The Wolf Among Us review - game noir

I’ve never read a single issue of the Fables comic, but that makes me the perfect audience for The Wolf Among Us.

It takes a simple premise and flips it on its side. All the fairy tales we heard about as kids, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the seven dwarfs, Jack and the beanstalk, they’re all real. But rather than living happily ever after, they were forced from their homes by ‘The Adversary’ and now live in a place called Fabletown in New York City, where they live among normal people hiding their true identities with spells called glamour making make them look human.

Ten Best of 2012: Need for Speed Most Wanted

Between Hot Pursuit and The Run, the Need for Speed series always nails down the feeling of high top-speeds while weaving in and out of obstacles. Need for Speed Most Wanted did this taking the police chase model executed in Hot Pursuit and applying it to the open city of Fairhaven, while measuring players up against their friends for nearly every single thing they do.

All those Vita advertisements

With the February 22 launch of Sony’s brand new handheld, the PlayStation Vita, you’d think there would be more advertisements for it. With less than two weeks, I’ve yet to see a single TV, radio, magazine, or internet ad for it. In fact, the only advertisement I have seen is the Taco Bell promotion that gives away a free PlayStation Vita every 15 minutes (they aren’t).

In an interview with the New York Times, John Koller, senior director for Sony’s handheld consoles, said the company is spending $50 million on commercials, billboard, retail details, online banners, and social media including a Twitter campaign themed, “Never Stop Playing,” with the hashtag #gamechanger. Koller says the campaign is focused on brining “the largest platform launch in terms of marketing investment we’ve ever hand.

That would sound great, if their demographic wasn’t so niche. According to Koller, the target audience for the Vita is men in their 20s who play video games eight hours a week for more and own a PlayStation 3 console. The challenge that lies ahead for Sony is to overlap that market with those who already own other mobile or handheld devices, such as the iPhone or Nintendo 3DS, and pull them towards the PlayStation brand.

E3 2011: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo

The main attraction at E3 is the show floor, where companies show off their newest games, technology, and peripherals. But before the doors open, the big three take the stage at their press conferences to announce their new products and services, and unveil the future of gaming.

Is Sony Living La-Vita-Loca?

Since it was announced, Sony’s newest portable console has only officially been referred to using its code name Next Generation Portable, or NGP. It’s been commonly called the PSP2 by gamers alike, but it looks like the official name for the hand-held device could be the PS Vita.

Games Pundit discovered images of the portable console from an E3 fact sheet clearly showing a logo saying PS Vita. Vita is this case means new life, as in a new life from the old PSP brand.

More evidence suggesting PS Vita will be the new name of the portable console is the website vita.SCEdev.net. SCEdev.net is a domain registered to Sony’s UK branch and links to other product sites for the PS3, PSP, and NGP.

You can expect the official name and more games will be revealed during Sony’s E3 Press Conference on June 6.