Over the last year we’ve seen a number of things that make for a promising future; many of those things are the games themselves, the entire reason we exist as contributors to this industry. Some hope to remove the boundary between gaming as an interactive versus a passive experience, while others aim to build upon a foundation in order to evolve with the standards.  The gaming industry is in dire need of a renaissance, and if we’re lucky, some of these games will be the start of it.

Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt RED is perhaps best known for bringing to life one of Poland’s most popular fantasy novels, The Witcher, but what many people don’t know is that they also run GOG.com, a digital catalogue of thousands of classic games no longer available in physical format. When word spread that RED was intent on turning the classic pen-and-paper RPG Cyberpunk into a video game, it just made sense. But not only did it seem right up their alley, it was something sorely lacking in the market. The cyberpunk setting is a road so rarely traveled in the gaming industry that often it feels watered down and underrepresented when we finally do see it on the screen. It’s most known for games like Deus Ex and System Shock, and of course popularized by movie classics such as Blade Runner and Brazil, but it’s about time we started to see the cyberpunk setting really make a name for itself in the gaming world and step out of the shadow of its younger, more popular, albeit less attractive brother, steampunk. And CD Project RED is the perfect studio to bring about that revolution.

Watch Dogs

When Ubisoft first unveiled their radical new IP at 2012’s E3, most people didn’t know what to expect. The vast majority was impressed, but left wanting more. Since then the Montreal-based team at Ubisoft working on the project has remained relatively tight-lipped about the project. The premise centers around the player’s ability to hack into any electronic device in the immediate area: street lights, cell phones, cameras – anything. Not only did the game look stunning, but it showed off tremendous animations and lighting that emasculates anything of recent years. This gadgets-and-gizmos open world game looks to shake the genre up and provide a sandbox experience like few others, and in our modern world consumed with the lust for technology, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Star Citizen

Star what? If you’re not familiar with this game, educate yourself quickly. Star Citizen is an upcoming space simulation game developed by Chris Roberts, the man behind the Wing Commander series. It is also, to date, the highest funded crowd-sourced project ever. As of November 17, 2012, it has earned over $4.2 million dollars from both Kickstarter and donations via the game’s main website, the latter of which is still ongoing. Star Citizen promises to bring immersion to the front of the table. Taking cues from Demon’s Souls and a little virtual sim known as real life, atmosphere will be Roberts’s top concern, wanting to make a game that not only looks and plays right, but feels right; one that isn’t bogged down by logistics and spreadsheets. If it goes off without a hitch, Star Citizen could quite possibly become one of the most important games ever made.

Dark Souls 2

I admit this is a bit of a personal admission on my part. I hold the Souls series to such high standards; it almost feels unfair of me to include it, near nepotistic. But one cannot deny the impact that this franchise has had on the industry. Demon’s Souls answered one of the most seminal questions that many had pondered over for decades: can a game with absolutely zero mass marketing, with an unquestionable sense of danger and urgency, be a commercial success? The answer was a resounding yes. Dark Souls took the series to another level by introducing a meticulously crafted, interconnected world full of shortcuts, pitfalls, and hidden rooms. Dark Souls 2, helmed by new directors Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, promises to retain the sense of accomplishment in a world fraught with peril that made the first two so genuinely satisfying, as well as the second game’s heightened exploration, all while refining and polishing up some of the admittedly rougher edges (like the game’s ingenious yet fickle multiplayer system, and the obtuse Covenants introduced in Dark Souls).

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes

The Metal Gear Solid series has always been on the cutting edge of technological advancement. Ground Zeroes hopes to take that precedent even further. The first-unveiled trailer for the game, coming in at near 11-minutes long, boasted some of the most impressive visuals seen in a game to date. Not only that, but the game’s cutscene transitioned seamlessly into gameplay without a pixel of lost resolution or texture quality. This kind of precision engineering is courtesy of the Fox engine, built from the ground up specifically for this game. If Kojima and his team can perfect that marriage of visual spectacle and interactive entertainment, then the future of the industry has just had its bar set pretty high.

In the next article, I’ll examine five more games that have the potential to make a serious dent in the state of modern gaming, but have equal the chance of becoming outright failures.

The post Looking Forward: Game Changers Part 1 appeared first on OWNT.

