the summer update is officially go! August is here and we're a week away before bioshock comes out and rocks my p.c so i'm planning to buy it the week it comes out and i hope yall go out and buy it we need to show irrational some love for what they've done with system shock 2,bioshock should do sys shock 2 justice so olease buy it.I'm been playing elder scrolls III:morrowind and it is deep and just engaging every playthrough it is just amazing you're always discovering something new and interesting my char is a level 1 breton mage (or something like that) but anyways it's fun and I'm going to play more after this blog.morrowind proves that you don't need graphics and style to justify a game. I stay at home now because it's humid as hell here and it's like some dark cloud of arthankand is over my neighborhood I hope to go back to reading some new books like the golden compass by phillip pullman and a song of fire and ice by george r.r. martin since I'm a huge fan of fantasy but I plan to do more reading and i'm thinking about getting some books on game development since I play games might as well learn how to make them so that's the update i'll go into doing my regular blogs soon as I can think of something to write on thx for reading now back to earning more reputation for my guild.

In this post I'm going to explain the Games For Windows initiative and how it's very important for P.C gamers.The reason I think It's important is because Microsoft (for better or for worse) is making in it's effort the p.c. an recognizable platform for gaming and by bringing exclusive titles like Crysis,Age Of Conan,Hellgate:London,and World In Conflict gives p.c. games a much better look compared when publishers were the ones in total control over it's product.The brand helps give the p.c more of it's personality and is a boon for U.S,and European developers who can finally attract an audience to play their games. The effects of the GFW initiative is showing the top publishers are devoting some of titles to p.c. AAA titles companies like EA,2k games,Sega,THQ,and Activision are bringing exclusive p.c titles to the platform Also with the p.c we are beginning to see quality games that feature amazing cover art,pedigree game developers,full features like DX-9 or DX10 support,all the bells and whistles like open ended gameplay,high quality story,full multiplayer support,and live anywhere and free Windows live feature that you won't have to pay for! This fall will see the oncoming tide of the GFW initiative with original and fresh titles that will push the boundaries of p.c game design in general. Next year we will also see exciting gaming titles for the p.c in games like Frontline:Fuel Of War from THQ,and Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks.Thanks to the fact that Microsoft is making the p.c as important as the Consoles,we as gamers will benefit from the variety of titles for public consumption.In closing I feel that the Game For Windows is really the shot in the arm that p.c gaming needs this year it feels as though we will see the best p.c game releases in a decade and this year and next year will show just how powerful and established the p.c really is.

Yesterday I caught the Microsoft press conference and I would like to give you my impressions.The press conference was a letdown somewhat with suprises here and there.Many of the announcements ranged from Gears Of War coming to P.C this holiday season,with new announcement of new multiplayer,content,and new co-op modes.Cliffy B,Gears lead designer came onstage to give us a demonstration where the lead character Marcus Fenix fought a towering monstrosity called a Brumak,and eventually destroyed it,but he didn't reveal what happened to the Brumak he left that up to the game.Also at the press conference we got a gameplay demonstration of Call Of Duty 4 by infinity ward studio head Grant Collier and Project lead Jason West where they were playing co-op on the 360.The game looks extremely polished and well,beautiful it looks like it's ready to be released any day now but we have to wait till November to play it. Microsoft has also announced that in Spring 2008 Grand Theft Auto IV will see the two epic episodes released for the Xbox 360, but the question remains,how much will it cost? Microsoft could charge for these two content downloads or Rockstar could do what epic did release the episodes for a price and then make it free later we'll have to see till then.Also in 2008 will see the release of Alan Wake,Fable 2,and Halo Wars for the Xbox 360.Now on to my favorite part the Games For Windows initiative Microsoft has finally gathered full support from top publishers EA,Actisvision,Sega,THQ,Take-Two,Vivendi games,and numerous others including Midway so now all games will come with the Games For Windows branding and support that will be featured on every branded title and to top things off Epic has offered the Unreal Engine 3 toolset for Games For Windows titles with Gears Of War and Unreal Tournament 3 will probably have full Games For Windows branding support,Live Anywhere,and full support for the P.C platform. Now back to the 360 we also caught glimpse at the surprise of the show Resident Evil 5 this time being set in North Africa in a zombie plagued village this was a far cry from where we saw it at E3 2005 where it was set in a South America town so it looks like the team at Capcom took some time and redid the setting and technology and it looks amazing and the character seems intact you still play as Chris Redfield from the first Resident Evil as opposed to Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 2.Also I would like to point out that the Microsoft guys got owned by the Rock Band team at Harmonix,and N.O. Saints quarterback Reggie Bush at the same time! Microsoft has also announced that for their downloadable content there're bringing Sonic The Hedgehog and Golden Axe from Sega.As for the Wave of Halo news,first offthe movie,Peter Moore announced that the Halo Movie that will be executive produced by Peter Jackson and directed by South African filmaker Neil Bloomkamp and will be out in 2008 they then showed footage of the movie which blew the audience away clearly it just brings nolstagia when you see the vehicles and locations from the game and it really was the most beautiful looking details and just depth not conveyed in the game.And lastly Finish The Fight! a new Halo 3 trailer was shown at last which was badass this time it featured more action and was just amazing.There will also be a pelican branded accesories and consoles with the Halo name and likeness being used.Microsoft lastly is releasinga keyboard for chat with windows live messenger. so that wraps up the micosoft press conference all in all it was an excellent showcase of titles and I can hope that games can get better and better from here and up the ante on delivering high quality interactive content for this gen and the next see ya next time when I get more into the p.c titles being shown at E3 2007 under the Games For Windows brand.Thamks for reading.

The day is here! everybody from journalists and reporters have descended onto the Barker Hangar in sunny Santa Monica Pier here we arrive at a different E3 no longer filled with expensive booths and booth babes and huge auditoriums filled with everyone from gaming luminaries to cameras looking for the big announcements,we come to a smaller more ordinary,slimmed down,and not-what-it-used-to-be-the-gigantic-awesomeness-of-years-past-E3.So how will E3 fare well against the gigantic announcements and geeky fanfare and mythical epicnes? well I'm here to let you know that E3 will still have those awesome announcements and blockbuster games we're used to hearing and this new focus on the games and not the extra add-ons will bring us back to when E3 of it's early years which was what E3 was meant to be. So for yesterday N'Gai Croal interviewed filmaker Steven Spielburg on his involvement with EA on three games two have already been announced PQRS and LMNO, PQRS will be a puzzle game in spirit of games likethe block building game jenga with the appeal of a Saturday morning cartoon.It has been announced for the NIntendo Wii and was interestinly an idea Spielburg came up with while playing Wii tennis with Shigeru Miyamoto the resident genius over at Nintendo. The second project LMNO is the showcase of EA's famous "Can a video game make you cry?". The game stars a Ex.secret agent and a femme fatale virtual girl reminiscent of Cortana from Halo series,only catch is this character has full emotional responses that has her own responses she'll give according to your abilites and powers you choose what they attend to achieve is to have the environment have an impact on a player,and to have it give deeper meaning and responses through the game.EA has gone far as to say they implemented full facial capturing so you could see the virtual character give a fluid more reactionary response.Spielburg didn't reveal the third game though that will probably be revealed next year's E3. If EA and Spielburg deliver on these games he might be on the verge of creating a masterpiece alongside his notable movies E.T,Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.Will he conquer games as he conquered movies Stay Tuned! As for Sega,Sega has been busy as of late Sega's at E3 this year showing off their first-property offerings as well as third-party games.We still don't have any word on the two announced Alien properties,one being an RPG by Obsidian entertainment and FPS being developed by Gearbox Software of Brothers-In -Arms fame according to Sega of America president Simon Jeffery this game will have a premier on the scale of the Alien and Aliens movie franchise,the developers are working with 20th Century Fox on all handling of the property to assure it gets a amazing treatment probably Gears Of War style.Sega's also showing off The Golden Compass based on the upcoming christmas film which Sega is working with Shiny Entertainment which is famous for Enter The Matrix and it's being made in collaboration with the producers of the film.Sega also showed off their first party offering Nights:Journey into Dreams the sequel to the Nights series of games that appeared on the Dreamcast it's being released for the Nintendo Wii and will work with the will remote by guiding the character and using the analog to move the character.Universe At War will also be at E3 and it is coming along, the graphics have been completely redone to appeal more and also have been announced for Xbox 360 and will feature cross-platform multiplayer.and that 's all for right now I'll be right back with my opinions on the PS3 price cut and the rumor that Microsoft will cut the price of it's 360 and also the rumor of a PS3 movie download service.

