Get the dodge out of Hell with the launch of Faxion Online today

With UTV True Game’s launch today of Faxion Online, the free-to-play MMO set in the throws of battle between Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, players can now access the highly entertaining PVP-oriented title. With multiple hands-on sessions of Faxion Online and in-person meetings with the team here in Austin, Texas, we’re excited for the official FREE release launch of Faxion, which should provide fast-paced action experiences in over-the-top settings found in the afterlife.



With a development crew that has worked on great PVP titles such as Shadowbane, there is a lot of promise in this little downloadable package, which should tickle many a PVPers’ fancy. Focused more on capturing specific zones and territorial battles for Good or Evil, players will raise their way through the ranks of their faction, gaining access to better gear and multi-class abilities. With players able to utilize unique skill builds and armor sets, you won’t see the same specced fighters, casters or healers running (or floating – with wings) around Limbo. We anticipate a welcome response to the F2P model with microtransactions available for purchase if players value items/money over time (which happens in today’s flow of life).



UTV True Games has had the game in beta for a number of months working out the kinks, so today’s launch aims to provide a relatively hitch free MMO launch, which we all know can be easier said than done. Regardless, I’m heading home soon to start my download. You can download the full game here for free. Hell, you can even win an iPad 2 if you “Like” Faxion Online over at its Facebook page here before June 9. No longer will thou have to coveth thy neighbor’s iPad 2! See you in the afterlife!

Ubisoft unveils free-to-play 'Ghost Recon' title

Ubisoft is developing a free-to-play online game based on the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon franchise.



Ghost Recon Online is a downloadable, multiplayer shooter that will enter a closed beta period this summer.













Players can choose between three different Ghost classes and use customizable weapons and the latest military technology. The game is free to play, but players can opt to purchase premium items.



Interested players can head here to apply for the closed beta.



Ubisoft is not the only major video game publisher to adopt the free-to-play concept for its franchises. Electronic Arts recently released a free-to-play game based on Battlefield.

Free Games Online for Geeks

Whether it be at work, school, or just lazing around the house, there's always that inner geek looking to escape, and what better way to do so, then with some free games online. Continue reading to play a few of our favorites.

Diesel Valkyrie

Flight

'L.A. Noire' Is A Video Game That's Like A Film

A new videogame offers up another way to experience life on the Los Angeles Police Department circa 1947.



The much-anticipated "L.A. Noire" is out this week. Players are put into the shoes of Cole Phelps, a returning World War II vet who solves crimes and works his way up, from beat cop to detective. He's surrounded by a host of suspects: from a sketchy Hollywood movie producer to crooked cops.



"L.A. Noire" is from Rockstar Games, the company behind Grand Theft Auto. For this latest game, Rockstar meticulously re-created Los Angeles of the late 1940s, using old maps and aerial photographs.



Video-game critic and scholar Harold Goldberg, author of All Your Base Are Belong to Us, How 50 Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture, has been playing, and says "it's ... very film-like."



"And it just feels like, you know, anything from Hitchcock to Scorsese," he tells Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne. "Feels like being in a film sometimes."

Sucker Punch: A video game more than an action movie

With “Sucker Punch,’’ Zack Snyder makes his bid for the big time. What, the successes of “300’’ and “Watchmen’’ weren’t enough? Not if he wants to be a showman-auteur in a league with Baz Luhrmann, Christopher Nolan, or Quentin Tarantino.

No such luck, Zack, but thanks for trying. The new movie is Snyder’s first original script — cowritten with Steve Shibuya — and it’s a surprisingly joyless mash-up of every bit of fanboy flotsam floating around in its maker’s cranium. It begins with the young, lissome Babydoll (Emily Browning) framed for the murder of her sister and committed to the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane (that’s what the sign says) by her pervert stepfather (Gerard Plunkett).

This experience proves so traumatic that the heroine flees to the dank MTV whorehouse in her imagination, where the asylum inmates become a hardy sisterhood looking to escape, Dr. Gorski (Carla Gugino) becomes the madame, and the evil orderly Blue (Oscar Isaac) serves as sadistic pimp. When things get too stressful there, Babydoll plunges into a deeper level of fantasy-action set pieces involving medieval Japan, WWI trench warfare, WWII bomber runs, and outer space.

That’s right: “Sucker Punch’’ is “Inception’’ for dummies.

But what hasn’t Snyder poured into this stew? The over-directed action scenes snap together “Sailor Moon,’’ “Sin City,’’ and “Kill Bill’’ like pieces of Lego. The most interesting visual idea is the giant two-legged tank with a happy bunny face, but if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the bit. Actually, this is the rare movie that doesn’t advance on its poster.

As with “300,’’ “Sucker Punch’’ resembles a ripsnorting video game or the longest Super Bowl commercial ever made more than it does a movie. The soundtrack is jammed with “Moulin Rouge’’-style modern rawk takes on the Stooges, Roxy Music, Queen, and Björk, and the cinematography drains the movie of all colors except a bilious metallic sheen. For all its noise and supersonic style, “Sucker Punch’’ is a drab drag.

Somewhere in here is a genuinely subversive girls-in-prison movie, and the talented cast certainly seems game: Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea, Jena Malone as Rocket, Vanessa Hudgens escaping Planet Disney as Blondie, Jamie Chung as Amber. They’re power babes looking for a socket to plug into.

Instead Snyder dolls them up in Victoria’s Secret cast-offs, hands them ginormous guns, and forgets to let them have any fun. With all the trash culture he has absorbed, you’d think someone would have sat the director down with Russ Meyer’s “Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill!’’ Now, those women knew how to sucker punch.


Via