Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:08 AM

Category: General

As a lifelong PC gamer, the single most anticipated element of Windows Vista has been the apparent renewed emphasis on gaming that Microsoft has been trumpeting alongside the operating system. It is long overdue at this point--even Microsoft admitted fairly recently that it had neglected PC gaming in recent years as it put billions of dollars into its Xbox brand. With Windows being an open platform and having no clear stewards like the consoles do, Microsoft is really the only company that could reasonably serve as its de facto gaming coordinator, and that is what it plans to do with Games for Windows. Of course, it is difficult to gauge just yet how effective the initiative will be, as DirectX 10 has yet to arrive in full force, and only a few official Games for Windows titles have been released, while Vista itself is only just being released this week.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:44 AM

Category: Developer

To be honest? ...we're enjoying the hell out of doing something different than hardcore shooters, and the variations within the casual game market makes us even more enthusiastic! These small games have some tremendous advantages, too!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:54 AM

Category: Strategy

First up, ship management. This is a great part of the game, as 1701 AD allows you to establish AI driven trade routes which will keep your ships moving goods as efficiently as you can order them. The "active" trading part of these trade routes lets you target a set of goods and the amounts to hold in your hull as you sail port to port. In response to the rules you provide, your computerized captain will attempt to load and unload, buying and selling as best he can from stop to stop.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:27 AM

Category: First Person

As usual, infantry combat is a trigger happy twitch fest thanks to the fun weapons that have been revamped for the new UT. You can expect all sorts of great toys like the Link Gun, Stinger, Shock Rifle, and Flack Cannon.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:17 AM

Category: General

“I don't know that we would ever release downloadable content specific to Shivering Isles,” he responded. “However, we do have one or two new pieces of content planned for the future for the main game, though these are obviously not of the scope of Shivering Isles.”

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:43 AM

Category: Role Playing

Interestingly, necromancy--the magic of raising the dead and manipulating their undead spirits--won't exist in the world at first; you'll need to undertake a quest to restore it to the world by reactivating a set of ancient towers. If you choose not to restore necromancy, then it simply won't exist throughout the entire game, and you'll never have to swing your sword at a single skeleton or zombie.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:35 AM

Category: Developer

DALLAS, TX – January 24, 2007 – MumboJumbo(TM), a leading developer of premium casual games, today announced it has acquired Ritual Entertainment(TM), a veteran game development studio with expertise in game design and artistic quality. In addition to the strategic importance of the deal, which strengthens MumboJumbo’s(TM) ability to deliver the best games to the casual gaming audience, the acquisition further solidifies the company’s presence as one of the largest casual game studios in the industry.

“MumboJumbo(TM) established the casual games category at retail, and the purchase of Ritual Entertainment(TM) is consistent with our strategy to bring high-quality casual game content to the major platforms,” said Ron Dimant, who left his post as chief executive officer of Ritual Entertainment(TM) in 2001 to found MumboJumbo(TM). “The combination of Ritual’s(TM) high-end, multi-platform expertise and our own industry-leading publishing model will set the bar for quality and sophistication in casual games and create a major industry powerhouse. The casual games market is beginning to mature as evidenced by an increase in consumer expectations. Ultimately, the companies providing the best content will win, which is why we are investing so heavily in the development of technology and original IP.”

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:10 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

The costumes in Nightfall are outrageously gorgeous. There are the angelic looking Paragons, the stalwart white armored Warriors and spearmen. The costumes for the female character are sparkling and diaphanous. How they got the skirt of the Elementalist to look transparent as though it were made of pure lightening is beyond me, but it looks amazing. These are some of the best costume designs that I've seen anyplace, except perhaps in Lineage 2 which is a game of another stripe entirely.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:48 AM

Category: General

A phenomenally ugly third-person shooter that masqueraded as a Grand Theft Auto clone, 25 to Life is a foul fiesta that hates its audience outright. The shooting is dull and repetitive, the characters are repugnant and the story tries so hard to be gritty and hardcore that, in the end, it's really just depressing.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:07 AM

Category: First Person

Will BioShock have a playable demo, and if so, when?
No playable demo is planned at this time, as the team is focused on the actual game. Things could change, however.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:44 AM

Category: First Person

Campaign missions take place on actual real-world battlefields, carefully recreated from satellite photos and featuring realistic landscapes and local vegetation. You will enjoy the game’s realistic experience - outstanding sound and visual effects, non-player characters speaking in their native languages, and authentic Foreign Legion uniforms, weaponry, and equipment modeled in painstaking detail. On the other side, Code of Honor will hit you with lots of enemies you will need to eliminate in a fast and action oriented battlefield.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:55 AM

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:30 AM

Category: First Person

Unlike most FPS games, there's an ecology with the AI that governs STALKER. At one point, we were directed to a small group of STALKERs whom we would be able to trade with, but were shocked to find only their bodies, some bloody smears and a few sated boars. But in another player's version of the game, they were alive and friendly. Truly, each gameplay experience will vary.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:40 AM

Category: Role Playing

January 18, 2007 (Rockville, MD) — Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, today confirmed the upcoming release of The Elder Scrolls IV®: Shivering Isles™, the official expansion for the award-winning The Elder Scrolls IV®: Oblivion™. Shivering Isles will be released for Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows this Spring.

The Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides – Mania and Dementia –filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. You’ll encounter more than a dozen new creatures including hideous insects, Flesh Atronachs, skeletal Shambles, amphibious Grummites. Throughout your adventure, you will discover all new items, ingredients, spells, and more, and have the talented craftsmen of Crucible and Bliss forge new armor and weapons just for you.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:42 PM

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:16 PM

Category: Music

Although Sting and his camp remain mum on the subject, sources do tell me that the Police will reunite this summer to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:06 AM

Category: First Person

Like many readers surely are, I was somewhat skeptical as to how scalable Crysis will be for those without top-end rigs. "Even more so [than Far Cry]," assured Mamais. "A three year old graphics card should be pretty good. You'll have to turn things down--shadows, particles--but people who get the big machines want to have everything so we're going to be really jamming on those big machines. But for the guys who don't have that kind of budget, they'll still have a really good experience and have fun.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:19 AM

Category: First Person

Halo 2 may seem old news to Xbox fans, but the blockbuster first-person shooter will finally arrive on the PC this year, and Microsoft is letting teams battle one another in some Halo 2 multiplayer action at the Consumer Electronics Show. The game is currently running on eight PCs, and attendees can engage in some virtual combat using either the mouse and keyboard or an Xbox 360 controller.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:42 AM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:18 AM

Category: Action

The initial release of Left 4 Dead will consist of four large campaigns (each spanning five or so maps) which will cover a mile's worth of streets, tunnels, decaying buildings and general urban claustrophobic spaces - all devoid of human life but packed with the Infected. The general rules of play are simple: don't get your noggin nibbled and do your best to escape.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:35 PM

Category: Art

Long story short: Bongo Comics, Matt Groening's comic book company, is hiring me to do the pencils for a short manga-style Simpsons comic. Also, I've been contacted by 20th Century Fox. They want me to do work for them somehow. I might get a design job for the upcoming new Futurama series!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:48 AM

Category: First Person

To start, the Crytek guys showed us how we could pick up items and fling them at enemies. We started with barrels and crates, but soon we were grabbing enemy soldiers by the throat and throwing them -- pretty hard -- at other enemies. Using the bio-suit's strength setting, it's possible to throw enemies several stories into the air (try as we might, we kept missing the helicopter), or even punch vehicles hard enough to knock them backwards into enemies that might be hiding behind them.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:20 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Based on the fantasy world created by the late Robert E. Howard, Age of Conan will actually begin as a single player game with your character finding himself in a strange land and with no memory as to who he might be. We've seen this amnesia plot twists in games, movies, TV shows and books but it always tends to be effective at setting up mystery.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:02 PM

Category: General

He was responsible for characters from The Flintstones and The Jetsons when he worked for the Hanna-Barbera studio. And he assisted in the design of films including Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians and Cinderella, during a career spanning more than six decades.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:44 AM

Category: First Person

The most common weapon we used was the assault rifle, which can be modified on the fly with various scopes and attachments, depending on your need. One thing you can also do is divert suit power to strength and pick up enemies by the neck and hurl them 30 feet in the air, effectively killing them. We played hide-and-seek with the North Koreans, leaping onto rooftops and sniping down on them. The artificial intelligence showed some imagination. We saw the enemy soldiers try to use cover, and in one instance a soldier leaped over a fence to try to get out of our line of fire.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:34 AM

Category: PC Games

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:15 AM

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:22 AM

Category: First Person

The QuakeStory isn't just a page of blurb to help fill out the game manual. It inspired cool immersive stuff like unique map plots and compelling objectives (more later) and best of all it gives us two very different teams, and thus the asymmetricked-out gameplay we craved: team-unique player classes, abilities, items, weapons, vehicles and deployables.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:48 AM

Category: First Person

The first major step forward after HL2: Episode One is that Gordon and the gang finally get to leave the boundaries of Eastern European-style City 17. This move effectively leads the way towards more open-ended gameplay than what we've seen in the previous episode. We're looking at huge sections such as forests and farmlands; basically, your average countryside. In addition to that, the level design team threw in a bunch of cool underground areas, some of which appear to be Antlion breeding lairs. To make things worse for our hero, nesting deep beneath the surface, are massive spider-like creatures that weave dense webs. Their favorite pastime happens to be hatching unpleasant looking maggots that give off a distinctive fluorescent light.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:35 PM

Category: Role Playing

Setting the scene, it's explained that an ominous-looking gate has opened in Nibben Bay, the portal leading to a torn realm - the Shivering Isles - ruled by Sheogorath, the god of madness and dementia. Apparently, adventurers will meet the god and "plough through his trials", but it's additionally hinted that ultimately we may well be usurping the deity. A ETA of Q2 2007 has been given.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:22 AM

Category: Console Games

The same source that broke the VF5 news is now reporting that Tekken 6 will make its way onto the 360 shortly after the PS3 launch.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:05 PM

Category: First Person

This map pack is well done: enemies and weapons are in the right place and you can see the design accuracy increasing level by level giving a nice and smooth gameplay! I don't know why the authors didnt put a single english word in it (all written and spoken in russian) but you cant miss this download! Have fun!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:28 AM

Category: First Person

Gamers choose to play as Human or Strogg in one of five unique character classes. Employing an arsenal of weapons, vehicles and deployable armaments, players engage in an action-packed test of skill and coordinated teamwork through a series of combat objectives. Persistent character growth and achievements reward players for teamwork, while clearly defined mission and class objectives guide new players to meaningful contributions on the battlefield.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:00 AM

Category: Stealth

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the newest Splinter Cell is about as good as the Legend of Zelda games are on the CD-I. The gameplay has been ruined. Everything that made Splinter Cell different from other games has been removed. The graphics look like trash, and the extremely low frame rates make the game flat out unplayable. Multiplayer got striped down to nothing, and co-op is non-existent. The game is infected with seemingly thousands of bugs that will make you roll your eyes at the thought of them. The game was probably tested by a bunch of high school drop outs that spent more time overdosing Asprin for their own amusement than doing any work.