GurtGamer

Godfather

2011-04-02T12:45:00.001+02:00

The Godfather is a game developed by Headgate Studios, which is a fairly unknown company, mostly known for the Tiger Woods series. The company has been renamed to EA Salt Lake, which later developed games like Madden NFL 08, The Sims 2 Pets(Wii) and Nerf N-Strike(Wii). The Godfather can best be described as a sandbox-game with shooter elements, driven by the story of the movie.

The game starts out with a scene where a store blows up in front of a small boy. Soon after he sees how his father gets shot by a gangster and gets a clear look at him, but he is restricted from attacking him because Don Vito Corleone tells him that he'll get his revenge but that it's too early for that now. As some of you may have noticed, this is the beginning of the film. And throughout the game you'll run into these key-scenes all the time, now I haven't really checked whether or not every single one of them was actually a scene from the movie but quite a lot of them were, except for the side-missions but they mostly consist of killing some targets.

In the Godfather(game) you're a gangster and you'll get involved in all kinds of criminal activities, similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, only exception being is that the Corleone family doesn't deal drugs. But instead you extort stores, such as the local bakery, and take over illegal enterprises, such as a casino or a brothel. Racketeering is the major activity in the game, murdering your opponents and police is simply a tool to get there. Missions progress the story and give you bonuses for completing them such as money and respect, respect is used as an experience system in which you can use the points gained by leveling up on skills, so that you'll be more effective at laying waste amongst the enemy gang members. With money you can simply choose to buy out the owners of illegal enterprises, which saves you the hassle of slamming his head into the wall a couple of times before he gets the picture, stores however do need this encouragement in order for them to pay you protection money. Money also allows you to buy certain items, such as better guns and hideouts. The stores and businesses are divided amonst five families: Corleones, Stracci, Tattaglia, Barzini and Cuneo. Most of the time things are relatively peaceful and they won't fire at you, at least not on sight. But if you take away too many businesses and stores from them, you might provoke a gang war or cause them to shoot you on sight, which makes penetrating and taking over a business harder.

The graphics are fairly okay for it's time, it has a somewhat realistic look and it looks like many other games from that era. It doesn't really stand out from the crowd graphics-wise, due to the fact that the cities and the streets feel cold and dead. You'll often find yourself driving through similar looking streets without too many people walking about.

Sound-wise I have to say that the game isn't as well as one could hope for, since they only repeat the godfather theme song over and over again. There are little other songs to be found in this game. The gun-sounds do not really match the type of the gun, some guns sound way louder than they should. Another thing I found annoying in this game, was the sound of the car you're driving in, since you'll be listening to a monotone humming until you've reached your destination, and seeing as you're probably playing your own music in the background(you'll grow tired of the godfather theme song, however beautiful it may be) so creates some static noise in the background of your own songs.

To conclude this review, I had fun with this game, the amount of hours of gameplay is well worth your money, you might not spend a lot of time on it in one row since it does become boring over time due to the cold streets and cities. But I think it's safe to say that this game is worth your money, especially if you have a thing for the Godfather series.

Elite Forces: WWII Normandy

2011-01-25T16:02:00.005+01:00

Elite Forces: WWII Normandy is a game created in February 2001 by Third Law Interactive and published by our big friends at ValuSoft. This game is a first person shooter. When I first saw that this game was from ValuSoft I expected it to be bad. My expectation was wrong, this game has been crapped out by Satan himself.

When first playing this game I had problems with the controls. We all know the typical controls of a first person game. W is forward, S backward, A left, D right and so on. But in this game those controls have been moved one to the right. Why?! And why is X the use button, why do they even use X. What's also funny is that you can edit those controls, with delete. That didn't work with my game, delete is now my 'explosives' button.

When I inspected the back of the box I noticed that the publisher was very fond of it. In their view the game has, and I quote: 'Adrenaline-charged warfare, state-of-the-art 3D technology and realistic lighting and environments'. Well, they're speaking the truth about the adrenaline part, your character moves way to fast to play this game regularly. The second part is ridiculous, just watch the video below. And to be fair, the third part is bullshit too, the environment looks like a painting and the only realistic lighting is complete darkness when it's 1:00 AM.

The box claims more: Advanced enemy AI including taking cover from fire. Nonsense, your enemies are almost static and if one even manages to move his legs he runs around like a beheaded chicken. They've already spawned behind cover when you enter a level, and remain there. Historical accurate weapons: Yes could be true, but that MP40 looks like it has been made at the local hardware store. What's next? A soldier trying to use a chainsaw as a weapon? Were they really that low on supplies? (contrary to what you might think, chainsaws are NOT effective weapons in wars)

The game consists of only 10 missions, which you can complete within an hour because they're all short missions with simple objectives like killing all the enemies, get from point A to B (which is almost the same as killing all enemies, there is mostly only one way to get from A to B) or destroying something by touching it. When touching something that has to be destroyed you'll see the line: 'You've destroyed the equipment'. It doesn't explode, you just get that awesome line.

There isn't much to say about the sound. The game has standard gun sounds. I was surprised that the Germans speak German. They don't say much different lines though, mostly 'hilfe' (help) when they get shot. I think I've said enough about the graphics already, but considering that it's from 2001 I shouldn't expect groundbreaking graphics.

In conclusion: I think this game has been made to honor the 101st Airborne Division, the men who were dropped behind enemy lines on June 6th 1944. But, this game is a disgrace to those brave men. This game can be fun though, but if you're drunk any game can be. I suggest you try to buy this game for a very, very low price, then go out with your friends and play this game afterwards with all your friends.

Men of War

2011-01-16T15:13:00.003+01:00

Men of War is a real-time tactics video game and the sequel to the 2006 game Faces of War, developed in partnership with Best Way (Soldiers: Heroes of World War II) by Digitalmindsoft and published by 1C Company, 505 Games and Aspyr Media. The game was released in 2009. The single player campaign takes place during World War II and features battles in Europe, the Soviet Union, Greece, and North Africa, across three different campaigns for the Allies, Germans and Soviets. Men of War features Japan as a new multiplayer faction.

I have never played a game like this before, it plays like a strategy game but in this one you have to micromanagement your units, which means that you have to check there inventory over time to see if they have enough ammo left for further encounters with the (mostly much larger) army of the enemy. In the prequel, Faces of War, you mostly controlled a few men while fighting large battles alongside many allies. In Soldiers: Heroes of World War II you controlled small groups fighting the enemy.

In Men of War both scenarios take place (sometimes you even play with one unit) but sometimes you have control over a complete army (100+ units) and then it's almost impossible to micromanagement all your units. In some missions you're also able to call in reinforcements, which can be infantry, tanks, artillery support or ammunition deliveries. In order to call in these reinforcements you have to get sufficient points (The amount of points required varies on the type of reinforcement you choose) and you get these points over time. Unfortunately these reinforcements are limited so in some cases you have to use tactics to defeat a larger force. For example, you can use your main force to suppress a bigger enemy force and then order a small attack force to flank them. A thing I like is that you can destroy different parts of vehicles, like the tracks of a tank. In some cases that's also the way to destroy a much stronger tank than yours. For example, a King Tiger tank is much stronger than a Sherman tank, you can't just penetrate it's hull because it's to thick for your ammo. That means that the King Tiger is much stronger than the Sherman, but it's also a lot slower. First take out the tracks, then drive around it and destroy it's engine and it's crew will burn to death. You can also sacrifice some infantry by running right towards it and throw some anti tank grenades but I don't recommend that.

The singleplayer game features 19 missions divided in three campaigns (Soviet, German and Allies). When you're just beginning with the game you can only play the Soviet campaign, when you complete it the other campaigns become available. There is also a bonus section with five extra single missions which you can play after you've completed the first campaign. It took me 35 hours to complete all missions on an easy difficulty setting. Some of the missions are really hard, especially when you have to defend a certain area against a much larger enemy. The vid below is one of these missions.

A thing that I've also never seen before in a strategy game is direct control. You can choose to directly control a single unit with keyboard and mouse, turning the game into a third person shooter.

The graphics of this game are great. You can almost destroy everything. Being suppressed by a group of enemies in a building? Just blow it up! The sound is also great, but the soundtracks can get lame over time. As you can hear in the vid there aren't many different soundtracks so you'll hear the same music over and over again.

Tired of trying the same level over and over again? You can also play multiplayer.

In multiplayer, there are 5 different factions to choose from; The United States, Commonwealth forces, Germany, Soviet Union and Japan. This game introduces a ranking system based on the ratio of a player's wins to losses with the various multiplayer factions.

In conclusion: I really had fun with this game, you should really try it when you want to play something else than the typical strategy game. The graphics are great and the game is really challenging.

Dragon Age: Origins

2010-11-04T14:04:00.010+01:00

Dragon Age: Origins was released in November 2009. The game was developed by Bioware, which is known for games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Mass Effect. Electronic Arts published this game, EA is known for a large variety of video games. Dragon Age: Origins can best be described as a story-driven single-player RPG in a medieval fantasy setting, you play the game in real-time and not turn-based.

The game features a set of Origins stories based on your character's race, gender and class. For example,when you start out as a female dwarven noble warrior (the first being gender, the second being race, third being social class and fourth being your class) you'll have a different story then when you start out as a male Dalish elven archer. Each of these origins take about half an hour to complete, after that you'll roll into the main storyline which is the same every time you play. You'll be recruited as a Grey Warden, after completing a series of quests. A grey warden has to defend the world against the Darkspawn, which are vile wretched creatures that try to extinct humankind, who once in a while are led by what is known as an Archdemon, which is a dragon who has been taken over by a demon. So it's your duty as a grey warden is to find out the archdemon and destroy it and before doing so you'll need enough allies in order to cut through the horde and battle the archdemon. It's best not to go in deeper on the storyline, simply because the game is very story-driven and I would ruin the experience.

Dragon Age: Origins places a lot of emphasis on the story-line, yet leaves the player with a lot of freedom. During pretty much any quest you can choose what side you're on and they're not always based on an evil/good basis. Quite often you'll find yourself in moral dilemmas, like choosing whether or not to kill someone for his crimes even though you've had him as a friend during your origins-story. But even though there's quite a lot of freedom in this game, the game also limits your freedom at certain points, like not being able to decline the offer to become a grey warden, no matter how hard you resist, in the end they'll just force you. And you'll always inevitably have to destroy the archdemon and after this the game ends, and even though you can load the game after completion there's not much sense in doing so, seeing as there's nothing left for you to do.

The gameplay in this game is rather standard for RPG's, you slay hordes of enemies and use the experience in order to level up and invest points in skill/spell trees. But aside from that you can choose 2 specialisations(one at level 7 and the other at level 14) which give bonusses to certain attributes which improves your fighting and other things. Throughout the game you'll fight various bosses, which will advance the storyline as the boss is dependant on which side you are. These bossfights are often truly awesome sometimes they are finished of with a slow-motion finishing move, that bring tears to even the most hardened blood-hound. Throughout the game you'll have three companions fighting with you, these companions are found throughout the game, by doing certain quests or picking a certain side on a matter. Sadly, you are limited to three companions at a time, so even if you have 8 companions, you'll only be able to take 3 of them with you, the rest will wait at the camp (unless they are required to be with you, then they'll pop up). When you're battling enemies you can use various items, such as traps and bombs in order to damage the enemy, I personally didn't use them since all my characters were strong enough to kill them using a blade(even my mage, I made him an Arcane Warrior, which is similar to the warlock class found in most other rpg's, it only uses magic in order to make their fighting better). Whilst fighting you can also use various talents and spells in order to inflict greater damage on enemies or slowly sap away their health by putting them on fire, poisoning them and so on. Now obviously there are way too much spells and talents to describe everything do, but I'm sure you get the idea.

What I personally like most about this game is that it's a mature RPG, it isn't about some childish looking retards with squeeky voices wearing ridiculously huge sword and stupid-looking armour. It doesn't rub away aspects of live simply to target a younger, more profitable audience. In this game you can start relationships with a couple of your companions and even have sex with them, there's nothing really functional or fun about this, but it does help in order to keep you interested in the game as it'll make you feel more involved in the storyline. The game also doesn't cower away from blood and gore, you'll see people, animals and darkspawn getting decapitated by your party amongst a lot of other things. It's something that adds a lot reality to the game and also feels rewarding, when you see your character stabbing the dragon in his neck when you've tried so many times to defeat it.

The graphics in this game probably aren't as good as most other games released about this time, they're still good but not groundbreaking. However I do find the world and how it's been set-up, both storywise and graphic-wise, unique and beautiful, almost every armor is unique and well designed and has an own feeling to it. even when it's the same armour but made with a different material, there's always something that changes about the armour, like the colour. But the helmets aren't as nicely designed as the armour-sets, they are often ridiculous and ugly. But overall, the graphics are rather pretty although a bit blurry, but the designs make up for that. The surroundings and designs of cities are beautiful and original, like the city of Orzammer, the dwarven capital, it's an underground city with a lot of carved statues and lava which sometimes runs in canals or waterfalls (lavafalls?).

I highly suggest buying this game, I personally spend more than 300 hours on this game and I am not even that into RPG's. Dragon Age: Origins brings a fun and unique experience. There are no annoying glitches or flaws that could prevend anyone from having fun with this game. I'd say that this game is definatly worth your money, unless you truly resent RPG's.

Demon's Souls

2010-09-30T20:46:00.005+02:00

Yes, we know that we didn't post any review in about a month, but we had other things to do, like playing the game I want to talk about: Demon's Souls. Demon's Souls is a very extensive (and so is this review) fantasy action RPG developed by Atlus exclusively for the PS3. It was released in Japan on February 5, 2009; in the U.S on October 7, 2009 and in Europe on June 25, 2010. Atlus is best known for developing the RPG franchise Megami Tensei.

First of all, what have they done with the title of this game? Shouldn't it be Demon Souls or Demons Soul? I know I may be nitpicking here, but still, at first I thought the game would be full of grammar mistakes. Luckily, they didn't make any more noteworthy mistakes in the actual game. It just looks a bit clumsy when it's the first time you see the title.

Long ago...

The people who united the world by the power of souls awakened the Old One with their insatiable desires. The Old One brought with it a thick, colorless fog and hordes of demons: half the world an countless souls were lost.

The ancients sealed the dozing beast inside the Nexus and entrusted six elders with six precious Archstones. One to the king of a small yet diligent land. One to the king of the burrowers underground. One to the wise queen of the great ivory tower. One to the chieftain of lost and ill-fortuned souls. One to the shaman of the tempest-worshiping shadowmen, and the last to the great giants of the Northern Lands.

In the present day, the northern kingdom of Boletaria, ruled by King Allant the twelfth, was abruptly swallowed by a strange, colorless fog. None who dared penetrate the deep fog ever returned, until Vallarfax of the Twin Fangs broke free and told the world of Boletaria's plight.

The Old King Allant aroused the Old One, the great beast below the Nexus, from its eternal slumber, which brought the colorless fog, unleashing terrible demons that hunted man and claimed their souls. Those who lost their souls also lost their minds. The mad attacked the sane, and chaos reigned.

The legend spread quickly. Mighty warriors were drawn to the accursed land, but none have returned. The colorless fog now slowly creeps beyond Boletaria's borders, and humankind faces a slow and steady extinction as the deep fog will eventually swallow all lands near and far.

But Boletaria has one final hope. A lone warrior has braved the baneful fog... has the land found its savior, or have the demons found a new slave?

And that is the storyline people. Confused? I'm too, but RPG's mostly have confusing story lines so I'll just swallow it. The main goal in this game is to defeat all the demons in all the worlds, and in the end you'll have to put the Old One back in its slumber.

After you've chosen your favorite character class (10 classes!) you'll die in the tutorial and after that your soul is send to the Nexus, a safe place where warriors who are fighting the demons can rest. You can also buy spells, miracles, weapons, upgrade weapons, improve your stats and eventually you'll meet other characters that do other stuff for you. The currency in this game are souls, which you obtain by killing enemies and consuming souls you obtain during your quest. In the Nexus you can choose out of five worlds you want to play, each world is divided in levels and at the end of a level you'll fight a demon. If you're able to defeat the demon you'll obtain a demon soul and your life is granted back.

When you're in soul form you don't have your HP at its max, so it almost is essential to be alive. There are four ways to be send back to the land of the living. The first way I've described earlier, kill a demon. The second way is to use a Stone of Ephemeral Eyes which instantly revives you. The third way is to leave a blue soul sign, which you do by using the blue eye stone (can be done infinitely, but only at certain locations in the world). If another player sees you're sign he's able to summon you as blue phantom and if you together kill a demon, he gets further in the game, and you'll be revived, plus you get souls for every kill. The final way is to invade other players' worlds with the black eye stone, and kill the living player as black phantom. If you're able to kill him and all possible guiding blue phantoms you will be revived. But beware, your character's soul tendency will get black, and if you kill a lot of players even the world's tendency is affected.

World Tendency influences difficulty and controls additional events that occur. It is independent from Character Tendency for the most part. World Tendency controls how powerful the enemies are in a given world. In summary: Pure White Tendency enemies are easier to kill, but drop fewer, less valuable items and hold the least number of souls. Healing items are dropped more frequently. Pure Black Tendency enemies are tougher, but drop more valuable items in greater abundance. They hold the largest number of souls. The actions of the player influence World Tendency while in a particular World, but the effect of those actions on World Tendency is only recorded on return to the Nexus. Earning all Trophies is only possible by changing World Tendency.

World Tendency has events which affect a World, Character Tendency has its own risks and rewards and adds special content as well. Character tendency is roughly analogous to an alignment or karma for your character. Your character's tendency is independent of the world tendencies. Similarly it affects the difficulty, and at Pure White or Pure Black, adds some content to the game. Character Tendency carries over to new games.

Yes, even when you're able to complete this game, you can start all over again with even harder enemies in New Game +. The challenge really begins here.

The developers of this game even did a great job with the graphics, although some people expected more gore in the game, which I can understand. But still, the graphics look fine. The sounds also have been done rather well. You often don't hear any soundtracks, except when you're fighting a demon (every demon has its own soundtrack). Another thing I was surprised about are the short loading times for such a large game, 15-30 sec. And you'll only get a loading screen when you travel between a world and the Nexus or when dying (which happens quite more often than traveling between worlds, believe me).

In conclusion I can say that this game is maybe the most valuable game around on PS3 because of the great replay value with New Game +. A single playthrough will take you more of 24 hours to accomplish. There are also a lot of things you can't acquire in your first playthrough so it even has a purpose to play again. Aside from that the game is just great to play, with nice hack and slash gameplay. The thing I also like is that you're able to leave messages to other players like: 'There is treasure ahead', or even random bullshit like: 'this is no time to read messages' is always great to read when you're in a demon battle and you want a hint to kill it. I even wasn't able to tell you about all the content that's in this game, it's so overwhelming. If you're smart, you'll buy this game, it really is worth your money.

Carmageddon: TDR 2000

2010-08-31T18:11:00.024+02:00

Carmageddon: TDR 2000 is a game developed by Torus Games. This company is known for games such as Shrek: Smash and crash racing(PSP,PS2, NGC, NDS,GBA), Planet of the Apes(GBC, GBA) and various handheld games based on movies and series. The game was published in europe by SCI and in north america by Xicat Interactive. SCI is known for series such as the Conflict and Carmadeddon series, aside from those series it has also released other games such as Total Overdose and The Italian Job. Xicat Interactive is known for games such as Gothic, Coaster Works and Ballistics. Carmageddon: TDR 2000 was released in 2000 and was the sequel to Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now.

In Carmageddon: TDR 2000 there isn't much of a storyline, the intro explains that the rich have build tightly secured police cities which are sealed off from the rest of the world, in which they have gathered people in beginning of the New Millenium. The rich took everyone except for the poor and filthy in the city(as perceived by the rich), after that they nuke the former cities, killing millions. But the people outside Paradise(the places ruled by the cops and the rich) weren't defeated yet and were growing in numbers each day, even though they were no longer classed as humans due to mutations. In this rubble you'll attempt to make it into Paradise, something that no-one was able to do before. Throughout the game you'll visit various cities that still inhabit people and your task is to get out of those cities seeing as they're tightly sealed of as well, to keep the murderers and pillagers out. Throughout the missions you complete you'll realise that the cops still meddle with the cities outside of Paradise, because they smuggle and sell various goods and also offer services to local gangs that have filled the absence of the government.

Carmageddon: TDR 2000 is a racing game in which you have three ways of winning, either by taking out the opponents, winning the race or killing all pedestrians. All across the map are powerups that can both help but disadvantage you as well. There are two basic icons for powerups, I'll define them by color since that's the easiest. Red will grant you weapons and turbo's, yellow changes something in the environment, which can be positive but negative as well. Green gives you money(or credits), with which you can buy other cars or upgrade your motor in the shop, which makes the game a lot easier. In some levels you'll be able to pick up nuclear bombs, even when there isn't a mission that requires you to blow something up. There are also powerups that appear as red triangles, but the powerups you get from them are selected at random, as far as I can tell. As you progress through the game you'll unlock more cars(which still need to be bought, using credits) and tracks, most tracks give the player six missions, usually they involve blowing things up,a standard race or collecting things, the last one always requires the player to escape the town. The only exception to this format is the track called The Bridge, which is the level before the last level, this level requires the player to cross a bridge whilst evading mines and opponents. Pretty much everything thing you do within a race or a mission grants you money, from killing pedestrians to blowing up opponents. The opponents also have AI in this game, which means that they assign tasks to themselves, such as finding money, killing pedestrians, killing you and driving through check-points. So if you happen to get an opponent aggravated, it's quite possible that he's going to have a fight to death with you. There are also non-opponent enemies in the game, such as gang-vehicles and cops, who will often attack you on sight. Gang members that walk around on foot will also harass any racing cars that come by, by throwing Molotov cocktails and trashing cars using iron bars.

The graphics of this game are great compared to other games released in 2000. Other games released in the year 2000 tend to be quite blocky and grayish, whilst in Carmageddon: TDR 2000 this is kept to a minimum. It's not realistic in anyway but the most objects and terrains are quite detailed. The special effects like blood and explosions are nice as well, if you hit a pedestrian full on whilst driving extremely fast, you see the blood and intestines flying everywhere, and of course his limbs. Every city has it's own feeling to it, some feel more post-apocalyptic, others more deserted an so on.

The sound in Carmageddon: TDR 2000 is pretty good as well, although most sound effects sound like they've been taken from movies, for example the explosion sound very standard, just like most other sound effects. The tracks in this game are great, the upbeat rock-songs really fit the game like a glove. Sadly, there are only a few songs or the other songs in the game simply aren't memorable, but the few that are there are really fun to listen to.

So, to conclude this review, this game is great and you should really play it, when you have the chance. Beware though, most newer operating systems have trouble running this video game, but if you're still running XP you'll be fine. The game's definitely worth checking out, even after all these years, the fun it provides is timeless.

Joint Task Force

2010-08-11T21:52:00.003+02:00

This RTS was developed by Most Wanted Entertainment and published by HD Publishing and Sierra Entertainment and released in 2006.

In JTF you follow a JTF battalion and it's commander, Mayor Matthew O'Connell where you fight in five different countries: Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Colombia.
There the JTF fight for control and stability. The missions in JTF are based on actual combat situations.

The game includes officially licensed vehicles and weapons systems from major defense contractors, like Boeing, General Dynamics e.d.
So think of Apachee and the M1 Abrams tank.

The game focusses heavily on making tactical decisions.
To purchase new troops and equipement, you get money at the start of a mission or during a mission after completing an objective.
But not everything can be brought in by helicopter (that's the way how light equipement and troops are brought in). In order for you to get access to the heavier gear, like tanks, you have to capture an airstrip.

The graphics in the game are pretty nice. The maps are well developed with a lot of diversity. Effects like explosions and the weather are detailed, so are the vehicles, troops and environment.
Now the gameplay is something else. There were some moments that made no sense at all. Moments where my tanks were destroyed by men with grenades (not RPG's) or where my men got gunned down by a small squad when they had superior numbers.
The rest is pretty basic, so you won't encounter any weird controls.

Conclusion: Joint Task Force is a good game with a nice map design and detailed graphics. It has it's weird moments but that won't ruin the game.

Death Rally

2010-08-08T18:43:00.012+02:00

Death Rally is a top-down perspective racing video game developed by Remedy (Remedy also created the Max Payne series), published by Apogee (Duke Nukem, which explains why there is a character named Duke Nukem in this game) and distributed by GT Interactive (Doom, Driver and more). It was released on September 6, 1996 on DOS and Windows.

This is one of those games that doesn't have a story, but only has pure action. Your goal is to reach the first spot out of 20 drivers. When you've completed that goal you may try the final race against the Adversary. When you start this game you'll be asked if you want to use weapons, and I suggest that you use them, because it makes the game a lot funnier. When you begin the game all drivers have more points than you, and Duke Nukem/Sam Speed is 100 points ahead of you. You can choose an avatar, when you choose Duke Nukem, Sam Speed will be the fastest driver, when you choose Sam Speed, Duke Nukem is, but when you choose another avatar they both are there, but Duke Nukem will have the fastest and strongest car, so choosing his avatar is the best thing to do. There are a couple of cars in the game, you'll start with a Vagabond (a Volkswagen Beetle in real life) and for purchasing other cars you'll need money by winning races and completing sub objectives. There are a couple sub objectives that can appear before you start a race. Sometimes you need to pick up some drugs and also win the race to get some extra cash and sometimes you have to kill one particular racer. However, when you fail these objectives you'll lose the amount of money that you were offered when you succeeded, so you'll have to be sure that the objective is possible. The better your car is, the more bonus money you'll gain if you complete one of the sub objectives. You can also win extra cash by eliminating the three other racers or winning the race without getting damaged.

You can also use the money to purchase some upgrades for your car. For example, the Vagabond has one engine upgrade (which makes it faster), two tire upgrades (which increases the handling of the car) and one armor upgrade (you take less damage from mines and machine gun fire). You'll also need to repair your car after each race, because if you don't do that the damage from the previous race still is there and most likely you'll be eliminated, and thus you've no income that race. You have three types of races in which you can subscribe (Note: there are only four starting tickets for each race and there are 20 racers, so not everybody is able to race) : Easy, medium and hard. The harder a race is, the faster are your rivals, but you'll also win more price money. Before you pick a race you're also able to install some one time only upgrades on your car. You can install mines, spikes on your front, rocket fuel and you can sabotage the best ranked racer so that his/her car is already damaged before the race starts. It can happen that you've ran out of money and that your car is 100% damaged. When this happens you can take a loan. You have three races to pay back the loan with a large amount of interest.

While you're racing you're also able to pick up some extra items that are laying on the ground, like extra ammunition for your machine gun, extra power for your turbo, drugs (which you don't want to pick up) mines (from you or other racers, ether way, you don't want to drive over these things, they can cause a lot of damage, depending on your armor level) and cash, the harder the race is, the more cash you'll gain with one pickup.

Considering this game is from 1996, it has amazing graphics, the environment is in 3D! However, your car is not, so let's call this game 2.5D. Level design is okay. When you're racing you realize that your opponents are much stronger than you, because when you hit them you mostly end up against a wall.

I really think this game is great, and it is just awesome. Man, this is one of those games that you can play hours and hours without stopping. The races are short, so after each race you think: Let's do another one, and before you know it it's dark outside. And this story gets even greater: This game was updated for modern operating systems and re-released as freeware by Remedy in 2009.

Netstorm: Islands at War

2010-08-01T19:16:00.008+02:00

NetStorm: Islands At War is a real-time strategy PC game, developed by Titanic Entertainment and published by Activision in 1997. Titanic Entertainment went bust after releasing this game. Although a single-player campaign and tutorial missions are included, Netstorm is primarily designed for online play, allowing for games of up to eight players. However, in May 2002 the official servers were closed, because less and less players were playing the game online. Shortly after the servers were closed, fans of the game set up unofficial servers to keep Netstorm alive.

There isn't really a storyline in this game, you just play three campaigns (that is, if you're able to complete all the levels in the first campaign, after you've done that you unlock mission 1 in the second campaign and so on). The gameplay of this game is relatively simple but quite innovative for its time, as few moving units are used, in contrast to other real-time strategy games, such as Command & Conquer. The battle area consists of a number of islands, each one controlled by an individual player. You're able to build bridges to extend the battlefield, since you can build structures in mid air if they connect with a bridge, and that bridge must connect with your main island. You're also able to build a new bridge that starts from the placed structure. Each player has a priest. You must defend your own priest and capture the enemy's priest and sacrifice him in an Altar.

The most important structure in the game is the Temple. When you lose this building your priest will be immobilized and the enemy is able to build structures on your island, since you don't own it anymore. When the priest is immobilized he can be picked up by a transport unit, such as a Golem, Crystal Crab, Balloon etc. If your able to kill the transporter before he puts your priest into the Altar, he's able to move again.

The currency in this game are so called storm crystals, which you can collect from storm geysers. Some are located on your main island, but most of them you have to connect with your island using bridges. These storm geysers only have a limited amount of storm crystals available, so you have to connect as many as possible to your main island. There is also another way to gather resources, and that is destroying the enemy's buildings. You'll gain 50% of that building's worth in storm crystals after you've destroyed one.

