Hey everybody! I got only a short blog today. I give you my review of Still Life, a game that turned out quite well, I'm very impressed by its story and atmosphere.

In other news, I started playing Anachronox, a western JRPG... yeah, weird huh? :P It's been great so far, it emphasizes detailed exploration of the game world (which btw, is huuuuge) and considering how well it's built, the process is a pleasure. :D I'll probably write a review after I finish it, but I still have a lot to go. So until next time: Peace!

Hey people! Wassup?

As the blog title sais, this week I've got two review for you. One is for the Icewind Dale Collection and one for Unreal Tournament 3. Click the names of the games to read all about 'em. ;) I have also made some changes to my older reviews. As I mentioned before, I've been tweaking some of them and a few days ago I also adjuster the scores. Most games dropped half a point in score leaving the 9 and 9+ sector to only the best of the best. Planescape: Torment is still the only 10 (I know it's not perfect but it's my favorite game after all) and now NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer is the only 9.5. I decided to reserve the 9.5 score for only those games that are actually more of an art form that just simple entertainment. And speaking of Mask of the Betrayer, I made a significant edit to its review, you can read it HERE if you're interested.

That's about it for now. I'll be back soon with more stuff. Peace! :)

Hi there! This time I thought we'd discuss the RPG genre and what it has to offer this year. I was planning to do this blog for a long time now, so lets get down to business.

With 3 major standouts (Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, The Witcher and Mass Effect) and a few smaller titles (like the surprising indie Eschalon Book I), 2007 was a pretty good year for role-playing fans. 2008 is pretty different. Most of the year's top titles are actually part of the same franchises that dominated last year: The Witcher is getting a wooping update with the Enhanced Edition, Mass Effect is being ported to the PC and Neverwinter Nights 2 will see the release of two major mods that deserve a lot attention. What else is there? Oh yeah, Fallout 3; Bethesda's latest bloom storm promises to at least try to be more than 'Oblivion with Gunz', which shouldn't be too hard... but who knows what could happen. There was also the release of Avernum 5 recently, which is worth checking out if you're into Jeff Vogel's stuff. Me, I'm not a big fan but I've heard a lot of good things about this title, so I might check it out. If I'm forgetting something (and I know I am), please point it out in the comments section. ;) Anyway, lets take the 4 most important releases and see what all the fuss is about.

Mass Effect:

Bioware's space opera is coming to the PC somewhere in late Q2, which isn't too far away. The list of improvements doesn't include much, Bio's main focus are the controls and probably some engine optimization.

As far as personal expectations go, I honestly don't know. The idea is interesting and I'm a sucker for space opera type of games so we'll see. Bioware has put a lot of effort into the game's presentation and the combat looks decent, but my main concern is the writing, which, from what I've seen, isn't too impressive. The voice acting feels a bit stiff too... but overall it should be fun.

Mysteries of Westgate:

This is the first adventure pack for Neverwinter Nights 2. It's developed by Ossian Studios (does Darkness Over Daggerford ring any bells? ) and I can tell you it's already done. Obsidian developer Rob McGinnis pointed out in his latest blog that Atari is working on a new distribution protection system, which is to blame for the delays of MoW. Who knows what disasters await those who buy an Atari game from now on? ;)

The game looks interesting though. Ossian promised a 10-15 hour campaign and if Games for Windows is to be believed, this adventure pack is indeed great. HERE'S A TEASER for those of you who are interested. Watch out though, this costs 10$ and you need NWN2 and MotB to play it.

Planescape Purgatorio:

This is basically another MOD for Neverwinter Nights 2... but this one is quite ambitious. The setting should be familiar to those who've played Planescape: Torment, this was enough to get my attention to be honest. Of course, recreating the city of Sigil (and its factions) is no small task; the quality of the story and quests is still a mystery too so we'll have to wait and see. But Rogue Dao Studios, the MOD's developers, have done a great job so far, at least that's what Obsidian has been saying about the matter.

