An upcoming MMOG title I have been looking forward to with a lot of glee is Love, the one-man-band game currently in development by Eskil Steenberg. Everything, from the game's engine to the graphics renderer to the AI, has been developed from scratch solely by Eskil, a pretty monumental achievement when you consider the small [...]

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"Lose/Lose, [is] a top-down shooter that generates aliens based on files in your computer; files that are permanently deleted when said aliens are killed." You read that right; each alien creature you kill corresponds to an actual file on your machine, which gets deleted at the same time you kill the monster. Gameplay itself is pretty identical to the classic shooter Galaga, but the risk of total system destruction via extended play is a M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist, I suppose.

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I have to confess, I'm a little addicted to this game. Although it originally came out in March, the game has mostly escaped my attention until it was recently listed by AMD as one of the titles ready for the upcoming release of DirectX 11. I saw it when it popped up on the New [...]

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September was a pretty packed month for MMOG launches; there were three bigger titles released as well as a revamped free-to-play game, on top of the myriad of tiny little patches and "hello worlds." With Champions Online rounding out towards the end of its first month, a lot of people have been re-examining their initial [...]

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Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification has had a contentious history when it comes to handling violent video games. Unlike the United States' ESRB, video games require a mandatory rating before they're qualified for sale in this country and many of the more "adult" titles routinely come into problems when they skirt too close to the line. The most recent title to come under fire is Valve's gratuitous zombie action/thriller Left 4 Dead 2. Although the original was classified without incident, its sequel has been denied at present.

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Since leaving the US and moving to Australia last year, I've had to get used to a lot of differences between the two countries that I really didn't know about before I packed up: sitting in the front seat next to the driver when you get into a cab, being fourteen hours into the future compared to the rest of my family, the way the entirety of the Commonwealth pronounces fillet like "fill-it." Chief among my culture shock is how comparatively poor internet connectivity is here against what I was used to in the United States. Overall speeds tend to be pretty lackluster and latency is a huge issue, especially when playing online games and MMOGs.

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A common mini-argument between me and my boyfriend is over the length of time each of us spends playing a particular game. I'm personally pretty slow, preferring to spend a lot of time on one– RPGs are the worst, I have to make sure I've completed every possible side quest and mini-event or I can't continue along the main line. If I'm playing a FPS, I have to wander into every single room and make sure no stones are left unturned before I get to the final boss. If I'm enjoying myself I like to pace it out and take my time. Like reading a good book, I want it to last as long as I can.

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