Playing MMOs Casually

If you don’t want to spend hours playing and developing your online avatar, most of these games can be played in small sessions. You can log on play for a brief time just like any other game and get some nice rewards, for little time spent in game.

I Don’t Want To Pay To Play

Many people complain about pay to play games, mainly MMOs. Well there is great news: There are MMOs out there that are completely free to play. Games like Flyff, Last Chaos, and Sword of the new world have become very popular, and best of all they are all free to play. These games are not only fun, but a great way to find out what all the hype is about if your new to MMOs.

Choosing The Right MMO

No doubt about it, there are tons of MMOs out there. With all the hype and advertising it seems like a tough choice to make. So let me break it down to a few categories that might interest you:

–Size of Social Population

There are two games that come to mind when wondering about playing an MMO that has a large social base: World of Warcraft, and Everquest. Right now world of warcraft is the largest and most popular MMO to date with over 9 million subscribers. Then there is Everquest, one of the first successful MMOs out there this game has been out there for a long time and could even be referred to as the grandfather of MMOs.

–PVP

Now I know your thinking “What does PVP mean?” well it means player versus player. This element adds a competitive aspect to the genre, and could easily appeal to players who played other types of competitive games such as first person shooters. Wow, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars, are just a few MMOs with great PVP aspects.

The Hardcore Gamer

So you’ve been playing games for awhile and think its time for something new? Tired of the countless first person shooter rehashes, and action game “reruns”? You should check out what MMOs have to offer, its an ever evolving experience that sure to keep you occupied and interested. The social online atmosphere is also a great element as well so you wont be bored with playing alone. The MMO genre is huge. I hope this article helps you understand the options out there available in this growing franchise.

Author: Travis Cleveland
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Pooky Amsterdam and Hydra Shaftoe, their Second Life names, are the hosts of this hour-long quest in to the world of virtual game shows. Together they not only write and produce this show every week, but they go head-to-head with panelists regularly giving them a chance to try to “stump” them. To this date no panel has completely stumped Hydra Shaftoe.

Filmed LIVE before a studio audience, this show is all about trivia and science in a way that makes Jeopardy and other popular game shows seem rather lacking in difficulty. The questions are hard and rightly so. The panelists have Google and other resources at their disposal and it is a challenge to see who can be accurate and quick in discovering the answers to these pressing questions.

I had the honor and privilege of being a part of the show not once but twice over the past two years. Below are the two episodes my Second Life avatar, Zen Paine, sat on the panel and competed for virtual prizes.

The 1st Question is broadcast live every Tuesday at 7pm Pacific Time, USA.

Watch and enjoy the fun and laughs with Pooky & Hydra as they greet this week’s panel of quizees Zen Paine, Kit Guardian, Madcow Cosmos and Emmo Wei.

The episode below is my 2008 appearance on the same show.

Another fun show from your hosts Pooky & Hydra comes your way as they welcome panelists Thundergas Menges, Dilana Llewellyn, Zen Paine & Azdel Slade. If you’ve got an answer, they’ve got the question.

Overnight, what started out as an indie console platform-er quickly ballooned into the flagship title for the PS3, with screaming fans proclaiming it as the first coming of the elusive “PS3 killer app” that was rumoured to be lurking in the wilderness right alongside Bigfoot, while Sony and the video game press repeatedly thrust choice buzzwords such as Game 3.0 and Multi-plane game play down our willing and well-lubed throats, elevating Sackboy to the lofty position of platform mascot. But with such unprecedented hype over the game, which passed around the “Play. Create. Share” mantra to enraptured audiences worldwide (yours truly sitting third from left in the front row), there was a little voice of doubt that constantly wondered whether it would actually pass muster when push came to shove.

And the quick answer to that simply happens to be: more than you would believe. LittleBigPlanet is probably what you’d get if a jute bag got knocked up by Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island and Michel Gondry, and then went to live with its rich uncle who trained it in the ways of the modern world. With a charm lifted straight from the golden age of platforming, LBP expands upon it across three planes of 2.5D, allowing the player to guide their Sackboys (and girls) over, under, through, in front of and behind the single side-scrolling plane that we’re all used to in our platform-ers.

While LBP’s core strengths lie in the Create and Share sections, which form the cornerstone of the over-hyped Game 3.0 design philosophy, the Play section, created by Media Molecule to serve as the pre-built levels for the game, is no slouch either. With over 50 levels spread across eight surrealistically themed areas – which include an African Savannah with monkeys, meerkats and crocodile-infested rivers, a Corpse Bride-slash-Dia De Los Muertos wedding affair in Mexico, a romp through the skyscrapers and construction yards of New York City, mind-numbing psychedelic adventures through Japan and India and finally, a confrontation with the evil boss in his frozen Siberian tundra hideout – LBP’s Play mode offers enough variety and rip-roaring fun to make the single player experience alone worth the asking price, especially when it ends up looking the way it does.

LittleBigPlanet is a visual treat unlike any other, firmly wedging its foot in the door of true videogame art before kicking it wide open and duking it out in an all-out brawl to take the throne. Every aspect of the game screams high-school diorama in 1080p HD – from everyday materials and trinkets being used to flesh out the worlds to the childishly adorable way everything is glued or wired together in a level. But that doesn’t mean that modern game-engine gimmicks like real time lighting and shadowing, high resolution texturemapping, etc. pack their bags and hitchhike their way home to Heavy Rain – LBP packs in enough HD goodness to punch the framerates in the gut at times, making even the mighty PS3 hardware sweat with the effort. Thankfully, though, these instances are few and far between and don’t prove to be much of an annoyance, except if you happen to be in a particularly tough section of the game.

In fact, for the first time since Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Okami, I find myself replaying the game over and over just to look at the environments in greater detail, something that I hope most people would also end up doing – if not to ogle the graphical splendour around their Sackperson, then at least to grab all the collectibles, including stickers and prize bubbles with a whole lot of goodies in them. Once collected, the objects can be used to play addictive (and challenging) mini-games or to expand the toolset available in the Create mode. And if playing with yourself isn’t the sort of thing you want to be doing for long, then there’s always the option of dragging in three of your friends along on your adventure, locally or online via PSN. And unlike other experiences where you are asked to choose between co-operative and competitive multiple player, LBP adds in a mixture of both, allowing players to work together to solve puzzles, beat bosses and get through the game, in addition to playing against each other by seeing who can collect the maximum number of score bubbles and chain together multipliers.

Unfortunately, there are more than a few hurdles to get this working the way Media Molecule or us, as the players, imagined it. While it’s a great deal of fun making Sackboy jump, grab, swing, pull and emote his way through the various worlds, there’s a slightly sticky feeling to the controls, which may be the result of the pressure-sensitive controls that vary the intensity of the action depending on how hard a particular button is pressed. When thrown into a situation where Sackboy has to perfectly time a series of jumps, this off-by-a-microsecond jump usually ends up sending him to the big jute field in the sky. Imagine Braid without the pixel perfect controls and the handy time rewind feature and you’ll realize how maddening this can potentially get. Combined with the camera shifting in, out and sideways in a co-op game, it practically becomes impossible at times to get through some sections cooperatively without someone hanging a horseshoe over you for good luck.

To add insult to injury, and laugh derisively at you when you screw up, Media Molecule’s check-pointing system is nothing short of sadistic, especially in the later parts of the game. The player is just given three (on some very rare occasions, six) lives at each checkpoint. Even though the checkpoints are fairly well spaced through the levels, using up all your lives at a checkpoint forces you to restart the level from scratch, which is downright unacceptable in a modern platform-er. Since LBP isn’t a particularly difficult game to begin with, it can be shocking, painful and pretty damn infuriating when you’re forced to restart a level all over again simply because the floaty controls don’t really help you nail those pixel perfect jumps even by yourself, leave alone with friends in a co-op session.

Thankfully, if you’re fed up with Sackboy meeting his untimely demise thanks to Media Molecule’s design, you can show them who’s boss by becoming your own metteur en scène and unleashing the Steven Spielberg (or the Uwe Boll) within you. LBP’s Create mode has something for everyone – from the casual player who just wants to use it to give his or her Sackperson a whole new wardrobe, the tinkerer who just wants to kill time by creating random stuff like a giant pool where they can hang out with friends and all the way up to the hardcore professionals who spend hours upon hours creating mind-boggling stuff like Galaga or The Azure Palace. If you were planning to jump in and create awesome levels with just a few hours of work though, prepare to be disappointed, unless you happen to be a bloody genius at level design and are completely used to the LBP canvas and the Pop-It interface. So, yeah, sad, but it’s not going to be replacing your PowerPoint presentations anytime soon.

Clearly targeted at the hardcore user, excellent tutorials voiced by Stephen Fry notwithstanding, LBP’s Create mode won’t let you add your own pictures and audio or design a level without a whole lot of planning, considering that the Undo command is basically turns time backwards, so if you’ve progressed quite a bit into the design and suddenly figure out that a particular thing won’t exactly work, you’re left with no choice but to take down everything else until you get to the point where you added it in, even if the other components happen to be working great. If you’ve got a creative streak to you and are willing to invest the time, this could very well be the platform to start making those games you’ve always dreamed about. If not, well, you could just wait for someone else to make something cool and then download it to play or edit locally.

Which brings us to the Share mode of the game. Once you’ve managed to create your masterpiece, all you need to do is upload the level for others to download, rate and play, and if you’ve designed it in, others can just download prize bubbles containing your building blocks and start creating stuff of their own. Users who download your creations are asked to tag them with a choice selection of keywords and then “heart” it, which serves as the community approval meter. Unfortunately, Sony’s crazy censorship and moderation rules mean that there’s every chance your creation could get the axe online, especially if they think your content isn’t suitable for all ages or has derivative content that could be deemed copyrighted material, even if it necessarily isn’t both. And as for the 84,000+ levels that are supposed to exist online, they must reside on some server in the twilight zone, considering searches using the completely inadequate, barebones search engine doesn’t ever work the way it should.

In the end, while LittleBigPlanet isn’t the killer app that will redeem the PS3 platform, it’s a convincing argument to get a PS3 if you don’t already own one. Even without ever fiddling with the Create tools, Media Molecule has created an experience that not only provides a solid foundation via the story mode, but builds upon it with a robust tool-set that’s already being used to churn out inventive, fun and sometimes downright crazy content for the whole world to enjoy. Whether the game manages to create a paradigm shift as far as user-generated content goes or entrenches itself firmly in a niche market, what is sure is that this pretty much beats the crap out of any other game released in a long, long time when it comes to sheer creativity, making it one of the biggest milestones in the history of the PlayStation brand, if not game design as a whole.

Score: 9/10

Krishnan Rajagopal
Lead Content & News Editor
The ANGRY Pixel – News, views, reviews, previews and features for the discerning, irreverent gamer.

Author: Krishnan Rajagopal
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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RuneScape is easy to access since it is supposed to be primarily for children. Kids are too smart these days that they can just create an account at the RineScape website, and they can already start their play. Everything is for free anyway, so kids can play the game anytime they wish. There are some files to be downloaded but once this is done, the computer can be already compatible with RunerScape. Kids are bound to express their admiration for Runescape in their video games reviews, as kids are frank and have no inhibitions.

The graphics in RunerScape are at a minimum level since it is to be played with an Internet browser, so speed is not affected so much. But the action in the game is as impressive as any of the other games. Kids create even their own characters with the set of body parts like faces, hair and bodies. There is no limit to how a kid’s imagination can do this. Adults watching the kids do this are just too amazed now at the dexterity of kids in these things.

RunerScape however is not really that simple to play with, so there is a tutorial that you can make use of in order to learn how to play the game. The young kids have a way of learning this – they sit down with the older kids who guide them through the various steps of play, and pretty soon they will be playing by themselves alone.

You start a game in the beginner’s area until you get used to the procedures to be ready to play in the more difficult stages which follow after you have mastered the lower categories of the game. There are various levels of competence that you have to go through to make you a more qualified player of the game.

RuneScape is basically free and this is so because kids on their own do not really have the money to pay. There are more advanced section however where some payment is needed, and this is where the kids call on the dads for help… The only disadvantage of this free game is that a banner ad is always at the top of the page. This could be annoying to adults, but for a kid he does not mind this. As long as he is seated before the computer and engrossed in the fighting he does, what kid really bothers about banner ads? He is too busy with his opponents on RunScape, to worry about intrusions to the page. In his comments later in the video games reviews section, nowhere will there be a mention of the banner ads.

Wondering what’s the latest video games coming up? Get the latest information from the gaming world in the best video game reviews at http://videogamereviews.bestreferenceguide.com

Author: Alicia McWilliams
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Ryu Hayabasu, as the hero of Ninja Gaiden, has to be guided by the players on a mission to avenge the destruction of his people and to prevent the annihilation of the people of the earth. Ryu has a powerful collection of ninja weaponry, and players will have to help Ryu to fight his way through an evil world and through the many dangers and perils in his journey. You as a player can take advantage of the new game play, complete with an auto-generating health system, to keep you in top form to fight new enemies in the new combat scenes which are more thrilling and exciting. You can even include in your posting on the video games reviews later on how you think your capabilities as a fighter can be o improved.

Ninja Gaiden II is much improved from the previous Ninja Gaiden. The game play calls for much faster action and the combats are more furious and bloodier. With the new weaponry you use as a player, you can annihilate armies of enemy ninjas and demons which pop up continuously to keep you busy in combat. This new version is definitively more action-packed and as you slice at the armies you face, the effect results in the screen exploding with color, sound and the gory mixture of particles and various body parts of the enemies you have slain.

The Tecmos Team Ninja has introduced new changes to correct the problems which were frustrating in the earlier version. They must have gotten some new ideas from the video games reviews of the earlier Ninja Gaiden versions. Now, if you lose a battle, you can just restart form the start of the encounter. Before, you had to go all the way back to the lead-in time – but this time that is no longer necessary. You can also save more points, with which you can replenish your health for more fighting with the seemingly endless waves of enemy ninjas coming at you every second of the fight. There are sequences even in the fight where your health can replenish on its own.

The main action though remains the same – but definitely more intense and harder fought. This time the fight is extra fast and bloody with the use of two buttons for the attack mode. You use one button as a jump button and of course the other one as a trigger for the blocking action. You can also create a series of slashes, punches and even high-flying, high-kicking motions with these buttons. But of course, this time you are more experienced and seasoned to help Ryu in his fights more effectively with the enemy ninjas. You are a better ninja fighter with the new weapons in Ninja Gaiden II. The video games reviews are definitely right in saying that there is more action than ever before in Ninja Gaiden II.

Wondering what’s the latest video games coming up? Get the latest information from the gaming world in the best video game reviews at http://videogamereviews.bestreferenceguide.com

Author: Alicia McWilliams
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The game starts with a story of you joining the TV show Top Chef. You are a newly graduated chef of some cooking school, and in spite of being the top student of your graduating class, you still have no experience in running a restaurant or even getting challenged about your skills. However, all of that is about to change, because now, you are one of the many vying for the ultimate title of being the best chef, and you must survive all the challenges to remain one of the top contenders of the game.

The objective of each level is for you to survive the week and earn the right to keep contending for the Top Chef position. Just like the TV show, you are given a theme to start with on each level, mostly concerning the food’s flavors, texture and visual presentation. Your character in the game will summarize what ingredients will best satisfy the level’s theme and what ingredients go nicely with each other. Afterwards, you’re off to the actual time management game where it is a race against time to cook all of your theme-specific culinary creations.

In the actual game, you prepare ingredients in your preparation table depending on what their themes ask for. An example would be to prepare a white vegetable, a red meat and a spicy add-on to put on your dish. What’s important here is that you’ll need to know what each ingredient’s properties are, and pick the correct ingredient from the counter choices to collect stars for your ending meal.

Top Chef is one of the many games featured and reviewed at Casualicious. Please visit our site to read more about Top Chef and get to play hundreds of other games worth your time and enjoyment.

Author: Ruff Bismonte
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Wii sports comes with five sports.

* Baseball

* Bowling

* Golf

* Tennis

* Boxing

You can play all but the boxing with the controller that comes out of the standard package. But to play the boxing game, you will need the nunchuck. At least two controllers and nunchucks are ideal as this game is best in a group.

Baseball:

Apart from the Mii’s having no legs the game is graphically quite nice. The game chooses your Mii’s as players first so you will see your own names coming up on the team roster first. It you don’t know what a “Mii” is, you can generate them in the Mii channel so keep all the stats for yourself, family and guests. I have one for each family member and the Mii looks similar (i.e. the kid’s Mii’s are shorter, slimmer, etc). The pitching in baseball is easy. Just hold the holder in your hand (cord attached to wrist for safety) and swing forward and downward – fast for a fast pitch, slow for a slow pitch. Pushing no button gives a straight fast ball, the “A” button a screw ball and “B” for a curve ball and “A” and “B” for a splitter (dropping ball).

Batting is even simpler – just swing the controller like you would a baseball bat. Timing is everything if you want a home run.

Unfortunately you can no longer steal bases as in the old Nintendo favorites, this and the fact the game is only 3 innings long are my only criticisms.

