Sony will put off the release of its much awaited PlayStation 3 console until November from its planned spring debut because of delays in finalizing its next-generation optical disc technology, the company said Wednesday.

…

The PlayStation 3 console can be used as a Blu-ray DVD player, but will also read previously released PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games, Kutaragi said. It will also have a hard disk drive, broadband and wireless Internet connections, and support high-definition televisions.

Seems Sony’s current internal plans call for a release of a refitted PSP around Christmas this year. The device will, indeed, be streamlined (thinner), lighter, boast 4 gigs of memory and a camera.

Check out the AICN article here.

CHAT IN HELL – GAMERSHELL TO HOST CHAT WITH DEVELOPERS FROM PAINKILLER: HELL WARS

DreamCatcher Games today announced that GamersHell.com will be hosting a chat with People Can Fly, developers of the upcoming Xbox title “Painkiller: Hell Wars” on Tuesday, March 14th at 3:00pm EST / 12:00pm PST.

In “Painkiller: Hell Wars,” gamers play the role of Daniel Garner, who after an unfortunate car accident is trapped between Heaven and Hell. To escape purgatory and find his salvation, he must fight mobs of hellish monsters to stop an imminent Unholy War.

To access the Painkiller chat, you will need an IRC client (http://www.mirc.com/). Download and install the client and click on irc://irc.chatspike.net

/Painkiller. As an alternative, the chat can be connected manually by using irc.chatspike.net as the server and #Painkiller as the channel.

Painkiller: Hell Wars is planned for release on March 2006 and has an ESRB rating of “M” for Mature.

We started work in earnest on bringing Prey to the 360 in late June 2005, although we had been looking at the code a little before that to ready ourselves and plan our attack. It was amusing to see on some gaming forums that some posters seemed to think that the announcement about it last month meant that we had just started work on it, this is far from the case.

As our aim was to keep everything as faithful to the PC original as possible, we knew it would be mainly a coding job, with relatively little work needed on the art side. It broke down into a number of tasks – converting the engine itself to get it running on the 360 platform, and the areas where we needed to make changes to better suit the platform – such as the control system, the front end and the integration of Xbox Live.

Click here for the full update.

Choose Your Side Wisely In “WarPath’s” Epic Trinity War!

“WarPath” from Groove Games introduces three factions locked in a fierce battle for dominance of Kaladi, a planet rich in resources. Though very different needs draw the Ohm, Kovos and Humans to this valuable planet, they have one thing in common: the desire to gain control at any cost. Strategy and firepower are the only hope for each faction as they stake their claim in “WarPath’s” menacing sci-fi setting.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THQ AND DOUBLE FUSION FORM MULTI-TITLE IN-GAME ADVERTISING AGREEMENT

Leading Global Video Game Publisher and In-game Advertising Leader To Work Together Across Upcoming Current and Next-Generation Releases

AGOURA HILLS and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., – March 8, 2006 – THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) and Double Fusion, a leader in in-game advertising, announced today a multi-title relationship where Double Fusion will represent three upcoming THQ titles to advertisers and agencies. Titles include new, original properties for next-gen and licensed properties scheduled for release this fall.

“In-game advertising opens up new revenue opportunities for the company, and helps us deliver an exceptionally strong communications channel to our brand and marketing partners,” said Kelly Flock, executive vice president of worldwide publishing, THQ Inc. “We feel that Double Fusion has a very compelling offering that will help us reshape the way marketers deliver content and consumers interact with that content during their game experience.”

“THQ is consistently one of the most innovative publishers in the video game industry and this relationship will further establish in-game advertising as an effective vehicle that provides a huge benefit to gamers, publishers, and advertisers alike,” said Elie Wurtman, Chairman, Double Fusion. “By providing marketers access to a wide range of opportunities in THQ’s titles, from billboards to deep storyline integrations, we’re able to offer a significant value proposition to our partners.”

Double Fusion’s technology enables advertisers to serve and measure rich-media campaigns within the immersive game environment itself, while allowing game publishers to increase their per-title revenues through advertising.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again; these types of deals should ultimately benefit the consumer by bringing the retail cost of the game down a few dollars. However, we know that won’t happen. There is one line in there that cracks me up though:

“By providing marketers access to a wide range of opportunities in THQ’s titles, from billboards to deep storyline integrations, we’re able to offer a significant value proposition to our partners.”

Deep storyline intergrations? Great… so that means we can look forward to the final level in action games being a Mountain Dew can hunt instead of “kill bad guy x” or “escape before time runs out”. Ugh.

Gamingnext – Please tell us a bit about yourself.

Mark Starrett – I’ve been the U.S. Marketing Manager for four years, and came to Saitek nine years ago to launch our line of PC Game controllers. I came to Saitek because I’m a gamer at heart, and so is Saitek. My favorites are combat flight simulations, and head-to-head dogfighting. In what spare time there is left, I enjoy motorcycle sport-touring.

GNX – Saitek is known for its high-end PC game controllers. Are there any plans to get back into the console market, what with the popularity of the Xbox 360 and the upcoming PS3?

MS – Saitek is always looking to develop exciting and new products in a variety of vertical markets based on market demand. Saitek manufactures its own products so we have a strategic advantage in responding to market demands and bringing products to market in a timely manner. If there is a way to develop a product that is novel and distinct in the console market, of course we would consider it.

GNX – What’s on the horizon for Saitek and its controllers?

MS – I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you. Seriously, our controllers are following the trends in gaming. In some cases, we have new concepts, while in others, like our keyboards and game pads, we are refining the products to offer a better product than is currently available.

GNX – Where do you see controllers heading in the next few years? Do you see products similar to the Wolfclaw or the Nostromo becoming more prevalent?

MS – There is definitely a trend toward controllers for First Person, RPG and Strategy. Responses to our Pro Gamer Command Unit have been very good. The challenge is making a controller that actually improves the gaming experience.

GNX – This is a bit of an aside, but we see Saitek has branched into audio? Tell me a little about that.

MS – Given the changing way in which consumers are buying and listening to music, Saitek developed three products focused on portable music players and PC based music libraries. The A-200 is a portable speaker system for portable music players like an ipod. The system is designed in a unique way to allow the speaker to expand bass. The A-250 wireless speaker system liberates the music trapped on your music library and allows users to listen from our speaker without the encumberance of wires. We just announced that we are shipping our A-350 wireless headphones yesterday. This is a great product because the headphones connect directly to your ipod or other portable music device without wires.

GNX – Has Saitek ever considered going beyond controllers and audio into maybe video or other PC peripherals?

MS – We have expanded our product vision into a category we call Digital Media Entertainment. If a product or idea fits within that scope, we consider it. The most important decision for us is that we can truly offer a better product. You won’t see us making video cards, scanners or printers, but other products are possible. They have to fit with our product family.

GNX – With E3 right around the corner, anything you want to spoil with us now?

MS – We will have the more new products this year than ever. Expect new gaming mice, and one thing our fans have been begging for for years, rudder pedals. Flight Simulator X will be coming this Christmas, and we want computer pilots to have everything they’ve ever wanted. There are more surprises, but that’s what E3 is for!

This final piece of official trailer goodness for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter lays it all out. Feast your eyes upon stunning in-game footage that will let you know exactly what to expect when you play Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Amazing graphics, intense action, and amazing multiplayer gameplay…Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is ready to help usher in the next generation of gaming…in a big way. See what the critics are already saying about Ghost Recon Advanced…”Look upon this game and cry tears of joy!” Indeed.

Click here to check out the official GRAW launch trailer at YouTube. 

UBISOFT GOES ALL-IN WITH
TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX® VEGAS
FOR NEXT-GENERATION CONSOLES
 
SAN FRANCISCO — MARCH 6, 2006 — Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced that it is developing Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Vegas for  next-generation and current-generation video game consoles. Scheduled for a fall 2006 release and developed by Ubisoft’s award-winning Montreal studio, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas is the fifth iteration of the multimillion-selling Rainbow Six tactical shooter franchise.

 
The stakes are high when the world’s most elite counter-terrorism unit enters Las Vegas, where over 36.7 million men, women and children visit each year. “Sin City,” the home of the famous Las Vegas Strip, flashy hotels, high-rolling casinos and world-famous celebrities, becomes the setting for a terrorist threat of global proportions. What happens when one of the world’s most famous cities is held hostage by terrorists? Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas will be Team Rainbow’s next-generation console debut on the heels of the critically acclaimed Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™ and the highly anticipated Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent™. Today, with more than 13.5 million units sold worldwide, the Rainbow Six franchise is known as one of the best multiplayer experiences and is hailed for its immersive single-player games.
 
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas will push the envelope of technology through graphics, artificial intelligence, physics and animations created by Ubisoft’s award-winning Montreal studios, which house some of the world’s best talent, including Senior Producer Chadi Lebbos who was the lead on Rainbow Six 3®.
 
“Rainbow Six is back and better than ever,” said Tony Kee, vice president of marketing at Ubisoft. “Building upon the online success of the Rainbow Six franchise and harnessing the power of the next-generation experience, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas will be the benchmark against which all next-generation games will be measured. With Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter being released this month to wide critical acclaim, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent also due out this year, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas makes it a perfect trifecta for the Clancy series in 2006.”
 
Rainbow Six fans will be pleased to know that Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas is featured in a world-exclusive first-look in the April issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, available on newsstands March 14, 2006. 

A ping pong game for the Xbox 360.

No… really. Anyway, IGN had the scoop so be sure and check out the goods here.

Will you pick it up? I know I will, and not just because it’s a Rockstar Game (I might only own one or two Rockstar titles) but because it does innovate. 

Jeff Ninneman and Jason Harmer race to finish Super Mario Brothers on NES, circa 2002. No emulators were used.

Watch Ninneman’s screen (left) for an amazing jump at the beginning of Lvl 8-2. Harmer opts out of attempting it.

Harmer’s all-time SMB record: 5:09
Ninneman’s all-time SMB record: 5:11

You can tell they fool around a little bit in this one for the talent show, so it’s just around 6 minutes.

Left Screen/Mario:     Jeff Ninneman
Right Screen/Luigi:     Jason Harmer

Enjoy!

Is anyone else’s list of anticipated upcoming games just ridiculous? I wish I had enough cash to get all the games I want, but, alas, that’s not going to happen. I guess, on the immediate horizon, GRAW is my number one. I do plan on trading a couple games in to GameStop today and picking up Black. Hearing mixed things about it, but I’m a sucker for all action, no story-type games. What’s on your list of games you just can’t wait to get? Let us know in the comments.

Upcoming reviews? 24: The Game and the Saitek Red Eclipse keyboard. Also, as more games come out (seeing as how we’re getting closer to E3) we’ll be pumping more reviews out then as well. We’ve also got a couple Q&A’s lined up, but I don’t want to divulge those as I’m not sure when they’ll be in.

If I don’t chat at ya’, have a great weekend.

When this game came out, I could count on at least three friends being ready and willing to play this game over Live at any time, and not because they were hardcore gamers. It was simply that this game was so easy to step into. The learning curve was shallow, but mastery takes time.

Get all the ordering details over at GameStop.

Guild Wars Game Update Notes
Update – Thursday March 2

General

* Updated Adrenaline behavior so that death removes all Adrenaline.

* Updated Exhaustion behavior so that if you cast an Exhaustion spell while your maximum energy is below 10, your maximum energy can be reduced to below zero.

* Fixed a bug that allowed attack speeds to stack past 33%.

* Fixed a bug that prevented attack debuffs from reducing a target more than 33% (maximum is 50%).

* Fixed a bug that kept speed boosts from having an effect on you if you had a debuff slowing you by 50%.

* You are no longer considered “attacking,” “using a skill,” or “casting a spell” while you are running to get in range of a target.

* Fixed a bug that caused attack skills with non-weapon attributes to calculate damage and critical hit chance incorrectly.

* Clarified various skill descriptions

Equipment

* Added two +30 Health, Received Damage -5 (Chance: 20%) shields to the PvP character creation screen; updated monster drops to make the Received Damage -5 (Chance: 20%) drop possible.

* Shields on the PvP character creation screen with the “while Hexed” bonus now have +60 Health and -3 damage reduction.

* Reduced the Lieutenant’s Helm Hex duration bonus to 20%, and added it to the PvP character creation screen.

* Increased the Monk’s PvP Ascetic Leg Design to +2 Energy to match the armor bought off of vendors.

* Increased the PvP hammer with additional damage while hexed to 20%.

Mesmer

* Mantra of Resolve: increased Energy cost to 10..4 when interrupted.

* Distortion: increased Energy cost to 4..1 when you “evade” attacks.

* Signet of Weariness: reduced area-of-effect to nearby foes.

* Mantra of Recovery: reduced Energy cost to 10.

* Ignorance: decreased casting time to 1 second.

* Chaos Storm: decreased casting time to 1 second.

* Epidemic: decreased Energy cost to 10.

* Ineptitude: increased damage to 30..135.

* Fevered Dreams: increased duration to 10..25 seconds.

* Energy Drain: decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.

* Energy Tap: decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.

* Blackout: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.

Necromancer

* Offering of Blood: increased sacrifice to 20%.

* Unholy Feast: reduced number of targets affected to 1..4; increased damage to 10..65; reduced recharge to 20 seconds.

* Enfeebling Blood: reduced recharge to 5 seconds; reduced sacrifice to 10%.

* Chilblains: Poison now only lasts 10 seconds.

* Deathly Chill: increased unconditional damage to 5..50; decreased conditional damage to 5..35.

* Shadow of Fear: reduced recharge time to 5 seconds.

* Plague Sending: reduced cast time to 1 second; increased recharge time to 5 seconds; fixed a bug that caused this skill to transfer default durations instead of remaining duration.

* Blood Renewal: fixed a bug that allowed the heal to heal twice when stacked.

* Insidious Parasite: fixed a bug that prevented the numbers from displaying.

* Mark of Subversion and Soul Leech: changed their damage from normal to life stealing to match their skill descriptions.

* Order of the Vampire: no longer triggers if you have other Necromancer Enchantments on you.

Elementalist

* Gale: increased Energy cost to 10.

* Conjure Flame: no longer removes Enchantments.

* Inferno: increased damage to 30..135.

* Fire Storm: decreased cast time to 2 seconds.

* Rust: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

* Conjure Frost: no longer removes Enchantments.

* Conjure Lightning: no longer removes Enchantments.

* Whirlwind: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.

* Flame Burst: increased damage to 15..120.

* Rodgort’s Invocation: increased damage to 15..120.

* Mark of Rodgort: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

* Lava Font: increased damage to 5..35 per second.

* Searing Heat: increased damage to 5..35 per second.

* Lightning Javelin: decreased recharge time to 2 seconds.

* Mist Form: decreased cast time to 1 second.

* Lightning Surge: fixed a bug that caused this skill to not trigger properly when its duration was reduced.

Monk

* Mend Ailment: increased recharge time to 5 seconds.

* Holy Veil: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.

* Shield of Regeneration: increased duration to 5..13 seconds.

* Purge Signet: reduced recharge time to 20 seconds.

* Shielding Hands: reduced cast time to .25 seconds.

* Resurrect: reduced cast time to 6 seconds; increased recharge time to 5 seconds.

* Restore Life: increased recharge time to 5 seconds; increased percentage of Health the target party member is returned with to 20..65%.

* Scourge Sacrifice: decreased cast time to 1 second.

* Watchful Spirit: decreased cast time to 1 second.

* Shield of Deflection: increased armor bonus to 15..30.

* Aura of Faith: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

* Peace and Harmony: skill reworked. Now ends if ally casts a Spell on target foe or deals damage to a foe; reduced recharge time to 30 seconds.

* Unyielding Aura: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds; when this Skill ends, it now exploits the ally’s corpse.

* Mark of Protection: now only disables your skills for 5 seconds.

* Healing Hands: increased the amount healed to 5..35; now triggers on damage instead of attack.

* Live Vicariously: increased amount healed per swing to 2..17.

* Light of Dwayna: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.

* Martyr: increased cast time to 1 second.

* Heal Party: increased recharge time to 2 seconds.

* Balthazar’s Aura: fixed a stacking bug.

Warrior

* Eviscerate: increased adrenaline cost to 8 swings.

* “I will avenge you!”: reduced attack speed to 25%; fixed a bug that caused this skill to trigger off of dead ally minions.

* Thrill of Victory: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.

* Bull’s Strike: now triggers on moving instead of fleeing.

* Defensive Stance: increased duration to 5..20 seconds.

* Crude Swing: increased damage to 1..20.

* Shield Bash: Skill reworked. “The next attack skill against you is blocked. If the attack was a melee attack skill, that skill is disabled for an additional 15 seconds, and the attacker is knocked down.”

* “Shields up!”: now blocks 50% of the time.

* Defy Pain: decreased adrenaline cost to 6 swings.

* Protector’s Strike: reduced swing time to .5 seconds; increased recharge time to 3 seconds.

* Griffon’s Sweep: increased damage to 5..20.

* Deflect Arrows: now ends only when you successfully hit with an attack.

* Warrior’s Endurance: increased duration to 10..23 seconds.

* Dwarven Battle Stance: now also increases attack speed by 10%.

* Disciplined Stance: reduced recharge time to 45 seconds.

* Wary Stance: reduced recharge time to 45 seconds.

* Riposte: increased damage to 20..80.

* Deadly Riposte: increased damage to 15..75.

* Shield Stance: decreased recharge time to 45 seconds.

* Flurry: fixed a bug that reduced your damage more than 25%.

* Thrill of Victory: fixed a bug that caused you to gain a little bit of Health when you hit with the attack.

* Gash: fixed a bug that caused this skill to deal its damage twice; increased damage to 5..20.

* Bull’s Charge: now triggers on moving foes instead of fleeing foes.

Ranger

* Dust Trap: reduced Blindness duration to 3..8 seconds.

* Crippling Shot: increased Energy cost to 15; Crippled duration now scales 1..8.

* Power Shot: increased damage to 10..25.

* Precision Shot: increased damage to 10..25.

* Determined Shot: increased damage to 5..20.

* Maiming Strike: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

* Scavenger Strike: increased damage to 10..25.

* Symbiotic Bond: increased Health regeneration to 1..3 pips.

* Bestial Pounce: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.

* Feral Lunge: increased damage to 5..35.

* Melandru’s Assault: increased damage to 5..35; decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

* Predator’s Pounce: increased damage to 5..35.

* Brutal Strike: increased damage to 5..35; increased conditional damage to 5..35.

* Practiced Stance: increased bonus duration to 30..150%.

* Melandru’s Resilience: increased Health regeneration to 3 pips.

* Quick Shot: fixed a bug that caused the arrow to move at a normal speed.

* Determined Shot: increased damage to 5..20; fixed a bug that prevented the arrow from being “blocked” or “evaded”; fixed a bug that stopped this skill from recharging when missed from obstruction.

Guild Battle Updates

* Added silver and gold trims for the guild capes of tournament season winners and runners-up.

* Improved the paths that guild NPCs take when running out of their guild hall during Victory or Death.

Map and Quest Updates

* Kepkhet Marrowfeast, Queen of the Scarabs, has brought her brood to the desert, drawn by the plentiful corpses of griffon, minotaur, and even other scarabs. The insect brood now infests the “Prophets Path,” so travelers be warned!

* Removed chests from Dreadnought’s Drift and Ice Floe.

* Fixed a non-aggressive Charr group located in Regent Valley.

* Fixed a problem in the “Army Life” quest where Old Mac talked to Joe even if he was dead.

* Moved the spirits in the Underworld to help them avoid blocking enemy pathing.

* Fixed the entrance to Beacon’s Perch from Lornar’s Pass so you can’t sneak around the edge of the zone portal.

* Fixed a bug with the “Slaves of Menzies” quest where players had to kill more enemies than the Shadow Overlords to complete each step of the quest.

* Fixed a signpost pointing the wrong direction in Divinity Coast.

* Fixed a bug in the “Khobay the Betrayer” that required the players to kill all his guards to complete the quest instead of just Khobay as the Quest Log indicates.

* Fixed a bug that prevented anyone but Necromancers from getting the “Recruits for Hollis” quest after completing first mission, “The Great Northern Wall.”

* Fixed a number of locations where Aidan, Cynn, Devona, and Mhenlo were not appropriately displaying as Henchmen.

* Fixed a zone portal in Bergen Hot Springs that was zoning players to various parts of the outpost other than the zone portal.

* Removed an NPC who had no functionality from Stingray Strand.

* Fixed a bug that prevented you from having to click on the gravestone to complete the “Husband’s Epitaph” quest.

* Removed a potential chest exploit from the “Deserters” quest.

* Fixed a crafter in Deldrimor Bowl so he could no longer be killed by monsters.

* Fixed a bug in the “Hungry Devourer” quest that allowed the Junipers to be killed before the players arrived, preventing the players from getting food for Joe.

* Fixed a bug in the “Elementalist Path” quest where the target NPC was not at its quest marker.

* Fixed some maps where the same bosses were spawning multiple times: Ice Caves of Sorrow, Kessex Peak, and Deldrimor Bowl.

* Fixed miscellaneous bugs with the wurm monster AI.

User Interface Updates

* Expanded availability of Japanese language support to include non-Japanese accounts.

* Fixed a target calling bug that prevented secondary called targets from being promoted to the primary called target when the previous primary called target expired.

* Fixed several bugs that caused the incorrect display of Energy.

* Changed the color of GM chat text from green to purple.

Q: Everyone expected you to make an announcement today. What gives?

A: We have not announced any intention of making an announcement today. The Origamiproject.com site invited visitors to “learn more” on March 2nd, but we never intended to make any announcements today.

Q: When can we expect to hear more?

A: We will have more information to share on March 9. Please stay tuned!

Q: So if we check back, will it be the same teaser-type message, or will you really make an announcement?

A: While we are not sharing details of our news on March 9th, we can tell you that we expect to share significant information about Origami on this date.

Q: Will Origami become a separate sku in the Windows Vista timeframe?

A: Origami machines will run Windows Vista after the OS launches later this year. However, they will not be a separate sku and we do not have any details to share regarding what Windows Vista features will be available on the devices.

Q: Will Origami machines run Windows Vista?

A: Although some Origami machines will run Windows Vista after the OS launches, we don’t have any details to share regarding what Windows Vista features will be available on the devices.

2K GAMES AND BETHESDA SOFTWORKS ANNOUNCE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION TO SHIP MARCH 20
– Quintessential RPG for the Next Generation Coming to Xbox 360 and PC –

New York, NY and Rockville, MD – March 2, 2006 – 2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), and Bethesda Softworks® today announced that the highly-anticipated role-playing game, The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion has gone to gold master and will be available in stores in North America and Europe during the week of March 20. Oblivion will be available for Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PC in both regular and collector’s editions.

“Our most ambitious project ever is finally done,” said Todd Howard, Executive Producer of Oblivion. “We’re excited to get the game into everyone’s hands and let them experience it for themselves. We hope they enjoy it. I think it’s our best game yet.”

