These days I typically use my PS3 for Netflix, Bluray and the occasional split-screen game with a friend. That sai sometimes I download a demo, install it and sooner or later get around to playing it. PC gaming has really eaten away my console ambitions. Recently I was checking out the PSN Store for no particular reason when I noticed a new section for Free to Play games. Right now they only have a handful of games, but I imagine over time that number to grow quite a bit. Free to Play is an already pretty big on mobile and PC, makes sense it come to console but I wasn't really expecting to see it happen this generation.

Right now the Free to Play games they have are:

• Blue Toad Murder Files Episode 1


• Buzz Quiz Player


• Back to the Future Episode 1


• Zen Pinball 2


• Singstar Digital


• Dust 514 Beta


• FreeRealms


• Jetpack Joyride


• DC Universe Online

Some games in the list like Back to the Future & Blue Toad Murder Files are not really Free to Play and more of a demo, but the rest seem to be. Jetpack Joyride is interesting as it started on mobile and is now on the PS3. I downloaded that title and it plays well enough. Kind of strange playing it on a PS3 as to control it you simply press on button.

The interesting game in this mix is the beta for Dust 514 but MMO shooters are not really my bag. That said, its interesting to see Sony moving into this space and I wonder what other games will come down the road?

A few people have been tipping me to this and because of that feel I need to share it with you all as well. Hyrule Historia is a book that I talked about a few months ago that recently dropped that has been getting some really positive reviews.

"Dark Horse Books and Nintendo team up to bring you The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, containing an unparalleled collection of historical information on The Legend of Zelda franchise. This handsome hardcover contains never-before-seen concept art, the full history of Hyrule, the official chronology of the games, and much more! Starting with an insightful introduction by the legendary producer and video-game designer of Donkey Kong, Mario, and The Legend of Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto, this book is crammed full of information about the storied history of Link's adventures from the creators themselves! As a bonus, The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia includes an exclusive comic by the foremost creator of The Legend of Zelda manga - Akira Himekawa!"

So if you are a Zelda geek or need a gift idea for the Zelda Geek in your life, you should check this out. If no one gets this for me *cough* ill buy it at some point. And you better believe ill talk about it after I read it!

Want to check it out on Amazon by clicking the ugliest "link" in the Universe? Sweet, covered!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1616550414/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=jdodsonorg-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1616550414&adid=1J1JHN1GNEE1N4315HME&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm.amazon.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Flt1%3D_blank%26bc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26fc1%3D000000%26lc1%3D0000FF%26t%3Djdodsonorg-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das4%26m%3Damazon%26f%3Difr%26ref%3Dss_til%26asins%3D1616550414

Legend of Grimrock was a game I recently picked up as part of the recent Humble Bundle. It wasn't a game I was interested at first but after I checked out the Bundle trailer and read a bit about it I was intrigued.

If someone told me you could take the first person styld of Ultima and make a modern game that felt fresh I wouldn't have believed it. That said, Almost Human Studios Legend of Grimrock is fantastic. The game takes the first person styled gameplay and creates something really unique and fresh. It ups the ante by allowing you to turn any direction but it also requires that the enemies do the same and it lends to some really interesting strategy you can employ to vanquish your foes. Its a grid based movement system where direction matters. Somewhat hard to explain, but the video serves to illustrate it somewhat.

The game is also very unique in that it doesn't hold your hand. On one hand its awesome because you start playing VERY quickly, but some stuff I had to hunt around for or simply look up online. I think there are pluses and minuses to this approach but it never detracted me from playing the game at all. In a world where games often coddle a player to the extreme, Legend of Grimrock provides an alternate take. Its not a bad perspective at all, just worth noting.

If you were looking for a super fresh take on a classic game concept and want to be pleasantly awed with what Almost Human Studios was able to accomplish, you really need to give Legend of Grimrock a try.

"CD Projekt RED has officially announced the title of their next upcoming game: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (VIDEO). Further, they've announced that this, the ultimate game in the series, will also be the final Witcher game from the studio. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt combines CD Projekt RED’s trademark decision-based storytelling flair with a living open world larger than any other in modern RPG history.

“The captivating and nonlinear story of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt takes place in a rich, truly open world environment. A world which is thrilling to explore, full of daring adventures, momentous quests, memorable characters, and unique monsters. Players will freely travel through woods, lakes, mountains, cities, and villages. Each region is inhabited by distinct populations with their own customs, legends and problems. The world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is 30 times bigger than The Witcher 2," said Adam Badowski, head of the studio."

Its cool to see CD Projeckt considering The Witcher a trilogy and ending it as such. With companies taking games to infinity and beyond its really cool to see some finality to a series. What do you think about The Witchers final chapter?

http://thewitcher.com/community/entry/329

Hammerwatch is an upcoming Gauntlet styled hack-n-slash that was recently submitted to Steam Greenlight. After watching the trailer I was floored with how awesome this game looks. I have thought for many years that there needed to be a modern Gauntlet styled hack-n-slash and Hammerwatch looks to be that game!