E3 is coming up so I've decided to do some coverage of E3 07 through news and thoughts and coverage on anticipated games coming up on the P.C and Xbox 360 so look out for that and some coverages of the three big conferences from Microsoft,Sony,and Nintendo with hopefully some links so you can see it on my page or you could catch it on Gamespot either way it's there so that's what's going on.I've haven't been posting because due to the lack of any news I've taken a break so I'll promise u that I'll be on the blog on july 10-14.so until then I'll be sippen maitai's and getting some sun see ya then.-BaldursGate18

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Well, earlier I've signed on for the Tabula Rasa Beta which will probably be opened to the public in a couple of months I'm really excited for this game because after WOW,Guild Wars,and every other fantasy-based mmo I'm really yearning to try a game that's Sci-Fi since that's where my other interest is it's very awesome to see Richard Garriot, the creator of Ultima and Ultima underworld to finally take a break and try something new.Richard in my book has been my favorite creators and designers even though I've nevered played or completed an ultima game just reading through his story of how he broke into the industry at 17 making games on an apple II and his mission to create worlds and not just levels with bots really interested me as everyone know Ultima IV:Quest of the Avatar was probably one of the greatest RPG masterpieces ever created just reading about the game you see just how much influential this game would be on many RPG's afterwards or in Japanese Role-playing games and Ultima VII's would feature the world in full 3d and it would improve the series fully.The Ultima series to me is what The Lord Of The Rings was to the fantasy genre, the grandfather of them all.We could also remember playing Ultima Underworld series which was designed by some Key people from System Shock 1.Ultima Underworld and Eye Of The Beholder would influence the creation of the first-person shooter genre and it's success.So when I hear of Richard Garriot in any part of the game world I listen and I hear.When I first heard of Tabula Rasa, believe it or not I balked I thought why would someone give a game a weird name like "abula Rasa " it sounded foreign, it wasn't until Game Informer E3 edition that I found out that Tabula Rasa was being headed by a company named Destination Games which was started by Richard and his brother Robert which is now NCAustin and Robert Garriot is president of NCsoft American division, in the article it described the gameplay and a new language called logo's which is an alien language which when deciphered reveals special powers or helpful bonuses it really interested me when they said that Tabula Rasa was going to eschew expansion packs to have new stuff open through the game they also described that you could travel to different planets and have the freedom to pick ****s and then switch them if ur dissatisfied with the ****which was a plus because you can't switch ****s in fantasy mmo's you're pretty much stuck with that ****once you pick it. Tabula Rasa right when you hear about it has a much needed depth and FPS **** controls which will keep things happening instead of killing enemy A to go to enemy B on an everlong treadmill it just kills me to have to play a game and get mobbed from enemies and then die and have to pick them off one by one until they get wiped out so I'm hoping that this game deliver on it's promise to not let the questing feel like a work out.Tabula Rasa is the fresh air I need and I hope it has an bigger impact than ultima . Richard's first foray into the online arena was Ultima Online in 1997 but it was userped by SOE's Everquest series but was killed by WOW, Ultima Online didn't get the love from Electronic Arts when Richard Garriot pitched the idea to the higher up's there they refused to greenlight it because they thought it would flop even though UO would not be recieved years later at it's height it had over 500,000 people and after eight expansions it's finally getting an overhaul by EA Mythic so it should get the attention the success of UO online games became a priority and most of EA's p.c. houses were making MMO's but it wouldn't be long before Orgin System the renowed development house would be shut down by E.A. after the founding member of Origin and creator of Ultima would leave to start a company in Austin and work on the very thing they set out to destroy the vision of creating worlds.So in closing Tabula Rasa represents the renewed desire to finally create a world to rival the Azaroths and Tyria's of the MMO genre here's to one fun run into a new frontier thx for reading.

