Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

The apparent focus of the Dawn of War II team's efforts so far is the single-player campaign, which will put you in control of a small number of Space Marine squads, each captained by a "sergeant" character--essentially, exceptionally powerful "hero" units, whose names, personalities, and abilities will become second nature to you as you carefully follow their progress throughout the campaign. This is because these squads will basically be your entire army throughout the campaign--there won't be any harvesting of resources to build another barracks to churn out more grunts like in a traditional real-time strategy game. You also won't be led around by the nose from preset mission to preset mission as in other, more-linear strategy campaigns. Instead, you'll travel throughout the universe in your battle cruiser with your squads, rescuing the various worlds that have been invaded by aliens by accepting various missions that appear on each planet. Your primary objectives will be either to defend a specific area from an incoming invading force, or to assassinate the commander of a hostile army that has already captured the zone.

Boy, that sure is a nice church back there. Oh, wait. Those dudes look pissed...
Interestingly, the campaign will have an open-ended structure that won't require you to successfully finish every single mission before you get a chance to watch the closing credits. Instead, you'll be able to head to any distressed planet at any time and take any outstanding rescue missions--each will have a briefing with the details of your objectives, as well as a list of the experience and item rewards you'll receive at the end, which will probably influence some players' decisions on which missions to go on next. According to lead designer Jonny Ebbert, it will be possible to fail to complete the majority of missions in the campaign and still complete the campaign--like in a real war, you can't always win every battle. Nor will you need to complete every objective--most missions will have various side quests that you can choose to complete or skip. Often, these side quests will yield extremely powerful rewards, such as capturing control of a territory marker or aquiring exceptionally powerful weapons or armor that you can use to equip your units. Unlike in the original game, where control points were small flags planted in the ground, in Dawn of War II, they'll appear in the gameworld as huge imperial shrines or communications towers that, when captured, grant persistent morale bonuses to your units and may provide other benefits in-game as well. For instance, a captured imperial shrine can be used to restore the health of injured troops or as a site to commission reinforcements--replacements for any of the fallen foot soldiers that follow your sergeants.
Your sergeants themselves may also fall in battle, but they can be revived by surviving units as long as you have someone left who can walk. They'll also gain improved strength and survivability as you pick up dozens of different items and weapons that they can equip, including miscellaneous items in an "accessories" slot that can contain anything from combat bonuses that make your assault marine hero Avitus an exceptionally deadly sniper, to frag grenades that can blast away cover (and any enemies cowering behind said cover), to an orbital strike item that calls in fire from the sky when you need heavy-duty artillery. Your sergeants will start the game with standard-issue equipment and very few slots to carry it in, though over time they'll recover better items and unlock more slots to carry them in.
In addition, your sergeants will gain experience levels--this lets you develop them further, since you'll gain a single point at each level to invest in one of four key statistics: health, ranged attacks, melee attacks, and "energy," which is used to trigger each unit's special powers. Each of these four attributes has several higher-level powers embedded along the advancement path that can be unlocked with enough invested points. The melee powerhouse force commander Thaddeus, for instance, may eventually unlock a "taunt" power that draws the ire of nearby enemy units if you spend enough points in his health attribute. In addition, each sergeant will have a unique set of these special powers that will unlock with different investments of level points. Though you'll gain a substantial number of experience points throughout the campaign, you won't be able to gain enough levels to max out all four attributes or unlock all powers for all sergeants. So you'll need to choose wisely, though the development team at Relic hopes that this character development system, along with the open-ended campaign structure, will encourage you to replay the game once or twice.
During our time with the game, we watched a demonstration level in motion in actual play (as opposed to the tightly scripted demonstration version we saw some months ago). The demo level took place in a densely wooded jungle environment, which is new to the Dawn of War series, and showed the sequel's new weather system in the form of a continuous downpour. Our squads of Space Marines headed into battle against an entrenched army of orks who were spread out through the jungle, in many cases behind cover or garrisoned in the occasional guard tower.
Throughout the demonstration we saw several instances where judicious use of cover and careful squad management made all the difference in battle. For instance, at the outset, the squads entered the ork installation from the south, where an ork "shoota" unit with a powerful minigun defended the perimeter from a tower building that afforded it excellent defense. Because a frontal assault would have meant certain death, we used the scout marine squad's high-powered sniper shot ability to pick him off, then scrambled in our other troops to sweep up the rest of the perimeter guards. At another point, we hid ourselves behind a high wall that the orks could not see past, setting up an ambush by using our flying squad's "squad jump" ability to leap over the wall in a single bound, knocking most orks off their feet while our gunners hurried into a nearby tower to entrench themselves and rain down fire from above.
Pulling off daring feats like these won't always be easy, since Relic is taking special care to try to make enemies smart enough to seek cover themselves and since all cover in the game can be destroyed by explosive blasts, such as from grenades. In addition, to keep players on their toes and give them a different, challenging experience, the assassination missions will often end in spectacular boss fights against exceptionally powerful units with abilities that attack and damage all units in a specific area, such as the ork warboss we saw in motion today (which had the ability to set explosive charges in a row along the ground and to create a localized shock wave around itself to send our soldiers flying).

Your odds of surviving this little altercation are much better with friends at your side.
Though the dynamic of destructible cover adds a whole new dimension to the game, Relic's fans have apparently been most vocal about the game's multiplayer, which, though not discussed in great detail at E3, will incorporate support for Games for Windows Live, as we revealed in our recent exclusive interview. Relic representatives explained that Microsoft's service offers the features that the team was looking for in terms of reliability, ease of use, and quick-matching to join up with and stay online with friends. That Games for Windows Live also supports achievements doesn't hurt either--the game will definitely feature those as well.
Dawn of War II clearly has a lot to offer, including a fresh, new approach to an open-ended, role-playing-like campaign and its destructible cover dynamic. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more coverage of this promising strategy sequel.

Far Cry 2

This can't be Far Cry 2, can it? Deep in the African wilderness, we slowly creep though the darkness, the stars our only source of light. Using tall grass and bushes for cover, we silently approach a well-guarded compound, an enemy refilling station. The guards who aren't asleep huddle near a fire, idly chatting while we sneak to high ground. From this vantage point we can spy on the entire area, including each guard's position and the location of several fuel tanks. But something's wrong. It's quiet. Too quiet. Where are the booming explosions, the deadly firefights, and the dune-buggy drive-bys we've seen in all of the past demos of Far Cry 2, all of which led us to believe this would be one of the most explosive shooters of the year?
Don't worry, we're purposely choosing to sneak around this camp Sam Fisher-style to highlight the differences between night and day combat, differences that are like night and, um, day. Sure, we could fire laser-guided rockets into the camp or ghost-ride an explosive-laden jeep into our enemies, but then you wouldn't get to see some of the unique gameplay opportunities available only at night. First, as it usually happens at night, it's dark. Guards will have a more difficult time seeing you; they'll gather around sources of light such as campfires, and many will retire to their bunks for a good night's sleep. On this night, we avoided the patrols, sneaked from shadow to shadow, and placed improvised explosive devices on the station's fuel tanks. We retreated back to our hilltop vista, pressed a red button, and witnessed a breathtaking sight: a gas station exploding in a giant ball of flame that lit up the night sky like the Fourth of July. Now that's the Far Cry 2 we know and love.

Day or night, a machete hurts.
With 50 square kilometers of African desert, jungle, and savannah as your playground, developer Ubisoft Montreal wants to ensure that you play Far Cry 2 however you want to play it. Whether in close or from afar, silent or guns blazing, at two in the morning or two in the afternoon, this virtual world is your oyster. The few remaining guards who survived our explosive ambush were too busy losing their minds as their world went up in flames to notice a solitary figure in the dark, stealing a jeep from under their noses. With our new wheels, we headed to the final mission objective: a water-supply pipeline diverting water from a local lake and village to pay off arms dealers.
If this sounds familiar, it is; the pipeline mission is the same demo we've played twice before, only set in the daytime. This time, at least, we get to play at night and have at our disposal the weapons of a silent assassin that showcase stealthy gameplay: an MP-5 SD silenced submachine gun, several IEDs, and a scoped dart rifle that fires rhino tranquilizers, good for one shot, one coma. The dart rifle is especially powerful at night because it doesn't give off any muzzle flash that would act as a flashing white bull's-eye on your chest. We climbed a nearby hill and used the handy monocular to zoom in on enemy sniper positions, machine-gun nests, and ammunition dumps. These were immediately tagged and added to the area map, which we used to devise a quick plan of entry. From the hill, we put a sniper to sleep with a dart to the neck, and began picking off foes one by one.
Silent or not, it takes only a few dead bodies for guards to zero in on your position, a threat that is also indicated by the intensifying musical score. The subtle tones of "infiltration music" are replaced by a tense African tribal beat to let you know that guards are looking for you. As the action escalates further, so too does the score, although in the middle of a pitched firefight everything is hard to hear over a cacophony of explosions and gunfire. We didn't let anything escalate further as we picked off two guards, circled around to the other side of the camp, and picked off two more. As you can imagine, watching your friends die in front of you from the effects of a tranquilizer overdose is frightening indeed, and the guards freaked out accordingly. When only one remained, this triggered what Ubi Montreal referred to as the last-man-standing syndrome. The last man alive in a given area will pump himself up by cursing, high on adrenaline and fear, sort of like "that guy" in every horror movie who screams, "You want me? Come and get me!" So, with an MP-5 bullet to the face, we got him.
Far Cry 2
Decieve thy enemies.Watch Download
If you prefer nighttime gameplay, you can head to any of the many safe houses in the game and take a nap, setting your alarm for the wee hours of the morning. Whereas the day and night cycle in Grand Theft Auto IV runs at about 24 minutes of actual gameplay for every in-game day, Far Cry 2 gives you six hours of gameplay for every in-game day. This ensures that your stealthy missions aren't ruined by sunrise after six minutes of action. Then again, you never have to sleep in your hunt for the Jackal, the infamous arms dealer who is enabling two rival factions, the United Front for Liberation and Labour, and the Alliance for Popular Resistance, to tear the region apart.
Before ending the demo, we just couldn't resist whipping out the flamethrower and lighting an entire village aflame. The fire effects are even more dramatic at night as flames quickly spread across the area in the direction of the wind. One of our NPC buddies, Frank, had joined us by now, so we decided to put to the test Ubi Montreal's claim that any NPC can be killed at any time. Ubi Montreal was right. With a quick blast from the flamethrower, Frank went down. Had we continued playing, he would not have been available to help us out of a jam, initiate extra side quests, or engage in witty Irish banter.

