Activision Announces new line-up of Games for Guitar Hero

Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide online, PC, console and handheld game publisher with leading market positions across every major category of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry. They have recently announced the new line up of games to extend the Guitar Hero gaming franchise.

Three new game titles introduced are Guitar Hero 5, DJ Hero and Band Hero. I personally think that DJ Hero will be a great add-on as it comes with a turnable controller that allows you to create original mixes from hip-hop, Motown, Electronica, R&B and dance songs.

Band Hero will deliver an exciting music collection of some of the best hits ever to expand the appeal to a broad family audience who can play together on the guitar,drums, bass, microphone and experience a new genre of music.

Finally there is Guitar Hero 5 which will be featuring the hottest rock and roll artists we have today. The game gives the player groundbreaking control over the way they play, with the ability to drop in and out of songs while allowing them to change band members, their instruments and difficulty levels on the fly at the same time.

Activision

Facebook Cacophony

There was a time, many years ago, when I joined a Facebook that was uncluttered and mature. Some would say that this dignified Facebook is withering away, some would say it’s been gone for a long time. Facebook has just updated their website with a new look. Rounded edges have replaced the old right angle standard and more crap is being shoved on your screen and in your face.

MySpace was the first social network I joined, and at the time I thought it was one of the most amazing things on the web. I could connect with all of my friends, share photos, and listen to some music. Some time later I caught wind of the Facebook bandwagon and hopped on. What I found on Facebook was MySpace without the clutter and 8th grade drama. Facebook became my true stomping grounds and I eventually deleted my MySpace account because I didn’t need it anymore; Facebook satisfied all of my needs.

Years have passed and Facebook has updated numerous times, becoming less appealing with each new transition. I’ve become a passive Facebook user these days. My profile is rarely ever updated and I have an enormous stockpile of other requests (game, quiz, movie, and hundreds of other annoying applications) that just sit on my page, waiting for me to accept or deny them.

Over time, my main page has morphed into the MySpace mess that I thought I had escaped. My attention has become scattered between the newsfeed, pokes, sidebar updates, and all the other crap. My profile itself is fairly clean, but whenever I stop by a friend’s page I get so damn confused as to what the hell is going on with all the apps they have everywhere and all the different updates scrolling through their scattered wall. It reminds me of the MySpace pages I hated to visit because they were so muddled with unorganized messages, quizzes, links, videos, and graphics that the page would never load and I’d have to struggle through all the hideousness just to leave a damn comment.

That’s not to say that all of Facebook is bad. Facebook has some redeeming qualities that haven’t been lost…yet. I’m happy that I can at least keep my profile fairly clean and not have a million different things forced onto it. I like the way groups work too, they’re a very popular way for political activists or the average Joe to have their voice heard and gain a following. Facebook also gives you the opportunity to edit your settings and rid yourself of some of the clutter, but there is still plenty of it that squeaks by no matter how vigilant you are.

Facebook’s high point for me was during my younger college years, and now I’m a year out of school. Maybe that means I’m turning into an old fogy who just can’t comprehend the modern styling of Facebook anymore. I used to love having some sort of connection to my old friends (I guess I still do since I still have my Facebook account), but I feel like the need for that connection is fading away. Perhaps my age is catching up with me and I’m getting my first inklings that I just cant keep up with the young guns anymore.

Maybe it’s not because I’m an old fogy, but because the Internet is evolving. Twitter is the new hot thing at the moment and it brings back a lot of what Facebook originally offered me. Twitter is a quick and easy way to keep in touch with friends without all of the mess that most other social networks have. Twitter is literally Facebook stripped down to it’s bare bones, as simple as it gets. You can read about how much I enjoyed registering a Twitter account and discovering what it was all about in my previous post. Simplicity is what I desire in a social network, but it seems that they all grow more complex with age, eventually scaring me off with the threat of too many options and applications to choose from.

Am I asking too much? I hope not. I enjoy my time online and using the Internet to communicate with friends. I just don’t want all the extra.

