Spartacus Vengeance – How To Spoil A Good Thing

It’s with great pleasure that my partner enjoys the same TV shows as I do. Having introduced her to Chuck we spent many nights watching it and conversing over just about everything that happened. With Chuck sadly ended I introduced her to the first two series of Spartacus (Gods of the Arena and Blood & Sand, for those not in the know) and convinced her that the third series would be great too. However, after the unfortunate and untimely death of Andy Whitfield cracks began to appear in the overall plan for the highly anticipated third series and she now continuously reminds me of how wrong I seem to have been. Read the rest of this article…

‘SSX’ Review – A Tricky Refresh

I never played the SSX games. Well, I should say that I played a little of each demo and decided they just weren’t for me. The series’ arcade-y controls and presentation just couldn’t hook me. As an Xbox guy, what really turned me onto snowboarding games, when I’d never played them before, was Amped’s open mountains and more accurately modeled controls. While SSX sold bajillions of copies, Microsoft’s series did not, leading developer Indie Built to tone down the hardcore approach a bit for the overly-comical Amped 3, a launch title for the Xbox 360. Well, that was six years ago and the snowboarding genre has been bone dry since, so how does EA’s SSX fare all those years later for an Amped fan?

Really well, actually.

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Project X Review: Not Big Enough To Be Cool

Watching Project X is like being the designated driver at a kick ass college party. You’ll get to watch people having fun, getting stoned, and getting laid, but you’re not going to experience any of that. You’re just going to sit there stone cold sober and un-laid – like an asshole – while constantly checking your watch or cell phone to see how much longer this damn thing is going to continue.

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Guys! Someone Won Our Kinect Contest!

Yeah, so a month ago we gave away a Kinect to one of our Twitter followers. Or Facebook Liker. Or favorite re-tweeter. The more you spread the word of FleshEatingZipper, the greater the chances you were. Well, in our first giveaway ever, the winner turned out to be Jess (above!) and she received the Kinect shortly thereafter and snapped a shot for us! Then we forgot about the whole thing.

But let us assure you right now that we at FleshEatingZipper are incredibly grateful for our ever-growing band of fans and we love you. We want to do as many giveaways as we can and while nothing’s slated as-of-yet, don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for stuff in the future. Also, keep your eyes peeled to FleshEatingZipper because, y’know, we’re super groovy and our moms like us. (Most of us. Some of our moms.)

Congrats to Jess! We hope you enjoy!

I Have Had A Jack in the Box Bacon-Flavored Milkshake

Let’s be fair, milkshake design hasn’t changed in half a century. Sure, they added more cookies and chocolate and candy and other crap, but the fundamental shake has really only become greasier since the days when our parents weren’t born yet. Why should it, really? Does it need to? Well, Jack in the Box decided to add a flavor to the narrow spectrum of flavors in the pop shake continuum and they chose bacon.

Bacon.

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Now I Remember Why I Don’t Buy PS3 Games

Yes, I admit I’m an Xbox guy. Despite showing up six years later to the console wars and winding up in a distant second place behind Sony’s PlayStation 2 console, they seemed to create a more elegant presentation with their hardware than Sony ever did. Tonight I went out to buy SSX and wound up with a copy on the PlayStation 3. Somehow I can handle Sony’s clunky interfaces and impersonal interactions, but I really am getting tired of dealing with the PlayStation 3.

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Blacklight Retribution Heads Into Open Beta

Perfect World Entertainment has announced the release of their upcoming free-to-play Online FPS title “Blacklight Retribution” to open beta.

Here at FEZ, we’ve reviewed quite a few shooters, from Gears Of War 3 to Modern Warfare 3 to Crysis and I have to tell you that I am looking forward to getting my hands on this one and doing a review as well.

In the mean time, check out the press release and open beta trailer, below!

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Retreat Review: Be A Man

A married couple working through a personal tragedy fall victim to a deranged house guest in Retreat, starring Thandie Newton, Cillian Murphy, and Jamie Bell. The film is well acted, well directed, and contains a couple of surprises, but ultimately ends up being fairly boring. This general premise has been done many times before and done better.

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Game Insight Opens Office In San Francisco

Game Insight, the creative minds behind Android and Facebook games like Paradise Island, My Country and Crime Story have opened a new publishing branch in the U.S., in downtown San Francisco, from which they hope to launch into international development opportunities.

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‘Dear Esther’ Review – A Lonely Stroll Through Art

There was a watershed moment in the early 90s with the introduction of the CD-ROM to gaming. While consoles and floppy disk-based PCs were chugging along with hand-drawn art and MIDI-based music, CD-ROMs allowed for full-motion video (FMV) and fully orchestral scores that heightened the presentation dramatically. Back then, games like Myst or The 7th Guest brought you into crazy new worlds of incredible detail that only the shiny disc could allow. Pre-rendered movies allowed for an exponential leap in visuals because home PCs at the time weren’t even slightly capable of processing the visuals stored within in real-time. On the flip-side, the problem is that interactivity, especially early on, was limited, and video by nature is an inherently linear medium. These new ‘movie/art games’ had little deviation and as a result, had very little immersion.

Why do I bring this up? Because twenty years later, Dear Esther fulfills the promise of art in an interactive medium.

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