GELATINOUS DUDE

Dark Souls. Pictured: Artorias of the Abyss DLC screen. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

A magnificently atmospheric screen from the upcoming Dark Souls DLC; "Artorias of the Abyss". The extra content will first see the light of day in the new PC edition of the game to be released in August. Console versions of the DLC will be available for purchase Winter 2012.

Sword & Sworcery EP. Pictured: Idyllic nighttime woodlands. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

Finally got around to the indiegame hit Sword & Sworcery. Somehow incredibly retro and progressive at the same time. Pretty special. Great soundtrack.

Sword & Sworcery was created by the Superbrothers duo design team at Canadian developer Capybara games.

It's for the I - pad and phone, Mac and PC.

Skyrim - Dawnguard DLC. Pictured: Vampiric form. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

Dawnguard will launch first for Xbox 360 in Summer 2012 and will remain exclusive to that platform for 30 days. After that time has elapsed, it will spread to additional platforms.

The beta-testers of the upcoming Skyrim add-on have leaked details, and the DLC's story and content is coming clear.

It is a tale of a Vampire lord named Harkon intent on using an Elder Scroll to blot out the sun. The choice you have as a player is either join Harkon - and in the process learn several new vampiric skills from an all new perk tree - or join the Dawnguard, who are a group of vampire slayers. The Dawnguard will learn to use crossbows, and may also hire armored trolls as followers!

A new dragonshout is also included, along with a summon-anywhere skeleton horse (for the vampires, one presumes).

Vampire and new Werewolf perk trees listed below.

Vampire Perks

Power of the Grave - 50 point bonus to health, magicka and stamina as a Vampire Lord

Detect All Creatures (requires Power of the Grave)

Mist Form - turn yourself into an invulnerable cloud of mist while regenerating your health, magicka, and stamina (requires Detect All Creatures)

Supernatural Reflexes - you move quicker, enemies move slower (requires Mist Form)

Blood Healing - killing a person with a power attack bite restores all your health. (requires Power of the Grave)

Unearthly Will - night powers and Blood Magic cost 33% less (requires Power of the Grave)

Poison Talons - melee attacks deal 20 points of poison damage (requires Unearthly Will and Blood Healing)

Night Cloak - a shroud of bats feed on enemies within melee range. (requires Poison Talons)

Vampiric Grip - Blood Magic: can pull a creature to you from a distance, and do choking damage once it's close (requires Power of the Grave)

Summon Gargoyle (requires Vampiric Grip)

Corpse Curse - paralyze your foes with this magical blast (requires Summon Gargoyle)

Werewolf Perks

Bestial Strength (four levels) - first level: do 25% more damage as a werewolf

Totem of Ice Brothers (requires Bestial Strength)

Totem of the Predator (requires Bestial Strength)

Totem of Terror - Werewolf Howl of Terror affects even higher level creatures (requires Bestial Strength)

Totem of the Moon - summon an ally werewolf with a howl. (requires Totem of Ice Brothers)

Animal Vigor - 100 point bonus to health and stamina in beast form. (requires Bestial Strength)

Gorging - feeding heals twice as much health (requires Animal Vigor)

Savage Feeding - (requires Gorging)

Neato.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Pictured: 2 dual screens. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

Still in mobile gaming mode, today you get 2 dual screens for the price of one single!

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a tactical roleplaying game for the Nintendo DS that also runs on the new 3DS. Shadow Dragon is a remake of the very first Fire Emblem game, but is the 11th(!) installment in the series.

Great game, one of the best reasons for owning a DS if you ask me, with lovely sprite based graphics and a good fantasy storyline. Strong character design and stories coupled with permadeath make the Fire Emblem games hardcore heartbreakers. But also encourage caring, engaged, gaming.

Masamune Shirow, of Ghost in the Shell fame, is the artist behind the character illustrations.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the Nintendo DS was released by Japanese developer Intelligent Systems at the end of 2008. If you scrounge around a bit you might still be able to find it.

Elder Sign: Omens. Pictured: The Museum. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

It's been a week since I acquired an iPad, and yesterday I stumbled upon a great board game conversion for it. It's called Elder Sign: Omens and is a Lovecraftian strategy game where the player chooses a team of four 1920's occult investigators from a diverse and interesting roster of characters. These characters then attempt to stop an ancient evil from entering our world through a portal at the local museum (museums are repositories of ancient relics and occult artifacts, dontcha know).