Oblivion is an epic, open-ended single-player RPG for the next generation providing gamers with one of the most life-like gaming experiences to date. The powerful combination of unprecedented graphics and freeform gameplay allows gamers to unravel the main quest or explore the vast world at their own pace. Oblivion is the fourth chapter in the award-winning Elder Scrolls series that includes Morrowind® (2002 RPG of the year – Computer Gaming World), Daggerfall (1996 RPG of the year – PC Gamer), and Arena (1994 RPG of the year – Computer Player).

“Oblivion will set the new standard for next generation gaming and change the way role-playing games are viewed forever,” said Vlatko Andonov, President of Bethesda Softworks. “We set very high goals and ensure they are reached because that is what our fans deserve and have come to expect from Bethesda Softworks. We are very proud of our team’s accomplishments with respect to Oblivion.”

Oblivion has already garnered numerous awards and an impressive collection of accolades, including being voted “RPG of Show” in 2005 by the Best of E3 Game Critics Awards. Oblivion ranks as one of the “Most Anticipated Games of 2006” according to PC Gamer, GameSpy, IGN, and Yahoo Games among many others, and has been featured on nearly thirty magazine covers worldwide.

“Oblivion is one of the most anticipated video games of 2006 and its release will be a milestone for the Xbox 360 and PC,” said Christoph  Hartmann, Managing Director, 2K Games. “A shining example of next-generation role-playing, Oblivion breaks new ground in the genre with unparalleled graphics, revolutionary gameplay and an expansive RPG world.”

Oblivion for Xbox 360 and PC, co-published by 2K Games and Bethesda Softworks, has been rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB.  For more information on the title visit the official web site at www.elderscrolls.com .

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™ – XBOX 360 GOES GOLD; OFFICIAL RELEASE DATES ON CONSOLES AND PC.

March 1, 2006 – Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, is pleased to announce that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™, the next installment in the critically acclaimed, squad-based military shooter franchise, has gone gold on Xbox360™. Check below for further details on Xbox and PC release dates.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter will be shipping for the PC in May 2006. Ubisoft has extended the launch of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the PC version allowing the developers more time to put the finishing touches on the game and make it the best possible PC gaming experience.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft will be available March 9 worldwide. For the Xbox it will be shipping March 9 in the U.S. and March 16 in Europe. Look for more news regarding Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter in the coming days.

In the meantime, make sure you visit the game’s official website www.ghostrecon.com for up to date information and assets.

AND 1 Streetball – Player Roster:
(Jersey #/Name/Position)

- 50 Robert “50” Martin : Forward

- AO Aaron “AO” Owens : Guard

- 6 Hugh “Baby Shack” Jones : Guard

- 53 Troy “Escalade” Jackson : Center

- 33 Tony “Go Get It” Jones : Forward

- 10 Anthony “½ Man ½ Amazing” Heyward : Guard

- 35 John “Helicopter” Humphrey : Guard

- 32 John “High Octane” Harvey : Forward

- 3 Philip “Hot Sauce” Champion : Guard

- 4 Wailyy “Main Event” Dixon : Guard

- 23 Jamar “The Phamacist” Davis : Guard

- 21 Lonnie “Prime Objective” Harrell : Forward

- 12 Grayson “The Professor” Boucher : Guard

- 2 Robert “Sik Wit It” Kennedy : Guard

- 626 Eric “Spin Master” Holmes : Guard

- 13 Dennis “Spyda” Chism : Guard

***Unlockable Players

Taurian “Air Up There” Fontenette : Forward

DJ Green Lantern : Guard

Shane “The Dribbling Machine” Woney : Guard

Rafer “Skip To My Lou” Alston : Guard

Antoine “Flash” Howard : Guard

WEBZEN SIGNS EXCLUSIVE WORLDWIDE PUBLISHING DEAL WITH FORMER WORLD OF WARCRAFT® DEVELOPERS RED 5 STUDIOS

SEOUL – Feb. 28, 2006 – Global online entertainment company WEBZEN, Inc. (NASDAQ: WZEN) today announced that it has signed an exclusive worldwide agreement with U.S.-based Red 5 Studios, Inc. to publish a new MMOG property. The contract was executed today at WEBZEN’s headquarters in Seoul.

Creating tremendous industry buzz and anticipation since the company’s inception in September 2005, Red 5 Studios was formed by key members behind Blizzard Entertainment®’s World of WarCraft®, including the game’s Team Lead Mark Kern and Art Director William Petras and Online Director for Asia, Taewon Yoon.

“WEBZEN and Red 5 Studios share the same vision and passion to create next generation online games that can successfully suit the tastes and demands of gamers worldwide,” said Nam Ju Kim, CEO, WEBZEN, Inc. “We are confident that projects such as these will help WEBZEN reach its goal of becoming a top global online games publisher.”

The core members at Red 5 studios have proven their development prowess in launching successful online game properties such as Diablo II, Starcraft series and Warcraft III on a global scale. As such, WEBZEN is being heralded for obtaining the company’s promising new game property, which is primed to deliver worldwide market appeal. For WEBZEN, the publishing deal is an important component to its mid-and long-term objective of building a world-class games portfolio.

“WEBZEN offers the optimal environment for developing games, with its world-class technology and overall expertise in online game entertainment,” said Mark Kern, President and CEO, Red 5 Studios. “WEBZEN is becoming a huge force in the global online games marketplace. Their commitment and determination partnered with our unique game concept is a winning combination for a blockbuster title.”

The new game from Red 5 Studios is in its initial stages of development, and more details on the title will be released at a later date.

This publishing contract marks WEBZEN’s second global publishing deal, after acquiring in 2005 the worldwide license for All Points Bulletin (APB), David Jones’ online game, for both PC and XBOX360 platforms.

Gamingnext: Gamers know that WarPath is about three races at war with each other. Can you give us a little more detail behind the singleplayer storyline?

Zandro Chan: Well, the story takes place on the planet Kaladi, an extremely rich world in terms of resources and climate which the three races are fighting over. Basically you have your bad guys, the Ohm – half man, half machine – and they just want to bleed the planet dry of its resources to fuel themselves. Then you have the House of Kovos, neither good nor bad, who are protecting the planet because it’s a holy place for them. Then lastly you have the Humans, your good guys, who are unwittingly caught in the middle of a conflict they never saw coming and are basically just trying to survive.
As players near the end of the game the story takes a twist and a new enemy is introduced – ultimately it culminates in a unique ending for each of the races.

GNX: What did you learn from Pariah that’s going to help you in developing WarPath?

ZC: With Pariah we saw an extremely positive response toward the multiplayer component of the game, we wanted to tap into that same vein and really turn it up a notch. If Pariah showed us anything, it was that players can’t get enough of taking the battle online against other players.

GNX: What’s the scoop on multiplayer? I assume deathmatch and CTF will be there; any new MP types for gamers to look forward to? Will the singleplayer storyline affect multiplayer in any way?

ZC: Deathmatch and CTF will of course be there plus a few others to fill out the multiplayer experience. As for the singleplayer, beyond the story and turn based strategy elements, it will be a much needed training ground for players to fine tune their skills for the online battles.

GNX: What’s WarPath going to have that other current-gen shooters won’t?

ZC: WarPath is going to have an unmatched level of speed and intensity rarely seen previously on any console. Players will be able to run faster, jump higher, fly farther, that coupled with a diverse set of upgradeable weapons allowing for an extremely wide range of play styles is really going to knock gamers for a loop.

GNX: When can we expect to see WarPath make the jump to next-gen consoles?

ZC: There were a number of features that we wanted to have make it into the final game, but like all projects certain things get dropped along the way, some for the better, and others… Well, let’s just say there are places we’d love to take WarPath and one of them is to the 360, there is still plenty left to explore there.

GNX: What’s rockin’ your iPod right now?

ZC: Right now I’ve got “Air-Moon Safari” from France, “Tomoyasu Hotei – Electric Samurai” from Japan and Robert Rodriguez’s “Sin City” soundtrack from the US in the rotation.

Be sure and check out this WarPath trailer for some in-game footage as well.

As soon as gamers heard that Nintendo was releasing a new handheld that was more powerful than their successful GameBoy line of handheld consoles, they were scrambling to find out if a Mario Kart port was planned. When the port was confirmed, there was much rejoicing.

If you’ve never played a Mario Kart game before, shame on you! However, if this truly is your first time, you’re in for a treat. There’s really no storyline behind this game. It’s just good fun to scoot around nutty tracks in some wacky carts, flinging such items as Koopa shells and banana peels at your opponents, all in an attempt to finish each race in first place. “Is that all there is to it,” you may ask. Oh no… there’s much more.

The real beauty of this game is the balance that exists between the various racers, their carts, the tracks, and the weapons. MKDS isn’t just simply a race three laps, finish, move on-type experience. There’s actual depth to this game. Every cart has some attributes; speed, acceleration, weight, handling, drift and items. All of these attributes play a key factor in the game, and not only how racers interact with each other, but this also allows the gamer to choose which racer/cart combo fits him or her the best. Higher acceleration will see you off the line quicker. Lower weight means you’re going to get shot all over the track when opponents run into you.

It wasn’t until a few hours into the game that I realized it really was a process (and a fun one, at that) to find the racer/cart combo that best fit my driving style. I wreck… okay, I wreck a lot, so I needed a cart that could get back up to speed quick and had good handling. However, in choosing this type of cart, I get slung all over the track by the heavier racers as they skim by me with a not-so-gentle bump, so I have to watch for them as I race or I can go from second to fifth with a simple bump from Donkey Kong or Bowser.

“But, I’m playing this game on a DS… what’s the other screen used for?” Prior to races, you’ll make some selections, as far as tracks, racers, and carts using both screens (one screen for selections, the other to see what you’re selecting). Once you’re in a race, the top screen is used for primary racing (behind the cart view) while the bottom screen gives you in race data like player positions and upcoming turns on the track. I honestly find myself very rarely looking at the bottom screen, but it’s nice to have when I need to give it a quick glance to check on cart placements or incoming weapons.

Also, during your races, you’ll have access to various weapons to use on your opponents. You’ll have items like banana peels, which cause your opponents to spin out. Koopa shells (turtle shells, basically) of various types; some are dummy shells, so you have to be pointed at your opponent for them to hit. Others are smart shells, which will seek the opponent in front of you like a heat-seaking missile. Then there’s the blue shells… ah, the hated blue shells. I’ll let you play the game to find out what they do, but let me say, they’ve been the most cause for me to close the lid of my DS in disgust (only to open my DS one minute later to continue playing).

Your carts are broken up into three speed classes; 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. The higher the cc value, the faster the carts (and the tougher the opponents). To get a feel for the game, I’d recommend starting with 50cc and, once you know how the carts handle, you can move up then. You also have access to 16 new tracks and 16 “retro” tracks. The 16 new tracks are just as high quality as the previous Mario Kart tracks. The new Wario Stadium track and the DK Pass tracks are two of my favorites, and, in my mind, could be considered “new classics” (not to rip off TNT or anything). The retro tracks include tracks from the previous Mario Kart games on the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, GameBoy, Nintendo 64 and Gamecube platforms. This many different tracks just raises the bar as far as replayability.
Controls for the carts are very smooth. The feel is polished and takes no time at all to know how your cart’s going to react to various pushes and pulls. All previous iterations of Mario Kart have felt great, so it was no surprise when MKDS turned out the same way.

Multiplayer for MKDS is handled wirelessly, but there’s a couple great features that really pushes the envelope and takes the DS to the next level. Of course, if two, three or four people are all together and all have a copy of Mario Kart DS, they can link up wirelessly to play head to head matches. However, let’s say you don’t have anyone near you with a DS, but you still want to get some multiplayer action. If you have a wireless access point, that’s no problem! Simply set up your DS to find your wireless access point, and you can use the Nintendo Wifi service to locate other games in your country or across the globe to race with. Getting in races via Nintendo Wifi is a snap, so much so that it’s not uncommon for me to whip out my DS after lunch at a Wifi-enabled restaurant and get a couple races in with some other like-minded individuals. Don’t have a wireless access point? That’s okay, too. Nintendo also has a USB “key” that will plug into your internet-capable PC, creating a mini-hotspot for your DS to connect to so you can race online.

You’ll also have a friend code which you can distribute to your friends so they can easily find you in game (and vice versa). This way, you can keep tabs on your buddies, and quick jump into games with them, requiring minimal setup before you’re in it waist deep, bumping and grinding on the track. In the end, there’s really no excuse why you can’t play multiplayer MKDS with all the options you’re given by Nintendo.
The graphics are really very good, especially for a handheld game, but I really feel like it’s the audio that shines in this game. The stereo effects are fantastic, and it’s very easy to tell when an enemy cart is coming up behind without even looking at your secondary screen. I expected the audio to be good, but it’s really pushed up to the top of my favorites as far as features for this game. The audio has simply been executed so well that it takes the whole MKDS experience up a notch.

In closing, let me say that Mario Kart DS is a deep, rich experience, easily on par with the previous versions of the game. What makes MKDS so appealing is the ability to take the game with you. Not only that, you can play with others across the globe via wireless internet access. I’ve had plenty of handheld consoles before, but in all reality, MKDS is the first title that’s caused me to take my handheld with me pretty much everywhere I go. Do I need to be entertained all the time? Absolutely not. But, when you have the experience that is Mario Kart DS with you everywhere you go, it’d be a shame not to put it to good use. Mario Kart DS is easily one of the best games I’ve played this year, and perhaps my favorite title from Nintendo yet. Get this game today!

FINAL SCORE: 96/100 » REVIEWER: SHAWN WALLACE

We’re getting ready to move to new hosting and get our new CMS installed (which will be based on WordPress) so, in the interim, we’ve simply grabbed some temp hosting here at WordPress.com. Over the coming days our old review database will be imported into this one (we’ve got goods dating back to 2002!) so all of our articles should be online within a week. We’ll then start focusing on our new direction (check out the About Us link for more details) but we’ll keep posting up product reviews as we always have, so no worries there.

We’ve got some talented people working behind the scenes (and in front of the scenes as well, if that’s how it’s put), so I’m looking forward to moving onward and upward. As always, should you wish to contact us, feel free to do so by heading over to our contact page.

So, what’s on the immediate horizon for us? A couple Q&A’s and a review of the Saitek Red Eclipse keyboard (which I’m using right now to type this up; I know you were dying to know that). Stick around, things are just about to get interesting.

(I use parentheses alot, don’t I?)

Call of Duty Community:

As you recall, back in December, we announced plans to incorporate Punkbuster, as well as offer some MP maps to the PC version for Call of Duty 2. We’re happy to report that this PC update is currently in testing and all is going well. In fact, we are testing these now and will be releasing them soon, so stay tuned. With regards to the update, here are a few things to look forward to:

* Punkbuster functionality
* Two new multiplayer maps.
* HTTP redirect in multiplayer, which adds an option for modders to send players to an external website to download their maps and mods.
* Repair of multiplayer exploits and minor bug fixes

We’re also putting finishing touches on the map editing tools for the game and will have those out very soon as well.

On the Xbox 360 side, we’re also happy to tell you that we’re very close to releasing our second Title Update, improving the Xbox Live multiplayer functionality. Here’s what’s coming in that update:

1. Player Lag has been addressed
2. Private Game Lobbies / Reserved Slots
3. Enable Live Host to set custom game options
4. Map Preferences setting
5. Post Game Lobbies (players at end of match will return to lobby)
6. Enemy Player Name Notification
7. Kick Player (host ability)
8. Lobby Game Type, Map and Host Notification

Again, thank you for your support…and stay tuned for future updates!

- Infinity Ward

KnuckleDuster

This small caliber one-handed pistol has excellent accuracy at all distances in primary fire mode. The primary mode shoots individual bullets with a zero blast radius and medium shot power. The ammo cartridges are small, so frequent reloading is required. Due to the small size of the cartridges, you can carry a large amount of spare ammunition. Alt-fire mode is rapid but less accurate and uses ammunition much more quickly than the primary mode.

MagCannon

This weapon uses energy cells to shoot concentrated projectiles of magnesium. The two modes of fire utilize the same energy source, but have very different effects. The primary mode shoots projectiles at a medium rate of fire and is highly accurate up to medium range. The shot power is medium and the blast radius is small. This mode of fire is useful in combat situations against large numbers of mid to small-range opponents. The weapon allows for an average amount of shots before reloading. The alt-fire mode creates an extremely powerful projectile with a large blast radius. In this mode the weapon utilizes a significant portion of the internal energy cell for one shot. It is slow to fire and is best used against slow moving opponents, to pierce armor or break objects. The range of the alt-fire is considerably greater than that of the primary mode of attack.

M74 Bloodhound

This shoulder-mounted rocket launcher has two unique modes of fire. The primary mode fires rockets that are effective at long range, cause high damage and have a high blast radius. The Bloodhound can only hold a small number of rockets, so you’ll want to conserve ammunition and use it only against the toughest opponents. Alt-fire mode launches a guided rocket that you can aim as it flies toward its target.

GearMaster

This double-barreled shotgun is extremely effective at close range. It shoots multiple pellets that spread out quickly, so its effectiveness at medium distances is limited, and at long range it is essentially useless. It has a zero blast radius, so you will not incur damage by using it at close range. This weapon reloads relatively slowly, so it is important to shoot accurately and to have room to maneuver after each shot. The Gearmaster carries a medium amount of ammunition. Alt-fire mode shoots both barrels, employing twice as many pellets for twice the damage at close range.

KrossBow

This weapon shoots energy projectiles that penetrate an opponent or armor and detonates immediately. The projectiles fly at a medium-fast rate of fire and have a medium blast radius. This weapon holds a medium amount of ammunition, and requires frequent reloading. The KrossBow is extremely accurate at short to medium distances, but it will deteriorate in accuracy at greater distances. The KrossBow’s alt-fire mode is as a sniper weapon. Its zoom lens allows you to target opponents from medium range.

Echo Rifle

This weapon is a single-shot sniper rifle. It possesses 8x zoom capabilities in alt-fire. The gun shoots large caliber projectiles that are extremely powerful and effective at long range. The weapon must be reloaded after every third shot and has a relatively lengthy reload time. The Echo Rifle is most effective in picking off opponents from a distance. It is best used against slow-moving or stationary opponents because of the difficulty in aiming in zoom mode. It is also easier to use the weapon from a stationary position and is thus not particularly useful in fast-paced combat situations.

KP-HellRazer

This uzi-style weapon shoots incendiary bullets. Its alt-fire mode provides you with a close-range flamethrower. While the flames are less damaging than a bullet-burst, they are faster, have no recoil, and sow confusion and terror on groups of enemies.

Stalker Rifle

This automatic rifle fires powerful bullets at a high rate of fire and is extremely accurate at long distances. It has limited ammunition per cartridge and requires relatively frequent reloads. The alt-fire mode is a grenade launcher.

Surge Gun

This is your most powerful weapon, firing an energy charge that latches onto any enemy it comes in contact with and disintegrates them instantly. In alt-fire mode, the Surge Gun generates a massive pulse of energy that builds up until it fires and annihilates any enemy (or destructible object) in its vicinity.

Clutch Grenade

Clutch grenade adheres to enemies, using electro magnetic energy.

Swarm Grenade

These grenades are actually miniattack drones. When thrown, these drones deploy in the air and hover in place while firing electricity bolts at nearby opponents.

Static Weapons

In addition to the handheld weapons and grenades you will also find static turrets in some levels of the game. Turrets can be used by you and your opponents. They are extremely lethal, and you are advised to use the TIME SHIFTING functions of your Quantum Suit to avoid their fire, or even to back an opponent out of a turret that he has recently mounted. The TimeShift world is populated by a host of opponents each with its own unique mode of attack and behavior.

# Touch: This unique take on Tetris really shows off the touch-screen capability of Nintendo DS. Players use a stylus to drag and move Tetriminos in a giant stack to make them fall into horizontal lines. In early levels, they can tap Tetriminos to spin them just the way they need them. Players have as much time as they need to carefully plan their moves, so it plays very differently from the other frantic modes.

# Standard: This Mario-themed mode features the same addictive game play that made the original Tetris so wildly popular. Players guide falling Tetriminos and form horizontal lines to clear them away. Mario runs around Super Mario Bros. levels in the background.

# Catch: In this Metroid-themed mode, players guide a flying block through Metroid-infested levels and seek out falling Tetriminos. Players can spin and maneuver their block to catch falling Tetriminos and create a 4×4 square. Once they do that, the block will explode in all directions and earn points.

# Puzzle: Players solve tricky Tetris puzzles at their own pace using just the Tetriminos provided. Players tap the orientation they want to use and then the Tetrimino will automatically fall into place. There are more than 50 puzzles for players to complete in all.

# Push: The goal of this mode is to clear two lines at a time to move the screen down and push opponents into the red zone. Players just can’t let their own blocks build up too high, or it’s game over. Players also can play this mode with another player using DS Download Play.

# Mission: In this Legend of Zelda®-themed mode, players have to complete the missions that appear on the top screen before time runs out. If they don’t complete it before time runs out, a heap of new blocks will appear on their screen. If they let blocks stack up to the top of the screen, the game is over.

Three distinct races have converged in a virtual Eden, in the outermost reaches of the galaxy, each with a unique reason for settling this new world. Conflict is inevitable, victory is not.

WarPath is a fast-paced FPS game featuring a unique single player mode that allows gamers to battle for control of different territories, with each providing distinct strategic advantages. Once players have honed their skills in the single player missions, they can jump online and let the real action begin. WarPath features:

Three different races to choose from, each with their own unique weapon load-out and appearance.
- Four land-based vehicles
- Eight weapons: the Wolverine, Tyrant, Long Bow, Judge, Vanguard, Vibro Blade, and EMAC, allowing for a highly diversified range of play styles.
- Up to 32 bots in single player practice mode for an adrenaline-filled multiplayer simulation.
- Four modes of high-speed, intensely addictive multiplayer action – Death Match, Team Death Match, Capture the Flag, and Frontline Assault.
- 25 Multiplayer levels that take players across the diverse indoor and outdoor environments of Kaladi
- Support for two to 16 players via LAN or Online, allowing battles to be intimate grudge matches, or all out clan carnage!

Experience the frenetic excitement of the ultimate multiplayer first-person shooter with WarPath from Groove Games. Designed to quicken the heart of the true FPS fan, WarPath lets players run and jump farther than ever before to perform never-before-seen aerial acrobatics. The first WarPath trailer provides a glimpse into the blistering action, varied weapons, and physics-rich visual effects coming to the Xbox and PC.

You can click this link to check out the trailer.

]]> http://gamingnext.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/new-warpath-trailer-released/feed/ 0 gamingnext http://gamingnext.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/the-hip-hop-gaming-league-is-born/ http://gamingnext.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/the-hip-hop-gaming-league-is-born/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:46:57 +0000 Shawn Wallace http://gamingnext.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/the-hip-hop-gaming-league-is-born/ ]]>

You’re probably laughing at me right now. “Hip-Hop Gaming League?” Yes. Not only that, Da Commissioner is none other than Snoop Dee Oh Double Gee. You can visit the official HHGL homepage here. Here’s the scoop on what they’re all about:

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 15, 2006) Promising to “change the face of sports and video gaming forever,” entertainer Snoop Dogg today announced the formation of the Hip-Hop Gaming League, a new sports organization melding two of his favorite interests.

