The survival horror genre is ironically alive and well in today’s gaming scene. The genre, which was in the 90’s dominated by Silent Hill and Resident Evil, has grown up and now embraces some pretty stiff competition. Games like Dead Space, Fear and the insanely creepy Amnesia are vying for shares in a growing but still niche market. Enter the marketing masterminds at Nicolas Entertainment Group.

Afterfall: Insanity (AI) is a third person action-horror shooter set in the post-apocalyptic Afterfall universe—one that has been exhausted by the Third World War. The story-line begins in 2035 when the protagonist, psychiatrist Albert Tokaj makes a desperate attempt to escape the underground city-shelter inhabited by the nuclear war's survivors. Madness ensues.

The game's controversial pre-release promotion program offers  gamers the possibility of getting the game for just one dollar. In order to achieve this goal however, the company must sell ten million pre-orders. No problem, right?

To sweeten the deal, Afterfall: Insanity’s producer and developer have inked a deal with Amnesty International (the human rights activists, AI) that grants them 100% of the money collected during the $1 pre-order campaign.

If this all sounds like too-good-to-be-true marketing fodder, it’s because it is. BUT (and it’s a large BUT at that), the Afterfall trailer actually looks awesome. It reminds me of a Dead Space/Doom/Resident Evil/Fallout hybrid and I like the look of it. And for only a dollar you can’t really go wrong. Plus, you’ll be helping humans help humans, and that’s always good.

Check out the trailer below and if you like what you see, you can pre-order the game here.

Afterfall: Insanity releases on November 25, 2011 for PC.

A couple of weeks before the release of Gears of War 3, Gears of War: The Board Game will hit store shelves. You see, it's a board game with all of the excitement of Gears of War the video game—except it's probably not even close to as exciting. Sadly, I still totally want it. Fantasy Flight Games makes a pretty good case with this trailer and, honestly, the little figurines would make a great addition to my ongoing army vs. Indians vs. firemen vs. cowboys war I have going on in my sandbox.

I got dibs on Cole Train!

According to Amazon.com, Gears of War: The Board Game releases on August 31^st for about $80.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, a video is worth about a million more. If you were lucky enough to be in Los Angeles for E3, you may have caught a peek of the awesomeness that is “Horde 2.0.” If you weren’t at the show, it’s likely that you’ve at least read all about it, seen a bootleg video or possibly kidnapped Clifford Bleszinski yourself and made him play for you while you brushed his hair.

Now Epic Games has finally released an official “tutorial” video that lets you see officially that the Horde mode you know and love has been upgraded and is officially more awesome than ever… officially. Narrated by the tough and sexy Anya Stroud, this tutorial lets you see for yourself some of the evolved features like Fortifications, boss creatures and the new money feature. Check it out!

April Fools' Day is probably the most confusing “holiday” that we recognize.  It’s the one day of the year that people can get away with being complete arses without the prerequisite of intoxication.  Some people partake in small workplace shenanigans while others manufacture elaborate schemes that test the limit of the recipient’s psyche.  And while I do nothing at all, I do encourage it.  So here’s a list that I found featuring 50 easy to execute pranks that you can do right now.

