So we’re going to try something new, and that something new is Cool-O-Rama.  Cool-O-Rama is, in many ways, a lot like Wandering Goblin.  For one, it’s run by the same editors, Acea, Deirdre, Kristoff, and myself.  Just like we do now, we’ll continue to hunt down the geekiest stories we can find, and bring them to you, our readers.  However, Cool-O-Rama is a much more grandiose idea.  With Cool-O-Rama, we’re forming partnerships with other very cool blogs; it’s all  in an attempt for us to be heard above the din of all the well financed, very prominent, very vapid big media sites that now dominate the web.  The benefit for out partner blogs is that they get a lot more exposure than they could ever get on their own.  The benefit for you, the reader, is that Cool-O-Rama gathers content from all over the internet, and brings it all together in one convenient, fun to read place.

In about a week, we’re going to shut Wandering Goblin down, and anyone visiting WG will be redirected to Cool-O-Rama.  We hope you, the 2500 of you faithful readers that visit us each day, will stay with us during the change-over.

Also, if you have any feedback on the new site, please let us know what you think.  We can be reached at staff[at]coolorama[dot]com.  Thanks to all of you!

Ah, the Mario Kart blue shell. It’s been terrorizing children and adults alike since Mario Kart 64. I’m sure you remember being screwed out of first place at least once.

“In Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii, it flies over the course, homing on the leader of the race at the time of launch. After the shell reaches its destination, it will hover for a brief moment over its target, then smash into the ground, giving off a massive shock wave causing the target and anyone near him to bounce around out of control. Winged Spiny Shells nearly always hit, however, they do not actually aid the user unless it is a close race because one won’t gain any places because of it.”

5 – Waiting in lines, of any sort.

Run it over, I promise it'll help. Seriously.

Lines. These have terrorized nearly every person’s existence on some day. Whether it be standing in line for food, that great new deal on Black Friday, you’re waiting on hold for tech support, or you’re standing at the DMV waiting to get your first license. It doesn’t matter, they’re everywhere and they’re intention is to stop you from what you want and they expect you to wait patiently while doing so.

Well, just suppose for a minute that the last Wii bundle being sold at discount at your local vendor didn’t just get snatched up while you were ‘patiently’ waiting at the back of the line. Let’s picture for just a moment that, on your drive to the local vendor, you passed through a magical prize box with a large question mark on it.

On any normal day, if you picked up a rainbow colored glowing box with a question mark, it’d probably be a bomb and blow you away. But on this particular day… You were lucky enough to find a shell that seems to fly for those deemed to success, those bastards at the front.

Of course, you may want to step back before you launch that bomb, but rest assured, at least the Wii is yours.

4 – The Car pool lane

Sweet, Sweet victory.

3 – An Olympic Race

Damn. Where's that shell?

2 – Need an Organ? Put your name here. Now please wait.

All your livers belong to me.

1 – The Space Race

This started the Space Race?

You’re Russia during the 1960s. Things really aren’t going so hot for you anymore. You’ve got this new type of government you’re really trying to push onto people, and you’re in this never-ending race to the stars with the other bully on the playground.

It all started off great, you launched Sputnik into space and effectively started the whole competition. However, it seems the pesky Americans are about to beat you as their Apollo 11 mission gets close to the moon, and the first dirty American is ready to set his foot on the Moon and install the American colors once and for all.

If we lose the space race, we’ll look ridiculous to the world and it will seem like Communism is worthless! Erhm, well… We just have to beat them. Who knows what kind of military advantage the Moon will give them…?

It’s time Russians, call for the Blue Shell!

And that’s that. 5 totally good reasons why we need to invent the blue shell, for better or for worse…

Recently I was lucky enough to get to play Runic’s Torchlight, the upcoming Action RPG from the guys that brought you Diablo and Fate. The game is Diablo madness mashed with the cartoony graphics of Warcraft. It’s classic dungeon crawling, armed with hordes of enemies, rapid attacking, and slews of abilities. I fell in love instantly.