As a former sony gamer I have always loved Grand Theft Auto I can remember playing the port of the original Grand Theft Auto on the playstation from the first introduction in Liberty City to my going on's in San Andreas and Vice City I was floored by how much (at the time) freedom it offered I was especially impressed with it's level and mission design instead of you playing linear missions you could choose which missions to do or which part of the city you could go and it was fun to start fights with the pedestrians and piss them off:). So this year marks the 10th anniversary of the series and Rockstar Games kicked things off by showing off the trailer on a countdown site for GTA IV since I've seen the IV sign I knew it was going to be set in Liberty City but I thought that it would let you play from the perspective of a corrupt cop or detective seeing how Martin Scorcesee went from doing movies about mobsters to Massachusets state troopers in The Departed but to my surprise it was Liberty City but it looked like New York as seen in the Spiderman movies but buildings looked inspired by New-York, everything looked like New York but looked like Liberty City and from the trailer you could get a sense of density and volume from looking at the trailer that was just impressive and really showed that GTA IV was light years ahead of the other open world games. And then came the big surprise whle most people had the impression that Clade Speed or "quiet dude" from GTA III would be the protagonist the trailer revealed a foreigner and he then says "Life is complicated,I've killed people,sold people,smuggled people.Perhaps here things would be different" and from there you get it you can tell by his accent he was russian and from his saying killed people,sold people,smuggled people you know he's probably in the russian mafia cause that's the type of stuff they dabble in. So I looked at it again and then that line got stuck in my head so I kept saying it. anyone can say that since the hot coffee debacle in San Andreas to the numerous GTA and Manhunt inspired murders and the media and Jack Thompson crusading against video games. Rockstar had to pull back and think about their direction and where they would go as a company and it seems to me the line "perhaps here, things will be different" it could mean we'll see rockstar's try to do new and different things such as stories,settings,and gameplay innovation so I think people can expect the unexpected. To me what makes Rockstar Games different from many other game companies is they don't say they're a game company but a life****company you can see this from games such as the Midnight Club series,Table Tennis,or Bully they don't fpllow industry rules and you can see it from the Grand Theft Auto series especially 3, and San Andreas.In GTA IV you play as Nikko Bellic an russian ex.mobster who one day recieve a phone call from his cousin, who's living in Liberty City about his "great life in America" and he persuades Nikko to come over and visit him not knowing that his cousin is in deep with gangsters who want to do him in. So as you arrive in Liberty you'll notice the city has changed amazingly since GTA III the cities have a sense of scale and scope even though games like True Crime:New York City used GPS information to get the exact layout of the level but only captured Manhattan island and not all of the city GTA IV will have all the area of new york including the five boroughs Manhattan island by the way is called Algonquin,Queens is now Dukes,Bronx is Bohan,and New Jersey is now Alderney,and Brooklyn is now Broker and the landmarks have funny names like the Metlife building is the Getalife building, the statue of liberty is called the statue of happiness and the DUMBO is called BOABO which stands for Bridge Over Algonquin Bridge Overpass.Rockstar's big promise will be it's physics engine they've licenced Havok physics engine for use with the game according to the Game Informer article the animation and movement of the characters will be more lifelike and believable and cars will look and drive believably and when you think about it physics will be important in next gen because instead of ragdoll physics bodies will fall realically cars will explode in ways it'll explode in real-life and cars will handle better in it's turning and collision so driving wildly when you're car crash into another it'll react differently each time physics can work better for humans by putting again realism into play so as you kill a person it'll probably have an effect on how players interact and will also make it more believable letting them give in to their suspension of disbelief. I could also see the moral system being implemented like if you commit a crime you probably have a tough time fighting the police as it wont be any stars system you'll probably know you'll being chased or attacked and seeing how it's set in 2007 you're going have to contend with challenging A.I that'll know how to counter and try to get you but as you evade and keep commiting crimes you'll be facing increasingly realistic police or millitary , I think Rockstar will implement this just to get people to think before commiting the violence to focus more on playing in the environment instead of just going around and doing mindless violence, GTA IV will have episodic content in the form of two episodes on the Xbox 360 it'll be the first AAA title to have episodic content for an open world game. Finally GTA IV will have multiplayer probably in the form of Co-op and Player Vs. Player.So Far I've only touched on the surface of GTA IV I know I've barely scratched the surface I hope as they stream out more info I'll inform you on more of what will be the best game of 2007. Because Perhaps Here Things Will Be Different.

