Diehard GameFAN

Author: Christopher Bowen

  • Feature: Microsoft Game Room

    As a retro gamer, the Microsoft Game Room piqued my interest. This is partly because I like retro games, and partly because they had an interesting way of getting people to play on each other’s “arcades,” lending something to the community attachment that older arcades had. If “community” involved a bunch of kids playing hooky,…

  • Playstation Network Update for April 1st, 2010

    Due to some time and personal constraints, I won’t be able to do a full PSN update this week. I sincerely apologize for anyone that reads these to get my our feedback on the weekly downloads, and promise that we will return in force next week. The only thing I really have to say is…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for March 29th, 2010

    It’s yet another good news/bad news type of day for the Nintendo’s downloadable services. We’ll start with the good. To be fair, the good is really good news. Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber Developer: Quest Publisher: Atlus Original System: Nintendo 64 Original Release Date: October 7, 2000 Price: 1000 Wii Points/$10 Mark B:…

  • Preview: Mount & Blade: Warband

    When Jim Sterling of Destructoid wrote an article about the shit reviewers catch for doing their jobs, I was brought back to a time in 2008, when I wrote a review for Mount & Blade. In my review, I hurt the game because of its bugs, shoddy graphics, hit-or-miss gameplay, and inability to run well…

  • Unbranding the Sheep: Missing The Forest For The Trees

    UK site gamesindustry.biz recently released a story about how gaming industry analyst Michael Patcher broke the seal on EA’s next step in Project Ten Dollar, by stating that the company is going to charge for premium DLC before release. Picture the demo for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and imagine it costs money, and you essentially…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for March 25th, 2010

    How hard is it to make a God damn demo? Microsoft – for all the evil crap they do in every facet of their company, including the XBox division – requires that a demo of every game be made live with the game. This is a good thing! Even though their hard drives were specifically…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for March 22nd, 2010

    It’s a good news/bad news kind of day. Fortunately, the bad outweighs the good. The bad news is that we don’t have a Virtual Console release. Furthermore, we only have one (1) release on WiiWare. Normally, this would have me frothing at the mouth until the rest of the staff hit me with tranquilizer darts…

  • Unbranding the Sheep: The Enablers

    As a pro-consumer columnist, reporting on Activision makes me a lot of different feelings, usually at the same time. There is shock that a company can be so brazen about the fact that the ONLY thing they care about is profit, and anything else be damned. There is revulsion that a carpetbagger like Robert Kotick…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for March 18th, 2010

    Last week’s PSN update was lacklustre in terms of big names. Outside of Mega Man 10, there wasn’t really much to move the needle. This week is no better; in fact, if this was a wrestling match, the crowd would be doing a “BORING” chant. In terms of sexiness, this isn’t the update for most…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for March 15th, 2010

    I’m honestly a bit surprised. I figured Nintendo would take the opportunity, with Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver out, to try to find some way to further exploit the name on the Virtual Console. I’m not even sure what other older games they can release at this point, but I expected either a Pokemon game, or…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for March 11th, 2010

    I’m going to let our readers in on a little secret: trying to do these things in a reader-friendly manner is a pain in the ass. I do two weekly wrap-ups: this one, and the Nintendo Wrap as well. Each one carries it’s own set of issues. The Sony piece usually gets done in a…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for March 8th, 2010

    Under normal circumstances, we would at least have a large-name Virtual Console release this week, notable for it’s name and it’s supposed rarity. At least the name – a big one – got heads to turn. However, a closer inspection shows that the VC update is just like the rest of this week’s Nintendo update:…

  • Unbranding the Sheep: Building a House On The Corpses of Indie Developers

    I use Apple products often. I own an iPhone, mainly because the alternative – the Blackberry – doesn’t really appeal to me. The fact that I already had AT&T as my wireless provider greased the skids. Therefore, I run iTunes on my PC, mainly because it’s mandatory for me to sync my iPhone, but also…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for March 4th, 2010

    This hasn’t been a good week for Sony. First, the paid DLC from Heavy Rain wouldn’t work; they fixed that literally as I started typing this. Then, they had a bug come about in their older, “fat” model PS3 systems that makes the system think 2010 is a leap year, which rendered any game with…

  • Review: Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce (Sony PS3)

    Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce Developer: Omega Force Publisher: Koei Genre: Hack ‘n Slash Release Date: 2/16/2010 Koei is good for nothing if not ensuring that we will always, without fail, have a copy of Dynasty Warriors to play. They are developing a bad habit of releasing a game, then releasing that same game for another system…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for March 1st, 2010

    Sometimes, being a Nintendo fan gives that person something to cheer about, especially if they’re dealing with fans of the other two consoles. From innocuous things like “We have Mario and Zelda!” to obscure musings like “Hey, nice of your entertainment divisions to finally be seeing a profit!” to low blows like “We didn’t just…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for February 25th, 2010

    Last week’s PSN update was dominated by one big name: Yakuza 3. The demo was good, though the fighting engine pissed me off some. Since then, there’s been a spot of bother about the game, with the word that Hostess Clubs, as well as a couple of other cultural items, were removed from the game.…

  • Review: Hustle Kings (Sony PS3)

    Hustle Kings Developer: VooFoo Studios Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America Genre: Realistic Sports Release Date: 1/28/2010 I love playing pool, but when it comes to actually getting to play, I have two choices: either go to a crummy bar and pay $1 a table on crooked tables with warped house cues, or go to a…

  • News: Volleyball Minigame Coming to PSN Version of Castle Crashers

    Though there’s still no set release date – just a vague promise of a release slated for this year – Castle Crashers is going to have one leg up it’s XBox Live counterpart when it does release: a new Volleyball minigame that will be available to play online or off. Emil from The Behemoth posted…

  • News: Cave Story Announced for WiiWare

    Cave Story, also known as Dōkutsu Monogatari or 洞窟物語, will be seeing a release on WiiWare on March 22nd. Designed by Daisuke Amaya (aka: Pixel) in 2004, Cave Story was a freeware PC game with gameplay reminiscent to Super Metroid that became popular enough to warrant a freeware patch by fan translation group Aeon Genesis.…