Master Control Program

CHUD.com’s video game column, chaired by Cav Gallagher and his staff of inglorious gaming bastards, MCP is where you come to discuss the very best the console, PC, and handheld realms have to offer with varying levels of wit, verve, and, occasionally, pure, seething, psychotic venomous hate. If you fancy yourself a gamer, you’ve come to the right place. Press Start To Continue.

MCP: GAMING NEWS ROUNDUP – 2.20.07

Mostly rumors today, if you can dig it. Playing a little catchup from the long weekend, here: CHUD contributor Jon Cassaday pointed me in the direction of this Saturday article from Shacknews which made a preposterous!, outrageous!, and factual! claim, that being that the SNES is selling better than the PS3 through Amazon’s gaming and … Continue reading

MCP: GAMING NEWS ROUNDUP – 2.16.07

IGN is reporting that Japanese Xbox 360 owners can now access free downloads for the RPG Blue Dragon. The interesting thing is that instead of being downloads of the "new item" or "new quest" variety, these offer two new difficulty levels for the campaign, as well as an option to import characters from a completed … Continue reading

MCP: INTERSTITIAL STAR WARS

There’s a single image that inspires me to submit to further Star Wars punishment. It’s not even an image from in-game. It’s a piece of concept art, which is probably even more misleading than the doctored screenshots often used to advertise games. It’s this image over there to the right. You can see the entire … Continue reading

MCP: GAMING NEWS ROUNDUP – 2.15.07

It was with a heavy heart that we learned earlier this year that Capcom was shutting the doors on Clover Studios, the development house responsible for great games such as Okami and Viewtiful Joe, as well as oddities like God Hand. We sometimes forget, though, that "shutting the doors" in studio-speak isn’t equivalent to "shutting … Continue reading

MCP: GAMING NEWS ROUNDUP – 2.14.07

Piggybacking on yesterday’s story about Bioware’s upcoming RPG Dragon Age comes this little tidbit of news about their other current project, Mass Effect. The Xbox 360 exclusive title is rumored to feature a main quest that will last somewhere between 20 and 30 hours. That’s a healthy length for this sort of game, especially considering … Continue reading

MCP: BIO-ORGANIC STORY

There are a couple schools of thought when it comes to the purpose and potential of videogames. Some developers see the format as an abstract sort of canvas, an opportunity for interactivty, in which the player’s imagination is lord. The other faction (we’ll call them the "skins") views gaming as a fledgling narrative method, in … Continue reading

MCP: GAMING NEWS ROUNDUP – 2.13.07

Back in the day when print media ruled the industry (a decade ago, or so), there was a games publisher that gave itself the humble name of GOD, which they claim stood for Gathering of Developers, but we know better. Well, Nietzsche won out over GOD and the publisher folded; but now it’s back, with … Continue reading

MCP: PAPER ECONOMY

Happy Wii owners haven’t exactly been swept away by a deluge of quality titles for Nintendo’s eccentric console. It’s to be expected, this close to a launch, but what every Nintendo fanboy wants to know is: When do we get Mario? The plumber that built the House of N has been set to go for … Continue reading

MCP: BIT PLAYERS ROUNDTABLE #4

Welcome to the revival of CHUD.com’s video game presence, Master Control Program. Since it’s an exciting [and expensive] time to be a video game aficionado, what better time to bring back the column that almost was, a look at all things console and handheld? That is what they call in the business a rhetorical question. … Continue reading