My 360 decided to celebrate the release of the awesomeness that is The Orange Box by dying. I thought I may have been one of the lucky ones to avoid the widespread hardware failure, but after 22 months of purchase, my 360 displayed the three blinking Red Lights of Death. I suddenly understand why everyone was so happy about the extended warranty granted by Microsoft.

I have spent many many hours the past few days grinding through my Steam copy of The Orange Box. I can honestly say that this package now tops my favorite games of all time list. As you have probably noticed from some of my previous posts, I am really into Team Fortress 2. You can check out those posts for an introduction to the cIasses of TF2, and sometime next week I will release Part 4: The Launch Maps. I have already joined a clan, and hope to be competing against other clans within the coming weeks. On a side note, let me know if you are interested in joining up for the upcoming TF2 PC tournament.

Portal is the most original game of 2007 (and of the last few years, even). Though the main campaign is short, Portal marks the release of this amazing technology, that required very extensive modification of the Source engine. The campaign itself is really just an introduction to the Portal mechanic and to this new branch of the Half-life universe. In the near future, there will be mapmaking tools available and that will be where Portal's strengths lie: the mapmaking community and custom maps. The possibilities for these mechanics are quite numerous.

As for Episode 2, its hard to put into words how absolutely amazing the game is. Even the seemingly minute changes to the Source engine and to the gameplay in EP2 make all the difference in the world. Enemies now spurt blood from wounds, textures and lighting effects are greatly enhanced, the game as a whole is more optimized (at least for my video card setup), game segments (lengths of game between loading times) seem to be about double their old size, and the facial textures have been edited to look even more lifelike than before. EP2 features many more story developments than EP1, which makes for a very plot driven and emotional experience.

I'm going to wait for another week or so before I discuss plot developments here, as I don't want to risk spoiling anything for those of you still working through the game. For now, I'll just say to those of you delving into the Orange Box, you are in for a real treat.

In my Play Ball series of posts, I will introduce you to the cIasses and maps of the new Team Fortress, which is shipping as part of Valve's The Orange Box. I recommend opening some of the images used below in a separate window to see them in full detail.

Previous Posts:

Gibs and Pipejumping: An Introduction to Team Fortress CIassic

Play Ball! Part 1: The Offensive CIasses

Play Ball! Part 2: The Defensive CIasses

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

In TF2, Valve has split the nine character cIasses into three broad subgroups: offense, defense, and support. The three cIasses below don't quite fit into an offensive or defensive role, but are built to support the other cIasses in obtaining the map objective. Spies and medics tend to be useful for offensive support, while snipers are more useful for defense.

Medic

-Abilities: Using the medigun to heal others charges the Ubercharge meter, using this makes the Medic and the targetted friendly invulerable for about 10 seconds

1.Hypogun 2.Medigun 3.Bonesaw

Following your fellow teammates around and watching them kill opponents without getting to actually shoot anyone yourself might not sound like much fun, but somehow, this cIass is insanely fun to play. When targeting a fellow teammate with the Medigun, you will constantly provide them with a stream of health, and increasing their maximum health by 50%.

Unlike the old Team Fortress, you don't have to be at point-blank range to heal your targets anymore; the Medigun works at a distance of up to a few meters. Also, once you have your target selected, you can look around in any direction and continue to heal them, as long as you stay in range of them. Be careful of corners and certain obstacles, as they will cut off your medi-stream.

Anytime you are using the medigun, you will fill an Ubercharge bar. Once completely filled, right-clicking with the medigun out will deploy your charge, making yourself and your healing target invulnerable for about 10 seconds! During invulnerability, you can still be knocked around by concussive blasts such as pipebombs and rockets, but they will not do damage to you. Keep in mind that your Ubercharge will fill faster when healing a wounded target. One strategy for quickly getting a full charge is having a demoman or soldier hurt themselves with their explosives, which will give you a wounded target to heal. Proper use of the invulnerability can quickly change the status of the battlefield, and learning when and how to use it is part of becoming a top-notch medic.

