The Last Stand

Every videogame and their mothers these days have some sort of survival mode attached to the experience so it really wasn't a surprise when Relic/THQ announced one for Dawn of War II. Having been released a few days ago I've put a bit of time into it and have found it to be enjoyable. There are a few gripes though.

The first of my problems is the obvious and most annoying fault, the lag. Now I don't have the greastest internet connection yet I can play just about any game out at the moment with little to no problem. The Last Stand lags no matter who your connected to and it does begin to get annoying. The second issue I have is that you HAVE to have 3 people in your party to play. This isn't a huge problem but a few times I have found myself wanting to play a match with Drahc but having to wait for the server to find us a third player.

Having said all of this the DLC is fantastically good fun. You may have worries about how long this fun will last but I assure you that there are enough upgrades and wargear to keep you going for a long time, and 3 characters to play. The gameplay basically revolves around surving against waves of various races. Every fourth wave is a boss battle (which are always challenging) and there are also 2 control points that increase your points multiplier. Once you die (and you will die) you gain experience on the character that you were using. This experience is the same for all of the players in the match. This ensures that everyone gets a level playing field and team play becomes a more intergrated part of the game (as opposed toa rush to get the kills). Gaining levels only unlocks wargear meaning that a level 1 player can be as effective as a level 15 depending on the skill of the player. This is a welcome change to normal RPG systems.

Overall The Last Stand is a good addition to Dawn of War II, and, although it isn't something that you should buy the game for I recommend downloading it (if you already own the game) and putting some time into it. Especially if you have some mates to do it with.

The Old Republic

Since I am a MMO player, and for all those who are interested, and I am preparing myself for the mocking of the fellow GFGG staff, I play WoW or World of Warcraft, that awfully addictive game... I’ve played EVE online, which I was doing ok with until I lost my ship, threw all my toys out of the pram and quit. And once upon a time I played that, now looking back bad, game, Runescape, over the interwebs. I did once try to play Star Wars Galaxies, and it was either all the bad things I heard about it, or a technical issue that stopped me from actually playing the game, but I never got round to it.

Now its LucasArt’s second attempt to breathe life into their bank accounts (Although, with all the merchandise LucasArt’s have made, I’m sure their bank accounts are lined and made from Gold), with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Now, for you lot in the know, you’ll know what series this is following on from. For all of you who don’t. Look back at other games LucasArts have made, say... in the RPG genre. Then say... look at games set BBY (Before Battle of Yavin.) Then say... look at the name and realise it shares a name with KOTOR, Knights of The Old Republic. Yes!! LucasArt’s have decided that the follow on to that brilliant game KOTOR 2, that they are going to make an MMO from it. Congratulations, Most of your fan base now hates you...

Still, With the Beta of the game already broken due to the influx of people trying to get it, I thought, since I will be attempting to play the Beta, to give reason why I, and you lot sitting on your computers, should either A) Play it, or B) Not come to my house to try and burn me for wasting your money on an MMO.

Since Galaxies, When they messed it up bad ways by making the Hero class (Jedi) easier to obtain by casual players, which caused all kinds of problems (If you having problems thinking why this is bad, imagine a group of intellectual people being given a button to destroy the world, but because they are intelligent they have no wish to destroy the world, now imagine, that button gets mass produced and given to monkies... And the button has a picture and smell of bananas...) Now, LucasArts thinking ahead, have released a (At the moment only Sith Warrior) Jedi ish class. This may sound mad. But wait! If they release them as a default class to pick, then they have the ability to be normalised around the rest of the default classes, making the game more balanced. This might make a lot of people since that will mean that the Sith and the Jedi won’t be super powered, but it’s all for the best.

This game has two basic ways it can go, in terms of combat. It can either go for a WoW interface of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Then abilities linked to each of the buttons. Or it will follow a KOTOR style combat system of lining up attacks (to people who haven’t played KOTOR, I’m sorry if you don’t understand this, just image a menu of all your attacks that you cycle through) Either way, people will adapt to this way of play easily. So combat won’t be an issue. The only problem I see with the combat is that a soldier will have fewer abilities, than, say, a bounty hunter, who will have fewer abilities than Sith Warrior etc. So classes, unless they surprise me and give each people the same amount of abilities to balance it, will be unbalanced.

