Games & Shit

Ender's Game

2008-01-30T11:08:58Z

More interesting sci-fi game news: Chair Entertainment partners with Orson Scott Card to develop a videogame based on the Ender's Game series of books.

We'll have to see if this will result in a videogame at all. And if it does we can only hope the game remains faithful to the spirit of the books. The original Ender's Game novel is one of my all-time favorites, and often when media companies take on established sci-fi or fantasy literary franchises the results are usually less than encouraging (with some notable exceptions of course).

Jumpgate Evolution

2008-01-29T11:18:19Z

Codemasters has announced that it'll be publishing the revamped version of 2001's Jumpgate: Jumpgate Evolution.

Finally a new space-based MMO to compete with EVE Online. Jumpgate has one major advantage already: direct ship control. EVE's indirect control system never gives you the feeling of being in total control, while Jumpgate plays more like an online version of Privateer.

I just hope they polish up the graphics and improve on the features of the 2001 version. With EVE's recent graphics update, Jumpgate will need to look very smooth indeed if it's going to capture sufficient players.

Shooter Roundup

2008-01-14T11:37:53Z

In my previous entry, already a while ago, I lamented the fact that so many shooters came out on the market in such a short timespan. I'd omitted one: TimeShift. But I saw it as my duty to you, my faithful (though probably nonexistent) audience to sacrifice myself and play all of these games to determine just how good they really are. So here then, my brief analysis and review of each:

Gears of War: It was a long time coming, this Xbox title's appearance on the PC platform. I'd seen it at a friend shortly after its original release but I refuse to buy a console for just a single game. (Although I will most likely forsake that principle when The Force Unleashed goes gold - my principles have limits you know.) So I was happy when GoW finally made it to the PC, and I didn't hesitate to play it.

GoW is not a bad game. The action is fun and intense, the control scheme is well adapted to the PC's mouse and keyboard. The story, thin as it is, moves along nicely if predictably. However GoW gets repetitive. Really repetitive. But it stays just short of being too repetitive. It's a bearable form of doing the same thing over and over. The scenery changes a little, but not much. There are some novel levels thrown in, but not many. You get some new guns, but scarcely. The enemies the game throws at you change a bit, but only so.

GoW has just enough novelty and surprises to keep you playing, but after playing it you do feel like you've been doing the same thing for too long of a time.

Score: 7/10

TimeShift: Have you ever read Dan Simmons' Hyperion saga? Have you ever wanted to be the Shrike? Well, TimeShift gives you the opportunity to be the Shrike. A watered-down, lesser-limbed, not so awesome version of the Shrike, but still. TimeShift is really just a basic shooter with only one novelty: you can influence the flow of time. A little.

Playing as a scientist with a hidden past (Gordon Freeman copy?) you're wearing a special timesuit that allows you to slow down time, stop time or even reverse the flow of time. You can do this without those same effects affecting you at all, so really you're only changing the way time behaves for you while the world proceeds as normal. This gives you some great opportunities for carnage. You can freeze time, walk up to an enemy and shoot him in the face repeatedly. Then when time resumes the guy's head disintegrates while you're already busy whacking the next fellow.

The game throws some situations at you that require effective use of your timeshifting powers to survive, but other than that it's a lot of the same: slow time, kill enemies, stop time, solve puzzles, reverse time, get across exploding bridge, etc etc. Neither the levels (some are pure HL2 clones) nor the weapons (Wolfenstein on steroids) are that interesting, and the plot is unremarkable and predictable.

I hope TimeShift's cool new feature will be copied in other, better games, because it does give you a sense of power and leetness. Too bad that these timeshifting powers are insufficient to save this otherwise dreary shooter.

Score: 6/10

Crysis: There's a lot of fuss about Crysis's system requirements. It's a game that, even if you have the bestest, fastest, leetest piece of hardware out there, you won't be able to run it with full details at the highest resolution. It's that heavy. Yet you can still get a decent game experience out of it on a lesser machine. Just tone down the resolution and details and you'll get an acceptable framerate with only a few hiccups here and there, and the game will still look pretty damn cool.

The gameplay is sweet too. As part of a team of hi-tech commandos you're dropped on an island swarming with North Korean bad guys, and you're wearing a superspecial nanosuit. Not quite the same suit as in TimeShift, mind you, though you have the ability to move really fast in it. But the suit can do more: you can get superstrength for a short period of time, or superarmor, or even turn invisible for a few seconds. Cool stuff and it gives you a few more tactical options in a firefight.

Combine this with above-average gameplay and a slick story that, while unoriginal, provides sufficient surprises and unpredictability to keep you going, and Crysis sets itself above the rest of the pack. It's a great game and definitely worth your time. But it's not the best of the lot.

Score: 8/10

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: Because this is the best of the lot. By far. You'd think the CoD franchise was exhausted by now, and to be honest if they'd done another WW2 shooter it would have reached its saturation point. But the developers are smart and gifted and they moved the action forward in time to the very near future, all the while keeping the best of the previous CoD games and enhancing it further.

And it works. It works very, very well. The action is intense, the gameplay thrilling and exciting. The story moves between settings and environments, and there's a great variety in tactical scenarios, weapons and enemies. And that's just the single-player campaign.

Multiplayer CoD4 will blow you away. The XP-system they've implemented, combined with the game's superb experience, makes multiplayer highly addictive. The game's various multiplayer game types provide an almost perfect balance between tactical teamwork and mindless carnage, and the XP-system will keep you going to get that extra weapon, earn that extra bonus, achieve that extra rank. It's superbly done and it turns an already spectacular single-player shooter into a truly magnificent full package that you just can't miss if you're a fan of FPS games.

Score: 10/10

The horror!

2007-11-13T14:39:32Z

Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War PC. All released in the same week. Oh, the agony of choice.

Portal

2007-11-05T11:34:34Z

Portal is one of the games in the Orange Box, but you can purchase it separately (as I did) through Steam. I already owned HL2 and Ep1 and didn't feel like buying the whole box just for Ep2 and Portal. Granted, you get Team Fortress 2 as well, but these days I'm not that much of a fan of online multiplayer slugfests anymore. Must be my old age catching up with me.

Anyway, Portal. My expectations weren't too high about this game, as it's described as a technology demo in the form of a puzzle game. As an avid fan of digitized murder, mayhem and mass destruction, the word 'puzzle' in a video game context always makes me twitch. Yet somehow Portal turned out to be the most fun I've ever had in a game where no one died. More fun than I've had in most games where people did die, too.

The premise is fairly simple. You're a test subject in some sort of experimental laboratory controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. You receive a gun that shoots teleportation holes. You shoot a hole at one wall, shoot a second hole at another wall, and when you walk through the first hole you emerge from the second hole. Sounds fairly simple, and it is. But for something so simple, it's so much fun.

For example, when you shoot a hole horizontally in a floor and put the exit hole vertically against a wall, the momentum you have when you fall through the horizontal hole is maintained when you exit the vertical hole. This allows you to make some truly spectacular jumps, using gravity as your ally.

The AI sends you to one room after another, each room with a new challenge to overcome, a new obstacle to cross. It starts simple but gets progressively more difficult. The first few rooms you can navigate without much trouble, but later on in the game you'll find yourself faced with challenges that at first sight will leave you scratching your head and thinking "how the hell am I supposed to do that?!" Yet the game never becomes frustrating. Every new challenge is a welcome one, as you get to explore new cool stuff you can do with teleportation holes. And when you finally do crack the challenge and get across that seemingly insurmountable obstacle, you'll experience a genuine HELL YES event that so few games can provide.

The laboratory's AI is a funny character all of its own, and I won't say too much about it lest I spoil things for you. Just know that finishing the game is a must, as the song you get at the end is worth every second of your time and effort you've poured into it.

