The wait is over! Bioshock 2 is finally out! But does it live up to all of the hype and fame of its predecessor? Fans certainly hope so.

The bizarre story takes place 10 years after the events of the first game. This time you take on the role of a Big Daddy who is looking for the Little Sister he was originally paired with. Bid Daddies were featured in the first game and were heavy hitting enemies, as well as the Little Sisters. Big Daddies are seemingly human like creatures with their skin and organs grafted to an atmospheric diving suit. You will be playing the role of one of the original Big Daddy creations.

He searches for his Little Sister amidst the underwater city of Rapture, a utopian city gone wrong that is full of awful genetic experimentations. You soon learn of a new leader of Rapture, a psychiatrist named Sophia Lamb, who is soon to be the reason for the annihilation of Rapture. It’s up to you to find your Little Sister and to stop Sophia Lamb… if you can. Along the way you will learn new horrors about Rapture as well as discover the reasoning behind little girls being taken off the Atlantic coast and down to Rapture.

The feel of the game is the same. Dark, violent, and menacing environments, as well as constant battles with genetically engineered Splicers, other Big Daddies, Big Sisters, and of course Little Sisters.

You can destroy the Little Sisters so that you can harvest ADAM from them. ADAM is used to level up your Plasmids, which are special abilities. Or you can adopt the Little Sisters. If you adopt them, the Little Sister will help you look for corpses to harvest ADAM from. But if you adopt a Little Sister, be prepared to protect her from the vast and many threats found in rapture. Killing a Little Sister for their ADAM or saving them is a moral decision that does affect the game. Big Daddies were in fact originally created to protect the Little Sisters after all.

Some of the Plasmids you will be able to use are:

Hypnotize: Targeted enemy attacks another enemy

Electro Bolt: Electrocutes enemies

Decoy: Creates a decoy to distract enemies

Along with Plasmids you can also make use of tonics. Tonics can raise melee attacks or defenses. They can also raise the amount of ADAM your Little Sister collects from a corpse. There are even tonics that cause elemental damage as well as protect you from it.

There are many types of weapons and ammunition to destroy your foes with. Battle is engaging and quite frightening. But you will find the controls to be easily managed and as fluid as they were in the last game. You can gut them with a drill, or even blow them to pieces with a launcher. You will also have use of a hack tool that can hack security cameras and turn enemies into friends. Lastly make use of a research camera to give you bonuses to aid you in battle.

The environments of Bioshock 2 are gorgeously made. The soundtrack and voice acting is as superb as always. But where it will really shine is with the story, which gets creepier as you progress along.

Bioshock 2 is unfortunately a short game. It will only take about ten or twelve hours to complete it. Another issue is that you have to be close to the end of the game before your Big Daddy realizes all of his true abilities and potential. At this point of the game however, you will be met with a jaw dropping plot twist that was well worth the wait.

Although the game is short, there is the possibility of having one of four endings. Since the endings are unique and the game itself is short, I suggest you play though another time to see a different ending or two. The ending you see is based on decisions you made as you played through the game. Were you a soulless killer, or were you merciful?

One aspect many fans of the series will enjoy is the multiplayer mode. There are 7 different ways to play in multiplayer mode such as: ADAM grab, Civil War, Capture the Sister, etc . In multiplayer mode, the story is actually a prequel that takes place before the events of the first game. At this time the people of Rapture were at civil war with each other.

Bioshock 2 is available for XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and for PC. It has an ESRB rating of M for mature. This is because the game features: blood, intense violence, strong language, and sexual themes.

Heavy Rain, a newer release for the PS3, has been widely speculated upon for a long time up until its recent release. Now that the game is out, you may find yourself asking what the fuss is about. Well, you will be pleasantly surprised. This game is definitely a change of pace as it is unlike anything else out on the market.

Heavy Rain is not your typical game. This game is about a story and watching it unravel. It isn’t about leveling up or recruiting teammates. It is a psychological thriller revolving around a hunt for a criminal called the Origami Killer. The mystery of the game unravels as you follow the story of 4 characters whose paths intertwine. Each of these people has their own story and path to follow as they each try to find clues leading to the Origami Killer. They all have their own perspectives, actions, and decisions that affect the path of the game.

