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Funny Pranks 101

2009-03-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to pull a well-planned funny prank to get your day started off right? If not, this is your opportunity! Pranks are little jokes that we play on the people we know and love. If you do them right, they could make both of you laugh until milk is shooting out of your noses.

The key to successful funny pranks is to ruffle your victim’s feathers without making them too angry or frightened. There’s a fine line between the two! Here are some tips and suggestions to ensure that your funny pranks go off without a hitch.

1) Write a zany note.
Notes can be great for pranks on people you don’t know too well. They are relatively unobtrusive, and also won’t get under your victim’s skin too much. If someone finds a humorous note in a place they don’t expect, it will just brighten their day and give them a good laugh. A tradition I’ve started with my husband is to attack him with an "Ant Brigade" note, which I leave in several odd places around our home. He never knows where the Ant Brigade is going to show up to pester him - the pantry, the couch, even the shower!

2) Make your victim the center of attention.
This well-known funny prank is best reserved for friends you know well.It’s also good for family members that will love you no matter what you do to them. When you’re in a crowded department store, you just turn to your victim and exclaim "Who ARE you? And WHY do you keep following me?" Other popular variations include "NO, I will NOT hold your hand" and "I know you miss your mommy, but we’ll be home soon!" Comments of this nature will get your victim quite a few strange looks. This can be hilarious, especially if your friend has a good sense of humor.

3) Set up a booby trap.
The booby trap prank is a classic! You set an object up to fall as soon as your victim walks into or out of a place. A wonderful example is setting up ice cube trays at an incline, in order to stage an ice cream avalanche from the freezer. You could also rig a mannequin to fall out of a closet when it’s opened. As you can see, you can get quite creative with this one, especially around Halloween. That’s when there are a number of plastic spiders and skeletons for sale at local stores.

4) Watch your back.
After you pull a funny prank on someone, you should beware of one thing: payback. If your prank is particularly good, you are definitely going to warrant a revenge attack. So my advice is to be prepared! And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, And Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-26T02:16:00.000-08:00

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the story of a man who is born old and slowly digresses in age until he dies as an infant. Brad Pitt plays the main character, and he embarks on an oddball romance with Cate Blanchett, who plays Daisy. They meet as children, but their lives never seem to totally match until they reach their 40s at the same time. I liked the acting in the film a lot; Pitt and Blanchett do a great job of making this unreal situation seem believable. Critics agree that the performances are outstanding, and they have called it an epic fantasy. The film felt too long, though. Once you know the secret of Benjamin Button, and you realize that Daisy is his true love, the wait to see the story come to its conclusion seemed to take forever. With a run time of two hours and forty-six minutes, I felt like many of the longer montages in the movie could have been cut without sacrificing any of the story. Overall, it was a good film that just felt a little long.

Frost/Nixon is a behind the scenes look at the preparation for and the taping of the David Frost and Richard Nixon interviews. Originally it was a Broadway play. Many in Hollywood have said that this film is the best of director Ron Howard's career, even better than his Oscar winning film, A Beautiful Mind, and I would agree. At first glance, the plot doesn't sound like it would make an interesting film, yet Howard takes the wrangling and manipulation on both sides of the famous interview and turns it into a tight, tense thriller. The acting by Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, both of whom played the roles on Broadway, is some of the best of the year, and their clashes onscreen give Frost/Nixon the dramatic edge that makes it a great historic film.

Critics have rallied behind Slumdog Millionaire, a film by Danny Boyle that was filmed in the streets of Mumbai, India, as the best film of the year. It is the story of a young man, Jamal, who grew up on the streets and, against all odds, makes it to the final round of the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Accused of cheating, he is tortured and grilled about how he knew the answers, and as he tells the story of his life, we see how his life experience as a child of the streets gave him the answers. The film keeps you guessing about whether Jamal will make it through the final round and reunite with the love of his life, Latika. Slumdog Millionaire is one of the most hopeful films I've seen in many years. The adversities that Jamal faces are beyond the comprehension of most North Americans, but to watch someone who is unsure where his next meal will come from remain optimistic about the future is a great lesson. The sharp editing and clever script keep the story moving, and when I saw the film, the audience cheered and applauded at the end of the film. If you're unfamiliar with the rich culture of Bollywood, Slumdog is a wonderful introduction to that style.

5 Reasons To Watch Free Movies Online

2009-02-26T02:11:00.000-08:00

Would you like to know why Slumdog Millionaire is making its home run to the Oscars? Or have a look at Kate Winslet’s best performance of her life in her stint as a modern day wife on "The Revolutionary Road". Perhaps, you would also want to get some sneak peak of the latest astounding performance of Dirty Harry Clint Eastwood in a potentially Academy Award winning appearance as a retired army in Gran Torino. Well, where else could you watch these free movies but from the internet?

In this world where everything happens to be free as long as it is information based, y ou can get free movies without taking some pennies from your pocket from the free movies website. Get the latest hot picks by some critics or the latest flick and potential blockbuster without holding your curiosity.

Before you get started googling "free movies", get to know first why you should watch free movies online.

Best things in Life are Free!

Of course you always heard it from school or from anyone else that the best things in life are free. Just like free air, you are not paying to get them, yet they are essential. So as with movies, it is absolutely great to get one for free. Free movies online would let you watch movies in full mode without queuing to the ticket booth. Isn’t it wonderful?

Now, you can also download some of those movies if the website offers some free video downloading service. All you need is to have a faster internet connection to grab them and have it shown in your own DVD. But remember, try to be good with the producers as well and always not to forget to support them by queuing on to the nearest cinema and look them at the big screen

Make your on Reviews

You might not know, your friend is planning to watch a film because his favourite movie star is on the cast. Perhaps, it would be a great help in your part to make some reviews of the films even if you are not part of the elite group. This is one of the things you can get from free movies online.

Gauge the movie if it is worth watching in the big screen

Funny how some of the films you have watched are simply not worth the penny you are paying. This is especially true if you are only looking at the stars but not the film itself. If you think you should not be a victim of being swindled by the sneak preview, well, see them first if you can grasp some parts of the film through free movies online. But, if you really want to get a piece of the movie, do not view the film in full. It is always advisable to take some part of it and let the other parts be enjoyed in the cinemas. Of course, it is always better if it is bigger than life.

Saves time

If you have those plenty of excuses or just plainly busy, then, you would not have any reason at all why you should not miss your favourite movie. You can view it online. Free movies online will give you a leverage of your time by watching your most expected movies online without spending some time in the theatre house.

Can be watched anywhere

Imagine if you are going for some out of the country trip and you are lost in translation. Good thing an internet connection is there for you. Now, you always want to find some time to be amused. Free videos online can give you access to movies anywhere you are in the world as long as there is an internet connection. Take time to watch movies while you are in that Caribbean cruise or perhaps having the vacation of your life.

Forgotten Lands: First Colony (Review)

2009-02-26T02:07:00.000-08:00

Forgotten Lands: First Colony gives you the power to build structures, create units, and harvest materials you'll need to do both. To recruit workers, simply click on the town hall and choose which citizen you'll need. Some of the starting units available include general laborers, merchants, scholars and scouts, each with his or her own unique abilities. Drag and drop your units onto buildings to set them to work. Scholars, for example, love to research and when they're placed around a building it will quickly earn points that will allow an upgrade. Learning how to use the units effectively is one of the key factors in mastering Forgotten Lands: First Colony.

Food, gold and wood are the only resources you need concern yourself with in the game. Build farms and place workers there to make sure your population is fed. Create a lumber mill to harvest timber, and try distributing merchants across your buildings to increase gold production. In order to create new buildings and upgrade them, you'll need plenty of gold and wood.

Divided into a series of scenarios, Forgotten Lands gradually develops the story as you complete increasingly open-ended missions. You start with simple tasks such as building a farm, recruiting a number of units, or upgrading a building. Later you get to do much more interesting things such as trade gems for new property and repair an ancient seafaring vessel that's crashed on the shore. Bonus stages are unlocked at certain points, providing you with a little break from the main game.

The visuals, while perfectly suited to the game's atmosphere, sometimes come across as a bit grainy with slightly stiff animation. It's nothing that detracts from the game.

It's rare to see real time strategy make its way to the casual scene in such a perfect way. Forgotten Lands: First Colony delivers everything that's great about the genre without sacrificing very much at all. And you won't have to sacrifice hours of your life just learning how to play.

Key Game Features:

* Upgrade buildings?,
* Train many different settlers,
* Cute characters and art.

New Ipod Touch (Review)

2009-02-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

With a stunningly thin, contoured stainless steel design, iPod Touch feels even better in your hand. And the new volume buttons and built-in speaker give you more to love. Groundbreaking technologies built into iPod touch, such as the Multi-Touch display, accelerometer, and 3D graphics to get you right in to the middle of the gaming action. The new Genius feature turns iPod touch into a highly intelligent, personal DJ and music organiser. With a few taps of the buttons, it creates a playlist by finding songs in your library that go great together. read on, if you want to find out some more about the great features of the iPod Touch.

The iPod touch games and applications are nothing short of amazing ans will keepyou entertained for hours on end. And the Apple Store is where you’ll find them all. The world’s best developers have been taking advantage of groundbreaking technology, including Multi- Touch, the accelerometer, real-time 3D graphics, and 3D positional sound, to create games and applications made especially for iPod touch. So whether you’re a gamer or into something else like chatting, social networking, news, sports or financial information. There is something for everyone.

Volume buttons have been built into the left side of iPod touch, giving you easy access to the most frequently used controls. A built-in speaker lets you hear the music, dialogue, and action without headphones, perfect for casual listening. And with the iPod Touch's improved battery you can keep on rocking (and watching and playing) even longer. Improved battery life means iPod touch provides you with up to 36 hours of music playback or 6 hours of video/movie playback. This is enough up to watch three or four movies between charges. Do you remember what it felt like to flip through your CD or record collection? Cover Flow on the iPod Touch brings that good old feeling back. Just turn iPod touch on its side and flick through your music to find the album you want to hear. Tap the cover to flip it over and display a track list. Tap again to start the music. Even view the lyrics while you’re listening.

The musical Genius is another great function of the new iPod - say you’re listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. The new Genius feature finds the songs in your library that go great together and makes what iPod, calls a Genius playlist for you. You can listen to the playlist right away, save it for later, or even refresh it and give it another go if you don't like what been put together for you.

The iPod Touch 32GB has been developed to take full advantage of the large 3.5-inch display, the Multi-Touch touchscreen interface lets you control everything using just your fingers. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch, zoom in and out on a section of a web page, and control game elements precisely. The Multi- Touch display layers a protective shield over a capacitive panel that senses your touch using electrical fields. It then transmits that information to the LCD screen below it.

The iPod touch software enables the flick, tap, and pinch. iPod touch features an intelligent touchscreen keyboard perfect for browsing the web in Safari, getting directions on a map, searching for videos on YouTube, finding music on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, or adding new contacts. It analyses keystrokes to suggest words as you type and correct spelling errors automatically. And because it’s software based, it changes its keys to support typing in multiple languages. iPod Touch now also includes built-in Nike + iPod support. Just slip the Nike + iPod Sensor (available separately) into your Nike+ shoe and start your run. The sensor communicates wirelessly with your iPod touch, tracking your time, distance, and calories burned. It even gives you voice feedback on your progress. This will help you keep motivated on those lonely runs.

Best Auto Loan

2009-02-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

Do you have a car today? Not yet? Okay don't worry if your situation is like that, you still can realize your dream with having a car. How? Simple, there is a great website that can help you. The name of this site is Get The Best Auto Loan with the URL: getthebestautoloan.com. What will you get with using this site? For your information, this site offers you the great way which you can find a great rate on auto loans. How it works is simple, they have the relationship with many lenders and will work with the nation's top lenders to offer you lowest interest rates. Of course with affordable monthly payment to match. Sounds great? Yes, I think so, do you concur with me?

There are much benefit will you get, otherwise, they also write on their site the useful information regarding to auto loan topic, in this thing, you can explore any articles more deep and finding your answer at there. For example, you can know the answer from the question like this: Why you don't need an extended warranty? They've written the best answer for it, you must read. Because of that, don't doubt again, since now, you must think about your future life, how to get best auto loan? And the best answer has come only for you, don't miss it, take this great chance.

Funny Video Clips

2009-02-08T23:41:00.000-08:00

Because sending and posting videos online have becoming easier and more convenient than ever, many Internet users are currently using this technology to spread entertaining and hilarious materials through blogs, e-mails, and forums. Among these materials are those funny videos that you see everyone online—from personal websites to forums, from Youtube to sites dedicated to funny videos. These funny video clips become so popular that they are widely spread all over the cyberspace. If you spend even just a few minutes online, you are probably familiar with these videos. And once these videos become so popular, it gains popular even beyond the Internet. These funny video clips are usually called viral video, named after the viruses with their ability to replicate. But why and how did these funny videos become an integral part of the Internet? And what are the different types of funny video clips?

Technology

Without a doubt, funny video clips became viral because of the technology available to the people today. Regardless of the nature of the videos, anyone can easily post them online. For instance, thanks to recording devices, television viewers can easily save clips from shows that they find funny. A good example is the “D-ck in a Box” video of a sketch from Saturday Night Live. Although the clip itself was temporarily available in the official website of NBC, individual television viewers already preserved the video to prosperity by posting it on Youtube. And since Youtube has features that allow members to post videos on their social networking pages and blogs, people have consciously and unconsciously spread the video, catapulting it to viral video status.

Variations

Of course, funny videos or viral videos are not just limited to hilarious television clips from comedy shows. Sometimes, the humor is unintentional—making it more amusing. These would include foreign game shows from other countries, with their bizarre game play and even more bizarre results. An example of this is the Human Tetris game videos from a game show in Japan. Other funny video clips came from homemade short clips, with the definition of “hilarious” mostly subjective. A popular example of this is the video blog of Chris Crocker. This video—with Crocker defending Britney Spears’ Video Music Awards performance—became one of the most watched videos on Youtube. Although not essentially funny, the context and the actual content made it entertaining and, to most of the viewers, hilarious.

Impact

The impact of these funny video clips online is overwhelming. Internet has been relegated as an alternative media—but its content has become so popular that it has influenced the content of mainstream media, particularly on television. For instance, Chris Crocker was an instant Internet celebrity thanks to his video, but the coverage of entertainment news outfits made him an actual Hollywood figure—at least, only for a while. The Human Tetris videos became such big Internet hits that the American noontime talk show Ellen simulated it. Without a doubt, funny videos are big not just online—they are now mainstream entertainment too.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus

2009-02-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is a standalone addition to last year’s award winning stealth action title of the same name. Focusing on a portable multiplayer experience, players will be able to enjoy more maps, more missions, and recruit a talented crew of war heroes for battling real opponents in online arenas. Features: Unique Gameplay Modes and Missions – A new single player mode, “Infinity Mission”, and additional multiplayer modes will engage even the most experienced strategy veterans. Upload your saved data from the original Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops to create instant squads. More Online Maps – Choose from a variety of new environment maps, such as an updated version of the REX Hangar area of the original Metal Gear Solid, for more multiplayer mayhem. More Playable Characters – Recruit brand new soldiers from the Metal Gear Solid universe, including Raiden and Snake from MGS4, to form a unique fighting crew. Wi-Fi HotSpot Support – As long as there is a Wi-Fi signal, you can be in the battlefield. With Wi-Fi HotSpot support, you can now play Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus online at any Wi-Fi HotSpot location. Improved Support – Tutorials and improved in-game support helps players of all skill levels to jump right into the action or hone their skills.

Features

* Infinity Mission - Players must advance from start to finish through increasingly difficult stages, gathering weapons and recruiting high-level comrades to build up their units.

* New Multiplayer Modes - Includes a Shooting Range to test player's shooting skills in a deathmatch environment and a Training Mode to practice and sharpen their game controls will challenge even the most experienced tactical fighters.

* Uses saved data from the original Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.

* More online maps, including an updated version of the REX Hangar area from the original Metal Gear Solid.

* More playable characters from the Metal Gear universe, including Raiden and Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 to form unique squads of commandos.

* Incorporating an improved support system, tutorials and improved in-game support helps players of all skill levels jump right into the action, or hone their skills to a razor's edge.

Car Insurance Rates

2009-02-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for car insurance with great rate? In according to support your needs at this time, I found a great news that I think can help you. Sometimes, someone who want to get the quotes regarding to his / her insurance rates, he / she don't know what have to do. It's probably will happen if he / she is the "new people" in car insurance rates field. Because of that has come a great site that provide insurance quotes online for everyone who now are experiencing the situation like that.

This is carinsurancerates.com, in this site you can get free car insurance quotes for multiple insurers. There are some benefits if you'd like to decide to using this site like:
-view free quotes for any vehicle, anywhere.
-Compare quotes from nation's top insurance agencies.
-Choose the policy that fits your lifestyle best.
-And still many more.

It support to all states in around the United States, and you will get the lowest car insurance rates in your town! they filled with people who has had long experience in this field, so they can guiding you to get the lower rates. Another is you can ask any questions to them and you will be satisfied after they give the answer regarding to your questions. Anything else? Don't forget, you can still read some review of companies & brokers who provide personal car insurance, commercial, and military policies.

The Best Insurance Portal

2009-02-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

Human life so complex, there are many needs and desires. And do not forget, we are currently living in the modern era that is very dynamic, any thing can happen to us, whenever and wherever. One thing you need to remember, you also have to think to "protect" all the assets that you have. In my opinion, this is also a need, you need to think and know "the right method" to "protect" all of your assets. Because what? Because we are living in the "less safe" era, many bad things can happen to us without can be predicted previously. How the best method to protect all your assets? Yes, of course, with insurance. You must choose and get the best insurance company and match with your needs. And because of that, through this simple article, I want to give much valuable information to you about insurance. There is a website that "must" to you visit, insurancerate.com. This is an insurance portal that covers most major lines of insurance.

Through this website, you will find the easy way to compare one policy to another without filling out a million forms or making dozens of phone calls! They have created a new way, more simple and easy: easy to use form that will provide you with quotes from the nation's leading insurance agencies. Fill out one form & get at least 5 quotes to choose from. Sounds great? Yes, insurancerate.com is the right answer and solution for you if you want to get free insurance quote in just five minute! So, what are you waiting for? Visit this site now!

Improve your Computer Speed

2009-02-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

Simple steps you can do to improve your computer speed. Just the computer boost you were looking for. And I did say they were simple steps, so don’t get worried that you won’t be able to do them on your own. So let’s do this!

The first thing you can do is clean out the temporary internet files and cookies. (You do this by opening Internet Explorer and choosing the tools menu- select options- on the main page you can empty the temp files and delete the cookies.) That was easy, what’s next?

You can delete any unused programs by using the add/remove programs utility. And then go ahead and groom your Windows start up file by using the msconfig utility. This is easier than it may sound, just go to StartRun and type msconfig then select ok and choose the start up tab.

Now, turn off unnecessary services in the services manager. You find your way to your control panel by going to your control paneladministrative toolsservices. So far, so good. Now for a few other suggestions to improve your computer speed.

Never install programs that start running as windows start, like messengers. Then the programs you are wanting to run have to compete with the messengers type programs that never stop running. To see and stop them, just press Ctrl + Alt + Del and go into processes tab and close them from there.

I also highly recommend that you invest in a couple software programs that will greatly benefit you and your computer. Scan your computer weekly with a spyware program. And also get a registry cleaner software program. Cleaning your registry with Easy Registry will really make a difference in your computer speed and performance.

Easy Online Payday Loan

2009-02-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

Are you now needing the cash advance shortly? This is the great offer for you all who want to get the cash advance quickly, easier, and simply. Have you ever thought, that you can get the cash advance / payday loan with easy, simple, no collateral, no fax payday loans. That's why this offer has the name: Faxless Payday Loan that has been created by easyonlinepaydayloan.com. of course this thing will make you be more easier in getting the cash to help your financial condition quickly.

Is this secure? Yes, of course. They will bring your application data to the lender and once the lender approves your data, they will send the money to your bank account. So, you must have the bank account to be able to receive the cash advance. Anything else do you need is:
- you're currently maintain a job or have the income from welfare or social security.
- 18 years old and as a citizen of the USA.
- Have the bank account whether savings or checking account.

Sounds great? Yes, you can consider this chance so that your future will be more bright. Moreover, if now you're having any debts that you have to pay in the near time. You must do an action today and I think easyonlinepaydayloan.com is your answer.

Guitar Hero World Tour Review

2009-02-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

There is not any other single product that has taken the world by such a storm since the invention of the video game console itself. The history repeats again with the world famous Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game. With this awesome video game rock star wannabes everywhere can now rock out and play to their favorite songs using pressing buttons on a pretend guitar. The most amazing thins about this is, it doesn’t bound with the age as everyone from grandparents, soccer moms to teens can play their favorite songs. And since parents, grandparents and kids alike love this awesome video game it is a great way for parents to bond with our kids.

Well Guitar Hero is the fourth version of well famous version of Guitar Hero series. The new version of this instant classic possesses even more rocking capability of any of the other three video games combined. Another exiting thing about this game is it is not bounded with the video gaming console as the game is available with Nintendo Wii, Xbox, and Sony Playstation. The most recent version of game includes main tool the guitar, drums and microphone. That means no hassle to buy separate accessories, all in one go.

These new accessories will allow players to add drumming and lyrics to their songs, creating a more vibrant rock star experience. These new version supports multiplayer support up to four players so the new version is perfect for families as well as friends. It will allow you to experiment on you means you can even create and record your own songs giving you the ability to show just how big of a rock star you really are.

This new version of Guitar Hero World Tour allows player to customize their favourite rock star, which includes even age and tattoos, I am sure that will add really great fun. The game can even virtually represent real life music venues from around the world. So don’t wait and get your copy today and start rocking the world.

Personal Cash Advance

2009-02-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

Are you experiencing stress because need additional money in the near time but do not know how to get it? Are you experiencing financial difficulties? Do you want to be able to get cash loans quickly and easily? Yes, the world are experiencing financial crisis, many "bad news" happens everywhere. Getting money becomes more difficult, and many people lost their jobs. Of course we must be able "to rise" from a bad situation to a better situation. And, in this simple article, I want to provide "valuable information" to you, if start from now, there is "a new way that more simple and elegant" to be able to get cash loans. And of course, there is no things that you need to fear, because you do not need to go to the bank, do not need to have collateral, do not need to prepare many documents, etc. You want to know "new method that more simple and elegant" that I mean? Yes, the answer is Personal Cash Advance (personalcashadvance.com), a top tier payday loan and cash advances provider.

What should you do next? All you need to do is fill out a simple form on the site, not more. About requirements? It's easy, and you do not need to worry:

* Currently have a job (or receive regular income)
* Make at least $1000 per month
* Are 18 years of age or older and a U.S. citizen Have a checking account
* Other requirements may apply
* Even bankruptcy, bounced-checks, charge-offs and other credit problems don't prevent you from receiving the cash advance you need.
* Not active in the military.

Okay, do not waste time anymore, now is a good time for you to visit personalcashadvance.com and sign up to get your cash advance!

Are you Currently Need Additional Money in the Near Time?

2009-02-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

Are you currently need additional money in the near time? Yes, now, almost around the world are going financial crisis, increasingly difficult to earn money, many people lost their jobs. Hopefully this "bad condition" will end soon. And, in this short article, I want to proclaim "good news" to you, if you are currently experiencing financial difficulties and need extra money / cash loan immediately, you now have a great opportunity to be able to get it (cash loan) easily, fast, and through a simple process. And you will not need to worry any case, you do not need to go to the bank, you do not need to prepare many documents that you do not have, you do not need to have collateral, and of course you do not need to stress again.

You want to know the "good news" that I mean? Yes, the answer is Perfect Cash Advance (perfectcashadvance.com), a cash advance site that helps consumers meet short term monetary emergencies, with a focus on having the consumer NOT refinance, to save money in the long-run. Through this site, whoever you are, you have a great opportunity to get cash advance payday loan up to $1500 with easy, fast, and through a simple process. All you need to do is fill out a simple form on the site. Then, they (Perfect Cash Advance) will match you with an online payday lender. If their lenders approve you for your payday loans, of course, you will be very happy. Most lenders will make your money available for you to spend the very next business day. What are you waiting for? You need money immediately? Visit perfectcashadvance.com today!

Free Debt Consultation

2009-02-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

Do you have a problem? You don't know how to resolve your problem? Serious problem regarding to your debts? Because debt collector always interogate you every day? You're now frustating because you don't know how to release this problem? Whereas you are now in short on cash, doubt how to pay all of your debts? Okay, don't worry, who knows this post can be the solution for you.

Have you known there is a great website that offer for everyone to consolidate their debts problem for free? In this means no cost? Why you don't believe it? Free to consolidate your debts? In this thing, you will get much benefit because there's no obligation to commit today, and you can take as much time as you like to consider your options. At least, there are 3 options that you can choose to be consolidated, consolidate many debts, such as: secured and unsecured loans from many creditors, credit card only, and other service like: tax burden and credit repair service.

So, have you known that you should do now? The process to begin is simple, please match with your needs, the type of service on the right sidebar homepage site, and then follow the instructions on your screen to get free debt consolidation with No Debt Today.

Spider-man 3 Review

2009-02-05T06:59:00.000-08:00

Based on Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Columbia Pictures’ upcoming feature film, Spider-Man 3 allows players to experience the actions of heroic red-suited Spider-Man and, for the first time ever, his darker, more mysterious black-suited persona. Set in a larger, dynamic, free-roaming New York City, the game gives players the freedom to choose their own gameplay experience through multiple movie-based and original storylines, fully integrated city missions and performance rewards including improved speed, combat maneuvers and agility. In Spider-Man 3, players draw upon Spider-Man’s completely revamped combat abilities as they protect the city and defeat nemeses using expanded aerial fighting, finishing moves and dynamic webbing during missions and epic boss battles.

Features

* Welcome to the dark side – Fans control the legendary black-suit, which magnifies Spider-Man's strength, agility and durability. The game features its own Black-Suited Spider-Man gameplay mechanics which allow players to switch between the two suits at will. The black-suit makes Spider-Man more powerful and aggressive, but there is a price to pay by wearing it for too long which affects the game’s City Satisfaction Index and the overall look and feel of the city Spider-Man has sworn to protect.

* Conquest mode – In this PSP exclusive feature, players are challenged with completing missions and fighting crime before morning breaks. If good enough, a player will be rewarded handsomely with Hero Points, which allow them to upgrade and customize their Spider-Man skills.

* Let freedom ring – For the first time ever, players can experience a fully realized, free-roaming New York City on the PSP. Players decide how to proceed through the game and set their own goals. Should Spider-Man follow a plot twist, switch to an alternate storyline, fight off crime waves that threaten the city or explore vast towering skyscrapers and subterranean sewers and subways?

* Spider-Man is growing up – Gamers can customize Spider-Man the way they want. Fighting crime and earning Hero Points will allow gamers to upgrade and customize Spider-Man’s web moves, swing skills, and amazing melee combos.

* Don’t let the city go to the dogs – Four vicious gangs have laid claim to the boroughs of New York and must be taken down. As Spider-Man brings these criminals to justice, the City Satisfaction Index will increase in that section of town and city life will return to normal. If he doesn’t, the streets will turn to chaos. These super thugs won’t go down without a fight though. Their advanced AI will surround Spider-Man, grapple him, call in reinforcements, and do everything they can to retake their territory.

* Super Villains galore – Fans experience multi-stage, dynamic boss battles against movie villains, such as Venom, Sandman and New Goblin, as well as a host of legendary comic book foes who all take advantage of their environments, their minions, and the large-scale destruction that their superpowers cause in trying to defeat Spider-Man.

* Features two bonus villains in the PSP version: Morbius and Shriek.

Download Unlimited Wii Games on the Internet

2009-02-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

There are several sites with a one-time joining fee that allow you to download unlimited Wii games on the Internet. Downloading a Wii game is extremely fast and simple, even for the novice user. Anyone with a Nintendo Wii should subscribe to one of these sites to take full advantage of these amazing services. Below is a “how-to” to quickly and easily enjoy these services.

Many people are concerned that this may be a difficult process but it is quickly and easily learned by even the novice user. I was talking to a friend about possibly joining one of these sites and telling him how much fun my friends and family and I were having. After explaining to him the easy step-by-step process his reluctance soon turned into enthusiasm. He saw how easy it is to download unlimited Wii games and to get more out of his console saving him both time and money.

This article was written to tell people that may be interested in such a service, but are concerned about their technical prowess in such an endeavor. To quash any fears and explain how simple this is, I will walk you through the step-by-step process to download unlimited Wii games.

Step one: You first need to login into the unlimited Wii gaming download site of your choosing. Then you need to decide which of the unlimited Wii game sites you wish to join. You definitely want to choose a site that has a one-time fee! This small one-time fee will allow you to gain access to free Wii media for life. We have put together a comprehensive review of the top three unlimited Wii games download sites. They can be found here at Download Unlimited Wii Games

Step two: Many of these sites, not only provide Wii games, they also provide media, music, movies, TV shows and additional software. All of these can be accessed for a one time fee.

