While attempting to create its own identity, Rochard stumbles by becoming something we’ve seen many times before. A multi-utility gun is still a gun when you’ve got bad guys shooting at you.

It’s a bite-sized episode of Fall Damage this week as Adam, Dan, and Niki talk about their simultaneous dire weeks of minimal gaming. We talk a little about Skyrim, a little about SCP-087, a teensy spoiler-free bit about Mass Effect 3, the addictive properties of cotton candy, and cybernetic detachable penile augments.

A lot of folks, like with Dark Sector, suspected that we’d never get to play The Darkness II. However, after taking the franchise away from my beloved Starbreeze, themselves off to resurrect Syndicate for EA, 2K have handed over duties to a developer that has seen fit to start from scratch.

Open world? Drive to intersections to start events? No crash events? What the hell! Subsequent demo playthroughs didn’t resonate, and I thought the series I started playing in 2001 had died. The disappointment set in extremely hard and I canceled my pre-order. Stupid open world…

There’s something disarming about the humble nature of Joe Danger. It lets us glimpse a gaming landscape that might have been if narrative didn’t win the war against gameplay. Unfortunately, the brutal nature of some of the Special Edition’s offerings actually hinder the experience overall.

This week Adam, Ben, Aaron and Jim talk about Super Monday Night Combat, playing Soul Caliber drunk, and whether ICO is sexist. We also read an email from our friend Todd that incites a discussion about Double Fine’s Kickstarter development model, and Jim learns some fun facts about Thailand.

The reality is that most communities shrink fairly quickly after their initial release with just a few rising to dominance each year. This is generally looked upon as a negative, but I’ve recently had a different experience.