Portal really only has one drawback: It's WAY too short. A game that's this much fun should not be over so soon. That's just criminal.

Score: 9 out of 10

Bioshock

2007-08-27T08:27:30Z

Bioshock is easily the most anticipated shooter of the year. Finally a shooter that's released straight to PC and not just on consoles (although it's released simultaneously on XBox 360). FPS games should be played on a PC, but I'll stop beating that dead horse. Until the next shooter is released of course.

Anyway, Bioshock. Much hype, much controversy, both pre- and post-launch. The hype was mainly about the superb graphics and RPG-influenced gameplay as shown in multiple trailers, and the controversy was about the game's moral ambiguity and later about the SecuROM copy protection that came with it. So let's put the hype and controversy both to the test, shall we?

Bioshock starts out promising. It's 1960, and you find yourself in the ocean as the sole survivor or a plane crash. You swim towards a tall structure that emerges out of the waves and find a doorway. Once you step in you're on your way down to Rapture, an underwater city build after WW2 by a mad scientist type called Andrew Ryan. The style of Rapture is very 1950's Art Deco, which gives the game a unique look & feel. It's a refreshing change from all the sci-fi shooters from years past. You'll still find yourself scurrying along dark corridors and eerie hallways, only now instead of hi-tech futuristic textures and equipment you'll find fifties era jukeboxes and that disgusting wallpaper your old aunt still has in her living room.

All is not well in Rapture apparently, which is a good thing otherwise it wouldn't be much of a shooter. One of the technologies this Andrew Ryan fellow came up with involves genetic manipulation on-the-fly, resulting in superpowers like shooting bolts of electricity from your fingertips and setting stuff on fire from a distance. Jolly good fun. Only it seems that abundant use of these genetic enhancers causes people to go batshit insane, which is good for you, the player, because it means you get to shoot them.

You also get these genetic boosts yourself, only you don't seem to be affected by the mind-altering side effects. Though one can argue that rampaging through an underwater city shooting at almost everything that moves to be a sign of a less than fully coherent mind. These plasmids and gene tonics, as the gene boosters are called, are fun to use. They're a bit like Force powers from the Star Wars Jedi games, only they're more visceral and, well, bloody.

There are several types of genetic upgrades, some of them with permanent boosting effects and some that require a special type of fuel called EVE. This EVE stuff glows blue and you'll find it throughout the game. You shoot it directly into your veins like a craving smack junkie. The first time you see yourself doing it is quite unsettling, but you get used to it quickly, which in itself is a bit disturbing.

You can buy more genetic upgrades with a substance called ADAM (EVE, ADAM, get it? Yeah, the game's creators aren't that subtle). This ADAM stuff can only be gathered from creatures called Little Sisters, which is where the moral ambiguity starts. Little Sisters are small girls, roaming the city in search of corpses. They harvest ADAM from these corpses, and you can only get ADAM from these Little Sisters if you either harvest or rescue them. Rescuing a little sister sets the girl free from the parasite that has made its home within her, and you get a little ADAM from it. Harvest the girl however and you forcibly extract the parasite from her, killing her in the process. This yields twice as much ADAM, but whether you feel comfortable killing the girl is a choice you'll have to make for yourself.

Not to mention the fact that the Little Sisters are protected by lumbering brutes in armored suits called Big Daddies. You need to take them down first before you can either harvest or rescue a Little Sister, and a Big Daddy is no pushover. Prepare to empty entire clips into one of them and still see it coming at you. Fortunately there's quite an arsenal of weapons to choose from to release your opponents from their mortal coils. You have the basic stuff, like a revolver, a machine gun and a shotgun, but there are also more exotic weapons like the crossbow, grenade launcher and flame thrower. Not particularly exciting, every shooter has pretty much the same set of guns, only in Bioshock you can load them with different types of ammo.

The revolver for example has standard bullets, anti-personnel bullets and armor piercing bullets. The anti-personnel work best against standard flesh & blood adversaries, and you'll find yourself saving the armor-piercing rounds for when you need to take down a steel-plated Big Daddy. All weapons save one come with different ammo types, each one proving useful in a different situation. The only gun without different ammo types isn't really a gun - it's a camera. Yes, a photo camera. You can use it to snap pictures of your enemies to put in a big scrap book and show to your mommy. Seriously, every time you take a picture of an enemy you 'research' it, which means you do more damage against this type of enemy and you get a hint about what type of ammo works best against them. It's a bit of a challenge to snap a picture of someone shooting at you, but it pays off in the long run.

Additionally you can upgrade your guns at special vending machines, giving them more kick or bigger magazines. Regardless of these little gimmicks, the weapons in Bioshock aren't particularly novel, and you'll find yourself sticking mostly to the basic set of guns until you run out of ammo and urgently switch to the flamethrower before that Big Daddy stomps on your skull and makes it go squish.

There are multiple types of vending machines in the game, offering everything from ammo and health to weapon upgrades and plasmids. You can hack most of these machines, as well as automated camera's and turrets. The hacking itself is a sort of mini-game where you have to guide a stream of glowing blue stuff through a series of tubes. it's pretty straightforward and will get boring fairly quickly, so you'll find yourself using auto-hack devices a lot if you have them or simply clicking the buyout button where you spend some cash to automatically hack the machine.

The game's story, adeptly told through voice-recorded diaries and a fellow called Atlas that talks to you through a radio, is pretty straight-forward at first but it has a plot twist late in the game that elevates it a bit from the standard "work your way to the supreme bad guy and repeatedly shoot him in the face" fare of most shooters. Also the two ways of handling the Little Sisters provides some replay value, as it seems the ending is somewhat dependent on what you did with them. The first time I've played through it I devoured all the Little Sisters, so I got to see the 'Dark Side' ending. I'm playing through it again, only this time I'm rescuing all the darlings.

In terms of graphics Bioshock looks superb. The system requirements are a bit on the heavy side, but if your PC has enough RAM and a decent video card it'll be smooth playing. Just make sure you keep the graphic settings low if your PC isn't state of the art - the game looks really good on low resolution settings anyway. The water effects are superbly done, as are the lighting and textures. Every room in Bioshock is unique as well, you never feel like the makers have reused sections. The same can't be said of textures, but then how many authentic 1950's wallpapers can you come up with before it becomes repetitive, right?

So is Bioshock worthy of the hype? Yes. Despite some flaws (unremarkable weapons, quick to play through, repetitive textures and enemies) it's a great shooter and a lot of fun to play through, although it suffers a bit from the FEAR effect - the first time you play it, it can get a little creepy so you'll find yourself dosing your gameplay and logging out once every few hours to catch a bit of a break from all the nerve-wracking action. The second time around the game isn't so creepy anymore, as you've come to know what to expect.

Is Bioshock worthy of the controversy? Not really. Sure the killing of parasite-possessed little girls can be misinterpreted entirely, as seems to have happened, but the game offers you basically the same choice as the average Star Wars game: Light Side or Dark Side. It's nothing new and experienced gamers won't lose sleep over it. I do think the game is deserving of it's M rating, as it's not for the young or faint-hearted. But then again, what shooter is?

About the SecuROM copy protection, I understand game developers' need to combat piracy, but it's an uphill battle anyway. Every copy protection scheme will get hacked eventually, but developers need to keep trying. It's either that or develop games exclusively for consoles, where piracy is much less widespread. It would be a damn crying shame however if games would disappear from PC's, so I'll gladly fork over cash for a good PC game in order to support the industry. And Bioshock is very much deserving of my money.

Total score: 8.5 out of 10.

