Yeah, I do have to add a dot after every letter. That's how they roll on the box art.

So there was a delay with this review going up after I got it. Not because it's a game packed with many hours of play, no, pretty much the opposite... this game can be blown through in five or six hours. No, midterms are what kept me from posting. Also, reading week and a break from all things school.

As FEAR 2 suggests, there was in fact a FEAR 1, and it was a really good game. It was very new and fresh on the scene by comparison. Well, it was a shooter among lots of other shooters, but it added a hybrid of horror and action that I really got into.

FEAR 2 isn't too much different... well, the story is different, and the characters are a bit smarter and the guns are better, but it's the same feel of gameplay, just, much improved over the last one. You can grab pretty much anything in the environment and tip it over to make cover, enemies are smarter and flank much better, and there's enough variety in your foes to make it varied whenever it's in "shoot dudes" mode. In "scary" mode you're getting chased by a little girl and monsters you can't fight and all sorts of business, that creates a pretty excellent atmosphere.

Basically I really dug it, and you should definitely start with the first one if you haven't yet, but very worth your while.

In keeping with the recent "shooting dead things" kick I've seemed to go on, a couple new bits of news will hit the blog this week. First of all, I grabbed a copy of FEAR 2 before its street date of... today, actually. I've almost played the campaign through and will mess around in the multiplayer once ... I get around to it. Review on that is forthcoming. So is a brief stint on Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2, actually.

For now, zombie news: a new Left 4 Dead pack is on its way out for the 360 and the PC, for the price of free. Free is a great price, one I've always been willing to pay for cool new stuff. Anyway, the pack will have a new game mode, two new VS campaigns (the two that weren't finished for the retail release of the game), and ... that's it. Well, at least it's free. Survival sounds like a cool premise, though; four people in a small map, holding out as long as they can against endless swarms of zombies. Longest time survived wins. That's pretty neat, and it'll happen on 12 different maps... probably fashioned out of the current campaign maps, but. We'll see about that.

Next post will NOT be about shooting zombies! I mean it!

Fans of this BioWare (who is great, because they're a Canadian developer, by the way) space-type RPG will be... possibly dismayed to hear that Mass Effect 2 is no longer exclusive to the Xbox 360. It'll be released on the Playstation 3 as well as the PC when it does come out. It might contain one of those "timed exclusive" deals, where the 360 will get an earlier release than the other platforms, but either way, Ps3 owners will have a great new game to play when it does come out.

Mass Effect 2 won't be out until about a year from now, but. Big news is big news.

According to my best judgment, there should be an embedded trailer for the new Wanted video game... ...perfect.

So, in Wanted, you play an assassin with some sacred birthright... the film it's based on is very satirical and funny. The game draws action from all the best parts of the movie - if you want to go into bullet time, make shots that curve around corners and obstacles, and block enemy bullets by shooting them down with your own bullets, Wanted has got your back.

Make sure you watch the trailer in high quality.

Kotaku posted a recent bit about a new course being offered centered around the strategy and cold hard numbers behind... Starcraft?

UC Berkeley is offering this totally awesome class... well, I guess it's awesomeness is yet to be seen, but the outline sure looks good. As a pretty devoted fan of Starcraft I know there's an insane amount of depth to the strategy behind the game, more than enough to fill a term's worth of study on. But, earning credit for it...?

Well, its tournament scene is taken pretty seriously, and good players can more than earn themselves a living from tournament winnings. Like any other sport, reaching that sort of level takes insane amounts of dedication, and inevitably won't pan out for everyone. The mere fact that such a course that offers that kind of strategic planning is available, though, I think is a step in a really neat direction.

I loved Spore when it came out. Refreshing, intuitive, and for all ages (yes, I actually enjoy when a game manages to do that and still have me like playing it). This new expansion will add a lot more depth to the space stage of the game (as if it didn't actually have enough depth already).

The most massive change is basically how planets work. In the original game, you could fly from planet to planet, from star to star, around the galaxy. You could fly all the way down to the planetary level and interact with creatures and buildings and things while in your ship, but you couldn't actually land on the planet. Well, in this expansion that's exactly what you'll do: land on the planet and explore it. A lot more detail has been added to each planet, and a whole new "adventure creator" will allow your spacefaring creature to take on challenges or missions on the planets that are fully customizable and sharable through the Spore universe like the rest of their content. You can customize the terrain, climate, infrastructure, and all sorts of other business on your planets, then create missions and associated goals, like interacting with or killing creatures, collecting things, exploring terrain, and a lot more.

This expansion seems very LittleBigPlanet-ish to me. Essentially you're creating custom Spore levels to share and challenge other players. Which is, to put it in short, a completely badass idea.

There's also a lot more equipment for spacefaring creatures that can be attached in the outfit section of the game, from jump-jets (letting them make large leaps over terrain, for example) to special stealth helmets (that let you cloak) to great big laser guns (duh). The size and amount of these objects will obviously affect how well they perform, and you only have a certain number of outfit points to spend on these things so balance is always important, unless you want to make a creature MADE OF GUNS that just shoots anything in a five mile radius. And you know what? If that's the way you want to do it, Spore has totally got your back.

The creation tools look robust enough that you could construct a really fun and interesting story if you put a lot of time into the creation bit. The editing tools are just as dynamic as the rest of the game, so if you have Spore or are even sort of interested in it, you can get stoked up for Galactic Adventures' release this Spring.

This flash game is pretty awesome. It's still in beta form and it's only being developed by one guy, but it looks like it'll be a highly addicting flash platformer that's pretty faithful to the original game.

If you want to help him do some debugging by playing through and checking for physics-based bugs, you can get on the forums and let him know and help him improve the game. In my own youth I somehow never managed to be an actual all-out game tester for anyone ever... that would have been a relatively great job, though, you'd think. More pocket change for playing games and discovering errors? Please.

(EDIT: I read that again and it looks sarcastic. I mean YES please. Really.)

Then again, some companies play test their games a lot more hardcore than others. Valve is one example. They play test the everloving crap out of their games, they get all their friends and family to test the games for years to notice trends and fix as many bugs and quirks conceivably possible in their games. This is hardly efficient but it sure makes for a limited amount of polished product in the end.

Anyway, go play the flash Mirror's Edge game and do some playtesting of your own.

Check out the new template now that it's done. Looks like a blog now, more or less. Not too shabby.

In case you haven't heard, Guitar Hero is kind of a big deal. Already spinoffs like the Aerosmith and "Rock the 80's" expansions have hit shelves as fan service slash money grab pursuits. Now we have Guitar Hero: Beetles edition, which is more or less confirmed. It isn't a guitar hero game, per se, but it uses the same guitars and everything. It just allows them to sell the game as a separate product and grab an extra thirty, forty bucks from our collective pockets, as opposed to offering their songs as downloadable content for current Guitar hero players.

So, if you're a massive Beetles fan, this is one to look out for, but be ready to lose a few bucks over your passion. Then again, video game players have to put up with this frequently enough, I suppose.

Today, Paul Sham's World of Warcraft Paladin reached level 74. Those interested can check out his complete stats.

In more relevant news (sorry Paul), fans of horror games have something to look forward to this week, as a demo version of FEAR 2 hits the internets, as evidenced by FEAR 2's official blog. The Ps3 and 360 versions will hit on the 22nd of this week, while the PC version is due out shortly after at a nondescript time.

The full game hits shelves for the PC, Ps3, and Xbox 360 on February 10th.