The first character is Ethan, a troubled father whose son has gone missing and will soon be the next victim of the Origami Killer. Ethan must go through a series of trials the Origami Killer has left for him in order to get clues as to his son’s location. The other three characters that you will play are an investigative journalist, a private investigator, and an FBI profiler.

As you go through the game, you’ll switch between the 4 characters as you look for clues and try to track down the criminal. As you play, on screen prompts will appear letting you choose one decision or another. Some of these decisions seem simple enough, like whether or not to let your son win at a game. Other decisions will leave you biting your nails while trying to decide what is best, like deciding whether or not to fire your gun. These decisions in fact will dramatically impact the game in some situations. How they will impact the game depends on all of the other decisions you made previously. The possibilities seem almost endless.

It is possible for your characters to die in the game. If a character dies, due to some decision you made, you will just move on to the other characters. However, you won’t see the entire story, you won’t be able to get all of the clues, and you will only see the remaining character’s perspectives. It is actually possible for all of the characters to die! In this case… you probably will get a bad ending to the game. Speaking of endings, this game has multitudes of them. The ending you see will be decided on what decisions you made and what paths you chose.

Heavy Rain goes through chapters. Although it is possible to replay chapters to see different outcomes, I would suggest just playing all of the way through. The game can be beaten in about eight or nine hours. If you want to see another ending, play through it again and make different decisions! The replay value is high as there are so many paths to take and outcomes to see!

This game is slow to get going, but once it starts you won’t want to put the controller down. The story is intense and emotional. You literally watch as your decisions shape the story around you. The onscreen prompts sound as if they may be annoying, but they actually flow with the story seamlessly. You really will feel like you are right there in the story!

The soundtrack has a tempo that fits the mood of the game superbly. The voice acting is good, but the dialog itself is excellent and well written. As for the graphics, well let’s just say you can tell what the characters are thinking based on their facial expressions! In fact, the visuals are quite impressive and well ahead of its time.

If you want to play a game unlike any other, then this is the game for you. Never has there been a game so captivating and enthralling as Heavy Rain. Nor has there been a game that has looked this good in a while!

Heavy Rain is available for the Playstation 3. It has an ESRB rating of M for mature. This is because the game features intense violence, blood, strong language, sexual content, nudity, and use of drugs.

HeavyRain is available at Newegg.com for $56.99 with free shipping.

So we’ve seen the old year out and are busy welcoming the new year in; it’s time to take stock, to draw up the lists of who topped what charts for last year. If you are a fan of Nintendo Wii games, here’s a chart you might appreciate. Wii Play is a blockbuster by any standard, having sold in excess of two million pieces this year. It couldn’t be as great as it was the previous year, which was about 50% northward of that figure, but it still is showing remarkably lasting appeal. Its popularity is helped along some would say, probably by the free inclusion of an extra Wii controller. The Wii Sports Resort title , like the first Wii Sports, does best with tightly-packed tiny games; with the Motion Plus peripheral attachments, of course, the game had to sell in excess of 2 million.

The Wii Fit is a reason why parents around the world make an exception for this game console, over others like the PS3. The Wii Fit has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide in the two years it has been around. The concept is pretty impressive in its ability to get people actually exercising. How much fun it is to exercise in front of your screen, and watch the character within do exactly as you do, and often instruct you on the your technique? This certainly is one of the best concepts of all Nintendo Wii games around; for an idea that was widely ridiculed when it first came out, they certainly are doing well.

The old Nintendo mainstay, Mario Brothers has made it over to the Wii too, of course – this time, with multi-player functionality. There are more than one million copies sold of this avatar of Mario; it surpassed all other Wii games to become the best-seller among all other Nintendo Wii games within two weeks of its release. For a game character that is 24 years old, this is quite impressive. The Mario Kart title on the Wii hasn’t let the Mario franchise down. It’s actually sold more than 2 million copies, and it sells for just as much today in retail as it did when it was first released nearly 2 years ago. Now that is saying something.

