Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:25 PM

Category: Role Playing

I very much disliked the creation of my characters, as any should, because there isn’t enough options (Races, hair styles, face styles, etc.) to choose from. And after you create your character, you go into a beautiful cinematic of the game (maybe the best thing I’ve seen from a cinematic, for an RPG).

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:27 AM

Category: Strategy

The New World, of course, wasn't new to everyone, and Ensemble knew from the start that Native Americans would play an important role in the game. They do, but not as a playable civilization.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:05 AM

Category: Role Playing

So, if you see a bad guy wandering around with a really nice looking axe that you real want, run up and fight him. If you win, he’ll drop the axe, and it’s all yours.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:35 AM

Category: First Person

As it turns out, Sam won't just be plowing straight through each level from one end to the other, shooting anything that gets in his way, like in his earlier adventures. Many of the game's levels have specific objectives, like defending friendly aliens against marauding monsters who charge in from all sides, or fighting off waves of monsters to defend a specific position.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:25 PM

Category: Role Playing

Paul is the Grand Master of the Order of the Temple. He was the hero of the first game, where he battled the forces of Hell and sealed the gate down there to make our world a better place. Now, Hell's thugs are running around kicking up dust again, and Paul has to run around the ancient world, kicking a little ass. This is 13th century Europe, and it's rendered with all the grit and glory of a History Channel documentary. Players guide Paul around as he looks for three ancient artifacts and one all purpose weapon that will show these demons who's boss.

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

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:59 AM

Category: Role Playing

This level of realism extends beyond the art to the gameworld itself. People will behave realistically, going about their daily business and coming and going according to the time of the day - in fact, time is an important factor in The Witcher. In the demo we saw, washer-women cleaning clothes down by the river in the morning made way for bandits and thieves roaming the city streets at nights. While this passing of time establishes an authenticity and level of immersion in the world, it also has a direct impact on the player.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:45 PM

Category: Simulation

Dangerous Waters isn't like most airplane or racing simulations, however. While players do command the vehicles in the game, playing it requires patience on two levels. The first is the learning curve. Each vehicle has several stations that a player can man, including piloting, sonar, and electronic warfare stations. Mastering each requires some study time with the documentation and also some practice.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:27 AM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:59 AM

Category: Action

It's an understatement to say that Tomb Raider: Legend has had a tumultuous existence thus far. With a new design team, a desperate publisher, and thousands of jaded fans, Legend has a lot of work to do if it's going to impress anyone.

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

Category: Role Playing

Carter won't be the only recognizable voice in Oblivion, as she joins Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Robin Hood: Men in Tights) in contributing to the game's reported 50-plus hours of voice work.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:35 AM

Category: Role Playing

DSII is dripping with story and plot. You must, and I repeat must, get past the first five or so hours, which are essentially slow and uneventful. After that the quests and missions pile on and offer the average player 50-60 hours of good gamming. The levels and missions do set you on a sort of auto pilot to the finish line, but there is a wealth of quests and side adventures that will keep players gaming even after the last enemy is slain. This game is deep, my friends, and you won't be disappointed in the breadth of its offerings.

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

Category: Role Playing

Witchers are kind of like the Ghostbusters of olden days. If you have a problem with an unruly creature, just find a local Witcher, pay him a good bit of coin and he'll take it upon himself to rid the world of the problem.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:51 AM

Category: First Person

To prove that UT 2007 is ready to play right now, James added a few bots to the mix and started slugging it out with 'em in Carbon Fire. We saw the standard fully automatic compact submachine gun, the redesigned link gun, the rocket launcher, the flak cannon and the shock rifle, though we did not get to see the advanced secondary attacks of these weapons, save for the shock rifle's energy ball.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:50 AM

Category: Action

After returning home to Babylon with his girl Kaileena (the Empress of Time Prince saved in an alternate Warrior Within ending), our royal boy discovers an enemy at his gates. Somehow this leads to Kaileena dying. Since she basically serves as a containment vessel for the Sands of Time, they get loose.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:58 PM

Category: Role Playing

In DS2, the drop-rate is far more random than it was the last time, and the sheer amount of loot has been improved enormously. There are set items, uniques, “rares” of various kinds, enchantable items, and of course the normal magical items. The enchantable items can be brought to an enchanter, who brings up a menu. Here you place the item, and put charm-like items to define the magical properties. You only have a limited number of slots, so most items won’t be incredible, but it can be an alternative if, for instance, you haven’t found a very good spell book for a caster.

