I wanted this game, but not as much as I do now after playing it. The opening scene was excellent and shows Jak being dumped into the middle of the desert. Daxter and the bird get left behind so their with Jak. Mission one, this is your first chance to look at Jak's awesome new haircut en homage to the original Jak's from the first game. You tool around in a vehice which handles incredibly well, and shoot up insanly huge 'wasteland' Metal heads. Wen you defeat 4, Jak picks up a dark eco crystal and a transmitter plays. Jak says the voice sounds framiliar and i thought it did too. I played that mission over and over just to get some more glimpses at his weirdly outlined head, and i finaly think I know who it is...but you have to find out for yourself. This guy is the new leader of the metal heads. Mission two, you run through a dark eco mine which is for the most part pretty boring and get to use Jak's new light eco powers. Unlike dark eco which you get when defeating enemies, light eco is only found in weird little vent things. Theres only two in the whole demo. The two moves ive learned with them are time freeze and health regeneration. Mission three, you escort a bomb train you find at the end of the second mission by shooting down the railroad tracks to let it get by. This demo was very good, and has spiked my interest in this game.

Outstanding. The only bad things I have to say here is that it is all in Japanese (which will change for the final version) and that they say it is an all stealth mission and you could just as easily blast your way through. The opening scene, Snake jumps out of a plane and into the jungle, losing his pack on the way through the trees. You contact the person giving you your mission and he instructs you to go get your pack, as its essential for the mission. Once you do that, you work your way through a few maps of general nothingness, and finally come to some enemies. They seemed to find you pretty easily even when your camo scale read in the 90% range. You rescue this dude, and the demo ends. Another feature is killing animals for food which is a nice touch. I was planning on buying this game anyway and the demo didnt really change anything.

I had pretty much cast this game off to the side and didnt really consider buying it. Then came the demo. The demo, I thought, was very good and was exactly the same as i thought it would be graphics and gameplay wise, but in some unknown way it was better. There was just something about it that made me like it. Ok, now for the bad things. The enemy AI was one of the worst ive seen in awhile. I really hope they change this before the game is done. it had two missions, the first, you played as only one person, Templar. You were in some trenches holding off the Helghast and eventually worked your way back to the main bunker and defended that. At the end of the first level, you entered the city you were defending. Second mission, you could play as three different people. I tried all of them and i was disappointed to find they all played virtually the same. In the mission, you went through some rooms and outside ontop of this concrete thing that i couldn figure out what it was. Anyway, a Helghast dropship comes and you have to hold them off. This demo singlehandedly made me want this game.

I thought this demo was very good. The new weapons lived up to the awesome standards that the previous games had set and higher. One of the better weapons was the Plasma whip which is a fiery whip that can be thrown and used melee. The infecto bomb was also cool, and was very handy in some of the parts where you got swarmed with enemies. this game has the potential to be the best R&C yet. lets hope it is.

Official article from Bungie.net:

They said it couldn't be done! Actually, they didn't say that, but if they had, we'd have proved them all (the fake people who didn't say anything) wrong! Halo 2 has gone gold. We finished every line of code, every pixel of art, every frame of animation, every phoneme of dialog and every note of music. We finished it when we said we would (when it was done) and shipped that baby right on time to make its November launch date. And we're kinda proud of it. We think it's "fun."

"Gone Gold" is a somewhat archaic expression, since the "gold discs" are actually digital tapes and eventually silver discs. But it certainly feels golden. This basically means that the game has been shipped to retail manufacture. Somewhere in the world, a gigantic DVD pressing factory has started making Xbox game discs with the utterly complete version of Halo 2. Maybe there IS a gold disc somewhere. Perhaps it's time for an epic quest!

We now have retail versions (test samples) here in the office. In fact, one sharp, and presumably jealous-eyed reader saw the following legend appear in his Live-linked MSN Instant Messenger window: "Anm8erJB is now playing HALO 2 on Xbox Live." Now THAT'S a tease.

It's been a long, hard road though. When you're playing it, and we hope you enjoy it, think of the 116 hour work weeks, the long nights, the bad food, the really long corridor to the bathroom (people use scooters to get there) and the utter lack of places to curl up and sleep.

Just a little under a month till its in our Xboxs, can't wait

I picked this game up today and im having some real fun with it. Ive already beaten "The clone wars" historical campaign and plan on beating the campaign with Darth Vader in it tomorrow. You play as a no name soldier, actually many no name soldiers in huge battles across the galaxy. Each team has their own signature unit, and their own version of the generic units. What really is a great part about this game is the vehicles. When youre in them, youre practically unstoppable, but when youre against them, only the demolitions unit has a real chance at blowing them up. Although all units can drive vehicles, when the Pilot unit drives, the health constantly regenerates, making it even harder to die than it already is. After you beat a scenario, you are sometimes treated to an actual movie clip of the scene you were just playing, which is a very cool fealing being able to play the movies. you play as both good and evil, and what determines what side your on is who wins the battle in the movies. for instance, if the rebels win the battle in the movies, you play as the rebels in the game, and vice versa. online is a nice touch and its definatly different than any other online game for Xbox that ive played. An added bonus is the trailer for Republic Commando which looks very good. Check it out, it convinced me to want RC. Anyway, overall this game is a fun alternative to the regular games that have been coming out, and online will add some replay value. Star Wars fans, this is the game you have been waiting for. I give it an 8.8. If this doesnt interest you but Star Wars does, wait for Republic Commando scheduled for release early next year.

