentendon, Kent, England, at the age of fifty-five, after which he was promptly stuffed and sold at auction.

Today, Sir Cheston Wyndham Kampanga lives on, not only in the hearts and minds of billions, but in the annals of Super Monday Night Combat, where his DNA has been used to create a perfect clone of the actor exactly as he was in his most popular role ever.

Pro Career

• Only the second primate to join the leagues of SMNC after former Secretary of State and lifelong orangutan Captain Jinks
• Has used his star power effectively, killing over 600 clones after they became entranced with a monolouge from The Duchess of Malfi.
• Has sung the recently renamed Star-Spangled Sprintz Sports Gum Banner before a game over 100 times

Notable DNA

Sir Cheston Wyndham Kampanga, Lionel Barrymore, Jambo the gorilla

Personal

• His corpse received almost $150,000 worth of restorative taxidermy so he could be knighted posthumously
• Only Super Monday Night Combatant to win an Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role by a Gorilla in a Light Opera or Pantomime.
• Once destroyed the radio studio of the "Bongo and the Gooch Mayhem in the A.M. Radio Show" in a wild onset gorilla rage, after the shock jocks repeatedly insisted he perform Ardmore the Butler's catchphrase from Meet the Meatsacks, "Great Godfrey!"

Likes:

Spotlights, Jacobean theater, rave reviews, lilac water humidifiers

Dislikes:

The theater, television and film-going publics, tepid reviews, gorilla jokes.

Super MNC Character Bio - Combat Girl

The ultimate cheerleader/handywoman. The Combat Girl is fast, athletic, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of each athlete's abilities, biological make up, armor and equipment. She is handy in the pits and a great trouble shooter but is ignorant on all other topics outside her work. She is unbelievably perky at all times, regardless of whatever emotion she may be feeling. Thus, even rare moments of anger or annoyance are expressed in a sweet Southern accent. One notable flaw is her open dislike for the Assassin. Researchers have thus far been unable to remove certain "cattiness" gene from her personality that makes her cheerfully hostile to females.

In stasis, the Combat Girl dreams of being the prettiest of seven daughters raised on a gentile plantation in the Deep South, being courted by dozens of handsome, young men with constant car trouble.

Notable DNA

Distinguished Miss Hooters International winners, Thomas Edison, the 1979 Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Jimmy Johnson's 2007 Tissot Pit Road Precision Award winning NASCAR pit crew.

Likes:

Wealthy southern gentlemen, charity balls, engine trouble, the Tank

Dislikes:

The Assassin, diets, dueling

Super MNC Character Bio - Tank

 

The Tank is a modern day grunt, a blue-collar warrior who is fearless in battle and who relishes his role as the point of attack. On the field of combat he is gruff, crude and doesn't care who knows it.

Off the field however he is as vulnerable and sensitive as they come. he has a great deal of insecurity regarding his size, looks and lack of social graces especially with the opposite sex. The Tank's gentic make up hails from the Midwest; he is down to earth and has a somewhat fatalistic worldview and somewhat adverse to new ideas or change. He loves the thrill of the kill and the crush of bone under his feet. He is far more comfortable on the field than off.

Pro Career

• Earned Defensive Player of the Year Honors after posting twenty or more kills on his team's side of the field in nine games
• Finished the last season without allowing a single bot onto his side of the field for four games straight
• Set a new record for knockback at 7.3 meters

Notable DNA

Ray Lewis, Jesse Ventura, Kimbo Slice

Personal

• Leads the annual "Ride for Life" which raises funds to find a cure for the Apocolypse virus using Outlanders
• Plans to start a career as a bareknuckle brawler after retiring from Super MNC
• Practices slow dancing with a broom

Likes:

Bar brawls, women with tattoos, compliments

Dislikes:

Pretty boys, acid reflux, being alone on romantic holidays

Super MNC Character Bio - Support

 

 No team can win consistently without a Support position, whose primary responsibility is to use his extensive knowledge of cyber-biology and medicine to keep his team alert, sharp and on the battlefield for longer periods of time than their opponents.

The Support is one of Super Monday Night Combat's most highly evolved players, with an encyclopedic mind given to equal parts technology, biology, and medicine. His genes hail from some of the greatest medical and mechanical minds in the world, most notably the region around northern Italy and Austria. As such one of his major flaws is a rather poor command of English as well as a laid back European attitude towards even combat, both of which can frustrate teammates.

The Support is affable and has a dry sense of humor, which along with his poor (read comical) command of English and eccentric manner makes him a fan favourite. He is not a fan of violence but enjoys his role as both a healer and a saboteur, which gives him a sense of being the single voice of reason in a mad chorus.