Bowling:

Ten pin bowling. Swing an underarm and hit the “B” button to release. My secret – hit the “B” at the very last moment – the ball will hit down and stay on track. This works until you improve to “PRO” level in which case you will notice the ball spins off to the side more. You can make the ball spin by moving your wrist while swinging.

I’m a much better bowler online than in real life getting scores of over two hundred. However the game is very realistic with bowling alley sounds, pins dropping and more.

Golf:

Like the real game, Wii Sports golf requires patience, timing and the right application of force. Up to a nine hole golf course with ever more difficult and challenging holes. The best bet is to be conservative in your shot selection and power it you want any hope of reaching a hole in par. Its also import in Wii Sports Golf to stay on the fairway as you have a significant penalty in power if you land on the rough.

Tennis:

This is the only game that is disappointing. Wii Sports Tennis is lacking the necessary control in the ability to slam and directing the ball it a matter of very fine timing. Also running the “Mii” over the court is difficult and slow, meaning you often are in the wrong place to even get close to hitting the ball. The two player game isn’t too bad if you play with someone else on your team as you are able to cover the court better making up for the lack of movement in the Mii’s.

Boxing:

Wii Fit Sports should come with a medical warning – see you doctor before you play, especially with the boxing because you will end up huffing and puffing. This is the most difficult to get to pro rating with the boxers you face getting increasing better. You will have to learn to dodge, weave and time your punch combinations. Its sometimes difficult to get the Mii to box as quick as you want, or in the place you want. I find making a side body shot particularly difficult. Boxers normally get back up after a knock down. Only a really good upper head shot combo while they are on the way down will keep them down.

Wii Sports also comes with a fitness and training option to test your reflexes, timing and power.

Its a great package to come standard with the Wii.

Want more Wii? Visit http://nintendo-wii-fanatic.blogspot.com/

This article is the property of Alastair HARRIS and his immediate family. It may be freely republished over the internet but must include original links.

Author: Alastair Harris
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Team iDemise is a gaming team with quite the reputation in FPS gaming. But this doesn’t necessarily mean a thing when it comes to fast leveling in MMORPGs. So I purchased the guide with some skepticism.

I was quite pleasantly surprised to find my initial doubts groundless. iDemise’s claim that their iDemise leveling guide on the market isn’t just a boast-at the very least, they are a serious contender for the title. Find out why in this iDemise guide review.

The method

Anyone with even a bit of common sense knows that leveling in Warcraft is best done by questing. Even mediocre questing will result in far better experience gain than grinding mobs for hours. Superior players may even be able to plot out a questing course, and increase their leveling speed even more. Superior players who have done the quests many times can no doubt level even faster, with even better leveling routes.

The Team iDemise Leveling Guide makes you the equivalent of a superior player with multiple 70s. At no time did I find myself thinking “Wouldn’t doing XXX before XXX be faster?” as I often have using other guides, such as Brian Kopp’s Alliance Leveling Guide or Joanna’s Horde Leveling Guide.

Now, you may be skeptical. “Ok, so I know what order to do them in. But I still don’t know where everything is.” Like other popular guides, the iDemise guide makes liberal use of map coordinates. And like a few others, they provide an addon to help out.

The Addon

The addon provided with the iDemise guide is really nice. I personally found it much more effective than any competitor’s addon. Unlike other guide’s mods, which usually just toss a load of coordinates on your map and say “good luck”, this one includes everything you need to level, from directly in the game.

The entire guide is available to you. Not only the leveling guide, and a coordinate system, but built-in systems to make sure you are optimizing your character for leveling, with tips on Talent Builds and such. Really helpful to players new to the game or maybe just new to the class.

To conclude

I hope this iDemise guide review has given you some help in determining whether it is worth your time and money. If you want to see how it compares to other popular leveling guides, check out my comparison review over at WoW Gold Spot.

Author: James Rolan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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In Altitude, you are a pilot of one of about a dozen various planes ranging from thin prop planes to full blown bombers. You can turn and change altitudes using the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard. Since it is a 2D game, there isn’t a lot of pitch available to you as a pilot other than forced barrel rolls. You can change your speed using the up and down arrow keys including afterburners that give you an extra push to get you out of a stall and away from enemies that are in hot pursuit.

Stalls are a big part of the game. If you head up for too long you’ll likely stall out your plane sending you in to a downward direction until you pick up enough speed to get going once more.

What makes this game quite interesting is the multiplayer aspect of the game. Servers are set up all over the web where owners of the game can dogfight to their heart’s content in open air and through obstacles. Combat can be strait out free-for-all or interesting games like air soccer where your objective is to get control of the ball and shoot it in to your opponent’s goal. You can take the ball off your opponent by shooting them down or intercepting it when they pass it to another plane on their team.

The music in Altitude isn’t anything I’m overly excited about. It’s about standard for an independent release and easily replaced by your own personal collection on your music player of choice.

Graphics are cartoonish which suits the game very well considering the simplicity and casual gaming environment it creates. Unlike other competitive combat games, I don’t feel compelled to punch my monitor when blown up by one of my more skilled opponents.

Overall, this is a solid release that is undeniably fun and easy to play when you want to get competitive but aren’t looking for a lot of stress.
Considering Nimbly Games is essentially made up of two people, this is a very good game worth more than the $2.00 price tag it is given on popular game distributor “Steam“.

The story behind Beetle Bug 3 opens up as our insect hero was tasked by his wife to buy some supplies in the supermarket. Joined by 2 bugs from his thousands of sons and daughters, Beetle Bug was surprised afterwards when he found out that the rest of his family had been bug-napped! Well, not entirely all because his irate wife is still safe, but since he doesn’t want to experience again the pressure of making another set of children, Beetle Bug goes off to the rescue, while utilizing a number of tools they get to discover along the way.

Just like its predecessor, the Beetle Bug 3 game plays just like a Pacman-style adventure where you’re objective is to save all of Beetle Bug’s children by leading them safe to the nearest exit. You’ll be able to use some nifty tools too to help you out, but always keep in mind that all the tools are also limited in use. Enemies are also present to prevent you from saving your precious children but nothing good planning and wise tool usage can easily solve. Basically, you just have to protect the little bugs, plan your every move, and utilize quick thinking too and you’re all set to finish the game. However, that’s also easier said than done since the vast number of platform puzzles can also take its toll on the old noggin’.

The Review

The Beetle Bug 3 game easily proves that Intenium games had really put in a great production value into their casual game releases. The 3D graphics are very nice on this release and the game play is very smooth too even though you’re using mouse actions to move Beetle Bug around the play area. And coupled with such a funny storyline, I’m really impressed and honestly, I think that Beetle Bug 3 is one of the best platformer casual games that I’ve played in a while since Super Granny 4.

This game doesn’t even deliver less when it comes to challenge because I actually found myself stuck many times on most of the game’s puzzles. The difficulty can get quite frustrating too though because if you ran out of lives, you’ll have to contend with starting the game all over again. And considering if you’re already on the later levels, this can be such a pain too.

In terms of audible quality, the Beetle Bug 3 game features great action sounds as well as many amazing voice-overs. Beetle Bug’s many comments and quips during play are so funny that I bet you’ll smile just even once when you play this game. I guess that the translations and quality of voice talents can use some work though, but that’s really not enough of a complaint to warrant me having less fun with this game.

All in all, the Beetle Bug 3 game is fun and challenging and it’s definitely worth your try even for the free trial mostly offered on casual game titles. It has such a hilarious storyline and I bet you’ll crack up too on many of our hero’s wacky quotes during the smooth flow in game play.

I had always loved playing games and this simple review is really my own way of giving back to the Casual Gaming community of developers, gamers and fans alike.

For more Casual Game Reviews like this, please do visit my blog as we feature reviews on many of today’s newest and hottest Casual Games. The blog is updated everyday and you guys will definitely find it a good resource on game reviews and free downloads of many Casual Game titles. And don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed too, since reading our everyday service is way much easier that way!

So, I hope to see you guys there as we go on spreading Casual Games to the world. Happy gaming and many thanks for viewing this article!

Author: Ruff Bismonte
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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In a way, Rock Band is a little like three distinct games built into one. First, there’s the guitar game, which lets you play the same sort of game as Guitar Hero on guitar and bass, but with a few differences. For one, the guitar itself different from the Guitar Hero guitars. It’s bigger, with a longer neck, and its body feels more solid. The fret buttons are larger, and are flush against the neck of the guitar, and there is a second set of narrower fret buttons all the way down the neck that you can tap on for solos.

Now I’m gonna discuss the singing it is a unique experience compared to the guitar and drums on Rock Band. The instrument you play has no buttons to press and doesn’t consist of hundreds of individually-counted notes. Your voice is what you use for this instrument. You don’t have to be a good singer you just have to match the pitch line that appears on screen.

Finally there are the drums, easily the most intense and enjoyable instrument of the bunch. The kit consists of a collection of four color-coded pads and a kick pedal, along with a pair of drum sticks. There’s really no reference point for the drums portion of the game except for, well, real drums. You hit the pads in time as you would with a realistic drum kit, and on expert, the game practically maps out each song’s drum part note for note. Also when you are playing on expert, you are playing the drums. If you play well on expert, you can probably play a decent beat on a real drum set. The good news for beginners is that easy difficulty does a pretty good job of easing you into the act of drumming.

Rock Band is a great game. The presentation elements are top-notch and take music games to a new level, this is an excellent game and i would highly recommend it to anyone. So if you are looking for a place to find rock bank you can just use the link below to go to my blog where there will be a few different game reviews but if you scroll through you will find it with no problem.

Have fun gaming.

Rock Band for PS3 And Xbox 360

Author: Micheal Stevens
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Both of the playable characters in the game have separate objectives. Ellen goes to Doolin in search of her mother because she has supposedly sent a letter to Ellen (sounds eerily similar to the dead wife letter that was sent to Harry from Silent Hill 2). On the other end of the spectrum, Keats is a journalist who travels to Doolin to learn about the strange occurrences that are taking place. I found the plot to be enjoyable, but the game has a storyline that can take some time to develop. The gameplay in the game has two different settings.

A location known as The Netherworld is where the combat occurs, and the normal world is where gamers will be achieving typical role playing game tasks. When gamers are in the normal world, they will be collecting items and having conversations with various people. The normal world provides a nice change of pace from the combat. Each character’s gameplay is broken down into chapters. To eliminate confusion, it is best to complete one chapter with one character and go replay that chapter again with the other character. For instance, finishing Keats’ chapter first and replaying the same chapter with Ellen. I felt like the game progressed in a much more cohesive manner when I took this approach. You can mix and match chapters by playing multiple chapters from Ellen’s perspective, but doing this would make the plot completely garbled. The gameplay predominately consists of acquiring souls. All of the adversaries have souls that can be absorbed and used for later use. Since each soul you gain varies, the abilities you gain is also different.

For example, one soul can perform an ice elemental damage and another can utilize electricity. Once you take in a soul, you can map if to the four face buttons on the PlayStation 3 controller. Not all souls are proficient in eradicating every foes; furthermore, you cannot expect to beat the entire game with only one sul. There are strengths and weaknesses for each opponent in the game. This makes the game somewhat balanced, but gratuitously time consuming. Personally, I found the guess and check system of finding the correct soul to kill opponents to be rather convoluted. The method needed to capture a soul is unique on its own right. This is where the six axis controller is at its best. The six axis controller is amazing for getting a soul under control, and the controls itself are intuitive. The game developers of the disaster known as Lair should meticulously take notes from the game developers that worked on Folklore. Do you hear me Lair game creators? You guys can learn so much about the six axis controller from the team that worked on Folklore. If anyone who worked on Lair is reading this, then he or she needs to give the game designers of Folklore a phone call and have a long chat about how to make the six axis controller responsive. Look at me going off on one of my tangents again. Alright, back to the review of Folklore. The frame rates appears to be smooth, but I had a problem with the prolonged load times.

Regrettably, the audio in the game is utterly ridiculous. A majority of the dialogue is shown via a comic book style. If this comic book style of story telling is tastefully done, then it works to perfection (ala Max Payne and Max Payne 2). The most egregious aspect of the dialogue is that there is absolutely no voice acting during these absurd comic book style segments. I thought the lack of voice acting was an enormous blunder in the game. There should always be voice acting in a next generation console video game (especially considering the fact that this is a PlayStation 3 video game). During the major cut scenes, there is voice acting.

Unfortunately, the voice acting is horribly done. Folklore pales in comparison in the voice acting department to other exquisite video games such as Heavenly Sword, Halo 3, God of War, and God of War 2. What the hell Sony? How could the audio in Folklore be this poorly executed? The only saving grace with the audio is the music and sound effects. Luckily, the visuals in the game are incredible. Everything that is seen in Folklore makes it seem like a fantasy. The vibrant colors looks like an extravagant piece of artwork. Environments, flora, and fauna are well designed. Folklore will take gamers approximately nineteen hours from beginning to end. Overall, Folklore is a solid role playing game. It is not as brilliant as Oblivion on the PlayStation 3, but Folklore has just enough to give gamers a reason to play.

final verdict 8 out of 10

http://wwwfunnyman.blogspot.com

Author: Sayed Islam
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Pressure cooker

Gamers will be in control of a fairly attractive protagonist named Nariko. The storyline in Heavenly Sword is about Nariko and her father. Her father was killed, and Nariko wants to seek vengeance. In order to avenge her father’s death, she must wield a deadly weapon known as the Heavenly Sword. The plot is your usual tale about revenge and tyranny. It is nothing that we have not seen before and nothing out of the ordinary. I have seen this same storyline in a myriad of other video games. The visuals in Heavenly Sword are stunning. Facial animations entail the entire body, so every part someone’s face looks realistic. All of the environments are drop dead gorgeous. From the ancient architecture to the flora, everything in Heavenly Sword looks splendid.

The exemplary presentation of the game does not stop there. The audio in Heavenly Sword is on par with God of War; (though it is not better than God of War) furthermore, the voice acting makes the characters come to life. The gameplay breaks down like this: Nariko has three stances in her arsenal. One stance is a swift stance that enables you to attack foes quickly. The second stance is a powerful but slow fighting stance. Lastly, there is a ranged stance that allows gamers to hit opponents from a distance. Every stance fits Heavenly Sword well, and they all complement each other. For instance, utilizing a swift stance will eradicate minor enemies. But a power fighting stance might work for a boss. There is also a satisfying counterattack maneuver (ala Assassin’s Creed) that can be executed by pressing a button at the correct moment. When it is done correctly, Nariko will perform a one hit counter attack kill. One flaw with the gameplay is that is devoid of a block button. You can block, however it is completely random and arduous to achieve. You have to match the same fighting stance that your enemies are using. If they use a swift fighting stance, then you have to use a swift fighting stance. One of three colors will radiant around your foes that will accentuate what stance they are utilizing. It seemed like blocking was an afterthought in Heavenly Sword, and the blocking mechanic is a disaster.

A great deal of the gameplay is redundant but manages to keep players intrigued. Excluding bosses, most of your opponents are immensely generic looking characters that lack any depth. Speaking of the bosses, they are definitely an attention grabber. Boss fights add some challenge to the game and provide a much needed chance of pace from the repetitive gameplay. Heavenly Sword has its share of contact sensitive moments (ala God of War) that will appease God of War fans. These contact sensitive parts in the game are significantly difficult to accomplish because you are given a limited time to react when the button icons appear. Luckily, the button icons are identical each time (unlike God of War).

Without giving too much away, there is one particular puzzle in the game that involves throwing a shield that will make you want to scream at the top of your lungs. Fortunately, the game developers did rectify a majority of the camera blunders in the demo. Many people will be mesmerized with the dazzling martial arts acrobatics in Heavenly Sword; others will be mesmerized with the red-haired beauty named Nariko (I know I was); some will be mesmerized by both. Overall, Heavenly Sword is not as brilliant as God of War. The most vexing aspect of Heavenly Sword has to be the length. The game is over before you know it; moreover, maybe six or seven hours of gameplay from start to finish. The final verdict on Heavenly Sword is that it is good but not a remarkable game.

final verdict 8.4 out of 10

http://wwwfunnyman.blogspot.com

Author: Sayed Islam
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Make PCB Assembly

Previous Battlefield games revolved around the Conquest game play mode, which in 2142 remains unchanged insofar as I can tell. Although there are a few variations, the general theme is that each team starts with a limited number of times it’s players can respawn, and holding more than half of the flags steadily depletes your enemy’s number (as does killing them). I immediately disliked it, and still only enjoy a select few maps in this mode.

Boarding titan via APC Titan mode is fundamentally an evolution of Conquest – you are still running about trying to capture flags (now in the form of missile silos), but this time they are used towards a more tangible objective. Each team has a huge Titan airship as a primary base, and captured silos fire missiles at regular intervals to slowly destroy the enemy Titan. This gives a much better feeling that your actions are achieving something – capture silo, witness missile launch, notice a definite dent in the HP bar of the enemy Titan. After you have inflicted sufficient damage on the Titan, you can press the victory by boarding it to attack from the inside. I found this action- and objective-orientated game play much more satisfying.