There are several classes of units, including offensive units, defensive units and transport units. Only transport units can actually move and they are mainly used to collect the storm crystals from the storm geysers that appear randomly around the map. Both the offensive and defensive units are static, once placed they cannot be moved. Each offensive unit has an area or line of fire in which it can attack and destroy enemy units. Defensive units serve to provide cover to other offensive units while they make their attack. All units need energy before they can be placed. Energy structures also have an area which they support with energy. Energy structures themselves also need energy from another energy structure to be placed. Ironically, if one of the energy units in the chain is destroyed, all the others keep operating, so you can still build units within their range.

The key to victory in this game is fast bridge building, at least in the single player it is. Quickly cut of the enemy's supply routes to storm geysers is essential. However, there is a way to destroy the bridges, and that is to build an unit of your own next to it, and then salvage that unit so that the bridge collapses. However, the AI doesn't use this method so fast bridge building around his island is the key to victory, especially when you only have one enemy. If you have more than one enemy, the best thing you can do is to quickly build a bridge to the current storm geyser they're using. If you do that you can place an unit to kill their transports, and eventually immobilize their priest, since the priest can also gather storm crystals, and he will drop by to gather crystals after all the transports have been killed.

The graphics of the game are okay, but they get the job done. The game is quite old, so don't expect to much. It can make some people not really try the game. This area is one of the weaker areas of the game. That doesn't hurt the gameplay much though, if you can ignore the graphics, there is a good game behind it.

The sound in Netstorm is pretty decent. Originally, the game doesn't have a soundtrack, but a couple of fans did make an unofficial soundtrack. The original sound is decent and doesn't seem to repeat too often. Each resource gatherer will make some sound when you click on them, and those sounds are well done. The battle sounds are good as well. Nothing special really, but appropriate for the game.

In conclusion: Although the game is quite old, I've really enjoyed playing this game again. And I'm sure you could too, if you're able to look past the graphics. Netstorm's single player really is challenging at times, even when using that bridge trick. The game also still has a community that organizes tournaments among their members.

Netstorm is considered abandonware by some, and can be downloaded here.

America's Army 3

2010-07-27T17:24:00.007+02:00

America's Army (also known as AA or Army Game Project) is a series of video games and other media developed by the United States Army and released as a global public relations initiative to help with recruitment. There were several versions released beginning in 2002, and I'm reviewing the latest version: America's Army 3, which was released in June 2009. The game is a squad-based realistic first person shooter.

The first time you start this you'll have to complete a training in which they explain the basics, such as how to use your weapons. Which is kinda essential in a war. When you complete the training you'll unlock various pieces of equipment. The controls are very smooth, especially when considering it's a free game. There is relatively little lag in this game, there are many servers and most servers have a policy of kicking people that have a ping that's too high. By completing more and more training sessions you'll unlock more equipment and abilities that can be used in online multiplayer. This game doesn't feature a singleplayer mode. Training sessions can be bought with points you accumulate during online matches. There are multiple game-modes such as Domination(called Take and Hold), Escort(having to defend a VIP through an area or kill him), TDM(Classic Mode).

During the game you'll achievements and other scores which all add up to your account and help training sessions. Your profile shows a graph with letters LDRSHIP which stand for:
Loyalty: Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit and other soldiers. Use teamwork, stick together and operate as a unit.
Duty: Fulfill your obligations. Complete mission objectives. Mission first.

Respect: Treat people as they should be treated. Respect your fellow soldiers, follow the plan.

Selfless Service(not Schütz Staffel, the other SS): Put the welfare of the Nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own.

Honour: This is an average of everything else.
Integrity: Do what's right, legally and morally. Don't violate the Rules of Engagements, play fair.

Personal Courage: Face fear, danger or adversity (physical or moral). Engage the enemy, take calculated risks.

During the training sessions you aren't allowed to shoot your superiors, because you'll be thrown into jail if you do shoot them. Sadly, you can't have an epic breakout in order to join Al Qaida and fight against the american army. The american army also seems to have spelling problems since there are multiple instances at which Sergeant is written wrong. In america's army you're always playing as the american army, you can't decide to be the enemy, whoever that may be, because it's never told.

The graphics in america's army are okay, the environments are rather underwhelming, but the character models and weapons are quite detailed. The objects are also rather detailed and well done, however not everything really fits together, because you can clearly see where an object ends and a new object begins, so it gives a bit of a sterile feeling. There is also way too little blood in the game to make it seem realistic, graphics-wise. You also don't see ripped off limbs and other things that are common in war, which results in certain battles to be not as epic as they could be. Wouldn't it be awesome to see your entire squad being ripped apart by a grenade, now they only drop to the ground like ragdolls, because it's based on the unreal 3 engine.

As far as sound and music goes, AA3 is really realistic, most sounds seem to have been recorded from real guns and have not been produced by using software. There isn't much music to be found in the game except for the music in the menu, which is the song they have been using since the first game. The song is rather standard, it's semi-epic and quasi-good.

I've enjoyed this game, the overall experience was good, the problems I had with this were so small that they didn't ruin the overall experience. I think this game is definitely worth checking out. The game is free so why wouldn't you?

Will Rock

2010-07-20T20:19:00.026+02:00

Will Rock is a game developed by Saber Interactive and published by Ubisoft. Saber Interactive is known for having developed Timeshift(released in 2007) and in 2010 they will release Inversion. Ubisoft is known for quite a lot of games and series, such as the Rayman series, Assassin's Creed, Brothers in Arms and many more. Will Rock was released in june 2003.

In Will Rock you're playing as Willford Rockwell. Willford is a young archaeologists who heads down to Mount Olympus in order to investigate a possible entrance of a temple, but as soon as he starts examining the entrance things go bad, the Olympian Restoration Army kidnaps your girlfriend and performs a ritual which opens the gate, through which they flee, but during a gunfight one of the statues is hit, and Prometheus arises from the statue striking down on the remaining ORA members. Then he turns to you and asks you to combine your power so that you do him a favor and kill Zeus and his minions and you'll get your girlfriend back. And at the end this will be exact what's going to happen, so there are no plot-twists in this game, it's more of an intro and and outro really.

Will Rock is an old-school first person shooter, you walk around, picking up weapons and items and shoot enemies, lots of enemies. Because in Will Rock you'll have to kill hundreds of enemies per section of a level. Luckily they are all quite easy to kill, it's just the sheer amount of them that are giving you a hard time sometimes, although I have to admit that the game is fairly easy. There are some differences between a normal shooter and Will Rock, primarily it's the fact that you can get powerups throughout the game. There are three powerups you can get Titan Damage, Titan Motion and Invulnerability. Titan Damage increases the damage you do for 30 seconds, Titan Motion gives you slow-motion for 30 seconds and Invulnerability makes you invincible for 30 seconds. The gameplay and controls feel very smooth and give you absolute control over your character, which is something I like in videogames, because it can help you a lot in certain situations, but more on that in the section about leveldesign. The weapons you can use in this game are a shovel, a pistol, a shotgun, a machine gun, a minigun, an acid gun, a medusa gun, an atomic gun(which can be missed), fireball thrower and a crossbow.

The graphics are okay for a game from 2003, they aren't the best from that year but they suffice and the smoothness of the gameplay more than makes up for it. The giant environment is a sight for sore eyes, the gigantic temples and arena's have an epic feel to them, especially during the boss fights, especially the last one where you confront Zeus himself. The enemies you face are pretty standard but their design has been done fairly well, not that it really sticks out, after all the pace at which you're blazing through enemies won't give you much time to sight-see.

The leveldesign is also great, as I've mentioned before the temples, giant arenas and other places you'll visit during your adventure are done very well and have an epic feeling to them. The areas are mixed up, you have levels with water, lava and rooms filled with traps, so you never know what you're going to expect. In Will Rock you'll have certain areas in which you have to do some platforming, but rarely you'll have to make a pixel-perfect jump, the game seems to be quite forgiving when it comes to platforming. However, you can skip certain parts if you do have pixel-perfect skills, sometimes it's a secret, but there are also times at which the developer simply didn't expect anyone to be able to make a certain jump. For example, within the game I was in a temple in which you had four different ways of getting to the top level and all four ways were supposed to be enclosed, because the developers had put in a round fence in order to keep players from simply using the edge below to skip having to use a different route, but what I found out is that if you manage to land on the fence, you can use it to hop past that area.

There are about ten levels in this game, and they're divided into three missions, every mission contains three levels and those missions end in a boss fight and the last level is the fight against Zeus. The boss-fights vary in difficulty, the first one(a giant cyclops) is a push-over, the second one(a giant guy with an eye-patch and a wooden leg) I found to be extremely difficult, since it took me multiple attempts to kill him. But the third boss(a flying bird woman thing) was very easy, especially with the acid gun. The final boss(Zeus) starts out as being quite difficult but when you've discovered his pattern you can simply pick a spot where he can't hit you and where you can hit him and kill him softly but steadily.

The sound and music in this game is exceptionally well, it starts out as We Will Rock You as the menu song, and throughout the game there are various rock remixes on other songs. Now if you don't care too much about rock music, you can turn it off in the menu and simply play your own music in the background like I did. The sounds of the guns are okay, they sound the way they should sound, they might not be a 100% correct but this game doesn't try to be realistic so this can be forgiven, the enemies and other sounds sound the way they should sound. Every once in a while your main character will say some line that's supposed to make you laugh, but more often than not they aren't funny.

So, to conclude this review, I would definitely recommend this game if you really like old-school first-person shooters. If you don't really care too much about shooters I'd suggest you give it a rent or something seeing as some may think the game is quite boring, because of the thousands of enemies you plough through in order to get to the end, however the final boss is definitely worth all the time, not really the ending itself (it's a cheap slideshow basically telling you that all is good now). So yeah, check this game out, it should be quite cheap now, seeing as it was released in 2003.

Gears of War

2010-07-17T18:28:00.009+02:00

This Third Person Shooter was developed by Epic Games en released by Microsoft Game Studios in 2006. Epic Games is known for the Unreal series, the Unreal Tournament series and above all the commonly used game-engine, the Unreal Engine.

The game takes place on the planet Sera where humanity is being threatened by a race called, the Locust. This race emerged from the ground in all cities attacking and killing humans on the day called Emergence Day. As a result people fled to the Jacinto Plateau, a 100km wide plateau made of granite, where the locust couldn’t break through. Eventually, the Locust broke through the defenses surrounding the plateau. The game itself commences 14 years after Emergence Day.

The main character of Gears of War (GoW) is Marcus Fenix, an ex-soldier who got thrown into prison for leaving the battlefield. As Fenix, you are ordered to obtain and deliver a device called the Resonator, to map the subterranean tunnels that the Locust use. After which a bomb, called the Lightmass bomb, will be launched at the center of the tunnel network. Well so far the story. But before I close this part, one final comment. This game is as linearly as almost every other shooter.

The maps in GoW are very well done, giving you enough opportunities to take cover behind a wall or a refrigerator (don’t ask). At certain points in some maps you have to decide what route to take, either right or left. I found out that there’s almost no difference in the choice you make. And to keep players entertained, they’ve added a part where you drive a vehicle.

Of to the weapons in the game. Immediately at the start of the game, you’re given 2 weapons, a pistol and a assault rifle. Now there’s nothing special about the pistol but the fun starts with the assault rifle. Instead of a knife as bayonet, here you have your own special chainsaw. And with it you get some amusing cinematics where you splice a Locust soldier in half. Ah relaxing. Another great weapon is the Hammer of Dawn, an awesome weapon that uses satellites to rain fire and death upon your enemies. The drawback of the weapon is that it’s only available for a certain amount of time.

One other thing the developers added is a feature called active reloading. Meaning that when you reload a weapon a bar appears showing multiple lines in three colors. When you press the reload button at right moment, it doesn’t only reload your weapon faster but also gives it a damage bonus for a limited amount of time.

The game focuses, next to shooting a lot of Locust, on taking cover. Now on a low difficulty taking cover isn’t a thing you would think about, but one the higher ones however, it becomes clear that you are forced to take cover in order to survive every battle. But to prevent players from staying in one place constantly, enemies in GoW tend to flank their opponent or throw grenades at their position. And to make matters worse, your enemies can pop out behind you if you don’t look out. Locust reinforcements usually comes in the form of emergence holes from where the Locust spawn. Luckily this is easily solved with a well placed grenade.

So to conclude my review, Gears of War is a game that you will definitely like, if you are into shooters of course. The enemies will keep you alert throughout the game and you will have a hard time to stop playing when you haven’t reached the end.

Robot Arena 2

2010-07-05T15:10:00.005+02:00

Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy is a robot action game developed by Gabriel Entertainment, the company that also made the first game and also the company that's infamous for making six games in the John Deere series. The game was released in February 2003 on PC.

As you can guess by the title you have to create a robot and destroy your opponents in the arena. You can also pick one of the standard robots but these robots are very weak, and thus it's very hard to win the tournaments with these ones. However, if you're able to build one yourself with strong weapons like our robot in the video the singleplayer tournaments are very easy. The only problem is finding out how to build a robot that actually works. But when you discover that you'll have a lot of fun with this game. The game offers a lot of customization and freedom when looking at other games of that period.

In this game you play in seasons, and in each season there are nine tournaments. In each of these tournaments you have to win four 1vs1 battles or two battles against three other robots (these are mostly king of the hill battles, get on top of the plateau and keep the other robots away to achieve points, or you can just destroy them all, that also works fine). There are four ways to defeat your opponent: Destroying his robot, immobilize his robot (can be done by destroying his wheels) eliminating his robot (push him in a pit) or when you've achieved the most points in battle (just smash up the other robots) after the time has expired. For each victory you gain points, and when you have the most points after you've played the nine tournaments, you win the season. There are 15 AI teams, each with three different robots. One in each weight class: Lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight. Unfortunately the AI teams are very weak and it's easy to win these tournaments, there is only one robot that is quite hard, and that's the third opponent in the video below.

The graphics of this game have been improved in comparison with the first game, as expected. The arena levels look great, and they didn't forget to put the traps in the game, something that really has to be in a robot battle game. Some of the traps are: spikes, saws, sledgehammers and launch plateau's. There is no ingame music, only in the main menu. A fun sound effect that they've put in is the announcement voice before the battle commences.

This game also has a multiplayer option, but the servers have been shut down two years ago. There is only one forum that's still standing. Their name is GameTechMods, in case you're interested.

The game has some compatibility problems with the latest operating systems, but it's still playable. It's a fun game to unwind after a day of stress. In conclusion: It's quite a fun game, but unfortunately it's a little bit to easy.

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

2010-06-28T19:13:00.009+02:00

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is a First Person Shooter set during the United Nations intervention in the Somali Civil War. The game was developed by NovaLogic and was released on PC (Windows 2003, Mac 2004), Playstation 2 (2005) and Xbox (2006). This is the sixth game in the Delta Force series. The game also got an expansion on Windows and Playstation 2 called Team Sabre, which featured two extra campaigns, one takes place in Colombia and the other one takes place in Iran.

The player begins the game as a soldier attached to the 10th Mountain Division, taking part in Operation Restore Hope; part of the United Nations-backed humanitarian effort to end the famine in Somalia which had killed 300,000 civilians. Following the third mission, the player assumes the role of a soldier assigned to Task Force Ranger, taking part in Operation Gothic Serpent, a military operation conducted during the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. During the latter section of the game, the player controls members of the 3rd Ranger Battalion and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, commonly known as Delta Force.

The game is based on the 1992-93 UN peace missions in war-torn Somalia. The first few missions in the game are designed to make the player accustomed with the different types of weapons, their usage, enemy AI, (which is kind of stupid, when playing this game it looks like they're deaf, since they don't react when you fire a shot at them. They only react when they actually see you) terrain types and combat techniques. The majority of the missions involve convoy protection, providing security for food distributions, destroying weapon stockpiles, taking prisoners, etc.

The fans of Delta Force know that the earlier games in the series were very hard, but this game has been made a lot easier. In the earlier games one hit sometimes was enough to get killed, but here you can take three-five hits. You're also able to find health packs which heal you completely. Another thing that also has changed is that your freedom is limited, the maps in this game aren't that open as the maps in earlier games. Most of the time you are flown in by chopper and it all happens automatically, you only have to wait until it lands and listen to some instructions. You can also use a limited amount of quick saves which also makes the game much easier than its predecessors.

The graphics of the game aren't that special, but to be fair they have been improved compared to the earlier games in the series. Especially in the city levels you can see that the creators have put some time in the graphics. However, the desert levels mostly are very gray and bare. Another thing that I think that could've been worked out better is the sound aspect of the game. The ingame sound effects aren't that bad, but there is no ingame music. So over time the game will get boring.

The game also has a multiplayer mode, which can be played along with 149 other players. However I don't think that there aren't much people playing this game anymore since it's quite old, and there are much better titles around than this game. This is also my conclusion of the game: You can enjoy this game for a couple of days, but after you've completed the singleplayer you won't waste more time on this game, it has a low replay value.

Crisis Response Team Versus Urban Terror

2010-06-18T15:59:00.016+02:00

Introduction:

Crisis Response Team was developed and released by Alten8 in 2007. Alten8 has released several games such as Power Of Destruction, State of War: Warmonger, GT Racers and Project Xenoclone.

Urban Terror was developed and released by Frozen Sand in 2007, after several releases of the mod Urban Terror. Urban Terror is their only game.

They both feature a very thrilling website.(1) (2)

The Graphics:

This comes down to a tie, they are both visually similar. Although, Urban Terror seems to have smoother and more responsive menus. The level-design in these games is where they differ from eachother, the maps in CRT are small, bugged and odd. Whilst in Urban Terror, they're big, relatively open and less buggy. For example in CRT, there are doors that you can open when they only show a brick wall, which would trap you in the heat of a moment. The level descriptions are also odd, they tell you about certain objectives, whilst the objectives themselves are uncompleteable. The only downside to Urban Terror is that the maps don't hold players back from spawnkilling, since everyone spawns at set locations.

The Gameplay:

Both games are standard online FPS'es, they both don't have a singleplayer. The major difference between the two shooters is that in CRT you have to pick up weapons on the move, whilst in Urban Terror you pick them beforehand, and you have an option to pick up different weapons whilst you're already in combat. Urban Terror offers more weapons than CRT does, although the differences between weapons is quite unclear, whilst in CRT they are so standard that you already know which one is the better. In Urban Terror it's possible in some servers to register so that you're stats are registered, in CRT you cannot. CRT also has a bug concerning reloading, when you don't have any ammo left and you walk on ammo of the same kind, you don't have to reload, but you'll need to be shooting at that exact moment.

The Sound:

Both games don't feature an in-game soundtrack, so the only things we can judge is the sound of the guns and what not. In CRT the gunsounds don't match the guns, for example an uzi sounds heavier than a minigun, which is definitely not the case. CRT also has a soundbug, when you're firing your gun the sound sometimes loops, even when not shooting. Urban Terror isn't really noteworthy on sound, but it isn't as bad as CRT.

Multiplayer:

The multiplayer in CRT is non-existent, there are no servers. We even went as far as trying to set up a LAN, which resulted in nothing, we were never able to join, because the game told us to wait, for eternity. Urban Terror, however, does feature online multiplayer, like it should. And I found it to be pretty enjoyable, despite the occasional lag and cheating asshole. It offers several game-modes, all of them are standard game-modes such as TDM, DM and CTF.

Conclusion:

Urban Terror is clearly the better one and on top of that it's free, as in no money required(= no transaction of currency-holding items is required). Whilst CRT is sold for extremely high prices, I personally got my copy for the ridiculously high price of €1. But on a serious note, CRT has no players, no servers and no online support(for which it actually was designed), Urban Terror does feature all of that, so it'd make no sense to buy CRT, instead of downloading Urban Terror for free.

Medal of Honor: Frontline

2010-06-13T18:50:00.005+02:00

Medal of Honor: Frontline is a first-person shooter and the fourth game in the popular Medal of Honor series. The game was released on Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube in 2002.

In the game you control a character named Jimmy Patterson, a Lieutenant from the 2nd Ranger Battalion, who is working for the OSS (The Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA, formed during WWII), as he campaigns his way across Europe into Nazi Germany itself, during World War II. The campaign consists of six chapters, and each chapter has two, three or four missions. Two chapters take place in France, two in Holland and two in Nazi Germany. Lt. Jimmy Patterson's mission is to capture a prototype of the Horten Ho 229. The Ho IX, as it was called, was the first application of a flying wing design, combined with a jet engine. Baron Von Strumgeist is the commander of the facility in charge of designing the HO IX, and several other informants and soldiers are involved with various missions.

In the game you can find various weapons, such as the M1 Garand, the German STG44, a Walther P38 or the Springfield sniper rifle. Other objects that you can find are health cans (heals 10% of your health), kits (heals 25% of your health) and packs (heals 50% of your health) and of course the mission objectives such as rosters, keys and other stuff.

In each of the missions you can get a bronze, silver or gold medal. Bronze can be achieved by completing the level, while silver is a little bit harder to get, you need to kill 95% of the enemies. Especially this goal can be hard sometimes, because some enemies won't spawn before you go back to an area you've already visited or in some other cases you need to mount a MG44 before they'll spawn. For gold you need 75% of your health at the end of the level + 95% of the enemies killed. When you get all gold medals in one chapter, you'll receive a reward.

You can notice that the creators have put much effort in this game, as you can see in various bonus video's that you can acquire by completing the missions. This game has very good graphics and animations for its time. Unfortunately I'm not able to make a good quality video myself because I own the PS2 version. There are a few things that are great about this game. First thing that is great is the music. In some occasions it can be really sad, especially in the mission Arnhem Knights. The music in this mission is so sad that it gives me the shivers while playing the game. In this mission you have to fight in the ruins of Arnhem alongside some British soldiers, which brings me to the second thing that jumps out. Nowadays there are many games that feature AI squad mates (let's take the Call of Duty series as example) and when they get killed they will be replaced by new guys, so you don't care about it when one gets killed. In this game they won't be replaced, and they don't respawn. When one gets killed you can actually feel sad, especially in combination with the sad music in Arnhem Knights.

In conclusion, I really think this is one of the best World War II games ever, it has great animations and graphics for its time, and I think I really need to give Michael Giacchino (who is the music composer) credit for the greatness of this game. If you can find this game somewhere you must buy it, I guarantee you won't be disappointed about it.

Just Cause 2

2010-06-04T14:49:00.046+02:00

Just Cause 2 is a game developed by Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive. The game was published by Square Enix. The game was released on the 23th of March in 2010. The game can best be described as a sandbox-style action game. Avalanche Studios is known for games such as The Hunter and Just Cause(1). Eidos Interactive is known for games like the Hitman series, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Shellshock: Nam '67. Square Enix is known for games such as the Final Fantasy series and a whole range of other RPG games, chances are that you've probably already heard from them.

This game doesn't really have much of a story. You're Rico Rodriguez, an employee from the Agency, being send out to knock over a dictatorship in Panua, because it seems that Panay, the dictator, is becoming more and more unfriendly towards the US, so it's your task to make sure that Panay is killed and that his country gets a different leader. Along the way you'll help various factions to increase their influence over the country, so that they can fight government, which helps the US evade a full-out war, while it's still in the shades knocking over the regime. Throughout the storyline you'll meet various people, such as Tom Sheldon. But the reality is that the game doesn't really focus on it's storyline, seeing as most of the time you're allowed to do whatever you like. So it's basically: Cause chaos and win, simple concept.

The gameplay in this game is quite unique due to the grappling hook, which will play a major role in this game. In combination with a parachute it makes up for one of the fastest travelling techniques in the game, it also allows you to climb buildings and mountains very fast. But the grappling hook is the only original part about the game. You have ordinary weapons such as rocket-launchers, machine guns, pistols and many more, which you can upgrade by calling the black market and spending your weapon parts on the upgrades. Same goes for vehicles, you'll have to trade in vehicle parts to upgrade your vehicles. The weapon and vehicle parts can be found scattered throughout the map. The Black Market Dealer will also sell vehicles and weapons, so that you can get them dropped near you at any given moment, if you have the cash for it. The game also offers Extraction through the black market dealer, which is essentially nothing more than fast travel, although the loading time makes it not really that fast. During the game you'll be doing nothing more than doing really short missions for various factions, as a matter of fact, I've never experienced such short missions in a game, which is a bit of a bad thing if you ask me, I had missions that asked me to destroy 2 boats and after I did that, I immediately got rewarded for completing the mission, which took less than 2 minutes. Aside from those missions you'll also find faction items, which are marked on your map, so it's nothing more than going to the location and picking the item up. But most of the time you'll simply be busy leaving a trail of death and destruction throughout the country, by rampaging villages, bases and communication centres.

The graphics in this game are very nice, the mountains, ocean and trees look very realistic and give you the idea that you're on a tropical island. The buildings are also very detailed, so you can really see that the developers put a lot of time into this aspect of the game.

There is also a lot of humour to be found within the game, such as the Mile High Club, which is a strip-club hanging from 2 Zeppelins high in the sky. And there's also the instance where you have to fight elderly japanese soldiers that are still defending an island, being oblivious to the fact that World War II is over. So, the game does spice things up every once in a while by using humour.

Now there are a lot of good points to this game, but it also has it's share of bad points. First of all, the glitches. You'll often find various objects within the game floating above the ground, not to the extent that it makes it impossible for the player to get to the object but still, it's weird to see such things occur. Another glitch that you'll see, that also has to do with clipping, is that the player can sometimes walk below the ground, so you'll see Rico waist-down in concrete and in even more extreme cases he can actually fall below the ground and keep falling into infinite space. Another bad point in this game is its repetition, whilst spreading death and destruction is quite fun for quite some time, after having destroyed a similar base for the 15th time it gets boring, yet you'll have to keep doing this in order to unlock more stuff, which makes the game drag quite a bit. Another little annoyance is the loading time, you'll have to wait quite some time due to the loading times, even when using extraction, whilst playing you have no loading times, which is quite odd.

So to conclude this review, this game is quite good, it offers great graphics and gameplay, yet it will become boring when playing the game for too long. But if you really like to play shooters and action games, I suggest you buy this game, although renting the game seems like a suitable option as well, even though the game is enormous. If you really want to get everything out of the game you'll easily spend more than a hundred hours playing this game. So, overall, this game is worth your money if you like the genre, otherwise I'd suggest renting or lending the game in order to see whether it's your cup of tea or not.

Prototype

2010-05-31T19:37:00.006+02:00

Prototype is an action adventure game that was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Activision in 2009. I have played the pc version.

The game takes place in present time New York City, on the island of Manhattan to be specific, where a horrific virus is spreading through the streets. The entire island has been put under quarantine by the US Marine Corps to prevent the spread of the virus.

You play as Alex mercer, person with no memory of his past and with the ability to change his body parts into various weapons and defenses, and the ability to consume other persons and take their identity, memories and their entire body.

When starting a new game you are taught how to move, attack and change your body. In this stage the virus is at its peak. After completing this level you flashback to the beginning of the outbreak. By completing the primary missions you progress in the game. After completing a certain amount of those missions, you get a flash-forward and a part of the story is revealed. This Is however not entirely right. To uncover the history and facts around the game, you can consume targets for your Web of Intrigue. When you consume a target you get a small video which gives a few hints about what happened during and what happened before the events that take place in the game. Back to the primary missions. After the fast-forward, you get another flashback. when that happens the days change and a percentage is given to show you how many people are infected in the city. You work your way from day one up to day eighteen.

Next to the primary missions you also have side missions. These can vary from consuming targets, killing a certain amount of infected or marines or running and jumping through a course.

With completing missions, consuming and killing enemies or innocent people you get Evolution Points. These points can be spent on increasing your survivability or making you more deadly in combat by unlocking special moves and new powers.

Alex has an arsenal of deadly weapons that he can use. Some have to be unlocked first with EP. An example of one of those weapons are the claws. This is my favorite weapon. Every weapon has a basic attack and a special attack. The reason why I love this weapon is because with this attack you can rise up spikes of biomass from underneath the ground and impale anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the radial area of damage. So yeah, I love it. But the most devastating powers in the game are the Devastator attacks. These attacks are the superweapons in his arsenal. But I will not be a spoiler and will let you discover what these things can do.

But the fun doesn’t end there. After a while, Alex is able to pilot certain military vehicles. At first there are only Black Hawk and Bradleys, but as the situation in the city escalates, more and more heavy equipment is brought in, so you’ll end up driving Abrams and Apaches.

You can speak of two factions in Prototype. The first group is the US Marine Corp, who are commanded by the black operation, Blackwatch. The marines orders are to contain the virus, but are really used as shock troopers, soldiers who do the heavy damage and take the full blow i.e. casualties. Now Blackwatch is a nasty organization, they do the clean up after the work is done and are the real badguys that want to take you down by any means necessary.

The other faction are the infected. You have the population that has gone berserk, trying to kill every non-infected, and you have the abominations. The result of the virus transforming their host into something else. You have some minor abominations, as I would call them, that are not that powerful. But the other ones, called Hunters, are the ones that can really ruin your day. These creatures from hell are twice the size of a normal human and with a lot more muscles.

The game looks pretty good. In combat you will see bodyparts and blood flying freely through the air. The city itself might feel a bit empty, and I mean that most of it looks the same with a few subtle differences. But on the streets its chaos when the virus finally goes crazy. You will see soldiers firing at infected, civilians running for their lives, infected people and Hunters.

