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 A fanatical scream.  That’s what it would be.  One, long, open mouthed scream.  Probably with a lot of head-shaking and hair pulling.  That’s what I would ‘say’ if I had to sum up my review of Portal 2 in one word.  The screams of Bieber fans would pale in comparison.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

I have to hand it to this game.  Released in 2001, this sci-fi MMORPG is still kicking it 9 years later.

I began playing it shortly after its release, stopped for 5 years, and came back to find most of the same people still at it.  They join up, play for a year or two, leave for school or an affair to chase tail, but they always come back.  I’ve even seen people fall back on it while waiting for the newer games to drop major updates.  Anarchy is a unique blend of sci-fi, interwebz humor, and fantasy that seem to addict its players despite its old age.  (There’s even a reference in it to Ceiling Cat watching you, well, you know.)  Whatever the catching ingredient is, it’s still working, and you can play it for free if you want to get a feel for it.

Overall game rating - 4 out of 5 stars

Global Agenda didn't seem like much at first after I downloaded it.  Hey, it was a free 14-day trial and no sub required if bought it, so what the hey?  Well, a whole weekend later shot to hell (literally, or virtually as the case may be) I found that I ... wanted to play MOAR!! Hell ya, bra!  Tabula Rasa's influence is all over this game but without the issues.  It's just a plain old-fashioned, and (dare I say it?) addictive shoot 'em up game.  The point-of-view is a third person over-the-shoulder in case any of you readers want to know.  The pvp instances aka scenarios aka battle grounds aka what-have-ya are just pure awesomeness.  Global Agenda shows that to be skilled is actually much more important than being well-geared.  Skill.does.really.matter.  Gear is good, too, but a player with mediocre gear and great skylz will chop the crap out of a well-geared scrub.

The economy is faring no better than a 3 legged cat chasing an invisible mouse across a frozen lake.  I don’t know about your struggles to keep up, but I’m failing miserably.  This makes choosing a new game to drop 50-60 bucks on a big decision.

If it weren’t for a buddy who loaned me his 360, I wouldn’t even be able to touch the games that keep charging extra for all that DLC.  I’m starting to watch the titles fly by, followed by a tidal wave of pissing and moaning- one great orchestra of disappointment- from friends who keep paying  for new maps and new levels that were barely worth the money.

Two months later, Infinity Ward (what's left of it at least) has released another map pack for Modern Warfare 2. As with the first pack, you'll be given a total of five maps, three new and two re-releases. The three new maps are entitled Fuel, Carnival and Trailer Park and if you've played Call of Duty 4, you'll recognize Vacant and Strike. In addition to the maps being released, it was also double XP weekend.

L4D2 got some criticism when it first came out because a lot of people felt it should have just been an add on to the first and it wasn't worth the $50-$60 price tag. I was one of them but now that the price is down to $30 and if you wait until a good steam sale, you can get it as low as $15 (assuming you got 3 other friends interested in playing it). Price aside, is the expansive add-on worth it?

I say yes. I just got it about a month ago during one of those steam deals I was talking about and I can not put it down, seriously I already have 65 hours. So whats new and whats different yous ask? Well here is my rundown.

A few weeks ago I started playing God of War 3. Seeing as this wasn't my first time with the old girl and I didn't want to beat the game over the course of a weekend, I decided I was man enough to play on Titan Mode (Hard). I've since come to loathe that decision, but like a mad Spartan out for vengeance, I pressed on. Being a veteran of the franchise and experiencing the cliffhanger ending coupled with massive hype for the game, I had some great expectations. Kratos was able to partially live up to them, but overall, I was left with the feeling that the game just didn't deliver on its promise.

I am a die-hard wow fan.  I have played wow for about 4 years now.  I have played on high speed all that time.  I'm not one of those "I'm so leet I got all the best stuff" kind of players.  I enjoy taking new players through beginner dungeons a lot.  People laugh at me and tell me wow is going to ban me from Stormwind Stockades if I keep it up.  I may have run that particular instance more than anyone in the entire game. 

So this month I am on dial up.  I am stayin at a friend's housesitting for most of a month, and it's out in the boonies.  We're talking miles from the nearest cable or dsl connection.  This place is in cell phone hell - about 5 miles away all cell service drops off and you don't get it back, so a cellular connection won't work either.  I haven't heard of any trial offers for satellite internet, so I could just have high speed satellite while I'm stuck in limbo.  My only choice is dial up, if I want to connect to my world digitally. 

Imagine sending a legion of German soldiers across the battlefield to face a row of heavily armored enemy tanks.  Now, picture your minions turning around to flee as your enemy begins to decimate them.  What is this?  Retreat?!  Zat is Unakzeptible!  So you deploy two ruses.  One is the 'Blitz' ruse, which increases your units speed in a specific sector, and the other ruse makes them fight like rabid feral hyenas- All thoughts of retreat null and void.  They fight to the death and by God, my little infantry units take down enemy tanks!  The fatherland is pleased!

How awesome is this game?  Hard to quantify its greatness, but suffice it to say its one of the best RTS games I've ever played.  There are a multitude of reasons I say this.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the continuation of the long running Battlefield series finally graced our presence earlier this month. I'd heard of Battlefield before and knew of its premise, but it was a game that I just never got into in my days of PC gaming; far too busy wrapped up in Counter-Strike to notice or care about any other FPS experience on the market. Recently I've been so wrapped up in the Call of Duty experience that I forgot how good objective based gameplay can be. Obviously there is a single player component to this game, but I've yet to even explore it; this article will strictly focus on BC2's multiplayer gameplay.