FREE Vol 4 Issue 1 * Gaming Articles, Monthly Editorials & Remarkable Stories
Celebrating Over 2 Years in Publication!!!
Jan 2010
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Jack R Stewart jrstewart@ogopublications.com Editor In Chief
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Jack R Stewart jrstewart@ogopublications.com
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Other Credits Contributing Authors
Contributing Websites
Other Supporters
Icv2.com
James Henry - MidOhioCon midohiocon.com
Gamerscircle.net
YO! Games yogamesonline.com
Gamingreport.com
The D20 Girls Project d20girls.com
Gamepolitics.com
Main Street Comics and Games mainstcomicsandgames.com
Reuters.com
Nekoblitz Furry Social Community Nekoblitz.com
destructoid.com Many Other Online source were used, if we forgot one. Please inform us and we will make sure to correct it in a future edition. GAMERS Newspaper is published 13 times per year. Manufactured and Published in the United States of America, the Editor welcomes submissions from all sources. Such Submissions should be addressed to: Editor, GAMERS Newspaper is a Copyright of OGO Publications. Products named in these pages are trade names, or trademarks of their respective companies. The publisher shall not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of the advertisement. The publishers liability for other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is limited to republication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue or the refund of any monies paid for the advertisement.
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The D20 Girls Project Presents: The Ultimate Gamer Girl Competition/Pageant! This is not your typical Beauty Pageant. Girls will not be judged on how hot there are in a bikini or how poised they are waling down a runway. We will be doing a series of online competitions from February thru May based on a point system to determine 10 finalists. Those Finalists will appear at an upcoming convention in Columbus, Ohio (TBA) to participate in a number of Live Competitions at the convention. There the Winner will be announced. We will be focused on promoting healthy competition & a positive image for Female Gamers:
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Grand Prize is $1000 USD You must be over the age of 18 before May 1st 2010. You must be a 'Gamer Girl'. You must be Female.* You must be a U.S. citizen. You must never have been convicted of a felony crime. You DO NOT NEED TO BE a Model for The D20 Girls to Participate, nor will it help. You will be subject to a registration fee ($20). Preliminaries will be held primarily online from Feb 4th - June 1st. Finals will take place at a large convention sometime in or after June, yet to be named. Registrants must agree that they will be able to travel to Ohio for the finals should they be chosen as one of the top 10 finalists. There will be a small $50 additional participation fee for those making it to the finals. Any contestant and/or family member or guest showing less than sportsman like behavior will lead to the disqualification of the contestant. No refund will be given under these circumstances. Contestant agrees to abide by all rules and regulations of the Competition/Pageant Contestant will permit the right to use contestant's photograph for publicity purposes in connection with all D20 Girls' Ultimate Gamer Girl Competition/Pageants Contestant will permit the D20 Girls' Ultimate Gamer Girl Competition/Pageant to televise live or by use of film or videotape any portion or all of the competition. Contestant understands that the D20 Girls' Ultimate Gamer Girl Competition/ Pageant reserves the right to change the dates & location of the D20 Girls' Ultimate Gamer Girl Competition/Pageant. These rules are subject to change. Visit http://UGGC.D20GIRLS.COM for more info G.A.M.E.R.S.
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Star Trek Online pre-orders topping Direct2Drive sales Some people may be apprehensive about the speed with which Cryptic is rolling out Star Trek Online, but that isn't slowing down the pre-orders at all. It seems that the majority of fans remain anxious to get their hands on the game. For the week of December 27th - January 2nd, pre-orders of the Star Trek Online Digital Deluxe edition took the number one spot for sales at Direct2Drive. Pre-orders of the regular edition of STO made a showing as well, coming in at number ten. Cryptic isn't the only studio enjoying last week's sales figures. Aion is still selling well, and came in at number four last week. They dominated the D2D sales shortly after launch, grabbing the top two spots (Collector's Edition and Standard Edition) at both D2D and Steam at the end of September, and remaining in the top ten even into November. STO is scheduled for launch in less than a month, so keep your eye on Massively for continued coverage as release day approaches.
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Join our Aviator GoHst for some fun! January 15-17th, 2010 As our Ghost Of Honor, we will have panels and events featuring the person who brought flying to new heights, Amelia Earhart! We will have some panels, gaming, events, and a Dealers Room appropriate to an adult Relaxacon! Saturday Reception – relax with your friends before the Casual party with a cash bar and cheese tray 7-9 PM! Sunday Morning Brunch will be tried again to see if we have 25+ signups by January 1st. We will be having a members-only midnight swim in their indoor pool with Hot Tub. If you are not into swimming, you can sit in the Hot Tub and watch! A Barfleet Party on Saturday night will be the capstone of a serious Con Suite with food and drink for all! A Sunday Raffle for whatever odds and ends we can scrape up. Ask last years’ attendees what they got! Come On In! The water’s fine! Doubletree Hotel 175 Hutchinson Ave. Columbus, OH 43235
http://www.deCONpression.org Back on the MLK Weekend again! Lots of the usual hospitality and slack! Amelia Earhart is our Ghost of Honor – and she may make an appearance!
