Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:35 AM

Category: First Person

Like DOOM, Quake and all those other straight-up shooters before it, Overdose is all about high-speed mouse skill, twitch reflexes, and inherent aggression. Though it feels a bit more dated than its Painkiller predecessors—the series began in 2004—the latest installment nevertheless manages to crank out a gory, fast-paced good time that should please anyone with a strong distaste for murderous beasts from hell.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:38 PM

Category: General

Yes, friends, more than 30 editors located all over the world set aside their ages, allegiances and personal favorites to pick the hundred best videogames that the planet has ever seen! There was fighting, there was mayhem, and there was pizza -- lots and lots of pizza.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 4:47 PM

Category: Role Playing

Karlsruhe, 28. November 2007 – Head for a new horizon! With the add-on, “Two Worlds – The Temptation”, the “Two Worlds” universe continues to grow, introducing new game content, extended gameplay and providing you with the answers to many questions and mysteries which arose in the main story!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:06 AM

Category: Entertainment

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 5:57 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:49 PM

Category: General

Fable turned out to be the biggest 10-hour game you've ever played... except maybe a few dozen others that were quite a bit bigger. Acorn planting was not included as an option, and the morality of your decisions basically amounted to how totally badass you were (and how scared random NPCs were when you strode into town to buy stuff).

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 4:37 PM

Category: First Person

At its core, beyond some clever tweaks, GoW is a one trick pony. Like Max Payne essentially took a very stock shooter and added bullet time to give a new gaming experience, GoW brings in the concept of shooting from cover which, paired with an exceptional physics model, does make for some jazzy and entertaining gameplay.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 5:21 PM

Category: First Person

Unlike the first CryEngine used in Far Cry, where outdoor environments were huge and impressive while indoor areas suffered by comparison, CryEngine 2 is equally good at rendering both. There is no denying that the wide open areas in Crysis are amazing, with their sandy beaches, superb water (the best in game history, topping even BioShock), lush vegetation (including trees which can be shot down), wildlife (birds, fish, insects, frogs, crabs, turtles), and massive view distances. Yet, the most memorable level in the game could very well be “Core”, which takes place at zero gravity inside an alien vessel.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:28 PM

Category: Action

Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed has shot to the top of the UK all-formats charts and become the second fastest-selling new IP on an individual format behind 2002's The Getaway.

The Xbox 360 version of the game claims 67 per cent of sales, with the PlayStation 3 version taking the remaining 33 per cent. It also becomes the third fastest-selling Xbox 360 game within a weekly sales period.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:47 PM

Category: First Person

Fortunately for you (and your employer's health plan), the weapons you find (and yes, it does make me question the commitment my employers in the game have to my personal safety when I have to find appropriate weapons lying around, rather than being provided with them from the get-go.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:50 AM

Category: Role Playing

Hines: Downtown DC is about a quarter of the world. The other three quarters are wasteland, little settlements... Megaton is one of the bigger cities or locations that you'll come to but there's lots of little towns and settlements out in the world. Three quarters of the world is that wasteland area.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:54 PM

Category: Entertainment

Over 21 years, Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling the soft toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted Charmin-squeezer.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:13 PM

Category: Role Playing

Hines: Our philosophy with Fallout 3 was to make it as if we'd made Fallout one and two. Which obviously we didn't but we couldn't really spend a whole lot of time worrying about what we didn't make or what we didn't have control over.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:54 AM

Category: Developer

I like the philosophy behind digital download--it is a disruptive model. And the concept of TV-episode-sized chunks of gameplay is something I've been keen to experiment with for a long time. I love "feature length" games as much as the next person, but I think there's a huge market being undeserved and ignored by traditional long-format games. It will be interesting to see how people react to 30-minute game episodes.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 5:51 PM

Category: Role Playing

Gameplay-wise the combat looks like the standard RTwP fare, with little innovations or detractions. I'm not a big fan of RTwP myself, but if you've enjoyed it in BioWare's products it looks well-executed enough here to be just as enjoyable, with a party to manage with spells and talents offering a bevy of tactical options.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:50 AM

Category: First Person

The weapon arsenal is almost exactly the same as was available in the original Unreal Tournament, except that the classic mini-gun is replaced with a machine-gun that fires Tarydium crystals. Heavy weapons from Unreal Tournament 2004 are also available to fight against machines. New in the game are different types of mines and the generators of protective and slow-down fields.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 5:18 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Games like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online hit the market with a mythology and lore already somewhat given to them, but with Tabula Rasa you are looking at a completely original story developed from beginning to end, and it's a wonderful tale that is told through a lovely opening cinematic, and continues through various instance reports but mostly through the story missions that you are given throughout your missions.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 5:16 PM

Category: First Person

When you manipulate time, the game handles the mutations well, with raindrops freezing in mid-fall and dead bodies convulsing and flying through the air in slow motion. Time manipulation plays a pivotal role in both puzzle solving and battle fighting, and its use is consistently entertaining.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:54 AM

Category: First Person

Crytek hasn't strayed too far from the impressive-but-imperfect design of Far Cry. Crysis is a large-scale, mainly jungle-set shooter with a relatively linear progression on primary and secondary objectives but an incredibly open attitude towards gameplay. It is not a revolutionary game in the face of Far Cry; the two games are clearly of the same stock. But neither is Crysis a rehash in the vein of most of the neverending string of World War II shooters.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:11 AM

