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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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 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 (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?