Troops safely exit a air transport. Players should be aware the learning curve in Battlefield is quite long and steep, exacerbated by advantages from obtaining unlocks (discussed later). Don’t expect to install and blast away like some shoot-em-up, initially movement can feel clumsy, fingers search among the myriad of key bindings and everything is best approached with a bit of patience. Don’t be too apprehensive about joining in on-line, there is a single player mode to obtain basic experience but unlike smaller team play games ineffective players are absorbed by the large numbers, so provided you’re not crashing loaded troop transports nobody notices. But seriously, please stop flying the damn troop transports.

Don’t exit vehicles hastily. It takes some time to learn to minimise the highly frustrating deaths that can seem outside your control, “favourites” being spawning in an air transport a second before it plummets into the ground, stepping out a vehicle just as it moves an inch more, being blasted to smithereens while failing miserably to free your tank from some minor foliage, walking into the overpowered yet minuscule sentry guns, or the sudden appearance of “respawning in 10″ with no apparent cause even in the console. If you can control the initial desire to scrub your PC of the bastard game and gleefully torture the disk with a lighter and penknife, there is a lot of enjoyment to be had.

There is a heavy bias towards the vehicles. BF veterans frequently comment the combat is much less vehicle biased than previous games, where it must have been really bad. They are vastly more powerful than infantry, who (particularly on the demo) have little at their disposal that can cause any damage to armour at all. Whilst the full game allows experienced engineer players to acquire weapons which are much more effective, infantry combat is still reserved for the immediate area around objectives.

At the objectives things are much more balanced, to the point that a vehicle is a liability against sneaky engineers. There’s cover to use while targeting the weak spots on armour, obvious places for mines and heavy gun emplacements even offer other infantry classes a chance. However, it remains that you have very limited use without transport. If you lose your vehicle in any of the empty spaces, expect to be useless for a long, long time. Thankfully silo areas spawn vehicles in Titan mode, and there is a suicide button on the class select screen.

The most effective vehicles, the gunship and the walker, are also the most popular ones – with 16+ players on your team and usually only one or two to go around, the best men do not get the job very often. BF games are frequently touted as a “sandbox” experience, and certainly players can find a wide variety of ways to make themselves useful, but it can also be restrictive as to what extent players can exercise specialised vehicle skills in any given round. Instead, players should approach it with the aim of achieving objectives, making use of whatever is available at the time – pity then that the vast array of available medals (which can award substantial points towards an unlock) are rarely objective orientated, it’s notable that there is no “number of titans destroyed” medal, but there is one for spending 10 seconds in a parachute (incidentally, surely a Halo medal should be awarded for the free-fall time…)

With the large number of objectives and people to complete them, games can turn into a scrabble of a skirmish, which can leave the player feeling a little aimless. It is quite a contrast when you get a good game going, with the well designed squad system dividing players into small, effective teams – teamplay is heavily rewarded in BF2142, both via results and via the artificial points system. Clans from other games, typically limited to a pool of 8 players at most, scoff at the huge clan armies that exist in Battlefield. Clanning in Battlefield is often more public-server focused however – it rapidly becomes clear that any loose affiliation of players will more regularly be able to find a solid squad to join. A good squad makes the difference from a game that can be quite fun and a game that is a lot of fun.

Additionally, each side has a single Commander player who can issue commands to the entire team, as well as perform other functions like move the Titan around, call in air strikes or supply drops. A good commander gives the team leadership and cohesion, greatly increasing he odds of winning. Unfortunately, the position doesn’t always attract good leaders, and Commanders getting high points does nothing to help. The voting system should eventually alleviate this, currently votes usually fail due to lack of participation, something that should improve over time.

Graphically, the visuals do the job plenty well enough, and are probably deserving of some credit if you’re into aesthetics. Any reader can make up their own mind from the various screenshots*, movies and demo, but it’s worth pointing out performance is actually pretty good. Using a 7800GTX, 3700+ AMD64 with 2gb RAM everything works fine at the high settings, which might not be spectacular but big open spaces can have a lot going on when servers can have as many as 64 players. I did however end up turning them down to a mix of medium and low settings as visibility is notably better (there is no significant config tweaking in BF2142, and note absence of widescreen options). The two teams should also be more distinguishable, for infantry it’s black with a little white vs. black and slightly less white. In practice, friend or foe is identified from the colouring of the name floating above them.

Creative’s X-Fi range of cards are promoted with the game, and from the options screen it appears you require one to obtain the best sound effects. Sticking with my old Audigy however, the audio is unimpressive yet hard to fault. Gunfire sounds sufficiently meaty, vehicles sufficiently… motorised, perhaps positioning could be better in stereo mode.

Lag can be a problem, but considering the amount of stuff that must be getting crammed down my measly 512k connection, I have to say the netcode generally isn’t bad. game play does not rely heavily on ‘twitch’ skills, so a small amount of lag does not have the consequences it might in other games. 32-player servers are my mainstay and provided you select carefully, lag is rarely a problem, on 64-player insanities it gets a lot worse but still better than I had expected.

I am not a big fan of “experience point” systems bringing artificial advantages for experienced players to pwn n00bs all the easier with, so you can probably guess my opinions on making them permanent under the guise of “unlocks”. Further, a significant time investment is required before you can be fully versatile. Some “unlocked” weapons are significantly superior to those initially available, so adapting to requirements carries a penalty. The concept does however mean you get continual rewards for your efforts, and maxing out the options for one specialist class is pretty easy. Crap round? At least it got you a few points closer to the next unlock.

With any major franchise, every new release brings much moaning from some quarters of the incumbent game. BF2142 is no different, with the main criticisms being that BF2142 is little more than a major modification or expansion pack for BF2, a game which they feel has been inadequately supported. As a Battlefield newbie, for me the game play is quite fresh and it is not a case of whether it is better or worse, but rather whether it is good entertainment or not. I cannot evaluate the veteran’s arguments beyond the evidence that BF2142 itself does not feel complete and polished.

A press release admires the “nearly 18 months of development”, but this is a short time for a triple-A title, and it shows. Many aspects of the game give a feeling that it needs a good six months more work to put it together properly. Titan mode is particularly afflicted, once inside players often stick out of what they’re hiding behind, bullet tracers whizz through walls, mines float through solid floors, “injured” players drift through the titan, making them difficult to revive. I don’t want to moan on about every bug, partly since bugs can be patched away – most of those I find most infuriating are already noted for patching, though some of these issues surely could not have gone unnoticed during QA testing.

A cynic might wonder if, on day of release, there was a grin or two in the offices at id Software. BF2142 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, two obviously competing games, were due to be released at roughly the same time. Did id throw in a red herring release date and watch EA rush to be first to market? BF2142 was released as announced but clearly several months too early, while ETQW endures a delay of several months – perhaps it will arrive when it’s done? PC game makers, id Software included, generally seem more concerned with the state of the platform than competing games, but if I had to bet on anyone falling for such a ploy I’d place all my chips on EA.

Battlefield is a cash-cow franchise for EA, and they milk it hard. When you first open the box, you are confronted by the famously alarming slip of paper, a leaflet advertising Creative X-Fi, and a booklet which is a 21 page advert masquerading as an “Official Gaming Guide” (the manual is 24 pages). During game installation, you are invited to install some GameSpy software, and if you choose not to it still puts files on your disk and slips an invitation to install it on the Start Menu folder. Then you’re invited to register the purchase with EA by handing over your personal details, and fill out a marketing survey. The survey promises a freebie of some kind – this isn’t a free unlock, but a trivial tip.

All angles are covered in the pursuit of revenue, for most games there is a free dedicated server program, but here server operators have to pay for a licence if they want to run ranked Battlefield servers. Obviously this cost is passed onto their customers, who provide the public servers that the game is completely reliant upon.

The slip of paper previously mentioned refers to the monitoring of in game advertising, a subject which deserves an article in itself. I’m not ecstatic about adverts within games, and it is difficult to imagine them being thematic, given it’s supposed to be the year 2142 during an ice age and everybody at war. The adverts haven’t been activated yet but there are a significant number of billboards that look likely positioning, my impression is they will detract somewhat from the theme but otherwise not get in the way. Server hosts must have awfully sore backsides by now, they pay for all the hardware, bandwidth and maintenance (not to mention the EA Rank tax) that is utterly crucial to the game and yet who is getting paid from the advertising being displayed to players on their servers? Consumers should be wondering why they are being bombarded with marketing and yet receiving no price discount.

Copyright protection is further evidence of the focus on revenue. CD-Keys are required for installation, and on-line authentication, so it is excessive to require that the DVD be in the drive for on-line play. How much does all this copyright protection cost anyway?

Battlefield 2142 game play is fun and interesting, despite it’s flaws. Take any review site that breaks scores down into categories and I’d have to give it a good 7 or 8 out of 10 for each, it deserves it for graphics, sound, game play – all the usual categories. It’s a multitude of other things that drags it down, has you sighing when you should be grinning. Granted, some of these issues are the fixable kind, but if comments from BF2 players are anything to go by I’m only so optimistic, despite the promises. One can’t help wondering if this would have been a really great game if there was less focus on revenue and more on development.

Orignal article: www.gamersnation.co.uk/Core/article/sid=948.html

Author: Egon Vennik
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The gaming industry has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, which has infected everyone from, every known aspect of society. From rich to poor, child to adult, everyone has had come in contact at on point in time with video games, so much now that there is a need for these reviews to act as advertising to the masses. Also for the amazing amount of different genres and more realistic video games being produced monthly, it has become so much easier for adult content, violence, and even nudity to find its way to the wrong type of audience, say children.

That type of mishap has happened before and to a grand scale. The many video game bodies of America and the world have been given ultimatums by the censorship boards that have to clean up these sort messes, and tighten their grip on what is the correct thing to do. They now have a tougher criterion when handing out these ratings for Mature, Everyone, Teen etc. And there are now stiff penalties for anyone choosing to stray from the rules that have been set by these boards.

These reviews are done by any number of individuals, websites or business that revolves around the innumerable characteristics of the gaming industry. And reviews on every single game has to provide some kind of useful information to not only the users of these games, but also the reviews work as an advertising post and putting the game out there for potential new gamers that may be interested in the games.

The majority of these reviews are done for online gaming sites, and various e-zines that relay that information to a wide number of people. Some examples of these sites and search engines are: Tech TV, Game Spot, Game Zone, IGN Games, Game Rankings, Computer Games Online, Business Week/Game Room, Gamers, Review Center etc. And these are just a few of the popular reviews that are available to the public. There are actually millions of sites on line that give out this information, and the games are reviewed by a lot of players also, so you always get great feedback on the games of your choice.

These games are reviewed by any and everyone and are for the many consoles out there; Xbox, Xbox 360, Playstation, PS2, Nintendo Game Cube, Nintendo DS, and even for the PC. Games are already being tested and reviewed for the highly anticipated PS3. I just shudder to think about it, such grandeur. Anyway these ratings are very important, it lets you know what to spend your money on, what games are right for children, if you highly awaited game sucks, or scores, or if you just want to know what the competition is up too.

Kevin Dark is an online marketer. You may find more information on game reviews on his new site.

Author: Kevin Dark
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Guest blogger

As we covered yesterday, there’s a new, massively-overhauled Steam client currently in beta testing. As always with enthusiastic gamers, it didn’t take long for someone to hack at the files of the new software and discover signs of a potential Mac OS X client. If the screenshot above isn’t big enough to make out the Mac OS X widgets, check out some larger images: screenshot 1, screenshot 2. Pretty damning evidence of an in-the-works Mac client, in my opinion!

Will the beta that they’re currently running eventually extend to Mac users? More importantly, will Steam start stocking more than just a handful of games that will run on Mac OS X?

Source: Valve’s Steam coming to Mac OS X?

1UP staff Sam, Scooter, Jeremy, and Alice discuss Nintendo’s Summit, including Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. Hint: We’re pretty excited to see what Nintendo has in stored for E3 2010!

If you’ve heard of DOTA or Defense of the Ancients, then you have likely heard about the upcoming Heroes of Newerth release. Let’s start by giving you a little background in to DotA. Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is a custom scenario for the real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the “Aeon of Strife” map for StarCraft. The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents’ Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters called “creeps”. As in role-playing games, players level up their hero and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.

Since its release, Allstars has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments, including Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon and the Asian World Cyber Games, as well as the Cyberathlete Amateur and CyberEvolution leagues; Gamasutra declared that DotA was perhaps the most popular “free, non-supported game mod in the world”.

Fast forward to Heroes of Newerth, the second iteration of the popular scenario. The game plays exactly the same as it did in DotA but with a few big differences. First, this is a stand-alone game on to itself allowing the creation of additional maps and avatars. The game has roughly the same UI with notable differences in screen resolution and overall graphic quality. Graphics in this game are very good, and rather breathtaking when compared to their earlier cousin.

Heroes of Newerth also has a single shop building rather than about a dozen you see in DotA. This is due in part to the custom environment allowing for tiered shop spaces. There are secret shops scattered about the map allowing you to purchase powerful artifacts and getting to them is easy as long as you aren’t discovered by one of your opponents.

Creeps come in waves where NPC creatures make their way to opposing villages. You have the ability to support them and help them defeat defense towers along the way and ultimately your opponent’s ancients. These creeps gain in strength and numbers as the game progresses.

Heroes of Newerth is a thinking game and one best done on your toes. You have to keep up with your equipment upgrades, maintaining three fronts, combating an array of enemies both human and NPC while remembering what their various powers and skills are. What struck me as most difficult about the game is learning to be on the lookout for and recognizing various skills, spells and equipment powers by their visual effects. This can be the difference between a victory and defeat if you mistake an opponent baring barbed armor for an easy kill.

Overall, this game is exceptional in beta and we here at The Daily PWN can’t wait to see it in the wild. Special thanks goes to Atma, Phyzzx, RevDr and Seth for showing me the ropes.

The game takes place, as the title suggests, in Liberty City, which is the city that Grand Theft Auto III (the series’ first 3D game) is also situated in. Rockstar Leeds simply converted the city onto the UMD, and changed a few things to make it look more modern, as LCS is set after III. Having said that, the only real changes are shops, which have different names and styles, which is quite disappointing. A new city to explore would have been much better.

You play as Toni Cipriani, a no nonsense guy who’s willing to do anything and remove anybody in his way. Unlike GTA III, he can talk, which makes the cutscenes better. The basic story mode consists of missions that do tend to get repetitive. You’ll go to a guy on your map, he’ll give you a mission that usually involves killing someone, and you get paid once you’re done. Once you’ve completed enough missions, you’ll move on to the second island of Liberty City. There are three islands in total, and you unlock them over time. It’s a good incentive to complete the missions, but for people who have played GTA III, there’s nothing really new.

Though the game focuses on missions, the free roam ability is truly magnificent. You may find yourself playing it over and over again, and rarely getting tired of it. There is no free roam mode, in fact there are no modes, the game simply loads when you turn it on. Whether or not you choose to engage in a mission is up to you. If you choose not to, you can roam freely around the city, causing havoc, or just exploring. You can also collect a number of weapons, ranging from pistols and UZI’s to rocket launchers, flamethrowers and sniper rifles. You’ll also have melee weapons such as knives and baseball bats. Or, if you want to do some damage from a distance, use a grenade or Molotov cocktail.The amount of weapons in the game is similar to the PS2 versions, which means there’s loads.

The cops are still present, so if you blow off too many heads, you’ll get some heat on you. The cops are divided into levels with the usual system. You have 1 star at the beginning, and if you keep blowing things up, eventually it will increase to 6 stars, and you’ll have the army after you.

The vehicles in the game are again similar to previous versions. Veterans will remember the Patriot, Cheetah, Infernus, Banshee and so on, although some have redesigns which look more modern. You can also have motorbikes, which have never been seen around Liberty City before Motorbikes are generally faster and have better handling than the cars, and make it easier to perform unique jumps, and such. There are no bicycles in the game, which was a nice addition to San Andreas. As you progress through the game you will also have the chance to ride boats. It’s not as fun as it sounds, and it never really has been in any of the GTA games. Boat handling is sluggish and it’s not fun to drive them. You can no longer fly. Anything. Not a thing. The Dodo was a plane on GTA III that was located in the airport, which you could fly, or at least try to. This time there is no Dodo, no helicopters, no planes whatsoever. It really feels like a missing factor, although in one of the missions it is possible to steal a helicopter, so the physics and controls are still technically in the game. Why there are no planes to fly is confusing. The police still have choppers following you, so watch out.

A new mode of transportation is the ferry. It’s basically a slow boat ride and you don’t get to drive the boat. You even have to pay for the service. It is a quick way of getting from island to island though, and you do get to keep your car.

The general controls of vehicles is good. Sports cars have great speeds and handling, and slow cars have reduced turning capacity. The controls on foot have been changed dramatically. You use the small analog style stick to control Toni, and vehicles. The directional buttons are used for changing weapons and starting various side missions. Of course the PSP has less buttons than the PS2 controller, so condensing everything was not an easy task. Sometimes the controls do feel very fiddly and it can be frustrating when you need to target things quickly.

Adding on to the “Toni Can’t” list, is the ability to swim. Implemented in San Andreas, this feature is absent. It’s only really missed when you fall off a cliff into the water, as you could swim to the side and get out. Instead, Toni simply drowns. All of the abilities to increase stats are no longer present, but it’s not particularly missed.

