The 30's - Game of the Year

 

Gears of War 3 wins the Video, Gaming at 30 awards for best Xbox 360 Game (that we actually played) as well as the coveted Game of the Year.

There's a lot of good reasons to not pick Gears of War 3 as Game of the Year.  Most publications gave it to Skyrim, but as you can tell from my Day 1 post, I felt that it didn't really deserve such high honors.  There's better online experiences.  There's better single player experiences.  There's something special here, though.  It's something that brought friends together to enjoy a game.

VG30 contributors got together weekly to play through the demo.  Then six months later, we did the same in the campaign, and then Hoard, and Beast modes.  And when we were all done with that, we came back when the Season Pass content hit, and even now we're planning on when we're going to get together next to play. 

That's not something that's easily done for any game.  It took players of all skill levels, of loves of different styles of games, different genres and environments, and brought us all together to enjoy ripping apart baddies with chainsaws.  It was a lot of fun, and it has to be recognized by somebody just how great it is.  Cliffy B, you've got a great team and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 4

Day four is here and we have to cram in everything else that we wanted to make mention of for the year!

Best Game That Could Have Been Even Better

Don't get me wrong here, I liked Arkham City a lot, but it always felt like it was missing something.  The best comparison I can draw here is Assassin's Creed.  Much like Altair, Batman has an open city that he can swoop around and hunt out his prey.  He tries to get from one section of the city to another, except there's an occasional puzzle or boss fight, and in those regards Batman wins hands down.  But the freedom in Assassin's Creed is what Batman is missing.  You can't just wander around the city cleaning up crime in the same sense that Ezio can.  Sure you can fly around, but you kind of HAVE to fly around because there's piles of garbage everywhere locking the sections of the city into smaller manageable pieces that respawn over time, giving you no sense that you're actually accomplishing anything.

Here's what I want to see:  Batman:  Gotham City.  It's the life of Batman, a crime gets committed, and you can go check it out and play detective, and it leads you to the supervillian's lair or heck, just some punk gang that got lucky.  When you're done, you can wander the streets keeping them safe, or retire back to the Batcave and train or upgrade your gear.  Hell, throw some living the life of Bruce Wayne in there a bit if it makes sense.  You can build an overarching story in there, but keep each section it's own special bit.  I know I'd be excited to see this game.

Best Multi-Platform Game

It's hard not to gush about Portal 2, it's a fantastic single player experience that gives fans of the first game more of what they want.  It's also a fun filled multi-player cooperative experience that we just don't see that often anymore.  Valve really delivered here, and everybody needs to play this game.  Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

Best iOS Game

No game got more play time from the VG30 crew than Ascension on the iOS.  We played it at home, we played it at work, we played it at Gencon, we played it in the beta, we played it in the expansion beta, and we're still playing it in the expansion.  Gary Games and Incinerator Studios did a great job of putting everything together, and all of the hard work shows in the finished product.  Still waiting on the hard difficulty though ;).

Just these three awards today, there's just a couple categories left, including Game of the Year, check back tomorrow to find out what it's going to be!

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of our annual award show!  Let's just jump right in today, shall we?

Best Chance at Dethroning WoW

As World of Warcraft enters its 8th year in leading the world's MMO market, the masses of players are beginning to look for something new.  They have been for awhile, but always come back to WoW just because they do things better.  I've given quite a few of them a shot myself, but none of them have held me like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Bioware is flexing it's muscles here, and the game is just fantastic.  It's good to see a new comer to the market, especially one that looks like it'll be able to compete against Blizzard.  Good luck guys, and may the Force be with you.

Best Xbox Download Game

I was in love with Bastion from the moment that I smashed up some boxes, and the Narrator said "The kid raged for awhile".  Yes, a second play through doesn't change much, but what was there was magical, and I can't recommend it enough.  Give this one a try for sure.

Honorable Mention

This is probably my favorite game right now, but I'm playing it on Steam instead of Xbox Live, and it doesn't feel right to name it as PC Game of the year or anything, but seriously, if you like tower defense games, third person shooters, or fantasy castle defense games, check this one out.