Dialogue will always be dialogue, and I don’t intend on hovering on the subject long, I just hope they implement a KOTOR 2 style dialogue system, where you can pick what you say, and you can influence relationships with people based on what you pick (So telling a quest giver they have a ugly haircut will make them not want to give you quests.)

Which leads me swiftly onto quests, as I assume that, since every other MMO does it, that this one will too, give Quests or Missions to level your character up faster, but, as previously mentioned, every MMO does something like that. I can’t see them getting around that, but I would like to see them try, make an Original MMO (sorry for swearing, “Original MMO”)

The planet selection is limited at the moment, but they always have chances to increase the amount of planets you can go to later on, out of the millions in the Star Wars universe. What will interest me to see, is how you get to other planets. You’d either have to pay to fly on a Transport full of other people (Which will get tedious), Transport will be free (Still tedious but better) or pay for your own ship (which is brilliant, but then raises questions.) I mean, for the latter, if you have your own ship, why don’t you sellotape a massive gun to the front and blow people to the moon of Endor and back.

Finally, and this is very, Very, early days to be thinking about this, and some people will hate me for this, but what on Coruscant (see what I did there, “What on Earth”, “What on Coruscant” Teehee) will they do for End Game. “Gather 40 people up and go blow up a early Star Destroyer... well... an early version of the early version of the Star Destroyer... it gets complicated” or “Go kill this badass Sith dude” in which case, the first one means that Space Warfare might be involved, (By the way, this is all hypothetically, off the top of my head stuff, don’t expect any of this in the actual game) which would be badass, but it means that ship to ship fighting would occur, which means space could be dominated, which causes a lot of issues. And the second option seems awful, Cause End Game means that you need to gather a lot of people, and it gives more rewarding stuff, but Kill a person? And that needs 40 of you? Seems unfair, and it kind of makes you disheartened that you can’t do it by yourself...

Anyway, I can only hope they sort out the website soon, so I can play it, and have no social life still. And I hope they don’t mess it up like Galaxies. Anyway, this is Craig signing off, sorry if this has gone back to Essay like form :(. And may the force be with you.

Craig's Portal Review

Just to mention two things to start off. Firstly, very first Valve game to be reviewed on the site, Yay!! Secondly, trying for a relatively short review, Shock! Horror! So... Short review time! Go!

First ish single player Valve game without the mute Gordon Freeman, in a Freeman related game; instead we have a mute un-named test subject. Go Go Valve. But don’t be let down by the no talking, because the robotic testing voice throughout gives the greatest dark humour in any game. Ever. Still jumping up on down excitedly over its physics engine (even though portal seems to look like they break all known physics) I do love the Valve physics engine, I mean they sum up the most serious of terms in amazing ways, for example, “Momentum: Fast thing goes in, fast thing comes out.”

The game is set out in a fun set of almost tutorial style challenges, and then sets you off into the real world. The challenges start fairly simple, “move across the room”, and then steadily increases to, “do everything, dodgy bullets and don’t touch a thing.2 which is good as it’s quite an easy difficulty curve, and with enough practise and help from the beginning levels, everything can be done, even if it seems impossible at first, and if you disregard the negative talk from the computer.

The game’s end is quite interesting, still have the dark humour throughout and then some, so it felt more like a comedy sketch as opposed to an end “boss” (sorry for spoilers, but if you’ve ever played a Half-life game it isn’t much of one) the end videos further this funny element disproving the “Cake = lie” hypothesis and then there is the end song. Which I have to say is absolutely amazing. Then again if I could sum up the game it would be with the words “absolutely amazing”, or with “buy-now-else-you’ll-die-due-to-serious-amounts-of-me-stabbing-you” or with “equivalent to pizza.” The end also leaves a cliff-hanger, which might mean Portal 2!!! Yay!!!!! (How-ever I have no idea how Portal 2 could equal or surpass Portal since Portal is sooo amazing and new, something similar would be boring)

Achievements have been implemented, which is similar to everything and it’s dog these days, how-ever some are interesting and have to be done by actually thinking (Jesus Christ No!!!) such as “Fall 30,000 feet) does take thinking, since nothing in the game has that much of a drop. Then, just in case you found the game easy, they implemented “advanced challenges”, which are pretty damn hard. Such as do this level, without touching the floor. Then they have challenges like, have the least footsteps, and use the least portals, which can boarder on ridiculous.