Toni can change clothes, and there are some nice options. He is unable to change specific body parts, instead you choose from full suits. Though changing clothes is a small part of the game, you probably would never notice this option if it wasn’t required for some missions.

If you don’t want to do any main missions, you can engage in some of the side missions. Famous in all PS2 GTA games, these usually involve Taxi missions, in which you act as a taxi driver and deliver passengers before time elapses. Ambulance missions, where you take sick people to hospital. Firetruck missions, which involves putting out fires like burning cars. A new side mission is the dump truck mission. You simply need to collect all the green trash cans within the time limit. All these missions are basically the same repetitive actions. The rewards are worth the effort though.

There are also hidden packages throughout the game in various locations. Nothing new to the series, but collecting all 100 adds weapons to your hide out. Unique jumps are large jumps where the camera changes and it goes in slow motion. When you successfully complete a unique jump, you’ll get money for your effort. While these things are by no means new additions, they are nice to have, and it expands the game.

We all know that the PSP has wireless capabilities, and Liberty City Stories takes advantage of that. The wireless multiplayer action is staggeringly good. You must have friends with PSP’s and copies of the game, but if you do, you’re in luck. The game allows for total free play with your friends. There are many different game modes which adhere to the capture the flag premise. Most of the games work in this way. Liberty City Survivor allows players to play against each other. This is the mode you’ll be playing none stop. Even after you have finished the game, it is unlikely that you will get bored of the multiplayer action.

Liberty City Stories has the same radio themed soundtrack. When you enter a vehicle you can choose from a number of radio stations, all of which have different styles of music. The soundtrack has some known tracks from the era, but nothing too impressive. In comparison with the Vice City and San Andreas soundtracks, this is sub-standard.

The graphics throughout the game are fairly cartoony. The series was never meant to be a simulator, but some smoother graphics would have been nice. Sometimes it can seem that Toni has several legs when you are running. Also, at times the frame rate has trouble keeping up, but only when there is lots on the screen at once. For the most part, the frame rate holds up well. The loading times are acceptable. There is a loading period at the start and then as you cross between islands, a loading screen will appear, but only for a few seconds.

Overall, it’s a great addition to the Grand Theft Auto series, and the PSP line up. You can’t help but feel it’s just a watered down version of a PS2 GTA, or simply an expansion pack, that doesn’t expand on much. Nevertheless, the action in single player, and in particular, multiplayer, is well worth the purchase.

http://www.articlecore.com was created to provide articles on a number of different subjects ranging from PSP game reviews to Science.

The site is owned and run by Carl S. Richardson and Joe Denison, who are also known for a number of other websites including http://www.rawpulse.com a Playstation gaming website.

Author: Carl S. Richardson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

In Trine, you play three different characters at the same time but not simultaneously. I know that sounds odd but imagine three characters forced to share the same space. Only one can be present in the material realm at once so you have the ability to hot-swap between them as you come across obstacles that may be easily solved by different characters. You play a thief, a wizard and a knight. There is, however, a cooperative feature that allows your friend to play one of the three characters with you simultaneously.

The wizard has the ability to create steam-punk shapes and devices that allow you to solve the puzzles with ease. The thief can shoot a bow and arrow and use a grappling hook to swing from one platform to another. The knight has a sword for melee and a shield to defend against obstacles and enemies. The wizard can move objects telepathically as well as create objects out of thin air.

Game play is smooth and the music is absolutely perfect for the environment. This is a very artistic game and one that uses the Nvidia Phys-x engine quite well. Even almost a year out of development, this title still has the look and feel of a game rumored years down the road.

Metacritic gave Trine a score in the low 80s while Gamespot gave it an Editor’s Choice award at E3. This is a game worth purchasing especially at its current price of $5.00 USD.

Edit Note: The facts presented above are not entirely accurate. Special thanks to Richard Bartle for clarifying. A revised paragraph appears below:

Crowther and Woods wrote ADVENT, aka Adventure, aka Colossal Cave, which was not a MUD. It was an adventure game (indeed, it gave its name the the genre) but it wasn’t a world that was either shared, persistent or real-time – all of which are qualities required of a MUD. Its textual interface was used by MUDs, though.

Commands in muds generally included north, south, up, down, east, west, get all, wield sword, kill raccoon and so on. These commands were simple, and thanks to mud programs like Zmud by Zuggsoft, were usually hot mapped to a single key.

MUDs still exist today and are played by thousands of people thanks to their simplicity and accessibility. MUDs appear very ungame-like and this makes them a very popular gaming experience for the office. One of my favorites from over a decade ago is a mud called Arctic, based on the world of DragonLance described by authors like Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Arctic has been around since the early years of muds and relies on a code base called DIKU which has been heavily customized and modified. Currently, it still hosts between 30 and 100 simultaneous players at any given time.

Thank you MasterOfHyrule!

Who could forget this little YouTube classic?

Family & Fitness Stadium Events in the original box with the dust jacket inside of the box.

In the coming weeks, regular episodes will be produced in a much more polished and well-rehearsed fashion. For now please enjoy the pilot. More articles about the content discussed in the episode will follow.

On first impression, I was immediately reminded of Eve Online. Eve set the standard for a space MMORPG though some of its minor setbacks seem to be non-existent in the Star Trek title.  For one, you have direct control of your ship as it zips across the universe. Even though many obstacles that impede your targeting and shooting don’t damage your ship upon impact, it is a fun steering your vessel around asteroids and other space debris. Warping from system to system is done by sending you in to a tactical map where systems are set out in a 3D environment. It may not seem as if you are moving at many times the speed of light. Nothing in this part of the game is to scale, as your ship appears to be roughly the size of a star when warping between systems. Once you arrive at your destination, things go back to normal and you find yourself on impulse speed.

You can focus your ship resources to give you better weapon power, shields, speed and a more balanced preset with a touch of a button on your HUD. Shields are a constant concern as you enter combat and in order to survive you need to quickly become accustomed to monitoring your shield power levels. If your rear shields are taking a significant hit, you can reroute power on the fly from other shields, ask your engineering officer to perform an emergency boost and steal power from other systems to maintain your shield strength. Hull damage is a big problem and one that can disable your craft quickly if you don’t maintain your shield capacity.

Weapons systems on the ship are customizable and very important to your survival in this war-stricken universe. Phasers, photon torpedoes and other various weapons of Star Trek are present here. The U.S.S. Daily PWN is fitted with a front-facing photon torpedo and a disruption beam while the rear sports a classic phaser.

In the next article I’ll go in to more detail about away teams and early missions.

Treet is a multimedia company with three years of production experience creating live television in virtual worlds including sports, talk shows, game shows and even live music. Virtual worlds are an easy fit with gaming and we feel that producing a show in a virtual world including games from the real world will be a unique experience for viewers unlike anything currently out there.

This is a bet we’re happy to take as The Daily PWN goes from a hobby site to a full time experience for readers and viewers. Thank you for your patience and for everyone hat has helped support us over the last three years as we enter the realm of other mainstream gaming sites.

Matt

Graphics in this game are unusually limiting. There really isn’t a way to set a resolution beyond switching from full screen to windowed mode. The game looks great though the graphics are what you would expect from a typical flash game on any number of websites out there.

In fact, Elf Bowling is available on many of the flash websites out there either in download form or a limited play form. A free demo is even available that lets you play the game for one hour in order to give it a try. We found this title for a couple dollars on Steam.

What makes this bowling game especially different from all the others is their system of advantages and disadvantages you can use to help you. By rolling your ball over coin-shaped pieces on the alley, you can gain advantages during your next turn such as a bigger ball, a rocket that guarantees a strike if you aim it correctly, a rock ball that splits and makes you immune to oil slicks and others. You can also sabotage your opponent using oil slicks, gravel that grinds their ball down in size, barricades that block the ball and knock it in the gutter and many others. These extras make for a wacky kind of bowling that breaks the traditional bowling game monotony.

The elves constantly shout phrases that directly reference annoying Internet memes such as “Chocolate Rain”. They do this to intimidate and annoy you and it works, especially when they pass gas at you as you get ready to take your turn. Their voices remind me of Foamy cartoons which is another Internet sensation.

Controls are simple. You move your cursor left or right to set up your stance, hold down and push your mouse to set your speed and power and continue aiming as the ball makes its way down the isle. You have control of your ball from start to finish which comes in handy when your opponent uses dirty tricks like setting up a giant magnet.

Overall, the experience is exceptional for the price. I intended to play the game for about an hour and three hours later decided that this one will be in rotation at our house for some time to come.

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Some shapes are intelligent and move away from your line of fire while others wiggle their way around randomly. Your job is to survive inside a restricted play area for as long as possible while taking out as many opponents as you can. It’s simple and fun or as they put it, “Retro Evolved.”

Graphics couldn’t be more simple. Everything is wire frame and only a few minor effects here and there hint that development happened in the past two decades. Explosions are plentiful and tend to fill your screen as you wipe out opponents with a sweep of your mouse.

You can fire on opponents using your standard blaster or opt for an area attack occasionally when threatened from all sides. There really isn’t a lot to learn so the learning curve is little to none.

Sound effects aren’t epic though they are very well placed. They don’t sound as retro as the game looks and for that reason alone Geometry Wars has earned a few points with us at The Daily PWN. The musical soundtrack is good enough to not only make you think twice about muting it in exchange for your own tunes, but crank it up loud enough to really enjoy.

Overall, Geometry Wars is a great title available at a low price via Steam and other fine downloading services. Bizarre Creations has really created a sleeper hit with this title and I believe it deserves a lot more credit than it has received from the overall gaming community.

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Gameplay is smooth and fun on both the Mac and PC versions. Penguins Arena is a first person shooter and there isn’t much making it any different than any other shooter out there game wise. You can respawn and eventually return as a ghost with the ability to help your surviving team mates or hurt your remaining opponents until the end of the round.

The object is to push your opponents off the arena space using snowballs and avoid being struck hard enough to lose your stance on land as well. If you fall in the water sharks are waiting to take you out of the round until your respawn or ghostly return.

Graphics aren’t overwhelming though they are comical and intentionally so. The graphics fit the overall theme of the game and for that reason there really isn’t any faulting the developers.

Every purchase of Penguins Arena helps fund KIVA.org which provides loans to unique entrepreneurs in developing countries to help lift them out of poverty. It’s a person-to-person micro-lending website.

Overall, the game is fun for all ages. It features cheesy graphics and a silly storyline though it proves itself addictive to even the hardcore gamer.

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Geo-Defense has amazing sounds and big explosions. It’s simple and easy to understand. The game reminds me of Tron and not in a bad way. One very positive aspect is once you leave the game using the home button, your place is saved and picked up when you load it back up. This makes Geo-Defense a solid app for use when you just need to kill a few minutes.

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As we enter Inventor Mode, or single-player, we are greeted with a list of puzzles to tackle. They get increasingly difficult and unlock as you gain star points. The basic function of each puzzle is to connect one object to another through using pipes, gears and other mechanical tools. The goal can range from ringing a bell to blowing up a baloon or turning a giant wheel on at the end of the puzzle. Further down the line, you can even make rockets blast off.

This game closely reminded me of the hacking puzzles in Bioshock or that boring little picture puzzle on the Windows Vista Sidebar. They’re simple displacement puzzles some on a two dimensional plane and others span across a multi-surface cube requiring you to keep the link going across all sides. This game is indeed challenging and would make for a great experience for children and adults alike.

The sound track is soothing to the point of being sleep inducing so unless you’re playing right before bed you may want to opt to exchange the game music with your own. Speaking of music, a version of Cogs is set for release on the iPhone and iPod Touch in January of 2010.

Overall, Cogs is playable by just about anyone from any age group. It is a worthy challenge to even the most clever of minds and a great tool for working out your logic skills. It is both fun and educational which is a rare combination to find in widely distributed game titles.

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Years ago, during the time of rampant shareware and the BBS, I remember asking my father if there is any software available that comes with no registration fee or cost. He told me that at that point in time making programs for free is something that just isn’t done because if they didn’t sell it, what’s the point?

The hot multiplayer computer game of the time was Trade Wars 2002 which featured breathtaking (yeah) ascii graphics and a limited number of turns per day to allow others to dial in to the BBS and play. Trade Wars could be played for free by anyone that logged in pending the Sysop didn’t require some membership fee for the BBS itself. The Sysop would pay the $45.00 registration fee for the full version that featured a larger universe and more control over aspects of the game. Piracy was rampant even during those days.

Today, shareware is still easily found though the movement towards Creative Commons and Open Source software has taken hold in a big way among gaming communities. Games such as Wolfenstein 3D, Quake III Arena, Quake II and others are making the source code available for others to modify and enjoy. To some, these games are too old to be marketable though thanks to services such as Steam and Playstation Marketplace we are quickly discovering just how popular these titles can become.

Some developers have created clones of popular purchasable titles and released them for free. Freedoom has made an open source version of the classic Doom title. Pingus has created a Lemmings clone that has gained a lot of popularity as a free publication. Hedgewars has done the same with the classic Worms series.

Whatever your taste for games may be, there’s no denying that the movement towards free media and open source software is having an impact on the gaming world.

In 2001 I set out to assemble my first custom gaming PC. It included a 1.6GHz AMD processor, 512MB of SDRAM and a GeForce 4 video card. This machine was screaming fast at the time and allowed me to play titles ranging from Unreal Tournament to Operation Flashpoint. The total cost for the machine was about $750.00 which at the time was three times less than you would epect to pay for a preconfigured machine from companies like Dell, HP and others. This was a great time to be a geek, because by buying your own parts and assembling them yourself you ended up saving enough to spend you money on other things like… games.

Today things are very different. Companies like iBUYPOWER and CyberPowerPC are assembling amazing machines made for gaming at a cost that may make you think twice about assembling your own system. You can get a fully capable system with all the components you need to make any modern game run well for well under the price you might expect to pay for a low-end budget PC five years ago. You might be thinking, “Sure, they’re cheap because they contain cheap parts.” Well that’s where things become a little fuzzy.

The Daily PWN bought a system for game reviews from CyberPowerPC a year ago. The machine was kitted out with an EVGA GeForce 9800 GT. The name brand part was very encouraging and wasn’t expected in a lower-cost PC. We also got a generic power supply that shorted out severely after an hour of use. This short cost us $120 USD to fix at the local Fry’s Electronics for a replacement power supply. You get what you get with these brands. Sometimes you luck out and find some really good components and others you find parts made by the lowest bidder. This is one reason you may want to avoid these kinds of deals.

Another reason costs are so low on these gaming machines is lack of proper customer service. Customer service has long been known to be the biggest expense of any hardware manufacturer. Call centers cost money and cutting corners is something done by virtually every company in the industry from small start-ups to giant conglomerates. When the power supply went out on the CyberPowerPC, we were informed that shipping the part back would be at our cost and we’d have to front the cash for the replacement part until it was determined that a short actually exists. Is this a way to run a company? It is when your profit margin is minimal. Please note that though I mention iBUYPOWER above, the experience was exclusive to CyberPowerPC and we have not yet worked with iBUYPOWER customer service.

These issues aside, for the 95% of people that have a flawless experience as intended by their computer assemblers and manufacturers… these machines are the perfect platform at the perfect price. You can pay double or triple the amount for a brand name that you have more trust in, but in this economy do you really want to?

matt@dailypwn.com

We found this video on Break and decided to give it a watch. If there is one thing that annoys and ruins the game for a server it’s someone running a hack and this one is one of the crazier ones out there. It’s a simple hack and one that we fully expect the game developers to plug rather quickly. Essentially, you can shoot and endless stream of bullets at your foes instead of having to reload or hit your ammunition limit and switch to another weapon.

It appears to be official, digital comics are coming to PSP. The combination of comics and gaming is a traditional pairing dating back to the days of the early Nintendo games featuring Spider-man and such titles as Comix Zone. Gamers and comic enthusiasts are cousins for sure and perhaps this new initiative might seal the deal for some still-on-the-fence gamers deciding which handheld platform to migrate to. Bear in mind that the iPod Touch has had comics available on it for some time and may not see any change in numbers over this addition to the PSP lineup.

PlayStation Digital Comics Now Available For PSP – Psp comics – Gizmodo

Coming good on its promise, Sony’s PlayStation Network Digital Comics service has launched, with PSP owners in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa able to download Marvel classics for as little as 99 cents.

Related articles:

The Gamesblog top 50 Games of the Noughties – 10-2 | Technology | guardian.co.uk

So, here we are: the top ten. Well, 90% of it anyway. We’ll be dealing with the greatest game of the decade tomorrow, but for now here are the titles that almost made it. There are a couple of surprises in here, and several shocking omissions. That’s democracy for ya!

Okay, get ready to feel vindicated – or enraged…

Read the entire article here.

Read the entire article here.

In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare you capture a high-value prisoner with ties to the mastermind behind a nuclear threat to a major city. They tied him to a chair and beat him with solid punches to the face. He sits there in pain for a moment only to be shot in the head after the commanding officer receives a phone call with the information they were attempting to extract from the bound prisoner. This execution would be expected at the hands of the Vietcong, Sadaam Hussein and Kim Jong Il but not at the hands of American soldiers.