So, let’s get right to it, shall we?

10. The Darkness II

The original Darkness is one of my top five games of all time, so let’s be clear about this: there was little chance The Darkness II was going to surpass it. The removal of Kirk Acevedo as the voice of Jackie Estacado, and the shift in developers to a more dubious group of individuals set some pretty low standards for this game. But as it turned out, The Darkness II was a respectful continuation of that story that I love so much. And while the ending felt fairly rushed, and the game’s campaign was on the short end, the improvements to gameplay and Mike Patton’s incomparable return as the titular character secure The Darkness II at the tenth spot on my list.

9. The Last Story

Nintendo’s pun-friendly console refuses to die. Last year’s Monolith Soft’s Wii exclusive Xenoblade Chronicles managed to sneak its way up to the second place on my list, and this year, Mistwalker’s The Last Story finds itself on the back-end of my picks. Hironobu Sakaguchi’s love letter to the Japanese Role-Playing Game evokes memories of his first classic, the original Final Fantasy. With no shortage of obvious similarities in title, The Last Story is memorable mostly for its endearing and evolving cast of characters. Sure, the story is fairly typical and the combat is on the frustrating side of complex, but this ragtag group of individuals is one of the most genuine bunch you’ll likely find in any game this year.

8. Assassin’s Creed III

Ubisoft had a tough act to follow after their three-game epic starring Ezio Auditore da Firenze. And while Connor doesn’t exactly meet his ancestor’s charm or charisma, he definitely has the heart. Assassin’s Creed III’s thoughtful take on the American Revolution expands on the time-traveling wizardry of series protagonist Desmond Miles, while also setting up inevitable sequels in the best way Ubisoft Montreal knows how: cliff-hangers. Though the game was marred by a number of bugs, the struggle of Connor and Achilles, and the bonds formed with your Homestead inhabitants are things I’ll remember most fondly.

7. The Walking Dead

Few things can claim total multi-media domination like The Walking Dead. This long-standing comic series-turned-tv-show-turned-video-game franchise has become a household name in the last year alone. Telltale Games’s five-part saga about a convicted murderer, an orphaned child, and a number of other stranded survivors during the zombie apocalypse managed to do something that so many games of a similar endeavor fail at: it treated its source material with respect. Adaptations of licensed products often end miserably, with few exceptions. The Walking Dead series of adventure games is probably (no, definitely) the best use of a licensed property.

6. Far Cry 3

Massive island to explore; intelligent enemy and wildlife AI; the creativity to play how you want to; and one of the most fascinating villains in recent years; Far Cry 3 is everything good and just about shooters and open world games. Ubisoft brings the series back to its former tropical glory and shows us just what’s in store for the genre in the years to come. When you get tired of playing your standard run-and-gun military shooter or your 700^th round of team deathmatch, take a trip down to the Pacific.

5. Spec Ops: The Line

From a shooter willing to push the genre further, to one content to stay in the past. The strange irony is, for Spec Ops: The Line, it needs to feel like your average run of the mill war simulator. That’s the point. Where every other shooter of its ilk glorifies the art of war and killing, Spec Ops demonizes it, makes you question the value and entertainment of it. The genius minds at Yager Deveolpment sought to create a character so conflicted with his ideals about upholding justice and peace, while at the same time feeling overwhelmed by the immense prowess that he exhibits. This bold retelling of Joseph Conrad’s classic novel Heart of Darkness finds its hero, Martin Walker, in search of his own Colonel Kurtz – a once-revered war hero named John Konrad. The result is a game that treats its subject matter with the utmost respect and shows us that war is not a game, and one’s descent into darkness can lead men to do terrible, unimaginable things. Just remember: white phosphorus.

4. X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Oh, how I hate you, X-COM. And yet I love you so. You’re the abusive spouse in my relationship, the one I can’t stand to be around but I’m too afraid to leave. Every second I spent with you was wonderful agony. I lost many friends because of you, whose names are now etched into the hull of my underground headquarters. I vanquished much alien scum, shot down hundreds of UFOs, and researched countless projects. I even fought alongside the legendary Sid Meier in a few battles. I will never forget you, X-COM. But please, stop killing all of my units.

