Review: Legend Of Grimrock - PC

Here's my latest review for Diehard Gamefan.  As always here's a small snippet.

http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/04/30/review-legend-of-grimrock-pc/

"I have always loved the sub-genre of dungeon crawler role playing games. The Eye of The Beholder series, Swords and Serpents, the Wizardry franchise, and Shinning: The Holy Ark are among my favorite games of the genre. Unfortunately after the mid 1990s, the genre faded to obscurity until a few years ago. Shortly after the release of the Nintendo DS the forgotten sub-genre was on the rise once more. We got games like Orcs And Elves, Etrian Odyssey, and a new entry in the Wizardry series for the PS3 to lead the charge in the genre’s resurrection. However, with all these consoles dungeon crawlers, pc gamers were all but forgotten about until the release of The Legend of Grimrock. The Legend of Grimrock is a promising attempt by the good people at Almost Human, to bring back the classic puzzle solving, treasure hunting, map drawing fun that we all had back in the good old days. Does Legend of Grimrock’s classic game design manage to hold up in this day and age or does it rely too much on its nostalgic appeal?"

TERA Beta Impressions

I have been finding myself looking for a good MMO to play lately. I wasn't impressed with Star Wars: The Old Republic after having a playing the beta for a good amount of time. I've played Aion, Star Trek Online, Rift, Warhammer: Age of Reconking, World Of WarCraft, Guildwars, and Conan. I've played multiple Free to Play MMOs like Perfect World, Rappelz, Last Chaos, Shaiya, 2 Moons, Forsaken World and many others. All these games managed to capture my interest for a good amount of time, some more than others. However at the end of the day I would get bored with these games for one of many reasons. Can't find someone to play with, content and quests kept repeating themselves, lack of variety, combat became repetitive, etc. However something about Tera truely captured my interests and I feel that it will change the face of MMO gaming for quite somet time.

GVN Review: Sonic CD

Back in the early 1990s, Sega released the Sega CD, a disc based add-on for the Genesis, in order to expand upon the system’s capabilities. Unfortunately due to a flood of FMV games that were released for it initially, the Sega CD was panned by many gamers at the time. As such, many missed out on one of the best gems for it: Sonic CD. In an effort to expand the hype for their upcoming Sonic 4 Episode 2, Sega has updated and re-released Sonic CD as a downloadable title for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Is the updated game up to snuff and enjoyable to play today, or does it fizzle into obscurity?

Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers (nes)

Ninja Gaiden 2 (nes)

Ninja Gaiden (nes)

Metroid II: Return of Samus (gameboy)

Diablo III Beta First Impressions

Well, the Diablo III Open Beta has arrived!!! Oh the long wait of "When is this thing actually going to be here so I can play" is partially over. Yes, partially. At the moment, I'm not sure which game took longer to come out with a part 3. Doom or Diablo? Hmmm... Anyways, I recently played the open beta of Diablo III. Does this game have all of the promise that we have all come to expect from the Blizzard powerhouse? Let's check it out!

Project X Zone debut Trailer

Sega, Capcom and Bandai Namco just dropped the teaser trailer for their upcomin crossover game, Project X Zone.  As no suprise the game will have a similar approach in combat like NamcoXCapcom  that released on PS2 some years ago.  I am very excited about this game and I hope it's brought stateside unlike NamcoXCapcom.  Check out the trailer and enjoy.

GVN Review: Journey (PS3)

Journey, the latest game by thatgamecompany, is an odd game to describe let alone write about. Very much like their previous works Flow and Flower, Journey aims to provide a thought provoking experience more than push the player with technical challenges. It straddles that border between being a game and being art. Does Journey sit tight atop that border, or does it falter to one side?

GVN Radio episode 21

MP3 is now available, but if you can still watch the video of the show as well. Enjoy.

Download GVN Radio Episode 21


Watch live video from Gaming Vision Network on TwitchTV

Review: Avernum - Escape from the pit

My latest review for Diehard Gamefan has been published.  Pleae check it out. Here's a small excert from it.

http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/04/18/review-avernum-escape-from-the-pit-pc/

"Avernum: Escape from the pit is actually the second remake of Spiderweb’s first game, Exile: Escape From the Pit, from back in 1995. The first remake, released in 2000, was just simply called Avernum. The first remake completely overhauled the graphics, audio, and added more content. Exile and Avernum 2000 are point and click turn based role-playing games in the same vein as Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. Now twelve years after the first remake, is there anything left to be added or improved upon in Avernum: Escape from the Pit?"

This Thursday's special guest for GVN Radio is....

Skisonic.  The master of the mic!  Prepare for the sheer awesomeness of this man and his words of power.  So get ready and tune in this thursday at 11:30pm EST at the official GVN Twitch.tv page.

www.twitch.tv/thegvn

GVN's Review System

I am proud to say that we here at gvn are going to provide you with as much content as physically possible.  One of the things I am happy we can bring you is honest-to-god unbiased game reviews.  We use a letter grading system instead of the 10 or 100 point system that the majority of gaming publications use. 