Call of Duty: World at War contained a scene depicting the surrender of enemy combatants. These prisoners held their hands in the air begging for life and you were given the chance to make the decision to execute or detain them. Of course if you choose not to execute them yourself your team will throw Molotov cocktails at them and burn them alive. Throughout the game an enemy character would drop their weapons and flee for their lives or surrender on the spot. It’s your decision whether or not they live or die though there is no penalty for slaughtering a surrendered soldier.

The most recent installment of Call of Duty features possibly the most controversial scene to date. You are undercover with the Russians as they walk in to a crowded airport. Unarmed citizens stand in line awaiting their planes unsuspecting of the carnage soon to follow. It’s your job to follow and even join the Russians as they mow down hundreds of unarmed and fleeing citizens. The game’s developers put an option in to skip the airport scene for those with less desire to enact the slaughter of innocent civilians. The question remains, was this really necessary?

I thought, why not do a test snippet of a tech snippet filmed in a virtual world. This particular project is made for Treet.TV as fill material. It’s a pilot and obviously unpolished.

Joystick Division – Judge Plays Sick To Game Modern Warfare 2 All Day

This video has been lighting up Digg and other link sharing sites lately. It features someone’s screen capture as they toss a knife across a map in a random effort to take out an enemy that has the player pinned behind a wall. This knife throw turns out to hit its target perfectly behind a wall as they ran behind a building.

There are several key factors to what makes for a great game in the modern playing environment. Graphics are often used by some developments to create love at first sight while others may concentrate on storytelling and interactivity. The Total War series does something very different as it throws massive armies on the field of play with unit numbers far exceeding that which you may be accustomed to in most real-time strategy titles.

Rome is at war with neighboring countries and you are a warlord empowered by your empire to conquer enemies and seize townships and lands. Once your army and holdings are strong enough you can eventually opt to overtake Rome itself and claim it as your own.

With armies as large as the ones you command on the field of battle, graphics take a significant hit. This isn’t a gorgeous game up close and in zoom but it does have its moments as hundreds of soldiers clash swords at your command.

If you are new to the Total War series, controls can be difficult to understand at first though the tutorial given at the beginning of your campaign is very good at explaining the details of the UI. This explanation is somewhat long and boring if you are familiar with the commands and just want to get to the meat of the game.

Overall, this is a brilliantly balanced experience with battle on a grand scale. Graphics are poor though the experience is in the numbers and not detail. If your favorite RTS has a unit limit that makes you frown, give Rome a try.

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Second Life is a virtual world like none other. It has a special place in the heart of artists, musicians and graphics designers as anything you make or do in Second Life is your own and not immediately property of the parent company, Linden Labs. In this episode of Metanomics the idea of using virtual worlds for enterprise meetings and projects becomes much more believable as Second Life Enterprise is launched.

Second Life Enterprise allows companies to run their own version of Second Life behind a corporate firewall allowing them to enjoy more security, reliability and customization suited to the needs of the corporation.

For a limited time if you spend $44.99 to pre-purchase Left 4 Dead 2 Steam has sweetened the deal by giving you a spiffy hat you can wear in Team Fortress 2. This might be enough to deter the outcry over releasing another overpriced release as a second chapter to the original incomplete offering. The initial response by players after hearing that instead of patching and adding content to the short and repetitive experience of the first chapter Valve decided it would be more profitable to create a second edition that cost as much as the first.

We here at DailyPWN.com are big fans of Left 4 Dead, don’t get me wrong but we’re not sure if this ad is meant to make fun of would-be customers or actually attempt to entice them. You get a brown beret added to your cartoony character in a game that in itself is aging. Team Fortress 2 is a fun experience but does a digital brown hat justify a $44.99 price tag for a chapter of a game that should have come with the original release?

Valve do your customer base a favor and add the melee combat feature to the original Left 4 Dead, promote the community by throwing a few extra maps in a patch release for pre-purchasers and I’m sure you’ll be rewarded for your effort with more buzz around the next step in the evolution of the story. This is not to say that there isn’t a great deal of excitement over Left 4 Dead 2. I’m just saying that maybe you’re adding insult to injury with this silly deal.

M.R.

Aion Online features an ongoing battle between three major factions (two playable) vying for control of the Abyss and areas connected through rifts that open between spaces. A more detailed look at this world and how it is shaped by events and regions will come later in this series including an article dedicated entirely to the NPC race known as the Balaur.

The Elyos, often referred to as the good guys and compared to as the Alliance featured in World of Warcraft, defend their lands and their holdings in the Abyss against invasion by the Asmodian and Balaur forces. They are the privileged faction allowed to bask in light. Their primary foes are the Asmodian whom they hold responsible for destroying the Tower of Eternity which has held a hostile race known as Balaur in another dimension until its destruction.

The Asmodian faction is another playable faction in game that is forced to live in the northern regions of a world known as Atreia which is without significant light and growth. These characters are often more demonic in appearance though still obviously from the same human-like ancestry the Elyos hold. Their appearance is no-doubt an adaption to their rugged environment. Like the Elyos, they too hold their enemies responsible for the destruction of the Tower of Eternity.

This long-running blood feud is one of the central points of Aion allowing for vigorious PvP. In the clip above, a group of Asmodians have entered Elyos lands through a rift or portal that temporarily connects the two lands together making it possible for them to come over. On either side, invasions are typically met with a strong and swift response by the lands natives.

Aion Online has come with a splash and we here at DailyPWN.com would like to give you a thorough review of the new MMORPG by dedicating 30 days to reviewing each aspect of the game. We’re kicking this month off with a very simple and somewhat silly premise, base jumping.

Base jumping is one of the interesting sports made possible by the unique ability of flight that Aion is built on. This ability isn’t available in all towns but gliding to avoid falling to your demise is available in almost all areas of the game. The above video demonstrates the gliding ability including some basic flight to a landing. It’s important to note here that lag can be detrimental to your ability to survive the jump as deploying your wings before you actually touch down on the bottom is essential to your survival. One clip shows damage taken from releasing the wings before you have made it close enough to the ground. You can die by simply falling for too long as the air apparently has the ability to kill you before you come close to the ground.

Aion is full of areas that are elevated well above ground level and some are so far away from any ground source that you never see what’s below.

Zombies are hotter than ever in the gaming world and almost every day it seems another zombie game finds its way on the shelves and available for direct download. Nation Red is no exception though it certainly brings a new twist that other recent zombie titles lack.

Left 4 Dead is a cooperative game where you team up with your three best friends to take on countless hordes of undead minions as they claw and shuffle their way towards you. It is a first person shooter and has become a sleeping giant in the gaming world spawning a sudden revival in the world of zombie gaming. I mention Left 4 Dead because many similar titles have sprouted up from independent and major developers alike. They share qualities such as being first person shooters, cooperative, realistic, quasi role-playing, physics driven or all of the above.

Nation Red throws a twist on the popular genre by bringing 3rd person play to the table along with a very unrealistic amount and consistency of weapon and armor drops. It also removes the role-playing aspect that some games have brought to the table in an effort to introduce characters that add humor and entertainment to the gaming experience. Everything in this game aside from the zombies is the opposite of what you imagine when someone brings it up as a zombie shooter.

Graphics in Nation Red are highly adjustable though not ground breaking. It’s a good looking game with a ton of leg room for a variety of gaming pcs of various budgets and capabilities. The focus of Nation Red isn’t on the awe factor of amazing graphics but rather on the fun of taking out as many zombies as you can before they swarm you and take you out.

Overall, Nation Red is a great experience for the price and worth picking up if you really love zombie games and might be searching for something other than a first person shooter.

After the demo was given a brief review I couldn’t help but to take on the challenge of seeing what else was in store for gamers that moved beyond the demo and ventured forth in to the full version of the game called Osmos. Osmos is a simple game of conquest and timing that mimics the type of experience found in the single cell organism stage of Spore. Though you do not evolve, your challenge most certainly does as stages go from relaxed and simple to difficult and complex.

In one stage, you are given the goal of absorbing the other blue orbs in the area while fighting the forces of gravitational pull set forth by some very deadly rotating red orbs. As you make contact with orbs larger than your own or specially assigned to be more powerful your orb shrinks until it is completely absorbed by them. The first rule of Osmos is to absorb orbs smaller than yourself in order to take their mass in to yourself and grow. The larger you are the easier your tasks become.

Timing is a big part of the overall experience. You have to build up speed without making contact with larger or more aggressive spheres. You are given the ability to slow down and speed up time is given to you as a tool to get you out of sticky situations. Many of the later zones are really puzzles that test your ability to use your environment to solve.

Overall Osmos is a great game that costs under ten dollars to pick up on Steam or Direct2Drive downloading services. For that price, it definitely offers bang for the buck.

It happens from time to time that the best game is also the most casual. Some serious gamers frowned on Spore in its simplicity and overall appeal to non-gamers more than hardcore gamers while others may have jumped at the chance to enjoy something less intense and more laid back than normal. Spore is a good starting point when it comes to discussing Osmos.

Osmos as a whole is pretty much like taking the single-cell organism stage of spore and removing all of the evolution while leaving in the growth effect that comes after devouring smaller cells. The controls and propulsion system reminds me of a cross between lunar lander and the old asteroids arcade game. Your fuel is limited by your own sheer mass as you eject tiny portions of yourself in order to propel in your desired direction. As you use your “fuel” your mass shrinks. You absorb smaller orbs as you contact them to regain your mass and fall victim to larger ones as well. It is possible in this game to lose enough of your mass propelling towards another orb to turn your would-be snack in to a dangerous threat.

Even though this may sound fairly challenging it really isn’t. This is a perfect game to play right before bed as you are winding down for the evening. Osmos might well be a great stress reliever as well thanks to a brilliant musical score and very laid back game mechanics.

Thanks to some very helpful gamers, Wellpoo, Phyzzx (Igknot) and AtmaDunes we here at The Daily PWN have been turned on to a custom scenario for Warcraft III called Defense of the Ancients (DotA). This interesting addition to the Frozen Throne expansion has an expansive library of items, heroes and skills that makes it one of the most complex and comprehensive custom scenarios I’ve seen since the City of Arabel was introduced to the server list for Neverwinter Nights. If that isn’t an obscure reference, I don’t know what is.

In any case, this gaming experience deserves a proper review that is all-inclusive. We will revisit this after extensive play. In the meantime, if you have the Warcraft Battle Chest head over to the official DotA website and download this for free.

For half a year now, our gaming group has been meeting every Saturday for about six hours to play a game based on Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 called Pathfinder. Pathfinder is considered to be the largest and most expansive addition to the D20 genre made to date with over 50,000 play testers developing their new rules released this week in their Core Rulebook. This rulebook has been dubbed version 3.75 by many of its play testers including some from our own group.

Pathfinder has done a lot of research in to expanding on the rules set down by 3.5 and tweaking things to be a little more balanced and easier to understand without becoming the MMO style rule set that 4th edition seems to be. Primary classes are beefed up slightly to reduce the reliance on prestige classes for advantage while creating campaign settings that challenge the new strengths.

Piazo, the publisher, is a very strong advocate for open gaming and the content of the rulebook is no exception to this. They strongly encourage the OGL (Open Game License) and apply it to their materials where available.

Pathfinder is a great find for anyone that loved 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons and want to find a new setting to get back in to the classic game.

Links:
Champions of Sandpoint (Our Gaming Group)

The first impression we got when the game started was how surprisingly detailed the graphics are. Characters look much more realistic than expected and the textures used in the explorable areas are outstanding. Batman video games have come a long way since their early days on the Nintendo Entertainment System takes on the original motion picture.

The storyline presented in the demo (we emphasize this point as this is a review of a demo) isn’t very strong and can be very confusion to anyone believing the world presented in the game would persistantly represent the one being released in the most recent string of motion pictures. The storyline and characters here seem to echo that of the long-running Batman cartoon that featured the boxy and often darker than expected characters.

Game play is simple and easy to pick up. Combinations of your right and left mouse button combined with the shift key make up the vast majority of your attacks and moves. The first stage takes you through mostly all of your available moves and abilities. As you take on the first waves of crazy inmates you are given hints at the bottom of the screen indicating when and how you can defeat your foes. Batman has a lot of great fighting moves and depending on what angle your enemy is coming at you from it can be surprisingly adaptive and impressive.

This is a great demo to try out if you find yourself looking for that next great game to spend your weekend on. It is certainly worth taking on the nearly 2gb download and may even win you over with its overall visual aesthetics.

Every once in a while a game comes along that may not have the latest and greatest graphics or the most in-depth storyline yet it brings you back to a time when simplicity inspired imagination. Defcon is one of those games in its delivery of wire frame graphics that immediately bring you back to the first time you watched “Wargames” in your youth. The interface is almost an exact replica of the ui made famous by Hollywood two decades ago.

Game play is very relaxed unless you set the game speed to its highest settings which may be a bit much for anyone no matter how fast you believe you are at placing and controlling units. The traditional speed sets the game up to last about an hour, much of which is spent waiting for your missiles and fleet to slowly make its way to their destination in what isn’t exactly but feels like real time.

Radar and other tools are available to you and are extremely limited which makes for a very tactical environment that may feel more like a game of Battleship than anything. You have to guess where your opponent may be lacking in general defenses and when they are launching their weapons or you may find yourself watching your continent die off with no way to fight back.

The music of Defcon is ominous and relaxing at the same time. It reminded me of the music that plays on Left 4 Dead when a witch is nearby intended to scare you and make you feel uneasy without being overly dramatic. A soundtrack is available on iTunes.

Defcon is sold on Steam as well as other online retailers for around ten dollars USD and may be well worth the purchase price if you have a friend or two willing to join in the game with you. The CPU AI is a capable opponent with no glitches or issues that we noticed during testing. This game has been out for two years and is still fairly popular.

Ghostbusters is challenging to even a seasoned gamer and can even come across as frustrating at times when you simply don’t quite have the timing of the ghosts attacks down. In some zones, the ghosts are capable of bringing you down for the count with a single strike. Thankfully, a team member only need to survive long enough to reach you to help you up to get you back in the game. Once yourself and your companions are downed you find yourself at the beginning of whatever challenge you were bested by. Thankfully, the auto save feature saves your game at fairly decent moments and though you can find yourself enduring the same cut scene repeatedly, you are not left with the feeling that you are out any seriously lengthy amount of time and effort.

The main challenge to Ghostbusters is the control. Over-the-shoulder third person viewpoints are all the rage in the gaming industry lately and to some this can be a very difficult way of going about things. For example, if the ghost you are trying to capture is to your left you have a good chance of spotting and taking them down. However, if your ghost happens to fly to the right your perception is impacted slightly and it has a slight advantage over you because of this. Mouse movements are generally jerky and unpredictable even with a dialed-in sensitivity control. Once you get the feeling of this game down though, it becomes a more manageable part of the game’s challenge.

The game has great flow and plot. It doesn’t get boring at any point as between ghosts and during pursuits your companions make humorous quips at one-another as only the comedic minds of Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and the others can. This is a nostalgic throwback to the original movies that makes the experience fun and entertaining. You can almost get the feeling that you are actually in the third movie. There are quite a few bosses and each of them make you feel as if you have just finished the game only to find out there is more to come each time. One of the first bosses you face is the infamous marshmallow man and defeating him is no easy task. This makes the game seem more epic and quite a bit more involved than you might expect from a game about a comedy.

Optimization takes a hit on the PC version. I can’t speak for the console version as I understand there are a lot of differences including a co-op mode that PC players do not get to experience. On the PC, I found some scenes to be sluggish and unplayable while others rolled along just fine. On a quad-core Intel system running a GeForce 9800GT, the game played quite well until boss fights started that including flying debris sending my frame rate down to the single-digits including pauses in play that lasted several seconds. This is one of the very few games out there that I have experienced this problem with even without any anti-aliasing on. Speaking of which, anti-aliasing is not currently a feature one can select in the graphics menu. In order to turn it on you have to fiddle with the console controls that come with your video card outside of the game.

Overall, Ghostbusters is an enjoyable game with a few minor flaws on the PC. It is cheaper than most releases at under $30 and appears very well priced at that point. If you are a fan of the movies than the game will most certainly bring back fond memories and come across as one of the more enjoyable games in your collection. If you aren’t a fan of over-the-shoulder third person gaming then Ghostbusters might be a pass.

Real-time strategy games have a history about them dating back to the consoles of the 1980’s. Herzog Zwei is considered by many gaming historians to be the root of the modern RTS. There is a big debate as to whether or not Dune 2 deserves that distinction though my personal opinion is that Herzog Zwei was there in 1989 with a basic layout that features two opposing sides commanding troops in real time while defending their bases.

Since then, the genre has exploded and enjoyed tremendous acclaim as a preferred flavor of gaming for players that just love to thing strategically rather than simply test their reflexes. I give you my list of my personal favorite RTS games of all time.

