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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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