Speaking at a massive press conference in Hollywood, Snoop (real name Cordozar Calvin Broadus) said he was seeking “to end all rumors and speculation about the league,” which has been in the works for some time. Athletes will compete against each other on Xbox 360, he said.

Snoop, who will act as the official Commissioner, said the initial regular season would run five weeks, followed by one week of playoffs. The HHGL will be open only to an A-list of musicians, athletes, producers and other entertainers personally selected by him. Among the biggest names: Method Man, Denver Nugget Carmelo Anthony, soccer’s Cobi Jones and Cincinnati Bengal Chad Johnson.

“I’m an initiator, you dig?” Snoop said. “This is something I’ve been cultivating in my mind for some time.” The league will celebrate its kickoff this weekend with a big event at the NBA All-Star Game in Houston, Texas, climaxing with the grand finals showdown in Las Vegas, Nevada.

A long-time gamer, hip-hop icon and film and TV star, Snoop said he would put his personal stamp on the league, settling disputes, enforcing league rules and generally running the show. His goal is to have the HHGL “take it to the next level,” he said, “which is professional, international and universal. We’re going to take this thing here straight over the stratosphere, baby.”

Expect fierce competition, said Snoop, drawing laughs from the crowd when he told a persistant reporter, “Let me worry about making the rules while you all worry about following them.”

“We want people who hate to lose, like myself,” he said, concluding the press conference. “Now marinate on that.”

So, I guess the question presents itself; is this the next big thing? By getting Snoop on board, will we actually see gaming move up in popularity and get rid of its nerd-ridden stigma? I know plenty of people who are gamers that, if you knew them, you’d never saddle them with the moniker. I see people playing games on a regular basis in the coming years becoming as common as those who watch soaps.

What are you doing still reading? Get clicking!

Two of EA’s most anticipated video games, The Godfather (March 14) and Black (February 28), will retail for $39.95 when they hit store shelves. This is a 20 percent discount on the typical $49.95 debut price, which should make a purchase more appealing to consumers. Many consumers have been sitting back, waiting for next-gen, but because of the Xbox 360 hardware shortages many customers have left stores empty handed, ignoring current-gen software in the process. This has made the console transition more difficult for many publishers in the industry, not just EA.

Personally, I am all over this. I was checking out Black on GameStop‘s website today and saw it was $39.99, and wondered if it was because of the platforms it was being released on. Looks like I was partially right.

Will this make a difference in what I buy? Absolutely, especially if other game pubs get on board with this pricing strategy. $49 versus $39 is a big difference to many gamer’s wallets (including this one). You can bet I’m pre-ordering Black at this price.

via EvilAvatar

“Episode One will not end with an all-encompassing conclusion”, he said, comparing it to Half-Life 2′s less-than-cut-and-dry denouement. He also preemptively addressed any fears that the series will stray from its roots, saying Valve has “to be considerate to our audience in terms of giving them what they want.”

Thanks GameSpot for the scoop.

To all of those questions… maybe. :) The new Gamingnext will still have game reviews, so that funky fresh, slightly acidic style you’ve come to know and love will still be here. But, our main focus will shift to upcoming game releases, new tech, new gadgets, new peripherals, and the like.

Thanks for stopping by. We’ve ripped your ticket. Hop on the roller coaster please… we’re about to take a ride.

For this year’s installment of the Tiger Woods golf franchise, they’ve changed up a handful of things and have added others. The most notable addition is Rivals Mode. For those of you thinking a golf game would be boring, Rivals Mode changes all that. You first create your character to your liking and then you head out on the course for a few competitions. After you win the longest drive, closest chip shot and best putting contests, Tiger takes you back in time to challenge the best golfers of a particular era. You can play 8 holes with some cocky golfers or you can compete in different longest drive competitions to earn money and get your name in the all-time rankings list. Throughout your journeys through time and space, Tiger himself will challenge you to a putting contest or some other competition, and if the last shot you make is the one to win, you’ll know it as your controller shakes uncontrollably reminding you how nervous your character is. Once you complete every challenge in that era, the real life champion will come out to break you off something. Look for appearances from Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Tom Morris and a host of others. To make things interesting you can put up some of your own money and bet the other golfers you’re playing against that you’ll beat them in two shots.

The other huge change is the control aspect of the game. While the previous games used one control to hit the ball, the new game uses both analog sticks to swing, hit and control the ball movement while in flight. You use the left analog stick to pull back, swing and hit while the right analog stick or Shape Stick controls where the club hits the ball and the trajectory of the ball. If you need the ball to go left or right, fade back a little or hit just straight out, you can do all that with the shape stick. Once the ball is in flight, you tap the black button repeatedly and use the left analog stick to have the ball continue rolling forward as it hits the ground or make it a slow roll to the right or left when it lands. The Gamebreaker Meter is also a new addition. Your Gamebreaker Meter fills up as you make good shots during a game. Once the meter fills up, you rapidly tap the A button during your backswing to help you hit the ball farther and more accurately, making you competitor shake in his golf shoes.

The putting control has changed as well. In previous games, you didn’t have much help on the green when it was time putt, but now you have a grid detailing the slope of the hill. Whether it’s uphill or downhill, or if a slope is going to the left or right or how powerful you’ll put with different putters, the grid makes things pretty easy. It’s very helpful to the player because it gives you a better judgment on how to hit the ball, whether you need to shank it to the left a little because it’s on a slope or if you need a more powerful swing since you’re putting up a small hill. Some diehard golf simulation players may not like it because it makes putting to easy, that even a beginner can get some eagles and birdies the first time playing the game.

As always the graphics look amazing, well the environments do anyway. The actual character models aren’t all that impressive; just you’re run of the mill everyday look. What are impressive are the courses. They have 11 real life licensed course that look like their real-world counterpart. The grass, dirt, sand, trees, ocean and lake water, city buildings and anything you can think of look extraordinary. Makes you actually want to fly out to the real course and take in the scenery.

Since its golf, there isn’t much sound except the sound of you whacking a ball 300 yards and it landing on the green. The voice acting is cool too. Tiger comes in and does his job, while the colorful cast of characters comes in with their comments, which can be sometimes funny.

More importantly, the game is fun. Although it is billed as a golf simulation, almost anyone can pick up the controller, whack the ball and be competitive. Die-hards might be bothered on how easy the game may be, but there is options to make the game more difficult (Tiger Proofing), PGA Tour Season Mode (30 years of the PGA Tour) and Skills 18 Mode (where you try to hit the golf ball through hoops), to keep them busy a long while. If you’ve never played a golf game, this is a good place to start, and if you’re a veteran, this a good place to take up a challenge. Enjoy!!

FINAL SCORE 90/100

The biggest additions to the game are in the gameplay with most noticeable being the skill stick. On different teams there are different superstars ( they have stars under them when you’re controlling them) and by using your right analog stick you can pull of some impressive moves while making your way to the goal. You can spin around, shoot between your legs, and do various highlight reel moves when taking a shot. But while stars like Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg will pull of some amazing moves, lower tiered players will likely lose control of the puck or easily get it stolen from them when they try to pull of the same move.

Next is targeting. Making goals has never been easier… well maybe. With the new targeting system, as you near you opponent’s goal and press and hold the slap shot button, a target icon appears in the net. Using your left analog stick you can move the target to an open area of the net, and take your shot. Well, maybe. Being that the game is so fast-paced, this targeting thing that you can do, you have to do it pretty quick. By the time you realize there’s a target icon in the net and you start trying to move it to an open space, the other team may have already have the puck and already half down to the other end of the ice, all before you can even take a shot. The best time to use this option is when you’re on a breakaway, or if it’s just a one-on-one thing, but trying to use it when you have three or four people swarming you trying to get the puck proves difficult.

In hockey deking is like dribbling a basketball or soccer ball. The player moves down the ice using his stick to control the puck, moving it from side to side. Although it’s not really an addition, more a retooling, deking has moved to the left analog stick making it easier for you to control the puck and get past defenders and fool goalies like you were about to take a shot. This also makes the game move faster and flow more fluidly like a real hockey game.

Although the basic modes like Exhibition, Season, and Tournament are back, Dynasty Mode might be grabbing the most attention. First off, the NHL All-Star Game has been added to Dynasty mode where you can play either East vs. West or North America vs. The World. Even if you’re simulating the entire season, it still gives you the option to play. Speaking of simulation, Dynasty Mode also has a new Sim Intervention feature where you can actually interrupt a simulated game and take control. The harder the game the more money you can earn. Dynasty Mode now also offers the option of giving the assistant coach more control. By setting the option to ON or Minimal, you assistant coach can take over a majority if duties such as filling out lines or just a little bit like making substitutions. This is the mode for the hardcore gamer.

There wasn’t any major change in graphics but there a lot of little things some fans may notice. At the beginning of game, you’ll notice how smooth and slick the ice looks, but by he beginning of the third period you’ll notice how the past periods have been with skate marks just devouring the surface. The animations look good as well, especially with the skill stick and the goalie looks great has he dives for saves all the time. The players’ faces show different emotions during the game as well, unlike NBA Live 06, where players’ faces are pasted on, in NHL 06 you can see scowls, smiles and screams of joy.

The sound reeks of EA Trax and no custom soundtrack availability, which isn’t a good thing. I guess you can get used to it though. The announcing is fair, nothing groundbreaking, but it funny how the announcers get excited for one of your shots after the other team has already recovered the rebound is half down the ice to the other end.

All in All, NHL 06 is a fun game with cool gameplay and graphics that has options to bring the NHL game to life. There are hardly any disappointments here.

Verdict: BUY IT!
FINAL SCORE: 85/100

REVIEWER: QUIBIAN SALAZAR-MORENO

How large is the NASCAR fan base that plays video games? Is it worth it to put in the effort if only a select few are going to pick it up? Obviously the lowest tier on the EA Sports title list, the company is hoping to attract more than just NASCAR fans with its latest title, NASRCAR 06: Total Team Control. And they actually might. The game is not a glorified Project Gotham Racing or Gran Turismo type game, the developers are trying to replicate the NASCAR experience as much as they can, and for the most part they succeed.

Last year’s Chase for the Cup just gave you a glimpse into what it’s like to be a NASCAR driver. This year, NASCAR 06, is giving you the team aspect. The game has some role-playing elements in its Fight for the Top mode, where you can create your driver and work your way up the ranks. This mode is really the meat of the game. The game is very deep with ways you can develop your character throughout the game. You can choose to be a “good guy” or a “bad guy” and both have its advantages, but the good guy will make more money through endorsements. The game also tales you through signing contracts, getting sponsors and drafting new drivers for your team.

And that’s the new thing about this title: team control. Imagine Ghost Recon on the race track. As a driver, you have the ability to send commands to your team like, “drop back” or “hold position” to put your team in a position to not let other racers pass, or bump a competitor into a wall. You can also swap cars and control your teammate’s car during a race. All this happens during your laps which could be around 80, which is how many they race in real life, or you can do just five laps if you don’t have time. The commands can be sent in two ways, either by headset or by controller. Yes, you can actually tell your team mates by voice to “work with me”, and they should pull up next to you. Due some glitches though, the voice commands only work half of the time because even a whisper may turn the music off, or have you pulling over for some gas or repairs you don’t need. It’s a cool addition if it worked all the time. Later on in the game, if you make enough money, you can make your own team to beat out real world teams, or even buy them out as well.

The other modes on the game include some multi-player options, chasing the cup, some other challenges and general racing. The other modes are mostly forgettable, the party is in the Fight for the Top Mode.

The music is kind of annoying, some kind of 80’s or early 90’s guitar rock. There’s no option to create your own soundtrack either so you’re basically stuck rocking out during the race. The voice-acting is pretty bad as well. Cover boys Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson say a few words throughout the game and it’s just cheesy. Granted, they’re not actors by any stretch of the imagination but they could at least try to show some emotion.

The graphics are pretty good and detailed. Each car matches its real life counterpart down to the smallest sponsored sticker. The tracks look like the ones they’re replicating and the effects, screeching tires, engine fires, and smoked out tracks and to the authenticity. You can drive either in first person or third person and the controls are simple to get a hang of, but if you get bumped, you better have your steering skills up to par.

If you’ve never been interested in the NASCAR world, this may change your mind. Total Team Control takes you into the background and what goes on off of the track and when you’re on the track, you realize why this sport has such a huge following. Even though you’re just going in circles for 80 laps, each lap requires some sort of strategy, some sort of plan for you or your team to be in the front of the pack. After playing this, you’ll have a new respect for NASCAR, in real life and in the video game.

Final Score: 80/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // EA
» Developer // EA
» Reviewer // Quibian Salazar-Moreno

Darkwatch takes place in Arizona in 1876, the old west where locomotives and six shooters were a common place. You begin as Jericho Cross, an outlaw who has his sights set on robbing a train for one last steal. Little do you know, you’ve jumped on to the wrong train. As you make your way through the cars, you start to notice more and more blood smeared on the side of the walls and then a approach a zombie like creature feeding on some poor fool who didn’t watch where he was going. Once you get to the safe and blow it up, you get much more than you bargained for. Lazarus, son of Satan has just been freed and has cursed you to become a vampire.

When you wake up some vampire hunter chick scoops on the whole situation and explains what you just released and why it was being held in that safe. As soon as the explanations come, you’re face to face with you’re enemy and then on the run. Once you get all the info you need, you start to hunt the creature that cursed you.

The gameplay is similar to most first person shooters, with your analog stick directing your path, the triggers shooting your weapons and the buttons having to reload, jump, punch or pickup another weapon. While it does have your basic first person shooting elements like going through dark caves and graveyards and taking out ghosts, monsters and zombies, some of the aspects like blasting on enemies while riding a horse, are pretty cool. There are also a few vehicle levels which makes the game more interesting. You also have vampire vision, a sort of “scope” to help you target your shots better and also vampire jump where you can pretty much leap buildings in a single… or double bound.

As you move through the game, there’s a good vs. evil aspect for your character. When facing certain situations, like whether or not to suck the blood of an innocent victim, you’re given a choice of what to do: one is evil and one is good. Once your morality starts leaning one way or the other you start to get additional powers. Of course, the powers for an evil character are different from a good character, which at least interests to go through the single player game more than once.

The graphics look good despite the games dark themes. As a vampire, you don’t get to see the sun that much during the game. The environments however do get a bit repetitive. You spend a lot of time in caves and canyons and only a little bit out in the prairies.

The score of the game is fair and works for the action and the voice acting is pretty good as well with Rose McGowan voicing Tala.

The Playstation 2 version of the game may be a bit rougher than the Xbox version. While the Xbox version has Xbox Live capabilities and makes the multiplayer worth the games price tag alone. The PS2 version has no online capabilities at all and only has a two-player co-op feature, which is cool, but not nearly as fun as going online.

Overall, Darkwatch is a decent attempt at trying to do something different with the first person shooting genre, but really, with so many other classic games (Halo 2, Half-Life, etc.) already out there, it’s hard to think of a reason why to get it in the first place.

FINAL SCORE: 65/100 » REVIEWER: QUIBIAN SALAZAR-MORENO

Revenge’s tagline is Battle Racing Ignited, and it’s good to see Criterion embracing Revenge for what it is; smash-mouth, 250  mph, white-knuckle racing. Revenge isn’t your typical “let’s-make-5-laps-and-we-might-scrape-fenders” racer. Oh no, Revenge brings  it like Kanye at a fund raiser. Nothing is sacred. Even though Revenge is a racer at heart, it’s merely a vehicle (no pun  intended) to bring you to new heights of pain and suffering. Every race carries with it two goals. One, to win the race by  being the first to cross the finish line. Two, to wreck your opponents in as many cruel and unusual ways as you can.

Throughout Revenge you will be faced with various game types, from Burning Lap (essentially a time attack) to Road Rage (crash a  certain number of cars to finish with bronze, silver or gold) to vanilla races and so on. However, calling any race vanilla  in a Burnout game is a travesty, what with all the crashing and flying metal and burning wreckage and all. Throughout these  various game types, you’ll be faced with crashing your opponents as well as blowing things up with your Crashbreaker.  Crashbreakers are essentially explosive outcomes to wrecks. You’ll use them in Crash mode and, later in the game, you’ll get  to use them in races. When certain criteria are met, you’re allowed a Crashbreaker. We’ll touch on Crashbreakers in more  detail in just a bit.

Let’s not forget Boost. Boost is acquired by slamming opponents, checking traffic, and avoiding oncoming cars. What does Boost do? Well… do I really need to spell it out for you? It’s turbo! Get more Boost, go faster, hit opponents harder, make bigger crashes, get more Boost. It’s a vicious cycle. A vicious, nasty, disagreeable cycle.

But that’s not all. There’s a flashy new catch to the Burnout series of racing games in Revenge. Traffic checking. Essentially, other than buses and semis, any traffic going the same direction as you can be “checked”, or ran into, and that car (or cars) will bounce off of you like a drunken projectile. There’s very little more satisfying than to send a box truck careening across lanes of traffic only to dispatch one of your opponents in the process. Yes, the gimmick wears off in short order, but early on it’s giddy fun all around. Once you become used to checking traffic, you can expand your skills by bouncing cars off of each other and racking up combos.

Let me run down some game types for you:

• Crash mode – Basically a preset routine where you’re presented with a traffic pattern (usually along with some obstacles for difficulty) and the goal is to wreck as many cars as possible. The more damage you do, the more money you get, the higher rating you get in that event. There’s very little quite like driving a Carl Jr.s’ mobile diner down a rickety wooden bridge, launching it off a ramp and through a donut shop’s giant donut hole (not like a little donut hole, but the hole in a round donut) that resides on their roof, only to land amidst traffic and cause much mayhem and carnage. Do enough damage, and it’s Crashbreaker time. Tap the B button as fast as you can. The closer to 100% you are when the timer gets to 0, the larger the explosion. Also related, each vehicle has its own Crashbreaker intensity. Some cause small explosions, some cause huge explosions.
• Road Rage – as mentioned above, it’s a race around a track, and the goal is to wreck as many opponents as possible. The more you wreck opponents, the more time on the clock. But beware; get wrecked too many times by opponents or run into too many oncoming cars, and you’ll total your car before your full potential can be attained.
• Burning Lap – Your stuck on a track with a car and you have gold medal time, silver medal time and bronze medal time. The faster you go, the better you’ll finish. This is where Boost comes in handy. To get gold, you’ll need to Boost all the way around the track and not wreck. It’s possible! Difficult, but possible.
• Race – yes, this may seem mediocre in light of the previously mentioned race types, but you can always take down your opponents and, in later levels of the game, you’ll get Crashbreakers when you wreck. There’s little else as fun as getting taken out by an opponent and taking him right back out because he’s in the blast radius of your Crashbreaker.

But, I don’t want to give it all away! There’s plenty going on to keep you busy for a looong time.

The game’s controls are improved from Takedown. Granted, Takedown’s controls were very good, but at slower speeds things could feel a little jerky. That’s been fixed in Revenge and the cars still feel tight and responsive at 100 mph or 250 mph.

You’re probably asking, how’s multiplayer. Other than EA’s less than savory Xbox Live functionality, it’s a hoot. It can be a little tedious finding friends to race with on Xbox Live, but once you’re all together, there’s nothing stopping you from making each other into little wet spots on the virtual highway. A few niggles, though; whatever you unlock in the single player, called World Tour, portion of the game, does not follow you online. You’ve got to do it all again online. Also, there’s several small details that were overlooked in splitscreen multiplayer. You have to re-choose all of your options with every race (Takedown did this much better; you want a red car, your buddy wants a blue car, you want nose cam, he wants third person cam? No problem. You want the same next race? Takedown saves those options. Revenge does not.) and your buddy has to hit Start to add himself to the roster. You’d think this would be automatic since, oh, I don’t know, you’re in splitscreen mutliplayer mode.

The audio in Takedown was top notch, and really couldn’t be improved upon, Revenge simply takes things to a more cinematic level, with gunshots as you fire off your Boost or some more animal-sounding slow motion audio effects. It’s all good. Very good. And, even though Takedown was a great looking game, Revenge has improved the game’s look drastically, with far more detail on the tracks, better looking cars and bigger tracks all around.

So, what can I say? Revenge is a fantastic addition to the Burnout series of games. From the total variety of gameplay to the great looks and top notch controls, if you’re looking for a fun, arcade-style racer that can keep you and your crew busy for hours on end, Revenge is your baby.

FINAL SCORE: 92/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // Electronic Arts
» Developer // Electronic Arts
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

The DGL-4300 has a very similar case to the DI-624 [ product link ] only the gaming router is in a gamer-styled black. You have the option to set the router flat or stand it up on one end. The footprint is very manageable and is barely larger than most standard 802.11b routers.

There are two main features of this router that really set it apart from the rest. The first being the configuration interface. Now, understand that yes, it does include all the trimmings you would expect from a router and even more config options because it’s a gaming router. But that’s not the best part; you can actually make multiple changes without having to reboot after each change. Yes, for the changes to take effect you have to reboot. However, D-Link’s strategy includes marketing this unit for the somewhat tech savvy on up. I can tell you that I absolutely loved this feature. I knew exactly how I wanted my network set up so I buzzed through each config screen, making the proper adjustments to the settings and, once finished, I was able to then reboot and all of my changes took effect. Granted, I don’t often make changes to my router once it’s configured but this feature alone makes it very attractive, especially for those familiar with setting up a complicated wireless network.

Also on the subject of the router’s config, each config window is dutifully labeled and also provides in-line help as well. All the major features of most SOHO routers are included as well as a glossary for users to look up unfamiliar terms. Users can make adjustments to settings such as virtual servers, web and MAC address filters, inbound filters, advanced wireless plus many others. This is a fully featured device allowing users complete control over their wired and wireless network.

The other main feature of this router is called GameFuel, and let me tell you, it works. What GameFuel proposes to do is mark certain packets as being higher priority than others. Specifically, those packets coming from and going to your gaming applications. Example: my wife often does school work that requires her to move large files to and from various locations. She also enjoys watching trailers for upcoming movies and, of course, only the large version will do. Before, it was obvious while I was gaming that she was using our bandwidth as my games would begin to lag. However, now that I’ve installed the DGL-4300, I’ve encouraged her to do whatever she can to bog me down. The honest truth? She’s tried, and it ain’t happenin’.

I ran several tests where I would play various games, some PC-based, some Xbox Live-based, while performing some bandwidth-intensive tasks in the background. I fired up BitTorrent and downloaded some random game demo while playing Halo 2 over Xbox Live. Where before I could expect some lag while gaming, my experience was very smooth. I also tried some other games such as Project Gotham Racing 2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and these games also ran smoothly. I figured as much since Xbox Live uses the same network resources no matter what game I played over it. So, my next test was to play some PC games.

While still performing bandwidth-intensive tasks (nothing like downloading Linux ISO’s just to delete them later) I played some Battlefield 2 and Guild Wars. Again, I could readily tell the difference in my gaming, comparing it to pre-DGL-4300 and post-DGL-4300 gaming sessions.

Built in, the router has a 4-port gigabit switch, allowing wired connections to run at 1 gigabit per second. The router also supports D-Link’s proprietary Xtreme G technology, allowing for wireless speeds up to 108 mbits per second of data transfer. I have also tested this technology by equipping a laptop computer with D-Link’s Xtreme G wireless card and moving several gigs of data between it and a PC connected at only 100 megabits per second (that limitation beind due to the PC having only a 10/100 NIC installed). Data moved quickly and efficiently at the speeds expected.