5. The Moon Project
Part of the Earth 2150 family, The Moon Project is an RTS that enjoyed some popularity in Germany and a lot less attention here in the States. It featured ideas such as night and day and their effect on solar power generators as well as the ability to take components and construct units from them. It was a very good looking RTS for its time and if it had taken off in the states as well as it did in Germany it might have a place on many popular websites as one of the groundbreaking RTS of its time. Sadly, this game was one of the forgotten members of its genre losing out on much of its well-deserved credit for giving some new ideas to the new blend of strategy games.

4. Battle for Middle Earth II
The Battle for Middle Earth series is one you really should play with a good set of speakers and a decent sub woofer. The reason here is because there is, in my opinion, no more thrilling sound in this genre then that of an entire cavalry of horses galloping through the map and trampling over an opposing army. This is a quality of sound effects sadly lacking in this genre that Lord of the Rings managed to not only pull off but do it right the first time. That aside, the series tells the story of the Lord of the Rings in a way that works very well for the game style. Some things may not be exactly to-the-book accurate in order to balance things a bit though in the course of the game you will find that it really doesn’t matter.

3. Command & Conquer: Zero Hour
Generals was a brilliant release from this series and it was only improved upon with the Zero Hour expansion. Sadly, this release was given very little support from Electronic Arts in the form of patches and ongoing tweaking though it was still one of the more entertaining and balanced games of its series. While Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath are cursed with syncing issues that abruptly end multiplayer games, Zero Hour seems to be just a little more relaxed in regards to its handling of packet loss. This edition features warfare between American, Chinese and the mysterious GDI faction that gives you an array of different tactics within each faction. You can be a lazer obsessed American general with an arsenal of laser turrets and aircraft that zap down any ground-to-air missiles heading their way or a Chinese general with a seemingly endless amount of infantry at his disposal to barrage your opponents base with. There are a lot more options available to you, but this is supposed to be a brief summery of why I love this game.

2. Warcraft II
This choice might garner some very intense disagreement among the Warcraft fans out there. Warcraft II received very little longevity compared to Warcraft III which is still being played today thanks to expansions such as Frozen Throne and custom scenarios like Defense of the Ancients. Warcraft II introduced the idea of having air, land and sea units in your arsonal which at the time in the genre was a remarkable undertaking. Griffins attacked from above while battleships waged war from sea. Game play was a bit more exciting and the game felt more like the original Warcraft players came to know and love from the initial release.

1. StarCraft
StarCraft, released in 1998, has won more acclaim from players than any other RTS to date. In fact, StarCraft still has a very active playerbase even eleven years after initial release. This is a remarkable undertaking for any game title and for this to have been accomplished by Blizzard on not one but multiple of its offerings in this genre is the reason why Blizzard has enjoyed so much success. StarCraft features a very balanced playing system with three possible races to choose from. The Terran are what you might consider to be the humans in the conflict, the Zerg which resemble the aliens that Sigourney Weaver would have chased around the galaxy and the Protoss which control warp gates that bring their buildings and forces in to whatever world combat is set to commence within. Will StarCraft manage to keep its magic with the release of StarCraft 2? We’ll find out.

#5: Counter-Strike Source
For around a decade now, Counter-Strike has been the go-to game for first person shooters that need a quick fix either at home or at the LAN party. Call of Duty carries a lot of weight with it but Counter-Strike brings a presence everyone in the gaming community can relate to. This game had its roots as the most successful mod for the original Half Life and continues to be distributed with Half Life 2. Repetitious, definitely!

#4: Bioshock
2k Boston developed a unique FPS that features an underground city built by a political extremist with a distaste for Russian, American and Christian ideals. The city is home to doctors and scientists that develop practices outside the realm of morality and the result is quite disturbing. People get obsessed with being spliced with genetic code that enhances their natural abilities, eventually becoming mutants that are less than pleasing to the eyes. This is a first person shooter with a lot going for it in terms of unique style.

#3: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Yes, Call of Duty has a new release since CoD4 came out though this game really set the stage for a new level of FPS set in a modern era. It became an instant favorite among serious gamers and features combat in a modern situation. The multiplayer features are copied by many new games coming out including Combat Arms. As you gain points and experience in multiplayer action you also gain rank and access to weapons. This encourages newer players to work towards something while players with more experience can enjoy benefits of having more options available to them. Don’t worry though, you can always pick up someone’s amazingly customized firearm when they die even as a private.

#2: Left 4 Dead
The title says it all. There are four of you left to fight off an endless horde of zombies that have taken over mostly all of the civilized world. Sure there are other survivors immune to the virus that infected the vast majority of the worlds population but before you can get rescued by them you must fight your way through. In roughly 45 minutes you and your three friends fight through around 1,500 zombies in the ruins of human civilization while attempting to keep each other alive. Doing so is harder than it looks especially when you choose to join a random game with team mates you may have never met before. This game is tied in to Steam in such a way that it makes it very easy to find your friends in game and join their servers. This is a first-rate coop game.

#1: Half Life 2
The game that started it all is still probably my personal favorite Steam game out there. This is the second chapter in the story of a scientist that accidentally sets off a cataclysmic chain of events releasing creatures from another dimension in to this world. He fought through impossible odds in the original Half Life to get out of Black Mesa and he continues his struggle on the surface after the world has come under rule of a fascist dictator at the beck and call of his alien overlords. Brilliant game with an amazing presence in the gaming world.

Here is where simple graphics make all the difference in the world. As you jostle your iPhone about and turn it upside down hoping for more of the soothing sound the background moves with you simulating an actual environment using the screen of the iphone as your eyes in to this tropical jungle. It isn’t pinpoint accurate with your motions but it is a surprisingly smooth addition to this very simple application.

In addition to the background, the name of the program so prominently displayed on the UI rotates with the device. This may not be the best aspect of the program but it does show the creator has a mind for branding. If you are looking over the shoulder of someone playing with Rain Stick you can’t miss the name of the program.

Loonsbury.com/blog

Are you in to designing 3D models and have always thought about actually getting a real life version of your digital art, then Shapeways might be the answer you have been looking for. This site is still in beta, but currently allows you to open your own store where browsers can purchase fabricated copies of your 3D models.

Model printing is limited to 20″x20″x15″ and prices vary depending on density of the model and the material you choose to fabricate it out of. I was able to find decent sized models sold by members of the Shapeways community for under $5.00 USD.

Thanks to programs that allow you to capture 3d data generated while playing your favorite games such as Mass Effect and Guild Wars, you may be able to create an inspired figure to bring your game character to life. Loonsbury at Tech Loon has created quite a few very amazing figures using Shapeways service as well as the services of their competitor Ownage.com.

The objective is very simple. Your job is to change all of the yellow squares to orange squares by tapping on various spaces which flips the selected square over to change it from yellow to orange while doing the same to adjoining pieces. The trick is to set it up so that you’re able to solve the puzzle without further complicating it by losing track of your strategy amidst the scrambled colors.

As you advance in levels the amount of pieces grows and the solution becomes more difficult to determine. Eight moves is all it takes in the first round while the second round takes quite a few more and so on. This game presents a very fair challenge that is as straitforward as one can expect from a mobile application.

Sound is where I have a big problem in that I couldn’t get any to play. This means either sound has been completely omitted from this game or it is not working properly in this release. It isn’t entirely missed, but a little audible feedback goes a long way for many player’s tastes.

Overall, this is a solid puzzle game and a good example of a fun free app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Brain Teaser was created by Uwe Meier who has a long list of iPod and iPhone apps on his site linked here.

Flood-It! was developed by LabPixies and is available on the iPhone and iPod touch as an app as well as several other platforms including iGoogle and as a browser toolbar among a few others. I’m giving it full marks for platform support.

Flood-It! has a very simple overall concept. Your objective is to fill the screen with one solid color. In order to achieve this, you need to select from the color options at the bottom of the screen which change your captured spaces to the given color. Any adjoining spaces that share the color you selected become part of your captured mass. You have a limited number of steps depending on difficulty and field size and often capturing the entire field in the given steps can be difficult. This is a puzzle game at its core and one that can be played from start to finish in a minute or two making it perfect for those occasions where you might find yourself with a couple minutes to kill.

Flood-It! is ad supported and the ads appear at the top of the screen. They do not detract from the gaming experience and thankfully they don’t force you to spend valuable seconds between games stuck on an annoying advertisement screen.

Overall, this is a fun little game without a lot of pros or cons to speak about. It does its job of occupying you for a few minutes or your kids during a long car ride. This app fits very well with other puzzle games on the platform.

We kick off our Month of MMO with an MMORPG created by Zemi Interactive out of South Korea. It is called 4Story and if you like WoW you will definitely like this one. I can say this with absolute certainty because it appears to be a clone of the popular online monolith. Combat, questing, and skill advancement are all taken strait from the Blizzard playbook and brought to 4Story. This aside, the plot is actually quite different and somewhat intriguing. A lot of the storyline and plot are yet to be determined as the game continues to develop. 4Story is a brand new game that is in “Pre-Open Beta Test”. 4Story is also based in Korean and the translations to English leave much to be desired. It is hard to determine what you’re being told as you play the game, but I will try to explain the plot as I understand it to be so far.

4Story is set in the land of Iveria, which is inhabited by three kingdoms all blessed by the goddess of creation, Rea. The first kingdom is a nation of brave soldiers called DeFugel. The second is the nation of mysterious magic called Craxion. The third is a nation of strong troops called Broa. These three kingdoms have declared war against each other and have each waged ruthless campaigns with a great deal of sacrifice. This is where the games English translations become a bit of a problem. The story is briefly told as being a war of advocacy regarding the truth behind each nation’s history and beliefs. One hero is born with the destiny of discovering and uncovering the mysteries that have been lost for hundreds of thousands of years in order to put to rest the bickering between the nations. That hero is you, and you can chose to be part of either the Craxion or DeFugel kingdom as you start out on your journey through time.

You can play any one of three races. You can be a human, the most balanced of the races with no special gifts or abilities to speak of. They do, however, have no extreme weaknesses to speak of and that makes them a great race to start out with if you really don’t have a hang of the combat system. A good class for a human to play is typically a priest or an archer based on their overall balanced stats.

Another choice is the werebeast, with amazing strength and stunning dexterity; they have a real edge in combat and often overcome tough opponents in a toe-to-toe fight. The downside to this is a typical loss in the areas of intelligence. They’re also terrible casters due to their low mana.

If you like the idea of being cute and small, then a fairy is made just for you. This race is great for magical classes thanks to their boosts in intelligence and wisdom. This comes, as expected, at the cost of their physical abilities. You won’t find many fairy warriors roaming the world of 4Story.

Classes are available to further customize and set your character’s talents as they grow in 4Story. You can be an archer, assassin, priest, summoner, warrior, or wizard. The classes sit within the mold of those you will find on World of Warcraft, and seem fairly balanced considering the newness of this MMORPG.

If you, like me, are stuck to English as your primary language, then I encourage you to try 4Story with friends. Most of the players speak Korean and as I played I never did find an English speaking player. I’m sure they exist, but you will certainly be the minority. There also doesn’t appear to be multiple servers based on region which is the typical problem with a free MMORPG.

The game is in pre-beta but the glitches and bugs appear to be few. The combat system appears solid and you are able to customize and set your graphics the way you see fit, including putting the game in windowed mode. I didn’t find it gorgeous, as it seems to copy World of Warcraft in its cartoonish look and feel. It is, however, one of the best games I have played without price of admission in quite a long time. I will give you a fair warning; the client download seems to take five to eight hours typically on a high speed connection seemingly due to bandwidth issues on the host’s side. If you have a night to set up a download, and have been looking for a way to play World of Warcraft for free, try 4Story.

(ADDED) Keep in mind that this review is on a game that is still in BETA and currently the designers are still tweaking the translations. This review will be revised once BETA is removed.

Link: 4Story Official Website

**This review was written by myself in July of 2008 and has been ported to this site. The review is based off of the beta of the time and one week of play to give a “first impression” review rather than an in-depth look at all of the details of the game from start to finish.**

This review is a transcript from my daily gaming podcast: The Daily PWN
Download The Daily PWN 67: Shadowbane

Today we are taking a look at a once pay-to-play MMORPG that has managed to create a boost in its player base by removing payment requirements and embracing ad supported revenue. I’m talking about none other than Shadowbane. Shadowbane was originally released in 2003 under the care and development of text-MUD veterans J. Todd Coleman, James Nance, Josef Hall, Patrick Blanton and Robert Marsa along with a team of 45 other programmers, designers, and artists. The idea was simple, bring a game that promotes PVP, offers players the chance to own real property within the game, and give players the ability to create characters in unconventional races.

Shadowbane downloaded quickly, and consisted of a ZIP file 891MB in size. Once installed, signing up and creating an account was simple and direct, with minimal advertising interruptions. It should be noted here that advertising is how Shadowbane is currently paying for itself, so you should expect to see an ad when logging in and doing several key tasks. I didn’t find them altogether annoying or disruptive, and they do appear to be easy to forget about as you are preparing to enter the world of Shadowbane.

Character creation was very simple and to the point, though you quickly realize that graphics are not going to be anything spectacular. You are able to customize the look, class, race, name, and attributes of your character. The options for your characters looks are pretty much limited to their skin tone, hair, and beard. The graphics are not worth worrying about how much detail you can put in to your character’s appearance, so the lack of abundance of options isn’t surprising.

The classes you can pick from during character creation are fighter, healer, mage, and rogue. Each class has a list of disciplines that your character can develop towards as they gain experience. These disciplines are limited to four out of a list of thirty possible options. There are some reasonable limitations on which classes a certain race can work with. For example, a vampire could not be a healer. Nor could a healer master the assassin discipline.

This brings us to the selection of races. You have an impressive list of twelve different races to chose from. Each race has its own pros and cons about it, and if you chose to play on a server that restricts certain races from going to certain locations, you may want to take care in who and what you decide to play. You can choose:

Aelfborn (Half-Elf)
Aracoix (Flying Birdman)
Centaur (Half man, half horse)
Dwarf
Elf
Half Giant
Human
Irekei (Desert-dwelling Devilmen)
Minotaur
Nephilim (Flying demon-like creature)
Shade (A Pale, ghoulish person)
Vampire

Controls and game play are not intuitive, and there is no tutorial to help you. This was a grave disappointment, especially considering the game has been around for five years. There are some helpful bubbles that you can click on, but they only appear after you manage to accomplish what you were set out to do. I’m sure the boxed version of the game had a good manual, though you won’t be able to find a copy now without actively seeking one out.

Shadowbane relies heavily on PvP, especially when the world is pretty much owned by and managed by the players. PvP is open and you can be attacked or attack others practically anywhere. This is great if you like PvP. I have read another review that described the feel of combat in Shadowbane as a mix between Ultima Online and Dark Ages of Camelot. I found this to be the best description yet, as much as Shadowbane is unique in its interaction, it does appear to borrow greatly from those two popular MMORPGs.

I’d have to say that overall, Shadowbane is worth a look at simply because it does have appeal as a player versus player game. It has its obvious drawbacks, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone pay a monthly fee for this experience, though as a free game it is worth the price of enforced advertising.

Link: Official Shadowbane Website

**This review was written by myself in July of 2008 and has been ported to this site. The review is based off of the beta of the time and one week of play to give a “first impression” review rather than an in-depth look at all of the details of the game from start to finish.**

Today we’re taking a peek at Rohan Online: Blood Feud, a MMORPG that touts open PVP, generous graphics, and an overall well-rounded experience for its players. Thankfully, Rohan Online delivers and does so very well with little hassle or disappointment.

Signup and downloading was a simple and typical process. There was nothing more or less aggravating than what you would expect from a free MMO. The download was 1.61GB and the installation took no time at all. Updating was a bit tedious though it should be noted here the game is in Open Beta, like many free MMORPGs we’ve reviewed so far.

Let’s start with the obvious. Rohan is a beautiful game. It has graphics that blow many of the pay-to-play MMO games out of the water. This is no doubt one of the most refined and artistic online games out there today, and considering it is in early beta, I could only imagine what form the final product takes. It is a Korean MMORPG and as such carries with it a stigma of being a never-ending grinding game. This is hardly apparent here, as grinding appears to a minimum compared to the other Korean MMORPGs we’ve tested so far this month.

Character creation brings forth the undeniable fact that if you want to play a certain class; you have to pick the right race. I picked a female elf, and was allowed only the class of cleric. The breakdown for races and classes are as follows:

Humans are the Knights of the realm. In later levels they can venture towards the life of a guardian or a defender. Essentially they either take the hits as a tank, or dish out incredible damage.

The elves, as mentioned earlier, are the healers of the realm. They have the ability, later on in the game, to take on a role as a Priest or a Templar. The priest is a brilliant healer that holds all the keys to taking your party through hostile territory and keeping them alive. The templar uses holy wrath to impose devastation to all of your party’s enemies.

The half-elf is a capable archer. Wielding their bows and crossbows, they deal damage to single or multiple enemies with ease. Further in the game they can refine their skills as a scout or a ranger. The scout specializes in tackling multiple enemies at one time. The rangers use crossbows and take out their enemies with precise well-aimed attacks.