That's the Far Cry 2 we know and love.
However, had we continued playing, we do know that we could have cashed in conflict diamonds to purchase weapon upgrades. Each firearm will degrade over time, which is denoted visually with tarnish and rust stains. As you use them, weapons will increasingly jam and misfire, although some, such as AK assault rifles, are more reliable than others, such as M16s. If your rocket misfires, it will spin at your feet like a defective bottle rocket before exploding in your face. Hint: run. Conflict diamonds will net you bigger and better guns (M-79 grenade launchers and AS-50 .50 caliber sniper rifles, to name a few), and even crates that provide unlimited refills of new guns. See a spot of rust on your MAC-10 machine pistol? Head to a safe house and grab a new one. The last thing you want in the middle of a fight is a jam.
For more on Far Cry 2, be sure to check out our exclusive interview with Ubisoft creative director Clint Hocking, as well as a new trailer, both packed with fresh gameplay footage. Far Cry 2 is set to explode on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 this fall, and we can't wait.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Death Knight

PARIS--We've seen a fair bit of what's to come in Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion to Blizzard's mammoth MMO World of Warcraft; we've slain foes in Northrend in a recent visit to Blizzard's Southern California offices, run through the Howling Fjord at last year's BlizzCon, and heard all about the changes to the raiding system. We'd also heard a lot about the game's new class, the Death Knight, but hadn't been able to actually play with one--until now.
Before we get into the heart of the matter, let's recap. When you get into the expansion, you will be able to create a Death Knight if you have a character of level 55 or higher, but you will only be able to have one per account per server, according to the latest information from Blizzard. Unlike other classes, this character can be any race you wish--which is likely to annoy those who take their lore seriously.
After creating a Death Knight you're dumped into in the middle of the Plaguelands, the scourge-ravaged area home of the ruined city of Stratholme, to the east of Tirisfal Glades, home of WOW's undead.
Your Death Knight starts life at level 55--that's five levels below the pre-Burning Crusade level cap--with a selection of mostly uncommon gear (greens), with a rare (blue) weapon. The selection of spells is limited; you have one "presence" available, blood, which boosts damage by 15 percent and heals you to the tune of 4 percent of the damage you do. The most obvious difference as you enter the world is your character portrait; surrounding your portrait and health bar is the blade of a vicious-looking sword, with six glowing, coloured runes embossed on the blade beneath your health bar.

All Death Knights look set to start with the same set of gear, and it looks mean.
The runes represent the three new types of spell castable by the Death Knight, as we'd previously been told. These are essentially global cooldowns for those classes of spell, with two bites at the cherry--in the initial setup, at least. Some hybrid skills use runes from different schools, and ensuring you're using all your runes as much as possible looks likely to be the key to maximising damage with your Death Knight.
Of the skills we got to try during our play session, Death Grip was probably the most novel and useful. While it dealt no damage, it acts as a lasso--cast it on enemies within 30 yards and they are instantly teleported next to you and taunted into attacking you for the next three seconds.
When you first enter the world with your Death Knight you have no talent points to spend and a very limited array of skills, but thankfully this is rather rapidly corrected as you reach Light's Hope Chapel and meet the Death Knight trainer--the aptly named Siouxsie the Banshee--along with a few other associated NPCs. You won't have to walk all the way, though; as a Death Knight you start life with a summonable epic mount. Tooled up with 45 talent points to spend you can take advantage of the three skill trees, though there aren't many additional skills available until you clock up a few more levels.
At level 55 the play mechanic for all three trees is fundamentally the same; you will still do most of your damage at melee range, with a small number new skills available from each talent tree. We found the Frost route to be the most effective at level 55, with talents to increase your critical strike chance and attack speed in abundance letting you tear through enemies at and just above your level with relative ease. Frost Strike will become your weapon of choice, as it converts your next melee swing into a powerful frost blow. The area-of-effect Howling Blast is useful when you're in a tight spot, as it deals treble damage to frozen targets, and deals frost damage to all hostile targets in a large radius.
The Frost tree also lets you give your weapon a temporary icy enchantment, which adds frost damage to your attacks and gives your melee blows a chance to lower your enemies' frost resistance, as well as imbuing your weapon with a nifty blue glow. This, combined with the red glow imbued from one of the speed-boosting talents, makes the Death Knight a rather impressive-looking foe as he slashes those before him.
The Blood tree is more useful in parties, with abilities to improve your Blood Presence, boosting your total health and those of your party, as well as granting the useful Mark of Blood. This spell will have particular use in instances and party running, as it grants your entire party 10 percent of their maximum health when a marked creature dies, as well as transferring 5 percent of the healing done to the marked creature to all your party members.
Health is a particular focus of talents in the Blood tree; Blood Gorged boosts your damage by up to 10 percent when you have over 75 percent of your maximum hit points. There are also talents that boost your attack power based on your total armour, and ones that increase the health and strength of you and your party when your Blood Presence is activated.
The top of the Blood tree also provides some fun bonuses. Heart Strike reduces your target's health by 20 percent for 30 seconds, and Dancing Rune Weapon can double your melee damage for a certain amount of time by creating a replica of your main weapon that mimics your attacks for up to a minute without the need for any additional runes or action on your part.
The final tree we got to play with was Unholy. This is reminiscent of the skills attributed to the Necromancer in Diablo II, and looks likely to come into its own at higher levels when you can summon minions to fight by your side. It brings back the old favourite spell Corpse Explosion, as well as boosting the strength of you and your summoned minions and increasing the damage and effects of your disease-related spells.
Runic Power is the one new mechanic with the Death Knight we are yet to cover. It is essentially a hybrid between energy and combo points and is required for a range of impressive moves. It is displayed via a small arc-shaped meter to the right of your character portrait. When the meter is full the entire blade that backs your portrait and rune bar glows blue to let you know it's time to unleash all hell on whatever poor beastie you're beating.
Runic Power decays with time and is generated as you burn up runes when casting spells--with talents available in all trees that boost power gain from certain skills--and is used up as you call in certain skills. These either consume all Runic Power available in one hit--Death Coil converts it all into a powerful shadow blast--or drain it slowly to maintain a spell's effect. One such slow-draining skill allows you to summon a gargoyle from the heavens that exists for as long as you have Runic Power available (or up to a minute). Combined with skills that boost your speed and critical strike chance as you fight, these skills look likely to make the Death Knight a fearsome force once he or she gets going.
We look forward to sitting down with the game for an extended period and reporting back on the next 25 levels' worth of skills and talents, and how the gameplay changes for the Death Knight as you become more powerful. Stay tuned for more information.