Pro Career

• Defensive Player of the year every year since the introduction of the position
• Participated in the Grenade Sports Drink All-Stars competition
• Regularly speaks to Monday Night Combat rookies at the Super MNC's Rookie Symposium about the need to be careful around cybertronic supermodels.

Notable DNA

Leonardo Da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Sushruta Samhita, Dr. Kinsey

Personal

• Owns and designs his own line of negligee for cats
• Is banned from Portugal
• Invented the breakfast pizza

Likes:

Gondolas, Ferraris, Swiss chalets

Dislikes:

Any type of instant or fast food, sewer rats, hotel paintings

Super MNC Character Bio - Veteran

From Pittsburgh's Skid Row to sold out arena's all over the world and back again, Victor Lisowski, who earned the nickname "The Veteran" after his stint with the U.S. intervention in the war between Madagascar and Greenland, shone as one of professional wrestling's biggest stars. Know for his massive form, dark charisma and intense yet deliberate psychological attacks during interviews, the Veteran scared and delighted audiences for over five decades until the volume of stitches, broken bones, pinched nerves and knee replacements proved too much to endure, even for "the man with the hundred megaton biceps".

 As the world of wrestling moved on, The Veteran waged mat wars under the increasingly smaller spotlight until his retirement match, which was held in the same gymnasium where he had trained as a rookie.

 As it is with all true heroes however, Lisowski would never be forgotten. His legend endured long after his passing, and when Monday Night Combat issued a poll to its fans to see which deceased figure from history they'd like to see cloned, the Veteran was the overwhelming favourite, beating former child actor Tiffany Brissette (who played Vicki the Robot on the 20th century episodic television show "Small Wonder") and George Washington, respectively.

Pro Career

• Joined the 3000 "Kill Club" than any SMNC Pro in history
• Was the impetus for the "no psychological warfare during overtime" rule
• Once scared a Bouncer to death

Notable DNA

Victor Lisowski, Army Veteran, former professional wrestler and meat packer.

Personal

• Among his key weapons are his two fists, which together he nicknamed "Cruel but Fair"
• Won 5000 cans of radiation-free mole crickets for his favorite charity, The Hopegood House, on the game show $10,000 Food Pyramid.
• Shares his home with a 13 year-old giraffe named Lynette

Likes:

Dog tracks, the crunch of bone, Polish barmaids

Dislikes:

The piano player at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, unsalted popcorn

Commander Video

Bit.Trip Runner is the fourth installment of the Bit.Trip series. Each game revolves around the adventures of a character named "Commander Video", and features "a crazy mix of 80s aesthetics and modern game design". The styles of the games range from pong remakes, platforming, and shooting. Each game in the series features a chiptune-inspired soundtrack, but a different style of rhythm-based gameplay in each.

The gameplay involves players controlling Commander Video and making him jump, slide, kick, and more through various obstacles in his path. The special guest band Anamanaguchi provides menu and credits music.

Though it has over 50 levels, breaking the 3 level norm of the last games, these levels are divided evenly amongst 3 zones, which each have their own distinct background and musical feel; each zone houses twelve levels, including a boss level. For every level (except boss levels) there is a retro challenge awarded should the player collect all gold bars in the normal level. Each retro challenge is harder than the normal level and usually has more gold bars. The perfect completion of a retro challenge will award players with an exclamation point beside the stage and the word "PERFECT" beside the score in the scoreboard, but only if they have done everything "extra" (i.e., jumping on top of springboards that they do not need to in order to finish) in the level beforehand.

Bit.Trip Runner won the 2011 Independent Games Festival (IGF) Excellence in Visual Arts award on February 28, 2011.

Revenge

Shank is a side scrolling beat 'em up with a comic book art style. In the game the player controls Shank, an ex-mob hitman. The game features three main types of weaponry: a pair of knives, heavy melee weapons (the starting one is a chainsaw) and firearms (the starting one is a pair of pistols). Each weapon is assigned to a controller button, and the attacks can be combined to perform various combos. The player can collect temporary-use weaponry from fallen enemies, such as machine guns and rifles, as well as grenades.

Shank has other attacks such as multiple grapple attacks, throw enemies, and is able to perform a pounce maneuver, in which he jumps in the air and lands on a nearby enemy. Some acrobatic abilities can also be performed, such as swinging from lampposts or other tall structures, and running along the front of things such as billboards.



