Top 10 Anticipated Game Releases for 2011

Hey all. With 2011 just starting, everyone is looking to this year's releases. And we at CWTC are no exception. I know this might be a bit late, and I apologize (stupid nasty flu bug). So without further adieu, let's look at my ten most anticipated games expected to hit shelves next year.

10. Max Payne 3

(Trailer?)
Max Payne is a lot of fun. I loved the first game's dark, comic book feel, the fun levels, the wild V trips, and of course some good ol' Bullet Time. I heard they were planning a third entry ages ago, as it was supposed to ship Q4 of 2009. We're not even sure if it will be out next year at this point, but if it is, I will definitely give it a shot. It's set more than ten years after The Fall of Max Payne and follows a whole new story with an older, more grizzled Max. I'm interested to see what this brings if/when it's released. Also, am I the only one that didn't hate the Max Payne movie? I mean, it obviously could have been better, but I still found it enjoyable and not horribly far from the source material.

9. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

(E3 Trailer)
This is one I have to love from afar, at least until I get my hands on a Wii. I just love how much it reminds me of Ocarina of Time (which it is apparently a prequel to). Hopefully I will be able to give this a try sometime. If not, I will remain dusting off my trusty N64 to get my LoZ fix.


8. Batman: Arkham City

(VGA Trailer)
Sequel to the intense and awesome Batman: Arkham Asylum, this bad boy is scheduled for Q3 of 2011. Batman is once again voiced by Kevin Conroy, and Mark Hamill returns as the Joker. I think that right there illustrates the awesome, especially those of us who grew up with Batman: The Animated Series. Several new villains are showing up, including Catwoman, Two Face and Mr. Freeze; as well as the return of the Riddler, Harley Quinn, and Victor Zsaz. I don't think more need be said.

7. Marvel vs. Capcom 3

(E3 Trailer)
A third entry in an awesome crossover fighting game? Yes please! This drops in February, and if it's anything like the previous entries, prepare for a good time (you can download MvsC2 for Xbox Live Arcade to brush up). We were sold on the first trailer, Iron Man, Deadpool, Thor, and Chris Redfield are just a few of the characters that you can build your team with. Also look for a more developed single player campaign, and unique endings for each character. It looks to be an ass-kicking good time.


6. Star Wars: The Old Republic

("Hope" Cinematic Trailer)
A Star Wars MMO put out by LucasArts and Bioware? I think that sentence pretty much says all it needs to. Set in the Old Republic (~3,500 years before the original trilogy), you can play as either Republic or Imperial (Sith) faction. Although, in true Bioware fashion, the line between good and evil is not so clear cut, such as the idea of a "gray Jedi". Although it is far removed from the movie universe (if you haven't gotten much into the old republic expanded universe), there are still many familiar places (Hoth, Coruscant, Tatooine, etc.) and the classes won't throw you off either (eg. Jedi Knight, bounty hunter, smuggler, Sith warrior, etc.). Expect this Q2/3 this year.


5. Portal 2

(E3 Trailer)
A sequel to one of the most mindfuckingly fun games ever? Hells yes! Portal was my main reason for buying The Orange Box, and it didn't disappoint. I don't want to get into spoilers, so I won't say much about the story of this one coming up. It does, however, have a multiplayer option the first didn't, which could prove to be very fun. This is one world I am very excited to return to come April. Yay!


4. Mass Effect 3

(VGA Trailer)
This one will be a long wait until Q4 (Holidays) of this year. A very long wait. The third and final installment of the Mass Effect series; this is where the shit hits the fan. Again, I don't want to give spoilers, but this is gonna be a big one and I'm quite anxious to see what/how Bioware does this (I have faith in their ability, it's just a long time to wait and wonder). I also can't wait to see how my Shepard's decisions carry over to this one from the previous two games. It's going to be a hell of a ride.