The first thing you’ll notice if you’re familiar with the Diablo series is well, everything. You really can tell the folks that had their hand in this game had their roots with the Lord of Terror. From the sounds, attacks, ability charts, stats, to the town portal scrolls… It’s all there. It really does seem to be an ancestor to Diablo much more then even, say, Hellgate: London. The nostalgia alone will knock you on your ass. There’s nothing better then 3am dungeon crawls ending with a trip to town after running out of identity scrolls.

I started off with the Alchemist class, and I quickly found myself in a rich experience killing hordes of monsters soundly with magic and minions… And a puppy! That’s the first feature that I really took a liking too. You get a little pal, dog or cat, that follows you into the depths of chaos. They even have their own inventory which you can stock full of items and you can send your buddy back into town to unload the items to a vendor while you continue to explore. Talk about convenience! Now if only I could teach my dog to restock my beer supply from the store… My alchemist buddy had 3 trees of abilities. Attack magic, summoning, and more melee and weapon oriented magical abilities. I decided to go with the legions of minions, and quickly chose my characters path.

It doesn’t take long to get into the action, in fact maybe a whole minute. Plot progression is not something this game decided to waste time on, and it knows what it’s doing in this case. You’re almost instantly having fun after arriving at the Torchlight town by heading underground to search for riches and power. The premise is basically Torchlight is a town sitting on top of a giant underground labyrinth that is filled with magical items and power… and death. The kind of horrible death that sounds like your alarm waking you up at 5am.

As you progress down the caverns, you will find and complete quests from townsfolk with those giant familiar yellow exclamation points. You also work on gaining fame as you kill unique monsters, oh yeah, did I mention that unique monsters are in? It was a glorious occasion when I killed my first and saw unidentified magical items rain down from the sky around it’s corpse, again only to find myself out of identify scrolls.

You have a couple of stashes to store extra items, and even one you can share with your other characters, so there’s plenty of room for replay and versatility. I can’t remember how many times I’ve found items on characters in other single player games I’ve wanted to share with an opposing alt character I have, it’s a great added feature.

As far as character development goes, it’s pretty simple and feels right. You have your 3 ability trees of specialization, 4 stats, and your gear. Gear provides a huge array of possibilities as it can increase your chance to find magical items, increase resistance, attack, whatever. There’s also other spells you can find from vendors or in the vast dungeon that aren’t specific to any of your trees, like a town portal spell. Thank god!

Lastly, and most importantly, is killing things. It’s FUN. The UI is very smooth and you don’t find yourself scratching your head very many times on the learning curb, but there is so much detail there, that when you do want to focus on every detail, it’s right there for you. As I ran around gaining different allies in the vast depth, summoning creatures, and finding treasure, it wouldn’t be uncommon for me to find myself suddenly in the middle of a huge fight with dozens of creatures on the screen until the only thing that’s left is myself and magical items and gold littering the floor, much like my own house in real life…. I wish.

The game looks GREAT and like it has a lot of potential for midnight adventures. The one thing that really caught my attention is the fact of how quickly you can get in the fun, it would be very easy and plausible to jump into the action for 30 minutes or just an hour, and feel satisfied. There’s still more to be explored and the game seems incredibly vast. You can currently purchase the game digitally and get a demo from their website right here! There’s going to be a wide-release of a boxed version in 2010, and with Diablo 3 on the horizon, the by-title true successor to the Diablo franchise, I think Torchlight really can hold its on as a truly unique and fun gaming experience.

Not expecting much more then some summer blockbuster fun and intense graphics, I wasn’t really let down. There was some serious damage to our world, that’s for sure. But, the head-turning, “what the hell?” moments started to come almost immediately.