Shank features a cooperative campaign which is a prequel to the single-player campaign^. The multiplayer allows players to play as Shank and his partner-in-crime Falcone. In this mode players are often required to work as a team to accomplish objectives, such as defeating level bosses. Players can combine moves for special attacks with the characters perform together. Also available is the ability to revive a fallen teammate should they die in combat.

The Fate of Two Worlds

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a crossover fighting game developed by Capcom. It features Capcom's own characters and characters from Marvel Comics. The game features the same tag-based team feature as previous installments of the series, where each player chooses three characters that can be swapped at any point during a match. The aim of the game is to use various attacks to drain your opponent's health bars and defeat all of their characters or have the most cumulative health when time runs out. It is the first game in the franchise to feature three-dimensional character models as opposed to two-dimensional sprites, though game play remains restricted to two-dimensions, allowing characters to move only backward, forward, or straight up into the air. The full retail roster features 36 characters. Two additional characters are also available as downloadable content. Examples include: The Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine, Ryu, Zero, Albert Wesker.

Grease Monkey

So I've recently acquired a part time job. I work with my dad at a machine shop down in Stoney Creek called Millen Manufacturing.

My job mainly consists of doing grunt work such as taking out garbage and cleaning around the shop. The hours are fantastic too, I finish school at about quarter after 12 and I get to work at about 1 PM. I only work till about 4 and I'm getting paid $12 an hour. For me, that is amazing pay as I'm not in desperate need for money.

I am going to try and set certain workdays for myself as I currently work every weekday, I'm thinking maybe every other day or Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

The New Monday Night Sport

The boys at Uber Entertainment are making a sequel to their hit game, Monday Night Combat. This new game is titled "Super Monday Night Combat" and is currently in an open beta.

This new game will be somewhat of a direct upgrade of the first and will be a free-to-play game.

The Classic Pros return from Monday Night Combat to join a roster of new Pros in Super Monday Night Combat. All veteran classes in Super Monday Night Combat have a special 'Veteran' uniform for sale, comprised of gold-plated armor sections. Like the new pros, the Veterans are divided up into different archetypes, based on the role they best serve and the abilities at their disposal.

Commandos are the 'specialists'. Having complex skills, high base speed and low health, Commandos are arguably the hardest type of Pro to learn. They harass, ambush and finish off enemies, slow them down, and generally just make the game more difficult for the enemy team.

Strikers are 'Jack-of-All-Trades' Pros, combining medium health and high mobility to get around the arena quickly. As such, Striker pros tend to have low-to-moderate difficulty ratings, making them popular both with players new to Monday Night Combat, and veterans looking to learn how the rules have changed.

Enforcers are the offensive brutes of the team, having high health, high short-range damage, but low speed. They generally act as the escorts for the Bot offensive, moving with them to cut down enemy Bots and Pros.


If Commandos make the game harder for the enemy, then Defenders make it easier for their teammates. Designed to heal or buff teammates as well as lock down areas, Defenders are one of the most important members of a team's composition.

Sharpshooters, rely primarily on player accuracy and high burst damage to support their team from a distance. With much of their usefulness resting on the skill of the player, the Sharpshooters tend to be the most unforgiving of a player's mistakes.

The Third Street Saints

So, I've picked up a fairly new game called Saints Row: The Third and I must say that it is one of the craziest and most bizarre games I have ever played.

Saints Row: The Third retains the blend of an action-adventure in an open world. The player, as the leader of the Third Street Saints, can explore the new city of Steelport, performing main missions that progress the game's story, and side missions. These side missions include Activities, minigames, Strongholds, rival gang bases that can be taken over to control a section of Steelport and Flashpoints, on-the-spot gang warfare. Money can be used to purchase clothing items, weapons and cars, or may be used to upgrade weapons and cars, such as adding scopes or extra barrels to a weapon, which are then stored in the player's arsenal. Money can also be used to upgrade the Saints gang, customizing their appearance, outfits, and headquarters. The "Initiation Station" system allows players to upload their character creations to The Third's online community, and download other players' creations to use with their save game.

While completing some missions, the player may be given a choice of options to finalize the mission. For example, the player has the option of using a gigantic bomb to demolish one of the enemy skyscrapers in the city; though they will gain a great deal of respect for the action, it will alter the city's skyline for the rest of the game and cause non-player characters to react differently to the player, while leaving the building standing allows it to be used as a headquarters for the Saints.



In addition to the single-player mode, the game can be played co-operatively with another player. As in Saints Row 2, the second player can participate in all missions and activities, earning credit for their completion.

In my opinion, this is the game of the year. Any game that features 80s style arcade tanks, zombies, and Burt Reynolds as the Mayor deserves the award.