Risen 2: Dark Waters Preview

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 27 2012

Risen 2: Dark Waters is a direct sequel to the last game in the series. Created by Piranha Games and published by the guys responsible for Dead Island, Risen 2 offers everything you’d expect from a pirate themed fantasy RPG as we had the chance to preview its opening chapter.

The story tells of a band of sea gods sent down to watch over what god had created. They eventually turned against each other in a war for power and were banished to an eternal slumber in the deep waters. Now that time has passed somewhat, their exile has started to weaken and they’re beginning to break free – and event that legend states will lead to a destructive war. It’s your job to stop them before this happens. Waking up from the request of the captain’s lackey, you’ll bear witness to one of the gods quickly devastating an inquisition ship heading back to the confined island. The captain orders you to drop down to the beach below and find any washed up deck hands. Here you’ll meet the sole survivor and good friend – Patty. Not Patty the Pirate.

Mad Catz Cyborg AmBX Gaming Lights Review

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 25 2012

The AmBX tech of immersive hardware to spruce up your games have been around for years now, albeit with very limited marketing. The hardware challenges to take the immersive aspect of video games out of the limits of your screen bezel and add a few extra elements to it with their shiny light projection effects. But do the achieve their desired effect?

The Mad Catz Cyborg gaming lights are the only set of AmBx products to be licensed outside of tech giant, Phillips. Packaged in an average box, the products themselves are anything but. Inside are the twin spotlights in their closed clamshell design along with twin USB-miniUSB plugs, the power adapter and your usual host of papers and driver discs. Unpackaging the lights, you’ll quickly notice just how well built they are. Sturdy and slightly weighted, the Cyborg lights shine with a cold brushed metal feel and manage to sit anywhere along your setup to kick its coolness level up that much more before they even do their job.

History of a Hero: Sam Fisher

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 21 2012

Ubisoft’s line of Tom Clancy endorsed action heroes continues just as strong as they day they started. Huge amounts of games have graced modern day platforms and carried the name of the action/thriller author to back them up. Today we’re going to focus on a mostly lone hero, not a part of a squadron of soldiers or the commander of an army, but instead, we look at the sneaky espionage master that is Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher.

His original concept art looks like a realistic mug shot photo

Game Changers

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 20 2012

Peripheral makers are long aiming for their crazy contraptions to become a game changing invention. Sure, the Wii Fit Balance Board and the Guitar Hero guitars may have made an impact, but only in the games they were designed for. In this feature we’re going to take a look at some of the most affordable game changers available today. Those quirky bits of tech which can give you a completely different play experience of your favourite games.

TERA Preview

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 17 2012

Frogster’s seemingly next-gen MMO, TERA, has been a long time coming. The game released into its home country, Korea, year ago and we are only now in the last leg up to a worldwide release. Saying that, like some of you already, we have played it, and we enjoyed it very much and we’re going to give you the low-down as to why this MMO is something pretty special already.

Current day MMOs all act the same way. Levelling is done through quests, though the bad ones come by mob grinds; we travel a huge landscape meeting other players along the way to play with, run dungeons for loot and essentially progress a story many don’t even play attention to. They all follow that pretty standard formula. But with each new iteration developers try to do something different with the combat, the main aspect of the genre, the task you carry out so very often when you play them, and TERA is taking that much further than others.

Character races range from huge, furry, tiny, girly and everywhere in between

Dear Esther Review

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 16 2012

It seems like its been forever since we were last treated to one of those “Is this even a game” kind of games. The last was arguably Amnesia: The Dark Descent back in 2010. Now we have Dear Esther. Released as a simple mod back in 2008 and running on Valve’s Source engine, Dear Esther received a lot of attention, and with good reason. It actually garnered enough attention to be redrafted and remade as a fully fledged Indie title with its own Steam Store page and price. But just what is it?

No matter where a screenshot was taken. They always came out looking magnificent

History of a Hero: Kaim Argonar

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 14 2012

The millennium stretching story of this week’s History of a Hero story focus didn’t quite get the attention and recognition I humbly think to this day it should have received, and while he was backed up by a party of truth seekers in his mission, we focus on him as the man with a troubled past. Today we focus on Kaim Argonar, the thousand year dreamer.

Kaim’s watercolour concept art

Blast from the Past: DragonBall Z: Buu’s Fury

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 13 2012

DragonBall Z: Buu’s Fury was the third and final game in the fantastic Gameboy Advance series. After defeating the genocidal alien, Frieza, and stopping the Man-made android, Cell, the Z warriors are faced with the revival of an ancient gelatinous warrior by the name of Buu and they had to pull out a lot of new tricks to end his reign.

The appeal of these Gameboy adventures came from the difference they offered from the array of other DragonBall games on the market. Primarily focusing on the fighting aspect of the manga/anime, the Beat em’ Up games didn’t offer the deep story originally seen in the main adaptions. And so, Buu’s Fury, and those before it, turned the games into the fully featured adventure games they should have been.
Controlling either the infamous hero, Goku, his now grown-up son, Gohan and his kid Goten, the rough heart of Vegeta and his future child’s child, Trunks (the second) and even the combination of a them, you flew around the DragonBall universe to confront the ever changing maniac. Confusing, right?!

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Review

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 8 2012

The Warhammer series has long been a favoured table-top game controlled by the ever wonderful Games Workshop. Eventually making its way to the high-calibre RTS series Dawn of War, the franchise has bolstered its fandom from the move and undoubtedly increased the money squirting out of their figurine game shops in the process. Now, to further feast on the increased market gain of selling out to the other genres in an attempt to reach out to another key player base, Relic Games and THQ turned its head to the popular-as-ever shooter genre to capitalize on the success of Gears of War.

Gaming Gods: Hironobu Sakaguchi

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 8 2012

Carrying on from Ryan’s praise towards Shigeru Miyamoto, this week I bring to the table a recent discovery of mine, but someone who avid RPG players unlike myself will have no problem recognising. This week we feature the never resting story-telling RPG master that is Hironobu Sakaguchi.

Born November 25th, 1962, Sakaguchi became a part time worker for the, then, unmerged Square Co in 1886 as the director of planning and development after exiting his university course prematurely. Within 5 years he moved up the ladder to become the vice president of the company, and subsequently the president of Square’s newly formed state-side headquarters not long after.

PixelJunk: Eden Review (PC)

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 7 2012

The PixelJunk series has been floating around the PSN for years now. Each considerably different from the last in every way imaginable, the series has averaged mediocre reviews, yet has continued to spawn more titles on top of expansions for previous entries. The third title, PixelJunk Eden, is the first to branch out of Sony territory to hit PCs via Steam, but what makes this particular game worthy to make that jump over it’s relatives?

Each garden is features a very different explosion of colours

Blast from the Past: Max Payne

First published to TheGamersHub.net, February 6 2012

Back in the day, the release of Remedy Entertaiment’s neo-noir cop story, Max Payne, was one of the huge events of PC gaming. It was another limit breaker like Far Cry, Crysis and Metro 2033 following it. By today’s standards it’s quality is laughable, yet, when you go back and play it again, laughing isn’t something you find yourself doing.

Max Payne opened like a graphic novel. A small slideshow of 3 narrated comic panels appeared one after another to depict a major cut scene, plot point or interesting discovery rather than being tied and dragged down by either the real-time scenarios or a wall of text. The panels all did a superb job of moving the game forward by being backed up by fantastic voice and art work that, at times, really sent a shiver down your back through it’s believability and down right creepiness.