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Marvel Studios announced that their next project will be Captain America The president of production at Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, who also produced Iron Man revealed Captain America is in the works. “We’ll have to play with Captain America as being a patriotic propaganda machine on one hand but also being a very human Steve Rogers, … [an] interesting, fascinating hero in his own right,” Feige told reporters on the set of Iron Man, which is in production in Playa Vista, Calif. Fiege revealed that the story is a period piece with modern-day setting as well. It will likely be a PG-13 film. The writer David Self (Road to Perdition) is drafting the screenplay. Feige also announced Marvel’s future projects including: Sub-Mariner, Punisher 2, Thor, and Wolverine followed by the Magneto spinoff. Joe Johnston, the director of Marvel Studios’ Captain America has revealed that he is working toward a June start for filming the The First Avenger: Captain America, which is slated for a July 22, 2011 debut. In an article in Fangoria about Johnston’s remake of The Wolfman, Johnston told the interviewers that he was speaking from the Marvel Studios’ art department where he was readying the Captain America film for a June start. So far none of the cast of the Cap movie has been announced, though if the film is to begin principal photography in June, casting announcements will likely be made over the next few months.
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Voltron game hits iphone Yeah, you read the headline right -- there's a Voltron mobile game available. Apparently, it's the 25th anniversary of the series, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has launched the title in celebration. The game features six acts spread across 30 levels, as you command the lions through the galaxy to stop that fish-eared creep King Zarkon and his army. Yes, you can combine your lions and then unleash the Lion Saber, Blazing Sword, and more. SPHE gave me a code to download the iPhone version today, and while I didn't have a chance to do much other than use the Black Lion to paw away rockets, I can confirm this: no other game is more awesome when paused and then unpaused than Voltron on the iPhone. This is a fact, and the above video is proof. Voltron costs $3.99 on the iPhone, but is also available on other mobile devices for anywhere between $2.99 and $9.99. It's unclear if other versions have Voltron on the iPhone's awesome "unpause" sound effects, but one can only hope.
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REVIEW: Bayonetta Jim Sterling destructoid.com
How can one accurately describe Bayonetta? The truth is, one can't, and that makes starting a review very difficult indeed. You could list any number of adjectives that partially describe the experience: hilarious, stupid, sexy, clever, deep, frustrating, sleek, satisfying, surprising, confusing; the list of words goes on and on and on. Trying to fit the entire experience into one coherent sentence, though -- therein lies the trick. Bayonetta has finally hit store shelves after months of waiting, salivating and claiming that the main character's head is too small for her body. Having taunted, tortured and Witch Timed our way through the game's campaign, the time has come to finally see if all the hype has been worth it. Read on as we review Bayonetta. Bring a spare pair of underpants. I can't honestly tell you what Bayonetta is about, exactly, because I still don't know. It has something to do with a war between angels and demons and a witch who is flipping around and beating the crap out of everything with her guns and swords. Kind of like Constantine meets The Matrix. I'm not entirely sure the story is even meant to make sense, as most of the cutscenes exist purely to show off ridiculous fight scenes and shameless crotch shots. Players take on the role of titular heroine Bayonetta, a seductive witch with an English accent who destroys angels for a living. In being hounded by the forces of Heaven, Bayonetta finds herself on the wrong side of a fellow witch called Jeanne who knows something about her forgotten past, and the journalist Luka who wants to expose witchcraft to the world. Cue lots of explosions, monsters with upside-down baby heads, and even more crotch shots. Despite not making a lick of sense, Bayonetta is a very funny game. Slapstick humor, sneaky videogame references and incredibly silly characters make for a highly memorable and laugh-out-loud affair. I was giggling before the first chapter had even finished, which is more than can be said for most games that try so hard to be hilarious. Bayonetta is genuinely amusing, if not for the mockery of games like Resident Evil 4 and references to Fantasy Zone, then for the simple pleasure of watching a demon dog made out of hair eat an evil angel. Bayonetta isn't just an endless stream of fan service interspersed with self-referential humor, however. The game justifies its silliness with an incredibly intense action experience that manages to be more like Devil May Cry than Devil May Cry itself has been for years. The sheer chaos that is Bayonetta's combat system never lets up for a second, as Platinum weds mindless button mashing to a surprisingly intuitive cat-and-mouse ballet of acrobatics and counter attacks. The trick is in the dodging. Players can dodge enemy attacks with a press of the right trigger, and if Bayonetta evades the attack at the optimal moment, she will trigger "Witch Time." Time will slow down and enemies will forced to a standstill, allowing Bayonetta to launch a full assault on the angel of her choice without fear of reprisal for several seconds. Witch Time is meant to be abused, and players will find themselves in dire need of it as the game progresses and gets more challenging. Commendation must also be reserved for the combo system. Using the B and Y buttons, as well as directional input and shoulder button presses, Bayonetta has been designed so that any combination of buttons will lead to the main