Best Game that we wish was still Vaporware

Did any of us really expect anything out of Duke Nukem Forever?  I know I didn't.  There's no way possible that it could live up to what we all remembered from the 90's as one of the greatest FPS games ever made.  The current incarnation of Duke doesn't translate to today's gaming, and it shows in its "reaching for over the top but never makes it" way.  Now, the license is in Gearbox's hands, so what I'm hoping for is that they finished the product so they could try to make back some money and make a worthy sequel to Duke Nukem.  If I had to give them a piece of advice, I'd highly recommend they take a look at the ...

Best Way to Get into the Gears of War 3 Beta

I had my doubts about Bulletstorm, but the action plus the writing made for one of the more enjoyable titles that I got to play this year.  This is the type of writing that Duke Nukem needed and couldn't really achieve.  It's over the top, it's hilarious, and it's really well done.  The added bonus of getting into the Gears beta was icing on the cake.

Best PS3 Game (that we actually played)

Little Big Planet 2 came out so early in the year that I think it got a little lost along the way to the Game of the Year awards.  This is a reason to own a PS3.  Little Big Planet is whatever game you want it to be thanks to the tremendous effort that's been put into it from the online community.  My wife and I beat it together months ago, but I still find myself popping in to see what's new.  I've played classic arcade games, zombie horror survival, plinko, pinball, DDR, and a bunch of other games all in this one extremely well done platformer.   If you like platforming games even a little bit, you have to check out this game.  The co-op nature of it is done so much better than any other game that I've played, and it is not to be missed.

The 30's Continues it's award show tomorrow, where we'll take a look at some more categories, the Best Xbox 360 game, the Best multi-platform game, and we'll soon get to our pick for Game of the Year.  We'll see you tomorrow!

Thank You

To whomever finds this, Thank You.  What has hopefully happened is that somebody out there was interested in my writing enough to go through my archives and read my old articles.  There's some stuff there that I'm really proud of writing (and some that I had put up in a frenzy of "I need to do an update tonight").  I'm glad that somebody wanted to read that, and to thank you I want to give you a steam key for Binding of Isaac and it's DLC.  I bought the Humble Bundle 7 and already have it, so I thought the least I could do is to turn it over to somebody who hopefully will appreciate the zelda-esque dungeon crawlers that I do (even if it's a bit on the weird side).  I've included an additional characters to stop bots from picking it up, you'll have to remove the VG30 from the center.

9QBZJ-EFVG30F5H-JIT90

Thank you for reading, I can't express how grateful I am to have people out there who take the time to read my writings.  Please leave a comment (anonymous is fine) to let me know that you've taken the key.  I'll delete the post shortly after.

- Video

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of our internationally beloved award show.  Once again we take a look at a variety of topics and come to hastily made decisions on what the staffers of Video, Gaming at 30 believed to be the best and worst of 2011.

Worst New Trend in Fighting Games

What the hell, Capcom?  Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds came out on February 15th, and I liked it well enough to not give it too much heat, but then less than a year later, you have ULTIMATE Marvel vs Capcom 3?  This isn't the only horse you're beating to death, either.  Street Fighter is suffering the same fate of having two released in a single year.  That's just terrible moneygrabbing.

Best Thing to Happen to Fighting Games

Capcom, I want you to take a long hard look at what Mortal Kombat put out this year.  I saw this game, and immediately dismissed it as a cash in to the fighting game boom.  I am so glad that not only did I pick it up, but that I was wrong in how great this game is.  The story mode is the single best fighting game story mode ever written.  It takes you through a retelling of the Mortal Kombat 1, 2, and 3 story lines, with all of the characters, and a good chunk of the lore in place.   The game made me want to play, offered me unlocks of costumes and moves for doing so, and just had the complete package.  MK, you keep coming up with original material like this, and you'll be back on top of the heap in no time.