Halo 2

2007-08-10T13:31:17Z

After an extended hiatus where no worthy new games came my way, I got my hands on a copy of Halo 2 that runs on my XP machine. Don't ask where I got it.

I enjoyed the first Halo when it arrived for PC, as I refuse to play shooters on a console. Every gamer worth his salt knows that shooters are meant to be played on a PC, as the console's controls are simply severely lacking in terms of speed and accuracy. Now that Halo 2 allows players on both PC and Xbox 360 to play against each other online, Microsoft had to give console players an auto-aim function for them to be able to complete with PC gamers. Ironically, auto-aim is considered a severe cheat in every other multiplayer shooter.

The single player side of Halo 2 is remarkably fun, providing you liked the first Halo. It's basically the same story with some new tweaks and a scarce few new guns and opponents. One interesting novelty is that the game allows you to play as an Elite in a separate storyline that eventually joins Master Chief's main story. While it sounds like a cool feature, it plays pretty much the same as the rest of the game. You can pick up and use the same weapons, you fight the same opponents and you fly & drive the same vehicles. The only difference is that instead of marines at your side you now have other Elites that sometimes join you.

The graphics are fairly good though not up to par with recent PC games, which is unsurprising when you realize Halo 2 was originally released in 2004. The atmosphere generated by the graphics is effective, some areas have an almost palpable sense of threat and danger though nowhere does the game reach FEAR's levels of sheer terror.

Overall Halo 2 is a slightly above average shooter when compared to other PC titles. It may have rocked the console world, for PC gamers it's just not that special.

Score: 7 out of 10

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.- Shadow of Chernobyl

2007-04-05T11:41:51Z

STALKER is getting pretty decent reviews on the established gaming sites. Their score on metacritic is 8.2, which is a score I disagree with. Sure, the game has pretty good graphics, decent RPG elements, and an original setting. But all that is insufficient to compensate for the game's flaws.

For one the 3D engine is a pretty bad one. STALKER may be an RPG, but it plays like a shooter. And you want a shooter to be smoothly playable, with easy aiming and movement that feels natural. STALKER's 3D engine does not give you that. Instead you get clunky gameplay where aiming is difficult, movement is very artificial, and things just don't feel right.

On top of that the RPG elements seem added on, like the game was meant to be a shooter but the developers figured it wouldn't be good enough for just that (which would be a good assumption), and decided to bolt on some roleplaying stuff and some malformed plot that vaguely resembles a storyline. It's so tacky they didn't even bother to come up with an alternative to the thoroughly worn out 'memory loss' starting point.

STALKER doesn't deliver on its promise. For a game that's been in development this long, we'd expect something better.

Score: 5.5 out of 10

Supreme Commander

2007-03-12T10:08:04Z

Here we are again, after a bit of a hiatus due to excessive traveling on my part. In between my trips to Nigeria, France (twice) and Shanghai I haven't had all that much time to try new games extensively. However I managed to acquire a cheap PSP in Shanghai and will be adding PSP games to my reviews. Coming soon: my review of Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the PSP.

But first the RTS that everyone's been waiting for: Supreme Commander.

Real Time Strategy isn't my most favorite genre (shooters have that distinction) but they're up there, and while I don't play every RTS title that hits the shelves I do make an effort to give the big names a try. A couple of years ago I totally lost myself in Total Annihilation for a few weeks, and as its spiritual successor Supreme Commander was a promising title from the start.

First off, the system requirements. Due to several novel features, huge playing maps, and full 3D rendering of everything in the game, you'll need a pretty heavy PC to run it all. I have an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ with a GeForce 7600GT and 1 GB of RAM, and while SC ran smooth on most levels in the single player campaign, the later missions did have frequent stutters. The game remained playable though and the framerate decrease never frustrated me.

The high demands the game makes of your PC can easily be forgiven when you realize what the game offers. The maps are huge, there can be literally hundreds or thousands of units in the field at any one time, and all projectiles (shells, missiles, debris) have their own trajectories. Combine this with a fairly intelligent AI that governs all those units, and you come up with a game that not only pushes your graphics card to the limit, but your CPU most of all.

Supreme Commander is heralded as a landmark in RTS games, and it's hard to disagree with this statement. Its most revolutionary feature is not the sheer scale of the game, but its superb zooming function. You can seamlessly zoom in to a single unit to admire its smooth textures, and then zoom out until you see the whole map with units and buildings as icons. This 'strategic zoom' is fluid and works so well that most of the time you won't scroll the view to see a different area, you'll just zoom out and zoom back in to where you want to see the action. Thanks to this feature you'll never lose track of what's happening. You have continually full overview of the conflict raging on the screen, and regardless of how massive the battles become you will always remain in control over your units.

The strategic zoom gives you the amount of control that makes it possible to wage such enormous battles. In any other RTS game fighting on such a huge scale is an impossible task, as you quickly lose track of what's happening and where. Supreme Commander makes it possible, and in such a fantastic way that you wonder why no one else has done this before.

Some other great features in SC are the excellent building queue system, the unit/group command system that allows you to queue commands and movement options, and a nice ferry system that allows you to automatically airlift units to distant locations on the map as soon as they come rolling out of your factories.

You can fight with three different factions, each with their own color scheme and aesthetic approach to units and buildings. The game works with four tech levels, each giving you new and better units. However each tech level is pretty similar in the type of units it provides compared to the other factions, and you don't get any truly unique units until the 4th level, the experimental units. Those are pretty cool though (the Cybran Monkey Lord rules), but they're also ridiculously expensive to build so you'll still have to form the core of your army around the same basic unit types. That's not much of a problem, but it does limit your options in terms of tactical variety. You will have the same basic army as your enemy regardless of what faction you play, which makes it challenging to come up with inventive uses of your units' capabilities.

The single player campaigns in Supreme Commander all have fairly straightforward storylines. They're fun to play through, but after one go with each faction you'll probably won't be returning to them. Still the campaigns serve their purpose of teaching you the game's basics and let you get to know each unit. Then you can move on to skirmishes against the AI, and once you've mastered those the real challenge of multiplayer games await you. Sure, you can skip the campaigns and skirmishes and go straight to the multiplayer mayhem, but you'll be served up as shish-kebab by any relatively experienced opponent so you'd do well to get to know the game first.

So is Supreme Commander really the landmark RTS game that the hype says it is? Well, yes. Mostly because of one thing, the zoom function, but all the other little innovations add up to make this game a superior RTS experience. Once you've played Supreme Commander you'll have a hard time adjusting to a RTS that doesn't have similar functionality, so the new Command & Conquer game that's just around the corner better have something good to bring to the table or it'll have lost the 2007 RTS fight before it's even truly begun.

Score: 9 out of 10.

Get a First Life

2007-01-22T10:00:09Z

I make no secret of my loathing for Second Life. Thus I find this parody to be utterly hilarious.

Space Games and the Singularity

2006-12-15T12:57:25Z

This article was originally intended as a feature for Stargamer.net. However as the site's creators seem to have gone on hiatus, I'll post it here.

Space Games and the Singularity

We love space games. We love the feeling of control we get from playing them, whether it's the command of a single ship or a whole armada. Whether it's taking out pirates in head-on duels or deciding the fates of vast civilizations, we love immersing ourselves in a future world of new frontiers and endless possibilities.

But is it really the future? Do space games offer us an interactive glimpse into a possible future of our species? Or are they simply imaginary entertainment, no more feasible than fantasy-themed games with orcs and elves? How real is the technology in space games, and how does it compare to the current pathways of technological development in the world?

