Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:52 PM

Category: Role Playing

Yes, there are new weapons and materials in the game. I don’t want to give away any spoilers just yet. My favourite? I’ve always been a sword and shield guy, but I also love using a bow and with the new system we have for using bows, it’s hard to put away.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:01 AM

Category: Action

Tabith (the one, the chosen one), is the only one who can destroy the Beast, a creature from the underworld that, together with a horde of freaks, destroyed the Earth. After several decades of fights, humanity is close to extinction. Women replaced men in the battle, as the latter have been almost exterminated in the past. Thanks to the help of the veteran warrior Tala, the young Tabitha will penetrate in the Forbidden Territory in order to fulfill the prophecy she was assigned.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:30 AM

Category: General

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

Category: General

A woman upset that she bought the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" for her 14-year-old grandson without knowing it contained hidden, sexually explicit scenes sued the manufacturer Wednesday on behalf of consumers nationwide.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:26 PM

Category: Role Playing

We’ve gone over the spells themselves and taken out some of the more useless ones and added in a number of new ones. So you’ll see quite a few new effects like Reanimate, an effect that allows you to resurrect a dead NPC and gain him as a follower.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:11 AM

Category: Role Playing

The gameplay has been entirely modified as well. We’ve given up the turn-based system and implemented frantic and spectacular real-time fights enhanced with a range of graphical effects, like blood splattering on various surfaces (walls, floors), and ‘coup de grace’ bullet time effects. Another set of changes involves the increase in the number of animations – the opponents will now dodge, fake hits and attack in a variety of ways. Next to the additional character animations we decided to add non-interactive cut-scenes to help us tell the story – a system of pre-directed movies and dialogues with an emphasis on unique and personalized character mimics/expressions. Add to that professionally dubbed actors and you’ll have a fully-fledged, living world to hop into.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:58 AM

Category: First Person

The story begins as an unidentified paramilitary force infiltrates a multi-billion dollar aerospace compound, taking hostages but issuing no demands. The government responds by sending in special forces, but loses contact as an eerie signal interrupts radio communications. When the interference subsides moments later, the team has been obliterated. Live footage of the massacre shows an inexplicable wave of destruction tearing the soldiers apart before they can even react.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:05 AM

Category: First Person

One of the biggest game features is the concept of a whole living world (okay you've probably heard that line before) with absolute freedom of movement with imperceptible level loading. Dynamic weather effects as rain, wind, fog, etc., dynamic day-night switching system and man-made calamity, corrupt nature, psychological and physical threats, anomalies, odd deadly phenomena, mutated creatures, stalkers, military cordons, scientific camps are boasted by the game designers. It certainly appears to have all the elements to create a very realistic environment for the player but whether they can pull off a Half Life and acutally merge the boundary between reality and virtual remains to be seen.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:55 AM

Category: Role Playing

The clang it makes when brought down on an armoured opponent confirms it - our foe buckles, staggers backwards and takes a moment to recover. Once he has, however, he doesn't just whack us back - his body coils and he springs forwards, blade flashing in our face as he pounces.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:52 AM

Category: General

Another important aspects of gameplay are freedom and non-linearity. And this is something we’re quite bent on. We’re most annoyed by the restrictions imposed by the game designers, that is why, we’re strongly trying to avoid them in our work. That is why The Witcher has no artificial restrictions, one can for example attack any character. You want to betray and attack your friend… be our guest, you may even kill them though they might be the key to the plotline. When willing to go through a guarded gate, you may try lying, bribery… you may ask someone to distract the guards and try dozens of other ways. The range of choices is entirely up to the player!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:34 AM

Category: General

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:59 PM

Category: General

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:08 PM

Category: Role Playing

Character creation is similar to Morrowind in that you play through it as part of the game’s opening. We like this approach as it’s far less of an abstraction from the menu-based character creation most games seem to employ. You get a greater sense of how the different game systems work before you commit to a certain class archetype. The mechanics of our character creation system work very similarly to our previous games – you can choose a class or custom-tune your own by picking your major and minor stats.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:57 PM

Category: Role Playing

Adventurers Called to Arms as Dungeon Siege II Goes Gold

Microsoft Game Studios and Gas Powered Games today announced that Dungeon Siege II, the ambitious sequel to Chris Taylor’s best-selling, award-winning action role-playing game (RPG) Dungeon Siege, has gone gold. Gamers will once again journey to the beautiful fantasy land of Aranna on August 16, 2005, when Dungeon Siege II charges onto store shelves with a suggested retail price of $49.99.

Dungeon Siege II casts players into a land deeply scarred by civil war, where they will lead an elite battle party against a vicious marauder hell-bent on bringing the world under his control, no matter the cost. Dungeon Siege II raises the bar for action-RPGs by introducing a deeper storyline, an extensive quest system and a new AI system creating more challenging and cunning foes.

Developed exclusively for Windows XP, Dungeon Siege II promises to delight RPG fans with a cutting-edge 3D engine, intense real-time combat against monstrous foes and cooperative multiplayer support. Visit the official Dungeon Siege II website at http://www.dungeonsiege.com, then pre-order the game at select retailers and receive a bonus Dungeon Siege II comic book!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:45 AM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:45 AM

Category: Action

The delays mean that gamers can expect better experiences from the next Hitman and Tomb Raider games. Eidos told MCV that the games have been given more time in development to "maximise their hit potential".