The "Could Have Been Great, But Just Ended Up Being a Money Grab" Award

Atari had something really special going in the early beta of Heroes of Neverwinter, a Facebook game that allowed you to loosely follow Dungeons and Dragons 4e rules and explore Wizard's Neverwinter.  It started off as very unobtrusive, you could do whatever you needed to do without spending money, just manage some downtime, get a few friends to play with, and you were set to go.  Soon, friends weren't able to help you as easily, and sending gifts became cumbersome.  Atari took out methods people used to get the best items without having to spend money, only time, and began demanding that we bring more friends in.  With a level 10 cap, the no new areas to explore, and the top user created dungeons all being variances of how to hit achievements easier, there's little reason to play anymore. 

Best Game for the Wii (that we actually played)

VG30 actually played a Wii game this year.  It was The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and it was one of the purest Zelda games that I've had the pleasure of playing in quite a long time.  The motion controls finally give us the control that we wanted over Link's sword arm, and each enemy is like a new puzzle to figure out how to solve rather than swing wildly.  The final boss fight was a disappointment for me, but I loved how the game sets up the world of Grooseland Hyrule.  If you have a Wii and are a Zelda fan, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.  

That's it for Day 2, come visit us again tomorrow to see what very impressive awards we give out then!

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 1

Welcome everyone to The 30's!  This is Video, Gaming at 30's annual award show, in which our highly underpaid staff deliberate for what seems like minutes about several categories that somehow have something to do with gaming in 2011.  The rules are simple, for you to be eligible for one of these high prestigious awards, you must have had your product or service released in 2011.  If you are one of the authors of a selected game, you may contact us and we will award you with a lovely printed out certificate.  Now, on to the awards!

Best Thing to Happen to Fantasy RPGs in Years 

Have I played Skyrim?  Nope.  I don't need to to know what it is, as I've played the last three Elder Scrolls games.  The combat is unwieldy, the world is almost too open, and I've never liked their level up system, but that seems to have been improved on.  Skyrim isn't winning this award for being awesome or anything like that.  Skyrim is winning this award because it brought fantasy RPGs to the attention of the masses, and let developers know that we are interested in a genre like this.  I want to see the combat improved next, guys, and then I think you'll have something truly amazing.

Best Security

It was a landmark year here at the VG30 offices, as nearly every single system that our staffers have an account on was in some way hacked over the course of the last year.  Two contributors lost their Xbox Live accounts, one fell victim to the PS3 attacks, one had their email account hijacked, one had their Twitter account hijacked, 4 were hit by Trion games' recent attack, 2 were on Steam, and finally three credit cards were compromised.  Congratulations, Blizzard, you win by default.

Best Community

I have been a proud reddit lurker for a year now, occasionally submitting new articles which have been checked out by the MTG and Board Game communities.  Thanks to them, traffic found new highs, especially during the GenCon 2011 coverage.  Thank you so much everyone, and please keep coming back to check out what we've got.  You know, when we actually make posts.

Best Show That We're Convinced Actually Reads Our Blog

Xplay, it's one of two things.  Either you're reading the blog and taking some of my material, or your writers and I are very like minded.  As much more likely the second is than the first, I like to believe that Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb occasionally sneak a peak at what I'm writing to see what the word on the street is.  We may not always agree, but I highly value your opinions.  Just let me know when you've got a job opening available.  And no, I won't be an intern.

Biggest Mistake Nintendo Could Make (since their last hugely successful money making mistake)

I've always been a Nintendo fan.  When it first came out, I played with R.O.B.  When the lines were drawn between Blast Processing and Mode 7, I chose Mode 7.  In fact, I still believe to this day that the SNES was the greatest gaming system ever created, with the single greatest gaming library ever conceived.  

With those words of praise, I have to speak out against the Wii U.  Nintendo used to know what they were doing.  They used to be the leaders and innovators.  They gave us the first controller with shoulder buttons.  They introduced the world to a 3D environment which was copied and recopied hundreds of times.  They ruled over portable gaming with an iron fist.  Those days are just about over.

In June, Nintendo unveiled their new system, the Wii U, which was due next year in 2012.  It will bring the Nintendo's graphics and power into the current generation, while further giving them more control capability to allow the game that appear on other systems to be controlled on their latest.