First is the explanation of HOW the world is ending. Basically, the Sun created new magical particles that seem to only have an effect on the core of our planet by heating it up, yet nothing else is effected by these heat-inducing particles. Hmm… Interesting…

After some talking and attempts at plot, the action starts. Once the destruction begins, you will feel less bored and more satisfied. However, the amounts of narrow escapes that John Cusack and company have will leave you feeling that the movie is a lot less a human situation you can relate too and more attack of the killer green screen.

Every moment that something terrible happens, some ridiculously incredible coincidence will occur that will leave them unscathed and safe. The amount of cliche close-calls that roll out become so redundant that it seems like there could have been a laugh reel for the audience. These nonsense close-calls climax towards the end of the movie all circulating around a stereotypical blonde damsel and her pocket puppy. Trust me, if you check it out, watch for this part. I nearly had to stab myself with my trusty alert safety pin to keep me focused.

Over all, I can’t argue that the movie didn’t have entertaining moments. There certainly was some fun in seeing some of our favorite and most known world locations being destroyed by volcanoes, fire, earthquakes, floods, etc… But all in all, the plot was weak and the convenient escapes became almost unbearable at moments. The special effects will knock you on your ass, but with the lack of true empathy to any of the characters, it’s hard to forget the fact that it’s green screen killing all these people and nothing more.

On a final note, Woody Harrelson makes a surprise appearance, and he’s hilarious. He’s not killing zombies this time, but trust me, he’s as goofy and crazy as ever.

If you live in the U.S., you may remember seeing ads for a company called BlueHippo.  Founded in 2004, they bill themselves as a company that provides computers to the poor.  The financially challenged can obtain a computer through BlueHippo if they agree to a somewhat convoluted, though appealing, lay-away / credit contract.  Thousands of customers found what BlueHippo was offering appealing enough that they signed up to buy computers through this company that was such a friend to the poor.

In fact, it seems that key details of the deal BlueHippo offered consumers is complicated, unconventional, and just plain quirky enough to make one suspicious.  The trick, of course, is that BlueHippo didn’t disclose these aspects of the contract to it’s customers.  Customers only found out about the many loopholes, provisions, exceptions, and other complications once they either met the requirements and were expecting to receive the actual computer they had purchased, or once they asked BlueHippo for a refund.  Both turned out to be problems.  According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, BlueHippo simply wasn’t in the business of actually shipping any computers to it’s paying customers. And those trying to get a refund could only obtain “store credit”.  That store credit was complicated by company fees and other red tape.  Also, it was store credit at a company that doesn’t send consumers any actual products. (That’s, you know, kind of a problem.)

According to FTC documents, BlueHippo’s contract with consumers involves sending the company 13 small weekly payments, all of which are under a hundred dollars.  Seems reasonable, right?  It immediately occurred to us here at Wandering Goblin that this system was highly unconventional, since the payments are weekly, not monthly.  (Really, what else is financed in this unconventional way?)  Sadly, consumers soon realized that their small $88 dollar payment means forking over more than $350 a month to BlueHippo.  Remember, these computers are marketed to lower income brackets.   However, even after consumers made the first 13 required payments, for the first four years of its existence, the company still never actually sent any consumers any computers.  None.

In 2008, the FTC took BlueHippo to court.  In the settlement, BlueHippo agreed to provide a $5 million relief fund for it’s former customers, and would discontinue their deceptive practices.  BlueHippo then continued their deceptive practices without even a pause throughout the rest of 2008, collecting millions in revenue from more than 35,000 customers, according to FTC documents.  During that period of time, BlueHippo shipped one computer – one – to a customer.  The FTC believes that this was actually an error, and that they didn’t intend to ship even that single machine out the door: “…But the company provided, at most, a single financed computer, failing to provide financed computers even for 2,477 customers who managed to meet the companies’ conditions.”