The game has, in my opinion, the most emotional moment and best supporting character in any game. The companion Cube. Killing that cube was the hardest thing, emotionally speaking, that I have ever had to do. The cube also has its own parallel humour, like a picture of a family, with all the faces replaced with the cube, which made me chuckle some. Remember my friends, the cake is a lie, but the cube is forever. *Cries.* Portal has a good game time, it takes a couple of hours (dependant on how quickly you solve and pick up the physics and puzzles, and if you go through the advanced maps etc.) and it’s a good enough time for you to enjoy it to its full potential and not get bored rigid of it.

Now for the summing up paragraph. Excellent game, fun, both for game-play puzzles and the dark humour, and keeps you interested for enough time to stop you being bored from real-life. No real problems with the game. I have no clue, as I’ve stated before, how they will actually top this game, if they make a next one. (by the way, cannot wait for Half-life 2, Episode 3) No clue what to review next, possibly go for an old epic game, not Epic as in the company though.
Craig Signing off. By the way in the time it took to read this, you would of possibly completed half of portal by now. Congratulations. Achievement Unlocked.

Indie Game: The spring project

Every RTS gamer worth anything knows about Total annihilation, right? It's the father of large scale strategy gaming, and for it's time completely revolutionized the genre. The most fundamental difference was that the recourse gathering system. It was more about a balancing act between income and the constant output due to construction, rather than stockpiling to make specific units, this led to a much more dynamic experience. But, the problem was, with all games back then, the technology. There was only so much you could zoom out, and it never really looked nice, even to games at the time. But, regardless, the game had a huge fan following, due to the incredible amount of content, that stemmed from the very fact the game had subpar visuals that could easily be recreated.

For the sake of this review, i'm only going to take into account the content based off the original TA. I'm perfectly aware that the engine has evolved beyond that of simply recreating TA, but in my personal opinion, the TA based content is the best and most playable available, which shows in the lobbys, as the most popular mod played is Balanced Anahliation, or one of its varients.

What the spring project has set out to do, is to simply renovate the original game into a engine which supports fully 3D maps, while using the same models.

Changing this:


To this:

A rather substantial improvement, but does it live up to the originals brilliance? The answer? A short, and deffinate, Yes. The team have done a simply fantastic job, and i would personally even say that due to the incredible amount of content currently available, that the game actually competes with supreme commander, my favorite RTS of all time.

One of the biggest problems I come across when playing indie games would have to be the lack of polish you get with more commercial titles, and i have to say, the lobby system, integrated content downloader, and simply the loading screen screams that this is by far one of the best produced indie games around today. Graphically, its simple, yet charming. The maps and shadow detail is good enough not to be noticeable, and the unit models, while still being of the quality of its predecessors, have a simple charm to them that really differentiates them from each other. The construction vehicles, for example, have a ray that folds out and constructs buildings, and the peewees are the cutest thing that you'll ever see explode a thousand times over. One thing i have to mention though, is the ingame UI is a little shoddy, but its easy to ignore, as it serves its purpose well, and does a good job at not getting in the way.

The gameplay, being that of TA, really doesn't need questioning, its going to be great, i know that, you know that. But the level of tactical choices, coming straight from the diversity of units, is simply astounding. Do i go over this wall with Kbots? Do i build stronger heaver tanks and risk their front defenses? Do i go for a mixture? What about Air units, or even navy? How about artillery? I could start building hovercraft and just go straight over the lake, or build a subsea base and build units from that. The diversity and flexibility never leaves you doing the same thing twice.

But that was already established with TA, right? What we are interested in, is how the new engine works. And it runs on practically anything. I personally have it running on a basic Dell inspiron laptop (1.7ghz dual core, with some crappy intergrated intel graphics device) and its not bad. What i do have to say is, it does seem to have allot of problems with newer hardware. For instance, it has, or at least used to have, a problem with dual core processors. Which was a right pain. It also had a problem with my Nvidea 8600 at the time. Both problems could be fixed with a little tweaking of the settings, and it pretty much can be expected of any indie game running off its own engine, but it was frustrating nevertheless.

And like all indie games of the sort, its constantly being updated and refined. A few months ago, i would've had to of complained about the apparent lack of pathfinding, and the game losing out hugely from it, but the problem has been fixed and rectified. Now to create a front to which your units will evenly space out, you simply draw a line with the right click button, creating a makeshift formation.