3. Diablo III

(Teaser Trailer)
Now that we've picked our jaws back up from the floor, let's talk about Diablo III. Oh my goodness, just typing that makes me squee a little. I've been watching this one for a while, and it just keeps looking better and better. I loved the first two (the Battlechest is pretty sweet) and this looks to be even better. And you can pick the gender of your character. How cool is that? Lady Barbarian FT-fuckin'-W! This is apparently another Q4 release, but knowing Blizzard that may change. But that's fine, because you know this is going to kick seven kinds of ass.


2. Mortal Kombat

("Shadows" Trailer, ft. music from Disturbed)
When Midway went under I feared for the fate of my favorite fighting game franchise. But I don't think I need worry. NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) are releasing the first game post-buyout by WB, and it looks groin-grabbingly awesome. While I enjoyed MK vs. DC, it didn't have the Mortal Kombat feel (mostly due to the neutering of the violence because of the DC heroes and a T rating). This has the shiny look of MK vs. DC, and all the fun and gore you'd expect from a Mortal Kombat game. Now I'm not a "hur-dur violenz" kind of gamer, but really, this is what MK has built its franchise on. I've seen some videos of some fatalities, and they are wicked. Also returning is visible damage to your character, a neat touch. Expect this bad boy around April.


1. Dragon Age II

("Destiny" Trailer)
You know, I should just start forwarding my paychecks to Bioware lol.
This should surprise exactly no one. At least no one that knows me or reads this blog. In fact, I already have my preorder for the Special Edition (because the Cynic is awesome and got it for me for Christmas). This game ships in March and focuses on one origin/character this time, by the name of Hawke (first name is up to you). It takes place during and after the events of Origins and Awakening and spans an entire decade. Several companion characters have already been announced, including your character's family and the Special Edition/DLC companion (who has a damn sexay voice). I am so excited to see the world of Thedas expanded and explore new areas, to see whatever cameos they throw our way (temporary Nathaniel Howe romance subplot pretty please?) , and how this grand story comes together. Not to mention the revamped art and combat styles.

Well I hoped you enjoyed my Top 10 Most Anticipated games of 2011. What are you looking forward to? Do you think Duke Nukem Forever is REALLY going to be out this year? I know there's a lot more games out there hitting shelves this year, what's tickling your fancy?
Until next time folks, and we'll try not to take so long.
Picky Mama Scholar

Scholarly Musings: Sex and Character Preferences in Video Games

*JUST A HEAD'S UP, THERE MAY BE GAME SPOILERS IN THIS POST* You have been warned.

Hey everyone, Scholar here to talk about video games again. Big surprise, I know. As you can tell from the title, however, this is something a little different. This isn't even a rant, just an interesting observation and I guess a bit of wondering-out-loud on my part. It has to do with sex and gender in video games, both yours and the characters you play. And how does it affect your game? (Side note: this would be a pretty cool thesis for someone to do. If I was more into socio-cultural anthropology I probably would).

Now let's talk about sex in video games. By this I am referring to male/female designations, the other kind of sex might come up later. For a long time, and even to some extent now, gaming has been seen mainly as a male pursuit. This is changing mind you, but many games still have the sense of being "guy games". But I don't want to detract from the topic at hand too much so that will have to wait for another post.

Anyways, back on topic. What spurred this was an observation I had about myself regarding my player characters and party characters of games. If given the choice, I will always play a female character. Granted there is the odd exception, such as Mortal Kombat where my favorite character Ashrah only appears in Deception and Armageddon, so in other games I tend to play Raiden (Kung Lao in Shaolin Monks). I even played the female characters in Diablo and Diablo II (Rogue and Amazon, respectively) where I was stuck as a ranged attacker rather than my much preferred melee. Why? Because I prefer to play female characters. I also love the game Portal, and that game is really neat for having basically two characters in the game, and both are female. How awesome is that? This is not to say I don't play games where you play as a male. I adore the God of War games, Bioshock was amazing, and I had so much fun with The Force Unleashed. So don't get me wrong, player character sex isn't a deal breaker as long as the game is good, but I will choose a female character if I can. In fact, I've never played a male Warden or a male Shepard, what I know about them comes from when the Cynic plays because he will generally play male characters.