A year after the initial settlement with the government, the FTC again took BlueHippo to federal court.  Quite suddenly, BlueHippo decided to try something new and unprecedented – it shipped computers to its paying customers.  Of course, not everyone got a computer.  They actually sent out less than 1,500 computers, which the FTC believes was mere window dressing.  BlueHippo simply wanted to appear to comply with the first court order.  The FTC wasn’t buying it.

There are, of course, other problems.  For the small minority of customers that received an actual computer from BlueHippo, there were extraordinary delays.  According to the FTC, these delays extended outwards of  6 months, instead of the 3 to 4 weeks shipping that the company promised.  However, consumers were expected to continue to send Blue Hippo payments until the computer was completely payed off.

For your reading pleasure, we decided to include a few choice quotes from the FTC, each of which gives a feel for the extent of the BlueHippo ripoff of its customers.

Blue Hippo “offered to extend credit to consumers to finance purchases of personal computers and other consumer electronics with down payments of $99 to $124, and a year of weekly or bi-weekly payments ranging from $36 to $88. BlueHippo promised to deliver the product once the consumer made 13 weekly payments.”

“Even after this settlement order was entered by the court, BlueHippo continued to deceive consumers.”

“Originally due in October 2008, by April 9, 2009, BlueHippo still had failed to provide this required report, despite the FTC’s repeated requests and BlueHippo’s repeated assurances that it would do so…and failed to respond to written demands for reports and documents issued by the FTC on March 9, 2009…the  Court ordered BlueHippo to pay $2,500 per day until it provided a compliance report. BlueHippo provided the report five days later resulting in a total sanction of $12,500…The Court imposed an additional daily sanction of $5,000 per day commencing May 1, 2009 [because BlueHippo’s failed to provide the actual information required and] The Court fined BlueHippo $20,000 before it provided sufficient information to convince the court to lift the sanction.”

“Contempt Defendants aggressively advertise BlueHippo as a company in the business of financing computers for credit-challenged consumers. However, this representation is patently false. Indeed, in the year following entry of the Order, Contempt Defendants financed – at most – only one computer for more than 35,000 customers.”

“BlueHippo did not even order – let alone ship – the computers within the three- to four-week time frame the company had advertised.”

“Contempt Defendants compound the harm caused by BlueHippo’s failure to finance computers by failing to disclose fully the onerous conditions of its store credit refund policy, thereby rigging their refund policy to avoid giving anything back to consumers lured into BlueHippo’s money pit.”

“Defendants still failed to provide computers to nearly 41% of those who qualified [and paid BlueHippo]. In total, these 1,015 consumers paid Contempt Defendants $844,968.15.”

In a nutshell, it seems that BlueHippo has some serious problems with the FTC and, presumably, the Justice Department.  If the FTC’s claims are to be believed, BlueHippo has been in the business of exploiting the most vulnerable members of society – fundamentally, ripping off the poor – for a very long time.  We eagerly await the outcome of this episode.

[Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4]

There’s some Warhammer news, info about an upcoming super-hero movie and some Torchlight goodness.

You can see the latest greatest info right here:

With millions of people logging in every day, there’s ample amount of opportunity for strangeness & pirating to run rampant like bad dialogue in an episode of Saved by the Bell.

One  example of this is the recent banning of over 1 million Xbox live accounts. It appears that with the big release of Modern Warfare 2, there were a lot of pirates who also wanted to join in the fighting. Using modded systems to avoid DRM protection, they downloaded and played pirated copies of MW2. Microsoft decided this was a great opportunity to test out their ban-hammer, and they did so relentlessly. It won’t stop pirates from playing the game offline, but depending on their level of pirateness, the ban could be anywhere from a day to permanently and it effects your entire gamertag, not just online play for that game. Ouch.

Next is a new indie title coming up for download on Xbox live, it’s uniquely titled Bible Navigator X. We’re not sure if it’s trying to sound like a cool anime character, if it’s the tenth version, or a bad attempt at extreme marketing. Bible Navigator X will provide users with full digital versions of both the old and new testament with search options AND animations.