On the offensive end, medics have the Hypo-gun, which rapidly shoots small hypodermic needles that actually do a fair amount of damage. For a melee weapon, they have a bone saw, which is really fun to use on unsuspecting opponents. Just keep in mind that healing your teammates is much more important than getting your own kills. Whenever the person you are healing kills someone, you get an assist for that kill, which counts for a point.

The Medic character is German, and has some really funny lines like "OKTOBERFEST" and also a few that are in German. His taunts are all hilarious. With his saw, he begins to play it like a violin and you can hear a tiny string vibrating. With the hypo-gun, he will say things like "Oops, that was not medicine" or "That was doctor-assisted homocide!"

Sniper

-Abilities: Zooming in with the sniper rifle charges the shot and makes it more powerful, headshot is always a critical hit

1.Sniper rifle 2.Auto machine gun 3.Knife

This cIass is fairly self-explanatory. The sniper rifle has a scope, which is enabled by right-clicking. When zoomed in, a laser dot will indicate to you and anyone else in the area, to where you are aiming. Just to the right of the reticle is a small charge bar, which charges whenever you zoom-in within about 3 seconds. This will determine the amount of damage your shots will do. Headshots are automatic critical hits and can kill most cIasses except for the Heavy and Soldier in one shot.

The scope restricts your field of view in TF2, which is much different than the mechanic in TFC. Also, headshots no longer make your enemies gib like they did in TFC, but it is still quite satisfying to watch them fall to their knees. If your enemies get up close to you, the sniper has a sub-machine gun that can do a fair amount of damage.

The Sniper is Australian. I haven't really heard any really standout voice commands from him besides when he makes a hot-barrel noise after some headshots.

Spy

-Abilities: Can disguise as any friendly or enemy cIass, can cloak by right-clicking, can sap engineer buildings (disables then destroys them), knife in the back is insta-kill

1.Pistol 2.Sapper 3.Backstab knife 4.Disguise

This cIass probably has the greatest variety in how you can play it. The spy has the ability to disguise himself as any other cIass in the game from either team. Shooting or attacking, but not sapping, while in disguise will turn him back into his normal form. The spy can also cloak for a limited time by right-clicking with any weapon out, making him completely invisible. This is very useful for getting past the front line, where being in disguise is more believable. The cloak meter will recharge slowly over time, so use it wisely. When in disguise, teammates will see you as a spy with a mask portraying whatever cIass you are in disguise as.

The spy's knife is an instant kill if used on an opponent's backside, and can be used while in disguise, but revealing you. The knife can not be used in cloak however, so you must first reappear, before you can backstab someone. The trick to being a spy is backstabbing then running away. Its really easy to be killed once you are discovered, so cloaking and hiding so you can change your identity is the safest way to go. Act the role of the cIass you are disguised as. In disguise, you will be given the name of someone playing that cIass on the other team, at random. You can't see the name you are given, it is only viewable by the other team, since mousing-over a teammate shows their name. Be careful hanging around enemies who are the same cIass that you are disguised as, because it's fairly obvious you are a spy when you have the same name as them.

The spy's sapper makes it much easier for your team to take down enemy sentries. The sapper must be placed at point-blank range, and can be placed in disguise without revealing your identity. The sapper will disable and slowly drain the health of any engineer equipment it is placed on. It takes some practice to be able to sap an engineer's sentry and then backstab him before he can take the sap off. Stabbing the engineer before sapping will get you killed by his sentry. This cIass is all about practice, and you need to know what other cIasses would be doing on each map, so you can successfully hide amongst the other team.

Being that the spy is usually always in disguise, I don't know any of his normal taunts except for his sword-fighting stance when he has his knife out. Keep in mind that taunting will reveal your identity, so don't use them!

In my Play Ball series of posts, I will introduce you to the cIasses and maps of the new Team Fortress, which is shipping as part of Valve's The Orange Box. I recommend opening some of the images used below in a separate window to see them in full detail.

Previous Posts:

Gibs and Pipejumping: An Introduction to Team Fortress CIassic

Play Ball! Part 1: The Offensive CIasses

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

In TF2, Valve has split the nine character cIasses into three broad subgroups: offense, defense, and support. The defensive cIasses rely on their ability to lay down different types of traps, or in the case of the heavy, a large suppressive spray of bullets. Although the heavy and demoman are in the defensive category, they still have their place on the front line in a well-balanced team.

Demoman

-Abilities: Right-click detonates remote grenades

1.Pipebombs 2.Remote grenades 3.Broken bottle

KABEEM! If you love to make your opponents gib everywhere in a fountain of blood, this is the cIass you want to play. His pipebombs will explode instantly if they hit a player until they bounce once. After the first bounce, the bombs will explode 2-3 seconds later. Two direct hits though will easily kill most cIasses except for the heavy and sometimes the soldier. The pipebombs are also great for taking out engineer sentry guns and other equipment that may be around a corner or on a ledge above or below you.

The remote grenades are great for laying a trap for incoming enemies. They will stick to most surfaces, so you can hide them around corners on the walls or ceiling. You can place up to 8 "urchins" at a time, and when the time is right just right-click to detonate them (no matter which weapon you have out). All your urchins will vaporize whenever you die, so remember to replace them. Control points and flags are great places for these mines.

The demoman is a Scotsmen, and he is hella-drunk. Most of his voice communications are drunken slurs. His pipebomb taunt is him pulling up his crotch armor, reveiling a smiley face on a piece of paper taped to his pants, as he yells "KABEEM!". After gibbing someone, he can often be seen with a wide grin on his face.

Heavy

-Abilities: lots of health, very slow

1.Sasha (chaingun) 2.shotgun 3.Fists

I am heavy weapons guy. And THIS [VIDEO] is my weapon. This dude is the Big Daddy of TF2. He has the highest amount of health of any cIass in the game, and can shread his opponents to shreads with his massive chaingun. Though categorized as a defensive cIass, you will often see heavies on the front line, due to their extreme amount of firepower. With a medic at their side (the Little Sisters), they can be practically invincible as long as they protect their healers.

As a heavy, you will need to pay special attention to your ammo, and how you use it. Your chaingun will quickly deplete its 200 rounds, so you need to quickly take note of where ammo packs respawn. Also, you can pick up ammo from killed players and Engineer's dispensers. If you do run out of ammo, you can switch to your shotgun, or you can run up to people and punch them in the face, the latter being much more satisfying. Remember that your movement speed will be slower when firing your chaingun, so make sure you are in a good spot before you open fire. You can also prime the turret by holding down your right-mouse button. This will allow you to start firing bullets immediately, instead of having to wait for the turret to begin spinning.

This guy has some pretty hilarious things he says. As you are tearing people apart with your chaingun, he will laugh or call out "CRY SOME MORE!" in his Russian-accent. His battlecry and positive calls are mostly entertaining also.

Engineer

-Abilities: Can build a sentry, dispenser and teleporter from metal

1.Shotgun 2.Pistol 3.Wrench 4.Build 5.Destroy

He solve problems, practical problems, and is not concerned with your conundrums of philosophy, as seen in this video. The Engi has four creations at his disposal: 1.sentry gun (130 metal), 2.dispenser (100 metal), 3.teleport entrance (125 metal), and 4.teleport exit (125 metal). You can only have one of each type built at any one time, and they will survive even after you die.

Hitting 4 and then the creation number will bring up blueprints for that creation. Right-clicking will rotate it, allowing you to place your sentry gun in a corner facing out, and left-clicking will begin the build process. All his creations build automatically, but will go faster if you continually pound them with your wrench. Hitting already built creations with your wrench will repair them, which uses metal. The and health and status of each creation appears in your HUD in the top-left corner. The sentry can be upgraded by hitting it with the wrench. It takes 200 metal to get it to level 2 and another 200 metal to get it to level 3. Each level increases the gun's max health and firepower.

Your sentry gun has a specific range, which you can see when you have the sentry blueprints out. You want to find a corner that is hidden from any angle where someone can stay out of range and take it out. You want to point the blueprints in the direction where the sentry will do the most damage. A sentry can rotate 360 degress, but if its normal position is facing the other way, it will take time to rotate before it can begin to fire.

Dispensers will hand out health and ammo/metal to anyone standing near it. The health function is always constant and is never depleted, but your dispenser has a limited supply of ammo/metal, which will regenerate over time. If you build your sentry in a dangerous place, its best to crouch right behind your sentry and place a dispenser directly behind you, so that you are sandwiched between them. This will allow you to constantly gain health and metal while you continually repair your sentry.

Teleporters are very helpful to get your teammates around. They can be placed anywhere on the map except for inside team spawns. On most maps, especially control point maps, its best to place an entrance at your spawn, and an exit near the frontline, to quickly get respawned teammates back to the front. Your teleporter will need to charge for 7-8 seconds everytime its used, and your entrance will have an arrow pointing in the direction of the exit, giving teammates an idea of where they will be taken.

Engi's also have to deal with sappers from Spys. A spy must place the sapper at point-blank range, but it doesn't knock them out of their disguise. The sapper will disable your equipment and drain its health until you can hit it twice with your wrench. If the spy stays nearby, I suggest trying to kill him with the wrench while you take off the sappers, otherwise he can continually spam the sapper on your equipment.

As far as voice stuff goes, the Engi is most certainly Texan. He will call out when he builds something, when his equipment is destroyed, or when his equipment is sapped. His best taunt is a cowboy jig, during which he makes these really funny calls.

In my Play Ball series of posts, I will introduce you to the cIasses and maps of the new Team Fortress, which is shipping as part of Valve's The Orange Box

Previous Posts:

Gibs and Pipejumping: An Introduction to Team Fortress CIassic

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

In TF2, Valve has split the nine character cIasses into three broad subgroups: offense, defense, and support. The offensive cIasses are built for the front line. With a nice balance of speed, firepower, and health, these guys will offer your team the best chance at getting that control point or flag.

Scout

-Abilities: Super fast, double jump

1.Shotgun 2.Pistol 3.Bat

This guy is very, very fast. What he lacks in health and firepower, he makes up for in movement speed. After jumping, hitting the jump key in mid-air will make the Scout jump a second time, which allows him to access certain places more easily, such as the enemy battlements in 2fort. If you are playing an older computer with a low framerate, you will really hate Scouts, because even with a high framerate, it can be quite difficult to hit them with your weapons, unless you have a spray like the Pyro or Heavy.

At first glance, Scout's may seem like flag jockey's, where their sole purpose is to quickly get in and get out with the intel. However, I have seen many people go on the offensive solely against other player's, as opposed to going for the objective. The Scout's shotgun is rather powerful at close range, and he has no problem getting in your face quickly and circling around you. His bat, while not doing as much damage as the shotty, is pretty fun to use against other players, as it makes a characteristic metal ding noise as you pummel your opponents.

This guy has some of my favorite voice stuff in the game. He sounds like a really enthusiastic American teenager with a New York accent. Even after my many hours of playing, I still get a kick out of "play ball", "bonk!!", and "this sucks on ice."

Soldier

-Abilities: Rocket jump

1.RPG 2.Shotgun 3.Spade

This cIass was featured in Valve's second TF2 character video. He is designed as a stereotypical military veteran. Though fairly slow, the Soldier has a good amount of health and wields a powerful rocket launcher that make enemies explode in a mess of gibs and blood.

The Soldier's rocketjump allows him to reach high places and certain entrances that others wouldn't be able to reach. To do this jump, fire a rocket at the ground as you hit the jump key. This technique takes some practice. Remember that doing this will take some of your health away, so be careful.

When shooting rockets at opponents, you should aim for their feet. Hitting their feet will not only do damage to them, but it will usually blast them up into the air or in some odd direction. This can throw them off and possibly minimize damage they will do to you and your teammates. If you knock them high enough in the air, they may even die from fall damage, which is usually pretty funny.

The soldier's taunts include a salute with his finger's in an L-shape, and him acting dazed and screaming as he proceeds to slam his shovel against his head.