Step three: After you login to the unlimited Wii games site, you will gain access to a search bar where you will input the media name of your choosing. Again, remember at this point you will be able to choose from the media mentioned above, i.e. media, software, games, movies, etc. The unlimited Wii games services we have reviewed on our site have massive databases for you to search through to find exactly what you are looking for..

Step four: After you find what you're looking for, simply double-click to download the file. Next you will need to transfer the file to a CD, DVD or SD card and save it to your computer. This is a very, very simple process and the three sites we recommend have tutorials and software built in to accomplish this.

Step five: Take your newly created DVD, CD or memory card and plug it into your Wii console and enjoy.

It is really that easy, hopefully you now see how easy this is to accomplish and will be enjoying your Wii much more in the near future.

Best Mortgages Loan

2009-02-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

Now, if you're looking for good news related to mortgage topic, I will give you that you wish. Usually, if you're serious people which now are needing to find the good and even the best mortgage loan website on the internet, you will search for intensive way, explore step by step the information on the site if that can provide near that you need. Okay, if now I can give you what you want, why you don't believe me?

I found a great website that offering the best mortgage loan rate for who want to buy home. It's very exciting moment, when you can realize your dream with this site, mortgagefindersnetwork.com. At this site, even you can get more knowledge, be more educated in knowing the many types of loans, what is a reverse mortgage? Foreclosure rescue plans, and still many more.

In addition the mortgage loan information, knowing how to refinance your home, buy new home, home equity with best rate mortgages loan. A couple, has said like this, "Thanks mortgage finders network! you've helped us find the best mortgage loan with a great rate." Why you don't decide to follow them too? You've same chance, it's your time to go ahead.

Credit Card Reviews

2009-02-04T08:43:00.000-08:00

Have a credit card, of course, very enjoyable. Many people try to be able have a credit card. Because what? Because credit cards have a very strategic functions, such as: can shop without need to bring a lot of cash, can pay bills, can be used to "facilitate" the business transaction, and many more. And, with using the credit card, of course you can "buy / pay anything without money." This means you can use your credit card first, then you pay your credit card bills.

In my opinion, credit cards are very useful and can be a "magic card" if you can also use it wisely. This means, you also need to have "adequate knowledge" when using credit card. Because there are consequences that will come later, the credit card bill. Talking about credit card, I have a "valuable information" which can provide new experience and knowledge to you about credit card. You want to know? Yes, the answer is Your Credit Network (yourcreditnetwork.com). This site is a right site for you visit.

Whether you want to apply credit card, learn to use credit cards wisely, or to share experiences with other people, Your Credit Network is the right place. So, what are you waiting for? Visit this site now!

iCoke.ca's Dance Hero

2008-12-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

An unique and excitement entertainment! How do your current condition? Stress? Saturated? Bored with your daily routine? Want something new? Want a free entertainment that can make you guffaw? Well, all human certainly happy to try something new that will provide fun and entertainment. I have good news for you, namely iCoke.ca's Dance Hero! Coke Zero's Dance Hero will bring a refreshing bit of fun to your day.

Do you want to know who is created this unique game? Made famous by the international Coke Zero commercials on television, the tongue and eyeball mascots go head-to-head in a seriously delicious dance off! It would be very exciting!

How to play? Simply click on the circles in numerical order, and when you see a curved line, follow it along with your mouse. Of course, it helps if you pay attention to the beat and the animation of the circles.

Are you ready to play soon? Who's got the best finishing move? Tongue or Eyeball? I don't know, but I am sure you will enjoy playing this "unique and fresh" game. So, what are you waiting for? Play now! There are no Coke Coins needed to play! All dancing. Zero calories. No mercy! This is a good time for you to have fun with iCoke.ca's Dance Hero!

Zenni Optical - Complete Prescription Eyeglasses from $8.00

2008-11-20T04:36:00.000-08:00

Do you remember that in the near time again the Christmas day will arrive? I think, this is the great moment for you to buy Holiday Glass Frames From Zenni Optical. Combined by high quality stylish glasses frames and affordable price, even you can have completed a pair of glasses plus prescription only for $ 8 Complete Rx Eyeglasses.

This is also the time for you to start shopping by online. In this case, zennioptical.com as The popular online eyeglasses shop that ever there in this world and on the world web wide. This is right for you to save more time without have to leave your home just for buy the glasses.

And, my question is, what do you like with this frame, Frame#: 4332 Acetate Full-Rim Frame with Temple Design? Cool and fantastic design I think, what about you? Whether you have the same interests with me?

Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx Eyeglasses

2008-11-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for high-quality glasses with a cheap price? Confused, don’t know where you can get? That is why ZenniOptical.com comes. Through this site, you can find huge selection of frames, with single vision lens, sunsensor (potochromic) lens, tinted sunglasses lens, bifocal lens and progressive lens.

ZenniOptical.com Sells Stylish Prescription Glasses Online. Good news for you, you will get the cheap price if buy stylish prescription glasses or Incredible Stylish New Frames from Zenni because they sell only their own manufactured frames direct to the customer, with no middlemen.

For you know, Zenni Optical was on FOX news! I think you have found the exact site where you should buy a stylish prescription glasses with high quality and cheap price. So, what are you waiting for? Buy Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx Eyeglasses now.

GPS Insight Vehicle Tracking System

2008-10-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Technology has been developing rapidly. Many things in the past and it is impossible to be done, now become a reality because the technology. Advances in technology can give an unexpected experience, changing patterns life of human who living in the world. One of the sophisticated technology that is able to provide a new experience is GPS.

GPS has many strategic and useful functions, for example: if you have a taxi company. Then you install the GPS device in every taxi, with a goal so can monitor in real time whether your taxi driver do the right thing or not. Or could also with the aim to provide more security to your taxi passengers if a when there are unwanted things is happen. In fact, the GPS device is widely used by most people who know and love technology. Even, several top-class cell phones also already planted with GPS features. The cell phone user can find out many things with the GPS feature in their cell phone.

One of the interesting and you are obliged to have (if you move in the field of companies such as: HVAC, roofing, plumbing, construction, sales forces, delivery vehicles, long haul trucking, etc) is GPS Insight vehicle tracking system. What is GPS Insight? And why this product can be very interesting?

GPS Insight is a hardware and web software-based vehicle tracking product which is the technical leader in the GPS tracking field. GPS Insight gives your company's management the ability to report on: Landmark Activity, Odd Hours, Geofence Violation, Activity Detail, Fuel Consumption, Speed Violations, Vehicle Performance(Trouble Codes), and many more. GPS Insight is the only product which gets direct engine diagnostics (fault codes, speed, fuel consumption, odometer readings, idle time, etc.), and gives 2 minute updates with VERY high end map options and customizations. Some other great advantages if you use this product are:

• State Mileage Report
• Geofence History Report
• Fleet Utilization Graph
• Driver Log
• Activity Detail Report
• Begin/End Day Summary Report
• Drive Time Summary Report
• Run Time Report
• Odd Hours Report
• Speed Violation Report
• Landmark Report By Landmark
• Engine/Maintenance Report
• Fleet Location Report
• Fuel Consumption/MPG Report
• Engine Performance Report
• Speed Band Report
• Stop Detail and idle time report

If you want to know more clarity and detail about this very sophisticated and useful product, please visit to Blog for GPS vehicle tracking or can also visit to GPS Insight support wiki for customers. There are available lots of interesting things that can be found at there, seems all of your questions will get a lot of the answers at there. Yes, very much valuable information at there. I suggest you to read the many important things about the GPS Insight vehicle tracking system and implementation in reality at there.

So, what are you waiting for? Soon have this sophisticated equipment to improve the quality and quantity of your business so that can grow faster. Already many of the businessmen and entrepreneurs who have this product, and the results are quite impressive, their business grew rapidly.

Toll Free - 866-GPS-4321
Email: sales@gpsinsight.com or support@gpsinsight.com

Helping Your Business with Unsecured Business Loan

2008-10-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

In business, money holds a very important role. Success or not a business can be determined by money. Who have more money, can be sure that he will be more superior than who have less money. And, for you that need Business Loans, now you can get its more easily, quickly, and through the very simple process.

Ezunsecured (specialize in helping small business owners and entrepreneurs to get Business Loan and also obtain the capital they need to succeed) is the answer, as a very strong and reliable partner in your business With NO Collateral, NO Business Plans, NO Tax Return, NO UCC Fillings, NO Headaches, 6% + APR, NO DOC to $ 200,000 (Start-Ups OK!), EZ DOC to $ 10 Million, easy process, fast funding, and excellent service, now is a good time to realize your dream become a reality. The purpose is to make your business become more large and growing rapidly

So, what are you waiting for? Visit this site today, and also apply now.

Crysis Warhead - a fantastic stand-alone expansion to a superb shooter, and should be played by anyone who likes games with guns

2008-09-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

All of the claims you may have heard that Crysis could only run on nuclear-powered supermachines were greatly exaggerated. But if for some reason you worry that this stand-alone companion to the ultragorgeous first-person shooter will bring your PC to its knees, you should know that it's highly scalable and ran smoothly on a number of machines during our testing. It also looks better, with clear attention given to the game's artistic sensibilities and the lusher, denser environments. But rest assured, developer Crytek has enhanced more than just the graphics engine. Vehicles are more fun to drive, firefights are more intense and focused, and aliens do more than just float around you. More emphasis on the open-ended environments would have been welcome, but a more exciting (though shorter) campaign, a new multiplayer mode, and a whole bunch of new maps make Crysis Warhead an excellent expansion to one of last year's best shooters.

If you didn't play Crysis, Warhead's story may be initially confusing, given that you hit the ground running with little exposition. You play as Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes, the brash Brit who was a bit player in the original game. Psycho tends to play by his own rules, always willing to ignore orders and jump into the fray if that's what the situation requires. The story runs parallel to the events of Crysis, though his strident attitude--and a dramatic cutscene near the end of the game--definitely make this Psycho's tale, even if the actual plot remains the same. In any case, you and your US Special Forces team are investigating a tropical island besieged by North Korean invaders. However, your greatest menace comes in the form of aggressive aliens that turn the luxuriant jungles and glowing beaches into a frozen wasteland. You and your teammates, clad in nanosuits that grant you special abilities such as super strength, temporary cloaking, super speed, and additional armor, confront both threats across a variety of large environments.

Psycho's brazen confidence does more than just establish a gutsy protagonist: It sets the stage for a more focused and intense series of battles that keep the pace moving more smoothly than before. Warhead still offers some of the same kind of sandbox levels, but thoughtful enemy placement and map bottlenecks keep downtime to a minimum. You can approach assaults on beachfronts and Korean encampments in a number of ways, so if you're a stealth enthusiast, you can employ your suit's cloak setting and sneak in, or attach a silencer to your sniper rifle and take out your human foes from a distance. If you would rather employ hit-and-run tactics, you can jump into the heat of battle, cause a ruckus, and use your suit's speed function to zoom away. However, Warhead is clearly focused on the guns-blazing approach, gently nudging you into full-on encounters with its mission objectives, character dialogue, and level design. When you reach primary and secondary destinations, you'll get besieged by large numbers of enemies, both human and (later on) alien. Given that human foes also don nanosuits, they're not necessarily quick to fall; as a result, these sequences are exciting and challenging, and you'll need to use your suit abilities and cover opportunities to your advantage. The easily triggered explosions of enemy vehicles and hazardous barrels further intensify these pockets of activity.

A number of set-piece battles confirm this slight shift toward action-packed mayhem. Your first encounter with a hulking alien war machine may not have the same impact as a similar one in Crysis, but it happens earlier than you'd expect, and it establishes the alien presence with adrenaline-fueled drama. That battle is a wonder, as is a later defensive mission that has you fending off a series of aliens, and requires you to shift focus frequently and use every weapon in your inventory. Another great sequence is a train level that, at first, seems much like similar sequences in a number of other shooters. You can stay on the train and use turrets to gun down the opposition, as expected--but you can also jump off and engage the opposition at any time, giving even this near-cliche sequence plenty of replay value. A linear journey through an underground mine is the obvious misstep in regard to level design, given that it never so much as hints at the open-ended action that makes Warhead a superb shooter.

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NHL 09 - The latest entry in EA's venerable hockey franchise is the best yet

2008-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Far Cry 2 Exclusive Multiplayer Hands-On -- Game modes, weapons, and blood diamonds. There's nothing civil about this war

2008-09-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

Diamonds are not forever in Far Cry 2, but they are persistent. In the single-player campaign, the precious stones are mined by the warring factions and sold to fund their civil war. In the multiplayer mode, blood diamonds are rewarded as persistent upgrades as you increase in rank and unlock new weapons. In both cases, diamonds fuel the explosive action of Ubisoft Montreal's upcoming shooter.

We recently paid a visit to Ubisoft Montreal to finally get our hands on the four multiplayer game modes in Far Cry 2. In addition to Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, you can also do battle in team-based Capture the Diamond--after all, if you had to choose between snatching a flag or a diamond, which would you go for? To win, you steal the enemy faction's briefcase of diamonds from its headquarters and bring it back to your base. You can score a point only if your own diamonds are secure in your headquarters. The diamond carrier is easily identified on the map because each briefcase gives off bright green or red smoke, depending on which faction you play for. After a point is scored, a new briefcase will spawn. There are a few interesting strategies that play into this mode. One player grabbed the diamonds and hightailed it back to his base, but instead of scoring the point, he hid in a nearby hut. While the opposing team was off trying to hunt down the diamond carrier, his teammate stealthily made his way to the enemy headquarters, and waited for the carrier to score so he could grab the new briefcase when it respawned--dirty!

The final mode, Uprising, is a hybrid of VIP and a Battlefield-style point capture. There are three control points that can be captured only by each team's captain. One team must capture all three points, after which the game will end when the other team's captain is assassinated. This mode takes the most coordination and teamwork to succeed. Points must be defended after they are captured, and grabbing new points requires a carefully organized attack. In either case, your team will be spread thin across the entire map.

Whereas vehicles are more of a simple mode of transportation in the single-player game, they play a strategic role in multiplayer. Most vehicles (including the officially licensed Jeeps) can carry multiple passengers. In Capture the Diamond, we preferred to drive a Jeep with a mounted machine gun. One teammate manned the gun as another fired from the front passenger seat. When we reached the enemy base, both passengers ran out to capture the diamond, while we smoothly executed a three-point turn to get the Jeep ready for the return trip. We popped the hood and applied the monkey wrench to repair the engine, then sped away, this time with diamond in tow. One desert map featured a one-passenger dune buggy, whereas a mountain map had hang gliders perched on cliffs, which were perfect for reaching a capture point quickly in Uprising. In any case, cars and Jeeps can be quickly dispatched with a grenade or RPG, and nothing earns experience points faster than an exploding car full of rebel insurgents.

You receive experience for capturing points, sharing vehicles with friends, stealing diamonds, healing teammates, and, of course, capping fools. This experience improves your rank and it rewards conflict diamonds that can be spent on upgrading six different player classes: the commando, rebel, guerilla, sharpshooter, gunner, and saboteur. The only real difference between each class is the weapon loadout. The saboteur can unlock remote-controlled IEDs, perfect for planting next to your briefcase of diamonds. As soon as someone steals it, you hit the button. The commando is a balanced character who uses machine guns, and the rebel starts out with the powerful flamethrower. Each class has three levels of upgrades, and each costs one conflict diamond. You can upgrade any class, regardless of which class you played as in the past. Unfortunately, there are no personal-customization options such as costumes or camouflage, but there are 30 ranks and plenty of powerful weapons to unlock, such as the six-pack grenade launcher. The more you use an individual weapon, the more proficiency you gain, eventually unlocking field manuals and bandoliers that increase weapon accuracy, reliability, and ammunition quantity. You can swap out your weapon loadout or class in-between each respawn. If you want to play with the more advanced weaponry sooner, you can host a player match with friends in which you level up much faster than in ranked matches. Alas, all upgrades in player matches are lost when you leave the server.

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Need for Speed Undercover - The latest entry in EA's long-running racing series looks to the past while throwing in some interesting new features.

2008-09-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Only in the context of video games will you hear people clamor on about how they wish they were being chased by the cops, but that's just what many Need for Speed fans have been doing since 2005's Most Wanted. Well, the boys in blue are back for Need for Speed Undercover, and so is the open-world setting that last year's ProStreet sacrificed in favor of quartered-off racing courses. But it's not as though developer EA Black Box has gone into full-on time-travel mode for the latest entry in this long-running series. For every nod to the series' past, you'll find something new like Hollywood-style driving techniques designed to help you elude the police, new events and skill-building systems, and a step toward more mature, less hammy storytelling.

Need for Speed Undercover is swapping the professional racing circuits and nighttime neon lights of the past two games in favor of an open-world Gulf Coast locale. Known as Tri-City Bay, this collection of floating-bridge freeways, dirt roads, and industrial shipping yards is set in the postsunrise, presunset time of day when the sun sits low in the sky and covers everything in a golden light. There seems to be a lot of diversity, and the race events take good advantage of that. One of the Sprint Race events we took part in--a supercar showdown featuring the likes of the Carerra GT and Pagani Zonda--took us from the highway to a high school football field to a millionaire's marble driveway before arriving at the finish line in a freeway tunnel. It's definitely a big world, too. We're told you can drive the fastest car in the game and it would take you a solid eight minutes to circumnavigate the entire world at top speed.

One of the ways Black Box is looking to expand your driving abilities without necessarily changing the way cars handle is through what it's calling the Heroic Driving Engine, a system that allows you to achieve a new level of agility on the road. One of the ways it's done this is by removing the persistent relationship between a car's direction and the perspective of the camera. If you're flying down the road, you can jam on the brakes while jerking the control stick to the side and watch as your car does a 180 at speed while the camera remains firmly in place. It's not just for show; if you've thrown your car into reverse like this, you can double-tap the gas and your driver will come to a screeching halt and take off in the opposite direction. This entails the opposite scenario as before--your car will remain facing the same way while the camera turns around, saving you a good bit of time compared to the old-fashioned three-point turn. When you successfully engage in these types of moves, you'll be rewarded with RPG-style experience points that will upgrade your driving abilities.

As a way of maintaining balance with your newfound driving skills, EA Black Box is bringing back the police to keep you challenged as you wreak havoc on the roads of Tri-City Bay. Driver AI has been enhanced so that if you do something particularly stupid like nudge someone off the road at 90 miles per hour, you'll have the cops called on you. In other situations, you'll have them on your tail at the start of a mission, like in the Driver Job event we tried that had us stealing a police cruiser (a Nissan GT-R squad car, of all things) and bring it to a shop to sell it off. No matter the origins, getting rid of the cops is the same: You need to put some distance between you and the police cars, and if there's a helicopter, you need to find a tunnel or bridge to hide under.

As you progress through the game's story--a tale about a police officer so deep undercover that only a few people know who he is--the narration will unfold in the traditional cutscene format of the Need for Speed series. This time around, there's a new focus on taking these video sequences out of the stone age and into the modern era, where games don't need to remain stuck in the trappings of the mid-'90s. What this means is cutscenes shot on a live set rather than a green screen, real actors (well, at least the main characters--we're not sure if Jessica Alba's brother playing a side role counts as a real actor), and a director pulled from the show 24. Based on the three cutscenes we saw, these ingredients have come together to form a more mature look for the series. You'll have the chance to see how well the whole package comes together when Need for Speed Undercover is released on November 17.

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Shattered Suns- Shattered Suns wastes its promise with terrible presentation values and poor implementation of its 3D combat system

2008-09-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Fully 3D real-time strategy games set in space are a rare breed. Adding the third dimension seems to scare off both developers and gamers, so many games simply ignore the oft-confusing vertical plane and stick to 2D stellar battlefields. Shattered Suns is a good example of why so many people shy away. The Clear Crown Studios game is certainly adventurous enough, due to the ostensibly more realistic depiction of outer space, the mix of RTS and 4X space sim traits, and a few innovative touches when it comes to custom ship design; but the production values are bottom-drawer, and your galactic adventures are highlighted by boring resource management and simplistic combat that doesn't really utilize those three dimensions. These issues, along with some serious problems with the in-game camera, all but ruin the reasonably original game design.

Originality doesn't extend to the plot, however. In the single-player campaign, you play Captain Max, a former starship commander in the Statian military who's drafted back into active duty during an invasion by the evil Qalan and Trexon Empires. So the story deals with the standard one-man-against-the-alien-hordes shtick, albeit with the rather interesting addition of a love story. At the same time as Max is trying to save Statia, he's also searching star systems for his missing fiancee, a fellow officer with the much more exotic name of Seeng-Si. A fair bit of the game is spent with the hero dithering over his duty and chucking it all to search for his woman, which gives the game a bit of teen-love cheese, as nobody over 17 actually thinks like Captain Max.

Still, much of this tale is fairly well told, regardless of the lapses into 90210 melodrama. The one huge flaw is that every plot point is described through text, as though you're playing the game via instant messenger. As the budget apparently didn't allow for any cutscene production, a single screen filled with a drab starfield map and a huge block of tiny, hard-to-read green-on-black text conveys all of the story and dialogue. Even some full missions take place here and are resolved entirely through answering questions. Many of the lines are well written, although apparently the designers realized this and allowed the writer free rein to ramble on to absurd lengths. Scenes meander for many, many minutes, and you're stuck waiting for every single line to slowly pop up onscreen because you can't skip ahead. All of this dialogue goes beyond sci-fi boilerplate to help develop realistic characters with depth and personality (like your snarky computer assistant, Citron), although it's hard to appreciate any of it when you're screaming "Get on with it!" at your monitor. More appeal is lost due to the text scaling in lower-resolution displays. Letters are shrunk to what looks like an 8-point height and scrunched so tightly together that you soon squint your way into serious eyestrain or a king-size headache. Keep eyedrops and ibuprofen on hand.

Shattered Suns isn't particularly easy on the eyes during missions, either. Ship design is generic, textures are plain, and the lighting and shadow effects are so primitive that there is no depth to any of the models. Star systems are just as rough and ready, with basic planet types like Earth look-alikes and lava worlds. The background is really odd looking, too, due to the inclusion of so much green nebulae gas that it overwhelms what should be a very black outer space. At times, this backdrop is so green and lush that it seems more like you're waging war in front of an English country garden than the inky darkness of space. Ship movements and explosions are nothing short of embarrassing. Vessels avoid colliding with planets by simply jerking to one side or the other, and the usual pyrotechnics of ships going ka-boom have been replaced with wimpy puffs of smoke and chunks of debris flying in all directions. And despite the game's low-rent appearance, loading times can be onerous. Initially loading the game up takes so long that you can not only safely duck out of the room to make a sandwich, you just might have time to bake the bread, too.

Of course, really ugly games sometime boast some really stellar gameplay. But that isn't the case here, as Shattered Suns is just as unappealing within as it is without. The game sort of blends typical RTS gaming with 4X space sims, with campaign missions that are split among building fleets for combat, focusing on space-station base building, and fulfilling economic duties such as setting up a trade route or gathering resources. You generally accept an order at the beginning of the assignment to do something like juggle the game's three resources of crystals, ore, and credits in an effort to repair ships, set up a mining operation on a moon, or simply crank out ships and blast into a system to annihilate the enemy. Everything is pretty straightforward. Most resource management can be done with a couple of clicks. To mine a planet for ore, for example, all you need to do is load up a ship with miners and send it on its way. Combat is equally simplistic, with the only complication provided by the ability to rig up different ship production lines on space stations to crank out vessels for different purposes. So you can build one line of ships with huge storage capacity to serve as cargo carries, another line with serious weaponry and armor for front-line combat, and so on.

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Murder in the Abbey - Murder in the Abbey may not be entirely original, but it's an adventure with a lot of personality

2008-09-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

The odd combination of monks and murder has been a staple of whodunit fiction for decades, so the biggest mystery here is why somebody didn't come up with an adventure game like Murder in the Abbey (known in Europe as simply The Abbey) before now. Developer Crimson Cow delivers a solid take on the murderous monastery minigenre, too, thanks to a smart story and impressively painted scenery populated by cartoonish characters reminiscent of graphic novels. Unimaginative puzzles and some overwritten dialogue make your sleuthing tedious at times, although the adventure still delivers a gripping, sharp-looking trip back to the Middle Ages.

However, if you're looking for something with the faintest hint of originality, you might want to look elsewhere. This utter lack of imagination extends to the storyline, a good chunk of which has been rather liberally scarfed from The Name of the Rose. Here you play Brother Leonardo of Toledo, a monk sent to deliver his teenage sidekick Bruno to the Nuestra Senora de la Natividad Abbey for study with the resident monks. Unfortunately, dark, dastardly murder interferes with this kiddie drop-off. Someone tries to kill Leonardo and Bruno on their way into the monastery by rolling a boulder onto them, Wile E. Coyote-style, and the duo then discover that a monk has recently died in a mysterious fashion. Given that Leonardo is basically Sherlock Holmes with a tonsure, right down to his nearly supernatural powers of observation that let him figure out nearly everything about everybody from just the briefest glance, he sets out to solve the mystery of the murdered monk.

Gameplay is focused almost entirely on interrogating monks like the usual adventure-game gumshoe, as well as collecting useful objects. There are just a couple of set-piece logic puzzles in Murder in the Abbey, and these are basic brainteasers in which you slide tiles around to form a picture and click on faces on a bas-relief to open a secret door. Carrying conversations and picking up whatever isn't nailed down are the cornerstones of your investigations. Most of the riddles here are based on common sense, at any rate, which keeps the game out of need-a-walkthrough land. Considering that you don't have to worry about the absurd leaps of logic that are all too common to old-school adventure games, you need to concentrate on your surroundings and simply grab items that have a reasonably obvious purpose. So when a key falls out of a book, you know to scoop it up. Spot some gunpowder? Ditto. Run across an icon of the Virgin Mary? Pocket that, too.

After you've done all of your junk-collecting, all that's left is a straightforward assessment of your situation and experimenting with combinations of objects until you find out what works. It's all very formulaic, and your time will be filled up with old-fashioned "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" jobs and a ton of busywork in scrounging for items needed to push the plot forward. As an example, at one point early on in chapter one, you need a document translated. The monk who can do it is really busy, though, so he puts you off until next week, complaining that he is so backlogged that he hasn't been able to eat and is faint with hunger. So you trot off to the kitchen, where you recently chatted with a monk who is cooking up a delicious soup, and, well, the rest pretty much writes itself. Most puzzles are as elementary as adding two plus two, although some are a bit obtuse. Key plot points are occasionally buried in dense dialogue passages. Some tasks require such an incredible amount of busywork that it's easy to get lost in all of the annoying minutiae. For instance, making the sleeping potion is an amazingly long and dull procedure that was apparently included simply to lengthen the game. Regardless, veteran adventure gamers should be able to wrap up their role as medieval Kojak in no more than a couple of evenings of heavy play.

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Outcry - Outcry is one of the more surreal and impenetrable adventure games ever made.

2008-09-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

Adventure gamers looking for something off the beaten path get more than they bargain for in Outcry. This point-and-click exercise in the surreal from Russian developer Phantomery Interactive is certainly a step removed from the norm, but it's also so relentlessly strange and impenetrable that it's nearly impossible to play. Style has been elevated over substance in every aspect of the design, resulting in a trippy game that's appealing only for its bizarre atmosphere, philosophical pretensions, and striking visuals.

Even the basic storyline is tough to figure out, because you're given little to go on. The game begins with the anonymous protagonist (you have to check the manual to find out that you're a "middle-aged writer") receiving a letter from his estranged brother. Apparently your brother is a scientist working on a "paramount experiment that unlocks new horizons of human cognition" and involves getting "in precise sync with inner frequencies." The letter he sends you is tangled and nonsensical, and it hurls you into the game knowing precisely zip about what you're supposed to be doing. Getting the news that your brother has disappeared is the only part of the game's opening that is the slightest bit understandable. Various documents and recordings left around his abandoned residence seem to indicate that his experiment involved ancient megaliths, time travel, checking out alternate dimensions, separating human consciousness from the body, coming up with a recipe for really great salsa...that sort of thing. You eventually uncover a grab bag of goofiness about ancient secrets and the nature of reality. Still, none of it really connects. Either something was lost in the translation from the original Russian, or the storyline was just too New Agey in the first place.

What the game loses in lucidity it gains in an inspired presentation. Outcry's visuals are downright hallucinogenic. Every scene is overlaid with an aging filter loaded with dark sepia tones, skips, a main light source that dims and shines like a strobe effect, and other film flaws that make it seem as though you're viewing a long-lost movie reel. Some scenes are even in black and white. Because this layer is placed between your first-person perspective and the backdrops of the adventure, everything seems like a dream or an old memory. Nothing establishes a particular time or place, either. Everything around you is decrepit--one of the first things you see in your brother's house is an old gramophone--but it's hard to say for sure what year it is despite references to the early 20th century, such as notes mentioning Sigmund Freud's "new" theories. The rooms are so dingy and the machinery is so rusted that they appear to have been abandoned centuries ago. It could be yesterday, it could be 1920, or it could be who knows when, which is an unsettling notion that goes hand in hand with the surreal story to keep you off-kilter throughout the game.

