After watching the video for this game I’m having a hard time thinking that this is real.  My first thought is that the Wii is at the end of days.  It has crossed over into empty nothingness and has come back to bring Mass: We Pray with it.  I have seen and heard of other small production companies releasing religious games for the PC to spread the word of the Almighty, but nothing of this caliber of weird.  The previous games followed the normal formula for a video game.  These depicted a playable character (animated Jesus doing battle in Jerusalem, or included Christian followers shooting lasers out of their Bible) or online Street Fighter-esque flash games where you battle other religious figures like Buddha and Ghandi.  These all follow the normal recipe for video games targeted at the youth audience.  I thought those were bad.  Mass: We Pray takes the idea and suck of church going to a whole new level. It’s laughable.  The line for this game teeters on real or fake and has me wondering if this is in fact real or not.

The video on the webpage is of course campy and downright retarded from the start.  It immediately gives off the vibe of infomercial spoof with the voice-over commentary right from the get go.  The ad starts out with “You want to worship the Lord and Savior every day of the week, but you have to wait until Sunday? Not anymore! Check out Mass: We Pray!”  You can almost hear the announcer say, “Their has GOT to be a better WAY!” under his breath.

After we get passed the horrid dinner sequence and tacky sweaters we are shown what the supposed “normal” family is supposed to do as family time.  I don’t know about you guys out there, but after I have to suffer through heartfelt Thanksgiving Day dinner with my family, I want to go into my room and masturbate to dwarf amputee internet porn. Oh wait, I guess that’s just me, but am I the only one that has to deal with Aunt Jeanne knocking on my door while I’m trying to finish? Sheesh, she’s so nosy!

You’ll notice after the two kids start playing, that the dad’s head is on a string like a marionette, constantly nodding in approval of his glorious kids as they gain the high score in Mass: We Pray.  I really think this might be the way he occupies his kid’s time so he can go bone his wife in the bedroom to make another kid.

The real fun starts when the entire family breaks out the “kneeling boards” and all proceed to engage in some insanely awesome 4 person co-op action.  It’s boys vs. girls, dad vs. mom, brother vs. sister crazy gaming action!  Mass hysteria!  Look at that shit! Little Billy just got 4 hail-Mary’s in a row and got to move up 4 pews! AWESOME!  And no telling what that red light on the kneeling boards mean.  Bluetooth? Satan?  I guess we will never know.

After a little further research it’s good to know that Mass: We Play doesn’t actually exist from the dark side and this is a viral ad campaign for Visceral Game’s upcoming title Dante’s Inferno.  Clicking on any part of the webpage (screenshots below the video, the kneeling pad, etc.) takes you to a trailer for Dante’s Inferno.  Like the game or not, they are doing an awesome job at marketing this game.  First the paid protestors at E3, and now this.  Good times.  I can now breathe a sigh of relief.

After spending some solid time with Left 4 Dead 2, it’s quite apparent that this game is nothing to boycott.  In fact, those doing so are really depriving themselves of an extremely improved version of Left 4 Dead.  I’d go as far as to say that Left 4 Dead should be boycotted, not the sequel game.  Valve has improved upon the original Left 4 Dead tenfold, but is it worth the price tag?

Left 4 Dead 2 is, mechanically, the same Left 4 Dead we’ve all been playing for the past year.  It’s the same engine and the same shooting mechanics (as far as the survivors go), and the only real issue I have with the game is that I had some really bad graphical lag during times when the Tank infected was on screen, or when large hordes showed up on screen, but hopefully Valve will get this ironed out, and it only happens some times.  If you’ve just crawled out from the rock you’ve been living under for the past year, Loot Ninja’s original L4D review can give you the basic rundown of how both games work.