Early sci-fi media, most notably television, needed to find a way to circumvent the basic laws of relativity and motion in order to create universes and stories that were both credible and enjoyable to experience. There would be little fun in a space exploration show when it would take a dozen years to reach the nearest star and where a message would take eight years to receive a reply. Little enjoyment can be gotten from a space combat TV series where making a sharp turn to get behind his opponent would mean the good guy's ship would tear itself apart from the combined G-forces. So screenplay writers either ignored the laws of physics or invented various versions of faster-than-light travel and inertial dampeners. Now we can see the result of galactic colonization within a single human lifespan, and watch stellar dogfights like the aces of 20th century wars.

Space games took their inspiration primarily from these early media outlets. Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica were among the sci-fi spectacles of the sixties, seventies and eighties that paved the way for games like Elite, Wing Commander and Master of Orion. And by virtue of their big and little screen predecessors, these games incorporated the same type of science-defying technology to enable great gameplay. We were able to colonize galaxies ourselves and partake directly in massive space battles that determined the fate of humankind.

But these were just the first hurdles of real-world physics that writers and designers had to overcome. They were easily conquered mostly by their audiences' relative ignorance of the science behind it. And when our collective intelligence caught up with the daring but unrealistic technology of Star Trek, warp drives and transporters had already become ingrained in our cultural consciousness. Now viewers and gamers realize that FTL travel and instant teleportation are highly improbable technologies, but we've come to accept them as hallmarks of science fiction media. In a twist few could have predicted, scientists themselves (often fans of the moves and TV shows that spawned these technologies) began to look for real scientific explanations and possibilities for FTL travel and its imaginary cousins, thus lending an additional air of credibility to these shortcuts through the laws of physics.

But recently a new threat to the realism of sci-fi media has emerged. One that has a much more profound impact on our ability to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves in these virtual worlds. This threat is called the Technological Singularity.

First formulated in the 1980's by science fiction author and futurist Vernor Vinge, the theory of the Technological Singularity has since attracted a great deal of support and has gained credibility in the science community. Roughly stated, the Technological Singularity describes how current technological advance is occurring along an exponential growth curve instead of a linear one. A good example is Moore's Law that describes how CPU processing power doubles every 18 months. Taking this further, the Technological Singularity would occur when this exponential curve of technological growth reaches its near-vertical apex. Our advance in technology would then occur so rapidly, thanks to the immeasurable intellectual power of amplified and artificial intelligence, that profound changes in our society will occur. Any attempt to theorize about how that new society would look would be meaningless, as we are unable to see beyond the event horizon of this singularity. Hence the name singularity, taken from the most famous variant of this phenomenon, the black hole. Light does not escape from a black hole's gravity so one cannot see what lies beyond its event horizon. Similarly we cannot see beyond the event horizon of this technological singularity.

This singularity and our inability to predict what our world will look like after its occurrence provides sci-fi media with quite a challenge. How do you describe a world that is radically different from ours, with technology so advanced we can't even begin to conceive it? It would be like asking an ancient Greek philosopher to predict the internet when the man has barely a grasp of the shape of the planet he lives on.

Many SF writers and media creators simply ignore the singularity theory and continue to build their stories on the old frameworks of FTL travel and interstellar colonization. Others try to incorporate elements of it into their works, but still revert to current cultural values and norms to describe their protagonists' society. A few work with the concept but place their stories outside of it, like wayward human colonies stranded outside of the flow of the singularity's rampant technological advance, or fall back on post-apocalyptic scenarios to explain the relatively unadvanced environments their stories take place in. Space games, always having been on that far edge of hard sci-fi, have not yet tackled the singularity, but it seems inevitable that they must as well.

While a great deal of the technology we see in sci-fi media (and by extension in space games) is wildly advanced, from FTL travel to instant communication across light-years, from weapons that can blow up planets to artificial wormholes, the technology that really matters remains remarkably low-tech. The tools and gadgets that the characters in sci-fi use and work with every day are still very mundane and unimaginative compared even to current standards. Screens may be replaced by holodisplays and bulky mobile phones may have turned into little wrist appendages, the basic tech behind it is within our grasp right now. It's hard to believe that a hundred years or more from now we'll still be using speech, displays and printed paper to view and share information. And let's not forget the spaceships. Sure, we'll go from rocket-propulsion to ion-boosters and warp drives, and we'll be using duranium and adamantite instead of steel and aluminum, but essentially the ships are mere variations on the space shuttles and jet fighters we see today. Try to imagine spaceships that reconfigure themselves through nanotech depending on what task they'll be doing, that shed or add parts and use fully autonomous AI without any human supervision.

And that's just the tech. Consider for a moment the profound impact the internet has had on the way we interact with each other. We went from phone calls and written letters to email and text messages in just a short decade. Now we're in the process of shedding the shackles of old media channels such as radio shows and blockbuster movies and moving to user-created content distributed through channels like podcasts and YouTube. This process won't halt or revert itself - if anything the changes will become more pronounced and occur more rapidly than before. How then will we interact in the 22nd century or beyond? How will we consume entertainment and information then? The sci-fi cliché of the cantina filled with aliens and humans of questionable morality, all armed with laser pistols and drinking fluorescent beverages already seems dated. Can we really predict how a bar will look like two hundred years from now in a space station above a strange world orbiting a distant star?

No, we can't. The good news is, we don't have to. Science fiction entertainment isn't meant to realistically predict the future. A good TV show needs to entertain the viewer, as a good space game is meant to entertain the gamer. And for a show or game to be successful there, it needs to rely on the sci-fi framework that we've come to know and love ever since Orson Welles brought a city to panic with the War of the Worlds radio broadcast. We need the unexplained FTL travel, the glowing holoscreens and tentacled bartenders, the blaster guns and roaring spaceships. We need the evil alien race bent on destroying mankind. We need the stuff that we know and recognize.

On top of that, sci-fi media isn't meant to last ages. Increased budgets and advancing technology means that old sci-fi shows and movies look outdated to us now. A space game that still enjoys a solid player base a year after its release is rare, and five years down the road it's doubtlessly replaced by newer, flashier versions that make better use of modern computing platforms. As new media is developed, they'll incorporate elements of our progress and provide us with a technological backdrop that we can believe in. The only real risk is what has already happened: Shows and games will fall behind the times more quickly and will enjoy a shorter lifespan. Star Trek: DS9 has few vocal fans left seven years after its ending, but the original series still boasts millions of enthusiasts around the world. Freelancer is a dying game four years down the road, while Elite marveled gamers for more than a decade.

So as the singularity approaches we'll have less time to enjoy our movies, shows and games. With the booming media industry, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sci-fi TV is back on the rise, with shows like the renewed Battlestar Galactica enjoying much critical and public success. More games are being released every year, trying to cater to a growing audience with more varied tastes than ever. If anything space gamers will see more games of their favored type released as developers and publishers try to find new markets and explore existing genres. These new games will build on what its creators know and recognize, and as our society changes so too will the sci-fi framework change. New tech has always been absorbed in the genre, with nanotech and cybernetics having become sci-fi mainstay while still being real world potentials. Thirty years ago black holes were a novelty, and now we've already moved on to spatial rifts and multi-dimensional wormholes. And who knows what strange technology we will discover when tomorrow’s leading scientists emerge from today’s space game fan communities.

The sci-fi genre, and space games with it, will assimilate everything the real world throws at it. Let the singularity come and leave the techno-philosophy to the futurists. We have galaxies to conquer.

NWN2 patch 1.03 released

2006-12-07T09:42:43Z

The 1.03 patch for Neverwinter Nights 2 has been released. Like Tycho at Penny Arcade said, it's less of a patch rather than turning NWN2 from a beta release into a retail-release. The patch fixes a lot (250!) issues, but many bugs still remain. Still, I suppose with this latest patch you can add a point to my earlier review score.