Though I have some complaints about the game. You will find yourself doing the same things over and over, but you will be too busy to really care about that. Moving around the city, especially in combat, can be quite chaotic. This really comes to light when driving ground vehicles, they drive towards where you are pointing at. And that’s where the controls get weird, but you really have to experience that yourself. And my final complaint is that combat can be incredibly annoying. Sometimes you are chased from one end of the map to the other end, but also that some special moves of the Hunters can’t be countered or stopped.

So my conclusion of Prototype, I really good game. It has it flaws but that’s common in every game. A nice storyline and awesome moves make this game awesome.

Dune 2000

2010-05-29T19:04:00.005+02:00

Dune 2000 is a RTS developed by Westwood Studios and Intelligent Games and was released in 1998 on Windows and later ported on the Playstation. The game is based on Frank Herbert's Dune universe.

Emperor Corrino has issued a challenge that the House which can produce the most spice will control its source, the desert planet Dune, with no rules as to how the Houses can achieve the goal. However, when you're playing with the Harkonnen (the evil House), the Emperor will eventually team up with the Atreides and tries to destroy you, how ironic. Meanwhile, Lady Elara of the Bene Gesserit and bound concubine to the Emperor, secretly takes the commander (you) into one of the Heighliners, a person whose bloodline and future the Sisterhood had checked. According to Elara, they saw many visions of the commander dying many times and only in one vision does the commander live and even rise to control massive armies and bring peace to Arrakis.

I will explain the three Houses below, as taken from the intro.

House Atreides- Hailing from the water-planet of Caladan, the Atreides have a strict loyalty to their Duke and follow him with zeal. The Duke's famous Mentat, Noree Moneo, advises and resides over the Duke's forces on Arrakis. The House's fleets of ornithopters ensure their superior air power. The Duke also wishes to develop an alliance with the Fremen, the native warriors of Dune.

House Harkonnen- The Harkonnen are ruled by the wicked Baron and come from the volcanic waste-planet of Giedi Prime. According to Lady Elara, the only thing human about the Harkonnen is their genetic makeup, as all humanity was abandoned long ago in favor of brutality and maliciousness. The Baron's Mentat, Hayt De Vries, was born from the flesh of a dead man in the Tleilaxu Flesh Vats.

House Ordos- The Ordos originate from a frigid, ice covered planet unnamed in Dune 2000 but later called Sigma Draconis IV in Emperor: Battle for Dune. As they import their goods from nearby star systems, House Ordos relies on their skills as merchants to make their profits; however, their wealth has made them increasingly paranoid. According to the manual, House Ordos buys all of its units instead of constructing them themselves. Unlike the other two houses, House Ordos is not mentioned in any of Frank Herbert's Dune novels.

There are also four non-playable subfactions: House Corrino, the Fremen, the Mercenaries and the Smugglers.

Spice is the main resource in the game, which you have to collect with harvesters. It is advised to regularly check where your harvesters are, because there are always giant worms around, and those worms sometimes consume your harvester. You'll know that a worm is there when you see sparks coming out of the ground. With spice you can purchase everything ranging from infantry to building upgrades. Before placing a building you'll have to place concrete, because otherwise it's health is not at 100% but will decrease to a certain point over time. You'll also need to build energy sources, Wind Traps. If you don't have enough energy the training and building process is slowed down and your missile turrets and your radar won't operate. Your most valuable building is the Construction Site. If you lose this building you won't be able to construct other buildings, unless you're able to build or order a Mobile Construction Verhicle from a Starport. When playing the singleplayer campaign I recommend you to seek and destroy your enemy's Construction Site before destroying the other buildings, because otherwise they'll just rebuild the buildings they've lost.

Although each house has many common units, such as infantry, Wind Traps, and Mobile Construction Vehicles, each House also has its own set of units, such as the Atreides Sonic Tank, the Ordos Deviator and the Harkonnen Devastator. Houses Harkonnen and Atreides share the Trike, while House Ordos has an upgraded version, the Raider. Like many games of the Westwood franchise, a player can gain access to other Houses' special units by capturing an enemy building and manufacturing the desired units.

The graphics of this game aren't that special, but I think they're good enough for a game from 1998. There isn't really much to say about the level design, because you play on a desert planet and everything looks the same. This game received a lot of criticism from the hoax called GameSpot, because they thought the game's production value was 'drab' for 1998 standards. Whatever they thought, I, on the contrary, had a lot of fun with this game. I spend many hours playing this game, it can be very challenging at times.

Sins of a Solar Empire

2010-05-24T00:27:00.004+02:00

Sins of a Solar Empire has been developed by Stardock and Ironclad Games.
Since its release, two micro-expansions have been released, Entrenchment and Diplomacy.
Entrenchment’s main focus was defence and introduces new ships, the ability of deploying mine fields and the option of building powerful starbases in the gravity belts of planets.
There’s not much to tell about the Diplomacy as it speaks for itself. It grants you the ability of making pacts with other factions.
The third micro-expansion hasn’t been announced yet, but will be the last one.

Sins of a Solar Empire is a mix between space-based RTS and a genre called 4X. 4X means that the player controls an empire and has to, and I quote, to explore, expand, exploit and exterminate. This game follows the rules of the 4X-genre for a big portion. At the beginning of a new game, your first tasks are building ships, scouting new planets and colonizing them, starting your economy and start research.

There are 3 factions you can play:
- the TEC, the Trader Emergency Coalition. Founded after the invasion of the Vasari and the Advent and is a cooperation between independent empires.
- The Vasari. It’s the only alien race in SoaSE. The Vasari were once a great civilization and expanded its empire by assimilating other civilizations. Because of hysteria on a galactic scale in the Vasari empire, a small colony fled the empire, eventually ended up in human territory. And in this territory they fight against the TEC and the Advent over resources.
- The Advent. Originally a religious sect, they were driven out before the rise of the TEC. This faction uses psychic powers to manipulate populations and to destroy their enemies.

The first downside of the game comes to light shortly after starting the game. That’s because the game doesn’t feature a campaign mode, which is a shame. The 3 factions have a long history together and a campaign could’ve made good use of that.

Your main resources are metal, crystal and credits. Metal and crystals can be harvested by placing mines on top of asteroids containing metal or crystal. Additional metal and crystal can be obtained by building refineries. Credits are created by planets and by trade stations. But these are the normal ways of obtaining the game’s resources, the other one is by selling or buying metal or crystal at the black market.

When you colonize a planet, the planet is unable to create credits due to the fact that they are under developed and suffers from operating costs. So instead of making credits it consumes its. For the planet to create credits, you first have to invest metal, crystal and credits into upgrading its infrastructure. Next to upgrading a planet’s infrastructure, you can also invest in increasing a planets hitpoints by building emergency facilities. Two other upgrades grants you the option of building more civilian and tactical structures in the planet’s orbit. And finally you can invest in exploring the planet for natural resources, relics etc.

Combat in Sins of a Solar Empire is slow. And by slow I mean it takes a while before a battle is over. That’s not only due to the fact that ships (not talking about the structures) have shields and armor that constantly recharges, but also because reinforcements can be brought in at all times. The galaxy never stops in Sins. Almost every frigate and cruiser has a special power to be used in combat. This can be to increase the damage output for a moment or to support other ships in battle.
Capital ships are the heavy guns in Sins. They can possess more than one ability. They are the only ships that can earn experience points and level up. Experience points are earned by destroying enemy ships in combat. Every faction has 5 ships to choose from ranging from all out combat ships to support ships.

The AI in Sins is pretty smart and get smarter in the expansions that followed. It can really be a pain, but it has an addiction. It seems that it can’t get enough of building countless frigates, while neglecting capitals and cruisers. But you won’t hear me complaining, this only gives impressive fleet battles and extends the amount of time you put into a single match.

I had a lot of fun playing this game and will continue in doing so. Though it lacks a campaign mode, it still is a solid RTS/4X game that will keep you busy for hours.
And for those planning to buy this game, Stardock has released Sins of a Solar Empire Trinity. It contains the original game and the two expansions, Entrenchment and Diplomacy.

Europa Universalis III

2010-05-21T19:51:00.004+02:00

Europa Universalis III is a historical strategy game made and released by Paradox Interactive in 2007. The game got three expansion packs: Napoleon's Ambition, In Nomine and Heir to the Throne. I myself own In Nomine.

Europa Universalis III is a very extensive game, just like Hearts of Iron III. You can choose from more than 250 nations that exist during the period of 1399-1820 (1453-1789 in the original game), including native American tribes, and try to establish a strong nation by conquering other nations by force or in a more diplomatic way by turning them into vassals.

A very important aspect of the game is the market. You have to get a strong position in the centres of trade to get additional income. With more income you can create a larger army. You can also invest money in certain fields of expertise, in which you want your country to develop in. These sectors are: Government, trade, naval, land and stability. When you invest in government you'll unlock more government types such as a merchant republic, which improves trading efficiency. When you invest in naval, you'll unlock better ships and your colony range will improve so you can colonize further away from your closest port. When you invest in land, your army will fight better and you will be able to create more advanced units. When turbulent times are there (such as war) it is needed to invest in stability, because revolts can occur. There are different types of revolts. For example, when you conquer territory you can expect patriotic revolts in that province. You can also put the money in your treasure chest and invest nothing, which is best to do in the beginning since you have low income.

Another thing that is extremely important is to have diplomatic relations with other countries, such as a military alliance, trade agreement (which is an agreement that makes sure that the two nations don't compete with each other) or royal marriage (government type has to be a monarchy), which greatly improves relations. When you have a royal marriage with another nation you can also claim there throne, which gives you a casus belly against them. When you have a casus belly against an other nation you won't lose as much stability as you would without a casus belly, and thus it's extremely useful.

In the beginning of the game most territory is still Terra Incognita, which means that that area isn't discovered yet. If you want to explore these area's you'll need explorers (naval) and conquistadores (land). When a discovered province lies in your colonization range, you can send a colonist to colonize the province. This will give you a lot of prestige, which gives you some additional bonuses, such as more tax income and more yearly merchants. You'll also get prestige by winning wars and by completing missions, such as: Free the Dutch people in Zeeland or build a large army.

You can also choose one of the national ideas (only when you have a free slot, more will come available over time) which give you an additional bonus, such as a higher moral for your armies, so that they can fight longer. Another thing you have to do is to make national and regional decisions. National decisions mostly are laws, while regional decisions are building an embassy in a certain province to improve relations with another nation.

There is also a list of structures that you can build to improve the economy of a province, such as a fort or weapons manufacturer. Most of these structures are very expensive and you'll also need more advanced technology for better buildings.

There isn't really much to say about the graphics, since you're looking at a world map. When comparing it to the first two games in the series, the graphics have been improved and it is the first Europa Universalis game that is in 3D.

I really liked playing this game. I'm still playing it today, experimenting with different nations. It's a great game, but you really have to be into the genre.

Supreme Commander 2

2010-04-30T22:27:00.007+02:00

This game has been developed by Gas Powered Games and released by Square Enix. The game has been brought out for the pc, but also for the Xbox 360. ( Don’t ask me why)

The story begins 25 years after the end of SC: Forged Alliance, the expansion of Supreme Commander, where the UEF, Cybran Nation and the Aeon Illuminate have formed an alliance. The story really revolves around the breakdown of that alliance, but in the end you will find out that all is saved. The campaign follows a chronological order, beginning with the missions of the UEF, then the Aeon and ending with the Cybrans. In the effort to connect the players with the main characters, they added personal histories and experiences to those characters. While it adds a little RPG into the game, but that all it does. Now the main characters, you will fight with their ACU and with them sitting in it. The main’s are Thalia Kael, who works for the Aeon, Ivan Brackman, is on the Cybran side, and last but not least the UEF commander Dominic Maddox. Throughout the game you will encounter a commander named Gauge. He’s the bad guy that tries to ruin the fragile alliance between the major factions.

A lot of gameplay features of SC are also present in SC 2. Like in SC every shell, missile or bomb fired never hits the same location. Again mass and energy are your main resources. Although this time they did things different and that’s not positive. You know get a steady income of mass and energy units instead of a stream. With this I mean that before you can construct a unit, you have to get a number of mass and energy. Where in SC you could queue a large number of units without looking at your economy, now you are forced to save units of mass and energy. My opinion is that this is a step down. It was an art in SC to get your economy stable and now you get a income system that has been made casual.

The maps in SC2 are smaller than the previous game. Instead of big maps we got maps that look great when you zoom out. Zoom in and you get a bit disappointed. To me, the maps feel empty.

Over to the units. In SC2 they threw away the concept of having T1/2/3 units and went to having a few basic units and more experimental units. Unlocking some basic units and experimental’s forces you to do research. This accounts for a lot of structures too. With research you can upgrade your basic units and structures, so they can do more damage, have more combat capabilities or are better protected. But for you to research something you have to amass research points. And to get them you need to build research centers. Very original, but let’s move on. To build your experimental units you first have to build gantries, for land and air experimental’s. Naval versions are build on water without gantry. Another thing they did was optimizing how your units merge into formation. A thing that I appreciate, because in SC you would see your units bumping against each other, eventually forming together in a sort of formation.

Well I really don’t have anything else to say about this game. I really liked the first one and waited long time to finally play this game. Now I have played it, I really think they took a step back. The maps are smaller, you have fewer units and the economy is messed up. But I wouldn’t say that it’s a bad game, it’s just a step back from a good game.

GTA: Vice City

2010-04-27T14:26:00.005+02:00

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is the second game in the GTA III era. Although it was released after Grand Theft Auto III, it was set 15 years earlier. The game was released in 2002 for the PS2 and later on the PC and Xbox version were released in 2003 and 2004.

GTA Vice City is set in Vice City, Florida in 1986, and concerns the exploits of protagonist Tommy Vercetti as he rises to Vice City's major criminal power. And this time the character talks, hooray!

Having just made it back onto the streets of Liberty City after a long stretch in maximum security, Tommy Vercetti is sent to Vice City by his old boss, Sonny Forelli. They were understandably nervous about his re-appearance in Liberty City, so a trip down south seemed like a good idea. But all does not go smoothly upon his arrival in the glamorous metropolis of Vice City. He's set up and is left with no money and no merchandise. Sonny wants his money back, but the biker gangs, Cuban gangsters, and corrupt politicians stand in his way. Most of Vice City seems to want Tommy dead. His only answer is to fight back and take over the city himself.

A significant influence on GTA Vice City is the 1983 film Scarface, starring Al Pacino. Several in-game locations, such as the mansion that becomes Vercetti Estate, are obviously styled after locations featured in the movie. Elsewhere in the city, there is a hidden apartment containing a chainsaw within a blood-stained bathroom, a nod to Scarface's infamous chainsaw torture scene; and the Mr. Vercetti outfit strongly resembles an outfit worn by Pacino's character. Even Tommy Vercetti himself takes many character and lifestyle traits from Tony Montana, specifically his short temper and heavy dealings in the cocaine trade.

When you're playing this game it really feels like you're back in the 80's again. That's mostly because of the in-game radio stations, because you'll hear lots of 80's classics when traveling in Vice City. There has been put a lot of effort in those radio stations, because they all have a playtime of at least 45 minutes and there are nine radio stations in the game. You can also add your own music to the game if you don't want to listen to the in-game music.

If you've played GTA III you'll recognize most of the cars that are driving around town, but there are also some new cars. You're also able to take a boat and a helicopter, which is new. Another new feature is that you can now buy properties where you can save your progress. There are also some companies that you can buy, such as Kaufman Cabs and Sunshine Auto's.
You can play additional side missions for Kaufman Cabs and find cars for Sunshine Auto's. When you try to find these cars you'll recognize the same phenomenon as in GTA III: It's hard to find those specific cars but after you found one it'll appear a dozen times before delivering it.

I played this game on PS2 and PC, and I have to say that the PS2 version has better graphics than the PC version. The PC version also has a short draw distance, but I'm not really sure if I have to blame my PC for that or the game itself.

I really love this game, I often find myself laughing about the same radio joke over and over again, the game never gets old. I've played this game more than any other GTA game, I like it even more than GTA IV. You've never played this game before? Just buy it, you'll see how great it is.

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

2010-04-23T16:38:00.006+02:00

And now the second part of my review of Chronicles of Riddick. This will not only be the story of Assault on Dark Athena, but I will also tell you about some features that I forgot to mention in the previous review.

Assault on Dark Athena (AoDA) starts from where Escape from Butcher Bay ends. You managed to escape the desert planet and went into cryo sleep. You first have to complete a tutorial level, just like in Escape from Butcher Bay. The intro shows your ship being dragged in by the Dark Athena, but not before the main character, Riddick, awakes and hides. Johns, the merc who originally took Riddick to the Butcher Bay prison for a bounty, helped him escape to avoid becoming a prisoner himself, is still in cryo sleep. Your ship is boarded and you get a first look of the enemies you are up against. John is taken aboard the Dark Athena and taken prison. This is the point where the game really begins. You will fight your way to freedom not only inside the ship, but you will also be running, sneaking and blasting your way on the surface of the planet the Dark Athena is orbiting and on the exterior of the ship in a mech. During your ‘mission’ to get off the ship, you meet a small child, named Lynn, who is hiding from Dark Athena’s guard and meet various characters in the cells of the ship. You will have to do some tasks for them to advance in the game. But that’s only in the beginning of the game, later on you will never see them again, only the child. There’s one thing I want to mention before I conclude the part of the story. You will see different kinds of guards in AoDA. These guards are humans stuffed with cybernetic hardware and called drones. Drones have no free will. To be more accurate they have no conscious and are being kept alive by implants. They can be controlled by the ship’s real crew remotely. And if not controlled they just patrol the area.

A feature that is also present in EfBB (Escape from Butcher Bay) are the side quests. If you completed a quest in EfBB, you get a special item or money as a reward. In AoDA you don’t receive anything in-game, but when playing it on the ps3 you get a trophy for completing them. This feature is more apparent in EfBB.

The level design of the game is once again done great with enough options to sneak around, though some levels are a pain to get through undetected. Though not everything is good in the game. The lip sync in the game is not done properly, creating some weird moments in the game. Also the AI is stupid and surprisingly alert. It tends to run away from you in fire fights or get right on top of you, without considering taking cover. And with alert I mean that they can spot you in the most impossible ways. To sketch a situation, let’s say a drone/guard is standing with his back towards you and you are standing in the shadows. The moment you get clear of the shadow it spots you. That alert the AI can be. Something else that is pretty cool, that is also present in EfBB, is the close quarters combat. Sometimes there are moments where you perform a special move. This can be breaking the neck of a guard or cutting them open. After a hundred kills it never gets old, but that’s my opinion. It acts as a pressure release valve, really.

And where would a game be without collectables. In EfBB you have to find packs of cigarettes and in AoDA it’s replaced with bounty cards. When you collected one of them, you get some concept art. And if you manage to find them all, you get a well deserved trophy, when playing on the ps3 ofcourse.

To finish the final part of the review, I had a lot of fun playing this game. There were some moments where I went berserk thanks to the incredible AI, but the shooting and the sneaking around made me forget it fast. So if you are a fan of Riddick, Vin Diesel or you just like to sneak around and killing people, you will probably like this game.

Grand Theft Auto III

2010-04-13T13:41:00.007+02:00

Grand Theft Auto III is a sandbox-style action-adventure computer and video game developed by DMA Design (Rockstar North), and published by Rockstar Games. GTA III was the first game in the series that was in 3D. It was first released on PS2 in October 2001, then in May 2002 on Windows and in November 2003 on Xbox.

The game takes place in Liberty City, the city that also appeared in the first game of the series. Liberty City is a fictional city that is based on New York City. We follow a nameless criminal who successfully robs a bank, but his girlfriend betrays him and their companion afterwards and they're sentenced to jail. While they're being transferred, the police convoy comes under attack by some criminals and you are free again. However, the criminals destroyed the bridge which goes to the other part of the city, so you're unable to travel to this part in the beginning of the
game.

This game is the first game that follows a storyline. You don't have to earn a certain amount of money to get to the next level, you can go wherever you want to go, with a few limitations. The first limitation is water, because you can't swim. However, later on in the game you can find some ships and then you can travel on water too. The second limitation is the bridge that leads to the other part of the city. But after you've completed a certain amount of missions the bridge is repaired and then you're able to travel to the other part too.

To gain ground on the criminal ladder, you have to complete several missions for rival gangs. At first, they're very easy and the reward is low, but after you complete more missions they'll become harder and reward more money. There is something I find strange with these missions, since you're character never talks. Sometimes you'll get missions by cellphones, but how do those guys know that it's you? The only thing that your character does is nodding, even on a phone.

There are also other ways to earn money, such as taxi-missions (you need a taxi for that) and vigilante missions (only available when you're driving a police car). There is also a collectible mission where you have to bring certain cars to the port, the wanted cars are on a list in the harbor. The strange part of these missions is that it's often hard to find these cars, but after you found one almost everyone is driving in the same car. For example, it's hard to find a Whoopiee ice-cream car, but after you found one and you're driving it to the port you'll encounter more ice-cream cars on your way.

As usual, there is also a police force in this game. Criminal offences, such as carjacking, murder and theft will result in increasing levels of resistance from the authorities. If the player's wanted level reaches certain levels, the police, FBI, and army will respond accordingly. When the player character collapses from his injuries or is arrested, he will re-spawn at a local hospital or police station, at the expense of losing all weapons and armor and an amount of money for medical expenses or bribes. While this is similar to previous Grand Theft Auto games, the player character is essentially offered an unlimited amount of lives.

Just as in GTA I and II you're able to respray or rig your car, which is needed in some missions. There are also some arms dealers in town where you can buy guns and armor.

As I mentioned before, this game is the first GTA game that is in 3D, and DMA did a great job with that. You really get the feeling that you're a part of the city now, instead of that eagle view. There is also a day-night cycle now and a dynamic weather system. Another thing that is added is a mini-map, so that you can navigate yourself around town. It also shows you where to go in your missions.

I own this game on my PS2 and I have to say that I liked it a lot, but the GTA I liked the most will be my next review: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which I also own on my PS2. Oh, and if you ever stumble across this game, I guess you could buy it. It is a fun game to play and it might keep you busy for some weeks, just like any other GTA.

Gunman Chronicles

2010-04-11T15:01:00.025+02:00

Gunman Chronicles is a game published by Sierra Studios in 2000. The game was produced by a company called Rewolf Software, which is a Dutch company which changed it's name to Streamline Studios in 2001, that company is known for contributing to many great titles, seeing as they were a company specialised in programming and graphics outsourcing. Some of titles are Ghost Recon 2, Overlord, Saint's Row, Gears Of War, Unreal Tournament 3 & 2004 and Battlefield 2142.

Gunman Chronicles uses the Goldsource engine which is also used in Half-Life. Gunman Chronicles is a standard fps with a few changes to the concept such as the fact that you're able to customise your firing options on your guns.

The storyline of Gunman Chronicles is the following, you start as Major Archer, a member of the Gunmen. You're send out on an exploration mission with other Gunmen in order to investigate a planet on which you meet a guy known as The General. The General was abandoned on a planet a few years back by Major Archer, because they thought he was dead, but he wasn't, so he managed to survive and repair his ship and get an army for himself. It's needless to say that The General has quite a grudge against the main character for leaving him there, so he does everything he can to see you die. During the game you'll notice that there are three factions, the Gunmen, a robot faction ruled by a computer known as AI and The Pirates(ruled by The General). In the first few levels you'll fight against the Pirates and local wildlife such as dinosaurs, but as you progress through the levels you'll encounter other forces such as the robots, because you manage to hide in the cargo of the General's spaceship which brings you to a moon which is ruled by the AI, who's under attack by the Pirates, since they want to expand and enslave creatures in order to sell them, that's also the reason why they invaded the first planet aswell, in order to capture dinosaurs. The AI first sees you as an enemy and tries whatever is in her power to stop you, until the very last moment when she's at the verge of capitulating, then she explains that she knows that you're not a member of the Pirates and wants to sign a truce. You'll then have to take her core with you in order to infiltrate the base of the General in order to crumble his empire. Because as it turns out the General is more than simply a warlord, he's also experimenting and breeding the Xenome race, which is a very aggressive alien race.

Like previously mentioned, Gunman Chronicles is a standard fps, so you're main objective is to blast your way through hallways with enemies. Every once in a while you have to solve a puzzle which aren't very difficult, most of the time it's simply blowing up some reactors or flipping a switch. The game also has a few parts in which you can drive a tank, which offers some fun variety. Although the game has some variety, for the most part it's still shooting a lot of enemies in order to progress through levels, which is just fine for some but could be boring others. About the customization options of your weapons, it comes down to choosing a firing speed in combination with accuracy, amount of projectiles being fired and in what form. Of course, the options all vary with the weapon you're holding. The game also offers little help in what you're objectives are, which can be quite frustrating, especially when you're stuck somewhere.

The level-design is quite mediocre, the variety between levels is great but the fact that you have to follow one path is quite limited. Another thing that makes it even worse is the fact that sometimes it's completely and utterly unclear on what you should do next, especially in the later levels this becomes a big annoyance, especially in the level rebar0b, at that level you have to fall and drop on a ledge between an elevator and the wall, which is impossible to see and therefore you'll probably spend quite some time trying to figure what you should be doing.

The graphics in this game were good at the time of the release with the exception of the backgrounds. Because the backgrounds in this game are very pixelated and have a very low resolution. Whilst the rest of the graphics, like objects, characters and buildings are done quite nicely. However, some of the terrain is very unrealistic, like canyons which have walls that are completely leveled and look like they've been carved by someone with too much time on his hands. But for the most part the graphics are quite good, although there is some alternation when it comes to the quality of the graphics.

The sound of this game isn't too special, you can't really be negative or positive about it. Something that is worth mentioning is that there's barely any music to be found in this game. So, you might want to play some music in the background if you get tired of hearing gun-noises all the time.

So to conclude this review, I'd like to say that I had fun playing this game, both because of the nostalgia factor and the oldschool gameplay. Although the game had a few points that aggravated me a lot, I can say that the storyline and fun gameplay kept me playing until I had completed the game, I wouldn't say that there's much replay value to the game, but the game's worth checking out, especially when considering it's quite old an therefore cheap. So if you like FPS'es you should check this game out.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

2010-04-09T23:12:00.008+02:00

This is going to be a two part review, part one is Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and part two is Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. So here comes part one.

The original game was released in 2004 for the Xbox and the PC and was developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games. To this day Starbreeze still exist, but Vivendi Games merged with Activision. But I'm going to review the upgraded version. It was released in 2009 on a CD wich also holds Assault on Dark Athena and was released by Atari.

The game was used as prequel to the movies Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick.

In the game you play as Richard B. Riddick, or simply said Riddick, a master in the art of escaping and a convict with a bounty on his head. The story starts with a small tutorial where Riddick is dreaming of an escape. The tutorial ends when he walks out of the sewers into a blinding white light. From that point on the game really starts, you arrived at Butcher Bay. A prison situated on a desert planet. There are three main prison levels in CoR: the first level are the normal holding cells, the second level is placed inside a mine and the third level are the cryogenic cells, where inmates are freezed and given 1 hour recreation per day.
You fight, sneak, talk and trade your way through the levels, Though you will be sneaking a lot through dark places to reach your final goal, to escape the prison.

Somewhere in the middle of the first prison level a riot starts and you fall into the pitt with a scratch on your arm. Essentially being a sewer below the prison, it's inhabitants are not your average inmate. They look human, but are really messed up and only want to hit you to death. But they are not the only ones crawling in the dark. A crazy man called Pope Joe lives there too. He is willing to stitch your arm, but first you have to get his Voice Box. After doing so, he stitches your arm. Then everything around Riddick freezes and a a woman tells you that "you have been blind too lang". It is here where Riddick receives his ability to look into the dark. Because it hurts like hell and because Pope is the only one around, he blames him for the 'eyeshine' nightvision. But he only stitched the wound on his arm.

In various parts in the game you can drive certain vehicles: a riot mech and a large robot. But those trips are really too short too really add something to the game, but it is fun though.
You can use every weapon in the game. Knives, pistoles, shotguns, assault rifles you name it, you can use it, with the exception of heavy guns like rocket launchers.

Because this game is an upgraded version of the 2004 version, the graphics are pretty good. The mapdesigners had the liberty to make levels that are really different from each other, because the player has to use shadows and dark places a lot.

Three have worked in this game to give three characters there voice. First of all is Dwight Schultz known for his role as Maddock in the A-Team. He playes the role as Butcher Bay's warden. Second is Xzibit, a famous rapper, actor and television personality, who plays the role for the guard Abbot. And finally Cole Hauser, who plays the role of the mercenary William J. Johns. He also plays the role of this character in the movie Pitch Black.

One drawback of the game is it's multiplayer. I've noticed that is filled with lag and that there aren't that many people online.

I had a lot of fun playing this game. Nice graphics, smooth gameplay and a solid storyline makes it a great game. This is the end of part 1, stay tuned for the second part, Assault on Dark Athena.