3. Max Payne 3

Max, dearest of all my friends. Rockstar did the unthinkable. They shaved your head. “Doomed!” was Max Payne, they said. They of little faith. You showed them, didn’t you? Unmatched physics, spectacular attention to detail, and the same soul-crushing feeling of self-guilt you were always known for. Sure, you may have toned down a bit on the long-winded analogies, but hey, you’re getting older. I understand. You’ll always have a place on my shelf, Max.

2. Rift: Storm Legion

On first consideration, I didn’t think to include this on my list. It’s just an expansion, after all. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how irrelevant that sounded. Besides, there’s nothing else on this list (either individually or combined) that I’ve put more hours into besides Storm Legion. They say MMOs are a drug, well let me tell you: they’re heroine. Trion’s sophomore launch didn’t go off without a hitch (unlike the release of the base game last year), but the expansion’s pound-for-pound value make it one of the most jam-packed content updates I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a long time. With more than triple the size of new real estate, a dozen new dungeons (either raid or party sized), more levels and classes, and the best player housing system seen in any MMO period, Storm Legion is a rousing success.

1. Dragon’s Dogma

You know a game is good when it tries its hardest to make you hate it, and you just can’t. Enter Dragon’s Dogma. Not since Deadly Premonition have I seen a game with such a conflicted sensibility about itself. On one hand, Dogma is a sprawling action epic with hundreds of exciting monsters to kill and miles and miles of land to explore. It has a tremendously diverse class system that allows you to mix and match traits from each one, and one of the most ingenious uses of passive multiplayer I have ever seen. And yet, on the other hand, the game’s quests system was archaic, the amount of on-foot traveling through well-ventured areas was borderline insulting, and the pacing hit a major lull in the second act. Despite this, if there’s one thing I’m most looking forward to seeing more of in the years to come, it’s Dragon’s Dogma. With some major refinements, this potential series could find its way up to my pantheon of RPGs inhabited only by a special few: Final Fantasy Tactics, Demon’s Souls, and Dark Souls. On a final note, Dragon’s Dogma has one of the most thrilling final boss battles – ever. (No, not the Seneschal. The other one).

Notable Absence: Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition

I wanted to include this on my list. I really did. Anyone who knows me personally knows I’d give Dark Souls “Sports Game of the Year” if I could. But as I considered it, I realized it would be unfair to the 10 games I did select to have to remove one of them to make way for a game I had already named as my favorite game of the year back in 2011. Though the Prepare to Die edition offers enough content on its own to merit some sort of recognition, the game, as a whole, was still merely a port to the PC with the inclusion of the downloadable content. In any case, there’s always Dark Souls II.

The post Top 10 Games of 2012 appeared first on OWNT.

If you’re one of the many many gamers on Xbox Live that can’t help but spout a bedroom or kitchen joke when you meet a girl online, then you may want to steer clear of Halo 4.

“I’ve seen many of the sites that have documented some of the more gender-specific slanderous comments,” Ross said.

“This is behaviour that is offensive and completely unacceptable. I’d like to think most of our Xbox Live players don’t support this kind of behaviour.”

Halo 4 executive producer Kiki Wolfkill (I want that last name) and 343 Industries head Bonnie Ross have spoken out against sexism on Xbox Live. They have said that there is a zero tolerance policy for any and all Xbox Live users who make sexist or discriminatory remarks towards others. Anyone found doing so is issued a lifetime ban.

“It can be dangerous to give adolescents a broadcast mechanism,” Wolfkill added. “There are always going to be jerks out there, and if you give them a way to express that side of their personality without being seen, you’re going to see this type of behaviour manifest itself.”

“As developers, we have a personal responsibility to think about how our games come across,” Ross said. “With Halo 4, we were very deliberate in thinking about who should be female and who should be male in the game, and if we came off stereotypical, we went back to question what we were doing and why.”

“Most people look at a franchise like Halo, and automatically assume it’s run by a guy,” Ross said. “People are surprised to learn that it’s a woman who’s running the Halo 4 show. When Microsoft created 343 Industries to take over Halo, I was given first choice to run the studio because I had proven myself. My gender played no part in it.”

Halo 4 is due exclusively for Xbox 360 on November 6^th.

Source: Gamespot.

