Costume Contest - Extended Date

It's almost Halloween and we're celebrating by moving the contest entry date back until November 1! Don't wait to submit your costumes till then though. Secure your spot and a chance at winning Outlast! Enter by posting a pic of your costume on our Facebook page and you're automatically entered.

Good luck!

~ Ametis

Halloween Contest Give-Away!

Got a costume you want to show off? Want a free game? Send us a message on our facebook page with your Halloween Costumes in it and we'll start the voting October 29!

Also, join us for Coffee Hour on Tuesday where we'll be discussing horror games and displaying our own costumes. Not to mention that we'll be having a little admin competition to see which one of us has the best costume! The details on the voting will be released during Coffee Hour, so don't miss out on all of the fun!

It's a busy week here at Play Hard Gaming, so don't miss out on all of the action!

~ Ametis

Age Increased to **, It's Admin Rusu's Birthday!

Play Hard Gaming's very own Skyrim fanatic, Rusu is celebrating her birthday today, so join us as we wish her a Happy Birthday! :D

May Arkay of the Divines continue to bless her with Level-Ups

- From your Play Hard Gaming Family. :) 

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

 

Coffee Hour Announcement

Its almost Tuesday on our side of the world, you know what that means? Our (Almost) Weekly Coffee Hour is due for tomorrow, so stay tuned!

We plan to discuss Video Game Series and what makes them good or bad, Games we want a sequel for and of course, your weekly dose of random-ness, provided by none other than us :D

We'll be answering your questions as well so be sure to hit the comment box or use the Q/A Section of our Livestream tomorrow.

Links to be put up soon.

Image Source: http://goo.gl/KGCv1a

- Sephie

JudeZilla Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Tournament

JudeZilla, one of our resident live streamers, is competing now! Check out his current standings, and be sure to tune in and cheer him on!

~ Ametis

Drunken Unfair Mario

At 10:30pm Central, Aceman20001 will be streaming Unfair Mario and turning it into a drinking game. Tune into his twitch to find out exactly what the rules entail and to see just how drunk he'll be by the end of the stream.

~ Ametis

State of Decay Reaches 1 Million Players

The Game admin Ametis has been raving about, State of Decay, both on the 360 and PC, has surpassed 1 million users. It's first DLC, named Breakdown, is also in the process of certification to be released hopefully in time for Halloween, Undead Labs' 'Trick or Treat' for the loyal supporters of the game. 

According to the devs, the content of the DLC is complete and is in the final processes of bug removal.

JUST GIVE IT A CO-OP MODE ALREADY!



Source: http://goo.gl/SpjjYk

- Sephie

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

Half Life 3 Trademark: True or False?

After the internet buzzed about Valve applying for the Half Life 3 trademark, the application was taken down and now ceases to exist. Fans of the well loved game series will appear to be let down again as Valve has withheld comment.

From ValveTime:

We can now confirm that the "Half-Life 3" trademark has been removed from the Trademarks and Design Registration Office of the European Union (OHIM) website. The entrant appears to have disappeared entirely after only being listed on the website database for little over a week, allowing us to identify that the trademark's listing was more than likely a hoax intended to generate fake buzz for a game which is unlikely to appear for several years. Returning readers may remember when we had discussed how the "Half-Life 3" listing was previously never officially checked or authenticated before its removal.

On October 2nd 2013, a brand new trademark filing appeared on the same site, this time for "Portal 3", which is listed under the trademark number of "012190286". While this new filing should almost definitely be taken with a rather large pinch of salt, we can confirm that the "Portal 3" listing appears to have been appropriately examined by OHIM, unlike the previously listed "Half-Life 3" trademark. Thanks to the recent sneak peak into Valve's Jira account, we can confirm that there is currently no "Portal 3" development team within the company, highlighting that this brand new listing is also very likely a hoax of some kind, regardless of whether or not it has been officially examined. We'll keep you posted if and when we learn more.

On the bright side, the "Half Life 3 Confirmed" meme can continue on.

~ Ametis

Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/01/half-life-3-trademark-filed-by-valve?utm_campaign=fbposts&utm_source=facebook

Steam OS Update

With the announcement of the Steam OS, there's been a lot of speculation (and there still is) on what exactly this new product will do. Today, on the steam group, an update was sent out with the hardware specs. These new systems that they're working could easily be built from home and are fully customizable should you feel the need to buy the bits and pieces.

For those of you not so hardware savvy who won't be changing out the entire machine as soon as they get it, here are the beta specs:

More to come on the controller later, but for now this is enough to get me as excited as a little kid on Christmas.

~ Ametis

Amnesia Part 3 Play Through Now On YouTube!

Busy playing GTA 5 and you missed the broadcast? No worries my friends! The broadcast is now on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy! 
~Aceman

Amnesia Part Three!

Aceman, one of our resident live streamers, will be broadcasting Amnesia part three at 9:00 pm Central time! Check out his stream here and if you've missed any of his previous installments you can check them out on his Youtube channel.

~ Ametis 

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

Review: Outlast

     Let me start off by saying that I am very new to the survival horror genre. I started by playing Slender the Arrival only a couple months ago, but there was nothing that occurred in Slender that would prepare me for what I experienced in Outlast. With the bulk of the game in total darkness, I became terrified in ways that I couldn't previously imagine. This game is not for the faint of heart and even those with strong minds will have trouble sleeping after this one.