Devil May Cry 4

Devil May Cry 4 looks amazing. Whether it's running on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, Capcom's fourth entry in the eclectic series is easily one of the best-looking games on either console. Even better, it runs at a solid 60 frames per second, throwing around its beautifully animated characters, gloriously detailed backgrounds, and incredibly bombastic effects seemingly with ease.
Frame rates and gorgeous visuals aside, we learned plenty of hard facts, as well as heard some juicy new hints from Devil May Cry 4's developers at the company's recent London Gamers Day event. It was confirmed that Dante, the star of the three previous games, will be playable from halfway through the game right through to the end. It was also dropped in that the PlayStation 3 version of the game will have "a little something" for Sixaxis controllers and that the team is definitely hoping to release a demo for the game at some point in future.
Our session started at the beginning of the game, with the PlayStation 3 version running in 720p on a flat-screen TV. The game will open with a tutorial level where new playable character Nero is squaring off against Dante. During the intro, Nero is seen covering his arms to hide the obvious signs of his "devil bringer" powers. After throwing Dante a few times, Dante strikes back at Nero with his trademark sword, revealing Nero's arms. The battle continues with the two characters engaging in a sword fight and some stylish close-ups of the two crossing weapons.
he new character of Nero introduces devil bringer powers to the series.
In the final game, there will then be a tutorial to introduce players to the game and allow them to grasp the intricate combat system. In our demo, the developers jumped a few levels to mission three, where Nero was exploring an underground labyrinth. The main combat engine will be familiar to anyone who's played the previous games, although there is a new emphasis on charge shots, airborne battles, and Nero's devil bringer moves.
The sword attacks now have three levels of strength, with the level determined by the length of time the attack button is held down. In addition to ground-based swordplay, Nero has an airborne dash move that allows him to plunge his sword into enemies in midair. We saw the devil bringer powers at this stage too, and they are not only used to pick up enemies and slam them on the ground, but they also allow Nero to scale great heights by grabbing onto mysterious blue orbs around the level. The powers allow Nero to conjure up ghostlike allies to help double his attacking power as well. When Nero swings his sword, a spirit appears behind him to perform a follow-up attack, while gun attacks are complemented by blue stars that take the same path.
Jumping through the air upside down while firing at enemies below--this is Devil May Crlright.
After seeing all these moves in action in the underground setting, the level opened up above ground and onto a snow-topped mountain. The snow-storm setting reminded us visually of Capcom's other recent action game, Lost Planet, but we unfortunately didn't get to see too much of it before another cutscene began. As Nero approaches a bridge leading up to a castle, the new character Gloria is revealed, launching herself down from the top of the castle above. She then proceeds to use a number of athletic moves to slay the enemies you didn't get a chance to slay while dodging their attacks, which gives Capcom an opportunity to show off what can only be described as the character's breast physics.
The final Nero level that we saw during our time in London was a jungle boss battle. The level starts with Nero riding a huge snakelike creature that's controlled by a female humanoid hiding within the head. Nero holds on as the creature weaves through the branches, but eventually he's forced to fight on foot against the huge monster. Occasionally, the woman at the head of the creature is exposed for you to fire bullets at, but the idea is to attack the creature's exposed underbelly when it goes into a spiderlike form. Once the underbelly is visible, Nero can go in and unleash his devil bringer to perform multiple attacks, as well as really inflict some damage to the creature.
The snow-capped mountain that leads up to the castle is spectacularly atmospheric.
As we previously mentioned, Dante will be playable halfway through the game, and we got to see one level featuring the series' stalwart. Series veterans will be pleased to hear that Dante remains pretty much unchanged in terms of control from previous games and lacks the new devil bringer powers that Nero uses. The character still uses four different attack styles: trickster, royal guard, gunslinger, and sword master. Also, he's still just as athletic as before. However, he will also have a couple of new tricks up his sleeve, including an uppercut that was described by the developers as a "shoryuken" or dragon punch move.
In addition to the conventional combat options, Dante has access to the coolest weapon in the game: Pandora's Box. Featuring a number of different attack modes, the weapon sums up the game's over-the-top style in seconds. Housed in a suitcase, Pandora's Box can transform into a huge airborne tank that rains down rockets on your enemies and open up into a superpowerful chaingun that will tear through anyone stupid enough to be in the vicinity. Finally, you can lay the suitcase on the ground and enemies will be consumed by its immense power.
Devil May Cry 4 is looking fantastic. There are some minor disappointments, particularly the fact that developers have completely ruled out a co-op two-player mode, but otherwise the game is shaping up to take the series to a whole new level of action. The game isn't slated for release until next year, so keep an eye out for more information on the game as we get it.

Majesty 2 - The Fantasy Kingdom

We've seen city sims, flight sims, and military sims, but fantasy sims? Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim set itself apart in 2000 for its unique blend of real-time strategy, simulation, and fantasy role-playing elements, and gathered a small cult following in the process. Now, publisher Paradox and developer 1C: Ino-Co are back with Majesty 2, a sequel that will see you raising heroes from the populace and sending them forth to slay nefarious enemies wreaking havoc across the kingdom. But how do you motivate a hero? We sat down with producer and CEO Alexey Kozyrev and asked. Here's what he had to say.
Hero archers can fell enemies from a distance.
GameSpot: The original Majesty was an addictive blend of real-time strategy and fantasy role-playing. Eight years later, how are you expanding on the core concept in Majesty 2?
Alexey Kozyrev: The core concept is indirect control, and as such we are adding new "Incentive Flags" so that the indirect control of our heroes is smoother and better. Majesty fans will know what I mean by "Incentive Flags," but for those unfamiliar with the concept, players basically flag characters in the game in order to have certain actions like attacking, exploring, etc. performed.
In many other aspects we just want to keep the addictive gameplay of the first version while bringing it up to modern standards in terms of interface and gameplay. The past eight years have raised the RTS genre to the completely new level of usability. We want RTS gamers to feel comfortable in Majesty 2.
GS: It's always difficult as a new developer taking over an existing IP. What challenges have you run into so far?
AK: We were in touch with the original developers Cyberlore very early on and as soon as we had received all available material from Majesty 1 and the Northern Expansion--our vision for part two became very clear. We've all spent a good deal of time playing both games and the key challenge for us so far has been to ensure we design a multiplayer game with good balance. The first part was designed with a focus on the single-player campaign.
GS: Walk us through the city-building aspects of Majesty 2. The fantasy world is slightly different than settings in other empire-building games. What key structures will players need to construct to grow their budding kingdoms?
AK: The castle is located in the heart of the player kingdom and the number one goal is to defend the castle, because it houses his Royal Majesty. The heroes live in guilds, so players will require a great deal of guilds to quarter all heroes. The next step is to build a marketplace and smithy for these heroes, which will be used to buy new weapons, armor, and potions to serve his Majesty better and longer. If everything goes according to plan, the kingdom will attract new peasants and citizens. As a result the city will grow and prosper, and new buildings will appear to give the royal tax collectors much more gold.
GS: What really set Majesty apart from other top-down RTS games was the addition of heroes, like wizards, knights, and healers. What heroes will we see in Majesty 2?
AK: Players will be able to encounter all the classic fantasy hero types including but not limited to dwarves, wizards, paladins, and rogues. We will try to keep the culture and religion of Ardania, but will modify the heroes in comparison with Majesty 1. For example, players will find that the nomadic barbarians, Krolm adepts, have become mighty blade masters since centuries will have passed from events found in the first part.
GS: Of course, for every hero you need a villain. Tell us about some of the nefarious enemies in Majesty 2, other than the giant troll we saw rip apart a peaceful village with his club before taking a nap in the town square.
AK: I don't want to reveal too much about the villains at this stage, as this is one of the key elements of the game. The work is on track and we are busy balancing all villains to ensure they all have different behavior. I can reveal, however, that players will encounter many of the most memorable villains of Majesty 1, like Minotaur, Ratman, Shade, Vampire, and others.
GS: The Majesty 2 video trailer showed off a blindfolded archer in a baseball cap, a sort of Robin Hood/Daredevil hybrid. Seriously, who is this guy?
AK: That was just a high-level hero. The background story is that the hunters of Ardania can become such skilled archers, that it becomes impossible for them to miss and they need to blindfold themselves to keep challenged. As for the baseball cap--it's a fashion item that appeared in Ardania, when a mighty wizard summoned a powerful hero from another realm to slay a dragon. When the hero immediately fled back to his realm after receiving the business proposal, he lost the cap on the way.
GS: Heroes had a mind of their own in Majesty and often chose to mind their own business if not properly motivated to slay dragons and invade enemy empires. How have you updated the reward system to further motivate your heroes?
AK: As I mentioned above, we have added several new types of incentive flags, and while I can't go into the specifics about which options will be available to the players, I think the variety of choices will appeal to them.
GS: Last time you talked to us you mentioned hero parties were in the works. Can you create a fellowship of Super Friends to embark on epic quests? We're thinking a wizard, dwarf, ranger, elf, paladin...
AK: The player will be able to select which type of hero he would like in the party; however, high-level heroes will not want to make fellowships with new ones. In such cases they will be more likely to wait until the appropriate teammates come along and create parties with them.
GS: The original Majesty opted for single-player scenarios instead of a full-fledged campaign mode. What is the single-player structure of Majesty 2?
AK: We want to keep the scenario-based style of the single-player campaign; however, we will reward the player for accomplishing different levels with heroes and spells that can be used in coming battles.

A hero's home is his castle.
GS: We love the idea of grooming heroes to invade our buddies' kingdoms in multiplayer matches. How many kingdoms are you hoping to support in multiplayer?
AK: Our aim is to support to four players in the multiplayer mode. Even a modest number like four players will be able to create utter chaos on the map; adding as little as one additional player could make the situation uncontrollable. Here we feel we've managed to strike the right balance.
GS: Finally, what kind of player do you think will enjoy Majesty 2 the most?
AK: We are aiming to appeal to all RTS and Majesty fans, as well as gamers who just love the idea of a game that combines puzzle-solving and hero-leveling with a good portion of humor.