Gears of War

2006-11-28T09:21:23Z

Best game commercial ever. (Make sure your sound is on.)

I'd buy a 360 for this game alone if I could afford it.

Sniper Elite

2006-11-27T15:12:40Z

Once again a review of an old(er) game. Today it's Sniper Elite, a game released in late 2005. It's a first person shooter, though a rather unconventional one. In SE you play an American sniper in the late days of WW2, disguised as a German and operating behind enemy lines to disrupt Soviet plans of acquiring German nuclear technology.

In terms of graphics the game isn't much to look at. Some textures are nicely done while others are bland and boring. Not particularly good, the graphics aren't really bad either. Just nothing to write home about.

The gameplay is where the game makes its mark. Like Starship Troopers, Sniper Elite is a game that caters to an audience with a specific craving. If you like to rampage through a game's levels and shoot everything that so much as twitches, SE is not your cup of tea. If you like tactical shooters where you position yourself and your team to take down enemy targets, SE isn't really for you either. However, if you like to be a lone killer, sneaking around and taking down opponents from dozens or hundreds of yards away, SE will tickle your fancy.

The missions in SE are varied, though they all boil down to shooting enemies from long ranges. Sometimes you need to get up close and personal, but that's a rare occurrence. The game's levels allow for multiple approaches, though in the end the final result is the same: firing a piece of lead at 1200 feet per second through the pixelated body of an enemy at long range. If that idea appeals to you, SE is worth your while.

You can choose various difficulty levels, which gives you different amounts of realism in the game. At rookie level all you need to worry about is gravity and the enemy's motion, but at higher difficulty the wind, humidity and other factors start to weigh in. This combined with the relatively free gameplay creates additional replay value, as you can try your favorite levels several times using different approaches and difficulty settings. There's a huge sense of satisfaction when you down three moving Russians in two seconds with three headshots from 75 yards away. (The good shots are shown in slow-motion, which adds to the "FUCK YEAH!" factor.)

If you prefer the sniper rifle in Call of Duty and played Oblivion as a killer with high Sneak and Marksman, you're gonna love Sniper Elite. If you just want to shoot stuff, look elsewhere.

Score: 7.5 out of 10

Forum Griefers

2006-11-16T08:28:37Z

If you've ever been to the official World of Warcraft forums, you're gonna love this article.

Neverwinter Nights 2

2006-11-13T11:00:17Z

Neverwinter Nights 2 could have been a great game. A superb game even. But it's not. In a controversial move 1UP pulled its scathing review of the game, as the poor score they gave it differed radically from the consensus, but I feel they should have left it up. Because despite all the cheers, NWN2 really doesn't deserve a high score.

Let's start with the good stuff. NWN2 is, like it's predecessor, a Dungeons & Dragons based RPG. The ties to the original game are minimal - you can jump into NWN2 without having played the first part. You start by creating a new character. Your options are multitude. You can pick many different races and subraces, many classes (with the game's prestige classes previewable so you know where to aim for) and there is an acceptable number of further customization options. The game builds on the D&D 3.5 rules set, so you get to go through all the stats and skills and feats and all that stuff. Or you can take the easy road and after you're done tweaking the look & class of your character just pick a premade template.

RPG games need a compelling story to draw you in and keep you playing. NWN2 does this admirably. The plot is fast-paced and keeps you involved. There is a lot of freedom to make your own choices, often related to your character's morality. If you stray from your chosen alignment, it will change over time (which can be a hassle if you picked a class that requires a certain alignment). The world feels big and alive, with many NPC's and locations. In short - on this particular aspect the game delivers.

The game's graphics are pretty good, though not great. There are some errors with overlapping textures, and the effects of magical spells can easily overwhelm your screen and graphics card, making the game both difficult - sometimes you can't see what's happening due to the excessive lightshow - and slow - your PC will need to struggle to keep up the framerate. But the game looks good, with rich environments and beautiful scenery.

So, you'd think, this is a great game, right? Good story, good graphics, good world? Yes, it has all that. But what it has more is flaws. Lots of them. Lots and lots.

First and foremost, the game is buggy. Not just buggy as we've gotten used to. We've come to expect the occasional graphics glitch and AI error. No, this game is persistently buggy. It's as if bugs are part of the game experience. They're abundant. Extremely annoyingly so. Most of these bugs are AI or scripted-event bugs. Something is supposed to happen, like a cutscene or a NPC action, but it doesn't. Nothing happens, and the game halts as a result. You find yourself stranded at your current location, unable to go anywhere else, unable to do anything more. You'll need to reload a savegame and try again. Usually the bug disappears on the second try, but it happens so often that it becomes annoying.

Adding to the annoyance is the fact that the game is slow. Due to the abundant script bugs you'll need to save a lot. And it takes nearly twenty seconds to save a game. Twenty seconds doesn't sound like a long time, but when you sit there staring at your screen it feels like forever. Prepare to do a lot of screen staring. Because not only does saving your game take long, every single area transition takes at least as long. For some reason, where other games have managed huge unbroken areas of fantastic graphical appeal without a single loadscreen, NWN2 needs to divide everything in small areas that each take 20 to 30 seconds to load. And you'll be moving around a lot, which means you'll be staring at loadscreens a lot. A lot. There are times in the game where you feel you're waiting for things to finish loading as much, or even more, as actually playing it.

Then there's the game's system. As stated it's built on D&D 3.5, which may sound like a good thing, but unfortunately in its loyalty to the pen & paper rules NWN2 also ported all of its flaws to the PC. D&D 3.5 is a very rules-heavy and dice-heavy game. Compared to many other pen & paper RPGs, D&D is cumbersome and unwieldy. The game's creators seem to have forgotten that the rules exist to facilitate roleplay, not to replace it. I consider D&D to be a deeply flawed system, and unfortunately this means that NWN2 also has a deeply flawed system. Some examples are items with so many different and enigmatic bonuses that you can't figure out which is best for any of your characters, or error messages in your log about unstackable bonuses that require you to go through all your character's equipped items trying to find what's not compatible with what. Some weapons that may seem cool at first end up being little more than nerfbats, while other apparently useless items turn up being Uberweapons of Superslaying. The system just isn't intuitive. It's disruptive of the gameplay, and that's the biggest error any RPG system can make.

NWN2 boasts numerous other flaws, such as its cumbersome inventory system, flawed camera perspectives (especially in cutscenes), insanely dumb AI, unexplained but vital event triggers that you need to do but aren't told about, ridiculously easy battles followed by ridiculously difficult battles, story-powered party member class changes that turn them from mean killing machines into impotent cannonfodder (never let Khelgar become a Monk!), et cetera et cetera ad nauseum.

Neverwinter Nights 2 has everything to become a great game. But the multitude and severity of its flaws turn playing it into a masochistic experience. You really want to get to that next stage of the story because it really is a solid plot, but the brutal rigors you'll have to endure in the process require a sort of internal stamina that few gamers will be able to muster.

Final score: 6.5 out of 10.

Burning Crusade - Outlands preview

2006-10-30T09:30:13Z

My flatmate Pilgrim has been playing the Burning Crusade beta quite a bit, and has spent a lot of time in the Outlands with the lvl60 Priest he had transferred to the beta server. So I asked him to write a preview on the Outlands part of the WoW expansion, which he was happy to do.

Pilgrim's Burning Crusade - Outlands preview

With some luck I got a beta key. Adamus had the priviledge to test it out a bit and has written a review on it about the new races. He has asked me to post one for the Outlands due to me having my priest transferred there. So here goes.