An executive producer of the publishing company responsible for Bible Navigator had this to say; “The Xbox isn’t just secular entertainment anymore,”

Hm, I didn’t know the Xbox was trying to be secular. This does open up the question of how far down-loadable Xbox content will now go, as this seems to be more like an educational app then a game. We all know how well apps worked out for the Iphone… Although we aren’t sure how many people will want to brush up on Biblical studies after killing zombie Nazi’s. You can check out a video on Bible Navigator below!

[Pic]

Kick Ass is published by Icon Comics, and is something of an underground cult hit.  It started with a viral campaign (a video of the teen vigilante named ‘Kick Ass’ doing his thing on a city street), which got uploaded to the interwebz.  Here’s the vid:

Kick Ass himself posted the following message to accompany the vid, “The youtube video you can see copied here was taken in a supermarket car park after I helped someone who was being mugged. Someone recorded this on their phone and one of my new fans turned this into what looks like a trailer. I hope you like this too. If anyone has any more footage of me please link it here. But I am not doing this to be famous. I accept no money for helping people. I am a comic-book fan just trying to make a difference.”

Then, Kick Ass himself started his own Myspace page, where he chronicles his own adventures.  He also chronicles the comic book that, in turn, chronicles him.    The comic book took off.

Here’s a grab of his MySpace page:

And here’s a gallery of the comics and associated pics:

It’s no surprise this is a hit.  The whole series has a very over the top, tongue in cheek feel to it.  The character names illustrate this best: the characters aren’t named something noble or catchy.  Instead, the characters are named Hit Girl, Big Daddy, and the gun wielding (how’s that for a super power?) Red Mist.  Like very early comic books, these characters don’t battle other supervillains, but instead large numbers of street thugs, drug dealers, and other mortal miscreants.

And now it seems that rumors of a Kiss Ass movie are true.  The original rumor was that the film was ‘in production’ nearly two years ago.  Mark Miller recently revealed that this was true, and that the budget exceeded $60 million dollars, and that several big name stars had signed on, transforming Kick Ass into a grade A production.  Suddenly, late yesterday, a trailer appeared on the ol tubez, and it looks like a winner.  Have a peek:

As you can see from the trailer, the film appears to have the same tone and feel as the comics.  That, my friends, is sweet, sweet music, as Kick Ass was never your mainstream comic book fare.  It’s edgy, funny, quirky, and over the top, and it looks like the upcoming film will retain those qualities.  Let’s hope so.

The first thing I noticed was the incredible amount of blood. Here I am chopping up some wolves and suddenly my character is getting sprayed with blood. Fantastic! It really gives you a more unique feel of hacking your way through hordes of enemies and how dirty a job it really would be. Especially when it cuts to a semi-serious cut scene, and your character’s face is completely sprayed with blood. But,with gore on the mind, I skipped the character creation process. It’s quick and effective and really gets you through. You can instantly tell the depth for multiple character play-through as each character race has different origin stories that pan out creatively. There’s nothing too surprising in terms of customizable options but there’s enough options to keep it interesting.

I tried a few other different character race and class combos trying to get a feel for the battle system. While the battle system is nothing completely new, it

Elves don't screw around

definitely has a unique feel and a lot of depth to be explored. Each character can be setup to act on its own through tactics, or you can pause the game and take direct control of characters during battle. Regardless of how much you decide to micro-manage your characters in large battles, the option is there. However, the AI and tactic system is effective enough to not have you stress out too much on easy battles. You can be a whip-cracking headmaster screaming commands, or be a more smooth Fonz talkin’ boss that lets the kids play on their own with some orders. It’s your choice, but it screams diversity like an office job seminar.

Another first impression I thought I’d note on was the difficulty. Just starting out the game, I kept it on normal. As it progressed, the minor battles were all pretty easy without much focus on my buddies to keep things cleaned up. However, once I got to the, I assume, first Ogre, the first real ‘boss’ of the game, it made it apparent that tactics are necessary for survival or you will be beat into a cute blood-stain on the floor. The ogre had no qualms about crushing my face under his boot, but it was fun!

