Lionhead Studios has been known for it’s charismatic  leader Peter Molunex and it’s above average RPG games. Those games however have suffered from over promises from said charismatic leader and some poor co-op decisions. I’m not saying the games are bad, I actually really loved Fable II. They just suffer from some poor development choices.

Sequels are always painted as the bigger, better, and more bad ass(er) versions of their previous selves. Which is why you would expect Fable III to really shine in almost every area. The game was said from the early stages to have Kinect support. Recently Peter informed us that Kinect support would not be on the game when it shipped. This is what has me worried.

If they are cutting out Kinect support from the game, what exactly are they replacing those sections with? Do they pull them altogether? Were they even a substantial part of the gameplay? They were pulled because Lionhead felt the end user experience would not be polished enough at launch. Does that mean we get a shoe horned version in some DLC pack for 800 MS Points a couple months down the road? If so, that’s not going to fly real well with most people.

This not only worries me about Fable III but also quite a bit on the Kinect side as well. From what we the public know, Lionhead has had the Kinect hardware since the very beginning. They used the tech to make Milo, which is basically just a tech demo of sorts. So if they can’t get a polished product, how are these launch games going to play? It should be very interesting to see.

I’ll write more on Fable III in the coming weeks.

Every year I always look forward to playing the new installment of Madden. I love football and while I am a huge sports fan I don't get super serious about the online and competitive nature that is Madden Online. Every year it seems that EA does just enough to make each year a little different. This year is no different.  
 
The game plays exactly how you would expect it too if your a Madden regular. The biggest changes control wise are the lack of a turbo and the new pre-snap menu that has been moved to the d-pad. The no turbo button is really interesting and I never really understood it to begin with. The running game as a whole has been made much better and is definitely the best feeling the rushing has ever been. Wide receivers are also smarter about staying in bounds while making a catch which changes the game quite a bit. In previous years I would avoid certain plays and passes completely because I knew the wide receiver AI would just go right out of bounds. Blockers are also smarter but I didn't really notice a lot of difference. Good defenses will still challenge your running game just like they always have.  
 
It's not the crazy upgrade that we all want. But it is better in my opinion at least.  
 
note: game-flow is sort of redundant so thats why I didn't mention it. Madden has always had game-flow, it was just called ask Madden...

This was just an interesting idea I had a long time ago. Thought it would be interesting to do this with popular gaming characters that had well developed pasts.  It's wrote from the perspective of the character and hopefully you learn something you might not have heard/known. 
 

 I was 6 years old when I was taken from my family. While playing king of the hill in my school yard I was approached by a man and woman. They had seen me playing and were very impressed at how strong willed and intelligent I was. My singular focus on winning drew them to me.

The man and woman turned out to be a naval officer and scientist. I was shipped off to a military planet and was inserted into boot camp with 74 other children. We were told we would be the greatest soldiers the military had ever seen. We were trained by hardened drill sergeants that drilled us at the same level as adults. We were taught that we were not one, but a team. We learned to work together to accomplish our goals and became extremely efficient.  I wasn’t the strongest or fastest; I was however the strongest willed which is why I was chosen to be squad leader. At 14 I underwent physical and mental augmentation. My body was made stronger, harder and faster than any human could ever be. My skeleton was made to be practically indestructible; my reflexes were made 300% faster. I was now the super soldier they always wanted me to be. 74 of us underwent that augmentation, only 45 of us made it out alive, a dozen of which were so mangled and crippled from the procedure that they were reassigned to desk jobs. Those lost were my only family and at the time I somehow felt responsible for their deaths. It was my job to make sure my team was safe and through this mission I had lost my first soldiers. I was told that it was acceptable to spend lives at the expense to protect others, but wrong to waste those lives. To this day, I still think about if those 30 or so lives were well spent or wasted for no reason.  

 Years later I am thought to be the only one of my kind left. I have watched my brothers and sisters die in battle countless times. We were never listed as Killed In Action. It was believed that we couldn’t die, that we were gods among men. So when one of us perished we were always listed as Missing In Action. This was said to boost the moral of the other normal soldiers. It gave them the one thing they needed most...hope. 

I wasn’t made to fight the war that I inevitably was asked to fight. I was created to prevent civil war among humans. Humans however encountered a different species which was hell bent on destroying our entire race. I fought them for years and watched them consistently destroy entire planets without even blinking an eye. I stopped them in the end and gave everything to save humanity. After everything I was taught, everything they changed about me, there is one thing that I had from the very beginning that they could never have gave me…LUCK. 

I am John 117, Master Chief of the Spartans in the UNSC.      

Forge World is the next evolution of the original Forge from Halo 3. It is based off the original Halo 1 map Blood Gulch. This world however lets you finally leave the canyon to explore and create in the biggest space Bungie has ever created. So they gave you a great new place to make maps, now all you need is the tools. Also added are a ton of new features and items to add to the map. You can also make things float and phase them into other solid objects. Floating could be done in the original Forge through some glitches and other tricks. This time a lot of the glitches found in the original Forge have now been added as actual features.

This to me is what puts Bungie above the developers of other first person shooters. They are always adding huge new features and have never had a sequel that was lacking new features. Look at the Modern Warfare series. They still don't have a saved films system or any type of map editor. Then again, not many people even play custom games on Modern Warfare. Either way you should definitely check out the Forge World video above the post.