There is some strategy to it, and a LOT of luck, and if we're uncharitable the whole game is basically a glorified cthulhoid slot machine. But what it excels at is recreating the tension and terror of Lovecraft's vision, and is a great shorthand version of the P&P RPG Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium.

Recommended.

Elder Sign was released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011 and is available through the App Store for Ipad and Iphones, and on Android devices.

(PC) Lord of the Rings Online - Riders of Rohan wallpaper. (click to enlarge)

In recognition of the fact that Lord of the Rings Online gets a new expansion this autumn, some wallpaper.

LotRO - Riders of Rohan expansion. Pictured: Gandalf the White and steeds of the Rohirrim. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

I was thinking that maybe the horse on the left was Shadowfax, but it looks a bit too heavy-set for that, and is probably just an illustration of the regular steeds of Rohan.

(PC) Turbine recently announced Lord of the Rings Online's fourth expansion pack, "Riders of Rohan". It is expected to be released September 5, this year.

In it characters are invited to continue their journey further south in Middle-Earth along one of the paths of the now divided Fellowship of the Ring. -LotRO weaves stories for players around the events of Tolkien's trilogy of writing.

Mounted combat is introduced, and the level cap is raised to level 85 for player characters.

Besides Turbine pushing the in-game store a bit over-zealously, GD considers LotRO one of the very best long-running MMORPG's. And seeing as it's free-to-play, you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to try it if you're a gamer and at all into medieval fantasy. If you're a Tolkien fan I'm guessing you know all about it already.

LotRO also saw release on Steam the other day, so you can get it there if it suits you.

Guild Wars 2. Pictured: Barchetta in Applenook Hamlet. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

Engineer Barchetta in her Sunday finest, enjoying a picnic in Applenook Hamlet, just before tragedy struck (as heard in the podcast below).

Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG for the PC and beta weekend event 2 is currently ongoing. It will most probably release sometime during Summer or Fall of this year.

GELATINOUS DUDE - Gaming Reviews Podcast #02

Gelatinous Dude & Firesoul talk about Guild Wars 2 and the state of the game.

Hoping to combine a serious talk with the pleasure of the beautiful countryside, our level 15 characters moved to the picturesque Applenook Hamlet, just North of Lion's Arch. -For a chat about the game and a picnic combined. But then angry level 30 Wasps from the fields nearby aggroed and one-shotted Barchetta, two-shotted Firesoul, and later we found that they'd wrecked our footage as well! So the whole talk turned into a podcast chat instead of a vid.

A lengthy mulling over the substance and state of Guild Wars 2, but hopefully there's something to be gleaned from it - at least if you've not been in the beta.

Guild Wars 2. Pictured: Vilja in the Norn capitol Hoelbrak. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG for the PC and beta weekend event 2 is currently ongoing. It will most probably release sometime during Summer or Fall of this year.

Guild Wars 2. Pictured: Norn Warrior Vilja goes bare-hand fishing. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG for the PC and beta weekend event 2 is currently ongoing. It will most probably release sometime during Summer or Fall of this year.

Magic the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013. Pictured: iPad layout. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

When I finally got around to thinking about what games I could put on my new iPad that were any good, Magic the Gathering sprang to mind as a natural. Gelatinous Dude promptly searched the App Store but find naught. Odd, I thought, the fit should be perfect! And lo and behold, after some research I uncovered that Wizards of the Coast are releasing this year's Magic update on PC, PS3, Xbox 360, AND iPad!

Nice.

The iPad's not gonna give my serious, core gaming rigs a run for their money anytime soon, but Magic the Gathering is a start. /snooty mode off

Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition. Pictured: Stone ruins in the woods. (Click to enlarge)

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

In recognition of the fact that Gelatinous Dude finally bit the bullet (and it passed through me without notice) and bought an iPad, I thought I'd post one of the very few screens circulating of the upcoming remake of Baldur's Gate. It's going to be released for iPad, Mac, and PC sometime this summer according to developers Overhaul Games.

The original, seminal Baldur's Gate for the PC was released back in November of 1998. It is a computer roleplaying game set in the fictional Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting within the fictional continent of Faerûn. You can still get it at gog.com if you're feeling retro.

The enhanced edition is promised to contain the original Baldur's Gate campaign and its expansion Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast.