Herbert1405241469

I just found out recently that they came out with a sequel. I'll have to look into getting that, though I heard it's hard as hell so frustration factor may come into play

Well, I've found the latest patch and I've started the game back up again now that I've got a new hard drive and Windows 7. With the latest patch, the game runs a hell of a lot smoother now, and I can finally play it with pretty decent quality without any crap framerates. The single player side is going along smoothly. I think before I mentioned that you get robbed part way through the game, but I just got back to that part today and discovered that after that happens, you are sent on a side-quest to retrieve your gear from the bandits. It's challenging but you do get your stuff back.Now that I've got it back on though, one thing that sucks is that the only servers up for multiplayer appear to be in Russia, because no one speaks English and the ping rates are horrible!!Sadly, Multiplayer hasn't been fun the few times I've logged in just because with my horrible ping, the lag just kills me and makes me an easy target.Other than that, now that they fixed the framerate issues, I'd recommend this game if you liked the first STALKER game.

It's been so long since I've posted, I have so many new games I have to share!Killing Floor for $20 is overall my best investment of 2009. I have many many hours shooting the hell out of zombie-like creatures, and I must say, for this just being originated from a mod of UT2003, it rivals Left 4 Dead in zombie pwning fun.Compared to Left 4 Dead (1 and 2), Killing Floor doesn't have a lot in common, other than the whole "infected/mutants" are attacking you and you need to survive. Past that, the gameplay and mechanics are just different.In L4D, you are constantly moving towards a goal (the end of the level) and you have to punch through obstacles.... In Killing Floor, your only objective is to survive "waves" of mutants, once you get through a set number of mutants and waves, you face a "boss" patriarch, which can be hard as can be. Killing Floor tops L4d in the fact that there are literally dozens of fan maps you can download for free and play in that fans have created. Some are better than others. But also, the company that released Killing Floor also regularly releases free DLC levels and weapons, and that definitely puts more value towards it.Graphics are dark and grim, which fits the game's atmosphere really well. Levels are complex and detailed, and you can wander off and get lost in them, which is not good, because the game likes to spawn about 25 mutants right next to you, which you really do get that feeling of panic as you are consumed by a wave of monsters.There are a variety of weapons you can get, and you access them by killing monsters (and surviving) which earns you money that you use to purchase more guns. There are tons of monsters. ... Some of which I think are literally rejects from the Left 4 Dead series such as the "Screamer" which is a woman in a straightjacket who literally screams when you are near her, and sucks the life out of you. There is a tall fat monster that can be compared to a Boomer from Left 4 dead, that pukes acid on you if you get too close and it eats away at you... Then there are more massive and f*ed up looking monsters such as a human/arachnid hybrid and chainsaw wielding hulks. Definitely fighting for your life, and teamwork is essential. It's very easy to be cornered as they do tend to come at you from all angles. It's hard to "camp" in this game, as you find yourself constantly backing up as you shoot due to the massive surge of baddies right in front of you... typically resulting in finding yourself backing into even MORE that you didn't see, and getting eaten alive!Overall, great game. Definitely worht the money and the general people I've played with are much more mature than Left 4 Dead, probably because this game, sadly, isn't as popular....

When I heard that Left 4 Dead 2 was coming out so soon after being released from the first one, I was apathetic. I had over 100 hours in Left 4 Dead and had moved on to other games, including Call of Duty 4 Modern Warefare 2, etc.When the demo came out for Left 4 Dead 2, I wasn't really all that impressed. I was surprised just how harder it seemed to be, because swarms of common infected were much more recurring than I recalled, and now that i've played for awhile, I see that my average number of infected killed per minute has doubled!For the black friday holiday, Gamestop came out with a $20 discount for the game, so I decided to buy it just because I heard it was a good game. Man what a bit of luck! Now that I've been playing, I must say that it is definitely worth the money. There are many more varieties of gameplay modes, and everything overall is just more polished. The locations are better than I thought they were going to be and overall just the same awesome quality I've come to expect from Valve. (of which I hope they are working on Half Life 2 : Episode 3, I can't wait!!)Graphics have been much more improved, where if you shoot a zombie, they actually "gib" (I think that's the term for it) They explode and you get to watch a shower of zombie body parts fly all over the map, rather than a simple red mist. The blood on them does look slightly cartoonish because it's too bright, but overall the graphics are much better.Gameplay is the same as Left 4 Dead, though you have different objectives now in the different modes including scavenger mode which you need to find gas cans to fill up a motor, while fending off the infected. The new game modes are innovative, but tend to get repetitive because people have found the "best" way to do things so you can anticipate that and try to avoid their tactics but they are so damned predictable now.The voice acting is tip top as usual, but some of the dialog is pretty cheesy as compared to the last 4 survivors...Such as Coach saying in the midst of an attack "I know one thing.... I'm grabbin pills!" referring to seeing a bottle of pain pills. It's just so random and obvious sounding.The new survivors have gotten a lot of flak because people loved the first 4 so much, but Valve really did a good job at picking out such unique classes of people:A slick convict with fancy clothes, a black coach who just looks like he could punch your lights out, a random black girl (to compare with a random white girl in the first game), and a southerner/hick type who knows guns, but isn't always all there.Overall,I'd say it's worth it if you can find it for $30-40, because after awhile you will get frustrated with the same problems the first L4D had, with rage quitters, griefers, and overall toughness to find a good team to play on. Plus, the game play, though innovated a bit, can get repetitive after awhile, though I do believe that I will never get tired of blowing zombies up

I had picked up Call of Duty originally back in the day and thought it was pretty good, but don't think I ever finished the campaign. Then years later, after all of their expansions, I decided that Call of Duty 4 looked good, so I picked that up and was amazed by the realistic graphics, smooth performance, and fun multiplayer. Sadly, that got sidetracked as I picked up Battlefield 2 more and more and got away from the run and gun crazy fast paced shooting as I went to Battlefield 2 with better team-based multiplayer.Then, I picked up Modern Warfare 2. The story is just as memorable with very specfic scenes sticking out in my mind as with the game before it. Single player, just like in Modern Warefare, is very quick and didn't take much time to finish. It's a matter of quality versus quantity. I think I got my money's worth because even though the story was short, it was rich, and I'd rather have than then the typcial "game that takes 25 hours to beat, but half of it is returning to old locations and retracing your steps through the levels again to find that 'key' or whatever". Voice acting is great, it's like you're in a war movie.So single player is solid, but multiplayer is where you get your money's worth. My only gripe to date is I wish they had some more multiplayer levels because I'm starting to get bored, but the weapons unlocks is a perfect way to keep up interest. There are over a dozen multiplayer modes, including team deathmatch, all-for-one, capture the flag, and more unique ones including Hardcore team deathmatch which eliminates the radar, crosshairs, and just makes it all realistic for everyone. You have to more rely on your senses than looking up at a map to see where you are or your enemy location. Overall this game is worth it if you enjoy fast paced action FPS multiplayer. If you're not, I'd wait for the price to go down. At $60, it's not worth it if you don't get at least 100 hours logged in for multiplayer.

I'd been a big fan of Red Faction since it came out years ago. I purchased Red Faction 2 the night before a final, and ended up staying up all night playing and totally bombing that final, but overall not a bad game.When I heard that there was a third game coming out, I couldn't wait. I was sad and disappointed that Consoles were going to get first dibbs on this game, seeing as how it was a PC franchise, but I waited patiently. Thankfully, they didn't screw up the PC port (THANK GOD) and I am happy to report the game is very awesome.The big selling point of this game was the destroyable environments. If you've played Red Faction 1, you know that the ground was destroyable, as well as some buildings and whatnot, but overall very low quality and not super awesome (though innovative at the time). The sad thing about this game is that now they made the buildings destructible but the ground is a constant solid. You can't blow up a ledge above a road and crush your enemies with boulders. Thankfully, knocking down a building with your own bare hands makes up for this minor setback.I was surprised at the sheer superhuman strength your character has. He can knock down solid pilars and walls of concrete, and has unlimited sprinting, which makes him feel more like some sort of Superman than a guy who specializes in demolitions. It helps the game move quickly, but it's somewhat realistic that you can knock down a 4 story building in 1 minute just using a sledgehammer. If they had made the explosives just a bit more powerful, they could have balanced the game just a bit so you had to rely more on placing C4 than you would just hitting the support beams. But with the number of enemies you will encounter, you'll be happy that you have infinite sprint and a powerful overhand whack :DGraphics are very good. I have a Core 2 duo (3ghz) and a nVidia GTX 260 and it runs fine. There is slightl slowdown when a building collapses, but it's not bad and otherwise, this game is optimized very well. Gameplay is smooth, and controls are solid.Sounds are good, and the explosions are satisfying. The voice acting is great.Gameplay doesn't get boring. I felt like I was playing a better version of Far Cry 2. It's the same principle. You run around doing missions in a sandbox-type area, and some of the missions are repetitive, but there is enough variety, you don't have to do them a lot. The main story is simple but effective, and the ending was satisfying. (the last mission was hard as hell though and took me awhile to get through it even on Medium difficulty because there were so many guys :\)One of the great things this has over Far Cry 2 is the fact that the bad guys don't attack you on sight. There is a meter that goes green = they won't mess with you. Yellow to red means they're increasing hostile because you hit something or blew something up. Red means basically infinite guards until you can either get to a safehouse zone or hide for a determined amount of time and lose them. There are demolition challenges that are fun and test you to see how quickly you can blow up a structure using a set number of items or tools. ie, blowing up a whole building using 1 remote bomb and 12 proxy mines.There is a bonus, which I didn't really figure out until I finished the game. They included the DLC which is like a prequel to the game itself where you play as the female lead character playing out missions leading up to the game. Those follow the same formula, but have different objectives, so gives it some more replay value.The game also comes with multiplayer, which is pretty decent because they have unlockables for playing and winning, which motivates you to keep multiplayer games going so you can get better weapons and characters to play as. Sadly, they use some sort of matchmaking system, so finding a game can be somehwhat hard, but overall a decent experience. Get this game today, lots of replay value and lots of hours for the price. No problems whatsoever.

A few months ago, I stopped by a local Gamestop and found a game that was marked as 49 cents. It was made around the same time that Battlefront 2 was out and was a WWII shooter, so I figured it would be something comparable. The game was Hidden and Dangerous 2, and it sat on my shelf for a good 2 months before I decided to try it after purchasing several other games that completely disappointed me in terms of holding my interest (Tom Clancy's Endwar being one of them!) It came with 3 install CDs, which I had forgotten all about, seeing as I haven't bought a game that stored content on CDs since the original FarCry was released The installation went smoothly, and I found a patch online for multiplayer and put that on as well... I started off Single player, and the game instantly felt a bit like the game "Death to Spies" (I could almost swear they used the same training boot camp) but anyway, I quickly found this game was something more. Death to Spies plays more like a Hitman game, where Hidden and Dangerous 2 is more like Call of Duty, and is teammate based, where you control up to 3 other guys in your missions. You could go Lone Wolf, but it would probably be a lot harder. First off, the graphics are actually pretty good for an older game. The textures for the characters are realistic, and overall the world seems very realistic (though some areas, you can tell they had to deal with the low polygon rate, so the ground is essentially "flat" with grass, snow, or sand textures, rather than having 3D grass or things we're used to now from Crysis and STALKER). This does not take away from them trying though. They add little touches, such as if you're walking in snow, you leave footprints. Sounds are very well done, and you feel like you're in any other WWII simulator. Nothing wrong with this at all, and the voice acting is superb not only in acting, but they actually have the Germans speaking German, and the Italians speaking Italian, and the Brits, well, English, but it's as it should be. The ambient music captures the mood, and you can tell when an enemy spots you when the music ramps up into a faster pace. Gameplay, ahhh, gameplay. This game does something that I wish more games would do... Inventory management in the sense that it's not a typical FPS where you can carry 4 machine guns, a bazooka, and 50 hand grenades. It carefully takes different attributes of each character (there are 30 you can use) and based on strength, you can carry more or less gear. Also, you can pack up a backpack for more storage space, but you have to take into how much your character can carry total. Also, if you kill an enemy and he has stuff, it can be yours. Guns, clothes, grenades... And guns don't "disappear" when you pick them up and ammo automatically added to your ammo level... You find a gun, then you can either pick it up as a secondary, or you have to figure out what you want to keep or not. You can steal an enemy uniform if you can manage to get them to surrender. If you just shoot them, then you cannot use their uniform because there will be blood on it and suspicious. If you steal an enemy uniform, you have to equip only gear that the enemy would use, or it won't work. So you can't be dressed as a German soldier while carrying an Allied machine gun. Well... you can but you won't get a stealth meter, and be instantly recognized. The stealth meter is on the bottom by your health and goes up if no one can see you. It means you are disguised an it will stay full as long as you stay away from nearby enemies...The meter goes down rather quickly based on how good the enemy can see you. This is useful for running into an area full of enemies getting through them right away and they don't pay a lot of attention to you, versus not being stealthy and having to kill everyone. If the meter runs out, you're discovered and have to kill anyone that can see you. Then after awhile, it starts to fill again. Team management is very intuitive. You can either have your team be quick or stealthy, and you can select individual team members to do actions or move certain places... if you are impatient, you can actually become a team member (using the 1-4 keys on the top of your keyboard) and do whatever it is you want them to do. This was very useful in helping me destroy a tank that had us cornered. I would distract the tank with one of my guys by shooting at it, and run out of the way, while I had my other guy come around from the rear and shoot its exhaust ports on the back with a tank buster rocket launcher (which I conveniently stole from the German armory ) There are a ton of weapons in this game, both Allied and Axis. All have different uses, which you can diversify with your teammates. Your team also has different skills. So it might be better to have someone with high First Aid skill heal you, because you'll get more health per healthpack, versus trying to do it yourself if you suck at it. It makes it vital to keep your Doc alive. As you play through the campaign, your skills increase as well as the team members you take with you. I just recently had a team member get killed when forcing my way through the African desert, and I honestly felt bad just because I'd spent the past hours working with him in my team... And it was at a point in the game where you get stuck at a choke point where you're definitely going to have someone get killed, if they don't kill your team first. I hated that part. You get 1 (one) save spot. If you do something stupid and then hit Save, and you didn't want to, then you either restart the mission, or make with the best with it. You can save anywhere, which is great because levels are long and take awhile to beat. Man I wish games nowadays were like that... Like the original Thief games where it took you a full hour to get through 1 level, where now it's likely you'll beat the game in 5 hours.. *sigh* There is multiplayer, and amazingly there are still people playing online, but the problem I have is the fact that I CAN'T TELL WHO IS A FRIENDLY AND WHO IS AN ENEMY! The uniforms are very similar, and if you're a sniper, then you don't get little crosshairs that turn colors when you've moused over a friendly (which turns your cursor blue). I don't like multiplayer very much. But I will keep at it and try reading FAQs, maybe I'm missing something. There are several types of multiplayer, capture the flag, deathmatch, etc, but there is a mission based one that is original so far as I can tell for the time. You start out against the other team, and you have to destroy or kill stuff, and if you complete your objectives, you win. If you die, you have to wait until the round is over to play again. Overall the game is definitely worth the money. The only time I've gotten this many gaming hours per dollar was getting Battlefield 2 for $9.99 and getting over 150 hours of gameplay out of it. Go to a gamestop and find this game if it isn't gone already

I was looking for a real time strategy game where I could command troops through realistic combat, and picked up Men of War after seeing some youtube videos and reading reviews... I've gotten through a few levels, and here's what I think thus far...First of all, the game interface holds a lot of different buttons, and I'm sure I don't even know half of them, but overall the game seems pretty intuitive. If you're used to micromanaging in a RTS, then you shouldn't have a lot of trouble here. I've played games in the Total War series, so I have some experience with this type of combat.The first level they put you in is HARD. Even on "easy" mode, they force you to take 4 guys in a tank to kill an entire town full of Germans, followed by a whole supply line of trucks, tanks, and motorcycles of Germans... if your tank takes too much damage and your engine fails, it's game over and you have to reload from your last check point. The mission after that, you have a whole base filled with Russians you can control, and you are assaulted by waves of Germans you have to fend off until they finish loading supplies onto a train, indicated by a percentage ticker at the top of the screen. This takes about a half hour of real time (just guessing) so the missions themselves take a long while, and you really need to focus on strategy to survive.The missions themselves, while hard, are very engaging and varied. It's not like Battlefield 2 where you have to sit and capture control points, every level, for the entire game... There are objectives in Men of War that help push the game forward and keep it fresh.As for graphics, the game runs very smoothly on my 3ghz core 2 duo, with a GeForce GTX 260, and 2 gb RAM. The buildings and environment is all destructible, which is nice. I like the fact that if I shoot a forest with a barrage of missiles, the trees will be blown down, rather than being static. Just the same goes for buildings. If you want to get at the enemies in a building, but don't want to run suicidally through the front door, you can throw grenades at the wall, and punch a hole in the wall to make your way in.Sounds are awesome, but the voice acting is just ... bad. They try pulling off Russian accents, and I don't know if it's a Russian trying to sound "American" or an American trying to sound "Russian" but either way the effect is just, weird.Gameplay takes some getting used to. You can use point and click on the ground to tell the troops where to go, but it is also possible to take direct control of a person or vehicle in the troops and shoot manually, which comes in handy a lot if you want to be precise in your shots. There are targeting reticules that indicate where the shots will hit which is nice, because it's hard to control the guy as well as the camera at the same time. Walking can be awkward, as side stepping doesn't really work like a typical third person shooter works, but it's nice to be able to walk around.So, thus far, the campaign for single player is awesome, but a bit hard and can frustrate new players. The experience of beating the level makes you feel like you've accomplished something though, which is good. You can tell yourself... "Yeah, I just kicked a whole army of Nazi's asses. I rock" when you're done with just the first level!Now, if this were the only part of the game, I'd be a bit disappointed, but there is also multiplayer. I've tried it and it is a bit confusing. You are limited in how many units you can spawn but it's cool because you can spawn just 1 guy, or a whole platoon of guys, and vehicles. This makes the game very laggy (for me anyway) because of the sheer volume of data being processed by all the units running around. The game ran slow as molasses due to the fact that I had higher ping, as well as if someone's computer can't handle the game, the game itself pauses waiting for that player. I don't know if it's trying to be "fair" or what, but it totally interrupts gameplay.I am going to try it again on a server with better ping rates and hopefully it will go better. I know it wasn't my graphics, because solo levels run great. They need to tweak their multiplayer net code I think.Over all worth the money for $29.99, though comes with a bit of a frustration factor.

There have been several Ghostbusters games published before... I personally own the two made for NES (which were pretty bad IMO) but when I first saw the "leaked" youtube video of footage of a game where the characters were dressed up in those familiar jumpsuits, with back packs, shooting lasers.... the first thing I thought: "Please don't screw this up!" The newest Ghostbusters game, released June 2009, is quite a remarkable feat... It's the first time, that I can recall, where they actually have the original voices from the movies used in a video game adaptation. Egon, Ray, Peter, Winston. All of the characters are voiced by the real actors. Brought back after 25 years. There are more, but I haven't verified they are all the original actors. I know that Luis Tully didn't come back (Rick Moranis is retired and didn't need the money apparently). The characters themselves are really detailed, though just barely slightly off... except Winston. Check out this screenshot: There are a ton of small details in the levels that indicate how thoroughly the game creators went through the movies to create the old New York, circa 1991. Now, this movie takes place in 1991, but notice that Winston has his mustache back... Which he had shaved off in GB2... It seems like the game creators were more focused on GB1, but there are elements of GB2 of course.... There is a big portrait of Vigo just chilling in the fire house that you can interact with... He sounds a hell of a lot like whoever voiced Vigo in the movie, but overall, just a novelty thing. Ok, let's get down to basics. Sound: The ambient sounds and proton pack equipment is very nice. Based right out of the movie. The music is the same licensed music from the movies, so you feel more like you are LIVING the movie. Awesome, props for that. One bad thing I've noticed... The voice acting audio sounds like it's been converted from 48khz to 44khz, or something like that. There is an audible screechieness you can sometimes hear as though they converted audio frequencies very poorly... Not terrible, but just enough so you think you hear it. Graphics... The textures are awesome on the suits, but some textures are better than others. If it weren't for the size of the levels I would expect slightly better, but considering the size of the levels, I'd say it's ok. You can read magazines on tables, though it's not razor sharp. Levels take a minute or more to load, and the loading screen is just the ghostbusters logo, which is kinda boring since you have to stare at it so long. Gameplay... It feels like the game creators added mouse acceleration, and took a lot of adjusting to make it feel right. I'd move my hand slightly and teh character would turn slowly... So I accelerate my hand just a weee bit, and the guy whips around 180 degrees.... Makes for some difficult playing when you're constantly whipping back and forth trying to see what the hell is biting you in the back. I hope they come out with a patch for that. At first, I thought I'd have to constantly vent the proton pack, which overheats if you don't do that... But I believe it does it automatically. It's hard to see your health and the heat bar right on the pack, since you're looking at the ghosts, and not your back anyway... The only way to heal is to not get hit for awhile by taking cover. And when you go down, you have to get picked up by a team mate, and if they are all down, you have to restart from the nearest checkpoint. There doesn't appear to be any dynamic saves... Checkpoints only. They usually save before a hard part, so if you get stuck, it's not usually too far back. The BAD: The game would not install. I had to run the entire install which took FOREVER and then it came up with that the installation was interrupted... All you have to do is go into the DVD and copy all the files in the /setup/bin folder to the main directory where you installed Ghostbusters, and create a shortcut yourself for the desktop. Once I did that, it worked fine. Overall, so far a decent experience. I got a free movie ticket worth $10 when buying the PC game at Gamestop, so I technically only paid $19 for the game. Definitely worth it. AH, but The PC version has been ROBBED of multiplayer. So if you are hoping for a multiplayer ghostbuster experience, you will need a console. But, so far the solo experience is worth the money. Have fun hunting ghosts!

Initial reaction ::: I did a bit of research before buying this one when I spotted it in a Gamestop. I felt like getting a pirate game, and enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean which was released when the first PoTC movie came out... And this game's box art on the back has screenshots that looked a lot like that game, so I figured it was either a really well done clone, or they used the same engine as PoTC and I was praying they had updated things since it IS more than 6 years later.... OYE. I know that the only thing that saved the game Pirates of the Caribbean was user mods (the Build Mod in particular which added tons of fixes and new gameplay) ... well the same goes for this game, Age of Pirates 2. On running for the first time, you can clearly see this is the same game engine, but now it is listed as a later version... but despite that, they did NOT upgrade the textures/graphics. I started as an English adventurer ( you only have 3 choices of who you can play as, and they are all really generic and undesirable looking ) and it seems like the UI is upgraded, but the graphics themselves are actually WORSE than PoTC made years ago! I went to a brothel just to see, and they have all the exact same women, only they look washed out and textureless. They are 2001 graphics in a 2009 video game... Come on! Now, graphics wouldn't mean all that much if the gameplay is good... which leads me to my next gripe... The controls. It refuses to let me map the arrow keys, stating that they are "already in use".... Which they are not being used in the controls themselves, but I think they hard coded them to work with dialog selection, so they refuse to let them be used to walk :\ Without being to map the arrow keys, I am forced to use WASD and figure out where different combat keys are... Like to fire a gun is "Q" and I keep having to look back at the control maps in the main menu to figure out how to do what I want to do, rather than just doing it with the keys I'm used to :\ So far, those are my only gripes. The interfaces are a bit more complicated so that will take some learning, but if you are considering this game I would actually recommend finding the 2003 game Pirates of the Caribbean and downloading the Build Mod 13 at PiratesAhoy.net for the best pirating game experience... Until then, I must wait till they come out with something equivalent for Age of pirates 2