King's Bounty: The Legend

The kingdom of Darion was once a peaceful place, but those days are over. The setting for the upcoming King's Bounty: The Legend is now populated by werewolves, necromancers, undead monsters, and man-eating plants that look like they were cultivated at the Little Shop of Horrors. As in any good fantasy game worth its weight in rupees, it's up to you as either a warrior, mage, or paladin class to clean up Darion and, above all, serve the king.

Combat in King's Bounty is turn-based and fraught with dragons.
We played through several hours of a demo version of King's Bounty and are pleased to report that fans of the old-school turn-based role-playing game should enjoy the familiar gameplay mechanics as well as a few new surprises. First we chose a mage from the three preset classes. There are no immediate player-customization options, but you will equip a number of items as well as pick and choose your way through skill trees moving forward. The mage specializes in magic, the warrior in combat, and the paladin dabbles in both. We went with the mage, simply because he had the coolest costume of the bunch.
Immediately you are thrust into the service of the king and told to undergo training with Iron Tooth Richard, a grizzled veteran soldier charged with teaching raw recruits. After enjoying a humorous text conversation with Richard, we started our first training test: to rescue the princess from the dragon. Movement throughout the gameworld is all in real time--simply point and click with your mouse to explore, pick up items, and converse with fellow citizens. Combat, on the other hand, brings you into a turn-based mode. Our mage didn't actually take to the battlefield himself. Instead, he had an army at his command with a number of unit types that fill five unit slots. In combat you may see a single peasant move across the honeycomb-shaped squares of the battlefield, but the number 27, for example, indicates there are really 27 peasants on the prowl for evil monsters.
We had a flaming-arrow magic attack available from the outset. It is only available once per turn and depletes the magic meter, but the powerful missile from the sky deals a lot of damage, and we couldn't resist using it over and over again against the wily dragons. The turns passed and the dragon blew fire at us, but the brave knight and his swordsmen proved victorious. The combat is slower paced, of course, but it's a nice throwback to the turn-based RPGs of old.
After passing Richard's tests, we entered the kingdom proper and met the king and his young daughter. We were enlisted as the king's treasure hunter for our ability to rustle up gold and told to go forth and collect the king's bounties. But first, we used the contents of our purse to replenish our unit slots with swordsmen and archers. As mentioned, Darion is a dangerous place.
On the adventure map, red dots indicate enemies. You can simply ride your horse around them and try to pick up crystals and gold littering the roadsides, or you can engage the enemies in battle. Then again, they may choose to engage you. Either way, the top-down adventure map reverts to the turn-based battle screen and you'll be forced to slay the enemies or perish. If you lose, you'll be returned to the castle, where you can purchase more units and replenish your ranks.
The demo version had plenty of invisible walls that kept us within a stone's throw of the castle, but there was one main quest available to dive into. Man-eating plants have invaded the area, making life miserable for a small village just outside the castle walls. The village leader told us to find the leader of the plants, a giant red plant, on the banks of nearby lake. Eventually we found the giant red plant and had a conversation with it. It seems that the soil of their native land was no longer "tasty," and the plants were forced to survive off "two-leggers..." or humans. In the branching dialogue tree we had the option to attack the monster at any time, but we chose instead to hear out its problems and return to the village leader and let him know the plants' predicament. He suggested we give the plant a cow to fertilize the plants' land, so we bought a cow, returned to the monster plant with the gift, and the monster promised not to eat the villagers anymore. Problem solved, quest log updated.

Choose your own path on skill trees based on your preferred play style. We like trying to kill everything that moves.Our action was limited to this small area, but we did see several other kingdoms on the map, including the Freedom Islands, Ellinia, Kordar, and Murok. The typical races are in play: humans, dwarfs, elves, orcs, undeads, and demons. Thankfully you'll be able to outfit yourself in a number of interesting ways to better fend off your enemies. There are item slots for weapons, helmets, armor, shields, boots, and belts, with an endless number of options. The first helmet we found was actually a clay flowerpot; our first shield a wheel from a cart. We found it's best to head to the castle shop for more powerful--and expensive--items.
So far, we've enjoyed the smooth battle animations and sense of humor in the numerous text conversations. King's Bounty: The Legend has already won several awards in its native Russia, and is slated for release in North America later this year. Until then, fans of old-school RPGs certainly have something to look forward to.

Captain Blood

In the novel by author Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood is actually Dr. Peter Blood, an Irish doctor who was sentenced to death for tending to several rebels wounded in battle. Although Blood was not actually part of the rebellion itself, he was nonetheless convicted of treason against the king. Instead of facing the noose, the king sends Blood and several other prisoners to the Caribbean where they were to be sold as slaves, but Blood escapes and goes on to become one of the most feared pirates in (literary) history.
ater this year, there will be Blood.
In the upcoming game by developer SeaWolf, Captain Blood is a pirate who repeatedly hacks and slashes British soldiers, Spanish soldiers, and other pirates in a traditional, 3D button masher. We briefly got our hands on the hand-to-hand combat in Captain Blood at publisher 1C's press event this week. The controls are simple: There are two attack buttons, a block button, a grapple button, and even a one-shot-one-kill pistol attack. By combining the attack buttons, you'll unleash a variety of deadly combos. Our favorite was when we knocked over an enemy, jumped on his chest, repeatedly punched him in the face, and then stabbed him in the heart with a sword--ouch. You'll also earn experience points and be able to unlock longer, more complicated and more powerful combos to use later.
The pistol proved a little unwieldy. There is no auto-targeting system, so you'll have to hope that your gun is facing an enemy when you decide to pull the trigger. You have unlimited ammo, but it takes about 20 seconds for your one-shot pistol to reload. Grappling can only be performed when a grappling icon appears on screen, so combat isn't nearly as dynamic as in such action games as Ninja Gaiden 2. Still, you can unleash an additional set of devastating combos and finishers when the icon actually does appear.
In our time with Captain Blood, we ran through a harbor front and swashbuckled our way through crowds of enemy soldiers armed with sabers longer than their own bodies. Our computer-controlled trusty sidekick Pitt accompanied us on the battlefield, which was impressively packed with a large number of enemies onscreen at one time.
nd your enemies to the deep with well-timed cannon fire.
We don't yet know how much, if any, exploration is included in Captain Blood, but there will be plenty of ship battles on the high seas to keep your attention. Wind and maneuvering skill will be significant factors as you attempt to send your enemies into the abyss for eternity. Speaking of eternity, Captain Blood has been in development for several years now, but 1C tells us you can expect to walk the plank on both the Xbox 360 and PC later this year.

Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason

Icebreakers are not known for their comfort. With their hulls designed to crush through seasonal ice to keep important trade routes open, icebreakers are constantly lurching and known to roll even in moderate swells. As if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, developer Action Forms has added dead bodies and abominable snowmen to the North Wind, the nuclear-powered icebreaker that serves as the setting for the upcoming Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason.
I see dead people.
It's 1968 and the North Wind is trapped in the ice near the Soviet arctic station Pole 21. Meteorologist Alexander Nesterov is stranded on the ship--how he got there, we have no idea. Along with his standard talent as a meteorologist for predicting the weather in the Arctic (100 percent chance of cold), Nesterov is also able to sense the memories of the dead. And of the dead, there are plenty--12 crew members have died on board the North Wind, and Nesterov is in a unique position to enter their memories to set things right.
When Nesterov approaches one of the dead crew, he triggers a mental echo--a flashback of the final moments of the crewman's life. We saw one crewman who had an unfortunate fight with a shipping crane and, well, the crane won. During the mental echo, Nesterov sprinted to the crane control to move the deadly hook away from the crewman. You don't actually go back to save his life, but the spirit is sufficiently moved by your actions in the mental echo to help you solve the mystery onboard the North Wind and, then, go on to rest in peace.
Resources are scarce on the North Wind. We found a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition, but mostly, we had to rely on an ice axe or our mitts to fend off the creatures that inhabit the ship. Somehow, the North Wind has become infested with monsters--monsters that don't like you. One giant mummy creature tried to off us with an axe of his own, and later, another ice monster hurled blocks of ice at us.
In order to survive, you'll have to stay warm. There are pockets of heat scattered throughout the North Wind, from steam pipes to smoldering fires, which can be used to stabilize your body heat, displayed in the lower right corner of the screen. If you lose enough body heat, you won't even be able to perform the simplest of tasks. We futilely tried to open a door for five minutes before a developer kindly walked over and explained the body heat system.

Set in such a creepy atmosphere--a blend of The Thing, The Sixth Sense, and BioShock-- Cryostasis is poised to offer plenty of scares when it's released in 2009. We suggest you bundle up.