But regardless, with a simply huge library of maps, mods and even different games altogether (Kernal panic for example) it's almost certain you'll find something you enjoy. That including its fantastically easy to access recourse center, and even an installer with an option to download the most used content on setup, the game itself couldn't possibly be better implemented and presented.

- GamerGit

Craig's Red Alert 3 Review

First off, I am rather a Command and Conquer fan, playing mostly all of them, apart from some of the expansions, I even played that random FPS they decided to make for no honest-to-God reason. So when, jumping back a year, they released Command and Conquer 3: Tiberian Wars, with the revival of Kane, one of the greatest game Villians in a game, followed closely by Dr. Breen, i was rather extactic, and, by Jove, the introduction of an alien race, Yay! Happiness for all, and the result, after buying and playing the game, for me personally was a: Meh...with meh sprinkles, all the over-poweredness of the Necrons in Dark Crusade without any of the kick-ass to follow.

So on randomly finding a link to "New Red Alert Game" i was half in anticipation, half in dread over this new EA release. Jump back further into the past, and you possibly will remember Red Alert 2, which was a fine specimin of a RTS of it's time, Russians Vs. Allies, lots of Dogs, Spiders, Tanks, blowing each other to Hell, futher back still from that, going to Red Alert, yes I have played it and was deeply hurt, when i saw the Full Game for free on a demo disk and it not working due to Vista, Damn OS's. Anyway Red Alert 3 has quite a high standard to reach, even if the bar was lowered a couple of notches due to C&C3.

When i first saw C&C3 i had thought, By Jolly, a playable alien race, Hazzar! Demographic targeted, Amazing Sci-Fi actor cast, away we go, and, as i previously stated. Meh. Even with the Nerd-gasm from the sci-fi actors all in the same room.

As i said in my Fallout 3 review, I chose RA3 over Fallout & Dead Space, due to it's blurb on the back of the box, at the time, when i was less informed, Fallout was a FPS, Dead Space was in a similar meh ish category, and i was bored out of my mind with FPS's, and RA3 which is obviously a RTS, which i hadn't played for awhile since possibly C&C3, but what sold RA3 over the other two, was the lines, in the blurb, "Parachuting Bears" and "Samurai Robots", I mean, Wow!! Their creative department must have been locked away, families threatened, and force fed awesome pizza till they came up with that. Then when you open the box you get a poster of the Girls of RA3, awesome as a concept, how-ever, bears and robots is one thing, perhaps mixing them together and putting them into a setting like, Mars, and having them fight, Flying Monkey Fish, for something like, Lemon Pie, but when the female interest comes into play, t is rather degrading and insulting, I mean, don't get me wrong, nice looking co-commanders are all well and good, but when each shows off far too much clevage and wears things totally unsuitable for combat or a desk job, it's the metaphorical carrot dangling infront of the nerd, and to be honest, I don't bite.

Anyway, moving onto the actual game, and the gameplay, if you have played C&C3 and Generals, it's more of the same: Build base, collect money, all base are belong to me, collecting money seems more difficult than usual, but that's good, no instant building a massive army, and there are enough ore mines scattered around anyway. Bases are intuative, as they can be built on land and water, superweapons also included, although, floating walls havn't caught on yet. On the subject of super-weapons, they are still as over-powered as ever, but i suppose thats were the "Super" comes into it, some, like the Chronosphere have the most obsurdly short cool-down time, but they have moved away from RA2's Nukes and Lightening and moved towards Vacuums and Photons, Hazzar for science! It's all very pretty, and also amazing destructive.


Units are similar, Tesla Troopers, Conscripts, Attack dogs, but here's where it moves on and gets interesting, all three races (I'm moving on to the third one soon, promise) have different mechanisms for warfare, Russians have boats that go on land, and flying parachuting stuff, Allies have disguise and sheilds, and the Japs have Transformers, one that even looks like Optimus Prime, if he had been captured and brainwashed by the Japs. Still on this racial differences thing, Each race has a different way of building the base, and upgrading it, Russians put structure down first, and build up, Allies build it then plonk it down, and Japs build it, put it in a box, and says "where-ever's fine with me boss", same with upgrading, Russians just build stuff, and upgrade that way, Allies, have to get one upgrade from the central command thingy they are near to, and Japs, upgrade each unit producing facility individually, which when they keep getting blown up, can annoy the hell out of you.

