Based on everything I’ve heard about how casual games will lead to the end of hardcore gaming, I should hate Angry Birds, leader of the casual game revolution. But I don’t… I love angry birds. I love sitting on the train, taking out my Galaxy Nexus and getting my Angry Birds on. I recently got Angry Birds Space, which is even more awesome than regular Angry Birds.

Anyway, I actually believe that casual games are actually bringing more people into the gaming scene, who could eventually become hardcore, Halo playin’ gamers. I don’t believe that casual games are in anyway leading to the death of hardcore games. If anything, Angry Birds has proven that Casual Games can have a place in even the most hardcore gamer’s life. So no matter who you are, go download Angry Birds Space now!!! It will make you happy.

Holy Fun Game Batman! Namco has discovered the perfect racer formula with Ridge Racer Unbound: 1 part destroy your enemies, 1 part awesome boost system, 1 part giant jumps involving crazy set-pieces, with a dash of realism and drifting.

Its been a while since I played the single player of a racer from start to end in only a couple days. And not because it was short. In fact, the later levels get quite challenging and I had to play many. over and over. I ‘raced’ home every day, because this game was so fun. It is one of those games where once you get the controls down, it has an awesome flow to it.

I am a real arcade racer fan and this one is right up there with Burnout revenge and Motorstorm. If you like Arcade racers, so yourself a favor and pick this one up.

If you have any interest in GTA and the very mysterious Rockstar games, you should read the awesome interview with author David Kushner of Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, in this months GameInformer. There is also a chapter of the book on gameinformer.com. It is about the impact GTA had on videogames and video game culture on the whole. Really interesting stuff.

I thought it was ok. It’s a big task to close up the story that spanned a massive trilogy. The other challenge was incorporating the morality system into the ending, which of course requires multiple endings. I have always felt that multiple endings reduce the impact of the ending. It is not very final when you can change one small thing at the end of a game and get a completely different ending. Nothing feels very final anymore. I imagine multiple endings in a game like FF7… That would suck…

Anyway, I think Bioware did a good job considering they made like 10 different endings. While I understand that it is easy to be very passionate about this series as I am, I also feel like people are taking this ending issue too far. Threatening Bioware into making a “good ending” is silly. These guys are the pros as shown by there ability to make this series that we all love so much. We should leave the ending to them. I read an article in GameInformer recently that talked about how Bioware is now releasing DLC of an extended cut of ME3 with a new ending in response to all the complaints. They talk about how this sets a very scary precedence for publishers bowing down to the will of gamers… But who knows, maybe this will just make developers test endings more in the future. I just can’t help feeling like this won’t make anyone feel better — developers or ME3 fanatics…

After I played the Mass Effect 3 demo with my Kinect the other day, the thing that stuck with me was the voice recognition. My first reaction to the use of voice recognition in the game was that it is a cheap gimmick. But as I thought about it more, I realized it could be a real game changer.

Let me start off by saying that I play Mass Effect in the most boring way possible: as a good guy. I’m not sure if it’s because I like to think of myself as a heroic do-gooder  in real life, or if I’m just lazy and don’t want to think too much, but I always choose the paragon option in Mass Effect.