They're currently in beta testing, which, considering the scope of Purgatorio, should take a while. You can VIEW THE TRAILER HERE if you're interested. Unlike Mysteries of Westgate, this MOD is free... but you never know what might change. And finally, I guess I don't have to remind you that you need NWN2 and MotB to play it. :P

The Witcher Enhanced Edition:

I left the big boy for last. If anyone remembers, I did a somewhat similar blog at the beginning of last year (I was referring to games in general in that one) and when I got to The Witcher I said that it's going to be the year's biggest surprise. Well, after winning numerous RPG of the Year 2007 awards (including Gamespot's) I can happily say that I was right.

The game had its share of problems though, mainly related to poor english translations (The Witcher's developers, CD Projekt are from Poland and the polish version of the game was universally praised for excellent writing... it's based on a great book after all). So CD Projekt got back to work, recording better voice acting, fixing translations, tweaking the game and adding new content. All this will be released under the The Witcher: Enhanced Edition name, which should be out in May. For more information on this substantial upgrade please CLICK HERE. Now that I've got a new PC I'll be able to enjoy this one. And enjoy it I will! :D

Well, there you go. I thought I'd mention Fallout 3 too but I'm not really interested in that one to be honest. I would have liked to cover a few of the indies though... maybe next time. Well, that's about all I've got say for now, take care people. And peace!

Hey people! Wassup?

I had a problem with my computer... a big problem actually. My old Athlon XP CPU crashed, permanently! So of course, this forced my hand to buy a new system, since everything but the hard-drive was dated. So I did. I got a 65nm Athlon X2 dual-core, from the energy efficient line, a slick little nForce motherboard that also supports Phenom CPUs and 1GB of DDR2-800 memory. Unfortunetly, I didn't have enough money for a graphics card so I'm playing on integrated graphics right now. Actually, I'm not playing much cause nothing works properly. Even old games like Thief have a problem with the damned integrated graphics. It seems I need to downgrade to some old forceware version to get it fired up. At least UT3 works and it's basically the only thing I'm playing right now... but it's only the demo. Once I get a graphics card (and maybe another GB of RAM) I'll run to the store and get The Witcher and UT3.

Not much else to say so I'll leave you with a video I made recently. CLICK HERE and enjoy the UT3 action! ;)

Peace!

Hello people! Long time no see. How are you?

I finally finished my exams and it went quite well to be honest. :D And as such I have resumed gaming although my Vampire Bloodlines saved game got corrupted and now I have to start over. But I figured I'd take a break from RPGs for a while. So I got 3 games that are not connected to this genre in any way: Quake 4, Still Life and Thief: The Dark Project.

I have already completed Quake 4 and I must say, I loved it. I even wrote a review, which you can read by clicking HERE. As for Still Life, it's a pretty conventional adventure game. Its story is quite interesting although the voice acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Still, it's enjoyable so far. And Thief: The Dark Project, ah, Thief... this game is brilliant! Thief 3: Deadly Shadows was really great (although the shadows were not as deadly as expected) but The Dark Project is a good step above it. There's almost nothing in the gaming world that compares to this game in terms of atmosphere. Looking Glass studios were quite the creative bunch (as shown by another of their masterpieces, System Shock 2), too bad they're not in business anymore. Maybe I'll do a tribute blog sometime, they sure deserve it.

Anyway, I recently replayed a bit of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and wanted to do a blog about it, titled KotOR: Revisited and Revised. I wrote a pretty lame review a few years ago so now I revised that review and this is what turned out: CLICK HERE. I raised my standards in the mean time. I want to do the same thing with the sequel, but only after the Restoration Mod is out.

As you probably noticed, I've been adjusting my reviews a lot lately, that's because I want to set up a game review blog on blogspot, so wish me luck with that. My writing still needs improvement but I think I'm on the right track. There will be more revised reviews in the next blog too I think; we'll see.

