Ghostbusters was one of those games that I really wanted to like, but honestly didn’t expect much from it. After all, I’ve played some really bad games that were based on the franchise. Seriously, have you ever played the Atari game? Anyway, I was rather surprised that this game was far from bad. In fact, it’s the best games associated with a movie franchise that I’ve played in a long time.

From the moment the game loads up, you have the distinct feeling that this is the long-lost third Ghostbusters film. Only this time around you’re actually a part of the story. When I watched the opening scene and it transitioned into the Ghostbusters theme song, I’ll admit to getting chills. Not spooky chills, more like nostalgia. They even opened up with the Columbia Pictures splash.

I won’t dive into the story too much, mostly because I hate reading about too much of the plot in a review. That said, the game takes place in 1991, roughly 2 years after the second film. The team has hired a new guy to help out with the work, which is where you come in. Your character is never given a name, which is said to be so that the team doesn’t get too attached for fear of any “mishaps.” Throughout the game you are referred to as “Rookie”, and you never speak. I think this is done rather well, letting you immerse yourself more into the story.

As you start to get into the game, you quickly realize that it was definitely written by the same guys (Harold Remus and Dan Akroyd). All of the witty jokes and banter you’d expect to hear from the crew are there. Of course all four of the original actors lend their voices to their respective characters, along with Annie Potts and William Atherton who voice Janine Melnitz and Walter Peck. Hearing these voices in-character again for the first time in two decades really brings the game to life.

When it comes to graphics, I was for the most part impressed. The scenery is very diverse from level to level, and looks rather stunning on the Xbox 360. Character models were all spot-on, even if their hair looks a little like plastic at times. My largest complaint would have to be in the lip-syncing department. There were a few times where it felt like I was watching a badly-dubbed Chinese flick. Most of the time it wasn’t too bad, and didn’t really distract from the overall flow of the game.

So the game looks good and it sounds good, but how does it play? The controls are simple enough to learn. Your analog sticks control your camera and movement, the D-pad selects one of four different weapons and your triggers fire said weapons. You start out with only the classic proton beam, however as you progress, Egon hooks you up with new ones to keep things interesting.

You spend a lot of time using your PKE-Meter to find artifacts and ghosties to capture. Once you’ve found yourself a ghost to capture, you’ll switch to one of your weapons, and blast the hell out of it until it’s time to capture it (though some can just be killed off). They tend to move around pretty quickly, so aiming can get tricky, but you get the hang of it. Plus you can purchase upgrades to your proton pack that make it more of a fair fight.  Your proton stream will automatically switch to capture mode when the time is right, and you’ll use it to guide the specter into a waiting trap.

At times the ghost fights can seem a little repetitive, but they did a great job with diversifying the levels enough that it keeps things fresh and interesting. What really seems to drive the game is all of the witty banter between the characters. I honestly think that some people out there could get plenty of enjoyment just watching another person play. There’s enough plot and witty humor to keep one entertained.

I only ran into a few issues playing the game, most of which involved ghosts flying off somewhere that they didn’t belong. In one case a ghost flew through a wall, making it nearly impossible to take out. However, it would come just close enough to hit now and again, and I managed to destroy it. One particular time it brought the game to a grinding halt. A ghost that needed to be killed to progress the story line either flew off or just didn’t come out when it was supposed to. Thus I was stuck battling wave after wave of unimportant enemies while the gang kept yelling at me to concentrate on the one that wasn’t there. A quick load of the last checkpoint solved it.

Overall, I was impressed with the game. It was a bit on the short side, clocking in at around 6 hours for the full single-player experiences. The multiplayer modes were enjoyable, but not something I would spend any real amount of time tackling. There are plenty of achievements to unlock as well as a host of haunted artifacts that can be collected which add to the replayability of the game. If you’re a fan of Ghostbusters, there’s no reason you shouldn’t pick this one up.

When it comes to gaming hardware the first things to pop into mind are generally the CPU/RAM and video card. It wasn’t until I set aside the trusty wireless mouse that came with my old Logitech keyboard to review the OCZ Behemoth Laser Gaming Mouse that I realized just how much this device plays into the gaming experience.

Right out of the box my first impression was that it appears rather bulky, I say appears because once it was plugged in and in my hand it felt very comfortable. The extra width comes from the erganomic design which provides a comfortable rest for the ring and pinky fingers. This had a impact during a long gaming session with the new Ghostbuster’s game. One requirement in the game is to target and wear down ghosts which on harder difficulty settings can take a considerable amount of time. The lack of fatigue in my hand afterwards was noticeable.