There's several problems with this, namely that by the time that the Wii U hits store shelves, both Sony and Microsoft will have officially announced their latest platforms, and those will be once again the systems that the developers flock to.  They'll have more power, and better performance than anything that the Wii U can dream to achieve.  Nintendo had the opportunity of a lifetime here, to announce the newest most powerful gaming system a full year before their competition, which worked nicely for Microsoft.  

They blew it.  Instead proclaiming that the fall's big hit, Arkham City, would be a release title.  Next year.  Months after any gamer who really wanted it had already purchased it, all the DLC, and sold it back to Gamestop.  This one is going to be an uphill battle for the big 'N'.  I think the novelty of the Wii is gone, guys, and  your 3D offering didn't do so hot, either.  I've said this before, but I think you need to take a look at Sega right now.

We'll have more tomorrow, starting with the best games (that we actually played) for each system.  We'll see you then!

Merry Christmas!

From our gaming family to yours, Merry Christmas! Make sure to dig out some family friendly games and enjoy some time with your loved ones this weekend.

The Ones to Watch - December 2012

December is here, Christmas is around the corner, and any game worth it's salt has been released months ago to capture as many holiday sales as they could muster.  So what have we got to look forward to in December?  What could we possibly need to watch for?  One game, and one game only.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - PC - 12/20

I was a big big fan of Knights of the Old Republic, and 90% of its rushed to market sequel (players who made it to the end understand why), so I've watched with much interest as Bioware prepared to launch it's first MMO.  The original Star Wars Galaxies met with much failure, could a reboot do any better?

The answer is yes.  Very yes.

Star Wars: TOR has watched the rise and fall of other MMOs and has been able to, let's say, "borrow" ideas from them to build their own.  It's hard not to compare it to the best selling MMO of all time, World of Warcraft, but it holds its own quite well.  Players looking for a break from WoW will feel right at home here, but in a new alien galaxy to explore. 

I don't know if SW: TOR will be able to topple the massive juggernaut that is WoW, but I think it will be able to go toe to toe with the aging franchise.  Time will tell, but Bioware, I think you've got a winner on your hands.

Uncharted 3 - Review

It is a golden age of video gaming.  I've been buried neck deep in quality titles for the past few months, and realized today that I haven't done a review on a single one of them.  So since I finished Uncharted 3 today, I figured I would start with this one.  The fasten seat belts sign has been turned on, your seats can be used as a flotation device, and in the event of a crash landing parachutes can be located in the overhead compartments.

But what's the likelihood of that?

Let's take things from the beginning.  In real world time, it's been two years since we saw Naughty Dog's masterpiece that was Uncharted 2.  Nathan Drake had just saved the world from an exploding tree goo, and limped into the sunset, girl in arms.  This game won countless awards and accolades, and I'm sure if VG30 was around at the time, we would have given it some high honors, too.  It was a fantastic game and a lot for Uncharted 3 to live up to. 

Uncharted 3 picks up the story about 4 years later, in the best place possible to start an adventure: the inside of a bar.  After some double crossing, the tale begins to unfold as Nate begins glob trotting to track down the location of Ferdinand Drake's biggest secret, a lost city in the desert sands.  The story delves into how Nathan acquired the iconic ring around his neck, his relationship with his mentor, Scully, and touches briefly on his relationship with Elena.

Very Briefly

Clearly some things have happened in their personal lives, and the game makes a strong effort to tie Nate to Scully.  This has a much bigger impact on people who have been following the story, and I worry that new comers might not be as attached to Scully as a character as a long time veteran would be.  For that matter, I worry that novices might not be able to grasp a lot of interactions between characters, but that's for the jury to decide.

Gameplay is best described as a series of amazing events that are linked together by all too familiar Uncharted mainstays.  One moment I'm shooting at guys from behind crates, the next I'm engaged in ship to ship combat with bazookas, and then the next I'm looking for a way to climb up another ship.  It's pretty formulaic, to the point where I could tell exactly when I was about to hit a puzzle section. 

Comabt, Cut Scene, Action, Puzzle, Cut Scene, Repeat

The amazing parts are amazing.  Tumbling through a burning mansion, escaping a sinking tanker, and plummeting from a crashing plane are highlights that I will not soon forget.  On the other hand, the ordinary is ordinary.  The same climb to point A to throw switch to progress aspect is still here, and they don't try to hide it or class it up at all.  Combat has some highlights, but the battles don't stack up the same way that they did in Uncharted 2.  There's few chances to deal with anything harder than somebody behind a riot shield, and that's just disappointing.

