The third installment of the "Red Faction" series is due in June of this year after an eight year leave of absence. The game boasts the same level of destruction that is seen in Red Faction and Red Faction 2 but with a swap from first to third-person game play.

The demo is 10-minutes long and with one simple goal: Take Mason, your character, and get back the miner's walking mech without getting your head kicked in. The Martian landscape is bland with a lot of the obvious red. I get it, the developers don't have a lot to work with when your setting is colonial Mars but it's still boring. There are a few scattered buildings around the area. All of which are completely destructible.

Your load out is your standard assault rifle, demolition charges and sledgehammer--which is god awfully powerful, you can tear down buildings with a few swings. The later two weapons are useful for ripping down the various buildings. The first time you knock one down to it's metal frame is ridiculously entertaining. Figuring out ways to demolish the Earth Defense Force buildings is the meat of this demo and it's too bad you have the 10 minute timer.

Unfortunately, being a one man wrecking crew is the height of the demo. Everything else has a been there, done that feeling reminiscent of GTA4. The worst part is the terrible AI for the enemies. Instead of having a real opponent the game takes the approach of throwing as many inept guards at you until you are gunned down. A lot of the time you can simply walk up to a guard and obliterate him with your hammer like Thor without him even thinking of running away.

The demo is interesting start but I wont give it another thought until the game comes out.

I've known that they were doing it for awhile now. I just never thought that would actually do it.
The proof? The International trailer.

What's going to be the next best idea after this? The Dragon Ball: Evolution game. Imagine the horror; a game based off a movie based off an anime based off a manga from the late 80's.

Damn I can't wait.

On Nov. 12, the ESRB released a new set of rating summaries to go into effect. Their press release states that all games since July 1, 2008 will have new content descriptors defining what’s in the game. While the content summaries have expanded, the actual rating of the games will stay the same, meaning the “early childhood” through “adult only” rating is here to stay.

This started the hamster wheels in my head turning. What exactly makes a game notoriously Adult Only?

To unravel this mystery I turn to my current distraction; Gears of War 2. There’s plenty of violence, a plethora of gore and enough cuss words to even make a sailor on shore leave feel dirty – let’s face it, that’s why we buy it. Yet the game is rated mature. Damn, AO games must be extreme.

A search on the ESRB’s website reveals 23 adult only games. Among their despicable ranks are the likes of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” with its sinful hot coffee, and the sex addicted “Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude: Uncut and Uncensored”. Sex. Cool. Where’s my gore, where’s my violence where’s my exploding heads?

Out of the 23, only five are on the list for any type of violence, ranging from animated to intense, and all five are rated for “strong sexual content”. In fact, all but one has to do with sex; and a lot of it.

That’s “adult only”? Sex! Bumping the ugly, the forbidden tango, the horizontal hula, creaming the coffee; that’s more taboo than chain sawing a guy in half while he lies dying on the ground?

Alright, but what about the ultra-violent “Manhunt 2” - after all, it was AO for a bit there – and the sexual innuendo rich “Postal 2”? These games have been banned by governments around the world for their violence and material. The ESRB must have a Hannibal Lecture plastic cage for these games! Nope, just mature; despite the ridiculously long content lists. In fact, Manhunt 2 wasn’t even among the ranks of the notorious 23.

There’s your answer. Sex is still the forbidden topic. Gamers can deal drugs, swear until we're blue in the face and run pedestrians over on the street, but we can’t talk about the human act of breeding or its pleasures.

No wonder we get a rap for being sexual oppressed and socially enraged. Look what the industry says is okay.

Side note: I am in no way preaching that the industry should be censored. It's wrong and unconstitutional

Valve had me at first person, four player co-op, zombie survival horror. “Left 4 Dead” comes out next week and I’m excited; more excited after I played it.

The demo had the first two stages of the first chapter and it’s fun as hell. “Left 4 Dead” shows the depth and polish that Valve is known for.

The visuals of the game are great. The world has a post-infection “28 Days Later” feel that throws you right into the head exploding carnage. Turned over big rigs, containment fences, streets littered with biohazard bags, it’s all there.

One thing that made the game real was the flashlight – wow, a flashlight…nifty I know. The beam stops about 20 feet in front of you. Keeping you guessing what’s just beyond your vision. The worst – and by worst, I mean best – part is the flashlight is attached to the barrel of your gun. Anytime you reload you lose your vision. This really sucks when your ass is swarmed and your getting the tar kicked out of you.

The inability to see coupled with eerie music with the soft, distant weeping of a witch zombie laying in wait somewhere in the area had me thinking more than once, “Oh shit, what the fuck, that a witch or a pile of rocks? Fuck I don’t know. Fuck it’s a pile of rocks… damn I’m such a pussy.”

The sound in horror is what gets the heart going; L4D is no different. I constantly had my ear to the ground waiting for the howl of a hunter. Wondering when, and who, the hooded bastard was going to spear to the ground.

A down fall is that the A.I. is touch and go. The first part of the demo has the survivors stranded on top of an apartment building, needing to work down to the street and into the subway. In the apartment building the Infected A.I. seems weak. I could walk into a room and wave my flashlight in the air like a crack addict and they would stand there, facing the corner and scratching their ass.

