Weekly Recap

Another week has gone and past and here we are once again. I'm going to make this short and simple for I'm going on vacation yet again. Josh started off the week by giving us all a overview of the RTS franchise and who and what started it all. After that, one of our writers wrote about his displeasure with the RTS Franchise. Then, Josh told us about how the infamous Resident Evil 5 will be coming to the PC this September. Finally, the week was ended with an article about the new and exciting arcade games coming out this summer on the Xbox Live Marketplace. And there you go, everything that happened this week in bite-sized form. Until next week remember, if you cant convince 'em, confuse 'em.

Summer of Arcade Lineup

This summer will be a very good time if you want some small downloadable games. Last years Summer of Arcade had a little bit better lineup, but this year isn't far behind. Here is this years Summer of Arcade lineup.

July 22nd: Splosion man-from the developers of the Maw, Splosion man lets you manipulate a character who..well....explodes.

July 29nth: Marvel vs. Capcom 2-some of you wanted it, and now who have it. This is a 2D fighter featuring characters from both the marvel and capcom universe

August 5th: TMNT: Turtles in Time: Re-sheld-Umm...ya....thats turtles for you.

August 12th: Trials HD- Everyones favorite flash game is coming to Xbox live. Comes with 50 awesome levels, and if you get tired of them, make your own with the level editor.

August 19th: Shadow Complex- Supposedly the quality of a full retail game (we'll see about that) using the Unreal 3 engine, this game will have amazing visuals with a classic sidescrolling gameplay.

Resident Evil 5 creeps Onto the PC, Septembe 15th.

The critically acclaimed zombie survival game, Resident Evil 5, is scheduled to be released on the PC on September 15th. The only really new additions to the game is a couple of new costumes and an improved Mercenaries mode. Yes, alot of stuff. Personally, I will not pick this game up because the RE franchise never really did anything for me, but if you are an only PC owner, and you were jealous of the consoles for getting such an elusive RE title, Now is your Chance to pick it up, and brag to your console owning friends about how good the game looks on your PC that you spent $2000 on.

Overview of the Strategy Genre

The very first Strategy game was created in 1992 by by a couple of geeks named Louis Castle and Brett Sperry. Their studio was named Westwood Studios. The game was called Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis.The game has up to six players, select a race, build a stronghold and attack your opponents for resources and power. Since then Strategy games evolved into more complex and fun games. Games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, and Civilization, were the games that finally defined strategy as a Genre. Finally strategy games moved out of the turn based ways and evolved into, what we call now, an RTS. The RTS had no turn just you rushing your opponents with as much units as you possibly can. Strategy games now are considered hardcore games, and not easy for a casual gamer to pick up and play. But now games like Halo Wars and Civ. Rev, are made for easy console play. This has been the first of many posts for strategy day, stay tuned for more opinions and retro reviews.

Weekly Recap

There was not much going on in gaming news this week, but there was a few nice additions to the blog. First, I stated that our new G.I.N event, Strategy Day, will be happening this Monday, that's tomorrow. Second, I introduced our new creative segment for reviewing games, called; Live play. Live play is basically us playing games and highlighting the important parts as they happen. Last, but certainly not least, is Games In A Nutshell Livestream channel. Which you can find here. Be ready for Strategy Day, and hopefully an eventful week in gaming, including my Live Play of Red Faction: Guerrilla.

BTW; If you are wondering where our infamous Joey Davis has gone, don't worry, he is on a well deserved vacation. Joey will be back shortly doing what he does best.

G.I.N on LiveStream!

Games In A Nutshell is now on Livestream! You can find us here. Well be on every once and a while, we will also notify you if we are doing a live podcast, so you can ask question and chat with cool people.

New Segment!

G.I.N staff will now be doing a segment where they live blog any new game they have received or bought. By this I mean highlight any cool moments or disappointing moments (without spoiling anything) and share their thoughts about the game and tell why they said what they did.

Example:

2 hours and 24 min: The cinematics are amazing but the controls of the game don't feel too tight. I may just have to get used to it.

This, along with the review of the game, will give more in depth description, helping readers get more of an opinion of the game.

Monday Monday Monday!

This coming Monday we are having our new annual Strategic Day *music*. Yes, Monday, July the 13, we will write abou everything strategy. Our favorite strategy games, our least favorite strategy games, and why we don't like stragtegy games (your not getting out of this one, Joey). So be looking forward to Strategy Day!