All in all, I am very impressed with this device and consider it the best addition to my network I’ve ever made. I play alot of games online and am very picky as far as experience. D-Link helps to solidify all gamers’ experiences by giving them GameFuel and, if you’re into gaming from a wireless connection, you can’t go wrong with D-Link’s Xtreme G technology. If your gaming experience is critical to you, you owe it to yourself to pick up the DLG-4300 108g Wireless Gaming Router.

» Official Product Page
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

The chunk of the game is in its career mode. You begin with a nice handful of money to purchase a car ranging from a VW Jetta to Dodge Neon and a little extra to add some performance parts. You start off in San Diego racing some of the locals and as you start winning races, you start earning more money and more vehicles and auto parts become available. The easiest way to upgrade the performance of your vehicle is to use the automatic upgrade. It’s just a simpler way to go through all three levels of the upgrade. As far as “pimping” or customizing the look of the car, that’s all on you. You have a variety of colors and paint styles to choose from, you have a plethora of rims from 20-spokes to Sprewell Spinners, and different styles of car kits and hydraulic systems. For someone who always wanted to soup their car up and could never afford it, now has the opportunity to fantasize about it even more.

Once you get rolling beating the locals, car clubs will start reaching out to you to race in their car-specific races. Tuners, muscle cars, SUVs/trucks, exotics, choppers, sport bikes, and luxury sedans all have their own car clubs and require you to race with a certain type of vehicle. Participating in these races earns you loads of money and respect. In addition, around the cities, which also include Atlanta and Detroit, you’re able to participate in tournaments of three or four races where you win big money plus custom vehicles. You have the choice of racing with the vehicles or selling them for even more loot so you can buy other cars. You also have simple city races that don’t progress your career but can help you get that extra couple thousand you need to buy your next whip.

The racing is similar to Midnight Club 2 where you hit checkpoints identified by arrows. Of course the object of the game is to find the best way to each checkpoint to best your opponent. There are always secret underground garages, sewer systems or a series of ramps on top of the roofs of buildings that help you get their first.

Another difference in the new MC3 title is the special moves different vehicles have. We still have the slipstream, nitrous, weight transfer, and two wheel steering which you really don’t have to earn this time, it comes with the car. The new moves are Roar, Agro and Zone. Roar sends out an engine sound wave that knock all of the cars in front of you out of the way. Roar can only be used by muscle cars and choppers. Agro makes your car invincible and able to crash into any other vehicles without suffering any damage or losing any speed. Agro can only be used by SUVs, trucks and luxury sedans. Zone allows you to slow down time to maneuver through traffic or turn sharp corners without crashing into a building. Zone can only be used by tuners, sport bikes and exotics. All of these special abilities will come in handy in many races.

On Xbox Live, you have the ability to race several types of races and games including capture the flag, tag, frenzy and the other games found in single player mode. Players can use any of their unlocked and customized cars online.

Like its predecessor, the graphics are above average city-wise and very well done with the vehicles. The cities are great replicas of the real thing however there aren’t really any identifiable landmarks. For gamers in Atlanta, they’ll be searching for hours to see if they can find The Underground in the game’s downtown area. The buildings are generic looking for the most part unless there’s a way for you to enter them to speed past racers. The streets and highways are pretty detailed and when using your nitrous boost, the look of you going at ridiculous speeds is impressive.

The developers looked to spend more time with the looks of the vehicles. They’re so shiny and so detailed; you can see a cat’s rims spinning from blocks away. Each of the customizations you make to your vehicle is very noticeable and just adds to the fun factor of the experience.

Along with the excellent screeches, crashes and other sound effects, MC3 has a huge lineup of music in its soundtrack. For every type of music fan, rock, hip-hop, dance, and reggae is available to race to, as well as custom soundtrack capability.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is one of the best arcade racers on the market. For racing fans that aren’t into the simulation thing of having to keep your finger on the brakes the entire time, racing in circles and moving slow, this game is for you. Fast moving, action-packed, wicked customization options and great music; you really can’t get much better than this.

FINAL SCORE: 95/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // Rockstar Games
» Developer // Rockstar Games
» Reviewer // Quibian Salazar-Moreno
GET IT AT GOGAMER.COM!

The game begins as you, a space marine a couple of hundred years from now, arrive at your new assignment at a Mars research facility. The facility is owned by the Union Aerospace Corporation who has government contracts to research weapons, forces of nature in space and that sort of ilk. Once you check in, you get your first assignment and try to find a missing scientist. There’s no action during the first ten or so minutes of the game while you’re looking for this guy, the time is mainly used for the player to get used to the controls. Once you do find the missing scientist, all hell breaks loose from there on out. You find out that the Union Aerospace Corporation has been dealing with evil spirits and has found a window directly to hell and is in the process of sucking the entire facility down with it. All the people you passed by to the start the game are now mindless zombies trying to eat your face in addition to hellish monsters that spawn out of nowhere and throw fireballs your way.

The whole game play aspect of Doom 3 seems to be taking it back to the essence. There are no vehicles to jump in and control, you can’t hold to weapons at the same time, no cool gadgets or anything lavish or extravagant. Doom 3 keeps it old school with your basic weapons ranging from a pistol and shotgun to a machine gun, rocket launcher and chainsaw. There are no pick items that give you special abilities, just health packs, and some armor here and there. The simplicity of it is good thing because it keeps you focused on one thing: the action.

The graphics are crisp and clear and makes Doom 3 one of the best looking games on Xbox. The lighting is superb making every room and hallway dark and dreary causing your senses to heighten to any movement or sound. In some areas, the space is so dark you have to switch to a flashlight to see what’s ahead of you, and more likely than not, you’ll flash the light into the face of a demon causing to try and bludgeon the creature to death with a flashlight. The environment created for the entire game just gives you the creeps. The only thing is that most of the game is indoors and it gets kind of redundant. Oh, another hallway, ah, another room with shadows in the corner. It would have been nice just to go outside and do some damage or have some other type of environment. But for what it is, it works.

To add to the environment effect, there really isn’t any music throughout the game, it’s just quiet. The only sounds are the buzzing of machines, bleeping of computers and the moaning and breathing of a creature. The lack of a musical score just adds to the intensity of the game. You’ll find yourself shooting up bodies on the floor just to make sure they don’t wake up and try to knock your head off.

The voice acting throughout the game is well-done with a variety of audio diaries that you can listen to when picking up files from dead scientists. The diaries are important because not only does it give more background info and what is going on in the facility but it also makes available different pass codes to access equipment or get into a new room.

One thing that wasn’t included on the PC version that came out last summer was the co-op campaign where you can go through game with one of your boys either sitting next to you or on Xbox Live. The game is much easier that way but there are more demons to destroy, which is a good thing anyway right? There’s also the deathmatch game that you can catch on Xbox Live, but it’s really your run of the mill multi-player game that’s basically played out and tired by now; especially since there really isn’t an arsenal of weapons or interesting maps to choose from.

Although Doom 3 isn’t breaking any new ground, it is on he cutting edge of the FPS genre and hardcore FPS fans will appreciate the stripped down formula. Everything takes a backseat to the action. There’s not much of a plot to the story, there’s a whole bunch of cool gadgets to get rid of the creatures, and even your character doesn’t have a name. When it comes down to it, Doom 3 is a shoot and kill first and ask questions later type of game, but by the time you’re done, who really cares anyway? Conquering the evil forces is all that matters.

FINAL SCORE: 85/100 // REVIEWER: QUIBIAN SALAZAR-MORENO 

Created by the folks at BioWare, the crew who brought you Knights of the Old Republic in 2003, Jade Empire takes us back to a mythical China where mystical powers rule along side supernatural beings ranging from ghosts of centuries ago to demons and monsters from another dimension.

The game begins with the player choosing between six characters that have different strengths in magic, physical power and speed. Throughout the game these powers can be adjusted, leveling up your points in mind, body and spirit. You start off learning about yourself from your master, Master Li, at a kung-fu school somewhere in the Chinese mountains. You get to learn about your different strengths, how to speak with other folks around the village and how to earn and use different powers. Once you start getting the hang of it, a force from the North invades the school killing everyone in sight and kidnapping your master. Your mission now begins.

While the game does has its similarities to Knights of the Old Republic in that you can decide which path you want to travel, the lines between good and evil aren’t clearly defined. You’ll be offered choices that aren’t necessarily good of or bad, but would alter the outcome of the situation and experience and ultimately major plot points of the story. The replay value is immense because in some situations, you have three or four different choices.

The storyline in itself is intriguing and will keep you playing for hours on end alone, but it’s the mechanics of the game that make this the most fun. Jade Empire is a real action RPG, where there’s a deep storyline and ways to develop and grow your character, the fighting is like a 3rd person action game. While most RPGs are on a turn-based fighting system (even Knights of the Old Republic was), Jade Empire gets you in the midst of the action with punches, kicks, jumps, flips, blocks and magic spells. The triggers allow you to target an enemy to fight, if you don’t target, you’ll automatically fight the enemy closest to you. As you move through the game, your character learns different fighting styles and using the D-pad, you can cycle through these styles during a fight. You can go from a drunken style, to using a weapon, to switching to magic to shoot fireballs. Your character can learn techniques, magic spells and fighting styles from his enemies as well. You also have the ability of using charged attacks by holding down the punch button. It charges up your attack to knock out shielded or clueless foes. When fighting pay attention to your Chi, it is used to heal yourself as well as use your magic powers. The fighting scheme is so much fun that at times you want to skip the story and get to the action.

As you move through the story, you start to get a few cats joining along with you and your journey. You can select which characters you want to join you on certain missions or travels and switch them out at anytime. Each of the characters that join you has different strengths. Some will help you immensely during a fight, chopping down foes like trees; while others will give you wine to keep your drunken fighting style moving. You also have the option of putting your followers in support mode where they’ll give you more Chi to heal yourself, or more Focus so you can use your magical weapons longer.

Also among the travels is a mini-game that’s similar to an old-school Destroyer or Centipede title. When you’re in an airship, you have the option of blasting foes out of the sky or passing them undetected. If you choose to fight, you’ll get formations of airships shooting at you. As you dodge the bullets and missiles, you shoot down enemies. You don’t really get any rewards for it, but it is fun to try once or twice.

The graphics to the game are amazing. It literally makes you want to take a trip to the Chinese countryside in hopes of finding similar environments. The landscape was beautifully done with great details ranging from swamps, to mountain forests to the active atmosphere in the villages. The character models and animation and well done and flow with fluidity during the battles and when your just traveling across the country side. The only really bad thing is that sometimes the cameras can get stuck behind a rock, building or something else during a battle making it tough to see when trying to block or attack an enemy. However, the graphics are almost flawless.

Musically the score of the game harks back to the kung-fu films of the past with violins, cellos and rhythmic drums. The music adds to the atmosphere of the game and gives it an authenticity of 1500s China. The voice acting is well done as well, along the same lines of old kung-fu flicks too. The characters range from rough and tough voices to goofy and cowardice accents.

As entire package, Jade Empire has to be one of the best games, if not the best game, of the years. Although relatively short for an RPG (some folks beat it in less than 25 hours), the story, the action and beauty of the game makes for a great experience – even for those who don’t like role playing. It’s an experience you don’t want to miss.

FINAL SCORE: 98/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // Microsoft Game Studios
» Developer // Bioware
» Reviewer // Quibian Salazar-Moreno

Cap finds you, again, as the boy Link. His best friend, Zelda, the King’s daughter, has come under some hard times. Namely, she’s been turned to stone. Your task is to recover four elements that will enable, through some mystical hub-bub, her to return to her rightly state. But things never go as planned. I mean, if they did, you’d have a five, six hour adventure, tops. Instead, Cap takes you through a richly created world (one that seems far too large to be on the GBA) that never gets tiring. To be honest, there’s little more to the story. However, just as that famous philosopher Lawrence P. Noisewater said, “”it’s not in the destination, it’s in the journey.”" He couldn’t have been speaking more directly about Cap.

One of the reasons I’ve always loved the Zelda series of games is they seem to be about adventure first. Sure, combat, puzzles, dialog, they’re all important to a well-rounded RPG. Zelda’s focus on making you feel like you’re part of an epic adventure spanning sprawling environments has always been the draw for me and Cap delivers. To be honest, when I first viewed the world map, I was initially disappointed. I was sure there was no way this game was going to have any depth as far as locales but I quickly found I was wrong. The map is broken up into various settings, such as swamps, mountains, forests and… well, I don’t want to ruin it for you.

As you progress through the game on your quest for these four elements, there will be about a metric crap-ton of missions for you to participate in along the way. Some are required, some are optional. You could, conceivably, just do the required missions and buzz through the game fairly quickly but what’s the fun in that? This game is so deep you’d be doing a disservice, not only to the game but your yourself, if you didn’t take the time to talk to every NPC, cut away every bush and destory every rock. There’s always something going on that usually leads to bigger and better things.

Another major feature to Cap is the Minish. What’s a Minish? Think diminish and you’ll be on the right track. There’s a race of magical little people (not like midgits… I’m saying little people) that exist in Link’s land. They have origins that date back long ago and, as you proceed further into the game, you’ll discover just how vital they are to the entire story arc. But that’s not the best part… you get to transform into Minish size! That’s right, you’ll shrink right down, enabling you to float on leaves across small bodies of water (which seem huge when you’re a Minish) to reach your goals, sneak into tiny spaces and do all kinds of things ‘big people’ just dream about. Like getting chased by baby chicks… no… really. You get chased by chicks. And cats.

But I digress.

You’ll also have the opportunity to fuse kinstones with NPC’s. Kinstones are basically these little half stones you find in various places. They come in various colors with various cuts in them. A large portion of the NPC’s in the game are willing to fuse with you and, when done successfully, a little surprise it in store. Sometimes it’s simply a cave with a hundred rupees and sometimes it’s much more. Be sure and fuse with everyone you can, it never hurts to expand your coinbag (or your weapon cache).

Even though the classic gameplay of Zelda is all here, Cap introduces plenty of new toys, enemies and abilities in your quest to de-stonify Zelda. Take, for example, the Roc cape, which allows Link to jump and even soar like a bird for a short distance. Then there’s the gust jar, a ‘weapon’ with the power to suck in enemies and then shoot them back out as ammunition. As far as abilities, you’ll also get chances throughout the game to add new attacks to your arsenal, giving you plenty of methods in which to deal out your brand of swift and dirty justice. Okay, I made the justice part up… but the new attack types help to add diversity to the combat as the game progresses.

The game’s controls are reminiscent of classic Zelda, allowing you to bind your A and B keys to variuos weapons and tools in your inventory. If you’ve played any of the old school Zelda games the controls will be very familiar to you. The game’s transition from area to area even uses the same methods used in older Zelda games. Talk about throwback.

The look of the game fuses the old school Zelda with some of the fairy tale affectation of the Zelda Gamecube game ‘The Wind Waker’. Everything within the game is richly detailed but keeps the feel of a well-executed SNES title. Colors are vibrant and used with a satisfying variety. As far as the audio, you’ll notice some Zelda days from the days of old mixed in with some new themes as well. The sound was one area where I was just astounded at what can be done with the GBA. When I really got into the game and heard some of my favorite old tunes along with the sounds of Hyrule Town and some of the combat, I was transported back to the old days of A Link to the Past. A wave of nostalgia washed over me and I knew, right then, we had a real winner on our hands with Cap.

If you own a GBA you owe it to yourself to pick up this title. The game is a 2D adventure on today’s hardware and, frankly, I can think of few other RPG titles that even come close to the quality, fun factor, and sheer enormity of Cap. Tarry not; go out right now and pick up this game.

FINAL SCORE: 92/100

Let’s be honest; Snowblind doesn’t try to be deep in the story department. The story that ties Snowblind together seems to be little more than a vehicle to put the player in various do-or-die situations that allow you to use that new ability, weapon or utility you recently acquired. The story has it all; intrigue, revenge, betrayal, peanut butter… it’s all there. There is an overt Asian style to the game (does it matter that it takes place in Hong Kong?) which is commonly associated with all things cyberpunk.

Overall Snowblind revels in the fact that its a shooter. As mentioned above, the game seems to tie together various situations just to put gamers in groovy environments against seemingly insurmountable odds. Get this; it works! There’s just something about the pacing and mission variations that keep things fresh and inventive as the game progresses. I never found myself getting bored of the action, whether I was tasked with tracking down a hacker in the middle of an all-out street war or liberating a POW camp set up in an abandoned opera house.

Don’t think that guns are all there is to this game. Oh no, you don’t control just some schmoe that can pull a trigger. You play an enhanced super soldier, complete with built in mission map, mission objectives and, best of all, augmentations. As the game progresses new ‘augs’ become available to you. These augs do just that; augment your abilities. Many times you’ll get a new aug that is required for the next level. However, these do come at a price. Your augs require power to function and that power is limited. As you progress through the game this store of power becomes larger, allowing you to use more augs more often. Either way, it’s an effective method of shaking up the standard run and gun action and give you some new fun tools to play with.

Let’s not forget the weapons. New weapons are divvied out much the same way as your augmentations. You’ll start out with some fairly standard armaments, such as a silenced pistol and carbine (assault rifle), but enemies that you encounter on down the line require more to take them down than a silenced bullet to the head or a full clip of carbine goodness. Although the weapon selection isn’t too inventive, it does provide you with enough variety that you don’t get bored pulling the trigger. Considering your enemies aren’t too awfully smart (and seem to spot you even if you’re hiding in the dark) it’s more a question of ‘do I have enough ammo’ rather than ‘I hope I can outsmart the bad guys’.

Also available to you are some fun utilities that let you do some ‘alternate’ damage. Grenades in various forms (poison, EMP and frag, just ot name a few) plus a great little weapon called the Icepick. The icepick lets you control various pieces of electronic equipment (anything from security panels up to combat bots), namely those items controlled by the bad guys. There’s little else in gaming as satisfying as taking control of a combat bot and clearing out a parking garage full of antagonists.

Your controls for Snowblind are the customary WASD setup (which, of course, can be remapped at your pleasure) and, for the most part, are fairly intuitive. Your augs and various utilities can be accessed with a simple click of the Tab button and can be engaged with the Alt key. All in all it’s garden variety.

Multiplayer is actually quite fun with plenty of fun game types and maps. Granted, the maps used in multiplayer are mostly rehashes from the single player but there’s enough detail to keep things fresh. The overall pace of multiplayer is a little slower than most games which requires you, the player, to be a little more strategic during firefights. Does it make sense to climb that ladder to get that extra ammo or will you be exposed too long? Perhaps it’s just better to switch to a weaker weapon and search out a refill elsewhere. All weapons (in single player and in multiplayer) have alternate firing methods so there’s plenty of death to be dealt.

The visuals and audio in Snowblind aren’t anything to write home to Mom about but they do get things done. Textures are of decent detail but I felt the player models could have had some more detail. Everything has an Asian feel (which is very apparent in your enemy’s look) with plenty of neon and rain to keep that cyberpunk aura about things. Framerates are pretty decent due to smaller map sizes and weapon and explosion affects to the job. Snowblind really feels like a console title ported to the PC, overall making the game feel like it’s not as deep as other titles. The audio is serviceable, with voice acting being mediocre and game sounds, such as weapons and ambience, merely getting you by. Snowblind could have done so much more in this department but, alas, we’ll take what we can get.

Snowblind is a fun shooter with enough variety to keep FPS enthusiasts busy for awhile. If you’re looking for less thought and more reflex, this game could be for you. If, however, you’re looking for a deep experience with more of an RPG feel, go rummage through your Dad’s garage and find that dusty Deus Ex disk. Snowblind is a thin shooter with some neat moments and, sadly, nothing more.

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // EIDOS
» Developer // Crystal Dynamics
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

Untold Legends is held together by a fairly thin plotline that could be called a story, but we won’t go quite that far. You play the Guardian, a warrior chosen to… well, guard your city in the clouds from threats. Even though the skills of a Guardian haven’t been required in a long time, the need arises and, hence, the game unfolds. In all honesty, the plot for the game seems to be put together strictly to allow you to adventure into locales other than a forest or a dungeon. The story doesn’t really have what could be called twists, but I did think the game was over a couple different times when there was still plenty to do. A nice surprise for what I felt was too short of a game (that extended well into the 15-20 hour play time range).

You’ll start the game by creating a character within one of four classes, each with their own unique spin on combat. Some rely on spells while others rely on physical weaponry (whether that be a sword or a missile weapon). The character creation scheme leaves much to be desired as your character will be fairly cookie cutter. What I mean is, your customization options are limited as far as appearance and really making the character ‘your own’. There’s really no need to name the character you play in the game as you’ll simply be referred to as the Guardian in all correspondence.

Once you begin adventuring you’ll notice some stats you’ll need to pay attention to throughout the course of the game. You’ll have three bars in the top left corner of the screen which show you your current progress to your next character level, your Power bar and your Health bar. As you defeat enemies and complete quests you’ll be awarded experience points that push you to new levels. As you attain higher levels you’ll have access to upgrading your key characters stats, such as Strength and Dexterity, plus you’ll be able to learn new skills such as Shield Bash and Dual Wield (which lets you wield two hand-to-hand weapons at once).

The core gameplay consists of adventuring, inventory management and combat. You’ll be lead into the wilds and, initially, fight some very low level creatures that increase in difficulty, even if you retread the same grounds, as you increase in level and skill. As you fight enemies and complete quests you will be rewarded with various items, such as gold, weapons, armor and special items. Anyone who has played the Champions series of games on the PS2 and the Baldur’s Gate games for consoles will be very familiar with the entire Untold Legends system.

What I found is, as I progressed through the game, the items I received from my defeated combatants were more than enough to keep me stocked up. It seemed like the timing was spot on for weapons, armor and special items upgrades. Just when I was getting tired of my current weapon I’d defeat an enemy that dropped a hammer or a sword that did more damage than my current apparatus. New armor seemed to arrive at just the right times and health and power potions were available aplenty.

Locations span from dungeons and forests to cities, tundras and even a hellish abyss. I found that the locales seem to start to blend together a bit, leaving me with a wont for a higher selection of settings in which to explore and do battle. Overall, there seems to be a somewhat limited texture set that’s used. However, in juxtaposition to this, each location is randomly generated so, even if you venture into an area, leave it, then come back later, it will be different so trying to memorize where the good opponents or treasure chests are is a moot point. This definitely adds to the replayability factor in that you can continually venture into areas of your preferred difficulty and rack up the experience and the treasure.

Another fun aspect to Untold Legends is item combination. Throughout your travels you’ll find various items, such as fire gems, wind totems and other magical minutia. You can then combine these with non-magical weapons and armor to add new abilities to said weapons and armor. Find a fire ruby? Combine it with your war hammer to cause flames to leap from your weapon. You’ll also add fire damage and you’ll have a chance to do some extra special damage with each swing. It really helps to keep the item management lively as you’re not only looking for better weapons and armor, but better special items to combine with them to make them even better.