Category: First Person

One of my favorite features of the game is the open environment. There is no linear progression to the missions, and there are multiple ways of completing them. You have complete freedom to perform the objectives of the game, in any order. Each mission has multiple objectives, so that the gameplay is basically open-ended.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:54 AM

Category: Role Playing

Pete Hines: There's nobody from the original team on the project. We have spoken to a few of the guys who worked on the original but it would be improper of me to talk any more about that. Those guys are all off doing something else.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:54 AM

Category: Movies

20th Century Fox has signed Mark Wahlberg to star in Max Payne, a live-action adaptation of the bestselling Rockstar video game that will begin shooting early next year. John Moore will direct.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:13 AM

Category: Role Playing

Combat is deeply satisfying, even though the dodge manoeuvres which have been implemented into the combat aren’t awfully useful unless you’re really stuck in a rut. The swordplay is excellent, but lack of control on the players’ part can make it seem repetitive, but don’t get me wrong, it’s never dull to watch.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:33 AM

Category: First Person

DS: It’s this whole tug of war between you and the Hunters who are protecting the Striders. But tuning that map was mainly about providing a whole palette of options for players with different play styles. That was kind of a unique problem for us in the franchise. We’d never given players so much freedom to fail before.

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

Category: First Person

The reason Gears works so well is its laser focus on basic elements of gameplay--namely controls and level design. It is a textbook example of how clever designers can lay out a vast set of seemingly simple blocks and boundaries, that when painted over with the impressive Unreal Engine 3, feel fun to run through as a lumbering marine for hours on end. The control scheme that allows for the visceral, duck-and-cover gunfights never gets boring, and in its transition to the PC, the game's intense action loses none of its pop.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:53 AM

Category: First Person

Microsoft Game Studios announced today that the eagerly-awaited “Gears of War” for Windows (Windows XP/Windows Vista) has shipped to retailers worldwide and will be in stores this week. After launching exclusively for the Xbox 360 last November, “Gears of War” is now bringing the fight to Windows, featuring five new campaigns, new multiplayer modes and full Games for Windows – LIVE support for online multiplayer gameplay sessions.

With the Xbox 360 version of the game selling more than 4 million copies to date, “Gears of War” has been lauded by critics for its gripping campaign and fast-paced multiplayer action. Windows gamers can look forward to the “Gears of War” experience for the very first time, and will get to choose between doing battle via mouse and keyboard, or using the Windows-enabled Xbox 360 controller. From renowned developer Epic Games, “Gears of War” for Windows will engage gamers in hyper-realistic combat, allowing players to fight for survival against the Locust Horde, a nightmarish race of creatures that surface from the bowels of the planet.

In addition to retaining all of the content from its Xbox 360 counterpart and all previously released downloadable content (seven multiplayer maps and the Annex game mode), “Gears of War” for Windows will feature exciting original content, all-new Achievements to unlock and ultra-high resolution visuals, including support for DirectX 10. Five new campaign chapters expand upon the riveting story (including an epic battle with the fearsome Brumak), and the action-packed multiplayer offering is bolstered with three exclusive multiplayer maps, a “King of the Hill” game type and Games for Windows – LIVE support to deliver online matchmaking for LIVE members. A new game editor will allow users to develop an unlimited number of user-created levels with complete access to the Unreal® Engine 3 Editor.

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

Category: Role Playing

Polish developer CD Projekt has crafted one of those landmark games that moves the goalposts for everybody, a truly grown-up take on swords and sorcery that breaks just about every fantasy tradition in the book.

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

Category: Role Playing

You'll realize quickly that the most compelling part of The Witcher is that the dialog is what pulls you into the world.

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

Category: Action

You'll also be cursing whoever decided to turn a potentially excellent idea for a game into this - whatever this is. The combat is dull, with your Vipers firing out their signature guns (with accurate firing sounds - one of the few effects recognizable from the show) at Cylon ships endlessly. You'll also get missiles, a departure from the show, and a few cute little moves that are useful once in a while.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:29 AM

Category: Action

The highly anticipated Devil May Cry 4 immerses gamers in a gothic supernatural world, where a new protagonist clashes with series mainstay Dante. As new leading man Nero players will be able to unleash incredibly powerful and stylish attacks and non-stop combos using a combination of the Devil Bringer arm and the Exceed system, both of which are new gameplay mechanics for the series. Fans of Dante won't be disappointed as he too will be playable during the course of the game.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:48 AM

Category: First Person

A lot of this stuff works, and works quite well. The combat, a requisite to any great action RPG, is well executed for the most part. Beating up on zombies, hell-dogs, and the game's massive bosses is a good deal of fun. Zombies give way to your sword swings with gratifying crunches, and grenade blasts splatter demons to and fro in delightfully tight bunches.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:11 PM

Category: Action

Under the multi-year agreement, SEGA has been granted the exclusive interactive rights to develop and distribute games based on both Marvel‘s Iron Man feature films and the classic comic book iterations of the character. The Iron Man agreement represents the first step in a strategic partnership between Marvel and SEGA to bring at least one additional Marvel Super Hero property to next-gen platforms.