LittleBigPlanet

2010-04-05T20:20:00.016+02:00

LittleBigPlanet is a game published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The game was made by Media Molecule (MM), the game was released in November 2008. Media Molecule is a relatively new company formed by former employees of Lionhead Studios. The founders all worked on the game Rag Doll Kung Fu. LittleBigPlanet can best be described as puzzle platformer.

The storyline is pretty simple and not really that important, it's basically about a collector setting out traps and kidnapping some of the friends Sackboy meets when playing through levels. Your task is to make sure that the Collector doesn't keep everything for himself and let everyone play with the stuff he collects.

The central concept of this game is to be thrown into an empty level with a lot of tools and being able to create your own levels and share them with people, which leads to many great levels being published all across the globe. You have a singleplayer mode which is nothing more than a bunch of levels stringed together by a vague storyline, but that's okay since it's primary function is to show the players examples of what they could do in their levels, by showing certain objects and designs, most of which are collectable in so-called prize-bubbles, giving the player objects to use in their own levels. On top of that, the players have the ability to make their own objects and hand them out in the form of prize-bubbles as well. The game in essence is nothing more than a toolbox handed out to players, and they themselves add a lot of value to this game, you can spend literally years on playing all the levels that are currently online.

As I mentioned before, the singleplayer is nothing more than a bunch of levels stringed together by a vague storyline, and that it's function is to show all these things that can be done. In the levels you play, you can see a lot of great and fun examples. The mini-levels which feature different mini-games are incredibly fun. For example, there's a minigame which challenges you to stay on a bull for as long as you can, whilst the hazards thrown at you are getting bigger and bigger. The singleplayer exists of several regions, all of which are linked to a geographical spot on the map on which they are based on. The singleplayer can become quite challenging, especially when trying to complete certain levels without dying in order to gain more objects, but the game never becomes impossible and it maintains a balance between difficulty and fun.

The graphics in this game are very fitting and the visual style is good. You'll see many materials and patterns being used in this game, such as several types of wood, metal, sponge and many more. There are also backgrounds based on the geographical position on the map(in singleplayer that is, you're able to pick your own backgrounds in the editor), which are greatly detailed and quite large when compared to Sackboy(the character), which gives you the idea that you're a tiny ragdoll facing all kinds of obstacles, a bit like a rat in scientific environment. But it's quite hard judging the game by it's graphics since it's true value comes from user-made levels, which are dependant on the amount of effort, time and skill that were used in the process.

The sound in this game is good, although it can get quite annoying at times, especially the voices. The people at MM decided it would be better to use bullshit voices in order to avoid bouncing of people that have no understanding of the English language(the game also has been localised in many countries, just like in my country). The music in this game is diverse, seeing as that there are a few famous songs in it, such as the Skipping Syrtaki, but it also features less-known songs. Some songs do tend to become repetitive and annoying over time.

The single most important aspect of this game is multiplayer, since it's a goldmine of great levels to play. However, not all of us are so inventive so it might take a few levels before finding a good one, although this has been made easy with the rating system. But the rating system doesn't help with new levels, that's why it might take a few tries. Another great thing about this game is that it features the ability to play with four players at once, both online and offline, both by using four controllers on one console or by connecting with internet, making this game a good party game, which is rare nowadays seeing as most new games don't have offline multiplayer. And with vast amount of levels to choose from you'll probably spent quite some time on this game, both making your own levels and playing other levels made by users. There are quite some amazing levels to be found, since there are quite a few excellent level-designers.

So, to conclude this review, LittleBigPlanet is an excellent game, but it has a few problems. It isn't as appealing to hardcore gamers as it is to casual gamers, who are more drawn to the cuteness factor. Another thing that might keep somebody from buying is that not everyone has a lot of creativity, meaning that they'll get bored of it quite soon. The fact that the game can become quite annoying might be a turn-off. But besides these problems I would certainly give the game a chance, because chances are that you're going to get more value and playing time out of it than most other games, if it's your cup of tea.

GTA 2

2010-04-04T15:04:00.015+02:00

Grand Theft Auto 2 is a video game that was released worldwide on October 22, 1999, by developer DMA Design (now Rockstar North); initially for the Windows operating system and the PlayStation console. GTA 2 was published by Rockstar Games. The game was later ported to the Dreamcast console and the Game Boy Color. It is the sequel to 1997 hit Grand Theft Auto. The PC and Dreamcast versions of GTA 2 are both rated M by the ESRB. The language and violence were toned down for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color versions. You're able to download this game for free on Rockstar's own website, just like the first game.

GTA 2 retained the overhead viewpoint of GTA, as well as the car-stealing and telephone-answering formula of the original. The player has the ability to explore cities on foot or in various vehicles. The aim is to achieve a certain score to proceed to the next district. Doing missions awards the player more points than any other method but are not essential for completion of the game. You'll also earn a score multiplier when completing missions.

A new feature introduced in GTA 2 is doing missions for separate gangs, of which there are two new gangs for each of the three levels of the game, and one faction (The Zaibatsu Corporation) which is present in all districts. Being employed by one gang will cause distrust from others (when working for gang 1 will incur the wrath of gang 2, working for gang 2 will cause enmity with gang 3). When completing missions for a gang their respect for you will gain. At first you can only do the missions that are least rewarded, but when you complete more missions for that gang (or kill opposing gang members) you can do missions that are harder, but also reward more money.

In the original GTA, only the local police pursued the player. In GTA 2, SWAT teams (four Cop heads) are introduced in the Downtown District, Special Agents (five Cop heads) are introduced in the Residential District, and the army (six Cop heads) is introduced in the Industrial District. These additional types of law enforcement begin chasing the player as his or her wanted level increases. The wanted level is represented by images of a cop's head just like the two other classics.

GTA 2 introduced an improved saving technique, unlike GTA, which saved only when finishing a level. When you enter a church with $50,000, a voice announces "Hallelujah! Another soul saved!". This notifies you that the game has been saved. If the player doesn't have enough money, the voice will say "Damnation! No donation, no salvation!". These lines are not heard on the PlayStation version. Other improvements pertain to city activity. Passing vehicles and pedestrians are no longer only parts of the environment, but actually play a role in gameplay. Sometimes pedestrians would occasionally enter and ride in taxis or buses. The game is noted for the behavior of its non-player characters. Pedestrians, gang members and the police would occasionally engage in fights, and there are other carjackers (always in green sweater) and muggers (always in red sweater) in the city.

This game introduces 'side missions' such as being a taxi driver, along with retrieving 'hidden' packages (GTA 2 signs), completing bonus levels and a health meter. Being a taxi-driver would earn roughly 1 dollar per second. When standing still, passengers could get out if they want to, and the earnings will stop, so if you don't stop they can't get out and you will constantly get money from them.

This is also the first GTA to feature a wide array of weapons to use, ranging from an electric gun to a rocket launcher.

Some weapons in GTA2 feature a Kill Frenzy mission when picked up, where a player has a limited amount of time to kill a certain number of people with a particular weapon loaded. Bonuses are rewarded (and an extra life) if the mission is successful. If a player finds a tank and gets in, a Kill Frenzy mission also starts.

Just like in Grand Theft Auto and GTA: London 1969 you'll get a bonus when running over a group of people with your car. A string of Elvis impersonators are sometimes spotted walking the streets. Their deaths are awarded with a large money bonus, followed by the line ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.

The graphics of this game have been improved compared with Grand Theft Auto. Also, light effects have been added. The game can be played in two modes (only in the PC version), noon or dusk. On the noon setting the lighting is bright. On the dusk setting the game is darker, with multiple dynamic lights from explosions and car headlights. The Dreamcast version of the game can only be played in the dusk setting. The PlayStation version of the game can only be played in the noon setting.

To conclude this review: I liked this game, it has nice gameplay, can be addictive and it can also be a hard game sometimes. Since you can download this game for free on Rockstar's website you should check it out immediately.

Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

2010-03-31T17:17:00.027+02:00

The third in line of the Tiberium series, C&C 3 Tiberium Wars was released in 2007 by Electronic Arts. By this time Westwood has disappeared and that’s something you can notice throughout the game. This game has one expansion named Kane's Wrath. In the expansion's camapaign you play parallel to the C&C 3 campaign and you get introduced to new 6 splinter factions new units.

C&C 3 starts in the year 2047 where there has been a relative peace between the Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, and the Brotherhood of Nod. During that period of peace Nod has developed itself into a superpower and wants to seize world domination by harnessing the power of Tiberium, while GDI has been working on combating the spread of it and reclaiming land. In C&C 3, the alien substance has spread itself all over the world and has evolved from a plant form to a crystalline form, destroying entire Eco-systems, polluting soil and air and creating devastating ion-storms.
The whole world has been classified into 3 zones. Red zones are uninhabitable being totally infested with Tiberium and covers 30% of the planet. Yellow zones house 80% of the worlds population with some Tiberium shooting out of the ground. This zone covers 50% of the Earth. And finally the Blue zones. These are zones where no Tiberium is present. It’s also under the protection of GDI and houses the remaining 20% of the world’s population and covers 20% of the world.
The campaign begins when Nod attacks the GDI A-SAT centre at Goddard Space Centre, leaving the GDSS Philadelphia, the orbital command station orbiting the earth, vulnerable for an attack. Immediately after A-SAT went down, Nod launches a nuclear missile towards the station, destroying it and crippling GDI. This is the start of the Third Tiberium War.
As the war intensifies another faction enters the battle, the Scrin. The appearance of the new faction totally alters the nature of the war.
When these aliens arrive they immediately start spreading throughout the Red zones and attacking all major cities. The attacks are used as a distraction to keep Nod and GDI at bay while they build huge towers.
Nearing the end of the campaign, GDI has managed to destroy all towers but one in the Italy Red zone. Before GDI has got the chance to destroy it and the Scrin Control Node, the Scrin finish the construction making it invulnerable to all weapons but is also rendered completely inert due to the destruction of the control node.

Between missions, you usually get a short cut-scene giving you a briefing or a headsup on the situation. And to be honest, they really aren't that bad, but then again they really don't add anything to the game.
When you play the game for the first time, you can only chose between Nod and GDI campaign.
But when you completed both campaigns, the Scrin campaign becomes available.

All units in C&C 3 are different with only a few units left that are really recognizable from the previous Tiberium game. I'll take Nod's attack bike and GDI's orca as an example, they have been given a new model but are almost similar to their predecessors. But the rest is virtually build from scratch but again with some help of Tiberium Sun, but that accounts for GDI and Nod. For the Scrin EA had to use it's imagination. The result? A faction with an organic look.
My first impression was wow, this game does look pretty good. But looks can be deceiving. I noticed with the arriral of the Scrin that the balance of the game goes way of the chart. The Scrin is simply said too overpowered. One example is the Devastator Warship has an enormous range, exceeding that of your defenses and all of your units. One ship alone can devastate your entire base. So that is one of my major complaints, the lack of balance.

Harvesting and base construction hasn't changed a lot in Tiberium Wars but you have been given some new toys to build your base with. You can build a crane that acts as a second construction yard allowing you to deploy multiple buildings in a shorter amount of time. Another toy is a unit that can deploy one time anywhere in the field and creating an area where you can build structures.
The defensive structures in C&C 3 are pretty weak when you compare them to the vehicles and infantry. They are easily overrun or destroyed without doing a lot of damage when you rush you enemies base. Only the advanced defensive structures stand a chance and they cost a fortune to build. And the funny part is that they are just as easy to destroy, it's good that they do a larger amount of damage.

C&C 3 also comes with the feature of off-map support powers. Every faction has next to common support powers, their own set of unique ones. Nod, for example, has the Tiberium vapor bomb, that when detonated, creates a big explosion. I find these powers pretty useful, but the downside is that they all cost money making them less attractive to use.

The maps and terrain in C&C3 have been designed well. Some civilian buildings have a futuristic look while others look like apartment blocks found these days. Sometimes you can find some buildings that you can capture. Think of Tiberium Spires that convert Tibirium into credits that can give you a steady income of credits and EMP centres that can cripple your enemy for some time.

One last thing. With the launch of C&C 3, EA tried to market RTS as a sport by recording matches and discussing them in a show you can view on EA's website. What's the name of the show you? It's called Battlecast.

I actually enjoyed playing this game, though I had some moments where I shouted at my monitor out of pure anger. But still a game worth playing, but it could've been better.

Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

2010-03-27T16:51:00.005+01:00

Grand Theft Auto: London, 1969 is the first expansion pack to the original Grand Theft Auto. GTA: London 1969 was released in April 1999 for the PC and PlayStation. It offered 32 new missions, as well as a total of 30 new vehicles, relative to the time period.

The game is very similar to the original Grand Theft Auto because it uses the same game engine and is presented in the same format of missions, sections and cutscenes. Another expansion pack, Grand Theft Auto: London 1961, was later released solely for the PC version and offered as free download from Rockstar. It requires GTA London 1969, which in turn requires GTA 1. Since London 1969 and London 1961 are almost the same games I'll only review London 1969.

As the name implies, the game takes place in London in the year 1969. You once again enter the role of a criminal looking to work his or her way up the career ladder of organized crime. The temporal setting has been exploited through a number of cultural and historical references, including the appearance of a James Bond-like character. In addition, the cars drive on the left side of the road, as is the case in Britain. I really had a hard time getting used to that, as you can see in the video.

In this game you can also name your character, just like in GTA 1. In GTA: London 1969 you work for a crime syndicate called 'The Crisp Twins', which is a parody to 'The Kray Twins', who were the foremost perpetrators of organized crime in London's East End during the 50's and 60's.

Just like Grand Theft Auto, this game has similar bonuses. For example, when running over a group of people with a car without braking. When successful you'll get the message: 'Keep London Tidy' and a cash bonus.

What I really liked about this game are the dialogs of the characters. When driving through London you hear things like: 'Oi, stop right there!' or 'filthy hippie!' and other hilarious lines. I even fail in my missions on purpose, just to hear the line 'Mission Failed' another time.

Speaking of the missions, some of them are hilarious too. There is one mission where you have to destroy a bus that belongs to the opposing soccer-team. Afterwards you have to pick up their best players and kill them, so that the team your mob supports can win the match.

Because the same engine was used as in GTA, the graphics look only slightly different, but still well done. When playing this game you sometimes hear the same background voices as in the original game. The cars also have the same sounds as the original game.

Still, this game is fun to play and when you liked the original you'll definitely like this expansion pack too, because of the hilarious moments and funny dialogs.

Grand Theft Auto

2010-03-21T17:01:00.005+01:00

Grand Theft Auto is an action game made by DMA Design (later on they changed their name to Rockstar North), the company that also created Body Harvest. The game was released in October 1997 on MS-Dos and Windows, in February 1998 on Playstation and in November 1999 on Gameboy Color.

In Grand Theft Auto you can play in three different cities, but at first you only have one option, Liberty City. This game works different than the GTA's we play nowadays. In this game you have to reach a number of points before you can start the next level. For example, in the first mission you have to score 1 million points. You can do this primarily by completing missions. When you complete a mission you'll get a multiplier so you get twice the amount of points for every action you make. However, when you get caught by the police you'll lose half of your multipliers. In most missions you have to kill someone or get a car from point A to B, but there are more varieties. You don't have to complete all missions, the primary goal is to get points, and it doesn't matter how you achieve them. You can sell cars, kill people, destroy vehicles, and in some levels there is a train track which you can put to good use, as I demonstrate in the movie below.

In this game you have four lives when you start a level. When you die, you'll lose one life, simple. You can regain lives by playing Kill Frenzy's, in which you have to get a certain amount of points within the time limit. You can find these rampages throughout the level. They can appear as guns, but also as tanks and other vehicles.

As mentioned earlier, there is a police force in this game. The funny thing is that they don't mind your bad driving skills. For example, when driving through the red light, they don't chase you, but when you hit their car they will. In this game there are four levels of police displayed in the amount of police heads you see on your screen. When you've got three heads the police will set op roadblocks and shoot at you with pistols, with four heads they'll shoot you with machine guns.

You are able to choose to play as eight characters in the game: Travis, Kat, Nikki, Divine, Bubba, Troy, Kivlov and Ulrika (the PlayStation version only lets players choose the four male characters, however). In actual gameplay, there is no real difference, since the characters all wear the exact same yellow sweater. You may also name your character, which, with the correct name, acts like a cheat code and alters gameplay.

Now, the graphics of this game are well done. When somebody says Grand Theft Auto most people almost directly think of GTA: San Andreas or GTA IV. This game is different. In the year of 1997 they weren't able to create such nice 3D graphics, but these eagle view graphics are done quite well too.

Conclusion: If you always liked the GTA series, but have never played this game you should try it. Now, I'll let you into a secret. This game is free to download on Rockstar's own website, so check it out immediately.

Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King

2010-03-18T19:15:00.001+01:00

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King(which I'll later refer to as LOTR:ROTK) is a co-production of EA Games and New Line Cinema. The game was released in 2003, a year in which titles like Rayman 3, Devil May Cry 2, SimCity 4, Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, Warcraft III, Manhunt and many others were released. LOTR:ROTK can best be described as a Hack and Slasher with RPG-influences.

The storyline is pretty self-explanatory, since most people are familiar with the Lord of the Rings movies. This game lets you play in certain events that happened throughout the movies, not only the third movie with the same title as this game. Some levels you'll be playing are Isengard, Mordor, Gondor and many more.

The graphics in this game haven't really aged well, that's something you'll notice straight away. It has a bit of a blurry feeling to it when compared to newer games. But at the time I first played it(at a friend's house, before purchasing the game myself) I was blown away, the graphics were better than I had ever seen before. And therefore it is only fair that we rate the graphics from that perspective. The details when it comes to the characters you control were great for that time, although having the same minor flaws that were common for games from that timeperiod such as capes not having ragdoll psychics and there having stuttering animation in between moves. The levels in which you fight in this game are a faithful copy of the areas in the movies, although a bit limited. This game was also the first game(and I think the only one I've played) that used clips from a movie to tell the story in which you can see the game switching over from a polygon-structured scene to a movie clip, which can be spotted right away of course but it doesn't really bother you.

The overall presentation of this game is quite good, this goes for the sound and music as well. The game features many songs and sound-effects from the movie, giving you that feeling from the movies. Whenever you hear that battletune from the movies, you know that you'll have to pay attention since you'll probably have to face off against many enemies.

The gameplay in this game is very, very smooth. I've spend countless of hours with my friends on this game, since this game also offers co-op(if you have a gamepad, that is). Slaughtering thousands of Orcs, beating bosses and solving puzzles is very fun in this game, especially in co-op. The fighting in this game has been executed very well, you'll be ploughing through crowds like it's nothing, if you've leveled up that is, because this game can become challenging at certain moments. Fighting in this game feels very nice and quick, especially with the rpg-influences this game has, such as the ability to level up and gain experience points which can be used to purchase certain combo's and moves, which add variety to the fighting. The unlockable characters and the leveling really extend the playing-time, because you'll end up trying to unlock every extra the game has to offer such as secret characters, bonus levels and many more.

There are however a few throwbacks in this game, an example of this is that at a couple of levels in the story line you'll find yourself being confused at what it is that you have to do, this can be extremely annoying when you have a timelimit. Another thing is that when playing co-op all things are shared, so if you aren't aware of it you'll end up having no experience points to spend on the stats of player 2's character. In co-op, lives are shared as well, let's say that you play on normal and have 3 lives, then you're both allowed to die once, but if you or your friend dies twice, you're automatically required to stay alive for the rest of the level, this might not seem like a big issue, but when being cornered by Orcs it can lead to having to start over.

So to conclude this review I think I can easily say that this is a good purchase if you ever happen to stumble upon the game, despite the few flaws this game remains to be extremely fun, both co-op and singleplayer, although I'd suggest playing it with a friend, since it adds to the experience. However, if you put great value in graphics and only want to see the latest high-detailed graphics I'd suggest to let this one go, since it's probably not your cup of tea. Another thing I'd like to add is that there's no online multiplayer, but if you look at what type of a game this is, it's not really a surprise. So to end this review I'd like to say that you should really give this game a try, it's extremely fun and probably very cheap since it's from 2003.

Dante's Inferno

2010-03-12T21:18:00.007+01:00

Dante's Inferno is a third-person action-adventure game developed by Visceral Games (formerly EA Redwood Shores, and also creator of Dead Space) and published by Electronic Arts, released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. The game is loosely inspired by Inferno, the first book of Dante Alighieri's epic poem, The Divine Comedy.

During the Third Crusade, the story follows Dante, a Christian crusader general, who despite his faith, has committed numerous atrocities under his command. Attempting to seek atonement, Dante stitches a bloody holy cross-shaped tapestry onto his torso, which depicts every sin he has committed. First opening in the city of Acre, Dante has been ordered by King Richard I to seize a holy relic before the forces of Saladin capture it. During a raid by the peasants, Dante is stabbed in the back by an assassin where upon Death appears before him to be taken to the after life. Despite being led to believe by a Bishop his sins were absolved, Dante is ruled by Death to be condemned to "everlasting damnation for his sins", a fate his loved ones will also share. Dante however pulls the knife from his back and refuses to accept his fate, engaging Death itself in combat where he not only destroys Death but also takes his great scythe in the process. He returns to Florence, seeking a life of peace but finds his lover Beatrice Portinari and father Alighiero brutally murdered. Beatrice's soul appears before Dante telling him she knew he would come after her before a shadowy manifestation of Lucifer drags her into darkness, before the undead begin to rise and attacking Dante. After making it to a chapel, Dante seeks assistance by blessing the holy cross that Beatrice gave to him upon making their vows to be faithful to each other, to protect him against the evils that await. Upon doing so, a crack in the earth opens up allowing Dante to descend to the Gates of Hell.

During his journey, Virgil the poet aids you in your quest by telling stuff about the nine circles of Hell and its guardians, like Cleopatra at the circle of Lust. I'll give you the names of the nine circles of Hell: The first circle is Limbo. Limbo is the speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned, the guardian of Limbo is the Judge of the Damned, who judges each soul before assigning them a place in hell based on their sins. The second circle is Lust, which is self-explanatory. The guardian of Lust is an immense Cleopatra, as mentioned before. The third circle is Gluttony. The guardian of Gluttony is 'the great worm' Cerberus with its three heads. The fourth circle is Greed, in which the greatly deformed body of your father is the guardian. The fifth circle of Hells is Anger. The guardian of Anger is the great fiery demon 'Phlegyas'. After the fifth circle you descend further into hell by going into the City of Dis and entering the sixth circle of Hell: Heresy. The seventh circle is Violence, where murderers suffer in a pool of boiling blood. The eighth circle is Fraud, where simple thieves and false Popes suffer from their sins. And the lowest circle of Hell is Treachery. Souls like Judas suffer in this circle.

When you kill enemies you'll get souls, and with these souls you can buy new power-ups and stronger spells. By absolving or punishing enemies you'll get an additional soul bonus and with absolving souls you'll get Holy experience and with punishing souls you'll get Unholy experience. Both paths have seven levels. With each level the spells and abilities are stronger, but also cost more souls to purchase.

During this story mode you have to collect a couple of things in order to get bonuses. These things are: Silver Judas coins, (there are 30 pieces of them, with each five pieces you'll get a soul bonus, you can find these in yellow fountains) relics (you can find Holy and Unholy relics and some of them require a certain level in the specific path), Beatrice stones (there are only three of them, and when you acquire them all you're granted the ability to auto-absolve the Damned) and the Damned (you can punish or absolve these suffering souls, and when you absolve them you have to play a mini-game in which you can win an additional amount of souls or you can auto-absolve them when you've acquired all Beatrice stones).

The graphics of this game are difficult to compare with another game, but I think they're okay. However, we can use this game to compare with God of War 3. The level-design is fair enough, but I discovered some areas where you have to jump on a certain platform and there seems to be an invisible wall which almost makes it impossible to get on that platform.

To end this review, I think this game is enjoyable. At least EA was smart enough to release this game before God of War 3 was released.

Crysis

2010-03-07T21:30:00.010+01:00

This game was developed by Crytek and released by Electronic Arts in 2004 for the PC. Crytek was founded in 1999 by three Turkish brothers: Cevat, Avni and Faruk Yerli. The company is known for the game Far Cry which sold over 2.4 million copies world wide and has it’s headquarter in Frankfurt. The game has 2 expansions, Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars.

In the game you play as a special forces soldier, ordered to evacuate civilians of a fictional group of islands in the South Chinese Sea that is being blocked and occupied by North Korea. Though when arriving on the island, you and your team soon realise that there's more going on than a simple evacuation. An alien civilization is discovered and you enter an alien structure that is built into the island itself. When leaving the structure, the aliens terra form parts of the island into a Tundra climate. When you find out that the aliens are trying to invade the planet, plans are made to eliminate the aliens. The situation then spirals out of control when a nuclear missile it launched at the island. The aliens get stronger and begin to attack a US carrier where you were evacuated too. On the flight deck of the carrier, you finally take down a war barge of the aliens preventing them from further invading the planet. Well that concludes the story.

Now as Special Forces soldier in the year 2020. You wear the most advanced armour, a Nano Suit. This suit can instantaneously increase the armour, strength or speed of the wearer. Even making him or her temporarily invisible. The nano suit in the game is inspired by a concept from the US military.

This game is virtually a sandbox game driven by commands. You can go anywhere but you can't continue the game unless you completed orders given to you. The terrain and the environment are beautiful and require one hell of a graphics card and processor. The game also utilises a day and night cycle which creates some variations.
There are numerous vehicles that you can pilot. Trucks, cars, tanks, you name it. Only jets, destroyers, forklifts and alien vehicles are not drivable

The AI is pretty smart and gets smarter with every increase of the level of difficulty. They will smoke you out of cover, flank you and blow your ass out of this world.

Up to 32 players are supported in each multiplayer match in Crysis. There are two different modes, each with six available maps: Instant Action, a death match type mode; and Power Struggle, which are played by two opposing teams, each trying to destroy the other's headquarters.
Power Struggle features the American Delta Force soldiers fighting the North Korean Army; both sides, however, have nano suits. All players begin armed with only a pistol and a basic nano suit. You may find weapons and vehicles throughout the map, but the majority of weapons must be bought by using "Prestige Points."
The aim of Power Struggle is to destroy the enemy headquarters, a task which is achieved using nuclear weapons in the form of a TAC Tank, a TAC launcher, or a Singularity Tank. To gain access to the nuclear weapons, you must first capture the facility which is used to make them, and then the alien crash sites which feed the facility the energy necessary to build them.

So to conclude the review, I had a lot of fun playing this game. It's beautiful landscape and intense battles made it a very good game. So I would really recommend this game for a buy.
There's only one thing. This game eats your computer alive if you have a weak one. You won't be able to run this game very well on a dual-core and a card from the GeForce 7 series.
I have played this game on a Quad-Core and even then I experienced some lag

Robocop

2010-03-06T20:19:00.006+01:00

This first-person shooter has been developed by Titus Interactive and published by MGM Interactive in 2003. Titus Interactive is a studio based in Paris and has released games like Superman 64 and of course Robocop.

The game begins after the end of the movie Robocop. You are put in the rol of a Delta City's cyborg police officer. There isn't a real story only that you are send to parts of the city to combat crime. And by combat I mean kill every one that is hostile to you. Charming.
To help you do this you have multiple weapons to your disposal such as his trusty pistol, a missile launcher etc.

The graphics in this game are bad and outdated, for a game of 2003 you would expect more than this. It looks like Half Life for the pc and even that game looks better. And that game was released in 1998, so the developers should be ashamed of themselves.
The levels are boring and it isn't always clear where you have to go. And if you have missed one hostile person, the game doesn't allow you to continue.
The characters look weird. With weird I mean that their faces are flat for the most part. So to counter this the developers had the idea to put the flat areas in angles so you would have the idea that the heads aren't flat at all.

The music in this game is weird. It constantly repeats itself so after a while you will be banging your head against the wall, begging to make it stop. Robocop himself talks too. When you pick up ammunition or energy, he will say what he has just picked up. It sounds real cool when you hear it for the first time, but after hearing it a thousand times you will go crazy.

The AI is stupid, really stupid. Instead of taking cover when you show up, they will stand right in front of you, firing at your metal ass. So you won't be having any problems completing the levels, unless of course you miss one individual.

So to conclude this review, don't ever download this game nor buy it. The graphics are bad, the sound is awfull and this game doesn't really make any sense. It's only a rip of from the movie.

Borderlands

2010-02-24T13:09:00.011+01:00

Borderlands is a game created by Gearbox Software and was released by 2K Games. Gearbox Software is known for games such as Half-Life, Halo and Brothers in Arms. So it's clear that Gearbox is one of the bigger development studios out there and that it has quite a legacy to it when it comes to games, however I personally think Borderlands could've been way better. Borderlands is a shooter/RPG game.

The storyline of Borderlands is the following, you start out on Pandora, which is a planet known for having treasure in a vault under the ground, the Vault opens every 200 years. On the planet Pandora there are few settlements because the environment is very hostile and most treasurers don't choose the good path but rather turn into bandits. You're send as a mercenary to open the vault and see what it contains, whilst remaining on the good side of the law, because the information you get from the settlers is very important in order to accomplish your goal.