Pyro

-Abilities: Fireproof

1.Flamethrower 2.Shotgun 3.Axe

If you are on the other team, you do not want to get close to this dude. The Pyro's flamethrower does an insane amount of damage at point-blank range, and can reduce a Heavy to a pile of ashes in just a second or two. The flamethrower also has a bit of range to it, and while it does some damage, the real benefit is that it will catch enemies on fire for about 5-10 seconds. While flaming, they will take damage over time. This opens up a potential Pyro strategy, a flame-and-run method of fighting, or the Forum-Troll strategy, if you will. From what I can tell, there is a chance for flaming enemies to pass the fire onto others if they happen to run into each other. Listening to your opponents scream "FIRE!" is quite satisfying.

As for his other characteristics, The Pyro's shotgun is useful for targets that are fairly far away, as the flamethrower is useless at that distance. When taunting with flamethrower in hand, he pushes it up and down over his head and makes a long grunting noise, a reference to the Tusken Raiders (Sand People) in Star Wars. If holding his axe, he strums it like an air guitar. With his shotgun, he charges of a fireball in a cIassic Dragonball Z Kamehameha stance. All his voice communications are muffled by his face mask, to the point where you can't really tell what he is saying.

As an aside, this guy looks very similar to homestarrunner.com's Poopsmith. Whether this resemblance is intentional or not, I just thought I'd point that out. The pic on the left is Poopsmith in his usual outfit, and on the right is the Municipality Poopertrooper.

My first hardcore foray into multiplayer first-person shooting was with a Half-life mod called Team Fortress CIassic, released in April of 1999. It occupies a spot in my top 10 favorite games of all time, and I'd like to explain what the game is all about as a prelude to the upcoming release of Team Fortress 2 as part of Half-life 2: The Orange Box.

Team Fortress CIassic, or TFC for short, is a cIass-based shooter designed optimally for 10-25 people to play on a single server. Players are split between multiple teams (typically two) depending on the game mode. The game modes are totally dependant on the design of the map itself. For example, one of the most popular maps (and an original launch map), called 2fort, is a capture the flag map. The map is divided into two identical, mirrored bases for each of the two teams, red and blue. Each base has a flag in the basement and a capture point on the roof.

Another popular map is dustbowl, where one team plays on defense, while the other tries to bring its flag to each of three capture points, in succession. If the offense gets their flag to the third capture point, they win. If the time runs out, they will lose that round and the teams switch roles. A third game mode is a "hunted" map. One team is comprised of a civilian (armed only with an umbrella) and his entourage (who choose from 4-5 of the offensive cIasses). The latter's purpose is to protect the civilian so that he can get to the escape point. The opposing team is usually fairly small (3-5 players) and comprised entirely of snipers. A civilian kill or escape resulted in the ending of the round.

Just in those few examples, you can see the wide array of gameplay one could experience while playing TFC. However, the maps aren't the only elements that define the gameplay in TFC. Players on a typical map can play as one of 9 different cIasses. Each cIass has its strengths and weaknesses, and each has a different maximum health and armor. Below, I'll briefly explain each cIass (in no particular order).

Pyro - If you enjoy smoking fools with a flamethrower, the pyro might be the cIass for you. His main weapon will catch enemies on fire, causing damage over time, even after the pyro has turned his attention elsewhere. He is also armed with an incendiary cannon, that fires rockets that explode on impact, setting anything in the immediate vicinity ablaze. The pyro is great at lowering the health of opposing players to allow for other offensive teammates to easily finish them off.

Sniper - As far as first-person shooting games go, a sniper gun is often a one-headshot kill, and the same applies in this game. The sniper must first charge his gun for a few seconds by holding down his fire button. When charging, his movement is slowed, and a red laser dot appears wherever he aims, which is visible by enemies and friendlies; letting go of the button will shoot the gun. A fullpower headshot usually means an instant kill, in addition to the target exploding into a fair number of gibs. The sniper also has a full auto version of his rifle, but it's certainly not as powerful as his main shot. The sniper is not the best for offense; often snipers' greatest adversaries will be enemy snipers, especially in 2fort and other two team CTF maps.