This leads to inventory management. This is a rather large part of the game and you’ll find yourself, quite often, hopping into your status screen to manage the new items you recently picked up. You may have to drop a lesser item to make room for a greater one just found. Luckily you have the ability to Recall back to your home city to do a quick sell and buy with the merchant. You can then free up some inventory space, immediately teleport back to your recent location and grab those items you left behind just moments ago.

It can be said that, after you’ve played an hour of Untold Legends, you’ve played the whole game. Unfortunately, that may be true. Other than leveling up and fighting tougher enemies, little changes between the first hour and the fifteenth hour of gameplay. However, there’s a reason Diablo 2 is still going strong as a highly popular game, both offline and online. There’s just something about getting that one more level, doing one more dungeon, or finishing off one more quest boss. It’s addictive. Untold Legends provides some fairly mindless gameplay that you can easily jump into and play for 10 minutes or three hours. Is it new and original? No way. Has it been done better? Not on a handheld. This type of game has never been done on a handheld. To be able to take this type of hack and slash RPG with you is half of its allure.

The controls make much sense and the learning curve is very shallow. You’ll be fully integrated and working your way skillfully through the game in less than 15 minutes. The PSP has a very responsive joystick that you use to guide your character around the game world. You’ll use the directional keys to choose and bind special abilities while your four action buttons are used for common tasks in the game, such as combat, casting spells, using special abilities and picking up objects. You’ll use the start and select buttons are used for other common tasks such as managing your character and saving your game. It’s all pretty intuitive and takes no time at all to pick up.

The combat in the game is usually managed with either hand-to-hand weapons, missile weapons or spells, depending on your class. My main run through the game was as a Knight and I chose to see if I could make it through the entire game with hand-to-hand weapons only. Other than two specific instances where archers were out of my reach (and I can’t say for sure if I could have reached them with a bow and arrow) I was able to manage all encounters with my melee weapons.

Multiplayer consists of co-op gaming in the single player campaign. One PSP starts up a server and others can join. As of this writing the game only support ad-hoc mode (PSP to PSP wireless connectivity) but there is software available that will act as a tunnel, allowing you to play online. Ad-hoc connectivity is quite good, actually, and connecting up to a server is quick and easy. Lag was practically non-existant and the PSP’s kept decent connectivity even as we moved around while playing.

Of course, the graphics and audio are as good as they get when it comes to handheld gaming. The graphics are easily on par with a PS1 and framerates are solid. There is the occasional slowdown if a multitude of enemies are about to appear on screen but it’s only slight and picks right back up. The sounds, overall, are of very high quality as well. In a certain portin of the game you have to fend off the undead. As they die you hear their bodies expire and give up what stale air resides in their lungs. It’s a very cool sound and, frankly, sounds quite disgusting.

Untold Legends, by no means, recreates the hack and slash RPG genre. It doesn’t really improve upon it, either. What it does do is provide gamers a mobile solution for a fun, mindless RPG that they can sink their teeth into at their leisure. Fire up Untold Legends, take a few minutes to make a character and get ready for hours of sword-swinging, spell-casting, orc-destroying fun.

FINAL SCORE: 81/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // Sony
» Developer // Sony
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

The overall story arc of Commando takes you Geonosis and Kashyyyk, two worlds that will be featured in the upcoming Star Wars Episode III movie. Without giving too much away, let’s just say that far too many Separatists are showing up where they shouldn’t be, so much so that the Republic’s curiosity is piqued and they decide that Delta Squad should investigate.

Republic Commando does a commendable job of putting players into a squad-based environment but, overall, it seems to fall a bit short. As you proceed through the game you will be prompted where you can send your squadmates to perform specific actions, such as breaching doors and setting up a sniping position. However, if you’re too busy shooting geonosians your mates will usually just go ahead and do these things anyway, taking some of the tension out of the gameplay. When it comes right down to it, you could probably make it through a majority of the game by doing everything yourself and just letting your squadmates tag along for occasional cover fire.

Unfortunately, they’re not too good at that, either. It would be different if your squadmates were consistent in their actions but they’re not. One encounter may find them setting up properly, taking good cover and putting some Republic laser right through enemy heads. The very next encounter may find your squadmates all bunched up not a foot away from the enemy while the enemy just pounds them down. Sure, you could make the case that, “Well, tell them what to do. This is a squad-based tactical shooter, right?” I thought it was, but when your squadmates choose to do their own thing from time to time, you kind of lose sight of that. Let me clarify that, if you give them an order, they usually do a good job of carrying out that order. Movement orders and action orders seem to be carried out effectively. Some combat orders, such as telling all of your troops to focus fire on a single enemy, seems to flake from occasionally, forcing you to re-issue the same order over and over until the enemy is dead.

I’d like to say that your squadmates were absolute necessities in getting your missions completed but that’s just not the case. Granted, you couldn’t make it through the whole game alone as many encounters feature multiple enemy contacts. However, your troops merely act as cannon fodder in these instances and, if you so choose, you can run around and take care of most mission key points alone.

Commando does have an interesting way of dealing with squadmates dying. If their health is reduced to zero, they’re incapacitated. You can then order a squadmate to move to their wounded comrade and issue a shot of bacta that will revive them with about half of their health. As their leader you will also, from time to time, be taken out. As you lie there you can call for someone to issue you bacta or you can tell your guys to keep on fighting. In essence, you can’t lose any squadmates during the course of the game. To the game’s benefit, there are many audio sequences where your troops banter back and forth with various forms of dialog and the game does do a decent job of making you care for your guys. I’d still like the ability to lose a squadmate and still have to proceed. The loss would be felt not only emotionally but oeprationally as well.

As far as mission variety, your goals, even though heavily scripted, carry a nice change of pace throughout. You’ll perform everything from pure combat to reconnaisance to stealth missions. You could say that Commando is ‘on rails’ but it’s pulled off well. I do feel like you walk into one too many ambushes but overall I didn’t feel like my directives or the action was stale. A bit of a caveat is that the single player game is rather short, even for today’s standards. I don’t think it took me much more than six to seven hours to get through the whole thing.

Even though you may have to re-issue orders the actual controls of the game are very fluid and sensible. As you move from location to location various opportunities for your squad to use their respective talents will arise. As an example, you may enter an area where some cover is provided. As you move your targeting reticle over this area a hologram will pop up indicating that you can order your sniper to take up position there and begin firing. This same method is used for door breaches, slicing terminals (basically hacking), and ordering certain armaments to fire from cover, namely snipers, heavy weapons and grenades.

Your squad it made up of a sniper, a demolitions expert and a ‘slicer’, or hacker. Granted, they can interchange duties fairly well and your sniper can hack a door just as quickly as as your slicer can but it does make for some interesting comments between your clone soldiers. It’s also pretty fun to stack up to a door, have your slicer breach the door with a charge and your sniper toss in a thermal detonator for good measure. Granted, it seems like your enemies know you’re coming more often than not but it still work as far as your squad getting cover during the beginning of combat. It’s just a matter of them staying covered is the problem. For one of your soldiers to stay covered you have to order them to a position, otherwise their faulty AI will have them going who knows where.

The multiplayer is a bit of a letdown, mainly due to the fact that most of the maps are simply rehashes from the single player game. There are the common multiplayer modes such as team deathmatch and assault but, unfortunately, other games have done these gametypes better. Let’s just say Commando’s strengths lie elsewhere.

As far as the graphics and the audio, Commando really delivers. The game uses Unreal technology to power the graphics and it shows. Your squad’s armor is detailed and realistic, with visible wear and carbon scoring from being shot more than once. The environments look good as well with highly embellished textures. Your enemies are also detailed and their motion capture is fantastic. The Trandoshans move with a very animalistic feel while the Geonosians move with a stuttering, bug-like pace. It’s also fun to take off a droid’s head and watch him do a two-second breakdance before going down. The audio is also well done, as it is in most Star Wars titles. You’ll recognize many sounds from the movies as well as plenty of redbook audio from the films. It must be nice having such a large audio library available to you from some of the biggest movie hits ever to be on the silver screen.

Overall, Commando is a fun shooter that tries to be a tactical squad-based game but turns out to be little more than a flashy FPS. The lack of multiplayer variety and friendly AI further hinders this title but, if you’re a Star Wars fan, I can firmly say you’ll enjoy this game, even if the single player campaign is a bit short.

FINAL SCORE: 79/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // LucasArts
» Developer // LucasArts
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

Friend, Brother, Squad Leader:

You command Matt Baker and the men that follow him, nicknamed the Bakers dozen.  The story is told through the eyes of Matt Baker, a reluctant squad leader coming into his own.  Your fellow troopers have unique personalities ranging from spineless, to comical and at times introspective.  The conversations between your soldiers both in battle and outside of it enrich the experience and heighten the realism of the game.  You will actually begin to care about your men and their lives, making their untimely deaths, which can be the direct result of the player’s bad leadership, all the more engaging.  Unfortunately in the event you lose one or more of your soldiers during the course of the game they will return at the start of the next mission.  It’s a buzz kill on the realism the game portrays at every other turn.

101 ways to die. Choose one:

Brothers in Arms aims to be authentic, and Gearbox has succeeded in making the most gritty and real World War II game to date.  By default there is no crosshair enabled when your weapon is unsighted (though it can be enabled in the options), forcing the player to rely on the iron sights of the weapon for accuracy.  When the weapon is fired, the guns recoil with beauty giving the weapons a sense of weight and power.

Enemies are affected by suppression which is notated by a circular icon above their heads.  When the enemy is fully suppressed the bar will turn from red to a shade of grey which will deplete if the enemy is not kept under fire.  If the enemy is properly suppressed, it’s the perfect time to maneuver your team into a flanking position and take out the offending unit.  Thankfully, the enemy is not going to just roll over and take it.  When you get within a close range or fire on a suppressed enemy from a flanking position they will return fire as well as throw grenades if you are within range.  I was once daring enough to throw a grenade to flush out a group of Nazi’s I had flanked, only to have my own grenade tossed back at me to explode in my face!  Up close and personal combat is intense and satisfying with melee attacks flowing back and forth between both the Americans and the Nazis.  Combined with excellent level and mission design, the skirmishes never cease to be engaging and excel in being fresh even upon multiple replays through the same section.

It should be noted that the game is not easy. It’s challenging but not frustratingly so.  A lot of the difficulty comes in adapting your play style to fit with the authenticity of the game.  Playing Rambo is only going to get you and your team demolished. Instead, Brothers in Arms encourages strategic play and intelligent use of your capable squad.  The allied AI is smart enough to find proper cover, keep track of the enemies and communicate their status to you verbally.  Rushing an enemy mortar team with your teammates screaming and firing their weapons is an absolute rush and gaming at its best.  After a well executed flank I found myself whooping in excitement at the sheer fluidity at which your soldiers respond and act according to your direction.  By the end of the game I felt more confident in my ability to lead my squad in combat, and keep them alive in the process.

You’ve got pretty eyes sir:

Brothers in Arms is easy on the eyes, but not overdone.  Gearbox has done a nice job of giving the scenery, which is accurately modeled after the real battle locations in Normandy, a dirty and used feel.  Dead cattle mixed with swaying grass, trees, and foliage litter the maps.  Trenches and cover used in the game is realistic and appropriate for the situation adding a layer of immersion and believability.  The skyscape is gorgeously full of vibrant colors and typically highlighted with planes, anti aircraft flak, or bullet traces.  Each scene is subtle in its conveyance and yet consummate in its detail, breathing fresh air into the stagnant genre.  The game carries a mature rating and rightly so as the enemies legs and arms can be blown off by a well placed grenade or a tank shell. The blood spray is not gratuitous so much as it is lifelike, comparable to the effects found in the movie Saving Private Ryan.  This should satisfy fans who have had to suffer through white puffs of dirt echoing from stricken enemies in similar titles.  Brothers in Arms features an eerily realistic character modeling system as well.  The eyes in particular can be haunting as they track you and express empathy or aggression through their movements.  The character models differentiate enough for you to tell your allies apart from their look and express true emotion ranging from whimsical to sad.  In the heat of battle paying attention to your squad’s demeanor, especially their facial expressions, is brilliantly engaging and immersive.

I’m deaf now, but I’m happy:

The first level of the game highlights the immense amount of work that went into the sound design of Brothers in Arms. Bullets will hiss and pop next to you, tanks shells explode around you and a constant barrage of deafening mortar fire will fill your house with the effects of war.  The weapon sounds are beefy and pack a punch, though at times this drowns out the comments of your fellow soldiers.  The voice acting is overall well done, however a few characters voices can be a little grating and tiresome.  Hopefully for Brothers in Arms 2 they will hire a few actors with deeper voices, as this go around the actor’s timbre tends to be on the high side.

Multiplayer:

The foray into multiplayer is different than we’ve come to expect.  Instead of the standard death match, capture the flag, and team death match.  Gearbox has crafted a hybrid of the single player, taking the AI squad elements of the single player and placing them into a 2 vs. 2 multiplayer environment.  Each human controls a fire team or an assault team of 3 men depending on the map.  Coordination between each player is a must to successfully complete the mission based objectives in each level. The missions range from carrying a codebook to the levels exit, to placing an explosive on a designated target.  Each level is well designed with multiple flanking paths and routes to and from each objective.  Executing a well maneuvered win with your teammate is thrilling and motivating.  As good as actual multiplayer is, it is hindered by a host of interface issues. A clunky friends list menu only allows voice messages to be attached with game invites, making gaming with your friends harder than it should be.  For a game that encourages team play I find this decision odd.  Another glaring problem is the time it takes to load into a multiplayer game from the server browser, only to find the server full and you must load again back to the menu.  The process can take almost 2 minutes, which can be excessively frustrating when you spend 30 minutes just to find a game that’s not full.

Summary

I can genuinely say that Brothers in Arms is the definitive World War 2 game, sharpening the genre in a way no others have dared.  The squad combat and enemy AI jack up the combat in a way that will be copied in the years to come.  Gearbox’s masterpiece is not without a few flaws, but they are easily overlooked by the games polish and replayablility.  The only question left now is, when do we get Brothers in Arms 2?

FINAL SCORE: 96/100 // REVIEWER: IAN WHITE 

Could Battle Out of Hell live up to the hype generated by the massive fun machine that was Painkiller?

Battle Out of Hell makes no beef about being lean in the story department. Without spoiling the original Painkiller or Battle Out of Hell, your mission is to get back to Earth via Purgatory. In all reality, the story for Battle Out of Hell was simply a reason to add some variety to the locations where players would do battle. I can’t say I’m too upset over this decision. I mean, People Can Fly purposely left out a whole lot of story from the original Painkiller to focus on the cajones-out gameplay. Who’s to say it shouldn’t work for Battle Out of Hell? Well, for the most part, it does.

Let me reiterate that People can Fly didn’t do much in the way of cutscenes either. You get a minute or two here and there but, all in all, Battle Out of Hell is about shooting things. Lots of things. The core gameplay element of ‘shoot as much as you can’ is still here with a couple new weapons and ten all-new venues. For the most part the maps in the game are simply attractive locations used to get you from Point A to Point B.

To give People Can Fly proper credit, the first couple maps set the stage very well, maybe too well, for the remainder of the game. The opening map is a halfway house for kids and, let me tell you, the first time a screeching kid with a sheet over his head rounds the corner and bears down on you at full speed, it’s quite a rush. The creepy factor in this section of the game is off the chain. There are other maps, such as a World War II Germany map and a whacked out carnival / funhouse, that are almost as solid as this first halfway house map but the rest of the maps feel almost a bit contrived and thrown together. Perhaps it’s the disjointed feeling created by jumping from genre to genre within the map cycle that prevents the game from having the same flow as the original.

People Can Fly has also taken the old school flavor in regards to the game’s enemy AI. What do I mean? Well, there is none. Pretty much every enemy has a zombie mentality and just charges at you full speed. I know, dodging isn’t AI but your enemies don’t really even attempt to dodge. It’s almost as if they know they’re cannon fodder and they’re just waiting to be reincarnated as a crazy clown or a mutated deep sea lifeform later on in the game.

I’d like to say there’s more to the gameplay element of Battle Out of Hell but that simply isn’t the case. It’s all about maneuvering and running and shooting. There are a couple puzzle elements but they are almost too simple to be called puzzles. There’s also some jumping puzzles as well and, unfortunately, the controls in this area are a little muddy and could cause some frustration. Luckily, the jumping sections are very few and far between so this little sidetrack is forgiveable.

Other than the required accurate jumping, the controls of the game feel tight. Granted, you’ll get very familiar with WSAD and your mouse (as you’ll use little else) but movemenet and aiming feel deliberate and precise.

Two new weapons have been introduced, although they do have an alternate fire giving you four new ways to deal death in Battle Out of Hell. The new weapons are a combination assault rifle / flamethrower and a new stake gun. The rifle is more powerful then previous leadflingers and the flamethrower looks and plays great. It’s good fun to light up your enemies and watch them stop in their tracks as they fry. The new stake gun fires a few stakes at once and the alternate fire is a zoom, allowing you to snipe baddies from a distance. You can also lob an array of bouncy grenades as well which seem to sometimes even bounce off of enemies. They’re really only good as a last resort, i.e. you have no more ammo. While the weapons from the first game had good variety these two new additions don’t quite make the cut in the innovation department. Sure, they’re amusing for a level or two but they quickly become old hat. Battle Out of Hell introduces two new multiplayer modes, Capture the Flag (which, arguably, should have been included in the original Painkiller) and Last Man Standing, basically a deathmatch mode focusing on dying less instead of killing more. What? Where’s the co-op mode you ask? Not this time. Maybe in PK2.

It may seem as if I’ve been ragging on Battle Out of Hell just a bit and, well, I have. But, this game makes up some good ground in the audio / visual department. Battle Out of Hell’s graphics are absolutely stunning and run at a great framerate even on midrange hardware. Battle Out of Hell also introduces some new graphical effects to the Painkiller engine that will have those gamers with higher end hardware drooling. The sound is also still very good with satisfyingly sickening thuds when blowing up enemies. The weapon sounds are still great (even the new ones, although the rifle should have a bit more punch) and enemy’s screams while burning or their ambient sounds while coming after you add to the whole hair-raising feel of Battle Out of Hell.

Does Battle Out of Hell take PK to new ground? No. Does it do more of the same? Yes. Does it do it better than the original Painkiller? That’s iffy.

Battle Out of Hell seems to be a worthy successor to the Painkiller franchise if mindless running and gunning is your thing. Was Battle Out of Hell made to keep the hype machine’s momentum while PK2 is in development? Perhaps. All in all, Battle Out of Hell does what it sets out to do; provide gamers with a few hours of aim-and-fire gameplay in some neat scenery with some scary opponents. There’s even a dab of solid multiplayer havoc to be had as well.

FINAL SCORE: 77/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // DreamCatcher Games
» Developer // People Can Fly
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

Mercenaries finds you as one of three different Mercenaries; the tough American, the black powder-happy Swede or the sly Asian. The differences in each are slight and are more for the player to pick someone they like more than it is to offer widely varying abilities. Once you’ve chosen your character you’ll be paced through a couple opening missions to help you get acquainted with the various control and target acquisition schemes that are commonly used in Mercenaries.

You’ll find yourself in the middle of a war between North and South Korea (I don’t want to spoil the story’s hook for you; it’s nothing hyper-creative but the opening presentation of Mercs is fun to watch and this helps to kind of drive home the overall story arc of the game) with various factions, from other countries to the Allied Nations (I guess the UN copyright was too tough to crack), striving to earn their due from this little conflict. Ultimately, the North Korean regime’s main players have been tagged as the Deck of 52. 52 enemies with various prices on their heads. And, more often than not, the higher the price, the tougher the takedown.

You play a Mercenary (really!?) whose goal is to blow stuff up and make some dough in the process. Throughout the course of the game you’ll encounter opportunities to do jobs for the various factions involved such as the Chinese, South Koreans and the Russian Mafia. Some of those jobs will also require you to piss off other factions and it won’t be from the use of harsh language. One mission finds you driving a truck right into the heart of the Chinese commerce center and taking out four fuel dumps. Now, here’s what makes Mercenaries interesting; you don’t have to take this mission. You can get the lowdown on a mission and, if you don’t like the details or it’s going to make someone mad that you can’t live with, just walk away.

PRO-TIP: Don’t irk the Russians. They run a business called The Merchant of Menace, a sort of web-based purchase portal for such items as air strikes, vehicles and supply drops. The last thing you want to do is make them mad and get caught with no ammo and no way to call in a refill. Keep them happy.

It could be said that Mercenaries uses the GTA ‘sandbox’ style of gameplay. You’ve basically got free reign as far as which missions you choose and where you go. Most missions you formally accept require you to embark upon that mission as soon as you accept it. You will, however, run into impromptu assignments that you can just pick up on and go. There will also be times where your travels bring you within a certain range of one of the Deck of 52. Typically you’re alerted of such and can then plan your insertion method on that Card.

Your objectives run the typical gamut of assault-style, defense and escort, and timed missions. What really makes the game is the weapon choices, the mission style and the terrain you need to deal with. Many Cards will hole themselves up in fairly defensible positions requiring some planning on your part. Note that you get more moolah if you bring your target in alive. So, not only should you plan well but your extractions require a chopper to come in and airlift the subject to safety so you better clear out those air defenses as well.

First, weapon choices; the tools of the trade are varied and satisfying. It won’t take long for you to get access to supply drops that include assorted weapon loadouts. You’ll be able to get a trusty Carbine along with some grenades and some health. Or, maybe stealth is your thing and you’d like to get a silenced HK. Then again, maybe you dig balls out destruction and want to go with the SMG and RPG route. There’s plenty of choices for the diversified play style and all work very well.

Of the manifold mission styles Mercs does a great job of shaking these up. It’s rare that I did two missions in a row of the same type. Granted, many of the missions require you to blow things up but they use different methods to present the challenge to you and offer you diversiform solutions. Maybe you’ll use an artillery strike from your Chinese friends to bring down those barracks; or maybe a Cluster bomb attack is the best method for clearing out that pesky array of enemy soldiers; then again, a surgical missile strike may produce the best results in destroying those North Korean ICBM’s. However it’s done, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.

Lastly, let’s not forget terrain. You’ll find yourself trading lead in the mountains, in the city, amongst forrested hills, in dusty canyons and everywhere in between… which leads us to the graphics. Mercs looks startlingly similar to Full Spectrum Warrior (which is, by no means, a bad thing). Everything has a sort of lightened glow to it; you’ll also find that wartorn sections of the map have a dusty brown hue, helping to demonstrate that you are, in fact, in the middle of a war. As an aside, it’s not uncommon for you to be driving to a destination and find yourself smack dab in the middle of a firefight between two rival factions. The real question is, do you stop to help?

PRO-TIP: Of course you stop to help! You get cash money each time you take out an enemy’s vehicle. Don’t hesitate to hop out of your jeep and light up a couple NK trucks with your RPG. It’ll make your wallet that much fatter.

The textures do get a little blurry up close but overall the game looks great for being on the Xbox and PS2 platforms. Framerates only really suffer when there’s lots of explosions and equipment on screen. Otherwise you’re in for a smooth ride.I can’t say enough about the sound in the game. All in-game sounds are fantastic (including the voice acting) and the music is action-movie material. Explosions have that dramatic punch to them, weapons are noticably different sounding (and the more you play you’ll begin to detect which faction is firing at you with which type of rifle) and the vehicles sound throaty and powerful (when applicable; the little civilian car sounds like a two cylinder but that car comes in handy for sneaking behind enemy lines). Overall the sound just adds to the overall experience.