The storyline is pretty cliché and you'll probably won't even bother to read any side information or listen to the woman that pops up in your upper-left screen every once in a while. My major problem with this game is that it tries to be two things at one and does a poor job at both of them, whilst they could've really made them work. I'll start with the gameplay, since that will make things a lot clearer. Borderlands is a shooter in that your weapons are guns and is an RPG in that you accumulate experience and your hits are displayed in numbers, along with an inventory system and quests. So where's the problem you might ask, well throughout the game you'll have to grind through tons and tons of enemies in order to complete quests or get level up. There's little variety in quests, there are only 3 types of quests, search-and-destroy, retrieving certain items and certain objectives. For the most part you're killing thousands upon thousands of enemies in order to level up, and I'm not even kidding here, I had to kill about 20,000 enemies in order to get to level 50. So it's pretty redundant to say that the gameplay gets stale rather quick.

The game doesn't really work like a regular shooter in which it just takes a few bullets in order to kill a certain enemy. In Borderlands you do a certain damage depending on a few factors such as your character's level and your gun experience level for that type of gun. So it's not really special that you sometimes have to shoot more than three cartridges in order to kill a normal enemy, if they happen to be a few levels higher than you. Not even mentioning the bossbattles, which will often lead you to deplete your ammunition for every gun type that you have. I find the inventory system to be an annoyance as well, because when you're completing quests in a rapid pace(it saves time to just accept every quest there is and do multiple quests in one area) you'll often lose track of your inventory since all these quests award you with equipment that you don't really need and when you find a gun or something else that you want to pick up, you're required to clean up your inventory first, by throwing out the stuff you just got from the quests.

It's also a shame that the creators of this game changed the graphics during the development of this game, at first they went for a Fallout 3 style look but later changed it to a cartoonesque style, similar to Prince of Persia. That's what also made it hard to be sucked into the game, the game had a cold, bland, empty feeling to it. Another thing that bothered me is that they re-use enemies a lot, I think there are only 6-7 different enemies in this game and they keep reappearing with different names, pallet-swaps and of course with better stats.

Soundwise there isn't anything that's the noteworthy neither on the bad or good side. The only thing that I thought could've been better is the background music, or the lack of there being background music. The only music that's in the game is the title music and combat music, whenever you get attacked you hear a song, but besides that there's no music at all, which doesn't really help with the fact that the game has a cold, bland, empty feeling to it.

My overall conclusion of this game is that it really let me down, I had been tracking this game for quite a while and I was disappointed when I got it. The repetitive grinding gameplay and the cold, bland, empty feeling to it, make that this game becomes boring pretty fast. If you were looking to buy this game I'd suggest trying your luck somewhere else, since this game isn't noteworthy on both the Shooter-side and the RPG-side. But the truth be told it isn't that bad, everything works like it's supposed to work, but the overall mediocrity makes the game a let-down, especially when you consider the fact that there was such a hype around this game. Oh yeah, about the millions of guns, that's a lie. Surely there are guns with different stats, but they all look pretty much the same, except for a few special ones but for the most part it's just the same gun with a different skin, different stats and a different name. They use the diablo-method of just randomizing the stats. So when you're considering to buy this game, I'd suggest trying your luck somewhere else.

Red Alert 3

2010-02-23T19:02:00.005+01:00

The third title in the Red Alert series, it was released in 2008 by EA.

In RA3 you are introduced with a third faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun. This faction uses state of the art technologies, units and buildings. The other two remain the Allies and the Soviets

All three factions are playable in the campaign and start at the same time in the game. The intro shows you the Soviet Union at the brink of the defeat by the allies, most likely at the end of Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge. By using a time machine general Krukov and colonel Cherdenko travel back in time to Brussels to the year of 1927, where the International Physics Conference is held. There they murder Albert Einstein, which prevents the Allies from obtaining technology that he would have created. When they travel back, they found out that the Soviet Union is winning the Third World War. But Einstein’s disappearance has had a second outcome. Without Einstein the Empire of the Rising Sun (a.k.a. Japan) has risen and declares war against the Allies and the Soviet Union. When Krukov and Cherdenko find out that they don’t have nuclear weapons because of Einstein’s existence, they are forced into a war on multiple fronts.

From that moment onwards all faction have a different storyline, though there are some points where the different campaigns are a bit parallel to each other. But with other scenarios and outcomes of course. Every campaign ends in the same way. the faction you chose at the beginning of the campaign achieves global domination. You always play with a co-commander in the campaign. You can choose play with a computer-controlled AI or with another player online.

RA3 introduces a new range of units and only a few buildings are left from the previous parts. The allies still have the chromosphere and a variant from RA2 prism tower, only this time it’s called the Spectrum Tower. The soviets are still using their mighty Kirov airships and the famous Tesla Coils. The Empire of the Rising Sun is really the only faction that had to be build from scratch. The Allied and Soviet units can find their roots in RA and RA2. Every unit in RA3 has a secondary ability which must be activated manually.

The only thing I find disappointing the balance in the game, because it's almost non-existent. And I will tell you why. The Allies have their bombers that can tear apart almost every unit and even worse their carriers. There's is almost nothing you can do against these monsters, they have only 2 drawbacks: their drones can be destroyed and they suck at close combat. The Soviets have an almighty ground advantage with tanks that can rip through everything especially in the early minutes of a match . And last but not least the Empire of the Rising Sun. To be honest, it isn’t really good at anything as it relies more on adaptability rather than specializing itself. Some examples are transformable submarines that can turn into planes and helicopters that can morph into two-legged walkers. This means that the Empire is a difficult faction to play with, for it has no distinctive strengths or weaknesses.

Each faction has their own way of constructing their base. When playing as the soviets your buildings will be assembled in the field, while the allies are using the traditional way of base building. What’s the normal way you say? Queuing up buildings and when ready place them in the field, immediately ready for use. The Empire uses a more mobile way of building. Its Construction Yard spits out construction vehicles, which can be deployed anywhere and assemble themselves on site.

Resource gathering has been changed but only for a bit. In RA and RA2 you would find concentrated fields of ore (resources), in RA3 resources are centralized in pits which are scattered around the battlefield. You usually have two of those pits at your start position. These pits make resource make harvesting a bit easier, because refineries can be build in front of them. Both the refineries and pits use rotating platforms turn the collectors around pointing them in the right way and while doing so they load and unload the vehicles. Though they have changed one thing. All resources are evenly split between you and your team-mates.

But this has a positive and negative side. The positive side is that you also get resources even when your refineries are destroyed ( only if your partner(s) has any refineries standing). The negative side is that you never get the full amount of resources that you gather, which can sometimes mean the difference between defeat and victory.

The graphics in RA3 have been increased to a ridiculous level where it becomes cartoony. The terrain sometimes looks better than the units. But the one thing that draw my attention is the big detail of the water. It looks excellent when you compare it to the rest of the game. You can see shockwaves appearing in the water during naval battles.

To conclude this review, I had some fun playing this game. It's too bad that there's little balance in the game. But I would still recommend this game for a buy because it's not that bad and it's part of the Red Alert Universe.

Need for speed III: Hot Pursuit

2010-02-21T19:43:00.012+01:00

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit is a racing game developed by EA Canada and published by EA. The game was released in 1998 for Windows and Playstation. The police plays a big role in this game, because they try to arrest you and your opponent while racing on several tracks.

This game has no storyline, but has several game modes in which you can earn new cars and a new track. These modes are: Single Race, Tournament, Knock-Out and Hot Pursuit. Single Race is self-explanatory. Tournament is championship mode, in which you have to race on eight tracks against seven other racers. In Knock-Out you also have to race on eight tracks, but in this elimination mode the racer who finishes last is eliminated. In Hot Pursuit you can race against one racer, but the main objective is to outrun the police or to arrest six AI racers (Windows version). If you manage to outrun the police for a longer period, they will set up road blocks and spike strips to slow you down.

Tactical aspects of the police pursuits have also been improved since the last game. The police have the ability to deploy roadblocks (which simply consists of lining up police cars across the road) and spike strips (which puncture the tires of a racer's car that runs over the strip, and halts the car). Both tactics present weaknesses, specifically, gaps in the blockade that can be used by a racer to avoid collisions with police cars or tire punctures from a spike strip. The player may also listen to police radio chatter on the pursuits' statuses, revealing the current locations of racers, police cars, as well as roadblocks and spike strips.

It's also possible to play this game split-screen. In split-screen Tournament mode there are only two other racers instead of seven in singleplayer. In Knock-Out there is only one other racer in split-screen, but both players have to finish ahead of the AI racer in order to proceed to the next track. In Hot Pursuit both players can race each other to the finish or one player can be the police and has to arrest the other player (only in the Windows version).

When starting a track, you can change the weather conditions. You can also race in day-or night time, or change the amount of laps you have to race. When playing Hot Pursuit you can get more fines when racing more laps, but when you aren't fined for a long time (let's say four laps on an eight lap race) you're arrested right away when you get caught.

The graphics of this game are, considering that this game is made in 1998, very good. I have only one complaint. When you drive behind an AI racer or police car, it seems that they're floating above the track, since they change driving lanes much faster than you can change lanes.

The sound of this game is okay. The soundtrack playing in a race changes when something happens to you.

I own this game on my Playstation, and I have to say that I had a lot more fun with that version of the game than the Windows version. The difference between these games is that the police talks to you, and not to each other, just like in the Windows version and when they talk to you it's more fun. For example, when you hit a police car he screams (mostly when he crashes) or you can hear him say 'Hey, this is a new paint job' and you don't hear that with the Windows version. However, the graphics of the Windows version are a little bit better. The gameplay itself however, is very funny. It's even more fun when you play it with a friend.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

2010-02-13T19:30:00.007+01:00

LOTR: Conquest is a third-person action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts in January 2009 for PS3, Xbox 360, Windows and Nintendo DS.
The game uses elements of the movie, but also from the original book written by JR Tolkien.

The game follows parts of the movies and the novels, but they let their imagination loose and put parts in it that really didn't make any sense. One example is the Battle of Minas Morgul, which never took place in the novels.

There are five different classes:
-the Archer, A long ranged unit with a bow and arrow that plays like a third-person shooter. Different types of arrows can be equipped: fire arrows, which can knock down enemies and deal explosive damage; poison arrows, which slow enemies down and do damage over time, and the ability to fire a volley of three normal arrows at multiple enemies at once. They also have a kick for use in close-quarters, which knocks back the enemy. They can also hit stealthed Scouts with the multiple arrow skill. A headshot will allow the archer to kill most enemies in a single hit, but that's virtually impossible online because of the MASSIVE lag.

-the Warrior: A melee combat unit which uses swordsmanship. Unlike the other classes, whose special attacks recharge over time, warriors can only gain strength by defeating enemies, which allows them to unleash more powerful attacks with a flaming sword, such as spinning to hit every adjacent enemy. They are the only class that can block or perform counterattacks with special moves. The warrior also has a throwing axe as a secondary, medium ranged weapon. You don't want to be playing this class when playing online. The warrior's only purpose is playing target practice for the mage and scout.

-The Scout: A master in the art of moving unseen. The scout’s primary weapons are two daggers, and he has the ability to become temporarily invisible and assassinate units instantly from behind with a sneak attack. As a secondary attack, he carries satchel bombs filled with blasting powder as a ranged attack. Listen to me! Listen to me carefully, I control your brains. This class is the most hated class online. Only the weak and most pathetic persons will use this class. These BACKSTABBING bastards are your primary targets online. You will show no mercy when you encounter these weaklings.

-The Mage: A mage's primary attack is a bolt of lightning, which can be charged up for a more powerful attack that can also damage other enemies in close proximity to the target. He also wields a “firewall” attack, which creates an expanding circle of flames that will heavily damage if not kill enemies who are within the circle. For close range attacks, they have a shockwave attack, which knocks enemies back and allows the mage to finish them off with his staff. Mages can also heal allies. For defensive purposes, a mage can create a magical shield around himself to protect anyone inside from ranged attacks of any sort, provided the attacker is outside of the shield, which allows people to walk through. While the shield ability is active, the mage is unable to do anything else and is therefore highly vulnerable to melee attacks. This unit is overpowered when playing online, as people tend to use the mage a lot.

- The Heroes: These units are not that different from the normal classes, they're only a bit harder to kill, except when you're playing a backstabbing bastard. Then it's only an assassination away, because they aren't immune to the 'special' backstabbing ability that the scout possesses.
Their attacks and special attacks are the same, they also move the same as the normal classes. But you can only choose them when you have a certain amount of points or when you are playing a Hero Team Deathmatch.

You're also able to play as special units. The good side has the Ents and the bad side Cave Trolls. These units are much stronger than the normal units, but there are only a few of these units available at the same time.

The game also has multiplayer. The game modes aren't very special. You're able to play a few game modes, like Team Deathmatch, Capture the Ring and Hero Team Deathmatch. On PS3, the max amount of players is 16 and no bots are added, so the battles online are very empty. At first I was able to play this game online on my PS3, but after a couple of months they shut down the European servers. I think they realized what abomination they've created and saved us from further infection of the brains.

The graphics of this game aren't bad, but they aren't special too. You should think that the creators of the Star Wars Battlefront series could do better than this, but unfortunately they didn't. I even think that the graphics of Star Wars Battlefront II are better than those of this game.

So in the end, I think you should steer clear of this game, especially when you're a fan of the LOTR novels and movies. I also think that Pandemic Studios could do way better than this, because they've showed that with the Battlefront series.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

2010-02-07T15:12:00.014+01:00

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the second game in the Uncharted series, with the first game(Uncharted: Drake's Fortune) being released in November 2007, and the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in October 2009 . Both games follow the story of Nathan Drake, an explorer that got dragged into an adventure when he found about Sir Francis Drake, who's a long dead relative who travelled around the world exploring stuff. Both games were developed by Naughty Dog and were published by Sony Entertainment. This game is an action-adventure game.

In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Drake is looking for a long lost treasure, throughout his journey he'll meet many old buddies and some new ones. You'll start out by hanging from a train that has somehow fallen of a cliff (which you'll later have to face again, since it's a leap in the future) and as you progress you'll see various cutscenes explaining what you're going to do in the next level and it's explained as well what it is you're after. After that you'll be betrayed by your best friend Flynn. As you progress throughout the game it'll become clear why your friend betrayed you and who's actually to blame for all the trouble Drake gets in throughout the game. You'll also start unravelling the big picture. But in the end all will be good, except for one good guy, but he was merely a figurant. Things will be set right and the bad guy will be put down. The storyline of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves isn't extremely original but the way it has been executed is simply amazing, the entire game feels like a movie in that it keeps you captivated from beginning to end.

The gameplay in this game is really varied, offering a fun experience from beginning to end. There are sections in which you have to shoot a lot of enemies, there are sections in which you have to climb in order to reach a certain point, there are sections in which you'll have to figure out puzzles and there are some sections in which you have to kill boss-like enemies. The execution of the gameplay makes it so that you'll never be bored playing this game and that you can play this game for hours on an end. Climbing feels very smooth although it's often overly obvious which route you should take, but that can be easily forgiven since it prevents you from getting stuck in certain areas. The shooter-aspect of this game is also executed well, everything feels smooth and natural, this aspect is also blended in nicely with the climbing aspect which means that you can shoot enemies whilst hanging from a ledge and many more. Another thing I'd like to add is that the enemies in this game can take a lot of bullets, which can get annoying when playing the game on Crushed since it could happen that you have to shoot an enemy with all the ammo you've got and still come short. The puzzles and the bosses aren't really that hard or complicated, most puzzles can be figured out in under a minute since the game gives you overly clear hints in your diary, which didn't really bother me since I hate puzzles. The bosses often have simple methods of killing them, however the simplicity of the killing method doesn't necessarily mean that these bosses are easy, especially on the later levels you'll often find yourself trying to defeat the same boss over and over again, but once you've done it, it'll feel so rewarding.

The graphics in this game are simply magnificent, personally I thought they were even better than Assassin's Creed 2. The environments are so detailed and colourful that you'll be amazed every time you visit a new area in the game. The characters are extremely detailed as well, although slightly cartoony, they feel realistic, well except for the fact that the fact that most of these characters are invulnerable.

The sound in this game is great as well, every character in this game has convincing voice-acting and the sounds of explosives and such are rather realistic as well. The music in this game has an epic adventure feel to it, it makes you feel throughout the game that you've embarked on a huge and epic quest, so in that perspective it really adds to the game rather than just filling the silence.

New in the series is that they've added an online mode for this game, which allows you to play both competitive and co-operative. There are many edited standard modes in this game, such as Capture the Treasure, Team Deathmatch(no normal Deathmatch), Survival and many other. The sad part of online modes is that they're completely dependant on their online community and sadly after playing a few matches I came to realise that I didn't like the game online as much as I did offline. Some online players seem to have find it extremely funny to just wait next to you until you die instead of reviving you and this is just one example of the entire list. So I'd recommend to just buy this game mainly for its single-player mode and maybe for the co-op mode online with friends, and besides this game emphasis lies on its single-player mode. Multiplayer, besides these standard modes, also features leaderboards and a leveling system in which you can unlock stuff, just like in single-player in which you can unlock various bonuses with money you've earned getting certain medals and some of these medals also grant you a trophy. The leveling in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is simply done by accumulating money that's granted with kills, getting medals and completing objectives.

My conclusion is that every PS3 owner should at least try this game or buy it, because you won't regret it, it offers a lot of gameplay, has beautiful graphics, a well-executed story and a great feel to it. This is one of THE games of 2009, sharing the same league as for example Assassin's Creed 2.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II

2010-02-06T14:08:00.007+01:00

BFMEII is an RTS developed and published by Electronic Arts. It is based on the fantasy novels The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and the film trilogy. The game is the sequel of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. The Windows version of the game was released on March 2, 2006 and the Xbox 360 version was released on July 5, 2006. A Windows expansion pack for the game was released on November 28, 2006, called The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king, which features a new faction known as Angmar and new units.

The story of BFMEII is divided into Good and Evil Campaigns. The Good Campaign focuses on Glorfindel, an Elf who is alerted to a planned attack on the Elven sanctuary of Rivendell. With help from the Dwarves and other Good forces, the Elves attempt to eliminate Sauron and his army to restore peace in Middle-earth. In the Evil Campaign, Sauron sends the Mouth of Sauron and the Nazgûl to muster wild Goblins. With his army, Sauron moves forward with his plan to destroy the remaining Good forces in the North.

The most important building of this game is the fort. You need a fort to train builders and revive or summon heroes. You're able to upgrade your fort and build defensive structures attached to it, like catapult towers and walls.

Besides the campaign, there is also a war of the ring mode. In this tactical mode, Middle-earth is divided into territories; players can construct buildings to produce troops only in a claimed territory. During each turn, the player can move their armies into neutral and enemy territories to take control of them. While neutral territories are conquered by simply entering them, enemy territories must be wrested from the other player by defeating them in a real time battle. Troops can be garrisoned in conquered territories to defend against enemy attacks. When the player chooses to attack another territory, or one of their territories is being invaded by an enemy, they can either simulate the match and let the computer determine the outcome (sometimes it's better to do that, because you will lose anyway, and when skipping it you won't lose much of your precious time), or play the match by commanding the units in real time. The winner of the skirmish gains the territory, and all surviving units gain experience points. To win the game, you must either control the enemy's capital territory, or take over a given number of territories in Middle-earth. The only problem is that these battles take way to much time. Most of the time the enemy has more units when starting a battle, so it's guaranteed that it'll take longer to defeat your enemy and also much harder.

Just like in all RTS's you'll need resources to create buildings and training units. Each faction has their own unique building that provides resources. For example, the Elves need some sort of a tree (which can be build) to gather resources, while the Humans gather resources from farms. There is only one resource type, which is a bit strange, since you make buildings and units out of it. How is it possible to harvest building material out of a farm? I don't know, but in this game it is possible.

When playing this game for the first time, the graphics of the game are on a very low setting. At first, I didn't know that so I almost had to puke. Luckily, the graphics can be adjusted, and when playing it on the highest graphics possible it is bearable to sit through. The only problem is that the battles itself aren't that entertaining. With most RTS's, like Age of Empires, I get a wonderful feeling when starting a match, and I don't mind that it will take several hours to complete the level. But with this game I just want to complete the game as fast as possible and never look back again.

In conclusion: I don't like this game, it's fun to play for a couple of hours, but then it gets annoying. But I can understand why some LOTR fans like this game. The game is bearable when you play it on very high graphics.

Red Alert 2

2010-01-30T17:33:00.010+01:00

RA2 was developed by, you guessed it, Westwood Studios and released by EA in 2008. Though this will be the last time that Westwood will create a RA title. The game has one expansion, Yuri’s Revenge. But like Red Alert I won’t be reviewing that, only the core game.

Red Alert 2 picks up the story of the Allied victory in RA, although this is open for discussion as not everyone agrees with this statement. but let leave that behind us. It’s the year of 1970, after the destruction of the USSR, the Allies appointed Alexander Romanov to rule and rebuild the country. The game starts with the USA being invaded by Soviet forces. The USA tries to retaliate by launching its nuclear missiles. And even that is impossible because Yuri, head of the Soviet Psychic Corp, manipulated the men working in silos and let them explode the missiles in their silos.

Now I have promised myself not to tell the entire story of the game because it would too long to write and the review would turn out massive. The story of the Allies start in New York where you have to liberate the city. You will be fighting throughout the USA destroying mind-controlling Psychic Beacons, rushing your way through Europe and eventually end your fighting journey in the Soviet capital Moscow.

The Soviet campaign is all about the destruction of the Allies and total world domination. Your first mission is destroying the Pentagon. Like in the Allied campaign you fight throughout the USA, but also in Mother Russia. The campaign ends at the Bering Strait. Though the Soviet campaign of ruling the world isn’t without treachery. The man who started it all simply named Yuri, murders de leader of the Soviet Union, Romanov. And to make matters worse, he then frames a general named Vladimir of conducting the murder. Vladimir is declared a traitor and you are ordered to capture him in Washington. After doing so successfully, you are ordered back to Moscow to be congratulated by Yuri himself. But before arriving there, you receive a video from Romanov before his death where he explains that Yuri has been brainwashing him and demands you to bring Yuri down.

So far the campaign of the two factions.
Everything in RA2 is unrecognizable when you compare it to RA. Where C&C and RA where almost similar, RA2 has been build up from scratch. The only things that are left from the first part are the Allies’ Chromosphere and the Soviet’s Red Curtain. Every unit has had it size increased. Sometimes infantry is bigger than a tank. Base Buildings are usually bigger than entire apartment blocks. The pace of battle has been increased dramatically. Where in RA you would have to wait maybe a minute for your units to reach the enemy, in RA2 the units rush to the enemy base in matter of seconds.

The two factions in RA2 have their own tactics. Where the Soviet Union is good at rushing early on in the game and almost superior in landbattles, the Allies rely on defenses and advanced tech that comes available as a match progresses.

Resource gathering hasn’t changed a lot, there’s only one exception. The Allied harvester can instantaneous teleport back to the refinery, very useful when harvesting in hostile territories. You still have to gather gold and diamonds to get your credits.

The 2 factions are split into multiple countries, but that doesn’t account for the campaign. Every country fights under the flag of the 2 main factions, but operate with different sets of buildings and units. Every country usually has a special unit, with the exception of the USA’s paradrop and the Grand- Cannon from the French.

In the end I really enjoyed playing Red Alert 2. The style of the game really addresses me because it the game doesn’t take itself serious and can sometimes cause some hilarious moments. So if you want this game I suggest buying The First Decade, containing all Command & Conquer series.

Company Of Heroes

2010-01-21T20:17:00.005+01:00

Company of Heroes is a game developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ. It's an second world war RTS. The game was released in 2006 for Windows. CoH also got two standalone expansion packs: Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, which added two new factions and Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor.

The single player campaign puts the player in some of the major American operations during the Battle of Normandy, like D-Day, Carentan and Cherbourg.

Company of Heroes features two factions: The Allies and the Axis. The Allies are represented by the Americans and the Axis by the German Wehrmacht. The Americans have cheap units and are more numerous than the Germans. American tanks aren't as powerful as German tanks but their movability is higher. Their units will become stronger by killing enemies.
The Germans have more units than the Americans and they're more powerful, but also more expensive.

When starting a match you can choose your doctrine. Allied doctrines:

Infantry Doctrine: Centered on defense and infantry support, this doctrine allows players to train infantry and build defences faster, employ heavy artillery, and call in reinforcements such as the elite US Army Rangers, or a randomized group of units with the "Battalion Reinforcement"
Airborne Doctrine: Centered on paratroopers and air support, this doctrine allows players to deploy paratroopers, call in recon planes, and enjoy the destructive capabilities of the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber.
Armor Doctrine: Centered on vehicles and armor support, this doctrine is slow to gain, but boast powerful abilities, such as improved vehicle production, Sherman Calliopes and the mighty M26 Pershing heavy tank.

Axis doctrines:

Defensive Doctrine: Centered on artillery and defense, this doctrine allows base structures to defend themselves against Infantry, offers bonuses for defending infantry, and allows players to call in rocket barrages and deploy the powerful Flak 88 cannons.
Blitzkrieg Doctrine: Centered on speed and offensive operations, this doctrine allows players to speed up their military and economy, and allows players to deploy powerful assault units such as Stormtroopers and the famous Tiger I.
Terror Doctrine: Centered on psychological warfare and destructive power, this unusual doctrine provides players with die-hard infantry and the ability to rout the enemy, be it with propaganda, devastating V1 rockets, or a single, powerful Tiger Ace.

The main resources of this game are manpower, which you need for creating units, munition, which you need for upgrading individual squads, and fuel, which you need for armoured units and global upgrades. In order to get these resources you'll need to capture strategic points on the map.

Infantry units can occupy civilian buildings and convert a field barracks. You can create infantry units here. Infantry units can also occupy a building and use it as cover. You're able to build normal buildings with your engineers. Some available buildings are: a field barracks, supply yard and tank depots for the Americans and Krieg barracks, Sturm armory and the Wehrmacht quarters.

The graphics of this game are pretty decent. Explosions and building damage look extremely realistic and limps are flying all over the place. The sound is remarkable too, units are talking to you via walkie-talkies when they're under attack and it seems that they've used gun sounds that belong to the specific tank and gun.

This game has got several awards, most of them are game of the year awards of 2006 and best strategy game. This game is certainly worth your money, and the single- and multiplayer will keep you busy for many hours.

Haze

2010-01-21T20:11:00.015+01:00

Haze is a game created by Free Radical, a company known for games such as the TimeSplitters series, the company was shut down in 2008 and has been bought by Crytek. The publisher was Ubisoft, which is known for a huge range of games. Haze was released on May 2008. A year in which games like Killzone 2, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Metal Gear Solid 4 hit the market, which meant major competition for Haze.

The game is set in 2025, where no UN or NATO exist and governments are thus forced to contract their military operations to PMCs). You play as Sergeant Jake Carpenter, a new recruit in the Mantel Global Industries army, who are fighting guerillas in South America. Mantel is also an MNC with bio-medical expertise. This has led to the development of Nectar, a nutritional supplement that enables soldiers to fight harder and smarter. The game takes place over three days that will 'change Jake forever' as Mantel battle a guerilla group known as The Promise Hand lead by a dictator called Gabriel "Skin coat" Merino; a brutal man who wears the flayed skins of his POW camp inmates.

The game had a lot of promotion before it came out and created quite a hype, many people even called it the halo-killer. However the game didn't live up to its expectations and was soon seen by many reviewers as a below-par game.

The graphics in this game aren't too special, for the most part they are a bland and dull, giving the game a bit of a boring experience. The surroundings are pretty standard and you don't really have any noteworthy levels that'll leave a memorable experience. The player characters might be averagely detailed, but are nowhere near as good as Halo was, when it got first released. This game doesn't have any ground-breaking improvements, making it a standard shooter.

The gameplay isn't very different from a standard FPS, you simply shoot the enemy in order to get higher on the rankings. There isn't a leveling system in which you unlock things by playing well. This game only features four different types of guns, which are the sniper rifle, the machine gun, the shotgun and the pistol. Each faction, Mantel and the Rebels, has their own version of these guns, but besides the looks there aren't any differences. So this is quite a limited amount of guns featured in this game, making this game boring rather fast.

The game has some unique features to it, which all have to do with Nectar, which is a drug used to make Mantel soldiers better at waging war. These Mantel soldiers can use Nectar in order to see enemies more easily, by giving some sort of a heat-detector. The rebels can abuse Nectar in order to give Mantel soldiers an overdose causing them to go berserk and make them shoot friend and foe during this period. The Rebels also have the ability to lay mines and to scavenge ammo from guns that aren't from their own faction.

When it comes to sound in this game, there isn't really anything worth mentioning. There was however one thing that annoyed me a lot, and that was that if you were fighting for the Rebel side online, you sometimes had to listen to a shitty rap song playing in the background, which couldn't be turned off in anyway, whilst the Mantel didn't have any of that crap to deal with.