In the end, you have to compare it to Uncharted 2, and the game just falls short.  From previous entries in the series you expect to find some sort of mystical buried secret, and while the other games spent half of their time exploring that secret, you only see the tip of the iceberg in this one.  They reach out for that brass ring but can't quite wrap their fingers around it.

All in all, the Uncharted series will be remembered for Uncharted 2.  This one is a good entry into the series, but doesn't have the same story, the same intrigue, or the same magic that the last one did.  While every PS3 owner should be playing this series, you can probably safely set this one to the side to work on more important titles at the moment. 

The Ones to Watch - November 2011 Edition

Okay, now that we've gotten the self referential post out of the way, we really need to take a look at November in gaming.  November is as close to Christmas as many game companies want to get to getting their game out, preferably before Black Friday.  The bulk of their sales happen right now, like most consumer products.  So what's out there trying to earn your dollars?  Well, let's take a look.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception - 11/1/11 - PS3

Uncharted is one of the reasons you need to own a Playstation 3.  It's combination of Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones has produced two phenomenal games, and from preliminary reviews, we can expect the same of this one.  It's going to be hard to live up to Uncharted 2, but I'm just happy to see Drake again.


Modern Warfare 3 - 11/8/11 - Multi Platform

Sick of EA?  Sick of Origin?  Sick of not being able to play single player because the online server is down?  This is the game that EA is trying to out do.  Modern Warfare 3 looks AMAZING, and that's coming from my wife who can't stand to watch first person shooters.  Methinks EA isn't worried about server stability for long, because Activision is going to take care of a good chunk of their population for them.


Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Multi Platform - 11/11/11

I've been playing the Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall.  Every single time they trick me into purchasing it with promises of an epic world to explore and tons of different things you can do and a diverse character creation system that allows you to level up the skills that you want to to become the hero that you want to become.  And every single time, I level up in running, and am completely unable to swing my two handed sword to hit the "immune to everything but magic" Will-O'-Wisp guarding the vampire's cave containing the first piece of the key that you need to open up the portal of you're never going to make it this far.  Bethesda, please prove me wrong.


Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - Xbox 360 - 11/15/11

I love the idea of HD remakes of classic games.  Some players never got to pick up Sly Cooper or Shadow of the Colossus.  If you're one of the people who never got to pick up the original Halo on the original Xbox, then by all means, please pick this up.  As for me, this is a repeat and I've got a stack of games sitting on my shelf that need to be finished before I even consider something like this.


Assassin's Creed: Revelations - 11/15/11

Assassin's Creed is one of those series that I don't think I'll ever get sick of playing.  Fans of the series will understand the multi-tiered story that is occurring in the series, and they want to know every single detail that they can dig out.  Ezio's story continues in this series, helping Desmond uncover more of secrets from Subject 16.  What new spins on history shall we see here?  We'll know if a few weeks.


The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Wii - 11/20/11

Nintendo celebrates Zelda's 25th Anniversary by releasing a Zelda game developed for the Wii from the ground up.  Nintendo fans eat this kind of stuff up, and I know I'll certainly be purchasing this one.  After that, my Wii can go back to collecting dust.


That's about it, folks.  December looks pretty bleak with one exception, so we'll take a look at it when the time comes.  Happy gaming everyone!

The Self Referential "Too Long Since Last Post" Post

Holy cripes, it's been a month since the last update?  Sorry about the downtime, loyal readers.  Being 31 isn't all that it's cracked up to be sometimes.  My time is being taken up by what people older than myself refer to as "important things".  Instead of collecting Riddler trophies or building a new MTG deck like I should be, I find myself doing things like cutting down dead tree branches and fixing leaking sinks.