Street Fighter IV

Capcom showed off a near final version of Street Fighter IV arcade at its recent Las Vegas press event. The game showed off the full roster of fighters which includes the original world warriors, four bosses, and four new characters. Most importantly, the game featured the latest round of tweaks from the development team who have been fine tuning the game for the past few months. We tried out the single-player and multiplayer versus mode to see if the game was continuing to deliver on the promise of its initial showing in February. El Fuerte and Zangief lining up for a big hug.
While the arcade game on hand at the event had all characters playable in single and versus mode, there were some limits to how far we could go in the single-player mode. This was apparently done to preserve some surprises in the form of story elements and boss encounters. As a result, the single-player game booted us after a few matches and our first fight with one of the new characters. These new characters also appear to be minibosses which you'll face on the way to the classic Street Fighter II bosses of Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison.
When hopping into the game we noticed a few other modes selectable besides arcade, the most intriguing of which was a beginner mode which will apparently serve as some kind of tutorial for new players. This should be a handy feature for newcomers or vets looking to become reacquainted with their staple players. We didn't get a chance to try the mode, instead spending our time getting up to speed on the fighters the old fashioned way: getting knocked around until we got their moves and timing down.
Street Fighter IV's fighting system has been in a fairly perpetual state of tweaking since we last saw it at GDC. Feedback from US players and the test units that have made the rounds in Japan have led the team to refine IV's battle system quite a bit since we first tried it. Besides the expected timing tweaks, the team has actually changed subtle elements such as character collision detection. The game has eschewed the more modern approach of handling collision between polygons for old school collision boxes on the characters, which is more in line with the game's 2D roots. Throws are now performed by pressing light punch and kick at the same time. The new focus attack is tied to pressing medium punch and kick together. A quick tap gets off a quick focus attack that seemed to almost work like a parry. Holding down the buttons lets you charge up and unleash unblockable attacks. Taunting was tied to the hitting hard punch and kick buttons.
While some of the tweaking may sound odd it actually worked well as we played. We tried a little of everyone to get a feel for their handling. Timing had definitely changed but, after a bit of practice, we started to get the hang of things. The old characters handle pretty close to how they used to in previous Street Fighter games. Vets will notice a variety of changes to specific damage and range on the light, medium, and hard attacks that will require some getting used to. We also noticed some speed changes on some fighters, with the most notable during our play time being Vega. While the masked, prancing Spaniard was still fast, he didn't seem to be his old self. Rolling attacks weren't quite as fast as we would have hoped, which forced us to play him differently. As far as the new fighters go, they felt a bit odd, with some even having a bit of a hybrid feel. Crimson Viper still feels a bit like an SNK character. Newcomer Rufus, a roly poly ball of fury, has some interesting attacks that require a unique play style that emphasizes speed. Abel feels a bit like a faster Zangief, but lacks some of the Russian's power (with some Cody from Street Fighter Alpha 3 thrown in). Latin chef and wrestler El Fuerte reminded us of Alpha 3's R. Mika was noticeable for his crazy throws and run attacks.
The visuals in the game are impressive--not so much because of some amazing displays of polygons and special effects, but more for their style. The characters all have sharp designs, with the classic crew featuring faithful updates to their original looks. The new blood has some slightly more contemporary touches, but otherwise fit in pretty well. All the fighters now sport very fluid animation that isn't showy or intrusive to gameplay, giving combat a good feel. The backgrounds take the same approach and include updates to the classic scenery while adding some new ones. A key element now is the wealth of ambient animation you'll see which keeps the backgrounds much busier than their 2D counterparts. The various special effects used for fireballs and the like have a much more stylish look to them, which still manage to hark back to the original. The super, ultra combos, and ex attacks all get a touch of flair to distinguish them from normal attacks which are one of many nice touches we noticed. Overall, the game has a nice sense of style that's got a much more cinematic flair than previous games which is giving Street Fighter IV a winning layer of polish that agrees with us.
The audio in the game is almost as tightly crafted as the visuals. The various fighters yell out the usual battle cries while fighting, as well as taunts. The action is framed by a mix of tunes that includes redone versions of classic tracks as well as all new music. We liked what we heard of the game's soundtrack thanks to the old and new tunes fitting in with each other well. The only weak spot right now is the game's announcer, which continues the unfortunate Capcom tradition (in recent years anyway) of using reedy-voiced actors. Yes, we still miss the bass inflected announcer from Street Fighter II or even Street Fighter III. While this announcer doesn't grate as much as say the incredibly peppy guy from Street Fighter Alpha 3 or even some of the later Marvel fighters, we can't say we're fans.
To further work us into frenzy for Street Fighter IV, Capcom offered up some intriguing bits of info on what's being planned for the home version of the game. Capcom is adding proper animated prologues and endings for each character, as well as the expected network multiplayer mode. To whet our appetites for what to expect, Capcom showed off a bit of anime done in the style of the animation being done for the home version of the game. The sequence focused on Ryu, and featured Akuma, Ken, and his sensei . The animated segments are meant to shed light on the fighters and bring players up to date on what everyone's been up, as the story is set between the events of Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III.
Classic characters look great in Street Fighter IV.
Based on what we played, Street Fighter IV is shaping up fantastically. The game looks and moves great. The detailed characters and smooth animations give combat a pleasing fluidity. The combat itself is an accessible and challenging experience that veteran players should enjoy digging into. The technical aspects of fighting may require vets to make some adjustments to their fighting styles with some characters, and the new characters don't quite fit in with the old school fighters. We're not totally sold on the action being that accessible to newcomers to the series, but if Capcom can find a way to ease new combatants into the action the game may have a widespread appeal. The only downside to all the news is that we're not officially getting the arcade release in the States, although we're willing to bet some machines will find their way over to a few spots, forcing most of us to wait for the home release which is still a way off. Street Fighter IV is set to release this summer in Japanese and Asian arcades, with the game due in other parts of the world some time after.

Far Cry 2 Hands-On

A mixture of cutting-edge graphics, open-ended gameplay, and sophisticated artificial intelligence made the original Far Cry a hit on the PC. For Far Cry 2, the development team at Ubisoft Montreal is still keeping those essential ingredients--gorgeous, lush environments, tricky AI, and a sandbox mentality--intact while changing up all the surrounding elements, such as the setting, storyline, and characters, to keep things fresh. As a result, when we first got our hands on the game at Ubisoft's recent spring press event, we felt like it was running into an old friend who had recently spent a load of cash on a wardrobe upgrade.
Things blow up real nice in Far Cry 2.
Far Cry 2's story has seemingly no ties to the original game, even if the protagonists in both games have the standard "square-jawed white guy" look about them. In the original, you fought it out in a tropical setting looking to rescue a mysterious woman from harm. In the sequel, you play as a mercenary whose goal is to take down an arms dealer known as The Jackal. Little is known about him, except that he's profiting greatly while perpetuating a conflict in the African savannah where the game takes place. As you hunt down The Jackal, you'll be caught in the middle of various and conflicting interests of multiple factions involved in the war. Which sides you work with and against will go a long way in determining your path through this multifaceted storyline.
The demo on hand at the Ubisoft event began overlooking a green, murky-looking swamp. Our first goal was to meet up with our point of contact, Frank, in a shack near the stating point. He was looking for our help in an operation he was planning, and our portion of it was to take down a nearby radio antenna that was broadcasting propaganda for one of the local factions.
After agreeing to the mission from Frank, we also met up with Warren, one of many non-player characters you'll run into in the game. Far Cry 2's open-ended nature is designed so that you can play the game any way you want--that extends to which characters you help in the game and which ones you ignore. If you decide to help out a character, he might be available to you later as a buddy. By chatting with Warren, he ensured his assistance should things get too hairy out in the field. It wouldn't be long before we needed to take him up on his offer.
As with the original game, vehicles look to play a big role in the missions of Far Cry 2. As soon as we left Frank's shack with the mission in mind, we hopped into a jeep (loaded with a convenient mounted machine gun on the rear) and began speeding toward our destination. Though you always have a map on hand to check for your mission locales, one cool touch is that the occasional street signs you run into in villages will illuminate in the direction of your goal. We made a few turns and, around the last bend, came to our first objective: a walled enemy encampment full of bad guys that were just begging to be filled full of bullets.
See? Told you.
The problem with helping those enemies fulfill their bullet-riddled destiny, of course, is Far Cry 2's clever AI--one that demands equal measures of stealth and brutality to overcome. We tried the first encampment several times during the course of our demo with Far Cry 2--everything from the sneaking in and trying to keep things quiet (which didn't hold for long) to blasting though the front gates in our jeep and trying to run down enemies like they were dogs in the streets. Neither approach we took was met with perfect success. Thanks to enemies who were keen to take cover and deadly shots, we ended up dying several times in the process.
It's lucky for us, then, that we had Warren on our side. Because we chatted with Warren before the mission began and he had pledged his support to us, Warren was on hand to revive us, get us moving again, and give us a gun to continue the fight when we managed to get ourselves shot up in the mission. While you can only use these "buddy save" moments once, you can always go back and talk to your friend again to reset it for the next time you run into trouble.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway was on show at Ubidays again this year, and we're pleased to report that it's looking better than ever. Developer Gearbox chose to show a new level set in a particularly rainy Dutch town, and although some of the visual effects were overdone, it was probably the most complete game on show at the Ubidays event. We sat down to play the game, as well as speak to Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford to catch up on the latest developments.
at Ubidays.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway will plot out 10 vital days in the lives of a small group of American soldiers. The level that we saw was called Black Friday, taking place in Holland in September 1942. A vital road through the town of Veghal has been compromised by enemy forces, and while it's a doomed mission, your job is to take back the town so that supplies can make it through the country. The level was characterised by the torrential rain that was pouring throughout the town--something that actually happened on the day in question. With lines of trucks burning away and filling the air with soot, it's a gloomy and overbearing environment, making the Black Friday title all the more appropriate.
While Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway was a little rough around the edges when we previously saw it, this build looked incredibly polished. Now entering the final stages of development, the game is running at a solid frame rate and boasts some excellent graphical flourishes, particularly when it comes to rain. While the effect is a little overdone, it's the most impressive demonstration of rain in a game since Project Gotham Racing 4. You can really see the water pouring over every surface, washing over brickwork and vehicles while weapons actually feel soggy when you're using them. Street lighting looks particularly good, as the rain disperses the light in a highly convincing manner.
The cover mechanics are key to Brothers in Arms, and as long as you're hugging a surface, you're usually safe from harm. Enemies employ the exact same tactics, however, and you'll either have to flank around them or use explosives to break through the cover or flush them out. You can do this yourself, tossing a grenade over the top of a wall, for example, or you can order one of your men to blast through sandbags with a rocket launcher. Working with your team is the key to success in Hell's Highway, and it's very difficult to kill even a solitary soldier without it.
Gearbox has been very vocal about its commitment to historical accuracy, and you'll be able to unlock historical facts about the levels that you're playing as you progress. In addition to this, the developers revealed that they'll be releasing two books alongside the game. One is a story that will fill in two days from the 10-day campaign, and the other is a factual account of the events on which the game is based. The former will be out on July 29 and the latter in September, and they're both written by Colonel Antel, the military advisor who works alongside the developers at Gearbox.
We saw the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game at Ubidays, and while both versions boasted the same visual effects, the PC version definitely had the edge when it came to the water. Nevertheless, the game is shaping up nicely, and we're looking forward to finally playing the finished game later this year. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is being released on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in August 2008.