The biggest change to the game is the addition of the three new infected – the Jockey, Charger, and Spitter.  The jockey is a small infected that can jump short distances onto a survivor, and then control them to some degree (ie. walking them off a ledge or away from other survivors.)  He’s small but effective when used correctly.  The Charger is a larger, lower health, tank-like infected who does just what his name sounds like – line up a survivor, and charge them, resulting in pinning the target survivor, as well as sending a shockwave that stuns other nearby survivors.  The Spitter is probably my favorite new infected, Valve’s answer to “closet camping” done in the first game – the Spitter shoots a large puddle of acidic goo at it’s target, which acts like a Survivor’s molotov, causing huge damage to anyone standing in the puddle.  It’s a great way to stop survivors from bunching up together, and absolutely deadly when combined with a boomer.  Regular infected got a slight tweaking too, including more variation and a couple “special” regular infected – infected in haz-mat suits (can’t be set on fire), clowns (attract other zombies), and more.

Survivors get a bunch of new toys to play with as well.  There are now a number of variations of weapons (including a goddamn grenade launcher and laser sights), as well as limited incendiary and explosive rounds for weapons.  There are melee weapons too, including a cricket bat and a chainsaw, which makes me wonder how I ever played the first game without them.  There is also a new grenade item – a canister filled with boomer bile which will cause zombies to attack the target it hits, a defibrillator for reviving dead allies, and a stim shot that increases speed and damage for a short amount of time.  All in all, there is a lot of variation here, and it aids greatly to the replay value of the game.

The new infected skew Versus mode against the survivors rather heavily – which is good, and Valve’s original intention for the first game.  Extracting as survivors feels like an actual accomplishment now, and can make all the difference between a win and a loss for either team.  It also stands as providing some serious bragging rights for the winning team.

Also included are two new modes – Realism and Scavenge.  Realism is just as it sounds.  It’s hard as fuck.  Ammo and teammates aren’t outlined like they are in other modes, death is permanent, and headshots are an instant kill.  Scavenge is based on one of the new events in the game, where survivors take turns trying to fill a generator with gas cans placed around the level.  Speaking of which, the events from the first game (think the elevator sequence in No Mercy Hospital) have been mostly changed – they now are “gauntlet” style events, where you set off the event and need to keep moving and get to the other side to stop the zombie horde.  It works much better than the first game, where events consisted more of starting it and backing up against a wall.

If you’re still intent on not picking up Left 4 Dead 2 because it’s just “more of the same”, you’d be right – it is more of the same, and that’s a good thing – it’s improved upon and makes the original game look rather primitive in comparison.  I’ve barely even covered exactly what makes L4D2 such an improvement over the original, mainly for the sake of space.  There are tons of other little things Valve has done with the game – dismemberment, team versus mode, an actual story line, dynamic weather effects, randomized level design (including extraction points), et al – Left 4 Dead 2 is everything the original game should have been, and more.

[A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]

I was honestly excited when Sony announced their adhocParty software coming to the US. I downloaded it this morning and got ready to play some Gran Turismo PSP online against people all over the world. After firing up the software on my PS3 and clicking any of the buttons, I was given the above error message. Yup, you need a wired internet connection to use adhocParty. Those of us who connect to the internet with the built in wireless in the PS3 are screwed.

The funny part is that if you click the Information button, the PS3 opens the web browser and tries to display the manuals (which gave me an error message that “There is not enough memory. The window content was replaced with a blank page.”) So at least something works over wireless internet. The only thing I can hope a this point is that Sony will update adhocParty. Running ethernet cables isn’t very feasible in my house right now. I guess my dreams of playing Gran Turismo against kids from Guam are squashed.

Besides the lack of party chat, I’m sure the one thing pissing off most Modern Warfare 2 players is the inability to find out how to unlock certain titles. After an hour or two of searching, I’ve found a forum that has a nearly complete list of all of the titles in MW2. I won’t waste your time so I’ll just throw the link below.

Call of Duty Titles and Emblems Picture List

Titles and How To Get Them

BioWare today announced the next installment of Dragon Age: Origins DLC, Return to Ostagar. Set for release on all platforms this Holiday, fans of the game will have even more content for one of the best RPG’s of the year. From the press release:

Return to Ostagar, BioWare’s next thread in the Dragon Age: Origins tapestry, summons players to a new quest in which they will return to the fateful battleground in Ostagar where the Grey Wardens were nearly wiped out.  Players will discover King Cailan’s top-secret political agenda and go behind enemy lines to revisit a place that many feared had been lost to history.