Which sucks,by the way

Indeed, time is a precious commodity that I don't think I ever really understood until one night that happened just a few weeks ago.  I found myself sitting on the couch playing Gears of War 3 trying to finish it up before tomorrow night's Arcade Mode romp with the friends, and noticed it was 12:00 and that I had to get up for work in about 7 hours, so I should really stop here and get some sleep.  This isn't something that I used to have to worry about.

I've come to realize that getting older comes with responsibilities, so I thought carefully about how I can manage my time more effectively.  I'm juggling a lot of projects, I have a MTG habit to support, I play and review video games for all the major consoles, I have a small department at work to run, not to mention a house with the wife and dog expansion sets.

Which are a lot of fun, but require tons of updates and patches

After much deliberation, and looking at how the site is doing, I've decided to add a new staff member to the VG30 family.  It's going to take some time to see any articles from them, as there's going to be a training and growth period, but I really think it's the right move.  With this new addition, we'll be able to offer more analysis for games, and how they can appeal to a wider audience.

We just don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet

... maybe I'm going about this whole "freeing up time" thing the wrong way.

The Ones to Watch - October 2011

October is upon us, and this is typically the month that game companies will try to push out their titles for the holiday season.  October gives a company enough time for its game to hit shelves, get reviewed, and get a good buzz about it before the all important Black Friday hits.  It's going to be a big list this month, so let's get started.


Dark Souls - Multi Platform - 10/4/11

Think you're a good gamer?  How about a great gamer?  Hate yourself just a little bit?  Dark Souls may be for you.  The sequel to the PS3 exclusive Demon Souls is now available for the Xbox 360 to allow players on both platforms to smash their controllers in frustration.  Dark Souls is about the journey, not the destination.  Death lurks around every corner, and only through trial, lots of error, and lots of patience will you make it through.  It's worth it, though, as surpassing challenges in this series is a huge accomplishment.


NBA 2k12 - Multi Platform - 10/4/11

Normally we here at VG30 aren't real big on sports games, but we try to give the nod to truly exceptional titles.  NBA 2k11 won several awards last year for its excellent game play, and it looks like 2K Sports is trying to up the ante in 2k12.  Keep your eyes on this one, let's see what they've got.



Rage - Multi Platform - 10/4/11

Rage is id software's return to gaming and John Carmack's latest vision for how first person shooters should be.  id's got an extremely good track record for such things, being the grandfather of the genre going back to Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and the Quake series.  They do make mistakes from time to time, however (Doom 3's inability to have a flashlight and a gun at the same time), but the industry has high expectations here.


Batman: Arkham City - Multi Platform - 10/18/11

The game that I'm looking forward to the most this October, Batman: Arkham City, takes place after the events of Arkham Asylum. This time instead of being in a relatively confined Asylum, you have a sectioned off city to explore and shut down.  There's a lot of unknowns about this game in an effort to keep people excited about it, and if their last game was any indicator, this is a must buy.


Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest - PS3 Move - 10/18/11

Of all the demos for the PS Move that I saw from E3, Medieval Moves made the strongest argument for me to be interested in it.  You play as a 1st/3rd person skeleton who follows your sword swinging in 1:1 motion.  Other actions allow you to draw arrows from a quiver on your back, or throw boomerangs.  It looks cool, and I hope it lives up to what we've seen so far.



Dance Central 2 - Xbox 360 Kinect -10/25/11

On the other hand, the Microsoft demos of their Kinect system really impressed me and I ended up getting up along with Dance Central.  I was super impressed by what it can do. Dance Central 2 promises to improve on Harmonix's already very impressive original with new options including 2 player at the same time play.


Battlefield 3 - Multi Platform - 10/25/11

The internet is currently unhappy with the multi-player demo of Battlefield 3 for the consoles.  They report falling through maps and buggy game play.  The PC version, however, seems to be running pretty smoothly.  Keep your eyes on this to see if it will be able to compete with Call of Duty.


Is that it for October?  Nah.  There's some other games that are worth keeping an eye on, the new Ratchet and Clank game, for example.  I just don't think it's going to be all that great.  November is the last chance for companies to get their product out in time for the Holiday Rush, so expect a few more great titles.  We'll see you here then to go over them.  Happy Gaming!