The online mode is where the game truly lets down, the maps aren't really varied and are always wide open maps. I'd have preferred to play in a close-combat environment, since that would discourage many people to pick up the sniper rifle, but alas, you'll probably be sniped a couple of hundred times before you get sick of it and throw this game in your cabinet and never look back. The game doesn't give players the option to choose their weapons before they spawn, instead you have to pick a weapon from the battlefield, and because you have to hold the triangle-button this takes more than a few seconds, leaving you as an open target. The lag on the servers is also a big problem in this game, every server you join seems to have this problem, making playing usually an unpleasant experience if that wasn't already the case. This game also offers a co-op mode in which you can play online or play the campaign together, which works rather well, although I wouldn't mind an option for changing how the screen was divided between the two players. The game also has only a few game-modes online, which is a missed opportunity, the few they have are spin-offs of various popular modes, however Deathmatch isn't included, only Team Deathmatch, which is a bit odd in my opinion, since if it truly wanted to compete with Halo, it should've added it, since Slayer is one of the more popular modes there.

So all-in-all, the game isn't really worth your money, since there are way better shooters out there on the PS3, such as Fear 2, Warhawk, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Killzone 2. The game could've been way better if they focused more on developing the game than the promotion of the game. The choice is up to you, are you spending your money on a better game or are you fighting for the Mental corporation?

Age of Empires

2010-01-21T17:06:00.006+01:00

Age of Empires is an RTS which was created by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft in 1997 for PC and Mac. The game also got an expansion pack, Age of Empires: The rise of Rome, in 1998. AoE and its expansion pack were later released together as the Gold Edition. You're able to play single-player or multi-player with a maximum of eight players.

You're able to choose from 12 civilizations, each with an unique tech tree. Which means that some civilizations got stronger military units, but aren't able to build all buildings, or research all economic technologies. In the game you can advance through four ages: The Stone Age, the Tool Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Each advancement will grant you more buildings, research and units.

There are four resources in this game: Wood, gold, stone and food. You need wood for creating buildings and certain military units, like archers, ships and catapults or for researching new technologies. You can acquire wood by chopping down the forests or by trading with other players (the AI doesn't give you anything), and you will need a market for that. Food is required for training new units and for research. You can acquire food by hunting animals, fishing or farming. Gold is needed primarily for research, but also for creating the more advanced military units and priests. You can acquire gold by simply mining the goldmines shattered around the map, or by trading wood, food or stone for it. You'll need a trading ship for that (a market isn't required here, just sail the merchant to an allied or enemy dock and you'll receive gold). Stone is needed for building watch/sentry/guard/ballista towers, walls, and some is needed for research. You can acquire stone by mining the stone mines shattered around the map.

The game features four single-player campaigns in which you have to complete certain objectives, like simply defeating your enemies or obtain some valuable artifacts. The campaign follows four civilizations: the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Babylonians and the Yamato civilizations. You can adjust the difficulty in five levels: Very easy, easy, moderate, hard and very hard.

Aside from the Campaign mode you can also play a random map, in which the computer randomly generates a map. You can also play death matches in which you have very much resources. It's also possible to create your own maps and play them single-or multiplayer.

The graphics of this game are very nice for a 2D game. Some people say this is a cross between Warcraft II and Civilization, but I think this game is unique. The sound is also remarkable, it really fits in with the game. Stephen Rippy was the music director. He created the original music in Age of Empires using sounds from actual instruments from the periods in the game, as well as their digital samples. The tunes were the result of extensive research on the cultures, styles, and instruments used. The game won numerous awards, including Gamecenter's 1997 Game of the Year and the 1998 AIAS Computer Strategy Game of the Year award.

In conclusion: This game is a true classic, and I think it's the best game in the series. If you manage to find it somewhere just buy it, I don't think it costs very much since it's more than ten years old.

Sid Meier's Pirates!

2010-01-16T20:11:00.008+01:00

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a game developed by Firaxis Games and was published by Atari in 2004. This studio was founded by the Sid Meier himself, Jeff Brigs and Brian Reynolds in 1996. It focuses on strategy games and is known for the Civilization series.

In Pirates! you play as a young pirate who sails the Caribbean. The game begins with a small intro where you see a family being kidnapped because they can't repay their debt. A boy manages to escape before the family's kidnapped. You play this boy ten years later as an adult. Then you are granted the option of choosing your captain: a Dutch, French, British or Spanish captain. The four countries are also the main factions in the game. There really aren't any differences between the captains as all four treat you and your fellow sailors like crap. Finally you stand up and cause a mutiny on the ship. The mutiny is a success and you become the captain of the ship. From this moment on you can do whatever you want.

There are a lot of things you can do in Pirates!. Here is a list of things you can do:

You can engage ships on see. You can either decide to destroy the ship or decide to board the ship (you can also be boarded). Two ships can happen when boarding a ship. Ships can decide to surrender and then boarding isn't that of a problem, or you will have to engage into a sword fight with the ships captain (same case when you are being boarded)

You can sneak into enemy villages and towns

Take over towns and appoint new governors, this gives you a one-time ransom depending on how big and wealthy the town is and how many inhabitants it has

You can go on a treasure hunt. In almost every town or village you can buy a map or a part of it from a trader in the town's Tavern

You can dance with a town governor's daughter at a ball. When you are successful you'll get special items like vests so you are better at sword fighting or valuable information.

Now the gameplay. The AI isn't that bad and depending on the level of difficulty it can really be a pain. The graphics aren't bad and look almost similar to the graphics of the console version of Civilization. Every faction in the game has their own ship, only the pirates can have a mixture of ships. Land battles are turn based and the ways of winning a battle are slaughtering your enemy or getting a group of pirates at the town's gate.

Every ship can be upgraded. The only issue is every town offers a different upgrade. So the only way to get your ship fully upgraded is to travel from town to town and sail around the Caribbean.
Another issue in the game is keeping your men happy. A happy crew fights harder and the chance of mutiny is very small.

So to conclude this review of Pirates!. It's a good sandbox game and keeps you busy for many hours. So if you think that the game appeals to you, go and buy the game.

Warcraft III

2010-01-10T16:18:00.007+01:00

Warcraft III is a game released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, US release. This game is the third game in the Warcraft RTS series. This game was released before World of Warcraft and it's an RTS with RPG influences, some examples of this is the fact that you can level your heroes and that they can get equipment. The expansion pack, The Frozen Throne came out in 2003.

The campaign features a storyline which introduces you to the four races in this game, which are the humans, the undead, the orcs and the nightelves. The storyline features three main characters, Arthas, Thrall and Tyrande. The storylines of these three characters tie in together at the end. We don't want to spoil too much so that's why we keep things vague.

Like we stated before in this review this game is an RTS with RPG influences. You're building a base, create forces and gather resources with the objective to destroy your enemy by laying siege to their base. In the campaign there are some levels that differ from this and have other objectives like surviving for a certain amount of time. The levels are usually mirrored giving both sides an equal opportunity to win, on the maps there are quite a number of scattered units which don't belong to a faction, just like the Gaia faction in Age Of Empires. They usually defend certain spots on the map such as Goldmines, Goblin Laboratories and Goblin Shipyards. At these Goblin buildings you can hire certain mercenary units, which are usually better than your own and can give an advantage in battle. There are shops scattered throughout the map as well, giving the ability to purchase equipment for your hero. Equipment is also dropped randomly by the units that don't belong to a faction. You also have the ability to play scenario's in this game, which can also be made or downloaded from other players.

When talking about the graphics, they can be compared to Age Of Mythology. The surroundings aren't too special. They've still managed to maintain a special style when it comes to graphics, the units are quite broad and heavy giving it a special fantasy style. Although some people prefer the old style over the new one, since the graphics of Warcraft II were outstanding and special when the game came out. Every faction has their own certain style to them, which makes you grow a certain liking to a faction and race.

Some sounds haven't changed in Warcraft III, when looking back to Warcraft II. The peasants and grunts for example still say the same sentences with same voice. When clicking repeatedly on units they'll say various funny things, just like in Warcraft II. There are also a few other funny occurrences such as exploding sheep and funny mini-games. You can make a sheep explode by clicking on it a lot. There is some music in this game but it goes really unnoticed, it's just playing softly in the background.

My conclusion on this game is that the game is quite fun to play, especially if you're into multi-player, it has a very active community and there are even some cash-tournaments. But all in all, if you used to be a big fan of the previous ones, you might not be as content with the addition of new races and the introduction of the new style, but if you can get over that, then this game can be very enjoyable.

Diablo II

2010-01-03T19:55:00.006+01:00

Diablo II is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game, with elements of the hack and slash and dungeon roaming genres. The game was released in 2000 for Mac OS and Windows bij Blizzard Entertainment and developed by Blizzard North. The game also has an expansion pack, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, which was released in 2001. Diablo II was one of the most popular games of 2000, because of the addictive gameplay and free access to online gaming via Battle.net.

The story of Diablo II takes place after the end of the previous game, Diablo, in the lands of Sanctuary where Diablo, the Lord of Terror, was defeated by an unnamed warrior. The hero who slew Diablo drove the demon's soulstone into his forehead in an attempt to contain him, but this is what Diablo wanted and just made him stronger, and the adventurer is in turn corrupted. The player is an adventurer who appears in the wake of the destruction caused by Diablo and attempts to find out the cause of the destruction, starting with the corrupted warrior (from the first game). As the player continues through each of the four acts, he faces off against the Prime Evils, superpowers of Hell, and the two lesser evils who once overthrew the three prime evils, and learns of the truth behind the corruption. Diablo released Mephisto (Lord of Hatred) and Baal (Lord of Destruction) from their soulstones, as they were taught long ago how to corrupt them by the fallen angel Izual. In the end, the player eventually reaches and slays Mephisto and Diablo. The story continues in the expansion to the game, where the player chases the last of the Prime Evils: Baal (Lord of Destruction) who is going after the mythical Worldstone in an attempt to corrupt it.

In this game you can choose between five different classes:

The Amazon- She is similar to the Rogue from Diablo. They both primarily use bows. The Amazon can also use spears and javelins.

The Necromancer- This guy mostly uses death-themed spells. He can raise skeletons, create golems and resurrect dead monsters to fight along sidehim.

The Barbarian- He is good at the front-lines of a battle. He has more HP than the other characters and also the only character that can dual wield weapons.

The Sorceress- She uses elemental spells, mostly on the offensive. She is also able to teleport to new destinations.

The Paladin- He is an all-rounder. He is able to use thunderbolt spells, he can use bows and he's also good at melee weapons. He is the only character capable of using the shield as a weapon.

In Diablo II you have to complete four acts in order to complete the game. At the end of each act you have to fight a boss. In order to get to these bosses you will have to fight through dungeons and wilderness areas and completing quests. If you want help with completing these quests you can hire mercenaries to aid you in your battles. Item drops, monster attributes, and most dungeon layouts are randomly-generated by Diablo II, just like in the first game.
If you want to make it a little harder you can choose from three difficulties: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. On higher difficulties, monsters are stronger, experience is penalized on dying, and your resistances are handicapped. However, you're always able to change the game-difficulty.

The graphics of this game are greatly improved compared with the first game. The sound and music are delightful to listen to. Some tracks were created by reusing the tracks from the original game, while others by rearranging tracks that were out-takes. Tristram uses the main theme of the first Diablo game and it is the earliest track composed for Diablo II.

The game has got several awards, including the 2000 runner-up Reader's Choice Award for role-playing game of the year. It was also awarded a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records 2000 edition for being the fastest selling computer game ever sold, with more than 1 million units sold in the first two weeks of availability.

I think this game is great, it really is addictive just like the first game. If you're planning to buy Diablo III when it comes out, you should first play and complete this game, it really is awesome.

Red Alert

2009-12-30T16:13:00.006+01:00

Red Alert is developed by the game studio Westwood and published by Electronic Arts in 1996, a year after C&C was released. EA released the game again in 2008 as freeware to promote Red Alert 3. Two expansion packs have been released for this game, The Aftermath and Counterstrike, but I won't be reviewing those expansions.

The story of Red Alert begins with a small intro when you first start the game. In this intro you see a man travelling back in time to kill Hitler. This man is Albert Einstein, though it’s being kept a secret to you at the beginning. Einstein wanted to prevent the bloodshed and the huge loss of life. So with Hitler out of the way, the WWII never occurred. But one thing didn’t disappear: the USSR. It still remained a superpower. War breaks out when Stalin dreams of weird visions: the liberation of Europe from corrupt governments. Stalin invades Eastern Europe and the threatened countries of Europe form an alliance to counter the Soviets.

In the Soviet-campaign you battle your way from Eastern Europe to the rest of the continent. You will discover a conspiracy within the military. Gradenko, a field marshal, can’t be trusted anymore because he left information of the Soviets super weapon, the Iron Curtain, on the battlefield. Eventually he will be killed for that by drinking poisoned tea. Stalin will await the same fate after Europe has been ‘liberated’.

The Allied-campaign begins with a lot of setbacks: Eastern Europe has been taken over by the USSR and so have large parts of Germany; and Einstein has been imprisoned. With the help of Tanya Adams, you rescue Einstein. Einstein gives the allies all sorts of useful information about the Soviets super weapon. An Iron Curtain and submarine production base are destroyed by you and finally a turning point in the war is insight. But then a horrible discovery is made: the Russians developed a new super weapon: the nuclear bomb. Oh yes, because the WWII never occurred the USA never developed the thing. Russia had all the time in the world to develop the weapon of mass destruction. But the end of the allies is not insight because they rush towards Moscow. In the aftermath of the battle that followed, when searching the roubles of Moscow Stalin was found. But, a general of the Allies, Stavros, convinced the soldier who found him to behave like nothing had happened. They put a clot in his mouth and leave him to die.

So far the story of the game itself. The graphics in Red Alert look almost similar to those of C&C, but slightly better, but only slightly. It looks somewhat rougher, it gives a sensation that the camera is put very close the battlefield. The awesome sound of infantry dying has been modified a bit, but still something to enjoy. The units of the Soviets have a somewhat Russian accent that’s hilarious. Explosions of buildings are awesome, you get the feeling that the entire building went up in flames.

You don’t gather Tiberium in this game but you harvest finite recourses, consisting of gold and crystals, but in some levels there are pits that spit out gold. You’d normally get some special resources that look like gems, that give twice the amount of credits. Base building isn’t like C&C but more like Tiberium Sun. You start from a central Construction Yard but you don’t have to connect your buildings to the Yard. The allies have special buildings that are used as fakes and are fast and cheap to build.

Both factions have different units, but all come together to a single concept. Light tanks, heavy tanks, aircraft, naval units and of course, infantry. The Russians have the almost almighty Mammoth tank. The allies don't really have a special tank, that comes with the expansions.

In the end, I had lots of fun playing this game. The graphics aren’t that bad, effects like explosions are great to hear and to see and the different campaigns shows you two sides of the game. So if you want this game, try to dig it up somewhere or buy The First Decade.

The Punisher

2009-12-26T16:06:00.004+01:00

The Punisher is a game made by Volition Inc. The game was released by THQ. It was released in 2005. The game is a third-person shooter, featuring Frank Castle aka The Punisher.

For the people that don't know the storyline already, it's the same as the comic. Frank Castle's family gets slaughtered by the mob. Frank Castle goes on a revenge mission and turns himself into the Punisher, focused on tracking down and killing every criminal and people that were involved in the murders. He uses any method to do so.

In The Punisher you simply kill a lot of people, using various methods which gives you points, and by acquiring enough points you gain a medal ranging from bronze to gold. Each medal grants you various extras in the game, such as challenges, concept-art and images. You can also acquire several comic-book fragments, by interrogating your victims in a non-conventional way, for example by using an oven and many other things, since Frank Castle is quite creative with his methods. It's also possible to kill your enemies using "Special Kills" these are designated spots throughout the levels, marked by a golden skull (Special Interrogation Spots are marked with a silver skull). Some of the things you can do on these Special Kill Spots are throwing someone in a coffin and throw a grenade in it as well and other things as well. You can pick up various weapons throughout the levels such as bottles, crowbars and baseball-bats. The Punisher also carries various fire-arms which can be upgraded. The Punisher can also enter a rage mode in which he's practically immortal and can kill at a rapid rate using his two knives. The Punisher is an easy game, it can be picked up by anyone, through the upgrades it becomes even easier, by using the rage-mode you gain your health back giving you pretty much an endless supply of health.

The AI isn't particularly smart, it's easy to grab them and use them as shields since they won't try to get away from you. And their buddies will still shoot you even if their friend is in front of their target. Most of the enemies can be described as cannon-fodder, they'll even stand close to certain objects making killing even easier. And it's also easy to use quick kills on them, since they have no way of blocking that. Throughout this game, you'll encounter various bosses, each has its own method of being killed, but they're never really hard to deal with.

The levels are nicely done, they're quite big and the scenery changes every level. For example, there is a Zoo level, a Crack house level, a modern complex and a bar. Throughout these levels you can also encounter civilians, which you can't kill. Sometimes they'll give you something, but most of the time they don't, you are however required to save them.

The graphics in this game are rather nice, they hold up to the other games from that year, which can be expected since Volition always delivers quality products, unlike ValuSoft. There are many details in this game, from the design of weapons to the design of the characters. But the game isn't really a gorefest when it comes to killing, if you're looking for that, I recommend Dead Space.

So all-in-all, I recommend buying this game if you ever find it. I happened to buy it for €2.50, which was a bargain, but don't be afraid to pay a little more for it, since it's really worth your money.

Diablo

2009-12-24T17:23:00.009+01:00

Diablo is a point and click hack and slash RPG, and is created by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment in 1996. The game came out on Windows, Mac OS and Playstation. The game also got an expansion pack, Diablo: Hellfire, which was created by Sierra online. Most Diablo fans thought this expansion pack was a complete failure because of the graphics, which are worse than Diablo, and the fact that players aren't able to play this game online, whilst players were able to play online with the original game.

The story of Diablo is based on the premise of a war between Heaven and Hell. The town of Tristram is under attack by demons, and you must save the town. As the player delves into the underworld, he discovers more about the demon Diablo, through large tomes that are found throughout the levels. Eventually, you'll reach the lair of Diablo and must kill him.

Diablo, an incredibly powerful demon, is the Lord of Terror and one of the Three Prime Evils of Hell, who had been imprisoned in a Soulstone and buried in caverns deep beneath the town of Tristram. Though his imprisonment was meant to be eternal, the power of the Soulstone weakened over centuries, eventually allowing Diablo to awaken from his forced slumber. He telepathically turns a nearby human, the Archbishop Lazarus, into his loyal puppet. In order for Diablo to actually leave the Soulstone, Diablo needs the stone to be shattered. He possesses Lazarus, and has him break the stone. Diablo then tries to gain control of King Leoric, the local ruler, but Diablo, in his weakened state, is unable to overpower Leoric. Since Diablo is too weak to possess the king, he abandons the idea. This leaves the monarch's mind numb and his soul corrupted. He then gets Lazarus to kidnap King Leoric's son, Prince Albrecht, so that Diablo can possess and warp him, thereby attaining material form and strength. At the moment of the boy's possession, his terror is so great that the boundaries between the realms are broken and parts of Hell seep into the mortal world and take root in the subterranean labyrinth beneath Tristram.

Diablo may have a body now, but he is far from his full power, so he bides his time and summons countless hordes of demons and infests the whole underground complex, claiming the new region of Hell as his own personal lair. Soon afterwards the maddened Leoric is slain by his own lieutenants. Demons appear in the countryside as the Lord of Terror regains his strength in the heart of the labyrinth and prepares for the time when he would once again emerge to seek his brothers - Baal and Mephisto - and free them as well. It seemed to be a matter of time until the Prime Evils gained dominion over the entire mortal realm. This is where you come in. As you fight your way through sixteen levels to face Diablo, you'll encounter various monsters, quests, tomes, scrolls, weapons, and other miscellaneous items.

In the beginning of the game you can choose from three combat classes: Warrior, Archer and Sorcerer. After you've chosen your class you'll begin your adventure in Tristram, a little town with a few inhabitants. They tell you that most of the townsfolk had been kidnapped and then slaughtered in the old church. In this church lies the labyrinth of 16 levels filled with enemies. At first your enemies are zombies and skeletons, but the closer you get to level 16, the more they'll look like demons. At first you don't know anything of your enemies, but as you kill more and more of them you will get more information about that specific enemy. They also drop weapons, potions and scrolls which aid you in your quests. The stronger your armor is, the more you'll look like a knight in shining armor. However, almost all weapons have a durability rate, and when the durability rate drops to zero your weapon will break and then you can't use it anymore. So make sure you repair it at the Blacksmith before it drops to zero.

Each time you level up you get five points which you can spend on your attributes: Strength, Magic, Dexterity and Vitality. Most weapons can only be worn when you have a certain amount of Strength and Dexterity. All spells need a certain amount of magic points, mana. Throughout the game you'll find Magic Books, which you can read in order to learn a new spell or upgrade an spell that you've already learned.

The graphics of this game are great for a game from 1996. At least the graphics look better than Fallout and that game is from 1997. The sound is nice too, it really improves the horror aspect.
The most remarkable thing is that all the levels of the labyrinth are random generated levels, so when you completed the game for the first time you can't memorize it for the second play-through, and you have to complete the game at least two times in order to complete all the quests.

Diablo is a fine game, I really liked playing this game. It is a classic RPG and a difficult one too. Everyone that is an RPG-fan should have played this game.

Hearts of Iron III

2009-12-16T14:33:00.013+01:00

Hearts of Iron III is a game made and released by Paradox Interactive, a company that mostly creates historical strategy games like Europa Universalis III and the Hearts of Iron series. Hearts of Iron III was released in August 2009.

In Hearts of Iron III you choose a nation you wish to control during the period of 1936-1948. You can take control of almost every nation that existed during that period. The gameplay itself is very complex and that's why you can let the AI control some decisions. But you are able to control everything yourself too. You have to control diplomacy, production, technology, politics and intelligence. I'll explain these categories later on.

The game centers around three factions: The Axis (Germany and allies), The Allies (United Kingdom, France and their allies) and The Comintern (the Soviet Union and their allies). When you've chosen another country than these you can align slowly to these factions. Nations are more likely to join a faction with a similar ideology. For example, the U.S.A is more likely to join The Allies than The Axis, but it isn't impossible that they join The Axis.

Another thing that's very important is your Industrial Capacity. With more IC you can construct more units, harbors, airfields and some defensive structures. In order to keep your IC at 100%, you'll need resources. The resources available in this game are: Energy, metal, rare materials (you need these for your IC), oil (you need this for fuel), supplies (you need this to supply your armies in order to keep their combat strength at 100%) and fuel (which you need in order to move your armies). Another thing that is important is the dissent in your nation. You have to keep your people satisfied, because otherwise they'll strike and thus you'll lose IC.

Diplomacy: At this screen you can align to a faction, trade with another nation, buy a production license from another nation, guarantee freedom to another nation (if a faction/nation declares war to the nation you guaranteed, the nation asks you to help them fight against that faction/nation) declare a limited war (only available when you're in a faction, if you choose this your faction members aren't forced to also declare war to that nation) or declare war. You can also influence other nations to join your faction.

Production: At this screen you can monitor trading convoys, construct brigades, such as infantry, cavalry, tanks, planes and more. You can also devide your IC into production factors. These production factors are: Supplies, reinforcements, upgrades, civilian goods and production. Personal I recommend you to let the AI control this, because the needs change every day and when the IC isn't devided at its best you'll waste IC.

Technology: This is the screen where you can research upgrades, control the training of officers (you need an certain amount of officers in your army in order to keep the organisation at 100%, when this number drops your armies will be forced to retreat because they're in lack of organization), the diplomacy points (which you need at the diplomacy screen to trade or form alliances with other nations) and espionage (you can monitor how many spies you want to train each day). However, you'll need leadership for these actions. The more leadership you have, the more leadership you can put in one of these options. I don't know how you get leadership, but I assume that it depends of how big your country is.

Politics: At this screen you can change your ministers, make a puppet state, liberate a country and change laws. Most of the time you can only change laws when your country is at war, or when your neutrality is very low. You aren't always able to change your ministers, that depends of which type of policy you have. Ministers will deliver bonus points or penalties to a certain sector. For example, some ministers will provide you with a bonus of 5% in IC while another is a backstabber and then you'll lose some IC. Most of the time you can't replace the backstabber. You can also see which party is the most favourite one, according to the civilians.

Intelligence: At this screen you can monitor your spies. You have domestic spies and spies in other countries. You can order your domestic spies to lower your neutrality, increase the unity of your civilians (the higher this is, the more provinces you can lose before your country surrenders to the enemy)or support the ruling party. The spies in other country have more options. Your spies can also support the opposition, support rebels, spy on the technology or armed forces, sabotage and increase the threat of the nation.

I found some glitches in this game while I was playing with the Netherlands. I was trying to get a war with Belgium by lowering my neutrality and increasing Belgium's threat. I succeeded and declared war to Belgium, but Belgium was already an Allies-member so I was at war with all the Allies. Suddenly, Germany declared war to me so then I automatically joined the Allies, but I was still at war with them. I was able to see all their units and they didn't attack me so I took some of their provinces for free. The second time I was again playing with the Netherlands, but now I had built a big fort at Amsterdam, so when the Germans invaded me I was able to hold Amsterdam because of the fort. The AI controlled my production and because I was at war he kept producing units even though my manpower was at zero. I think he brought the fallen men back to life or something, or maybe the AI recruited children, I don't know.

This game is different than other strategy games, it feels more like a simulation. But I think it's a very good one, definitely worth a purchase. But, when you like simple games where you just have to do as your told you better evade this game, because it's very complex and hard to master.

C&C Tiberium Sun

2009-12-13T15:47:00.004+01:00

Tiberium Sun is a game developed by Westwood Studios and released in 1999. It’s the sequel to Command and Conquer released in 1995.

In Tiberium Sun you play in the year 2030, 30 years after the end of the game Command and Conquer. The first Tiberium War has been won by GDI. The two factions are once again in war with each other in a world that now knows a new form of Tiberium. It comes in a plant form now and is being spread by trees infected by Tiberium, releasing Tiberium spores in the air. Next to Tiberium, there are also Tiberium veins, huge plants that spread out in every direction, and visceroids, strange creatures of tiberium with organic material. An infrantry unit can become one if its dies when walking over Tiberium or over Tiberium veins.

The story of both factions are not parallel (with some exceptions) both have their own agenda. GDI’s agenda is capturing/killing Kane and destroying the Brotherhood of NOD with him, while NOD follows their prophet, Kane. Kane’s plan is to blow up the Philadelphia, the GDI command station orbiting the Earth, and to launch a Tiberium missile that will cause the world to become completely covered in Tiberium. There’s one thing that both campaigns have in common. At a point both parties are after an alien artifact called the Tacitus. While playing GDI you are also ordered to secure an alien ship and defend it, the NOD campaign orders you to secure the site.

The game has some new features. The maps now have dynamic lighting, which allows day and night cycles and special effects like awesome Ion Storms, created by Tiberium. Next to lighting, variations in height have been put in the game. Cities, trees, hills etc. are now higher and an almost 3D environment is created, compare this to the almost flat towns and trees in C&C. Craters and fires also appear on the maps when shells and grenades explode on the ground and on units.

Now about the AI, it has been greatly improved. The unit’s pathfinding is finally done well. In C&C you would have units stuck behind a tree because (for some reason) they couldn’t find another route. Some units can now engage enemies while moving, but only if they have an independent turret. Where in C&C units would walk/drive happy past an enemy unit without engaging, now those units are eager to kill them all while getting to their location. Units are now less likely to drive/walk to a building to fire at it at point blank range.

A short note about basebuilding. Now it’s possible to build your buildings separate from the construction yard. This allows for bigger bases and more spread out defenses. Though the size of your base is limited by the construction range of the yard.

The game features a large number of new units in the game. GDI has access to mechs, the disruptor (a tank using harmonic beams to destroy enemy and friendly alike), the awesome Mammoth Mark II, Orca fighters and bombers, missile hovercrafts. Its infantry hasn’t changed a lot, light infantry and disk thrower (grenadiers) and engineers. Three new units are the jettrooper , the medic and the Ghoststalker (replaces commando)
Nod still has its familiar buggy and the attack cycle. New units are the stealth tank, artillery, the devil’s tongue(a flamethrower tank capable of moving underground), the Tictank ( can deploy itself), the Harpy attack helicopter and the Banshee fighter plane. Its infantry, like GDI, has some new units. The cyborg, the mutant hijacker, and the cyborg commanda (this is next to the Mammoth Mark II, the most awesome units of the game).

To comment the new units. The infantry haven’t had a make-over of their models, so they look alike. The vehicles however are rendered with voxels, these are pixels that don’t have a specific coordinates and that are used to make a 3D image with 2D images. This may sound confusing but this is the way to describe it. So they look a lot cooler.

To close this review, Tiberium Sun has some big improvements compared to its predecessor C&C. this isn’t surprising because Tiberium Sun was released five years later. The AI has improved and the terrain is now worth looking at with craters, sometimes waterfalls and good looking cities. The units are balanced and are not overpowered. So this game is a game worth playing and enjoyed it a lot.

Battlefield 1942

2009-12-09T14:55:00.008+01:00

Battlefield 1942 is the first game in the Battlefield series. The game is developed by the Swedish company Digital Illusions CE and published by EA for Microsoft Windows in 2002 and for Apple Macintosh in 2004. In 2004 DICE was purchased by EA. The game also has multiple expansion packs: 'The road to Rome', which featured the Italian Army and Free French Forces, and 'Secret weapons of WWII', which focuses on prototype, experimental, and rarely used weapons and vehicles (Such as jet packs). Battlefield 1942 is the first game that introduced Conquest mode. In Conquest mode you capture various strategic points throughout the map in order to decrease the enemy's reinforcement tickets. If the tickets of a team are decreased to zero that team has lost the game. The game's main focus is online play.