Most sites, while truely honest about their own reviews, tend to not have a score that equals what they were saying.  A decent or average game is usually given a 5 or 50 but the majority of the readers take it as a negative review, so to compensate this the writers curve the score to where a decent or average game gets a 7 or 70.

Our letter grade system throws all the confusing out of the window.  And we also include a small list postivies and negatives thrown in at the end to show what it was we felt strongest about in our play throughs.  So please enjoy the new content we are throwing your way and stay tuned for more reviews on the way.

GVN Review: Ninja Gaiden 3

Ever since it’s revival in 2004 on the Xbox, Ninja Gaiden has grown in popularity among gamers as a genre defining action series. While the series is known for its great combat, it is also polarizing gamers with it’s higher than normal challenge and difficulty. Team Ninja has made a number of changes for their latest game Ninja Gaiden 3 in hopes of making it more accessible to gamers. Is this new change in direction successful, or does it do more harm than good?

PAX East: Runner 2 Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

Ever play a rhythm-music game? How about a rhythm-music platformer? If you've ever played a Bit.Trip game, then you certainly have. Gaijin Games, creators of the Bit.Trip series, was on hand at PAX East this year with a playable build of Runner 2 Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. Runner 2 is the sequel to the award winning Bit.Trip Runner. How does the sequel shape up so far to it's predecessor?

PAX East: Sonic 4 Episode 2

Anyone who has known me for awhile knows that I'm a huge fan of Sonic. His Genesis games were a huge part of my childhood. When Sonic 4 Episode 1 was released back in 2010, I was giddy as a schoolgirl waiting for Sonic's console return to 2D. When I finally played it, I found myself slightly let down. While it is an enjoyable game, it still had some flaws that kept it from being an instant classic in my heart. This past weekend, I got the chance to play a demo of Sonic 4 Episode 2 at Sega's PAX East booth. Does Episode 2 improve upon what the first episode started? If what I sampled is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.

GVN Radio episode 20 now available for download.

Just what the title said.  You can now download the mp3 of episode 20 of GVN Radio.  In case you missed it and want to take it on the go, well... here ya go.

GVN Radio Episode 20 - 04-05-2012

Watch last night's GVN Radio!

Last night's show was great and we really want you to watch it.  Our guests LI Joe and SweetJohnnyCage lit up our show.  So here's a replay of last show and the mp3 will be made available soon.

 http://www.twitch.tv/thegvn/b/314055200

Tonite's live podcast

Tonight's live podcast is going to be special.  Our guests tonight is Long Island Joe and Johnny Cage.  We are going to discuss their upcoming east coast major tournament, East Coast Throwdown 4 and about LI Joe's newest sponsor that is causing quite a stir in the fighting game community.

www.twitch.tv/thegvn

Box Pusher review @ Gamefan

Here's a link to my latest game review over at Diahard Gamefan.  Its for a game called Box Pusher on the Nintendo DSiWare download service.

http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/03/30/review-box-pusher-dsiware/

Diablo Month has started!!!

That's right, we here at GVN are celebrating the soon to be released Diablo 3 by playing Diablo 1 and 2 every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday in the month of April.  I started things off last night by playing 2 hours of Diablo 1 and I hope to get more people to join me in playing these classic games.

Here's a recap of last night's stream.
http://www.twitch.tv/thegvn/b/313646754

Stay tuned for tomorrow night's stream.  ^_^

So sorry, but we are still here.

Hey all, Hubbs here. So yeah we have been steadily doing updates for GVN... just not here. So to make it up to you. here are some videos we made of us streaming and links to our last 4 podcasts. Enjoy.

Episode 19 - 3/22.2012
Hubbs, JT, and Rolento chat it up with special guest Shidosha. We talk about Bioware and Mass Effect 3 ending, Michael Bay TMNT movie, Tim Schafer, Classic gaming and interviewing The Shirt about Beyond Gaming. Parental Advisory is advised. Explicit content.

Episode 18 - 3/08/2012
Hubbs, JT and Rolento tackle the Cross Assault blowup, DOA5, the rumored Steam box console, our love for the Angry Videogame Nerd, and more classic gaming.

Episode 17 - 2/17/2012
Today Hubbs, JT, and Rolento discuss Kotick, Tim Schafer, CLassic gaming, Top picks of 2011 and Winter Brawl.

Episode 16 - 2/05/2012
Rolento and Hubbs are here to entertain you with nonsense. Today we talk about Soul Calibur 5, Winter Brawl, Kingdoms of Amalur and classic gaming.

 In regards to our podcasts we have been streaming them live over at our twitch homepage. Our next show is this thursday @ 11:30pm EST. www.twitch.tv/thegvn