Innistrad Pre-Release Weekend Winners

Normally when a new Magic: The Gathering set is about to come out, we here at VG30 pour over the cards and try to determine which ones are going to be the ones that you're going to want to to try to look for in your packs for a pre-release.  This time we had a lot of trouble trying to figure out what would be the best cards.  The set feels balanced enough so that any well executed strategy could win.  It became a question of best utilizing the cards in your packs as opposed to going in with a plan.

So instead of speculating what will win, we're going to post up the strategies that we saw win in the pre-release.  Some of these were used by the VG30 staff, some of these stomped all over us.  Either way, here's what you're going to want to try to put together in the future.

White / Blue

White and Blue went together great in limited.  Creatures with evasion are always a big plus in limited, but some of these just became downright silly.

Angelic Overseer by itself it a great card.  If you manage to combine it with a human, it becomes unstoppable.  If your human happens to be unstoppable too...

It made things just wrong.  Speaking of the Invisible Stalker, a favorite tactic of the weekend was getting this uncommon, and combining it with another uncommon for a devastating effect:

Trepanation Blade combined with evasion turned into short games.  It wasn't uncommon to see Invisible Stalkers swinging for 7+ damage a turn when equipped with this little beauty.  And if you weren't killing them with damage, you were slowly milling their lives away.

Mindshrieker was like a combination of a evasion creature with the Trepanation Blade on it, and was easily one of my favorite pulls of the weekend.  The ability to mill away at your opponent and get buffs for getting rid of their best spells is amazingly fun for you and frustrating for your opponents.  One poor soul that faced the Mindshrieker made the mistake of pacifying it, only to have it mill all of his cards away a few turns later instead.  Maybe mill can make a comeback.  

Black

Black wasn't without its own power.  Cheap creatures with flying and bits of removal littered about made black something you had to seriously consider a threat.  

Screeching Bats are uncommon and easy to get your hands on.  For 2B you get a 2/2 flyer, and for a single mana more, you can turn it into a 5/5 bomb come your next upkeep.  It's not a bad deal, and bombs like this are what win games.

Other cards that did a lot of damage like the Rotting Fensnake worked as great removal tactics:

And then were easily followed up by low cost removal solutions for big creatures:

Black wasn't without its own bombs, either.  Take for example the Phyrexian Arena Demon, as it was so often called over the weekend:

Cards like this made you look at black very carefully before deciding on your colors.

Red / Green

If you weren't playing White / Blue, you were likely looking at Red and Green a bit, maybe taking one and splashing it with another color for its removal options, but Red and Green are where you really saw your transformers.

I didn't think much of the Mayor when I first saw him.  Then I saw him transform and pump out 3/3 wolves every turn, with little that I could do about it.  The Mayor is a beast, and worth looking at carefully should you be lucky enough to pull one.  He goes great with cards like...

The Darkthicket Wolf was declared by many to be the best "bear" in the set (meaning a 2/2 for 2 cost).  Put him out on turn two and then pumping him to 4/4 on turn 3 was a common tactic, and gave you something to do with your mana while you were trying to transform your werewolves.

Werewolves like the 2/3 Instigator gang that transformed into an effective 8/5 attacker with trample for a mere four mana.  Some werewolves are better than others, but the rare ones are just brutal.

Artifcats

There's a few artifacts that are really worth mentioning and should have been instant picks for anybody playing any color.

The common Traveler's Amulet found its way into every single one of my decks over the weekend.  Mana fixing for the most part took rare land cards to perform, or this one drop, one cost trinket.  Worth every mana.

Juggernaut's are always devastating bombs, but this one is special.  For four mana you attack with it every turn that it is untapped.  Either your opponent is going to let it hit him for 5 damage, or he's going to chump block it with a smaller creature.  That's ok, as soon as the smaller creature dies, your juggernaut untaps, ready to be a blocker and attack again the next turn.  

Blazing Torch is also back, and is a must include if you pull one.  Direct damage and removal isn't real common in this set, so artifacts like this are downright dangerous.

So that's how things looked for us for the pre-release.  We have another release going on in a couple days, and maybe you can take some of this knowledge and do something with it.  You never know when a couple uncommon cards will win you the game.