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According to an inside source who spoke to Kotaku, the company was preparing a demo for the greatly anticipated sequel to their horror classic Eternal Darkness. The problem was that much of the staff on Destiny were taken off the project to help prepare that demo, putting the development process of the X-Men game in jeopardy. The source, who claims to be a former Silicon Knights employee during the situation, said, “SK didn’t take the development of XMD seriously the entire time I was there.” He goes on to cite company president Denis Dyack as a primary instigator, who appeared more concerned with developing the demo than fulfilling the request to make Destiny for Activision.

“At SK, publishers are viewed with an extremely adversarial perception,” claimed another source. “Instead of a symbiotic relationship, it was essentially parasitic. The less Activision knew about the goings-on at SK, the easier it was for Denis to spin his web of warped reality with them. He runs his company like a high school gym class or football team. He sets examples of those who offend him. He is incapable of celebrating others’ successes. He is irrationally competitive to a fault; for example, he has to sue Epic Games and gloat about it online . You’re either for him, or against him.”

It’s no secret there has been much hesitation when it comes to Silicon Knights for years now. Too Human lacked the kind of polish and attention they showed with their earlier games, and ever since the company split from Nintendo, much of the original staff has moved on. It’s a shame how karma works its way around to a studio that once showed tremendous promise.

The post The Story Behind Silicon Knights and X-Men Destiny appeared first on OWNT.

The news may not come as a shock to many who believed the network was doomed long ago. Earlier this year, popular video game critic and figurehead on X-Play Adam Sessler departed from the network, joining in the movement led by the exodus of Attack of the Show’s Olivia Munn and more recently Keven Pereira. Many fans of the original TechTV have since dismissed the network for becoming too commercial, and now it appears that it will be abandoning its video game culture entirely in favor of a more “modern male” approach.

Original episodes of Attack of the Show and X-Play will continue at their regularly scheduled times throughout the remainder of the year, and will include special guests as well as clips from the staff’s most memorable moments.

Below is the official statement issued by G4.

G4′s two longest-running and defining series, Attack of the Show! and X-Play, will be ending their run at the end of 2012. Both shows will include original episodes through the end of the year, and will look back at theirmost memorable moments as we lead up to their final episodes. A rotating lineup of guest co-hosts including John Barrowman, Michael Ian Black, Josh Myers, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel and Horatio Sanz will join AOTS hosts Candace Bailey and Sara Underwood, and X-Play hosts Morgan Webb and Blair Herter as part of the farewell shows.

With well over a thousand episodes each, Attack of the Show! and X-Play have defined gamer culture for a generation, serving as the launch pad for prominent personalities including Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, Chris Hardwick and Adam Sessler. Attack of the Show! debuted March 28, 2005 and from the start was the ultimate guide to everything cool and new in the world of technology, web culture, gaming and pop culture. X-Play made its debut almost two years earlier, on April 28, 2003 (on G4′s previous incarnation: TechTV), and immediately became the go-to destination for young men seeking the latest video game news, honest reviews, hands-on demos and exclusive video game trailers and footage. The year-end celebration will take you back through highlights of these landmark shows’ history, including its exclusive live-from-the-floor coverage of San Diego Comic-Con and E3.

Both long-running shows helped define, as well as expand, the pop culture and gaming TV experience for a generation. We hope you’ve had as much fun watching them as we have had making them, and sincerely hope you join us in bidding a fond farewell to Attack of the Show and X-Play’s as we look back over the next two months and head towards each series’ finale.

The post G4 to Cancel X-Play and Attack of the Show appeared first on OWNT.

Unfortunately, these screenshots don’t show very much. Take away the Nord helmets, the Dwarven Sphere and the Argonians and you’re left with some fairly generic fantasy-RPG screenshots.

Speaking of which, those Argonians are the most ugly lizard-folk since Morrowind. Perhaps it’s an early model or maybe they’re some other kind of Argonian, but they look like horrible, bug-eyed things with thin grey flesh stretched over vaguely humanoid skulls.

Aside from that, we can see that Dwenmer ruins are returning, although personally I’m hoping that since this game is set before the Elder Scrolls games, we might find that not all of them are ruins.

We’ve also got the return of the Ordinators, some fire atronachs, and some impressively designed new monsters to fight.