     Created by Red Barrels Games, Outlast puts you in the shoes of Miles Upshur, a brave journalist trying to discover what occurred at the broken down Mount Massive Asylum. Upon further investigation Miles finds that the asylum is by no means abandoned. Armed with your trusty camcorder, you have no chance of defending yourself, meaning you have three options: run, hide, or die. If anything, hiding is your weapon and I did A LOT of it while running away from the numerous creepers lurking around the mysterious asylum. 
Another aspect of the game is scavenging. To capture everything for your article on film (or to be able to find everything that you need in the dark) you must search batteries throughout the entire environment, which can make for some pretty stressful situations as I would find myself hurrying to find a battery as my last one was about to run out. 
The game is about 3 and a half to 4 hours long and I spent the entire time trying not to pee my pants. There are jump scares galore in this game, but somehow tastefully done rather than cheap overused tricks. 

     The game also looks gorgeous! The filter used with the camera creates a very realistic effect as if the player was actually experiencing the game through the eye of a camcorder making the experience 10 times more horrific. Really my only quip with the game is that in between all the intense scenes of running away from some of the creepiest enemies I've ever encountered, there are very tedious objective missions that seem to slow the pace of the game down. I felt as if the game could have been more about critical thinking instead of the monotonous "activate this switch" kind of objectives.

     Although this game made me crazier than I already was, I absolutely loved it. The story was intriguing, the dialogue was disturbing and gave me goosebumps, and at the end of it all I wanted it to keep going. Having never been one to play many indie games, I was extremely impressed by the work done by Red Barrels Games. They are a top notch crew and definitely a gaming team that I will keep my eye on. 



I give Outlast 8 used batteries out of 10.

- Eric

Should the horrors of Mount Massive Asylum be too much for you, here is a link to my streaming of the game: Outlast Playlist

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

JudeZilla Joins the PHG Crew!

One of the Top Marvel vs Capcom players in the Nation, A Twitch Streamer, A Proud member of the ANBU Fight Club with more than one Championship Match on his belt

Now, a Play Hard Gamer, please welcome JudeZilla aka ANBU_Judezilla as he joins the Play Hard Gaming Crew as a Resident Livestreamer, so expect another Stream spam from us :)

Jude's Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/jude_zilla
Jude's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/judegines

- Sephie

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

Half Life 3 - Confirmed?

It finally happened.

Though no comments from valve, (except this one that we can't be sure is true... I mean "Slobbering Shit-Wizards"? Really? At least it's good for a laugh.) this was posted here with the pictures above and below.

We're not quite sure if this is a sick prank, an actual confirmation, or just Valve renewing their license.

But once again:

IT BEGINS.

~ Ametis

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

Coffee Hour: 9/24/13

Join us for coffee hour tomorrow morning at 10:30 central time where we'll be diving into the great debate of Xbox One, PS4, or the newly announced Steam OS. Eric, Sephie, and myself will be there bright and early debating which of the next gens will be the best of the best.

And for those who have missed any of our past broadcasts:


Coffee Hour #1

Coffee Hour #2

Coffee Hour #3

~ Ametis

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

Review: Fire Emblem

The Fire Emblem series is probably one of my favorite 'Under the Radar' games, mainly because most of its games were never released outside Japan, Fire Emblem: Awakening is the series' latest entry and is a 3DS exclusive.

While the game is short (take this with a grain of salt, I usually speed-play through my first playthroughs), there are still tons of side-missions and DLC's, unlockable characters, and a myriad of relationship options for all the characters.

The game gives you difficutly options when starting, Normal, Hard and Lunatic modes, I think the names explain them clearly, what the series used on Awakening from one of the Japan-Only Fire Emblem games, Fire Emblem: Hero of Light and Shadow, is the option to choose from Classic or Casual mode, Classic mode, as the series is probably most known for, is once a character dies, he/she is gone forever. Casual mode makes the units 'retreat' once they hit 0 HP so they become available again in the next battles.

Dialogue is very well written, considering there are tons of different relationship options. The cast of Fire Emblem: Awakening will certainly make themselves lovable in their own way that if you play in Classic mode, will kill parts of you as well as they die. You will be able to load a save file, yes, but that defeats the purpose of playing in Classic Mode.

Voice Acting is also fantastic whether you're playing on English or Japanese(Subbed), the Voice Cast is so star studded that you're bound to recognize one soon enough.

Fire Emblem: Awakening is an awesome addition to the series' already incredible line-up

It also might make you cry during certain points of the game, so get those napkins ready!

–

Score : 9 / 10

Platform : 3DS

By: Sephie

Review: The Next BIG Thing

I honestly wouldn't have bought this game if it weren't on sale, but the concept looked interesting and so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm glad that I didn't buy this alone and there are other games to capture my attention because, quite frankly, this game thoroughly annoyed me. 

Sure, it's a nice concept. The reporters following leads, finding clues, figuring out creative ways to use completely (and otherwise should be) useless materials, monsters (er... well this part is debatable); but the 1950's style wasn't pulled off to the best of its abilities and, I swear to god, if I hear another person say, "Ayo" I think I might just kill myself. 

I hated the dialogue. Hated. Liz does not need to repeat "Dan Murray"'s name every time she speaks to him. Liz also doesn't need to be a psychopath. Maybe this game wasn't meant for my age range... Maybe this was all a dream...

Nope. I actually paid for this.

Damn it.

On the bright side, at least some of the other games (one at least that I've tried) in the Pendulo Adventure pack weren't that bad...

Score: 3/10

Price: $2.49 (during the sale)/$9.99 (full price)

Site: http://www.thenextbig-game.com/index.php

Platform: PC 

P.S. What the hell? You can't even play this is windowed mode. Seriously, what kind of madness is that?