However, things seem to change for me when playing a game in which you have party members. When I choose I party, my character tends to be the only female. For example:
Dragon Age: Origins Typical Party:
Fem!Warden
Alistair
Dog or Oghren
Wynne

But wait you say, you have Wynne, and she's female! That may be so, but she's also the only healer in the game, and thus gets brought along so I don't use all my health pots which I tend to hoard for the Archdemon fight. Okay, how about a couple of better examples?

Dragon Age: Awakening Typical Party:
Fem!Warden
Nathaniel
Anders
Oghren

As you can see, there is a pattern, although this party does work well for me. Me as DPS warrior, Nathaniel as rogue and to lockpick, Anders as DPS mage/healer, and Oghren tanks.

Mass Effect Typical Party:
FemShep
Kaidan
Garrus

Again, this fits the pattern and tends to work with my play style. I am usually Soldier class, so Kaidan's biotics complement that. Garrus can be a tad squishy at first, but does well especially with a sniper rifle.

Mass Effect 2 Typical Party:
FemShep
Garrus
Mordin/Grunt/Thane (who I wasn't able to recruit when I played but based on videos I have seen, I quite like Thane)

This is just based on how far I got in the game, but again it works for me.

As you can see, there are a few names that repeat themselves, which leads me to my favorite characters of each series:

Favorite Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening Characters (Party and NPC):
Alistair
Nathaniel
Anders
Ohgren
Shale
Bann Teagan
Wade and Herren
Gorim
Duncan
Flemeth
Sten

Favorite Mass Effect Series Characters (Party and NPC): (remembering I didn't finish the second game)
Kaidan
Garrus
Mordin
Thane
Legion
Joker
Captain/Councilor Anderson

From these lists there are exactly two female characters, Shale and Flemeth. Flemeth is awesome for being mysterious, humorous, possibly a little crazy, and fantastically voiced by Kate Mulgrew of Star Trek: Voyager fame. Shale is a great party addition with unique skill trees, has an overwhelming hatred of birds (with often humorous results), flirts with Sten. And is a golem. But, she was once a dwarf, Shayle of House Cadash, who volunteered to become a golem.

See. Totally Female.

So my question is this: why? Why am I not a fan of the female characters? One could make the argument with some such as Alistair and Kaidan that the only reason they are on the list is because they are romance options. While the romance part is true, and I have romanced both, that isn't the only reason I like the characters. I find their stories interesting. Mordin isn't romance-able, but the conversations with him are awesome, interesting, and hilarious. Garrus is just a badass character, and quite sweet as a romance option. Such as the interaction between Nathaniel Howe and my Cousland (human noble) character in Awakenings, I was greatly interested in the potential friction between the two (I killed his father after said father killed my PC's parents). He turned out to be my favorite party member even after all of that was sorted out. Couldn't say the same about Velanna. She was irritating and a supreme bitch to everyone. While she was an interesting study for being as much the victim of her own prejudices as her people were victims of human racism, the whole "You're all human and bad and I don't like you all because I'm Dalish blah, blah, blah, blah, blah" got kind of old. Switching to Mass Effect, the ladies don't fare much better. Ashley always kind of annoyed me with her xenophobia, although as a love interest she is pretty romantic. And you can't deny the awesomeness of a name like Ashley Williams.

Hail to the King, Baby.


Female NPC's don't fare much better. Lady Isolde has a voice like nails on a chalkboard and about as much intelligence. But, unlike with Mass Effect's Khalisah al-Jilani, there is no option for a rather satisfying punch to the face, which is somehow more awesome as a FemShep. Observe:



Two of my favorite NPCs, however, are the Blacksmith Master Wade and his partner Herren from Dragon Age. Not only does Master Wade make some excellent stuff for you with the right materials (Drake and Dragon scale armor, Golem Shell Armor, Vigilance, etc.), but the banter between the two is absolutely priceless. They are confirmed as a couple, and bicker like only two people who have been together a long time can.