Speaking of Ghostbuster’s and its precision requirements for paranormal investigations and eliminations, it provided the OCZ Behemoth another opportunity to shine via it’s high precision double laser engine and an easy accessible hardware dpi selector. Capturing ghosts requires a very precise and steady aim, setting the OCZ Behemoth’s dpi selection to the low 800dpi setting during those times is a sure way to wrangle even the squirmiest of ghosts. Switching back to a higher dpi for moving around the environment was easy and after a few times switching between the two became an afterthought. On my old mouse the sensitivity would have been frustrating at best and even after tweaking would never have matched the precision and ease of use that the OCZ Behemoth provides.

If I’m not busting ghosts I can also be found drudging around Wastelands in Fallout 3. In this type of game where exploration plays as much of a role as combat I like to lean heavy on the mouse to handle most of the controls while traversing new territory. Configuring the OCZ Behemoth’s programmable buttons is a simple process and with the onboard memory those settings can go with you to any PC.

The OCZ Behemoth Laser Gaming Mouse packs a lot of features into its ergonomic black shell, but the best feature by far has to be the price. For other mice with comparable features the range is generally $60 to $100, the OCZ Behemoth retails at $39.99 and can be found at online retailers such as newegg.com for $10 under that. At half the price of most other gaming mice the value the OCZ Behemoth Laser Gaming Mouse provides will be tough to beat.

[ Product Page ]

When Apathy and I were at E3 we were shown things that we unfortunately could not talk about. That’s just the way things work,  but today the embargo was lifted on one particular item. You’ve seen the review of the Starpex controller from Peak. Vostromus is still in love with it, but I’m not quite as big of a fan. It’s a little bigger than I’d like, and the buttons are spaced out a lot further than I’d like. Regardless, there’s just something about rocking out with a “real” guitar in your hands. Well Logitech released their first such guitar controller for the PS3 earlier this year, and have just announced an Xbox 360 version.

Apathy and I had a chance to spend a little time with the Logitech gang and play with the new controller. The first thing that should be noted is that it is an officially licensed wireless controller for the 360. No wires, no dongles, it works just as well as your standard controller. The body is solid, and the neck is crafted from rosewood. From afar this could easily be mistaken for a real (if small) guitar.

The weight of the guitar was about at that perfect spot between too heavy and too light. It felt good to hold, the buttons were spaced properly and very responsive. Your Star Power activation (select button) is crafted to look just like a pickup, which is perfectly positioned for easy use.

We weren’t able to spend a lot of time with the controller, but it seems to be a solid guitar. I’m definitely looking forward to getting my hands on one when they are released later this year. The MSRP is right at $199.

[ Logitech ]

We’ve seen a lot of LEGO video games over the last few years, most of which have been a lot of fun. Well the guys in charge decided it was time to branch out from the RPG games that they’ve been so focused on of late and bring us LEGO Battles. This real-time strategy game for the DS lets you take command of pirates, wizards, spacemen and more. But does it deliver the fun?

The game has several different campaigns to play through, each from a different LEGO theme. Each campaign is broken up into three acts, which get progressively harder. The game is great for those unfamiliar with RTS titles, and walks you through every little step at the beginning. After a couple of battles you’ll be building towers and commanding your men like a pro.

As cool as it sounds to have a wide variety of character archetypes and buildings, you quickly learn that they’re all the exact same thing with a different skin and name. By the third campaign it is rather easy to get bored. Not only do the different battles start to seem familiar, but even as someone who rarely touches a RTS game, I found it to be extremely easy. I’m sure that the younger crowd will find it a bit more challenging, which is alright seeing how it’s a game comprised of toy bricks. (Even if adults do still play with LEGOS.)

Traveler’s Tales did add in a nice feature that not only adds to the difficulty of the game, but really keeps you on your toes. They made it so that the characters you control had a mind of their own and couldn’t navigate even the most simplest of terrain. Seriously, if there is a tree even slightly in their way, they’ll either stop, or go really far around to find a different path. Sure, two steps to the right would work, but why not a hundred steps to the left? The men also seem to be set on auto-attack. It’s really difficult to corral a group of men when half of them want to run off and attack an enemy that’s not even on your screen. Even if you tell them to stop attacking and change directions they’ll still sometimes go back and get themselves killed.

The controls themselves seem pretty straightforward and well laid out. It would be nice to command more than 9 units at once, but it seems to be about the perfect number for the screen size. My biggest concern is that it is too easy to select the wrong target. Each character is rather tiny, so you must be extra precise when tapping on them. Even worse, they can get hidden behind a building, forcing you to select a large area and moving them away.

As with the other LEGO titles we’ve seen in recent years, there are a lot of things to unlock and collect. Each level has 20 blue studs that can be used to buy new Heroes (provided you’ve unlocked them for purchase), there are also chests and orange blocks which unlock different abilities and such.