Also, some of the textures are pretty awful looking, with a lot of blurriness. I wasn’t expecting it to look as good as Skyrim, but I expected a touch better than this.

I’m still cautiously optimistic about the Elder Scrolls Online, but these screenshots don’t help to keep my spirits up.

You can find out more about the Elder Scrolls Online on the official website here.

The post Elder Scrolls Online Screenshots Released appeared first on OWNT.

In addition to new bosses, you’ll adventure across several new areas set in the ravaged land, discover dozens of new weapons and armor, and if you’re clever enough, you may even find a couple of old friends. The DLC launches tomorrow, October 23, in North America, and on the 24th in Europe and Australia. It will be available for $15 or 1200 Microsoft points.

For more details, check out OWNT’s review of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die.

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10. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (Nintendo Gamecube)

The first game on our list is one of the Gamecube’s greatest releases, a true necessity in any horror aficionado’s collection. Developed by Silicon Knights, the studio behind Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, and Too Human, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem was a pioneer in implementing the “sanity meter” which has been featured in several games since then, but rarely to the same degree of effectiveness. The time-traveling plot of Eternal Darkness will have you taking control of a dozen characters spanning 2000 years. What makes Sanity’s Requiem such a classic and stand-out horror game is its brilliant use of sound design, atmosphere, its downright unsettling presentation, and as I mentioned, its sanity meter. Eternal Darkness also contains one of the most shocking moments in video game history, and if you’ve ever played it, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

 9. Condemned: Criminal Origins (Xbox 360, PC)

Released to moderate reviews, Condemned: Criminal Origins was a fresh jumpstart to the horror genre. It combined gritty realism with macabre supernatural phenomena. The player assumes the role of Ethan Thomas, an agent of the SCU – or Serial Crime Unit – who is framed for the double-homicide of two of his fellow officers. On the run from the police, and in pursuit of the serial killer he was sent in to capture, Ethan becomes trapped within the fictional Metro City, a sprawling hive for those citizens whom society rejected – i.e., the “condemned.” To further complicate his hunt, the city is being ravaged by a mysterious event turning the inhabitants into deranged and aggressive savages. Though the sequel was better received thanks in part to improved gameplay mechanics, the first is far and away the more terrifying game. It blends the aforementioned realism with the unknown in a truly unsettling way, and what makes its novelty so memorable is that it will frighten you with things that should, under normal circumstances, be entirely ineffective.

8. Phantasmagoria (PC, Sega Saturn)

One of the more unknown entries on this list, Phantasmagoria was a controversial adventure game developed for PC in the mid 90s and later ported to the Sega Saturn. It was notable for being one of the first games of its kind to utilize live actors, but perhaps its most infamous legacy was the extent of its graphic nature. The content of the game by today’s standards might seem less than offensive given the advancement of the medium, but at the time it caused a serious commotion. Despite being banned in Australia and simply prohibited from being sold in many major retail stores, the game was one of the best selling PC titles of the year. It combined effectively unsettling atmosphere with a genuinely disturbing story. Playing more like an interactive movie, Phantasmagoria follows fiction writer Adrienne Delaney and her husband who have just moved into a secluded mansion formerly owned by a 19^th-century magician. The plot unfolds as Adrienne begins having nightmares elicited by the mansion’s dark past.

7. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (PlayStation 2, Xbox)

From the famed Japanese developer Tecmo, most recognized for their Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden series, comes this descent into the madness that is Japanese folklore and the paranormal. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly borrows elements from the Silent Hill franchise, but is enough its own terrifying beast to merit a place on this list. What makes this series so deserving, and downright unsettling, is that your only defense against the ghoulish haunts that threaten your life is a camera. It sounds silly, but it’s a brilliant mechanic. In order to ward off the violent spirits, you need to take their picture. You need to look at them to make them go away. It says a lot about confronting your fears if you’re able to make it through one of these games, and none more so than Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly. The helpless protagonists are twin sisters, one of whom walks with a limp from of a childhood accident. A childlike innocence draws the sisters on the trail of an unusual crimson butterfly which leads them through the blackened woods to a village bathed in fog, a proverbial ghost town where a failed ritual binds the souls of the dead to this cursed land.