I haven’t had a chance to play Dragon Age: Origins yet, but Karl thinks it’s the bees knees. Yeah, I just wrote that. Don’t judge me. So save up $4.99 to buy this new content pack pretty soon.

One of Sony’s big advantages with the PSN is the ability to play online for free. At an recent Media/Investor Conference, the company revealed that it would look to extend a subscription model to the PSN. The internets got all up in arms that the PSN would soon go the way of Xbox Live, forcing your to pony up heard earned cash to play online. Fortunately, that isn’t the case. Speaking to VG247, Kaz Hirai set the record straight:

SCE will further increase sales by offering users new entertainment through the combination of hardware, software, peripheral and PlayStation Network. Especially in the online area, we are studying the possibility of introducing a subscription model, offering premium content and services, in addition to the current free services.

There you have it. You’ll continue to be able to play online for free. The subscription model is probably referring to features like Qore, where you can get extra content for opening your wallet. I have a feeling most people will opt to pay nothing and roll with the PSN as-is. I’ll wait and see what these premium content and services are before making a decision, but I already subscribe to Qore, so who knows.

What is better than video games and really hot chicks? When said really hot chicks are dressed up as video game characters. After the jump is our official Loot Ninja Cosplay Girl of the Week. We don’t know her name, but we like it that way. Remember, just because you wanna bang a Pikachu, that doesn’t make you a deviant.

As always, SFW.

Now, we are a little confused on who this is. We think it may be Harley Quinn, but it doesn’t look much like a jester outfit. We don’t think it is the Baroness from GI Joe because she did not wear an eye patch. What we can all agree on is that rack. Yo Boobs!

[UPDATE: Thanks to some of our very astute readers who have more free time on their hands than we do, (didn't think that was possible), this is none other than Molotov Cocktease from the Venture Bros. on Adult Swim.  Thanks for the heads up guys. ]

If YOU have a favorite Cosplay girl you want to share with the world, Contact Us, and if we use your suggestion, we will submit an entry for you into our Cosplay Girl of the Month contest for a chance to win something badass in the not so distant future.

If you have gotten your hands on Left 4 Dead 2 and have played just smidgen of the Dark Carnival campaign, you have probably heard of the band Midnight Riders.  I don’t know if it’s THE Midnight Riders or just Midnight Riders, but the point is, the band is mentioned throughout the campaign as one of Ellis’ favorites.  He goes on and on with his lengthy diatribes while he’s getting eatin’ up by zombies about how awesome the band is.  Hell, you even get to take on a zombie climax event on one of their stages with pyrotechnics and everything!

I was recently popping around on the internet and saw a new website for the Midnight Riders seen here.  The site is actually owned by Valve Corporation and is one of their 198 domains.  The site is legit.  We don’t know in what context yet, but it is legit.  When you head on over to the site you can see that down below the riders we are given the menacing message “Coming Soon”.  Is this Left 4 Dead 2 DLC already in the making? Are we going to be able to play as the Midnight Riders through the campaign?  Will this be a whole new set of campaigns telling the story of the Midnight Riders and their escape to freedom?  We will find out soon, and we will keep you informed at Loot Ninja.

I’m personally hoping that at least there will be a sequence of getting on the band’s tour bus only to find zombie groupies wanting to have sex with you.  That would be awesome!  Hey, don’t judge me!  Things still work down there even if they are flesh eating zombies.  I got some flesh……IN MY PANTS!

If you went out and preordered Battlefield: Bad Company 2, today is the start of the beta on PS3 where you’ll be able to tool around the multiplayer. I know Steve is going to be firing it up tonight and bringing you his thoughts really soon, so if you want to hear what he has to say, keep checking back.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the console multiplayer landscape shapes up this Spring. No doubt a large portion of people will consistently play Modern Warfare 2, but I have a feeling Bad Company 2 is going to be a strong multiplayer game and will pull some people away from the CoD giant. Only time will tell, so for now, preorder the game on PS3 and get in the Beta.