50. Borrow someone’s cell phone and change the language setting to a foreign language.
49. Change the language for Google on someone’s computer.
48. Change the coffee in the office coffee maker to decaf.
47. Swap the signs on the men’s and ladies’ rest rooms.
46. Hide scented air fresheners all over someone’s office.
45. Add food coloring to milk that comes in a cardboard container.
44. Add food coloring to the windshield washer fluid of someone’s car.
43. Switch around random keys on someone’s keyboard who isn’t a very good typist.
42. Switch the Push and Pull signs on a set of doors.
41. Hide food in a trash can and when someone comes by grab some and eat it.
40. Replace Oreo cream-filling with toothpaste and offer one to someone.
39. Dip the tips of someone’s cigarettes in Orajel so their lips will go numb.
38. Bring multiple sets of clothes to work, change every hour, and act like nothing’s different.
37. Cup some water in your hand and pretend to sneeze on the back of someone’s head.
36. Take something from someone’s office and leave them a ransom note.
35. Add several odd appointments with alarms set to go off during the day to a co-worker’s Outlook calendar.
34. Hide all of the desktop icons on someone’s computer and replace the monitor’s wallpaper with a screen-shot of their desktop.
33. Put a “Please Use Other Door” sign on the entrance to your office building if it only has one entrance.
32. Put a balloon on the tailpipe of a someone’s car so it will pop when they start their car.
31. Glue the headset of someone’s phone down to the cradle.
30. Take the door knob off a door and put it back on backwards, then lock it and leave the door open.
29. Put plastic wrap around the door frame of a commonly used door.
28. Cover a toilet seat with plastic wrap.
27. Take a squirt gun into the rest room stall next to someone and shoot little drops over the wall every couple of seconds while pretending to pee.
26. Leave a note on someone’s car apologizing for an accident that never actually happened.
25. Glue all the eggs into the carton.
24. Hard boil all the eggs in the carton and place them back in the refrigerator.
23. Paint a bar of soap completely with clear nail polish so it won’t suds up.
22. Turn every setting in someone’s car to the maximum: the heat, the radio, the wipers, the seats, etc.
21. Place a small piece of Post-it note over the ball under someone’s computer mouse so that it won’t work.
20. Switch the handles on the refrigerator to the side that doesn’t open.
19. Conference call two people then don’t say anything, just listen.
18. Place a ‘house for sale’ ad in the newspaper for someone’s home.
17. Paint the tips of someone’s pen and pencil with clear nail polish so none of them work.
16. Hide a small radio in the ceiling tiles above someone’s desk and turn it on very softly.
15. Fill someone’s hair-dryer with baby powder.
14. Put marbles in the hubcaps of someone’s car.
13. Leave cryptic notes warning someone of an impending prank then do nothing all day.
12. Rubber band the sprayer on the kitchen sink into the “on” position.
11. Place a pair of pants and shoes inside the only toilet stall in a rest room to make it appear someone is using it all day.
10. Pour vegetable oil on the exhaust of someone’s car so it will smoke when started up.
9. Hide an alarm clock in someone’s bedroom and set it for 3:00 a.m.
8. Remove the shower head and place a Lifesavers candy in it, then put the head back on.
7. Remove the shower head and place a chicken bouillon cube in it, then put the head back on.
6. Rearrange somebody’s drawers or file cabinets in a different order.
5. Tape magnets to the bottom of a cup, put it on the roof of your car and drive around.
4. Put food coloring in the hand soap dispenser.
3. Put an ad in the paper for a garage sale at someone’s house beginning at 6 a.m.
2. Buy some underwear, write a co-worker’s name in them, then leave them on the floor of the office bathroom.
1. Install the “blue screen of death screen-saver” on someone’s computer.

Like a bunch of people, I got really excited about Homefront.  The marketing surrounding the game was great and the premise of battling the Koreans in an alternate reality San Francisco sounded outstanding.  The fact that the makers of the above-average Frontlines: Fuel of War were handling development duties didn’t hurt either.  Yes, Homefront had a lot going for it.

Well, we all know how that turned out.  A little over a week has passed since its release and the overall response has been pretty “meh” at best.

The very average (and that’s being nice) Homefront raises a much more important question, though, about the video game industry and our buying habits: why do they continue to make average games, and why do we keep buying them?