Galactic Civilizations II

Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor isn't just a great expansion, it's also a wonderful culmination of everything good about the series. Developer Stardock has addressed just about all of the possible complaints about both the original game and its Dark Avatar add-on. Plus, they've added impactful tech-tree innovations, a climactic campaign, and a host of other tweaks, for a superb example of what an expansion pack should be.
If you are a Gal Civ addict you'll be excited about the new tech trees provided for each of the game's 12 playable civilizations. Where the Terrans, Drengin, Yor, Thalans, and pals used to share a single tech tree that made all of the civs go about their galactic gallivanting in a similar style, each now has branching-off points that emphasize unique traits. This means that you're now able to play civilizations very differently, as well as make the good guys really good and the bad guys really bad. With the evil Drengin, for example, you're now free to indulge your inner De Sade by spending credits on such horrific goodies as Xeno slavery, slave canyons, and the always entertaining visions of agony philosophy. The murderous Drengin offshoot Korath clan is actually even nastier, with such techs as malicious bargaining, wretched cloning, and dark influence. Terrans, on the other hand, can be happier expansion-minded imperialists with such specialties as majesty, cultural domination, and stellar folding. Extra detail and history have been tossed into each tech as well, giving you insight into each civilization's identity and, in some cases, reinforcing their alien natures.
Ascend to a higher plane and win games with the help of the new Ascension crystals.
New visuals have been grafted onto the original game's star and planetary maps to give each civilization a distinct look. Each race now has differently styled ships and planetary buildings, lending further unique character to the civs, as well as boosting replay value. Planetary surfaces look different now depending on who's in charge. Drengin worlds come off like utter hellholes, complete with slave pits in place of factories and slaveling imagination labs in place of research facilities. Terran planets look a lot like Earth with standard factories, farms, and research facilities. Thalan worlds are bizarre and time-focused thanks to the temporal entertainment, as well as the incredibly powerful hyperion matrices. Ships have also been reworked with more polygons and texture detail, resulting in a much more varied range of vessels that appear more realistic. The cosmetic differences between the ships in last year's Dark Avatar and the ships in Twilight of the Arnor border on astounding, with most of the flat, featureless ship surfaces of the old game being replaced by the sort of detailed, industrial hardware that you would expect to find on a galaxy-spanning vessel. Yet even with these vast improvements, system requirements haven't been ramped up; the game runs just as fast and just as smoothly as before.
Other Twilight of the Arnor additions are low-key. The new campaign is an enjoyable wrap to the Dread Lords saga that tells the story of the Terrans finding the last survivor of the ancient Arnor. This ancient super-race put the Dread Lords in their place many thousands of years ago, which means that you're now relying on their tips to do so again, as well as free up the galaxy for unimpeded wars a-plenty between the Drengin and, well, everybody else. A new victory mode called Ascension has been introduced for sandbox play. Here, you can trigger the endgame by discovering five randomly placed crystal anomalies on the map and building star bases around them to retrieve their mystical goodness. If you hold them long enough to ascend to a higher plane of existence, you win the game. There are a couple of significant issues with this victory condition, however. First of all, Ascension crystals are often ignored by rival races, even if they're located right under their noses in key solar systems. So there rarely seems to be much competition for what is ostensibly the most important resource in the entire galaxy. Second, enemy empires don't seem to have an issue with you setting up star bases around crystals until you're about 150 weeks from victory, whereupon they suddenly notice what's going on and declare war on you, one after the other. This seems very artificial--like you're simply triggering a countdown instead of dealing with intelligent rivals. This lengthy delay also gives you lots of time to put together a massive fleet and create defenses powerful enough to fend off almost any sort of assault. textures makes each race's vessels seem like they really could boldly go where no man has gone before.
Military action has also been enhanced--at least in theory--with the addition of terror stars, which are rather familiar-looking planet busters that can blow up a world as quick as you can say "Alderaan." They're far too time-consuming and a little too easily destroyed to be a true galaxy-beater, though. Immense galaxies have been added to the list of map choices in sandbox games, providing the option of setting up epic matches that can last for weeks. This option is a bit treacherous for anyone accustomed to previous, saner, galaxy sizes because you have so much space to cover that you can easily overextend yourself early in the game and wind up in major financial difficulty. Editors now allow you to alter every aspect of the game. Numerous interface tweaks make it easier to track technologies, track finance, and even set up automatic ship building whenever new techs are revealed. About the only part of the original game design left untouched is multiplayer, which remains MIA and will probably continue to be absent until Galactic Civilizations III from the looks of things.
Adding this much new life to what should be a very familiar game is an amazing achievement. While no single addition here can be said to make this expansion, the scope of the subtle yet wide-ranging changes greatly improve the Galactic Civilizations II experience. Before Twilight of the Arnor, players could stick to the Terrans and encounter everything that the game had to offer. Now, you deal with something new each and every time you go galaxy conquering with a different alien race, which freshens up a game that was in need of exactly this kind of facelift.

SIREN: Blood Curse

The video game world has seen its share of horror games over the years, from straight-ahead zombie games like Resident Evil to the more mystical fare of the Silent Hill series. With the upcoming SIREN: Blood Curse, a sequel of sorts to the original PlayStation 2 game from 2004, you can add one more series to that list of creepy games. We had a chance to check out a brief demo of the game at today's Sony press event in Los Angeles, and even in broad daylight, it managed to give us the creeps.
Set in a mysterious Japanese village that, rumor has it, disappeared 30 years ago, Blood Curse follows the crew of an American television program sent to the country to investigate the strange reappearance of the village. During the playable demo, we took control of a character who stumbles upon two Japanese zombies, known in the game as shibito, as one viciously attacks the others with a blade. Seconds later, the mauled zombie returns to life and shambles off into the darkness, leaving the main character shocked and grasping for a hold on reality.
As you take control of the character, your first goal is to sneak past the shibito ahead of you. The game makes light use of stealth techniques: To crouch (and thus make less noise as you move), you simply press the circle button. Granted, the stealthy approach isn't always the best one, as sometimes you'll need to bust a few zombies in the head with whatever weapon you can find, be it a pipe, a scythe, or a gun.
During the demo, our hero was accompanied by a female companion. Though you don't have direct control over her, she came to our rescue at one point, when we were overrun by a flesh-craving zombie. In fact, SIREN will have seven main characters, each of whom you will control over the game's 12 episodes, each of which will be released on the PlayStation Network as a separate download. After our brief playable demo ended, we were treated to a brief cutscene that introduced a little girl into the cast of characters, though it was unclear what role she plays in the overall plot.
SIREN's most intriguing feature--the ability to share the sight of enemies and allies alike--was unfortunately not playable in this build. With this feature, you'll be able to take over the sight of another character or enemy temporarily, which sounds like it will be a good way to stay out of trouble when things get hairy, as they are bound to do.
With a gritty, grimy look, plenty of blood, and lighting effects that look like something out a claustrophobe's nightmares, SIREN looks to offer plenty of scares. The first release of this episodic game is due later this year.