So anyway, thanks for reading this far. Have a nice night! Peace! :)

Hey people! What's up? :)

I haven't been doing much to be honest, just studying (exams are coming... :( ), watching Friends and listening to music. Of course, I've been gaming too, but not much. I started playing a game called Homeworld 2. To be honest, I'v only played the tutorials and the first 3 missions but so far I like it. So here are some impressions:

I'm not much of a strategy gamer but Homeworld 2 is quite different from your usual RTS. Since all the action takes place in space it needs to give you good camera controls in order to see everything that's happening. And Homeworld 2 really delivers, it makes great use of all 3 dimensions. It has 2 view modes: one is up close and personal and one is a zoomed out mode that acts like a full 3D map of the battlefield. The interface is a bit overwhelming at first and requires a bit of training. But I'm just starting to get comfortable with the units and commands and I can state that the interface is well thought out. Also, the campaign mode is a pleasant surprise since it actually has a story and the mission objectives all make sense in the story's context. The campaign is split up into a number of missions that are tied so the units you've built so far (and the tech you researched) are there at the start of a new mission. It also uses some nice cutscenes and movies to tell the story and it has excellent graphics. I can definitely praise the game's presentation. So far it's been fun, haven't seen any issues with unit balance but it's a tad early to tell for sure. Overall, I'd recommend looking into this series; they say that the first Homeworld was a bit better so you might want to start with the first game.

In other news, I wrote a review recently but didn't mention it in any of my blogs. It's for Doom 3, a game I've been wanting to review for a long time. Some people have bashed this game, some have praised it, I'm somewhere in the middle. HERE is the review, see for yourself.

So, I guess that's all for now; gonna go watch a few episodes of Friends. :D Peace!

Hey people! What's up? As the blog's title clearly suggests, here's part 2 of the blog I started last week. So without further delays I give you another 5 great gaming moments. Once more I must warn out that this blog contains spoilers. Off we go!

Defeating Malcolm - Unreal Tournament 2003: The single player final of UT2003 was one of the hardest gaming moments I ever went through. The final took place on DM-Serpentine, which is a small arena with 3 levels: the underlevel (which is organised like a labyrinth - you're a sitting duck in there), ground level and a bridge up high with 2 elevators (on the north and south side) that take you up to it. The match was adrenaline-filled mayhem. My AI controlled foe led for most of the match but I came back to 14-14 (score limit was 15). My heart was pounding after almost being dusted by a spiral of 3 rockets, but I sealed the victory with one precise shot with the Flak Cannon's alt-fire. And it was sooooo sweet! :twisted:

The Vault Dweller's Exile - Fallout: You defeated The Master and stopped the mutant threat. You're a hero! So you return to Vault 13, your home, to celebrate! But... surprise, surprise! There's no party waiting for you, just the Overseer who says that you've changed too much, you'd be a bad influence for the other vault dwellers and that you should leave... did not see it coming! It's such an atypical ending but fitting considering the game's ironic tones and dark humour.

Meeting Myrkul - NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer: It was a tough choice since MotB had so many great moments. I went with this one eventually. Everything was memorable about this scene: the music, the visuals and the revelatory dialog with Myrkul. Even Myrkul's strange voice seems to fit perfectly. The whole thing happens on the Astral Plane, in the boneyard of gods (Myrkul is the former god of the dead in MotB's universe). This is where every piece of MotB's story falls into place, this is where you find out the 'why' of the hunger's existence. This probably doesn't make too much sense to you, playing Mask of the Betrayer and understanding the context is the only way to truly appreciate this moment. Sorry about that!

Ravel's Maze - Planescape Torment: This is actually a collection of a few combat sequences and one lengthy dialog (about 20 minutes) your character has with Ravel Puzzlewell, one of the pivotal characters from the game. This is where you find how you came to be an immortal, a gift that has brought you more torment than anything else. The dialog is the center piece, obviously. This is also one of those trademark Torment moments when your character's stats are put to good use so it serves to have high wisdom, intelligence and charisma. Like the dialog with Myrkul from MotB, it's pretty hard to explain what's going on without being aware of the context. But if there's one game that any person interested in story-driven games must play, then it's this one.

And so we've reached the last one. As I said before, this is not a top 10, it's just 10 great gaming moment in random order... except the last one, nothing can top the following moment, it is my absolute favorite.