Is Facebook too little, too much, or just right? We’ve all seen the Yahoo vs. Google comparisons- is Facebook going the way of Yahoo?

Sam & Max Roam the 360 for Deliquents to Pummel

Telltale Inc. further expands their Xbox Live Arcade arsenal with the lovable and wacky Sam & Max game series.

Dog with hat and manic rabbit-thing are appearing for the first time on Xbox Live Arcade with the first two “seasons” of Sam & Max being released simultaneously. Both games will be released as full-season bundles, jam-packed with otherworldly mysteries to be solved and ass-kickery to be had.

Season One, which takes the duo to the US Capital and the moon as they follow the tracks of a hypnotic adversary, will be tagged Sam & Max Save the World. Season Two, which involves time paradoxes and bizarre aliens, has been dubbed Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space.

“With Sam & Max coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade and the approaching retail launch, we’re reaching a larger audience than we ever have before,” says Telltale CEO Dan Connors. “These new releases give us an opportunity to better communicate the imaginative stories that make the Sam & Max games so special, and to strengthen the unique identity of each season.”

We’ve seen Sam & Max featured in video games, comics, an animated TV series, and featured in a web comic. The six-foot dog and sawtooth-grin rabbit have traversed the different mediums in their quest to clean up society’s trashiest villains and right the wrongs that have been committed. Their journey to the 360 is just another step towards world domination.

The second Sam & Max season has received praise from IGN and PC Gamer as best adventure game of the year and has received several awards for best comedy writing, best gameplay and more. The second season will soon be seeing release on PC and Wii’s Virtual Console as well.

“Hello? Yes, Commissioner! Yes?… Yes?… Yes?.. Holy jumping mother o’God in a side-car with chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib! WE’RE ON OUR WAY!”

— Sam of Sam & Max, the Freelance Police

Top 5 Linux Games for 2009

As we go about “realizing” our New Year’s resolutions were maybe just a bit too stringent, I’m going review the top five games in Linux. Once the great downfall of the platform, gaming can now only be considered a strength, in the hopes you take up this guilty pleasure and wait for 2010 before you give up on gaming. May I present the premier Linux gaming software with the best from each genre.

Tremulous (Shooter)
This FPS (first-person shooter) game is portable on all main operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac) and is built using the Quake engine.
Players choose between two races: aliens and humans. Both have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and both are opposing teams on the same map. Whilst uncommon for an FPS, Tremulous allows you to build working structures that serve many functions, the most important being  “respawning,” whereby if a player is killed, he reappears at a respawn site. Kills for your race earn you credits. For humans, this means better weapons or upgrades; for aliens, kills enable them to evolve into more powerful beings, the most powerful being the “Tyrant”. The objective behind the game is to not only kill all players of the opposing team (i.e. race) but also to destroy their “respawning” site(s), so that they can’t reappear. With an average of 400 users online at a time, there won’t be a moment left in the day to regret the amount of time you spent playing.

According to SourceForge statistics the game has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times as of 16/10/2008. It was also voted Player’s Choice Standalone Game Of The Year in the Mod Of The Year 2006 competition.
Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://tremulous.net/

Sauerbraten (Shooter)
Meaning “roast meat” in German, this C++ written FPS runs on the main operating systems (Windows, Macs and Linux) and is built using the rendering engine Cube 2, for those of you who aren’t keen followers of the Quake movement (as with Tremulous). The main distinction to make between Tremulous and Sauerbraten is the ability to edit the geometry of the map ingame. Coupled with an emphasis on 6-directional gameplay, this dynamic is going to keep you hooked. It supports both Singleplayer and Multiplayer modes, and the latter of the two offers three possible gameplays: Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, and Capture (whereby teams fight over certain areas of the map). For the Singleplayer mode, there is plenty to keep you busy, unlike in Tremulous. You have the option to play scenarios split into episodes, Deathmatches with bots ganging up on you, and the game even goes so far as to provide levels where you can fight in slow-motion.