The Rock Band series for the Wii hits just the right note for the holidays. It has different genres for different tastes; the Lego Rock Band title is for little children, with visuals inspired by the building block classic, the Beatles Rock Band title is for admirers of the Fab four, and focuses exclusively on their hits, and the standard Rock Band 2 is for all headbanging enthusiasts. There is so much that can be done with a game console that allows for natural movement. The Wii is now the top-selling console in the world, ahead of the Xbox or the PS 3, and certainly is Nintendo’s best-selling idea. The versatility of the console and the wide variety of people it appeals to has to be one of the main reasons for it’s success. And these Nintendo Wii games have carried the torch for the motion sensing console so far; next year can only be better.

When the DS Lite first made its debut in the U.S., the only available color was the generic Polar White. This had some gamers grumbling, seeing as when the DS Lite was released into the market in Japan it came in the additional options of Ice Blue and Enamel Navy. Since then, the color scheme has been expanded and customers are able to choose models that better suit them.

One of the new colors is Coral Pink. A Coral Pink DS Lite is really just a pink DS Lite rather than coral colored. It’s never been said outright, but it’s pretty obvious that the purpose of the pink DS Lite is to attract female gamers. When you see the DS Lite on TV, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll see commercials with guys crowded around a pink DS Lite and having a blast. It’s more likely to be girls playing games like Nintendogs and Cooking Mama.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a pink DS Lite—definitely there are girls and yes, some guys that it will appeal to and it’s just a matter of preference. However, it’s kind of eye-rolling when companies insinuate that all girls will gravitate to “girly” colors and games. Some girls will play Nintendogs on a pink DS Lite, and other girls might play The Legend of Zelda on a black one. Or some girls might play The Legend of Zelda on a pink DS Lite and vice versa. And some guys might play Nintendogs on a black DS Lite, and…you get the idea. The point is that gaming, like many other things in life, isn’t a dichotomy and again like many other things in life, it gets dichotomized.

It’s not that Nintendo should stop marketing the pink DS Lite to girls—it’s that they should market it to everyone. Because as things are now, God forbid you should see a guy going near anything pink. Granted, such stigma has considerably decreased in recent times but it’s still there. A guy being able to wear a pink shirt might pass as metrosexual manliness but it wouldn’t fly as well if he was surrounded by pink and sparkles and domestic activities. In fact, a guy wearing a pink shirt possibly enforces gender dichotomy even more as if to say, a guy is and should be so masculine that even when he wears a pink shirt he maintains that masculinity.

Overanalyzing a piece of machinery? Maybe, but you can’t deny that media is pervasive and its influence goes undetected. In the meantime, the pink DS Lite is available at a store near you or online for discreet purchase.

Ever wanted to connect your DSi to the Internet? Well, after following the steps listed in this tutorial, you should be well on your way! First, you must check to make sure that your own or have access to the following devices:

> A Nintendo DSi
> A Wireless router
> An Internet connection (Broadband is recommended, but a Dial-up connection will also work)

By connecting your game system to the Internet, you’ll open up a whole new world for yourself. You’ll be able to play Wi-Fi enabled games against other players around the world, search the web, perform system updates, and much more.

Setting up the system is actually quite easy, and only requires a few technical steps. This tutorial will be broken up into two sections, which covers setting up your DSi using the main menu or by using a Wi-Fi enabled game. Which ever method you choose will produce the same end result.

Note: A lot of restaurants, hotels, and stores are now providing free Wi-Fi access, so if you are any of these places and can find a connection, go for it!

Connecting your DSi (Regular method)

1. Power on your Nintendo DSi.
2. After the Health and Safety screen, you’ll be greeted by the DSi menu.
3. Find and select the “System Setings” icon. If you haven’t adjusted the order, it should be at the extreme left.
4. From here, press the over arrow 3 times (or tap the “3″) to navigate to the 3rd menu. Click on the “Internet” option.
5. Now, simply choose “Connection Settings”.
6. Select any connection that you would like to use (1-3). If it says “None”, then you can set up a new connection by tapping that option.
7. Select “Search for an Access Point”.
8. If there are any Wi-Fi connections within range, it will find the connection. Select the appropriate connection (most likely your router’s name) to connect. If your router uses a WEP key, then the DSi will prompt you to enter it.
9. It will then test the connection, checking for internet availability.
10. If everything goes right, then your connection will be confirmed and then you’ll be able to connect to the Internet from your DSi. Congratulations!