You're able to play on 16 maps in the original version. You can choose to play as either the Allied forces or the Axis forces. The Allies consists of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Canada, and the Free French Forces, while the Axis consists of Germany, Japan, and Italy. All nations have five different infantry-classes: Scout, Assault, Medic, Anti-tank, and Engineer. Each class has its own strength and weakness. For example, the scout role has long-range surveillance, high stopping power and the ability to provide spotting for artillery shelling against an enemy position (unlike other games with a similar feature, other player characters must also supply the artillery fire). Assault is the standard class. You just wear a assault rifle, knife, pistol and some grenades. The Anti-Tank class is very effective against enemy vehicles, but useless against other infantry units. The Medic can heal himself and other players, but his rifle is less powerful than an assault rifle, but it is more accurate. The Engineer has the ability to repair damaged vehicles and stationary weapons. The Engineer also has explosives, which are effective against both infantry and vehicles, and land mines, which destroys an enemy vehicle in one hit.

You're also able to change the game's difficulty in multiple ways. You can change the enemy's difficulty or you can weaken your AI teammates. You can also put in more AI players or you can change your death penalty (so when you die your team will lose more than one ticket).

The graphics of this game are great for a game made in 2002, but when you play it now they will look a bit outdated. The level design is great too, and the levels are very big. When the distance is big between your camp and the enemy's camp, you just have to be sure to get some transport, because it'll be a long walk. Unfortunately there is no in-game music, so you'll have to entertain yourself when you die (sometimes you'll have to wait for 30 seconds before you respawn).

Still, this game is great. The online community is still alive and kicking. So if you want to play this game against other human players you can still do that! If you love the Battlefield series and you don't have the game that it all started with you have to be ashamed of yourself, because you must have this shooter.

Command & Conquer

2009-12-06T01:10:00.006+01:00

Command & Conquer is a game released by Westwood Studios in 1995. This studio was founded in 1985 and was based in Las Vegas. Before being assimilated by Electronic Arts in 2003, it was best known for developing games in RTS, RPG and adventure genres. These days the studio doesn’t exist anymore. Its former employees left or joined the ranks of EA, when EA got more and more control over the C&C franchise. The employees that left the studio founded a new studio, Petroglyph.

In Command & Conquer you play on the side of the Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, and on the side of the Brotherhood of Nod. The two factions battle over a strange, alien and crystal-like resource called tiberium, that’s slowly spreads over the entire Earth and infects everything and all.

About the factions:
- GDI: the GDI is in the C&C universe the militarized branch of the United Nations. It came forth from a secret military alliance between the most industrialized and advanced countries that are part of the UN. It became known as the response of the international community to Tiberium and the ever increasing influence of the Brotherhood of NOD. It has access to the most advanced units and building existing in the C&C universe.
- The Brotherhood of NOD: the Brotherhood of NOD is an ancient and secret society that predates most of civilizations recorded history. NOD is a religious cult that follows a mysterious leader only known as Kane.

The 2 factions look almost alike but that doesn’t mean that the tactics used by the factions is the same. GDI has heavy and strong units that are expensive while NOD has weaker but way cheaper units. From this comparison you can guess that GDI goes for a more direct attack. NOD relies heavily on hit-and-run tactics, active camouflage and guerilla warfare.

In almost every battle you start with an MCV, the Mobile construction vehicle that unpacks into a construction yard, or with a construction yard already in place. From that central point you build your base. The usual buildings you would expect in a RTS are here present. Think of power plants, refineries, barracks etc. What caught my eye in C&C is that the more production buildings you have, the faster the production of a unit. So it’s a good idea to have a good number of production buildings at your base. Though this feature is very useful, there is 1 problem that rises the more buildings you have. That problem is that all, I mean all your buildings, have to touch another building. Every building in your base must have contact with the construction yard. This means that your base can become an interlocking puzzle. But the developers thought about that and made sure that every building has a space in front of it where units can move over.

Every building in C&C is used as a tech requirement. So if you want units or abilities that are higher up the tech tree, you are forced to build the required building. When a building is destroyed that was needed for a unit or ability, then the ability becomes unavailable and building the unit becomes impossible.

Your main and only resource is tiberium that ‘grows’ in fields. A harvester, that spawns with every refinery built, collects the crystals and brings them to a refinery. From the collected tiberium crystals, you receive credits of which you can buy buildings and units.

I found some little things in C&C that I found to be annoying. When you order a single unit or a group of units to a spot, they only seem to care how to get from point A to point B. So they ignore every enemy unit that crosses their path and don’t mind being shot at.
Another issue is that a unit tends to get very close to an enemy building to attack it, especially when another unit is throwing grenades at the building or a tank is firing at it.

Now, some good things. The sound when an infantry unit dies is absolutely hilarious, it sounds like someone is ripping his heart out and when it gets run over by a tank you get a nice rewarding splattering sound. The background music is, well good is a big word, it isn’t bad. The maps have been well designed and the terrain looks good for a game from 1995. Graphics aren’t a thing you should look at, that is a thing for games of today.

So in the end Command & Conquer is a good game, with some small irritations. It has a solid campaign that has a combined mission pack of 50 missions, has funny effects and is a good strategy game. I really enjoyed playing this game.

Red Faction 2

2009-12-05T22:55:00.015+01:00

This game was published by THQ, in 2003. The game has been created by Outrage Games, known for games like Descent 3 and Alter Echo. These three games, Descent 3, Alter Echo and Red Faction 2 were the only games ever to be released by this company, because it had a short life as a business, it was closed down in march 2004. Red Faction II was released on Ps2, GameCube, Xbox and Windows. Red Faction II is a sequel to the successful Red Faction.

Red Faction II takes place on Earth in the year 2083. The protagonist, Alias, is a genetically enhanced super soldier formerly employed by the Ultor Corporation. Nano-technology developed by Dr. Capek has fallen into the hands of the EDF (who is now associated with Ultor) and many other terrorist groups. A dictatorship, “The Commonwealth,” has employed Alias to retrieve nano-technology and other data.Eventually the research is claimed for Victor Sopot, leader of the Commonwealth as well as the first antagonist of the game. As Sopot’s soldiers become more enhanced due to the recovered technology, the more he fears them. Sopot sends lessened troops to stop all remaining nano-tech soldiers (including Alias). Alias allies with other soldiers who call themselves “The Squad”.

The Squad quickly fights off the Commonwealth and kills Sopot. As they return to the new Red Faction base, it is revealed that the Squad’s leader, Molov (as well as other squad members Quill and Repta), who is now the game's second antagonist, has turned on them and now assumes control of the Commonwealth. Molov is attacked by another Squad member, Tangier, which allows all remaining Squad members (Alias, and a Red Faction member, Echo) a chance to escape. As the game continues, Alias fights alongside Red Faction members (including Echo, who is killed by Quill), and eventually hunts and kills Quill after she kills Echo. Alias then has his last Battle with the Primary enemy of the Red Faction on the docks before heading into a Sub with Tangier to head underneath of the Statue of Sopot.

Alias proceeds to a Commonwealth nano-tech laboratory where he fights off hordes of processed civilians as well as their new friends, the processed military soldiers. After multiple battles with the processed, he encounters Repta in a dangerous nano-tech electro-chamber. After that, he eventually triggers an explosion to cause Repta to fall into the bottomless pit. Alias continues on and is told by Tangier to blow 3 containers. After that is finished, he meets a processed version of an old enemy, the nanotech enhanced Elite Guards. After fighting the processed version of Sopot Elite Guards/Leaders, he encounters a processed version of Repta (dubbed Repta+). He kills Repta+ and heads completely into the statue, which is unstable from the destruction of the nano-labs. Molov, the last remaining enemy, retreats to the top of Victor Sopot's statue, which is guarded by an army of both nano-military soldiers and Elite Guards. He attempts to flee from the statue with the nano-cell. Tangier is in pursuit of him while he is trying to defend himself with his army of processed soldiers and with his railgun against the two.

Shrike is seen with a new gunship and then betrays Molov, saying "Remember Molov, if we fight, then we finish them". Tangier manages to reclaim the nano-tech cell from Molov's possession and escapes to the observation deck.

For the finale, Alias battles Molov on foot while Molov is in his battle armor with the help of Shrike and his new self-controlled gunship. He destroys his battle armor and they both fight each other in a gun-to-gun battle. After a long fight, Molov is defeated as the observation deck begins to collapse. Shrike, now loyal to The Squad again, saves Alias from the crumbling statue. Depending on the player’s “Heroic” rating, the plot has four separate endings.

So much for the storyline. The game's pretty much a straight-forward shooter without any unique features. You just walk a certain path and kill enemies that get in your way, sometimes you'll have to deal with on-rail-shooter parts in this game, meaning that an NPC drives you around(in some cases flies you around) and you'll have to destroy as many hostiles as possible and try to keep civilians from getting hurt. There are 14 different guns at your disposal in this game.

The graphics in this game are decent, even though it seems impossible to create round objects such as a barrel of a gun, leaving you with octagonal shaped gun-barrels. The enemies and your fellow squad-members are pretty detailed and you can see that there was a lot of effort put into them, even though they talk like hand-puppets. The game uses scripted death-animations for your enemies, which means that you'll see the same animation over and over again. If things explode in this game, especially vehicles, they'll instantly turn into a heap of steel.

In this game you'll be playing in closed environments, pretty much getting from point A to point B. In various parts of the game, you'll be barraged by an infinite amount of enemies that keep spawning until you leave. As far as the level-design goes, there's little variation in types of surroundings, you'll find yourself fighting indoors around offices. In some parts of the game, you're able to destroy objects such as walls, whilst in other parts you can't, meaning that you'll often find yourself wandering around, puzzled about what to do, when the solution is to blow up a wall.

The sound in this game isn't really noteworthy and the music is pretty much absent throughout the game, only on some occasions, usually boss-battles, will you get to listen to some music.

It's safe to say that if you're looking for a standard shooter in order to kill some time, and you're not really looking for something unique or fancy, this game could suffice. If you're looking for a unique or a innovative experience, you should look somewhere else. The game is fun for a while, but can get stale over time. I'd suggest that you don't pay more than $10 for it.

Rayman

2009-12-01T20:44:00.007+01:00

Rayman is the first game I owned for the PC. I got it on my fifth birthday. I'm talking about the original game. I say this because there were some updated versions released years after the original version, like Rayman Gold, Rayman Forever, Rayman Collector etc. Rayman is designed and published by Ubisoft. The game was released in September 1995 for the Atari Jaguar and MS-Dos and in November 1995 for the Playstation and Sega Saturn. Rayman is a side-scrolling platformer in which you collect bubbles, called 'Tings'. When you've collected 100 of these Tings you'll receive an extra life.

Rayman is a special guy, he has no arms, legs and neck and he has a big nose. He usually wears a purple shirt, a red scarf, white gloves and yellow sneakers. The white ring on his shirt has magical powers. Each time when you're granted a new power from Betilla The Fairy the ring sparkles. During the game Rayman will learn multiple powers, such as throwing his fist at enemies, the power to hang, the grappling hook power, the power to fly, the power to run and some other powers which are temporarily.

Rayman's story: In Rayman's world, nature and people live together in peace. The Great Protoon maintains the harmony and balance of the world. One fateful day, the evil Mr. Dark defeats Betilla The Fairy and steals the great Protoon. The Electoons, who used to gravitate to it, lose their natural stability and scatter all over the world. In the now unbalanced world, strange phenomena begin to occur: hostile characters appear capturing every Electoon they can find! The disappearance of the Great Protoon also neutralized all of Betilla The Fairy's powers, and she needs time to regenerate before she can help in any way. Rayman to the rescue! He must free the Electoons, defeat Mr. Dark, save the Great Protoon from its mysterious kidnapper, and restore harmony to the world.

During the game there are a couple of things you can find. The most important things are the Electoons trapped in cages. Other objects you can find are a golden glove (which instantly kills a normal enemy), a shiny glove (you can shoot further and faster), extra life statues, a red P (you'll get more HP) and the earlier mentioned Tings, which you can use for bonus levels to get an extra life, or you can collect 100 of them to get an extra life.

The graphics of this game are timeless, they can even match todays Gameboy Advance games. That's why the game was released for the GBA in 2005, but the quality of the game music isn't as great as on the original version due to the GBA's limitations. And that's a shame, because the game's music is great, it really fits in the game as you can hear in the video below.

This game is a classic, I think it's the best one in the series of Rayman, because of the great music composing and the addictive gameplay. The game also received some awards in EGM's 1995 video game awards: Best music in a CD-ROM game and best animation. You can play this game for hours without getting bored, so maybe you should check it out too.

Big Rigs over the road Racing

2009-11-28T19:41:00.010+01:00

Big Rigs: Over the road racing is a game released in 2003. This game was made by Stellar Stone LLC. Some other companies involved with this marvelous game are TS Group Entertainment and the publisher GameMill Inc. In a year when games like Deus Ex 2, Halo and Generals were released, this game had a big challenge competing with them, but this absolute gem of a game just simply destroyed them in every way.

The graphics are simply awesome, the buildings are just a piece of art, the scales extremely realistic. You really have the feeling that you're driving around, sometimes it's hard to separate reality from the virtual reality.

This game is simply ground-breaking when it comes to racing realism. In the average racing game you just drive slowly, but in Big Rigs you simply put your truck in reverse and go for it. And why would you risk losing on a different game, when your victory is guaranteed in Big Rigs. And getting penalties for taking shortcuts and cheating is simply ridiculous, it's your game and you should be able to do anything, and Big Rigs agrees. It sucks being secluded to only the race track, in Big Rigs you can drive wherever you want without being hassled with signs of going the wrong way or being put back on the racetrack. And why would you be limited to earthly possibilities when you can make a game which defies all laws of nature. We all know that we want to travel faster than light-speed, Big Rigs allows us to.

The level-design is where the game really shines. The creators were really kind and made the game accessible for even the worst gamers in the world, since you don't have to be afraid to bump into something and have your track-record fall to pieces, in Big Rigs you simply drive through anything, like it's supposed to. And realistic surroundings are just boring, and Big Rigs agrees, with their beautiful purple lampposts and Dwarven houses. In case you're in a hurry, be sure to drive over a mountain, many truckers do this daily, which enhances the realism in this game.

Don't you just hate those blaring songs in your ear all time whilst playing a game? Big Rigs agrees again, giving you absolute silence to listen to, which is great for the tranquility. The peaceful silence is just awesome in this game, really giving you the opportunity to relax, which is the main focus of this game.

This game really brings up your minimalistic nature, why would you need a dozen of tracks and many vehicles? Big Rigs agrees again, giving you four awesome vehicles to choose from, some of which give you instant victory! The game also gives you five tracks to choose from, some of which are too awesome to be handled by any computer.

In most games your controls feel smooth and responsive, but Big Rigs gives you a challenge here. In almost every game the challenge comes from playing the game, in Big Rigs it's controlling the game, making this awesome game unique and original in every way. It will blow your mind.

You have to buy this game! Even if you have to take a second mortgage on your house, or sell one of your kids. Because if you don't, you'll never know what pure joy is. We simply can't understand all these negative reviews about this game, chances are that they're pure noobs who can't tell an magnificent game when they see one.

This is sarcasm, in case you're a moron.

The song's called The Truck Got Stuck.

Command & Conquer: Generals

2009-11-24T18:18:00.010+01:00

Generals was released in 2003 on Windows and in 2004 a Mac OS version was released. The expansion pack Zero Hour was released in 2003 for Windows and 2 years later it found its way onto the Mac OS platform as well. This game's made by EA Games, known for many titles such as Need For Speed, the Battlefield series and many more. If you play games on a regular basis you've probably already heard of them. Generals is a RTS just like most games in the C&C series, except Renegade, which is a shooter.

In this game you're able to play as three factions: The U.S.A, China and the Global Liberation Army. Each faction has its own unique characteristics and abilities and superweapon. Various units can be constructed and trained, such as infantry, armored units and aircraft (except the GLA, which don't has aircraft units). More advanced units can be constructed by building a high tech facility. When you killed enough enemy units, your level will increase, granting you some powers, like advanced tanks, repairing your units or throwing a bomb at your enemies. Individual units can grow stronger too, by killing enemy units. That process is quickened by killing a stronger unit than your unit, for example an infantry unit destroying a tank. Another way to get stronger is capturing enemy buildings, like oil derricks. Oil derricks will provide you with an additional amount of money every once in a while.

The U.S.A has the strongest ground and air units of the game, but they're very expensive, and the U.S.A has the slowest resource gatherers. They're able to use a particle cannon every once in a while (when built, of course). China has strong tanks, and relie on firepower, but their airforce isn't that strong. They only have one plane, the MiG. Chinese troops are stronger when fighting in groups, and with extensive use of propaganda. Their superweapon is a nuclear missile. The GLA has no airforce, and their verhicles are weak, but they're cheap and very fast. The GLA focuses on infantry units and has more types of infantry than the other factions, like Terrorists and Angry Mobs. The GLA has scud storms at their disposal.

This game has nice graphics, explosions, and sound for its time, as you can see and hear in the video below. That's also why I like this game so much, plus it has multiplayer too. You're also able to make your own maps, and play them online against other people. Some players are very good at making maps and they've created compstomp maps (Team up with other players and defend a waypoint or something else against incoming enemies. The enemy comes in waves with a massive amount of troops) and some cheating maps, in which you always lose (except when you're the host, of course, and you know the map).

However, there are a couple of things people complain about, for example the lack of ingame videos. The other games in the C&C series have ingame videos, but Generals hasn't. Instead, there is a loading screen and a voice that explains you what to do. Another thing is that the campaigns are very short, they all have five missions and that's it. At least the creators have put in some custom maps that you can play against one or more enemies. When it's too easy for you, you can crank up the difficulty. it's obvious that this game is made for the multiplayer.

You're still able to purchase this game for a cheap price, or you can buy it together with the previous games in the series, such as Red Alert 1 and 2 and Tiberium Sun (expansion packs included). If you love RTS's you should definitely get this title. If you don't like RTS's you should buy it too, since it's very cheap, and you won't be dissapointed about it.

Nitro Family

2009-11-23T22:52:00.016+01:00

Nitro Family is a game created by the studios of ValuSoft and Delphieye(a company based in Korea). It was released on 1 May 2004. Nitro Family can be classified as a first person shooter, with some minor RPG elements. The game is built on the Serious Sam-engine.

You start the game with an intro cutscene, showing how a baby is taken away by a car. As a father you have to free your child from his abductors, but I wouldn't pay much attention to the storyline since the developers tried to tap in on the success of games like Postal 1/2 and Serious Sam. And those games don't really have a storyline and are pretty much based around absolute bullshit, same as Nitro Family. But at least the aforementioned games are fun, Nitro Family isn't.

The gameplay of this game is a simple shooter, you just kill the hordes of enemies thrown at you, which all have an AI dumber than the God Warrior. They pretty much run straight towards you, attacking you in the process even if they can't hit you, for example they'll shoot a wall between you and them. There are a few differences between a standard shooter and this game, one of them is that the game tracks the times you manage to keep an enemy floating in the air by continually shooting him/her. The game also has a highscore system which doesn't really have any purpose, since it's not like anyone cares enough about this game in order to write them down/compare them with friends. As you progress in this game, you'll amass money which you can use to upgrade your weapons, making this game even easier than it already is. In case I haven't made myself clear enough, the challenge in this game is pretty much non-existent. It's also possible for the player to collect enough cards in order to gain a "special" prize from a lady, but nobody cares enough or has the patience to ever get that far.

The levels in this game are unoriginal and boring, even though the game sometimes puts in a few platforming areas. You spend most of the time running through long grey corridors or in big open flat terrains, most of the time between huge walls or buildings. The game throws increasingly more enemies at you, but the game never gets challenging. The levels are empty for the most part, aside from the enemies and a couple of cars every once in a while, these cars can be destroyed for powerups, healthpacks(food) and armor. The enemies are ridiculous in this game, but not in a good way. Nitro Family is just filled with racially insensitive stereotypes, I wouldn't really care about it if they were funny, but they aren't. You have Mexican farmers throwing chickens at you, fat waitress looking girls shooting with rocketlaunchers at you, pigriders and so on.

The graphics are horrible and outdated. From the aforementioned levels and enemies to the animations everything looks bad, uninspired and pretty much slapped together in order to produce a cheap game. In a year where Halo 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, GTA: San Andreas, Half-Life 2 and WoW ruled the charts, you'd think that ValuSoft would've made sure that the game itself was somewhat decent in order to still get a piece of the cake.

Last and least, the sound and music, this is where the game reveals its true face, that of a cheap half-assed game. The game has one song and one song only, and it keeps on looping and looping, in the menu, in the game, pretty much everywhere. It's some rock song with dumb lyrics, some guy blaring out "Where did I go wrong?!?!?" and some muttering about how he is wondering about what watch he'll get and that it doesn't matter because he can't tell the time. You might be asking yourself, what's the relevance of this information? Well, you'll be hearing this song so many times that it'll damage your sanity. Besides the headache provoking song, the rest of the game is pretty standard.

My conclusion is that you shouldn't even think about buying this game, since it'll surely lead to a disappointment, after an hour you'll be so sick of this game that you'll throw it in the bin or your cabinet and never look back. There are way better titles out there that you could buy instead of this one, and I highly encourage you that you do. Nitro Family can best be described as an unoriginal lazy knock-off attempt at tapping into Serious Sam's popularity and success.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm

2009-11-21T21:00:00.006+01:00

This game is made by Red Storm Entertainment and is a squad-based FPS, just like Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (one shot, one kill/death) The game has been released in the year 2004 for the PS2. The version I have also includes Ghost Recon: Island Thunder, so I bought two games in one for a decent price (I think it was €20). The most remarkable thing about the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon games is that they all take place in the future (at release date!). Island Thunder and Jungle Storm both take place in the year 2010 and the game location is Cuba.

Island Thunder: ‘In 2010, Cuba is free, or at least it is supposed to be. Since Fidel Castro’s death in 2006 (Oh, I can still remember that) , the island of Cuba is wary of the communist rule it had been under for nearly 50 years. It is time for the first free and open elections since Carlos Prio Socarras, who was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista in the early 1950s. The FDP (El Frente Democratico del Pueblo or People's Democratic Front) has fronted a man named Priego as their candidate. The FDP are an outspoken anti-American political faction that wishes to return the Cuban working class to power and end capitalist inequalities, or so they claim. Although the FDP publicly denies utilizing violence as a means of coercion, the reality is quite the contrary, as the Ghosts quickly discover the FDP violently attacking election stations. In reality the FDP are a puppet organization run by Colombian drug cartels who wish to take over Cuba to use as a vast drug depot. Its up to the Ghosts to make sure the elections occur and protect the Cuban civilians from the cartel's puppets.’

Jungle Storm: ‘Taking place just after Island Thunder in Bogotá, Colombia, the drug cartel that had aided and financed the FDP in their efforts in Cuba has initiated a number of terrorist attacks against the Colombian government who have allied themselves with the U.S.A. After Colombia's call for help following an attack on a U.S. Embassy, America responds by deploying the Ghosts to restore order and put the cartel out of business.’

In these two games you command five men divided in two or three squads. Squad A always follows you and you’re able to command the other squad to, for example, flank a group of enemies while you suppress those enemies. You can also order them to be offensive, neutral or defensive. On offensive they’ll shoot an enemy on sight and take him out as fast as possible, giving away their location. On neutral they’ll be less aggressive. On defensive they’ll only shoot an enemy when they’re attacked by one.When you die, you’ll take control of one of your remaining men.

You’re also able to play on split-screen. You can play different modes, like mission mode (campaign mode, single-mission), Firefight (kill all the bad guys on the map, density relies of the difficulty you’ve chosen), Defend (the same as Firefight, but you also have to defend a spot marked by smoke), Recon (you have to get from point A to point B) and some competitive modes, Last Man Standing and Sharpshooter (just kill your friend as much as possible, the stupid thing is that you’ll lose no points when you kill yourself, so that means that you’ll choose the rocket launcher as weapon and fire some shots at your friend before you kill yourself).You can play Online too, but when I did that I experienced that a lot of players were cheating (I don’t know how, it was playing on a PS2). But that was a couple of years ago and it’s possible that nobody plays the game any more.

The graphics of this game aren’t that good, especially when you compare the game with other titles released in the same year, like Star Wars: Battlefront, you’ll notice that the PS2 can take better graphics than those of Jungle Storm.

The AI is quite stupid, sometimes they run like roadrunner towards your location before getting shot. But luckily your enemies are aggressive, so that makes up for it.

Despite the complaints I had some fun with this game for a couple of years, playing on my own or with friends. The graphics are very outdated, but the gameplay is ok. You could try this game out when you see it, but you don’t have to, it isn’t that good. Just remember that you’ll get two games for almost nothing!

Video footage is from Island Thunder.

Star Wars Battlefront II

2009-11-11T14:19:00.011+01:00

Now the second review of Star Wars Battlefront.

The same developers have worked together again to make this game happen. It's available for PC, PS2 and Xbox. This time, a version for the PSP was released.

This time, a good campaign was put together. In the campaign you play as a soldier of the 501st Legion. This was an elite unit of clone troopers. These troopers were one the most well-known and feared Legions in the Star Wars galaxy. This Legion was also the part of operation Knightfall where they've helped Darth Vader taking down the Jedi’s. From that moment on the 501st was under control by Darth Vader. And with this Legion you play'll from the beginning of the Clone Wars to the end of the Galactic Civil War.

The difference between SW B and SW BII is that you are given commands during the missions and a limited amount of reinforcements and/or time, where in SW B you only had to survive and annihilate the opposition.

They added a number of features to SW BII, and one of these are space battles. In this mode you begin on your mothership where you can choose your character and space ships that are stationed in the hangar. You're able to choose between the marine and the pilot. Marines are used to board ships and carry a missle launcher. The pilot is able to drop supplies, repair and has the ability to auto-repair a spaceship while flying in mid-space.
The all famous X-Wing and Tie Fighter are once again available to you. Next to fighters, you can also fly scout-fighters. These starships are real fighter and bomber killers if used correctly, because their armor is very weak and can't withstand more then two shots. And finally the developers have added assault ships. Thes bulky ships are the strongest in space but they lack the speed to be very effective in space fights/dogfights. The primary purpose of the ships is to board the enemy mothership. When the ship has landed in the enemy’s hangar, it serves as a forward command post. The AI plays a downside when boarding the enemy’s ship, because only a few troops spawn at the assault ship and they almost die immediately. So most units you'll have on your side when boarding, are the units you've commanded to enter your ship.
This new feature of space fights uses no longer reinforcement points but assault points. To earn these points you and your team have to take down the enemy’s starships, the enemy frigates (these ships accompany the mothership and depending on the map you have one or two frigates) and hardpoints on the enemy’s mothership. You can destroy four hardpoints from the outside which are the engines, life support, the communications array and the bridge. But before destroying those hardpoints ,you'll have to take down the mothership’s shields and that can take a while. Destroying those things from the outside is one way to do it, you can also board the ship and there you can destroy the shield generator, the engines and life support (bridge and communications array must be destroyed from the outside). This sounds easy but the mothership has some defences of its own and isn’t totally depended of fighters to defend itself. On the ship’s hull there are some auto-turrets and turrets that you can control. And when entering the ship’s core, you better watch out, two auto-turrets will await you and every enemy soldier spawns there. In the ship’s core there’s a mainframe that you can destroy, that controls the auto-turrets on the ship’s outside.
The only things that are repairable, are the shield generator and the auto-turret mainframe.

New special units have been added to SW BII and all units and vehicles have been redone. But to unlock these new units you first have to earn a number of points. These points can be earned by killing enemy soldiers and capturing command points. The Republic has next to the Jettrooper, the Clone Commander. The CIS has the Magna Guard. The Empire has the Imperial Commander. The rebels has next to the Wookiee Warrior, the Bothan Spy. I'd like to make a comment on this class: This has to be the most annoying class of them all. These units can cloak themselves and suddenly appear in front of you with their incinerator. This weapon blinds you in a grey cloud of damage.
But when you play as the spy and run around cloaked, the cloak doesn’t seem to have any effect. The AI soldiers know that you are there, and even worse, they know the exact spot where you are standing.

But back to the review, now your units can run and roll to all directions. And when a grenade lands beside you, you wont roll the other end of the map. The command units in SW BII give bonuses that for example strengthens the defence of other units. But to balance the power in the game, they’ve put a unit limit for the special units.