Looking through the bargain bin at a Gamestop, I came across a racing game that looked pretty decent. And looking it up online and seeing it got good reviews I decided to try it.Test Drive Unlimited. The first version I got was for my PSP, and I was amazed! You can drive literally miles and miles in this open world of a Hawaii island. There are a ton of cars to choose from, and it's sort of nice not to have some sort of "underground racing / avenging so-and-so / undercover cop but breaking the law" storyline for a change. You're simply a guy who flies to Hawaii, rents a car for a bit, buys a house, and starts racing. The handling on the cars is much better than most racing games I've played, and I was so impressed, I did some research and discovered that they made it for the PC as well... Being a PC gamer, I promptly bought it.Wow...The game came out in 2006, but the graphics are really quite stunning. Sadly you cannot really get out of your cars, but that really doesn't matter much... this game is about racing.Each car has it's own interior and it's actually fun to drive using the inside view, because it is very realistic feeling. The car sounds are very realistic in that the interior sounds of the engine are a bit muffled as they are in real life, and it's fun to control the windows :oRaces are varied enough to give the game replay value. There are multiple scenarios to play, such as driving a model somewhere without hitting anything and doing so in a time limit. If you do it perfectly (without hitting anything) you get bonus money/clothes. Yes you can customize your character by purchasing clothes. Clothes can be bought using coupons given when you drive a model or take a hitchhiker to his destination.Another interesting race mode involves taking a rich guy's car and driving it an average of 10 miles. There is no time limit, but the journey takes so long, you can't help but speed. and also, the rich guy's cars are usually the very expensive high end ones with a lot of horsepower, which makes it hard not to go whizzing by at 200mph. Smash the car, though, and you fail or get less money when you complete it.There are houses for sale, which are all very nice. Collecting cars and completing challenges award you with achievements, which is a nice motivator. One of the cooler things is that this game, if you sign up online for a gamespy account, is a giant multiplayer arena as well. You will be online doing your solo driving missions, and just randomly see someone else on your screen drive by and honk at you. Another player. There aren't usually a ton of people, but I've always seen people on. Granted, they've had the game longer and have all the good cars by now, but it's nice to see a game 3 years old still have some sort of fan base.That's about it. There's no story to comment on, which is fine for all the other goodies they offer. I say check it out. I think I got it for $9.99 at gamespot but they're on clearance so check it out if they're not gone already. It's definitely worth more than they are charging for it!The PSP version, by the way, is a good investment as well if you need a good racing game for your portable. Otherwise, get the PC version for better eyecandy, though the games other than the graphics are nearly identical in gameplay. Sometimes you get a console version and it's totally different. I was suprised how much they could fit into the PSP version!

It isn't often I try one of the budget titles, but my girlfriend picked up this interesting puzzle game for $9 at walmart because she said she tried the demo and it was pretty good.This game isn't even on gamefaqs, but it is a nice puzzle game that tests your logic without driving you crazy in frustration.The basic plot is that you play as a woman who is in a coma, who was an attempted murder victim, and you have to "piece" together clues as to who your attempted killer is and why...There are 20 "scenes" which are pre-rendered photos that you interact with, and there are a series of events you need to perform to get the object for that level. This is a hypothetical example as i can't remember exactly one of the levels, but say you were in a store and she wants to get a lotto ticket, you find a wad of cash which gets a bunch of white sparkles around it to indicate it's clickable... and you find how much the lottery ticket is, and punch in the cost in to a cash register, and pay for the lottery ticket. Then you get change from your money and use the coin to scratch the lottery ticket, and what comes up is another 'clue'.... You are on a timer for about 20 minutes, and in that 20 minutes, you have to solve this above puzzle scene by putting things together and manipulating the environment, then it cuts to mini-games that are classic brain teasers like suduko, the hannoi tower, Hi-Q (I think that's the name of it)... etc. Basic IQ games.If you make a wrong guess, it cuts down your time... If you ask for a hint, it cuts down your time.Overall the puzzles were challenging but not too bad, and the "cutscenes" are all still drawings with voice overs... you can tell this is hella low budget but they did a decent job...The ending was mucho disappointing though. It has a "happy" ending, but it's so abrupt and lame that you just sit there wondering "I just spent 4 hours playing for... that?"the "credits" scene doesn't scroll... All the people that made it fit onto the one page of designers/artists/voice actors. You can't get much more low budget.The voice acting is decent, and the drawings and pre-rendered scenes are impressive at times, but overall, not a ton of eye candy. The game shines with its vast array of puzzles.Overall, I'd say this game is good for challenging your IQ, but don't buy it for the story.

Well, I purchased and completed the game, Braid. I must say it is truly challenging trying to get all of those puzzle pieces! Here is a breakdown of some of the fun stuff you get to do: Besides the vcr effect of rewinding time, there are other "modes" or features that you will get to play with as you progress... My favorite is the doppleganger. Let me try to explain this one... When you hit "rewind" to go backwards in the game, you are essentially cutting off an older version of yourself. For example, say I jump off a cliff and die, but reverse time to before I jump off... Then I start time moving forward and DON'T die this time... When you are playing using the doppleganger, you will see a shadow version of yourself who DID do what you did before and jump off a cliff... Now what makes this fun is that you actually work in tandem with this shadow version of yourself to manipulate the environment and solve puzzles... So you run forward and flip a switch that triggers a door at the end of the level that you currently can't reach... Then you rewind time and run towards the door while your Other self flips the switch for you and opens the door I don't know if that explains it well enough without actually showing you gameplay footage Another interesting time warping feature is a ring that acts sort of like a temporal black hole, where you set a ring on the ground, it slows time to almost stopping right around the ring, but the further you get away from it, the faster time progresses till you can move at normal speed again. This is handy if you have a cannon shooting down a narrow corridor you can't avoid... You put the ring by the cannon, which almost freezes it (but not completely) and then you can run through the corridor without worrying because you are moving at a faster rate of time. Pretty much any way that time can be warped or distorted, this game has it. Every puzzle is near genius and now that a level editor has been released, there is potential for some serious replay value! Check it out, I highly recommend it. For $14, you get about 10 hours gameplay, and then even more since there are stars you need to find to get an alternate ending. That alone will probably add an hour or so, PLUS there are "SPEED RUNS" available which only unlock achievements (depending on what system you get it on). I have it for PC so all I get are Steam achievements, which in my mind don't really offer much other than bragging rights

If you needed a cheat to unlock it, it might not be accessable. The only way I found to deal with Aztecs is with the one expansion where you play as the Spanish who are invading the new world. You can't get back to Europe, the game map only consists of one continent at a time from what I can tell.I haven't played that game in ages haha.