If this is a flaw, it’s overshadowed when the infected rush you. When they get going, the intensity is kicked to high and you’ll be glad you’re not alone.

If you don’t have four people in the lobby when you start that’s fine. The stand-in buddy A.I. is good enough to not get you killed and keep you alive.

Piece of advice, find and keep four people. The game expects you to work together and if you wander off, the game will punish you and your team for it. This is definitely the case when you run into boss zombies. Each requires a different tactic for you and your merry band of misfits to figure out.

Left 4 Dead constantly has you walk the knife-edge between complete disaster and barely surviving; making one play through feel different, yet vaguely familiar, from the last.

The lessons from this presidential election can be applied to World of Warcraft. With McCain and Obama battling for the hearts and minds of the middle class in America, I’m reminded of the forgotten middle class in the Eastern Kingdoms.

No really, keep reading.

Blizzard announced on Friday that subscriptions for the game have reached 11 million. That’s more people playing one game than people living in the country of Hungary.

The thing is all those people can’t be the hardcore, 40 hours a week Sun Well Plateau players. A lot of these people playing are going to be anyone that plays casually and will never see Illidan in the Black Temple.

Blizzard is happy to accommodate these players with a series of handouts if they use the “Recruit-A-Friend” program. Drag one of your unwilling friends that has a pulse and a valid credit card and poof, like a trick from the magician at your fifth grade assembly, you are up for a slew of welfare gifts. Eased leveling when you and your amigo are together – remember this is on top of the already watered down system – a super secret friend to friend decoder summoning stone - the super secret friend to friend decoder summoning stone is in fact, neither super nor secret and doesn’t decode anything - even the deluxe Zhevra mount, a terrible looking unicorn-zebra hybrid, that you get at level 30; remember, that’s after the lowered the level requirements from 40.

Seems so long ago when you had to bust your ass for that stuff.

What about those players that are completely consumed by the damp darkness of their mom’s basements, who’s only source of light is the soft glow of Orgrimmar on their screen; well, they don’t need hand outs. Blizzard is happy to accommodate them by pitting their guilds against - from what I’ve heard - absurdly complex boss fights and gear with godlike properties and DPS counts that will make your opponent shit their brains onto the arena floor.

What about – cliché, I know – “Jhett the Warrior”?

I know there are handfuls of you saying “fool, STFU you’re a casual player”. I’m not. I used to be hot shit back in the day, running Molten Core and Black Wing Lair when they were the dungeons to run. But, I’m in college now and I refuse to fall back into the darkness that consumed my high school days. Why? Simply, I got more shit to do

So, where do the middle class players fit into Blizzard’s game plan? What about the players caught in obscurity?

When I bought my copy of Fable 2 on Oct. 21, I was excited; really excited.

Why, because I fell for that sneaky British Tom named Peter Molyneux. Ever since Fable 2 was announced he’s been hyping the game up as the full and finished vision of what Fable was supposed to be: A riveting story with complex moral choices in a vibrant world filled with endless amounts of exploration.

Molyneux has made a good game; not a great one.

First off, the combat system is better. The problem with the original Fable is that the combat was so clunky that you had trouble handling the enemies they gave you, because you couldn’t get the controls to have split time reaction. This lead you into getting the shit kicked out of you every way till Sunday. Fable 2’s system is much more fluid and incorporates all three schools of attacks into your fighting style so you no longer have to focus on just one; that one was either melee or ranged because lets face it, magic in the first game was useless. The thing is the combat system is so easy to use that slaughtering the idiots that stand in your way is too easy. I could easily have taken on three times the amount of enemies in the game without breaking a sweat.

The world: bigger, yes. Better, No. the world is much larger in scope but still too narrow. The great outdoors of Albion feel more like a maze with trees with a dog who’s A.I. leads you into fence posts more often than anything useful.

The biggest problems with the game are that it lacks truly memorable moments. Molyneux said in an interview with IGN.com that there are going to be moral choices that will be so compelling that you will need to set the controller down and think about it before you make a decision. There is, at the very end of the game. If you look at a game that did story changing decisions well, like Mass Effect, Fable 2 doesn’t hold a candle to it.

The final deal breaker in Fable 2 was the complete lack of boss fights in the game. No, the Trolls don’t count. Why don’t the trolls count? Because they were in the first one and the first Fable still had a load of boss fight: the kraken, Thunder and ultimately Jack of Blades. Fable 2 kept leading you on like a drunken sorority girl to a boss fight that never came. The one time there was a partial boss fight was with Lord Lucien’s Lieutenant in the spire. Interesting fight, but not a boss fight; why? Because the freakin game says that the guy you are about to castrate and send packing to the river Styx is nothing special and the spire is cranking them out like lead painted toys from China. You later run into these archetype characters in the game whose fights are harder than the actual “boss fight”.

The complete blue balls moment was when the game comes to a climax with Lucien. You come face to face with him in his spire, a monument to his obsessions and tyrannical power. You have spent your entire life seeking revenge for the murder of your sister. He is the catalyst behind your purpose in Albion. Does an epic boss fight ensue? Nope, boss fight cock block; you end the game with analogue sticks left erect.