Medic - The medic is the ultimate support cIass in TFC. He has a mediocre shotgun and machine gun for damage, but his real strength is in his medpack. He can heal (and actually overheal) fellow teammates. The medic is great for frontline healing, giving the offense that extra push to make it to the flag. The medpack is also a weapon. If used on an enemy, they will be infected and slowly lose health until they die or are cured by a friendly medic. The infected players can also infect their teammates, so a medic can quickly infect an entire team, unless they have a medic to heal them.

Soldier - This is probably the most well-rounded cIass in the game, and great for offense. They have a fair amount of health and armor, and have a very powerful rocket launcher as their main weapon. They are one of a few cIasses that can use their weapons to jump higher than normal. Called a rocket jump, a soldier shoots the ground beneath him just as he jumps in the air. If done correctly, he will be boosted fairly high and can scale large walls that others would have to go around.

HWGuy - The heavy weapons guy is aptly named. He carries a very sizable automatic chain gun, and has a very large amount of health and armor, but is slow, and is slowed down further when firing his main weapon. The HWGuy is great to have on the frontline, mowing down the other team's defense.

Demoman - If you like to blow **** up, the demoman may be for you. He has two grenade guns, one where the grenades explode on impact, while the other is trigger-activated. The latter can be used to set a trap for an unexpecting enemy. These explosives can also be used for something called a pipe jump. Similar in mechanics to the rocket jump, the demoman runs past his pipes and jumps as he hits the trigger, which should propel him a great distance. This mechanic is used on pipejumping maps. This cIass also has the demopack, a gigantic bomb that can instakill anyone nearby. He can also use his demopack on certain maps to open up hidden passages in some levels to provide an alternate route to a flag or waypoint.

Scout - This cIass' skinny body is easily torn by enemy fire, due to his low amount of health or armor. Though what he lacks in health, he makes up for in speed. He can move very quickly, easily dodging enemy fire as he races to the flag or capture point. He also has a special grenade called a concussion grenade, which can be used as a jump boost, similar to the rocket and pipe jumps. Conc jumping maps are another type of "fun map", and can be a nice break from the normal gameplay of TFC.

Spy - Very sneaky, sir. The spy is able to change his appearance to any other cIass and team color. If used correctly, he can trick opposing team members and possibly make it to the flag unopposed. He can instakill opposing team members by backstabbing them with his knife. He can also feign death, which is useful to lose the attention of his enemies.

Engineer - This cIass has the ability to build armed sentry bots that will automatically attack enemies. His wrench is used to upgrade and repair his creations using up ammo and armor picked up from spawn points and dead players. He can also make ammo depots and teleporters by the same method. He carries a shotgun that's a little heftier than that of the medic, for self defense. Offensive engineers can be fairly useful, but it can be hard to repair an offensive sentry bot, since he wouldn't have access to spawn point ammo in the enemies base.

Special cIass - Civilian - Armed with just a umbrella, the fat, mustachioed civilian is used only for specific maps. Often, his purpose is to get from the spawn point to an escape point, protected by his teammates. Having an inexperienced player as the sole civilian often makes things boring, and sometimes, downright frustrating, seeing as his survival is key to the team's success. The civilian cIass is also used on puzzle-based escape maps, where all the players are on the same team and all play as civilians. The purpose of these maps is to work together to solve the puzzles and escape alive.

The original Half-life, and all its mods, were made on the Quake 2 engine, so they look fairly dated by today's standards. The mod was originally played on WON servers, a few years before Valve's now popular Steam software was released. By 2004, TFC was integrated into Steam and the WON servers were shut down. TFC has received quite a few updates throughout its lifetime. The older cIass models were replaced by sharper-looking ones, many new official maps were released from Valve, and various cIass tweaks have been performed, such as the addition of the teleporter that can be built by an engineer.

If this type of gameplay sounds like something that would interest you, Team Fortress 2 is being released in The Orange Box on October 10th, 2007. Those who preorder through Steam gain access to the TF2 beta which begins Monday, September 17th. I'm sure I'll be posting quite a bit about the new games. Thanks for reading!

