Titanfall is a first-person shooter for PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360 that released on March 11, 2014. First revealed at E3 2013, I knew Respawn Entertainment (comprised of many former Infinity Ward members who departed in the exodus during the creation of Modern Warfare 2 and creators of the highly renowned and truly fantastic Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) was on to something with their first game. Having waited years for an FPS title to live up to the likes of Call of Duty 4, Quake, Unreal Tournament and many other since come-and-gone games of the genre, Titanfall looked to have that spark that’s been missing for many years. I followed Titanfall closely and got into the PC beta about a day after it began. While it had some problems like flawed Origin integration, downtime (excusable due to it being a beta) and being limited to 60 FPS, I was hooked instantly. Respawn had got it right – they focused on the core gameplay experience. The movement was familiar enough to me, being a combination of Mirror’s Edge parkour-style movement as well as a basis in the traditional sprint-aim-down-sight-duck-for-cover playstyle made popular by the Call of Duty franchise. Once you score enough points and/or the timer reaches zero, you drop your Titan and can climb inside or leave it free to guard or roam the map on its own. Once inside the Titan, gameplay reminded me a lot of Halo. Titans have a shield that will regenerate if you spend enough time out of combat over top of a hull that cannot be repaired, similar to the mechanics in Halo. With a team of friends, we would perform maneuvers such as the “switchout” in which one of us would change places in...

Having your gaming account hacked sucks. There’s no denying it. You’ve elected to spend your free time as well as your hard-earned cash on a game, only to have it plucked away from you is the complete opposite of what you are trying to accomplish by playing the game in the first place. Even if you manage to get the account back, the paranoia will always be there. I for one know this all too well. A few weeks after the launch of Diablo 3 in 2012, account thieves swept the game (conveniently after long enough for me to reach the max level on my main character at the time ). I was one of many, many victims of these thefts and although I hadn’t played Diablo 3 in a few weeks, the theft of my account ensured that I wouldn’t be coming back for a very long time. Full disclosure: I did not have an authenticator on my account at the time. I figured my password (12 characters, upper and lower case with numbers) was secure enough to not need it and I consider myself a technically savvy enough person to not have keyloggers and the like installed on my system. For those of you who aren’t yet in the know: An “authenticator” is Blizzard’s second factor in their two-factor security approach. When you log into the game, you enter you username and password as usual, followed by entering a constantly-changing code generated by your authenticator. This can be its own standalone $10-ish device, or a free app on your smartphone (which becomes problematic if you’re like me and enjoy trying new ROMs on your Android device on a regular basis as the app generates its own unique ID and ties it to...

Today we’re going to be looking at Strike Suit Zero, an indie game from Born Ready Games and funded in part by a successful Kickstarter campaign. Strike Suit Zero is classified as an “Action Arcade Simulation” game inspired by Wing Commander, X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and more whereby you fly a blue ship around and blow up the red ships in space. No, seriously, it’s that simple. Strike Suit Zero is truly elegant in its design and sci-fi fans will feel right at home. The “Strike Suit” is part-fighter, part-mech that can transform between the two modes. The fighter mode allows you to move very quickly in a straight line with the fighter using traditional roll, pitch and yaw controls with an array of weapons onboard. By destroying enemies, you acquire energy called “Flux” which is used once you transform into the extremely powerful strike mode that allows you to move in all six directions, lock on to enemies and unleash a flurry of spectacular and extremely damaging ordinance as you take on vast fleets of cruisers, frigates, interceptors, torpedoes and more. Throughout the game, you’ll also fly a few other ships as well and eventually be presented the option to select your ship for the mission at hand. Some missions (such as those that take place inside a Nebula) prevent you from using the Strike Suit and instead give you a lightning fast interceptor or heavily armed bomber to keep the gameplay fresh. Each ship has its own pros and cons, handles differently and contains a different loadout of weapons which means you’ll be adjusting your playstyle quite a bit throughout the game. Without spoiling too much of the story, SSZ is about a wartime conflict between Earth and the human colonies scattered...

Last week, Microsoft finally unveiled its official entry into the 2013 console war: The Xbox One in an hour-long presentation streamed online. Being a hardcore gamer at heart, even though most of my PC (GOGO PC MASTER RACE) I still have a nerdy obligation to see what the next generation of consoles is going to bring. Xbox has been my primary gaming console for over a decade now. As much as I love PC gaming, there are some console-exclusive titles and even some games that just flat-out run better on a console. Part of me had high hopes for the Xbox One, even if only from the standpoint of “Yay, all of the PC ports will be slightly better now!” I feel like this video sums up the reveal quite nicely: TV, TV, TV, Calladuty, Calladuty, Calladuty, Sports, Sport Sports. The Xbox One is covering me in mainstream. Being a PC gamer who really only ever got into IT because of my interest in the “bleeding edge” of technology, this reveal really didn’t speak to me – which from a raw, pragmatic standpoint makes sense: I am not the mainstream. I am by most definitions of the word a video game “hipster.” …But so are many of the folks in online communities that are going to be taking a very hard look at their new product. Gamers want to play games on their gaming console, not watch TV while holding onto a controller. They want to see new and exciting IPs, impressive leaps in technology and graphics, innovative gameplay and all the other exciting buzzwords that you see floating around when someone is truly blown away. In my experience, this has not been the case with the Xbox One. Instead, it’s received a lot of...