Poorly presented puzzles also keep you off balance, though not in a good way. The game mixes traditional adventure puzzles involving collecting and combining items with set-piece logic brain-twisters where you twirl valves, pull levers, and crack codes, but there is zero feedback provided for your efforts. It's nearly impossible to determine if you're on the right track, because the protagonist never says a word and the interface doesn't offer up any information about your surroundings. There's no indication that you've solved a puzzle, and when you click valves or levers into the right position you never receive "You've done it!" triggers like green flashing lights or the noise of a door opening in the distance. Instead, to check on your progress, you have to run off to see if the door has opened, the water has been turned on, the stairs have moved into place, and so forth. Not fun.

Interacting with objects is just as frustrating. Items that can be picked up look exactly the same as those that form part of the immobile scenery. Pixel hunts are necessary in every location you visit, and it's extra tedious here because those stylish, old-timey visuals make everything so dark and grimy that it's almost impossible to spot everything during your first run-through. You constantly find yourself backtracking to pick up objects that you have overlooked. Even worse, many items cause the cursor to change to indicate that they can be interacted with in some way, but they don't actually do anything. In the usual adventure game, such situations often provoke a quip from the hero indicating what you need to do to use the object in question. Here, though, nothing happens at all. There are no comments from the mute protagonist and no text tips from the game itself.

One example of this can be found early in the second chapter when you're trying to assemble the scattered pieces of a key. The last piece is right in front of you in one scene, and it looks like you can simply reach out and grab it. But when you try to do so, nothing happens. There is no note that you can't quite reach the component and no suggestion that you need a little help. So good luck determining that you need to take an apparently unrelated item from elsewhere in the level, lock it in a vise, bend it with a hammer into the shape of a hook, and then use this impromptu tool to grab the key part. You're always left to muddle through on your own, which is often impossible without help from a walk-through or a gang of similarly befuddled adventure gamers on a forum.

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Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen - a fitting update for a revered NES and PlayStation classic.

2008-09-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen marks the first time that the popular PlayStation update of the NES original has reached American shores. It's thoroughly engrossing and highly addictive, featuring all of the basic updates that the game saw in its PlayStation release along with a dual-screen presentation and improved 3D environments. Developer Arte Piazza has also brightened up the game's color palette and included a new translation. It boasts fun and unique regional dialects, offering a familiar but fresh experience that should prove a welcome treat.

Dragon Quest IV casts you as a hero destined to save humanity from a powerful evil, but it doesn't immediately thrust you into battle; instead, the game is separated into five chapters, with the first four focusing on a different character. While this format might seem confusing, it effectively and painlessly familiarizes you with the game's mechanics and expansive world map before turning you loose in chapter five. Each chapter opens with a brief cutscene that introduces your new character and chapter-specific goals, which are far more engaging than the usual tasks of leveling up and slaying bosses. For example, in one chapter, you spend time as a merchant busily making money and avoiding combat, while in another, you're a globe-trotting princess solving problems for the local towns. Exploration occurs on a detailed world map and is aided by a convenient color-coded map on the top screen that fills in areas as you progress.

As with most role-playing games from this era, battles are random, turn-based affairs that appear on the bottom screen along with command prompts. Character data is displayed on the top screen to make the area more informative and less cluttered than the PlayStation version. The game now enables you to set tactics for allies either individually or across the board, so if you'd rather order a magic user to focus on healing instead of issuing the heal command every round, you have that option. Likewise, you can now flex a little control-freak muscle and directly order each teammate's attack--a delightful adjustment that allows for more strategic play.

Another convenient feature is that your nonactive party members gain experience whenever your handy wagon is in tow, which generally keeps your whole crew in the same level range. This is extremely helpful because you'll often cycle through party members for different dungeon or boss strategies, and having lackluster benched characters at level 15 when your primaries are 30 would essentially handicap you each time you adjusted your strategy. The wagon boasts a second feature that makes it even more invaluable: You're then able to change party members during battle, which is fantastic when your allies are dead or suffering from status ailments. It's also a great way to manage AI-controlled guest characters that are causing you problems, which is another solid improvement.

Dragon Quest IV suffers from only a few minor irritants that might turn some players away. While monsters and bosses do require a bit of strategic planning, those in the first half of the game are so simple that you can usually get away with mashing the attack command and casting the occasional heal, which makes early battles shallow. There's also not much monster variety until chapter five, with the exception of the popular slime types. Dialogue, which for the most part consists of charming asides or enlightening discussions, can get painfully repetitive when you're trying to save at the local church because the residing priest feels the need to bless you before and after saving your game or removing your poison. Thankfully, you can utilize the quicksave feature to bypass the priest's pointless drivel when it inevitably becomes tiresome.

The most striking element of Dragon Quest IV is that its DS remake received more than just a face-lift: The game is significantly brighter and clearer than its PlayStation predecessor. It also boasts vibrant, colorful environments vividly presented across both screens. You're even able to maneuver the camera to give you a better view of hidden objects and secrets, which is an impressive feature that rarely slows down the game. Towns are charming locations with detailed buildings and flora, as well as full of adorable 2D citizens in clearly visible clothing and accessories.

Enemies have received new animations, with some sporting abilities that cause the camera to turn and move toward an opponent during an attack. This causes your foe to appear 3D for a moment, providing a subtle but impressive effect. Moderate changes were also made to dungeon environments and battle backgrounds to make them more aesthetically pleasing. The franchise's traditional in-game clock makes a reappearance, with battle backgrounds adjusting to the time of day. Battle sounds have been updated as the beeps of yesteryear have been replaced by satisfying sword slashes, while spell effects are both flashier and more believable. The music is boisterous but superb, with a different theme for each chapter and an intense battle song for boss fights.

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Shred Nebula - This fast-paced Xbox Live space shooter is a little too retro for its own good

2008-09-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

Despite what the name might lead you to believe, Shred Nebula is not the name of a new metalcore band. This unique moniker has actually been given to a top-down space shooter for Xbox Live Arcade. Unfortunately, this nifty title is the most innovative aspect of the game. Developer CrunchTime Games offers up big-time bombast and a lot of cool explosions for 800 points, but the derivative gameplay is too repetitive and too much of a slavish imitation of its ancient arcade inspirations to deliver lasting entertainment.

That said, Shred Nebula is fun for an hour or three, especially if you devoted your misspent youth to plugging quarters into games in smoky arcades while Foreigner blasted in the background. There are only basic concessions to modernity, such as 3D visuals and the 20-mission solo adventure mode of play, which comes complete with a tacked-on story that explains why you're hitting the final frontier with the goal of killing everything in sight. This tale sets you up as the pilot of the RIP Rocket, an experimental spacecraft sent into space to search for the missing Algron Exploration Fleet. The saga is told solely in text blurbs that introduce each mission and give brief explanations about each new alien race that you encounter and why you must murder them. You really don't need to know anything other than that you have to scour enemies from each level, grab power-ups, blast a boss or two, and then fire up your hyperdrive to do it all over again in the solar system down the block.

Other modes of play are more interesting than the campaign. Score Attack is a ladder on which you try to survive as many enemy waves as possible before going kaboom. You can play this mode solo or against a friend on the same Xbox 360. It's preferable to the campaign simply because the challenge is amped up and you don't have to sit through any of the dull story stuff. Online multiplayer supports up to eight players in Deathmatch games. It offers some intense matches, when you can find other players online, but there isn't a whole lot of depth here. No experience points, level advancement, or skill tree is present to hold your interest. So all you do is battle it out in space for bragging rights on the leaderboard when it comes to who has the most game wins, the most frags, and the best TrueSkill rating (a winning percentage calculated from the number of games played and won). There's also split-screen deathmatch play, although the game is so quick and the visuals so clogged with special effects that the action doesn't translate well when confined to just half of a TV screen.

No matter how you play Shred Nebula, though, the design feels very familiar. If you've visited an arcade at any time in the past 25 years, chances are good that you've played one of this game's ancestors. The RIP Rocket and the seven other ship types available in multiplayer are stock-standard crafts in games like this. Each starts off with wimpy single-shot guns but the usual assortment of multiblast cannons, shields, and other powerhouse weapons of mass destruction can be picked up along the way. There isn't anything particularly new here, although each ship features some mildly innovative twists such as the scythe-like RIP saber of the RIP Rocket, the toxic sludge cloud of the GuardBot, and the swarm missiles and cloak of the versatile Djinn. Ship controls are more advanced than in the old days, too. Maneuverability is paramount, and you'll use the trigger buttons to provide thrust and instantly reverse course. There is also a good balance between each ship's special-weapon types and defensive measures such as shields on demand that can bounce projectiles back at enemies. Nothing here is overly complex. You just tear around with one finger keeping the thrust trigger pulled down at all times. You can quickly master all of the controls and whip your ship across the solar systems.

Pace of play is a lot quicker than anything from the golden age of arcades. Levels in both the campaign and score attack are packed with swarming enemies that hammer you with laser blasts. And multiplayer, of course, is a frenzied mash of blasters and explosions, especially in matches with more than four players. However, circling and strafing at full speed is incessant, which makes this white-knuckle dogfighting switch from "exciting" to "okay, this is getting on my nerves" after a half-hour or so, no matter which mode you're playing. The bland design of enemy ships does little to liven things up. In the campaign, you're hit with no more than a couple of enemy types in each level. And these baddies generally stick around for four or five straight levels until you're introduced to another gang of alien goons. Consider this one of those intense yet shallow arcade games best consumed in small bites.

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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - The Force feels quite leashed in the DS version of this Star Wars action game

2008-09-17T05:35:00.000-07:00

The concept behind Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is undeniably great. You're granted a host of extremely powerful Force abilities and set free to use them to your heart's content, wreaking beautiful, Force-fueled havoc in a galaxy far, far away. But that concept is compromised on the DS; you’ll notice the game’s limitations more than its freedoms.

The storytelling in The Force Unleashed is lackluster, with not a word of voice acting and only occasional use of cutscenes. All of the dialogue is conveyed through the use of character portraits and text. But even told in this uninspired fashion, the game's story is quite gripping. After the introductory level in which you play as Darth Vader himself, you'll take control of his secret apprentice, code-named Starkiller, traveling the galaxy and slaughtering Jedi at Vader's behest. But before all is said and done, the tale takes some dramatic turns. To say too much about it would be to ruin the surprises it has in store, so suffice it to say that the apprentice's journey is a compelling one, both on a personal and canonical level.

All of the action in The Force Unleashed takes place on the top screen of the DS, while the touch screen has "buttons" for your six basic actions: jump, saber attack, saber throw, Force grip, Force push, and Force lightning. You move your character using the control pad (or the face buttons, for southpaws) and trigger your actions using the touch screen. It's an effective, easy control scheme that makes using your Force powers a snap. Unfortunately, some powers are barely worth using, since others are so overpowered. Even powered up to maximum strength, saber throw feels quite weak, while your Force push is strong enough to get you past nearly everything the game throws at you.

Level design is a bit uneven. The game starts strong, with a full-scale Imperial invasion of the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk. Here, AT-ATs menacingly march on Wookiee villages, and TIE fighters swoop in to blast your enemies to smithereens. The game ends strong, too, with a final level that makes inspired use of what may be the most famous Star Wars location of all. But in between, despite their wildly varying appearances, there are a lot of similarities shared by most of the game's levels. Whether on Felucia, teeming with life, or on the junk world of Raxus Prime, the levels fall into a pattern of narrow, enemy-filled corridors punctuated by occasional wide, enemy-filled spaces. It all starts to feel quite humdrum before too long.

The Force Unleashed is a very easy game. Even before leveling up any of your abilities, you're so powerful that you can cut through the opposition like a hot knife through butter. Even the powerful Jedi bosses pose little threat until the game's final battle; you can make short work of most of them by doing nothing more than repeatedly swinging your saber. As you progress, you'll unlock Force combos, which are performed by dragging the stylus across two or more icons. Dragging the stylus from Force grip to saber attack, for instance, pulls an enemy toward you and impales him on your saber. It's a good idea, and many of these combos are fun to use for their sadistic charm, but they don't serve much practical use. You can easily get through the game without relying on them much at all.

The biggest problem is that it fails to create a sense of freedom, of unleashing you to use the Force to fulfill your own whims. Time and time again, you'll come across traps that you can spring--stormtroopers standing dumbly next to a pile of logs, droids hanging out under rickety platforms--and these all too frequent situations make the game's levels feel artificial, as if they were designed entirely around your powers (which, of course, they are). You'll feel like a rat in a maze, pushing all the buttons that are there for you to push but never getting to exercise your own creativity. And as strong as your powers are, your control over them is very limited. You can send enemies flying with Force push, but you can't send them flying into another foe, or control where they go at all. The game certainly makes you feel powerful, but it never makes you feel liberated. Quite the opposite.

Visually, The Force Unleashed is mostly unimpressive. The apprentice animations are graceful and include some pretty cool lightsaber moves. On the other hand, many enemies are too blocky and undefined to bear much resemblance to their cinematic counterparts, and you'll frequently see things that break the illusion, like enemies passing through objects or laying down in midair to die. The camera, which you have no control over, often presents a poor view of the action. Enemies will fire at you from offscreen, and not being able to see your foes as you Force push them to their deaths takes some of the fun out of it. The sound design is considerably worse than the graphics. The music is made up of classic Star Wars marches, but they're not among the most rousing of Star Wars compositions to begin with, and when you're hearing them for the umpteenth time, they're positively tiresome. The sounds of saber swinging and blaster firing are pure Star Wars, but you'll hear the same death cry from nearly every stormtrooper, the same plaintive wail from nearly every Wookiee. A particular type of Felucian makes one of the most grating noises you're likely to hear in a game, and they repeat it every single time you strike them. It's almost enough to make you want to not kill them. Almost.

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NHL 09 - The latest entry in EA's venerable hockey franchise is the best yet

2008-09-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

There are few moments in any sports video game more satisfying than scoring a goal in NHL 09. It's more than aiming top-shelf and pressing a button before the goalie gets into position. No, you have to outmaneuver the defense with quick skating and smart passing, work your way into scoring position, and then manually put the puck where the goalie isn't. But if you played EA Sports hockey in the past two years and experienced the stellar control mechanic known as the skill stick, you already knew all this. In NHL 09, EA expands on its already outstanding gameplay with a host of addictive game modes that make this, quite simply, one of the best sports games of all time.

With skill-stick control, your right analog acts as your hockey stick. Move it left or right to deke, press up for a snap shot, down then up for a slap shot, and to the side then up for a wrist shot. On defense, you have 360-degree control to clog passing lanes, deliver poke checks, and pull your opponent's skates right out from beneath him (two minutes for tripping.) There's also a dedicated stick-lift button that, when used in proper position, will whack an attacker's stick away from the puck. When not in proper position, you're likely to be whistled for high-sticking or slashing, but this aggressive defensive move adds another risk/reward element to the action.

If anything, the new skill-stick additions transform NHL 09 into a defensive-focused game, forcing you to use actual hockey strategy to get past the blue line. Indeed, flip-dumping the puck into the offensive zone--another new maneuver this year--will allow speedy wingers to get behind aggressive defenders sliding in for the pinch. You'll have to take what the excellent defensive AI gives you; working passes into the slot or behind the net and cycling the puck to create scoring opportunities. Simply zigzagging past defenders on the breakout isn't going to work, especially on higher difficulty settings. Rest assured, there are fewer scoring opportunities than in years past, and NHL 09 is a much better overall hockey experience because of it.

But in large part, the overall gameplay on the ice remains very faithful to last year's game. Checking is mapped to the right analog stick, and the physics have been improved so big hits can only be delivered at direct angles (provided the defender has a full head of steam). A stationary defenseman is more likely to harmlessly shove an attacker than knock him off his skates. This eliminates arcade-style hit fests and forces you to play more conservative defense. If you pull defensemen out of position to deliver a big hit, you'll open up the slot, and skilled opponents will take advantage. Hockey purists won't like all the off-the-puck hits that could easily be whistled as interference, but these concessions to video game fun are balanced well against the game's dedication to realism.

Because this simulation approach forces you to play real hockey, casual players that loved the old arcade style may feel lost. Fortunately, several tutorials are included that introduce player controls and some basic strategy tips. And if you still hate the skill stick, you can opt for the two-button NHL-94-style controls.

Most of the development time on NHL 09 appears to have been spent off the ice on two new modes: Be a Pro and the EA Sports Hockey League. When you first pop in the game, you're asked to create and customize your own Be-a-Pro character, from the length of his mullet to the flexibility of his hockey stick. You can then plug him into the AHL affiliate of your favorite NHL team and try to take him from a wet-behind-the-ears rookie to an NHL legend. This Be-a-Pro mode is similar to Superstar mode in Madden NFL 09. A third-person camera follows your character on the ice, and experience points earned in-game can be used to upgrade your attributes. The first time you find yourself alone on a breakaway, you'll be absolutely hooked. As satisfying as scoring is in the normal game, a Be-a-Pro goal will have you jumping out of your seat because you're so much more attached to the player scoring it. There are some occasional camera issues as you move behind the opponent's net or transition from offense to defense, but overall this mode stands head and shoulders above similar modes in other sports games.

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Guitar Hero World Tour Hands-On - you'll be making your own music in this ambitious sequel to Activision's massive rhythm franchise

2008-09-16T06:35:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, Activision recently let the cat out of the proverbial bag by confirming the entirety of Guitar Hero World Tour's 86-song tracklist. We had the chance to play through a good chunk of these songs earlier this week when Activision held a Guitar Hero press event in Santa Monica, with every song in the game available for Quick Play fun. In addition, we were treated to a demo of the Music Studio mode by members of the Neversoft team, and a run-through of the basics of the Wii-exclusive Mii Freestyle mode from the folks at Vicarious Visions.

The recently unveiled tracklist is a behemoth that spans an eclectic mix of music. At one end of the list are laid-back tunes such as Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" and The Allman Brothers' "Ramblin' Man," whereas situated at the other end of the spectrum are more frantic, aggressive numbers such as "One-Armed Scissor" by At The Drive-In and the borderline schizophrenic "B.Y.O.B." by System of a Down. And to make sure you're not overwhelmed by pure rock and roll, wildcards have been thrown into the mix as well, including Michael Jackson's "Beat It," the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," and Los Lobos' "La Bamba."

Another item of note about the soundtrack is the number of repeats. Whereas Rock Band had only one song per artist in the original game (before adding to an artist's stable of tunes with downloadable content later on), Guitar Hero has isolated a few artists for special attention right out of the gate. Jimi Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne, and Tool all feature more than one song in the game--two each for Jimi and Ozzy, and three in the case of Tool.

Many have been clamoring for a "No Fail" mode in Guitar Hero World Tour, and though the game won't offer one per se, there are a few alternatives that we picked up on during an evening spent watching a large number of people getting acquainted with the game's new setup. For one, there's the beginner difficulty level that sits even lower than easy. This one is monumentally difficult to fail out of, and though it makes playing the actual instruments a touch on the boring side, it gives you the ability to embellish your singing quite a bit without suffering a substantial penalty. Another option to approximate No Fail is the ability to change your instrument's difficulty in the pause menu without exiting back out to the song-selection process. Just hit start, raise or lower the challenge level, and the song will start over.

World Tour's Music Studio mode stands as one of the most interesting weapons being wielded in the escalating battle between multi-instrument rhythm games. Whereas Rock Band 2 has a massive catalogue of DLC songs going into its release, World Tour adds the ability to create your own music and expand the game's tracklist with a virtually infinite number of player-created songs. In the past, we've seen this feature demonstrated numerous times by members of Neversoft, but this was our first time getting the chance to run through it on our own. What we didn't realize before is the tiered level of accessibility to the Studio. Prior indications led us to believe that the Studio was more for the hardcore crowd, but after spending some time with it, we can see that's not necessarily the case.

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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Updated Hands-On - new starting areas in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion

2008-09-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

Logging into The Wrath of the Lich King feels just like logging into normal World of Warcraft. Things don't start to get a little bit different until you travel to a major city for, what else? A shave and a haircut. When you see the red and white barber's pole, you'll think "Why not? I've had this mullet for 70 levels. It's time for a change!" So you'll sit down in the barber's chair to flip through hairstyles, hair colors, and facial-hair dos just like you would in the character-creation screen; except that this time, your new look will cost at least a dozen gold. Now, before we go any further,
we must warn you that this preview may contain spoilers on the expansion's new content. Also, please note that our impressions are based on an unfinished beta version of the game, so all information here, haircut-related and otherwise, is subject to change.

Once you settle on a new look (Good-bye, comb-over; hello, red Mohawk!), you'll be ready to introduce your new self to the new zones. You're free to travel to either the Borean Tundra or the Howling Fjord, but you should definitely check out the Howling Fjord first. The quests here tend to run a level lower than they do in the Borean Tundra. They're also more concentrated around their respective horde and alliance strongholds. Once you've gained three to four levels in the Howling Fjord, you'll easily breeze through everything in the Borean Tundra for another quick and easy level or two. That's the beauty of having two starting zones; you'll always be ahead of the level curve if you complete them both.

The Howling Fjord is a zone dominated by the Vrykul--huge Viking men with terrible manners. Though there are many factions, none of them are friendly. As you make your way through the Howling Fjord quest lines, so too will you make your way through each Vrykul village. In many cases, you'll simply kill a set number of them, but in others, you'll burn their towers, blast their structures, and kill their dogs. Some of the best quests, though, involve a pirate stronghold known as Scalawag Point. The first two characters you meet are a Blood Elf-worshiping artifact collector and a beefy Tauren bookie. The quests of these two characters intersect because the collector owes the beefy bookie money; so don't be surprised if, when turning in a quest to the collector, another player comes in and kicks his butt.

You'll also meet the pirates' second in command, who won't let you get a word in edgewise before she assumes you're there to kill her boss; then she tells you how. You'll track him to a cave, where you'll face him and his giant bear pet. Both are tough as nails, so make sure to bring friends. Other quests in the Howling Fjord have you freezing contaminated spores, as well as shattering them, hunting critters with your brand new falcon pet, and running around in the body of a reactivated rune golem. This, in turn, will get you ready for the siege weapon warfare in Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients.

Lake Wintergrasp is not a battleground or an arena. Rather, it's an entire world zone dedicated to player-versus-player combat; the first in World of Warcraft. The basic idea is that one faction will defend a keep and the other will assault it. Each battle will last a set amount of time, with both honor points and arena points on the line. Also, as you gain honorable kills, you'll gain ranks and access to siege weapons. At the first rank, you will only be able to make a simple catapult, but assuming you are able to kill enough of the enemy, you'll gain access to siege engines and flying machines. While the siege weapons will be balanced like rock-paper-scissors, it is less clear how Blizzard intends to balance the zone itself. Because this is an open-world PVP zone, it is likely that in any given battle, one faction will be able to field more troops than another. Blizzard is considering ways to equalize this, such as bestowing bonuses on a faction that has lost several battles in a row or on one that is fielding far fewer combatants. When we know more about the subject, you will, too.

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Civilization IV: Colonization Multiplayer - The New World isn't any easier with friends, but it's more fun

2008-09-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing settlers learned as they colonized the New World, it's that you always need a little help from your friends. Be it in the form of corn-farming lessons from the natives or an extra shipment of supplies from the homeland, a helping hand could ensure survival through a harsh winter in a strange new land. With that in mind, Civilization IV: Colonization is a strategy game more focused on trade and forging new alliances than it is about wiping out natives and competing colonies with musket fire.

We learned this lesson playing a LAN multiplayer match of Colonization this week. In addition to traditional LAN play and online modes, there's a direct IP connection, a hot seat mode in which multiple players take their turns on the same computer, and a slower-paced play-by-e-mail mode for those who don't have four hours to spare for the quick game. Yes, that's four hours for a quick game.

We took control of Samuel de Champlain set off in hopes of establishing a fruitful French colony, and quickly began construction on Quebec in the Southern Hemisphere. The Cherokee and the Arawak tribes were both located in close proximity, but gifts of rum and tools kept them happy neighbors. Keeping the natives happy, you'll quickly learn, is of immense importance in Colonization. What their villages lack in technology is offset by the huge combat advantage braves have in the forests, swamps, and hills. Building too closely to their villages is the easiest way to start a costly war that, early on in the game as you don't have many guns, you will lose.

It wasn't long before we ran into a village belonging to the English—controlled by another player. The city was low on resources, and it was the hope of that player that founding near our border would stymie our nation’s growth. In a way, this worked, because as it turns out, you can place citizens in your city’s town hall to increase patriotism. This caused the small borders of the city to expand so that several production squares in our city, Montreal, were cut off.

At the same time in the far north, another of our opponents, playing as the Dutch, was growing his holdings at a tremendous pace. The Dutch begin the game with advantages in trade, such as the Merchantman ship class from the opening of the match, and the colonies' treasury was filling quickly by trading raw silver and fur coats. However, we did commission a privateer unit to start raiding these wealthy Dutch ships for their goods. Privateers sail without their nation's colors, so they can attack without declaring war. Utilizing privateers in multiplayer is a fun way to pester your opponents without entering a costly war.

By building up your resources early in the game, you can focus on weapons production later during the endgame. Early on it seems the best strategy is to offer open trade borders to your counterparts, even building an alliance when your king eventually sends its expeditionary force after you when you declare independence.

With France’s skilled lumberjacks and carpenters, we constructed new buildings at a rapid pace. With expert iron ore miners, blacksmiths, and gunsmiths, tools and weapons became widely available through our domain. In another of our nearby cities, we ordered pioneers to improve the land by building lodges, mines, farms, and roads--this increases the amount of resources produced, and also decreases the time it takes to transport goods overland via wagon train. The French faction seems to have the ability to build a powerful economy indeed--we were also able to commission expert silver miners to producing staggering amounts of the precious metal. We then shipped the silver back to our home nation of France to purchase elder statesman and master tobacconists. Elder statesmen in city hall increase production of liberty bells that increase rebel sentiment--necessary to declare independence from your home nation later in the game--as well as increase the size of territory belonging to your nation. When your nation possesses enough influence--especially when you commission such powerful helpers to your cause--your borders can eventually come to surround several Native American villages. In this case, the chiefs of the villages we surrounded offered the settlements as gifts to our cause and relocated to the west. Tobacconists, naturally, produce tasty cigars that can be sold in Europe for a tidy profit

Over time, we developed our colony and attracted powerful founding father characters like Patrick Henry and Martha Washington. However, we remained mindful of the number of turns we had remaining in the game, since the ultimate goal of the game is to build your fledgling settlements into a nation that’s powerful enough to fight off the advances of your home country and declare independence. In fact, this end game provides the most difficulty in Colonization. As rebel sentiment in our colonies grew, the king of our home nation of France added soldiers, artillery, and warships to his expeditionary forces. We found our own forces to be woefully inadequate in comparison, but rebel sentiment in our colonies had eclipsed 50 percent. Rebel sentiment increases over time as your home nation levies more and more usurious taxes from your overworked colonists. In our case, the tax rate soared to 25 percent and our elder statesmen finally clamored for revolution.

And so, we declared our independence in the game year of 1755 and formed a new nation. When you take this bold step in Colonization, you must draft a constitution that declares a decisive direction for your new nation. This includes whether or not your nation will allow for slavery, whether it will subscribe to the belief of Manifest Destiny (versus rights for the natives), and whether you wish to have separation of church and state (versus a theocracy). Each of these decisions offer a variety of bonuses. For instance, you’ll have more production if you adopt slavery, but you have increased combat strength if every man is created equal. After crafting the constitution, our citizens were ready for a new beginning without taxes and tyranny. They were ready for a new country. And in the game year of 1762, just seven turns later, they were squashed flat

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TNA iMPACT - It's no heavyweight champion, but this brawler still packs a satisfying punch

2008-09-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

Professional wrestling has long been maligned and celebrated as a place where spandex-clad ogre-men go to act out contrived rivalries and pretend to actually wrestle. While these simplifications certainly hit on some truths about "sports entertainment," the remarkable talents and impressive athleticism of its practitioners cannot be denied. If you're the kind of person who enjoys the high-flying, hard-hitting spectacle of pro wrestling in spite of its myriad absurdities, then TNA Impact may be the game for you. It has some aggravating problems, but it does a great job of translating the excitement of TNA Wrestling into fluid action and visceral fun.

A wrestling game is only as fun as the moves you can perform, and in this regard, TNA Impact does quite well. You ratchet up your basic punch and kick attacks by holding the strong modifier or by performing them from a run or in a grapple. This simple layering allows for a wide range of moves without requiring complex button combinations, so it's easy to unleash your nastiest attacks right from the get-go. Each move makes you feel powerful, from a backhand that sends your opponent staggering to a DDT that lays him out. You can also reverse almost any attack with a well-timed button press, and many reversals can be reversed again. The accessible variety of attacks, the crashing impact of each clout, and the ever-looming possibility of reversals make the action fast, furious, and fun.

The more you mix up your moves, the more likely you are to come across some of the game's many technical hitches. When the animations run smoothly, they look great and produce exceedingly satisfying impacts. When they don't quite line up, you see fists and feet clipping through torsos, as well as apparent misses registering as hits. These oddities, common to most modern wrestling games, are a minor distraction, and won't hinder your pugilistic endeavors.