Sources

TFC Game Guide by Chris Jensen and Doug Radcliffe

games.tiscali.cz

Wikipedia.org (no hyperlink, it didn't like "cIassic")

The ultimate game release calendar has begun! I'm already finding myself switching between quite a few games each night, trying to get some progress in all of them. Right now I'm trying to get through Bioshock a second time (rescuing all the Little Sisters this time), playing a bit of World of Warcraft (leveling my mage until I'm able to transfer my priest to my old server), getting some practice on Guitar Hero 2 (only Freebird is left), building a pilotable blimp in Garry's Mod (low priority :D), and puzzle-solving my way through Metroid Prime 3.

Metroid Prime 3 is really fun, and the controls are executed perfectly, to make the experience feel much less taxing. For example, you can now switch between visors, scan something, and switch back, all without having to stop moving. The environmental puzzles are much more involved than in the prior Prime games, and this time around you often have to fight waves of enemies that won't cease until you complete the puzzle. The voice-acting makes the Metroid world more immersive than any iteration before MP3 (plus its nice to see how to properly pronounce Aran :P).

Sadly, there is no game listing for Garry's Mod on Gamespot. I think it definitely deserves one. It has its bugs, but its really fun to just make random stuff and see if it works. If you don't know what gmod is, it is essentially a sandbox mod for the Source engine, downloadable through Steam for around $10. You have access to all the models from Half-life 2, Counterstrike, etc, and can always download others that people have made. You can weld together crazy contraptions, give them wheels or thrusters, nail things to the walls, the list goes on! There is a very popular mod for it called Wiremod, which adds electronic wiring capabilities. You can add processing chips and sensors to give your contraptions a mind of their own.

As you can guess from the first paragraph, I have unfrozen my WoW account. I want to get my 70 shadow priest back onto the server I used to play on (I transferred shortly before quitting the game) so that I can play with the friends I made on there. However, with the way these next few months are shaping up (especially with TF2 coming very soon), I doubt I would put much time into the game. I'll at least play with my friends until early October.

Here is the list of the games I'm most excited about and their release dates according to Gamespot (I like to stay organized):

Eternal Sonata - September 17 (Mon)
Halo 3 - September 25 (Tue)
HL2: The Orange Box - October 9 (Tue)
Beautiful Katamari - October 15 (Mon)
Guitar Hero 3 - October 28 (Sun)
Hellgate: London - October 31 (Wed)
Call of Duty 4 - November 5 (Mon)
Super Mario Galaxy - November 12 (Mon)
Crysis - November 16 (Fri)
Mass Effect - November 20 (Tues)
Super Smash Bros Brawl - December 3 (Mon)

Well, I hope ya'll are enjoying these times as much as I am. Take care!

I was rushing to finish Psychonauts on Tuesday night, because I HAD to get it done before Bioshock. It was surprisingly good, and the writing for the game is just hilarious (aided by the great facial animation and lip-synching). I will write up a review, but its going to have to wait til I finish Bioshock. :D

Steam was going really slow last night and took 2.5 hours to unlock Bioshock. Meanwhile, I finally had practiced enough to get past the last two songs before Freebird in Guitar Hero 2 (X360) on expert, and also managed to get through Thunderhorse on expert. It seems like whenever I finally beat a hard song in that game, I can do two or three more.

Once Bioshock finally got done, I started playing that. It looks just as good on PC as it does on 360. And I am able to play it at max settings at a perfect framerate, even though the recommended video card reqs call for a 512mb card instead of my 256mb card. The only performance related quirks I've seen so far is an extended loading time past the actual loading screen. Once I enter a level sit there and watch all the textures slowly load onto all the surfaces, hehe. Also, its weird that you can't name your save files, nor do those save files keep track of total playtime... More about the game later (once I finish it!).

I'm going to take the MCAT on Tuesday. For those that don't know, its the test required to apply to med school. The test itself is about 5 hours long, consisting of 4 sections: biology (including organic chem), physics (including general chem), verbal reasoning, and writing. The exam is supposed to test how you think, not how much you know, but that doesn't change the fact that you pretty much have to know everything in detail from every science class you've ever taken in high school and college. I am pretty confident in my ability to remember things, but I'm worried about having to remember things under the time limit and be able to apply them to the narratives. There are no equations or formulas given in the physics section, so they must all be memorized. Also, no calculators are allowed. I will certainly be happy when its over.