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:57 AM

Category: General

• Speed Up Windows: Skip Menu Transitions
• Use Outlook Express to Excise Hotmail Spam
• A Fix For Word's Wacky List Numbering
• A Better Home For Your Documents
• Move Itunes Collection to a New PC
• Open Acrobat Reader Separately
• Lickety-Split Outlook Searches
• Encrypt Files for Security

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

Category: Role Playing

We've already seen exciting battles in elven dungeons against skeletal warriors, zombies, goblins and hellish knights, with the combat feeling much more brutal and realistic than Morrowind, metal clashing viciously against metal, anguished screams echoing through dark halls and blood spilling freely. You also have the use of other weapons, such as arrows, that will stick realistically in wood or flesh, or bounce off stone.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:05 AM

Category: Role Playing

BS: Our character creation system is incredibly flexible. Basically, during the game, you will be able to create your character class by selecting two miniclasses from a total of eight miniclasses. This gives 28 possible character classes, allowing players to play a class they really like, and giving a lot of replay value. We did not want to keep the players locked into one of the five or so standard character classes. If they want to carry a big axe and throw fireballs, we wanted to allow them to create a character class that would support that type of gameplay.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:52 AM

Category: Horror

Coming across like a horror version of Midway’s Psi-Ops, Demonik casts you in the role of Volwrath – a dreadlocked Demonik called to Earth to avenge his master. Volwrath is a hulking beast, capable of many abilities aimed at doing nasty things to humans.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:40 AM

Category: Role Playing

Midway says that development of Gauntlet hasn't been impacted by my departure and is scheduled to ship this fall. I can't say anything more about the situation and hope you all understand.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:03 PM

Category: Role Playing

According to Hines, the construction set for Oblivion, while the same general design as the previous one, underwent extensive modification while Oblivion was being built. The idea was to bring the same "baked-in" characteristics that the texture maps shared with things like the lighting engine to every aspect of the game world. World blocks will be available to be stacked up just like LEGO blocks.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:28 AM

Category: Role Playing

After you complete the main quest, The Lost Chapters begin. You're contacted by an old guild hero named Scythe who contacts the guild through the boasting platform, appearing there as a ghostly image and speaking of a great evil rising in the northlands, and of a new threat known as Summoners, a symptom of a much greater power.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:18 AM

Category: First Person

The new game raises the stakes a bit. You’ve still got access to a variety of weapons, from a length of iron pipe to a state-of-the-art machine pistol, but Torque can only carry two at a time. Fortunately, you’ve also still got his big gun: the ability to take on a monstrous form, based off of Torque’s incipient insanity, that can tear almost anything apart. If you’re focusing on a more moral path, Torque’s monster is relatively calm, but if you opt to play Torque as a brutal killer, his monster will change to match.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:52 PM

Category: First Person

The upcoming SiN Episodes chapter entitled Emergence is the first in a series of episodic adventures powered by the award-winning Source ™ engine developed by Valve®. Delivered on Steam™, the online content delivery system, Sin Episodes takes a bold new step into the future of gaming.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:20 AM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

We invite you to take part in our newest fan contest, the Brand the Boss contest. Think you can come up with a clever name for a Stone Summit Slaver? We want to hear from you!

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

Category: Role Playing

TH: We have over 400 books in Oblivion, so that's a number that grows with each game, and we do reuse books from previous games that work in this part of the world. We've sort of been building this library over time and writing more for each game. Actually, the best way to easily pick up lore is by walking around and just listening to townspeople chat to each other. Most of our recorded dialogue is for dynamic conversations between townsfolk.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:34 AM

Category: Gone Gold

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:49 AM

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:21 PM

Category: Role Playing

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

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:20 AM

Category: Action

"The magnetic grapple can also be used to solve puzzles along the way. These will be physics-based puzzles too, involving the pulling of specific objects... I've said too much! Let's just say she will have all sorts of new gadgets to help her in her adventuring, and yeah, that includes the use of vehicles too. Rest assured, the vehicles will be cool and relevant to solving puzzles and such."

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:44 AM

Category: Role Playing

Dungeon Siege II contains a massive amount of gameplay. The exact figure is determined by your skill as a player, how much you like to venture off the main path to explore, and other factors such as how much you like to spend in the shops to maximize your characters. On average, I would expect the campaign to take 60 or more hours to play. It could take significantly longer for some who like to explore, or for those who like to replay sections. Yes, there is a substantial amount of randomization in the game, mixed in with handcrafted scenarios and boss monsters. One could spend a lotof time exploring this world, and I expect many people will.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:20 AM

Category: First Person

While sitting behind a wall hoping that your friendly troopers can help you hold off the tide of green and yellow assaulting the base could be pretty fun, the battle is also out among the rocky crags and deserts the bugs like to inhabit. Along with the defend and escape mission, we were shown a nighttime mission as well, mimicking the invasion of Klendathu from the movie.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:50 AM

Category: Role Playing