The multiplayer aspect looks like it would be fun. Essentially you can hook up with someone else playing on their DS and build up your own armies to defeat the other. You’re able to pick and choose different characters and Heroes to use during these special battles, which can add to the fun.

Overall, I’d say that it’s not a terrible game, nothing great either. It’ll keep you entertained for a few hours, but eventually the gameplay gets stale. Kids are likely to get more enjoyment out of it, if they can get past the AI issues.

My computer is pretty fast, fast enough in fact that I’ve seriously wondered at times whether or not the worst bottleneck was at my hard drive. Sure, I could set up a few disks in a RAID array to get more bandwidth, but what about going an alternate route? We sat down with Fusion-IO to talk about their latest offering, which promises to blow the lid off of hard drive speeds.

The ioXtreme is, statistically speaking, the fastest drive I’ve ever seen. This 80GB drive is comprised of NAND flash, with read/write speeds of 600MB/s. Now for those of you that don’t usually pour over hard drive benchmarks, here’s a little comparison. A really good SATA drive might get somewhere around 90MB/s, while many will hit closer to 60-70MB/s. This thing can open programs like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro just as quickly as if they were minimized to the system tray. If you’ve got Windows set to boot off of it, you can go from off to ready in around 1 second. (It should be noted that this feature won’t be available at launch due to compatibility issues with some BIOS, but it will be activated via a driver update.) Now if it can boot that fast, load times for your games are going to be virtually eliminated.

The ioXtreme will be launched later this year for around $800. Yes, that’s a pricey piece of hardware. However, it looks like it will be worth every penny.

I was just as surprised as anyone else when Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2. The game hasn’t exactly been out for a long time, and well, Valve takes forever to release new games. Christ, I’m still waiting to hear anything about Half Life 2: Episode 3. So what is the big deal with the new sequel, and why not just make more content available for the original? We got to spend a little time with Valve to find out.

What’s new? Well a lot of things. On the exterior we can see that there are new heroes fighting an onslaught of zombies in the deep south. New zombies are seen, along with a few new weapons. For instance, we have the Charger, which is one big and fast brute that will come out of nowhere and send you flying, sometimes before you even know he’s coming. Melee weapons like a frying pan and fireman’s ax bring a new dimension to close-combat. You can even pick up incendiary ammo that will set your opponents on fire.

Sure, that stuff is cool, but perhaps stuff that could be patched in, or at the very least added in via an expansion. However, those aren’t the only changes to be seen. The biggest one is to the Director, which they are dubbing version 2.0. Now the Director can actually control things such as the path you take through each map and weather conditions. This allows for more dynamic gameplay, which will lead to better replayability.

So what happens to the original? Valve says that they’re far from finished with the first L4D game. They’ve still got new content in the works, which will be announced at a later date. In the meantime, check out some exclusive footage from L4D 2.

After we had our chat with Fatal1ty, he was kind enough to accept a challenge from me. Quake isn’t my strong suit, but I had to see what it was like to play against the very best. I figure if I’m going to get my ass kicked, it might as well be by a pro.

I doubt that many of you haven’t heard the name Fatal1ty. Just as a refresher, this guy is the number-1 ranked gamer in the world, with not only a number of world championships under his belt, but his own successful company which supplies gamers with Fatal1ty-branded hardware. We were able to sit down for a few minutes and chat with him.

Apathy: Lets get down to business, first, we kind of want to know how you got started as a professional gamer. Like how did you switch over from a hobby to a professional?

Fatal1ty: Well basically it started out I just went to a lot of tournaments over three years when I was between 15 and 18. When I was 18 I realized that the guys I was training with were top players. I already knew they were top players but they actually went and won a championship. And I was like wow, I just beat this guy like 8 games in a row. So I must be pretty good too.

So that’s when I signed on to a pro tournament, I was 18 and I had $500 in my bank account and I spent it all on traveling to Texas. I went down there, won four grand for taking third place in my very first world tournament. After that I got the chance to represent the USA and travel the world playing video games. So basically it just flipped one day. I did it for fun, then I went to a pro tournament, won four grand and after that I was a huge hit.

Apathy: So how do you keep up on this? I saw the wheel out there, you have to really have some balls to walk out there and play with some massive handicap. How do you prepare for this kind of thing?

Fatal1ty:  We do the handicap thing to make it more fair for you know, the average gamer that doesn’t really play the game that much. We haven’t actually used it at all here because most people want to play against the real Fatal1ty. I prefer to play without it, but I’ll do whatever the people want. I’m just doing it for entertainment and fun. I just love playing.

Apathy: How did you move from pro gamer into having your own company and your own product line?