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

Category: Action

In addition to righting the square wrongs of former Tomb Raiders, Lara's new forgiving acrobatics will allow gamers to send her leaping, shimmying, climbing, vaulting, rolling, diving, and grappling across some pretty exciting environments gracefully, not clumsily. That kind of flow did wonders for Sands of Time.

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

Category: Developer

When Executive Producer Todd Howard started working for Bethesda 11 years ago, it was strictly a mom and pop outfit. His desk was in an unheated part of the building used as a warehouse; during the winter, programmers had to put space heaters under their desks to keep warm. When a game was finished, "I used to be down here packing boxes," he said.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:19 AM

Category: Role Playing

I found the characters’ voices to be acted rather well. The short-lived Dryads were kind of “chirpy” and the Half-Giant’s voice…was kind of low and sexy. (Ok, I need to get out more.) Also enjoyable were the ambient sounds. I heard believable jungle birds and monkeys in the rainforest, and skittering sand in the desert, not just overbearing music.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:37 AM

Category: Role Playing

As the god's final blow struck through his foe's shield, the ground trembled. At that moment, a supernatural energy was released, consuming both armies in a radiant cataclysm extending far across the Plain of Tears, leaving devastated wasteland as the sole reminder of the First Age of Man.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:41 PM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:03 AM

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:37 PM

Category: First Person

What I find most notable about the game is the way the entire environment comes together. I cannot cite one specific part of the game which makes it so eerie, yet the overall package will have you jumping at the slightest sound. At one point I found myself trying to save my skin shooting at what I later realized was a bunch of rats running along a corridor.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:54 PM

Category: First Person

Steve Nix: We are definitely looking at a retail release with a collection of episodes. This will make the game available to yet another group of gamers that might not have been exposed to the digital version. We have not finalized a distribution partner for the retail collection but we have had some early discussions.

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

Category: First Person

As long as everyone is playing nicely, and the Commander and squad leaders aren't completely idiotic, this chain of command is extremely effective and quite a lot of fun. If no one on your side chooses to be a Commander, or no one is formed into squads, or people think they are playing a Deathmatch shooter, then prepare for a night of hell. It is VERY easy to see the imbalance in battle when you have one side that is actually strategically following commands fighting another team of wolves.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:32 AM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:16 AM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Once you’re outside a city’s walls, you won’t see any other players (apart from your companions of course). Here it’s you against the world. There’s no queuing up to defeat a creature that requires being defeated before you can continue the online story here.

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

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:50 AM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:56 PM

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:10 AM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Implementing an auction house, a bazaar or a other more-sophisticated means of trade is going to do a lot for Guild Wars. It will allow all of us to interact more meaningfully. If we want to trade, we’ll have a good way to do it. If we want to hang out in town and chat, we can do it without being interrupted by trade chatter, and without interrupting the reasonable business efforts of traders. And if we want to form a party, we can do so smoothly and easily. Right now we’re sort of “bumping into” one another – chatters and traders and party formers all mixing in a combination that can be exciting but is a little hectic, too!

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:38 PM

Category: Action

EDISON, N.J., Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Majesco Entertainment Company (Nasdaq: COOL - News), an innovative provider of digital entertainment products and content, today announced that it has shipped the PC version of BloodRayne 2 to retail stores nationwide. Developed by Terminal Reality, BloodRayne 2 continues the mature action series that has sold nearly one million units to date.

"BloodRayne is a strong franchise that has garnered the support of legions of fans and extended into other media including movies, comics and collectibles," said Ken Gold, vice president of Marketing for Majesco. "BloodRayne 2 features the trademark acrobatic combat the series is known for while delivering a wealth of new enhancements to improve the experience in every way."

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:24 AM

Category: Action

BF2 takes place in the modern day in both the middle east and in rural China, with three teams all with their own sets of weapons and vehicles. You've got the US armed forces, a generic "Middle Eastern Coalition" (probably so as to not anger any specific nation), and the Chinese fighting it out. You won't see all three sides going at it at once, but the Americans get to take on one of the other two sides on any given battlefield.