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character doing something awesome. Simply mashing the buttons randomly will lead to Bayonetta summoning giant boots or fists made out of hair, or grabbing an enemy to "punish" them with pistol whips or ground pounds. As Bayonetta racks up attacks without getting hit, she builds magic power. When the magic meter is full, players can press the Y and B buttons together near an enemy to pull off a devastating "Torture Attack." These special finishers change in accordance with the enemy and Bayonetta's position, but each one is sadistic, gory, and thoroughly ridiculous. Whether she's trapping angels in guillotines and kicking their exposed posteriors or tying up overtly sexual female opponents in chains so tight that their breasts pop out with a funny noise, Bayonetta manages to make an already silly game even more nonsensical with her range of deadly attacks. In addition to her four guns (two in her hands, two strapped to her legs), Bayonetta will get access to more weapons and accessories by shopping the "Gates of Hell." Halos gathered from enemies act as in-game currency, and one can also find a number of LPs that Bayonetta's friend Rodin can turn into new combat gear. The weapons look cool and have some neat attacks, but they often don't feel as good to use as Bayonetta's standard weapons and tend to come up short in the cool combo department. The same can be said for the new techniques that can also be bought, many of which just seem to make Bayonetta more prone to attack. On the whole, combat is surprisingly deep, and the balance between attacking and dodging has been crafted expertly. However, almost predictably for a game of this nature, Bayonetta's charms have a tendency to wear thin after prolonged exposure, especially when the game starts to get more challenging. The dodging and hammering of buttons can
get pretty exhausting, not to mention the fact that one can grow desensitized to the over-the-top nature of the game after about an hour of playtime. This isn't helped by the fact that Bayonetta can get very frustrating as it progresses. Even though dodging is an essential component to the game, the game becomes so chaotic that it's sometimes impossible to tell where attacks are coming from. Later enemies move at lightning speed and often have attacks that aren't telegraphed efficiently. They also tend to shrug off Bayonetta's attacks outside of Witch Time, yet her own combos can be broken easily. While Bayonetta is surprisingly forgiving for a game of this nature, players are graded at the end of each fight and stage on completion time, number of deaths, items used and damage taken, and it can be annoying to get graded poorly simply because the screen was full of too much information for the human eye to process, or they were ambushed by one of Bayonetta's weird and random QTEs. There are also some ill-advised minigame sections. Angel Attack is a shooting range sub-game that appears between levels and is not only quite bland, but frequently irritating after the tenth time. Some of the stages have interesting minigames with some very funny retro nods to past Sega games, but the major problem is that they go on for far too long and the joke soon stops being funny. That is a major problem for Bayonetta -- the laughs are frequent, but they can really drag on sometimes. To its credit, the game looks terrific, which is helped in no small part to the rather saucy animations of Bayonetta herself. The art direction is amazing as well, with the enemies looking angelic and holy, yet thoroughly monstrous at the same time. Some of the designs are absolutely freaky, especially the range of huge and grotesque bosses that seem to pop up every few minutes. The voice acting is also pretty superb, despite the sometimes cringe-worthy dialogue, and the jazz music that makes up the majority of the game's soundtrack is rather brilliant as well. Ultimately, Bayonetta is a great game that fans of hardcore Japanese action games should be incredibly satisfied with. It looks amazing and can feel great to play when combos are rolling, Torture Attacks are earned and giant demons made out of hair are summoned to crush bosses. However, the pace-killing minigames and the frustrating nature of the chaotic combat hold it back from being a truly superb title. Definitely recommended playing for all fans of the genre, despite the few flaws keeping it down. Oh, and did I mention how sexy it is?
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“If your stuff can’t have a home at your house, it always has a home at ours!”
The Soldiery, Inc. “Your full-service gaming source for 17 years� Collectable Card Games, Roleplaying Games, Historical Miniatures, Games Workshop, Wizkids, Paints/Brushes, Gaming Supplies. Extensive inventory of new/used items, including singles: Weekly events - 11 Gaming Tables
15% Discount on Games Workshop! PK Cards and WOW Minis in stock 4256 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43214
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