I'd give it a 7.5, just because it was so short and somewhat frustrating at times, and it was just barely starting to feel redundant. Everything was good though

Well I just finished off all the available levels in an indy game called "Braid" The first thing I have to say is that the level designs are simply beautiful. The art direction is really something amazing, though you can clearly see that this game is inspired by Super Mario Brothers. Man-eating plants coming out of green tubes, and weird 'goomba' looking things are set out to kill you, but this is not just another side-scroller. This game features DVR-like capabilities where you can physically reverse and fast forward time sort of like the Prince of Persia games... The only difference that I can see is that they managed to make the time reversal virtually unlimited, which is amazing. You can literally play a whole level... hit the rewind button if you so choose and rewind to the beginning of the level and start over... or to any given spot in between. They don't stop there... there are some levels where time can move forward or backwards only depending on where you are standing... If you side-scroll and move to the right, time moves forward... If you turn back left, everything starts going in reverse! there is also a "multiple universes" feature I saw in the trailer but didn't see in the demo. I am just sorry they got to make this game before I did, because I have a time travel game that would just kick the socks off of anything today if I could just get past all of the paradoxes hahaha. Anyway, I heard the game is really short, which is a downer, but the puzzles are really hard sometimes. The game itself is $14.99, which might be a bit much for something that is short, but I just might buy it. I want to support independent artists and gamemakers by buying their games.. Gives the industry a fresh perspective on what could be made out there... Here's a link to the trailer, a must see. Oooh the music is awesome too haha. I enjoy it, and it's funny to hear it playing in reverse http://braid-game.com/news/2009/04/new-braid-trailer/

It's not free, but I think Dark Basic would be one of the easier ones to learn if you actually want to program a game.Looking up open source 3d engines is also an option, but you need to know C++ and directx programming usually. If you're looking for the pre-packaged "easy" game makers, you're going to end up paying to use them. See if demos are available before you buy to see if it can do what you want.

Well I put it off for awhile, but finally decided to pick up Mirror's Edge for the PC. I got the Steam version, just because I couldn't find it at Best Buy and I didn't feel like running all over town to save $10 :\ (I guess best buy has it cheaper than other places for some reason...)Anyway I bought it and played it yesterday, and just beat it tonight. Now, usually this is a bad thing, because I just spend $39.99 on a game that I beat in 2 days, but after beating it, I felt like it was just long enough... The game itself plays sort of like Assassin's Creed, where you jump around a ton, which is novel especially in first person, which takes a bit of getting used to, but after awhile, you noticed the repetitions... Bashing through doors, crawling through vents, and turning valves (which I've had enough of in Half-Life) all get to be annoyingly redundant. The game itself is challenging, and forces you to look at your environment closely to figure out how the hell you have to escape, while doing so as fast as you can because there are usually guards or armored helicopters shooting at you. Imagine any Hollywood film where the hero is running and a hail of bullets fly past, breaking everything around him.... This game puts you in that position. Basically, if you are moving, you are usually not going to get hit, but stopping to look around even for a couple seconds (unless the jumping puzzle is hard, then they back off) usually you'll get sniped or shot up.Graphics are great, though overly simplistic. There are 3 basic colors... Green, red, and white. There is not a lot of variation, though the levels are huge and almost beautiful in a sort of digital sort of way. There is usually a lot of bloom, but it makes for realism when you bust through a door into the open outdoors and your character's eyes have to adjust to the bright sunlight.There is no hud. You can only tell how bad you are by the screen itself. If you are panting and the screen is fuzzy and black and white with red pulsing on the sides, that is a sign that you are going to die with a bullet more or a bad fall. It's very intuitive and well done, though unrealistic, because our poor girl we play as gets shot by a bunch of bullets just has to stand behind some cover for a few seconds to get her health back.Combat is meh. You get several punches and kicks, though later enemies are basically useless on. You have the ability to grab the weapon out of their hand at certain points when the gun flashes red, but that requires skill and "slow mo" you can get after running for awhile. Shooting is realistic. You play as a small Asian girl who knows how to shoot a gun, but isn't built for carrying around a heavy machine gun. So the bigger the gun you have, the slower you walk to the point you can't even jump. A pistol is nice because you can run with it, but you are limited to ammo, as you don't carry any extra, you're stuck with whatever is left in the enemy's clip. So after it's out, you just throw it away and hope you can pick up another one, or just run run run. That's usually the only alternative is to avoid the cops by running, but sometimes you are forced to plow through bad guys.Sound is great, full and rich. The voice actors do a very good job, but they remind me of the acting in some of the Need for Speed games, where they all act cool and mysterious... Not bad, but meh. I've heard it before.The story is alright. It's nothing that hasn't already been done a hundred times. Mix Max Payne with Need For Speed, and you have an idea what it's going to be like. Your sister gets framed for a murder, and it's your job to figure out the conspiracy behind it... and jump your *bottom* off and dodge bullets in the meantime.The only replay value you get out of it is by time trial mode, where you have to run through and find shortcuts to get through the game as quickly as possible, though I am not sure what you get for doing this on the PC. I'm sure in the XBOX version, you get achievements, but that's little motivation for us PC gamers. There are unlockables including concept art, the FMVs you unlock as you play, and the soundtrack, so that's something. There are also hidden bags around the game, sort of like the packages in Grand Theft Auto. Not sure what you get for getting those either.Overall I would say this game is good for $20-30. It's novel, but too short. A level editor or something would be nice.