But again, we get to the question. Why? I can continue to give examples until my fingers fall off from typing, but it doesn't answer the question. So I'm asking my reading audience, what do you think? Do your favorite characters and NPCs in a game seem to fall to one sex or another? Do you play your own sex or the opposite when given the choice? Is it a matter of what characters you identify with? And if so, does the sex of the character matter? It seems I identify more with male characters, yet prefer to play as a female. What do you think? Feel free to leave comments, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

5 Dream Halloween Costumes and Why I Can't Pull Them Off

There's no two ways about it, I LOVE Halloween. What I love so much about it is the costumes. I can certainly appreciate any excuse at all to go out in costume. So, I try to do something cool every year. Over the last few years I've done several very geeky costumes, including April O'Neill, Chun-Li, Tyrael (from Diablo II), Ashrah from Mortal Kombat, etc. This year will be no exception. However, everyone has costumes that they would love to do, but for whatever reason, just can't do. So here are my top 5 unlikely costumes, and why they just aren't happening anytime soon.

5. Nitara- Mortal Kombat



Mortal Kombat is my favorite (fighting) game franchise. And they have a lot of cool characters. Nitara is a vampire from a different realm that was introduced in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
Why I Can't Pull It Off: a couple of reasons 1) I couldn't build the wings and 2) it's way to skimpy. Now not only do I NOT look like that, it gets pretty cold around Halloween (we had a spattering of snow last night) and I would rather not freeze.
Likelihood of Doing this in the Future: Not likely


4. Blood Dragon Armor- Dragon Age Origins



Dragon Age Origins is a game I rented on a whim because the video store didn't have any copies of the game I went there looking for. And it blew me away. It has easily become one of the best games I have ever played. When I bought the game, I got a code to download this set of armor (and a similar set for Mass Effect 2).
Why I Can't Pull It Off: Armor building. I lack the skill, materials, and a place to build armor like this.
Likelihood of Doing This in the Future: If I could, I definitely would.



3. Big Daddy- Bioshock



Bioshock is another game I picked up somewhat on a whim and is also an amazing time. The game has such an intriguing atmosphere and setting that I can't help but enjoy it. It also has the Big Daddy, a tough character to beat for sure. And I have seen cosplay of this before, and it was amazing with an incredible photo shoot in an aquarium.
Why I Can't Pull It Off: I haven't the skills to build such a thing. That is far beyond me.
Likelihood of Doing it in the Future: Again, if I could, I would. For sure.



2. Red Sonja



What's not to like about Red Sonja? She's a woman that kicks ass, doesn't take shit from anyone, and carries a very large sword. She also dresses in a chainmail bikini.
Why I Can't Pull It Off: Did I not mention the chainmail bikini? Or the fact it's not unusual to have snow on Halloween here?
Likelihood of Doing it in the Future: Very, very unlikely


1. Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker/ Susannah Dean- The Dark Tower Series



Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker are two personalities of the same person who are drawn into Mid-World by the Gunslinger Roland Deschain. The two personalities confront each other and are melded into one: Susannah Dean, who accompanies Roland on his quest for the Dark Tower. And I love these books. So much.
Why I Can't Pull It Off: Susannah is an African-American woman who is missing her legs below the knee due to an accident. I'm, well... not.
Likelihood of Doing this in the Future: If I could get a wheelchair, darken my skin without being offensive, and hide my lower legs, sure.

Happy Halloween Everyone from all of us here at Coffee With the Cynic! And thanks for reading and watching our vids!

Game Announcements and Interesting Observations

Now anyone who watches our videos can infer at least one thing about the Cynic and I: we're big geeks/nerds/dorks/insert appropriate title here. As part of that, we're also big gamers. I won't get into a compare and such on our games of preference, as that's not what we're talking about here.

I play a lot of different games of different kinds. I really don't subscribe to one genre of game. Some of my favorites include Mortal Kombat, Diablo I/II, WoW, Portal, Legend of Zelda, and Dragon Age. There's more, obviously, but today I want to talk about Dragon Age.

Now I picked this game up on a whim, not knowing a damn thing about it. We'd gone to rent some games for New Years, for a fun relaxing evening. I had wanted to get Assassin's Creed 2 (which, to be honest, I still haven't played :P), but there weren't any copies left. Dragon Age caught my eye, and I figured "sure, why not?", swords, sorcery, and fighting evil? Sign me up!