Each unit gets a rather nifty secondary ability or weapon, Some might get a "Jump back in time to heal or remove yourself from a stupid fight" others might change to a magnetic gun, that sucks in tanks to crush them under their tracks. Which adds more tactics to the game as opposed to "Big army, move over there, kill anything between Point A, and Point B."

We now move swiftly onto Powers. For some games, it's a saving grace, something to turn to if your amazing attack plan of flimsy robots against a moon lazor didn't go quite to plan. Powers can turn the tide of a battle quickly, but for a game that offers soo much in the way of tactics, which the changing weapons and abilities, it turns into a power-up cluster-fuck. Some powers are overly ridiculus, like a satalite to steal all your tanks without warning, or a bomb you can't stop, you just set it off quicker.

As i've mentions they have released a new faction into the game, The Empire of the Rising Sun, and they are pretty funky, Transformers Vs. Ruskies, and since the aforementioned changing weapon and use of abilities things, all races are equal, unlike the Scrin in C&C3, where you could wipe the floor clean with Planetary Assault Carrier and Devastator Warships.
I suppose, for me, the best bit about RA3 is the actors involved, do actually create a nerd-gasm.
I mean, the Japs are rules by Sulu, for those familiar with the Star Trek Universe, Russians led by Long John Silver, and with the Crazy Russian scientist from Armeggedon, and the allies led by the Head reporter from the Spider Man films, with the second in command being a Bond villian.

Another new feature, which is rather nifty, that EA have decided would be a good thing to implament, is a Co-op campaign, which is orginal for a C&C game, and is quite fun, even if you can't select the commander you want to be, but hey thats being pedantic.

Speaking of being Pedantic, i move onto problems. Glorious, Glorious Problems. First off, The Powers, "God Said: "Let there be Powers" and Craig Said: "Fuck off!!!"" I mean, with less than careful planning, and more random clicking, you could decimate a base beyond repair with superweapons and powers alone. Another thing that is rather annoying is the swimming thing, Dogs and Bears especially. Not disputing the fact that they can swim, it's just that... Dogs don't swim an inch above the water, and Bears haven't inherited the powers of Christ and can walk on water, so in a round-about way, i'm saying they don't look realistic. Now Remember back to RA2, and the fun RA2 Chronosphere fun, or moving boats onto land, or land units to water, and it would destroy them, I do, and well it works still, but, Submerged units seem immune to this fun, and this i would of accepted, if i couldn't bloody see them under the water!! And why, when i fly planes accross and fire missiles into the water does it do bugger all to them?? Absolutly no damage what-so-ever.

Anyway, overall, it is a fun game, and lives up to the RA standard, beating C&C3 by far, not that it had to do much. It still keeps the heart of a C&C game, good casting of actors, good fun races to chose, all fun, but, word of warning, if you are bored with the Build base, munch stuff, routine of RTS, firstly, don't buy RTS's second, RA3 is more of the same.

By the way, sorry for Essays. One day i'll write a short review.
Well this has been Craig, No clue what i'll review next, possibly a Freeman game, or a game related to cake, and lies.

Multiwinia Review - Retro Styleee!!

This is my first review for this site and I wanted to do a game that was relatively new but which wasn't in the public eye. Thus my choice of game was Multiwinia. This indie game from developers Introversion is the spiritual sequel to darwinia a virtual world RTS where you command stick men to go and attack other stick men in a, frankly brutal, manner. This makes for a fairly entertaining game.


In terms of review however I'm going to start with the visuals. Let's be frank, their stunning. I wouldn't normally say this about a game that is based around as few and as far between animations as you will find. However its the retro feel that makes this special. Your multiwinians float across the battlefield in such an old fashioned way that only a few games of today can pull off. Despite the simplistic design the system requirements for this game are higher than expected. With a minimum CPU of 2.0GHz and a minimum of 512mb RAM, this is more likely than not to do with the frequent and ridiculously awesome explosions throughout the game, but more on that later.


The basic gameplay consists of a simplistic RTS structure coupled with common FPS game types and this actually works really well. The RTS half could do with being a little more complicated as this game has no building to do nor does it have any variation in unit types. This small gripe aside the game actually holds up quite well as an RTS. The idea behind the command of the troops is that you create officers to direction your units from your spawn points. Officers are also used to organise your troops into a formation which provides a slow moving block of units hat has a greater firepower and range to normal troops. I love the idea of creating battle lines using these formations and it really gives you a feeling of being a commander. The game modes vary from a rush to collect spawn points in domination to attacking an enemy post in assault to capture the flag, except with giant statues...? All are incredibly fun to play and absolutely mental once you start getting into it.