I immediately emailed the developers of Hammerwatch a few questions about the game mechanics, Steam Greenlight and more. Enjoy!

jdodson: Hammerwatch is a Gauntlet styled Hack and Slash that features LAN and Internet Co-Op. The video looks absolutely incredible and can’t wait to play it! How does the game play now as you are doing your testing?

Niklas: We're currently working on balancing the difficulty and finalizing the player skills, but other than that the game plays pretty well. We do still have some other issues, mainly related to online multiplayer sync and enemy AI, but the main thing now is really just to get all the levels finished.

jdodson: What are the different characters you can play in Hammerwatch? What are some of things that make each of the classes unique?

Niklas: We have a paladin, a wizard, a rogue and a warlock. The paladin is a close combat fighter with skills like healing, stun and block. The wizard is a medium distance fighter with a lot of area of effect skills and slow effects. The rogue is the longest distance fighter who can snare enemies and also has a close distance bomb. We're currently in the process of completely redesigning the warlock, he had a chain lightning and summoned creatures, but that didn't play very well so we're going to need to do something else with him, maybe something with poison.

jdodson: What is your favorite item in Hammerwatch?

Niklas: Jochum really likes the potion of speed, but Niklas prefers the extra life.

jdodson: You took your game to Steam Greenlight, wondering how that is going for you? I am wondering what threshold you need to achieve to be able to sell your game on Steam when its ready?

Niklas: We're getting a really good response from users, 70% of the people who vote give us a yes vote and most of the people who comment really seem to like it. We have no idea about the actual threshold to get in though, so basically we just have to wait and see.

jdodson: Does the Wizard need food in Hammerwatch?

Niklas: Badly.

jdodson: How long has your team been in development on Hammerwatch from the initial concept to now? Anything crop up that surprised you about development?

Niklas: We started on Hammerwatch back in december with a simple gameplay test to see if we could get a fun game out of the concept, but the engine and editor had already been in development for a couple of months when we started. There hasn't really been any surprises in the development, at first we had some issues with drawing the characters, but in the end a friend at Mojang helped us by making them.

Niklas: You plan on supporting Windows, Mac and Linux at launch. What's the tech stack that makes such Sorcery possible?

Niklas: We use a custom engine written in C# and we use OpenGL for rendering. We started out with XNA but replaced it with OpenGL to be able to support other platforms than just Windows.

jdodson: Do you have any plans for procedural level generation?

Niklas: We have certainly thought about it and we do have ideas on how we could do it, but it's not something we will launch the game with. We might add it in later on.

jdodson: Thanks for answering my questions, did you want to mention anything as we wrap up?

Niklas: Anyone who is interested in the progress of the game can look at our devblog over at the TIGSource forums, we would also like to thank everyone who is visiting our Greenlight page.

Vote for Hammerwatch on Steam Greenlight now!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=122788084
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=30519.0
http://www.hammerwatch.com/

So recently I found an awesome Steam Guide that catalogs all the Borderlands 2 Golden Keys released to date you can still redeem. If want to spruce up your collection-o-sweet guns you should totally loot this Steam Guide.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121066990

Please don't hate me for saying you need to loot this Steam Guide...

Think before you leap friends...

I was exposed to the Black Mesa project a few months ago in frenzy of its initial release. Black Mesa is a fan recreation of the original Half-Life built on top of the amazing Half-Life 2 Source Engine. Since I never quite finished the original Half-Life I decided to give this version a shot and potentially complete the original Half-Life as it stands atop a list of games I need to complete. I loved Half-Life 2 and both episodes so coming back to the franchise is a pretty cool notion.

After booting up the game the visuals look really fresh compared to the original. The original looks good, don't get me wrong but atop the Source engine it looks fantastic. I played about half of the original Half-Life and compared to my memory the game feels like the original. In fact, if you played and loved Half-Life I seriously recommend nabbing Black Mesa and installing it simply to see how well they recreated it.

Check it out, its free and is very very cool.

http://www.blackmesasource.com/

I just recently downloaded and listened to the Black Mesa score from the fan re-visioning of the original Half-Life game using the Half-Life 2 source engine. I really like the takes on the original score and new directions they decided to go. The score is free so no reason not to pick it up.

One song, "Apprehension" is featured above. The score seems to paint pretty awesomely broad strokes for what game scores can be and it inspired me to give Black Mesa a shot.

http://www.blackmesasource.com/soundtrack.html

Very cool talk Gabe Newell of Valve gave at The LBJ School of public affairs. 9 minutes in and HAD to share this!

What do you think about his thoughts on economics? Found it really interesting some artists have "real jobs" at big game studios but make more money selling hats in TF2. I agree with him, post-internet many corporations are changing for sure!