Mercenaries does a fantastic job of taking the sandbox-style gameplay to the fields of war and making it happen successfully. From the diverse mission sets to the meaningful gameplay Mercenaries is a stellar experience for the FPS and action crowd. This title is a must have for your console game library.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100

• Spitting
• Cursing
• Extreme Discomfort
• Diarrhea

Ok, I was kidding about the diarrhea part. However, take the others literally. More than once I had to shut the game down and walk away for a minutes at the sheer frustration level of the final missions. Thing is, I’m not really blaming the game. I feel that the Call of Duty series has been the closest thing to a sim (even though I realize it’s actually far from it) for WWII. The missions can get crazy scary and, at times, there’s so much going on it’s really hard to keep track of what you’re supposed to do, hence a sim of war.
The graphics of the game are great although I think I can start to see the Quake 3 engine’s age. What with all the bump mapping and normal mapping occurring in newer titles CoD:UO is showing it’s age a little. However, the Q3 engine has definitely been pushed to it’s limit for CoD:UO. From the ground combat sequences (including tank battles) to one of the British missions where you’re a gunner in a B-17 airplane, the game not only looks darn good but performs really well also.

The audio for the CoD series has always been top notch, especially the voice acting, and that is still the case with UO. Explosions are gritty and shaking, gunfire has that satisfying thump and vehicles just sound right. There’s nothing like that quick case of fear from a Stuka buzzing right over head. The surround sound implementation is very nice as well, balancing and rolling the sounds nicely.

Even though this is an expansion pack it still feels like nearly a full game. The scripting for the missions does a fine job of pulling you right into the story. I lost hours to this title, just engrossed in the gameplay. The game does suffer slightly from ‘reloaditis’, you know, where you die, reload, try again, die, reload, ad nauseum. I’m actually making that out to be a little worse than it truly is, although I did find that some missions required a ‘perfect run’ a little too often for my taste.

The gameplay is strictly visceral. Just as in CoD, UO is all about combat and making it through the mission. There’s always plenty of comrades nearby to not only help you in completing a mission objective but to take some bullets for you as well. Many a mission I found my AI-controlled friends entering the fray ahead of me, taking the curtain of lead just ahead of me while I ducked behind a collapsed wall or used a hole in a building to make my way on forward. I don’t know if this was the intention of the developers or it just worked out that way (or maybe I’m just chicken. Who can say) but it helped add to the immersiveness of UO.

Aside from the six original CoD multiplayer modes, UO introduces three new MP modes to gamers. The most popular online right now is Domination which is very much like Battlefield 1942′s Conquest mode. Players have five to seven zones on a map to capture. To capture a point a player must move within a close proximity of that zone (marked by a flag) and hold out until the zone transfers to your possession. The first team to capture all zones, ie dominate the playing field, wins. It’s a very fun mode that allows for much teamwork to really make the game mode work.

During multiplayer matches you can be promoted on the battlefield for teamwork-oriented achievements. As you play online you gain points and as these points accumulate you gain rank. Rank affords you more equipment, such as more ammo or grenades, and as you move towards the upper ends of the available ranks you’ll be able to call in deadly artillery strikes. This is especially helpful for the Base Assault mode where your objective is to destory the enemy’s base with heavy weapons. Sure, a tank or bazooka might get the job done but what’s the fun in that? Being able to use your binoculars to spot a target and call in artillery is highly satisying.

Vehicles also play a vital role in UO multiplayer. Players will get to drive tanks and jeeps while the ability to man heavy artillery is available as well. Gray Matter has done a fantastic job of adding plenty of variety and quality to the MP side of UO.Map design in both single player and multiplayer is, literally, as good as it gets. The single player maps are set to compliment the scripting for the campaigns while the multiplayer maps provide buildings that you can fully explore and use to your advantage. From the beautiful Rhine Valley to the desolate Ponyri, CoD:UO offers the high end of first person shooter architecture. Burnt out buildings are lovingly sculpted (where you can even see their wooden or steel innards poking up from various lesions) while weapons, vehicles and troops are detailed and convincing. Again, I can’t state enough how well CoD:UO runs. My review rig is nowhere near high end and I was able to crank everything (yes, everything) up and the game still ran great. Again, another testament to the quality put out by Infinity Ward and Gray Matter.

All in all, I feel UO is very, very much worth the retail price tag you’ll see in stores (right around $29USD). The game is nearly a full title on it’s own but does require the original Call of Duty to play. If you’re hankering for more of that addictive CoD gameplay with fun, new multiplayer modes you can not go wrong with Call of Duty: United Offensive. Get it today.

FINAL SCORE: 89/100 : REVIEWER: SHAWN WALLACE

Valve has spent six years developing Half-Life 2 and, guess what? It shows. Valve has worked to implement a fantastic physics engine along with the same style of gameplay and feel that was present in the first game. For the most part, they deliver.Delivered on Valve’s Source engine, Half-Life 2 pushes the limits of creating a near-real environment for gamers to play in. Most everything can be manipulated in some fashion and, during some key points in the game, it’s crucial that you employ the game’s fantastic physics engine to proceed. During these moments I felt that Valve used them to actually just tout how great their game engine was as they really had no bearing on the game’s story. Buckets roll, bodies fall realistically (the ragdoll physics in the Source engine are the best to date) and everything reacts just as it should.

To drive one more nail in the coffin Valve decides to include the gravity gun. That’s right; a weapon designed to further convince you that Source should bare your next child. With it you can pick up pretty much anything and hurl it pretty much anywhere. There’s very little that’s more satisfying than to use the gravity gun to pick up a washing machine and fling it from 50 feet only to smash a enemy soldier in the head and watch him crumple. Valve also made sure to litter your environments with a ton of fun things to pick up and throw. Tables, filing cabinets, crates, and my personal favorites, gas canisters (full ones, mind you). More than once I found myself lingering in certain areas long after my opponents were finished off simply playing with the gravity gun. It really helps to make the whole game.

The Source engine is also very pretty… most of the time. A handful of times I found myself in environments that barely looked better than locations from the original Half-Life. Granted, these moments were few and very far between but it happened. There were also moments where I was totally astonished at the sheer beauty of the game. Much like my experiences with the gravity gun, I found myself just looking around and enjoying the scenery. Now, if only I’d had a picnic with me…Valve has also implemented a facial animation system that is probably Pixar worthy. Your counterparts emote as they discuss, argue and become disappointed during various portions of the game. This facet of the game alone helps tremendously to draw the player in and actually care about the characters in the story. You almost need to see the facial animations to believe they’re occurring on your own PC. My only niggle to all of this is that we didn’t get to see enough of this wonderful system as your interactions seem few and far between.

I have heard more than one caveat concerning the game’s story (or lack thereof) but, personally, I think I know exactly was Valve’s intentions were. They were using a rather basic story to provide you with fun encounters. We’re playing a first person shooter here, not an adventure game. The story works well enough to propel the game forward with pinache. Think of the best action movies out there; they’re not the best because of their story… they’re the best because the story set up a ton of fun moments for audiences to share. Half-Life 2 does the exact same.

Overall the gameplay is fairly standard with plenty of gameplay and some simple puzzle solving. Combat takes place in many varied environments against a plethora of enemies. I didn’t find the AI to be too complicated but it seemed to serve its purpose of providing gamers with moving targets. Your enemies didn’t duck, swivel or jump but they sure know how to rush.

Valve has also done a great job of creating some fine sounds in Half-Life 2. From the screams of the burning undead to the satisfying thump of your weapons, sound plays a key role in immersing you in the game. I found the surround sound properly utilizes the various channels and seemed smooth throughout the whole game.

At press time Half-Life 2 suffers from a stuttering sound problems but by the time you read this a fix will most likely have been issued for the game.

Half-Life 2′s multiplayer is an update of the highly popular Counter-Strike mod from the original game. Called Counter-Strike: Source (since it’s now running on the Source engine) Half-Life 2′s multiplayer has been done before but it’s never looked this good. CS:S is basically an update to the original Counter-Strike and, therefore, plays almost identically to the original save for the new physics (which have been limited in the multiplayer component). I actually found this a bit disappointing as I was looking forward to playing some Deathmatch or Capture the Flag using some of the new fun weapons from Half-Life 2. Um, *cough*mod makers*cough*… ahem, anyway…All in all, I feel that Half-Life 2 is a fine sequel to Half-Life and definitely carries on the feel and style of the first game. Although Half-Life 2 hasn’t revolutionized the FPS genre it has definitely set a precedent for future endeavors by not only Valve but other FPS developers. If you’re looking for a solid single player experience that truly delivers look no further than Half-Life 2.

FINAL SCORE: 94/100

id Software made it plainly clear they were NOT trying to re-create the experience of Doom or Doom 2. They were simply using the intellectual property present from these titles to create a new game. Doom3 basically scraps the first two games as if they never happened, starting with a clean slate. And now, for the low down…

Doom 3 sees you as a Marine newly stationed on Mars. Upon arrival you’re given a rather unsavory mission of clearing up some problems occurring at other areas in the station. Of course, id uses this time to SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU… oh sorry. Anyway, as you have probably guessed, you begin to unfold a plot that will send the known universe reeling as Hell becomes a reality for much more than lost sinners.

The gameplay has changed drastically from the previous Doom games. Where, in the previous titles, you find yourself hauling butt around Mars base with trigger finger glued down, unleashing metal death on demons, devils and all kinds of hellish life, Doom 3 sees you stalking dark hallways, access tunnels and even the surface of Mars in a race to… ooo, sorry, almost let that one slip. Back to the gameplay… ammunition management plays a vital role in this game. Thing is, id Software has done a fantastic job of rattling even the deadlist of aims. Here’s what I mean; let’s say you’re moving down a dark hallway, low on ammo for the only weapon you have, the pistol. Now, if any other enemy, say a terrorist with a gun, jumped out with his gun aimed at you, no problem, headshot. But no, id desires for you to fill your pants so they have this highly-detailed, scary, hell spawned, venomous beast lurch itself out of a torn grate, hissing and whatnot as it HURLS ITSELF DIRECTLY AT YOU! I mean, come on guys, how in the world am I to keep my target reticle on the things head while shreiking like a little girl? I CAN’T! Ok id, you win. Doom 3 is freakin’ scary.

But I digress. Doom 3 is a first person shooter in the most unadulterated sense. The storyline is carried forward via in-game cutscenes (which look marvelous) and via PDA’s that you pick up along the way. id has done a fine job in moving the storyline with this method as the PDA’s are vital for door access codes, mission instructions, etc. Most PDA’s come with at least one audio log from a satisfyling dull voice (hey, come on, they’re stationed on Mars… what do you want them to do, sing to you how they found a dead scientist folded in half and shoved in an air duct?) and everything is pretty clear cut? My point? The story doesn’t get in the way of the game. It helps to drive it forward. This game is about shooting stuff (and being scared) and the storyline simply adds to it all, helping to immerse you in this hostile takeover of Mars by things humans should never see while breathing.

The weapons selection is old school which makes me very happy. If anyone knows how to make the shotgun or a plasma rifle just feel and look right, it’s id. As the game progresses you’ll be introduced to more powerful weapons that will help offset the lethality of the new creatures being introduced to you. I’ve only one caveat in the weapons department and that’s the grenades. They bounce around like they’re one of those little bouncy balls you buy out of a toy machine in the foyer of a supermarket. They’re so unpredictable I found them useful in only the most dire of situations (ie no more ammo).

What can also be described as old school is the opponent selection. My oh my are they back! id has resurrected some of your old favs from the previous Doom games with brand new faces and sounds (don’t worry, there’s new creatures too!). What’s so much fun is a majority of their old attacks are back, enhancing that feeling that even though this is the new Doom there’s still some links back to the ancestors. I’m also impressed that id has chosen to re-introduce these old favorites with new clothes in dramatic fashion, giving them the proper entrance they deserve. And, even though they look and sound great, don’t count on the AI getting in the way too much. Yes, they can dodge and pull back but it’s about headshots and the fact that Hell can spawn far more creatures than you have ammo to deal with unless you conserve and make wise choices… while screaming like a little girl.

Level design is off the freakin’ chain as well. (Almost) gone are the days of the textures on the walls simulating pipes and (what should be) other 3D features (I say almost because I did find the occasional textures that simulated what should be a 3D rendered piece of architecture). Don’t let this discourage you, though… this game is, by far, the prettiest game on the market right now. If you have the hardware to run this monster with all graphics settings maxed you are in for a visual treat on par with CGI-rendered movies from a short few years ago. With my review rig I ran most of the settings at a medium setting and the game STILL looked stunning. Shadow implementation also helps to set the whole tone and feel for this game. Therefore, do what you have to do, graphically, to get dynamic shadows working. You’ll take away from the whole experience if you don’t.

id also didn’t skimp on sound. A good 5.1 setup isn’t vital but the overall experience will be hampered if you can’t hear those nasties creeping up behind you. Each sound in the game, from weapons to monsters to doors to voice acting, is all top notch. Productions values are obviously very high and help to further engross you in Doom 3. I found the surround sound is implemented very well with sounds moving between sound points effectively and smoothly.

What could be considered a weak point of the game is multiplayer. Designed with four players in mind, Doom 3 MP seems as if it was thrown in simply because gamers wanted it, not because it could be a selling point for the title. The MP portion of the game finds you running around environments eerily similar to the single player part of the game, using weapons from the single player game, shooting up to three other opponents. Mind you, there are already mods that alter MP drastically but out of the box this wasn’t the case. I just found MP to be lacking to the point that when I think Doom 3, I think ‘scary single player’. MP doesn’t even come to mind.

So, what does all of the above mean? Doom 3 is a fantastic game, set to be remembered in the annals of history as one of the great shooters of all time. Even with the occasional AI flop and unmemorable multiplayer, Doom 3′s scary single player campaign and wonderful graphics make this game a must have for not only the FPS crowd but for the gamers that want a geniuine scare.

FINAL SCORE: 91/100 

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (POTMC from this point forward) puts you in the shoes of Agent Nick Scryer, a soldier captured during an assault by a man known simply as The General. He and his henchman, all psychically gifted, are on a rampage to… well, don’t let me spoil the story for you. Reason being is, the story is actually not too bad. There’s sufficient plot twists and it unfolds nicely throughout the game. Not too spoil too much, the character you play has lost his memory and, as the game progresses, he begins to not only remember past events but also his psychic powers re-awaken as well.

They didn’t call is Psi-Ops for nothing! The psychic powers in this game are really where it’s at. Sure, there’s gunplay and some minor problem solving but, all in all, the game revolves around you using these psychic powers to not only take on enemies but to get things done as well. You’ll have such powers as telekinesis, mind control and pyrokinesis (the ability to set things on fire with your mind… yes!). Let me give you an example of a sample encounter:

You enter a room with several crates and boxes. Three enemies are scattered throughout. You grab one with your telekinesis power, lift him in the air and pull him toward you. As he floats toward you you pull out your semiauto rifle and fill him with lead. As he floats his body goes limp. Another of his buddies steps out from behind a crate and you, still floating your enemy, fling the dead soldier at his buddy. They both collapse to the floor. You run over and, using your mind drain power, lift the soldier that was just knocked to the floor by his dead comrade, in the air and drain his mind of all power, filling your psychic powers back up as you do so. The fun result of using the mind drain power is that, once they’re empty of mind power, their head pops like a balloon, spraying blood and brain matter. Fun! But wait, we forgot about the other guy… or did we? He’s at the other end of this large room, unaware of what’s going on. You sneak up on him and, using mind control, take over his body. You then walk him up to an explosive barrel, pull out his gun and, standing right next to this lethal storage device, empty bullets into it, causing the barrel to explode and kill the final soldier in the process. Doesn’t that sound like fun? This is just one example of many different avenues you can take to complete objectives.

Because of the psychic powers you possess, the game has immense replayability. I found myself playing through the same maps over and over, using different powers in different ways on different enemies and objects just to see how things reacted. POTMC is powered by the Havok physics engine and, believe me, it shows. Enemies realistically go limp, objects are movable and convincing. If you kill an enemy, you can use your powers to grab his weapon off the ground and pull it to you, hence filling up on ammunition from his weapon.

You’ll have some sneaking (very little, actually) but overall the game is about all-out combat with bullets (both lead and mind). The environments and varied, expansive, and quite gorgeous. I found myself in such locales as enemy military bases, high atop large city buildings (it’s fun throwing soldiers off a 100 story platform!) and deep underground bunkers.

The enemy AI is pretty solid, although I did encounter a soldier or two who just stood there, facing the other way as I killed his fellow opponent, who died screaming right next to this guy watching the security monitor as if nothing happened. This might have only happened once or twice though, so don’t let that taint you.

The multiplayer that exists is forgettable. Don’t pick up POTMC expecting a fulfilling experience with a buddy. Get it for single player only.

All in all, Psi-Ops is way, way fun and very original. I lost many an hour to this one, just sitting there, tossing guys around in the air and lighting them on fire with my mind. Worth the money? Oh yes. Well worth it.

FINAL SCORE: 86/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // Midway Games
» Developer // Midway Games
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

RSC2 has two main aspects to it. The single player, which allows players to engage in various forms of racing, such as hill climbs, Rally Cross (basically road track racing using Rally cars), Crossover (a fun and unique head to head racing mode) and your generic Rally racing. You have three difficulty levels to choose from (and a fourth that becomes available to you once you complete the hardest initially available setting) and a huge tree of events to complete. As you complete these tracks you not only unlock them for later use but, dependant upon your performance, you get cars and new paint schemes unlocked as well. The multiplayer component is more of a ‘skirmish’ mode that allows you to run pick up races and, using the XSN Sports online components, set up tournaments to race in as well.

Of all the new features that RSC2 boasts, the most outstanding is, by far, the graphics. I’m not sure a prettier racing title has been released on any platform (gasp! Hold on PC racing geeks, it’s ok) and some of the surroundings are simply breathtaking. Driving into the sun blinds you, rain drops pelt your windshield during races as your windshield wipers smear them away and car parts come loose and fly off during wrecks. I literally laughed out loud the first time I was in a big wreck and my doors and hood came loose and splayed themselves out as my car rolled.

The sound is quite good as well. Each car has its own unique engine sound (you hear more of this than any other sound) and the sounds made by clanging against an opponent or by slamming into a tree have a satisfying twisting metal sound.

I’ve heard more than one complaint about the controls in RSC2. Personally, I’ve had no problem adapting to them. The cars do seem a bit squirrelly in the beginning but after you get used to them I found the control scheme mixed with the fast paced racing makes things a little hectic (which equals higher blood pressure which is fun!). I also recommend you steer with a joystick and not the d-pad. You’ll need the fine-tuned controls as opposed to the on or off stylings of steering with a d-pad.

The online component, handled through the Xbox Live service, is really what extends the life of this game. You will have all kinds of race types and opponents available to you and, frankly, if you can’t find a race you like online, you’re too picky. Hand in your gamer card please.

I did find that the ghosting method of viewing your opponents online (basically each car appears with a neon-colored outline and collisions don’t exist) wasn’t as fun as all-out fender bending. Getting eight players together to bang fenders on a wild Rally course is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

As far as a downside to RSC2, they are few and far between. I found it hard sometimes to actually keep track of the roads I was to follow during races. Things are going by so fast it’s hard to tell where muddy roads are winding. More than once on more than one track I found myself just flying off into the woods or over an exposed cliff. Also, the directions spoken to you by your spotter are sometimes off as well. Either he’s way behind or just skips steps. As a note, I also found that if your spotter says “Easy tightens” actually means Medium so be prepared to brake properly.

All in all, RSC2 is well worth the money spent, especially if you have an Xbox Live account. If you like racing games at all you owe it to yourself to pick this one up. You’ll love it.

FINAL SCORE: 86/100 : REVIEWER: SHAWN WALLACE

The game itself is set up with a brief opening cutscene and then you get dropped into the action. Now, I’m not saying Painkiller is boring because it’s not. It has some truly frightening moments (just wait for the Asylum… if that doesn’t conjure up some odd thoughts then you’re a little too familiar with the ‘crazy people in a house wanting to kill you’ theme) along with some truly genius level design. I won’t give anything away but after I finished the game I went back to the very last level and enabled God mode just so I could walk around and take in the truly awe-inspiring design.

To say your enemies lack AI is an understatement. This game isn’t about baddies that can avoid your fire and use tactics to maybe surround you and overtake you. It’s about that riot mentality. Wave after wave of various hell-spawned lunatics will come after you loving nothing more than to hollow you out. I would like to mention that, to People Can Fly’s credit, Painkiller does not suffer from ‘Reverse’ syndrome present in so many shooters with high volumes of baddies. What I mean is, I rarely found myself having to run backwards and just fire at a ton of enemies. Often enough they are spawned at a distance and you have time to come up with a half second game plan before holding down the trigger and hoping for the best. In all fairness, map layouts and enemy behavior does reward those with a keen eye.

Painkiller features five weapons, each with an alternate fire, bringing us up to a whopping nine weapons (just checking to see who’s paying attention). A couple of these alternate fire weapons compliment their primary fire weapons which makes things uber fun. Example: The shotgun’s alt fire is a freeze ray, making for a grand old time of freezing your enemies and blasting them into a chunky goodness with your shotty. There’s also the requisite grenade launcher, rocket launcher and chaingun among other not-so typical weapons (I’ll let you play the game to find those).

You enemies will come at you with large bladed weapons, thrown axes, MAC-10s and sometimes their bare hands (or claws). A couple monsters have unique attacks, one being your eyesight reduced to near darkness (along with damage, of course) and another monster that can still inflict damage even after they’re dead. Either way it makes for just the right amount of variety.

The game’s level design is top notch. Sure, you’ll run into a couple maps that seem pretty standard but I have to give props again to PCF for slinging some pretty swanky architecture our way. Some maps are downright massive and feature some great themes including an enormous warehouse, a cemetery (that’s pretty darn scary), a monastery and, well… Hell. Textures are detailed and overall the game runs great even on medium-class machines (I’m running a 2400+ w/ a GF4 Ti4200 and a gig of PC2100 RAM and the game ran great) although an occasional quirky slowdown occurred that required me to restart the game to clear it. I did some research and couldn’t really find anyone else with this issue so I can only assume it’s a small bug with Painkiller and my rig’s setup. However, the problem was quickly fixed (the game seems to load nice and snappy) with a game restart and all was well.

I haven’t played enough of the multiplayer to be able to give an accurate analysis of whether it’s good or bad but from what I’ve played so far it seems pretty standard. I did put in some time playing some Team Deathmatch and I didn’t really experience anything I haven’t done before. I haven’t played all game types yet, though, but I will get a more detailed review of the MP element of Painkiller up very soon.

My final impressions of this game? The single player is as addictive as gaming gets. I found myself using almost every spare moment I had to get one or two more levels in. There’s just something that clicks here with the level variety and adrenaline-laced action that just draws gamers in. Here’s to hoping we’ll see an expansion pack or two in the future.