*drum sounds*

And my favorite gaming moment is:

Meeting the Jedi Council on Dantooine - Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: KotOR2 is well known for having a few major issues, like bugs and some missing content. But despite those flaws, KotOR2 is a game with a stellar story, one that breaks the usual Star Wars conventions and cliches, a story where light and dark, good and evil mix up and are hard to distinguish. The game is carried by one particular NPC, Kreia, the elderly teacher of the Exile (your character), probably my favorite character from any game out there. She's wise, convincing but also a lot more than meets the eye. In this particular scene, we arrive on Dantooine to meet with the remnants of the Jedi Council. This meeting marks the introduction of the final phase of Kreia's grand plan. Never has she shown emotion throughout the game but even she is overwhelmed by the importance of this moment. As the Exile and Kreia enter the ruins of the Jedi Enclave she stops to sit down for a moment. She looks weak, old, tired, never before has she allowed herself to show weakness. The Exile goes ahead without her but his discussion with the Jedi Masters doesn't go too well. They believe he is the source of the Sith threat and want to cut him off from the force... but Kreia does not allow it. This is the dialogue that follows:

Kreia: Enough!
*Kreia uses a violent Force Push - shoving the former Jedi Masters away and breaking their concentration on the Exile*
Kreia: Step away from him!
Master Vrook: Wha?
Kreia: Step away!
*Vrook is pushed back once more*
Kreia: He has brought truth and you condemn it. The arrogance! You will not harm him, you will not harm him ever again.
Master Kavar: I thought you had died in the Mandalorian Wars.
Kreia: Die? No! Became stronger, yes.
Master Vrook: Is this your new master, Exile? If so then you follow Revan's path. Her teachings will cause you to fall as surely as he did.
Master Zez-Kai Ell: *Draws his lightsaber* We sought to lure the Sith out and now they have come to us.
Kreia: As you would pass judgment on him, I have come to pass judgment on you all.
*Vrook and Kavar draw their lightsabers*
Kreia: Do you wish to feel the teachings born of the Mandalorian Wars, of all wars, of all tragedies that scream across the galaxy? Let me show you, you, who have forever seen the galaxy through the Force. See it through the eyes of the Exile.

... and the masters die, their connection to the force severed while The Exile lies unconscious. And Kreia leaves for Telos to set in motion the last part of her plan.

The voice acting played a huge part in the impact of this scene and the voice actors delivered, specially Kreia. And while KotOR2 doesn't keep this high quality of writing throughout the whole game (and has a few plot holes - thanks to the cut content) it still is pretty close to what Planescape Torment achieved in terms of impact and depth. It's definitely worth playing, but it will be even more worth it after all the cut content is restored, something on which the community is working hard (they are currently in beta testing).

So that was all. Once more, please submit some of your favorite gaming moments in the comments section. I hope you enjoyed the blog. Peace!

Hi all! This week I'm going to do a blog I intended to do a long time ago... but for some reason didn't. But since there's no better time than now, I give you my 10 most memorable gaming moments, 5 today and 5 the next week. Also, please note that these moments are in no particular order, it's not a top 10, just 10 great moments. And I should also warn you that there might be spoilers. Happy reading (and viewing) ! :)

Water Hazard - Half-Life 2: This is basically a whole mission and I loved every second of it. Your objective is to get to Doctor Vance's lab, which is pretty far away; luckily, you are given a fan boat for faster transportation. You'll encounter many closed barriers and puzzles along the way and at the very end there's a great boss battle with a chopper. The whole mission had excellent pacing and was tons of fun to do. You can view the final part of it by clicking HERE.

Meet the T-Rex - Tomb Raider Anniversary: Lara is in Peru, looking for a piece of a powerful artifact and as she emerges from a cave she's attacked by some small dinosaurs. After defeating two weaves of these creatures a huge T-Rex blasts through and attacks Lara. It was a ****c 'oh, sh*t' moment. This is the first boss battle of the game and it was great fun! You can take a look at the whole thing by clicking HERE.