The Dekan is a race capable of transforming themselves from humanoid to dragon with little effort. They are undeniably the strongest warriors you can have on your side. They can develop in to dragon knights, not to be confused with the human knight class, which employ a bloodsucking skill that weakens opponents. If bloodsucking isn’t your cup of tea, you can go the route of the dragon sage, dealing area-wide damage with ease and having quite an advantage underwater.

The Dhan are the assassins of the realm and as such are not team players. In fact, good luck grouping with one. They are specialized PvP characters and are generally undesirables in the villages. The Dhan characters gains experience by killing other players and aren’t required to do questing to gain their levels in this game. The Dhan can choose to take on a role as an avenger or a predator. The avenger has the ability to make their bodies invisible and dismember their opponents without warning. The predator is specially trained to make the fastest of attacks.

The last but not least of the characters you can choose from is the Dark Elf. These characters have mismatched eyes and spells to mesmerize. They are the mages of the realm and as such carry the most powerful of spells with them as they make their way through the land. They have the ability to advance in to the role of either a warlock or a wizard. The warlock is able to weaken opponents before the beginning of a battle, while the wizard takes a more direct approach in their area-wide spells and damage dealing conjurations.

Rohan Classes by swtnov8

Whatever class you chose to take up as you start out, the tutorial Rohan Online provides is second to none. It takes you from level one all the way to level eight and provides some very impressive rewards for completing the various parts. A +100HP ring in particular caught my eye as a rather sought-after piece of loot. My advice to anyone on this one is to take the tutorial even if you have been playing the game for some time.

The game is open PvP and as such you can be killed pretty much everywhere. Prior to level 30 you receive some protections from this mess, but expect them to go away in this dangerous land. I learned very soon on that the Dhan are to be avoided, and followed the other players in the area moving away from danger.

Overall, Rohan was very impressive. It left me spoiled on graphics and wanting on PvE. This is a PvP game first and foremost. Open PvP takes center stage without warning though you can avoid it if you keep a low profile. Combat is fun and exciting, while questing maintains some level of interest without bogging you down with reading material. This is a great game to try if you like PvP or if you’re looking for beautiful graphics coupled with a classic fantasy realm set in a time before guns and cannons.

Link: Rohan Online Official Site

**This review was written by myself in July of 2008 and has been ported to this site. The review is based off of the beta of the time and one week of play to give a “first impression” review rather than an in-depth look at all of the details of the game from start to finish.**

With every new MMORPG I review, the bar seems to inch up higher and higher for the new game to leave a unique impression. The UI, combat style, artistry, and sign up process is all a vital part of what makes for a lasting impression on potential players as they run through the early stages of a new game. These experiences, be they positive or otherwise, will often leave players with an unshakable and stubborn feeling of exactly how good or bad a game is.

Today we take a look at Rose Online, at this moment the newest MMORPG to don the increasingly popular free tag. Rose Online has been around for some time as a pay-to-play title originally developed by the Korean company Triggersoft. In 2007, Rose Online went out of its support cycle and split three ways between three different companies. This review is in relation to Gravity Interactive’s version nicknamed naROSE. naROSE has been free since July 29th, 2008.

To get things started, let’s take a glance at Rose Online’s setup process. Downloading is, at the time of this review, slow and tedious unless you elect to use the torrent version of the installation which still takes roughly an hour to complete. This may be due to high server demand from the recent launch of their free service. I found signup to be standard and typical of a free MMORPG to which there were no surprises or disappointments.

Character creation is where you first get a real sense of exactly what to expect while playing Rose Online. Let me state first and foremost that Rose Online is another cute game. Florensia, Maple Story, and others are all good benchmarks here on the cuteness scale and in comparison Rose Online certainly holds ground with these respectable forces in the world of cute. The characters look like a cross between Dragonball Z and Mighty Max in their general appearance, while their styles certainly cross in to a broad range between World of Warcraft and your average Yahoo avatar. The graphics are cartoony and on part with what you will find on World of Warcraft.

The storyline reminds me of Legend of Zelda. You are the miracle savior of the world with a pixie guide that tells you of your upcoming great deeds. This is hard to believe when the first creature you encounter capable of killing you is a miniature ninja jellybean. That’s right, a jellybean stands between you and your first set of goals in this interesting world. If you think that is all this game has to offer in the way of strange enemies, before you complete the initial “tutorial” phase of 10 levels, you encounter a vicious jack-o-lantern, a rabid flower, a fierce glowworm that looks very much like Teddy Ruxpin’s faithful companion, Grubby. Even with the admittedly corny creatures, this game is oddly fun. I found, as several others did while doing the review, that I could not exactly understand why this game appeared to be extremely fun, but it was. It is almost the same enjoyment you might find with a Nintendo Wii.

Features are a-plenty, and I can’t go in to all of them in this review. I will state that if you have been looking for the ability to run an automated player-store within a great MMO, then you will certainly want to take a close look at Rose Online. The player stores are scattered about the towns and remain there until the player decides to move his character, at which time the “store” turns back in to their character allowing them to get back to adventuring. Equipment is restricted by class and level, giving you something to work towards when you receive a great piece of higher-level loot. It’s typical for rare items to drop while you’re going through tutorials. You won’t find yourself looking for something to kill or waiting for that matter. Creatures respawn almost right away after you strike them down. This works very effectively in common adventuring areas.

Combat is less of a click fest than moving is. Movements require a constant barrage of clicking, common in MMORPG experiences outside of pay-to-play. Combat is a matter of a click to target and double-click to attack. The moves appear turn based and occur fast enough to keep your attention.

Questing is easy and abundant, and you will be hard pressed to run out of things to do in this game. When you don’t feel much like finishing quests, you can do a great deal of exploring through the unique and ever-changing scenery. Night and Day have a real effect on how NPCs interact with your character, which gives you a very different experience depending on what time of day it may be in game.

Overall, Rose Online was impressive and quite fun. As stated earlier, it is a cute game but one that makes up for it with an oddly immersive and unique blend of humor and adventure. Give Rose Online a try if you’re looking for a release from the more serious MMORPG worlds you’ve been playing in. It may not be your first pick for a main game to play, but it sure makes for a great release when you need a break.

If you have a free game that needs reviewing, please leave a comment below and I will put it on the list! Comments are essential for me to know exactly what you, the reader, want to see and hear so please make your voices heard!

This is where Vroom Foods comes in. They have a product called Buzz Bites that has the caffeine of 1.25 energy drinks, 3 cans of Coke and a cup of coffee in a tiny package that takes a minimal amount of time to consume and packs a pretty potent punch. This product contains caffeine, B vitamins, ginseng, and taurine which is the standard blend of ingredients for any respectable energy product.

So, how does it measure up? Let’s start with taste which is possibly the first and most obvious thing you look for when choosing anything that goes in your mouth. Buzz Bites chocolate starts off with a very sweet attack on the palate that presents a mint-chocolatesque (I think I invented a word there) presence for the first few seconds. Sadly, this is quickly replaced with the common flavors that the energy-boosting ingredients seem to be known for. This gives the bite a little less of a sweet presentation and more of a bittersweet one might find with organic dark chocolate. If you like the bitterness of a darker chocolate then you will probably enjoy Buzz Bites, but if you want something more sweet then this may not be your favorite product. The mint chocolate version of Buzz Bites has a masking addition of mint that hides the blend of caffeine, ginseng, taurine, and B vitamins. It does this fairly well and has become my personal favorite.

Thanks to these troubling economic times, value is a serious consideration. Thankfully, the Buzz Bites line breaks down to roughly 50 cents per dose. This gives you every bit as much kick as a $2.00 cup of coffee, $2.86 worth of energy drinks, and $.86 worth of Penguin mints. This makes sense financially and gives you more money to spend on things that really matter like that new keyboard you’ve been oogling at the local computer store.

At 25 calories a piece, these little chocolate chews take out some of the guilt from enjoying something that looks and acts a lot like candy. The ingredients are:

Corn Syrup, Sweetened Condensed Skim Milk, Sugar, Part
Hydrogenated Coconut Oil, Unsweetened Chocolate, Water,
Caffeine, Cocoa Powder, Proprietary Synergistic Energy
Blend (Taurine, Ginseng, Vitamins: Niacinamide, Pantothenic
Acid, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamin Mononitrate, Cyanocobalamin),
Whey with Calcium Caseinate, Salt, Natural & Artificial
Flavors, Mono & Diglycerides, Sucralose, Acesufame-K
& Soy Lecithin.

The boost these mints give you come quickly and with minimal crashing. This is magic when you consider just how harsh some energy products can be. I’m extremely impressed with the effectiveness of these chews and would compare them to any leading energy product on the market.

Overall, this is a great product for anyone that enjoys the idea of a quick pick me up without a lot of costs involved. The flavor isn’t for everyone but if you enjoy bittersweet dark chocolate this might be a great option for you should you be tired of mints, energy drinks, and coffee. I personally prefer Vroom Food’s Foosh Energy Mints to this product, though you have to trust your individual palate.

All photos/images on this article are property of Vroom Foods, Inc.

Today we’re taking a good look at Combat Arms, a free MMOFPS released by Nexon. When I first heard about Combat Arms, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a genuine FPS available free that didn’t have some serious drawbacks listed in user reviews. Nexon is a Korean company that has been around since 1994, bringing the first MMORPG to the world in the form of “Kingdom of the Winds” back in 1995. Since then, Nexon has branched off and created Nexon America, intended to bring Nexon’s award winning games to America. How have they fared? This week I will cover 4 of their current free titles.

Combat Arms is the first title on the chopping block. Downloading was relatively quick and signup was impressively easy. Signing up for Combat Arms also gave me a valid login for Nexon’s other titles as well. I found that the consistent download speed of 750kbps was quite refreshing when compared to the average 200-400kbps I’ve been experiencing downloading other titles in the free MMORPG and MMOFPS category.

Because it is, after all, an FPS, character creation and is somewhat simple. You click the face and model you like the best out of a lineup of 4, and head on through to server selection. This is typical of any FPS out there; after all, on first person shooters you never notice your avatar. You do have the ability, however, to purchase a special avatar through use of NX dollars purchased through the Nexon store. There are no tactical benefits worth speaking about but you do get an acceptable looking female avatar.

Graphics are pretty reasonable. There isn’t much to amaze or impress you, though it should certainly be noted that Combat Arms certainly doesn’t lack in the department of aesthetics. The game is comparable to most big-name FPS circa 2003-2004. They are also well optimized, giving older computers a chance to enjoy the game alongside modern gaming machines. 3d models on maps are well-structured with integrated sound effect hit boxes for bullet ricochets and grenade impacts. You can climb to the top of a giant building and snipe just as easily as you can run through a tight tunnel with shotgun ready.

Lag is not a big problem on Combat Arms. They manage servers on their side, with no client-side servers to worry about. You can create your own custom room and set passwords, manage maps and game types, and even boot unruly players. Having a centralized host for every server allows for a fairer game between friends as there isn’t one member with a substantially lower ping than the rest of the combatants. The servers even have an indicator letting you know their current stress levels to assist you in determining which ones to avoid and which ones are open. I’m going to give credit to Nexon for this innovative take on how a multiplayer FPS should be operated.

Like Call of Duty 4, you are on a points system. The more you fight the higher your rank. The same goes with your equipment. Over time you earn money towards purchasing new weapons and armor. These purchases are temporary as you “rent” them for a given number of days. In order to keep your guy equipped with your favorite goods, you need to keep playing. The more you play, the better your options. I found a great pair of shades to wear with some urban camouflage and a heavy vest. Keep in mind though, if you choose to purchase NX dollars through the Nexon store, you will have an easier time obtaining a solid set of equipment but this step is far from necessary.

Weapon accuracy was standard and appeared to be closely tied to counterstrike. The more you shot the worse your aim until you let off the trigger long enough to retain your bearings. Some guns are more accurate than others, and some more powerful. Sniper rifles are effective, but I did not find any way to hold breaths to make for a more accurate shot. In this way the game was very much like counterstrike and least like Call of Duty 4.

Overall, if you’re looking for a solid FPS without having to worry about the hassle of finding a good reliable server then take a good look at Combat Arms. It will change your mind about free games and their quality standards. This game packs a very mean punch and has the makings of a real competitor to many of the overpriced shooters on the market. Even though playing the game is a free experience, you have the ability to enhance your experience by purchasing NX dollars which can be used to unlock experience and gold bonuses, weapon crates and various other small perks.

Special thanks to the players that assisted in the test:
Loonsbury
Bogger
Alicat
Zackypie
Finalshoot
Dyll

If you have or know of another free game you would like reviewed, please leave a comment below and I will put it on the list.

The above is a video courtesy of Treet.TV which is an upcoming virtual television network and station which broadcasts live from virtual worlds such as Second Life. The concept of machinima has been around since the possibility of recording computer games and other virtual environments has been around though the idea of broadcasting live using multiple cameras and a professional setup is one realized by a very small percentage of that community. Treet.TV, the second iteration of SLCN.TV, has been broadcasting live television from inside virtual worlds since 2007 and has an array of shows including talk, sports, game and even fashion shows. One such sports program being Dirtfield Races.

I’m fortunate to be able to co-host this show (Yes this is article is based from personal experience and not an objective viewpoint) along with one of the founders of the track Suku Ming. My name on this show is Zen Paine. The program usually includes two or three races between a field of a half dozen drivers competing for top three positions. The cars move at the equivalent of over one hundred miles per hour around a tight dirt track in laps that range between eight and fifteen seconds depending on the class racing at the time.

Skill is a very big part of winning races on the program. Each car handles differently and there is a lot more to achieving victory than pushing forward and going around in an oval. A fast driver will know when to tap on the brake and when to let off the gas. A millisecond difference in your timing can be the difference between a successful turn and going in to the wall and losing valuable time. The cars work off of a rough principal of momentum and the longer you manage to keep your car in motion the faster you can hit the straightaways.

Races take place several times a week with the televised race being Sundays between 3 and 5pm Second Life Time (SLT) which is known in the real world as pacific time. There are qualifying heats, random pill box position draws and other instances which can all have an impact on which position the drivers start in.

Time and positions are tracked by a scripted gate that clocks each lap based on seconds between contact with a given avatar. The gate can detect speed, lap count, position and thanks to some new technology display the current standings on a scoreboard located near the starting line.

There is no charge to take part in the league races but you will have to purchase a car. Prices vary from 150L (Linden Dollars) which is roughly 65 cents USD to around 1000L for a custom car that you can texture however you’d like. Once purchased, you can race as many times as you’d like in races that feature your selected car type. Be advised, not all car types are racing all the time. Dirt modified cars race on sundays while Thursday nights during “Moonlit Madness” pure stocks take to the field.

The televised show is picked up by residents of Second Life on televisions that they can have in their virtual homes or other buildings. The network’s live stream is also available to users on the web as well as through their many podcast feeds.

Link:
Digital World Racing League Website

So how does the new version of this classic game look? Well, the graphics are very good for an iPhone app. The jagged edges on many of the graphics are a severe reminder that antialiasing is not present on this device but given the small overall screen size and comparisons to other games in the market this offering from Electronic Arts is impressive. They took a gamble adding 3d animations and special effects knowing that the device might not be very flattering to this theme and it didn’t fail to accomplish giving an overall pleasant viewing experience.

The virtual board game brings the thunder when it comes down to sound. Music available in multiple styles while sound effects are plentiful. The whirr of the blades on the windmill piece, the slap of the sumo wrestler’s feet on the cold tile of the playing area and even the revving of the car’s engine brings this game to life in an interesting way. After about an hour of playing I found myself wanting to turn the music off just so that I could hear the subtle sound effects that let me know exactly what was going on before I even needed to read the cards as they came up.

Optimization is lackluster. I say that because no matter how much memory I freed on the iPhone I couldn’t play for more than five minutes without receiving a low memory warning requesting that I reboot the device. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case with my iPod Touch as it played for hours without even the slightest glitch. 3d Animations get a little jumpy on the iPhone while they remain smooth on the iPod Touch giving a very real indication that every bit of processing power on the iPhone was needed to run this game. The iPod Touch has been promoted as a gaming device in part thanks to its slightly more powerful processor which helped out remarkably with the overall experience. I have to take points off for this serious aggravation.

Control and challenge levels are two areas where this game soars. Controls are not only explained at the beginning of every game but they are so intuitive that you really don’t need the reminder at all. There are three difficulty levels and as much as I found myself wondering just how a dice game can have a difficulty setting I found myself really being thrown a curve by the remarkable AI. Deals and offers are greatly controlled by this setting as you may be able to sneak past a strategically beneficial trade with the AI on the lower setting while you might find yourself getting the short end of the stick on the higher setting. Monopoly is very much about strategy and this has certainly reminded me of that fact.

Overall, Monopoly: Here and Now for the iPhone and iPod Touch is worth picking up at the low price of $4.99. You have options of enjoying a multiplayer game or going head-to-head with up to three AI players. The games last anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours depending on how the dice fall. If you are a fan of the classic board game you may find yourself glued to the screen of your phone as you eagerly attempt to gain control of the transportation squares while avoiding your opponent’s utilities.

Nintendo has put out another DS just in time for Mothers Day that gives the impression of being targeted towards a stereotypical modern mother but may yet hold some appeal for many outside of that category as well. The vibrant green color is enough to turn a few heads and attract eyes while you’re out and about but what are you getting with this bundle? Here is the rundown.