If you’re a gamer that loves that old-school Doom feel when it comes to shooters you owe it to yourself to go out and buy Painkiller today.

Final Score: 86/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // DreamCatcher Games
» Developer // People Can Fly
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

Jak 3 finds Jak and Daxter being dumped in the desert, blamed for the problems in Haven City. With some secret aid from a friend our fearless heroes are taken in and given the opportunity to prove themselves in combat, thus becoming part of an subversive desert civilization. The story lends itself to the sandbox-style gameplay you’ll find in Jak 3. Often you will have various missions available to you that can be done any time. However, as you finish these missions you will be funneled toward a plot point that will help to further you in the game. Whether that’s arena combat or a trip through a tunnel on a hyperfast sled, dodging obstacles and enemies, Naughty Dog has done a great job of not only advancing the plot but making sense of such AND making it fun.

Jak 3′s gameplay, as mentioned above, has the Grand Theft Auto, sandbox-style of gameplay down pat. During the course of the game you’ll run into platforming segments, pure combat segments, goal-oriented missions (one mission finds you driving a dune buggy into an oncoming sand storm to save some stranded residents and bring them back to the walled desert city before the storm kills them, all within a certain time limit, mind you), racing missions and a plethora of other variants. Early on in the game it becomes evident that Jak 3 has a little to offer to every gamer. I found myself hurrying to complete tasks just because I was excited to see what was next. It’s a rare offering that can tempt a gamer in this way and an offering worthy of notice. One small caveat was the camera work during combat. I often found the camera lagging in trying to keep up with Jak’s point of view, causing some unnecessary collision with enemies. If the camera would stick to Jak’s POV during fights it would make some engagements more manageable. This is a small niggle as a majority of the time the camera does a well enough job giving you the scope you need.

Jak 3 is a platformer at heart but it includes plenty of combat and some puzzle work as well. Let’s take these one at a time:

Platforming – Jak 3′s controls are so silky smooth that, if you fall in molten lava or from a high cliff, it’s your fault. You really feel like you’re in control of Jak the whole time and that he’s not ‘getting away’ from you.

Combat – Jak 3 offers up four weapons, each with three different fire modes (each uncovered gradually as you progress through the game) and the variations are enough to offer gamers plenty of options during conflagrations. Do you use the accurate Blaster to pick off your enemies one at a time or the Wave Concussor to send out a shockwave all around you, disabling your enemies en masse. There’s enough variety here to leave that totally up to you AND to effective in your choice. You’ll also have access in the game to various special powers in relation to Jak’s dark and light sides. Some abilities are offensive, some defensive but, all in all, this just gives the gamers more feathers in their cap.

Puzzles – Even though Jak 3 is light on the puzzles, the puzzles that are present are varied and surprisingly refreshing. Some puzzles are jumping puzzles while others find Jak swinging, gymnast style, from one horizontal bar to another, sometimes even avoiding swinging blades or other such dangers. I found the puzzles to be a nice break from the all-out carnage found at certain points of the game and took the puzzle breakpoints as great ways to bring even more diversity to Jak 3.You also don’t need to worry about being dropped into situations where you are unprepared. Jak 3 does a great job of prepping the gamer with certain skillsets before forcing the gamer to rely on those skillsets in dire situations. Before they send you on full-fledged driving missions you’ll get to try your hand at a rather easy racing mission. Sure, the racing is fairly simple but that’s not the point… the point is to get you acclamated to the controls of the vehicles. However, Naughty Dog could have taken the easy route and given you a simple oval track to get used to your buggy. On the contrary, the same production values are evident in this detailed and fun track as it is later in the game during key moments of Jak 3. Even more proof that Naughty Dog is at the top of their game.

The game’s visuals aren’t a huge upgrade from Jak 2 but, nonetheless, the game is still ravishing. From desert mountains to lush islands to grand cityscapes, Jak 3 really pushes the envelope of what the PS2 can accomplish visually. Weapon effects are bright and attractive and one of my favorite features of the Jak series is the player and NPC models. Motion capture helps to bring each character alive with believable but ever-so-slight cartoonish movements. I’ve long believed that the Jak universe would make a great online RPG because the game series has such a lush history and the excellent mix or organic and technological visuals just helps to solidify the Jak games as a top notch game venue.

The game’s sound could be considered the weakest point of the game, what with some reused sounds from the previous title, but even this category is very strong, making Jak 3′s ‘weak’ point somewhat circumspect. The voice acting is as good as it gets in gaming, hands down. Weapon sound and ambient noises, again, really help to immerse the gamer in the Jak universe.

All in all, Jak 3 is a worthy successor to Jak 2 and a fitting end to the Jak series of games. Does Jak 3 revolutionize platform/action games? No. Does it do a good job as a platform/action game? That’s an understatement. From beginning to end Jak 3 epitomizes not only near perfection in the platform acton genre but it also opens a doorway to the next generation of platform/action games.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100

After rounding the second corner you begin to make your move. With pinpoint precision you bust out from behind the leader and edge your front right quarter panel within a couple inches of his rear left quarter panel. He can’t block you now. Your raging engine pounds out 750 horses as you slowly make your way even with, then past, the so-called leader of this race. After roaring through turns three and four, riding the apron line, you scream through Talladega’s tri-oval and take the checkered flag.

If you’d like to experience this, you needn’t visit your local raceway and pay $500 or $1000 for a four-hour ‘Real Life’ race experience. All you need is a racing game and the Saitek R440 Racing Wheel by Saitek. It’s as good as it gets.

The R440 comes well-packaged with the wheel, a desk mount unit, pedals and all the trimmings (read: wiring). The wheel comes with an installation CD but a visit to Saitek’s website reveals a patch that must be downloaded for the wheel to work in Windows XP. Everything installed properly and it was a no brainer.

After a scant 5 minutes of fiddling I had the R440 set up just the way I like it, lots of resistance and force feedback ON! (Actually, force feedback settings are controlled within the game itself).

Since I was well on my way to becoming a pro at using the Saitek R440 within 2 hours I’ll just get down and dirty with the review.

As mentioned above, my test application for the R440 was Nascar Racing 2002 by Papyrus, a solid racing title. Upon firing up Nascar 2002 I was prompted with a device calibration screen. After calibrating the wheel within Nascar I was literally ready to go. I chose a track, tweaked some settings and I was racing.

For testing purposes I didn’t qualify and instead just jumped into a race starting at the back. I figured this would give me plenty of chances to put the R440 through its paces and give it a true work out. During the initial yellow lap I took the car and weaved back and forth, trying to get it to spin. Although the R440 can’t keep my car from spinning out, it can give me a good feel of how the controls will react. The wheel felt very solid and gave an authentic feel.

As we neared the start finish line I ceased my drunken weaving and prepared to race. The green flag flew and I was off. One of the first things you’ll notice when driving in a heated moment is not so much the wheel but the excellent anti-slide pedals. Their ingenious design hinges the pedal on a raised bar running the width of the pedal base instead of hinging the pedals on the base itself. This also gives an authentic feel to the pedals and drastically eases calf and shin tension from trying to accelerate and decelerate and keep the wheel base from sliding. A hearty +10 for Saitek!

The next great feature you’ll notice is the solid feeling of the wheel as you enter a corner. Since the R440 is a force feedback wheel its powered, hence allowing the user to adjust the resistance felt during a race. I normally race with resistance at 100% but for giggles I put it to 0. When entering a corner I turned the wheel to match the curve and let go. This truly proved the excellent craftsmanship of the wheel. I varied only nominally from the curve, showing the input from the wheel to the computer and the application to be even and friendly. Another +10 for Saitek.

I really enjoy the mounting bracket that comes with the R440. It’s not attached to the main wheel housing in any way, allowing some freedom of adjustment before ‘clamping down’ to whatever surface you decide to attach your wheel to for racing. After a couple uses you’ll have your wheel on and ready to go in no time flat (I keep my wheel hidden under my desktop surface on a shelf and I can be ready to roll within 30 seconds easily). The wheel itself sits tilted up at a shallow angle, allowing for desktop racing as well as laptop racing. I wasn’t really thrilled about the laptop racing but I may be a bit biased as I like to feel as if I’m in the car, hence the wheel attached sturdily to a desktop or other surface.

The R440 has four programmable buttons on the wheel, easily within thumb reach. Two shifter paddles for F1-type games are also present. You will need a single available power connection as the force feedback motor within the wheel can not get what it needs via USB. Trust me, unplug that old scanner or joystick you haven’t used in awhile, it will be worth your time.

Within the setup application you have options to test the force feedback. The R440 really flexes its muscle here. You can do force feedback samples for such actions as a blown tire, a nitrous boost or an explosion. Although it does take a stretch of the imagination to pair an explosion with what you’re feeling through the wheel, it’s very apparent the distinct differences Saitek’s Immersion technology can produce.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100 : REVIEWER: SHAWN WALLACE 

If you’ve played any FPS game in the last three years there will be hardly any learning curve for you. All of the controls come pre-mapped in the most common configuration and, with a couple minor tweaks, you’ll be on your way. The interface is very straightforward and easy to use.

Even though Call of Duty uses the Quake III engine, the graphics and audio is top notch. The range at which both sound and visuals can be adjusted will ensure that players with lower-end systems will still be able to participate in the carnage.

More than once, during the game, there is almost complete audio overload and I’m not talking about bad coding or an underpowered sound card. I’m saying so much is happening with bullets wizzing, artillery shells impacting all around you, soldiers shouting and dying, it’s almost too much to take in. However, this truly helps to add to the all-out war feeling of the game, giving players that very small feeling of ‘how can I survive?’ It’s not all about aim here, kids. Keep your heads down.

Weapon selection in the game is fairly standard (no shotguns though!) and won’t blow anyone’s doors off. You have your bolt action rifles, your automatics and your sniper rifles. I don’t remember, one time, using my pistol in the single player portion as there always seemed to be just enough ammo. Aiming is movement related so attempting to run and fire will find your aim to be far worse. However, even when I was at full sprint with the Thompson I could hold down the trigger and firing at full auto still hit a majority of targets. Chalk it up to a great American automatic rifle.

The single player portion of Call of Duty consists of three campaigns. During these campaigns you’ll take part in sets of missions as Americans, the British and Russians. The climax of the game revisits each of these campaigns for a final hurrah and, let me say, I feel the ending of the game is solid and on target. Very satisfying.

I won’t really focus on the storyline for the single player campaigns too much but I will divulge that the American campaign was strongly influenced by the HBO WWII drama mini-series ‘Band of Brothers’ and the Russian campaign has many similar moments to the WWII sniper duel flick called ‘Enemy at the Gates’ with Jude Law and Ed Harris. Don’t take this the wrong way, they didn’t make these scenarios identical to these movies but their influence if very apparent to those familiar with Band of Brothers and Enemy at the Gates.

The storyline and single player action is presented with scripted sequences and progresses in a fairly linear fashion but all in all it’s still good fun. I hear many a gamer complain that games aren’t more ‘open ended’ but when you get a title such as Call of Duty that is attempting to re-create a cinematic feel I think it’d be quite difficult to do so and still be non-linear. I felt the missions had a nice variation to them and the scripted sequences worked fine.

The enemy artificial intelligence is convincing but I believe enemy AI has been done better. They’re pretty good at ducking and dodging but I found more than once all I had to do was wait for my enemies to lose their patience and charge blindly into combat. Granted, this wasn’t always the case, especially with scripted sequences and, more than once, I felt Call of Duty had a case of the ‘phantom spawnings’, i.e. enemies that came from nowhere (not nowhere, actually, but from a location I had cleared just moments before) but this was a rare case or two and really doesn’t affect the game overall.

To re-touch on the single player campaign, the mission variety is well done and ensures you won’t be doing the exact same things over and over. There are a couple ‘rail’ sequences involving you riding in a car or truck and providing cover fire while the driver does his duty. These sequences are done well and help advance the storyline and provide that tense feeling that the mission you are on is vital to the cause.

Difficulty during the single player does seem to spike occasionally. You may glide along comfortably for a mission or two only to hit a mission that requires a quickload several times in a row just to ensure you get things right. Then you may glide along a little while longer and BAM more over the top than you can handle. Perhaps this was the developer’s intent but I thought the difference was a tad extreme.

The single player campaigns are pretty short and you can defeat the game in just a few hours. Don’t let that dissuade you, however. Infinity Ward has done a fine job including a polished multiplayer component that will add hours upon hours of enjoyment to this title.

Your main game types in the multiplayer component are (of course) deathmatch and team deathmach but a few new types are introduced. Retrieval finds one team attempting to retrieve a certain item while the other team defends said item. Search and Destroy is fairly obvious; one team attempts to destroy an item while the other team defends. Finally, Behind Enemy Lines finds players participating in an onslaught of another team of fewer players. If a player from offensive team kills a player from the defensive team (which has fewer players) the killer takes the role of a defensive team member. This really helps to create a fun sense of urgency to the whole debacle and makes for some great gameplay. No time to be a sniper when it comes to the Behind Enemy Lines gametype, you’d just better hope your automatic rifle skills are up to snuff.

Overall I feel that Call of Duty is a great addition to the WWII shooter family. The single player has an epic feel and, even though the game is rather short, Infinity Ward has done a great job including hours of gameplay via the multiplayer component.

FINAL SCORE: 89/100 : REVIEWER: SHAWN WALLACE

Gamingnext – After all of the movies, both engine/tech oriented and pure gameplay, that came from E3 it’s safe to say that all of the gaming world is now clamoring for Half-Life 2. Can you tell us a bit about the technology used to power HL2?

Gabe Newell – I did a presentation on the engine for Vivendi a little while back. It was about 100 pages long, and we got through it in about 4 hours. I’m not sure really how to condense that all down, but I’ll try. We usually break it down into humans, graphics, interactivity, and AI. Now obviously there’s overlap. For example there’s a special shader for people’s teeth. That could go in the graphics section or the humans section. There’s a lot of intelligence in moving creatures over an LOD mesh – so is that AI, interactivity, or graphics? You get the idea.

For humans we wanted to make them look realistic and look consistent. Consistency is an important characteristic, as you need to make their skin tones look as “”realistic”" as their walk cycle. If something is too good, it actually breaks the illusion of humaness you’re trying to create. There are lots and lots of details that go into their skinning and muscles to make it look right. We probably spent more time on their eyes than anything else – for example you have to model them as ellipsoids rather than spheres to make them look right as they rotate within the eye socket. The facial expression system is pretty cool in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that it blends together multiple inputs yet always maintains consistency with a set of rules about what are valid potential facial states. In other words you can push random numbers through the expression system and you won’t get a face that a human can’t create and you will get believable transitions between them.

On the graphics side, there’s one issue that hasn’t really been discussed much which is scalability. When John Carmack and Michael Abrash created the Quake 1 engine, the fundamental problem was achieving an absolute performance level. When they set out to build an engine that would run a 3D software renderer at 15 FPS on their target CPU, no one in the world thought they could do it. As is typical with those guys, they showed everybody that they were wrong. They had a secondary problem which was optimizing for consistent framerates – it was more important to run 15 FPS all the time than it was to run 20 FPS until you had a dynamic light when it slow down to 5 FPS. Nowadays the problem is scalability. The difference between high end and low end hardware is getting wider. And the differences don’t necessarily correlate – so that something which has twice the triangle throughput may not have twice the memory bandwidth. A lot of the tricky work in Source is getting it to work across a wide variety of scenes (indoor, urban, outdoor) and across a wide variety of hardware. Not only do you have to run acceptably fast on a TNT or an Intel 810 based PC, but you have to fully exploit the capabilities of the current and next generation high-end cards. Physics is sort of the high-sex appeal feature for interactivity, so we tend to talk about that, but there are a lot of other things you have to do. For example there are things we use called “soundscapes” that use the player’s actions to drive a bunch of the ambient audio and musical events. Most people won’t notice it, but it makes the world seem more reactive in the same way that a good movie score makes the movie seem scarier or more dramatic.

Gamingnext - How can the Source engine handle both indoor and outdoor environments so well?

Gabe Newell – A lot of the flexibility in the engine involves making sure you are using the triangle and memory bandwidth you’ve got to render what’s most important in the scene.

Gamingnext - Half-Life was renowned for the enemy AI. What kind of improvements have been made for Half-Life 2?

Gabe Newell – A big push for us was making the AI more context aware. They needed to be a lot more aware of the player’s intentions, they needed to be a lot more aware of the world, and they needed to understand physics in terms of their path finding, and as a source of weapons (in other words “”I can smash this to get through”" or “”I can break something so something else falls on your head).

Gamingnext - How will Steam integrate with Half-Life 2?

Gabe Newell - Half-Life 2 will be available via Steam.

Gamingnext - Do you plan on leasing Half-Life 2′s engine and, if so, do you have anyone claiming interest yet?

Gabe Newell – Right now we are working with Troika to use Source as part of Vampire: Masquerade. We were big fans of Tim, Jason, and Leonard’s work in the past (Fallout, …), so we were excited to work with them as the first external group to use the new engine.

Gamingnext - How does the Valve Anti-Cheat technology tie in with Half-Life 2?

Gabe Newell – It will be part of the multiplayer components.

Gamingnext – What are the limits of this engine? Does it have boundaries or can it be implemented across a wide variety of game genres? (ex. Flight sim, RPG)

Gabe Newell – We’re really curious to see what the MOD guys come up with. Personally I’d like to see people try to do a networked fighting game.

Gamingnext - Will all the characters be able to implement as realistic expressions as the G-Man so brilliantly does or will it be toned down a bit to improve frame rate and game play?

Gabe Newell – All the characters are equally expressive. It’s not really a framerate issue.

Gamingnext - With the outstanding graphics that HL2 is using, what should gamers have, minimally, to run this game?

Gabe Newell - An 800 MHz P-III and a DX6 level hardware accelerator (e.g. TNT).

Gamingnext - Finally, how user friendly is this engine and will modders be able to create unique environments and maps that made the first Half-Life last so long?

Gabe Newell – We learned a lot through our experiences with TFC, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and so on. This engine is much more MOD’able (if that’s a word) than Half-Life 1 was, and the tool set has been improved a lot. We’ll also be releasing a bunch of material to help MOD teams get their existing work up and running on the new engine as a starting point.

Gamingnext - Mr. Newell, our thanks for your time.

Those familiar with Grand Theft Auto 3 will be right at home in the GTAVC universe.  For the most part the control scheme and overall feel of the game is the same.  It takes mere moments to get everything set up and rolling.  I did experience some fluctuations with the EAX3 implementation (as did others I consulted with as well) but moving this back to basic DirectSound support fixes any aural glitches there may be.

Upon insertion in the game you’ll find yourself set in a clone of Miami, Florida called (appropriately) Vice City.  During your stay you’ll make contacts with unreputable business, meet new and interesting people… and kill them.  Seriously though, one of the great features of GTAVC is the game’s reliance on you interacting with the in-game characters.  As you proceed through the game you’ll make new contacts which provide new opportunities to expand your (and sometimes their) empire, which in turn creates new friends and enemies, which in turn creates causality… you get the picture.  It’s all a vicious cycle but a fun one.

The name of the game is Grand Theft Auto so where would the game be without vehicles.  The various missions throughout the game will introduce you to all sorts of driveables, ranging from scooters to tanks.  You’ll recognize the body style of several vehicles but, because of permissions from auto makers, their names have been changed to protect the (not-so) innocent.  Speaking of scooters, one great new addition to the GTA series of games it two-wheelers, i.e. scooters and motorcycles.  Players will be able to drive knock-offs of such goodies as Harleys, crotch-rockets and dirt bikes.  Each has it’s own role in the game and at some point you’ll need each one to complete a mission.

On the car side of things you’ll run into a plethora of options, including sports cars, trucks, dune buggies, compacts, semis and buses.  Again, because of the great mission variance, for the most part, you’ll drive one of these at least once throughout the game in an effort to complete a mission (or two… or ten).

As far as weapons go, your choices have expanded greatly since GTA3.  You can use everything from brass knuckles to M-16s to a helicopter chaingun (one is mounted to a helicopter, another you can carry Predator-style and mow down pretty much anything) to a MAC10 to a baseball bat.  Most have a satisfying feel to them (some require you to stop before you can use them, others can be used on the run) and, when used properly, can wreak havoc even on the most stern of enemies.  Rockstar didn’t waste any time in implementing plenty of options for GTAVC’s players.

Now that we’ve laid down the ground work, let’s talk about music.  That’s right, GTAVC takes place somewhere around the mid 80′s, meaning no alternative rock, no techno, no new-style hip hop rap.  For those who grew up or was an adult in the 80s, the music selection will send you on a trip back in time as the soundtrack for the game is some of the prime tunes from the Era of Gluttony.  There’s nothing like doing a drive-by on some Cubans in Little Havana, rolling in your Lamborghini and grooving to Flock of Seagull’s I Ran.

The points covered on the previos page (sound, vehicles, weapons) all lead up to the gameplay.  Those familiar with GTA3 (in the PC gaming world, who isn’t?) will be right at home in GTAVC.  There are missions required to advance the storyline but players have complete free will within the game world.  You could choose to not complete a single storyline-based mission and still have plenty to do.  Side missions include driving an ambulance, a taxi or being a ‘vigilante’ and actually doing good deeds instead of involving yourself in a life of crime.

As you complete storyline-based missions, other side-mission opportunities will arise (what did you expect?  You’re making a name for yourself and there are men who need good men to do bad deeds) that aren’t required but will earn you extra cash.  However, let’s turn our focus back to what could be considered the meat of the game, the main missions.  Being the up-and-coming crime lord that you are will require you to be hands-on, committing some pretty atrocious acts required to further you on up the ladder in your ultimate goal of ruling Vice City’s crime syndicates.  GTAVC players will find themselves doing basic Hit and Run jobs, busting criminals out of lock-up, stealing and racing cars (come on, it’s Grand Theft AUTO), competing directly with police to get things done, bombing malls, doing bank jobs… this game has it all.

A couple new twists have been implemented with GTAVC.  Number one, you can talk!  Seriously, in GTA3 you were a mute henchman just trying to make a buck but in GTAVC you’re Tommy Vercetti, a mouthy ex-con who isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with the biggest of the bad in Vice City.  The dialog in the game (and especially Tommy’s) help to set the overall feel and accomplishes its task nicely.

Another new ‘feature’ is that you can now buy property in Vice City.  Several options are available to you such as warehouses and nightclubs and, once you buy these types of location, new missions open up to you.  This is really where the game excels, giving players a huge variety of choices and contests to embark upon.  This is where the game really shines as players may be putting the hurt on a security company one mission and the very next will find you in a race against time to outgun the police themselves to some evidence.  There’s great satisfaction in completing many of the missions within the game (although one of the setbacks to GTAVC is that a few of the missions are ridiculously hard and can cause even the tamest of gamers to curse their mother, all in all the difficulty level is fairly consistent and, as you play through the game and become more familiar with its style, you’ll also get better at completing the variance of missions in less and less time) and each completion comes, usually, with a material goal, whether it be money, weapons or vehicles.

Visually, GTAVC is a treat.  Enhancements have been made since GTA3, namely that terrible PS2 motion blur is gone.  Textures are sharper and players can now crank up the draw distance, allowing you to see towering buildings looming over the skyline, blimps weaving in and out and jet liners leaving contrails high in the sky.