Deca Sports

Like Wii Sports, Deca Sports is a collection of sports games with simple controls and equally straightforward presentation. Unlike Wii Sports, it's not free, some of the games control poorly, and only a few of them are really any fun when played with a group, much less alone. There's soccer, basketball, badminton, beach volleyball, motocross, archery, curling, snowboarding, figure skating, and kart racing. By trying to please everyone with variety, Hudson has come up with an eclectic mix of activities that don't fit well together and aren't much fun. this screenshot of badminton is as much fun as playing badminton in the game.
Deca Sports is extremely shallow. If you can move the remote up and down, you'll be able to perform most actions in the game. In sports like badminton and beach volleyball you don't move your player, you just flick the remote once in a while to swing your racket or hit the ball. You'll need the Nunchuk to move your players when playing soccer and you'll have to press the A button to change players, but passing, shooting, and even slide-tackling are all done by waving the remote. This means you'll occasionally pass when you mean to shoot and vice versa. Sometimes, controller inputs simply aren't recognized quickly, or at all. This makes snowboarding and motocross particularly frustrating because crashing into a barrier often brings you to a screeching halt. The controls for curling are imprecise--particularly with regards to determining power. To be fair, a few sports control fairly well. To drive a kart you hold the remote sideways, hit one button for gas, and tilt left or right to steer. Basketball also controls fine; it's the fact that your players constantly pepper the bottom of the backboard and rim with their layups that makes it awful.
Another problem with Deca is that each sport is broken down into its simplest form. Kart racing has just three tracks with six total participants; badminton is one-on-one; and archery is just you shooting at the same target repeatedly with only slight variations in wind and distance to mix things up. Figure skating has only three programs, which never change; all you do is follow a path and flip the remote upward when you come across a red, blue, green, or gray circle. Simple? Yes. Fun? Maybe for a couple of minutes.
You'll have to overcome one last obstacle before you find any enjoyment with any of the sports: the game's terrible AI, which is poor on all three available difficulties. CPU-controlled soccer players pass the ball back toward the midfield on breakaways; figure-skating judges award higher scores to the skater who falls the most; supercross riders and snowboarders will make no effort to avoid you; and the only time points seem to end in badminton and volleyball is when the AI just gives up and doesn't try to return a shot.
Playing with up to three friends alleviates the shoddy opponent AI (unless your friends are really stupid), but you'd be hard-pressed to play each game more than a couple of times before you and everyone else has had their fill. Eventually your friends will ditch you, and because there's no online support you'll have to suffer on your own through the handful of single-player modes. You can play a single round of any sport, participate in a tournament, or take part in a league where you go from one sport to another in an effort to earn more points than the CPU-controlled teams. Each sport also has a challenge that you can tackle. For example, in badminton you need to try to hit the shuttlecock toward specific areas of the floor, while in kart racing you have to beat a specific lap time. The challenges mix things up a bit, but you'll be lucky to squeeze an hour of entertainment out of them.
wboarding might have been OK if tricks mattered and there weren't only three courses.
Deca Sports' visuals are more interesting than its gameplay, but only slightly. There's no Mii support, nor is there any character customization. This shouldn't come as a surprise given how sparse the rest of the game's options are, but the characters are so simple it doesn't seem like it would have taken much extra time to let you create your own athletes. Arenas are basic in their appearance and the blurry backgrounds in kart racing and snowboarding could very well have been rendered on the Nintendo 64. But other than it being hard to see the center of the target in archery because of aliasing, the graphics don't hamper the gameplay nearly as much as the game's other problems, and the ice in the skating rink looks nice.
As tempting as a game with both badminton and curling may be, there's no reason to recommend Deca Sports. The roster of events is baffling, the controls for many of the events are poor, the AI is pitiful, and the gameplay is so shallow that you're unlikely to get your money's worth before this one starts gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.

Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends

It's all go for Koei's UK arm, which has announced UK launch dates for PC versions of both Samurai Warriors 2, in shops on June 27, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI, due July 25--four days ahead of its US release. There is currently no planned US release for the PC version of Samurai Warriors 2.
It wasn't always this way. Previous iterations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms--one of the longest-running historical simulations, dating back to the late 1980s--had been released on the PC only in Japan and the US.
"We're constantly striving to bring our games to as wide an audience as possible, and our move into the PC arena is a very important step for Koei in Europe," said sales manager Will Curley.
This move follows the appointment of Naoki Katashima to executive vice president of Koei UK, Koei France, and Koei North America in February of this year. This created a direct link to Koei's Japanese headquarters, where a division was set up to focus specifically on Western markets.
A PC version of Warriors Orochi was released to UK gamers last month, and now that trend is set to continue with Samurai Warriors 2 and Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI.
Originally launched on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360, Samurai Warriors 2 received two expansion packs in the form of Empires and Xtreme Legends. However, Koei UK's PR and marketing manager, Mikey Foley, confirmed to GameSpot that the expansion packs wouldn't be a part of the initial PC offering, saying it might complicate things for gamers new to the franchise. Whether that means expansions will follow in due course has yet to be established, with Mikey saying Koei would "see how it goes."
Koei says that Samurai Warriors 2 introduces to the series the ability to charge three consecutive Musou gauges for more powerful attacks, more variety to the appearance, animation, and attacks of the hordes of enemies, and the ability to level up during play.
Meanwhile, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI is being produced by Kou Shibusawa, an alias for Koei's cofounder Yoichi Erikawa, and is part of a historical simulation series that dates back to the late '80s, having in the past graced formats as diverse as the Amiga and MSX.

FaceBreaker

Part boxing game, part wrestling game, and part Chris Farley slapstick, EA Sports' upcoming FaceBreaker is a decidedly different take on boxing for which the company has come to be known. After all, the crown jewels in EA's boxing stable are the old Knockout Kings games and the more modern Fight Night series (for which, a fourth game was just recently announced). While those games focused on the mechanics and strategy of boxing, FaceBreaker has its sights set on the more theatrical side of the sweet science. We had a chance to see the game in action a few weeks ago during EA's spring press event to see where this arcade boxing game is heading.
eaker will showcase plenty of boxing styles, including the kung-fu inspired moves of Steve.
As any Ready to Rumble fan will tell you, the cast of characters you'll be playing as "makes or breaks" any arcade boxing game. FaceBreaker won't lack for variety here: It showed 12 fighters during the demo of the game, ranging from Kekoa the tatted-up surfer dude to the formidable witch doctor Voodoo. When you add to the roster the created players you can whip up using a face-importing feature similar to last year's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, you've got a cast of ridiculous-looking boxers whose faces are begging to be broken.
The gameplay in FaceBreaker looks to be a fairly simple affair: When in the ring, you'll have light and strong attacks you can use to build up your FaceBreaker meter. Each punch you land will add some energy to the meter. How full the meter gets will determine what kind of special attacks (known as "breakers") you have available to you. The base level is the bone breaker; next, the sky breaker (which tosses your opponent into the air); and next, the ground breaker (basically a crushing blow while your opponent is on the ground). The final special attack level is the FaceBreaker, which is basically a finishing move. To win a match in the game, you can either knock your opponent down three times or, ideally, finish him off with a FaceBreaker.
The single-player core of FaceBreaker will be the "Brawl for it All" mode, where you can take y our character and fight a ladder tournaments against all of the other characters in the game. This mode will have four championship belts to fight for, with multiple matches per belt. The difficulty you choose will determine where you restart the game should you lose a match; on easy, you'll start from the fight you just lost, while on the higher difficulty levels, losing will send you back to the beginning of that belt's tournament.
Though it might sound like it, FaceBreaker won't be a mindless punchfest. For one thing, you will have defensive abilities in the game, such as blocks, dodges, and parries, at your disposal. For another, every character will have the ability to stun an opponent briefly. Voodoo, for example, will be able to fire off green skulls at his opponent--the only way to escape this stunned state will be to punch yourself in the face (or, indeed, wait for Voodoo to do the honors for you). In addition, different characters will have other special abilities--the chubby kung-fu "expert" Steve will be able to throw smoke bombs periodically, disappearing in the ring only to appear in an entirely different spot and keep his opponent off guard.
Strategy aside, the surefire path to victory in FaceBreaker will be landing punches. Your FaceBreaker meter will fill up as long as you land punches--theoretically, you could get to the ultimate level on your FaceBreaker meter within a few seconds of the round beginning (assuming your opponent puts up next to no defense or counterattack). Still, as producers put it, the finishing moves will all depend on user input; they aren't just animations you watch to complete but require timing and a modicum of skill on the part of the player.
Graphically, FaceBreaker is playing up its cartoon boxers to a great degree. The monstrous Voodoo, or his Russian counterpart Molotov, are hulking beasts, while the lithe, quicker boxers like Romeo and the female Tokushu will ensure you've got plenty of variety at your disposal. The environments are nicely detailed too, featuring everything from a trailer park and a futuristic-looking arcade to a more traditional gym setting.