My short answer is, “hope.”  Yes, Obama used it, and yes, it’s a bit cliché—just work with me.  It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.  No one sets out to make an average game—just like nobody sets out to buy one—it just happens.  Developers hope their final product is a good one and we hope our $60 purchase gives us hours of quality entertainment.  But, developers run in to deadlines and certain features need to be axed and quality issues don’t get the time they deserve to be fixed.  And I’m sure it’s just as annoying to the people that pour their hearts in to game development as it is for the end user.  But, it’s a shame that the developers and publishers know about a game’s shortcomings prior to release and ignore them.  I get it; they have made a large investment and must stay the course that their game is good.  So they leave it to us and our $60 to find out of the disappointing dysfunction that lies ahead—and that can leave quite a bad aftertaste.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Three more months of development could have really helped a game with as much potential as Homefront and Kaos and THQ could have saved some serious face.  Also, a $60 price tag on a budget title like Homefront is crazy.  Yes, I called it a budget title.  You can fool yourself all you want and try to justify your purchase of Homefront—but deep down you know it’s trash.  The campaign is short (not that it bothered me because I prayed for it to end), the graphics are ugly, the server issues are infuriating and the fact that when I sell or trade it without that multiplayer code that shipped in the box, the next guy will have to suffer too is insulting.  At $40, Homefront would be looking a whole lot better.

So, now I’m scared.  I’m definitely venting about Homefront, since it was the last game I had this experience with, but it’s certainly not an isolated incident.  There are so many shooters released every year and I keep waiting for that “next great shooter” to come along but continue to be disappointed.  Will somebody please step up and dethrone Call of Duty sometime soon?  I’m counting on you Battlefield.

The opinions reflected here are those of one Freek and KontrolFreek.com is not responsible for the things he says.  In fact, no one here even likes him.

Since there is so much interest in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, we figured we'd inform you of a little tournament being put together by GameStop, MLG/Gamebattles and Xbox 360.  Maybe you’ve heard of it already; maybe you haven't.  Either way, the deadline for entry is 3/14 (that’s Sunday, people!) and if you haven't registered yet you should probably get on it.  The tournament is for teams of 4 and you can play from your house.  So you can essentially team-up with anyone from anywhere.  And since we have such a great community of like-minded gamers here, we figured we'd create a space for you all to meet and maybe team up to play together in this tournament.

Head on over to our forums at KontrolFreek.com now!  You can discuss BC2, recruit, form squads or just yell at each other.  Just hurry, the deadline is near.

For more info on the tournament visit: gamestop.com/battlefieldbadcompany2.

See you on the Battlefield!

The recent ban-hammer on modded Xbox 360 consoles has struck hard.

In case you haven’t somehow heard already, 1,000,000 (you read that right—a million!) console bans have been issued since late October for violating Xbox Live’s terms of use agreement.  The majority of the bans were issued for having “flashed” disk drives that fool the console in to playing illegal copies of Xbox games.

Ban-waves have occurred in the past, but this time Microsoft has really made their message clear: if you have a modified console for playing pirated games over Xbox Live, you will be banned!

If you happen to be one of those filthy pirates who have fallen “victim” to the ban-wave, you’re probably feeling a little confused and a whole bunch depressed—especially with your entire friends list online playing Modern Warfare 2.  After all, an Xbox without Live is like a car without wheels, right?

Well, don’t worry.  You can still get online… sort of. 

A few options for getting a quick online fix—other than dishing out another $200 for a new Xbox—include tunneling software and programs used for network sharing.  Kai (http://www.teamxlink.co.uk) and XBConnect (http://xbconnect.com) both use software to fool your network in to thinking you have a LAN-party set up, enabling you to play many games that have an option for system link play.  Leaf Networks (http://leafnetworks.net) does pretty much the same thing but allows you a little more flexibility to play a wider variety of system link games that might not be on the list of the other two sites. 

Each of the programs supports voice chat, but other Xbox Live capabilities (e.g. Xbox friends list, party chat, Marketplace, Matchmaking, etc.) are obviously lost.  Each program is perfect for playing co-op games like Borderlands, L4D, ODST, and even MW2.  In multiplayer games, though, ping times can be high when trying to play against people that are too far away.  So having a group of friends in nearby states is definitely a plus. 

Each program has its pro’s and con’s, so the best advice is to try them all and see which one best fits your needs.

 
*Warning*

If in the market for a used Xbox 360 console, be really careful who you buy it from.  Make sure it can access Xbox Live before forking over any cash.  Craigslist and E bay are about to get really cluttered with banned units that can’t go online.