6. Clock Tower (PlayStation)

From the series that pioneered the unkillable villain, Clock Tower’s Scissorman is one of the unfortunately lesser known stalkers of video game lore. True to his name, he hunts the player down with a giant pair of scissors. Where most horror games, then and now, award the player for killing as many enemies as they can, Clock Tower forced you to play cautiously. When encountered, the player enters a “panic” mode where he or she must struggle against Scissorman by repeatedly pressing the appropriate button. What makes him such a terrifying villain even by today’s standards is the constant, looming threat of his presence and the knowledge that you can do very little to defend yourself against him. His appearances are triggered randomly, or by progression through the game, and you may even find him waiting for you in places you might use for hiding. This kind of anxiety doesn’t come often enough in horror games.

5. Clive Barker’s Undying (PC)

Few names are as synonymous with horror as Clive Barker. The man responsible for the classic Hellraiser series ventured into the world of video games to lend a hand in shaping the concept of Undying. Developed by then-Dreamworks Interactive, Clive Barker’s Undying was the company’s last game before being consumed by EA. Set in a time rarely visited in gaming, Undying takes place shortly after World War I. Our hero, Patrick Galloway, is a veteran of the Great War who receives a letter from his friend Jeremiah Covenant detailing strange phenomena and events of the occult. Traveling to the Covenant estate on the coast of Ireland, Patrick seeks to aid his ailing friend who is convinced that a curse has destroyed his family and is what’s plaguing him. Undying utilized some interesting gameplay mechanics then not seen in any other First-Person Shooter, but what made it truly stand out was Clive Barker’s unmistakable touch. The atmosphere of the estate on which you’ll spend the entirety of the game oozes pure dread and the haunting soundtrack is certainly no comfort. The game’s major downfall was it its poor sales, enough to earn Gamespot’s “The Best Game That No One Played” award for that year.

4. Penumbra: Black Plague (PC)

Oppression. Claustrophobia. Darkness. If there’s one thing the small team at Frictional Games knows best, it’s how to scare the absolute daylights out of you. Where most horror games forsake the idea of what is actually horrifying in favor of greater shock value or action, Frictional, and their first attempt at the genre with Penumbra: Overture, embraced the idea of a more helpless, realistic protagonist. Though that game featured a very basic melee combat system, most enemies were still frightening enough that you couldn’t simply stand toe-to-toe with one of them. This led many players to abuse some of the game’s level design and outsmart the enemy AI by standing in places where they couldn’t reach, but where the player could still hit them, effectively taking the horror out of any situation. In the game’s sequel, Black Plague, Frictional fixed this problem by eliminating combat entirely, and the result was an absolute masterpiece of a horror game. Black Plagued also amplified the terror by crafting some truly nightmarish enemies, and as the players delved deeper into the Greenlandic mine shaft, the horrors of what happened there finally are revealed.

3. Silent Hill 2 (PlayStation 2, Xbox)

Some would hail Silent Hill 2 as the king of all things horror, and I will have to admit, organizing this top 3 was a very, very close race. The Silent Hill franchise is the premier lesson in a creepy atmosphere. There’s no greater fictional location in all of gaming that elicits as much unadulterated paranoia and disgust than Silent Hill. It’s a place literally born out of hell, festering with ungodly abominations that put most other horror enemies to shame. Silent Hill 2’s notoriety stems from its excellent story and use of psychological terror, earning it near unanimous praise from fans and critics alike. Perhaps the most unsettling scene from the game, and one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever witnessed, involves a Pyramid Head – Silent Hill’s mascot, for lack of a better term – a mannequin, and a very unacceptable sexual act. You know what I’m talking about, guys… If you missed out on this classic, you can still pick it up as part of the Silent Hill HD Collection released for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

2. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (PC, XBox)

In the world of fictional literature, there are no greater masters of horror than Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, the latter of whom is the genius behind the Cthulhu mythos. Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu” was noted as being the only work of the author wherein the actual entity, Cthulhu, makes a major appearance. Since then, the Cthulhu mythos has been adapted by and has influenced the likes of nearly every work of fiction, horror or otherwise: from Doctor Who to House M.D., from The Evil Dead to In The Mouth of Madness, and from Shin Megami Tensei to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Every one of these has shown some influence from the Cthulhu mythos, whether significant or small, but none have been more inspired by the world that Lovecraft created than Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth based on the author’s novella The Shadow over Innsmouth. A first-person adventure game that incorporates elements of a shooter, Dark Corners was a trip into the mind of a madman. The game was unfortunately marred by some detrimental bugs and glitches, some to the extent that they prevented players from progressing. But technical issues aside, Dark Corners of the Earth was a masterpiece horror adventure and one that anyone willing to lose their sleep must play.

1. Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC)

The second entry on this list by the team at Frictional Games, what they learned in their Penumbra series, they perfected in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. From gameplay to mood, everything was infinitely superior. The pure sense of hopelessness that permeates the Prussian castle in which you will spend the bulk of your time is so overwhelming, you may need to take frequent and perhaps extended breaks in between playing. There is a certain element of player immersion that is required. To absorb the horror, you must accept that you are Daniel, the character whom you control. In doing so, you will likely not experience a greater fear from any other game. When I talked about fear of the unknown in my introduction, this was the game I had in mind. Amnesia: The Dark Descent will remind you of what it was like to be a child afraid of the darkness in your closet or under the bed. Afraid of the unknown noises upstairs or in the next room. Afraid of everything and anything you cannot see. Don’t worry, it’s okay to scream.

The post Mike’s Top Ten Horror Games appeared first on OWNT.

Other features of 1.11 include a dramatic makeover to the crafting system, enhancements to the Planar Attunement system, a rebalance of all existing dungeons and raid content to match the changes to souls, and of course a brand new world event to herald the coming of Crucia. In a later phase of the event, the dungeon “Exodus of the Storm Queen” will be released, allowing pre-order players early access to witness Crucia’s dramatic prison break from her confinement beneath Iron Pine Peak.

Below are just a few of the highlights of Patch 1.11, “Tempest Rising.”

The patch notes for 1.11 are super incredibly long, so some sections have been linked to the appropriate forum thread rather than displayed in the patcher, particularly Calling and Crafting changes.
* World Event – Tempest Rising: For years the Icewatch, with the aid of the Ascended, have stood guard over Crucia’s icy prison in Iron Pine Peaks. New rumors rise from the east, claiming that the Dragon of Air is not captive at all, but is in fact biding her time while her schemes come to fruition. For the sake of Telara, Crucia’s rise must be stopped!
* The new dungeon, Exodus of the Storm Queen, will be unlocked in a later phase of the World Event!
* SOUL CHANGES: Major updates come to basically every soul in the game – you can find summaries below and specific Soul change details in the Calling patch note threads on the forums! Be sure to also check out the GENERAL COMBAT changes which apply to all Callings.
* PLANAR ATTUNEMENT is now shared among all characters, and has been converted to a simpler method of gaining levels – see details under PLANAR ATTUNEMENT, below.
* CRAFTING has also seen some significant tune-ups and has detailed notes linked from the forums.

See all of the details in full over at the RIFT forums.

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Earlier today, one final stretch goal of $4 million was added just before the final hours, which offered to use live instrumentation for the soundtrack, include developer commentary, and use any additional funding for enhancements to the overall game. While the Kickstarter fund came just shy of reaching this goal, the total amount earned for Project Eternity, including the donations through paypal which are not calculated in the Kickstarter pledge, have exceeded the $4 million mark.

The following image shows all of the additional content to be implemented into the game as a result of the exceeded goal.

A goal of $3.5 million was also included, which features the addition of “Big, Big City 2.”

Baldur’s Gate and Athkatla are big cities. Spanning multiple large maps with a ton of interiors, characters and quests, big cities are a lot of fun. Like strongholds, they also take a lot of work to do well. We’re going to have one big city in Project Eternity. Would you like two? If you take us on an exciting adventure to $3.5 Million, we will take you on an exciting adventure to another big city.

Project Eternity follows a proud heritage of computer RPGs developed by Obsidian Entertainment, including Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1 and 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 2, and much more. The first environmental screenshot was released for Project Eternity earlier this week. The game is being developed on a modified version of the Infinity Engine, used to create many of those previously mentioned games. It is currently scheduled for release in early 2014 as a PC exclusive.

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