Fatal1ty: Well I got sponsored a lot and I realized that the sponsors were making hundreds of dollars off of me using their stuff. So I just decided, you know what, I’ll create my own stuff. So I started my own company selling big mouse pads and it went from there. Then people were coming to me, wanting to sponsor me and I was like no, I’m not doing sponsors anymore, I make my own products. If you want to work with me and make a product with me, then I’ll do it.

Apathy: So that’s how you’re able to reach out to different companies and get a collection of some of the best manufacturers in the industry.

Fatal1ty: Yeah, the Fatal1ty brand covers the best products from Creative, OCZ, Fusion-IO and others, and now all of these products are under one name for gamers, Fatal1ty.

Apathy: How much creative input do you have on these products? Say something comes to you with your name on it, you test it and you don’t like it. What happens?

Fatal1ty: Well they can’t put my name on it until I like it.

Apathy: How does that process work, where do you come in exactly?

Fatal1ty: For the headphones I tell them what fabrics I like, and they showed me the new technology and I was like wow, this is some cool stuff. But I even added a couple of features that I wanted. Like I wanted the microphone to be removable. So basically it allows you to take the headset and play video games and talk to people. But then you can take it out into the real world, on the train, on an airplane and be able to use it without the mic getting in the way.  Then you can get home, use it for Skype or something by just plugging the microphone back in.

There are other small things that I added in, like the color and stuff like that. But the main thing I was concerned about was how the headphones worked, how the microphone connected and stuff. With the technology inside of it they came to me and were like “hey, this is the new stuff we’ve been working on, do you like it, will it work for you?” I tested it and was like yeah it works, lets use it.

So I take my input from what I want, but also what everyone else wants too. All the products we make I have to work on it in some form or fashion to see if it helps me and improves my game. My goal is for the gamer to make sure they’re going to be happy with it.

Apathy: Where do you see Fatal1ty in the next 5 years?

Fatal1ty: In the next 5 years I hope to be in all of gaming, not just PC gaming but console gaming too.  I want people playing on Xbox, PS3 to all be able to use my headphones. I think the quality of the technology we have is far superior to everything else out there. So I think it’s really going to help raise the level of gaming. It’s really important to be able to hear where your opponent is, whether he’s above you, below you, behind you. All of that is so much better to hear through our headphones than from your speakers. So that’s my biggest goal, I want to improve the game and improve the skill of all the players.

Fatal1ty: Have you heard much about the new Fusion-IO stuff?

Apathy: A little, what have they got coming out?

Fatal1ty: Well the ioXtreme is a new PCI-Express memory card. You’ve basically got 80GB of memory on a PCI-Express card. It’s not a hard drive, well it is a hard drive but it’s a PCI-E memory card. It’s not a solid-state drive or anything like that stuff. But you’re actually able to boot up Windows in one second using it. It’s super sick, super cool. Other than that you can load up your favorite games, your favorite applications and everything will load up instantly. There’s no more waiting for things to load and so-forth. Everything will be a lot more fresh, a lot more fluid and a lot faster. The coolest thing is being able to boot up windows in one second.

Apathy: Wow, that’s impressive.

Fatal1ty: If you have a lot of games like WoW, Quake or whatever, they run really fast and they load up information like maps and stuff so much faster for really fluid gameplay.

Apathy: To wrap it up, how do you keep on top of your game? With you traveling around to a lot of places like this, when do you find time to keep up on it?

Fatal1ty: Well really I just play. I usually play 2 to 6 hours a day on average, I do these shows a lot so my game is always pretty fresh, you know. I’ve been doing it for 15 years now so it’s started becoming like second nature. But I’m still always tweaking and tuning. If I want to get into tournament mode I train 8 hours every day and about 2 to 4 weeks in I’m there. So that’s how it works.

Apathy: I heard that you haven’t been fragged today.

Fatal1ty: (chuckles) Nope.

Apathy: Well thanks for taking the time to talk to us, I appreciate it.

Fatal1ty: Cool, thank you very much man.

Since the original MarioKart, I’ve been hooked on the series. However, I’ve rarely found myself more than slightly interested in other kart racers. That is until Sony showed off their ModNation Racers game. Sure, at first glance it looks like MarioKart with all Nintendo references removed. However, the deep customization features are incredible. In just a few minutes these guys were able to whip up their own track, which looks pretty sweet.

Final Fantasy games have always been one of my favorite game series. Unfortunately waiting for the next game has become something of a past time as well. Square Enix tends to announce a game, and then have it in production for several years. After showing off some footage of FF XIII, we were shocked with the announcement of the next game. Final Fantasy XIV will be coming out exclusively for the PS3 next year, and yes it’s an MMO. Check out the first look footage of the game.