Originally, today was going to be the debut of an exclusive on-release review of Bioware’s new fantasy epic, Dragon Age: Origins. I had planned it out meticulously, right down to a prepared character-build. Unfortunately, there was one rather significant fly in the ointment:

Alas, poor Frankenbox, you served me well. You arrived broken, we fixed you; your drive malfunctioned, we replaced it; your fan got borked, we built a new housing out of washers. You were more machine now, than… uh, machine, twisted and evil. But at long last, the unutterably shitty firstgen Falcon chipset within you finally gave up the ghost once and for all. Considering I bought you for around $150 and you lasted for about three years, I honestly can’t say a bad word against you. Sleep now, my child… rest eternally.

So! The review is on standby: I’ve got a brand-spanking new 360 on the way with the shiny new Jasper chipset, which is reportedly free of all the unfortunate issues of the Falcon and Zephyr models. With luck, I’ll be able to put up my review over the weekend, and I apologize for the delay.

Trying to get into the PC gaming scene can be daunting. You’ve probably heard stories from friends about the latest great PC release on Steam, or how games like Left4Dead and Team Fortress 2 are far better on PC than their console counterparts, or maybe you’re just looking to get into the latest big MMO like Aion or a new expansion for World of Warcraft. The problem is when looking for a new PC that is going to be able to play these games well, you’re more than likely not going to have any idea where to start and it’s more than a little frustrating to end up spending over a thousand dollars on something that can barely even tolerate two year old games set to minimum graphical quality.

Hopefully, with this article I can help you find something that is going to help you get into this scene and play most PC titles at the maximum quality settings, for well under a thousand dollars. Full article after the cut.

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It seems as if one of my biggest hopes in gaming is about to be fulfilled, as a new teaser site has appeared. If you dig around enough on the page, you will eventually be linked to the trailer posted here.

American McGee’s Alice was one of the most unique and well made games of the past decade, and I can’t wait to see what McGee has in store for us for a sequel.

Let’s just hope he’s actually working on this one, and avoid the Scrapland fiasco (in which American McGee didn’t design or create anything to do with the game, yet his name was used to help generate hype for the game).

We mentioned on the podcast that I would be putting up a list of games that I own that I’ve never touched.  I am not including games that I have played but not finished [yet], or games that I’ve completed.  Because of this, the game list is significantly shorter than to be expected.  This is also only going to span PS1, PS2, Xbox and 360.  My challenge, apparently, is to finish games chosen by you.. the listeners.   I just hope I don’t have a specific time frame that I have to do this in… 

Arc The Lad: Twilight of Spirits PS2
Army of 2 360
Brave Fencer Musashi PSX
Dark Cloud PS2
Dark Cloud 2 PS2
DOA 2 PS2
Fear Effect 2 PSx
Heart of Darkness PSX
Infinite Undiscovery 360
Jak 2 PS2
Jak 3 PS2
Kingdom Hearts 2 PS2
La Pucelle Tactics PS2
Phantom Dust Xbox
Resident Evil 5 360
Resident Evil Code Veronica X PS2
Resident Evil Directors Cut PSX
Shadow Hearts PS2
Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams Xbox
Summoner PS2
The nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon PS2
Xenosaga PS2