• Nintendo DS Lite™
• Spring Green Color
• Included Personal Trainer: Cooking
• Fashionable Carrying Case

You migt notice that this new offering in the Nintendo DS Lite™ line is not one of the newer DSi models. This might be a move to keep the overall sale price down as it is being released one week before Mother’s Day and would appear to be targeted as a gift for mothers. The bundle is set for release May 3, 2009 at a price of around $159.99 in both Canada and the US.

1. Connections in the industry
2. A consistent ratings system
3. An entire team of reviewers

The second point of a consistent ratings system appeared to be the one readers have emailed about more than any others. Last night I had a chat with one of the readers asking why I gave Age of Conan a 65 out of 100 rather than a more round 70 or 75 rating. The theory that game ratings could be done in much the same lines as a wine scoring doesn’t hold up very well considering the more definitive nature of this genre. Wine scores depend on the taster’s particular mood, taste and environment where as a game review should be a blend of fair impression and cold facts. This is where The Daily PWN can not only improve, but set itself above many of the other sites out there.

The ratings system is still being vetted and perfected so suggestions from readers is not only appreciated but encouraged. A heavy amount of weight has been put in to gameplay while platform support and control is still a definate factor in the overall score without being a determining one.

Please keep the suggestions coming as we mold The Daily PWN in to a great site for gamers to see a review or read about news going on in the gaming world. If you are a good writer and would like to contribute to The Daily PWN please send me an email at matt@dailypwn.com .

This video features a battle between Matt Cooper and David Kim playing Zerg and Terran respectively. Commentary is given allowing for some understanding of exactly what kind of tactics are available in the new game.

Based on this footage it would appear that they have added a lot of new units which could have a double-edged benefit of more options with a bit more of a learning curve. Blizzard has decided to keep the classic look and feel of Starcraft which allows die-hard classic fans to enjoy an environment they are used to. Starcraft 2 is nostalgia driven but does it have the chops to take the RTS world by storm yet again? Time will tell.

Last week I came across two friends of mine that have never owned a gaming console tapping away at games like Solitaire, Brain Age, and several other puzzle and card games on their Nintendo DS. I mentioned my surprise at having seen them playing video games. One responded, “I know but this is so much fun. It’s addicting.”

*This article is not intended as a news piece but rather a personal observation.

It appears one of the hot topics in the gaming world today is the announcement of the new Microsoft SideWinder x3 mouse made for gamers. To start, the $40.00 USD price tag is a big relief when compared to the previous x5 model which came in at around $60.00. This is also a very reasonable price point when compared to other gaming mice currently in the market. The Ikari Laser Mouse came in at just under $90 in 2008, the razer rang in at a healthy $79.99 MSRP, the Logitech G9 had a bloated $99 price point and the Microsoft Sidewinder rings in at $79.99.

The x3 also packs on features. 2,000 DPI is the standard for gaming mice today but the SideWinder x3 comes with an on-the-fly DPI switch that allows you to adjust your sensitivity in order to fit situations where an overly responsive mouse may not be as useful. If, for example, you’re playing an FPS and you lock your opponent in your sights and need a little extra accuracy to send them packing you can switch the DPI settings between 400, 800 and 2,000 DPI on the fly. This is especially useful in situations where you are playing the sniper. Add 5 programmable buttons, recessed side buttons for east access and bundled macro software and you’ve got one respectable gaming mouse.

Downsides? The absence of an abundance of information is concerning when dealing with hardware especially from Microsoft. Polling figures are missing from many of the press releases that many major sites are quoting. This normally means either base standard or sub-standard polling on the device. 2,000 DPI is standard but in a market where the x3 could compete with high-end gaming mice it makes me wonder why they didn’t opt for a bit more accuracy. The Logitech G9 has a notable 3,200 DPI on their model from 2008.

Overall if you’re not wanting to spend a bare minimum of almost $100 this has promise as a great gaming mouse. There are high-end products out there that have noticeably improved specs over the x3 but this comes with incredible cost.

Rating: 90 out of 100

Source: Microsoft

The settlement is to the tune of 105 million dollars to be paid out in semi-annual payments between now and September 30, 2012.

Related Stories:
PartyGaming Settles Dispute With U. S. Attorneys
Online Poker Settlement Could Shake Industry – Washington Post Investigations
Party time is back for online gaming | Business | The Guardian

There are zombie games and there are zombie games. This zombie game is a simple and easy one that brings you in to a town filled with zombies that climb out of the ground around you constantly as you try to make your way through. The game is called Zombieville USA and it is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is reminiscent of an old-school Nintendo scrolling game with an updated more cartoonish 2D texture set. In Zombieville USA you earn money for killing zombies. This money can be used to buy weapons and health so that you can continue to do what you do best. It doesn’t get any more simple than that.

You can play the game at numerous difficulty levels with an array of weapons at your disposal ranging from a simple revolver to a more impressive flame thrower. A free lite version of Zombieville USA is available for anyone interested in trying out the game before making the purchase at $1.99 USD.

Rating 80 out of 100

Link(s):
Official Site

The first thing that came to mind when OnLive said they’d put gaming in the cloud was another site full of online poker, hearts, word games and chess. This couldn’t be further from the truth when they demonstrated the system with titles like Crysis, Mirror’s Edge, Grand Theft Auto and more. In fact, you can enjoy these games on their highest resolution and settings putting your average netbook on even ground with consoles and expensive gaming PCs.

OnLive accomplishes this by doing all of the rendering and processing in-house and sending the results to the customer via an internet connection. The closest thing this compares to is on-demand video through your cable provider. The image is compressed to the point where it can easily be sent through a 1.5 megabit connection (pretty much the lowest tier you can get these days on broadband) and displayed using your choice of medium. This system is being designed to work with MicroConsoles made for OnLive, PCs and Macs.

There is a downside however in that you must have an active Internet connection to enjoy your gaming library. Maintenance hasn’t been discussed but even for the most prevalent of online gaming platforms going down for maintenance is often a process that takes at least a few hours out of the week. Lag on this system would mean that even your single player experience is lessened to some degree.

Sceptics aside, this service has the backing of most of the major names in the gaming industry. The days of buying discs from a store shelf appear to be coming to an end.

More information can be found on these other great sites:
Los Angeles Times
San Fransisco Chronicle
Macworld
Reuters
FT.Com

PCWorld
Business Wire

This video was brought to the attention of The Daily PWN recently. It features game play from Eve Online as well as a comical yet somewhat curious selection of sound clips behind it. Thank you Forte for the link.

Video by 40 Cent posted on YouTube.

The newest version of the iPhone OS is heading for release this summer and it will include more flexibility for application developers including the ability to sell portions of the game at a time. This could mean big changes ahead for iPod Touch and iPhone games, also known as iGames.

Here are some articles I enjoyed on this general subject:
iPhone Central
Forbes
Kotaku
Apple Insider

I decided to hold off on doing a review of this game until the new content was not only released, but able to circulate around the community for a few months. The game is gorgeous and there is no denying that the updates they implemented improved overall game play to an incredible degree. Many of the bugs and glitches are solved and Age of Conan plays more like a locally-stored adventure game than an MMO. These are the reasons why it hurts so much to have to give this game a major pass.

“Griefing” is a very big problem on Age of Conan except for the servers, or server at this point, where things are highly restricted. If you choose to do a little role play and take part in the story in a more immersing fashion, look forward to players double or triple your level hacking away at you from the moment you leave an otherwise protected city area. This goes from occasional to constant as you try to make your way through the starting island of Torque during peak play times.

The population levels in this world aren’t impressive, and neither are the community platforms. Because of Age of Conan’s massive decline in subscriptions early on and their pricey $49.99 retail price the third best selling MMO of 2008 is currently one of the fastest falling of 2009. To Funcom’s credit, they have made the game available via Steam for $19.99 though the three day download I experienced even on a broadband connection seemed a little hard to swallow. You get 30 days along with your purchase which begins the moment you register after sending the money to Steam. This means if you’re not careful, you will lose half a week of your starting game time before you even get to play.

Combat is standard for what you would find on an MMO. Some of the quick keys on the task bar do not have keyboard shortcuts which came across both as very confusing and unusual. Combination attacks requiring well-timed keystrokes are a double edged sword of inconvenience and interactivity. Every swing of your sword is determined by your commands and keystrokes however if you just wish to kick back and hit a few keys World of Warcraft style, you will die very quickly.

You have the ability to use your stamina to run though you won’t get much further than a dozen yards before you have to slow back down to a crawling jog. I felt as if my character had weights on his legs even after pouring every skill point available in to allowing him to run faster and further longer.

Overall, the game is easy on the eyes and incredibly innovative though simply not worth the high price Funcom has set on it. You might find yourself extremely frustrated after just a few days of playing leaving you quite a bit short changed on the sticker price. I’m officially giving Age of Conan a major pass.

Rating: 55 out of 100

EDIT: The view points expressed in this partial review are the result of a limited amount of time in game and should in no way be taken as the overall opinion of anyone that has clocked a large amount of time beyond what one would expect from a trial account. The point of this review is to point out how the world appears to someone as they experience it for the first time. It was intended to outline a general impression that may or may not encourage someone playing the game to renew a subscription. The facts presented regarding loss experienced by Funcom is taken from press releases and multiple news sources. Thank you to “Bob Dole” for encouraging this revision.

Related Articles:
Gamasutra
ComputerAndVideoGames.com
Spong

The 2500 member survey, intended to help quell the fear that games lead to violence and sex, showed that roughly half of the people polled believed that games bring families closer.

More details about the survey can be found here:
Computer Games are Good for Kids, Parents Say – PC World
Report: Parents believe gaming benefits their children – Gaming
News: Microsoft Study Says 75% of UK Parents Think Gaming is Beneficial; Kotaku Questions the Numbers – Kombo.com
Research shows Parents See Benefits of Gaming – I4U News UK

One of the brilliant side effects of this recent resurgence of classic video games is the nostalgia that comes with playing the games you grew up with all over again. Nintendo has just released Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen for a mere 800 Nintendo points (about eight dollars) on its virtual console available for play on the Wii.

The description from Nintendo reads:

It’s up to you to defeat the Empire! It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since the Zetegenian Empire first conquered the Kingdoms of Zenobia with a wrath of fear and bloodshed. You are the leader of a band of rebels who have fought to preserve the last shred of honor in this desperate time of treachery. Manage the ranks of a full-blown rebel army, complete with hundreds of characters, magic items, weapons, and mystical Tarot cards. You must succeed in ousting the evil usurpers, as your fate, and that of the entire population, depends on it!

The graphics are 16-bit, and this game was ahead of the curve when it was released in 1993 for the Super NES console. It featured multiple endings, reputation system, automatic combat, and an interesting tarot feature that allows you to possibly sacrifice your reputation in return for an easier victory.

It is an early strategy game and certainly one of the more innovative during an era in console gaming where game play was starting to go from simple to more complex as designers pushed the envelope in an attempt to make games more interesting.

There is a lot to love about the Sony PSP. It has a sharp screen, rich graphics, wide viewing angle, integrated browser and more. It essentially works as a portable computer rather well even allowing WEP and WPA wifi connections where the competition fell short. The PlayStation gaming console has the same advantages over the Wii, and yet sales still show that consumers trust the Nintendo brand significantly and sales are starting to wane there as well.

Nintendo has had a philosophy that it doesn’t matter if you’re on the cutting edge of technology as long as your games are fun to play. All the graphics in the world can’t make up for a mediocre experience overall. This philosophy was put to the test when Nintendo announced the Wii to compete with the PlayStation line. Pundits laughed off the new console at first stating that players would be more attracted to the high-def content the PSP would offer consumers over the standard def content the Wii offers. It seemed as though Nintendo came too late with too little until sales figures came in.

The PSP needs to face a redesign to survive, and recent rumors give hope to Sony lovers that it will. According to rumors initiated by sources such as Acclaim’s David Perry, the new PSP will be sans UMD disc drive. This means no more cartridge games. This would appear to be a double-edged sword considering many of the PSP loyal gamers out there rely on that drive to run their favorite titles. Sony could push their online store pretty hard by making it the main distribution channel for PSP titles, which would ultimately hurt the brick-and-mortar stores but make more direct profit for the company.

Another rumor indicates a sliding screen and a different control system. With the screen down, you may only be able to play games via the right and left top control buttons. When the screen is up, you could have access to a full keyboard. This would mean games in general would have to be different on the device. A slimmer design brought on by the possible removal of the UMD drive is also spreading through the rumor mill.

Whatever the case, in order for the PSP to bring developers back to the platform, it will need a new start. Could the PSP-4000 be the PSP 2? Will it be able to compete head-to-head with the upcoming Nintendo DSi? Time will tell.

World of Warcraft is Evil by Matt Ryan

A report put out by Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation states that World of Warcraft is as addicting as crack cocaine. This is a stunning assertion, though the writer follows up insisting that every gaming addiction case they have taken up has involved the Blizzard title.

Gaming addiction is on the rise and according to Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation representative Sven Rollenhagen, “There is not a single case of game addiction that we have worked with which World of Warcraft has not played a part.” This quote coming from “Metro” newspaper.

China and South Korea have set up gaming addiction clinics to handle cases that have gone from innocent game playing to a more dangerous situation.

“No one should sleep on that franchise. That’s a tremendous franchise for PlayStation in general. We’ve had two that are the top two sellers on PSP right now. So, there’s definitely continued conversations with ['GTA' development studio] Rockstar on all their brands. That’s nothing that’s left the PlayStation family.”

This interview has spawned a swarm of interest in the future of GTA on PSP, however it should be noted here that there is currently no Grant Theft Auto title announced for the Sony platform.

Links
MTV Multiplayer » Sony Talking To Rockstar About More ‘GTA’ PSP Games

He also runs his own guild in the World of Warcraft. That’s right, when he’s not doing visual effects for epic blockbusters that stun and amaze audiences, he’s at home leading his guild to victory through the dangerous and epic World of Warcraft. According to WoW Insider, he plays a combat rogue with 450 Enchanting and Inception which is a pretty impressive draw. His guild has beaten just about everything in the game short of Sarth 3D. You can even spot him sporting his “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” title as leads his guild to adventure.

The next time someone tells you that playing online games will make you waste away your life, remind them that someone maybe even more involved than you are just took home some of the rarest loot in real life, an Oscar.

Other Sites Reporting on this Story:
WoW Insider
Joystiq
MTV

Photo By: Belb (Wikipedia)

It’s round two between Nintendo and Apple for dominance of the portable gaming market. Nintendo is shaken by the always-available games offered up on the App Store at low prices for the iPhone. Screen size, a touch interface, and a built-in accelerometer seem to have Nintendo grasping for the ropes. Will the reigning champion Nintendo come back from this powerful punch to the midsection by the newcomer Apple? The Nintendo DSi is their answer.

The Nintendo DSi comes in a bit slimmer than its predecessor and features screens that are 1/4″ larger. This means more viewing area and less bulk in your pocket. I don’t believe bulk was ever an issue with the Nintendo DS Lite when compared to the original Nintendo DS which hardly fit in an average size pocket.

The new system features a shiny new OS that brings with it an online store where users can download games directly to the device through the on-board Wifi connection. The store sounds more like a copy of the WiiWare than a new innovation. Still, this upgrade is only available to the DSi so owners of the previous handhelds will need to upgrade to gain access to this new system. It is unclear to us here at The Daily PWN whether or not the new DSi will allow for both WEP and WPA encrypted connections.

For the first time, gamers can add an SD card to add to the built-in 256MB of storage. You will be able to store more than just games as the new system features a photo editor, music player (AAC only), and audio recorder.

In order to keep up with the demands of the new feature set, the DSi packs twice the processing punch and four times the RAM. This might allow for future games to be a little more processing intensive. This will also allow for the two on-board 0.3 mega pixel cameras to do their job while you’re gaming. These cameras offer a more interactive experience for multi-play and PictoChat.

With every positive there unfortunately is a negative. You will have to shell out $170.00 to get your hands on this new system. The games are still pricey compared to those offered on the iPod Touch and iPhone. Keep in mind, however, that at the current time the iPod Touch is still more expensive than the DS or DSi.

Battery life is also sacrificed. The new features allow you do accomplish more using the built in Wifi but that very connection drains the battery in a hurry leaving you in need of an outlet when you could be enjoying the gaming experience.

If you have a collection of Gameboy Advance Games then you are going to be disappointed to discover that the DSi does not include a port for those classics. Nintendo has been well known for backwards compatibility among their systems including maintaining a classic Gameboy port through its pocket and color releases many years after the original lost its market appeal. The Gameboy Advance port was included in the original and updated DS but sadly it has been discontinued with this iteration.

Overall, this is a solid system and a good answer to the innovations of late brought forth by other systems like the PSP and the iPhone/iPod Touch. Nintendo has been known to build for the future, and I can only imagine what titles are going to take advantage of features such as the web cams and the added processing speed. The disappointments aren’t to be overlooked though, especially if battery life along with backwards compatibility are important to you.

Rating: 90 out of 100