Outlands areas
Hellfire Peninsula: This is the area where the dark portal stands and where a constant battle rages between the Burning Legion and the Horde/Alliance. It shows nicely the moment you step inside the portal and you are confronted with the Burning Legion assaulting a small foothold from the 2 factions. You will see this kind of battle all over hellfire peninsula. Mobs vary from demons to vultures and boars. Nice starting area and you can level up easily to 62 there.

Zangarmarsh: This area seems to be controlled by the Cenarion Circle/Expedition. This is due to this area being a forested area with alot of plant and animal life. The mobs here vary from bugs to large Fen striders. The area and music is nice and tranquil and you never have the feeling to rush it. Several quests here will keep you occupied and it seems you can level here to well into the 63, maybe even 64.

Terokkar Forest: This is the area that is the most important and it has one major city that will be the main hub for both Alliance and Horde. Reason for that is because Shattrah is a neutral place and is protected by the Naaru. You can also find portals to the major cities here, including the new cities. This means Hearthstone set in Shattrah once you are 70 and hang out there. The mobs here are undead and forest-like creatures. I can't comment on the leveling time here, but you can start here from 63 to 65 by the looks of it.

Nagrand: This area is a wide open plain. The mobs I have seen vary from large hulking mammoth-like beasts to zebra-like mobs. The level range of the mobs seems to be 64+ so I think you can start here around level 64+ and get some xp. I haven't done any questing here yet so no real feeling on it.

Currently there are 3 areas that are still closed, those are: Shadowmoon Valley, Blade's Edge Mountain's and Netherstorm. These areas should open soon I think and hope so we can explore some more content.

World PvP: With Outlands world PvP has become more interesting as well. You get for a killing blow, even when you are in a party, a token. That token is used to buy rewards from various vendors that are placed around the maps. Also in every area there are several PvP objectives that can be taken. Once all the objectives are taken the faction that holds them get a small boost. In most areas you get a 5% damage boost. This makes it more enjoyable to PvP as well and I think that even on PvE servers the fun will be more towards PvP and more enjoyable.

Arena matches is going to be another form of PvP but at the moment it can only be tested and not used for setting it up. The reason for that is that to get a charter you need to be level 70. And at the moment the level cap in the beta is 67. If rumors are right in 2 weeks or so we will get a new push and there we will see the cap raised to 70.

Instances
Hellfire Citadel: This is the first series of instances you can get in. The low level ones are called Ramparts and Furnace, and you need to be 60 to have fun there. The instances are quick and have a fun feeling to them without making it to hard. Blizzard has aimed for instance runs of roughly 1hr to 90mins. You never have the feeling that it is taking too long. Small note on the Furnace instance since it's fun. Magtheridon is shouting all the time. And when the instance is finished and you look down you can see him there. It's a nice touch.

At a higher level 66+ you can get to the Shattered Halls. I haven't run this instance yet so no views so far. Also with Hellfire is the raid instance for Magtheridon's Lair.

In Zangarmarsh you have Coilfang. This is also a winged instance with 3 normal instances and 1 raid instance. My experience so far has been in the Slave Pens. A nice and fun instance with alot of Naga and crab like mobs. Fun instance to run and the bosses also make you stand on your toes. (Nature resist for the last boss is nice to have!)

Terokkar Forest has 4 instances, all located in Auchidon. No experience in these instances yet and I hope to provide later on as well.

Overall opinion
So far I think Blizzard has a winning formula once more. One that will keep every one happy including the casuals. Most guilds will suffer from the change of the size of raid instances from 40 to 25 but I think that overall it's going to be an improvement. Also casual players will get their epics now as well due to doing the 5-man instances on Hard mode (bosses drop a token wich can be exchanged for rewards). The new playground to level up are alot of fun but I think that with the expansion most areas will be crowded and camped for mobs.

Burning Crusade delayed

2006-10-24T15:10:12Z

Blizzard has postponed the release of The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft. While this will disappoint a lot of gamers, in the end this is a good thing.

Blizzard shows that it puts the quality of its games before everything else. They go for quality, and they don't bend to the pressure of releasing the expansion in time for the holiday season. They want to make sure that they publish the best product they possibly can, and while this means we have to wait a while longer, in the end we'll be very happy that they did.

So relax, get that alt character to level 60, farm some more epic loot in MC, BWL and Naxx, and keep in mind that Blizzard is doing all it can to present you with the best gaming experience possible.

The Burning Crusade

2006-10-20T08:13:53Z

I managed to get access to the Burning Crusade beta that's currently running, and I have to say I am not disappointed. So far I've only played with the Blood Elf and Draenei races and I haven't seen the Outlands yet, but already I know I'll be buying this expansion.

Both new races are very well done and add tremendously to the game. They both look stunning, and somehow their appearance manages to convey what they stand for. The Blood Elves are haughty and arrogant (and I love 'em for it) and it shows in the way they look and move. The Draenei are paragons of heroism and goodness, and it emanates from them in their speech and movement. The only disappointment here is that I don't really like the way the Draenei walk, it looks a bit cheesy and, well, gay.

I also have a slight concern about the new racial abilities, as they're very powerful. Blood Elves can drain mana from enemies and silence nearby spellcasters, and Draenei have a racial healing over time ability. This will undoubtledly lead to loud complaints from players who feel their own preferred race's racial abilities are now severely outmatched, but as these new racials fit really well with the Blood Elves and Draenei I doubt Blizzard is going to do much about it. They'll probably just tweak the established racial abilities.

The starting areas for both the Draenei and Blood Elves are simply superb. Both new areas have a distinctive feel to them, something that every zone in WoW has, though I felt that the Blood Elves starting areas were a bit more unique than the Draenei's (which felt a lot like a cross between Teldrassil and Darkshore). Both new cities, Silvermoon and Exodar, are huge and fantastically done. You won't get lost in them and especially the Blood Elf city of Silvermoon feels and looks really great.

The quests are also very well done, with a bit more variation than we're used to from the current starting zones, which is a good thing. Each race's starting quests (up to level 10) fit with that race's place in the world, with the Blood Elf quests often emphasizing their magic addiction and the Draenei being portrayed as heroic fighters for All Things Good. Keep that in mind if you opt to play one of these new races, you have to like what they stand for or you'll get bored with the quests and the associated lore.

I also noticed some other general improvements to the game, like added voice acting for the Warlock's Imp pet (hilarious) and graphical improvements. Soon I hope to be able to explore the Outlands a bit, and I'll share my views on that with you folks.

World of Warcraft

2006-10-06T14:43:13Z

A while ago I promised an early look at Archlord, a new MMO from Korean origins. I quickly realized that in order to review Archlord, I'd have to compare it to the current undisputed king of fantasy MMO's: World of Warcraft. It would only be fair to review WoW first before I'd voice my thoughts on Archlord.

World of Warcraft receives a lot of criticism from gamers who play other, smaller MMO's. Especially among EVE Online enthusiasts and Lineage 2 hardcore PvP'ers the negative attitude towards WoW is ever-present. "WoW is too easy," they say, "WoW is for kiddies and lamers." Serious MMO gamers, apparantly, don't play World of Warcraft.

Bullshit.

Yes, WoW is a MMO with a low entry barrier. That is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it's one of the game's defining assets. Anyone can start playing WoW and have a good time within seconds of logging on. Regardless if you're new to video games or a hardcore gamer with delusions of l33tness, WoW will appeal to you.

But the old adage 'easy to learn, hard to master' is very much applicable to World of Warcraft. Anyone can play it - yet only a few can play it well. And those are not necessarily the ones spending the most time in the game. Mastering WoW is not just a matter of pwning everyone in PvP, dressing yourself fully in uber epixx, or hitting that Grand Marshal rank after several months of battleground-grinding.