And I was completely blown away. Now I won't say too much about the game itself here, but suffice to say, I found myself on the Dragon Age forums as a result. And I found, lo and behold, I stayed. So, I found out pretty fast when Dragon Age 2 was announced earlier this month. And I've come to notice a few things, which I am sure is present in every forum in a situation like this, but nevertheless, bears written observation of the behavior (or maybe it's the anthropologist in me talking).

First off, is the trolls. Now, trolling is nothing new to me, and shouldn't be to anyone who's been on the Internet for more than five minutes. There's something about a new game announcement that brings them out like vultures. A somewhat related group is what I like to call the "whiners" and the "doomsayers". Now, the First DA game got a lot of flak for its graphics, and so with the second installment, the dev team is looking to bring in a new style that is more up to date and is somewhat different from the first game. Cue the whiners. Cue the doomsayers. Every new development, every released piece of concept art, every new screenshot, every new detail, sends them into a frenzied declaration of the game's imminent "sucking" and promises of "I'm not going to buy this", etc., etc. This grows tiresome, even to a regular denizen of the Internet, or perhaps my patience for such things isn't what it was. That being said, I'm 45 pages deep in a thread about a new development (which is NOT A FUCKING RETCON, DAMMIT) for one of the races in the DA universe, of which you really only see one member of and doesn't completely change everything that has been established about them, which isn't much at this point. Given that DA is just establishing a lore, there isn't much of a problem. It's not like explaining the whole Eredar/Draenei thing, which was a more complicated maneuver than this.

Another feature is what I like to refer to as the "platform elitists". People whining about the fact that the game is being released for the Xbox 360 and the PS3, along with for the PC. Perhaps it's because I'm a multi-platform gamer that I can't understand the problem with the game being released for the consoles as well as the PC. I myself play DA on the 360, the so-called "worst" platform on which to play it, apparently. And you know what? I'm fine with that, even if I could play it on the PC and thus get mods and such (which I could if I wanted to, my PC would run it). I don't feel that the game is "dumbed down" or looses any of the RPG element for being on console, and I really don't see why it's such a big deal, but perhaps it's just cause I'm not a "PC-only" gamer and perhaps I don't understand what a "true/pure RPG" is. Y'know, when it comes down to it, I don't care how top-of-the-line your machine is, how games run so much better and look so much better on your PC than it does on my 360. You know why? Because I don't play games just to run them at optimum capacity just because I can. I play games for the story, for the fun, the action, for the characters. Dragon Age sucked me into an amazing world and story, with characters that felt like real people. I don't give a flying fuck about the graphics, or how it plays from platform to platform. Hell, I don't even care about beating it on the Nightmare difficulty, because it doesn't seem necessary. The game isn't about that for me.

So perhaps, dear readers, I just wanted to rant a little. Perhaps somewhere in that jumbled mess is a valid point. Dragon Age: Origins is a phenomenal game. The expansion, Awakening, is also a great play. In the end, isn't this what really matters? Yes, DA2 will look different from DA1, I won't argue that. But really, we know very little at this time. There hasn't even been a DA2 trailer yet (it comes out mid-August, the 17th, I think), everybody just needs to relax a little. There's no need for what I see on the forums, there really isn't. Some people just need to get their panties out of there arses and chill the fuck out. Seriously.

Anyways, I think I've ranted long enough for one evening. I am working on my debut video still. I ran into some snags with my original idea, it became too big for itself, so it has been simplified into something a little different, but hopefully entertaining nonetheless. So I will close this by saying thank you to the development team at Bioware for the wonderful story that is Dragon Age: Origins (and assorted DLC and xpac), and that I eagerly await the launch of DA2 next year, and whatever comes in between. And also to all the devs who are brave enough to venture onto the forums to explain, confuse, and amuse us. I love that you guys actually take the time to answer questions and such.

~the P.M.S

(ps. anyone interested, there are two DA books out so far, written by lead writer David Gaider: The Stolen Throne and The Calling. They are both excellent reads and I highly recommend them.)