After doing some basic benchmarking I was actually obtaining a better framerate in GTAVC than in GTA3.  I matched all of the settings between each game as closely as possible and found GTAVC to perform very well.  I even put GTAVC on a PIII 866 with 512 RAM and a GeForce2 MX and the game is still completely playable at 640×480.  I have to hand it to Rockstar, they didn’t eliminate the low-end crowd with GTAVC.

As far as drawbacks to GTAVC, they’re few and far between.  As mentioned earlier, there are a few missions that are very, very hard and some amateur gamers may find themselves getting pretty frustrated.  There are some minors glitches with the AI but they are very minor.  GTAVC has a very completed feel to the game, another testament to Rockstar’s ability to produce top-notch titles.

In conclusion, I pose this question; is Grand Theft Auto: Vice City a true sequel to GTA3?  I’d say no.  The gameplay hasn’t really evolved a complete step up from GTA3 but it has become more polished and the balance and variety of missions has increased greatly.  The weapon choice is through the roof and the satisfaction of playing 10 minutes or 10 hours of GTAVC rarely wanes.  If you loved GTA3 and are itching for more of the same (with that great 80s feel) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a must buy for you.  Don’t delay.

FINAL SCORE: 94/100

However, one of the large differences is the fact that Halo is now being played on an infinitely different amount of hardware configurations instead of on a single configuration, also known as an XBox. These different configurations are going to cause the gameplay experience to differ slightly from the XBox but I doubt so much that it’ll be significant enough to discuss. Therefore I am taking the stance that this review will cover single player only briefly and will then focus mainly on what’s new to the game, namely the multiplayer component.

Here’s a brief rundown on the story behind Halo; in the far future, man has ventured out into deep space. In their ventures they have encountered a race of aliens known at the Covenant, hellbent on owning the universe. After a massive battle at a space-based Human station, the last remaining human forces attempt to lure the Covenant away from Earth by hyperjumping to a mysterious ring floating in space. Much to the surprise of the fleeing human forces, the entire Covenant fleet follows them.

Upon arrival on this ring and after some investigation it is discovered that this ringworld is referred to as Halo. Although, initially, this seems to be the last bastion of hope for Earths’ defense, it becomes clearer and clearer that Halo isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s far more.

You play the part of Master Chief, a bred-from-birth SPARTAN class warrior (and Earth’s last hope… sorry if that’s too much pressure). When things start getting rough the humans call in the big guns or in this case, big gun. That’s you.

Overall the feel of the game isn’t quite like any other shooter. One of the main reasons for this is that player movement speed is far slower than any other games out there. Even though you’re running all the time your movement speed feels more like walking. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though, and prejudge. If you were wearing battle armor and carrying two heavy weapons you wouldn’t move all that fast, either.

Yes, I did mention two weapons. That’s all you get. This may be surprising to you but trust me, this is a very pleasant surprise considering that most shooters on the market today allow you to carry about 15 weapons (where do they put them all?… don’t answer that) and several items in an inventory system. Not Halo. More often than not you’ve got your trusty pistol (complete with zoom feature) and the autorifle which WILL become your best friend in this game. Aside from the two weapons you’re also allowed a few grenades as well, both human and Covenant style. The Covenenat grenades are of the Plasma variety and, upon coming into contact with an enemy (or friends) will stick. It’s great fun sticking a plasma grenade to a foe and watching them run around yelling ‘Get it off me!’ It’s even more fun when they run right into the midst of severals foes, creating a virtual geyser of enemies hurtling through the air.

You’ll also have access to other human weapons and Covenant weapons as well. During the course of the single player game you’ll find yourself using shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, covenant plamsa rifles and other alien gadgets.

There is also vehicular combat in the single player campaign. You’ll find yourself in charge of the Warthog (a 4×4 style truck that gets mad air), the Ghost which is a covenant single-person hovercraft, the Scorpion tank (some of the most fun had in the SP campaign occurs while you’re in the driver’s seat of this beast) and the Banshee, a Covenant flyer. Vehicles aren’t key to Halo but they make for a nice variety when it comes to gameplay and completing mission goals.

The feel of the weapons, their sounds, everything is top notch. A rocket’s impact and explosion are as satisfying as I’ve ever seen in a game. One item you’ll notice during play is the enemy’s reactions to your fire. They recoil as each round hits them and convincingly, too. Your rocket’s shockwave upon impact slings enemies through the air (sometimes alive, sometimes dead) and they land with a hearty thud. Yet the game doesn’t focus heavily on these moments. In fact, that’s one of the things that makes Halo so great. The game never rests on its laurels. Yes, many things are done right but the game never sits back, forces you to focus and says ‘see how well this is done?’. If you do so on your own, do it swiftly, else you’ll be dead.

Speaking of being dead, let’s talk about the enemy AI. It can easily be heralded as second to none in single player games that are out now. Remember, the name of the game is Halo: Combat Evolved, and they aren’t kidding. Enemies dodge, duck, retreat, regroup, surround and sneak up on you. It’s a welcome change from the two most popular forms of enemy AI; impossible dodging or impossible aim. As an example, while fighting a covenant on a bridge, I began to corner him with fire from my autorifle and well placed grenades. At one point I threw two grenades very quickly, one where he was and one where I thought he would dodge to. After the first grenade headed his way, he began to make a move toward my second grenade, thought better of it and promptly dove off the bridge to his doom. You may say ‘well, what kind of enemy AI is that?’. That’s enemy AI that makes mistakes. Ever heard of immersiveness? There you go.

The above goodness I write about above doesn’t come without a price. One of the major points of Halo that bothers me is the fact that this game is a port from a two year old XBox title. However, it feels as if there have been no performance improvements made during that two year span. Textures have been improved since Halo was released on the XBox and players can now run Halo up to a resolution of 1600×1200 but I don’t feel these changes should cause the performance hit that’s felt.

I’m running Halo on an Athlon XP 1700+ with a gig of PC2100 RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4200 (no overclocking on anything, btw) and there are more than a few moments where the game just chugs. It’s not so bad as a slide show but as most gamers know, framerate is life. You’d think two years would be enough time to get any performance issues ironed out but it just doesn’t feel like it. To counterbalance this setback visual settings can be reduced and to Halo’s credit, the game still looks marvelous even at medium detail. It’s no Unreal Tournament 2003 or Unreal 2 but it’s definitely no Daikatana either.

The single player campaign can take anywhere from 8 or 9 hours on Easy mode all the way up to 20 hours or more on Legendary. Let me just say if you want a true Combat Evolved experience, you need to play Halo on Legendary. It will redefine the term ‘difficult’ in FPS gaming, that’s fa sho.

Also of note, the single player campaign was unchanged from the XBox version as the developers feel (and I agree) that you shouldn’t mess with greatness. If you haven’t ever experienced Halo on the XBox you truly owe it to yourself to play the single player campaign all the way through. The later maps do get a bit repetitive but all in all this is a great single player FPS that deserves attention.

Now, the moment most of you have been waiting for… the multiplayer component.

Let’s just get this out in the open right now; the multiplayer feel between the XBox and the PC versions of Halo does differ. Not much, but they don’t feel identical. Currently the epitomy of online team gaming is Battlefield 1942. I feel that Halo, with time, could rival this title. One of the main reasons for this is the plodding pace of the player. Even at a run it’s still slow which means you just can’t outrun bullets or rockets (not that you can in other games but it’s sure easier to dive for cover) so you’re forced to strategize. Running blindly into an encounter will most often get you killed. It’s best to gather up two or three teammates, grab a Warthog and then do your duty.

By the way, let’s take a moment and focus on the vehicles during multiplayer. They are, in my opinion, essential to the gameplay of multiplayer Halo. Many maps included in the multiplayer component are rather large and attempting to traverse them on foot is simply too daunting a task. Yes, it can be done but you’re taking yourself out of the action if you do so. Of course, some strategems might require a foot assault but more often than not you’ll be required to use vehicular transport to do your thing.

All in all Halo easily meets the expectations of the Xbox version of the same game. Even with the hardware issues you’ll find yourslef in love with this game. Now, all we need is Halo 2.

Final Score: 87/100

» Official Product Page
» Publisher // Microsoft Game Studios
» Developer // Gearbox Software and Bungie Studios
» Reviewer // Shawn Wallace

Initial Setup
A single disk and you’re off and running.  After getting into the interface, if you want to go straight to the new maps, you’ll need to either choose Instant Action for single player or use the Sort feature in the multiplayer component to show only the servers running Road to Rome maps.  Both of these options are easily findable and take nothing to implement.  Pick a map or server and you’re on your way.

2-hour Impression ©
It’s all here.  That same great gameplay element still exists and the new maps are challenging.  The same learning curve exists and by getting to know the maps you’ll have an instant advantage over your opponents.  There are some sound issues present but overall the experience has been positive.  I played for 6 hours and didn’t even know it… good stuff.

Gameplay
Since Road to Rome is an expansion pack the same basic gameplay is going to exist.  Just in case you’re new to the whole Battlefield 1942 experience here’s a quick rundown (if you’re already a seasoned vet, simply click here to move on).  Road to Rome (RtR) comes with the same gameplay elements of Battlefield 1942 (BF1942) but the game mode you’ll find most online is Conquest, which I’ll detail here.

Conquest consists of a map full of control points.  These points are marked by flags.  As each side captures these control points the flag at that point will change to reflect the controlling team.  Teams can capture control points by simply getting within close proximity of the control point.  The more teammates you have close to the control point, the quicker it gets captured.  However, if an enemy is within control distance of the control point you can not capture it.  Now, don’t get ahead of yourself and say ‘this is Capture The Flag’ because it’s definitely not that.  The entire point of the Conquest game mode is to get your enemy’s ticket count, relative to their control of the battle field, down to 0.  Depending upon the settings of the server you’re playing on, ticket counts can start equally or sometimes the team that starts at a disadvantage will start with a higher ticket count (just as in WWII, some scenarios will find your time starting on the downside of things.  When this is the case the entire objective is to get back to level ground or to take control of the situation.  Trust me, it’s fun).

As a team captures more control points and gets kills their opponent’s ticket count goes down.  It also works in reverse.  As they kill your team and capture your points, your ticket count goes down.  This is why the team play aspect of this game is so important.  If you think you can just run around and, single handedly, take out the enemy and capture control points you’re sorely mistaken.  Yes, it is possible to pull a ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and go up against a larger opposing force and win (as many seasoned BF1942 players will tell you, more than once they’ve taken out several opponents to capture a point and they’ve done it alone.  Many a classic gaming moment has stemmed from these actions but this is neither the time nor place to discuss such exploits) but generally it’s teamplay and cooperation that wins the day.

RtR introduces four new Italian maps to the mix of BF1942 maps.  These new locations are a fresh change from the BF1942 maps (the original maps take place in Europe and Africa while the new maps are Italian) and from the first moment you join a game you’ll notice the mediterranean architecture, the rolling hills and lapping waves that are almost always present.  To get right to the meat of things, one thing became very apparent after just an hour or so of gameplay… the terrain in RtR plays such an enormous role in how teams decide their strategies.  However, what RtR also showed me was how important terrain is in BF1942.  After playing so much and learning the maps it’s easy to forget how great a gaming experience BF1942 truly is.  RtR attempts to carry on that tradition.

The RtR expansion pack has tweaked gameplay only slightly by adding some new weaponry and vehicles plus a new type of terrain architecture.  The steep ocean cliffs make for a lot of ‘serpentine’ moves and also offer many a vantage point to the lucky soldier(s) who take advantage of them.  Scouts, which are the sniper class, become a vital necessity as the enemy has so many high vantage points that if you have a squad moving between these high hills and cliffs you’ll need someone that can spot an enemy from a good distance.  Again, team play rules the day and the smartest teams will have a nice balance of classes that are capable of many things.

Speaking of player classes, new classes weren’t added to the mix but adjusted and enhanced weaponry were added, mainly due to the French and Italian forces that players can now be part of.  Two of the biggest ‘movers and shakers’ as far as weaponry are the Italian Breda assault rifle and the British Sten.  The British and Germans have access to the BAR for their Assault class and the Italian Breda assault rifle is a fine addition to the weapons roster.  With a comperable rate of fire and a good aural punch to it, it’s sure to fit right in.

The gameplay differs greatly depending on which class you decide to play.  The Assault, Anti-Tank and Scout class will find themselves right in the thick of things while the Medic and Engineer will most likely be tasked to repair hardware and soldiers.  This doesn’t mean that Engineers and Medics can’t fight, quite the contrary.  They are well equipped in the weapons department and are find additions to any fighting force.

I was going to attempt to describe a sample scenario for you but after more than one try it became apparent that the entire BF1942/RtR experience really can’t be put into words.  Even though the single player experience, which has been improved since BF1942 due to the absence of bot scripting, is fairly solid, nothing compares to joining a 64 player server and attempting to take the Monte Cassino monastery or venture forth to the town at the end of Operation Husky.  However, what I can sum up for you, in two words, is the feeling you’ll have after putting in some time and wits into RtR: complete satisfaction.

Even though the gameplay section of this review is alot of words, it really doesn’t say much.  I think this is a good thing.  What that means is I’m not bashing the gameplay of RtR.  DICE has done a great job of keeping that same feel to RtR which if it had changed even slightly it would have meant severe repercussions amongst the BF1942/RtR community.  EA and DICE have a great franchise on their hands and to make such an adjustment would not have been kosher.  Trust and believe, RtR carries on the tradition with solid, action-packed, methodical, team-oriented gameplay.

Story
RtR focuses on the Italian and Sicilian campaigns of World War II.  Just as the old asying goes ‘Fact is better than Fiction’, RtR just solidifies that statement even more.  Knowing that you’re reenacting these great battles from an enormous war are simply astounding and the level of detail and knowledge that DICE put into effect is a testament to not only the developers but to the brave soldiers that fought in this great war.

Sound
A great game is only made greater by the sound aspect.  I hate to say it but this is where RtR lacks.  The sounds in version 1.2 of this game were far and away nearly perfect.  However, the version 1.3 patch, which is what was in place for this review, attempts to change some of these sounds with disastrous results.  Not only are the sounds less satisfying there’s also some technical glitches that sometimes prevents the sounds from even playing.  Some tweaks have been located but this is hardly a replacement for just making the sounds correct from the technical side.  At the time of this review DICE and EA are already discussing a version 1.31 patch and here’s to hoping they include an option to revert back to the old weapon sounds.

Now, obviously, old weapon sounds don’t exist with RtR and those weapons and vehicles are just fine… whey you hear them.  The ‘occasional aural black-out’ does occur, especially when using weapons or vehicles that exude the same sound over and over in a fast manner, such as a machine gun.  Some shots simply don’t sound off and it does take away from the experience slightly.  However, the intense gameplay and concentration on teamwork easily makes up for this shortcoming.

Graphics
The great graphics in BF1942 haven’t been toned down for RtR which means gamers are in for a visual treat.  Trees sway in the wind, beautiful aircraft buzz overhead, detailed structures dot the landscape and imposing tanks rumble over the battlefield.  Texturing is done very, very well and I’m going to make the statement that performance has been improved since BF1942 (that’s from playing the game with the 1.25 patch that comes on the RtR CD.  I’m not taking into account the 1.3 patch used during a majority of this review).

The absolute beauty of this engine is apparent when you hop in the passenger side of a jeep and look over to see the driver not only breathing but you can watch his facial expression change as an enemy artillery explodes around you and he reels from the impact.  DICE has done a great job of rendering not only the soldiers but every single item that appears within the game.  There are few titles out there today that can match the performance and visual splendor of RtR.

Multiplayer
This is what BF1942 and RtR were made for.  The netcode performance, which saw a great leap forward in reliability between the retail release of BF1942 and the 1.2 patch, is just as solid today with RtR.  The interface is easy to use and, for those who don’t want to use the in-game browser, which more often than not suits me just fine, you can find many games using game browsers such as GameSpy or All-Seeing Eye.

That unpreditable, human element that’s present in all multiplayer titles is really what makes RtR shine.  In this digital arena, to see several people, most of whom have probably never met, gather together and work as a team to take the Monastery at Monte Cassino or work their way around the cliffs of Anzio and systematically capture enemy bases is a sight to behold and is present in very few multiplayer titles today.  It also helps that DICE and EA have worked hard to ensure that balance and playability are not only existent but have been pored over and adjusted until players of all skills levels can compete.  Yes, there’s a learning curve but it’s none too steep.

In Conclusion
Building upon a solid franchise, The Road to Rome brings even more multiplayer action to the masses with great new locations and hearty weapons and vehicles.  It’s not too much to think that this franchise could carry on with at least another expansion pack, possibly two, and when the hardware reaches the next stage, to get another update to this modern classic.  All in all, The Road to Rome is easily worth the cost and will provide hours of extended life to the BF1942 gaming experience.

The game consists of 2 CDs and the install is fairly quick. Even though this means little to most, if you have at least two CD or DVD drives, you can put each disk in and when the game asks for disk 2 you can point it at your other drive. A small consolation but helps with the disk swapping none the less. The kicker here is that before the game was on shelves and, as of this writing, a version 1.1 patch is out. Feel free to peruse your favorite gaming file site ( FilePlanet and FileShack have the patch, just to name a couple) to pick this patch up as it addressed many an issue with the initial 1.0 release. After game installation I downloaded the 1.1 patch and it installs very quickly.

I’m going to back this up a bit as I played many hours of the multiplayer demo and a few hours of the single player demo. The single player demo (released prior to the multiplayer demo) was a nice taste but a technical mess. There were so many glitches it was hard to make a decent opinion of whether I would like this title or not. However, once the multiplayer demo was released, my fate was sealed. However, as far as 2 hours into the single player experience of the retail edition of this game, I was weary of whether it could hold any water. I allowed myself only select multiplayer sessions and tried to focus on the single player aspect of this game but the single player has a few glaring flaws. However, do not let this sway you. Read on, my friend.

It’s been a long, long time since I have felt the sheer joy and excitement from a game. Players can choose from several individual classes as well as various classes and styles of gameplay. Players can range from an assault class which carries a heavy machinegun to a medic or even an engineer. The assault class is, obviously, focused on assault while other classes such as the scout (a sniper, really) and the anti tank which carries a bazooka style weapon. All classes come with a knife and pistol for those oh so personal encounters.

Game types vary from the standard deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag to the shining jewel of Battlefield 1942, the Conquest gametype. A typical Conquest game sees the players on a map with several flags points and a ticket value. Depending upon the scenario the flag points are occupied by either the Axis or the Allies. The goal is to get within a certain range of each flag point and remain there until the flag point moves from enemy control to neutral control. A few more moments and the flag point will move from neutral control to friendly control. As each flag point is held, ticket values decrease. The goal is to hold as many points as possible. Another advantage is that players can spawn at any of flag points held by their team. The longer you hold a point, the lower the enemy’s ticket value goes (an example is the demo map, Wake Island, where, by default, each team starts with approximately 200 tickets. As you hold each point those values go down). Other actions, such as killing your opponents, cause ticket values to go down also. The first team to 0 tickets loses the scenario. Dice has also been kind enough to include a heartbeat the ticks faster and faster as you near a 0 ticket count. A fair warning that cardiac arrest is imminent for your team.

Map types vary from deserts to islands to forests (including snow) to cityscapes (or, to be more exact, the remnants of). You’ll find yourself battling on the islands of Midway to the leveled Stalingrad to the snowy hills of the Battle of the Bulge. Each map requires its own tactic. Such island maps as Midway and Iwo Jima will see troops landing in boats and taking enemy occupied bunkers. Desert maps such as El Alamein and Operation Battle Axe require heavy artillery and plenty of quick decision making. Forest maps such as the Battle of the Bulge and Kursk are sniper friendly, offering high hills for marksmen to perch atop and kill from afar. Cityscapes such as Kursk and Stalingrad also offer sniper havens but really allow armor and aircraft to shine in support roles. Let’s be clear that this is still a first person shooter and it all really comes down to efficient and effective troop movements. Unlike current popular shooters such as Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament 2003, you’ll get nowhere fast trying to do things alone. One piece of strategy to always keep in mind… always, always, always have backup.

The vehicles that exist in this title are also a total treat. Shelling a beach from a destroyer is very satisfying as you pummel the shores and watch troops fly through the air like unwitting stuntmen. Cruising the desert in a tank, scanning the horizon for enemy armor, or flying across an island in a jeep present unique experiences for a shooter type game. Very, very satisfying.

To emphasize this game type, I can’t really remember the last game that had me sitting up on the edge of my chair with sweaty palms. Knowing that securing the one remaining flag point for just a few more seconds will ensure victory makes every shot count that much more. Understand that this game is NOT a twitch game. Hand to hand combat requires quick reflexes, to be sure, but overall a good strategic mindset will win almost every time.

The story centers around the key battles of World War II. The single player aspect of this game really feels more like a multiplayer battle so if you’re looking for an experience where you have specific goals such as rescue Mr. X or retrieve item Y then this isn’t for you. There’s a game that came out earlier in the year called Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, I’d highly recommend that to you.

Another high point of this game is the sound. One factor that helps this game so well is your different sounds of war from varying distances. A beach being shelled, an incoming bomb that buzzes just over your position, bullets whizzing by, airplanes screaching overhead, all add to the experience. The sounds are convincing and truly help to immerse you in the game. A Thompson being fired from afar and right next to you have distinctly different flavors. An artillery shell exploding next to you as opposed to slamming into the hull of a vessel a ways out in the water, again, sound completely different and authentic. If you’ve seen Forrest Gump and can remember the jungle combat sequence and the complete chaos of sound, you’ll be glad to know that BF1942 can produce the same dizzying sensations. Dying has never been so fun.

Again, spot on. Beautifully rendered palm trees sway in the ocean breeze. Soldier’s angry expressions glare at you as you fight hand to hand, face to face. Concrete bunkers are chipped, showing their gritty insides. Aircraft carrier deck’s wooden planks are notted and used. The sun glinting off of water is one of the more convincing effects I’ve ever seen, helping to add to the overall completeness and fun of the game. One item not included are blood sprays and splatters. They’re not needed. Just like a Stephen Spielberg movie, the pretty visuals are used to help advance the experience, not take it over and be center stage.

Just as I mentioned above, the single player experience mimics the multiplayer experience. The reason for this is that multiplayer is where it’s at with this game. Hopping on a server with 64 players at Guadalcanal or El Alamein is an experience not quite like any other. Charging the airfield on Wake Island with 10 other soldiers, guns blazing and rockets flaring helps make Battlefield 1942 a serious contender for Game of the Year by many sources. The netcode seems fairly stable, although not quite as solid as Half Life or Unreal Tournament. The game includes an inline server browser, although I’d recommend picking up a third party server browser like GameSpy or All Seeing Eye to find the server that’s right for you. Even if you do use the in game server browser, you’re still likely to find a decent server near you. Another testament to the completeness of the game.

Easily one of the best shooters of the year. The total immersiveness of the game is a testament to its developers. If you’re looking for a top notch online shooter where teamwork is key and the visuals are convincing (and the whole thing is just downright fun) then look no further than Battlefield 1942. Right now, this game is where it’s at.