Battling Yxunomei - Icewind Dale: Yxunomei is the final boss of the the Dragon's Eye chapter. She's a huge demon that looks half snake-half woman and she's a terror in melee combat. She's also practically invulnerable to magic which makes everything harder. But that's not enough, she also has a small army of Yuan-Ti archers and priests to aid her. It wasn't the most difficult battle but before this I usually got out of any tight spots by using the fog of war to my advantage or by hit and run tactics. But here I had little space to move so I buffed my party with every potion I had and luckily my two melee warriors took care of her while the rest of the party took out her small army. It was great fun! But sadly, I didn't find any videos for this one. :(

Welcome to Hell! - Doom 3: After a long romp through industrial corridors that look pretty much the same, Doom 3 makes a significant change of pace once you reach Hell. Yes, Hell. This level is not just creepy, it's also pretty creative and the battles here are among the most frantic to ever take place in a video game. HERE'S the first part of the whole thing, the more mellow part. Not recommended if you're under 18.

The Elevator Crash - Unreal II: This scene was basically a nod to the corridor scene from Unreal, aka 'meet the Skaarj'. Unreal II wasn't that great a game but this scene is brilliant. After moving through the lower levels of the Sanctuary mining complex you reach an elevator that's supposed to take you to the main complex. So you hop on, start the elevator but after ascending about half the way it just stops. You look up and the lights start to go off, one level at a time. Once it's all dark a huge Skaarj lands on top of the elevator and starts cutting the cords. Then you start falling, sparks all around... HERE, take a look at the whole scene.

So these were 5 of my 10 most memorable gaming moments. Toon in next week for the other 5. Also, if you have some interesting gaming moments to share, please do in the comments section. Peace! :)

Hi all! So here we are, 2008. How was your new year party? :D

Ok, so lets get down to business. A long time ago I did THIS blog about Black Isle Studios, a company that no longer exists. It was sort of a tribute blog. Today I want to do another blog like that and present to you another great company that isn't 'alive' anymore. I'm talking about Troika Games. So here we go.

Troika Games was founded by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson, who left Interplay in 1998. These three guys were the creative force behind the now famous role-playing game Fallout. Their ambition was to make games as an independent developer and that's how Troika Games came to be.

So the newly founded studio teamed up with publisher Sierra to make a new RPG. And in 2001, that RPG was published under the name Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura... but failed to live up to expectations; well, at least the mainstream's expectations because Arcanum is regarded as one of the best RPGs ever made by many hardcore RPG communities. It had one of the most original settings ever (think magic, swords and knights combined with steampunk, a conflict between magic and technology), and, in true Fallout spirit, a lot of oportunities to role-play and develop your character just the way you want it. The game had a fairly crude combat system though, and the visuals were not too sharp either, so it failed to capture the attention of too many gamers outside the hardcore fanbase.

After this partial failure, Troika moved on and started working with Atari on a new game under the Dungeons & Dragons license. And in 2003 they published The Temple of Elemental Evil, considered by many the most faithful computer adaptation of pen and paper D&D. It was also highly praised for having one of the best implementations of a turn-based combat system. But the game was fairly unpolished on release and that hindered its critical reception. The game was aimed at a niche market though, and that had its impact on sales.

What came next was Troika's last game. In 2003 they teamed up with Activision and started working on Vampire - The Masquarade: Bloodlines. The game used the now famed Source engine (Half-Life 2) which at that time was only partially finished. The project proved too ambitious for the limited time Troika had to make it come together and so, in 2004, Activision decided to publish the game despite it being unpolished and unfinished. They also decided to publish it a week after the launch of Half-Life 2, which has to be one of the most idiotic marketing decisions I've ever seen.

And so with another great title under their belt, but with little mainstream success, Troika was forced to close shop in 2005. I think their failure reflects the lack of flexibility of game publishers in general... but also the importance of good, solid technology as a starting point to a game. Troika did leave behind three amazing games though, and I am very much looking forward to playing them this year. I warmly recommend you give them a try too. Peace!

Hi all! So Christmas is almost here and I just wanted to stop by to wish you all a Merry Christmas!!! And in case I don't blog till next year: A Happy New Year!!! :D

Peace! ;)