The more frustrating glitches cause your character to perform unintended maneuvers, often with disastrous results. These are prone to surface in a few situations, the most frequent of which are transitions, such as when your character is getting up off the mat, climbing a turnbuckle, or exiting the ring. Because your attack changes depending on your opponent's position, you may often find yourself aiming to punch an enemy as soon as he stands up, only to execute an elbow drop and lay yourself out at his stomp-happy feet. You can also dodge grapples or attacks when you're near the edge of the ring because the animation of rolling out of the ring will often negate incoming moves. Then, there's the particularly tricky situation when your opponent is down near the edge of the ring. Climbing up on the turnbuckle, rolling out of the ring, and pinning an opponent are all mapped to the same button, which makes it very difficult to figure out how to position yourself to execute the action you want. In this case, you're better off avoiding those three actions altogether.

When you're playing against other human players, these hang-ups don't feel so frustrating because you are all subject to the same pitfalls. Everyone can take advantage of each others' missteps and laugh about it. Even on moderate difficulty levels, you can still suffer a few miscues and scrape out a win. However, as you play through the single-player Story mode, you'll eventually hit a wall. As the foes get tougher, the room for error diminishes so much so that one missed move or missed opportunity can cost you the match. This is vexing enough when it's an honest mistake, but it becomes downright infuriating when it's an animation glitch.

The Story mode begins when you design a new wrestler using the fairly robust character creator. You then fight your way through a serviceable plot that is pretty much par for the pro wrestling course. The voice acting is lackluster and feels somewhat flat in contrast with the vigorous banter featured on the actual show, but the real shame is that the actor who voices your wrestler is just awful. His performance casts a shadow on the TNA stars, one you should try to shake off by checking out the training videos featured in the extras menu (the short ring entrances probably won't do much for you). The real incentive to play the Story mode is to unlock new characters, moves, and arenas. You do this by earning style points in each match. The riskier and more varied your moves are, the more points you'll earn, which is a nice motivation to mix things up. Equipping more impressive moves is fun, though each time you want to change your move set, you'll have to reenter character-customization tool and sit through a long save time.

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Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Hands-On - Very Realistic Graphics?

2008-09-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway looks set to carve a niche for itself in the overcrowded World War II genre. But Ubisoft and Gearbox's insistence on qualifying its historical accuracy is becoming rather jarring. We were recently invited to central London to meet veterans of Operation Market Garden, the battle that features prominently in the game. The ex-servicemen offered their personal take on their involvement in the turning point of the second world war, which was both fascinating and moving to hear. The problem is that the game wants it both ways--it clearly wants to honour the soldiers, but it can't help glamourising the act of war itself.

Take the first level, for example, where we managed to score a headshot on an unlucky German. The camera moves from the first-person perspective toward a third-person view of your victim, at which point the directors of The Matrix take over and frame the blood-splattering, cranium-popping spectacle in painstaking slow-motion detail. On the second level, the same viewpoint is used to highlight the damage of a grenade as the explosion sent the limbs of two soldiers spiraling off in every angle.

If you're not surrounded by war vets, though, Hells Highway looks like it will be a more entertaining experience. The game has great cinematics with the obligatory Band of Brothers/Saving Private Ryan cinematography, while the excellent tutorial mission eases you into the game's cover-based combat system. It's heavily based on the "find, fix, flank, finish" combat style actually employed during the war, which means you have to pin your enemy down and then attack from a different angle to finish him off. You can use your teammates in either the fixing or flanking role, but you need to fire at the enemy until the red circle above his head turns gray to indicate he's been pinned down.

We got to fight alongside two different sets of teams during the first four levels--regular assault squads that use rifles and a bazooka squad for more explosive support. Both teams are easy to command--you hold down the left trigger to pull up a cursor and then point to where you want them to go. If you point at enemies, they'll start firing automatically, but if you try to send them somewhere dangerous, they'll automatically take cover and fend for themselves. On one occasion, our bazooka squad simply refused to pop out from around a corner to fire at our target, but otherwise, the system seemed to work just fine.

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Saints Row 2 Hands-On - Story, Co-op, and Zombies - digging deep into the story and jumping into some co-op mayhem

2008-09-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

By their very nature, sandbox games are open-ended experiences where the balance between story progression and time-wasting mischief is entirely up to the player. It's hard to take that formula and squeeze it into a short demo, which is why THQ recently invited us to spend an entire day with Saints Row 2. This extended play-through gave us ample time to plug away at the bandages-to-riches storyline, cause some chaos with real and improvised side missions, and take a spin through Stilwater in a co-op setting.

The first Saints Row greeted players ready to embark on their journey into gang life with one of the more elaborate character creation systems seen at the time. Saints Row 2 takes that system and beefs it up considerably, giving you the option to customize a truly ridiculous number of attributes. Using sliders adjusting everything from your overbite to your septum width, you can craft an avatar of either gender that looks anywhere between "perfectly normal" and "abomination of nature." Once your base physical attributes are set, you can set the mood of your face with a number of fixed facial expressions to make yourself look confused, joyous, or just plain evil. From there, you have three voice options for each gender (including a wonderfully out-of-place English accent for the gents) and the ability to choose your taunts and walking style.

Your character then begins the game on a prison hospital bed, awaking from a five-year coma caused by the explosion that capped off the first Saints Row. You're whisked away from these confines by a friendly prison mate only to realize that the Saints are no more. Other gangs still roam the newly expanded streets of Stilwater, but the purple-clad clan you worked so hard to build up in the first game has been more or less eradicated. Thus begins the story, with you working to build the 3rd Street Saints back to glory. And because you're ostensibly playing the same protagonist from the first game despite crafting a brand-new avatar, Volition has tossed in plenty of self-deprecating dialogue like, "You look different. Did you get a haircut?"

First on the agenda is rescuing fellow Saint Johnny Gat, who's currently on trial with over 200 counts of homicide to his name. This mission involves storming the court trial with some heavy firepower, taking out the guards, and ushering Johnny out the door. The idea of storming a particular stronghold with guns blazing becomes a familiar refrain for the first few missions of the game, as the next item on your list--securing a base of operations for your gang--involves clearing all the Sons of Samedi and gang members (and a few scattered hoboes) squatting in a local abandoned mission.

Once you've got a base, the story missions begin to offer more than just shooting scads of people. One mission requires you to recruit some fresh blood for the Saints, and you go about this by doing odd favors for some of the local talent. One girl has you proving your worth by flying off a few of the big jumps lurking all throughout Stilwater, while another would-be Saint asks you to take his tow truck and impound the car of someone who owes him some money. But these types of missions are more the exception than the rule, as most tasks require you to exercise extreme prejudice against rival gangs in your quest to take back the city.

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FIFA 09 Updated Hands-On: 10-versus-10 Online - We join 19 real humans on the virtual pitch in our exclusive first look at FIFA 09's 10-versus-10.....

2008-09-12T03:40:00.000-07:00

We're running up the field, heading into the offensive zone of Chelsea. There's not a defender within 15 yards of us. Ahead, an Arsenal striker is making a deep cut toward the Chelsea goalkeeper and, to his left, renowned striker Emmanuel Adebayor is positioning himself to try to make something happen. Suddenly, our teammate behind us sends the ball our way, which we deftly receive at full gallop. Two Blues defenders are closing in on our striker, but we manage to sneak in a perfectly timed through pass, which he fields, passes to Adebayor, who manages to get the goalkeeper out of position and... GOOOOAL!

Now, technically, our crucial through pass doesn't count as an assist on the scorecard, but it surely felt good to us, especially as an introduction to the new 10-versus-10 online play that looks to be one of the brightest features in EA Sports' upcoming FIFA 09. During a recent trip up to EA Canada we got the first look at 10-versus-10 play, playing a match with 19 developers and producers behind FIFA 09, and we can safely report that the new mode puts an entirely new spin on the virtual sport.

For those familiar with another EA Canada-developed sports game, NHL 09, FIFA 09's 10-versus-10 play is remarkably similar. As with the hockey title, you'll be able to form a club with your friends (a club can have as many as 50 members). Club members can take on other clubs in team matches, with the individual and team performances all counting toward that club's rankings in the overall standings. As for the FIFA league, it still seems to be in its organizational infancy in that there aren't set fixtures between clubs--instead it's a matter of ad hoc matchmaking between clubs and letting the results happen as games are completed. Still, as a first step, it's an exciting beginning for a feature that is destined to grow in the years ahead.

Other similarities between the online team play of FIFA and NHL are obvious. Take, for instance, the hockey game: When you enter a match with your friends, you'll be taken to a lobby where the team captains will be able to set team tactics. After that, you'll be taken to another screen where a mad scramble will result as players pick the position they wish to play on the pitch. As with NHL 09, with players rushing to take the forward position, you can expect to see most FIFA 09 players trying to get those coveted striker and midfield positions. However, it's important to note that regardless of the position you play (except for goalkeeper, which isn't playable in FIFA 09… look for that in next year's game), you always have a way to contribute to your team's success.

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Multiwinia - "It really kicked off when we told publishers we didn't want them f**cking up our game," said director Tom....

2008-09-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Introversion Software has come a long way since it started out in a small English bedroom. From shipping its first game on CD-Rs to signing a distribution deal with Valve's Steam, Introversion is now successful enough to have a central London office where it's developing its fourth original title. The company's Tom and Vicky Arundel met with us in the south of the capital to give us an overview of the company's development, followed by a hands-on with new modes from its upcoming Multiwinia.

"It really kicked off when we told publishers we didn't want them f**cking up our game," said director Tom, referencing the company's famous IGF award acceptance speech for Darwinia. "Straight after, pretty much every publisher in the business approached us," he continues. He recounts how one major British name turned down his request for £50,000 of funding on one of the company's early titles--a decision that meant he had to survive on nothing, but one that's allowed Introversion to stay completely independent ever since. Having inked deals with Microsoft to develop titles for the Xbox 360, Introversion is now lucky enough to work with the business' major names while continuing to play by its own rules.

Today though, we're meeting with Introversion to see Multiwinia, the multiplayer take on the developer's first major hit, Darwinia. The game is pretty much complete at this stage, and although the control scheme went through a major rehaul recently, the PC version is on track for its September 19 release. Darwinia fans should be able to grasp the concept behind this four-player strategy game, but those unfamiliar with the company's games should imagine a game that crosses real-time strategy resource management, pikmin-like cuteness, and Tron-esque visuals.

It's clear that Multiwinia is designed from the ground up to be accessed by as many people as possible. It's designed for both PC and Mac, and it will run on fairly humble machines with just the keyboard and mouse for controls. You move the camera using the W, A, S, and D keys and zoom in and out using the mouse wheel. Control of the Multiwinians is all on the mouse buttons--hold the left down to circle the units you want to control, and then move them using the right button. New Multiwinians constantly spill out of your home base, though, so to stop you from having to go back and forth, you can create officers who will automatically traffic other units to certain destinations. If you have an Xbox 360 controller or other USB-compatible pad, then you can use that too.

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BioShock - We take the PlayStation 3 version of 2K's acclaimed shooter for a test drive

2008-09-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

BioShock made some big waves when it was released for the Xbox 360 last year. The unique game wrapped a rich story with first-person shooter mechanics in a stunning art style that made for one of the most engrossing experiences seen on consoles in a long while. Thankfully, PlayStation 3 owners will get a chance to see what all the fuss is about with the upcoming conversion of the game for Sony's console. We've seen demos of the game in the past few months but only just had the chance to try the game ourselves courtesy of a recent visit from 2K.

2K has roped in a cavalcade of development teams to handle the conversion of the game for the PlayStation 3. 2K Marin, 2K Boston, 2K Australia, and Digital Extremes are tag teaming the project, which aims to come up with a faithful conversion of the original game. The teams are also including a few bells and whistles in the form of content, as well as visual tweaks. Fans of the original game will be familiar with the single-player Story mode, which follows the trials and tribulations of plane crash survivor who stumbles onto a mysterious underwater utopia called Rapture.

The PlayStation 3 game, as we've noted before, is on the right track to capture the look and feel of the Xbox 360 game. The visuals are comparable, although there are some subtle differences in color and texture. The controls map intuitively to the PlayStation 3 controller and feel a bit better. The PS3's D pad seems like a much better fit for the hacking minigame. The controller's rumble support also had a nice feel to it. Although the experience is pretty much the same in the single-player mode, we noticed subtle tweaks, such as manual cycling of the load screen stills. The game also incorporates all the downloadable content that's been available on the Xbox 360. In addition, the game features trophy support, some of which are the same achievements seen in the Xbox 360 game, while others are different.

Outside of the proper single-player experience, we had a chance to try the Survivor mode, which offers a greater level of challenge that forces you to be smarter about how you play the game. Enemy behavior has been tweaked, and the damage you cause has been modified, so you won't be sailing through the mode even if you're familiar with the original game. We also got a look at the other big addition to the game, the puzzle rooms, which are a very slick brain-busting addition to the main game. 2K reps noted that the rooms will vary in scope and size, which will affect how long it takes you to play through them. While some, such as the Ferris wheel, we've seen before and can be done in short order, others will require more work.

BioShock remains a must-play game for this generation, so if you haven't checked it out yet, the PlayStation 3 version of the game is one more chance for you to give it a try. The game is coming together really well. The faithful conversion of the main game is looking good and might even be sharper in places. The additional content, challenge rooms, modes, and trophies are nice extras to have, although we obviously would have liked to see more. BioShock for the PlayStation 3 is slated to ship this October, so look for more soon.

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Silent Hill: Homecoming - Awkwardly hot zombie nurses? Foggy, poorly lit streets? Pyramid Head?

2008-09-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

The titular homecoming of the upcoming Silent Hill game holds a number of meanings. It first and foremost refers to the return of protagonist Alex Shepherd to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, but it also in many ways signifies a return to the roots of what Silent Hill itself is meant to be--a really, really creepy place. We recently had the chance to play through the first few hours of Silent Hill: Homecoming, and we've gathered our impressions together in one place about this, the most atmospheric Silent Hill yet.

The game begins quite literally inside of a nightmare. Alex finds himself strapped down onto a gurney inside of the Alchemilla Hospital (a location that fans of the series will no doubt recognize). He is pushed, struggling the entire way, through the sinister hospital, and along the way bears witness to a number of horrifying sights. Finally left alone in an operating room, Alex is able to break free of his bonds just as an unseen foe runs a nurse through with a massive and unwieldy blade in the hallway.

After wandering the halls, you find Alex's little brother, Joshua, drawing just out of reach behind a locked door. Alex is determined to save his brother, but with a locked door between the two the only thing you can do is try to find the security code. Luckily, the six-digit number can be conveniently found written across an x-ray, and after tracking down the errant half the door is opened, and Josh takes off down the hall.

You chase Josh into a bathroom, but instead of a younger brother you find a knife oddly embedded into the shattered mirror. Upon securing the weapon, Alex begins to feel lightheaded, and an air-raid siren can be heard in the distance. While in past Silent Hill games the transition to the even more hellish Otherworld took place off camera, usually when you were incapacitated in some way, Homecoming makes it an entirely real-time shift that borrows heavily from the 2006 Silent Hill film. The world begins to change as rust and rot creeps in and paint peels off and flies upward. Once it's done, you find yourself in a very different version of the hospital, and you're immediately thrown into battle with one of the series' trademark nurses.

Though combat in Silent Hill was in the past very stilted and basic, Homecoming has made vast improvements to this experience--Alex was a soldier, and his familiarity with battle definitely gives him an edge over previous series' protagonists. Attacks come in weak and strong varieties that can be strung together in combos to stun or incapacitate aggressors, who can then be taken out with a powerful coup de grace. You can even perform evasive ducks and rolls and follow these up with counterattacks. Don't let it get to your head, though; enemy AI has been significantly improved to compensate for your higher degree of combat prowess, and it's also not uncommon to fight multiple monsters at once.

Once clear of the bathroom, you continue to chase Alex's brother through the Otherworld while fending off overly sexualized zombie nurses and giant insects known as Swarm. You finally catch up to Josh, but after some dialogue it's obvious that he isn't as interested in his brother as he is in finding his lost stuffed Robbie the Rabbit (the creepy mascot of the Lake Side Amusement Park). However, reuniting him with his toy only makes him run some more, and when you chase him into an elevator you're jolted back to reality courtesy of the gigantic sword you caught glimpses of earlier.

Alex, it turns out, really was just dreaming. He awakes in the cab of a semi driven by Travis Grady (who some will remember as the protagonist of Silent Hill: Origins) and is subsequently dropped off in his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, which seems to share a number of similarities to the titular town of Silent Hill. Both cities have eerie "Welcome to..." signs, are covered in an all-encompassing fog, are located off the shores of Toluca Lake, have streets named after people (horror film directors, in the case of Shepherd's Glen), and are suspiciously short on citizens.

Upon returning home, it becomes clear that things aren't too well off for the Shepherds. Alex's near-catatonic mother informs him that Josh has gone missing, and a search through the house reveals nothing but a flooded basement puzzle; a heavy steel pipe to smash things with; and a new monster, the clawed Lurker. With a promise to his mother that he'll find Josh, Alex heads out through the backyard, and into the Shepherd's Glen Graveyard.

The cemetery is every bit as spooky as you would expect it to be and then some, thanks to the presence of yet another new monster, the Feral--an enormous, skinless hell hound that's just asking for your steel pipe to be put through its head. It also doesn't help that there's some creepy guy hanging out at the mausoleum digging graves. Or is he digging up bodies? It's really unclear. One simple puzzle and a dozen piped-in-the-head Ferals or so later, you manage to find your way back on the streets again near the SGPD.

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Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - Broken, buggy, and shallow gameplay leaves Mercenaries 2's world in flames.

2008-09-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Imagine a game with a huge, open world filled with dozens of unique vehicles and attacks that let you cause destruction whenever and wherever you choose. Now, toss in game-crippling bugs, brain-dead AI, unsatisfying gunplay, a lousy story, and repetitive missions. That's Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Mindlessly causing chaos can be enjoyable in short bursts, and online co-op play spices things up a bit, but beyond those all-too infrequent bits of fun, Mercenaries 2 is a dud.

You play as one of three mercenaries--all of whom have very similar storylines. The game follows your absurd quest for vengeance on a man who hired you to do a job and didn't pay. Mercs 2's story is bad (as is the voice acting), but it's ultimately inconsequential and all of the cutscenes can safely be skipped. The first few missions are designed to get you accustomed to the game's third-person-shooting action. In the span of 30 minutes you'll shoot several different weapons, use grenades and C4, and drive cars, boats, and jeeps as you secure what will eventually become your home base. After that, the first few contracts you take on are fun, but that's mostly because the gameplay mechanics are new and the thrill of destruction is still fresh.

It's after the first hour or so that you'll start to notice something's amiss. For a game that's all about guns, actually firing one isn't terribly satisfying. Weapons feel weak, it's difficult to hit moving targets, and the damage they cause is inconsistent. In fact, it's easier to hijack a tank or grapple onto a flying helicopter than it is to destroy one. Heavier weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades are great and can destroy almost anything they hit, but the amount of ammunition (which, for some reason, you have to hit a button to pick up) is so limited that you won't be able to use them often. Plus, it's tedious to have to go in a shop, purchase a weapon, go outside, call for the weapon, and then wait to pick it up. Why can't you just walk into a store and buy a gun?

The game's version of Venezuela is enormous, but while technically impressive, its size is mostly a detriment. There's not a whole lot to do, so you'll be tempted to make your own fun by blowing up buildings and cars and terrorizing towns in a tank. While this might be enticing (and fun for a few hours), it's a bad idea if you're trying to actually make it to the end of the game. Not only are you penalized for harming civilians, but one stray bullet can anger an entire faction. Factions are your main source of income and can be essential to mission progress, but when a faction is angry with you they'll quit offering you work and shoot you on sight. The large world also means that unless you're in a position to use the instant transport option, it takes forever to get from one place to the next. Roads wind aimlessly around the terrain; the GPS often gives bad directions; random friendly soldiers will blow up your cars; and helicopters are frequently shot out of the sky by missiles that rarely miss. To make matters worse, when you're killed after hitting a checkpoint you typically have to go back to your home base or the outpost where you got the mission and then travel all the way back to your target.

You'll eventually acquire the services of a mechanic, a helicopter pilot, and a jet pilot. The helicopter pilot is useful; he'll drop off supplies and transport you where you need to go as well as pick up the money and fuel needed for airstrikes. The jet pilot, who is a stereotypical drunk Russian, drops bombs whenever you call in an airstrike. It's too bad that airstrikes are of limited value, because you often can't get close enough or avoid being shot long enough to line up the target. There always seems to be something you're supposed to protect or something stopping you from transmitting--it's just easier to go in and shoot everyone. The mechanic is just plain worthless. She's supposed to use junk that you find hidden in boxes throughout the world, but unless you actively search for them, you're not likely to find many, and she won't provide anything more than the car she had when you teamed up with her.

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The Last Guy - Engaging action and unique presentation

2008-09-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Ever since satellite maps of the world became readily available online, people have been finding myriad ways to enjoy them. From personal inquiries, such as looking up a neighborhood or a famous landmark, to commercial schemes, such as creating a fake island to promote a movie, satellite maps have proved to be fertile grounds for a wide range of endeavors.
The Last Guy takes this source material to a whole different level. In the wake of a global catastrophe, you run through stages built from satellite images of notable real-world locations, from Trafalgar Square in London to the National Mall in Washington, DC. As you gather survivors and lead them to safety, you'll find the novel presentation and simple, addictive gameplay make this short puzzle action game a surprising treat.

The outlandish premise is quite simple. You are charged with rescuing survivors of a mysterious purple beam attack that has left most of humanity zombified. Throughout the 15 levels, you'll run through the streets of international cities, coax people out of their hiding spots, and lead them to the designated escape zone. Zombies also patrol these streets, and they'll scare off your followers (and destroy you) if you let them get too close. As you progress, you'll encounter more diverse and sinister types of zombies, and your survivor quotas and time limits will become more challenging.

A few elements help to transform this simple action into an engaging game, and they are all key to survivor management. Initially, most survivors will be holed up inside buildings, though each level will feature an amusing pack of brave souls who wait in the open air, spelling out "HELP" in their native language. Pressing X brings up a thermograph display that shows you where survivors are hiding and reveals the solid outlines of buildings. You'll use this display often as you plan your route around the area, targeting the largest concentrations of survivors and taking advantage of routes that might be obscured by overpasses or tall buildings. However, most zombies do not show up on this display, so you'll have to wean yourself off of it as you progress and encounter tougher, faster foes.

Everyone that you rescue tags along until you drop them off at the escape zone, so as you accumulate more people, you'll grow a longer trail. Zombie attacks will cut off your trail, sending all of the disconnected folks scurrying into nearby buildings. To avoid this sort of setback, you can use your dash power to temporarily run faster, or use your assemble power to gather your crowd into a tight mass. These abilities drain your stamina bar, which increases in size as you amass more followers and regenerates slowly over time. Challenging you to maximize your stamina powers without overextending yourself is one of the ways The Last Guy creates a tough, yet fair test of your abilities.

On early levels, you'll need only a clear understanding of the rules to help you meet quotas and clear levels. Things get tough about halfway through, at which point you'll have to intentionally incorporate close brushes with death into your strategy, walking the thin line between folly and derring-do. More advanced strategies become essential, such as completely encircling buildings to instantly add all of the inhabitants to your line, or moving in tight circles rather than standing still, so that your line catches up with you. This is where The Last Guy becomes a real thrill: Successfully amassing a massive trail of screaming survivors, navigating them through zombie-stalked avenues, and delivering them to the escape zone is immensely satisfying. The gleeful ticking of people joining you audibly ratchets up the stakes, and the electro-pop beat that will infuriate anyone who isn't playing the game keeps the pace and pressure up nicely.

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Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon - dreary and dated

2008-09-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Dracula again? Vampire fatigue is a legitimate feeling that you might encounter when ripping open the shrink-wrap of Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon, given that it seems like Bram Stoker's infamous creature of the night has already been the focus of a lot of adventure games. This latest one, the third in a franchise that started nearly a decade ago with Dracula: Resurrection and Dracula: The Last Sanctuary, doesn't bring much new to the table. Developer Kheops Studio sticks to the ancient adventure-gaming formula that it has specialized in with previous releases such as Return to Mysterious Island and Voyage, and spins a dull yarn in which you research the biggest bloodsucker of them all in 1920s Transylvania. Busywork puzzles and stone-age visuals further drain the rest of the creeps out of this supposedly scary saga, which unfolds more like an uninspired detective story than an ominous encounter with a legendary monster.

The plot isn't what you would expect from a Dracula-inspired game, although you can't characterize that as a good thing. For a change, you don't play Van Helsing or any of his descendants. Instead, you take the role of Father Arno Moriani, a priest sent to Transylvania by his bosses at the Vatican to investigate a recently deceased Romanian doctor who has been declared a candidate for canonization. The good father soon finds out that the doctor held some odd views regarding a number of strange deaths in the village, and he finds his assignment quickly changed from sainthood vetting to disproving the existence of vampires. So you spend most of your time undertaking scientific research and questioning professors, not tracking down Dracula and his pointy-toothed pals. More time is spent with test tubes than with stakes, and you don't actually encounter any vampires until the very end of the game.

Another novelty involves moving the setting from the stereotypical Victorian age to the 1920s, when Romania was still reeling from the devastation caused by World War I. This doesn't make for many differences when it comes to gameplay, although shifting the game into the 20th century does allow for more-varied artwork involving semimodern touches such as telephones, trains, electric lights, and chemistry equipment. However, the overall visual quality is fairly poor, despite good use of shadows and fog effects to create a spooky mood. Most scenes are grainy, and character models are afflicted with slow-motion movement tics that makes it seem like everybody you meet is underwater. Voice samples often sound vaguely slurred in a rather similar fashion, lending a surreal vibe to many conversations that actually enhances the eerie nature of your investigations.

Gameplay offers some similarly unwelcome surprises, at least after you get past all of the "Brand X" stuff. Dracula 3 is dry, traditional, and stilted. Nevertheless, there is one big changeup here in regard to puzzles. The designers chose to move away from cliched vampire plot devices and play up a more modern "It's the 20th century--there are no such things as vampires!" vibe that apparently seeks to explain bloodsucker fear as mere peasant legend. This is a nice switcheroo from the standard stake-the-fanged-guy credulity that usually accompanies any game about Dracula. But it's also pretty disingenuous in that you know from the very beginning that Father Arno won't be discovering that vampires are just make-believe after all. That would have been a cool surprise after all of the buildup about Vlad Tepes, neck hematomas, and weird blood disorders, but it's hard to pull back from supernatural explanations when you've got Dracula rising from his coffin on the cover of the game. So the story eventually goes right where you see it heading from the beginning, despite the lame attempts to fake you out.

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Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli - Exciting for Ferrari fans

2008-09-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

A racing game focused entirely on one car manufacturer seems like a bit of an anachronism nowadays, and System 3's Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli certainly feels like a throwback to another era. While most other recent racers feature a large roster of car licenses, Ferrari Challenge is content to bask in its adoration of the Prancing Pony, something made clear right from the game's opening cinematic (featuring slow-motion close-ups of a Ferrari F430, which are practically erotic in nature). It'll certainly appeal to Ferrari fans, but it doesn't do enough to hold the interest of those whose automotive inclinations run beyond the famed Italian carmaker's stable.

Not that Ferrari Challenge is a bad simulator. The game features some impressive race physics and a decent number of tracks, but its sharp focus on Ferraris is simultaneously its biggest strength and most apparent weakness. The result is a game which strives for the level of realism and depth of a Gran Turismo or a Forza but has much less variety. And because it doesn't quite reach the same technical level as its well-received peers, that lack of variety in both vehicles and race types becomes a much-magnified negative.

Take the F430 Challenge, the game's main single-player mode. This mode replicates real-life meets in North America, Italy, and Europe, where well-heeled Ferrari owners come together to race their really, really expensive cars. Each meet consists of one qualifier and two races, with the winner over a season determined by who gets the most points from all the previous meets. An entire season of racing will probably take you four hours or so to complete, resulting in well over 12 hours if you go through the three different seasons available. So for that entire time, you'll be driving one type of car, the F430, which might leave even diehard Ferrari fans wanting a change.

If you want to see all of the cars the game has to offer you'll have to go through the F430 Challenge. If you haven't already guessed, you'll find only Ferraris in Ferrari Challenge, with the game featuring more than 50 models ranging from modern ones such as the 575-GTC to classics such as the 250 GTO. Most of these cars are unlocked as you progress through the F430 Challenge, with the credits you earn from racing used to purchase them from the in-game store. These cars are used in other single-player events such as the stock-standard quick race, time trial, and arcade modes. More than 20 of these cars also get their own minitournament in Ferrari Challenge's Trophy mode, where you have to drive the vehicles in a series of three races. And while the game doesn't feature the biggest roster of vehicles, it does sport a decent number of tracks from around the world. There are more than a dozen available, including Ferrari's own home track, Fiorano, as well as other well-known locations such as Monza, Silverstone, Infineon, Paul Ricard, and more.