Trust me, He deserved it.

All in all, after a couple days filled with playing, the thing that stands out most about DAO is the depth (of course it’s smooth graphics don’t hurt). It’s exploding with possibilities in both it’s plot and character, crafting, and battle systems. It boasts hundreds of hours of game-play, and they aren’t kidding. I can’t wait to see what the community pushes out for this baby, as the possibilities are truly endless. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my character needs a new coat of Deathspawn blood.

Consider:

When I first read about patch 3.3, I initially felt that it was more of the same: the introduction of more repetitive endgame grind content, and the emphasis of raid content over small-group dungeons. As you probably already know, I consider this trend to be at the heart of WoW’s slow, unintended, but inevitable suicide. Blizz is repeating what other MMO developers have done before them, making the endgame unnecessarily difficult, and making WoW vulnerable to the first good new MMO to appear on the scene. Why? Because none of that kind of endgame crap is any fun.

And then I got to the part about Blizzard revamping its dungeon system. When I read the planning patch notes, I practically sat bolt upright in my chair. Yes, it’s that good.

I find it interesting that Blizzard is taking into consideration the difficulty in finding dungeon groups.   It may solve some of the lower level player problems with finding available groups on older servers where, not a ton of people are running Utgarde Keep anymore.  I look forward to this for myself.  Now I can go back and complete all those green quests that I never finished whilst trying to get to the end-game.  I’ll actually be able to appreciate some of the instances that I skipped over completely during the grind to 80.

In a related article that I also found a very interesting, TenTonHammer approaches class discrimination in World of Warcraft, especially when it comes to raiding.  Perhaps Blizzards answer to grouping in patch 3.3 will solve some of these issues as well?

Oh, and that picture of Rose McGowan on the left there?  MADE YOU LOOK!!!!  Ha!  I just thought it was sexy and thought you guy geeks might enjoy!  Cheers!

Ah, China. Where better to start then with the king of weird-o internet info. Whether it be from wrapping the Undead in flesh or real-life hobbit villages, China is right in the fore-front of digital strangeness. They have also been known to have a problem with internet addiction. So bad in fact, that they have many camps where people are shipped to too try and cure their need to digg stuff, twitter things, and farm gold in WoW.

Well, until recently, physical abuse was a perfectly acceptable form of treatment for internet addiction. Mind you, consideration for internet addiction is 6 or more hours of being online a day and little to no interest in school… Odd, that seems to be describing pretty much every nerd in existence!

The goal of the programs are to limit the use of the internet to healthy levels, which may not necessarily be a bad thing all things considering. But looking at all the types of work, life, and entertainment that stem from the internet these days, it seems to imply that hours of use at a time is a bad thing… Well, what if it’s earning you bucks, fame, and your own internet meme? Luckily for our Chinese geek-brethren, China’s Ministry of Health has officially banned physical abuse in the treatments, hopefully realizing that slapping someone when they are twittering too much isn’t an effective way to stop them from twittering. (Trust me, I’ve tried)

In almost a polar opposite of physical abuse, a school in England is offering overweight children (see above) who don’t want to exercise, a six week “Wii Course.” The class consists of playing Wii Fit and using the balance board, but of course, those who enroll in the classes must “promise to spend a proportion of their PE lessons outside playing traditional games.” Well, it sounds like I’m going to encourage the eating of donuts to my future children, as they will get offered much cooler classes then the slim kids.

Our last story of crazy is Evony’s marketing campaigns. We’ve talked about Evony before in a review and the decision to try and sell their game by using pictures of scantly clad women. If you’re not familiar, Evony is a browser-based strategy war game, much like Sid Meier’s Civilization but multi-player and online. They’re marketing is still up to it’s old tricks, with their latest ad (see right) using a prop picture that is on the cover of a pornographic movie. PC World did a little research, and found that although the girls on the picture are not actually porn-stars, they are from a stock photo that was used on the case of the movie. Seriously?