For my study break pleasure (and post-MCAT enjoyment), I bought the id Super Pack on Steam over the weekend. It contains so many classic games, and it was a great deal (only $62 for 15-20 games). I'm taking a nostalgic journey through Quake, Wolfenstein, and Doom when I'm not studying. I'm going to try and get through everything without the cheat codes I always used as a child :-D.

After my test is over, I'll try to post more game related stuff.

I got motivated earlier tonight and decided to do searchs on Gamespot for some of the old games that I can remember playing as a child. I added as many as I could remember owning to my collection, increasing the size of my "Collection" page by about 50%, hehe. I kinda wish some of them worked on newer system, because there really are some great games in the bunch. Most were published on floppies though....

There was even a Roger Rabbit puzzle game that I remember playing, but it wasn't on GS at all. To access the game, you had to use this paper wheel and move the windows into position to get the correct code to enter the game. As you progressed into each new area of the game you had to figure out how to get Roger to the next area. It was kind of like Mouse Trap, using all sorts of crazy contraptions.

There was also a Dr. Brain game that I remember, but I'm not sure if it was the Island or the Castle, so I left it out of my Collection for now. I may add to this post later on, if I feel like being nostalgic again.

The demo for Blue Dragon has been released and I sat down and played both dungeons that were included with the demo. I'm a huge fan of Japanese RPGs and am really glad that a few are finally arriving on the 360.

By far the first thing that stands out about the game is its unique graphical style. The characters have a cartoon-ish shape and stature, yet they have a glossed and polished texture that gives the models and environment a very interesting look. Depth of field is used in the environment, so object and monsters within a circle around you are clear but the distance is blurred. Blue Dragon's battles are initiated by running into one of the enemies that appear on the map. Some will only appear when you are close to them, so sometimes it's hard to dodge them. If you want to have the upper-hand when initiating a battle, you can jump-attack them and get the first strike. If you do this from behind you can get a back-attack and be able to go a full turn before your enemy can even think about attacking you.

Combat is fairly straight forward as far as Japanese RPGs go. Each character has a class and a certain array of skills from which to choose. The fighter classes have normal and magic sword attack, and then there is the usual black and white magic. One cool thing about this system is that you can actually choose each characters class. So you can have two white mages if you like. Also, you can combine skills from different classes to fully customize your party. After some intense fighting, your characters will gain enough power to use their corporeal attack, which is a massive, devastating attack that will usually wipe out every enemy on the screen. You can collect items to get rid of status effects, as well as heal in and out of battle. You gain skill points and experience after every battle that is split among your party members. You can have all five character out on the playing field at once, assuming that those are the only five characters you ever get in your party.

The one unique thing I've seen as far as combat goes so far is the ability to charge your attacks until the right moment. Every time you choose certain moves, you play a short "minigame" where you press and hold A to charge up a bar. The bar shows where each party member and enemy will take their turn. So you can choose to charge up your attack and make it more powerful, but this may mean that you will take your turn after your enemies. This makes the battles more fluid than your standard turn-based fighting.

The environment contains the usual savepoints and chests that contain items. The camera can be turned full circle around the character using the right analog stick, which makes it very easy to see the detailed environments in which you will explore and fight the many different monsters and robots. The music in the demo seemed pretty good. Most of the music is the classic RPG keyboard music. One difference is the boss fight song in the demo, which is a Japanese/English rock song that does a good job of setting the mood of the battle.

Cutscenes seem to be fairly common throughout the game. The voice acting seems pretty good so far, except Shu's (the Gohan-like main character) voice doesn't really fit his body in my opinion, but all the performances are . I'm pretty sure the cutscenes are fully rendered in the game engine. The game flows very smoothly and loading times are very small, which makes the transition between the game world and the battle screen less annoying than some RPG's I've played.

The demo wasn't an overall impressive presentation. Blue Dragon doesn't have anything extremely innovative besides the art style and a few elements of battle. If you wish to try it out for yourself, you can download the 2-hour demo from Xbox Live Marketplace. Blue Dragon is set to ship on August 28th and is available exclusively for the Xbox 360.