           As a current player of Guild Wars and fan of Arenanet I thought I could put my two cents in the issue facing mmo's today, the subscription model and face of the success of Ultima online, Everquest, and World Of Warcraft the pay-to -play subscription model have been the standard in current and upcoming p.c. masively-multiplayer games. Especially since the success of WoW video game publishers have included it in many AAA mmo's. The model of pay-to-play has been around since the advent of 3d-multi-user-dungeon type games, many of them had fantasy themes (elves,dwarfs,wizards,dragons) or futuristic themes (robotic tanks,mechs,lazer fortresses,) the model was used the same way it is used today to keep the developer to deliver content constantly to players and to offset the costs of development.many of these m.u.d's were played over the internet over hosted servers. At that time also multiplayer was gaining steam in many mainstream games like quake and other first person shooters but the orgin of multiplayer games came out of the popular M.u.d's. Many games like Ultima Online, Everquest, and WoW were iterations of the Multi-user-dungeons of the 90's After these games were successful it became clear that developers had to follow the pay-to-play model in order for it to be successful.It was also in the late end of the 90's we began to see the advent of free downloadable mmo's most notably Runescape which was very popular among mmo player looking for something new it's free to play model garnered it nine million players to this day and was also designed in java which was a plus a simple accesible game that people still play would be the seeds for a slew of games that used this model including maple story and others.Anyway to 2004, 2004 would see the release of a mmo from Arenanet which it's founders hail from Blizzard Entertainment and were instrumental in the creation of it's service Battle.net and were behind the online success of the Warcraft,Starcraft, and Diablo series seeing that Battle.net's model and service was a success many of it's members of that service and Blizzard left to form Arenanet in 2000 to work on it's role playing mmo now the Guild Wars series which has up to 3 million users and follows the free-to-play service Battle.net by offering by only charging for the game and not using the 15$ a month model. It was a success and garnered lots of praise and awards and set a benchmark in mmo's now after three campaigns like Faction's ,and Nightfall Guild Wars announced their first expansion pack and a sequel set to release early 2009 and to put it out mainstream P.C. gamer has just done a cover story for this months issue. Now for my two cents I feel that the reason they add a pay for game, free-to -play model is to keep the tradition of their previous service Battle.net while also giving the player a sense of relief as he doesn't have to devote his life in order to get the most out of the product what separates Guild Wars from WoW was how it was inviting new and hardcore mmo players into the fold but most of us know it people play both WoW and Gulid Wars. Guild Wars really set a bench for it's focus on skills instead of hours played you can choose from lots of skills like 300 skills and the it has more items and content for a free mmo. Guild Wars was my choice because of it's obviously free model and it's solo-focused campaigns and also for its PvP which was addictive the number of enemies you faced reminded you of Diablo and the reminder of the items makes it a choice for anyone looking to get into mmo's or wants something different and it's focus on story which gives the game some focus.I'm was concerned also with the p.c gamer article when Kristen Salvatore was kind of  spending half a page talking about it's free model and if it is viable in today's slew of mmo's it was as if she was pressuring the people at Arenanet to reveal like some angle about since GW2 will feature a persistent world it should charge but I find it ludicrous and ironic cause if they do start charging it would just defeat the reason the game is in existence and would betray or dissillusion the players and fans who play it because of the free model and the games so it would have a huge afteraffects so really since mmo's are becoming bloated it makes sense to introduce new ideas buisnesswise and developmentwise. I'm myself am a firm believer in trying out new things instead of taking safe bets it makes games more appealing and garner fans in maybe a cult-status sort of way because it goes against the status-quo. I think if  like tabula-rasa or the new Warhammer 40k mmo was free it would give more player and the popular setting would really set it apart from other games of that ilk.I am glad Arenanet is offering this model and judging from most of the people at Arenanet are stern and are not hesitant at all to change the model so it's basically here to stay. But who knows Guild Wars 2 might change the way we view mmo's in the whole sense. And that's something that's been long overdue until next time I'm BaldursGate18.