MacWorld UK gave it four out of five stars, whereas Games For Windows: The Official Magazine mentioned it in Issue 3 with the reference “perfect for both stingy and creative gamers alike.” But now for an organization whose opinion matters… Phoronix, a purely Linux-orientated hardware and software reviews gave it a positive rating due to “several enchancements to its underlying “Cube 2″ engine”.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://sauerbraten.org/

Warzone 2100 (Strategy)
If you liked StarCraft, you’ll love this. The “3-D cross-platform real-time strategy” denotation doesn’t do justice to this once-proprietary program. This game is highly customizable, allowing everything from a wide array of camera angles, to the ability to customize drive systems (e.g. wheels/track) of your units. Warzone 2100 follows an episodic gameplay structure, following a sequence of scenerios whereby you have a time limit to complete the objectives stated using construction, upgrading, recruitment, etc. for the availability of the manpower required for the task. The latest stable version was released January 12, 2009.

Warzone 2100, once developed for the PlayStation (rating of 76%) and Windows, is now praised by the likes of IGN and Gamespot, which had the following to say about the game:
“Warzone 2100’s highly navigatable 3D engine, unique campaign structure, and multiplayer gameplay should please most real-time strategy fans”.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://wz2100.net/

Glest (Strategy)
This Spanish game, developed using Glest Advanced Engine, is basically a cross between Tremulous and Warzone 2100. It imitates the 3-D, real-time strategy idea of Warzone 2100 but with a medieval theme. It mimics Tremulous in that there are two opposing factions, Magic and Tech, both with their own strengths and weaknesses, both fighting each other on the same map. The Tech team is composed of conventional warriors with medieval weapons at their disposals, with their own unique set of units, buildings and upgrades. The Magic team is targeted at more experienced users where most of their army is “morphed” or “summoned.” Whilst lacking close combat skill, it makes up for it in brute power and versatility. For those of you who loved StarCraft on Windows – this is the game for you.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://glest.wikia.com/wiki/GetGlest

SuperTux (Retro)
For those among us who miss hearing the upbeat music of Level 1 SuperMario, may I present SuperTux. It’s the classic side-scrolling adventure game we all played in our childhood, only now, instead of Mario you have “Tux”, the penguin mascot of Linux. With “Penny” captured by bad guys, it’s up to Tux to rescue her.

Receiving Game Of The Month award by HappyPenguin.Org when it first came out, SuperTux went on to celebrate eight version updates and the SuperTux Development Team and Blizzard Entertainment are eagerly working to bring you Supertux 2. The beta release reiteration of SuperTux really brings back memories of SuperMario with multiple “Worlds”, a variety of monsters and a complimentary, childlike plot.

http://supertux.lethargik.org/

I hope these referrals introduce more users to the variety of games on the Linux platform. While much remains to be accomplished, we can at least revel in the progress made up to 2009, and look forward to what this year will bring for us.

By Mihai Marcas

Top Five Moments – Left 4 Dead

Five best moments in Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead has come and we’ve been killing zombies for over a month now. After sitting down for some long nights and entertaining LAN parties, I’ve opted to state the five best, funniest, or frankly most awesome things to happen with me and my group. Without further ado, number five:

5) Boomer Teabag: If you thought being puked on was bad

It was an epic defeat, the team (in versus) had barely just left the safe house, with three of their members pinned, and the boomer quickly took care of the other. Although it may not have much of a use, the Boomer can squat So, if your team happens to be doing particularly well, and the boomer is feeling cocky, a boomer teabag may be in order. Now, don’t think that I condone this activity: it’s unsportsmanlike, rude, braggish, and all around disgusting in all games. However, to see this giant fat zombie squat up and down on the face of a human survivor as his team around him is killed as he struggles to try and save someone, it’s hard to not be entertained. Although, sadly, his gut does not bounce like a bowl full of jelly.