This is not a game to be taken seriously. I just thought I'd mention that before what I'm about to say, if your a competitive player I do not recommend this. Basically this game is not entirely balanced. Let me give you an example. I was playing a king of the hill match and me and an opponent were tied for the number of zones however I was ahead in terms of points. There was a minute left in the game and things were looking good for me. My estimated points were ahead of his and I was set to win. Before I know it half my troops are blown into a thousand tiny pieces and I loose a zone allowing my rival to career off to victory. How did he do this you say, well with crate drops. These have to be one of the most awesome things about this game, no 2 maps are the same. The crate system really shines in this game. Basically each crate is dropped in a position on the map and whoever opens it gets a random event. Be this gun turrets, napalm strikes or a killer virus there really is no way to tell. But this is what makes the game so fun. There is nothing quite like opening a napalm strike onto someone who holds the middle of 3 flags on a blitzkrieg game and completely turning the tide of battle.



The thing you have to bear in mind is that this isnt a full game. It is worth the £5-10 that you will pay for it and every second I have played so far I have enjoyed. However as you play the game the question that is constantly bugging you is "will it be fun in a couple of months". If I'm honest. Yes. Though simplistic it manages to keep you entertained throught the experiance and each game is different. All games get old at some point but its so cheap thats not something we should be worrying about

This is why this game is special and this is why it keeps you coming back for more (even if you suck as badly as I do).



JaffaKira

Craig's Review of Fallout 3

Now, to get this off to a flying start, I myself am not one for Role Playing Games, especially since Bethesda's Oblivion creation, where I ran around the most beautiful outside area I had seen, to find... nothing. Nothing anywhere. I couldn't do jack all, until I bored, accidentally ran to some besieged city and went through a demon gate to my death. Then I thought, bugger this and a side of eggs and uninstalled it.So when I heard of another RPG by the same people it didn't fill my heart with glee, nor did the prospect of having to run around for-ever trying to find where I was supposed to be going.So Red Alert 3 was a much better option.Then due to some idiot saying it was greater than God, I decided to buy it and have a good old go.So from no previous experience, apart from the Oblivion phase, I ran head first into God-knows-what.

It started quite well with a very simple set up, none of this crazy: intellect doing blah blah blah blah, or you can chose intelligence which does something different but equally important, it was more like, Strength: This helps you hit stuff and carry more. Ah ha!!! And it was all amazingly disguised as a babies book, they didn't go through much of a "This is how you shot, this is how you walk, rotate camera, dance, sing" routine, it was: W,A,S,D to walk, Left click to shoot, have fun. Fair play, you aren’t treating me like an idiot, and I respected this.

Next followed the first encounter with the "karma" idea, this was in the choice of, A, helping a character against some bullies, B, Saving one of the bullies parental figures, C, a choice with the Overseer of the Vault you are in, each of these choices effect your outcome with characters you start with.

Then you emerge stumbling blindly into the daylight. And saw a dystopia environment that took my breath away, and filled my lungs with irradiated air. I have to say, regardless of my kind of high end computer, the environment would have been amazing on my old computer. Walking around all these destroyed cities crumbling around me was amazing. It all had a very "Bioshocky" feel to it. Don't get me wrong though, it isn't Bioshock. It contained some things that could be seen as bioshocky, retro music, and desolate crumbling environment but apart from that, completely original.

Now going back to the original point, of travelling around Oblivion and being bored out of my mind, the lovely destroyed background as I wondered aimlessly was amazing that I didn't honestly care, and there were far more random encounters than in Oblivion to keep my yelping out of surprise and shock every now again, usually with a "Oh dear God not scorpions again!"

This, on the topic of scorpions, leads me brilliantly onto combat. None of this wishy woshy magic or swords like Oblivion, but guns, lots and lots of guns, how-ever with guns, comes horrid aiming, and when you first start, point-blank range seems the best range for accuracy for people or anything you come across in Dystopian Washington D.C. Until you level up in the game, or find enough books, you can't aim properly with usual old FPS or TPS modes. This is why, with the implementation of the V.A.T.S system, Aiming no longer becomes a problem, it’s a "Click here, and bam, I shoot there" system. Which to counter the "Bugger can't aim" helped a tonne and a half, and to change the run around and shoot, added interest and a bit of a change to the game, so it was pretty damn hard to get bored. And so you don't wholly rely on V.A.T.S they give you a Action Point limit, so you can only use it soo many times, then allow it to recharge, and for each different gun, it has a different AP usage cost.