While Ferrari Challenge is certainly no arcade racer, it doesn't reach quite the same heights of finicky realism as the most recent Polyphony Digital offering on the PlayStation 3, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Those new to the racing sim genre are well accommodated, as the game can be quite forgiving even when you drive off the track, and you'll find most instances of lost car control are moderately easy to correct. With assists such as traction control, stability control, and ABS turned off or ramped down, the game can be quite taxing, forcing you to pay careful attention to racing lines, brake efficiently, and accelerate smoothly if you want to stay competitive (or even just stay on the track). For the most part, the game's single-player modes feature races in which all cars are of the same type, which should theoretically mean you'll have to rely on driving skill rather than incremental horsepower advantages to win races. We say "theoretically" because while the racing here is challenging for the most part, it's sometimes ruined by decidedly blockheaded AI opponents who will doggedly stick to preset racing lines without consideration of other cars on the track. This results in opponents who will sometimes sideswipe, ram, and even try to run your car off the track if you're in the way. This gets frustrating if you're forced into making mistakes, particularly as having cars of equal power in races means you'll find it difficult to catch up to leaders if you fall too far behind, no matter how well you drive.

Ferrari Challenge does offer some customisation should you want to tweak vehicle performance, but it's limited to small adjustments you can make to ride height, springs, damper strength, anti-roll bars, or alignment. It's certainly not to the level of other recent racers, and while there's probably less scope to swap or personalise components in super cars like the Ferrari, a bit more depth would have been welcome. More interesting is the game's vinyl editor, which lets you tweak your Ferrari's livery to whatever suits you (and at first glance bears a striking resemblance to the same feature found in Forza Motorsport 2). You can apply vinyls to practically any surface on the car, and even stack several layers on top of one another. There are hundreds of vinyls available, but there's no option to import your own images or logos to give your car that extra personalised look.

You can take your pimped-out Ferrari online in the game's multiplayer mode, which can accommodate up to 16 racers at once either online or via LAN (there's no split-screen mode). Options here are once again limited--you can select car types, track, duration, conditions, racing lines on/off, or collisions on/off. Our testing resulted in smooth races with little lag, although we were never able to find a completely full game with all 16 players to compete with.

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Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise - There's no trouble in this paradise: The second Viva Pinata is just as captivating as the first..........

2008-09-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

The ultracolorful visuals of Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise hide a deep and engrossing simulation of what it must be like to pump papier-mache animals full of candy. Following on the heels of the deceptively addictive 2006 original, developer Rare has brought the whole cast back for a second tour along with a bevy of new pinatas and gameplay modes to complement your cultivating endeavors. A better tutorial and clear-cut objectives make this easier for novices to tackle their own gardens, and the intricate balancing act required to tame the more complex pinatas should delight seasoned players as well. The core experience may not have received a noticeable overhaul in the last two years, but the fictional animals are still so charming, and the rewards are so fulfilling, that Trouble in Paradise is even harder to resist than its predecessor.

There is actually a reason why you must capture and forcibly breed these lovable party animals this time: In an attempt to steal all of the vital data about the inhabitants of Pinata Island for himself, Professor Pester and his dim-witted associates accidentally erased the entire encyclopedia of knowledge. It is your job to repopulate these virtual pages. It's a thin excuse to get you back on the romance wagon, but it thankfully stays in the background after an early cutscene. You will still have to deal with the aptly named Pester throughout as he attempts to destroy your wonderful little world, but the overarching tale is largely forgotten after the first few minutes. Your gardening duties are interrupted only by the various movies that play each time a new character or pinata appears, or when you achieve a particular milestone, and these movies are usually so darn cute that they serve as rewards for your hard work.

Your gardening activities are indistinguishable from the original game. Pinatas are drawn toward your plot of land based on what plants are growing there, who else is currently calling it home, and what level gardener you are. After they appear, you can go into the encyclopedia to see exactly what you need to do to make them stay. Early animals require only a nice bit of soil or maybe one type of easily grown flower before they'll move in, whereas later ones will demand that you completely overhaul the terrain and provide a healthy portion of their favorite pinatas to eat. Once you convince the animals to stay, you'll have to go through even more steps before they'll procreate. It is a lot of work getting the higher-level animals to stay and breed, but it is well worth the dedication. The animals all have their own personalities, and once you catch sight of a lonely custacean scuttling along the beach, you'll want to rope it in and force it to make baby pinatas.

The biggest addition to Trouble in Paradise is a stream of challenges constantly pushing you to acquire new pinatas. There are various parties and celebrations going on all over the world, and you are asked to provide the candy entertainment. You'll have to capture a specific type of animal, make it happy so it is nearly bursting with tasty sweets, and send it off to foreign lands. This addresses the biggest problem with the original game. Before, you were left to your own devices and were forced to decide which pinatas to breed and how to sculpt your garden. There was no motivation, so if you didn't have your eye on a particular species, it was possible to lose interest in the entire experience. You can still go after whichever animals you most desire, but the challenges provide a push when you can't figure out exactly what to do next.

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Castle Crashers - Castle Crashers is a classic side-scrolling beat-'em-up infused with cartoon visuals and absurd humor

2008-09-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

For those who have been crying about the absence of new brawlers, Castle Crashers has arrived to save you from your lamentations. The game is a hilarious adventure through medieval countrysides, enemy-filled castles, and venting volcanoes in search of true love[s], as well as the end of evil. It has some online issues, but storming a castle has never been more fun.

The CC campaign drops you in the role of a powerful, magic-wielding knight who must cross diverse terrain with his menagerie of pets in tow. Your quest is to hunt down an evil sorcerer who rode away on the castle's magic crystal, kidnapped four princesses, and left your kingdom in ruin. You start out with a basic weapon, a mild arcane power, and an unyielding devotion to king and country. As you cut through enemies, you will gain experience, level up, find new weapons, and learn new attack combinations that will make you a more perfect instrument of vengeance. You can deliver very satisfying melee attacks using the X button or deal slower attacks with extra damage using the Y button. By mixing and matching those two attacks, or adding in jumps, you can crank out satisfying combos to juggle enemies, stomp on downed opponents, or wail on groups of henchmen as you carve your way to an area's boss.

Bosses are not only grand in scale but also a fun challenge. There is a pattern to their attacks, and it requires strategy in addition to a flurry of attacks to bring them down. Early bosses are endurance tests in dodging and attacking, and later bosses ramp up the humor, as well as the challenge. Fights range from brawling on the back of a speeding carriage to neutralizing a lightsaber-wielding organist whose pipes spew cannonballs. In addition to the main foes, many encounters include a number of lackeys who will attack you while you are either trying to focus on the boss or otherwise stay alive. This extra fodder is frequently necessary to keep you supplied with health pickups (to stay alive), power-ups (to alter your character state to effectively deal damage), or gold (that you can use to later buy truckloads of goodies).

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MotoGP 08 Updated - two-wheeled racing series, including a peek at the Career mode.

2008-09-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

Though we saw the game last week at the 2008 Games Convention in Leipzig, Capcom is still eager to show off more of its latest entry in the MotoGP series, MotoGP 08. Reps from the company came by earlier this week to show off the game and give us a glimpse at the game's Career mode. It won't be winning any awards for innovation, but MotoGP 08's Career mode looks to be another fun way to get into two-wheeled racing in this sim-style game.

Career mode joins a number of other modes in MotoGP 08, including Quick Race, Time Trial, Championship (where you play a single season run-through of the MotoGP calendar), Challenges, and online play, which will support up to 12 players. Your MotoGP 08 career will last five years, and during that time, you'll sign with a team, as well as build up your bike's attributes. You'll also do your best to win the championships in the different bike classes in which you'll run (125cc, 250cc, and MotoGP).

Scoring points in race events will let you spend points to upgrade your bikes in four different categories: maximum speed, acceleration, braking, and traction. You'll also unlock new teams in your specific class, and you can choose to sign with those new teams. By unlocking teams, you'll eventually be able to work your way up to the pinnacle of the sport--MotoGP class--where you will be racing with the top two-wheel riders in the world.

As with the rest of the game, MotoGP's Career mode is very flexible in terms of setup. Difficulty comes across in a number of different ways--both in the strength of your AI opponents (for which there are four settings) and the handling of your bike (easy, advanced, simulation). We tried all three handling settings during our time with the game, and as you might expect, simulation riding is a much different experience from riding on an easy level. Feeling particularly masochistic, we took on a wet race at Laguna Seca in the full rain on sim settings, and, well, we fell. Multiple times. But, then again, we were asking for it.

Still, even on the slightly tamer advanced handling style, it was very easy to feel the bike slipping and sliding underneath our fingers, calling for delicate throttle and brake controls. Powersliding--that staple of advanced MotoGP video game fans--was in place in this game, letting you rip around quick corners by giving just enough throttle in deep corners, slipping the wheel out from under you, and leaving a trail of black rubber behind.

Capcom reps were quick to point out that the developers behind the game have worked to make this a more accessible MotoGP experience, at least more so than the company's promising but very difficult debut on the PlayStation 2. It's difficult to say if easier settings will attract non-MotoGP fans to the game, but those who are playing the game for the first time will probably have an easier time of it.

Naturally, MotoGP 08 will have the full MotoGP license, with real riders, such as Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi, as well as well as the full schedule of locales that make up the MotoGP tour. This includes old standbys, such as Philip Island, Mugello, and Jerez (all of which we tried during our time with the game). More-recent additions to the sport will also be included, such as Laguna Seca and new-for-this-year Indianapolis, which looks a lot like the old Formula One track at Indy--only run counterclockwise--and with a few more turns. Also, true to real life, the race in Qatar is run at night in the game, which makes for a slightly different experience.

In all, MotoGP 08 looks to strike a balance between veterans who have been playing MotoGP games since they were published by THQ and series newbs who've never played raced on anything with fewer than four wheels. We like what we've seen of this approach and look forward to playing more of the game in the coming weeks. MotoGP 08 is due for release in October on multiple platforms.

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Urgent Cash Loan

2008-08-31T10:42:00.004-07:00

Are you now having the financial problem? Or, you are needing cash advance for a necessity? You are hard working to get cash loan, but until now, you haven’t been getting yet just for $1? Frustration? Doubt? Stress out? Don’t worry, start from now, you don’t need to be stress again, because has been a best way out that can help you to get cash loan up to $ 1,500 easily, quickly, and simply. You don’t need to go to bank, don’t need to have some collateral, must not to provide lots of documents, but just enough to do it in front of your computer. The answer is through a website urgentcashloan.com. Like as the name, for you that needing cash loan urgently, this is an exact site.

And, the good news about it is you have big opportunity to get loan as cash advance payday loans up to $ 1,500 just need to fill the simple online form. Then, how for its requirements? It is easy….

• A Citizen of the United States Over 18 Years of Age
• Currently Employed
• Earn At Least $1000 Per Month
• Have a Bank Account

If you said yes to each of those requirements, then you could already be pre-qualified for a cash advance loan! Just fill out the form to the right to get started!

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All about Mortgages

2008-08-31T10:42:00.003-07:00

Are you looking for a website with good articles about mortgage? Or you want learn and knowing more details about mortgage? Let www.morgagefindersnetwork.com tell the useful information and advice for you all, and you can read and then learning some information about home mortgage at there. And you can also to reading good articles like: what caused the subprime mortgage crisis, what is a second mortgage, mortgage aren't blind, other ways, to tap home's equity how to move with kids, what you should know about reverse mortgages, equity acceleration programs - are they better for the borrower or the bank, and many more.....from the mortgage finders.

So, what will you receive from mortgage finders network? And what mortgage finders network can give to you?
Below there is a good little quotes from mortgagefindersnetwork.com:

Buying a home is exciting, but can also be stressful with so many decisions to make regarding which types of loans to have and which lender to obtain it from. Should you deal directly with a lender or have a broker? What's the point compensation for having a broker? How much of a loan payment can you afford? How much should the loan amount and loan term be? Is the interest rate fixed or adjustable? The questions keep rolling in, but you can ease your mind now that you are here. Mortgage Finders Network will help you with your mortgage loan process. We're all you need to get started!

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Car Insurance

2008-08-31T10:42:00.002-07:00

Are you looking for best car insurance? Whoever you are, if you have had a car, I feel you have to insure your car soon. Because what? This is an safety problem, so you don't regret if something happens for your vehicle, for example: an accident, collision, stolen, damage, and many more. Because of that, you need to choose suitable insurance for your vehicle.

And, talking about car insurance, you need to visit to a site that has a name is carinsurancerates.com, a full service quote website providing car insurance quotes since 1997. At this site, you can reading many useful articles about car insurance, tips, and expert advice. For example: 10 easiest cars to get insured, the top ten hardest cars to get insured, 10 most stolen cars, and many more.

With this website, you can get free quotes for any vehicle, anywhere, get quotes from the nation's top insurance agencies, choose the policy that fits your lifestyle best. And a question, how to get free auto insurance quotes? Simple, you only need to: Fill out the short form that's available there, compare free quotes, and get covered. So, what are you waiting for? Now is the right time for you to insure your car, easy, free, fast, and simple. And starting from this time, your daily life will be quiet, you don't need to worry again on something that may be happens to your car, because carinsurancerates.com will choose the best insurance company for your car.

Debt Consolidation

2008-08-31T10:42:00.001-07:00

Are you having debt problem at this time? Well, be in debt is the hard problem. In a side you need cash advance so you decide to be in a debt, and other side you must be able to pay your debt credit constantly. If you can pay your debt constantly, so nothing happen to you. But, when you can’t pay your debt credit constantly, so will happens a serious problem to you. Debt collector will start come to disturb you and also your family. You will be stress, worry, doubt, and even be in depression. And, this time I will give a best solution for you, how for the method so all of your debt problem and debt collector get the best way out to clear it. Because of that, don’t worry.

Is No Debt Today (www.nodebttoday.com) that can helps you to resolve all of your debts problem. You can make free consultation to consolidate your debts and improve credit scores. Otherwise, you will be able to reduce your total debt liabilities and group all of your monthly debt responsibilities into one low monthly payment. There is no obligation for you to commit it today, wherever and whenever you are, you can. Once again, determine how your situation now, and fit with the right consolidation program.

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Payday Loans

2008-08-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

At this time, may you are doubting, because you are having a financial problem. It is really, financial problem is so complex. Thousands and thousands ways has you thought, you has used your maximum power, borrow to bank, friend, family, but the result? It seems will be very disappointment. Otherwise you are really need cash loan in short time and quickly. It means you are really need cash loan urgently. Then, is there a simple way, easy, and fast to get cash loan? Of course yes, and that is why I write this simple article, with the purpose to tell to you all if there is a simple way, easy, and fast for you to get cash loan as payday loans up to $ 1,500! Even, because it is very easy, you don’t need to leave your home, but enough to be in front of your computer and type www.perfectcashadvance.com at your browser.

Through perfectcashadvance.com, you will have a big opportunity to get cash advance no credit check up to $ 1,500 with only need to fill out the simple form, and in 5 minutes! What about the requirements? You are enough: receive regular income at least $ 1,000 and have a bank account. It is the great site? Yeah…of course, Perfect Cash Advance is a cash advance site that helps consumers meet short term monetary emergencies, with a focus on having the consumer not refinance, to save money in the long-run. Many of cash advance lenders can offer you these attractive qualities:
• Cash deposited directly into your account on the next business day.
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So, what are you waiting for?

Cash Advance no Faxing

2008-08-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

Are you having a financial problem now? needing a cash advance? Caught between paychecks? And you are needing payday loans? Don't need to go far to bank or request loan from your friend or your family, but sit down in front of your computer and type www.personalcashadvance.com at your browser. So, you have been in the last step and only need one step again to get check cash advance. For your information, personal cash advance is a top tier payday loan and cash advance provider. Personal cash advance is the fastest way to obtain secure, online cash advance and payday loans. Simple, don't need tons of documents, collateral, and others cases, but it is just enough to fill out form that provided by online, and only need a few minutes, get easy cash advance no faxing.

And next you need to do step by step below to could get payday loan through personalcashadvance.com.

1. Read and completed personal cash advance online form (free). It is important that you answer each required question accurately to expedite your data being accepted by one of personal cash advance service providers.

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Bad Credit Payday Loan

2008-08-31T09:12:00.000-07:00

Are you needing the cash advance? Planning to buy the most beautiful gift for your beloved? Planning to open a burger shop in California Residence? Doubt, don’t know how the method to realize those tour planning because you don’t have enough cash to realize all of your needs? Don’t let all of your planning is lost without struggle, because now you can get loan up to $ 1,500 just need to do some easy and simple steps. You don’t need to go to bank, you don’t need to have collateral, you don’t need to serve plenty of documents, you don’t need to borrow money to your families and friends, and even you don’t need to go out your home! That you just need to do is go to www.easyonlinepaydayloan.com, and just believe you have been in the right place to get payday loan up to $ 1,500 quickly, easily, simply and reliable.

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Best Health Insurance for You All

2008-08-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for the best health insurance?, Yes, that’s the normal thing, and even has been the primary necessity. At this moment, we are living in the hard age, happen the global warming, the air temperature is increase significantly, happen dry season, flood, and many more. In my mind, the weather world can’t be friend with all people, The result is certain, we must keep our body so is always health and not easy to get sick. The ways is with eat the full nutritious food, enough rest, do sport constantly, and manage the good emotional so always good. But, in once time, there are the time when our body can't always to be health forever. The result, we will get sick, and it's certain, the cost must to spend in large amount to treat it, whether have to pay for doctor visits, prescription drugs, and other medical necessities. When the time like that happens, you need a quality health insurance policy so you don't too struggle to pay for doctor visits, prescription drugs, and other medical necessities.

Because of that, now is the exact time for you to looking for the best health insurance that have a low cost and high quality policy. And, where you should search for it? The exact answer is at healthinsurancerates.com. This website can help you do all of your comparison shopping for health insurance by offering you health insurance rates from a vast network of health insurance companies all on one site. I feel you also need to knowing a little what the purpose from Health Insurance Rates, some benefits for you, and how this website can very help you to finding the best health insurance for your need:

We are not an insurance company, so you can expect our approach to healthcare insurance rates to be different from that of our competitors. Our goal is not to try to sell you our policies, but rather to match you with health insurance companies that can provide quality coverage and affordable health insurance rates. We partner with a large network of some of the best health insurers in the business to bring you low-cost health insurance rates all on one site. You can trust our information to be accurate and unbiased because we do not have a stake in which insurer you choose. Our mission is to function as a one-stop-shopping destination for those in the market for health insurance rates. Here are just a few of the respected companies that participate in our insurer network:

- Aetna Insurance
- Blue Cross and Blue Shield
- United Healthcare
- Assurant Insurance
- Anthem Insurance
- Humana Insurance
- Any many more!

So, what are you waiting for?

Best Credit Card Offers

2008-08-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

Talking about credit card will be very complex. What you imagine in your mind when remember that very thin thing? You want to use its for shopping, to satisfy your lifestyle which it’s your hobby? Or for the others necessity, which in this case you will use the credit card if there is additional need, so your cash stock is not empty when once time there is an urgent necessity. And, I will not answer that here, because really, I don’t know about the answer for it. That I know and want to tell to you is Your Credit Network, you can access it at www.yourcreditnetwork.com from your browser. This website can guiding you how should you use your credit card wisely. I feel you need to reading many articles that are in that website. And, how if you at this time don’t have yet credit card and want to have it? Because of that, I tell to you if yourcreditnetwork.com “is the great website” because you can have the best credit card only with fill the simple form, without you need to go to bank.

A little information to you know, Yourcreditnetwork.com specialize on informing consumers about credit card offers, how to use credit wisely, and occasionally posts humorous insights into the wacky world of credit. The original concept was an open forum where people could research, review, and share information about credit cards and relevant experience, but your credit network has made great efforts to expand the scope of its service to include both valuable information and the scoop on the latest and greatest best credit card offers available.

Space Siege - Saving the human race shouldn't be so tedious.

2008-08-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

The idea was a good one: Take an established action RPG dungeon-crawler formula, infuse it with a multilayered story, and set it in space. Include multiple player paths that raise important philosophical questions--specifically, How much is your humanity worth? Unfortunately, the decision to focus on story in Space Siege came at the expense of an engaging combat system, interesting environments, and a rewarding upgrade system. The worst part? It didn't have to.

Space Siege is the spiritual successor to the Dungeon Siege series from designer Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games. The game opens with a chilling cutscene as hundreds of alien warships descend upon Earth with just one goal: extermination. As our home world explodes, a lone colony ship called the Armstrong manages to slip through the enemy armada, but it's not alone. An alien pod attaches itself to the hull, and insect-like creatures called the Kerak pour into a cargo bay, hoping to destroy what remains of the human race. You jump right in as combat engineer Seth Walker, armed with only a machine gun, and begin blasting away at the Kerak menace. Watching Earth explode is powerful, and a great premise with which to begin a sci-fi adventure, but it's all downhill from there.

As you explore the bowels of the Armstrong, eliminating Kerak and restoring the ship's systems, you periodically come across cybernetic parts. In this future, these implants are used to drastically improve human abilities. Those without the ability to walk can install cybernetic legs, while those stricken with paralysis can implant a cybernetic spine. But aboard the Armstrong, these upgrades can be used instead to transform Seth into a cybernetic killing machine. The cost, however, is your humanity, as indicated by a handy humanity meter that appears every time you visit the cybernetic implant kiosk. The cybernetic eye, for example, costs you 10 percent of your humanity. When you install an implant, Seth will scream in pain, an obvious attempt to make you realize that you're losing a part of yourself with each upgrade. There are several problems with this system. Gameplay is not made significantly easier with an upgrade, and 10 bonus attack points--whatever that represents--for installing a cybernetic eye isn't a convincing argument to go through with the procedure. Finally, the few allies you have on the Armstrong barely register a response to your freakish new appearance after you install a cybernetic brain (plus 10 chance of critical strike!). Gina, the communications officer, will beg you not to install any implants; Dr. Desoto, the cybernetics specialist, will tell you that the fate of humanity depends on you installing these implants, and that's about it. Installing these parts feels inconsequential, exactly the opposite of what Gas Powered Games had hoped to accomplish. As expected, there is a special ending for those who choose to finish the game with 100 percent humanity intact, but rest assured each of the three endings is a disappointment.

But hey, none of this would be too much of a concern if Space Siege featured an explosive combat system with over-the-top futuristic power attacks, a deep crafting system, tons of customizable parts and valuable loot, and a non-linear mission system. None of this is the case. You left click to move Seth to a location, and right click on an enemy to fire. A major control issue is that Seth is forced to stop moving when he wants to fire, even though enemies can move while firing. No fair. This wouldn't have been an issue if you had WASD keyboard control or support for a game controller, but as it stands, control is imprecise and outdated. A bright spot is the addition of the Hodgson's Robotic Unit, known as HR-V. He's a loyal robot companion made up of 25 parts of scrap metal and is upgradeable with flamethrowers and laser blasters. There are some rudimentary squad commands if you want to send HR-V as bait while you attack from afar or if you want to attempt a flanking maneuver and catch the enemy in your crossfire, a very useful tactic. Should HR-V be destroyed, you can use 25 more spare parts at a Hodgson's robotic assembly station, hundreds of which are scattered about the ship, and make a new HR-V.

Spare parts are found after you destroy an enemy or in toolboxes throughout the Armstrong, and act as currency as you choose to level up Seth's weapons, armor, abilities, and HR-V. None of the upgrades are particularly appealing, however. A four-percent increase of landing a critical hit would have been more interesting had you installed new parts or made some kind of intricate modification to your weapon. But no, you simply continue to buy new upgrades, and not even the blast from a souped-up rocket launcher appears any more impressive than that of the level-one rocket launcher. Weapons in general are a major disappointment. You'll visit the armory of the Armstrong, with nary a high-tech WMD to be found. Instead, you find new variants of machine guns, assault rifles, and frag cannons at regular intervals throughout the game. The newest weapon is almost always the strongest, and there's no reason to go back to your old weapon. It's a complete surprise and disappointment that even the upgrade system was made linear, and there's little choice in where to apply your spare parts.

Leveling up is also linear and shallow. Instead of accumulating experience points, you level up at predetermined points in the game and are rewarded with two skill points. These are spread between combat and engineering trees, but to call them "trees" would be misleading. No, these are upgrade "branches." Many of the options are only available with cybernetic upgrades, and most of the engineering skills such as bomb drones and gun turrets will go unused, yet you are forced to spend points on them in order to progress down the branch.

For a colony ship meant to house thousands of people on the way to a new world, the Armstrong is a drab and boring place. Each new area that you encounter looks strikingly like the one before it, some combination of gray and metal. Occasionally you'll come across the ship's basketball court or what looks to be a lounge, but the dull color palette leaves a lot to be desired. For some reason, every room and hallway is packed with explosive barrels and canisters, which are fun to blow up but make little sense on a bridge leading to the ship's transit train. Not even the musical score will manage to pull you in, as it is mostly muted, something present in the background that you'll rarely hear or notice.

OK, so the gameplay, graphics, and sound are forgettable, but at least there's that story to keep you interested, right? Well, not really. Though the opening premise manages to grab you, the eventual plot "twists" are ripped straight out of about 20 other science-fiction movies and games, so predictable that they border on cliche. There is one major decision you'll face late in the game and, although the game still plays out exactly the same except for the dialogue, Space Siege does give you the opportunity to answer the question it's been asking during entire campaign: How will you choose to save humanity? It's a good touch, but when the final credits roll, no matter what your percentage of humanity is, you'll still be left wondering, "Is this it?"

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Get The Best Auto Loan Rates

2008-08-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for the best auto loan? Doubt, which one is the best for you? Of course, that is why Get The Best Auto Loan that has a website at www.getthebest autoloan.com comes in. Because finding an auto loan is tough. May, you don’t know much about this website, for more information, you can go to its website directly. But, I will try to give short explanation about this website.

Get The Best Auto Loan is dedicated to finding you the best auto loan rates no matter where you are purchasing your vehicle. How it work? Get The Best Auto Loan work with the nation’s top lenders to offer you the lowest interest auto loan rates available with affordable monthly payment to match. By making auto loan compete for your business, you are guaranteed the lowest market rates – it is easy to see why Get The Best Auto Loan is the internet’s preferred source for auto loans and auto financing! Get The Best Auto Loan specializes in the education of consumers interested in auto financing (via the auto loan blog); it is Get The Best Auto Loan hope that trough the goodwill of information dissemination that financing interest will translate through to Get The Best Auto Loan partners. There are 3 auto loans that you can choose:

1.Loans for new cars
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3.Refinance your current auto loan

Get started now…..

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 - Friendlier controls and a host of other improvements make Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 great.

2008-08-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Tiger Woods 08's touchy controls, iffy online play, and a general lack of new content made for one disappointing game. But just as Tiger didn't let torn ligaments and a broken leg keep him from winning the US Open, EA Sports hasn't used the short development cycle associated with yearly games as an excuse. Instead, it has worked to make the controls more user-friendly and further integrated the online gamernet feature. The result is a game that's worthy of carrying the Tiger Woods name.

Tiger Woods 09's controls aren't vastly different from TW 08, but they're much more forgiving. You start your swing by pulling back on the analog stick and then strike the ball by moving the stick forward. A more traditional three-button-press option is available at any time by clicking the right analog stick. Last year, the slightest deviation left or right during your swing would result in a terrible shot, particularly if you were using a golfer with low skill attributes. This year, not only are you punished less severely if your swing isn't perfect, but you also get instant feedback via an onscreen meter that shows exactly how you moved the stick. By monitoring this feedback, you can learn how to straighten your swing or compensate for your natural swing by adjusting your aim or by adding a draw or fade to the ball with the press of a button.

The addition of Tiger's own coach Hank Haney to TW 09 makes hitting the ball easier as well. You can now head to the driving range and adjust each of your clubs to best suit your playing style. For example, if you're struggling for accuracy off the tee, you can increase the sweet spot on your driver. This will help ensure that your drives stay on the fairway, but you'll sacrifice some distance. This level of customization is often intimidating in sports games, but here, the process is simple and worthwhile.

TW 09 includes 16 golf courses, which is the same number as last year. New courses include Wentworth, Sheshan, Wolf Creek, and Bay Hill. The Gary Player Country Club in South Africa is an excellent addition to the mix, but it's disappointing that there aren't more courses--especially when you consider how quick EA was to charge for downloadable courses in 08. The roster of male and female professional golfers is about the same as before, but there are a few new faces, such as Se Ri Pak and Darren Clarke. Like previous iterations, you can create a golfer using the game's deep customization tools, and you can even import your own photos to make a truly lifelike version of your mug (you can even add eyebrows this year).

Money is earned by playing on the PGA Tour or by completing events, such as beating golfers head-to-head, driving the ball a certain number of yards, getting a particular score on a group of holes, and more in the Tiger Challenge mode. Cash can then be used to buy new gear, some of which carries a small skill bonus. Unlike in the past, you'll actually have to earn most of your attributes on the links with the new dynamic skill-progression feature. After each round (and most challenges), coach Haney will raise or lower your driving, accuracy, short game, and putting attributes based on your performance. Rather than punish you for playing poorly (though he still does that), Haney gives you the chance to earn a few points back with brief challenges where you try to hit the ball into a large circular target. The new system isn't perfect--sometimes Haney will tell you to drive into bushes, put you in an impossible lie, or lower your putting attributes even when you set a course record--but it's a great way of making character progression feel organic.

No dramatic changes have been made with regards to online play, but a few tweaks and additions go a long way. The most notable change is that you can now play with up to three other people at the same time online. Being able to all hit at the same time really speeds things up, even if the colored trails that show other players' balls are sometimes distracting. With the gamernet feature, you can quickly upload a shot, hole, front or back nine, and even a whole round with the press of a button. You then are able to go online and play a nearly endless stream of challenges. You'll have to filter through some ridiculously easy and impossibly difficult shots for the best experience, but even if you don't feel like searching, you can still enjoy the feature thanks to periodic challenges (long drives, closest to the pin) that pop up during single-player rounds. Last year's game had a ton of problems when it came to playing online, downloading photos, and uploading gamernet clips, but so far, all of TW 09's online features work great.

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GC 2008: Bayonetta - The vixenish witch was here at Leipzig, and Sega had a brand new stage to show us

2008-08-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

After being announced earlier this year at an event in central London and on show at the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit, Bayonetta was here at the Leipzig Games Convention 2008. The supernatural action game is being produced by Platinumgames' Yusuke Hashimoto, and he kicked off our presentation with a level of the game that we'd seen previously at E3. In the level, Bayonetta enters a garden area and subsequently has to face off against a number of angels before fighting her way through to a huge boss in the form of a gigantic, hideous-looking angel.

In a reverse on Devil May Cry, the titular character Bayonetta is a good witch who'll have to fight through scores of evil angels in her as-yet-unrevealed mission. In addition to carrying guns in her hands and strapped to her ankles, she'll have some rather impressive supernatural skills. It turns out that her hair can summon a giant fist punches, stiletto heel kicks, or even a huge dragon to slay her enemies. While fighting, you'll fill up a power meter shown onscreen. If you manage to fill it without being injured, you can also summon some nasty and amusing torture devices, such as an iron maiden or a guillotine.

In addition to arming herself with pistols, Bayonetta can equip other weapons, such as twin katana blades and shotguns. Hashimoto-san said the team was planning some more weapons that "you could hardly imagine," so expect to see more announced later on. We were given a quick demonstration of the swords, hacking and slashing through a score of opponents with ease. You'll be able to pull off some impressive combos with Bayonetta's weapons, and the katanas were no different. If your current weapon isn't cutting it, however, you can quick change to a different set midfight without having to jump out of the action. Hashimoto-san used the katana blades to dish out some damage to the midlevel boss we saw at E3, and as it takes damage, its body will show signs of injury. This damage includes exposed flesh on its neck and arms, as well as a gush of saliva dripping from its mouth.

We were then shown a brand new level, referred to as The Climax by Sega. While Sega wouldn't let on where in the game's story the level takes place, it did hint that it might be part of a flashback later in the game. The level begins with a prerendered cutscene with Bayonetta and an unnamed female accomplice--possibly another witch--on the edge of a cliff. Bathed in the full moonlight, Bayonetta jumps from the cliff onto what looks like part of a medieval church that's hurtling towards Earth. On the broken-off section of the church, she runs into more angels, which she engages in combat. Behind them, pieces of the destroyed church can be seen falling from the sky, as well as dozens of other angels flying around. After fighting for a few moments, the church smashes into the side of a cliff. Then, Bayonetta jumps back onto the spiraling platform and continues fighting.

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GC 2008: Enchanted Folk - Konami's latest portable offering at its Games Convention stand and had a quick play with this cute.............

2008-08-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

At its 2008 Leipzig Games Convention press conference, Konami kicked things off with a video for a brand-new game, Enchanted Folk and the School of Wizardry. Although the game wasn't discussed in much detail, the video revealed a Nintendo DS game that takes place in a school of magic. We decided to head down to the show floor at Leipzig Games Convention 2008 to see if we could find out more on this real-time adventure game, which looks as if it also has a mix of role-playing, Animal Cross, and Harry Potter thrown into it.

Unfortunately, the demo that we played featured a combination of German and Japanese text, but we did our best to interpret some of the story. It seems that you take the role of Charli, a character at a wizard school. We had a quick venture around the school and its surroundings and bumped into a few interesting characters along the way, including Director Sol (presumably the school's principal), a jolly man with a face that was actually a sun. In his office were also two talking books with whom we briefly chatted (in German, naturlich).

We then headed out to the school grounds, which featured some manicured gardens, a few characters including one called TV-20C who had a TV set as a head, and a few smaller buildings. The world scrolls around you like a cylinder, similar to Animal Crossing. We found a shop in which you can trade or buy items, and later on we discovered a few caves and some weisse (white) flowers that you can pick. Charli can gain other items, too, including a pair of jeans, shoes, and a shirt, as well as a broom, a guitar, and a diamond. We also encountered a graveyard, a brook, and what looked like a haunted house to explore.

According to literature that we received from Konami, you'll be able to interact with and make friends (and even boyfriends and girlfriends) with the other 100 school students, as well as solve mysteries, all the while trying to earn your magician's licence and the title of "master wizard." You'll also be able to send your character to other DSs as part of a "school exchange."

Enchanted Folk and The School of Wizardry is due out in 2009. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more details as they emerge.

Away: Shuffle Dungeon - We play as Sword, the not-so-lucky 100th person about to be whisked away by the mysterious phenomenon known as "Away."

2008-08-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hironobu Sakaguchi, head of Mistwalker, and composer Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame team up in another role-playing game, but this time it's on the Nintendo DS. Away: Shuffle Dungeon is a combined effort from Mistwalker, AQ Interactive, and Majesco Entertainment that offers a unique twist on the usual hack-and-slash RPG. As the title suggests, dungeons will shuffle, which changes up the gameplay to keep you on your toes.

You play as Sword, a young man who washed up on the shores of a village called Webb two years ago. He is stranded there because the village apparently doesn't have any maps, but he seems quite content living in this seaside town. However, there is a phenomenon called "Away," where in the last century 99 people have disappeared without a trace from Webb, and people are worried about who will be next. Sword and his friend Anella were having a pleasant conversation one day when suddenly that mysterious Away started to happen and had Sword as its next target. Being the heroine that she is, Anella sacrificed herself in his place, so the Away took her in a beam of light and the rest of the village instead. Thanks to Anella's heroic efforts, you now have a lot of work to do.

Since the entire village has vanished, except for you and your house (where you can sleep and save), you have nothing left to do except go around Webb and find objects that are linked to specific villagers. When you come across one of these artifacts, whether it's a sword, a piece of armor, or an instrument, it opens a portal to a dungeon. Once you get to the bottom of the dungeon, you'll find your missing villager. To set things up for the rest of the game, you'll find the village chief first, who comes back and opens a general store. Next you have to go find Helmut and Macy, the two guys who run the armor and weapon shops and who both have a thing for a girl named Giggles.

When you venture down into a dungeon, the 3D village environment changes to a 2D maze-like area that spans two screens. The top or bottom of the screen will have a timer. When it hits 0, the screen will shake and shuffle to a new screen. If you get stuck in the shuffle, you are booted back to the first level of the dungeon. This is a strange but interesting concept, and it makes the game a little more frantic than typical action RPGs. You'll have to traverse quickly to hit switches or move obstacles to try to uncover the stairs leading down--or up, if you're trying to lead your villager back safely. When you're aboveground, the top screen provides a map of Webb and shows you where the shops and portals are located. A star will show up next to the name of the area if there is something important going on that will move the story forward, so there is some guidance in case you don't know what to do.

Sword gains one experience point for every monster he slashes and kills, and he can pick up bouncy colored blobs that hang out in dungeons, which he fondly calls fupongs. Fupongs come in a variety of flavors depending on their element, and they are your source of magic. They can be used only one time on each level of the dungeon, so once you use them, they will be grayed out until you move to the next floor. Up to six fupongs can tag along with Sword as he navigates through the maze, but since they trail slightly behind him, you have to be careful that they don't get caught in the screen that's about to be shuffled, because then they'll get severed from the partyturn gray. They can also get severed from the party if you get it caught in sliding blockades. If you leave your fupongs at the general store and feed them food that you find in the dungeons, they'll level and become more powerful. When you start to bring the villagers back, they'll rebuild their shops, and you can help them upgrade by selling them special items that you find in the dungeons. You can also choose the location of the store, and Giggles will tell you whether the location has ideal feng shui or not, which can affect pricing and inventory. The items will start off fairly pricey, though you would think you'd get a discount for trying to rescue everyone in the village. Giggles can also tell you your fortune, for 300Gs.

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Goosebumps HorrorLand - You're never going to find these rides at Disneyland.

2008-08-26T11:26:00.001-07:00

Those who were conscious in the '90s or who happen to wander into the children's book section at Barnes and Noble every once in a while might recall Goosebumps, a popular children's horror series by R. L. Stine. More than 300 million books have been sold in 32 different languages, and Stine is still expanding the Goosebumps world with a new spin-off series titled Goosebumps HorrorLand. Elastic, Scholastic Interactive's new publishing label, and developer Gusto will be bringing an adventure game of the same name to the Wii, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 2 for the young crowd who want to immerse themselves in the Goosebumps world.

The game's storyline isn't based on any of the books, but the story's themes should be familiar to those who have read the series. When you start the game you can choose to be a boy or a girl, and you receive a ticket to HorrorLand, a fright-themed amusement park with no way out. You have to collect the missing pieces of your ticket to leave in one piece. The park has five areas, each appropriately named with its own theme: Carnival of Screams, Vampire Village, Fever Swamp, Mad Labs, and Terror Tombs. Each area consists of six minigames to play so that you can earn frights that help you unlock new areas. Exploring the surroundings by kicking over trash cans can yield tokens that you use to play the games or go on the rides. In this preview build, we got a chance to play around with 30 minigames, 12 of which can be played with a friend.

Some of the highlights include Bumper Carnage, a bumper-car game in which you tilt the Wii Remote to steer and use the 1 and 2 buttons to move forward and back. When you shake the remote, you'll thrust yourself forward, and the goal is to knock out your opponents three times. Before the timer runs out, a gaping hole will open in the center of the arena, so you have to make sure you don't fall in or else the game is over.

Wheel of Misfortune has you running down a platform and then jumping onto a wheel on which you're trying to get the most points or earn some tokens. To get your character to run, you have to hold the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in each hand and shake them up and down as if you're running, and at the critical point you'll hit A to jump. Once you jump, you have a meter that will indicate how long you can hover in the air while you wait for the perfect moment to hit A again to land on the wheel. If you wait too long or if you miss the red zone, you'll find yourself face-first in a pool of water at the base of the wheel.

HorrorLand Derby is similar to those carnival games that have multiple horses lined up on the right, although in this case it's you and a bunch of monsters. You have to throw a ball across a panel and watch it fall into a slot to see how many steps your character can take. You aim with the Nunchuk and flick the Wii Remote to throw the ball. This game is also very much like Mummy Run; the targets are a little different but the gameplay is still the same. There are a few games that are similar but with different themes, including mini-putting games as well as batting-cage-like games in which you swing a bat or a racket at bats and flying beetles.

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GC 2008: Killzone 2 Multiplayer - some hands-on multiplayer time with its upcoming shooter at Leipzig.............

2008-08-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

Killzone 2 was one of Sony's key titles at E3 2008, and at the show details on the multiplayer mode were revealed by the game's senior online designer, Eric Boltjes. Killzone 2 has some interesting options available for multiplayer, including customisable character classes, match settings, squads, and community integration with the game's official Web site at killzone.com.

In addition to being able to tweak match settings, you'll have the choice of five different mission types: assassination, bodycount, capture and hold, search and destroy, and search and retrieve. You can also combine mission types when playing; for example, you might play one round of assassination, followed by search and destroy, culminating in a tiebreaking round of search and retrieve.

Boltjes revealed a new multiplayer feature at Leipzig including AI bots. They'll look like and mimic the behaviour of regular competitors and will be available in offline and online matches. In addition to standard run and gun duties, bots will also be able to complete mission objectives, and have access to the same abilities and weapons as regular players. We got some hands-on time with the game but unfortunately didn't get a chance to see any AI participants in action.

Killzone 2 supports up to 32 players, and has eight maps that are designed for between either 2 to 16 players, or 16 to 32 players. You'll be able to have any combination of players on any map, but be prepared for some fast-paced, close-quarters battles if playing on smaller maps with large teams. There are several spawn points available in each map, depending on the size and once you've captured them they'll be available for your team to spawn to. You'll also be able to spawn directly to your leader's position and straight into the heart of battle (if he's doing his job properly).

The first map we tried was one of the smaller ones, and we joined one of the two five-man sides. The level fit the look and feel of what we've already seen of Killzone 2 with the action taking place in a battle-scarred warehouse. There were several levels in the stage with gantries above us and staircases leading down to several underground basements. We started off as a standard ISA soldier, equipped with an assault rifle and sidearm. The rifle worked effectively at short range and we were able to snipe a few enemies across the way using the gun's sights.

We then moved on to a much larger map, designed for up to 32 players, and the level featured a prominent, central outdoor courtyard. This time around we chose a Helghast engineer but combined his abilities with another class to be able to deploy sentry guns and call in AI-controlled air support. Depending on your class you'll have access to other abilities such as being able to heal others (medics) or repair equipment (engineers). Throwing a beacon directs air support in, and the airship will hover over the beacon's coordinates for a short time, attacking any enemies in the immediate vicinity. Because it needs line of sight it's only useful in maps with outdoor areas. Sentry guns, on the other hand, can be deployed in any part of the map and will keep watch until being destroyed by enemy troops. The objective in this map was to assassinate an enemy soldier, chosen seemingly at random by the game. The target's name and health will be displayed on every player's HUD, which makes the pace of each round a bit more hectic. After each round, the game will randomly select another assassination victim.

There were a further six maps that we didn't get a chance to look at but expect those to offer a healthy range of variety and size. If eight maps doesn't sound like a whole lot to you, Guerrilla told us that more are being planned for distribution over the PlayStation Network postlaunch. If you can't wait that long to get your hands on Sony's upcoming off-world shooter, a public beta program is also planned before launch.

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An Online Essay Custom Writing Service

2008-08-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

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GC 2008: Madworld - Producer Inaba-san gave us an updated look at PlatinumGames' gorefest at Leizpig and showed off a new bloodbath challenge.

2008-08-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Madworld has attracted a lot of attention after its introduction at a Sega Europe launch event earlier this year, and it's easy to see why. The game features outlandish, almost hilarious graphic violence combined with a black-and-white palette, with splashes of red blood as the exception. Madworld creatively uses the Wii's control scheme to let you punch, kick, and wield your trusty chainsaw, as well as encouraging you to use nearby objects to decapitate, maim, impale, and generally cause grievous bodily harm to enemies.

For those new to the game, you'll take the role of Jack, a contestant in a killing game known as Death Watch. The idea behind Madworld has been done before (Smash TV, The Running Man, Battle Royale), but some of the ridiculous, and unique, executions that Jack can perform truly need to be seen to be believed and appreciated.

We last saw Madworld at E3 2008, and at that point Sega focused on highlighting Jack's basic combat moves, including punches, kicks, and his trusty chainsaw. At Leipzig, the company wanted to show how Jack can use his environment to blood-splattering effect. We started out in a nondescript area of the city, and Jack began with some wise words: "Time to kick some mother****ing a**." Inaba-san, the demonstrator for our presentation, got straight to business by throwing two enemies into a nearby Dumpster, which then split their torsos in half. After fighting a few more thugs, he strolled into a nearby warehouse, where he encountered a behemoth of a man who wore a bull face mask. Jack engaged in a chainsaw duel with him, and after shaking the controllers for a few moments, Inaba-san cut him to pieces and then disposed of a few other enemies by pushing them into conveniently placed spinning blades.

We were then shown how simple objects such as a spare tyre lying around can be used to good effect. After exiting the warehouse onto some docks, Jack picked the tyre up and threw it over a thug's head, pinning his arms. He then impaled him with a signpost and threw him into the river. Combining different environmental aspects will increase your score.

Some of the Bloodbath Challenge minigames have already been revealed in the past, including the hilarious Man Darts, and we were privy to a new challenge at Leipzig, the aptly named Death Press. In the one-minute game, Jack has to get a series of enemies into a nearby pit where a spiked ceiling drops every 20 seconds or so. At the end of the game, you'll be given some performance stats, including your overall ranking--in Inaba-san's case, an A rank.

Although the chainsaw is Jack's default weapon, you'll be able to find and equip new weapons, including the daggers akimbo that Inaba-san demonstrated. You'll be able to use the twin blades to deal out some serious slicing and dicing. Each weapon in the game will be able to perform multiple finishing moves, and in the daggers' case you'll be able to slice off heads, plunge them straight into an enemy, and more.

Given that Death Watch is a contest, it wouldn't be complete without a commentator, and this particular one is full of amusing sayings such as "He should've seen the signs" when you're using a signpost to impale an unlucky enemy. The commentator will speak up throughout the game to offer numerous corny one-liners, which suits the light-hearted yet violent nature of Madworld.

A new level was introduced to us at Leipzig in which Jack could travel around the city on motorbike. From what we could tell, the game doesn't have an open-world design, and you'll need to select your destination before jumping onto your motorbike. Although there was no one else on the road with us, you'll encounter other vehicles in the game and have to fight them on your bike while getting around the city. After a few moments we arrived at an abandoned street in which several tornados dominated the landscape. Pieces of debris and even cows could be seen flying around above our head. This particular part of the game requires platforming and timing skills to get past the tornados unscathed, and from what we were told, there will be other similar parts in the game that will require you to do more than just beat people to a pulp. Once Jack reached the end of the street, he encountered a boss battle. Inaba-san briefly engaged with the huge, hulking, tornado-controlling creature before our demonstration came to a close.

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GC 2008: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - some upcoming content and DirectX 10 features for Age of Conan.

2008-08-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has been live for just more than four months right now, and though it's undoubtedly a great game, its players have been very vocal as far as complaints and suggestions are concerned. Funcom has always thought of itself as a company driven by its community, and if you're a fan, it'll probably come as no surprise to you that the Age of Conan team is currently working on implementing a number of fixes and new gameplay features. There's also an expansion pack in the works, by the way, but all we know about it is that it's scheduled for release sometime in 2009. Judging by a piece of teaser art that we were shown today, the expansion pack will feature masked Asian warriors who look a lot like the immortals that the Spartans go up against in the movie 300.

One of the more damning criticisms being leveled at Age of Conan since its release is the fact that, at certain character levels, there's simply a dearth of content to play through. There are a number of new content areas in development that will be appearing in the live game soon, and today we had an opportunity to check out a few of them.

First up was Tarantia Commons, a slum district that's part of the existing Tarantia City but which players are currently kept out of by a locked gate. Given that it's home to two warring gangs, Tarantia Commons is a dangerous area to frequent at night. As a hero in the Age of Conan world, you'll be able to undertake missions for either or both of the gangs in question, and though there will undoubtedly be plenty of violence involved, we're told that Funcom is aiming to incorporate more puzzle elements in the game via future updates. Tarantia Commons is a locale designed for players of level 40 and above, which, if you've ever played a character at that level, you'll know is definitely an area in need of new content.

Another all-new area that we had an opportunity to take a look at was a mountainous zone known as The Dolmen that's designed for level 50 to 55 characters. Bandit forces are a constant threat in the area, and one of the sample quests that we were shown will task you with lighting signal fires dotted around the region in an attempt to call reinforcements to the aid of a settlement under attack. We were told that this zone will add "dozens of hours of content" on its own, and it also appears to be a great example of how Funcom is starting to incorporate Conan influences from a variety of different sources. For example, we saw the "wheel of pain" structure that appeared in the 1982 Conan movie, and later we encountered a beautiful frost giant's daughter lifted from a story by Robert E Howard. The beautiful, scantily clad girl was clearly beckoning the player to follow her up into to the mountains, and we're told that, sometimes, she'll reward those who oblige her with some kind of reward. It was a trap on this occasion, though, and within moments of reaching a spot where we could be alone with her, two angry giants (her brothers) showed up.

Still exploring the same mountains, we were surprised when the entire zone started to shake as if there was an earthquake. As it turned out, there was, but it wasn't being caused by shifting tectonic plates or anything like that. Rather, a giant named Frost Father was to blame. Currently bound in chains deep inside an evil-looking, amphitheater-themed prison, this giant is the son of a god and, as we later discovered, he's much larger than the giants that we encountered earlier.

In addition to new quest zones, Funcom is working on the construction of new dungeons as well as the revamping of existing ones. One of the new dungeons that we were afforded a brief look at is the aforementioned Frost Father's place of imprisonment, a gigantic structure populated by all manner of demons and the like that will be suitable for characters at level 65 and above. Your goal in this dungeon, other than killing bosses to collect new-and-improved loot, will be to free the Frost Father, though we should warn you that it's not yet clear if he'll be appreciative or resentful of your efforts on his behalf.

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Halo 3 - Halo 3 builds upon the concepts of Halo 2 in ways that you'd expect, but there are also new modes and options...........

2008-08-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Regardless of how you felt about its cliffhanger ending, there's no denying that Halo 2 was a gigantic success that raised the bar for what we, as a game-playing society, expect out of a good console-based first-person shooter. In the years that followed, plenty of games attempted to duplicate the Halo formula, with varying degrees of success. But there's still nothing quite like the genuine item. Luckily for all involved, Halo 3 is a positively amazing package that offers extreme satisfaction across all of its different parts. Maybe now you can finally retire your Halo 2 disc and really move into the next generation of games.

Halo 3 is an interesting mix of established protocol and intriguing new stuff. For example, the gameplay doesn't stray too far from Halo 2, which, in turn, didn't exactly reinvent the original Halo. Don't take that as a negative, because it means that Halo 3 plays extremely well, with the same types of light tactical considerations that have made the series stand apart from other, faster-paced shooters. The balance between your guns, your grenades, and your melee attack has always given Halo a unique feel in the genre, and those same considerations apply today, both in the campaign mode and in multiplayer. You'll also have new weapons and items to consider, such as a host of Brute weapons. One example is the spiker, which is an exciting automatic pistol that fires quickly and decimates opponents, especially if you're holding a pair of them. Another is the mauler, which is a one-handed shotgun that can level enemies up close. You'll even find weapons so huge that your movement speed slows when you carry them. When you use these weapons, the camera pulls out to a third-person perspective so you can see your missile pod, plasma cannon, or flamethrower as it fires. And then there's the gravity hammer. Originally shown in Halo 2 (where it wasn't usable by the player), the gravity hammer is a large melee weapon that will wipe out most regular enemies in one swipe. Needless to say, it can be especially fun in multiplayer settings. The end result is gameplay that feels wholly familiar without retreading the same ground too heavily.

The campaign is structured in much the same way as past Halo games, with multiple chapters and effective streaming that ensures you'll see load times only between chapters. There are also lengthy vehicle sequences to break up the on-foot action. You'll pilot the classic Halo vehicles, such as the Ghost, a hovering one-person craft that's fast and deadly, and the Warthog, a dune buggy with a turret mounted in the back. You'll also see new vehicles, such as the Brute Prowler, which is a two-person vehicle with turrets. Like in previous games, the vehicles are fun to use. Also similar to previous games, the artificial intelligence can't drive very well, so if you're playing alone, you'll usually want to grab the steering wheel rather than the weapons.

The concept of "equipment" is new to the series. These deployable special items have a variety of effects. The most obvious example is the bubble shield: You (and your enemies) can walk through it, but bullets and explosions bounce right off. It's especially entertaining when your enemies use it, given that you can just walk through and bash them with the butt of your gun. You'll also find items that make your shields regenerate more quickly, and others that drain enemy shields and stop their vehicles dead in their tracks. These items also show up in multiplayer, where they're a little more interesting.

Halo 2's ending was widely criticized for being too much of a cliffhanger and leaving you with no sense of progress or resolution whatsoever. It's good news, then, that Halo 3's story doesn't suffer from that problem at all. It opens immediately following the events of Halo 2: The Covenant is on its way to Earth, continuing its religious zealotry and attempting to activate the floating space weapons known as Halos, which could destroy civilization as we know it. The Master Chief and the other Earth forces of the UNSC are in hot pursuit to stop them, with newfound allies such as the Arbiter coming along for the ride. We'll spare you the specifics because they're quite compelling and should be seen firsthand. All you really need to know if you're on the fence about Halo 3's campaign is that it's a delicate balancing act that manages to provide satisfying closure for the trilogy, make perfect sense of all the cryptic events in Halo 2, and leave you filled with anticipation for more adventures set in the Halo universe. Not bad for a game that will take most players between 10 and 15 hours to finish on one of four difficulty settings.

But you'll probably go through the campaign more than once, thanks to the inclusion of a strong co-op mode. Previous Halo games have let two players go through the campaign; Halo 3 ups that number to four players and lets you do the whole thing over Xbox Live, if you so choose. This is a really fun way to experience the campaign's nine chapters, and you can choose to go through them in any order, provided you've already played through it alone. Furthermore, this method of play (which you can also do alone) lets you turn on scoring in campaign mode, in which you earn points for kills and lose them for dying. This adds a sense of competition to the co-op, and there are also achievements associated with finishing chapters with high point totals. You can also customize the experience a bit by turning on a series of unlockable modifiers that open up as you collect hidden skulls. The skulls are stashed around the game, and some of them do things such as increase the amount of damage you'll need to deal to take an enemy down, remove the heads-up display and make your weapon invisible, and so on. This gives the story-driven section of the game some more replay value, although it doesn't get significantly more difficult as you scale up the number of players. Consequently, finishing the game on legendary difficulty is a breeze if you're rolling through with three experienced fellow triggermen.

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College Hoops 2K8 - Many of the improvements are subtle, but the changes and additions to College Hoops 2K8 make it the best game in the series

2008-08-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

Though its NBA franchise gets plenty of attention, 2K Sports' College Hoops series has flown under the radar of many sports fans, despite being quite good in its own right. Like 2K7 before it, College Hoops 2K8 isn't tremendously different from its predecessor, but it's the small changes, like new gameplay mechanics and an improved legacy mode, that make this year's installment great and one sure to please college basketball fanatics.

There are plenty of ways to stay busy in College Hoops 2K8. You can create your own chants, players, schools, sound clips, and highlight reels, and new this year, you can create your own plays. The interface isn't particularly easy to use and requires a lot of sometimes frustrating trial and error. But you get out of it what you put in, and all the work pays off when you've created the perfect play. If you're the sharing type you can share all this content online, or you can hoard all your knowledge and use it to crush your foes.

There are more ways to play the game than ever. You can set up your own conference tournaments and even the NCAA Championship in the Pontiac Tournament mode, or take part in the College Hoops Classic. Coach mode lets you call the plays while your players execute them, and new this year are the All-American training challenge and tutorial modes. Here you'll go through a number of drills against well-known former college ballers designed to teach you the ins and outs of 2K8's somewhat convoluted control scheme. Going through this training mode still doesn't make the new passing control any less complex, since you still have to decide what type of pass you want to throw by pressing a shoulder button and then a face button. But it does a good job of introducing the controls--an area in which previous 2K Sports games have been deficient."

Online play lives up to the high standards of other 2K sports efforts. A real-time ticker shows the latest sports news, and the online front page shows college hoops news as well as upcoming games and current scores. Once online, you can take part in a quick match, custom match, or unranked play against a buddy, or join or start tournaments and even leagues. Our online games suffered from a bit of lag here and there as well as the occasional jerk that does nothing but shoot three-pointers with the same guy over and over, but for the most part the games ran fine and were enjoyable.

All of these modes are solid, but college basketball fans tend to head straight to legacy mode to lead their favorite team or alma mater to glory. Once again, you can play an open legacy, where you're able to take over the school of your choosing, or career legacy, where you start at a small school and either lead the school to prominence or do well enough to use the school as a stepping stone to a better coaching gig. The mode is quite similar to last year's, right down to the cumbersome menus. Frustrating menus aside, there's a lot to legacy mode--even more than last year. Amateur Basketball Leagues (high school teams) have been added, giving you unprecedented access to scouting high school players before the season starts--you can even play their games. The recruiting process has seen some changes, but they're mostly cosmetic and have little impact on how you actually recruit. You'll find some players that have at least a passing interest in your school and then request game tape, watch them in person, e-mail or call them, set up campus visits, go to their homes, and hopefully get them to sign a letter of intent. This process is fun for a few weeks, but it quickly gets repetitive and there's no way to automate the process. An odd glitch causes some talented junior college players to not get recruited by anyone, thereby letting them fall right into your lap. This makes it easier to get good players if you're at a lousy school, but it sort of defeats the whole purpose of such a detailed recruiting process.

On the court 2K8 plays almost exactly the same as 2K7, with a few exceptions. Lock-on D makes its way over from NBA 2K8 and allows you to really shut down an opposing player. But as in NBA 2K8, this feature can be abused, as it's possible for slow centers to pretty much blanket smaller, faster point guards. Also new this year is the sixth man advantage, which lets your team play better when the home crowd is going nuts. It doesn't seem to affect gameplay much, but it's a lot of fun to get the meter full and throw down a big dunk just to see and hear the crowd go wild. The rest of the gameplay feels just like last year's: The controls are responsive and allow for great freedom once you learn them, and there are a wide variety of animations. The game just feels good. But there are some negatives, too: Players don't move much on offense unless you call a play, there are too many missed layups, point guards go over and back too often, and there's a bit too much goaltending. Small nagging issues aside, though, the gameplay is very strong.

And so is the presentation. Cheerleaders and mascots patrol the sidelines, fans go berserk in the stands, and coaches stalk the bench yelling at their players. As was the case last year, the arenas look fantastic, and even the ones that aren't exact replicas of real courts look quite good. Players move realistically, and the transition from one move to the next is typically smooth. The one area in which player models are lacking is their heads, which just aren't up to the same level of quality as in NBA 2K8.

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Burnout Paradise - Burnout Paradise includes all the fast-driving, hard-wrecking action you'd expect from a Burnout game............

2008-08-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

Is there any developer buzz term more meaningless these days than "open-world gameplay"? Let's face it, it's kind of been done to death at this point, so you have to look on with a bit of skepticism when a developer touts the concept as the next big thing for its franchise. It's understandable, then, if Burnout Paradise's concept freaks you out a little bit. Burnout has, by tradition, been a fairly structured arcade racing game up to this point, and one would have to wonder exactly how well an open environment would serve the series' crash-happy gameplay methodology. Evidently, the answer is quite well. Developer Criterion has invented a world wonderfully suited to Burnout's nature, a city built exclusively to cater to your destructive whims. And while a few design hitches here and there get in the way now and again, by and large Burnout Paradise delivers an experience that is both true to the Burnout name and wonderfully fresh-feeling all at once.

The star of the show is Paradise City itself. Coming complete with the titular Guns 'N Roses song (because Burnout: Night Train or Burnout: Mr. Brownstone probably wouldn't have been as catchy), Paradise City is, at first blush, a pretty standard racing game city, complete with all the usual landmark locations and boring background traffic. But it quickly becomes evident that Paradise City is meant for a greater purpose than just being a simple city to race around in. In effect, the city is a blank slate, a pristine canvas on which to paint your own obliterative masterpiece. The simple act of driving aimlessly around the city constantly presents new roads, shortcuts, and destructible objects for you to experience and, often, destroy. Nearly every intersection of road hosts a new event of some kind, and even after you've worked your way through the game's progression of driver's licenses (the only specifically linear portion of the game design), you'll still be finding new things you didn't even know were there.

That might sound a little overwhelming, especially if you've grown accustomed to the rather specific brand of racing that Burnout has always subscribed to. And at first, it most definitely is. Though the in-game tutorials do a decent job of explaining the event types and basic mechanics, you're initially left to your own devices and only have the small minimap to guide you through the many twists and turns of the city as you race--unless of course you want to hit the pause button regularly and use the larger map, which is a bit annoying to do. Those well accustomed to Burnout's previously track-based racing model might find having to explore to find the best route to the finish a bit frightening, but the good news is that it doesn't take a great deal of time to get a feel for the city's various ins and outs.

Until that time, you will experience some trial and error (with a heavier focus on the error), but the funny thing about that is that while you may initially find yourself failing races, it's not often you have to just go back and keep doing that same race again and again. The focus of Burnout Paradise isn't on doing specific events so much as it is about doing whatever you feel like. If you fail a race, odds are that there are roughly a dozen starting points for other races near the finish line of that previous race, and unless you've done them all, you can just hit up any one of them to get another notch on your license. Toward the very end of the game, when you've bested the bulk of the game's events, you may find yourself lamenting the lack of a quick return feature to get back to a race's starting point. But for the majority of the game, it's not really an issue.

It's a strange design to get used to initially, but once you do, it becomes incredibly rewarding. You can spend hours at a time just dawdling around the city and still make forward progress within the game. Don't feel like racing? Just go break through shortcut gates or bust up billboards, which are tallied up as you break each one. Or, track down one of the cars you unlocked on the road and take it down to add it to your collection. Or, you can opt to pick a road and attempt to "own" it. There are two types of events associated with each of the major roads in the game. Time trials are as you'd expect--you simply start at one end of the road and start driving down it, attempting to get the fastest time you can. Secondly, there are showtime events, which are the game's effective replacement for the crash mode found in previous installments of the series. Whereas crash mode was sort of like a puzzle mode in the way it made you create elaborate car crashes out of painstakingly built traffic designs, showtime is the polar opposite. These are elaborate car crashes born from little more than a bunch of nearby cars and your ability to control what is, in essence, a sentient car wreck.

In a word, showtime mode is absurd. The goal is similar to crash mode in that you're aiming to create as much damage as humanly possible, with various types of cars offering up different cash bonuses that feed into your final score. All the while, you can move your busted husk of a car around by pressing the boost button, which causes you to bounce around like a rubber ball. Again, totally absurd, but also totally awesome. It might lack the puzzling nature of the crash mode, but for pure visceral thrill and laughs-a-minute wrecking, showtime mode delivers in spades. It would have been nice if Criterion had found a way to have both the crash mode and showtime mode coexisting, as neither would make a particularly good replacement for the other; but on its own, showtime is a great deal of fun.

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Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution - Civilization Revolution is an excellent, streamlined console version of the popular PC strategy series

2008-08-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

Ever since its inception in the early 1990s, Sid Meier's critically acclaimed Civilization series has challenged players to "build an empire to stand the test of time." Civilization Revolution is the newest scion of the series, and like its predecessors, it's a turn-based strategy game in which you take charge of a notable historical civilization and lead them from humble beginnings to world domination. Faced with the great challenge of preserving the strategic breadth of the series while streamlining the experience for consoles, developer Firaxis games has succeeded admirably. The result is a distilled version of Civilization that will please series veterans and newcomers alike.

Before the game begins, you must make an important choice: Which of the 16 civilizations will you command? Each has a starting bonus and four era bonuses that you'll gain as you progress through the ages, bonuses that will aid you in some way on your path to victory. There are four types of victory in Civilization Revolution: cultural, economic, technology, and domination. Each has particular victory conditions, and civilization-specific bonuses are a good way to start down the road toward meeting those conditions. Those seeking a cultural victory will appreciate that the Egyptians start with an ancient wonder, whereas military-minded players might choose the Germans and their veteran warriors. Trying the different civilizations on for size is great fun, as you adapt your unique strengths to grow your empire and deal with your opponents.

Once you've chosen your civilization, the game begins in earnest. As you set down your first city, you'll see icons on the surrounding squares indicating how much food, production, or trade each produces. Food grows your population, production builds units and buildings, and trade furthers scientific research or fills your coffers with gold. Being aware of these resources is the key to your civilization's prosperity. As your city grows larger and encompasses more squares, you'll have the option of telling your workers to prioritize one resource over the others, or to work certain squares instead of others. Unlike in previous Civilization games, individual squares cannot be improved, and workers now exist only within the confines of the city menu screen. Despite the worker's reduced role, the bulk of its strategic relevance has been preserved. Now certain buildings and technologies will increase your resource yield, so the challenge lies in choosing what to research and what to build to optimize your city's production. This interweaving of strategic considerations is engrossing and spurs you to constantly refine the myriad facets of your grand plan.

With your first city up and running, you begin to go about the business of expanding your realm. You build warriors to defend your city and explore the surrounding area. Barbarians will threaten you early on, and destroying them will grant you gold, or perhaps a bonus unit. There are also friendly villages that will offer similar bonuses, and sometimes even grant you a new technology. Discovering impressive natural wonders, such as a great forest or a vast desert, will also garner you a gold bonus and the gratifying right to stamp a name on it that will last throughout history. There are also a few ancient artifacts, such as the Lost City of Atlantis, that grant substantial boons to the civilization that discovers them. Although it's already a thrill to explore uncharted lands, these bonus incentives add more urgency to your wanderings and encourage you to keep up a brisk pace.

As you explore, create units, and settle new cities, you'll soon discover that you're not alone. Leaders of other civilizations will contact you with offers of peace, but don't expect these truces to last. Depending on your difficulty level, you may have a few leaders asking to trade techs, or they all may try to bully you out of hearth and home. You can do some bullying of your own from the diplomacy panel, as well as make peace, trade techs, or even pay a leader to wage war on another civilization. However, long-term trade agreements are gone, and previously marketable resources like wine, iron, and silk now merely provide resource bonuses to nearby cities. Degrees of peace, like non-agression pacts and open borders, are also gone, the latter of which is particularly missed during online games, when passing through an ally's territory will cause a declaration of war. The controls for navigating diplomacy are easy, but it does feel a bit limited.

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Kung Fu Panda - This shallow and repetitive beat-'em-up is fun for a while..............

2008-08-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Kung Fu Panda on the Xbox 360 brilliantly captures the look and feel of the movie that it's based on; the problem is that it's shallow, repetitive, and only slightly longer than the source material. The game is intended primarily for those who have seen the film and want to live out Po's adventure as both the bumbling fool and unlikely Dragon Warrior saviour. For this reason, those who pick up Kung Fu Panda on a whim may find the character introductions are a little thin and that their experience suffers as a result.

While not impossible to follow, the story can certainly be a little confusing, especially in regards to intercharacter relationships. If you haven't seen the movie the game comes across as slightly disjointed, and while it can be played as you would any off-the-shelf beat-'em-up, don't be surprised if you find yourself struggling to make connections at times.

In the game you'll take on the croc, boar, and ninja cat gangs of Peace Valley as they vie to capitalise on bad guy Tai Lung's return. It's no real surprise that you'll play Kung Fu Panda mostly as main character Po, but during the game's 13 short chapters you'll also assume the role of his sensei Master Shifu as well as Furious Five members Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Crane, and Viper. Each has a unique skill set, with Shifu capable of skull-hopping between groups of foes, and Monkey lashing out and striking foes with his tail. You should be able to rip through the single-player campaign in around four hours, even less if you complete only the minimum requirement objectives rather than taking the time to do advanced tasks, explore, and find rare items. For the most part, collectibles take the form of jade coins that unlock the game's multiplayer modes and selectable characters. Finding hidden figurines of the Furious Five and Po scattered throughout levels rewards you with short video montages of them in action taken directly from the film. Some of these are only a few seconds long, so they hardly justify replaying stages if you missed finding them the first time around.

Like other games in the brawler genre, you'll use the left analog stick to move your character around. There are two attack buttons, and holding one of them down will charge a more powerful attack and use Po's Chi, the game's form of energy for special attacks. Defeated foes drop orbs that when collected restore Chi, while smashing and consuming the contents of dumpling baskets restores health. Gold coins can be collected and used in the game's store to upgrade Po's health, Chi bars, melee damage dealt, and the power of his special attacks. Unfortunately, the relatively small amount of Chi used for specials at the easier difficulty levels and plentiful refills mean the best approach is to pump all your coins into maxing out your Panda Quake ability, luring and corralling groups of targets and body-slamming them into oblivion. It's an effective but incredibly repetitious way to finish the game, and it's usable all the way to the end with the exception of the boss battles, which require quick-action button-press events. These battles become more and more frequent as you progress, with the number of button combos you'll need to press getting higher toward the end of the game. In line with the title's gentle learning curve, failure to perform them simply starts over at the beginning until you get it right without penalty.

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Fury - True to its title, this fantasy action game will make you furious

2008-08-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Fury is what Guild Wars would be like if it got fat and addicted to amphetamines. On one hand, it's got a chaotic action element that is so fast-paced you feel out of control. On the other, it's got a bloated selection of spells and skills--some useful, some imbalanced, some pointless. Add an awkward interface, a myriad of technical issues, and a glorified game lobby masquerading as a fantasy world, and you've got an online fiasco without much of a future.

Fury pretends to be a massively multiplayer role-playing game, a disguise it pulls off pretty well when you first start playing. You choose some physical characteristics for your avatar while listening to some nonsensical weirdness regarding "The Fade" (for the right effect, deepen your voice and say it melodramatically). After a useless tutorial gives you some basic clues on how the game functions, you choose one of eight archetypes and are thrust into a confusing gameworld that initially looks like any other MMO. In actuality, the "world" is a single, swollen game lobby where you spend your time shopping for equipment and purchasing abilities before heading into a player-versus-player arena.

The first problem? There are only three basic ways to experience the action. Bloodbath mode is typical deathmatch; elimination pits two teams of four players against each other in a best-of-three team deathmatch; and vortex is like capture the flag, only there are multiple flags (or crystals, in this case). To play, you can either group up in advance or join a queue on your own. Either way, you'll have to wait for the game to match you or your group up with other players. If you're playing vortex or elimination, you will usually need to wait only a few minutes. Bloodbath, on the other hand, has so few players that as of this writing, there is only a single match held every hour. And when you do manage to get into a match, you're usually facing the same group of people, many of whom will team up and work together to slaughter unsuspecting newcomers.

You can equip up to 24 different skills before heading into battle. It's an insane number of powers to handle at one time in the breakneck arenas, and proof that more is not better (more to come on this subject). Combine all the spell-juggling with superfast movement and zippy spell-recharge times, and you get an absolute mess. Battles are complete anarchy, with players scurrying around like Speedy Gonzales and casting a flurry of spells. It's apparently supposed to be fun, but it's simply too much. Fast pacing is one thing; movement speed so rapid you can't keep track of what's going on is something else entirely.

To make matters worse, targeting a player means you will automatically face him or her as you run around clicking your mouse or hitting your hotkeys like a maniac. Many of the arenas are fairly cluttered, so the automated target facing might get you stuck against walls, or at the very least cause you to lose your bearings. Now, imagine doing all of this when your screen is constantly muddled with immovable interface elements, big spell-description windows that open arbitrarily when you cast, and combat text flying everywhere. It's a disaster. Of course, you can turn off combat text, but it's everything or nothing, so if you want to see just your own results without dealing with the fluttering text of everyone else's combat results, you are out of luck.

In Fury's defense, there's a great idea behind the way skills are used. Your spells either generate or use elemental charges, rather than the typical mana you see in most fantasy games. In order to use your more powerful spells, which use charges, you must cast the ones that generate charges first. For example, if you want to cast wild impact, which uses four nature charges, you must first cast a weaker spell like defender's dart, which generates two nature charges each time it's cast. It's a neat scheme, but it's completely wasted on Fury's bizarre combat model, which gives you no time or inclination to enjoy its intricacies.

As if to make up for the chintzy number of gameplay modes, the game overloads you with what seems like a zillion different skills, separated by class, element, and school. You aren't limited to spells of your own archetype; in fact, by spending the essence you earn during battle, you can earn spells in pretty much any discipline. You can also save various character builds and switch between them easily, so if you want to be a healer in one battle and switch to a tank in the next, you can.

This is where the bloat comes in. Fury has so many skills that many of them seem obsolete. A lot of skills have almost the same effects as other ones, with minor variations (slightly more damage, slightly lower chance to hit, and so on). Furthermore, you earn them by taking on trials, which amount to nothing more than a progressive list of abilities you purchase with the essence you earn in battle. Why do the trials in a single school have to be scattered among dozens of NPCs? Why does there need to be a whole instanced area for them? It certainly doesn't help that the loading time to get to that area is so long that not only do you have time to make a sandwich, you actually have time to bake the bread you make it with.

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Painkiller: Overdose - This stand-alone Painkiller expansion is pure, stupid fun, despite slow loads and an utter lack of innovation

2008-08-23T11:25:00.001-07:00

Although more than three years have passed since Painkiller first shot up hard drives, this deeply unfashionable shooter series hasn't done any growing up since 2004. And thank the gods for that. Not too many developers are bothering with old-school shooters anymore, so it's a real pleasure to blast through such a gleefully stupid stand-alone expansion pack like Painkiller: Overdose. All of the design attributes that made the original game as subtle as blunt-force trauma are back for more, including monsters that seem to have escaped from an Iron Maiden album cover, as well as slice-and-dice weapons that wouldn't be out of place in a torture chamber. Only some technical difficulties and the nagging sense of déjà vu interfere with the bloody good time on offer here.

If you've played the original Painkiller, you already know the score. Mindware Studios' Overdose is pretty much a straight remake of People Can Fly's cult hit from the summer of 2004, with the same sledgehammer mentality. Considering this expansion started life as a free mod project before it got the attention of the bigwigs at DreamCatcher Games, it shouldn't be too surprising that little new ground has been broken. You're now playing a half-angel, half-demon named Belial in the three-chapter campaign instead of a dead guy looking for his wife, but this mystical creature tosses out wisecracks like Serious Sam. Hell, he even sounds so much like Serious Sam that you have to wonder if the developers hired the same actor to voice his lines. Regardless, there is definitely some of the sincerest form of flattery going on here. Belial constantly snorts out cheesy action-movie lines. He mutters "Tastes like chicken!" when he sucks down a soul, sings "Dum-dum-dum! Another one bites the dust!" when he wastes an enemy, and even grumbles about "sand in my crotch" when entering the Egyptian level.

All of the weapons have been replaced with new models that mirror the old ones. For instance, the crowd-pleasing stake gun, has been swapped out for a crossbow with the identical ability to staple enemies to walls. All-new ghouls have been tapped to stand in for the old ghouls, although they aren't as out-there as those that populated the original Painkiller. While the zombies, various types of skeleton, robots, flaming demons, and the rest of this creepy crew look great, they're very predictable. As soon as you get a look at the level setting, you know what's coming next.

Of course, predictability is sort of the point. As with every traditional first-person shooter dating back to Wolfenstein 3D, the game gulps down an old formula. You walk into a room, valley, or cave jazzed up with Halloween lighting effects. A door clangs shut behind you. Driving music powers up. A few dozen creepy monsters pop in with a flash of brimstone. Mayhem commences. Repeat this for a dozen hours or so. The end. The only template tweaks are holdovers from the original Painkiller. Thus, the ability to kick off a demonic freak-out by swallowing enemy souls is back, as is the tarot-card system that rewards the completion of extreme challenges (finishing a level using only a wimpy weapon, for example) with cards that can be purchased to grant the buyer kick-ass powers. Oh, there's one more change that shouldn't go unmentioned--the developers have jettisoned the spectacularly appropriate thrash-metal music for wimpy orchestral stuff and pounding techno. Somewhere out there, Beavis and Butt-Head are not amused.

All that truly separates Overdose from other old-time shooters is a horror-movie groove that's equal parts Clive Barker gruesomeness and Hammer Horror cheese. As with the first game, the levels are a jumble. You're supposed to be fighting in purgatory, which is apparently a creative code word for "maps featuring whatever the hell we think looks cool." So you get an ancient Rome burning level populated by spooky gladiators, fire elementals, and giant cyclopes; a misty Japanese village level with ninjas, kung-fu old guys with coolie hats, and murderous geishas; an asteroid space base staffed by flying robots; some sort of Egyptian desert occupied by mummies, scarab beetles, and what looks like the god Anubis flying around on a magic carpet; plus murky swampland featuring giant tentacles that erupt from the ground and squid-faced Cthulhu rip-offs. Nothing here quite approaches the twisted genius of the original game, which had electric lunatics in an insane asylum and skeletal biker dudes hanging out by the Venetian canals. Only the hopping cyclopean demon arms come close, but there aren't enough of them in the game to make an impact.

At least it all looks good. While the visuals aren't entirely up to contemporary standards (rest easy, Source nuts) and there are only a couple of really knockout sections in each level, the overall art design is incredible, save for the odd issue with messed-up lighting effects. The only problem is that the now-dated Pain engine isn't up to snuff. Particle effects, such as smoke and sand, cause it to chug, regularly dropping the game to single-digit frame rates. The developers have compensated for this by slowing the whole game down when this happens, so battles remain playable even when you seem to be trudging through quicksand. Still, even without any herky-jerky moments, the game drops into slo-mo far too often.

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TimeShift - An interesting time-shifting mechanic and fun-to-shoot weapons can't make up....................

2008-08-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Given TimeShift's long, tumultuous development cycle that saw the game change platforms, swap publishers, and miss several release dates, it's surprising the game has made it to stores at all. So it's too bad that TimeShift isn't really worth the wait, thanks to a barely-there story, extremely rudimentary puzzles, and tired first-person shooter objectives like going through an entire level just to push a button. It does have some redeeming features, though. It's fun to pause time and whale on helpless soldiers, and some of the weapons are really satisfying to shoot.

If you need more out of a game's story than "shoot guys until the credits roll because an angry soldier and a computer voice say so," you're in trouble here. If you piece together the fragmented cutscenes, scour the manual, and read the back of the box, you'll learn that a certain Dr. Krone has stolen a special suit that lets its user travel through time. This has created an alternate reality, which is a bad thing--you'll have to trust the game on that, because it's tough to figure out just what has happened that's so bad, other than a big robot spider that shoots lasers terrorizing the city. (OK, maybe that is bad.) It's up to you to take the other, experimental beta suit (ohhhh, dangerous!), travel through time, and stop Dr. Krone from doing something sinister--which he has already done, so you want to undo whatever it is he's done...or something.

Even though the story is an incoherent mess, it's still possible to enjoy TimeShift. Why? Because you can time-shift. Your suit has the ability to pause, slow down, or even reverse time--kind of like a TiVo you can wear. This lets you pause the action, run up to a guy, and shoot him to bits. Or if you're feeling like humiliating him before you kill him, you can steal his weapon, restart time, and watch as he wonders where the heck it went, and then make him dead with a barrage of bullets. It's even possible to regenerate health by seeking cover and pausing time. You can't rewind time and prevent your own death, but if you're quick you can reverse it and unstick a grenade from yourself. You only have a limited amount of time you can manipulate before the suit's energy runs out, but it regenerates quickly. The game promises all sorts of other "exciting" uses for altering the flow of time, but it never really capitalizes on the potential of the mechanic. Rather than challenging you with complex puzzles that require you to think outside the box or use the game's quality physics engine, you're mostly limited to slowing down time so you can press two buttons in quick succession or pausing time so that you can get through a door before it closes. Thank goodness for technology.

Other than the time-shifting stuff, the rest of TimeShift plays like a linear, run-of-the mill first-person shooter--and a dated one at that. Most of the level objectives are routine tasks like finding a button that opens a door or, sometimes, locating a lever that opens a door. Heck, sometimes you have to do both! There are a few scenarios where you ride around on an ATV and some others where you man a turret on an airship, but most of the time you'll be moving from checkpoint to checkpoint on foot, taking out wave after wave of unintelligent foes. It's good, then, that the gunplay is entertaining. This is mostly due to the game's powerful weapons that are so much fun to shoot. It might not be exactly challenging, but it's fun to pause time and take the crossbow that shoots an arrow that sticks in the target and then blows up, and then unpause time and watch your foe explode into a charred, bloody mess. There are other cool weapons too, like the automatic gun that looks like it shoots bullets, but these bullets cause the target to burst into flames when they hit, and then the dude screams like a little girl as he fries. Even the basic machine gun is powerful and useful all the way through the game. There's always plenty of ammo to be found, so you never have to be conservative with your bullets.

It's too bad that these powerful weapons, combined with the ability to manipulate time, make it all too easy to fall into a rut of approaching every situation in the same way. Even on the harder difficulty settings you can be successful finding cover, pausing time, unleashing a few shots, and then retreating to cover while your suit and health recharge. Enemies won't always stay back and wait for you to cap them, but their aggressiveness actually makes things easier. You can hide, watch their dot on the radar get closer, and then shoot them as soon as they come around the corner. There are a few instances where you'll have no choice but to seek shelter behind destructible cover, but those situations are rare, and there's usually someplace safe you can scramble to once you've been flushed out.

In addition to a lengthy 10- to 12-hour single-player campaign, TimeShift offers a full-featured multiplayer component. A modified version of the single-player game's time-shifting ability is found here, too. You can slow, pause, or rewind time by throwing one of three different chrono grenades. Everyone within the blast radius of an explosion is affected. It's a neat idea, but one that people seem all too keen to rely on--they just throw them like crazy when they see another person. You can play ranked and unranked matches in a wide variety of game types. There's deathmatch and team deathmatch, one-on-one, capture the flag, and a few unique modes. King of time has you try to gain control of the time sphere, which makes the person who holds it impervious to time effects, allowing them to rack up kills with ease. Another is called meltdown madness. This is a team mode where you try to prevent the other team's machine from counting down by throwing chrono grenades at it. You can also create your own fun by using the multiplayer modifiers. These let you increase players' running and jumping abilities, reduce gravity, or play alternate game types like rockets or snipers only, vampires, or last man standing. The multiplayer mode isn't exactly amazing, but it definitely has its moments.

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Battlestar Galactica - This arcade game is relatively shallow and a pale imitation of its television inspiration

2008-08-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Battlestar Galactica is easily one of the best shows on television right now. Of course, it always helps to have some of the prettiest and most visually poetic space battles seen in a long time. Sadly, the same can't be said of Battlestar Galactica, the Xbox Live Arcade and downloadable PC game. All the complexity of the series has been ditched for a frustrating and twitch-heavy arcade experience.

Based loosely on the first three seasons of the show (right up to the exodus from New Caprica at the beginning of season three), Battlestar Galactica lets you fly as a Colonial fighter pilot in a variety of craft. These include the Viper Mark II (the "classic" Battlestar fighter), the more modern Viper Mark VII, the Raptor multirole vehicle, the Blackbird stealth fighter, and even a Cylon Raider. While the handling characteristics vary a bit among craft, the basic premise of the game remains the same: You fly in a 2D space combat arena, using missiles and guns to shoot down enemy craft.

Granted, it's an arcade game, but Battlestar fans were probably looking for a bit more depth than what is here. It doesn't help that much of the gameplay feels frustrating and unforgiving. When you get in a dogfight, it feels like every enemy craft is gunning for you, even if there are a half dozen other Colonial aircraft in the immediate vicinity. Battles involve usually flying straight toward an enemy craft then firing missiles and guns before you overshoot. Then you turn around and repeat the process all over again. You take damage quickly, though there are health power-ups that literally bounce around the level until someone flies over and picks them up. When you die (and you'll die a lot), you'll respawn, so there's no penalty there. What it does cost you though is precious time. Many of the missions have timed objectives: If you die three or four times, the 30 or 40 seconds you lose waiting to respawn and then get back into the fight will cost you dearly. All you can do is grit your teeth and try again or dumb it down to the easiest difficulty level because the medium setting is fairly unforgiving.

The space arenas are entirely 2D and designed more like mazes rather than outer space. There's plenty of floating debris that can block your path, such as wreckage and asteroids, but you can't hurt yourself by flying into it. You'll just slam against an invisible barrier that prevents you from entering debris fields. The camera is also close in, so you can't pull it back that far, which means you have to rely on a minimap and radar to see what's coming at you.

The 10 missions in the game are based loosely on various episodes. There's a mission where you have to shoot down Scar, an extremely resilient Cylon Raider, in five minutes. Or there's another one where you have to fly a Raptor to rescue Colonial pilots who have ejected and are floating in space. There's also one where you get to fly the Blackbird as you try to cripple the Resurrection Ship, though the Blackbird is hardly stealthy because Cylon Raiders have no problem detecting you. When that's done, there's an instant action mode that allows deathmatch and team deathmatch against 15 computer-controlled opponents, though these end up feeling more like just generic dogfights. Then there's multiplayer, which is the same thing, though with the difficulty of finding matches online.

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Clive Barker's Jericho - Poor level design poisons Jericho's awesome but unrealized potential

2008-08-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Clive Barker's Jericho is an inconsistent first-person shooter, alternating between moments of pure, atmospheric greatness and irritating design paradoxes that suck the fun out of the gameplay. For every incredible set piece--a battle in a Roman gladiator arena, fearful attacks by ghostly children--there is a frustrating sequence that puts every shortcoming in the game proudly on display. There's a lot going on, and sometimes it comes together exquisitely. More often, Jericho's various elements get in the way of one another, creating a game you'll love one moment and hate the next.

Horror writer Clive Barker's touch is most evident in Jericho's overall sense of impending doom. The time-traveling narrative takes you to a number of eras--World War II, ancient Sumeria--and all of them are wrapped in a demonic haze of darkness and dread. The architecture is brooding and imposing, shadowed corners look like they could harbor something truly sinister, and soft ambient lighting brings it all together to make for a cohesive look. The sound design is equally sinister, with the quiet, pulsing soundtrack and the sound of dripping water making you wonder what you might be encountering ahead. That isn't to say that Jericho is a truly scary game. It's incredibly dark (you'll get good use of your flashlight), often intense, and always a little eerie, but you'll never jump out of your seat. It's a Gothic paradise, and as a study in pure atmosphere, it succeeds in spades.

The story itself never really takes advantage of all this thick, fearful ambience. The setup is pretty awesome on its own, though. In the beginning, God didn't create Adam and Eve--He created a sexless being known as the firstborn. Turns out that whole experiment didn't work out too well, and the thing got locked away in an alternate reality, where it occasionally gets too bored and tries to escape. The secretive Jericho squad exists to shove the firstborn back where it belongs. Too bad the script itself is just a thin slice of nonsense, featuring far too many hokey one-liners ("praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!") than good taste allows. And just when you are finally getting into it, the game ends with a lame boss fight without answering any of the main questions it raised. Leaving room for a sequel is one thing; creating a story that literally goes nowhere is something else entirely.

Your own character, Ross, can jump from one member of Jericho squad to another, which sets up the game's most intriguing--and successful--mechanic. At any point, you can take control of any of the remaining six members of the squad, and each of them handle quite differently from the others. First of all, they come equipped with different weaponry. More importantly, most of them have two special skills at their disposal, from Cole's ability to slow down time, to Delgado's knack for setting foes on fire, to Church's enemy-paralyzing cloud of blood. At first, it's tough to remember which squadmate possesses which weapons and which skills, but the game does a good job of introducing you to the powers one by one, and eventually it becomes second nature.

That isn't to say that every character is particularly useful. Church's rooting skill and Cole's time-slowing ability are possibly the most useful powers, since they give you time to act. Jones, on the other hand, only gets an astral projection skill, and it's rarely helpful outside of some of the game's puzzles. You'd think with six different unique characters to control that Jericho might be spreading itself too thin, but while that is true with other elements in Jericho, the different skills give you a lot of variety without making things feel schizophrenic. The characters you aren't in control of at any given time are governed by the game's semiadequate artificial intelligence, and you can give them rudimentary orders to stay behind, fall back, or move to a specified location. But this is where Jericho begins to stumble--big-time.

As the game progresses, you will at first be ready to deplore the teammate AI for dying so easily. You can revive downed teammates, but there are times when you spend more time reviving than you spend shooting guns and performing awesome powers. Yet on its own, the AI isn't half bad. Teammates run for cover when possible and use their special abilities on their own. But what good does it do to program the AI to take cover and flank when the level design features almost nothing but narrow corridors and confined rooms? The reason that your teammates look like they are bullet fodder is because they simply have nowhere to go. You'll watch as teammates go down over and over again, simply because they are all stuck in the same tiny space.

Then, add to the mix the game's most annoying (and annoyingly common) foes: demons that explode upon death. The things lumber along quickly and take down any nearby character when they fall. And, like most of Jericho's supersturdy enemies, they absorb a good number of bullets before they die. On its own, it's a perfectly legitimate enemy design. But in a game with six squad members and the most claustrophobic levels ever devised, it's the opposite of fun. You'll watch in horror as your entire squad goes down at once and you are powerless to stop the violence. Why would you create an enemy that needs to be taken down from a distance, in a game that doesn't let you distance yourself? Maybe it's meant to be a challenge, but in reality, it's just imbalanced and cheap. We suspect it's all done under the guise of being "tactical," but this is no tactical shooter. Enemies just mindlessly traipse toward you, so the extent of your tactics is switching between characters to use their abilities in tandem.

And that's the way of Jericho: design elements that are fine on their own, and a disaster when combined together. Slow strafing speed doesn't have to be bad. Slow strafing speed in a level when the exploding monsters continually respawn, and you are only playing as Delgado, is murder. Then you have the pretty animations and special effects. They look neat, but some effects, like the 10-second fiasco you have to experience when you revive someone as Rawlings from afar, get in the way. The action leaves you vulnerable for so long that it's better to just run up and use the standard revival skill, letting the AI handle Rawlings (though unsurprisingly, he is almost always the first character to bite the dust). There are a number of effects like this that take their good old time, which would be fine if you could get yourself out of the way to perform your powers and enjoy the corresponding visual display.

When the levels open up, you can see how great Jericho could have been if it had just been given room to breathe. A spectacular Crusades era boss battle and a series of battles in a Roman arena are perfect examples, and had the entire game followed suit, it could have approached greatness. There aren't enough of these moments in Jericho's eight hours of gameplay, but when they arrive, they hint at loads of unrealized potential. In fact, it is your ability to see the potential behind the missteps that will determine how much you like Jericho. This is, without a doubt, a love-it-or-hate-it kind of game: easy to love for the occasionally awesome and intense firefight, easy to hate for its wide array of frustrating design contradictions.

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Blazing Angels 2: Secret - Blazing Angels 2 is a clear improvement over the previous game, though history buffs will probably hate its fictional......

2008-08-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Blazing Angels 2 is a fairly straightforward mission-based flight game set against the backdrop of World War II, much like its predecessor was. But instead of sticking to the facts like the first game tried to do, the sequel heads off into that not-so-lofty "what if?" territory that World War II-themed games eventually seem to get to, where Nazis are either resurrecting dead humans and making horrific zombies, or building huge Tesla coils and prototypical laser cannons and other then-impossible technology. This game goes for the latter, giving you a bunch of prototype technology to fly and fight against, some of which was just out of reach back in the 1940s. At the same time, a handful of improvements make Blazing Angels 2 a better game than the previous release, though some spotty difficulty progression makes the single-player a little uneven.

The story and characters from the first game have been tossed out, though the basics are the same. You play as Captain Robinson, and you quickly hook up with some wingmen to form an elite squadron that gets into the places that other, lesser pilots couldn't touch. Your team gets involved in some hairy scenarios as you track down a German special weapons division that's turning out a bunch of new technology vital to the fight. So along with protecting key civilian targets in major American cities and bombing bases, you'll also have missions where you have to take out airfields, then land to steal prototype planes and escape. You'll also guard escaping trains, shoot missiles out of the sky, and even take on huge bosslike crafts, like plane-spewing zeppelins, big cannons aimed at Red Square, large Tesla installations, and so on. The game does a good job of moving you around from place to place, which keeps you from getting bored of any one area and constantly has you doing different things in different planes.

As this game also appears on consoles, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that it works well on a dual-analog gamepad, but you should definitely know that it practically requires some sort of additional controller or flight stick, because the mouse-and-keyboard controls aren't any good. While the game does have support for Xbox 360 controllers and will start specifically mentioning the Xbox 360 controller's buttons in menus and the like, it doesn't seem to auto-configure for that controller, so you'll still have to go through the process of assigning all your buttons, which you can't actually do from the pause menu, so trying out different configurations is a hassle.

Of course, it all eventually comes back to you dogfighting enemy planes. Not too far into the game's 18-mission campaign, you start getting secondary weapons like rockets. You get a lot of rockets and it's a snap to replenish your supplies, so at this point, your machine guns become almost totally useless. You later get homing rockets that make blowing up enemy planes a trivial, meaningless task. This means that most of the game is so easy that you'll finish missions on the first try, though that feeling of extreme air superiority fits with the spirit of your elite squad. The lone exception is the eighth mission, which has you guarding Moscow's Red Square against German attackers. The game isn't particularly clear about what you need to do to protect the square from being destroyed, which makes this one mission a little harder than the rest. But for the most part, it's smooth sailing. A little too smooth, perhaps.

You'll upgrade your planes as you play using points earned in each mission, and you should have more than enough to buy everything by the end of the game. Different upgrades include better gun sights, faster-firing machine guns, armor and maneuverability enhancements, and so on. One upgrade makes your missiles explode if they get close to a target, which means you don't even have to score a direct hit to take out most planes. In combat, you'll be able to order your wingmen around a bit, and each guy has a special ability, just like in the previous game. One wingman will come back and taunt enemies to give you some breathing room, a skill you'll probably never actually need. Another will go on an aggressive attack and take out a handful of enemies, which is much more useful. The third is a mechanic that will occasionally repair your plane, though unlike in the first game, you don't have to hit a sequence of onscreen buttons to perform the repairs--he just fixes it automatically at checkpoints.

The single-player campaign is pretty satisfying, though it won't take too long for players to bust through it. That's not automatically bad, as flying around and blowing up everything in sight using a variety of destructive tools is actually quite fun. There's also a multiplayer side to the game, and it offers a lot of different modes and options for solo flights, team games, and cooperative play. The catch is that there seem to be very few people playing the game online, and aside from a solo dogfight here and there, it seems impossible to find anyone playing in any of the other modes. For what it's worth, the multiplayer matches we were able to actually get into weren't very exciting. Many matches take place in skies filled with little power-up icons that you can collect to reload your weapons, repair your plane, get double damage, and so on. The power-ups just don't really fit with the vibe of the rest of the game and make the whole thing seem a little hokey. On top of that, if you have a laggy connection to other players, they'll skip around so badly that no one will be able to hit each other. Being able to play cooperatively through the campaign missions is an attractive offer, though, so it might be worth convincing a handful of your friends to get a copy so you can all play together.

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Great Battles of Rome - Recycled edutainment and terrible production values make this RTS survey of Roman history stale and simple

2008-08-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Slitherine Software is getting a lot of mileage out of Legion. It's now been five years since the British developer launched this real-time strategy game, yet the company continues to recycle its engine to retell the story of how the Roman Empire conquered the world. This time around, the game is a derivative little number from Black Bean Games called The History Channel: Great Battles of the Roman Empire. The theme, such as it is, is a tactical real-time strategy survey course of battles with the Carthaginians, Greeks, Persians, and loads of pesky barbarians. Although the content adeptly highlights the struggles of the veni, vidi, vici boys through nearly a thousand years of history, the advanced age of the engine and the stale, simplistic battles make this game feel as fresh as Caesar's toga after he was finished with the Gauls.

Lack of depth is the biggest problem. The Roman campaign is a shallow collection of battles rounded up by historical period and introduced by video-clip cutscenes presumably borrowed from History Channel documentaries. You steadily work your way through virtually all of Roman history, moving from the early years when Rome needed to subdue the Italian peninsula, to the wars against regional powers that characterize the glory days of the Republic and the Empire. However, battles generally seem to be approximations of what actually happened, which means that many engagements are presented without dates or much in the way of historical background. Every now and then you take on a battle rooted in history, such as the betrayal and murder of Coriolanus, but you wage a ton of generic assaults against the Latins, Etruscans, Volsci, Greeks, Gauls, Persians, and the like.

When you finish the Roman scenarios, a second campaign is unlocked in which you guide the Celts, but by that point the anonymous nature of most of the battles will have likely worn you out. Even if you ignore the lack of dates and real context, look-alike enemy troops drawn from only a few basic archetypes such as skirmishers and cavalry make most of the engagements appear exactly the same. Are you fighting the Samnites or the Hernici? Who knows, and better yet, who cares?

Battles themselves are so simplistic and vary so little that it doesn't really matter who you're fighting. This is a basic tactical RTS, where you simply hop from one battle to the other, arranging troops and issuing most commands before entering the fray. Scraps are mainly prearranged, in that most orders are set prior to entering the battlefield. Units can be bossed around after the fighting starts, although this is limited by the need to replenish the order-point bar of your in-game general each time you direct a unit. At any rate, the lack of command options both during the deployment phase and during the action makes the whole order thing sort of a moot point. Battles all play out roughly the same, given that there is only so much you can do when your tactical options are limited to a handful of variations on holding, rushing, as well as holding for a bit and then rushing. Strategizing is also a waste of time during many battles because you can often simply charge enemy lines mindlessly and still wind up shouting "Roma victa!" at the end of the day. At least most of the engagements fly by. You can wrap up an average battle in a couple of minutes (a pace that makes the one-on-one LAN multiplayer mode of play something of a joke), so at least you're not sitting around waiting very long for outcomes.

Army management between battles is at least a little more involved. Although there is no resource management or any need to construct buildings, you do earn denari after successful battles and use this cash to purchase new units needed to bolster your army. Buying smartly is a must because the scenarios get progressively tougher (albeit in a pretty leisurely fashion) as you move through the campaign, which requires you to field a strong selection of soldiers. Troops also gain experience during battles and can be trained in various skills as they increase in level. So you can trick out militia with the swordsman ability to buff attacks, give skirmishers the junior NCO attribute to boost morale during battles, and enhance generals with the leadership option that lets them issue more orders during the fray. There is a good selection of these abilities on offer across all of the different unit types, which gives the game something of an RPG feel. However, units share many of these characteristics, so it's not as if there's a laundry list of enhancements from which to choose. Also, these options are generally passive stat boosts that work behind the scenes to aid attacking and defending, which means that you don't have to actually choose to employ them. Consequently, these skills don't have any readily discernible effect on how things play out once the swords start crashing and the javelins are launched skyward.

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Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties - The Asian Dynasties is a solid expansion that offers unique Asian civs and some other gameplay tweaks.......

2008-08-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

Since Age of Empires debuted in 1997, the series has grown to become one of the pillars of real-time strategy gaming. Its success is in part due to the way the series has shifted historical periods. The first game covers antiquity, from the Stone Age to the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, Age of Empires II focuses on the medieval era. And 2005's Age of Empires III is about the era of European exploration and colonization. This brings us to Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, the second expansion pack and the first game in the franchise not created by Ensemble Studios. Big Huge Games, creator of Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends, is responsible for The Asian Dynasties, and the company ably delivers a solid expansion.

What the expansion brings to the table are three new Asian civilizations--Japan, China, and India--as well as three campaigns built around them. The Japanese campaign deals with the Warring States period of rival Shogun; the Chinese campaign actually covers a naval expedition to the New World; and the Indian campaign is about throwing off the oppressive yoke of the East India Trading Company. The campaigns have their twists and turns, with a fair amount of betrayal going on, though the characters are drawn in such obviously black-and-white textures that it's not too hard to see the plot developments coming. For instance, most of the bad guys in the game speak with haughty, arrogant voices, while the good guys tend to be humbler and wiser.

The heart of the expansion is the three Asian civilizations, and Big Huge has done a good job in making them feel distinct from those seen in Age of Empires III. The Japanese are built around extremely powerful infantry units like samurai, while the Chinese and Indians can easily bring sheer mass to a battle in the form of large armies. The various economies reflect historical trends; for example, the Chinese and Indians can quickly boost their populations, giving them hordes of villagers to gather resources. One of the most important new features is actually the reintroduction of wonders to the game. Wonders are notable structures from history, and they played a significant role in the first two Age of Empires games, only to disappear in Age of Empires III. They're back in The Asian Dynasties, and each Asian civ has five to choose from. The ones that you select can help define your play style; we like the Chinese wonder that grants transcendence, or the ability to heal all your units instantly. That's particularly useful if you like to go on the offensive. Other wonders can boost resource gathering, grant free armies, and so on. Wonders are also important because they're the only way the Asian civilizations can advance from one technological age to another.

At the same time, the core game remains relatively the same. It's all about getting a large number of villagers out there gathering the three primary resources (food, wood, and gold) that are needed to build all your buildings, recruit your units, research your upgrades, and then advance to the next technological age to repeat the process all over again. The home cities concept is still here; you can request reinforcements or supplies from your civilization's capital. You do this by using special cards that you unlock. There are cards that can send military units, villagers, and resources, for example. You can also build custom decks that are designed for various strategies, like an economic deck that gives you bonus powers that aid your economy. Another unique aspect of the Asian civs is that they can use many of these cards twice, which can really help ramp up the size of an army or economy quickly. Serious players will no doubt spend lots of time analyzing the possible unlocks and building customized decks for different play styles, though you don't need to expend that much effort if you're a casual player, as the default deck is good enough.

One new feature is the foreign consulate, which allows Asian civilizations to ally with a European power and purchase reinforcements using tribute, which is a fourth resource that's unique to Asian civs. Tribute is basically a tax on your economy, and you can increase your rate of tribute at the price of a slightly slower economy, but what it does is allow you to purchase rare and powerful European units. The sudden appearance of a European army or navy to the battle can turn the tide of battle. Since you need to have Age of Empires III to play The Asian Dynasties, you can pit European and Asian civilizations against one another in skirmish or multiplayer modes on a wide variety of maps. Want to have Chinese warriors in New England? Go for it. The sides seem relatively well balanced even though they differ in how they advance from age to age. The Europeans tend to have a technological advantage, though the Asian civs tend to have a numerical one.

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Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun - This adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's classic mysteries ruins great acting and atmosphere with lots......

2008-08-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Agatha Christie was a mystery-writing machine. Over the course of a career that stretched some 50 years, she pretty much created the modern whodunit genre through over 80 detective novels and the creation of two famous sleuths in Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. So you expect good things from Evil Under the Sun, the third in a growing series of adventure-game adaptations of the author's best works. Unfortunately, we're once more left somewhat disappointed by developer AWE Games. The strong story and atmosphere lifted from one of Christie's best books fail to compensate for a ponderous pace and the many clichés aped from adventure gaming's past.

Nevertheless, fans of Christie's works can't help but get a little thrill from simply being able to guide Belgian detective Poirot through one of his most famous capers. Well, sort of. The plot only vaguely follows the events of the 1941 novel about the murder of a skanky actress at an English resort on Seadrift Island. AWE takes the same sort of liberties here as it did with its previous adaptations of Christie's And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. All of the characters from the book seem to be in their proper places, but a new ending has been tacked on to keep bookworms guessing. Purists will undoubtedly howl at this sacrilege, although it's hard to see how AWE could do anything else but alter the conclusion of a famous 66-year-old book. A straight rehash of the original would have just bored the core audience to tears. At any rate, this revamped take actually doesn't do any serious damage to the tale.

Yet that's not to say that the game makes a lot of sense. On the contrary, it comes complete with the pick-up-everything nonsense that troubles most point-and-click adventures. Given that AWE exercised a bit of imagination when it came to playing with the ending, the company could certainly have used yet more creativity when it came to rigging up adventure-game puzzles around the Evil Under the Sun plot points. Everything here is deeply derivative, which is to say that you collect all sorts of apparently useless junk wherever you go and then later throw it together to solve bizarre, impenetrable mysteries.

Poirot isn't so much a detective quizzing suspects as he is a kleptomaniacal MacGyver with a fruity moustache. He swipes rope and ladder posts from a beach to craft a bird blind needed to win the sympathies of a little girl. He steals a spatula from a chemist for the pure hell of it, somehow knowing that it will come in handy to clean mud off a cave wall at a later date. He robs a fellow hotel guest of his mineral oil for kicks, later realizing that it would be the perfect chemical to use to clean oil off a sea bird. At one point, you can actually stroll down the balconies that run alongside the second floor of your hotel and enter most guests' rooms at will, at which point you can rifle through their possessions to your heart's content. Maybe Miss Marple should hunt down Poirot for petty larceny in the next Christie mystery game.

At least all of the goofiness is logical when viewed from that peculiar adventure-game perspective, where it's assumed that you know to pocket things such as stray sandwiches in case you need to distract a dog later on. Or that you should grab big boulders on the off chance that a kid wants you to make a bird-watching blind for her. Or that you might find it helpful to sneak into hotel rooms to steal typing paper and cut the strap off a suitcase--that sort of thing. If you've played any adventure, you've been down this road before.

There are no set-piece logic puzzles here and only a little bit of detective-style sleuthing. The latter generally amounts to visiting locales again and again to ask nosey questions of everyone that you encounter. You typically revisit every location during each act of the game, and if any characters have moved, you'll recognize this as the universal adventure-game signal that they now have something new to say. Far too much time is spent wandering around the hotel and the beach, and enduring one slow-fade transition screen after another as you patrol the game's environs like a cop on a beat. It doesn't feel much like you're a detective trying to solve a mystery; instead, you come across as the stereotypically single guy on vacation, the loser desperately trying to stave off loneliness by chatting up anyone unfortunate enough to sit down beside him.

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Tribes of the East - Orcs and bloodlust feature strongly in Tribes of the East

2008-08-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

Orcs top the marquee in Tribes of the East, a stand-alone expansion pack that is expected to put the finishing touches on the Heroes of Might & Magic V franchise. If not, it probably should, because even though this add-on is loaded with new content, none of it is particularly interesting. Serious fans of the series will likely enjoy getting a look at the new Stronghold faction as well as taking on the tough missions in the three new solo campaigns, but everyone else will shrug and go back to waiting for Nival Interactive and Ubisoft to get going on Heroes VI.

For the few uninitiated out there, Heroes of Might & Magic V is a continuation of a classic fantasy-themed turn-based strategy series. However, Tribes of the East is a long way from essential to anyone aside from the Heroes V hardcore. Those who pick it up will find themselves with a solid, if derivative, series of new maps and enough gameplay tweaks to make the production feel a teensy bit fresh. The hook here is the new Stronghold faction, which consists of various types of orcs ranging from warriors to shamans, along with other wild humanoids such as goblins, centaurs, and cyclopes. The Stronghold fits in well with the existing factions and sort of resembles a mash of the Sylvan and Dungeon groups. Characteristics are somewhat familiar, at any rate, despite the fact that the overall personality of your grunts is not quite as cherubic as the former yet not quite as evil as the latter. (These guys wear grey hats.) Creatures are also similar. For example, the new bloodeyed cyclops plays much like the Sylvan treant, and the orcish recruits generally match up with their Dungeon dark-elf counterparts.

The story also centers around more of the same. The three campaigns carry over from last year's Hammers of Fate expansion. You start by guiding an orcish rebellion with the Stronghold in a single mission, move on to the Necropolis faction, go back to the orcs, and finally head to the Academy. Influence from the Dark Messiah of Might & Magic action game can be seen throughout the campaigns, especially in the Necropolis section, which revives that game's big baddie, the necromancer Arantir. Thankfully, you don't have to have any familiarity with Dark Messiah to understand what's going on here.

But you do have to be awfully good at Heroes V. Each of the 16 maps featured in the trio of campaigns is crushingly difficult. Challenges are extremely tough to take on from the very beginning, which forces you into a lot of repetition. Steadily moving through the maps and battling packs of monsters that guard the usual treasure hoards and magical artifacts is flat-out impossible, given that you never seem to pick up enough followers or have all the resources to buy ready reinforcements. You really can't waste units in even a single battle on most maps, unless you enjoy spending a lot of time and energy rebuilding troop strength. So, say hello to trial and error, not to mention the frequent reloading of saves. This really bogs down missions; even roadside battles with garden-variety gryphons and liches can take so much out of your armies that you're constantly backtracking for reinforcements, or even worse, hitting the end-turn button to zip through weeks to reload recruits and shrines. It all combines to feel cheap instead of challenging. Nival may have been looking for a quick way to lengthen the levels and make everything feel tougher, but in actuality it simply amped up the tedium.

There isn't really anything new here in the core gameplay, either. Missions are awfully formulaic, with objectives, landscape, enemies, encounters, and resource caches that will give you major-league déjà vu. As usual, you clear maps one road at a time by killing monsters at crossroads to open up new sections of each map. There are some new creatures, some new spells, some new sets of magical artifacts, and a revamped promotion scheme that provides alternate upgrades for units (though most aren't exactly imaginative). There are also a handful of new multiplayer and scenario maps, but you'd really have a tough time telling the new stuff from the old without the feature list sitting in front of you. The look and sound of the expansion seem to be exactly the same as in the original Heroes, too. Yet with all that said, there remains something in this formula that is still extremely addictive. Even with the repetitions forced on you by the harder missions and the same-old, same-old overall design, it's hard to stop playing...at least if you're a Heroes V fan who hasn't gotten enough yet.

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RACE 07 - The WTCC Game - SimBin's racer returns for a new season, adding brand new vehicle classes to the already excellent touring car series

2008-08-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

Swedish development studio SimBin may be a small independent developer, but it has enjoyed a prolific rise to the top of the PC racing simulation market. To build on the success of its first outing, GTR, the studio enlisted the support of the World Touring Car Championship and created RACE: The WTCC Game, winning over critics and customers in the process. The sequel, RACE 07, expands the game even further, with new racing classes, such as Formula 3000, Radical sports cars, and even Minis. While the game is fundamentally similar to the previous game, particularly in the dated graphics engine, these new racing classes add considerably more depth to an already impressive package.

Despite the addition of new racing classes and vehicles, RACE 07 still maintains its WTCC branding and subtitle. As a result, the focus is definitely on the touring car leagues, if only because the majority of tracks in the game are taken from current and previous WTC championships. Fans of WTCC will probably want to upgrade just to get the updated 2007 season information, but newcomers to the series should be pleased to see that the 2006 series is still included. This means that tracks that were dropped between seasons, such as Magny-Cours, Puebla, and Istanbul, are still in as part of the 2006 season, while replacements such as Zandvoort, Anderstorp, and Pau make it as part of the 2007 lineup. You can play the full championship from both seasons, which includes practice, qualifying, warm-up, and two races for each of the 10-11 meets. This means that getting through a full season is no mean feat; although, you can skip the prerace buildup if you like. As with real touring cars, drivers who consistently finish in the top rankings have weight added to their vehicles to balance things out.

RACE 07 is a serious racing game, but it's one that feels authentic without being stuffy. The game can be tailored to create the experience you want, with numerous driving assists that can be disabled to make the game more difficult. Antilock brakes, traction control, and stability assists can be turned off at any time during the race, but disabling them makes cornering all the more difficult. You can also make the game harder by choosing from the preset racing levels at the beginning of each race. On the novice setting, the damage level of each crash is limited to 30 percent of the real-world effect, while mechanical failure is turned off to prevent your car from ever breaking completely. On the pro level, damage affects your car more both technically and aesthetically, meaning that each bump has a noticeable effect on performance.

As if wrestling with your own car wasn't enough of a challenge, RACE 07 also provides some of the most convincing artificial intelligence that we've seen in a driving game. The AI does a convincing job of driving competitively, steering into your path to stop you from passing and even giving you the odd nudge, something which also happens between computer-controlled opponents. At the beginning of a race, you'll frequently see AI drivers tussling to the point where one car will end up going off the track or spinning out completely. Given the short nature of touring car races (most tend to stay below 15 laps, although this can be decreased if you like), there's relatively little thinning out of the pack, leading to some incredibly exciting races as a result. Even on the novice setting, it's difficult to gain a lot of time on your opposition, which means that you have to concentrate all the way to the finish line.

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1701 A.D. Gold Edition - This bigger, better take on 1701 A.D

2008-08-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

Finally making its way to North American shores is 1701 A.D. Gold Edition, a repackaging of the original city builder from 2006 and its Sunken Dragon expansion pack, which was originally released in Europe at the end of last year. This add-on was worth the wait, though, given that the new campaign adds swashbuckling fantasy to the nuts-and-bolts Caribbean economics of the game's previous incarnation. A lively story and characters, along with wide-ranging (if not exactly earth-shattering) mission goals, pack real personality into this revamp and make it a colorful trip back to the age of exploration.

Just don't expect a reinvention of the wheel. The original game came with only a sandbox mode of play and one-off missions, so adding a campaign with a scripted story about searching for an ancient artifact called the Eye of the Dragon lends a sense of purpose to all of your city-building endeavors in the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the actual game design isn't all that different from the non-golden 1701 A.D. The basics stick pretty closely to the standard city-building formula. Gameplay revolves around the management of island colonies and the goal of leading them to prosperity. The twin bottom lines are the financial balance sheet and colonist happiness, which are satisfied by erecting houses, churches, sheep farms, schools, and the like, as well as establishing trade routes and diplomatic relations with neighbors. Economics are pretty simple to follow. You identify an island resource such as ore or gold, or set up a structure such as a cattle farm or a tobacco plantation to create a resource, and then construct the businesses that turn these raw materials into usable goods for your citizens. If you do everything just right--and remember to link all of your buildings together with the roads needed to transport goods from one location to another--you'll end up having happy citizens who love their lives in a tropical paradise. Run short on a few key items such as clothing and food, however, and you'll wind up with disgruntled thugs.

So it's just like real life. But the Sunken Dragon campaign doesn't feel all that fresh when you get beyond the Indiana Jones-in-pantaloons hunt for a MacGuffin. Mission goals are pretty been-there, done-that. Old chestnuts such as reaching a set population total, hitting economic benchmarks, and setting up a trade route are all present and accounted for, and at times the gameplay feels a little too paint-by-numbers. But with that said, it's hard to imagine how you could jazz up a city builder like this with wildly out-there objectives, considering that most of the concerns addressed here are the same ones that had to be addressed by colonists in the real 18th-century Caribbean. And at least the campaign really mixes up goals so you don't feel like you're on a treadmill, and it ladles out fantastical derring-do to give the bean-counting colony-management stuff a whiff of high adventure.

Aside from the new campaign, the other additions are fairly modest. Four new computer-player profiles seen in the campaign are also available for use in sandbox games. A handful of new buildings and other items have been tossed in for the beautification of settlements, although they don't result in changes to gameplay. These accoutrements don't even alter the look of the game all that much, unless you're a flower fan really into the new, arching rosebushes, or a bird watcher grooving on attracting parrots and doves to the new aviaries. A meteor strike has been added to the hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters waiting to happen. It looks great and is suitably apocalyptic in scope, but it's so destructive that it pretty much ends your game immediately. As cool as this death-from-above disaster looks when it hits, it's not exactly welcome considering that the original game already had plenty of full-scale cataclysms that tore settlements to shreds. Having to take on yet another instant doomsday is unnecessarily frustrating. Finally, the expansion includes a new editor that lets you custom-craft maps and swap them for play online and off. It's very easy to use, and there is enough of a hardcore 1701 A.D. crowd out there (albeit mostly in Germany, from the looks of things online, so you might need to spreche das Deutsch to really get into it) that this might cause a mod community to grow around the game.

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