They make the game seem like it’s some hidden taboo, with words on their ads like, “You can play discreetly.” Discreetly? So, I need to hide the fact that I play a game about managing a city and conquering my enemies? I don’t remember locking my door and desperately trying to keep my parents out of my room while I played Sim City. We’re not talking some weird taboo fetish here, it’s a browser game!  Since they seem so persistent in continuing advertising things like this, it begs the question, is it working? Certainly sex DOES sell, but when related to something completely irrelevant? Probably. I mean, look at Lowrider magazine. Wait, I think we’re onto something here… Evony is like the Lowrider magazine of strategy browser games!

Whether it be risque game advertisements, substituting P.E. for games, or computer-lovin’ Chinese teenagers, gaming truly has had an incredibly… weird… impact on our world. Stay tuned, the interwebz hasn’t let us down yet, and there’s sure to be more head-scratching oddball nonsense in the future! And of course, drop a line, let us know what you think!

[Source 1, 2, 3]

You start off getting to watch a pretty kick-ass cinematic that is nearly a short movie. In no time you’re back in the zombie-killing action and if you’re familiar with the first L4D you’ll have no trouble at all jumping right in. The controls are pretty much the same, but you’ll instantly notice the difference in graphics, weapons, and items. The other thing that knocked me in the face straight-up was the music. There’s nothing more awesome then hearing the twangy sounds of New Orleans with a horror-spin. The music is awesome, lively and puts you right in the mood of your surroundings.

The demo brings you 2 levels in the Parish. You get to choose one of your new characters and blam-o you’re in the action. The game seems to run more smoothly and the overall graphics look nice. The game-play is similar but has definitely ramped up the anticipation with all the new zombie types trying to bring you to a miserable end. Here’s the new types;

• Spitter – A nasty bastard that shoots acid on you that will tear you down pretty quickly if you don’t flee.
• Jockey – These creepy little guys jump on your head to gain the ability to steer your character in whatever direction they please, you can run around to get it off your head.
• Charger – Big ‘un that runs straight you to knock up groups, once he has you, he intends to beat you into the ground.
• There’s also zombies in bullet-proof riot gear who take a little bit more smashing to knock down.

There were pretty much all the new types I saw, on top of your regulars, you’re in for one hell of a survival attempt. The biggest change to the game is the melee weapons. You can ditch your pistol for a chainsaw, guitar, police baton, machete, and even a frying pan. Sometimes I found it more effective to stop shooting, pick up the guitar, and beat down hordes of zombies as my teammates backed me up with gunfire. It adds a whole new dynamic, as you could try and control doors or choke-points with melee weapons as you’re defended with gunfire. It’s satisfying smashing zombies down, to say the least.

Overall, it’s extremely fun and a great release thus fur. It will be interesting to see the rest of the game, and see how it pans out as a stand-alone sequel, since there’s a lot of discussion if it should have just been a large DLC package. It’s out and free, so log in to your Xbox or check it out here for PC. Good hunting!

As some of you may recall, a short while ago I wrote an article about my recent experiences at Blizzcon 2009, where I professed to being a World of Warcraft virgin. Being inspired by the comic goodness that flits and flutters around this popular MMO, I’ve penned another article on my recent experiences, as still a relative noob, in this well-established game. In this week’s adventure, I recount how I became, somewhat reluctantly, a guild leader. What a glorious mess.