4) Hunter Overshot: If a zombie could fail

Imagine the scene, at the top of No Mercy hospital: I’m dangling off an edge, knocked back and covered in vomit. When it all clears out my teammate comes to rescue me. Up on top of a nearby building I see a hunter and yell, Watch out! Which soon is blocked out by the ever familiar cry of the hunter as it pounces for the kill

Only for the awesomeness of the scene to be interrupted as the hunter overshot and flew off the edge of the building. The irony was ever present, the hunter’s greatest weapon turning into it’s demise. Speaking of great weapons

3) Epic Duel 1 on 1 with the Tank: When you promise your team you’ll kill it.

So there I was, my teammate was on the ground, all of the others were dead. Cries of, you can make it, you can make it! rang out from the mouths of the deceased. Just as I started to pick up my friend (the only one still breathing), a tank came rushing down the corridor, barely avoiding a hunter, and hitting a boomer from afar. I strafed around and dueled to the death with the tank. Man had become the winner after an epic battle and a spent Molotov. But alas, I knew I could not make it. It was still a long run to the house of reprieve. So, I decided I’d not let myself get turned into a zombie, because I’ve killed too many. Surely I wouldn’t be invited to any of their zombie games (read: Hordes). Picking up my teammate’s Pipe Bomb (he bled out), I headed to the crescendo event.

Soon enough, after gathering all of the gas tanks at a crescendo event, I activated it, and as I was engulfed by zombies I threw down a pipe bomb, killing myself and all of the zombies in the process. I feel as if it was  an epic Left 4 Dead story that always makes me think that I did the right thing.  (Note: I didn’t earn an achievement as my incapacitated buddy helped, but I think it’s for the best. Achievement Unlocked would’ve totally killed the epicness.)

2) Run. Like. Hell.
We finally made it to the safe house with three of my team members. Another one was slowly weaving his way around a witch. Suddenly, a hunter pounced at him (albeit missing), startled, he startled her. Rings of, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit were screamed over a headset as he jumped down and made a mad dash for his life down the narrow alley towards safety. Don’t close the door! he screamed, as the witch was wailing and flailing, right on his tail. My entire team of survivors were unloading their clips into the beast, shots impacting my friend, and just at the last second, screams of, Don’t close the door! changed to, Shut it! and it just kept her out, with sighs of relief and praises of life. . . Then we saw the rewards screen and were reminded we were only playing a video game.

1) No Mercy Finale: No Man gets Left Behind (Zoey included).

The ever wanted and loved sound of, the helicopter’s here! rings out and the team decide to run for it. Prepared to leave, people can often get cocky and not stick with the group. Me and three teammates made a break for it as another one administered first aid (to himself.) Little did he know of what was about to happen. As we ran he tried to catch up, but as we were all in the copter, a Molotov had been thrown. The survivor took it, and kept on running through. Suddenly, the tongue of a smoker stretched out through the fire. Damnit ran through all of the team members’ minds, except for one. No man gets left behind. He yelled, as he ran through the blazing inferno, saving the friend, but getting knocked down from his burns.

The other survivor bent down to return the favor, but just then the squeal of a soaring hunter was ever apparent through the growls of running undead, and it was on target, and the currently incapacitated survivor struggled to shoot the flaming hunter off of him. Now both were low on health, the one man taking pain pills, we then saw them run through the fire, with one of them limping. The other holding back the horde as the tanks began to rush up to the landing, my entire team was now spurring lead, and they jumped into the helicopter and got once last glance at the once imposing zombies. That’s when we made it; that’s when we all made it.

Thus concludes the list of the top five awesome-est moments in Left 4 Dead. Although many of them are personal moments, I’m sure that at least somebody will get some enjoyment from reading the adventures of the survivors, and I know that I enjoyed experiencing them.

But! That’s not the end of it, if any of you Zmogo readers play Left 4 Dead and have some epic, scary, awesome or funny stories, feel free to share them in the comment box below. Look forward to some more ” Top Five Moments” In the future.

(All images are copyright Valve)
~Riley
P.S.: None of the images are screencaps as I played it on Xbox Live.