Success in WoW is very much a social concept. Many gamers fail to realize this and happily brag about their loot and perceived l33tness. But the genuine success stories of World of Warcraft are those you rarely hear about. Those are the stories about guilds who, after countless tries, manage to find the exact mix of teamwork and skill to down an important boss. Those are the stories of players of Horde and Alliance characters that, even though they can't communicate directly in the game, team up to complete that tough quest. Those moments, if you're lucky enough to be a part of it (and if you play the game long enough, you will be at some point) are the ones that give you a real sense of accomplishment. The moments that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, that make you feel proud to be you. That's a real, emotionally tangible reward that so very few games can provide.

So why is World of Warcraft so good? Why do so many players play it and thus enable you to experience these special moments?

For one, the game looks great. Where EQ2 went the route of "more polygons = better", the designers at Blizzard made a conscious decision to keep the system requirements low (also adding to the low entry barrier) and instead focus on the feel of the graphics that display the world and its inhabitants. So while the polygon count of any given object in the game is low by modern standards, the textures on the other hand are pure works of art with a tremendous amount of detail. From the metal shine of a dagger to the sense of life emanating from a forest, the game feels so immersive and alive that you don't even notice the lack of smooth edges. Every zone in the game has its own environment and color scheme, with few repititions throughout the game, so you're really feeling as if you're travelling through a vast world. Every mob you come across feels connected to the place it's roaming, truly a part of the landscape. You see birds and rodents scurrying around, you hear animals and rustling leaves - everything contributes to a total sense of immersion that very few games can match.

Then the quests. A great deal of thought has gone into questing in World of Warcraft. While you will find the occassional artificial quest, usually intended to send you in a certain direction, most quests are intelligently set up, provide you with abundant background information and fit into the overarching plot that guide the events in World of Warcraft. From gathering pig livers to killing a few dozen undead zombies, everything has a purpose. As a result, if you take the time to read the quest descriptions, you will feel as if you're genuinely contributing to the prosperity of your faction in the game world. This makes quests more than just levelling-enablers - you'll enjoy going through that tough quest because you feel it's important to get it done.

And even if you just skip through the quest texts, hurrying your character to level 60, only rarely will you feel that you're grinding somewhere unneccesarily. It's not all flowers and sunlight, and there are points in the game where you'll be frustrated and weary from the grind, but the vastness of the game offers you a multitude of other paths to follow until you decide to come back and give that quest another try.

Another superior advantage that World of Warcraft has over many of its peers is the amount of equipment you can find. While your initial character creation options are limited (face, hair, skin, etc) the sheer amount of different stuff you can decorate your character with ensures that after 10 levels no two characters will look alike. This provides a sense of individuality that's exquisitely rare in MMO's.

Adding to the customization options is the clever Talent system. Every class has the same spells, but you can truly customize your character's strengths by speccing your talent tree, fine-tuning it until you've found the perfect match for your specific style of play. (It's recommended to do this offline through the talent calculators on the WoW website, as respeccing in the game is an expensive affair.) Of course many specs are considered the 'best' for a certain class and role, but you are nonetheless free to spec as you wish, regardless of peer pressure.

Once you reach level 60, the current level cap until the expansion hits the shelves, the game changes radically. It turns from a levelling-oriented quest game to an equipment-oriented raiding game. Once you're level 60 you need to band together with other players in groups of 20 or 40 and start killing the really big bosses in the big, endgame instances. From Onyxia to Molten Core, from Black Wing Lair to An'Quiraj, raiding is what you'll be doing.

Or the Battlegrounds, of course. In an effort to provide an alternative endgame, Blizzard has been developing the game's PvP aspect with battlegrounds and associated ranks. Now instead of gathering epic equipment through raiding, you can also gather good items through PvP. The only problem is that the really good PvP equipment requires you to play the battlegrounds so much that you can kiss any vague semblance of a social life you may have had left after the levelling spree goodbye. For casual gamers such as myself it's not really a feasible option. No, we're stuck to raiding. Not that that's a bad thing, though. As I explained before, the sense of accomplishment you get from the teamwork involved in downing Nefarious or Ragnaros is the true reward of the game, and the epic loot is the icing on the cake.

That leads me to the game's most evident flaw, though it's not a flaw the game designers can (or even want to) fix: its community. Because of WoW's tremendous success, you'll find many players in the game that lack a sense of respect and fairness. This happens in all MMO's, but where other games' heavy grind and complicated systems will turn away the casual idiots, WoW has no such barriers and thus hosts morons and dipshits of all stripes and colors. I can only recommend that you ignore these idiots and keep in mind that the majority of WoW players do respect their fellow gamers and will treat them accordingly. Those few intent on ruining other players' game experience aren't worth the breath required to speak their names.

World of Warcraft is a game that's constantly being improved and updated. Already Blizzard has given us a lot of new content and improvements, and many more are to come. The upcoming expansion, Burning Crusade, promises us new zones to explore, new enemies to fight, new bosses to defeat, new equipment to loot, and new races to play with. In other words, more of the same. That's very good news for those seven million World of Warcraft addicts among us. There's a very good reason the game is often referred to as World of Warcrack.

To summarize, World of Warcraft is the new standard on the MMO block. Any MMO game developer claiming that they're not aiming to compete with WoW is one that already knows their product is inferior. Any MMO player that bitches about the lamers and unl33tness of WoW secretly plays the game anyway, or doesn't dare to try it in fear of its addictiveness. Any gamer stating that there are better MMO's out there is simply delusional.

World of Warcraft is the best MMO game, ever. And unless Warhammer Online manages to usurp that position, WoW will remain seated on its throne for a long time to come.

And now, briefly, my thoughts on Archlord: it's total crap. Avoid.

Drama Queens

2006-10-06T08:11:47Z

I'm a member of both the gamers and girl_gamers communities, and I've made one particular observation that I find pretty damn hilarious. The gamers community is entirely drama-free. Just gamers talking about games, really. The girl_gamers community however seems permeated with drama queens and attention whores. Never a dull moment in there.

I just found it funny, you know. I'm also a sexist pig. It may be related.

Coming soon^(tm): The Review To End All Reviews (only not): my opinion of World of Warcraft.

Starship Troopers

2006-09-20T09:24:01Z

Starship Troopers is a game that's been out for a while, released late last year and naturally based on the movie by Paul Verhoeven (which was in turn based on the Robert A. Heinlein novel). It's gotten generally bad reviews (the game that is, as did the movie, though the book is considered pretty good) which I think is not entirely fair. But then, my perspective may be a bit skewed.

You see, Starship Troopers is a first person shooter that lacks in many departments. Graphics and sound are average, there's little variation in enemies and guns, and there's hardly any plot at all. But there's one thing that this game does well: carnage. Total, unrestrained, brutal carnage.

The game throws literally hundreds upon hundreds of enemy insectoids, 'bugs', at you in massive waves. The bugs come streaming down the hills and pouring out of tunnels fully intent on impaling your every limb on their legs or tearing you in half with their beak-like maws. And there you are, surrounded by a virtually limitless supply of targets, and all you're carrying is a few guns. Sounds bad, doesn't it? But wait - there's a bright side. You see, your most basic gun, the Morita Mk4, has limitless ammo. Sure, it doesn't pack much of a punch, but you can keep shooting indefinately. And it hits hard enough to kill the basic warrior bugs that the game throws at you hundreds at a time.

Starship Troopers is no good game by any stretch of the imagination, but it provides the digital-violence-addicts among us with spectacular bodycounts. While for most gamers this will get tedious after a short while, for someone like me who enjoys to revel in meaningless carnage, this is a pretty damn good way to spend an evening.

Score: 5 out of 10 for most gamers, 7.5 out of 10 for for those who have the same screw loose as me.

