Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 7:07 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

The chat window was an endless stream of leet speak and insults, with the GMs occasionally stepping in to mute random offenders for not nearly a long enough time period. Any appeals for help from the community, like when I accidentally turned off my health meter, elicit nothing more than mocking, rude behavior. Role-play is out of the question in this sort of environment, not even worth attempting. Since there are no tools for finding adventure parties it becomes a necessity to open yourself up to scorn by shouting to find a group.

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

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Gaile Gray: While we don't yet have a name for the next chapter of Guild Wars, we're well on our way with content development. Various members of the team have been active in startup for level design, quest scripting, programming, storyline exploration, global network expansion, and the creation of all sorts of concept art as well. The chapter will release in the first half of 2006.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:31 PM

Category: Role Playing

Gavin Carter: Cyrodiil is actually the name of the province that Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion takes place in. For all intents and purposes, Cyrodiil is the "game world" that you play in. The capital of Cyrodiil is simply referred to as the Imperial City. It is the seat of government for the empire that rules the known continent, and it is big. People who thought Vivec or Balmora from Morrowind were big are going to be in for a shock.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:22 PM

Category: First Person

New York, NY - September 27, 2005 - 2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), today announced that Serious Sam II has gone gold and will be available in North American retail stores on October 11.

Developed by Croteam, Serious Sam II features online co-operative gameplay for both PC (with up to 16 players via LAN or Internet) the Xbox® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft (with up to four players via Xbox Live® online game service or system link). Players will fight through more than 40 levels of insane first person shooter action against wave after wave of enemies, wielding an arsenal of 15 different weapons, plus new drivable vehicles and turrets.

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

Category: General

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:23 PM

Category: Role Playing

Another aspect we improved is in the way that quests work. We created quests and things for the player to do that they can not only choose to do (or not do) in any order, but they can accomplish in a variety of ways. Part of that is the AI system and the way our NPCs behave and interact. This gives the player more freedom to try some creative things in solving quests that they might not normally try in a more restrictive RPG.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:51 PM

Category: Action

The Prince will often have to use his environment and his athletic skills to reach upper positions in order to take his enemies by surprise from above. If patrolling enemies detect The Prince, they will call for reinforcements and The Prince will not be able to trigger his Speed Kills anymore: he will have to fight his enemies heads-on.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:43 AM

Category: Role Playing

Brian Sullivan: We are designing the game to have 30 to 40 hours of gameplay when going through the campaign on one difficulty level. We will have three levels of difficulty, a flexible class system with 28 different possible classes, and randomized monsters and loot, so we expect to deliver a lot of great replay values. And this does not include all the user-created content.

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

Category: Strategy

It's the dawn of a new age in real-time strategy (RTS) games. A brave New World is rising – a hostile yet beautiful world, filled with innovative gameplay, new strategic scenarios, eye-searing graphics and much more.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:07 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:51 PM

Category: Mods

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

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:17 PM

Category: First Person

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

Category: First Person

In Ties That Bind, Torque is out of the island prison and on the mean streets of Baltimore. While his legal demons may be behind him, the creepy physical ones are not. Tons of them have followed him to the city, where they are causing mayhem in the impoverished slums and spooky prisons of Baltimore.

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

Category: First Person

Scott Miller: Well, the setting of an alien spacecraft gives us a lot of license to develop ideas that don't make sense on Earth. Gravity flipping and Wall Walk - which allows you to run on the walls and ceiling - both fit well and were prototyped very early in the project, which allowed the level designers to utilise them as soon as possible. They're pretty much integral to the design because of the alien setting and since puzzles based around gravity flipping and wall-walking are unique and fun.

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

Category: Gone Gold

The world is more highly developed now with new weapons and technology. Every choice a player makes will have an impact. Each action and inaction prompts obvious changes to buildings, flora and/or fauna all morphing to reflect the player's personality.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:12 AM

Category: Movies

The book was also one of the most violent in the series, with the heroic secret agent taking a beating from his rival Le Chiffre, and gadget-master Q was not present.

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

Category: Role Playing

Knights of the Temple II is the sequel to last year’s acclaimed Knights of the Temple, which followed the epic exploits of the young templar Paul de Raque in his battle against the demonic forces of Hell. Continuing the story of this exceptional warrior in the Dark Ages of medieval Europe, we added additional innovative game play elements. KOTT2 features non-linear storytelling, interactive dialogues and fully customizable character development and quest solving.

