Why hello there! Long time no see. How have you been doing Destructoid? I know I have been gone awhile, but now I’m back and I have a lot of nice goodies for you all.

Alright, yeah, that’s not working. I know it’s been awhile since you’ve seen my smiling face. I’m not making excuses because if there’s one thing I learned about blogging this last weekend is that you guys don’t care for excuses. PAX was beyond amazing. If you ever have the chance, go and never regret a dime you spend. Between walking around the exhibition floor and picking up free swag and playing unreleased games, to randomly playing in the Rock Band tournament, to going to the PC free play room and kicking ass in Unreal Tournament III(which I’m picking up ASAP after playing it there), it was an orgy of gaming.

And that's not even mentioning the AMAZING community. More on those crazy cats in a different post.

But I don’t want to ramble and brag about how I got to go while all you cheap bastards sat at home and scratched your asses, so I’ll go ahead and jump into the game summaries. Be warned, most of the games I played were not the AAA titles as the lines for those games were WAY too long so I focused on the lesser known games. So if you haven’t heard of some of these games, don’t feel bad neither had I until I played them.


Developer: EA Canada
Release Date: Sept. 4th, 2008

I played this game for about 20 minutes with some PR dude and while he did kick my ass at it, I can honestly say I want this game….when it hits the $20 bin. FaceBreaker is a combination between a classic, arcade fighter in the tone of Street Fighter while being a boxing game through and through. If you are looking for a realistic boxing sim, look somewhere else because FB is definitely not that.

The controls are pretty basic with a high and low punch button, a throw and a block button as well as a super punch button. As you attack your opponent you build up a meter that, guess what, breaks their faces when fully charged and wins you the fight.

FB was a fun game if you enjoy playing silly games with friends. But as a serious gamer, and a sports games lover, this is not one to buy and play by yourself.


Developer: Blue Omega Entertainment
Publisher: Codemasters
Release date: NA

Ok, I was just walking along staring at the awesome Warhammer:Online area when this image caught my eye.

Needless to say I was intrigued. The image reminded me a lot of the character from The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. There wasn’t anyone playing at the station so I jumped on and tried it out.

The best way I can describe this game is that it is similar to Prince of Persia…but with guns. The version I played still had some issues with its controls; the camera system didn’t feel totally right and aiming your guns was pretty damn hard.

Unless the final version of the game is really ironed out, I don’t feel this game is a purchase. A rental sure, but not one laying $60 down for.



Developer: Midway
Publisher: Midway games
Release Date: November 10th 2008

Ok when this game first was announced I was a skeptic. I thought, “How the hell do you combine two universes as different as M.K. and D.C. and make it work? Superman should be able to destroy them all with one punch!” Needless to say, before PAX I had no excitement about this game at all and thought this was a horrible idea and would never work.

Man was I wrong.

I must have played this game for an hour. I would play a couple of matches and then get back in line to play again. I honestly can say I had the more fun with this game than with any other. And for a game that was met with as much ridicule and doubt as this one, I would have thought Midway would have had a bigger booth but they were in the very back.

This game is a definite must-buy when it comes out. I just hope the online is a polished as the game I played.



Developer: Pandemic Studios
Publisher: EA
Release Date: November 4th, 2008

LOTR:C was a tricky game to find. It was squished in-between the Mercenaries 2 station and the Mirror’s Edge station. Again, this was a game with short to no lines and since it was LOTR, it immediately caught my attention.

To give you an idea on what it is like, think Star Wars: Battlefront but MUCH better and in Middle-Earth and you have Conquest in a nutshell. The demo only showed the good side but apparently you can be on Sauron’s side as well, a neat little twist that’s a welcome change (I’m tired of being the damn hobbits all the time.).

In the demo there were four classes to choose from: Warrior, Archer, Mage and Thief. Each is self explanatory. Controls were simple in theory but in the demo, they were actually a little tricky to pull off right. The objectives for the battle (you were fighting in Minas Tirith at the end of the third movie) were not very informative and those damn trolls were WAY overpowered.

The demo was also very buggy, so I’m hoping what I saw and played was just that; a demo, and unfinished version of the game. But being a huge LOTR nerd, I’ll be buying this game as soon as it comes out. I mean, it does have some multiplayer modes as well as Co-op, so all my fellow LOTR geeks can circle-jerk each other.

I played a few others, but really nothing worth mentioning here. I also tried out some of the MMO’s coming out soon as well as Guitar Hero: World Tour but really GH:WT is just GH with drums.

As for my epic PAX recap, that's coming as soon as I upload all the videos and pictures off of my computer. Sorry, I've been really lazy. Just know that I do love you all and you all will get some epic credits.....eventually.