The reason I'm excited for Spore because I'm a huge fan of Maxis and the Sim City series the first Sim City game I played was Sim City 2000 on the original playstation and believe it or not I used to be a playstation fanboy. I was a sucker for the playstation brand I had the Official Playstation Magazine and this was back in 1998 when Chris Slate was Editor-Of-Chief I got the magazine and was hooked but back to Why I'm excited for Spore the reason I'm again excited for Spore is well it an universal simulator that takes you from (scientifically) the orgin to space where it's infinite. The thing that excited me about Spore was really the level and depth of creation the game gives you. The reason I played P.C games was because of the fact of how strategy games, role playing games, Hybrid shooters, and simulators gave you the ability to make decisions and choices to how you played a game and also how much any of these games gave you in content, and creativity and I also gravitated towards the engaging storylines and sense of immersion. I really liked the Sim City series on the PSone and the Sim city 3000 hugely on the P.C. it was the fact that it gave you ability to make your own city and the game was addictive I'm really a sucker for games that are simple yet addictive. But Spore is basically a game that covers many different topics like Intellegent Design vs Evolutionary Design.Global Warming,and many others. What excites me more about Spore is how you go from a molecule to a space empire it through it's eight different stages in the game have different gameplay inspired by many gaming ****cs like Tetris, Pac-Man, Diablo, Populous, and the Sim City, Risk and the Civ games. It was almost like Will Wright was taking some of the games he's been a fan of and paying homage. Spore's also excites me through it's advances of it's technology like in precedual animation (which is a hot topic in the industry) and in precedual generated content like creatures you create will be stored in Maxis servers and will be "pollinated" in others players game so other players can interact and view your other players. Spore is also touting itself as a "Massively Single Player Online" game which may sound like PR but it is a Single player game but will have noticable elements of pve and pvp but as in you can kill other computer creatures in your planet but players from other planets could visit your planets and be hostile or friendly toward you so it has lite pvp or pve elements but imagine if you will that you have reached the last stage and you have a lot of friends and enemies in so you decide to go and wipe one of the systems of your enemies so you form an military alliance with one of your friends and decide to attack on of the systems so your friends creatures decide to co-op and attack your enemies. It in summary can be like Realm Vs. Realm in dark age of camelot. Will Wrights working title for spore was Simeverything so It was like the ultimate simulation there's really no limits to how you play Spore it could very well usurp World Of Warcraft as the most addictive deep, yet fun game out there it could even make mmo's a thing of the past. Spore isn't Maxis last game seeing as most people see this is as far as simulations go since it ends in space they're also on bill to do their past franchises like Sim City 5 and The third installment of The Sims (or thats what they say on Gamespot) I'm really hoping that Maxis gets to do their series and not other EA studios that mostly focus on the console or multiplatform. The team at Maxis is one of the most talented studios in the world they have recieved every industry award possible so I think they'll get Sim City 5 and Sims 3 on point (Imagine features from Spore being used in their other games it would RULE). So there's my first blog on spore I've barely touched the surface on how deep this game is (seriously this game is bottomless) but I'll go over other features later in other blogs so I'm hoping that this game come out summer or fall of this year I'm more stoked for this game than Halo, Bioshock, GTAIV,or Mass Effect and I'll go more in depth on other games later but I have to go so see ya.