A couple of weeks ago at Fan Expo in Toronto, City TV held an advanced screening of the premiere episode of J.J. Abrams’ new TV series “Revolution”. This episode was directed by Jon Favreau, actor and director of movies such as Swingers and Iron Man. As I was not asked to sign an NDA I’ve gathered some thoughts on it and tried to keep spoilers to a minimum but if you’re still not looking to read on I’ll just say that I enjoyed the first episode despite some minor issues and that I’m willing to give the show a chance, hoping it doesn’t become horrible.

I original wrote this review almost two weeks ago but I dragged my ass on posting it for so long that you can now watch the first episode on the NBC web site so forget my review, just go watch it.

The premise of the series is simple and can be inferred quite easily from the trailer. Something, we’re not told what, happens which makes the power go out and then 15 years later we’re shown the world which now exists. This pretty much happens right away as only a short few minutes are shown at the onset of the episode and then quickly this event occurs, and we immediately begin to follow the real flow of the story of this post apocalyptic future world.

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FlightGear is one of the biggest, and longest developed open source games freely available on PC. First started out as an online proposal by David Murr, FlightGear was first released in 1997, and is still developed to this day. The game features a huge open world with over 20,000 airports, and hundreds of aircraft models based on real life planes. Because it’s open source, it’s completely modifiable. Unfortunately because it is open source, software thieves have pirated the freely available software under names such as Virtual Pilot, and Flight Simulator Pro. Rest assured that there is no difference between the free FlightGear and the paid pirated copies. Only thing that FlightGear’s creators will charge you for (and that’s if you choose to buy it) are DVD sets featuring the world scenery that you can purchase if you don’t wish to download each of the files yourself. If you like Flight Simulators, you’ll definintly want to check this game out. If you got some programming skills and want to mod it, even better.

This episode of Rewind centers around of the the best Disney games created for the 4th generation of consoles and handhelds – Disney’s Aladdin. In a day when Epic Mickey and Kingdom Hearts put Disney high up on the gaming food chain, does this older gem stack up for it’s age?

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Last week’s Lost Classic was based on a Disney license, so here is another one. Maui Mallard was one of the last good platformers of the 16-bit era. As it was released during the final days of the era, it was largely ignored on the SNES and Game Boy and the Genesis version only saw a European release.
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Everyone likes a challenge, right? It’s the cornerstone of video gaming or gaming in general and gives us things to strive for. Several different gaming genres catered to specific challenges that gamers wanted to test their skills at. Want to see how well you can memorize things? Try Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct for their ability to throw insane combo strings at you. Want to test your mettle and see how much of a brave person you are? Go ahead and play Silent Hill 2 or the more recent Slender to see how much you are, in fact, a little girl.

Want to be barraged by near-endless curtains of projectile death in order to see how well your dodging skills are and your resistance to collapsing into twitching messes? Bullet Hell games are right up your alley!

A sub-genre of the classic shoot’em-up games, Bullet Hell gaming is exactly what it sounds like – you doing nothing but maneuvering into endless waves of bullet-like projectiles with a emphasis on precise movements in order to survive. The sub-genre itself isn’t as recent as some people might think, but it’s only gotten more insane with time. Here’s a list of top Bullet Hell games that leave people with twitchy fingers and darting eyeballs for day afterwards, and be sure to let us know what yours are if any were missed!
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Note: This game is also available on Xbox 360 and PS3, but not for $20 or less.

2007’s Portal was a surprise hit. A puzzle/FPS hybrid, Valve’s shooter made players think in ways they haven’t since Tetris all those years ago. Last year, Valve released a surprise sequel to their sleeper hit, and its even more insane than the original. Once again, players take control of Chell, who has just awakened from cryogenic sleep. Although an AI drone tries to help you find your way, before long, you reunite with the evil A.I Glados, who is ready to put you through a series of ‘tests’ once again, and she is just as sarcastic as ever. If you think this is going to be a rehash of the original, think again. Several new dynamics have been added to the puzzles, taxing you to come up with some creative solutions to make your way through the trials. Since a number of years have passed since the original, Aperture Science Labs isn’t in good shape, and you’ll see that reflected in the levels. When you think you know what’s in store, a plot twist takes the game in a whole new direction. If you got a friend, there is a new Co-op mode in which you and a friend play as two robots who have their own storyline. PC players have access to the Steam Workshop, where they can build and download new levels. An unsuspected sequel to an unsuspected hit, Portal 2 is even more fun than its predecessor.