been a long time since i got a ps2 game. this one, i must say, is one of the best ones ive played since Sons of Liberty. i got it on monday night and, as opposed to the first one which i would have already beaten, im only 10% done with the game. still a good bit, but that makes it 10 times longer than the first one. ill start of by saying, the graphics are very well cell shaded and this is really the perfect game to use cell shading. the environments are very well done also. what i really like about this game is that it really gives you a good perspective at what thieves have to go through to pull of the heist. first, you have to go through and take some pictures of the key factors of the hesit. then, you setup basic schemes that will provide a more in depth look at what your objective is. third, your computer nerd tells you what you have to do to set up the heist, and lastly, you have to pull it off, using all three characters help. which brings me to another point. in this game, your two sidekicks are fully playable, and have some missions of their own. unfortuatly, they just arent as fun to play as as Sly is, so fortunatly, they dont have very many missions. the heists are very well thought out and could, with a little luck, actually work providing you have the acrobatic talent that Sly does. all in all, this game is great, and any ps2 owner should pick it up.

I got Fable today, the day it came out, and have already played through a good little portion of the storyline. This game is totally not what i was expecting. i was expecting a game like i decribed in the September games list before this post, and what i got was a game that was a whole lot bigger, more diverse, and just flat out better than i thought. You start off looking for a present for your sister, so you have to go around town doing good (or evil) deeds to get money. As the story continues, you find yourself at a place called the Heroes Guild. This is where you basically do your training, and, once you are an adult, come back to get missions, or quests as their known in this game. You get your Guild Seal and can teleport to any town youve been before. This comes in real handy, as all of the towns are very spread out, and you probably dont want to go through the woods fighting monsters and bandits all over again. The story has its own way of progressing which is good because you don't always have to leave what your doing to get the next quest. To sum it all up, the battle system is a bit weird, when you lock onto somebody you fight and kill them, then when theyre dead, it takes awhile for it to switch to your next victim which can become annoying. overall this game is great and i shall enjoy finishing it. this game recieves a well deserved 9.6.

September, in my book, is the second best month for games next to only November. There are so many games to get and only a few I can afford. Here are the games, in order, that are worth your time.

1. Fable- Despite the reviews giving higher reviews than deserved, this game should prove fun if your willing to look past a few annoying features and the short sotoryline. You can spend time in the citys, out killing things, or just exploring, this game should give you quite a few hours of gameplay if you get into it. i plan to get it, beat it, then spend the rest of the time switching from good to evil and fine tuning my character. This is the big hit of the month. Release: 14th.

2. Second Sight- This is made by the people who brought you the Timesplitters series. This one, however, guns take second place next to your psychic abilities. I have been waiting for this game for awhile now and still plan on buying it. Release: 21st.

3. Burnout 3- Reviews aer saying this is a serious contender for best racing game ever. the sense of speed is so great you feel like your really there. It also has it's series signature mode, crash mode, where you try to make the biggest crashs possible. it also features an online mode which should add to the lasting time you will play it. Release: OUT!

4. Demon Stone- fan of D&D? this game is for you. you control 3 characters each with their own abilities, and can switch back and forth as much as you want, or call on the other 2 to come and help you. the real dissapointment about this game is that its not cooperative, which marks it off the list of games im buying. Release: 14th.

5. Def Jam: Fight for NY- The first one was a sleeper hit, now this one has standards to live up to and almost certainly will surpass. featuring many more playable characters and a great story mode, this game should be pretty nice. Unfortunatly, IMO, the game doesnt have what it takes to be on my list thanks to slow paced gaming. Realease: 20th.

6. Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders- One of the first real strategy games to come out for Xbox. You command your own character along with your entire legion at your disposale. Features HUGE battles that any developer would be proud of. If you like strategy games, this should be good, but not up against the competition the other games are showing off. Release: 20th

Well here it is, the game of all games. This game will put all other FPS in there place. Once this game is released, don't expect to see people on XBL playing any other game besides this one. This game is already reserved for my #1 game of all time. Although not much has been revealed about the games plot, the master chief will be defending Earth from the covenant, and somehow the flood will tie into the story also. There will be 24 levels (as far as we know) 16 on earth, 2 on a moon, and 6 on the Covenant homeworld (all material subject to change). There will be loads of new weapons including the Energy sword used by elites in the first game. It will also support XBL 3.0 with built in clan features and armor customization. But of course youve heard all of this before, so heres what im looking forward to. Although the online function will be awesome, I wont play it until iv beaten the single player capaign. ill have waited 3 years for this game to come out and i wont do anything else till i beat the game and know the complete storyline and have watched the ending cutscene. Another thing i cant wait for is the new weapons. The covenant sniper looks nice and so does that covenant carbine. The final thing im looking forward to is the melee combat. Bungie has said that each weapon will have more than one melee attack. You can also melee enemies without a weapon, so you can give em good ol' mouthful of Mark VI armor. Oh yeah, this game is gonna rock.