THQ has just released their hit game Metro 2033 for FREE! That’s right, 100% free, no strings attached. All you have to do is follow this link http://www.freemetrogame.com/ and like the page on Facebook to reveal your product key. You can then redeem the key via Steam, or download the game directly via a link provided on the page and enter the product key during the install.
I already got Metro 2033 as part of the THQ Humble Bundle, but it’s a great game and nothing’s better than free!
Monolith Productions may be most well known for developing the hit games F.E.A.R. and Condemned, but they’ve also made quite a splash in the downloadable ‘arcade’ market with Gotham City Imposters. It looks like they have another downloadable hit on their hands with Guardians of Middle-Earth (available on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN).
If you’re familiar with the insanely popular League of Legends game on the PC (or DOTA 2) then you’ll easily understand how to play Guardians of Middle-Earth. GoME is a console version of these games with a Lord of the Rings theme, so you’ll be playing as characters such as Gandalf or Sauron. I’ve played a handful of matches so far and I have to say the game plays great on a console. Controls are quite intuitive. Hold right trigger for your basic attack while the face buttons are used for special attacks and abilities. When you level up, simply hold RB (on the 360) to open your abilities menu and press to corresponding button to quickly add a point to your chosen ability).
Guardians of Middle-Earth also spices things up by allowing you to upgrade your towers as you level up. The higher your level the more powerful the upgrade you can apply to any given tower. You can change their rate of fire, or build a barracks to spawn more powerful creatures.
The graphics are pretty nice and the map is well designed and nice to look at when you’re not frantically attacking (or retreating).
Guardians of Middle-Earth is available for $15 (1200 MSP) and there’s also a season pass available for an additional $15 which will grant you access to future DLC ‘guardians’ (the characters you play as) and other content. It’s certainly a great game to enjoy as you prepare to watch The Hobbit this weekend.
If you want to see the game in action, check out Giant Bomb’s gameplay ‘quick look’ which features 37 minutes of gameplay and commentary, below:
I love pretty much every video Chris Pirillo uploads to YouTube, but my all time favorites are his tech unboxing videos. Today he unboxed a Kindle Fire HD 7″ and 8.9″ live on YouTube and gave his first impressions. You can watch the recorded video below.
I’ve owned a 7″ Kindle Fire HD for about two months now and I absolutely love it. I use it to read books, magazines and newspapers, to watch movies and TV shows (especially Netflix and Hulu in bed), to browse the web, and lastly, to play games (such as Final Fantasy III or Angry Birds Star Wars). The screen looks amazing and the speakers are surprisingly loud compared to the original Kindle Fire (which I also owned, but sold to help purchase the Fire HD).
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Chris Pirillo is a long time tech journalist / personality and I’ve been a fan of him since he appeared on Call 4 Help back on TechTV. Today he runs LockerGnome.com where you’ll find all sorts of technology news and views, and he’s very active on YouTube (YouTube.com/lockergnome) with over 5,000 videos uploaded to date (with an accumulated 152,765,572 views) and several new videos a day.
A lot of people have been upset about the new redesign of YouTube that rolled out last week. I wasn’t really bothered by it, however now I’ve found myself having some difficulties. I used to enjoy browsing ‘trending’ videos, however I can’t seem to find that feature / page anywhere on the new YouTube. Is it gone? Even clicking on a category under ‘browse channels’ only shows channels, not specific videos related to those categories. I find this a little bothersome because now it’s harder to find new content outside of channels you already subscribe to. Unless you’re searching for something specific I can’t see how you’ll be able to discover new content.
Am I just totally missing a trending / what’s new page, or is there really no such thing? How do you feel about the YouTube redesign?
So I just found out about the THQ Humble Bundle today and I’m glad I did because there are only three days left to take advantage of this great offer. If you haven’t heard of Humble Bundle, basically they usually take a collection of indie games and let you name your own price and even name how much of that money goes to each developer, the two charities (Child’s Play and The American Red Cross for this bundle) and the people behind Humble Bundle (to help pay for their bandwidth and other expenses).
I purchased Humble Bundle 2 and 3 which included games such as Braid and Cogs. The THQ bundle, however, features a rather large collection of well known, full retail games.
If you pay more than the average donation (which was around $5.61 when I made my purchase) you get all of the games below:
Saints Row 3 (bonus if you beat the average donation)
Darksiders
Company of Heroes (and DLC packs)
Metro 2033
Titan’s Quest
Red Faction Armageddon (and DLC)
You can download these games direct or through Steam (via Steam product keys that are unlocked after your donation of $1 or more). In addition to these games you also get the soundtracks to several of the games in either FLAC or Mp3 format, which is a nice bonus.
Pretty sweet deal for as little as $6. Of course the goal of the Humble Bundle is to raise money for charity (and in the case of the Indie Humble Bundles, to raise money and awareness for indie developers) so it’s certainly encouraged to give more than the bare minimum (you can donate as little as $1 if you choose, but then you miss out on Saints Row 3).
Remember, you only have about 3 days left to take advantage of this amazing offer! Head over to http://humblebundle.com to get a great deal on this THQ collection and donate to a great cause!
The Art of Flight is one of the most visually stunning documentaries I’ve seen recently and I’ve been wanting to pick it up on blu-ray simply because of how amazing it looks in HD. Last night while browsing Netflix I was pleased to see The Art of Flight in the documentary section. If you haven’t seen it I definitely recommend it, whether or not you’re into snowboarding or extreme sports at all. At least watch the first 15 minutes and prepare to be wowed. It’s quite amazing.
I haven’t had a lot of time to play with iTunes 11 today before work, but I figured I’d leave you with some screenshots to show off the updated interface for now:
If CNET is correct, we’ll be seeing a revamped iTunes sometime today. Steven Musil notes that this will be the first major update to iTunes since iTunes 10 released in 2010, and it will have a revamped user interface with social networking integration.
I love iTunes and look forward to playing around with the new version as soon as I’m able to download it. The lack of social networking interaction is one of the only things I’ve felt iTunes has lacked. I’d love the ability to share songs I’m listening to (like Pandora allows) and maybe even share purchases and playlists. We’ll see what exactly Apple includes in less than 24 hours!
USA Today has reported that Microsoft has sold 750,000 Xbox 360’s last week. This number is quite impressive considering Nintendo’s “next-gen” (more like catch up with current gen) Wii U sold only 400,000 units during the same week. For some people the Wii U was hard to find, but I’ve seen them all over the place in EVERY story I’ve been to since its release. They don’t seem to be selling. Those who are buying them aren’t even that impressed with them (listen to the last few Giant Bomb Bombcast’s for example). Giant Bomb reports in their current podcast that in Black Ops II they haven’t seen more than 700 people playing on the Wii U while on the Xbox the number sits around 600,000 online players at any given time. Just saying. Go Xbox!
I see the title everywhere, and it seems you can play video games and not be a ‘gamer’, so what exactly is a gamer? Why are people obsessed with this label? I hear “if you only play Call of Duty you’re not a gamer” or “if you only play easy games, you’re not a gamer”. Why not? I don’t understand this at all. Personally, I play video games for fun and I’ve done so for over 20 years. I’ve owned a NES, GameBoy, SEGA Genesis, Nintendo 64, PSone, PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360 (in that order). Also an iPhone and Kindle Fire HD (mobile gaming). What does that mean? Why does it matter?
I mean if you enjoy watching TV are you a ‘TV’er’? ‘couch potato’? TV fanatic? The same goes for movies. Or cars even. Now I know there are people who are obsessed with movies and consider themselves some sort of movie hipster. And there are car people for whom cars are more than just a vehicle. But what difference does it really make? If you have fun playing video games, you have fun playing video games. That’s it. You might be part of a gaming community, be it Xbox Live, a forum, a website or even a blog. But does it really make a difference?
I’ll stop rambling now, I’m just tired of seeing the gamer vs non-gamer argument. Who cares. It’s a hobby. It’s a form of entertainment. If you play a game and I play a game, what’s the difference? Am I not having the same fun? Experiencing the same thing?
Gumballs Plays Games 