Advent Rising

2006-09-15T12:08:10Z

Advent Rising is a game I'd only passingly heard about before it landed in my lap (courtesy of my flatmate Edwin). I remember reading something about it a long while ago when it was still in development, peaking my interest mostly because Orson Scott Card was writing the story for it. So now that I had it I decided to give it a try, not sure what to expect.

Advent Rising is an action game with some RPG elements. You can see the action from a third person perspective or look through the eyes of the main character in first person view. You'll find yourself using the first person view a lot in the first stages of the game, as that way it's easier to shoot opponents, though later you'll be using third person view almost exclusively. Why? I'll explain later in this review.

The first few minutes of the game don't bode well for its quality. The introduction video is nice enough, with passable voice acting, but the graphics aren't all that great and you don't jump into the action right away. The game's emphasis is on its story, so you'll find yourself watching a lot of cutscenes in between the fights. The game's slow start doesn't help here - things don't get interesting until 15 minutes into the game. If you do manage to sit out the warming up period, you're in for quite a ride. More on that later, but first some more venting on another annoyance in Advent Rising: the controls.

The game's PC version is a port from the Xbox original, which goes a long way to explain the sometimes cludgy controls. A game should allow a player to do what he wants to do - i.e. if you want to do a running jump from a cliff, you should be able to do so without much trouble. Whether or not making that jump is a good idea, that's where the game's intelligence and design comes in. But a game's controls should never hinder you in trying to make that jump.

The controls in Advent Rising do try to hinder you, similar as in Matrix: Path of Neo. You know exactly what you want to do, but due to insanely precise timing demands and anatomical limitations it becomes almost impossible to actually perform the action. That's a big drawback, and the main source of frustration playing Advent Rising.

Another source of frequent grunts and roars of anger, as my flatmate can attest to, is that most of the boss characters you come across require a very precise tactic to eliminate. These bad guys are invulnerable to pretty much every type of attack, except that one type that you need to figure out. This is not only ridiculously unrealistic (inasmuch as you can use that word in a sci-fi game), it's just not fun.

So, is Advent Rising a bad game that will bore and frustrate you? Hell no! It's bloody good!

The game's emphasis on story pays off. You'll find yourself dragged into its plot that, while often clichematic, presents an emotional backdrop that's rare to find in a brutal action game. You'll play on and on, even dealing with the idiotic boss fights with loud complaints, just so you can find out what happens next. There are literally hordes of enemies to kill, and while this gets somewhat tedious and repetitive in the early stages of the game, once you reach a certain point it becomes something you relish in with unhealthy glee.

That point is when you unlock your first 'god-power', as I'll call it. This is also where you'll abandon the first person view and start to view the spectacle almost exclusively in third person. I won't go into too much detail lest I spoil the story for you, but during the course of the game you'll be awarded special supernatural powers. You level up these powers by using them and gain new powers along the way, becoming ever more powerful and giving you a truly limitless arsenal with which to eradicate your foes. And boy, is that fun! For once you'll be positively giddy when you see a door open and dozens of enemies come pouring out. Instead of going 'oh shit' you'll go 'yeehaw!' and proceed with wreaking havoc on an unprecedented scale.

The compelling story and addictive gameplay will make you wish the game was twice as long as it really is. The end credits come rolling around way too soon (a common affliction in today's games due to high production costs) and even the added treat you'll be awarded when you watch through the credit animation won't be sufficient to quench your thirst for more carnage and destruction. All those who've played Advent Rising will be craving the sequel, so consider yourself warned.

One last comment: the soundtrack of the game is amazing. All original recordings, the music fits right in with those of major Hollywood blockbusters. Appropriately bombastic and grandiose, it adds immense flavor to the already fantastic game.

Score: 9.2 out of 10

Second Life

2006-09-14T08:38:49Z

Someone recently asked me why I'm not in Second Life. For those of you who haven't heard about Second Life, it's basically an MMO sandbox. You start by creating your own avatar, making it as attractive or ugly as you want. Once in the world you can explore, meet other players, play games, and even buy virtual land where you can build your own mansion or playground or whatever. There's no story in Second Life, no powers or spells, no enemies to fight (unless you play a game in Second Life where you can fight enemies), no levelling up or quests or anything that a regular MMO does. Instead it's one big social event.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Well, it's not. Not unless you're into cybersex. Because that's all that Second Life is - a place to get virtual nookie. The rest is really just for show. Well, I've been through my cybersex phase and I'm over it.

Other than cybersex Second Life claims to enable artistic processes by allowing you to create stuff in its digital world, from buildings to games, from furniture to clothing. I'm not particularly artistic, and even if I was I probably wouldn't express my creative urges in an online world. I'd prefer doing it in the real world. But I suppose that's Second Life's whole purpose - to blur the lines of what is real and what isn't. It's a voluntary Matrix. If you fail in the real world, you can still get a second chance online. A Second Life. Aptly chosen name.

I'll stick with my first life, thank you.

Star Wars: Republic Commando

2006-09-11T15:13:34Z

Sometimes I'm early with my thoughts on a game (coming up soon: first look at Archlord), and sometimes I'm really really late. Like with this game, Star Wars: Republic Commando. The game has been out forever, but I hadn't played it until I picked it up from the bargain bin on Saturday. 10 Euros is not a lot of money to spend on a good game.

Gameplay: SWRC is one of those good games. It's a tactical shooter with the emphasis on the shooter part, which is what I like so much about it. Where other games go out of their way to present you with an authentic tactical squad-based special forces experience (which usually results in a game where you die a gazillion times and where missions become a chore instead of fun) the creators of SWRC decided to make it as easy as possible for you to command your squad. All over a map you'll find handy icons where you simply have to point to and issue the Use command, and one of the three commandos in your team will occupy the position and perform the appropriate action, like throwing grenades, sniping for enemies or simply fire as many rounds as possible into as many enemies as possible in as short amount of time as possible.

This all depends on a solid AI that knows what to make your teammembers do and when, and this is indeed the case. The AI is so good that often you don't even notice it's doing its job - your teammates rarely get in your line of fire, they usually avoid getting killed in stupid ways, and they shoot pretty straight so you're not the only one racking up kills. There are a few minor bugs here and there, like a commando getting stuck in a door, but those are rare and easily overlooked.

It's not all sunshine though. The game lacks variety in several aspects. There are few weapons available and I like to be able to kill stuff in various different ways. The game pretty much forces you to use a specific weapon for each type of opponent. To use a different weapon than the intended gun results in a lot of ammunition wasted and not much of a dent being put into your adversaries. Sure you can blow up hordes of simple combat droids with the big anti-armor gun, but you'll be sorry you did when you're facing that huge super battle droid and you're out of anti-armor ammo.

Plot: There are only three campaigns in the game (Geonosis, a derelict ship, and Kashyyk) and you go through these fairly quickly. Six or seven hours of gameplay down the road you'll be reading the end credits, which is awfully short. Especially because those six hours were so much fun! Once you get the hang of the squad system and know what guns to use with which opponents (and this'll take you all of about 10 minutes) you coast through the game with great delight at the carnage you're causing. And you truly feel a part of the team, even though all your allies are computer controlled. Each squad member has a certain personality to it, and you learn what each commando's speciality is so you can utilize their destructive potential to the maximum. But just when the game gets really interesting, it ends. Ripe for an expansion pack, I'd say. Can't come soon enough.

Graphics: Solid and done in the typical Star Wars fashion. Not a lot of variation though - you end up running through the same type of environments most of the game.

Sound: Absolutely fabulous soundtrack (John Williams FTW!) and very good environmental sounds. Voice acting is also of a superb quality. Lucasarts Games often excel here and SWRC is no exception.

Score: 8.5 out of 10.