Connecting your DSi (Wi-Fi game method)
1. Power on your Nintendo DSi.
2. After the Health and Safety screen, you’ll be greeted by the DSi menu.
3. Insert a Wi-Fi enabled game. Examples include Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Tetris DS, …
4. Within the games main menu, go into the game settings and then select “Nintendo WFC Setup”
5. This menu will allow you to set up your Wifi settings similar to the regular method.
6. Follow steps 6-10 from the Regular method listed above in order to connect your DSi.

The members of the original Nintendo generation have begun to enter their 20s and 30s. Many of them even have children of their own. For many, the onset of adult life comes with an occasional desire to revisit some of the simple pleasures of youth, and there can hardly be a better way to do this than by replaying some of the classic console games that gave us so much pleasure in childhood. Unfortunately, classic Nintendo and Super Nintendo games were cartridge-based and extremely sensitive to dust and corrosion, and when the delicate metal contacts on these cartridges were dirty, the games would often refuse to function at all. When buying a classic Nintendo game on the secondary market today, this problem is even more likely to occur as the vast majority of used cartridges that are available have been improperly stored for two decades or more. Thankfully, with just a few household items, it is possible to restore these games to their original operation while avoiding the inflated prices that are charged by game retailers for cartridge refurbishment.

Getting Started

Before you begin restoring your classic Nintendo games, you will need a fully-functioning and clean Nintendo console. Nintendo games are equally as susceptible to blinking and non-playability if the console is dirty as they are if the games themselves need to be cleaned, and it is far more difficult to clean the inside of a console, which was never meant to be opened by the end user. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you purchase a refurbished Nintendo console to enjoy your games with a minimum of hassle. Alternatively, several clone consoles are currently available which emulate the original hardware to near perfection. The FC Twin is a popular example of this; it is able to play both Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, and generally costs under $50.

Supplies Required

Before you begin cleaning your classic Nintendo games, ensure that all of your supplies are laid out in front of you in a manner that is accessible. You will need some isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, a large supply of cotton swabs, a small dish or cup, and a place to dispose of your dirty cotton swabs. Because alcohol is a highly flammable substance, do not smoke or leave an open flame in the area where you will be working.

Cleaning Your Games

Pour some of the alcohol into your dish. Alcohol evaporates quickly, so using a separate dish will allow you to close your bottle while you work. Wet a cotton swab with a generous amount of alcohol, and rub it across the contacts of your cartridge. Work in an up-down motion, rubbing with the direction of the cartridge’s contacts rather than against it. This will prevent the fibers of the cotton swab from becoming lodged underneath the contacts. When you remove the cotton swab, you will find that it is dark with grime. Dip the other side of the cotton swab into the alcohol, and repeat. Do this only once for each side of the cotton swab; this will avoid recontamination of the alcohol and prevent dirt from being re-deposited onto the cartridge’s contacts. Once both sides of the cotton swab are dirty, discard it and begin cleaning with another one. Ensure that you are cleaning both sides of the cartridge’s contacts, and continue this process until your cotton swabs no longer pick up any dirt.

Once your Nintendo games are clean, leave them out and allow them to air dry for at least 3-4 hours. If you wish, you may use a fan to aid in the drying process, but do not blow into your cartridges. The saliva in your mouth could trigger corrosion, eventually rendering the game unplayable. After the cartridges are completely dry, you should be pleasantly surprised to find that they play exactly as they did when they were new.

NOTE: To extend the life of your classic Nintendo games, always remove them from the console when you are done playing with them, and place them into dust covers. Dust covers are available online and in retail game stores for pennies each, and can help to prevent grime from re-accumulating inside your cartridges and avoid more time-consuming cleaning projects.

Although the graphics and sound of modern console games greatly outclass the technical capabilities of the games that were made decades ago, restoring and playing classic Nintendo games proves that great gameplay is timeless. The simple steps that have been outlined in this article will restore your cartridges to pristine working condition, enabling you to continue enjoying them for many years to come.