Lock the doors, board up the windows, and hide your loved ones. Omega Tom Hanks is coming to town and he’s bringing his entire balance-destroying moveset with him.

Before the Hanksocalypse, Jesse Gregory, Adam Milecki, and Mike Bachmann huddled together to chat about video games for their last moments on Earth. Adam and Jesse obsess over XCOM: Enemy Unknown and spread a little more Tokyo Jungle love (this time with co-op!). Mike gives us the lowdown on EA Origin’s coupon debacle while telling us about Mugen, the open fighting engine that’s over a decade old.

All this and other random crap on Barrel Roll #167 - “Omega Tom Hanks”.

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Were you as surprised as we were by how great the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo was? Perhaps while you were slashing away at wolves and throwing fireballs at bears, your attention was grabbed by the game’s music. If so, you’ll be happy to know the release of the official soundtrack is imminent.

On February 7th (the same release day as the game itself), you can grab the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Original Soundtrack in physical or digital format. The “dark fantasy score” is composed by Grant Kirkhope (GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Viva Pinata) and performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Head over to Amazon to listen to sample clips. There’s also a full interview below with Kirkhope on the game’s music and sound. If you don’t have a full seven minutes free to watch it, at least check out the last twenty seconds. It’s practically guaranteed to make you crack a smile. (more…)

If you haven’t heard of Mirror’s Edge, the first-person parkour fest from EA and DICE, you should really come out from under that rock you’ve been living under. Seriously, everybody can get behind jumping around on skyscrapers and giant construction equipment. Think Assassin’s Creed minus the knives and ancient architecture, with a slick monochrome aesthetic that makes the city appear almost too clean and perfect – something that stands in stark contrast to the abundant political corruption in the story.

What’s puzzling to many people (myself included) is that Mirror’s Edge achieved great review scores (averaging 79-81 on Metacritic, depending on platform), yet has somehow fallen by the wayside. Several representatives from both EA and DICE have expressed a love for the game and a desire to see a sequel, but so far nothing concrete has happened aside from hints at a second game during E3 2011. This is a sad scenario indeed, but it begs the question of why. With a cult following backing it up and people within the development and publishing companies both advocating it, why hasn’t a sequel already been made?

The obvious answer is that it didn’t sell well. Mirror’s Edge sold less than 150,000 copies during its first month on shelves, a relatively small number for a game that was supposed to kick start a new series for EA. With such low numbers, it’s no wonder EA decided a second game wasn’t worth backing. But why didn’t the game sell well? What was it that kept people from picking up an excellent title with high review scores and general praise from critics and players alike? What turned Mirror’s Edge into a sleeper hit?

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In Electronic Arts’ Genesis classic, Road Rash, you take on the roll of a street biker who has to punch, club, and speed his/her way to victory.

You aren’t racing on a giant circle completing laps - you are competing in illegal street races for stacks of cash.

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To better understand and appreciate the significance of this landmark achievement I need to give you a little history.

Dad has owned every single Madden since the original Super Nintendo. The only year he didn’t get Madden was the year they didn’t release it for Playstation 1 (so he bought NFL Gameday). That is over 15 years of video game football. Every year we play, and every year his superior running game and knowledge of actual football is enough to grind me into a very fine powder.

15 years of him dominating and crushing my feeble football skills.

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The Sega Dreamcast was the greatest system that never really had a chance. When most systems die after a year and a half, it is because they are terrible systems with horrendous game libraries (see 32x, Atari Jaguar). The Dreamcast had arguably the greatest first 18 months of any console in history. The unfortunate thing is those 18 months were all we got.

Why did the Dreamcast die?

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EA and Dice’s new third-person-shooter / MMOG, “Battlefield Heroes”, has finally opened to the public. It takes the basics of the Battlefield series and boils it down to a much more simplified version of the game.

Once you get past EA’s overblown login system, it is a simple matter of making a character and hopping into a random game.

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"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!!"

First off, I just want to get one thing out of the way. This game can also be found on both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, however, this review is only going to focus on the Wii version. All the menus and even the leveling system is handled very differently on the Wii version.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is one of the first games to take advantage of Nintendo’s latest peripheral, Wii Motion Plus. With the announcement of motion technology from both Microsoft and Sony at this year’s E3, Wii Motion Plus has a lot of impressing to do. Can it pull off the task?

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"Look out, Dawin! The Finches are right behind you!"

Now that EA has transformed Dante’s Inferno from a poem about a tour through hell into an epic God of War style fight through the demons of Hell, the proverbial floodgates have opened and all of classical literature is up for the Extremification treatment. As anyone who has read any of my articles here at WingDamage can tell you, I have only a passing knowledge of the English language. Part of this ignorance is an utter disregard for classical literature. I think this makes me a perfect candidate to join EA in transforming classical literature into video games. Video game developer guys please send all royalties to WingDamage care of Shaolinjesus.

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On a very special ninth episode of “Barrel Roll! - A Video Game Podcast”, with Wesley Johnson from Insulin Funk in tow, we review “Wanted: Weapons of Fate”, Civ Rev on the DS, “Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard”, and HAWX to name but a few.

In the news we discuss the rumors of the Xbox Elite being bundled with some best-sellers, Assassin’s Creed 2, the fact that GameStop has gotten themselves in hot-water (as did EA), and that you can suplex a dragon in Bayonetta.

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