The Galactic Conquest mode has been redone. This time you have to fly from planet to planet with a carrier, which has to be done in a galactic overview. At first you can only choose the normal soldier. The other classes are bought with credits that every planet that you own produces at the beginning of every turn. So you fly from planet to planet to defeat the enemy. Before starting the battle you can choose a bonus that you can buy the same way as the different soldier classes. However, you can only use bonuses once and there is a limit in how much bonuses you can have at any given point, three points to be exact. There are two planets in Galactic Conquest that'll give you a big credit boost, but only once. These planets are the faction's home planets. So keeping them out of enemy hands prevents them getting a big cash bonus. But you don’t lose the war when you lose your homeplanet, unlike in SW B. At the start of Galactic Conquest you'll have to choose the starting location of your first fleet. And why am I saying first fleet? That’s because when you earned enough credts, you can buy a second fleet or even a third. There are two different kinds of battles, space battles and land battles.
Space battles occur when a fleet is already positioned at a spot in the galaxy and another fleet moves to the same spot. When the battle is on an empty spot in space then the losing fleet will be destroyed. But when this happens over a planet and the defending teams loses the space battles, then the attacker can immediately attack the planet below.
Land battles speak for them selves. When the attacking team loses a landbattle, then it's fleet is fleet is destroyed.

New maps have been introduced to SW BII, like Dagobah and Felucia. Tatooine and Naboo haven’t changed much, only the graphics of the maps are better. And finally the homeplanets of the factions have been redone. Kamino, Endor and Hoth are now bigger and the CIS homeplanet Geonisis has a completely new map.

Have you ever wanted to be Luke Skywalker or the mercenary Boba Fett? Now’s your chance. A new feature is the hero assault mode. In this mode you can choose the dark or the light side. But in this mode you don’t work with reinforcement points, instead you'll work with assault points, similar to the points you earn in the spacebattles.

When you have killed enough enemies with a certain weapon or in general, you will get a bonus, such as an improved rifle or damage bonus. When you get a certain amount of points in one life, you will be granted the option to play as a hero.

In the end a lot of improvements have been made to SW BII. The only bad thing I have to say about SW BII is that the AI has pretty much remained the same, its still pretty stupid but still can ruin your day. But good graphics, good gameplay, new maps, new features etc. out weight the bad thing. So I would really recommend this game.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

2009-11-06T19:18:00.008+01:00

This game is developed by Ascaron Entertainment and was released on PC in 2008 and on Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2009. Unfortunately for Ascaron, they already have gone bankrupt. Sacred 2 can be best compared with the classics Diablo and Titan Quest.

The storyline: A mysterious force called T-Energy is the source of all life and magic in Ancaria. It was originally solely under the control of the ancient race of Seraphim, however over time as they lost interest in the world they gave some of their control to the High Elves. With this power, the High Elves quickly became the dominant race of Ancaria. A power struggle is raging between two factions within the High Elves. The nobility and clergy are each trying to gain control over the T-Energy. Other races take advantage of the distraction the conflict provides and try to gain control of the T-Energy themselves, so they can become the dominant and most powerful race. As these events unfold, the T-Energy goes increasingly out of control and changes into a destructive force that mutates creatures, destroys cities, and renders entire regions uninhabitable. The campaign selection you make will determine whether your story involves healing the land, or intensifying the chaos.

You’re able to choose from six different characters: Seraphim, the Shadow Warrior, the Inquisitor, the High Elf, the Temple Guardian and the Dryad. Each of these characters have their own abilities, Tech Trees and class quests. At the beginning of the campaign you can choose whether you join the dark side or the light side. However, you can’t choose a side if you’re Seraphim (light) or the Inquisitor (dark). Unfortunately you can’t change your karma by doing certain quests. But at least there are many, many side-quests (500). The first time I played this I was trying to beat all the side-quests, but I wasn't able to find them all. Of course, it’s recommended that you play these side-quests, because there aren’t many main quests so the playtime will be reduced by at least 25 hours (and they’ll give you enough experience for the final boss-battle).

In this game there are multiple difficulties: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Niob. You can only unlock the Gold difficulty by completing a Silver campaign and so on. It’s recommended to immediately start playing at the Silver difficulty, because most players spend the most time on their first playthrough. When you start with Bronze (like I did) your enemies are weaker than you are. So when you’re level 20 your enemies are level 15, and thus you'll get little experience points. Each time you level up you can spend some skillpoints on your attributes. You can also collect runes, which you can use in your Tech Tree. In the Tech Tree you can learn your character various spells, abilities and various improvements.

In this game you can also mount horses, which makes you stronger and faster. Each character has its own unique mount that you can unlock by completing the unique mounts quest. It’s not hard to find this quest so I’m not giving away a spoiler with this.

Ancaria is a huge world, you can play for 20 hours and most likely you'll only have discovered 25% of the map. And that’s why it’s almost impossible to find all the side-quests. In this time-period you’ll find many weapons and armor.

The graphics of this game are great. The reflections in windows, the shimmering water, footprints that are left in the sand all contribute to a more immersive environment with great detail. It certainly looks a million times better than Runescape. Off-topic, but there are tons of RPG’s that are way better than Runescape, so why are there still so many people playing that? When you’re playing for free you'll have to play with shitty graphics, you can only do a few quests and you’re maximum level is limited due to certain skills you can't train.That's something that's really bugging me, that people aren't willing to slap down 60 dollars or less for a game that can be played free forever, but instead choose to pay for a membership which only allows them to play for a month.

I've experienced some flaws in this game: The game’s characters all have these very annoying voices. I can’t really express how bad, but to say the least: Most of the time while playing I turned down the voice volume, because I was getting a terrible headache. Another thing is that when you’re in battle with multiple enemies your character automatically determines which enemy he attacks. So if you want to attack another (stronger) enemy instead it’s almost impossible to focus your character on that enemy.

The game itself is rather good, but like any other RPG it gets tedious over time. Mainly due to the fact that you'll end up fighting the same enemies over and over again. If you're a real fan of the oldschool RPG's such as the Diablo series and games with similar concepts when it comes to gameplay, this game might be a good purchase for you.

Desert Rats

2009-11-01T19:33:00.006+01:00

Desert Rats is a game made by the wonderful company of ValuSoft. The game was released in 2002, on March 17th. Other games that were released this year were Battlefield 1942, Metroid Prime, GTA III and Morrowind.

It's a shooter in which you fire from a truck and you steer at the same time. The camera is focused from behind the truck so it's third-person. During the course of the game you have to complete various objectives. In the levels you play, you pick up various ammunition crates which contain both useful and non-useful items such as spoiled Wienerschnitzel and Nazi comics.

All of the levels take place in the deserts in Northern Africa where you'll try to push back the Nazi forces which are trying to get a hold of the continent. Unlike you see depicted in most films concerning this subject, the troops in this area are scarce on the Nazi-side and even more-so on the Allied side. Since they only send one truck with two guys in it to push back an entire Nazi regime. Another thing that's weird is that you have a superior that doesn't even accompany you when you go out on these missions. He only sits in the office and meets you at the end of a level. It seems as the superior has seen a lot of hardships in battle since he moves as smooth as a mannequin.

In this game most objectives you do are the same, simply seek and destroy missions and seeing as most enemy soldiers aren't really that difficult to deal with, mostly due to a lack of AI. This means that you'll only get stuck when the game is unclear about your objectives. Throughout the game, you'll receive different weapons as a reward.

The graphics aren't as horrible as most ValuSoft games and to be honest this game, for its time, looks rather well. If it only wouldn't have been butchered by the bad animation and lighting effects. For example the superior I just mentioned moves very stiff and in the third level you'll have to sneak past guard posts and the light they shed on the streets looks like it's been made by glass, or in other words, it's simply an object that you can drive through. The death animations or the lack of in some cases is what makes this game simply laughable. Enemy infantry only has three types of death animations in which they'll sometimes skip frames. Enemy tanks and armoured vehicles simply have no animation. They'll just catch fire and reduce to a heap of scrap metal.

The music in this game is pretty much only present at the menu screens, whilst playing the game you'll have no music at all so you'll be listening to the humming of your Jeep, which gets annoying. The sounds in this game also seem to be stock as there are no different sounds between bullets, the same sound gets repeated over and over again.

The cut-scenes in this game are the most horrible I've ever seen. You'd think that editing a scene would be less hard than doing the entire animation of this game. Yet they still manage to fuck it up.

All in all, this game isn't that bad and some people seem to like it, although I've seen some ridiculous reviews giving this game way too much credit. It might be fun for a few hours, playing with a friend makes it more bearable as one player can shoot whilst the other one drives. You might consider buying this game if you're really bored, but I would only get it at bargain prices.
(The video footage has been shot by both Doofey and Gurt while they were playing together)

Medal of Honor: Airborne

2009-10-30T19:10:00.005+01:00

The game is released on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 at the end of 2007.

This game is the 11th of the MoH series and produced by EA Los Angeles. The game isn’t very different from the other games in the series, but EA LA has added a new element: A parachute drop in the beginning of a level and also in special multiplayer modes. Each mission starts with a short cutscene and after that you jump out of the plane together with your fellow soldiers. This means that you can choose where you start your mission. The developers have added two safety zones marked by green flares in each level, but if you want to kick some Nazi ass right away, you can also land in the middle of the action (this is not recommended). There are also five skill drops in each level and you can notice them by the parachute hanging near the skill drop.

The singleplayer features six levels that you can complete in about seven or eight hours, that’s a little short in my opinion. These six levels are: Operation Husky, Italy, Operation Avalanche (Italy), Operation Neptune (France, D-Day), Operation Market Garden (The Netherlands), Operation Varsity (Germany) and Der Fläkturm, (Germany). My personal favourite is Operation Market Garden, because I recognised that the music was the same as in MoH: Frontline (and because I’m Dutch). I also like Der Flakturm, because it’s just an enormous tower to see. It has artillery and 12 anti-air turrets on top of it.

You can play the game in three difficulties: Casual, Normal and Expert. When you play on Expert you can’t take as much abuse as you can take on Casual.

The game also features some RPG elements in this game. For example, you can upgrade your weapons. In order to do this you have to kill enemies. You’ll get an extra experience boost by making headshots or when you make three or five kills in a row. The upgrades are different with each weapon. The Thompson gun for example gets extra rounds and a stabilizer(which reduces the loss of accuracy during shooting).

The sound and graphics of this game are great, the levels are very detailed. When a grenade explodes near you, you’ll experience blur vision and you're deaf for a few seconds. The levels are partly open, you'll have to follow a certain path, but you'll get some movability when it comes to completing your objectives.

The multiplayer of this game is okay. There are three different game modes: Team Deathmatch, which is pretty self-explanatory, Team Deathmatch Airborne, Allied soldiers start in a plane and Axis soldiers on the ground. The Allied soldiers can choose where they’ll land, but the Axis soldiers can try to shoot them out of the sky. The third game mode is an objective-based mode where players must capture three neutral flags, similar to the main game mode of Battlefield 2 and Domination in the Unreal Tournament series. The middle flag requires two soldiers to be close to it in order to capture it.

However, there are some complaints about this game, besides the fact that there are only six levels. Number one: All objects are undestroyable in this game. You can’t even destroy a small object on a table. This means that you can take cover behind anything. Also, the AI is quite stupid. But the AI characters are very aggressive, the enemy soldiers will shoot you on sight, throw grenades at you or beat you to death. In the last two levels of the game, you’ll encounter some Übernazi’s called Nazi Storm Elites. You can recognise them by their gas-masks and MG42s (which are heavy machineguns). These soldiers can take a lot of bullets. I don’t think these soldiers ever existed, did they? My last complaint is that on the PS3 the maximum amount of players in ranked servers is only eight players. That’s just ridiculously low.

Another thing that's remarkable is that the game resolves around you. Fellow Allied soldiers won't press forward unless you take the initiative. This is quite weird since you'd expect that in a grand scheme of things you'd be insignificant for the progress of recapturing European lands.

But to be fair, I did enjoy this game for a long time. The game isn’t that good, but it isn’t bad either so I think most of you will enjoy it as well. The game is certainly worth your money, especially now that the price has been reduced.

Star Wars Battlefront

2009-10-24T21:35:00.014+02:00

This game has to be one of my favourite games that I have ever played on the PS2. Next to SW Battlefront , I will also review SW Battlefront II. It has been released for PC, Xbox and PS2.

This game was released by Lucasarts in 2004. This publisher and developer of video games, was founded by the father of Star Wars, George Lucas in 1982. This studio plays a vital role for the Star Wars brand as well for the Indiana Jones adventures. The second developer is Pandemic, which was founded in 1998 with an investement from Activision.

Now, I won’t be discussing the story of Star Wars, it'll be just too much.
And so my review about a game, where you fight in a galaxy far far away, begins.

In SW Battlefront you will be fighting on the sides of the four factions, the Republic, the CIS, the Empire and the Rebels. Each faction has it’s own units consisting of five classes, the normal soldier ( because each class has other names for its soldiers I’ll be using standard names), snipers, anti-tank soldiers, pilots (the game’s engineers), and special units. For The Republic and The Empire you've got jet troopers (The Empire’s jet troopers are called Dark Troopers).
The Rebels have the extremely though Wookiee and the CIS has the all famous Droideka.

The game also features some vehicles. Next to land vehicles, you can also pilot planes. The Rebels have the Gian Speeder as tank, the popular X-Wing fighter, the Y-Wing and on the planet Hoth the Airspeeder.
The Empire has the huge four-legged AT-AT, and the two-legged AT-ST, the Tie Fighter and the Tie Bomber. For the CIS you have the AAT, the Spiderwalker, the Hailfire tank and the droid starfighter.
And last but not least the vehicles of the Republic. The Republic has got the six-legged AT-TE, the TX-130S Fighter Tank, the Republic Gunship and the Jedi Starfighter.

The maps in SW Battlefront differ from the forests of Endor to the desert of Tatooine.
Almost every planet where you fight on has two levels, a sort of open map and an urban map. The four other maps that don’t have a second map are the home planets for each of the four factions. These are Endor, Kamino, Hoth and Geonosis. Each planet looks different in SW Battlefront with its own unique look. For instance, the planet of Naboo has a colourful urban map where Mos Eisley on the planet of Tatooine has a brownish look. The levels are looking good for that time with smooth lines and good animated units. Also the maps are not rushed into production but are carefully developed.

The game allows you to follow the story of Star Wars. You can battle in the Clone Wars and then fight in the Galactic Civil War. At the middle of both wars you change sides. In the Clone Wars you start on the side of the CIS and in the Galactic Civil War you begin on the side of the Empire.
Next to the ‘campaign’ of the game, you also have a mode called galactic conquest. Here you have to conquer all planets before invading your enemy’s home planet. Each time you win a map you'll get a special point. When you've earned four points you can activate your faction's special power. The CIS has the blockade power, which allows you to eliminate a planet from the scene. The Republic has the invade power that allows you to instantaneously conquer an entire planet. The Empire has the power to destroy a planet. The Rebels have the ability to start a rebellion on the targeted planet what gives them control over a planet without fighting.

Now there are some hilarious moments in SW Battlefront. When a grenade lands beside you and explodes, you will be blown to the other side of the map. And for those who want to move fast over the battlefield, just roll your way sideways over the map, because walking is painfully slow.

I really enjoyed this game and I still am. So I would recommend this game if you ever see it in a store. Tune in later for my review of SW Battlefront II.

John Deere: Drive Green

2009-10-23T21:27:00.008+02:00

John Deere: Drive Green is a game made by Gabriel Entertainment. This game is published by THQ. Gabriel Entertainment has made various games such as the John Deere series and Rock Tour. It's safe to say that these games can be called budget games with the quality they're notorious for. The game was released in November 2008. This game could best be classified as a farm simulator.

The graphics don't hold a candle to games from the same year. In general, the graphics are pretty bland and there seems to be a bug with the graphics engine since the textures keep flashing at times. The animations are very bad, your character for example slides on the ground when walking diagonally. Every crop or vegetation consists of 2D images sticking up in the ground.

As for the music in this game, there isn't much of it. There's only one song continuously looping and it's some country-style music which gets old really quick. As far as sounds go, there isn't much to mention.

The gameplay is to say the least, boring and horrible. The core gameplay aspect of this game is to drive up and down a field, keeping your efficiency meter high and collect some Deere Dollars on the side(your efficiency meter also gives you money). It seems that the entire village is treating John Deere as a lunatic since they are paying him with a non-existing currency giving them cheap labour, for free in fact. Every mission in this game is pretty much the same, you'll have to drive up and down, either planting crops, harvesting them or spraying them. You'll get Deere Dollars which allow you to purchase equipment such as tractors or various tools. Basically you're doing repetitious actions with one song continuously looping, making this game one of the best solution for people suffering from insomnia, because you'll surely fall asleep whilst playing this game. If you've finished all the missions and have purchased every piece of equipment available, you can do everything again on your own land which will give you money, which is useless at that point giving this game a low replay value, together with a low play value.

This game's controls are unpleasantly scattered around the keyboard and I was surprised when I noticed that I could use my gamepad. Which meant that I could lean back in my couch and use just one hand to make turns and drive ahead on the fields. I suggest that you use a rubber band in order to keep pressing down your acceleration button, so you just have to take turns.

In conclusion, I really don't recommend getting this game, even if they're offering you money to play it. I did some research on the internet and noticed that there's a group of people that do enjoy this game. DON'T LISTEN TO THEM! THEY HAVE ALL BEEN BRAINWASHED.
So unless you're planning on torturing a friend or a sibling or if you're a parent trying to make your children brainless apathetic creatures, don't waste your money on this game.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

2009-10-23T20:04:00.011+02:00

This is another game made by Codemasters and published by EGO. The game is a very realistic squad-based tactical FPS. Bullets are affected by gravity. Most of the time only one hit means one kill/death. If you do happen to survive, you’ll bleed to death, unless you fix yourself or get a medic.

This game has been released on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. There are some differences between the Xbox 360/PS3 version and the PC version. The PC version features a Map Editor and you can play with more people online.

The story of the game is that in the near future there'll be an insufficient amount of oil to supply every country in the world and the reserves have ran out, so Russia claims the island Skira, because a large oilfield has been discovered on that island. For your information, the name Skira doesn't exist, the real name of the island is Kiska. When China discovers the oilfield, the government annexates Skira. Russia isn't pleased by this and asks the NATO and the U.S for military assistance on Skira. This is the beginning of the biggest invasion on Skira ever.

The game has three difficulty levels: Normal, Experienced and Hardcore. The difficulty levels don’t affect your enemies, but it will affect your HUD (Head-Up Display) . On Normal you have a full HUD: You can see the status of your squad, your status, you can see where your mission objective is without looking at your map and you can see all details of your weapons and ammo. You can also see where your enemies are, if you spotted them and you’ll get aim-assist. When you hit an enemy the indicator flashes white and when you kill an enemy it flashes red.
On Experienced you’ll lose your aim-assist and the hit indicator is gone. On Hardcore you almost lose all support stated above. Sometimes you won’t even notice that one of your squad-members is down, unless he’s still alive and is screaming for a medic. On Normal and Experienced you've got the possibility to load from the last checkpoint you've passed before you died and on Hardcore this option is gone, so that makes the game a lot harder.

You're able to give your squad orders easily via the quick command radial. You can change your tactics (Rules of Engagement, squad-spread or formation), coordinate an artillery bombardment or air strike, tell your squad where to move next or to engage an enemy. You can also tell your squad to assault or defend certain coordinates. Be advised: Don’t use your squad-members as cannon-fodder, because you’re not going to make it on your own. At least make sure that your medic survives, because most of the time he’s the key to victory.

In some missions you’re able to call in artillery or an air strike. First you’ll have to choose a location and then how they'll shoot: Tight, Scattered, Barrage or Harassing. Some of these options work better against vehicles than against infantry and the other way around. When you’re able to call in an air strike you also have to choose the bomb that they’ll use, unless you only have one option. You can also use vehicles to help you accomplish your missions.

There are 11 levels that you have to complete in order to finish the game. You can choose to play them in singleplayer or call for some help in co-op. In co-op you don’t have a checkpoint-function on Normal and Experienced, but you're able to respawn when at least one of your human team-mates is still alive and not in combat. When you die on Hardcore you’re forced to watch the session until it’s over.

Besides co-op you can also play against human players, in two game-modes: Annihilation and Infiltration. Annihilation is the same as Team Deathmatch. Each team exists of 16 players (PC version features more players!) , 4 human players and 12 bots. Just shoot as much enemies as you can and use your squad-members well. In Infiltration there are two teams as well, a big team (the Chinese) and a small team (U.S). The small team has to destroy or capture an objective, while the big team has to defend the objective.The big team exists of 5 human players and 15 bots and the small team exists of 3 human players and 9 bots.

The graphics of this game are done very nice. Unlike other games, like Vietnam: Black Ops, in this game your character holds his weapon realistically. There is no in-game music, but the title-screen does have music and it gets a little annoying after hearing it over and over again.

This is a very cool game and if you love the genre you must definitely get this title. Even if you don’t like the genre, I recommend you to at least check the game out.

Boogerman: A Pick And Flick Adventure

2009-10-17T22:16:00.006+02:00

This game is the strangest game I've ever played on the Sega Mega Drive. Luckily it's strange in a good way. It's kind of a mindfuck game. The game is a platformer with cartoony style graphics, but with this game they fit extremely well. The game was created by Interplay in 1994 and was also released for the SNES in 1995. I don't know what they were smoking when they came up with this game, but it's weird to say the least.

Intro(as taken from the game):
It's a dark and stormy night at professor Stinkbaum's lab where a machine has been built to save the world from pollution by transexisting it to dimension X Crement. Eccentric millionaire Snotty Racsdale has taken a job at the lab to investigate it's safety and find out exactly where the pollution is going. He has a bad feeling about this latest contraption. This night his suspicions will come true.

The levels are all fun to play. The environment is also very strange. In the first world, for example the trees have faces. Sometimes there is a nose attached to them which functions as a teleport. There are six worlds which exist out of two, three or four levels and a boss. In these levels you'll also find bonus levels by flushing yourself in a toilet. Just like in almost all other platformers(except Alex Kidd) you can jump on your enemies in order to kill them. Besides this attack, you also have some strange weapons at your disposal, such as a fart or a burp. You can also throw snot at your enemies, which kills them. Talking about the enemies, these are strange as well. There are normal enemies like snails and ghosts (which consist of ashes, which is another pollution message) but the rest of them.. I don't know what they are. Your standard enemies look like goblins, but when you kill them, they make a farting noise. So they could be called animate poop or something.

Instead of collecting coins like in other platformers, in this game you collect plungers. With these plungers Snotty tries to make a ladder at the end of each level. When you've acquired enough plungers you'll get an extra life. You'll get some extra points when you crush every wart you can find. There are also some powerups you can collect such as milk, red peppers, beans and a certain green substance (and it isn't weed, mind you). With milk your snot throwing gets replaced by spitting, a stronger attack. When you consume red peppers your burping and farting ignite and you can fly like a rocket (a flame is coming out of Boogerman's ass) until your gas runs out. And that's when the beans come in handy. They'll refill your gas and snot supplies. Boogerman has three stages of health which you can see by looking at the colour of his cape. With a blinking cape you can take three hits before dying. In this process your cape will degrade from blinking to red to yellow and then you'll die (Boogerman melts). You can regain health when you collect capes.

The entire time I was playing this game I had a great time. This game is hilarious, the funny enemies, the strange surroundings and the lunatic music will ensure a fun experience. The game isn't too difficult, but is challenging at times. I'd really recommend checking this game out, even though it might be hard to find a copy. In case you don't find it, you could choose to get it on the Virtual Console, even though there is also a difference between the original copy and the downloadable one.

Colin McRae Dirt 2

2009-10-15T16:14:00.013+02:00

Dirt 2 is a game developed by Codemasters. This game studio was founded in 1985. In the early days of gaming they produced action/puzzle games and simulation games at a low retail price. These days however, they are launching games at full price. And one of these games is Colin McRae Dirt 2. Colin McRae Dirt 2 was released for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP and will be released on PC later on.

In Dirt 2 you're behind the wheel of a rally car or a buggy or a trophy truck. At the start of the game you have to fill in your name and you have to choose your nickname. Your nickname is what the NPC drivers are going to call you. And then, your career takes off.

In the Dirt Tour, or ‘career’, you can pick various locations to race in, although you start the tour with only one location, London. After selecting the location you can choose what event you’re going to race. At first you only have a few options to choose from, but after a while you'll have more options. The normal race options are:
-Rally cross; in this mode you'll race against 7 other drivers on a circuit.
-Rally; in this mode, you'll have to set the best time on a single sprint to the finish. This is the only race type where you have a navigator on the passenger's seat who is giving you the directions by radio.
-Trailblazers; this type is similar to Rally only in this mode you have a car, focused mostly on speed and less on drivability.
-Land Rush; in this mode you compete with 7 opponents in trophy trucks, buggies and stock cars. This type however is pure jumping, falling, sliding and, if you ran out of luck, crashing.
-Raid; you have to drive in trophy trucks, buggies and stockcars and sprint to the finish in an open field.
Now they have put 3 special race options in the game:
-Domination; you compete with 7 opponents and try to achieve the best time at certain parts of the track.
-Last Man Standing; this is self-explanatory, you compete with 7 other drivers and when the timer expires the slowest driver is eliminated.
-Gate Crasher; the goal of this event is to crash the gates on a track. When you crash a gate you’ll get extra time on a timer that’s displayed at the top-center of the screen. The goal is to get the biggest amount of time.

And there are 3 levels of events, the first (rookie) races, the Pro Division and the All-Stars Division. At the first races, you get a small amount of cash and little experience points.
To get into the Pro-Division you will have to upgrade your cars with a pro-pack. In this championship, you usually get 2 races per event. The cash and experience points reward is bigger. And last but not least, the All-Stars Division. Again you will have to upgrade your cars with a pack, the All-Stars pack. In this championship an event can last 8 laps long or 3 races. And as expected, the cash and experience points reward is bigger.

There are also events called Throwdowns, X-games and world tours. In Throwdowns, you compete one-on-one with a player who has challenged you for a race. You can’t only win experience points with these races but get the players as a friend as well, because in some events you need a teammember.
For the championships a certain level is required to enter them. There are 3 championships and at the end of the final one you'll receive a car.

World Tours are events that give you a tour around the world. Here you drive 5 races in Rally, Rally cross, Trailblazer, Raid and Land Rush.

To unlock each race you will have to level up or race in tournaments (world tour).
At the end of every race, you'll receive experience points and with those points you can level up. When you get to level 15 you get the ‘Getting a Reputation’ trophy and at level 30, you receive the ‘As Good As It Get’s’ trophy.

But don’t think that you can drive every car in the game as soon as the game starts. First you will have to win races and receives some cash, thousands of dollars. Different levels of difficulty and final position determine how much you get at the end of an event. Difficulte levels determine the amount of flashbacks you get, which are used to rewind the game and fix your mistake, this can't be used in multiplayer. Some cars are given to you when you finish a World Tour or a championship. There are 8 different locations where you can race. But don’t think that you’ll be racing the circuit over and over again on 1 location, because every location has more than 1 circuit. You will be driving from the jungle to the desert, from an enclosed circuit to an open circuit. And every circuit requires a different driving style. My most annoying circuit has to be the Malaysia Land Rush circuit. To make a long story short you crash, jump, fall and slide in this circuit from hell.

The AI in this game is good. It's careful in hitting others. Also when you hit another driver, they start talking to you and also when you have the lead. And the AI isn’t that challenging in the first two levels. When you're in the All-Stars division the AI shows some true skills.

Let’s talk about the cars now. The vehicles in this game are awesome. There’s a high level of detail, so you can even see a scratch in the paintwork when you hit something. And you can customize every vehicle with liveries, horns, dashboard toys and subtle things like an air freshener. Every vehicle handles differently. Some have an enormous acceleration, but low top speed and others have it balanced at a lower level. At the beginning of each game you can choose whether you want to tune your car or not. In the tuning option, you can choose a different gear set, low or high suspension etcetera.

A cool feature in this game is that your car can sustain damage during the race. For example, if you crash your car too hard into a guiding rail, it could cause a tire to be permanently locked in the left or right position (until the next race of course). You can also blow up your engine. Besides those damages to the car’s performance, the appearance of your car can totally change. For example, you’ll start with a car with a body kit, but in the first turn (especially online) you can lose your entire kit, meaning that you’ll be driving a stripped car.

The multiplayer features 2 different tours, the Jam and Dirt Tour. The Dirt Tour is similar to the singleplayer Dirt Tour but in this mode you can choose between 3 sets of races, Rally, Trailblazers and Raid; Rallycross and Land Rush; and the special races. You'll get fame points for your final position and when your team wins. The fame points are similar to the experience points, you use them to gain a higher level of fame. At a fame reputation of 30 you'll receive the ‘Notorious’ trophy. If you receive this trophy and a friend of yours, who also owns the game, gets a notification at the startscreen, which features a newspaper with the latest accomplishments of your friends, the message says that the one who got the trophy should get a life.

On Jam Tour however, people can choose their own map, can tune their cars and decide the rules of the race. But for this Tour, you'll receive 0 fame points, since Jam Tour is unranked.

Glitches in this game are almost non-existing. There is only one tiny glitch that’s very annoying. When you throw an opponent out of the track in Last Man Standing, in the singleplayer, the player doesn’t get eliminated. And even stranger is the fact that your victim wins the match even when you finished first.

I really enjoyed this game, so I would recommend this game for a purchase. Have some apple pie :D. The reason why this game is called Colin McRae is because this game and Dirt 1, are a tribute to the greatest rally-driver, Colin McRae, who recently passed away.