Guest First Look – Splinter Cell: Conviction

At X10, I was lucky enough to get some quality time with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction. Though it was a small taste of a much larger game, it was enough to convince me that the general excitement about it isn’t going to be wasted. It was a gripping appetizer of a story filled with unique and diverse gameplay, and it looks to both satisfy old fans of the series and bring a lot more new players to the Splinter Cell games. Splinter Cell: Conviction opens on Victor Conte being grilled by agents of the Third Echelon who are looking for Splinter Cell chief protagonist, Sam Fisher. He’s dropped off the map, and they need to find him fast. “Sam Fisher is dead,” Victor tells them, and it quickly becomes evident why the Third Echelon needs to find him. Victor explains that he “died” when he found out that the

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Guest Preview – Halo: Reach

For movies, it’s Star Wars. For books, it’s Harry Potter. And when it comes to the monster epic series for gaming, it’s hard to argue that Halo doesn’t stand alone. Quite simply, there’s no other IP with the expanse of titles and updates as the Halo universe. Add in the soundtracks, novels, comics, action figures and other Halo-related merchandise and arguably only George Lucas could possibly grock the kind of fan frenzy that a new Halo game can garner. Title: Halo: Reach Developer: Bungie Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Release date: 2010 At X10 in San Francisco last week, Bungie Studios announced Halo: Reach, the latest addition to the Halo universe, would open its multiplayer beta on May 3. No word as to when the full title will officially release, but that didn’t stop Bungie community and PR director Brian Jarrard from showing off the pre-alpha build and giving us an

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Guest Preview – Demo of Alan Wake

Alan Wake: A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a game Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Developer: Remedy Entertainment Release: May 18, 2010 (NA); May 21, 2010 (EU) Ladies and gentlemen, Alan Wake has entered the building… Finally. Very few games illicit the kind of anticipation created by the near-mythical title of Alan Wake. I say “near-mythical” because, after being introduced to many “oohs” and “ahhs” at E3 2005, it all but fell off the proverbial map and into the black hole of Duke Nukem Forever. Developer Remedy Entertainment quieted the pessimists in 2008 with a trailer, shown with the debut of the Max Payne movie and the promise of a 2010 release. But even this “proof of life” made controversy because, rather than making a world-wide splash like most games, it was a near-private affair when it was only seen in Remedy’s home-nation of Finland. The rest of the

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