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 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 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 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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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)

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.

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 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.

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.