SimCity Societies: Destinations

If you build it, they will come. That's what EA is hoping for in the upcoming expansion SimCity Societies Destinations, in which you'll attempt to build five-star resort cities that attract snooty gourmands, backpacking thrill-seekers, and scantily-clad spring breakers alike. Of course, as tourism booms in your SimCity, you'll need to balance the happiness of the local population with the needs of a large influx of travelers, all with one goal in mind: filling your treasury with simoleans. Cha-ching!
The original SimCity Societies attempted to infuse the societal values of The Sims into the city-building and planning of SimCity with mixed results. While it's always fun to force your lowly Sims into submission under the heel of an authoritarian police state, the societal gameplay elements proved a bit too abstract for many, and there was no significant strategy or challenge in shaping your city and values. Destinations looks to hone the gameplay as you focus instead on something we all know and love: vacation.

Destination: vacation.
Whether you surf or ski depends entirely on what terrain you choose, each with its own specific landmarks that you'll have to work around. A tropical island paradise is perfect for water sports but you may have to contend with a volcanic eruption, while a quaint ski town tends to, you know, get cold. We got our hands on Destinations this week and began by building a quaint spiritual enclave in an alpine zone. Increasing the population was simple enough: choose a power source (we went green and chose wind power), build housing for the locals (monasteries, of course), and find them some work. We built some missions and Scientology-inspired temperance centers, and soon the simoleans were rolling in. We could have continued balancing power, housing , and work, but the heart of Destinations is in building tourist venues to attract visitors. For our enclave, we went with a combination of religious altars, an art museum, a bookstore, and a famous grave. To entice travelers to see the sights, we built a few bed-and-breakfasts for accommodations.
You have to spend money to make money in Destinations, and you'll find yourself in a constant cycle of using tax revenue for new venues and accommodations. Soon tourist Sims will flood the city, such as burnouts who have tired of grinding away at the office week after week, professional gamblers, or religious converts and pilgrims. From there you'll have to fulfill their needs by offering appropriate dining, accommodation, and activity options. Backpackers will look for a cheap slice of pizza and a place in a 16-bed room at a youth hostel, while high rollers will demand a four-course meal at a four-star restaurant near a luxury hotel room with mints on the pillow. How you cater to the people is, as always in SimCity, entirely up to you.
Back at our spiritual enclave, our city soon became overrun by transient hippies looking for a free ride in our peaceful community. We hate hippies. Despite objections from the local monks, we constructed a police station to up the authority level of our city before the smell of patchouli oil got out of hand. This brings up an interesting point in Destinations. For completely understandable reasons, tourism does not bode well in Orwellian police states. Sure, you can build "colorful" venues like dungeons, jails, and military schools, but for whatever reason the tourists don't seem to appreciate these hotbeds of oppression like we do. It seems that to truly succeed in Destinations you'll need to focus more on creativity, knowledge, spirituality, and prosperity. To see how your Sims are faring, zoom in and click on the little guys to see their thoughts on the city, how much cash they've spent, and even what souvenirs they've purchased.

Hippies begone!
We've come to appreciate the special abilities that you can trigger in certain venues for a popularity boost. You can set off the local geyser for an amazing aquatic display, trigger a mood-altering device at the behavioral science center to keep the locals in line, and hold a cook-off at the bed-and-breakfast. Fans of SimCity will be happy to know that the disaster menu remains intact should you want to destroy your city in a sudden rush of sadistic omnipotence. After all, power corrupts. In our case, when the hippie population became too much to bear, we simply called upon the Ornithosaurus Wrecks, a giant fire-blowing monster, to stamp out all flower power in our budding utopia. Unfortunately, he took out much of the rest of the city too. Oh, well. We hate hippies.
Destinations will also come packaged with five free game updates already released for SimCity Societies, and we'll have more information as the game is released later this month.

Operation Darkness

What do werewolves, dragons, zombies, and vampires have in common? Besides being cool--and by cool we mean totally sweet--they now appear in a tactical RPG alongside the infantry and armored vehicles of the Third Reich. We recently had the opportunity to dig in deep and do our best to stop the Blitzkrieg with a team of supernaturally-powered Allied soldiers in Atlus' upcoming Operation Darkness, and we bring back tales of a very different version of World War II.
In the early stages of the war, young friends Edward and Jude are stationed in North Africa as members of the British army. When their unit is tasked with the interception of a vital piece of enemy intelligence from the forces of the Desert Fox Erwin Rommel, commander of the German Afrika Korps, things take a tragic turn. Their entire unit is wiped out in a Panzer ambush and Edward is nearly killed, only to be saved by the timely aid of a friendly SAS unit and an emergency blood transfusion from James Gallant, its commanding officer. Soon, Edward and Jude find themselves transferred to Gallant's mysterious unit, the Wolf Pack, where they learn the dark secrets of Hitler's success and are caught in the middle of a centuries-old conflict.
Of all the games in its genre, Operation Darkness is most similar to the Fire Emblem series in that it features a very character-driven story that relies heavily on dialogue to paint a number of personal backgrounds against an overarching backdrop of war. But beyond that and the standard grid-based movement system, Operation Darkness does a good job of standing apart from its colleagues.

Welcome to New Arcadia. Please don’t feed the robots.

Set in an alternative universe resembling 1920s America, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is nothing if not an authentic-feeling Penny Arcade game complete with pulp horror and adult language. Once you create your own customized character, you’ll find yourself a citizen of New Arcadia... just raking leaves in your front yard and minding your own business. The next thing you know, a giant "fruit-loving" robot steps on your house, crushing it. Now homeless, you join the crime-solving team of Gabe and Tycho from the Startling Developments Detective Agency to get revenge on the robot and find a new place to call home. Fight off packs of feral hobos, animated trash and other bizarre enemies with your last possession (a trusty rake), meet strange new characters and solve mysterious puzzles to get to the heart of the sinister secrets of New Arcadia. See the story begin in the opening level of the RPG-Adventure game series based on the popular web comic.

Envio de SMS a celulares desde el web

Esta es una lista de páginas que nos permiten enviar mensajes de texto a celulares de diferentes companías, como por ejemplo: Movistar, Claró, Personal, etc

Espero que les sea útil:

http://www.mensajesacelulares.net/

http://www.sitiosargentina.com.ar/MENSAJES_SMS.htm

http://www.altoque.com/sms/

http://www.sms-mensajes.com.ar/

Saludos!

Las Arañas

Entre los seres más horribles que jamás habitaron la Tierra Media se encuentran las Grandes Arañas. Eran malvadas, envidiosas, llenas de codicia y portadoras del veneno de la malicia. La mayor de ellas fue la poderosa y malvada Ungoliant. En la región desolada de Avathar, Ungoliant vivió sola durante mucho tiempo. Era terrible y vil, y poseía una telaraña de oscuridad, llamada la No-Luz de Ungoliant.
La Gran Araña Ungoliant llegó a Valinor con Melkor, "Señor de las Tinieblas" y destruyó los Árboles de los Valar. Y, al igual que devoró la Luz de los Árboles, Ungoliant intentó atrapar también a Melkor para devorarlo. Pero los demonios de fuego llamados balrogs, acudieron a auxiliar a Melkor y ahuyentaron a Ungoliant. Escapó a Beleriand y entró en el lugar llamado Nan Dungortheb, el "valle de la muerte terrible", donde habitaban otros monstruos de su raza. Aunque no eran tan grandes ni tan poderosas como Ungoliant, estas arañas eran de todas maneras inmensamente fuertes. Ungoliant se reprodujo con ellas y pocos fueron los que se atrevieron a penetrar en ese valle.
Pero quizás Ungoliant era un mal demasiado grande para estar en el mundo. Con el tiempo viajó más allá de Beleriand, a las regiones meridionales, persiguiendo todo aquello que podía devorar, y se dice que en su hambre insaciable acabó devorándose a sí misma. En Nan Dungortheb, sus muchas hijas vivieron durante los años de la Primera Edad del Sol, pero cuando la tierra se hundió en la Guerra de la Ira pocas pudieron salvarse. Entre esas pocas estaban Ella-Laraña y algunas de las arañas menores.
Después de la Primera Edad del Sol, Ella-Laraña moraba en un lugar llamado Cirith Ungol, el "desfiladero de la araña", en las Montañas de la Sombra. Vivió en aquel paso durante dos edades y, aunque fueron muchos los guerreros que llegaron a sus dominios, ninguno pudo vencerla: los devoró a todos. Ella-Laraña era la mayor y la más peligrosa de todas las arañas gigantes. Y aunque las arañas del Bosque Negro eran pequeñas comparadas con sus antepasados, eran muy numerosas y sabias en el arte de atrapar víctimas.
Durante la Segunda y la Tercera Edad, Ella-Laraña y su descendencia menor vivieron en las montañas de Mordor y en el Bosque Negro. Aún así, Ella-Laraña mantenía su cubil en Cirith Ungol, donde se alimentaba de cualquier miembro de no importa qué raza que intentara entrar en Mordor por aquel desfiladero.