The achievements you can get, add a bit of interest to the game, the one like "Psychotic Prankster" took my eye immediately, how-ever most of it is just "follow the story" achievements, nothing too challenging.You inventory is a decent size, and keeps expanding with the strength you get. And to add more to the "hunt for random stuff" the game has to offer, you can find bobble heads, which gives stat boosts, and obviously achievements.

The levelling system is easy enough to understand, add points to a particular skill like shooting a small gun, then pick a trait, like "kill the opposite sex easier", then that’s it, moving on, unfortunately, you get 20 levels, which if you follow all the side quests, doesn't allow you to reach your, I kill you now potential, how-ever if they kept going, the game would lose its kind of challenging basis.

A game like this obviously has its problems, like, for instance, the crashing issues. The game is amazing and you go through like most of the map randomly exploring, find most of what you need, then it crashes, taking you back till when-ever you saved it, or when it decided to auto save or, my personal favorite, crashing before it even loads up! As i've mentioned before, my computer isn't run on steam and coal, its run on some futuristic power source, possibly made out of pizza, and therefore awesome, and it's a pretty good computer, so I have no clue why it doesn't that, still I can only hope for more God-aweful patches to be released. And for such a good game as well, the bugging issues are a problem, like people gliding across the floor; it takes you out of this immersive amazingly good world.

Apart from that, you change weapons, get caps (money) enough, and even the repairing system is easy enough, find another weapon of the same kind, and use that, you find health etc. easy enough, scattered anywhere and everywhere, it's all simple enough to play, but still not insulting you or making it boring, so all in all, a fun and entertaining game to play, addictive like hell, you just got to live with it killing itself every now and again.Stay tuned for possibly a RA3 review next.Craig signing off :P

Fallout3!!!11one prt. 1

As my very first review I will be addressing Fallout 3!

To start, Anyone who hasn't played the original 2 iterations of this post apocalyptic RPG will not be alienated, a brilliant start, as they were published an age ago, and to go back and play them on any modern display is a real headache.

But the game hasn't lost its roots, there's constant subtle refrences to the previous two games, and veterans of the series really won't feel abandoned. (And yes, there are still brahmin)

And to address those of us who were worried about the switch to a first person perspective taking anything away from the original feel, you can rest at ease, as personaly i feel it really adds to the game, bringing a new level of immersion to a game that really needs it.


But back to basics, It's a pswedo FPS, with an increadibly strong well oiled RPG system, using the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system established by the previous games (Strength, perception, endurance, ect. ect. ect.). The game has been published by Bethuda Studios, the creators of the wonder that is Oblivion, and it really shines through in Fallout.

It takes place in a post appocalyptic version of DC, after a nuclear holocaust in which people were hearded into giant underground vaults for their own safty. A winner formula already.

Considering the context, the first thing that hits you is the atmosphere, it manages to co-inside with exactly what you would expect a nuclear torn DC would feel like, right down to the ambient sounds of wind. Everything feels desprate, you'll encounter the corpses of children in old beds, all adding to the experience.

After a little running around, you'll no doubt encounter a giant irradiated mole rat or the likes, and this is were the simply spectacular combat system shows itself, The vats system, more precisly. The VATS system, basicaly uses AP, or action points, that recharge over time and are used to pause gameplay, and go into aiming mode were each body part of your foe is given a percentage chance to be hit, in lue to the targetting system utilised in fallout2. Deaths in this mode are spectacualy brutal, as limbs leave bodys or heads explode and gib in a frightfuly gory fassion. This brings back almost the turn based feel of the previous games, but, if you're more into the FPS feel of things, then do not fear! The games perk system allows you to specialise between one or the other, creating as wide a varity of ways to play the game as a generic class based system.

The game also utilises the original fallouts open ended gameplay, with how you approch character development effecting your interactions with NPC's and quests, utilising a karma system. Skills also play a huge part in the game experence, and dictate how you complete quests, with situations were you could pickpocket a man for a key to the room you need to get into, or do a little quest for him, or outright kill him for it.

As you can tell, Fallout is a pretty extensive game, so keep a lookout for the second part of this review, posted soon!