Thank you for the positive feedback. Yeah the colors could use a bit of work. I will have to see if we can't come up with something a bit sleeker.

Hello, I've put together an informational site/blog for people who want to start up a new business of their own, and I was hoping to get some reviews and suggestions on the design, or what you might want to see featured on it: http://www.newstoreopening.com/rg-erdr.php?_rpo=t

Valve does make good games. I can't wait to see where they go with Half life 2: episode 3. I've been waiting in suspense to see how they tie in the story from Portal to the Half Life story, since they obviously wanted to go that route, but there is always the possibility that they will totally blow it which of course would suck :\I dusted off Left 4 Dead last night and thankfully there are still tons of people playing it, so the game is very much alive and well. I bought Far Cry 2 at the same time I bought Left 4 Dead. Far Cry 2 sits alone and dusty. Never to see the light of day again.

I personally don't like FPS games in consoles (except perfect dark for n64), but for PSP here are some I have experience with I'd recommend. Your preferences change based on what you like to play.Grand Theft Auto: Vice City StoriesSyphon Filter: Dark MirrorNeed for Speed: CarbonStar Wars Battlefront 2Hopefully that will start you off. I'd recommend going to http://www.gamefaqs.com/ and looking in their psp section for reviews, as you'll be able to read what people think of these games. Happy gaming

Well, I just finished the main quest for Fallout 3. It was quite a ride, though most people are disappointed in the ending(s). Yes there are technically more than 1, though they're not as epic as the game itself. First off, I would definitely recommend downloading the mod that allows you to play after you beat the main quest. The game is still rather new, so there are a lot of mods I'm sure that will be coming out, but that's why I love PC gaming, is because we can mod our games (most of the time) alas the consoles cannot The nice thing about this game is that each character you meet is different, and have different voices for them, unlike oblivion where you would have 1 voice per every female in an entire species, and 1 voice actor to play every male voice in that species... Every character feels unique, and when you bump into someone later, you usually remember them, which is incredible considering how large this game world is. It's easy to be the good guy or villian in this game. I opted for good guy on my first playthrough... The problem, though, is that the game is so large, I don't know if I'll want to start all over again to play as an asshat I beat the main story, which would have ended the game, but thanks to that mod, I can keep exploring, because I haven't even covered 1/4 of all the spots that are available in this world. Thankfully, later in the game, you have the option when leveling up to unlock all the locations on your map, so it is easier to know what you are looking for. There are dungeons, and other Vaults that you can explore in the Capital Wasteland, and though they are dark and creepy, they just aren't as scary as, say, STALKER's "Labs" or even Thief 3's Cradle. The enemies tend to get a bit repetitive. There are a variety of wildlife enemies and raiders, but they tend to get boring once you reach higher levels... As you play, you'll face tougher enemies, but I don't think the game "levels" as you do... Like Oblivion did... I think it's just the harder enemies are farther away from where you start, so naturally the further you get, the harder they are, but you could realistically fight a "boss-like" monster right out of the Vault. Overall, great game. Probably the best I've bought next to GTA 4, (which I actually stopped playing when I bought this). I'll probably play with it for a while longer till I get bored, and pick up GTA4 again to beat its story mode. Out of all the games I got in 2008, those two have to be the only two I don't regret purchasing, because I got enough gameplay hours out of them that they paid for themselves, versus the others I got that left me feeling empty after finishing them :\ Get the game, download the mods. Here's a start for you: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/586/ ----Freeplay after you beat the main quest.

Sorry, I hadn't seen your post. Looks like you've answered all your own questions hah. It definitely makes the game more fun than the vanilla version, but it still irks me that the ending was bugged, though I'm sure they've probably fixed that by now. I picked up STALKER Clear Sky, but it just doesn't have the same feel to it as the original did... Plus, it still needs a lot of patching to run decently :\

I have 2 gb of ram, and I downloaded the latest patch and drivers from nVidia, and the game runs a bit smoother now. I also found out why the game would start off great and then slowly degrade in performance. It's not a memory leak, it is the battle recorder they have running for if you want to create replay movies of your gameplay. If you turn that off, you will have much better performance. I was running everything on LOW, but now with those changes, I can run with textures on Medium, render quality on High and other stats set to pretty much medium and i now get good performance.My specs:Intel Core 2 Duo Dual Core, 3ghznvidia GTX 260 overclock edition2 gb cheap ramRuns good at medium settings, though it irks me that I can run Crysis and Fallout 3 which are more graphics intensive on High, and yet GTA is still studdering at higher qualities.... :\