This is legitimately funny:

It was the April fools joke for Assassin’s Creed. WAAAY more funny than the lame-o Mass Effect 3 April fools video…

don’t you agree?

Wow this game is actually really good, and… ITS FREE!!!! These are the moments that make me really happy I have a top-of-the-line gaming PC. Tribes Ascend is an amazing shooter that looks great. The flow of this game is great: it has this great hovercraft feel where your character glides down hills, into jetpack mode where you glide into the air and try to out-aim your opponents, shooting where you think they will land, before they shoot you.

The controls and flow of this game is great. It really feels new and fresh, and yet, appropriately twitchy. You really need to get a feel for this game, which takes a lot of play time. Oh and by the way, the game is free… This is the most ambitious free-to-play experience I have ever seen. You can never pay a dime and unlock everything in the game… If you are willing to put in the time. Otherwise, you can pay $30 and get almost everything you could want. I almost want to pay the $30, just to support the developer. Either way, if you own a decent PC, do yourself a favor and download Tribes Ascend; at this price point you’ve got nothing to lose…

Final Fantasy 7 and Xenogears are the two greatest games of all time. I was so happy when they came out, emulated, for the PS3. I think both of them are $10 each. Each one will last you well over 40 hours. And every one of these hours is amazing. So do yourself a favor, pick these up, and let me know what you think when you do.

I recently did a big presentation in school about how video games, specifically, often violent action games, can be very beneficial to the development of children. While I do not think that kids should be able to play every game (Gears of War, Mortal Combat for example) I think the majority of ‘T’ Rated games, and many ‘M’ rated games are appropriate for kids older than 10. In my studies I found that action games can increase desicion making and overall perception abilities, increase creativity,  and increase multitasking abilities. Most of these skills come from playing twitch action games like Halo and Battlefield 3, which are often rated “T” or “M.”

Anyway, you should check out the articles. And let your kids play violent video games, I know I will…

Holy Banana peels! This phone is awesome… I finally upgraded from my lameo HTC Thunderbolt for Verizon and boy am I glad I did. The screen on this phone is both giant and beautiful. At 4.65 inches and 1280×720 resolution, the screen on this phone is ridonculous. It is really a treat to view full web pages on this phone as you can view the desktop versions of sites clearly and beautifully. Not to mention gaming on the phone, which is equally fantastic. Angry Birds never looked so good. It is crazy to think that my 4.65 inch screen on my phone has a significantly higher resolution than my 7 inch Kindle Fire tablet. But it does… And it shows…

The Galaxy Nexus is also extremely responsive. Everything happens very fast. There is barely any loading of any kind going on with this phone. No wonder Samsung is doing so well and beating the crap out of Sony. If you are in the market for an Android phone, do yourself a favor and pick this one up. It is the best thing on the block… At least until Samsung releases the Galaxy III. Also I just heard that the GSM version (ATT and Tmobile) is now $399 off contract directly through Google… That is both weird and insane and if you have Tmobile or ATT you should pick one up… Now…

I was in class the other day and this Vita commercial came up:

Im not sure that it is a good thing that now thanks to the Vita and Cross-Play, you can continually play the same game, everywhere, all the time. I think there is something to going outside and staring at things other than a smaller version of the game you were just playing on your PS3… But I digress… I guess it is pretty cool…

Regardless, I just read this article on IGN, that talks about how Madden 13 will not adopt this feature that was basically made for Madden. Fail. Either way you should read the article… And hold off on buying a Vita if you are a sports fan…

I wasn’t a big fan of the first Prototype. For me, both Crackdown and Infamous were waaaaaay better superhero, open-world games. But I gotta say, Prototype 2 is pretty damn fun. It finds that perfect balance of upgrading your character to ridiculous levels, where you really do feel like the ultimate badass, while still remaining (fairly) challenging. The targeting system can be a bitch, as it apparently decides on its own, which things are most important to target… As a result I am often left frantically trying to lock on to my desired target in the heat of battle… LAme.

But this problem aside, the game is really a ton of fun. While the complaints of some that the missions are a bit repetitive, are reasonable, the point is that you upgrade so fast and gain so many new abilities, that missions never feel or play the same as you progress. The point of Prototype 2 is that you are a badass that can F!@# $#!T up… And it overachieves at this. Watch out Crackdown… There’s a new sheriff in town…

I received My first ever legit message the other day from a fellow blogger. He requested that I review his video game comic strip GamesRBad4U. The Blog is a satiric comic strip that makes fun of the misconception that games can cause kids to commit real world horrors. The premise of the comics is that each comic covers a game: Dead Space, Halo, Tetris, etc., then proceeds to tell a story of the worst possible acts that a kid could commit under the influence of these games.The blog also reposts some really good fan art.

I like the premise of the blog as I recently did a big project about how video games do not actually cause kids to be violent. In fact they can be quite beneficial. Anyway, while I felt some of the comics fell flat, and others were good, I really loved the Tetris strip (pictured below) as it was by far the most clever. If they can produce more comics on this level the blog could easily be great. Keep up the good work!