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

Category: General

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

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Probably the biggest selling point on the RPG aspect was that it was designed to fix many of the problems inherent with MMORPG's, namely endless level grinding, lack of teamwork, pk's and spawn camping, monthly fees, etc. With the exception of grinding, the developers have successfully eliminated all of the problems that plague the typical MMORPG. PK's (Player Killers) and spawn campers were eliminated by starting everyone in towns and by putting you and your team out alone in the outside world with the monsters; every team gets the world to themselves basically until they return to a town.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:03 PM

Category: First Person

When we first implemented the objective marker system we were undecided how much assistance we should be giving the player in how to navigate to their goal. Many First Person Shooters have level exploration as a primary driving force for the player. I remember spending many late nights rigorously checking the map in Doom I and II for blank areas where secret doors and passageways might be found. However the focus of our game is full on combat action, and though some players will want to fully explore the environment for hidden items, many will just want to turn off their room lights, ramp up the PCs volume, set their mouse to kill, and forge ahead into the jaws of the arachnid horde.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:45 PM

Category: Role Playing

Suffice to say, DS2 offers an open-ended character development system of greater depth than it’s predecessor, the pay-off for investing time in this aspect of the game being the kill and the loot attained by successfully overcoming ever greater feats of hack n’ slash bravado. It’s tried, it’s tested, but to be fair, it’s been a while…

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:49 AM

Category: First Person

Over the years we've been asked several times whatever happened to the Shadow Warrior add-on pack, Wanton Destruction. This add-on was produced by a company called Sunstorm (featuring DNF developer Charlie Wiederhold). The add-on was completed, but then shelved by the distributor. It wasn't our choice, and it wasn't Sunstorm's choice. So the product sat. Eventually Sunstorm went out of business, and the product essentially died. As time went by, we at 3D Realms had thought the product was lost. We never had a copy ourselves of the add-on, and with the company non existent, the chances of releasing it were pretty much zero. We tried to locate it a few times over the years, but pretty much gave up hope, and wrote it off.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:58 AM

Category: Role Playing

While a lot of it is based on walking along narrow pathways – Dungeon Siege II is the Kung-Fu master of RPGs – there are enough branches for you to genuinely explore. While some caves are easy to locate on the radar, there are other hidden rooms which you need to be a bit cannier to find. When married to Dungeon Siege's streaming technology, this gives the game a sense of solid atmosphere that few others can match. Finding a cave and descending into the gloom, sword in hand, is an archetypal fantasy moment, and Dungeon Siege nails it like nothing else.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:47 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

When compared to the other Massive Multiplayer Online games around, Guild Wars is fairly unique. It has no subscription fees, and thus, no credit card. If all you want to do is purchase the game from your local game retailer…fine. That’s all you need to purchase. However, there are chapters released every six months with exciting new game content and skills, although NCSoft stresses that these are completely optional and players will not be barred from PVP (player vs. player) combat if they have not bought the latest chapter.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:09 AM

Category: Role Playing

When I joined Bethesda I became the sixth member of a growing dungeon team - the portion of the Oblivion dev team that basically does nothing but design, build, test, and tweak dungeons. We've since added two more dungeoneers to our ranks and as a group, we have now hand-crafted more than 200 subterranean locales to explore and pillage while playing Oblivion.

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

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Sorrow's Furnace was an iron mine high up in the Shiverpeak Mountains. At one point, as the Deldrimor Dwarves worked their way deeper and deeper into the rock, a temple to the Great Dwarf was erected in the open cavern. The mine was abandoned several decades ago, and the temple has long since been desecrated (oh, the horror!). Recently, the Stone Summit—beastly little varmints that they are—have taken up residence in the Furnace. It's the belief of King Jalis Ironhammer that the Summit are planning something sinister, and he doesn't intend to be the last to find out what it is.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:29 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

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

Category: Strategy

The single player campaign was only partially complete in our build but it had an interesting storyline concerning pirates, Middle Age knights and a secret society trying to find a mystery lake with a dark secret. It may not exactly be historically accurate but it certainly was good enough to keep us playing which is something that a lot of RTS "storylines" fail to do.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:15 PM

Category: General

He died Friday at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina of complications from treatment he was receiving for cancer, his agent, Mike Eisenstadt, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

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

Category: Science

Among the most surprising findings is that parts of Saturn's innermost ring the D ring have grown dimmer since the Voyager spacecraft flew by the planet in 1981, and a piece of the D ring has moved 125 miles inward toward Saturn.

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

Category: General

I’m running out of fuel, I’m locked away from support, and there are no more supplies in the city. I have enough to stay in this room for a month, which should be more than enough. I’ve been shot twice in my life, and stabbed as well. I’m what I would consider a very grizzled person, I’ve lived through monsoons, long winters, and food shortages. This has taken my breath away, this destruction, this mindless hate and anger the people here have adopted to survive. Like I said before, it’s like a video game.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:32 AM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Sorrow's Furnace offers two large, explorable regions: Grenth's Footprint and Sorrow's Furnace. These regions will provide exciting new high-level content to Guild Wars players, and will offer new quests, new monsters, new items, and more. For characters who have completed their ascension in Guild Wars, these areas will provide new opportunities for exploration and reward.

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

Category: General

Bungie Studios and the Bungie Store will be donating at least $15 from each shirt sold which will go straight to the Red Cross and directly to the disaster relief.

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

Category: Role Playing

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:04 AM

Category: General

Now, I'm not saying all games that are even remotely realistic should be banned, but that extra attention should be paid to those that are, and the appropriate limitations on availability enforced, more so than today's standards.