Not too long ago, I left a guild that I had been a part of since I started playing the game a year ago. A friend that I had met in that guild decided to break free and start a new guild on his own. Let me first tell you that having a Co-Guild leader relationship is worse than being married to Kate Gosselin. It’s a very give and take relationship, but there’s always one that gives a bit more than the other…..in this case it was yours truly. It took a lot of massaging to work together with my in-game friend. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that after a day or two, my friend decided (out of the blue) he wasn’t ready to run a guild and closed it down overnight with out a word to me. As you can imagine I was a little peeved, to say the least. I lost my old guild, and now, thanks to my online buddy, I’d lost the gold that I’d just put into this one. That is the long story short that leads into my sharing this with you, dear readers.

Since I have a great WoW support system, my husband (who plays too), offered to start a guild with me. At the same time my cousin, a WoW veteran, offered to do the same. I was apprehensive at first, especially after my recent experience, but I guess it was her charm and experience that got me. I said yes! The three of us set out to start a really, um, “awesome” guild, though I had no idea what I was doing. Of course, first off, we needed a charter.

We went on the hunt for people to sign our charter. This was harder than we imagined it would be. Apparently people are charging for this now. One person asked for 10 gold. To click a button?! Sheesh! We were getting discouraged, this was taking forever to get just ten little signatures. My cousin, resourceful as she is, found a player that was moving servers. He was looking to sell his guild with 3 tabs, what luck. For a great price as well, and now my story begins….

Even if it’s more convenient to purchase a pre-made guild, it may not have the coolest name on the server. It was an alright name, but not as cool as the name we’d originally had in mind (we were leaning toward <Goes Commando>, but ended up with something else…read on.)

You wouldn’t believe what my cousin had to go through to get our guild name changed. This will give you an idea.

It was pretty lonely in the guild. Only four members. However, my husband and I shared an account at the time, so really only three of us could be on at a time. We needed some growth. Even with several of the old owners alts in the group as well as us, it was still a guild that’s too small for the big world of WoW. I decided to go on a recruiting spree by inviting individuals one by one for two days straight. No rest, no sleep, just a cup of coffee and me at 3am.

I hit Iron Forge, Stormwind city, and the Borean Tundra. As I saw homeless toons without guild families I invited them into ours. I took in the strong, the weak, the brave and the meek and I didn’t just stop there. I recruited everyone, his brother, and his dog.

You’d think this would be a disaster. Oddly, it wasn’t. I found that I enjoyed talking with these players, and I got to know some of the people behind these toons. I’ve made some good acquaintances and started some relationships I think will last. Not only have some of these players told me about their characters, they have shared a bit of their personal selves with me. I’ve learned about the concession worker, the father of two, the customer service rep, and the engineer. I have to say, making friends with these people has been quite enjoyable. Our guild chat is now filled with happy, friendly nonsense. It’s like my own little online Oprah show.

Quite honestly, we didn’t even have a direction or ANY idea what kind of guild we wanted to be when we started. Not surprisingly, we didn’t exactly turn into what you’d call a ‘raid guild’. Most of our members aren’t even 80 yet. And yet, somehow, we’ve morphed from your typical lil’ motley crew of guildless loners, into a nice bunch of instance-running friends, and we’re all linked together now, all cozy-like. It may not be hard core, but it’s certainly pleasant.

A quick sidebar before I wrap this up: a contributing factor in our recruiting success is humor. I’ve learned that a lot of players have a sense of humor, and are much more open to joining if the guild has one too. (When you hear our name you’ll understand.). I actually think this helps us recruit a higher quality player. Quite frankly, most of us don’t exactly blend with the dudes in <Razor’s Edge> or <Super Hardcore Jerks>. We’re different; we are a guild that takes them all in. High levels, low levels, mains, alts, and the non-hardcore are all welcome. They’re all surprisingly proud to say that they are the members of <Wears Hot Pants>.

Till we meet again, over and out….

Over at our sister site, IncGamers, the very latest MMO Weekly is up.  Written by our very own Jeff, this week’s article is all about Fallen Earth.  This new post apocalyptic MMO apparently has some super neato stuff going for it, and has some curious and quirky features as well.  It it worth $49.99?  Is it worth laying down $15 a month?  Read on, and find out!