Open World

Second Skin is a 2008 documentary by Juan Carlos Piñeiro Escoriaza about MMO players' "second skin"—their avatars and virtual life. While looking at those into titles like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Second Life, and others, MMO players' lives seem like an easy target for humor, Second Skin manages to avoid that.

Needs Mayo

HIGH The final battle with the Dragon.

LOW Walk back to Bluemoon Tower? I just $&*#!@ came from there!

WTF Who keeps leaving explosive barrels all over the kingdom?

Haven't had much free time in front of the consoles lately, but what little time I have had has been going into Dragon's Dogma.

The most interesting part of Take-Two's 2012 fiscal year earnings conference call covers what was—and what wasn't—said regarding Grand Theft Auto V.

Dragon's Dogma was a game I was very curious about since seeing an early demo last year, but there were a lot of questions in my mind about what the final product would be like. After speaking with others who were also looking forward to it, I see that I wasn't alone in wanting more information. Now that I've logged some time with it, I thought it might be helpful to clear up a few things for those of you who are considering picking it up.

It was the power of adorkableness that convinced me to buy Kingdoms of Amalur. Seriously. I tried the demo and was resoundingly apathetic towards it, but when Day9 streamed it with Felicia Day at his house, and with the ridiculous hilarity that resulted by their combined dorkiness, I was dazzled by the geekiness and shelled out a full sixty bones for the PC version.

An Evolutionary Dead End

HIGH The Prototype characters are über-badasses.

LOW Outdated mission and world structure, repetitive tasks.

WTF The eleventh-hour attempt to humanize Heller.

Since the days of Morrowind, players and game critics alike have often described Bethesda's beloved Elder Scrolls series as "an offline MMO." The titles have had many of the elements that make Massively Multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft a huge hit, but it's never allowed for other players to come together and share the experience—until now.

In this episode we feature a full blown discussion of The Walking Dead, Episode 1, and Richard drinks the most Richard-like thing that he could possibly drink. Not enough, you say? We also look at the good, the bad and the ugly of open world games. Stop what you're doing right now...unless it is downloading this PODCAST! With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, Richard "I'm not wasting a bullet" Naik and Dylan Collins.

• The Walking Dead, Toy Soldiers DLC and Escape Goat Shirts!
  
• The Walking Dead: Episode One—A New Day Review

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The Dragon's Dogma demo is now out for both XBL and PSN, apparently. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but from what people have been telling me, it sounds extremely similar to the demo they had running at last year's PAX.