Welcome to this week’s MMO’s Tavern.  Sorry about last week’s rant. Things like that don’t usually get to me something about it just stuck in my craw and I had to get it out. So have a drink and enjoy the news. Read the full story

I started playing Trials Evolution Tuesday afternoon, and I knew that I was going to have problems. Immediately, I became intently focused on the track leaderboards. I saw names…I saw targets. Success! I topped the leaderboard for Oil Crisis and sent a celebratory tweet to those hapless fools that had been humbled and shamed by my incredible skill and deft control. Twenty minutes later, my time was thoroughly squashed by a cruel knave. Thirty minutes of replaying Oil Crisis over and over, tweaking and adjusting my playthrough each time, I shaved a full second and a half from my total level completion…bringing me to one tenth of a second short of avenging my ignominious defeat. The next day at work, I kept replaying Oil Crisis in my head, trying to mentally work out how to get past the final set of hills and catch up. Read the full story

Let me start by saying this: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s multiplayer has come a long way since E3 last year, and it was already tight and fairly well balanced back then. This game is smooth, fun, addictive, and the most fun I’ve had with friends online in a very long time. Are there some issues with it? Yeah, it’s a beta. There’s some lag and I hate snipers (not because I can’t snipe…at all.  That’s a silly allegation >.>). It’s all still real fresh in my head so bear with me as I give you a quick rundown of what I saw. Read the full story

Pinball has never been high on my list of enjoyable gaming experiences. I rarely played physical pinball machines, and, aside from Sonic Spinball, the only virtual pinball game I ever played much of, or at all, was the 3D Pinball game bundled with Windows 95 forward. I still remember the space theme of the table, and I can still somewhat picture the table layout in my head. I never got into Pinball FX, or any of the other recent crazes, and that was fine by me. Then a code came my way for The Pinball Arcade on PS Vita, and I thought…why not? Read the full story

With pre-loading of the upcoming multiplayer beta for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier starting yesterday, a new multiplayer walkthrough trailer has been released by Ubisoft, featuring commentary by RedStorm’s Creative Director, Tommy Jacob. Let Tommy bring you up to speed and brush you up on basic multiplayer strategies and tactics, as well as what each class contributes to the team in the latest video below. And while you’re watching, get to pre-loading that 1.23 GB beta download! Read the full story

First and foremost, I am a Lord of the Rings geek. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again until the day I die. If I’m ever forced to swear an undying allegiance to a single geek focus, it would be Lord of the Rings. A close second, however, would be Star Trek. I got Lord of the Rings: War in the North last year, and it was fantastic. Next year, I get Star Trek, and from everything I saw at E3 and what we’ve seen since, I have no doubts that it will be an incredibly satisfying and entertaining experience. Check out the newest teaser trailer and concept art for what may end up being my favorite game for 2013. Read the full story

I’m not a huge fan of first person perspective in video games, to be perfectly honest. I like being able to see things from a third person perspective. I like seeing my surroundings and I like seeing potential dangers from all angles. I even played through Skyrim completely in the third person perspective rather than the first person perspective I’m sure most people played. Where even Skyrim failed to sway me from my third person preference, Bethesda and Arkane Studios’ upcoming first person action game, Dishonored, may succeed. As you’ll see in the debut trailer below, Dishonored seems to take place in a supernatural steampunk world, with you as a skilled assassin. Read the full story

Sorry, no news this week just me ranting.  So if you come here for the news and not my writing style now is the time to turn around.

Now that it’s just us, why don’t you grab a seat up here at the bar and I’ll pour you all some free drinks while I tell you about the way things used to be.  More likely I’ll just complain about whipper-snappers and how they pollute my fictional game worlds. Read the full story

Trials Evolution has made a large bullet point of its editor. It has been presented as a very in depth, powerful editor allowing you to create tracks, maps, and more that would boggle the mind and defy the natural laws of our universe if constructed in reality. So, you know, we’re excited as shit about it. Take a closer look at the Trials Evolution editor system in this latest trailer, and get ready to strap your helmets on for its release next week at the head of Arcade Next. Read the full story

The multiplayer beta for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is now exactly one week away. Hopefully by now you’ve either found your copy of Splinter Cell Conviction, pre-ordered the game, or made sure you were a PlayStation Plus subscriber in order to secure access to aforementioned beta. If not…chop chop. A Ghost’s most valuable weapon is preparation. With time slipping away, we’re given a look at the competitive and co-operative multiplayer aspect of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Read the full story